Note 53 — Chapter LIX · The Clemency of Titus

—page 459. By his Roman prenomen, Titus, is usually known Titus Flavius Sabinus Vespasianus, the eleventh of the twelve Cæsars, Emperor from 79 to 81 A.D. He was in some respects one of the most remarkable of the Cæsars. “Educated in the imperial court, he was thoroughly trained in all elegant accomplishments: he could speak Greek fluently, and could compose verses; he was proficient in music; he could write short-hand, and could imitate handwriting so skilfully that he used to say that he might have been a most successful forger. He was very handsome, with a fine commanding expression and a vigorous frame, well trained in all the exercises of a soldier.” His long and varied military and executive experience, under the guidance of his father Vespasian and especially in the Jewish war, made him a consummate warrior and administrator. For a time, however, after he became formally associated with his father in the government, with the title of Cæsar, and practically controlled the administration during the last nine years of Vespasian’s reign, he developed “the character of being luxurious, self-indulgent, profligate, and cruel,” and seemed to have in himself the promise of being a second Nero. The scandal connecting his name with the shameless beauty Berenice, the sister of the Agrippa of the Acts of the Apostles, outraged public opinion at Rome, but ended in his sending her back to the East.