The Emperor Titus with Marc Hyden

Marc Hyden returns to the show to discuss the life and times about the second Flavian emperor Titus. The Flavians were the second dynasty of the imperial period extending from 69 CE until the assassination of Domitian in 96 CE. Titus’ reign is short, but significant. We sit down with Marc to consider details of Titus’ rule of Rome and its impact across the Mediterranean, particularly involving Judaea.

Marc’s book Emperor Titus: The Right Hand of Vespasian (2025) is out now and explores at lot of the contextual details that helps us appreciate Titus’ rule as emperor from 79-81 CE.

What’s the state of Rome in 68/69 CE?

Nero’s death leads to a period of political chaos in Rome. If you’re keen to delve into the notorious Year of the Four Emperors, we recommend checking out our interview with Dr Rob Cromarty.

Once the dust settles, the military general Vespasian ends up as the top dog in Rome. From unlikely beginnings, Vespasian sets up the Flavian family for dominance over the next thirty years and his eldest son, Titus, was his right-hand man.

The Flavians and Judaea

It is impossible to truly understand the Flavians’ rise without considering the foothold that they had in Judaea. Military actions in the east were part and parcel of the Roman empire, but the particulars of Vespasian as the Roman general in Judaea when relationships broke down means that Vespasian (and thus the Flavians) are substantially enriched by the sack of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Marc takes us through some of the key details including Josephus’ role in the conflict, the riots across the region

Titus and Berenice

Apparently you can be a Roman a war, but still fall in love with a lady from the local aristocracy. The story of Titus and Berenice is one of the most interesting details of the Flavian era, and we don’t know as much about their relationship than we’d like, but there’s enough gossip to create something of a historical record! Tune in for the details of their seemingly on-again, off-again liaison.

The Busiest Reign and the Most Tragic Demise

Titus comes into full imperial power on the natural death of his father Vespasian and, oh boy, is he busy. He rules over the eruption of Vesuvius, he formally opens the Flavian Amphitheatre (aka the Colosseum), not to mention a pestilence. With all this busyness, we can only wonder how his reign would have gone if he lived for longer. But sadly it is not to be. Titus dies after a short but intense illness opening wide speculation about the cause of death. We explore some here.

Things to listen out for

• Questions about the reliability of Suetonius (shock, horror!)
• Titus, the playboy?
• The marriages of Titus and Arrecina Tertulla and Marcia Furnilla
• The role of Praetorian Prefect
• Josephus’ account of the war in Judaea
• An important farm house in Sabine country

Sound Credits

Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman.

The Arch of Titus which celebrates Rome’s victory in Judaea. Automated Transcript

Lightly edited for our wonderful Australian accents.

Dr Rad 0:15
Welcome to the Partial Historians.

Dr G 0:19
We explore all the details of ancient Rome.

Dr Rad 0:23
Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battle’s waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I’m Dr Rad.

Dr G 0:33
And I’m Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.

Dr Rad 0:44
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

Dr Rad 0:56
Welcome to a brand new episode of the Partial Historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr Rad.

Dr G 1:02
And I am Dr G.

Dr Rad 1:05
Dr G, we are once again privileged to be joined by Mark Hyden, who holds a degree in philosophy and has a love for the ancient Roman world, which shines through in his publications. Mark has published books on a number of ancient Roman personalities, including Romulus: Rome’s legendary fratricidal founder; Marcus Furius Camillus – and you can check out our previous interview with Mark on Camillus; Marius, one of the towering figures of the late Republic, and the second Flavian emperor, Titus, who is the subject of this interview. If you’re keen to get into the heady detail of Titus life and rule, then we recommend Mark’s latest book, “Emperor Titus: The Right Hand of Vespasian”. Welcome to the show again, Mark.

Marc Hyden 1:55
Thank you so much for having me a second time at that. I’m gonna have to keep writing books just so I can hang out with both of you.

Dr Rad 2:02
That’s our plan. Always, always more books, more chats.

Dr Rad 2:06
All right. Well, let’s get into the questions shall we, Dr G, and find out more about the emperor Titus?

Dr G 2:12
Oh, yeah, I even like forgot to look at the document properly. So to get into it by the time we truly meet Titus in our historical sources, the Roman Empire has been going through a bit of a rough patch, you could say. So, to get us oriented, I’m wondering if, Mark, you can tell us a little bit about the state of the Roman Empire in 71 CE, when Titus enters Rome, besides his father, Vespasian.

Marc Hyden 2:41
Yeah, absolutely. So Titus was born in what’s known as the Pax Romana. This was the golden age of the Roman Empire. But matters, they weren’t as rosy as the name might suggest. They were regular conflicts with barbarians. There were threats from the east, there was periodic rioting, and there was, of course, deadly Imperial intrigue, which we all love to read about today, but then it wasn’t quite as riveting, but by the time Titus reaches manhood, he Rome is under the control of Emperor Nero. We remember him as kind of the pudgy, lackluster emperor who preferred the arts and athletic contests and an ample helping of sexual deviancy to Imperial administration. So this irked quite a bit of Romans, quite a few Romans, and his problems didn’t end there. Around 64 it comes 64 ad Rome catches fire, as we know, the Great Fire of Rome and much of the city, the majority of it, has turned to ashes. Now, Nero has been blamed for having something to do with this. It seems pretty clear that he didn’t have anything to do with it. However, with Rome turning to ashes, he saw an opportunity to build a grand estate for himself and redesign Rome in his image. And to do so, he siphoned money away from from the provinces like Gaul and even the Jewish homeland, to Rome so that he could realize his his architectural dreams. This is we hear about this, these sorts of things in the ancient accounts. And this overburdened and really upset the provincials. I mean, we don’t like taxes today, and they were even more angry about it back then, apparently. So not long after this goes down, the Jewish people who fell under Rome’s domain, they grew really weary of Rome’s heavy taxes, the constant mistreatment of them, and really it was egregious, some of the things the Romans did to the Jewish people. So as a result, they rose up in revolt. But, you know, we hear about different revolts in the Roman Empire, but this was no minor revolt. It demanded the Emperor’s attention and really immediate action. It also required generals of great repute and 1000s of battle hardened legionaries to be able to quell this, this burgeoning rebellion. So this is when we see Vespasian and Titus and 1000s of legionaries head to the east, and they lead the armies. And over the course of a few years, they neutralize city after city that had stood against Rome until the revolt was really secluded to primarily to Jerusalem, machaerus, Herodium and Masada, which is now very famous, but we see the success and Vespasian and Titus successes were a bit of good news for for Nero, but trouble was brewing in the West. He thought the problems were in the east, but the biggest problem was in the West, because that’s where a rebellion broke out to depose him, and ultimately he saw the writing on the wall, and with the help of his servant, decided to go ahead and kill himself. But that wasn’t the end of the troubles for the Roman Empire, because everyone wanted to be emperor, apparently. So this sparked a cascade of events and civil war in which first Galba, then Otho and then Vitellius all claimed to be emperor, and before long, Titus, you know, he’s sitting over there in the east and his son, or excuse me, Vespasian, his son, Titus, urges him to stake his claim. So Vespasian goes and challenges Titus, and ultimately is successful, and he defeats the corpulent Vitellius, which left Vespasian squarely in control of Rome. So that brings us. We’re in 70 ad at this point, and with Vespasian now sole Emperor with no real other claimants that are legitimate around he tasked his son with finishing off the Jewish revolt by sacking the highly fortified city of Jerusalem, which is where 1000s of rebels had been congregating. And really what resulted is this incredibly bloody, incredibly brutal and lamentable affair that supposedly left upwards of a million Jews dead, at least according to Josephus. But these numbers are a little suspect. But despite this terrible toll, Titus was victorious, and by 71 AD, which is your question, he can finally return to Rome and triumph.

Dr G 7:09
An impressive time. Not great for Judea, by the sounds of it, but the Romans, well, they do like a good victory, and it sounds like they threw everything they had at this one.

Dr Rad 7:19
So we obviously get a bit of a snapshot about what Titus was up to in his early life through that account that you’ve just given. But what else do we know about Titus public career prior to his father becoming emperor?

Marc Hyden 7:33
So a lot of Titus early career and life is a bit of a mystery. And this kind of goes into how the ancient writers looked at people they didn’t generally, they didn’t care much about their their early life when they recorded it, because it was unimportant. Now for us historians, we want to know what happened. But what is clear is that Titus was born into the Flavian family, which had, at this point, had only recently become a senatorial clan. So because of this wealth and being a senatorial clan, Titus received rudimentary education that you’d expect of a well to do child, you know, and thanks to Vespasian growing increasingly close to Claudius court at the time, Titus was eventually even educated in the Imperial Court, which was really a blessing as well as a curse, because he learned alongside Claudius’ biological son, Britannicus. And this causes some some serious problems. Claudius’ scheming wife at the time, Agrippina was the mother of Nero, whom Claudius adopted. Now this is getting kind of convoluted and complex, but that’s the way the imperial family was. Agrippina didn’t seem to like the flavians too much, at least their friends that were in the imperial court. This caused plenty of grief. But then there was also the issue with Nero, who was distrustful of Britannicus, who, you know, rightfully, he probably should have been emperor, but he didn’t become emperor. So Nero decides to have him poisoned by tainting his drink. It turns out, though, that Titus was lounging next to Britannicus when this went down, and in fact, Titus even drank some of the poison. But Britannicus died, and as we all can tell, Titus survived, although he had a long term ailment that actually stemmed from him imbibing some of this poison. But despite him surviving Vespasian and Titus, at this point, they realize they’ve fallen from favor, and they needed to see to their own safety, so they decided to lay low for a while, and it worked in their favor, because not long after, they had some developments in the imperial court that really benefited them. So Nero really got tired of his his meddling and very overbearing mother, and he first banished her, and then he had her murdered, and this is after numerous botched attempts, and he’s finally successful, and with with her dead, both Vespasian and Titus, their futures looked a lot a lot brighter at this point in fact. Is able to enter the cursus honorum, the path of honors. And he took his first step toward senatorial admission by serving, most likely, in a one year term. And really, this, really lower level college of magistrates. And that’s this might have happened around 60 AD, and it was the next year in which he probably held the military tribuneship, and he was at first stationed in Germany, and then the ancient writers tell us that Titus and his troops were eventually transferred from Germany to Britannia. The ancient writers don’t tell us why this happened, but some modern historians have pinpointed a very plausible and what I find to be a pretty fascinating reason, and it was the Boudicca rebellion. Now, as a lot of your listeners know, Boudicca was this Iceni royal, and she was a woman not to be trifled with, but the Romans decided to trifle with her anyway. They stole her property. They publicly abused her and even raped her daughters these this was an unconscionable crime, and after facing this Roman treachery and ignominy, she decided to work to kick the Romans out of Britannia. And within a short span of time, she raises this massive army, allegedly numbering around 230,000 people, and she led them into battle. And this happens around 60 ad and with relative ease, she overruns numerous cities, raises them to the ground, and shows that she can be pretty barbaric as well. But the Romans were bent on stopping her, and in 61 the following year, the local governor Paulinus defeated her in battle. And then afterwards, Boudicca either dies by suicide or illness, we don’t really know, but the remnants of the revolt remained active, and that’s where Titus enters this story. So in an effort to shore up the Romans defenses in Britannia and provide reinforcements, Nero decided to transfer some folks from Germany to Britannia. So this is, this is when historians think it’s very likely that Titus found himself there, and he may have actually seen some legitimate experience and action in the Buddha revolt, although we don’t really know what exactly he could have been doing. So the Boudicca revolt is subdued, and then, following Titus term as military tribune, he returns to Rome to kind of foster his nascent public career, promote his private business interests, including a legal practice. And he seeks the quaestorship, which is the this will give you senatorial admission at the time. And with his father’s help, the Senate presumably elects him, providing him a seat in the Senate. And through some guesswork, educated guesswork. Historians think that his quaestorship may have fallen around 64 AD which is when the Great Fire of Rome happened. But it was two years later that really propels Titus to what we think of when we hear him in 66 that’s when the Jewish rebellion begins, and Nero realizes that he desperately needs some help. So he looks around to find someone who’s someone who’s a competent general, but not particularly inspiring so he could never really challenge them, and someone who’s close by that happens to be Vespasian. He’s not a very exciting guy at the time and not thought of as a real threat. So he appoints Vespasian to command the war effort against the Jewish people, and Vespasian in turn, appoints Titus to lead the 15th legion. And as I alluded to earlier, together they sweep through the Jewish homeland and they reassert Roman control, but at a really terrible cost.

Dr G 13:38
Yeah, it’s a quite a trajectory, and one that, because the Flavians are not such a prominent family, we just don’t know those intricate details about those shifts through their career paths. But by the time we get into Titus having ruled, boy, does he get some praise and Suetonius in his “Life of Titus”, notably says, and I quote, “Titus, of the same surname as his father, was the delight and darling of the human race. Such surpassing ability had he, by nature, art or good fortune, to win the affections of all men.” End, quote, To what extent should we see this level of positivity as justified when it comes to Titus rule? Do you think so?

Marc Hyden 14:29
That’s a little bit of a complicated question. So first things first, Suetonius is one of the least reliable historians of the era. He is really a terrible historian. Excuse me, he represents or presents rumors as verifiable fact. Essentially, he also presents his histories thematically, instead of chronologically, which really makes it difficult for historians to unravel what truly happened. But that aside, now that I’ve really just uh denigrated the memory of Suetonius, does that statement ring true? So I guess my my answer, my roundabout answer, that is, it depends on which Titus we’re talking about. So as a Roman commander in Judea, Titus was he was successful, but he was absolutely brutal, and he made so many tactical errors and perhaps he also strategic errors. As a Roman prince, he acted as a spoiled playboy and was really happy to ruthlessly murder just about anyone rumored of conspiring against his father. So these are not something you would think of as the darling of the human race, but he reinvents himself as a Roman Emperor. After he succeeded to the throne, he acted like a forgiving and loving father. He spared conspirators lives, He lavished gifts on on the Roman people, and he guided the empire through some really challenging circumstances. So from the Roman perspective, Titus was about as good as it gets as an emperor and his brutality as a commander, from the Roman perspective, was probably lauded, since the Romans found it to be necessary. So if Suetonius, if his statement is referring only to Titus emperorship, then from the Roman perspective, his positivity is probably merited, at least to a degree. But we all need to be very honest with each other, calling Titus the darling of the human race, is is beyond excessive, and it’s quite a bit ridiculous.

Dr G 16:27
Just what we come to expect from Suetonius, though.

Dr Rad 16:34
Someone who had a bit of a wild young life and then reinvented themselves as emperor… I wonder who that reminds me of Dr G?

Dr G 16:43
I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess.

Dr Rad 16:46
So one of the things that we love most about Titus is his love life, because he doesn’t actually have the smoothest of love lives. What do we know about his relationships with women?

Marc Hyden 16:57
Well, it was a long time before the dating app. So things, things weren’t very smooth when we look at what the ancient accounts say about it. So this is, this is a bit of a longer, longer answer, since he he got around a little bit. So in the early to mid 60s ad, that’s when Titus marries his first wife, Arrecina Tertulla. So the union between them, it really revealed a lot about the Flavian family standing and how they are an up and coming group. Because Titus wife, or Vespasian’s wife, didn’t really hail from a particularly exciting family, but Arrecina Tertulla really was from a family of some more notable successes, notable recent successes. Even though their family was a bit more obscure in their origins, they had achieved equestrian status, so they were pretty wealthy because of this. That probably pleased Vespasian quite a bit, since he seemed to perennially just have all these financial problems. And some of that happened probably as a result of Agrippina stiming his career for a while, so he really couldn’t milk money out of the provinces or anything along those lines. So that must have pleased Vespasian. But this is really a legitimately important family that they married into, because Arrecina’s father was Marcus Arrecinus Clemens, and he was well to do, very influential, and he even served as a Pretorian Prefect. So he was, and this was under Emperor Caligula, so this was a very prestigious position in which he was one of the two commanders of the Imperial Guard. But it also means that he may have had something to do with Caligula’s assassination, whether he was active in or just had knowledge of it, but whatever the case, no one liked Caligula afterwards. So it turns out, he’s probably more of a hero than anything else. But the family aside, so far as modern academics can tell, the two newlyweds, they wasted little time building a family, and arachina had a child, and this was likely a girl named Julia Flavia, although there is scholarly debate over which family or which marriage this belongs to this child, because there’s confusion of even how many children he had. But we, we know that Arrecina dies sometime shortly thereafter, and the ancient accounts don’t tell us why. And really, this is really more of this kind of male dominated view that I think a lot of ancient historians had, where they don’t tell you what happened to a lot of these, these female characters in history. But considering that it happened so soon after birth, she might have died as a result of childbirth, which is a very hazardous thing in antiquity. I mean, very conservative estimates suggest that the maternal mortality rate in ancient Rome might have been around two and a half percent. And again, that’s that’s conservative, but that’s also very terrifying. So this may have caused Titus to to grieve to a degree he lost his first wife, but he remarries really quickly. Um. It’s not clear if he did it because he found love or Vespasian wanted to find another rich family to marry into because he needed cash. But whatever the case, Titus marries into another pretty influential family, and he took Marcia Furnilla’s hand in marriage. Now she was part of a noble family that traced its roots to one of Rome’s fabled kings, Ancius Marcus, so one of the the fourth fabled king of ancient Rome. And even in this era, they enjoyed the family enjoyed quite a bit of success and considerable wealth, which Vespasian probably appreciated. But this marriage is very short lived for an undisclosed reason, the two get divorced fairly quickly. And the ancient authors, they don’t tell us why, but what seems to be the case is that some of her family members were accused of conspiring against Nero. This was a big problem. They could be terrible. Things happened to the people that were involved in these alleged conspiracies, and the Flavians wanted nothing to do with it. They wanted to continue their rise to the top, be successful, enjoy fame and fortune, and they probably wouldn’t have faced any legal problems just being married to having Titus married this woman, however, it could have stopped their careers from ascending. So Titus probably just thought of his wise we’re going to get divorced. I’m going to move on, even though she was likely innocent of any wrongdoing. So that’s the last Roman woman that we know for sure that Titus has this really close relationship with, and the next relationship that really dominates the rest of Titus life, she wasn’t even a Roman. So after joining with his father in the east to quell the Jewish revolt, Titus noticed the Jewish king Agrippa’s sister. This is the powerful queen, Berenice. So whether it was her beauty or charisma, he was quickly smitten with Berenice, and they begin this long standing romantic relationship that it spanned many, many years, and she probably welcomed this development because it brought their her family and her people as a result, closer to the Romans, but it also helped quell probably some rumors that went around suggesting that she had an incestual relationship with her brother since They lived together, something that was probably very unfair, but the the rumor existed, so she may have welcomed this. So this, this romance, probably lasts throughout the war, and then Titus goes home, but he goes home without Berenice, but in 75 CE roundabouts, he invites her to come. There’s plenty of debate. Why didn’t she come with him? Why did they wait this long? But to me, it seems pretty clear, the Flavians probably looked at her as a little bit of a liability, and they wanted to make sure that they had stable control over their position in Rome before they brought this eastern queen to come. And in relatively short order, she did arrive, and she moves into the Imperial Palace, shares a bed with Titus. She expected that they would get married, and in fact, Titus might have even promised his hand in marriage to her already, but they didn’t feel like they needed to be married for her to act in like these official ways. And this really shocked the Romans, because she flexed her newfound power. Quintilian even complained about having to plead some sort of case before her, which he just thought was bizarre. He’s a Roman. This is, this is an Eastern queen. And to the Romans, this was really unacceptable. They believed that the members the Imperial Household, especially heirs to the purple, they were expected to marry upstanding Roman women, not foreign Queens. And I’m sure this, this generated a lot of racist comments about letting an Eastern Queen infiltrate the imperial palace, and it also conjured up images of another very unpopular Eastern queen, Cleopatra. So the Romans were very suspicious about Berenice, and they spoke out against her. And it seems like the flavians tried to contain these objections, but it became clear that the Romans were very unforgiving of this, and Titus and Vespasian knew that they had to send her back to the east to ensure that they remained popular. So they sent her on her way. It probably around 79 AD, and then it was all it was very shortly after that that Vespasian dies and Titus becomes emperor, and for some reason, Berenice comes back to Rome. We don’t know if she was invited or came out of her own accord. Whatever we know is it was a very short stint – Titus sent her back to the east. I guessed, I guess the Romans were still very unhappy with that relationship. But whatever the case, this seems like it was. She was his true love, and that would be the last time he ever saw her.

Dr Rad 24:48
Ah the tragedy.

Dr G 24:51
Yes, particularly with the parallels with Cleopatra as well, the Romans are not well set up to handle women from elsewhere. Yeah, maybe having just the capacity to lead and to be in the high echelons of Roman society. So it’s perhaps not a surprise. And I do wonder about that last visit where it’s like, can we make this work? And Titus is like, I don’t think we can. And it’s not about you, it’s about everybody else. I’d love you to stay.

Dr Rad 25:19
It’s not you, it’s Rome.

Dr G 25:21
It’s Rome. Yeah, it’s always Rome. And you’ve alluded to the things that are going on in Judea already, because obviously they play a hugely significant role in the lead up to Titus coming into this position of leadership. But this conquest also has a lot of written sources attached to it as well. So I’m interested in why the conquest at this point is so significant, and how do our written sources help us build a detailed picture of what is going on in the east in this time period?

Marc Hyden 25:54
Well, I think you absolutely have to consider this is really part of not just Titus legacy is as well as Rome’s. This is very important. But when you look at the the sources that we have for this, really the only bulked out source that we have is Josephus. He his account is what has survived. You see mentions of the Jewish War in the different, different writings. You know, Cassius Dio, Suetonius. I mean, we have these passing accounts, but nothing like Josephus has. But we also need to be careful when we read Josephus, because the Flavians essentially bankrolled him. So of course, he’s going to make Titus look fantastic. He’s going to make Vespasian look great as well. And despite all of Josephus faults this, he provides so much knowledge and so much information about Titus in his corpus of writing. So I think it’s very important to bring that in, to consider that and when you if you just look at the the war very briefly, so it’s sparked through different riots and mistreatment of the Jews by the Romans, as well as the Greek speaking population, they rise up. And Josephus is even one of the generals for the rebellion. And he’s stationed in Galilee and fights against Vespasian. And there’s the this, this penultimate battle in Jotapata, where he tries to hold out for over 40 days around about and eventually falls and even predicts that Vespasian will become emperor one day, and they decide not to execute him. So that’s also a very good tale, a cautionary tale, if you ever captured in war, tell the person that captures you, he’s going to be emperor one day, and he’ll probably spare your life. So Titus is alongside Vespasian through this. And they go through all these these cities, and there’s these exciting battles that Josephus has really provide a wealth of knowledge about. So it’s Vespasian who really wins a lot of the Jewish war. And he goes to Alexandria later on to wait until he goes to Rome and leaves Titus in charge here. And this is when Titus has 60 to 80,000 men under his command, and he uses them primarily for the siege of Jerusalem, which is extended, as I mentioned. It’s very bloody. We have terrible accounts from Josephus of cannibalism, starvation, famine. You know, I mentioned that Josephus said that a million Jews died just in the siege. Again, that’s his accounting. It’s probably an exaggeration. According to Tacitus, it’s no more than 600,000, but even if it’s 100,000 which is what some modern academics suggest, that is a massive number. So even though a lot of the other writers, Cassius, Dio, Suetonius, Tacitus, they kind of sidestep a lot of the Jewish War. Josephus gives us an amazing account and shows how important this is, not just to stabilizing the Roman Empire, but turning Vespasian and Titus into what they are. They’re able to use this to propel themselves to take over, because during the year of the four emperors, Vespasian is sitting there with all these legionaries at his disposal, and he’s able to use that to come in and take over. And meanwhile, Vespasian does that, and then Titus plays clean up sacks Jerusalem, which is critically important, and he also destroys the Temple. But I think one of the things that really is is probably overlooked by many, is what Titus did in Jerusalem helps lay the groundwork for unrest in the Middle East that persists to this day.

Dr Rad 29:37
It’s such a such an interesting time to be talking about right now. So when Vespasian eventually heads back to Rome during this troublesome time, he does so after having been proclaimed Imperator by his troops and his son, Titus is, of course, at his side. Now this is a really unusual time in Rome’s history, because it’s the first time that. That an imperial dynasty has ended and a new one is now coming in, although, of course, nobody knows that that’s definitely what’s going to happen at this point. But we’re curious to know how, how is Titus training to be emperor different from and similar to that of the Julio-Claudians who preceded him?

Marc Hyden 30:18
Yeah. So unlike a lot of the other Imperial successors Titus, he wasn’t originally groomed for this purpose. He had no inkling that he would ever be in this position, and that he had no reason to believe that he ever would be. He simply wanted to be a senator, like his father, be a lawyer and somehow find wealth, fame and success. Maybe it’s in the political realm. Maybe it’s in the military. So as I mentioned, he got this aristocratic education, climbed the political ladder, fought in the legions, but as we know, he was destined for a lot more. So once Vespasian rose to power, he very unmistakably, from the beginning, marked Titus out as a successor in some similar as well as different ways than his forebears. So Vespasian worked to ensure that Titus had a resume that of someone that you would want to be emperor, and the power to be able to seize it. So he shared consulships with Vespasian. Titus and Vespasian shared consulships. They shared a triumph together through Rome after the sacking of Jerusalem, and Vespasian ensured that Titus had the notable military successes, namely the sacking of Jerusalem to really put on his resume and build out his curriculum vitae. But beyond this, Vespasian elevates Titus to almost his equal, at least on paper. So they kind of rule together, but it was very clear that Titus was a subordinate. But as a prince, he enjoyed Imperium, he enjoyed tribunician potestas. He represented Vespasian in the Senate sometimes. And then Vespasian also makes this very novel decision to make his son one of the Praetorian Guard prefects, essentially the head of a couple legions that are stationed in and around Rome who were asked to protect the Emperor. Now, no Emperor’s son had ever held this role before, but it ensured the allegiance of the sometimes fickle Praetorians. So because of all of this, there was nobody more qualified and better position to succeed Vespasian than Titus, any of the backing of the pretorians to ensure that seamless transition. So thanks to Titus work and Vespasian’s preparations, Titus became the first biological son of a Roman emperor to succeed him.

Dr G 32:37
Oh yeah, that is an interesting detail, isn’t it, the Julio-Claudians, what a mess. So one of the incredible things that sort of happens in this period of time is that we have the Lex de Imperio Vespasiani, which is considered by scholars to be a hugely significant document. It bundles together for the first time, all of the powers, all of the privileges that had gradually become associated with the concept of the Emperor under the Julio-Claudians and because it was assumed kind of knowledge up until this point. But we now have a change in family. There’s a sense in which, how can we formalize and make it legal for this kind of de facto position of power to be passed on to somebody who’s not in that family. I’m interested in to what extent you would say that this influences Titus as he shifts from being vespasians, right hand man to Emperor himself.

Marc Hyden 33:37
Yeah, that’s that’s a bit of a tough one. So the Lex de Imperio Vespasiani has long been debated by people far smarter than than me, so like you two, far smarter than me, and it only exists in fragmentary form, so some of it’s missing, but what I will say is that this was an important piece of Flavian PR because it really it legitimizes Vespasian’s rule, it makes it clear, or at least tries to make it clear to his subjects that he wasn’t just another usurper, like like Otho or Vitellius. He was legitimate. He was different than those guys. But how did this influence Titus? That’s that’s not really clear, but I will say sure it provided a framework for him to follow as emperor, but he enjoyed a lot of that same power before he became emperor. So when he was Vespasian’s companion, but he, like the rest of Rome, they now saw Rome for what it was. It was a military dictatorship. The year of the four emperors washed away any sort of veneer of Rome being a republic or being even a constitutional principate. The truth was that armies now made emperors, not the Senate, not the people and anyone could really stake their claim to the throne and could seize it without senatorial approval or without approval even in the comitia. But it was still, despite that, it was still important to maintain the pretenses of legitimate rule and Republican forms, even though the Republic had been long, long dead. So from that perspective, it was important for Titus, and considering that at large, he gave emperors unfettered power, he probably felt like it was pretty easy to operate under those confines, but he understood that he could violate any provision he wanted, because he was an autocrat and the head and he had the Army’s backing, and that was the sad reality of Rome at this time.

Dr G 35:35
What a place to be – you’ve revealed yourself for what you are, finally

Dr Rad 35:40
The veil has been lifted

Dr G 35:42
None of this principate business

Dr Rad 35:44
I know. I know So with all this build up and it seems so promising. You know, Titus, the darling of the human race, he seems to have got his resume just right, first biological son to succeed his father as emperor, and yet he only rules for such a short time, just over two years, from 79 CE, when Vespasian passed away, to 81 CE, nonetheless, that’s still some time for him to have some achievements and certainly face some obstacles. So we’d love for you to tell us a bit more about what happens when he’s actually emperor.

Marc Hyden 36:23
Yeah, so Titus may have presided over the busiest two year span in the Empire’s history, at least up until this point, Agricola was at war in Britannia. Vesuvius erupted and laid waste in numerous cities, including Pompeii and Herculaneum. Fire ravages Rome and a plague decimates its numbers. But despite this, Titus did everything within his power and also his financial means to guide the empire through adversity, even though it supposedly led him nearly to fiscal ruin because of it, but the people just they realized the world was a different place. They were facing all of these calamities, but they appreciated Titus endeavors, because he responded to each crisis with great aplomb, or at least with the best of intentions, and they understood this. But his tenure, it was not just marked by adversity. There were tranquil moments as well. He constructed his eponymus baths. Built roads and bridges and updated aqueducts, and he finished the Colosseum, which we could all go look at today, at least well enough for the inaugural games. It probably didn’t have the final floor finished at the time, at least in stone. And he opened it, and he hosts an unprecedented 100 days of games, and they bear witness to 1000s of beasts being killed, myriad executions, and an untold number of gladiators sparring with another which the people loved. And during his tenure, he also saw that his father was deified. So you know, that’s also another great thing. If you become emperor, you can make your dad a god, which makes you the son of a god or a daughter of a god, really work. It’s a great system that they had in place there. And even though a lot of his predecessors would not have done this, he showed forgiveness to people that plotted against him in ways that they they never would have dreamed of doing so. In short, this was a very action packed two years.

Dr G 38:21
I do like the idea that many emperors start off with quite a good stint early on, only for things to go tragically downhill the further they’re in power. And I wonder to what extent Titus has been saved from that fate by dying so soon into his reign, and we will just never know he dies suddenly from a fever, which a tragedy. This is shocking to everybody, and led to great speculation, even at the time, that this was not the case of poor health, necessarily, but murder most foul

Dr Rad 38:56
Mwahahahaha

Dr G 38:59
Exactly. I’m wondering, Mark, what’s your view on Titus death based on your research?

Marc Hyden 39:05
Well, first of all, to go back to what you were talking about, about emperors having a great, you know, honeymoon period, and that’s, that’s something that they talked about. Believe it was Cassius Dio said, you know, he just didn’t live. He may not have lived long enough to become the terrible Emperor he was destined to be. We just don’t know. He might have turned into Domitian. Who knows? But to answer your question about his death, it goes back to 81 AD, so a little over two years into his Imperial administration, he and some of his followers decided to go to the countryside for a break. They wanted to get out of the busy Rome, the stench and everything else that comes with it. But as they made their journey, Titus realizes something is really wrong. He develops this incredibly high fever, and then his servants, they rush him to a farmhouse in Sabine country, near near react, and along the way, Titus’ condition continues to get worse, and he understands that this is going to claim his life, and this really confused him. So he was 41 years old, which I may humbly present as a very young age.

Dr Rad 40:12
I totally agree.

Marc Hyden 40:14
He believed that he had lived a life pleasing to the gods, and he was at the height of his power. Why would the gods take his life at this moment. So on the verge of death, he he throws open the curtains on his litter and exclaims, I have made but one mistake. Now we don’t know what that one mistake was, but we do know that he dies not long after on September 13, 81 AD in the very farmhouse in which his father Vespasian had perished. So the question of what killed him, what was the cause of death, has really vexed ancient and even some modern historians and the ancient authors, they provided kind of a slew of theories to attempt to explain what killed him, and they range from impossible to improbable. But thanks to the diligence of some modern scholars, we may have the answer, but first we have to talk about what the ancient authors thought. So, given the rapid and very unexpected death of a pretty popular emperor, the Romans grew suspicious that Titus had been slain, and some claimed that Domitian was behind it. One theory suggested that Titus, or excuse me, Domitian, had Titus packed in ice when he was sick, knowing that that would kill him. So it’s not impossible that Domitian had this done, and he may have done it along with doctor’s orders as a way to reduce Titus uncontrolled fever. But other ancient authors said that Titus died through other means. Domitian poisoned them, so more Imperial intrigue. And Flavius Philostratus even says that Domitian used a sea hair to taint Titus food or drink somehow, which which killed him. But modern academics, they’ve kind of poo-pooed that idea. They don’t believe that that would really have worked. And this also kind of reveals what the ancient writers thought about Domitian. They did not like the guy, they loathed him, and he was an easy target, at least at this point. So they latched on to all these unsubstantiated rumors saying that Domitian was somehow behind Titus death. And, you know, he did have a motive, because he became emperor, it just seems very unlikely that he had anything to do with with killing his brother, at least on purpose. Then there’s a Jewish tradition, and this is one of my favorite ones, and it suggests that a gnat flew up Titus nose, lived in his brain for seven years and slowly picked at his brain as it grew to the size of a sparrow. This is a tradition that obviously is, I don’t believe that anyone thinks of it as fact, it might be part of some sort of tale. Gnats don’t operate this way. They don’t grow to the size of small birds, at least where I live. And the Romans generally didn’t do autopsies and open up Emperor’s brains to see what’s going on in there. So this didn’t that was not the cause. Could not have been.

Dr G 43:09
That’s a real shame. That’s a real shame because, I mean, come on, if that was, that was what happened. We need to know. We need to go back and find the body, do an autopsy. Was he somehow trapped by a gnat while he was in Judea that lived in his brain.

Marc Hyden 43:24
If that is possible, I’m never going outside again. But Plutarch, he went in a different direction, said that Titus died because he loved taking a bath too much. And I also think that that’s probably not the case, unless he caught some sort of contagion while bathing with with other people. But what really seems to be the case is relatively clear in the ancient record, if you look through it through a modern lens. So if we go back, it’s September in ancient Italy, and Titus acquires a high fever that strikes him down quickly. So we’ve got several things to look at here. And Saul bastomsky theorized, based on that that Titus died from malignant malaria. It was relatively common in Titus era and region at the time. It surged in late summer and early fall, and it’s marked by a high fever that kills its victims really quickly. So it seems that was probably natural causes that led to his death. And if it was malignant malaria, then sadly, Titus, he just never stood a chance.

Dr Rad 44:29
How intriguing the potential of an emperor to have died from the Ice Bucket Challenge? Who would have thought so? Perhaps, to wrap up now that Titus has departed from this earth. What is it that you think makes Titus unique from the Emperors that came before him?

Marc Hyden 44:50
Well, he was just so different from the Julio-Claudians. For starters, he was a true warrior. He led troops. He got into the nitty gritty of battle. Unlike the Julio-Claudians, with the exception of Augustus and Tiberius, they saw some some real battle. But for the rest of the pampered Julio-Claudians, Titus was very different. He was also the first, as I mentioned, Pretorian Prefect to become emperor, and the first biological son of an emperor to become emperor. Again, very different from the Julio-Claudians, and during his short stint, he proved to be a forgiving and magnanimous ruler who eschewed killing even conspirators, and so far as we can tell, he didn’t have a single scandal throughout all of his Imperial tender tenure. Again, it was only a couple of years, but still, no scandals. Most Julio-Claudians couldn’t have said the same about about their own.

Dr Rad 45:43
Oh, yeah, Caligula had scandals pretty quickly.

Marc Hyden 45:47
Yes, they would. They stacked up very quickly. You’re right. He also gave the Romans a gift that his predecessors would have killed for the Colosseum, and he gave the Romans 100 days of games and killing, just on an industrial scale, and they loved him for it. And he was also different. This is a little less interesting, but he was different because he had the shortest Imperial tenure to date, excluding the usurpers of the year, the four emperors, of any of his predecessors. And unlike many of his predecessors, when he died, he was probably at the height of his popularity, the Romans loved him. Remember, he’s he’s the darling of the human race, although, of course, that’s exaggeration. So to close out neatly, I would say the life of Titus is one of the greatest stories rarely told. So it’s the tale of Titus unlikely ascent to power, a veritable holy war in Israel, the coliseums rise, and of course, we know Pompeii’s fall and then tragic Titus own tragic and untimely death. But for whatever reason, a lot of the story has been buried beneath centuries of silence. And you know, a lot of the ancient Romans loved and even worshiped Titus. They considered him this model of virtue, essentially as an emperor to be emulated. But modern scholars, they have overlooked him for whatever reason. They’ve cast him aside, perhaps because of his short Imperial tenure, and this has left some unmistakable gaps in the record. So I decided to take on this project and write emperor Titus the right hand of Vespasian. And hopefully, hopefully it will end his long term neglect, and we won’t have to worry about the massive gaps in the record that have been there for so long.

Dr G 47:35
Yes, thank you so much for providing all of this detail, and I cannot recommend your book, highly enough, that’s “Emperor Titus: The Right Hand of Vespasian”, because you do go into so much of the detail, particularly with what is going on in the early days of Titus building his military reputation, particularly when it comes to what is happening in Judea, which is an extensive campaign that really funds a lot of what The Flavians are able to achieve. So I think understanding that side of it better. How did this seemingly unassuming family rise to the top is really important, and seeing how Titus is able to carry on that legacy of Vespasian particularly interesting as well.

Marc Hyden 48:18
Yeah, and I really appreciate that the kind words. And it really is something I find to be pretty amazing. Everyone has heard of Vespasian, who’s interested in ancient Rome, and even his ascent is is very unlikely. And he brings he brings his family along, and as people will find out that are students of history, they’ll see the Flavian dynasty. It starts off very stable, but it goes off the rails pretty quickly. But they want to say that, you know, Vespasian and Titus, they had a good run.

Dr G 48:48
Yeah, two out of three ain’t bad.

Dr Rad 48:50
I was gonna say. I can’t help but wonder if Titus reputation is also somewhat improved by the fact that Domitian is the one that follows.

Marc Hyden 48:59
That certainly does help his standing. It also helps his standing, as well as Vespasian that a lot of the people at the time, the historians at the time, that wrote the history, they tended to bankroll so you tend to say nice things about your benefactor. So they they benefited greatly from some fantastic PR and that’s that’s another thing. If you’re going to be emperor, pay people to write your history. They’ll say nice things.

Dr Rad 49:25
That’s the mistake that Julia-Claudians made. Rookie errors. Rookie errors.

Dr G 49:34
Well, thank you so much Mark for joining us and sitting down to tell us all about Titus and the way he comes to power, and those precious two years he gets to be emperor, we’ve really enjoyed it.

Marc Hyden 49:44
Hey. Thanks so much for having me on and I’ll just have to burn through another book real quick so I can come back.

Dr G 49:56
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Partial Historians. You can find our sources, sound credits and transcript in our show notes. Over at partialhistorians.com we offer a huge thank you to you, if you’re one of our illustrious Patreon supporters, if you enjoy the show, we’d love your support in a way that works for you. Leaving a nice review really makes our day. We’re on Ko-Fi for one off or ongoing donations or Patreon of course. Our latest book, “Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire”, is published through Ulysses Press. It is full of stories that the Romans probably don’t want you to know about them. This book is packed with some of our favorite tales of the colorful history of ancient Rome. Treat yourself or an open minded friend to Rome’s glories, embarrassments and most salacious claims with Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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