Il8 ROMAN COINS FOUND AT LITTLE CHESTER, 



first to be murdered; he had his own mother put to death, and is 

 credited with setting Rome on fire, and playing on a vioHn while he 

 watched the blaze. He then had the audacity to lay the crime on 

 the Christians of Rome, whom he had seized, and many of them 

 were sewn up in skins of beasts and thrown to the dogs ; while 

 others were put into pitched sacks, and set up in his gardens to 

 illuminate, by being set on fire at night. The Apostles Peter 

 and Paul are said to have been put to death by him. So odious 

 did he become, that his subjects sentenced him to be thrown from 

 the Tarpeian rock, a fate he escaped by committing suicide. 



(imp . CAES . vespa)SIAN . AVG . COS(vii). — Bust to right, 

 head laureated. Rev. — A temple with six columns (Capitol) ; 

 in the middle, Jupiter between Juno and Minerva ; on the 

 pediment several figures. 2nd brass. The whole much corroded 

 and difficult to decipher. Plate I., fig. 4 ; A.D. 69 to 79. 

 (Mr. Shaw.) 



Vespasian was a man of humble lineage, not of an ambitious 

 disposition ; but his mother, having more of this property, used it 

 to urge on her son to seek for distinction, which seems to have 

 succeeded. When Nero ascended the throne, he sent Vespasian 

 into Africa as pro-consul. He does not appear to have been a 

 great success in that office there. Afterwards he went with Nero 

 into Greece. He, however, was too honest to pretend to admire 

 Nero's fine voice, on which he prided himself, either leaving 

 the room or else going to sleep. This did not please the Emperor, 

 and he banished him from court, but almost immediately 

 despatched him to Jerusalem. He was more successful there, 

 for in A.D. 71 he was honoured with a triumph in company with 

 his son Titus, for the conquest of Judea and destruction of 

 Jerusalem. He closed the Temple of Janus, and erected a 

 magnificent one to Peace, which he dedicated in the fifth year of 

 his government, and placed in it the sacred vessels brought from 

 the Temple, furnishing it with all the most precious treasures of 

 art known, brought from all parts of Europe and Asia. In A.D. 74 

 he made a census of the Roman people, and from the remarks of 

 Pliny, it may be assumed that the average length of human life 



