He soon had Egypt subdued and sent from there a large supply of grain to Rome.  He had left his son Titus at Jerusalem to sack the town, and awaited its capture that he might return to Rome in his son’s company.  But, as time dragged in the conduct of the siege, he left Titus in Palestine and took passage himself on a merchantman; he sailed in this manner as far as Lycia, and from that country partly by overland journeys and partly by seafaring he came to Brundusium.

After this he came to Rome, meeting Mucianus and other prominent men at Brundusium and Domitian at Beneventum.  In consequence of the consciousness of his own designs and of what he had already done, Domitian was ill at ease, and moreover he occasionally feigned madness.  He spent most of his time on the Alban estate and did many ridiculous things, one of them being to impale flies on pencils.  Even though this incident be unworthy of the dignity of history, yet because it shows his character so well and particularly in view of the fact that he continued the same practice after he became emperor, I have been obliged to record it.  Hence that answer was not without wit which some one made to a person who enquired what Domitian was doing.  “He is living in retirement,” he said, “without so much as a fly to keep him company.” [Sidenote:—­10—­] Vespasian though he humbled this upstart’s pride greeted all the rest not like an emperor but like a private person, for he remembered his previous experience.

On reaching Rome he bestowed gifts upon both soldiers and populace; he made repairs in the sacred precincts and upon those public works which showed signs of wear and tear; such as had already crumbled to decay he restored; and when they were completed he inscribed upon them not his own name but the names of the persons who had originally reared them.

He immediately began to construct the temple on the Capitoline, being himself the first to carry away some of the soil; and, as a matter of course, he urged the other most prominent men to do this same thing in order that the rest of the populace might have no excuse for shirking this service.

The property of his opponents who had fallen in one conflict or another he delivered to their children or to other kin of theirs; furthermore, he destroyed contracts of long standing representing sums due and owing to the public treasury.

Though he invariably expended in munificent fashion all that was requisite for the public welfare and arranged the festivals on a most sumptuous scale, his own living was very far from costly, and he sanctioned no greater outlay than was absolutely necessary.  Therefore even in the taverns he allowed nothing cooked to be sold except pulse.  Thus he made it quite plainly evident that he was amassing riches not for his own enjoyment but for the needs of the people.

Vespasian got laughed at every time that he would say, when spending money:  “I am making this outlay from my own purse.”