XI. He died in the same villa where his father had died before him,
upon the Ides of September [the 13th of September]; two years, two months, and
twenty days after he had succeeded his father; and in the one-and-fortieth year
of his age. As soon as the news of his death was published, all
people mourned for him, as for the loss of some near relative. The senate
assembled in haste, before they could be summoned by proclamation, and locking
the doors of their house at first, but afterwards opening them, gave him such
thanks, and heaped upon him such praises, now he was dead, as they never had
done whilst he was alive and present amongst them.
Here Ends the Life of Titus, from The Twelve Caesars
by Suetonius
NOTES.
/1/
The joint triumph of Vespasian and Titus, which was celebrated, is
fully described by Josephus, De Bell. Jud. vii. 24. It is commemorated by the
triumphal monument called the Arch of Titus, erected by the senate and people of
Rome after his death, and still standing at the foot of the Palatine Hill, on
the road leading from the Colosseum to the Forum, and is one of the most
beautiful as well as the most interesting models of Roman art. It consists of
four stories of the three orders of architecture, the Corinthian being repeated
in the two highest. Some of the bas-reliefs, still in good preservation,
represent the table of the shew-bread, the seven-branched golden candlestick,
the vessel of incense, and the silver trumpets, which were taken by Titus from
the Temple at Jerusalem, and, with the book of the law, the veil of the temple,
and other spoils, were carried in the triumph. The fate of these sacred relics
is rather interesting. Josephus says, that the veil and books of the law were
deposited in the Palatium, and the rest of the spoils in the Temple of Peace.
When that was burnt, in the reign of Commodus, these treasures were saved, and
they were afterwards carried off by Genseric to Africa. Belisarius recovered
them, and brought them to Constantinople, A.D. 520. Procopius informs us, that a
Jew, who saw them, told an acquaintance of the emperor that it would not be
advisable to carry them to the palace at Constantinople, as they could not
remain anywhere else but where Solomon had placed them. This, he said, was the
reason why Genseric had taken the Palace at Rome, and the Roman army had in turn
taken that of the Vandal kings. Upon this, the emperor was so alarmed, that he
sent the whole of them to the Christian churches at Jerusalem.
/2/
Berenice, was daughter
of Agrippa the Great, who was by Aristobulus, grandson of Herod the Great.
Having been contracted to Mark, son of Alexander Lysimachus, he died before
their union, and Agrippa married her to Herod, Mark's brother, for whom he had
obtained from the emperor Claudius the kingdom of Chalcis. Herod also dying,
Berenice, then a widow, lived with her brother, Agrippa, and was suspected of an
incestuous intercourse with him. It was at this time that, on their way to the
imperial court at Rome, they paid a visit to Festus, at Caesarea, and were
present when St. Paul answered his accusers so eloquently before the tribunal of
the governor. Her fascinations were so great, that, to shield herself from the
charge of incest, she prevailed on Polemon, king of Cilicia, to submit to be
circumcised, become a Jew, and marry her. That union also proving unfortunate,
she appears to have returned to Jerusalem, and having attracted Vespasian by
magnificent gifts, and the young Titus by her extraordinary beauty, she followed
them to Rome, after the termination of the Jewish war, and had apartments in the
palace, where she lived with Titus, "to all appearance, as his wife," as
Xiphilinus informs us; and there seems no doubt that he would have married her,
but for the strong prejudices of the Romans against foreign alliances. Suetonius
tells us with what pain they separated.
/3/
The Colosseum: it had been four years in building.
See Suetonius, Vespasian, 9.
/4/
"Diem perdidi." This memorable speech is recorded by several other historians,
and praised by Eusebius in his Chronicles.
/5/
In A.D. 79.
ADDITIONAL RESOURCES.
Dr. Alexander Thomson,
Essay appended to Suetonius's Titus.