Not a biography! And why Vespasian’s? He returned to Rome in the wake of an expeditionary force that destroyed his rival. The dirty work was done by his generals, and he had only to be firm but civil with the senate; he went down well, made sure his son succeeded him - and became a god.

There are reasons for scrutinising this life. Biography is a test case for a perennial problem, the individual’s achievements in history, and acutely so here, because Vespasian’s reign saw the arrival of a 120 - year period of peace. Then, a reputation so inordinately exploited by later generations provides a warning and needs reassessment.

Vespasian’s reputation carried him into Dante’s Paradiso; and a romance circulating in French, Spanish and Portuguese, and printed in Portugal in 1496, was in a consignment of books destined for the improvement of Prester John, the Emperor of Ethiopia, in 1515. In 1907 a translation into Nahuatl of the Chronicle of the very noble Emperor Vespasian was published in Florence: Vespasian, a leper was cured by applying St. Veronica’s handkerchief to his sores. he then captured Jerusalem in revenge for the execution of Jesus, punished Pontius Pilate, and converted the entire Empire. This tract for transatlantic heathen, besides propagating Christianity, makes a good emperor anti-Jewish, a slant that goes back to the sixth century.

Modern writers with attitude have also exploited Vespasian. In the portraits of G. Bersanetti (1941) and of L. Homo (1949) one can see Mussolini and De Gaulle respectively. For Bersanetti the English were still in Vespasian’s debt for the civilising work performed on them by Agricola; Homo quotes Napoleon: Vespasian was one of the greatest men of the Empire.

Even scholars without axes to grind have temptations. Accounting for the changes of a thousand years, they invoke periods ("The Flavio-Trajanic Age"); but what makes these periods distinct? As to great men, read Tolstoy’s essay in War and Peace: Napoleon was a stick carried on the stream of the popular will. And scholars work with official inscriptions, coins and pro-Flavian writers.

‘Provincial administration’ has received particular praise: the provinces were brought to near equality with Italy. Two tests can be applied. We should find a marked rise in privileges and benefactions granted the provinces, then a take-over of positions of authority.

With ‘Romanization’, subjects took on characteristics of their masters at will; no programme was imposed. In North Africa, ideological wrangling aside (colo nialism, Marxism etc.) scholars have very different opinions about the speed of change. In Britain, Agricola encouraged his subjects towards city life, but such measures were already known a decade and a half previously, after Boudicca’s revolt. Most famous is the award to Spain of ‘Latin rights’: leading local magistrates became citizens. The scheme outbid Vespasian’s predecessors who had mooted it in 69-70. As to buildings given to provincial cities, local benefactors normally paid; the Emperor consented to association; everyone benefited.

Nor is there much erosion of distinctions between Italy and the provinces. Vespasian’s declared concern, stability, meant maintaining the status quo. Now Pliny produced his eulogy on Italy: ‘nursing and mother of other lands, chosen ... to make heaven itself more glorious.’

The rise of provincials is more promising. By the second century the legions contained a minute proportionate of Italians. But Italian, unsuitable or unwilling, had been hard to recruit for half a century before Vespasian. Higher up, Tacitus looked back on a senate transformed to include provincials. But already the two leading politicians of the fifties were provincials. the criteria for advancement were loyalty and competence, and the Civil Wars created special opportunities.

This seems negative, and the persistent idea of Vespasian’s importance must be accommodated. What was important was how people saw and responded to what Vespasian did. Vespasian’s power grew out of his successful use of legions. peace seemed permanent: people returned thankfully to their normal ways of survival or profit. The provinces benefited most, as they did from aggression against Britons and Germans, bringing security and new markets, distant for Italian producers. What ensued was about shifting prosperity. Changes in the relationship of Italy and provinces were gradual, and beyond imperial control. The appropriate question now is whether such things are within the control of a European super-state.