ON 18 DECEMBER 69, THE EMPEROR Vitellius, who briefly grabbed the supreme power in the civil war that followed the suicide of Nero, realised that his time was up. The army was abandoning him and the troops of a new pretender were closing in on Rome. He descended from the imperial residence on the Palatine hill (whence our “palace”) into the Forum, the symbolic heart of Republican Rome, to abdicate. He gave a tearful speech and surrendered his sword — symbolizing the power to pass the death penalty — to the consul, the chief magistrate of the Republic.
And then this solemn and sombre occasion went spectacularly wrong. On his way to deposit the imperial insignia at the temple of Concord, Vitellius lost his nerve and was persuaded to change his mind. Two days of chaotic fighting followed. The temple of Jupiter Best and
