Vespasian behaved most generously to all classes: granting subventions to senators who did not possess the property qualifications of their rank; securing impoverished men of consular rank an annual pension of 500,000 sesterces; rebuilding on a grander scale than before the many cities throughout the empire which had been burned or destroyed by earthquakes; and proving himself a devoted patron of the arts and sciences.
He was the first to pay teachers of Latin
and Greek rhetoric a regular annual salary of 100,000 sesterces from the
imperial exchequer; he also awarded prizes to leading poets, and to artists as
well, notably the ones who refashioned the Venus of Cos and the
Colossus.
An
engineer offered to haul some huge columns up to the Capitol at moderate
expense by a simple mechanical contrivance, but Vespasian declined his
services: 'I must always ensure', he said, 'that the working classes earn enough money to buy
themselves food.' Nevertheless, he paid the engineer a very
handsome fee.
When the Theatre of Marcellus opened again after Vespasian had built its new stage, he revived the former musical performances and presented Apelles the tragic actor with 400,000 sesterces, Terpnus and Diodorus the lyre players with 200,000 each, and several others with 100,000; his lowest cash awards were 40,000, and he also distributed several gold crowns. Moreover, he ordered a great number of formal dinners on a lavish scale, to support the dealers in provisions.
On the Saturnalia he gave party
favours to his male dinner guests, and he did the same for women on the
Kalends of March. But even this generosity could not rid him of his reputation
for stinginess. Thus the people of Alexandria continued to call him
'Cybiosactes', after one of the meanest of all their kings.
One need only read between the lines, the Emperor gave money to engineers not to work and employed those who did the work, Shovel Ready Projects, he paid the teachers exorbitant sums, well we know where that is, then money to the theatre, or as we call them "green" jobs. Politics never changes, politicians remain somewhat the same. Suetonius was the Bob Woodward of Rome for a while, a bit more succinct, yet as telling and as insightful. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose..
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