Episode XXX - Vitellius

Emperors of Rome

La Trobe University

Roman Emire, Rhiannon Evans, Biography, Emperor, La Trobe University, Roman History, Julius Caesar, Rome, Caesar, Ancient History, History, Caillan Davenport, Roman Emperors

4.8 • 1.7K Ratings

🗓️ 3 August 2015

⏱️ 20 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Vitellius has been vocally gaining support amongst his troops in Germania, enough to take on Otho and become emperor himself.

Transcript

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0:00.0	Ahve, and welcome to Emperor of Rome, a podcast about the rulers of the ancient Roman Empire.
0:11.5	I'm your host Matt Smith, and with me as always is Dr. I'm your host Matt Smith and with me as always is Dr.
0:14.7	Rianen Evans, a lecturer in ancient Mediterranean studies at Latrobe University.
0:19.4	Now I want us all to be very mature here because this is episode
0:24.0	XXX. Pause for snigoring. Vitellius. When we last left the Civil War of
0:30.7	64CE, Galba was defeated, Othe was defeated and now Vitellius becomes Emperor.
0:38.2	He's got the things that everybody wants in a good Emperor, he's got a military background,
0:42.3	he's been a politician, but as we'll soon
0:44.4	see there's a lot more to being emperor than having a good resume. Here's Rianna Evans.
0:50.3	The third emperor of 69 CE is Aulus Vitalius, also a military man, also a governor like the previous
0:59.4	emperors of 69, but he is stationed in the north, so he's a governor or a general in Germany.
1:07.6	He's in his 50s by the time we get to 69th, CE, and he comes from the right kind of background in terms of political nous.
1:17.9	So his father's been consul a number of times.
1:21.9	He has also been consul and he's previously been a governor of another province
1:26.3	towards the South in Africa. So he's got lots of experience and he's got both military and political experience.
1:35.0	This sounds like the perfect person to be emperor on paper.
1:39.0	Well, on...
1:40.0	This is why you can't trust resumes.
1:42.0	No, exactly.
1:43.7	As it turns out at least as described by the biographers and historians,
1:50.0	Vitellius is pretty much a disaster as an emperor. So he will be overthrown. There will be a fourth emperor in 69 CE.
1:57.6	So what do we know specifically about the young Vitellius then?
	...

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