Geoff Hudson

As you know, I am interested in possible links between the Flavians and the NT

Would you believe it! There appears to be no historical record related to the Roman emperor Vespasian for the period AD51 to AD62. The thirty one books of Pliny the Elder's "lost" Histories may have given some details. Barbara Levick, in her book Vespasian, page 65, writes about Pliny: "he had coincided with Titus during the latter's military tribunate on the Lower Rhine (57-8) and dedicated his Natural Histories to him. He survived Vespasian by two months".

Can anyone suggest what Vespasian was up to during the period and where he might have been living?

Page 12 of Levick's book says that Vespasian's wife Flavia Domitilla was declared freeborn and a Roman citizen, and that she either was or had been deemed an ex-slave. The same page suggests that her mother was her father's freedwoman and concubine who acquired only Latin status. Does anyone have reason to think that her mother could have been a Jewess? Did mother and daughter have leanings towards Judaism?

Geoff