For other praise of Titus’s love and charity in action we need only turn to the historian Suetonius’s biography of Titus. It begins with this extraordinary assertion:
Titus… had such winning ways—perhaps inborn, perhaps cultivated subsequently, or conferred on him by fortune—that he became the object of universal love and adoration. (38)
Born on December 30, in “a small, dingy, slum bedroom,” (39) according to Suetonius, Titus is said to have been remarkable for his beauty, grace and dignity, his phenomenal memory, his talent on the lyre (like Apollo), his ability to compose verse in both Greek and Latin with equal ease, even extemporaneously, and his abilities in almost all of “the arts of war and peace.” (40) As emperor, Titus “never took anything away from any citizen, but showed the greatest respect for private property, and would not even accept the gifts that were permissible and customary.” None of his predecessors, it seems, had “ever displayed such generosity.” (41)
Suetonius also tells us that Titus was “naturally kind hearted,” having as a personal rule “never to dismiss any petitioner without leaving him some hope that his request would be favorably considered.” (Emphasis added.) When a day passed without his helping someone he is quoted as complaining, “My friends, I have wasted a day.” Titus, we are told, made a virtue of his humble background and freely used the public baths “in the company of the common people.” (42)
Titus’s short reign was characterized by a series of disasters: the eruption of Vesuvius that buried Herculaneum and Pompeii, yet another fire that burned through Rome for three days and nights, and an outbreak of disease that was described by Suetonius as one of the worst “that had ever been known.” Titus’s reaction to these crises he describes as follows:
Throughout this assortment of disasters, he showed far more than an Emperor’s concern, it resembled the deep love of a father for his children, which he conveyed not only in a series of comforting edicts but by helping the victims to the utmost extent of his purse. (Emphasis added.) (43)
Suetonius tells us Titus “stripped his own country mansions of their decorations” in order to help restoration efforts after the fire, and that he “attempted to cure the plague and limit its ravages by every imaginable means, human as well as divine—resorting to all sorts of sacrifices and medicinal remedies.” (44) Here, we can clearly see why Titus associated himself with Apollo the “Paean” and the healer Serapis, with whom his father identified, as his coins during this period reflect.
The untimely death of Titus, Suetonius asserts without a hint of irony, was “a far greater loss to the world than to Titus himself.” (45) When news of Titus’s death was released, only two years, two months and 20 days into his reign, “the entire population went into mourning as though they had suffered a personal loss.” (46)
Although Suetonius says that Titus died of a fever, the 3rd Century Greek writer Lucius Flavius Philostratus preserves a tradition that Titus was killed by “his own kith and kin” (presumably his brother Domitian) “through eating the fish called the sea-hare.” (Emphasis added.) (47) Philostratus adds that Nero also used this “fish” to murder his enemies.
Even if the factual status of this account is fishy, the metaphorical association of Titus’s death by fish is pungent considering its potential symbolism.
It should be noted that previous Roman leaders were also extolled for their benevolence, especially Julius Caesar and his successor Augustus. The Divine Julius, in particular, was celebrated for his mercy, or “clementia.” Julius Caesar famously pardoned many of his political enemies only to be assassinated by them. Indeed, the deification of Clementia (mercy) may have begun with the cult of the Divine Julius, who symbolized and was worshiped for this virtue by the Romans.
In this sense, as historian Francesco Carotta has keenly observed, Caesar, like Jesus, “loved his enemies,” “blessed those who cursed him,” and “did good” to those who had “done him evil.” Carotta has also observed a number of other similarities between the man-gods Jesus Christ and Julius Caesar, just as Atwill has noted certain other parallels between Christ and the Emperor Titus.
As we can see from how liberally emperors swapped divine affiliations, the work of these two writers, Carotta and Atwill, is not necessarily irreconcilable.
Since the Flavians were the second imperial dynasty, they necessarily modeled their own cult on that of the Julians, their only precedent. They even represented themselves as new “Caesars,” whose very name they assumed for themselves while incorporating their archetype, or topos, into Flavian propaganda. (48)
Moderns will sometimes assume that the cults of Roman leaders represented something less than a serious religion. But, as Carotta usefully reminds us, Julius Caesar became a very real god to ordinary Romans after his death. Julius Caesar’s official deification by the Senate required the clearing of the makeshift altar that the people had already spontaneously erected to him so that his official temple could be built in its place.
A priesthood sanctioned by law in Caesar’s cult officiated over solemn ceremonies from one side of the Roman Empire to the other, as the maps Carotta provides illustrate. Lasting for more than a hundred years, Caesar’s religion was finally supplanted only by the cult of the Flavians, and, according to Carotta, by Christianity itself.
Roman priest, 2nd Century marble bust
Not every ruler deified by the Roman Senate enjoyed the same level of genuine devotion as Julius Caesar. But Augustus and, later, the first two Flavian emperors, appear to have been among those who did. They were all deified by the people.
Remains of the temple of Vespasian and Titus, Rome
As we have seen, far from being Christian antagonists, the gods who were venerated by Roman emperors on their coins symbolize what we would today recognize as Christian virtues.
Here is another coin, for example, struck in the year 44 BCE, the year of Julius Caesar’s assassination and deification. The coin celebrates Caesar’s forgiveness and “clementia”:
Julius Caesar and Mercy
Clementia herself was not depicted on Flavian coin issues. However, the related concept of fairness, equity or “justice”—divinely personified by “Aequitas”—was readily promoted to the whole world on Flavian coinage, as in this Titus issue:
Titus and Justice
Happiness, too, the joy that the Roman peace and prosperity brought the world, was celebrated on Flavian coins, as in this Vespasian issue of “Felicitas”:
Vespasian and Happiness
“Peace” was a major theme on Flavian coins as well, of course, both the “coming of peace” (Pacis Eventus), the cause of the new prosperity, and the fact that it had been brought about by the emperors of Rome (Pax Augusta), a theme celebrated in similar fashion since the days of Augustus himself. Here is Vespasian associated with Pax:
Vespasian and Peace
There in one coin we see celebrated both the end of the Roman civil war and the end of the Jewish War. Soon, the Goddess of Peace herself, and the new “Temple of Peace” erected in Rome and dedicated by Vespasian, were also advertised on Flavian coins.