Meggie Macdonald

Archaeologists working near Cittareale have conclusively discovered the small village of Falacrinae after four years of digging, and a massive villa nearby has been identified as the summer residence of the Roman Emperor Vespasian.  Although the report itself is full of typing errors, the details suggest the villa is exquisite and an appropriate home for the first Flavian emperor.

15,000 square meters in size, its main hall is complete with a luxurious marble floor quarried in North Africa and includes two other rooms with excellent mosaics.

Vespasian, who came to power with the support of the legions in the East in 69 CE, concluding the bloody upheaval of the Year of the Four Emperors, was known for his stingy financial policies and his minimalist living style.  His financial strategy can be linked to the incredible spending of the Emperor Nero that nearly bankrupted Rome and left the coffers empty.  Vespasian himself cultivated the image of the simple man, being the first Roman emperor who was not from a patrician family, and much preferred his provincial home to his house on the Palatine (that his son, the third Flavian emperor, expanded into a much more ostentatious palatial residence).

Vespasian’s villa at Falacrinae was the family home, the place where he himself was born, and may also be the place where he died in 79 CE uttering the famous line from Suetonius:  “Oh dear, I think I’m becoming a god”, a joke on the Roman Senate’s readiness to deify recently deceased emperors.  Vespasian was indeed deified on his death, having left the Roman Empire stable in its finances and its borders, and generally being recognized as an excellent ruler after decades of sordid, selfish, and unpredictable Julio-Claudians.