Vespasian and the Flavian Dynasty

About this Course

About the Course

In this course Dr Matthew Nicholls (University of Oxford) explores the reign of Vespasian and his sons, Titus and Domitian. After a brief introductory lecture, we begin by thinking about the use of image-making and propaganda by Galba, Otho, Vitellius and Vespasian in the Year of the Four Emperors. After that, in the third lecture, we think about the nature of Flavian rule – how similar or different was it from what had gone before? – before turning in the fourth lecture to consider the reigns of Vespasian’s sons, Titus and Domitian. In the final three lectures, we turn to Flavian architecture, looking first as the Colosseum, then at the Templum Pacis (or Forum of Vespasian), and then to the building works undertaken during the reigns of Vespasian’s son, Titus and Domitian, including the Forum Transitorium and the Arch of Domitian.

About the Lecturer

Matthew Nicholls is a visiting professor of classics at the University of Reading and Senior Tutor at St John's College, Oxford, specialising in the political and social history of the Romans, and the way the built environments of Rome and cities around the empire expressed their values and priorities. In 2014, Matthew was presented with a Guardian Teaching Award for his 'Virtual Rome' project, a digital model of the city of Rome, showing the city as it appeared in c. AD 315.