VERY different accounts are given of the origin of the Vitellian family. Some
					describe it as ancient and noble, others as recent and obscure, nay, extremely
					mean. I am inclined to think, that these several representations have been made
					by the flatterers and detractors of Vitellius, after he became emperor, unless
					the fortunes of the family varied before. There is extant a memoir addressed by
					Quintus Eulogius to Quintus Vitellius, quzestor to the Divine Augustus, in which
					it is said, that the Vitellii were descended from Faunus, king of the aborigines, and Vitellia, Faunus was supposed
						to be the third king who reigned over the original inhabitants of the
						central parts of Italy , Saturn being the first. Virgil makes his wife's name Marica : Hunc Fauna, et nympha genitum Laurente Marica
								Accipimus. Aen. vii. 47. Her name may have been changed after her deification; but we have no
						other accounts than those preserved by Suetonius, of several of the
						traditions handed down from the fabulous ages respecting the Vitellian
						family. who was worshipped in many places as a goddess, and that
					they reigned formerly over the whole of Latium : that all who were left of the family removed out of the
					country of the Sabines to Rome , and
					were enrolled among the patricians: that some monuments of the family continued
					a long time; as the Vitellian Way, reaching from the Janiculum to the sea, and
					likewise a colony of that name, which, at a very remote period of time, they
					desired leave from the government to defend against the Aequicolae, The Aequicola were probably a tribe inhabiting the heights
						in the neighbourhood of Rome .
						Virgil describes them, Aen. vii. 746. with a force raised by their
					own family only: also that, in the time of the war with the Samnites, some of
					the Vitellii who went with the troops levied for the security of Apulia , settled at Nuceria, Nuceria, now Nocera, is a town near Mantua ; but Livy, in treating of the
						war with the Samnites, always speaks of Luceria, which Strabo calls a town
						in Apulia . and their
					descendants, a long time afterwards, returned again to Rome , and were admitted into the patrician
					order. On the other hand, the generality of writers say that the founder of the
					family was a freedman. Cassius Severus Cassius Severus is
						mentioned before, in AUGUSTUS, c. lvi.; CALIGULA, c. xvi., c. and
					some others relate that he was likewise a cobbler, whose son having made a
					considerable fortune by agencies and dealings in confiscated property, begot, by
					a common strumpet, daughter of one Antiochus, a baker, a child, who afterwards
					became a Roman knight. Of these different accounts the reader is left to take
					his choice. It is certain, however, that Publius Vitellius, of Nuceria, whether of an ancient
					family, or of low extraction, was a Roman knight, and a procurator to Augustus.
					He left behind him four sons, all men of very high station, who had the same
					cognomen, but the different praenomina of Aulus, Quintus. Publius, and
						 Lucius . Aulus died in the enjoyment
					of the consulship, A. U. C. 785. which office he
					bore jointly with Domitius, the father of Nero Caesar. He was elegant to excess
					in his manner of living, and notorious for the vast expense of his
					entertainments. Quintus was deprived of his rank of senator, when, upon a motion
					made by Tiberius, a resolution passed to purge the senate of those who were in
					any respect not duly qualified for that honour. Publius, an intimate friend and
					companion of Germanicus, prosecuted his enemy and murderer, Cneius Piso, and
					procured sentence against him. After he had been made praetor, being arrested
					among the accomplices of Sejanus, and delivered into the hands of his brother to
					be confined in his house, he opened a vein with a penknife, intending to bleed
					himself to death. He suffered, however, the wound to be bound up and cured, not
					so much from repenting the resolution he had formed, as to comply with the
					importunity of his relations. He died afterwards a natural death during his
					confinement. Lucius, after his consulship, A.U.C.
						787 was made governor of Syria , He is frequently commended by
						Josephus for his kindness to the Jews. See, particularly, Antiq. VI. xviii.
					 and by his politic management not only brought Artabanus, king of the
					Parthians, to give him an interview, but to worship the standards of the Roman
					legions. He afterwards filled two ordinary consulships, A.U.C. 796, 800 and also the censorship A.U.C.
						801 jointly with the emperor Claudius. Whilst that prince was absent
					upon his expedition into Britain , A.U.C. 797. See Claudius, c. xvii. the care of the
					empire was committed to him, being a man of great integrity and industry. But he
					lessened his character not a little, by his passionate fondness for an abandoned
					freedwoman, with whose spittle, mixed with honey, he used to anoint his throat
					and jaws, by way of remedy for some complaint, not privately nor seldom, but
					daily and publicly. Being extravagantly prone to flattery, it was he who gave
					rise to the worship of Caius Caesar as a god, when, upon his return from
						 Syria , he would not presume to
					accost him otherwise than with his head covered, turning himself round, and then
					prostrating himself upon the earth. And to leave no artifice untried to secure
					the favour of Claudius, who was entirely governed by his wives and freedmen, he
					requested as the greatest favour from Messalina, that she would be pleased to
					let him take off her shoes; which, when he had done, he took her right shoe, and
					wore it constantly betwixt his toga and his tunic, and from time to time covered
					it with kisses. He likewise worshipped golden images of Narcissus and Pallas
					among his household gods. It was he, too, who, when Claudius exhibited the
					secular games, in his compliments to him upon that occasion, used this
					expression, "May you often do the same." He died of palsy, the day after his seizure with it, leaving behind him two sons,
					whom he had by a most excellent and respectable wife, Sextilia. He had lived to
					see them both consuls, the same year and during the whole year also; the younger
					succeeding the elder for the last six months. A.U.C.
						801 The senate honoured him after his decease with a funeral at the
					public expense and with a statue in the Rostra, which had this inscription upon
					the base: "One who was stedfast in his loyalty to his prince." The emperor Aulus
					Vitellius, the son of this Lucius, was born upon the eighth of the calends of
					October [24th September], or, as some say, upon the seventh of the ides of
					September [7th September], in the consulship of Drusus Caesar and Norbanus
						Flaccus. A. U. C. 767; being the year after the death
						of the emperor Augustus; from whence it appears that Vitellius was seventeen
						years older than Otho. His parents were so terrified with the
					predictions of astrologers upon the calculation of his nativity, that his father
					used his utmost endeavours to prevent his being sent governor into any of the
					provinces, whilst he was alive. His mother, upon his being sent to the
						legions He was sent to Germany by Galba. and also upon his being proclaimed
					emperor, immediately lamented him as utterly ruined. He spent his youth with
					Tiberius at Capri , in all manner of
					debauchery, which course of life he never altered. In the subsequent part of his life, being still more scandalously vicious, he
					rose to great favour at court; being upon a very intimate footing with Caius
					[Caligula], because of his fondness for chariot-driving, and with Claudius for
					his love of gaming. But he was in a still higher degree acceptable to Nero, as
					well on the same accounts, as for other services which he rendered him. When
					Nero presided in the games instituted by himself, though he was extremely
					desirous to perform amongst the harpers, yet his modesty would not permit him,
					notwithstanding the people entreated much for it. Upon his quitting the theatre,
					Vitellius fetched him back again, pretending to represent the determined wishes
					of the people, and so afforded him the opportunity of yielding to their
					entreaties. By the favour of these three princes, he was not only advanced to the great
					offices of the state, but to the highest dignities of the sacred order; after
					which he held the proconsulship of Africa , and had the superintendence of the public works, in
					which appointment his conduct, and, consequently, his reputation, were very
					different. For he governed the province with singular integrity during two
					years, in the latter of which he acted as deputy to his brother, who succeeded
					him. But in his office in the city, he was said to pillage the temples of their
					gifts and ornaments, and to have exchanged brass and tin for gold and silver.
						 Julius Casar, also, was said to have exchanged brass
						for gold in the Capitol, JULIUS , c.
						liv. The tin which we here find in use at Rome , was probably brought from the Cassiterides, now the
							 Scilly islands, whence it had
						been an article of commerce by the Phoenicians and Carthaginians from a very
						early period.