He acquired military assistance from Tiberius Alexander in Egypt in order obtain the throne. In July of 69 AD, Egypt swore its allegiance to Vespasian. With the help of Egypt, Vespasian continued to fight Vitellius until December of the same year, when the senate declared him the emperor of Rome. .
When Vespasian had control of the empire, he made it known that he lived a life of modesty and simplicity. He would dress himself, and did many things on his own. His personal staff would eagerly wait for a request from him due to the little he required of them. Despite his modesty, he was greedy and money hungry, so he raised many taxes, and in some provinces he doubled their tribunes to Rome. With the massive tax revenue, Vespasian set out to fix infrastructure within the empire due to earthquakes, fires, and other natural disasters. One of the massive projects that he started was the Coliseum which still stands to this day. Another good thing he did was purify the senate and equestrian ranks. They were originally looked upon as bad and corrupted because of murders and havoc amongst them. He encouraged learning and the arts, and was very generous to latin and greek professors. Vespasian even bought the freedom of some slaves that were poets. All reigns come to end, and his ended with illness. He had started to feel sick on a journey to Campania, and when he returned to Rome, it was too late. Due to the lack of medicine he died and the throne was to be passed on to his adopted son Titus. .
Titus was born on December 30, 39 AD, and despite his short stature, and his fat stomach; Suetonius says that he was very strong and handsome. He was brought up with a Britannicus, who was one of the sons of Claudius, the Roman emperor. At first, no one believed he could be a possible emperor because he was out shined by Britannicus. Overtime Titus built a reputation for being very intelligent as he could write and speak fluently in Latin and Greek.