Word: vespasian
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...Josephus was sent to defend the region of Galilee. Though nearly all his troops deserted him, Josephus made a stubborn last stand in the cliff-perched city of Jotapata. The garrison held out for 47 blood-soaked days against a vastly superior Roman force commanded by Vespasian, the earthy, upright soldier who had earlier helped conquer Britain...
...When Vespasian finally took the citadel, Josephus went into hiding with 40 other Jews in a cave beneath the city. His companions were resolved to resist to the death, but Josephus, impressed in spite of himself by Roman might and discipline, wanted to surrender. To solve the impasse, Josephus proposed a kind of Jewish roulette: they would kill each other, one by one, by drawing lots; the survivor would then kill himself...
...modern world inevitably got around to attacking the most comforting, if not the most beautiful, of Parisian landmarks: the public urinals, known as vespasiann (after Emperor Vespasian. A.D. 9-79. who established a tax on such establishments, and when criticized for his source of revenue, replied: "Money has no smell."). In an earlier day. the vespasiennes were a mark of social progress for a neighborhood and a token of masculine democracy. They have also become a quaint sight for tourists and a source of endless jokes. Last week, as the Paris municipal council debated their continuance, the pissoirs...
...rock-strewn desert and struck shimmering heat waves from the flat, metallic surface of the Dead Sea. In a room of the community, the elders took council; they were sure that the men of darkness would soon be upon the Children of Light. Reports had come that Vespasian's legionaries, clanking up the road from Caesarea, were already at Jericho, less than seven miles to the north. Before they moved on Jerusalem, the Romans would surely fall upon the Community by the Dead Sea. Perhaps then, at last, the prophesied messiah would appear...
...stone blockhouses about 25 ft. square. Between them ran a road divided by stone markers into two 8-ft. chariot-ways. The road had been surfaced three times. Grimes estimated that the forts and road were built in A.D. 70-90, about the time of the Emperor Vespasian...