Editing Vitellius (section)

== Portrayals ==
=== In coinage ===
[[File:Vitellius, denarius, 69, RIC I 112.jpg|thumb|Denarius of Vitellius, with the goddess Victory erecting a trophy on the reverse, alluding to the incoming confrontation with Vespasian.{{sfn|Mattingly|Sydenham|Sutherland|1984|pp=267, 273}}]]As Vitellius was not recognised emperor by the Senate until 19 April 69—soon after Otho's suicide—he had to rely on other mints for his coin supply until his arrival at Rome. He first used the Spanish mint of [[Tarraco]] (now [[Tarragona]]) from January 69, then the mint of [[Lugdunum]] (now [[Lyon]], France) a bit later. Taracco produced much more coins than Lugdunum, which might have not even struck bronze coinage. These two mints closed at the beginning of summer 69, by which time the mint of Rome had taken over.{{sfn|Mattingly|Sydenham|Sutherland|1984|pp=262–271}}

Every coin of Vitellius features the title "Germanicus", referring to the legions of the Rhine that supported his bid for power. Regardless of the mint, this title was progressively shortened to "Germ" on the coins. Numismatist [[C. H. V. Sutherland]] notes that the prevalence of the title indicates that Vitellius used it almost like a [[cognomen]]. The coins Vitellius minted before his official proclamation as Emperor on 19 April do not bear the title "Augustus", while the title "Pontifex Maximus" appears on coins minted after his election at this title on 18 July.{{sfn|Mattingly|Sydenham|Sutherland|1984|pp=264, 267}}

The last type of coin minted by Vitellius were [[Aureus|aurei]] and [[Denarius|denarii]] with the goddess [[Victoria (mythology)|Victory]] building a trophy, likely alluding to his hopeful victory against the incoming armies of Vespasian.{{sfn|Mattingly|Sydenham|Sutherland|1984|pp=267, 273}}

===In art===
Busts from the time of Vitellius, particularly the one in the [[Capitoline Museums]],<ref>[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Aulus_Vitellius_(MRABASF_Matritum)_01.jpg Wikimedia Commons]</ref> represent him as broad-faced with several double chins, and it is this type which informs paintings of the emperor from the Renaissance on. There were once other ancient busts claimed to be of Vitellius which later scholarship has proved to be of someone else. The features of the Grimani Vitellius particularly, according to [[Mary Beard (classicist)|Mary Beard]], were once used by painters to suggest that the character who bears them is destined to come to a bleak end.<ref>Sandra Alvarez, [https://www.karwansaraypublishers.com/ahblog/emperor-spotting-mary-beard "Emperor Spotting" with Mary Beard"], ''Ancient History Magazine'', 2 November 2017</ref> Another such bust figures in [[Michiel Sweerts]]' [[Baroque]] genre piece of a young art student drawing a copy.<ref>[https://www.pubhist.com/w40654 "Boy Drawing before the Bust of a Roman Emperor"], Minneapolis Institute of Arts</ref>

The Grimani portrait bust also served as the model for one by Giovanni Battista and Nicola Bonanome (ca.1565), one of a series of [[The Twelve Caesars]] that were once fashionable in large households.<ref>[https://www.museodelprado.es/en/the-collection/art-work/the-emperor-vitellius/d46d2cda-4162-4b02-b057-0c3df747b1a0 Prado Museum]</ref> The series was also a popular subject for paintings, of which there have been examples by [[Titian]],<ref>Now destroyed but known from [https://pixels.com/featured/aullus-vitellius-emperor-of-rome-titian.html the engraving by Aegidius Sadeler]</ref> [[Peter Paul Rubens]],<ref>[https://rubenshuis.be/en/page/peter-paul-rubens-10 Rubens at Home]</ref> [[Otto van Veen]],<ref>[https://www.mutualart.com/Artwork/Portrait-of-the-Roman-emperor-Aulus-Vite/F3354F1C3D6099B8 Mutual Art]</ref> and many others.

Several 19th-century French artists pictured the violent end of Vitellius. That by [[Georges Rochegrosse]] (1883) depicts him being dragged by the populace down the steep [[Gemonian stairs]],  stretching from high on the canvas to its foot [see above]. There he appears bound and surrounded by a gesticulating mob with hooting ragamuffins at their head. The stairs are covered with the rubbish with which the deposed emperor has been pelted and, as Suetonius describes the scene, a long blade is held at his throat so that he cannot look down.<ref>Suetonius, "Vitellius", 17</ref> Others paintings show the moment of his execution, of which there are examples by {{ill|Charles-Gustave Housez|fr|Charles-Gustave Housez}},<ref>[https://www.artrenewal.org/artists/charles-gustave-housez/1401 Art Renewal Centre]</ref> [[Paul-Jacques-Aimé Baudry]] (1847),<ref>[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Paul_Baudry_la_mort_de_Vitellius.jpg Wikimedia Commons]</ref> [[Jules-Eugène Lenepveu]] (1847),<ref>[https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lenepveu_La_mort_de_Vitellius.JPG Wikimedia Commons]</ref> and an engraving by Edouard Vimont (1876–1930).<ref>[https://www.flickr.com/photos/triumphsandlaments/8638365072 Flickr]</ref>

Much as the appearance of Vitellius prefigured approaching doom in earlier centuries, [[Thomas Couture]] pictures him in shadow to the left of centre in the painting ''[[The Romans in their Decadence]]'' (1847). This was shown prophetically at the [[Paris Salon]] in the year before the [[French Revolution of 1848]] toppled the [[July Monarchy]].

===In literature===
[[File:THOMAS COUTURE - Los Romanos de la Decadencia (Museo de Orsay, 1847. Óleo sobre lienzo, 472 x 772 cm).jpg|thumb|upright=1.5|''[[The Romans in their Decadence]]'' by [[Thomas Couture]]|left]]
The earliest fictional appearance of a Vitellius was of the Roman Consul in Syria, Lucius Vitellius (the father of Aulus), who intervened in Judaean affairs in the time of [[Pontius Pilate]].<ref>[https://www.livius.org/articles/person/vitellius-lucius/ "Lucius Vitellius"], Livius,org</ref> It is he who figures in [[Gustave Flaubert]]'s novella [[Three Tales (Flaubert)#Hérodias|''Hérodias'']] (1877) and in ''Hérodiade'', the 1881 opera based on it by [[Jules Massenet]].<ref>[http://www.operascotland.org/opera/139/H%C3%A9rodiade Opera Scotland]</ref> The same character also makes an appearance in the 1930 novel by Iwan Naschiwin (1874–1940), ''A Certain Jesus: the Gospel According to Thomas : an Historical Novel of the First Century''.<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=8IZKEFWL_UAC&q=novel+Vitellius Google Books]</ref>

The son of Lucius, Aulus Vitellius, played a minor part in [[Henryk Sienkiewicz]]'s novel [[Quo Vadis (novel)|''Quo Vadis'']], set at the end of [[Nero]]'s reign. Although he survived as a character in the 1900 Broadway production,<ref>[https://www.broadwayworld.com/people/character/Vitellius-315973/ Broadway World]</ref> and in the Italian films based on it of [[Quo Vadis (1913 film)|1913]] and [[Quo Vadis (1924 film)|1924]], he disappeared from later adaptations. But some later novels deal with incidents in the military career of this Vitellius. In [[Simon Scarrow]]'s [[Eagles of the Empire]] series, he is introduced as a rival to Vespasian during the [[Roman invasion of Britain]]. And in later chapters of Henry Venmore-Rowland's novel ''The Last Caesar'' (2012) he figures as the newly appointed Governor of [[Germania Inferior|Lower Germania]] and something of a [[Gluttony|glutton]].<ref>{{cite book|author= Venmore-Rowland, Henry |title= The Last Caesar |url= https://books.google.com/books?id=WPKRqqKHxDYC&q=Vitellius |url-access= registration |publisher= Bantam Press (an imprint of Transworld Publishers) |date= 2012|isbn= 9780593068519 }}</ref>

Naturally Vitellius is a character in the rash of recent novels dealing with the [[Year of the Four Emperors]]. He is in the background in [[Kate Quinn]]'s novel ''Daughters of Rome'' (2011),<ref>{{cite book|title=Daughters of Rome|date=2011|publisher= [[Headline Review]]|author=Quinn, Kate}}</ref> and shares a section of [[Steven Saylor]]'s ''Empire: The Novel of Imperial Rome'' (2010).<ref>[https://books.google.com/books?id=xcOeBAAAQBAJ&dq=Steven+Saylor++Empire++%22Vitellius%22&pg=PT280 Google Books]</ref> His fall features in [[M C Scott]]'s ''Rome, The Art of War'' (2013),<ref>[https://read.amazon.co.uk/?kcrFree=only&asin=B009A94MN8 "Foreword" to the novel]</ref> and he also appears in [[James Mace]]'s two-part series, ''The Year of the Four Emperors''.<ref>[https://www.fantasticfiction.com/m/james-mace/soldier-of-rome-reign-of-the-tyrants.htm Fantastic Fiction]</ref>
===Bust portraits===
Several busts have been thought to depict Vitellius, but these identifications are usually based on vague resemblances with coin portraits. In reality it's almost impossible to identify most busts with any particular emperor, specially with one as short-lived as Vitellius.
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File:Tunis Bardo Buste 8.jpg|Head labelled as Vitellius in the [[Bardo National Museum, Tunisia]]. The identification has been generally accepted.<ref name="Rodriguez">{{Cite journal |title = Un busto en bronce del "Pseudo-Vitelio" de la antigua colección de El Retiro de Churriana (Málaga) |last= Rodríguez Oliva|first= P.|date = 2013 |journal = BAETICA. Estudios de Historia Moderna y Contemporánea |volume =35|issue= 35|pages = 194 |url=https://revistas.uma.es/index.php/baetica/article/view/63|language=es|doi=10.24310/BAETICA.2013.v0i35.63|hdl= 10630/7812|s2cid= 187481480|doi-access= free|hdl-access= free}}</ref><ref name="Studia Varia">{{cite book | last = Frel| first = Jiří |author-link=Jiří Frel| title = Studia Varia|publisher= L'Erma di Bretschneider| date = 1994| url=https://books.google.com/books?id=G0kdxuJ4ypoC&pg=PA125 | page= 125 | isbn = 9788870628142}}</ref><ref name="Getty">{{cite book | editor-last = Frel| editor-first = Jiří |author-link=Jiří Frel | last = Polloni| first = John | title = The J. Paul Getty Museum Journal|volume=5| publisher = Getty Publications| date=1994 | page= 66| isbn = 9780892360116 |chapter=A Flavian relief portrait in the J. Paul Getty Museum| chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=KG0mAgAAQBAJ&pg=PA66}}</ref>
File:Vitellius, AD 69, from Rome, Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, Copenhagen (13263427793).jpg|Damaged head of Vitellius in the [[Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek]], [[Denmark]]. The damage is the result of ''[[damnatio memoriae]]''.<ref>{{cite journal|last=Varner|first=Eric R.|title=Mutilation and transformation: damnatio memoriae and Roman imperial portraiture|journal=Monumenta Graeca et Romana|volume=10|year=2004|page=109|url=https://books.google.com/books?id=5IpPhTqnDJkC&pg=PA109|publisher=Brill|isbn=9789004135772}}</ref><ref name="Rodriguez"/><ref name="Studia Varia"/><ref name="Getty"/>
File:Pseudo-Vitellius Louvre MR684.jpg|The "Pseudo-Vitellius", once thought to depict the emperor, [[Louvre]].<ref name="Rodriguez"/>
File:Venice MAN 20 Roman portrait of a man (cd. Vitellius).jpg|The "Vitellius of Grimani", once thought to depict the emperor. [[Venice National Archaeological Museum]]<ref>[https://ancientrome.ru/art/artworken/img.htm?id=3438 Male bust — so-called “Vitellius of Grimani”] ''Ancientrome''.</ref>
File:Vitellius en toge (Louvre, Ma 1260).jpg|Statue in the [[Louvre]] labelled as Vitellius.<ref>[https://collections.louvre.fr/en/ark:/53355/cl010275410 Vitellius]. ''Louvre''</ref>
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