aedile

Vespasian fixed streets as aedile but failed to keep them clean, which so infuriated Caligula that he ordered soldiers “to load him with mud,” Suetonius writes, “stuffing into the fold of his senatorial gown as much as it could hold.”

Under imperial law, this was the responsibility of an elected magistrate known as an aedile—the most powerful of whom was Agrippa, who later built the Pantheon.

Aulus Vettius Firmus writes up his election address and appeals to the pilicrepi or ball-players for their votes for him as aedile.

In 199 he was quaestor, and the next year, passing over the regular stages of aedile and praetor, he obtained the consulship.

Fourteen years later, when curule aedile, he distributed large quantities of grain among the citizens at a very low price.