¹ On Vitellius and his reign, see especially Murison, C., Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. Careers and Controversies (Hildesheim, 1993)Google Scholar; Richter, B., Vitellius. Ein Zerrbild der Geschichtsschreibung: Untersuchungen zum Prinzipat des A. Vitellius (Bern, 1992)Google Scholar; Morgan, G., 69 AD. The Year of Four Emperors (New York, 2007)Google Scholar; and Keitel, E., ‘“Foedum Spectaculum” and Related Motifs in Tacitus “Histories II–III”’, RhM 135 (1992), 342–51Google Scholar, and ‘Feast Your Eyes on This: Vitellius as a Stock Tyrant (Tac. Hist. 3.36–39)’, in J. Marincola (ed.), A Companion to Greek and Roman Historiography (Hoboken, NJ, 2007), 441–6. All translations, unless otherwise noted, are my own.

² The most thorough examination of negative accounts of Vitellius’ appetites is Richter (n. 1), especially pp. 232–56.

³ Ancient accounts are in Suet. Vit. 13, Dio 65.3.3, and Plin. HN 35.163–4; these are discussed further below. According to Déry, C., ‘The Art of Apicius’, in Walker, H. (ed.), Cooks and Other People (Totnes, 1996), 112Google Scholar, it was a ‘gastronomic monstrosity of a dish’. Barton, C., The Sorrows of the Ancient Romans (Princeton, NJ, 1992), 53Google Scholar, uses the dish as an example of the Roman ‘taste for surrealistic comestibles’. Grocock, C. and Grainger, S., Apicius. A Critical Edition, second edition (Totnes, 2020), 357Google Scholar, express the opinion that ‘a mixture such as this seems entirely unappealing to us and we suspect it was equally so to the guests who had to eat it’.

⁴ On Suetonius’ sources, see A. Wallace-Hadrill, Suetonius: The Scholar and His Caesars (London, 1983), 59–66; D. Shotter, Suetonius, Lives of Galba, Otho & Vitellius (Warminster, 1993), 32–5, has a useful summary pertinent to the Vitellius.

⁵ B. Baldwin, Suetonius (Amsterdam, 1983), 285, notes that the biographer's father, Suetonius Laetus, had been a supporter of Otho and had survived Bedriacum. The tenor of the son's note on Vitellius’ consumption of wine at such a moment – and indeed the tone of his account as a whole – may be hostile at least in part because of his father's influence.

⁶ Tacitus (Hist. 3.84), however, does not specify who, aside from his litter-bearers, accompanied Vitellius.

⁷ I am following Kaster's 2016 OCT text of Suetonius.

⁸ I have preserved this ambiguity in my translation of Dio's λοπάς. Similarly, a casserole may refer to a deep cooking vessel or the dish typically prepared within it. The term λοπάς is not a simple rendering of patina: it describes a dish that is similar, though perhaps with higher sides. See A. Donnelly, ‘Cooking, Cooking Pots, and Cultural Transformation in Imperial and Late Antique Italy’, PhD thesis, Loyola University (Chicago, 2016), 70–4.

⁹ Apicius 4.2.1–16, 20–4, and 26–37; these recipes contain such ingredients as brains, fig-peckers, roses, fish, sea-anemones, sea-urchins, chicken, udders, and oysters. My italicisation of Apicius, which follows Grocock and Grainger (n. 3), reflects the uncertainty of the attribution of the entire collection transmitted under that name to one historical individual.

¹⁰ On this list, see most recently I. Goh, ‘Peacocks, Pikes, and Parasites: Lucilius and the Discourse of Luxury’, in B. Breed, E. Keitel, and R. Wallace (eds.), Lucilius and Satire in Second-Century Rome (Cambridge, 2018), 258. A. Andrews, ‘Greek and Latin Mouse-Fishes and Pig-Fishes’, TAPA 79 (1948), 233–6, points out that mus marinus is used for variously mussels, turtles, and a type of fish.

¹¹ On cranes as food, see J. Witteveen, ‘On Swans, Cranes, and Herons: Part 2, Cranes’, Petits propos culinaires 25 (1987), 50–9, esp. p. 52, who suggests that the legs might be especially prized.

¹² That the fish is still living when brought to the table suggests that Eumolpus is thinking of the mullet, though the Latin scarus is usually the parrotfish. On the mullet, a prized fish, see A. Andrews, ‘The Roman Craze for Surmullets’, CW 42 (1949), 186–8, and J. Higginbotham, Piscinae. Artificial Fishponds in Roman Italy (Chapel Hill, NC, 1997), 48–50. Seneca (NQ 3.18.5–7) mocks diners who want to see the colours of mullets change as they expire.

¹³ In an oft-cited list (SHA Heliogab. 18–21), Elagabalus is described as consuming camels’ heels, cocks-combs, and tongues from peacocks and nightingales; to his Palatine guards, he served mullet offal, flamingo brains, partridge eggs, thrush brains, and the heads of parrots, pheasants, and peacocks. This passage is a pastiche of passages in Suetonius’ earlier biographies: much of Vitellius’ feasting is repeated and redoubled, now with many more ingredients and multiple huge vessels (lances ingentes), and Elagabalus’ dining room has a revolving ceiling, just like Nero's (Suet. Nero 31.2). Even as pastiche, this list confirms that to serve an excess of offal derived from fish and fowl reflects a lack of self-control and is cause for censure.

¹⁴ Identification of this shellfish is difficult, thanks to the allusiveness of the name and the imprecision of non-scientific nomenclature for seafoods. For suggestions, see M. Jones, ‘Folklore Motifs in Late Medieval Art III: Erotic Animal Imagery’, Folklore 102 (1991), 202. Seneca may have little interest in precision, preferring instead to get mileage out of a culinary term that has erotic implications and, therefore, also morally dubious connotations.

¹⁵ On this and the ingredients that follow, A. Dalby, Food in the Ancient World, From A to Z (London, 2003) is essential.

¹⁶ J. Wilkins and S. Hill, Life of Luxury. Europe's Oldest Cookery Book (Totnes, 1994), 49, identify the fish as Euscarus cretensis, the parrotfish, which is today generally known as Sparisoma cretense. On ancient accounts of the parrotfish, see Higginbotham (n. 12), 51–2.

¹⁷ According to Dalby (n. 15), 362, Martial's assertion may reflect a decline in popularity for the parrotfish.

¹⁸ On the taste, appearance, and general history of the parrotfish, especially the Red Sea parrotfish, see G. Gambash, G. Bar-Oz, E. Lev, and U. Jeremias, ‘Bygone Fish: Rediscovering the Red-Sea Parrotfish as a Delicacy of Byzantine Negev Cuisine’, Near Eastern Archaeology 82 (2019), 216–25.

¹⁹ Archestratus describes parrotfish from the waters around Chalcedon and Byzantium (fr. 13; Athenaeus 320b) and Ephesus (fr. 41). Macrobius 3.16.10 also refers to farming around Italy.

²⁰ According to C. Hargreaves, ‘Fish Delicacies: From Cheeks and Tongues to Livers, Roes, Skeletons, Skin, and Scales’, The Independent (newspaper) 15 September (London, 2015), ‘The king of fish livers is that of red mullet, traditionally cooked inside the creature, as with woodcock. Bristol fishmonger Matthew Smith describes eating red mullet liver as a “mini taste explosion” and says that he always has a waiting list of customers wanting red mullet complete with livers’. Esteem for red mullet liver is also reported by Galen, Alim. Fac. 717.

²¹ Petr. Sat. 93; Mart. 13.45, 13.72; Plin. HN 10.132, 19.52.

²² According to I. Köster, ‘Flamingos and Perverted Sacrifices in Suetonius’ Life of Caligula’, Mnemosyne 74.2 (2021), 308, pheasant was perhaps still imported when Varro wrote (Varr. R.R. 3.9.18), but was farmed in Italy by the latter part of the first century (Mart. 3.58 and Plin. HN 10.132).

²³ According to Mrs. Beeton's Book of Household Management, no. 1041, ‘If the head is left on…bring it round under the wing, and fix it on to the point of the skewer’.

²⁴ On the farming of peacock, see Varro DRR 3.6–7 and Köster (n. 22), 308–9. Peacock rissoles appear in Apicius 2.2.6. Pliny (HN 10.133) claims that Apicius had a recipe for peacock tongue, though it is not included in Apicius.

²⁵ Apicius 4.2.1, 4, 9, 21, and 33 contain brains.

²⁶ A. Bergo, ‘How to Cook a Peacock’, Forager Chef (blog) <https://foragerchef.com/cooking-a-peacock/>, accessed 18 November 2022.

²⁷ V. Grimm, ‘On Food and the Body’, in D. Potter (ed.), A Companion to the Roman Empire (Hoboken, NJ, 2006), 359.

²⁸ J. Witteveen, ‘Peacocks in History’, Petits propos culinaires 32 (1989), 31–2.

²⁹ On the role of the peacock in these poems, see Goh (n. 10). D. Scully and T. Scully, Early French Cookery (Ann Arbor, MI, 1995), 321–3, and D. Sutton, ‘“Four and Twenty Blackbirds Baked in a Pie”: A History of Surprise Stuffings’, in M. McWilliams (ed.), Wrapped and Stuffed Foods (Totnes, 2013), 285–6 and 291, describe medieval entremets, in which peacocks were skinned (unplucked) and roasted, then served inside their plumage. G. Lehmann, ‘The Late-Medieval Menu in England: A Reappraisal’, Food and History 1 (2003), 71, dates this style of entremet to the fifteenth century. In 1971, the Iranian Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi hosted a banquet to celebrate 2,500 years of the Persian Empire. The French dish Paon à l'impériale paré et entouré de sa cour was on the menu: imperial peacock prepared and surrounded by its court, i.e. quails; yet only the quail are consumed, while the peacock remains uncooked. On the banquet, see R. Steele, The Shah's Imperial Celebrations of 1971 (London, 2020).

³⁰ There are recipes in Apicius for flamingo meat (6.2.21 and 22), but not the tongue.

³¹ Galen, Alim. Fac. 6.

³² G. McCall, Letters from the Frontiers (Philadelphia, PA, 1868), 172–3.

³³ Köster (n. 22), 309, n. 44.

³⁴ The phrase ‘surfeit of lampreys’ derives from Robert Fabyan's New Cronycles of Englande and of Fraunce (1516) I. ccxxix. f. cli: ‘But Ranulph sayth, he toke a surfet by etynge of a Lamprey & therof dyed’. Henry of Huntingdon vii.43 is the fullest account; a text and translation are in D. Greenway, The History of the English People, 1000–1154 (Oxford, 1996), 490–1.

³⁵ Dalby (n. 15), 192, points out that murena, though often translated as lamprey, may sometimes be the moray eel. Suetonius, however, is most likely referring to the lamprey. Aristotle (Gen. an. 762b21) and Pliny (HN 9.160) claimed that eels reproduced asexually, presumably since no one had been unable to observe their genitalia or to see them mate: eels’ sexual organs develop only in their final metamorphic stage, as they swim out to sea to mate, and are thus seldom seen. Unless Suetonius is claiming that Vitellius somehow served eel milt, murena should here be translated as lamprey. Indeed, Pliny uses murena for the lamprey at HN 9.76–7, but anguilla for the eel at 9.74–5 and 160.

³⁶ Though lamprey milt (or indeed any part of it) is rarely consumed today, the milt of cod, tuna, and carp is routinely eaten: Japanese shirako is cod milt, Sicilian lattume derives from tuna sperm, and Romanian lapți comes from freshwater fish, such as carp. A description of lamprey milt (and the rest of the creature) is available in E. Lowie, ‘The Sea Lamprey Society Gathered to Eat the Most Gruesome Animal in History’, Vice Magazine (online, 19 August 2017), available at <https://www.vice.com/en_us/article/8qkve3/the-sea-lamprey-society-gathered-to-eat-the-most-gruesome-animal-in-history>, accessed 18 November 2022.

³⁷ G. Kearn, Leeches, Lice, and Lampreys (Dordrecht, 2004), 318–38, discusses the life stages and habits of the various types of lamprey. C. Murison, ‘Some Vitellian Dates: An Exercise in Methodology’, TAPA 109 (1979), 197, argues that Vitellius arrived at Rome sometime from the end of June.

³⁸ Petronius’ Eumolpus claims (Sat. 93.2.8) that parrotfish had supplanted mullet among fashionable eaters, but even if true, it is unclear whether this was a motivation for Vitellius.

³⁹ M. Corbier, ‘The Ambiguous Status of Meat in Ancient Rome’, Food and Foodways 3 (1989), 234–7.

⁴⁰ G. Sumner, Roman Military Clothing. Vol. 1, 100 BC–AD 200 (Oxford, 2002), 17–36, who surveys literary evidence, visual evidence (such as mosaics), and the few extant examples of ancient textiles.

⁴¹ On that story, which is also recounted in Dio 59.25, see most recently D. Woods, ‘Caligula's Seashells’, G&R 47 (2000), 80–7. Richter (n. 1), 247, interprets the reference to Parthia differently, arguing that the use of military resources to secure foodstuffs from the Parthian Straits is a way to misrepresent (‘vernebeln’) the goals of Vitellius’ planned Parthian campaign.

⁴² The notion of the ingredients (and vessel) as standing for the empire is emphasized by E. Gowers, The Loaded Table. Representations of Food in Roman Literature (Oxford, 1993), 20, 36, and 207.

⁴³ On Vitellius as proconsul of Africa, see Suet. Vit. 5; on support from Syria and Judaea, see Tac. Hist. 2.73.

⁴⁴ I am grateful to Kate Stevens for this observation.

⁴⁵ Pliny (HN 15.83) tells us that Lucius Vitellius was the first to cultivate the Syrian Cottan and Carian figs at his Alban estates; he also (HN 15.91) introduced pistachios to Italy, while a subordinate, Flaccus Pompeius, brought them to Spain. Lucius Vitellius and Pompeius were perhaps acting in concert, aiming to discover whether pistachios would be better suited to Vitellius’ Alba or Pompeius’ Tarragona. Lucius’ brother, Aulus Vitellius, earned praise from Suetonius (Vit. 2) for his culinary interests and sophistication: he was ‘supremely elegant and celebrated for the distinction of his dinners’. The emperor's brother, Lucius, hosted an enormous arrival banquet (cena adventicia) to celebrate his brother's arrival at Rome as emperor in 69 ce, serving two thousand of the choicest fish and seven thousand birds (Vit. 13). The Vitellii seem to have been gastronomic enthusiasts.

⁴⁶ On Roman taste and its changes over time, see especially C. Feldman, ‘Roman Taste’, Food, Culture & Society 8 (2005), 13–18, and C. Feldman and P. Jones, ‘Simplicity and Performance in Roman Agrarian Foods’, in H. Meiselman (ed.), Handbook of Eating and Drinking. Interdisciplinary Perspectives (Cham, 2020), 93–109.

⁴⁷ At Vit. 1–2, Suetonius professes neutrality on the contested longevity of the family's elite status. On Suetonius and the family origins of Vitellius, see P. Garrett, ‘Sit in medio: Family and Status in Suetonius’ Vitellius’, Acta Classica 61 (2018), 53–68.

⁴⁸ On this shift, see for example K. Albala, The Banquet. Dining in the Great Courts of Late Renaissance Europe (Urbana, IL, 2007), viii–ix, and A. Guerrini, ‘A Natural History of the Kitchen’, Osiris 35 (2020), 20–41.

⁴⁹ For a recent review of trends in meat and fish consumption in the United States, for example, see C. Daniel, A. Cross, C. Koebnick, and R. Sinha, ‘Trends in Meat Consumption in the USA’, Public Health Nutrition 14 (2011), 575–83, and G. Shamshak, J. Anderson, F. Asche, T. Garlock, and D. Love, ‘US Seafood Consumption’, Journal of the World Aquaculture Society 50 (2019), 715–27. J. Strong, ‘The Modern Offal Eaters’, Gastronomica 6 (2006), 30–9, surveys the decline of offal.

⁵⁰ Albala (n. 48), viii–ix, observes that scholars have tended to take a positivist approach to culinary history, allowing their own tastes (informed by later culinary trends) to inform their evaluations of earlier cuisines.

⁵¹ On the suggestive, rather than precise, nature of large numbers, see W. Scheidel, ‘Finances, Figures, and Fiction’, CQ 46 (1996), 222–38.

⁵² E. Murphy and J. Poblome, ‘From Formal to Technical Styles: Production Challenges and Economic Implications of Changing Tableware Styles in Roman to Late Antique Sagalassos’, AJA 121 (2017), 80.

⁵³ Dalby (n. 15), 102, s.v. cooking utensils.

⁵⁴ A. Donnelly, ‘Cooking Pots in Ancient and Late Antique Cookbooks’, in M. Spataro and A. Villing (eds.), Ceramics, Cuisine, and Culture (Oxford, 2015), 143.

⁵⁵ J. Dardar, ‘The World's Biggest Tagine and Other Unusual World Records’, Morocco World News (online newspaper) (Rabat, Morocco, 25 October 2020) <https://www.moroccoworldnews.com/2020/10/323626/the-worlds-biggest-tagine-and-other-unusual-world-records/>, accessed 18 November 2022.

⁵⁶ Bronze patinae, which would have outperformed clay, are attested in Apicius 4.2.15 and 16. While cost prevents its widespread use in the kitchen today, silver cookware is available. According to Pliny (HN 33.145), oversized silverware became fashionable over the first century; I owe the reference to K. Vössing, Mensa regia. Das Bankett beim hellenistischen König und beim römischen Kaiser (Munich and Leipzig, 2004), 366, n. 1.

⁵⁷ On Mucianus, who was a frequent source for Pliny, see B. Baldwin, ‘Pliny the Elder and Mucianus’, Emerita 63 (1995), 291–301, and R. Ash, ‘The Wonderful World of Mucianus’, BICS Supplement 100 (2007), 1–17. A close ally of Vespasian (Tac. Hist. 2.74–7), Mucianus made impactful military and political contributions to the Flavian cause; on his role in 69 ce, see especially J. Nicols, Vespasian and the Partes Flavianae (Wiesbaden, 1978), 71–4, 105–6, and 113–18.

⁵⁸ According to the TLL (s.v. palus ², p. 179, ll. 38–40), palus could be used to stand for and connote the kinds of (unappealing) creatures (animalium palustrium) found in a swamp, such as ducks, coots, and toads.

⁵⁹ Mucianus’ use of the plural may alternatively have been for rhetorical effect; it also allowed for the creation of two bacchiacs, a meter found most often in Plautus at moments of high drama and thus apt for a melodramatic and comedic dig. On bacchiacs, see the helpful summary in M. Deufert, ‘Metrics and Music’, in M. Fontaine and A. Scafuro (eds.), The Oxford Handbook of Greek and Roman Comedy (Oxford, 2014), 488–91.

⁶⁰ Grocock and Grainger (n. 3), 78, supply illustrations of patinae. No Vitellian coins depict Minerva or a representative Palladium, but there are numerous examples from other reigns; see especially C. Gmyrek, Römische Kaiser und griechische Göttin. Die religiös-politische Funktion der Athena/Minerva in der Selbst-und Reichsdarstellung der römischen Kaiser (Milan, 1998), 43–4. Those that date closest to 69 ce and depict the shield's shape most clearly include RIC II² 1 195 (Vespasian) and RIC II² 1 720 (Domitian); a coin of Galba, RIC I² 247/307, shows a Palladium.

⁶¹ Shotter (n. 4), 181. Pausanias (1.28.2) claims that the tip of Athena's spear and the crest of her helmet could be seen by those sailing from Sounion.

⁶² See B. Lundgreen, ‘A Methodological Enquiry: The Great Bronze Athena by Pheidias’, JHS 117 (1997), 191, and C. Cullen Davison, B. Lundgreen, and G. Waywell, Pheidias. The Sculptures & Ancient Sources (London, 2009), vol. I, 277–96. The coins are BM 1922,0317.82; Kroll 280; BM 1902,1201.3. There are good images in H. Gehrke, ‘From Athenian Identity to European Ethnicity: The Cultural Biography of the Myth of Marathon’, in T. Derks and N. Roymans (eds.), Ethnic Constructs in Antiquity. The Role of Power and Tradition (Amsterdam, 2009), 93.

⁶³ Plin. HN 36.18. On the shield, see Cullen Davison, Lundgreen, and Waywell (n. 62), vol. I, 94–110, and vol. III, 1,291–3, figs. 6.38–40.

⁶⁴ Hdt. 1.160.8, Pl. Leg. 921c2, Aristid. Or. 37.13, Paus. 3.17.1, and Alciphron Rhet. 3.15.3–4. The collocation Παλλὰς πολιοῦχος is attested at Ar. Eq. 581 and Pind. Ol. 5.10.

⁶⁵ See Z. Yavetz, ‘Vitellius and the “Fickleness of the Mob”’, Historia 18 (1969), 564–6, on Vitellius’ efforts to promote an image of convention and stability and on his support for Nero, to whom he may have wanted to appear a successor (though Nicols [n. 57], 165, is not convinced). On connections between Vitellius and Nero, see further R. Carré, ‘Vitellius et les dieux’, in E. Smadja and E. Geny (eds.), Pouvoir, divination et prédestination dans le monde antique (Besançon 1999), 43–79, and E. Cizek, ‘Le “populisme” de Vitellius et le philhellénisme’, in Yves Perrin (ed.), Neronia 7. Rome, l'Italie et la Grèce: hellénisme et philhellénisme au premier siècle ap. J.-C. (Brussels, 2007), 82–93.

⁶⁶ Minerva is attested in this role on a votive altar of 31 bce (Capitoline Museums A 2823–26): set up by artisans, it depicts on its four sides a Palladian aegis, a statue of Minerva, artisanal tools such as saws and plumb bobs, and a round concave shield. Minerva-Athena's other activities include shipbuilding (e.g. Ap. Rhod. Argon. 1.18–19, 519–59, 723–4; 2.1187–9) and the development of the plough (Hes. Op. 429–31), both of which are further examples of her wide-ranging practical intelligence, for which she is known as πολύμητις (‘inventive’) (e.g. Hom. Hymn Ath (28) 2). Ov. Fast. 3.809–48 echoes these themes, on which see further M. Detienne and A. Werth, ‘Athena and the Mastery of the Horse’, History of Religions 11 (1971), 164.

⁶⁷ The hymn, which was probably composed in the fifth century bce, is transmitted in a biography of Homer that was attributed to Herodotus. A text is available is West-Merkelbach's Fragmenta hesiodea, no. 302; a translation and notes are in M. Milne, ‘Appendix III: The Poem Entitled “Kiln”’, in J. Veach Noble (ed.), The Techniques of Painted Attic Pottery (New York, 1965), 102–13. There is a recent discussion of (and bibliography on) textual issues in C. Faraone, ‘A Collection of Curses against Kilns (Homeric Epigram 13.7–23)’, in A. Yarbro Collins and M. Mitchell (eds.), Antiquity and Humanity. Essays on Ancient Religion and Philosophy (Tübingen, 2001), 435–49.

⁶⁸ Shotter (n. 4), 181, whose attractive suggestion is supported by textual uncertainty in our manuscripts: πολιούχου is the reading of one of the two edd pr. of 1470, while the other prints πολιχοιου; the archetype manuscript ω has ΤΟΝΔΥΧΟΥ (according to Kaster's OCT).

⁶⁹ Further connections between Vitellius and Minerva are elusive. If Murison (n. 37), 181, is correct in dating Vitellius’ arrival at Rome to sometime from the end of June, a connection to the festival of the Quinquatrus, held in honour of Minerva and marked by feasting, is unlikely: it was celebrated in March (Ov. Fast. 6.649–710), while an associated event, the Quinquatrus minusculae or minores, was held on 13 June (see de Quiroga, P. López Barja, ‘The Quinquatrus of June, Marsyas and Libertas in the Late Roman Republic’, CQ 68 [2018], 143–59CrossRefGoogle Scholar). Vitellius’ banquet may have been connected to the Epulum Minervae, a feast held on 13 September at which members of the Capitoline triad were present in statue form (on which see CIL 1² 1, pp. 328–9, and Val. Max. 2.1.2); but our sources make no comment. They make no mention either of a connection to Minerva Augusta, an epithet attested in the Julio-Claudian period for her as an imperial tutelary deity; see Girard, J., ‘La place de Minerve dans la religion romaine au temps du principat’, in ANRW II.17.1 (1981), 217Google Scholar. According to Carré (n. 65), 74, Vitellius’ reference to a shield of Minerva may be a nod to Herodotus’ account of Pisistratus’ return to Athens, accompanied by Athena; it may also be an appeal to his Batavian auxiliaries, who were crucial at Bedriacum and who worshipped Belisama, a Gaulish deity syncretized with Minerva (pp. 76–9). More generally, as Girard (n. 69), 212–14, observes, Minerva was worshipped – sometimes syncretized with a local deity – in Roman Spain, Gaul, and Britain, among soldiers and civilians; while there is nothing to rule out these connections, there is no strong support for them either. Two coins featuring the bust of a helmeted Minerva, RIC 1² 37 (BMC 1 37) and RIC 1² 38, have been dated to 68 and 69, but lack attribution to an emperor. The shield on the temple to Minerva at Aquae Sulis (Bath) has been identified by Cousins, E., ‘An Imperial Image: The Bath Gorgon in Context’, Britannia 47 (2016), 99–118CrossRefGoogle Scholar, as a victory shield; it is roughly contemporary, according to Blagg, T., ‘The Date of the Temple of Sulis Minerva at Bath’, Britannia 10 (1979), 101–7CrossRefGoogle Scholar, but cannot be connected with certainty to Vitellius.

⁷⁰ He was also called incendarius (‘fire-starter’) because his men had overwhelmed a group of Flavian supporters by setting light to the Capitolium where they had taken shelter (Suet. Vit. 15.3). Tac. Hist. 3.72 is unsure whether the Vitellians or Flavians started the blaze.

⁷¹ Kline, Rolfe, and Edwards have ‘glutton’; Graves translates it ‘greedy guts’; finally, Shotter offers ‘fatty’. According to the TLL, patinarius describes qui patinis deditus est (masc. pro subst. de Vitellio dicitur propter immodicam gulam infami; respici vid. etiam patina, quam fieri iussit), ‘the person who is addicted to patinae (the masculine form as a substantive is used to describe Vitellius, who was notorious for his unrestrained appetite; see also “patina”, which he ordered to be made)’. Coins minted under Vitellius and two statues securely identified as the emperor depict a man whose heavy-set appearance also helped fuel claims that he ate without restraint or discernment: of the 176 Vitellian types listed in RIC I², almost all depict Vitellius with a double chin and many show him with full cheeks and/or jowls; the statues, one in the Bardo Museum, Tunis (inv. 1784), and the other in the Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek, offer a similar presentation. As Bradley, M., ‘Obesity, Corpulence, and Emaciation in Roman Art’, PBSR (2011), 1–41Google Scholar, has explored, visual representations of fat may have elicited a range of responses from ancient viewers, among them the perception of gluttony (p. 2), but also discernment of physical strength and concomitant military experience and skill (p. 30) and admiration of apparent ‘affluence and authority’ (p. 2). Suetonius and Dio's claims of Vitellius’ gluttony may have been inspired or at least encouraged by visual representations of the emperor, though of course his physical condition may have had no connection to his eating habits. Modern translators seem to have followed their lead.