# Flavian forces take Rome and Vitellius is killed in December 69 CE

Date: 69

## The fact

In December 69 CE Flavian troops entered Rome and Vitellius was killed, as Tacitus Histories print it. [Vespasian](/people/vespasian) was not in the city. Mucianus and Antonius Primus share the Italian campaign. Do not list Vitellius as affiliated_with.

It is one event.

## Context

Tacitus and Britannica independently date the December 69 fall of Vitellius. The Capitol burned in the fighting; later rebuilding is a neighbouring fiscal-building cluster, not this street.

Vespasian’s documented role is bounded by other offices and collaborators named in the sources below. Sharing a field with them is not a reason to drop a documented act, and it is not a reason to assign later consequences done in the name after death.

Conventional years are 9–79 CE. Surviving public files are later Suetonius, Tacitus, Josephus, coins, and encyclopedia pages. Vespasian did not typeset those later English pages. Dates here are received historical years.

Named person as heading of the dated public instrument. Later editors, museums, printers, or offices share publication. Complex where later carriers are the surviving public file.

## Evidence and sources

LacusCurtius Tacitus and Britannica independently describe the December 69 Flavian capture of Rome and Vitellius’s death.

Official or archival record: LacusCurtius — Tacitus, Histories (https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Tacitus/Histories/Introduction*.html; University of Chicago / LacusCurtius).

## Significance

Humanitarian-harm path via civil war in the capital. High confidence on the received outcome.

## What is established and what is not

Established: Vitellius was killed and Flavian forces took Rome in December 69. Not established: a unique street-death table Vespasian signed from Alexandria.

What would change the picture: a contradictory original with a different date or name, or a measured series that can be argued, with lag and alternatives, as a consequence of this instrument rather than of later institutions.

The date is the date of this instrument, not a licence to back-date every later harm or benefit.

Established here: a sourced, dated public instrument with a named contribution by Vespasian.

They are not a public rating.

The driver `humanitarian-access` is attached because the mechanism named in Significance follows from this instrument, not because a standing list of welfare headings needed another tick. Vespasian did not file a later UNESCO form, a later Loeb colophon, or a later museum label as a personal act. A portrait or conventional bust is not this mechanism. Allegation, reconstruction, and established occurrence stay distinct.

## People

- Vespasian: https://factrail.ai/people/vespasian

## Drivers

- Humanitarian Access: https://factrail.ai/drivers/humanitarian-access

## Sources

- https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vespasian
- https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Tacitus/Histories/Introduction*.html

## Methodology

https://factrail.ai/methodology

Canonical: https://factrail.ai/facts/ves-vitellius-defeat-0069