Vespasian

Titus Flavius Vespasianus was a Roman soldier of modest family who became emperor in 69 CE, the 'year of the four emperors' that followed Nero's death. He founded the Flavian dynasty, restored the state's finances and began the amphitheater now called the Colosseum. He died in 79 CE and was succeeded by his sons Titus and Domitian.

In 67 CE Nero sent him to put down the Jewish revolt. It was to Vespasian that the captured Josephus predicted his rise to the throne. His son Titus completed the siege of Jerusalem in 70 CE.

Josephus, in his Antiquities (8.2.5), says he saw a Jewish man named Eleazar free possessed men in the presence of Vespasian, his sons and his officers. Eleazar held a ring containing a root prescribed by Solomon to the patient's nose and drew the demon out through the nostrils, then ordered it to overturn a basin of water to prove it had left. Josephus tells the story to illustrate Solomon's reputation as a master of spirits.