In 69 CE—the “Year of the Four Emperors”—Aulus Vitellius seized power in Rome, backed by legions from Germany. His reign was brief and bloody, ending when Vespasian’s forces won the civil war. Yet Vitellius didn’t become famous for strategy or statecraft. He became famous as a man on a couch. That image comes largely from Suetonius, who doesn’t just list events—he builds moral portraits. In his chapter on Vitellius, he describes an emperor addicted to excess: eating in three, sometimes four, dai