Vespasian

Vespasian was a Lord Commander of the Emperor’s Children, a duellist and administrator killed by Fulgrim with the daemon-sword Laer. He held the Legion’s senior office alongside Eidolon, the other Lord Commander. Where Eidolon was marked by vanity and cruelty, Vespasian acted as the Legion’s conscience.

Vespasian served as a counterweight to Eidolon. He held that perfection, the standard the Third Legion set for itself, did not include the murder of its own members. He was also the Lord Commander who still addressed Fulgrim, the Legion’s primarch and known as the Palatine Phoenix, as one who might heed counsel. He told Fulgrim that the Legion was sick. Fulgrim took the warning as an insult and killed Vespasian with the daemon-sword Laer.

The Third Legion did not appoint a successor to Vespasian and did not seek to fill the office. On Chemos, he is recorded only as a name on a list of the purged. His death is the account of a Lord Commander who treated a primarch as a brother and was killed for it.