[160] See chap. 55.
[161] See chap. 56.
[162] A distinguished officer,
who successfully crushed the
rebellion
on the Rhine (Book IV), and became governor of
Britain
in 71.
[163] Vespasian’s brother
and younger son were both in Rome,
the
former still holding the office of city prefect (cp.
i. 46).
[164] Casigliano.
[165] From Verona (see chap.
52).
[166] Terni.
[167] At Narnia.
[168] The two prefects of
the guard.
[169] See chap. 43.
[170] Properly a festival
to celebrate the first cutting of
the
beard. Nero forced high officials and their wives
to take
part
in unseemly performances (ii. 62), and the festivities
became
a public scandal, culminating in Nero’s own appearance
as
a lyrist.
[171] See i. 7, 8.
THE ABDICATION OF VITELLIUS AND THE BURNING OF THE CAPITOL
During these days Antonius and Varus kept sending
messages to Vitellius, in which they offered him his
life, a gift of money, and the choice of a safe retreat
in Campania, if he would stop the war and surrender
himself and his children to Vespasian. Mucianus
wrote him letters to the same effect. Vitellius
usually took these offers seriously and talked about
the number of slaves he would have and the choice
of a seaside place. He had sunk, indeed, into
such mental torpor that, if other people had not remembered
that he was an emperor, he was certainly beginning
to forget it himself. However, 64 it was
to Flavius Sabinus, the City Prefect, that the leading
men at Rome addressed themselves. They urged
him secretly not to lose all share in the glory of
victory. They pointed out that the City Garrison
was under his own command, and that he could count
on the police and their own bands of slaves, to say
nothing of the good fortune of the party and all the
advantage that victory gives. He must not leave
all the glory to Antonius and Varus. Vitellius
had nothing left but a few regiments of guards, who
were seriously alarmed at the bad news which came
from every quarter. As for the populace, their
feelings soon changed, and if he put himself at their
head, they would be just as loud in their flattery
of Vespasian. Vitellius himself could not even
cope with success, and disaster had positively paralysed
him. The credit of ending the war would go to
the man who seized the city. It was eminently
fitting that Sabinus should secure the throne for his
brother, and that Vespasian should hold him higher
than any one else.
