Otho
sends fleet to Narbonese Gaul, and orders Illyric
Legions[3]
to concentrate at Aquileia.
Spurinna
repulses Caecina from Placentia.
Otho’s
main army joins Gallus at Bedriacum.
Titianus
summoned to take nominal command.
April
6. Battle of Locus
Castorum. Caecina defeated.
Valens
joins Caecina at Cremona.
15. Battle of Bedriacum.
Othonian defeat.
17. Otho commits suicide
at Brixellum.
19. Vitellius recognized
by the Senate.
May
Vitellius
greeted by his own and Otho’s generals at Lyons.
24. Vitellius visits
the battle-field of Bedriacum.
June
Vitellius
moves slowly towards Rome with a huge retinue.
July
1. Vespasian, Governor
of Judaea, proclaimed Emperor at Alexandria.
3. At Caesarea.
15. At Antioch.
The
Eastern princes and the Illyric Legions[4] declare
for
Vespasian.
His chief supporters are Mucianus; Governor of Syria,
Antonius
Primus commanding Leg. VII Galbiana, and Cornelius
Fuscus,
Procurator of Pannonia.
Mucianus
moves slowly westward with Leg. VI Ferrata and
detachments
from the other Eastern legions.
Vespasian
holds Egypt, Rome’s granary.
Titus
takes command in Judaea.
Antonius
Primus with Arrius Varus hurries forward into Italy.
August
Vitellius
vegetates in Rome.
Caecina marches to meet the invasion.
(Valens aegrotat.) His
Legions are I, IV Macedonica, XV Primigenia,
XVI, V Alaudae,
XXII Primigenia, I Italica, XXI Rapax, and
detachments from
Britain.
[3] i.e. in Pannonia Legs.
VII Galbiana and XIII Gemina; in
Dalmatia XI Claudia and XIV Gemina; in Moesia
III Gallica, VII
Claudia, VIII Augusta.
[4] See note above.
NOTE
The text followed is that of C.D. Fisher (Oxford
Classical Texts). Departures from it are
mentioned in the notes.
[A.D. 69.] I propose to begin my narrative with the
second 1 consulship of Servius Galba,
in which Titus Vinius was his colleague. Many
historians have dealt with the 820 years of the earlier
period beginning with the foundation of Rome, and
the story of the Roman Republic has been told with
no less ability than truth. After the Battle
of Actium, when the interests of peace were served
by the centralization of all authority in the hands
