but was content to appeal to the tribunes of the people to come to the rescue of his slighted authority.  Afterwards, when his friends, fearing that his resentment might be deep-seated, tried to smooth matters, he replied that there was nothing strange in two senators disagreeing on a question of public policy:  he himself had often opposed even such a man as Thrasea.  Most people laughed at the impudence of this comparison; others were gratified that he had selected Thrasea, and not some court favourite, as an example of real distinction.[435]

Vitellius had given the command of the Guards to Publilius 92 Sabinus, who had commanded an auxiliary cohort,[436] and Julius Priscus, hitherto only a centurion.  Priscus owed his rise to Valens’ support, Sabinus to that of Caecina.  The rivalry between Valens and Caecina left Vitellius no authority at all.  They managed the government between them.  They had long felt the strain of mutual dislike.  During the war they had concealed it.  Lately it had been fanned by dishonest friends and by life in the city, which so easily breeds quarrels.  They were constant rivals, comparing their respective popularity, the number of their retinue, the size of the crowds that came to wait upon them.  Meanwhile Vitellius let his favour alternate between them, for personal influence is not to be trusted beyond a certain limit.  Meanwhile, they both feared and despised the emperor himself, who thus veered between sudden brusqueness and unseasonable flattery.  However, they were not in the least deterred from seizing on the houses, gardens, and funds in the emperor’s patronage, while the crowd of miserable and needy nobles, whom Galba had recalled from exile with their children, derived no assistance from the emperor’s liberality.  He earned the approval both of the upper classes and of the people by granting to the restored full rights over their freedmen.[437] But the freed slaves with characteristic meanness did all they could to invalidate the edict.  They would hide their money with some obscure friend or in a rich patron’s safe.  Some, indeed, had passed into the imperial household and become more influential than their masters.

As for the soldiers, the Guards’ barracks were crowded, and the 93 overflow spread through the city, finding shelter in colonnades and temples.  They ceased to recognize any head-quarters, to go on guard, or to keep themselves in training, but fell victims to the attractions of city life and its unmentionable vices, until they deteriorated both physically and morally through idleness and debauchery.  A number of them even imperilled their lives by settling in the pestilent Vatican quarter, thus increasing the rate of mortality.  They were close to the Tiber, and the Germans and Gauls, who were peculiarly liable to disease and could ill stand the heat, ruined their constitutions by their immoderate use of the river.[438] Moreover, the generals, either for bribes or to earn