popularity, tampered with the rules of the service, enrolling sixteen regiments of Guards[439] and four for the city garrison, each composed of a thousand men.  In enlisting these troops Valens put himself forward as superior to Caecina, whose life he claimed to have saved.  It is true, indeed, that his arrival had consolidated the party, and by his successful engagement he had silenced the current criticism of their slow marching.  Besides which the whole of the army of Lower Germany was attached to Valens, and this is said to be the reason why Caecina’s loyalty first wavered.

Whatever indulgence Vitellius showed to his generals, he allowed 94 still more licence to the troops.  Each man chose his service.  However unfit, he might enlist in the Guards, if he preferred it.  On the other hand, good soldiers were allowed, if they wished, to remain in the legions or the auxiliary cavalry.  Many wished to do this who suffered from ill health and complained of the climate.  However, the best soldiers were thus withdrawn from the legions and from the cavalry; and the Guards were robbed of their prestige when twenty thousand men were thus not so much selected for service with them as drafted at random from the whole army.

While Vitellius was addressing the troops, they demanded the execution of three Gallic chieftains, Asiaticus, Flavus, and Rufinus, on the ground that they had fought for Vindex.[440] Vitellius never checked these outcries.  For, apart from the innate cowardice of his nature, he knew that his donation to the soldiers was nearly due, and that he had no money for it; so he freely granted all their other demands.  The imperial freedmen were forced to contribute a sort of tax, proportionate to the number of their slaves.  Meanwhile, his one serious occupation was extravagance.  He built stables for chariot-drivers, filled the arena with gorgeous shows of gladiators and wild beasts, and fooled away his money as though he had more than he wanted.

Moreover, Valens and Caecina celebrated Vitellius’ birthday[441] 95 by holding gladiatorial shows in every quarter of Rome on a scale of magnificence hitherto unknown.  Vitellius then gratified the rabble and scandalized all decent people by building altars in the Martian Plain, and holding a funeral service in honour of Nero.  Victims were killed and burnt in public:  the torch was applied by the Augustales, members of the college which Tiberius Caesar had founded in honour of the Julian family, just as Romulus similarly commemorated King Tatius.

It was not yet four months since Vitellius’ victory, and yet his freedman Asiaticus was as bad as a Polyclitus or a Patrobius,[442] or any of the favourites whose names were hated in earlier days.  At this court no one strove to rise by honesty or capacity.  There was only one road to power.  By lavish banquets, costly profusion, and feats of gastronomy, you had to try and satisfy Vitellius’ insatiable gluttony.  He himself, without thought