To return to the senate; a bill was now passed that a loan of 47 sixty million sesterces should be raised from private individuals and administered by Pompeius Silvanus.  This may have been a financial necessity, or they may have wanted it to seem so.  At any rate the necessity soon ceased to exist, or else they gave up the pretence.  Domitian then carried a proposal that the consulships conferred by Vitellius should be cancelled, and that a state funeral should be held in honour of Flavius Sabinus.[360] Both proposals are striking evidence of the fickleness of human fortune, which so often makes the first last and the last first.

It was about this time that Lucius Piso,[361] the pro-consul of 48 Africa, was killed.  To give a true explanation of this murder we must go back and take a brief survey of certain matters which are closely connected with the reasons for such crimes.  Under the sainted Augustus and Tiberius the pro-consul of Africa had in his command one legion and some auxiliaries with which to guard the frontier of the empire.[362] Caligula, who was restless by nature and harboured suspicions of the then pro-consul, Marcus Silanus, withdrew the legion from his command and put it under a legate whom he sent out for the purpose.  As each had an equal amount of patronage and their functions overlapped, Caligula thus caused a state of friction which was further aggravated by regrettable quarrels.  The greater permanence of his tenure[363] gradually strengthened the legate’s position, and perhaps an inferior is always anxious to vie with his betters.  The most eminent governors, on the other hand, were more careful of their comfort than of their authority.

At the present time the legion in Africa was commanded by Valerius 49 Festus,[364] an extravagant young man, immoderately ambitious, whose kinship with Vitellius had given him some anxiety.  He had frequent interviews with Piso, and it is impossible to tell whether he tempted Piso to rebel or resisted Piso’s temptations.  No one was present at their interviews, which were held in private, and after Piso’s death most people were inclined to sympathize with his murderer.  Beyond doubt the province and the garrison were unfavourable to Vespasian.  Besides, some of the Vitellian refugees from Rome pointed out to Piso that the Gallic provinces were wavering.  Germany was ready to rebel, and he himself was in danger; ‘and,’ they added, ’if you earn suspicion in peace your safest course is war.’  Meanwhile, Claudius Sagitta, who commanded Petra’s Horse,[365] made a good crossing and outstripped the centurion Papirius, who had been sent out by Mucianus and was commissioned, so Sagitta affirmed, to assassinate Piso.  Sagitta further stated that Galerianus,[366] Piso’s cousin and son-in-law, had already been murdered, and told him that while his one hope lay in taking a bold step, there were two courses open to him:  he might either take up arms on the spot, or he might prefer