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.

FOOTNOTES: 

[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.

BOOK I

PREFACE

[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