When once his couriers brought news from Syria and Judaea that the 73 East had sworn allegiance to him, Vitellius’ vanity and indolence reached a pitch which is almost incredible.  For already, though the rumours were still vague and unreliable, Vespasian’s name was in everybody’s mouth, and the mention of him often roused Vitellius to alarm.  Still, he and his army seemed to reck of no rival:  they at once broke out into the unbridled cruelty, debauchery and oppression of some outlandish court.

Vespasian, on the other hand, was meditating war and reckoning all 74 his forces both distant and near at hand.  He had so much attached his troops to himself, that when he dictated to them the oath of allegiance and prayed that ‘all might be well’ with Vitellius, they listened in silence.  Mucianus’ feelings were not hostile to him, and were strongly sympathetic to Titus.  Tiberius Alexander,[392] the Governor of Egypt, had made common cause with him.  The Third legion,[393] since it had crossed from Syria into Moesia, he could reckon as his own, and there was good hope that the other legions of Illyria would follow its lead.[394] The whole army, indeed, was incensed at the arrogance of Vitellius’ soldiers:  truculent in appearance and rough of tongue, they scoffed at all the other troops as their inferiors.  But a war of such magnitude demands delay.  High as were his hopes, Vespasian often calculated his risks.  He realized that it would be a critical day for him when he committed his sixty summers and his two young sons to the chances of war.  In his private ambitions a man may feel his way and take less or more from fortune’s hands according as he feels inclined, but when one covets a throne there is no alternative between the zenith of success and headlong ruin.  Moreover, he always kept in view the strength of the German army, 75 which, as a soldier, he realized.  His own legions, he knew, had no experience of civil war, while Vitellius’ troops were fresh from victory:  and the defeated party were richer in grievances than in troops.  Civil strife had undermined the loyalty of the troops:  there was danger in each single man.  What would be the good of all his horse and foot, if one or two traitors should seek the reward the enemy offered and assassinate him then and there?  It was thus that Scribonianus[395] had been killed in Claudius’ reign, and his murderer, Volaginius, raised from a common soldier to the highest rank.  It is easier to move men in the mass than to take precautions against them singly.

These anxieties made Vespasian hesitate.  Meanwhile the other 76 generals and his friends continued to encourage him.  At last Mucianus after several private interviews went so far as to address him in public.  ‘Everybody,’ he said, ’who plans some great exploit is bound to consider whether his enterprise serves both the public interest and his own reputation, and whether it is easily practicable