But of all manifestations of divinity the most patent was that which haloed Vespasian.  He expected it, Suetonius says, but it is doubtful if any one else did.  One night he dreamed that an era of prosperity was to dawn for him and his when Nero lost a tooth.  The next day he was shown one which had been drawn from the emperor’s mouth.  But that was nothing.  Presently at Carmel the Syrian oracle assured him that he would be successful in whatever he undertook.  From Rome word came that, while the armies of Vitellius and Otho were fighting, two eagles had fought above them, and that the victor had been despatched by a third eagle that had come from the East.  In Alexandria Serapis whispered to him.  The entire menagerie of Egypt proclaimed him king.  Apis bellowed, Anubis barked.  Isis visited him unveiled.  The lame and the blind pressed about him; he cured them with a touch.  There could be no reasonable doubt now; surely he was a god.  On his shoulders Apollonius threw the purple, and Vespasian set out for Rome.

His antecedents were less propitious.  The descendant of an obscure centurion, he had been a veterinary surgeon; then, having got Caligula’s ear, he flattered it abominably.  Caligula disposed of, he flattered Claud, or what amounted to the same thing, Narcissus, Claud’s chamberlain.  Through the influence of the latter he became a lieutenant, fought on remote frontiers—­fought well, too—­so well even that, Narcissus gone, he felt Agrippina watching him, and knowing the jealousy of her eyes, prudently kept quiet until that lady did.

With Nero he promenaded through Greece—­sat at the Olympian games and fell asleep when his emperor sang.  Treason of that high nature—­sacrilege, rather, for Nero was then a god—­might have been overlooked, had it occurred but once, for Nero could be magnanimous when he chose.  But it always occurred.  To Nero’s tremolo invariably came the accompaniment of Vespasian’s snore.  He was dreaming of that tooth, no doubt.  “I am not a soporific, am I?” Nero gnashed at him, and sent the blasphemer away.

For a while Vespasian lived in constant expectation of some civil message inviting him to die.  Finally it came, only he was invited to die at the head of an army which Nero had projected against seditious Jews.  When he returned, leaving his son Titus to attend to Jerusalem, it was as emperor.

Only a moment before Vitellius had been disposed of.  That curious glutton, whom the Rhenish legions had chosen because of his coarse familiarity, would willingly have fled had the soldiery let him.  But not at all; they wanted a prince of their own manufacture.  They knew nothing of Vespasian, cared less; and into the Capitol they chased the latter’s partisans, his son Domitian as well.  The besieged defended themselves with masterpieces, with sacred urns, the statues of gods, the pedestals of divinities.  Suddenly the Capitol was aflame.  Simultaneously Vespasian’s advance guard beat at the gates.