Page:Tacitus Histories Fyfe (1912) Vol1.djvu/64

prefects, Plotius Firmus, a man who had risen from the ranks to the post of Chief of Police,^[1] and joined Otho's side before Galba's fall, and Licinius Proculus, an intimate friend of Otho, and therefore suspected of furthering his plans. They made Flavius Sabinus^[2] prefect of the city, therein following Nero's choice, under whom Sabinus had held that post; besides, most of them had an eye to the fact that he was Vespasian's brother. An urgent demand arose that the customary fees to centurions for granting furlough should be abolished, for they constituted a sort of annual tax upon the common soldier. The result had been that a quarter of each company could go off on leave or lounge idly about the barracks, so long as they paid the centurion his fee, nor was there any one to control either the amount of this impost or the means by which the soldiers raised the money: highway robbery or menial service was the usual resort whereby they purchased leisure. Then, again, a soldier who had money was savagely burdened with work until he should buy exemption. Thus he soon became impoverished and enervated by idleness, and returned to his company no longer a man of means and energy but penniless and lazy. So the process went on. One after another they became deteriorated by poverty and lax discipline, rushing blindly into quarrels and

1. i.e. in command of the cohortes vigilum. Cp. chap. 5, note 1.
2. Vespasian's elder brother. He continued to hold the office under Vitellius (ii. 63).