Page:Tacitus Histories Fyfe (1912) Vol1.djvu/69

about Vitellius.^[1] This news had been suppressed before Galba's murder, and it was believed that only the army of Upper Germany had revolted. Now when they saw that the two men in the world who were most notorious for immorality, indolence, and extravagance had been, as it were, appointed by Providence to ruin the empire, not only the senators and knights who had some stake and interest in the country, but the masses as well, openly deplored their fate. Their talk was no longer of the horrors of the recent bloody peace: they reverted to the records of the civil wars, the taking and retaking of Rome by her own troops, the devastation of Italy, the pillage of the provinces, the battles of Pharsalia, Philippi, Perusia, and Mutina,^[2] those bywords of national disaster. 'The world was turned upside down,' they mused, 'even when good men fought for the throne: yet the Roman Empire survived the victories of Julius Caesar and of Augustus, as the Republic would have survived had Pompey and Brutus been victorious. But now—are we to go and pray for Otho or for Vitellius? To pray for either would be impious. It would be wicked to offer vows for the success of either in a war of which we can only be sure that the winner will prove the worse.' Some cherished hopes of Vespasian and the armies of the

1. Cp. chap. 14.
2. At Pharsalia Caesar defeated Pompey, 48 b.c.; at Mutina the consul Hirtius defeated Antony, 43 b.c.; at Philippi Octavian defeated Brutus and Cassius, 42 b.c. ; at Perusia Octavian defeated Antony's brother Lucius, 40 b.c.