No More Learning

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 of one man, there
followed a dearth of literary ability, and at the same time truth
suffered more and more, partly from ignorance of politics, which were
no longer a citizen's concern, partly from the growing taste for
flattery or from hatred of the ruling house. So between malice on one
side and servility on the other the interests of posterity were
neglected. But historians find that a tone of flattery soon incurs the
stigma of servility and earns for them the contempt of their readers,
whereas people readily open their ears to the criticisms of envy,
since malice makes a show of independence. Of Galba, Otho, and
Vitellius, I have known nothing either to my advantage or my hurt. I
cannot deny that I originally owed my position to Vespasian, or that I
was advanced by Titus and still further promoted by Domitian;[5] but
professing, as I do, unbiassed honesty, I must speak of no man either
with hatred or affection. I have reserved for my old age, if life is
spared to me, the reigns of the sainted Nerva and of the Emperor
Trajan, which afford a richer and withal a safer theme:[6] for it is
the rare fortune of these days that a man may think what he likes and
say what he thinks.

The story I now commence is rich in vicissitudes, grim with 2
warfare, torn by civil strife, a tale of horror even during times of
peace. It tells of four emperors slain by the sword, three several
civil wars, an even larger number of foreign wars and some that were
both at once: successes in the East, disaster in the West, disturbance
in Illyricum, disaffection in the provinces of Gaul, the conquest of
Britain and its immediate loss, the rising of the Sarmatian and Suebic
tribes. It tells how Dacia had the privilege of exchanging blows with
Rome, and how a pretender claiming to be Nero almost deluded the
Parthians into declaring war. Now too Italy was smitten with new
disasters, or disasters it had not witnessed for a long period of
years.