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Rh sent thither, at the close of 66 At the time of this promotion he was in his sixty-first year.

Vespasian was proclaimed emperor by Tiberius Alexander, the prefect of Egypt, and it may be inferred without his own knowledge or consent at the moment. Long he pondered on the proposal even while surrounded by his own officers and men. It was, in fact, a very serious matter to be hailed "Imperator." Within a few months three Cæsars had perished—Nero by the hand of a slave, Galba by the swords of the prætorians, and Otho by his own dagger. The supplications of the army, and the urgency of Mucianus—they had been on bad terms, but were now reconciled—overcame his scruples, and he confirmed the choice of the prefect of Egypt by accepting the purple from the Syrian legionaries. An intensely practical man when not at a concert or a play, he instantly took measures for establishing his claim, but he did not hurry to Italy, although the eyes of all its better men had long been turned to Palestine. The forces of the east were divided into three portions. Of these, one was deemed sufficient to encounter the Vitellians; a second was retained in the east, to continue, under Titus, the Judæan war; to watch the Armenian and Parthian border was the task of the third. The revolt against Vitellius was making rapid strides: some provinces remained neutral; others, Britain and the Rhenish, could not afford to part with a cohort, and the emperor at Rome squandered in vulgar and brutal sensuality the money he needed for the payment of his troops.

The march of the Vespasians did not materially differ from that of the Vitellians. Again Italy north