the heavy ruins, it flooded not only the
flat, low-lying portions of the city, but also districts that seemed
safe from inundation. Many people were swept away in the streets,
still more were overtaken by the flood in shops or in their beds at
home. The result was a famine, since food was scarce,[184] and the
poor were deprived of their means of livelihood. Blocks of flats, the
foundations of which had rotted in the standing water, collapsed when
the river sank. No sooner had the panic caused by the flood subsided
than it was found that, whereas Otho was preparing an expedition, its
route over the Martian Plain and up the Flaminian Road was blocked.
Though probably caused by chance, or the course of Nature, this mishap
was turned into a miraculous omen of impending disaster.

FOOTNOTES:

[152] Chap. 45.

[153] Cp. note 46.

[154] A much-frequented watering-place on the borders of
Latium and Campania. The hot baths were considered good for
hysteria.

[155] Cp. chap. 7.

[156] Dio and Suetonius both say that Otho offered to share
the empire with Vitellius, and the latter adds that he
proposed for the hand of Vitellius' daughter. Tacitus here
follows Plutarch.

[157] Chap. 19.

[158] As a matter of fact, only twelve days before. It was on
the 2nd or 3rd of January that the troops of Lower and Upper
Germany proclaimed Vitellius. Galba fell to Otho on January
15.

[159] L. Salvius Otho Titianus, Otho's elder brother.

[160] There were two legions in Dalmatia, two in Pannonia,
three in Moesia, and two in Spain (see Summary, note 3).

[161] Cp. chap. 8.

[162] This included Savoy, Dauphine, part of Provence or
Languedoc.

[163] Legs. V Macedonica, X Fretensis, XV Apollinaris.

[164] IV Scythica, VI Ferrata, XII Fulminata, and III Gallica.

[165] Since Claudius the great imperial bureaux, the posts of
private secretary, patronage-secretary, financial secretary,
&c., had all been held by freedmen. Cp. chap. 58.

[166] Otho and Titianus would naturally have held it for four
months.

[167] Vopiscus presumably came from Vienne, which had espoused
the cause first of Vindex, then of Galba. Cp. chap. 65.

[168] Not to be confused with Vespasian's brother.

[169] Grandfather of the Emperor Antoninus P