re an enemy's country, was laid waste and ruined."

[Illustration: THE COLISEUM AT ROME.]

The followers of Vitellius were many of them Germans and Gauls, so
savage of aspect as to create consternation in Rome. "Covered with the
skins of savage beasts, and wielding large and massive spears, the
spectacle which they exhibited to the Roman citizens was fierce and
hideous." They were as savage as they looked, and many conflicts took
place both outside and inside of Rome, in which numbers of citizens were
slaughtered. In fact, the march of Vitellius to Rome was almost like
that of a conqueror through a captive province.

The conduct of Vitellius and his army in Rome was an abhorrent spectacle
of sloth and licentiousness. All discipline vanished. The Germans and
Gauls entered into the vilest habits of the city, and by their
disorderly lives brought on an epidemic disease which swept thousands of
them away. Vitellius, lost in sluggishness and gluttony, wasted the
funds of the state on his pleasures, and laid severe taxes to raise new
funds. "To squander with wild profusion," says Tacitus, "was the only
use of money known to Vitellius. He built a set of stables for the
charioteers, and kept in the circus a constant spectacle of gladiators
and wild beasts; in this manner dissipating with prodigality, as if his
treasury overflowed with riches."

While the Vitellian army was indulging in riot, bloodshed, and vice,
and the populace was kept amused by the frightful gladiatorial shows,
the emperor spent his days in a sloth and gluttony that stand unrivalled
in imperial records. We may quote from Whyte-Melville's romance of "The
Gladiators" a sketch of a Vitellian banquet whose characteristic
features are taken from exact history:

"A banquet with Vitellius was no light and simple repast. Leagues of sea
and miles of forest had been swept to furnish the mere groundwork of the
entertainment. Hardy fishermen had spent their nights on the heaving
wave, that the giant turbot might flap its snowy flakes on the emperor's
table broader than its broad dish of gold. Many a swelling hill, clad in
the dark oak coppice, had echoed to ringing shout of hunter and
deep-mouthed bay of hound, ere the wild boar yielded his grim life by
the morass, and the dark, grisly carcass was drawn off to provide a
standing dish that was only meant to gratify the eye. Even the peacock
roasted in its feathers was too gross a dainty for epicures who studied
the