an era of prosperity was to
dawn for him and his when Nero lost a tooth. The next day he was shown
one which had been drawn from the emperor's mouth. But that was
nothing. Presently at Carmel the Syrian oracle assured him that he
would be successful in whatever he undertook. From Rome word came that,
while the armies of Vitellius and Otho were fighting, two eagles had
fought above them, and that the victor had been despatched by a third
eagle that had come from the East. In Alexandria Serapis whispered to
him. The entire menagerie of Egypt proclaimed him king. Apis bellowed,
Anubis barked. Isis visited him unveiled. The lame and the blind
pressed about him; he cured them with a touch. There could be no
reasonable doubt now; surely he was a god. On his shoulders Apollonius
threw the purple, and Vespasian set out for Rome.

His antecedents were less propitious. The descendant of an obscure
centurion, he had been a veterinary surgeon; then, having got
Caligula's ear, he flattered it abominably. Caligula disposed of, he
flattered Claud, or what amounted to the same thing, Narcissus, Claud's
chamberlain. Through the influence of the latter he became a
lieutenant, fought on remote frontiers--fought well, too--so well even
that, Narcissus gone, he felt Agrippina watching him, and knowing the
jealousy of her eyes, prudently kept quiet until that lady did.

With Nero he promenaded through Greece--sat at the Olympian games and
fell asleep when his emperor sang. Treason of that high
nature--sacrilege, rather, for Nero was then a god--might have been
overlooked, had it occurred but once, for Nero could be magnanimous
when he chose. But it always occurred. To Nero's tremolo invariably
came the accompaniment of Vespasian's snore. He was dreaming of that
tooth, no doubt. "I am not a soporific, am I?" Nero gnashed at him, and
sent the blasphemer away.

For a while Vespasian lived in constant expectation of some civil
message inviting him to die. Finally it came, only he was invited to
die at the head of an army which Nero had projected against seditious
Jews. When he returned, leaving his son Titus to attend to Jerusalem,
it was as emperor.

Only a moment before Vitellius had been disposed of. That curious
glutton, whom the Rhenish legions had chosen because of his coarse
familiarity, would willingly have fled had the soldiery let him. But
not at all; they wanted a prince of their own manufacture. They knew
nothing of Vespasian, c