egiance to the Senate and People of Rome.
As this oath was meaningless, it seemed best to seize the critical
moment and offer them an emperor. Vitellius dispatched messengers to
inform his own troops and generals that the army of the Upper Province
had revolted from Galba; so they must either make war on the rebels
immediately, or, if they preferred peace and unity, make an emperor
for themselves; and there was less danger, he reminded them, in
choosing an emperor than in looking for one.

The quarters of the First legion were nearest at hand, and Fabius 57
Valens was the most enterprising of the generals. On the following day
he entered Cologne with the cavalry of his legion and auxiliaries, and
saluted Vitellius as emperor. The other legions of the province
followed suit, vying with each other in enthusiasm; and the army of
the Upper Province, dropping the fine-sounding titles of the Senate
and People of Rome, joined Vitellius on the third of January, which
clearly showed that on the two previous days they were not really at
the disposal of a republican government. The inhabitants of Cologne
and the Treviri and Lingones, rivalling the zeal of the troops, made
offers of assistance, or of horses or arms or money, each according to
the measure of their strength, wealth, or enterprise. And these
offers came not only from the civil and military authorities, men who
had plenty of money to spare and much to hope from victory, but whole
companies or individual soldiers handed over their savings, or,
instead of money, their belts, or the silver ornaments[107] on their
uniforms, some carried away by a wave of enthusiasm, some acting from
motives of self-interest.

Vitellius accordingly commended the zeal of the troops. He 58
distributed among Roman knights the court-offices which had been
usually held by freedmen,[108] paid the centurions their furlough-fees
out of the imperial purse,[109] and for the most part conceded the
soldiers' savage demands for one execution after another, though he
occasionally cheated them by pretending to imprison their victims.
Thus Pompeius Propinquus,[110] the imperial agent in Belgica, was
promptly executed, while Julius Burdo, who commanded the fleet on the
Rhine, was adroitly rescued. The indignation of the army had broken
out against him, because he was supposed to have intrigued against
Fonteius Capito, and to have accused him falsely.[111] Capito's memory
was dear to the