rs were all conferred on Vitellius at once.[338]
To these was added a vote of thanks and congratulation to the German
army, and a deputation was dispatched to express the senate's
satisfaction. Letters were read which Fabius Valens had addressed to
the consuls in very moderate terms. But Caecina's moderation was still
more gratifying: he had not written at all.[339]

However, Italy found peace a more ghastly burden than the war. 56
Vitellius' soldiers scattered through all the boroughs and colonial
towns, indulging in plunder, violence, and rape. Impelled by their
greed or the promise of payment, they cared nothing for right and
wrong: kept their hands off nothing sacred or profane. Even civilians
put on uniform and seized the opportunity to murder their enemies. The
soldiers themselves, knowing the countryside well, marked down the
richest fields and wealthiest houses for plunder, determined to murder
any one who offered resistance. Their generals were too much in their
debt to venture any opposition. Of the two Caecina showed less greed
and more ambition. Valens had earned a bad name by his own ill-gotten
gains, and was therefore bound to shut his eyes to others'
shortcomings.[340] The resources of Italy had long been exhausted; all
these thousands of infantry and cavalry, all this violence and damage
and outrage was almost more than the country could bear.

Meanwhile Vitellius knew nothing of his victory. With the 57
remainder of his German army he continued to advance as though the war
had just begun. A few of the veterans were left in winter quarters,
and troops were hurriedly enlisted in the Gallic provinces, to fill up
the vacancies in what were now mere skeleton legions.[341] Leaving
Hordeonius Flaccus to guard the line of the Rhine, Vitellius advanced
with a picked detachment from the army in Britain, eight thousand
strong. After a few days' march he received news of the victory of
Bedriacum and the collapse of the war on the death of Otho. He
summoned a meeting and heaped praise on the courage of the troops.
When the army demanded that he should confer equestrian rank on his
freedman Asiaticus, he checked their shameful flattery. Then with
characteristic instability he granted at a private banquet what he had
refused in public. This Asiaticus, who was thus decorated with the
gold ring, was an infamous menial who rose by his vices.[342]

During these same days news arrived that Albinus,