About the same time Lucilius
Bassus was sent with some light cavalry to establish order in
Campania, where the towns were still disturbed, but by
mutual animosities rather than by any spirit of opposition to the new
Emperor. The sight of the soldiery restored quiet, and the smaller colonies
escaped unpunished. At
Capua, however, the third
legion was stationed to pass the winter, and the noble families suffered
severely.
Tarracina, on the other hand, received no
relief; so much more inclined are we to requite an injury than an
obligation. Gratitude is a burden, while there seems to be a profit in
revenge. They were consoled by seeing the slave of Verginius Capito, whom I
have mentioned as the betrayer of
Tarracina,
gibbeted in the very rings of knighthood, the gift of Vitellius, which they
had seen him wear.
IMPERIAL HONORS FOR
VESPASIAN |
At
Rome the Senate, delighted and
full of confident hope, decreed to Vespasian all the honours customarily
bestowed on the Emperors. And indeed the civil war, which, beginning in
Gaul and
Spain, and afterwards
drawing into the struggle first
Germany and then
Illyricum, had traversed
Ægypt,
Judæa, and
Syria, every province, and every army, this war, now
that the whole earth was, as it were, purged from guilt, seemed to have
reached its close. Their alacrity was increased by a letter from Vespasian,
written during the continuance of the war. Such indeed was its character at
first sight; the writer, however, expressed himself as an Emperor, speaking
modestly about himself, in admirable language about the State. There was no
want of deference on the part of the Senate. On the Emperor and his son
Titus the consulship was bestowed by decree; on Domitian the office of
prætor with consular authority.
