The leading men in the State had secret conferences with Flavius Sabinus, prefect of the city, urging him to secure a share in the credit of the victory. "You have," they said, "a force of your own in the city cohorts; the cohorts of the watch will not fail you, and there are also our own slaves, there is the prestige of the party, there is the fact that to the victorious every thing is easy. You should not yield the glory of the war to Antonius and Varus. Vitellius has but a few cohorts, and they are alarmed by gloomy tidings from every quarter. The feelings of the people are easily swayed, and, if you put yourself at their head, there will soon be the same flatteries ready for Vespasian. Vitellius even in prosperity was unequal to his position, and he is proportionately unnerved by disaster. The merit of having finished the war will belong to him who may have possessed himself of the capital. It would well become Sabinus to keep the Empire for his brother, and Vespasian equally well, to count his other adherents inferior to Sabinus."
Complete Works of Tacitus. Tacitus. Alfred John Church. William Jackson Brodribb. Sara Bryant. edited for Perseus. New York. : Random House, Inc. Random House, Inc. 1873. reprinted 1942.
