The long year, A.D. 69

On 1 January A.D. 69, the Roman people particularly the inhabitants of Rome, had every reason to feel optimistic. The infamous Nero was dead and Galba, in his seventies, a greatly respected governor of Nearer Spain, had been chosen emperor with the whole-hearted consent of army and Senate. And yet, within the first fortnight of the New Year, Galba had been brutally assassinated in the Roman Forum. During a year which had begun with such high hopes of peace and stability two further emperors, Otho and Vitellius, were to meet equally violent deaths, two desperate battles were to be fought at Cremona, Rome was to be captured for Vespasian, and civil war was not only to rack Italy but to touch areas as remote as Britain and Syria. Few years in history, certainly in the Roman empire, have been so eventful: the appearance of four emperors in one year is spectacular in itself. A.D. 69 is, however, important as well as dramatic.^ It marks the watershed between the first and second imperial dynasties and the passing of an old order. The Long Year also reveals the strengths and weaknesses of the empire. The Senate, which had long been living on the past glory of its republican days, proved p