1Egypt, and the forces by which it is held in check, have been governed ever since the deified Augustus by Roman knights in place of kings: it had seemed expedient thus to keep under the emperor's own control a province difficult of access, rich in grain, divided and unstable through superstition and licence, ignorant of laws and unacquainted with magistrates. 1Its governor at that time was Tiberius Alexander, of that same nation. 1Africa and the legions in it, now that Clodius Macer had been killed, were content with any kind of emperor after their experience of a lesser master. 1The two Mauretanias, Raetia, Noricum, Thrace and the other provinces governed by procurators were swayed to favour or hatred according to the army each was near, by contact with the stronger.
1The unarmed provinces, and above all Italy itself, exposed to any servitude, were destined to fall as the prize of the war. 1This was the state of Roman affairs when Servius Galba, for the second time, and Titus Vinius as consuls began a year that would be their own last, and almost the last for the state.