1While the time and the place were being sought, and what is hardest in such a matter, someone to speak first, while hope and fear, reason and chance were passing before his mind, as Vespasian came out of his bedroom a few soldiers, standing by in their usual order to salute him as legate, saluted him as emperor: then the rest ran up and heaped on him the names of Caesar and Augustus and all the titles of the principate. 1His mind had passed from fear to his fortune: in him there was nothing swollen or arrogant, nothing new in his new circumstances. 1As soon as he had dispersed the mist which so great a height spreads before the eyes, he spoke like a soldier and accepted all the congratulations that came flooding in; 1for Mucianus, waiting for this very thing, bound his eager soldiers by oath to Vespasian.
1Then, entering the theatre of the people of Antioch, where it is their custom to deliberate, he addresses them as they ran together and poured themselves out in flattery; he was graceful enough even in Greek eloquence, and with a certain art made a display of all that he said and did. 1Nothing so inflamed the province and the army as Mucianus' assertion that Vitellius had decided to transfer the German legions to Syria, to a rich and peaceful service, while in exchange the Syrian legions were to be moved to the German winter quarters, harsh in climate and toil; 1for the provincials enjoyed their accustomed companionship with the soldiers, many being bound up with them by ties of friendship and kinship, and the soldiers, through their long years of service, loved the familiar and well-known camp like their own homes.