1While these things are being done throughout the provinces by Vespasian and the leaders of his party, Vitellius, more despised and more sluggish every day, halting at every pleasant spot in the towns and country houses, was making for Rome with a cumbersome column. 1Sixty thousand armed men followed him, corrupted by licence; 1the number of camp servants was larger still, and the sutlers had the most insolent characters even among slaves; 1the retinue of so many legates and friends was unfit for obedience, even if it had been governed with the greatest restraint. 1The crowd was swollen by senators and knights coming from Rome to meet him, some from fear, many from flattery, the rest, and gradually all, so as not to be left behind themselves while others were setting out.
1From the common people there joined him men known to Vitellius through disgraceful services, buffoons, actors, charioteers, in whom, disgraces to friendship as they were, he took wonderful delight. 1Not only were the colonies and towns drained by the gathering of supplies, but the farmers themselves and their fields, with the crops already ripe, were laid waste as if they were enemy soil.