ABSTRACT
A new man needed friends of distinction, as well as a mistress at court, and it was surely with the encouragement of friends that Vespasian took his first political steps, fluctuations in his success to some extent following theirs. So Marius was a protégé of the noble Caecilii Metelli. The first name that might be associated with Vespasian’s advancement is that of Pomponius Labeo, the praetorian legate who brought a legion into Thrace in 26 during the revolt; he was a subordinate of the governor of Moesia, C.Poppaeus Sabinus. If Vespasian had been too young to see active service under him as military tribune, Labeo may still have recommended his appointment to Sabinus and supervised his first months in the army.1
