ABSTRACT
The death of Vitellius ended the war; it did not bring peace’, says Tacitus, of the City; in Germany, the Balkans, Africa, Judaea, and Britain there were new outbreaks, or old wars continued, to distract the centre from its work. It was a chance for animosities to emerge, distinct or in combination: antiRoman feeling; class war; nationalism, already exhibited in Judaea and now showing in the West as tribalism. At a low level it manifested itself in opportunistic communal violence in Campania, Gaul, and Africa. By the end of the reign the only operations attested were in Britain, aggressive and imperialist. Such was the régime’s military success, founded on Vespasian’s success in Judaea and against Vitellius; and each step in reducing dissidence gave confidence to producers, traders, and politicians: their world would survive.1
