When Nero was dead there was no other Caesar, no naturally indicated successor to the empire. The influence of the name of Caesar had spent itself in the crimes, madnesses, and incapacity of his descendants. Then began a general search for emperors; and the ambition to be created spread abroad amongst the men of note in the Roman world. During the eighteen months that followed the death of Nero, three pretenders--Galba, Otho, and Vitellius--ran this formidable risk. Galba was a worthy old Roman senator, who frankly said, “If the vast body of the empire could be kept standing in equilibrium without a head, I were worthy of the chief place in the state.” Otho and Vitellius were two epicures, both indolent and debauched, the former after an elegant, and the latter after a beastly fashion. Galba was raised to the purple by the Lyonnese and Narbonnese provinces, Vitellius by the legions cantoned in the Belgic province: to such an extent did Gaul already influence the destinies of Rome. All three met disgrace and death within the space of eighteen months; and the search for an emperor took a turn towards the East, where the command was held by Vespasian (Titus Flavius Vespasianus, of Rieti in the duchy of Spoleto), a general sprung from a humble Italian family, who had won great military distinction, and who, having been proclaimed first at Alexandria, in Judea, and at Antioch, did not arrive until many months afterwards at Rome, where he commenced the twenty-six years’ reign of the Flavian family.