Nero’s fall was caused directly by the defection of the prætorian guards, whose allegiance had been bought in the name of Galba. Nero was the last member of the Julio-Claudian family, and at his death the last shadow of dynastic claim passed away. The succession of the principate became a mere scramble in which the strongest or the luckiest or the heaviest briber won the day. Pretenders sprang up against Galba, several of the armies put forward their generals as competitors for the throne; and Galba himself had not even enough generosity to pay the bribes by which he had secured his throne. Thus the year 69 was a year of incessant civil war. Galba was murdered in the streets of Rome; Otho was defeated in battle near Bedriacum and slain in his camp, Vitellius; the choice of the legions in Germany, reigned from April to December, when Rome was once more occupied by a citizen army. The legions of Syria, seeing that their fellow-soldiers of Spain and Germany had already made their generals into emperors, had determined to take a hand in the game, and now Vespasian came as the fourth Cæsar in the space of a single year. It speaks well for the solidity of the imperial system as organised by Augustus that it survived the shock of such events as these. It proves that the system was everything and the man little or nothing. The new Emperor Vespasian, who succeeded after all this turmoil, was different from his predecessors in that he had two grown-up sons ready to succeed him. It is said that Mucianus, a still more powerful Eastern general, had surrendered his claims because he was childless. If so, it was nobly and wisely done. Vespasian was able and willing to restore the machinery of the Augustan principate. He was himself frankly a humble Sabine with no claims of birth. He was firm but not oppressive towards the senate, and he kept control over the prætorian guard by appointing Titus, his son, to its command. He also established the succession beyond doubt by making Titus his consort. Vespasian and Titus were elected consuls year by year. Vespasian’s principal work was to restore the financial credit of the government. Unfortunately the two sons, Titus, and then Domitian, who followed him upon the throne and with him make up the “Flavian” dynasty, were scarcely worthy of their father. Titus was “the darling of the human race,” generous and mild to the senators, but too fond of his popularity to be a strong ruler, and Domitian was a genuine tyrant. With his autocratic system of rule he was naturally oppressive to the aristocracy, and his name is in consequence written on the pages of history as that of a monster of cruelty. Domitian certainly made constitutional changes which rendered the monarchy a more open fact. He took the consulship for ten years to come, he became censor and drew up the senate-roll to suit his fancy, he refused the usual request of the senators that the emperor should admit that he had no power to condemn a senator to death.