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1. When Nero was informed of the Romans' ill success in Judea, a
concealed consternation and terror, as is usual in such cases,
fell upon him; although he openly looked very big, and was very
angry, and said that what had happened was rather owing to the
negligence of the commander, than to any valor of the enemy: and
as he thought it fit for him, who bare the burden of the whole
empire, to despise such misfortunes, he now pretended so to do,
and to have a soul superior to all such sad accidents whatsoever.
Yet did the disturbance that was in his soul plainly appear by
the solicitude he was in [how to recover his affairs again].
2. And as he was deliberating to whom he should commit the care
of the East, now it was in so great a commotion, and who might be
best able to punish the Jews for their rebellion, and might
prevent the same distemper from seizing upon the neighboring
nations also, - he found no one but Vespasian equal to the task,
and able to undergo the great burden of so mighty a war, seeing
he was growing an old man already in the camp, and from his youth
had been exercised in warlike exploits: he was also a man that
had long ago pacified the west, and made it subject to the
Romans, when it had been put into disorder by the Germans; he had
also recovered to them Britain by his arms, which had been little
known before whereby he procured to his father Claudius to
have a triumph bestowed on him without any sweat or labor of his
own.
3. So Nero esteemed these circumstances as favorable omens, and
saw that Vespasian's age gave him sure experience, and great
skill, and that he had his sons as hostages for his fidelity to
himself, and that the flourishing age they were in would make
them fit instruments under their father's prudence. Perhaps also
there was some interposition of Providence, which was paving the
way for Vespasian's being himself emperor afterwards. Upon the
whole, he sent this man to take upon him the command of the
armies that were in Syria; but this not without great encomiums
and flattering compellations, such as necessity required, and
such as might mollify him into complaisance. So Vespasian sent
his son Titus from Achaia, where he had been with Nero, to
Alexandria, to bring back with him from thence the fifth and. the
tenth legions, while he himself, when he had passed over the
Hellespont, came by land into Syria, where he gathered together
the Roman forces, with a considerable number of auxiliaries from
the kings in that neighborhood.
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