In the span of a few short months, three different men—Galba, Otho, and Vitellius—declared themselves emperor, each in turn violently overthrown by his successor. There was a complete breakdown of law and order in Rome as thieves and hooligans plundered the population without fear of consequence. Not since the war between Octavian and Mark Antony a hundred years earlier had the Romans experienced such civil unrest. Tacitus described it as a period “rich in disasters, terrible with battles, torn by civil struggles, horrible even in peace.”
