Civil War
As a relative of Vespasian, Cerialis was made a hostage by Vitellius in 69, during the civil wars of the Year of Four Emperors. Cerialis managed to escape disguised as a peasant and joined the Flavian army. He was one of the cavalry leaders that conquered Rome for the approaching Vespasian. His role was to enter Rome via Sabian territory along the Via Salaria.
This success and his brother-in-law's trust gave him the command of XIV Gemina, then stationed in the difficult province of Germania Inferior. Again, Cerialis had to deal with a local revolt, the Batavian rebellion, in which the local tribes, led by Julius Civilis, a romanized prince, besieged two Roman legions at Xanten. Cerialis was again successful and received honours from Vespasian.
Read more about this topic: Quintus Petillius Cerialis
Famous quotes containing the words civil war, civil and/or war:
“Luxury, or a refinement on the pleasures and conveniences of life, had long been supposed the source of every corruption in government, and the immediate cause of faction, sedition, civil wars, and the total loss of liberty. It was, therefore, universally regarded as a vice, and was an object of declamation to all satyrists, and severe moralists.”
—David Hume (1711–1776)
“... there was the first Balkan war and the second Balkan war and then there was the first world war. It is extraordinary how having done a thing once you have to do it again, there is the pleasure of coincidence and there is the pleasure of repetition, and so there is the second world war, and in between there was the Abyssinian war and the Spanish civil war.”
—Gertrude Stein (1874–1946)
“The dead have been awakened—shall I sleep?
The world’s at war with tyrants—shall I crouch?
The harvest’s ripe—and shall I pause to reap?
I slumber not; the thorn is in my couch;
Each day a trumpet soundeth in mine ear,
Its echo in my heart.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)