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.
Neither Vespasian nor his sons, Titus and Domitian, visited Gaul, as their predecessors had.

Domitian alone put in a short appearance.

The eastern provinces of the empire and the wars on the frontier of the Danube, towards which the invasions of the Germans were at that time beginning to be directed, absorbed the attention of the new emperors.
Gaul was far, however, from remaining docile and peaceful at this epoch.
At the vacancy that occurred after Nero and amid the claims of various pretenders, the authority of the Roman name and the pressure of the imperial power diminished rapidly; and the memory and desire of independence were reawakened.