Vitellius faces problems from the start of his reign.

The city is left very skeptical after Vitellius chose the anniversary of the Battle of the Allia (in 390 BCE), a day of bad auspices according to Roman superstition, to accede to the office of Pontifex Maximus.

Events will seemingly prove them right.

With the throne tightly secured, Vitellius engages in a series of feasts, banquets (Suetonius refers to three a day: morning, afternoon and night) and triumphal parades that drive the imperial treasury close to bankruptcy.

Debts are quickly accrued and moneylenders start to demand repayment.

Vitellius shows his violent nature by ordering the torture and execution of those who dare to make such demands.

With financial affairs in a state of calamity, Vitellius takes the initiative of killing citizens who name him as their heir, often together with any co-heirs.

Moreover, he engages in a pursuit of every possible rival, inviting them to the palace with promises of power only to have them assassinated.

Suetonius, whose father had fought for Otho at Bedriacum, gives an unfavorable account of Vitellius' brief administration: he describes him as unambitious and notes that Vitellius showed indications of a desire to govern wisely, but that Valens and Caecina encouraged him in a course of vicious excesses which threw his better qualities into the background.

Vitellius is described as lazy and self-indulgent, fond of eating and drinking, and an obese glutton, eating banquets four times a day and feasting on rare foods he would send the Roman navy to procure.

For these banquets, he had himself invited over to a different noble's house for each one.

He is even reported to have starved his own mother to death—to fulfill a prophecy that he would rule long if his mother died first.

Other writers, namely Tacitus and Cassius Dio, disagree with some of Suetonius' assertions, even though their own accounts of Vitellius are scarcely positive ones.

Despite his short reign he makes two important contributions to Roman government which outlasted him.

Tacitus describes them both in his Histories: Vitellius ends the practice of Centurions selling furloughs and exemptions of duty to their men, a change Tacitus describes as being adopted by 'all good emperors'.

He also expands the offices of the Imperial Administration beyond the imperial pool of Freedmen allowing those of the Equites to take up positions in the Imperial Civil service.

Vitellius also bans astrologers from Rome and Italy from October1, 69.

Some astrologers respond to his decree by anonymously publishing a decree of their own: "Decreed by all astrologers in blessing on our State Vitellius will be no more on the appointed date."

In response, Vitellius executes any astrologers he encounters.