HISTORES.

109 AD
HISTORIES
by P. Cornelius Tacitus
translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
BOOK I, January - March, A.D. 69

I BEGIN my work with the time when Servius Galba was consul for
the second time with Titus Vinius for his colleague. Of the former
period, the 820 years dating from the founding of the city, many
authors have treated; and while they had to record the transactions of
the Roman people, they wrote with equal eloquence and freedom. After
the conflict at Actium, and when it became essential to peace, that
all power should be centered in one man, these great intellects passed
away. Then too the truthfulness of history was impaired in many
ways; at first, through men's ignorance of public affairs, which
were now wholly strange to them, then, through their passion for
flattery, or, on the other hand, their hatred of their masters. And so
between the enmity of the one and the servility of the other,
neither had any regard for posterity. But while we instinctively
shrink from a writer's adulation, we lend a ready ear to detraction
and spite, because flattery involves the shameful imputation of
servility, whereas malignity wears the false appearance of honesty.
I myself knew nothing of Galba, of Otho, or of Vitellius, either
from benefits or from injuries. I would not deny that my elevation was
begun by Vespasian, augmented by Titus, and still further advanced
by Domitian; but those who profess inviolable truthfulness must
speak of all without partiality and without hatred. I have reserved as
an employment for my old age, should my life be long enough, a subject
at once more fruitful and less anxious in the reign of the Divine
Nerva and the empire of Trajan, enjoying the rare happiness of
times, when we may think what we please, and express what we think.
I am entering on the history of a period rich in disasters,
frightful in its wars, torn by civil strife, and even in peace full of
horrors. Four emperors perished by the sword. There were three civil
wars; there were more with foreign enemies; there were often wars that
had both characters at once. There was success in the East, and
disaster in the West. There were disturbances in Illyricum; Gaul
wavered in its allegiance; Britain was thoroughly subdued and
immediately abandoned; the tribes of the Suevi and the Sarmatae rose
in concert against us; the Dacians had the glory of inflicting as well
as suffering defeat; the armies of Parthia were all but set in
motion by the cheat of a counterfeit Nero. Now too Italy was
prostrated by disasters either entirely novel, or that recurred only
after a long succession of ages; cities in Campania's richest plains
were swallowed up and overwhelmed; Rome was wasted by
conflagrations, its oldest temples consumed, and the Capitol itself
fired by the hands of citizens. Sacred rites were profaned; there
was profligacy in the highest ranks; the sea was crowded with
exiles, and its rocks polluted with bloody deeds. In the capital there
were yet worse horrors. Nobility, wealth, the refusal or the
acceptance of office, were grounds for accusation, and virtue
ensured destruction. The rewards of the informers were no less
odious than their crimes; for while some seized on consulships and
priestly offices, as their share of the spoil, others on
procuratorships, and posts of more confidential authority, they robbed
and ruined in every direction amid universal hatred and terror. Slaves
were bribed to turn against their masters, and freedmen to betray
their patrons; and those who had not an enemy were destroyed by
friends.
Yet the age was not so barren in noble qualities, as not also to
exhibit examples of virtue. Mothers accompanied the flight of their
sons; wives followed their husbands into exile; there were brave
kinsmen and faithful sons in law; there were slaves whose fidelity
defied even torture; there were illustrious men driven to the last
necessity, and enduring it with fortitude; there were closing scenes
that equalled the famous deaths of antiquity. Besides the manifold
vicissitudes of human affairs, there were prodigies in heaven and
earth, the warning voices of the thunder, and other intimations of the
future, auspicious or gloomy, doubtful or not to be mistaken. Never
surely did more terrible calamities of the Roman People, or evidence
more conclusive, prove that the Gods take no thought for our
happiness, but only for our punishment.
I think it proper, however, before I commence my purposed work, to
pass under review the condition of the capital, the temper of the
armies, the attitude of the provinces, and the elements of weakness
and strength which existed throughout the whole empire, that so we may
become acquainted, not only with the vicissitudes and the issues of
events, which are often matters of chance, but also with their
relations and their causes. Welcome as the death of Nero had been in
the first burst of joy, yet it had not only roused various emotions in
Rome, among the Senators, the people, or the soldiery of the
capital, it had also excited all the legions and their generals; for
now had been divulged that secret of the empire, that emperors could
be made elsewhere than at Rome. The Senators enjoyed the first
exercise of freedom with the less restraint, because the Emperor was
new to power, and absent from the capital. The leading men of the
Equestrian order sympathised most closely with the joy of the
Senators. The respectable portion of the people, which was connected
with the great families, as well as the dependants and freedmen of
condemned and banished persons, were high in hope. The degraded
populace, frequenters of the arena and the theatre, the most worthless
of the slaves, and those who having wasted their property were
supported by the infamous excesses of Nero, caught eagerly in their
dejection at every rumour.
The soldiery of the capital, who were imbued with the spirit of an
old allegiance to the Caesars, and who had been led to desert Nero
by intrigues and influences from without rather than by their own
feelings, were inclined for change, when they found that the
donative promised in Galba's name was withheld, and reflected that for
great services and great rewards there was not the same room in
peace as in war, and that the favour of an emperor created by the
legions must be already preoccupied. They were further excited by
the treason of Nymphidius Sabinus, their prefect, who himself aimed at
the throne. Nymphidius indeed perished in the attempt, but, though the
head of the mutiny was thus removed, there yet remained in many of the
soldiers the consciousness of guilt. There were even men who talked in
angry terms of the feebleness and avarice of Galba. The strictness
once so commended, and celebrated in the praises of the army, was
galling to troops who rebelled against the old discipline, and who had
been accustomed by fourteen years' service under Nero to love the
vices of their emperors, as much as they had once respected their
virtues. To all this was added Galba's own expression, "I choose my
soldiers, I do not buy them," noble words for the commonwealth, but
fraught with peril for himself. His other acts were not after this
pattern.
Titus Vinius and Cornelius Laco, one the most worthless, the other
the most spiritless of mankind, were ruining the weak old Emperor, who
had to bear the odium of such crimes and the scorn felt for such
cowardice. Galba's progress had been slow and blood-stained. Cingonius
Varro, consul elect, and Petronius Turpilianus, a man of consular
rank, were put to death; the former as an accomplice of Nymphidius,
the latter as one of Nero's generals. Both had perished without
hearing or defence, like innocent men. His entry into the capital,
made after the slaughter of thousands of unarmed soldiers, was most
ill-omened, and was terrible even to the executioners. As he brought
into the city his Spanish legion, while that which Nero had levied
from the fleet still remained, Rome was full of strange troops.
There were also many detachments from Germany, Britain, and Illyria,
selected by Nero, and sent on by him to the Caspian passes, for
service in the expedition which he was preparing against the Albani,
but afterwards recalled to crush the insurrection of Vindex. Here
there were vast materials for a revolution, without indeed a decided
bias towards any one man, but ready to a daring hand.
In this conjuncture it happened that tidings of the deaths of
Fonteius Capito and Clodius Macer reached the capital. Macer was
executed in Africa, where he was undoubtedly fomenting sedition, by
Trebonius Garutianus the procurator, who acted on Galba's authority;
Capito fell in Germany, while he was making similar attempts, by the
hands of Cornelius Aquinus and Fabius Valens, legates of legions,
who did not wait for an order. There were however some who believed
that Capito, though foully stained with avarice and profligacy, had
yet abstained from all thought of revolution, that this was a
treacherous accusation invented by the commanders themselves, who
had urged him to take up arms, when they found themselves unable to
prevail, and that Galba had approved of the deed, either from weakness
of character, or to avoid investigation into the circumstances of acts
which could not be altered. Both executions, however, were
unfavourably regarded; indeed, when a ruler once becomes unpopular,
all his acts, be they good or bad, tell against him. The freedmen in
their excessive power were now putting up everything for sale; the
slaves caught with greedy hands at immediate gain, and, reflecting
on their master's age, hastened to be rich. The new court had the same
abuses as the old, abuses as grievous as ever, but not so readily
excused. Even the age of Galba caused ridicule and disgust among those
whose associations were with the youth of Nero, and who were
accustomed, as is the fashion of the vulgar, to value their emperors
by the beauty and grace of their persons.
Such, as far as one can speak of so vast a multitude, was the
state of feeling at Rome. Among the provinces, Spain was under the
government of Cluvius Rufus, an eloquent man, who had all the
accomplishments of civil life, but who was without experience in
war. Gaul, besides remembering Vindex, was bound to Galba by the
recently conceded privileges of citizenship, and by the diminution
of its future tribute. Those Gallic states, however, which were
nearest to the armies of Germany, had not been treated with the same
respect, and had even in some cases been deprived of their
territory; and these were reckoning the gains of others and their
own losses with equal indignation. The armies of Germany were at
once alarmed and angry, a most dangerous temper when allied with
such strength; while elated by their recent victory, they feared
because they might seem to have supported an unsuccessful party.
They had been slow to revolt from Nero, and Verginius had not
immediately declared for Galba; it was doubtful whether he had himself
wished to be emperor, but all agreed that the empire had been
offered to him by the soldiery. Again, the execution of Capito was a
subject of indignation, even with those who could not complain of
its injustice. They had no leader, for Verginius had been withdrawn on
the pretext of his friendship with the Emperor. That he was not sent
back, and that he was even impeached, they regarded as an accusation
against themselves.
The army of Upper Germany despised their legate, Hordeonius Flaccus,
who, disabled by age and lameness, had no strength of character and no
authority; even when the soldiery were quiet, he could not control
them, much more in their fits of frenzy were they irritated by the
very feebleness of his restraint. The legions of Lower Germany had
long been without any general of consular rank, until, by the
appointment of Galba, Aulus Vitellius took the command. He was son
of that Vitellius who was censor and three times consul; this was
thought sufficient recommendation. In the army of Britain there was no
angry feeling; indeed no troops behaved more blamelessly throughout
all the troubles of these civil wars, either because they were far
away and separated by the ocean from the rest of the empire, or
because continual warfare had taught them to concentrate their
hatred on the enemy. Illyricum too was quiet, though the legions drawn
from that province by Nero had, while lingering in Italy, sent
deputations to Verginius. But separated as these armies were by long
distances, a thing of all others the most favourable for keeping
troops to their duty, they could neither communicate their vices,
nor combine their strength.
In the East there was as yet no movement. Syria and its four legions
were under the command of Licinius Mucianus, a man whose good and
bad fortune were equally famous. In his youth he had cultivated with
many intrigues the friendship of the great. His resources soon failed,
and his position became precarious, and as he also suspected that
Claudius had taken some offence, he withdrew into a retired part of
Asia, and was as like an exile, as he was afterwards like an
emperor. He was a compound of dissipation and energy, of arrogance and
courtesy, of good and bad qualities. His self-indulgence was
excessive, when he had leisure, yet whenever he had served, he had
shown great qualities. In his public capacity he might be praised; his
private life was in bad repute. Yet over subjects, friends, and
colleagues, he exercised the influence of many fascinations. He was
a man who would find it easier to transfer the imperial power to
another, than to hold it for himself. Flavius Vespasian, a general
of Nero's appointment, was carrying on the war in Judaea with three
legions, and he had no wish or feeling adverse to Galba. He had in
fact sent his son Titus to acknowledge his authority and bespeak his
favour, as in its proper place I shall relate. As for the hidden
decrees of fate, the omens and the oracles that marked out Vespasian
and his sons for imperial power, we believed in them only after his
success.
Ever since the time of the Divine Augustus Roman Knights have
ruled Egypt as kings, and the forces by which it has to be kept in
subjection. It has been thought expedient thus to keep under home
control a province so difficult of access, so productive of corn, ever
distracted, excitable, and restless through the superstition and
licentiousness of its inhabitants, knowing nothing of laws, and unused
to civil rule. Its governor was at this time Tiberius Alexander, a
native of the country. Africa and its legions, now that Clodius
Macer was dead, were disposed to be content with any emperor, after
having experienced the rule of a smaller tyrant. The two divisions
of Mauritania, Rhaetia, Noricum and Thrace and the other provinces
governed by procurators, as they were near this or that army, were
driven by the presence of such powerful neighbours into friendship
or hostility. The unarmed provinces with Italy at their head were
exposed to any kind of slavery, and were ready to become the prize
of victory. Such was the state of the Roman world, when Servius Galba,
consul for the second time, with T. Vinius for his colleague,
entered upon a year, which was to be the last of their lives, and
which well nigh brought the commonwealth to an end.
A few days after the 1st of January, there arrived from Belgica
despatches of Pompeius Propinquus, the Procurator, to this effect;
that the legions of Upper Germany had broken through the obligation of
their military oath, and were demanding another emperor, but
conceded the power of choice to the Senate and people of Rome, in
the hope that a more lenient view might be taken of their revolt.
These tidings hastened the plans of Galba, who had been long
debating the subject of adoption with himself and with his intimate
friends. There was indeed no more frequent subject of conversation
during these months, at first because men had liberty and
inclination to talk of such matters, afterwards because the feebleness
of Galba was notorious. Few had any discrimination or patriotism, many
had foolish hopes for themselves, and spread interested reports, in
which they named this or that person to whom they might be related
as friend or dependant. They were also moved by hatred of T. Vinius,
who grew daily more powerful, and in the same proportion more
unpopular. The very easiness of Galba's temper stimulated the greedy
cupidity which great advancement had excited in his friends, because
with one so weak and so credulous wrong might be done with less risk
and greater gain.
The real power of the Empire was divided between T. Vinius, the
consul, and Cornelius Laco, prefect of the Praetorian Guard. Icelus, a
freedman of Galba, was in equal favour; he had been presented with the
rings of knighthood, and bore the Equestrian name of Martianus.
These men, being at variance, and in smaller matters pursuing their
own aims, were divided in the affair of choosing a successor, into two
opposing factions. T. Vinius was for Marcus Otho, Laco and Icelus
agreed, not indeed in supporting any particular individual, but in
striving for some one else. Galba indeed was aware of the friendship
between Vinius and Otho; the gossip of those who allow nothing to pass
in silence had named them as father-in-law and son-in-law, for
Vinius had a widowed daughter, and Otho was unmarried. I believe
that he had also at heart some care for the commonwealth, in vain,
he would think, rescued from Nero, if it was to be left with Otho. For
Otho's had been a neglected boyhood and a riotous youth, and he had
made himself agreeable to Nero by emulating his profligacy. For this
reason the Emperor had entrusted to him, as being the confidant of his
amours, Poppaea Sabina, the imperial favourite, until he could rid
himself of his wife Octavia. Soon suspecting him with regard to this
same Poppaea, he sent him out of the way to the province of Lusitania,
ostensibly to be its governor. Otho ruled the province with
mildness, and, as he was the first to join Galba's party, was not
without energy, and, while the war lasted, was the most conspicuous of
the Emperor's followers, he was led to cherish more and more
passionately every day those hopes of adoption which he had
entertained from the first. Many of the soldiers favoured him, and the
court was biassed in his favour, because he resembled Nero.
When Galba heard of the mutiny in Germany, though nothing was as yet
known about Vitellius, he felt anxious as to the direction which the
violence of the legions might take, while he could not trust even
the soldiery of the capital. He therefore resorted to what he supposed
to be the only remedy, and held a council for the election of an
emperor. To this he summoned, besides Vinius and Laco, Marius
Celsus, consul elect, and Ducennius Geminus, prefect of the city.
Having first said a few words about his advanced years, he ordered
Piso Licinianus to be summoned. It is uncertain whether he acted on
his own free choice, or, as believed by some, under the influence of
Laco, who through Rubellius Plautus had cultivated the friendship of
Piso. But, cunningly enough, it was as a stranger that Laco
supported him, and the high character of Piso gave weight to his
advice. Piso, who was the son of M. Crassus and Scribonia, and thus of
noble descent on both sides, was in look and manner a man of the old
type. Rightly judged, he seemed a stern man, morose to those who
estimated him less favourably. This point in his character pleased his
adopted father in proportion as it raised the anxious suspicions of
others.
We are told that Galba, taking hold of Piso's hand, spoke to this
effect: "If I were a private man, and were now adopting you by the Act
of the Curiae before the Pontiffs, as our custom is, it would be a
high honour to me to introduce into my family a descendant of Cn.
Pompeius and M. Crassus; it would be a distinction to you to add to
the nobility of your race the honours of the Sulpician and Lutatian
houses. As it is, I, who have been called to the throne by the
unanimous consent of gods and men, am moved by your splendid
endowments and by my own patriotism to offer to you, a man of peace,
that power, for which our ancestors fought, and which I myself
obtained by war. I am following the precedent of the Divine
Augustus, who placed on an eminence next to his own, first his
nephew Marcellus, then his son-in-law Agrippa, afterwards his
grandsons, and finally Tiberius Nero, his stepson. But Augustus looked
for a successor in his own family, I look for one in the state, not
because I have no relatives or companions of my campaigns, but because
it was not by any private favour that I myself received the imperial
power. Let the principle of my choice be shown not only by my
connections which I have set aside for you, but by your own. You
have a brother, noble as yourself, and older, who would be well worthy
of this dignity, were you not worthier. Your age is such as to be
now free from the passions of youth, and such your life that in the
past you have nothing to excuse. Hitherto, you have only borne
adversity; prosperity tries the heart with keener temptations; for
hardships may be endured, whereas we are spoiled by success. You
indeed will cling with the same constancy to honor, freedom,
friendship, the best possessions of the human spirit, but others
will seek to weaken them with their servility. You will be fiercely
assailed by adulation, by flattery, that worst poison of the true
heart, and by the selfish interests of individuals. You and I speak
together to-day with perfect frankness, but others will be more
ready to address us as emperors than as men. For to urge his duty upon
a prince is indeed a hard matter; to flatter him, whatever his
character, is a mere routine gone through without any heart.
"Could the vast frame of this empire have stood and preserved its
balance without a directing spirit, I was not unworthy of inaugurating
a republic. As it is, we have been long reduced to a position, in
which my age confer no greater boon on the Roman people than a good
successor, your youth no greater than a good emperor. Under
Tuberous, Chairs, and Claudius, we were, so to speak, the
inheritance of a single family. The choice which begins with us will
be a substitute for freedom. Now that the family of the Julii and
the Claudii has come to an end, adoption will discover the worthiest
successor. To be begotten and born of a princely race is a mere
accident, and is only valued as such. In adoption there is nothing
that need bias the judgment, and if you wish to make a choice, an
unanimous opinion points out the man. Let Nero be ever before your
eyes, swollen with the pride of a long line of Caesars; it was not
Vindex with his unarmed province, it was not myself with my single
legion, that shook his yoke from our necks. It was his own profligacy,
his own brutality, and that, though there had been before no precedent
of an emperor condemned by his own people. We, who have been called to
power by the issues of war, and by the deliberate judgment of
others, shall incur unpopularity, however illustrious our character.
Do not however be alarmed, if, after a movement which has shaken the
world, two legions are not yet quiet. I did not myself succeed to a
throne without anxiety; and when men shall hear of your adoption I
shall no longer be thought old, and this is the only objection which
is now made against me. Nero will always be regretted by the
thoroughly depraved; it is for you and me to take care, that he be not
regretted also by the good. To prolong such advice, suits not this
occasion, and all my purpose is fulfilled if I have made a good choice
in you. The most practical and the shortest method of distinguishing
between good and bad measures, is to think what you yourself would
or would not like under another emperor. It is not here, as it is
among nations despotically ruled, that there is a distinct governing
family, while all the rest are slaves. You have to reign over men
who cannot bear either absolute slavery or absolute freedom." This,
with more to the same effect, was said by Galba; he spoke to Piso as
if he were creating an emperor; the others addressed him as if he were
an emperor already.
It is said of Piso that he betrayed no discomposure or excessive
joy, either to the gaze to which he was immediately subjected, or
afterwards when all eyes were turned upon him. His language to the
Emperor, his father, was reverential; his language about himself was
modest. He shewed no change in look or manner; he seemed like one
who had the power rather than the wish to rule. It was next
discussed whether the adoption should be publicly pronounced in
front of the Rostra, in the Senate, or in the camp. It was thought
best to go to the camp. This would be a compliment to the soldiery,
and their favour, base as it was to purchase it by bribery or
intrigue, was not to be despised if it could be obtained by honourable
means. Meanwhile the expectant people had surrounded the palace,
impatient to learn the great secret, and those who sought to stifle
the ill-concealed rumour did but spread it the more.
The 10th of January was a gloomy, stormy day, unusually disturbed by
thunder, lightning, and all bad omens from heaven. Though this had
from ancient time been made a reason for dissolving an assembly, it
did not deter Galba from proceeding to the camp; either because he
despised such things as being mere matters of chance, or because the
decrees of fate, though they be foreshewn, are not escaped. Addressing
a crowded assembly of the soldiers he announced, with imperial
brevity, that he adopted Piso, following the precedent of the Divine
Augustus, and the military custom by which a soldier chooses his
comrade. Fearing that to conceal the mutiny would be to make them
think it greater than it really was, he spontaneously declared that
the 4th and 18th legions, led by a few factious persons, had been
insubordinate, but had not gone beyond certain words and cries, and
that they would soon return to their duty. To this speech he added
no word of flattery, no hint of a bribe. Yet the tribunes, the
centurions, and such of the soldiers as stood near, made an
encouraging response. A gloomy silence prevailed among the rest, who
seemed to think that they had lost by war that right to a donative
which they had made good even in peace. It is certain that their
feelings might have been conciliated by the very smallest liberality
on the part of the parsimonious old man. He was ruined by his
old-fashioned inflexibility, and by an excessive sternness which we
are no longer able to endure.
Then followed Galba's speech in the Senate, which was as plain and
brief as his speech to the soldiery. Piso delivered a graceful oration
and was supported by the feeling of the Senate. Many who wished him
well, spoke with enthusiasm; those who had opposed him, in moderate
terms; the majority met him with an officious homage, having aims of
their own and no thought for the state. Piso neither said nor did
anything else in public in the following four days which intervened
between his adoption and his death. As tidings of the mutiny in
Germany were arriving with daily increasing frequency, while the
country was ready to receive and to credit all intelligence that had
an unfavourable character, the Senate came to a resolution to send
deputies to the German armies. It was privately discussed whether Piso
should go with them to give them a more imposing appearance; they,
it was said, would bring with them the authority of the Senate, he the
majesty of the Caesar. It was thought expedient to send with them
Cornelius Laco, prefect of the Praetorian Guard, but he thwarted the
design. In nominating, excusing, and changing the deputies, the Senate
having entrusted the selection to Galba, the Emperor shewed a
disgraceful want of firmness, yielding to individuals, who made
interest to stay or to go, as their fears or their hopes prompted.
Next came the question of money. On a general inquiry it seemed
the fairest course to demand restitution from those who had caused the
public poverty. Nero had squandered in presents two thousand two
hundred million sesterces. It was ordered that each recipient should
be sued, but should be permitted to retain a tenth part of the bounty.
They had however barely a tenth part left, having wasted the
property of others in the same extravagances in which they had
squandered their own, till the most rapacious and profligate among
them had neither capital nor land remaining, nothing in fact but the
appliances of their vices. Thirty Roman Knights were appointed to
conduct the process of recovery, a novel office, and made burdensome
by the number and intriguing practices of those with whom it had to
deal. Everywhere were sales and brokers, and Rome was in an uproar
with auctions. Yet great was the joy to think that the men whom Nero
had enriched would be as poor as those whom he had robbed. About
this time were cashiered two tribunes of the Praetorian Guard,
Antonius Taurus and Antonius Naso, an officer of the City cohorts,
Aemilius Pacensis, and one of the watch, Julius Fronto. This led to no
amendment with the rest, but only started the apprehension, that a
crafty and timid policy was getting rid of individuals, while all were
suspected.
Otho, meanwhile, who had nothing to hope while the State was
tranquil, and whose whole plans depended on revolution, was being
roused to action by a combination of many motives, by a luxury that
would have embarrassed even an emperor, by a poverty that a subject
could hardly endure, by his rage against Galba, by his envy of Piso.
He even pretended to fear to make himself keener in desire. "I was,
said he, "too formidable to Nero, and I must not look for another
Lusitania, another honourable exile. Rulers always suspect and hate
the man who has been named for the succession. This has injured me
with the aged Emperor, and will injure me yet more with a young man
whose temper, naturally savage, has been rendered ferocious by
prolonged exile. How easy to put Otho to death! I must therefore do
and dare now while Galba's authority is still unsettled, and before
that of Piso is consolidated. Periods of transition suit great
attempts, and delay is useless where inaction is more hurtful than
temerity. Death, which nature ordains for all alike, yet admits of the
distinction of being either forgotten, or remembered with honour by
posterity; and, if the same lot awaits the innocent and the guilty,
the man of spirit will at least deserve his fate."
The soul of Otho was not effeminate like his person. His
confidential freedmen and slaves, who enjoyed a license unknown in
private families, brought the debaucheries of Nero's court, its
intrigues, its easy marriages, and the other indulgences of despotic
power, before a mind passionately fond of such things, dwelt upon them
as his if he dared to seize them, and reproached the inaction that
would leave them to others. The astrologers also urged him to
action, predicting from their observation of the heavens
revolutions, and a year of glory for Otho. This is a class of men,
whom the powerful cannot trust, and who deceive the aspiring, a
class which will always be proscribed in this country, and yet
always retained. Many of these men were attached to the secret
councils of Poppaea and were the vilest tools in the employ of the
imperial household. One of them, Ptolemaeus, had attended Otho in
Spain, and had there foretold that his patron would survive Nero.
Gaining credit by the result, and arguing from his own conjectures and
from the common talk of those who compared Galba's age with Otho's
youth, he had persuaded the latter that he would be called to the
throne. Otho however received the prediction as the words of wisdom
and the intimation of destiny, with that inclination so natural to the
human mind readily to believe in the mysterious.
Nor did Ptolemaeus fail to play his part; he now even prompted to
crime, to which from such wishes it is easy to pass. Whether indeed
these thoughts of crime were suddenly conceived, is doubtful. Otho had
long been courting the affections of the soldiery, either in the
hope of succeeding to the throne, or in preparation for some desperate
act. On the march, on parade, and in their quarters, he would
address all the oldest soldiers by name, and in allusion to the
progresses of Nero would call them his messmates. Some he would
recognise, he would inquire after others, and would help them with his
money and interest. He would often intersperse his conversation with
complaints and insinuations against Galba and anything else that might
excite the vulgar mind. Laborious marches, a scanty commissariat,
and the rigour of military discipline, were especially distasteful,
when men, accustomed to sail to the lakes of Campania and the cities
of Greece, had painfully to struggle under the weight of their arms
over the Pyrenees, the Alps, and vast distances of road.
The minds of the soldiery were already on fire, when Maevius Pudens,
a near relative of Tigellinus, added, so to speak, fuel to the flames.
In his endeavour to win over all who were particularly weak in
character, or who wanted money and were ready to plunge into
revolution, he gradually went so far as to distribute, whenever
Galba dined with Otho, one hundred sesterces to each soldier of the
cohort on duty, under pretext of treating them. This, which we may
almost call a public bounty, Otho followed up by presents more
privately bestowed on individuals; nay he bribed with such spirit,
that, finding there was a dispute between Cocceius Proculus, a soldier
of the bodyguard, and one of his neighbours, about some part of
their boundaries, he purchased with his own money the neighbour's
entire estate, and made a present of it to the soldier. He took
advantage of the lazy indifference of the Prefect, who overlooked
alike notorious facts and secret practices.
He then entrusted the conduct of his meditated treason to Onomastus,
one of his freedmen, who brought over to his views Barbius Proculus,
officer of the watchword to the bodyguard, and Veturius, a deputy
centurion in the same force. Having assured himself by various
conversations with these men that they were cunning and bold, he
loaded them with presents and promises, and furnished them with
money with which to tempt the cupidity of others. Thus two soldiers
from the ranks undertook to transfer the Empire of Rome, and
actually transferred it. Only a few were admitted to be accomplices in
the plot, but they worked by various devices on the wavering minds
of the remainder; on the more distinguished soldiers, by hinting
that the favours of Nymphidius had subjected them to suspicion; on the
vulgar herd, by the anger and despair with which the repeated
postponement of the donative had inspired them. Some were fired by
their recollections of Nero and their longing regrets for their old
license. All felt a common alarm at the idea of having to serve
elsewhere.
The contagion spread to the legions and the auxiliary troops,
already excited by the news of the wavering loyalty of the army of
Germany. So ripe were the disaffected for mutiny and so close the
secrecy preserved by the loyal, that they would actually have seized
Otho on the 14th of January, as he was returning from dinner, had they
not been deterred by the risks of darkness, the inconvenient
dispersion of the troops over the whole city, and the difficulty of
concerted action among a half-intoxicated crowd. It was no care for
the state, which they deliberately meditated polluting with the
blood of their Emperor; it was a fear lest in the darkness of night
any one who presented himself to the soldiers of the Pannonian or
German army might be fixed on instead of Otho, whom few of them
knew. Many symptoms of the approaching outburst were repressed by
those who were in the secret. Some hints, which had reached Galba's
ears, were turned into ridicule by Laco the prefect, who knew
nothing of the temper of the soldiery, and who, inimical to all
measures, however excellent, which he did not originate, obstinately
thwarted men wiser than himself.
On the 15th of January, as Galba was sacrificing in front of the
temple of Apollo, the Haruspex Umbricius announced to him that the
entrails had a sinister aspect, that treachery threatened him, that he
had an enemy at home. Otho heard, for he had taken his place close by,
and interpreted it by contraries in a favourable sense, as promising
success to his designs. Not long after his freedman Onomastus informed
him that the architect and the contractors were waiting for him. It
had been arranged thus to indicate that the soldiers were
assembling, and that the preparations of the conspiracy were complete.
To those who inquired the reason of his departure, Otho pretended that
he was purchasing certain farm-buildings, which from their age he
suspected to be unsound, and which had therefore to be first surveyed.
Leaning on his freedman's arm, he proceeded through the palace of
Tiberius to the Velabrum, and thence to the golden milestone near
the temple of Saturn. There three and twenty soldiers of the
body-guard saluted him as Emperor, and, while he trembled at their
scanty number, put him hastily into a chair, drew their swords, and
hurried him onwards. About as many more soldiers joined them on
their way, some because they were in the plot, many from mere
surprise; some shouted and brandished their swords, others proceeded
in silence, intending to let the issue determine their sentiments.
Julius Martialis was the tribune on guard in the camp. Appalled by
the enormity and suddenness of the crime, or perhaps fearing that
the troops were very extensively corrupted and that it would be
destruction to oppose them, he made many suspect him of complicity.
The rest of the tribunes and centurions preferred immediate safety
to danger and duty. Such was the temper of men's minds, that, while
there were few to venture on so atrocious a treason, many wished it
done, and all were ready to acquiesce.
Meanwhile the unconscious Galba, busy with his sacrifice, was
importuning the gods of an empire that was now another's. A rumour
reached him, that some senator unknown was being hurried into the
camp; before long it was affirmed that this senator was Otho. At the
same time came messengers from all parts of the city, where they had
chanced to meet the procession, some exaggerating the danger, some,
who could not even then forget to flatter, representing it as less
than the reality. On deliberation it was determined to sound the
feeling of the cohort on guard in the palace, but not through Galba in
person, whose authority was to be kept unimpaired to meet greater
emergencies. They were accordingly collected before the steps of the
palace, and Piso addressed them as follows:- "Comrades, this is the
sixth day since I became a Caesar by adoption, not knowing what was to
happen, whether this title was to be desired, or dreaded. It rests
with you to determine what will be the result to my family and to
the state. It is not that I dread on my own account the gloomier
issue; for I have known adversity, and I am learning at this very
moment that prosperity is fully as dangerous. It is the lot of my
father, of the Senate, of the Empire itself, that I deplore, if we
have either to fall this day, or to do what is equally abhorrent to
the good, to put others to death. In the late troubles we had this
consolation, a capital unstained by bloodshed, and power transferred
without strife. It was thought that by my adoption provision was
made against the possibility of war, even after Galba's death.
"I will lay no claim to nobleness, or moderation, for indeed, to
count up virtues in comparing oneself with Otho is needless. The
vices, of which alone he boasts, overthrew the Empire, even when he
was but the Emperor's friend. Shall he earn that Empire now by his
manner and his gait, or by those womanish adornments? They are
deceived, on whom luxury imposes by its false show of liberality; he
will know how to squander, he will not know how to give. Already he is
thinking of debaucheries, of revels, of tribes of mistresses. These
things he holds to be the prizes of princely power, things, in which
the wanton enjoyment will be for him alone, the shame and the disgrace
for all. Never yet has any one exercised for good ends the power
obtained by crime. The unanimous will of mankind gave to Galba the
title of Caesar, and you consented when he gave it to me. Were the
Senate, the Country, the People, but empty names, yet, comrades, it is
your interest that the most worthless of men should not create an
Emperor. We have occasionally heard of legions mutinying against their
generals, but your loyalty, your character, stand unimpeached up to
this time. Even with Nero, it was he that deserted you, not you that
deserted him. Shall less than thirty runaways and deserters whom no
one would allow to choose a tribune or centurion for themselves,
assign the Empire at their pleasure? Do you tolerate the precedent? Do
you by your inaction make the crime your own? This lawless spirit will
pass into the provinces, and though we shall suffer from this treason,
you will suffer from the wars that will follow. Again, no more is
offered you for murdering your Prince, than you will have if you
shun such guilt. We shall give you a donative for your loyalty, as
surely as others can give it for your treason."
The soldiers of the body-guard dispersed, but the rest of the
cohort, who shewed no disrespect to the speaker, displayed their
standards, acting, as often happens in a disturbance, on mere
impulse and without any settled plan, rather than, as was afterwards
believed, with treachery and an intention to deceive. Celsus Marius
was sent to the picked troops from the army of Illyricum, then
encamped in the Portico of Vipsanius. Instructions were also given
to Amulius Serenus and Quintius Sabinus, centurions of the first rank,
to bring up the German soldiers from the Hall of Liberty. No
confidence was placed in the legion levied from the fleet, which had
been enraged by the massacre of their comrades, whom Galba had
slaughtered immediately on his entry into the capital. Meanwhile
Cetrius Severus, Subrius Dexter, and Pompeius Longinus, all three
military tribunes, proceeded to the Praetorian camp, in the hope
that a sedition, which was but just commencing, and not yet fully
matured, might be swayed by better counsels. Two of these tribunes,
Subrius and Cetrius, the soldiers assailed with menaces; Longinus they
seized and disarmed; it was not his rank as an officer, but his
friendship with Galba, that bound him to that Prince, and roused a
stronger suspicion in the mutineers. The legion levied from the
fleet joined the Praetorians without any hesitation. The Illyrian
detachments drove Celsus away with a shower of javelins. The German
veterans wavered long. Their frames were still enfeebled by
sickness, and their minds were favourably disposed towards Galba, who,
finding them exhausted by their long return voyage from Alexandria,
whither they had been sent on by Nero, had supplied their wants with a
most unsparing attention.
The whole populace and the slaves with them were now crowding the
palace, clamouring with discordant shouts for the death of Otho and
the destruction of the conspirators, just as if they were demanding
some spectacle in the circus or amphitheatre. They had not indeed
any discrimination or sincerity, for on that same day they would raise
with equal zeal a wholly different cry. It was their traditional
custom to flatter any ruler with reckless applause and meaningless
zeal. Meanwhile two suggestions were keeping Galba in doubt. T. Vinius
thought that he should remain within the palace, array the slaves
against the foe, secure the approaches, and not go out to the
enraged soldiers. "You should," he said, "give the disaffected time to
repent, the loyal time to unite. Crimes gain by hasty action, better
counsels by delay. At all events, you will still have the same
facilities of going out, if need be, whereas, your retreat, should you
repent of having gone, will be in the power of another."
The rest were for speedy action, "before," they said, "the yet
feeble treason of this handful of men can gather strength. Otho
himself will be alarmed, Otho, who stole away to be introduced to a
few strangers, but who now, thanks to the hesitation and inaction in
which we waste our time, is learning how to play the Prince. We must
not wait till, having arranged matters in the camp, he bursts into the
Forum, and under Galba's very eyes makes his way to the Capitol, while
our noble Emperor with his brave friends barricades the doors of his
palace. We are to stand a siege forsooth, and truly we shall have an
admirable resource in the slaves, if the unanimous feeling of this
vast multitude, and that which can do so much, the first burst of
indignation, be suffered to subside. Moreover that cannot be safe
which is not honourable. If we must fall, let us go to meet the
danger. This will bring more odium upon Otho, and will be more
becoming to ourselves." Vinius opposing this advice, Laco assailed him
with threats, encouraged by Icelus, who persisted in his private
animosities to the public ruin.
Without further delay Galba sided with these more plausible
advisers. Piso was sent on into the camp, as being a young man of
noble name, whose popularity was of recent date, and who was a
bitter enemy to T. Vinius, that is, either he was so in reality, or
these angry partisans would have it so, and belief in hatred is but
too ready. Piso had hardly gone forth when there came a rumour, at
first vague and wanting confirmation, that Otho had been slain in
the camp; soon, as happens with these great fictions, men asserted
that they had been present, and had seen the deed; and, between the
delight of some and the indifference of others, the report was
easily believed. Many thought the rumour had been invented and
circulated by the Othonianists, who were now mingling with the
crowd, and who disseminated these false tidings of success to draw
Galba out of the palace.
Upon this not only did the people and the ignorant rabble break
out into applause and vehement expressions of zeal, but many of the
Knights and Senators, losing their caution as they laid aside their
fear, burst open the doors of the palace, rushed in, and displayed
themselves to Galba, complaining that their revenge had been
snatched from them. The most arrant coward, the man, who, as the event
proved, would dare nothing in the moment of danger, was the most
voluble and fierce of speech. No one knew anything, yet all were
confident in assertion, till at length Galba in the dearth of all true
intelligence, and overborne by the universal delusion, assumed his
cuirass, and as, from age and bodily weakness, he could not stand up
against the crowd that was still rushing in, he was elevated on a
chair. He was met in the palace by Julius Atticus, a soldier of the
body-guard, who, displaying a bloody sword, cried "I have slain Otho."
"Comrade," replied Galba, "who gave the order?" So singularly resolute
was his spirit in curbing the license of the soldiery; threats did not
dismay him, nor flatteries seduce.
There was now no doubt about the feeling of all the troops in the
camp. So great was their zeal, that, not content with surrounding Otho
with their persons in close array, they elevated him to the
pedestal, on which a short time before had stood the gilt statue of
Galba, and there, amid the standards, encircled him with their
colours. Neither tribunes nor centurions could approach. The common
soldiers even insisted that all the officers should be watched.
Everything was in an uproar with their tumultuous cries and their
appeals to each other, which were not, like those of a popular
assembly or a mob, the discordant expressions of an idle flattery;
on the contrary, as soon as they caught sight of any of the soldiers
who were flocking in, they seized him, gave him the military
embrace, placed him close to Otho, dictated to him the oath of
allegiance, commending sometimes the Emperor to his soldiers,
sometimes the soldiers to their Emperor. Otho did not fail to play his
part; he stretched out his arms, and bowed to the crowd, and kissed
his hands, and altogether acted the slave, to make himself the master.
It was when the whole legion from the fleet had taken the oath to him,
that feeling confidence in his strength, and thinking that the men, on
whose individual feeling he had been working, should be roused by a
general appeal, he stood before the rampart of the camp, and spoke
as follows:
"Comrades, I cannot say in what character I have presented myself to
you; I refuse to call myself a subject, now that you have named me
Prince, or Prince, while another reigns. Your title also will be
equally uncertain, so long as it shall be a question, whether it is
the Emperor of the Roman people, or a public enemy, whom you have in
your camp. Mark you, how in one breath they cry for my punishment
and for your execution. So evident it is, that we can neither
perish, nor be saved, except together. Perhaps, with his usual
clemency, Galba has already promised that we should die, like the man,
who, though no one demanded it, massacred so many thousands of
perfectly guiltless soldiers. A shudder comes over my soul, whenever I
call to mind that ghastly entry, Galba's solitary victory, when,
before the eyes of the capital he gave orders to decimate the
prisoners, the suppliants, whom he had admitted to surrender. These
were the auspices with which he entered the city. What is the glory
that he has brought to the throne? None but that he has murdered
Obultronius Sabinus and Cornelius Marcellus in Spain, Betuus Chilo
in Gaul, Fonteius Capito in Germany, Clodius Macer in Africa,
Cingonius on the high road, Turpilianus in the city, Nymphidius in the
camp. What province, what camp in the world, but is stained with blood
and foul with crime, or, as he expresses it himself, purified and
chastened? For what others call crimes he calls reforms, and, by
similar misnomers, he speaks of strictness instead of barbarity, of
economy instead of avarice, while the cruelties and affronts inflicted
upon you he calls discipline. Seven months only have passed since Nero
fell, and already Icelus has seized more than the Polycleti, the
Vatinii, and the Elii amassed. Vinius would not have gone so far
with his rapacity and lawlessness had he been Emperor himself; as it
is, he has lorded it over us as if we had been his own subjects, has
held us as cheap as if we had been another's. That one house would
furnish the donative, which is never given you, but with which you are
daily upbraided.
"Again, that we might have nothing to hope even from his
successor, Galba fetches out of exile the man in whose ill-humour
and avarice he considers that he has found the best resemblance to
himself. You witnessed, comrades, how by a remarkable storm even the
Gods discountenanced that ill-starred adoption; and the feeling of the
Senate, of the people of Rome, is the same. It is to your valour
that they look, in you these better counsels find all their support,
without you, noble as they may be, they are powerless. It is not to
war or to danger that I invite you; the swords of all Roman soldiers
are with us. At this moment Galba has but one half-armed cohort, which
is detaining, not defending him. Let it once behold you, let it
receive my signal, and the only strife will be, who shall oblige me
most. There is no room for delay in a business which can only be
approved when it is done." He then ordered the armoury to be opened.
The soldiers immediately seized the arms without regard to rule or
military order, no distinction being observed between Praetorians
and legionaries, both of whom again indiscriminately assumed the
shields and helmets of the auxiliary troops. No tribune or centurion
encouraged them, every man acted on his own impulse and guidance,
and the vilest found their chief incitement in the dejection of the
good.
Meanwhile, appalled by the roar of the increasing sedition and by
the shouts which reached the city, Piso had overtaken Galba, who in
the interval had quitted the palace, and was approaching the Forum.
Already Marius Celsus had brought back discouraging tidings. And now
some advised that the Emperor should return to the palace, others that
he should make for the Capitol, many again that he should occupy the
Rostra, though most did but oppose the opinions of others, while, as
ever happens in these ill-starred counsels, plans for which the
opportunity had slipped away seemed the best. It is said that Laco,
without Galba's knowledge, meditated the death of Vinius, either
hoping by this execution to appease the fury of the soldiers, or
believing him to be an accomplice of Otho, or, it may be, out of
mere hatred. The time and the place however made him hesitate; he knew
that a massacre once begun is not easily checked. His plan too was
disconcerted by a succession of alarming tidings, and the desertion of
immediate adherents. So languid was now the zeal of those who had at
first been eager to display their fidelity and courage.
Galba was hurried to and fro with every movement of the surging
crowd; the halls and temples all around were thronged with
spectators of this mournful sight. Not a voice was heard from the
people or even from the rabble. Everywhere were terror-stricken
countenances, and ears turned to catch every sound. It was a scene
neither of agitation nor of repose, but there reigned the silence of
profound alarm and profound indignation. Otho however was told that
they were arming the mob. He ordered his men to hurry on at full
speed, and to anticipate the danger. Then did Roman soldiers rush
forward like men who had to drive a Vologeses or Pacorus from the
ancestral throne of the Arsacidae, not as though they were hastening
to murder their aged and defenceless Emperor. In all the terror of
their arms, and at the full speed of their horses, they burst into the
Forum, thrusting aside the crowd and trampling on the Senate.
Neither the sight of the Capitol, nor the sanctity of the
overhanging temples, nor the thought of rulers past or future, could
deter them from committing a crime, which any one succeeding to
power must avenge.
When this armed array was seen to approach, the standard-bearer of
the cohort that escorted Galba (he is said to have been one Atilius
Vergilio) tore off and dashed upon the ground Galba's effigy. At
this signal the feeling of all the troops declared itself plainly
for Otho. The Forum was deserted by the flying populace. Weapons
were pointed against all who hesitated. Near the lake of Curtius,
Galba was thrown out of his litter and fell to the ground, through the
alarm of his bearers. His last words have been variously reported
according as men hated or admired him. Some have said that he asked in
a tone of entreaty what wrong he had done, and begged a few days for
the payment of the donative. The more general account is, that he
voluntarily offered his neck to the murderers, and bade them haste and
strike, if it seemed to be for the good of the Commonwealth. To
those who slew him mattered not what he said. About the actual
murderer nothing is clearly known. Some have recorded the name of
Terentius, an enrolled pensioner, others that of Lecanius; but it is
the current report that one Camurius, a soldier of the 15th legion,
completely severed his throat by treading his sword down upon it.
The rest of the soldiers foully mutilated his arms and legs, for his
breast was protected, and in their savage ferocity inflicted many
wounds even on the headless trunk.
They next fell on T. Vinius; and in his case also it is not known
whether the fear of instant death choked his utterance, or whether
he cried out that Otho had not given orders to slay him. Either he
invented this in his terror, or he thus confessed his share in the
conspiracy. His life and character incline us rather to believe that
he was an accomplice in the crime which he certainly caused. He fell
in front of the temple of the Divine Julius, and at the first blow,
which struck him on the back of the knee; immediately afterwards
Julius Carus, a legionary, ran him through the body.
A noble example of manhood was on that day witnessed by our age in
Sempronius Densus. He was a centurion in a cohort of the Praetorian
Guard, and had been appointed by Galba to escort Piso. Rushing, dagger
in hand, to meet the armed men, and upbraiding them with their
crime, he drew the attention of the murderers on himself by his
exclamations and gestures, and thus gave Piso, wounded as he was, an
opportunity of escape. Piso made his way to the temple of Vesta, where
he was admitted by the compassion of one of the public slaves, who
concealed him in his chamber. There, not indeed through the sanctity
of the place or its worship, but through the obscurity of his
hiding-place, he obtained a respite from instant destruction, till
there came, by Otho's direction and specially eager to slay him,
Sulpicius Florus, of the British auxiliary infantry, to whom Galba had
lately given the citizenship, and Statius Murcus, one of the
body-guard. Piso was dragged out by these men and slaughtered in the
entrance of the temple.
There was, we are told, no death of which Otho heard with greater
joy, no head which he surveyed with so insatiable a gaze. Perhaps it
was, that his mind was then for the first time relieved from all
anxiety, and so had leisure to rejoice; perhaps there was with Galba
something to recall departed majesty, with Vinius some thought of
old friendship, which troubled with mournful images even that ruthless
heart; Piso's death, as that of an enemy and a rival, he felt to be
a right and lawful subject of rejoicing. The heads were fixed upon
poles and carried about among the standards of the cohorts, close to
the eagle of the legion, while those who had struck the blow, those
who had been present, those who whether truly or falsely boasted of
the act, as of some great and memorable achievement, vied in
displaying their bloodstained hands. Vitellius afterwards found more
than 120 memorials from persons who claimed a reward for some
notable service on that day. All these persons he ordered to be sought
out and slain, not to honour Galba, but to comply with the traditional
policy of rulers, who thus provide protection for the present and
vengeance for the future.
One would have thought it a different Senate, a different people.
All rushed to the camp, outran those who were close to them, and
struggled with those who were before, inveighed against Galba, praised
the wisdom of the soldiers, covered the hand of Otho with kisses;
the more insincere their demonstrations, the more they multiplied
them. Nor did Otho repulse the advances of individuals, while he
checked the greed and ferocity of the soldiers by word and look.
They demanded that Marius Celsus, consul elect, Galba's faithful
friend to the very last moment, should be led to execution, loathing
his energy and integrity as if they were vices. It was evident that
they were seeking to begin massacre and plunder, and the
proscription of all the most virtuous citizens, and Otho had not yet
sufficient authority to prevent crime, though he could command it.
He feigned anger, and ordered him to be loaded with chains,
declaring that he was to suffer more signal punishment, and thus he
rescued him from immediate destruction.
Every thing was then ordered according to the will of the
soldiery. The Praetorians chose their own prefects. One was Plotius
Firmus, who had once been in the ranks, had afterwards commanded the
watch, and who, while Galba was yet alive, had embraced the cause of
Otho. With him was associated Licinius Proculus, Otho's intimate
friend, and consequently suspected of having encouraged his schemes.
Flavius Sabinus they appointed prefect of the city, thus adopting
Nero's choice, in whose reign he had held the same office, though many
in choosing him had an eye to his brother Vespasian. A demand was then
made, that the fees for furloughs usually paid to the centurions
should be abolished. These the common soldiers paid as a kind of
annual tribute. A fourth part of every company might be scattered on
furlough, or even loiter about the camp, provided that they paid the
fees to the centurions. No one cared about the amount of the tax, or
the way in which it was raised. It was by robbery, plunder, or the
most servile occupations that the soldiers' holiday was purchased. The
man with the fullest purse was worn out with toil and cruel usage till
he bought his furlough. His means exhausted by this outlay, and his
energies utterly relaxed by idleness, the once rich and vigorous
soldier returned to his company a poor and spiritless man. One after
another was ruined by the same poverty and license, and rushed into
mutiny and dissension, and finally into civil war. Otho, however,
not to alienate the affections of the centurions by an act of bounty
to the ranks, promised that his own purse should pay these annual
sums. It was undoubtedly a salutary reform, and was afterwards under
good emperors established as a permanent rule of the service. Laco,
prefect of the city, who had been ostensibly banished to an island,
was assassinated by an enrolled pensioner, sent on by Otho to do the
deed. Martianus Icelus, being but a freedman, was publicly executed.
A day spent in crime found its last horror in the rejoicings that
concluded it. The Praetor of the city summoned the Senate; the rest of
the Magistrates vied with each other in their flatteries. The Senators
hastily assembled and conferred by decree upon Otho the tribunitial
office, the name of Augustus, and every imperial honour. All strove to
extinguish the remembrance of those taunts and invectives, which had
been thrown out at random, and which no one supposed were rankling
in his heart. Whether he had forgotten, or only postponed his
resentment, the shortness of his reign left undecided. The Forum yet
streamed with blood, when he was borne in a litter over heaps of
dead to the Capitol, and thence to the palace. He suffered the
bodies to be given up for burial, and to be burnt. For Piso, the
last rites were performed by his wife Verania and his brother
Scribonianus; for Vinius, by his daughter Crispina, their heads having
been discovered and purchased from the murderers, who had reserved
them for sale.
Piso, who was then completing his thirty-first year, had enjoyed
more fame than good fortune. His brothers, Magnus and Crassus, had
been put to death by Claudius and Nero respectively. He was himself
for many years an exile, for four days a Caesar, and Galba's hurried
adoption of him only gave him this privilege over his elder brother,
that he perished first. Vinius had lived to the age of fifty-seven,
with many changes of character. His father was of a praetorian family,
his maternal grandfather was one of the proscribed. He had disgraced
himself in his first campaign when he served under the legate
Calvisius Sabinus. That officer's wife, urged by a perverse
curiosity to view the camp, entered it by night in the disguise of a
soldier, and after extending the insulting frolic to the watches and
the general arrangements of the army, actually dared to commit the act
of adultery in the head-quarters. Vinius was charged with having
participated in her guilt, and by order of Caius was loaded with
irons. The altered times soon restored him to liberty. He then enjoyed
an uninterrupted succession of honours, first filling the praetorship,
and then commanding a legion with general satisfaction, but he
subsequently incurred the degrading imputation of having pilfered a
gold cup at the table of Claudius, who the next day directed that he
alone should be served on earthenware. Yet as proconsul of Gallia
Narbonensis he administered the government with strict integrity. When
forced by his friendship with Galba to a dangerous elevation, he
shewed himself bold, crafty, and enterprising; and whether he
applied his powers to vice or virtue, was always equally energetic.
His will was made void by his vast wealth; that of Piso owed its
validity to his poverty.
The body of Galba lay for a long time neglected, and subjected,
through the license which the darkness permitted, to a thousand
indignities, till Argius his steward, who had been one of his
slaves, gave it a humble burial in his master's private gardens. His
head, which the sutlers and camp-followers had fixed on a pole and
mangled, was found only the next day in front of the tomb of
Patrobius, a freedman of Nero's, whom Galba had executed. It was put
with the body, which had by that time been reduced to ashes. Such
was the end of Servius Galba, who in his seventy-three years had lived
prosperously through the reigns of five Emperors, and had been more
fortunate under the rule of others than he was in his own. His
family could boast an ancient nobility, his wealth was great. His
character was of an average kind, rather free from vices, than
distinguished by virtues. He was not regardless of fame, nor yet
vainly fond of it. Other men's money he did not covet, with his own he
was parsimonious, with that of the State avaricious. To his freedmen
and friends he shewed a forbearance, which, when he had fallen into
worthy hands, could not be blamed; when, however, these persons were
worthless, he was even culpably blind. The nobility of his birth and
the perils of the times made what was really indolence pass for
wisdom. While in the vigour of life, he enjoyed a high military
reputation in Germany; as proconsul he ruled Africa with moderation,
and when advanced in years shewed the same integrity in Eastern Spain.
He seemed greater than a subject while he was yet in a subject's rank,
and by common consent would have been pronounced equal to empire,
had he never been emperor.
The alarm of the capital, which trembled to see the atrocity of
these recent crimes, and to think of the old character of Otho, was
heightened into terror by the fresh news about Vitellius, news which
had been suppressed before the murder of Galba, in order to make it
appear that only the army of Upper Germany had revolted. That two men,
who for shamelessness, indolence, and profligacy, were the most
worthless of mortals, had been selected, it would seem, by some
fatality to ruin the Empire, became the open complaint, not only of
the Senate and the Knights, who had some stake and interest in the
country, but even of the common people. It was no longer to the late
horrors of a dreadful peace, but to the recollections of the civil
wars, that men recurred, speaking of how the capital had been taken by
Roman armies, how Italy had been wasted and the provinces spoiled,
of Pharsalia, Philippi, Perusia, and Mutina, and all the familiar
names of great public disasters. "The world," they said, "was
well-nigh turned upside down when the struggle for empire was
between worthy competitors, yet the Empire continued to exist after
the victories of Caius Julius and Caesar Augustus; the Republic
would have continued to exist under Pompey and Brutus. And is it for
Otho or for Vitellius that we are now to repair to the temples?
Prayers for either would be impious, vows for either a blasphemy, when
from their conflict you can only learn that the conqueror must be
the worse of the two." Some were speculating on Vespasian and the
armies of the East. Vespasian was indeed preferable to either, yet
they shuddered at the idea of another war, of other massacres. Even
about Vespasian there were doubtful rumours, and he, unlike any of his
predecessors, was changed for the better by power.
I will now describe the origin and occasion of the revolt of
Vitellius. After the destruction of Julius Vindex and his whole force,
the army, flushed with the delights of plunder and glory, as men might
well be who had been fortunate enough to triumph without toil or
danger in a most lucrative war, began to hanker after compaigns and
battles, and to prefer prize money to pay. They had long endured a
service which the character of the country and of the climate and
the rigours of military discipline rendered at once unprofitable and
severe. But that discipline, inexorable as it is in times of peace, is
relaxed by civil strife, when on both sides are found the agents of
corruption, and treachery goes unpunished. They had men, arms and
horses, more than enough for all purposes of utility and show, but
before the war they had been acquainted only with the companies and
squadrons of their own force, as the various armies were separated
from each other by the limits of their respective provinces. But the
legions, having been concentrated to act against Vindex, and having
thus learnt to measure their own strength against the strength of
Gaul, were now on the lookout for another war and for new conflicts.
They called their neighbours, not "allies" as of old, but "the
enemy" and "the vanquished." Nor did that part of Gaul which borders
on the Rhine fail to espouse the same cause, and to the bitterest
hostility in inflaming the army against the Galbianists, that being
the name, which in their contempt for Vindex they had given to the
party. The rage first excited against the Sequani and Aedui extended
to other states in proportion to their wealth, and they revelled in
imagination on the storm of cities, the plunder of estates, the sack
of dwelling-houses. But, besides the rapacity and arrogance which
are the special faults of superior strength, they were exasperated
by the bravadoes of the Gallic people, who in a spirit of insult to
the army boasted of how they had been relieved by Galba from a
fourth part of their tribute, and had received grants from the
State. There was also a report, ingeniously spread and recklessly
believed, to the effect that the legions were being decimated, and all
the most energetic centurions dismissed. From all quarters arrived the
most alarming tidings. The reports from the capital were unfavourable,
while the disaffection of the colony of Lugdunum, which obstinately
adhered to Nero, gave rise to a multitude of rumours. But it was in
the army itself, in its hatreds, its fears, and even in the security
with which a review of its own strength inspired it, that there was
the most abundant material for the exercise of imagination and
credulity.
Just before December 1 in the preceding year, Aulus Vitellius had
visited Lower Germany, and had carefully inspected the winter quarters
of the legions. Many had their rank restored to them, sentences of
degradation were cancelled, and marks of disgrace partially removed.
In most cases he did but court popularity, in some he exercised a
sound discretion, making a salutary change from the meanness and
rapacity which Fonteius Capito had shown in bestowing and
withdrawing promotion. But he seemed a greater personage than a simple
consular legate, and all his acts were invested with an unusual
importance. Though sterner judges pronounced Vitellius to be a man
of low tastes, those who were partial to him attributed to geniality
and good nature the immoderate and indiscriminate prodigality, with
which he gave away what was his own, and squandered what did not
belong to him. Besides this, men themselves eager for power were ready
to represent his very vices as virtues. As there were in both armies
many of obedient and quiet habits, so there were many who were as
unprincipled as they were energetic; but distinguished above all for
boundless ambition and singular daring were the legates of the
legions, Fabius Valens and Alienus Caecina. One of these men,
Valens, had taken offence against Galba, under the notion that he
had not shewn proper gratitude for his services in discovering to
him the hesitation of Verginius and crushing the plans of Capito. He
now began to urge Vitellius to action. He enlarged on the zeal of
the soldiery. "You have," he said, "everywhere a great reputation; you
will find nothing to stop you in Hordeonius Flaccus; Britain will be
with you; the German auxiliaries will follow your standard. All the
provinces waver in their allegiance. The Empire is held on the
precarious tenure of an aged life, and must shortly pass into other
hands. You have only to open your arms, and to meet the advances of
fortune. It was well for Verginius to hesitate, the scion of a mere
Equestrian family, and son of a father unknown to fame: he would
have been unequal to empire, had he accepted it, and yet been safe
though he refused it. But from the honours of a father who was
thrice consul, was censor and colleague of Caesar, Vitellius has
long since derived an imperial rank, while he has lost the security
that belongs to a subject."
These arguments roused the indolent temper of the man, yet roused
him rather to wish than to hope for the throne. Meanwhile however in
Upper Germany Caecina, young and handsome, of commanding stature,
and of boundless ambition, had attracted the favour of the soldiery by
his skilful oratory and his dignified mien. This man had, when
quaestor in Baetica, attached himself with zeal to the party of Galba,
who had appointed him, young as he was, to the command of a legion,
but, it being afterwards discovered that he had embezzled the public
money, Galba directed that he should be prosecuted for peculation.
Caecina, grievously offended, determined to throw everything into
confusion, and under the disasters of his country to conceal his
private dishonour. There were not wanting in the army itself the
elements of civil strife. The whole of it had taken part in the war
against Vindex; it had not passed over to Galba till Nero fell; even
then in this transference of its allegiance it had been anticipated by
the armies of Lower Germany. Besides this, the Treveri, the
Lingones, and the other states which Galba had most seriously
injured by his severe edicts and by the confiscation of their
territory, were particularly close to the winter-quarters of the
legions. Thence arose seditious conferences, a soldiery demoralized by
intercourse with the inhabitants of the country, and tendencies in
favour of Verginius, which could easily be to the profit of any
other person.
The Lingones, following an old custom, had sent presents to the
legions, right hands clasped together, an emblem of friendship.
Their envoys, who had assumed a studied appearance of misery and
distress, passed through the headquarters and the men's tents, and
complaining, now of their own wrongs, now of the rewards bestowed on
the neighbouring states, and, when they found the soldiers' ears
open to their words, of the perils and insults to which the army
itself was exposed, inflamed the passions of the troops. The legions
were on the verge of mutiny, when Hordeonius Flaccus ordered the
envoys to depart, and to make their departure more secret, directed
them to leave the camp by night. Hence arose a frightful rumour,
many asserting that the envoys had been killed, and that, unless the
soldiers provided their own safety, the next thing would be, that
the most energetic of their number, and those who had complained of
their present condition, would be slaughtered under cover of night,
when the rest of the army would know nothing of their fate. The
legions then bound themselves by a secret agreement. Into this the
auxiliary troops were admitted. At first objects of suspicion, from
the idea that their infantry and cavalry were being concentrated in
preparation for an attack on the legions, these troops soon became
especially zealous in the scheme. The bad find it easier to agree
for purposes of war than to live in harmony during peace.
Yet it was to Galba that the legions of Lower Germany took the
oath of fidelity annually administered on the first of January. It was
done, however, after long delay, and then only by a few voices from
the foremost ranks, while the rest preserved an absolute silence,
every one waiting for some bold demonstration from his neighbour, in
obedience to that innate tendency of men, which makes them quick to
follow where they are slow to lead. And even in the various legions
there was a difference of feeling. The soldiers of the 1st and of
the 5th were so mutinous, that some of them threw stones at the images
of Galba. The 15th and 16th legions ventured on nothing beyond
uproar and threatening expressions. They were on the watch for
something that might lead to an outbreak. In the Upper army,
however, the 4th and 13th legions, which were stationed in the same
winter-quarters, proceeded on this same first of January to break in
pieces the images of Galba, the 4th legion being foremost, the 18th
shewing some reluctance, but soon joining with the rest. Not however
to seem to throw off all their reverence for the Empire, they sought
to dignify their oath with the now obsolete names of the Senate and
people of Rome. Not a single legate or tribune exerted himself for
Galba; some, as is usual in a tumult, were even conspicuously active
in mutiny, though no one delivered anything like a formal harangue
or spoke from a tribunal. Indeed there was as yet no one to be obliged
by such services.
Hordeonius Flaccus, the consular legate, was present and witnessed
this outrage, but he dared neither check the furious mutineers, nor
keep the wavering to their duty, nor encourage the well affected.
Indolent and timid, he was reserved from guilt only by his sloth. Four
Centurions of the 18th legion, Nonius Receptus, Donatius Valens,
Romilius Marcellus, Calpurnius Repentinus, striving to protect the
images of Galba, were swept away by a rush of the soldiers and put
in irons. After this no one retained any sense of duty, any
recollection of his late allegiance, but, as usually happens in
mutinies, the side of the majority became the side of all. In the
course of the night of the 1st of January, the standard-bearer of
the 4th legion, coming to the Colonia Agrippinensis, announced to
Vitellius, who was then at dinner, the news that the 4th and 18th
legions had thrown down the images of Galba, and had sworn
allegiance to the Senate and people of Rome. Such a form of oath
appeared meaningless. It was determined to seize the doubtful
fortune of the hour, and to offer an Emperor to their choice.
Vitellius sent envoys to the legions and their legates, who were to
say that the army of Upper Germany had revolted from Galba, that it
was consequently necessary for them, either to make war on the
revolters, or, if they preferred peace and harmony, to create an
Emperor, and who were to suggest, that it would be less perilous to
accept than to look for a chief.
The nearest winter-quarters were those of the first legion, and
Fabius Valens was the most energetic of the legates. This officer in
the course of the following day entered the Colonia Agrippinensis with
the cavalry of the legion and of the auxiliaries, and together with
them saluted Vitellius as Emperor. All the legions belonging to the
same province followed his example with prodigious zeal, and the
army of Upper Germany abandoned the specious names the Senate and
people of Rome, and on the 3rd of January declared for Vitellius.
One could be sure that during those previous two days it had not
really been the army of the State. The inhabitants of Colonia
Agrippinensis, the Treveri, and the Lingones, shewed as much zeal as
the army, making offers of personal service, of horses, of arms and of
money, according as each felt himself able to assist the cause by
his own exertions, by his wealth, or by his talents. Nor was this done
only by the leading men in the colonies or the camps, who had abundant
means at hand, and might indulge great expectations in the event of
victory, but whole companies down to the very ranks offered instead of
money their rations, their belts, and the bosses, which, richly
decorated with silver, adorned their arms; so strong were the
promptings from without, their own enthusiasm, and even the
suggestions of avarice.
Vitellius, after bestowing high commendation on the zeal of the
soldiers, proceeded to distribute among Roman Knights the offices of
the Imperial court usually held by freedmen. He paid the furlough fees
to the centurions out of the Imperial treasury. While in most
instances he acquiesced in the fury of the soldiers, who clamoured for
numerous executions, in some few he eluded it under the pretence of
imprisoning the accused. Pompeius Propinquus, procurator of Belgica,
was immediately put to death. Julius Burdo, prefect of the German
fleet, he contrived to withdraw from the scene of danger. The
resentment of the army had been inflamed against this officer by the
belief, that it was he who had invented the charges and planned the
treachery which had destroyed Capito. The memory of Capito was held in
high favour, and with that enraged soldiery it was possible to
slaughter in open day, but to pardon only by stealth. He was kept in
prison, and only set at liberty after the victory of Vitellius, when
the resentment of the soldiery had subsided. Meanwhile, by way of a
victim, the centurion Crispinus was given up to them; this man had
actually imbued his hands in the blood of Capito. Consequently he
was to those who cried for vengeance a more notorious criminal, and to
him who punished a cheaper sacrifice.
Julius Civilis, a man of commanding influence among the Batavi,
was next rescued from like circumstances of peril, lest that
high-spirited nation should be alienated by his execution. There
were indeed in the territory of the Lingones eight Batavian cohorts,
which formed the auxiliary force of the 14th legion, but which had,
among the many dissensions of the time, withdrawn from it; a body of
troops which, to whatever side they might incline, would, whether as
allies or enemies, throw a vast weight into the scale. Vitellius
ordered the centurions Nonnius, Donatius, Romilius, and Calpurnius, of
whom I have before spoken, to be executed. They had been convicted
of the crime of fidelity, among rebels the worst of crimes. New
adherents soon declared themselves in Valerius Asiaticus, legate of
the Province of Belgica, whom Vitellius soon after made his
son-in-law, and Junius Blaesus, governor of Gallia Lugdunensis, who
brought with him the Italian Legion and the Taurine Horse, which was
stationed at Lugdunum. The armies of Rhaetia made no delay in at
once joining Vitellius, and even in Britain there was no hesitation.
Of that province Trebellius Maximus was governor, a man whose sordid
avarice made him an object of contempt and hatred to the army. His
unpopularity was heightened by the efforts of Roscius Caelius, the
legate of the 20th legion, who had long been on bad terms with him,
and who now seized the opportunity of a civil war to break out into
greater violence. Trebellius charged him with mutinous designs, and
with disturbing the regularity of military discipline; Caelius
retorted on Trebellius the accusation of having plundered and
impoverished the legions. Meanwhile all obedience in the army was
destroyed by these disgraceful quarrels between its commanders, and
the feud rose to such a height that Trebellius was insulted even by
the auxiliaries, and finding himself altogether isolated, as the
infantry and cavalry sided with Caelius, he fled for safety to
Vitellius. Yet the province still enjoyed tranquility, though its
consular governor had been driven from it. It was now ruled by the
legates of the legions, who were equal as to lawful authority,
though the audacity of Caelius made him the more powerful.
After the army of Britain had joined him, Vitellius, who had now a
prodigious force and vast resources, determined that there should be
two generals and two lines of march for the contemplated war. Fabius
Valens was ordered to win over, if possible, or, if they refused his
overtures, to ravage the provinces of Gaul and to invade Italy by
way of the Cottian Alps; Caecina to take the nearer route, and to
march down from the Penine range. To Valens were entrusted the
picked troops of the army of Lower Germany with the eagle of the 5th
legion and the auxiliary infantry and cavalry, to the number of 40,000
armed men; Caecina commanded 30,000 from Upper Germany, the strength
of his force being one legion, the 21st. Both had also some German
auxiliaries, and from this source Vitellius, who was to follow with
his whole military strength, completed his own forces.
Wonderful was the contrast between the army and the Emperor. The
army was all eagerness; they cried out war, while Gaul yet wavered,
and Spain hesitated. "The winter," they said, "the delays of a
cowardly inaction must not stop us. We must invade Italy, we must
seize the capital; in civil strife, where action is more needed than
deliberation, nothing is safer than haste." Vitellius, on the
contrary, was sunk in sloth, and anticipated the enjoyment of
supreme power in indolent luxury and prodigal festivities. By midday
he was half-intoxicated, and heavy with food; yet the ardour and
vigour of the soldiers themselves discharged all the duties of a
general as well as if the Emperor had been present to stimulate the
energetic by hope and the indolent by fear. Ready to march and eager
for action, they loudly demanded the signal for starting; the title of
Germanicus was at once bestowed on Vitellius, that of Caesar he
refused to accept, even after his victory. It was observed as a
happy omen for Fabius Valens and the forces which he was conducting to
the campaign, that on the very day on which they set out an eagle
moved with a gentle flight before the army as it advanced, as if to
guide it on its way. And for a long distance so loudly did the
soldiers shout in their joy, so calm and unterrified was the bird,
that it was taken as no doubtful omen of great and successful
achievements.
The territory of the Treveri they entered with all the security
naturally felt among allies. But at Divodurum, a town of the
Mediomatrici, though they had been received with the most courteous
hospitality, a sudden panic mastered them. In a moment they took up
arms to massacre an innocent people, not for the sake of plunder, or
fired by the lust of spoil, but in a wild frenzy arising from causes
so vague that it was very difficult to apply a remedy. Soothed at
length by the entreaties of their general, they refrained from utterly
destroying the town; yet as many as four thousand human beings were
slaughtered. Such an alarm was spread through Gaul, that as the army
advanced, whole states, headed by their magistrates and with prayers
on their lips, came forth to meet it, while the women and children lay
prostrate along the roads, and all else that might appease an
enemy's fury was offered, though war there was none, to secure the
boon of peace.
Valens received the tidings of the murder of Galba and the accession
of Otho while he was in the country of the Leuci. The feelings of
the soldiers were not seriously affected either with joy or alarm;
they were intent on war. Gaul however ceased to hesitate: Otho and
Vitellius it hated equally, Vitellius it also feared. The next
territory was that of the Lingones who were loyal to Vitellius. The
troops were kindly received, and they vied with each other in good
behaviour. This happy state of things, however, was of short
duration owing to the violence of the auxiliary infantry, which had
detached itself, as before related, from the 14th legion, and had been
incorporated by Valens with his army. First came angry words, then a
brawl between the Batavi and the legionaries, which as the
partialities of the soldiers espoused one or another of the parties
was almost kindled into a battle, and would have been so, had not
Valens by punishing a few, reminded Batavi of the authority which they
had now forgotten. Against the Aedui a pretext for war was sought in
vain. That people, when ordered to furnish arms and money, voluntarily
added a supply of provisions. What the Aedui did from fear, the people
of Lugdunum did with delight. Yet the Italian legion and the Taurine
Horse were withdrawn. It was resolved that the 18th cohort should be
left there, as it was their usual winter quarters. Manlius Valens,
legate of the Italian legion, though he had served the party well, was
held in no honour by Vitellius. Fabius Valens had defamed him by
secret charges of which he knew nothing, publicly praising him all the
while, that he might the less suspect the treachery.
The old feud between Lugdunum and Vienna had been kindled afresh
by the late war. They had inflicted many losses on each other so
continuously and so savagely that they could not have been fighting
only for Nero or Galba. Galba had made his displeasure the occasion
for diverting into the Imperial treasury the revenues of Lugdunum,
while he had treated Vienna with marked respect. Thence came rivalry
and dislike, and the two states, separated only by a river, were
linked together by perpetual feud. Accordingly the people of
Lugdunum began to work on the passions of individual soldiers, and
to goad them into destroying Vienna, by reminding them, how that
people had besieged their colony, had abetted the attempts of
Vindex, and had recently raised legions for Galba. After parading
these pretexts for quarrel, they pointed out how vast would be the
plunder. From secret encouragement they passed to open entreaty. "Go,"
they said, "to avenge us and utterly destroy this home of Gallic
rebellion. There all are foreigners and enemies; we are a Roman
colony, a part of the Roman army, sharers in your successes and
reverses. Fortune may declare against us. Do not abandon us to an
angry foe."
By these and many similar arguments they so wrought upon the troops,
that even the legates and the leaders of the party did not think it
possible to check their fury; but the people of Vienna, aware of their
danger, assumed the veils and chaplets of suppliants, and, as the army
approached, clasped the weapons, knees and feet of the soldiers, and
so turned them from their purpose. Valens also made each soldier a
present of 300 sesterces. After that the antiquity and rank of the
colony prevailed, and the intercession of Valens, who charged them
to respect the life and welfare of the inhabitants, received a
favourable hearing. They were however publicly mulcted of their
arms, and furnished the soldiers with all kinds of supplies from their
private means. Report, however, has uniformly asserted, that Valens
himself was bought with a vast sum. Poor for many years and suddenly
growing rich, he could but ill conceal the change in his fortunes,
indulging without moderation the appetites which a protracted
poverty had inflamed, and, after a youth of indigence, becoming
prodigal in old age. The army then proceeded by slow marches through
the territory of the Allobroges and Vocontii, the very length of
each day's march and the changes of encampment being made a matter
of traffic by the general, who concluded disgraceful bargains to the
injury of the holders of land and the magistrates of the different
states, and used such menaces, that at Lucus, a municipal town of
the Vocontii, he was on the point of setting fire to the place, when a
present of money soothed his rage. When money was not forthcoming he
was bought off by sacrifices to his lust. Thus he made his way to
the Alps.
Caecina revelled more freely in plunder and bloodshed. His
restless spirit had been provoked by the Helvetii, a Gallic race
famous once for its warlike population, afterwards for the
associations of its name. Of the murder of Galba they knew nothing,
and they rejected the authority of Vitellius. The war originated in
the rapacity and impatience of the 21st legion, who had seized some
money sent to pay the garrison of a fortress, which the Helvetii had
long held with their own troops and at their own expense. The Helvetii
in their indignation intercepted some letters written in the name of
the army of Germany, which were on their way to the legions of
Pannonia, and detained the centurion and some of his soldiers in
custody. Caecina, eager for war, hastened to punish every delinquency,
as it occurred, before the offender could repent. Suddenly moving
his camp he ravaged a place, which during a long period of peace had
grown up into something like a town, and which was much resorted to as
an agreeable watering place. Despatches were sent to the Rhaetian
auxiliaries, instructing them to attack the Helvetii in the rear while
the legion was engaging them in front.
Bold before the danger came and timid in the moment of peril, the
Helvetii, though at the commencement of the movement they had chosen
Claudius Severus for their leader, knew not how to use their arms,
to keep their ranks, or to act in concert. A pitched battle with
veteran troops would be destruction, a siege would be perilous with
fortifications old and ruinous. On the one side was Caecina at the
head of a powerful army, on the other were the auxiliary infantry
and cavalry of Rhaetia and the youth of that province, inured to
arms and exercised in habits of warfare. All around were slaughter and
devastation. Wandering to and fro between the two armies, the Helvetii
threw aside their arms, and with a large proportion of wounded and
stragglers fled for refuge to Mount Vocetius. They were immediately
dislodged by the attack of some Thracian infantry. Closely pursued
by the Germans and Rhaetians they were cut down in their forests and
even in their hiding places. Thousands were put to the sword,
thousands more were sold into slavery. Every place having been
completely destroyed, the army was marching in regular order on
Aventicum, the capital town, when a deputation was sent to surrender
the city. This surrender was accepted. Julius Alpinus, one of the
principal men, was executed by Caecina, as having been the promoter of
the war. All the rest he left to the mercy or severity of Vitellius.
It is hard to say whether the envoys from Helvetia found the Emperor
or his army less merciful. "Exterminate the race," was the cry of
the soldiers as they brandished their weapons, or shook their fists in
the faces of the envoys. Even Vitellius himself did not refrain from
threatening words and gestures, till at length Claudius Cossus, one of
the Helvetian envoys, a man of well-known eloquence, but who then
concealed the art of the orator under an assumption of alarm, and
was therefore more effective, soothed the rage of the soldiers, who,
like all multitudes, were liable to sudden impulses, and were now as
inclined to pity as they had been extravagant in fury. Bursting into
tears and praying with increasing earnestness for a milder sentence,
they procured pardon and protection for the state.
Caecina while halting for a few days in the Helvetian territory,
till he could learn the decision of Vitellius, and at the same time
making preparations for the passage of the Alps, received from Italy
the good news, that Silius' Horse, which was quartered in the
neighbourhood of Padus, had sworn allegiance to Vitellius. They had
served under him when he was Proconsul in Africa, from which place
Nero had soon afterwards brought them, intending to send them on
before himself into Egypt, but had recalled them in consequence of the
rebellion of Vindex. They were still in Italy, and now, at the
instigation of their decurions, who knew nothing of Otho, but were
bound to Vitellius, and who magnified the strength of the advancing
legions and the fame of the German army, they joined the
Vitellianists, and by way of a present to their new Prince they
secured for him the strongest towns of the country north of the Padus,
Mediolanum, Novaria, Eporedia, and Vercellae. This Caecina had
learnt from themselves. Aware that the widest part of Italy could
not be held by such a force as a single squadron of cavalry, he sent
on in advance the auxiliary infantry from Gaul, Lusitania, and
Rhaetia, with the veteran troops from Germany, and Petra's Horse,
while he made a brief halt to consider whether he should pass over the
Rhaetian range into Noricum, to attack Petronius, the procurator,
who had collected some auxiliaries, and broken down the bridges over
the rivers, and was thought to be faithful to Otho. Fearing however
that he might lose the infantry and cavalry which he had sent on in
advance, and at the same time reflecting that more honour was to be
gained by holding possession of Italy, and that, wherever the decisive
conflict might take place, Noricum would be included among the other
prizes of victory, he marched the reserves and the heavy infantry
through the Penine passes while the Alps were still covered with the
snows of winter.
Meanwhile Otho, to the surprise of all, was not sinking down into
luxury and sloth. He deferred his pleasures, concealed his profligacy,
and moulded his whole life to suit the dignity of empire. Men
dreaded all the more virtues so false, and vices so certain to return.
Marius Celsus, consul elect, whom he had rescued from the fury of
the soldiers by pretending to imprison him, he now ordered to be
summoned to the Capitol. He sought to acquire a reputation for
clemency by sparing a distinguished man opposed to his own party.
Celsus pleaded guilty to the charge of faithful adherence to Galba,
and even made a merit of such an example of fidelity. Otho did not
treat him as a man to be pardoned, and, unwilling to blend with the
grace of reconciliation the memory of past hostility, at once admitted
him to his intimate friendship, and soon afterwards appointed him to
be one of his generals. By some fatality, as it seemed, Celsus
maintained also to Otho a fidelity as irreproachable as it was
unfortunate. The escape of Celsus gratified the leading men in the
State, was generally praised by the people, and did not displease even
the soldiers, who could not but admire the virtue which provoked their
anger.
Then followed as great a burst of joy, though from a less worthy
cause, when the destruction of Tigellinus was achieved. Sophonius
Tigellinus, a man of obscure birth, steeped in infamy from his
boyhood, and shamelessly profligate in his old age, finding vice to be
his quickest road to such offices as the command of the watch and of
the Praetorian Guard, and to other distinctions due to merit, went
on to practise cruelty, rapacity, and all the crimes of maturer years.
He perverted Nero to every kind of atrocity; he even ventured on
some acts without the Emperor's knowledge, and ended by deserting
and betraying him. Hence there was no criminal, whose doom was from
opposite motives more importunately demanded, as well by those who
hated Nero, as by those who regretted him. During the reign of Galba
Tigellinus had been screened by the influence of Vinius, who alleged
that he had saved his daughter. And doubtless he had preserved her
life, not indeed out of mercy, when he had murdered so many, but to
secure for himself a refuge for the future. For all the greatest
villains, distrusting the present, and dreading change, look for
private friendship to shelter them from public detestation, caring not
to be free from guilt, but only to ensure their turn in impunity. This
enraged the people more than ever, the recent unpopularity of Vinius
being superadded to their old hatred against Tigellinus. They rushed
from every part of the city into the palace and forum, and bursting
into the circus and theatre, where the mob enjoy a special license,
broke out into seditious clamours. At length Tigellinus, having
received at the springs of Sinuessa a message that his last hour was
come, amid the embraces and caresses of his mistresses and other
unseemly delays, cut his throat with a razor, and aggravated the
disgrace of an infamous life by a tardy and ignominious death.
About the same time a demand was made for the execution of Galvia
Crispinilla. Various artifices on the part of the Emperor, who
incurred much obloquy by his duplicity, rescued her from the danger.
She had instructed Nero in profligacy, had passed over into Africa,
that she might urge Macer into rebellion, and had openly attempted
to bring a famine upon Rome. Yet she afterwards gained universal
popularity on the strength of her alliance with a man of consular
rank, and lived unharmed through the reigns of Galba, Otho, and
Vitellius. Soon she became powerful as a rich and childless woman,
circumstances which have as great weight in good as in evil times.
Meanwhile frequent letters, disfigured by unmanly flatteries, were
addressed by Otho to Vitellius, with offers of wealth and favour and
any retreat he might select for a life of prodigal indulgence.
Vitellius made similar overtures. Their tone was at first pacific; and
both exhibited a foolish and undignified hypocrisy. Then they seemed
to quarrel, charging each other with debaucheries and the grossest
crimes, and both spoke truth. Otho, having recalled the envoys whom
Galba had sent, dispatched others, nominally from the Senate, to
both the armies of Germany, to the Italian legion, and to the troops
quartered at Lugdunum. The envoys remained with Vitellius too
readily to let it be supposed that they were detained. Some
Praetorians, whom Otho had attached to the embassy, ostensibly as a
mark of distinction, were sent back before they could mix with the
legions. Letters were also addressed by Fabius Valens in the name of
the German army to the Praetorian and city cohorts, extolling the
strength of his party, and offering terms of peace. Valens even
reproached them with having transferred the Imperial power to Otho,
though it had so long before been entrusted to Vitellius.
Thus they were assailed by promises as well as by threats, were told
that they were not strong enough for war, but would lose nothing by
peace. Yet all this did not shake the loyalty of the Praetorians.
Nevertheless secret emissaries were dispatched by Otho to Germany, and
by Vitellius to Rome. Both failed in their object. Those of
Vitellius escaped without injury, unnoticed in the vast multitude,
knowing none, and themselves unknown. Those of Otho were betrayed by
their strange faces in a place where all knew each other. Vitellius
wrote to Titianus, Otho's brother, threatening him and his son with
death, unless the lives of his mother and his children were spared.
Both families remained uninjured. This in Otho's reign was perhaps due
to fear; Vitellius was victorious, and gained all the credit of mercy.
The first encouraging tidings came to Otho from Illyricum. He
heard that the legions of Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Moesia had sworn
allegiance to him. Similar intelligence was received from Spain, and
Cluvius Rufus was commended in an edict. Immediately afterwards it
became known that Spain had gone over to Vitellius. Even Aquitania,
bound though it was by the oath of allegiance to Otho which Julius
Cordus had administered, did not long remain firm. Nowhere was there
any loyalty or affection; men changed from one side to the other under
the pressure of fear or necessity. It was this influence of fear
that drew over to Vitellius the province of Gallia Narbonensis,
which turned readily to the side that was at once the nearer and the
stronger. The distant provinces, and all the armies beyond the sea,
still adhered to Otho, not from any attachment to his party, but
because there was vast weight in the name of the capital and the
prestige of the Senate, and also because the claims which they had
first heard had prepossessed their minds. The army of Judaea under
Vespasian, and the legions of Syria under Mucianus, swore allegiance
to Otho. Egypt and the Eastern provinces were also governed in his
name. Africa displayed the same obedience, Carthage taking the lead.
In that city Crescens, one of Nero's freedmen (for in evil times
even this class makes itself a power in the State), without waiting
for the sanction of the proconsul, Vipstanus Apronianus, had given
an entertainment to the populace by way of rejoicings for the new
reign, and the people, with extravagant zeal, hastened to make the
usual demonstrations of joy. The example of Carthage was followed
the other cities of Africa.
As the armies and provinces were thus divided, Vitellius, in order
to secure the sovereign power, was compelled to fight. Otho
continued to discharge his imperial duties as though it were a time of
profound peace. Sometimes he consulted the dignity of the
Commonwealth, but often in hasty acts, dictated by the expediency of
the moment, he disregarded its honour. He was himself to be consul
with his brother Titianus till the 1st of March; the two following
months he assigned to Verginius as a compliment to the army of
Germany. With Verginius was to be associated Pompeius Vopiscus,
avowedly on the ground of their being old friends, though many
regarded the appointment as meant to do honour to the people of
Vienna. The other consulships still remained as Nero or Galba had
arranged them. Caelius Sabinus and his brother Flavius were to be
consuls till the 1st of July; Arrius Antoninus and Marius Celsus
from that time to the 1st of September. Even Vitellius, after his
victory, did not interfere with these appointments. On aged
citizens, who had already held high office, Otho bestowed, as a
crowning dignity, pontificates and augurships, while he consoled the
young nobles, who had lately returned from exile, by reviving the
sacerdotal offices, held by their fathers and ancestors. Cadius Rufus,
Pedius Blaesus, Saevinius Pomptinius, who in the reigns of Claudius
and Nero had been convicted under indictments for extortion, were
restored to their rank as Senators. Those who wished to pardon them
resolved by a change of names to make, what had really been
rapacity, seem to have been treason, a charge then so odious that it
made even good laws a dead letter.
By similar bounty Otho sought to win the affections of the cities
and provinces. He bestowed on the colonies of Hispalis and Emerita
some additional families, on the entire people of the Lingones the
privileges of Roman citizenship; to the province of Baetica he
joined the states of Mauritania, and granted to Cappadocia and
Africa new rights, more for display than for permanent utility. In the
midst of these measures, which may find an excuse in the urgency of
the crisis and the anxieties which pressed upon him, he still did
not forget his old amours, and by a decree of the Senate restored
the statues of Poppaea. It is even believed that he thought of
celebrating the memory of Nero in the hope of winning the populace,
and persons were found to exhibit statues of that Prince. There were
days on which the people and the soldiers greeted him with shouts of
Nero Otho, as if they were heaping on him new distinction and
honour. Otho himself wavered in suspense, afraid to forbid or
ashamed to acknowledge the title.
Men's minds were so intent on the civil war, that foreign affairs
were disregarded. This emboldened the Roxolani, a Sarmatian tribe, who
had destroyed two cohorts in the previous winter, to invade Moesia
with great hopes of success. They had 9000 cavalry, flushed with
victory and intent on plunder rather than on fighting. They were
dispersed and off their guard, when the third legion together with
some auxiliaries attacked them. The Romans had everything ready for
battle, the Sarmatians were scattered, and in their eagerness for
plunder had encumbered themselves with heavy baggage, while the
superior speed of their horses was lost on the slippery roads. Thus
they were cut down as if their hands were tied. It is wonderful how
entirely the courage of this people is, so to speak, external to
themselves. No troops could shew so little spirit when fighting on
foot; when they charge in squadrons, hardly any line can stand against
them. But as on this occasion the day was damp and the ice thawed,
what with the continual slipping of their horses, and the weight of
their coats of mail, they could make no use of their pikes or their
swords, which being of an excessive length they wield with both hands.
These coats are worn as defensive armour by the princes and most
distinguished persons of the tribe. They are formed of plates of
iron or very tough hides, and though they are absolutely
impenetrable to blows, yet they make it difficult for such as have
been overthrown by the charge of the enemy to regain their feet.
Besides, the Sarmatians were perpetually sinking in the deep and
soft snow. The Roman soldier, moving easily in his cuirass,
continued to harass them with javelins and lances, and whenever the
occasion required, closed with them with his short sword, and
stabbed the defenceless enemy; for it is not their custom to defend
themselves with a shield. A few who survived the battle concealed
themselves in the marshes. There they perished from the inclemency
of the season and the severity of their wounds. When this success
was known, Marcus Aponius, governor of Moesia, was rewarded with a
triumphal statue, while Fulvius Aurelius, Julianus Titius, and
Numisius Lupus, the legates of the legions, received the ensigns of
consular rank. Otho was delighted, and claimed the glory for
himself, as if it were he that commanded success in war, and that
had aggrandised the State by his generals and his armies.
Meanwhile, from a trifling cause, whence nothing was apprehended,
there arose a tumult, which had nearly proved fatal to the capital.
Otho had ordered the 7th cohort to be brought up to Rome from Ostia,
and the charge of arming it was entrusted to Varius Crispinus, one
of the tribunes of the Praetorian Guard. This officer, thinking that
he could carry out the order more at his leisure, when the camp was
quiet, opened the armoury, and ordered the wagons of the cohort to
be laden at night-fall. The time provoked suspicion, the motive
challenged accusation, the elaborate attempt at quiet ended in a
disturbance, and the sight of arms among a drunken crowd excited the
desire to use them. The soldiers murmured, and charged the tribunes
and centurions with treachery, alleging that the households of the
Senators were being armed to destroy Otho; many acted in ignorance and
were stupefied by wine, the worst among them were seeking an
opportunity for plunder, the mass was as usual ready for any new
movement, and the military obedience of the better disposed was
neutralised by the darkness. The tribune, who sought to check the
movement, and the strictest disciplinarians among the centurions, were
cut down. The soldiers seized their arms, bared their swords, and,
mounted on their horses, made for the city and the palace.
Otho was giving a crowded entertainment to the most distinguished
men and women of Rome. In their alarm they doubted whether this was
a casual outbreak of the soldiers, or an act of treachery in the
Emperor, and whether to remain and be arrested was a more perilous
alternative than to disperse and fly. At one time making a show of
courage, at another betrayed by their terror, they still watched the
countenance of Otho. And, as it happened, so ready were all to
suspect, Otho felt as much alarm as he inspired. Terrified no less
by the Senate's critical position than by his own, he had forthwith
despatched the prefects of the Praetorian Guard to allay the fury of
the soldiery, and he now ordered all to leave the banquet without
delay. Then on all sides officers of state cast aside the insignia
of office, and shunned the retinues of their friends and domestics;
aged men and women wandered in the darkness of night about the various
streets of the city; few went to their homes, most sought the houses
of friends, or some obscure hiding-place in the dwelling of their
humblest dependents.
The rush of the soldiers was not even checked by the doors of the
palace. They burst in upon the banquet with loud demands that Otho
should shew himself. They wounded the tribune, Julius Martialis, and
the prefect, Vitellius Saturninus, who sought to stem the torrent.
On every they brandished their swords, and menaced the centurions
and tribunes at one moment, the whole Senate at another. Their minds
were maddened by a blind panic, and, unable to single out any one
object for their fury, they sought for indiscriminate vengeance. At
last Otho, regardless of his imperial dignity, stood up on a couch,
and by dint of prayers and tears contrived to restrain them. Reluctant
and guilty, they returned to the camp. The next day the houses were
closed as they might be in a captured city. Few of the citizens
could be seen in the streets, the populace were dejected, the soldiers
walked with downcast looks, and seemed gloomy rather than penitent.
Licinius Proculus and Plotius Firmus, the prefects, addressed the
companies in the gentler or harsher terms that suited their respective
characters. The end of these harangues was that 5000 sesterces were
paid to each soldier. Then did Otho venture to enter the camp; the
tribunes and centurions surrounded him. They had thrown aside the
insignia of their rank, and they demanded release from the toils and
perils of service. The soldiers felt the reproach; returning to
their duty, they even demanded the execution of the ringleaders in the
riot.
Otho was aware how disturbed was the country, and how conflicting
the feelings of the soldiery, the most respectable of whom cried out
for some remedy for the existing licence, while the great mass
delighted in riot and in an empire resting on popularity, and could be
most easily urged to civil war by indulgence in tumult and rapine.
At the same time he reflected that power acquired by crime could not
be retained by a sudden assumption of the moderation and of the
dignity of former times, yet he was alarmed by the critical position
of the capital and by the perils of the Senate. Finally, he
addressed the troops in these terms: "Comrades, I am not come that I
may move your hearts to love me, or that I may rouse your courage;
love and courage you have in superfluous abundance. I am come to
pray you to put some restraint on your valour, some check on your
affection for me. The origin of the late tumult is to be traced not to
rapacity or disaffection, feelings which have driven many armies
into civil strife, much less to any shrinking from, or fear of danger.
It was your excessive affection for me that roused you to act with
more zeal than discretion. For even honourable motives of action,
unless directed by judgment, are followed by disastrous results. We
are now starting for a campaign. Does the nature of things, does the
rapid flight of opportunities, admit of all intelligence being
publicly announced, of every plan being discussed in the presence of
all? It is as needful that the soldiers should be ignorant of some
things as that they should know others. The general's authority, the
stern laws of discipline, require that in many matters even the
centurions and tribunes shall only receive orders. If, whenever orders
are given, individuals may ask questions, obedience ceases, and all
command is at an end. Will you in the field too snatch up your arms in
the dead of night? Shall one or two worthless and drunken fellows, for
I cannot believe that more were carried away by the frenzy of the late
outbreak, imbrue their hands in the blood of centurions and
tribunes, and burst into the tent of their Emperor?
"You indeed did this to serve me, but in the tumult, the darkness,
and the general confusion, an opportunity may well occur that may be
used against me. If Vitellius and his satellites were allowed to
choose, what would be the temper and what the thoughts with which they
would curse us? What would they wish for us but mutiny and strife,
that the private should not obey the centurion, nor the centurion
the tribune, that thus we should rush, horse and foot together, on our
own destruction? Comrades, it is by obeying, not by questioning the
orders of commanders, that military power is kept together. And that
army is the most courageous in the moment of peril, which is the
most orderly before the peril comes. Keep you your arms and your
courage, leave it to me to plan, and to guide your valour. A few
were in fault, two will be punished. Let all the rest blot out the
remembrance of that night of infamy. Never let any army hear those
cries against the Senate. To clamour for the destruction of what is
the head of the Empire, and contains all that is distinguished in
the provinces, good God! it is a thing which not even those Germans,
whom Vitellius at this very moment is rousing against us, would dare
to do. Shall any sons of Italy, the true youth of Rome, cry out for
the massacre of an order, by whose splendid distinctions we throw into
the shade the mean and obscure faction of Vitellius? Vitellius is
the master of a few tribes, and has some semblance of an army. We have
the Senate. The country is with us; with them, the country's
enemies. What! do you imagine that this fairest of cities is made up
of dwellings and edifices and piles of stones? These dumb and
inanimate things may be indifferently destroyed and rebuilt. The
eternal duration of empire, the peace of nations, my safety and yours,
rest on the security of the Senate. This order which was instituted
under due auspices by the Father and Founder of the city, and which
has lasted without interruption and without decay from the Kings
down to the Emperors, we will bequeath to our descendants, as we
have inherited it from our ancestors. For you give the state its
Senators, and the Senate gives it its Princes."
This speech, which was meant to touch and to calm the feelings of
the soldiers, and the moderate amount of severity exercised (for
Otho had ordered two and no more to be punished), met with a
grateful acceptance, and for the moment reduced to order men who could
not be coerced. Yet tranquillity was not restored to the capital;
there was still the din of arms and all the sights of war, and the
soldiers, though they made no concerted disturbance, had dispersed
themselves in disguise about private houses, and exercised a malignant
surveillance over all whom exalted rank, or distinction of any kind,
exposed to injurious reports. Many too believed that some of the
soldiers of Vitellius had come to the capital to learn the feelings of
the different parties. Hence everything was rife with suspicion, and
even the privacy of the family was hardly exempt from fear. It was
however in public that most alarm was felt; with every piece of
intelligence that rumour brought, men changed their looks and spirits,
anxious not to appear discouraged by unfavourable omens, or too little
delighted by success. When the Senate was summoned to the Chamber,
it was hard for them to maintain in all things a safe moderation.
Silence might seem contumacious, and frankness might provoke
suspicion, and Otho, who had lately been a subject, and had used the
same language, was familiar with flattery. Accordingly, they discussed
various motions on which they had put many constructions. Vitellius
they called a public enemy and a traitor to his country, the more
prudent contenting themselves with hackneyed terms of abuse, though
some threw out reproaches founded in truth, yet only did so in the
midst of clamour, and when many voices were heard at once, drowning
their own speech in a tumult of words.
Prodigies which were now noised abroad from various sources
increased men's terror. It was said that in the porch of the Capitol
the reins of the chariot, on which stood the goddess of Victory, had
dropped from her hand, that from the chapel of Juno there had rushed
forth a form greater than the form of man, that the statue of the
Divine Julius, which stands on the island in the Tiber, had turned
from the West to the East on a calm and tranquil day, that an ox had
spoken aloud in Etruria, that strange births of animals had taken
place, besides many other things, such as in barbarous ages are
observed even during seasons of peace, but are now heard of only in
times of terror. But an alarm greater than all, because it connected
immediate loss with fears for the future, arose from a sudden
inundation of the Tiber. The river became vastly swollen, broke down
the wooden bridge, was checked by the heap of ruins across the
current, and overflowed not only the low and level districts of the
capital, but also much that had been thought safe from such
casualties. Many were swept away in the streets, many more were cut
off in their shops and chambers. The want of employment and the
scarcity of provisions caused a famine among the populace. The
poorer class of houses had their foundations sapped by the stagnant
waters, and fell when the river returned to its channel. When men's
minds were no longer occupied by their fears, the fact, that while
Otho was preparing for his campaign, the Campus Martius and the Via
Flaminia, his route to the war, were obstructed by causes either
fortuitous or natural, was regarded as a prodigy and an omen of
impending disasters.
Otho, after publicly purifying the city and weighing various plans
for the campaign, determined to march upon Gallia Narbonensis, as
the passes of the Penine and Cottian Alps and all the other approaches
to Gaul were held by the armies of Vitellius. His fleet was strong and
loyal