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Tacitus: History: Book 1 [60]

The Works of Tacitus

tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb

[1864-1877]

Tacitus: History Book 1 [60]

60. 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.

61. 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.

62. 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.

63. 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.

64. 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.

65. 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."

66. 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.

67. 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.

68. 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.

69. 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.

Next: Book 1 [70]

Tacitus: History: Book 1 [50]

The Works of Tacitus

tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb

[1864-1877]

Tacitus: History Book 1 [50]

50. 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.

51. 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.

52. 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."

53. 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.

54. 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.

55. 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.

56. 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.

57. 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.

58. 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.

59. 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.

Next: Book 1 [60]

Tacitus: History: Book 1 [40]

The Works of Tacitus

tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb

[1864-1877]

Tacitus: History Book 1 [40]

40. 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.

41. 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.

42. 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.

43. 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.

44. 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.

45. 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.

46. 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.

47. 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.

48. 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.

49. 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.

Next: Book 1 [50]

Tacitus: History: Book 1 [30]

The Works of Tacitus

tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb

[1864-1877]

Tacitus: History Book 1 [30]

30. "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."

31. 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.

32. 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."

33. 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.

34. 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.

35. 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.

36. 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:

37. "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.

38. "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.

39. 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.

Next: Book 1 [40]

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