Tacitus: History: Book 4 [30]

The Works of Tacitus

tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb

[1864-1877]

Tacitus: History Book 4 [30]

30. The Batavians had raised a tower two stories high, which they brought up to the Praetorian gate of the camp, where the ground was most level. But our men, pushing forward strong poles, and battering it with beams, broke it down, causing great destruction among the combatants on the top. The enemy were attacked in their confusion by a sudden and successful sally. All this time many engines were constructed by the legionaries, who were superior to the enemy in experience and skill. Peculiar consternation was caused by a machine, which, being poised in the air over the heads of the enemy, suddenly descended, and carried up one or more of them past the faces of their friends, and then, by a shifting of the weights, projected them within the limits of the camp. Civilis, giving up all hope of a successful assault, again sat down to blockade the camp at his leisure, and undermined the fidelity of the legions by the promises of his emissaries.

31. All these events in Germany took place before the battle of Cremona, the result of which was announced in a despatch from Antonius, accompanied by Caecina's proclamation. Alpinius Montanus, prefect of a cohort in the vanquished army, was on the spot, and acknowledged the fate of his party. Various were the emotions thus excited; the Gallic auxiliaries, who felt neither affection nor hatred towards either party, and who served without attachment, at once, at the instance of their prefects, deserted Vitellius. The veteran soldiers hesitated. Nevertheless, when Hordeonius administered the oath, under a strong pressure from their tribunes, they pronounced the words, which their looks and their temper belied, and while they adopted every other expression, they hesitated at the name of Vespasian, passing it over with a slight murmur, and not unfrequently in absolute silence.

32. After this, certain letters from Antonius to Civilis were read in full assembly, and provoked the suspicions of the soldiery, as they seemed to be addressed to a partisan of the cause and to be unfriendly to the army of Germany. Soon the news reached the camp at Gelduba, and the same language and the same acts were repeated. Montanus was sent with a message to Civilis, bidding him desist from hostilities, and not seek to conceal the designs of an enemy by fighting under false colours, and telling him that, if he had been attempting to assist Vespasian, his purpose had been fully accomplished. Civilis at first replied in artful language, but soon perceiving that Montanus was a man of singularly high spirit and was himself disposed for change, he began with lamenting the perils through which he had struggled for five-and-twenty years in the camps of Rome. "It is," he said, "a noble reward that I have received for my toils; my brother murdered, myself imprisoned, and the savage clamour of this army, a clamour which demanded my execution, and for which by the law of nations I demand vengeance. You, Treveri, and other enslaved creatures, what reward do you expect for the blood which you have shed so often? What but a hateful service, perpetual tribute, the rod, the axe, and the passions of a ruling race? See how I, the prefect of a single cohort, with the Batavians and the Canninefates, a mere fraction of Gaul, have destroyed their vast but useless camps, or are pressing them with the close blockade of famine and the sword. In a word, either freedom will follow on our efforts, or, if we are vanquished, we shall but be what we were before." Having thus fired the man's ambition, Civilis dismissed him, but bade him carry back a milder answer. He returned, pretending to have failed in his mission, but not revealing the other facts; these indeed soon came to light.

33. Civilis, retaining a part of his forces, sent the veteran cohorts and the bravest of his German troops against Vocula and his army, under the command of Julius Maximus and Claudius Victor, his sister's son. On their march they plundered the winter camp of a body of horse stationed at Ascibergium, and they fell on Vocula's camp so unexpectedly that he could neither harangue his army, nor even get it into line. All that he could do in the confusion was to order the veteran troops to strengthen the centre. The auxiliaries were dispersed in every part of the field. The cavalry charged, but, received by the orderly array of the enemy, fled to their own lines. What ensued was a massacre rather than a battle. The Nervian infantry, from panic or from treachery, exposed the flank of our army. Thus the attack fell upon the legions, who had lost their standards and were being cut down within the entrenchments, when the fortune of the day was suddenly changed by a reinforcement of fresh troops. Some Vascon infantry, levied by Galba, which had by this time been sent for, heard the noise of the combatants as they approached the camp, attacked the rear of the preoccupied enemy, and spread a panic more than proportionate to their numbers, some believing that all the troops from Novesium, others that all from Mogontiacum, had come up. This delusion restored the courage of the Romans, and in relying on the strength of others they recovered their own. All the bravest of the Batavians, of the infantry at least, fell, but the cavalry escaped with the standards and with the prisoners whom they had secured in the early part of the engagement. Of the slain on that day the greater number belonged to our army, but to its less effective part. The Germans lost the flower of their force.

34. The two generals were equally blameworthy; they deserved defeat, they did not make the most of success. Had Civilis given battle in greater force, he could not have been outflanked by so small a number of cohorts, and he might have destroyed the camp after once forcing an entrance. As for Vocula, he did not reconnoitre the advancing enemy, and consequently he was vanquished as soon as be left the camp; and then, mistrusting his victory, he fruitlessly wasted several days before marching against the enemy, though, had he at once resolved to drive them back, and to follow up his success, he might, by one and the same movement, have raised the siege of the legions. Meanwhile Civilis had tried to work on the feelings of the besieged by representing that with the Romans all was lost, and that victory had declared for his own troops. The standards and colours were carried round the ramparts, and the prisoners also were displayed. One of them, with noble daring, declared the real truth in a loud voice, and, as he was cut down on the spot by the Germans, all the more confidence was felt in his information. At the same time it was becoming evident, from the devastation of the country and from the flames of burning houses, that the victorious army was approaching. Vocula issued orders that the standards should be planted within sight of the camp, and should be surrounded with a ditch and rampart, where his men might deposit their knapsacks, and so fight without encumbrance. On this, the General was assailed by a clamorous demand for instant battle. They had now grown used to threaten. Without even taking time to form into line, disordered and weary as they were, they commenced the action. Civilis was on the field, trusting quite as much to the faults of his adversaries as to the valour of his own troops. With the Romans the fortune of the day varied, and the most violently mutinous shewed themselves cowards. But some, remembering their recent victory, stood their ground and struck fiercely at the foe, now encouraging each other and their neighbours, and now, while they re-formed their lines, imploring the besieged not to lose the opportunity. These latter, who saw everything from the walls, sallied out from every gate. It so happened that Civilis was thrown to the ground by the fall of his horse. A report that he had been either wounded or slain gained belief throughout both armies, and spread incredible panic among his own troops, and gave as great encouragement to their opponents. But Vocula, leaving the flying foe, began to strengthen the rampart and the towers of the camp, as if another siege were imminent. He had misused success so often that he was rightly suspected of a preference for war.

35. Nothing distressed our troops so much as the scarcity of supplies. The baggage of the legions was therefore sent to Novesium with a crowd of non-combatants to fetch corn from that place overland, for the enemy commanded the river. The march of the first body was accomplished in security, as Civilis had not yet recovered. But when he heard that officers of the commissariat had been again sent to Novesium, and that the infantry detached as an escort were advancing just as if it were a time of profound peace, with but few soldiers round the standards, the arms stowed away in the wagons, and all wandering about at their pleasure, he attacked them in regular form, having first sent on troops to occupy the bridges and the defiles in the road. The battle extended over a long line of march, lasting with varying success till night parted the combatants. The infantry pushed on to Gelduba, while the camp remained in the same state as before, garrisoned by such troops as had been left in it. There could be no doubt what peril a convoy, heavily laden and panic-stricken, would have to encounter in attempting to return. Vocula added to his force a thousand picked men from the fifth and fifteenth legions besieged in the Old Camp, a body of troops undisciplined and ill-affected to their officers. But more than the number specified came forward, and openly protested, as they marched, that they would not endure any longer the hardships of famine and the treachery of the legates. On the other hand, those who had stayed behind complained that they were, being left to their fate by this withdrawal of a part of the legions. A twofold mutiny was the result, some calling upon Vocula to come back, while the others refused to return to the camp.

36. Meanwhile Civilis blockaded the Old Camp. Vocula retired first to Gelduba, after, wards to Novesium; Civilis took possession of Gelduba, and not long after was victorious in a cavalry engagement near Novesium. But reverses and successes seemed equally to kindle in the troops the one desire of murdering their officers. The legions, increased in number by the arrival of the men from the fifth and fifteenth, demanded a donative, for they had discovered that some money had been sent by Vitellius. After a short delay Hordeonius gave the donative in the name of Vespasian. This, more than anything else, fostered the mutinous spirit. The men, abandoning themselves to debauchery and revelry and all the license of nightly gatherings, revived their old grudge against Hordeonius. Without a single legate or tribune venturing to check them, for the darkness seems to have taken from them all sense of shame, they dragged him out of his bed and killed him. The same fate was intended for Vocula, but he assumed the dress of a slave, and escaped unrecognized in the darkness. When their fury had subsided and their alarm returned, they sent centurions with despatches to the various states of Gaul, imploring help in money and troops.

37. These men, headstrong, cowardly, and spiritless, as a mob without a leader always is, on the approach of Civilis hastily took up arms, and, as hastily abandoning them, betook themselves to flight. Disaster produced disunion, the troops from the Upper army dissociating their cause from that of their comrades. Nevertheless the statues of Vitellius were again set up in the camp and in the neighbouring Belgian towns, and this at a time when Vitellius himself had fallen. Then the men of the 1st, the 4th, and the 18th legions, repenting of their conduct, followed Vocula, and again taking in his presence the oath of allegiance to Vespasian, were marched by him to the relief of Mogontiacum. The besieging army, an heterogeneous mass of Chatti, Usipii, and Mattiaci, had raised the siege, glutted with spoils, but not without suffering loss. Our troops attacked them on the way, dispersed and unprepared. Moreover the Treveri had constructed a breastwork and rampart across their territory, and they and the Germans continued to contend with great losses on both sides up to the time when they tarnished by rebellion their distinguished services to the Roman people.

38. Meanwhile Vespasian (now consul for the second time) and Titus entered upon their office, both being absent from Rome. People were gloomy and anxious under the pressure of manifold fears, for, over and above immediate perils, they had taken groundless alarm under the impression that Africa was in rebellion through the revolutionary movements of Lucius Piso. He was governor of that province, and was far from being a man of turbulent disposition. The fact was that the wheat-ships were detained by the severity of the weather, and the lower orders, who were accustomed to buy their provisions from day to day, and to whom cheap corn was the sole subject of public interest, feared and believed that the ports had been closed and the supplies stopped, the Vitellianists, who had not yet given up their party feelings, helping to spread the report, which was not displeasing even to the conquerors. Their ambition, which even foreign campaigns could not fill to the full, was not satisfied by any triumphs that civil war could furnish.

39. On the 1st of January, at a meeting of the Senate, convoked for the purpose by Julius Frontinus, praetor of the city, votes of thanks were passed to the legates, to the armies, and to the allied kings. The office of praetor was taken away from Tettius Julianus, as having deserted his legion when it passed over to the party of Vespasian, with a view to its being transferred to Plotius Griphus. Equestrian rank was conferred on Hormus. Then, on the resignation of Frontinus, Caesar Domitian assumed the office of praetor of the city. His name was put at the head of despatches and edicts, but the real authority was in the hands of Mucianus, with this exception, that Domitian ventured on several acts of power, at the instigation of his friends, or at his own caprice. But Mucianus found his principal cause of apprehension in Primus Antonius and Varus Arrius, who, in the freshness of their fame, while distinguished by great achievements and by the attachment of the soldiery, were also supported by the people, because in no case had they extended their severities beyond the battle-field. It was also reported that Antonius had urged Scribonianus Crassus, whom an illustrious descent added to the honours of his brother made a conspicuous person, to assume the supreme power; and it was understood that a number of accomplices would not have failed to support him, had not the proposal been rejected by Scribonianus, who was a man not easily to be tempted even by a certainty, and was proportionately apprehensive of risk. Mucianus, seeing that Antonius could not be openly crushed, heaped many praises upon him in the Senate, and loaded him with promises in secret, holding out as a prize the government of Eastern Spain, then vacant in consequence of the departure of Cluvius Rufus. At the same time he lavished on his friends tribuneships and prefectures; and then, when he had filled the vain heart of the man with hope and ambition, he destroyed his power by sending into winter quarters the 7th legion, whose affection for Antonius was particularly vehement. The 3rd legion, old troops of Varus Arrius, were sent back to Syria. Part of the army was on its way to Germany. Thus all elements of disturbance being removed, the usual appearance of the capital, the laws, and the jurisdiction of the magistrates, were once more restored.

Next: Book 4 [40]