 Section 15. Book 3 Part 5 of the Histories by Publius Cornelius Tastus This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Andrew Coleman. The Histories by Publius Cornelius Tastus Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Broderib Book 3. September to December, AD 69, Part 5 Then, as if the whole State had passed into the hands of the Spasian, the leading men of the Senate, many of the equestrian order, with all the city's soldiery and the watch, thronged the dwelling of Sabinas. Intelligence was there brought to him of the enthusiasm of the populace, and of the threatening attitude of the German Coats. He had now gone too far to be able to retreat, and every one, fearing for himself, should the Vitellianists come upon them while they were scattered and comparatively weak, urged him, in spite of his reluctance, to hostilities. As usually happens, however, in such cases, all gave the advice, but few shared the risk. The armed retinue which was escorting Sabinas was met, as it was coming down by the Lake Fondanas, by some of the most determined of the Vitellianists. From this unforeseen collision resulted an encounter slight indeed, but terminating favourably for the Vitellianists. In the hurry of the moment Sabinas adopted the safest course open to him, and occupied the capital with the miscellaneous body of soldiery, and some senators and knights. It is not easy to give the names of these persons, since after the triumph of Vespasian, many pretended to have rendered this service to his party. There were even women who braved the dangers of the siege, the most conspicuous among them, being Verilana Grattila, who was taken dither not by the love of children or kindred, but by the fascination of war. The Vitellianists kept but a careless watch over the besieged, and thus at the dead of night Sabinas was able to bring into the capital his own children, and omission his brother's son, and to send by an unguarded route a messenger to the generals of the Flavianist party, with information that they were besieged, and that, unless sucker arrived, they must be reduced to distress. The night passed so quietly that he might have quitted the place without loss, for, brave as were the soldiers of Vitellius in encountering danger, they were far from attentive to the laborious duties of watching. Besides this, the sudden fall of a winter storm baffled both sight and hearing. At dawn of day, before either side commenced hostilities, Sabinas sent Cornelius Martialis, a centurion of the First Rank, to Vitellius, with instructions to complain of the infraction of the stipulated terms. There has evidently, he said, been a mere show and pretence of abdicating the empire, with the view of deceiving a number of distinguished men. If not, why, when leaving the rostra, had he gone to the house of his brother, looking as it did over the forum, and certain to provoke the gaze of the multitude, rather than to the aventine, and the family house of his wife? This would have befitted a private individual anxious to shun all appearance of imperial power. But on the contrary, Vitellius retraced his steps to the palace, the very stronghold of empire, thence issued a band of armed men. One of the most frequented parts of the city was strewed with the corpses of innocent persons. The capital itself had not been spared. I, said Sabinas, was only a civilian and a member of the senate, while the rivalry of Vitellius and Vespasian was being settled by conflicts between legions, by the capture of cities, by the capitulation of cohorts, with Spain, Germany, and Britain in revolt. The brother of Vespasian still remained firm to his allegiance, till actually invited to discuss terms of agreement. Peace and harmony bring advantage to the conquered, but only credit to the conqueror. If you repent of your compact, it is not against me whom you treacherously deceived that you must draw the sword, nor is it against the son of Vespasian, who is yet of tender age. What would be gained by the slaughter of one old man and one stripling? You should go and meet the legions, and fight there for empire, if thing else will follow the issue of that struggle. To these representations the embarrassed Vitellius answered a few words in his own exculpation, throwing all the blame upon the soldiers, with whose excessive zeal his moderation was, he said, unable to cope. He advised Martialis to depart unobserved through a concealed part of the palace, lest he should be killed by the soldiers as the negotiator of this appalled convention. Vitellius had not now the power either to command or to forbid. He was no longer emperor, he was merely the cause of war. Martialis had hardly returned to the capital when the infuriated soldiery arrived, without any leader, every man acting on his own impulse. They hurried at quick march past the forum and the temples which hang over it, and advanced their line up the opposite hill as far as the outer gates of the capital. There were formerly certain colonnades on the right side of the slope as one went up. The defenders, issuing forth on the roof of these buildings, showered tiles and stones on the Vitellianists. The assailants were not armed with anything but swords, and it seemed too tedious to send for machines and missiles. They threw lighted brands on a projecting colonnade, and following the track of the fire would have burst through the half-burnt gates of the capital, had not Serbinus tearing down on all sides the statues, the glories of former generations formed them into a barricade across the opening. They then assailed the opposite approaches to the capital, near the grove of the asylum, and where the Tarpian rock is mounted by a hundred steps. Both these attacks were unexpected, the closer and fiercer of the two threatened the asylum. The assailants could not be checked as they mounted the continuous line of buildings, which, as was naturally in a time of profound peace, had grown up to such a height as to be on a level with the soil of the capital. A doubt arises at this point whether it was the assailants who threw lighted brands onto the roofs, or whether, as the more general account has it, the besieged thus sought to repel the assailants who are now making vigorous progress. From them the fire past of the colonnades are joining the temples, the eagles supporting the pediment, which were of old timber caught the flames, and so the capital, with its gates shut, neither defended by friends, nor spoiled by a foe, was burnt to the ground. This was the most deplorable and disgraceful event that had happened to the Commonwealth of Rome since the foundation of the city. For now, assailed by no foreign enemy, with heaven ready to be propitious, had our vices only allowed, the seat of Jupiter's supremely good and great, founded by our ancestors with solemn auspices, to be the pledge of empire, the seat which neither Porcena, when the city was surrendered, nor the Gauls, when it was captured, had been able to violate, was destroyed by the madness of our emperors. Once before indeed during civil war the capital had been consumed by fire, but then only through the crime of individuals. Now it was openly besieged, and openly set on fire. And what were the motives of this conflict? What the compensation for so great a disaster? Was it for our country we were fighting? King Tarquinius Priscus had vowed its erection in his war with the Sabines, and had laid the foundations on a scale which suited the hopes of future greatness, rather than what the yet moderate resources of Rome could achieve. After him, Servius Tullius, heartily assisted by the allies, and Tarquinius' purpose, employing the spoils of war from the conquered Suessa Pometia, raised the superstructure. But the glory of its completion was reserved for the days of liberty. After the expulsion of the kings, Horatius Pulvillus, in his second consulate, dedicated it, a building so magnificent that the vast wealth afterwards acquired by the people of Rome served to embellish, rather than increase it. It was rebuilt on the same site, when, after an interval of four hundred and fifteen years, it was burned to the ground in the consulate of Lucius Scipio and Caius Norbanus. Sulla, after his final triumph, undertook the charge of restoring it, but did not live to dedicate it. The one thing denied to his uniform good fortune. The name of Lutetius Cetulus, their dedicator, remained among all the vast erections of the emperors, down to the days of Vitellius. This was the building that was now on fire. The catastrophe, however, caused more panic among the besieged than among the besiegers. In fact, the troops of Vitellius lacked neither skill nor courage in the midst of peril. Opposed them were soldiers without self-possession, and a spiritless and, so to speak, infatuated commander, who had not the use of his tongue or his ears, who would not be guided by other men's councils, and could not carry out his own, who hurried to and fro by the shouts of the enemy, forbade what he had just ordered, and ordered what he had just forbidden. Then, as usually happens when everything is lost, all gave orders, and no one obeyed. At last they threw away their arms, and began to look about for ways of escape and means of concealment. The Vitellianists burst in, carrying everywhere with indiscriminate ferocity the firebrand and the sword. A few of the military men, among whom the most conspicuous were Cornelius Martialis, Amelius Perkinsis, Caspirius Niger, and Didius Schever, ventured to resist, and were cut down. Flavius Sabinas, who was unarmed and who did not attempt to fly, was surrounded, and with him the consul Quinctius Atticus, marked out by his clinging to the shadow of office, and by his folly, in having scattered among the people edicts highly eulogistic of the Spasian, and insulting to Vitellius. The rest escaped by various chances. Some disguised as slaves, others concealed by the fidelity of dependence, and hiding among the baggage. Some caught the watchword by which the Vitellianists recognised each other, and themselves challenging others, and giving it when challenged, found in their audacity and effectual disguise. When the enemy first burst in, Domitian concealed himself in the house of a servant of the temple. At the ingenious suggestion of a freedman, he assumed a linen vestment, and passing unnoticed among a crowd of acolytes, found a refuge with Cornelius Primus, one of his father's dependents in a house near the Velabram. When his father mounted the throne, he pulled down the chamber of the temple servant, and built a small chapel dedicated to Jupiter the Preserver, with an altar on which his own adventures were represented in marble. Afterwards, on his own accession to the imperial power, he consecrated a vast temple to Jupiter the Guardian, with an effigy of himself in the arms of the god. Sabinas and Atticus were loaded with chains, and conducted to Vitellius, who received them with anything but anger in his words and looks, amidst the murmurs of those who demanded the privilege of slaying them, and their pay for the work they had done. Those who were standing near began the clamour, and the degraded rabble cried out for the execution of Sabinas, and mingled threats with their flatteries. Vitellius, who was standing before the steps of the palace, and was preparing to intercede, was induced to desist. The body of Sabinas, pierced and mutilated, and with the head severed from it, was dragged to the Gammonii. Such was the end of a man in no wise contemptible. In five and thirty campaigns he had served the State, and had gained distinction both at home and abroad. His blamelessness and integrity no one could question. He was somewhat boastful. This was the only fault of which Ruma accused him, in the seven years during which he had governed Mosia, and the twelve during which he was prefixed of the city. In the closing scene of his life some have seen pusillanimity, many a moderate temper, sparing of the blood of his countrymen. One thing is allowed by all, that before the accession of Vespasian, the distinction of the family was centred in Sabinas. I have heard that his death gratified Mocchianus, and many indeed asserted that the interests of peace were promoted by the removal of the rivalry between these two men, one of whom felt himself to be the brother of the emperor, while the other thought himself his colleague. Vitellius resisted the demands of the people for the execution of the consul. He was now pacified, and wished it would seem to recompense Atticus, who, when asked who had set fire to the capital, had confessed his own guilt, and by this confession, which may indeed have been an opportune falsehood, was thought to have taken upon himself the odium of the crime, and to have acquitted the Vitellianist party. Meanwhile, Lucius Vitellius, who was encamped near Pheronia, was threatening Tarikino with destruction. There was shut up in the place of few gladiators and seamen, who dared not leave the walls and risk an engagement in the plain. I have mentioned before that Julianus was in command of the gladiators, Apollinaris of the seamen, to men whose profligacy and indolence made them resemble gladiators rather than generals. They kept no watch, they did not strengthen the weak points of the fortifications, but making each pleasant spot ring with a noise of their daily and nightly dissipation, they dispersed their soldiers on errands which were to minister to their luxury, and never spoke of war, except at their banquets. Epinius Tyro had quitted the place a few days before, and was now by the harsh exaktion of presence and contributions from the towns, adding to the unpopularity, rather than to the resources of his party. Meanwhile, a slave belonging to Virginia's capital deserted to Lucius Vitellius, and having engaged on being furnished with a force to put him in possession of the unoccupied citadel, proceeded at a late hour of the night to place some light-armed cohorts on the summit of a range of hills which commanded the enemy's position. From this place the troops descended to what was more a massacre than a conflict, many whom they slew were unarmed or in the act of arming themselves. Some were just awaking from sleep amid the confusion of darkness and panic, the braying of trumpets and the shouts of the foe. A few of the gladiators resisted, and fell not altogether unevented. The rest made a rush for the ships, where everything was involved in a general panic, the troops being mingled with country people, whom the Vitellianists slaughtered indiscriminately. Six Liburnian ships with Apollinaris, prefect of the fleet, escaped in the first confusion. The rest were either seized upon the beach, or were swamped by the weight of the crowds that rushed on board. Julianus was brought before Lucius Vitellius, and, after being ignominiously scourged, was put to death in his presence. Some persons accused Trieria, the wife of Lucius Vitellius, of having armed herself with the soldier's sword, and of having behaved with arrogance and cruelty amid the horrors and massacres of the storm of Tarikina. Lucius himself sent to his brother a laurel dispatch with an account of his success, and asked whether he wished him at once to return to Rome, or to complete the subjugation of Campania. This circumstance was advantageous to the state as well as to the cause of Vespasian. Had the army fresh from victory, and with all the pride of success added to its natural obstinacy, marched upon Rome, a conflict of no slight magnitude, and involving the destruction of the capital must have ensued. Lucius Vitellius, infamous as he was, had yet some energy, but it was not through his virtues, as is the case with the good, but through his vices, that he, like the worst of villains, was formidable. While these successes were being achieved on the side of Vitellius, the army of Vespasian had left Narnia, and was passing the holiday of the Saturnalia in idleness at Ocriculum. The reason alleged for such an injurious delay was that they might wait for Mochianus. Some persons indeed there were who assailed Antonius with insinuations, that he lingered with treacherous intent, after receiving private letters from Vitellius, which conveyed to him the offer of the consulship, and of the emperor's daughter in marriage with a vast dowry, as the price of treason. Others asserted that this was all a fiction, invented to please Mochianus. Some again alleged that the policy agreed upon by all the generals was to threaten, rather than actually to attack the capital, as Vitellius's strongest cohorts had revolted from him, and it seemed likely that, deprived of all support, he would abdicate the throne, but that the whole plan was ruined by the impatience and subsequent cowardice of Sabinas, who, after rashly taking up arms, had not been able to defend against three cohorts, the great stronghold of the capital, which might have defied even the mightiest armies. One cannot, however, easily fix upon one man the blame which belongs to all. Mochianus did in fact allay the conquerors by ambiguously worded dispatches. Antonius, by a perverse acquiescence, or by an attempt to throw the odium upon another, laid himself open to blame. The other generals, by imagining that the war was over, contrived a distinction for its closing scene. Even Petillius Carianus, though he had been sent on with a thousand cavalry by crossroads through the Sabine district, so as to enter Rome by the Via Solaria, had not been sufficiently prompt in his movements, when the report of the siege of the capital put all alike on the alert. Antonius marched by the Via Flaminia, and arrived at Saxa Rubra, when the night was far spent, too late to give any help. There he received nothing but gloomy intelligence, that Sabinas was dead, that the capital had been burnt to the ground, that Rome was in consternation, and also that the populace and the slaves were arming themselves for Vitellius, and Petillius Carianus had been defeated in a cavalry skirmish. While he was hurrying on without caution as against a vanquished enemy, the Vitellianists, who had disposed some infantry among their cavalry, met him. The conflict took place not far from the city among buildings, gardens, and winding lanes, which were well known to the Vitellianists, but disconcerting to their opponents, to whom they were strange. Nor indeed were all the cavalry one in heart, for there were with them some who had lately capitulated at Narnia, and who were anxiously watching the fortunes of the rival parties. Tullius Flavianus, commanding a squadron, was taken prisoner. The rest fled in disgraceful confusion, but the victors did not continue the pursuit beyond Fidani. By this success the zeal of the people was increased. The mob of the city armed itself. Some few had military shields. The greater parties such arms as came to hand, and loudly demanded the signal of battle. Vitellius expressed his thanks to them, and made them sally forth to defend their capital. Then the senate was called together, and envoys were selected to meet the armies, and urged them in the name of the Commonwealth to union and peace. The reception of these envoys was not everywhere the same. Those who fell in with Petilius Kerialis were exposed to extreme peril, for the troops disdained all offers of peace. The plight of Ariolainus Rusticus was wounded. This deed seemed all the more atrocious when, over and above the insult offered to the dignity of the envoy and pleitel, men considered the private worth of the man. His companions were dispersed, and the lictor that stood next to him, venturing to push aside the crowd, was killed. Have they not been protected by an escort provided by the general, the dignity of the ambassador, respected even by foreign nations, would have been forfeigned with fatal violence by the madness of Roman citizens, before the very walls of their country. The envoys who met Antonius were more favourably received, not because the troops were of quieter temper, but because the general had more authority. One Muzonius Rufus, a man of equestrian rank, strongly attached to the pursuit of philosophy and to the tenets of the Stoics, had joined the envoys. He mingled with the troops, and enlarging on the blessings of peace and the perils of war, began to admonish the armed crowd. Many thought it ridiculous, more thought it tiresome. Some were ready to throw him down and trample him under foot, had he not yielded to the warnings of the more orderly and the threats of others, and ceased to display his ill-timed wisdom. The Vestal Virgins also presented themselves with a letter from Vitellius to Antonius. He asked for one day of truce before the final struggle, and said that if they would permit some delay to intervene, everything might be more easily arranged. The sacred virgins were sent back with honour. But the answer returned to Vitellius was that all ordinary intercourse of war had been broken off by the murder of Sabinas and the conflagration of the capital. Antonius, however, summoned the legions to an assembly and endeavoured to calm them, proposing that they should encab near the Malvian Bridge and enter the capital on the following day. His reason for delay was the fear that the soldiers, once exasperated by conflict, would respect neither the people nor the senate, nor even the shrines and temples of the gods. They, however, looked with dislike on all procrastination as inimical to victory. At the same time, the colours that glittered among the hills, though followed by an unwarlike population, presented the appearance of a hostile array. They advanced in three divisions, one column straight from where they had halted along the Via Flaminia, another along the bank of the Tiber, a third moved on the Colline Gate by the Via Solaria. The mob was routed by a charge of the cavalry. Then the Vitellianist troops, themselves also drawn up in three columns of defence, met the foe. Numerous engagements with various issues took place before the walls, but they generally ended in favour of the Flavianists, who had the advantage of more skillful generalship. Only that division suffered, which had wound its way along narrow and slippery roads to the left quarter of the city, as far as the gardens of Salost. The Vitellianists, taking their stand on the garden walls, kept off the assailants with stones and javelins till late in the day, when they were taken in the rear by the cavalry, which had then forced an entrance by the Colline Gate. In the campus Martius also the hostile armies met, the Flavianists with all the prestige of fortune and repeated victory, the Vitellianists rushing on in sheer despair. Though defeated, they rallied again in the city. The populace stood by and watched the competence, and as though it had been a mimic conflict, encouraged first one party and then the other by their shouts and plaudits. Whenever either side gave way, they cried out that those who concealed themselves in the shops or took refuge in any private house should be dragged out and butchered, and they secured the larger share of the booty. For while the soldiers were busy with bloodshed and massacre, the spoils fell to the crowd. It was a terrible and hideous sight that presented itself throughout the city. Here raged battle and death, there the bath and the tavern were crowded. In one spot were pools of blood and heaps of corpses, and close by prostitutes and men of character as infamous. There were all the debaucheries of luxurious peace, all the horrors of a city most cruelly sacked, till one was ready to believe the country to be mad at once with rage and lust. It was not indeed the first time that armed troops had fought within the city. They had done so twice when sulla, once when sinner triumphed. The bloodshed then had not been less, but now there was an unnatural recklessness, and men's pleasures were not interrupted even for a moment. As if it were a new delight added to their holidays, they exalted in and enjoyed this scene in different parties, and rejoicing over the sufferings of their commonwealth. The most arduous struggle was the storming of the camp, which the bravest of the enemy still held as a last hope. It was therefore with peculiar energy that the conquerors, among whom the veteran cohorts were especially forward, brought to bear upon it at once all the appliances which had been discovered in reducing the strongest cities. The tostudo, the catapult, the earthwork, and the firebrand. They repeatedly shouted that all the toil and danger they had endured in so many conflicts would be crowned by this achievement. Their capital has been restored to the senate and people of Rome, and their temples to the gods. But the soldier's peculiar distinction is in their camp. This is his country, and this his home. Unless this be recovered forthwith, the night must be passed under arms. On the other hand, the Vitellianists, though unequal in numbers and doomed to defeat, could yet disturb the victory, delay the conclusion of peace, and pollute both hearth and altar with blood. And they clung to these last consolations of the vanquished. Many desperately wounded breathed their last on the towers and ramparts. When the gates were torn down, the survivors threw themselves in a body on the conquerors, and fell to a man, where the wounds in front and their faces turned towards the foe. So anxious were they even in their last hours to die with honour. When the city had been taken, Vitellius caused himself to be carried in a litter through the back of the palace to the aventine, to his wife's dwelling, intending, if by any concealment he could escape for that day, to make his way to his brother's cohorts at Tarikina. Then, with characteristic weakness, and following the instincts of fear, which, dreading everything, shrinks most from what is immediately before it, he retraced his steps to the desolate and forsaken palace, whence even the meanest slaves had fled, or where they avoided his presence. The solitude and silence of the palace scared him. He tried the close doors, he shuddered in the empty chambers, till, wearied out with his miserable wanderings, he concealed himself in an unseemly hiding place, from which he was dragged out by the tribune Julius Placadus. His hands were bound behind his back, and he was led along with tattered robes, a revolting spectacle, amidst the invectives of many, the tears of none. The degradation of his end had his extinguished all pity, one of the German soldiers met the party, and aimed a deadly blow at Vitelius, perhaps in anger, perhaps wishing to release him the sooner from insult. Possibly the blow was meant for the tribune. He struck off that officer's ear, and was immediately dispatched. Vitelius, compelled by threatening swords, first raised his face and offered it to insulting blows, then to behold his own statues falling round him, and more than once to look at the rostra and the spot where Galba was slain, was then driven along till they reached the Gammonii, the place where the corpse of Flavius Sabines had lain. One speech was heard from him showing a spirit not utterly degraded. Went to the insolves of a tribune, he answered, Yet I was your Emperor. Then he fell under a shower of blows, and the mob reviled the dead man with the same heartlessness with which they had flattered him when he was alive. Lucaria was his native place. He had nearly completed his fifty-seventh year. His consulate, his priesthood, his high reputation, his place among the first men of the state. He owed not to any energy of his own, but to the renown of his father. The throne was offered him by men who did not know him. Seldum had the affections of the army attach themselves to any man who sought to gain them by his virtues, as firmly as they did to him from the indolence of his character. Yet he had a certain frankness and generosity, qualities indeed which turned to a man's ruin unless tempered with discretion. Believing that friendship may be retained by munificent gifts rather than by consistency of character, he deserved more of it than he secured. Doubtless it was good for the state that Vitellius should be overthrown, but they who betrayed Vitellius to Vespasian cannot make a merit of their treachery, since they had themselves revolted from Galba. The day was now fast drawing to a close, and the senate could not be convened, owing to the panic of the magistrates and senators who had stolen out of the city or were concealing themselves in the houses of dependence. When nothing more was to be feared from the enemy, Domitian came forward to meet the leaders of the party. He was universally sluited by the title of Caesar, and the troops in great numbers, armed as they were, conducted him to his father's house. End of book three, part five. Book four, part one of The Histories by Publius Cornelius Tacitus. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Histories by Publius Cornelius Tacitus, translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Broderib. Book four, January to November, AD 70. Part one. When Vitelius was dead, the war had indeed come to an end, but peace had not yet to begin. Sword in hand, throughout the capital, the conquerors hunted down the conquered with merciless hatred. The streets were choked with carnage, the squares and temples reeked with blood, for men were massacred everywhere as chance threw them in the way. Soon, as their license increased, they began to search for, and drag forth, hidden foes. Whenever they saw man tall and young, they cut him down, making no distinction between soldiers and civilians. But the ferocity, in which the first impulse of hatred can be gratified only by blood, soon passed into the greed of gain. They let nothing be kept secret, nothing be closed. Vitelianists, they pretended, might be thus concealed. Here was the first step to breaking open private houses. Here, if resistance were made, a pretext for slaughter. The most needy of the populace and the most worthless of the slaves could not fail to come forward and betray their wealthy masters. Others were denounced by friends. Everywhere were lamentations and wailings, and all the miseries of a captured city, till the license of the Vitelianists and Otheanists' soldiery, once so odious, was remembered with regret. The leaders of the party, so energetic and kindling civil strife, were incapable of checking the abuse of victory. In stirring up tumult and strife, the worst man can do the most. But peace and quiet cannot be established without virtue. Domitian had entered into possession of the title and residence of Caesar, but not yet applying himself to business, was playing the part of a son of the throne with debauchery and intrigue. The office of prefect of the Praetorian Guards was held by Aureus Varus, but the supreme power was in the hands of Primus Antonius, who carried off money and slaves from the establishment of the emperor as if they were the spoils of Cremona. The other generals, whose moderation or insignificance had shut them out from the distinction in the war, had accordingly no share in its prizes. The country, terror-stricken and ready to acquiesce in servitude, urgently demanded that Lucius Vitelius, with his cohorts, should be intercepted on his way from Tarakina, and that the last sparks of the war should be trodden out. The cavalry was sent out to Arichia, the main body of the legions halted on this side of Buvali. Without hesitation, Vitelius surrendered himself and his cohorts to the discretion of the conqueror, and the soldiers threw down their ill-starred arms enraged quite as much as in alarm. The long train of prisoners, closely guarded by armed men, passed through the capital. Not one of them wore the look of a suppliant, sullen and savage. They were unmoved by the shouts and jests of the insulting rabble. A few who ventured to break away were overpowered by the force that hemmed the men. The rest were thrown into prison. Not one of them uttered an unworthy word. Even in disaster the honor of the soldier was preserved. After this Lucius Vitelius was executed. Equally vicious with his brother, he had yet shown greater vigilance during that brother's reign, and may be said not so much to have shared his elevation as to have been dragged down by his fall. About the same time Lucilius Bassus was sent with some light cavalry to establish order in Campania, where the towns were still disturbed, but by mutual animosities rather than by any spirit of opposition to the new emperor. The sight of the soldiery restored quiet, and the smaller colonies escaped unpunished. At Capua, however, the third legion was stationed to pass the winter, and the noble families suffered severely. Terakena, on the other hand, received no relief. So much more inclined are we to require an injury than an obligation. Gratitude is a burden, while there seems to be a profit in revenge. They were consoled by seeing the slave of Virginia's capitol, whom I have mentioned as the betrayer of Terakena, gibbeted in the very rings of knighthood, the gift of Vitellius, which they had seen him wear. At Rome, the senate, delighted, and full of confident hope, decreed to Vespasian all the honors customarily bestowed on the emperors. And indeed the civil war, which, beginning in Gaul and Spain, and afterwards drawing into the struggle first Germany, and then Illyricum, had traversed Egypt, Judea, and Syria, every province, and every army, this war, now that the whole earth was, as it were, purged from guilt, seemed to have reached its close. Their alacrity was increased by a letter from Vespasian, written during the continuance of the war. Such indeed was its character at first sight. The writer, however, expressed himself as an emperor, speaking modestly about himself in admirable language about the state. There was no want of deference on the part of the senate. On the emperor, and his son Titus, the consulship was bestowed by decree, on Domitian the office of Praetor with consular authority. Mukianus had also forwarded to the senate certain letters which furnished matter for talk. It was said, why, if he is a private citizen, does he speak like a public man? In a few days time he might have said the very same words in his place as a senator. And even the invective against Vitellius comes too late, and is ungenerous, while certainly it is arrogance to the state, and an insult to the emperor, to boast that he had the imperial power in his hands, and had made a present of it to Vespasian. Their dislike, however, was concealed. Their adulation was open enough. In most flattering language they've voted a triumph to Mukianus, a triumph for a civil war, though the expedition through the Samartai was the pretext. On Antonius Primus, where it bestowed the insignia of consular rank, on Aureus Varus and Cornelius Fuscus, Praetorian honors. Then they remembered the gods. It was determined that the capital should be restored. All these motions, Valerius Asiaticus, consul-elect, proposed. Most of the senators signify their assent by their looks, or by raising the hand. But a few, who either held a distinguished rank, or had a practiced talent for flattery, declared their acquiescence in studied speeches. When it came to the turn of Helvidius Priscus, Praetorian elect, to vote, he delivered an opinion full of respect indeed to a worthy emperor, yet wholly free from insincerity, and he was strongly supported by the sympathies of the Senate. To Priscus, indeed, this day was, in a special manner, the beginning of a great quarrel and great renown. As I have again happened to mention a man, of whom I shall often have to speak, the subject seems to demand that I should give a brief account of his life and pursuits and of his fortunes. Helvidius Priscus was a native of the town of Charaquina in Italy, and was the son of one Cluvius, who had been a centurion of the first rank. In early youth he devoted his distinguished talents to the loftiest pursuits, not wishing, as do many, to cloak under an imposing name a life of indolence, but to be able to enter upon public life with the spirit fortified against the chances of fortune. He followed those teachers of philosophy who hold nothing to be good, but what is honorable, nothing evil but what is base, and who refuse to count either among things good or evil, power, rank, or indeed anything not belonging to the mind. While still holding the Christorship he was selected by Piteus Thrice to be his son-in-law, and, from the example of his father-in-law, imbibed with peculiar eagerness a love of liberty. As a citizen and as a senator, as a husband, as a son-in-law, as a friend, and in all the relations of life he was ever the same, despising wealth, steadily tenacious of right, undaunted by danger. There were some who thought him too eager for fame, and indeed the desire of glory as the last infirmity cast off even by the wise. The fall of his father-in-law drove him into exile, but he returned when Galba mounted the throne and proceeded to impeach Marcellus Epyrus, who had been the informer against Thricea. This retribution, as great as it was just, had divided the senate into two parties, for if Marcellus fell a whole army of fellow corporates was struck down. At first there was a fierce struggle, as is proved by the great speeches delivered by both men. But afterwards, as the feelings of Galba were doubtful, and many senators interceded, Priscus dropped the charge, amidst comments varying with the tempers of men, some praising his moderation, others deploying a lack of courage. On the day, however, that the senate was voting about the imperial dignities of Vespasian, it had been resolved that envoys should be sent to the new emperor. Hence arose a sharp altercation between Helvidius and Epyrus. Priscus proposed that they should be chosen by name by the magistrates on oath. Marcellus demanded the ballot, and this had been the opinion expressed by the council-elect. It was the dread of personal humiliation that made Marcellus so earnest, for he feared that, if others were chosen, he should, himself, appear slighted. From an angry conversation they passed by degrees to long and bitter speeches. Helvidius asked, why should Marcellus be so afraid of the judgment of the magistrates? He has wealth and eloquence, which might make him superior to many, were he not oppressed by the consciousness of guilt. The chances of the ballot do not discriminate men's characters. The voting and judgment of the senate were devised to reach the lives and reputations of individuals. It concerns the interests of the commonwealth. It concerns the honor due to Vespasian, that he should not be met by those whom the senate counts to be peculiarly blameless, and who may fill the emperor's ears with honorable councils. Vespasian was the friend of Thracia, Sauronis, and Sextius. And the accusers of these men, though it may not be expedient to punish them, ought not to be paraded before him. By this selection, on the part of the senate, the emperor will, so to speak, be advised whom he should mark with approval, and from whom he should shrink. There can be no more effectual instrument of good government than good friends. Let Marcellus be satisfied with having urged Nero to destroy so many innocent victims. Let him enjoy the wages of his crimes and his impunity. But let him leave Vespasian to worthier advisers. Marcellus declared, it is not my opinion that it is assailed. The consul-elect has made a motion in accordance with the old precedents, which directed the use of the ballot in the appointment of envoys in order that there may be no room for intrigue or private animosities. Nothing has happened why customs of long standing should fall into disuse, or why the honor due to the emperor should be turned into an insult to any man. All senators are competent to pay their homage. What we have rather to avoid is this, that a mind unsendled by the novelty of power, and which will keenly watch the very looks and language of all, should be irritated by the obscenity of certain persons. I do not forget the times in which I have been born, or the former government, which our fathers and grandfathers established. I may regard with admiration an earlier period, but I acquiesce in the present, and while I pray for good emperors, I can endure whomesoever we may have. It was not through my speech any more than it was through the judgment of the senate that Thresia fell. The savage temper of Nero amused himself under these forms, and I found the friendship of such a prince as harassing as others found their exile. Finally, Helvidius may rival the Catoes and the Brutee of old in constancy, encourage. I am but one of the senate which bows to the same yoke. Besides, I would advise Priscus not to climb higher than the throne, or to impose his counsels on Vespasian, an old man, who has won the honors of a triumph, and has two sons grown to manhood. For as the worst emperors love an unlimited despotism, so the noblest like some cheque on liberty. These speeches, which were delivered with much vehemence on both sides, were heard with much diversity of feeling. That party prevailed, which preferred that the envoys should be taken by lot, as even the neutral selection of the senate exerted itself to retain the old practice, while the more conspicuous members inclined to the same view, dreading jealousy should the choice fall on themselves. Another struggle ensued. The praetors of the treasury, the treasury was at this time managed by praetors, complained of the poverty of the state, and demanded a retrenchment of expenditure. The consul-elect, considering how great was the evil, and how difficult the remedy, was for reserving the matter for the emperor. Helvidius gave it as his opinion that measures should be taken at the discretion of the senate. When the consuls came to take the votes, vocatius tertulianus, praetor of the people, put his veto on any resolution being adopted in so important a manner in the absence of the emperor. Helvidius had moved that the capital should be restored at the public expense, and that Vespasian should give his aid. All the more moderate of the senators let his opinion pass in silence, and in time forgot it, but there were some who remembered it. Mussonius Rufus then made a violent attack on Publius Keller, accusing him of having brought about the destruction of Barya Seronis by perjury. By this impeachment, all the hatreds of the days of the informers seemed to be revived. But the accused person was so worthless and so guilty that he could not be protected. For indeed the memory of Seronis was held in reverence. Keller had been a professor of philosophy, and had then given evidence against Barya, thus betraying and profaning the friendship of which he claimed to be a teacher. The next day was fixed for the trial, but it was not of Mussonius or Publius, it was of Priscus, of Marcellus, and his brother and formers that men were thinking, now that their hearts were once roused of vengeance. While things were in this state, while there was division in the senate, resentment among the conquered, no real authority in the conquerors, and in the country at large no laws and no emperor, Mucanius entered the capital, and at once drew all power into his own hands. The influence of Primus Antonius and Varus Arius was destroyed, for the irritation of Mucanius against them, though not revealed in his looks, was but ill-concealed, and the country keen to discover such dislikes had changed its tone and transferred its homage. He alone was canvassed and courted, and he, surrounding himself with armed men and bargaining for palaces and gardens, ceased not, what with his magnificence, his proud bearing and his guards, to grasp at the power, while he waved the titles of empire. The murder of Calpurnius Galarianus caused the utmost consternation. He was a son of Gaius Piuso, and had done nothing, but a noble name and his own youthful beauty made him the theme of common talk, and while the country was still unquiet and delighted in novel topics, there were persons who associated him with idle rumors of imperial honors. By order of Mucanius, he was surrounded with a guard of soldiers. Lest his execution in the capital should excite too much notice, they conducted him to the 40th milestone from Rome on the Appian Road, and there put him to death by opening his veins. Julius Priscus, who had been prefect to the Praetorian Guard under Vitellius, killed himself rather out of shame than by compulsion. Alphaenius Varus survived the disgrace of his cowardice, as Theatrakus, who was only a freedman, expiated by the death of a slave, his evil exercise of power. At this time the country was hearing with anything but sorrow rumors that daily gained strength of disasters in Germany. Men began to speak of slaughtered armies, of captured encampments, of gall in revolt, as if such things were not calamities. Beginning at an earlier period, I will discuss the causes in which this war had its origin, and the extent of the movements which ekindled among independent and allied nations. The Batavians, why they dwelt on the other side of the Rhine, formed a part of the tribe of the Chatti. Driven out by a domestic revolution, they took possession of an uninhabited country on the extremity of the coast of Gaul, and also of a neighboring island, surrounded by the ocean in front and by the river Rhine in the rear and on either side. Not weakened by the power of Rome or by alliance with the people stronger than themselves, they furnished to the empire nothing but men and arms. They had had a long training in the German wars, and they had gained further renown in Britain, to which country their cohorts had been transferred, commanded, according to ancient custom, by the noblest men in the nation. They had also at home a select body of cavalry, who practiced with special devotion the art of swimming, so that they could stem the stream of the Rhine with their arms and horses, without breaking the order of their squadrons. Julius Paulus and Claudius Chivalus, scions of the royal family, ranked very high above the rest of their nation. Paulus was executed by Fontius Capito on a false charge of rebellion. Chivalus was put in chains and sent to Nero, and though acquitted by Galba, stood again in peril of his life in the time of Vitellius, when the army clamored for his execution. Here were the causes of deep offense, hence arose hopes built on our disasters. Chivalus, however, was naturally politic to a degree rarely found among barbarians. He was one to represent himself as sartorius, or Hannibal, on the strength of a similar disfigurement of his countenance. To avoid the opposition, which he would encounter as a public enemy, were he openly to revolt from Rome, he affected a friendship for Vespasian, and a zealous attachment to his party, and indeed a letter had been dispatched to him by Primus Antonius, in which he was directed to divert the reinforcements which Vitellius had called up, and to keep the legions where they were by the faint of an outbreak in Germany. The same policy was suggested by Hordianius in person. He had a bias towards Vespasian, and feared for the empire, the utter ruin of which would be very near were a fresh war with so many thousands of armed men to burst upon Italy. Chivalus, who was resolved on rebellion, and intended while concealing his ulterior designs to reveal his other plans as occasion presented itself, set about the work of revolution in this way. By command of Vitellius, all the Batavian youth were then being summoned to the conscription, a thing naturally vexatious, in which the officials made yet more burdensome by the rapacity and profligacy, while they selected aged and infirm persons whom they might discharge for consideration, and mere striplings but of distinguished beauty, and many obtained even in boyhood to a noble stature whom they dragged off for infamous purposes. This caused indignation, and the ring leaders of the concerted rebellion prevailed upon the people to refuse the conscription. Chivalus collected at one of the sacred groves, ostensibly for banquet, the chiefs of the nation, and the boldest spirits of the lower classes. When he saw them warmed with the festivities of the night, he began by speaking of the renown and glory of their race, and then counted the wrongs and the oppressions which they endured, and all the other evils of slavery. There is, he said, no alliance, as once there was, we are treated as slaves. When does even a legate come among us, though he come only with a burdensome retinue, and in all the haughtiness of power? We are handed over to the prefects and centurions, and when they are glutted with our spoils and our blood, then they are changed, and new receptacles for plunder, new terms for spoilation are discovered. Now the conscription is at hand, tearing, we may say, forever children from parents and brothers from brothers. Never has the power of Rome been more depressed. In the winter quarters of the legions there was nothing but property to plunder and a few old men. Only dare to look up and cease to tremble at the empty names of legions, for we have a vast force of horse and foot. We have the Germans, our kinsmen. We have Gaul, bent on the same objects. Even to the Roman people this war will not be displeasing. If defeated, we shall still reckon it a service to Vespasian, and for success no account need be rendered. Having been listened to with great approval, he bound the whole assembly with barbarous rites and the national form of oath. Envoy's were sent to the Canaphates to urge a common policy. This is a tribe which inhabits part of the island and closely resembles the Batavians in their origin, their language, and their courageous character, but is inferior in numbers. After this he sent messengers to tamper with the British auxiliaries and with the Batavian cohorts, who, as I have before related, had been sent into Germany and were then stationed at Mogotiancom. Among the Canaphates there was a certain Brino, a man of a certain stolid bravery, and of distinguished birth. His father, after venturing on many acts of hostility, had scorned with impunity the ridiculous expedition of Caligula. His very name, the name of a family of rebels, made him popular. Raised aloft on the shield after the national fashion, and balanced on the shoulders of the bearers, he was chosen general. Immediately summoning to the arms the Frisii, a tribe of the Father Bank of the Rhine, he assailed by sea the winter quarters of two cohorts, which was the nearest point to attack. The soldiers had not anticipated the assault of the enemy. Even had they done so, they had not the strength to repulse it. Thus the camp was taken and plundered. Then the enemy fell upon the settlers and Roman traders, who were wandering about in every direction, as they would in a time of peace. At the same time they were on the point of destroying the forts, but the prefects of the cohorts, seeing that they could not hold them, set them on fire. The standards, the colors, and what soldiers there were, concentrated themselves in the upper part of the island, under the command of Aquilius, a centurion of the first rank, an army and name rather than in strength. Vitelius, in fact, after withdrawing the effective troops from the cohorts, had loaded with arms a crowd of idolers from the neighboring villages of the Nervii and the Germans. Kivalis, thinking that he must proceed by craft, actually blamed the prefects for having deserted the forts, saying that he would himself, with the cohort under his command, quell the disturbance among the Canaphates, and that they had better returned to their respective winter quarters. It was evident, however, that there was some treacherous design beneath this advice, that the cohorts would be dispersed, only to be more easily crushed, and that the guiding hand in the war was not Brino, but Kivalis, for indications of the truth, with the Germans, a people who delight in war, cannot long conceal, were gradually coming to light. When strategy improved ineffectual, he resorted to force, arranging in distinct columns the Canaphates, the Batavians, and the Frisii. The Roman army was drawn up to meet them not far from the river Rhine, and the ships, which, after burning the forts, they had stranded at that point, were arranged so as to front the enemy. Before the struggle had lasted long, a cohort of Tungrians carried over their standards to Kivalis. The other troops, paralyzed by the unexpected desertion, were cut down alike by friends and foes. In the fleet, there was the same treachery. Some of the rowers were Batavians, and they hindered the operations of the sailors and combatants by an apparent want of skill. Then they began to back water, and to run the sterns on the hostile shore. At last, they killed the pilots and centurions, unless these were willing to join them. The end was that the whole fleet of four and twenty vessels was deserted or was taken. For the moment, this was a brilliant success, and had its use for the future. They possessed themselves of some arms and some vessels, both of which they wanted, while they became very famous throughout Germany as the champions of liberty. The tribes of Germany immediately sent envoys with offers of troops. The cooperation of Gaul, Kivalis endeavored to secure by politic liberality, sending back to their respective states the captured prefects of cohorts, and giving permission to their men to go or to stay as they preferred. He offered to those who stayed service on honorable terms, to those who departed the spoils of the Roman army. At the same time, he reminded them in confidential conversations of the wrongs which they had endured for so many years, while they falsely gave to a wretched slavery the name of peace. The Batavians, he said, though free of tribute, have yet taken up arms against our common masters. In the first conflict, the soldiers of Rome had been routed and vanquished. What will be the result if Gaul throws off the yoke? What strength is there yet left in Italy? It is by the blood of the provinces that the provinces are conquered. Think not of how it fared with the armies of Vindex. It was by Batavian Calvary that the Idui and the Averni were trampled down, and among the auxiliaries of Viringius, they were found Belgian troops. To those who will estimate the matter aright, it is evident that Gaul fell by her own strength. But now all are on the same side, and we have whatever remnant of military vigor still flourished in the camps of Rome. With us, too, are the veteran cohorts to which the legions of Otto lately succumbed. Let's Syria, Asia Minor, and the East, habituated as it is to despotism, submit to slavery. There are many yet alive in Gaul who were born before the days of tribute. It was only lately indeed that Quintilia's Varus was slain, and slavery driven out of Germany. And the emperor, who was challenged by that war, was not a Vitellius, but a Caesar Augustus. Freedom is a gift bestowed by nature on even the dumb animals. Courage is the peculiar excellence of man, and the gods help the braver side. Let us, then, who are free to act and vigorous, fall on a distracted and exhausted enemy. While some are supporting Vespasian and others Vitellius, opportunities are opening up for acting against both. Kivalis, bent on winning Gaul and Germany, if his purposes should prosper, was on the point of securing supremacy over the most powerful and most wealthy of the states. His first attempts, Hordeonius Flocus, had encouraged by affecting ignorance. But when messengers came, hurrying in with intelligence that a camp had been stormed, that cohorts had been cut to pieces, and that the Roman power had been expelled from the island of the Batavians, the general ordered the legate, Munoz Lopercus, who was in command of the winter quarters of the two legions, to advance against the enemy. Lopercus, in great haste, threw across the Rhine such legionaries as were on the spot, some Ubian troops who were close at hand, and some cavalry of the trevary, who were stationed at no great distance. These were accomplished by some Batavian horse, who, though they had been long disaffected, yet still simulated loyalty in order that by betraying the Romans in the moment of actual conflict, they might receive a higher price for their desertion. Kibelis, surrounding himself with the standards of the captured cohorts, to keep their recent honors before the eyes of his own men, and to terrify the enemy by the remembrance of defeat, now directed his own mother, and sisters, and the wives and children of all his men, to stand in the rear, where they might encourage to victory, or shame defeat. The war song of the men, and the shrill cries of the women, rose from the whole line, and in answering but far less vigorous cheer came from the legions and auxiliaries. The Batavians had exposed the left wing by their desertion, and they immediately turned against our men. Still the legionaries, though their position was alarming, kept their arms and their ranks. The auxiliaries of Ubi and Trevary broke at once in shameful flight and dispersed over the whole country. On that side the Germans threw the weight of their attack, meanwhile the legions had an opportunity of retreating into what was called the old camp. Claudius Labio, prefect of the Batavian horse, who had been the rival of Kibelis in some local contest, was sent away into the country of the Frizzii. To kill him might be to give offense to his countrymen, while to keep him with the army might be to sow the seeds of discord. End of Book 4, Part 1 Book 4, Part 2 of the Histories by Publius Cornelius Tacitus This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. The Histories by Publius Cornelius Tacitus Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Broderib Book 4, January to November AD 70 Part 2 About the same time the messenger dispatched by Kibelis came up with the cohorts of the Batavians and the Canifates, while by the orders of Vitellius they were advancing towards Rome. At once, inflated with pride and haughtiness, they demanded, by way of renumeration for their march, a donative, double pay, and an increase in the number of cavalry, things indeed which Vitellius had promised, but which they now asked, not with the thought of obtaining them, but as a pretext for mutiny. Flocus, by his many concessions, had produced no other effect but to make them insist with more energy on what they knew he must refuse. Treating him with contempt, they made their way towards lower Germany, to join Kibelis. Hordeonius assembled the tribunes and centaurians, asked their opinions as to whether he should use coercion with those who refused obedience. Soon, yielding to his natural timidity, entered the alarm of his officers who were troubled by the suspicious temper of the auxiliaries, and by the fact that the ranks of the legions had been recruited by a hurried conscription, he resolved to confine his troops to the camp. Then, repenting of his resolve, and finding that the very men who had advised it now disapproved it, he seemed bent on pursuing the enemy, and wrote to Herania's gallus, legate of the first legion, who was then holding Bona, that he was to prevent the Batavians from crossing the Rhine, and that he would himself hang on their rear with his army. They might have been crushed if Hordeonius, moving from one side, and gallus from the other, had enclosed them between their armies, but Flockus abandoned his purpose, and in other dispatches to gallus, recommended him not to threaten the departing foe. Thence arose the suspicion that the war was being kindled by the consent of the legates, and that everything which had happened, or was apprehended, was due not to the cowardice of the troops, or to the strength of the enemy, but to the treachery of the generals. When the Batavians were near the camp at Bona, they sent on before them delegates, commissioned to deliver to Herania's gallus a message from the cohorts. It was to this effect. We have no quarrel with the Romans, for whom we have so often fought. We're reared with a protracted and fruitless service. We long for our native land, and for rest. If no one opposes us, our march will be harmless, but if an armed force encounter us, we will make a way with a sword. The soldiers prevailed upon the hesitating legate to risk the chances of a battle. Three thousand legionaries, some raw Belgian cohorts, and with them a mob of rustics and camp followers, cowardly, but bold of speech before the moment of danger, rushed out of all the gates, thinking to surround the Batavians who were inferior in number. But the enemy, being veteran troops, formed in columns, presenting on every side a dense array, with front, flanks, and rear secure. Thus they were able to break the thin line of our soldiers. The Belgians giving way, the legion was driven back, retreating in confusion on the entrenchments and the gates. It was there that the greatest slaughter took place. The trenches were heaped with corpses. Nor was it only from the deadly blows of the enemy that they suffered. Many perished in the crush, and by their own weapons. The victorious army, who avoided the Colonia agri-penensis, did not venture on any other hostile act during the remainder of their march, and excused the conflict at Bona, alleging that they had asked for peace, and that when it was refused they had but looked to their own safety. Givolous, who now on the arrival of these veteran cohorts was at the head of a complete army, but who was undecided in his plans, and still reflected on the power of Rome, made all who were with him swear allegiance to Vespasian, and sent envoys to the two legions, which, after their defeat in the previous engagement, had retreated into the old camp, advising them to accept the same allegiance. Their reply was, We do not follow the advice of traitors or enemies. Vitelius is our emperor. To him we will retain our fealty, and devote our swords to our last breath. Then let not a Batavian refugee affect to decide the destinies of Rome. Let him rather await the merited penalty of his guilt. When this reply was delivered to Givolous, he was furious with anger, and hurried the whole Batavian nation into open war. The Brickterie and Tankterie joined him, and messengers summoned all Germany to share in his plunder and his glory. To meet the threatened dangers of the gathering war, the legates of the legions, Menurios Lupercos and Numesios Rufus strengthened their entrenchments and walls. The buildings, which during a long period of peace had grown up like a town near the camp, were destroyed, lest they might be useful to the enemy. Little care, however, was taken about the conveyance of supplies into the camp. These the generals allowed to be plundered, and so what might have long have sufficed for their necessities was wattily wasted in a few days. Givolous, who occupied the center of the army with the elite of the Batavian troops, wishing to add a new terror to his demonstration, covered both banks of the Rhine with columns of his German allies, while his cavalry galloped about the plains. At the same time the fleet was moved up the stream. Here were the standards of the veteran cohorts. There the images of wild beasts brought out of the woods in sacred groves under the various forms which each tribe is used to follow into battle, and these mingled emblems of civil and a foreign warfare utterly confounded the besieged. The extent of the entrenchment raised the hopes of the besiegers. Constructed for two legions, it was now held by not more than 5,000 Roman soldiers. But there was with them a great number of camp followers who had assembled there on the disturbance of peace, and who could be employed in the contest. Part of the camp occupied the gentle slope of a hill. To part was a level approach. But by this encampment Augustus had thought the German tribes might be watched and checked. Never had he contemplated such a pitch of disaster, as that these tribes should themselves advance to attack our legions. Hence no labor was bestowed on the ground or on the defenses. Our valor and our arms seemed defense enough. The Batavians and the Trans-Hareni tribes took up their position, each tribe by itself, to distinguish and sow the better to display the valor of each, first annoying us by a distant valley. Then as they found that very many of their missiles fixed themselves harmlessly in the turrets and bantlements of the walls, and that they themselves suffered from the stones showered down upon them, they fell on the entrenchments with a stout and furious rush, many placing their scaling ladders against the ramparts, and others mounting on a testudo formed by their comrades. Some were in the act of climbing over when they were thrust down by the swords of the enemy, and fell overwhelmed by a storm of javelins and stakes. Always very daring at first and excessively elated by success, they now in their eagerness for plunder bore up against every reverse. They also ventured to use what to them was a novelty, engines of war. They had themselves no skill in handling them, but the prisoners and deserters taught them to pile up timber in the shape of a bridge, under which they put wheels, and so propelled, some standing on the top and fighting as they would upon an earthwork, others concealing themselves within and undermining the walls. But the stones thrown by the kettle-pults prostrated the ill-constructed fabric, and when they set themselves to prepare hurdles and mantlets, burning spears were thrown on them by the engines, fire being thus actually used against the assailants. And last, despairing of success by force, they changed their plans and resolved to wait, for they were well aware that only a few days' provisions were in the camp, and that there were a great crowd of non-combatants, and they counted at the same time on the treachery, which might follow on scarcity, on the wavering fidelity of the slaves, and on the chances of war. Meanwhile, Flockus, who had heard of the siege of the camp and had sent into all parts of Gaul to collect auxiliaries, put under command of Delius Vocola, legate of the 18th Legion, some troops picked from the legions, with orders to hasten by forced marches upon the banks of the Rhine. Flockus himself, who was weak in health and disliked by his troops, traveled with the fleet. The troops indeed complained in unmistakable language that the general had dispatched the Batavian cohorts from Angantiantum, had feigned ignorance of the plans of Chivalus, and was inviting the German tribes to join the League. This, they said, had strengthened Vespasian no less than the exertions of Primus Antonius and Mukianus. Declared enmity and hostility may be openly repulsed, but treachery and fraud work in darkness and so cannot be avoided. Chivalus stands in arms against us, and arranges the order of his battle. Hordeonius, from his chamber, or his litter, gives such orders as may best serve the enemy. The swords of thousands of brave men are directed by one old man's sick caprice. How much better by slaying the traitor, into set free our valour and our fortune from these evil auspices? The passions already kindled by the language, which they thus held among themselves, were yet more inflamed by a dispatch from Vespasian, which Flockus, finding that it could no longer be concealed, read before an assembly of the troops, sending the persons which had brought it in chains to Vitellius. With feelings somewhat appeased, they arrived at Bona, the winter camp of the First Legion. The troops were there even more enraged against Hordeonius, and laid on him the blame of the late disaster. They said that it was by his orders that they had offered battle to the Batavians, supposing that the legions from Monachitiacum were following them. That it was through his treachery that they had been slaughtered, no reinforcements coming up, that all these events were unknown to the other legions and were not told to the emperor, though the sudden outburst of treason might have been crushed by the prompt action of so many provinces. Hordeonius read to the army copies of all the letters which he had sent about Gaul, begging for reinforcements, and established as a precedent a most disgraceful practice, namely, the handing over the dispatches to the standard bearers of the legions, through whose means they were read to the soldiers sooner than by the generals. He then ordered one of the mutineers to be put in irons, more for the sake of asserting his authority than because any one man was in fault. The army was then moved from Bona to the Colonia Agrippinensis, where auxiliaries from Gaul continued to flow in, for at first that nation zealously supported the cause of Rome. Soon indeed, as the Germans increased in power, many of the states took up arms against us, moved by the hopes of freedom, and could they once shake off the yoke, even by the lust of empire. The irritation of the legions still increased, nor had the imprisonment of a single soldier struck them with terror. This fellow, indeed, actually charged the general with complicity. He had, he said, acted as a messenger between Givolus and Flaacus, and because he might tell the truth he was now being crushed under a false charge. With wonderful firmness, Vocola ascended the tribunal, and ordered the man, who had been seized by the Lictors, and was loudly remonstrating, to be led off to execution. All the best men acquiesced in the order, while the ill-affected were struck with terror. Then, as all with common consent demanded that Vocola should be their general, Hodeonius handed over to him the supreme command. But there were many things to exasperate the already divided feelings of the soldiery. Pay and provisions were scanty. Gall was rebelling against conscription and taxes, while the Rhine, owing to a drought unexampled in that climate, would hardly admit of navigation, and thus supplies were straightened at the same time that outpost had to be established along the entire bank to keep the Germans from fording the stream. The self-same cause thus bringing about a smaller supply of grain and a greater number of consumers. Among ignorant persons the very failure of the stream was regarded as a prodigy, as if the very rivers, the old defenses of the empire, were deserting us. What in peace would have seemed chance, or nature, was now spoken of as destiny and the anger of heaven. As the army entered Novasium, the 16th Legion joined it. Herania's gallus, its legate, was associated with Vocola in the responsibilities of command. As they did not venture to advance upon the enemy, they constructed a camp at a place called Galduba. Here the generals sought to give steadiness to the troops by such exercises as forming in the order of battle, constructing fortifications, making entrenchments, and whatever else might train them for war. In the hope that they might be fired to courage by the delights of plunder, Vocola led the army against the nearest villages of Gugerni, who had accepted the alliance of Kivalis. Some of the troops remained permanently with Herania's gallus. One day it happened that at no great distance from the camp the Germans were endeavoring to drag off to their own bank a vessel laden with corn which had run aground in the shallows. Gallus could not endure this and sent a cohort to help. The number of the Germans also increased as fresh troops continued to join both sides, a regular battle ensued. The Germans, besides inflicting great loss on our men, carried off the vessel. The vanquished troops, following what had become a regular practice, laid the blame not on their own cowardice but on, supposed treachery in the legged. Dragged out of his tent, his garment's torn and his person severely beaten, he was commanded to declare for what bribe and with what accomplices he had betrayed the army. Their old hatred of Hordeonius reappeared. He, they declared, was the instigator of the crime, gallus his tool, and last, utterly terrified by their threats of instant death, the legate himself charged Hordeonius with treachery. He was then put in irons and only released on the arrival of Volkula, who, the next day, inflicted capital punishment on the ring-laders of the mutiny. Such wide extremities of license and of subordination were to be found in that army. The common soldiers were undoubtedly loyal to Vitellius, but all the most distinguished men were in favor of Vespasian. The result was an alternation of outbreaks and executions, and a strange mixture of obedience and frenzy which made it impossible to restrain the men, whom it was yet possible to punish. Meanwhile, all Germany was raising the power of Kivilis by vast additions of strength, and the alliance was secured by hostages of the noblest rank. He directed that the territories of the Ubi'i and the treachery should be ravaged by several tribes on which they bordered, and that another detachment should cross the river Mosa to threaten the Menapii in the Morini and the frontiers of Gaul. In both quarters Plunder was collected, with peculiar hostility in the case of the Ubi'i, because this nation, being of German origin, had foresworn its native country, and assumed the Roman name of the Agrippinensis. Their cohorts were cut up at the village of Markodorum, where they lay with careless security, presuming on their distance from the riverbank. The Ubi'i did not remain quiet, but made predatory excursions into Germany, escaping at first with impunity, though they were afterwards cut off. Throughout the whole of this war, they were more loyal than fortunate. Kivilis, grown more formidable now that the Ubi'i had been crushed, and elated by the successes of his operations, pressed on the siege of the legions, keeping a strict watch to prevent any secret intelligence of advancing Sukkors from reaching them. He entrusted to the Batavians the care of the machines and the vast siege works, and when the Transhenai tribes clamored for battle, he bade them go and cut through the ramparts, and if repulsed, renew the struggle. Their numbers were superfluously large, and their loss was not felt. Even darkness did not terminate the struggle. Polling up logs of wood round the walls and lighting them, they sat feasting and rushed to the conflict, as each grew heated with wine, with a useless daring. Their missiles were discharged without effect in the darkness, but to the Romans the ranks of the barbarians were plainly discernible, and they singled out with deliberate aim anyone whose boldness or whose decorations made him conspicuous. Kivilis saw this, and extinguishing the fires, through the confusion of darkness over the attack. Then ensued a scene of discordant clamor, of accident and uncertainty, where no one could see how to aim or to avoid a blow. Wherever a shot was heard, they could see how to aim, they wheeled round, and strained hand and foot. Valor was of no avail, accident disturbed every plan, and the bravis frequently were struck down by the missiles of the coward. The Germans fought with inconsiderate fury. Our men, more alive to the danger, threw, but not at random, stakes shod with ironed and heavy stones. Where the noises of the assailants were heard, or where the ladders, placed against the walls, brought the enemy within reach of their hands, they pushed them back with their shields, and followed them with their javelins. Many who had struggled on to the walls they stabbed with their short swords. After a night thus spent, they revealed a new method of attack. The Batavians had raised a tower two stories high, which they had brought up the praetorian gate of the camp, where the ground was at the most level. But our men pushed forward strong poles, 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 poisoned 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 weight, projected them within the limits of the camp. Kivilis, 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. All these events in Germany took place before the Battle of Cremona, the result of which was announced in the dispatch from Antonius, accompanied by Chiquinas' 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 insistence 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. After this, certain letters from Antonius to Kivilis 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 of Goduba, and the same language and the same acts were repeated. Montanus was sent with a message to Kivilis, bidding him to desist from hostilities, and not to seek to conceal the designs of an enemy by fighting under false colors, and telling him that, if he had been attempting to assist Vespasian, his purpose had been fully accomplished. Kivilis 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 and savage clamor of this army, a clamor which demanded my execution, and for which by the law of nations I demand vengeance. You, Trevarri, and others 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 Canafates, a mere fraction of Gaul have destroyed their vast but useless camps, or are pressing them with the closed 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, Kivilis 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. Kivilis, retaining a part of his forces, sent the veteran cohorts and the bravest of his German troops against Volkola and his army, under the command of Julius Maximus and Claudius Victor, his sister son. On their march they plundered the winter camp of a body of horse stationed at Asci Bergium, and they fell on Volkola'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 center. 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 a 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 Vasconde 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 Mogantiacum 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. The two generals were equally blameworthy. They deserved defeat. They did not make the most of success. Had Kivilis 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 Volkula, he did not reconorter the advancing enemy, and consequently he was vanquished as soon as he 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 in the same movement, have raised the siege of the legions. Meanwhile, Kivilis had tried to work on the feelings of the besieged, by representing that, with the Romans all was lost, and that victory had been declared for his own troops. The standards and colors were carried around, 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. Vokala issued orders, that the standard should be planted within sight of the camp, and should be surrounded with a ditch and a 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 and align, disordered and weary as they were, they commenced the action. Kivalis was on the field, trusting quite as much to the faults of his adversaries as to the valor of his own troops. With the Romans, the fortune of the day varied, and the most violently, mutinous, showed themselves cowards. But some, remembering their recent victory, stood their ground, and struck fiercely at the foe. Now were encouraging each other and their neighbors, and now, while they reformed their lines, employing the besieged, not to lose the opportunity. These latter, who saw everything from the walls, sallied out from the gate. It so happened that Kivalis 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 Vokala, leaving the flying foe, began to strengthen the rampart in the towers of the camp, as if another siege was imminent he had misused success so often that he was rightly suspected of a preference for war. 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 now-combatants to fetch corn from that place over land, for the enemy commanded the river. The march of the first body was accomplished in security, as Kivalis 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 it were in 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 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. Vocala added to his own force a thousand picked men from the fifth and fifteenth legion, besieged in the old camp, a body of troops undisciplined and ill-affected to their officers. But more than that 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 two-fold mutiny was the result, some calling on Vocala to come back, while the others refused to return to the camp. Meanwhile, Kivalis blockaded the old camp. Vocala retired first to Gelduba, afterwards to Novesium. Kivalis 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 of the fifth and fifteenth demanded a donative, for they had discovered that some money had been spent 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 reverie and all the license of nightly gatherings, reviled 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 Vocala, 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 dispatches to the various states of Gaul, imploring help in money and troops. End of book four, part two.