The beginning of my work shall be the consulship of Servius Galba (his second) and Titus Vinius. For the eight hundred and twenty years of the earlier age, from the founding of the city, many authors have set forth, while the affairs of the Roman people were recorded with eloquence and freedom alike; but after the fighting at Actium, and once it was to the interest of peace that all power be gathered into one man, those great talents fell silent. At the same time truth was broken in more ways than one: first through ignorance of public affairs, as of something no longer one’s own; then through the lust to flatter, or again through hatred of the rulers. So between the hostile and the servile, neither side gave a thought to posterity. But a writer’s partisanship you easily turn from; detraction and spite are received with ready ears, since flattery carries the ugly charge of servility, while malignity wears the false show of freedom. To me Galba, Otho, and Vitellius were known by neither benefit nor injury. That my career was begun by Vespasian, advanced by Titus, carried further by Domitian, I would not deny; but for those who profess uncorrupted faith, no man is to be spoken of with affection or with hatred. If my life holds out, I have set aside for my old age the principate of the deified Nerva and the rule of Trajan—a richer and a safer material—by the rare felicity of an age in which one may feel what he wishes and say what he feels.

Initium mihi operis Servius Galba iterum Titus Vinius consules erunt. nam post conditam urbem octingentos et viginti prioris aevi annos multi auctores rettulerunt, dum res populi Romani memorabantur pari eloquentia ac libertate: postquam bellatum apud Actium atque omnem potentiam ad unum conferri pacis interfuit, magna illa ingenia cessere; simul veritas pluribus modis infracta, primum inscitia rei publicae ut alienae, mox libidine adsentandi aut rursus odio adversus dominantis: ita neutris cura posteritatis inter infensos vel obnoxios. sed ambitionem scriptoris facile averseris, obtrectatio et livor pronis auribus accipiuntur; quippe adulationi foedum crimen servitutis, malignitati falsa species libertatis inest. mihi Galba Otho Vitellius nec beneficio nec iniuria cogniti. dignitatem nostram a Vespasiano inchoatam, a Tito auctam, a Domitiano longius provectam non abnuerim: sed incorruptam fidem professis neque amore quisquam et sine odio dicendus est. quod si vita suppeditet, principatum divi Nervae et imperium Traiani, uberiorem securioremque materiam, senectuti seposui, rara temporum felicitate ubi sentire quae velis et quae sentias dicere licet.

I enter upon a work rich in disasters, fierce with battles, torn by seditions, savage even in peace itself. Four emperors cut down by the sword; three civil wars, more foreign ones, and most of them tangled together. Affairs prosperous in the East, adverse in the West: Illyricum in turmoil, the Gallic provinces wavering, Britain fully subdued and at once let go; the nations of the Sarmatians and the Suebi rising against us, the Dacian made famous by defeats dealt and suffered, the Parthians too all but roused to arms by the mockery of a false Nero. Italy itself, moreover, was stricken by disasters new, or returning after a long sequence of ages: cities along the richest coast of Campania swallowed up or buried; the City laid waste by fires, its most ancient shrines consumed, the very Capitol set ablaze by the hands of citizens. Holy rites profaned, adulteries in high places; the sea full of exiles, the cliffs befouled with slaughter. More atrocious was the savagery in the City: nobility, wealth, offices declined and offices held alike were turned into a charge, and for one’s virtues there was the surest destruction. Nor were the rewards of the informers less hated than their crimes, since some, having won priesthoods and consulships as their spoils, others procuratorships and a power within the palace, drove and overturned all things in hatred and in terror. Slaves were suborned against their masters, freedmen against their patrons; and the man who had no enemy was crushed by his friends.

Opus adgredior † opimum casibus, atrox proeliis, discors seditionibus, ipsa etiam pace saevum. quattuor principes ferro interempti: trina bella civilia, plura externa ac plerumque permixta: prosperae in Oriente, adversae in Occidente res: turbatum Illyricum, Galliae nutantes, perdomita Britannia et statim omissa: coortae in nos Sarmatarum ac Sueborum gentes, nobilitatus cladibus mutuis Dacus, mota prope etiam Parthorum arma falsi Neronis ludibrio. iam vero Italia novis cladibus vel post longam saeculorum seriem repetitis adflicta. haustae aut obrutae urbes, fecundissima Campaniae ora; et urbs incendiis vastata, consumptis antiquissimis delubris, ipso Capitolio civium manibus incenso. pollutae caerimoniae, magna adulteria: plenum exiliis mare, infecti caedibus scopuli. atrocius in urbe saevitum: nobilitas, opes, omissi gestique honores pro crimine et ob virtutes certissimum exitium. nec minus praemia delatorum invisa quam scelera, cum alii sacerdotia et consulatus ut spolia adepti, procurationes alii et interiorem potentiam, agerent verterent cuncta odio et terrore. corrupti in dominos servi, in patronos liberti; et quibus deerat inimicus per amicos oppressi.

Yet the age was not so barren of virtues but that it brought forth good examples too. Mothers went with their children in flight, wives followed their husbands into exile; there were kinsmen who dared, sons-in-law who stood firm, the fidelity of slaves stubborn even against torture; the last extremities of illustrious men were borne with fortitude, and their ends matched the celebrated deaths of the ancients. Besides the manifold chances of human affairs, there were portents in the heaven and on the earth, warnings of lightning and presages of things to come, glad and grim, ambiguous and plain; for never by more atrocious disasters of the Roman people, nor by more righteous proofs, was it shown that the gods care not for our safety, but for our vengeance.

Non tamen adeo virtutum sterile saeculum ut non et bona exempla prodiderit. comitatae profugos liberos matres, secutae maritos in exilia coniuges: propinqui audentes, constantes generi, contumax etiam adversus tormenta servorum fides; supremae clarorum virorum necessitates fortiter toleratae et laudatis antiquorum mortibus pares exitus. praeter multiplicis rerum humanarum casus caelo terraque prodigia et fulminum monitus et futurorum praesagia, laeta tristia, ambigua manifesta; nec enim umquam atrocioribus populi Romani cladibus magisve iustis indiciis adprobatum est non esse curae deis securitatem nostram, esse ultionem.

But before I set in order what I have purposed, it seems well to go back over the condition of the City, the temper of the armies, the bearing of the provinces, what in the whole earth was sound and what was sick—so that not only the chances and outcomes of events, which are for the most part fortuitous, but their reason and their causes too may be known. The end of Nero, glad as it had been at the first rush of rejoicing, had nonetheless stirred various movements of feeling not only in the City, among the senators and the people and the urban soldiery, but in all the legions and their generals; for now the secret of empire was out—that a princeps could be made somewhere other than at Rome. The senators rejoiced, seizing at once a license of speech the bolder toward a new and absent princeps; the foremost of the equestrian order were next to the senators in their joy; the sound part of the people, bound to the great houses, the clients and freedmen of the condemned and the exiled, were lifted into hope. The squalid plebs, habituated to the circus and the theatres, together with the basest of the slaves, and those who, their goods devoured, were fed by Nero’s disgrace, were sullen and avid for rumor.

Ceterum antequam destinata componam, repetendum videtur qualis status urbis, quae mens exercituum, quis habitus provinciarum, quid in toto terrarum orbe validum, quid aegrum fuerit, ut non modo casus eventusque rerum, qui plerumque fortuiti sunt, sed ratio etiam causaeque noscantur. finis Neronis ut laetus primo gaudentium impetu fuerat, ita varios motus animorum non modo in urbe apud patres aut populum aut urbanum militem, sed omnis legiones ducesque conciverat, evulgato imperii arcano posse principem alibi quam Romae fieri. sed patres laeti, usurpata statim libertate licentius ut erga principem novum et absentem; primores equitum proximi gaudio patrum; pars populi integra et magnis domibus adnexa, clientes libertique damnatorum et exulum in spem erecti: plebs sordida et circo ac theatris sueta, simul deterrimi servorum, aut qui adesis bonis per dedecus Neronis alebantur, maesti et rumorum avidi.

The urban soldiery, steeped in a long allegiance to the Caesars and brought to abandon Nero by craft and instigation more than by their own inclination, found that the donative promised in Galba’s name was not paid, that there was not in peace the same room for great services and great rewards as in war, and that their favor was forestalled with a princeps made by the legions. So, already inclined to revolution, they were stirred further by the crime of Nymphidius Sabinus the prefect, who was scheming the command for himself. Nymphidius indeed was crushed in the very attempt; but though the head of the rising had been struck off, in most of the soldiers a sense of complicity remained, nor were there wanting voices that railed at Galba’s dotage and his greed. The strictness once praised in him and celebrated in soldiers’ talk galled men who spurned the old discipline, and who in fourteen years had been so trained by Nero that they loved the vices of their emperors no less than once they had revered their virtues. There was added a saying of Galba’s, honorable for the commonwealth but perilous to himself—that his soldiers were levied, not bought; for the rest did not square with that standard.

Miles urbanus longo Caesarum sacramento imbutus et ad destituendum Neronem arte magis et impulsu quam suo ingenio traductus, postquam neque dari donativum sub nomine Galbae promissum neque magnis meritis ac praemiis eundem in pace quem in bello locum praeventamque gra- tiam intellegit apud principem a legionibus factum, pronus ad novas res scelere insuper Nymphidii Sabini praefecti imperium sibi molientis agitatur. et Nymphidius quidem in ipso conatu oppressus, set quamvis capite defectionis ablato manebat plerisque militum conscientia, nec deerant sermones senium atque avaritiam Galbae increpantium. laudata olim et militari fama celebrata severitas eius angebat aspernantis veterem disciplinam atque ita quattuordecim annis a Nerone adsuefactos ut haud minus vitia principum amarent quam olim virtutes verebantur. accessit Galbae vox pro re publica honesta, ipsi anceps, legi a se militem, non emi; nec enim ad hanc formam cetera erant.

A feeble old man, Galba, was being undermined by Titus Vinius and Cornelius Laco—the one the basest of mortals, the other the most slothful—weighed down by hatred for the crimes of the first and contempt for the inertia of the second. His march had been slow and bloody, with Cingonius Varro, consul-designate, and Petronius Turpilianus, an ex-consul, put to death: the one as an associate of Nymphidius, the other as a general of Nero’s; unheard and undefended, they had perished as though innocent. His entry into the City, with so many thousands of unarmed soldiers butchered, was ill-omened in augury, and a thing of dread even to the very men who had done the killing. A Spanish legion had been brought in, and the one Nero had enrolled from the fleet still remained, so that the City was full of an unaccustomed army; and to this there were many further detachments out of Germany and Britain and Illyricum, whom Nero, having picked them and sent them ahead to the Caspian Gates and the war he was preparing against the Albani, had recalled to suppress the beginnings of Vindex: vast material for revolution, which, if it inclined in favor to no one man, was nonetheless ready for any who should dare.

Invalidum senem Titus Vinius et Cornelius Laco, alter deterrimus mortalium, alter ignavissimus, odio flagitiorum oneratum contemptu inertiae destruebant. tardum Galbae iter et cruentum, interfectis Cingonio Varrone consule designato et Petronio Turpiliano consulari: ille ut Nymphidii socius, hic ut dux Neronis, inauditi atque indefensi tamquam innocentes perierant. introitus in urbem trucidatis tot milibus inermium militum infaustus omine atque ipsis etiam qui occiderant formidolosus. inducta legione Hispana, remanente ea quam e classe Nero conscripserat, plena urbs exercitu insolito; multi ad hoc numeri e Germania ac Britannia et Illyrico, quos idem Nero electos praemissosque ad claustra Caspiarum et bellum, quod in Albanos parabat, opprimendis Vindicis coeptis revocaverat: ingens novis rebus materia, ut non in unum aliquem prono favore ita audenti parata.

It had chanced to fall together that the killings of Clodius Macer and Fonteius Capito were announced. Macer, beyond doubt stirring up trouble in Africa, Trebonius Garutianus the procurator had slain by Galba’s order; Capito, in Germany, while he was attempting the like, Cornelius Aquinus and Fabius Valens, legates of legions, had killed before they were bidden. There were some who believed that Capito, foul and stained as he was with avarice and lust, had nonetheless held back from any design of revolution, but that the legates, after urging war upon him and failing to drive him to it, had of their own accord trumped up the charge and the treachery; and that Galba, by the fickleness of his nature, or lest he probe too deep, had approved whatever had been done, since it could not be undone. At all events both killings were taken amiss; and to a princeps once hated, deeds good or ill brought equal odium. Everything was for sale, the freedmen all-powerful, the hands of slaves greedy amid sudden turns of fortune and hurrying as men do under an old master; and the new court had the same evils, as heavy but not as excused. Galba’s very age was a thing of mockery and disgust to men accustomed to Nero’s youth, who compared emperors, as the common sort do, by their beauty and grace of body.

Forte congruerat ut Clodii Macri et Fontei Capitonis caedes nuntiarentur. Macrum in Africa haud dubie turbantem Trebonius Garutianus procurator iussu Galbae, Capito- nem in Germania, cum similia coeptaret, Cornelius Aquinus et Fabius Valens legati legionum interfecerant antequam iuberentur. fuere qui crederent Capitonem ut avaritia et libidine foedum ac maculosum ita cogitatione rerum novarum abstinuisse, sed a legatis bellum suadentibus, postquam impellere nequiverint, crimen ac dolum ultro compositum, et Galbam mobilitate ingenii, an ne altius scrutaretur, quoquo modo acta, quia mutari non poterant, comprobasse. ceterum utraque caedes sinistre accepta, et inviso semel principi seu bene seu male facta parem invidiam adferebant. venalia cuncta, praepotentes liberti, servorum manus subitis avidae et tamquam apud senem festinantes, eademque novae aulae mala, aeque gravia, non aeque excusata. ipsa aetas Galbae inrisui ac fastidio erat adsuetis iuventae Neronis et imperatores forma ac decore corporis, ut est mos vulgi, comparantibus.

Such, then, at Rome, so far as one may speak of so great a multitude, was the temper of men’s minds. Among the provinces, Cluvius Rufus governed the Spains—an eloquent man, skilled in the arts of peace, untried in war. The Gallic provinces, besides the memory of Vindex, were bound by the recent gift of Roman citizenship and by a lightening of their tribute for time to come. Yet those Gallic communities nearest the German armies were not held in the same honor, and some had even been stripped of territory, and with equal resentment they measured the advantages of others against their own injuries. The German armies—a thing most dangerous where the forces are so great—were anxious and angry, in the pride of their recent victory and in fear, as though they had favored the other side. They had been slow to fall away from Nero, and Verginius had not at once declared for Galba. Whether he had been unwilling to rule was doubtful: that the command had been offered him by the soldiery was agreed. That Fonteius Capito had been killed even those who could not complain of it nonetheless resented. A leader was wanting, Verginius having been withdrawn under the pretense of friendship; and that he was not sent back, and was even put on trial, they took as a charge laid against themselves.

Et hic quidem Romae, tamquam in tanta multitudine, habitus animorum fuit. e provinciis Hispaniae praeerat Cluvius Rufus, vir facundus et pacis artibus, bellis inexpertus. Galliae super memoriam Vindicis obligatae recenti dono Romanae civitatis et in posterum tributi levamento. proximae tamen Germanicis exercitibus Galliarum civitates non eodem honore habitae, quaedam etiam finibus ademptis pari dolore commoda aliena ac suas iniurias metiebantur. Germanici exercitus, quod periculosissimum in tantis viribus, solliciti et irati, superbia recentis victoriae et metu tamquam alias partis fovissent. tarde a Nerone desciverant, nec statim pro Galba Verginius. an imperare noluisset dubium: delatum ei a milite imperium conveniebat. Fonteium Capitonem occisum etiam qui queri non poterant, tamen indignabantur. dux deerat abducto Verginio per simulationem amicitiae; quem non remitti atque etiam reum esse tamquam suum crimen accipiebant.

The upper army despised its legate Hordeonius Flaccus, crippled by old age and lameness of foot, without firmness, without authority; even with the soldiery quiet he could not rule, and they were the more inflamed at the very weakness of one who tried to restrain them. The legions of lower Germany were longer without a man of consular rank, until, sent by Galba, Aulus Vitellius arrived—son of that Vitellius who had been censor and three times consul: that seemed enough. In the army of Britain there was no anger. Indeed no other legions bore themselves more guiltlessly through all the upheavals of the civil wars, whether because they were far off and parted by the Ocean, or because, schooled by frequent campaigns, they had learned rather to hate the enemy. There was quiet too in Illyricum, although the legions stirred up by Nero, while they lingered in Italy, had approached Verginius by deputations; but the armies, sundered by long distances—which is the most wholesome thing for keeping soldiers to their duty—were not mingled, neither their vices nor their strength.

Superior exercitus legatum Hordeonium Flaccum spernebat, senecta ac debilitate pedum invalidum, sine constantia, sine auctoritate: ne quieto quidem milite regimen; adeo furentes infirmitate retinentis ultro accendebantur. inferioris Germaniae legiones diutius sine consulari fuere, donec missu Galbae A. Vitellius aderat, censoris Vitellii ac ter consulis filius: id satis videbatur. in Britannico exercitu nihil irarum. non sane aliae legiones per omnis civilium bellorum motus innocentius egerunt, seu quia procul et Oceano divisae, seu crebris expeditionibus doctae hostem potius odisse. quies et Illyrico, quamquam excitae a Nerone legiones, dum in Italia cunctantur, Verginium legationibus adissent: sed longis spatiis discreti exercitus, quod saluberrimum est ad continendam militarem fidem, nec vitiis nec viribus miscebantur.

The East was as yet unmoved. Syria and four legions were held by Licinius Mucianus, a man notorious alike in good fortune and in bad. In his youth he had courted distinguished friendships out of ambition; then, his means spent and his standing precarious, with the anger of Claudius too hanging over him, he had been laid aside in a retreat in Asia, and was as near to an exile as he was afterward to a princeps. A man compounded of luxury and industry, of affability and arrogance, of evil arts and good: his pleasures excessive when he had leisure; whenever he had taken the field, great virtues. His public side you would praise; his private life was ill spoken of. Yet over his subordinates, his intimates, his colleagues he was powerful by various enticements—a man for whom it would have been easier to hand on the imperial power than to hold it. The Jewish war Flavius Vespasian (Nero had chosen him as commander) was conducting with three legions. Vespasian had neither prayer nor purpose against Galba: indeed he had sent his son Titus to pay him reverence and homage, as in its place we shall relate. The hidden things of fate, and the empire marked out for Vespasian and his sons by portents and oracles, we came to believe only after his fortune was made.

Oriens adhuc immotus. Syriam et quattuor legiones obtinebat Licinius Mucianus, vir secundis adversisque iuxta famosus. insignis amicitias iuvenis ambitiose coluerat; mox attritis opibus, lubrico statu, suspecta etiam Claudii iracundia, in secretum Asiae sepositus tam prope ab exule fuit quam postea a principe. luxuria industria, comitate adrogantia, malis bonisque artibus mixtus: nimiae voluptates, cum vacaret; quotiens expedierat, magnae virtutes: palam laudares, secreta male audiebant: sed apud subiectos, apud pro- ximos, apud collegas variis inlecebris potens, et cui expeditius fuerit tradere imperium quam obtinere. bellum Iudaicum Flavius Vespasianus (ducem eum Nero delegerat) tribus legionibus administrabat. nec Vespasiano adversus Galbam votum aut animus: quippe Titum filium ad venerationem cultumque eius miserat, ut suo loco memorabimus. occulta fati et ostentis ac responsis destinatum Vespasiano liberisque eius imperium post fortunam credidimus.

Egypt, and the forces by which it is held in check, Roman knights have governed in place of kings ever since the deified Augustus: so it seemed expedient to keep within the household a province hard of access, rich in grain, distracted and unsteady through superstition and wantonness, ignorant of the laws, unacquainted with magistrates. It was then ruled by Tiberius Alexander, himself of that same nation. Africa and the legions in it, after Clodius Macer was slain, were content with any princeps whatever, having had their taste of a lesser master. The two Mauretanias, Raetia, Noricum, Thrace, and whatever other provinces are held by procurators, according as each lay near to one army or another, were driven into favor or hatred by the touch of the stronger. The unarmed provinces, and above all Italy itself, exposed to any servitude, were to fall as the prize of war. Such was the state of Roman affairs when Servius Galba, in his second consulship, and Titus Vinius entered upon the year that was their last, and the commonwealth’s all but final one.

Aegyptum copiasque, quibus coerceretur, iam inde a divo Augusto equites Romani obtinent loco regum: ita visum expedire, provinciam aditu difficilem, annonae fecundam, superstitione ac lascivia discordem et mobilem, insciam legum, ignaram magistratuum, domi retinere. regebat tum Tiberius Alexander, eiusdem nationis. Africa ac legiones in ea interfecto Clodio Macro contenta qualicumque principe post experimentum domini minoris. duae Mauretaniae, Raetia, Noricum, Thraecia et quae aliae procuratoribus cohibentur, ut cuique exercitui vicinae, ita in favorem aut odium contactu valentiorum agebantur. inermes provinciae atque ipsa in primis Italia, cuicumque servitio exposita, in pretium belli cessurae erant. hic fuit rerum Romanarum status, cum Servius Galba iterum Titus Vinius consules inchoavere annum sibi ultimum, rei publicae prope supremum.

A few days after the kalends of January a letter from Pompeius Propinquus, the procurator, was brought from Belgica: the legions of upper Germany, breaking the reverence of their oath, were demanding another emperor, and leaving to the senate and people of Rome the choice—that the sedition might be the more softly received. This hastened the plan Galba had long been turning over with himself and his intimates, of an adoption. Through those months there had been no more frequent talk in the whole state, first from the license and the appetite for such talk, then because Galba’s age was now spent. Few had judgment or love of the commonwealth; many, in foolish hope, marked out this man or that by ambitious rumors, according as each was friend or client, and even out of hatred for Titus Vinius, who, the more powerful he grew by the day, was by that same measure the more hated. For Galba’s very easiness sharpened the cupidities of his friends as they gaped at his great fortune, since with a man weak and credulous there was less fear and more reward in doing wrong.

Paucis post kalendas Ianuarias diebus Pompei Propinqui procuratoris e Belgica litterae adferuntur, superioris Germaniae legiones rupta sacramenti reverentia imperatorem alium flagitare et senatui ac populo Romano arbitrium eligendi permittere quo seditio mollius acciperetur. maturavit ea res consilium Galbae iam pridem de adoptione secum et cum proximis agitantis. non sane crebrior tota civitate sermo per illos mensis fuerat, primum licentia ac libidine talia loquendi, dein fessa iam aetate Galbae. paucis iudicium aut rei publicae amor: multi stulta spe, prout quis amicus vel cliens, hunc vel illum ambitiosis rumoribus destinabant, etiam in Titi Vinii odium, qui in dies quanto potentior eodem actu invisior erat. quippe hiantis in magna fortuna amicorum cupiditates ipsa Galbae facilitas intendebat, cum apud infirmum et credulum minore metu et maiore praemio peccaretur.

The power of the principate was divided between Titus Vinius the consul and Cornelius Laco the praetorian prefect; nor was the favor less of Icelus, Galba’s freedman, whom, presented with the gold rings, men used to call by the equestrian name of Marcianus. These men, at odds and each pulling his own way in lesser matters, in the business of choosing a successor split into two factions. Vinius was for Marcus Otho; Laco and Icelus, by agreement, favored not so much any one man as anyone else. Nor was the friendship of Otho and Titus Vinius unknown to Galba; and the rumor-mongers, who pass nothing over in silence, made them out for son-in-law and father-in-law, since Vinius had a widowed daughter and Otho was unmarried. I believe that a care for the commonwealth too had come over Galba—wrested in vain from Nero, were it left with Otho. For Otho had spent his boyhood carelessly, his youth wantonly, a favorite of Nero’s in their rivalry of extravagance. And so to him, as to one privy to his lusts, Nero had committed Poppaea Sabina, that imperial harlot, until he should put away his wife Octavia. Soon, suspecting him over that same Poppaea, he had set him aside in the province of Lusitania under the show of a governorship. Otho administered the province with courtesy, was the first to go over to the party, and, no laggard, was while the war lasted the most brilliant of those at hand; and the hope of adoption, conceived at once, he snatched at the more keenly day by day, with most of the soldiers in his favor and Nero’s court inclined to him as to one like Nero himself.

Potentia principatus divisa in Titum Vinium consulem Cornelium Laconem praetorii praefectum; nec minor gratia Icelo Galbae liberto, quem anulis donatum equestri nomine Marcianum vocitabant. hi discordes et rebus minoribus sibi quisque tendentes, circa consilium eligendi successoris in duas factiones scindebantur. Vinius pro M. Othone, Laco atque Icelus consensu non tam unum aliquem fovebant quam alium. neque erat Galbae ignota Othonis ac Titi Vinii amicitia; et rumoribus nihil silentio transmittentium, quia Vinio vidua filia, caelebs Otho, gener ac socer destinabantur. credo et rei publicae curam subisse, frustra a Nerone translatae si apud Othonem relinqueretur. namque Otho pueritiam incuriose, adulescentiam petulanter egerat, gratus Neroni aemulatione luxus. eoque Poppaeam Sabinam, principale scortum, ut apud conscium libidinum deposuerat, donec Octaviam uxorem amoliretur. mox suspectum in eadem Pop- paea in provinciam Lusitaniam specie legationis seposuit. Otho comiter administrata provincia primus in partis transgressus nec segnis et, donec bellum fuit, inter praesentis splendidissimus, spem adoptionis statim conceptam acrius in dies rapiebat, faventibus plerisque militum, prona in eum aula Neronis ut similem.

But Galba, after the news of the German sedition—though as yet nothing was certain about Vitellius—anxious where the violence of the armies might burst, and not trusting even the urban soldiery, carried through what he reckoned the one remedy, the comitia of empire. Taking in, besides Vinius and Laco, Marius Celsus the consul-designate and Ducenius Geminus the prefect of the city, and having said a few words about his own old age, he ordered Piso Licinianus to be summoned—whether by his own choice, or, as some believed, at the urging of Laco, who had practiced a friendship with Piso at the house of Rubellius Plautus; but cunningly Laco favored him as a stranger, and Piso’s good repute had lent credit to his counsel. Piso, begotten of Marcus Crassus and Scribonia, noble on both sides, was in face and bearing of the ancient mold, and by a true reckoning austere—gloomier in the eyes of those who put a worse construction on it: that side of his character, the more it made the anxious suspect him, the better it pleased the man adopting him.

Sed Galba post nuntios Germanicae seditionis, quamquam nihil adhuc de Vitellio certum, anxius quonam exercituum vis erumperet, ne urbano quidem militi confisus, quod remedium unicum rebatur, comitia imperii transigit; adhibitoque super Vinium ac Laconem Mario Celso consule designato ac Ducenio Gemino praefecto urbis, pauca praefatus de sua senectute, Pisonem Licinianum accersiri iubet, seu propria electione sive, ut quidam crediderunt, Lacone instante, cui apud Rubellium Plautum exercita cum Pisone amicitia; sed callide ut ignotum fovebat, et prospera de Pisone fama consilio eius fidem addiderat. Piso M. Crasso et Scribonia genitus, nobilis utrimque, vultu habituque moris antiqui et aestimatione recta severus, deterius interpretantibus tristior habebatur: ea pars morum eius quo suspectior sollicitis adoptanti placebat.

And so Galba, taking hold of Piso’s hand, is said to have spoken in this manner: "If as a private man I were adopting you by the curiate law before the pontiffs, as the custom is, it would be an honor for me to bring into my household the offspring of Gnaeus Pompeius and Marcus Crassus, and a distinction for you to add the glories of the Sulpician and Lutatian houses to your own nobility. As it is, called to the empire by the consent of gods and men, I have been moved by your eminent nature and your love of country to offer to you, who are at rest, the principate for which our forefathers contended in arms, and which I won by war—after the example of the deified Augustus, who set in the place next to himself first his sister’s son Marcellus, then his son-in-law Agrippa, then his grandsons, and last his stepson Tiberius Nero. But Augustus sought a successor within his house, I within the commonwealth—not because I have no kinsmen or comrades of war, but because I did not myself receive the empire by canvassing; and let the proof of my judgment be not my own connections only, which I have set aside for you, but yours as well. You have a brother of equal nobility, older than you, worthy of this fortune—were you not the worthier. Your age is now such as has escaped the desires of youth; your life such that in your past there is nothing to be excused. Hitherto you have borne only adverse fortune: prosperity tries the spirit with sharper goads, since misery is endured, but by good fortune we are corrupted. Faith, freedom, friendship—the chief goods of the human spirit—you indeed will keep with the same constancy; but others will weaken them by their compliance: flattery will break in, and fawning, and the worst poison of true feeling, each man’s own advantage. Even if you and I speak together today in all simplicity, the rest will deal more gladly with our fortune than with us; for to urge upon a princeps what is right is a thing of much labor, while assent to any princeps whatever is performed without any feeling."

Igitur Galba, adprehensa Pisonis manu, in hunc modum locutus fertur: ’si te privatus lege curiata apud pontifices, ut moris est, adoptarem, et mihi egregium erat Cn. Pompei et M. Crassi subolem in penatis meos adsciscere, et tibi insigne Sulpiciae ac Lutatiae decora nobilitati tuae adiecisse: nunc me deorum hominumque consensu ad imperium vocatum praeclara indoles tua et amor patriae impulit ut principatum, de quo maiores nostri armis certabant, bello adeptus quiescenti offeram, exemplo divi Augusti qui sororis filium Marcellum, dein generum Agrippam, mox nepotes suos, postremo Tiberium Neronem privignum in proximo sibi fastigio conlocavit. sed Augustus in domo successorem quaesivit, ego in re publica, non quia propinquos aut socios belli non habeam, sed neque ipse imperium ambitione accepi, et iudicii mei documentum sit non meae tantum necessitudines, quas tibi postposui, sed et tuae. est tibi frater pari nobilitate, natu maior, dignus hac fortuna nisi tu potior esses. ea aetas tua quae cupiditates adulescentiae iam effugerit, ea vita in qua nihil praeteritum excusandum habeas. fortunam adhuc tantum adversam tulisti: secundae res acrioribus stimulis animos explorant, quia miseriae tolerantur, felicitate corrumpimur. fidem, libertatem, amicitiam, praecipua humani animi bona, tu quidem eadem constantia retinebis, sed alii per obsequium imminuent: inrumpet adulatio, blanditiae et pessimum veri adfectus venenum, sua cuique utilitas. etiam si ego ac tu simplicissime inter nos hodie loquimur, ceteri libentius cum fortuna nostra quam nobiscum; nam suadere principi quod oporteat multi laboris, adsentatio erga quemcumque principem sine adfectu peragitur.’

"If the immense body of the empire could stand and keep its balance without a ruler, I were worthy that the commonwealth should begin afresh with me; but in fact things have long since come to such a pass that neither can my old age give more to the Roman people than a good successor, nor your youth more than a good princeps. Under Tiberius and Gaius and Claudius we were the inheritance, as it were, of a single family: it will stand in the place of liberty that we have begun to be chosen; and now that the house of the Julii and the Claudii is ended, adoption will find out each best man. For to be begotten and born of princes is a matter of chance, and is rated no higher; but in adopting, the judgment is unhampered, and if you wish to choose, the general consent points the way. Let Nero be before your eyes—swollen with a long line of Caesars, whom not Vindex with an unarmed province, nor I with a single legion, but his own monstrousness, his own debauchery cast down from the people’s neck; and there was as yet no precedent of a princeps condemned. We, called by war and by men’s judgment, shall lie open to envy, however excellent. Yet do not be dismayed if, in this shaking of the world, two legions are not yet quiet: I myself did not come to settled circumstances, and once the adoption is heard of I shall cease to seem old—the one thing now cast in my teeth. Nero will always be missed by every worst man: it is for you and me to see that he be not missed by the good as well. To counsel you at greater length is not the part of this hour, and the whole design is fulfilled if I have chosen you well. The most useful test of good and bad measures, and the briefest, is to consider what under another princeps you would have wished, or would not have wished; for here it is not, as among nations ruled by kings, a fixed house of masters and all the rest slaves: you will rule over men who can bear neither full servitude nor full liberty." And Galba indeed spoke this and the like as one making an emperor; the rest spoke with him as with one already made.

’Si immensum imperii corpus stare ac librari sine rectore posset, dignus eram a quo res publica inciperet: nunc eo necessitatis iam pridem ventum est ut nec mea senectus conferre plus populo Romano possit quam bonum successorem, nec tua plus iuventa quam bonum principem. sub Tiberio et Gaio et Claudio unius familiae quasi hereditas fui- mus: loco libertatis erit quod eligi coepimus; et finita Iuliorum Claudiorumque domo optimum quemque adoptio inveniet. nam generari et nasci a principibus fortuitum, nec ultra aestimatur: adoptandi iudicium integrum et, si velis eligere, consensu monstratur. sit ante oculos Nero quem longa Caesarum serie tumentem non Vindex cum inermi provincia aut ego cum una legione, sed sua immanitas, sua luxuria cervicibus publicis depulerunt; neque erat adhuc damnati principis exemplum. nos bello et ab aestimantibus adsciti cum invidia quamvis egregii erimus. ne tamen territus fueris si duae legiones in hoc concussi orbis motu nondum quiescunt: ne ipse quidem ad securas res accessi, et audita adoptione desinam videri senex, quod nunc mihi unum obicitur. Nero a pessimo quoque semper desiderabitur: mihi ac tibi providendum est ne etiam a bonis desideretur. monere diutius neque temporis huius, et impletum est omne consilium si te bene elegi. utilissimus idem ac brevissimus bonarum malarumque rerum dilectus est, cogitare quid aut volueris sub alio principe aut nolueris; neque enim hic, ut gentibus quae regnantur, certa dominorum domus et ceteri servi, sed imperaturus es hominibus qui nec totam servitutem pati possunt nec totam libertatem.’ et Galba quidem haec ac talia, tamquam principem faceret, ceteri tamquam cum facto loquebantur.

They say that Piso, to those who watched him at once and then turned all their eyes upon him, betrayed no movement of a troubled or an exulting mind. His speech toward his father and emperor was reverent, about himself temperate; nothing was changed in his face or his bearing, as of a man who could rule rather than would. There was then a deliberation whether the adoption should be proclaimed before the rostra, or in the senate, or in the camp. It was decided to go to the camp: this would be an honor to the soldiers, whose favor, ill won though it is by largess and intrigue, was yet not to be despised when won by honest arts. Meanwhile the public expectation had ringed the Palatium, impatient of the great secret; and those who tried to smother the ill-checked rumor only swelled it.

Pisonem ferunt statim intuentibus et mox coniectis in eum omnium oculis nullum turbati aut exultantis animi motum prodidisse. sermo erga patrem imperatoremque reverens, de se moderatus; nihil in vultu habituque mutatum, quasi imperare posset magis quam vellet. consultatum inde, pro rostris an in senatu an in castris adoptio nuncuparetur. iri in castra placuit: honorificum id militibus fore, quorum favorem ut largitione et ambitu male adquiri, ita per bonas artis haud spernendum. circumsteterat interim Palatium publica expectatio, magni secreti impatiens; et male coercitam famam supprimentes augebant.

The fourth day before the ides of January, a day foul with rain, was troubled beyond the usual by thunder and lightning and threats of heaven. Observed in old times as a thing that broke off the comitia, this did not frighten Galba from pressing on to the camp—a despiser of such things as fortuitous; or because what fate holds in store, though signified, is not to be shunned. Before a crowded assembly of the soldiers he proclaimed, with imperial brevity, that he was adopting Piso after the example of the deified Augustus and after the soldiers’ own custom, whereby one man chose another. And lest the sedition, dissembled, should be believed greater than it was, he affirmed of his own accord that the fourth and the two-and-twentieth legions, with a few authors of the mutiny, had strayed no further than words and shouts, and would soon be in their duty. To his speech he added neither inducement nor price. Yet the tribunes and centurions and the soldiers nearest him answered in words pleasant to hear: through the rest there was gloom and silence, as though they had lost by war even the right to a donative which they had usurped even in peace. It is agreed that their minds could have been won by the smallest liberality of the close-fisted old man: he was undone by his old-fashioned rigor and excessive strictness, to which we are no longer equal.

Quartum idus Ianuarias, foedum imbribus diem, tonitrua et fulgura et caelestes minae ultra solitum turbaverunt. observatum id antiquitus comitiis dirimendis non terruit Galbam quo minus in castra pergeret, contemptorem talium ut fortuitorum; seu quae fato manent, quamvis significata, non vitantur. apud frequentem militum contionem imperatoria brevitate adoptari a se Pisonem exemplo divi Augusti et more militari, quo vir virum legeret, pronuntiat. ac ne dissimulata seditio in maius crederetur, ultro adseverat quartam et duoetvicensimam legiones, paucis seditionis auctoribus, non ultra verba ac voces errasse et brevi in officio fore. nec ullum orationi aut lenocinium addit aut pretium. tribuni tamen centurionesque et proximi militum grata auditu respondent: per ceteros maestitia ac silentium, tamquam usurpatam etiam in pace donativi necessitatem bello perdidissent. constat potuisse conciliari animos quantulacumque parci senis liberalitate: nocuit antiquus rigor et nimia severitas, cui iam pares non sumus.

Then before the senate Galba’s speech was no more polished, no longer, than before the soldiery: Piso’s address was gracious. And the favor of the fathers was there: many in good will, more lavishly those who had not wished it, the middling and the most part in ready compliance, working their private hopes without care for the public. Nor in the following four days, which fell between the adoption and the murder, was anything said or done by Piso in public. With reports of the German defection growing more frequent by the day, and a community quick to take in and believe everything new so long as it is grim, the fathers had voted that envoys be sent to the German army. It was debated in secret whether Piso too should go, with the greater show—he to carry the senate’s authority, the other a Caesar’s standing. It was proposed that Laco the praetorian prefect be sent along as well: he balked at the plan. The envoys too (for the senate had left the choice to Galba) were, with foul inconstancy, named, excused, replaced, as each man’s fear or hope drove him to angle for staying or for going.

Inde apud senatum non comptior Galbae, non longior quam apud militem sermo: Pisonis comis oratio. et patrum favor aderat: multi voluntate, effusius qui noluerant, medii ac plurimi obvio obsequio, privatas spes agitantes sine publica cura. nec aliud sequenti quadriduo, quod medium inter adoptionem et caedem fuit, dictum a Pisone in publico factumve. crebrioribus in dies Germanicae defectionis nuntiis et facili civitate ad accipienda credendaque omnia nova cum tristia sunt, censuerant patres mittendos ad Germanicum exercitum legatos. agitatum secreto num et Piso proficisceretur, maiore praetextu, illi auctoritatem senatus, hic dignationem Caesaris laturus. placebat et Laconem praetorii praefectum simul mitti: is consilio intercessit. legati quoque (nam senatus electionem Galbae permiserat) foeda inconstantia nominati, excusati, substituti, ambitu remanendi aut eundi, ut quemque metus vel spes impulerat.

Next came the care of money; and to those who scrutinized everything it seemed most just to demand it back from the source where the cause of the want lay. Nero had poured out two thousand two hundred million sesterces in gifts: Galba ordered each recipient summoned, with a tenth part of the bounty left in each man’s hands. But they had scarcely a tenth left over, having squandered other men’s goods with the same extravagance as their own, since for the most rapacious and abandoned there remained no lands or capital, but only the instruments of their vices. Thirty Roman knights were set over the recovery, a new kind of office, burdensome in its intrigue and its numbers: everywhere the auction-spear and the broker, and the city unquiet with lawsuits. And yet there was great rejoicing that those whom Nero had enriched would be as poor as those he had stripped. In those days tribunes were cashiered: from the praetorian guard Antonius Taurus and Antonius Naso, from the urban cohorts Aemilius Pacensis, from the watch Julius Fronto. Nor was this a remedy upon the rest, but the beginning of fear, as though by craft and through dread they were being driven out one by one, with all men suspected.

Proxima pecuniae cura; et cuncta scrutantibus iustissimum visum est inde repeti ubi inopiae causa erat. bis et viciens miliens sestertium donationibus Nero effuderat: appellari singulos iussit, decima parte liberalitatis apud quemque eorum relicta. at illis vix decimae super portiones erant, isdem erga aliena sumptibus quibus sua prodegerant, cum rapacissimo cuique ac perditissimo non agri aut faenus sed sola instrumenta vitiorum manerent. exactioni triginta equites Romani praepositi, novum officii genus et ambitu ac numero onerosum: ubique hasta et sector, et inquieta urbs actionibus. ac tamen grande gaudium quod tam pauperes forent quibus donasset Nero quam quibus abstulisset. exauctorati per eos dies tribuni, e praetorio Antonius Taurus et Antonius Naso, ex urbanis cohortibus Aemilius Pacensis, e vigilibus Iulius Fronto. nec remedium in ceteros fuit, sed metus initium, tamquam per artem et formidine singuli pellerentur, omnibus suspectis.

Meanwhile Otho—for whom, with things once settled, there was no hope, all his counsel lying in the turbid—was goaded by many things at once: a luxury burdensome even to a princeps, a poverty scarcely to be borne by a private man, anger against Galba, envy against Piso. He feigned fear too, the more to whet his craving: he had been a weight on Nero, and was not to wait for another Lusitania and the honor of a second exile. The man marked out as next in line was always suspect and hateful to those in power. This had told against him with an old princeps; it would tell more with a young one, savage of temper and made brutal by long exile. Otho could be killed. Therefore he must act and dare while Galba’s authority was unsteady and Piso’s not yet firmed. Times of transition are the openings for great attempts, and there is no need of delay where inaction is more ruinous than rashness. Death, equal for all by nature, is distinguished among posterity by oblivion or by glory; and if the same end awaits the guilty and the guiltless, it is the part of a man of more spirit to perish for cause.

Interea Othonem, cui compositis rebus nulla spes, omne in turbido consilium, multa simul extimulabant, luxuria etiam principi onerosa, inopia vix privato toleranda, in Galbam ira, in Pisonem invidia; fingebat et metum quo magis concupisceret: praegravem se Neroni fuisse, nec Lusitaniam rursus et alterius exilii honorem expectandum. suspectum semper invisumque dominantibus qui proximus destinaretur. nocuisse id sibi apud senem principem, magis nociturum apud iuvenem ingenio trucem et longo exilio efferatum: occidi Othonem posse. proinde agendum audendumque, dum Galbae auctoritas fluxa, Pisonis nondum coaluisset. opportunos magnis conatibus transitus rerum, nec cunctatione opus, ubi perniciosior sit quies quam temeritas. mortem omnibus ex natura aequalem oblivione apud posteros vel gloria distingui; ac si nocentem innocentemque idem exitus maneat, acrioris viri esse merito perire.

Otho’s spirit was not soft, nor like his body. And his intimates among the freedmen and slaves, kept more loosely than in a private house, dangled before him Nero’s court and its luxuries—the adulteries, the marriages, and the other lusts of monarchy—as his own for the taking if he dared, and reproached him with them as another’s while he held back. The astrologers pressed him too, affirming from their watch upon the stars new upheavals and a year of glory for Otho—a breed of men faithless to the powerful, deceitful to the hopeful, which in our state will always be both forbidden and kept. Many of these astrologers Poppaea’s secret circle had retained, the worst furniture of an imperial marriage: of them Ptolemy, Otho’s companion in Spain, after promising that he would outlive Nero and winning credit from the event, had now, by guesswork and the talk of those reckoning up Galba’s age and Otho’s youth, persuaded him that he would be called to the imperial power. But Otho took these for the predictions of skill and the warning of the fates, with that craving of the human mind to believe the obscure the more gladly. Nor was Ptolemy wanting—now even a goad to the crime, to which the passage from such a wish is all too easy.

Non erat Othonis mollis et corpori similis animus. et intimi libertorum servorumque, corruptius quam in privata domo habiti, aulam Neronis et luxus, adulteria, matrimonia ceterasque regnorum libidines avido talium, si auderet, ut sua ostentantes, quiescenti ut aliena exprobrabant, urgentibus etiam mathematicis, dum novos motus et clarum Othoni annum observatione siderum adfirmant, genus hominum potentibus infidum, sperantibus fallax, quod in civitate nostra et vetabitur semper et retinebitur. multos secreta Poppaeae mathematicos, pessimum principalis matrimonii instrumentum, habuerant: e quibus Ptolemaeus Othoni in Hispania comes, cum superfuturum eum Neroni promisisset, postquam ex eventu fides, coniectura iam et rumore senium Galbae et iuventam Othonis computantium persuaserat fore ut in imperium adscisceretur. sed Otho tamquam peritia et monitu fatorum praedicta accipiebat, cupidine ingenii humani libentius obscura credendi. nec deerat Ptolemaeus, iam et sceleris instinctor, ad quod facillime ab eius modi voto transitur.

But whether the thought of the crime was sudden is uncertain: the soldiers’ devotion he had long been courting, whether in hope of the succession or in preparation of the deed—on the march, in the column, at the outposts calling each oldest soldier by name, and, by memory of Nero’s retinue, hailing them as messmates; recognizing some, asking after others, helping them with money or favor, slipping in all the while his complaints and ambiguous talk about Galba, and whatever else unsettles the crowd. The toils of the marches, the lack of supplies, the harshness of the discipline were taken more bitterly, since men used to reach the lakes of Campania and the cities of Achaia by fleet now struggled under arms, and with difficulty, over the Pyrenees and the Alps and the measureless stretches of road.

Sed sceleris cogitatio incertum an repens: studia militum iam pridem spe successionis aut paratu facinoris adfectaverat, in itinere, in agmine, in stationibus vetustissimum quemque militum nomine vocans ac memoria Neroniani comitatus contubernalis appellando; alios agnoscere, quosdam requirere et pecunia aut gratia iuvare, inserendo saepius querelas et ambiguos de Galba sermones quaeque alia turbamenta vulgi. labores itinerum, inopia commeatuum, duritia imperii atrocius accipiebantur, cum Campaniae lacus et Achaiae urbes classibus adire soliti Pyrenaeum et Alpes et immensa viarum spatia aegre sub armis eniterentur.

To the soldiers’ minds, already ablaze, Maevius Pudens, one of Tigellinus’s closest, had added as it were torches. Drawing in each man most fickle of temper or pinched for money and headlong into new appetites, he advanced little by little to this: that under the guise of a banquet, whenever Galba dined with Otho, he would deal out a hundred sesterces a head to the cohort on guard; and this Otho, as if it were a public bounty, deepened with more private rewards to individuals—so spirited a corrupter that to Cocceius Proculus, a guardsman disputing with his neighbor over part of a boundary, he gave the whole of the neighbor’s land, bought with his own money, as a gift, through the dullness of the prefect, whom the known and the hidden alike escaped.

Flagrantibus iam militum animis velut faces addiderat Maevius Pudens, e proximis Tigellini. is mobilissimum quemque ingenio aut pecuniae indigum et in novas cupiditates praecipitem adliciendo eo paulatim progressus est ut per speciem convivii, quotiens Galba apud Othonem epularetur, cohorti excubias agenti viritim centenos nummos divideret; quam velut publicam largitionem Otho secretioribus apud singulos praemiis intendebat, adeo animosus corruptor ut Cocceio Proculo speculatori, de parte finium cum vicino ambigenti, universum vicini agrum sua pecunia emptum dono dederit, per socordiam praefecti, quem nota pariter et occulta fallebant.

But then from among his freedmen he set Onomastus over the coming crime; and by him Barbius Proculus, password-keeper of the guardsmen, and Veturius, their deputy, were brought to him, and once he had found them by varied talk to be shrewd and bold, he loaded them with bribes and promises, money being given to test the minds of more. Two common soldiers undertook to hand over the empire of the Roman people—and they handed it over. Into the secret of the deed few were admitted: the wavering minds of the rest they spurred by diverse arts—the leading soldiers, as suspect through Nymphidius’s favors; the mass and the others through anger and despair at the donative so often deferred. There were some whom the memory of Nero and a longing for the old license inflamed: in common all were terrified by fear of a change of service.

Sed tum e libertis Onomastum futuro sceleri praefecit, a quo Barbium Proculum tesserarium speculatorum et Veturium optionem eorundem perductos, postquam vario sermone callidos audacisque cognovit, pretio et promissis onerat, data pecunia ad pertemptandos plurium animos. suscepere duo manipulares imperium populi Romani transferendum et transtulerunt. in conscientiam facinoris pauci adsciti: suspensos ceterorum animos diversis artibus stimulant, primores militum per beneficia Nymphidii ut suspectos, vulgus et ceteros ira et desperatione dilati totiens donativi. erant quos memoria Neronis ac desiderium prioris licentiae accenderet: in commune omnes metu mutandae militiae terrebantur.

That contagion infected the already-shaken minds of the legions and the auxiliaries too, once it was bruited about that the German army’s loyalty was tottering. And so ready was the sedition among the wicked, and the dissembling even among the sound, that on the day after the ides they would have seized Otho as he returned from dinner, had they not feared the uncertainties of the night, the soldiers’ quarters scattered over the whole city, and a concord not easy among drunken men—not from care for the commonwealth, which sober they were making ready to befoul with their own princeps’s blood, but lest in the dark, as each man of the Pannonian or German army was met with, he be marked out for Otho by men who, most of them, did not know him. Many signs of the bursting sedition were smothered by the accomplices: some that reached Galba’s ears the prefect Laco made light of, ignorant of the soldiers’ temper, and an enemy of any plan, however excellent, that he did not himself bring forward, and stubborn against those who knew.

Infecit ea tabes legionum quoque et auxiliorum motas iam mentis, postquam vulgatum erat labare Germanici exercitus fidem. adeoque parata apud malos seditio, etiam apud integros dissimulatio fuit, ut postero iduum die redeuntem a cena Othonem rapturi fuerint, ni incerta noctis et tota urbe sparsa militum castra nec facilem inter temulentos consensum timuissent, non rei publicae cura, quam foedare principis sui sanguine sobrii parabant, sed ne per tenebras, ut quisque Pannonici vel Germanici exercitus militibus oblatus esset, ignorantibus plerisque, pro Othone destinaretur. multa erumpentis seditionis indicia per conscios oppressa: quaedam apud Galbae auris praefectus Laco elusit, ignarus militarium animorum consiliique quamvis egregii, quod non ipse adferret, inimicus et adversus peritos pervicax.

On the eighteenth day before the kalends of February, as Galba was sacrificing before the temple of Apollo, the soothsayer Umbricius foretold grim entrails, treachery at hand, and an enemy within the house—Otho hearing it (for he stood close by) and reading it the other way, as glad and favorable to his own designs. Nor long after the freedman Onomastus brought word that he was awaited by the architect and the contractors—a signal agreed upon for the soldiers now gathering and the conspiracy made ready. Otho, to those who asked the reason of his going, pretended that he was buying property suspect for its age and so first to be inspected, and, leaning on his freedman, went through the house of Tiberius into the Velabrum, and thence to the golden milestone below the temple of Saturn. There three-and-twenty guardsmen hailed him emperor, and, when he trembled at the fewness of those saluting, hastily set him in a chair and, with drawn swords, swept him off; about as many soldiers joined on the way, some from complicity, most from astonishment, part with shouting and swords, part in silence, minded to take their cue from the outcome.

Octavo decimo kalendas Februarias sacrificanti pro aede Apollinis Galbae haruspex Vmbricius tristia exta et instantis insidias ac domesticum hostem praedicit, audiente Othone (nam proximus adstiterat) idque ut laetum e contra- rio et suis cogitationibus prosperum interpretante. nec multo post libertus Onomastus nuntiat expectari eum ab architecto et redemptoribus, quae significatio coeuntium iam militum et paratae coniurationis convenerat. Otho, causam digressus requirentibus, cum emi sibi praedia vetustate suspecta eoque prius exploranda finxisset, innixus liberto per Tiberianam domum in Velabrum, inde ad miliarium aureum sub aedem Saturni pergit. ibi tres et viginti speculatores consalutatum imperatorem ac paucitate salutantium trepidum et sellae festinanter impositum strictis mucronibus rapiunt; totidem ferme milites in itinere adgregantur, alii conscientia, plerique miraculo, pars clamore et gladiis, pars silentio, animum ex eventu sumpturi.

The guard in the camp was held by the tribune Julius Martialis. He—whether from the magnitude of the sudden crime, or fearing that the camp was corrupted more widely and that, if he stood against it, destruction awaited—gave most men the suspicion of complicity; and the other tribunes and centurions too preferred the present to the doubtful and the honorable, and such was the temper of men’s minds that a few dared the worst of deeds, more wished it, all suffered it.

Stationem in castris agebat Iulius Martialis tribunus. is magnitudine subiti sceleris, an corrupta latius castra et, si contra tenderet, exitium metuens, praebuit plerisque suspicionem conscientiae; anteposuere ceteri quoque tribuni centurionesque praesentia dubiis et honestis, isque habitus animorum fuit ut pessimum facinus auderent pauci, plures vellent, omnes paterentur.

Galba meanwhile, knowing nothing and intent on the rites, was wearying the gods of an empire already another’s, when a rumor is brought that some senator—it was uncertain who—was being hurried into the camp, and soon that it was Otho who was being carried off; and at the same time, from all over the city, as each man had met him, some magnifying it out of dread, some reporting less than the truth, not even then forgetful of flattery. So, as they deliberated, it was decided to sound out the temper of the cohort that held guard in the Palace—and not through Galba himself, whose authority, kept whole, was being reserved for greater remedies. Piso, summoning them before the steps of the house, addressed them in this manner: "It is the sixth day, fellow soldiers, since, ignorant of what was to come, and whether this name was to be wished for or feared, I was taken in as Caesar. With what fate to our house or to the commonwealth lies placed in your hands—not because in my own name I dread a sadder fall, I who, having known adversity, am learning at this very moment that prosperity too has no less of peril; but I grieve for my father’s sake, and the senate’s, and the empire’s own, if today we must either perish or—what among good men is equally wretched—kill. In the late disturbance we had this comfort, a city unbloodied and power transferred without discord: it seemed to have been provided by the adoption that there should be no room for war even after Galba."

Ignarus interim Galba et sacris intentus fatigabat alieni iam imperii deos, cum adfertur rumor rapi in castra incertum quem senatorem, mox Othonem esse qui raperetur, simul ex tota urbe, ut quisque obvius fuerat, alii formidine augentes, quidam minora vero, ne tum quidem obliti adulationis. igitur consultantibus placuit pertemptari animum cohortis, quae in Palatio stationem agebat, nec per ipsum Galbam, cuius integra auctoritas maioribus remediis servabatur. Piso pro gradibus domus vocatos in hunc modum adlocutus est: ’sextus dies agitur, commilitones, ex quo igna- rus futuri, et sive optandum hoc nomen sive timendum erat, Caesar adscitus sum. quo domus nostrae aut rei publicae fato in vestra manu positum est, non quia meo nomine tristiorem casum paveam, ut qui adversas res expertus cum maxime discam ne secundas quidem minus discriminis habere: patris et senatus et ipsius imperii vicem doleo, si nobis aut perire hodie necesse est aut, quod aeque apud bonos miserum est, occidere. solacium proximi motus habebamus incruentam urbem et res sine discordia translatas: provisum adoptione videbatur ut ne post Galbam quidem bello locus esset.’

"I will claim for myself nothing of nobility or of moderation; for there is no need to recount virtues in a comparison with Otho. His vices, the only thing he glories in, overthrew the empire even while he played the emperor’s friend. Was it by his carriage and his gait, or by that womanish finery, that he earned the empire? They are deceived whom luxury imposes upon under the show of liberality: that man will know how to squander, he will not know how to give. Debaucheries now, and revels, and gatherings of women he turns over in his mind: these he reckons the prizes of the principate—whose lust and pleasure would be his own, the blush and the disgrace everyone’s; for no one ever wielded by good arts an empire won by infamy. Galba the consent of the human race, me Galba with your consent named Caesar. If commonwealth and senate and people are empty names, it is your concern, fellow soldiers, that the empire not be made by the worst men. A mutiny of legions against their leaders has sometimes been heard of: your faith and fame have stayed unhurt to this day. And Nero too deserted you, you did not desert Nero. Shall fewer than thirty deserters and runaways—men whom no one would suffer to choose themselves a centurion or a tribune—assign the empire? Do you admit the precedent, and by keeping quiet make the crime your own? This license will pass over into the provinces, and to us will belong the issue of the crimes, to you of the wars. Nor is more given for the murder of a princeps than is given to the innocent; but you shall receive a donative from us for your faith just as much as from others for a crime."

’Nihil adrogabo mihi nobilitatis aut modestiae; neque enim relatu virtutum in comparatione Othonis opus est. vitia, quibus solis gloriatur, evertere imperium, etiam cum amicum imperatoris ageret. habitune et incessu an illo muliebri ornatu mereretur imperium? falluntur quibus luxuria specie liberalitatis imponit: perdere iste sciet, donare nesciet. stupra nunc et comissationes et feminarum coetus volvit animo: haec principatus praemia putat, quorum libido ac voluptas penes ipsum sit, rubor ac dedecus penes omnis; nemo enim umquam imperium flagitio quaesitum bonis artibus exercuit. Galbam consensus generis humani, me Galba consentientibus vobis Caesarem dixit. si res publica et senatus et populus vacua nomina sunt, vestra, commilitones, interest ne imperatorem pessimi faciant. legionum seditio adversus duces suos audita est aliquando: vestra fides famaque inlaesa ad hunc diem mansit. et Nero quoque vos destituit, non vos Neronem. minus triginta transfugae et desertores, quos centurionem aut tribunum sibi eligentis nemo ferret, imperium adsignabunt? admittitis exemplum et quie- scendo commune crimen facitis? transcendet haec licentia in provincias, et ad nos scelerum exitus, bellorum ad vos pertinebunt. nec est plus quod pro caede principis quam quod innocentibus datur, sed proinde a nobis donativum ob fidem quam ab aliis pro facinore accipietis.’

When the guardsmen had slipped away, the rest of the cohort, not spurning the speaker—as happens in confused affairs—snatched up the standards more by chance and with no settled plan as yet than, as was afterward believed, out of treachery and pretense. Marius Celsus too was sent to the picked men of the Illyrian army, encamped in the Vipsanian colonnade; orders were given to the senior centurions Amullius Serenus and Domitius Sabinus to fetch the German soldiers from the Hall of Liberty. The fleet legion was distrusted, hostile because of the slaughter of their comrades whom Galba had butchered at his very first entry. There go also into the praetorians’ camp the tribunes Cetrius Severus, Subrius Dexter, and Pompeius Longinus, in case the sedition, still beginning and not yet grown, might be turned by better counsels. Of the tribunes the soldiers assailed Subrius and Cetrius with threats, Longinus they restrained with their hands and disarmed, because, not in the line of military rank but one of Galba’s friends, faithful to his own prince, he was the more suspect to the deserters. The fleet legion, with no hesitation, joined the praetorians; the picked men of the Illyrian army drove off Celsus with leveled javelins. The German detachments wavered long, their bodies still weak and their tempers appeased, because Galba was nursing back with more generous care those whom Nero had sent ahead to Alexandria and who had then returned sick from the long voyage.

Dilapsis speculatoribus cetera cohors non aspernata contionantem, ut turbidis rebus evenit, forte magis et nullo adhuc consilio rapit signa quam, quod postea creditum est, insidiis et simulatione. missus et Celsus Marius ad electos Illyrici exercitus, Vipsania in porticu tendentis; praeceptum Amullio Sereno et Domitio Sabino primipilaribus, ut Germanicos milites e Libertatis atrio accerserent. legioni classicae diffidebatur, infestae ob caedem commilitonum, quos primo statim introitu trucidaverat Galba. pergunt etiam in castra praetorianorum tribuni Cetrius Severus, Subrius Dexter, Pompeius Longinus, si incipiens adhuc et necdum adulta seditio melioribus consiliis flecteretur. tribunorum Subrium et Cetrium adorti milites minis, Longinum manibus coercent exarmantque, quia non ordine militiae, sed e Galbae amicis, fidus principi suo et desciscentibus suspectior erat. legio classica nihil cunctata praetorianis adiungitur; Illyrici exercitus electi Celsum infestis pilis proturbant. Germanica vexilla diu nutavere, invalidis adhuc corporibus et placatis animis, quod eos a Nerone Alexandriam praemissos atque inde rursus longa navigatione aegros impensiore cura Galba refovebat.

By now the whole populace was filling the Palace, with slaves mingled in and a discordant clamor demanding the death of Otho and the destruction of the conspirators, as if they were calling for some show in the circus or the theater: nor was there in them judgment or sincerity, since on the same day they would demand the opposite with equal zeal, but by an inherited custom of flattering whatever princeps, with the license of acclamations and with empty enthusiasms.

Vniversa iam plebs Palatium implebat, mixtis servitiis et dissono clamore caedem Othonis et coniuratorum exitium poscentium ut si in circo aut theatro ludicrum aliquod postularent: neque illis iudicium aut veritas, quippe eodem die diversa pari certamine postulaturis, sed tradito more quemcumque principem adulandi licentia adclamationum et studiis inanibus.

Meanwhile two opinions held Galba divided. Titus Vinius judged that he must stay within the house, set the slaves against them, make the entrances fast, and not go out to angry men: let him give time for the wicked to repent, for the good to come together; crimes gather strength by impulse, good counsels by delay; and in short, the same chance of going out of his own accord, if there were reason, would remain later, while retreat, should he repent, lay in another’s power.

Interim Galbam duae sententiae distinebant: Titus Vinius manendum intra domum, opponenda servitia, firmandos aditus, non eundum ad iratos censebat: daret malorum paenitentiae, daret bonorum consensui spatium: scelera impetu, bona consilia mora valescere, denique eundi ultro, si ratio sit, eandem mox facultatem, regressum, si paeniteat, in aliena potestate.

To the rest it seemed they must make haste, before the weak conspiracy of a few should grow: Otho too would be in a panic, who, having slipped off in secret and been brought in among men ignorant of him, was now, by the dawdling and sloth of those wasting time, learning to play the prince. They must not wait for him, his camp once in order, to invade the Forum and, with Galba looking on, climb to the Capitol, while the admirable emperor with his brave friends shut up the house no farther than the door and the threshold—prepared, no doubt, to endure a siege. And fine help there would be in slaves, if the concord of so great a multitude and—what counts for most—the first flush of indignation were to flag. Therefore unsafe is what is unseemly; or, if fall he must, he must run to meet the danger: that would be more odious to Otho and honorable to themselves. As Vinius opposed this opinion, Laco assailed him with threats, Icelus goading him on, his stubbornness in a private grudge driving toward the public ruin.

Festinandum ceteris videbatur antequam cresceret invalida adhuc coniuratio paucorum: trepidaturum etiam Othonem, qui furtim digressus, ad ignaros inlatus, cunctatione nunc et segnitia terentium tempus imitari principem discat. non expectandum ut compositis castris forum invadat et prospectante Galba Capitolium adeat, dum egregius imperator cum fortibus amicis ianua ac limine tenus domum cludit, obsidionem nimirum toleraturus. et praeclarum in servis auxilium si consensus tantae multitudinis et, quae plurimum valet, prima indignatio elanguescat. proinde intuta quae indecora; vel si cadere necesse sit, occurrendum discrimini: id Othoni invidiosius et ipsis honestum. repugnantem huic sententiae Vinium Laco minaciter invasit, stimulante Icelo privati odii pertinacia in publicum exitium.

And Galba, hesitating no longer, sided with those who counseled the more splendid course. Yet Piso was sent ahead into the camp, as a young man of great name, of fresh popularity, and hostile to Titus Vinius—whether because he was, or because the angry wished it so; for hatred is the more readily believed. Piso had scarcely gone out when a rumor, at first vague and uncertain, that Otho had been killed in the camp; soon, as happens with great lies, certain men affirmed that they had been present and had seen it—a credulous report among the glad and the careless. Many thought the rumor concocted and swelled by Othonians now mingling in, who had spread the false good news to draw Galba out.

Nec diutius Galba cunctatus speciosiora suadentibus accessit. praemissus tamen in castra Piso, ut iuvenis magno nomine, recenti favore et infensus Tito Vinio, seu quia erat seu quia irati ita volebant; et facilius de odio creditur. vixdum egresso Pisone occisum in castris Othonem vagus primum et incertus rumor: mox, ut in magnis mendaciis, interfuisse se quidam et vidisse adfirmabant, credula fama inter gaudentis et incuriosos. multi arbitrabantur compositum auctumque rumorem mixtis iam Othonianis, qui ad evocandum Galbam laeta falso vulgaverint.

Then indeed not the people only and the unskilled mob broke into applause and immoderate zeal, but most of the knights and senators too, their fear laid aside and grown reckless, burst in through the forced doors of the Palace and showed themselves to Galba, complaining that the vengeance had been snatched from them—every most cowardly man, and, as the event showed, one who would not dare in the danger, excessive in words, fierce of tongue; no one knew anything and all affirmed it, until Galba, overcome by the lack of truth and the agreement of those in error, put on a breastplate and, unable by his age or his body to withstand the rushing crowd, was lifted into a chair. There met him in the Palace the guardsman Julius Atticus, displaying a bloody sword and crying out that he had killed Otho; and Galba said, "Comrade, who gave the order?"—with a remarkable spirit for curbing military license, undaunted before those who threatened, incorruptible against those who flattered.

Tum vero non populus tantum et imperita plebs in plausus et immodica studia sed equitum plerique ac senatorum, posito metu incauti, refractis Palatii foribus ruere intus ac se Galbae ostentare, praereptam sibi ultionem querentes, ignavissimus quisque et, ut res docuit, in periculo non ausurus, nimii verbis, linguae feroces; nemo scire et omnes adfirmare, donec inopia veri et consensu errantium victus sumpto thorace Galba inruenti turbae neque aetate neque corpore resistens sella levaretur. obvius in Palatio Iulius Atticus speculator, cruentum gladium ostentans, occisum a se Othonem exclamavit; et Galba ’commilito’, inquit, ’quis iussit?’ insigni animo ad coercendam militarem licentiam, minantibus intrepidus, adversus blandientis incorruptus.

By now there was no doubt in the minds of all in the camp, and so great was their ardor that, not content with the column and their own bodies, they ringed Otho with the standards on the tribunal where, a little before, a golden statue of Galba had stood, setting him amid the ensigns. Nor was there room for tribunes or centurions to approach: the common soldier kept bidding them beware their officers besides. Everything was a din of shouts and tumult and mutual encouragement—not, as among a populace and commons, with sundry voices of slack flattery, but, as they caught sight of each soldier streaming in, they grasped him by the hands, embraced him in their arms, set him close by, recited the oath before him, now commending the emperor to the soldiers, now the soldiers to the emperor. Nor was Otho wanting: stretching out his hands he did obeisance to the crowd, threw kisses, and did everything slavishly for the sake of mastery. After the whole legion of marines had taken his oath, confident in his strength, and thinking that those whom he had so far stirred up one by one should now be fired all together, he began thus before the rampart of the camp:

Haud dubiae iam in castris omnium mentes tantusque ardor ut non contenti agmine et corporibus in suggestu, in quo paulo ante aurea Galbae statua fuerat, medium inter signa Othonem vexillis circumdarent. nec tribunis aut centurionibus adeundi locus: gregarius miles caveri insuper praepositos iubebat. strepere cuncta clamoribus et tumultu et exhortatione mutua, non tamquam in populo ac plebe, variis segni adulatione vocibus, sed ut quemque adfluentium militum aspexerant, prensare manibus, complecti armis, conlocare iuxta, praeire sacramentum, modo imperatorem militibus, modo milites imperatori commendare. nec deerat Otho protendens manus adorare vulgum, iacere oscula et omnia serviliter pro dominatione. postquam universa classicorum legio sacramentum eius accepit, fidens viribus, et quos adhuc singulos extimulaverat, accendendos in commune ratus pro vallo castrorum ita coepit.

"In what character I have come forth to you, fellow soldiers, I cannot say, since I can bring myself to call myself neither a private man, having been named princeps by you, nor princeps while another rules. Your own name too will be in doubt, so long as it is questioned whether you have in your camp an emperor of the Roman people or an enemy. Do you hear how my punishment and your execution are demanded together? So plain is it that we can neither perish nor be saved except as one; and Galba, such is his clemency, has perhaps already promised it—he who, with no one demanding it, butchered so many thousands of utterly guiltless soldiers. A shudder steals over my spirit whenever I recall that deadly entry, and this the one victory of Galba’s, when before the eyes of the city he ordered men who had surrendered to be decimated—men whom, as they begged for mercy, he had taken into his protection. With these auspices he entered the city: what glory has he brought to the principate but the killing of Obultronius Sabinus and Cornelius Marcellus in Spain, of Betuus Cilo in Gaul, of Fonteius Capito in Germany, of Clodius Macer in Africa, of Cingonius on the road, of Turpilianus in the city, of Nymphidius in the camp? What province anywhere, what camp is there that is not bloodied and stained—or, as he himself proclaims, amended and set right? For what others call crimes, this man calls remedies, while by false names he styles savagery as strictness, greed as thrift, and your punishments and humiliations as discipline. Seven months it is since Nero’s end, and already Icelus has snatched more than the Polyclituses and Vatinii and Aegiali squandered. With less greed and license would Titus Vinius have gone marauding had he himself ruled: as it is, he has held us as his own subjects and as cheap as other men’s. That one house alone would suffice for the donative that is never given to you and daily cast in your teeth."

’Quis ad vos processerim commilitones, dicere non possum, quia nec privatum me vocare sustineo princeps a vobis nominatus, nec principem alio imperante. vestrum quoque nomen in incerto erit donec dubitabitur imperatorem populi Romani in castris an hostem habeatis. auditisne ut poena mea et supplicium vestrum simul postulentur? adeo manifestum est neque perire nos neque salvos esse nisi una posse; et cuius lenitatis est Galba, iam fortasse promisit, ut qui nullo exposcente tot milia innocentissimorum militum trucidaverit. horror animum subit quotiens recordor feralem introitum et hanc solam Galbae victoriam, cum in oculis urbis decimari deditos iuberet, quos deprecantis in fidem acceperat. his auspiciis urbem ingressus, quam gloriam ad principatum attulit nisi occisi Obultronii Sabini et Cornelii Marcelli in Hispania, Betui Cilonis in Gallia, Fontei Capitonis in Germania, Clodii Macri in Africa, Cingonii in via, Turpiliani in urbe, Nymphidii in castris? quae usquam provincia, quae castra sunt nisi cruenta et maculata aut, ut ipse praedicat, emendata et correcta? nam quae alii scelera, hic remedia vocat, dum falsis nominibus severitatem pro saevitia, parsimoniam pro avaritia, supplicia et contumelias vestras disciplinam appellat. septem a Neronis fine menses sunt, et iam plus rapuit Icelus quam quod Polycliti et Vatinii et Aegiali perdiderunt. minore avaritia ac licentia grassatus esset T. Vinius si ipse imperasset: nunc et subiectos nos habuit tamquam suos et vilis ut alienos. una illa domus sufficit donativo quod vobis numquam datur et cotidie exprobratur.’

"And that there might not be even any hope in Galba’s successor, he summoned from exile the man he judged most like himself in gloom and greed. You saw, fellow soldiers, how by a notable storm the very gods turned away from that ill-omened adoption. The same is the mind of the senate, the same of the Roman people: your valor is awaited—you in whom all the strength of honest counsels lies, and without whom even the most excellent are weak. It is not to war nor to peril that I call you: the arms of all the soldiers are with us. Nor does one cohort in togas now defend Galba, but detains him: when it has seen you, when it has received my signal, this alone will be the contest—who shall lay me under the greater debt. There is no room for delay in a design that cannot be praised unless it is carried through." He then ordered the armory to be opened. The arms were snatched at once, with no military usage or order, so that praetorian or legionary could not be told apart by his proper insignia: they are mixed in with auxiliary helmets and shields, no tribune or centurion urging them on, each man his own captain and goad; and the chief spur to the worst was that the good were grieving.

’Ac ne qua saltem in successore Galbae spes esset accersit ab exilio quem tristitia et avaritia sui simillimum iudicabat. vidistis, commilitones, notabili tempestate etiam deos infaustam adoptionem aversantis. idem senatus, idem populi Romani animus est: vestra virtus expectatur, apud quos omne honestis consiliis robur et sine quibus quamvis egregia invalida sunt. non ad bellum vos nec ad periculum voco: omnium militum arma nobiscum sunt. nec una cohors togata defendit nunc Galbam sed detinet: cum vos aspexerit, cum signum meum acceperit, hoc solum erit certamen, quis mihi plurimum imputet. nullus cunctationis locus est in eo consilio quod non potest laudari nisi peractum.’ aperire deinde armamentarium iussit. rapta statim arma, sine more et ordine militiae, ut praetorianus aut legionarius insignibus suis distingueretur: miscentur auxiliaribus galeis scutisque, nullo tribunorum centurionumve adhortante, sibi quisque dux et instigator; et praecipuum pessimorum incitamentum quod boni maerebant.

By now Piso, terrified by the roar of the swelling sedition and the voices echoing even into the city, had caught up with Galba, who had meanwhile gone out and was nearing the Forum; and already Marius Celsus had brought back no glad report, when some advised returning to the Palace, some making for the Capitol, most that the rostra should be seized, while more merely spoke against the opinions of others, and, as happens in ill-starred counsels, those courses seemed best whose time had slipped away. Laco, it is said, without Galba’s knowledge, debated killing Titus Vinius—whether that the man’s punishment might soothe the soldiers’ minds, or because he believed him Otho’s accomplice, or in the end out of hatred. The time and the place brought hesitation, since once a beginning of slaughter is made, a limit is hard; and panic-stricken messengers and the scattering of his intimates threw the plan into confusion, the zeal of all flagging who at first, brisk, had paraded their faith and spirit.

Iam exterritus Piso fremitu crebrescentis seditionis et vocibus in urbem usque resonantibus, egressum interim Galbam et foro adpropinquantem adsecutus erat; iam Marius Celsus haud laeta rettulerat, cum alii in Palatium redire, alii Capitolium petere, plerique rostra occupanda censerent, plures tantum sententiis aliorum contra dicerent, utque evenit in consiliis infelicibus, optima viderentur quorum tempus effugerat. agitasse Laco ignaro Galba de occidendo Tito Vinio dicitur, sive ut poena eius animos militum mulceret, seu conscium Othonis credebat, ad postremum vel odio. haesitationem attulit tempus ac locus, quia initio caedis orto difficilis modus; et turbavere consilium trepidi nuntii ac proximorum diffugia, languentibus omnium studiis qui primo alacres fidem atque animum ostentaverant.

Galba was driven this way and that by the shifting surge of the wavering crowd, the basilicas and temples filled on every side, a mournful prospect. Nor was there any voice of the people or the commons, but stunned faces and ears turned to everything; no uproar, no quiet, such as is the silence of great fear and great anger. To Otho, however, it was reported that the commons were arming; he orders his men to go headlong and forestall the danger. So Roman soldiers—as though they were going to drive a Vologaeses or a Pacorus from the ancestral throne of the Arsacids, and not hurrying to butcher their own emperor, unarmed and old—scattering the commons, trampling the senate, grim with their weapons, swift on their horses, burst into the Forum. Nor did the sight of the Capitol and the awe of the overhanging temples and the princes past and to come frighten them from doing the crime whose avenger is whoever succeeds.

Agebatur huc illuc Galba vario turbae fluctuantis impulsu, completis undique basilicis ac templis, lugubri prospectu. neque populi aut plebis ulla vox, sed attoniti vultus et conversae ad omnia aures; non tumultus, non quies, quale magni metus et magnae irae silentium est. Othoni tamen armari plebem nuntiabatur; ire praecipitis et occupare pericula iubet. igitur milites Romani, quasi Vologaesum aut Pacorum avito Arsacidarum solio depulsuri ac non imperatorem suum inermem et senem trucidare pergerent, disiecta plebe, proculcato senatu, truces armis, rapidi equis forum inrumpunt. nec illos Capitolii aspectus et imminentium templorum religio et priores et futuri principes terruere quo minus facerent scelus cuius ultor est quisquis successit.

At the sight, close at hand, of the column of armed men, the standard-bearer of the cohort escorting Galba (they relate it was Atilius Vergilio) tore down Galba’s image and dashed it to the ground: by that sign the zeal of all the soldiers for Otho was made plain, the Forum deserted by the people’s flight, weapons drawn against any who wavered. Near the lake of Curtius Galba was flung from his chair by the panic of the bearers and rolled out. His last words, as each man’s hatred or admiration ran, they have reported variously. Some say that he asked, in supplication, what evil he had deserved, and begged a few days for paying the donative: more, that he offered his throat to the assassins of his own accord—let them strike and slay, if so it seemed for the commonwealth. To the killers it mattered nothing what he said. About the assassin there is no sufficient agreement: some name Terentius, a recalled veteran, others Laecanius; the more frequent report has handed down that Camurius, a soldier of the fifteenth legion, drove in his sword and slit his throat. The rest foully hacked his legs and arms (for his breast was protected); and most of the wounds were dealt, in ferocity and savagery, to a body already a trunk.

Viso comminus armatorum agmine vexillarius comitatae Galbam cohortis (Atilium Vergilionem fuisse tradunt) dereptam Galbae imaginem solo adflixit: eo signo manifesta in Othonem omnium militum studia, desertum fuga populi forum, destricta adversus dubitantis tela. iuxta Curtii lacum trepidatione ferentium Galba proiectus e sella ac provolutus est. extremam eius vocem, ut cuique odium aut admiratio fuit, varie prodidere. alii suppliciter interrogasse quid mali meruisset, paucos dies exolvendo donativo deprecatum: plures obtulisse ultro percussoribus iugulum: agerent ac ferirent, si ita e re publica videretur. non interfuit occidentium quid diceret. de percussore non satis constat: quidam Terentium evocatum, alii Laecanium; crebrior fama tradidit Camurium quintae decimae legionis militem impresso gladio iugulum eius hausisse. ceteri crura brachiaque (nam pectus tegebatur) foede laniavere; pleraque vulnera feritate et saevitia trunco iam corpori adiecta.

Then they fell upon Titus Vinius—about whom too it is disputed whether instant fear stopped his voice, or whether he cried out that there was no order from Otho for his killing. Whether he feigned this in dread or confessed his complicity in the conspiracy, the balance of his life and reputation inclines rather this way: that he was privy to the crime of which he was the cause. He fell before the temple of the deified Julius, at the first blow on the knee, then was run through both flanks by Julius Carus, a legionary soldier.

Titum inde Vinium invasere, de quo et ipso ambigitur consumpseritne vocem eius instans metus, an proclamaverit non esse ab Othone mandatum ut occideretur. quod seu finxit formidine seu conscientiam coniurationis confessus est, huc potius eius vita famaque inclinat, ut conscius sceleris fuerit cuius causa erat. ante aedem divi Iulii iacuit primo ictu in poplitem, mox ab Iulio Caro legionario milite in utrumque latus transverberatus.

A man notable on that day our age saw in Sempronius Densus. A centurion of a praetorian cohort, assigned by Galba to Piso’s guard, he ran with drawn dagger to meet the armed men, reproaching them with the crime, and, drawing the assassins upon himself now with his hand, now with his voice, gave the wounded Piso a chance to escape. Piso made his way into the temple of Vesta, and, taken in by the pity of a public slave and hidden in his lodging, was deferring the imminent destruction not by the sanctity nor the rites but by the hiding-place, when there came, sent by Otho and burning by name for his killing, Sulpicius Florus of the British cohorts, lately granted citizenship by Galba, and Statius Murcus, a guardsman; by these Piso was dragged out and butchered in the doorway of the temple.

Insignem illa die virum Sempronium Densum aetas nostra vidit. centurio is praetoriae cohortis, a Galba custodiae Pisonis additus, stricto pugione occurrens armatis et scelus exprobrans ac modo manu modo voce vertendo in se percussores quamquam vulnerato Pisoni effugium dedit. Piso in aedem Vestae pervasit, exceptusque misericordia publici servi et contubernio eius abditus non religione nec caerimo- niis sed latebra inminens exitium differebat, cum advenere missu Othonis nominatim in caedem eius ardentis Sulpicius Florus e Britannicis cohortibus, nuper a Galba civitate donatus, et Statius Murcus speculator, a quibus protractus Piso in foribus templi trucidatur.

No killing, it is said, did Otho receive with greater joy, no head did he survey with such insatiable eyes—whether his mind, then for the first time eased of all anxiety, had begun to make room for gladness, or whether the recollection of majesty in Galba’s case, of friendship in Titus Vinius’s, had clouded even his pitiless spirit with a grim image, while in Piso’s killing, as that of an enemy and rival, he believed it right and lawful to rejoice. The heads, fixed on poles, were carried among the standards of the cohorts beside the eagle of the legion, those who had killed, who had been present, who truly and who falsely vaunting their bloody hands as a fine and memorable deed. More than a hundred and twenty petitions from men demanding a reward for some notable service that day Vitellius afterward found, and ordered all of them sought out and put to death—not in honor of Galba, but by the custom handed down to princes, a safeguard for the present, a vengeance for the future.

Nullam caedem Otho maiore laetitia excepisse, nullum caput tam insatiabilibus oculis perlustrasse dicitur, seu tum primum levata omni sollicitudine mens vacare gaudio coeperat, seu recordatio maiestatis in Galba, amicitiae in Tito Vinio quamvis immitem animum imagine tristi confuderat, Pisonis ut inimici et aemuli caede laetari ius fasque credebat. praefixa contis capita gestabantur inter signa cohortium iuxta aquilam legionis, certatim ostentantibus cruentas manus qui occiderant, qui interfuerant, qui vere qui falso ut pulchrum et memorabile facinus iactabant. plures quam centum viginti libellos praemium exposcentium ob aliquam notabilem illa die operam Vitellius postea invenit, omnisque conquiri et interfici iussit, non honori Galbae, sed tradito principibus more munimentum ad praesens, in posterum ultionem.

You would have thought it another senate, another people: all rushed to the camp, outstripping their neighbors, vying with those who ran ahead, railing at Galba, praising the soldiers’ judgment, kissing Otho’s hand; and the more false the things they did, the more of them they did. Nor did Otho spurn individuals, tempering with voice and look the soldiers’ greedy and threatening temper. Marius Celsus, the consul-designate and Galba’s friend, faithful to the very last, they demanded for execution, hostile to his industry and innocence as if to wicked arts. It was plain that a beginning of slaughter and plunder, and the ruin of every best man, was being sought; but Otho had not yet the authority to forbid a crime: he could already command one. So, feigning anger, he ordered him put in chains, and, affirming that he would pay heavier penalties, snatched him from present destruction.

Alium crederes senatum, alium populum: ruere cuncti in castra, anteire proximos, certare cum praecurrentibus, increpare Galbam, laudare militum iudicium, exosculari Othonis manum; quantoque magis falsa erant quae fiebant, tanto plura facere. nec aspernabatur singulos Otho, avidum et minacem militum animum voce vultuque temperans. Marium Celsum, consulem designatum et Galbae usque in extremas res amicum fidumque, ad supplicium expostulabant, indu- striae eius innocentiaeque quasi malis artibus infensi. caedis et praedarum initium et optimo cuique perniciem quaeri apparebat, sed Othoni nondum auctoritas inerat ad prohibendum scelus: iubere iam poterat. ita simulatione irae vinciri iussum et maiores poenas daturum adfirmans praesenti exitio subtraxit.

Everything thereafter was done at the soldiers’ will: they chose for themselves the praetorian prefects—Plotius Firmus, once a common soldier, then commander of the watch, who had followed Otho’s party while Galba was still safe; to him is joined Licinius Proculus, suspected, by his close intimacy with Otho, of having fostered his designs. Over the city they set Flavius Sabinus, following Nero’s judgment, under whom he had held the same charge, while most had regard in him to his brother Vespasian. It was demanded that the exemptions usually granted to the centurions be remitted; for the common soldier paid them like an annual tribute. A fourth part of a company, scattered on furloughs or roaming about the camp itself, provided it paid the centurion his fee, took no account of the measure of the burden or the manner of the gain: by brigandage and robbery, or by servile drudgery, they bought their soldier’s leisure. Then the richest soldier would be worn down with toil and harshness until he purchased his exemption. When, drained by the cost, he had moreover grown slack through idleness, he returned to his company poor instead of rich and lazy instead of brisk; and so, one after another ruined by the same poverty and license, they rushed into seditions and discords and at last into civil wars. But Otho, lest by a bounty to the rank and file he should turn the centurions’ minds away, promised that his own treasury would pay the annual exemptions—a thing undoubtedly useful, and afterward established by good princes as a permanent rule of discipline. The prefect Laco, as though being banished to an island, was stabbed by a recalled veteran whom Otho had sent ahead to kill him; on Marcianus Icelus, as on a freedman, punishment was inflicted in public.

Omnia deinde arbitrio militum acta: praetorii praefectos sibi ipsi legere, Plotium Firmum e manipularibus quondam, tum vigilibus praepositum et incolumi adhuc Galba partis Othonis secutum; adiungitur Licinius Proculus, intima familiaritate Othonis suspectus consilia eius fovisse. urbi Flavium Sabinum praefecere, iudicium Neronis secuti, sub quo eandem curam obtinuerat, plerisque Vespasianum fratrem in eo respicientibus. flagitatum ut vacationes praestari centurionibus solitae remitterentur; namque gregarius miles ut tributum annuum pendebat. quarta pars manipuli sparsa per commeatus aut in ipsis castris vaga, dum mercedem centurioni exolveret, neque modum oneris quisquam neque genus quaestus pensi habebat: per latrocinia et raptus aut servilibus ministeriis militare otium redimebant. tum locupletissimus quisque miles labore ac saevitia fatigari donec vacationem emeret. ubi sumptibus exhaustus socordia insuper elanguerat, inops pro locuplete et iners pro strenuo in manipulum redibat, ac rursus alius atque alius, eadem egestate ac licentia corrupti, ad seditiones et discordias et ad extremum bella civilia ruebant. sed Otho ne vulgi largitione centurionum animos averteret, fiscum suum vacationes annuas exoluturum promisit, rem haud dubie utilem et a bonis postea principibus perpetuitate disciplinae firmatam. Laco prae- fectus, tamquam in insulam seponeretur, ab evocato, quem ad caedem eius Otho praemiserat, confossus; in Marcianum Icelum ut in libertum palam animadversum.

The day spent in crimes, the last of the evils was the rejoicing. The city praetor convokes the senate; the other magistrates vie in flatteries, the fathers hurry up: there is decreed to Otho the tribunician power and the name of Augustus and all the honors of princes, while all strove to wipe out the taunts and reproaches which, flung about at random, no one perceived had stuck in his mind; whether he had let his grievances go or only deferred them, the brevity of his reign left uncertain. Otho, carried through the still-bloody Forum, over the heap of the fallen, to the Capitol and thence to the Palace, allowed the bodies to be given up to burial and burned. Piso his wife Verania and his brother Scribonianus, Titus Vinius his daughter Crispina laid out, the heads having been sought and bought back, which the killers had kept for sale.

Exacto per scelera die novissimum malorum fuit laetitia. vocat senatum praetor urbanus, certant adulationibus ceteri magistratus, adcurrunt patres: decernitur Othoni tribunicia potestas et nomen Augusti et omnes principum honores, adnitentibus cunctis abolere convicia ac probra, quae promisce iacta haesisse animo eius nemo sensit; omisisset offensas an distulisset brevitate imperii in incerto fuit. Otho cruento adhuc foro per stragem iacentium in Capitolium atque inde in Palatium vectus concedi corpora sepulturae cremarique permisit. Pisonem Verania uxor ac frater Scribonianus, Titum Vinium Crispina filia composuere, quaesitis redemptisque capitibus, quae venalia interfectores servaverant.

Piso was completing his thirty-first year, of better repute than fortune. Of his brothers Claudius had killed Magnus, Nero Crassus: he himself, long an exile, for four days a Caesar, by a hurried adoption was preferred to his elder brother only for this—that he might be killed the sooner. Titus Vinius lived fifty-seven years in varying character. His father came of a praetorian family, his maternal grandfather of the proscribed. His first service was infamous: he had had as his legate Calvisius Sabinus, whose wife, out of a base craving to view the camp’s layout, entered by night in soldier’s dress, and, when she had tried the watches and the other duties of service with the same wantonness, dared adultery in the very headquarters—and of this crime Titus Vinius was arraigned the guilty party. So by order of Gaius Caesar he was loaded with chains, then, with the change of times, released; and, his course of honors unimpeded, set over a legion after his praetorship, and approved, he was thereafter bespattered with a slave’s disgrace, as having stolen a golden cup at a banquet of Claudius’s—and Claudius the next day ordered that to Vinius alone of all men service be made in earthenware. But Vinius, as proconsul, ruled Narbonese Gaul with severity and integrity; then, dragged to the brink by Galba’s friendship, bold, cunning, ready, and—according as he had bent his mind—depraved or industrious, with the same force. Titus Vinius’s will was voided by the greatness of his wealth, Piso’s last wishes were made good by his poverty.

Piso unum et tricensimum aetatis annum explebat, fama meliore quam fortuna. fratres eius Magnum Claudius, Crassum Nero interfecerant: ipse diu exul, quadriduo Caesar, properata adoptione ad hoc tantum maiori fratri praelatus est ut prior occideretur. Titus Vinius quinquaginta septem annos variis moribus egit. pater illi praetoria familia, maternus avus e proscriptis. prima militia infamis: legatum Calvisium Sabinum habuerat, cuius uxor mala cupidine visendi situm castrorum, per noctem militari habitu ingressa, cum vigilias et cetera militiae munia eadem lascivia temptasset, in ipsis principiis stuprum ausa, et criminis huius reus Titus Vinius arguebatur. igitur iussu G. Caesaris oneratus catenis, mox mutatione temporum dimissus, cursu honorum inoffenso legioni post praeturam praepositus probatusque servili deinceps probro respersus est tamquam scyphum aureum in convivio Claudii furatus, et Claudius postera die soli omnium Vinio fictilibus ministrari iussit. sed Vinius proconsulatu Galliam Narbonensem severe integreque rexit; mox Galbae amicitia in abruptum tractus, audax, callidus, promptus et, prout animum intendisset, pravus aut industrius, eadem vi. testamentum Titi Vinii magnitudine opum inritum, Pisonis supremam voluntatem paupertas firmavit.

Galba’s body, long neglected and abused with many mockeries by the license of the dark, his steward Argius, one of his former slaves, covered with a humble burial in his master’s private gardens. The head, fixed on a pike by the camp-followers and drudges and torn before the tomb of Patrobius (a freedman of Nero’s who had been punished by Galba), was found only the next day and joined to the body, by then cremated. Such was the end of Servius Galba, who in seventy-three years had passed through five princes with prosperous fortune, and was happier under another’s rule than under his own. In his family was an old nobility, great wealth: in himself a middling talent, more free from vices than endowed with virtues. Of his reputation neither careless nor a hawker; of others’ money not covetous, of his own sparing, of the state’s grasping; toward friends and freedmen, where he had fallen in with good men, tolerant without blame, but if they were bad, blind even to a fault. But the brightness of his birth and the fear of the times served for a screen, so that what was sloth was called wisdom. While his age was in vigor he flourished in military renown in the Germanies. As proconsul he governed Africa with moderation, and, now older, held Hither Spain with equal justice, seeming greater than a private man while he was a private man—and, by the consent of all, capable of empire, had he never ruled.

Galbae corpus diu neglectum et licentia tenebrarum plurimis ludibriis vexatum dispensator Argius e prioribus servis humili sepultura in privatis eius hortis contexit. caput per lixas calonesque suffixum laceratumque ante Patrobii tumulum (libertus in Neronis punitus a Galba fuerat) postera demum die repertum et cremato iam corpori admixtum est. hunc exitum habuit Servius Galba, tribus et septuaginta annis quinque principes prospera fortuna emensus et alieno imperio felicior quam suo. vetus in familia nobilitas, magnae opes: ipsi medium ingenium, magis extra vitia quam cum virtutibus. famae nec incuriosus nec venditator; pecuniae alienae non adpetens, suae parcus, publicae avarus; amicorum libertorumque, ubi in bonos incidisset, sine reprehensione patiens, si mali forent, usque ad culpam ignarus. sed claritas natalium et metus temporum obtentui, ut, quod segnitia erat, sapientia vocaretur. dum vigebat aetas militari laude apud Germanias floruit. pro consule Africam moderate, iam senior citeriorem Hispaniam pari iustitia continuit, maior privato visus dum privatus fuit, et omnium consensu capax imperii nisi imperasset.

The trembling city, dreading at once the atrocity of the recent crime and Otho’s old character, was further terrified by fresh news of Vitellius, suppressed before Galba’s murder so that only the army of Upper Germany might be believed to have revolted. Then that two men, of all mortals the basest in lewdness, cowardice, and luxury, had as if by fate been chosen to destroy the empire—this not the senate only and the knights mourned, who had some share and care in the commonwealth, but the common people too, openly. And now it was not the recent examples of a savage peace, but the recalled memory of the civil wars, that they talked of—the city taken so often by its own armies, the devastation of Italy, the plundering of the provinces, Pharsalia, Philippi, Perusia, and Mutina, the famous names of public disasters. The world had been nearly overturned even when the contest for the principate was among good men; yet the empire had survived under Gaius Julius, survived under Caesar Augustus the victor; the commonwealth would have survived under Pompey and Brutus: now should they go to the temples for Otho or for Vitellius? Both prayers were impious, both vows accursed, between two of whom, in their war, you could know only this—that the worse would be he who conquered. There were some who augured Vespasian and the arms of the East; and though Vespasian was better than either, yet they shuddered at another war and other disasters. And the report about Vespasian was ambiguous, and he alone of all the principes before him was changed for the better.

Trepidam urbem ac simul atrocitatem recentis sce- leris, simul veteres Othonis mores paventem novus insuper de Vitellio nuntius exterruit, ante caedem Galbae suppressus ut tantum superioris Germaniae exercitum descivisse crederetur. tum duos omnium mortalium impudicitia ignavia luxuria deterrimos velut ad perdendum imperium fataliter electos non senatus modo et eques, quis aliqua pars et cura rei publicae, sed vulgus quoque palam maerere. nec iam recentia saevae pacis exempla sed repetita bellorum civilium memoria captam totiens suis exercitibus urbem, vastitatem Italiae, direptiones provinciarum, Pharsaliam Philippos et Perusiam ac Mutinam, nota publicarum cladium nomina, loquebantur. prope eversum orbem etiam cum de principatu inter bonos certaretur, sed mansisse G. Iulio, mansisse Caesare Augusto victore imperium; mansuram fuisse sub Pompeio Brutoque rem publicam: nunc pro Othone an pro Vitellio in templa ituros? utrasque impias preces, utraque detestanda vota inter duos, quorum bello solum id scires, deteriorem fore qui vicisset. erant qui Vespasianum et arma Orientis augurarentur, et ut potior utroque Vespasianus, ita bellum aliud atque alias cladis horrebant. et ambigua de Vespasiano fama, solusque omnium ante se principum in melius mutatus est.

Now I will unfold the beginnings and causes of the Vitellian movement. Julius Vindex having been slain with all his forces, the army, fierce with plunder and glory—since to it the victory of a most lucrative war had fallen without toil or danger—preferred a campaign and the battle-line, prizes rather than pay. Long they had borne a fruitless and harsh service, by the nature of the place and climate and the strictness of a discipline which, inexorable in peace, the discords of citizens loosen, with corrupters ready on both sides and treachery unpunished. Men, arms, horses were in surplus, for use and for show. But before the war they had known only their own centuries and squadrons; the armies were marked off by the boundaries of provinces: then the legions, drawn together against Vindex, having proved both themselves and the Gauls, sought arms again and new discords; nor did they call them allies, as once, but enemies and the conquered. Nor was that part of the Gallic provinces wanting which borders the Rhine, which had followed the same side and was then the keenest instigator against the Galbians—for this name they had fixed on them, once Vindex was scorned. So, hostile to the Sequani and the Aedui and then to the other states in proportion to their wealth, they drank in with their minds the stormings of cities, the ravagings of fields, the plundering of households—over and above greed and arrogance, the chief vices of the stronger, provoked by the defiance of the Gauls, who boasted, to the army’s disgrace, of the fourth part of the tribute remitted to them by Galba and of the public gifts. There was added a thing cunningly spread, rashly believed, that the legions were to be decimated and every readiest centurion discharged. From every side came savage reports, and sinister rumor from the city; the colony of Lyon was hostile and, by its stubborn loyalty to Nero, fertile in rumors; but the most material for invention and belief lay in the camp itself, in hatred, in fear, and—when they looked back on their own strength—in confidence.

Nunc initia causasque motus Vitelliani expediam. caeso cum omnibus copiis Iulio Vindice ferox praeda gloriaque exercitus, ut cui sine labore ac periculo ditissimi belli victoria evenisset, expeditionem et aciem, praemia quam stipendia malebat. diu infructuosam et asperam militiam toleraverant ingenio loci caelique et severitate disciplinae, quam in pace inexorabilem discordiae civium resolvunt, pa- ratis utrimque corruptoribus et perfidia impunita. viri, arma, equi ad usum et ad decus supererant. sed ante bellum centurias tantum suas turmasque noverant; exercitus finibus provinciarum discernebantur: tum adversus Vindicem contractae legiones, seque et Gallias expertae, quaerere rursus arma novasque discordias; nec socios, ut olim, sed hostis et victos vocabant. nec deerat pars Galliarum, quae Rhenum accolit, easdem partis secuta ac tum acerrima instigatrix adversum Galbianos; hoc enim nomen fastidito Vindice indiderant. igitur Sequanis Aeduisque ac deinde, prout opulentia civitatibus erat, infensi expugnationes urbium, populationes agrorum, raptus penatium hauserunt animo, super avaritiam et adrogantiam, praecipua validiorum vitia, contumacia Gallorum inritati, qui remissam sibi a Galba quartam tributorum partem et publice donatos in ignominiam exercitus iactabant. accessit callide vulgatum, temere creditum, decimari legiones et promptissimum quemque centurionum dimitti. undique atroces nuntii, sinistra ex urbe fama; infensa Lugdunensis colonia et pertinaci pro Nerone fide fecunda rumoribus; sed plurima ad fingendum credendumque materies in ipsis castris, odio metu et, ubi viris suas respexerant, securitate.

Just before the kalends of December of the previous year, Aulus Vitellius, having entered Lower Germany, had visited the legions’ winter quarters with care: ranks were restored to many, their disgrace remitted, their black marks lightened—much by canvassing, some by judgment, in which he had honestly reversed the sordidness and greed of Fonteius Capito in taking away or assigning the grades of service. Nor were his acts measured by the standard of a consular legate, but all taken in a greater sense. And as Vitellius was, to the strict, base, so his partisans called his affability and goodness the fact that without measure, without judgment, he gave away his own and lavished what was another’s; at the same time, in their craving to be ruled, they construed his very vices as virtues. In either army there were the modest and quiet, and likewise the bad and energetic. But of profuse desire and notable rashness were the legates of the legions, Alienus Caecina and Fabius Valens; of whom Valens, hostile to Galba—as having taken it ungratefully that Galba had had Verginius’s hesitation detected by him and Capito’s plans crushed—kept goading Vitellius, parading the soldiers’ ardor: he himself was of wide repute everywhere; there was no delay to be looked for in Hordeonius Flaccus; Britain would be at hand, the German auxiliaries would follow; the provinces were ill-trusty, the old man’s empire precarious and soon to pass; let him only open his bosom and run to meet the Fortune that came. Verginius had had reason to hesitate, of an equestrian family, his father unknown, unequal if he had taken the empire, safe if he refused; for Vitellius there were his father’s three consulships, a censorship, and a colleagueship with Caesar, which both laid on him from of old the standing of an emperor and took from him the safety of a private man. By these things his sluggish nature was shaken, so that he craved rather than hoped.

Sub ipsas superioris anni kalendas Decembris Aulus Vitellius inferiorem Germaniam ingressus hiberna legionum cum cura adierat: redditi plerisque ordines, remissa ignominia, adlevatae notae; plura ambitione, quaedam iudicio, in quibus sordis et avaritiam Fontei Capitonis adimendis adsignandisve militiae ordinibus integre mutaverat. nec consula- ris legati mensura sed in maius omnia accipiebantur. et ut Vitellius apud severos humilis, ita comitatem bonitatemque faventes vocabant, quod sine modo, sine iudicio donaret sua, largiretur aliena; simul aviditate imperitandi ipsa vitia pro virtutibus interpretabantur. multi in utroque exercitu sicut modesti quietique ita mali et strenui. sed profusa cupidine et insigni temeritate legati legionum Alienus Caecina et Fabius Valens; e quibus Valens infensus Galbae, tamquam detectam a se Verginii cunctationem, oppressa Capitonis consilia ingrate tulisset, instigare Vitellium, ardorem militum ostentans: ipsum celebri ubique fama, nullam in Flacco Hordeonio moram; adfore Britanniam, secutura Germanorum auxilia: male fidas provincias, precarium seni imperium et brevi transiturum: panderet modo sinum et venienti Fortunae occurreret. merito dubitasse Verginium equestri familia, ignoto patre, imparem si recepisset imperium, tutum si recusasset: Vitellio tris patris consulatus, censuram, collegium Caesaris et imponere iam pridem imperatoris dignationem et auferre privati securitatem. quatiebatur his segne ingenium ut concupisceret magis quam ut speraret.

But in Upper Germany Caecina—comely in his youth, huge of body, immoderate of spirit, of polished speech, of erect carriage—had drawn to himself the soldiers’ favor. This young man Galba, when as quaestor in Baetica he had briskly gone over to his party, set over a legion: then, having learned that he had embezzled public money, he ordered him prosecuted as a peculator. Caecina, taking it ill, resolved to throw all into confusion and to cover his private wounds with the commonwealth’s ills. Nor were there wanting in the army seeds of discord, since it had been present, all of it, in the war against Vindex, and had not been transferred to Galba until Nero was killed, and even in that very oath had been forestalled by the detachments of Lower Germany. And the Treveri and the Lingones, and whatever other states Galba had stricken with harsh edicts or loss of territory, are mingled more closely with the legions’ winter quarters: whence seditious conferences, and the soldier more corrupted among the civilians; and a favor toward Verginius that would profit anyone else.

At in superiore Germania Caecina, decorus iuventa, corpore ingens, animi immodicus, scito sermone, erecto incessu, studia militum inlexerat. hunc iuvenem Galba, quaestorem in Baetica impigre in partis suas transgressum, legioni praeposuit: mox compertum publicam pecuniam avertisse ut peculatorem flagitari iussit. Caecina aegre passus miscere cuncta et privata vulnera rei publicae malis operire statuit. nec deerant in exercitu semina discordiae, quod et bello adversus Vindicem universus adfuerat, nec nisi occiso Nerone translatus in Galbam atque in eo ipso sacramento vexillis inferioris Germaniae praeventus erat. et Treviri ac Lingones, quasque alias civitates atrocibus edictis aut damno finium Galba perculerat, hibernis legionum propius miscentur: unde seditiosa colloquia et inter paganos corruptior miles; et in Verginium favor cuicumque alii profuturus.

The state of the Lingones, by an old custom, had sent the legions a gift of right hands, the token of hospitality. Their envoys, got up in squalor and mourning, going about through the headquarters and the messes, now lamenting their own wrongs, now the rewards of the neighboring states, and—where they were received by willing ears of the soldiers—the perils and humiliations of the army itself, were inflaming men’s minds. Nor were they far from sedition when Hordeonius Flaccus orders the envoys to depart, and, that their going might be the more hidden, to leave the camp by night. Thence a savage rumor, most men affirming that they had been killed, and that unless they looked out for themselves, it would come to pass that the fiercest of the soldiers, and those who had complained of the present state, would be killed in the dark and through the others’ ignorance. The legions bind themselves to one another by a silent compact; the auxiliary soldier is taken in, at first suspected, as though an attack on the legions were being prepared by ringing them about with cohorts and squadrons, soon turning the same thing over more keenly—agreement among the bad being easier toward war than, in peace, toward concord.

Miserat civitas Lingonum vetere instituto dona legionibus dextras, hospitii insigne. legati eorum in squalorem maestitiamque compositi per principia per contubernia modo suas iniurias, modo vicinarum civitatium praemia, et ubi pronis militum auribus accipiebantur, ipsius exercitus pericula et contumelias conquerentes accendebant animos. nec procul seditione aberant cum Hordeonius Flaccus abire legatos, utque occultior digressus esset, nocte castris excedere iubet. inde atrox rumor, adfirmantibus plerisque interfectos, ac ni sibi ipsi consulerent, fore ut acerrimi militum et praesentia conquesti per tenebras et inscitiam ceterorum occiderentur. obstringuntur inter se tacito foedere legiones, adsciscitur auxiliorum miles, primo suspectus tamquam circumdatis cohortibus alisque impetus in legiones pararetur, mox eadem acrius volvens, faciliore inter malos consensu ad bellum quam in pace ad concordiam.

The legions of Lower Germany, however, were brought to the solemn oath of the first of January for Galba, with much hesitation and few voices from the front ranks, the rest in silence, each awaiting the boldness of his neighbor—by that nature implanted in mortals, to follow readily what one is loath to begin. But within the legions themselves there was a diversity of tempers: the men of the first and the fifth so turbulent that some threw stones at Galba’s images; the fifteenth and sixteenth legions, daring nothing beyond muttering and threats, were looking about for a beginning of the outbreak. But in the upper army the fourth and the two-and-twentieth legions, quartered in the same winter camp, on the very first of January tore up the images of Galba—the fourth legion the more promptly, the two-and-twentieth hesitantly, then in agreement. And, that they might not seem to cast off their reverence for the empire, they invoked in their oath the now-obliterated names of the senate and the Roman people, no legate or tribune striving on Galba’s behalf, some, as in a tumult, the more conspicuous in stirring trouble. Yet no one spoke in the manner of a public address or from a platform; for there was as yet no one to whom it might be charged.

Inferioris tamen Germaniae legiones sollemni kalendarum Ianuariarum sacramento pro Galba adactae, multa cunctatione et raris primorum ordinum vocibus, ceteri silentio proximi cuiusque audaciam expectantes, insita mortalibus natura, propere sequi quae piget inchoare. sed ipsis legionibus inerat diversitas animorum: primani quintanique turbidi adeo ut quidam saxa in Galbae imagines iecerint: quinta decima ac sexta decima legiones nihil ultra fremitum et minas ausae initium erumpendi circumspectabant. at in superiore exercitu quarta ac duetvicensima legiones, isdem hibernis tendentes, ipso kalendarum Ianuariarum die dirumpunt imagines Galbae, quarta legio promptius, duetvicensima cunctanter, mox consensu. ac ne reverentiam imperii exuere viderentur, senatus populique Romani oblitterata iam nomina sacramento advocabant, nullo legatorum tribunorumve pro Galba nitente, quibusdam, ut in tumultu, notabilius turbantibus. non tamen quisquam in modum contionis aut suggestu locutus; neque enim erat adhuc cui imputaretur.

A spectator of the outrage, Hordeonius Flaccus the consular legate was present, daring neither to check those rushing on, nor to hold the wavering, nor to encourage the good, but slack, timid, and innocent through sloth. Four centurions of the two-and-twentieth legion—Nonius Receptus, Donatius Valens, Romilius Marcellus, Calpurnius Repentinus—as they protected Galba’s images, were dragged off by the soldiers’ onset and bound. Nor had anyone any longer faith or memory of the former oath, but, as happens in seditions, all were on the side where the more were.

Spectator flagitii Hordeonius Flaccus consularis legatus aderat, non compescere ruentis, non retinere dubios, non cohortari bonos ausus, sed segnis pavidus et socordia innocens. quattuor centuriones duetvicensimae legionis, Nonius Receptus, Donatius Valens, Romilius Marcellus, Calpurnius Repentinus, cum protegerent Galbae imagines, impetu militum abrepti vinctique. nec cuiquam ultra fides aut memoria prioris sacramenti, sed quod in seditionibus accidit, unde plures erant omnes fuere.

On the night that followed the first of January, in the colony of the Agrippinenses, the eagle-bearer of the fourth legion announces to Vitellius, who was at dinner, that the fourth and two-and-twentieth legions, the images of Galba thrown down, had sworn to the words of the senate and the Roman people. That oath seemed empty: it was resolved to seize the wavering fortune and to offer a princeps. Men were sent by Vitellius to the legions and the legates to announce that the upper army had revolted from Galba: accordingly there must be either war against the seceders, or, if concord and peace were preferred, an emperor must be made; and a princeps was taken with less risk than he was sought.

Nocte quae kalendas Ianuarias secuta est in coloniam Agrippinensem aquilifer quartae legionis epulanti Vitellio nuntiat quartam et duetvicensimam legiones proiectis Galbae imaginibus in senatus ac populi Romani verba iurasse. id sacramentum inane visum: occupari nutantem fortunam et offerri principem placuit. missi a Vitellio ad legiones legatosque qui descivisse a Galba superiorem exercitum nuntiarent: proinde aut bellandum adversus desciscentis aut, si concordia et pax placeat, faciendum imperatorem: et minore discrimine sumi principem quam quaeri.

The nearest winter quarters were the first legion’s, and the readiest of the legates was Fabius Valens. He, on the next day, entering the colony of the Agrippinenses with the cavalry of the legion and of the auxiliaries, hailed Vitellius emperor. The legions of the same province followed in a vast rivalry; and the upper army, the specious names of the senate and the Roman people abandoned, on the third before the nones of January joined Vitellius: you would know that for the two days before it had not been on the commonwealth’s side. The Agrippinenses, the Treveri, the Lingones matched the armies’ ardor, offering auxiliaries, horses, arms, money, each as he was strong in body, in wealth, in wit. Nor the leading men only of the colonies or the camps, who had great hopes from present abundance and a won victory, but the companies too and the common soldier handed over their travel-money and their belts and trappings, the silver-adorned insignia of their arms, in place of money—by impulse and onrush and greed.

Proxima legionis primae hiberna erant et promptissimus e legatis Fabius Valens. is die postero coloniam Agrippinensem cum equitibus legionis auxiliariorumque ingressus imperatorem Vitellium consalutavit. secutae ingenti certamine eiusdem provinciae legiones; et superior exercitus, speciosis senatus populique Romani nominibus relictis, tertium nonas Ianuarias Vitellio accessit: scires illum priore biduo non penes rem publicam fuisse. ardorem exercituum Agrippinenses, Treviri, Lingones aequabant, auxilia equos, arma pecuniam offerentes, ut quisque corpore opibus ingenio validus. nec principes modo coloniarum aut castrorum, quibus praesentia ex affluenti et parta victoria magnae spes, sed manipuli quoque et gregarius miles viatica sua et balteos phalerasque, insignia armorum argento decora, loco pecuniae tradebant, instinctu et impetu et avaritia.

So, having praised the soldiers’ eagerness, Vitellius distributes the services of the principate, usually conducted through freedmen, among Roman knights; he pays the centurions’ exemptions out of the treasury; the savagery of the soldiers, who very often demanded numbers of men for punishment, he more often approves, rarely thwarts by a pretense of chains. Pompeius Propinquus, procurator of Belgica, was killed at once; Julius Burdo, prefect of the German fleet, he saved by craft. The army’s anger had blazed up against him, as though he had contrived the charge, and then the treachery, against Fonteius Capito. The memory of Capito was cherished, and among men in a fury one might kill openly, but pardon only by deceiving: so he was kept in custody, and only after the victory, when the soldiers’ hatreds were laid to rest, was he released. Meanwhile, as a scapegoat, the centurion Crispinus is thrown to them. He had stained himself with Capito’s blood, and so was both more manifest to those demanding it and cheaper to the one punishing.

Igitur laudata militum alacritate Vitellius ministeria principatus per libertos agi solita in equites Romanos disponit, vacationes centurionibus ex fisco numerat, saevitiam militum plerosque ad poenam exposcentium saepius adprobat, raro simulatione vinculorum frustratur. Pompeius Propinquus procurator Belgicae statim interfectus; Iulium Burdonem Germanicae classis praefectum astu subtraxit. exarserat in eum iracundia exercitus tamquam crimen ac mox insidias Fonteio Capitoni struxisset. grata erat memoria Capitonis, et apud saevientis occidere palam, ignoscere non nisi fallendo licebat: ita in custodia habitus et post victoriam demum, stratis iam militum odiis, dimissus est. interim ut piaculum obicitur centurio Crispinus. sanguine Capitonis se cruentaverat eoque et postulantibus manifestior et punienti vilior fuit.

Then Julius Civilis was withdrawn from danger—a man most powerful among the Batavians—lest by his execution that fierce people be alienated. And there were in the state of the Lingones eight Batavian cohorts, auxiliaries of the fourteenth legion, then, by the discord of the times, departed from the legion: whichever way they should incline, a great weight, as allies or as adversaries. Nonius, Donatius, Romilius, Calpurnius, the centurions of whom we told above, he ordered killed, condemned on the charge of faithfulness—the gravest among seceders. There joined the party Valerius Asiaticus, legate of the province of Belgica, whom Vitellius soon took as son-in-law, and Junius Blaesus, governor of Lugdunese Gaul, with the Italic legion and the Taurian wing quartered at Lyon. Nor was there delay in the Raetian forces to keep them from joining at once: not even in Britain was there any hesitation.

Iulius deinde Civilis periculo exemptus, praepotens inter Batavos, ne supplicio eius ferox gens alienaretur. et erant in civitate Lingonum octo Batavorum cohortes, quartae decimae legionis auxilia, tum discordia temporum a legione digressae, prout inclinassent, grande momentum sociae aut adversae. Nonium, Donatium, Romilium, Calpurnium centuriones, de quibus supra rettulimus, occidi iussit, damnatos fidei crimine, gravissimo inter desciscentis. accessere partibus Valerius Asiaticus, Belgicae provinciae legatus, quem mox Vitellius generum adscivit, et Iunius Blaesus, Lugdunensis Galliae rector, cum Italica legione et ala Tauriana Lugduni tendentibus. nec in Raeticis copiis mora quo minus statim adiungerentur: ne in Britannia quidem dubitatum.

In command was Trebellius Maximus, despised and hated by the army for his greed and meanness. His hatred was kindled by Roscius Coelius, legate of the twentieth legion, long at odds with him, but on the occasion of civil arms they had broken out more savagely. Trebellius charged Coelius with sedition and the confounding of the order of discipline; Coelius charged Trebellius with the legions despoiled and impoverished, while meanwhile, the army’s restraint corrupted by the foul contests of the legates, it came to such discord that, driven off by the reproaches of the auxiliary soldiers too, and deserted by the cohorts and squadrons that were attaching themselves to Coelius, Trebellius fled for refuge to Vitellius. The peace of the province remained, though the consular was removed: the legates of the legions ruled, equal in right, Coelius the more powerful in daring.

Praeerat Trebellius Maximus, per avaritiam ac sordis contemptus exercitui invisusque. accendebat odium eius Roscius Coelius legatus vicensimae legionis, olim discors, sed occasione civilium armorum atrocius proruperant. Trebellius seditionem et confusum ordinem disciplinae Coelio, spoliatas et inopes legiones Coelius Trebellio obiectabat, cum interim foedis legatorum certaminibus modestia exercitus corrupta eoque discordiae ventum ut auxiliarium quoque militum conviciis proturbatus et adgregantibus se Coelio cohortibus alisque desertus Trebellius ad Vitellium perfugerit. quies provinciae quamquam remoto consulari mansit: rexere legati legionum, pares iure, Coelius audendo potentior.

With the British army joined to him, Vitellius, now huge in strength and resources, appointed two generals and two routes for the war: Fabius Valens was to win over the Gallic provinces, or, should they refuse, to lay them waste, and to burst into Italy by the Cottian Alps; Caecina was ordered to descend by the nearer crossing, over the Pennine ridges. To Valens were given the picked men of the lower army, with the eagle of the fifth legion and cohorts and cavalry, to the number of forty thousand under arms; thirty thousand Caecina led from upper Germany, whose backbone was the twenty-first legion. To each were added German auxiliaries, from whom Vitellius filled out his own forces too, meaning to follow with the whole mass of the war.

Adiuncto Britannico exercitu ingens viribus opibusque Vitellius duos duces, duo itinera bello destinavit: Fabius Valens adlicere vel, si abnuerent, vastare Gallias et Cottianis Alpibus Italiam inrumpere, Caecina propiore transitu Poeninis iugis degredi iussus. Valenti inferioris exercitus electi cum aquila quintae legionis et cohortibus alisque, ad quadraginta milia armatorum data; triginta milia Caecina e superiore Germania ducebat, quorum robur legio unaetvicensima fuit. addita utrique Germanorum auxilia, e quibus Vitellius suas quoque copias supplevit, tota mole belli secuturus.

Wondrous was the difference between the army and its commander: the soldier pressed on, called for arms while the Gallic provinces were in alarm, while the Spanish provinces hung back; winter was no obstacle, nor the delays of a craven peace; Italy must be invaded, the City seized; in civil discord nothing is safer than haste, where there is need of action rather than counsel. Vitellius lay torpid, anticipating the fortune of empire in idle luxury and prodigal feasts, drunk by midday and heavy with gorging, while nonetheless the ardor and force of the soldiers of their own accord discharged the duties of a general, as though the commander were present and lending hope or fear to the brave and the slack alike. Drawn up and intent, they demanded the signal to march. The name of Germanicus was at once added to Vitellius; the title of Caesar he forbade even in victory. A glad omen befell Fabius Valens and the army he was driving to war: on the very day of departure an eagle, flying gently ahead just as the column advanced, like a guide of the road went before it; and for a long stretch such was the shout of the rejoicing soldiers, such the calm of the undaunted bird, that it was taken for no doubtful sign of a great and prosperous thing.

Mira inter exercitum imperatoremque diversitas: instare miles, arma poscere, dum Galliae trepident, dum Hispaniae cunctentur: non obstare hiemem neque ignavae pacis moras: invadendam Italiam, occupandam urbem; nihil in discordiis civilibus festinatione tutius, ubi facto magis quam consulto opus esset. torpebat Vitellius et fortunam principatus inerti luxu ac prodigis epulis praesumebat, medio diei temulentus et sagina gravis, cum tamen ardor et vis militum ultro ducis munia implebat, ut si adesset imperator et strenuis vel ignavis spem metumve adderet. instructi intentique signum profectionis exposcunt. nomen Germanici Vitellio statim additum: Caesarem se appellari etiam victor prohibuit. laetum augurium Fabio Valenti exercituique, quem in bellum agebat, ipso profectionis die aquila leni meatu, prout agmen incederet, velut dux viae praevolavit, longum- que per spatium is gaudentium militum clamor, ea quies interritae alitis fuit ut haud dubium magnae et prosperae rei omen acciperetur.

The Treviri indeed they approached in security, as allies; but at Divodurum (a town of the Mediomatrici), though received with every courtesy, a sudden panic seized them, and snatching up their arms on the instant they turned to the slaughter of an innocent community—not for booty or from any lust to plunder, but in frenzy and madness and from causes uncertain, and therefore the harder to remedy—until, softened by the prayers of their general, they held back from the destruction of the town; even so, some four thousand men were cut down. And such terror invaded Gaul that, as the column came on, whole communities with their magistrates and prayers ran out to meet it, women and children strewn along the roads; and whatever else might appease a hostile rage was offered—not, to be sure, in war, but for peace.

Et Treviros quidem ut socios securi adiere: Divoduri (Mediomatricorum id oppidum est) quamquam omni comitate exceptos subitus pavor terruit, raptis repente armis ad caedem innoxiae civitatis, non ob praedam aut spoliandi cupidine, sed furore et rabie et causis incertis eoque difficilioribus remediis, donec precibus ducis mitigati ab excidio civitatis temperavere; caesa tamen ad quattuor milia hominum. isque terror Gallias invasit ut venienti mox agmini universae civitates cum magistratibus et precibus occurrerent, stratis per vias feminis puerisque: quaeque alia placamenta hostilis irae, non quidem in bello sed pro pace tendebantur.

The news of Galba’s killing and the rule of Otho, Fabius Valens received in the state of the Leuci. The temper of the soldiers was stirred neither to joy nor to fear: they were bent on war. From the Gauls hesitation was taken away: their hatred of Otho and of Vitellius was equal, of Vitellius there was fear besides. The nearest community was that of the Lingones, loyal to the party. Kindly received, they vied in good conduct, but the joy was brief through the unruliness of the cohorts which, parted from the fourteenth legion (as we recorded above), Fabius Valens had joined to his own army. First wrangling, then a brawl between the Batavians and the legionaries; and as the soldiers’ partisanships gathered to this side or that, it all but blazed into battle, had not Valens, by the punishment of a few, reminded the Batavians, now forgetful, of their subjection. Against the Aedui a cause for war was sought in vain: bidden to deliver money and arms, they furnished provisions free as well. What the Aedui did from fear, the Lugdunenses did from joy. But the Italic legion and the Taurian wing were withdrawn; it was decided to leave the eighteenth cohort at Lyon, its accustomed winter quarters. Manlius Valens, legate of the Italic legion, though he had served the party well, held no honor with Vitellius: Fabius had defamed him by secret slanders, the man being unaware, and—that he might be the more off his guard and so deceived—openly praised.

Nuntium de caede Galbae et imperio Othonis Fabius Valens in civitate Leucorum accepit. nec militum animus in gaudium aut formidine permotus: bellum volvebat. Gallis cunctatio exempta est: in Othonem ac Vitellium odium par, ex Vitellio et metus. proxima Lingonum civitas erat, fida partibus. benigne excepti modestia certavere, sed brevis laetitia fuit cohortium intemperie, quas a legione quarta decima, ut supra memoravimus, digressas exercitui suo Fabius Valens adiunxerat. iurgia primum, mox rixa inter Batavos et legionarios, dum his aut illis studia militum adgregantur, prope in proelium exarsere, ni Valens animadversione paucorum oblitos iam Batavos imperii admonuisset. frustra ad- versus Aeduos quaesita belli causa: iussi pecuniam atque arma deferre gratuitos insuper commeatus praebuere. quod Aedui formidine Lugdunenses gaudio fecere. sed legio Italica et ala Tauriana abductae: cohortem duodevicensimam Lugduni, solitis sibi hibernis, relinqui placuit. Manlius Valens legatus Italicae legionis, quamquam bene de partibus meritus, nullo apud Vitellium honore fuit: secretis eum criminationibus infamaverat Fabius ignarum et, quo incautior deciperetur, palam laudatum.

An old discord between the Lugdunenses and the Viennenses the recent war had kindled. Many a mutual disaster, fought too often and too fiercely to be only for Nero’s sake and Galba’s. And Galba had turned the revenues of the Lugdunenses, with the occasion of his anger, to the imperial treasury; much honor, on the other hand, to the Viennenses: hence rivalry and envy, and, though one river divided them, a hatred that bound them together. So the Lugdunenses set to goading the soldiers one by one and driving them to the overthrow of the Viennenses, reminding them that their colony had been besieged by those people, that they had abetted the ventures of Vindex, that they had lately enrolled legions for Galba’s protection. And when they had paraded the grounds of their hatreds, they pointed to the greatness of the plunder; and now it was no secret exhortation but a public entreaty: let them go as avengers, let them blot out the seat of the Gallic war—everything there was foreign and hostile; themselves a Roman colony, a part of the army, partners in prosperity and adversity alike, let them not, if fortune turned against them, abandon them to angry men.

Veterem inter Lugdunensis et Viennensis discordiam proximum bellum accenderat. multae in vicem clades, crebrius infestiusque quam ut tantum propter Neronem Galbamque pugnaretur. et Galba reditus Lugdunensium occasione irae in fiscum verterat; multus contra in Viennensis honor: unde aemulatio et invidia et uno amne discretis conexum odium. igitur Lugdunenses extimulare singulos militum et in eversionem Viennensium impellere, obsessam ab illis coloniam suam, adiutos Vindicis conatus, conscriptas nuper legiones in praesidium Galbae referendo. et ubi causas odiorum praetenderant, magnitudinem praedae ostendebant, nec iam secreta exhortatio, sed publicae preces: irent ultores, excinderent sedem Gallici belli: cuncta illic externa et hostilia: se, coloniam Romanam et partem exercitus et prosperarum adversarumque rerum socios, si fortuna contra daret, iratis ne relinquerent.

By these and many more pleas of the same sort they had so worked upon the soldiers that not even the legates and leaders of the party thought the army’s wrath could be quenched, when the Viennenses, not unaware of their peril, holding out veils and fillets, as the column advanced, by clasping the soldiers’ arms, knees, and footsteps bent their hearts; Valens added three hundred sesterces to each man. Then the antiquity and dignity of the colony prevailed, and the words of Fabius commending the safety and security of the Viennenses were heard with fair hearing; publicly, however, they were fined their arms, and with private and miscellaneous supplies they aided the soldier. But constant report had it that Valens himself was bought for a great sum. Long squalid and suddenly rich, he ill concealed the change of fortune, his appetites unbounded by a kindling from long want, an old man prodigal after a beggared youth. Then, by slow marches through the territory of the Allobroges and Vocontii, the army was led, the general putting up for sale the very stages of the route and the changes of camp, with foul bargains struck against the holders of the land and the magistrates of the communities, and so threateningly that to Lucus (a town of the Vocontii) he set torches, until he was softened with money. Whenever the matter of money was wanting, he was bought off with debaucheries and adulteries. So they came to the Alps.

His et pluribus in eundem modum perpulerant ut ne legati quidem ac duces partium restingui posse iracun- diam exercitus arbitrarentur, cum haud ignari discriminis sui Viennenses, velamenta et infulas praeferentes, ubi agmen incesserat, arma genua vestigia prensando flexere militum animos; addidit Valens trecenos singulis militibus sestertios. tum vetustas dignitasque coloniae valuit et verba Fabi salutem incolumitatemque Viennensium commendantis aequis auribus accepta; publice tamen armis multati, privatis et promiscis copiis iuvere militem. sed fama constans fuit ipsum Valentem magna pecunia emptum. is diu sordidus, repente dives mutationem fortunae male tegebat, accensis egestate longa cupidinibus immoderatus et inopi iuventa senex prodigus. lento deinde agmine per finis Allobrogum ac Vocontiorum ductus exercitus, ipsa itinerum spatia et stativorum mutationes venditante duce, foedis pactionibus adversus possessores agrorum et magistratus civitatum, adeo minaciter ut Luco (municipium id Vocontiorum est) faces admoverit, donec pecunia mitigaretur. quotiens pecuniae materia deesset, stupris et adulteriis exorabatur. sic ad Alpis perventum.

More of plunder and of blood did Caecina drain. His turbulent temper had been provoked by the Helvetii, a Gallic people once renowned in arms and men, then for the memory of the name—who, ignorant of Galba’s killing, refused the rule of Vitellius. The beginning of the war was the greed and haste of the twenty-first legion: they had snatched money sent for the pay of a fort which the Helvetii had of old guarded with their own soldiers and at their own cost. The Helvetii took it ill, and, intercepting dispatches that were being carried in the name of the German army to the Pannonian legions, held a centurion and certain soldiers in custody. Caecina, eager for war, went to avenge each nearest fault before it could be repented of: camp swiftly broken, fields laid waste, a place built up in the manner of a town through long peace and frequented for the pleasant use of its healing waters, plundered; messengers sent to the Raetian auxiliaries to attack the Helvetii in the rear while they were turned against the legion.

Plus praedae ac sanguinis Caecina hausit. inritaverant turbidum ingenium Helvetii, Gallica gens olim armis virisque, mox memoria nominis clara, de caede Galbae ignari et Vitellii imperium abnuentes. initium bello fuit avaritia ac festinatio unaetvicensimae legionis; rapuerant pecuniam missam in stipendium castelli quod olim Helvetii suis militibus ac stipendiis tuebantur. aegre id passi Helvetii, interceptis epistulis, quae nomine Germanici exercitus ad Pannonicas legiones ferebantur, centurionem et quosdam militum in custodia retinebant. Caecina belli avidus proximam quamque culpam, antequam paeniteret, ultum ibat: mota propere castra, vastati agri, direptus longa pace in modum municipii extructus locus, amoeno salubrium aquarum usu frequens; missi ad Raetica auxilia nuntii ut versos in legionem Helvetios a tergo adgrederentur.

They, fierce before the crisis, in danger were craven: though at the first tumult they had chosen Claudius Severus as leader, they could not handle their arms, nor keep their ranks, nor take counsel as one. Ruinous was a battle against veterans, unsafe a siege behind walls crumbling with age; on this side Caecina with a strong army, on that the Raetian wings and cohorts and the youth of the Raetians themselves, used to arms and trained in the way of soldiering. On every side plunder and slaughter: they themselves, wandering in the midst, their arms flung away, a great part wounded or straggling, fled to Mount Vocetius. And at once, a Thracian cohort being sent in, they were driven off, and, the Germans and Raetians in pursuit, were butchered through the woods and in their very hiding-places. Many thousands of men were cut down, many sold under the garland. And when, with all destroyed, Aventicum, the capital of the people, was being sought by the hostile column, men were sent to surrender the state, and the surrender was accepted. Upon Julius Alpinus, one of the chiefs, Caecina visited punishment as a fomenter of war; the rest he left to the pardon or the savagery of Vitellius.

Illi ante discrimen feroces, in periculo pavidi, quamquam primo tumultu Claudium Severum ducem legerant, non arma noscere, non ordines sequi, non in unum consulere. exitiosum adversus veteranos proelium, intuta obsidio dilapsis vetustate moenibus; hinc Caecina cum valido exercitu, inde Raeticae alae cohortesque et ipsorum Raetorum iuventus, sueta armis et more militiae exercita. undique populatio et caedes: ipsi medio vagi, abiectis armis, magna pars saucii aut palantes, in montem Vocetium perfugere. ac statim immissa cohorte Thraecum depulsi et consectantibus Germanis Raetisque per silvas atque in ipsis latebris trucidati. multa hominum milia caesa, multa sub corona venundata. cumque dirutis omnibus Aventicum gentis caput infesto agmine peteretur, missi qui dederent civitatem, et deditio accepta. in Iulium Alpinum e principibus ut concitorem belli Caecina animadvertit: ceteros veniae vel saevitiae Vitellii reliquit.

It is not easy to say whether the envoys of the Helvetii found the commander or the soldiery the less appeasable. They demand the destruction of the state, they level weapons and fists at the envoys’ faces. Not even Vitellius restrained his words and threats, until Claudius Cossus, one of the envoys, of known eloquence but veiling the art of his speaking under an apt show of trembling and therefore the more effective, softened the soldiers’ temper. As is the way, the crowd, changeable at sudden turns and as prone to pity as it had been immoderate in savagery, with tears poured out and by asking better things more steadily won impunity and safety for the state.

Haud facile dictu est, legati Helvetiorum minus placabilem imperatorem an militem invenerint. civitatis excidium poscunt, tela ac manus in ora legatorum intentant. ne Vitellius quidem verbis et minis temperabat, cum Claudius Cossus, unus ex legatis, notae facundiae sed dicendi artem apta trepidatione occultans atque eo validior, militis animum mitigavit. ut est mos, vulgus mutabile subitis et tam pronum in misericordiam quam immodicum saevitia fuerat: effusis lacrimis et meliora constantius postulando impunitatem salutemque civitati impetravere.

Caecina, lingering a few days among the Helvetii while he should be made surer of Vitellius’s mind, and at the same time preparing the crossing of the Alps, receives glad news from Italy: that the Silian wing, quartered about the Po, had come over to the oath of Vitellius. As proconsul the Silians had had Vitellius in Africa; then, summoned by Nero to be sent ahead into Egypt, and recalled on account of the war of Vindex, and now remaining in Italy, at the instigation of their decurions—who, ignorant of Otho and bound to Vitellius, exalted the strength of the approaching legions and the fame of the German army—they went over to the party, and, as a kind of gift to the new princeps, joined to him the strongest towns of the Transpadane region, Milan and Novara and Eporedia and Vercellae. This Caecina learned through the men themselves. And because the widest part of Italy could not be defended by the garrison of a single wing, he sent ahead cohorts of Gauls and Lusitanians and Britons, and detachments of Germans with the Petrian wing, while he himself hesitated a little whether to turn over the Raetian ridges into Noricum against Petronius Urbicus the procurator, who, with auxiliaries roused and the bridges of the rivers broken, was thought loyal to Otho. But from fear of losing the cohorts and wings already sent forward, and reckoning at the same time that there was more glory in holding Italy, and that wherever the contest should be fought the Norici would fall to him among the other prizes of victory, he led the reserve infantry and the heavy column of the legions over the Pennine route, the Alps still wintry.

Caecina paucos in Helvetiis moratus dies dum sententiae Vitellii certior fieret, simul transitum Alpium parans, laetum ex Italia nuntium accipit alam Silianam circa Padum agentem sacramento Vitellii accessisse. pro consule Vitellium Siliani in Africa habuerant; mox a Nerone, ut in Aegyptum praemitterentur, exciti et ob bellum Vindicis revocati ac tum in Italia manentes, instinctu decurionum, qui Othonis ignari, Vitellio obstricti robur adventantium legionum et famam Germanici exercitus attollebant, transiere in partis et ut donum aliquod novo principi firmissima transpadanae regionis municipia, Mediolanum ac Novariam et Eporediam et Vercellas, adiunxere. id Caecinae per ipsos compertum. et quia praesidio alae unius latissima Italiae pars defendi nequibat, praemissis Gallorum Lusitanorumque et Britannorum cohortibus et Germanorum vexillis cum ala Petriana, ipse paulum cunctatus est num Raeticis iugis in Noricum flecteret adversus Petronium Vrbicum procuratorem, qui concitis auxiliis et interruptis fluminum pontibus fidus Othoni putabatur. sed metu ne amitteret praemissas iam cohortis alasque, simul reputans plus gloriae retenta Italia et, ubicumque certatum foret, Noricos in cetera victoriae praemia cessuros, Poenino itinere subsignanum militem et grave legionum agmen hibernis adhuc Alpibus transduxit.

Otho meanwhile, against all expectation, did not grow torpid in pleasures or in sloth: delights were put off, luxury dissembled, and all things composed to the dignity of empire; and the more dread did those counterfeit virtues bring, and the vices sure to return. Marius Celsus, consul-designate, snatched from the soldiers’ savagery under the show of imprisonment, he orders summoned to the Capitol; a title to clemency was sought from a man illustrious and hateful to the party. Celsus, steadfastly confessing the charge of faith kept toward Galba, made his very example a thing of credit. Nor did Otho treat it as a pardon, but, calling the gods to witness their mutual reconciliation, at once held him among his closest friends and soon, in the war, chose him among his generals; and Celsus’s loyalty remained, as if by fate, whole and ill-starred even for Otho. Glad to the chief men of the state, celebrated among the common people, the safety of Celsus was not unwelcome even to the soldiers, who admired the same virtue at which they raged.

Otho interim contra spem omnium non deliciis neque desidia torpescere: dilatae voluptates, dissimulata luxuria et cuncta ad decorem imperii composita, eoque plus formidinis adferebant falsae virtutes et vitia reditura. Marium Celsum consulem designatum, per speciem vinculorum saevitiae militum subtractum, acciri in Capitolium iubet; clementiae titulus e viro claro et partibus inviso petebatur. Celsus constanter servatae erga Galbam fidei crimen confessus, exemplum ultro imputavit. nec Otho quasi ignosceret sed deos testis mutuae reconciliationis adhibens, statim inter intimos amicos habuit et mox bello inter duces delegit, mansitque Celso velut fataliter etiam pro Othone fides integra et infelix. laeta primoribus civitatis, celebrata in vulgus Celsi salus ne militibus quidem ingrata fuit, eandem virtutem admirantibus cui irascebantur.

Next followed an equal exultation from unequal causes, the death of Tigellinus being obtained. Ofonius Tigellinus, of obscure parentage, a foul boyhood, a shameless old age, having won the prefecture of the watch and of the praetorian guard and other rewards of virtue—because it was the quicker way—by his vices, then practised cruelty, and after it avarice, the crimes of a man; he corrupted Nero to every wickedness, dared some things without his knowledge, and at last was that same man’s deserter and betrayer: whence none did men more stubbornly demand for punishment, from opposite feeling, both those in whom hatred of Nero dwelt and those in whom longing. Under Galba he had been shielded by the power of Titus Vinius, who alleged that his daughter had been saved by him. Beyond doubt he had saved her—not from clemency (since he had killed so many) but as an escape for the future, because every worst man, in distrust of the present and dreading change, prepares against the public hatred a private favor; whence no care for innocence, but a barter of mutual impunity. The more hostile for that, the people, with the fresh odium of Titus Vinius added to their old hatred of Tigellinus, came running from the whole city into the Palace and the fora, and, where the license of the crowd is greatest, poured into the circus and the theatres and clamored with seditious cries, until Tigellinus, receiving at the waters of Sinuessa the news of his last necessity, amid the debaucheries of his concubines and kisses and unseemly delays, with a razor cut his throat and befouled an infamous life even by a death belated and dishonorable.

Par inde exultatio disparibus causis consecuta impetrato Tigellini exitio. Ofonius Tigellinus obscuris parentibus, foeda pueritia, impudica senecta, praefecturam vigilum et praetorii et alia praemia virtutum, quia velocius erat, vitiis adeptus, crudelitatem mox, deinde avaritiam, virilia scelera, exercuit, corrupto ad omne facinus Nerone, quae- dam ignaro ausus, ac postremo eiusdem desertor ac proditor: unde non alium pertinacius ad poenam flagitaverunt, diverso adfectu, quibus odium Neronis inerat et quibus desiderium. apud Galbam Titi Vinii potentia defensus, praetexentis servatam ab eo filiam. haud dubie servaverat, non clementia, quippe tot interfectis, sed effugium in futurum, quia pessimus quisque diffidentia praesentium mutationem pavens adversus publicum odium privatam gratiam praeparat: unde nulla innocentiae cura sed vices impunitatis. eo infensior populus, addita ad vetus Tigellini odium recenti Titi Vinii invidia, concurrere ex tota urbe in Palatium ac fora et, ubi plurima vulgi licentia, in circum ac theatra effusi seditiosis vocibus strepere, donec Tigellinus accepto apud Sinuessanas aquas supremae necessitatis nuntio inter stupra concubinarum et oscula et deformis moras sectis novacula faucibus infamem vitam foedavit etiam exitu sero et inhonesto.

About the same time Calvia Crispinilla, demanded for execution, was by various frustrations and by the ill repute of a princeps who dissembled rescued from peril. The mistress of Nero’s lusts, who had crossed into Africa to goad Clodius Macer to arms, and had with no obscurity contrived a famine for the Roman people, afterward obtained the favor of the whole state, propped on a consular marriage, unharmed under Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, then powerful through money and childlessness—things that weigh alike in good times and in bad.

Per idem tempus expostulata ad supplicium Calvia Crispinilla variis frustrationibus et adversa dissimulantis principis fama periculo exempta est. magistra libidinum Neronis, transgressa in Africam ad instigandum in arma Clodium Macrum, famem populo Romano haud obscure molita, totius postea civitatis gratiam obtinuit, consulari matrimonio subnixa et apud Galbam Othonem Vitellium inlaesa, mox potens pecunia et orbitate, quae bonis malisque temporibus iuxta valent.

Frequent letters meanwhile, tainted with womanish blandishments, went from Otho to Vitellius, offering money and favor and whatever spot of quiet life he might choose for a prodigal living. Vitellius made the like display, at first more softly, with a foolish and unseemly pretense on either side, then, as if quarrelling, they flung debaucheries and disgraces at each other in turn—neither falsely. Otho, recalling the envoys Galba had sent, dispatched again, under the name of the Senate, to both German armies and to the Italic legion and the forces that were at Lyon. The envoys remained with Vitellius, too readily to seem detained; the praetorians, whom Otho had joined to the envoys under a show of duty, were sent back before they could mingle with the legions. Fabius Valens added letters in the name of the German army to the praetorian and urban cohorts, magnificent about the strength of the party and offering concord; and he reproached them besides for having turned to Otho an empire handed over to Vitellius so long before.

Crebrae interim et muliebribus blandimentis infectae ab Othone ad Vitellium epistulae offerebant pecuniam et gratiam et quemcumque e quietis locis prodigae vitae legis- set. paria Vitellius ostentabat, primo mollius, stulta utrimque et indecora simulatione, mox quasi rixantes stupra ac flagitia in vicem obiectavere, neuter falso. Otho, revocatis quos Galba miserat legatis, rursus ad utrumque Germanicum exercitum et ad legionem Italicam easque quae Lugduni agebant copias specie senatus misit. legati apud Vitellium remansere, promptius quam ut retenti viderentur; praetoriani, quos per simulationem officii legatis Otho adiunxerat, remissi antequam legionibus miscerentur. addidit epistulas Fabius Valens nomine Germanici exercitus ad praetorias et urbanas cohortis de viribus partium magnificas et concordiam offerentis; increpabat ultro quod tanto ante traditum Vitellio imperium ad Othonem vertissent.

So they were tried with promises and threats at once: as unequal to war, but in peace to lose nothing; nor for all that was the praetorians’ loyalty changed. But assassins were sent by Otho into Germany, by Vitellius into the City. For both it was in vain—for the Vitellians without harm, since amid so great a multitude they passed unknown by mutual ignorance; the Othonians, by the strangeness of their faces, where all knew one another in turn, were betrayed. Vitellius composed a letter to Titianus, Otho’s brother, threatening destruction to him and his son unless his own mother and children were kept safe. And both houses stood—under Otho whether from fear is uncertain; Vitellius the victor won the glory of clemency.

Ita promissis simul ac minis temptabantur, ut bello impares, in pace nihil amissuri; neque ideo praetorianorum fides mutata. sed insidiatores ab Othone in Germaniam, a Vitellio in urbem missi. utrisque frustra fuit, Vitellianis inpune, per tantam hominum multitudinem mutua ignorantia fallentibus: Othoniani novitate vultus, omnibus in vicem gnaris, prodebantur. Vitellius litteras ad Titianum fratrem Othonis composuit, exitium ipsi filioque eius minitans ni incolumes sibi mater ac liberi servarentur. et stetit domus utraque, sub Othone incertum an metu: Vitellius victor clementiae gloriam tulit.

The first thing that lent Otho confidence was news from Illyricum: that the legions of Dalmatia and Pannonia and Moesia had sworn to him. The like was reported from Spain, and Cluvius Rufus praised by edict; but at once it was learned that Spain had turned to Vitellius. Not even Aquitania, though bound to Otho’s allegiance by Julius Cordus, held long. Nowhere was there faith or love: by fear and necessity men were swayed this way and that. The same dread turned the Narbonese province to Vitellius, the passage being easy to those nearest and stronger. The distant provinces, and whatever of armed force the sea cut off, stayed with Otho—not from any zeal for his party, but the name of the City carried great weight, and the pretext of the Senate, and the side first heard had seized men’s minds. The Jewish army Vespasian, the legions of Syria Mucianus, brought to the oath of Otho; at the same time Egypt and all the provinces turned toward the East were held in his name. The same obedience from Africa, the beginning rising at Carthage and without waiting for the authority of the proconsul Vipstanus Apronianus: Crescens, a freedman of Nero’s (for these too in evil times make themselves a part of the commonwealth), had offered the people a banquet for joy at the new reign, and the populace hurried on most things without measure. The other communities followed Carthage.

Primus Othoni fiduciam addidit ex Illyrico nuntius iurasse in eum Dalmatiae ac Pannoniae et Moesiae legiones. idem ex Hispania adlatum laudatusque per edictum Cluvius Rufus: set statim cognitum est conversam ad Vitellium Hispaniam. ne Aquitania quidem, quamquam ab Iulio Cordo in verba Othonis obstricta, diu mansit. nusquam fides aut amor: metu ac necessitate huc illuc mutabantur. eadem formido provinciam Narbonensem ad Vitellium vertit, facili transitu ad proximos et validiores. longinquae provinciae et quidquid armorum mari dirimitur penes Othonem manebat, non partium studio, sed erat grande momentum in nomine urbis ac praetexto senatus, et occupaverat animos prior auditus. Iudaicum exercitum Vespasianus, Syriae legiones Mucianus sacramento Othonis adegere; simul Aegyptus omnesque versae in Orientem provinciae nomine eius tenebantur. idem Africae obsequium, initio Carthagine orto neque expectata Vipstani Aproniani proconsulis auctoritate: Crescens Neronis libertus (nam et hi malis temporibus partem se rei publicae faciunt) epulum plebi ob laetitiam recentis imperii obtulerat, et populus pleraque sine modo festinavit. Carthaginem ceterae civitates secutae.

With the armies and provinces thus pulled apart, Vitellius indeed, to grasp the fortune of the principate, had need of war, while Otho, as in deep peace, discharged the duties of empire—some from the dignity of the commonwealth, most against its honor, hurried on by the use of the moment. Consul with his brother Titianus down to the kalends of March was Otho himself; the next months he assigns to Verginius, as some soothing for the German army; Pompeius Vopiscus is joined to Verginius under the pretext of old friendship; most read it as an honor paid to the Viennenses. The other consulships remained by the designation of Nero or Galba: to the two Sabini, Caelius and Flavius, down to July, to Arrius Antoninus and Marius Celsus down to September—offices which not even Vitellius the victor disturbed. But Otho added to honored old men, already laden with dignity, the crown of pontificates and augurships; or, as a solace, restored to noble youths lately returned from exile the priesthoods of their grandfathers and fathers. To Cadius Rufus, Pedius Blaesus, and Saevinus Proculus their senatorial place was given back; they had fallen under charges of extortion in the days of Claudius and Nero: it pleased their pardoners, with the name reversed, that what had been avarice should be made to look like treason—through hatred of which even good laws were then perishing.

Sic distractis exercitibus ac provinciis Vitellio quidem ad capessendam principatus fortunam bello opus erat, Otho ut in multa pace munia imperii obibat, quaedam ex dignitate rei publicae, pleraque contra decus ex praesenti usu properando. consul cum Titiano fratre in kalendas Martias ipse; proximos mensis Verginio destinat ut aliquod exercitui Germanico delenimentum; iungitur Verginio Pompeius Vopiscus praetexto veteris amicitiae; plerique Viennensium honori datum interpretabantur. ceteri consulatus ex destinatione Neronis aut Galbae mansere, Caelio ac Flavio Sabinis in Iulias, Arrio Antonino et Mario Celso in Septembris, quorum honoribus ne Vitellius quidem victor intercessit. sed Otho pontificatus auguratusque honoratis iam senibus cumulum dignitatis addidit, aut recens ab exilio reversos nobilis adulescentulos avitis ac paternis sacerdotiis in solacium recoluit. redditus Cadio Rufo, Pedio Blaeso, † Saevino P senatorius locus. repetundarum criminibus sub Claudio ac Nerone ceciderant: placuit ignoscentibus verso nomine, quod avaritia fuerat, videri maiestatem, cuius tum odio etiam bonae leges peribant.

By the same largesse assailing the temper of communities and provinces too, he gave to the people of Hispalis and Emerita additions of families, to all the Lingones Roman citizenship, to the province of Baetica the towns of the Mauri as a gift; new rights to Cappadocia, new to Africa—more for display than to endure. Amid these things, excused by the necessity of present affairs and the cares pressing upon him, not even then forgetful of his loves, he restored the statues of Poppaea by a decree of the Senate; he was believed even to have toyed with celebrating the memory of Nero, in hope of winning over the crowd. And there were those who set up images of Nero; and on certain days the people and the soldiers, as though adding to him nobility and honor, acclaimed Otho as Nero. He himself kept the matter in suspense, from fear of forbidding it or shame to own it.

Eadem largitione civitatum quoque ac provinciarum animos adgressus Hispalensibus et Emeritensibus familiarum adiectiones, Lingonibus universis civitatem Romanam, provinciae Baeticae Maurorum civitates dono dedit; nova iura Cappadociae, nova Africae, ostentata magis quam mansura. inter quae necessitate praesentium rerum et instantibus curis excusata ne tum quidem immemor amorum statuas Poppaeae per senatus consultum reposuit; creditus est etiam de celebranda Neronis memoria agitavisse spe vulgum adliciendi. et fuere qui imagines Neronis proponerent: atque etiam Othoni quibusdam diebus populus et miles, tamquam nobilitatem ac decus adstruerent, Neroni Othoni adclamavit. ipse in suspenso tenuit, vetandi metu vel agnoscendi pudore.

With minds turned to civil war, foreign affairs were held without concern. The more boldly therefore the Rhoxolani, a Sarmatian people, having cut down two cohorts the winter before, had burst into Moesia in high hope, to the number of nine thousand horse, from ferocity and success bent more on plunder than on battle. So, scattered and off their guard, the third legion with auxiliaries joined to it suddenly fell upon them. Among the Romans all was fit for battle; the Sarmatians, dispersed, or weighed down by the load of their packs in their lust for plunder, the swiftness of their horses lost on the slippery roads, were cut down as though in fetters. For—strange to tell—the whole valor of the Sarmatians lies, as it were, outside themselves. Nothing is so craven in a fight on foot; but when they come on by squadrons, scarcely any line could withstand them. But then, on a wet day with the frost loosed, neither lance nor sword—the very long ones they wield with both hands—was of use, their horses slipping under the weight of their mail. That covering, for chiefs and the noblest, is wrought of iron plates or hardened hide: as impenetrable against blows, so, when they are thrown down by the enemy’s onset, unmanageable for rising again; and they were swallowed besides by the depth and softness of the snow. The Roman soldier, nimble in his cuirass, charging with javelin or lances, and where the matter called for it stabbing close with his light sword the unprotected Sarmatian (for it is not their custom to be defended by a shield), until the few who survived the battle hid themselves in the marshes. There they were consumed by the savagery of the winter or their wounds. When this was learned at Rome, Marcus Aponius, who held Moesia, was given a triumphal statue, and Fulvus Aurelius and Julianus Tettius and Numisius Lupus, legates of legions, the ornaments of consulars—Otho glad and drawing the glory to himself, as though he too were fortunate in war and had enlarged the commonwealth by his generals and his armies.

Conversis ad civile bellum animis externa sine cura habebantur. eo audentius Rhoxolani, Sarmatica gens, priore hieme caesis duabus cohortibus, magna spe Moesiam inruperant, ad novem milia equitum, ex ferocia et successu praedae magis quam pugnae intenta. igitur vagos et incuriosos tertia legio adiunctis auxiliis repente invasit. apud Romanos omnia proelio apta: Sarmatae dispersi aut cupidine prae- dae graves onere sarcinarum et lubrico itinerum adempta equorum pernicitate velut vincti caedebantur. namque mirum dictu ut sit omnis Sarmatarum virtus velut extra ipsos. nihil ad pedestrem pugnam tam ignavum: ubi per turmas advenere vix ulla acies obstiterit. sed tum umido die et soluto gelu neque conti neque gladii, quos praelongos utraque manu regunt, usui, lapsantibus equis et catafractarum pondere. id principibus et nobilissimo cuique tegimen, ferreis lamminis aut praeduro corio consertum, ut adversus ictus impenetrabile ita impetu hostium provolutis inhabile ad resurgendum; simul altitudine et mollitia nivis hauriebantur. Romanus miles facilis lorica et missili pilo aut lanceis adsultans, ubi res posceret, levi gladio inermem Sarmatam (neque enim scuto defendi mos est) comminus fodiebat, donec pauci qui proelio superfuerant paludibus abderentur. ibi saevitia hiemis aut vulnerum absumpti. postquam id Romae compertum, M. Aponius Moesiam obtinens triumphali statua, Fulvus Aurelius et Iulianus Tettius ac Numisius Lupus, legati legionum, consularibus ornamentis donantur, laeto Othone et gloriam in se trahente, tamquam et ipse felix bello et suis ducibus suisque exercitibus rem publicam auxisset.

Meanwhile, from a small beginning, whence nothing was feared, a mutiny arose that was near the destruction of the City. Otho had ordered the seventeenth cohort to be summoned from the colony of Ostia into the City; the charge of arming it was given to Varius Crispinus, a tribune of the praetorians. He, that he might the more freely carry out his orders with the camp quiet, ordered the cohort’s wagons loaded at nightfall, the armory thrown open. The hour bred suspicion, the cause a charge, and the striving after quiet swelled into tumult; and the sight of arms among drunken men stirred a desire to seize them. The soldiers grumble and charge the tribunes and centurions with treachery, as though the households of senators were being armed for Otho’s ruin—part unknowing and heavy with wine, the worst sort seizing the chance of plunder, the crowd, as is its way, eager for any new commotion; and the night had taken away the obedience of the better men. The tribune who resisted the mutiny, and the strictest of the centurions, they cut down; arms were snatched, swords bared; and, mounting their horses, they make for the City and the Palace.

Parvo interim initio, unde nihil timebatur, orta seditio prope urbi excidio fuit. septimam decimam cohortem e colonia Ostiensi in urbem acciri Otho iusserat; armandae eius cura Vario Crispino tribuno e praetorianis data. is quo magis vacuus quietis castris iussa exequeretur, vehicula cohortis incipiente nocte onerari aperto armamentario iubet. tempus in suspicionem, causa in crimen, adfectatio quietis in tumultum evaluit, et visa inter temulentos arma cupidinem sui movere. fremit miles et tribunos centurionesque pro- ditionis arguit, tamquam familiae senatorum ad perniciem Othonis armarentur, pars ignari et vino graves, pessimus quisque in occasionem praedarum, vulgus, ut mos est, cuiuscumque motus novi cupidum; et obsequia meliorum nox abstulerat. resistentem seditioni tribunum et severissimos centurionum obtruncant; rapta arma, nudati gladii; insidentes equis urbem ac Palatium petunt.

Otho had a crowded banquet of the foremost women and men; who, in alarm—whether the soldiers’ fury were chance or the emperor’s trick, whether to stay and be caught or to flee and scatter were the more perilous—now feigned constancy, now were betrayed by their fear, at once watching Otho’s face; and, as happens when minds are bent toward suspicion, when Otho feared, he was feared. But, terrified no less at the Senate’s peril than his own, he had at once sent the prefects of the praetorian guard to soften the soldiers’ anger, and bade all depart in haste from the banquet. Then indeed everywhere the magistrates, casting off their insignia, avoiding the throng of attendants and slaves—old men and women through the dark by the city’s various ways, few to their homes, most to the roofs of friends, and each, as his humblest client served, to uncertain hiding-places.

Erat Othoni celebre convivium primoribus feminis virisque; qui trepidi, fortuitusne militum furor an dolus imperatoris, manere ac deprehendi an fugere et dispergi periculosius foret, modo constantiam simulare, modo formidine detegi, simul Othonis vultum intueri; utque evenit inclinatis ad suspicionem mentibus, cum timeret Otho, timebatur. sed haud secus discrimine senatus quam suo territus et praefectos praetorii ad mitigandas militum iras statim miserat et abire propere omnis e convivio iussit. tum vero passim magistratus proiectis insignibus, vitata comitum et servorum frequentia, senes feminaeque per tenebras diversa urbis itinera, rari domos, plurimi amicorum tecta et ut cuique humillimus cliens, incertas latebras petivere.

The soldiers’ onset was not checked even by the doors of the Palace from bursting into the banquet, demanding that Otho be shown to them, Julius Martialis the tribune wounded and Vitellius Saturninus prefect of a legion, while they withstood the rush. On every side arms and threats, now against the centurions and tribunes, now against the whole Senate, their minds frenzied with blind panic; and because they could fix their wrath on no single man, they demanded license against all—until Otho, against the dignity of empire, standing upon his couch, with prayers and tears barely restrained them, and they returned to the camp unwilling and not guiltless. The next day, as though the City were taken, houses were shut, the streets thin of people, the commons in mourning; the soldiers’ faces cast down to the earth, and more of gloom than of penitence. Company by company they were addressed by Licinius Proculus and Plotius Firmus the prefects, each according to his temper, more mildly or more harshly. The end of the talk was that five thousand sesterces should be counted out to each soldier: then Otho dared enter the camp. And the tribunes and centurions surround him, casting off the insignia of their service, demanding discharge and safety. The soldier felt the reproach, and, composed to obedience, of his own accord demanded the authors of the mutiny for punishment.

Militum impetus ne foribus quidem Palatii coercitus quo minus convivium inrumperent, ostendi sibi Othonem expostulantes, vulnerato Iulio Martiale tribuno et Vitellio Saturnino praefecto legionis, dum ruentibus obsistunt. undique arma et minae, modo in centuriones tribunosque, modo in senatum universum, lymphatis caeco pavore animis, et quia neminem unum destinare irae poterant, licentiam in omnis poscentibus, donec Otho contra decus imperii toro insistens precibus et lacrimis aegre cohibuit, redieruntque in castra inviti neque innocentes. postera die velut capta urbe clausae domus, rarus per vias populus, maesta plebs; deiecti in terram militum vultus ac plus tristitiae quam paenitentiae. manipulatim adlocuti sunt Licinius Proculus et Plotius Firmus praefecti, ex suo quisque ingenio mitius aut horridius. finis sermonis in eo ut quina milia nummum singulis militibus numerarentur: tum Otho ingredi castra ausus. atque illum tribuni centurionesque circumsistunt, abiectis militiae insignibus otium et salutem flagitantes. sensit invidiam miles et compositus in obsequium auctores seditionis ad supplicium ultro postulabat.

Otho—though affairs were turbulent and the soldiers’ minds divided, since the best demanded a remedy for the present license, while the crowd, the greater number, glad of mutiny and of a courted command, were the more easily driven toward civil war through riot and plunder; and reckoning at the same time that a principate sought by crime could not be held by sudden restraint and old-fashioned gravity; but anxious at the City’s danger and the Senate’s peril—at last spoke thus: "Not to kindle your feelings into love of me, fellow soldiers, nor to urge your spirit to valor (for both are present in you superbly), but I have come to ask of you a tempering of your courage and a measure in your affection toward me. The beginning of the late tumult was not from greed or hatred, which have driven many an army into discord, nor even from shrinking or dread of dangers: it was your too-great loyalty, roused more keenly than wisely; for often, unless you bring judgment to bear, honorable causes of action are followed by ruinous ends. We go to war. Does the reason of affairs or the swiftness of opportunities allow every message to be heard openly, every plan to be handled with all present? It is fitting that soldiers be ignorant of some things as well as know them: so stands the authority of generals, so the rigor of discipline, that it is expedient many things be merely ordered, even to the centurions and tribunes. If each man were free to ask why he is ordered, with obedience perishing, command too falls away. Or will arms be snatched there too, in the dead of night? One or another lost and drunken wretch (for I would not believe that more than that went mad in the recent panic) shall steep his hands in a centurion’s and a tribune’s blood, and burst into the tent of his own emperor?"

Otho, quamquam turbidis rebus et diversis militum animis, cum optimus quisque remedium praesentis licentiae posceret, vulgus et plures seditionibus et ambitioso imperio laeti per turbas et raptus facilius ad civile bellum impellerentur, simul reputans non posse principatum scelere quaesitum subita modestia et prisca gravitate retineri, sed discrimine urbis et periculo senatus anxius, postremo ita disseruit: ’neque ut adfectus vestros in amorem mei accenderem, commilitones, neque ut animum ad virtutem cohortarer (utraque enim egregie supersunt), sed veni postulaturus a vobis temperamentum vestrae fortitudinis et erga me modum caritatis. tumultus proximi initium non cupiditate vel odio, quae multos exercitus in discordiam egere, ac ne detrectatione quidem aut formidine periculorum: nimia pietas vestra acrius quam considerate excitavit; nam saepe honestas rerum causas, ni iudicium adhibeas, perniciosi exitus consequuntur. imus ad bellum. num omnis nuntios palam audiri, omnia consilia cunctis praesentibus tractari ratio rerum aut occasionum velocitas patitur? tam nescire quaedam milites quam scire oportet: ita se ducum auctoritas, sic rigor disciplinae habet, ut multa etiam centuriones tribunosque tantum iuberi expediat. si cur iubeantur quaerere singulis liceat, pereunte obsequio etiam imperium intercidit. an et illic nocte intempesta rapientur arma? unus alterve perditus ac temulentus (neque enim pluris consternatione proxima insanisse crediderim) centurionis ac tribuni sanguine manus imbuet, imperatoris sui tentorium inrumpet?’

"You indeed did that for my sake: but in the running about and the darkness, in the confounding of all things, an opening even against me may be laid bare. If the choice were given to Vitellius and his satellites, what spirit, what mind would they imprecate upon us—what but mutiny and discord? that the soldier obey not the centurion, nor the centurion the tribune, so that, confounded, foot and horse, we rush to ruin. By obeying rather, fellow soldiers, than by questioning the commands of generals, are military affairs held together; and that army is bravest in the very crisis which was quietest before the crisis. Be yours the arms and the spirit: to me leave the counsel and the governance of your valor. The fault was of a few, the punishment shall be of two: the rest of you, blot out the memory of that foulest night. And let no army anywhere hear those cries against the Senate. The head of the empire and the glory of all the provinces, to summon it to punishment—by Hercules, not even the Germans, whom at this very moment Vitellius rouses against us, would dare. Shall any nurslings of Italy and truly Roman youth demand for blood and slaughter that order by whose splendor and glory we eclipse the squalor and obscurity of the Vitellian party? Some nations Vitellius has seized; he has a certain semblance of an army; the Senate is with us: so it comes about that on this side stands the commonwealth, on that the enemies of the commonwealth. What? Do you believe this loveliest of cities stands by its houses and roofs and heaped-up stones? Those mute and lifeless things may fall and be rebuilt indifferently: the eternity of affairs, the peace of nations, and my safety with yours is made firm by the safety of the Senate. This body, instituted under auspices by the parent and founder of our city, and continuous and immortal from the kings down to the emperors, as we received it from our forefathers, so let us hand on to posterity; for as senators are born of you, so emperors are born of senators."

’Vos quidem istud pro me: sed in discursu ac tenebris et rerum omnium confusione patefieri occasio etiam adversus me potest. si Vitellio et satellitibus eius eligendi facultas detur, quem nobis animum, quas mentis imprecentur, quid aliud quam seditionem et discordiam optabunt? ne miles centurioni, ne centurio tribuno obsequatur, ut confusi pedites equitesque in exitium ruamus. parendo potius, commilitones, quam imperia ducum sciscitando res militares continentur, et fortissimus in ipso discrimine exercitus est qui ante discrimen quietissimus. vobis arma et animus sit: mihi consilium et virtutis vestrae regimen relinquite. paucorum culpa fuit, duorum poena erit: ceteri abolete memoriam foedissimae noctis. nec illas adversus senatum voces ullus usquam exercitus audiat. caput imperii et decora omnium provinciarum ad poenam vocare non hercule illi, quos cum maxime Vitellius in nos ciet, Germani audeant. ulline Italiae alumni et Romana vere iuventus ad sanguinem et caedem depoposcerit ordinem, cuius splendore et gloria sordis et obscuritatem Vitellianarum partium praestringimus? nationes aliquas occupavit Vitellius, imaginem quandam exercitus habet, senatus nobiscum est: sic fit ut hinc res publica, inde hostes rei publicae constiterint. quid? vos pulcherrimam hanc urbem domibus et tectis et congestu lapidum stare creditis? muta ista et inanima intercidere ac reparari promisca sunt: aeternitas rerum et pax gentium et mea cum vestra salus incolumitate senatus firmatur. hunc auspicato a parente et conditore urbis nostrae institutum et a regibus usque ad principes continuum et immortalem, sicut a maioribus accepimus, sic posteris tradamus; nam ut ex vobis senatores, ita ex senatoribus principes nascuntur.’

Both the speech, fitted to touch and to soothe the soldiers’ minds, and the measure of his severity (for he had ordered no more than two punished) were gratefully received, and those who could not be coerced were composed for the present. Yet quiet had not returned to the City: the clash of weapons and the look of war, the soldiers, though they raised no general disturbance, scattered through the houses in secret garb, and a malign watch over all whom nobility or wealth or some notable distinction had exposed to rumor. That Vitellian soldiers too had come into the City to learn the leanings of the parties, most believed; whence all things were full of suspicions, and scarcely the inmost recesses of houses were without dread. But the greatest trepidation was in public, where, as each piece of news rumor brought, men turned their minds and faces, lest they seem to distrust the doubtful or rejoice too little at the prosperous. And when indeed the Senate was gathered in the House, the measure of all things was hard: lest silence be defiant, lest freedom be suspect; and to Otho, lately a private man and saying the same things, flattery was familiar. So they turned their opinions, twisting them this way and that, calling Vitellius enemy and parricide; the most provident with common abuse, some flinging true reproaches—yet only in the clamor and where the voices were many, or, in the tumult of words, drowning their own selves out.

Et oratio ad perstringendos mulcendosque militum animos et severitatis modus (neque enim in pluris quam in duos animadverti iusserat) grate accepta compositique ad praesens qui coerceri non poterant. non tamen quies urbi redierat: strepitus telorum et facies belli, militibus ut nihil in commune turbantibus, ita sparsis per domos occulto habitu, et maligna cura in omnis, quos nobilitas aut opes aut aliqua insignis claritudo rumoribus obiecerat: Vitellianos quoque milites venisse in urbem ad studia partium noscenda plerique credebant: unde plena omnia suspicionum et vix secreta domuum sine formidine. sed plurimum trepidationis in publico, ut quemque nuntium fama attulisset, animum vultumque conversis, ne diffidere dubiis ac parum gaudere prosperis viderentur. coacto vero in curiam senatu arduus rerum omnium modus, ne contumax silentium, ne suspecta libertas; et privato Othoni nuper atque eadem dicenti nota adulatio. igitur versare sententias et huc atque illuc torquere, hostem et parricidam Vitellium vocantes, providen- tissimus quisque vulgaribus conviciis, quidam vera probra iacere, in clamore tamen et ubi plurimae voces, aut tumultu verborum sibi ipsi obstrepentes.

Portents besides struck terror, published on various authorities: that in the forecourt of the Capitol the reins of the chariot on which Victory stood had been let drop; that from the shrine of Juno a shape greater than human had burst forth; that the statue of the deified Julius on the island of the river Tiber, on a clear and windless day, had turned from west to east; that an ox had spoken in Etruria; that there were strange births of animals, and many more things which in ruder ages were noted even in peace, but now are heard only in fear. But the chief dread—with present destruction and the dread of future too—was a sudden flooding of the Tiber, which, swollen to an immense rise, with the Sublician bridge broken down and dammed back by the wreckage of the obstructing mass, overflowed not only the low and level parts of the City but those secure against such mishaps: many were swept from the open streets, more cut off in shops and beds. Famine fell upon the commons through want of earnings and scarcity of food. The foundations of the tenement blocks, decayed by the standing waters, then, as the river receded, collapsed. And as soon as the mind was free of peril, the very thing—that the Campus Martius and the Flaminian Way, Otho’s road to war as he made ready his expedition, were blocked—was turned from fortuitous or natural causes into a portent and an omen of impending disasters.

Prodigia insuper terrebant diversis auctoribus vulgata: in vestibulo Capitolii omissas habenas bigae, cui Victoria institerat, erupisse cella Iunonis maiorem humana speciem, statuam divi Iulii in insula Tiberini amnis sereno et immoto die ab occidente in orientem conversam, prolocutum in Etruria bovem, insolitos animalium partus, et plura alia rudibus saeculis etiam in pace observata, quae nunc tantum in metu audiuntur. sed praecipuus et cum praesenti exitio etiam futuri pavor subita inundatione Tiberis, qui immenso auctu proruto ponte sublicio ac strage obstantis molis refusus, non modo iacentia et plana urbis loca, sed secura eius modi casuum implevit: rapti e publico plerique, plures in tabernis et cubilibus intercepti. fames in vulgus inopia quaestus et penuria alimentorum. corrupta stagnantibus aquis insularum fundamenta, dein remeante flumine dilapsa. utque primum vacuus a periculo animus fuit, id ipsum quod paranti expeditionem Othoni campus Martius et via Flaminia iter belli esset obstructum, a fortuitis vel naturalibus causis in prodigium et omen imminentium cladium vertebatur.

Otho, having purified the City and weighed his plans for war, since the Pennine and Cottian Alps and the other approaches of Gaul were closed by the Vitellian armies, resolved to attack Narbonese Gaul with a fleet strong and loyal to his party—because the survivors of those cut down at the Mulvian bridge, and held in custody by Galba’s savagery, he had formed into the ranks of a legion, hope being given to the rest too of honored service in time to come. He added to the fleet the urban cohorts and many of the praetorians, the strength and backbone of the army, and for the leaders themselves both counsel and watchmen. The head of the expedition was entrusted to Antonius Novellus and Suedius Clemens, senior centurions, and to Aemilius Pacensis, to whom he had restored the tribunate taken from him by Galba. The charge of the ships the freedman Moschus retained, set to watch the loyalty of his betters, unchanged in rank. As commanders of the foot and horse, Suetonius Paulinus, Marius Celsus, Annius Gallus were appointed; but the greatest trust was in Licinius Proculus, prefect of the praetorian guard. He, energetic in city soldiering, unpracticed in wars, by slandering—each as his quality was—the authority of Paulinus, the vigor of Celsus, the ripeness of Gallus (the easiest thing to do), crooked and cunning, outstripped the good and the modest.

Otho lustrata urbe et expensis bello consiliis, quando Poeninae Cottiaeque Alpes et ceteri Galliarum aditus Vitellianis exercitibus claudebantur, Narbonensem Galliam adgredi statuit classe valida et partibus fida, quod reliquos caesorum ad pontem Mulvium et saevitia Galbae in custodia habitos in numeros legionis composuerat, facta et ceteris spe honoratae in posterum militiae. addidit classi urbanas cohortis et plerosque e praetorianis, viris et robur exercitus atque ipsis ducibus consilium et custodes. summa expeditionis Antonio Novello, Suedio Clementi primipilaribus, Aemilio Pacensi, cui ademptum a Galba tribunatum reddiderat, permissa. curam navium Moschus libertus retinebat ad observandam honestiorum fidem immutatus. peditum equitumque copiis Suetonius Paulinus, Marius Celsus, Annius Gallus rectores destinati, sed plurima fides Licinio Proculo praetorii praefecto. is urbanae militiae impiger, bellorum insolens, auctoritatem Paulini, vigorem Celsi, maturitatem Galli, ut cuique erat, criminando, quod facillimum factu est, pravus et callidus bonos et modestos anteibat.

Set aside in those days was Cornelius Dolabella, into the colony of Aquinum, under neither close nor secret custody, for no crime, but marked out by his ancient name and his kinship with Galba. Many of the magistrates, a great part of the consulars, Otho bids set out with him—not as sharers or ministers in the war, but under the show of companions—among them Lucius Vitellius too, in the same garb as the rest, and neither as the emperor’s brother nor as an enemy. So the cares of the City were stirred; no order was free of fear or peril. The leading senators, feeble with age and idle from long peace, the nobility sluggish and forgetful of wars, the knight ignorant of soldiering—the more they strove to hide and bury their fear, the more manifestly were they afraid. Nor on the contrary were there wanting those who from foolish ostentation bought conspicuous arms, fine horses, some the luxurious apparatus of banquets and provocations to lust, as the equipment of war. To the wise, care for quiet and the commonwealth; the lightest sort, improvident of the future, swelled with vain hope; many, their credit shaken, anxious in peace, were eager amid the turmoil and safest in uncertainty.

Sepositus per eos dies Cornelius Dolabella in coloniam Aquinatem, neque arta custodia neque obscura, nullum ob crimen, sed vetusto nomine et propinquitate Galbae monstratus. multos e magistratibus, magnam consularium partem Otho non participes aut ministros bello, sed comitum specie secum expedire iubet, in quis et Lucium Vitellium, eodem quo ceteros cultu, nec ut imperatoris fratrem nec ut hostis. igitur motae urbis curae; nullus ordo metu aut periculo vacuus. primores senatus aetate invalidi et longa pace desides, segnis et oblita bellorum nobilitas, ignarus militiae eques, quanto magis occultare et abdere pavorem nitebantur, manifestius pavidi. nec deerant e contrario qui ambitione stolida conspicua arma, insignis equos, quidam luxuriosos apparatus conviviorum et inritamenta libidinum ut instrumen- tum belli mercarentur. sapientibus quietis et rei publicae cura; levissimus quisque et futuri improvidus spe vana tumens; multi adflicta fide in pace anxii, turbatis rebus alacres et per incerta tutissimi.

But the crowd, and the populace too vast to share in the common cares, began by degrees to feel the evils of war, all the money turned to the soldiers’ use, the prices of food strained—things which the rising of Vindex had not so worn the commons, the City being then secure and the war a provincial one, fought between the legions and the Gauls as though foreign. For ever since the deified Augustus settled the affairs of the Caesars, the Roman people had warred afar and for the anxiety or honor of one man; under Tiberius and Gaius the adversities of peace alone touched the commonwealth; the attempt of Scribonianus against Claudius was heard and checked at once; Nero was driven out by tidings and rumors rather than by arms: now the legions and fleets, and—what rarely else—the praetorian and urban soldier were led into the line; East and West, and whatever of strength lies on either side, were at their backs—material, had the war been waged under other leaders, for a long war. There were those who, as Otho set out, urged on him the delay and the religious scruple of the sacred shields not yet laid up: he scorned all hesitation as having been fatal to Nero too; and Caecina, already across the Alps, kept goading him on.

Sed vulgus et magnitudine nimia communium curarum expers populus sentire paulatim belli mala, conversa in militum usum omni pecunia, intentis alimentorum pretiis, quae motu Vindicis haud perinde plebem attriverant, secura tum urbe et provinciali bello, quod inter legiones Galliasque velut externum fuit. nam ex quo divus Augustus res Caesarum composuit, procul et in unius sollicitudinem aut decus populus Romanus bellaverat; sub Tiberio et Gaio tantum pacis adversa ad rem publicam pertinuere; Scriboniani contra Claudium incepta simul audita et coercita; Nero nuntiis magis et rumoribus quam armis depulsus: tum legiones classesque et, quod raro alias, praetorianus urbanusque miles in aciem deducti, Oriens Occidensque et quicquid utrimque virium est a tergo, si ducibus aliis bellatum foret, longo bello materia. fuere qui proficiscenti Othoni moras religionemque nondum conditorum ancilium adferrent: aspernatus est omnem cunctationem ut Neroni quoque exitiosam; et Caecina iam Alpes transgressus extimulabat.

On the day before the ides of March, having commended the commonwealth to the fathers, he granted to those recalled from exile the remnants of the Neronian confiscations not yet turned into the treasury—a most just gift and in show magnificent, but, the exaction having long since been hurried through, barren in use. Soon, a public meeting being called, exalting the majesty of the City and the agreement of people and Senate on his behalf, he spoke moderately against the Vitellian party, rebuking the ignorance rather than the audacity of the legions, with no mention of Vitellius—whether that was his own moderation, or the writer of the speech, fearing for himself, abstained from insults against Vitellius; since, as in the counsels of war he was believed to use Suetonius Paulinus and Marius Celsus, so in city affairs the talent of Galerius Trachalus. And there were those who recognized the very manner of the oratory, made famous by frequent use in the forum and broad and resounding to fill the people’s ears. The shout and the cries of the crowd, after the wont of flattery, were excessive and false: as though they were escorting Caesar the dictator or Augustus the emperor, so they vied in zeal and in vows—not from fear or love, but from a lust for servitude: as in households, each man had his private spur, and public honor was now cheap. Otho, setting out, entrusted the quiet of the City and the cares of empire to his brother Salvius Titianus.

Pridie idus Martias commendata patribus re publica reliquias Neronianarum sectionum nondum in fiscum conversas revocatis ab exilio concessit, iustissimum donum et in speciem magnificum, sed festinata iam pridem exactione usu sterile. mox vocata contione maiestatem urbis et consensum populi ac senatus pro se attollens, adversum Vitellianas partis modeste disseruit, inscitiam potius legionum quam audaciam increpans, nulla Vitellii mentione, sive ipsius ea moderatio, seu scriptor orationis sibi metuens contumeliis in Vitellium abstinuit, quando, ut in consiliis militiae Suetonio Paulino et Mario Celso, ita in rebus urbanis Galeri Trachali ingenio Othonem uti credebatur; et erant qui genus ipsum orandi noscerent, crebro fori usu celebre et ad implendas populi auris latum et sonans. clamor vocesque vulgi ex more adulandi nimiae et falsae: quasi dictatorem Caesarem aut imperatorem Augustum prosequerentur, ita studiis votisque certabant, nec metu aut amore, sed ex libidine servitii: ut in familiis, privata cuique stimulatio, et vile iam decus publicum. profectus Otho quietem urbis curasque imperii Salvio Titiano fratri permisit.

Already fortune was building, in another quarter of the earth, the beginnings and causes of a reign which, by varying lot, was glad for the commonwealth or atrocious, and for the emperors themselves prosperous or fatal. Titus Vespasianus, sent by his father from Judaea while Galba was still alive, gave as the reason of his journey his duty toward the emperor and a youth ripe for seeking offices; but the crowd, avid to invent, had put it about that he was summoned for adoption. Matter for such talk was the emperor’s age and childlessness and the intemperance of the state in marking out many until one is chosen. The report was swelled by Titus’s own ability, equal to any fortune however great, his comeliness of face with a certain majesty, Vespasian’s prosperous affairs, the prophetic responses, and—minds being inclined to believe—chance occurrences taken for omens. When at Corinth, a city of Achaia, he received sure news of Galba’s death, and there were those who affirmed the arms of Vitellius and war, anxious in mind, with a few of his friends called in, he surveyed all on either hand: if he went on to the City, no thanks for a courtesy undertaken to honor another, and he would be a hostage to Vitellius or to Otho; but if he turned back, the victor’s offense was certain, while the victory was still uncertain, and, the father going over to the party, the son was excused. But if Vespasian should take up the commonwealth, those weighing war must forget offenses.

Struebat iam fortuna in diversa parte terrarum initia causasque imperio, quod varia sorte laetum rei publicae aut atrox, ipsis principibus prosperum vel exitio fuit. Titus Vespasianus, e Iudaea incolumi adhuc Galba missus a patre, causam profectionis officium erga principem et maturam petendis honoribus iuventam ferebat, sed vulgus fingendi avidum disperserat accitum in adoptionem. materia sermonibus senium et orbitas principis et intemperantia civitatis, donec unus eligatur, multos destinandi. augebat famam ipsius Titi ingenium quantaecumque fortunae capax, decor oris cum quadam maiestate, prosperae Vespasiani res, praesaga responsa, et inclinatis ad credendum animis loco ominum etiam fortuita. ubi Corinthi, Achaiae urbe, certos nuntios accepit de interitu Galbae et aderant qui arma Vitellii bellumque adfirmarent, anxius animo paucis amicorum adhibitis cuncta utrimque perlustrat: si pergeret in urbem, nullam officii gratiam in alterius honorem suscepti, ac se Vitellio sive Othoni obsidem fore: sin rediret, offensam haud dubiam victoris, set incerta adhuc victoria et concedente in partis patre filium excusatum. sin Vespasianus rem publicam susciperet, obliviscendum offensarum de bello agitantibus.

Tossed by these and like thoughts between hope and fear, hope won. There were those who believed that, fired with longing for Queen Berenice, he had turned his course; nor was his youthful heart averse to Berenice, but it was no hindrance to the conduct of affairs. He passed a youth glad in pleasures, more temperate under his own rule than his father’s. So, sailing past the coast of Achaia and Asia and the sea on his left, he made for the islands of Rhodes and Cyprus, and thence for Syria by bolder reaches. And a desire seized him to approach and behold the temple of Paphian Venus, famous among natives and strangers. It will not be tedious to set out briefly the origin of the cult, the rite of the temple, the form of the goddess—for she is held nowhere else so.

His ac talibus inter spem metumque iactatum spes vicit. fuerunt qui accensum desiderio Berenices reginae vertisse iter crederent; neque abhorrebat a Berenice iuvenilis animus, sed gerendis rebus nullum ex eo impedimentum. laetam voluptatibus adulescentiam egit, suo quam patris imperio moderatior. igitur oram Achaiae et Asiae ac laeva maris praevectus, Rhodum et Cyprum insulas, inde Syriam audentioribus spatiis petebat. atque illum cupido incessit adeundi visendique templum Paphiae Veneris, inclitum per indigenas advenasque. haud fuerit longum initia religionis, templi ritum, formam deae (neque enim alibi sic habetur) paucis disserere.

That King Aerias founded the temple, old tradition has it; some say it was the name of the goddess herself. A more recent report tells that the temple was consecrated by Cinyras, and the goddess herself, conceived from the sea, was driven ashore here; but the knowledge and art of the soothsayers was brought in from abroad, the Cilician Tamiras introducing it, and it was so agreed that the descendants of both families should preside over the rites. Soon, lest the royal line be outranked in no honor by a foreign stock, the strangers gave up the very knowledge they had brought in: only a priest of the line of Cinyras is consulted. The victims are as each has vowed, but males are chosen: surest faith in the entrails of kids. To pour blood upon the altars is forbidden: the altars are kindled with prayers and pure fire, and, though in the open, they are wetted by no rains. The image of the goddess is not of human likeness: a continuous orb, broader at the base and rising to a slender circuit in the manner of a cone—but the reason of it is in obscurity.

Conditorem templi regem Aeriam vetus memoria, quidam ipsius deae nomen id perhibent. fama recentior tradit a Cinyra sacratum templum deamque ipsam conceptam mari huc adpulsam; sed scientiam artemque haruspicum accitam et Cilicem Tamiram intulisse, atque ita pactum ut familiae utriusque posteri caerimoniis praesiderent. mox, ne honore nullo regium genus peregrinam stirpem antecelleret, ipsa quam intulerant scientia hospites cessere: tantum Cinyrades sacerdos consulitur. hostiae, ut quisque vovit, sed mares deliguntur: certissima fides haedorum fibris. sanguinem arae obfundere vetitum: precibus et igne puro altaria adolentur, nec ullis imbribus quamquam in aperto madescunt. simulacrum deae non effigie humana, continuus orbis latiore initio tenuem in ambitum metae modo exurgens, set ratio in obscuro.

Titus, having viewed the wealth and the gifts of kings, and whatever else the Greek people, glad of antiquities, ascribes to an uncertain past, consulted first about his voyage. After he received that the way lay open and the sea favorable, he asked about himself in roundabout terms, many victims being slain. Sostratus (that was the priest’s name), when he saw the entrails glad and concordant and the goddess assenting to great designs, answering a few things for the present and the usual, on a secret being sought, laid open the future. Titus, his spirit raised, having been carried to his father, brought a vast confidence in affairs to the wavering minds of the provinces and armies.

Titus spectata opulentia donisque regum quaeque alia laetum antiquitatibus Graecorum genus incertae vetustati adfingit, de navigatione primum consuluit. postquam pandi viam et mare prosperum accepit, de se per ambages interrogat caesis compluribus hostiis. Sostratus (sacerdotis id nomen erat) ubi laeta et congruentia exta magnisque consultis adnuere deam videt, pauca in praesens et solita respondens, petito secreto futura aperit. Titus aucto animo ad patrem pervectus suspensis provinciarum et exercituum mentibus ingens rerum fiducia accessit.

Vespasian had all but finished the Jewish war, only the siege of Jerusalem remaining—a task hard and arduous more from the nature of the mountain and the obstinacy of the superstition than because enough strength was left to the besieged for enduring their necessities. Three legions, as we recorded above, Vespasian himself had, exercised by war; four Mucianus held in peace, but emulation and the glory of the neighboring army had driven off sloth, and as much vigor as dangers and toil had added to those, so much did unbroken rest and the labor of a war untried add to these. To each were auxiliaries of cohorts and cavalry, and fleets and kings, and a name famous with unequal fame.

Profligaverat bellum Iudaicum Vespasianus, obpugnatione Hierosolymorum reliqua, duro magis et arduo opere ob ingenium montis et pervicaciam superstitionis quam quo satis virium obsessis ad tolerandas necessitates superesset. tres, ut supra memoravimus, ipsi Vespasiano legiones erant, exercitae bello: quattuor Mucianus obtinebat in pace, sed aemulatio et proximi exercitus gloria depulerat segnitiam, quantumque illis roboris discrimina et labor, tantum his vigoris addiderat integra quies et inexperti belli † labor. auxilia utrique cohortium alarumque et classes regesque ac nomen dispari fama celebre.

Vespasian, keen in soldiering, would go before the column, choose the site for the camp, by night and day press the enemy with counsel and, if the matter required, with his hand, his food whatever chanced, in dress and bearing scarcely differing from a common soldier—in short, but for avarice, the equal of the ancient generals. Mucianus, on the contrary, magnificence and wealth and everything surpassing a private man’s measure exalted; apter in speech, skilled in the arrangement and foresight of civil affairs: a splendid balance for a principate, if, the vices of both removed, their virtues alone were mingled. For the rest, the one set over Syria, the other over Judaea, in the neighboring administrations of their provinces they were at odds through envy; at last, on Nero’s death, hatreds laid aside, they took common counsel—first through friends, then Titus the chief surety of concord had abolished their evil contests by the common good, by nature and by art composed to win over even Mucianus’s character. Tribunes and centurions and the common soldiery were drawn in by industry or license, through virtues or pleasures, as each man’s bent.

Vespasianus acer militiae anteire agmen, locum castris capere, noctu diuque consilio ac, si res posceret, manu hostibus obniti, cibo fortuito, veste habituque vix a gregario milite discrepans; prorsus, si avaritia abesset, antiquis ducibus par. Mucianum e contrario magnificentia et opes et cuncta privatum modum supergressa extollebant; aptior sermone, dispositu provisuque civilium rerum peritus: egregium principatus temperamentum, si demptis utriusque vitiis solae virtutes miscerentur. ceterum hic Syriae, ille Iudaeae praepositus, vicinis provinciarum administrationibus invidia discordes, exitu demum Neronis positis odiis in medium consuluere, primum per amicos, dein praecipua concordiae fides Titus prava certamina communi utilitate aboleverat, natura atque arte compositus adliciendis etiam Muciani moribus. tribuni centurionesque et vulgus militum industria licentia, per virtutes per voluptates, ut cuique ingenium, adsciscebantur.

Before Titus arrived, both armies had taken the oath to Otho, by the headlong messages, as is usual, and the slow mass of civil war, which the East, quiet through a long concord, was then for the first time preparing. For of old the mightiest civil wars among citizens were begun in Italy or Gaul by the forces of the West; and for Pompey, Cassius, Brutus, Antony, all of whom civil war followed across the sea, the ends had not been prosperous; and the Caesars were more often heard of in Syria and Judaea than seen. No mutiny of the legions, only threats against the Parthians, with varied event; and in the last civil war, while others were in turmoil, there was unshaken peace there, then loyalty toward Galba. Soon, as it was spread abroad that Otho and Vitellius were going to seize the Roman state with wicked arms, lest the prizes of empire fall to others and to themselves only the necessity of servitude, the soldiers murmured and looked about at their own strength. Seven legions at once, and with vast auxiliaries Syria and Judaea; then, adjoining, Egypt and two legions; on this side Cappadocia and Pontus and whatever camps front the Armenians. Asia and the other provinces neither destitute of men nor poor in money. As many islands as the sea encircles, and, while war was meanwhile being prepared, the sea itself safe and secure.

Antequam Titus adventaret sacramentum Othonis acceperat uterque exercitus, praecipitibus, ut adsolet, nuntiis et tarda mole civilis belli, quod longa concordia quietus Oriens tunc primum parabat. namque olim validissima inter se civium arma in Italia Galliave viribus Occidentis coepta; et Pompeio, Cassio, Bruto, Antonio, quos omnis trans mare secutum est civile bellum, haud prosperi exitus fuerant; auditique saepius in Syria Iudaeaque Caesares quam inspecti. nulla seditio legionum, tantum adversus Parthos minae, vario eventu; et proximo civili bello turbatis aliis inconcussa ibi pax, dein fides erga Galbam. mox, ut Othonem ac Vitellium scelestis armis res Romanas raptum ire vulgatum est, ne penes ceteros imperii praemia, penes ipsos tantum servitii necessitas esset, fremere miles et viris suas circumspicere. septem legiones statim et cum ingentibus auxiliis Syria Iudaeaque; inde continua Aegyptus duaeque legiones, hinc Cappadocia Pontusque et quicquid castrorum Armeniis praetenditur. Asia et ceterae provinciae nec virorum inopes et pecunia opulentae. quantum insularum mari cingitur, et parando interim bello secundum tutumque ipsum mare.

The generals were not deceived by the soldiers’ eagerness, but it pleased them, while others fought, to wait. Victors and vanquished in civil war never coalesce in solid faith, nor did it matter whether fortune made Vitellius or Otho the survivor. In prosperity even excellent generals grow insolent: by the soldier’s discord, sloth, luxury, and his own vices, the one would perish by the war, the other by his victory. So they put off arms to a fit occasion, Vespasian and Mucianus lately, the rest long since with mingled counsels; the best from love of the commonwealth, many were spurred by the sweetness of plunder, others by their uncertain affairs at home: thus good and bad, from diverse causes, with equal zeal, all desired war.

Non fallebat duces impetus militum, sed bellantibus aliis placuit expectari. bello civili victores victosque numquam solida fide coalescere, nec referre Vitellium an Othonem superstitem fortuna faceret. rebus secundis etiam egregios duces insolescere: discordia militis ignavia luxurie et suismet vitiis alterum bello, alterum victoria periturum. igitur arma in occasionem distulere, Vespasianus Mucianusque nuper, ceteri olim mixtis consiliis; optimus quisque amore rei publicae, multos dulcedo praedarum stimulabat, alios ambiguae domi res: ita boni malique causis diversis, studio pari, bellum omnes cupiebant.

About the same time Achaia and Asia were falsely terrified, as though Nero were coming, with various rumor about his death, and the more, since many feigned and believed that he lived. The fortunes and ventures of the others we shall tell in the course of the work: then a slave from Pontus, or, as others have handed down, a freedman from Italy, skilled in lyre and song—whence, beyond the likeness of face, a nearer credibility for deceiving—joining to himself deserters whom, vagabond from want, he had corrupted with vast promises, entered the sea; and, driven by the force of storms to the island of Cythnus, he won over some soldiers coming from the East, or ordered those who refused to be killed, and, the traders being robbed, armed the strongest of their slaves. The centurion Sisenna, carrying clasped right hands, the tokens of concord, in the name of the Syrian army to the praetorians, he assailed with various arts, until Sisenna, secretly leaving the island, fled in alarm and fearing violence. Thence terror spread wide: many were roused at the celebrity of the name from desire of revolution and hatred of the present. The report, swelling day by day, chance scattered.

Sub idem tempus Achaia atque Asia falso exterritae velut Nero adventaret, vario super exitu eius rumore eoque pluribus vivere eum fingentibus credentibusque. ceterorum casus conatusque in contextu operis dicemus: tunc servus e Ponto sive, ut alii tradidere, libertinus ex Italia, citharae et cantus peritus, unde illi super similitudinem oris propior ad fallendum fides, adiunctis desertoribus, quos inopia vagos ingentibus promissis corruperat, mare ingreditur; ac vi tempestatum Cythnum insulam detrusus et militum quosdam ex Oriente commeantium adscivit vel abnuentis interfici iussit, et spoliatis negotiatoribus mancipiorum valentissimum quemque armavit. centurionemque Sisennam dextras, concordiae insignia, Syriaci exercitus nomine ad praetorianos ferentem variis artibus adgressus est, donec Sisenna clam relicta insula trepidus et vim metuens aufugeret. inde late terror: multi ad celebritatem nominis erecti rerum novarum cupidine et odio praesentium. gliscentem in dies famam fors discussit.

The provinces of Galatia and Pamphylia Galba had given to Calpurnius Asprenas to govern. Two triremes from the Misenum fleet were assigned to escort him, with which he reached the island of Cythnus; nor were there wanting those who summoned the captains in Nero’s name. He, composed into mournfulness and invoking the loyalty of his former soldiers, begged that they set him down in Syria or Egypt. The captains, wavering whether by trickery, declared that they must address their soldiers, and, all minds being made ready, would return. But everything was reported faithfully to Asprenas, by whose exhortation the ship was stormed and whoever the man was killed. His body, remarkable for its eyes and hair and the grimness of its face, was carried into Asia and thence to Rome.

Galatiam ac Pamphyliam provincias Calpurnio Asprenati regendas Galba permiserat. datae e classe Misenensi duae triremes ad prosequendum, cum quibus Cythnum insulam tenuit: nec defuere qui trierarchos nomine Neronis accirent. is in maestitiam compositus et fidem suorum quondam militum invocans, ut eum in Syria aut Aegypto sisterent orabat. trierarchi, nutantes seu dolo, adloquendos sibi milites et paratis omnium animis reversuros firmaverunt. sed Asprenati cuncta ex fide nuntiata, cuius cohortatione expugnata navis et interfectus quisquis ille erat. corpus, insigne oculis comaque et torvitate vultus, in Asiam atque inde Romam pervectum est.

In a state at discord and, through the frequent changes of emperors, uncertain between liberty and license, even small matters were carried on with great commotions. Vibius Crispus—in money, power, and talent among the notable rather than among the good—was summoning Annius Faustus, of the equestrian order, who in Nero’s times had plied informing, to the cognizance of the Senate; for lately, at the outset of Galba’s principate, the fathers had decreed that the cases of the accusers be examined. That decree of the Senate, variously bandied about and, according as a powerful or a needy defendant fell under it, weak or strong, still retained something of terror. And by his own force Crispus had set himself to bring down the informer of his own brother, and had drawn a great part of the Senate to demand that the man, undefended and unheard, be given over to destruction. On the other hand, with others nothing so helped the defendant as the excessive power of the accuser: they held that time should be given, the charges published, and that, however hateful and guilty, he should yet be heard in due form. And they prevailed at first, and the cognizance was put off for a few days: soon Faustus was condemned, by no means with that assent of the state which his vilest character had earned; for they remembered that Crispus himself had plied the same accusations for reward, and it was not the punishment of the crime but the avenger that displeased.

In civitate discordi et ob crebras principum mutationes inter libertatem ac licentiam incerta parvae quoque res magnis motibus agebantur. Vibius Crispus, pecunia potentia ingenio inter claros magis quam inter bonos, Annium Faustum equestris ordinis, qui temporibus Neronis delationes factitaverat, ad cognitionem senatus vocabat; nam recens Galbae principatu censuerant patres, ut accusatorum causae noscerentur. id senatus consultum varie iactatum et, prout potens vel inops reus inciderat, infirmum aut validum, retinebat adhuc aliquid terroris. et propria vi Crispus incubuerat delatorem fratris sui pervertere, traxeratque magnam senatus partem, ut indefensum et inauditum dedi ad exitium postularent. contra apud alios nihil aeque reo proderat quam nimia potentia accusatoris: dari tempus, edi crimina, quam- vis invisum ac nocentem more tamen audiendum censebant. et valuere primo dilataque in paucos dies cognitio: mox damnatus est Faustus, nequaquam eo adsensu civitatis quem pessimis moribus meruerat: quippe ipsum Crispum easdem accusationes cum praemio exercuisse meminerant, nec poena criminis sed ultor displicebat.

Glad meanwhile were Otho’s beginnings of the war, the armies of Dalmatia and Pannonia being set in motion for his command. There were four legions, from each of which two thousand were sent ahead; the legions themselves followed at moderate intervals—the seventh, enrolled by Galba, the veteran eleventh and thirteenth, and the men of the fourteenth, foremost in fame, who had crushed the rebellion of Britain. Nero had added to their glory by choosing them as the best, whence their long loyalty to Nero and their kindled zeal for Otho. But the more strength and sinew they had, the more slowness too came from confidence. Cavalry and cohorts went before the column of the legions; and from the City itself no contemptible force, five praetorian cohorts and squadrons of horse with the first legion, and besides a misshapen auxiliary, two thousand gladiators—but a thing employed in civil arms even by strict generals. To these forces was given as commander Annius Gallus, sent ahead with Vestricius Spurinna to seize the banks of the Po, since the first of the plans had fallen out in vain, Caecina having already crossed the Alps, whom Otho had hoped could be stopped within Gaul. Otho himself was escorted by picked bodies of scouts with the rest of the praetorian cohorts, veterans from the praetorium, a vast number of marines. Nor was his march sluggish or corrupted by luxury, but he wore an iron cuirass and went on foot before the standards, rough, unkempt, and unlike his reputation.

Laeta interim Othoni principia belli, motis ad imperium eius e Dalmatia Pannoniaque exercitibus. fuere quattuor legiones, e quibus bina milia praemissa; ipsae modicis intervallis sequebantur, septima a Galba conscripta, veteranae undecima ac tertia decima et praecipui fama quartadecumani, rebellione Britanniae compressa. addiderat gloriam Nero eligendo ut potissimos, unde longa illis erga Neronem fides et erecta in Othonem studia. sed quo plus virium ac roboris e fiducia tarditas inerat. agmen legionum alae cohortesque praeveniebant; et ex ipsa urbe haud spernenda manus, quinque praetoriae cohortes et equitum vexilla cum legione prima, ac deforme insuper auxilium, duo milia gladiatorum, sed per civilia arma etiam severis ducibus usurpatum. his copiis rector additus Annius Gallus, cum Vestricio Spurinna ad occupandas Padi ripas praemissus, quoniam prima consiliorum frustra ceciderant, transgresso iam Alpis Caecina, quem sisti intra Gallias posse speraverat. ipsum Othonem comitabantur speculatorum lecta corpora cum ceteris praetoriis cohortibus, veterani e praetorio, classicorum ingens numerus. nec illi segne aut corruptum luxu iter, sed lorica ferrea usus est et ante signa pedes ire, horridus, incomptus famaeque dissimilis.

Fortune flattered the enterprise, the greater part of Italy being held by sea and ships, deep inland up to the beginning of the Maritime Alps, for the trying and assailing of which, and of the Narbonese province, he had given as leaders Suedius Clemens, Antonius Novellus, Aemilius Pacensis. But Pacensis was put in irons through the license of the soldiers; Antonius Novellus had no authority: Suedius Clemens ruled by a courting command, as corrupted against the strictness of discipline, so greedy of battles. It seemed not that Italy was being entered, nor the places and homes of their fatherland: as though they were burning foreign shores and the cities of enemies, they laid waste and plundered, the more atrociously because nothing anywhere had been provided against their menace. The fields were full, the houses open; the owners running to meet them, with their wives and children at their side, were beset, by the security of peace and the evil of war. The Maritime Alps were then held by the procurator Marius Maturus. He, the people roused (nor is there lack of youth there), strove to bar the Othonians from the bounds of the province: but at the first onset the mountaineers were cut down and scattered, as men gathered at random, knowing neither camp nor commander, for whom there was neither glory in victory nor disgrace in flight.

Blandiebatur coeptis fortuna, possessa per mare et navis maiore Italiae parte penitus usque ad initium mariti- marum Alpium, quibus temptandis adgrediendaeque provinciae Narbonensi Suedium Clementem, Antonium Novellum, Aemilium Pacensem duces dederat. sed Pacensis per licentiam militum vinctus, Antonio Novello nulla auctoritas: Suedius Clemens ambitioso imperio regebat, ut adversus modestiam disciplinae corruptus, ita proeliorum avidus. non Italia adiri nec loca sedesque patriae videbantur: tamquam externa litora et urbes hostium urere, vastare, rapere eo atrocius quod nihil usquam provisum adversum metus. pleni agri, apertae domus; occursantes domini iuxta coniuges et liberos securitate pacis et belli malo circumveniebantur. maritimas tum Alpis tenebat procurator Marius Maturus. is concita gente (nec deest iuventus) arcere provinciae finibus Othonianos intendit: sed primo impetu caesi disiectique montani, ut quibus temere collectis, non castra, non ducem noscitantibus, neque in victoria decus esset neque in fuga flagitium.

Provoked by that battle, Otho’s soldier turned his wrath upon the town of Albintimilium. For in the field there had been no plunder—the country folk poor and their arms worthless; nor could they be caught, a swift breed and knowing the ground: but avarice was glutted on the calamities of the innocent. A Ligurian woman heightened the odium by a glorious example: who, her son hidden, when the soldiers believed that money too was concealed and therefore questioned her under torture where she was hiding her son, showing her womb, answered that he lay there; nor by any terrors thereafter or by death did she change the constancy of that noble word.

Inritatus eo proelio Othonis miles vertit iras in municipium Albintimilium. quippe in acie nihil praedae, inopes agrestes et vilia arma; nec capi poterant, pernix genus et gnari locorum: sed calamitatibus insontium expleta avaritia. auxit invidiam praeclaro exemplo femina Ligus, quae filio abdito, cum simul pecuniam occultari milites credidissent eoque per cruciatus interrogarent ubi filium occuleret, uterum ostendens latere respondit, nec ullis deinde terroribus aut morte constantiam vocis egregiae mutavit.

That Otho’s fleet was threatening the Narbonese province, sworn now to Vitellius’s allegiance, alarmed messengers brought to Fabius Valens; envoys of the colonies were at hand, begging help. He sent two cohorts of the Tungri, four squadrons of horse, the whole wing of the Treviri with Julius Classicus as prefect, of which a part was retained at the colony of Forum Julii, lest, all the forces being turned to the land march, the fleet should speed up with the sea empty. Twelve squadrons of horse and picked men from the cohorts went against the enemy, joined by a Ligurian cohort, the old auxiliary of the place, and five hundred Pannonians, not yet under the standards. Nor was there delay in battle: but the line was so drawn up that part of the marines, with townsmen mixed in, should rise upon the hills near the sea, the praetorian soldier should fill as much level ground as lay between the hills and the shore, and on the sea itself the fleet, as if linked and ready for the fight, should be turned about and stretched out with a menacing front. The Vitellians, who had less strength in foot, their sinew in horse, place the Alpine men on the nearest ridges, the cohorts in dense ranks behind the horse. The squadrons of the Treviri offered themselves to the enemy incautiously, when the veteran soldier received them in front, while at the same time from the flank a band even of townsmen, fit for hurling, pressed them with stones, who, scattered among the soldiers, brave and craven alike, in victory dared the same. Added to the routed was the terror of the fleet driven into the backs of the fighters: so, shut in on every side, all the forces would have been destroyed, had not the obscurity of night held back the victorious army, a screen for the fleeing.

Imminere provinciae Narbonensi, in verba Vitellii adactae, classem Othonis trepidi nuntii Fabio Valenti attulere; aderant legati coloniarum auxilium orantes. duas Tungrorum cohortis, quattuor equitum turmas, universam Trevirorum alam cum Iulio Classico praefecto misit, e quibus pars in colonia Foroiuliensi retenta, ne omnibus copiis in terrestre iter versis vacuo mari classis adceleraret. duodecim equitum turmae et lecti e cohortibus adversus hostem iere, quibus adiuncta Ligurum cohors, vetus loci auxilium, et quingenti Pannonii, nondum sub signis. nec mora proelio: sed acies ita instructa ut pars classicorum mixtis paganis in collis mari propinquos exurgeret, quantum inter collis ac litus aequi loci praetorianus miles expleret, in ipso mari ut adnexa classis et pugnae parata conversa et minaci fronte praetenderetur: Vitelliani, quibus minor peditum vis, in equite robur, Alpinos proximis iugis, cohortis densis ordinibus post equitem locant. Trevirorum turmae obtulere se hosti incaute, cum exciperet contra veteranus miles, simul a latere saxis urgeret apta ad iaciendum etiam paganorum manus, qui sparsi inter milites, strenui ignavique, in victoria idem audebant. additus perculsis terror invecta in terga pugnantium classe: ita undique clausi, deletaeque omnes copiae forent ni victorem exercitum attinuisset obscurum noctis, obtentui fugientibus.

Nor did the Vitellians, though beaten, rest: auxiliaries called up, they attack the enemy off his guard and grown more careless from success. The watchmen were cut down, the camp broken into, alarm spread among the ships, until, as the fear settled little by little, a hill nearby seized and defended, they soon burst forward. Atrocious there the slaughter, and the prefects of the Tungrian cohorts, after long sustaining the line, were overwhelmed with missiles. Nor was the victory bloodless even for the Othonians, whose horse, wheeling about, surrounded those who had followed improvidently. And as though by a compact of truce, lest on this side the fleet, on that the horse, should bring sudden terror, the Vitellians withdrew to Antipolis, a town of Narbonese Gaul, the Othonians to Albingaunum of inland Liguria.

Nec Vitelliani quamquam victi quievere: accitis auxiliis securum hostem ac successu rerum socordius agentem invadunt. caesi vigiles, perrupta castra, trepidatum apud navis, donec sidente paulatim metu, occupato iuxta colle defensi, mox inrupere. atrox ibi caedes, et Tungrarum co- hortium praefecti sustentata diu acie telis obruuntur. ne Othonianis quidem incruenta victoria fuit, quorum improvide secutos conversi equites circumvenerunt. ac velut pactis indutiis, ne hinc classis inde eques subitam formidinem inferrent, Vitelliani retro Antipolim Narbonensis Galliae municipium, Othoniani Albingaunum interioris Liguriae revertere.

Corsica and Sardinia and the other islands of the neighboring sea the fame of the victorious fleet held in Otho’s party. But Corsica was near to ruin through the rashness of the procurator Decumus Pacarius—in so great a mass of war profiting nothing toward the sum, to himself destructive. For, from hatred of Otho, he resolved to aid Vitellius with the strength of the Corsicans, an empty help even had it come off. The chiefs of the island called together, he opens his plan, and those who dared speak against it—Claudius Pyrrichus, captain of the Liburnian ships there, and Quintius Certus, a Roman knight—he orders killed: by whose death those present being terrified, the crowd too, ignorant and the ally of others’ fear as inexperienced crowds are, swore to Vitellius’s allegiance. But when Pacarius began to hold a levy and to wear out raw men with the duties of soldiering, hating the unaccustomed toil they reckoned their own weakness: it was an island they inhabited, and far off were Germany and the strength of the legions; even those whom cohorts and cavalry protected had been plundered and laid waste by the fleet. And their minds suddenly turned away, yet not by open force: they chose a fit time for treachery. Those who attended Pacarius having withdrawn, naked and bereft of help he is killed in the baths; his companions too were butchered. The heads, as of enemies, the killers themselves carried to Otho; and neither did Otho reward them nor Vitellius punish them, mingled as they were, amid much filth of affairs, with greater outrages.

Corsicam ac Sardiniam ceterasque proximi maris insulas fama victricis classis in partibus Othonis tenuit. sed Corsicam prope adflixit Decumi Pacarii procuratoris temeritas, tanta mole belli nihil in summam profutura, ipsi exitiosa. namque Othonis odio iuvare Vitellium Corsorum viribus statuit, inani auxilio etiam si provenisset. vocatis principibus insulae consilium aperit, et contra dicere ausos, Claudium Pyrrichum trierarchum Liburnicarum ibi navium, Quintium Certum equitem Romanum, interfici iubet: quorum morte exterriti qui aderant, simul ignara et alieni metus socia imperitorum turba in verba Vitellii iuravere. sed ubi dilectum agere Pacarius et inconditos homines fatigare militiae muneribus occepit, laborem insolitum perosi infirmitatem suam reputabant: insulam esse quam incolerent, et longe Germaniam virisque legionum; direptos vastatosque classe etiam quos cohortes alaeque protegerent. et aversi repente animi, nec tamen aperta vi: aptum tempus insidiis legere. digressis qui Pacarium frequentabant, nudus et auxilii inops balineis interficitur; trucidati et comites. capita ut hostium ipsi interfectores ad Othonem tulere; neque eos aut Otho praemio adfecit aut puniit Vitellius, in multa conluvie rerum maioribus flagitiis permixtos.

Already, as we recorded above, the Silian wing had opened Italy and carried the war across, with no favor toward Otho in any quarter, nor because they preferred Vitellius, but a long peace had broken them to every servitude, easy for the first comer and careless of the better. The most flourishing flank of Italy, all the plains and cities between the Po and the Alps, was held by the arms of Vitellius (for the cohorts sent ahead by Caecina had also arrived). A cohort of Pannonians was taken at Cremona; a hundred horsemen and a thousand marines intercepted between Placentia and Ticinum. By which success the Vitellian soldier was no longer barred by the river or the banks; the Po itself, indeed, provoked the Batavians and the men from across the Rhine, who, crossing it suddenly opposite Placentia and seizing some scouts, so terrified the rest that, alarmed and mistaken, they reported the whole army of Caecina at hand.

Aperuerat iam Italiam bellumque transmiserat, ut supra memoravimus, ala Siliana, nullo apud quemquam Othonis favore, nec quia Vitellium mallent, sed longa pax ad omne servitium fregerat facilis occupantibus et melioribus incuriosos. florentissimum Italiae latus, quantum inter Padum Alpisque camporum et urbium, armis Vitellii (namque et praemissae a Caecina cohortes advenerant) tenebatur. capta Pannoniorum cohors apud Cremonam; intercepti centum equites ac mille classici inter Placentiam Ticinumque. quo successu Vitellianus miles non iam flumine aut ripis arcebatur; inritabat quin etiam Batavos transrhenanosque Padus ipse, quem repente contra Placentiam transgressi raptis quibusdam exploratoribus ita ceteros terruere ut adesse omnem Caecinae exercitum trepidi ac falsi nuntiarent.

It was certain to Spurinna (for he held Placentia) that Caecina had not yet come, and that, if he drew near, he must keep the soldier within the works and not throw three praetorian cohorts and a thousand detached men with a few horse against a veteran army: but the soldier, untamed and ignorant of war, snatching up the standards and the colors, rushed on and leveled his weapons at the commander who held him back, scorning centurions and tribunes: nay, they cried out that Otho was being betrayed and Caecina summoned. Spurinna becomes the companion of another’s rashness, at first compelled, then feigning willingness, that there might be more authority in his counsels if the mutiny should soften.

Certum erat Spurinnae (is enim Placentiam optinebat) necdum venisse Caecinam et, si propinquaret, coercere intra munimenta militem nec tris praetorias cohortis et mille vexillarios cum paucis equitibus veterano exercitui obicere: sed indomitus miles et belli ignarus correptis signis vexillisque ruere et retinenti duci tela intentare, spretis centurionibus tribunisque: quin prodi Othonem et accitum Caecinam clamitabant. fit temeritatis alienae comes Spurinna, primo coactus, mox velle simulans, quo plus auctoritatis inesset consiliis si seditio mitesceret.

After the Po was in sight and night was coming on, it was decided to entrench the camp. That toil, unaccustomed for the city soldier, crushed their spirits. Then the oldest each began to chide their own credulity, to point out the fear and the danger if Caecina with his army had surrounded so few cohorts on open plains. And now through all the camp were temperate words, and, the centurions and tribunes putting themselves forward, the commander’s foresight was praised, that he had chosen for the war a colony strong in force and resources, a stronghold and a seat. At last Spurinna himself, not so much reproaching their fault as showing the reason, having left scouts, led the rest back to Placentia less turbulent and accepting orders. The walls were made solid, battlements added, the towers heightened, and there were provided and made ready not arms only but obedience and a love of obeying—the one thing wanting to that party, while of valor there was no want.

Postquam in conspectu Padus et nox adpetebat vallari castra placuit. is labor urbano militi insolitus contundit animos. tum vetustissimus quisque castigare credulitatem suam, metum ac discrimen ostendere si cum exercitu Cae- cina patentibus campis tam paucas cohortis circumfudisset. iamque totis castris modesti sermones, et inserentibus se centurionibus tribunisque laudari providentia ducis quod coloniam virium et opum validam robur ac sedem bello legisset. ipse postremo Spurinna, non tam culpam exprobrans quam rationem ostendens, relictis exploratoribus ceteros Placentiam reduxit minus turbidos et imperia accipientis. solidati muri, propugnacula addita, auctae turres, provisa parataque non arma modo sed obsequium et parendi amor, quod solum illis partibus defuit, cum virtutis haud paeniteret.

But Caecina, as though he had left his savagery and license behind the Alps, advanced through Italy in an orderly column. His very dress the towns and colonies construed as arrogance, because in a particolored cloak, and wearing trousers, he addressed men in the toga. His wife Salonina too—though conspicuous on a horse with purple trappings to no one’s injury—they took amiss, as though wronged, by that nature implanted in mortals of scanning with keen eyes the recent good fortune of others, and of exacting moderation in fortune from none more than from those they have seen on a level with themselves. Caecina, having crossed the Po, after sounding the loyalty of the Othonians by parley and promises, and being himself solicited in turn, when peace and concord had been bandied about under specious and empty names, turned his counsels and cares, with great terror, to the storming of Placentia, knowing that, as the beginnings of the war turned out, so would be the report for the rest.

At Caecina, velut relicta post Alpis saevitia ac licentia, modesto agmine per Italiam incessit. ornatum ipsius municipia et coloniae in superbiam trahebant, quod versicolori sagulo, bracas indutus togatos adloqueretur. uxorem quoque eius Saloninam, quamquam in nullius iniuriam insignis equo ostroque veheretur, tamquam laesi gravabantur, insita mortalibus natura recentem aliorum felicitatem acribus oculis introspicere modumque fortunae a nullis magis exigere quam quos in aequo viderunt. Caecina Padum transgressus, temptata Othonianorum fide per conloquium et promissa, isdem petitus, postquam pax et concordia speciosis et inritis nominibus iactata sunt, consilia curasque in obpugnationem Placentiae magno terrore vertit, gnarus ut initia belli provenissent famam in cetera fore.

But the first day passed in onset rather than in the arts of a veteran army: they came up to the walls open and unwary, heavy with food and wine. In that struggle the most beautiful work of the amphitheatre, set outside the walls, was burned down—whether fired by the besiegers, while they hurled torches and slingshot and missile fire against the besieged, or by the besieged, while they threw it back. The town’s commons, prone to suspicion, believed that fuel for the fire had been brought in by fraud by certain men from the neighboring colonies, out of envy and rivalry, because no structure in Italy was so capacious. By whatever chance it happened, while more atrocious things were feared, it was held a light matter; when security returned, they mourned as though they could have suffered nothing worse. For the rest, Caecina was driven off with much of his own men’s blood, and the night was spent in making ready siege-works. The Vitellians get ready mantlets and hurdles and sheds for undermining the walls and shielding the besiegers; the Othonians, stakes and immense masses of stone and lead and bronze for breaking and overwhelming the enemy. On both sides shame, on both sides glory and diverse exhortations—here exalting the strength of the legions and the German army, there the honor of the city soldiery and the praetorian cohorts; those railed at the soldier as sluggish and idle and corrupted by the circus and the theatres, these at the foreigner and the alien. And at the same time, praising or blaming Otho and Vitellius, they spurred one another with richer reproaches than praises.

Sed primus dies impetu magis quam veterani exercitus artibus transactus: aperti incautique muros subiere, cibo vinoque praegraves. in eo certamine pulcherrimum am- phitheatri opus, situm extra muros, conflagravit, sive ab obpugnatoribus incensum, dum faces et glandis et missilem ignem in obsessos iaculantur, sive ab obsessis, dum regerunt. municipale vulgus, pronum ad suspiciones, fraude inlata ignis alimenta credidit a quibusdam ex vicinis coloniis invidia et aemulatione, quod nulla in Italia moles tam capax foret. quocumque casu accidit, dum atrociora metuebantur, in levi habitum, reddita securitate, tamquam nihil gravius pati potuissent, maerebant. ceterum multo suorum cruore pulsus Caecina, et nox parandis operibus absumpta. Vitelliani pluteos cratisque et vineas subfodiendis muris protegendisque obpugnatoribus, Othoniani sudis et immensas lapidum ac plumbi aerisque molis perfringendis obruendisque hostibus expediunt. utrimque pudor, utrimque gloria et diversae exhortationes hinc legionum et Germanici exercitus robur, inde urbanae militiae et praetoriarum cohortium decus attollentium; illi ut segnem et desidem et circo ac theatris corruptum militem, hi peregrinum et externum increpabant. simul Othonem ac Vitellium celebrantes culpantesve uberioribus inter se probris quam laudibus stimulabantur.

Scarcely had day risen when the walls were full of defenders, the plains gleaming with arms and men: the dense column of the legions, the scattered band of auxiliaries assailed the higher parts of the walls with arrows or stones, and came to close quarters against what was neglected or crumbling with age. The Othonians hurl down javelins from above with a more balanced and sure stroke against the cohorts of the Germans coming up rashly, with their fierce chant and, in their fathers’ fashion, their bodies bare, shaking their shields above their shoulders. The legionary, covered by mantlets and hurdles, undermines the walls, builds a ramp, works at the gates: against them the praetorians roll down millstones, set there for that very purpose, with vast weight and crash. Part of those coming up were crushed, part pierced and bloodless or torn; and as the slaughter was swelled by their panic, and they were the more keenly wounded from the walls, they withdrew, the party’s repute broken. And Caecina, from shame at a siege rashly begun, that he might not sit at the same camp mocked and futile, recrossing the Po, set his mind on Cremona. There surrendered to him as he departed Turullius Cerialis with several marines and Julius Briganticus with a few horsemen, the latter a prefect of a wing, born among the Batavians, the former a senior centurion and not unknown to Caecina, because he had led ranks in Germany.

Vixdum orto die plena propugnatoribus moenia, fulgentes armis virisque campi: densum legionum agmen, sparsa auxiliorum manus altiora murorum sagittis aut saxis incessere, neglecta aut aevo fluxa comminus adgredi. ingerunt desuper Othoniani pila librato magis et certo ictu adversus temere subeuntis cohortis Germanorum, cantu truci et more patrio nudis corporibus super umeros scuta quatientium. legionarius pluteis et cratibus tectus subruit muros, instruit ag- gerem, molitur portas: contra praetoriani dispositos ad id ipsum molaris ingenti pondere ac fragore provolvunt. pars subeuntium obruti, pars confixi et exangues aut laceri: cum augeret stragem trepidatio eoque acrius e moenibus vulnerarentur, rediere infracta partium fama. et Caecina pudore coeptae temere obpugnationis, ne inrisus ac vanus isdem castris adsideret, traiecto rursus Pado Cremonam petere intendit. tradidere sese abeunti Turullius Cerialis cum compluribus classicis et Iulius Briganticus cum paucis equitum, hic praefectus alae in Batavis genitus, ille primipilaris et Caecinae haud alienus, quod ordines in Germania duxerat.

Spurinna, the enemy’s route ascertained, informs Annius Gallus by letter that Placentia was defended, what had been done, and what Caecina was preparing. Gallus was leading the first legion to the relief of Placentia, distrusting the fewness of the cohorts, lest they bear too ill a longer siege and the force of the German army. When he learned that Caecina, beaten off, was making for Cremona, he halts at Bedriacum the legion, scarcely restrained and in its ardor for fighting gone forward even to mutiny. Between Verona and Cremona lies a village, notorious now and ill-omened by two Roman disasters.

Spurinna comperto itinere hostium defensam Placentiam, quaeque acta et quid Caecina pararet, Annium Gallum per litteras docet. Gallus legionem primam in auxilium Placentiae ducebat, diffisus paucitati cohortium, ne longius obsidium et vim Germanici exercitus parum tolerarent. ubi pulsum Caecinam pergere Cremonam accepit, aegre coercitam legionem et pugnandi ardore usque ad seditionem progressam Bedriaci sistit. inter Veronam Cremonamque situs est vicus, duabus iam Romanis cladibus notus infaustusque.

In the same days there was a successful fight by Martius Macer not far from Cremona; for Martius, prompt of spirit, carried his gladiators over in ships and poured them suddenly out upon the opposite bank of the Po. The Vitellian auxiliaries there were thrown into confusion, and, the rest fleeing to Cremona, those who resisted were cut down: but the onset of the victors was checked, lest the enemy, strengthened by fresh reserves, should change the fortune of the battle. This was suspect to the Othonians, who put a bad construction on all the generals’ acts. Vying, each as he was craven in spirit, the more insolent of tongue, they assailed Annius Gallus and Suetonius Paulinus and Marius Celsus—for Otho had set these too over them—with various charges. The keenest goads of mutiny and discord, the killers of Galba, frantic with guilt and fear, confounded everything, now openly with turbulent voices, now by secret letters to Otho; who, credulous of every meanest man, fearing the good, was in a flutter, uncertain in prosperity and better amid adversity. So, having summoned his brother Titianus, he set him over the war.

Isdem diebus a Martio Macro haud procul Cremona prospere pugnatum; namque promptus animi Martius transvectos navibus gladiatores in adversam Padi ripam repente effudit. turbata ibi Vitellianorum auxilia, et ceteris Cremonam fugientibus caesi qui restiterant: sed repressus vincentium impetus ne novis subsidiis firmati hostes fortunam proelii mutarent. suspectum id Othonianis fuit, omnia ducum facta prave aestimantibus. certatim, ut quisque animo ignavus, procax ore, Annium Gallum et Suetonium Paulinum et Marium Celsum—nam eos quoque Otho praefecerat—variis criminibus incessebant. acerrima seditionum ac discordiae incitamenta, interfectores Galbae scelere et metu vaecordes miscere cuncta, modo palam turbidis vocibus, modo occultis ad Othonem litteris; qui humillimo cuique credulus, bonos metuens trepidabat, rebus prosperis incertus et inter adversa melior. igitur Titianum fratrem accitum bello praeposuit.

Meanwhile, under the leadership of Paulinus and Celsus, affairs were excellently managed. It vexed Caecina that all his undertakings came to nothing and the fame of his army was aging. Beaten off from Placentia, his auxiliaries lately cut down, and even in the skirmishing of scouts—fights frequent rather than worth recording—the worse, with Fabius Valens drawing near, lest all the glory of the war pass over to him there, he hastened to recover his renown more greedily than wisely. At the twelfth milestone from Cremona (the place is called the Castores) he posts the fiercest of his auxiliaries, hidden in woods that overhung the road: the horse were ordered to ride further on and, the battle provoked, by a feigned flight to draw on the haste of their pursuers, until the ambush should rise. This was betrayed to the Othonian generals, and Paulinus took charge of the foot, Celsus of the horse. A detachment of the thirteenth legion, four auxiliary cohorts, and five hundred horse are placed on the left; the raised causeway of the road three praetorian cohorts held in deep ranks; on the right front the first legion advanced with two auxiliary cohorts and five hundred horse: above these, from the praetorium and the auxiliaries, a thousand horse were led, a surplus for success or a reserve for those in straits.

Interea Paulini et Celsi ductu res egregie gestae. angebant Caecinam nequiquam omnia coepta et senescens exercitus sui fama. pulsus Placentia, caesis nuper auxiliis, etiam per concursum exploratorum, crebra magis quam digna memoratu proelia, inferior, propinquante Fabio Valente, ne omne belli decus illuc concederet, reciperare gloriam avidius quam consultius properabat. ad duodecimum a Cremona (locus Castorum vocatur) ferocissimos auxiliarium imminentibus viae lucis occultos componit: equites procedere longius iussi et inritato proelio sponte refugi festinationem sequentium elicere, donec insidiae coorerentur. proditum id Othonianis ducibus, et curam peditum Paulinus, equitum Celsus sumpsere. tertiae decimae legionis vexillum, quattuor auxiliorum cohortes et quingenti equites in sinistro locantur; aggerem viae tres praetoriae cohortes altis ordinibus obtinuere; dextra fronte prima legio incessit cum duabus auxiliaribus cohortibus et quingentis equitibus: super hos ex prae- torio auxiliisque mille equites, cumulus prosperis aut subsidium laborantibus, ducebantur.

Before the lines were engaged, the Vitellians turning their backs, Celsus, wise to the trick, held back his men: the Vitellians, rising up rashly, as Celsus gradually gave way, followed too far and of their own accord plunged into the ambush; for from the flanks the cohorts, in front the line of the legions, and by a sudden wheel the horse, had girt their rear. The signal for battle was not at once given by Suetonius Paulinus to the foot: a delayer by nature, and one to whom cautious counsels with reason pleased rather than success from chance, he ordered the ditches filled, the field opened, the line spread out, thinking the victory begun soon enough when provision had been made that they should not be beaten. By that delay room was given the Vitellians to flee into vineyards entangled with the lacing of vine-shoots; and a modest wood adjoined, whence, daring again, they killed the readiest of the praetorian horse. King Epiphanes is wounded, briskly rousing the fight for Otho.

Antequam miscerentur acies, terga vertentibus Vitellianis, Celsus doli prudens repressit suos: Vitelliani temere exurgentes cedente sensim Celso longius secuti ultro in insidias praecipitantur; nam a lateribus cohortes, legionum adversa frons, et subito discursu terga cinxerant equites. signum pugnae non statim a Suetonio Paulino pediti datum: cunctator natura et cui cauta potius consilia cum ratione quam prospera ex casu placerent, compleri fossas, aperiri campum, pandi aciem iubebat, satis cito incipi victoriam ratus ubi provisum foret ne vincerentur. ea cunctatione spatium Vitellianis datum in vineas nexu traducum impeditas refugiendi; et modica silva adhaerebat, unde rursus ausi promptissimos praetorianorum equitum interfecere. vulneratur rex Epiphanes, impigre pro Othone pugnam ciens.

Then the Othonian foot burst out; the enemy’s line crushed, those too who came to their aid were turned to flight; for Caecina had summoned the cohorts not all together but singly, a thing which in battle increased the confusion, since the panic of the fleeing swept off men scattered and nowhere strong. A mutiny arose in the camp too, because they were not all led out: Julius Gratus, the prefect of the camp, was put in irons, as though he were working treachery for his brother serving with Otho, while the Othonians had bound that man’s brother, the tribune Julius Fronto, under the same charge. For the rest, such everywhere was the dread, among the fleeing and those running up, in the line and before the rampart, that it became a common saying on both sides that Caecina could have been destroyed with his whole army, had not Suetonius Paulinus sounded the recall. Paulinus said for his part that he had feared the great additional toil and march, lest the Vitellian soldier, fresh from his camp, fall upon his weary men, and, once they were routed, there be no reserve behind. By a few that reasoning of the general was approved, in the crowd it met with adverse rumor.

Tum Othonianus pedes erupit; protrita hostium acie versi in fugam etiam qui subveniebant; nam Caecina non simul cohortis sed singulas acciverat, quae res in proelio trepidationem auxit, cum dispersos nec usquam validos pavor fugientium abriperet. orta et in castris seditio quod non universi ducerentur: vinctus praefectus castrorum Iulius Gratus, tamquam fratri apud Othonem militanti proditionem ageret, cum fratrem eius, Iulium Frontonem tribunum, Othoniani sub eodem crimine vinxissent. ceterum ea ubique formido fuit apud fugientis occursantis, in acie pro vallo, ut deleri cum universo exercitu Caecinam potuisse, ni Suetonius Paulinus receptui cecinisset, utrisque in partibus percrebruerit. timuisse se Paulinus ferebat tantum insuper la- boris atque itineris, ne Vitellianus miles recens e castris fessos adgrederetur et perculsis nullum retro subsidium foret. apud paucos ea ducis ratio probata, in vulgus adverso rumore fuit.

That loss did not so much drive the Vitellians into fear as compose them to discipline: and not only with Caecina, who laid the fault on the soldier, readier for mutiny than for battle; the forces of Fabius Valens too (for he had now come to Ticinum), their contempt of the enemy laid aside and from a desire to recover their honor, obeyed their general more reverently and more evenly. A grave mutiny had otherwise blazed up, which I shall trace from a deeper beginning (for the order of Caecina’s deeds ought not to have been broken off). The cohorts of the Batavians, which in Nero’s war, parted from the fourteenth legion, when they were making for Britain, on hearing of Vitellius’s rising, in the state of the Lingones were joined to Fabius Valens (as we related), bore themselves haughtily, so that, at whatever legion’s tents they came, they boasted that they had coerced the fourteenth, that they had taken Italy from Nero, and that the whole fortune of the war lay in their own hands. This was insulting to the soldiers, bitter to the general; discipline was corrupted by wrangling or brawls; at the last Valens, from their petulance, suspected treachery too.

Haud proinde id damnum Vitellianos in metum compulit quam ad modestiam composuit: nec solum apud Caecinam, qui culpam in militem conferebat seditioni magis quam proelio paratum: Fabii quoque Valentis copiae (iam enim Ticinum venerat) posito hostium contemptu et reciperandi decoris cupidine reverentius et aequalius duci parebant. gravis alioquin seditio exarserat, quam altiore initio (neque enim rerum a Caecina gestarum ordinem interrumpi oportuerat) repetam. cohortes Batavorum, quas bello Neronis a quarta decima legione digressas, cum Britanniam peterent, audito Vitellii motu in civitate Lingonum Fabio Valenti adiunctas rettulimus, superbe agebant, ut cuiusque legionis tentoria accessissent, coercitos a se quartadecimanos, ablatam Neroni Italiam atque omnem belli fortunam in ipsorum manu sitam iactantes. contumeliosum id militibus, acerbum duci; corrupta iurgiis aut rixis disciplina; ad postremum Valens e petulantia etiam perfidiam suspectabat.

So, when news was brought that the wing of the Treviri and the Tungri had been beaten by Otho’s fleet and that Narbonese Gaul was being encircled, at once from care to guard his allies and from soldierly cunning to disperse cohorts turbulent and, if united, too strong, he orders part of the Batavians to go to the rescue. When this was heard and spread abroad, the allies mourned, the legions murmured. They were being robbed of the help of their bravest men; those veterans and victors in so many wars, now that the enemy was in sight, were being led away as it were from the battle line. If a province was of more worth than the City and the safety of the empire, let them all follow thither; but if the keystone of victory turned on Italy, the strongest limbs were not to be torn from the body.

Igitur nuntio adlato pulsam Trevirorum alam Tungrosque a classe Othonis et Narbonensem Galliam circumiri, simul cura socios tuendi et militari astu cohortis turbidas ac, si una forent, praevalidas dispergendi, partem Batavorum ire in subsidium iubet. quod ubi auditum vulgatumque, maerere socii, fremere legiones. orbari se fortissimorum virorum auxilio; veteres illos et tot bellorum victores, postquam in conspectu sit hostis, velut ex acie abduci. si provincia urbe et salute imperii potior sit, omnes illuc sequerentur; sin victoriae columen in Italia verteretur, non abrumpendos ut corpori validissimos artus.

As they flung these things about fiercely, after Valens, sending in his lictors, began to coerce the mutiny, they fall upon the man himself, throw stones, pursue him as he flees. Crying out that he was hiding the spoils of the Gauls and the gold of the Viennenses, the prices of their own toils, they ransacked his baggage and searched the general’s tent and the very ground with javelins and lances; for Valens was hidden in a slave’s garb at a cavalry decurion’s. Then Alfenus Varus, the prefect of the camp, the mutiny dying down little by little, adds a stratagem: the centurions are forbidden to go the rounds of the watches, the sound of the trumpet by which the soldier is roused to the duties of war is dropped. So all grow torpid, look round at one another astonished, and are afraid of the very thing—that no one was in command; in silence, in patience, at last with prayers and tears, they sought pardon. But when Valens came forth disfigured and weeping and, beyond hope, unharmed, joy, pity, favor: turned to gladness, as the crowd is immoderate either way, praising and congratulating, they bear him, ringed with eagles and standards, to the tribunal. He, with profitable moderation, demanded the punishment of no one, and—lest by dissembling he be the more suspect—accused a few, knowing that in civil wars more is allowed to the soldiers than to the generals.

Haec ferociter iactando, postquam immissis lictoribus Valens coercere seditionem coeptabat, ipsum invadunt, saxa iaciunt, fugientem sequuntur. spolia Galliarum et Viennensium aurum, pretia laborum suorum, occultare clamitantes, direptis sarcinis tabernacula ducis ipsamque humum pilis et lanceis rimabantur; nam Valens servili veste apud decurionem equitum tegebatur. tum Alfenus Varus praefectus castrorum, deflagrante paulatim seditione, addit consilium, vetitis obire vigilias centurionibus, omisso tubae sono, quo miles ad belli munia cietur. igitur torpere cuncti, circumspectare inter se attoniti et id ipsum quod nemo regeret paventes; silentio, patientia, postremo precibus ac lacrimis veniam quaerebant. ut vero deformis et flens et praeter spem incolumis Valens processit, gaudium miseratio favor: versi in laetitiam, ut est vulgus utroque immodicum, laudantes gratantesque circumdatum aquilis signisque in tribunal ferunt. ille utili moderatione non supplicium cuiusquam poposcit, ac ne dissimulans suspectior foret, paucos incusavit, gnarus civilibus bellis plus militibus quam ducibus licere.

As they fortified their camp at Ticinum, news was brought of Caecina’s adverse battle, and the mutiny was almost renewed, as though by the fraud and delays of Valens they had been wanting at the fight: they would have no rest, would not wait for their general, went before the standards, pressed the standard-bearers; in a rapid march they join Caecina. The repute of Valens was unfavorable with Caecina’s army: they complained that they, so many fewer, had been exposed to the unbroken forces of the enemy—at once for their own excuse, and exalting the strength of the newcomers by flattery, lest they be looked down on as beaten and craven. And although Valens had more strength—the number of legions and auxiliaries was nearly doubled—yet the soldiers’ leanings inclined toward Caecina, beyond the kindliness of temper for which he was held the readier, also for the vigor of his age, his tallness of body, and a certain idle favor. Hence rivalry between the generals: Caecina mocked the other as foul and stained, the other him as swollen and vain. But, their hatred buried, they fostered the same interest, in frequent letters, without regard to pardon, flinging reproaches at Otho, while the generals of Otho’s party, though the material for abuse against Vitellius was most copious, abstained.

Munientibus castra apud Ticinum de adversa Caecinae pugna adlatum, et prope renovata seditio tamquam fraude et cunctationibus Valentis proelio defuissent: nolle requiem, non expectare ducem, anteire signa, urgere signiferos; rapido agmine Caecinae iunguntur. improspera Valentis fama apud exercitum Caecinae erat: expositos se tanto pauciores integris hostium viribus querebantur, simul in suam excusationem et adventantium robur per adulationem attollentes, ne ut victi et ignavi despectarentur. et quamquam plus virium, prope duplicatus legionum auxiliorumque numerus erat Valenti, studia tamen militum in Caecinam inclinabant, super benignitatem animi, qua promptior habebatur, etiam vigore aetatis, proceritate corporis et quodam inani favore. hinc aemulatio ducibus: Caecina ut foedum ac maculosum, ille ut tumidum ac vanum inridebant. sed condito odio eandem utilitatem fovere, crebris epistulis sine respectu veniae probra Othoni obiectantes, cum duces partium Othonis quamvis uberrima conviciorum in Vitellium materia abstinerent.

Indeed, before the end of the two—by which Otho earned a splendid fame, Vitellius the most shameful—Vitellius’s slothful pleasures were less feared than Otho’s most flagrant lusts: to this man the killing of Galba had added terror and hatred, while to the other no one charged the beginning of the war. Vitellius, by his belly and gullet, was dishonorable to himself; Otho, by luxury, savagery, audacity, was reckoned the more destructive to the commonwealth.

Sane ante utriusque exitum, quo egregiam Otho famam, Vitellius flagitiosissimam meruere, minus Vitellii ignavae voluptates quam Othonis flagrantissimae libidines timebantur: addiderat huic terrorem atque odium caedes Galbae, contra illi initium belli nemo imputabat. Vitellius ventre et gula sibi inhonestus, Otho luxu saevitia audacia rei publicae exitiosior ducebatur.

The forces of Caecina and Valens joined, there was no further delay on the Vitellians’ part but that they should contend with their whole strength: Otho took counsel whether it pleased him to draw the war out or to try his fortune.

Coniunctis Caecinae ac Valentis copiis nulla ultra penes Vitellianos mora quin totis viribus certarent: Otho consultavit trahi bellum an fortunam experiri placeret.

Then Suetonius Paulinus, thinking it worthy of his fame—by which no one in that age was held more skilled in the art of war—delivered his judgment on the whole conduct of the war, arguing that haste was useful to the enemy, delay to themselves: Vitellius’s whole army had come up, and not much strength was behind, since the Gallic provinces were seething and it was not expedient to abandon the bank of the Rhine to nations so hostile, ready to break in; the British soldier was held off by an enemy and the sea; the Spains did not so overflow with arms; the Narbonese province had trembled at the fleet’s incursion and an adverse battle; closed off by the Alps, with no support from the sea, was Transpadane Italy, and laid waste by the very passage of the army; nowhere was there grain for the army, nor could an army be kept without supplies; already the Germans—which kind of soldier is most savage among the enemy—if the war were drawn into summer, their bodies relaxed, would not endure the change of soil and sky. Many wars, mighty in their onset, had vanished through weariness and delay. Against this, to themselves all was opulent and faithful: Pannonia, Moesia, Dalmatia, the East with unbroken armies, Italy and the head of affairs, the City and the Senate and the people, names never obscure, even if at times they are overshadowed; public and private resources and an immense sum of money, in civil discords stronger than the sword; the soldiers’ bodies inured to Italy or to the heat; the river Po lay before them, cities safe with men and walls, of which it had been proved by the defense of Placentia that none would yield to the enemy: therefore let him draw the war out. In a few days the fourteenth legion, itself of great fame, would be at hand with the Moesian forces: then he would deliberate again, and, if a battle were resolved on, they would fight with strength increased.

Tunc Suetonius Paulinus dignum fama sua ratus, qua nemo illa tempestate militaris rei callidior habebatur, de toto genere belli censere, festinationem hostibus, moram ipsis utilem disseruit: exercitum Vitellii universum advenisse, nec multum virium a tergo, quoniam Galliae tumeant et deserere Rheni ripam inrupturis tam infestis nationibus non conducat; Britannicum militem hoste et mari distineri: Hispanias armis non ita redundare; provinciam Narbonensem incursu classis et adverso proelio contremuisse; clausam Alpibus et nullo maris subsidio transpadanam Italiam atque ipso transitu exercitus vastam; non frumentum usquam exercitui, nec exercitum sine copiis retineri posse: iam Germanos, quod genus militum apud hostis atrocissimum sit, tracto in aestatem bello, fluxis corporibus, mutationem soli caelique haud toleraturos. multa bella impetu valida per taedia et moras evanuisse. contra ipsis omnia opulenta et fida, Pannoniam Moesiam Dalmatiam Orientem cum integris exercitibus, Italiam et caput rerum urbem senatumque et populum, numquam obscura nomina, etiam si aliquando obumbrentur; publicas privatasque opes et immensam pecuniam, inter civilis discordias ferro validiorem; corpora militum aut Italiae sueta aut aestibus; obiacere flumen Padum, tutas viris murisque urbis, e quibus nullam hosti cessuram Placentiae defensione exploratum: proinde duceret bellum. paucis diebus quartam decimam legionem, magna ipsam fama, cum Moesicis copiis adfore: tum rursus deliberaturum et, si proelium placuisset, auctis viribus certaturos.

Marius Celsus came over to Paulinus’s opinion; the same pleased Annius Gallus, struck down a few days before by his horse’s fall, men sent to inquire his counsel had reported. Otho was inclined to fight it out; his brother Titianus and the prefect of the praetorians Proculus, hurrying on from inexperience, attested that fortune and the gods and Otho’s divine power were present to his counsels and would be present to his ventures—and, lest anyone dare to go against the opinion, had retreated into flattery. After it was resolved to fight, they doubted whether it were better that the emperor take part in the battle or be set aside. Paulinus and Celsus no longer opposing, lest they seem to thrust the prince upon dangers, those same authors of the worse counsel prevailed on him to retire to Brixellum and, withdrawn from the doubtful chances of battle, to reserve himself for the sum of affairs and of empire. That first day shattered the Othonian party; for both with him departed a strong band of praetorian cohorts and scouts and horse, and the spirit of those who remained was broken, since the generals were suspect, and Otho—in whom alone was the soldiers’ trust, while he too trusted none but the soldiers—had left the commanders’ authority in uncertainty.

Accedebat sententiae Paulini Marius Celsus; idem placere Annio Gallo, paucos ante dies lapsu equi adflicto, missi qui consilium eius sciscitarentur rettulerant. Otho pronus ad decertandum; frater eius Titianus et praefectus praetorii Proculus, imperitia properantes, fortunam et deos et numen Othonis adesse consiliis, adfore conatibus testabantur, neu quis obviam ire sententiae auderet, in adulationem concesserant. postquam pugnari placitum, interesse pugnae imperatorem an seponi melius foret dubitavere. Paulino et Celso iam non adversantibus, ne principem obiectare periculis viderentur idem illi deterioris consilii auctores perpulere ut Brixellum concederet ac dubiis proeliorum exemptus summae rerum et imperii se ipsum reservaret. is primus dies Othonianas partis adflixit; namque et cum ipso praetoriarum cohortium et speculatorum equitumque valida manus discessit, et remanentium fractus animus, quando suspecti duces et Otho, cui uni apud militem fides, dum et ipse non nisi militibus credit, imperia ducum in incerto reliquerat.

None of this escaped the Vitellians, by the frequent desertions, as in civil war; and the scouts, in their concern to ferret out the other side, did not conceal their own. Quiet and intent, Caecina and Valens waited—since the enemy might rush on through imprudence, which stands in the place of wisdom—for another’s folly, beginning a bridge and feigning a crossing of the Po against the opposing band of gladiators, and lest their own soldier wear away in sluggish idleness. The ships, at equal intervals from one another, joined by strong beams on both sides, were directed up against the stream, anchors cast above to hold the firmness of the bridge, but the anchor-cables, not drawn taut, floated, so that as the river rose the line of ships might be lifted unobstructed. A tower set upon and carried out to the last ship closed the bridge, whence the enemy might be driven off with engines and machines. The Othonians had built a tower on the bank and were hurling stones and torches.

Nihil eorum Vitellianos fallebat, crebris, ut in civili bello, transfugiis; et exploratores cura diversa sciscitandi sua non occultabant. quieti intentique Caecina ac Valens, quando hostis imprudentia rueret, quod loco sapientiae est, alienam stultitiam opperiebantur, inchoato ponte transitum Padi simulantes adversus obpositam gladiatorum manum, ac ne ipsorum miles segne otium tereret. naves pari inter se spatio, validis utrimque trabibus conexae, adversum in flumen dirigebantur, iactis super ancoris quae firmitatem pontis continerent, sed ancorarum funes non extenti fluitabant, ut augescente flumine inoffensus ordo navium attolleretur. claudebat pontem imposita turris et in extremam navem educta, unde tormentis ac machinis hostes propulsarentur. Othoniani in ripa turrim struxerant saxaque et faces iaculabantur.

And there was an island in the midst of the river, toward which the gladiators, working their way in ships, the Germans by swimming, glided. And by chance, as more had crossed over, Macer attacks them through the readiest of the gladiators, his Liburnian galleys filled: but the gladiators had not that steadiness for battles which the soldiers had, nor, swaying as they were from the ships, did they aim their wounds as from the steady footing of the bank. And when, with the varied lurchings of the alarmed, rowers and fighters mingled were thrown into confusion, the Germans of their own accord leap down into the shallows, hold back the sterns, climb the gangways, or sink them at close quarters: all which, before the eyes of both armies, the gladder it was to the Vitellians, the more keenly did the Othonians curse the cause and author of the disaster.

Et erat insula amne medio, in quam gladiatores navibus molientes, Germani nando praelabebantur. ac forte pluris transgressos completis Liburnicis per promptissimos gladiatorum Macer adgreditur: sed neque ea constantia gladiatoribus ad proelia quae militibus, nec proinde nutantes e navibus quam stabili gradu e ripa vulnera derigebant. et cum variis trepidantium inclinationibus mixti remiges propugnatoresque turbarentur, desilire in vada ultro Germani, retentare puppis, scandere foros aut comminus mergere: quae cuncta in oculis utriusque exercitus quanto laetiora Vitellianis, tanto acrius Othoniani causam auctoremque cladis detestabantur.

And the fight indeed, the surviving ships broken away, was ended by flight: Macer was demanded for destruction, and already, wounded from afar by a lance, they had set upon him with drawn swords, when by the intervention of tribunes and centurions he is protected. Nor long after Vestricius Spurinna, by Otho’s order, leaving a modest garrison at Placentia, came up with his cohorts. Then Otho sent Flavius Sabinus, consul-designate, as commander to the forces over which Macer had presided, the soldier glad at the change of generals, and the generals spurning a service so hostile through its frequent mutinies.

Et proelium quidem, abruptis quae supererant navibus, fuga diremptum: Macer ad exitium poscebatur, iamque vulneratum eminus lancea strictis gladiis invaserant, cum intercursu tribunorum centurionumque protegitur. nec multo post Vestricius Spurinna iussu Othonis, relicto Placentiae modico praesidio, cum cohortibus subvenit. dein Flavium Sabinum consulem designatum Otho rectorem copiis misit, quibus Macer praefuerat, laeto milite ad mutationem ducum et ducibus ob crebras seditiones tam infestam militiam aspernantibus.

I find in some authors that, from dread of war or from disgust at the two emperors, whose outrages and disgrace were known by a fame plainer day by day, the armies hesitated whether, the contest laid aside, they should either deliberate in common themselves, or leave it to the Senate to choose an emperor; and that for that reason the Othonian generals urged delay and putting-off, the chief hope being in Paulinus, because, the oldest of the consulars and famous in soldiering, he had earned glory and a name by his British campaigns. For my part, though I would grant that there were a few who in a silent vow longed for quiet rather than discord, for a good and innocent emperor rather than the worst and most shameful, yet I do not think that Paulinus, with the prudence he had, hoped, in so corrupt an age, for so great a moderation of the crowd that those who had disturbed the peace from love of war would lay down war from love of peace; nor that armies, discordant in tongues and customs, could coalesce into such an agreement; nor that legates and generals, for the most part conscious to themselves of luxury, want, and crimes, would endure any emperor but one polluted and bound by obligations to themselves.

Invenio apud quosdam auctores pavore belli seu fastidio utriusque principis, quorum flagitia ac dedecus apertiore in dies fama noscebantur, dubitasse exercitus num posito certamine vel ipsi in medium consultarent, vel senatui permitterent legere imperatorem, atque eo duces Othonianos spatium ac moras suasisse, praecipua spe Paulini, quod vetustissimus consularium et militia clarus gloriam nomenque Britannicis expeditionibus meruisset. ego ut concesserim apud paucos tacito voto quietem pro discordia, bonum et innocentem principem pro pessimis ac flagitiosissimis expetitum, ita neque Paulinum, qua prudentia fuit, sperasse corruptissimo saeculo tantam vulgi moderationem reor ut qui pacem belli amore turbaverant, bellum pacis caritate deponerent, neque aut exercitus linguis moribusque dissonos in hunc consensum potuisse coalescere, aut legatos ac duces magna ex parte luxus egestatis scelerum sibi conscios nisi pollutum obstrictumque meritis suis principem passuros.

The old lust for power, long since implanted in mortals, grew up and burst forth with the greatness of empire; for in modest circumstances equality was easily kept. But when, the world subdued and rival cities or kings cut down, there was leisure to covet untroubled wealth, the first contests between fathers and commons blazed up. Now turbulent tribunes, now overmighty consuls, and in the City and the forum the first trials of civil wars; soon, from the lowest plebs, Gaius Marius, and the most savage of the nobles, Lucius Sulla, turned liberty, vanquished by arms, into despotism. After them Gnaeus Pompey, more secret, no better; and never afterward was anything sought but the principate. The legions of citizens did not depart from arms at Pharsalia and Philippi, much less were the armies of Otho and Vitellius likely to lay down war of their own accord: the same wrath of the gods, the same madness of men, the same causes of crime drove them into discord. That the wars were transacted as it were by single blows was owing to the sloth of the emperors. But reflection on the manners old and new has carried me too far: now I come to the order of events.

Vetus ac iam pridem insita mortalibus potentiae cupido cum imperii magnitudine adolevit erupitque; nam rebus modicis aequalitas facile habebatur. sed ubi subacto orbe et aemulis urbibus regibusve excisis securas opes concupiscere vacuum fuit, prima inter patres plebemque certamina exarsere. modo turbulenti tribuni, modo consules praevalidi, et in urbe ac foro temptamenta civilium bellorum; mox e plebe infima C. Marius et nobilium saevissimus L. Sulla victam armis libertatem in dominationem verterunt. post quos Cn. Pompeius occultior non melior, et numquam postea nisi de principatu quaesitum. non discessere ab armis in Pharsalia ac Philippis civium legiones, nedum Othonis ac Vitellii exercitus sponte posituri bellum fuerint: eadem illos deum ira, eadem hominum rabies, eaedem scelerum causae in discordiam egere. quod singulis velut ictibus transacta sunt bella, ignavia principum factum est. sed me veterum novorumque morum reputatio longius tulit: nunc ad rerum ordinem venio.

Otho having set out for Brixellum, the honor of command lay with his brother Titianus, the force and power with Proculus the prefect; Celsus and Paulinus, since no one made use of their prudence, were held up under the empty name of generals as a screen for another’s fault; the tribunes and centurions were of doubtful temper, since, the better men spurned, the worst prevailed; the soldier was eager, yet would rather construe the generals’ orders than carry them out. It was decided to move the camp forward to the fourth milestone from Bedriacum, so unskillfully that, although it was the spring season of the year and so many rivers were around, they were worn out by scarcity of water. There they hesitated about the battle, Otho by letter demanding that they hasten, the soldiers demanding that the emperor be present at the fight: most called for the forces operating across the Po to be summoned. Nor can it so well be judged what would have been best to do, as that what was done was the worst.

Profecto Brixellum Othone honor imperii penes Titianum fratrem, vis ac potestas penes Proculum praefectum; Celsus et Paulinus, cum prudentia eorum nemo uteretur, inani nomine ducum alienae culpae praetendebantur; tribuni centurionesque ambigui quod spretis melioribus deterrimi valebant; miles alacer, qui tamen iussa ducum interpretari quam exequi mallet. promoveri ad quartum a Bedriaco castra placuit, adeo imperite ut quamquam verno tempore anni et tot circum amnibus penuria aquae fatigarentur. ibi de proelio dubitatum, Othone per litteras flagitante ut maturarent, militibus ut imperator pugnae adesset poscentibus: plerique copias trans Padum agentis acciri postulabant. nec proinde diiudicari potest quid optimum factu fuerit, quam pessimum fuisse quod factum est.

Set out as though not to a battle but to a campaign, they made for the confluence of the rivers Po and Adua, sixteen miles distant thence. Celsus and Paulinus refusing to throw against the enemy a soldier weary with the march and heavy with his packs, when the enemy would not fail, being unencumbered and scarcely four miles advanced, to attack them either disordered on the march or scattered and toiling at their rampart—Titianus and Proculus, when they were worsted in counsel, fell back on the right of command. There was at hand indeed a Numidian, swift on his horse, with savage instructions, by which Otho, the generals’ sloth being rebuked, bade the matter be brought to the hazard, sick of delay and impatient of hope.

Non ut ad pugnam sed ad bellandum profecti confluentis Padi et Ardae fluminum, sedecim inde milium spatio distantis, petebant. Celso et Paulino abnuentibus militem itinere fessum, sarcinis gravem obicere hosti, non omissuro quo minus expeditus et vix quattuor milia passuum progressus aut incompositos in agmine aut dispersos et vallum molientis adgrederetur, Titianus et Proculus, ubi consiliis vincerentur, ad ius imperii transibant. aderat sane citus equo Numida cum atrocibus mandatis, quibus Otho increpita ducum segnitia rem in discrimen mitti iubebat, aeger mora et spei impatiens.

On the same day, to Caecina, intent on the work of the bridge, came two tribunes of the praetorian cohorts, asking a parley with him: he was making ready to hear their terms and to give his own, when scouts in haste announced the enemy at hand. The tribunes’ speech was broken off, and so it was uncertain whether they had set on foot an ambush or a betrayal or some honorable design. Caecina, the tribunes dismissed, riding back into camp, found the signal for battle given by Fabius Valens’s order and the soldier under arms. While the legions draw lots for the order of the column, the horse broke out; and, strange to tell, by fewer Othonians they were deterred from being driven against the rampart, through the valor of the Italic legion: that legion, with drawn swords, forced the routed to return and resume the fight. The line of the Vitellian legions was drawn up without panic: for, though the enemy was near, the sight of their arms was hindered by the thick plantations. Among the Othonians the generals were afraid, the soldier hostile to the generals, vehicles and sutlers mingled in, and, with ditches sheer on either side, the road was narrow even for a column at rest. Some stood about their own standards, others sought theirs; an uncertain shout on every side of men running up, of men calling: as each had daring or dread, they burst out to the front or the rear of the line, or slipped back.

Eodem die ad Caecinam operi pontis intentum duo praetoriarum cohortium tribuni, conloquium eius postulantes, venerunt: audire condiciones ac reddere parabat, cum praecipites exploratores adesse hostem nuntiavere. interruptus tribunorum sermo, eoque incertum fuit insidias an proditionem vel aliquod honestum consilium coeptaverint. Caecina dimissis tribunis revectus in castra datum iussu Fabii Valentis pugnae signum et militem in armis invenit. dum legiones de ordine agminis sortiuntur, equites prorupere; et mirum dictu, a paucioribus Othonianis quo minus in vallum inpingerentur, Italicae legionis virtute deterriti sunt: ea strictis mucronibus redire pulsos et pugnam resumere coegit. disposita Vitellianarum legionum acies sine trepidatione: etenim quamquam vicino hoste aspectus armorum densis arbustis prohibebatur. apud Othonianos pavidi duces, miles ducibus infensus, mixta vehicula et lixae, et praeruptis utrimque fossis via quieto quoque agmini angusta. circumsistere alii signa sua, quaerere alii; incertus undique clamor adcurrentium, vocantium: ut cuique audacia vel formido, in primam postremamve aciem prorumpebant aut relabebantur.

Their minds astonished with sudden terror, a false joy turned to languor, when men were found to lie that the army had revolted from Vitellius. Whether that rumor was spread by Vitellius’s scouts, or arose in Otho’s own party by trickery or by chance, is too little ascertained. The ardor of the fight laid aside, the Othonians of their own accord saluted them; and, received with a hostile murmur, they bred a fear of treachery, most of their own men being ignorant what was the cause of the saluting. Then the enemy’s line bore down, in unbroken ranks, superior in strength and number: the Othonians, though scattered, fewer, weary, took up the battle keenly nonetheless. And through places hindered by trees and vines, the look of the fight was not one: at close quarters and at a distance, in bands and in wedges they ran together. On the causeway of the road, foot set against foot, they strove with their bodies and the bosses of their shields, and, the hurling of javelins laid aside, broke through helmets and cuirasses with swords and axes: knowing one another, conspicuous to the rest, they contended for the issue of the whole war.

Attonitas subito terrore mentis falsum gaudium in languorem vertit, repertis qui descivisse a Vitellio exercitum ementirentur. is rumor ab exploratoribus Vitellii dispersus, an in ipsa Othonis parte seu dolo seu forte surrexerit, parum compertum. omisso pugnae ardore Othoniani ultro salutavere; et hostili murmure excepti, plerisque suorum ignaris quae causa salutandi, metum proditionis fecere. tum incubuit hostium acies, integris ordinibus, robore et numero praestantior: Othoniani, quamquam dispersi, pauciores, fessi, proelium tamen acriter sumpsere. et per locos arboribus ac vineis impeditos non una pugnae facies: comminus eminus, catervis et cuneis concurrebant. in aggere viae conlato gradu corporibus et umbonibus niti, omisso pilorum iactu gladiis et securibus galeas loricasque perrumpere: noscentes inter se, ceteris conspicui, in eventum totius belli certabant.

By chance, in the open field between the Po and the road, two legions met—for Vitellius the twenty-first, surnamed Rapax, marked by its old glory, on Otho’s side the first Adiutrix, not before led into the line, but fierce and avid of new honor. The men of the first, having laid low the front ranks of the twenty-first, carried off its eagle; the legion, kindled by that grief, drove the men of the first back in turn, killed Orfidius Benignus the legate, and snatched very many standards and colors from the enemy. On another quarter the thirteenth legion was driven back by the onset of the men of the fifth, and the men of the fourteenth surrounded by the running-up of more. And Otho’s generals having long since fled, Caecina and Valens were strengthening their men with reserves. Fresh help came up, Varus Alfenus with the Batavians, the band of gladiators routed, whom, carried over in ships, the cohorts set against them had butchered in the very river: so the victors, driven into the enemy’s flank.

Forte inter Padum viamque patenti campo duae legiones congressae sunt, pro Vitellio unaetvicensima, cui cognomen Rapaci, vetere gloria insignis, e parte Othonis prima Adiutrix, non ante in aciem deducta, sed ferox et novi decoris avida. primani stratis unaetvicensimanorum principiis aquilam abstulere; quo dolore accensa legio et impulit rursus primanos, interfecto Orfidio Benigno legato, et plurima signa vexillaque ex hostibus rapuit. a parte alia propulsa quintanorum impetu tertia decima legio, circumventi plurium adcursu quartadecimani. et ducibus Othonis iam pridem profugis Caecina ac Valens subsidiis suos firmabant. accessit recens auxilium, Varus Alfenus cum Batavis, fusa gladiatorum manu, quam navibus transvectam obpositae cohortes in ipso flumine trucidaverant: ita victores latus hostium invecti.

And the center of the line broken through, the Othonians fled in all directions, making for Bedriacum. Immense was that distance, the roads blocked with heaps of bodies, whereby there was the more slaughter; for in civil wars the captured are not turned to profit. Suetonius Paulinus and Licinius Proculus by different routes avoided the camp. Vedius Aquila, legate of the thirteenth legion, an ill-advised panic exposed to the soldiers’ wrath. While it was still broad day, having entered the rampart, he is beset by the clamor of the seditious and the runaways; they refrain neither from reproaches nor from blows; they rail at him as deserter and traitor, by no crime proper to him, but in the manner of the crowd, each flinging his own outrage upon others. Titianus and Celsus the night aided, the sentries being now set and the soldiers checked, whom Annius Gallus by counsel, prayers, and authority had bent, lest, on top of the disaster of an adverse battle, they rage with slaughter of their own selves: whether an end had come to the war, or they preferred to take up arms again, the one relief for the vanquished was in concord. The rest had broken spirit: the praetorian soldier murmured that he had been beaten not by valor but by treachery: that not even for the Vitellians had the victory been bloodless, the horse routed, a legion’s eagle snatched; that there remained, with Otho himself, the soldiers who had been across the Po, the Moesian legions were coming, a great part of the army had stayed behind at Bedriacum: these at least were not yet beaten, and, if it came to that, would more honorably perish in the line. By these thoughts, fierce or fearful, in their last desperation they were goaded to wrath more often than to dread.

Et media acie perrupta fugere passim Othoniani, Bedriacum petentes. immensum id spatium, obstructae strage corporum viae, quo plus caedis fuit; neque enim civilibus bellis capti in praedam vertuntur. Suetonius Paulinus et Licinius Proculus diversis itineribus castra vitavere. Vedium Aquilam tertiae decimae legionis legatum irae militum inconsultus pavor obtulit. multo adhuc die vallum ingressus clamore seditiosorum et fugacium circumstrepitur; non probris, non manibus abstinent; desertorem proditoremque increpant, nullo proprio crimine eius sed more vulgi suum quisque flagitium aliis obiectantes. Titianum et Celsum nox iuvit, dispositis iam excubiis conpressisque militibus, quos Annius Gallus consilio precibus auctoritate flexerat, ne super cladem adversae pugnae suismet ipsi caedibus saevirent: sive finis bello venisset seu resumere arma mallent, unicum victis in consensu levamentum. ceteris fractus animus: praetorianus miles non virtute se sed proditione victum fremebat: ne Vitellianis quidem incruentam fuisse vi- ctoriam, pulso equite, rapta legionis aquila; superesse cum ipso Othone militum quod trans Padum fuerit, venire Moesicas legiones, magnam exercitus partem Bedriaci remansisse: hos certe nondum victos et, si ita ferret, honestius in acie perituros. his cogitationibus truces aut pavidi extrema desperatione ad iram saepius quam in formidinem stimulabantur.

But the Vitellian army settled at the fifth milestone from Bedriacum, the generals not daring an assault on the camp the same day; at the same time a voluntary surrender was hoped for: but to men unencumbered and gone out only for battle, their arms and their victory served for a rampart. The next day, the will of the Othonian army being not doubtful, and those who had been the fiercer inclining to repentance, an embassy was sent; nor was there any doubt among the Vitellian generals but that they should grant peace. The envoys were detained a little while: that thing brought hesitation to men still ignorant whether they had succeeded. Soon, the embassy sent back, the rampart was opened. Then conquered and conquerors burst into tears, cursing with a wretched gladness the lot of civil arms; in the same tents some tended the wounds of their brothers, others of their kinsmen: hopes and rewards in doubt, deaths and mournings certain, nor was anyone so free of the evil as not to grieve some death. The body of the legate Orfidius was sought out and cremated with the wonted honor; a few their own kinsmen buried, but the rest of the throng was left above the ground.

At Vitellianus exercitus ad quintum a Bedriaco lapidem consedit, non ausis ducibus eadem die obpugnationem castrorum; simul voluntaria deditio sperabatur: sed expeditis et tantum ad proelium egressis munimentum fuere arma et victoria. postera die haud ambigua Othoniani exercitus voluntate et qui ferociores fuerant ad paenitentiam inclinantibus missa legatio; nec apud duces Vitellianos dubitatum quo minus pacem concederent. legati paulisper retenti: ea res haesitationem attulit ignaris adhuc an impetrassent. mox remissa legatione patuit vallum. tum victi victoresque in lacrimas effusi, sortem civilium armorum misera laetitia detestantes; isdem tentoriis alii fratrum, alii propinquorum vulnera fovebant: spes et praemia in ambiguo, certa funera et luctus, nec quisquam adeo mali expers ut non aliquam mortem maereret. requisitum Orfidii legati corpus honore solito crematur; paucos necessarii ipsorum sepelivere, ceterum vulgus super humum relictum.

Otho was awaiting news of the battle, by no means in alarm and sure of his purpose. First a gloomy report, then fugitives from the fight lay open that all was lost. The soldiers’ ardor did not wait for the emperor’s word; they bade him keep a good heart: there were still fresh forces, and they themselves would suffer and dare extremities. Nor was it flattery: they burned, with a kind of frenzy and impulse, to go into the line, to rouse the fortune of the party. Those who stood far off stretched out their hands, and the nearest clasped his knees, Plotius Firmus the readiest. He, the prefect of the praetorium, again and again begged that he not desert a most faithful army, soldiers of the best deserving: with greater spirit are adversities borne than abandoned; the brave and the strenuous hold to hope even against fortune, the timid and the craven hurry to despair through fear. Amid which words, as Otho softened or hardened his face, there was a shout and a groan. Nor the praetorians only, Otho’s own soldiers, but those sent ahead from Moesia announced the same obstinacy of the approaching army, the legions entered Aquileia, so that no one may doubt that the war could have been renewed—atrocious, mournful, uncertain for the vanquished and the victors.

Opperiebatur Otho nuntium pugnae nequaquam trepidus et consilii certus. maesta primum fama, dein profugi e proelio perditas res patefaciunt. non expectavit militum ardor vocem imperatoris; bonum haberet animum iubebant: superesse adhuc novas viris, et ipsos extrema passuros ausurosque. neque erat adulatio: ire in aciem, excitare partium fortunam furore quodam et instinctu flagrabant. qui procul adstiterant, tendere manus, et proximi prensare ge- nua, promptissimo Plotio Firmo. is praetorii praefectus identidem orabat ne fidissimum exercitum, ne optime meritos milites desereret: maiore animo tolerari adversa quam relinqui; fortis et strenuos etiam contra fortunam insistere spei, timidos et ignavos ad desperationem formidine properare. quas inter voces ut flexerat vultum aut induraverat Otho, clamor et gemitus. nec praetoriani tantum, proprius Othonis miles, sed praemissi e Moesia eandem obstinationem adventantis exercitus, legiones Aquileiam ingressas nuntiabant, ut nemo dubitet potuisse renovari bellum atrox, lugubre, incertum victis et victoribus.

He himself, turned away from counsels of war, said: "To expose this spirit, this valor of yours, to further dangers I judge too great a price for my life. The more hope you hold out, if it pleased me to live, the more beautiful will my death be. We have made trial of each other, I and fortune. Nor reckon up the time: it is harder to keep measure in a good fortune which you do not think you will long enjoy. Civil war began from Vitellius, and that we should contend in arms for the principate, the beginning was on his side: that we contend no more than once, the precedent shall be with me; from this let posterity judge Otho. Vitellius will have the joy of his brother, his wife, his children: I have need of neither vengeance nor solace. Others may have held empire longer; none shall have left it so bravely. Or shall I suffer so great a flower of Roman youth, so many excellent armies, to be laid low again and torn from the commonwealth? Let this spirit go with me, as though you would have perished for me; but be survivors. Nor let us delay long—I your safety, you my constancy. To speak more of one’s last hour is part of cowardice. Take this as the chief proof of my resolve, that I complain of no one; for to accuse gods or men belongs to him who wishes to live."

Ipse aversus a consiliis belli ’hunc’ inquit ’animum, hanc virtutem vestram ultra periculis obicere nimis grande vitae meae pretium puto. quanto plus spei ostenditis, si vivere placeret, tanto pulchrior mors erit. experti in vicem sumus ego ac fortuna. nec tempus conputaveritis: difficilius est temperare felicitati qua te non putes diu usurum. civile bellum a Vitellio coepit, et ut de principatu certaremus armis initium illic fuit: ne plus quam semel certemus penes me exemplum erit; hinc Othonem posteritas aestimet. fruetur Vitellius fratre, coniuge, liberis: mihi non ultione neque solaciis opus est. alii diutius imperium tenuerint, nemo tam fortiter reliquerit. an ego tantum Romanae pubis, tot egregios exercitus sterni rursus et rei publicae eripi patiar? eat hic mecum animus, tamquam perituri pro me fueritis, set este superstites. nec diu moremur, ego incolumitatem vestram, vos constantiam meam. plura de extremis loqui pars ignaviae est. praecipuum destinationis meae documentum habete quod de nemine queror; nam incusare deos vel homines eius est qui vivere velit.’

Having spoken thus, addressing them courteously, each according to his age or dignity, he urged them to go in haste and not, by remaining, sharpen the victor’s wrath—the young by his authority, the old by his prayers—calm of face, undaunted in word, checking the untimely tears of his men. He orders ships and vehicles to be given to those departing; the petitions and letters notable for zeal toward himself or for insults against Vitellius he destroys; he distributes monies sparingly and not as one about to perish. Then Salvius Cocceianus, his brother’s son, in his first youth, alarmed and grieving, he comforted of his own accord, praising his affection, chiding his fear: would Vitellius be of so harsh a spirit that, for his whole house kept safe, he would not return him even this thanks? By a hastened death he was earning the victor’s clemency; for it was not in the last desperation, but with the army demanding battle, that he had spared the commonwealth its final hazard. Enough of a name had been won for himself, enough of nobility for his posterity. After the Julii, the Claudii, the Servii, he was the first to bring the empire into a new family: therefore with raised spirit let him take up life, and never either forget or too much remember that Otho had been his uncle.

Talia locutus, ut cuique aetas aut dignitas, comiter appellatos, irent propere neu remanendo iram victoris asperarent, iuvenes auctoritate, senes precibus movebat, placidus ore, intrepidus verbis, intempestivas suorum lacrimas coercens. dari navis ac vehicula abeuntibus iubet; libellos epistulasque studio erga se aut in Vitellium contumeliis insignis abolet; pecunias distribuit parce nec ut periturus. mox Salvium Cocceianum, fratris filium, prima iuventa, trepidum et maerentem ultro solatus est, laudando pietatem eius, castigando formidinem: an Vitellium tam inmitis animi fore ut pro incolumi tota domo ne hanc quidem sibi gratiam redderet? mereri se festinato exitu clementiam victoris; non enim ultima desperatione sed poscente proelium exercitu remisisse rei publicae novissimum casum. satis sibi nominis, satis posteris suis nobilitatis quaesitum. post Iulios Claudios Servios se primum in familiam novam imperium intulisse: proinde erecto animo capesseret vitam, neu patruum sibi Othonem fuisse aut oblivisceretur umquam aut nimium meminisset.

After which, all being sent away, he rested a little. And as he was already turning his last cares in his mind, a sudden tumult diverted him, news being brought of the consternation and license of the soldiers; for they threatened destruction to those departing, with most atrocious violence against Verginius, whom they besieged in his shut house. The authors of the mutiny rebuked, he returned and gave himself to the addresses of those departing, until all withdrew unharmed. As the day waned, he allayed his thirst with a draught of cold water. Then, two daggers being brought, when he had tried both, he laid one beneath his head. And having ascertained that his friends were now gone, he passed a quiet night, and, as it is affirmed, not without sleep: at first light he fell upon the steel with his breast. At the groan of the dying man, freedmen and slaves entering, and Plotius Firmus the prefect of the praetorium, found a single wound. The funeral was hurried; he had asked it with urgent prayers, that his head not be cut off to be a mockery. The praetorian cohorts bore the body with praises and tears, kissing his wound and his hands. Some of the soldiers killed themselves beside the pyre, not from guilt nor through fear, but from emulation of his glory and love of their prince. And afterward, indiscriminately, at Bedriacum, at Placentia, and in other camps, this kind of death was much practiced. For Otho a tomb was built, modest and to endure. This end of life he had in his thirty-seventh year.

Post quae dimotis omnibus paulum requievit. atque illum supremas iam curas animo volutantem repens tumultus avertit, nuntiata consternatione ac licentia militum; namque abeuntibus exitium minitabantur, atrocissima in Verginium vi, quem clausa domo obsidebant. increpitis seditionis auctoribus regressus vacavit abeuntium adloquiis, donec omnes inviolati digrederentur. vesperascente die sitim haustu gelidae aquae sedavit. tum adlatis pugionibus duobus, cum utrumque pertemptasset, alterum capiti subdidit. et explorato iam profectos amicos, noctem quietam, utque adfirmatur, non insomnem egit: luce prima in ferrum pectore incubuit. ad gemitum morientis ingressi liberti servique et Plotius Firmus praetorii praefectus unum vulnus invenere. funus maturatum; ambitiosis id precibus petierat ne amputaretur caput ludibrio futurum. tulere corpus praetoriae cohortes cum laudibus et lacrimis, vulnus manusque eius exosculantes. quidam militum iuxta rogum interfecere se, non noxa neque ob metum, sed aemulatione decoris et caritate principis. ac postea promisce Bedriaci, Placentiae aliisque in castris celebratum id genus mortis. Othoni sepulchrum extructum est modicum et mansurum. hunc vitae finem habuit septimo et tricensimo aetatis anno.

His origin was from the town of Ferentium, his father a consular, his grandfather a praetor; his mother’s line unequal, yet not undistinguished. His boyhood and youth were such as we have shown. By two deeds, the one most shameful, the other excellent, he earned among posterity as much of good fame as of bad. To hunt out fabulous things and to delight the minds of readers with fictions I would hold far from the gravity of a work once undertaken; yet from things spread abroad and handed down I would not dare to take away credit. On the day on which the battle was fought at Bedriacum, the inhabitants relate that a bird of unfamiliar appearance settled in a frequented grove near Regium Lepidum, and was not thereafter terrified or driven off by the gathering of men or of birds flying about, until Otho killed himself; then it was carried away out of sight: and that, to those reckoning the times, the beginning and end of the marvel coincided with Otho’s death.

Origo illi e municipio Ferentio, pater consularis, avus praetorius; maternum genus impar nec tamen indecorum. pueritia ac iuventa, qualem monstravimus. duobus facinoribus, altero flagitiosissimo, altero egregio, tantundem apud posteros meruit bonae famae quantum malae. ut conquirere fabulosa et fictis oblectare legentium animos procul gravitate coepti operis crediderim, ita vulgatis traditisque demere fidem non ausim. die, quo Bedriaci certabatur, avem invisitata specie apud Regium Lepidum celebri luco consedisse incolae memorant, nec deinde coetu hominum aut circumvolitantium alitum territam pulsamve, donec Otho se ipse interficeret; tum ablatam ex oculis: et tempora reputantibus initium finemque miraculi cum Othonis exitu competisse.

At his funeral the soldiers’ mutiny was renewed by grief and pain, and there was no one to check it. Turned to Verginius, now that he take up the empire, now that he discharge an embassy to Caecina and Valens, they besought him with threats: Verginius, slipping out by the back part of the house, baffled those who broke in. The prayers of those cohorts which had been at Brixellum, Rubrius Gallus carried, and pardon was at once obtained, those forces over which he had presided going over to the victor through Flavius Sabinus.

In funere eius novata luctu ac dolore militum seditio, nec erat qui coerceret. ad Verginium versi, modo ut reciperet imperium, nunc ut legatione apud Caecinam ac Valentem fungeretur, minitantes orabant: Verginius per aversam domus partem furtim digressus inrumpentis frustratus est. earum quae Brixelli egerant cohortium preces Rubrius Gallus tulit, et venia statim impetrata, concedentibus ad victorem per Flavium Sabinum iis copiis quibus praefuerat.

War being laid down everywhere, a great part of the Senate came into the utmost peril, having set out with Otho from the City, then left at Mutina. There the adverse battle was reported: but the soldiers, spurning it as a false rumor, because they judged the Senate hostile to Otho, watched their talk, dragged their look and bearing into the worse; with reproaches at last and abuse they sought a cause and a beginning for slaughter, while another fear besides pressed upon the senators, lest, the party of Vitellius being now too strong, they be thought to have received the victory with hesitation. So, alarmed and anxious on both sides, they came together, no one with a counsel ready in private, safer among many by the partnership of guilt. The order of Mutina burdened the cares of the fearful by offering arms and money, and addressed them as conscript fathers with an untimely honor.

Posito ubique bello magna pars senatus extremum discrimen adiit, profecta cum Othone ab urbe, dein Mutinae relicta. illuc adverso de proelio adlatum: sed milites ut falsum rumorem aspernantes, quod infensum Othoni senatum arbitrabantur, custodire sermones, vultum habitumque trahere in deterius; conviciis postremo ac probris causam et initium caedis quaerebant, cum alius insuper metus senatoribus instaret, ne praevalidis iam Vitellii partibus cunctanter excepisse victoriam crederentur. ita trepidi et utrimque anxii coeunt, nemo privatim expedito consilio, inter multos societate culpae tutior. onerabat paventium curas ordo Mutinensis arma et pecuniam offerendo, appellabatque patres conscriptos intempestivo honore.

A notable quarrel there was, by which Licinius Caecina assailed Eprius Marcellus as one arguing ambiguously. Nor did the rest lay open their opinions: but the name of Marcellus, hateful by the memory of his informings and exposed to odium, had provoked Caecina, that—new still and lately admitted to the Senate—he might grow famous by great enmities. By the moderation of the better men they were parted. And all returned to Bononia, again to take counsel; at the same time, in the interval, more messengers were hoped for. At Bononia, men being distributed along the roads to question each freshest comer, a freedman of Otho’s, asked the cause of his departure, answered that he had Otho’s last commands; that he had left him indeed living, but with care for posterity alone and the blandishments of life broken off. Hence wonder, and shame to ask more, and the minds of all inclined toward Vitellius.

Notabile iurgium fuit quo Licinius Caecina Marcellum Eprium ut ambigua disserentem invasit. nec ceteri sententias aperiebant: sed invisum memoria delationum expositumque ad invidiam Marcelli nomen inritaverat Caecinam, ut novus adhuc et in senatum nuper adscitus magnis inimicitiis claresceret. moderatione meliorum dirempti. et rediere omnes Bononiam, rursus consiliaturi; simul medio temporis plures nuntii sperabantur. Bononiae, divisis per itinera qui recentissimum quemque percontarentur, interrogatus Othonis libertus causam digressus habere se suprema eius mandata respondit; ipsum viventem quidem relictum, sed sola posteritatis cura et abruptis vitae blandimentis. hinc admiratio et plura interrogandi pudor, atque omnium animi in Vitellium inclinavere.

There took part in the counsels his brother Lucius Vitellius, and was already offering himself to the flatterers, when suddenly Coenus, a freedman of Nero’s, struck them all down by an atrocious lie, affirming that by the coming-up of the fourteenth legion, its forces joined from Brixellum, the victors had been cut down and the fortune of the parties reversed. The cause of the invention was that the passes of Otho, which were being neglected, might revive at a gladder report. And Coenus indeed, carried in haste to the City, a few days after paid the penalty by Vitellius’s order: the senators’ danger was increased, the Othonian soldiers believing that what was brought was true. Their dread was heightened by the fact that the departure from Mutina, with the appearance of a public counsel, and the abandonment of the party, had taken place. Nor, meeting in common further, did they take counsel each for himself, until letters sent by Fabius Valens took away their fear. And the death of Otho, the more praiseworthy it was, the more swiftly was it heard of.

Intererat consiliis frater eius L. Vitellius seque iam adulantibus offerebat, cum repente Coenus libertus Neronis atroci mendacio universos perculit, adfirmans superventu quartae decimae legionis, iunctis a Brixello viribus, caesos victores; versam partium fortunam. causa fingendi fuit ut diplomata Othonis, quae neglegebantur, laetiore nuntio revalescerent. et Coenus quidem raptim in urbem vectus paucos post dies iussu Vitellii poenas luit: senatorum periculum auctum credentibus Othonianis militibus vera esse quae adferebantur. intendebat formidinem quod publici consilii facie discessum Mutina desertaeque partes forent. nec ultra in commune congressi sibi quisque consuluere, donec missae a Fabio Valente epistulae demerent metum. et mors Othonis quo laudabilior eo velocius audita.

But at Rome no alarm; the Games of Ceres were being watched after the custom. When sure authorities brought into the theatre that Otho had given way, and that whatever of soldiers was in the City had been sworn to Vitellius by Flavius Sabinus, prefect of the City, they applauded Vitellius; the people with laurel and flowers carried the images of Galba about the temples, with garlands heaped in the manner of a tomb beside the Lacus Curtius, the place which Galba dying had stained with his blood. In the Senate everything devised in the long reigns of others was at once decreed; praises and thanks toward the German army were added, and an embassy sent to discharge their joy. The letters of Fabius Valens, written to the consuls not immoderately, were read out: more pleasing was the modesty of Caecina, that he had not written.

At Romae nihil trepidationis; Ceriales ludi ex more spectabantur. ut cessisse Othonem et a Flavio Sabino praefecto urbis quod erat in urbe militum sacramento Vitellii adactum certi auctores in theatrum attulerunt, Vitellio plausere; populus cum lauru ac floribus Galbae imagines circum templa tulit, congestis in modum tumuli coronis iuxta lacum Curtii, quem locum Galba moriens sanguine infecerat. in senatu cuncta longis aliorum principatibus composita statim decernuntur; additae erga Germanicum exercitum laudes gratesque et missa legatio quae gaudio fungeretur. recitatae Fabii Valentis epistulae ad consules scriptae haud immoderate: gratior Caecinae modestia fuit quod non scripsisset.

For the rest, Italy was afflicted more grievously and atrociously than by war. Scattered through the towns and colonies, the Vitellians plundered, seized, polluted with violence and rape: greedy or venal for everything lawful and unlawful, they abstained from nothing sacred or profane. And there were those who killed their enemies under the show of soldiers. The soldiers themselves, knowing the regions, marked out the well-stocked fields and the rich owners for plunder, or, if there were resistance, for destruction—the generals beholden to them and not daring to forbid. Less of avarice was in Caecina, more of ambition: Valens, infamous for his gains and profits, and therefore a concealer of others’ guilt too. With Italy’s resources long since worn down, so great a host of foot and horse, the violence and damages and injuries were borne with difficulty.

Ceterum Italia gravius atque atrocius quam bello adflictabatur. dispersi per municipia et colonias Vitelliani spoliare, rapere, vi et stupris polluere: in omne fas nefasque avidi aut venales non sacro, non profano abstinebant. et fuere qui inimicos suos specie militum interficerent. ipsique milites regionum gnari refertos agros, ditis dominos in praedam aut, si repugnatum foret, ad exitium destinabant, obnoxiis ducibus et prohibere non ausis. minus avaritiae in Caecina, plus ambitionis: Valens ob lucra et quaestus infamis eoque alienae etiam culpae dissimulator. iam pridem attritis Italiae rebus tantum peditum equitumque, vis damnaque et iniuriae aegre tolerabantur.

Meanwhile Vitellius, ignorant of his victory, was dragging on the remaining forces of the German army as though for a war still entire. A few of the old soldiers were left in winter quarters, levies hurried through the Gallic provinces, that the names of the remaining legions might be filled out. The care of the riverbank was entrusted to Hordeonius Flaccus; he himself joined to himself eight thousand picked men from the British army. And having advanced a few days’ march, he received that affairs at Bedriacum were prosperous and that by Otho’s death the war had collapsed: a meeting called, he heaps the soldiers’ valor with praises. When the army demanded that he reward his freedman Asiaticus with equestrian dignity, he checked the dishonorable flattery; then, by the fickleness of his nature, what he had openly refused he grants amid the secrets of a banquet, and honored Asiaticus with the rings—a foul chattel and ambitious by evil arts.

Interim Vitellius victoriae suae nescius ut ad integrum bellum reliquas Germanici exercitus viris trahebat. pauci veterum militum in hibernis relicti, festinatis per Gallias dilectibus, ut remanentium legionum nomina supplerentur. cura ripae Hordeonio Flacco permissa; ipse e Britannico exercitu delecta octo milia sibi adiunxit. et paucorum dierum iter progressus prosperas apud Bedriacum res ac morte Othonis concidisse bellum accepit: vocata contione virtutem militum laudibus cumulat. postulante exercitu ut libertum suum Asiaticum equestri dignitate donaret, inhonestam adulationem conpescit; dein mobilitate ingenii, quod palam abnuerat, inter secreta convivii largitur, honoravitque Asiaticum anulis, foedum mancipium et malis artibus ambitiosum.

In the same days news came that both the Mauretanias had joined the party, the procurator Albinus having been killed. Lucceius Albinus, set over Mauretania Caesariensis by Nero, with the administration of the Tingitanian province added through Galba, was acting with no contemptible forces. Nineteen cohorts, five wings, a vast number of Moors were at hand, a band fit for war by their brigandage and raiding. Galba killed, inclined toward Otho, and not content with Africa, he threatened Spain, parted by a narrow strait. Hence fear to Cluvius Rufus, who ordered the tenth legion to draw near the shore as though about to cross; centurions were sent ahead to conciliate the minds of the Moors to Vitellius. Nor was it hard, the fame of the German army being great through the provinces; it was bruited besides that, scorning the title of procurator, Albinus was usurping the insignia of a king and the name of Juba.

Isdem diebus accessisse partibus utramque Mauretaniam, interfecto procuratore Albino, nuntii venere. Lucceius Albinus a Nerone Mauretaniae Caesariensi praepositus, ad- dita per Galbam Tingitanae provinciae administratione, haud spernendis viribus agebat. decem novem cohortes, quinque alae, ingens Maurorum numerus aderat, per latrocinia et raptus apta bello manus. caeso Galba in Othonem pronus nec Africa contentus Hispaniae angusto freto diremptae imminebat. inde Cluvio Rufo metus, et decimam legionem propinquare litori ut transmissurus iussit; praemissi centuriones qui Maurorum animos Vitellio conciliarent. neque arduum fuit, magna per provincias Germanici exercitus fama; spargebatur insuper spreto procuratoris vocabulo Albinum insigne regis et Iubae nomen usurpare.

So, men’s minds being changed, Asinius Pollio, prefect of a wing, of the most faithful to Albinus, and Festus and Scipio, prefects of cohorts, are overpowered: Albinus himself, while he makes from the Tingitanian province for Mauretania Caesariensis, was butchered at his landing on the shore; his wife, when she had offered herself to the slayers, was killed at the same time, Vitellius inquiring into nothing of what was being done: even great matters he passed over on a brief hearing, unequal to graver cares.

Ita mutatis animis Asinius Pollio alae praefectus, e fidissimis Albino, et Festus ac Scipio cohortium praefecti opprimuntur: ipse Albinus dum e Tingitana provincia Caesariensem Mauretaniam petit, adpulsu litoris trucidatus; uxor eius cum se percussoribus obtulisset, simul interfecta est, nihil eorum quae fierent Vitellio anquirente: brevi auditu quamvis magna transibat, impar curis gravioribus.

He orders the army to proceed by the land route: he himself is borne down the river Arar, with no princely outfit, but conspicuous by his old poverty, until Junius Blaesus, governor of Lugdunese Gaul, of illustrious birth, lavish of spirit and equal in wealth, surrounded the prince with attendance and escorted him liberally—ungrateful by that very thing, though Vitellius veiled his hatred with servile flatterings. At Lyon were present the generals of the victorious and the vanquished parties. Valens and Caecina, praised before a meeting, he set about his own curule chair. Soon he orders the whole army to go to meet his infant son, and, the boy brought and covered with a general’s cloak, holding him in his bosom, he called him Germanicus and girt him with all the insignia of princely fortune. The excessive honor, amid prosperity, passed in adversity into a solace.

Exercitum itinere terrestri pergere iubet: ipse Arare flumine devehitur, nullo principali paratu, sed vetere egestate conspicuus, donec Iunius Blaesus Lugudunensis Galliae rector, genere inlustri, largus animo et par opibus, circumdaret principi ministeria, comitaretur liberaliter, eo ipso ingratus, quamvis odium Vitellius vernilibus blanditiis velaret. praesto fuere Luguduni victricium victarumque partium duces. Valentem et Caecinam pro contione laudatos curuli suae circumposuit. mox universum exercitum occurrere infanti filio iubet, perlatumque et paludamento opertum sinu retinens Germanicum appellavit cinxitque cunctis fortunae principalis insignibus. nimius honos inter secunda rebus adversis in solacium cessit.

Then were killed the readiest of the Othonian centurions, whence the chief alienation against Vitellius through the Illyrian armies; at the same time the other legions, by contact and by envy against the German soldiers, meditated war. Suetonius Paulinus and Licinius Proculus he held in a gloomy delay, unkempt, until, given a hearing, they used defenses more necessary than honorable. They charged treason upon themselves, assigning to their own guile the space of the long march before the battle, the weariness of the Othonians, the column mixed with vehicles, and most things fortuitous. And Vitellius believed about their perfidy and absolved their loyalty. Salvius Titianus, Otho’s brother, came into no danger, excused by his affection and his cowardice. To Marius Celsus the consulship is preserved: but it was believed by report, and soon charged in the Senate against Caecilius Simplex, that he had wished to buy that honor with money, and not without Celsus’s destruction: Vitellius resisted, and gave Simplex afterward a consulship harmless and unbought. Trachalus against his accusers Galeria, Vitellius’s wife, protected.

Tum interfecti centuriones promptissimi Othonianorum, unde praecipua in Vitellium alienatio per Illyricos exercitus; simul ceterae legiones contactu et adversus Germanicos milites invidia bellum meditabantur. Suetonium Paulinum ac Licinium Proculum tristi mora squalidos tenuit, donec auditi necessariis magis defensionibus quam honestis uterentur. proditionem ultro imputabant, spatium longi ante proelium itineris, fatigationem Othonianorum, permixtum vehiculis agmen ac pleraque fortuita fraudi suae adsignantes. et Vitellius credidit de perfidia et fidem absolvit. Salvius Titianus Othonis frater nullum discrimen adiit, pietate et ignavia excusatus. Mario Celso consulatus servatur: sed creditum fama obiectumque mox in senatu Caecilio Simplici, quod eum honorem pecunia mercari, nec sine exitio Celsi, voluisset: restitit Vitellius deditque postea consulatum Simplici innoxium et inemptum. Trachalum adversus criminantis Galeria uxor Vitellii protexit.

Amid the perils of great men—shameful to tell—a certain Mariccus, of the commons of the Boii, dared to thrust himself into fortune and to challenge the arms of Rome by a feigning of divine power. And now the champion of the Gallic provinces and a god (for that he had given himself), having roused eight thousand men, was drawing on the nearest cantons of the Aedui, when that weightiest community, with picked youth, cohorts added by Vitellius, scattered the fanatic multitude. Mariccus was taken in that battle; and soon, thrown to the beasts, because he was not torn, the stolid crowd believed him inviolable, until, with Vitellius looking on, he was killed.

Inter magnorum virorum discrimina, pudendum dictu, Mariccus quidam, e plebe Boiorum, inserere sese fortunae et provocare arma Romana simulatione numinum ausus est. iamque adsertor Galliarum et deus (nam id sibi indiderat) concitis octo milibus hominum proximos Aeduorum pagos trahebat, cum gravissima civitas electa iuventute, adiectis a Vitellio cohortibus, fanaticam multitudinem disiecit. captus in eo proelio Mariccus; ac mox feris obiectus quia non laniabatur, stolidum vulgus inviolabilem credebat, donec spectante Vitellio interfectus est.

Nor was there further savagery against the deserters or any man’s goods: valid were the wills of those who had fallen in the Othonian line, or, for the intestate, the law: in short, had he kept measure in his luxury, you would not have feared his avarice. A foul and insatiable lust for banquets: from the City and from Italy provocations of the gullet were carried, the roads from both seas resounding; the chief men of the communities were drained by the apparatus of his feasts; the very communities laid waste; the soldier degenerated from toil and valor by the habit of pleasures and contempt of his general. He sent ahead to the City an edict by which he put off the title of Augustus and did not receive that of Caesar, though he took nothing from the power. The astrologers were driven from Italy; it was strictly provided that Roman knights not be polluted by the gaming-school and the arena. Earlier emperors had driven them to it by money and more often by force, and most towns and colonies vied in alluring by a price the most corrupt of their young men.

Nec ultra in defectores aut bona cuiusquam saevitum: rata fuere eorum qui acie Othoniana ceciderant, testamenta aut lex intestatis: prorsus, si luxuriae temperaret, avaritiam non timeres. epularum foeda et inexplebilis libido: ex urbe atque Italia inritamenta gulae gestabantur, strepentibus ab utroque mari itineribus; exhausti conviviorum apparatibus principes civitatum; vastabantur ipsae civitates; degenerabat a labore ac virtute miles adsuetudine voluptatum et contemptu ducis. praemisit in urbem edictum quo vocabulum Augusti differret, Caesaris non reciperet, cum de potestate nihil detraheret. pulsi Italia mathematici; cautum severe ne equites Romani ludo et harena polluerentur. priores id principes pecunia et saepius vi perpulerant, ac pleraque municipia et coloniae aemulabantur corruptissimum quemque adulescentium pretio inlicere.

But Vitellius, by his brother’s arrival and the creeping-in of the masters of despotism more haughty and atrocious, ordered Dolabella killed, whom, set aside by Otho in the colony of Aquinum, we have recounted. Dolabella, on hearing of Otho’s death, had entered the City: this Plancius Varus, who had held the praetorship, one of Dolabella’s most intimate friends, charged against him before Flavius Sabinus, prefect of the City—that, his custody broken, he had shown himself as a leader to the beaten party; he added that the cohort which was at Ostia had been tampered with; and, with no proofs of charges so great, turning to repentance, he sought a late pardon after the crime. Flavius Sabinus, hesitating over so great a matter, Triaria, wife of Lucius Vitellius, fierce beyond a woman, terrified, lest by the prince’s peril he court a fame for clemency. Sabinus, mild by his own nature, when dread had come upon him, easy to be changed, and in another’s danger afraid for himself, lest he seem to have helped the man, drove him as he fell.

Sed Vitellius adventu fratris et inrepentibus dominationis magistris superbior et atrocior occidi Dolabellam iussit, quem in coloniam Aquinatem sepositum ab Othone rettulimus. Dolabella audita morte Othonis urbem introierat: id ei Plancius Varus praetura functus, ex intimis Dolabellae amicis, apud Flavium Sabinum praefectum urbis obiecit, tamquam rupta custodia ducem se victis partibus ostentasset; addidit temptatam cohortem quae Ostiae ageret; nec ullis tantorum criminum probationibus in paenitentiam versus seram veniam post scelus quaerebat. cunctantem super tanta re Flavium Sabinum Triaria L. Vitellii uxor, ultra feminam ferox, terruit ne periculo principis famam clementiae adfectaret. Sabinus suopte ingenio mitis, ubi formido incessisset, facilis mutatu et in alieno discrimine sibi pavens, ne adlevasse videretur, impulit ruentem.

So Vitellius, from fear and hatred because Dolabella had soon taken his wife Petronia in marriage, having summoned him by letter, ordered him, the crowded Flaminian Way avoided, to turn aside to Interamnium and there be killed. It seemed long to the killer: thrown on the ground in an inn on the road, he cut his throat, with great odium to the new principate, of which this was known as the first specimen. And Triaria’s license a modest example close at hand burdened—Galeria, the emperor’s wife, not mingled in the grim doings; and of equal probity the mother of the Vitellii, Sextilia, of the ancient fashion: she was even reported to have said, at her son’s first letters, that she had borne not a Germanicus but a Vitellius. Nor afterward, by any allurements of fortune or the flattery of the state, was she won over into joy; only her house’s adversities did she feel.

Igitur Vitellius metu et odio quod Petroniam uxorem eius mox Dolabella in matrimonium accepisset, vocatum per epistulas vitata Flaminiae viae celebritate devertere Interamnium atque ibi interfici iussit. longum interfectori visum: in itinere ac taberna proiectum humi iugulavit, magna cum invidia novi principatus, cuius hoc primum specimen noscebatur. et Triariae licentiam modestum e proximo exemplum onerabat, Galeria imperatoris uxor non immixta tristibus; et pari probitate mater Vitelliorum Sextilia, antiqui moris: dixisse quin etiam ad primas filii sui epistulas ferebatur, non Germanicum a se sed Vitellium genitum. nec ullis postea fortunae inlecebris aut ambitu civitatis in gaudium evicta domus suae tantum adversa sensit.

Vitellius having departed from Lyon, Cluvius Rufus overtook him, Spain abandoned, bearing gladness and congratulation in his face, anxious in mind and knowing himself attacked by slanders. Hilarus, a freedman of the Caesar’s, had informed against him, as though, on hearing of Vitellius’s and Otho’s principates, he himself had attempted his own power and possession of the Spains, and therefore had prefixed no emperor’s name to his passes; and he construed certain things from his speeches as insulting to Vitellius and, on his own behalf, popular. Cluvius’s authority prevailed, so that Vitellius ordered his own freedman to be punished of his own accord. Cluvius was added to the prince’s retinue, Spain not taken from him, which he governed in absence after the example of Lucius Arruntius. But Arruntius Tiberius Caesar had detained from fear, Vitellius Cluvius from no dread. Not the same honor for Trebellius Maximus: he had fled from Britain through the soldiers’ anger; in his place was sent Vettius Bolanus, from those at hand.

Digressum a Luguduno Vitellium Cluvius Rufus adsequitur omissa Hispania, laetitiam et gratulationem vultu ferens, animo anxius et petitum se criminationibus gnarus. Hilarus Caesaris libertus detulerat tamquam audito Vitellii et Othonis principatu propriam ipse potentiam et possessionem Hispaniarum temptasset, eoque diplomatibus nullum principem praescripsisset; et interpretabatur quaedam ex orationibus eius contumeliosa in Vitellium et pro se ipso popularia. auctoritas Cluvii praevaluit ut puniri ultro libertum suum Vitellius iuberet. Cluvius comitatui principis adiectus, non adempta Hispania, quam rexit absens exemplo L. Arrunti. sed Arruntium Tiberius Caesar ob metum, Vitellius Cluvium nulla formidine retinebat. non idem Trebellio Maximo honos: profugerat Britannia ob iracundiam militum; missus est in locum eius Vettius Bolanus e praesentibus.

The spirit, by no means broken, of the beaten legions vexed Vitellius. Scattered through Italy and mingled with the victors, they spoke hostile things, the fierceness of the men of the fourteenth foremost, who denied that they were beaten: for at the field of Bedriacum only the detachments had been routed, the strength of the legion had not been present. It was decided that they be sent back to Britain, whence they had been called out by Nero, and that meanwhile the Batavian cohorts encamp with them, on account of their old discord against the fourteenth. Nor was there long quiet amid such hatreds of armed men: at Augusta of the Taurini, while a Batavian assails a certain workman as a cheat, and a legionary protects him as his host, each man’s fellow soldiers gathering, they passed from reproaches to slaughter. And an atrocious battle would have blazed up, had not two praetorian cohorts, following the cause of the fourteenth, given these confidence and the Batavians fear: whom Vitellius orders joined to his own column as faithful, and the legion, led across the Graian Alps, to go by that bend of the route by which they should avoid Vienne; for the Viennenses too were feared. On the night on which the legion set out, fires left here and there, part of the Taurine colony was burned—a loss which, like most of war’s evils, was blotted out by the greater disasters of other cities. The men of the fourteenth, after they had come down from the Alps, the most seditious would have carried the standards to Vienne: checked by the agreement of the better men, and the legion was carried across to Britain.

Angebat Vitellium victarum legionum haudquaquam fractus animus. sparsae per Italiam et victoribus permixtae hostilia loquebantur, praecipua quartadecimanorum ferocia, qui se victos abnuebant: quippe Bedriacensi acie vexillariis tantum pulsis viris legionis non adfuisse. remitti eos in Britanniam, unde a Nerone exciti erant, placuit atque interim Batavorum cohortis una tendere ob veterem adversus quartadecimanos discordiam. nec diu in tantis armatorum odiis quies fuit: Augustae Taurinorum, dum opificem quendam Batavus ut fraudatorem insectatur, legionarius ut hospitem tuetur, sui cuique commilitones adgregati a conviciis ad caedem transiere. et proelium atrox arsisset, ni duae praetoriae cohortes causam quartadecimanorum secutae his fiduciam et metum Batavis fecissent: quos Vitellius agmini suo iungi ut fidos, legionem Grais Alpibus traductam eo flexu itineris ire iubet quo Viennam vitarent; namque et Viennenses timebantur. nocte, qua proficiscebatur legio, relictis passim ignibus pars Taurinae coloniae ambusta, quod damnum, ut pleraque belli mala, maioribus aliarum urbium cladibus oblitteratum. quartadecimani postquam Alpibus degressi sunt, seditiosissimus quisque signa Viennam ferebant: consensu meliorum conpressi et legio in Britanniam transvecta.

Vitellius’s nearest fear was from the praetorian cohorts. Separated first, then, the soothing of an honorable discharge being added, they delivered their arms to their own tribunes, until the war stirred up by Vespasian grew frequent: then, their service resumed, they were the backbone of the Flavian party. The first legion of marines was sent into Spain, that it might grow mild by peace and ease; the eleventh and the seventh were restored to their winter quarters; the men of the thirteenth were ordered to build amphitheatres; for Caecina at Cremona, Valens at Bononia, were preparing to give a show of gladiators, Vitellius never so intent on his cares as to forget his pleasures.

Proximus Vitellio e praetoriis cohortibus metus erat. separati primum, deinde addito honestae missionis lenimento, arma ad tribunos suos deferebant, donec motum a Vespasiano bellum crebresceret: tum resumpta militia robur Flavianarum partium fuere. prima classicorum legio in Hispaniam missa ut pace et otio mitesceret, undecima ac septima suis hibernis redditae, tertiadecimani struere amphitheatra iussi; nam Caecina Cremonae, Valens Bononiae spectaculum gladiatorum edere parabant, numquam ita ad curas intento Vitellio ut voluptatum oblivisceretur.

And the beaten party indeed he had broken up with moderation: among the victors a mutiny arose, of a sporting beginning, had not the number of the slain heightened the odium against Vitellius. Vitellius had reclined at table at Ticinum, Verginius being brought to the feast. Legates and tribunes, according to the manners of their emperors, either emulate strictness or rejoice in early-hour banquets; accordingly the soldier is attentive or acts loosely. With Vitellius all was disordered, drunken, nearer to vigils and bacchanals than to discipline and the camp. So, two soldiers, the one of the fifth legion, the other from the Gallic auxiliaries, being kindled in wantonness to a wrestling-match, after the legionary had fallen and the Gaul insulted him, and those who had gathered to watch were drawn into partisanships, the legionaries burst out to the destruction of the auxiliaries, and two cohorts were killed. The remedy for the tumult was another tumult. Dust and arms were seen afar: a sudden shout that the fourteenth legion, its route reversed, was coming for battle; but they were the rearguard of the column: recognized, they took away the anxiety. Meanwhile a slave of Verginius’s, met by chance, is accused as the would-be killer of Vitellius: and the soldier rushed to the banquet, demanding the death of Verginius. Not even Vitellius, though afraid at every suspicion, doubted his innocence: yet with difficulty were they restrained who clamored for the destruction of a consular and once their own general. Nor did any mutiny harass anyone more often than Verginius: admiration of the man and his fame remained, but they hated him as men who had been disdained.

Et victas quidem partis modeste distraxerat: apud victores orta seditio, ludicro initio ni numerus caesorum invidiam Vitellio auxisset. discubuerat Vitellius Ticini adhibito ad epulas Verginio. legati tribunique ex moribus imperatorum severitatem aemulantur vel tempestivis conviviis gaudent; proinde miles intentus aut licenter agit. apud Vitellium omnia indisposita, temulenta, pervigiliis ac bacchanalibus quam disciplinae et castris propiora. igitur duobus militibus, altero legionis quintae, altero e Galli auxiliaribus, per lasciviam ad certamen luctandi accensis, postquam legionarius prociderat, insultante Gallo et iis qui ad spectandum convenerant in studia diductis, erupere legionarii in perniciem auxiliorum ac duae cohortes interfectae. remedium tumultus fuit alius tumultus. pulvis procul et arma aspiciebantur: conclamatum repente quartam decimam legionem verso itinere ad proelium venire; sed erant agminis coactores: agniti dempsere sollicitudinem. interim Verginii servus forte obvius ut percussor Vitellii insimulatur: et ruebat ad convivium miles, mortem Verginii exposcens. ne Vitellius quidem, quamquam ad omnis suspiciones pavidus, de innocentia eius dubitavit: aegre tamen cohibiti qui exitium consularis et quondam ducis sui flagitabant. nec quemquam saepius quam Verginium omnis seditio infestavit: manebat admiratio viri et fama, set oderant ut fastiditi.

The next day, Vitellius, having heard the Senate’s embassy, which he had ordered to await him there, crossed of his own accord into the camp and even commended the soldiers’ loyalty, the auxiliaries murmuring that so much impunity and arrogance had accrued to the legionaries. The Batavian cohorts, lest they dare anything more truculent, were sent back into Germany, the fates preparing a beginning for a war at once internal and external. The auxiliaries of the Gauls were restored to their communities, a vast number taken up at the very first defection among the empty shows of war. For the rest, that the resources of the empire, already drained by largesses, might suffice, he orders the numbers of legions and auxiliaries cut down, supplements being forbidden; and discharges were offered indiscriminately. That was destructive to the commonwealth, ungrateful to the soldier, to whom the same duties among few, and dangers and toil, returned the more often: and their strength was corrupted by luxury, against the old discipline and the institutions of their forefathers, with whom the Roman state stood better by valor than by money.

Postero die Vitellius senatus legatione, quam ibi op- periri iusserat, audita transgressus in castra ultro pietatem militum conlaudavit, frementibus auxiliis tantum impunitatis atque adrogantiae legionariis accessisse. Batavorum cohortes, ne quid truculentius auderent, in Germaniam remissae, principium interno simul externoque bello parantibus fatis. reddita civitatibus Gallorum auxilia, ingens numerus et prima statim defectione inter inania belli adsumptus. ceterum ut largitionibus adfectae iam imperii opes sufficerent, amputari legionum auxiliorumque numeros iubet vetitis supplementis; et promiscae missiones offerebantur. exitiabile id rei publicae, ingratum militi, cui eadem munia inter paucos periculaque ac labor crebrius redibant: et vires luxu corrumpebantur, contra veterem disciplinam et instituta maiorum apud quos virtute quam pecunia res Romana melius stetit.

Thence Vitellius turned aside to Cremona, and, the show of Caecina watched, conceived a longing to stand on the plains of Bedriacum and survey with his eyes the traces of the recent victory—a foul and atrocious spectacle. Within the fortieth day from the battle, mangled bodies, severed limbs, the rotting shapes of men and horses, the ground stained with gore, the trees and crops trampled, a dread desolation. No less inhuman was that part of the road which the Cremonenses had strewn with laurel and roses, altars built and victims slain in royal fashion; things glad for the moment, which soon wrought destruction for themselves. Valens and Caecina were present, and pointed out the places of the battle: here the column of the legions had burst in, here the horse had risen, thence the bands of auxiliaries had poured around; now the tribunes and prefects, each exalting his own deeds, mingled false with true or things greater than the truth. The common soldiers too with shout and joy turned aside from the road, recognized the spaces of their struggles, gazed and marveled at the heap of arms, the piles of bodies; and there were those whom the changing lot of affairs, and tears, and pity stole upon. But Vitellius did not turn away his eyes nor shudder at so many thousands of unburied citizens: glad rather, and ignorant of his own so near a lot, he was setting up a sacrifice to the gods of the place.

Inde Vitellius Cremonam flexit et spectato munere Caecinae insistere Bedriacensibus campis ac vestigia recentis victoriae lustrare oculis concupivit, foedum atque atrox spectaculum. intra quadragensimum pugnae diem lacera corpora, trunci artus, putres virorum equorumque formae, infecta tabo humus, protritis arboribus ac frugibus dira vastitas. nec minus inhumana pars viae quam Cremonenses lauru rosaque constraverant, extructis altaribus caesisque victimis regium in morem; quae laeta in praesens mox perniciem ipsis fecere. aderant Valens et Caecina, monstrabantque pugnae locos: hinc inrupisse legionum agmen, hinc equites coortos, inde circumfusas auxiliorum manus: iam tribuni praefectique, sua quisque facta extollentes, falsa vera aut maiora vero miscebant. vulgus quoque militum clamore et gaudio deflectere via, spatia certaminum recognoscere, aggerem armorum, strues corporum intueri mirari; et erant quos varia sors rerum lacrimaeque et misericordia subiret. at non Vitellius flexit oculos nec tot milia insepultorum civium exhorruit: laetus ultro et tam propinquae sortis ignarus instaurabat sacrum dis loci.

Next at Bononia a show of gladiators is given by Fabius Valens, the equipment brought from the City. And the nearer he drew, the more corrupt the march, with players mingled in and herds of eunuchs and the rest of the spirit of Nero’s court; for Nero himself Vitellius celebrated with admiration, having been wont to follow him as he sang, not from necessity, as every most honorable man, but enslaved and bought by luxury and gorging. To open up for Valens and Caecina months free of office, the consulships of others were curtailed, that of Marcus Macer dissembled, as of a leader of the Othonian party; and Valerius Marinus, designated consul by Galba, he put off, with no offense, but as a mild man and one who would bear an injury sluggishly. Pedanius Costa is passed over, displeasing to the prince as one who had dared against Nero and the goader of Verginius, but he alleged other causes; and thanks were rendered to Vitellius besides, by the habit of servitude.

Exim Bononiae a Fabio Valente gladiatorum spectaculum editur, advecto ex urbe cultu. quantoque magis propinquabat, tanto corruptius iter immixtis histrionibus et spadonum gregibus et cetero Neronianae aulae ingenio; namque et Neronem ipsum Vitellius admiratione celebrabat, sectari cantantem solitus, non necessitate, qua honestissimus quisque, sed luxu et saginae mancipatus emptusque. ut Valenti et Caecinae vacuos honoris mensis aperiret, coartati aliorum consulatus, dissimulatus Marci Macri tamquam Othonianarum partium ducis; et Valerium Marinum destinatum a Galba consulem distulit, nulla offensa, sed mitem et iniuriam segniter laturum. Pedanius Costa omittitur, ingratus principi ut adversus Neronem ausus et Verginii extimulator, sed alias protulit causas; actaeque insuper Vitellio gratiae consuetudine servitii.

For no more than a few days, though begun with sharp beginnings, did the falsehood hold. There had arisen a certain man calling himself Scribonianus Camerinus, hidden in Histria through fear of the Neronian times, because there remained the clienteles and lands of the old Crassi and the favor of the name. So, every basest sort being taken into the plot of the story, the credulous crowd, and certain of the soldiers, whether from mistake of the truth or zeal for tumult, gathered eagerly to him, when he was dragged to Vitellius and asked what mortal he was. After no faith was in his words, and he was recognized by his master as a runaway of servile condition, by name Geta, punishment was taken of him in the servile manner.

Non ultra paucos dies quamquam acribus initiis coeptum mendacium valuit. extiterat quidam Scribonianum se Camerinum ferens, Neronianorum temporum metu in Histria occultatum, quod illic clientelae et agri veterum Crassorum ac nominis favor manebat. igitur deterrimo quoque in argumentum fabulae adsumpto vulgus credulum et quidam militum, errore veri seu turbarum studio, certatim adgregabantur, cum pertractus ad Vitellium interrogatusque quisnam mortalium esset. postquam nulla dictis fides et a domino noscebatur condicione fugitivus, nomine Geta, sumptum de eo supplicium in servilem modum.

Scarcely credible to relate is how much of pride and sloth grew up in Vitellius, after scouts from Syria and Judaea announced the East sworn to his allegiance. For although on authorities still vague and uncertain, yet Vespasian was on every lip and in rumor, and for the most part at his name Vitellius was startled: then he himself and his army, as though with no rival, broke out in savagery, lust, and rapine into foreign manners.

Vix credibile memoratu est quantum superbiae socordiaeque Vitellio adoleverit, postquam speculatores e Syria Iudaeaque adactum in verba eius Orientem nuntiavere. nam etsi vagis adhuc et incertis auctoribus erat tamen in ore famaque Vespasianus ac plerumque ad nomen eius Vitellius excitabatur: tum ipse exercitusque, ut nullo aemulo, saevitia libidine raptu in externos mores proruperant.

But Vespasian was surveying war and arms and the forces set far off or near. The soldiery was so ready for him that, as he led the oath and prayed all good things for Vitellius, they heard him in silence; Mucianus’s spirit was neither estranged from Vespasian and more inclined to Titus; the prefect of Egypt, Tiberius Alexander, had joined his counsels; the third legion, because it had passed from Syria into Moesia, he reckoned his own; the other legions of Illyricum were hoped to follow; for the whole army had been inflamed by the arrogance of the soldiers coming from Vitellius, who, savage of body, rough of speech, mocked the rest as their inferiors. But in so great a mass of war there is usually delay; and Vespasian, now raised into hope, sometimes reckoned the adverse: what would that day be on which he should commit to war his sixty years of age and two young sons? In private designs there is a stepping-forward, and, as men will, more or less is taken from fortune: for those who desire empire there is nothing midway between the heights and the precipice.

At Vespasianus bellum armaque et procul vel iuxta sitas viris circumspectabat. miles ipsi adeo paratus ut praeeuntem sacramentum et fausta Vitellio omnia precantem per silentium audierint; Muciani animus nec Vespasiano alienus et in Titum pronior; praefectus Aegypti Ti. Alexander consilia sociaverat; tertiam legionem, quod e Syria in Moesiam transisset, suam numerabat; ceterae Illyrici legiones secuturae sperabantur; namque omnis exercitus flammaverat adrogantia venientium a Vitellio militum, quod truces corpore, horridi sermone ceteros ut imparis inridebant. sed in tanta mole belli plerumque cunctatio; et Vespasianus modo in spem erectus, aliquando adversa reputabat: quis ille dies foret quo sexaginta aetatis annos et duos filios iuvenes bello permitteret? esse privatis cogitationibus progressum et, prout velint, plus minusve sumi ex fortuna: imperium cupientibus nihil medium inter summa aut praecipitia.

The strength of the German army stood before his eyes, known to a military man: his own legions untried in civil war, those of Vitellius victorious, and among the vanquished more of complaints than of strength. Loyalty fluid through the soldiers’ discords, and danger from single men: for what would cohorts and wings profit, if one or another, by a present crime, should seek the reward made ready from the other side? So Scribonianus had been killed under Claudius, so his slayer Volaginius advanced from a common soldier to the heights of the service: easier to drive on the whole than to escape single men.

Versabatur ante oculos Germanici exercitus robur, notum viro militari: suas legiones civili bello inexpertas, Vitellii victricis, et apud victos plus querimoniarum quam virium. fluxam per discordias militum fidem et periculum ex singulis: quid enim profuturas cohortis alasque, si unus al- terve praesenti facinore paratum ex diverso praemium petat? sic Scribonianum sub Claudio interfectum, sic percussorem eius Volaginium e gregario ad summa militiae provectum: facilius universos impelli quam singulos vitari.

Him, wavering through these fears, both other legates and friends strengthened, and Mucianus, after many secret conversations, now also openly spoke thus: "All who undertake the counsels of great affairs ought to weigh whether what is begun is useful to the commonwealth, glorious to themselves, ready in the doing or at least not arduous; and at the same time he who advises is to be considered—whether he adds his own peril to the counsel, and, if fortune attend the undertaking, for whom the highest honor is won. I call you, Vespasian, to empire—how salutary to the commonwealth, how magnificent for you, next after the gods lies in your own hand. And do not dread the appearance of a flatterer: it were nearer to an insult than to praise to be chosen after Vitellius. We rise not against the keenest mind of the deified Augustus, nor against the most cautious old age of Tiberius, nor even against the house of Gaius or Claudius or Nero, founded by a long reign; you have yielded even to the images of Galba: to lie torpid further and leave the commonwealth to be polluted and ruined would seem sloth and cowardice, even if servitude were as safe for you as it is dishonorable. The time is gone and past in which you could seem not to have wished it: empire is the only refuge. Or has the butchered Corbulo slipped your mind? More splendid in origin than we are, I grant; but Nero too surpassed Vitellius in the nobility of his birth. Illustrious enough, in the eyes of one who fears, is whoever is feared. And that a prince can be made by an army, Vitellius is his own proof, advanced by no campaigns, no military fame, but by hatred of Galba. Not even Otho was beaten by a general’s art or an army’s force, but by his own too-hasty despair, and Vitellius has already made him a longed-for and great prince, while meanwhile he scatters his legions, disarms his cohorts, and daily ministers new seeds for war. If the soldier had any ardor and fierceness, it is worn away in cookshops and carousals and the imitation of his prince: to you, from Judaea and Syria and Egypt, are nine legions entire, exhausted by no battle, corrupted by no discord, but a soldiery hardened by use and the tamer of a foreign war: the strength of fleets, wings, cohorts, and most faithful kings, and your own experience above all."

His pavoribus nutantem et alii legati amicique firmabant et Mucianus, post multos secretosque sermones iam et coram ita locutus: ’omnes, qui magnarum rerum consilia suscipiunt, aestimare debent an quod inchoatur rei publicae utile, ipsis gloriosum, promptum effectu aut certe non arduum sit; simul ipse qui suadet considerandus est, adiciatne consilio periculum suum, et, si fortuna coeptis adfuerit, cui summum decus adquiratur. ego te, Vespasiane, ad imperium voco, quam salutare rei publicae, quam tibi magnificum, iuxta deos in tua manu positum est. nec speciem adulantis expaveris: a contumelia quam a laude propius fuerit post Vitellium eligi. non adversus divi Augusti acerrimam mentem nec adversus cautissimam Tiberii senectutem, ne contra Gai quidem aut Claudii vel Neronis fundatam longo imperio domum exurgimus; cessisti etiam Galbae imaginibus: torpere ultra et polluendam perdendamque rem publicam relinquere sopor et ignavia videretur, etiam si tibi quam inhonesta, tam tuta servitus esset. abiit iam et transvectum est tempus quo posses videri non cupisse: confugiendum est ad imperium. an excidit trucidatus Corbulo? splendidior origine quam nos sumus, fateor, sed et Nero nobilitate natalium Vitellium anteibat. satis clarus est apud timentem quisquis timetur. et posse ab exercitu principem fieri sibi ipse Vitellius documento, nullis stipendiis, nulla militari fama, Galbae odio provectus. ne Othonem quidem ducis arte aut exercitus vi, sed praepropera ipsius desperatione victum, iam desiderabilem et magnum principem fecit, cum interim spargit legiones, exarmat cohortis, nova cotidie bello semina ministrat. si quid ardoris ac ferociae miles habuit, popinis et comissationibus et principis imitatione deteritur: tibi e Iudaea et Syria et Aegypto novem legiones integrae, nulla acie exhaustae, non discordia corruptae, sed firmatus usu miles et belli domitor externi: classium alarum cohortium robora et fidissimi reges et tua ante omnis experientia.’

"For myself I shall claim nothing further than that I be not reckoned after Valens and Caecina: yet do not spurn Mucianus as a partner because you do not find him a rival. I set myself before Vitellius, you before myself. To your house belongs a triumphal name, two young men, the one already capable of empire and, in his first years of soldiering, famous even among the German armies. It were absurd not to yield the empire to him whose son I should be about to adopt, if I myself reigned. For the rest, between us the order of prosperity and adversity will not be the same: for if we conquer, I shall have the honor you give me; the hazard and dangers we shall suffer in equal share. Nay—as is better—rule you your own armies, hand to me the war and the uncertainties of battles. The conquered today act under a sharper discipline than the conquerors. These, anger, hatred, and the desire of vengeance kindle to valor; those, through disdain and contumacy, grow dull. The war itself will open and lay bare the covered and swelling wounds of the victorious party; nor is my confidence greater in your vigilance, thrift, wisdom, than in Vitellius’s torpor, ignorance, savagery. But we have a better cause in war than in peace; for those who deliberate have already revolted."

’Nobis nihil ultra adrogabo quam ne post Valentem et Caecinam numeremur: ne tamen Mucianum socium spreveris, quia aemulum non experiris. me Vitellio antepono, te mihi. tuae domui triumphale nomen, duo iuvenes, capax iam imperii alter et primis militiae annis apud Germanicos quoque exercitus clarus. absurdum fuerit non cedere imperio ei cuius filium adoptaturus essem, si ipse imperarem. ceterum inter nos non idem prosperarum adversarumque rerum ordo erit: nam si vincimus, honorem quem dederis habebo: discrimen ac pericula ex aequo patiemur. immo, ut melius est, tu tuos exercitus rege, mihi bellum et proeliorum incerta trade. acriore hodie disciplina victi quam victores agunt. hos ira, odium, ultionis cupiditas ad virtutem accendit: illi per fastidium et contumacia hebescunt. aperiet et recludet contecta et tumescentia victricium partium vulnera bellum ipsum; nec mihi maior in tua vigilantia parsimonia sapientia fiducia est quam in Vitellii torpore inscitia saevitia. sed me- liorem in bello causam quam in pace habemus; nam qui deliberant, desciverunt.’

After Mucianus’s speech the rest stood round more boldly, exhorting, reporting the responses of seers and the motions of the stars. Nor was Vespasian untouched by such superstition, as one who soon, lord of affairs, openly kept a certain Seleucus, an astrologer, as his guide and foreteller. Old omens recurred to his mind: a cypress tree on his lands, conspicuous for its height, had suddenly fallen, and the next day, rising again from the same spot, grew tall and broader green. A great and prosperous thing, by the consent of the soothsayers, and the highest distinction was promised to Vespasian while still quite young; but at first the triumphal honors and the consulship and the glory of the Jewish victory seemed to fulfill the omen: when he had attained these, he believed empire was portended to him. Between Judaea and Syria is Carmel: so they call the mountain and the god. Nor is there an image of the god or a temple—so the forefathers handed down—: only an altar and reverence. As Vespasian sacrificed there, turning hidden hopes in his mind, Basilides the priest, after repeatedly inspecting the entrails, said: "Whatever it is, Vespasian, that you are preparing—whether to build a house, or to extend your lands, or to enlarge your slaves—there is given you a great seat, vast boundaries, a multitude of men." These riddling words rumor had at once caught up and now laid open; nor was anything more on the lips of the crowd. The talk was more frequent in his own presence, the more being said to those who hope. With their purpose by no means doubtful they parted, Mucianus to Antioch, Vespasian to Caesarea: the one the capital of Syria, the other of Judaea.

Post Muciani orationem ceteri audentius circumsistere, hortari, responsa vatum et siderum motus referre. nec erat intactus tali superstitione, ut qui mox rerum dominus Seleucum quendam mathematicum rectorem et praescium palam habuerit. recursabant animo vetera omina: cupressus arbor in agris eius conspicua altitudine repente prociderat ac postera die eodem vestigio resurgens procera et latior virebat. grande id prosperumque consensu haruspicum et summa claritudo iuveni admodum Vespasiano promissa, sed primo triumphalia et consulatus et Iudaicae victoriae decus implesse fidem ominis videbatur: ut haec adeptus est, portendi sibi imperium credebat. est Iudaeam inter Syriamque Carmelus: ita vocant montem deumque. nec simulacrum deo aut templum—sic tradidere maiores—: ara tantum et reverentia. illic sacrificanti Vespasiano, cum spes occultas versaret animo, Basilides sacerdos inspectis identidem extis ’quicquid est’ inquit, ’Vespasiane, quod paras, seu domum extruere seu prolatare agros sive ampliare servitia, datur tibi magna sedes, ingentes termini, multum hominum.’ has ambages et statim exceperat fama et tunc aperiebat; nec quicquam magis in ore vulgi. crebriores apud ipsum sermones, quanto sperantibus plura dicuntur. haud dubia destinatione discessere Mucianus Antiochiam, Vespasianus Caesaream: illa Syriae, hoc Iudaeae caput est.

The beginning of bringing the empire to Vespasian was begun at Alexandria, Tiberius Alexander hastening, who on the kalends of July bound the legions to his oath. And that day was thereafter celebrated as the first of the principate, although the Jewish army on the fifth before the nones of July had sworn before him, with such ardor that not even Titus his son was awaited, returning from Syria and a messenger of the counsels between Mucianus and his father. All was done by the soldiers’ impulse, with no meeting prepared, the legions not joined together.

Initium ferendi ad Vespasianum imperii Alexandriae coeptum, festinante Tiberio Alexandro, qui kalendis Iuliis sacramento eius legiones adegit. isque primus principatus dies in posterum celebratus, quamvis Iudaicus exercitus quinto nonas Iulias apud ipsum iurasset, eo ardore ut ne Titus quidem filius expectaretur, Syria remeans et consiliorum inter Mucianum ac patrem nuntius. cuncta impetu militum acta non parata contione, non coniunctis legionibus.

While the time, the place, and—what in such a matter is most difficult—the first utterance was being sought, while hope, fear, reason, chance passed before his mind, as Vespasian came out of his chamber a few soldiers, standing in the wonted order as though to salute a legate, saluted him emperor: then the rest ran up, heaping on him Caesar and Augustus and all the titles of the principate. His mind had passed from fear to fortune: in himself there was nothing swollen, arrogant, or new amid new things. As soon as he had scattered the mist that so great a height had cast over his eyes, speaking like a soldier he received everything glad and abundant; for, awaiting that very thing, Mucianus bound the eager soldier to Vespasian’s allegiance. Then, having entered the theatre of the Antiochenes, where it is their custom to deliberate, he addresses the throng, poured out into flattery—comely enough even in Greek eloquence, and an ostentatious displayer, by a certain art, of all he said and did. Nothing so fired the province and the army as that Mucianus asserted Vitellius had resolved to transfer the German legions to Syria, to a service rich and quiet, while on the contrary for the Syrian legions the German winter quarters, harsh in climate and toils, should be exchanged; for the provincials too rejoiced in the wonted company of the soldiers, many mingled by ties and kinships, and by the soldiers the camps, known and familiar by the long course of their service, were loved in the manner of household gods.

Dum quaeritur tempus locus quodque in re tali difficillimum est, prima vox, dum animo spes timor, ratio casus obversantur, egressum cubiculo Vespasianum pauci milites, solito adsistentes ordine ut legatum salutaturi, imperatorem salutavere: tum ceteri adcurrere, Caesarem et Augustum et omnia principatus vocabula cumulare. mens a metu ad fortunam transierat: in ipso nihil tumidum, adrogans aut in rebus novis novum fuit. ut primum tantae altitudinis obfusam oculis caliginem disiecit, militariter locutus laeta omnia et affluentia excepit; namque id ipsum opperiens Mucianus alacrem militem in verba Vespasiani adegit. tum Antiochensium theatrum ingressus, ubi illis consultare mos est, concurrentis et in adulationem effusos adloquitur, satis decorus etiam Graeca facundia, omniumque quae diceret atque ageret arte quadam ostentator. nihil aeque provinciam exercitumque accendit quam quod adseverabat Mucianus statuisse Vitellium ut Germanicas legiones in Syriam ad militiam opulentam quietamque transferret, contra Syriacis legionibus Germanica hiberna caelo ac laboribus dura mutarentur; quippe et provinciales sueto militum contubernio gaudebant, plerique necessitudinibus et propinquitatibus mixti, et militibus vetustate stipendiorum nota et familiaria castra in modum penatium diligebantur.

Before the ides of July all Syria was in the same oath. There acceded, with his kingdom, Sohaemus, of no contemptible forces, Antiochus, vast in ancient wealth and the richest of the subject kings. Soon, roused by the secret messages of his people, Agrippa, with Vitellius still unaware, had hastened by swift sailing from the City. Nor with less spirit did Queen Berenice aid the party, flourishing in age and beauty, and pleasing even to the aged Vespasian by the magnificence of her gifts. Whatever of the provinces is washed by the sea as far as Asia and Achaia, and as much as opens inward toward Pontus and the Armenians, took the oath; but unarmed legates governed, the legions of Cappadocia not yet added. A council on the sum of affairs was held at Berytus. Thither Mucianus came with legates and tribunes and the most splendid of the centurions and soldiers, and from the Jewish army picked men of distinction: so great an array at once of foot and horse, and of kings vying with one another, had wrought the look of princely fortune.

Ante idus Iulias Syria omnis in eodem sacramento fuit. accessere cum regno Sohaemus haud spernendis viribus, Antiochus vetustis opibus ingens et servientium regum ditissimus. mox per occultos suorum nuntios excitus ab urbe Agrippa, ignaro adhuc Vitellio, celeri navigatione properaverat. nec minore animo regina Berenice partis iuvabat, florens aetate formaque et seni quoque Vespasiano magnificentia munerum grata. quidquid provinciarum adluitur mari Asia atque Achaia tenus, quantumque introrsus in Pontum et Armenios patescit, iuravere; sed inermes legati regebant, nondum additis Cappadociae legionibus. consilium de summa rerum Beryti habitum. illuc Mucianus cum legatis tribunisque et splendidissimo quoque centurionum ac militum venit, et e Iudaico exercitu lecta decora: tantum simul peditum equitumque et aemulantium inter se regum paratus speciem fortunae principalis effecerant.

The first care of the war was to hold levies, to recall veterans; the strong cities are appointed for the working of arms-factories; among the Antiochenes gold and silver is coined, and all these things were hurried on, each in its place, through fit ministers. Vespasian himself went round, exhorting, urging on the good by praise, the sluggish by example, more often than by coercion, dissembling the vices of his friends rather than their virtues. Many he honored with prefectures and procuratorships, very many with the honor of the senatorial order—excellent men, who soon attained the heights; for some, fortune stood in place of virtues. A donative to the soldier neither had Mucianus, in his first meeting, held out save modestly, nor did Vespasian himself offer more in civil war than others in peace, excellently firm against military largesse and therefore with a better army. Legates were sent to the Parthian and the Armenian, and it was provided that, with the legions turned to civil war, their backs not be left bare. It was resolved that Titus press Judaea, Vespasian hold the keys of Egypt: it seemed enough against Vitellius—a part of the forces, the general Mucianus, and Vespasian’s name, and nothing arduous to the fates. To all the armies and legates letters were written, and it was enjoined that they invite the praetorians, hostile to Vitellius, by the reward of recovering their service.

Prima belli cura agere dilectus, revocare veteranos; destinantur validae civitates exercendis armorum officinis; apud Antiochensis aurum argentumque signatur, eaque cuncta per idoneos ministros suis quaeque locis festinabantur. ipse Vespasianus adire, hortari, bonos laude, segnis exemplo incitare saepius quam coercere, vitia magis amicorum quam virtutes dissimulans. multos praefecturis et procurationibus, plerosque senatorii ordinis honore percoluit, egregios viros et mox summa adeptos; quibusdam fortuna pro virtutibus fuit. donativum militi neque Mucianus prima contione nisi modice ostenderat, ne Vespasianus quidem plus civili bello obtulit quam alii in pace, egregie firmus adversus militarem largitionem eoque exercitu meliore. missi ad Par- thum Armeniumque legati, provisumque ne versis ad civile bellum legionibus terga nudarentur. Titum instare Iudaeae, Vespasianum obtinere claustra Aegypti placuit: sufficere videbantur adversus Vitellium pars copiarum et dux Mucianus et Vespasiani nomen ac nihil arduum fatis. ad omnis exercitus legatosque scriptae epistulae praeceptumque ut praetorianos Vitellio infensos reciperandae militiae praemio invitarent.

Mucianus, with a light-armed band, acting more as a partner of empire than a minister, by no slow march, lest he seem to delay, nor yet hastening, let his fame swell by the very interval, knowing that his forces were modest and that more is believed of the absent; but the sixth legion and thirteen thousand detached men followed in a vast column. He had ordered the fleet from Pontus brought to Byzantium, uncertain in counsel whether, Moesia abandoned, he should hold Dyrrachium with foot and horse, and at the same time, with warships, close the sea turned toward Italy—Achaia and Asia safe behind his back, which, unarmed, were exposed to Vitellius, unless they were secured by garrisons; and Vitellius himself would be in uncertainty which part of Italy to protect, if Brundisium and Tarentum and the shores of Calabria and Lucania were assailed with hostile fleets.

Mucianus cum expedita manu, socium magis imperii quam ministrum agens, non lento itinere, ne cunctari videretur, neque tamen properans, gliscere famam ipso spatio sinebat, gnarus modicas viris sibi et maiora credi de absentibus; sed legio sexta et tredecim vexillariorum milia ingenti agmine sequebantur. classem e Ponto Byzantium adigi iusserat, ambiguus consilii num omissa Moesia Dyrrachium pedite atque equite, simul longis navibus versum in Italiam mare clauderet, tuta pone tergum Achaia Asiaque, quas inermis exponi Vitellio, ni praesidiis firmarentur; atque ipsum Vitellium in incerto fore quam partem Italiae protegeret, si sibi Brundisium Tarentumque et Calabriae Lucaniaeque litora infestis classibus peterentur.

So the provinces resounded with the preparation of ships, soldiers, arms, but nothing so wore them down as the hunting-out of monies: declaring these to be the sinews of civil war, Mucianus looked in his inquiries not to right or truth, but to the mere greatness of resources. Everywhere informings, and every richest man was seized as plunder. These grievous and intolerable things, excused by the necessity of arms, remained even in peace, Vespasian himself, at the outset of his reign, not so resolved to maintain inequities, until, by the indulgence of fortune and crooked teachers, he learned and dared. With his own resources too Mucianus aided the war, lavish in private that he might take the more greedily from the commonwealth. The rest followed his example of contributing money, very few had the same license in recovering it.

Igitur navium militum armorum paratu strepere provinciae, sed nihil aeque fatigabat quam pecuniarum conquisitio: eos esse belli civilis nervos dictitans Mucianus non ius aut verum in cognitionibus, sed solam magnitudinem opum spectabat. passim delationes, et locupletissimus quisque in praedam correpti. quae gravia atque intoleranda, sed necessitate armorum excusata etiam in pace mansere, ipso Vespasiano inter initia imperii ad obtinendas iniquitates haud perinde obstinante, donec indulgentia fortunae et pravis ma- gistris didicit aususque est. propriis quoque opibus Mucianus bellum iuvit, largus privatim, quod avidius de re publica sumeret. ceteri conferendarum pecuniarum exemplum secuti, rarissimus quisque eandem in reciperando licentiam habuerunt.

Meanwhile Vespasian’s undertakings were hastened by the zeal of the Illyrian army crossing over to the party: the third legion gave the example to the other legions of Moesia; the eighth there was, and the seventh Claudiana, steeped in favor for Otho, though they had not been present at the battle. Advanced to Aquileia, the men who brought news of Otho driven off and the standards torn that displayed Vitellius’s name, at last money seized and divided among them, they had acted in hostile fashion. Hence fear, and from fear counsel: that to Vespasian might be imputed what with Vitellius had to be excused. So the three Moesian legions sought by letters to allure the Pannonian army, or, if it refused, prepared force. In that commotion Aponius Saturninus, governor of Moesia, dares a most evil deed, a centurion sent to kill Tettius Julianus, legate of the seventh legion, on account of feuds for which he pretended the party as the cause. Julianus, the danger discovered and men knowing the country taken with him, fled through the trackless parts of Moesia beyond Mount Haemus; nor thereafter took part in the civil war, dragging out by various delays his journey, undertaken, to Vespasian, and, by the news, now hanging back, now hurrying.

Adcelerata interim Vespasiani coepta Illyrici exercitus studio transgressi in partis: tertia legio exemplum ceteris Moesiae legionibus praebuit; octava erat ac septima Claudiana, imbutae favore Othonis, quamvis proelio non interfuissent. Aquileiam progressae, proturbatis qui de Othone nuntiabant laceratisque vexillis nomen Vitellii praeferentibus, rapta postremo pecunia et inter se divisa, hostiliter egerant. unde metus et ex metu consilium, posse imputari Vespasiano quae apud Vitellium excusanda erant. ita tres Moesicae legiones per epistulas adliciebant Pannonicum exercitum aut abnuenti vim parabant. in eo motu Aponius Saturninus Moesiae rector pessimum facinus audet, misso centurione ad interficiendum Tettium Iulianum septimae legionis legatum ob simultates, quibus causam partium praetendebat. Iulianus comperto discrimine et gnaris locorum adscitis per avia Moesiae ultra montem Haemum profugit; nec deinde civili bello interfuit, per varias moras susceptum ad Vespasianum iter trahens et ex nuntiis cunctabundus aut properans.

But in Pannonia the thirteenth legion and the seventh Galbiana, keeping the grief and wrath of the battle of Bedriacum, came over to Vespasian without hesitation, chiefly by the force of Antonius Primus. He, guilty before the laws and condemned for forgery in Nero’s time, had among the other evils of war recovered the senatorial order. Set over the seventh legion by Galba, he was believed to have written often to Otho, offering himself as a leader to the party; neglected by him, he had been of no use in the Othonian war. With Vitellius’s affairs tottering, following Vespasian, he added great weight—vigorous of hand, ready of speech, an artist in sowing odium against others, powerful in discords and mutinies, a plunderer, a giver, in peace the worst, in war not to be despised. The Moesian and Pannonian armies, joined thereupon, drew on the Dalmatian soldier, though the consular legates raised no disturbance. Tampius Flavianus held Pannonia, Pompeius Silvanus Dalmatia, rich old men; but the procurator was at hand, Cornelius Fuscus, in the vigor of his age, of illustrious birth. In his first youth, from desire of quiet, he had laid aside the senatorial order; the same man, a leader for Galba of his own colony, and by that service having gained a procuratorship, on taking up Vespasian’s party held out the keenest torch to the war: glad not so much in the rewards of dangers as in the dangers themselves, he preferred new, doubtful, double-edged things to the certain and long since gained. So they set to moving and shaking whatever anywhere was sick. Letters were written into Britain to the men of the fourteenth, into Spain to the men of the first, because each legion had been for Otho, against Vitellius; letters are scattered through the Gallic provinces; and in a moment of time a vast war was ablaze, the Illyrian armies openly revolting, the rest about to follow fortune.

At in Pannonia tertia decima legio ac septima Galbiana, dolorem iramque Bedriacensis pugnae retinentes, haud cunctanter Vespasiano accessere, vi praecipua Primi Antonii. is legibus nocens et tempore Neronis falsi damnatus inter alia belli mala senatorium ordinem reciperaverat. praepositus a Galba septimae legioni scriptitasse Othoni credebatur, ducem se partibus offerens; a quo neglectus in nullo Otho- niani belli usu fuit. labantibus Vitellii rebus Vespasianum secutus grande momentum addidit, strenuus manu, sermone promptus, serendae in alios invidiae artifex, discordiis et seditionibus potens, raptor, largitor, pace pessimus, bello non spernendus. iuncti inde Moesici ac Pannonici exercitus Dalmaticum militem traxere, quamquam consularibus legatis nihil turbantibus. Tampius Flavianus Pannoniam, Pompeius Silvanus Dalmatiam tenebant, divites senes; sed procurator aderat Cornelius Fuscus, vigens aetate, claris natalibus. prima iuventa quietis cupidine senatorium ordinem exuerat; idem pro Galba dux coloniae suae, eaque opera procurationem adeptus, susceptis Vespasiani partibus acerrimam bello facem praetulit: non tam praemiis periculorum quam ipsis periculis laetus pro certis et olim partis nova ambigua ancipitia malebat. igitur movere et quatere, quidquid usquam aegrum foret, adgrediuntur. scriptae in Britanniam ad quartadecimanos, in Hispaniam ad primanos epistulae, quod utraque legio pro Othone, adversa Vitellio fuerat; sparguntur per Gallias litterae; momentoque temporis flagrabat ingens bellum, Illyricis exercitibus palam desciscentibus, ceteris fortunam secuturis.

While these things are done through the provinces by Vespasian and the leaders of the party, Vitellius, more contemptible day by day and more sluggish, halting at all the pleasant spots of the towns and villas, made for the City with a heavy column. Sixty thousand armed men followed, corrupted by license; the number of camp-servants larger, the dispositions of the sutlers most insolent even among slaves; the retinue of so many legates and friends unfit for obeying, even had it been ruled with the utmost restraint. The multitude was burdened by senators and knights coming out to meet them from the City, some from fear, many through flattery, the rest, and by degrees all, lest, while others set out, they themselves remain behind. There gathered from the shameful plebs men known to Vitellius by their compliances—buffoons, players, charioteers—in whom he wondrously delighted, the disgraces of his friendships. Nor were the colonies and towns only laid waste by the heaping-up of supplies, but the very cultivators and fields, their crops now ripe, were ravaged as though hostile ground.

Dum haec per provincias a Vespasiano ducibusque partium geruntur, Vitellius contemptior in dies segniorque, ad omnis municipiorum villarumque amoenitates resistens, gravi urbem agmine petebat. sexaginta milia armatorum sequebantur, licentia corrupta; calonum numerus amplior, procacissimis etiam inter servos lixarum ingeniis; tot legatorum amicorumque comitatus inhabilis ad parendum, etiam si summa modestia regeretur. onerabant multitudinem obvii ex urbe senatores equitesque, quidam metu, multi per adulationem, ceteri ac paulatim omnes ne aliis proficiscentibus ipsi remanerent. adgregabantur e plebe flagitiosa per obsequia Vitellio cogniti, scurrae, histriones, aurigae, quibus ille amicitiarum dehonestamentis mire gaudebat. nec coloniae modo aut municipia congestu copiarum, sed ipsi cultores arvaque maturis iam frugibus ut hostile solum vastabantur.

Many and atrocious were the soldiers’ slaughters of one another, the discord of legions and auxiliaries remaining after the mutiny begun at Ticinum; but where there was need to contend against townsmen, by agreement. But the greatest carnage was at the seventh milestone from the City. There Vitellius distributed to each soldier ready food, like a gladiator’s provender; and the plebs, poured out, had mingled throughout the whole camp. The careless soldiers some plundered—they used a native-bred city wit—cutting their belts off by stealth and asking whether they were girt. The spirit, unused to insults, did not bear the mockery: with their swords they fell upon the unarmed people. Among others a soldier’s father was killed, while he accompanied his son; then, recognized and the killing made known, they spared the innocent. In the City, however, there was alarm, the soldiers running ahead in all directions; they made chiefly for the forum, from a desire to see the place where Galba had lain. Nor were they themselves a less savage spectacle, bristling with the hides of beasts and huge weapons, as, through inexperience, they ill avoided the throng of the people, or, where they had fallen on the slippery street or at someone’s encounter, they passed to wrangling, soon to blows and the sword. Nay, even the tribunes and prefects flitted about with terror and bands of armed men.

Multae et atroces inter se militum caedes, post seditionem Ticini coeptam manente legionum auxiliorumque discordia; ubi adversus paganos certandum foret, consensu. sed plurima strages ad septimum ab urbe lapidem. singulis ibi militibus Vitellius paratos cibos ut gladiatoriam saginam dividebat; et effusa plebes totis se castris miscuerat. incuriosos milites—vernacula utebantur urbanitate—quidam spoliavere, abscisis furtim balteis an accincti forent rogitantes. non tulit ludibrium insolens contumeliarum animus: inermem populum gladiis invasere. caesus inter alios pater militis, cum filium comitaretur; deinde agnitus et vulgata caede temperatum ab innoxiis. in urbe tamen trepidatum praecurrentibus passim militibus; forum maxime petebant, cupidine visendi locum in quo Galba iacuisset. nec minus saevum spectaculum erant ipsi, tergis ferarum et ingentibus telis horrentes, cum turbam populi per inscitiam parum vitarent, aut ubi lubrico viae vel occursu alicuius procidissent, ad iurgium, mox ad manus et ferrum transirent. quin et tribuni praefectique cum terrore et armatorum catervis volitabant.

Vitellius himself, from the Mulvian bridge, on a conspicuous horse, in a general’s cloak and girt, driving the Senate and people before him, was deterred by his friends’ counsel from entering as though a captured city, and, the bordered toga assumed and the column ordered, advanced. The eagles of four legions across the front, and as many standards around from other legions, then the ensigns of twelve wings, and after the ranks of foot the horse; then four and thirty cohorts, distinguished according as the names of the nations or the kinds of arms were. Before the eagles the prefects of the camp and the tribunes and the chief centurions in white robes, the rest each beside his own century, gleaming with arms and decorations; and the soldiers’ trappings and collars shone: a comely sight, and an army not worthy of a prince like Vitellius. So having entered the Capitol, and there embracing his mother, he honored her with the name of Augusta.

Ipse Vitellius a ponte Mulvio insigni equo, paludatus accinctusque, senatum et populum ante se agens, quo minus ut captam urbem ingrederetur, amicorum consilio deterritus, sumpta praetexta et composito agmine incessit. quattuor legionum aquilae per frontem totidemque circa e legionibus aliis vexilla, mox duodecim alarum signa et post peditum ordines eques; dein quattuor et triginta cohortes, ut nomina gentium aut species armorum forent, discretae. ante aquilas praefecti castrorum tribunique et primi centurionum candida veste, ceteri iuxta suam quisque centuriam, armis donisque fulgentes; et militum phalerae torquesque splendebant: decora facies et non Vitellio principe dignus exercitus. sic Capitolium ingressus atque ibi matrem complexus Augustae nomine honoravit.

The next day, as though before the Senate and people of another state, he delivered a magnificent oration about himself, exalting his own industry and temperance with praises—the very men present, and all Italy, through which he had passed shameful with sleep and luxury, being conscious of his outrages. The crowd, however, free of cares and without discrimination of false and true, taught the wonted flatteries, clamored and clattered with their voices; and, as he refused the name of Augustus, they wrung it from him that he assume it, as vainly as he had declined it.

Postera die tamquam apud alterius civitatis senatum populumque magnificam orationem de semet ipso prompsit, industriam temperantiamque suam laudibus attollens, consciis flagitiorum ipsis qui aderant omnique Italia, per quam somno et luxu pudendus incesserat. vulgus tamen vacuum curis et sine falsi verique discrimine solitas adulationes edoctum clamore et vocibus adstrepebat; abnuentique nomen Augusti expressere ut adsumeret, tam frustra quam recusaverat.

With a state that construes everything, it was received in the place of a deadly omen that Vitellius, having attained the supreme pontificate, had issued an edict concerning the public ceremonies on the seventeenth before the kalends of August, a day from of old ill-starred by the disasters of the Cremera and the Allia: so devoid of all law human and divine, with the like sloth of his freedmen and friends, he carried on as though among drunken men. But, celebrating the comitia of the consuls with the candidates in citizen fashion, he courted every rumor of the lowest plebs, in the theatre as a spectator, in the circus as a partisan: things pleasing indeed and popular, if they had proceeded from virtues, but, by the memory of his former life, received as unseemly and cheap. He came often into the Senate, even when the fathers were consulted on small matters. And by chance Helvidius Priscus, praetor-designate, had given his opinion against his wish. Vitellius, at first moved, yet no further than to call the tribunes of the plebs to the aid of his slighted authority; soon, his friends softening him, who feared his deeper anger, he answered that nothing new had happened in that two senators disagreed in the commonwealth; that he too had been wont to speak against Thrasea. Most laughed at the impudence of the comparison; to others that very thing pleased, that he had chosen no one of the over-mighty, but Thrasea, as the model of true glory.

Apud civitatem cuncta interpretantem funesti ominis loco acceptum est quod maximum pontificatum adeptus Vitellius de caerimoniis publicis xv kalendas Augustas edixisset, antiquitus infausto die Cremerensi Alliensique cladibus: adeo omnis humani divinique iuris expers, pari libertorum amicorum socordia, velut inter temulentos agebat. sed comitia consulum cum candidatis civiliter celebrans omnem infimae plebis rumorem in theatro ut spectator, in circo ut fautor adfectavit: quae grata sane et popularia, si a virtutibus proficiscerentur, memoria vitae prioris indecora et vilia accipiebantur. ventitabat in senatum, etiam cum par- vis de rebus patres consulerentur. ac forte Priscus Helvidius praetor designatus contra studium eius censuerat. commotus primo Vitellius, non tamen ultra quam tribunos plebis in auxilium spretae potestatis advocavit; mox mitigantibus amicis, qui altiorem iracundiam eius verebantur, nihil novi accidisse respondit quod duo senatores in re publica dissentirent; solitum se etiam Thraseae contra dicere. inrisere plerique impudentiam aemulationis; aliis id ipsum placebat quod neminem ex praepotentibus, sed Thraseam ad exemplar verae gloriae legisset.

He had set over the praetorians Publilius Sabinus, from the prefecture of a cohort, and Julius Priscus, then a centurion: Priscus prevailed by Valens’s favor, Sabinus by Caecina’s; among men at discord Vitellius had no authority. The duties of empire Caecina and Valens discharged, long anxious with hatreds, which in war and camp the ill-dissembled depravity of their friends, and a state fertile in begetting enmities, had heightened, while they contend and are compared in canvassing, retinue, and the immense throngs of those who saluted them, with Vitellius’s varying inclinations toward this man or that; nor is power ever faithful enough when it is excessive: at the same time they despised and feared Vitellius himself, changeable by sudden offenses or untimely flatteries. Nor for that the more slowly had they seized the houses, gardens, and resources of the empire, while the tearful and needy throng of nobles, whom and whose children Galba had restored to their country, were aided by no mercy of the prince. Grateful to the chief men of the state, the plebs too approved that he had granted to those returned from exile the rights over their freedmen, although the servile dispositions corrupted that in every way, hiding their monies in secret or interested bosoms, and some, crossing into the house of the Caesar, more powerful than the masters themselves.

Praeposuerat praetorianis Publilium Sabinum a praefectura cohortis, Iulium Priscum tum centurionem: Priscus Valentis, Sabinus Caecinae gratia pollebant; inter discordis Vitellio nihil auctoritas. munia imperii Caecina ac Valens obibant, olim anxii odiis, quae bello et castris male dissimulata pravitas amicorum et fecunda gignendis inimicitiis civitas auxerat, dum ambitu comitatu et immensis salutantium agminibus contendunt comparanturque, variis in hunc aut illum Vitellii inclinationibus; nec umquam satis fida potentia, ubi nimia est: simul ipsum Vitellium, subitis offensis aut intempestivis blanditiis mutabilem, contemnebant metuebantque. nec eo segnius invaserant domos hortos opesque imperii, cum flebilis et egens nobilium turba, quos ipsos liberosque patriae Galba reddiderat, nulla principis misericordia iuvarentur. gratum primoribus civitatis etiam plebs adprobavit, quod reversis ab exilio iura libertorum concessisset, quamquam id omni modo servilia ingenia corrumpebant, abditis pecuniis per occultos aut ambitiosos sinus, et quidam in domum Caesaris transgressi atque ipsis dominis potentiores.

But the soldier, the camp full and the multitude overflowing, vagrant in porticoes or shrines and through the whole City, neither knew the headquarters, nor kept the watches, nor was hardened by toil: through the allurements of the City and things shameful to tell, they weakened the body by idleness, the mind by lusts. At last, with no care even for their health, a great part encamped in the unhealthy places of the Vatican, whence frequent deaths among the crowd; and, the Tiber adjoining, the bodies of the Germans and Gauls, prone to disease, the greed of the river and their impatience of the heat undermined. Besides, the order of the service was confounded by depravity or canvassing: sixteen praetorian, four urban cohorts were enrolled, in which were a thousand men each. In that levy Valens dared more, as though he had snatched Caecina himself from peril. Indeed by his arrival the party had recovered, and the sinister rumor of his slow march he had turned by a prosperous battle. And all the soldiery of lower Germany attended Valens, whence first, it is believed, Caecina’s loyalty began to waver.

Sed miles, plenis castris et redundante multitudine, in porticibus aut delubris et urbe tota vagus, non principia noscere, non servare vigilias neque labore firmari: per inlecebras urbis et inhonesta dictu corpus otio, animum libidinibus imminuebant. postremo ne salutis quidem cura infamibus Vaticani locis magna pars tetendit, unde crebrae in vulgus mortes; et adiacente Tiberi Germanorum Gallorumque obnoxia morbis corpora fluminis aviditas et aestus impatientia labefecit. insuper confusus pravitate vel ambitu ordo militiae: sedecim praetoriae, quattuor urbanae cohortes scribebantur, quis singula milia inessent. plus in eo dilectu Valens audebat, tamquam ipsum Caecinam periculo exemisset. sane adventu eius partes convaluerant, et sinistrum lenti itineris rumorem prospero proelio verterat. omnisque inferioris Germaniae miles Valentem adsectabatur, unde primum creditur Caecinae fides fluitasse.

For the rest, Vitellius did not so indulge the generals but that more was allowed the soldier. Each took his service for himself: however unworthy, if he so preferred, he was enrolled in the city service; again, to good men wishing to remain among the legionaries or the cavalry it was permitted. Nor were there wanting those who wished it, worn out by diseases and blaming the inclemency of the climate; yet the strength was drawn off from the legions and the wings, the honor of the camps was shaken, twenty thousand from the whole army being mingled rather than chosen.

Ceterum non ita ducibus indulsit Vitellius ut non plus militi liceret. sibi quisque militiam sumpsere: quamvis indignus, si ita maluerat, urbanae militiae adscribebatur; rursus bonis remanere inter legionarios aut alaris volentibus permissum. nec deerant qui vellent, fessi morbis et intemperiem caeli incusantes; robora tamen legionibus alisque subtracta, convulsum castrorum decus, viginti milibus e toto exercitu permixtis magis quam electis.

As Vitellius harangued, there were demanded for punishment Asiaticus and Flavus and Rufinus, leaders of the Gauls, because they had warred for Vindex. Nor did Vitellius check such voices: besides the cowardice implanted in his mind, conscious that the donative pressed and money was lacking, he lavished everything else on the soldier. The freedmen of the emperors were ordered to contribute according to the number of their slaves, as a tribute: he himself, with his sole care to squander, built stables for the charioteers, filled the circus with shows of gladiators and beasts, as though making sport with money in the utmost abundance.

Contionante Vitellio postulantur ad supplicium Asiaticus et Flavus et Rufinus duces Galliarum, quod pro Vindice bellassent. nec coercebat eius modi voces Vitellius: super insitam animo ignaviam conscius sibi instare donativum et deesse pecuniam omnia alia militi largiebatur. liberti principum conferre pro numero mancipiorum ut tributum iussi: ipse sola perdendi cura stabula aurigis extruere, circum gladiatorum ferarumque spectaculis opplere, tamquam in summa abundantia pecuniae inludere.

Nay, even Vitellius’s birthday Caecina and Valens celebrated with gladiators given throughout the City, street by street, with a vast and, before that day, unwonted apparatus. Glad to every basest man, it was a thing of odium among the good, that, altars built in the Campus Martius, he had made funeral offerings to Nero. Victims were slain publicly and burned; the Augustales applied the torch—a priesthood which, as Romulus consecrated to King Tatius, so Tiberius Caesar consecrated to the Julian house. Not yet the fourth month from the victory, and Vitellius’s freedman Asiaticus matched the Polyclituses, the Patrobiuses, and the old names of hatreds. No one in that court vied in probity or industry: one road to power, to glut Vitellius’s insatiable lusts with prodigal feasts and expense and gluttony. He himself, thinking it enough if he enjoyed the present, and taking no counsel for the longer term, is believed to have squandered nine hundred million sesterces in very few months. A great and wretched state, which in the same year endured Otho and Vitellius, was passing, between Vinii, Fabii, Iceli, Asiatici, a varied and shameful lot, until there succeeded Mucianus and Marcellus, and rather other men than other manners.

Quin et natalem Vitellii diem Caecina ac Valens editis tota urbe vicatim gladiatoribus celebravere, ingenti paratu et ante illum diem insolito. laetum foedissimo cuique apud bonos invidiae fuit quod extructis in campo Martio aris inferias Neroni fecisset. caesae publice victimae cremataeque; facem Augustales subdidere, quod sacerdotium, ut Romulus Tatio regi, ita Caesar Tiberius Iuliae genti sacravit. nondum quartus a victoria mensis, et libertus Vitellii Asiaticus Polyclitos Patrobios et vetera odiorum nomina aequabat. nemo in illa aula probitate aut industria certavit: unum ad potentiam iter, prodigis epulis et sumptu ganeaque satiare inexplebilis Vitellii libidines. ipse abunde ratus si praesentibus frueretur, nec in longius consultans, noviens miliens sestertium paucissimis mensibus intervertisse creditur. magna et misera civitas, eodem anno Othonem Vitellium passa, inter Vinios Fabios Icelos Asiaticos varia et pudenda sorte agebat, donec successere Mucianus et Marcellus et magis alii homines quam alii mores.

The first thing announced to Vitellius was the defection of the third legion, letters sent by Aponius Saturninus before he too should join the party of Vespasian; but neither had Aponius written all, alarmed as he was at the sudden affair, and his flattering friends interpreted it more softly: that it was the mutiny of one legion, the loyalty of the other armies stood firm. In this manner too Vitellius discoursed among the soldiers, inveighing against the praetorians lately cashiered, by whom, he asserted, false rumors were spread, and there was no fear of civil war—Vespasian’s name suppressed, and soldiers ranging through the City to check the people’s talk. That was the chief food of the rumor.

Prima Vitellio tertiae legionis defectio nuntiatur, missis ab Aponio Saturnino epistulis, antequam is quoque Vespasiani partibus adgregaretur; sed neque Aponius cuncta, ut trepidans re subita, perscripserat, et amici adulantes mollius interpretabantur: unius legionis eam seditionem, ceteris exercitibus constare fidem. in hunc modum etiam Vitellius apud milites disseruit, praetorianos nuper exauctoratos insectatus, a quibus falsos rumores dispergi, nec ullum civilis belli metum adseverabat, suppresso Vespasiani nomine et vagis per urbem militibus qui sermones populi coercerent. id praecipuum alimentum famae erat.

Yet he called up auxiliaries from Germany and Britain and the Spains, sluggishly and dissembling the necessity. The legates and provinces likewise hung back—Hordeonius Flaccus, the Batavians now suspected, anxious with a war of his own, Vettius Bolanus with a Britain never quiet enough, and both of doubtful mind. Nor was there haste from the Spains, no consular then there: the legates of the three legions, equal in right and, with Vitellius’s affairs prosperous, ready to vie in obedience, in his adverse fortune drew back alike. In Africa the legion and cohorts chosen by Clodius Macer, then disbanded by Galba, again at Vitellius’s order took up the service; at the same time the rest of the youth gave their names briskly. For there Vitellius had conducted a whole and popular proconsulship, Vespasian a notorious and hated one: accordingly the allies guessed about the rule of each, but the trial was the contrary.

Auxilia tamen e Germania Britanniaque et Hispaniis excivit, segniter et necessitatem dissimulans. perinde legati provinciaeque cunctabantur, Hordeonius Flaccus suspectis iam Batavis anxius proprio bello, Vettius Bolanus numquam satis quieta Britannia, et uterque ambigui. neque ex Hispaniis properabatur, nullo tum ibi consulari: trium legionum legati, pares iure et prosperis Vitellii rebus certaturi ad obsequium, adversam eius fortunam ex aequo detrectabant. in Africa legio cohortesque delectae a Clodio Macro, mox a Galba dimissae, rursus iussu Vitellii militiam cepere; simul cetera iuventus dabat impigre nomina. quippe integrum illic ac favorabilem proconsulatum Vitellius, famosum invisumque Vespasianus egerat: proinde socii de imperio utriusque coniectabant, sed experimentum contra fuit.

And at first Valerius Festus, the legate, aided the provincials’ zeal with fidelity; soon he wavered, openly by letters and edicts favoring Vitellius, by secret messages Vespasian, ready to defend this or that, according as they should prevail. Certain soldiers and centurions caught with letters and edicts of Vespasian through Raetia and the Gallic provinces were sent to Vitellius and put to death: more escaped notice, hidden by the loyalty of friends or by their own cunning. So Vitellius’s preparations were known, while most of Vespasian’s plans were unknown—first by Vitellius’s sloth, then because the Pannonian Alps, beset by garrisons, held back the messengers. The sea too, favorable with the blast of the Etesian winds to those sailing toward the East, was adverse from thence.

Ac primo Valerius Festus legatus studia provincialium cum fide iuvit; mox nutabat, palam epistulis edictisque Vitellium, occultis nuntiis Vespasianum fovens et haec illave defensurus, prout invaluissent. deprehensi cum litteris edictisque Vespasiani per Raetiam et Gallias militum et centurionum quidam ad Vitellium missi necantur: plures fefellere, fide amicorum aut suomet astu occultati. ita Vitellii paratus noscebantur, Vespasiani consiliorum pleraque ignota, primum socordia Vitellii, dein Pannonicae Alpes praesidiis insessae nuntios retinebant. mare quoque etesiarum flatu in Orientem navigantibus secundum, inde adversum erat.

At last, terrified by the irruption of the enemy and by atrocious news on every side, he orders Caecina and Valens to get ready for war. Caecina was sent ahead, Valens, then first rising from a grave bodily illness, his weakness delayed. Far other was the look of the German army setting out from the City: no vigor in their bodies, no ardor in their spirits; a slow and straggling column, slack arms, sluggish horses; impatient of sun, dust, storms, and as dull as the soldier was for sustaining toil, so much the readier for discords. There was added to this Caecina’s old ambition, his recent torpor, an excessive indulgence of fortune that had relaxed him into luxury, or—meditating treachery—to break the army’s valor was among his arts. Most believed that Caecina’s mind was shaken by the counsels of Flavius Sabinus, Rubrius Gallus being the minister of the talks: that the terms of his crossing-over would be ratified with Vespasian. At the same time he was reminded of his hatreds and envy toward Fabius Valens, that, the weaker with Vitellius, he should prepare favor and forces with the new prince.

Tandem inruptione hostium atrocibus undique nuntiis exterritus Caecinam ac Valentem expedire ad bellum iubet. praemissus Caecina, Valentem e gravi corporis morbo tum primum adsurgentem infirmitas tardabat. longe alia proficiscentis ex urbe Germanici exercitus species: non vigor corporibus, non ardor animis; lentum et rarum agmen, fluxa arma, segnes equi; impatiens solis pulveris tempestatum, quantumque hebes ad sustinendum laborem miles, tanto ad discordias promptior. accedebat huc Caecinae ambitio vetus, torpor recens, nimia fortunae indulgentia soluti in luxum, seu perfidiam meditanti infringere exercitus virtutem inter artis erat. credidere plerique Flavii Sabini consiliis concussam Caecinae mentem, ministro sermonum Rubrio Gallo: rata apud Vespasianum fore pacta transitionis. simul odiorum invidiaeque erga Fabium Valentem admonebatur ut impar apud Vitellium gratiam virisque apud novum principem pararet.

Caecina, having parted from Vitellius’s embrace with much honor, sent part of the horse ahead to seize Cremona. Soon the detachments of the first, fourth, fifteenth, sixteenth legions followed, then the fifth and the twenty-second; in the last of the column the twenty-first Rapax and the first Italica advanced with the detachments of three British legions and picked auxiliaries. After Caecina had set out, Fabius Valens wrote to the army which he himself had led, that they wait for him on the march: so it had been agreed between him and Caecina. The latter, present and therefore the stronger, pretended that the plan had been changed, so that with the whole mass they might meet the impending war. So the legions were ordered to hasten to Cremona, part to make for Hostilia: he himself turned aside to Ravenna, on the pretext of addressing the fleet; soon at Patavium a secret was sought for arranging his treachery. For Lucilius Bassus, after the prefecture of a wing set by Vitellius over both the Ravenna and the Misenum fleets, because he had not at once obtained the prefecture of the praetorium, avenged his unjust anger by a shameful perfidy. Nor can it be known whether he drew on Caecina, or whether—as happens among bad men, that they should be alike too—the same depravity drove them both.

Caecina e complexu Vitellii multo cum honore digressus partem equitum ad occupandam Cremonam praemisit. mox vexilla primae, quartae, quintaedecimae, sextaedecimae legionum, dein quinta et duoetvicensima secutae; postremo agmine unaetvicensima Rapax et prima Italica incessere cum vexillariis trium Britannicarum legionum et electis auxiliis. profecto Caecina scripsit Fabius Valens exercitui, quem ipse ductaverat, ut in itinere opperiretur: sic sibi cum Caecina convenisse. qui praesens eoque validior mutatum id consilium finxit ut ingruenti bello tota mole occurreretur. ita adcelerare legiones Cremonam, pars Hostiliam petere iussae: ipse Ravennam devertit praetexto classem adloquendi; mox Patavii secretum componendae proditionis quaesitum. namque Lucilius Bassus post praefecturam alae Ravennati simul ac Misenensi classibus a Vitellio praepositus, quod non statim praefecturam praetorii adeptus foret, iniquam iracundiam flagitiosa perfidia ulciscebatur. nec sciri potest traxeritne Caecinam, an, quod evenit inter malos ut et similes sint, eadem illos pravitas impulerit.

The writers of the times, who composed the records of this war while the Flavian house was master of affairs, have handed down care for peace and love of the commonwealth—causes corrupted into flattery: to us it seems that, beyond their inborn levity and a loyalty made cheap once Galba was betrayed, by emulation too and envy, lest they be outstripped by others with Vitellius, they ruined Vitellius himself. Caecina, having overtaken the legions, undermined by various arts the obstinate spirits of the centurions and soldiers, set for Vitellius: for Bassus, working at the same thing, there was less difficulty, the fleet being slippery toward changing its loyalty, by the memory of its recent service for Otho.

Scriptores temporum, qui potiente rerum Flavia domo monimenta belli huiusce composuerunt, curam pacis et amorem rei publicae, corruptas in adulationem causas, tradidere: nobis super insitam levitatem et prodito Galba vilem mox fidem aemulatione etiam invidiaque, ne ab aliis apud Vitellium anteirentur, pervertisse ipsum Vitellium videntur. Caecina legiones adsecutus centurionum militumque animos obstinatos pro Vitellio variis artibus subruebat: Basso eadem molienti minor difficultas erat, lubrica ad mutandam fidem classe ob memoriam recentis pro Othone militiae.

With a better destiny and a better faith the leaders of the Flavian party were handling the counsels of war. They had gathered at Poetovio, in the winter quarters of the Thirteenth legion. There they debated whether it were better to bar the Pannonian Alps, until the whole strength should rise up behind them, or to go to close quarters and fight for Italy with more resolution. To those who thought it best to wait for the auxiliaries and drag out the war, the force and fame of the German legions were a thing to be magnified, and the flower of the British army, they said, had lately come with Vitellius; their own numbers were no match for legions but recently beaten, and, for all their fierce talk, the spirit of the defeated was the lower. But if the Alps were meanwhile held, Mucianus would come with the forces of the East; and there remained to Vespasian the sea, the fleets, the goodwill of the provinces, through which he could set in motion the mass of what was almost a second war. So by a wholesome delay fresh strength would be at hand, and nothing of the present would be lost.

Meliore fato fideque partium Flavianarum duces consilia belli tractabant. Poetovionem in hiberna tertiae decimae legionis convenerant. illic agitavere placeretne obstrui Pannoniae Alpes, donec a tergo vires universae consurgerent, an ire comminus et certare pro Italia constantius foret. quibus opperiri auxilia et trahere bellum videbatur, Germanicarum legionum vim famamque extollebant, et advenisse mox cum Vitellio Britannici exercitus robora: ipsis nec numerum parem pulsarum nuper legionum, et quamquam atrociter loquerentur, minorem esse apud victos animum. sed insessis interim Alpibus venturum cum copiis Orientis Mucianum; superesse Vespasiano mare, classis, studia provinciarum, per quas velut alterius belli molem cieret. ita salubri mora novas viris adfore, ex praesentibus nihil periturum.

To this Antonius Primus—he was the keenest inflamer of the war—argued that haste was useful to themselves, ruinous to Vitellius. More sloth than confidence, he said, had come over the victors; for they had not been kept under arms and in camp, but, lounging idle through all the towns of Italy and fearsome only to their hosts, had drunk in unaccustomed pleasures the more greedily the more fiercely they had borne themselves before. By the circus too and the theatres and the charms of the City they were softened, or worn out with sicknesses; yet with time added these too would recover their vigor by training for war; nor was Germany far off, whence their strength; Britain was sundered by a strait; close at hand were the Gallic and Spanish provinces, from either side men, horses, tribute; and Italy itself, and the wealth of the City. And if they should choose of their own accord to carry the war over, there were the two fleets and the Illyrian sea unguarded. What then would the barriers of the mountains avail? What good a war dragged into another summer? Whence, in the meantime, money and supplies? Rather let them use that very thing—that the Pannonian legions, deceived rather than conquered, were hastening to rise again for vengeance, and the Moesian armies had brought their strength entire. If the count be made of soldiers rather than of legions, here was the more force, and none of the wantonness; and their very shame had served their discipline. The cavalry, indeed, not even then were beaten, but, for all the adverse day, had broken Vitellius’s line. "Two squadrons then, the Pannonian and the Moesian, pierced the enemy through: now the joined standards of sixteen squadrons, by their charge and din and by the very dust-cloud, will overwhelm and bury horsemen and horses that have forgotten how to fight. Unless someone holds me back, I who counsel the plan will be the doer of it as well. You, whose fortune is yet untouched, hold back the legions: for me the light cohorts will suffice. Soon you will hear that Italy is unbarred, that Vitellius’s cause is overthrown. It will be a pleasure to follow and to tread in the conqueror’s tracks."

Ad ea Antonius Primus (is acerrimus belli concitator) festinationem ipsis utilem, Vitellio exitiosam disseruit. plus socordiae quam fiduciae accessisse victoribus; neque enim in procinctu et castris habitos: per omnia Italiae municipia desides, tantum hospitibus metuendos, quanto ferocius ante se egerint, tanto cupidius insolitas voluptates hausisse. circo quoque ac theatris et amoenitate urbis emollitos aut valetudinibus fessos: sed addito spatio rediturum et his robur meditatione belli; nec procul Germaniam, unde vires; Britanniam freto dirimi, iuxta Gallias Hispaniasque, utrimque viros equos tributa, ipsamque Italiam et opes urbis; ac si inferre arma ultro velint, duas classis vacuumque Illyricum mare. quid tum claustra montium profutura? quid tractum in aestatem aliam bellum? unde interim pecuniam et commeatus? quin potius eo ipso uterentur quod Pannonicae legiones deceptae magis quam victae resurgere in ultionem properent, Moesici exercitus integras viris attulerint. si numerus militum potius quam legionum putetur, plus hinc roboris, nihil libidinum; et profuisse disciplinae ipsum pudorem: equites vero ne tum quidem victos, sed quamquam rebus adversis disiectam Vitellii aciem. ’duae tunc Pannonicae ac Moesicae alae perrupere hostem: nunc sedecim alarum coniuncta signa pulsu sonituque et nube ipsa operient ac superfundent oblitos proeliorum equites equosque. nisi quis retinet, idem suasor auctorque consilii ero. vos, quibus fortuna in integro est, legiones continete: mihi expeditae cohortes sufficient. iam reseratam Italiam, impulsas Vitellii res audietis. iuvabit sequi et vestigiis vincentis insistere.’

These things and the like, with blazing eyes, in a savage voice, that he might be heard the more widely—for centurions and some of the soldiers had mingled into the council—he so poured out that he moved even the cautious and the provident, while the crowd and the rest, scorning the sluggishness of the others, exalted with their praises the one man and leader. This repute for himself he had stirred at that very assembly in which, when Vespasian’s letters were read out, he did not, as most do, hold forth ambiguously, ready to draw them this way or that by interpretation as it should suit; he was seen to have come down openly into the cause, and on that account he was the weightier with the soldiers, as the partner of their guilt or of their glory.

Haec ac talia flagrans oculis, truci voce, quo latius audiretur (etenim se centuriones et quidam militum consilio miscuerant), ita effudit ut cautos quoque ac providos permoveret, vulgus et ceteri unum virum ducemque, spreta aliorum segnitia, laudibus ferrent. hanc sui famam ea statim contione commoverat, qua recitatis Vespasiani epistulis non ut plerique incerta disseruit, huc illuc tracturus interpreta- tione, prout conduxisset: aperte descendisse in causam videbatur, eoque gravior militibus erat culpae vel gloriae socius.

Next in authority was the procurator Cornelius Fuscus. He too, wont to inveigh without mercy against Vitellius, had left himself no hope amid adversity. Tampius Flavianus, by nature and by age a delayer, kept chafing the soldiers’ suspicions, as though he remembered his kinship with Vitellius; and, because at the first stirring of the legions he had fled, then of his own accord returned, he was believed to have sought an opening for treachery. For Flavianus, having quit Pannonia and entered Italy and got clear of the danger, the lust for revolution had impelled to resume the title of legate and to mingle in civil arms—at the urging of Cornelius Fuscus, not because he had any need of Flavianus’s industry, but that a consular name might be held out, under an honorable show, before a party just then rising.

Proxima Cornelii Fusci procuratoris auctoritas. is quoque inclementer in Vitellium invehi solitus nihil spei sibi inter adversa reliquerat. Tampius Flavianus, natura ac senecta cunctator, suspiciones militum inritabat, tamquam adfinitatis cum Vitellio meminisset; idemque, quod coeptante legionum motu profugus, dein sponte remeaverat, perfidiae locum quaesisse credebatur. nam Flavianum, omissa Pannonia ingressum Italiam et discrimini exemptum, rerum novarum cupido legati nomen resumere et misceri civilibus armis impulerat, suadente Cornelio Fusco, non quia industria Flaviani egebat, sed ut consulare nomen surgentibus cum maxime partibus honesta specie praetenderetur.

For the rest, that the crossing into Italy might be safe and of use, word was written to Aponius Saturninus to hasten up with the Moesian army. And that the provinces should not be left exposed unarmed to the barbarian nations, the chiefs of the Sarmatian Iazyges, in whose hands lay the rule of the state, were taken into fellowship of arms. They offered too their commons and the strength of cavalry, in which alone they are strong; that service was declined, lest amid the discords they should attempt something foreign, or, for a greater bribe from the other side, throw off right and religion. Drawn into the party were Sido and Italicus, kings of the Suebi, whose old obedience toward the Romans, and whose people, was the more bound to faith, the more patient. The auxiliaries were posted on the flank, Raetia being hostile—its procurator was Porcius Septiminus, of uncorrupted faith toward Vitellius. And so Sextilius Felix was sent with the Aurian squadron and eight cohorts and the youth of Noricum to seize the bank of the river Aenus, which flows between the Raetians and the Noricans. Neither these nor those essaying battle, the fortune of the parties was decided elsewhere.

Ceterum ut transmittere in Italiam impune et usui foret, scriptum Aponio Saturnino, cum exercitu Moesico celeraret. ac ne inermes provinciae barbaris nationibus exponerentur, principes Sarmatarum Iazugum, penes quos civitatis regimen, in commilitium adsciti. plebem quoque et vim equitum, qua sola valent, offerebant: remissum id munus, ne inter discordias externa molirentur aut maiore ex diverso mercede ius fasque exuerent. trahuntur in partis Sido atque Italicus reges Sueborum, quis vetus obsequium erga Romanos et gens fidei † commissior† patientior. posita in latus auxilia, infesta Raetia, cui Porcius Septiminus procurator erat, incorruptae erga Vitellium fidei. igitur Sextilius Felix cum ala Auriana et octo cohortibus ac Noricorum iuventute ad occupandam ripam Aeni fluminis, quod Raetos Noricosque interfluit, missus. nec his aut illis proelium temptantibus, fortuna partium alibi transacta.

As Antonius swept off the detachments from the cohorts and part of the cavalry to invade Italy, his companion was Arrius Varus, vigorous in war—a glory which both his general Corbulo and the prosperous campaigns in Armenia had added to. The same man was reputed, in secret talks with Nero, to have impeached the virtues of Corbulo; whence, by an infamous favor having won the first centurionship, his gains, glad for the moment but ill-gotten, soon turned to his ruin. But Primus and Varus, Aquileia being seized, were received with glad spirits through all the nearest places, both Opitergium and Altinum. A garrison was left at Altinum against the attempts of the Ravenna fleet, its defection not yet heard of. Thence they joined Patavium and Ateste to the party. There it was learned that three Vitellian cohorts and a squadron, called the Sebosian, had taken post at Forum Alieni, with a bridge thrown across. The occasion pleased for attacking men off their guard; for that too was reported. At first light they overwhelmed most of them unarmed. It had been ordered beforehand that, a few being killed, they should force the rest by terror to change their allegiance. And there were those who gave themselves up at once; most, breaking the bridge, took away the road from the enemy pressing on. The opening of the war fell out in favor of the Flavians.

Antonio vexillarios e cohortibus et partem equitum ad invadendam Italiam rapienti comes fuit Arrius Varus, strenuus bello, quam gloriam et dux Corbulo et prosperae in Armenia res addiderant. idem secretis apud Neronem sermonibus ferebatur Corbulonis virtutes criminatus; unde infami gratia primum pilum adepto laeta ad praesens male parta mox in perniciem vertere. sed Primus ac Varus occupata Aquileia per proxima quaeque et Opitergii et Altini laetis animis accipiuntur. relictum Altini praesidium adversus classis Ravennatis conatus, nondum defectione eius audita. inde Patavium et Ateste partibus adiunxere. illic cognitum tris Vitellianas cohortis et alam, cui Sebosianae nomen, ad Forum Alieni ponte iuncto consedisse. placuit occasio invadendi incuriosos; nam id quoque nuntiabatur. luce prima inermos plerosque oppressere. praedictum ut paucis interfectis ceteros pavore ad mutandam fidem cogerent. et fuere qui se statim dederent: plures abrupto ponte instanti hosti viam abstulerunt. principia belli secundum Flavianos data.

The victory noised abroad, the legions—the Seventh Galbiana and the Thirteenth Gemina, with their legate Vedius Aquila—come briskly to Patavium. There a few days were taken for rest, and Minicius Iustus, prefect of the camp of the Seventh legion, because he exercised command more strictly than suits a civil war, was withdrawn from the soldiers’ anger and sent to Vespasian. A thing long wished for was taken, by interpretation and vaunting, for more than it was, after Antonius ordered the images of Galba, thrown down in the discord of the times, to be set up again in all the towns—judging it seemly for the cause, if Galba’s principate were believed to find favor and his party to revive.

Vulgata victoria legiones septima Galbiana, tertia decima Gemina cum Vedio Aquila legato Patavium alacres veniunt. ibi pauci dies ad requiem sumpti, et Minicius Iustus praefectus castrorum legionis septimae, quia adductius quam civili bello imperitabat, subtractus militum irae ad Vespasianum missus est. desiderata diu res interpretatione gloriaque in maius accipitur, postquam Galbae imagines discordia temporum subversas in omnibus municipiis recoli iussit Antonius, decorum pro causa ratus, si placere Galbae principatus et partes revirescere crederentur.

It was then asked what seat should be chosen for the war. Verona seemed the better, with open plains round about for a cavalry battle, in which they were the stronger; at the same time, to take from Vitellius a colony strong in resources seemed to the point and to the credit of the cause. Vicetia was held in the very passing—a thing in itself small (for a modest town has but modest strength), yet it held a place of great moment to those who reflected that there Caecina was born, and that his fatherland had been wrested from the enemy’s general. In the Veronese there was profit: by their example and their wealth they aided the party; and the army, thrust between Raetia and the Julian Alps, had blocked the way there against the German armies. These things Vespasian either did not know of or had forbidden: for he was ordering that the war be halted at Aquileia and Mucianus awaited; and to the command he added the reasoning that, since Egypt—the lock of the grain-supply—and the revenues of the richest provinces were held, Vitellius’s army could be brought to surrender by want of pay and corn. The same Mucianus warned by frequent letters, screening it with the plea of a victory bloodless and without mourning, and other things of this sort—but greedy of glory, and keeping for himself all the honor of the war. Yet from the distant spaces of the lands the counsels came after the deeds.

Quaesitum inde quae sedes bello legeretur. Verona potior visa, patentibus circum campis ad pugnam equestrem, qua praevalebant: simul coloniam copiis validam auferre Vitellio in rem famamque videbatur. possessa ipso transitu Vicetia; quod per se parvum (etenim modicae municipio vires) magni momenti locum obtinuit reputantibus illic Caecinam genitum et patriam hostium duci ereptam. in Veronensibus pretium fuit: exemplo opibusque partis iuvere; et interiectus exercitus Raetiam Iuliasque Alpis, ne pervium illa Germanicis exercitibus foret, obsaepserat. quae ignara Vespasiano aut vetita: quippe Aquileiae sisti bellum expectarique Mucianum iubebat, adiciebatque imperio consilium, quando Aegyptus, claustra annonae, vectigalia opulentissimarum provinciarum obtinerentur, posse Vitellii exercitum egestate stipendii frumentique ad deditionem subigi. eadem Mucianus crebris epistulis monebat, incruentam et sine luctu victoriam et alia huiusce modi praetexendo, sed gloriae avidus atque omne belli decus sibi retinens. ceterum ex distantibus terrarum spatiis consilia post res adferebantur.

And so by a sudden onset Antonius burst upon the enemy’s outposts; and their spirit being tried in a light skirmish, they parted on even terms. Soon Caecina fortified a camp between Hostilia, a village of the Veronese, and the marshes of the river Tartarus, safe in his position, with his rear protected by the river, his flanks by the barrier of the marsh. And had there been good faith, either the two legions, the Moesian army not yet joined, could have been overwhelmed by the whole strength of the Vitellians, or, driven back, they would have taken upon themselves a shameful flight, Italy abandoned. But Caecina, by various delays, betrayed to the enemy the first opportunities of the war, while he railed by letter at men whom it were quick work to drive off by arms, until through messengers he should ratify the bargains of his treachery. Meanwhile Aponius Saturninus arrived with the Seventh Claudian legion. Over the legion the tribune Vipstanus Messala was set, of illustrious ancestry, himself outstanding, and the only man who had brought good arts to that war. To these forces—by no means a match for the Vitellians (for there were as yet but three legions)—Caecina sent letters, charging with rashness men who handled beaten arms. At the same time the valor of the German army was exalted with praises, with modest and common mention of Vitellius, with no insult against Vespasian: nothing at all that might either corrupt the enemy or terrify him. The leaders of the Flavian party, letting go the defense of their former fortune, took up the case for Vespasian magnificently, for the cause confidently, untroubled about their army, and against Vitellius as enemies—the tribunes and centurions being given the hope of keeping what Vitellius had granted; and they exhorted Caecina himself, not obscurely, to come over. The letters, read out before the assembly, added to their confidence, since Caecina had written humbly, as though fearing to offend Vespasian, while their own leaders had written contemptuously, as though insulting Vitellius.

Igitur repentino incursu Antonius stationes hostium inrupit; temptatisque levi proelio animis ex aequo discessum. mox Caecina inter Hostiliam, vicum Veronensium, et paludes Tartari fluminis castra permuniit, tutus loco, cum terga flumine, latera obiectu paludis tegerentur. quod si adfuisset fides, aut opprimi universis Vitellianorum viribus duae legiones, nondum coniuncto Moesico exercitu, potuere, aut retro actae deserta Italia turpem fugam conscivissent. sed Caecina per varias moras prima hostibus prodidit tempora belli, dum quos armis pellere promptum erat, epistulis increpat, donec per nuntios pacta perfidiae firmaret. interim Aponius Saturninus cum legione septima Claudiana advenit. legioni tribunus Vipstanus Messala praeerat, claris maioribus, egregius ipse et qui solus ad id bellum artis bonas attulisset. has ad copias nequaquam Vitellianis paris (quippe tres adhuc legiones erant) misit epistulas Caecina, temeritatem victa arma tractantium incusans. simul virtus Germanici exercitus laudibus attollebatur, Vitellii modica et vulgari mentione, nulla in Vespasianum contumelia: nihil prorsus quod aut corrumperet hostem aut terreret. Flavianarum partium duces omissa prioris fortunae defensione pro Vespasiano magnifice, pro causa fidenter, de exercitu securi, in Vitellium ut inimici praesumpsere, facta tribunis centurionibusque retinendi quae Vitellius indulsisset spe; atque ipsum Caecinam non obscure ad transitionem hortabantur. recitatae pro contione epistulae addidere fiduciam, quod submisse Caecina, velut offendere Vespasianum timens, ipsorum duces contemptim tamquam insultantes Vitellio scripsissent.

Then, on the arrival of two legions—of which Dillius Aponianus led the Third, Numisius Lupus the Eighth—it pleased them to make a show of strength and to gird Verona about with a military rampart. By chance the work of the rampart on the front facing the enemy had fallen to the Galbian legion, and allied horsemen seen far off bred an idle fright, as though they were the enemy. Arms are snatched up in fear of treachery. The soldiers’ wrath fell upon Tampius Flavianus, with no proof of any charge, but—hated now this long while—by a kind of whirlwind he was demanded for destruction: they kept shouting that he was Vitellius’s kinsman, the betrayer of Otho, the embezzler of the bounty. Nor was there room for defense, though he stretched out suppliant hands, prostrate for the most part on the ground, his garment torn, his breast and face shaken with sobbing. That very thing was a goad to the enraged, as though too much terror argued a guilty conscience. Aponius was shouted down by the soldiers’ cries when he began to speak; with din and clamor they spurned the rest. To Antonius alone the soldiers’ ears were open; for eloquence was his, and the arts of soothing the crowd, and authority. When the mutiny grew fiercer and they passed from abuse and reproaches to weapons and violence, he ordered chains to be put on Flavianus. The soldiers perceived the mockery, and, scattering those who guarded the tribunal, the extreme of violence was being made ready. Antonius set his bared breast against the drawn sword, swearing he would die either by the soldiers’ hands or by his own, and calling each man he saw known to him and marked by some military honor by name to bring help. Soon, turning to the standards and the gods of war, he prayed that they would cast that frenzy, that discord, rather upon the enemy’s armies, until the mutiny wearied itself out and, the day now at its end, each man slipped away into his own tents. Setting out that same night, Flavianus, met by letters of Vespasian, was taken out of danger.

Adventu deinde duarum legionum, e quibus tertiam Dillius Aponianus, octavam Numisius Lupus ducebant, ostentare viris et militari vallo Veronam circumdare placuit. forte Galbianae legioni in adversa fronte valli opus cesserat, et visi procul sociorum equites vanam formidinem ut hostes fecere. rapiuntur arma metu proditionis. ira militum in Tampium Flavianum incubuit, nullo criminis argumento, sed iam pridem invisus turbine quodam ad exitium poscebatur: propinquum Vitellii, proditorem Othonis, interceptorem donativi clamitabant. nec defensioni locus, quamquam supplicis manus tenderet, humi plerumque stratus, lacera veste, pectus atque ora singultu quatiens. id ipsum apud infensos incitamentum erat, tamquam nimius pavor conscientiam argueret. obturbabatur militum vocibus Aponius, cum loqui coeptaret; fremitu et clamore ceteros aspernantur. uni Antonio apertae militum aures; namque et facundia aderat mulcendique vulgum artes et auctoritas. ubi crudescere seditio et a conviciis ac probris ad tela et manus transibant, inici catenas Flaviano iubet. sensit ludibrium miles, disiectisque qui tribunal tuebantur extrema vis parabatur. opposuit sinum Antonius stricto ferro, aut militum se manibus aut suis moriturum obtestans, ut quemque notum et aliquo militari decore insignem aspexerat, ad ferendam opem nomine ciens. mox conversus ad signa et bellorum deos, hostium potius exercitibus illum furorem, illam discordiam inicerent orabat, donec fatisceret seditio et extremo iam die sua quisque in tentoria dilaberentur. profectus eadem nocte Flavianus obviis Vespasiani litteris discrimini exemptus est.

The legions, as though tainted with a plague, fall upon Aponius Saturninus, legate of the Moesian army, the more atrociously in that, not, as before, worn out with toil and field-work, but in the middle of the day they had blazed up, on the publishing of letters which Saturninus was believed to have written to Vitellius. As once there had been a rivalry of valor and self-restraint, so then there was one of insolence and wantonness, that they should demand Aponius no less violently than Flavianus for execution. For the Moesian legions, recounting that they had aided the Pannonians’ revenge, and the Pannonians, as though they were absolved by the mutiny of the others, rejoiced to repeat the guilt. They march to the gardens in which Saturninus was lodging. And it was not so much Primus and Aponianus and Messala—though they strove in every way—that snatched Saturninus away as the obscurity of the hiding-place in which he lay concealed, hidden in the furnace of some baths that chanced to be empty. Soon, dismissing his lictors, he withdrew to Patavium. With the departure of the consulars, to Antonius alone was the force and the power over both armies, his colleagues yielding and the soldiers’ zeal turned his way. Nor were there wanting those who believed that both mutinies had been begun by the fraud of Antonius, that he alone might enjoy the war.

Legiones velut tabe infectae Aponium Saturninum Moesici exercitus legatum eo atrocius adgrediuntur, quod non, ut prius, labore et opere fessae, sed medio diei exarserant, vulgatis epistulis, quas Saturninus ad Vitellium scripsisse credebatur. ut olim virtutis modestiaeque, tunc procacitatis et petulantiae certamen erat, ne minus violenter Aponium quam Flavianum ad supplicium deposcerent. quippe Moesicae legiones adiutam a se Pannonicorum ultionem referentes, et Pannonici, velut absolverentur aliorum seditione, iterare culpam gaudebant. in hortos, in quibus devertebatur Saturninus, pergunt. nec tam Primus et Aponianus et Messala, quamquam omni modo nisi, eripuere Saturninum quam obscuritas latebrarum, quibus occulebatur, vacantium forte balnearum fornacibus abditus. mox omissis lictoribus Patavium concessit. digressu consularium uni Antonio vis ac potestas in utrumque exercitum fuit, cedentibus collegis et obversis militum studiis. nec deerant qui crederent utramque seditionem fraude Antonii coeptam, ut solus bello frueretur.

Not even in Vitellius’s party were minds at peace: by a more ruinous discord they were thrown into turmoil, not by the suspicions of the crowd, but by the treachery of the leaders. Lucilius Bassus, prefect of the Ravenna fleet, had drawn over the wavering spirits of the soldiers—since a great part were Dalmatians and Pannonians, provinces held by Vespasian—to that man’s party. Night was chosen for the betrayal, that, the rest unaware, the deserters alone should meet at the headquarters. Bassus, from shame or from fear of what the issue might be, waited within his house. The captains in a great uproar assail Vitellius’s images; and, a few of those resisting being cut down, the rest of the throng, in their eagerness for revolution, was inclining toward Vespasian. Then Lucilius came forward and openly offered himself as the author of it. The fleet appoints Cornelius Fuscus as its prefect, who hastened up in haste. Bassus, in honorable custody, conveyed in Liburnian ships to Atria, is put in chains by Vibennius Rufinus, prefect of a squadron keeping garrison there; but the chains were straightway loosed by the intervention of Hormus, the emperor’s freedman: he too was counted among the leaders.

Ne in Vitellii quidem partibus quietae mentes: exitiosiore discordia non suspicionibus vulgi, sed perfidia ducum turbabantur. Lucilius Bassus classis Ravennatis praefectus ambiguos militum animos, quod magna pars Dalmatae Pannoniique erant, quae provinciae Vespasiano tenebantur, partibus eius adgregaverat. nox proditioni electa, ut ceteris ignaris soli in principia defectores coirent. Bassus pudore seu metu, quisnam exitus foret, intra domum opperiebatur. trierarchi magno tumultu Vitellii imagines invadunt; et paucis resistentium obtruncatis ceterum vulgus rerum novarum studio in Vespasianum inclinabat. tum progressus Lucilius auctorem se palam praebet. classis Cornelium Fuscum praefectum sibi destinat, qui propere adcucurrit. Bassus honorata custodia Liburnicis navibus Atriam pervectus a praefecto alae Vibennio Rufino, praesidium illic agitante, vincitur, sed exoluta statim vincula interventu Hormi Caesaris liberti: is quoque inter duces habebatur.

But Caecina, the defection of the fleet being noised abroad, summons the chief of the centurions and a few of the soldiers—the rest dispersed about the duties of the service—to the headquarters, courting the privacy of the camp. There he exalts the valor of Vespasian and the strength of his party: the fleet had gone over, supplies were straitened, the Gauls and the Spains were against them, nothing in the City was to be trusted; and everything about Vitellius for the worse. Then, the accomplices who were present making the beginning, he forces the rest, astonished at the strange affair, to swear into the words of Vespasian; at the same time Vitellius’s images are torn down, and men sent to carry the news to Antonius. But when through the whole camp the betrayal was on every tongue, the soldiers, running back to the headquarters, beheld Vespasian’s name written up and Vitellius’s effigies cast down; at first a vast silence, then all at once everything bursts out. To this had the glory of the German army sunk—that without a battle, without a wound, they should deliver up bound hands and surrendered arms? For what legions were against them? Beaten ones, to be sure; and the one backbone of the Othonian army, the men of the First and the Fourteenth, was absent—and them they had on those very plains routed and laid low. Was it for this, that so many thousands of armed men, like a herd of slaves for sale, should be given as a gift to the exile Antonius? Eight legions, forsooth, were to be the appendage of a single fleet. So it had seemed good to Bassus, so to Caecina, that, after taking from the emperor his houses, his gardens, his wealth, they should take away his soldiers too. Untouched and unbloodied, cheap even to the Flavian party, what would they say to those who demanded back of them a fortune, prosperous or adverse?

At Caecina, defectione classis vulgata, primores centurionum et paucos militum, ceteris per militiae munera dispersis, secretum castrorum adfectans in principia vocat. ibi Vespasiani virtutem virisque partium extollit: transfugisse classem, in arto commeatum, adversas Gallias Hispaniasque, nihil in urbe fidum; atque omnia de Vitellio in deterius. mox incipientibus qui conscii aderant, ceteros re nova attonitos in verba Vespasiani adigit; simul Vitellii imagines dereptae et missi qui Antonio nuntiarent. sed ubi totis castris in fama proditio, recurrens in principia miles praescriptum Vespasiani nomen, proiectas Vitellii effigies aspexit, vastum primo silentium, mox cuncta simul erumpunt. huc cecidisse Germanici exercitus gloriam ut sine proelio, sine vulnere vinctas manus et capta traderent arma? quas enim ex diverso legiones? nempe victas; et abesse unicum Othoniani exercitus robur, primanos quartadecimanosque, quos tamen isdem illis campis fuderint straverintque. ut tot armatorum milia, velut grex venalium, exuli Antonio donum darentur? octo nimirum legiones unius classis accessionem fore. id Basso, id Caecinae visum, postquam domos hortos opes principi abstulerint, etiam militem auferre. integros incruentosque, Flavianis quoque partibus vilis, quid dicturos reposcentibus aut prospera aut adversa?

These things each man, these things all together, as grief drove each, shouting aloud—the beginning taken from the Fifth legion—they set Vitellius’s images up again and put chains on Caecina; they choose as leaders Fabius Fabullus, legate of the Fifth legion, and Cassius Longus, prefect of the camp; the soldiers of three Liburnian galleys, who chanced to come in their way, ignorant and guiltless, they butcher; and, leaving the camp, the bridge broken, they make for Hostilia again, and thence for Cremona, to be joined to the legions, the First Italica and the Twenty-first Rapax, which Caecina had sent ahead with part of the cavalry to hold Cremona.

Haec singuli, haec universi, ut quemque dolor impulerat, vociferantes, initio a quinta legione orto, repositis Vitellii imaginibus vincla Caecinae iniciunt; Fabium Fabullum quintae legionis legatum et Cassium Longum praefectum castrorum duces deligunt; forte oblatos trium Liburnicarum milites, ignaros et insontis, trucidant; relictis castris, abrupto ponte Hostiliam rursus, inde Cremonam pergunt, ut legionibus primae Italicae et unietvicensimae Rapaci iungerentur, quas Caecina ad obtinendam Cremonam cum parte equitum praemiserat.

When this was learned by Antonius, he resolved to attack the enemy’s armies while their minds were at discord and their forces divided, before authority should return to the leaders, obedience to the soldiers, and confidence to the legions once joined. For he reckoned that Fabius Valens had set out from the City and would hasten on, the betrayal of Caecina being known; and Fabius was loyal to Vitellius and no stranger to soldiering. At the same time a vast force of Germans through Raetia was feared. And from Britain and Gaul and Spain Vitellius had summoned auxiliaries—an immeasurable plague of war, had not Antonius, fearing that very thing, by a hastened battle forestalled the victory. With his whole army, two days’ march from Verona, he came to Bedriacum. The next day, the legions kept back for fortifying, the auxiliary cohorts were sent into the Cremonese country, that under the show of gathering supplies the soldier might be steeped in the plunder of civil war: he himself with four thousand horse advanced eight miles from Bedriacum, that they might ravage the more freely. The scouts, as is the custom, ranged farther afield.

Vbi haec comperta Antonio, discordis animis, discretos viribus hostium exercitus adgredi statuit, antequam ducibus auctoritas, militi obsequium et iunctis legionibus fiducia rediret. namque Fabium Valentem profectum ab urbe adceleraturumque cognita Caecinae proditione coniectabat; et fidus Vitellio Fabius nec militiae ignarus. simul ingens Germanorum vis per Raetiam timebatur. et Britannia Galliaque et Hispania auxilia Vitellius acciverat, immensam belli luem, ni Antonius id ipsum metuens festinato proelio victoriam praecepisset. universo cum exercitu secundis a Verona castris Bedriacum venit. postero die legionibus ad muniendum retentis, auxiliares cohortes in Cremonensem agrum missae ut specie parandarum copiarum civili praeda miles imbueretur: ipse cum quattuor milibus equitum ad octavum a Bedriaco progressus quo licentius popularentur. exploratores, ut mos est, longius curabant.

It was about the fifth hour of the day when a swift horseman brought word that the enemy was at hand, that a few were pressing on ahead, and that movement and din were heard far and wide. While Antonius deliberates what is to be done, Arrius Varus, in his eagerness to do good service, broke out with the readiest of the horse and drove the Vitellians back with some slaughter; but at the running-up of more the fortune was turned, and the keenest in pursuit were the last in flight. Nor was the haste of Antonius’s own choosing, and he reckoned that what had happened would happen. Having urged his men to take up the fight with a great spirit, he drew the squadrons off to the flanks and left the way open in the middle, by which to receive Varus and his horse; the legions were ordered to arm; the signal was given through the fields that, each where it was nearest to him, the plunder being abandoned, he should meet the battle. Meanwhile the panicked Varus mingles with the throng of his own and brought terror in. The beaten and the unhurt, with the wounded, were jostled together by their own fear and by the narrowness of the roads.

Quinta ferme hora diei erat, cum citus eques adventare hostis, praegredi paucos, motum fremitumque late audiri nuntiavit. dum Antonius quidnam agendum consultat, aviditate navandae operae Arrius Varus cum promptissimis equitum prorupit impulitque Vitellianos modica caede; nam plurium adcursu versa fortuna, et acerrimus quisque sequentium fugae ultimus erat. nec sponte Antonii properatum, et fore quae acciderant rebatur. hortatus suos ut magno animo capesserent pugnam, diductis in latera turmis vacuum medio relinquit iter quo Varum equitesque eius reciperet; iussae armari legiones; datum per agros signum ut, qua cuique proximum, omissa praeda proelio occurreret. pavidus interim Varus turbae suorum miscetur intulitque formidinem. pulsi cum sauciis integri suomet ipsi metu et angustiis viarum conflictabantur.

In that confusion Antonius omitted no office of a steadfast leader or a brave soldier. To run to meet the panicked, to hold back the yielding, where the toil was thickest, where some hope was—conspicuous to the enemy by counsel, by hand, by voice, marked out to his own men. At last he was carried to such a pitch of ardor that he ran a fleeing standard-bearer through with his spear; then, snatching up the standard, he turned it against the enemy. For very shame no more than a hundred horsemen made a stand: the ground helped, the way being there narrower and the bridge over the stream that ran between it broken, which, with its uncertain channel and sheer banks, hindered flight. That necessity, or fortune, restored the now-slipping cause. Steadied among themselves in close ranks, they receive the Vitellians, rashly spread out, and these are thrown into confusion. Antonius pressed upon the stricken, struck down those in his path, while the rest, as each man’s bent was, despoil, take captive, snatch arms and horses. And roused by the cry of success, those who but now were straggling in flight through the fields joined themselves to the victory.

Nullum in illa trepidatione Antonius constantis ducis aut fortis militis officium omisit. occursare paventibus, retinere cedentis, ubi plurimus labor, unde aliqua spes, consilio manu voce insignis hosti, conspicuus suis. eo postremo ardoris provectus est ut vexillarium fugientem hasta transverberaret; mox raptum vexillum in hostem vertit. quo pudore haud plures quam centum equites restitere: iuvit locus, artiore illic via et fracto interfluentis rivi ponte, qui incerto alveo et praecipitibus ripis fugam impediebat. ea necessitas seu fortuna lapsas iam partis restituit. firmati inter se densis ordinibus excipiunt Vitellianos temere effusos, atque illi consternantur. Antonius instare perculsis, sternere obvios, simul ceteri, ut cuique ingenium, spoliare, capere, arma equosque abripere. et exciti prospero clamore, qui modo per agros fuga palabantur, victoriae se miscebant.

At the fourth milestone from Cremona gleamed the standards of the legions, the Rapax and the Italica, carried thus far by the glad early battle of their own cavalry. But when fortune was against them, they did not loosen their ranks, did not receive the routed, did not go to meet and of their own accord attack the enemy, weary as he was with running and fighting over so great a space. As little had they missed their leader in prosperity as they now understood his absence in adversity. The victorious cavalry charges the wavering line; and Vipstanus Messala the tribune comes up with the Moesian auxiliaries, whom many of the legionaries, though led at a run, kept pace with: so foot and horse mingled broke the column of the legions. And the nearby walls of Cremona, the more hope they gave of escape, gave the less spirit for resistance. Nor did Antonius press farther, mindful of the toil and the wounds with which the battle’s so doubtful fortune, though its end was prosperous, had battered his horsemen and their horses.

Ad quartum a Cremona lapidem fulsere legionum signa Rapacis atque Italicae, laeto inter initia equitum suorum proelio illuc usque provecta. sed ubi fortuna contra fuit, non laxare ordines, non recipere turbatos, non obviam ire ultroque adgredi hostem tantum per spatium cursu et pugnando fessum. haud perinde rebus prosperis ducem desideraverant atque in adversis deesse intellegebant. nutantem aciem victor equitatus incursat; et Vipstanus Messala tribunus cum Moesicis auxiliaribus adsequitur, quos multi e legionariis quamquam raptim ductos aequabant: ita mixtus pedes equesque rupere legionum agmen. et propinqua Cremonensium moenia quanto plus spei ad effugium minorem ad resistendum animum dabant. nec Antonius ultra institit, memor laboris ac vulnerum, quibus tam anceps proelii fortuna, quamvis prospero fine, equites equosque adflictaverat.

As evening was casting its shadow, the whole strength of the Flavian army came up. And as they advanced over the heaps and the tracks fresh with slaughter, as though the war were done, they demand to push on to Cremona and to receive the conquered in surrender or to storm them. These were the things said in the open, fair to say: but each man to himself—that a colony set on the level could be taken by a single onset. The same daring belonged to men bursting in through the darkness, and the greater license of plundering. Whereas, if they wait for the light, there would be at once peace, at once entreaties, and for their toil and wounds they would carry off clemency and glory—empty things—while the wealth of the Cremonese would be in the laps of the prefects and the legates. Of a city stormed the plunder belongs to the soldier, of one surrendered, to the leaders. The centurions and tribunes are scorned, and, lest anyone’s voice be heard, they clash their arms, ready to break command if they be not led on.

Inumbrante vespera universum Flaviani exercitus robur advenit. utque cumulos super et recentia caede vestigia incessere, quasi debellatum foret, pergere Cremonam et victos in deditionem accipere aut expugnare deposcunt. haec in medio, pulchra dictu: illa sibi quisque, posse coloniam plano sitam impetu capi. idem audaciae per tenebras inrumpentibus et maiorem rapiendi licentiam. quod si lucem opperiantur, iam pacem, iam preces, et pro labore ac vulneribus clementiam et gloriam, inania, laturos, sed opes Cremonensium in sinu praefectorum legatorumque fore. expugnatae urbis praedam ad militem, deditae ad duces pertinere. spernuntur centuriones tribunique, ac ne vox cuiusquam audiatur, quatiunt arma, rupturi imperium ni ducantur.

Then Antonius, working his way among the maniples, when by his look and his authority he had made silence, kept affirming that he was not snatching the honor or the prize from men so well deserving, but that the duties were divided between the army and the leaders: that the lust of fighting befitted the soldiers, but the leaders profited by foreseeing, by deliberating, oftener by delay than by rashness. As, for his own share, he had aided the victory with arms and hand, so now he would profit it by reason and counsel, the proper arts of a leader; for the things that confronted them were not free of doubt—the night, and the lie of an unknown city, the enemy within, and everything fit for ambushes. Not though the gates stood open should they enter, save after scouting, save by day. Or would they begin the assault with all view taken from them—what ground was even, how great the height of the walls, whether the city was to be attacked with engines and missiles or with works and mantlets? Then, turning to individuals, he kept asking whether they had brought axes and mattocks and the rest of the gear for storming cities with them. And when they said no, "Can any hands," said he, "break through and undermine walls with swords and javelins? If we must raise a mound, if we must shelter ourselves with shields and hurdles, shall we stand idle like the improvident crowd, marveling at the height of the towers and at others’ defenses? Why not rather, by the delay of a single night, when the engines and machines are brought up, carry force and victory with us?" At the same time he sends the sutlers and camp-servants with the freshest of the horse to Bedriacum, to bring up supplies and the rest that was needful.

Tum Antonius inserens se manipulis, ubi aspectu et auctoritate silentium fecerat, non se decus neque pretium eripere tam bene meritis adfirmabat, sed divisa inter exercitum ducesque munia: militibus cupidinem pugnandi convenire, duces providendo, consultando, cunctatione saepius quam temeritate prodesse. ut pro virili portione armis ac manu victoriam iuverit, ratione et consilio, propriis ducis artibus, profuturum; neque enim ambigua esse quae occurrant, noctem et ignotae situm urbis, intus hostis et cuncta insidiis opportuna. non si pateant portae, nisi explorato, nisi die intrandum. an obpugnationem inchoaturos adempto omni prospectu, quis aequus locus, quanta altitudo moenium, tormentisne et telis an operibus et vineis adgredienda urbs foret? mox conversus ad singulos, num securis dolabrasque et cetera expugnandis urbibus secum attulissent, rogitabat. et cum abnuerent, ’gladiisne’ inquit ’et pilis perfringere ac subruere muros ullae manus possunt? si aggerem struere, si pluteis cratibusve protegi necesse fuerit, ut vulgus improvidum inriti stabimus, altitudinem turrium et aliena munimenta mirantes? quin potius mora noctis unius, advectis tormentis machinisque, vim victoriamque nobiscum ferimus?’ simul lixas calonesque cum recentissimis equitum Bedriacum mittit, copias ceteraque usui adlaturos.

But the soldier bearing this ill, it came near to mutiny, when the horsemen, advancing under the very walls, seize some stragglers from among the Cremonese, by whose disclosure it is learned that six Vitellian legions and the whole army that had lain at Hostilia had that very day measured thirty miles, and, the disaster of their own being known, were girding for battle and would now be at hand. That terror opened to the leader’s counsels minds that had been closed. He orders the Thirteenth legion to halt upon the embankment of the Postumian Way itself, on whose left, joined to it, the Seventh Galbiana stood in the open plain, then the Seventh Claudiana, fenced beforehand by a rustic ditch (such was the place); on the right the Eighth along an open track, then the Third hedged in by thick plantations. This was the order of the eagles and the standards: the soldiers mixed through the darkness, as chance had brought them; the praetorian standard nearest the men of the Third, the auxiliary cohorts on the wings, the flanks and rear surrounded by cavalry; Sido and Italicus the Suebi, with picked men of their peoples, moved in the foremost line.

Id vero aegre tolerante milite prope seditionem ventum, cum progressi equites sub ipsa moenia vagos e Cremonensibus corripiunt, quorum indicio noscitur sex Vitellianas legiones omnemque exercitum, qui Hostiliae egerat, eo ipso die triginta milia passuum emensum, comperta suorum clade in proelium accingi ac iam adfore. is terror obstructas mentis consiliis ducis aperuit. sistere tertiam decimam legionem in ipso viae Postumiae aggere iubet, cui iuncta a laevo septima Galbiana patenti campo stetit, dein septima Claudiana, agresti fossa (ita locus erat) praemunita; dextro octava per apertum limitem, mox tertia densis arbustis intersepta. hic aquilarum signorumque ordo: milites mixti per tenebras, ut fors tulerat; praetorianum vexillum proximum tertianis, cohortes auxiliorum in cornibus, latera ac terga equite circumdata; Sido atque Italicus Suebi cum delectis popularium primori in acie versabantur.

But the Vitellian army—whose reasoning it had been to rest at Cremona and, their strength recovered by food and sleep, to crush and overthrow the next day an enemy worn out with cold and hunger—lacking a director, void of counsel, about the third hour of the night is flung against the Flavians, now ready and drawn up. The order of their column, broken apart by rage and darkness, I would not venture to affirm, though others have handed down that the Fourth Macedonica held the right wing of their men; the Fifth and the Fifteenth, with the detachments of the Ninth and the Second and the Twentieth, the British legions, the center; the men of the Sixteenth and the Twenty-second and the First the left wing. The men of the Rapax and the Italica had mingled themselves into all the maniples; the cavalry and the auxiliaries chose ground for themselves. The battle through the whole night was shifting, doubtful, atrocious, deadly now to these, now again to those. Nothing did spirit or hand, not even the eyes, avail by foresight. The same arms in either line, the watchword of the fight made known by frequent questioning, the standards mingled, as each band dragged this way or that what it had taken from the enemy. The Seventh legion, lately enrolled by Galba, was hardest pressed. Six centurions of the first ranks were killed, some standards carried off: the eagle itself Atilius Verus, centurion of the first spear, had saved with great slaughter of the enemy and at the last by dying.

At Vitellianus exercitus, cui adquiescere Cremonae et reciperatis cibo somnoque viribus confectum algore atque inedia hostem postera die profligare ac proruere ratio fuit, indigus rectoris, inops consilii, tertia ferme noctis hora paratis iam dispositisque Flavianis impingitur. ordinem agminis disiecti per iram ac tenebras adseverare non ausim, quamquam alii tradiderint quartam Macedonicam dextrum suorum cornu, quintam et quintam decimam cum vexillis nonae secundaeque et vicensimae Britannicarum legionum mediam aciem, sextadecimanos duoetvicensimanosque et primanos laevum cornu complesse. Rapaces atque Italici omnibus se manipulis miscuerant; eques auxiliaque sibi ipsi locum legere. proelium tota nocte varium, anceps, atrox, his, rursus illis exitiabile. nihil animus aut manus, ne oculi quidem provisu iuvabant. eadem utraque acie arma, crebris interrogationibus notum pugnae signum, permixta vexilla, ut quisque globus capta ex hostibus huc vel illuc raptabat. urgebatur maxime septima legio, nuper a Galba conscripta. occisi sex primorum ordinum centuriones, abrepta quaedam signa: ipsam aquilam Atilius Verus primi pili centurio multa cum hostium strage et ad extremum moriens servaverat.

Antonius sustained the failing line by calling up the praetorians. They, when they had taken over the fight, drive the enemy back, then are driven back. For the Vitellians had brought their engines onto the embankment of the road, that their missiles might be discharged over open and clear ground—at first scattered and dashed against the plantations without hurt to the enemy. A ballista of the Fifteenth legion, of extraordinary size, was breaking up the enemy’s line with huge stones. And it would have dealt destruction far and wide, had not two soldiers, daring a famous deed, having snatched up shields from among the slain and so passing unknown, cut the cords and counterweights of the engine. At once they were run through, and thereby their names perished: of the deed there is no doubt. To neither side had fortune inclined, until, as the night grew on, the rising moon showed the lines and deceived them. But it was the kinder to the Flavians, behind them; on this side the shadows of horses and men fell the larger, and the enemy’s missiles, aimed amiss as though at the bodies, fell short; the Vitellians, lit up against the light, were exposed unawares to men shooting as it were from concealment.

Sustinuit labentem aciem Antonius accitis praetorianis. qui ubi excepere pugnam, pellunt hostem, dein pelluntur. namque Vitelliani tormenta in aggerem viae contulerant ut tela vacuo atque aperto excuterentur, dispersa primo et arbustis sine hostium noxa inlisa. magnitudine eximia quintae decimae legionis ballista ingentibus saxis hostilem aciem proruebat. lateque cladem intulisset ni duo milites praeclarum facinus ausi, arreptis e strage scutis ignorati, vincla ac libramenta tormentorum abscidissent. statim confossi sunt eoque intercidere nomina: de facto haud ambigitur. neutro inclinaverat fortuna donec adulta nocte luna surgens ostenderet acies falleretque. sed Flavianis aequior a tergo; hinc maiores equorum virorumque umbrae, et falso, ut in corpora, ictu tela hostium citra cadebant: Vitelliani adverso lumine conlucentes velut ex occulto iaculantibus incauti offerebantur.

And so Antonius, when he could know his men and be known, kindling some by shame and reproaches, many by praise and exhortation, all by hope and promises, kept asking the Pannonian legions why they had taken up arms again: these were the plains, he said, on which they could wipe out the stain of their former disgrace, where they could recover their glory. Then, turning to the Moesians, he called upon the chief men and authors of the war: in vain had the Vitellians been challenged with threats and words, if they could not bear their hands and their eyes. This as he came to each; more to the men of the Third, reminding them of the old and the new—how under Marcus Antonius they had driven back the Parthians, under Corbulo the Armenians, of late the Sarmatians. Then, fierce against the praetorians, "You," said he, "unless you conquer, you clods, what other emperor, what other camp will take you in? There are your standards and your arms, and death for the conquered; for your disgrace you have used up." On all sides a shout, and—as is the custom in Syria—the men of the Third saluted the rising sun.

Igitur Antonius, ubi noscere suos noscique poterat, alios pudore et probris, multos laude et hortatu, omnis spe promissisque accendens, cur resumpsissent arma, Pannonicas legiones interrogabat: illos esse campos, in quibus abolere labem prioris ignominiae, ubi reciperare gloriam possent. tum ad Moesicos conversus principes auctoresque belli ciebat: frustra minis et verbis provocatos Vitellianos, si manus eorum oculosque non tolerent. haec, ut quosque accesserat; plura ad tertianos, veterum recentiumque admo- nens, ut sub M. Antonio Parthos, sub Corbulone Armenios, nuper Sarmatas pepulissent. mox infensus praetorianis ’vos’ inquit, ’nisi vincitis, pagani, quis alius imperator, quae castra alia excipient? illic signa armaque vestra sunt, et mors victis; nam ignominiam consumpsistis.’ undique clamor, et orientem solem (ita in Syria mos est) tertiani salutavere.

Thence a rumor, vague or planted by the leader’s design, that Mucianus had come, that the armies had saluted one another. They press forward as though increased by fresh reinforcements, the Vitellian line being now thinner, since, with no director, each man’s own impulse or panic drew him together or apart. After Antonius perceived them shaken, he threw them into confusion with a close-packed column. The loosened ranks are broken off, nor could they be restored, the wagons and engines hindering. Along the line of the road the victors are scattered in their haste to pursue. The slaughter was the more notable, because a son killed his father. The fact and the names I shall hand down on the authority of Vipstanus Messala. Julius Mansuetus, from Spain, added to the Rapax legion, had left a son not yet grown at home. He, soon come of age, enrolled among the men of the Seventh by Galba, his father chancing to be brought in his way and laid low by a wound, while he searches the half-dead man, was recognized and recognizing, and, embracing the lifeless body, in a tearful voice prayed the appeased shade of his father, and that they would not turn from him as a parricide: this was a public crime; and what fraction of civil war was a single soldier? At once he lifts the body, opens the earth, and performs the last office toward his parent. Those nearest marked it, then more; hence through the whole line wonder and lamentation and the cursing of a most cruel war. And none the less for that do they butcher and despoil kinsmen, relatives, brothers: they say a crime has been done—and do it.

Vagus inde an consilio ducis subditus rumor, advenisse Mucianum, exercitus in vicem salutasse. gradum inferunt quasi recentibus auxiliis aucti, rariore iam Vitellianorum acie, ut quos nullo rectore suus quemque impetus vel pavor contraheret diduceretve. postquam impulsos sensit Antonius, denso agmine obturbabat. laxati ordines abrumpuntur, nec restitui quivere impedientibus vehiculis tormentisque. per limitem viae sparguntur festinatione consectandi victores. eo notabilior caedes fuit, quia filius patrem interfecit. rem nominaque auctore Vipstano Messala tradam. Iulius Mansuetus ex Hispania, Rapaci legioni additus, impubem filium domi liquerat. is mox adultus, inter septimanos a Galba conscriptus, oblatum forte patrem et vulnere stratum dum semianimem scrutatur, agnitus agnoscensque et exanguem amplexus, voce flebili precabatur placatos patris manis, neve se ut parricidam aversarentur: publicum id facinus; et unum militem quotam civilium armorum partem? simul attollere corpus, aperire humum, supremo erga parentem officio fungi. advertere proximi, deinde plures: hinc per omnem aciem miraculum et questus et saevissimi belli execratio. nec eo segnius propinquos adfinis fratres trucidant spoliant: factum esse scelus loquuntur faciuntque.

When they came to Cremona, a new and immense work confronted them. In the Othonian war the German soldiery had thrown up their camp around the walls of the Cremonese, and a rampart around the camp, and had since enlarged those defenses. At the sight of them the victors stuck fast, the leaders uncertain what to order. To begin the assault with an army worn out through a day and a night was hard, and, with no help near, hazardous; but if they should go back to Bedriacum, the toil of so long a march was insupportable, and the victory was rolled back to nothing; to fortify a camp, that too was frightening with the enemy so near, lest they throw into confusion men scattered and toiling at the work by a sudden sally. But what terrified them above all was their own soldiery, more patient of danger than of delay: for what was safe was unwelcome, and their hope was from rashness; and all the slaughter and wounds and blood were balanced by the greed of plunder.

Vt Cremonam venere, novum immensumque opus occurrit. Othoniano bello Germanicus miles moenibus Cremonensium castra sua, castris vallum circumiecerat eaque munimenta rursus auxerat. quorum aspectu haesere victores, incertis ducibus quid iuberent. incipere obpugnationem fesso per diem noctemque exercitu arduum et nullo iuxta subsidio anceps: sin Bedriacum redirent, intolerandus tam longi itineris labor, et victoria ad inritum revolvebatur: munire castra, id quoque propinquis hostibus formidolosum, ne dispersos et opus molientis subita eruptione turbarent. quae super cuncta terrebat ipsorum miles periculi quam morae patientior: quippe ingrata quae tuta, ex temeritate spes; omnisque caedes et vulnera et sanguis aviditate praedae pensabantur.

To this Antonius inclined, and ordered the rampart to be ringed about. At first they fought at long range with arrows and stones, with the greater destruction of the Flavians, against whom the missiles were poised from above; then he assigned the rampart and the gates to the legions, that work divided might mark off the brave from the cowardly, and that they might be fired by the very rivalry for honor. The men of the Third and the Seventh took the part nearest the Bedriacum road, the right of the rampart the Eighth and the Seventh Claudiana; the impulse carried the men of the Thirteenth to the Brixian gate. Then a little delay, while from the nearest fields they bring up hoes and mattocks, and others sickles and ladders; then, their shields raised over their heads, they advance in a close testudo. On both sides Roman arts: the Vitellians roll down weights of stones, and probe the broken and wavering testudo with lances and pikes, until, the joining of the shields loosened, they stretched out the bloodless or the mangled with much slaughter. Hesitation had crept in, had not the leaders pointed out Cremona to the weary soldier, who refused their exhortations as though they were vain.

Huc inclinavit Antonius cingique vallum corona iussit. primo sagittis saxisque eminus certabant, maiore Flavianorum pernicie, in quos tela desuper librabantur; mox vallum portasque legionibus attribuit, ut discretus labor fortis ignavosque distingueret atque ipsa contentione decoris accenderentur. proxima Bedriacensi viae tertiani septimanique sumpsere, dexteriora valli octava ac septima Claudiana; tertiadecimanos ad Brixianam portam impetus tulit. paulum inde morae, dum ex proximis agris ligones dolabras et alii falcis scalasque convectant: tum elatis super capita scutis densa testudine succedunt. Romanae utrimque artes: pondera saxorum Vitelliani provolvunt, disiectam fluitantemque testudinem lanceis contisque scrutantur, donec soluta compage scutorum exanguis aut laceros prosternerent multa cum strage. incesserat cunctatio, ni duces fesso militi et velut inritas exhortationes abnuenti Cremonam monstrassent.

Whether this was the device of Hormus, as Messala hands down, or whether the better authority is Gaius Plinius, who accuses Antonius, I could not easily distinguish—save that neither Antonius nor Hormus fell short of his own fame and life, base though the deed was. No longer did blood or wounds stay them from undermining the rampart and battering the gates, as, leaning on one another’s shoulders and climbing over a renewed testudo, they grasped the enemy’s weapons and arms. The unhurt with the wounded, the half-dead with the dying, roll together, in the varied shape of the perishing and in every image of death.

Hormine id ingenium, ut Messala tradit, an potior auctor sit C. Plinius, qui Antonium incusat, haud facile discreverim, nisi quod neque Antonius neque Hormus a fama vitaque sua quamvis pessimo flagitio degeneravere. non iam sanguis neque vulnera morabantur quin subruerent vallum quaterentque portas, innixi umeris et super iteratam testudinem scandentes prensarent hostium tela brachiaque. integri cum sauciis, semineces cum expirantibus volvuntur, varia pereuntium forma et omni imagine mortium.

The fiercest struggle was of the Third and the Seventh legions; and the leader Antonius with picked auxiliaries had pressed upon the same point. When the Vitellians could not withstand men obstinate among themselves, and the missiles thrown over them slid off the testudo, at last they pushed down the ballista itself upon those coming up, which, as for the moment it scattered and buried those it fell upon, so it drew down with its own ruin the battlements and the top of the rampart; at the same time a joined tower gave way under the blows of the stones, where, while the men of the Seventh strive in wedges, a soldier of the Third broke through the gate with axes and swords. That Gaius Volusius, a soldier of the Third legion, was the first to burst in, is agreed among all the authorities. He, having mounted the rampart, those who had resisted thrown down, conspicuous by hand and voice, shouted that the camp was taken; the rest, the Vitellians now in panic and flinging themselves from the rampart, broke through. Whatever space lay empty between the camp and the walls is filled with slaughter.

Acerrimum tertiae septimaeque legionum certamen; et dux Antonius cum delectis auxiliaribus eodem incubuerat. obstinatos inter se cum sustinere Vitelliani nequirent et superiacta tela testudine laberentur, ipsam postremo ballistam in subeuntis propulere, quae ut ad praesens disiecit obruitque quos inciderat, ita pinnas ac summa valli ruina sua traxit; simul iuncta turris ictibus saxorum cessit, qua septimani dum nituntur cuneis, tertianus securibus gladiisque portam perfregit. primum inrupisse C. Volusium tertiae legionis militem inter omnis auctores constat. is in vallum egressus, deturbatis qui restiterant, conspicuus manu ac voce capta castra conclamavit; ceteri trepidis iam Vitellianis seque e vallo praecipitantibus perrupere. completur caede quantum inter castra murosque vacui fuit.

And again a new face of toils: the steep walls of the city, towers of stone, iron bars upon the gates, soldiers brandishing weapons, the people of Cremona thronging and bound to the Vitellian party, a great part of Italy gathered for the market fixed for those same days—which was a help to the defenders by its multitude, an incitement to the assailants by its plunder. Antonius orders fire to be caught up and carried into the most delightful buildings outside the city, in case the Cremonese, by the loss of their property, might be drawn to change their allegiance. The houses near the walls and rising above the height of the walls he fills with the bravest of the soldiers; they with beams and tiles and torches dislodge the defenders.

Ac rursus nova laborum facies: ardua urbis moenia, saxeae turres, ferrati portarum obices, vibrans tela miles, frequens obstrictusque Vitellianis partibus Cremonensis populus, magna pars Italiae stato in eosdem dies mercatu congregata, quod defensoribus auxilium ob multitudinem, obpugnantibus incitamentum ob praedam erat. rapi ignis Antonius inferrique amoenissimis extra urbem aedificiis iubet, si damno rerum suarum Cremonenses ad mutandam fidem traherentur. propinqua muris tecta et altitudinem moenium egressa fortissimo quoque militum complet; illi trabibus tegulisque et facibus propugnatores deturbant.

Now the legions were massing into a testudo, and others were hurling missiles and stones, when little by little the spirits of the Vitellians grew faint. As each man stood higher in rank, he yielded to fortune, lest, Cremona too being destroyed, there should be no pardon thereafter, and all the anger of the victor should fall back not on the resourceless crowd, but on the tribunes and centurions, where the price of slaughter lay. The common soldier, heedless of the future and the safer for his obscurity, held out: straying through the streets, hidden in the houses, they did not, even then, beg for peace, though they had laid down the war. The chief men of the camp remove the name and images of Vitellius; they loose the chains of Caecina (for even then he was in bonds) and beg him to stand as the pleader of their cause. Him, refusing and swelling with pride, they weary with their tears—the last of evils, so many bravest men invoking the help of a traitor; soon they display the veils and fillets of suppliants before the walls. When Antonius had ordered the missiles checked, they brought out the standards and the eagles; a mournful column of unarmed men followed, their eyes cast down to the ground. The victors had stood round, and at first heaped reproaches and threatened blows: soon, as the conquered offered their faces to insult and, all ferocity laid aside, endured everything, there crept in the recollection that these were the men who but lately at Bedriacum had used their victory with restraint. But when Caecina, marked out by the bordered robe and the lictors, the crowd parting, advanced as consul, the victors blazed up: they cast in his teeth his pride, his cruelty (so hateful are crimes), even his treachery. Antonius withstood them, and, defenders being given him, sent him off to Vespasian.

Iam legiones in testudinem glomerabantur, et alii tela saxaque incutiebant, cum languescere paulatim Vitellianorum animi. ut quis ordine anteibat, cedere fortunae, ne Cremona quoque excisa nulla ultra venia omnisque ira victoris non in vulgus inops, sed in tribunos centurionesque, ubi pretium caedis erat, reverteretur. gregarius miles futuri socors et ignobilitate tutior perstabat: vagi per vias, in domibus abditi pacem ne tum quidem orabant, cum bellum posuissent. primores castrorum nomen atque imagines Vitellii amoliuntur; catenas Caecinae (nam etiam tunc vinctus erat) exolvunt orantque ut causae suae deprecator adsistat. aspernantem tumentemque lacrimis fatigant, extremum malorum, tot fortissimi viri proditoris opem invocantes; mox velamenta et infulas pro muris ostentant. cum Antonius inhiberi tela iussisset, signa aquilasque extulere; maestum inermium agmen deiectis in terram oculis sequebatur. circumstiterant victores et primo ingerebant probra, intentabant ictus: mox, ut praeberi ora contumeliis et posita omni ferocia cuncta victi patiebantur, subit recordatio illos esse qui nuper Bedriaci victoriae temperassent. sed ubi Caecina praetexta lictoribusque insignis, dimota turba, consul incessit, exarsere victores: superbiam saevitiamque (adeo invisa scelera sunt), etiam perfidiam obiectabant. obstitit Antonius datisque defensoribus ad Vespasianum dimisit.

Meanwhile the commons of the Cremonese were buffeted among the armed men; and they were not far from slaughter, when the soldier was softened by the entreaties of the leaders. And Antonius, calling them to an assembly, addresses them—the victors magnificently, the conquered with clemency, of Cremona to neither effect. The army, besides its inborn lust of plundering, fell upon the destruction of the Cremonese out of an old hatred. They were believed to have aided the Vitellian party in Otho’s war too; then, the men of the Thirteenth being left behind to build an amphitheatre, they had mocked them—such is the petulant temper of the city plebs—with wanton railings. The grudge was increased by the gladiatorial show given there by Caecina, and that the same place was again the seat of war, and that food had been furnished to the Vitellians in the line of battle, and that some women, gone out to the fight in zeal for the party, had been killed; the time of the market, too, filled a colony otherwise rich with a greater show of wealth. The other leaders were in obscurity; Antonius fortune and fame had set before the eyes of all. He makes hastily for the baths, to wash off the gore. A word was caught up, when he complained of the lukewarmth, that it would soon be hot: a slave’s quip turned all the odium upon him, as though he had given the signal to set Cremona ablaze—which was already burning.

Plebs interim Cremonensium inter armatos conflictabatur; nec procul caede aberant, cum precibus ducum mitigatus est miles. et vocatos ad contionem Antonius adloquitur, magnifice victores, victos clementer, de Cremona in neutrum. exercitus praeter insitam praedandi cupidinem vetere odio ad excidium Cremonensium incubuit. iuvisse partis Vitellianas Othonis quoque bello credebantur; mox tertiadecimanos ad extruendum amphitheatrum relictos, ut sunt procacia urbanae plebis ingenia, petulantibus iurgiis inluserant. auxit invidiam editum illic a Caecina gladiatorum spectaculum eademque rursus belli sedes et praebiti in acie Vitellianis cibi, caesae quaedam feminae studio partium ad proelium progressae; tempus quoque mercatus ditem alioqui coloniam maiore opum specie complebat. ceteri duces in obscuro: Antonium fortuna famaque omnium oculis exposuerat. is balineas abluendo cruori propere petit. excepta vox est, cum teporem incusaret, statim futurum ut incalescerent: vernile dictum omnem invidiam in eum vertit, tamquam signum incendendae Cremonae dedisset, quae iam flagrabat.

Forty thousand armed men burst in, of camp-servants and sutlers a larger number, and more corrupted to lust and cruelty. Neither dignity nor age protected against ravishings being mingled with slaughters, slaughters with ravishings. Aged old men, women past their prime, worthless for plunder, they dragged off for sport; wherever a grown maiden or anyone conspicuous for beauty had fallen in their way, torn apart by the hands and violence of those who seized him, he drove the despoilers themselves at last to mutual destruction. While each man dragged off for himself money or the temple offerings heavy with gold, he was cut down by the greater violence of others. Some, scorning what lay before them, by floggings and tortures searched out the hidden things of the householders and dug up what was buried: torches in their hands, which, when they had carried out the plunder, in wantonness they flung into emptied houses and stripped temples; and, in an army various in tongues and customs, in which citizens, allies, and foreigners were mingled, there were diverse appetites, and to each a different notion of right, and nothing unlawful. For four days Cremona held out. While all things sacred and profane were settling into the fire, the temple of Mefitis alone stood before the walls, defended by its position or by its divinity.

Quadraginta armatorum milia inrupere, calonum lixarumque amplior numerus et in libidinem ac saevitiam corruptior. non dignitas, non aetas protegebat quo minus stupra caedibus, caedes stupris miscerentur. grandaevos senes, exacta aetate feminas, vilis ad praedam, in ludibrium trahebant: ubi adulta virgo aut quis forma conspicuus incidisset, vi manibusque rapientium divulsus ipsos postremo direptores in mutuam perniciem agebat. dum pecuniam vel gravia auro templorum dona sibi quisque trahunt, maiore aliorum vi truncabantur. quidam obvia aspernati verberibus tormentisque dominorum abdita scrutari, defossa eruere: faces in manibus, quas, ubi praedam egesserant, in vacuas domos et inania templa per lasciviam iaculabantur; utque exercitu vario linguis moribus, cui cives socii externi interessent, diversae cupidines et aliud cuique fas nec quicquam inlicitum. per quadriduum Cremona suffecit. cum omnia sacra profanaque in igne considerent, solum Mefitis templum stetit ante moenia, loco seu numine defensum.

This was the end of Cremona, in the two hundred and eighty-sixth year from its beginning. It had been founded in the consulship of Tiberius Sempronius and Publius Cornelius, while Hannibal was bursting into Italy, as a bulwark against the Gauls ranging beyond the Po, and against any other force that might rush down through the Alps. And so, by the number of its colonists, by the convenience of its rivers, by the richness of its soil, by its bonds and intermarriages with the tribes, it grew and flourished, untouched by foreign wars, unhappy in civil ones. Antonius, in shame at the outrage, the odium thickening, proclaimed that no one should keep a Cremonese captive. And the consent of Italy had made the plunder worthless to the soldiers, refusing to buy such slaves: they began to be killed; which, when it got abroad, they were secretly ransomed by their kinsmen and relatives. Soon the remnant of the people returned to Cremona; the markets and temples were restored by the munificence of the townships; and Vespasian gave encouragement.

Hic exitus Cremonae anno ducentesimo octogesimo sexto a primordio sui. condita erat Ti. Sempronio P. Cornelio consulibus, ingruente in Italiam Annibale, propugnaculum adversus Gallos trans Padum agentis et si qua alia vis per Alpis rueret. igitur numero colonorum, opportunitate fluminum, ubere agri, adnexu conubiisque gentium adolevit floruitque, bellis externis intacta, civilibus infelix. Antonius pudore flagitii, crebrescente invidia, edixit ne quis Cremonensem captivum detineret. inritamque praedam militibus effecerat consensus Italiae, emptionem talium mancipiorum aspernantis: occidi coepere; quod ubi enotuit, a propinquis adfinibusque occulte redemptabantur. mox rediit Cremonam reliquus populus: reposita fora templaque magnificentia municipum; et Vespasianus hortabatur.

For the rest, ground noxious with corruption did not long permit them to sit beside the ruins of the buried city. Having advanced to the third milestone, they set in order the straying and panicked Vitellians, each among his own standards; and the beaten legions, lest, the civil war still continuing, they should act ambiguously, were dispersed through Illyricum. Into Britain and the Spains they sent messengers and report, into Gaul Julius Calenus the tribune, into Germany Alpinius Montanus, prefect of a cohort—because this man was a Treviran, Calenus an Aeduan, and both had been Vitellians—for a show. At the same time the passes of the Alps were occupied with garrisons, Germany being suspected, as though it were girding itself to the aid of Vitellius.

Ceterum adsidere sepultae urbis ruinis noxia tabo humus haud diu permisit. ad tertium lapidem progressi vagos paventisque Vitellianos, sua quemque apud signa, componunt; et victae legiones, ne manente adhuc civili bello ambigue agerent, per Illyricum dispersae. in Britanniam inde et Hispanias nuntios famamque, in Galliam Iulium Calenum tribunum, in Germaniam Alpinium Montanum praefectum cohortis, quod hic Trevir, Calenus Aeduus, uterque Vitelliani fuerant, ostentui misere. simul transitus Alpium praesidiis occupati, suspecta Germania, tamquam in auxilium Vitellii accingeretur.

But Vitellius, Caecina having set out—after he had a few days later urged Fabius Valens to the war—cloaked his self-indulgence with cares: he did not prepare arms, did not strengthen the soldier by address and exercise, did not act before the eyes of the crowd, but, hidden in the shady retreats of his gardens, like those sluggish animals which, if you supply them food, lie torpid, he had dismissed past, present, and future with an equal forgetfulness. And as he lounged idle and wilting in the grove of Aricia, the treachery of Lucilius Bassus and the defection of the Ravenna fleet struck him; and not long after came word of Caecina, a grief mingled with joy—both that he had revolted and that he had been put in bonds by the army. Joy availed more with his sluggish mind than care. Carried back into the City with much exultation, in a crowded assembly he heaps praises on the loyalty of the soldiers; he orders Publilius Sabinus, prefect of the praetorian guard, to be put in chains for his friendship with Caecina, Alfenus Varus being substituted in his place.

At Vitellius profecto Caecina, cum Fabium Valentem paucis post diebus ad bellum impulisset, curis luxum obtendebat: non parare arma, non adloquio exercitioque militem firmare, non in ore vulgi agere, sed umbraculis hortorum abditus, ut ignava animalia, quibus si cibum suggeras, iacent torpentque, praeterita instantia futura pari oblivione dimiserat. atque illum in nemore Aricino desidem et marcentem proditio Lucilii Bassi ac defectio classis Ravennatis perculit; nec multo post de Caecina adfertur mixtus gaudio dolor et descivisse et ab exercitu vinctum. plus apud socordem animum laetitia quam cura valuit. multa cum exultatione in urbem revectus frequenti contione pietatem militum laudibus cumulat; Publilium Sabinum praetorii praefectum ob amicitiam Caecinae vinciri iubet, substituto in locum eius Alfeno Varo.

Soon, having addressed the Senate in a speech composed for magnificence, he is exalted by the studied flatteries of the fathers. The beginning of a savage motion against Caecina was made by Lucius Vitellius; then the rest, with a feigned indignation that a consul had betrayed the commonwealth, a general his emperor, a man heaped with such wealth and so many honors his friend, brought forth their own grief as though lamenting for Vitellius. In no one’s speech was there any disparagement of the Flavian leaders: blaming the error and imprudence of the armies, they went round the name of Vespasian in suspense and avoidance; nor was there wanting one who, with much mockery of the giver and the receiver, wheedled out the one day of the consulship (for that remained over in Caecina’s place). On the day before the kalends of November, Rosius Regulus entered upon it and abjured it. The learned noted that never before had another been substituted without the magistracy being abrogated or a law passed; for there had been a consul for a single day before, Caninius Rebilus, when Gaius Caesar was dictator, when the rewards of civil war were being hurried on.

Mox senatum composita in magnificentiam oratione adlocutus, exquisitis patrum adulationibus attollitur. initium atrocis in Caecinam sententiae a L. Vitellio factum; dein ceteri composita indignatione, quod consul rem publicam, dux imperatorem, tantis opibus tot honoribus cumulatus amicum prodidisset, velut pro Vitellio conquerentes, suum dolorem proferebant. nulla in oratione cuiusquam erga Flavianos duces obtrectatio: errorem imprudentiamque exercituum culpantes, Vespasiani nomen suspensi et vitabundi circumibant, nec defuit qui unum consulatus diem (is enim in locum Cae- cinae supererat) magno cum inrisu tribuentis accipientisque eblandiretur. pridie kalendas Novembris Rosius Regulus iniit eiuravitque. adnotabant periti numquam antea non abrogato magistratu neque lege lata alium suffectum; nam consul uno die et ante fuerat Caninius Rebilus C. Caesare dictatore, cum belli civilis praemia festinarentur.

Notorious and infamous in those days was the death of Junius Blaesus, of which we have received this account. Vitellius, sick with a grave bodily ailment, noticed in the Servilian gardens a tower set near by, gleaming through the night with frequent lights. When he asked the reason, it is reported that many were feasting at the house of Caecina Tuscus, foremost in honor Junius Blaesus; the rest was told for more—of the apparatus and of spirits loosed into wantonness. Nor were there wanting those who accused Tuscus himself and the others, but more criminally Blaesus, that with the emperor sick he was passing glad days. When it was plain enough to those who keenly watch the offenses of princes that Vitellius was exasperated and that Blaesus could be overthrown, the part of the informer was given to Lucius Vitellius. He, hostile to Blaesus from a base rivalry, because Blaesus, spotted with no disgrace, went before him in excellent fame, unbars the emperor’s bedchamber, embracing Vitellius’s son in his arms and falling at his knees. When Vitellius asked the cause of his agitation, he answered that he had brought no fear of his own, nor was anxious for himself, but had brought entreaties and tears for his brother, for his brother’s children. In vain was Vespasian feared, whom so many German legions, so many provinces in valor and faith, so much of land and sea at last by its measureless spaces kept off: in the City, in his very bosom, was the enemy to be guarded against, vaunting his Junian and Antonian forebears—who, of imperial stock, showed himself affable and magnificent to the soldiers. The minds of all were turned thither, while Vitellius, careless of friends and enemies alike, cherished a rival who looked out from his banquet upon the toils of the emperor. He must be repaid, for his untimely gladness, with a mournful and funereal night, in which he should know and feel that Vitellius lived and reigned, and, if anything should befall by fate, that he had a son.

Nota per eos dies Iunii Blaesi mors et famosa fuit, de qua sic accepimus. gravi corporis morbo aeger Vitellius Servilianis hortis turrim vicino sitam conlucere per noctem crebris luminibus animadvertit. sciscitanti causam apud Caecinam Tuscum epulari multos, praecipuum honore Iunium Blaesum nuntiatur; cetera in maius, de apparatu et solutis in lasciviam animis. nec defuere qui ipsum Tuscum et alios, sed criminosius Blaesum incusarent, quod aegro principe laetos dies ageret. ubi asperatum Vitellium et posse Blaesum perverti satis patuit iis qui principum offensas acriter speculantur, datae L. Vitellio delationis partes. ille infensus Blaeso aemulatione prava, quod eum omni dedecore maculosum egregia fama anteibat, cubiculum imperatoris reserat, filium eius sinu complexus et genibus accidens. causam confusionis quaerenti, non se proprio metu nec sui anxium, sed pro fratre, pro liberis fratris preces lacrimasque attulisse. frustra Vespasianum timeri, quem tot Germanicae legiones, tot provinciae virtute ac fide, tantum denique terrarum ac maris immensis spatiis arceat: in urbe ac sinu cavendum hostem, Iunios Antoniosque avos iactantem, qui se stirpe imperatoria comem ac magnificum militibus ostentet. versas illuc omnium mentis, dum Vitellius amicorum inimicorumque neglegens fovet aemulum principis labores e convivio prospectantem. reddendam pro intempestiva laetitia maestam et funebrem noctem, qua sciat et sentiat vivere Vitellium et imperare et, si quid fato accidat, filium habere.

As he wavered between the crime and the fear—lest Blaesus’s death deferred should bring a ripe destruction, or, openly ordered, an atrocious odium—it was resolved to proceed by poison; and he gave credit to the deed by a notable joy, in going to look upon Blaesus. Nay, a most savage word of Vitellius was heard, in which he boasted (for I shall report the very words) that he had feasted his eyes on the spectacle of his enemy’s death. Blaesus, besides the brightness of his birth and the elegance of his manners, had an obstinacy of loyalty. Even while affairs were yet intact, when Caecina and the chief men of the party were already spurning Vitellius, he persevered in refusing their canvassing. Holy, untroubled, coveting no sudden honor, so far from coveting the principate, he had scarcely escaped being thought worthy of it.

Trepidanti inter scelus metumque, ne dilata Blaesi mors maturam perniciem, palam iussa atrocem invidiam ferret, placuit veneno grassari; addidit facinori fidem notabili gaudio, Blaesum visendo. quin et audita est saevissima Vitellii vox qua se (ipsa enim verba referam) pavisse oculos spectata inimici morte iactavit. Blaeso super claritatem natalium et elegantiam morum fidei obstinatio fuit. integris quoque rebus a Caecina et primoribus partium iam Vitellium aspernantibus ambitus abnuere perseveravit. sanctus, inturbidus, nullius repentini honoris, adeo non principatus adpetens, parum effugerat ne dignus crederetur.

Fabius Valens, meanwhile, advancing with a great and soft train of concubines and eunuchs more slowly than befits a march to war, received by swift messengers that the Ravenna fleet had been betrayed by Lucilius Bassus. And had he hastened the journey begun, he could have forestalled the wavering Caecina, or overtaken the legions before the crisis of battle; nor were there wanting those who advised that, with the most faithful, by hidden by-ways, Ravenna avoided, he should make for Hostilia or Cremona. To others it seemed best, the praetorian cohorts being summoned from the City, to break through with a strong band: but he himself, by a useless delay, wasted the times for action in deliberating; soon, spurning both counsels—which, among doubtful courses, is the worst—while he follows the middle way, he neither dared enough nor foresaw enough.

Fabius interim Valens multo ac molli concubinarum spadonumque agmine segnius quam ad bellum incedens, proditam a Lucilio Basso Ravennatem classem pernicibus nuntiis accepit. et si coeptum iter properasset, nutantem Caecinam praevenire aut ante discrimen pugnae adsequi legiones potuisset; nec deerant qui monerent ut cum fidissimis per occultos tramites vitata Ravenna Hostiliam Cremonamve pergeret. aliis placebat accitis ex urbe praetoriis cohortibus valida manu perrumpere: ipse inutili cunctatione agendi tempora consultando consumpsit; mox utrumque consilium aspernatus, quod inter ancipitia deterrimum est, dum media sequitur, nec ausus est satis nec providit.

Having sent letters to Vitellius, he demands aid. Three cohorts came with a British squadron, a number fit neither for deceiving nor for breaking through. But Valens, not even in so great a crisis, was free of infamy—that he was believed to snatch at unlawful pleasures and to defile the houses of his hosts with adulteries and debaucheries: there were at hand force and money and the last lust of a collapsing fortune. Only at the coming of the foot and horse was the perversity of his counsel laid bare, since he could neither go through the enemy with so small a band, even were it the most faithful, nor had they brought an unimpaired loyalty; yet shame and reverence for the leader present held them back—no lasting bonds among men fearful of dangers and careless of disgrace. In that fear he sends the cohorts ahead to Ariminum, and orders the squadron to guard his rear; he himself, with a few attending whom adversity had not changed, turned aside into Umbria, and thence into Etruria, where, learning the outcome of the battle of Cremona, he formed a plan not cowardly and, had it succeeded, atrocious—that, seizing ships, he should land in whatever part of the Narbonese province, and rouse the Gauls and the armies and the peoples of Germany, and a new war.

Missis ad Vitellium litteris auxilium postulat. venere tres cohortes cum ala Britannica, neque ad fallendum aptus numerus neque ad penetrandum. sed Valens ne in tanto quidem discrimine infamia caruit, quo minus rapere inlicitas voluptates adulteriisque ac stupris polluere hospitum domus crederetur: aderant vis et pecunia et ruentis fortunae novissima libido. adventu demum peditum equitumque pravitas consilii patuit, quia nec vadere per hostis tam parva manu poterat, etiam si fidissima foret, nec integram fidem attulerant; pudor tamen et praesentis ducis reverentia morabatur, haud diuturna vincla apud pavidos periculorum et dedecoris securos. eo metu cohortis Ariminum praemittit, alam tueri terga iubet: ipse paucis, quos adversa non mutaverant, comitantibus flexit in Vmbriam atque inde Etruriam, ubi cognito pugnae Cremonensis eventu non ignavum et, si provenisset, atrox consilium iniit, ut arreptis navibus in quamcumque partem Narbonensis provinciae egressus Gallias et exercitus et Germaniae gentis novumque bellum cieret.

Valens having departed, Cornelius Fuscus, his army moved up and Liburnians sent along the nearest of the shores, surrounded by land and sea the frightened men who held Ariminum: the plains of Umbria are occupied, and where the Picene country is washed by the Adriatic, and all Italy between Vespasian and Vitellius was divided by the ridges of the Apennine. Fabius Valens, from the bay of Pisa, by the sluggishness of the sea or by a contrary wind, is driven to the harbor of Hercules Monoecus. Not far thence lived Marius Maturus, procurator of the Maritime Alps, faithful to Vitellius, whose oath, though all around were hostile, he had not yet thrown off. He, having received Valens courteously, by warning frightened him from rashly entering Narbonese Gaul; and at the same time the loyalty of the rest was broken by fear.

Digresso Valente trepidos, qui Ariminum tenebant, Cornelius Fuscus, admoto exercitu et missis per proxima litorum Liburnicis, terra marique circumvenit: occupantur plana Vmbriae et qua Picenus ager Hadria adluitur, omnisque Italia inter Vespasianum ac Vitellium Appennini iugis dividebatur. Fabius Valens e sinu Pisano segnitia maris aut adversante vento portum Herculis Monoeci depellitur. haud procul inde agebat Marius Maturus Alpium maritimarum procurator, fidus Vitellio, cuius sacramentum cunctis circa hostilibus nondum exuerat. is Valentem comiter exceptum, ne Galliam Narbonensem temere ingrederetur, monendo terruit; simul ceterorum fides metu infracta.

For the procurator Valerius Paulinus, vigorous in soldiering and a friend of Vespasian before his fortune, had bound the neighboring communities into his words; and, having roused all who, cashiered by Vitellius, were of their own accord taking up the war, he was guarding the colony of Forum Iulii, the lock of the sea, with a garrison—the weightier an authority because Forum Iulii was Paulinus’s fatherland, and he had honor among the praetorians, whose tribune he had once been, and the townsmen themselves, in their municipal partiality and their hope of his future power, strove to aid the party. When these things, firm in their preparation and swollen by rumor, grew common among the wavering minds of the Vitellians, Fabius Valens, with four scouts and three friends, as many centurions, goes back to the ships; to Maturus and the rest it was given to remain and to be bound into the words of Vespasian. For the rest, as the sea was safer for Valens than the shores or the cities, so, doubtful of the future and surer of what he should shun than of whom he should trust, by an adverse storm he is carried to the Stoechades, the islands of the Massilians. There Liburnians sent by Paulinus overwhelmed him.

Namque circumiectas civitates procurator Valerius Paulinus, strenuus militiae et Vespasiano ante fortunam ami- cus, in verba eius adegerat; concitisque omnibus, qui exauctorati a Vitellio bellum sponte sumebant, Foroiuliensem coloniam, claustra maris, praesidio tuebatur, eo gravior auctor, quod Paulino patria Forum Iulii et honos apud praetorianos, quorum quondam tribunus fuerat, ipsique pagani favore municipali et futurae potentiae spe iuvare partis adnitebantur. quae ut paratu firma et aucta rumore apud varios Vitellianorum animos increbruere, Fabius Valens cum quattuor speculatoribus et tribus amicis, totidem centurionibus, ad navis regreditur; Maturo ceterisque remanere et in verba Vespasiani adigi volentibus fuit. ceterum ut mare tutius Valenti quam litora aut urbes, ita futuri ambiguus et magis quid vitaret quam cui fideret certus, adversa tempestate Stoechadas Massiliensium insulas adfertur. ibi eum missae a Paulino Liburnicae oppressere.

Valens taken, everything was turned to the resources of the victor, the beginning made through Spain by the First Adiutrix legion, which, hostile to Vitellius from the memory of Otho, drew the Tenth too and the Sixth. Nor did the Gauls hold back. And the inborn favor toward Vespasian joined Britain—because there, set over the Second legion by Claudius, he had acted with distinction in war—not without a stirring of the rest, in which many centurions and soldiers, advanced by Vitellius, were anxiously changing to a prince they had already tried.

Capto Valente cuncta ad victoris opes conversa, initio per Hispaniam a prima Adiutrice legione orto, quae memoria Othonis infensa Vitellio decimam quoque ac sextam traxit. nec Galliae cunctabantur. et Britanniam inditus erga Vespasianum favor, quod illic secundae legioni a Claudio praepositus et bello clarus egerat, non sine motu adiunxit ceterarum, in quibus plerique centuriones ac milites a Vitellio provecti expertum iam principem anxii mutabant.

By that discord, and by the frequent rumors of civil war, the Britons took heart, with Venutius for their leader, who, beyond his inborn ferocity and his hatred of the Roman name, was inflamed by private goads against the queen Cartimandua. Cartimandua ruled the Brigantes, powerful in her nobility; and she had increased her power after, the king Caratacus being taken by treachery, she was seen to have furnished the triumph of Claudius Caesar. Thence wealth, and the luxury of prosperity: scorning Venutius (he was her husband), she took his armor-bearer Vellocatus into marriage and into the kingship. At once the house was shaken by the outrage: for the husband the zeal of the state, for the adulterer the lust and cruelty of the queen. And so Venutius, auxiliaries summoned, and at the same time by the defection of the Brigantes themselves, brought Cartimandua to the extremest peril. Then garrisons were asked of the Romans. And our cohorts and squadrons, in various battles, yet took the queen out of danger; the kingdom was left to Venutius, the war to us.

Ea discordia et crebris belli civilis rumoribus Britanni sustulere animos auctore Venutio, qui super insitam ferociam et Romani nominis odium propriis in Cartimanduam reginam stimulis accendebatur. Cartimandua Brigantibus imperitabat, pollens nobilitate; et auxerat potentiam, postquam capto per dolum rege Carataco instruxisse triumphum Clau- dii Caesaris videbatur. inde opes et rerum secundarum luxus: spreto Venutio (is fuit maritus) armigerum eius Vellocatum in matrimonium regnumque accepit. concussa statim flagitio domus: pro marito studia civitatis, pro adultero libido reginae et saevitia. igitur Venutius accitis auxiliis, simul ipsorum Brigantum defectione in extremum discrimen Cartimanduam adduxit. tum petita a Romanis praesidia. et cohortes alaeque nostrae variis proeliis, exemere tamen periculo reginam; regnum Venutio, bellum nobis relictum.

In those same days Germany was thrown into turmoil, and by the sloth of the leaders, the mutiny of the legions, the force of foreigners, the perfidy of the allies, the Roman state was nearly brought low. That war, with its causes and its outcomes (for it ran on at greater length), we shall relate by and by. The Dacian people too were stirred, never to be trusted, then without fear, the army being withdrawn from Moesia. But the first events they watched in quiet; when they learned that Italy was ablaze with war, and that all things were in turn hostile, they took the winter quarters of the cohorts and squadrons by storm and were gaining the mastery of both banks of the Danube. And now they were preparing to destroy the camps of the legions, had not Mucianus set the Sixth legion against them—aware of the victory of Cremona, and lest a foreign mass should press in on both sides, if the Dacian and the German burst in from opposite quarters. There stood by, as often elsewhere, the fortune of the Roman people, which brought Mucianus thither, and the strength of the East, and the fact that in the meantime we had settled matters at Cremona. Fonteius Agrippa, from Asia (he had held that province for a year’s term as proconsul), was set over Moesia, with forces added from the Vitellian army, which it was part of the policy of peace to scatter through the provinces and entangle in a foreign war.

Turbata per eosdem dies Germania, et socordia ducum, seditione legionum, externa vi, perfidia sociali prope adflicta Romana res. id bellum cum causis et eventibus (etenim longius provectum est) mox memorabimus. mota et Dacorum gens numquam fida, tunc sine metu, abducto e Moesia exercitu. sed prima rerum quieti speculabantur: ubi flagrare Italiam bello, cuncta in vicem hostilia accepere, expugnatis cohortium alarumque hibernis utraque Danuvii ripa potiebantur. iamque castra legionum excindere parabant, ni Mucianus sextam legionem opposuisset, Cremonensis victoriae gnarus, ac ne externa moles utrimque ingrueret, si Dacus Germanusque diversi inrupissent. adfuit, ut saepe alias, fortuna populi Romani, quae Mucianum virisque Orientis illuc tulit, et quod Cremonae interim transegimus. Fonteius Agrippa ex Asia (pro consule eam provinciam annuo imperio tenuerat) Moesiae praepositus est, additis copiis e Vitelliano exercitu, quem spargi per provincias et externo bello inligari pars consilii pacisque erat.

Nor were the other nations silent. A sudden rising in arms throughout Pontus a barbarian slave, once prefect of the royal fleet, had set in motion. This was Anicetus, a freedman of Polemo, once very powerful and, after the kingdom had been turned into the form of a province, impatient of the change. And so, in the name of Vitellius, the peoples who dwell about Pontus being enlisted, and all the neediest corrupted by the hope of plunder, as the leader of no contemptible band he suddenly burst into Trapezus, a city of ancient fame, founded by the Greeks on the farthest of the Pontic shore. There a cohort was cut down, once a royal auxiliary; soon, presented with the Roman citizenship, they had kept their standards and arms after our fashion, but the sloth and license of the Greeks. He set fire to the fleet too, eluding them on an empty sea, because Mucianus had driven the choicest of the Liburnians and all the soldiery to Byzantium; nay, the barbarians even ranged about contemptuously, ships having been built on the sudden. They call them camarae—of narrow sides and a broad belly, joined without the binding of bronze or iron; and on a swollen sea, as the wave rises, they raise the tops of the ships with planks, until they are closed in like a roof. So they roll among the waves, with prow alike at either end and shifting oarage, since to put in from this side or from that is indifferent and harmless.

Nec ceterae nationes silebant. subita per Pontum arma barbarum mancipium, regiae quondam classis praefectus, moverat. is fuit Anicetus Polemonis libertus, prae- potens olim, et postquam regnum in formam provinciae verterat, mutationis impatiens. igitur Vitellii nomine adscitis gentibus, quae Pontum accolunt, corrupto in spem rapinarum egentissimo quoque, haud temnendae manus ductor, Trapezuntem vetusta fama civitatem, a Graecis in extremo Ponticae orae conditam, subitus inrupit. caesa ibi cohors, regium auxilium olim; mox donati civitate Romana signa armaque in nostrum modum, desidiam licentiamque Graecorum retinebant. classi quoque faces intulit, vacuo mari eludens, quia lectissimas Liburnicarum omnemque militem Mucianus Byzantium adegerat: quin et barbari contemptim vagabantur, fabricatis repente navibus. camaras vocant, artis lateribus latam alvum sine vinculo aeris aut ferri conexam; et tumido mari, prout fluctus attollitur, summa navium tabulis augent, donec in modum tecti claudantur. sic inter undas volvuntur, pari utrimque prora et mutabili remigio, quando hinc vel illinc adpellere indiscretum et innoxium est.

This affair turned the mind of Vespasian to choose detachments from the legions and as their leader Virdius Geminus, of approved soldiering. He, attacking the enemy disordered and straying in greed of plunder, forced them onto their ships; and, Liburnians being hastily made, he overtakes Anicetus at the mouth of the river Chobus, safe under the protection of the king of the Sedochezi, whom by money and gifts he had driven into alliance. And at first the king with threats and arms protected his suppliant: after the wages of betrayal or war were held out, with the loose faith that is the barbarians’, he bargained away the destruction of Anicetus, gave up the fugitives, and an end was put to the servile war.

Advertit ea res Vespasiani animum ut vexillarios e legionibus ducemque Virdium Geminum spectatae militiae deligeret. ille incompositum et praedae cupidine vagum hostem adortus coegit in navis; effectisque raptim Liburnicis adsequitur Anicetum in ostio fluminis Chobi, tutum sub Sedochezorum regis auxilio, quem pecunia donisque ad societatem perpulerat. ac primo rex minis armisque supplicem tueri: postquam merces proditionis aut bellum ostendebatur, fluxa, ut est barbaris, fide pactus Aniceti exitium perfugas tradidit, belloque servili finis impositus.

Vespasian, glad at that victory, with everything flowing beyond his prayers, was overtaken in Egypt by the news of the battle of Cremona. The more swiftly therefore he makes for Alexandria, to press with famine the broken armies of Vitellius and a City needing aid from abroad. For he was preparing to invade Africa too, set on the same flank, by land and sea, the supports of the grain-supply being closed, to make want and discord for the enemy.

Laetum ea victoria Vespasianum, cunctis super vota fluentibus, Cremonensis proelii nuntius in Aegypto adsequitur. eo properantius Alexandriam pergit, ut fractos Vitellii exercitus urbemque externae opis indigam fame urgeret. namque et Africam, eodem latere sitam, terra marique invadere parabat, clausis annonae subsidiis inopiam ac discordiam hosti facturus.

While, by this swaying of the whole world, the fortune of empire passes over, Antonius Primus was behaving, after Cremona, with no equal innocence—reckoning enough had been done for the war and the rest would come easily; or perhaps prosperity, in such a nature, laid open his greed, his arrogance, and the rest of his hidden vices. As though Italy were a captured land, he careered over it; as though they were his own, he courted the legions; in all his words and deeds building himself a road to power. And, to steep the soldier in license, he offered the legions the ranks of the slain centurions for their choosing. By that vote the most turbulent were chosen; nor was the soldier at the discretion of the leaders, but the leaders were dragged along by the soldiers’ violence. These things, seditious and ruinous to discipline, he soon turned to plunder, fearing nothing from the approaching Mucianus—which was the more destructive than to have scorned Vespasian.

Dum hac totius orbis nutatione fortuna imperii transit, Primus Antonius nequaquam pari innocentia post Cremonam agebat, satis factum bello ratus et cetera ex facili, seu felicitas in tali ingenio avaritiam superbiam ceteraque occulta mala patefecit. ut captam Italiam persultare, ut suas legiones colere; omnibus dictis factisque viam sibi ad potentiam struere. utque licentia militem imbueret interfectorum centurionum ordines legionibus offerebat. eo suffragio turbidissimus quisque delecti; nec miles in arbitrio ducum, sed duces militari violentia trahebantur. quae seditiosa et corrumpendae disciplinae mox in praedam vertebat, nihil adventantem Mucianum veritus, quod exitiosius erat quam Vespasianum sprevisse.

For the rest, with winter near and the plains wet from the Po, a light column advanced. The standards and eagles of the victorious legions, soldiers heavy with wounds or age, very many even of the sound, were left at Verona: the cohorts and squadrons and the picked men from the legions seemed enough, the war being now as good as finished. The Eleventh legion had joined itself, hesitant at first, but, things prospering, anxious that it had been absent; six thousand Dalmatians, a recent levy, accompanied them; their commander was Pompeius Silvanus, of consular rank: the force of the counsels lay with Annius Bassus, the legion’s legate. He, ruling Silvanus—sluggish for war and wearing out the days of action in words—under a show of compliance, was present with a quiet diligence for all that had to be done. To these forces the best men from the Ravenna marines, demanding service in the legions, were enrolled: the Dalmatians filled up the fleet. The army and the leaders halt their march at Fanum Fortunae, in doubt of the whole matter, because they had heard that the praetorian cohorts had been moved from the City and supposed the Apennine to be held by garrisons; and they themselves, in a region worn by war, were frightened by want and by the seditious voices of the soldiers, who demanded the clavarium (it is the name of a donative). Nor had they provided money or corn, and their haste and greed got in the way, while what could have been received was being plundered.

Ceterum propinqua hieme et umentibus Pado campis expeditum agmen incedere. signa aquilaeque victricium legionum, milites vulneribus aut aetate graves, plerique etiam integri Veronae relicti: sufficere cohortes alaeque et e legionibus lecti profligato iam bello videbantur. undecima legio sese adiunxerat, initio cunctata, sed prosperis rebus anxia quod defuisset; sex milia Dalmatarum, recens dilectus, comitabantur; ducebat Pompeius Silvanus consularis: vis consiliorum penes Annium Bassum legionis legatum. is Silvanum socordem bello et dies rerum verbis terentem specie obsequii regebat ad omniaque quae agenda forent quieta cum industria aderat. ad has copias e classicis Ravennatibus, legionariam militiam poscentibus, optimus quisque adsciti: classem Dalmatae supplevere. exercitus ducesque ad Fanum Fortunae iter sistunt, de summa rerum cunctantes, quod motas ex urbe praetorias cohortis audierant et teneri praesidiis Appenninum rebantur; et ipsos in regione bello attrita inopia et seditiosae militum voces terrebant, clavarium (donativi nomen est) flagitantium. nec pecuniam aut frumentum providerant, et festinatio atque aviditas praepediebant, dum quae accipi poterant rapiuntur.

I have most renowned authorities that the victors had so great an irreverence toward right and wrong that a common trooper, professing that he had killed his brother in the last battle, asked a reward of the leaders. Neither did the law of men permit them to honor that slaughter, nor the reasoning of war to avenge it. They had put him off, as one who had deserved greater things than could at once be paid; and nothing further is handed down. And yet a like crime had befallen in the earlier wars of citizens too. For in the battle that was fought at the Janiculum against Cinna, a Pompeian soldier killed his own brother, then, the deed known, killed himself, as Sisenna records: so much the keener, among our ancestors, as was glory for virtues, so was repentance for outrages. But these things and others sought from old memory, as often as the matter and the place shall call for examples of the right or solaces for the evil, I shall record not unfittingly.

Celeberrimos auctores habeo tantam victoribus adversus fas nefasque inreverentiam fuisse ut gregarius eques occisum a se proxima acie fratrem professus praemium a ducibus petierit. nec illis aut honorare eam caedem ius hominum aut ulcisci ratio belli permittebat. distulerant tamquam maiora meritum quam quae statim exolverentur; nec quidquam ultra traditur. ceterum et prioribus civium bellis par scelus inciderat. nam proelio, quo apud Ianiculum adversus Cinnam pugnatum est, Pompeianus miles fratrem suum, dein cognito facinore se ipsum interfecit, ut Sisenna memorat: tanto acrior apud maiores, sicut virtutibus gloria, ita flagitiis paenitentia fuit. sed haec aliaque ex vetere memoria petita, quotiens res locusque exempla recti aut solacia mali poscet, haud absurde memorabimus.

It pleased Antonius and the leaders of the party to send the cavalry ahead and to scout all Umbria, in case any ridges of the Apennine might be approached more gently: to summon the eagles and standards and whatever soldiery was at Verona, and to fill the Po and the sea with supplies. There were among the leaders those who would weave delays: for Antonius was now too great, and surer things were hoped from Mucianus. For Mucianus, anxious at so swift a victory, and reckoning that, unless he got the City in his own presence, he would be without share in the war and its glory, kept writing to Primus and Varus in ambiguous terms—now arguing that they must press on with what was begun, now the advantages of delaying again, and so composed that, according to the outcome of events, he might disown the adverse or own the prosperous. Plotius Grypus, lately taken by Vespasian into the senatorial order and set over a legion, and the rest faithful to him, he advised more openly, and all these wrote back, of the haste of Primus and Varus, things sinister and pleasing to Mucianus. By which letters, sent to Vespasian, he had brought it about that Antonius’s counsels and deeds were not valued according to his hope.

Antonio ducibusque partium praemitti equites omnemque Vmbriam explorari placuit, si qua Appennini iuga clementius adirentur: acciri aquilas signaque et quidquid Veronae militum foret, Padumque et mare commeatibus compleri. erant inter duces qui necterent moras: quippe nimius iam Antonius, et certiora ex Muciano sperabantur. namque Mu- cianus tam celeri victoria anxius et, ni praesens urbe potiretur, expertem se belli gloriaeque ratus, ad Primum et Varum media scriptitabat, instandum coeptis aut rursus cunctandi utilitates disserens atque ita compositus ut ex eventu rerum adversa abnueret vel prospera agnosceret. Plotium Grypum, nuper a Vespasiano in senatorium ordinem adscitum ac legioni praepositum, ceterosque sibi fidos apertius monuit, hique omnes de festinatione Primi ac Vari sinistre et Muciano volentia rescripsere. quibus epistulis Vespasiano missis effecerat ut non pro spe Antonii consilia factaque eius aestimarentur.

Antonius bore this ill, and laid the blame on Mucianus, by whose slanders his own perils had been cheapened; nor did he keep restraint in his talk, immoderate of tongue and unused to submission. He composed letters to Vespasian more boastfully than befits writing to a prince, and not without a hidden attack on Mucianus: that he had driven the Pannonian legions into arms; that by his goads the leaders of Moesia had been roused, by his steadfastness the Alps broken through, Italy occupied, the auxiliaries of the Germans and the Raetians cut off. That he had routed the discordant and scattered legions of Vitellius, by a storm of cavalry, then by the force of the foot, through a day and a night—that was the fairest deed, and his own work. The disaster of Cremona was to be charged to the war: with greater loss, with the destruction of more cities, the old discords of citizens had cost the commonwealth. He served his emperor not with messengers or letters, but with hand and arms; nor did he stand in the way of the glory of those who in the meantime had settled Dacia: to them the peace of Moesia, to him the safety and security of Italy had been dear; by his exhortations the Gallic and Spanish provinces, the strongest part of the earth, had been turned to Vespasian. But his labors had fallen to nothing, if the rewards of dangers be won by those alone who were not present at the dangers. Nor did these things escape Mucianus; thence grave feuds, which Antonius more simply, Mucianus craftily and therefore the more implacably, nourished.

Aegre id pati Antonius et culpam in Mucianum conferre, cuius criminationibus eviluissent pericula sua; nec sermonibus temperabat, immodicus lingua et obsequii insolens. litteras ad Vespasianum composuit iactantius quam ad principem, nec sine occulta in Mucianum insectatione: se Pannonicas legiones in arma egisse; suis stimulis excitos Moesiae duces, sua constantia perruptas Alpis, occupatam Italiam, intersepta Germanorum Raetorumque auxilia. quod discordis dispersasque Vitellii legiones equestri procella, mox peditum vi per diem noctemque fudisset, id pulcherrimum et sui operis. casum Cremonae bello imputandum: maiore damno, plurium urbium excidiis veteres civium discordias rei publicae stetisse. non se nuntiis neque epistulis, sed manu et armis imperatori suo militare; neque officere gloriae eorum qui Daciam interim composuerint: illis Moesiae pacem, sibi salutem securitatemque Italiae cordi fuisse; suis exhortationibus Gallias Hispaniasque, validissimam terrarum par- tem, ad Vespasianum conversas. sed cecidisse in inritum labores si praemia periculorum soli adsequantur qui periculis non adfuerint. nec fefellere ea Mucianum; inde graves simultates, quas Antonius simplicius, Mucianus callide eoque implacabilius nutriebat.

But Vitellius, his cause broken at Cremona, concealing the messengers of the disaster, by a foolish dissembling was putting off the remedies of his evils rather than the evils themselves. For to one confessing and taking counsel, hope and strength remained: whereas, by feigning everything glad, he grew the heavier with falsehoods. Strange was the silence about the war in his presence; talk through the state was forbidden, and on that account the more men—and those who, were it allowed, would tell the truth—because they were forbidden, spread things more atrocious. Nor were the enemy’s leaders wanting to swell the report, sending back Vitellius’s captured scouts, after leading them about that they might learn the strength of the victorious army; all of whom Vitellius, having questioned them in secret, ordered to be killed. With notable steadfastness the centurion Julius Agrestis, after many conversations by which he vainly tried to kindle Vitellius to courage, prevailed that he himself should be sent to view the enemy’s strength and whatever had been done at Cremona. Nor did he try to deceive Antonius by secret scouting, but, declaring his emperor’s orders and his own mind, demands to see everything. Men were sent to show him the place of the battle, the traces of Cremona, the captured legions. Agrestis returned to Vitellius, and to him—denying that the things he reported were true, and moreover charging that he had been bribed—he said: "Since indeed there is need of a great proof, and there is now no other use to you of my life or of my death, I will give you something you may believe." And so departing, he confirmed his words by a voluntary death. Some have handed down that he was killed by Vitellius’s order, with the same testimony of his faith and steadfastness.

At Vitellius fractis apud Cremonam rebus nuntios cladis occultans stulta dissimulatione remedia potius malorum quam mala differebat. quippe confitenti consultantique supererant spes viresque: cum e contrario laeta omnia fingeret, falsis ingravescebat. mirum apud ipsum de bello silentium; prohibiti per civitatem sermones, eoque plures ac, si liceret, vere narraturi, quia vetabantur, atrociora vulgaverant. nec duces hostium augendae famae deerant, captos Vitellii exploratores circumductosque, ut robora victoris exercitus noscerent, remittendo; quos omnis Vitellius secreto percontatus interfici iussit. notabili constantia centurio Iulius Agrestis post multos sermones, quibus Vitellium ad virtutem frustra accendebat, perpulit ut ad viris hostium spectandas quaeque apud Cremonam acta forent ipse mitteretur. nec exploratione occulta fallere Antonium temptavit, sed mandata imperatoris suumque animum professus, ut cuncta viseret postulat. missi qui locum proelii, Cremonae vestigia, captas legiones ostenderent. Agrestis ad Vitellium remeavit abnuentique vera esse quae adferret, atque ultro corruptum arguenti ’quando quidem’ inquit ’magno documento opus est, nec alius iam tibi aut vitae aut mortis meae usus, dabo cui credas.’ atque ita digressus voluntaria morte dicta firmavit. quidam iussu Vitellii interfectum, de fide constantiaque eadem tradidere.

Vitellius, as though roused from sleep, orders Julius Priscus and Alfenus Varus, with fourteen praetorian cohorts and all the squadrons of horse, to blockade the Apennine; a legion from the marines followed. So many thousands of armed men, choice in horses and men, had another been their leader, were strong enough even for carrying the war forward. The rest of the cohorts were given to his brother Lucius Vitellius for guarding the City: he himself, remitting nothing of his accustomed luxury and, in his distrust, hasty, hurried on the elections, in which he was designating consuls for many years ahead; he lavished treaties on the allies, the Latin right on foreigners; to these he remitted tributes, others he aided with immunities; in short, with no care for the future, he tore the empire to pieces. But the crowd gaped at the magnitude of the benefits; every greatest fool bought them with money, while among the wise those things were held empty which could neither be given nor received with the commonwealth safe. At last, the army that had taken post at Mevania demanding it, with a great column of senators—many of whom he drew by ambition, more by fear—he came into the camp, uncertain of mind and exposed to treacherous counsels.

Vitellius ut e somno excitus Iulium Priscum et Alfenum Varum cum quattuordecim praetoriis cohortibus et omnibus equitum alis obsidere Appenninum iubet; secuta e classicis legio. tot milia armatorum, lecta equis virisque, si dux alius foret, inferendo quoque bello satis pollebant. ceterae cohortes ad tuendam urbem L. Vitellio fratri datae: ipse nihil e solito luxu remittens et diffidentia properus festinare comitia, quibus consules in multos annos destinabat; foedera sociis, Latium externis dilargiri; his tributa dimittere, alios immunitatibus iuvare; denique nulla in posterum cura lacerare imperium. sed vulgus ad magnitudinem beneficiorum hiabat, stultissimus quisque pecuniis mercabatur, apud sapientis cassa habebantur quae neque dari neque accipi salva re publica poterant. tandem flagitante exercitu, qui Mevaniam insederat, magno senatorum agmine, quorum multos ambitione, pluris formidine trahebat, in castra venit, incertus animi et infidis consiliis obnoxius.

As he harangued them—monstrous to tell—so great a flock of foul birds flew over that they curtained the day with a black cloud. There was added a dire omen, a bull fleeing the altar, the apparatus of the sacrifice scattered, and run through far off, not as is the custom of striking victims. But Vitellius himself was the chief portent—ignorant of soldiering, improvident of counsel, asking others what was the order of march, what the care of scouting, what the measure in pressing or in dragging out the war, and trembling at every report in his very face and gait, and then drunk. At last, from weariness of the camp and on hearing of the defection of the Misenum fleet, he returned to Rome, fearing each newest wound, careless of the highest crisis. For when it was open to him to cross the Apennine with the strength of his army intact and to attack an enemy wearied by winter and want, while he scatters his forces he handed over to be butchered and captured his keenest soldiery, obstinate even to the last extremity—the most skilled of the centurions dissenting and, were they consulted, ready to tell the truth. The inmost of Vitellius’s friends kept them off, the prince’s ears so shaped that he received harsh things as hurtful, and nothing but the pleasant and the ruinous.

Contionanti—prodigiosum dictu—tantum foedarum volucrum supervolitavit ut nube atra diem obtenderent. accessit dirum omen, profugus altaribus taurus disiecto sacrificii apparatu, longe, nec ut feriri hostias mos est, confossus. sed praecipuum ipse Vitellius ostentum erat, ignarus militiae, improvidus consilii, quis ordo agminis, quae cura explorandi, quantus urgendo trahendove bello modus, alios rogitans et ad omnis nuntios vultu quoque et incessu trepidus, dein temulentus. postremo taedio castrorum et audita defectione Misenensis classis Romam revertit, recentissimum quodque vulnus pavens, summi discriminis incuriosus. nam cum transgredi Appenninum integro exercitus sui robore et fessos hieme atque inopia hostis adgredi in aperto foret, dum dispergit viris, acerrimum militem et usque in extrema obstina- tum trucidandum capiendumque tradidit, peritissimis centurionum dissentientibus et, si consulerentur, vera dicturis. arcuere eos intimi amicorum Vitellii, ita formatis principis auribus ut aspera quae utilia, nec quidquam nisi iucundum et laesurum acciperet.

But the Misenum fleet (so much, in civil discords, does even the audacity of individuals avail) the centurion Claudius Faventinus, cashiered in disgrace by Galba, drew to defection, holding out the price of betrayal by forged letters of Vespasian. Over the fleet was Claudius Apollinaris, neither constant in faith nor vigorous in perfidy; and Apinius Tiro, who had been praetor and was then by chance staying at Minturnae, offered himself as leader to the defectors. By these the municipalities and colonies were stirred, with the special zeal of the people of Puteoli for Vespasian; against them Capua, faithful to Vitellius, mingled municipal rivalry with civil wars. Vitellius chose Claudius Julianus (he had lately ruled the Misenum fleet with a soft command) for soothing the soldiers’ minds; an urban cohort was given him for aid, and gladiators, over whom Julianus presided. When the camps had been brought near on either side, with no great delay, Julianus crossing over to Vespasian’s party, they seized Tarracina, safe by its walls and position rather than by their own character.

Sed classem Misenensem (tantum civilibus discordiis etiam singulorum audacia valet) Claudius Faventinus centurio per ignominiam a Galba dimissus ad defectionem traxit, fictis Vespasiani epistulis pretium proditionis ostentans. praeerat classi Claudius Apollinaris, neque fidei constans neque strenuus in perfidia; et Apinius Tiro praetura functus ac tum forte Minturnis agens ducem se defectoribus obtulit. a quibus municipia coloniaeque impulsae, praecipuo Puteolanorum in Vespasianum studio, contra Capua Vitellio fida, municipalem aemulationem bellis civilibus miscebant. Vitellius Claudium Iulianum (is nuper classem Misenensem molli imperio rexerat) permulcendis militum animis delegit; data in auxilium urbana cohors et gladiatores, quibus Iulianus praeerat. ut conlata utrimque castra, haud magna cunctatione Iuliano in partis Vespasiani transgresso, Tarracinam occupavere, moenibus situque magis quam ipsorum ingenio tutam.

When this was known to Vitellius, part of his forces being left at Narnia with the praetorian prefects, he set his brother Lucius Vitellius, with six cohorts and five hundred horse, against the war pressing on through Campania. He himself, sick at heart, was warmed again by the zeal of the soldiers and the shouts of the people demanding arms, while he calls a cowardly crowd, that would dare nothing beyond words, by the false show of "army" and "legions." At the urging of his freedmen (for of his friends, the more distinguished each was, the less faithful), he orders the tribes to be called, and binds those who give their names by the oath. The multitude overflowing, he divides the care of the levy among the consuls; he assesses on the senators a number of slaves and a weight of silver. The Roman knights offered their service and their monies, the freedmen too of their own accord demanding the same task. That pretense of duty, sprung from fear, had turned into favor; and most pitied not so much Vitellius as the lot and station of the principate. Nor was he himself wanting to draw out compassion by face, voice, tears, lavish of promises, and—as is the nature of the frightened—immoderate. Nay, he even wished to be called Caesar, having spurned it before, but then from a superstition of the name, and because in fear the counsels of the prudent and the rumor of the crowd are heard alike. But, as all the undertakings of unconsidered impulse, strong in their beginnings, languish with time, the senators and knights slip away little by little, at first hesitantly and when he himself was not present, soon contemptuously and without distinction, until Vitellius, in shame at the vain attempt, gave up what was not being granted.

Quae ubi Vitellio cognita, parte copiarum Narniae cum praefectis praetorii relicta L. Vitellium fratrem cum sex cohortibus et quingentis equitibus ingruenti per Campaniam bello opposuit. ipse aeger animi studiis militum et clamoribus populi arma poscentis refovebatur, dum vulgus ignavum et nihil ultra verba ausurum falsa specie exercitum et legiones appellat. hortantibus libertis (nam amicorum eius quanto quis clarior, minus fidus) vocari tribus iubet, dantis nomina sacramento adigit. superfluente multitudine curam dilectus in consules partitur; servorum numerum et pondus argenti senatoribus indicit. equites Romani obtulere operam pecuniasque, etiam libertinis idem munus ultro flagitantibus. ea simulatio officii a metu profecta verterat in favorem; ac plerique haud proinde Vitellium quam casum locumque principatus miserabantur. nec deerat ipse vultu voce lacrimis misericordiam elicere, largus promissis, et quae natura trepidantium est, immodicus. quin et Caesarem se dici voluit, aspernatus antea, sed tunc superstitione nominis, et quia in metu consilia prudentium et vulgi rumor iuxta audiuntur. ceterum ut omnia inconsulti impetus coepta initiis valida spatio languescunt, dilabi paulatim senatores equitesque, primo cunctanter et ubi ipse non aderat, mox contemptim et sine discrimine donec Vitellius pudore inriti conatus quae non dabantur remisit.

As the occupation of Mevania and a war as it were reborn anew had brought terror upon Italy, so Vitellius’s so timid departure added an undoubted zeal toward the Flavian party. The Samnite and the Paelignian and the Marsi were roused, in rivalry that Campania had forestalled them, and, as in a new allegiance, were keen for all the duties of war. But the army, buffeted by a foul winter through the crossing of the Apennine, and with its column scarcely quiet struggling through the snows, made plain how great a crisis would have had to be faced, had not fortune turned Vitellius back—fortune that stood by the Flavian leaders no less often than reason. There they met Petilius Cerialis, who in rustic dress and by his knowledge of the country had slipped through Vitellius’s guards. A near kinship was Cerialis’s with Vespasian, and he himself not inglorious in soldiering, and on that account he was taken among the leaders. That to Flavius Sabinus too and to Domitian an escape lay open, many have handed down; and messengers sent by Antonius made their way through various arts of deceiving, pointing out the place and the protection. Sabinus pleaded a health unfit for toil and daring: Domitian had the spirit, but the guards added by Vitellius, though they promised themselves partners of his flight, were feared as plotting. And Vitellius himself, out of regard for his own kindred, was preparing nothing savage against Domitian.

Vt terrorem Italiae possessa Mevania ac velut renatum ex integro bellum intulerat, ita haud dubium erga Flavianas partis studium tam pavidus Vitellii discessus addidit. erectus Samnis Paelignusque et Marsi aemulatione quod Campania praevenisset, ut in novo obsequio, ad cuncta belli munia acres erant. sed foeda hieme per transitum Appennini conflictatus exercitus, et vix quieto agmine nives eluctantibus patuit quantum discriminis adeundum foret, ni Vitellium retro fortuna vertisset, quae Flavianis ducibus non minus saepe quam ratio adfuit. obvium illic Petilium Cerialem habuere, agresti cultu et notitia locorum custodias Vitellii elapsum. propinqua adfinitas Ceriali cum Vespasiano, nec ipse inglorius militiae, eoque inter duces adsumptus est. Flavio quoque Sabino ac Domitiano patuisse effugium multi tradi- dere; et missi ab Antonio nuntii per varias fallendi artis penetrabant, locum ac praesidium monstrantes. Sabinus inhabilem labori et audaciae valetudinem causabatur: Domitiano aderat animus, sed custodes a Vitellio additi, quamquam se socios fugae promitterent, tamquam insidiantes timebantur. atque ipse Vitellius respectu suarum necessitudinum nihil in Domitianum atrox parabat.

When the leaders of the party came to Carsulae, they take a few days for rest, until the eagles and standards of the legions should overtake them. And the place itself of the camp pleased them, with a wide prospect, the bringing-up of supplies safe, the most flourishing towns at their back; at the same time conferences with the Vitellians, ten miles distant, and a betrayal were hoped for. The soldier bore this ill, and preferred victory to peace; they would not even wait for their own legions, as the sharers of plunder rather than of dangers. Antonius, calling them to an assembly, taught them that Vitellius still had strength—wavering, if they deliberated, keen, if they had despaired. The beginnings of civil wars were to be left to fortune: victory was accomplished by counsel and reason. Already the Misenum fleet and the fairest coast of Campania had revolted, and there was left to Vitellius, out of the whole earth, no more than what lay between Tarracina and Narnia. Glory enough had been won by the battle of Cremona, and by the destruction of Cremona too much of odium: let them not covet to take Rome rather than to save it. Greater rewards were theirs, and by far the greatest honor, if without blood they had sought the safety of the Senate and the Roman people. By these and the like their spirits were softened.

Duces partium ut Carsulas venere, paucos ad requiem dies sumunt, donec aquilae signaque legionum adsequerentur. et locus ipse castrorum placebat, late prospectans, tuto copiarum adgestu, florentissimis pone tergum municipiis; simul conloquia cum Vitellianis decem milium spatio distantibus et proditio sperabatur. aegre id pati miles et victoriam malle quam pacem; ne suas quidem legiones opperiebantur, ut praedae quam periculorum socias. vocatos ad contionem Antonius docuit esse adhuc Vitellio viris, ambiguas, si deliberarent, acris, si desperassent. initia bellorum civilium fortunae permittenda: victoriam consiliis et ratione perfici. iam Misenensem classem et pulcherrimam Campaniae oram descivisse, nec plus e toto terrarum orbe reliquum Vitellio quam quod inter Tarracinam Narniamque iaceat. satis gloriae proelio Cremonensi partum et exitio Cremonae nimium invidiae: ne concupiscerent Romam capere potius quam servare. maiora illis praemia et multo maximum decus, si incolumitatem senatui populoque Romano sine sanguine quaesissent. his ac talibus mitigati animi.

And not long after the legions came. And the Vitellian cohorts, terrified by the report of an army increased, were wavering, with none exhorting to war, many to crossing over, who vied to hand over their own centuries and squadrons, a gift to the victor and a favor to themselves for the future. By these it was learned that Interamna was held in the nearest plains by a garrison of four hundred horse. Varus was sent at once with a light band, and killed the few who resisted; the more, casting away their arms, sought pardon. Some, fled back into the camp, filled all with terror, swelling by their reports the valor and forces of the enemy, that they might soften the disgrace of the lost garrison. And among the Vitellians there was no punishment of dishonor, and by rewards of the deserters faith was overturned, and the remaining rivalry was one of perfidy. Frequent were the desertions of tribunes and centurions; for the common soldier had hardened for Vitellius, until Priscus and Alfenus, deserting the camp, went back to Vitellius and released them all by the shame of betrayal.

Nec multo post legiones venere. et terrore famaque aucti exercitus Vitellianae cohortes nutabant, nullo in bellum adhortante, multis ad transitionem, qui suas centurias turmasque tradere, donum victori et sibi in posterum gratiam, certabant. per eos cognitum est Interamnam proximis campis praesidio quadringentorum equitum teneri. missus extemplo Varus cum expedita manu paucos repugnantium interfecit; plures abiectis armis veniam petivere. quidam in castra refugi cuncta formidine implebant, augendo rumoribus virtutem copiasque hostium, quo amissi praesidii dedecus lenirent. nec ulla apud Vitellianos flagitii poena, et praemiis defectorum versa fides ac reliquum perfidiae certamen. crebra transfugia tribunorum centurionumque; nam gregarius miles induruerat pro Vitellio, donec Priscus et Alfenus desertis castris ad Vitellium regressi pudore proditionis cunctos exolverent.

In those same days Fabius Valens is killed in custody at Urbinum. His head was shown to the Vitellian cohorts, that they might cherish no further hope; for they believed that Valens had passed through into the Germanies and was rousing the old armies there and the new: at the sight of the slaughter they were turned to despair. And the Flavian army received the death of Valens, its spirit immensely increased, as the end of the war. Valens had been born at Anagnia, of an equestrian family. Wanton in his manners and not without wit, he sought a reputation for urbanity through his wantonness. In the sport of the Juvenalia under Nero, as though from necessity, then of his own accord, he played in mimes, with skill more than honor. As legate of a legion he both supported Verginius and defamed him; Fonteius Capito, corrupted—or because he had not been able to corrupt him—he killed: a betrayer of Galba, faithful to Vitellius, and made illustrious by the perfidy of others.

Isdem diebus Fabius Valens Vrbini in custodia interficitur. caput eius Vitellianis cohortibus ostentatum ne quam ultra spem foverent; nam pervasisse in Germanias Valentem et veteres illic novosque exercitus ciere credebant: visa caede in desperationem versi. et Flavianus exercitus immane quantum aucto animo exitium Valentis ut finem belli accepit. natus erat Valens Anagniae equestri familia. procax moribus neque absurdus ingenio famam urbanitatis per lasciviam petere. ludicro Iuvenalium sub Nerone velut ex necessitate, mox sponte mimos actitavit, scite magis quam probe. legatus legionis et fovit Verginium et infamavit; Fonteium Capitonem corruptum, seu quia corrumpere nequiverat, interfecit: Galbae proditor, Vitellio fidus et aliorum perfidia inlustratus.

Hope being cut off on every side, the Vitellian soldier, about to cross over to the party—and that too not without honor, but under standards and banners—descended into the plains lying below Narnia. The Flavian army, as though intent and armed for battle, had stood with close ranks about the road. The Vitellians were received into the midst, and Antonius Primus addressed them, surrounded as they were, with clemency: part were ordered to halt at Narnia, part at Interamna. At the same time legions from the victorious were left, neither burdensome to the quiet nor too weak against contumacy. Primus and Varus did not, in those days, omit by frequent messages to offer Vitellius safety, and money, and the retreats of Campania, if, his arms laid down, he had entrusted himself and his children to Vespasian. In the same manner Mucianus too composed letters; in which Vitellius for the most part trusted, and talked of the number of his slaves, of the choice of shores. So great a torpor had invaded his mind that, had the rest not remembered that he had been a prince, he himself would have forgotten it.

Abrupta undique spe Vitellianus miles transiturus in partis, id quoque non sine decore, sed sub signis vexillisque in subiectos Narniae campos descendere. Flavianus exercitus, ut ad proelium intentus armatusque, densis circa viam ordinibus adstiterat. accepti in medium Vitelliani, et circumdatos Primus Antonius clementer adloquitur: pars Narniae, pars Interamnae subsistere iussi. relictae simul e victricibus legiones, neque quiescentibus graves et adversus contumaciam validae. non omisere per eos dies Primus ac Varus crebris nuntiis salutem et pecuniam et secreta Campaniae offerre Vitellio, si positis armis seque ac liberos suos Vespasiano permisisset. in eundem modum et Mucianus composuit epistulas; quibus plerumque fidere Vitellius ac de numero servorum, electione litorum loqui. tanta torpedo invaserat animum ut, si principem eum fuisse ceteri non meminissent, ipse oblivisceretur.

But the chief men of the state were urging Flavius Sabinus, the prefect of the City, in secret conversations, to take his share of the victory and the glory: he had a soldiery of his own, the urban cohorts, nor would the watch-cohorts be wanting, nor the slaves of those very men, the fortune of the party, and everything inclined to the victors: let him not yield to Antonius and Varus in glory. Vitellius had few cohorts, and those frightened by sad messages on every side; the people’s mind was fickle, and, if he offered himself as leader, those same flatteries would be for Vespasian; Vitellius himself was not equal even to prosperity, so weakened was he by things collapsing. The credit of the war accomplished would be his who had seized the City: this it befitted Sabinus, to keep the rule for his brother; this befitted Vespasian, that the rest be held after Sabinus.

At primores civitatis Flavium Sabinum praefectum urbis secretis sermonibus incitabant, victoriae famaeque partem capesseret: esse illi proprium militem cohortium urbanarum, nec defuturas vigilum cohortis, servitia ipsorum, fortunam partium, et omnia prona victoribus: ne Antonio Varoque de gloria concederet. paucas Vitellio cohortis et maestis undique nuntiis trepidas; populi mobilem animum et, si ducem se praebuisset, easdem illas adulationes pro Vespasiano fore; ipsum Vitellium ne prosperis quidem parem, adeo ruentibus debilitatum. gratiam patrati belli penes eum qui urbem occupasset: id Sabino convenire ut imperium fratri reservaret, id Vespasiano ut ceteri post Sabinum haberentur.

By no means with a roused spirit did he receive these words, weak with age; but there were those who assailed him with hidden suspicions, as though out of envy and rivalry he were delaying his brother’s fortune. For Flavius Sabinus, the elder in years, in the private affairs of them both went before Vespasian in authority and money, and was believed to have aided his shaken credit sparingly, taking his house and lands in pledge; whence, though a concord remained in appearance, the hidden things of their offenses were feared. The better interpretation was that a mild man shrank from blood and slaughter, and on that account, in frequent conversations with Vitellius about peace and the laying-down of arms by terms, was at work. Often having met at home, at last in the temple of Apollo, as the report was, they made their compact. The words and voices had two witnesses, Cluvius Rufus and Silius Italicus; the faces were marked by those watching from afar—Vitellius’s abject and degenerate, Sabinus’s not insulting and nearer to one who pities.

Haudquaquam erecto animo eas voces accipiebat, invalidus senecta; sed erant qui occultis suspicionibus incesserent, tamquam invidia et aemulatione fortunam fratris moraretur. namque Flavius Sabinus aetate prior privatis utriusque rebus auctoritate pecuniaque Vespasianum anteibat, et credebatur adfectam eius fidem parce iuvisse domo agrisque pignori acceptis; unde, quamquam manente in speciem concordia, offensarum operta metuebantur. melior interpretatio, mitem virum abhorrere a sanguine et caedibus, eoque crebris cum Vitellio sermonibus de pace ponendisque per condicionem armis agitare. saepe domi congressi, postremo in aede Apollinis, ut fama fuit, pepigere. verba vocesque duos testis habebant, Cluvium Rufum et Silium Italicum: vultus procul visentibus notabantur, Vitellii proiectus et degener, Sabinus non insultans et miseranti propior.

But if Vitellius had as easily bent the minds of his own men as he himself had yielded, Vespasian’s army would have entered the City unbloodied. But as each man was faithful to Vitellius, so they refused peace and terms, holding out the peril and the disgrace and faith resting in the lust of the victor. Nor had Vespasian so great a pride as to suffer Vitellius a private man—not even the conquered would bear it: so there was danger from mercy. Vitellius himself indeed was old and sated with prosperity and adversity; but what name, what station would there be for his son Germanicus? Now money and a household and the blessed retreats of Campania were promised; but once Vespasian had seized the empire, neither to himself, nor to his friends, nor finally to the armies would security return save with the rival extinguished. Fabius Valens had been a weight upon them, a captive reserved for the doubtful chances; much less would Primus and Fuscus and Mucianus, the very type of the party, have any license toward Vitellius save that of killing. Not by Caesar was Pompey, not by Augustus was Antony left unharmed—unless perchance Vespasian bore loftier spirits, who had been Vitellius’s client when Vitellius was Claudius’s colleague. Nay, as the censorship of his father, as three consulships, as the honors of so distinguished a house befitted him, let him at least, out of desperation, gird himself for daring. The soldier stood firm, the zeal of the people remained; in short, nothing more atrocious would befall than that into which they were rushing of their own accord. The conquered must die, the surrendered must die: this alone mattered, whether they pour out their last breath amid mockery and insults, or amid valor.

Quod si tam facile suorum mentis flexisset Vitellius, quam ipse cesserat, incruentam urbem Vespasiani exercitus intrasset. ceterum ut quisque Vitellio fidus, ita pacem et condiciones abnuebant, discrimen ac dedecus ostentantes et fidem in libidine victoris. nec tantam Vespasiano superbiam ut privatum Vitellium pateretur, ne victos quidem laturos: ita periculum ex misericordia. ipsum sane senem et prosperis adversisque satiatum, sed quod nomen, quem statum filio eius Germanico fore? nunc pecuniam et familiam et beatos Campaniae sinus promitti: set ubi imperium Vespasianus invaserit, non ipsi, non amicis eius, non denique exercitibus securitatem nisi extincto aemulo redituram. Fabium illis Valentem, captivum et casibus dubiis reservatum, praegravem fuisse, nedum Primus ac Fuscus et specimen partium Mucianus ullam in Vitellium nisi occidendi licentiam habeant. non a Caesare Pompeium, non ab Augusto Antonium incolumis relictos, nisi forte Vespasianus altiores spiritus gerat, Vitellii cliens, cum Vitellius collega Claudio foret. quin, ut censuram patris, ut tris consulatus, ut tot egregiae domus honores deceret, desperatione saltem in audaciam accingeretur. perstare militem, superesse studia populi; denique nihil atrocius eventurum quam in quod sponte ruant. moriendum victis, moriendum deditis: id solum referre, novissimum spiritum per ludibrium et contumelias effundant an per virtutem.

Deaf to brave counsels were Vitellius’s ears: his mind was overwhelmed by pity and care, lest by obstinate arms he should leave the victor less placable toward his wife and children. He had also a mother worn with age; who, however, a few days before, by an opportune death forestalled the destruction of the house, having gained nothing from her son’s principate but grief and a good name. On the fifteenth day before the kalends of January, the defection of the legion and cohorts that had surrendered at Narnia being heard, in dark attire he comes down from the Palatine, his household mourning round about; his little son was carried in a small litter, as in a funeral procession: the voices of the people were caressing and unseasonable, the soldiery in a menacing silence.

Surdae ad fortia consilia Vitellio aures: obruebatur animus miseratione curaque, ne pertinacibus armis minus placabilem victorem relinqueret coniugi ac liberis. erat illi et fessa aetate parens; quae tamen paucis ante diebus opportuna morte excidium domus praevenit, nihil principatu filii adsecuta nisi luctum et bonam famam. XV kalendas Ianuarias audita defectione legionis cohortiumque, quae se Narniae dediderant, pullo amictu Palatio degreditur, maesta circum familia; ferebatur lecticula parvulus filius velut in funebrem pompam: voces populi blandae et intempestivae, miles minaci silentio.

Nor was anyone so forgetful of human affairs but that that sight moved him—a Roman prince and, a little before, the master of the human race, leaving the seat of his fortune, going out through the people, through the City, from the empire. Nothing of the like had they seen, nothing had they heard. A sudden violence had overwhelmed the dictator Caesar, hidden plots Gaius, the night and an unknown countryside had hidden the flight of Nero, Piso and Galba had fallen as if in battle: in his own assembly Vitellius, among his own soldiers, with women too looking on, having spoken a few words befitting the present sadness—that he gave way for the sake of peace and the commonwealth, that they should only keep memory of him, and pity his brother and wife and the guiltless age of his children—at the same time, holding out his son, commending him now to individuals, now to all, at last, weeping hindering him, he was giving back to the consul who stood by (it was Caecilius Simplex) the dagger loosed from his side, as though it were the right of death and life over the citizens. The consul refusing, and those who stood in the assembly crying out against it, he departed, as though about to lay the insignia of empire in the temple of Concord and to seek his brother’s house. Here a greater clamor of those barring him from a private dwelling, calling him to the Palatine. The other way was shut off, and that alone lay open by which he might go to the Sacred Way: then, void of counsel, he returns to the Palatine.

Nec quisquam adeo rerum humanarum immemor quem non commoveret illa facies, Romanum principem et generis humani paulo ante dominum relicta fortunae suae sede per populum, per urbem exire de imperio. nihil tale viderant, nihil audierant. repentina vis dictatorem Caesarem oppresserat, occultae Gaium insidiae, nox et ignotum rus fugam Neronis absconderant, Piso et Galba tamquam in acie cecidere: in sua contione Vitellius, inter suos milites, prospectantibus etiam feminis, pauca et praesenti maestitiae congruentia locutus—cedere se pacis et rei publicae causa, retinerent tantum memoriam sui fratremque et coniugem et innoxiam liberorum aetatem miserarentur—, simul filium protendens, modo singulis modo universis commendans, postremo fletu praepediente adsistenti consuli (Caecilius Simplex erat) exolutum a latere pugionem, velut ius necis vitaeque civium, reddebat. aspernante consule, reclamantibus qui in contione adstiterant, ut in aede Concordiae positurus insignia imperii domumque fratris petiturus discessit. maior hic clamor obsistentium penatibus privatis, in Palatium vocantium. interclusum aliud iter, idque solum quo in sacram viam pergeret patebat: tum consilii inops in Palatium redit.

A rumor had gone before that the empire was being abjured by him, and Flavius Sabinus had written to the tribunes of the cohorts to restrain the soldier. And so, as though the whole commonwealth had fallen into Vespasian’s lap, the chief men of the Senate and most of the equestrian order and all the urban soldiery and the watch filled the house of Flavius Sabinus. Thither word is brought of the zeal of the crowd and the threats of the German cohorts. He had now advanced too far to be able to go back; and each man, out of his own fear, lest the Vitellians should pursue them scattered and therefore less strong, kept impelling the hesitant man to arms: but, as happens in affairs of this kind, the counsel was given by all, the danger few took up. About the Fundane lake, as those who accompanied Sabinus were coming down armed, the readiest of the Vitellians meet them. A slight battle there, by an unforeseen tumult, but prosperous for the Vitellians. Sabinus, in the alarm, taking what was safest of present courses, took post on the citadel of the Capitol, with a mixed soldiery and certain of the senators and knights, whose names it is not easy to hand down, since, Vespasian being victor, many feigned that service toward the party. Women too underwent the siege, among whom most conspicuous was Verulana Gratilla, who had followed neither children nor kindred but the war. The Vitellian soldiery surrounded the besieged with a careless guard; and on that account, in the dead of night, Sabinus called his own children and Domitian, his brother’s son, into the Capitol, a messenger being sent through the unwatched ways to the Flavian leaders, to report that they themselves were besieged and, if no aid came, their affairs were straitened. He passed the night so quietly that he could have departed without harm: for the soldier of Vitellius, fierce against dangers, was little intent on toils and watches, and a winter rain, suddenly poured down, hindered eyes and ears.

Praevenerat rumor eiurari ab eo imperium, scripseratque Flavius Sabinus cohortium tribunis ut militem cohiberent. igitur tamquam omnis res publica in Vespasiani sinum cecidisset, primores senatus et plerique equestris ordinis omnisque miles urbanus et vigiles domum Flavii Sabini complevere. illuc de studiis vulgi et minis Germanicarum cohortium adfertur. longius iam progressus erat quam ut regredi posset; et suo quisque metu, ne disiectos eoque minus validos Vitelliani consectarentur, cunctantem in arma impellebant: sed quod in eius modi rebus accidit, consilium ab omnibus datum est, periculum pauci sumpsere. circa lacum Fundani descendentibus qui Sabinum comitabantur armatis occurrunt promptissimi Vitellianorum. modicum ibi proelium improviso tumultu, sed prosperum Vitellianis fuit. Sabinus re trepida, quod tutissimum e praesentibus, arcem Capitolii insedit mixto milite et quibusdam senatorum equi- tumque, quorum nomina tradere haud promptum est, quoniam victore Vespasiano multi id meritum erga partis simulavere. subierunt obsidium etiam feminae, inter quas maxime insignis Verulana Gratilla, neque liberos neque propinquos sed bellum secuta. Vitellianus miles socordi custodia clausos circumdedit; eoque concubia nocte suos liberos Sabinus et Domitianum fratris filium in Capitolium accivit, misso per neglecta ad Flavianos duces nuntio qui circumsideri ipsos et, ni subveniretur, artas res nuntiaret. noctem adeo quietam egit ut digredi sine noxa potuerit: quippe miles Vitellii adversus pericula ferox, laboribus et vigiliis parum intentus erat, et hibernus imber repente fusus oculos aurisque impediebat.

At first light Sabinus, before they should begin hostilities against each other, sent Cornelius Martialis, of the chief centurions, to Vitellius with charges and a complaint that the compacts were being disturbed: there had been an utter pretense and show of laying down the empire, to deceive so many illustrious men. For why had he sought from the rostra his brother’s house, overhanging the Forum and apt to provoke men’s eyes, rather than the Aventine and his wife’s home? That had befitted a private man and one avoiding every show of the principate. On the contrary, Vitellius had gone back to the Palatine, to the very citadel of empire; thence an armed column had been sent out, the most frequented part of the City strewn with the slaughter of the innocent, the Capitol itself not spared. He, forsooth, was but a man in the toga and one of the senators: while between Vespasian and Vitellius it was being judged by battles of legions, captivities of cities, surrenders of cohorts—the Spains and the Germanies and Britain already revolting—the brother of Vespasian had remained in his loyalty, until of his own accord he should be called to terms. Peace and concord were useful to the conquered, to the victors only fair. If he repented of the agreement, let him not seek with the sword Sabinus, whom his perfidy had deceived, nor Vespasian’s son scarcely come to manhood—how much was gained by killing one old man and one youth?—: let him go to meet the legions and there contend for the sum of things: the rest would yield according to the outcome of the battle. Trembling at this, Vitellius answered a few words by way of excusing himself, laying the blame on the soldiery, to whose excessive ardor his own moderation was unequal; and he warned Martialis to depart secretly through a hidden part of the house, lest he be killed by the soldiers as the go-between of a hated peace: he himself, with power neither to command nor to forbid, was now no longer emperor, but only the cause of the war.

Luce prima Sabinus, antequam in vicem hostilia coeptarent, Cornelium Martialem e primipilaribus ad Vitellium misit cum mandatis et questu quod pacta turbarentur: simulationem prorsus et imaginem deponendi imperii fuisse ad decipiendos tot inlustris viros. cur enim e rostris fratris domum, imminentem foro et inritandis hominum oculis, quam Aventinum et penatis uxoris petisset? ita privato et omnem principatus speciem vitanti convenisse. contra Vitellium in Palatium, in ipsam imperii arcem regressum; inde armatum agmen emissum, stratam innocentium caedibus celeberrimam urbis partem, ne Capitolio quidem abstineri. togatum nempe se et unum e senatoribus: dum inter Vespasianum ac Vitellium proeliis legionum, captivitatibus urbium, deditionibus cohortium iudicatur, iam Hispaniis Germaniisque et Britannia desciscentibus, fratrem Vespasiani mansisse in fide, donec ultro ad condiciones vocaretur. pacem et concordiam victis utilia, victoribus tantum pulchra esse. si conventionis paeniteat, non se, quem perfidia deceperit, ferro peteret, non filium Vespasiani vix puberem—quantum occisis uno sene et uno iuvene profici?—: iret obviam legionibus et de summa rerum illic certaret: cetera secundum eventum proelii cessura. trepidus ad haec Vitellius pauca purgandi sui causa respondit, culpam in militem conferens, cuius nimio ardori imparem esse modestiam suam; et monuit Martialem ut per secretam aedium partem occulte abiret, ne a militibus internuntius invisae pacis interficeretur: ipse neque iubendi neque vetandi potens non iam imperator sed tantum belli causa erat.

Martialis had scarcely got back to the Capitol when the frenzied soldiery was there, with no leader, each man his own authority. In a swift column, having passed the Forum and the temples overhanging the Forum, they raise their line up the opposing hill as far as the first gates of the Capitoline citadel. There were of old porticoes on the side of the slope, on the right to those going up, onto whose roof they went out and overwhelmed the Vitellians with stones and tiles. Nor were the latter armed save with swords, and to send for engines or missile weapons seemed a long business: they threw torches onto the projecting portico and followed the fire, and would have penetrated the burnt gates of the Capitol, had not Sabinus, statues torn up on every side—the glories of our ancestors—set them at the very entrance in place of a wall. Then they assail the different approaches of the Capitol, by the grove of the asylum and where the Tarpeian rock is reached by a hundred steps. Both attacks were unforeseen; the nearer and the keener pressed in by the asylum. Nor could those scaling be stopped who climbed by the adjoining buildings, which, as in a long peace, built high, reached the level of the Capitol’s floor. Here it is disputed whether the assailants threw fire onto the roofs, or the besieged—which is the commoner report—while they drove back those who pressed up and made their way in. Thence the fire slipped into the porticoes adjoining the temple; soon the eagles supporting the pediment, of old timber, drew the flame and fed it. So the Capitol, its gates shut, undefended and unplundered, burned to the ground.

Vixdum regresso in Capitolium Martiale furens miles aderat, nullo duce, sibi quisque auctor. cito agmine forum et imminentia foro templa praetervecti erigunt aciem per adversum collem usque ad primas Capitolinae arcis fores. erant antiquitus porticus in latere clivi dextrae subeuntibus, in quarum tectum egressi saxis tegulisque Vitellianos obruebant. neque illis manus nisi gladiis armatae, et arcessere tormenta aut missilia tela longum videbatur: faces in prominentem porticum iecere et sequebantur ignem ambustasque Capitolii fores penetrassent, ni Sabinus revulsas undique statuas, decora maiorum, in ipso aditu vice muri obiecisset. tum diversos Capitolii aditus invadunt iuxta lucum asyli et qua Tarpeia rupes centum gradibus aditur. improvisa utraque vis; propior atque acrior per asylum ingruebat. nec sisti poterant scandentes per coniuncta aedificia, quae ut in multa pace in altum edita solum Capitolii aequabant. hic ambigitur, ignem tectis obpugnatores iniecerint, an obsessi, quae crebrior fama, dum nitentis ac progressos depellunt. inde lapsus ignis in porticus adpositas aedibus; mox sustinentes fastigium aquilae vetere ligno traxerunt flammam alueruntque. sic Capitolium clausis foribus indefensum et indireptum conflagravit.

This was the most lamentable and most foul deed that had befallen the commonwealth of the Roman people since the founding of the City—with no foreign enemy, the gods propitious, had our morals allowed it: that the seat of Jupiter Best and Greatest, founded with auspices by our ancestors as the pledge of empire, which neither Porsenna with the city surrendered, nor the Gauls with it taken, had been able to violate, was destroyed by the frenzy of princes. The Capitol had burned before too, in civil war, but by private crime: now it was openly besieged, openly set ablaze—and for what causes of arms? At the price of what so great a disaster did it stand? Did we war for our country? Tarquinius Priscus the king had vowed it in the Sabine war, and had laid the foundations more in the hope of future greatness than because the as-yet-modest resources of the Roman people sufficed. Then Servius Tullius, by the zeal of the allies, then Tarquinius Superbus, Suessa Pometia taken, built it up from the spoils of the enemy. But the glory of the work was reserved for liberty: the kings expelled, Horatius Pulvillus in his second consulship dedicated it with a magnificence that the immense resources of the Roman people afterward adorned rather than increased. It was set again on the same footprint, after, an interval of four hundred and fifteen years having passed, it had burned in the consulship of Lucius Scipio and Gaius Norbanus. The victor Sulla took up the charge, yet did not dedicate it: this alone was denied to his felicity. The name of Lutatius Catulus, among so great works of the Caesars, remained even down to Vitellius. That was the temple now being burned.

Id facinus post conditam urbem luctuosissimum foedissimumque rei publicae populi Romani accidit, nullo externo hoste, propitiis, si per mores nostros liceret, deis, sedem Iovis Optimi Maximi auspicato a maioribus pignus imperii conditam, quam non Porsenna dedita urbe neque Galli capta temerare potuissent, furore principum excindi. arserat et ante Capitolium civili bello, sed fraude privata: nunc palam obsessum, palam incensum, quibus armorum causis? quo tantae cladis pretio stetit? pro patria bellavimus? voverat Tarquinius Priscus rex bello Sabino, ieceratque fundamenta spe magis futurae magnitudinis quam quo modicae adhuc populi Romani res sufficerent. mox Servius Tullius sociorum studio, dein Tarquinius Superbus capta Suessa Pometia hostium spoliis extruxere. sed gloria operis libertati reservata: pulsis regibus Horatius Pulvillus iterum consul dedicavit ea magnificentia quam immensae postea populi Romani opes ornarent potius quam augerent. isdem rursus vestigiis situm est, postquam interiecto quadringentorum quindecim annorum spatio L. Scipione C. Norbano consulibus flagraverat. curam victor Sulla suscepit, neque tamen dedicavit: hoc solum felicitati eius negatum. Lutatii Catuli nomen inter tanta Caesarum opera usque ad Vitellium mansit. ea tunc aedes cremabatur.

But it brought more terror to the besieged than to the besiegers. For the Vitellian soldier was wanting neither in cunning nor in steadfastness amid doubtful things: on the other side, the soldiers were panicked, the leader sluggish and as though a captive of his mind, with command neither of tongue nor of ears, neither ruled by others’ counsels nor able to dispose his own, turned this way and that by the enemy’s shouts, forbidding what he had ordered, ordering what he had forbidden: soon, as happens in desperate affairs, all gave directions, no one carried them out; at last, arms thrown away, they looked about for flight and the arts of escape. The Vitellians burst in and mingle everything with blood, sword, and flame. A few military men, among whom the most conspicuous were Cornelius Martialis, Aemilius Pacensis, Casperius Niger, Didius Scaeva, having dared the fight, are cut down. Flavius Sabinus, unarmed and not attempting flight, they surround, and Quintius Atticus the consul, marked out by the shadow of his honor and by his own vanity, because he had cast edicts upon the people magnificent for Vespasian, abusive against Vitellius. The rest, slipped away through various chances, some in slave’s dress, others screened by the faith of clients and hidden among the baggage. There were those who, having caught the Vitellian watchword, by which they knew one another, themselves asking and answering, held audacity for a hiding-place.

Sed plus pavoris obsessis quam obsessoribus intulit. quippe Vitellianus miles neque astu neque constantia inter dubia indigebat: ex diverso trepidi milites, dux segnis et velut captus animi non lingua, non auribus competere, neque alienis consiliis regi neque sua expedire, huc illuc clamoribus hostium circumagi, quae iusserat vetare, quae vetuerat iubere: mox, quod in perditis rebus accidit, omnes praecipere, nemo exequi; postremo abiectis armis fugam et fallendi artis circumspectabant. inrumpunt Vitelliani et cuncta sanguine ferro flammisque miscent. pauci militarium virorum, inter quos maxime insignes Cornelius Martialis, Aemilius Pacensis, Casperius Niger, Didius Scaeva, pugnam ausi obtruncantur. Flavium Sabinum inermem neque fugam coeptantem circumsistunt, et Quintium Atticum consulem, umbra honoris et suamet vanitate monstratum, quod edicta in populum pro Vespasiano magnifica, probrosa adversus Vitellium iecerat. ceteri per varios casus elapsi, quidam servili habitu, alii fide clientium contecti et inter sarcinas abditi. fuere qui excepto Vitellianorum signo, quo inter se noscebantur, ultro rogitantes respondentesve audaciam pro latebra haberent.

Domitian, at the first irruption, having been hidden in the house of a temple-keeper, by the cunning of a freedman mingled in a linen garment among the throng of the worshippers and passed unknown, lay hidden near the Velabrum at the house of Cornelius Primus, his father’s client. And when his father was master of affairs, having pulled down the temple-keeper’s lodging, he set up a modest shrine to Jupiter the Preserver, and an altar with his own fortunes carved in marble; soon, having gained the empire, he dedicated a huge temple to Jupiter the Guardian, and himself in the bosom of the god. Sabinus and Atticus, loaded with chains and led to Vitellius, were received with by no means hostile speech and look, those murmuring who sought the right of slaughter and the rewards of work well done. A shout arising from those nearest, the squalid part of the plebs demands the execution of Sabinus, mingling threats and flatteries. Vitellius, standing before the steps of the Palatine and preparing entreaties, they prevailed upon to desist: then, run through and mangled and, his head cut off, the headless body of Sabinus they drag to the Gemoniae.

Domitianus prima inruptione apud aedituum occultatus, sollertia liberti lineo amictu turbae sacricolarum immixtus ignoratusque, apud Cornelium Primum paternum clientem iuxta Velabrum delituit. ac potiente rerum patre, disiecto aeditui contubernio, modicum sacellum Iovi Conservatori aramque posuit casus suos in marmore expressam; mox imperium adeptus Iovi Custodi templum ingens seque in sinu dei sacravit. Sabinus et Atticus onerati catenis et ad Vitellium ducti nequaquam infesto sermone vultuque excipiuntur, frementibus qui ius caedis et praemia navatae operae petebant. clamore a proximis orto sordida pars plebis supplicium Sabini exposcit, minas adulationesque miscet. stantem pro gradibus Palatii Vitellium et preces parantem pervicere ut absisteret: tum confossum laceratumque et absciso capite truncum corpus Sabini in Gemonias trahunt.

This was the end of a man by no means to be despised. He had done five-and-thirty campaigns in the commonwealth, distinguished at home and in war. You could not arraign his uprightness and justice; he was too much given to talk: that one thing, in the seven years in which he held Moesia, the twelve in which he held the prefecture of the City, rumor slandered. At the end of his life some believed him sluggish, many moderate and sparing of citizens’ blood. What was agreed among all is that, before Vespasian’s principate, the glory of the house was in Sabinus’s keeping. His death, we have learned, was glad to Mucianus. Many even said that it was for the good of peace, the rivalry being broken off between two men, of whom the one thought himself the emperor’s brother, the other the partner of empire. But Vitellius withstood the people demanding the consul’s execution, placated and as though returning the favor, because, when men asked who had set the Capitol on fire, Atticus had offered himself as the guilty one, and by that confession—whether it was a lie fitted to the occasion—had seemed to take upon himself the odium and the charge and to remove it from the party of Vitellius.

Hic exitus viri haud sane spernendi. quinque et triginta stipendia in re publica fecerat, domi militiaeque clarus. innocentiam iustitiamque eius non argueres; sermonis nimius erat: id unum septem annis quibus Moesiam, duodecim quibus praefecturam urbis obtinuit, calumniatus est rumor. in fine vitae alii segnem, multi moderatum et civium sanguinis parcum credidere. quod inter omnis constiterit, ante principatum Vespasiani decus domus penes Sabinum erat. caedem eius laetam fuisse Muciano accepimus. ferebant plerique etiam paci consultum dirempta aemulatione inter duos, quorum alter se fratrem imperatoris, alter consortem imperii cogitaret. sed Vitellius consulis supplicium poscenti populo restitit, placatus ac velut vicem reddens, quod interrogantibus quis Capitolium incendisset, se reum Atticus obtulerat eaque confessione, sive aptum tempori mendacium fuit, invidiam crimenque agnovisse et a partibus Vitellii amolitus videbatur.

In those same days Lucius Vitellius, his camp pitched at Feronia, was threatening the destruction of Tarracina, where the gladiators and rowers were shut up, who dared neither to go out of the walls nor face danger in the open. In command, as we have related above, was Julianus over the gladiators, Apollinaris over the rowers, in their wantonness and sloth more like gladiators than leaders. They kept no watches, did not strengthen the unsafe parts of the walls: by night and by day dissolute, and making the pleasant shores resound, the soldiers scattered for the service of their luxury, they talked of war only amid their banquets. A few days before, Apinius Tiro had departed, and by harshly exacting gifts and monies through the municipalities was adding more odium than strength to the party.

Isdem diebus L. Vitellius positis apud Feroniam castris excidio Tarracinae imminebat, clausis illic gladiatoribus remigibusque, qui non egredi moenia neque periculum in aperto audebant. praeerat, ut supra memoravimus, Iulianus gladiatoribus, Apollinaris remigibus, lascivia socordiaque gladiatorum magis quam ducum similes. non vigilias agere, non intuta moenium firmare: noctu dieque fluxi et amoena litorum personantes, in ministerium luxus dispersis militibus, de bello tantum inter convivia loquebantur. paucos ante dies discesserat Apinius Tiro donisque ac pecuniis acerbe per municipia conquirendis plus invidiae quam virium partibus addebat.

Meanwhile a slave of Vergilius Capito deserted to Lucius Vitellius, and, promising that, if he received a garrison, he would hand over the empty citadel, deep in the night sets light cohorts on the highest ridges of the mountains above the enemy’s head: thence the soldier ran down to slaughter rather than to battle. They lay low the unarmed, or those taking up arms, and some roused from sleep, while they were confounded by the darkness, the panic, the sound of trumpets, the enemy’s shout. A few of the gladiators, resisting, fell not unavenged: the rest rushed to the ships, where everything was entangled in equal terror, the townsmen mingled, whom the Vitellians butchered with no distinction. Six Liburnians escaped amid the first tumult, among them the fleet-prefect Apollinaris; the rest were taken on the shore, or, pressed by the excessive load of those rushing aboard, the sea swallowed them. Julianus, brought to Lucius Vitellius and disfigured with stripes, is butchered before his face. There were those who attacked Triaria, the wife of Lucius Vitellius, as though, girt with a military sword, she had borne herself haughtily and savagely amid the mourning and the disasters of stormed Tarracina. He himself sent the laurel of his prosperous deed to his brother, asking at once whether he should return or persist in subduing Campania. Which was salutary not only to the party of Vespasian, but to the commonwealth. For if the soldier, fresh from victory and, beyond his inborn obstinacy, fierce with success, had pressed on to Rome, there would have been a contest of no small bulk, nor without the destruction of the City. For in Lucius Vitellius, infamous though he was, there was diligence; and he was strong not in virtues, as the good are, but, as is every worst man’s way, in vices.

Interim ad L. Vitellium servus Vergilii Capitonis perfugit pollicitusque, si praesidium acciperet, vacuam arcem traditurum, multa nocte cohortis expeditas summis montium iugis super caput hostium sistit: inde miles ad caedem magis quam ad pugnam decurrit. sternunt inermos aut arma capientis et quosdam somno excitos, cum tenebris, pavore, sonitu tubarum, clamore hostili turbarentur. pauci gladiatorum resistentes neque inulti cecidere: ceteri ad navis ruebant, ubi cuncta pari formidine implicabantur, permixtis paganis, quos nullo discrimine Vitelliani trucidabant. sex Liburnicae inter primum tumultum evasere, in quis praefectus classis Apollinaris; reliquae in litore captae, aut nimio ruentium onere pressas mare hausit. Iulianus ad L. Vitellium perductus et verberibus foedatus in ore eius iugulatur. fuere qui uxorem L. Vitellii Triariam incesserent, tamquam gladio militari cincta inter luctum cladisque expugnatae Tarracinae superbe saeveque egisset. ipse lauream gestae prospere rei ad fratrem misit, percontatus statim regredi se an perdomandae Campaniae insistere iuberet. quod salutare non modo partibus Vespasiani, sed rei publicae fuit. nam si recens victoria miles et super insitam pervicaciam secundis ferox Romam contendisset, haud parva mole certatum nec sine exitio urbis foret. quippe L. Vitellio quamvis infami inerat industria, nec virtutibus, ut boni, sed quo modo pessimus quisque, vitiis valebat.

While these things are done in the party of Vitellius, the army of Vespasian, having departed from Narnia, was passing the festal days of Saturn at Ocriculum in idleness. The cause of so wicked a delay was that they might wait for Mucianus. Nor were there wanting those who arraigned Antonius with suspicions, as though he tarried by guile, after secret letters of Vitellius, in which he offered the consulship and his marriageable daughter and dowry wealth as the price of betrayal. Others said these were feigned and composed in Mucianus’s favor; some, that it was the counsel of all the leaders, to display the war to the City rather than bring it in, since the strongest cohorts had revolted from Vitellius, and, all his supports cut off, he seemed about to yield the empire: but everything was spoiled by the haste, then by the cowardice, of Sabinus, who, having rashly taken up arms, had been unable to defend the most fortified citadel of the Capitol—not to be stormed even by great armies—against three cohorts. Not easily could one assign to one man the blame that was of all. For both Mucianus by ambiguous letters delayed the victors, and Antonius, by a perverse compliance, or while he turned back the odium, deserved the charge; and the rest of the leaders, while they think the war finished, made notable its end. Not even Petilius Cerialis, sent ahead with a thousand horse to enter the City by cross-roads through the Sabine country by the Salarian Way, had hastened enough, until the report of the besieged Capitol roused them all at once.

Dum haec in partibus Vitellii geruntur, digressus Narnia Vespasiani exercitus festos Saturni dies Ocriculi per otium agitabat. causa tam pravae morae ut Mucianum opperirentur. nec defuere qui Antonium suspicionibus arguerent tamquam dolo cunctantem post secretas Vitellii epistulas, quibus consulatum et nubilem filiam et dotalis opes pretium proditionis offerebat. alii ficta haec et in gratiam Muciani composita; quidam omnium id ducum consilium fuisse, ostentare potius urbi bellum quam inferre, quando validissimae cohortes a Vitellio descivissent, et abscisis omnibus praesidiis cessurus imperio videbatur: sed cuncta festinatione, deinde ignavia Sabini corrupta, qui sumptis temere armis munitissimam Capitolii arcem et ne magnis quidem exercitibus expugnabilem adversus tris cohortis tueri nequivisset. haud facile quis uni adsignaverit culpam quae omnium fuit. nam et Mucianus ambiguis epistulis victores morabatur, et Antonius praepostero obsequio, vel dum regerit invidiam, crimen meruit; ceterique duces dum peractum bellum putant, finem eius insignivere. ne Petilius quidem Cerialis, cum mille equitibus praemissus, ut transversis itineribus per agrum Sabinum Salaria via urbem introiret, satis maturaverat, donec obsessi Capitolii fama cunctos simul exciret.

Antonius came by the Flaminian Way to Saxa Rubra, with aid now late in the night. There he learned that Sabinus was killed, that the Capitol had burned, that the City trembled, all things mournful; it was reported too that the plebs and the slaves were being armed for Vitellius. And Petilius Cerialis had had an unsuccessful cavalry battle; for the Vitellians, foot set among the horse, had received him incautious and as though rushing upon the conquered. The fighting was not far from the City, among buildings and gardens and the windings of the roads, which, known to the Vitellians, unexplored by the enemy, had bred fear. Nor was all the cavalry of one mind, certain men joined to them who, lately surrendered at Narnia, were watching the fortune of the parties. The prefect of a squadron, Julius Flavianus, is taken; the rest are dismayed in a foul flight, the victors not pursuing beyond Fidenae.

Antonius per Flaminiam ad Saxa rubra multo iam noctis serum auxilium venit. illic interfectum Sabinum, conflagrasse Capitolium, tremere urbem, maesta omnia accepit; plebem quoque et servitia pro Vitellio armari nuntiabatur. et Petilio Ceriali equestre proelium adversum fuerat; namque incautum et tamquam ad victos ruentem Vitelliani, interiectus equiti pedes, excepere. pugnatum haud procul urbe inter aedificia hortosque et anfractus viarum, quae gnara Vitellianis, incomperta hostibus metum fecerant. neque omnis eques concors, adiunctis quibusdam, qui nuper apud Narniam dediti fortunam partium speculabantur. capitur praefectus alae Iulius Flavianus; ceteri foeda fuga consternantur, non ultra Fidenas secutis victoribus.

By that success the zeal of the people was increased; the city crowd took up arms. A few had military shields, the more demanded the signal for battle with whatever weapons, snatched up, came to each man’s hand. Vitellius gives thanks and orders them to break out for the defense of the City. Soon, the Senate being called, envoys are chosen to the armies, that, under the pretext of the commonwealth, they might urge concord and peace. Various was the lot of the envoys. Those who had met Petilius Cerialis came to the last extremity, the soldier spurning the terms of peace. The praetor Arulenus Rusticus is wounded: it increased the odium, beyond the violated name of envoy and praetor, that the man’s own worth was held in honor. His companions are beaten, the nearest lictor is killed, who had dared to part the crowd: and had they not been defended by a guard given by the leader, the right of envoys—sacred even among foreign nations—would have been profaned, before the very walls of the fatherland, by civil rage, to the point of their destruction. With fairer minds were received those who had come to Antonius—not because the soldier was more moderate, but the leader had more authority.

Eo successu studia populi aucta; vulgus urbanum arma cepit. paucis scuta militaria, plures raptis quod cuique obvium telis signum pugnae exposcunt. agit grates Vitellius et ad tuendam urbem prorumpere iubet. mox vocato senatu deliguntur legati ad exercitus ut praetexto rei publicae concordiam pacemque suaderent. varia legatorum sors fuit. qui Petilio Ceriali occurrerant extremum discrimen adiere, aspernante milite condiciones pacis. vulneratur praetor Arulenus Rusticus: auxit invidiam super violatum legati praetorisque nomen propria dignatio viri. pulsantur comites, occiditur proximus lictor, dimovere turbam ausus: et ni dato a duce praesidio defensi forent, sacrum etiam inter exteras gentis legatorum ius ante ipsa patriae moenia civilis rabies usque in exitium temerasset. aequioribus animis accepti sunt qui ad Antonium venerant, non quia modestior miles, sed duci plus auctoritatis.

Musonius Rufus, of the equestrian order, had mingled himself among the envoys, a follower of the study of philosophy and the doctrines of the Stoics; and, mixing among the maniples, he was beginning to admonish the armed men, discoursing on the goods of peace and the perils of war. To most this was a mockery, to more a weariness: nor were there wanting those who would have driven him off and trampled him, had he not, at the admonition of every most moderate man and the threats of others, given over his untimely wisdom. There met them too the Vestal Virgins, with letters of Vitellius written to Antonius: he asked that one day be exempted from the final struggle; if they should interpose a delay, everything would more easily come to agreement. The Virgins were dismissed with honor; to Vitellius it was written back that by the slaughter of Sabinus and the burning of the Capitol the dealings of war were broken off.

Miscuerat se legatis Musonius Rufus equestris ordinis, studium philosophiae et placita Stoicorum aemulatus; coeptabatque permixtus manipulis, bona pacis ac belli discrimina disserens, armatos monere. id plerisque ludibrio, pluribus taedio: nec deerant qui propellerent proculcarentque, ni admonitu modestissimi cuiusque et aliis minitantibus omisisset intempestivam sapientiam. obviae fuere et virgines Vestales cum epistulis Vitellii ad Antonium scriptis: eximi supremo certamini unum diem postulabat: si moram interiecissent, facilius omnia conventura. virgines cum honore dimissae; Vitellio rescriptum Sabini caede et incendio Capitolii dirempta belli commercia.

Antonius nevertheless tried, the legions being called to an assembly, to soften them, that, a camp being pitched near the Mulvian bridge, they might enter the City the next day. The reason for delaying was lest the soldier, exasperated by battle, should spare neither the people, nor the Senate, nor even the temples and shrines of the gods. But they suspected all postponement as hostile to victory; at the same time the standards gleaming over the hills, though an unwarlike people followed, had made the appearance of a hostile army. In a threefold column, part, as it had stood, advanced by the Flaminian Way, part along the bank of the Tiber; the third column drew near the Colline Gate by the Salarian Way. The plebs was scattered by the cavalry charging in; the Vitellian soldier, himself too in three garrisons, met them. The battles before the City were many and various, but, the Flavians excelling in the leaders’ counsel, more often prosperous. Those alone were hard pressed who had turned aside into the left part of the City, toward the gardens of Sallust, through the narrow and slippery ways. Standing on the garden walls, the Vitellians, till late in the day, kept off those coming up with stones and javelins, until they were surrounded by the cavalry who had burst in by the Colline Gate. In the Campus Martius too the hostile lines clashed. For the Flavians was fortune and victory so often won: the Vitellians rushed on from despair alone, and, though beaten, gathered again within the City.

Temptavit tamen Antonius vocatas ad contionem legiones mitigare, ut castris iuxta pontem Mulvium positis postera die urbem ingrederentur. ratio cunctandi, ne asperatus proelio miles non populo, non senatui, ne templis quidem ac delubris deorum consuleret. sed omnem prolationem ut inimicam victoriae suspectabant; simul fulgentia per collis vexilla, quamquam imbellis populus sequeretur, speciem hostilis exercitus fecerant. tripertito agmine pars, ut adstiterat, Flaminia via, pars iuxta ripam Tiberis incessit; tertium agmen per Salariam Collinae portae propinquabat. plebs invectis equitibus fusa; miles Vitellianus trinis et ipse praesidiis occurrit. proelia ante urbem multa et varia, sed Flavianis consilio ducum praestantibus saepius prospera. ii tantum conflictati sunt qui in partem sinistram urbis ad Sallustianos hortos per angusta et lubrica viarum flexerant. superstantes maceriis hortorum Vitelliani ad serum usque diem saxis pilisque subeuntis arcebant, donec ab equitibus, qui porta Collina inruperant, circumvenirentur. concurrere et in campo Martio infestae acies. pro Flavianis fortuna et parta totiens victoria: Vitelliani desperatione sola ruebant, et quamquam pulsi, rursus in urbe congregabantur.

The people were present as spectators of the fighters, and, as in a sporting contest, cheered now these, now those with shout and applause. Whenever one side gave way, demanding that those hidden in the shops, or who had fled into any house, be dragged out and butchered, they got the greater part of the plunder: for, the soldier turned to blood and slaughter, the spoils fell to the crowd. Savage and hideous was the face of the whole city: in one place battles and wounds, in another baths and cook-shops; at once gore and heaps of bodies, and near them harlots and the likes of harlots; whatever of lusts there is in luxurious idleness, whatever of crimes in the most bitter captivity—so that you would believe the same state both raged and revelled at once. Armed armies had clashed in the City before, twice with Lucius Sulla, once with Cinna victorious, nor was there then less of cruelty: now there was an inhuman unconcern, and the pleasures not interrupted for even the least space of time: as though, on festal days, that joy too were added, they exulted, they took their fill, careless of the parties, glad at the public ills.

Aderat pugnantibus spectator populus, utque in ludicro certamine, hos, rursus illos clamore et plausu fovebat. quotiens pars altera inclinasset, abditos in tabernis aut si quam in domum perfugerant, erui iugularique expostulantes parte maiore praedae potiebantur: nam milite ad sanguinem et caedis obverso spolia in vulgus cedebant. saeva ac deformis urbe tota facies: alibi proelia et vulnera, alibi balineae popinaeque; simul cruor et strues corporum, iuxta scorta et scortis similes; quantum in luxurioso otio libidinum, quidquid in acerbissima captivitate scelerum, prorsus ut eandem civitatem et furere crederes et lascivire. conflixerant et ante armati exercitus in urbe, bis Lucio Sulla, semel Cinna victoribus, nec tunc minus crudelitatis: nunc inhumana securitas et ne minimo quidem temporis voluptates intermissae: velut festis diebus id quoque gaudium accederet, exultabant, fruebantur, nulla partium cura, malis publicis laeti.

The greatest of the toil was in the assault of the camp, which all the keenest held as their last hope. The more intently the victors—the zeal of the old cohorts foremost—bring up at once all the things devised for the destruction of the strongest cities: the testudo, the engines, the mounds, the torches, crying out that whatever of toil and danger they had drained in so many battles was being consummated in that one work. The City they had given back to the Senate and the Roman people, the temples to the gods: the soldier’s proper glory was in the camp; that was their fatherland, those their household gods. Unless they were received at once, the night must be passed under arms. On the other side the Vitellians, though unequal in number and in fate, embraced the last solaces of the conquered—to trouble the victory, to delay the peace, to befoul houses and altars with gore. Many, half dead, breathed their last upon the towers and the battlements of the walls: the gates torn open, the remaining band offered itself to the victors, and all fell with their wounds in front, turned toward the enemy: that care, even to the dying, was for a seemly end.

Plurimum molis in obpugnatione castrorum fuit, quae acerrimus quisque ut novissimam spem retinebant. eo intentius victores, praecipuo veterum cohortium studio, cuncta validissimarum urbium excidiis reperta simul admovent, testudinem tormenta aggeres facesque, quidquid tot proeliis laboris ac periculi hausissent, opere illo consummari clamitantes. urbem senatui ac populo Romano, templa dis reddita: proprium esse militis decus in castris: illam patriam, illos penatis. ni statim recipiantur, noctem in armis agendam. contra Vitelliani, quamquam numero fatoque dispares, inquietare victoriam, morari pacem, domos arasque cruore foedare suprema victis solacia amplectebantur. multi semianimes super turris et propugnacula moenium expiravere: convulsis portis reliquus globus obtulit se victoribus, et ceci- dere omnes contrariis vulneribus, versi in hostem: ea cura etiam morientibus decori exitus fuit.

The City taken, Vitellius is carried by the back part of the Palatine to the Aventine, to his wife’s house in a small chair, that, if by hiding he had passed the day, he might flee to Tarracina, to the cohorts and his brother. Then, by the fickleness of his nature and—as is the way of panic, since to one fearing everything the present most displeased—he goes back to the Palatine, empty and deserted, the very lowest of the slaves having slipped away or avoiding to meet him. The solitude and the silent places terrify him; he tries the closed rooms, shudders at the empty ones; and, wearied with wretched wandering and hiding himself in a shameful lurking-place, he is dragged out by Julius Placidus, tribune of a cohort. His hands bound behind his back, his garment torn, a foul spectacle, he was led along, many reviling, none weeping: the hideousness of his end had taken away pity. One of the German soldiers, meeting him, with a hostile stroke—whether in anger, or that he might the sooner rescue him from mockery, or whether he aimed at the tribune—was uncertain: he cut off the tribune’s ear and was at once run through.

Vitellius capta urbe per aversam Palatii partem Aventinum in domum uxoris sellula defertur, ut si diem latebra vitavisset, Tarracinam ad cohortis fratremque perfugeret. dein mobilitate ingenii et, quae natura pavoris est, cum omnia metuenti praesentia maxime displicerent, in Palatium regreditur vastum desertumque, dilapsis etiam infimis servitiorum aut occursum eius declinantibus. terret solitudo et tacentes loci; temptat clausa, inhorrescit vacuis; fessusque misero errore et pudenda latebra semet occultans ab Iulio Placido tribuno cohortis protrahitur. vinctae pone tergum manus; laniata veste, foedum spectaculum, ducebatur, multis increpantibus, nullo inlacrimante: deformitas exitus misericordiam abstulerat. obvius e Germanicis militibus Vitellium infesto ictu per iram, vel quo maturius ludibrio eximeret, an tribunum adpetierit, in incerto fuit: aurem tribuni amputavit ac statim confossus est.

Vitellius, forced by the hostile sword-points now to lift his face and offer it to insults, now to look upon his own statues falling, very often upon the rostra or the place where Galba was killed, they drove at last to the Gemoniae, where the body of Flavius Sabinus had lain. One utterance of a not ignoble spirit was heard, when, to the tribune insulting him, he answered that he had nevertheless been his emperor; and then, under the heaped wounds, he fell. And the crowd pursued the dead man with the same baseness with which it had cherished him living.

Vitellium infestis mucronibus coactum modo erigere os et offerre contumeliis, nunc cadentis statuas suas, plerumque rostra aut Galbae occisi locum contueri, postremo ad Gemonias, ubi corpus Flavii Sabini iacuerat, propulere. una vox non degeneris animi excepta, cum tribuno insultanti se tamen imperatorem eius fuisse respondit; ac deinde ingestis vulneribus concidit. et vulgus eadem pravitate insectabatur interfectum qua foverat viventem.

His father’s town was Luceria. He was completing the fifty-seventh year of his age, having gained the consulship, the priesthoods, a name and a place among the foremost, by no industry of his own, but all by his father’s renown. The principate was conferred on him by those who did not know him: the zeal of the army, rarely won by any through good arts, was as much present to this man through his sloth. Yet there was in him a frankness and a liberality which, unless measure attend them, turn to destruction. Thinking that friendships are held by the greatness of gifts, not by constancy of character, he earned them rather than had them. Without doubt it was to the interest of the commonwealth that Vitellius be conquered; but they cannot charge their perfidy to others’ account who betrayed Vitellius to Vespasian, when they had themselves revolted from Galba.

Patrem illi Luceriam. septimum et quinquagensimum aetatis annum explebat, consulatum, sacerdotia, nomen locumque inter primores nulla sua industria, sed cuncta patris claritudine adeptus. principatum ei detulere qui ipsum non noverant: studia exercitus raro cuiquam bonis artibus quaesita perinde adfuere quam huic per ignaviam. inerat tamen simplicitas ac liberalitas, quae, ni adsit modus, in exitium vertuntur. amicitias dum magnitudine munerum, non constantia morum contineri putat, meruit magis quam habuit. rei publicae haud dubie intererat Vitellium vinci, sed imputare perfidiam non possunt qui Vitellium Vespasiano prodidere, cum a Galba descivissent.

The day rushing toward its setting, on account of the panic of the magistrates and senators, who, slipped away from the City, were hiding themselves through the houses of their clients, the Senate could not be called. Domitian, after nothing hostile was feared, having gone forward to the leaders of the party and been hailed as Caesar, the soldiery, in throngs and as it was in arms, escorted to his father’s household gods.

Praecipiti in occasum die ob pavorem magistratuum senatorumque, qui dilapsi ex urbe aut per domos clientium semet occultabant, vocari senatus non potuit. Domitianum, postquam nihil hostile metuebatur, ad duces partium progressum et Caesarem consalutatum miles frequens utque erat in armis in paternos penatis deduxit.

Vitellius killed, the war had ceased rather than peace begun. The victors, armed, hunted the conquered through the City with implacable hatred: the streets full of slaughter, the fora and temples bloody, men butchered here and there as chance had offered each. And soon, license increasing, they searched out and dragged forth the hidden; if they had spied anyone of tall stature and in his youth, they cut him down, with no distinction of soldier or people. That savagery, while the hatreds were fresh, was sated with blood, then had turned to greed. They suffered nothing anywhere to be secret or shut up, pretending that Vitellians were being hidden. That was the beginning of the breaking-open of houses, or, if resistance were made, the cause of slaughter; nor was the neediest of the plebs and the worst of the slaves wanting to betray of their own accord their rich masters, while others were pointed out by friends. Everywhere lamentations, outcries, and the fortune of a captured city, so that the once-hated petulance of the Othonian and Vitellian soldier was missed. The leaders of the parties, keen to kindle civil war, were unequal to tempering the victory; for amid tumults and discords the worst man has the most power, while peace and quiet have need of good arts.

Interfecto Vitellio bellum magis desierat quam pax coeperat. armati per urbem victores implacabili odio victos consectabantur: plenae caedibus viae, cruenta fora templaque, passim trucidatis, ut quemque fors obtulerat. ac mox augescente licentia scrutari ac protrahere abditos; si quem procerum habitu et iuventa conspexerant, obtruncare nullo militum aut populi discrimine. quae saevitia recentibus odiis sanguine explebatur, dein verterat in avaritiam. nihil usquam secretum aut clausum sinebant, Vitellianos occultari simulantes. initium id perfringendarum domuum, vel si resisteretur, causa caedis; nec deerat egentissimus quisque e plebe et pessimi servitiorum prodere ultro ditis dominos, alii ab amicis monstrabantur. ubique lamenta, conclamationes et fortuna captae urbis, adeo ut Othoniani Vitellianique militis invidiosa antea petulantia desideraretur. duces partium accendendo civili bello acres, temperandae victoriae impares, quippe inter turbas et discordias pessimo cuique plurima vis, pax et quies bonis artibus indigent.

The name and seat of Caesar Domitian had received, not yet bent to its cares, but, with debaucheries and adulteries, playing the prince’s son. The prefecture of the praetorium was in the hands of Arrius Varus, the sum of power in Antonius Primus. He carried off money and a household from the prince’s house as though it were Cremonese plunder: the rest, by their moderation or their obscurity, as they had been unmarked in the war, so were they without share in the rewards. The state, frightened and ready for servitude, demanded that Lucius Vitellius, returning from Tarracina with his cohorts, be seized, and the remnants of the war extinguished: horsemen were sent ahead to Aricia, the column of legions halted within Bovillae. Nor did Vitellius hesitate to entrust himself and his cohorts to the discretion of the victor, and the soldier threw away his luckless arms in anger no less than in fear. A long line of the surrendered, hedged about with armed men, went through the City, no one with a suppliant face, but grim and fierce and unmoved against the applause and wantonness of the insulting crowd. A few who dared to break out the surrounders pressed down; the rest were put into custody, no one having said anything unworthy, and, though amid adversity, the fame of their valor was safe. Then Lucius Vitellius is killed, equal to his brother in vices, in his brother’s principate the more vigilant, and not so much the partner of his prosperity as dragged down by his adversity.

Nomen sedemque Caesaris Domitianus acceperat, nondum ad curas intentus, sed stupris et adulteriis filium principis agebat. praefectura praetorii penes Arrium Varum, summa potentiae in Primo Antonio. is pecuniam familiamque e principis domo quasi Cremonensem praedam rapere: ceteri modestia vel ignobilitate ut in bello obscuri, ita praemiorum expertes. civitas pavida et servitio parata occupari redeuntem Tarracina L. Vitellium cum cohortibus extinguique reliqua belli postulabat: praemissi Ariciam equites, agmen legionum intra Bovillas stetit. nec cunctatus est Vitellius seque et cohortis arbitrio victoris permittere, et miles infelicia arma haud minus ira quam metu abiecit. longus deditorum ordo saeptus armatis per urbem incessit, nemo supplici vultu, sed tristes et truces et adversum plausus ac lasciviam insultantis vulgi immobiles. paucos erumpere ausos circumiecti pressere; ceteri in custodiam conditi, nihil quisquam locutus indignum, et quamquam inter adversa, salva virtutis fama. dein L. Vitellius interficitur, par vitiis fratris, in principatu eius vigilantior, nec perinde prosperis socius quam adversis abstractus.

In those same days Lucilius Bassus is sent with light cavalry to settle Campania, the minds of the municipalities at discord more among themselves than from contumacy against the prince. At the sight of the soldier there was quiet, and to the lesser colonies impunity: at Capua the Third legion is quartered for wintering, and the illustrious houses afflicted, while, on the other hand, the people of Tarracina were aided by no help. So much the more inclined are men to repay an injury than a benefit, because gratitude is held a burden, revenge is counted as gain. It was a solace that the slave of Vergilius Capito, whom we have called the betrayer of Tarracina, was fixed to the cross in the very rings which he wore, received from Vitellius. But at Rome the Senate decrees to Vespasian all that is customary for princes, glad and sure of its hope; for the civil arms taken up through the Gauls and the Spains, the Germanies stirred to war, then Illyricum—after they had passed through Egypt, Judaea, and Syria and all the provinces and armies, as though the world had been expiated, seemed to have reached an end: an alacrity was added by Vespasian’s letters, written as though the war yet continued. In their first appearance such was their form; for the rest, he spoke as a prince—of himself in a citizen’s terms, of the commonwealth nobly. Nor was the obedience of the Senate wanting: to himself the consulship with his son Titus, to Domitian the praetorship and consular authority were decreed.

Isdem diebus Lucilius Bassus cum expedito equite ad componendam Campaniam mittitur, discordibus municipiorum animis magis inter semet quam contumacia adversus principem. viso milite quies et minoribus coloniis impunitas: Capuae legio tertia hiemandi causa locatur et domus inlustres adflictae, cum contra Tarracinenses nulla ope iuvarentur. tanto proclivius est iniuriae quam beneficio vicem exolvere, quia gratia oneri, ultio in quaestu habetur. solacio fuit servus Vergilii Capitonis, quem proditorem Tarracinensium diximus, patibulo adfixus in isdem anulis quos acceptos a Vitellio gestabat. at Romae senatus cuncta principibus solita Vespasiano decernit, laetus et spei certus, quippe sumpta per Gallias Hispaniasque civilia arma, motis ad bellum Ger- maniis, mox Illyrico, postquam Aegyptum Iudaeam Syriamque et omnis provincias exercitusque lustraverant, velut expiato terrarum orbe cepisse finem videbantur: addidere alacritatem Vespasiani litterae tamquam manente bello scriptae. ea prima specie forma; ceterum ut princeps loquebatur, civilia de se, et rei publicae egregia. nec senatus obsequium deerat: ipsi consulatus cum Tito filio, praetura Domitiano et consulare imperium decernuntur.

Mucianus too had sent letters to the Senate, which gave matter for talk. If he were a private man, why did he speak publicly? The same things could have been said a few days later, in his place when it came to his vote. His very attack upon Vitellius was late and without freedom: that indeed was haughty toward the commonwealth, insulting toward the prince, that he boasted the empire had been in his own hand and given to Vespasian. But the envy was in secret, the flattery in the open: with much honor of words triumphal insignia were given to Mucianus for the war of citizens, but an expedition against the Sarmatians was feigned. Consular insignia are added for Antonius Primus, praetorian for Cornelius Fuscus and Arrius Varus. Then they looked to the gods; it was resolved that the Capitol be restored. And all these things Valerius Asiaticus, consul designate, moved: the rest by their look and hand, a few—whose conspicuous rank or talent was practiced in flattery—by composed speeches assented. When it came to Helvidius Priscus, praetor designate, he brought forth a motion honorable toward a good prince—the false was absent—and was exalted by the zeal of the Senate. And that was for him a chief day, the beginning of great offense and of great glory.

Miserat et Mucianus epistulas ad senatum, quae materiam sermonibus praebuere. si privatus esset, cur publice loqueretur? potuisse eadem paucos post dies loco sententiae dici. ipsa quoque insectatio in Vitellium sera et sine libertate: id vero erga rem publicam superbum, erga principem contumeliosum, quod in manu sua fuisse imperium donatumque Vespasiano iactabat. ceterum invidia in occulto, adulatio in aperto erant: multo cum honore verborum Muciano triumphalia de bello civium data, sed in Sarmatas expeditio fingebatur. adduntur Primo Antonio consularia, Cornelio Fusco et Arrio Varo praetoria insignia. mox deos respexere; restitui Capitolium placuit. eaque omnia Valerius Asiaticus consul designatus censuit: ceteri vultu manuque, pauci, quibus conspicua dignitas aut ingenium adulatione exercitum, compositis orationibus adsentiebantur. ubi ad Helvidium Priscum praetorem designatum ventum, prompsit sententiam ut honorificam in bonum principem,falsa aberant, et studiis senatus attollebatur. isque praecipuus illi dies magnae offensae initium et magnae gloriae fuit.

The matter seems to require, since we have fallen a second time into mention of a man often to be recorded, that I recall in a few words his life and pursuits, and what fortune he used. Helvidius Priscus, from the township of Cluviae, his father having led the rank of first spear, gave a distinguished talent, while still very young, to the higher studies—not, as most do, that he might veil an idle leisure under a magnificent name, but that, the stronger against the chances, he might take up the commonwealth. He followed the teachers of wisdom who count those things alone good which are honorable, those alone evil which are base, and reckon power, nobility, and the rest, outside the mind, neither among goods nor among evils. While still of quaestor’s rank, chosen as son-in-law by Paetus Thrasea, from the character of his father-in-law he drank in nothing so much as liberty; a citizen, a senator, a husband, a son-in-law, a friend, equable in all the offices of life, a despiser of wealth, stubborn for the right, steadfast against fears.

Res poscere videtur, quoniam iterum in mentionem incidimus viri saepius memorandi, ut vitam studiaque eius, et quali fortuna sit usus, paucis repetam. Helvidius Priscus e municipio Cluviis, patre, qui ordinem primi pili duxisset, ingenium inlustre altioribus studiis iuvenis admodum dedit, non, ut plerique, ut nomine magnifico segne otium velaret, sed quo firmior adversus fortuita rem publicam capesseret. doctores sapientiae secutus est, qui sola bona quae honesta, mala tantum quae turpia, potentiam nobilitatem ceteraque extra animum neque bonis neque malis adnumerant. quaestorius adhuc a Paeto Thrasea gener delectus e moribus soceri nihil aeque ac libertatem hausit, civis, senator, maritus, gener, amicus, cunctis vitae officiis aequabilis, opum contemptor, recti pervicax, constans adversus metus.

There were those to whom he seemed too eager for fame, since even by the wise the desire of glory is the last thing put off. Driven into exile by his father-in-law’s ruin, when he returned in Galba’s principate he sets about accusing Eprius Marcellus, the informer against Thrasea. That revenge—uncertain whether the greater or the juster—had divided the Senate into zeal: for if Marcellus fell, a column of the accused was laid low. At first the contest was menacing and attested by the excellent speeches of both; soon, Galba’s will being doubtful and many of the senators interceding, Priscus gave over, men’s talk being various, as their tempers are, some praising his moderation, others looking for his steadfastness.

Erant quibus adpetentior famae videretur, quando etiam sapientibus cupido gloriae novissima exuitur. ruina soceri in exilium pulsus, ut Galbae principatu rediit, Marcellum Eprium, delatorem Thraseae, accusare adgreditur. ea ultio, incertum maior an iustior, senatum in studia diduxerat: nam si caderet Marcellus, agmen reorum sternebatur. primo minax certamen et egregiis utriusque orationibus testatum; mox dubia voluntate Galbae, multis senatorum deprecantibus, omisit Priscus, variis, ut sunt hominum ingenia, sermonibus moderationem laudantium aut constantiam requirentium.

But on that day of the Senate on which they were voting concerning Vespasian’s empire, it had been resolved to send envoys to the prince. Hence a sharp quarrel between Helvidius and Eprius: Priscus demanded that they be chosen by name by the magistrates under oath, Marcellus the urn—which had been the opinion of the consul designate.

Ceterum eo senatus die quo de imperio Vespasiani censebant, placuerat mitti ad principem legatos. hinc inter Hel- vidium et Eprium acre iurgium: Priscus eligi nominatim a magistratibus iuratis, Marcellus urnam postulabat, quae consulis designati sententia fuerat.

But Marcellus’s eagerness a private shame stirred, lest, others being chosen, he should be thought passed over. And little by little, through the altercation, they were carried on to continuous and hostile speeches, Helvidius asking why Marcellus so feared the judgment of the magistrates: he had money and eloquence, by which he would go before many, were he not pressed by the memory of his crimes. By lot and the urn character is not distinguished: the votes and the estimation of the Senate had been devised to penetrate into each man’s life and fame. It pertained to the utility of the commonwealth, it pertained to Vespasian’s honor, that those should meet him whom the Senate held most innocent, who might steep the emperor’s ears in honorable discourse. Vespasian had had friendship with Thrasea, Soranus, Sentius; whose accusers, even if it were not fitting that they be punished, ought not to be paraded. By this judgment of the Senate the prince was as it were admonished whom he should approve, whom he should shrink from. There is no greater instrument of good rule than good friends. Let it be enough for Marcellus that he had driven Nero to the destruction of so many innocent men: let him enjoy his rewards and his impunity, and leave Vespasian to better men.

Sed Marcelli studium proprius rubor excitabat ne aliis electis posthabitus crederetur. paulatimque per altercationem ad continuas et infestas orationes provecti sunt, quaerente Helvidio quid ita Marcellus iudicium magistratuum pavesceret: esse illi pecuniam et eloquentiam, quis multos anteiret, ni memoria flagitiorum urgeretur. sorte et urna mores non discerni: suffragia et existimationem senatus reperta ut in cuiusque vitam famamque penetrarent. pertinere ad utilitatem rei publicae, pertinere ad Vespasiani honorem, occurrere illi quos innocentissimos senatus habeat, qui honestis sermonibus auris imperatoris imbuant. fuisse Vespasiano amicitiam cum Thrasea, Sorano, Sentio; quorum accusatores etiam si puniri non oporteat, ostentari non debere. hoc senatus iudicio velut admoneri principem quos probet, quos reformidet. nullum maius boni imperii instrumentum quam bonos amicos esse. satis Marcello quod Neronem in exitium tot innocentium impulerit: frueretur praemiis et impunitate, Vespasianum melioribus relinqueret.

Marcellus said that it was not his own opinion that was attacked, but the consul designate had moved it, in accordance with the old precedents which had set the lot for embassies, that there might be no place for ambition or for enmities. Nothing had happened to make the things anciently instituted fall into disuse, or the prince’s honor be turned to anyone’s insult; all were sufficient for obedience. This was the more to be avoided, lest the mind of some be irritated by obstinacy—a mind in suspense in a new principate, and scanning the looks too and the talk of all. He remembered the times in which he was born, what form of state his fathers and grandfathers had instituted; he admired the more distant things, followed the present; he sought good emperors by prayer, endured them of whatever sort. It was no more by his speech than by the judgment of the Senate that Thrasea had been struck down; Nero’s savagery had made sport through images of that kind, nor was such a friendship less anxious to him than exile to others. In short, let Helvidius be matched in steadfastness and fortitude with the Catos and the Bruti: he himself was but one out of that Senate which had served together. He even advised Priscus not to mount above the prince, not to coerce with his precepts Vespasian, an old man, of triumphal rank, the father of grown sons. As to the worst emperors belongs a domination without end, so to even the most excellent a measure of liberty is pleasing. These things, tossed back and forth with great contention on both sides, were received with divided zeal. The party prevailed which preferred to draw lots for the envoys, even the moderate among the fathers striving to keep the custom; and every most splendid man inclined the same way, from fear of envy, should they themselves be chosen.

Marcellus non suam sententiam impugnari, sed consulem designatum censuisse dicebat, secundum vetera exempla quae sortem legationibus posuissent, ne ambitioni aut inimicitiis locus foret. nihil evenisse cur antiquitus instituta exolescerent aut principis honor in cuiusquam contumeliam verteretur; sufficere omnis obsequio. id magis vitandum ne pervicacia quorundam inritaretur animus novo principatu suspensus et vultus quoque ac sermones omnium circumspectans. se meminisse temporum quibus natus sit, quam civi- tatis formam patres avique instituerint; ulteriora mirari, praesentia sequi; bonos imperatores voto expetere, qualiscumque tolerare. non magis sua oratione Thraseam quam iudicio senatus adflictum; saevitiam Neronis per eius modi imagines inlusisse, nec minus sibi anxiam talem amicitiam quam aliis exilium. denique constantia fortitudine Catonibus et Brutis aequaretur Helvidius: se unum esse ex illo senatu, qui simul servierit. suadere etiam Prisco ne supra principem scanderet, ne Vespasianum senem triumphalem, iuvenum liberorum patrem, praeceptis coerceret. quo modo pessimis imperatoribus sine fine dominationem, ita quamvis egregiis modum libertatis placere. haec magnis utrimque contentionibus iactata diversis studiis accipiebantur. vicit pars quae sortiri legatos malebat, etiam mediis patrum adnitentibus retinere morem; et splendidissimus quisque eodem inclinabat metu invidiae, si ipsi eligerentur.

Another contest followed. The praetors of the treasury (for then the treasury was managed by praetors) had complained of the public poverty and demanded a measure for the expenditures. The consul designate was reserving that care for the prince, on account of the magnitude of the burden and the difficulty of the remedy: Helvidius moved that it be done at the discretion of the Senate. When the consuls were taking the votes, Vulcacius Tertullinus, tribune of the plebs, interposed his veto, that nothing be decided on so great a matter, the prince being absent. Helvidius had moved that the Capitol be restored at public cost, with Vespasian aiding. That opinion every most moderate man passed over in silence, then in oblivion: there were those who even remembered it.

Secutum aliud certamen. praetores aerarii (nam tum a praetoribus tractabatur aerarium) publicam paupertatem questi modum impensis postulaverant. eam curam consul designatus ob magnitudinem oneris et remedii difficultatem principi reservabat: Helvidius arbitrio senatus agendum censuit. cum perrogarent sententias consules, Vulcacius Tertullinus tribunus plebis intercessit ne quid super tanta re principe absente statueretur. censuerat Helvidius ut Capitolium publice restitueretur, adiuvaret Vespasianus. eam sententiam modestissimus quisque silentio, deinde oblivio transmisit: fuere qui et meminissent.

Then Musonius Rufus inveighed against Publius Celer, by whom he charged that Barea Soranus had been circumvented by false testimony. By that inquiry the hatreds of the accusations seemed to be renewed. But a cheap and guilty defendant could not be protected: for Soranus’s memory was holy; Celer, having professed wisdom, then a witness against Barea, the betrayer and corrupter of the friendship of which he bore himself the teacher. The next day is fixed for the case; nor was it so much Musonius or Publius as Priscus and Marcellus and the rest, their minds moved to revenge, that were awaited.

Tum invectus est Musonius Rufus in P. Celerem, a quo Baream Soranum falso testimonio circumventum arguebat. ea cognitione renovari odia accusationum videbantur. sed vilis et nocens reus protegi non poterat: quippe Sorani sancta memoria; Celer professus sapientiam, dein testis in Baream, proditor corruptorque amicitiae cuius se magistrum ferebat. proximus dies causae destinatur; nec tam Musonius aut Publius quam Priscus et Marcellus ceterique, motis ad ultionem animis, expectabantur.

In such a state of affairs—discord among the fathers, anger among the conquered, no authority in the victors, no laws, no prince in the state—Mucianus, entering the City, drew everything at once to himself. The power of Primus Antonius and Varus Arrius was broken, Mucianus’s wrath against them ill-dissembled, though it was covered by his face. But the state, shrewd in scenting out offenses, had turned and gone over: he alone was courted, cultivated. Nor was he himself wanting, hedged with armed men, changing houses and gardens, embracing in his apparatus, his gait, his guards the power of a prince, while remitting the name. Most terror was brought by the killing of Calpurnius Galerianus. He was the son of Gaius Piso, who had dared nothing: but his illustrious name and his own handsome youth were celebrated by the rumor of the crowd, and there were, in a state still turbulent and glad of new talk, those who threw round him the empty fame of the principate. By Mucianus’s order, ringed with a military guard, lest in the City itself his death be too conspicuous, at the fortieth milestone from the City, on the Appian Way, his blood poured out through the veins, he is extinguished. Julius Priscus, prefect of the praetorian cohorts under Vitellius, killed himself, more from shame than from necessity. Alfenus Varus survived his own cowardice and infamy. Asiaticus (for he was a freedman) expiated his evil power by a slave’s punishment.

Tali rerum statu, cum discordia inter patres, ira apud victos, nulla in victoribus auctoritas, non leges, non princeps in civitate essent, Mucianus urbem ingressus cuncta simul in se traxit. fracta Primi Antonii Varique Arrii potentia, male dissimulata in eos Muciani iracundia, quamvis vultu tegeretur. sed civitas rimandis offensis sagax verterat se transtuleratque: ille unus ambiri, coli. nec deerat ipse, stipatus armatis domos hortosque permutans, apparatu incessu excubiis vim principis amplecti, nomen remittere. plurimum terroris intulit caedes Calpurnii Galeriani. is fuit filius Gai Pisonis, nihil ausus: sed nomen insigne et decora ipsius iuventa rumore vulgi celebrabantur, erantque in civitate adhuc turbida et novis sermonibus laeta qui principatus inanem ei famam circumdarent. iussu Muciani custodia militari cinctus, ne in ipsa urbe conspectior mors foret, ad quadragensimum ab urbe lapidem Appia via fuso per venas sanguine extinguitur. Iulius Priscus praetoriarum sub Vitellio cohortium praefectus se ipse interfecit, pudore magis quam necessitate. Alfenus Varus ignaviae infamiaeque suae superfuit. Asiaticus (is enim libertus) malam potentiam servili supplicio expiavit.

In those same days the growing report of the German disaster the state received by no means with sadness; armies cut down, the winter quarters of the legions taken, the Gauls revolted, they spoke of as no evils. By what causes that war arose, with how great a stirring of foreign and allied nations it blazed, I shall set forth from deeper down. The Batavi, while they dwelt across the Rhine, were a part of the Chatti, driven out by a domestic sedition; they occupied the extreme edge of the Gallic shore, empty of cultivators, and at the same time an island lying near, which the Ocean sea washes in front, the river Rhine on the back and the flanks. And, their resources not worn down—a rare thing in alliance with the stronger—they furnish to the empire only men and arms, long trained in the German wars, then, their glory increased through Britain, cohorts being sent across thither, which by old institution the noblest of their people commanded. There was at home too a chosen cavalry, with a special passion for swimming, keeping their arms and horses to break through the Rhine with their squadrons whole.

Isdem diebus crebrescentem cladis Germanicae famam nequaquam maesta civitas excipiebat; caesos exercitus, capta legionum hiberna, descivisse Gallias non ut mala loquebantur. id bellum quibus causis ortum, quanto externarum sociarumque gentium motu flagraverit, altius expediam. Batavi, donec trans Rhenum agebant, pars Chattorum, seditione domestica pulsi extrema Gallicae orae vacua cultoribus simulque insulam iuxta sitam occupavere, quam mare Oceanus a fronte, Rhenus amnis tergum ac latera circumluit. nec opibus (rarum in societate validiorum) attritis viros tantum armaque imperio ministrant, diu Germanicis bellis exerciti, mox aucta per Britanniam gloria, transmissis illuc cohortibus, quas vetere instituto nobilissimi popularium regebant. erat et domi delectus eques, praecipuo nandi studio, arma equosque retinens integris turmis Rhenum perrumpere

Julius Paulus and Julius Civilis, of royal stock, far went before the rest. Paulus, Fonteius Capito killed on a false charge of rebellion; chains were thrown on Civilis, and he was sent to Nero, and, absolved by Galba, under Vitellius again came into danger, his army demanding his execution: thence the causes of his wrath and his hope from our evils. But Civilis, cunning of mind beyond what is usual with barbarians, and bearing himself as a Sertorius or a Hannibal, with a like disfigurement of his face, that he might not be met as an enemy, if he openly revolted from the Roman people, made a pretense of friendship with Vespasian and of zeal for the party—Antonius Primus’s letters having indeed been sent to him, by which he was ordered to turn aside the auxiliaries summoned by Vitellius and to hold back the legions under the show of a German tumult. The same thing Hordeonius Flaccus, present, had advised, his mind inclined toward Vespasian and out of care for the commonwealth, to which destruction was approaching, if the war were renewed and so many thousands of armed men burst into Italy.

Iulius Paulus et Iulius Civilis regia stirpe multo ceteros anteibant. Paulum Fonteius Capito falso rebellionis crimine interfecit; iniectae Civili catenae, missusque ad Neronem et a Galba absolutus sub Vitellio rursus discrimen adiit, flagitante supplicium eius exercitu: inde causae irarum spesque ex malis nostris. sed Civilis ultra quam barbaris solitum ingenio sollers et Sertorium se aut Annibalem ferens simili oris dehonestamento, ne ut hosti obviam iretur, si a populo Romano palam descivisset, Vespasiani amicitiam studiumque partium praetendit, missis sane ad eum Primi Antonii litteris, quibus avertere accita Vitellio auxilia et tumultus Germanici specie retentare legiones iubebatur. eadem Hordeonius Flaccus praesens monuerat, inclinato in Vespa- sianum animo et rei publicae cura, cui excidium adventabat, si redintegratum bellum et tot armatorum milia Italiam inrupissent.

And so Civilis, resolved on revolting, his deeper design concealed meanwhile, about to judge the rest by the event, began to make a revolution in this way. By Vitellius’s order the youth of the Batavi were being called to a levy, which, grievous by its own nature, the agents burdened with their greed and luxury, hunting out the old or the weak, whom they might dismiss for a price: again, the beardless and conspicuous in beauty (and for most their boyhood is tall) were dragged off for debauchery. Hence odium, and the authors of a prearranged sedition prevailed on them to refuse the levy. Civilis, the chief men of the nation and the readiest of the crowd called under the show of a feast into a sacred grove, when he sees them grown hot with night and gladness, having begun from the praise and glory of the nation, enumerates the injuries and the rapines and the rest of the evils of servitude: for they were held not in alliance, as of old, but as very slaves. When did a legate come—with a heavy and haughty train, indeed—and with command? They were handed over to prefects and centurions: whom, when they had glutted them with spoils and blood, they changed, and new pockets were sought out and various names for plundering. The levy was at hand, by which children from parents, brothers from brothers, were parted as for the last time. Never was the Roman state more afflicted, nor was there anything in the winter quarters but plunder and old men: let them only lift their eyes and not be afraid of the empty names of legions. But they had the strength of foot and horse, the Germans their kinsmen, the Gallic provinces desiring the same thing. Not even to the Romans was that war unwelcome, whose doubtful fortune they would charge to Vespasian: of victory no reckoning is rendered.

Igitur Civilis desciscendi certus, occultato interim altiore consilio, cetera ex eventu iudicaturus, novare res hoc modo coepit. iussu Vitellii Batavorum iuventus ad dilectum vocabatur, quem suapte natura gravem onerabant ministri avaritia ac luxu, senes aut invalidos conquirendo, quos pretio dimitterent: rursus impubes et forma conspicui (et est plerisque procera pueritia) ad stuprum trahebantur. hinc invidia, et compositae seditionis auctores perpulere ut dilectum abnuerent. Civilis primores gentis et promptissimos vulgi specie epularum sacrum in nemus vocatos, ubi nocte ac laetitia incaluisse videt, a laude gloriaque gentis orsus iniurias et raptus et cetera servitii mala enumerat: neque enim societatem, ut olim, sed tamquam mancipia haberi: quando legatum, gravi quidem comitatu et superbo, cum imperio venire? tradi se praefectis centurionibusque: quos ubi spoliis et sanguine expleverint, mutari, exquirique novos sinus et varia praedandi vocabula. instare dilectum quo liberi a parentibus, fratres a fratribus velut supremum dividantur. numquam magis adflictam rem Romanam nec aliud in hibernis quam praedam et senes: attollerent tantum oculos et inania legionum nomina ne pavescerent. at sibi robur peditum equitumque, consanguineos Germanos, Gallias idem cupientis. ne Romanis quidem ingratum id bellum, cuius ambiguam fortunam Vespasiano imputaturos: victoriae rationem non reddi.

Heard with great assent, he binds them all by barbarian rite and the curses of their fathers. Men were sent to the Canninefates to make their counsels common. That people inhabit part of the island, in origin, language, and valor equal to the Batavi; in number they are surpassed. Soon by secret messages he enticed the British auxiliaries, the Batavian cohorts sent into Germany, as we have related above, and then staying at Mogontiacum. There was among the Canninefates one Brinno, of a stolid audacity, marked by the brightness of his birth; his father, having dared many hostile things, had with impunity scorned the mockery of Gaius’s expeditions. And so by the very name of a rebel family he found favor, and, set on a shield after the manner of the nation and brandished on the shoulders of those who bore him, he is chosen leader. And at once, the Frisii being summoned (it is a people across the Rhine), he bursts upon the winter quarters of two cohorts, nearest occupied by the Ocean. Nor had the soldiers foreseen the enemy’s onset, nor, had they foreseen it, was there strength enough to keep them off: the camp therefore was taken and plundered. Then they fall upon the sutlers and Roman traders, straying and spread about in the manner of peace. At the same time they threatened the destruction of the forts, which were burned by the prefects of the cohorts, because they could not be defended. The standards and banners and what of the soldiery there was gather in the upper part of the island, with Aquilius, a first-spear centurion, for leader—the name rather than the strength of an army: for, the strength of the cohorts being withdrawn, Vitellius had loaded with arms a sluggish number from the nearest cantons of the Nervii and the Germans.

Magno cum adsensu auditus barbaro ritu et patriis execrationibus universos adigit. missi ad Canninefatis qui consilia sociarent. ea gens partem insulae colit, origine lingua virtute par Batavis; numero superantur. mox occultis nuntiis pellexit Britannica auxilia, Batavorum cohortis missas in Germaniam, ut supra rettulimus, ac tum Mogontiaci agentis. erat in Canninefatibus stolidae audaciae Brinno, claritate natalium insigni; pater eius multa hostilia ausus Gaianarum expeditionum ludibrium impune spreverat. igitur ipso rebellis familiae nomine placuit impositusque scuto more gentis et sustinentium umeris vibratus dux deligitur. statimque accitis Frisiis (transrhenana gens est) duarum cohortium hiberna proximo † occupata† Oceano inrumpit. nec providerant impetum hostium milites, nec, si providissent, satis virium ad arcendum erat: capta igitur ac direpta castra. dein vagos et pacis modo effusos lixas negotiatoresque Romanos invadunt. simul excidiis castellorum imminebant, quae a praefectis cohortium incensa sunt, quia defendi nequibant. signa vexillaque et quod militum in superiorem insulae partem congregantur, duce Aquilio primipilari, nomen magis exercitus quam robur: quippe viribus cohortium abductis Vitellius e proximis Nerviorum Germanorumque pagis segnem numerum armis oneraverat.

Civilis, judging that he must work by guile, went so far as to accuse the prefects of having abandoned the forts: he would crush the Canninefate tumult with the cohort he commanded; let the rest go back each to his own winter quarters. That fraud lay beneath the plan, that the cohorts once scattered could the more easily be crushed, and that the leader of the war was not Brinno but Civilis, grew plain as the signs broke out little by little, which the Germans, a people that takes joy in war, had not for long concealed. When the ambush availed little, he passed over to force and ranges the Canninefates, the Frisii, and the Batavi in their own wedges: the line drawn up over against us not far from the river Rhine, the ships turned to face the enemy, which they had brought up to that point after burning the forts. Nor was it long fought before a cohort of the Tungri carried its standards over to Civilis, and the soldiers, struck by the unlooked-for treachery, were cut down by allies and enemies alike. The same perfidy in the ships too: a part of the rowers, being Batavi, hampered as if from inexperience the work of sailors and fighters; soon they pulled the other way and set the sterns toward the enemy’s bank: at the last they butcher the helmsmen and centurions, save such as wished the same, until the whole fleet of four-and-twenty ships either deserted or was taken.

Civilis dolo grassandum ratus incusavit ultro praefectos quod castella deseruissent: se cum cohorte, cui praeerat, Canninefatem tumultum compressurum, illi sua quisque hiberna repeterent. subesse fraudem consilio et dispersas cohortis facilius opprimi, nec Brinnonem ducem eius belli, sed Civilem esse patuit, erumpentibus paulatim indiciis, quae Germani, laeta bello gens, non diu occultaverant. ubi insidiae parum cessere, ad vim transgressus Canninefatis, Frisios, Batavos propriis cuneis componit: derecta ex diverso acies haud procul a flumine Rheno et obversis in hostem navibus, quas incensis castellis illuc adpulerant. nec diu certato Tungrorum cohors signa ad Civilem transtulit, perculsique milites improvisa proditione a sociis hostibusque caedebantur. eadem etiam in navibus perfidia: pars remigum e Batavis tamquam imperitia officia nautarum propugnatorumque impediebant; mox contra tendere et puppis hostili ripae obicere: ad postremum gubernatores centurionesque, nisi eadem volentis, trucidant, donec universa quattuor et viginti navium classis transfugeret aut caperetur.

That victory was bright for the moment, useful for the time to come; and having got the arms and ships they needed, they were celebrated through the Germanies and the Gauls, with great fame, as the founders of liberty. The Germanies at once sent envoys offering auxiliaries: the alliance of the Gauls Civilis courted by craft and gifts, sending the captured cohort-prefects back to their own states and giving the cohorts the choice whether they would rather depart or stay. To those who stayed honored service was offered, to those who left the spoils of the Romans: and at the same time in private talk he reminded them of the evils which through so many years they had borne, calling a wretched slavery by the false name of peace. The Batavi, though exempt from tribute, had taken up arms against their common masters; in the first encounter the Roman had been routed and beaten. What if the Gauls should throw off the yoke? What strength was left in Italy? It was by the blood of provinces that provinces were conquered. Let them not think of Vindex’s battle-line: it was Batavian horse that had trampled the Aedui and the Arverni; among Verginius’s auxiliaries had been Belgae, and to those who reckoned truly Gaul had fallen by her own strength. Now all were of one party, with this besides, whatever of military discipline had flourished in the Roman camps; with him were veteran cohorts before which Otho’s legions had lately gone down. Let Syria and Asia be slaves, and the East that is used to kings: many were yet alive in Gaul who had been born before the tribute. Lately, surely, with Quintilius Varus slain, slavery had been driven out of Germany, and it was no Vitellius that had been challenged in war, but a Caesar Augustus. Liberty was given by nature even to dumb animals; valor was the proper good of men; the gods stood by the braver: therefore let them, unburdened, fall upon men full of business, the fresh upon the weary. While some favored Vespasian and some Vitellius, the field lay open against both. So, his eye set upon the Gauls and the Germanies, if his designs should prosper, he was looming over the dominion of the strongest and richest nations.

Clara ea victoria in praesens, in posterum usui; armaque et navis, quibus indigebant, adepti magna per Germanias Galliasque fama libertatis auctores celebrabantur. Germaniae statim misere legatos auxilia offerentis: Galliarum societatem Civilis arte donisque adfectabat, captos cohortium praefectos suas in civitates remittendo, cohortibus, abire an manere mallent, data potestate. manentibus honorata militia, digredientibus spolia Romanorum offerebantur: simul secretis sermonibus admonebat malorum, quae tot annis perpessi miseram servitutem falso pacem vocarent. Batavos, quamquam tributorum expertis, arma contra communis dominos cepisse; prima acie fusum victumque Romanum. quid si Galliae iugum exuant? quantum in Italia reliquum? provinciarum sanguine provincias vinci. ne Vindicis aciem cogitarent: Batavo equite protritos Aeduos Arvernosque; fuisse inter Verginii auxilia Belgas, vereque reputantibus Galliam suismet viribus concidisse. nunc easdem omnium partis, addito si quid militaris disciplinae in castris Romanorum viguerit; esse secum veteranas cohortis, quibus nuper Othonis legiones procubuerint. servirent Syria Asiaque et suetus regibus Oriens: multos adhuc in Gallia vivere ante tributa genitos. nuper certe caeso Quintilio Varo pulsam e Germania servitutem, nec Vitellium principem sed Caesarem Augustum bello provocatum. libertatem natura etiam mutis animalibus datam, virtutem proprium hominum bonum; deos fortioribus adesse: proinde arriperent vacui occupatos, integri fessos. dum alii Vespasianum, alii Vitellium foveant, patere locum adversus utrumque. sic in Gallias Germaniasque intentus, si destinata provenissent, validissimarum ditissimarumque nationum regno imminebat.

But Hordeonius Flaccus fostered Civilis’s first attempts by looking the other way: when trembling messengers brought word that the camp was stormed, the cohorts destroyed, the Roman name driven from the Batavian island, he orders Munius Lupercus, the legate (he commanded the winter quarters of two legions), to go out against the enemy. Lupercus hastily sent across the legionaries from those at hand, the Ubii from the nearest parts, the horse of the Treveri operating not far off, with a Batavian wing added, which, long since corrupted, was feigning loyalty, that, having betrayed the Romans in the very line, it might flee at a higher price. Civilis, ringed about by the standards of the captured cohorts, that his own soldiers might have their fresh glory before their eyes and the enemy be cowed by the memory of their defeat, orders his mother and his sisters, and with them the wives and small children of all, to take their stand at his rear, the spurs to victory or, if they were beaten, their shame. When the line rang with the men’s chant and the women’s shrieking, no equal shout at all was sent back by the legions and cohorts. The deserting Batavian wing had bared the left horn and at once turned upon us. Yet the legionary soldier, for all the alarm, kept his arms and his ranks. The auxiliaries of the Ubii and the Treveri, scattered in shameful flight, straggle over all the plains: thither the Germans bore down, and there was meanwhile an escape for the legions into the camp that bears the name of Vetera. The prefect of the Batavian wing, Claudius Labeo, a rival of Civilis in some townsman’s quarrel, lest, killed, he should leave ill-will among his countrymen, or, if kept, supply the seeds of discord, is carried off among the Frisii.

At Flaccus Hordeonius primos Civilis conatus per dissimulationem aluit: ubi expugnata castra, deletas cohortis, pulsum Batavorum insula Romanum nomen trepidi nuntii adferebant, Munium Lupercum legatum (is duarum legionum hibernis praeerat) egredi adversus hostem iubet. Lupercus legionarios e praesentibus, Vbios e proximis, Trevirorum equites haud longe agentis raptim transmisit, addita Batavorum ala, quae iam pridem corrupta fidem simulabat, ut proditis in ipsa acie Romanis maiore pretio fugeret. Civilis captarum cohortium signis circumdatus, ut suo militi recens gloria ante oculos et hostes memoria cladis terrerentur, matrem suam sororesque, simul omnium coniuges parvosque liberos consistere a tergo iubet, hortamenta victoriae vel pulsis pudorem. ut virorum cantu, feminarum ululatu sonuit acies, nequaquam par a legionibus cohortibusque redditur clamor. nudaverat sinistrum cornu Batavorum ala transfugiens statimque in nos versa. sed legionarius miles, quamquam rebus trepidis, arma ordinesque retinebat. Vbiorum Trevirorumque auxilia foeda fuga dispersa totis campis palantur: illuc incubuere Germani, et fuit interim effugium legionibus in castra, quibus Veterum nomen est. praefectus alae Batavorum Claudius Labeo, oppidano certamine aemulus Civili, ne interfectus invidiam apud popularis vel, si retineretur, semina discordiae praeberet, in Frisios avehitur.

In those same days the cohorts of the Batavi and Canninefates, while by Vitellius’s order they were making for the City, are overtaken by a messenger sent from Civilis. At once they swelled with pride and ferocity, and demanded, as the price of their march, a donative, double pay, an increase in the number of horse—things in truth promised by Vitellius—not that they might gain them, but for a pretext to sedition. And Flaccus, by conceding much, had brought about nothing but that they should demand the more fiercely the things they knew he would refuse. Scorning Flaccus they made for Lower Germany to join Civilis. Hordeonius, having called in the tribunes and centurions, took counsel whether he should coerce by force the men refusing obedience; soon, from his inbred cowardice and his agents’ alarm—whom the doubtful temper of the auxiliaries and the legions filled up by a sudden levy disquieted—he resolved to keep the soldiers within the camp: then, repenting, and with the very men who had advised it reproaching him, as though he meant to follow, he wrote to Herennius Gallus, legate of the first legion, who held Bonna, to bar the Batavi from passage: he himself would hang upon their rear with the army. And they could have been crushed if Hordeonius from this side and Gallus from that, moving their forces from both, had shut them in between. Flaccus dropped the undertaking and in other letters warned Gallus not to frighten the departing: whence the suspicion that the war was being stirred up by the legates’ own will, and that all that had happened or was feared came about not from the soldiers’ sloth nor the enemy’s force, but from the commanders’ treachery.

Isdem diebus Batavorum et Canninefatium cohortis, cum iussu Vitellii in urbem pergerent, missus a Civile nuntius adsequitur. intumuere statim superbia ferociaque et pretium itineris donativum, duplex stipendium, augeri equitum numerum, promissa sane a Vitellio, postulabant, non ut adsequerentur, sed causam seditioni. et Flaccus multa concedendo nihil aliud effecerat quam ut acrius exposcerent quae sciebant negaturum. spreto Flacco inferiorem Germaniam petivere ut Civili iungerentur. Hordeonius adhibitis tribunis centurionibusque consultavit num obsequium abnuentis vi coerceret; mox insita ignavia et trepidis ministris, quos ambiguus auxiliorum animus et subito dilectu suppletae legiones angebant, statuit continere intra castra militem: dein paenitentia et arguentibus ipsis qui suaserant, tamquam secuturus scripsit Herennio Gallo legionis primae legato, qui Bonnam obtinebat, ut arceret transitu Batavos: se cum exercitu tergis eorum haesurum. et opprimi poterant si hinc Hordeonius, inde Gallus, motis utrimque copiis, medios clausissent. Flaccus omisit inceptum aliisque litteris Gallum monuit ne terreret abeuntis: unde suspicio sponte legatorum excitari bellum cunctaque quae acciderant aut metuebantur non inertia militis neque hostium vi, sed fraude ducum evenire.

When the Batavi were drawing near the camp at Bonna, they sent ahead one to set forth the cohorts’ demands to Herennius Gallus. They had no war against the Romans, for whom they had so often fought: a long and fruitless service had bred in the weary a longing for their fatherland and for rest. If no one withstood them, their passage would be harmless: but if arms met them, they would find a road with the sword. As the legate hesitated, the soldiers had pressed him to try the fortune of battle. Three thousand legionaries and the hastily-raised cohorts of the Belgae, together with a band of peasants and sutlers—cowardly but insolent before the danger—burst from all the gates to surround the Batavi, who were the fewer. They, veterans of war, gather into wedges, close on every side and secure in front, rear, and flank; thus they break through our thin line. With the Belgae giving way, the legion is driven back, and in alarm they made for the rampart and the gates. There was the most of the slaughter: the ditches heaped with bodies, and not by carnage alone and wounds, but most perished by the collapse and by their own weapons. The victors, giving the colony of the Agrippinenses a wide berth and venturing nothing else hostile on the rest of the road, kept excusing the fight at Bonna, as though, peace having been sought and then refused, they had looked to their own safety.

Batavi cum castris Bonnensibus propinquarent, praemisere qui Herennio Gallo mandata cohortium exponeret. nullum sibi bellum adversus Romanos, pro quibus totiens bellassent: longa atque inrita militia fessis patriae atque otii cupidinem esse. si nemo obsisteret, innoxium iter fore: sin arma occurrant, ferro viam inventuros. cunctantem legatum milites perpulerant fortunam proelii experiretur. tria milia legionariorum et tumultuariae Belgarum cohortes, simul paganorum lixarumque ignava sed procax ante periculum manus omnibus portis prorumpunt ut Batavos numero imparis circumfundant. illi veteres militiae in cuneos congregantur, densi undique et frontem tergaque ac latus tuti; sic tenuem nostrorum aciem perfringunt. cedentibus Belgis pellitur legio, et vallum portasque trepidi petebant. ibi plurimum cladis: cumulatae corporibus fossae, nec caede tantum et vulneribus, sed ruina et suis plerique telis interiere. victores colonia Agrippinensium vitata, nihil cetero in itinere hostile ausi, Bonnense proelium excusabant, tamquam petita pace, postquam negabatur, sibimet ipsi consuluissent.

Civilis, by the coming of the veteran cohorts now the leader of a regular army, but unsure of his course and weighing the Roman power, binds all who were present to the oath of Vespasian and sends envoys to the two legions which, beaten in the earlier battle, had withdrawn into the Vetera camp, that they should take the same oath. The answer is returned: they followed neither a traitor’s counsels nor an enemy’s; they had Vitellius for emperor, for whom they would keep faith and arms to the last breath: therefore let a Batavian deserter not play the arbiter of Roman affairs, but look for the punishment his crime deserved. When this was reported to Civilis, blazing with anger he sweeps the whole Batavian nation into arms; the Bructeri and Tencteri join, and Germany, roused by his messengers, to plunder and to fame.

Civilis adventu veteranarum cohortium iusti iam exercitus ductor, sed consilii ambiguus et vim Romanam reputans, cunctos qui aderant in verba Vespasiani adigit mittitque legatos ad duas legiones, quae priore acie pulsae in Vetera castra concesserant, ut idem sacramentum acciperent. redditur responsum: neque proditoris neque hostium se consiliis uti; esse sibi Vitellium principem, pro quo fidem et arma usque ad supremum spiritum retenturos: proinde perfuga Batavus arbitrium rerum Romanarum ne ageret, sed meritas sceleris poenas expectaret. quae ubi relata Civili, incensus ira universam Batavorum gentem in arma rapit; iunguntur Bructeri Tencterique et excita nuntiis Germania ad praedam famamque.

Against these gathering threats of war the legionary legates Munius Lupercus and Numisius Rufus were strengthening the rampart and the walls. The works of a long peace, built not far from the camp in the manner of a town, were thrown down, lest they serve the enemy. But too little care was taken that supplies be carried into the camp; they let them be plundered: and so in a few days, through license, the stores were consumed that against want would have sufficed for the long term. Civilis, holding the center of the column with the strength of the Batavi, and—that he might look the more savage—filling both banks of the Rhine with bands of Germans, the horse charging across the plains; at the same time the ships were being driven up against the stream. Here the standards of the veteran cohorts, there the images of wild beasts brought out from the woods and groves, as the custom of each nation is for going into battle, had stupefied the besieged with a mingled face of civil and foreign war. And the breadth of the rampart raised the assailants’ hope, for, sited for two legions, scarcely five thousand armed Romans were defending it; yet a multitude of sutlers, gathered there when peace was broken, was on hand, and a help in the war.

Adversus has concurrentis belli minas legati legionum Munius Lupercus et Numisius Rufus vallum murosque firmabant. subversa longae pacis opera, haud procul castris in modum municipii extructa, ne hostibus usui forent. sed parum provisum ut copiae in castra conveherentur; rapi permisere: ita paucis diebus per licentiam absumpta sunt quae adversus necessitates in longum suffecissent. Civilis medium agmen cum robore Batavorum obtinens utramque Rheni ripam, quo truculentior visu foret, Germanorum catervis complet, adsultante per campos equite; simul naves in adversum amnem agebantur. hinc veteranarum cohortium signa, inde depromptae silvis lucisque ferarum imagines, ut cuique genti inire proelium mos est, mixta belli civilis externique facie obstupefecerant obsessos. et spem obpugnantium augebat amplitudo valli, quod duabus legionibus situm vix quinque milia armatorum Romanorum tuebantur; sed lixarum multitudo turbata pace illuc congregata et bello ministra aderat.

Part of the camp rose gently onto a hill, part was approached on the level. For Augustus had believed that by those winter quarters the Germanies were held under siege and held down, and never to such a depth of evil that the legions should be assailed—that men should come against them of their own accord; hence no labor was added in the way of ground or fortification: force and arms had pleased them well enough. The Batavi and the men from across the Rhine take their stand each nation apart, that their valor, kept separate, might be the more plainly marked, provoking us from a distance. Afterward, when most of the missiles stuck useless in the towers and battlements of the walls and they were wounded by stones from above, with a shout and a rush they fell on the rampart, the most with ladders set up, others through a tortoise of their own; and some were now climbing, when, flung down by swords and the dashing of shields, they are buried under stakes and javelins—men over-fierce at the outset and, in success, beyond measure. But then, from greed of plunder, they bore adversities too; they even ventured engines, a thing strange to them. Nor was there any skill in themselves: deserters and captives taught them to build timbers in the fashion of a bridge, then, wheels set beneath, to push them forward, so that some, standing on top, might fight as from a mound, while a part, hidden within, undermined the walls. But stones shot from the ballistae leveled the shapeless work. And as they were making ready hurdles and mantlets, burning spears driven by the artillery, and the besiegers themselves were assailed with fires, until, despairing of force, they turned their plan to delay, not unaware that there was food for but a few days within, and much unwarlike crowd; and at once they hoped for betrayal out of want, the slippery faith of slaves, and the chances of war.

Pars castrorum in collem leniter exurgens, pars aequo adibatur. quippe illis hibernis obsideri premique Germanias Augustus crediderat, neque umquam id malorum ut obpugnatum ultro legiones nostras venirent; inde non loco neque munimentis labor additus: vis et arma satis placebant. Batavi Transrhenanique, quo discreta virtus manifestius spectaretur, sibi quaeque gens consistunt, eminus lacessentes. post ubi pleraque telorum turribus pinnisque moenium inrita haerebant et desuper saxis vulnerabantur, clamore atque impetu invasere vallum, adpositis plerique scalis, alii per testudinem suorum; scandebantque iam quidam, cum gladiis et armorum incussu praecipitati sudibus et pilis obruuntur, praeferoces initio et rebus secundis nimii. sed tum praedae cupidine adversa quoque tolerabant; machinas etiam, insolitum sibi, ausi. nec ulla ipsis sollertia: perfugae captivique docebant struere materias in modum pontis, mox subiectis rotis propellere, ut alii superstantes tamquam ex aggere proeliarentur, pars intus occulti muros subruerent. sed excussa ballistis saxa stravere informe opus. et cratis vineasque parantibus adactae tormentis ardentes hastae, ultroque ipsi obpugnatores ignibus petebantur, donec desperata vi verterent consilium ad moras, haud ignari paucorum dierum inesse alimenta et multum imbellis turbae; simul ex inopia proditio et fluxa servitiorum fides ac fortuita belli sperabantur.

Flaccus meanwhile, the siege of the camp made known, and men sent through the Gauls to call up auxiliaries, hands over picked men of the legions to Dillius Vocula, legate of the twenty-second legion, to press on by the longest possible marches along the bank, while he himself goes by ship, weak in body, hated by the soldiers. For they grumbled not ambiguously: that the Batavian cohorts had been let go from Mogontiacum, Civilis’s attempts dissembled, the Germans taken into alliance. It was not by the help of Antonius Primus or Mucianus that Vespasian had grown so great. Open hatreds and open arms were warded off: fraud and guile were hidden and therefore not to be escaped. Civilis stood facing them, drawing up his line: Hordeonius from his chamber and his couch ordered whatever served the enemy. So many armed bands of the bravest men ruled by the sickness of one old man: why not rather, the traitor killed, free their own fortune and valor from the ill omen? Stirred by such words among themselves, they were the more inflamed by letters brought from Vespasian, which Flaccus, because they could not be hidden, read out before the assembly, and sent those who had brought them in chains to Vitellius.

Flaccus interim cognito castrorum obsidio et missis per Gallias qui auxilia concirent, lectos e legionibus Dillio Voculae duoetvicensimae legionis legato tradit, ut quam maximis per ripam itineribus celeraret, ipse navibus invadit invalidus corpore, invisus militibus. neque enim ambigue fremebant: emissas a Mogontiaco Batavorum cohortis, dissimulatos Civilis conatus, adsciri in societatem Germanos. non Primi Antonii neque Muciani ope Vespasianum magis adolevisse. aperta odia armaque palam depelli: fraudem et dolum obscura eoque inevitabilia. Civilem stare contra, struere aciem: Hordeonium e cubiculo et lectulo iubere quidquid hosti conducat. tot armatas fortissimorum virorum manus unius senis valetudine regi: quin potius interfecto traditore fortunam virtutemque suam malo omine exolverent. his inter se vocibus instinctos flammavere insuper adlatae a Vespasiano litterae, quas Flaccus, quia occultari nequibant, pro contione recitavit, vinctosque qui attulerant ad Vitellium misit.

Their minds thus appeased, they came to Bonna, the winter quarters of the first legion. There the soldiery, the more enraged, turned the blame for the disaster onto Hordeonius: by his order the line had been drawn up against the Batavi, on the understanding that the legions would follow from Mogontiacum; by his treachery they had been cut down, no auxiliaries coming up: these things were unknown to the other armies and not reported to their own emperor, though by the onrush of so many provinces the sudden treachery could have been stamped out. Hordeonius read to the army copies of all the letters by which he had begged auxiliaries through the Gauls and Britain and the Spains, and set up a most evil practice, that the letters be handed to the eagle-bearers of the legions, by whom they were read to the soldier before the commanders. Then he orders one of the mutinous to be put in chains, more to assert his right than because the fault was of one man. And the army, moved from Bonna, went to the colony of the Agrippinenses, the auxiliaries of the Gauls flowing in, who at first strenuously aided the Roman cause: soon, as the Germans grew strong, most of the states took up arms against us, in hope of liberty and, should they cast off slavery, from a craving to rule. The legions’ anger swelled, nor had the chains of a single soldier struck terror: rather that same man went so far as to charge the commander’s own complicity, as though, a go-between of Civilis and Flaccus, he were being crushed on a false count, a witness of the truth. Vocula mounted the tribunal with wonderful firmness and ordered the seized soldier, shouting as he was, to be led to execution: and while the bad were afraid, every best man obeyed the order. Then, with all demanding Vocula for leader, Flaccus made over to him the supreme command.

Sic mitigatis animis Bonnam, hiberna primae legionis, ventum. infensior illic miles culpam cladis in Hordeonium vertebat: eius iussu derectam adversus Batavos aciem, tamquam a Mogontiaco legiones sequerentur; eiusdem proditione caesos, nullis supervenientibus auxiliis: ignota haec ceteris exercitibus neque imperatori suo nuntiari, cum adcursu tot provinciarum extingui repens perfidia potuerit. Hordeonius exemplaris omnium litterarum, quibus per Gallias Britanniamque et Hispanias auxilia orabat, exercitui recitavit instituitque pessimum facinus, ut epistulae aquiliferis legionum traderentur, a quis ante militi quam ducibus legebantur. tum e seditiosis unum vinciri iubet, magis usurpandi iuris, quam quia unius culpa foret. motusque Bonna exercitus in coloniam Agrippinensem, adfluentibus auxiliis Gallorum, qui primo rem Romanam enixe iuvabant: mox valescentibus Germanis pleraeque civitates adversum nos arma sumpsere spe libertatis et, si exuissent servitium, cupidine imperitandi. gliscebat iracundia legionum, nec terrorem unius militis vincula indiderant: quin idem ille arguebat ultro conscientiam ducis, tamquam nuntius inter Civilem Flaccumque falso crimine testis veri opprimeretur. conscendit tribunal Vocula mira constantia, prensumque militem ac vociferantem duci ad supplicium iussit: et dum mali pavent, optimus quisque iussis paruere. exim consensu ducem Voculam poscentibus, Flaccus summam rerum ei permisit.

But many things made their discordant tempers savage: the lack of pay and grain, and at the same time the Gauls spurning the levy and the tributes; the Rhine, by a drought unknown to that sky, scarcely bearing ships; the supply-routes narrowed; pickets posted along the whole bank to bar the Germans at the ford, and for the same cause less corn and more to consume it. Among the ignorant the very dearth of water was taken for a portent, as though the rivers too and the old defenses of the empire were forsaking us: what in peace would be chance or nature was then called fate and the wrath of god.

Sed discordis animos multa efferabant: inopia stipendii frumentique et simul dilectum tributaque Galliae aspernantes, Rhenus incognita illi caelo siccitate vix navium patiens, arti commeatus, dispositae per omnem ripam stationes quae Germanos vado arcerent, eademque de causa minus frugum et plures qui consumerent. apud imperitos prodigii loco accipiebatur ipsa aquarum penuria, tamquam nos amnes quoque et vetera imperii munimenta desererent: quod in pace fors seu natura, tunc fatum et ira dei vocabatur.

As they entered Novaesium the sixteenth legion joins them. Herennius Gallus, the legate, was added to Vocula to share his cares; and, not daring to march against the enemy, they pitched camp (the place has the name Gelduba). There they steadied the soldier by drawing up the line, by fortifying and entrenching, and by the rest of the rehearsals of war. And, that he might be kindled to valor by booty, the army was led by Vocula into the nearest cantons of the Cugerni, who had accepted Civilis’s alliance; a part stayed with Herennius Gallus.

Ingressis Novaesium sexta decima legio coniungitur. additus Voculae in partem curarum Herennius Gallus legatus; nec ausi ad hostem pergere(loco Gelduba nomen est) castra fecere. ibi struenda acie, muniendo vallandoque et ceteris belli meditamentis militem firmabant. utque praeda ad virtutem accenderetur, in proximos Cugernorum pagos, qui societatem Civilis acceperant, ductus a Vocula exercitus; pars cum Herennio Gallo permansit.

It chanced that a ship heavy with grain, not far from the camp, having stuck on the shallows, the Germans were dragging to their own bank. Gallus did not endure it and sent a cohort to the rescue: the Germans’ number too was increased, and, as auxiliaries gathered by degrees, it was fought out in line. The Germans, with much slaughter of our men, carry off the ship. The beaten—as had by now turned into a habit—blamed not their own cowardice but the legate’s treachery. Dragged from his tent, his garment torn, his body beaten, they bid him say at what price, with what accomplices, he had betrayed the army. The hatred swings back onto Hordeonius: him they call the author of the crime, this man its agent, until, terrified by their threats of death, he too charged the betrayal upon Hordeonius; and, bound, he is at last released on Vocula’s arrival. He, the next day, visited the authors of the sedition with death: so great a contrariety of license and of endurance was in that army. Beyond doubt the common soldier was faithful to Vitellius, every most distinguished man inclined toward Vespasian: hence the alternations of crimes and punishments, and a frenzy mixed with obedience, so that those who could be punished could not be restrained.

Forte navem haud procul castris, frumento gravem, cum per vada haesisset, Germani in suam ripam trahebant. non tulit Gallus misitque subsidio cohortem: auctus et Germanorum numerus, paulatimque adgregantibus se auxiliis acie certatum. Germani multa cum strage nostrorum navem abripiunt. victi, quod tum in morem verterat, non suam ignaviam, sed perfidiam legati culpabant. protractum e tentorio, scissa veste, verberato corpore, quo pretio, quibus consciis prodidisset exercitum, dicere iubent. redit in Hordeonium invidia: illum auctorem sceleris, hunc ministrum vocant, donec exitium minitantibus exterritus proditionem et ipse Hordeonio obiecit; vinctusque adventu demum Voculae exolvitur. is postera die auctores seditionis morte adfecit: tanta illi exercitui diversitas inerat licentiae patientiaeque. haud dubie gregarius miles Vitellio fidus, splendidissimus quisque in Vespasianum proni: inde scelerum ac suppliciorum vices et mixtus obsequio furor, ut contineri non possent qui puniri poterant.

But Civilis the whole of Germany was exalting with vast increase, the alliance made firm by the noblest hostages. He orders the Ubii and the Treveri, as each lay nearest, to be laid waste, and another band to cross the river Meuse, to shake the Menapii and the Morini and the farthest parts of the Gauls. Plunder was driven off on both sides, more savagely among the Ubii, because, a nation of German origin, they had forsworn their fatherland and were called Agrippinenses. Their cohorts were cut down at the village of Marcodurum, behaving too carelessly because they were far from the bank. Nor did the Ubii rest from seeking plunder out of Germany, at first with impunity, then they were surrounded, through that whole war using better faith than fortune. The Ubii crushed, Civilis—the heavier, and by his success the fiercer—pressed the siege of the legions, the watches kept strict that no secret messenger of coming relief should slip through. He assigns the engines and the mass of the works to the Batavi: the men from across the Rhine, who demanded battle, he bids go to tear down the rampart, and, when thrust off, renew the contest, the multitude being more than enough and the loss easy to bear.

At Civilem immensis auctibus universa Germania extollebat, societate nobilissimis obsidum firmata. ille, ut cuique proximum, vastari Vbios Trevirosque, et aliam manum Mosam amnem transire iubet, ut Menapios et Morinos et extrema Galliarum quateret. actae utrobique praedae, infestius in Vbiis, quod gens Germanicae originis eiurata patria Agrippinenses vocarentur. caesae cohortes eorum in vico Marcoduro incuriosius agentes, quia procul ripa aberant. nec quievere Vbii quo minus praedas e Germania peterent, primo impune, dein circumventi sunt, per omne id bellum meliore usi fide quam fortuna. contusis Vbiis gravior et successu rerum ferocior Civilis obsidium legionum urgebat, intentis custodiis ne quis occultus nuntius venientis auxilii penetraret. machinas molemque operum Batavis delegat: Transrhenanos proelium poscentis ad scindendum vallum ire detrusosque redintegrare certamen iubet, superante multitudine et facili damno.

Nor did night bring an end to the toil: with wood heaped round and kindled, feasting at the same time, each man, as he grew hot with wine, was carried to the fight with empty rashness. For their own weapons through the darkness went idle: the Romans marked out for a blow the barbarians’ line, plain to see, and any man flashing with daring or with ornaments. This Civilis understood, and bids the fire be quenched and all be mingled in darkness and arms. Then indeed there were dissonant clamors, uncertain falls, no foresight of striking or of swerving: wherever a shout had risen, they wheeled their bodies, stretched out their limbs; valor was of no use, chance threw all into confusion, and often the bravest fell by the weapons of cowards. Among the Germans was unthinking rage: the Roman soldier, aware of the dangers, hurled the iron-shod stakes and heavy stones not at random. Where the sound of men heaving, or a ladder set up, had delivered the enemy into their hands, they thrust him off with the shield-boss, followed with the javelin; many who had got onto the walls they stabbed with daggers. So the night spent, day disclosed a fresh battle.

Nec finem labori nox attulit: congestis circum lignis accensisque, simul epulantes, ut quisque vino incaluerat, ad pugnam temeritate inani ferebantur. quippe ipsorum tela per tenebras vana: Romani conspicuam barbarorum aciem, et si quis audacia aut insignibus effulgens, ad ictum destinabant. intellectum id Civili et restincto igne misceri cuncta tenebris et armis iubet. tum vero strepitus dissoni, casus incerti, neque feriendi neque declinandi providentia: unde clamor acciderat, circumagere corpora, tendere artus; nihil prodesse virtus, fors cuncta turbare et ignavorum saepe telis fortissimi cadere. apud Germanos inconsulta ira: Romanus miles periculorum gnarus ferratas sudis, gravia saxa non forte iaciebat. ubi sonus molientium aut adpositae scalae hostem in manus dederant, propellere umbone, pilo sequi; multos in moenia egressos pugionibus fodere. sic exhausta nocte novam aciem dies aperuit.

The Batavi had run up a tower of two stories, which, as it neared the praetorian gate (that being the most level place), strong props set against it and beams dashed at it broke through, with much destruction of those who stood upon it. And they fought against the shaken men in a sudden and successful sally; at the same time more was being contrived by the legionaries, who excelled in skill and craft. The chief terror was brought by a suspended and nodding contrivance, by which, suddenly let down before the faces of their own men, single men or several of the enemy were snatched aloft and, the weight reversed, were spilled within the camp. Civilis, the hope of storming given up, sat down again to a leisurely blockade, shaking the legions’ loyalty by messages and promises.

Eduxerant Batavi turrim duplici tabulato, quam praetoriae portae (is aequissimus locus) propinquantem promoti contra validi asseres et incussae trabes perfregere multa superstantium pernicie. pugnatumque in perculsos subita et prospera eruptione; simul a legionariis peritia et arte praestantibus plura struebantur. praecipuum pavorem intulit suspensum et nutans machinamentum, quo repente demisso praeter suorum ora singuli pluresve hostium sublime rapti verso pondere intra castra effundebantur. Civilis omissa expugnandi spe rursus per otium adsidebat, nuntiis et promissis fidem legionum convellens.

These things were done in Germany before the battle of Cremona, whose outcome the letters of Antonius Primus made known, with Caecina’s edict added; and a prefect of a cohort from the conquered, Alpinius Montanus, present, confessed the party’s fortune. Hence diverse stirrings of mind: the auxiliaries from Gaul, who had neither love nor hatred for either party, their service without feeling, at the urging of their prefects at once revolt from Vitellius: the veteran soldier hung back. But under Hordeonius Flaccus’s pressure, the tribunes insisting, he spoke the oath, asserting it firmly enough neither in face nor in mind: and while they framed the rest of the words of the oath, at Vespasian’s name they passed it by hesitating, or with a faint murmur, and for the most part in silence.

Haec in Germania ante Cremonense proelium gesta, cuius eventum litterae Primi Antonii docuere, addito Caecinae edicto; et praefectus cohortis e victis, Alpinius Montanus, fortunam partium praesens fatebatur. diversi hinc motus animorum: auxilia e Gallia, quis nec amor neque odium in partis, militia sine adfectu, hortantibus praefectis statim a Vitellio desciscunt: vetus miles cunctabatur. sed adigente Hordeonio Flacco, instantibus tribunis, dixit sacramentum, non vultu neque animo satis adfirmans: et cum cetera iuris iurandi verba conciperent, Vespasiani nomen haesitantes aut levi murmure et plerumque silentio transmittebant.

Then letters of Antonius to Civilis, read out before the assembly, provoked the soldiers’ suspicions, as though written to a partner of the party, and hostile concerning the German army. Soon, the same words and deeds reported in the camp at Gelduba, Montanus too was sent with instructions to Civilis to desist from the war and not to veil foreign aims under false arms: if he had set out to aid Vespasian, enough had been done for the undertaking. To this Civilis at first answered cunningly; afterward, when he sees Montanus over-fierce in temper and ripe for revolution, beginning from a complaint of the dangers which through five-and-twenty years he had drained in the Roman camps, "A fine reward," he said, "I have got for my labors—my brother’s death, my own chains, and the most savage cries of this army, by which, demanded for execution, I claim, by the law of nations, the penalty in return. And you, Treveri, and the rest of you slavish souls, what reward do you look for, for blood so often poured out, save a thankless service, undying tributes, the rods, the axes, and the whims of masters? Lo, I, the prefect of a single cohort, and the Canninefates and Batavi, a scant portion of the Gauls, have wrecked those empty spaces of their camps, or pen them in, hemmed by the sword and by famine. In a word, either liberty will follow our daring, or, beaten, we shall be the same as we are." Having so kindled him, but bidden him report softer things, he dismisses him: and Montanus returns as though his embassy had come to nothing, dissembling the rest, which soon broke out.

Lectae deinde pro contione epistulae Antonii ad Civilem suspiciones militum inritavere, tamquam ad socium partium scriptae et de Germanico exercitu hostiliter. mox adlatis Geldubam in castra nuntiis eadem dicta factaque, et missus cum mandatis Montanus ad Civilem ut absisteret bello neve externa armis falsis velaret: si Vespasianum iuvare adgressus foret, satis factum coeptis. ad ea Civilis primo callide: post ubi videt Montanum praeferocem ingenio paratumque in res novas, orsus a questu periculisque quae per quinque et viginti annos in castris Romanis exhausisset, ’egregium’ inquit ’pretium laborum recepi, necem fratris et vincula mea et saevissimas huius exercitus voces, quibus ad supplicium petitus iure gentium poenas reposco. vos autem Treviri ceteraeque servientium animae, quod praemium effusi totiens sanguinis expectatis nisi ingratam militiam, immortalia tributa, virgas, securis et dominorum ingenia? en ego praefectus unius cohortis et Canninefates Batavique, exigua Galliarum portio, vana illa castrorum spatia excidimus vel saepta ferro fameque premimus. denique ausos aut libertas sequetur aut victi idem erimus.’ sic accensum, sed molliora referre iussum dimittit: ille ut inritus legationis redit, cetera dissimulans, quae mox erupere.

Civilis, a part of his forces kept back, sends the veteran cohorts and what of the Germans was readiest against Vocula and his army, with Julius Maximus and Claudius Victor, his sister’s son, for leaders. They snatch in passing the winter quarters of a cavalry wing sited at Asciburgium; and so unforeseen did they swoop upon the camp that Vocula could neither harangue nor spread out his line: this only, as in the tumult, he was able to advise—to make the center firm with the regular soldiery: the auxiliaries were poured about at random. The cavalry burst out, and, met by the enemy’s ordered ranks, turned their backs upon their own. Slaughter then, not battle. And the Nervian cohorts, from fear or treachery, bared our flanks: thus the enemy came through to the legions, which, their standards lost, were being cut down within the rampart, when suddenly, by a new aid, the fortune of the fight is changed. The Vascones, cohorts levied by Galba and then summoned, while they draw near the camp, hearing the shout of the fighters, fall on the intent enemy from the rear and make a terror wider than their number, some believing that whole forces had come from Novaesium, others from Mogontiacum. That error adds spirit to the Romans, and while they trust in others’ strength, they recovered their own. Every bravest man among the Batavi, as many as were on foot, are routed: the cavalry got off with the standards and the captives whom they had seized in the first line. Of those slain that day on our side the number was the greater and the less warlike; among the Germans, the very flower.

Civilis parte copiarum retenta veteranas cohortis et quod e Germanis maxime promptum adversus Voculam exercitumque eius mittit, Iulio Maximo et Claudio Victore, soro- ris suae filio, ducibus. rapiunt in transitu hiberna alae Asciburgii sita; adeoque improvisi castra involavere ut non adloqui, non pandere aciem Vocula potuerit: id solum ut in tumultu monuit, subsignano milite media firmare: auxilia passim circumfusa sunt. eques prorupit, exceptusque compositis hostium ordinibus terga in suos vertit. caedes inde, non proelium. et Nerviorum cohortes, metu seu perfidia, latera nostrorum nudavere: sic ad legiones perventum, quae amissis signis intra vallum sternebantur, cum repente novo auxilio fortuna pugnae mutatur. Vasconum lectae a Galba cohortes ac tum accitae, dum castris propinquant, audito proeliantium clamore intentos hostis a tergo invadunt latioremque quam pro numero terrorem faciunt, aliis a Novaesio, aliis a Mogontiaco universas copias advenisse credentibus. is error Romanis addit animos, et dum alienis viribus confidunt, suas recepere. fortissimus quisque e Batavis, quantum peditum erat, funduntur: eques evasit cum signis captivisque, quos prima acie corripuerant. caesorum eo die in partibus nostris maior numerus et imbellior, e Germanis ipsa robora.

Each commander, deserving by equal fault, fell short in good fortune as in bad. For Civilis, had he equipped his line with greater forces, could not have been encircled by so few cohorts, and, the camp once broken into, would have destroyed it: Vocula neither scouted the enemy’s approach, and so was beaten the very moment he marched out; then, trusting his victory too little, having wasted days in vain, he moved his camp against the enemy, whom, had he hastened to drive at once and to follow the course of events, he could by that same onset have freed from the siege of the legions. Civilis had meanwhile tried the spirits of the besieged, as though the cause were lost among the Romans and victory had come to his own: the standards and banners were carried round, the captives even paraded. Of these one, daring a noble deed, in a clear voice laid bare what had truly happened, stabbed on the spot by the Germans: whence the greater faith in the informer; and at the same time, by the devastation and the fires of blazing farmhouses, it was understood that a victorious army was coming. In sight of the camp Vocula orders the standards planted and a ditch and rampart drawn round: their baggage and packs laid aside, let them fight unencumbered. Hence a shout against the commander from men demanding battle; and they had grown used to threats. Not even taking the time to order the line, disorderly and weary, they took up the fight; for Civilis was at hand, relying no less on the enemy’s faults than on his own men’s valor. Among the Romans fortune was various, and every most mutinous man a coward: some, mindful of the recent victory, held their ground, struck the enemy, urged on themselves and those nearest, and, the line restored, stretched out their hands to the besieged not to fail the moment. They, seeing all from the walls, burst from every gate. And by chance Civilis, thrown by the slip of his horse, the report believed through both armies that he was wounded or killed, it is beyond measure how much of panic he put into his own men and of eagerness into the enemy: but Vocula, leaving the backs of the fleeing, went on building up the rampart and towers of the camp, as though a siege again threatened—suspected, not falsely, having so often spoiled a victory, of preferring war.

Dux uterque pari culpa meritus adversa prosperis defuere. nam Civilis si maioribus copiis instruxisset aciem, circumiri a tam paucis cohortibus nequisset castraque perrupta excidisset: Vocula nec adventum hostium exploravit, eoque simul egressus victusque; dein victoriae parum confisus, tritis frustra diebus castra in hostem movit, quem si statim impellere cursumque rerum sequi maturasset, solvere obsidium legionum eodem impetu potuit. temptaverat interim Civilis obsessorum animos, tamquam perditae apud Romanos res et suis victoria provenisset: circumferebantur signa vexillaque, ostentati etiam captivi. ex quibus unus, egregium facinus ausus, clara voce gesta patefecit, confossus illico a Germanis: unde maior indici fides; simul vastatione incendiisque flagrantium villarum venire victorem exercitum intellegebatur. in conspectu castrorum constitui signa fossamque et vallum circumdari Vocula iubet: depositis impedimentis sarcinisque expediti certarent. hinc in ducem clamor pugnam poscentium; et minari adsueverant. ne tempore quidem ad ordinandam aciem capto incompositi fessique proelium sumpsere; nam Civilis aderat, non minus vitiis hostium quam virtute suorum fretus. varia apud Romanos fortuna et seditiosissimus quisque ignavus: quidam recentis victoriae memores retinere locum, ferire hostem, seque et proximos hortari et redintegrata acie manus ad obsessos tendere ne tempori deessent. illi cuncta e muris cernentes omnibus portis prorumpunt. ac forte Civilis lapsu equi prostratus, credita per utrumque exercitum fama vulneratum aut interfectum, immane quantum suis pavoris et hostibus alacritatis indidit: sed Vocula omissis fugientium tergis vallum turrisque castrorum augebat, tamquam rursus obsidium immineret, corrupta totiens victoria non falso suspectus bellum malle.

Nothing wearied our armies so much as the dearth of supplies. The baggage of the legions, with the unwarlike crowd, was sent to Novaesium to bring grain thence by the land route; for the enemy held the river. The first column went on unmolested, Civilis not yet firm enough. When he learned that foragers had again been sent to Novaesium, and that the cohorts given for escort were marching as in deep peace—few men at the standards, the arms in the wagons, all straggling at their will—he attacks in good order, having sent ahead men to beset the bridges and the narrows of the roads. It was fought in a long column and with uncertain issue, until night broke off the battle. The cohorts pushed on to Gelduba, the camp remaining as it had been, held by the garrison of the soldiers left there. There was no doubt how great a danger must be faced on the return by the foragers, laden and shaken. Vocula adds to his army a thousand picked men from the fifth and fifteenth legions besieged at Vetera, an unruly soldiery and hostile to their commanders. More than had been ordered set out, and grumbled openly in the column that they would no longer endure hunger and the legates’ treachery: but those who had stayed behind complained that they were deserted, a part of the legions withdrawn. Hence a double sedition, some recalling Vocula, others refusing to return to the camp.

Nihil aeque exercitus nostros quam egestas copiarum fatigabat. impedimenta legionum cum imbelli turba Novaesium missa ut inde terrestri itinere frumentum adveherent; nam flumine hostes potiebantur. primum agmen securum incessit, nondum satis firmo Civile. qui ubi rursum missos Novaesium frumentatores datasque in praesidium cohortis velut multa pace ingredi accepit, rarum apud signa militem, arma in vehiculis, cunctos licentia vagos, compositus invadit, praemissis qui pontis et viarum angusta insiderent. pugnatum longo agmine et incerto Marte, donec proelium nox dirimeret. cohortes Geldubam perrexere, manentibus, ut fuerant, castris, quae relictorum illic militum praesidio tenebantur. non erat dubium quantum in regressu discriminis adeundum foret frumentatoribus onustis perculsisque. addit exercitui suo Vocula mille delectos e quinta et quinta decima legionibus apud Vetera obsessis, indomitum militem et ducibus infensum. plures quam iussum erat profecti palam in agmine fremebant, non se ultra famem, insidias legatorum toleraturos: at qui remanserant, desertos se abducta parte legionum querebantur. duplex hinc seditio, aliis revocantibus Voculam, aliis redire in castra abnuentibus.

Meanwhile Civilis blockaded Vetera: Vocula withdrew to Gelduba and thence to Novaesium, and soon, not far from Novaesium, fought a cavalry battle with success. But the soldier, by prosperity and adversity alike, was being kindled toward the destruction of his commanders; and the legions, swollen by the coming of the men of the fifth and fifteenth, demand a donative, having learned that money had been sent by Vitellius. Nor did Hordeonius hesitate long, but gave it in Vespasian’s name, and that was the chief nourishment of the sedition. Spilling over into luxury and feasting and nightly gatherings, they renew their old anger against Hordeonius, and, no legate or tribune daring to oppose (for night had taken away all shame), they dragged him from his bed and kill him. The same was being prepared against Vocula, had he not, unrecognized in a slave’s dress through the darkness, made his escape.

Interim Civilis Vetera circumsedit: Vocula Geldubam atque inde Novaesium concessit, mox haud procul Novaesio equestri proelio prospere certavit. sed miles secundis adversisque perinde in exitium ducum accendebatur; et adventu quintanorum quintadecimanorumque auctae legiones donativum exposcunt, comperto pecuniam a Vitellio missam. nec diu cunctatus Hordeonius nomine Vespasiani dedit, idque praecipuum fuit seditionis alimentum. effusi in luxum et epulas et nocturnos coetus veterem in Hordeonium iram renovant, nec ullo legatorum tribunorumve obsistere auso (quippe omnem pudorem nox ademerat) protractum e cubili interficiunt. eadem in Voculam parabantur, nisi servili habitu per tenebras ignoratus evasisset.

When the impulse subsided and fear returned, they sent centurions with letters to the states of the Gauls, to beg auxiliaries and pay: themselves, as a crowd without a leader is headlong, timid, and listless, at Civilis’s approach—snatching up arms rashly and at once dropping them—are turned to flight. Adversity bred discord, those who were from the upper army disjoining their cause; yet Vitellius’s images were set up again in the camp and through the nearest states of the Belgae, when already Vitellius had fallen. Then, changed to repentance, the men of the first and the fourth and the twenty-second follow Vocula, by whom, the oath to Vespasian resumed, they were being led to free the siege of Mogontiacum. The besiegers had departed, an army mixed of Chatti, Usipi, and Mattiaci, sated with plunder and not unbloodied: scattered on the road and off their guard, our soldier had fallen on them. Indeed the Treveri too built a breastwork and rampart along their borders, and contended with the Germans in great mutual disasters, until presently, as rebels, they fouled their distinguished services toward the Roman people.

Vbi sedato impetu metus rediit, centuriones cum epistulis ad civitates Galliarum misere, auxilia ac stipendia oraturos: ipsi, ut est vulgus sine rectore praeceps pavidum so- cors, adventante Civile raptis temere armis ac statim omissis, in fugam vertuntur. res adversae discordiam peperere, iis qui e superiore exercitu erant causam suam dissociantibus; Vitellii tamen imagines in castris et per proximas Belgarum civitates repositae, cum iam Vitellius occidisset. dein mutati in paenitentiam primani quartanique et duoetvicensimani Voculam sequuntur, apud quem resumpto Vespasiani sacramento ad liberandum Mogontiaci obsidium ducebantur. discesserant obsessores, mixtus ex Chattis Vsipis Mattiacis exercitus, satietate praedae nec incruenti: in via dispersos et nescios miles noster invaserat. quin et loricam vallumque per finis suos Treviri struxere, magnisque in vicem cladibus cum Germanis certabant, donec egregia erga populum Romanum merita mox rebelles foedarent.

Meanwhile Vespasian a second time, and Titus, entered on the consulship in their absence, the state mournful and held in suspense by manifold fear, which, over its pressing evils, had taken on false terrors too—that Africa had revolted, Lucius Piso setting a revolution in motion. He, proconsul of the province, was by no means turbulent in temper; but because the ships were kept off by the severity of winter, the common people, used to buying its food day by day, whose one public concern is the corn-supply, believed the shore closed and the convoys held back, while it feared—the Vitellians swelling the report, who had not yet laid aside their party zeal, the rumor unwelcome not even to the victors, whose greed, insatiable even in foreign wars, no civil victory ever sated.

Interea Vespasianus iterum ac Titus consulatum absentes inierunt, maesta et multiplici metu suspensa civitate, quae super instantia mala falsos pavores induerat, descivisse Africam res novas moliente L. Pisone. is pro consule provinciae nequaquam turbidus ingenio; sed quia naves saevitia hiemis prohibebantur, vulgus alimenta in dies mercari solitum, cui una ex re publica annonae cura, clausum litus, retineri commeatus, dum timet, credebat, augentibus famam Vitellianis, qui studium partium nondum posuerant, ne victoribus quidem ingrato rumore, quorum cupiditates externis quoque bellis inexplebilis nulla umquam civilis victoria satiavit.

On the kalends of January, in the senate which Julius Frontinus, the city praetor, had summoned, praises and thanks were decreed to the legates, the armies, and the kings; from Tettius Julianus the praetorship was taken away—on the ground that he had deserted his legion as it went over to Vespasian’s party—to be transferred to Plotius Grypus; to Hormus equestrian rank was given. And soon, Frontinus resigning, Caesar Domitian took the praetorship. His name was set at the head of letters and edicts, but the power was with Mucianus, save that Domitian ventured many things at the prompting of friends or from his own caprice. But Mucianus’s chief fear was from Primus Antonius and Arrius Varus, whom—fresh and famous in the report of their deeds and in the soldiers’ devotion—the people too favored, because they had been savage against no one beyond the battlefield. And it was rumored that Antonius had urged Scribonianus Crassus, glittering with distinguished ancestors and his brother’s image, to take the commonwealth in hand, a band of accomplices not likely to fail, had Scribonianus not refused—a man not easily corrupted even by what was prepared, so much did he fear the uncertain. Therefore Mucianus, because Antonius could not be put down openly, heaps him with much praise in the senate and loads him with secret promises, holding out Nearer Spain, left vacant by the departure of Cluvius Rufus; and at the same time he lavishes tribunates and prefectures on his friends. Then, after he had filled the empty mind with hope and longing, he saps his strength by sending into winter quarters the seventh legion, whose love for Antonius was most ablaze. And the third legion, soldiery familiar to Arrius Varus, was sent back into Syria; a part of the army was being led into the Germanies. So, with whatever was turbulent carried off, there returns to the city its own form, its laws, and the functions of the magistrates.

Kalendis Ianuariis in senatu, quem Iulius Frontinus praetor urbanus vocaverat, legatis exercitibusque ac regibus laudes gratesque decretae; Tettio Iuliano praetura, tamquam transgredientem in partis Vespasiani legionem deseruisset, ablata ut in Plotium Grypum transferretur; Hormo dignitas equestris data. et mox eiurante Frontino Caesar Domitianus praeturam cepit. eius nomen epistulis edictisque praeponebatur, vis penes Mucianum erat, nisi quod pleraque Domitianus instigantibus amicis aut propria libidine audebat. sed praecipuus Muciano metus e Primo Antonio Varoque Arrio, quos recentis clarosque rerum fama ac militum studiis etiam populus fovebat, quia in neminem ultra aciem saevierant. et ferebatur Antonius Scribonianum Crassum, egregiis maioribus et fraterna imagine fulgentem, ad capessendam rem publicam hortatus, haud defutura consciorum manu, ni Scribonianus abnuisset, ne paratis quidem corrumpi facilis, adeo metuens incerta. igitur Mucianus, quia propalam opprimi Antonius nequibat, multis in senatu laudibus cumulatum secretis promissis onerat, citeriorem Hispaniam ostentans discessu Cluvii Rufi vacuam; simul amicis eius tribunatus praefecturasque largitur. dein postquam inanem animum spe et cupidine impleverat, viris abolet dimissa in hiberna legione septima, cuius flagrantissimus in Antonium amor. et tertia legio, familiaris Arrio Varo miles, in Syriam remissa; pars exercitus in Germanias ducebatur. sic egesto quidquid turbidum redit urbi sua forma legesque et munia magistratuum.

On the day Domitian entered the senate, he spoke a few and modest words about his father’s and brother’s absence and his own youth, comely in bearing; and, his character being as yet unknown, the frequent confusion of his face was taken for modesty. When Caesar moved concerning the restoring of Galba’s honors, Curtius Montanus proposed that Piso’s memory too be celebrated. The fathers ordered both: as to Piso it came to nothing. Then men were drawn by lot through whom the things seized in the war should be restored, and who should examine and re-fix the bronze tablets of the laws, fallen down through age, and should relieve the public calendar, fouled by the flattery of the times, and set a measure to public spending. The praetorship is restored to Tettius Julianus, after it was known that he had fled to Vespasian: to Grypus the honor remained. It was then resolved to take up again the case between Musonius Rufus and Publius Celer, and Publius was condemned and satisfaction made to the shade of Soranus. The day, marked by public severity, did not lack private praise either. Musonius seemed to have fulfilled a just judgment; the repute of Demetrius, who professed the Cynic sect, was otherwise, because he had defended a manifest culprit more ambitiously than honorably: to Publius himself neither spirit in dangers nor speech sufficed. The signal for vengeance against the accusers being given, Junius Mauricus asked of Caesar that he grant the senate power over the imperial registers, by which it might learn whom each man had demanded for accusation. He answered that on such a matter the emperor must be consulted.

Quo die senatum ingressus est Domitianus, de absentia patris fratrisque ac iuventa sua pauca et modica disseruit, decorus habitu; et ignotis adhuc moribus crebra oris confusio pro modestia accipiebatur. referente Caesare de restituendis Galbae honoribus, censuit Curtius Montanus ut Pisonis quoque memoria celebraretur. patres utrumque iussere: de Pisone inritum fuit. tum sorte ducti per quos redderentur bello rapta, quique aera legum vetustate delapsa noscerent figerentque, et fastos adulatione temporum foedatos exonerarent modumque publicis impensis facerent. redditur Tettio Iuliano praetura, postquam cognitus est ad Vespasianum confugisse: Grypo honor mansit. repeti inde cognitionem inter Musonium Rufum et Publium Celerem placuit, damnatusque Publius et Sorani manibus satis factum. insignis publica severitate dies ne privatim quidem laude caruit. iustum iudicium explesse Musonius videbatur, diversa fama Demetrio Cynicam sectam professo, quod manifestum reum ambitiosius quam honestius defendisset: ipsi Publio neque animus in periculis neque oratio suppeditavit. signo ultionis in accusatores dato, petit a Caesare Iunius Mauricus ut commentariorum principalium potestatem senatui faceret, per quos nosceret quem quisque accusandum poposcisset. consulendum tali super re principem respondit.

The senate, the leading men beginning, framed an oath by which all the magistrates in rivalry, the rest as they were asked their opinion, called the gods to witness that nothing had been done by their help to wound anyone’s safety, nor had they taken reward or honor out of the calamity of citizens—the guilty, in whom lay the consciousness of crime, trembling and altering the words of the oath by various devices. The fathers approved the scruple, condemned the perjury; and this, like a censorship, fell most fiercely on Sariolenus Vocula and Nonius Attianus and Cestius Severus, men infamous for frequent informings under Nero. Sariolenus a recent charge pressed as well, that he had attempted the same under Vitellius: nor did the senate cease to shake their fists at Vocula until he left the house. Passing on to Paccius Africanus, they hound him too, on the ground that he had pointed out to Nero, for destruction, the Scribonius brothers, conspicuous for their concord and their wealth. Africanus dared neither confess nor could deny: turning of his own accord upon Vibius Crispus, by whose questionings he was harried, by mingling what he could not defend, he turned aside the odium through partnership in the guilt.

Senatus inchoantibus primoribus ius iurandum concepit quo certatim omnes magistratus, ceteri, ut sententiam rogabantur, deos testis advocabant, nihil ope sua factum quo cuiusquam salus laederetur, neque se praemium aut honorem ex calamitate civium cepisse, trepidis et verba iuris iurandi per varias artis mutantibus, quis flagitii conscientia inerat. probabant religionem patres, periurium arguebant; eaque velut censura in Sariolenum Voculam et Nonium Attianum et Cestium Severum acerrime incubuit, crebris apud Neronem delationibus famosos. Sariolenum et recens crimen urgebat, quod apud Vitellium molitus eadem foret: nec destitit senatus manus intentare Voculae, donec curia excederet. ad Paccium Africanum transgressi eum quoque proturbant, tamquam Neroni Scribonios fratres concordia opibusque insignis ad exitium monstravisset. Africanus neque fateri audebat neque abnuere poterat: in Vibium Crispum, cuius interrogationibus fatigabatur, ultro conversus, miscendo quae defendere nequibat, societate culpae invidiam declinavit.

A great fame for piety and eloquence Vipstanus Messala won that day, not yet of senatorial age, having dared to plead for his brother Aquilius Regulus. Regulus the overthrown house of the Crassi and of Orfitus had raised into the highest hatred: a mere youth, he seemed to have undertaken the accusation of his own will, not to ward off danger but in hope of power; and Sulpicia Praetextata, the wife of Crassus, and four children, should the senate take cognizance, stood ready as avengers. Therefore Messala, defending neither the cause nor the accused, but setting himself against his brother’s peril, had bent some. Curtius Montanus met him with a fierce speech, going so far as to throw in his teeth that, after the murder of Galba, money had been given by Regulus to Piso’s killer, and that Piso’s head had been mauled with the teeth. "This, surely," he said, "Nero did not compel, nor did you redeem your rank or your safety by that savagery. Let us by all means bear with the defenses of those who chose to destroy others rather than be themselves in peril: but you—an exiled father had left you secure, your goods divided among the creditors, an age not yet capable of office, nothing in you that Nero might covet, nothing that he might fear. By lust of blood and a gaping greed for rewards you steeped a talent as yet unknown and untried by any defenses in a noble slaughter, when, out of the funeral of the commonwealth, having snatched the spoils of a consular, fattened with seven million sesterces and shining with a priesthood, you laid low innocent boys, illustrious old men, and conspicuous women in the same ruin, while you blamed Nero’s sloth, that through single houses he wearied himself and his informers: the whole senate could be overthrown at one word. Keep, conscript fathers, and reserve a man of counsel so ready that every age may be furnished, and that our old men may imitate Marcellus and Crispus, our young men Regulus. Even unsuccessful wickedness finds rivals: what if it should flourish and thrive? And the man whom, while still of quaestorian rank, we dare not offend, shall we dare to face when of praetorian and consular? Or do you think Nero the last of tyrants? The same thing had those believed who survived Tiberius, who survived Gaius, while meanwhile one more execrable and savage arose. We do not fear Vespasian; such is the emperor’s age, such his moderation: but examples last longer than characters. We have grown faint, conscript fathers, and are no longer that senate which, Nero slain, demanded that the informers and their agents be punished after the manner of our ancestors. The best day after a bad emperor is the first."

Magnam eo die pietatis eloquentiaeque famam Vipstanus Messala adeptus est, nondum senatoria aetate, ausus pro fratre Aquilio Regulo deprecari. Regulum subversa Crassorum et Orfiti domus in summum odium extulerat: sponte accusationem subisse iuvenis admodum, nec depellendi periculi sed in spem potentiae videbatur; et Sulpicia Praetextata Crassi uxor quattuorque liberi, si cognosceret senatus, ultores aderant. igitur Messala non causam neque reum tueri, sed periculis fratris semet opponens flexerat quosdam. occurrit truci oratione Curtius Montanus, eo usque progressus ut post caedem Galbae datam interfectori Pisonis pecuniam a Regulo adpetitumque morsu Pisonis caput obiectaret. ’hoc certe’ inquit ’Nero non coegit, nec dignitatem aut salutem illa saevitia redemisti. sane toleremus istorum defensiones qui perdere alios quam periclitari ipsi maluerunt: te securum reliquerat exul pater et divisa inter creditores bona, nondum honorum capax aetas, nihil quod ex te concupisceret Nero, nihil quod timeret. libidine sanguinis et hiatu praemiorum ignotum adhuc ingenium et nullis defensionibus expertum caede nobili imbuisti, cum ex funere rei publicae raptis consularibus spoliis, septuagiens sestertio saginatus et sacerdotio fulgens innoxios pueros, inlustris senes, conspicuas feminas eadem ruina prosterneres, cum segnitiam Neronis incusares, quod per singulas domos seque et delatores fatigaret: posse universum senatum una voce subverti. retinete, patres conscripti, et reservate hominem tam expediti consilii ut omnis aetas instructa sit, et quo modo senes nostri Marcellum, Crispum, iuvenes Regulum imitentur. invenit aemulos etiam infelix nequitia: quid si floreat vigeatque? et quem adhuc quaestorium offendere non audemus, praetorium et consularem ausuri sumus? an Neronem extremum dominorum putatis? idem crediderant qui Tiberio, qui Gaio superstites fuerunt, cum interim intestabilior et saevior exortus est. non timemus Vespasianum; ea principis aetas, ea moderatio: sed diutius durant exempla quam mores. elanguimus, patres conscripti, nec iam ille senatus sumus qui occiso Nerone delatores et ministros more maiorum puniendos flagitabat. optimus est post malum principem dies primus.’

With so great an assent of the senate was Montanus heard that Helvidius conceived the hope that Marcellus too might be laid low. So, beginning from praise of Cluvius Rufus, who, equally rich and famed for eloquence, had under Nero made danger for no one, he pressed Eprius with the charge and the precedent at once, the fathers’ tempers afire. When Marcellus perceived this, as though leaving the house, "We go, Priscus," he said, "and leave you your senate: reign in Caesar’s presence." Vibius Crispus followed, both enraged, of differing countenance—Marcellus with threatening eyes, Crispus with a smile—until by the rush of friends they were drawn back. As the contest swelled, on this side many and good men, on that a few but strong, strove with stubborn hatreds, and the day was consumed in discord.

Tanto cum adsensu senatus auditus est Montanus ut spem caperet Helvidius posse etiam Marcellum prosterni. igitur a laude Cluvii Rufi orsus, qui perinde dives et eloquentia clarus nulli umquam sub Nerone periculum facessisset, crimine simul exemploque Eprium urgebat, ardentibus patrum animis. quod ubi sensit Marcellus, velut excedens curia ’imus’ inquit, ’Prisce, et relinquimus tibi senatum tuum: regna praesente Caesare.’ sequebatur Vibius Crispus, ambo infensi, vultu diverso, Marcellus minacibus oculis, Crispus renidens, donec adcursu amicorum retraherentur. cum glisceret certamen, hinc multi bonique, inde pauci et validi pertinacibus odiis tenderent, consumptus per discordiam dies.

At the next session of the senate, Caesar beginning about doing away with resentment and anger and the constraints of former times, Mucianus spoke at length on behalf of the accusers; and at the same time he warned, in a soft speech and as though entreating, those who were renewing an action begun and then dropped. The fathers gave up the liberty they had begun, once it was opposed. Mucianus, lest the senate’s judgment should seem despised and impunity granted for all that had been committed under Nero, drove Octavius Sagitta and Antistius Sosianus, men of senatorial order who had overstepped their exile, back to the same islands. Octavius had killed Pontia Postumina, known by him in adultery and refusing marriage with him, ungoverned in his love; Sosianus, by the depravity of his ways, had been deadly to many. Both, condemned and driven out by a grave decree of the senate, were kept in the same penalty, though return was granted to others. Nor was the odium against Mucianus thereby softened: for Sosianus and Sagitta were worthless, even should they return; it was the accusers’ talents and wealth and power, practiced in evil arts, that were feared.

Proximo senatu, inchoante Caesare de abolendo dolore iraque et priorum temporum necessitatibus, censuit Mucianus prolixe pro accusatoribus; simul eos qui coeptam, deinde omissam actionem repeterent, monuit sermone molli et tamquam rogaret. patres coeptatam libertatem, postquam obviam itum, omisere. Mucianus, ne sperni senatus iudicium et cunctis sub Nerone admissis data impunitas videretur, Octavium Sagittam et Antistium Sosianum senatorii ordinis egressos exilium in easdem insulas redegit. Octavius Pontiam Postuminam, stupro cognitam et nuptias suas abnuentem, impotens amoris interfecerat, Sosianus pravitate morum multis exitiosus. ambo gravi senatus consulto damnati pulsique, quamvis concesso aliis reditu, in eadem poena retenti sunt. nec ideo lenita erga Mucianum invidia: quippe Sosianus ac Sagitta viles, etiam si reverterentur: accusatorum ingenia et opes et exercita malis artibus potentia timebantur.

For a little while it reconciled the fathers’ favor that a trial was held in the senate according to the old custom. Manlius Patruitus, a senator, complained that he had been beaten in the colony of Sena by a gathering of the multitude and at the order of the magistrates; nor had the wrong stopped here: wailing and lamentation and the likeness of a funeral had been set about him while he was present, with insults and reproaches that were hurled against the whole senate. Those who were charged were summoned, and, the case heard, punishment was visited on the convicted, and a decree of the senate was added by which the commons of Sena were admonished to modesty. In those same days Antonius Flamma, the Cyreneans accusing, was condemned under the law of extortion and to exile for his cruelty.

Reconciliavit paulisper studia patrum habita in senatu cognitio secundum veterem morem. Manlius Patruitus senator pulsatum se in colonia Seniensi coetu multitudinis et iussu magistratuum querebatur; nec finem iniuriae hic stetisse: planctum et lamenta et supremorum imaginem praesenti sibi circumdata cum contumeliis ac probris, quae in senatum universum iacerentur. vocati qui arguebantur, et cognita causa in convictos vindicatum, additumque senatus consultum quo Seniensium plebes modestiae admoneretur. isdem diebus Antonius Flamma accusantibus Cyrenensibus damnatur lege repetundarum et exilio ob saevitiam.

Amid these things a military sedition nearly blazed up. Those dismissed by Vitellius demanded the praetorian service back, gathered on Vespasian’s side; and the soldiery picked from the legions into the same hope clamored for the promised pay. Not even the Vitellians could be expelled without much slaughter: but a vast sum of money was needed to keep so great a force of men. Mucianus, entering the camp that he might the more correctly review the pay of each, set the victors with their own insignia and arms, separated by moderate spaces from one another. Then the Vitellians, whom we recorded as received into surrender at Bovillae, and the rest hunted out through the city and the city’s neighborhood, are brought forward with their bodies almost uncovered. These Mucianus orders to be drawn apart, and the German and British soldier, and any of the other armies, to stand by themselves. The first sight at once had stupefied them, when from the opposite side they beheld, as it were, a battle-line grim with weapons and arms, and themselves penned and naked and foul with filth: but when they began to be dragged this way and that, fear ran through them all, and chiefest the German soldier’s dread, as though by that separation he were marked for slaughter. They clasped the breasts of their messmates, clung to their necks, sought the last kisses, that they might not be left alone, nor in a like cause suffer an unlike fortune; now Mucianus, now the absent emperor, at last heaven and the gods they called to witness, until Mucianus, calling them all soldiers of the same oath, of the same emperor, went to meet the groundless fear; for the victorious army too aided their tears with a shout. And that was the end for that day. A few days after, now steadied, they received Domitian addressing them: they spurn the lands offered, they beg for service and pay. They were entreaties, but such as could not be gainsaid; therefore they were taken into the praetorian guard. Then those whose age and full service allowed were dismissed with honor, others for their fault, but piecemeal and singly, by which safest remedy the unanimity of a multitude is thinned.

Inter quae militaris seditio prope exarsit. praetorianam militiam repetebant a Vitellio dimissi, pro Vespasiano congregati; et lectus in eandem spem e legionibus miles promissa stipendia flagitabat. ne Vitelliani quidem sine multa caede pelli poterant: sed immensa pecunia tanta vis hominum retinenda erat. ingressus castra Mucianus, quo rectius stipendia singulorum spectaret, suis cum insignibus armisque victores constituit, modicis inter se spatiis discretos. tum Vitelliani, quos apud Bovillas in deditionem acceptos memoravimus, ceterique per urbem et urbi vicina conquisiti producuntur prope intecto corpore. eos Mucianus diduci et Germanicum Britannicumque militem, ac si qui aliorum exercituum, separatim adsistere iubet. illos primus statim aspectus obstupefecerat, cum ex diverso velut aciem telis et armis trucem, semet clausos nudosque et inluvie deformis aspicerent: ut vero huc illuc distrahi coepere, metus per omnis et praecipua Germanici militis formido, tamquam ea separatione ad caedem destinaretur. prensare commanipularium pectora, cervicibus innecti, suprema oscula petere, ne desererentur soli neu pari causa disparem fortunam paterentur; modo Mucianum, modo absentem principem, postremum caelum ac deos obtestari, donec Mucianus cunctos eiusdem sacramenti, eiusdem imperatoris milites appellans, falso timori obviam iret; namque et victor exercitus clamore lacrimas eorum iuvabat. isque finis illa die. paucis post diebus adloquentem Domitianum firmati iam excepere: spernunt oblatos agros, militiam et stipendia orant. preces erant, sed quibus contra dici non posset; igitur in praetorium accepti. dein quibus aetas et iusta stipendia, dimissi cum honore, alii ob culpam, sed carptim ac singuli, quo tutissimo remedio consensus multitudinis extenuatur.

For the rest, whether from real poverty or that it might seem so, it was carried in the senate that sixty million sesterces be taken on loan from private persons, and Pompeius Silvanus was set over that charge. Nor much later the necessity passed, or the pretense was dropped. Thereafter the consulships which Vitellius had given were annulled, Domitian carrying the law, and a censorian funeral was conducted for Flavius Sabinus—great proofs of unstable fortune, that mingles the highest with the lowest.

Ceterum verane pauperie an uti videretur, actum in senatu ut sescentiens sestertium a privatis mutuum acciperetur, praepositusque ei curae Pompeius Silvanus. nec multo post necessitas abiit sive omissa simulatio. abrogati inde legem ferente Domitiano consulatus quos Vitellius dederat, funusque censorium Flavio Sabino ductum, magna documenta instabilis fortunae summaque et ima miscentis.

About the same time Lucius Piso, the proconsul, is killed. That I may set out this murder as truly as possible, it will not be amiss if I go back a little above, to the beginning and the causes of such deeds. A legion in Africa and the auxiliaries for guarding the borders of the empire, under the deified Augustus and Tiberius as emperors, obeyed the proconsul. Soon Gaius Caesar, turbulent of mind and fearing Marcus Silanus, who held Africa, took the legion from the proconsul and handed it to a legate sent for that purpose. The number of favors was made equal between the two, and, the commands of each being mixed, discord was sought and increased by a perverse rivalry. The legates’ right grew by the length of their office, or because in lesser men there is greater care for emulation, while the most distinguished of the proconsuls looked rather to their security than to power.

Sub idem tempus L. Piso pro consule interficitur. ea de caede quam verissime expediam, si pauca supra repetiero ab initio causisque talium facinorum non absurda. legio in Africa auxiliaque tutandis imperii finibus sub divo Augusto Tiberioque principibus proconsuli parebant. mox G. Caesar, turbidus animi ac Marcum Silanum obtinentem Africam metuens, ablatam proconsuli legionem misso in eam rem legato tradidit. aequatus inter duos beneficiorum numerus, et mixtis utriusque mandatis discordia quaesita auctaque pravo certamine. legatorum ius adolevit diuturnitate officii, vel quia minoribus maior aemulandi cura, proconsulum splendidissimus quisque securitati magis quam potentiae consulebant.

But at that time Valerius Festus governed the legion in Africa, of an extravagant youth, coveting beyond measure, and anxious through his kinship with Vitellius. Whether he, in frequent conversations, tempted Piso to revolution, or resisted him when he tempted, is uncertain, since no one was present at their private meeting, and, Piso killed, most inclined toward favor with the slayer. Nor is it doubted that the province and the soldiery were of a mind alienated from Vespasian; and certain of the Vitellians, fugitives from the city, kept holding out to Piso the wavering Gauls, Germany ready, his own dangers, and that for a man suspected even in peace war was the safer. Amid these things Claudius Sagitta, prefect of the Petrian wing, by a prosperous voyage outstripped the centurion Papirius sent by Mucianus, and asserted that orders to kill Piso had been given to the centurion: that Galerianus, his cousin and son-in-law, had fallen; that the one hope of safety lay in audacity, but that there were two roads of daring—whether he would rather take arms at once, or, Gaul sought by ship, show himself a leader to the Vitellian armies. Piso, in no way moved by this, the centurion sent by Mucianus, as soon as he reached the harbor of Carthage, kept proclaiming in a loud voice everything happy for Piso as for an emperor, and urged those he met, astonished at the wonder of the sudden affair, to din out the same. The credulous crowd rushed into the forum, demanding Piso’s presence; they threw all into confusion with joy and shouting, careless of the truth and from a lust of flattery. Piso, on Sagitta’s information or from inborn modesty, did not go out in public nor entrust himself to the crowd’s zeal: and, having questioned the centurion, after he learned that a charge and a slaying had been sought for him, he ordered punishment visited on him, not so much from hope of life as from anger at the assassin, because the same man, one of those who had killed Clodius Macer, had brought hands bloody with a legate’s blood to the murder of a proconsul. Then, the Carthaginians rebuked in an anxious edict, he did not so much as take up his accustomed duties, but shut himself within his house, lest any cause of fresh disturbance should arise even by chance.

Sed tum legionem in Africa regebat Valerius Festus, sumptuosae adulescentiae neque modica cupiens et adfinitate Vitellii anxius. is crebris sermonibus temptaveritne Pisonem ad res novas an temptanti restiterit, incertum, quoniam secreto eorum nemo adfuit, et occiso Pisone plerique ad gratiam interfectoris inclinavere. nec ambigitur provinciam et militem alienato erga Vespasianum animo fuisse; et quidam e Vitellianis urbe profugi ostentabant Pisoni nutantis Gallias, paratam Germaniam, pericula ipsius et in pace suspecto tutius bellum. inter quae Claudius Sagitta, praefectus alae Petrianae, prospera navigatione praevenit Papirium centurionem a Muciano missum, adseveravitque mandata interficiendi Pisonis centurioni data: cecidisse Galerianum consobrinum eius generumque; unam in audacia spem salutis, sed duo itinera audendi, seu mallet statim arma, seu petita navibus Gallia ducem se Vitellianis exercitibus ostenderet. nihil ad ea moto Pisone, centurio a Muciano missus, ut portum Carthaginis attigit, magna voce laeta Pisoni omnia tamquam principi continuare, obvios et subitae rei miraculo attonitos ut eadem adstreperent hortari. vulgus credulum ruere in forum, praesentiam Pisonis exposcere; gaudio clamoribusque cuncta miscebant, indiligentia veri et adulandi libidine. Piso indicio Sagittae vel insita modestia non in publicum egressus est neque se studiis vulgi permisit: centurionemque percontatus, postquam quaesitum sibi crimen caedemque comperit, animadverti in eum iussit, haud perinde spe vitae quam ira in percussorem, quod idem ex interfectoribus Clodii Macri cruentas legati sanguine manus ad caedem proconsulis rettulisset. anxio deinde edicto Carthaginiensibus increpitis, ne solita quidem munia usurpabat, clausus intra domum, ne qua motus novi causa vel forte oreretur.

But when to Festus the panic of the crowd, the centurion’s execution, and matters true and false grew greater in the manner of rumor, he sends horsemen to kill Piso. They, hastily borne while the dawning light was still dim, burst into the proconsul’s house with drawn swords, and a great part of them ignorant of Piso, because he had chosen Carthaginian and Moorish auxiliaries for that slaughter. Not far from the bedchamber they happened upon a slave and asked which was Piso and where he was. The slave, by a noble lie, answered that he was Piso, and at once is cut down. Nor much later Piso is killed; for there was present one who knew him, Baebius Massa, of the procurators of Africa, even then destructive to every best man, and one to return often among the causes of the evils we soon endured. Festus, from Hadrumetum, where he had stopped to watch, hastened to the legion, and ordered the camp-prefect Caetronius Pisanus to be put in chains for private enmities, but called him Piso’s tool, and punished some soldiers and centurions, rewarded others, neither from desert, but that he might be believed to have crushed a war. Soon he settled the discords of the Oeenses and the Lepcitani, which, from the plunder of crops and cattle among the country folk with modest beginnings, were now being waged by arms and lines of battle; for the Oeensian people, inferior in number, had called out the Garamantes, an untamed nation and fertile in brigandage among its neighbors. Hence the affairs of the Lepcitani were straitened, and, their fields widely laid waste, they were in alarm within their walls, until, by the intervention of cohorts and wings, the Garamantes were routed and all the plunder recovered, save what, as they wandered through trackless places of huts, they had sold to men farther off.

Sed ubi Festo consternatio vulgi, centurionis supplicium veraque et falsa more famae in maius innotuere, equites in necem Pisonis mittit. illi raptim vecti obscuro adhuc coeptae lucis domum proconsulis inrumpunt destrictis gladiis, et magna pars Pisonis ignari, quod Poenos auxiliaris Maurosque in eam caedem delegerat. haud procul cubiculo obvium forte servum quisnam et ubi esset Piso interrogavere. servus egregio mendacio se Pisonem esse respondit ac statim obtruncatur. nec multo post Piso interficitur; namque aderat qui nosceret, Baebius Massa e procuratoribus Africae, iam tunc optimo cuique exitiosus et inter causas malorum quae mox tulimus saepius rediturus. Festus Adrumeto, ubi speculabundus substiterat, ad legionem contendit praefectumque castrorum Caetronium Pisanum vinciri iussit proprias ob simultates, sed Pisonis satellitem vocabat militesque et centuriones quosdam puniit, alios praemiis adfecit, neutrum ex merito, sed ut oppressisse bellum crederetur. mox Oeensium Lepcitanorumque discordias componit, quae raptu frugum et pecorum inter agrestis modicis principiis, iam per arma atque acies exercebantur; nam populus Oeensis multitudine inferior Garamantas exciverat, gentem indomitam et inter accolas latrociniis fecundam. unde artae Lepcitanis res, lateque vastatis agris intra moenia trepidabant, donec interventu cohortium alarumque fusi Garamantes et recepta omnis praeda, nisi quam vagi per inaccessa mapalium ulterioribus vendiderant.

But to Vespasian, after the battle of Cremona and prosperous news from every quarter, many of every rank, with equal audacity and fortune having braved the wintry sea, brought word that Vitellius had fallen. There were present envoys of King Vologaeses, offering forty thousand Parthian horsemen. It was splendid and welcome to be courted by such great allied aids and not to need them: thanks were given to Vologaeses, and he was bidden send envoys to the senate and to know that there was peace. Vespasian, intent on Italy and the affairs of the city, receives an unfavorable report about Domitian, that he was overstepping the bounds of his age and what was permitted to a son: therefore he hands the strongest part of the army to Titus, to accomplish the rest of the Jewish war.

At Vespasiano post Cremonensem pugnam et prosperos undique nuntios cecidisse Vitellium multi cuiusque ordinis, pari audacia fortunaque hibernum mare adgressi, nuntiavere. aderant legati regis Vologaesi quadraginta milia Parthorum equitum offerentes. magnificum laetumque tantis sociorum auxiliis ambiri neque indigere: gratiae Vologaeso actae mandatumque ut legatos ad senatum mitteret et pacem esse sciret. Vespasianus in Italiam resque urbis intentus adversam de Domitiano famam accipit, tamquam terminos aetatis et concessa filio egrederetur: igitur validissimam exercitus partem Tito tradit ad reliqua Iudaici belli perpetranda.

They say that Titus, before he departed, in much talk with his father begged him not to be rashly inflamed by the messages of accusers, and to show himself whole and placable toward his son. Not legions, not fleets, were such firm defenses of empire as the number of children; for friends are diminished by time, by fortune, sometimes by desires or errors, are transferred, come to an end: a man’s own blood was inseparable, but most of all for emperors, whose prosperity others too enjoy, while adversity touches those most closely joined. Not even between brothers would concord endure, unless the parent had furnished the example. Vespasian, not so much softened toward Domitian as rejoicing in Titus’s piety, bids him be of good cheer and exalt the commonwealth by war and arms: peace and his house would be his own care. Then he commits the swiftest of the ships, laden with grain, to the still-savage sea: for the city was tottering in such great peril that there was grain in the granaries for not more than ten days, when the convoys from Vespasian came to its relief.

Titum, antequam digrederetur, multo apud patrem sermone orasse ferunt ne criminantium nuntiis temere accenderetur integrumque se ac placabilem filio praestaret. non legiones, non classis proinde firma imperii munimenta quam numerum liberorum; nam amicos tempore, fortuna, cupidinibus aliquando aut erroribus imminui, transferri, desinere: suum cuique sanguinem indiscretum, sed maxime principibus, quorum prosperis et alii fruantur, adversa ad iunctissimos pertineant. ne fratribus quidem mansuram concordiam, ni parens exemplum praebuisset. Vespasianus haud aeque Domitiano mitigatus quam Titi pietate gaudens, bono esse animo iubet belloque et armis rem publicam attollere: sibi pacem domumque curae fore. tum celerrimas navium frumento onustas saevo adhuc mari committit: quippe tanto discrimine urbs nutabat ut decem haud amplius dierum frumentum in horreis fuerit, cum a Vespasiano commeatus subvenere.

The care of restoring the Capitol he confers on Lucius Vestinus, a man of the equestrian order, but in authority and repute among the chief men. The haruspices assembled by him advised that the remains of the former shrine be carried off into the marshes, and the temple set up on the same footings: the gods were unwilling that the old form be changed. On the eleventh day before the kalends of July, under a clear sky, the whole space that was dedicated to the temple was bound about with fillets and garlands; soldiers whose names were auspicious entered with lucky boughs; then the Vestal virgins, with boys and girls whose fathers and mothers were living, sprinkled it with water drawn from springs and rivers. Then Helvidius Priscus the praetor, the pontiff Plautius Aelianus leading the words, the ground purified with the suovetaurilia and the entrails laid upon the turf, prayed to Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, and the gods who guard the empire, that they prosper the undertaking and raise by divine aid their seats, begun by the piety of men; and he touched the fillets with which the stone was bound and the ropes entwined; at the same time the rest of the magistrates and the priests and the senate and the knights and a great part of the people, straining together in zeal and gladness, dragged the huge stone. And everywhere into the foundations were thrown offerings of silver and gold and first-fruits of the metals, mastered by no furnaces but as they are born: the haruspices had foretold that the work be not profaned by stone or gold destined for another use. Height was added to the building: that alone religion was believed to have allowed, and to have been wanting to the magnificence of the former temple.

Curam restituendi Capitolii in Lucium Vestinum confert, equestris ordinis virum, sed auctoritate famaque inter proceres. ab eo contracti haruspices monuere ut reliquiae prioris delubri in paludes aveherentur, templum isdem vestigiis sisteretur: nolle deos mutari veterem formam. XI kalendas Iulias serena luce spatium omne quod templo dicabatur evinctum vittis coronisque; ingressi milites, quis fausta nomina, felicibus ramis; dein virgines Vestales cum pueris puellisque patrimis matrimisque aqua e fontibus amnibusque hausta perluere. tum Helvidius Priscus praetor, praeeunte Plautio Aeliano pontifice, lustrata suovetaurilibus area et super caespitem redditis extis, Iovem, Iunonem, Minervam praesidesque imperii deos precatus uti coepta prosperarent sedisque suas pietate hominum inchoatas divina ope attollerent, vittas, quis ligatus lapis innexique funes erant, contigit; simul ceteri magistratus et sacerdotes et senatus et eques et magna pars populi, studio laetitiaque conixi, saxum ingens traxere. passimque iniectae fundamentis argenti aurique stipes et metallorum primitiae, nullis fornacibus victae, sed ut gignuntur: praedixere haruspices ne temeraretur opus saxo aurove in aliud destinato. altitudo aedibus adiecta: id solum religio adnuere et prioris templi magnificentiae defuisse credebatur.

The death of Vitellius, heard meanwhile through the Gauls and the Germanies, had doubled the war. For Civilis, dissimulation laid aside, rushed upon the Roman people, and the Vitellian legions preferred even foreign servitude to Vespasian as emperor. The Gauls had lifted up their spirits, thinking the fortune of our armies the same everywhere, the rumor being spread that the Moesian and Pannonian winter quarters were beleaguered by the Sarmatians and Dacians; the like was feigned about Britain. But nothing so much as the burning of the Capitol had driven them to believe that an end was at hand for the empire. The city had once been taken by the Gauls, but, the seat of Jupiter unharmed, the empire had remained: now by the fatal fire a sign of heavenly wrath had been given, and the possession of human affairs was portended to the Transalpine nations—so the Druids chanted in their vain superstition. And a report had gone abroad that the chief men of the Gauls, sent by Otho against Vitellius, had, before they departed, made a compact not to fail the cause of liberty, should a continuous series of civil wars and internal evils break the Roman people.

Audita interim per Gallias Germaniasque mors Vitellii duplicaverat bellum. nam Civilis omissa dissimulatione in populum Romanum ruere, Vitellianae legiones vel externum servitium quam imperatorem Vespasianum malle. Galli sustulerant animos, eandem ubique exercituum nostrorum fortunam rati, vulgato rumore a Sarmatis Dacisque Moesica ac Pannonica hiberna circumsederi; paria de Britannia finge- bantur. sed nihil aeque quam incendium Capitolii, ut finem imperio adesse crederent, impulerat. captam olim a Gallis urbem, sed integra Iovis sede mansisse imperium: fatali nunc igne signum caelestis irae datum et possessionem rerum humanarum Transalpinis gentibus portendi superstitione vana Druidae canebant. incesseratque fama primores Galliarum ab Othone adversus Vitellium missos, antequam digrederentur, pepigisse ne deessent libertati, si populum Romanum continua civilium bellorum series et interna mala fregissent.

Before the murder of Hordeonius Flaccus nothing burst out by which the conspiracy might be understood: Hordeonius killed, messengers passed to and fro between Civilis and Classicus, prefect of a wing of the Treveri. Classicus, in nobility and wealth before the rest: his was a royal line, and an origin famous in peace and war, and he himself boasted that of his ancestors more had been enemies of the Roman people than allies. Julius Tutor and Julius Sabinus mingled themselves in—the one a Trevir, the other a Lingon, Tutor set by Vitellius over the bank of the Rhine; Sabinus, beyond his ingrained vanity, the glory of a false stock inflamed: that his great-grandmother had, by her person and by adultery, pleased the deified Julius while he warred through the Gauls. These men, in secret conversations, sounded the minds of the rest, and, when they had bound by complicity those they judged fit, they meet in the colony of the Agrippinenses in a private house; for publicly the state shrank from such undertakings; and yet certain of the Ubii and Tungri took part. But the most force was with the Treveri and Lingones, nor did they bear the delays of deliberation. In rivalry they proclaim that the Roman people raged with discords, the legions cut down, Italy laid waste, the city at that very moment being taken, all the armies held off, each by its own wars: if the Alps were made firm with garrisons, the Gauls, their liberty grown solid, would decide on what limit of their strength they wished.

Ante Flacci Hordeonii caedem nihil prorupit quo coniuratio intellegeretur: interfecto Hordeonio commeavere nuntii inter Civilem Classicumque praefectum alae Trevirorum. Classicus nobilitate opibusque ante alios: regium illi genus et pace belloque clara origo, ipse e maioribus suis hostis populi Romani quam socios iactabat. miscuere sese Iulius Tutor et Iulius Sabinus, hic Trevir, hic Lingonus, Tutor ripae Rheni a Vitellio praefectus; Sabinum super insitam vanitatem falsae stirpis gloria incendebat: proaviam suam divo Iulio per Gallias bellanti corpore atque adulterio placuisse. hi secretis sermonibus animos ceterorum scrutari, ubi quos idoneos rebantur conscientia obstrinxere, in colonia Agrippinensi in domum privatam conveniunt; nam publice civitas talibus inceptis abhorrebat; ac tamen interfuere quidam Vbiorum Tungrorumque. sed plurima vis penes Treviros ac Lingonas, nec tulere moras consultandi. certatim proclamant furere discordiis populum Romanum, caesas legiones, vastatam Italiam, capi cum maxime urbem, omnis exercitus suis quemque bellis distineri: si Alpes praesidiis firmentur, coalita libertate disceptaturas Gallias quem virium suarum terminum velint.

These things were said and equally approved: about the remnants of the Vitellian army they were in doubt. Most thought they should be killed—turbulent, faithless, polluted with the blood of their commanders: the policy of sparing prevailed, lest, the hope of pardon taken away, they should kindle their obstinacy: rather they should be enticed into alliance. The legates of the legions only being killed, for the rest the common mass, from consciousness of their crimes and hope of impunity, would easily come over. That was the form of the first council, and rousers of war were sent through the Gauls; obedience was feigned by the conspirators themselves, that they might overwhelm Vocula the more off his guard. Nor were there lacking those who reported it to Vocula, but the strength to coerce was wanting, the legions thin and faithless. Among ambiguous soldiers and hidden enemies, thinking it best of the present courses to proceed by mutual dissimulation and with the same arts by which he was attacked, he went down to the colony of the Agrippinenses. Thither Claudius Labeo, whom we said was captured and sent off among the Frisii, fled, the guards corrupted; and, promising, if a garrison were given, that he would go among the Batavi and draw the better part of the state back to the Roman alliance, having received a modest band of foot and horse, daring nothing among the Batavi, drew some of the Nervii and Baetasii into arms, and by stealth rather than by war kept raiding the Canninefates and Marsaci.

Haec dicta pariter probataque: de reliquiis Vitelliani exercitus dubitavere. plerique interficiendos censebant, turbidos, infidos, sanguine ducum pollutos: vicit ratio parcendi, ne sublata spe veniae pertinaciam accenderent: adliciendos potius in societatem. legatis tantum legionum interfectis, ceterum vulgus conscientia scelerum et spe impunitatis facile accessurum. ea primi concilii forma missique per Gallias concitores belli; simulatum ipsis obsequium quo incautiorem Voculam opprimerent. nec defuere qui Voculae nuntiarent, sed vires ad coercendum deerant, infrequentibus infidisque legionibus. inter ambiguos milites et occultos hostis optimum e praesentibus ratus mutua dissimulatione et isdem quibus petebatur grassari, in coloniam Agrippinensem descendit. illuc Claudius Labeo, quem captum et amendatum in Frisios diximus, corruptis custodibus perfugit; pollicitusque, si praesidium daretur, iturum in Batavos et potiorem civitatis partem ad societatem Romanam retracturum, accepta peditum equitumque modica manu nihil apud Batavos ausus quosdam Nerviorum Baetasiorumque in arma traxit, et furtim magis quam bello Canninefatis Marsacosque incursabat.

Vocula, drawn on by the Gauls’ fraud, hastened toward the enemy; and he was not far from Vetera, when Classicus and Tutor, having gone ahead under the show of scouting, confirmed their compacts with the German leaders. And then for the first time, separated from the legions, they surround their own camp with their own rampart, Vocula protesting that the Roman state was not so disordered by civil arms as to be a thing of contempt even to the Treveri and Lingones. There remained faithful provinces, victorious armies, the fortune of the empire, and the avenging gods. So once Sacrovir and the Aedui, lately Vindex and the Gauls, had fallen each in a single battle. The same divine powers, the same fates, let the breakers of treaties look for again. Better known to the deified Julius and the deified Augustus were their tempers: it was Galba and the lightening of the tribute that had put on them a hostile spirit. Now they were enemies because servitude was soft; when they had been despoiled and stripped, they would be friends. Having spoken thus fiercely, after he sees Classicus and Tutor persist in their treachery, he turned his march and withdrew to Novaesium: the Gauls settled in the plains, two miles distant. There the minds of the centurions and soldiers going to and fro were bought, so that—a crime unheard of—a Roman army should swear into a foreign allegiance, and a pledge of so great a wickedness be given by the killing or chaining of the legates. Vocula, though most advised flight, thinking he must dare, having called an assembly, spoke in this manner:

Vocula Gallorum fraude inlectus ad hostem contendit; nec procul Veteribus aberat, cum Classicus ac Tutor per speciem explorandi praegressi cum ducibus Germanorum pacta firmavere. tumque primum discreti a legionibus pro- prio vallo castra sua circumdant, obtestante Vocula non adeo turbatam civilibus armis rem Romanam ut Treviris etiam Lingonibusque despectui sit. superesse fidas provincias, victores exercitus, fortunam imperii et ultores deos. sic olim Sacrovirum et Aeduos, nuper Vindicem Galliasque singulis proeliis concidisse. eadem rursus numina, eadem fata ruptores foederum expectarent. melius divo Iulio divoque Augusto notos eorum animos: Galbam et infracta tributa hostilis spiritus induisse. nunc hostis, quia molle servitium; cum spoliati exutique fuerint, amicos fore. haec ferociter locutus, postquam perstare in perfidia Classicum Tutoremque videt, verso itinere Novaesium concedit: Galli duum milium spatio distantibus campis consedere. illuc commeantium centurionum militumque emebantur animi, ut (flagitium incognitum) Romanus exercitus in externa verba iurarent pignusque tanti sceleris nece aut vinculis legatorum daretur. Vocula, quamquam plerique fugam suadebant, audendum ratus vocata contione in hunc modum disseruit:

"Never have I made a speech before you either more anxious for you or more careless for myself. For that destruction is being prepared for me I hear gladly, and death, amid so many evils, I await as an end of miseries: it is for you that I feel shame and pity, against whom no battle and line are being made ready; that indeed is the right of arms and the law of enemies: war upon the Roman people Classicus hopes to wage with your hands, and he flaunts an empire and an oath of the Gauls. So far, if fortune and valor have for the moment deserted us, do even the old examples fail us—how often Roman legions have chosen to perish rather than be driven from their post? Our allies have often borne to have their cities destroyed and to be burned with their wives and children, no other reward of their end than faith and fame. The legions at Vetera at this very moment endure want and siege and are moved by no terror or promises: we, over and above arms and men and the excellent defenses of the camp, have grain and supplies equal to however long a war. Money lately even sufficed for a donative, which—whether you prefer to take it as given by Vespasian or by Vitellius—you assuredly received from a Roman emperor. Victors of so many wars, at Gelduba, at Vetera, the enemy routed so often, if you dread the battle-line—that indeed is unworthy, but there is a rampart and walls and the arts of prolonging, until from the nearest provinces auxiliaries and armies come running together. By all means let me be displeasing: there are other legates, tribunes, a centurion in short, or a soldier. Let not this monstrous thing be published over the whole world—that with you for henchmen Civilis and Classicus are about to invade Italy. Or, if to the walls of the city the Germans and Gauls should lead you, will you bear arms against your fatherland? My mind shudders at the image of so great a crime. Shall watches be kept for Tutor the Trevir? A Batavian will give the signal for war, and you will fill up the German bands? What then will be the issue of the crime, when the Roman legions have drawn up against you? Deserters from deserters and traitors from traitors, between a new oath and an old, will you wander hateful to the gods? You, Jupiter Best and Greatest, whom through eight hundred and twenty years we have honored with so many triumphs, you, Quirinus, parent of the city of Rome, I pray and worship that, if it was not your pleasure that under my leadership this camp be kept uncorrupted and inviolate, at least you suffer it not to be polluted and defiled by Tutor and Classicus, and that you grant the Roman soldiers either innocence, or a timely and harmless repentance."

’Numquam apud vos verba feci aut pro vobis sollicitior aut pro me securior. nam mihi exitium parari libens audio mortemque in tot malis ut finem miseriarum expecto: vestri me pudet miseretque, adversus quos non proelium et acies parantur; id enim fas armorum et ius hostium est: bellum cum populo Romano vestris se manibus gesturum Classicus sperat imperiumque et sacramentum Galliarum ostentat. adeo nos, si fortuna in praesens virtusque deseruit, etiam vetera exempla deficiunt, quotiens Romanae legiones perire praeoptaverint ne loco pellerentur? socii saepe nostri excindi urbis suas seque cum coniugibus ac liberis cremari pertulerunt, neque aliud pretium exitus quam fides famaque. tolerant cum maxime inopiam obsidiumque apud Vetera legiones nec terrore aut promissis demoventur: nobis super arma et viros et egregia castrorum munimenta frumentum et commeatus quamvis longo bello pares. pecunia nuper etiam donativo suffecit, quod sive a Vespasiano sive a Vitellio datum interpretari mavultis, ab imperatore certe Romano accepistis. tot bellorum victores, apud Geldubam, apud Vetera, fuso totiens hoste, si pavetis aciem, indignum id quidem, sed est vallum murique et trahendi artes, donec e proximis provinciis auxilia exercitusque concurrant. sane ego displiceam: sunt alii legati, tribuni, centurio denique aut miles. ne hoc prodigium toto terrarum orbe vulgetur, vobis satellitibus Civilem et Classicum Italiam invasuros. an, si ad moenia urbis Germani Gallique duxerint, arma patriae inferetis? horret animus tanti flagitii imagine. Tutorine Treviro agentur excubiae? signum belli Batavus dabit, et Germanorum catervas supplebitis? quis deinde sceleris exitus, cum Romanae legiones contra derexerint? transfugae e transfugis et proditores e proditoribus inter recens et vetus sacramentum invisi deis errabitis? te, Iuppiter optime maxime, quem per octingentos viginti annos tot triumphis coluimus, te, Quirine Romanae parens urbis, precor venerorque ut, si vobis non fuit cordi me duce haec castra incorrupta et intemerata servari, at certe pollui foedarique a Tutore et Classico ne sinatis, militibus Romanis aut innocentiam detis aut maturam et sine noxa paenitentiam.’

The speech was variously received, between hope and fear and shame. Vocula having withdrawn and brooding on his last hour, his freedmen and slaves prevented him from forestalling by his own hand a most foul death. And Classicus, having sent Aemilius Longinus, a deserter of the first legion, hastened his slaying; to chain the legates Herennius and Numisius seemed enough. Then, the insignia of Roman command taken up, he came into the camp. Nor, though hardened to every crime, did words come to him beyond reciting the oath: those present swore for the empire of the Gauls. He raises the killer of Vocula to high rank, the rest, as each had done good service in crime, he exalts with rewards.

Varie excepta oratio inter spem metumque ac pu- dorem. digressum Voculam et de supremis agitantem liberti servique prohibuere foedissimam mortem sponte praevenire. et Classicus misso Aemilio Longino, desertore primae legionis, caedem eius maturavit; Herennium et Numisium legatos vinciri satis visum. dein sumptis Romani imperii insignibus in castra venit. nec illi, quamquam ad omne facinus durato, verba ultra suppeditavere quam ut sacramentum recitaret: iuravere qui aderant pro imperio Galliarum. interfectorem Voculae altis ordinibus, ceteros, ut quisque flagitium navaverat, praemiis attollit.

The tasks were then divided between Tutor and Classicus. Tutor, with a strong band, surrounds the Agrippinenses and forces all the soldiery on the upper bank of the Rhine into the same allegiance, the tribunes killed at Mogontiacum, the camp-prefect driven out, who had refused: Classicus orders the most corrupted of the surrendered to go to the besieged, holding out pardon if they would follow the present course: otherwise no hope, they would suffer famine and the sword and the worst. Those who had been sent added their own example.

Divisae inde inter Tutorem et Classicum curae. Tutor valida manu circumdatos Agrippinensis quantumque militum apud superiorem Rheni ripam in eadem verba adigit, occisis Mogontiaci tribunis, pulso castrorum praefecto, qui detractaverant: Classicus corruptissimum quemque e deditis pergere ad obsessos iubet, veniam ostentantis, si praesentia sequerentur: aliter nihil spei, famem ferrumque et extrema passuros. adiecere qui missi erant exemplum suum.

The besieged here faith, there famine drew apart between honor and disgrace. As they hesitated, food usual and unusual was lacking, the baggage-animals and horses and the rest of the creatures consumed, which profane and foul things necessity turns to use. At last, plucking shrubs and roots and the grasses grown up between the stones, they were a proof of misery and endurance, until they stained a distinguished glory by a base end, sending envoys to Civilis to beg for their lives. Nor were their prayers admitted before they swore into the allegiance of the Gauls: then, having bargained for the plunder of the camp, he gives guards to keep back the money, the camp-servants, and the baggage, and to escort them as they departed, stripped light. At about the fifth milestone the Germans, rising up, attack the unwary column. Every most warlike man on the spot, many while straggling, fell: the rest flee back into the camp, Civilis indeed complaining and rebuking the Germans, as though they broke faith by crime. Whether that was feigned, or he could not hold back their fury, is too little affirmed. The camp plundered, they cast in firebrands, and the conflagration swallowed all who had survived the battle.

Obsessos hinc fides, inde egestas inter decus ac flagitium distrahebant. cunctantibus solita insolitaque alimenta deerant, absumptis iumentis equisque et ceteris animalibus, quae profana foedaque in usum necessitas vertit. virgulta postremo et stirpis et internatas saxis herbas vellentes miseriarum patientiaeque documentum fuere, donec egregiam laudem fine turpi macularent, missis ad Civilem legatis vitam orantes. neque ante preces admissae quam in verba Galliarum iurarent: tum pactus praedam castrorum dat custodes qui pecuniam calones sarcinas retentarent et qui ipsos levis abeuntis prosequerentur. ad quintum ferme lapidem coorti Germani incautum agmen adgrediuntur. pugnacissimus quisque in vestigio, multi palantes occubuere: ceteri retro in castra perfugiunt, querente sane Civile et increpante Germanos tamquam fidem per scelus abrumperent. simulata ea fuerint an retinere saevientis nequiverit, parum adfirmatur. direptis castris faces iniciunt, cunctosque qui proelio superfuerant incendium hausit.

Civilis, by a barbarian vow, after he had begun arms against the Romans, had let his hair grow long and dyed it red; he laid it aside only when the slaughter of the legions was accomplished; and it was reported that he had offered to his little son certain of the captives to be pierced with a boy’s arrows and darts. But neither himself nor any Batavian did he force into the allegiance of the Gauls, trusting in the resources of the Germans and—if it should come to a contest with the Gauls over the possession of power—renowned in fame and the stronger. Munius Lupercus, legate of a legion, was sent among the gifts to Veleda. She, a maiden of the Bructeran nation, ruled widely, by the old custom among the Germans, by which they reckon many of their women prophetic and, as superstition grows, goddesses. And then Veleda’s authority increased; for she had foretold prosperous things for the Germans and the destruction of the legions. But Lupercus was killed on the way. A few of the centurions and tribunes born in Gaul are kept back as a pledge of alliance. The winter quarters of the cohorts, wings, and legions were thrown down and burned, only those being left that are sited at Mogontiacum and Vindonissa.

Civilis barbaro voto post coepta adversus Romanos arma propexum rutilatumque crinem patrata demum caede legionum deposuit; et ferebatur parvulo filio quosdam captivorum sagittis iaculisque puerilibus figendos obtulisse. ceterum neque se neque quemquam Batavum in verba Galliarum adegit, fisus Germanorum opibus et, si certandum adversus Gallos de possessione rerum foret, inclutus fama et potior. Munius Lupercus legatus legionis inter dona missus Veledae. ea virgo nationis Bructerae late imperitabat, vetere apud Germanos more, quo plerasque feminarum fatidicas et augescente superstitione arbitrantur deas. tuncque Veledae auctoritas adolevit; nam prosperas Germanis res et excidium legionum praedixerat. sed Lupercus in itinere interfectus. pauci centurionum tribunorumque in Gallia geniti reservantur pignus societati. cohortium alarum legionum hiberna subversa cremataque, iis tantum relictis quae Mogontiaci ac Vindonissae sita sunt.

The sixteenth legion, with the auxiliaries surrendered along with it, is ordered to cross from Novaesium into the colony of the Treveri, a day fixed beforehand within which it should leave the camp. All the time between they passed in various anxieties, the most cowardly afraid by the example of those cut down at Vetera, the better part by shame and infamy: what a march was that? who the guide of the way? and all in the discretion of those whom they had made masters of life and death. Others, with no care for disgrace, girt about themselves money or their own dearest possessions, some made their arms ready and girded themselves with weapons as if for battle. As they pondered these things, the hour of setting out came, sadder than the expectation. For within the rampart the deformity was not so notable: the field and the daylight uncovered the shame. The images of the emperors torn away, the standards without honor, while on either side the banners of the Gauls gleamed; a silent column and like a long funeral; their leader Claudius Sanctus, hideous of face with an eye gouged out, weaker yet in mind. The disgrace is doubled, after, the camp at Bonna deserted, another legion had mingled itself in. And the report of the captured legions being spread abroad, all who a little before dreaded the Roman name, running out from the fields and houses and pouring out from every side, enjoyed the unwonted spectacle to excess. The Picentine wing did not endure the joy of the insulting crowd, and, scorning the promises or threats of Sanctus, they depart to Mogontiacum; and, falling by chance on Longinus, Vocula’s killer, by hurling weapons at him they made a beginning of atoning for the guilt thereafter: the legions, their march not at all changed, encamp before the walls of the Treveri.

Legio sexta decima cum auxiliis simul deditis a Novaesio in coloniam Trevirorum transgredi iubetur, praefinita die intra quam castris excederet. medium omne tempus per varias curas egere, ignavissimus quisque caesorum apud Vetera exemplo paventes, melior pars rubore et infamia: quale illud iter? quis dux viae? et omnia in arbitrio eorum quos vitae necisque dominos fecissent. alii nulla dedecoris cura pecuniam aut carissima sibimet ipsi circumdare, quidam expedire arma telisque tamquam in aciem accingi. haec meditantibus advenit proficiscendi hora expectatione tristior. quippe intra vallum deformitas haud perinde notabilis: detexit ignominiam campus et dies. revulsae imperatorum imagines, inhonora signa, fulgentibus hinc inde Gallorum vexillis; silens agmen et velut longae exequiae; dux Claudius Sanctus effosso oculo dirus ore, ingenio debilior. duplicatur flagitium, postquam desertis Bonnensibus castris altera se legio miscuerat. et vulgata captarum legionum fama cuncti qui paulo ante Romanorum nomen horrebant, procurrentes ex agris tectisque et undique effusi insolito spectaculo nimium fruebantur. non tulit ala Picentina gaudium insultantis vulgi, spretisque Sancti promissis aut minis Mogontiacum abeunt; ac forte obvio interfectore Voculae Longino, coniectis in eum telis initium exolvendae in posterum culpae fecere: legiones nihil mutato itinere ante moenia Trevirorum considunt.

Civilis and Classicus, lifted up by their success, were in doubt whether they should hand over the colony of the Agrippinenses to their armies to be plundered. By savagery of temper and greed of plunder they were drawn toward the destruction of the city: the reckoning of war stood in the way, and, to men beginning a new empire, the useful repute of clemency; Civilis too was bent by the memory of a kindness, that they had held his son, seized at the first stirring of affairs in the colony of the Agrippinenses, in honorable custody. But to the nations across the Rhine the city was hateful for its wealth and growth; and they reckoned no other end of the war than that that seat should be common to all the Germans, or, broken up, should scatter the Ubii too.

Civilis et Classicus rebus secundis sublati, an coloniam Agrippinensem diripiendam exercitibus suis permitterent dubitavere. saevitia ingenii et cupidine praedae ad excidium civitatis trahebantur: obstabat ratio belli et novum imperium inchoantibus utilis clementiae fama; Civilem etiam beneficii memoria flexit, quod filium eius primo rerum motu in colonia Agrippinensi deprehensum honorata custodia ha- buerant. sed Transrhenanis gentibus invisa civitas opulentia auctuque; neque alium finem belli rebantur quam si promisca ea sedes omnibus Germanis foret aut disiecta Vbios quoque dispersisset.

Therefore the Tencteri, a nation parted by the Rhine, having sent envoys, order their commands to be set forth before the council of the Agrippinenses, which the fiercest of the envoys delivered in this manner: "That you have returned into the body and name of Germany we give thanks to the common gods and to Mars, the chief of the gods, and we congratulate you that at last you will be free among the free; for to this day the Romans had closed the rivers and the land and in a manner the very sky, to keep off our conversations and meetings, or—what is more insulting to men born to arms—that we should come together unarmed and almost naked, under a guard and at a price. But that our friendship and alliance may be ratified forever, we demand of you that you pull down the walls of the colony, the bulwarks of servitude (even wild animals, if you keep them shut up, forget their valor), that you slaughter all the Romans within your borders (liberty and masters are not easily mingled): let the goods of the slain come into the common stock, that no one be able to hide anything or to set apart his own interest. Let it be allowed to us and to you to dwell on both banks, as once to our ancestors: just as nature has opened the light and the day to all men, so all lands to brave men. Take up again your fathers’ institutions and way of life, breaking off those pleasures by which the Romans prevail against their subjects more than by arms. A people sincere and whole and forgetful of servitude, you will either act on equal terms or rule over others."

Igitur Tencteri, Rheno discreta gens, missis legatis mandata apud concilium Agrippinensium edi iubent, quae ferocissimus e legatis in hunc modum protulit: ’redisse vos in corpus nomenque Germaniae communibus deis et praecipuo deorum Marti grates agimus, vobisque gratulamur quod tandem liberi inter liberos eritis; nam ad hunc diem flumina ac terram et caelum quodam modo ipsum clauserant Romani ut conloquia congressusque nostros arcerent, vel, quod contumeliosius est viris ad arma natis, inermes ac prope nudi sub custode et pretio coiremus. sed ut amicitia societasque nostra in aeternum rata sint, postulamus a vobis muros coloniae, munimenta servitii, detrahatis (etiam fera animalia, si clausa teneas, virtutis obliviscuntur), Romanos omnis in finibus vestris trucidetis (haud facile libertas et domini miscentur): bona interfectorum in medium cedant, ne quis occulere quicquam aut segregare causam suam possit. liceat nobis vobisque utramque ripam colere, ut olim maioribus nostris: quo modo lucem diemque omnibus hominibus, ita omnis terras fortibus viris natura aperuit. instituta cultumque patrium resumite, abruptis voluptatibus, quibus Romani plus adversus subiectos quam armis valent. sincerus et integer et servitutis oblitus populus aut ex aequo agetis aut aliis imperitabitis.’

The Agrippinenses, having taken time for deliberation, since neither did the fear of the future allow them to accept the conditions, nor the present condition to spurn them openly, answer in this manner: "The first chance of liberty that was given, we took up more greedily than cautiously, that we might join ourselves to you and the rest of the Germans, our kinsmen. The walls of the city, while the Roman armies are at this very moment gathering, it is safer for us to enlarge than to demolish. If any aliens from Italy or the provinces had been within our borders, the war has consumed them, or each fled back to his own seat. To those settled here long ago and joined with us by marriage, and to those who have since been born, this is the fatherland; nor do we judge you so unjust as to wish our parents, brothers, and children to be killed by us. The toll and the burdens on commerce we remit: let the crossings be unguarded, but by day and unarmed, until new and recent rights pass by age into custom. We will have Civilis and Veleda as arbiters, before whom the compacts shall be sanctified." The Tencteri thus appeased, envoys were sent to Civilis and Veleda with gifts, and accomplished everything according to the wish of the Agrippinenses; but to approach Veleda and address her face to face was refused: they were kept from the sight of her, that there might be the more of reverence. She herself was set on high in a tower; one chosen from her kindred carried the questions and answers, like a messenger of a divinity.

Agrippinenses sumpto consultandi spatio, quando neque subire condiciones metus futuri neque palam aspernari condicio praesens sinebat, in hunc modum respondent: ’quae prima libertatis facultas data est, avidius quam cautius sumpsimus, ut vobis ceterisque Germanis, consanguineis nostris, iungeremur. muros civitatis, congregantibus se cum maxime Romanorum exercitibus, augere nobis quam diruere tutius est. si qui ex Italia aut provinciis alienigenae in finibus nostris fuerant, eos bellum absumpsit vel in suas quisque sedis refugerunt. deductis olim et nobiscum per conubium sociatis quique mox provenerunt haec patria est; nec vos adeo iniquos existimamus ut interfici a nobis parentes fratres liberos nostros velitis. vectigal et onera commerciorum resolvimus: sint transitus incustoditi sed diurni et inermes, donec nova et recentia iura vetustate in consuetudinem vertuntur. arbitrum habebimus Civilem et Veledam, apud quos pacta sancientur.’ sic lenitis Tencteris legati ad Civilem ac Veledam missi cum donis cuncta ex voluntate Agrippinensium perpetravere; sed coram adire adloquique Veledam negatum: arcebantur aspectu quo venerationis plus inesset. ipsa edita in turre; delectus e propinquis consulta responsaque ut internuntius numinis portabat.

Civilis, increased by the alliance of the Agrippinenses, resolved to win over the nearest states, or to make war on those who opposed. And when he had occupied the Sunuci and arranged their youth in cohorts, Claudius Labeo, with a hastily-gathered band of Baetasii, Tungri, and Nervii, withstood his going farther, relying on the position, because he had seized beforehand the bridge of the river Meuse. And it was fought in the narrows with doubtful issue, until the Germans, swimming across, fell on Labeo’s rear; at the same time Civilis—whether daring it or by arrangement—thrust himself into the column of the Tungri, and in a clear voice said: "We did not take up war for this, that the Batavi and Treveri should rule over the nations: far be that arrogance from us. Accept alliance: I come over to you, whether you prefer me for a leader or a soldier." The crowd was moved and were sheathing their swords, when Campanus and Juvenalis, of the chief men of the Tungri, surrendered the whole nation to him; Labeo fled before he could be surrounded. Civilis, the Baetasii too and the Nervii received into faith, joined to his forces, great now in his fortunes, the tempers of the states either stricken or inclining of their own accord.

Civilis societate Agrippinensium auctus proximas civitates adfectare aut adversantibus bellum inferre statuit. occupatisque Sunucis et iuventute eorum per cohortis composita, quo minus ultra pergeret, Claudius Labeo Baetasiorum Tungrorumque et Nerviorum tumultuaria manu restitit, fretus loco, quia pontem Mosae fluminis anteceperat. pugnabaturque in angustiis ambigue donec Germani transnatantes terga Labeonis invasere; simul Civilis, ausus an ex composito, intulit se agmini Tungrorum, et clara voce ’non ideo’ inquit ’bellum sumpsimus, ut Batavi et Treviri gentibus imperent: procul haec a nobis adrogantia. accipite societatem: transgredior ad vos, seu me ducem seu militem mavultis.’ movebatur vulgus condebantque gladios, cum Campanus ac Iuvenalis e primoribus Tungrorum universam ei gentem dedidere; Labeo antequam circumveniretur profugit. Civilis Baetasios quoque ac Nervios in fidem acceptos copiis suis adiunxit, ingens rerum, perculsis civitatum animis vel sponte inclinantibus.

Meanwhile Julius Sabinus, the memorials of the Roman treaty cast away, orders himself to be saluted as Caesar, and hurries a great and disordered crowd of his countrymen against the Sequani, a neighboring state and faithful to us; nor did the Sequani decline the contest. Fortune was on the better side: the Lingones were routed. Sabinus deserted the rashly-hastened battle with the like cowardice; and, to make a report of his own death, he burned the villa into which he had fled, and was believed to have perished there by a voluntary death. But by what arts and hiding-places he afterward drew out his life through the next nine years, together with the constancy of his friends and the notable example of his wife Epponina, we shall render in its place. By the Sequani’s prosperous battle the onset of the war was stayed. The states recovered their senses little by little and looked again to right and to treaties, the Remi leading, who proclaimed through the Gauls that, envoys being sent, they should take counsel in common whether liberty or peace pleased them.

Interea Iulius Sabinus proiectis foederis Romani monumentis Caesarem se salutari iubet magnamque et inconditam popularium turbam in Sequanos rapit, conterminam civitatem et nobis fidam; nec Sequani detractavere certamen. fortuna melioribus adfuit: fusi Lingones. Sabinus festinatum temere proelium pari formidine deseruit; utque famam exitii sui faceret, villam, in quam perfugerat, cremavit, illic voluntaria morte interisse creditus. sed quibus artibus latebrisque vitam per novem mox annos traduxerit, simul amicorum eius constantiam et insigne Epponinae uxoris exemplum suo loco reddemus. Sequanorum prospera acie belli impetus stetit. resipiscere paulatim civitates fasque et foedera respicere, principibus Remis, qui per Gallias edixere ut missis legatis in commune consultarent, libertas an pax placeret.

But at Rome all things heard for the worse troubled Mucianus, lest, though distinguished commanders (for he had now chosen Annius Gallus and Petilius Cerialis), they should not sufficiently sustain the supreme conduct of the war. Nor was the city to be left without a ruler; and Domitian’s untamed lusts were feared, with Primus Antonius and Arrius Varus suspected, as we have said. Varus, set over the praetorians, retained force and arms: him Mucianus, driven from his place, that he might not pass his time without consolation, set over the corn-supply. And that he might soothe Domitian’s mind, not estranged from Varus, he set over the praetorians Arrecinus Clemens, bound to the house of Vespasian by kinship and most acceptable to Domitian, saying often that his father had performed that charge admirably under Gaius Caesar, that the same name was welcome to the soldiers, and that he himself, though of senatorial order, sufficed for both functions. The most distinguished men of the state are taken on, and others through ambition. At the same time Domitian and Mucianus were girding themselves, with unequal spirit: the one hasty in hope and youth, the other weaving delays by which to hold him back as he flamed, lest, by the ferocity of his age and at the prompting of base men, if he had seized the army, he should counsel ill for peace and war. The victorious legions—the eighth, the eleventh, the thirteenth, of the Vitellian ones the twenty-first, of the newly conscripted the second—are led across, part by the Poenine and Cottian Alps, part by the Graian mountain; the fourteenth legion was summoned from Britain, the sixth and the first from Spain.

At Romae cuncta in deterius audita Mucianum angebant, ne quamquam egregii duces (iam enim Gallum Annium et Petilium Cerialem delegerat) summam belli parum tolerarent. nec relinquenda urbs sine rectore; et Domitiani indomitae libidines timebantur, suspectis, uti diximus, Primo Antonio Varoque Arrio. Varus praetorianis praepositus vim atque arma retinebat: eum Mucianus pulsum loco, ne sine solacio ageret, annonae praefecit. utque Domitiani animum Varo haud alienum deleniret, Arrecinum Clementem, domui Vespasiani per adfinitatem innexum et gratissimum Domitiano, praetorianis praeposuit, patrem eius sub C. Caesare egregie functum ea cura dictitans, laetum militibus idem nomen, atque ipsum, quamquam senatorii ordinis, ad utraque munia sufficere. adsumuntur e civitate clarissimus quisque et alii per ambitionem. simul Domitianus Mucianusque accingebantur, dispari animo, ille spe ac iuventa properus, hic moras nectens quis flagrantem retineret, ne ferocia aetatis et pravis impulsoribus, si exercitum invasisset, paci belloque male consuleret. legiones victrices, octava, undecima, decima tertia Vitellianarum unaetvicensima, e recens conscriptis secunda Poeninis Cottianisque Alpibus, pars monte Graio traducuntur; quarta decima legio e Britannia, sexta ac prima ex Hispania accitae.

Therefore the states of the Gauls, inclining to milder courses by the report of the coming army and by their own nature, gathered among the Remi. There the embassy of the Treveri was waiting, with Julius Valentinus for the keenest instigator of war. He, in a studied speech, poured out all the things commonly thrown against great empires, and insults and odium against the Roman people, a turbulent man in mixing seditions and pleasing to many by his crazed eloquence.

Igitur venientis exercitus fama et suopte ingenio ad mitiora inclinantes Galliarum civitates in Remos convenere. Trevirorum legatio illic opperiebatur, acerrimo instinctore belli Iulio Valentino. is meditata oratione cuncta magnis imperiis obiectari solita contumeliasque et invidiam in populum Romanum effudit, turbidus miscendis seditionibus et plerisque gratus vaecordi facundia.

But Julius Auspex, of the chief men of the Remi, expounding the Roman power and the goods of peace, and that war is taken up even by cowards but waged at the peril of every bravest man, and that the legions were now over their heads, restrained every wisest man by reverence and faith, the younger by peril and fear: and they praised Valentinus’s spirit, but followed Auspex’s counsel. It is agreed that it stood against the Treveri and Lingones among the Gauls that in the rising of Vindex they had stood with Verginius. The rivalry of the provinces deterred most: what should be the head of the war? whence should right and auspice be sought? what seat, if all should succeed, would they choose for the empire? There was not yet victory, and already discord, some boasting of treaties, others of wealth and men or antiquity of origin through their quarrels: from weariness of what was to come the present pleased. Letters are written to the Treveri in the name of the Gauls to abstain from arms, pardon obtainable and intercessors ready, if they should repent: the same Valentinus resisted and stopped the ears of his own state, not so much intent on equipping the war as frequent in assemblies.

At Iulius Auspex e primoribus Remorum, vim Romanam pacisque bona dissertans et sumi bellum etiam ab ignavis, strenuissimi cuiusque periculo geri, iamque super caput legiones, sapientissimum quemque reverentia fideque, iuniores periculo ac metu continuit: et Valentini animum laudabant, consilium Auspicis sequebantur. constat obstitisse Treviris Lingonibusque apud Gallias, quod Vindicis motu cum Verginio steterant. deterruit plerosque provinciarum aemulatio: quod bello caput? unde ius auspiciumque peteretur? quam, si cuncta provenissent, sedem imperio legerent? nondum victoria, iam discordia erat, aliis foedera, quibusdam opes virisque aut vetustatem originis per iurgia iactantibus: taedio futurorum praesentia placuere. scribuntur ad Treviros epistulae nomine Galliarum ut abstinerent armis, impetrabili venia et paratis deprecatoribus, si paeniteret: restitit idem Valentinus obstruxitque civitatis suae auris, haud perinde instruendo bello intentus quam frequens contionibus.

Therefore neither the Treveri nor the Lingones nor the other rebel states acted in proportion to the magnitude of the crisis they had undertaken; not even did the leaders consult together, but Civilis went round the byways of the Belgae, while he strives to take or drive out Claudius Labeo; Classicus, dragging out for the most part a sluggish leisure, enjoyed as it were an empire already won; not even Tutor hastened to close with garrisons the upper bank of Germany and the heights of the Alps. And meanwhile the twenty-first legion broke in from Vindonissa, Sextilius Felix with auxiliary cohorts through Raetia; the wing of the Singulares was added, raised once by Vitellius, then gone over to Vespasian’s party. Over it was Julius Briganticus, born of Civilis’s sister, and—as the hatreds of near kin are commonly the sharpest—hateful to his uncle and hostile. Tutor strengthened the forces of the Treveri, increased by a recent levy of the Vangiones, Caeracates, and Triboci, with veteran foot and horse, having corrupted by hope or subdued by fear the legionaries; who first kill a cohort sent ahead by Sextilius Felix, soon, when the Roman leaders and army drew near, returned by an honorable desertion, the Triboci, Vangiones, and Caeracates following. Tutor, the Treveri accompanying, avoiding Mogontiacum, withdrew to Bingium, trusting in the position, because he had broken the bridge of the river Nava, but by the onset of the cohorts which Sextilius led, and a ford discovered, he was betrayed and routed. Stricken by that defeat, the Treveri, and the commons, their arms thrown down, straggle through the fields; certain of the chief men, that they might seem the first to have laid down war, fled to the states which had not cast off the Roman alliance. The legions led across from Novaesium and Bonna into the Treveri, as we recorded above, force themselves into the allegiance of Vespasian. These things were done in Valentinus’s absence; who, when he was approaching, raging and about to turn all again to confusion and ruin, the legions withdrew to the Mediomatrici, an allied state: Valentinus and Tutor draw the Treveri back into arms, the legates Herennius and Numisius killed, that by the lesser hope of pardon the bond of crime might grow.

Igitur non Treviri neque Lingones ceteraeve rebellium civitates pro magnitudine suscepti discriminis agere; ne duces quidem in unum consulere, sed Civilis avia Belgarum circumibat, dum Claudium Labeonem capere aut exturbare nititur; Classicus segne plerumque otium trahens velut parto imperio fruebatur; ne Tutor quidem maturavit superiorem Germaniae ripam et ardua Alpium praesidiis claudere. atque interim unaetvicensima legio Vindonissa, Sextilius Felix cum auxiliariis cohortibus per Raetiam inrupere; accessit ala Singularium excita olim a Vitellio, deinde in partis Vespasiani transgressa. praeerat Iulius Briganticus sorore Civilis genitus, ut ferme acerrima proximorum odia sunt, invisus avunculo infensusque. Tutor Trevirorum copias, recenti Vangionum, Caeracatium, Tribocorum dilectu auctas, veterano pedite atque equite firmavit, corruptis spe aut metu subactis legionariis; qui primo cohortem praemissam a Sextilio Felice interficiunt, mox ubi duces exercitusque Romanus propinquabant, honesto transfugio rediere, secutis Tribocis Vangionibusque et Caeracatibus. Tutor Treviris comitanti- bus, vitato Mogontiaco, Bingium concessit, fidens loco, quia pontem Navae fluminis abruperat, sed incursu cohortium, quas Sextilius ducebat, et reperto vado proditus fususque. ea clade perculsi Treviri, et plebes omissis armis per agros palatur: quidam principum, ut primi posuisse bellum viderentur, in civitates quae societatem Romanam non exuerant, perfugere. legiones a Novaesio Bonnaque in Treviros, ut supra memoravimus, traductae se ipsae in verba Vespasiani adigunt. haec Valentino absente gesta; qui ubi adventabat furens cunctaque rursus in turbas et exitium conversurus, legiones in Mediomatricos, sociam civitatem, abscessere: Valentinus ac Tutor in arma Treviros retrahunt, occisis Herennio ac Numisio legatis quo minore spe veniae cresceret vinculum sceleris.

This was the state of the war when Petilius Cerialis came to Mogontiacum. By his arrival hopes were raised; he himself, greedy for battle and better at despising than at guarding against the enemy, was inflaming the soldier by the ferocity of his words, that as soon as it should be possible to engage, he would make no delay to the fight. The levies held throughout Gaul he sends back into the states, and orders it announced that the legions sufficed for the empire: let the allies return to the duties of peace, secure, as though the war were finished which Roman hands had taken up. That thing increased the Gauls’ obedience: for, their youth recovered, they bore the tributes more easily, the readier to their duties because they were despised. But Civilis and Classicus, when they learned that Tutor was beaten, the Treveri cut down, all things prosperous for the enemy, alarmed and hurrying, while they bring together the scattered forces of their men, meanwhile by frequent messages warned Valentinus not to hazard the supreme issue. The more swiftly therefore Cerialis, having sent into the Mediomatrici men to turn the legions against the enemy by a shorter route, having drawn together what soldiery was at Mogontiacum and as much as he had brought across with him, in three days’ march came to Rigodulum, which place Valentinus had occupied with a great band of Treveri, fenced by hills or the river Moselle; and he had added ditches and barriers of stones. Nor did these defenses deter the Roman leader from ordering the foot to break through, and raising the line of horse onto the hill, despising an enemy whom, rashly gathered, the position so little aided that there was more in his own men’s valor. A little delay in the ascent, while the enemy’s missiles are carried over them: when it came to hand-to-hand, they are flung headlong like a collapsing wall. And a part of the horse, riding round by the easier ridges, took the noblest of the Belgae, among them the leader Valentinus.

Hic belli status erat cum Petilius Cerialis Mogontiacum venit. eius adventu erectae spes; ipse pugnae avidus et contemnendis quam cavendis hostibus melior, ferocia verborum militem incendebat, ubi primum congredi licuisset, nullam proelio moram facturus. dilectus per Galliam habitos in civitates remittit ac nuntiare iubet sufficere imperio legiones: socii ad munia pacis redirent securi velut confecto bello quod Romanae manus excepissent. auxit ea res Gallorum obsequium: nam recepta iuventute facilius tributa toleravere, proniores ad officia quod spernebantur. at Civilis et Classicus ubi pulsum Tutorem, caesos Treviros, cuncta hostibus prospera accepere, trepidi ac properantes, dum dispersas suorum copias conducunt, crebris interim nuntiis Valentinum monuere ne summae rei periculum faceret. eo rapidius Cerialis, missis in Mediomatricos qui breviore itinere legiones in hostem verterent, contracto quod erat militum Mogontiaci quantumque secum transvexerat, tertiis castris Rigodulum venit, quem locum magna Trevirorum manu Valentinus insederat, montibus aut Mosella amne saeptum; et addiderat fossas obicesque saxorum. nec deterruere ea munimenta Romanum ducem quo minus peditem perrumpere iuberet, equitum aciem in collem erigeret, spreto hoste, quem temere collectum haud ita loco iuvari ut non plus suis in virtute foret. paulum morae in adscensu, dum missilia hostium praevehuntur: ut ventum in manus, deturbati ruinae modo praecipitantur. et pars equitum aequioribus iugis circumvecta nobilissimos Belgarum, in quis ducem Valentinum, cepit.

Cerialis the next day entered the colony of the Treveri, the soldier eager to raze the city. This was the fatherland of Classicus, this of Tutor; by their crime the legions had been shut in and slaughtered. What had Cremona deserved so greatly? which, snatched from the bosom of Italy, because it brought the victors a delay of a single night. There stood on the frontier of Germany a seat untouched, exulting in the spoils of armies and the slaughter of leaders. Let the plunder be brought into the treasury: for themselves the fire and the ruins of a rebel colony sufficed, by which the destruction of so many camps might be paid for. Cerialis, from fear of infamy, if he should be believed to have steeped the soldier in license and savagery, restrained their anger: and they obeyed, the war of citizens laid down, more moderate toward foreign foes. Then the pitiable sight of the legions summoned from the Mediomatrici turned their minds. They stood mournful in the consciousness of their disgrace, their eyes fixed on the ground: no mutual greeting between the meeting armies; nor did they give answers to those consoling or encouraging, hidden through the tents and shunning the very light. It was not so much peril or fear as shame and dishonor that had stupefied them, the victors too astonished, who, not daring to use voice and prayers, by tears and silence begged pardon, until Cerialis soothed their minds, saying often that what had befallen through the discord of soldiers and leaders or the fraud of the enemy had been driven by fate. Let them count that the first day of their pay and oath: of former misdeeds neither the emperor nor he himself remembered. Then they were received into the same camp, and it was proclaimed through the maniples that no one in contest or quarrel should throw sedition or disaster in a comrade’s teeth.

Cerialis postero die coloniam Trevirorum ingressus est, avido milite eruendae civitatis. hanc esse Classici, hanc Tutoris patriam; horum scelere clausas caesasque legiones. quid tantum Cremonam meruisse? quam e gremio Italiae raptam quia unius noctis moram victoribus attulerit. stare in confinio Germaniae integram sedem spoliis exercituum et ducum caedibus ovantem. redigeretur praeda in fiscum: ipsis sufficere ignis et rebellis coloniae ruinas, quibus tot castrorum excidia pensarentur. Cerialis metu infamiae, si licentia saevitiaque imbuere militem crederetur, pressit iras: et paruere, posito civium bello ad externa modestiores. convertit inde animos accitarum e Mediomatricis legionum miserabilis aspectus. stabant conscientia flagitii maestae, fixis in terram oculis: nulla inter coeuntis exercitus consalutatio; neque solantibus hortantibusve responsa dabant, abditi per tentoria et lucem ipsam vitantes. nec proinde periculum aut metus quam pudor ac dedecus obstupefecerat, attonitis etiam victo- ribus, qui vocem precesque adhibere non ausi lacrimis ac silentio veniam poscebant, donec Cerialis mulceret animos, fato acta dictitans quae militum ducumque discordia vel fraude hostium evenissent. primum illum stipendiorum et sacramenti diem haberent: priorum facinorum neque imperatorem neque se meminisse. tunc recepti in eadem castra, et edictum per manipulos ne quis in certamine iurgiove seditionem aut cladem commilitoni obiectaret.

Soon, the Treveri and Lingones called to an assembly, he addresses them thus: "Never have I practiced eloquence, and the valor of the Roman people I have affirmed by arms: but since among you words avail most, and good and evil are estimated not by their own nature but by the voices of the seditious, I have resolved to say a few things which, the war being beaten down, it is more useful for you to have heard than for us to have spoken. Roman leaders and emperors entered your land and that of the other Gauls from no greed, but at the invitation of your ancestors, whom discords wearied to the point of destruction; and the Germans called in to help had imposed servitude on allies and enemies alike. In how many battles against the Cimbri and Teutoni, with how great toils of our armies, and with what issue we have conducted the German wars, is clear enough. Nor did we settle on the Rhine to protect Italy, but lest some other Ariovistus should master the realm of the Gauls. Do you believe yourselves dearer to Civilis and the Batavi and the nations across the Rhine than your fathers and grandfathers were to their ancestors? Always the same cause for the Germans of crossing into the Gauls—lust and greed and the love of changing their seat, that, their marshes and wastes abandoned, they might possess this most fertile soil and you yourselves: but liberty and specious names are held up as a pretext; nor has anyone ever coveted the enslavement and domination of others for himself without usurping those same words."

Mox Treviros ac Lingonas ad contionem vocatos ita adloquitur: ’neque ego umquam facundiam exercui, et populi Romani virtutem armis adfirmavi: sed quoniam apud vos verba plurimum valent bonaque ac mala non sua natura, sed vocibus seditiosorum aestimantur, statui pauca disserere quae profligato bello utilius sit vobis audisse quam nobis dixisse. terram vestram ceterorumque Gallorum ingressi sunt duces imperatoresque Romani nulla cupidine, sed maioribus vestris invocantibus, quos discordiae usque ad exitium fatigabant, et acciti auxilio Germani sociis pariter atque hostibus servitutem imposuerant. quot proeliis adversus Cimbros Teutonosque, quantis exercituum nostrorum laboribus quove eventu Germanica bella tractaverimus, satis clarum. nec ideo Rhenum insedimus ut Italiam tueremur, sed ne quis alius Ariovistus regno Galliarum potiretur. an vos cariores Civili Batavisque et transrhenanis gentibus creditis quam maioribus eorum patres avique vestri fuerunt? eadem semper causa Germanis transcendendi in Gallias, libido atque avaritia et mutandae sedis amor, ut relictis paludibus et solitudinibus suis fecundissimum hoc solum vosque ipsos possiderent: ceterum libertas et speciosa nomina praetexuntur; nec quis- quam alienum servitium et dominationem sibi concupivit ut non eadem ista vocabula usurparet.’

"Kingdoms and wars throughout the Gauls there always were, until you passed into our jurisdiction. We, though so often provoked, by right of victory imposed on you only this, by which we might safeguard the peace; for neither can the quiet of nations be had without arms, nor arms without pay, nor pay without tributes: the rest is held in common. You yourselves for the most part preside over our legions, you yourselves rule these and other provinces; nothing is set apart or shut off. And the benefit of praiseworthy emperors you enjoy on equal terms, however far off you live: the savage fall heaviest on those nearest. As you bear barrenness or excessive rains and the other ills of nature, so bear the luxury or greed of rulers. There will be vices as long as there are men, but these are neither continuous and are made up for by the coming of better men: unless perhaps under the reign of Tutor and Classicus you hope for a more moderate rule, or that with smaller tributes than now armies will be furnished by which the Germans and Britons may be kept off. For, the Romans driven out—which may the gods forbid—what else will arise than wars of all the nations among themselves? By the fortune and discipline of eight hundred years this fabric has grown together, which cannot be torn apart without the destruction of those who tear it: but yours is the greatest danger, in whose hands are the gold and the wealth, the chief causes of wars. Therefore love and cherish peace and the city, which conquered and conquerors hold by the same right: let the lessons of either fortune warn you not to prefer defiance with ruin to obedience with security." By such a speech he calmed and steadied men who feared graver things.

’Regna bellaque per Gallias semper fuere donec in nostrum ius concederetis. nos, quamquam totiens lacessiti, iure victoriae id solum vobis addidimus, quo pacem tueremur; nam neque quies gentium sine armis neque arma sine stipendiis neque stipendia sine tributis haberi queunt: cetera in communi sita sunt. ipsi plerumque legionibus nostris praesidetis, ipsi has aliasque provincias regitis; nihil separatum clausumve. et laudatorum principum usus ex aequo quamvis procul agentibus: saevi proximis ingruunt. quo modo sterilitatem aut nimios imbris et cetera naturae mala, ita luxum vel avaritiam dominantium tolerate. vitia erunt, donec homines, sed neque haec continua et meliorum interventu pensantur: nisi forte Tutore et Classico regnantibus moderatius imperium speratis, aut minoribus quam nunc tributis parabuntur exercitus quibus Germani Britannique arceantur. nam pulsis, quod di prohibeant, Romanis quid aliud quam bella omnium inter se gentium existent? octingentorum annorum fortuna disciplinaque compages haec coaluit, quae convelli sine exitio convellentium non potest: sed vobis maximum discrimen, penes quos aurum et opes, praecipuae bellorum causae. proinde pacem et urbem, quam victi victoresque eodem iure obtinemus, amate colite: moneant vos utriusque fortunae documenta ne contumaciam cum pernicie quam obsequium cum securitate malitis.’ tali oratione graviora metuentis composuit erexitque.

The Treveri were held by the victorious army, when Civilis and Classicus sent letters to Cerialis, the sense of which was this: that Vespasian, though they concealed the messengers, had departed life; that the city and Italy were consumed by internal war; that the names of Mucianus and Domitian were empty and without strength: if Cerialis wished the empire of the Gauls, they themselves were content with the borders of their own states; if he preferred battle, they did not refuse even that. To these things Cerialis answered Civilis and Classicus nothing: the man who had brought them, and the letters themselves, he sent to Domitian.

Tenebantur victore exercitu Treviri, cum Civilis et Classicus misere ad Cerialem epistulas, quarum haec sententia fuit: Vespasianum, quamquam nuntios occultarent, excessisse vita, urbem atque Italiam interno bello consumptam, Muciani ac Domitiani vana et sine viribus nomina: si Cerialis imperium Galliarum velit, ipsos finibus civitatium suarum contentos; si proelium mallet, ne id quidem abnuere. ad ea Cerialis Civili et Classico nihil: eum qui attulerat et ipsas epistulas ad Domitianum misit.

The enemy came up from every side with divided forces. Most blamed Cerialis for having allowed to join those whom, kept apart, he might have cut off. The Roman army surrounded with a ditch and rampart the camp in which before it had rashly settled unprotected.

Hostes divisis copiis advenere undique. plerique culpabant Cerialem passum iungi quos discretos intercipere licuisset. Romanus exercitus castra fossa valloque circumdedit, quis temere antea intutis consederat.

Among the Germans it was disputed with differing opinions. Civilis: that the nations across the Rhine should be awaited, by whose terror the strength of the Roman people, broken, might be ground down: the Gauls, what else than booty for the victors? and yet, what of strength there was, the Belgae stood with them, openly or in their wishes. Tutor affirmed that by delay the Roman power grew, the armies gathering from every side: a legion brought across from Britain, others summoned from Spain, others coming from Italy; nor a sudden soldiery, but old and tried in war. For the Germans, who were hoped for from those quarters, were not commanded, not ruled, but did everything from their own caprice; and money and gifts, by which alone they are corrupted, were greater among the Romans, and no one was so prone to arms as not to prefer the same price for quiet as for peril. But if they should engage at once, Cerialis had no legions but from the remnants of the German army, bound by the treaties of the Gauls. And that very thing—that they had lately routed Valentinus’s disorderly band beyond their own hope—was a nourishment of rashness to those men and their leader: they would dare again and come to grips, not with an inexperienced stripling, meditating words and assemblies rather than steel and arms, but with Civilis and Classicus; whom when they saw, dread would return to their minds, and flight and famine and the life so often begged of their captors. Nor were the Treveri or Lingones held by goodwill: they would take up arms again, when fear had withdrawn. Classicus ended the difference of counsels by approving Tutor’s opinion, and at once they carry it out.

Apud Germanos diversis sententiis certabatur. Civilis opperiendas Transrhenanorum gentis, quarum terrore fractae populi Romani vires obtererentur: Gallos quid aliud quam praedam victoribus? et tamen, quod roboris sit, Belgas secum palam aut voto stare. Tutor cunctatione crescere rem Romanam adfirmabat, coeuntibus undique exercitibus: transvectam e Britannia legionem, accitas ex Hispania, adventare ex Italia; nec subitum militem, sed veterem expertumque belli. nam Germanos, qui ab ipsis sperentur, non iuberi, non regi, sed cuncta ex libidine agere; pecuniamque ac dona, quis solis corrumpantur, maiora apud Romanos, et neminem adeo in arma pronum ut non idem pretium quietis quam periculi malit. quod si statim congrediantur, nullas esse Ceriali nisi e reliquiis Germanici exercitus legiones, foederibus Galliarum obstrictas. idque ipsum quod inconditam nuper Valentini manum contra spem suam fuderint, alimentum illis ducique temeritatis: ausuros rursus venturosque in manus non imperiti adulescentuli, verba et contiones quam ferrum et arma meditantis, sed Civilis et Classici; quos ubi aspexerint, redituram in animos formidinem, fugam famemque ac totiens captis precariam vitam. neque Treviros aut Lingonas benevolentia contineri: resumpturos arma, ubi metus abscesserit. diremit consiliorum diversitatem adprobata Tutoris sententia Classicus, statimque exequuntur.

The center of the line was given to the Ubii and Lingones; on the right horn the cohorts of the Batavi, on the left the Bructeri and Tencteri. Part by the mountains, others along the road between it and the river Moselle, they leapt on so unforeseen that, in his chamber and on his couch (for he had not passed the night in camp), Cerialis heard at once that his men were fighting and being beaten, rebuking the panic of those who reported it, until the whole disaster was before his eyes: the camp of the legions broken into, the horse routed, the middle bridge of the Moselle, which joins the farther parts of the colony, beset by the enemy. Cerialis, undismayed amid the turbulent situation and dragging back the fleeing with his hand, his body uncovered, ready amid the weapons, by a fortunate rashness and the running-up of every bravest man, recovered the bridge and made it firm with a chosen band. Soon, returned to the camp, he sees the maniples of the legions captured at Novaesium and Bonna straggling, and few soldiers at the standards, and the eagles nearly surrounded. Inflamed with anger, "It is not Flaccus," he said, "not Vocula whom you desert: there is no treachery here; nor have I anything else to excuse but that I rashly believed you, forgetful of the Gallic compact, had returned to the memory of the Roman oath. I shall be numbered with the Numisii and Herennii, so that all your legates have fallen either by their soldiers’ hands or by the enemy’s. Go, announce to Vespasian, or—what is nearer—to Civilis and Classicus, that you have deserted your commander in the battle-line: legions will come that will suffer neither me to be unavenged nor you unpunished."

Media acies Vbiis Lingonibusque data; dextro cornu cohortes Batavorum, sinistro Bructeri Tencterique. pars montibus, alii viam inter Mosellamque flumen tam improvisi adsiluere ut in cubiculo ac lectulo Cerialis (neque enim noctem in castris egerat) pugnari simul vincique suos audierit, increpans pavorem nuntiantium, donec universa clades in oculis fuit: perrupta legionum castra, fusi equites, medius Mosellae pons, qui ulteriora coloniae adnectit, ab hostibus insessus. Cerialis turbidis rebus intrepidus et fugientis manu retrahens, intecto corpore promptus inter tela, felici temeritate et fortissimi cuiusque adcursu reciperatum pontem electa manu firmavit. mox in castra reversus palantis captarum apud Novaesium Bonnamque legionum manipulos et rarum apud signa militem ac prope circumventas aquilas videt. incensus ira ’non Flaccum’ inquit, ’non Voculam deseritis: nulla hic proditio; neque aliud excusandum habeo quam quod vos Gallici foederis oblitos redisse in memoriam Romani sacramenti temere credidi. adnumerabor Numisiis et Herenniis, ut omnes legati vestri aut militum manibus aut hostium ceciderint. ite, nuntiate Vespasiano vel, quod propius est, Civili et Classico, relictum a vobis in acie ducem: venient legiones quae neque me inultum neque vos impunitos patiantur.’

They were true things, and the same were urged by the tribunes and prefects. They stand in cohorts and maniples; for the line could not spread out, the enemy poured in and the tents and baggage hindering, since it was fought within the rampart. Tutor and Classicus and Civilis, each in his own place, stirred the fight, urging the Gauls for liberty, the Batavi for glory, the Germans to plunder. And all was for the enemy, until the twenty-first legion, massed in a more open space than the rest, withstood their onset, then drove them back. Nor without divine aid, their tempers suddenly changed, did the victors turn their backs. They themselves reported that they were terrified by the sight of the cohorts which, scattered at the first onset, gathered again on the highest ridges and had made the appearance of a fresh reinforcement. But what stood against the winning side was a perverse contest among themselves, the enemy left off, to chase the spoils. Cerialis, as by carelessness he had nearly wrecked the affair, so by firmness restored it; and, following his fortune, he takes and destroys the enemy’s camp that same day.

Vera erant, et a tribunis praefectisque eadem ingerebantur. consistunt per cohortis et manipulos; neque enim poterat patescere acies effuso hoste et impedientibus tento- riis sarcinisque, cum intra vallum pugnaretur. Tutor et Classicus et Civilis suis quisque locis pugnam ciebant, Gallos pro libertate, Batavos pro gloria, Germanos ad praedam instigantes. et cuncta pro hostibus erant, donec legio unaetvicensima patentiore quam ceterae spatio conglobata sustinuit ruentis, mox impulit. nec sine ope divina mutatis repente animis terga victores vertere. ipsi territos se cohortium aspectu ferebant, quae primo impetu disiectae summis rursus iugis congregabantur ac speciem novi auxilii fecerant. sed obstitit vincentibus pravum inter ipsos certamen omisso hoste spolia consectandi. Cerialis ut incuria prope rem adflixit, ita constantia restituit; secutusque fortunam castra hostium eodem die capit excinditque.

Nor was rest given to the soldier for long. The Agrippinenses begged aid and offered the wife and sister of Civilis and the daughter of Classicus, pledges of alliance left with them. And meanwhile they had slaughtered the Germans scattered in their houses; whence fear, and the just prayers of those calling for help, before the enemy, their strength repaired, should gird themselves for hope or for vengeance. For Civilis too had bent his aim thither, not without strength, the most ablaze of his cohorts intact, which, composed of Chauci and Frisii, was operating at Tolbiacum on the borders of the Agrippinenses: but a grim message turned him aside, that the cohort had been destroyed by the guile of the Agrippinenses, who, the Germans lulled with lavish feasting and wine, the doors shut and fire thrown in, burned them; at the same time Cerialis came to the rescue by a hurried march. Another fear too had ringed Civilis, lest the fourteenth legion, joined with the British fleet, should afflict the Batavi on the side where they are girt by the Ocean. But the legate Fabius Priscus led the legion by the land route against the Nervii and Tungri, and those states were received into surrender: the fleet the Canninefates of their own accord attacked, and the greater part of the ships was sunk or taken. And the multitude of the Nervii, stirred of its own accord to take up war for the Romans, the same Canninefates routed. Classicus too fought a successful battle against the horse sent ahead by Cerialis to Novaesium: which modest but frequent losses tore at the fame of the lately-won victory.

Nec in longum quies militi data. orabant auxilium Agrippinenses offerebantque uxorem ac sororem Civilis et filiam Classici, relicta sibi pignora societatis. atque interim dispersos in domibus Germanos trucidaverant; unde metus et iustae preces invocantium, antequam hostes reparatis viribus ad spem vel ad ultionem accingerentur. namque et Civilis illuc intenderat, non invalidus, flagrantissima cohortium suarum integra, quae e Chaucis Frisiisque composita Tolbiaci in finibus Agrippinensium agebat: sed tristis nuntius avertit, deletam cohortem dolo Agrippinensium, qui largis epulis vinoque sopitos Germanos, clausis foribus, igne iniecto cremavere; simul Cerialis propero agmine subvenit. circumsteterat Civilem et alius metus, ne quarta decima legio adiuncta Britannica classe adflictaret Batavos, qua Oceano ambiuntur. sed legionem terrestri itinere Fabius Priscus legatus in Nervios Tungrosque duxit, eaeque civitates in deditionem acceptae: classem ultro Canninefates adgressi sunt maiorque pars navium depressa aut capta. et Nerviorum multitudinem, sponte commotam ut pro Romanis bellum capesseret, idem Canninefates fudere. Classicus quoque adversus equites Novaesium a Ceriale praemissos secundum proelium fecit: quae modica sed crebra damna famam victoriae nuper partae lacerabant.

In those same days Mucianus orders the son of Vitellius to be killed, alleging that discord would remain, had he not stamped out the seeds of war. Nor did he suffer Antonius Primus to be taken among the companions of Domitian, anxious at the soldiers’ favor and at the pride of the man, intolerant even of his equals, let alone his superiors. Antonius, having set out to Vespasian, is received not according to his hope, yet not with the emperor’s mind averse. He was drawn in different directions, on this side by the deserts of Antonius, by whose leadership the war had without doubt been finished, on that by Mucianus’s letters: at the same time the rest pursued him as hostile and swollen, the crimes of his former life added. Nor was he himself wanting in arrogance to call up offenses, excessive in recounting what he had deserved: he reviled others as unwarlike, Caecina as a captive and one who had surrendered. Whence little by little he was held lighter and cheaper, friendship nonetheless remaining for show.

Isdem diebus Mucianus Vitellii filium interfici iubet, mansuram discordiam obtendens, ni semina belli restinxisset. neque Antonium Primum adsciri inter comites a Domitiano passus est, favore militum anxius et superbia viri aequalium quoque, adeo superiorum intolerantis. profectus ad Vespasianum Antonius ut non pro spe sua excipitur, ita neque averso imperatoris animo. trahebatur in diversa, hinc meritis Antonii, cuius ductu confectum haud dubie bellum erat, inde Muciani epistulis: simul ceteri ut infestum tumidumque insectabantur, adiunctis prioris vitae criminibus. neque ipse deerat adrogantia vocare offensas, nimius commemorandis quae meruisset: alios ut imbellis, Caecinam ut captivum ac dediticium increpat. unde paulatim levior viliorque haberi, manente tamen in speciem amicitia.

During those months in which Vespasian at Alexandria awaited the fixed days of the summer winds and the settled sea, many wonders occurred, by which the favor of heaven and a certain inclination of the divinities toward Vespasian might be shown. One of the Alexandrian commons, known for a wasting of the eyes, falls at his knees, demanding with a groan a remedy for his blindness, by the warning of the god Serapis, whom that nation, given to superstitions, worships before others; and he begged the emperor to deign to sprinkle his cheeks and the orbs of his eyes with the spittle of his mouth. Another, sick in the hand, by the same god’s prompting, begged that he be trodden by Caesar’s foot and footstep. Vespasian at first laughed and spurned them; and as they insisted, now he feared the repute of vanity, now by their entreaty and the voices of flatterers he was led into hope: at last he orders it to be assessed by the physicians whether such blindness and disability were surmountable by human aid. The physicians discoursed variously: in the one the force of sight was not eaten away and would return if the obstacles were driven off; in the other the joints had slipped into a distorted state and could be made whole if a healing force were applied. That perhaps was the gods’ pleasure, and the emperor chosen for the divine ministry; finally, the glory of an accomplished cure would be with Caesar, the mockery of a vain one with the wretched. Therefore Vespasian, reckoning that all lay open to his fortune and that nothing was any longer past belief, with a glad face himself, the multitude that stood by raised to expectation, carries out the commands. At once the hand was turned to use, and the day shone again for the blind man. Both things those who were present recall even now, when there is no reward for a lie.

Per eos mensis quibus Vespasianus Alexandriae statos aestivis flatibus dies et certa maris opperiebatur, multa miracula evenere, quis caelestis favor et quaedam in Vespasianum inclinatio numinum ostenderetur. e plebe Alexandrina quidam oculorum tabe notus genua eius advolvitur, remedium caecitatis exposcens gemitu, monitu Serapidis dei, quem dedita superstitionibus gens ante alios colit; precabaturque principem ut genas et oculorum orbis dignaretur respergere oris excremento. alius manum aeger eodem deo auctore ut pede ac vestigio Caesaris calcaretur orabat. Vespasianus primo inridere, aspernari; atque illis instantibus modo famam vanitatis metuere, modo obsecratione ipsorum et vocibus adulantium in spem induci: postremo aestimari a medicis iubet an talis caecitas ac debilitas ope humana superabiles forent. medici varie disserere: huic non exesam vim luminis et redituram si pellerentur obstantia; illi elapsos in pravum artus, si salubris vis adhibeatur, posse integrari. id fortasse cordi deis et divino ministerio principem electum; denique patrati remedii gloriam penes Caesarem, inriti ludibrium penes miseros fore. igitur Vespasianus cuncta fortunae suae patere ratus nec quicquam ultra incredibile, laeto ipse vultu, erecta quae adstabat multitudine, iussa exequitur. statim conversa ad usum manus, ac caeco reluxit dies. utrumque qui interfuere nunc quoque memorant, postquam nullum mendacio pretium.

A deeper desire thence came to Vespasian of approaching the sacred seat, to consult about the affairs of empire: he orders all to be barred from the temple. And having entered and being intent on the divinity, he looked back behind him at one of the chief men of the Egyptians, by name Basilides, whom he well knew to be detained far from Alexandria, a march of several days, and by a sick body. He asks the priests whether on that day Basilides had entered the temple, he asks those he meets whether he was seen in the city; finally, sending horsemen, he ascertains that at that moment of time he had been eighty miles away: then he interpreted the divine appearance and the force of the answer from the name of Basilides.

Altior inde Vespasiano cupido adeundi sacram sedem ut super rebus imperii consuleret: arceri templo cunctos iubet. atque ingressus intentusque numini respexit pone tergum e primoribus Aegyptiorum nomine Basiliden, quem procul Alexandria plurium dierum itinere et aegro corpore detineri haud ignorabat. percontatur sacerdotes num illo die Basilides templum inisset, percontatur obvios num in urbe visus sit; denique missis equitibus explorat illo temporis momento octoginta milibus passuum afuisse: tunc divinam speciem et vim responsi ex nomine Basilidis interpretatus est.

The origin of the god is not yet celebrated by our authors: the priests of the Egyptians thus relate it, that to King Ptolemy, who first of the Macedonians strengthened the resources of Egypt, when he was adding to newly-founded Alexandria walls and temples and rites, there was presented in sleep a youth of surpassing beauty and of more than human form, who advised that he send his most faithful friends into Pontus to fetch his image; that this would be happy for the realm, and that the seat which received it would be great and renowned: at the same time the same youth was seen to be raised into the sky in a great fire. Ptolemy, roused by the omen and the wonder, discloses the nocturnal visions to the priests of the Egyptians, whose custom it is to understand such things. And, as they had too little knowledge of Pontus and of foreign matters, he asks Timotheus the Athenian, of the race of the Eumolpidae, whom he had summoned from Eleusis as a master of the rites, what that superstition was and what divinity. Timotheus, having questioned those who had traveled to Pontus, learns that there was there a city, Sinope, and not far off a temple, by an old report among the neighbors, of Jupiter Dis: for a female figure too stood by, which most call Proserpina. But Ptolemy, as the dispositions of kings are, prone to dread, when security returned, more desirous of pleasures than of rites, began little by little to neglect it and to turn his mind to other cares, until the same apparition, now more terrible and more pressing, threatened destruction to himself and the kingdom if the commands were not carried out. Then he orders envoys and gifts to be made ready for King Scydrothemis (he then ruled the Sinopians) and charged those about to sail to approach the Pythian Apollo. To them the sea was favorable, the lot of the oracle unambiguous: let them go and bring back the image of his father, leave that of his sister.

Origo dei nondum nostris auctoribus celebrata: Aegyptiorum antistites sic memorant, Ptolemaeo regi, qui Macedonum primus Aegypti opes firmavit, cum Alexandriae recens conditae moenia templaque et religiones adderet, oblatum per quietem decore eximio et maiore quam humana specie iuvenem, qui moneret ut fidissimis amicorum in Pontum missis effigiem suam acciret; laetum id regno magnamque et inclutam sedem fore quae excepisset: simul visum eundem iuvenem in caelum igne plurimo attolli. Ptolemaeus omine et miraculo excitus sacerdotibus Aegyptiorum, quibus mos talia intellegere, nocturnos visus aperit. atque illis Ponti et externorum parum gnaris, Timotheum Atheniensem e gente Eumolpidarum, quem ut antistitem caerimoniarum Eleusine exciverat, quaenam illa superstitio, quod numen, interrogat. Timotheus quaesitis qui in Pontum meassent, cognoscit urbem illic Sinopen, nec procul templum vetere inter accolas fama Iovis Ditis: namque et muliebrem effigiem adsistere quam plerique Proserpinam vocent. sed Ptolemaeus, ut sunt ingenia regum, pronus ad formidinem, ubi securitas rediit, voluptatum quam religionum adpetens neglegere paulatim aliasque ad curas animum vertere, donec eadem species terribilior iam et instantior exitium ipsi regnoque denuntiaret ni iussa patrarentur. tum legatos et dona Scydrothemidi regi (is tunc Sinopensibus imperitabat) expediri iubet praecepitque navigaturis ut Pythicum Apollinem adeant. illis mare secundum, sors oraculi haud ambigua: irent simulacrumque patris sui reveherent, sororis relinquerent.

When they came to Sinope, they present the gifts, prayers, and commands of their king to Scydrothemis. He, divided in mind, now dreaded the divinity, now was terrified by the threats of an opposing people; often he was bent by the gifts and promises of the envoys. And meanwhile, a three-year span elapsed, Ptolemy did not omit his zeal or his prayers: he kept increasing the dignity of the envoys, the number of ships, the weight of gold. Then a threatening visage was presented to Scydrothemis, that he delay no longer what was destined for the god: as he hesitated, various destructions and diseases and the manifest wrath of the heavenly ones, heavier by the day, wearied him. Having called an assembly, he sets forth the commands of the divinity, his own and Ptolemy’s visions, the evils pressing in: the crowd turned away from the king, envied Egypt, feared for themselves, and beset the temple. A greater report from this point has handed down that the god himself, the ships brought to the shore, embarked of his own accord: a marvel thence to tell, that on the third day, so great a span of sea traversed, they put in at Alexandria. A temple was built, in proportion to the greatness of the city, in the place whose name is Rhacotis; there had been there a chapel anciently consecrated to Serapis and Isis. These are the most current accounts about the origin and conveyance of the god. Nor am I unaware that there are some who hold that he was summoned from Seleucia, a city of Syria, in the reign of the Ptolemy whom the third generation produced; others, that the same Ptolemy was the author, but that the seat from which he passed over was Memphis, once renowned and the pillar of old Egypt. The god himself many guess to be Aesculapius, because he heals sick bodies, some Osiris, the most ancient divinity among those nations, most Jupiter, as master of all things, very many Father Dis, by the emblems that are manifest in him, or through riddles.

Vt Sinopen venere, munera preces mandata regis sui Scydrothemidi adlegant. qui diversus animi modo numen pavescere, modo minis adversantis populi terreri; saepe donis promissisque legatorum flectebatur. atque interim triennio exacto Ptolemaeus non studium, non preces omittere: dignitatem legatorum, numerum navium, auri pondus augebat. tum minax facies Scydrothemidi offertur ne destinata deo ultra moraretur: cunctantem varia pernicies morbique et manifesta caelestium ira graviorque in dies fatigabat. advocata contione iussa numinis, suos Ptolemaeique visus, ingruentia mala exponit: vulgus aversari regem, invidere Aegypto, sibi metuere templumque circumsedere. maior hinc fama tradidit deum ipsum adpulsas litori navis sponte conscendisse: mirum inde dictu, tertio die tantum maris emensi Alexandriam adpelluntur. templum pro magnitudine urbis extructum loco cui nomen Rhacotis; fuerat illic sacellum Serapidi atque Isidi antiquitus sacratum. haec de origine et advectu dei celeberrima. nec sum ignarus esse quosdam qui Seleucia urbe Syriae accitum regnante Ptolemaeo, quem tertia aetas tulit; alii auctorem eundem Ptolemaeum, sedem, ex qua transierit, Memphim perhibent, inclutam olim et veteris Aegypti columen. deum ipsum multi Aesculapium, quod medeatur aegris corporibus, quidam Osirin, antiquissimum illis gentibus numen, plerique Iovem ut rerum omnium potentem, plurimi Ditem patrem insignibus, quae in ipso manifesta, aut per ambages coniectant.

But Domitian and Mucianus, before they drew near the Alps, received prosperous news of the things done among the Treveri. The chief proof of the victory was the enemy’s leader Valentinus, who, his spirit by no means cast down, bore in his face the courage he had shown. He was heard for this reason only, that his temper might be known, and, condemned, in the very midst of his execution, to one reproaching him that his fatherland had been taken, he answered that he received it as a consolation for death. But Mucianus brought out, as if fresh, what he had long concealed: that, since by the gods’ kindness the enemy’s strength had been broken, it was little becoming that Domitian, the war being nearly finished, should intervene in another’s glory. If the standing of the empire or the safety of the Gauls were turned into hazard, Caesar ought to stand in the line; but the Canninefates and Batavi should be assigned to lesser leaders: let him himself, from close at hand, display the force and fortune of the principate at Lugudunum, not mingled in small dangers and not failing the greater.

At Domitianus Mucianusque antequam Alpibus propinquarent, prosperos rerum in Treviris gestarum nuntios accepere. praecipua victoriae fides dux hostium Valentinus nequaquam abiecto animo, quos spiritus gessisset, vultu ferebat. auditus ideo tantum ut nosceretur ingenium eius, damnatusque inter ipsum supplicium exprobranti cuidam patriam eius captam accipere se solacium mortis respondit. sed Mucianus quod diu occultaverat, ut recens exprompsit: quoniam benignitate deum fractae hostium vires forent, parum decore Domitianum confecto prope bello alienae gloriae interventurum. si status imperii aut salus Galliarum in discrimine verteretur, debuisse Caesarem in acie stare, Canninefatis Batavosque minoribus ducibus delegandos: ipse Luguduni vim fortunamque principatus e proximo ostentaret, nec parvis periculis immixtus et maioribus non defuturus.

The arts were understood, but a part of obedience lay in this, that they not be detected: so they came to Lugudunum. Whence it is believed that Domitian by secret messages tested Cerialis’s faith, whether, if he were present, he would hand over the army and command to him. By that thought whether he was contemplating war against his father, or strength and forces against his brother, was left uncertain: for Cerialis with a wholesome moderation eluded him as one childishly desiring vain things. Domitian, perceiving that his youth was scorned by his elders, gave up even the moderate functions of empire that he had before assumed, hiding himself in depth under an image of simplicity and modesty, and feigning a zeal for letters and a love of poems, by which to veil his mind and withdraw himself from rivalry with his brother, whose unlike and milder nature he interpreted the other way.

Intellegebantur artes, sed pars obsequii in eo ne deprehenderentur: ita Lugudunum ventum. unde creditur Domitianus occultis ad Cerialem nuntiis fidem eius temptavisse an praesenti sibi exercitum imperiumque traditurus foret. qua cogitatione bellum adversus patrem agitaverit an opes virisque adversus fratrem, in incerto fuit: nam Cerialis salubri temperamento elusit ut vana pueriliter cupientem. Domitianus sperni a senioribus iuventam suam cernens modica quoque et usurpata antea munia imperii omittebat, simplicitatis ac modestiae imagine in altitudinem conditus studiumque litterarum et amorem carminum simulans, quo velaret animum et fratris se aemulationi subduceret, cuius disparem mitioremque naturam contra interpretabatur.

At the beginning of the same year Caesar Titus, chosen by his father for the subduing of Judaea and, while both were still private men, distinguished in war, was now acting with greater force and fame, the zeal of provinces and armies vying. And he himself, that he might be believed above his fortune, showed himself comely and ready in arms, by courtesy and addresses calling forth their service, and often at the work, in the column, mingled with the common soldier, the commander’s honor uncorrupted. Three legions in Judaea received him—the fifth, the tenth, and the fifteenth, old soldiers of Vespasian. He added from Syria the twelfth, and the men of the twenty-second and the third brought from Alexandria; twenty allied cohorts accompanied him, eight wings of horse, and at the same time the kings Agrippa and Sohaemus, and the auxiliaries of King Antiochus, and a strong band of Arabs, hostile to the Jews with the hatred usual among neighbors, and many whom from the city and from Italy his own hope had drawn, each of seizing the prince while still unattached. With these forces he entered the enemy’s borders, his column in order, scouting everything and ready to fight, and not far from Jerusalem he makes his camp.

Eiusdem anni principio Caesar Titus, perdomandae Iudaeae delectus a patre et privatis utriusque rebus militia clarus, maiore tum vi famaque agebat, certantibus provinciarum et exercituum studiis. atque ipse, ut super fortunam crederetur, decorum se promptumque in armis ostendebat, comitate et adloquiis officia provocans ac plerumque in opere, in agmine gregario militi mixtus, incorrupto ducis honore. tres eum in Iudaea legiones, quinta et decima et quinta decima, vetus Vespasiani miles, excepere. addidit e Syria duodecimam et adductos Alexandria duoetvicensimanos tertianosque; comitabantur viginti sociae cohortes, octo equitum alae, simul Agrippa Sohaemusque reges et auxilia regis Antiochi validaque et solito inter accolas odio infensa Iudaeis Arabum manus, multi quos urbe atque Italia sua quemque spes acciverat occupandi principem adhuc vacuum. his cum copiis finis hostium ingressus composito agmine, cuncta explorans paratusque decernere, haud procul Hierosolymis castra facit.

But since we are about to hand down the last day of a famous city, it seems fitting to disclose its origins.

Sed quoniam famosae urbis supremum diem tradituri sumus, congruens videtur primordia eius aperire.

They relate that the Jews, fugitives from the island of Crete, settled in the farthest parts of Libya, at the time when Saturn, driven out by the force of Jupiter, gave up his realms. The proof is sought from the name: that on Crete there is the famous Mount Ida, and that its neighbors, the Idaei, with the name lengthened into a barbarous form, are called Judaei. Some say that in the reign of Isis the multitude overflowing through Egypt was discharged into the nearest lands under the leaders Hierosolymus and Judas; very many, that they were the offspring of the Ethiopians, whom under King Cepheus fear and hatred drove to change their seat. There are those who relate that they were Assyrian refugees, a people lacking land, who got possession of a part of Egypt, and soon dwelt in cities of their own and in the Hebrew lands and the parts nearer Syria. Others give the Jews a glorious beginning—that the Solymi, a nation celebrated in the poems of Homer, gave to the city they founded the name Hierosolyma, from their own.

Iudaeos Creta insula profugos novissima Libyae insedisse memorant, qua tempestate Saturnus vi Iovis pulsus cesserit regnis. argumentum e nomine petitur: inclutum in Creta Idam montem, accolas Idaeos aucto in barbarum cognomento Iudaeos vocitari. quidam regnante Iside exundantem per Aegyptum multitudinem ducibus Hierosolymo ac Iuda proximas in terras exoneratam; plerique Aethiopum prolem, quos rege Cepheo metus atque odium mutare sedis perpulerit. sunt qui tradant Assyrios convenas, indigum agrorum populum, parte Aegypti potitos, mox proprias urbis Hebraeasque terras et propiora Syriae coluisse. clara alii Iudaeorum initia, Solymos, carminibus Homeri celebratam gentem, conditae urbi Hierosolyma nomen e suo fecisse.

Most authors agree that, a plague having arisen through Egypt which defiled their bodies, King Bocchoris, approaching the oracle of Hammon to seek a remedy, was bidden to purge the kingdom and to convey that race of men, as hateful to the gods, into other lands. So the crowd, sought out and gathered, after it was left in desert places, the rest stupefied amid their tears, Moses, one of the exiles, advised that they look for the help of no god or man, deserted by both, but trust in him as a heavenly guide, by whose aid first they had driven off their present miseries. They assented, and, ignorant of everything, begin a journey at random. But nothing wearied them so much as the want of water, and already, not far from destruction, they had sunk down over all the plains, when a herd of wild asses withdrew from their pasture to a rock shaded by a grove. Moses followed, and, by a guess from the grassy soil, opens up abundant veins of water. That was their relief; and, having traversed a continuous march of six days, on the seventh they got possession of the lands, the cultivators driven out, in which a city and a temple were consecrated.

Plurimi auctores consentiunt orta per Aegyptum tabe quae corpora foedaret, regem Bocchorim adito Hammonis oraculo remedium petentem purgare regnum et id genus hominum ut invisum deis alias in terras avehere iussum. sic conquisitum collectumque vulgus, postquam vastis locis relictum sit, ceteris per lacrimas torpentibus, Moysen unum exulum monuisse ne quam deorum hominumve opem expectarent utrisque deserti, sed sibimet duce caelesti crederent, primo cuius auxilio praesentis miserias pepulissent. adsensere atque omnium ignari fortuitum iter incipiunt. sed nihil aeque quam inopia aquae fatigabat, iamque haud procul exitio totis campis procubuerant, cum grex asinorum agrestium e pastu in rupem nemore opacam concessit. secutus Moyses coniectura herbidi soli largas aquarum venas aperit. id levamen; et continuum sex dierum iter emensi septimo pulsis cultoribus obtinuere terras, in quis urbs et templum dicata.

Moses, that he might bind the nation to himself for the future, introduced new rites, contrary to those of the rest of mortals. There all things are profane which with us are sacred, and again things are allowed among them which with us are incestuous. The image of the animal by whose showing they had driven off their wandering and thirst they consecrated in the shrine, a ram slaughtered as if in insult to Hammon; an ox too is sacrificed, since the Egyptians worship Apis. They abstain from the pig in memory of a disaster, because the scab, to which that animal is liable, had once disfigured them. The long famine of old they confess by their frequent fasts even now, and as a proof of the snatched grain the Jewish bread is held together with no leaven. They say that the seventh day was resolved on for rest, because it brought an end of their toils; then, inertia enticing, the seventh year too was given to sloth. Others say that this is an honor paid to Saturn, whether the Idaei handed down the beginnings of their religion—whom we have received as driven out with Saturn and as the founders of the nation—or because, of the seven stars by which mortals are ruled, the star of Saturn moves in the highest orbit and with the chief power, and most of the heavenly bodies travel their way and courses by sevens.

Moyses quo sibi in posterum gentem firmaret, novos ritus contrariosque ceteris mortalibus indidit. profana illic omnia quae apud nos sacra, rursum concessa apud illos quae nobis incesta. effigiem animalis, quo monstrante errorem sitimque depulerant, penetrali sacravere, caeso ariete velut in contumeliam Hammonis; bos quoque immolatur, quoniam Aegyptii Apin colunt. sue abstinent memoria cladis, quod ipsos scabies quondam turpaverat, cui id animal obnoxium. longam olim famem crebris adhuc ieiuniis fatentur, et raptarum frugum argumentum panis Iudaicus nullo fermento detinetur. septimo die otium placuisse ferunt, quia is finem laborum tulerit; dein blandiente inertia septimum quoque annum ignaviae datum. alii honorem eum Saturno haberi, seu principia religionis tradentibus Idaeis, quos cum Saturno pulsos et conditores gentis accepimus, seu quod de septem sideribus, quis mortales reguntur, altissimo orbe et praecipua potentia stella Saturni feratur, ac pleraque caelestium viam suam et cursus septenos per numeros commeare.

These rites, in whatever way brought in, are defended by their antiquity: the rest of their institutions, sinister and foul, have prevailed by their depravity. For every most worthless man, his ancestral religions spurned, kept heaping tributes and offerings thither, whence the resources of the Jews were increased; and because among themselves their faith is obstinate and their compassion ready, but against all others a hostile hatred. Separated at meals, set apart in their beds, a race most prone to lust, they abstain from intercourse with foreign women; among themselves nothing is unlawful. They instituted the circumcision of the genitals, that they might be known by the difference. Those who pass over into their custom adopt the same, and are taught nothing sooner than to despise the gods, to put off their fatherland, and to hold cheap their parents, children, brothers. Yet provision is made for increasing their numbers; for they count it a crime to kill any of those born after the first, and they think the souls of those who fall in battle or are put to death everlasting: hence a love of begetting and a contempt of dying. They bury their bodies rather than burn them, after the Egyptian manner, and they have the same care and the same persuasion about the underworld, but the contrary about the heavenly powers. The Egyptians venerate most animals and composite images, the Jews conceive of one divinity by the mind alone: they hold profane those who fashion images of gods out of mortal materials in the likeness of men; that supreme and eternal being is to them neither imitable nor perishable. Therefore they set up no images in their cities, much less in their temples; this flattery is not for their kings, this honor not for the Caesars. But because their priests used to make music with the pipe and timbrels, and were bound with ivy, and a golden vine was found in the temple, some have judged that Father Liber, the conqueror of the East, was worshipped—their institutions by no means agreeing. For Liber established festive and joyful rites, while the way of the Jews is absurd and sordid.

Hi ritus quoquo modo inducti antiquitate defenduntur: cetera instituta, sinistra foeda, pravitate valuere. nam pessimus quisque spretis religionibus patriis tributa et stipes illuc congerebant, unde auctae Iudaeorum res, et quia apud ipsos fides obstinata, misericordia in promptu, sed adversus omnis alios hostile odium. separati epulis, discreti cubilibus, proiectissima ad libidinem gens, alienarum concubitu abstinent; inter se nihil inlicitum. circumcidere genitalia in- stituerunt ut diversitate noscantur. transgressi in morem eorum idem usurpant, nec quicquam prius imbuuntur quam contemnere deos, exuere patriam, parentes liberos fratres vilia habere. augendae tamen multitudini consulitur; nam et necare quemquam ex agnatis nefas, animosque proelio aut suppliciis peremptorum aeternos putant: hinc generandi amor et moriendi contemptus. corpora condere quam cremare e more Aegyptio, eademque cura et de infernis persuasio, caelestium contra. Aegyptii pleraque animalia effigiesque compositas venerantur, Iudaei mente sola unumque numen intellegunt: profanos qui deum imagines mortalibus materiis in species hominum effingant; summum illud et aeternum neque imitabile neque interiturum. igitur nulla simulacra urbibus suis, nedum templis sistunt; non regibus haec adulatio, non Caesaribus honor. sed quia sacerdotes eorum tibia tympanisque concinebant, hedera vinciebantur vitisque aurea templo reperta, Liberum patrem coli, domitorem Orientis, quidam arbitrati sunt, nequaquam congruentibus institutis. quippe Liber festos laetosque ritus posuit, Iudaeorum mos absurdus sordidusque.

Their land and borders, where they slope to the East, are bounded by Arabia; on the south Egypt lies before them; on the west are the Phoenicians and the sea; on the north they look far out from the flank of Syria. The bodies of the men are healthy and able to bear toils. Rains are rare, the soil rich: their crops are after our manner, and besides them the balsam and the palm. The palm-groves have height and beauty; the balsam is a modest tree: as each branch swells, if you apply the force of iron, the veins shrink; with a fragment of stone or a potsherd they are opened; the sap is in use among healers. The chief of their mountains it raises in Lebanon, wonderful to tell, shady and faithful to its snows amid such great heats; the same feeds and pours forth the river Jordan. Nor is the Jordan received into the sea, but flows whole through one lake and a second, and is held by a third. The lake, of immense compass, in the likeness of a sea, more spoiled in taste, by the heaviness of its odor pestilent to those who dwell near, is neither driven by the wind nor suffers fish or the birds accustomed to waters. The sluggish waves bear up what is thrown upon them as on solid ground; the skilled and the unskilled in swimming alike are held up. At a fixed time of year it casts up bitumen, the manner of gathering which, as of the other arts, experience has taught. The liquid is black by its own nature, and, when vinegar is sprinkled on it, it congeals and floats; this, taken by hand by those whose task it is, they draw onto the top of the boat: thence, with none helping, it flows in and loads the boat, until you cut it off. Nor can you cut it off with bronze or iron: it flees from blood and from a garment stained with the blood by which women are relieved each month. So the old authors; but those acquainted with the places relate that the masses of bitumen, billowing up, are driven and drawn by hand to the shore, then, when by the vapor of the earth and the force of the sun they have dried, are split with axes and wedges, like beams or stones.

Terra finesque qua ad Orientem vergunt Arabia terminantur, a meridie Aegyptus obiacet, ab occasu Phoenices et mare, septentrionem e latere Syriae longe prospectant. corpora hominum salubria et ferentia laborum. rari imbres, uber solum: fruges nostrum ad morem praeterque eas balsamum et palmae. palmetis proceritas et decor, balsamum modica arbor: ut quisque ramus intumuit, si vim ferri adhibeas, pavent venae; fragmine lapidis aut testa aperiuntur; umor in usu medentium est. praecipuum montium Libanum erigit, mirum dictu, tantos inter ardores opacum fidumque nivibus; idem amnem Iordanen alit funditque. nec Iordanes pelago accipitur, sed unum atque alterum lacum integer perfluit, tertio retinetur. lacus immenso ambitu, specie maris, sapore corruptior, gravitate odoris accolis pestifer, neque vento impellitur neque piscis aut suetas aquis volucris patitur. inertes undae superiacta ut solido ferunt; periti imperitique nandi perinde attolluntur. certo anni bitumen egerit, cuius legendi usum, ut ceteras artis, experientia docuit. ater suapte natura liquor et sparso aceto concretus innatat; hunc manu captum, quibus ea cura, in summa navis trahunt: inde nullo iuvante influit oneratque, donec abscindas. nec abscindere aere ferrove possis: fugit cruorem vestemque infectam sanguine, quo feminae per mensis exolvuntur. sic veteres auctores, sed gnari locorum tradunt undantis bitumine moles pelli manuque trahi ad litus, mox, ubi vapore terrae, vi solis inaruerint, securibus cuneisque ut trabes aut saxa discindi.

Not far from there are plains which they say were once fertile and inhabited by great cities, and were burned by the stroke of lightnings; and that the traces remain, and that the earth itself, scorched in appearance, has lost its fruitful power. For all things, whether brought forth of their own accord or sown by hand, whether they have grown up as far as the grass or the flower or into their accustomed form, turn black and empty and vanish as into ash. I, as I would grant that cities once renowned were burned by celestial fire, so I think that the earth is infected by the breath of the lake, the air poured over it corrupted, and thereby the produce of crops and of autumn rots, the soil and the sky being alike heavy. And the river Belus glides into the Jewish sea, around whose mouth the sands, gathered with niter mixed in, are smelted into glass. That stretch of shore is modest, and inexhaustible to those who carry it off.

Haud procul inde campi quos ferunt olim uberes magnisque urbibus habitatos fulminum iactu arsisse; et manere vestigia, terramque ipsam, specie torridam, vim frugiferam perdidisse. nam cuncta sponte edita aut manu sata, sive herba tenus aut flore seu solitam in speciem adolevere, atra et inania velut in cinerem vanescunt. ego sicut inclitas quondam urbis igne caelesti flagrasse concesserim, ita halitu lacus infici terram, corrumpi superfusum spiritum, eoque fetus segetum et autumni putrescere reor, solo caeloque iuxta gravi. et Belius amnis Iudaico mari inlabitur, circa cuius os lectae harenae admixto nitro in vitrum excoquuntur. modicum id litus et egerentibus inexhaustum.

A great part of Judaea is scattered in villages; they have also towns; Jerusalem is the head of the nation. There was a temple of immense wealth, and the city with its first defenses, then the palace, the temple shut in the innermost part. To the doors only a Jew had access; from the threshold all but the priests were barred. While the East was in the hands of the Assyrians, Medes, and Persians, they were the most despised part of the enslaved: after the Macedonians prevailed, King Antiochus strove to take away their superstition and give them the manners of the Greeks, but was hindered from changing that most loathsome nation for the better by the Parthian war; for at that time Arsaces had revolted. Then the Jews, the Macedonians being weak, the Parthians not yet grown up (and the Romans were far off), set kings over themselves; who, expelled by the fickleness of the crowd, their dominion regained by arms, dared the banishments of citizens, the overthrows of cities, the killings of brothers, wives, parents, and the other things usual to kings, and fostered the superstition, because the honor of the priesthood was taken up as a bulwark of their power.

Magna pars Iudaeae vicis dispergitur, habent et oppida; Hierosolyma genti caput. illic immensae opulentiae templum, et primis munimentis urbs, dein regia, templum intimis clausum. ad fores tantum Iudaeo aditus, limine praeter sacerdotes arcebantur. dum Assyrios penes Medosque et Persas Oriens fuit, despectissima pars servientium: postquam Macedones praepolluere, rex Antiochus demere superstitionem et mores Graecorum dare adnisus, quo minus taeterrimam gentem in melius mutaret, Parthorum bello prohibitus est; nam ea tempestate Arsaces desciverat. tum Iudaei Macedonibus invalidis, Parthis nondum adultis (et Romani procul erant), sibi ipsi reges imposuere; qui mobilitate vulgi expulsi, resumpta per arma dominatione fugas civium, urbium eversiones, fratrum coniugum parentum neces aliaque solita regibus ausi superstitionem fovebant, quia honor sacerdotii firmamentum potentiae adsumebatur.

Of the Romans the first, Gnaeus Pompey, subdued the Jews and by right of victory entered the temple: thence it was spread abroad that within there was no image of a god, the seat empty and the inner mysteries void. The walls of Jerusalem were torn down, the shrine remained. Soon, in the civil war among us, after the provinces had passed into the power of Marcus Antonius, Pacorus, king of the Parthians, got possession of Judaea and was killed by Publius Ventidius, and the Parthians were driven back across the Euphrates: the Jews Gaius Sosius subdued. The kingdom given by Antony to Herod the victorious Augustus increased. After the death of Herod, with no one awaiting Caesar, a certain Simon had usurped the royal name. He was punished by Quintilius Varus, then holding Syria, and the nation, kept in check, the children of Herod ruled in three parts. Under Tiberius there was quiet. Then, ordered by Gaius Caesar to set up his image in the temple, they took up arms rather, a movement which Caesar’s death broke off. Claudius, the kings dead or reduced to a modest state, committed Judaea, as a province, to Roman knights or freedmen, of whom Antonius Felix exercised the royal power with a servile temper through every cruelty and lust, having received in marriage Drusilla, the granddaughter of Cleopatra and Antony, so that Felix was the grandson-in-law, and Claudius the grandson, of the same Antony.

Romanorum primus Cn. Pompeius Iudaeos domuit templumque iure victoriae ingressus est: inde vulgatum nulla intus deum effigie vacuam sedem et inania arcana. muri Hierosolymorum diruti, delubrum mansit. mox civili inter nos bello, postquam in dicionem M. Antonii provinciae cesserant, rex Parthorum Pacorus Iudaea potitus interfectusque a P. Ventidio, et Parthi trans Euphraten redacti: Iudaeos C. Sosius subegit. regnum ab Antonio Herodi datum victor Augustus auxit. post mortem Herodis, nihil expectato Caesare, Simo quidam regium nomen invaserat. is a Quintilio Varo obtinente Syriam punitus, et gentem coercitam liberi Herodis tripertito rexere. sub Tiberio quies. dein iussi a C. Caesare effigiem eius in templo locare arma potius sumpsere, quem motum Caesaris mors diremit. Claudius, defunctis regibus aut ad modicum redactis, Iudaeam provinciam equitibus Romanis aut libertis permisit, e quibus Antonius Felix per omnem saevitiam ac libidinem ius regium servili ingenio exercuit, Drusilla Cleopatrae et Antonii nepte in matrimonium accepta, ut eiusdem Antonii Felix progener, Claudius nepos esset.

Yet the Jews’ patience lasted up to Gessius Florus the procurator: under him the war arose. And Cestius Gallus, the legate of Syria, beginning to crush it, met various battles and more often unfavorable ones. When he died by fate or weariness, Vespasian, sent by Nero, by his fortune and fame and excellent subordinates, within two summers held all the country and all the cities except Jerusalem with his victorious army. The next year, intent on civil war, passed, as far as the Jews were concerned, in quiet. Peace gained throughout Italy, the foreign cares returned: it increased their anger that the Jews alone had not given way; at the same time it seemed useful that Titus remain with the armies, against all the chances and accidents of the new principate.

Duravit tamen patientia Iudaeis usque ad Gessium Florum procuratorem: sub eo bellum ortum. et comprimere coeptantem Cestium Gallum Syriae legatum varia proelia ac saepius adversa excepere. qui ubi fato aut taedio occidit, missu Neronis Vespasianus fortuna famaque et egregiis ministris intra duas aestates cuncta camporum omnisque praeter Hierosolyma urbis victore exercitu tenebat. proximus annus civili bello intentus quantum ad Iudaeos per otium transiit. pace per Italiam parta et externae curae rediere: augebat iras quod soli Iudaei non cessissent; simul manere apud exercitus Titum ad omnis principatus novi eventus casusve utile videbatur.

Therefore, the camp, as we have said, pitched before the walls of Jerusalem, he displayed the legions drawn up: the Jews built their line under the very walls, ready, if things went well, to venture farther, and, if driven back, with a refuge prepared. The horse, with light cohorts, sent against them, fought with doubtful issue; soon the enemy gave way, and on the following days they kept up frequent battles before the gates, until, by continual losses, they were driven within the walls. The Romans turned to assault; for it did not seem worthy to await the enemy’s famine, and they demanded dangers, part from valor, many from ferocity and greed of rewards. To Titus himself Rome and its wealth and pleasures were before his eyes; and unless Jerusalem fell at once, they seemed but to delay. But the city, steep in site, they had strengthened with works and masses, by which even level ground might be sufficiently fortified. For two hills, raised to an immense height, the walls enclosed, by art slanting or curved inward, that the flanks of assailants might be laid open to blows. The edge of the rock was sheer, and the towers, where the mountain had helped, rose to sixty feet, among the slopes to a hundred and twenty, of wonderful appearance and, to those looking from afar, seeming of one height. Other walls within encircled the palace, and, with a conspicuous summit, the tower Antonia, named in honor of Marcus Antonius by Herod.

Igitur castris, uti diximus, ante moenia Hierosolymorum positis instructas legiones ostentavit: Iudaei sub ipsos muros struxere aciem, rebus secundis longius ausuri et, si pellerentur, parato perfugio. missus in eos eques cum expe- ditis cohortibus ambigue certavit; mox cessere hostes et sequentibus diebus crebra pro portis proelia serebant, donec adsiduis damnis intra moenia pellerentur. Romani ad obpugnandum versi; neque enim dignum videbatur famem hostium opperiri, poscebantque pericula, pars virtute, multi ferocia et cupidine praemiorum. ipsi Tito Roma et opes voluptatesque ante oculos; ac ni statim Hierosolyma conciderent, morari videbantur. sed urbem arduam situ opera molesque firmaverant, quis vel plana satis munirentur. nam duos collis in immensum editos claudebant muri per artem obliqui aut introrsus sinuati, ut latera obpugnantium ad ictus patescerent. extrema rupis abrupta, et turres, ubi mons iuvisset, in sexagenos pedes, inter devexa in centenos vicenosque attollebantur, mira specie ac procul intuentibus pares. alia intus moenia regiae circumiecta, conspicuoque fastigio turris Antonia, in honorem M. Antonii ab Herode appellata.

The temple was in the manner of a citadel, with walls of its own, of labor and work beyond the rest; the very porticoes by which the temple was surrounded were an excellent rampart. There was a perennial spring of water, mountains hollowed out underground, and pools and cisterns for keeping the rains. The founders had foreseen, from the diversity of their manners, frequent wars: hence everything, however great, against a long siege; and, the city stormed by Pompey, fear and experience had shown them much. And, through the avarice of the Claudian times, the right of fortifying having been bought, they built walls in peace as if for war, swelled by a great confluence and by the ruin of the other cities; for every most stubborn man had fled thither, and therefore they acted the more seditiously. Three leaders, as many armies: the outermost and widest of the walls Simon, the middle city John, the temple Eleazar had made firm. By multitude and arms John and Simon, by position Eleazar prevailed: but battles, guile, fires among themselves, and a great store of grain was burned up. Soon John, sending men under the show of sacrificing to cut down Eleazar and his band, got possession of the temple. So the state divided into two factions, until, the Romans drawing near, the foreign war begot concord.

Templum in modum arcis propriique muri, labore et opere ante alios; ipsae porticus, quis templum ambibatur, egregium propugnaculum. fons perennis aquae, cavati sub terra montes et piscinae cisternaeque servandis imbribus. providerant conditores ex diversitate morum crebra bella: inde cuncta quamvis adversus longum obsidium; et a Pompeio expugnatis metus atque usus pleraque monstravere. atque per avaritiam Claudianorum temporum empto iure muniendi struxere muros in pace tamquam ad bellum, magna conluvie et ceterarum urbium clade aucti; nam pervicacissimus quisque illuc perfugerat eoque seditiosius agebant. tres duces, totidem exercitus: extrema et latissima moenium Simo, mediam urbem Ioannes, templum Eleazarus firmaverat. multitudine et armis Ioannes ac Simo, Eleazarus loco pollebat: sed proelia dolus incendia inter ipsos, et magna vis frumenti ambusta. mox Ioannes, missis per speciem sacrificandi qui Eleazarum manumque eius obtruncarent, templo potitur. ita in duas factiones civitas discessit, donec propinquantibus Romanis bellum externum concordiam pareret.

Prodigies had occurred, which that nation, subject to superstition but opposed to religious observance, holds it unlawful to expiate by victims or vows. There had been seen battle-lines clashing through the sky, arms glowing red, and the temple lit up by a sudden fire from the clouds. The doors of the shrine opened suddenly, and a voice greater than human was heard, that the gods were departing; at the same time a vast movement of their departure. Which few drew to fear: in most there was a persuasion that it was contained in the ancient writings of the priests that at that very time the East would grow strong, and that men setting out from Judaea would master the world. Which riddling words had foretold Vespasian and Titus, but the crowd, after the manner of human desire, having interpreted so great a magnitude of the fates for themselves, were not turned to the truth even by adversity. We have heard that the multitude of the besieged, of every age, of the male sex and the female, was six hundred thousand: arms for all who could bear them, and more dared than in proportion to their number. The obstinacy of men and women was equal; and if they were forced to change their seat, there was a greater fear of life than of death. Against this city and nation Caesar Titus, since the place forbade an onset and the suddenness of war, resolved to contend with earthworks and mantlets: the tasks are divided among the legions, and there was a rest from battles, until everything devised by the ancients for storming cities, or by new inventions, should be built.

Evenerant prodigia, quae neque hostiis neque votis piare fas habet gens superstitioni obnoxia, religionibus adversa. visae per caelum concurrere acies, rutilantia arma et subito nubium igne conlucere templum. apertae repente delubri fores et audita maior humana vox excedere deos; simul ingens motus excedentium. quae pauci in metum trahebant: pluribus persuasio inerat antiquis sacerdotum litteris contineri eo ipso tempore fore ut valesceret Oriens profectique Iudaea rerum potirentur. quae ambages Vespasianum ac Titum praedixerat, sed vulgus more humanae cupidinis sibi tantam fatorum magnitudinem interpretati ne adversis quidem ad vera mutabantur. multitudinem obsessorum omnis aetatis, virile ac muliebre secus, sexcenta milia fuisse accepimus: arma cunctis, qui ferre possent, et plures quam pro numero audebant. obstinatio viris feminisque par; ac si transferre sedis cogerentur, maior vitae metus quam mortis. hanc adversus urbem gentemque Caesar Titus, quando impetus et subita belli locus abnueret, aggeribus vineisque certare statuit: dividuntur legionibus munia et quies proeliorum fuit, donec cuncta expugnandis urbibus reperta apud veteres aut novis ingeniis struerentur.

But Civilis, after the bad battle among the Treveri, his army repaired through Germany, settled at the Vetera camp, safe in the position, and that by the memory of his prosperous fortune there the barbarians’ spirits might grow. Cerialis followed to the same place, his forces doubled by the arrival of the second and the thirteenth and the fourteenth legions; and the cohorts and wings, summoned long since, had hurried up after the victory. Neither of the leaders was a delayer, but the breadth of the plains, wet by their own nature, kept them apart; Civilis had added a slanting dam into the Rhine, by whose obstruction the river, turned back, should overflow the adjacent grounds. That was the form of the place, treacherous with its uncertain fords and adverse to us: for the Roman soldier, heavy with arms and fearful of swimming, while the lightness of their arms and the tallness of their bodies raise up the Germans, used to rivers.

At Civilis post malam in Treviris pugnam reparato per Germaniam exercitu apud Vetera castra consedit, tutus loco, et ut memoria prosperarum illic rerum augescerent barbarorum animi. secutus est eodem Cerialis, duplicatis copiis adventu secundae et tertiae decimae et quartae decimae legionum; cohortesque et alae iam pridem accitae post victoriam properaverant. neuter ducum cunctator, sed arcebat latitudo camporum suopte ingenio umentium; addiderat Civilis obliquam in Rhenum molem, cuius obiectu revolutus amnis adiacentibus superfunderetur. ea loci forma, incertis vadis subdola et nobis adversa: quippe miles Romanus armis gravis et nandi pavidus, Germanos fluminibus suetos levitas armorum et proceritas corporum attollit.

Therefore, the Batavi provoking, the contest was begun by every fiercest man of ours, then alarm arose, when in the very deep marshes the arms and horses were swallowed. The Germans bounded about over the fords they knew, leaving the front for the most part and surrounding the flanks and rear. Nor was it fought hand-to-hand as in a line of foot, but, as in a naval battle, wandering amid the waters, or, if anything stable was met, straining there with their whole bodies, the wounded with the unhurt, the skilled in swimming with the ignorant, were entangled in mutual destruction. Yet the slaughter was less than in proportion to the tumult, because the Germans, not daring to go out of the marsh, returned to their camp. The outcome of that battle roused each leader, with differing movements of mind, to hasten the decision of the supreme issue. Civilis to press his fortune, Cerialis to wipe out the disgrace: the Germans fierce from their success, shame had stirred the Romans. The night was passed among the barbarians in song or shouting, among ours in anger and threats.

Igitur lacessentibus Batavis ferocissimo cuique nostrorum coeptum certamen, deinde orta trepidatio, cum praealtis paludibus arma equi haurirentur. Germani notis vadis persultabant, omissa plerumque fronte latera ac terga circumvenientes. neque ut in pedestri acie comminus certabatur, sed tamquam navali pugna vagi inter undas aut, si quid stabile occurrebat, totis illic corporibus nitentes, vulnerati cum integris, periti nandi cum ignaris in mutuam perniciem implicabantur. minor tamen quam pro tumultu caedes, quia non ausi egredi paludem Germani in castra rediere. eius proelii eventus utrumque ducem diversis animi motibus ad maturandum summae rei discrimen erexit. Civilis instare fortunae, Cerialis abolere ignominiam: Germani prosperis feroces, Romanos pudor excitaverat. nox apud barbaros cantu aut clamore, nostris per iram et minas acta.

At the next light Cerialis fills the front with cavalry and auxiliary cohorts, the legions placed in the second line, the leader keeping chosen men for himself against the unforeseen. Civilis stood, not in an extended column, but in wedges: the Batavi and Cugerni on the right, the left and the parts nearer the river the men from across the Rhine held. The leaders’ exhortation was not after the manner of a harangue before all, but as they rode up to each of their own. Cerialis: the old glory of the Roman name, victories ancient and recent; that they should cut off forever a treacherous, cowardly, beaten enemy—there was need of vengeance rather than of battle. Lately fewer had fought with more, and yet the Germans had been routed, what of strength there was: there remained those who bear flight in their minds, wounds on their backs. Then he applied their own spurs to the legions, calling the men of the fourteenth the tamers of Britain; that Galba had been made emperor by the authority of the sixth legion; that in that battle the men of the second would for the first time dedicate new standards and a new eagle. From here, riding forward to the German army, he stretched out his hands, that they should recover their own bank, their own camp, with the enemy’s blood. The shout of all was the more eager, in whom there was either, from long peace, a desire of battle, or, weary of war, a love of peace, and rewards and rest for the future were hoped.

Postera luce Cerialis equite et auxiliariis cohortibus frontem explet, in secunda acie legiones locatae, dux sibi delectos retinuerat ad improvisa. Civilis haud porrecto agmine, sed cuneis adstitit: Batavi Cugernique in dextro, laeva ac propiora flumini Transrhenani tenuere. exhortatio ducum non more contionis apud universos, sed ut quosque suorum advehebantur. Cerialis veterem Romani nominis gloriam, antiquas recentisque victorias; ut perfidum ignavum victum hostem in aeternum exciderent, ultione magis quam proelio opus esse. pauciores nuper cum pluribus certasse, ac tamen fusos Germanos, quod roboris fuerit: superesse qui fugam animis, qui vulnera tergo ferant. proprios inde stimulos legionibus admovebat, domitores Britanniae quartadecimanos appellans; principem Galbam sextae legionis auctoritate factum; illa primum acie secundanos nova signa novamque aquilam dicaturos. hinc praevectus ad Germanicum exercitum manus tendebat, ut suam ripam, sua castra sanguine hostium reciperarent. alacrior omnium clamor, quis vel ex longa pace proelii cupido vel fessis bello pacis amor, praemiaque et quies in posterum sperabatur.

Nor did Civilis draw up his line in silence, calling the place of battle to witness their valor: that the Germans and Batavi stood upon the traces of their glory, treading the ashes and bones of the legions. Wherever the Roman turned his eyes, captivity and disaster and all things dire confronted him. Let them not be terrified by the various issue of the Treveran battle: there their own victory had stood in the Germans’ way, while, their weapons cast aside, they encumbered their hands with plunder: but everything had soon turned out prosperous and contrary to the enemy. What ought to have been provided by the leader’s craft, he had provided—the wet plains, known to themselves, the marshes harmful to the enemy. The Rhine and the gods of Germany were in sight: by whose divine power let them take up the battle, mindful of their wives, parents, fatherland: that day would be either the most glorious among their ancestors or shameful among their posterity. When by the sound of arms and war-dances (such is their custom) the words were approved, with stones and slingshot and the other missiles the battle is begun, our soldier not entering the marsh and the Germans provoking, to draw them out.

Nec Civilis silentem struxit aciem, locum pugnae testem virtutis ciens: stare Germanos Batavosque super vestigia gloriae, cineres ossaque legionum calcantis. quocumque oculos Romanus intenderet, captivitatem clademque et dira omnia obversari. ne terrerentur vario Trevirici proelii eventu: suam illic victoriam Germanis obstitisse, dum omissis telis praeda manus impediunt: sed cuncta mox prospera et hosti contraria evenisse. quae provideri astu ducis oportuerit, providisse, campos madentis et ipsis gnaros, paludes hostibus noxias. Rhenum et Germaniae deos in aspectu: quorum numine capesserent pugnam, coniugum parentum patriae memores: illum diem aut gloriosissimum inter maiores aut ignominiosum apud posteros fore. ubi sono armorum tripudiisque (ita illis mos) adprobata sunt dicta, saxis glandibusque et ceteris missilibus proelium incipitur, neque nostro milite paludem ingrediente et Germanis, ut elicerent, lacessentibus.

When the things that are thrown had been spent and the fight blazed up, there was a charge from the enemy more savagely: with their immense bodies and very long spears they stabbed from afar the soldier floating and slipping; at the same time, from the dam which we have related was carried out into the Rhine, a wedge of the Bructeri swam across. There the matter was thrown into confusion and the line of allied cohorts was being driven back, when the legions take up the fight, and, the enemy’s ferocity checked, the battle is made even. Amid this a Batavian deserter came to Cerialis, promising the enemy’s rear, if cavalry were sent to the far edge of the marsh: there the ground was solid, and the Cugerni, whose guard it had become, too little intent. Two wings, sent with the deserter, surround the unwary enemy. When this was known by the shout, the legions pressed in from the front, and the Germans, driven back, sought the Rhine in flight. The war would have been finished that day, if the Roman fleet had hastened to follow: not even the cavalry pressed on, the rains suddenly poured forth and night being near.

Absumptis quae iaciuntur et ardescente pugna procursum ab hoste infestius: immensis corporibus et praelongis hastis fluitantem labantemque militem eminus fodiebant; simul e mole, quam eductam in Rhenum rettulimus, Bructerorum cuneus transnatavit. turbata ibi res et pellebatur sociarum cohortium acies, cum legiones pugnam excipiunt suppressaque hostium ferocia proelium aequatur. inter quae perfuga Batavus adiit Cerialem, terga hostium promittens, si extremo paludis eques mitteretur: solidum illa et Cugernos, quibus custodia obvenisset, parum intentos. duae alae cum perfuga missae incauto hosti circumfunduntur. quod ubi clamore cognitum, legiones a fronte incubuere, pulsique Germani Rhenum fuga petebant. debellatum eo die foret, si Romana classis sequi maturasset: ne eques quidem institit, repente fusis imbribus et propinqua nocte.

The next day the fourteenth legion was sent into the upper province to Annius Gallus: the tenth legion from Spain filled up Cerialis’s army: to Civilis came the auxiliaries of the Chauci. Yet not daring to defend the town of the Batavi by arms, the things that could be carried off snatched, fire thrown on the rest, he withdrew into the island, knowing that ships were lacking for making a bridge, and that the Roman army would not cross over otherwise: indeed he even tore down the dam made by Drusus Germanicus, and let the Rhine, rushing with a sloping bed into Gaul, pour out, the things that held it back scattered. So, the river as it were driven off, a shallow bed had made the appearance of continuous lands between the island and the Germans. There crossed the Rhine Tutor too and Classicus and a hundred and thirteen senators of the Treveri, among whom was Alpinius Montanus, whom we mentioned above as sent by Primus Antonius into the Gauls. His brother Decimus Alpinius accompanied him; at the same time the rest, by pity and gifts, were stirring up auxiliaries among nations greedy of dangers.

Postera die quartadecima legio in superiorem pro- vinciam Gallo Annio missa: Cerialis exercitum decima ex Hispania legio supplevit: Civili Chaucorum auxilia venere. non tamen ausus oppidum Batavorum armis tueri, raptis quae ferri poterant, ceteris iniecto igni, in insulam concessit, gnarus deesse navis efficiendo ponti, neque exercitum Romanum aliter transmissurum: quin et diruit molem a Druso Germanico factam Rhenumque prono alveo in Galliam ruentem, disiectis quae morabantur, effudit. sic velut abacto amne tenuis alveus insulam inter Germanosque continentium terrarum speciem fecerat. transiere Rhenum Tutor quoque et Classicus et centum tredecim Trevirorum senatores, in quis fuit Alpinius Montanus, quem a Primo Antonio missum in Gallias superius memoravimus. comitabatur eum frater D. Alpinius; simul ceteri miseratione ac donis auxilia concibant inter gentis periculorum avidas.

And so much of war remained that the garrisons of cohorts, wings, and legions Civilis attacked in one day, in four parts—the tenth legion at Arenacum, the second at Batavodurum, and Grinnes and Vada, the camps of cohorts and wings—the forces so divided that he himself and Verax, born of his sister, and Classicus and Tutor each drew his own band, not from confidence of accomplishing all, but that, by daring much, in some part fortune would be at hand: at the same time that Cerialis, neither cautious enough and running this way and that on many reports, might be intercepted in the middle. Those to whom the camp of the tenth had fallen, thinking the assault of a legion hard, threw into confusion the soldiers gone out and busied with cutting timber, the camp-prefect killed and five of the chief centurions and a few soldiers: the rest defended themselves with the fortifications. Meanwhile a band of Germans at Batavodurum strove to break the begun bridge: an uncertain battle night ended.

Tantumque belli superfuit ut praesidia cohortium alarum legionum uno die Civilis quadripertito invaserit, decimam legionem Arenaci, secundam Batavoduri et Grinnes Vadamque, cohortium alarumque castra, ita divisis copiis ut ipse et Verax, sorore eius genitus, Classicusque ac Tutor suam quisque manum traherent, nec omnia patrandi fiducia, sed multa ausis aliqua in parte fortunam adfore: simul Cerialem neque satis cautum et pluribus nuntiis huc illuc cursantem posse medio intercipi. quibus obvenerant castra decimanorum, obpugnationem legionis arduam rati egressum militem et caedendis materiis operatum turbavere, occiso praefecto castrorum et quinque primoribus centurionum paucisque militibus: ceteri se munimentis defendere. in- terim Germanorum manus Batavoduri interrumpere inchoatum pontem nitebantur: ambiguum proelium nox diremit.

There was more danger at Grinnes and Vada. Vada Civilis, Grinnes Classicus assaulted: nor could they be stopped, every bravest man being killed, among whom Briganticus, prefect of a wing, had fallen, whom we said was faithful to the Romans and hostile to his uncle Civilis. But when Cerialis came to the rescue with a chosen band of horse, fortune was turned; the Germans are driven headlong into the river. Civilis, while he holds back the fleeing, recognized and aimed at by weapons, swam across, his horse left behind; the same escape for Verax: Tutor and Classicus, boats brought up, carried off. Not even then was the Roman fleet present at the fight, and it had been ordered, but dread stood in the way, and the rowers scattered among other duties of the service. Indeed Cerialis gave too little time for carrying out his commands, sudden in his counsels but brilliant in the outcome: fortune was at hand, even where the arts had been wanting; hence to himself and the army less care for discipline. And a few days after, though he had escaped the peril of captivity, he did not avoid infamy.

Plus discriminis apud Grinnes Vadamque. Vadam Civilis, Grinnes Classicus obpugnabant: nec sisti poterant interfecto fortissimo quoque, in quis Briganticus praefectus alae ceciderat, quem fidum Romanis et Civili avunculo infensum diximus. sed ubi Cerialis cum delecta equitum manu subvenit, versa fortuna; praecipites Germani in amnem aguntur. Civilis dum fugientis retentat, agnitus petitusque telis relicto equo transnatavit; idem Veraci effugium: Tutorem Classicumque adpulsae luntres vexere. ne tum quidem Romana classis pugnae adfuit, et iussum erat, sed obstitit formido et remiges per alia militiae munia dispersi. sane Cerialis parum temporis ad exequenda imperia dabat, subitus consiliis set eventu clarus: aderat fortuna, etiam ubi artes defuissent; hinc ipsi exercituique minor cura disciplinae. et paucos post dies, quamquam periculum captivitatis evasisset, infamiam non vitavit.

Having set out to Novaesium and Bonna to view the camps which were being raised for the legions about to winter, he was returning by ship, his column scattered, the watches careless. This was noticed by the Germans and they arranged an ambush: a night black with clouds was chosen, and, borne down with the sloping stream, with none preventing, they enter the rampart. The first slaughter was aided by craft: the ropes of the tents cut, they butchered the men covered by their own tents. Another band threw the fleet into confusion, cast on cables, dragged off the sterns; and, as for deceiving they used silence, so, once the slaughter was begun, that they might add the more terror, they mingled everything with shouts. The Romans, roused by their wounds, seek arms, rush through the streets, few in military dress, most with a garment twisted round their arms and with drawn swords. The leader, half-asleep and almost uncovered, is saved by the enemy’s error: for the praetorian ship, marked by a flag, thinking the leader there, they carry off. Cerialis had passed the night elsewhere, as most believed, on account of an affair with Claudia Sacrata, a woman of the Ubii. The watchmen excused their own disgrace by the leader’s dishonor, as though ordered to be silent, that they might not disturb his rest; thus, the signal and the calls omitted, they themselves too had slipped into sleep. In broad daylight the enemy, carried back with the captured ships, dragged the praetorian trireme up the river Lupia as a gift for Veleda.

Profectus Novaesium Bonnamque ad visenda castra, quae hiematuris legionibus erigebantur, navibus remeabat disiecto agmine, incuriosis vigiliis. animadversum id Germanis et insidias composuere: electa nox atra nubibus, et prono amne rapti nullo prohibente vallum ineunt. prima caedes astu adiuta: incisis tabernaculorum funibus suismet tentoriis coopertos trucidabant. aliud agmen turbare classem, inicere vincla, trahere puppis; utque ad fallendum si- lentio, ita coepta caede, quo plus terroris adderent, cuncta clamoribus miscebant. Romani vulneribus exciti quaerunt arma, ruunt per vias, pauci ornatu militari, plerique circum brachia torta veste et strictis mucronibus. dux semisomnus ac prope intectus errore hostium servatur: namque praetoriam navem vexillo insignem, illic ducem rati, abripiunt. Cerialis alibi noctem egerat, ut plerique credidere, ob stuprum Claudiae Sacratae mulieris Vbiae. vigiles flagitium suum ducis dedecore excusabant, tamquam iussi silere ne quietem eius turbarent; ita intermisso signo et vocibus se quoque in somnum lapsos. multa luce revecti hostes captivis navibus, praetoriam triremem flumine Lupia donum Veledae traxere.

A desire seized Civilis of displaying a naval line: he fills what there was of biremes and what were driven with a single bank of oars; a vast number of barges was added, carrying thirty or forty each, the rigging usual to Liburnian galleys; and at the same time the captured barges were helped not unbecomingly with parti-colored cloaks for sails. The space chosen was like a sea, where the mouth of the river Meuse pours the river Rhine into the Ocean. The cause of equipping the fleet, beyond the vanity ingrained in the nation, was that by that terror the convoys coming from Gaul might be intercepted. Cerialis, more from wonder than from fear, drew up his fleet, inferior in number but superior in the experience of the rowers, the art of the helmsmen, the size of the ships. To these the stream was favorable, to those the wind drove them: thus, having sailed past, a trial made of casting light weapons, they part. Civilis, daring nothing further, withdrew across the Rhine: Cerialis, having ravaged the island of the Batavi in hostile fashion, left the fields and farmhouses of Civilis untouched, by the known art of commanders, when meanwhile, with the turning of autumn and frequent rains through the equinox, the river, overflowing, filled the marshy and low island into the likeness of a pool. Nor was the fleet or the convoys present, and the camps, set on level ground, were being torn apart by the force of the river.

Civilem cupido incessit navalem aciem ostentandi: complet quod biremium quaeque simplici ordine agebantur; adiecta ingens luntrium vis, tricenos quadragenosque ferunt, armamenta Liburnicis solita; et simul captae luntres sagulis versicoloribus haud indecore pro velis iuvabantur. spatium velut aequoris electum quo Mosae fluminis os amnem Rhenum Oceano adfundit. causa instruendae classis super insitam genti vanitatem ut eo terrore commeatus Gallia adventantes interciperentur. Cerialis miraculo magis quam metu derexit classem, numero imparem, usu remigum, gu- bernatorum arte, navium magnitudine potiorem. his flumen secundum, illi vento agebantur: sic praevecti temptato levium telorum iactu dirimuntur. Civilis nihil ultra ausus trans Rhenum concessit: Cerialis insulam Batavorum hostiliter populatus agros villasque Civilis intactas nota arte ducum sinebat, cum interim flexu autumni et crebris per aequinoctium imbribus superfusus amnis palustrem humilemque insulam in faciem stagni opplevit. nec classis aut commeatus aderant, castraque in plano sita vi fluminis differebantur.

That the legions could then have been overwhelmed, and that the Germans wished it, but were turned aside by his guile, Civilis claimed to his own credit; nor is it far from the truth, since a surrender followed a few days after. For Cerialis, by secret messages—holding out to the Batavi peace, to Civilis pardon—advised Veleda and her kinsmen to change the fortune of the war, adverse in so many disasters, by a timely service toward the Roman people: the Treveri were cut down, the Ubii taken back, their fatherland snatched from the Batavi; nor had anything been gained by friendship with Civilis but wounds, flights, mournings. An exile and a wanderer, he was a burden to those who received him, and they had sinned enough in that they had so often crossed the Rhine. If they should attempt anything beyond that, on that side would be the wrong and the guilt, on this the vengeance and the gods.

Potuisse tunc opprimi legiones et voluisse Germanos, sed dolo a se flexos imputavit Civilis; neque abhorret vero, quando paucis post diebus deditio insecuta est. nam Cerialis per occultos nuntios Batavis pacem, Civili veniam ostentans, Veledam propinquosque monebat fortunam belli, tot cladibus adversam, opportuno erga populum Romanum merito mutare: caesos Treviros, receptos Vbios, ereptam Batavis patriam; neque aliud Civilis amicitia partum quam vulnera fugas luctus. exulem eum et extorrem recipientibus oneri, et satis peccavisse quod totiens Rhenum transcenderint. si quid ultra moliantur, inde iniuriam et culpam, hinc ultionem et deos fore.

Promises were mingled with threats; and, the faith of the men across the Rhine being shaken, among the Batavi too talk arose: that ruin should not be prolonged further, nor could the servitude of the whole world be driven off by a single nation. What had been gained by the slaughter and burning of the legions, except that more and stronger ones should be summoned? If they had spent their war on Vespasian’s behalf, Vespasian was master of affairs: but if they called the Roman people to arms, what a fraction of the human race were the Batavi? Let them look to the Raeti and Norici and the burdens of the other allies: on themselves no tributes, but valor and men were laid. That was the nearest thing to liberty; and if there must be a choice of masters, it was more honorable to bear the emperors of the Romans than the women of the Germans. So the crowd; the chief men more savagely: that by Civilis’s madness they had been thrust into arms; that he had set the destruction of the nation against his own domestic evils. Then the gods had been hostile to the Batavi, when the legions were besieged, the legates killed, a war necessary to one man, deadly to themselves, was taken up. It had come to the last extremity, unless they begin to recover their senses and confess their repentance by the punishment of the guilty head.

Miscebantur minis promissa; et concussa Transrhenanorum fide inter Batavos quoque sermones orti: non prorogandam ultra ruinam, nec posse ab una natione totius orbis servitium depelli. quid profectum caede et incendiis legionum nisi ut plures validioresque accirentur? si Vespasiano bellum navaverint, Vespasianum rerum potiri: sin populum Romanum armis vocent, quotam partem generis humani Batavos esse? respicerent Raetos Noricosque et ceterorum onera sociorum: sibi non tributa, sed virtutem et viros indici. proximum id libertati; et si dominorum electio sit, honestius principes Romanorum quam Germanorum feminas tolerari. haec vulgus, proceres atrociora: Civilis rabie semet in arma trusos; illum domesticis malis excidium gentis opposuisse. tunc infensos Batavis deos, cum obsiderentur legiones, interficerentur legati, bellum uni necessarium, ferale ipsis sumeretur. ventum ad extrema, ni resipiscere incipiant et noxii capitis poena paenitentiam fateantur.

That inclination did not escape Civilis, and he resolved to forestall it, beyond the weariness of his evils, also from the hope of life, which for the most part breaks great spirits. A conference asked for, the bridge of the river Nabalia is broken, onto whose broken end the leaders advanced, and Civilis began thus: "If I were pleading before a legate of Vitellius, neither pardon for my deed nor faith for my words would be owed; all things between us were hostile: the hostilities were begun by him, increased by me: toward Vespasian I had an old respect, and, while he was a private man, we were called friends. This was known to Primus Antonius, by whose letters I was driven to war, that the German legions and the Gallic youth should not cross the Alps. What Antonius advised by letters, Hordeonius Flaccus advised in person: I moved arms in Germany, which Mucianus moved in Syria, Aponius in Moesia, Flavianus in Pannonia——

Non fefellit Civilem ea inclinatio et praevenire statuit, super taedium malorum etiam spe vitae, quae plerumque magnos animos infringit. petito conloquio scinditur Nabaliae fluminis pons, in cuius abrupta progressi duces, et Civilis ita coepit: ’si apud Vitellii legatum defenderer, neque facto meo venia neque dictis fides debebatur; cuncta inter nos inimica: hostilia ab illo coepta, a me aucta erant: erga Vespasianum vetus mihi observantia, et cum privatus esset, amici vocabamur. hoc Primo Antonio notum, cuius epistulis ad bellum actus sum, ne Germanicae legiones et Gallica iuventus Alpis transcenderent. quae Antonius epistulis, Hordeonius Flaccus praesens monebat: arma in Germania movi, quae Mucianus in Syria, Aponius in Moesia, Flavianus in Pannonia’

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