Tacitus: The Histories Part 35

All he said was true, and the other officers heaped the same 78 reproaches on their heads. The men were drawn up in cohorts and companies, since it was impossible to deploy with the enemy swarming round them, and, the fight being inside the rampart, the tents and baggage were a serious enc.u.mbrance. Tutor and Cla.s.sicus and Civilis, each at his post, were busy rallying their forces, appealing to the Gauls to fight for freedom, the Batavians for glory, and the Germans for plunder. Everything, indeed, went well for the enemy until the Twenty-first legion, who had rallied in a clearer s.p.a.ce than any of the others, first sustained their charge and then repulsed them. Then, by divine providence, on the very point of victory the enemy suddenly lost their nerve and turned tail. They themselves attributed their panic to the appearance of the Roman auxiliaries, who, after being scattered by the first charge, formed again on the hill-tops and were taken for fresh reinforcements. However, what really cost the Gauls their victory was that they let their enemy alone and indulged in ign.o.ble squabbles over the spoil. Thus after Cerialis' carelessness had almost caused disaster, his pluck now saved the day, and he followed up his success by capturing the enemy's camp and destroying it before nightfall.

Cerialis' troops were allowed short respite. Cologne was 79 clamouring for help and offering to surrender Civilis' wife and sister and Cla.s.sicus' daughter, who had been left behind there as pledges of the alliance. In the meantime the inhabitants had ma.s.sacred all the stray Germans to be found in the town. They were now alarmed at this, and had good reason to implore aid before the enemy should recover their strength and bethink themselves of victory, or at any rate of revenge. Indeed, Civilis already had designs on Cologne, and he was still formidable, for the most warlike of his cohorts, composed of Chauci and Frisii,[443] was still in full force at Tolbiac.u.m,[444]

within the territory of Cologne. However, he changed his plans on receiving the bitter news that this force had been entrapped and destroyed by the inhabitants of Cologne. They had entertained them at a lavish banquet, drugged them with wine, shut the doors upon them and burned the place to the ground. At the same moment Cerialis came by forced marches to the relief of Cologne. A further anxiety haunted Civilis. He was afraid that the Fourteenth legion, in conjunction with the fleet from Britain,[445] might harry the Batavian coast. However, Fabius Priscus, who was in command, led his troops inland into the country of the Nervii and Tungri, who surrendered to him. The Canninefates[446] made an unprovoked attack upon the fleet and sank or captured the greater number of the ships. They also defeated a band of Nervian volunteers who had been recruited in the Roman interest.

Cla.s.sicus secured a further success against an advance-guard of cavalry which Cerialis had sent forward to Novaesium. These repeated checks, though unimportant in themselves, served to dim the l.u.s.tre of the recent Roman victory.[447]

FOOTNOTES:

[416] Round Reims.

[417] Chap. 39.

[418] His sister was t.i.tus's first wife.

[419] Augustus had made it a rule that the _praefectus praetorio_ should come from the equestrian order.

[420] The text is here uncertain, and some historians maintain that the third of these legions was not XIII Gemina but VII Claudia (v. Henderson, _Civil War_, &c., p. 291).

[421] Great St. Bernard and Mt. Genevre.

[422] Little St. Bernard.

[423] See iii. 5.

[424] i.e. not raised in any one locality.

[425] Cp. ii. 22.

[426] The Triboci were in Lower Alsace; the Vangiones north of them in the district of Worms; the Caeracates probably to the north again, in the district between Mainz and the Nahe (Nava).

[427] Bingen.

[428] Chap. 62.

[429] Round Metz.

[430] See chap. 59.

[431] The other detachments of legions IV and XXII.

[432] Riol.

[433] Hordeonius Flaccus, Vocula, Herennius, and Numisius.

[434] Legions I and XVI.

[435] They had, as a matter of fact, changed their allegiance no less than six times since the outbreak of the civil war.

[436] Ariovistus, king of the Suebi, summoned to aid one Gallic confederacy against another, formed the ambition of conquering Gaul, but was defeated by Julius Caesar near Besancon (Vesontio) in 58 B.C.

[437] See chap. 68.

[438] Tutor erred. Cerialis had also the Twenty-first from Vindonissa, Felix's auxiliary cohorts, and the troops he had found at Mainz (see chaps. 70 and 71).

[439] He suppresses his own defeat at Bingen (chap. 70).

[440] The town lay on the right bank of the Moselle; the Roman camp on the left bank between the river and the hills. There was only one bridge.

[441] The Sixteenth had its permanent camp at Novaesium, the First at Bonn. Both surrendered at Novaesium (cp. chap. 59).

[442] See chaps. 59 and 70.

[443] The Frisii occupied part of Friesland; the Chauci lay east of them, between the Ems and Weser.

[444] Zulpich.

[445] A small flotilla on guard in the Channel. It probably now transported the Fourteenth and landed them at Boulogne.

[446] Cp. chap. 15.

[447] The narrative is resumed from this point in v. 14.

EVENTS IN ROME AND IN THE EAST

It was about this time that Mucia.n.u.s gave orders for the murder of 80 Vitellius' son,[448] on the plea that dissension would continue until all the seeds of war were stamped out. He also refused to allow Antonius Primus to go out on Domitian's staff, being alarmed at his popularity among the troops and at the man's own vanity, which would brook no equal, much less a superior. Antonius accordingly went to join Vespasian, whose reception, though not hostile, proved a disappointment. The emperor was drawn two ways. On the one side were Antonius' services: it was undeniable that his generalship had ended the war. In the other scale were Mucia.n.u.s' letters. Besides which, every one else seemed ready to rake up the scandals of his past life and inveigh against his vanity and bad temper. Antonius himself did his best to provoke hostility by expatiating to excess on his services, decrying the other generals as incompetent cowards, and stigmatizing Caecina as a prisoner who had surrendered. Thus without any open breach of friendship he gradually declined lower and lower in the emperor's favour.

During the months which Vespasian spent at Alexandria waiting for 81 the regular season of the summer winds[449] to ensure a safe voyage, there occurred many miraculous events manifesting the goodwill of Heaven and the special favour of Providence towards him. At Alexandria a poor workman who was well known to have a disease of the eye, acting on the advice of Serapis, whom this superst.i.tious people worship as their chief G.o.d, fell at Vespasian's feet demanding with sobs a cure for his blindness, and imploring that the emperor would deign to moisten his eyes and eyeb.a.l.l.s with the spittle from his mouth. Another man with a maimed hand, also inspired by Serapis, besought Vespasian to imprint his footmark on it. At first Vespasian laughed at them and refused. But they insisted. Half fearing to be thought a fool, half stirred to hopes by their pet.i.tion and by the flattery of his courtiers, he eventually told the doctors to form an opinion whether such cases of blindness and deformity could be remedied by human aid.

The doctors talked round the question, saying that in the one case the power of sight was not extinct and would return, if certain impediments were removed; in the other case the limbs were distorted and could be set right again by the application of an effective remedy: this might be the will of Heaven and the emperor had perhaps been chosen as the divine instrument. They added that he would gain all the credit, if the cure were successful, while, if it failed, the ridicule would fall on the unfortunate patients. This convinced Vespasian that there were no limits to his destiny: nothing now seemed incredible. To the great excitement of the bystanders, he stepped forward with a smile on his face and did as the men desired him.

Immediately the hand recovered its functions and daylight shone once more in the blind man's eyes. Those who were present still attest both miracles to-day,[450] when there is nothing to gain by lying.

This occurrence deepened Vespasian's desire to visit the 82 holy-place and consult Serapis about the fortunes of the empire. He gave orders that no one else was to be allowed in the temple, and then went in. While absorbed in his devotions, he suddenly saw behind him an Egyptian n.o.ble, named Basilides, whom he knew to be lying ill several days' journey from Alexandria. He inquired of the priests whether Basilides had entered the temple that day. He inquired of every one he met whether he had been seen in the city. Eventually he sent some hors.e.m.e.n, who discovered that at the time Basilides was eighty miles away. Vespasian therefore took what he had seen for a divine apparition, and guessed the meaning of the oracle from the name 'Basilides'.[451]

The origins of the G.o.d Serapis are not given in any Roman 83 authorities. The high-priests of Egypt give the following account: King Ptolemy, who was the first of the Macedonians to put the power of Egypt on a firm footing,[452] was engaged in building walls and temples, and inst.i.tuting religious cults for his newly founded city of Alexandria, when there appeared to him in his sleep a young man of striking beauty and supernatural stature, who warned him to send his most faithful friends to Pontus to fetch his image. After adding that this would bring luck to the kingdom, and that its resting-place would grow great and famous, he appeared to be taken up into heaven in a sheet of flame. Impressed by this miraculous prophecy, Ptolemy revealed his vision to the priests of Egypt, who are used to interpreting such things. As they had but little knowledge of Pontus or of foreign cults, he consulted an Athenian named Timotheus, a member of the Eumolpid clan,[453] whom he had brought over from Eleusis to be overseer of religious ceremonies, and asked him what worship and what G.o.d could possibly be meant. Timotheus found some people who had travelled in Pontus and learnt from them, that near a town called Sinope there was a temple, which had long been famous in the neighbourhood as the seat of Jupiter-Pluto,[454] and near it there also stood a female figure, which was commonly called Proserpine.

Ptolemy was like most despots, easily terrified at first, but liable, when his panic was over, to think more of his pleasures than of his religious duties. The incident was gradually forgotten, and other thoughts occupied his mind until the vision was repeated in a more terrible and impressive form than before, and he was threatened with death and the destruction of his kingdom if he failed to fulfil his instructions. He at once gave orders that representatives should be sent with presents to King Scydrothemis, who was then reigning at Sinope, and on their departure he instructed them to consult the oracle of Apollo at Delphi. They made a successful voyage and received a clear answer from the oracle: they were to go and bring back the image of Apollo's father but leave his sister's behind.

On their arrival at Sinope they laid their presents, their 84 pet.i.tion, and their king's instructions before Scydrothemis. He was in some perplexity. He was afraid of the G.o.d and yet alarmed by the threats of his subjects, who opposed the project: then, again, he often felt tempted by the envoys' presents and promises. Three years pa.s.sed. Ptolemy's zeal never abated for a moment. He persisted in his pet.i.tion, and kept sending more and more distinguished envoys, more ships, more gold. Then a threatening vision appeared to Scydrothemis, bidding him no longer thwart the G.o.d's design. When he still hesitated, he was beset by every kind of disease and disaster: the G.o.ds were plainly angry and their hand was heavier upon him every day.

He summoned an a.s.sembly and laid before it the divine commands, his own and Ptolemy's visions, and the troubles with which they were visited. The king found the people unfavourable. They were jealous of Egypt and fearful of their own future. So they surged angrily round the temple. The story now grows stranger still. The G.o.d himself, it says, embarked unaided on one of the ships that lay beached on the sh.o.r.e, and by a miracle accomplished the long sea-journey and landed at Alexandria within three days. A temple worthy of so important a city was then built in the quarter called Rhacotis, on the site of an ancient temple of Serapis and Isis.[455] This is the most widely accepted account of the G.o.d's origin and arrival. Some people, I am well aware, maintain that the G.o.d was brought from the Syrian town of Seleucia during the reign of Ptolemy, the third of that name.[456]

Others, again, say it was this same Ptolemy, but make the place of origin the famous town of Memphis,[457] once the bulwark of ancient Egypt. Many take the G.o.d for Aesculapius, because he cures disease: others for Osiris, the oldest of the local G.o.ds; some, again, for Jupiter, as being the sovereign lord of the world. But the majority of people, either judging by what are clearly attributes of the G.o.d or by an ingenious process of conjecture, identify him with Pluto.

Domitian and Mucia.n.u.s were now on their way to the Alps.[458] 85 Before reaching the mountains they received the good news of the victory over the Treviri, the truth of which was fully attested by the presence of their leader Valentinus. His courage was in no way crushed and his face still bore witness to the proud spirit he had shown. He was allowed a hearing, merely to see what he was made of, and condemned to death. At his execution some one cast it in his teeth that his country was conquered, to which he replied, 'Then I am reconciled to death.'

Mucia.n.u.s now gave utterance to an idea which he had long cherished, though he pretended it was a sudden inspiration. This was that, since by Heaven's grace the forces of the enemy had been broken, it would ill befit Domitian, now that the war was practically over, to stand in the way of the other generals to whom the credit belonged. Were the fortunes of the empire or the safety of Gaul at stake, it would be right that a Caesar should take the field; the Canninefates and Batavi might be left to minor generals. So Domitian was to stay at Lugdunum and there show them the power and majesty of the throne at close quarters. By abstaining from trifling risks he would be ready to cope with any greater crisis.

The ruse was detected, but it could not be unmasked. That was part 86 of the courtier's policy.[459] Thus they proceeded to Lugdunum. From there Domitian is supposed to have sent messengers to Cerialis to test his loyalty, and to ask whether the general would transfer his army and his allegiance to him, should he present himself in person.

Whether Domitian's idea was to plan war against his father or to acquire support against his brother, cannot be decided, for Cerialis parried his proposal with a salutary snub and treated it as a boy's day-dream. Realizing that older men despised his youth, Domitian gave up even those functions of government which he had hitherto performed.

Aping bashfulness and simple tastes, he hid his feelings under a cloak of impenetrable reserve, professing literary tastes and a pa.s.sion for poetry. Thus he concealed his real self and withdrew from all rivalry with his brother, whose gentler and altogether different nature he perversely misconstrued.

FOOTNOTES: