Tacitus: The Histories Part 8

Many were the stories of these occurrences, which in primitive ages are observed even in time of peace, though now we only hear of them in time of panic. But the greatest damage at the moment, and the greatest alarm for the future, was caused by a sudden rising of the Tiber.

Immensely swollen, it carried away the bridge on piles,[183] and, its current being stemmed by the heavy ruins, it flooded not only the flat, low-lying portions of the city, but also districts that seemed safe from inundation. Many people were swept away in the streets, still more were overtaken by the flood in shops or in their beds at home. The result was a famine, since food was scarce,[184] and the poor were deprived of their means of livelihood. Blocks of flats, the foundations of which had rotted in the standing water, collapsed when the river sank. No sooner had the panic caused by the flood subsided than it was found that, whereas Otho was preparing an expedition, its route over the Martian Plain and up the Flaminian Road was blocked.

Though probably caused by chance, or the course of Nature, this mishap was turned into a miraculous omen of impending disaster.

FOOTNOTES:

[152] Chap. 45.

[153] Cp. note 46.

[154] A much-frequented watering-place on the borders of Latium and Campania. The hot baths were considered good for hysteria.

[155] Cp. chap. 7.

[156] Dio and Suetonius both say that Otho offered to share the empire with Vitellius, and the latter adds that he proposed for the hand of Vitellius' daughter. Tacitus here follows Plutarch.

[157] Chap. 19.

[158] As a matter of fact, only twelve days before. It was on the 2nd or 3rd of January that the troops of Lower and Upper Germany proclaimed Vitellius. Galba fell to Otho on January 15.

[159] L. Salvius Otho t.i.tia.n.u.s, Otho's elder brother.

[160] There were two legions in Dalmatia, two in Pannonia, three in Moesia, and two in Spain (see Summary, note 3).

[161] Cp. chap. 8.

[162] This included Savoy, Dauphine, part of Provence or Languedoc.

[163] Legs. V Macedonica, X Fretensis, XV Apollinaris.

[164] IV Scythica, VI Ferrata, XII Fulminata, and III Gallica.

[165] Since Claudius the great imperial bureaux, the posts of private secretary, patronage-secretary, financial secretary, &c., had all been held by freedmen. Cp. chap. 58.

[166] Otho and t.i.tia.n.u.s would naturally have held it for four months.

[167] Vopiscus presumably came from Vienne, which had espoused the cause first of Vindex, then of Galba. Cp. chap. 65.

[168] Not to be confused with Vespasian's brother.

[169] Grandfather of the Emperor Antoninus Pius.

[170] Name uncertain in MS.

[171] i.e. to be accused of 'treason' was in these days to win public sympathy, even though the defendant were guilty of offences under other more useful statutes.

[172] Seville and Merida.

[173] As the rest of this sentence refers to Spain and Portugal it has been proposed to read for _Lingones Lusones_, a Celtiberian tribe round the sources of the Tagus. The Lingones were devoted to the cause of Vitellius. (See chap.

53, &c.)

[174] They had been thrown down by the populace, when Nero, after divorcing Antonia, was shamed--or frightened--into taking her back. (Cp. chap. 13.)

[175] They lived between the Dnieper and the Don, to the north of the Sea of Azov.

[176] Gallica.

[177] This would depict him in full triumphal garb. But only the emperor could actually hold a triumph, since it was under his auspices that his generals fought.

[178] _Cohors civium Romanorum_. See note 130.

[179] The meaning of the t.i.tle _praefectus legionis_ is doubtful. It seems most likely to mean the same as _praefectus castrorum_, an officer who superintended the camp and sometimes acted as second-in-command (cp. ii. 89). The post was one to which senior centurions could rise. At this period they were not attached to a legion, but to a camp, where more than one legion might be quartered. That makes the phrase here used curious. The legion is that of the marines now stationed in Rome (cp. chaps. 6 and 9). They appear to have joined the mutinous Seventeenth cohort when they reached the city.

[180] About 40.

[181] The insignia of a tribunus were a tunic with a broad or narrow stripe (accordingly as they were of senatorial or equestrian rank), and a gold ring. A centurion carried a staff made of a vine-branch, for disciplinary purposes.

[182] One of the three chapels in the temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline.

[183] The pons Sublicius which led from the Velabrum to Janiculum. It was the bridge which Horatius Cocles defended, and a certain sanct.i.ty attached to it.

[184] Plutarch mentions that the quarter which suffered most was that which contained the retail provision-shops.

OTHO'S PLANS

Otho had held a purification of the city[185] and meditated his 87 plans for the war. Recognizing that the Pennine and Cottian Alps and all the other pa.s.ses into Gaul were held by Vitellius, he decided to invade Narbonese Gaul by sea. His fleet was now a strong and reliable arm, devoted to his cause. For he had formed the full strength of a legion out of the survivors of the Mulvian Bridge ma.s.sacre,[186] whom Galba's cruelty had kept in prison, and to all the marines he had held out hopes of honourable service.[187] To the fleet he attached the cohorts of the City Garrison and a large force of Guards. These were the flower of the army and its chief strength, well able to advise their own generals and to take good care of them. The command of the expedition was entrusted to Antonius Novellus and Suedius Clemens, both senior centurions,[188] and to Aemilius Pacensis, to whom Otho had restored his commission,[189] of which Galba had deprived him. In charge of the fleet he still retained the freedman Moschus[190] to keep an eye on his betters. In command of the cavalry and infantry he placed Suetonius Paulinus, Marius Celsus, and Annius Gallus, but the man in whom he put most faith was the Prefect of the Guards, Licinius Proculus. This officer had shown himself efficient in garrison service, but was without any experience of warfare. He maligned the characteristic virtues of his colleagues, Paulinus' power of influence, Celsus' energy, Gallus' ripe judgement, and being a knave and no fool, he easily got the better of men who were both honest and loyal.

It was about this time that Cornelius Dolabella[191] was banished 88 to the colony of Aquinum,[192] though not kept in close or dishonourable confinement. There was no charge against him: the stigma upon him was his ancient name and kinship[193] to Galba. Otho issued orders that several of the magistrates and a large number of ex-consuls were to join the expedition, not to take part in the campaign or to a.s.sist in any way, but simply as a friendly escort.

Among these was Lucius Vitellius, whom he treated neither as an emperor's brother nor as the brother of an enemy, but just like anybody else. Much anxiety was aroused for the safety of the city, where all cla.s.ses feared danger. The leading members of the senate were old and infirm, and enervated by a long period of peace: the aristocracy were inefficient and had forgotten how to fight: the knights knew nothing of military service. The more they all tried to conceal their alarm, the more obvious it became. Some of them, on the other hand, went in for senseless display, and purchased beautiful armour and fine horses: others procured as provisions of war elaborate dinner-services or some other contrivance to stimulate a jaded taste.

Prudent men were concerned for the country's peace: the frivolous, without a thought for the future, were inflated by empty hopes: a good many, whose loss of credit made peace unwelcome, were delighted at the general unrest, feeling safer among uncertainties. Though the 89 cares of state were too vast to arouse any interest in the ma.s.ses, yet as the price of food rose, and the whole revenue was devoted to military purposes, the common people gradually began to realize the evils of war. During the revolt of Vindex they had not suffered so much. Being carried on in the provinces between the legionaries and the natives of Gaul it was to all intents a foreign war, and the city had not been affected. For from the time when the sainted Augustus organized the rule of the Caesars the wars of the Roman people had been fought in distant countries: all the anxiety and all the glory fell to the emperor alone. Under Tiberius and Caligula the country only suffered from the evils of peace.[194] Scribonia.n.u.s' rising against Claudius was no sooner heard of than crushed.[195] Nero had been dethroned more by rumours and dispatches than by force of arms.

But now not only the legions and the fleet, but, as had seldom happened before, the Guards and the City Garrison were called out for the campaign. Behind them were the East and the West and all the forces of the empire, material for a long war under any other generals. An attempt was made to delay Otho's departure by pointing out the impiety of his not having replaced the sacred shields in the temple of Mars.[196] But delay had ruined Nero: Otho would have none of it. And the knowledge that Caecina had already crossed the Alps[197] acted as a further stimulus.

Accordingly, on the fourteenth of March he commended the 90 government of the country to the senate, and granted to the restored exiles all the rest of the property confiscated by Nero which had not yet been sold for the imperial treasury.[198] The gift was a just one, and made a very good impression, but as a matter of fact it was nullified by the haste with which the work of collecting the money had been conducted.[199] He then summoned a public meeting, and, after extolling the majesty of Rome and praising the wholehearted adherence of the senate and people to his cause, he used very moderate language against the Vitellian party, criticizing the legions more for folly than treason, and making no mention of Vitellius himself. This may have been due to his own moderation, or it may be that the writer of the speech felt some qualms for his own safety, and therefore refrained from insulting Vitellius. For it was generally believed that as in strategy he took the advice of Suetonius Paulinus and Marius Celsus, so too in political matters he employed the talents of Galerius Trachalus.[200] Some people even thought they could recognize Trachalus' style of oratory, fluent and sonorous, well adapted to tickle the ears of the crowd: and as he was a popular pleader his style was well known. The crowd's loud shouts of applause were in the best style of flattery, excessive and insincere. Men vied with each other in their enthusiasm and prayers for his success, much as though they were sending off the dictator Caesar or the emperor Augustus. Their motive was neither fear nor affection, but a sheer pa.s.sion for servility. One can see the same in households of slaves, where each obeys his own interest and the common welfare counts for nothing. On his departure Otho entrusted the peace of the city and the interests of the empire to his brother Salvius t.i.tia.n.u.s.

FOOTNOTES:

[185] He would lead the victim, before sacrificing it, round the ancient boundary of the city, and thus avert the disasters threatened by the alarming omens detailed in the last chapter.

[186] Cp. chaps. 6 and 37.

[187] i.e. of becoming eventually a legion or praetorian cohort.

[188] Cp. note 57.

[189] The command of a cohort in the City Garrison.

[190] He had held this post under Nero and Galba. His functions were those of steward and spy combined.

[191] He had been a rival candidate for adoption by Galba.