Book IV

), and became governor of Britain in 71.

[163] Vespasian's brother and younger son were both in Rome, the former still holding the office of city prefect (cp. i. 46).

[164] Casigliano.

[165] From Verona (see chap. 52).

[166] Terni.

[167] At Narnia.

[168] The two prefects of the guard.

[169] See chap. 43.

[170] Properly a festival to celebrate the first cutting of the beard. Nero forced high officials and their wives to take

## part in unseemly performances (ii. 62), and the festivities

became a public scandal, culminating in Nero's own appearance as a lyrist.

[171] See i. 7, 8.

THE ABDICATION OF VITELLIUS AND THE BURNING OF THE CAPITOL

During these days Antonius and Varus kept sending messages to Vitellius, in which they offered him his life, a gift of money, and the choice of a safe retreat in Campania, if he would stop the war and surrender himself and his children to Vespasian. Mucianus wrote him letters to the same effect. Vitellius usually took these offers seriously and talked about the number of slaves he would have and the choice of a seaside place. He had sunk, indeed, into such mental torpor that, if other people had not remembered that he was an emperor, he was certainly beginning to forget it himself. However, 64 it was to Flavius Sabinus, the City Prefect, that the leading men at Rome addressed themselves. They urged him secretly not to lose all share in the glory of victory. They pointed out that the City Garrison was under his own command, and that he could count on the police and their own bands of slaves, to say nothing of the good fortune of the party and all the advantage that victory gives. He must not leave all the glory to Antonius and Varus. Vitellius had nothing left but a few regiments of guards, who were seriously alarmed at the bad news which came from every quarter. As for the populace, their feelings soon changed, and if he put himself at their head, they would be just as loud in their flattery of Vespasian. Vitellius himself could not even cope with success, and disaster had positively paralysed him. The credit of ending the war would go to the man who seized the city. It was eminently fitting that Sabinus should secure the throne for his brother, and that Vespasian should hold him higher than any one else.

Age had enfeebled Sabinus, and he showed no alacrity to listen to 65 such talk as this. Some people covertly insinuated that he was jealous of his brother's success and was trying to delay its realization. Flavius Sabinus was the elder brother and, while they were both private persons, he had been the richer and more influential. It was also believed that he had been chary in helping Vespasian to recover his financial position, and had taken a mortgage on his house and estates. Consequently, though they remained openly friendly, there were suspicions of a secret enmity between them. The more charitable explanation is that Sabinus's gentle nature shrank from the idea of bloodshed and massacre, and that this was his reason for so constantly discussing with Vitellius the prospects of peace and a capitulation on terms. After several interviews at his house they finally came to a settlement--so the report went--at the Temple of Apollo.[172] To the actual conversation there were only two witnesses, Cluvius Rufus[173] and Silius Italicus,[174] but the expression of their faces was watched from a distance. Vitellius was said to look abject and demoralized: Sabinus showed less sign of pride than of pity.

Had Vitellius found it no harder to persuade his friends than to 66 make his own renunciation, Vespasian's army might have marched into Rome without bloodshed. But as it was, each of his friends in proportion to his loyalty persisted in refusing terms of peace. They pointed to the danger and disgrace. Would their conqueror keep his promises any longer than he liked? However great Vespasian's self-confidence, he could not allow Vitellius to live in private. Nor would the losers acquiesce: their very pity would be a menace.[175] 'Of course,' they said, 'you are an old man. You have done with fortune, good or bad. But what sort of repute or position would your son Germanicus[176] enjoy? At present they are promising you money and a household, and the pleasant shores of Campania. But when once Vespasian has seized the throne, neither he nor his friends nor even his army will feel their safety assured until the rival claimant is dead. They imprisoned Fabius Valens and meant to make use of him if a crisis occurred, but they found him too great an incubus. You may be sure that Antonius and Fuscus and that typical representative of the party, Mucianus, will have no choice but to kill you. Julius Caesar did not let Pompey live unmolested, nor Augustus Antony.[177] Do you suppose that Vespasian's is a loftier disposition? Why, he was one of your father's dependants,[178] when your father was Claudius's colleague.[179] No, think of your father's censorship, his three consulships,[179] and all the honour your great house has won. You must not disgrace them. Despair, at least, should nerve your courage. The troops are steadfast; you still enjoy the people's favour. Indeed, nothing worse can happen to you than what we are eager to face of our own free will. If we are defeated, we must die; if we surrender, we must die. All that matters is whether we breathe our last amid mockery and insult or bravely and with honour.'

But Vitellius was deaf to all courageous counsel. His mind was 67 obsessed with pity for his wife and children, and an anxious fear that obstinate resistance might make the conqueror merciless towards them. He had also a mother,[180] very old and infirm, but she had opportunely died a few days before and thus forestalled the ruin of her house. All she had got out of her son's principate was sorrow and a good name. On December 17 he heard the news that the legion and the Guards at Narnia had deserted him and surrendered to the enemy. He at once put on mourning and left the palace, surrounded by his sorrowful household. His small son was carried in a little litter, as though this had been his funeral. The populace uttered untimely flatteries: the soldiers kept an ominous silence.

On that day there was no one so indifferent to the tragedy of 68 human life as to be unmoved by this spectacle. A Roman emperor, yesterday master of the inhabited world, had left the seat of his authority, and was now passing through the streets of the city, through the crowding populace, quitting the throne. Such a sight had never been seen or heard of before. The dictator, Caesar, had been the victim of sudden violence; Caligula of a secret conspiracy. Nero's had been a stealthy flight to some obscure country house under cover of night. Piso and Galba might almost be said to have fallen on the field of battle. But here was Vitellius--before the assembly of his own people, his own soldiers around him, with women even looking on--uttering a few sentences suitable to his miserable situation. He said it was in the interest of peace and of his country that he now resigned. He begged them only to retain his memory in their hearts and to take pity on his brother, his wife, and his little innocent children. As he said this, he held out his son to them and commended him, now to individuals, now to the whole assembly. At last tears choked his voice. Turning to the consul, Caecilius Simplex,[181] who was standing by, he unstrapped his sword and offered to surrender it as a symbol of his power over the life and death of his subjects. The consul refused. The people in the assembly shouted 'No'. So he left them with the intention of depositing the regalia in the Temple of Concord and then going to his brother's house. But he was faced with a still louder uproar. They refused to let him enter a private house, and shouted to him to return to the palace. They blocked every other way and only left the road leading into the Via Sacra open.[182] Not knowing what else to do, Vitellius returned to the palace.

A rumour of his abdication had preceded him, and Flavius Sabinus 69 had sent written instructions to the Guards'[183] officers to keep the men in hand. Thus the whole empire seemed to have fallen into Vespasian's lap. The chief senators, the majority of the knights, and the whole of the city garrison and the police came flocking to the house of Flavius Sabinus. There they heard the news of the popular enthusiasm for Vitellius and the threatening attitude of the German Guards.[184] But Sabinus had gone too far to draw back, and when he showed hesitation, they all began to urge him to fight, each being afraid for his own safety if the Vitellians were to fall on them when they were disunited and consequently weaker. However, as so often happens on these occasions, every one offered to give advice but few to share the danger. While Sabinus' Body Guard were marching down by the Fundane reservoir[185] they were attacked by some of the most determined Vitellians. The surprise was unpremeditated, but the Vitellians got the best of an unimportant skirmish. In the panic Sabinus chose what was at the moment the safest course, and occupied the summit of the Capitol,[186] where his troops were joined by a few senators and knights. It is not easy to record their names, since after Vespasian's victory crowds of people claimed credit for this service to the party. There were even some women who endured the siege, the most famous of them being Verulana Gratilla, who had neither children nor relatives to attract her, but only her love of danger.[187]

The Vitellians, who were investing them, kept a half-hearted watch, and Sabinus was thus enabled to send for his own children and his nephew Domitian at dead of night, dispatching a courier by an unguarded route to tell the Flavian generals that he and his men were under siege, and would be in great straits unless they were rescued. All night, indeed, he was quite unmolested, and could have escaped with perfect safety. The Vitellian troops could face danger with spirit, but were much too careless in the task of keeping guard; besides which a sudden storm of chilly rain interfered with their sight and hearing.

At daybreak, before the two sides commenced hostilities, Sabinus 70 sent Cornelius Martialis, who had been a senior centurion, to Vitellius with instructions to complain that the conditions were being violated; that he had evidently made a mere empty show of abdication, meant to deceive a number of eminent gentlemen. Else why had he gone from the meeting to his brother's house, which caught the eye from a conspicuous position overlooking the Forum, and not rather to his wife's on the Aventine. That was the proper course for a private citizen, anxious to avoid all pretension to supreme authority. But no, Vitellius had returned to the palace, the very stronghold of imperial majesty. From there he had launched a column of armed men, who had strewn with innocent dead the most crowded quarter of Rome, and even laid violent hands upon the Capitol. As for Sabinus himself, the messenger was to say, he was only a civilian, a mere member of the senate. While the issue was being decided between Vespasian and Vitellius by the engagement of legions, the capture of towns, the capitulation of cohorts; even when the provinces of Spain, of Germany, of Britain, had risen in revolt; he, though Vespasian's brother, had still remained faithful to his allegiance, until Vitellius, unasked, began to invite him to a conference. Peace and union, he was to remind him, serve the interest of the losers, and only the reputation of the winners. If Vitellius regretted their compact, he ought not to take arms against Sabinus, whom he had treacherously deceived, and against Vespasian's son, who was still a mere boy. What was the good of killing one youth and one old man? He ought rather to march out against the legions and fight for the empire on the field. The result of the battle would decide all other questions.

Greatly alarmed, Vitellius replied with a few words in which he tried to excuse himself and throw the blame on his soldiers. 'I am too unassuming,' he said, 'to cope with their overpowering impatience.' He then warned Martialis to make his way out of the house by a secret passage, for fear that the soldiers should kill him as an ambassador of the peace to which they were so hostile. Vitellius himself was not in a position to issue orders or prohibitions; no longer an emperor, merely an excuse for war.

Martialis had hardly returned to the Capitol when the furious 71 soldiery arrived. They had no general to lead them: each was a law to himself. Their column marched at full speed through the Forum and past the temples overlooking it. Then in battle order they advanced up the steep hill in front of them, until they reached the lowest gates of the fortress on the Capitol. In old days there was a series of colonnades at the side of this slope, on the right as you go up. Emerging on to the roof of these, the besieged overwhelmed the Vitellians with showers of stones and tiles. The attacking party carried nothing but swords, and it seemed a long business to send for siege-engines and missiles. So they flung torches into the nearest[188] colonnade and, following in the wake of the flames, would have burst through the burnt gates of the Capitol, if Sabinus had not torn down all the available statues--the monuments of our ancestors' glory--and built a sort of barricade on the very threshold. They then tried to attack the Capitol by two opposite approaches, one near the 'Grove of Refuge'[189] and the other by the hundred steps which lead up to the Tarpeian Rock. This double assault came as a surprise. That by the Refuge was the closer and more vigorous. Nothing could stop the Vitellians, who climbed up by some contiguous houses built on to the side of the hill, which in the days of prolonged peace had been raised to such a height that their roofs were level with the floor of the Capitol. It is uncertain whether the buildings at this point were fired by the assailants or--as tradition prefers--by the besieged in trying to dislodge their enemies who had struggled up so far. The fire spread to the colonnades adjoining the temples, and then the 'eagles'[190] supporting the roof, which were made of very old wood, caught the flames and fed them. And so the Capitol, with its doors fast shut, undefended and unplundered, was burnt to the ground.

Since the foundation of the city no such deplorable and horrible 72 disaster had ever befallen the people of Rome. It was no case of foreign invasion. Had our own wickedness allowed, the country might have been enjoying the blessings of a benign Providence; and yet here was the seat of Jupiter Almighty--the temple solemnly founded by our ancestors as the pledge of their imperial greatness, on which not even Porsenna,[191] when Rome surrendered, nor the Gauls, when they took it, had ever dared to lay rash hands--being brought utterly to ruin by the mad folly of two rival emperors![192] The Capitol had been burnt before in civil war,[193] but that was the crime of private persons. Now it had been openly assaulted by the people of Rome and openly burnt by them. And what was the cause of war? what the recompense for such a disaster? Were we fighting for our country?

King Tarquinius Priscus had vowed to build this temple in the Sabine war, and had laid the foundations on a scale that suited rather his hope of the city's future greatness than the still moderate fortunes of the Roman people. Later Servius Tullius, with the aid of Rome's allies, and Tarquinius Superbus, with the spoils of the Volscians after the capture of Suessa Pometia,[194] continued the building. But the glory of completing it was reserved for the days of freedom. After the expulsion of the kings, Horatius Pulvillus, in his second consulship[195] dedicated this monument on such a magnificent scale, that in later days, with all her boundless wealth, Rome has been able to embellish but never to enlarge it. After an interval of four hundred and fifteen years, in the consulship of Lucius Scipio and Caius Norbanus,[196] it was burnt and rebuilt on the same site. Sulla after his victory undertook the task of restoring it, but did not dedicate it. This only was lacking to justify his title of 'Fortune's Favourite'.[197] Much as the emperors did to it, the name of Lutatius Catulus[198] still remained upon it up to the time of Vitellius.[199] This was the temple that was now ablaze.

The besieged suffered more panic than their assailants. The 73 Vitellian soldiers lacked neither resource nor steadiness in moments of crisis. But on the other side the troops were terrified, the general[200] inert, and apparently so paralysed that he was practically deaf and dumb. He neither adopted others' plans nor formed any of his own, but only drifted about from place to place, attracted by the shouts of the enemy, contradicting all his own orders. The result was what always happens in a hopeless disaster: everybody gave orders and nobody obeyed them. At last they threw away their weapons and began to peer round for a way of escape or some means of hiding. Then the Vitellians came bursting in, and with fire and sword made one red havoc. A few good soldiers dared to show fight and were cut to pieces. Of these the most notable were Cornelius Martialis,[201] Aemilius Pacensis,[202] Casperius Niger, and Didius Scaeva. Flavius Sabinus, who stood unarmed and making no attempt to escape, was surrounded together with the consul Quintius Atticus,[203] whose empty title made him a marked man, as well as his personal vanity, which had led him to distribute manifestoes full of compliments to Vespasian and insults against Vitellius. The rest escaped by various means. Some disguised themselves as slaves: some were sheltered by faithful dependants: some hid among the baggage. Others again caught the Vitellians' password, by which they recognized each other, and actually went about demanding it and giving it when challenged, thus escaping under a cloak of effrontery.

When the enemy first broke in, Domitian had taken refuge with the 74 sacristan, and was enabled by the ingenuity of a freedman to escape among a crowd of worshippers in a linen dress,[204] and to take refuge near the Velabrum with Cornelius Primus, one of his father's dependants. When his father came to the throne, Domitian pulled down the sacristan's lodging and built a little chapel to Jupiter the Saviour with an altar, on which his adventures were depicted in marble relief. Later, when he became emperor, he dedicated a huge temple to Jupiter the Guardian with a statue of himself in the lap of the god.

Sabinus and Atticus were loaded with chains and taken to Vitellius, who received them without any language or looks of disfavour, much to the chagrin of those who wanted to see them punished with death and themselves rewarded for their successful labours. When those who stood nearest started an outcry, the dregs of the populace soon began to demand Sabinus' execution with mingled threats and flatteries. Vitellius came out on to the steps of the palace prepared to plead for him: but they forced him to desist. Sabinus was stabbed and riddled with wounds: his head was cut off and the trunk dragged away to 75 the Ladder of Sighs.[205] Such was the end of a man who certainly merits no contempt. He had served his country for thirty-five years, and won credit both as civilian and soldier. His integrity and fairness were beyond criticism. He talked too much about himself, but this is the one charge which rumour could hint against him in the seven years when he was Governor of Moesia, and the twelve years during which he was Prefect of the City. At the end of his life some thought he showed a lack of enterprise, but many believed him a moderate man, who was anxious to save his fellow citizens from bloodshed. In this, at any rate, all would agree, that before Vespasian became emperor the reputation of his house rested on Sabinus. It is said that Mucianus was delighted to hear of his murder, and many people maintained that it served the interests of peace by putting an end to the jealousy of two rivals, one of whom was the emperor's brother, while the other posed as his partner in the empire.[206]

When the people further demanded the execution of the consul, Vitellius withstood them. He had forgiven Atticus, and felt that he owed him a favour, for, when asked who had set fire to the Capitol, Atticus had taken the blame on himself, by which avowal--or was it a well-timed falsehood?--he had fixed all the guilt and odium on himself and exonerated the Vitellian party.

FOOTNOTES:

[172] On the Palatine.

[173] See i. 8.

[174] A friend of Vitellius and the author of the historical epic on the second Punic War.

[175] This apparently means that, if Vitellius were spared, pity for his position would inspire his supporters to make further trouble.

[176] See ii. 59.

[177] Two good points, but both untrue.

[178] This too is probably hyperbole, but Vespasian may have owed his command in Germany to the influence of Vitellius' father.

[179] See i. 52, note 99.

[180] See ii. 64, 89.

[181] See ii. 60.

[182] i.e. the way back from the Forum to the Palace.

[183] Including the city garrison and police.

[184] In chap. 78 we find three cohorts of Guards still faithful to Vitellius, and, as it appears from ii. 93, 94 that men from the legions of Germany had been enlisted in the Guards, the term _Germanicae cohortes_ seems to refer to these three cohorts, in which perhaps the majority were men from the German army.

[185] Said to be on the Quirinal.

[186] Either the whole hill, or, if the expression is exact, the south-west summit.

[187] This seems to have led her later into the paths of conspiracy, for she is said to have been banished by Domitian for her friendship with Arulenus Rusticus.

[188] _Prominentem_ seems to mean the one that projected towards them.

[189] The space lying between the two peaks of the Capitoline.

[190] A technical term for the beams of the pediment.

[191] 'Lars Porsenna of Clusium,' 507 B.C.

[192] 'Burning the Capitol' was a proverb of utter iniquity.

[193] In the war between Sulla and Marius, 83 B.C.

[194] The capital town of the Volscians. This early history is told in the first book of Livy.

[195] 507 B.C.

[196] 83 B.C. The interval is really 425 years.

[197] This, according to Pliny, was Sulla's own saying.

[198] Consul in 69 B.C. He took the title of Capitolinus.

[199] On the monument which details his exploits Augustus says that he restored the Capitol at immense cost without inscribing his name on it.

[200] Flavius Sabinus.

[201] Cp. chap. 70.

[202] Cp. i. 20, 87; ii. 12.

[203] Consul for November and December. His colleague, Caecilius Simplex, was on the other side (see chap. 68).

[204] The dress of the worshippers of the Egyptian goddess Isis, who considered woollen clothes unclean.

[205] A flight of steps leading down from the Capitol to the Forum. On them the bodies of criminals were exposed after execution.

[206] Mucianus.

THE TAKING OF TARRACINA

About this same time Lucius Vitellius,[207] who had pitched his 76 camp at the Temple of Feronia,[208] made every effort to destroy Tarracina, where he had shut up the gladiators and sailors, who would not venture to leave the shelter of the walls or to face death in the open. The gladiators were commanded, as we have already seen,[209] by Julianus, and the sailors by Apollinaris, men whose dissolute inefficiency better suited gladiators than general officers. They set no watch, and made no attempt to repair the weak places in the walls. Day and night they idled loosely; the soldiers were dispatched in all directions to find them luxuries; that beautiful coast rang with their revelry; and they only spoke of war in their cups. A few days earlier, Apinius Tiro[210] had started on his mission, and, by rigorously requisitioning gifts of money in all the country towns, was winning more unpopularity than assistance for the cause.

In the meantime, one of Vergilius Capito's slaves deserted to 77 Lucius Vitellius, and promised that, if he were provided with men, he would put the abandoned castle into their hands. Accordingly, at dead of night he established a few lightly armed cohorts on the top of the hills which overlooked the enemy. Thence the soldiers came charging down more to butchery than battle. They cut down their victims standing helpless and unarmed or hunting for their weapons, or perhaps newly startled from their sleep--all in a bewildering confusion of darkness, panic, bugle-calls, and savage cries. A few of the gladiators resisted and sold their lives dearly. The rest rushed to the ships; and there the same panic and confusion reigned, for the villagers were all mixed up with the troops, and the Vitellians slaughtered them too, without distinction. Just as the first uproar began, six Liburnian cruisers slipped away with the admiral Apollinaris on board. The rest were either captured on the beach or overweighted and sunk by the crowds that clambered over them. Julianus was taken to Lucius Vitellius, who had him flogged till he bled and then killed before his eyes. Some writers have accused Lucius Vitellius' wife, Triaria,[211] of putting on a soldier's sword, and with insolent cruelty showing herself among the horrors of the captured town. Lucius himself sent a laurel-wreath to his brother in token of his success, and inquired whether he wished him to return at once or to continue reducing Campania. This delay saved not only Vespasian's party but Rome as well. Had he marched on the city while his men were fresh from their victory, with the flush of success added to their natural intrepidity, there would have been a tremendous struggle, which must have involved the city's destruction. Lucius Vitellius, too, for all his evil repute, was a man of action. Good men owe their power to their virtues; but he was one of that worst sort whose vices are their only virtue.

FOOTNOTES:

[207] See chap. 58.

[208] An Italian goddess of freedom. The temple is mentioned in Horace's _Journey to Brundisium_, where Anxur = Tarracina, which was three miles from the temple.

[209] Chap. 57.

[210] He was in command of the rebels from the fleet at Misenum, and engaged in bringing over the country-towns (see chap. 57).

[211] Cp. chaps. 63 and 64.

THE SACK OF ROME AND THE END OF VITELLIUS

While things[212] went thus on Vitellius' side, the Flavian army 78 after leaving Narnia spent the days of the Saturnalian holiday[213] quietly at Ocriculum.[214] The object of this disastrous delay was to wait for Mucianus. Antonius has been suspected of delaying treacherously after receiving a secret communication from Vitellius, offering him as the price of treason the consulship, his young daughter, and a rich dowry. Others hold that this story was invented to gratify Mucianus. Many consider that the policy of all the Flavian generals was rather to threaten the city than to attack it. They realized that Vitellius had lost the best cohorts of his Guards, and now that all his forces were cut off they expected he would abdicate. But this prospect was spoilt first by Sabinus' precipitation and then by his cowardice, for, after very rashly taking arms, he failed to defend against three cohorts of Guards the strongly fortified castle on the Capitol, which ought to have been impregnable even to a large army. However, it is not easy to assign to any one man the blame which they all share. Even Mucianus helped to delay the victors' advance by the ambiguity of his dispatches, and Antonius was also to blame for his untimely compliance with instructions--or else for trying to throw the responsibility[215] on Mucianus. The other generals thought the war was over, and thus rendered its final scene all the more appalling. Petilius Cerialis was sent forward with a thousand cavalry to make his way by cross-roads through the Sabine country, and enter the city by the Salarian road.[216] But even he failed to make sufficient haste, and at last the news of the siege of the Capitol brought them all at once to their senses.

Marching up the Flaminian road, it was already deep night when 79 Antonius reached 'The Red Rocks'.[217] His help had come too late. There he heard that Sabinus had been killed, and the Capitol burnt; the city was in panic; everything looked black; even the populace and the slaves were arming for Vitellius. Petilius Cerialis, too, had been defeated in a cavalry engagement. He had pushed on without caution, thinking the enemy already beaten, and the Vitellians with a mixed force of horse and foot had caught him unawares. The engagement had taken place near the city among farm buildings and gardens and winding lanes, with which the Vitellians were familiar, while the Flavians were terrified by their ignorance. Besides, the troopers were not all of one mind; some of them belonged to the force which had recently surrendered at Narnia, and were waiting to see which side won. Julius Flavianus, who commanded a regiment of cavalry, was taken prisoner. The rest fell into a disgraceful panic and fled, but the pursuit was not continued beyond Fidenae.

This success served to increase the popular excitement. The city 80 rabble now took arms. A few had service-shields: most of them snatched up any weapons they could find and clamoured to be given the sign for battle. Vitellius expressed his gratitude to them and bade them sally forth to protect the city. He then summoned a meeting of the senate, at which envoys were appointed to go to the two armies and urge them in the name of public welfare to accept peace. The fortunes of the envoys varied. Those who approached Petilius Cerialis found themselves in dire danger, for the soldiers indignantly refused their terms. The praetor, Arulenus Rusticus,[218] was wounded. Apart from the wrong done to a praetor and an envoy, the man's own acknowledged worth made this seem all the more scandalous. His companions were flogged, and the lictor nearest to him was killed for venturing to make a way through the crowd. Indeed, if the guard provided by the general had not intervened, a Roman envoy, the sanctity of whose person even foreign nations respect, might have been wickedly murdered in the mad rage of civil strife under the very walls of Rome. Those who went to Antonius met with a more reasonable reception; not that the soldiers were less violent, but the general had more authority.

A knight named Musonius Rufus had attached himself to the envoys. 81 He was a student of philosophy and an enthusiastic advocate of Stoicism. He mingled with the armed soldiers offering them advice and discoursing on the advantages of peace and the perils of war. This amused many of them and bored still more. Some, indeed, wanted to maul him and kick him out, but the advice of the more sober spirits and the threats of others persuaded him to cut short his ill-timed lecture. The Vestal Virgins, too, came in procession to bring Antonius a letter from Vitellius, in which he demanded one day's postponement of the final crisis, saying that everything could easily be settled, if only they would grant this respite. Antonius sent the Virgins away with all respect, and wrote in answer to Vitellius that the murder of Sabinus and the burning of the Capitol had broken off all negotiations. However, he summoned the legions to a meeting and 82 endeavoured to mollify them, proposing that they should pitch their camp near the Mulvian Bridge and enter the city on the following day. His motive for delay was a fear that the troops, when once their blood was up after a skirmish, would have no respect for civilians or senators, or even for the temples and shrines of the gods. But they suspected every postponement as a hindrance to their victory. Moreover, some colours which were seen glittering along the hills, gave the impression of a hostile force, although none but peaceful citizens accompanied them.

The attack was made in three columns. One advanced from its original position on the Flaminian road, one kept near the bank of the Tiber, and the third approached the Colline Gate along the Salarian road. The cavalry rode into the mob and scattered them. But the Vitellian troops faced the enemy, themselves, too, in three separate divisions. Again and again they engaged before the walls with varying success. But the Flavians had the advantage of being well led and thus more often won success. Only one of the attacking parties suffered at all severely, that which had made its way along narrow, greasy lanes to Sallust's Gardens[219] on the left side of the city. Standing on the garden walls, the Vitellians hurled stones and javelins down upon them and held them back until late in the day. But at last the cavalry forced an entrance by the Colline Gate and took the defenders in the rear. Then the opposing forces met on the Martian Plain itself. Fortune favoured the Flavians and the sense of victories won. The Vitellians charged in sheer despair, but, though driven back, they gathered again in the city.

The people came and watched the fighting, cheering and applauding 83 now one side, now the other, like spectators at a gladiatorial contest. Whenever one side gave ground, and the soldiers began to hide in shops or seek refuge in some private house, they clamoured for them to be dragged out and killed, and thus got the greater part of the plunder for themselves: for while the soldiers were busy with the bloody work of massacre, the spoil fell to the crowd. The scene throughout the city was hideous and terrible: on the one side fighting and wounded men, on the other baths and restaurants: here lay heaps of bleeding dead, and close at hand were harlots and their companions--all the vice and licence of luxurious peace, and all the crime and horror of a captured town. One might well have thought the city mad with fury and mad with pleasure at the same time. Armies had fought in the city before this, twice when Sulla mastered Rome,[220] once under Cinna.[221] Nor were there less horrors then. What was now so inhuman was the people's indifference. Not for one minute did they interrupt the life of pleasure. The fighting was a new amusement for their holiday.[222] Caring nothing for either party, they enjoyed themselves in riotous dissipation and took a frank pleasure in their country's disaster.

The storming of the Guards' camp was the most troublesome task. It 84 was still held by some of the bravest as a forlorn hope, which made the victors all the more eager to take it, especially those who had originally served in the Guards. They employed against it every means ever devised for the storming of the most strongly fortified towns, a 'tortoise',[223] artillery, earthworks, firebrands. This, they cried, was the crown of all the toil and danger they had undergone in all their battles. They had restored the city to the senate and people of Rome, and their Temples to the gods: the soldier's pride is his camp, it is his country and his home. If they could not regain it at once, they must spend the night in fighting. The Vitellians, for their part, had numbers and fortune against them, but by marring their enemy's victory, by postponing peace, by fouling houses and altars with their blood, they embraced the last consolations that the conquered can enjoy. Many lay more dead than alive on the towers and ramparts of the walls and there expired. When the gates were torn down, the remainder faced the conquerors in a body. And there they fell, every man of them facing the enemy with all his wounds in front. Even as they died they took care to make an honourable end.

When the city was taken, Vitellius left the Palace by a back way and was carried in a litter to his wife's house on the Aventine. If he could lie hid during the day, he hoped to make his escape to his brother and the Guards at Tarracina. But it is in the very nature of terror that, while any course looks dangerous, the present state of things seems worst of all. His fickle determination soon changed and he returned to the vast, deserted Palace, whence even the lowest of his menials had fled, or at least avoided meeting him. Shuddering at the solitude and hushed silence of the place, he wandered about, trying closed doors, terrified to find the rooms empty; until at last, wearied with his miserable search, he crept into some shameful hiding-place. There Julius Placidus, an officer of the Guards, found him and dragged him out. His hands were tied behind his back, his clothes were torn, and thus he was led forth--a loathly spectacle at which many hurled insults and no one shed a single tear of pity. The ignominy of his end killed all compassion. On the way a soldier of the German army either aimed an angry blow at him, or tried to put him out of his shame, or meant, perhaps, to strike the officer in command; at any rate, he cut off the officer's ear and was immediately stabbed. With the points of their swords they made Vitellius hold up his 85 head and face their insults, forcing him again and again to watch his own statues hurtling down, or to look at the Rostra and the spot where Galba had been killed. At last he was dragged along to the Ladder of Sighs,[224] where the body of Flavius Sabinus had lain. One saying of his which was recorded had a ring of true nobility. When some officer flung reproaches at him, he answered, 'And yet I was once your emperor.' After that he fell under a shower of wounds, and when he was dead the mob abused him as loudly as they had flattered him in his lifetime--and with as little reason.

Vitellius' home was at Luceria.[225] He was in his fifty-seventh 86 year, and had won the consulship, priesthoods, and a name and position among Rome's greatest men, all of which he owed to no efforts of his own, but solely to his father's eminence.[226] Those who offered him the throne had not yet learnt to know him; and yet his slothful cowardice won from his soldiers an enthusiasm which the best of generals have rarely evoked. Still he had the qualities of candour and generosity, which without moderation are liable to prove disastrous. He had few friends, though he bought many, thinking to keep them, not by showing moral stamina, but by giving liberal presents. It was indubitably good for the country that Vitellius should be beaten. But those who betrayed him to Vespasian can hardly make a merit of their perfidy, for they were the very men who had deserted Galba for Vitellius.

The day was already sinking into evening. The magistrates and senators had fled in terror from the city, or were still in hiding at dependants' houses: it was therefore impossible to call a meeting of the senate. When all fear of violence was at an end, Domitian came out[227] and presented himself to the generals of his party. The crowds of soldiers at once hailed him as Caesar, and marched off, still in full armour, to escort him to his father's house.

FOOTNOTES:

[212] The narrative is continued from chap. 63.

[213] December 17-23.

[214] Otricoli.

[215] i.e. for the delay which gave time for the burning of the Capitol. The fact that he tried to shift the responsibility seemed to argue an uncomfortable conscience.

[216] i.e. through the Colline Gate.

[217] Grotta Rosa.

[218] A well-known member of the Stoic opposition, executed by Domitian's order, A.D. 94.

[219] The historian. They now belonged to the emperor.

[220] 88 and 82 B.C.

[221] 87 B.C.

[222] The Saturnalia.

[223] See chap. 27, note 77.

[224] Cp. note 205.

[225] The words are uncertain. There is probably a lacuna.

[226] Cp. vol. i, note 99.

[227] He had taken refuge with a humble friend (see chap. 74).

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