The History of Rome: Rise and Fall of the Empire. John Bagnell Bury
he punished Lugudunum, the Treveri, the Lingones, and other communities which had remained faithful to Nero. This policy alienated the Germanic legions. In Rome the severity of Galba, and especially his treatment of the marine soldiers, produced a bad impression, and his strict ideal of discipline were not popular. He alienated the praetorian guards by refusing to give them the donative which Nymphidius had promised in his name.
Nero had left an empty treasury, and the financial measures which Galba resorted to were very ill-advised. On the one hand he remitted a tax of 25 per cent., of which the nature is unknown. But on the other he made an attempt to force those who had profited by Nero’s liberality to disgorge their booty. He appointed a commission to exact from those who had received presents from Nero nine-tenths of the amount. But as most of these persons hail spent their fortunes as lightly as they had gained them, the commission had very little result for its labors. Then Galba commanded that application should be made to those who had received any money from the favorites of Nero, an absurd measure which led to endless lawsuits. And besides being unprofitable, this policy was injurious, for it created many enemies to the Emperor. Moreover the parsimony of Galba verged on meanness, and was unfavorably contrasted with the open-handedness of his predecessor. It was rendered all the more glaring by the rapacity of the three men on whose counsels he leaned, Vinius, Laco, and Icelus. He had appointed Laco praetorian prefect, and he had raised his freedman Icelus to equestrian rank. Vinius was designated as his colleague in the consulship for the year 69. These three exerted such an influence over Galba, that they were called his “three pedagogues”. Another circumstance which increased the dissatisfaction with Galba was that he spared Tigellinus, for whose slaughter Rome was clamoring. The freedmen, who had been the intimate advisers of Nero, were put to death; but Vinius, who was betrothed to the daughter of Tigellinus, a widow with a large fortune, exerted his influence to save him.
Soon after the 1st of January, 69 A.D., disquieting news of a mutiny in the army of Upper Germany reached Rome. Galba had replaced Verginius by Hordeonius Flaccus, an old general, who was incapable of maintaining discipline. Galba was in a difficulty. He had no forces which he could trust to oppose this movement. The praetorians were lukewarm; the Spanish legion (VII Galbiana) had been sent to Pannonia; and he had dismissed the German bodyguard of his predecessor. There were some divisions of Germanic and Illyric legions temporarily stationed at Rome, but they were small and uncertain. Galba was decided by his advisers to adopt a consort in the Empire. This course might satisfy the wishes of the German army, who clamored for a new Imperator. Two names were proposed as candidates for association in the Principate. Vinius supported the claims of Otho; but Laco, who always opposed Vinius, and Icelus recommended Piso Licinianus. The consultations of this “comitia of theimperium” ended in the choice of Piso. He was of ancient lineage and high character, but he was unpopular, and under the circumstances his choice was a mistake. He was adopted under the name Ser. Sulpicius Galba Caesar, on January 10th; but the measure did not in the least tend to conciliate the soldiery. When the old Emperor announced his choice to the praetorians in a storm of rain and thunder, and appealed to the example of Augustus, who had in a like way associated with himself Agrippa and Tiberius, the soldiers maintained a sullen silence; only the officers and the front ranks uttered the acclamations which made Piso an Imperator. On this occasion Galba might have retrieved his first mistake of not giving a donative, but on this point he was obstinate. In the senate Piso’s election was received with approbation.
But while this measure of Galba failed in its intended effect, it stirred up against him an active enemy in the person of M. Salvius Otho, who had supported Galba from the first, and was indignant that Piso was preferred to himself. He had been embittered by the long years of exile in Lusitania to which Nero had condemned him; he was weary of restraint; he was deeply involved in debt; and was ready to risk his life unsparingly for the chance of sovranty. Moreover he was afraid of the jealousy of Piso; and his ambitious plans were fostered by soothsayers and astrologers, to whose influence he was subject. The enterprise too, seemed hopeful, owing to the general dissatisfaction with the government of Galba. Those who were beginning to regret the golden days of Nero might hope for their revival under the rule of the luxurious Otho. The guards were easily corrupted by two of their number who had embraced the cause of Otho. “Two manipulars”, says Tacitus, “undertook to transfer the empire of the Roman people, and they did transfer it”.
The decisive moment came on the morning of the 15th of January. Galba was sacrificing before the temple of Apollo on the Palatine, and the omens were inauspicious, portending, the aruspex said, a foe in his own household. Otho was standing by, when a freedman announced to him according to a preconcerted signal, that his engineer awaited him. The conspirator immediately descended through the house of Tiberius, on the north-west side of the Palatine, and made his way to the golden milestone in the Forum. Here he was met by twenty-three soldiers, who hailed him as Imperator, placed him in a litter, and hurried him to the camp. Galba meanwhile was still “importuning the gods of an empire no longer his”, when the news of Otho’s entry into the camp reached him. After much irresolution it was decided that Piso should precede Galba to the camp, and attempt to quell the mutiny. Then a false report came that Otho had been slain, and the Emperor no longer hesitated. Accompanied by a cohort and a large multitude of the populace, who had declared themselves on his side, he set out for the camp. Before he left the Palatine, a soldier ran up to him with a bloody sword, crying that he had killed Otho. “Fellow-soldier”, said Galba, “who ordered you?” But there in the meantime Otho had been saluted Imperator by the praetorians, and the regiment of marine soldiers had also joined him. Otho armed the troops, and led them from the camp into the city, to suppress the opposition of the populace and the senators. Galba and Piso had halted in the Forum, uncertain whether to advance or to return to the palace. When the cohort which surrounded Galba perceived the advance of Otho’s forces, the standard-bearer dashed the image to the ground, thus showing that the soldiers sympathized with Otho. The people fled from the Forum. The litter in which Galba was borne was overturned near the Pool of Curtius, and the Emperor was hewn in pieces. The murder of Vinius followed, and Piso, who had sought refuge in the temple of Vesta, was dragged out and slain. The senate did not delay to recognize the Imperator whom the praetorians had chosen. The title of Augustus was immediately conferred, and the tribunician power decreed.
SECT. II — OTHO AND VITELLIUS
But a rival to Otho was already in the field. While these things were enacted at Rome, events of great moment were taking place in Germany. After the murder of Fonteius Capito, the legatus of Lower Germany, Galba had selected Aulus Vitellius to take his place. This Vitellius was the son of Lucius Vitellius, who had commanded in the east under Tiberius, and been censor with Claudius. Aulus had gained the favor of Nero, had been proconsul and legatus in Africa, but was little fitted for the post for which Galba had chosen him. He was insignificant and good-natured, sensual and indolent. He had no ambition, but circumstances led him to the supreme power. The legions of both Lower and Upper Germany were discontented with the rule of Galba. They were jealous, because he had been created by the Spanish legion, and they did not see why they too should not make an Imperator. The recall of Verginius had especially exasperated the troops of the Upper province and on the kalends of January the IVth and XXIInd legions at Moguntiacum had refused to take the oath of allegiance to Galba, and had placed themselves, as Galba himself had done, when he threw off the yoke of Nero, at the disposal of the senate and the Roman people. The governor Hordeonius did not venture to interfere. But it was in the Lower province that a candidate for the Empire was found. On the same night the news from Moguntiacum reached Vitellius as he was supping at Colonia. He immediately sent messengers to the legions of his own province in their various quarters. I. Germanica was stationed at Bonna; V. Alauda and XV. Primigenia at Vetera, and XVI. Gallica at Novassium. On the next day Fabius Valens, legatus of legion I., arrived from Bonna with some horse-soldiers, and saluted Vitellius as Imperator. On the following day (January 3rd) the Upper army, which had not found a candidate of its own, abandoned the empty and high-sounding names of the senate and the Roman people, and acknowledged Vitellius. The ardor of the troops was emulated by the provincials of Colonia, the Treveri, and the Lingones (whose city is now represented by Langres). Valerius Asiaticus, the legatus of Belgica, and Blaesus, the governor of Gallia Lugudunensis, along with legion I. Italica, which properly belonged to Upper Germany, but was then stationed at Lugudunum,