The History of Rome: Rise and Fall of the Empire. John Bagnell Bury
he could hardly believe the tidings from Cremona, but when he was at length wakened out of his sleep, he sent fourteen cohorts to defend the Apennine Passes at Mevania (Bevagna), near Fulginium, on the Flaminian road. To these forces was added a new marine legion, which he formed from the fleet of Misenum. The remaining cohorts were kept to defend the city, under the command of his brother, Lucius Vitellius. The Emperor himself visited the camp at Mevania, but on the news that the Misenum fleet had declared for the enemy, he returned to Rome. The next blow was the defection of Campania. The Samnites, Marsians, and Pelignians followed. Vitellius divided his forces; some were stationed at Narnia, to oppose the advance of the Flavians, others were sent to check the movement in Campania. Primus crossed the Apennines with great difficulty, owing to the heavy snow, and stationed himself at Carsulae, north of Narnia, where he was presently joined by his legions. The Vitellian cohorts had little spirit to fight; but when the head of Fabius Valens, whom they believed to be in Germany collecting a new army, was exhibited to them, they no longer hesitated, and submitted to the victor, who treated them with clemency (December). Primus then offered terms to Vitellius; if he submitted, he and his children should have a safe retreat in Campania. Mucianus wrote to the same effect, and Vitellius readily agreed to the proposal. “Such a torpor had seized upon his spirit that he would himself have forgotten that he was Princeps, if the rest had not remembered it”. The transference of the Empire took place in the temple of Apollo. Vitellius came forth from the palace, clad in black, with his family around him, and proceeding to the Forum, offered his dagger to the consul Caecilius, who refused to accept it. He then turned towards the temple of Concord, to deposit there the insignia of Empire, but a number of the praetorian soldiers prevented him, and compelled him to return to the palace (December 17th). These adherents would not permit him to carry out the agreement. Senators and knights, the urban soldiery, and the cohorts of the watch had gathered to the house of Vespasian’s brother, Flavius Sabinus, who had acted as a mediator. They urged Sabinus to occupy the palace in his brother’s interest. But as they conveyed him thither (December 18th), they were attacked by the Vitellians at a place called the Pool of Fundanius. Sabinus and a few others fled to the Capitoline hill, and shut themselves up in the temple of Jupiter. The Vitellians guarded the approaches, but during a violent storm of rain Sabinus communicated with his friends and received into the place of refuge both his own children, and his nephew Domitian, the son of Vespasian. The next morning the Vitellians assaulted the Capitol. From the Forum they rushed up the Clivus, but the Flavians, issuing on the roof of the portico, which reached from the temple of Saturn to the Capitol, hurled down stones and tiles. The assailants then set fire to the portico, and would have passed through the burnt door into the court of the temple if Sabinus had not torn down the statues and monuments which filled the place, and thus constructed a barrier. Foiled here, the Vitellians attempted other ways of ascent. One of these rose from the shoulder of the hill, another was close to the Tarpeian rock, and known as the Hundred Stairs. By the former especially they forced their way along the tops of houses and with the help of fire. At length the conflagration broke out on the summit of the hill, and the temple of Jupiter was consumed. Domitian escaped and hid himself in a porter’s hut, but Sabinus was seized and carried to the palace, where, in spite of the attempts of Vitellius to save him, he was slain, and his trunk dragged to the Gemonian Stairs outside the Career (December 10th). Immediately after this, Cerealis, who had been sent on by Primus, arrived with one thousand horsemen, and tried to force his way into Rome. But the Vitellians were prepared, and drove him back.
Primus was himself close at hand, and had reached Saxa Rubra when he learned the destruction of the Capitol, and the repulse of Cerealis. The slaughter of Sabinus rendered further negotiations impossible, and a deputation of the Vestals, beseeching for a conference, was rejected. The Flavians attacked Rome in three divisions; one party approached the Colline gate, another marched through fields along the bank of the Tiber; and a third band, between these, advanced along the Flaminian Way. The Vitellians, who had armed the rabble and the slaves, went forth to meet them, but were driven back with slaughter. Conquerors and conquered entered the city together, and the battle was renewed in the streets. Then the praetorian camp was stormed. It is said that 50,000 men were slain in this capture of Rome. Vitellius tried to make his escape to join his brother Lucius, who held Tarracina, but he was discovered, dragged from his hiding-place, and amid the mockery of the soldiers was haled to the Gemonian stairs, and slain with insults (December 20th or 21st). His last words were perhaps the only he had ever uttered worth recording: “Yet I was your Imperator”. Thus perished the first Emperor who had been set up by the Germanic legions. His brother Lucius Vitellius, who had occupied Tarracina, soon afterwards surrendered, and was put to death.
For a second time in the same year, Rome was occupied by a victorious army, and citizens were exposed to the license of soldiers greedy for plunder, whom their leader Primus did not keep in check. Domitian, the second son of Vespasian, was installed in the palace, and received the name of Caesar, but the power was in the hands of Primus, a soldier whom Vespasian had no intention of placing in such a position. But he did not enjoy the pleasures of power long. Mucianus presently arrived, and his entry into the city was felt as a relief. He acted as a semi-official representative of Vespasian, until Vespasian came himself. He sternly suppressed the license of the soldiers, dismissed the Illyric legions from Rome, and taught Primus his place. He put to death Galerianus, the son of Piso, whom Galba had made his colleague, and Asiaticus, a freedman of Vitellius.
The senate hastened to make the victorious Imperator a legitimate Emperor by the usual decrees, conferring on him the proconsular power, the title Augustus, and other prerogatives. The tribunician power, however, does not seem to have been conferred upon him until a considerably later time. The Emperor and his elder son Titus were designated consuls for the year 70. The praetorship and consular power were decreed to Domitian. The triumphal ornaments were voted to Mucianus for his defence of Moesia against a Dacian invasion, which had taken place as he passed through that province; Antonius Primus and Arrius Varus, who was made praetorian prefect, received the lesser distinctions of the consular and praetorian insignia respectively.
Thus the remarkable Year of the Four Emperors came to an end. The events between the death of Nero and the victory of Vespasian throw instructive light on the conditions of the Empire. The following points deserve notice. (1) The most striking motive which determined the course of the civil wars was the exclusive and jealous esprit de corps which was growing up among the different armies. The Germanic army was hostile to Galba, because he was proclaimed by the Spanish legion, and the eastern and Illyric armies were jealous of the Germanic troops, because they proclaimed Vitellius. (2) Galba, however, cannot be considered so strictly a candidate set up by the soldiers as Vitellius and Vespasian. He posed as a senatorial candidate, and was not forced upon the senate in the same way as the Emperors who came from Germany and Syria. (3) Each successive Emperor professed to represent the cause of him whom his rival had overthrown. Vespasian came to avenge Otho, and Otho came to avenge Nero, and Vitellius, though when first proclaimed he was the rival of Galba, afterwards posed as his successor. (4) Although the legions arrogated the right of creating Emperors, they recognized that their candidates were only pretenders until they possessed Rome, and were acknowledged by the senate. (5) The dilemma in which the Empire was placed in regard to the question of dynastic succession is clearly shown. While the hereditary principle was followed, weak or bad rulers, like Gaius and Nero, were an inevitable result. On the other hand when there was no candidate with an hereditary claim to the Principate, the state was exposed to the dangers of civil war, such as followed on the death of Nero. (6) Dynastic succession, however, was considered the least evil. The fact that he had no children, deterred Mucianus from accepting the empire, and perhaps the same motive influenced Verginius. Both Otho and Vitellius destined their children as their successors, and Vespasian founded a new dynasty. Galba, who had no children, resorted to the principle of adoption, following the example of Augustus. (7) Each of the Emperors, with the exception of Vitellius, attached himself in a certain manner to the house of the Julii and Claudii by adopting the name Caesar; and even Vitellius assumed it in his last crisis.
Chapter XX.
Rebellions in Germany and Judea