LXXXI.
Miscuerat se legatis Musonius Rufus equestris ordinis, studium philosophiae et placita Stoicorum aemulatus; coeptabatque permixtus manipulis, bona pacis ac belli discrimina disserens, armatos monere. id plerisque ludibrio, pluribus taedio: nec deerant qui propellerent proculcarentque, ni admonitu modestissimi cuiusque et aliis minitantibus omisisset intempestivam sapientiam. obviae fuere et virgines Vestales cum epistulis Vitellii ad Antonium scriptis: eximi supremo certamini unum diem postulabat: si moram interiecissent, facilius omnia conventura. virgines cum honore dimissae; Vitellio rescriptum Sabini caede et incendio Capitolii dirempta belli commercia.
81.
Musonius Rufus had joined the envoys in their mission. He was of equestrian family and was deeply devoted to the study of philosophy and the teachings of the stoics. He went among the soldiers and began to expand on the blessings of peace and the dangers of war, and to take the hardened warriors around him to task. Many found this ludicrous, most found it vexing; some were ready to push him around and to trample him down, were it not that the warnings of the best behaved among the soldiers and the threats of others induced him to cut short his unadvised sermon. The Vestals also came to meet the Flavian leaders and brought a letter from Vitellius to Antonius in which he asked that the decisive combat be deferred by no more than one day, saying that if they waited that much all would be more easily arranged. The Vestals were let go with honor. The reply made to Vitellius was that with Sabinus’ murder and the burning of the Capitol all intercourse between the belligerants was broken off.
LXXXII.
Temptavit tamen Antonius vocatas ad contionem legiones mitigare, ut castris iuxta pontem Mulvium positis postera die urbem ingrederentur. ratio cunctandi, ne asperatus proelio miles non populo, non senatui, ne templis quidem ac delubris deorum consuleret. sed omnem prolationem ut inimicam victoriae suspectabant; simul fulgentia per collis vexilla, quamquam imbellis populus sequeretur, speciem hostilis exercitus fecerant. tripertito agmine pars, ut adstiterat, Flaminia via, pars iuxta ripam Tiberis incessit; tertium agmen per Salariam Collinae portae propinquabat. plebs invectis equitibus fusa; miles Vitellianus trinis et ipse praesidiis occurrit. proelia ante urbem multa et varia, sed Flavianis consilio ducum praestantibus saepius prospera. ii tantum conflictati sunt qui in partem sinistram urbis ad Sallustianos hortos per angusta et lubrica viarum flexerant. superstantes maceriis hortorum Vitelliani ad serum usque diem saxis pilisque subeuntis arcebant, donec ab equitibus, qui porta Collina inruperant, circumvenirentur. concurrere et in campo Martio infestae acies. pro Flavianis fortuna et parta totiens victoria: Vitelliani desperatione sola ruebant, et quamquam pulsi, rursus in urbe congregabantur.
82.
Antonius, however, after calling a general assembly, tried to soften the temper of the troops and persuade them to pitch camp by the Milvian bridge and enter Rome the next day. The reason for the delay was to avoid that the soldiers, now inflamed by fighting, might not spare the people, the senate, even the temples and sanctuaries of the gods. But his men regarded all delay as the enemy of victory. Just then the standards which glittered on the heights gave the impression of a menacing Vitellian army, though accompanied by a mob ignorant of war. Antonius divided his troops into three columns, one advanced by the Via Flaminia, where he had halted, one along the bank of the Tiber, and the third approached the Collina gate by the Via Salaria. The populace was dispersed by a cavalry charge, but the Vitellian forces, also divided in three groups, moved up quickly to defend the city. The clashes before the city were many and results varied, but more often favorable to the Fabians, who were superior because better led. Only these troops who had advanced, through narrow and muddy streets, towards the eastern parts of the city near the gardens of Sallust ran into serious trouble. Standing on the dry walls around the gardens, the Vitellians kept the assailants at bay with showers of stones and javelins until late in the day, that is, until they were surrounded by the cavalry that had forced a way through the Collina gate. The opposing sides clashed also in the Field of Mars. Fortune and victory were mostly on the Flavian side; the Vitellians charged again and again out of desperation only and, on being beaten back, kept regrouping within the city.
LXXXIII.
Aderat pugnantibus spectator populus, utque in ludicro certamine, hos, rursus illos clamore et plausu fovebat. quotiens pars altera inclinasset, abditos in tabernis aut si quam in domum perfugerant, erui iugularique expostulantes parte maiore praedae potiebantur: nam milite ad sanguinem et caedis obverso spolia in vulgus cedebant. saeva ac deformis urbe tota facies: alibi proelia et vulnera, alibi balineae popinaeque; simul cruor et strues corporum, iuxta scorta et scortis similes; quantum in luxurioso otio libidinum, quidquid in acerbissima captivitate scelerum, prorsus ut eandem civitatem et furere crederes et lascivire. conflixerant <et> ante armati exercitus in urbe, bis Lucio Sulla, semel Cinna victoribus, nec tunc minus crudelitatis: nunc inhumana securitas et ne minimo quidem temporis voluptates intermissae: velut festis diebus id quoque gaudium accederet, exultabant, fruebantur, nulla partium cura, malis publicis laeti.
83.
The populace stood around watching the combatants, as if the fighting were a game, and with shouts and applause cheered on, now this side, now the opposing one. Each time either side gave ground and the soldiers hid in a shop or took shelter in a house, they loudly demanded that they be dragged out and their throats cut, then they made themselves masters of most of the plunder, for the soldiers were too engrossed in blood and slaughter to mind the spoils. Throughout the city the spectacle was both terrifying and sickening. In one place, violence and slaughter, in another, welcoming baths and eating shops. In the same spot pools of blood and piles of corpses side by side with prostitutes and others of that kind. All that a dissolute peace could procure in debauchery, all that the cruellest storming of cities could entail in crime was to be seen in the same city, so that one might think indeed that Rome had both gone mad with rage and run riot with lust. True enough, the city had been the battlefield of conflicting armies even before, twice when Lucius Sulla, once when Cinna emerged victorious. There had been no less cruelty then, but now there was an unnatural callousness, a persistent abandon to pleasures: just as if all this horror were a festive occasion, to be added to the other holidays, they exulted and delighted in it, indifferent which party prevailed, made jubilant by public misfortune.
LXXXIV.
Plurimum molis in obpugnatione castrorum fuit, quae acerrimus quisque ut novissimam spem retinebant. eo intentius victores, praecipuo veterum cohortium studio, cuncta validissimarum urbium excidiis reperta simul admovent, testudinem tormenta aggeres facesque, quidquid tot proeliis laboris ac periculi hausissent, opere illo consummari clamitantes. urbem senatui ac populo Romano, templa dis reddita: proprium esse militis decus in castris: illam patriam, illos penatis. ni statim recipiantur, noctem in armis agendam. contra Vitelliani, quamquam numero fatoque dispares, inquietare victoriam, morari pacem, domos arasque cruore foedare suprema victis solacia amplectebantur. multi semianimes super turris et propugnacula moenium expiravere: convulsis portis reliquus globus obtulit se victoribus, et cecidere omnes contrariis vulneribus, versi in hostem: ea cura etiam morientibus decori exitus fuit. Vitellius capta urbe per aversam Palatii partem Aventinum in domum uxoris sellula defertur, ut si diem latebra vitavisset, Tarracinam ad cohortis fratremque perfugeret. dein mobilitate ingenii et, quae natura pavoris est, cum omnia metuenti praesentia maxime displicerent, in Palatium regreditur vastum desertumque, dilapsis etiam infimis servitiorum aut occursum eius declinantibus. terret solitudo et tacentes loci; temptat clausa, inhorrescit vacuis; fessusque misero errore et pudenda latebra semet occultans ab Iulio Placido tribuno cohortis protrahitur. vinctae pone tergum manus; laniata veste, foedum spectaculum, ducebatur, multis increpantibus, nullo inlacrimante: deformitas exitus misericordiam abstulerat. obvius e Germanicis militibus Vitellium infesto ictu per iram, vel quo maturius ludibrio eximeret, an tribunum adpetierit, in incerto fuit: aurem tribuni amputavit ac statim confossus est
84.
Now the most difficult task was the assault on the praetorian camp, which the toughest among the Vitellians were holding as their last hope. That made the victors only more resolute in their intent, especially those who had previously served with the guards. Anything that was ever invented for the storming of the most impregnable cities they put in action at once: movable sheds, earth works, incendiary missiles, catapults and other machines for hurling stones and spears. They kept shouting that all the labors they had borne, all the dangers they had faced would find an end in that assault. They had given back the city to the senate and to the Roman people, the temples to the gods: the soldier’s honor, [they cried], was in that camp; that was his country, there his home. If the camp was not recovered at once, they were going to spend the night under arms. On their side, the Vitellians were embracing the last comforts given to the vanquished, such as making the victory costly to the enemy in spite of their own inferiority in numbers and fortune, delaying the peace, polluting the houses and the temples of the city with their blood. Many, mortally wounded, expired while lying unconscious on the towers and bastions of the fortified camp. When the gates were finally forced, the survivors threw themselves in a dense body on their assailants and fell to a man, giving and taking blows, facing the enemy: such was their desire, even as they died, of a glorious death. As the city fell to the Flavians, Vitellius left the palace through a back door and had himself taken in a chair to his wife’s house on the Aventine, hoping that he might be able to escape to his brother and the cohorts at Terracina, if he eluded the day’s dangers in hiding. Then, with the instability typical of the man and because whatever action he took at the moment seemed the least sensible, as happens to one in a panic -especially to him who feared everything- he slid back to the palace, vast and deserted, for even the meanest of his slaves had either stolen off or avoided meeting him. The solitude and silence of the palace were appalling. He tried the closed rooms and shuddered at their emptiness. Tired of wandering miserably about, he concealed himself in a shameful place, from which he was dragged out by Julius Placidus, the tribune of a cohort. His hands tied behind his back, his garments in shreds, he was a sorrowful sight as he was led away. Many shouted abuse, no one shed a tear. His hideous exit had stamped out all pity. One of the German soldiers went up to him and whether he aimed a deadly blow at Vitellius in anger or to subtract him more quickly from public outrage, or whether the blow was aimed at the tribune, cannot be said with certainty. He cut off the tribune’s ear and was immediately struck down.
LXXXV.
Vitellium infestis mucronibus coactum modo erigere os et offerre contumeliis, nunc cadentis statuas suas, plerumque rostra aut Galbae occisi locum contueri, postremo ad Gemonias, ubi corpus Flavii Sabini iacuerat, propulere. una vox non degeneris animi excepta, cum tribuno insultanti se tamen imperatorem eius fuisse respondit; ac deinde ingestis vulneribus concidit. et vulgus eadem pravitate insectabatur interfectum qua foverat viventem.
85.
Vitellius was forced at dagger point now to lift his head and to expose it to the insults of the crowd, now to look at his own statues falling and –most often- at the rostra, or at the spot where Galba had died, and finally he was hustled to the Gemonian steps, where the body of Flavius Sabinus had lain. Those around him heard him utter a thing that was not unworthy of the man: to a tribune covering him with abuse he answered: ‘In spite of what you say, I have been your emperor’. Then he fell under a tempest of blows. And the populace vented their rage on his corpse with the same baseness with which they had grovelled before him alive.
LXXXVI.
Patrem illi . . . Luceriam. septimum et quinquagensimum aetatis annum explebat, consulatum, sacerdotia, nomen locumque inter primores nulla sua industria, sed cuncta patris claritudine adeptus. principatum ei detulere qui ipsum non noverant: studia exercitus raro cuiquam bonis artibus quaesita perinde adfuere quam huic per ignaviam. inerat tamen simplicitas ac liberalitas, quae, ni adsit modus, in exitium vertuntur. amicitias dum magnitudine munerum, non constantia morum contineri putat, meruit magis quam habuit. rei publicae haud dubie intererat Vitellium vinci, sed imputare perfidiam non possunt qui Vitellium Vespasiano prodidere, cum a Galba descivissent. Praecipiti in occasum die ob pavorem magistratuum senatorumque, qui dilapsi ex urbe aut per domos clientium semet occultabant, vocari senatus non potuit. Domitianum, postquam nihil hostile metuebatur, ad duces partium progressum et Caesarem consalutatum miles frequens utque erat in armis in paternos penatis deduxit.
86.
His native city was Luceria; he was almost fifty-seven years old. The consulate, the priesthoods, his name and rank among the leading men of the state, he attained none of these by his personal qualities: he owed everything to his father’s prestige. The principate was given him by people who did not know him. Rarely did anyone command the loyalty of the army by his own exemplary conduct as did this man by his incompetence. Yet there was in him a certain artless liberality, a quality that may become ruinous if not used with discretion. Friendship he had less than he deserved, inasmuch as it was his belief that friends are kept by generous gifts, rather than by steadiness of character. No doubt it was in the best interest of the state that Vitellius be removed, but those who betrayed him to Vespasian cannot claim credit for their treachery, since they had risen up against Galba. The day was waning and the senate could not be summoned because the panick-stricken magistrates and senators had slipped away from the city or were in hiding in the houses of clients. Now that there was nothing to fear, Domitian came forward to meet the Flavian leaders and was hailed as Caesar. A dense crowd of soldiers, under arms just as they were, escorted him to his father’s house.