The Works of Tacitus
tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
[1864-1877]
Tacitus: History Book 1 [30]
30. “I will lay no claim to nobleness, or moderation, for indeed, to count up
virtues in comparing oneself with Otho is needless. The vices, of which alone
he boasts, overthrew the Empire, even when he was but the Emperor’s friend.
Shall he earn that Empire now by his manner and his gait, or by those womanish
adornments? They are deceived, on whom luxury imposes by its false show of liberality;
he will know how to squander, he will not know how to give. Already he is thinking
of debaucheries, of revels, of tribes of mistresses. These things he holds to
be the prizes of princely power, things, in which the wanton enjoyment will
be for him alone, the shame and the disgrace for all. Never yet has any one
exercised for good ends the power obtained by crime. The unanimous will of mankind
gave to Galba the title of Caesar, and you consented when he gave it to me.
Were the Senate, the Country, the People, but empty names, yet, comrades, it
is your interest that the most worthless of men should not create an Emperor.
We have occasionally heard of legions mutinying against their generals, but
your loyalty, your character, stand unimpeached up to this time. Even with Nero,
it was he that deserted you, not you that deserted him. Shall less than thirty
runaways and deserters whom no one would allow to choose a tribune or centurion
for themselves, assign the Empire at their pleasure? Do you tolerate the precedent?
Do you by your inaction make the crime your own? This lawless spirit will pass
into the provinces, and though we shall suffer from this treason, you will suffer
from the wars that will follow. Again, no more is offered you for murdering
your Prince, than you will have if you shun such guilt. We shall give you a
donative for your loyalty, as surely as others can give it for your treason.”
31. The soldiers of the body-guard dispersed, but the rest of the cohort,
who shewed no disrespect to the speaker, displayed their standards, acting,
as often happens in a disturbance, on mere impulse and without any settled plan,
rather than, as was afterwards believed, with treachery and an intention to
deceive. Celsus Marius was sent to the picked troops from the army of Illyricum,
then encamped in the Portico of Vipsanius. Instructions were also given to Amulius
Serenus and Quintius Sabinus, centurions of the first rank, to bring up the
German soldiers from the Hall of Liberty. No confidence was placed in the legion
levied from the fleet, which had been enraged by the massacre of their comrades,
whom Galba had slaughtered immediately on his entry into the capital. Meanwhile
Cetrius Severus, Subrius Dexter, and Pompeius Longinus, all three military tribunes,
proceeded to the Praetorian camp, in the hope that a sedition, which was but
just commencing, and not yet fully matured, might be swayed by better counsels.
Two of these tribunes, Subrius and Cetrius, the soldiers assailed with menaces;
Longinus they seized and disarmed; it was not his rank as an officer, but his
friendship with Galba, that bound him to that Prince, and roused a stronger
suspicion in the mutineers. The legion levied from the fleet joined the Praetorians
without any hesitation. The Illyrian detachments drove Celsus away with a shower
of javelins. The German veterans wavered long. Their frames were still enfeebled
by sickness, and their minds were favourably disposed towards Galba, who, finding
them exhausted by their long return voyage from Alexandria, whither they had
been sent on by Nero, had supplied their wants with a most unsparing attention.
32. The whole populace and the slaves with them were now crowding the palace,
clamouring with discordant shouts for the death of Otho and the destruction
of the conspirators, just as if they were demanding some spectacle in the circus
or amphitheatre. They had not indeed any discrimination or sincerity, for on
that same day they would raise with equal zeal a wholly different cry. It was
their traditional custom to flatter any ruler with reckless applause and meaningless
zeal. Meanwhile two suggestions were keeping Galba in doubt. T. Vinius thought
that he should remain within the palace, array the slaves against the foe, secure
the approaches, and not go out to the enraged soldiers. “You should,” he said,
“give the disaffected time to repent, the loyal time to unite. Crimes gain by
hasty action, better counsels by delay. At all events, you will still have the
same facilities of going out, if need be, whereas, your retreat, should you
repent of having gone, will be in the power of another.”
33. The rest were for speedy action, “before,” they said, “the yet feeble
treason of this handful of men can gather strength. Otho himself will be alarmed,
Otho, who stole away to be introduced to a few strangers, but who now, thanks
to the hesitation and inaction in which we waste our time, is learning how to
play the Prince. We must not wait till, having arranged matters in the camp,
he bursts into the Forum, and under Galba’s very eyes makes his way to the Capitol,
while our noble Emperor with his brave friends barricades the doors of his palace.
We are to stand a siege forsooth, and truly we shall have an admirable resource
in the slaves, if the unanimous feeling of this vast multitude, and that which
can do so much, the first burst of indignation, be suffered to subside. Moreover
that cannot be safe which is not honourable. If we must fall, let us go to meet
the danger. This will bring more odium upon Otho, and will be more becoming
to ourselves.” Vinius opposing this advice, Laco assailed him with threats,
encouraged by Icelus, who persisted in his private animosities to the public
ruin.
34. Without further delay Galba sided with these more plausible advisers.
Piso was sent on into the camp, as being a young man of noble name, whose popularity
was of recent date, and who was a bitter enemy to T. Vinius, that is, either
he was so in reality, or these angry partisans would have it so, and belief
in hatred is but too ready. Piso had hardly gone forth when there came a rumour,
at first vague and wanting confirmation, that Otho had been slain in the camp;
soon, as happens with these great fictions, men asserted that they had been
present, and had seen the deed; and, between the delight of some and the indifference
of others, the report was easily believed. Many thought the rumour had been
invented and circulated by the Othonianists, who were now mingling with the
crowd, and who disseminated these false tidings of success to draw Galba out
of the palace.
35. Upon this not only did the people and the ignorant rabble break out into
applause and vehement expressions of zeal, but many of the Knights and Senators,
losing their caution as they laid aside their fear, burst open the doors of
the palace, rushed in, and displayed themselves to Galba, complaining that their
revenge had been snatched from them. The most arrant coward, the man, who, as
the event proved, would dare nothing in the moment of danger, was the most voluble
and fierce of speech. No one knew anything, yet all were confident in assertion,
till at length Galba in the dearth of all true intelligence, and overborne by
the universal delusion, assumed his cuirass, and as, from age and bodily weakness,
he could not stand up against the crowd that was still rushing in, he was elevated
on a chair. He was met in the palace by Julius Atticus, a soldier of the body-guard,
who, displaying a bloody sword, cried “I have slain Otho.” “Comrade,” replied
Galba, “who gave the order?” So singularly resolute was his spirit in curbing
the license of the soldiery; threats did not dismay him, nor flatteries seduce.
36. There was now no doubt about the feeling of all the troops in the camp.
So great was their zeal, that, not content with surrounding Otho with their
persons in close array, they elevated him to the pedestal, on which a short
time before had stood the gilt statue of Galba, and there, amid the standards,
encircled him with their colours. Neither tribunes nor centurions could approach.
The common soldiers even insisted that all the officers should be watched. Everything
was in an uproar with their tumultuous cries and their appeals to each other,
which were not, like those of a popular assembly or a mob, the discordant expressions
of an idle flattery; on the contrary, as soon as they caught sight of any of
the soldiers who were flocking in, they seized him, gave him the military embrace,
placed him close to Otho, dictated to him the oath of allegiance, commending
sometimes the Emperor to his soldiers, sometimes the soldiers to their Emperor.
Otho did not fail to play his part; he stretched out his arms, and bowed to
the crowd, and kissed his hands, and altogether acted the slave, to make himself
the master. It was when the whole legion from the fleet had taken the oath to
him, that feeling confidence in his strength, and thinking that the men, on
whose individual feeling he had been working, should be roused by a general
appeal, he stood before the rampart of the camp, and spoke as follows:
37. “Comrades, I cannot say in what character I have presented myself to
you; I refuse to call myself a subject, now that you have named me Prince, or
Prince, while another reigns. Your title also will be equally uncertain, so
long as it shall be a question, whether it is the Emperor of the Roman people,
or a public enemy, whom you have in your camp. Mark you, how in one breath they
cry for my punishment and for your execution. So evident it is, that we can
neither perish, nor be saved, except together. Perhaps, with his usual clemency,
Galba has already promised that we should die, like the man, who, though no
one demanded it, massacred so many thousands of perfectly guiltless soldiers.
A shudder comes over my soul, whenever I call to mind that ghastly entry, Galba’s
solitary victory, when, before the eyes of the capital he gave orders to decimate
the prisoners, the suppliants, whom he had admitted to surrender. These were
the auspices with which he entered the city. What is the glory that he has brought
to the throne? None but that he has murdered Obultronius Sabinus and Cornelius
Marcellus in Spain, Betuus Chilo in Gaul, Fonteius Capito in Germany, Clodius
Macer in Africa, Cingonius on the high road, Turpilianus in the city, Nymphidius
in the camp. What province, what camp in the world, but is stained with blood
and foul with crime, or, as he expresses it himself, purified and chastened?
For what others call crimes he calls reforms, and, by similar misnomers, he
speaks of strictness instead of barbarity, of economy instead of avarice, while
the cruelties and affronts inflicted upon you he calls discipline. Seven months
only have passed since Nero fell, and already Icelus has seized more than the
Polycleti, the Vatinii, and the Elii amassed. Vinius would not have gone so
far with his rapacity and lawlessness had he been Emperor himself; as it is,
he has lorded it over us as if we had been his own subjects, has held us as
cheap as if we had been another’s. That one house would furnish the donative,
which is never given you, but with which you are daily upbraided.
38. “Again, that we might have nothing to hope even from his successor, Galba
fetches out of exile the man in whose ill-humour and avarice he considers that
he has found the best resemblance to himself. You witnessed, comrades, how by
a remarkable storm even the Gods discountenanced that ill-starred adoption;
and the feeling of the Senate, of the people of Rome, is the same. It is to
your valour that they look, in you these better counsels find all their support,
without you, noble as they may be, they are powerless. It is not to war or to
danger that I invite you; the swords of all Roman soldiers are with us. At this
moment Galba has but one half-armed cohort, which is detaining, not defending
him. Let it once behold you, let it receive my signal, and the only strife will
be, who shall oblige me most. There is no room for delay in a business which
can only be approved when it is done.” He then ordered the armoury to be opened.
The soldiers immediately seized the arms without regard to rule or military
order, no distinction being observed between Praetorians and legionaries, both
of whom again indiscriminately assumed the shields and helmets of the auxiliary
troops. No tribune or centurion encouraged them, every man acted on his own
impulse and guidance, and the vilest found their chief incitement in the dejection
of the good.
39. Meanwhile, appalled by the roar of the increasing sedition and by the
shouts which reached the city, Piso had overtaken Galba, who in the interval
had quitted the palace, and was approaching the Forum. Already Marius Celsus
had brought back discouraging tidings. And now some advised that the Emperor
should return to the palace, others that he should make for the Capitol, many
again that he should occupy the Rostra, though most did but oppose the opinions
of others, while, as ever happens in these ill-starred counsels, plans for which
the opportunity had slipped away seemed the best. It is said that Laco, without
Galba’s knowledge, meditated the death of Vinius, either hoping by this execution
to appease the fury of the soldiers, or believing him to be an accomplice of
Otho, or, it may be, out of mere hatred. The time and the place however made
him hesitate; he knew that a massacre once begun is not easily checked. His
plan too was disconcerted by a succession of alarming tidings, and the desertion
of immediate adherents. So languid was now the zeal of those who had at first
been eager to display their fidelity and courage.
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