The Works of Tacitus
tr. by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
[1864-1877]
Tacitus: History Book 3 [30]
30. Difficulties of another kind presented themselves in the lofty walls of
the town, its stone towers, its iron-barred gates, in the garrison who stood
brandishing their weapons, in its numerous population devoted to the interests
of Vitellius, and in the vast conflux from all parts of Italy which had assembled
at the fair regularly held at that time. The besieged found a source of strength
in these large numbers; the assailants an incentive in the prospect of booty.
Antonius gave orders that fire should instantly be set to the finest buildings
without the city, to see whether the inhabitants of Cremona might not be induced
by the loss of their property to transfer their allegiance. Some houses near
the walls, which overtopped the fortifications, he filled with the bravest of
his soldiers, who, by hurling beams, tiles, and flaming missiles, dislodged
the defenders from the ramparts.
31. The legions now began to form themselves into a “testudo,” and the other
troops to discharge volleys of stones and darts, when the courage of the Vitellianists
began to flag. The higher their rank, the more readily they succumbed to fortune,
fearing that when Cremona had fallen quarter could no longer be expected, and
that all the fury of the conqueror would be turned, not on the penniless crowd,
but on the tribunes and centurions, by whose slaughter something was to be gained.
The common soldiers, careless of the future and safer in their obscurity, still
held out. Roaming through the streets or concealed in the houses, they would
not sue for peace even when they had abandoned the contest. The principal officers
of the camp removed the name and images of Vitellius; Caecina, who was still
in confinement, they released from his chains, imploring him to plead their
cause. When he haughtily rejected their suit, they entreated him with tears;
and it was indeed the last aggravation of misery, that many valiant men should
invoke the aid of a traitor. Then they displayed from the walls the olive branches
and chaplets of suppliants, and when Antonius had ordered that the discharge
of missiles should cease, they brought out the eagles and standards. Then followed,
with eyes bent on the ground, a dismal array of unarmed men. The conquerors
had gathered round; at first they heaped reproaches on them and pointed at them
their weapons; then seeing how they offered their cheeks to insulting blows,
how, with all their high spirit departed, they submitted, as vanquished men,
to every indignity, it suddenly occurred to their recollection, that these were
the very soldiers who but shortly before had used with moderation their victory
at Bedriacum. Yet, when Caecina the consul, conspicuous in his robes of state
and with his train of lictors, came forward thrusting aside the crowd, the victors
were fired with indignation, and reproached him with his tyranny, his cruelty,
and, so hateful are such crimes, even with his treason. Antonius checked them,
gave him an escort, and sent him to Vespasian.
32. Meanwhile the population of Cremona was roughly handled by the soldiers,
who were just beginning a massacre, when their fury was mitigated by the entreaties
of the generals. Antonius summoned them to an assembly, extolled the conquerors,
spoke kindly to the conquered, but said nothing either way of Cremona. Over
and above the innate love of plunder, there was an old feud which made the army
bent on the destruction of the inhabitants. It was generally believed that in
the war with Otho, as well as in the present, they had supported the cause of
Vitellius. Afterwards, when the 13th legion had been left to build an amphitheatre,
with the characteristic insolence of a city population, they had wantonly provoked
and insulted them. The ill-feeling had been aggravated by the gladiatorial show
exhibited there by Caecina, by the circumstance that their city was now for
the second time the seat of war, and by the fact that they had supplied the
Vitellianists with provisions in the field, and that some of their women, taken
by party-zeal into the battle, had there been slain. The occurrence of the fair
filled the colony, rich as it always was, with an appearance of still greater
wealth. The other generals were unnoticed; Antonius from his success and high
reputation was observed of all. He had hastened to the baths to wash off the
blood; and when he found fault with the temperature of the water, an answer
was heard, “that it would soon be warm enough. Thus the words of a slave brought
on him the whole odium of having given the signal for firing the town, which
was indeed already in flames.
33. Forty thousand armed men burst into Cremona, and with them a body of
sutlers and camp-followers, yet more numerous and yet more abandoned to lust
and cruelty. Neither age nor rank were any protection from indiscriminate slaughter
and violation. Aged men and women past their prime, worthless as booty, were
dragged about in wanton insult. Did a grown up maiden or youth of marked beauty
fall in their way, they were torn in pieces by the violent hands of ravishers;
and in the end the destroyers themselves were provoked into mutual slaughter.
Men, as they carried off for themselves coin or temple-offerings of massive
gold, were cut down by others of superior strength. Some, scorning what met
the eye, searched for hidden wealth, and dug up buried treasures, applying the
scourge and the torture to the owners. In their hands were flaming torches,
which, as soon as they had carried out the spoil, they wantonly hurled into
the gutted houses and plundered temples. In an army which included such varieties
of language and character, an army comprising Roman citizens, allies, and foreigners,
there was every kind of lust, each had a law of his own, and nothing was forbidden.
For four days Cremona satisfied the plunderers. When all things else, sacred
and profane, were settling down into the flames, the temple of Mephitis outside
the walls alone remained standing, saved by its situation or by divine interposition.
34. Such was the end of Cremona, 286 years after its foundation. It was built
in the consulship of Tiberius Sempronius and Cornelius Scipio, when Hannibal
was threatening Italy, as a protection against the Gauls from beyond the Padus,
or against any other sudden invader from the Alps. From the number of settlers,
the conveniences afforded by the rivers, the fertility of the soil, and the
many connexions and intermarriages formed with neighbouring nations, it grew
and flourished, unharmed by foreign enemies, though most unfortunate in civil
wars. Ashamed of the atrocious deed, and aware of the detestation which it was
inspiring, Antonius issued a proclamation, that no one should detain in captivity
a citizen of Cremona. The spoil indeed had been rendered valueless to the soldiers
by a general agreement throughout Italy, which rejected with loathing the purchase
of such slaves. A massacre then began; when this was known, the prisoners were
secretly ransomed by their friends and relatives. The remaining inhabitants
soon returned to Cremona; the temples and squares were restored by the munificence
of the burghers, and Vespasian gave his exhortations.
35. The soil poisoned with blood forbade the enemy to remain long by the
ruins of the buried city. They advanced to the third milestone, and gathered
the dispersed and panic-stricken Vitellianists round their proper standards.
The vanquished legions were then scattered throughout Illyricum; for civil war
was not over, and they might play a doubtful part. Messengers carrying news
of the victory were then despatched to Britain and to Spain. Julius Calenus,
a tribune, was sent to Gaul, and Alpinius Montanus, prefect of a cohort, to
Germany; as the one was an Aeduan, the other a Trever, and both were Vitellianists,
they would be a proof of the success. At the same time the passes of the Alps
were occupied with troops, for it was suspected that Germany was arming itself
to support Vitellius.
36. A few days after the departure of Caecina, Vitellius had hurried Fabius
Valens to the seat of war, and was now seeking to hide his apprehensions from
himself by indulgence. He made no military preparation; he did not seek to invigorate
the soldiers by encouraging speeches or warlike exercises; he did not keep himself
before the eyes of the people. Buried in the shades of his gardens, like those
sluggish animals which, if you supply them with food, lie motionless and torpid,
he had dismissed with the same forgetfulness the past, the present, and the
future. While he thus lay wasting his powers in sloth among the woods of Aricia,
he was startled by the treachery of Lucilius Bassus and the defection of the
fleet at Ravenna. Then came the news about Caecina, and he heard with a satisfaction
mingled with distress, first, that he had revolted, and then, that he had been
put in irons by the army. In that dull soul joy was more powerful than apprehension.
In great exultation he returned to Rome, and before a crowded assembly of the
people heaped praises on the dutiful obedience of the soldiers. He ordered Publius
Sabinus, prefect of the Praetorian Guard, to be thrown into prison, because
of his friendship with Caecina, and substituted in his place Alfenius Varus.
37. He then addressed the Senate in a speech of studied grandiloquence, and
was extolled by the Senators with elaborate adulation. A savage resolution against
Caecina was moved by Lucius Vitellius; the rest affected indignation at the
idea that a consul had betrayed the State, a general his Emperor, a man loaded
with wealth so vast and honours so numerous his benefactor, and seemed to deplore
the wrongs of Vitellius, while they uttered their private griefs. Not a word
from any one of them disparaged the Flavianist leaders; they censured the delusion
and recklessness of the armies, and with a prudent circumlocution avoided the
name of Vespasian. A man was found, who, while all regarded with great contempt
both giver and receiver, wormed himself by flattery into the one day of office
which remained to complete the consulate of Caecina. On the last day of October
Rosius Regulus both assumed and resigned the office. The learned remarked that
never before had a new consul been elected without a formal act of deprivation
and the passing of a law. Before this indeed Caninius Rebilus had been consul
for a single day during the dictatorship of Caius Caesar, when the prizes of
the civil war had to be enjoyed in haste.
38. At this time the murder of Junius Blaesus obtained an infamous notoriety.
Of this act I have heard the following account. Vitellius, who was suffering
from severe illness, observed from the Servilian gardens a neighbouring turret
brilliantly illuminated throughout the night. Inquiring the cause, he was told
that Caecina Tuscus was entertaining a large party, of whom Junius Blaesus was
the most distinguished. Other particulars were given with much exaggeration
about the splendour of the banquet and the unrestrained gaiety of the guests.
There were persons who charged Tuscus and his guests, and Blaesus more vindictively
than any, with passing their days in merriment while the Emperor was sick. As
soon as it was sufficiently clear to those who keenly watch the angry moods
of princes, that Vitellius was exasperated, and that Blaesus might be destroyed,
the part of the informer was intrusted to Lucius Vitellius. An unworthy jealousy
made him the enemy of Blaesus, whose illustrious character raised him far above
one who was stained with every infamy; he burst into the Imperial chamber, and
clasping to his bosom the Emperor’s son, fell at his knees. On Vitellius enquiring
the cause of his emotion: “It is not,” he replied, “from any private apprehension,
or because I am anxious for myself; it is for a brother and for a brother’s
children that I have come hither with my prayers and tears. It is idle to fear
Vespasian, when there are so many legions of Germany, so many provinces with
their valour and their loyalty, and lastly, so vast an extent of sea and land
with enormous distances, to keep him from us. In the capital, in the very bosom
of the empire, there is the foe of whom we must beware, a foe who boasts of
Junii and Antonii among his ancestors, who, claiming an Imperial descent, displays
to soldiers his condescension and his magnificence. On him all thoughts are
fixed, while Vitellius, regardless alike of friends and foes, is cherishing
a rival, who from his banqueting table gazes at the sufferings of his sovereign.
For such ill-timed mirth let him be recompensed with a night of sorrow and of
death, that he may know and feel that Vitellius still lives and reigns, and
has a son, if in the course of destiny anything should happen to himself.”
39. Vitellius, after wavering between his guilty purpose and his fears, dreading
lest to postpone the murder of Blaesus might hasten his own ruin, while openly
to order it might provoke terrible odium, determined to destroy him by poison.
He gave a proof of his guilt by his marked joy when he visited Blaesus. He was
even heard to utter a most brutal speech, in which (I will relate the very words)
he boasted that he had feasted his eyes on the spectacle of his enemy’s death.
Besides his noble birth and refinement of character, Blaesus was a man of resolute
loyalty. In the flourishing days of the party, when canvassed by Caecina and
the leading men, who were beginning to despise Vitellius, he persevered in rejecting
their solicitations. A righteous man and a lover of peace, who coveted no sudden
elevation, much less the throne, he could not escape being thought to deserve
it.
Leave A Comment