by Gwyn Morgan
The situation in Upper Germany was just as volatile, but for different reasons. Here the troops were angry, first, that Verginius Rufus had been stripped of his command. Their attitude toward him from now on would be ambivalent, partly because he had refused their offer of the throne, and partly because he had submitted tamely to his own supersession. But the enthusiasm he had aroused, not so much for kingmaking as for finding somebody—anybody—to replace Galba, needed only a catalyst to erupt again. Yet the troops were hardly ready to cast their new commander, Hordeonius Flaccus, in the role. For him they had only contempt, one reason why Caecina gained so much influence in the camp at Mogontiacum. To complicate matters further, this widespread disaffection was fostered sedulously by the Lingones and the Treveri, the Gallic tribes that had suffered at Galba’s hands. They sent representatives into the legions’ camp to stir up trouble. Wherever they found a receptive audience, they made much of the state funeral given to Vindex by Galba and of the rewards Vindex’s allies had received, and they bemoaned the injustice with which they and the legionaries had been treated. This aroused so much ill will that Hordeonius decided eventually to order them out of the camp. To avert an outcry, he made the tribesmen leave by night, but this produced the opposite effect. A rumor was quickly manufactured and spread that Hordeonius had murdered the men. Angry meetings followed, and first the legionaries, then even the auxiliary troops encamped with them, took up the cry that they must not only look out for themselves but, what made this a conspiracy in the eyes of officialdom, swear oaths to support one another too, in case Hordeonius attempted to kill off the most active agitators.
The sources agree that the two men who did most to fan this agitation were Fabius Valens, probably legionary legate of I Germanica at Bonna in Lower Germany, and Aulus Caecina, legate of IV Macedonica at Mogontiacum in Upper Germany. Of the two Valens figures far more prominently in the record. He may well have been behind the troops’ offering the throne to Verginius at Vesontio. He certainly took a lead in the attempts to persuade them (“with difficulty”) to accept Galba, after Verginius refused the offer made when the news of Nero’s death arrived. He was, again, one of the legates responsible for Fonteius Capito’s murder. And now, according to Tacitus, he did most to urge Vitellius to bid for the throne. Dwelling on the governor’s ancestry, so much more illustrious than that of Verginius Rufus, he emphasized the strength of the forces Vitellius could call upon if he made such a bid, and did all he could to discount any opposition they might encounter. Vitellius’ enthusiasm for playing a vigorous army commander, however, was not matched by a desire to become emperor. Aware of his own limitations, something for which he is rarely given credit, he responded to this misjudgment of his capabilities only to the extent of wanting to be emperor, not of doing anything about it. As a result, the agitation hung fire. When the legions in Lower Germany were called upon to renew their oath of allegiance on 1 January 69, they did as they were told. There was delay, there was grumbling, there were threats, and even the men in the front ranks—directly under the eyes of the officers—showed little enthusiasm. But as Vitellius made no move, nobody else had the nerve to give the lead for which all were supposedly waiting.
In Upper Germany things went differently. Aware that he was to be tried for embezzlement, Caecina had nothing to lose by stirring up trouble on a grand scale. So, with his encouragement, the two legions stationed in Mogontiacum refused to take the oath on 1 January, smashed Galba’s statues, and—to give their actions a semblance of legality—declared that they were placing themselves at the disposal of the senate and people of Rome. Four centurions from XXII Primigenia who tried to protect Galba’s statues were thrown in chains, and the other officers did nothing until the demonstration was over. Then, says Plutarch, they began pondering whom they could make emperor in Galba’s place. To their own commander, Hordeonius, they paid no more attention than the troops had done. Caecina must have played a leading role in these deliberations, whether or not he was the unnamed officer who, according to Plutarch, declared Vitellius the obvious choice. This is no proof that Caecina had been party to Valens’ plotting, however. Since their later dealings indicate that Caecina could not stand Valens, he would never willingly have subordinated himself to the other. Caecina was intent on saving his own neck and advancing his own career, aims he could fulfill by grabbing a leading role for himself. And that is why his second-in-command, the standard-bearer of IV Macedonica, was the officer sent to Colonia Agrippinensis that evening to inform Vitellius of what had happened.
Even to Vitellius it was clear that in swearing allegiance to the senate and people the two legions in Mogontiacum were playing for time. But since he had no great ambition to become emperor, despite the pressures to which he was being subjected, he decided to observe the proprieties and, at the same time, to test the feelings of his underlings. So messages were sent to the commanders and troops in his own province, to inform them officially that the two legions had refused to take the oath to Galba. They must either suppress this revolt, he said, or “if they preferred peace and concord, support a new emperor.” The answer was not long in coming. On 2 January Fabius Valens rode into Colonia Agrippinensis from Bonna with an escort of legionary and auxiliary cavalry (to show that Roman and non-Roman forces were equally enthusiastic), and hailed Vitellius emperor. The two legions in Mogontiacum followed suit on the next day. And the third legion in Upper Germany, XXI Rapax at Vindonissa (Windisch in Switzerland), presumably did likewise or, if it did not, everybody else must have taken it for granted that its officers and men would bow to a fait accompli.
We have two versions of Vitellius’ response to this turn of events. While neither flatters the new candidate for the throne, it needs stressing that Suetonius has an ulterior motive for devoting his more circumstantial account to the events of the evening of 2 January. As he tells the story, Vitellius was taken from his bedroom without the chance to dress. Instead, wearing his informal house-clothes, he was carried around the town by his troops, holding in his hand a sword of the Deified Julius that someone had taken down specially from a shrine of Mars. By the time they returned him to his headquarters, a neglected stove in the winter dining room had set fire to the place. Although the troops took this as a bad sign, Vitellius was able to reassure them: “do not lose heart,” he declared, “to us light is given.” But the point of this story is not Vitellius’ quick-witted response. Suetonius focuses on the events of 2 January, because the second day of any month was regarded by Romans as an unlucky day on which to start something new, like hailing Vitellius emperor. And evening was considered the least appropriate time of any day to engage in public business, new or not. Suetonius is picking up on the theme that dominates his Life of Vitellius, that the emperor must fall.11
Plutarch’s version, like Tacitus’, focuses on 3 January, when the news arrived that the legions in Upper Germany had accepted Vitellius. Since they need not have followed the lead given them by the troops in Lower Germany, and since the latter could have backed down (they had taken the oath to Galba), both writers correctly see the agreement reached between the two army groups on 3 January as the decisive moment. Vitellius, says Plutarch, was so overwhelmed that he was able to handle the situation only after bracing himself with a massive lunch and heavy drinking. As well he might. What had started as a mutiny by two legions had been transformed inside 48 hours into a full-scale rebellion by seven.
3
Adoption and Assassination (January 69)
Since Galba was old and childless, everybody recognized that if he was given time to pick a successor, he would have to adopt the man of his choice. Even when Romans appeared to abandon dynastic succession, they believed in grafting the next emperor onto the family tree of the incumbent. When Galba began thinking seriously about the matter is uncertain, since Tacitus states only that it was “some time before” he announced his choice on 10 January 69. But as he had not pursued the idea of adopting an heir in the years immediately following
the deaths of his two children in the 40s, it seems likeliest that his proclamation as emperor on 9 June 68 was what started him thinking about the issue, and not solely because he had achieved the traditional aristocratic aim of surpassing the achievements of all his ancestors. This timing suggests that we should give him credit for worrying about the welfare of the state as well. He may not have cared who inherited his personal effects, but he recognized that he could not show this indifference when it came to the question who would succeed him as emperor.
Galba’s refusal to name that heir publicly for another six months was smart politically, in that it limited the intrigue bound to swirl around the man he picked, and it foreclosed discussion on the wisdom of his choice. But it was ill advised, in that it did nothing to limit gossip. It was in the nature of Roman society that prominent senators would each consider themselves an ideal choice for heir, and that their friends and dependents would seize every chance to talk up their man. And nothing fascinated the people more than trying to identify whom Galba would choose. Under the young and childless Nero it had been unsafe as well as unwise to discuss so sensitive a topic in public. Galba’s old age made speculation inevitable, and the sheer delight of being able to gossip generated still more talk. Yet since our sources name only two men as the objects of this chatter, Otho and Cornelius Dolabella, it looks as though every other potential contender failed to break through the lines drawn round the emperor by his pedagogues.1
Otho was the obvious candidate from the start. He was a senator, if only a third-generation senator, and at 36 he was a relatively young man. As the governor of Lusitania, moreover, he had done all he could to help Galba from the moment the latter accepted Vindex’s offer to lead the revolt against Nero. Otho had not acted out of altruism, of course. He wanted to ingratiate himself with Galba, with his henchmen, and with his troops. So he made himself affable to the men of VII Galbiana as they trudged from Spain to Italy. Of Galba’s henchmen he won over Vinius, supposedly with hopes of a marriage alliance: Otho, a bachelor, would marry Vinius’ unattached daughter once his ambitions had been fulfilled. But he could make no impression on Laco and Icelus. And whether he failed or refused to recognize it, he had no more success with their master. Otho had once been Nero’s boon companion, and as almost everybody viewed him through that lens, it was easy to discount the sterling job he had done as governor of Lusitania and the help he had given since. This is how Galba arrived at the conclusion that he had not rescued the empire from the clutches of one playboy to hand it over to another. The other alternative, Dolabella, was a relative of Galba’s, perhaps his great-nephew, and like the emperor, he came from a family prominent in the republican period. But he seems to have had nothing to recommend him except that he was a senator and an ex-consul. If Laco and Icelus supported his cause, it was not because they thought him a good choice. They were merely united in their opposition to anybody Vinius supported. As for Galba, whatever his reasons, he seems to have been no more impressed with Dolabella than he was with Otho.
Whether or not Otho considered Dolabella a serious rival, he continued his own efforts to win favor, no longer with the legionaries he had cultivated on the march from Spain (Galba had shipped them off to Carnuntum in Pannonia), but with the praetorian guard. We need not consider this sinister. Talking of the brief lapse of time between Galba’s passing over Otho and Otho’s murdering him, Plutarch observes that loyal troops could not have been corrupted in a mere four days. His remark is not very perceptive in fact. Even if Galba had chosen Otho as his heir, Laco was prefect of the guard, and he was hostile. Lazy and incompetent as he was, he could have made things awkward for Otho if he chose. So it was in Otho’s best interests to take precautions as early as possible, to circumvent Laco and the senior officers he might be able to influence, and to build a following in the lower ranks, among the men who would be susceptible to his blandishments. We have two stories to indicate how far he went. When the emperor dined with Otho, Galba was attended—as was customary—by a cohort from the praetorian guard, and to each man in the unit Otho gave 100 sesterces, a gift of phenomenal size for one night’s work. More striking still was the help he gave the “speculator” Cocceius Proculus.2 Proculus was entangled in a dispute with a neighbor over the property line separating their farms. Offering himself as arbitrator, Otho purchased the neighbor’s land and presented it to the guardsman.
It was the way events played out that enabled Otho opportunistically to find another use for the guardsmen he had been cultivating. By the close of 68 Galba had settled on another prospect altogether, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Licinianus, a young man of impeccable ancestry. Born in 38, Piso could trace his lineage back to Caesar’s two colleagues in the First Triumvirate, to Pompey on his mother’s side, and to Crassus on his father’s. His own immediate family had not fared well under the Julio-Claudians, however. His father had been cosseted and then, around 45/46, executed by Claudius. Of Piso’s three brothers, one died with his father, the second was executed by Nero, and the third would suffer the same fate in 70, by order of Vespasian’s coadjutor, Licinius Mucianus. Piso himself had been scarcely more fortunate. He had spent much of Nero’s reign in exile. How much we do not know, but six years is a reasonable guess, since Piso seems to have held no public offices before he was recalled. Apparently to excuse this, Suetonius asserts that Galba had long admired Piso, and had made him his heir in the wills he drew up before becoming emperor. This is very improbable. It is hard to see how Galba could have gotten to know Piso, before or after the latter was sent into exile, when he himself had spent the last eight years in isolation at the western end of the empire. Though Galba was responsible for recalling Piso from exile, there is more to be said for the view of Tacitus and Plutarch, that what recommended the young man to the emperor was his ancestry, his being a victim of Nero, and his temperament, which—by the time he returned to the city—was old-fashioned, austere, and humorless.3
Tacitus, to anticipate a little, develops these points in the speech that Galba supposedly delivered to Piso when he told the young man of his decision to adopt him. According to the mise en scène nobody else overheard what was said, and the two principals were dead within a week. So the speech must be an invention, by Tacitus or by an earlier historian. Hence, like other similar speeches in the Histories and the Annals, this fiction has been hailed sometimes as evidence for Tacitus’ own views on the succession, sometimes as evidence of his unreliability. It is neither. It was a convention of ancient historiography that important figures in the narrative give speeches. Written in the historian’s style, albeit with touches of the speaker’s mannerisms to lend verisimilitude, these speeches represented perhaps the substance of what was said, perhaps the substance of what should have been said, or perhaps the reasoning behind the speakers’ actions, whether they said anything or not. So the speeches served the same purpose as modern scholars’ speculations about the motives of their subjects, and we can take this example as a distillation of Galba’s principal concerns as best Tacitus was able to reconstruct them.4
Galba stressed three themes. There was ancestry, regularly considered synonymous with ability by Roman aristocrats. Galba would have worried about this aspect anyway, since there was no value in grafting inferior stock onto his own family line. As it was, Piso’s ancestry far surpassed that of any other claimant to the throne, and it ought to have won the respect of the senate. At the same time, since Galba was adopting his heir, senators would not conclude, as they had under the Julio-Claudians, that they were being inherited like pieces of furniture. Second, there was Piso’s age. He was old enough to have left behind the irresponsibility of his twenties and young enough to have many years ahead of him—years in which he and his wife Verania might yet produce sons. This promised a long and stable reign, for Galba clearly a major consideration, since his aim was not to placate his enemies but to preempt their activities by presenting them with an heir they must accept. And third, there was Piso’s experience of exile. A
s he had been tested by adversity, so Galba supposedly thought, he would be less inclined to abuse his power, and less likely to be corrupted by it. So long as he kept the example of Nero before his eyes, he would be a ruler of the highest moral caliber. And if that proved to be his only qualification, it was not one lightly to be challenged or set aside.
Galba delayed announcing his choice until his hand was forced on 9 January, when he received a dispatch from Pompeius Propinquus, procurator of Gallia Belgica and paymaster to the legions stationed along the Rhine. This gave him the hard, if unwelcome, information that the two legions stationed in Mogontiacum had refused to renew their oath of allegiance to the emperor on the first of the year. Since the dispatch said nothing about developments like Vitellius’ proclamation, this seemingly persuaded Galba that he was faced only with a mutiny, and with grievances that would subside as soon as he announced that he had chosen an heir. On 10 January, therefore, he summoned his closest advisers to the palace. Those present, we are told, were Vinius, Laco and Icelus, of course, Marius Celsus, a loyal supporter of the emperor, and Aulus Ducenius Geminus, prefect of the city and so commander of the urban cohorts. Plutarch adds Otho to the roster, but he seems to have done this, wrongly, to intensify the humiliation Otho suffered as a result of Galba’s unexpected decision and the anger it sparked in him.
Tacitus calls the meeting an “imperial election,” but he is being sarcastic. For one thing, those present hardly constituted the semiofficial circle of advisers with which an emperor surrounded himself, the so-called consilium principis. This was a kitchen cabinet. And there was no debate or discussion. Galba announced that Piso was his choice, called the young man in, and then—according to Tacitus—took him off to one side to deliver his homily. When they rejoined the group, Piso expressed his gratitude to Galba and spoke modestly of himself. None of this made a favorable impression on the others present, any more than it did on the rest of the populace later. Galba’s entourage was quick to congratulate Piso on his new status, but they were disquieted by his impassiveness. He showed no emotion, as if to be emperor was more a penance than a prize, a chore to be undertaken rather than the fulfillment of any right-thinking senator’s ambitions.