by Gwyn Morgan
Next, there was the plan of campaign to discuss. Presumably to make the point that Vespasian hesitated—as Vitellius had not—to strip his provinces of troops for a civil war, Tacitus reports first that envoys were sent to Vologaeses I of Parthia and Tiridates of Armenia, to try to ensure that the two kings made no incursions into Roman territory while the legions were otherwise occupied. It was probably hard to determine how serious a threat these rulers represented. Corbulo, Nero’s general, had fought a long, hard war with Vologaeses, and there was no telling whether the king had learnt his lesson or was thirsting for revenge. Tiridates, on the other hand, was technically a client-king of Rome, having sworn allegiance to Nero in 66. But Nero was dead and Tiridates was Vologaeses’ brother. Besides, both would no doubt have assured Vespasian of their peaceful intentions, whatever they planned to do in fact. So it may well be that one reason for Vespasian’s deciding to remain close to the eastern frontier of the empire—now that he could—was to guard against the possibility that these two would make trouble. In the event, Parthian ambassadors would turn up in Alexandria toward the end of the year, and offer Vespasian the help of 40,000 mounted archers. This offer he declined, not merely because the civil war was almost over, but also because it would have been ill-advised to accept foreign aid when it suited his ends as much as it did Tacitus’ to play up the Germanic character of Vitellius’ troops.
For the rest, Titus was to keep the pressure on in Judaea, that is, to police the rebels who had already been conquered and prevent any new outbreaks. But he was not to begin the siege of Jerusalem (that was launched only in April 70). Vespasian would move south to Egypt, “in order to secure Alexandria.” Since Vespasian had no reason to doubt the loyalty of Tiberius Alexander or, for that matter, to fear a Vitellian counterattack on Egypt, this suggests two things. First, Vespasian must have meant to stay in Syria until winter approached, this being the best vantage point from which to keep an eye on the Parthians and to receive messages from Mucianus in the early stages of his march. Second, he would spend the winter in Alexandria, a natural center of communications, so that in the following spring he could move east or west as circumstances demanded. As for Mucianus, he was given a relatively small force, one entire legion from Syria (VI Ferrata) and detachments of 2,600 men apiece from the other five legions operating there and in Judaea, for a total of approximately 18,000 legionaries. But as he advanced through the Balkans, he was supposed to pick up more troops, first from the legions stationed in Moesia, Pannonia, and Dalmatia (the armies to which letters were certainly sent), and then from the dissident, ex-Othonian praetorians who had been dispersed about northern Italy by Vitellius. It seems to have been taken for granted that all these men would wait until Mucianus appeared to answer the call of “the name of Vespasian.”
This was Vespasian’s idea of how the business should be conducted, and he has often been credited with “a bloodless strategy” or, in more modern terms, a plan of winning by intimidation. On the one hand, he would blockade the city of Rome by cutting off the grain supplies from Egypt. On the other, he would use the threat embodied by Mucianus’ expeditionary force to destroy the Vitellians’ will to resist. Clearly there was much to be said for such an approach in political terms, since Vespasian stood to lose far more than he gained by shedding or allowing others to shed the blood of fellow citizens. And from a military point of view, such a plan not only matched his own cautious mode of campaigning in Judaea, but was well calculated to allay such doubts as he had about the ability of Mucianus and his troops to win any battle they might have to fight.
Yet there are problems in this interpretation. It is a fact that Vespasian—or Tiberius Alexander—cut off the grain supplies from Egypt, but it may be unwise to view this as an essential part of the overall plan, rather than as an action that might as well be taken since it could be taken. Unless Vespasian failed to realize it (which is possible), depriving Rome of its Egyptian grain would create a food shortage in the city, but hardly starvation, and it would hurt the common people far more than the Vitellians. The latter could simply appropriate all the available grain for their own uses, and grain there was in plenty, as Africa had become perhaps the most important source of supply since Augustus’ day. This may be why there have been attempts to backdate Tacitus’ report that Vespasian later contemplated invading Africa too. But while this plan would have created real shortages in Rome, had it been carried out, it was prompted—as Tacitus says—by Vespasian’s learning of the Vitellians’ defeat at Cremona in October, and by his recognition that this setback had bottled them up once for all in the Italian peninsula.
This is not the only obstacle to ideas of a “bloodless strategy.” Even if Vespasian hoped that Mucianus’ expeditionary force could overawe the enemy into surrender, Mucianus did not. Tacitus underlines this difference of opinion by including in his account of Mucianus’ departure from Antioch a plan of action that would have entailed considerable bloodshed. Some time before Mucianus set off, so Tacitus reports, he ordered the fleet of about 40 ships stationed in Pontus to gather at Byzantium. This was part of a plan to lead his expeditionary force by a different route from the one he took. In this scenario the troops would march the 907 Roman miles of the Egnatian Way from Byzantium to Dyrrachium (Durres) on the Adriatic coast, cross by sea to southern Italy, and fight their way up the peninsula to Rome, much as had Lucius Cornelius Sulla when he had invaded Italy in 83 B.C. There was a risk that the landing would be opposed by Vitellius’ much larger fleets at Misenum and Ravenna, but Mucianus argued seemingly that his adversary would be unable to concentrate either fleet because uncertain where exactly the Flavians would try to land, and so would be forced to distribute his warships in penny packets round the southern coast of Italy. There is no reason to think Vespasian was enamored of this plan, but Mucianus was, and since he behaved—as Tacitus puts it—more like Vespasian’s associate than his subordinate, he would no doubt have put it into effect, had he had the chance. As it was, the time of year ruled it out. Since Mucianus left Antioch near the start of August, there was little chance of reaching Dyrrachium before the first week in November, and even if Vitellian countermeasures took the form Mucianus anticipated, the Adriatic Sea was notoriously stormy in winter.
This was not Tacitus’ only reason to criticize Mucianus, or Vespasian for that matter. There was more moneygrubbing too. Mucianus had claimed that his alternative plan of action, by carrying the war to Italy, would protect Greece and Asia against the depredations of Vitellius. There was no plan to protect them from Flavian plundering. So when Mucianus left Antioch, he took with him only a small, lightly loaded advance guard, and with this he adopted a pace that was neither too slow, because that would depress the morale of his troops, “nor yet too fast, since he wanted the news of his advance to grow by exaggeration.” The people to be intimidated were not the Vitellians far away in Italy, however, but the inhabitants of the territory between Antioch and Byzantium. They were now soaked for monetary contributions to the war effort, collected by the advance guard and compelled by the main force that followed, the 18,000-odd legionaries organized around VI Ferrata. So the provinces through which he passed “rang with the preparation of ships, troops and weaponry, but nothing plagued them as much as the quest for cash.” To all complaints Mucianus replied that money provided the sinews of civil war, undeterred by the fact that this was a cliché. “He held hearings where he ignored law and equity and focused exclusively on the wealth of his potential targets, so that informers sprang up at every turn and all men of substance were plundered without mercy.”
Conceding that this heavy burden was excused by the demands of civil war, Tacitus involves Vespasian too, by going on to say that these practices continued after the war. “Though Vespasian himself at the start of his reign was not keen to enforce unjust decisions, he learnt to do so, and he got up the nerve to do so, thanks to the indulgence of fortune and his having bad teachers.” The best of these teachers being Mucianus, we are tol
d next that he contributed out of his own pocket to the costs of the war, “being open-handed because he knew that he would be able to draw more greedily from the state’s resources. The rest of the officers followed his lead and made contributions too, but very, very few of them enjoyed the same license in recovering their investments.”
Here Tacitus ends the third segment of his narrative, leaving Mucianus somewhere between Antioch and Byzantium, happily extracting funds from others who will never see their money again, but secure in the knowledge that he will reap the benefits of his own generosity many times over. It looks like an odd place to change the subject, especially when Mucianus turns up next in Moesia, but quite apart from Tacitus’ aversion to reporting pedestrian details about crossing the Dardanelles or advancing into Europe, two interlocking reasons seem to be at work. There is a point he has made before, that while an amalgam of Vespasian and Mucianus would have produced an excellent emperor, they were neither of them estimable characters on their own. And there is the likelihood that this stress on money is designed ironically to draw attention to the one substantive gain the two Flavian leaders made. For Tacitus turns next to the campaign led by Marcus Antonius Primus, a campaign in which the Balkan legions preempted every Flavian plan, Vespasian’s hopes for a relatively bloodless victory, and Mucianus’ desire for military glory.
9
The Opening of the Flavian Offensive (August to October)
The campaign conducted by the legions under Antonius Primus’ control falls naturally into two parts. Their initial moves, the subject of this chapter, established them firmly in northern Italy with the sack of Cremona, still the enemy’s main base in the area. Then came their more dilatory advance south toward Rome, culminating in the killing of Vitellius in late December. For the first stage Dio provides material on a few episodes; Suetonius skips over almost every event between September and November, referring explicitly to the sack of Cremona only in his Life of Vespasian; and Josephus contributes an interesting snippet or two. So Tacitus is our most detailed and our most reliable source. Not that all agree. A discrepancy has been discerned in Tacitus’ portrait of Antonius, a more heroic figure allegedly in the first stage of the campaign and in the second more of a villain. This supposed discrepancy in turn has been held to prove that Tacitus failed to combine two sources, one favorable to Antonius (no doubt the memoir by Vipstanus Messalla), and one to Vespasian whose plans Antonius wrecked so comprehensively. If we were to accept this thesis, we could impugn any detail we judged unsatisfactory on any ground and declare Tacitus wholly unreliable. But the thesis itself is misconceived. Tacitus may gloss over some of Antonius’ mistakes, but at base he presents us with a man who might show scruples when circumstances permitted, but showed none when they did not.
Northern Italy
The uprising against Vitellius started in August among the legions stationed in Moesia, and as Vespasian had hoped, III Gallica took the lead. But VII Claudia and VIII Augusta followed readily, as a result of events in April. As all three units had been gratified by the lavish rewards Otho heaped on them for the defeat of the Rhoxolani, they had obeyed his summons to join him in Italy. But none had advanced beyond Aquileia when they heard of his suicide. Suetonius and Tacitus disagree on what happened next. According to Suetonius’ overly condensed and so misleading account, only the advance detachments had reached the town. They took the news badly, “giving way to every form of plundering.” But since they recognized that Vitellius would punish them eventually, they proclaimed Vespasian emperor. Tacitus, however, states that the legions reached Aquileia in their entirety, refused at first to accept Vitellius as their ruler, but took advantage of the prevailing disorder to plunder only their military chest, their operating funds, sharing out the proceeds among themselves. He too states that the men recognized that they would be punished for their misconduct, but that the idea of backing Vespasian as a way out of their predicament occurred to them only after they heard that he had been proclaimed emperor in July. This is far more plausible. His claim that the legions plundered only their own funds is unlikely, but so too is Vitellius’ failure to punish the men, if they had truly proclaimed Vespasian in April. In April or May, however, Vitellius would have found it easy to overlook their plundering, whatever it was that they had plundered, and their rejecting him briefly out of their devotion to Otho.
It is harder to work out the role played by the governor of Moesia, Marcus Aponius Saturninus. He sent Vitellius the dispatch that informed the emperor of the defection of III Gallica. But no sooner had he sent it off than he followed the legion’s example. Perhaps he had underestimated the chances for success, not expecting the other two legions in the province to make common cause with the rebels so enthusiastically. Rivalry between legions in a province was common, even when they staged a mutiny, as the events of 14 had shown. Or he may have seen joining the revolt as a way to cover settling a personal score. He certainly claimed that he was acting in the state’s interests when he sent a centurion to kill Tettius Julianus, the legate of VII Claudia. Tettius evaded the assassin and eventually took refuge with Vespasian, but the feud had one important result. The military tribune Vipstanus Messalla, commander of one cohort, became the legion’s acting legate for the next two months, and he, says Tacitus, was “the only man to bring good qualities to this campaign.”
Once the Moesian legions had decided on their course of action, they sent letters to the units stationed in Pannonia, urging them to join the revolt or suffer the consequences of remaining loyal to Vitellius. The response was immediate. Legion XIII Gemina, stationed at Poetovio, still resented the defeat inflicted on it at Bedriacum and the humiliation of being forced afterwards to build amphitheaters at Placentia and Cremona. The men of VII Galbiana at Carnuntum seem to have been just as hostile to Vitellius, even if what counted in their eyes was that they had been recruited by Galba. But it was Marcus Antonius Primus, their commander, not they who made the decision. Not unlike Caecina earlier in the year, he saw revolt as an opportunity to make a name for himself.
Though nearly twice Caecina’s age, Antonius had an equally spotty record. Born at Tolosa (Toulouse) in Gallia Narbonensis early in Tiberius’ reign, he had been convicted of knowingly witnessing a forged will in 61 and had been sent into exile. Yet Galba had restored his senatorial rank and made him legate of VII Galbiana. When the war between Otho and Vitellius broke out, as Tacitus is careful to phrase it, Antonius “was believed to have written repeatedly to Otho, offering the emperor his services as a general, but since Otho ignored him, he played no useful role in that campaign.”1 Whatever this means, Antonius climbed on the Flavian bandwagon without hesitation. As Tacitus observes, he was a man of great physical bravery and oratorical ability, but to these essential qualifications for generalship he added less desirable traits. He was a master at making mischief for others, at his best amid riots and mutinies. He was always ready to plunder the property of others and to squander it in bribes for his own followers. In short, he was the worst kind of man to have around in peacetime but not one to underrate when there was a war. And he demonstrated these attributes in a meeting, held apparently at Poetovio (Ptuj) in Pannonia in late August. A letter from Vespasian was read to a gathering of delegates, officers and men, from all the Pannonian legions, calling on them to support his revolt. The men favored the idea, but the generals temporized—with one exception. Antonius came out openly for Vespasian, and so won the soldiers’ respect. They thought him “one as ready to accept the consequences of failure as he was to share the glory if they succeeded.”
Perhaps at this same meeting, the delegates also discussed plans of action. They had two choices. The bolder move was to launch an offensive into Italy at once, the alternative to wait for Mucianus and his army. To wait was the course Vespasian had recommended in his letters to the various legions, or at least the one that his letters assumed they would follow. He cannot have insisted on it, however, since his wishes were not an issue in this debate. Uns
urprisingly, most speakers favored delay. They had already posted guards at the three main Alpine passes through which a Vitellian force in Italy could counterattack them, and all they needed to do now, so they claimed, was to reinforce these pickets until they had assembled all the troops stationed in the Balkans. Only then would they be able to match the strength and prowess of the Rhine legions. Their own men were not only inferior in numbers but defeated as well. No matter how boldly they talked, their morale was questionable. This would not be a problem, if they limited themselves to occupying the passes in force. They would lose none of the advantages they possessed already, and they could only benefit by waiting for Mucianus and his army. And since Vespasian controlled the sea with his fleets, and had the enthusiatic backing of the eastern provinces, they would be able to fight as part of an overwhelming force in a brand new war.
Antonius was not alone in urging an immediate offensive, even though it was likely to run into the winter months. But he was the most forceful speaker. Responding point by point to the procrastinators’ arguments, he held that to attack immediately would work to the Flavians’ advantage and complete the ruin of the enemy. Victory had made the Vitellians lazy and complacent. Instead of being kept combat ready in camp, they were billeted in municipalities around Rome, intimidating only their unwilling hosts. “They had drunk deep of these unaccustomed pleasures with a greed all the greater because of the rough life they had lived before.” But though softened up by the pleasures of city living, or worn down by sickness, even they could be whipped back into shape, if given time to recover their energy under the threat of war. Vitellius could draw more troops from the two Germanies. Britain, Gaul, and Spain would furnish him with men, matériel, and money. And at his back he had Italy and its resources. This was not all. If the Vitellians seized the initiative while the Flavians held the Alpine passes, they themselves would end up in a trap. The Vitellians controlled two large fleets, and since the Adriatic was unguarded, they could land troops in Dalmatia and take their enemy in the rear. In the meantime the Flavians would be unable to secure pay or supplies from the area they occupied.