by Gwyn Morgan
Whatever faults we find in Tacitus, he remains our best guide to the last two months of Vitellius’ reign. By now, Suetonius is so committed to his thesis that Vitellius is doomed that for him the only issue is when and how, not whether Vitellius will fall. And since he focuses so closely on the person of the emperor, he talks almost exclusively of Vitellius’ last days. Dio’s account need not have taken this line, but it was abridged so brutally by his epitomators that the effect is similar. Their summaries give the impression that Vitellius was doomed, not only because of assorted omens, but also because of his inability to follow a consistent course of action. So Dio’s account too presses on to the attempts to abdicate. Tacitus, conversely, recognizes that the sack of Cremona marked a, not the turning point in the campaign. But because he is writing a comprehensive narrative, he treats it as a natural break in the action, and weaves into his account other more or less contemporaneous developments. As it happens, he does not say that much more about Vitellius personally, but he deals in turn with the emperor, Fabius Valens, and events in a string of provinces running from west to east.
So, of Vitellius, Tacitus reports that he sent Valens off to the north a few days after Caecina’s departure (probably near the end of September), and then relapsed into his usual inertia. “He did not make ready weapons, he did not firm up the troops’ morale with addresses and drills, and he did not appear before the people.” As Tacitus fails to say why he should have undertaken any of these actions, it is easy to charge the historian with carping. So far as Vitellius knew, after all, the war was under control, now that he had sent his two best generals to the front. It was for the prefects of the guard to keep the praetorians in shape, provided always that they were as disorganized and undisciplined as had been the force with which Caecina left Rome. There were no reports of evil omens to depress popular morale, and the people remained firmly committed to Vitellius anyway. And war or no war, September and October were among the slackest months in the senatorial calendar. Yet, as events were to prove, it might have been better had Vitellius remained in Rome.
Not unlike many of the senators, however, Vitellius withdrew to his villa at Aricia, some 16 miles south of Rome, and “hid away in the shady arbor of his suburban estate, as if he were one of those slothful animals that lie around in a torpor, so long as you keep on feeding them.” In the second half of October, however, news arrived that Lucilius Bassus had masterminded the defection of the Ravenna fleet and then, a week or so later, that Caecina too had tried to desert. Vitellius was grieved by this, of course, but he managed to look on the bright side. Gladdened that Caecina had been thrown in chains, he returned to the city, and delivered a speech to an assembly, of the people or the praetorian guard, in which he heaped praise on the loyalty of his troops. But one precaution he did take. The prefect of the guard Publilius Sabinus was removed from his post because of his friendship with Caecina, and the vacancy was filled by Alfenus Varus, Valens’ second-in-command during his march to Rome.
Next, probably on 30 October, Vitellius addressed the senate in a speech of studied grandiloquence, its subject the state of the state. Once this had been greeted with the appropriate adulation by his audience, his brother Lucius, from now on a prominent figure in Tacitus’ narrative, introduced a vote of censure on Caecina. His lead was followed promptly. With a great show of indignation the others present condemned a consul who had deserted the state, a general who had betrayed his commander in chief, and a man who had abandoned the friend from whom he had received so many marks of distinction. In so doing, says Tacitus not unreasonably, “they professed to complain of the wrongs done to Vitellius, but it was their own resentment they were airing.” Without abusing the Flavian generals or mentioning Vespasian, they put the blame on armies that had gone astray out of thoughtlessness. And one senator, Rosius Regulus, even capitalized on Caecina’s disgrace and wheedled out of the emperor the last day of the traitor’s consulship. So Rosius entered on and laid down his office on one and the same day, 31 October. Self-appointed experts on constitutional law were outraged by the impropriety. Others just ridiculed beneficiary and benefactor.
Here Tacitus launches into a highly dramatic account of an incident that occurred, he says, “during these same days,” a vague expression meant—as best we can tell—to denote the end of October or the start of November, before the news of Cremona reached Rome. This was Vitellius’ decision to rid himself of Junius Blaesus, the governor of Lugdunensis who had treated him so generously and courteously during his progress south to Rome six months earlier. For this Vitellius earned immediate notoriety, but Tacitus’ account is the only version to have survived. Vitellius, now back in Rome, was lying ill in the imperial villa in the Servilian Gardens, a park on the southern side of the city and once one of Nero’s haunts. As he tossed and turned, he noticed that a nearby villa was ablaze with torches. When he asked why, he was told that a huge banquet was being thrown that night by Caecina Tuscus in Blaesus’ honor.1 Every aspect of the affair was exaggerated by his attendants, including the enjoyment of all the guests. When Vitellius reacted badly to this, some of his courtiers began to denounce Caecina Tuscus and, still more, Blaesus for making merry “the livelong day” while their emperor suffered so grievously on his bed of pain. And once they saw that the incident could be used to bring down Blaesus, they turned over the leading role in their drama to the emperor’s brother Lucius.
The question that seems not to have been asked is why the dinner was held now. The most economical answer is surely that it was a cena adventicia just like the affair Lucius Vitellius had thrown for Aulus when he arrived from Germany some two months earlier. If Blaesus had just returned from the governorship of Lugdunensis (since Galba had appointed him, this seems reasonable), Caecina Tuscus would naturally have thrown him a banquet, and Vitellius’ hangers-on would just as naturally have seized on this heaven-sent opportunity to bring down the guest of honor, probably out of jealousy. Although Tacitus keeps till last the details of Blaesus’ pedigree, in order to accentuate the enormity of the crime, he was a man of high birth. As such, he could exert considerable influence in the senate and, perhaps, with the emperor too, thanks to the generosity he had once shown him. The courtiers were not to know that, according to Tacitus at least, Vitellius had resented that generosity even as he accepted it.
Lucius Vitellius was supposedly eager to play chief prosecutor because he hated Blaesus: the latter was an honorable man and much respected, whereas Lucius’ reputation was far from spotless. As far as it goes, this is probably true. Still, we can discern an additional motive, fear, if we raise another question, why Lucius had never joined his brother before Bedriacum. His failure to do so after made good sense, since he could serve then as Aulus’ representative among the senators Otho had corralled. Before the battle, on the other hand, Otho could have kept Lucius under close guard and he would still not have found it hard to slip away, had he had the mind to do so. Lucius, it seems, preferred to let events play out however they might, until Aulus became emperor. Then, driven on no doubt by Triaria, Lucius began energetically removing every potential threat to Aulus’ position, and Blaesus could be represented as one such. Tacitus admits presently that Blaesus “had been approached by Caecina and others high in Vitellius’ favor while things were still going well, because they were already contemptuous of the emperor, but he had rejected their overtures.” He says nothing to indicate when or where this had happened, or who else was involved, but it could have occurred during the victory celebrations in Lugdunum, when Caecina first saw Vitellius in his guise as emperor. It is also uncertain whether the emperor or his brother knew about it, but Lucius needed no excuse anyway.
Lucius chose his moment carefully. He burst into the emperor’s bedroom, carrying the latter’s six-year-old son in his arms and falling to his knees. Asked by the emperor why he was so perturbed, Lucius announced that it was not for himself that he feared, but for his brother and his brother’s children. There was no reason t
o fear Vespasian when so many armies and provinces were keeping him so far away (a ludicrous thing to say, as his addressee would know, unless the news of Cremona had not reached the city). What should worry the emperor was the enemy close to home, a man who boasted of descent from the families of the Junii and the Antonii (as no doubt Blaesus did); a man who was parading his imperial ancestry before the troops (another absurdity, unless Blaesus was newly returned to Rome and Vitellius, ill for a few days, had no information on the point); and a man on whom all eyes were fixed, as indeed they were (the banquet was crowded). Since Vitellius could not be bothered to distinguish between friends and enemies, he was fostering a rival for his own position. And this rival was sitting back, watching his suffering from a banquet nearby. Blaesus must be made to realize that Vitellius still lived, was emperor, and if anything untoward occurred, had a son ready to succeed him.
Vitellius’ response to this speech is easy to understand. Clearly shaken by Caecina’s defection, he must have been heartened by his brother’s confident belief—real or feigned—that military victory would still be his. Then too, his brother’s words forced him to take into account the effect of the defection on the senate as a whole. Made to think about it, he could not be nearly as sure of the continuing support of leading senators as he was of the loyalty of his troops. Again, the emperor undoubtedly loved his son, and anybody who could be represented plausibly as a threat to the boy’s future would rouse him to action. Finally, he was probably impressed not just by his brother’s oratory (Tacitus works hard to give Lucius a compelling speech), but also by his brother’s display of concern. As Tacitus remarks in his obituary of Vitellius, he was open and generous. It may never have crossed his mind that Lucius was up to something.
As a result, Vitellius accepted his brother’s contention that Blaesus must die. Though driven on by the fear that if he delayed, the other would strike first, he hesitated to order Blaesus’ death at once. And since to order the execution openly would bring down fearful unpopularity on his own head, he decided to employ poison. When, where, and how this was administered Tacitus does not say. Instead, he observes that Vitellius “reinforced people’s belief in his crime by the remarkable joy he showed when visiting Blaesus. Why, he was even heard to make an inhuman comment (I give his very words), in which he boasted of having feasted his eyes on the death of a personal enemy.”2 In fact, says Tacitus to round out his tale, Blaesus was a man of distinguished ancestry, impeccable breeding, and unshakeable loyalty. Admitting that he had been approached by Caecina, he insists that Blaesus had rejected his overtures. “He was so far from seeking the principate that he scarcely escaped being thought worthy of it.” The epigram is typical of Tacitus’ liking for giving a story a sting in the tail, but it goes too far. Blaesus had been appointed governor of Lugdunensis by Galba, after all, and Galba disliked administrators with strong personalities. From that it could follow that Blaesus might entertain another offer. Too much depended on who made it, in what circumstances, and under what pretexts. Not that this takes away from the moral Tacitus draws, that Blaesus was a virtuous man and virtue could be as dangerous to its possessors in Vitellius’ reign as it had been in that of his role model, Nero.
With this Tacitus switches to Fabius Valens. His conduct is harder to fathom, the chronology of his movements harder to pin down. We know that Valens did not accompany Caecina on the march north because he was seriously ill; that the emperor put strong pressure on him to leave not too much later (around the end of September); and that when he set out on his journey to the north, he took no troops with him, since there was no perceived need for them. Yet he headed a column, says Tacitus, “a large and luxurious column of concubines and eunuchs.” No doubt Tacitus wants to remind his readers of the proclivities Valens had displayed earlier and, according to gossip, would exhibit during this march also. But he is making an important point too, that so long as Valens refused to forsake this company, his progress was bound to be slow. Whether or not we assume that Valens’ advanced age also impeded a full recovery from his illness, his progress was so incredibly snail-like that he failed to complete even the first stage of his journey before he heard that the Ravenna fleet had deserted.
For clarity’s sake it may be best to outline the route Valens would have had to follow to reach Cremona or Hostilia—especially since this turned out to be the route followed, in reverse, by Antonius Primus’ troops. The first stage involved taking the Flaminian Way (Via Flaminia) out of Rome. This ran north-northeast, passing through towns like Ocriculum, Narnia, and Mevania (of which we shall hear more later), then made its way through the Apennine mountains to reach the Adriatic coast at Fanum Fortunae (Fano) some 180 Roman miles away. There it ran along the coast for another 32 Roman miles and terminated at Ariminum (Rimini). From there the Aemilian Way (Via Aemilia) took a northwesterly direction, running for a considerable distance alongside the northern slopes of the Apennines, before striking out across the flat land to Placentia, nearly another 180 Roman miles from Ariminum. From Placentia it would have been easy for Valens to make the remaining 20-odd miles to Cremona along the Postumian Way. To get to Hostilia, on the other hand, he should probably have turned off the Aemilian Way a little earlier, perhaps at Bononia (Bologna) or Mutina (Modena). But whichever destination he chose, he had to pass Ravenna on his right, and that is why Tacitus stresses the effect on Valens of the news that Lucilius Bassus had taken the fleet over to the enemy. As Ravenna lay only some 35 miles north of Ariminum, there was a real danger that marines from the fleet would block the Aemilian Way ahead of his advance, or—an eventuality closer to what happened in fact—that the fleet would intercept any force advancing up the last stretch of the Flaminian Way, where it bordered the coast.
So, then, Tacitus asserts that when Valens learnt of the Ravenna fleet’s defection, he could have saved the day if only he had hurried on. Supposedly he could have reached Caecina at Hostilia before the latter made up his mind to switch sides or, at least, have assumed command of the legions at Cremona. But even if we were to allow some two weeks for the time-lag between his hearing of the fleet’s action and the sack of Cremona, there is no realistic way of testing this assertion, and it may reflect the later criticisms of armchair strategists or unreconstructed Vitellians. For Valens decided to call a council of war, only to find that the members of his entourage disagreed fundamentally. Some urged the utmost audacity: he should press on, slip past Ravenna on side roads, and make his way to Hostilia or Cremona with a handful of trusted associates. Others argued for extreme caution: he ought to call up the cohorts of the guard from Rome, and fight his way through at the head of this powerful force. Valens, says Tacitus, wasted time listening to this advice and then rejected both plans. Doing “the worst thing possible in a crisis,” he settled on a compromise. He sent a letter to Vitellius asking only for some auxiliary troops, presumably with the idea that they could march faster than guardsmen and handle by-roads more easily. How much time this consumed we cannot tell. Vitellius, after all, was still “lazing about” in his villa at Aricia, and unless some subordinate handled Valens’ request without checking with the emperor, anything up to a week could have been spent deciding what forces should go and dispatching them. All we know is that Valens ended up with three auxiliary cohorts and one cavalry squadron, a force of some 4,000 men, too many to slip past the enemy unnoticed and too few to fight their way through against determined resistance.
While Valens waited for the arrival of these troops, he showed himself “so indifferent to disrepute that he was believed to be snatching illicit pleasures and polluting the houses of those with whom he stayed by seducing their wives and children; for he had at his disposal power, money and the last-minute lust of a collapsing fortune.” Then, when his reinforcements arrived, he found that their loyalty was extremely shaky: “only their sense of shame and their respect for the general prevented them from deserting immediately, restraints that could not hold for long men fearful of danger and indifferen
t to disgrace.” And supposedly it was this that induced Valens to change his plans. He sent the cohorts ahead to Ariminum, apparently to block the road south to Rome. He ordered the cavalry squadron to shield their rear against attacks from the Ravenna fleet, no doubt by taking up position between Ariminum and Fanum Fortunae. And he turned aside with a few companions and cut westward across country to Etruria, with the idea of finding a ship there, sailing to the coast of Narbonensis, and launching a new campaign by raising the Gauls, the armed forces still on the Rhine, and the German tribes on the far side of the river.
There are several difficulties in this narative. How, for example, did Valens know that his fortunes were collapsing? More seriously, it is questionable if the loyalty of the reinforcements was as uncertain as Tacitus claims. We could hold that even if the subordinate who actually picked the troops was one of the praetorian prefects and notionally Valens’ adherent, he would not necessarily have decided to send his best men north. But as this force would put up at least some resistance, Tacitus may have used their supposed low morale to explain the change in plan when it was something else that precipitated it. There are two possibilities. One is that Tacitus is wrong to say that Valens heard of the sack of Cremona when he was already in Etruria, in which case the sack led to the change. The other is to accept Tacitus’ chronology and assume that Valens came to two conclusions, that Caecina had already ruined the entire army entrusted to him, and that there was no point in trying to pull his rival’s chestnuts out of the fire.
In either case, Valens’ departure for Etruria around the end of October unnerved the cohorts he had sent ahead to Ariminum, but not so much that they gave up without a fight. Later, to accentuate the difficulties Antonius’ forces encountered when they reached the area, Tacitus describes the neighborhood of Fanum Fortunae as “devastated by war.” So there must have been some serious fighting before the cohorts surrendered. Cornelius Fuscus certainly surrounded them, bringing up a force of marines and patrolling the coast with galleys from the Ravenna fleet. And this split control of Italy between Vespasian and Vitellius along the line of the Apennines. As for Valens, he took ship from Pisa, but he was able only to reach Portus Herculis Monoeci (Monaco), because the winds and currents were against him. Luckily, the headquarters of Marius Maturus, the procurator of the Maritime Alps, lay less than 15 miles away, and Maturus was still staunchly loyal to Vitellius, even though all around him had sworn allegiance to Vespasian. Yet while Maturus received Valens warmly, he bent every effort to dissuading him from going ahead with his plan to enter Narbonensis, and that did nothing for the morale of either man’s supporters.