Complete Works of Tacitus (Delphi Classics) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 24)

by Publius Cornelius Tacitus

  16 1 About eleven o’clock a horseman rode up at full speed and reported that the enemy was coming; that a small number preceded the main body, but that the movement and noise of their advance could be heard over a wide area. While Antonius was considering what course to pursue, Arrius Varus, prompted by his eagerness to do something important, rushed forward with the boldest of the cavalry and drove back the Vitellians; but he inflicted only a slight loss, for when larger forces came up, the fortune of battle was reversed; and those who had been pursuing the Vitellians most vigorously now were the last to retreat. Antonius had not desired this hasty attack and he expected the result to be what it actually proved. He now urged his men to engage with all courage and withdrew his squadrons to the flanks, leaving an open path in the centre for the reception of Varus and his cavalry. He directed the legions to arm, and gave the signal through the fields for his men to leave their booty and quickly form for battle, each joining the company nearest him. In the meantime Varus in a panic regained the main body of his comrades and communicated his terror to them. The uninjured and the wounded alike were forced back in the confusion caused by their own fright and the narrow roads.

  17 1 In this panic Antonius failed in no duty that a determined general or a brave soldier should perform. He ran to those who were terrified, held back those who were fleeing; wherever there was the greatest danger, wherever there was some hope, there his counsel, his action, and his words of encouragement made him a mark for the enemy and conspicuous before his men. Finally, he was carried to such a pitch of excitement that he transfixed with a spear a colour-bearer who was running away, then seized the standard, and turned it towards the foe. Struck with shame some horsemen — not over one hundred in all — made a stand against the enemy. The character of the ground favoured them, the road at this point being narrower and the bridge broken down across a stream which came in the way and with its unknown depths and steep banks made flight difficult. It was such necessity or good luck that restored the fortunes of a side that was already well nigh lost. The troops reformed in firm and solid ranks and received the Vitellians, who, coming on in disorder, were thrown back in confusion. Antonius pursued those who were panic-stricken, cut down those who resisted, while the rest of his troops, each following his own nature, robbed the dead, took prisoners, or carried off arms and horses. The soldiers, who a moment before were fleeing through open fields, were attracted by the shouts of success and joined in the victory.

  18 1 Four miles from Cremona the gleam of the standards of the legions Rapax and Italica was suddenly seen; for, hearing of the early success of their cavalry, they had hurried on to this point. But when fortune opposed them, they did not open out their lines, receive the fugitives, or advance and take the initiative in attacking their opponents, who were exhausted with their long advance and with fighting. Being now guided by chance, in their adversity they realized their lack of a leader as they had never missed him in success. When their line wavered, the enemy’s victorious horse suddenly attacked; the tribune Vipstanus Messala also came up bringing some auxiliary troops from Moesia with whom many legionaries had kept pace in spite of their rapid advance; and so the Flavian foot and horse combined broke through the line of the two legions. The neighbouring walls of Verona, while offering hope of a refuge, gave them less courage for resistance. Still Antonius did not press on further, for he realized that his soldiers were exhausted by their efforts and by the wounds with which the struggle, so long uncertain in spite of its successful end, had afflicted both horsemen and horses.

  19 1 As evening fell, the great mass of the Flavian troops arrived in a body. As they marched over the heaps of the dead where the signs of the bloody conflict were still fresh, imagining that the war was over, they demanded to go on to Cremona and receive the surrender of their defeated opponents, or else to storm the town. Thus they spoke openly — fine words indeed; but what each said to himself was that the colony situated in the plain could be carried by storm; they would have as much courage if they broke in during the dark, and they would have a greater licence to plunder. But if they waited for the light, there would be at once appeals and prayers for peace, and in return for toil and wounds the common soldiers would bear off such empty prizes as clemency and glory, while the wealth of Cremona would fill the purses of the prefects and commanders. “The booty of a city,” they said, “always falls to the soldiers if it is captured, to the officers if it surrenders.” They treated with scorn their centurions and tribunes, rattling their arms to avoid hearing anyone’s words, and they were ready to defy their officers if not led to the assault.

  20 1 Then Antonius made his way among the companies, and when by his appearance and influence he had secured silence, he addressed them to this effect: “I have no desire to take away either honour or reward from soldiers who have deserved so well, but there is a division of duties between soldiers and generals: to soldiers belongs the eager enthusiasm for battle, but generals must help by foresight, by counsel, and more often by delay than by rash action. As I have done my full part to secure victory with my arms and my personal efforts, I will now help by wise counsel, which is the quality proper to a leader. For there can be no question as to the obstacles before us — night and the situation of this strange city, the fact that the enemy is within, and that everything is favourable for an ambuscade. Even if the gates were open, we ought not to enter except after reconnaissance and by day. Or will you begin a siege when wholly cut off from seeing what ground is level, how high the walls, whether to attack with artillery and weapons or with siege works and protecting sheds?” Then turning to one and another, he asked them whether they had brought with them axes, picks, and the other implements for storming cities. When they said that they had not, he asked: “Can any troops break through walls and undermine them with swords and javelins? If we need to build a mound, or protect ourselves with mantlets and fascines, shall we stand here useless like an improvident mob, gaping with wonder at the lofty towers and fortifications of others? Shall we not rather at the expense of a single night fetch up artillery and engines, and so bring with us the force to secure victory?” At the same time he sent the sutlers, servants, and the freshest of the cavalry to Bedriacum to fetch supplies and all else they needed.

  21 1 But the soldiers found inaction hard; in fact they were near a mutiny when a body of horsemen who had ridden up under the very walls of Cremona caught some stragglers from the town and learned from them that six Vitellian legions and all the force that had been stationed at Hostilia, after marching thirty miles that day, had heard of the losses that their associates had suffered, and that they were now preparing for battle — in fact would soon be there. This alarming danger opened their obstinate ears to the plans of their general. He ordered the Thirteenth legion to take its position on the actual causeway of the Postumian Road. Immediately on the Thirteenth’s left the Seventh Galbian stood in open country, next the Seventh Claudian, protected, as the ground ran, by a ditch. On the right was the Eighth legion on an open cross-road, and then the Third, distributed among dense thickets. This was the order of the eagles and standards; the soldiers took their places in the darkness without order, wherever chance set them. The praetorians’ standard was next the Third legion; the cohorts of the auxiliaries were on the wings; and the cavalry covered their flanks and rear. The Suebian princes Sido and Italicus with picked troops from their tribes were in the front ranks.

  22 1 The wise policy for the troops of Vitellius was to revive their strength by food and sleep at Cremona and then to put to flight and crush their opponents, who would be exhausted by cold and lack of food. But being without a leader, destitute of a plan, at about nine o’clock in the evening they flung themselves on the Flavian troops, who were ready and in their stations. I should not dare to state definitely the order in which they advanced, for their line was thrown into confusion by the soldiers’ fury and by the darkness. Some writers, however, have said that the Fourth Macedonian legion was on their ex
treme right, the Fifth and Fifteenth with detachments from the Ninth, Second, and Twentieth British formed their centre, while the Sixteenth, Twenty-second, and First constituted their left. The troops of the two legions known as the Rapax and the Italica had joined companies in every part of the line; the cavalry and auxiliaries selected their own positions. The battle lasted the entire night with varied fortune, uncertain as to its outcome, savage, and fatal now to one side, now to the other. Neither courage nor arms, nor even their eyes, which might have foreseen danger, were of any avail. The weapons in both lines were the same, the watchwords for battle became known, for they were constantly asked; the standards were confused as some band or other carried off in this direction or that those they had captured from their foes. The Seventh legion, lately enrolled by Galba, was hardest pressed: it lost six centurions of the first rank; some of its standards were captured; its eagle was finally saved by Atilius Verus, a centurion of the first rank, who in his efforts killed many of the enemy, only finally to fall dying himself.

  23 1 Antonius strengthened his wavering line by bringing up the praetorians. On engaging they drove back the enemy, only to be driven back themselves, for the Vitellians had concentrated their artillery on the raised road that they might have free and open ground from which to fire; their earlier shots had been scattered and had struck the trees without injuring the enemy. A ballista of enormous size belonging to the Fifteenth legion began to do great harm to the Flavians’ line with the huge stones that it hurled; and it would have caused wide destruction if it had not been for the splendid bravery of two soldiers, who, taking some shields from the dead and so disguising themselves, cut the ropes and springs of the machine. They were at once run through and thus their names were lost; but there is no doubt about their deed. Fortune inclined to neither side until, as the night wore on, the rising moon illuminated the lines with its deceptive light. But this was more favourable to the Flavian forces, for the moon was behind them and so magnified the shadows of horses and men; while their opponents, deceived by the shadows, aimed at them as if they were the actual bodies, and therefore their spears fell short; but the Vitellians, having the moonlight in their faces and thus being clearly seen, unconsciously presented a mark to their enemies, who shot, so to speak, from concealment.

  24 1 When Antonius could recognize his soldiers and be recognized by them, he began to urge them on, some by shame and reproaches, more by praise and encouragement, but all by hope and promises. He asked the Pannonian legions why they had taken up their arms again; he reminded them that this was the field on which they could blot out the stain of their earlier disgrace, where they could regain their former glory. Then turning to the soldiers from Moesia he appealed to them as the authors and promoters of this war. He told them that it had been useless to challenge the Vitellians with threats and words, if they could not endure their hands and looks. This he said as he came to each division; but he spoke at greater length to the troops of the Third legion, reminding them of their ancient glory as well as of their later achievements, of their victory over the Parthians when Mark Antony was their leader, over the Armenians when Corbulo commanded, and of their recent defeat of the Sarmatians. Then he indignantly said to the praetorians: “As for you, clowns that you are, if you do not win to-day, what other general or other camp will take you in? Yonder are your standards and your arms, and, if defeated, death; for dishonour you have exhausted.” A shout arose from the entire army; and the soldiers of the Third legion, according to the Syrian custom, hailed the rising sun.

  25 1 This action gave rise to a vague rumour, which perhaps the general started with intention, to the effect that Mucianus had arrived and that the two armies had greeted each other. The Flavian forces then advanced as if reinforced by fresh troops; the Vitellian line was now more ragged, as was natural with troops who had no commander, but closed or opened out their ranks as courage or fear moved individuals. After Antonius saw that they were shaken, he assailed them in mass formation. Their weakened lines were broken and could not be reformed, because they were entangled among the supply-wagons and artillery. The victorious troops in their hasty pursuit were strung out along the sides of the road. The carnage was peculiarly marked by the fact that in it a son killed his own father. The story and the names I shall give on the authority of Vipstanus Messala. Julius Mansuetus of Spain, when enrolled with the legion known as Rapax, had left behind him a young son. Later, when this son had grown up, he had been conscripted into the Seventh legion by Galba. Now he happened to meet his father, whom he wounded and struck down; then, as he looked closely at the dying man, the father and son recognized each other; the son embraced his expiring father and prayed with tears in his voice that his father’s spirit would forgive him and not abhor him as a patricide. “The crime,” he cried, “is the State’s; and what does a single soldier count for in a civil war?” At the same time he lifted up the body and began to dig a grave, performing the last duties toward a father. The soldiers near first noticed it, presently more; then through the whole line were heard cries of wonder, of pity, and of cursing against this most horrible war. Yet not one whit did they slacken their murder of relatives, kinsmen, and brothers. They called the deed a crime but did it.

  26 1 When they reached Cremona they found a new task of enormous difficulty before them. In the war against Otho the troops from Germany had pitched their camp around the walls of Cremona and then had built a rampart around their camp; these defences they had later strengthened. At the sight of the fortifications the victorious troops hesitated, for their leaders were in doubt what orders to give. To begin an attack on the town with troops that were exhausted by fighting an entire day and night was a difficult undertaking and one of doubtful issue, when there were no reserves at hand; but if they returned to Bedriacum, their victory shrank to nothing, not to speak of the intolerable burden of such a long march. To fortify a camp even, with the enemy close at hand, involved the danger that the foe might by a sudden sortie cause them serious difficulty while their troops were scattered and busy with the work. But beyond all these things the Flavian leaders feared their own soldiers, who were more ready to face danger than delay; the troops detested safe measures and put all their hope in rash action. Every disaster, all wounds and blood, were outweighed by their greed for booty.

  27 1 Antonius inclined to meet his troops’ desires and ordered the investment of the enemy’s camp. At first they fought at a distance with arrows and stones; but in this context the Flavians suffered the greater loss, for their opponent shot down upon them. Then Antonius assigned to each legion a gate or a part of the wall, that the division of labour might show who was brave and who cowardly, and thus fire the enthusiasm of his troops by making them rivals for glory. The sections next the road to Bedriacum the Third and Seventh legions took, the fortification farther to the right the Eighth and the Seventh Claudiana; the Thirteenth assailed the gate toward Brixia. Then there followed a brief delay while some of the soldiers gathered from the neighbouring fields mattocks and picks and others brought hooks and ladders. Then the soldiers, raising their shields above their heads, advanced under the wall in a close “tortoise” formation. Both sides used the familiar artifices of Roman warfare: the Vitellians rolled down heavy stones, and when they had separated and loosened the cover of compact shields, they searched its joints with lances and pikes until they broke up the close structure of the “tortoise,” and hurled their dead and mangled foes to the ground with great slaughter. The soldiers would have slackened their assault, for they were weary and ready to reject exhortations as idle, had not the leaders pointed to Cremona.

  28 1 Whether this was the inspiration of Hormus, as Messala says, or whether Gaius Pliny, who blames Antonius, is the better authority, I cannot easily decide; all I can say is that whether it was Antonius or Hormus, this most monstrous crime was not unworthy of the life and reputation of either. Blood and wounds no longer delayed the soldiers in their attempts to undermine the wall and shatter the
gates; they renewed the “tortoise,” and climbing on their comrades’ shoulders, they mounted on it and seized their foes’ weapons and arms. The unharmed and the wounded, the half-dead and the dying all rolled in one mass; men perished in many ways and death took every form.

  29 1 The Third and Seventh legions made the most violent assault; and their general, Antonius, attacked at the same point with picked auxiliaries. When the Vitellian troops could no longer sustain this combined and persistent attack, finding that their shots slipped off the “tortoise” without doing harm, they finally pushed over their ballista itself on the heads of their assailants beneath. This for the moment scattered and crushed those on whom it fell, but in its fall it dragged down the parapet and the upper part of the rampart; at the same time a neighbouring tower gave way before the volleys of stones. While men of the Seventh legion pressed forward in wedge formation, the Third broke down a gate with axes and swords. All authorities agree that the first man to rush in was Gaius Volusius, a private of the Third legion. He mounted the rampart, flung down those who resisted, and before the eyes of all, with uplifted hand and voice, cried that the camp had been captured; thereupon the rest burst in, while the Vitellians, already in a panic, threw themselves from the rampart. All the open space between the camp and the walls of Cremona were covered with the dead.