50 1 When report of the popular excitement reached Festus, as well as the news of the centurion’s execution and of other matters, both true and false, with the usual exaggerations, he sent horsemen to kill Piso. They rode so rapidly that they broke into the proconsul’s residence in the half-light of the early dawn with drawn swords. The majority of them were unacquainted with Piso, for Festus had selected Carthaginian auxiliaries and Moors to accomplish the murder. Not far from Piso’s bedroom a slave happened to meet them. The soldiers asked him who and where Piso was. The slave answered with an heroic falsehood that he was Piso, and was at once cut down. Yet soon after Piso was murdered; for there was present a man who recognized him, Baebius Massa, one of the imperial agents in Africa — a man, even at that time, ruinous to the best citizens, and his name will reappear only too often among the causes of the evils that we later endured. From Adrumetum, where he had waited to watch the course of events, Festus hurried to the legion and ordered the arrest of the prefect of the camp, Caetronius Pisanus, to satisfy personal hatred, but he called him Piso’s tool; and he also punished some soldiers and centurions, others he rewarded; neither course of action was prompted by merit but by his desire to appear to have crushed a war. Later he settled the differences between the people of Oea and Leptis, which, though small at first, beginning among these peasants with the stealing of crops and cattle, had now increased to the point of armed contests and regular battles; for the people of Oea, being fewer than their opponents, had called in the Garamantes, an ungovernable tribe and one always engaged in practising brigandage on their neighbours. This had reduced the fortunes of the Leptitani to a low ebb; their lands had been ravaged far and wide and they lay in terror within their walls, until, by the arrival of the auxiliary foot and horse, the Garamantes were routed and the entire booty was recovered except that which the robbers as they wandered through inaccessible native villages had sold to remote tribes.
51 1 But Vespasian, after learning of the battle of Cremona and receiving favourable news from every quarter, now heard of the fall of Vitellius from many of every class who with equal courage and good fortune braved the wintry sea. Envoys also came from King Vologaesus with an offer of forty thousand Parthian horse. It was glorious and delightful to be courted with such offers of assistance from the allies and not to need them: he thanked Vologaesus and instructed him to send his envoys to the senate and to be assured that the empire was at peace. While Vespasian was absorbed with thoughts of Italy and conditions in Rome, he heard an unfavourable report concerning Domitian, to the effect that he was transgressing the bounds set by his youth and what might be permissible in a son: accordingly he turned over to Titus the main force of his army to complete the war with the Jews.
52 1 It is said that Titus, before leaving, in a long interview with his father begged him not to be easily excited by the reports of those who calumniated Domitian, and urged him to show himself impartial and forgiving toward his son. “Neither armies nor fleets,” he argued, “are so strong a defence of the imperial power as a number of children; for friends are chilled, changed, and lost by time, fortune, and sometimes by inordinate desires or by mistakes: the ties of blood cannot be severed by any man, least of all by princes, whose success others also enjoy, but whose misfortunes touch only their nearest kin. Not even brothers will always agree unless the father sets the example.” Not so much reconciled toward Domitian as delighted with Titus’s show of brotherly affection, Vespasian bade him be of good cheer and to magnify the state by war and arms; he would himself care for peace and his house. Then he had some of the swiftest ships laden with grain and entrusted to the sea, although it was still dangerous: for, in fact, Rome was in such a critical condition that she did not have more than ten days’ supplies in her granaries when the supplies from Vespasian came to her relief.
53 1 The charge of restoring the Capitol was given by Vespasian to Lucius Vestinus, a member of the equestrian order, but one whose influence and reputation put him on an equality with the nobility. The haruspices when assembled by him directed that the ruins of the old shrine should be carried away to the marshes and that a new temple should be erected on exactly the same site as the old: the gods were unwilling to have the old plan changed. On the twenty-first of June, under a cloudless sky, the area that was dedicated to the temple was surrounded with fillets and garlands; soldiers, who had auspicious names, entered the enclosure carrying boughs of good omen; then the Vestals, accompanied by boys and girls whose fathers and mothers were living, sprinkled the area with water drawn from fountains and streams. Next Helvidius Priscus, the praetor, guided by the pontifex Plautius Aelianus, purified the area with the sacrifice of the suovetaurilia, and placed the vitals of the victims on an altar of turf; and then, after he had prayed to Jupiter, Juno, Minerva, and to the gods who protect the empire to prosper this undertaking and by their divine assistance to raise again their home which man’s piety had begun, he touched the fillets with which the foundation stone was wound and the ropes entwined; at the same time the rest of the magistrates, the priests, senators, knights, and a great part of the people, putting forth their strength together in one enthusiastic and joyful effort, dragged the huge stone to its place. A shower of gold and silver and of virgin ores, never smelted in any furnace, but in their natural state, was thrown everywhere into the foundations: the haruspices had warned against the profanation of the work by the use of stone or gold intended for any other purpose. The temple was given greater height than the old: this was the only change that religious scruples allowed, and the only feature that was thought wanting in the magnificence of the old structure.
54 1 In the meantime the news of the death of Vitellius, spreading through the Gallic and German provinces, had started a second war; for Civilis, now dropping all pretence, openly attacked the Roman people, and the legions of Vitellius preferred to be subject even to foreign domination rather than to obey Vespasian as emperor. The Gauls had plucked up fresh courage, believing that all our armies were everywhere in the same case, for the rumour had spread that our winter quarters in Moesia and Pannonia were being besieged by the Sarmatae and Dacians; similar stories were invented about Britain. But nothing had encouraged them to believe that the end of our rule was at hand so much as the burning of the Capitol. “Once long ago Rome was captured by the Gauls, but since Jove’s home was unharmed, the Roman power stood firm: now this fatal conflagration has given a proof from heaven of the divine wrath and presages the passage of the sovereignty of the world to the peoples beyond the Alps.” Such were the vain and superstitious prophecies of the Druids. Moreover, the report had gone abroad that the Gallic chiefs, when sent by Otho to oppose Vitellius, had pledged themselves before their departure not to fail the cause of freedom in case an unbroken series of civil wars and internal troubles destroyed the power of the Roman people.
55 1 Before the murder of Hordeonius Flaccus nothing came to the surface to make the conspiracy known: but after Hordeonius had been killed, messengers passed between Civilis and Classicus, prefect of the Treviran cavalry. Classicus was superior to the others in birth and wealth; he was of royal family and his line had been famous in both peace and war, and he himself boasted that more of his ancestors had been enemies than allies of the Romans. Julius Tutor and Julius Sabinus joined the conspirators: Tutor was of the tribe of the Treviri, Sabinus one of the Lingones. Tutor had been made prefect of the bank of the Rhine by Vitellius; Sabinus was fired by his native vanity, and especially by his pride in his imaginary descent, for it was said that his great-grandmother by her charms and complaisance had found favour in the eyes of the deified Julius when he was carrying on his campaigns in Gaul. These chiefs by private interviews first tested the sentiments of all their associates; then, when they had secured the participation of those whom they thought suitable, they met at Cologne in a private house, for the state in its public capacity shrank from such an undertaking; and yet some of the Ubii and Tungri were present. But the Treviri and the Lingones
, who had the dominant power in the matter, permitted no delay in deliberation. They rivalled one another in declaring that the Roman people were wild with discord, that the legions were cut to pieces, Italy laid waste, Rome at that moment was being captured, and that all the Roman armies were occupied each with its own wars: if they but held the Alps with armed forces, the Gallic lands, once sure of their freedom, would have only to decide what limits they wished to set to their power.
56 1 These statements were approved as soon as made: with regard to the survivors of the army of Vitellius they were in doubt. The majority were for putting them to death on the ground that they were mutinous, untrustworthy, and defiled with the blood of their commanders: the proposal to spare them, however, prevailed since the conspirators feared to provoke an obstinate resistance if they deprived the troops of all hope of mercy: it was argued that these soldiers should rather be won over to alliance. “If we execute only the commanders of the legions,” they said, “the general mass of the soldiers will be easily led to join us by their consciousness of guilt and by their hope of escaping punishment.” This was in brief the result of their first deliberation; and they sent emissaries through the Gallic provinces to stir up war; the ringleaders feigned submission in order to take Vocula the more off his guard. Yet there was no lack of people to carry the story to Vocula; he, however, did not have force enough to check the conspiracy, for the legions were incomplete and not to be trusted. Between his soldiers whom he suspected and his secret foes, he thought it best for the time to dissemble in his turn and to employ the same methods of attack that were being used against him, and accordingly went down to Cologne. There Claudius Labeo, of whose capture and banishment among the Frisians I have spoken above, fled for refuge, having bribed his guards to let him escape; and now he promised, if he were given a force of men, that he would go among the Batavians and bring the majority of that people back to alliance with Rome. He got a small force of foot and horse, but he did not dare to undertake anything among the Batavians; however, he did induce some of the Nervii and Baetasii to take up arms, and he continuously harried the Canninefates and Marsaci rather by stealth than in open war.
57 1 Vocula, lured on by the artifices of the Gauls, hurried against the enemy; and he was not far from Vetera when Classicus and Tutor, advancing from the main force under the pretext of reconnoitring, concluded their agreement with the German chiefs, and it was then that they first withdrew apart from the legions and fortified their own camp with a separate rampart, although Vocula protested that the Roman state had not yet been so broken by civil war as to be an object of contempt in the eyes of even the Treviri and Lingones. “There are still left faithful provinces,” he said; “there still remain victorious armies, the fortune of the empire, and the avenging gods. Thus in former times Sacrovir and the Aeduans, more recently Vindex and all the Gallic provinces, have been crushed in a single battle. Those who break treaties must still face the same divinities, the same fates as before. The deified Julius and the deified Augustus better understood the spirit of the Gauls: Galba’s acts and the reduction of the tribute have inspired them with a hostile spirit. Now they are enemies because the burden of their servitude is light; when we have despoiled and stripped them they will be friends.” After speaking thus in anger, seeing that Classicus and Tutor persisted in their treachery, Vocula turned and withdrew to Novaesium: the Gauls occupied a position two miles away. There the centurions and soldiers frequently visited them, and attempts were made so to tamper with their loyalty, that, by an unheard-of crime, a Roman army should swear allegiance to foreigners and pledge themselves to this awful sin by killing or arresting their chief officers. Although many advised Vocula to escape, he thought it wise to act boldly, called an assembly, and spoke to this effect.
58 1 “Never have I spoken to you with greater anxiety on your account or with less on my own. For I am glad to hear that my death is determined on, and in the midst of my present misfortunes I await my fate as the end of my sufferings. It is for you that I feel shame and pity, — for you against whom no battle is arrayed, no lines are marshalled. That will be only the law of arms and the just right of enemies. No! It is with your hands that Classicus hopes to fight against the Roman people: it is a Gallic empire and an allegiance to the Gauls that he holds out to you. Even if fortune and courage fail us at the moment, have we completely lost the memories of the past, forgotten how many times Roman legions have preferred to die rather than be driven from their positions? How often have our allies endured the destruction of their cities and allowed themselves to be burned with their wives and children, when the only reward that they could gain in their death was the glory of having kept their faith? At this very moment the legions at Vetera are bearing the hardships of famine and siege unmoved by threats or promises: we have not only our arms, our men, and the splendid fortifications of our camp, but we have grain and supplies sufficient for a war regardless of its length. We had money enough lately even for a donative; and whether you prefer to regard this as given by Vespasian or Vitellius, it was certainly a Roman emperor from whom you received it. If you, the victors in so many wars, if you who have so often put the enemy to flight at Gelduba and Vetera, fear an open battle, that is indeed a disgrace; but still you have fortifications, ramparts, and ways of delaying the crisis until troops hurry to your aid from the neighbouring provinces. What if I do not please you! There are other commanders, tribunes, or even some centurion or common soldier on whom you can fall back, that the monstrous news may not spread over the whole world that you are to follow in the train of Civilis and Classicus and support them in their invasion of Italy. When the Germans and Gauls have led you to the walls of Rome, will you then raise your arms against your native land? My soul revolts at the thought of such a crime. Will you mount guard for Tutor, a Treviran? Shall a Batavian give the signal for battle? Will you recruit the ranks of the Germans? What will be the result of your crime when the Roman legions have ranged themselves against you? Will you become deserters for a second time, a second time traitors, and waver back and forth between your new and old allegiance, hated by the gods? I pray and beseech thee, Jupiter, most good and great, to whom we have rendered the honour of so many triumphs during eight hundred and twenty years, and thee, Quirinus, father of Rome, that, if it has not been your pleasure that this camp be kept pure and inviolate under my leadership, at least you will not allow it to be defiled and polluted by a Tutor and a Classicus; give to Roman soldiers either innocence or repentance, prompt and without disaster.”
59 1 The troops received this speech with varied feelings of hope, fear, and shame. Vocula had withdrawn and was preparing to end his life, but his freedmen and slaves prevented him from voluntarily anticipating the most hideous of deaths. Classicus sent Aemilius Longinus, a deserter from the First legion, and so had Vocula quickly despatched; as for the legates, Herennius and Numisius, he was satisfied with putting them into chains. Then he assumed the insignia of a Roman general and entered the camp. Hardened as he was to every crime, he found not a word to utter beyond stating the oath: those who were present swore allegiance to the “Empire of the Gauls.” Vocula’s assassin he honoured with promotion to a high rank; on the others he bestowed rewards proportionate to their crimes.
Then Tutor and Classicus divided the conduct of the war between them. Tutor besieged Cologne with a strong force and compelled its inhabitants and all the soldiers on the upper Rhine to take the same oath of allegiance; at Mainz he killed the tribunes and expelled the prefect of the camp when they refused to swear: Classicus ordered the worst of the men who had surrendered to go to the besieged, and offer them pardon if they would accept the actual situation: otherwise there was no hope; they would suffer famine, sword, and the worst extremities. His messengers emphasized their words by citing their own example.
Complete Works of Tacitus (Delphi Classics) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 24) Page 39