72 1 On the next day Cerialis entered the colony of the Treviri. His soldiers were eager to plunder the town and said “This is Classicus’s native city, and Tutor’s as well; they are the men whose treason has caused our legions to be besieged and massacred. What monstrous crime had Cremona committed? Yet Cremona was torn from the very bosom of Italy because she delayed the victors one single night. This colony stands on the boundaries of Germany, unharmed, and rejoices in the spoils taken from our armies and in the murder of our commanders. The booty may go to the imperial treasury: it is enough for us to set fire to this rebellious colony and to destroy it, for in that way we can compensate for the destruction of so many of our camps.” Cerialis feared the disgrace that he would suffer if men were to believe that he imbued his troops with a spirit of licence and cruelty, and he therefore checked their passionate anger: and they obeyed him, for now that they had given up civil war, they were more moderate with reference to foreign foes. Their attention was then attracted by the sad aspect which the legions summoned from among the Mediomatrici presented. These troops stood there, downcast by the consciousness of their own guilt, their eyes fixed on the ground: when the armies met, there was no exchange of greetings; the soldiers made no answer to those who tried to console or to encourage them; they remained hidden in their tents and avoided the very light of day. It was not so much danger and fear as a sense of their shame and disgrace that paralyzed them, while even the victors were struck dumb. The latter did not dare to speak or make entreaty, but by their tears and silence they continued to ask forgiveness for their fellows, until Cerialis at last quieted them by saying that fate was responsible for all that had resulted from the differences between the soldiers and their commanders or from the treachery of their enemies. He urged them to consider this as the first day of their service and of their allegiance, and he declared that neither the emperor nor he remembered their former misdeeds. Then they were taken into the same camp with the rest, and a proclamation was read in each company forbidding any soldier in quarrel or dispute to taunt a comrade with treason or murder.
73 1 Presently Cerialis called an assembly of the Treviri and Lingones and addressed them thus: “I have never practised oratory and the Roman people has ever asserted its merits by arms: but since words have the greatest weight with you and you do not reckon good and evil according to their own nature, but estimate them by the talk of seditious men, I have decided to say a few things which now that the war is over are more useful for you to hear than for me to say. Roman commanders and generals entered your land and the lands of the other Gauls from no desire for gain but because they were invited by your forefathers, who were wearied to death by internal quarrels, while the Germans whom they had invited to help them had enslaved them all, allies and enemies alike. How many battles we have fought against the Cimbri and Teutoni, with what hardships on the part of our armies and with what result we have conducted our wars against the Germans, is perfectly well known. We have occupied the banks of the Rhine not to protect Italy but to prevent a second Ariovistus from gaining the throne of Gaul. Do you believe that you are dearer to Civilis and his Batavians or to the peoples across the Rhine than your grandfathers and fathers were to their ancestors? The Germans always have the same reasons for crossing into the Gallic provinces — lust, avarice, and their longing to change their homes, that they may leave behind their swamps and deserts, and become masters of this most fertile soil and of you yourselves: freedom, however, and specious names are their pretexts; but no man has ever been ambitious to enslave another or to win dominion for himself without using those very same words.
74 1 “There were always kings and wars throughout Gaul until you submitted to our laws. Although often provoked by you, the only use we have made of our rights as victors has been to impose on you the necessary costs of maintaining peace; for you cannot secure tranquillity among nations without armies, nor maintain armies without pay, nor provide pay without taxes: everything else we have in common. You often command our legions; you rule these and other provinces; we claim no privileges, you suffer no exclusion. You enjoy the advantage of the good emperors equally with us, although you dwell far from the capital: the cruel emperors assail those nearest them. You endure barren years, excessive rains, and all other natural evils; in like manner endure the extravagance or greed of your rulers. There will be vices so long as there are men, but these vices are not perpetual and they are compensated for by the coming of better times: unless perchance you hope that you will enjoy a milder rule if Tutor and Classicus reign over you, or that the taxes required to provide armies to keep out the Germans and Britons will be less than now. For, if the Romans are driven out — which Heaven forbid — what will follow except universal war among all peoples? The good fortune and order of eight hundred years have built up this mighty fabric which cannot be destroyed without overwhelming its destroyers: moreover, you are in the greatest danger, for you possess gold and wealth, which are the chief causes of war. Therefore love and cherish peace and the city wherein we, conquerors and conquered alike, enjoy an equal right: be warned by the lessons of fortune both good and bad not to prefer defiance and ruin to obedience and security.” With such words Cerialis quieted and encouraged his hearers, who feared severer measures.
75 1 The Treviri were now being held in submission by the victorious army when Civilis and Classicus wrote to Cerialis to this effect: “Vespasian is dead, although the news of his death is held back; Rome and Italy have been exhausted by internal wars; the names of Mucianus and Domitian are empty and carry no weight: if you wish the empire of the Gauls, we are satisfied with the boundaries of our own states; if you prefer to fight, we do not refuse you that alternative either.” Cerialis made no reply to Civilis and Classicus; but he sent the messenger who brought the letter and the letter itself to Domitian.
The enemy, whose forces were divided, now approached from every quarter. Many blamed Cerialis for having allowed this concentration of troops when he might have cut them off in detail. The Roman army constructed a ditch and palisade around their camp, which they had rashly occupied up to this time in spite of its unprotected condition.
76 1 Among the Germans there was a clash of diverse opinions. Civilis urged that they should wait for the peoples from beyond the Rhine, who would so terrify the Romans that their strength would break and collapse. “As for the Gauls,” said he, “what are they but booty for the victors? And yet the Belgians, their only real strength, are openly on our side or wish our success.” Tutor maintained that delay improved the condition of the Romans, for their armies were coming from every quarter. “One legion,” he said, “has been brought from Britain; others have been summoned from Spain, or are coming from Italy; these are no hastily levied troops, but a veteran and seasoned army. The Germans, on whom we place our hopes, are never obedient to orders and directions, but always act according to their own caprice; as for money and gifts, the only things by which they can be won, the Romans have more than we, and no man is so bent on war as not to prefer quiet to danger, if he get the same reward. Whereas if we engage at once, Cerialis has no legions except those made up of the remnants of the army in Germany, and these have been bound by treaties to the Gallic states. As for the mere fact that, contrary their own expectations, they lately routed the undisciplined force of Valentinus, that only feeds the rash spirit of troops and general alike: they will dare a second time and will fall into the hands not of an inexperienced youth, more concerned with words and speeches than with steel and arms, but into the power of a Civilis and a Classicus. When our enemies see these leaders, their souls will be once more possessed with terror and with the memories of their flight, hunger, and the many times that they have been captured when their lives were at our mercy. Nor are the Treviri or Lingones restrained by any affection: they will resume their arms as soon as their fright has left them.” Classicus ended these differences of opinion by approving Tutor’s views, on which they at once acted.
77 1 T
he centre of their line was assigned to the Ubii and Lingones; on the right wing were the Batavian cohorts, on the left the Bructeri and the Tencteri. These rushed forward, some by the hills, others between the road and the Moselle, so rapidly that Cerialis was in his chamber and bed — for he had not passed the night in camp — when at the same moment he received the report that his troops were engaged and were being beaten. He kept on abusing the messengers for their alarm until the whole disaster was before his eyes: the enemy had broken into the legions’ camp, had routed the cavalry, and had occupied the middle of the bridge over the Moselle, which connects the remoter quarters with the colony. Undismayed in this crisis, Cerialis stopped the fugitives with his own hand, and, although quite unprotected, exposed himself to the enemy’s fire; then by his good fortune and rash courage, aided by the bravest of his troops who rushed to his assistance, he recovered the bridge and held it with a picked force. Afterwards he returned to the camp, where he saw the companies of those legions that had been captured at Novaesium and Bonn wandering aimlessly about, with few soldiers supporting the standards, and the eagles almost surrounded by the enemy. Flaming with indignation he cried: “It is not Flaccus or Vocula that you are now deserting: there is no treachery here; nor have I need for excuse save that I rashly believed that, forgetting your pledge to the Gauls, you had remembered your oath of allegiance to Rome. I shall be numbered with the Numisii and Herennii, so that all your commanders may have perished by the hands of their soldiers or of the enemy. Go, report to Vespasian or, since they are nearer, to Civilis and Classicus that you have abandoned your general on the field of battle: yet there will come legions that will not suffer me to be unavenged or you unpunished.”
78 1 All this was true, and the same reproofs were heaped on them by the tribunes and the prefects. The troops drew up in cohorts and maniples, for indeed they could not form an extended line since their foes were everywhere, and as the battle was being fought within their ramparts they were also hindered by their tents and baggage. Tutor and Classicus and Civilis, each at his post, spurred on their followers to battle, urging the Gauls to fight for liberty, the Batavians for glory, and the Germans for booty. Everything favoured the enemy until the Twenty-first legion, having more room than the rest, concentrated its entire strength and so resisted the enemy’s attack and presently drove him back. Yet it was not without divine aid that with a sudden change of spirit the victorious enemy took to flight. They said themselves that they were smitten with terror by the sight of those cohorts which, though dislodged by their first assault, formed again on the ridges and seemed to them to be fresh reinforcements. But the fact is that the victorious barbarians were checked by a disgraceful struggle to secure booty which began among them so that they forgot their foes. Thus Cerialis, having almost ruined the situation by his carelessness, restored it by his resolution; and, following up his success, he captured and destroyed the enemy’s camp on that same day.
79 1 The troops, however, were not allowed long repose. The people of Cologne begged for aid and offered to give up the wife and sister of Civilis and the daughter of Classicus, who had been left as pledges of fidelity to the alliance. In the meantime they had killed the Germans who were scattered among their homes. This gave them cause to fear and made reasonable their appeals for help before the enemy recovered his strength and armed for some new venture or for revenge. For in fact Civilis had marched in the direction of Cologne; he was yet formidable since the most warlike of his cohorts was still unharmed, which, made up of Chauci and Frisii, was stationed at Tolbiacum on the borders of the territory of the people of Cologne: he was, however, turned aside by the depressing news that this cohort had been destroyed by a stratagem of the inhabitants of Cologne, who, after stupefying the Germans with an elaborate dinner and abundant wine, had closed the doors, set fire to the building, and burned them all; at the same moment Cerialis hurried up by forced marches. Civilis had been beset also by another fear: he was anxious lest the Fourteenth legion, supported by the fleet from Britain, might injure the Batavians along their coast. But Fabius Priscus, leading his legion inland, directed it against the Nervii and Tungri, and accepted the surrender of these two states: as for the fleet, it was actually attacked by the Canninefates and most of the ships were sunk or captured. The same Canninefates routed a great force of the Nervii who had voluntarily risen to fight for the Romans. Classicus also engaged successfully with some cavalry which Cerialis had despatched to Novaesium: and these reverses, though small, were frequent enough to injure the prestige of the Romans’ recent victory.
80 1 During these same days Mucianus had Vitellius’s son put to death, for he maintained that discord would continue if he did not destroy the seeds of war. Nor did he allow Domitian to invite Antonius Primus to become a member of his suite, since he was disturbed by his popularity with the soldiers as well as by the haughty temper of a man who could not endure even his equals, to say nothing of his superiors. Antonius left Rome to join Vespasian, who received him, not as he had hoped, but yet with no unfriendly feelings. Vespasian was drawn in two directions: in one by the services of Antonius, under whose leadership the war had unquestionably been finished, in the other by letters of Mucianus; while at the same time everyone else attacked Antonius, as hostile and swollen with conceit, and brought charges against his former life. And Antonius himself did not fail to arouse hostility by his arrogance and by dwelling too constantly on his own achievements: he charged some with cowardice and taunted Caecina with having been a captive and a voluntary prisoner. The result was that he was gradually regarded as of less weight and importance, although his friendship with Vespasian apparently remained the same.
81 1 During the months while Vespasian was waiting at Alexandria for the regular season of the summer winds and a settled sea, many marvels continued to mark the favour of heaven and a certain partiality of the gods toward him. One of the common people of Alexandria, well known for his loss of sight, threw himself before Vespasian’s knees, praying him with groans to cure his blindness, being so directed by the god Serapis, whom this most superstitious of nations worships before all others; and he besought the emperor to deign to moisten his cheeks and eyes with his spittle. Another, whose hand was useless, prompted by the same god, begged Caesar to step and trample on it. Vespasian at first ridiculed these appeals and treated them with scorn; then, when the men persisted, he began at one moment to fear the discredit of failure, at another to be inspired with hopes of success by the appeals of the suppliants and the flattery of his courtiers: finally, he directed the physicians to give their opinion as to whether such blindness and infirmity could be overcome by human aid. Their reply treated the two cases differently: they said that in the first the power of sight had not been completely eaten away and it would return if the obstacles were removed; in the other, the joints had slipped and become displaced, but they could be restored if a healing pressure were applied to them. Such perhaps was the wish of the gods, and it might be that the emperor had been chosen for this divine service; in any case, if a cure were obtained, the glory would be Caesar’s, but in the event of failure, ridicule would fall only on the poor suppliants. So Vespasian, believing that his good fortune was capable of anything and that nothing was any longer incredible, with a smiling countenance, and amid intense excitement on the part of the bystanders, did as he was asked to do. The hand was instantly restored to use, and the day again shone for the blind man. Both facts are told by eye-witnesses even now when falsehood brings no reward.
82 1 These events gave Vespasian a deeper desire to visit the sanctuary of the god to consult him with regard to his imperial fortune: he ordered all to be excluded from the temple. Then after he had entered the temple and was absorbed in contemplation of the god, he saw behind him one of the leading men of Egypt, named Basilides, who he knew was detained by sickness in a place many days’ journey distant from Alexandria. He asked the priests whether Basilides had entered the temple on that day; he questioned the passer
s-by whether he had been seen in the city; finally, he sent some cavalry and found that at that moment he had been eighty miles away: then he concluded that this was a supernatural vision and drew a prophecy from the name Basilides.
83 1 The origin of this god has not yet been generally treated by our authors: the Egyptian priests tell the following story, that when King Ptolemy, the first of the Macedonians to put the power of Egypt on a firm foundation, was giving the new city of Alexandria walls, temples, and religious rites, there appeared to him in his sleep a vision of a young man of extraordinary beauty and of more than human stature, who warned him to send his most faithful friends to Pontus and bring his statue hither; the vision said that this act would be a happy thing for the kingdom and that the city that received the god would be great and famous: after these words the youth seemed to be carried to heaven in a blaze of fire. Ptolemy, moved by this miraculous omen, disclosed this nocturnal vision to the Egyptian priests, whose business it is to interpret such things. When they proved to know little of Pontus and foreign countries, he questioned Timotheus, an Athenian of the clan of the Eumolpidae, whom he had called from Eleusis to preside over the sacred rites, and asked him what this religion was and what the divinity meant. Timotheus learned by questioning men who had travelled to Pontus that there was a city there called Sinope, and that not far from it there was a temple of Jupiter Dis, long famous among the natives: for there sits beside the god a female figure which most call Proserpina. But Ptolemy, although prone to superstitious fears after the nature of kings, when he once more felt secure, being more eager for pleasures than religious rites, began gradually to neglect the matter and to turn his attention to other things, until the same vision, now more terrible and insistent, threatened ruin upon the king himself and his kingdom unless his orders were carried out. Then Ptolemy directed that ambassadors and gifts should be despatched to King Scydrothemis — he ruled over the people of Sinope at that time — and when the embassy was about to sail he instructed them to visit Pythian Apollo. The ambassadors found the sea favourable; and the answer of the oracle was not uncertain: Apollo bade them go on and bring back the image of his father, but leave that of his sister.
Complete Works of Tacitus (Delphi Classics) (Delphi Ancient Classics Book 24) Page 41