by Allan Massie
Towards evening, but while it was still light, the first messengers came to us with reports of a heavy defeat. The army was in headlong flight, they said. Otho received the news without any sign of emotion, and gave gold to the messengers. When he had dismissed them, he said, 'I have never believed in victory, and so it now remains only to die in such a manner as will cause men to speak well of Otho and bring honour, not dishonour, to my house. For a long time I have wished that I had fallen victim to the perverted hatreds of Nero, and been spared this ordeal of being Emperor in name alone.' And he ordered a slave to bring him two daggers, and himself tested their points.
I said nothing to dissuade him. What should I have said?
But then, a centurion of the Praetorians, by name, Plotius Firmus, thrust himself into the presence.
'All is not lost,' he said. 'We've been defeated in a battle, but not a decisive one. The other side got a bloody nose themselves. Their cavalry was scattered. We took the eagle from one of their legions. We have still an army to the south of the Po, not to mention the legions which have remained here with you, my lord, at Bedriacum. What's more the Danube legions are still on the march to our aid. So we can still fight back. All that is required is resolution.'
Soon the centurion was joined by a number of his men. They crowded round Otho, yelling encouragement and swearing that they were ready for another go at the enemy. One young man even threw himself to the ground, and clasping Otho's knees, demanded that he lead them himself back to the field and he was certain they would restore their fallen fortunes.
So Plotius Firmus spoke again, even as Otho tried to disengage himself from his supplicant.
'You must not,' he said, 'desert an army that is so loyal and soldiers so eager to shed their blood on your behalf. There is more virtue in withstanding trouble than in escaping from it. The brave man clings to hope, whatever his ill-fortune. Only cowards yield to fear.'
Otho was embarrassed by these expressions of faith. He had already resigned himself to defeat and death. Indeed, in his own mind, he was dead already. So the call to renew the struggle dismayed him.
But, ever better fitted to put on a public show than to maintain his equanimity in private, he spoke graciously now, thanking the men for what they had said, and assuring them that he was fixed on no course of action, but must consult his generals before coming to a decision. His words could not satisfy, for the soldiers were looking to hear him declare that the war was not to be thought lost as long as men of their calibre were to be found. Therefore, although they accepted his diplomatic speech, many went sorrowful away. And I believe that if he had, after consulting his generals, resolved to renew the war, which was certainly not lost, he might, on account of the chill reception he had given his most enthusiastic troops, have found that their initial ardour had cooled.
Such speculation is vain. Nothing was further from Otho's mind than the struggle. He was already resigned to defeat. I knew that, as soon as he had persuaded Plotius Firmus to lead his Praetorians back to the camp. His body, which had been taut throughout this scene, relaxed. He even smiled. He stretched out his hand and chucked me under the chin, and stroked my cheek.
'You despise me, don't you?' he said.
'I don't understand you,' I replied.
'No,' he said, 'you are young, and brave, as these Praetorians were. But I am weary, and I hold that to expose such courage, such spirit, as yours and theirs to the danger of another battle is to put too high a value on my life and office. The more hope you hold out to me, the more glorious will be my death. I am now at one with Fortune. We have no secrets from each other. I know her cheats and strategems and can turn away from the false hopes she offers. The civil war began with Vitellius; let it end with his triumph. If I now resign myself to death, then Vitellius has no cause to revenge himself on my family and friends. But if I prolong the struggle, and meet again with defeat, then he will feel entitled to carry out a proscription of all who have been dear to me; among whom I include you, dear boy. I die happy in the thought that you, and so many, were happy to risk death for me. But the comedy has been played long enough. It is time to leave the theatre. So, I urge you not to delay here, but to take thought for your own safety, and to remember me as I die rather than as I have lived. I shall say no more. Only cowards talk at length to delay the moment of death. I complain of no one. Only those who seek to live need complain of gods or men.'
No doubt the speech was too long, and seemed all the more so when he had gathered together his staff and repeated it, almost word for word, to them. Yet there was something impressive in his calm demeanour. I admired his resolution, even while I despised the decision that occasioned it. To my mind, it would have been more manly to lead his troops into another battle, which indeed might yet have been won. Even if the cause had been hopeless, yet it seemed to me that an Emperor should die on his feet. Why seek Empire, only to abandon it at the first cold winds of Fortune?
Otho then begged us all to take our leave. It was in our interest, he said, to depart at once, in case Vitellius and his generals should interpret our remaining with Otho as a mark of defiance. He ordered boats and carriages to be made ready and it seemed that he was more assiduous in planning the flight of his entourage than he had ever been in organising his army for battle. He commanded his secretaries, too, to destroy all his correspondence.
'I should not wish,' he said, 'for Vitellius to discover that any of you had abused him in writing to me.'
Then he dismissed us, so that I was not a witness to his death. Nevertheless I later questioned one of his freedmen who attended him to the end. Therefore the account I now give you, Tacitus, is as authentic as any you may receive, even though I was not an eye-witness.
When he was alone, except for his domestic staff, he lay down to rest for a little. But his rest was disturbed when he heard shouts and cries from around the house. He sent to enquire. The soldiers, who refused to believe that Otho had abandoned the struggle, were attempting to prevent anyone from leaving the camp. (I myself had to bribe a surly fellow with five gold pieces before he would let me depart.) Otho rebuked them and said it was his will that his friends should be free to go. Despite this, the detachment of the Guard itself remained with him, though, aware of the hostility that the German legions felt for them, they must have feared their own fate. This was a remarkable example of loyalty. I have never understood what in Otho attracted it. I had come to like him myself, but I had been privileged to be his confidant. The soldiers, on the other hand, were now being abandoned by him.
After speaking to a few who had not yet dared to leave the camp, where however they feared to remain, Otho drank a cup of water mixed with only a very little wine. Then he retired to rest. Sometime before dawn he stabbed himself falling forward on his dagger. There was but one wound, sufficient to kill him. Plotius Firmus, the loyal centurion, arranged his funeral. Otho had left a request - he was past the stage of giving orders - that this should be done at once; he had been troubled by the thought that Vitellius might command his head to be cut off and put on display. The cohort of the Praetorians covered his face and body with kisses; or so my informant said.
XXVII
Tacitus: have you ever marched with the remnant of a defeated army? I suppose not.
It is a degrading experience. Even the horse on which I began our retreat died under me, and I was compelled to footslog it like a common soldier. There were no marching songs, and every morning when we struck camp, we found that a few more men had taken advantage of the darkness to desert. But our numbers did not dwindle, for all along the road we were joined by stragglers, men who had been separated from their companions, and found among us that the company of the dispirited was nevertheless preferable to solitude. When the men talked, which was seldom, it was of their wives or mothers, never of the battles we had just fought.
It was raining the day I limped back into Rome. Water ran yellow in the gutters, and puddles stood like fords in the cobbled lanes. News of
Otho's defeat and death had preceded us. The city wore the heavy clouds that obscured the Janiculum as if they were funeral garments. Nobody knew when the victors might be expected; everyone dreaded their arrival, except for those partisans of Vitellius who had already emerged from hiding, and who alone spoke in loud confident voices.
Near the Pantheon I came on a stout equestrian berating a group of dirty bedraggled Praetorians. They bent their heads under his insults, and lacked the spirit or nerve to reply.
As ever in anxious times, only the taverns and the brothels did good business. Most of the foodstalls had been emptied of their goods by people stocking up, and preparing to keep to their houses till times were more certain.
At last, the equestrian, having vented his spleen, departed, no doubt satisfied by having had the courage to insult broken men. I approached the Praetorians, one of whom I recognised as a centurion who had sworn his devotion to Otho with peculiar force, and the appearance of sincerity.
I gave them money, small coin only.
'What will you do?' I said.
'Drink it. What else can we do?'
'If you could take passage to the East. . . ?'
'There's not a ship's captain would carry us, not without we had gold to offer him. And we have no gold,' the centurion said. I recalled that his name was Frontinus.
I drew him aside.
'You find the ship and square the master,' I said. 'I'll undertake to furnish you with the gold. You deserve to escape, and I should wish you to carry a letter to Vespasian's camp, to his son Titus.'
I arranged to meet him at a tavern in the Suburra at the same hour of the day following.
Was such secrecy necessary? I did not know.
'Why not travel with us yourself, sir?' he said before we separated.
The temptation was strong. I was, I discovered, afraid, as never before. Yet I shook my head. Why? Because Titus would despise me as a coward, if I ran to him, as to my nurse? Perhaps. Because I could serve his cause better in Rome? Again, perhaps, though for the last fortnight I had felt my devotion to the Flavians cool, as my respect and pity for Otho grew warmer. Because some curiosity held me in Rome? I could not deny that reason; yet it irritated me.
I went first to my mother's house, and told her all that had happened. I urged her, in turn, to retire to the country, to one of her brother's villas.
'I'm in no danger,' she said. 'Besides, I spend all my wars in Rome.'
That sounded like bravado, or foolishness. There had never been wars in Rome, in her lifetime. Then I understood that she was speaking for her own amusement, at the same time fitting herself for a role: the severe Republican mother. Perhaps also she sensed my nervousness - fear has its smell, apprehension likewise - and spoke to stiffen my resolution.
'What sort of man is Vitellius?' I asked.
'No sort of man. The favourite of three Emperors. So the basest sort of man.'
'I've heard he murdered his own son, Petronianus, some name like that.'
'I doubt it,' my mother said. 'The other version of the tale is that the boy prepared poison for his father, but drank it himself in error. I doubt that, too. It's also said Vitellius was one of Tiberius' catamites on Capri, and that story is believed by those who believe that the poor old man did indeed indulge in depraved lusts. The truth is, son, that Vitellius all his life has been the sort of man of whom rumour has been fond, the sort of man who is the subject of dirty and nasty stories, simply because he is contemptible. He is a man with no true virtue, but that doesn't signify that he is a monster. He is merely base and mean. As for sex,' my mother paused; it was not a subject that she had ever discussed with me. Perhaps her willingness to do so now was a sign that at last she regarded me as fully adult. 'As for sex, it's my opinion that he is a pimp, a pandar to others' lusts, rather than a performer. You're surprised that I should speak to you in this manner, even that I know such things. Well, you must learn that anyone who has lived in Rome as long as I have knows much of what she does not choose to speak. Then, think only that I now speak about matters concerning which I would rather keep silent, because it is expedient in your situation that you should not remain in ignorance of the nature of the man who now wears - for how long I cannot tell - the imperial purple.'
Then, having had her say, she had the slave set before me a dish of pork and beans and a jug of wine, and watched me eat, while she questioned me about the manner in which Otho had met his death.
'I always knew,' she said, 'that there was virtue in the boy.'
Angry words of contradiction formed in my mind, remained unspoken. It would serve no purpose to tell my mother that elegant suicide served no purpose but to make a show and that, in my opinion, a man who had seized the Empire by an act which moralists would denounce as criminal should have had courage enough to pursue the struggle for mastery or die in the attempt. So I ate my beans and drank my wine, and took leave of her, saying I must go to the baths, for I was still travel-stained, and only my need to assure myself of her safety had brought me to her house in that condition.
The baths were busy for, since it was still some days before even the vanguard of the victorious army was expected in the city, men had come there the more eagerly to learn the latest news and feed on the most recent rumours. After I had been in the hot room I reclined on the bench where Lucan had first eyed me up, and thought of him and his friend Caesius Bassus, and that line of verse - 'Stark autumn closed on us, to a crackling wind from the west' - and tried to recollect the other lines as he had spoken them to me in my room by the gatehouse. But they deserted me. I felt his pervasive melancholy, his weariness with life; and then, running my fingers along my thighs, was aware of the admiration with which I was being viewed by several, but which, being a man now, I no longer desired. So I turned over on my belly and slept.
I dreamed, horribly, for in my dream I saw Domitian deflowering my Domatilla. Her initial resistance lost itself in her brother's embraces. Arms, raised to fend him off, closed around him. She thrust her mouth against him in an eager play of tongues. Her legs wrapped themselves round his thighs and buttocks, and she cried out in painful joy as he thrust. I woke with a cry and lay there shaking.
Dreams may not portend the future, but they may foreshadow the future that we fear.
When that evening I went to the apartment in the Street of the Pomegranates where the brother and sister lodged with their aunt, I watched them with narrow suspicion. In each glance they cast on each other I read a guilty complicity. When Domatilla spoke to me with the affection I had been accustomed to hear in her voice, I now detected hypocrisy and, though I told myself it was absurd to be so influenced by a dream, I could not be at ease with them.
Domitian himself was afraid. Tacitus does not believe me when I tell him (if I send the account of these days to him it will have to be heavily doctored) that Domitian was no coward. Because he hates him, he would like to despise him, too. But Domitian, in reality, was cursed with a too lively imagination, which led him to anticipate dangers - always more fearful in prospect than in reality. Now he was convinced that, as soon as Vitellius arrived in the city, or even earlier, his partisans would seek out Vespasian's son and murder him. He had infected Domatilla with his fears, and perhaps this was the new bond between them which so discomforted me.
The next morning the air of excitement in the city was palpable. Though no one knew when Vitellius would arrive, many swore that acts of vengeance had already been performed on the partisans of Otho. Therefore Senators and equestrians who had given their allegiance to Otho had fled the city or were making preparations to do so. Some who had departed were confidently pronounced dead. Others now wished to conceal their support for the late Emperor, and either pretended it had not been willingly given or sought to bury it in a tumult of praise for his successor. I encountered several who assured me that Vitellius was a worthy heir, not of Nero, to whose vices he had served as pandar (as my mother had told me) but of the Divine Augustus himself. In short, the
re were many signs that in their alarm and apprehension, some of the noblest-born of Rome had taken leave of their senses.
As for me, I wrote a lengthy account of all that had happened, and, meeting the Praetorian centurion Frontinus, as we had arranged, gave him my document and a purse of gold (which I had borrowed with great difficulty from my mother's banker, a cousin by marriage) and advised him to make haste to the ship whose captain he had suborned. I was fortunate, I told myself, to have come upon him. There were few I would have trusted with my letter. But he had an honest face, and he still spoke of Otho with respect, and of Vitellius with manly scorn.
There was nothing to do but wait, than which nothing is more difficult when the worst is expected. Unlike Domitian I disdained to hide myself, and frequented the baths as usual. Though I could not achieve equanimity, and though nothing in my experience nor in what I had learned of comparably turbulent periods, inclined me to hope, my pride - that insensate Claudian pride - held me from despair. What must be, will be, I told myself. Things being as they are, why should I seek to deceive myself by pretending they are otherwise?
At the baths, men talked of Vitellius' progress towards the city.
He had insisted, it was reported, on visiting the battlefield of Bedriacum where his lieutenants had won him the Empire. There he saw mangled corpses, severed limbs, the rotting bodies of men and horses, picked over by carrion crows. The soil was still wet with blood. Still more horrible, it was said, was that part of the road which the citizens of Cremona, eager in their customary manner to flatter and seek to please the victorious general (though he had taken no part in any fighting) had spread laurel and roses in his honour, and where they had raised altars and sacrificed victims, as if he had been some king from Asia. Then Caecina and Valens indicated to him the salient points of the battlefield, tribunes and prefects boasted of their individual feats of arms, commingling fictions, facts and exaggerations. The common soldiers, too, turned aside from the line of march and gazed with a more healthy wonder, it was said, on the wreckage of war.