CHAPTER XXXV. GALBA, OTHO, VITELLIUS, AND THE

THREE FLAVIANS (68-96 A.D.)

GALBA (SERVIUS SULPICIUS GALBA), 68-69 A.D.

THE fall of Nero and the accession of Galba form an important epoch in the history of the Roman Empire; for to the misfortune of a form of government, on which everything depended on the ruler, his court, and the bodyguard and guard of the emperor, a fresh evil was now added, namely that the army became accustomed to mutiny, and obtained a decisive influence on the choice of the emperor. Certainly Galba did not accept the title of emperor, until it was legally assigned to him by a deputation of the senate; but the example of mutiny had been given, the army had in reality, and the senate, only in form, decided as to who should occupy the throne, and the fate of the empire was from henceforth made more and more dependent on the troops and their leaders.

At first however it appeared fortunate, that after the weak-minded libertines, who for some time had been at the head of the states, the government should fall into the hands of a veteran warrior who possessed the love and confidence of his soldiers, and hated every kind of indulgence and excess; but any advantages which might have arisen from this were outweighed by the great age of the emperor and the weakness consequent on it. Galba's weakness was first perceived when he, who at the time of Nero's death was still in Gaul, had returned to Rome; he was awaited with real eagerness.

Before the arrival of Galba, Nymphidius, who had accelerated the fall of Nero, acted as absolute ruler. He prevented Tigellinus from participating in the command of the prætorians, tried in every way to gain over the people, saw the entire senate in his antechamber, and mixed himself up with all the dealings of the latter with Galba. It then occurred to him that he might trace his descent from Cæsar and thereby establish his claim to the throne. But to his terror, he heard, from a messenger whom he had. sent to Galba, that Titus Vinius, one of Galba's legates, held absolute sway over the emperor, that he had named Cornelius Laco prefect of the prætorians, instead of him, and that his rule would therefore be at an end as soon as Galba entered Rome. He therefore resolved to venture to extremes and to make the prætorians proclaim him emperor; they were turned against him by one of his officers, and killed him as soon as he appeared in their camp. As soon as Galba arrived in Rome, he had all the friends of Nymphidius put to death. These and a few other executions, added to Galba's dependence on Vinius, prepossessed no one in favour of the new ruler. It was

[68-69 A.D.] still more unfortunate that he had to refuse the guard sums of money promised in his name by Nymphidius, and that on his entry into Rome he saw himself obliged to have another troop of soldiers cut down, who had gone against him and made violent demands. Galba was determined to adopt a new course of government; but in this he overlooked the fact, that an utterly corrupt people cannot be transformed at once, or lost morality recalled by commands. With exaggerated severity and with a parsimony which would have been despicable even in a private individual, he attempted to reduce a town accustomed to imperial prodigality to its former simplicity, discipline, and order, and thereby not only embittered the feelings of all, but also made himself ridiculous.

He was indolent and enfeebled by age [he was over seventy-two years old] and depended on three favourites, who committed all sorts of severities in his name and tried to make money by selling privileges and favours. These favourites were Vinius, Laco, and Galba's freedman, Icelus. For this reason, from the beginning, everything pointed to a short duration of his rulership, and dissatisfaction not only seized hold of the great mass in Rome, who, as everywhere, loved pleasure and amusement more than virtue or their country, but also of the different armies of the kingdom. A few months after his accession the legions rose in upper Germany, and demanded from the senate the appointment of a younger and more vigorous emperor. Galba tried to stay the storm by immediately naming a young man of good family and irreproachable character, Piso Licinianus, as his coregent and successor. Unfortunately, when presenting Piso to the troops, he omitted, out of economy, to give presents to the soldiers, as had been the custom on such occasions since the accession of Claudius; and in his speech to the assembled army he publicly avowed that the troops in Germany had refused him obediThis made the soldiers dissatisfied, and he thereby robbed himself of the advantages that Piso's nomination might otherwise have brought him.

ence.

OTHO (M. SALVIUS OTHO), 69 A.D.

Otho, who had gone to Rome with Galba, seized the opportunity of Galba's mistake to place himself on the throne. He had long solicited the favour of the soldiers and people, had given away entire estates to individuals, had, when Galba dined with him, given money to the emperor's escort, and Galba had overlooked all this, because one of his favourites, Vinius, whose daughter Otho wished to marry, had come to a secret understanding with the latter. Otho instituted a formal conspiracy, corrupted the soldiers by gifts and promises, and had himself proclaimed emperor in a camp of the prætorians, a few days after Piso's appointment. He left the camp at the head of the soldiers who had chosen him, entered the town, killed Galba and his co-regent, and was acknowledged emperor by the people and senate. This took place on the 15th of January of the year 69, when Galba had only reigned seven months and a few days.

The new emperor only maintained his rule for three months. All the provinces and armies swore allegiance to him after Galba's death, only the legions of the Rhine and Upper Germany denied him obedience. They had already rebelled against Galba, and proclaimed the leader of the troops on the lower Rhine, Aulus Vitellius, emperor, as they had not been recompensed by Galba for the support they had given him against Nero. This rival, although other legions declared for him, would not in himself have

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been dangerous to Otho, as he had become so enervated by self-indulgence that he was wanting in activity and energy as well as in decision; but in Fabius Valens and Aulus Cæcina, he possessed two able generals, who placed themselves at the head of the legions in his stead.

With the rebellious troops they crossed the Alps into upper Italy and fell upon Otho, who had hastily collected as many soldiers as possible and led them against the enemy. At first the generals of Vitellius were the losers in a few small engagements, as mutual jealousy induced them to act separately, but as soon as they concentrated themselves they were far superior to their adversaries. Otho ought, therefore, to have done everything to delay the crisis until the reinforcements which he was expecting from the provinces of the Danube had arrived. He nevertheless did the reverse, and throughout the entire war showed himself a worthy comrade of Nero.

He had been the husband of the notorious Poppaa Sabina; had formerly participated with his imperial friend in all kinds of pleasures, and had indulged in so much dissipation that he had not only fallen deeply into debt, but had also become enervated and incapable of any exertion. This had already become apparent in the rebellion against Galba; for he had lost all courage at the moment of action, and would have given the whole thing up had not his fellow-conspirators compelled him to persist in his designs. Besides he was no general. His troops, which for the greater part consisted of prætorians and soldiers of Nero, clung to him with devotion, and were eager to fight, but they did not trust their officers and would no longer take orders from them. This determined him to bring the fight to a speedy end, as he felt that at any moment he might be deserted by his own people. In spite of this, as he had not been present in the earlier smaller fights, so now he took no personal share in the great battle which was to decide his own fate.

In the vicinity of Cremona, Cæcina and Valens fell on Otho's army. It was beaten, suffered considerable loss, and then the greater part went over to the enemy. Otho's cause was, nevertheless, by no means lost; for the prætorians adhered steadfastly to him, the legions of the provinces of the Danube were already on the march, and the entire East as well as Africa was open to him. Only he was too indolent and effeminate to be able to face continuous exertions and hardships, and from the example of his beaten army he saw how ephemeral the devotion of his soldiers had been. So he lost courage, and decided, in spite of the remonstrances and requests of his friends, to put an end to his life. He stabbed himself to the heart with a firmness rarely found in a voluptuary, and by this action won for himself the reputation with posterity of having purchased the peace of his country with his own life.

Historians have therefore praised him above his deserts, and placed words in his mouth which stand in opposition to his life and principles. For instance, he is reported to have said to his friends and relatives who wished to restrain him from suicide: "Others have gained fame by governing well; my fame, on the contrary, is to consist in my giving up the government of the empire, rather than ruin it by my ambition." Those who recall the fact that Otho throughout his life lived and acted according to the maxims of a Nero, will know how to divest this story of all that gives his death the appearance of a grand and noble act; for although it cannot be denied that Otho thereby put an end to the civil war, and died in peace and quietness, nevertheless he was not guided by courage or love of country, but by indolence and despair.

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How little the sacrifice of his life cost a Roman at this period, and why Otho's death must be regarded in quite another light from that in which a similar deed would be looked upon nowadays, is apparent from the fact that some of his soldiers killed themselves at his funeral pile, not from fear of the future, but that they might follow the glorious example of their leader.

VITELLIUS (AULUS VITELLIUS), 69 A.D.

After Otho's death, the Roman senate not only recognised Vitellius as emperor, but determined publicly to thank the Germanic army for having appointed him. Whilst his generals were fighting for his dominion, Vitellius remained in Gaul, and after the victory made no haste to take possession of the empire; he first enjoyed a period of repose at Lyons, and then stopped at Cremona and Bologna to hold revels and to see the gladiatorial displays. It was only in July (69), three months after Otho's death, that he entered Rome.

A ROMAN SLINGER

With his accession, all the crimes and prodigalities of the government of a Caligula, a Claudius, and a Nero were repeated, although he was wanting neither in culture nor in better qualities. He had only attained to consideration by his vices, and won over the soldiers in Germany by his familiar bearing. A dull, slack, and withal cruel disposition, a greediness which amounted to voraciousness, and a prodigality in which he even surpassed Nero, were the soul of

his existence and government. Only thinking of pleasure and idle repose, even on the march to Rome, he allowed his army to rob and plunder at will, and permitted all kinds of excesses and insubordination. În Rome, freedmen, comedians, and revellers were his most cherished companions, and he who knew how to prepare the most voluptuous feast, rose in his favour.

In order to obtain money for his prodigalities, like Caligula and Nero, he committed all sorts of inhuman cruelties. For example: he freed himself from debt by having his creditors killed, and when one of them, condemned to death, sought to obtain favour by making the emperor a legacy, but unfortunately gave him a co-heir, Vitellius had the latter as well as the former put out of the way, and took the wealth of both. His revelries and prodigalities surpassed all realisation.

By the use of emetics he was enabled to take daily from three to four principal meals. Once, for untold gold, he had marvellous dishes prepared from

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the tongues of the rarest birds and other costly delicacies, and at the celebration of his entry into Rome he took part in a banquet at his brother's house in which no less than two thousand rare fish and seven thousand birds were served up. He gormandised so shamefully that, during the short time of his reign, he is said to have squandered no less than nine hundred million sesterces, and, as an historian of antiquity asserts, the Roman Empire would finally have become too poor to defray the expenses of the emperor's table. Fortunately for the kingdom this did not come to pass; for Vitellius was overthrown by his troops eight months after his accession.

This second mutiny of the army within the course of a year started in the legions who had come from the Danube to help Otho against Vitellius. When on the way they heard of Otho's death, they determined to choose a new emperor, and some of them, who shortly before had served under the valiant Titus Flavius Vespasian, directed the choice to their former general who was then commanding in Syria. Scarcely had the news reached the East, when first the governor of Egypt, then Mucianus [Roman governor of Syria and general of four legions,] and afterwards Vespasian himself, recognised this choice. One after another all the remaining armies declared for Vespasian. Valens and Cæcina, the principal instruments in the elevation of Vitellius, soon detached themselves from the latter, and only the soldiers of the Germanic army, to whom Vitellius owed the throne, remained true to their emperor. It was therefore no great effort to overthrow the indolent libertine. Before Vespasian had embarked his troops, his opponent was dethroned and deprived of his life.

The legions of the Danube under one of their generals, Antonius Primus, broke into Italy; at Cremona they beat the troops of Vitellius and then marched against the capital, which alone seemed resolved to defend the tyrant. Antonius Primus wished to spare the town. Vitellius himself was too cowardly to try to offer any powerful resistance, and as by chance a brother of Vespasian, Flavius Sabinus, was town prefect of Rome, it was easy to negotiate matters. The result was an agreement by which Vitellius agreed to abdicate in a very ignominious fashion. Only the soldiers of the emperor and all those who had taken part in his universal revels, would hear nothing of an abdication of Vitellius, and without further ceremony laid hands on Sabinus, to whom a great number of the senate, the knights, and the townguard had already sworn allegiance, on behalf of his brother. Sabinus, with a small number of attendants, was obliged to take to flight, and retired to the Capitol. His adversaries stormed it, took Sabinus prisoner, killed his followers, and intentionally or by chance occasioned a fire, by which the temple of the Capitoline Jupiter, the most sacred building in Rome, was reduced to ashes, and some of the historical records preserved there were destroyed.

In vain did Vitellius, by earnest entreaty, try to restrain the soldiers. from murdering Sabinus; he was killed in a terrible manner, whilst Domitian, one of Vespasian's sons, who had just fled to the Capitol, to the misfortune of the empire escaped the wrath of the enemy. The rude soldiers of Vitellius conducted themselves on this occasion with the same savagery as the troops of Antonius Primus had shown a few weeks before, when after their victory they had burned down the town of Cremona and had ill treated its inhabitants in the most shocking manner. Vitellius was quite innocent of what took place in Rome, for he would gladly have submitted to any terms by which he might have saved his life. With this object, immediately after the murder of Sabinus, he sent ambassadors to