78while things212 went thus on vitellius' side, the flavian army after leaving narnia spent the days of 90the saturnalian holiday213 quietly at ocriculum.214 the object of this disastrous delay was to wait for mucianus. antonius has been suspected of delaying treacherously after receiving a secret communication from vitellius, offering him as the price of treason the consulship, his young daughter, and a rich dowry. others hold that this story was invented to gratify mucianus. many consider that the policy of all the flavian generals was rather to threaten the city than to attack it. they realized that vitellius had lost the best cohorts of his guards, and now that all his forces were cut off they expected he would abdicate. but this prospect was spoilt first by sabinus' precipitation and then by his cowardice, for, after very rashly taking arms, he failed to defend against three cohorts of guards the strongly fortified castle on the capitol, which ought to have been impregnable even to a large army. however, it is not easy to assign to any one man the blame which they all share. even mucianus helped to delay the victors' advance by the ambiguity of his dispatches, and antonius was also to blame for his untimely compliance with instructions—or else for trying to throw the responsibility215 on mucianus. the other generals thought the war was over, and thus rendered its final scene all the more appalling. petilius cerialis was sent forward with a thousand cavalry to 91make his way by cross-roads through the sabine country, and enter the city by the salarian road.216 but even he failed to make sufficient haste, and at last the news of the siege of the capitol brought them all at once to their senses.
79marching up the flaminian road, it was already deep night when antonius reached 'the red rocks'.217 his help had come too late. there he heard that sabinus had been killed, and the capitol burnt; the city was in panic; everything looked black; even the populace and the slaves were arming for vitellius. petilius cerialis, too, had been defeated in a cavalry engagement. he had pushed on without caution, thinking the enemy already beaten, and the vitellians with a mixed force of horse and foot had caught him unawares. the engagement had taken place near the city among farm buildings and gardens and winding lanes, with which the vitellians were familiar, while the flavians were terrified by their ignorance. besides, the troopers were not all of one mind; some of them belonged to the force which had recently surrendered at narnia, and were waiting to see which side won. julius flavianus, who commanded a regiment of cavalry, was taken prisoner. the rest fell into a disgraceful panic and fled, but the pursuit was not continued beyond fidenae.
80this success served to increase the popular excitement. the city rabble now took arms. a few had service-shields: most of them snatched up any weapons 92they could find and clamoured to be given the sign for battle. vitellius expressed his gratitude to them and bade them sally forth to protect the city. he then summoned a meeting of the senate, at which envoys were appointed to go to the two armies and urge them in the name of public welfare to accept peace. the fortunes of the envoys varied. those who approached petilius cerialis found themselves in dire danger, for the soldiers indignantly refused their terms. the praetor, arulenus rusticus,218 was wounded. apart from the wrong done to a praetor and an envoy, the man's own acknowledged worth made this seem all the more scandalous. his companions were flogged, and the lictor nearest to him was killed for venturing to make a way through the crowd. indeed, if the guard provided by the general had not intervened, a roman envoy, the sanctity of whose person even foreign nations respect, might have been wickedly murdered in the mad rage of civil strife under the very walls of rome. those who went to antonius met with a more reasonable reception; not that the soldiers were less violent, but the general had more authority.
81a knight named musonius rufus had attached himself to the envoys. he was a student of philosophy and an enthusiastic advocate of stoicism. he mingled with the armed soldiers offering them advice and discoursing on the advantages of peace and the perils of war. this amused many of them and bored still 93more. some, indeed, wanted to maul him and kick him out, but the advice of the more sober spirits and the threats of others persuaded him to cut short his ill-timed lecture. the vestal virgins, too, came in procession to bring antonius a letter from vitellius, in which he demanded one day's postponement of the final crisis, saying that everything could easily be settled, if only they would grant this respite. antonius sent the virgins away with all respect, and wrote in answer to vitellius that the murder of sabinus and the burning of the capitol had broken off all negotiations. 82however, he summoned the legions to a meeting and endeavoured to mollify them, proposing that they should pitch their camp near the mulvian bridge and enter the city on the following day. his motive for delay was a fear that the troops, when once their blood was up after a skirmish, would have no respect for civilians or senators, or even for the temples and shrines of the gods. but they suspected every postponement as a hindrance to their victory. moreover, some colours which were seen glittering along the hills, gave the impression of a hostile force, although none but peaceful citizens accompanied them.
the attack was made in three columns. one advanced from its original position on the flaminian road, one kept near the bank of the tiber, and the third approached the colline gate along the salarian road. the cavalry rode into the mob and scattered them. but the vitellian troops faced the enemy, themselves, too, in three separate divisions. again 94and again they engaged before the walls with varying success. but the flavians had the advantage of being well led and thus more often won success. only one of the attacking parties suffered at all severely, that which had made its way along narrow, greasy lanes to sallust's gardens219 on the left side of the city. standing on the garden walls, the vitellians hurled stones and javelins down upon them and held them back until late in the day. but at last the cavalry forced an entrance by the colline gate and took the defenders in the rear. then the opposing forces met on the martian plain itself. fortune favoured the flavians and the sense of victories won. the vitellians charged in sheer despair, but, though driven back, they gathered again in the city.
83the people came and watched the fighting, cheering and applauding now one side, now the other, like spectators at a gladiatorial contest. whenever one side gave ground, and the soldiers began to hide in shops or seek refuge in some private house, they clamoured for them to be dragged out and killed, and thus got the greater part of the plunder for themselves: for while the soldiers were busy with the bloody work of massacre, the spoil fell to the crowd. the scene throughout the city was hideous and terrible: on the one side fighting and wounded men, on the other baths and restaurants: here lay heaps of bleeding dead, and close at hand were harlots and their companions—all the vice and licence of luxurious peace, 95and all the crime and horror of a captured town. one might well have thought the city mad with fury and mad with pleasure at the same time. armies had fought in the city before this, twice when sulla mastered rome,220 once under cinna.221 nor were there less horrors then. what was now so inhuman was the people's indifference. not for one minute did they interrupt the life of pleasure. the fighting was a new amusement for their holiday.222 caring nothing for either party, they enjoyed themselves in riotous dissipation and took a frank pleasure in their country's disaster.
84the storming of the guards' camp was the most troublesome task. it was still held by some of the bravest as a forlorn hope, which made the victors all the more eager to take it, especially those who had originally served in the guards. they employed against it every means ever devised for the storming of the most strongly fortified towns, a 'tortoise',223 artillery, earthworks, firebrands. this, they cried, was the crown of all the toil and danger they had undergone in all their battles. they had restored the city to the senate and people of rome, and their temples to the gods: the soldier's pride is his camp, it is his country and his home. if they could not regain it at once, they must spend the night in fighting. the vitellians, for their part, had numbers and fortune against them, but by marring their enemy's victory, by postponing 96peace, by fouling houses and altars with their blood, they embraced the last consolations that the conquered can enjoy. many lay more dead than alive on the towers and ramparts of the walls and there expired. when the gates were torn down, the remainder faced the conquerors in a body. and there they fell, every man of them facing the enemy with all his wounds in front. even as they died they took care to make an honourable end.
when the city was taken, vitellius left the palace by a back way and was carried in a litter to his wife's house on the aventine. if he could lie hid during the day, he hoped to make his escape to his brother and the guards at tarracina. but it is in the very nature of terror that, while any course looks dangerous, the present state of things seems worst of all. his fickle determination soon changed and he returned to the vast, deserted palace, whence even the lowest of his menials had fled, or at least avoided meeting him. shuddering at the solitude and hushed silence of the place, he wandered about, trying closed doors, terrified to find the rooms empty; until at last, wearied with his miserable search, he crept into some shameful hiding-place. there julius placidus, an officer of the guards, found him and dragged him out. his hands were tied behind his back, his clothes were torn, and thus he was led forth—a loathly spectacle at which many hurled insults and no one shed a single tear of pity. the ignominy of his end killed all compassion. on the way a soldier of the german army either 97aimed an angry blow at him, or tried to put him out of his shame, or meant, perhaps, to strike the officer in command; at any rate, he cut off the officer's ear and was immediately stabbed. 85with the points of their swords they made vitellius hold up his head and face their insults, forcing him again and again to watch his own statues hurtling down, or to look at the rostra and the spot where galba had been killed. at last he was dragged along to the ladder of sighs,224 where the body of flavius sabinus had lain. one saying of his which was recorded had a ring of true nobility. when some officer flung reproaches at him, he answered, 'and yet i was once your emperor.' after that he fell under a shower of wounds, and when he was dead the mob abused him as loudly as they had flattered him in his lifetime—and with as little reason.
86vitellius' home was at luceria.225 he was in his fifty-seventh year, and had won the consulship, priesthoods, and a name and position among rome's greatest men, all of which he owed to no efforts of his own, but solely to his father's eminence.226 those who offered him the throne had not yet learnt to know him; and yet his slothful cowardice won from his soldiers an enthusiasm which the best of generals have rarely evoked. still he had the qualities of candour and generosity, which without moderation are 98liable to prove disastrous. he had few friends, though he bought many, thinking to keep them, not by showing moral stamina, but by giving liberal presents. it was indubitably good for the country that vitellius should be beaten. but those who betrayed him to vespasian can hardly make a merit of their perfidy, for they were the very men who had deserted galba for vitellius.
the day was already sinking into evening. the magistrates and senators had fled in terror from the city, or were still in hiding at dependants' houses: it was therefore impossible to call a meeting of the senate. when all fear of violence was at an end, domitian came out227 and presented himself to the generals of his party. the crowds of soldiers at once hailed him as caesar, and marched off, still in full armour, to escort him to his father's house.
