The History of Rome: Rise and Fall of the Empire. John Bagnell Bury
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there. The legio classica was dispatched to Spain. The praetorian guard was disbanded, and a new guard formed from the Germanic soldiers, who demanded this promotion in return for their services. Thus the principle, that the praetorians should consist only of Italian levies, was transgressed. The new guard consisted of 16 cohorts of 1000 men each, instead of 9 as before. The four urban cohorts were also organized anew. Rome was overrun by soldiers. Besides the new guards, there were 4 legions, 4 divisions of other legions, 34 cohorts of auxilia, and 12 squadrons of cavalry, all of which had entered Rome with the victor and treated it as a captured city.
The administration of Vitellius was better than might have been expected from the license of his subordinates. He filled the offices of his household with knights, not with freedmen. He respected the independence of the senate and attended its meetings. When he was opposed in the curia, he observed that it was not strange that two senators should differ; that he himself had sometimes dissented from Thrasea. He forbade processes for maiestas, and confirmed the privileges which had been granted by his predecessors. He also made laws against the practice of Roman knights degrading themselves by fighting in the arena, and banished astrologers from Italy. Whereas Galba and Otho had adopted the cognomen Caesar as part of their imperial style, Vitellius refused to affiliate himself thus to the Julian dynasty. He had postponed the assumption of the title Augustus, but it was pressed on him when he arrived in Rome. On the other hand he permitted a perpetual consulship to be decreed to him. In regard to his attitude to the senate, it is important to remark that he dated his accession (dies imperii), not from the day on which the army had saluted him Imperator, but from the decree of the senate, after Otho’s death. But the real power lay with Valens and Caecina. They encouraged the Emperor in the coarse sensuality to which he was naturally addicted, while they enriched themselves and made all the state appointments.
The cost of increasing the number of the praetorians, and the extravagant expenditure of the gluttonous Princeps on the pleasures of the table, led soon to a deficit, to meet which the coinage was depreciated.
While western Europe was rent with civil wars, and Emperors rose and fell in rapid succession, the legions of the east looked on with surprise and indifference. Galba and Otho were acknowledged in Syria and Judea; even Vitellius was accepted for a moment. But when it was fully grasped that Vitellius had been elevated by the Germanic army, a dormant spirit of jealousy began to awake in the legions of the east, just as the Germanic legions themselves had been excited at the elevation of Galba in Spain. If a Princeps could be made out of Italy, why should he not be made in the east as well as in the north? If the army of the Rhine created an Emperor, if the army of the Danube supported another, why should not the army of the Euphrates have their candidate too? This feeling spread among both officers and men, and the east determined to assert itself in the “comitia of the Empire”. The only question was, who should be the candidate? The most natural person to select was C. Licinius Mucianus, the legatus of Syria, a man of noble birth, an experienced and able diplomatist, popular with the soldiers. But he refused, perhaps because he had no children and thought it vain to attempt to found a permanent monarchy, except as a dynasty. Then all eyes turned to Titus Flavius Vespasianus, the legatus of Judea. He was not a man of high descent like Mucianus. He was born of obscure family at Phalacrine, near Reate, the tow a of Varro. We have already met him doing good service in the conquest of Britain as the commander of a legion. He hail afterwards held the consulship (51 A.D.), but the fall of Narcissus, his patron, interrupted his career, and it was not till after the death of Agrippina, that he again took part in public life as the proconsul of Africa (63 A.D.), which he administered with integrity. He followed in Nero’s train to Greece, and was appointed by that monarch governor of Judea (66 A.D.) to suppress a formidable rebellion which had broken out there. He was slowly and surely carrying this task to a successful issue, when the news of Nero’s death came; upon which he withdrew his troops from the field of action, and ceased hostilities. This act does not imply any ulterior motives on the part of Vespasian. His office was delegated to him by Nero, and his authority expired with the death of the Imperator who delegated it: so that he had no legal position to act until his powers were delegated to him anew by another Imperator.
On July 1st, Vespasian was proclaimed Imperator at Alexandria by Ti. Julius Alexander, the Augustal prefect of Egypt, and from this day Vespasian dated the beginning of his reign. A few days later the Judean legions followed with enthusiasm at Casesarea; and Mucianus, who zealously assumed the role of a “kingmaker”, secured the adhesion of both soldiers and citizens at Antioch. A probably forged letter of Otho was produced, calling upon the East to avenge his death; and Mucianus inflamed the soldiers by stating that Vitellius intended to recall them from their luxurious quarters in Syria, and replace them by the lesions of Gaul and Germany. The choice of the armies was supported by the vassal kings, Sohaemus of Sophene, Antiochus of Commagene, and Agrippa II, lord of Batanea, Trachonitis, and other districts. Negotiations were made with the king of Parthia to ensure the safety of the eastern provinces during the absence of the legions in the west; and he even offered to place at Vespasian’s disposal a force of mounted cavalry, but this offer was refused. A council of war was held at the colony of Berytus, where Mucianus and Vespasian concerted measures for the campaign against Vitellius. It was decided that Mucianus should lead the expedition to the west; and that Vespasian himself should occupy Egypt, whose possession was very important in a war against Italy, as Rome depended for her corn-supply chiefly on Egypt. Titus, the son of Vespasian, took his father’s place in Judea.
Mucianus marched westward through Cappadocia and Phrygia. The number of his troops was not large; only about 20,000 or 25,000 men. But he relied upon the accession of the armies of the Illyric provinces, which burned to avenge the death of Otho. The unanimity of the eastern and Illyric armies was expressed on coins, issued at this period, with the words Consensus Exercituum. In Moesia three legions were stationed, III. Gallica, VIII. Augusta, and VII. Claudiana. Of these III. had been originally in Syria, and was transferred to Moesia by Nero. Mucianus relied on its adhesion, and it did not fail him; the other two followed its example. The two legions in Pannonia, XIII. Gemina, an VII. Galbiana, eagerly embraced the cause of Vespasian. They were smarting under the defeat which their contingents had experienced at Betriacum, and the treatment which they received from Vitellius. The XIIIth had been employed by Caecina and Valens in the construction of amphitheatres at Bononia and Cremona, and had then been sent back to their winter-station at Poetovio. Antonius Primus, a native of Tolosa, and legatus of the Spanish legion of Galba, threw himself ardently into the cause. The legion in Dalmatia (XI. Claudiana) followed the example of the others, but with less zeal. Emissaries of Vespasian won the adhesion of the XIVth legion, which was returning to Britain.
The march of Mucianus was slow, like that of Valens through Gaul. He collected money as he went, on the principle that “money is the sinews of civil war”. He was fully aware of the difficulty of the enterprise; he had a high idea of the valor of the Germanic legions; and his wish was, if possible, to avoid bloodshed and reduce Italy by a blockade. The stoppage of corn-supplies from Egypt might, it was expected, produce a revolution in Rome. But the Illyric legions, under the influence of Antonius Primus, took matters into their own hands, and did not wait for the arrival of the eastern forces. At a council of war held at Poetovio, Primus urged the expediency of surprising Italy while it was still unprepared, and his counsels were adopted, in spite of the letters from Mucianus and the opposition of the governor of Pannonia, Tampius Flavianus. The latter was suspected by the soldiers of sympathy with Vitellius, and had little influence. A message was sent to Aponius Saturninus, governor of Moesia, to hurry on with his army; the Jazyges, who dwelled between the Danube and the Theiss, were engaged to undertake the defence of the Danube during the absence of the legions, and two Suevian kings, Sido and Italicus, joined the expedition against Italy. The procurator of Raetia was faithful to Vitellius, and in order to prevent him from intervening troops were sent to the river Enus (Inn), which divided Raetia from Noricum.
Primus advanced, in front of the main body, with some detachments of horse and foot. He occupied Aquileia and the passes of the Julian Alps, but instead of waiting on the confines of Italy, as Mucianus desired, he proceeded to Opitergium (Oderzo), and Altinum, in which places he was gladly welcomed. Patavium declared for his cause, and likewise Ateste (Este), where he heard that some Vitellian troops were stationed at Forum Alieni (which is perhaps the modern Legnago on the Adige). He surprised them, and thus the beginning