Histories. Tacitus

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СКАЧАТЬ some of his soldiers in custody. Caecina, eager for war, hastened to punish every delinquency, as it occurred, before the offender could repent. Suddenly moving his camp he ravaged a place, which during a long period of peace had grown up into something like a town, and which was much resorted to as an agreeable watering place. Despatches were sent to the Rhaetian auxiliaries, instructing them to attack the Helvetii in the rear while the legion was engaging them in front.

      Bold before the danger came and timid in the moment of peril, the Helvetii, though at the commencement of the movement they had chosen Claudius Severus for their leader, knew not how to use their arms, to keep their ranks, or to act in concert. A pitched battle with veteran troops would be destruction, a siege would be perilous with fortifications old and ruinous. On the one side was Caecina at the head of a powerful army, on the other were the auxiliary infantry and cavalry of Rhaetia and the youth of that province, inured to arms and exercised in habits of warfare. All around were slaughter and devastation. Wandering to and fro between the two armies, the Helvetii threw aside their arms, and with a large proportion of wounded and stragglers fled for refuge to Mount Vocetius. They were immediately dislodged by the attack of some Thracian infantry. Closely pursued by the Germans and Rhaetians they were cut down in their forests and even in their hiding places. Thousands were put to the sword, thousands more were sold into slavery. Every place having been completely destroyed, the army was marching in regular order on Aventicum, the capital town, when a deputation was sent to surrender the city. This surrender was accepted. Julius Alpinus, one of the principal men, was executed by Caecina, as having been the promoter of the war. All the rest he left to the mercy or severity of Vitellius.

      It is hard to say whether the envoys from Helvetia found the Emperor or his army less merciful. “Exterminate the race,” was the cry of the soldiers as they brandished their weapons, or shook their fists in the faces of the envoys. Even Vitellius himself did not refrain from threatening words and gestures, till at length Claudius Cossus, one of the Helvetian envoys, a man of well-known eloquence, but who then concealed the art of the orator under an assumption of alarm, and was therefore more effective, soothed the rage of the soldiers, who, like all multitudes, were liable to sudden impulses, and were now as inclined to pity as they had been extravagant in fury. Bursting into tears and praying with increasing earnestness for a milder sentence, they procured pardon and protection for the state.

      Caecina while halting for a few days in the Helvetian territory, till he could learn the decision of Vitellius, and at the same time making preparations for the passage of the Alps, received from Italy the good news, that Silius’ Horse, which was quartered in the neighbourhood of Padus, had sworn allegiance to Vitellius. They had served under him when he was Proconsul in Africa, from which place Nero had soon afterwards brought them, intending to send them on before himself into Egypt, but had recalled them in consequence of the rebellion of Vindex. They were still in Italy, and now, at the instigation of their decurions, who knew nothing of Otho, but were bound to Vitellius, and who magnified the strength of the advancing legions and the fame of the German army, they joined the Vitellianists, and by way of a present to their new Prince they secured for him the strongest towns of the country north of the Padus, Mediolanum, Novaria, Eporedia, and Vercellae. This Caecina had learnt from themselves. Aware that the widest part of Italy could not be held by such a force as a single squadron of cavalry, he sent on in advance the auxiliary infantry from Gaul, Lusitania, and Rhaetia, with the veteran troops from Germany, and Petra’s Horse, while he made a brief halt to consider whether he should pass over the Rhaetian range into Noricum, to attack Petronius, the procurator, who had collected some auxiliaries, and broken down the bridges over the rivers, and was thought to be faithful to Otho. Fearing however that he might lose the infantry and cavalry which he had sent on in advance, and at the same time reflecting that more honour was to be gained by holding possession of Italy, and that, wherever the decisive conflict might take place, Noricum would be included among the other prizes of victory, he marched the reserves and the heavy infantry through the Penine passes while the Alps were still covered with the snows of winter.

      Meanwhile Otho, to the surprise of all, was not sinking down into luxury and sloth. He deferred his pleasures, concealed his profligacy, and moulded his whole life to suit the dignity of empire. Men dreaded all the more virtues so false, and vices so certain to return. Marius Celsus, consul elect, whom he had rescued from the fury of the soldiers by pretending to imprison him, he now ordered to be summoned to the Capitol. He sought to acquire a reputation for clemency by sparing a distinguished man opposed to his own party. Celsus pleaded guilty to the charge of faithful adherence to Galba, and even made a merit of such an example of fidelity. Otho did not treat him as a man to be pardoned, and, unwilling to blend with the grace of reconciliation the memory of past hostility, at once admitted him to his intimate friendship, and soon afterwards appointed him to be one of his generals. By some fatality, as it seemed, Celsus maintained also to Otho a fidelity as irreproachable as it was unfortunate. The escape of Celsus gratified the leading men in the State, was generally praised by the people, and did not displease even the soldiers, who could not but admire the virtue which provoked their anger.

      Then followed as great a burst of joy, though from a less worthy cause, when the destruction of Tigellinus was achieved. Sophonius Tigellinus, a man of obscure birth, steeped in infamy from his boyhood, and shamelessly profligate in his old age, finding vice to be his quickest road to such offices as the command of the watch and of the Praetorian Guard, and to other distinctions due to merit, went on to practise cruelty, rapacity, and all the crimes of maturer years. He perverted Nero to every kind of atrocity; he even ventured on some acts without the Emperor’s knowledge, and ended by deserting and betraying him. Hence there was no criminal, whose doom was from opposite motives more importunately demanded, as well by those who hated Nero, as by those who regretted him. During the reign of Galba Tigellinus had been screened by the influence of Vinius, who alleged that he had saved his daughter. And doubtless he had preserved her life, not indeed out of mercy, when he had murdered so many, but to secure for himself a refuge for the future. For all the greatest villains, distrusting the present, and dreading change, look for private friendship to shelter them from public detestation, caring not to be free from guilt, but only to ensure their turn in impunity. This enraged the people more than ever, the recent unpopularity of Vinius being superadded to their old hatred against Tigellinus. They rushed from every part of the city into the palace and forum, and bursting into the circus and theatre, where the mob enjoy a special license, broke out into seditious clamours. At length Tigellinus, having received at the springs of Sinuessa a message that his last hour was come, amid the embraces and caresses of his mistresses and other unseemly delays, cut his throat with a razor, and aggravated the disgrace of an infamous life by a tardy and ignominious death.

      About the same time a demand was made for the execution of Galvia Crispinilla. Various artifices on the part of the Emperor, who incurred much obloquy by his duplicity, rescued her from the danger. She had instructed Nero in profligacy, had passed over into Africa, that she might urge Macer into rebellion, and had openly attempted to bring a famine upon Rome. Yet she afterwards gained universal popularity on the strength of her alliance with a man of consular rank, and lived unharmed through the reigns of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius. Soon she became powerful as a rich and childless woman, circumstances which have as great weight in good as in evil times.

      Meanwhile frequent letters, disfigured by unmanly flatteries, were addressed by Otho to Vitellius, with offers of wealth and favour and any retreat he might select for a life of prodigal indulgence. Vitellius made similar overtures. Their tone was at first pacific; and both exhibited a foolish and undignified hypocrisy. Then they seemed to quarrel, charging each other with debaucheries and the grossest crimes, and both spoke truth. Otho, having recalled the envoys whom Galba had sent, dispatched others, nominally from the Senate, to both the armies of Germany, to the Italian legion, and to the troops quartered at Lugdunum. The envoys remained with Vitellius too readily to let it be supposed that they were detained. Some Praetorians, whom Otho had attached to the embassy, ostensibly as a mark of distinction, were sent back before they could mix with the legions. Letters were also addressed by Fabius Valens in the name of the German army to the Praetorian and city cohorts, extolling the strength of his party, and offering terms of peace. Valens even reproached them СКАЧАТЬ