Dayevi Droogs

with what striking success our armies have undertaken German wars.

All that is notorious.

And to-day it is not to protect Italy that we have occupied the Rhine, but to prevent some second Ariovistus making himself 187master of All Gaul.

436 Do you imagine that Civilis and his Batavi and the other tribes across the Rhine care any more about you than their ancestors cared about your fathers and grandfathers? The Germans have always had the same motives for trespassing into Gaul-their greed for gain and their desire to change homes with you.

They wanted to leave their marshes and deserts, and to make themselves masters of this magnificently fertile soil and of you who live on it.

Of course they use specious pretexts and talk about liberty.

No one has ever wanted to enslave others and play the tyrant without making use of the very same phrases.

74′Tyranny and warfare were always rife throughout the length and breadth of Gaul, until you accepted Roman government.

Often as we have been provoked, we have never imposed upon you any burden by right of conquest, except what was necessary to maintain peace.

Tribes cannot be kept quiet without troops.

You cannot have troops without pay; and you cannot raise pay without taxation.

In every other respect you are treated as our equals.

You frequently command our legions yourselves: you govern this and other provinces yourselves.

We have no exclusive privileges.

Though you live so far away, you enjoy the blessings of a good emperor no less than we do, 188whereas the tyrant only oppresses his nearest neighbours.

You must put up with luxury and greed in your masters, just as you put up with bad crops or excessive rain, or any other natural disaster.

Vice will last as long as mankind.

But these evils are not continual.

There are intervals of good government, which make up for them.

You cannot surely hope that the tyranny of Tutor and Classicus would mean milder government, or that they will need less taxation for the armies they will have to raise to keep the Germans and Britons at bay.

For if the Romans were driven out-which Heaven forbid-what could ensue save a universal state of intertribal warfare? During eight hundred years, by good fortune and good organization, the structure of empire has been consolidated.

It cannot be pulled down without destroying those who do it.

And it is you who would run the greatest risk of all, since you have gold and rich resources, which are the prime causes of war.

You must learn, then, to love and foster peace and the city of Rome in which you, the vanquished, have the same rights as your conquerors.

You have tried both conditions.

Take warning, then, that submission and safety are better than rebellion and ruin.

‘ By such words as these he quieted and reassured his audience, who had been afraid of more rigorous measures.

75While the victors were occupying Trier, Civilis and Classicus sent a letter to Cerialis, the gist of which was that Vespasian was dead, though the news was being suppressed: Rome and Italy were exhausted by civil 189war: Mucianus and Domitian were mere names with no power behind them: if Cerialis desired to be emperor of All Gaul, they would be satisfied with their own territory: but if he should prefer battle, that, too, they would not deny him.

Cerialis made no answer to Civilis and Classicus, but sent the letter and its bearer to Domitian.

The enemy now approached Trier from every quarter in detached bands, and Cerialis was much criticized for allowing them to unite, when he might have cut them off one by one.

The Roman army now threw a trench and rampart round their camp, for they had rashly settled in it without seeing to the fortifications.

76In the German camp different opinions were being keenly debated.

Civilis contended that they should wait for the tribes from across the Rhine, whose arrival would spread a panic sufficient to crush the enfeebled forces of the Romans.

The Gauls, he urged, were simply a prey for the winning side and, as it was, the Belgae, who were their sole strength, had declared for him or were at least sympathetic.

Tutor maintained that delay only strengthened the Roman force, since their armies were converging from every quarter.

‘They have brought one legion across from Britain, others have been summoned from Spain, or are on their way from Italy.

437 Nor are they raw recruits, but experienced veterans, while the Germans, on whose aid we rely, are subject to no discipline or control, but do whatever they like.

You can only 190bribe them with presents of money, and the Romans have the advantage of us there: besides, however keen to fight, a man always prefers peace to danger, so long as the pay is the same.

But if we engage them at once, Cerialis has nothing but the remnants of the German army,438 who have sworn allegiance to the Gallic Empire.

The very fact that they have just won an unexpected victory over Valentinus’ undisciplined bands439 serves to confirm them and their general in imprudence.

They will venture out again and will fall, not into the hands of an inexperienced boy, who knows more about making speeches than war, but into the hands of Civilis and Classicus, at the sight of whom they will recall their fears and their flights and their famine, and remember how often they have had to beg their lives from their captors.

Nor, again, is it any liking for the Romans that keeps back the Treviri and Lingones: they will fly to arms again, when once their fears are dispelled.

‘ Classicus finally settled the difference of opinion by declaring for Tutor’s policy, and they promptly proceeded to carry it out.

77The Ubii and Lingones were placed in the centre, the Batavian cohorts on the right, and on the left the Bructeri and Tencteri.

Advancing, some by the hills and some by the path between the road and the river,440 191 they took us completely by surprise.

So sudden was their onslaught that Cerialis, who had not spent the night in camp, was still in bed when he heard almost simultaneously that the fighting had begun and that the day was lost.

He cursed the messengers for their cowardice until he saw the whole extent of the disaster with his own eyes.

The camp had been forced, the cavalry routed, and the bridge over the Moselle, leading to the outskirts of the town, which lay between him and his army,440 was held by the enemy.

But confusion had no terrors for Cerialis.

Seizing hold on fugitives, flinging himself without any armour into the thick of the fire, he succeeded by his inspired imprudence and the assistance of the braver men in retaking the bridge.

Leaving a picked band to hold it, he hurried back to the camp, where he found that the companies of the legions which had surrendered at Bonn and Novaesium441 were all broken up, few men were left at their posts, and the eagles were all but surrounded by the enemy.

He turned on them in blazing anger, ‘It is not Flaccus or Vocula that you are deserting.

There is no “treason” about me.

I have done nothing to be ashamed of, except that I was rash enough to believe that you had forgotten your Gallic ties and awakened to the memory of your Roman allegiance.

Am I to be numbered with192 Numisius and Herennius?442 Then you can say that all your generals have fallen either by your hands or the enemy’s.

Go and tell the news to Vespasian, or rather, to Civilis and Classicus-they are nearer at hand-that you have deserted your general on the field of battle.

There will yet come legions who will not leave me unavenged or you unpunished.

‘ 78All he said was true, and the other officers heaped the same reproaches on their heads.

The men were drawn up in cohorts and companies, since it was impossible to deploy with the enemy swarming round them, and, the fight being inside the rampart, the tents and baggage were a serious encumbrance.

Tutor and Classicus and Civilis, each at his post, were busy rallying their forces, appealing to the Gauls to fight for freedom, the Batavians for glory, and the Germans for plunder.

Everything, indeed, went well for the enemy until the Twenty-first legion, who had rallied in a clearer space than any of the others, first sustained their charge and then repulsed them.

Then, by divine providence, on the very point of victory the enemy suddenly lost their nerve and turned tail.

They themselves attributed their panic to the appearance of the Roman auxiliaries, who, after being scattered by the first charge, formed again on the hill-tops and were taken for fresh reinforcements.

However, what really cost the Gauls their victory was that they let their enemy alone and indulged in ignoble squabbles over the spoil.

Thus after Cerialis’ carelessness had 193almost caused disaster, his pluck now saved the day, and he followed up his success by capturing the enemy’s camp and destroying it before nightfall.

79Cerialis’ troops were allowed short respite.

Cologne was clamouring for help and offering to surrender Civilis’ wife and sister and Classicus’ daughter, who had been left behind there as pledges of the alliance.

In the meantime the inhabitants had massacred all the stray Germans to be found in the town.

They were now alarmed at this, and had good reason to implore aid before the enemy should recover their strength and bethink themselves of victory, or at any rate of revenge.

Indeed, Civilis already had designs on Cologne, and he was still formidable, for the most warlike of his cohorts, composed of Chauci and Frisii,443 was still in full force at Tolbiacum,444 within the territory of Cologne.

However, he changed his plans on receiving the bitter news that this force had been entrapped and destroyed by the inhabitants of Cologne.

They had entertained them at a lavish banquet, drugged them with wine, shut the doors upon them and burned the place to the ground.

At the same moment Cerialis came by forced marches to the relief of Cologne.

A further anxiety haunted Civilis.

He was afraid that the Fourteenth legion, in conjunction with the fleet from Britain,445 might harry 194the Batavian coast.

However, Fabius Priscus, who was in command, led his troops inland into the country of the Nervii and Tungri, who surrendered to him.

The Canninefates446 made an unprovoked attack upon the fleet and sank or captured the greater number of the ships.

They also defeated a band of Nervian volunteers who had been recruited in the Roman interest.

Classicus secured a further success against an advance-guard of cavalry which Cerialis had sent forward to Novaesium.

These repeated checks, though unimportant in themselves, served to dim the lustre of the recent Roman victory.

447 416 Round Reims.

417 Chap.

39.

418 His sister was Titus’s first wife.

419 Augustus had made it a rule that the praefectus praetorio should come from the equestrian order.

420 The text is here uncertain, and some historians maintain that the third of these legions was not XIII Gemina but VII Claudia (v.

Henderson, Civil War, &c.

, p.

291).

421 Great St.

Bernard and Mt.

Genèvre.

422 Little St.

Bernard.

423 See iii.

5.

424 i.

e.

not raised in any one locality.

425 Cp.

ii.

22.

426 The Triboci were in Lower Alsace; the Vangiones north of them in the district of Worms; the Caeracates probably to the north again, in the district between Mainz and the Nahe (Nava).

427 Bingen.

428 Chap.

62.

429 Round Metz.

430 See chap.

59.

431 The other detachments of legions IV and XXII.

432 Riol.

433 Hordeonius Flaccus, Vocula, Herennius, and Numisius.

434 Legions I and XVI.

435 They had, as a matter of fact, changed their allegiance no less than six times since the outbreak of the civil war.

436 Ariovistus, king of the Suebi, summoned to aid one Gallic confederacy against another, formed the ambition of conquering Gaul, but was defeated by Julius Caesar near Besançon (Vesontio) in 58 b.

c.

437 See chap.

68.

438 Tutor erred.

Cerialis had also the Twenty-first from Vindonissa, Felix’s auxiliary cohorts, and the troops he had found at Mainz (see chaps.

70 and 71).

439 He suppresses his own defeat at Bingen (chap.

70).

440 The town lay on the right bank of the Moselle; the Roman camp on the left bank between the river and the hills.

There was only one bridge.

441 The Sixteenth had its permanent camp at Novaesium, the First at Bonn.

Both surrendered at Novaesium (cp.

chap.

59).

442 See chaps.

59 and 70.

443 The Frisii occupied part of Friesland; the Chauci lay east of them, between the Ems and Weser.

444 Zülpich.

445 A small flotilla on guard in the Channel.

It probably now transported the Fourteenth and landed them at Boulogne.

446 Cp.

chap.

15.

447 The narrative is resumed from this point in v.

14.

Events in Rome and in the East 80It was about this time that Mucianus gave orders for the murder of Vitellius’ son,448 on the plea that dissension would continue until all the seeds of war were stamped out.

He also refused to allow Antonius Primus to go out on Domitian’s staff, being alarmed at his popularity among the troops and at the man’s own vanity, which would brook no equal, much less a superior.

Antonius accordingly went to join Vespasian, whose reception, though not hostile, proved a disappointment.

The emperor was drawn two ways.

On the one side were Antonius’ services: it was undeniable that his generalship had ended the war.

In the other scale were Mucianus’ letters.

Besides 195which, every one else seemed ready to rake up the scandals of his past life and inveigh against his vanity and bad temper.

Antonius himself did his best to provoke hostility by expatiating to excess on his services, decrying the other generals as incompetent cowards, and stigmatizing Caecina as a prisoner who had surrendered.

Thus without any open breach of friendship he gradually declined lower and lower in the emperor’s favour.

81During the months which Vespasian spent at Alexandria waiting for the regular season of the summer winds449 to ensure a safe voyage, there occurred many miraculous events manifesting the goodwill of Heaven and the special favour of Providence towards him.

At Alexandria a poor workman who was well known to have a disease of the eye, acting on the advice of Serapis, whom this superstitious people worship as their chief god, fell at Vespasian’s feet demanding with sobs a cure for his blindness, and imploring that the emperor would deign to moisten his eyes and eyeballs with the spittle from his mouth.

Another man with a maimed hand, also inspired by Serapis, besought Vespasian to imprint his footmark on it.

At first Vespasian laughed at them and refused.

But they insisted.

Half fearing to be thought a fool, half stirred to hopes by their petition and by the flattery of his courtiers, he eventually told the doctors to form an opinion whether such cases of blindness and deformity 196could be remedied by human aid.

The doctors talked round the question, saying that in the one case the power of sight was not extinct and would return, if certain impediments were removed; in the other case the limbs were distorted and could be set right again by the application of an effective remedy: this might be the will of Heaven and the emperor had perhaps been chosen as the divine instrument.

They added that he would gain all the credit, if the cure were successful, while, if it failed, the ridicule would fall on the unfortunate patients.

This convinced Vespasian that there were no limits to his destiny: nothing now seemed incredible.

To the great excitement of the bystanders, he stepped forward with a smile on his face and did as the men desired him.

Immediately the hand recovered its functions and daylight shone once more in the blind man’s eyes.

Those who were present still attest both miracles to-day,450 when there is nothing to gain by lying.

82This occurrence deepened Vespasian’s desire to visit the holy-place and consult Serapis about the fortunes of the empire.

He gave orders that no one else was to be allowed in the temple, and then went in.

While absorbed in his devotions, he suddenly saw behind him an Egyptian noble, named Basilides, whom he knew to be lying ill several days’ journey from Alexandria.

He inquired of the priests whether Basilides had entered the temple that day.

He inquired of every one he met whether he had been seen in the city.

Even197tually he sent some horsemen, who discovered that at the time Basilides was eighty miles away.

Vespasian therefore took what he had seen for a divine apparition, and guessed the meaning of the oracle from the name ‘Basilides’.

451 83The origins of the god Serapis are not given in any Roman authorities.

The high-priests of Egypt give the following account: King Ptolemy, who was the first of the Macedonians to put the power of Egypt on a firm footing,452 was engaged in building walls and temples, and instituting religious cults for his newly founded city of Alexandria, when there appeared to him in his sleep a young man of striking beauty and supernatural stature, who warned him to send his most faithful friends to Pontus to fetch his image.

After adding that this would bring luck to the kingdom, and that its resting-place would grow great and famous, he appeared to be taken up into heaven in a sheet of flame.

Impressed by this miraculous prophecy, Ptolemy revealed his vision to the priests of Egypt, who are used to interpreting such things.

As they had but little knowledge of Pontus or of foreign cults, he consulted an Athenian named Timotheus, a member of the Eumolpid clan,453 whom he had brought over from Eleusis to be overseer of 198religious ceremonies, and asked him what worship and what god could possibly be meant.

Timotheus found some people who had travelled in Pontus and learnt from them, that near a town called Sinope there was a temple, which had long been famous in the neighbourhood as the seat of Jupiter-Pluto,454 and near it there also stood a female figure, which was commonly called Proserpine.

Ptolemy was like most despots, easily terrified at first, but liable, when his panic was over, to think more of his pleasures than of his religious duties.

The incident was gradually forgotten, and other thoughts occupied his mind until the vision was repeated in a more terrible and impressive form than before, and he was threatened with death and the destruction of his kingdom if he failed to fulfil his instructions.

He at once gave orders that representatives should be sent with presents to King Scydrothemis, who was then reigning at Sinope, and on their departure he instructed them to consult the oracle of Apollo at Delphi.

They made a successful voyage and received a clear answer from the oracle: they were to go and bring back the image of Apollo’s father but leave his sister’s behind.

84On their arrival at Sinope they laid their presents, their petition, and their king’s instructions before Scydrothemis.

He was in some perplexity.

He was afraid of the god and yet alarmed by the threats of his subjects, who opposed the project: then, again, he often felt tempted by the envoys’ presents and 199promises.

Three years passed.

Ptolemy’s zeal never abated for a moment.

He persisted in his petition, and kept sending more and more distinguished envoys, more ships, more gold.

Then a threatening vision appeared to Scydrothemis, bidding him no longer thwart the god’s design.

When he still hesitated, he was beset by every kind of disease and disaster: the gods were plainly angry and their hand was heavier upon him every day.

He summoned an assembly and laid before it the divine commands, his own and Ptolemy’s visions, and the troubles with which they were visited.

The king found the people unfavourable.

They were jealous of Egypt and fearful of their own future.

So they surged angrily round the temple.

The story now grows stranger still.

The god himself, it says, embarked unaided on one of the ships that lay beached on the shore, and by a miracle accomplished the long sea-journey and landed at Alexandria within three days.

A temple worthy of so important a city was then built in the quarter called Rhacotis, on the site of an ancient temple of Serapis and Isis.

455 This is the most widely accepted account of the god’s origin and arrival.

Some people, I am well aware, maintain that the god was brought from the Syrian town of Seleucia during the 200reign of Ptolemy, the third of that name.

456 Others, again, say it was this same Ptolemy, but make the place of origin the famous town of Memphis,457 once the bulwark of ancient Egypt.

Many take the god for Aesculapius, because he cures disease: others for Osiris, the oldest of the local gods; some, again, for Jupiter, as being the sovereign lord of the world.

But the majority of people, either judging by what are clearly attributes of the god or by an ingenious process of conjecture, identify him with Pluto.

85Domitian and Mucianus were now on their way to the Alps.

458 Before reaching the mountains they received the good news of the victory over the Treviri, the truth of which was fully attested by the presence of their leader Valentinus.

His courage was in no way crushed and his face still bore witness to the proud spirit he had shown.

He was allowed a hearing, merely to see what he was made of, and condemned to death.

At his execution some one cast it in his teeth that his country was conquered, to which he replied, ‘Then I am reconciled to death.

‘ Mucianus now gave utterance to an idea which he had long cherished, though he pretended it was a sudden inspiration.

This was that, since by Heaven’s grace the forces of the enemy had been broken, it would ill befit Domitian, now that the war was practically 201over, to stand in the way of the other generals to whom the credit belonged.

Were the fortunes of the empire or the safety of Gaul at stake, it would be right that a Caesar should take the field; the Canninefates and Batavi might be left to minor generals.

So Domitian was to stay at Lugdunum and there show them the power and majesty of the throne at close quarters.

By abstaining from trifling risks he would be ready to cope with any greater crisis.

86The ruse was detected, but it could not be unmasked.

That was part of the courtier’s policy.

459 Thus they proceeded to Lugdunum.

From there Domitian is supposed to have sent messengers to Cerialis to test his loyalty, and to ask whether the general would transfer his army and his allegiance to him, should he present himself in person.

Whether Domitian’s idea was to plan war against his father or to acquire support against his brother, cannot be decided, for Cerialis parried his proposal with a salutary snub and treated it as a boy’s day-dream.

Realizing that older men despised his youth, Domitian gave up even those functions of government which he had hitherto performed.

Aping bashfulness and simple tastes, he hid his feelings under a cloak of impenetrable reserve, professing literary tastes and a passion for poetry.

Thus he concealed his real self and withdrew from all rivalry with his brother, whose gentler and altogether different nature he perversely misconstrued.

448 Cp.

ii.

59.

449 During June and July before the Etesian winds (cp.

ii.

98) began to blow from the north-west.

450 Circa a.

d.

108.

451 Meaning ‘king’s son’, and therefore portending sovereignty.

452 i.

e.

Ptolemy Soter, who founded the dynasty of the Lagidae, and reigned 306-283 b.

c.

453 They inherited the priesthood of Demeter at Eleusis and supplied the hierophants who conducted the mysteries.

454 i.

e.

the sovereign god of the underworld.

455 It is evident from these words that the worship of Serapis was ancient in Egypt.

It seems to be suggested that the arrival of this statue from Pontus did not originate but invigorated the cult of Serapis.

Pluto, Dis, Serapis, are all names for a god of the underworld.

Jupiter seems added vaguely to give more power to the title.

We cannot expect accurate theology from an amateur antiquarian.

456 Ptolemy Euergetes, 247-222 b.

c.

457 According to Eustathius there was a Mount Sinopium near Memphis.

This suggests an origin for the title Sinopitis, applied to Serapis, and a cause for the invention of the romantic story about Sinope in Pontus.

458 Cp.

chap.

68.

459 i.

e.

Mucianus was too cunning to give Domitian any excuse for declaring his suspicions.

202 BOOK V The Conquest of Judaea 1Early in this same year460 Titus Caesar had been entrusted by his father with the task of completing the reduction of Judaea.

461 While he and his father were both still private citizens, Titus had distinguished himself as a soldier, and his reputation for efficiency was steadily increasing, while the provinces and armies vied with one another in their enthusiasm for him.

Wishing to seem independent of his good fortune, he always showed dignity and energy in the field.

His affability called forth devotion.

He constantly helped in the trenches and could mingle with his soldiers on the march without compromising his dignity as general.

Three legions awaited him in Judaea, the Fifth, Tenth, and Fifteenth, all veterans from his father’s army.

These were reinforced by the Twelfth from Syria and by detachments of the Twenty-second and the Third,462 brought over from Alexandria.

This force was accompanied by twenty auxiliary cohorts and eight regiments of auxiliary cavalry besides the Kings Agrippa and Sohaemus, King Antiochus’ irregulars,463 a strong force of Arabs, who had a neighbourly hatred for the Jews, and a crowd of persons who had come from Rome and the rest of Italy, each tempted by the hope of securing 203the first place in the prince’s still unoccupied affections.

With this force Titus entered the enemy’s country at the head of his column, sending out scouts in all directions, and holding himself ready to fight.

He pitched his camp not far from Jerusalem.

2Since I am coming now to describe the last days of this famous city, it may not seem out of place to recount here its early history.

It is said that the Jews are refugees from Crete,464 who settled on the confines of Libya at the time when Saturn was forcibly deposed by Jupiter.

The evidence for this is sought in the name.

Ida is a famous mountain in Crete inhabited by the Idaei,465 whose name became lengthened into the foreign form Judaei.

Others say that in the reign of Isis the superfluous population of Egypt, under the leadership of Hierosolymus and Juda, discharged itself upon the neighbouring districts, while there are many who think the Jews an Ethiopian stock, driven to migrate by their fear and dislike of King Cepheus.

466 Another tradition makes them Assyrian refugees,467 who, 204lacking lands of their own, occupied a district of Egypt, and later took to building cities of their own and tilling Hebrew territory and the frontier-land of Syria.

Yet another version assigns to the Jews an illustrious origin as the descendants of the Solymi-a tribe famous in Homer468-who founded the city and called it Hierosolyma after their own name.

469 3Most authorities agree that a foul and disfiguring disease once broke out in Egypt, and that King Bocchoris,470 on approaching the oracle of Ammon and inquiring for a remedy, was told to purge his kingdom of the plague and to transport all who suffered from it into some other country, for they had earned the disfavour of Heaven.

A motley crowd was thus collected and abandoned in the desert.

While all the other outcasts lay idly lamenting, one of them, named Moses, advised them not to look for help to gods or men, since both had deserted them, but to trust rather in themselves and accept as divine the guidance of the first being by whose aid they should get out of their present plight.

They agreed, and set out blindly to march wherever chance might lead them.

205 Their worst distress came from lack of water.

When they were already at death’s door and lying prostrate all over the plain, it so happened that a drove of wild asses moved away from their pasture to a rock densely covered with trees.

Guessing the truth from the grassy nature of the ground, Moses followed and disclosed an ample flow of water.

471 This saved them.

Continuing their march for six successive days, on the seventh they routed the natives and gained possession of the country.

There they consecrated their city and their temple.

4To ensure his future hold over the people, Moses introduced a new cult, which was the opposite of all other religions.

All that we hold sacred they held profane, and allowed practices which we abominate.

They dedicated in a shrine an image of the animal472 whose guidance had put an end to their wandering and thirst.

They killed a ram, apparently as an insult to Ammon, and also sacrificed a bull, because the Egyptians worship the bull Apis.

473 Pigs are subject to leprosy; so they abstain from pork in memory of their misfortune and the foul plague with which they were once infected.

Their frequent fasts474 bear 206witness to the long famine they once endured, and, in token of the corn they carried off, Jewish bread is to this day made without leaven.

They are said to have devoted the seventh day to rest, because that day brought an end to their troubles.

475 Later, finding idleness alluring, they gave up the seventh year as well to sloth.

476 Others maintain that they do this in honour of Saturn;477 either because their religious principles are derived from the Idaei, who are supposed to have been driven out with Saturn and become the ancestors of the Jewish people; or else because, of the seven constellations which govern the lives of men, the star of Saturn moves in the topmost orbit and exercises peculiar influence, and also because most of the heavenly bodies move round478 their courses in multiples of seven.

5Whatever their origin, these rites are sanctioned by their antiquity.

Their other customs are impious and abominable, and owe their prevalence to their depravity.

For all the most worthless rascals, renouncing their national cults, were always sending money to swell the sum of offerings and tribute.

479 This is one cause of Jewish prosperity.

Another is that they 207are obstinately loyal to each other, and always ready to show compassion, whereas they feel nothing but hatred and enmity for the rest of the world.

480 They eat and sleep separately.

Though immoderate in sexual indulgence, they refrain from all intercourse with foreign women: among themselves anything is allowed.

481 They have introduced circumcision to distinguish themselves from other people.

Those who are converted to their customs adopt the same practice, and the first lessons they learn are to despise the gods,482 to renounce their country, and to think nothing of their parents, children, and brethren.

However, they take steps to increase their numbers.

They count it a crime to kill any of their later-born children,483 and they believe that the souls of those who die in battle or under persecution are immortal.

484 Thus they think 208much of having children and nothing of facing death.

They prefer to bury and not burn their dead.

485 In this, as in their burial rites, and in their belief in an underworld, they conform to Egyptian custom.

Their ideas of heaven are quite different.

The Egyptians worship most of their gods as animals, or in shapes half animal and half human.

The Jews acknowledge one god only, of whom they have a purely spiritual conception.

They think it impious to make images of gods in human shape out of perishable materials.

Their god is almighty and inimitable, without beginning and without end.

They therefore set up no statues in their temples, nor even in their cities, refusing this homage both to their own kings and to the Roman emperors.

However, the fact that their priests intoned to the flute and cymbals and wore wreaths of ivy, and that a golden vine was found in their temple486 has led some people to think that they worship Bacchus,487 who has so enthralled the East.

But their cult would be most inappropriate.

Bacchus instituted gay and cheerful rites, but the Jewish ritual is preposterous and morbid.

2096The country of the Jews is bounded by Arabia on the east, by Egypt on the south, and on the west by Phoenicia and the sea.

On the Syrian frontier they have a distant view towards the north.

488 Physically they are healthy and hardy.

Rain is rare; the soil infertile; its products are of the same kind as ours with the addition of balsam and palms.

The palm is a tall and beautiful tree, the balsam a mere shrub.

When its branches are swollen with sap they open them with a sharp piece of stone or crockery, for the sap-vessels shrink up at the touch of iron.

The sap is used in medicine.

Lebanon, their chief mountain, stands always deep in its eternal snow, a strange phenomenon in such a burning climate.

Here, too, the river Jordan has its source489 and comes pouring down, to find a home in the sea.

It flows undiminished through first one lake, then another, and loses itself in a third.

490 This last is a lake of immense size, like a sea, though its water has a foul taste and a most unhealthy smell, which poisons the surrounding inhabitants.

No wind can stir waves in it: no fish or sea-birds can live there.

The sluggish water supports whatever is thrown on to it, as if its surface were solid, while those who cannot swim float on it as easily as those who can.

Every year at the same time the lake yields asphalt.

As with other arts, it is experience which shows how to collect it.

It is a black liquid which, when congealed with a 210sprinkling of vinegar, floats on the surface of the water.

The men who collect it take it in this state into their hands and haul it on deck.

Then without further aid it trickles in and loads the boat until you cut off the stream.

But this you cannot do with iron or brass: the current is turned by applying blood or a garment stained with a woman’s menstrual discharge.

That is what the old authorities say, but those who know the district aver that floating blocks of asphalt are driven landwards by the wind and dragged to shore by hand.

The steam out of the earth and the heat of the sun dries them, and they are then split up with axes and wedges, like logs or blocks of stone.

7Not far from this lake are the Plains, which they say were once fertile and covered with large and populous cities which were destroyed by lightning.

491 Traces of the cities are said to remain, and the ground, which looks scorched, has lost all power of production.

The plants, whether wild or artificially cultivated, are blighted and sterile and wither into dust and ashes, either when in leaf or flower, or when they have attained their full growth.

Without denying that at some date famous cities were there burnt up by lightning, I am yet inclined to think that it is the exhalation from the lake which infects the soil and poisons the surrounding atmosphere.

Soil and climate being equally deleterious, the crops and fruits all rot away.

211The river Belus also falls into this Jewish sea.

Round its mouth is found a peculiar kind of sand which is mixed with native soda and smelted into glass.

Small though the beach is, its product is inexhaustible.

8The greater part of the population live in scattered villages, but they also have towns.

Jerusalem is the Jewish capital, and contained the temple, which was enormously wealthy.

A first line of fortifications guarded the city, another the palace, and an innermost line enclosed the temple.

492 None but a Jew was allowed as far as the doors: none but the priests might cross the threshold.

493 When the East was in the hands of the Assyrians, Medes and Persians, they regarded the Jews as the meanest of their slaves.

During the Macedonian ascendancy494 King Antiochus495 endeavoured to abolish their superstitions and to introduce Greek manners and customs.

But Arsaces at that moment rebelled,496 and the Parthian war prevented him from effecting any improvement in the character of this grim people.

Then, when Macedon waned, as the Parthian power was not yet ripe and Rome was 212still far away, they took kings of their own.

497 The mob were fickle and drove them out.

However, they recovered their throne by force; banished their countrymen, sacked cities, slew their brothers, wives, and parents, and committed all the usual kingly crimes.

But this only fostered the hold of the Jewish religion, since the kings had strengthened their authority by assuming the priesthood.

9Cnaeus Pompeius was the first Roman to subdue the Jews and set foot in their temple by right of conquest.

498 It was then first realized that the temple contained no image of any god: their sanctuary was empty, their mysteries meaningless.

The walls of Jerusalem were destroyed, but the temple was left standing.

Later, during the Roman civil wars, when the eastern provinces had come under the control of Mark Antony, the Parthian Prince Pacorus seized Judaea,499 and was killed by Publius Ventidius.

The Parthians were driven back over the Euphrates, and Caius Sosius500 subdued the Jews.

Antony gave the kingdom to Herod,501 and Augustus, after his victory, enlarged it.

After Herod’s death, somebody called213 Simon,502 without awaiting the emperor’s decision, forcibly assumed the title of king.

He was executed by Quintilius Varus, who was Governor of Syria; the Jews were repressed and the kingdom divided between three of Herod’s sons.

503 Under Tiberius all was quiet.

Caligula ordered them to put up his statue in the temple.

They preferred war to that.

But Caligula’s death put an end to the rising.

504 In Claudius’ reign the kings had all either died or lost most of their territory.

The emperor therefore made Judaea a province to be governed by Roman knights or freedmen.

One of these, Antonius Felix,505 indulged in every kind of cruelty and immorality, wielding a king’s authority with all the instincts of a slave.

He had married Drusilla, a granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra, so that he was Antony’s grandson-in-law, while Claudius was Antony’s grandson.

506 10The Jews endured such oppression patiently until the time of Gessius Florus,507 under whom war broke out.

Cestius Gallus, the Governor of Syria, tried to crush it, but met with more reverses than victories.

He died, either in the natural course or perhaps of disgust, and Nero sent out Vespasian, who, in a couple of campaigns,508 thanks to his reputation, good fortune, and able subordinates, had the whole of the country 214districts and all the towns except Jerusalem under the heel of his victorious army.

The next year509 was taken up with civil war, and passed quietly enough as far as the Jews were concerned.

But peace once restored in Italy, foreign troubles began again with feelings embittered on our side by the thought that the Jews were the only people who had not given in.

At the same time it seemed best to leave Titus at the head of the army to meet the eventualities of the new reign, whether good or bad.

11Thus, as we have already seen,510 Titus pitched his camp before the walls of Jerusalem and proceeded to display his legions in battle order.

The Jews formed up at the foot of their own walls, ready, if successful, to venture further, but assured of their retreat in case of reverse.

A body of cavalry and some light-armed foot were sent forward, and fought an indecisive engagement, from which the enemy eventually retired.

During the next few days a series of skirmishes took place in front of the gates, and at last continual losses drove the Jews behind their walls.

The Romans then determined to take it by storm.

It seemed undignified to sit and wait for the enemy to starve, and the men all clamoured for the risks, some being really brave, while many others were wild and greedy for plunder.

Titus himself had the vision of Rome with all her wealth and pleasures before his eyes, and felt that their enjoyment was postponed unless Jerusalem fell at once.

The city, however, stands high and is 215fortified with works strong enough to protect a city standing on the plain.

Two enormous hills511 were surrounded by walls ingeniously built so as to project or slope inwards and thus leave the flanks of an attacking party exposed to fire.

The rocks were jagged at the top.

The towers, where the rising ground helped, were sixty feet high, and in the hollows as much as a hundred and twenty.

They are a wonderful sight and seem from a distance to be all of equal height.

Within this runs another line of fortification surrounding the palace, and on a conspicuous height stands the Antonia, a castle named by Herod in honour of Mark Antony.

12The temple was built like a citadel with walls of its own, on which more care and labour had been spent than on any of the others.

Even the cloisters surrounding the temple formed a splendid rampart.

There was a never-failing spring of water,512 catacombs hollowed out of the hills, and pools or cisterns for holding the rain-water.

Its original builders had foreseen that the peculiarities of Jewish life would lead to frequent wars, consequently everything was ready for the longest of sieges.

Besides this, when Pompey took the city, bitter experience taught them 216several lessons, and in the days of Claudius they had taken advantage of his avarice to buy rights of fortification, and built walls in peace-time as though war were imminent.

Their numbers were now swelled by floods of human refuse and unfortunate refugees from other towns.

513 All the most desperate characters in the country had taken refuge there, which did not conduce to unity.

They had three armies, each with its own general.

The outermost and largest line of wall was held by Simon; the central city by John, and the temple by Eleazar.

514 John and Simon were stronger than Eleazar in numbers and equipment, but he had the advantage of a strong position.

Their relations mainly consisted of fighting, treachery, and arson: a large quantity of corn was burnt.

Eventually, under pretext of offering a sacrifice, John sent a party of men to massacre Eleazar and his troops, and by this means gained possession of the temple.

515 Thus Jerusalem was divided into two hostile parties, but on the approach of the Romans the necessities of foreign warfare reconciled their differences.

13Various portents had occurred at this time, but so sunk in superstition are the Jews and so opposed to all religious practices that they think it wicked 217to avert the threatened evil by sacrifices516 or vows.

Embattled armies were seen to meet in the sky with flashing arms, and the temple shone with sudden fire from heaven.

The doors of the shrine suddenly opened, a supernatural voice was heard calling the gods out, and at once there began a mighty movement of departure.

Few took alarm at all this.

Most people held the belief that, according to the ancient priestly writings, this was the moment at which the East was fated to prevail: they would now start forth from Judaea and conquer the world.

517 This enigmatic prophecy really applied to Vespasian and Titus.

But men are blinded by their hopes.

The Jews took to themselves the promised destiny, and even defeat could not convince them of the truth.

The number of the besieged, men and women of every age, is stated to have reached six hundred thousand.

There were arms for all who could carry them, and far more were ready to fight than would be expected from their total numbers.

The women were as determined as the men: if they were forced to leave their homes they had more to fear in life than in death.

Such was the city and such the people with which218 Titus was faced.

As the nature of the ground forbade a sudden assault, he determined to employ siege-works and penthouse shelters.

The work was accordingly divided among the legions, and there was a truce to fighting until they had got ready every means of storming a town that had ever been devised by experience or inventive ingenuity.

460 a.

d.

70.

461 See ii.

4; iv.

51.

462 XXII Deiotariana and III Cyrenaica.

463 Cp.

ii.

4.

464 There seems little to recommend Tacitus’ theory of the identity of the Idaei and Judaei, though it has been suggested that the Cherethites of 2.

Sam.

viii.

18 and Ezek.

xxv.

16 are Cretans, migrated into the neighbourhood of the Philistines.

The Jewish Sabbath (Saturn’s day) seems also to have suggested connexion with Saturn and Crete.

465 Elsewhere the Idaei figure as supernatural genii in attendance on either Jupiter or Saturn.

466 Ethiopian here means Phoenician.

Tradition made Cepheus, the father of Andromeda, king of Joppa.

467 From Damascus, said Justin, where Abraham was one of their kings, and Trogus Pompeius adds that the name of Abraham was honourably remembered at Damascus.

These are variants of the Biblical migration of Abraham.

468 Il.

vi.

184; Od.

v.

282.

469 Another piece of fanciful philology, based on a misinterpretation of a Greek transliteration of the name Jerusalem.

The Solymi are traditionally placed in Lycia.

Both Juvenal and Martial use Solymus as equivalent to Judaeus.

470 The only known King Bocchoris belongs to the eighth century b.

c.

, whereas the Exodus is traditionally placed not later than the sixteenth.

471 See Exod.

xvii.

472 i.

e.

an ass.

The idea that this animal was sacred to the Jews was so prevalent among ‘the Gentiles’ that Josephus takes the trouble to refute it.

473 Cp.

Lev.

xvi.

3, ‘a young bullock for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering.

‘ Tacitus’ reasons are of course errors due to the prevalent confusion of Jewish and Egyptian history.

474 Cp.

Luke xviii.

12, ‘I fast twice a week.

‘ 475 Cp.

Deut.

v.

15.

476 Cp.

Lev.

xxv.

4, ‘.

.

.

in the seventh year shall be a sabbath of solemn rest for the land, a sabbath unto the Lord: thou shalt neither sow thy field, nor prune thy vineyard.

‘ 477 The seventh day being named after Cronos or Saturn (cp.

chap.

2, note 464).

478 Reading commeent (Wölfflin).

479 This refers to proselytes, who, like Jews resident abroad, contributed annually to the Temple treasury.

They numbered at this time about four millions.

Romans naturally regarded this diversion of funds with disfavour.

480 Jewish exclusiveness always roused Roman indignation, and ‘hatred of the human race’ was the usual charge against Christians (see Ann.

xv.

44).

481 The strict regulations of Deut.

xxii.

&c.

give a strange irony to this slander.

Most of these libels originated in Alexandria.

482 ‘A people,’ says the elder Pliny, ‘distinguished by their contemptuous atheism.

‘ 483 Agnati, as used here and in Germ.

19 means a child born after the father has made his will and therein specified the number of his children.

The mere birth of such a child invalidated any earlier will that the father had made, but the fact of its birth might be concealed by making away with the baby.

This crime seems to have been not uncommon, but there is no evidence that ‘exposure of infants’ was permitted.

484 Josephus also alludes to this belief that the corruption of disease chained the soul to the buried body, while violent death freed it to live for ever in the air and protect posterity.

485 Under the kings cremation was an honourable form of burial, but in Babylon the Jews came to regard fire as a sacred element which should not be thus defiled.

486 This was over the door of the Temple.

Aristobulus gave it as a present to Pompey.

487 Plutarch shared this error, which seems somehow to have been based on a misinterpretation of the Feast of Tabernacles, at which they were to ‘take .

.

.

the fruit of goodly trees, .

.

.

and willows of the brook; and .

.

.

rejoice before the Lord your God seven days’ (Lev.

xxiii.

40).

488 Over Coele-Syria, from the range of Lebanon.

489 i.

e.

from Mount Hermon, nearly 9,000 feet high.

490 Merom; Gennesareth; the Dead Sea.

491 ‘Then the Lord rained upon Sodom and upon Gomorrah brimstone and fire from the Lord out of heaven; and he overthrew those cities, and all the Plain’ (Gen.

xix.

24).

492 These were not concentric, but an enemy approaching from the north-west would have to carry all three before reaching the temple, which stood on Mount Moriah at the eastern extremity of the city.

493 Cp.

Luke i.

8-10, where Zacharias entered the temple to burn incense, ‘and the whole multitude of the people were praying without.

‘ 494 The Seleucids.

495 Antiochus Epiphanes (176-164 b.

c.

).

496 This was really in the reign of Antiochus II (260-245 b.

c.

).

497 Of the Hasmonean or Maccabean family.

498 63 b.

c.

when he was called in to decide between Aristobulus II and Hyrcanus.

499 At the invitation of the Maccabean Antigonus, who thus recovered the throne.

500 Ventidius and Sosius were Antony’s officers.

The former was famous as having begun life as a mule-driver and risen to be a consul and to hold the first triumph over the Parthians.

501 Herod the Great, who on the return of Antigonus had fled to Rome and chosen the winning side.

502 One of Herod’s slaves.

503 Archelaus, Herod Antipas, and Philip.

504 a.

d.

40.

505 A freedman, Procurator of Judaea, a.

d.

52-60 (cp.

Acts xxiv).

506 Claudius’ mother, Antonia, was the daughter of Antony’s first marriage.

507 a.

d.

64-66.

508 a.

d.

67 and 68.

509 a.

d.

69.

510 Chap.

1.

511 Jerusalem stands on a rock which rises into three main hills, Zion (south), Acra (north), and Moriah (east).

It is not clear to which two of these Tacitus alludes; probably Zion and Moriah.

512 Of this no traces remain, and the tradition may have been based on the metaphorical prophecy that a fount of living water would issue from the Sanctuary.

513 i.

e.

the Galilean towns captured by Vespasian in a.

d.

67 and 68.

514 Simon was a bandit from the east of Jordan; John of Gischala headed a party of refugees from Galilee; Eleazar was the leader of the Jewish war-party, and related to the high priests.

515 They submitted to John’s authority and were not killed.

516 ‘Ye shall not .

.

.

use enchantments, nor practise augury’ (Lev.

xix.

26).

517 e.

g.

‘And in the days of those kings shall the God of heaven set up a kingdom, which shall never be destroyed, nor shall the sovereignty thereof be left to another people; but it shall break in pieces and consume all these kingdoms’ (Dan.

ii.

44).

The Jews were looking for Messiah: the Romans thought of Vespasian.

The End of the German Revolt 14After the severe reverse at Trier518 Civilis recruited his army in Germany, and pitched his camp near Vetera.

The position was a safe one, and he hoped to inspirit his native troops with the memory of their former victories there.

519 Cerialis followed in his footsteps, with forces now doubled by the arrival of the Second,520 Thirteenth, and Fourteenth legions, besides auxiliary troops, both horse and foot,521 who had long received their summons and came hurrying on the news of victory.

Neither general was dilatory, but a vast plain lay between them.

It was by nature swampy, and Civilis had built a dam projecting into the Rhine, which stemmed the current and flooded the adjacent fields.

The treacherous nature of the ground, where the shallows were hard to find, told against our men, who were heavily armed and afraid 219of swimming.

The Germans, on the other hand, were used to rivers, lightly armed, and tall enough to keep their heads above water.

15Provoked by the Batavi, the bravest of our troops opened the engagement at once, but soon fell into a panic when their arms and horses began to sink in the deep marshes.

The Germans, who knew the fords, came leaping across them, often leaving our front alone and running round to the flanks or the rear.

It was not like an infantry engagement at close quarters, but more like a naval battle.

The men floundered about in the water or, finding firm foothold, strove with all their might for possession of it.

Thus, wounded and whole, those who could swim and those who could not, struggled helplessly with each other and perished all alike.

However, considering the confusion, our loss was less than might have been expected, for the Germans, not daring to venture out of the marsh, withdrew to their camp.

The result of this engagement gave each of the generals a different motive for hastening on a decisive battle.

Civilis wanted to follow up his success, Cerialis to wipe out his disgrace.

Success stimulated the pride of the Germans; the Romans thrilled with shame.

The natives spent the night singing uproariously, while our men muttered angry threats.

16At daybreak Cerialis formed up his cavalry and the auxiliary cohorts on his front, with the legions behind them, while he himself held a picked body in reserve for emergencies.

Civilis did not deploy his line, but 220halted them in columns,522 with the Batavi and Cugerni523 on his right, and the forces from across the Rhine524 near the river on the left.

Neither general followed the usual custom of haranguing the whole army.

They rode along and addressed their various divisions in turn.

Cerialis spoke of the ancient glory of the Roman name and of all their victories old and new.

He urged them ‘to blot out for ever their treacherous and cowardly enemy whom they had already beaten.

They had to punish not to fight them.

They had just fought against superior numbers and had yet routed the Germans, and, moreover, the pick of their troops.

This remnant had their hearts full of panic and all their wounds behind them.

‘ He then gave special encouragement to each of the legions, calling the Fourteenth the conquerors of Britain,525 reminding the Sixth that the influence of their example had set Galba on the throne,526 and telling the Second that in the coming fight they would for the first time dedicate their new colours and their new eagle to Rome’s service.

527 Then riding along to the German army,528 he pointed with his hand and bade them recover their own river-bank and their own camp529 at the enemy’s expense.

They all cheered with hearts the lighter for his words.

Some longed for 221battle after a long spell of quiet: others were weary of war and pined for peace, hoping that the future would bring them rest and recompense.

17Nor was there silence in Civilis’ lines.

As he formed them up he appealed to the spot as evidence of their valour.

The Germans and Batavians were standing, he told them, ‘on the field of their glory, trampling the charred bones of Roman soldiers under foot.

Wherever the Romans turned their eyes they saw nothing but menacing reminders of surrender and defeat.

They must not be alarmed by that sudden change of fortune in the battle at Trier.

It was their own victory which hampered the Germans there: they had dropped their weapons and filled their hands with loot.

Since then everything had gone in their favour and against the Romans.

He had taken every possible precaution, as befitted a cunning general.

They themselves were familiar with these soaking plains, but the swamps would be a deadly trap for the enemy.

They had the Rhine and the gods of Germany before their eyes, and in the might of these they must go to battle, remembering their wives and parents and their fatherland.

This day would either gild the glory of their ancestors or earn the execration of posterity.

‘ They applauded his words according to their custom by dancing and clashing their arms, and then opened the battle with showers of stones and leaden balls and other missiles, trying to lure on our men, who had not yet entered the marsh.

18Their missiles exhausted, the enemy warmed to their work and made an angry charge.

Thanks to their 222great height and their very long spears they could thrust from some distance at our men, who were floundering and slipping about in the marsh.

While this went on, a column530 of Batavi swam across from the dam which, as we described above,531 had been built out into the Rhine.

This started a panic and the line of our auxiliaries began to be driven back.

Then the legions took up the fight and equalized matters by staying the enemy’s wild charge.

Meanwhile a Batavian deserter approached Cerialis, avowing that he could take the enemy in the rear if the cavalry were sent round the edge of the swamp: the ground was solid there, and the Cugerni, whose task it was to keep watch, were off their guard.

Two squadrons of horse were sent with the deserter, and succeeded in outflanking the unsuspecting enemy.

The legions in front, when the din told them what had happened, redoubled their efforts.

The Germans were beaten and fled to the Rhine.

This day might have brought the war to an end, had the Roman fleet532 arrived in time.

As it was, even the cavalry were prevented from pursuit by a sudden downpour of rain shortly before nightfall.

19On the next day the Fourteenth legion were sent to join Annius Gallus533 in Upper Germany, and their place in Cerialis’ army was filled by the Tenth from Spain.

Civilis was reinforced by the Chauci.

534 Feeling 223that he was not strong enough to hold the Batavian capital,535 he took whatever was portable with him, burnt everything else, and retired into the island.

He knew that the Romans had not enough ships to build a bridge, and that they had no other means of getting across.

He also destroyed the mole built by Drusus Germanicus.

536 As the bed of the Rhine here falls towards Gaul, his removal of all obstacles gave it free course; the river was practically diverted, and the channel between the Germans and the island became so small and dry as to form no barrier between them.

Tutor and Classicus also crossed the Rhine,537 together with a hundred and thirteen town-councillors from Trier, among whom was Alpinius Montanus, who, as we have already seen,538 had been sent by Antonius Primus into Gaul.

He was accompanied by his brother.

By arousing sympathy and by offering presents, the others, too, were all busy raising reinforcements among these eagerly adventurous tribes.

20The war was far from being over.

Dividing his forces, Civilis suddenly made a simultaneous attack on all four Roman garrisons-the Tenth at Arenacum, the Second at Batavodurum, and the auxiliary horse and 224foot at Grinnes and at Vada.

539 Civilis himself, Verax his nephew, Classicus and Tutor each led one of the attacking parties.

They could not hope all to be successful, but reckoned that, if they made several ventures, fortune would probably favour one or the other.

Besides, Cerialis, they supposed, was off his guard; on receiving news from several places at once he would hurry from one garrison to another, and might be cut off on his way.

The party told off against the Tenth considered it no light task to storm a legion, so they fell on the soldiers, who had come outside to cut timber, and killed the camp-prefect, five senior centurions, and a handful of the men.

The rest defended themselves in the trenches.

Meanwhile another party of Germans endeavoured to break the bridge540 which had been begun at Batavodurum, but nightfall put an end to the battle before it was won.

21The attack on Grinnes and Vada proved more formidable.

Civilis led the assault on Vada, Classicus on Grinnes.

Nothing could stop them.

The bravest of the defenders had fallen, among them, commanding a cavalry squadron, Briganticus, whom we have seen already, as a faithful ally of Rome and a bitter enemy of his uncle Civilis.

541 However, when Cerialis came to the rescue with a picked troop of horse, the tables were turned, and the Germans were 225driven headlong into the river.

While Civilis was trying to stop the rout he was recognized, and finding himself a target, he left his horse and swam across the river.

Verax escaped in the same way, while some boats put in to fetch Tutor and Classicus.

Even now the Roman fleet had not joined the army.

They had, indeed, received orders, but fear held them back, and the rowers were employed on various duties elsewhere.

It must be admitted, also, that Cerialis did not give them time enough to carry out his orders.

He was a man of sudden resolves and brilliant successes.

Even when his strategy had failed, good luck always came to his rescue.

Thus neither he nor his army cared much about discipline.

A few days later, again, he narrowly escaped being taken prisoner and did not escape disgrace.

22He had gone to Novaesium and Bonn to inspect the winter quarters that were being built for his legions, and was returning with the fleet.

542 The Germans noticed that his escort543 straggled, and that watch was carelessly kept at night.

So they planned a surprise.

Choosing a night black with clouds they slipped down stream and made their way unmolested into the camp.

544 For the first onslaught they called cunning to their aid.

They cut the tent-ropes and slaughtered the soldiers as they struggled under their own canvas.

Another party fell on the ships, threw 226hawsers aboard, and towed them off.

Having surprised the camp in dead silence, when once the carnage began they added to the panic by making the whole place ring with shouts.

Awakened by their wounds the Romans hunted for weapons and rushed along the streets,545 some few in uniform, most of them with their clothes wrapped round their arms and a drawn sword in their hand.

The general, who was half-asleep and almost naked, was only saved by the enemy’s mistake.

His flag-ship being easily distinguishable, they carried it off, thinking he was there.

But Cerialis had been spending the night elsewhere; as most people believed, carrying on an intrigue with a Ubian woman named Claudia Sacrata.

The sentries sheltered their guilt under the general’s disgrace, pretending that they had orders to keep quiet and not disturb him: so they had dispensed with the bugle-call and the challenge on rounds, and dropped off to sleep themselves.

In full daylight the enemy sailed off with their captive vessels and towed the flag-ship up the Lippe as an offering to Veleda.

546 23Civilis was now seized with a desire to make a naval display.

He manned all the available biremes and all the ships with single banks of oars, and added to this fleet an immense number of small craft.

These carry thirty or forty men apiece and are rigged like Illyrian cruisers.

547 The small craft he had captured548 were 227worked with bright, parti-coloured plaids, which served as sails and made a fine show.

He chose for review the miniature sea of water where the Rhine comes pouring down to the ocean through the mouth of the Maas.

549 His reason for the demonstration-apart from Batavian vanity-was to scare away the provision-convoys that were already on their way from Gaul.

Cerialis, who was less alarmed than astonished, at once formed up a fleet.

Though inferior in numbers, he had the advantage of larger ships, experienced rowers, and clever pilots.

The Romans had the stream with them, the Germans the wind.

So they sailed past each other, and after trying a few shots with light missiles they parted.

Civilis without more ado retired across the Rhine.

550 Cerialis vigorously laid waste the island of the Batavi, and employed the common device of leaving Civilis’s houses and fields untouched.

551 They were now well into autumn.

The heavy equinoctial rains had set the river in flood and thus turned the marshy, low-lying island into a sort of lake.

Neither fleet nor provision-convoys had arrived, and their camp on the flat plain began to be washed away by the force of the current.

22824Civilis afterwards claimed that at this point the Germans could have crushed the Roman legions and wanted to do so, but that he had cunningly dissuaded them.

Nor does this seem far from true, since his surrender followed in a few days’ time.

Cerialis had been sending secret messages, promising the Batavians peace and Civilis pardon, urging Veleda and her relatives552 to change the fortune of a war that had only brought disaster after disaster, by doing a timely service to Rome.

553 ‘The Treviri,’ he reminded them, ‘had been slaughtered; the allegiance of the Ubii recovered; the Batavians robbed of their home.

By supporting Civilis they had gained nothing but bloodshed, banishment, and bereavement.

He was a fugitive exile, a burden to those who harboured him.

Besides, they had earned blame enough by crossing the Rhine so often: if they took any further steps,-from the one side they might expect insult and injury, from the other vengeance and the wrath of heaven.

‘ 25Thus Cerialis mingled threats and promises.

The loyalty of the tribes across the Rhine was shaken, and murmurs began to make themselves heard among the Batavi.

‘How much further is our ruin to go?’ they asked.

‘One tribe cannot free the whole world from the yoke.

What good have we done by slaughtering and burning Roman legions except to bring out others, larger and stronger? If it was to help Vespasian that we have fought so vigorously, Vespasian is master of the world.

If we are challenging Rome-what an 229infinitesimal fraction of the human race we Batavians are! We must remember what burdens Raetia and Noricum and all Rome’s other allies bear.

From us they levy no tribute, only our manhood and our men.

554 That is next door to freedom.

And, after all, if we have to choose our masters, it is less disgrace to put up with Roman emperors than with German priestesses.

‘ Thus the common people: the chieftains used more violent language.

‘It was Civilis’ lunacy that had driven them to war.

He wanted to remedy his private troubles555 by ruining his country.

The Batavians had incurred the wrath of heaven by blockading Roman legions, murdering Roman officers, and plunging into a war which was useful for one of them and deadly for the rest.

Now they had reached the limit, unless they came to their senses and openly showed their repentance by punishing the culprit.

‘ 26Civilis was well aware of their changed feelings and determined to forestall them.

He was tired of hardship, and he felt, besides, that desire to live which so often weakens the resolution of the bravest spirits.

He demanded an interview.

The bridge over the river Nabalia556 was broken down in the middle, and the two generals advanced on to the broken ends.

Civilis began as follows: ‘If I were defending myself before one of Vitellius’ officers, I could expect neither 230pardon for my conduct nor credence for my words.

Between him and me there has been nothing but hatred.

He began the quarrel, I fostered it.

Towards Vespasian I have from the beginning shown respect.

When he was a private citizen, we were known as friends.

Antonius Primus was aware of this when he wrote urging me to take up arms to prevent the legions from Germany and the Gallic levies from crossing the Alps.

557 The instructions which Antonius gave in his letter Hordeonius Flaccus ratified by word of mouth.

I raised the standard in Germania, as did Mucianus in Syria, Aponius in Moesia, Flavianus in Pannonia.

.

.

.

‘He was the smallest of seven children.

At first his mother thought she would call him “Runty.

“ But she soon changed her mind about that; for she discovered that even if he was the runt of the family, he had the loudest grunt of all.

So the good lady made haste to slip a G in front of the name “Runty.

“ “There!” she exclaimed.

“‘Grunty’ is a name that you ought to be proud of.

It calls attention to your best point.

And if2 you keep on making as much noise in the world as you do now, maybe people won’t notice that you’re a bit undersized.

You certainly sound as big as any little shote I ever saw or heard.

“ So that was settled-though Grunty Pig didn’t care one way or another.

He seemed to be interested in nothing but food.

There is no doubt that he would have been willing to change his name a dozen times a day for the slight bribe of a drink of warm milk.

His mother sometimes said that he had the biggest appetite-as well as the loudest grunt-of all her seven children.

And she was glad that he ate well, because food was the very thing that would make him grow.

“You won’t always be runty, Grunty, if you eat a plenty,” Mrs.

Pig often told him.

And then he would grunt, as if to3 say, “You don’t need to urge me.

Just give me a chance!” Grunty Pig soon learned that being the smallest of the family had one sad drawback.

His brothers and sisters (all bigger than he!) could crowd him away from the feeding trough.

And they not only could; but they often did.

Unless Grunty reached the trough among the first, there was never a place left where he could squirm in.

If he tried to eat at one end of the trough he was sure to be shouldered away and go hungry.

So whenever he did succeed in getting the first taste of a meal he took pains to plant himself in the exact middle of the trough.

Then there would be three other youngsters on each side of him, all crowding towards him.

And though he found it a bit hard to breathe under such a squeezing, at least he got his share of the food.

4 Poor Mrs.

Pig! Her children had frightful manners.

Though she talked and talked to them about not crowding, and about eating slowly, and about eating noiselessly, the moment their food was poured into their trough they forgot everything their mother had said.

That is, all but Grunty Pig! If he happened to be left out in the cold, so to speak, and had to stand and look on while his brothers and sister stuffed themselves, he couldn’t help remembering his mother’s remarks about manners.

“It’s awful to watch them!” he would gurgle.

“I don’t see how they can be so boorish.

” He thought there was no sadder sight than his six brothers and sisters jostling one another over their food, while he couldn’t find a place to push in among them.

5 II A NEW WAY TO EAT One thing, especially, distressed Mrs.

Pig.

Her children would put their fore feet right into the trough when they ate their meals out of it.

Nothing she said to them made the slightest difference.

Even when she told them that they were little pigs they didn’t seem to care.

“We’re all bigger than Grunty is,” said one of her sons-a bouncing black youngster who was the most unruly of the litter.

“You’re all greedy,” Mrs.

Pig retorted.

“Do try to restrain yourselves when you eat.

Remember-there’s plenty of time.

” 6 “But there’s not always plenty of food,” Grunty Pig told his mother.

“Sometimes there isn’t any left for me.

” “I know,” said Mrs.

Pig.

“I know that your brothers and sisters eat your share whenever they can.

Farmer Green furnishes enough food for you all.

And if you children didn’t forget your manners everybody would get his share-no more and no less.

” Now, Mrs.

Pig was not the only one that noticed how piggish her youngsters were at the trough.

One day Farmer Green himself remarked to his son Johnnie, as they leaned over the pen, that that litter of pigs did beat all he had ever seen.

“They come a-running at meal time as if they were half starved.

It’s a wonder they don’t get in the trough all over.

” Johnnie Green liked to watch the pigs.

“That black fellow’s the greediest of the7 lot,” he declared.

“He’s getting to be the biggest.

He’s almost twice the size of the little runt.

” “The runt doesn’t get his share,” said Farmer Green.

“We’ll have to do something to help him, or he’ll never be worth his salt.

” Grunty Pig looked up at Farmer Green and gave a plaintive squeal, as if to say, “Hurry, please! Because I’m always hungry.

” And Blackie, his greedy brother, looked up at Farmer Green too.

He said nothing.

But his little eyes twinkled slyly.

And afterward he told his brothers and sisters that Farmer Green needn’t think he could keep him from drinking all the skim milk he pleased.

“If Mother can’t make me behave, surely Farmer Green won’t be able to,” he boasted.

8 Of course Blackie Pig was very young.

Otherwise he would never have made such a silly remark.

And he soon learned that Farmer Green was more than a match for him.

The next day Farmer Green made a long lid that dropped over the feeding trough and covered it completely.

And in the lid he cut seven holes-one for each of Mrs.

Pig’s children.

There was no more jostling at meal time.

There was a place for everybody.

And Mrs.

Pig was delighted with the improvement.

When Farmer Green filled the trough, each of the children stuck his head through a hole and ate in the most orderly fashion.

To be sure, there was some squealing and grunting, and some snuffling and blowing.

But it seemed to Mrs.

Pig that no youngsters could have behaved more beautifully.

9 And Grunty liked the new way of eating, too.

But Blackie made a great fuss.

He complained because he couldn’t stick his nose through two holes at the same time! 10 III THE LOOSE BOARD After Farmer Green put the lid with the holes in it over the top of the feeding trough, Grunty Pig began to grow.

At last he was getting as much to eat as his brothers and sisters.

And the bigger he grew, the more food he wanted.

He was always on the watch for some extra tidbit-always rooting about to find some dainty that others had overlooked.

Many a delicious piece of carrot, or turnip, or potato-paring rewarded him for his eager searching.

Still, Grunty Pig was far from satisfied.

He had a great longing to get outside11 the pen where he lived with the rest of Mrs.

Pig’s seven children.

“Out in the wide world there must be many good things to eat,” he thought.

“I’d like to find the place where the potato-parings grow.

” But of all this, Grunty Pig said nothing to anyone.

If the chance ever came to slip out of the pen, he intended to take nobody with him.

He had not yet caught up with his brothers and sisters in size, even if he had outstripped them in the matter of brains.

And he feared that any one of them would crowd him away from the good things that he meant to find beyond the walls of the pigsty.

Little did Mrs.

Pig dream what plans filled the head of her son Grunty.

When she saw him sniffing around the walls of the pen she never once guessed that he could be looking for anything except12 something to eat.

How could she know that Grunty-the littlest of the family-was searching for a place to escape? Now, it happened that there was one loose board in a corner of the pigpen.

The nails that once held it had rusted away.

Nobody but Grunty Pig had discovered that by pressing against an end of this board one could bend it outward.

It was too bad-for him-that he had grown so rapidly.

Had he been just a bit smaller he could have squeezed through the opening.

Here Grunty met the first real problem of his life.

For some days he puzzled over it.

One thing was certain: he couldn’t make himself smaller, unless he stopped eating.

And that was out of the question.

In the end he made up his mind that there was only one thing to do: he must make the opening bigger.

13 Day after day Grunty Pig crowded against the loose board.

And at last came his reward.

Two more rusty nails gave way all at once.

Under Grunty’s weight the board opened wide.

And as he slipped through the space, to freedom, the board snapped back into place again.

There he was, with the wide world before him.

And there was the pen, with no opening anywhere to be seen.

With a grunt of delight Grunty Pig trotted out of the low building and found himself on the edge of Farmer Green’s orchard.

He noticed that there was a fragrant smell of apples in the air.

14 IV THE WIDE, WIDE WORLD It was the first time Grunty Pig had ever been outside his pen.

And since he didn’t know how long it would be before Farmer Green found him and took him back home, he decided that he had better make the most of his outing while it lasted.

Hurrying into the orchard, Grunty ate heartily of the fruit that lay upon the ground.

After he had devoured a few dozen apples he began to lose his appetite for that sort of food.

So he started to root beneath the trees.

It was fun to dig.

Besides, he found a good many tender roots that tickled his taste.

They15 were different from anything he had ever eaten before.

After a while Grunty Pig learned something.

He had always supposed that he could go on eating forever, if he were only lucky enough to have the chance.

But to his surprise he found that there was a limit to the amount he could consume with comfort.

He began to have a tight feeling about his waistband.

At first he dared hope it would go away.

But the more he ate, the worse he felt.

And at last he gave a grunt of disappointment.

“I can’t eat any more,” he whined.

“Here’s a whole world full of food just going to waste.

And I can’t even hold one half of it!” Still, there were other pleasures to be had besides eating.

Grunty crawled through the fence into the lane.

And16 near the barn, where the cows had trampled, he beheld such beautiful, sticky, deep mud as he had never dreamed could be found anywhere.

Grunty Pig gave a deep sigh of happiness as he wallowed in the mire.

He lay on his stomach, he turned upon each side.

He even squirmed through a puddle and rolled over in it, so that there wasn’t a clean patch on him, anywhere.

Little did he care that his silvery bristles were smeared with black.

The mud felt delightfully cool upon his piggy, pinkish skin.

“This is almost better than eating,” Grunty squealed.

At last his gurgles and grunts attracted the notice of a proud creature known as Henrietta Hen.

She had been scratching for worms in the farmyard.

And now she17 came running around a corner of the barn and peered through the fence at Grunty.

“You careless child!” she squawked.

“Stop playing in that mud! Don’t you know that it’s very dangerous to get your feet wet?” Grunty Pig stood up and looked at her.

“Goodness! You’re a sight!” Henrietta Hen exclaimed.

“Does your mother know you’re here?” Now, Grunty Pig didn’t answer a single one of Henrietta’s questions.

He merely stared at her and said nothing.

So it was no wonder that she thought him stupid.

“Poor Mrs.

Pig!” thought Henrietta Hen.

“It’s bad enough to have a child so untidy as this youngster.

But it’s far worse to have a dull-witted one.

” Then to Grunty she said sharply,18 “You’d better get out of that mudhole and go dry yourself in the sun.

” He actually obeyed her.

And as soon as Henrietta Hen saw that he was sunning himself she walked out of sight around the barn, stopping now and then to pick up some tidbit or other.

“Good!” Grunty Pig grunted.

“She’s gone.

This was the easiest way to get rid of her.

” 19 V SIXES AND SEVENS Not until feeding time came did anyone discover that Grunty Pig was gone from the pen.

It may seem strange that neither his mother nor any of his brothers and sisters missed him.

But when there are seven children in a family it is no wonder that one of them could slip away without having his absence noticed.

It is specially easy, in such a large family, to overlook the littlest.

If Mrs.

Pig had known there was a loose board on the pen she would certainly have counted noses to find out whether her children were all safe at home.

But nobody20 knew about that loose board except Grunty himself.

It was lucky that Farmer Green had made the lid for Mrs.

Pig’s children’s feeding trough-the lid with the seven holes in it.

When he poured the children’s supper into the trough and slammed down the lid he stood and watched Mrs.

Pig’s youngsters as they scrambled to the trough and stuck-each of them-a nose into a hole.

All at once Farmer Green noticed something queer.

“Hullo!” he cried to his son Johnnie.

“There’s an empty hole here.

We’ve lost a pig!” He looked closely at the row of six squirming bunches of squeals.

“I declare!” said Farmer Green.

“It’s the runt that’s gone.

” Mrs.

Pig, who was enjoying her own supper a little way off, did not hear what21 Farmer Green said.

Her children were making a good deal of noise.

And to tell the truth, Mrs.

Pig herself wasn’t exactly a silent eater.

When Farmer Green jumped into the pen and began to poke at the sides of it she wondered what he was doing.

Soon he found the loose board and pushed against it with his foot, exclaiming, “Here’s where he got away! Who’d have thought that the runt was the smartest of the family? “Run and get me a hammer and a few nails,” said Farmer Green to his son Johnnie.

“We must fix this pen before any more of the pigs crawl out.

” Well, when she heard the news Mrs.

Pig nearly choked over a bit of something or other that she was eating.

Grunty was gone! If she hadn’t spent most of the afternoon dozing perhaps she would have missed him.

And poor Mrs.

Pig began22 to reproach herself for what wasn’t really her fault at all.

“I hope you’ll find him,” she told Farmer Green as he drove a nail into the loose board.

“I hope you won’t leave my son out to-night.

There’s no knowing what might happen to a child of his tender years.

” Maybe Farmer Green heard her request.

Anyhow, as he handed the hammer to Johnnie he said, “Come and help me, after you put the hammer back.

We’ll have to find that pig.

If a bear happened to come down from the mountain to-night he’d treat himself to a feast.

That runt would make a nice, tender meal.

” Mrs.

Pig must certainly have heard-and understood-Farmer Green’s remark.

For she gave a loud squeal of alarm.

“Hurry!” she begged him.

“Please, Mr.

Green, do find Grunty before dark!” 23 VI MR.

CROW HELPS It was a wonder that Johnnie Green and his father ever found Grunty Pig.

Soon after Henrietta Hen left him, Grunty crept out of the lane and wandered into the cornfield.

He had an idea that Henrietta might go and tell his mother that she had seen him wallowing in the mud behind the barn.

And he did not want to be dragged back to the pigpen.

Grunty had no way of knowing that Henrietta Hen forgot all about him before she had crossed the farmyard.

She fell into a loud dispute with a neighbor.

And she never thought of Grunty again.

24 Grunty Pig enjoyed his ramble into the field of waving corn.

The corn was sweet; and the dirt was loose-just the finest sort to root in that a body could possibly want.

He had the place all to himself until at last a black gentleman came flying up in a great hurry and ordered him in a hoarse voice to “get out of the corn-and be quick about it!” On him Grunty Pig tried the same trick that he had used on Henrietta Hen.

He looked up with a stupid stare at the newcomer and said never a word.

Old Mr.

Crow-for it was he that had commanded Grunty to leave-old Mr.

Crow abused him roundly.

Mr.

Crow was not empty-headed, like Henrietta Hen.

He was not to be deceived so easily.

“Why don’t you answer me?” he bawled.

“You make noise enough when you’re at home.

I’ve heard you often,25 way across the cornfield.

” Mr.

Crow cawed so angrily that a dozen of his cronies flew over from the woods to see what was going on.

And the whole thirteen made such an uproar that Farmer Green couldn’t help noticing them.

He and Johnnie were in the orchard, hunting for Grunty Pig.

“Those crows are up to some mischief,” Farmer Green declared.

“You don’t suppose-do you?-that they’re teasing that pig?” Well, Johnnie Green was willing to go and find out.

And sure enough! he found Grunty in the cornfield.

Johnnie Green picked him up, tucked him under his arm-plastered with dried mud as he was-and brought him in triumph to the barn.

Farmer Green laughed when he saw Grunty Pig.

26 “He looks as if he had been enjoying himself,” he remarked as he dropped Grunty into the pen with the rest of Mrs.

Pig’s children.

“Are you going to feed him?” Johnnie Green inquired.

Again his father laughed.

“No!” he replied.

“That pig has stuffed himself so full he can scarcely waddle.

” As for Mrs.

Pig, she didn’t know whether to laugh or to weep.

She was glad to have Grunty safe at home again; but he was a sad sight.

At first Mrs.

Pig thought Farmer Green had made a mistake.

She thought he had found somebody else’s child.

For Grunty was so daubed with black mud that she actually didn’t know him until she heard27 him grunt.

“Where have you been?” she asked him in her sternest voice.

“I’ve been out in the world,” he answered.

“And I’ve had a fine time.

” “It’s easy to see,” said Mrs.

Pig, “that you’re a born wallower.

It’s a pity that you haven’t your brother Blackie’s complexion.

The dirt does show so dreadfully on silver bristles!” 28 VII THE GRUMBLER All the farmyard folk agreed that Farmer Green took the best of care of everybody.

Mrs.

Pig often told her children that they were lucky to have so good a home.

And not having lived anywhere else, they never imagined that anything could be finer than their pen.

After the day when he escaped from the pen, however, Grunty Pig began to complain.

He wasn’t satisfied with the food that Farmer Green gave him, he grumbled because there was no good place to wallow in mud, and especially did he object because there wasn’t a tree to rub29 against.

“The orchard,” he often said, “is a much pleasanter place than this pen is.

There are trees enough in the orchard for every member of our family to rub against-all at the same time.

” Somehow, when Grunty talked in that fashion every one of Mrs.

Pig’s children began to crowd against the sides of the pen.

And even Mrs.

Pig herself felt an annoying tickling along her back.

She did wish that Grunty wouldn’t mention such matters.

But nothing Mrs.

Pig could say seemed to do any good.

He was always prattling, anyhow.

She could no more stop his flow of grunts and squeals than she could have kept the water in the brook from babbling down the mountainside to Swift River.

And even more annoying to Mrs.

Pig was the way her son Grunty tried to rub his back against her.

She said “Don’t!”30 to him so often that she became heartily sick of the word.

What bothered Mrs.

Pig most of all was Grunty’s behavior whenever Farmer Green came to the pen.

It was mortifying to her to have her son actually try to scratch his back against her in the presence of a visitor.

“I do hope,” said Mrs.

Pig to Farmer Green, “I do hope you don’t think that I haven’t tried to teach this child better manners.

” And then, when all the rest of her family began to squirm and fidget against the sides of the pen she added with a sigh, “Look at them! Anyone would suppose they had had no bringing up at all!” Farmer Green smiled as he leaned over the pen and watched the antics of Grunty Pig and his brothers and sisters.

“There’s something that I can do for31 your family to make them happier,” he told Mrs.

Pig.

“To-morrow-if I can spare the time-I’ll make a change here.

A lady who’s raising such a fine family as yours deserves the best there is.

She ought to have a home with every modern improvement.

” “There!” Mrs.

Pig exclaimed to her children as soon as Farmer Green left them.

“Did you hear what he said? Farmer Green is a kind man.

I shouldn’t have blamed him if he had put us into the poorest pen on the place, after seeing your unmannerly actions.

You’ll have to behave better-especially after we have our new improvements.

” Well, the next day Farmer Green brought a stout post and set it firmly in the center of Mrs.

Pig’s pen.

“That’s for you and your family to rub against,” he informed Mrs.

Pig.

32 Really, he needn’t have explained what the improvement was for.

No sooner had he climbed out of the pen than Mrs.

Pig and her children began to put the rubbing post to good use.

Grunty was the first of all to try it.

And to his mother’s delight, he stopped grumbling at once.

Nor did he ever again disgrace her by scratching his back against her.

Instead, he always walked up to the rubbing post like a little gentleman.

At least, that was what Mrs.

Pig said.

The Muley Cow Advises Grunty Pig to Go Home.

The Muley Cow Advises Grunty Pig to Go Home.

(Page 32) 33 VIII FEARFUL NEWS There came a day at last when Farmer Green gave Mrs.

Pig and her family a great treat.

He let them out of their pen and turned them loose in a little yard out of doors.

Such gruntings and squealings hadn’t been heard on the farm for a long time.

It was just like a picnic.

And everybody had the finest of times.

Still, Grunty Pig wasn’t content to stay in the yard with the rest of the family.

It wasn’t long before he found a hole in the fence big enough to wriggle through.

And off he went.

And he was actually34 glad, for once, that he was the littlest of the family.

There wasn’t another of Mrs.

Pig’s children that could squeeze through the opening.

Grunty Pig trotted the whole length of the lane.

When he reached the pasture he found himself face to face with the Muley Cow, who acted much surprised to see him there.

“You’d better go back home at once,” she advised him.

“There are bears on Blue Mountain.

Sometimes they come down this way.

Only last week I had an adventure with one in the back pasture.

” She did not tell Grunty that she had run away from Cuffy Bear, down the hillside.

“A bear,” said the Muley Cow, “would be delighted to meet a tender little pig like you.

” Grunty Pig did not even thank the Muley Cow for warning him.

35 “I’d like to meet a bear,” he declared stoutly.

“I hope I’ll meet one to-day.

” Leaving the Muley Cow, he zigzagged up the hill through the pasture, stopping now and then to dig up many a juicy root.

Although Mrs.

Pig missed her runaway son after a time, she was not greatly disturbed.

“He can’t be far off,” she thought.

“He’ll come back before dark.

” And when Grunty did at last come crawling into the little yard Mrs.

Pig was merely vexed with him for having gone off without her consent.

She was just about to give him a well deserved scolding.

But before she could speak to him, Grunty greeted her with a loud squeal.

“I saw a bear in the pasture!” he cried.

Mrs.

Pig promptly forgot her displeasure.

Although her son was certainly unharmed,36 she couldn’t help being startled.

It gave her what she called “a turn” to learn that Grunty had met a bear.

“A bear!” Mrs.

Pig gasped.

“A bear is a terribly dangerous creature.

It’s a wonder that you ever got home.

.

.

.

What did you do when you saw him?” Mrs.

Pig demanded.

“I walked away,” said Grunty.

“He couldn’t have noticed you,” Mrs.

Pig declared.

“If you had squealed it would have been the end of you.

” Grunty Pig felt that he was the most important member of the family.

Not one of his brothers or sisters had ever seen a bear.

At least they had never claimed to have enjoyed so fearsome a sight.

“It was nothing,” he boasted.

“I’d as soon meet a bear as the Muley Cow.

commanded by one miserable old invalid?

Let them rather kill the traitor and free their brave hearts and good hopes from the incubus of such an evil omen. Having worked on each other’s feelings by these complaints, they were still further incensed by the arrival of a letter from Vespasian. As this could not be concealed, Flaccus read it before a meeting of the soldiers, and the messengers who brought it were sent to Vitellius in chains. 25With feelings thus appeased the army marched on to Bonn, the head-quarters of the First legion. There the men were still more indignant with Flaccus, on whom they laid the blame of their recent defeat.

5 It was by his orders, they argued, that they had taken the field against the Batavians on the understanding that the legions from Mainz were in pursuit. But no reinforcements had arrived and his treachery was responsible for their losses. The facts, moreover, were unknown to the other armies, nor was any report sent to their emperor, although this treacherous outbreak could have been nipped in the bud by the combined aid of all the provinces. In answer Flaccus read out to the army copies of all the letters which he had sent from time to time all over Gaul and Britain and Spain to ask for assistance, and introduced the disastrous practice of having all letters delivered to the standard-bearers of the legions, who read them to the soldiers before the general had seen them.129 He then gave orders that one of the mutineers should be put in irons, more by way of vindicating his authority than because one man was especially to blame. Leaving Bonn, the army moved on to Cologne, where they were joined by large numbers of Gallic auxiliaries, who at first zealously supported the Roman cause:

later, when the Germans prospered, most of the tribes took arms against us, actuated by hopes of liberty and an ambition to establish an empire of their own when once they had shaken off the yoke. Meanwhile the army’s indignation steadily increased. The imprisonment of a single soldier was not enough to terrify them, and, indeed, the prisoner actually accused the general of complicity in crime, alleging that he himself had carried messages between Flaccus and Civilis. ‘It is because I can testify to the truth,’ he said, ‘that Flaccus wants to get rid of me on a false charge.’ Thereupon Vocula, with admirable self-possession, mounted the tribunal and, in spite of the man’s protestations, ordered him to be seized and led away to prison. This alarmed the disaffected, while the better sort obeyed him promptly. The army then unanimously demanded that Vocula should lead them, and Flaccus accordingly resigned the chief command to him. 26However, there was much to exasperate their disaffection. They were short both of pay and of provisions:

the Gauls refused either to enlist or to pay tribute:

drought, usually unknown in that climate, made the Rhine almost too low for navigation, and thus hampered their commissariat:

patrols had 1

to be posted at intervals all along the bank to prevent the Germans fording the river:

and in consequence of all this they had less food and more mouths to eat it. To the ignorant the lowness of the river seemed in itself an evil omen, as though the ancient bulwarks of the empire were now failing them. In peace they would have called it bad luck or the course of nature:

now it was ‘fate’ and ‘the anger of heaven’. On entering Novaesium

6 they were joined by the Sixteenth legion. Herennius Gallus

7 now shared with Vocula the responsibility of command. As they could not venture out against the enemy, they encamped … at a place called Gelduba,

8 where the soldiers were trained in deploying, in fortification and entrenchment, and in various other military manœuvres. To inspire their courage with the further incentive of plunder, Vocula led out part of the force against the neighbouring tribe of the Cugerni,

9 who had accepted Civilis’ offers of alliance. The rest of the troops were left behind with Herennius Gallus,

1

27and it happened that a corn-ship with a full cargo, which had run aground close to the camp, was towed over by the Germans to their own bank. This was more than Gallus could tolerate, so he sent a cohort to the rescue. The number of the Germans soon in1

1creased:

both sides gradually gathered reinforcements and a regular battle was fought, with the result that the Germans towed off the ship, inflicting heavy losses. The defeated troops followed what had now become their regular custom, and threw the blame not on their own inefficiency but on their commanding-officer’s bad faith. They dragged him from his quarters, tore his uniform and flogged him, bidding him tell them how much he had got for betraying the army, and who were his accomplices. Then their indignation recoiled on Hordeonius Flaccus:

he was the real criminal:

Gallus was only his tool. At last their threats so terrified Gallus that he, too, charged Flaccus with treason. He was put in irons until the arrival of Vocula, who at once set him free, and on the next day had the ringleaders of the riot executed. The army showed, indeed, a strange contrast in its equal readiness to mutiny and to submit to punishment. The common soldiers’ loyalty to Vitellius was beyond question,

11 while the higher ranks inclined towards Vespasian. Thus we find a succession of outbreaks and penalties;

an alternation of insubordination with obedience to discipline;

for the troops could be punished though not controlled. 28Meanwhile the whole of Germany was ready to worship Civilis, sending him vast reinforcements and ratifying the alliance with hostages from their noblest families. He gave orders that the country of the Ubii and Treviri was to be laid waste by their nearest 1

2neighbours, and sent another party across the Maas to harass the Menapii and Morini

12 and other frontier tribes of Gaul. In both quarters they plundered freely, and were especially savage towards the Ubii, because they were a tribe of German origin who had renounced their fatherland and adopted the name of Agrippinenses.

1

A Ubian cohort was cut to pieces at the village of Marcodurum,

14 where they were off their guard, trusting to their distance from the Rhine. The Ubii did not take this quietly, nor hesitate to seek reprisals from the Germans, which they did at first with impunity. In the end, however, the Germans proved too much for them, and throughout the war the Ubii were always more conspicuous for good faith than good fortune. Their collapse strengthened Civilis’ position, and emboldened by success, he now vigorously pressed on the blockade of the legions at Vetera, and redoubled his vigilance to prevent any message creeping through from the relieving army. The Batavians were told off to look after the engines and siege-works:

the Germans, who clamoured for battle, were sent to demolish the rampart and renew the fight directly they were beaten off. There were so many of them that their losses mattered little. 29Nightfall did not see the end of their task. They built huge fires of wood all round the ramparts and 1

sat drinking by them;

then, as the wine warmed their hearts, one by one they dashed into the fight with blind courage. In the darkness their missiles were ineffective, but the barbarian troops were clearly visible to the Romans, and any one whose daring or bright ornaments made him conspicuous at once became a mark for their aim. At last Civilis saw their mistake, and gave orders to extinguish the fires and plunge the whole scene into a confusion of darkness and the din of arms. Discordant shouts now arose:

everything was vague and uncertain:

no one could see to strike or to parry. Wherever a shout was heard, they would wheel round and lunge in that direction. Valour was useless:

chance and chaos ruled supreme:

and the bravest soldier often fell under a coward’s bolt. The Germans fought with blind fury. The Roman troops were more familiar with danger;

they hurled down iron-clamped stakes and heavy stones with sure effect. Wherever the sound of some one climbing or the clang of a scaling-ladder betrayed the presence of the enemy, they thrust them back with their shields and followed them with a shower of javelins. Many appeared on top of the walls, and these they stabbed with their short swords. And so the night wore on.

Day dawned upon new methods of attack. The Batavians had built a wooden tower of two stories and moved it up to the Head-quarters Gate,

15 which was the most accessible spot. However, our soldiers, by using strong poles and hurling wooden beams, soon 1

4battered it to pieces, with great loss of life to those who were standing on it. While they were still dismayed at this, we made a sudden and successful sally. Meanwhile the legionaries, with remarkable skill and ingenuity, invented still further contrivances. The one which caused most terror was a crane with a movable arm suspended over their assailants’ heads:

this arm was suddenly lowered, snatched up one or more of the enemy into the air before his fellows’ eyes, and, as the heavy end was swung round, tossed him into the middle of the camp. Civilis now gave up hope of storming the camp and renewed a leisurely blockade, trying all the time by messages and offers of reward to undermine the loyalty of the legions. 299 Chap. 18.

The Bructeri lived between the Lippe and the Upper Ems, the Tencteri along the eastern bank of the Rhine, between its tributaries the Ruhr and the Sieg, i.e. opposite Cologne.

1 i.e. about 12,

men. The bulk of the Fifth and a detachment of the Fifteenth had gone to Italy.

2 i.e. Frisii, Bructeri, Tencteri, &c.

At Mainz.

4 His other legion was IV Macedonica.

5 Cp. chap. 2

.

6 Neuss.

7 He commanded the First legion, which had joined the main column at Bonn.

8 Gellep. Some words are lost, perhaps giving the distance from Novaesium.

9 See note 282.

1

At Gelduba.

11 Cp. iii. 61.

12 The Menapii lived between the Maas and the Scheldt;

the Morini on the coast in the neighbourhood of Boulogne. They were a proverb for ‘the back of beyond’.

1

See i. 56, note 1

6.

14 Düren.

15 i.e. the gate on to the street leading to Head-quarters. The Relief of Vetera

1Such was the course of events in Germany up to the date of the battle of Cremona.

16 News of this arrived by letter from Antonius Primus, who enclosed a copy of Caecina’s edict,

17 and Alpinius Montanus,

18 who commanded one of the defeated auxiliary cohorts, came in person to confess that his party had been beaten. The troops were variously affected by the news. The Gallic auxiliaries, who had no feelings of affection or dislike to either party and served without sentiment, 1

5promptly took the advice of their officers and deserted Vitellius. The veterans hesitated;

under pressure from Flaccus and their officers they eventually took the oath of allegiance, but it was clear from their faces that their hearts were not in it, and while repeating the rest of the formula they boggled at the name of Vespasian, either muttering it under their breath or more often omitting it altogether.

2Their suspicions were further inflamed when Antonius’ letter to Civilis was read out before the meeting;

it seemed to address Civilis as a member of the Flavian party, and to argue hostility to the German army. The news was next brought to the camp at Gelduba, where it gave rise to the same comments and the same scenes. Montanus was sent to carry instructions to Civilis that he was to cease from hostilities and not to make war on Rome under a false pretext;

if it was to help Vespasian that he had taken arms, he had now achieved his object. Civilis at first replied in guarded terms. Then, as he saw that Montanus was an impetuous person who would welcome a revolution, he began to complain of all the dangers he had endured in the service of Rome for the last twenty-five years. ‘A fine reward I have received,’ he cried, ‘for all my labours-my brother’s execution,

19 my own imprisonment,

19 and the bloodthirsty clamours of this army, from which I claim satisfaction by natural right since they have sought my destruction. As for you Trevirans and all the rest that have the souls of slaves, what reward do you hope 1

6to gain for shedding your blood so often in the cause of Rome, except the thankless task of military service, endless taxation, and the rods and axes of these capricious tyrants?

Look at me! I have only a single cohort under my command, and yet with the Canninefates and Batavi, a mere fraction of the Gallic peoples, I am engaged in destroying their great useless camp and besieging them with famine and the sword. In short, our venture will either end in freedom or, if we are beaten, we shall be no worse off than before.’ Having thus inflamed Montanus he told him to take back a milder answer and dismissed him. On his return Montanus pretended that his errand had been fruitless, and said nothing about the rest of the interview:

but it soon came to light.

Retaining a portion of his force, Civilis sent the veteran cohorts with the most efficient of the German troops against Vocula and his army.

2

He gave the command to Julius Maximus and his nephew Claudius Victor. After rushing the winter-quarters of a cavalry regiment at Asciburgium

21 on their way, they fell upon the Roman camp and so completely surprised it that Vocula had no time to address his army or to form it for battle. The only precaution he could take in the general panic was to mass the legionaries in the centre with the auxiliaries scattered on either flank. Our cavalry charged, but found the enemy in good order ready to receive them, and came flying back on to their own infantry. What followed was 1

7more of a massacre than a battle. The Nervian cohorts, either from panic or treachery, left our flanks exposed;

thus the legions had to bear the brunt. They had already lost their standards and were being cut down in the trenches, when a fresh reinforcement suddenly changed the fortune of the fight. Some Basque auxiliaries,

22 originally levied by Galba, who had now been summoned to the rescue, on nearing the camp heard the sound of fighting, and while the enemy were occupied, came charging in on their rear. This caused more consternation than their numbers warranted, the enemy taking them for the whole Roman force, either from Novaesium or from Mainz. This mistake encouraged the Roman troops:

their confidence in others brought confidence in themselves. The best of the Batavians, at least of their infantry, fell. The cavalry made off with the standards and prisoners taken in the earlier stage of the battle. Though our losses that day were numerically larger, they were unimportant, whereas the Germans lost their best troops.

4On both sides the generals deserved defeat, and failed to make good use of their success. Their fault was the same. Had Civilis furnished the attacking column with more troops, they could never have been surrounded by such a small force, and having stormed the camp would have destroyed it. Vocula, on the other 1

8hand, had not even set scouts to warn him of the enemy’s approach, and consequently no sooner sallied out than he was beaten. Then, when he had won the victory, he showed great lack of confidence, and wasted day after day before moving against the enemy. If he had made haste to follow up his success and struck at the enemy at once, he might have raised the siege of Vetera at one blow. Meanwhile Civilis had been playing upon the feelings of the besieged by pretending that the Romans had been defeated and success had favoured his arms. The captured standards and colours were carried round the walls and the prisoners also displayed. One of these did a famous deed of heroism. Shouting at the top of his voice, he revealed the truth. The Germans at once struck him dead, which only served to confirm his information. Soon, too, the besieged saw signs of harried fields and the smoke of burning farms, and began to realize that a victorious army was approaching. When he was in sight of the camp Vocula ordered his men to plant the standards and construct a trench and rampart round them:

they were to deposit all their baggage there and fight unencumbered. This made them shout at the general to give them the signal;

and they had learnt to use threats too. Without even taking time to form their line they started the battle, all tired as they were, and in disorder. Civilis was ready waiting for them, trusting quite as much to their mistakes as to the merits of his own men. The Romans fought with varying fortune. All the most mutinous 1

9proved cowards:

some, however, remembered their recent victory and stuck to their places, cutting down the enemy, and encouraging themselves and their neighbours. When the battle was thus renewed, they waved their hands and signalled to the besieged not to lose their opportunity. These were watching all that happened from the walls, and now came bursting out at every gate. It chanced that at this point Civilis’ horse fell and threw him;

both armies believed the rumour that he had been wounded and killed. This caused immense consternation to his army and immense encouragement to ours. However, Vocula failed to pursue them when they fled, and merely set about strengthening the rampart and turrets, apparently in fear of another blockade. His frequent failure to make use of his victory gives colour to the suspicion that he preferred war.

2

5What chiefly distressed our troops was the lack of supplies. The baggage-train of the legions was sent to Novaesium with a crowd of non-combatants to fetch provisions thence by land, the enemy being now masters of the river. The first convoy got through 14

safely, while Civilis was recovering from his fall. But when he heard that a second foraging-party had been sent to Novaesium under guard of several cohorts, and that they were proceeding on their way with their arms piled in the wagons as if it was a time of perfect peace, few keeping to the standards and all wandering at will, he sent some men forward to hold the bridges and any places where the road was narrow, and then formed up and attacked. The battle was fought on a long straggling line, and the issue was still doubtful when nightfall broke it off. The cohorts made their way through to Gelduba, where the camp remained as it was,

24 garrisoned by the soldiers who had been left behind there. It was obvious what dangers the convoy would have to face on the return journey;

they would be heavily laden and had already lost their nerve. Vocula

25 accordingly added to his force a thousand picked men from the Fifth and Fifteenth legions who had been at Vetera during the siege, all tough soldiers with a grievance against their generals. Against his orders, more than the thousand started with him, openly complaining on the march that they would not put up with famine and the treachery of their generals any longer. On the other hand, those who stayed behind grumbled that they were left to their fate now that part of the garrison had been removed. Thus there was a double mutiny, one party 141calling Vocula back, the others refusing to return to camp.

6Meanwhile Civilis laid siege to Vetera. Vocula retired to Gelduba, and thence to Novaesium, shortly afterwards winning a cavalry skirmish just outside Novaesium. The Roman soldiers, however, alike in success and in failure, were as eager as ever to make an end of their generals. Now that their numbers were swelled by the arrival of the detachments from the Fifth and the Fifteenth

26 they demanded their donative, having learnt that money had arrived from Vitellius. Without further delay Flaccus gave it to them in Vespasian’s name, and this did more than anything else to promote mutiny. They indulged in wild dissipation and met every night in drinking-parties, at which they revived their old grudge against Hordeonius Flaccus. None of the officers ventured to interfere with them-the darkness somehow obscured their sense of duty-and at last they dragged Flaccus out of bed and murdered him. They were preparing to do the same with Vocula, but he narrowly escaped in the darkness, disguised as a slave.

7When the excitement subsided, their fears returned, and they sent letters round by centurions to all the Gallic communities, asking for reinforcements and money for the soldiers’ pay. Without a leader a mob is always rash, timorous, and inactive. On the approach of Civilis they hurriedly snatched up their arms, and then immediately dropped them and took to flight. Misfortune now bred disunion, 142and the army of the Upper Rhine

27 dissociated itself from the rest. However, they set up the statues of Vitellius again in the camp and in the neighbouring Belgic villages, although by now Vitellius was dead.

28 Soon the soldiers of the First, Fourth, and Twenty-second repented of their folly and rejoined Vocula. He made them take a second oath of allegiance to Vespasian and led them off to raise the siege of Mainz. The besieging army, a combined force of Chatti,

29 Usipi, and Mattiaci,

had already retired, having got sufficient loot and suffered some loss. Our troops surprised them while they were scattered along the road, and immediately attacked. Moreover, the Treviri had built a rampart and breastwork all along their frontier and fought the Germans again and again with heavy loss to both sides. Before long, however, they rebelled, and thus sullied their great services to the Roman people.

16 The end of October, a.d. 69 (see iii.

–

4).

17 Caecina, as consul, had probably while at Cremona issued a manifesto in favour of joining the Flavian party.

18 Cp. iii.

5.

19 See chap. 1

.

2

At Gelduba (chap. 26).

21 Asberg.

22 From the north-east frontier of the Tarragona division of Spain, of which Galba had been governor. Hordeonius explained (chap. 25) that he had summoned aid from Spain.

2

Mr. Henderson calls this sentence ‘a veritable masterpiece of improbability’, and finds it ‘hard to speak calmly of such a judgement’. He has to confess that a military motive for Vocula’s inaction is hard to find. Tacitus, feeling the same, offers a merely human motive. Soldiers of fortune often prefer war to final victory, and in these days the dangers of peace were only equalled by its ennui. Besides, Tacitus’ explanation lends itself to an epigram which he would doubtless not have exchanged for the tedium of tactical truth.

24 Cp. chap. 26.

25 Having strengthened the defences of Vetera, he was now going back to Gelduba.

26 From the Vetera garrison.

27 i.e. the troops which Flaccus at Mainz had put under Vocula for the relief of Vetera (chap. 24).

28 It was therefore later than December 21.

29 Cp. chap. 12.

The Usipi lived on the east bank of the Rhine between the Sieg and the Lahn;

the Mattiaci between the Lahn and the Main, round Wiesbaden. Rome and the Empire under Vespasian

8During these events Vespasian took up his second consulship and Titus his first, both in absence.

1 Rome was depressed and beset by manifold anxieties. Apart 14

from the real miseries of the moment, it was plunged into a groundless panic on the rumour of a rebellion in Africa, where Lucius Piso was supposed to be plotting a revolution. Piso, who was governor of the province, was far from being a firebrand. But the severity of the winter delayed the corn-ships, and the common people, accustomed to buy their bread day by day, whose interest in politics was confined to the corn-supply, soon began to believe their fears that the coast of Africa was being blockaded and supplies withheld. The Vitellians, who were still under the sway of party spirit, fostered this rumour, and even the victorious party were not entirely displeased at it, for none of their victories in the civil war had satisfied their greed, and even foreign wars fell far short of their ambition.

9On the first of January the senate was convened by the Urban Praetor,

2 Julius Frontinus, and passed votes of thanks and congratulation to the generals, armies, and foreign princes.

Tettius Julianus,

4 who had left his legion when it went over to Vespasian, was deprived of his praetorship, which was conferred upon Plotius Grypus.

5 Hormus

6 was raised to equestrian rank. Frontinus then resigned his praetorship and Caesar Domitian succeeded him. His name now stood at the head of all dispatches and edicts, but the real authority 144lay with Mucianus, although Domitian, following the promptings of his friends and of his own desires, frequently asserted his independence. But Mucianus’ chief cause of anxiety lay in Antonius Primus and Arrius Varus. The fame of their exploits was still fresh;

the soldiers worshipped them;

and they were popular in Rome, because they had used no violence off the field of battle. It was even hinted that Antonius had urged Crassus Scribonianus

7 to seize the throne. He was a man who owed his distinction to famous ancestors and to his brother’s memory, and Antonius could promise him adequate support for a conspiracy. However, Scribonianus refused. He had a terror of all risks, and would hardly have been seduced even by the certainty of success. Being unable to crush Antonius openly, Mucianus showered compliments on him in the senate and embarrassed him with promises, hinting at the governorship of Nearer Spain, which the departure of Cluvius Rufus

8 had left vacant. Meanwhile he lavished military commands on Antonius’ friends. Then, having filled his empty head with ambitious hopes, he destroyed his influence at one stroke by moving the Seventh legion,

9 which was passionately attached to Antonius, into winter-quarters. The Third, who were similarly devoted to Arrius Varus, 145were sent back to Syria,

4

and part of the army was taken out to the war in Germany. Thus, on the removal of the disturbing factors, the city could resume its normal life under the old regime of law and civil government. 4

On the day of his first appearance in the senate Domitian spoke a few moderate sentences regretting the absence of his father and brother. His behaviour was most proper, and, as his character was still an unknown quantity, his blushes were taken for signs of modesty.

41 He moved from the chair that all Galba’s honours should be restored, to which Curtius Montanus proposed an amendment that some respect should also be paid to the memory of Piso. The senate approved both proposals, though nothing was done about Piso. Next, various commissions were appointed by lot to restore the spoils of war to the owners;

to examine and affix the bronze tablets of laws, which in course of time had dropped off the walls;

to revise the list of public holidays, which in these days of flattery had been disgracefully tampered with;

and to introduce some economy into public expenditure. Tettius Julianus was restored to his praetorship as soon as it was discovered that he had taken refuge with Vespasian:

but Grypus was allowed to retain his rank.

42 It was then decided to resume the hearing of the case of146 Musonius Rufus against Publius Celer

4

Publius was convicted and the shade of Soranus satisfied. This strict verdict made the day memorable in the annals of Rome, and credit was also due to private enterprise, for everybody felt that Musonius had done his duty in bringing the action. On the other hand, Demetrius, a professor of Cynic philosophy, earned discredit for defending an obvious criminal

44 more for ostentatious motives than from honest conviction. As for Publius, courage and fluency alike failed him at the critical moment. This trial was the signal for further reprisals against prosecutors. Junius Mauricus

45 accordingly petitioned Domitian that the senate might be allowed access to the minutes of the imperial cabinet, in order to find out who had applied for leave to bring a prosecution and against whom. The answer was that on such a question as this the emperor must be consulted. 41Accordingly, at the instigation of its leading members, the senate framed an oath in these words, ‘I call heaven to witness that I have never countenanced any action prejudicial to any man’s civil status, nor have I derived any profit or any office from the misfortune of any Roman citizen.’ The magistrates vied with each other in their haste to take this oath, and the other members 147did the same, when called upon to speak. Those who had a guilty conscience were alarmed, and managed to alter the wording of the oath by various devices. The house meanwhile applauded every sign of scruple, and protested against each case of perjury. This kind of informal censure fell most severely on Sariolenus Vocula, Nonius Attianus, and Cestius Severus, who were notorious as habitual informers under Nero. Against Sariolenus there was also a fresh charge of having continued his practices with Vitellius. The members went on shaking their fists at him until he left the house. They next turned on Paccius Africanus, trying to hound him out in the same way. He was supposed to have suggested to Nero the murder of the two brothers Scribonius,

46 who were famous for their friendship and their wealth. Africanus dared not admit his guilt, though he could not very well deny it. So he swung round on Vibius Crispus,

47 who was pestering him with questions, and tried to turn the tables by implicating him in the charges which he could not rebut, thus shifting the odium on to his accomplice. 42On this occasion Vipstanus Messala

48 gained a great reputation, both for dutiful affection and for eloquence, by venturing to intercede for his brother Aquilius Regulus,

49 although he had not attained the senatorial age.

5

Regulus had fallen into great disfavour for having 148brought about the ruin of the noble families of the Crassi and of Orfitus. It was supposed that, though quite a young man, he had voluntarily undertaken the prosecution, not to escape any danger which was threatening him, but from purely ambitious motives. Crassus’ wife, Sulpicia Praetextata, and his four sons were anxious to secure revenge if the senate would grant a trial. Messala therefore made no attempt to defend the case or the accused, but tried to shelter his brother, and had already won over some of the senators. Curtius Montanus now attacked him in a savage speech, and even went so far as to charge Regulus with having given money to Piso’s murderer after Galba’s death, and with having bitten Piso’s head.

51 ‘That,’ said he, ‘Nero certainly did not compel you to do. You purchased neither position nor safety by that savage piece of cruelty. We may put up with the pleas of those wretches who prefer to ruin others rather than endanger their own lives. But your father’s banishment had guaranteed your security. His property had been divided amongst his creditors.

52 You were not of an age to stand for office. Nero had nothing either to hope or to fear from you. Your talents were as yet untried and you had never exerted them in any man’s defence, yet your lust for blood, your insatiable ambition, led you to stain your young hands in the blood of Rome’s nobility. At one swoop 149you caused the ruin of innocent youths, of old and distinguished statesmen, of high-born ladies;

and out of the country’s disaster you secured for yourself the spoils of two ex-consuls,

5

stuffed seven million sesterces into your purse, and shone with the reflected glory of a priesthood. You would blame Nero’s lack of enterprise because he took one household at a time, thus causing unnecessary fatigue to himself and his informers, when he might have ruined the whole senate at a single word. Why, gentlemen, you must indeed keep and preserve to yourselves a counsellor of such ready resource. Let each generation have its good examples:

and as our old men follow Eprius Marcellus or Vibius Crispus, let the rising generation emulate Regulus. Villainy finds followers even when it fails. What if it flourish and prosper?

If we hesitate to touch a mere ex-quaestor, shall we be any bolder when he has been praetor and consul?

Or do you suppose that the race of tyrants came to an end in Nero?

That is what the people believed who outlived Tiberius or Caligula, and meanwhile there arose one more infamous and more bloody still.

54 We are not afraid of Vespasian. We trust his years and his natural moderation. But a good precedent outlives a good sovereign. Gentlemen, we are growing effete:

we are no longer that senate which, after Nero had been killed, clamoured for the punishment of all informers and their menials according to our ancestors’15

rigorous prescription. The best chance comes on the day after the death of a bad emperor.’ 4

The senate listened to Montanus’s speech with such sympathy that Helvidius began to hope that it might be possible to get a verdict even against Marcellus. Beginning with a eulogy of Cluvius Rufus, who, though quite as rich and as eloquent as Marcellus, had never brought any one into trouble under Nero, he went on to attack Marcellus, both by contrasting him with Rufus and by pressing home the charge against him. Feeling that the house was warming to this rhetoric, Marcellus got up as though to leave, exclaiming, ‘I am off, Helvidius:

I leave you your senate:

you can tyrannize over it under Caesar’s nose.’ Vibius Crispus followed Marcellus, and, though both were angry, their expressions were very different. Marcellus marched out with flashing eyes, Crispus with a smile on his face. Eventually their friends went and brought them back. Thus the struggle grew more and more heated between a well-meaning majority and a small but powerful minority;

and since they were both animated by irreconcilable hatred, the day was spent in vain recriminations. 44At the next sitting Domitian opened by recommending them to forget their grievances and grudges and the unavoidable exigences of the recent past. Mucianus then at great length moved a motion in favour of the prosecutors, issuing a mild warning, almost in terms of entreaty, to those who wanted to revive actions which had been begun and dropped.151 Seeing that their attempt at independence was being thwarted, the senate gave it up. However, that it might not seem as if the senate’s opinion had been flouted and complete impunity granted for all crimes committed under Nero, Mucianus forced Octavius Sagitta and Antistius Sosianus, who had returned from exile, to go back to the islands to which they had been confined. Octavius had committed adultery with Pontia Postumina, and, on her refusal to marry him, had murdered her in a fit of jealous fury. Sosianus was an unprincipled scoundrel who had been the ruin of many.

55 The senate had found them both guilty, and passed a heavy sentence of exile, nor had their penalty been remitted, although others were allowed to return. However, this failed to allay the ill-feeling against Mucianus, for Sosianus and Sagitta, whether they returned or not, were of no importance, whereas people were afraid of the professional prosecutors, who were men of wealth and ability and experts in crime. 45Unanimity was gradually restored in the senate by the holding of a trial according to ancient precedent, before a court of the whole house. A senator named Manlius Patruitus complained that he had been beaten before a mob of people in the colony of Siena by order of the local magistrates. Nor had the affront stopped there. They had held a mock funeral before his eyes, and had accompanied their dirges and lamentations with gross insults levelled at the whole senate. The 152accused were summoned;

their case was tried;

they were convicted and punished. A further decree of the senate was passed admonishing the commons of Siena to pay more respect to the laws. About the same time Antonius Flamma was prosecuted by Cyrene for extortion, and exiled for the inhumanity of his conduct. 46Meanwhile, a mutiny almost broke out among the soldiers. The men who had been discharged by Vitellius

56 came together again in support of Vespasian, and demanded re-admission. They were joined by the selected legionaries who had also been led to hope for service in the Guards, and they now demanded the pay they had been promised. Even the Vitellians

57 alone could not have been dispersed without serious bloodshed, but it would require immense sums of money to retain the services of such a large number of men. Mucianus accordingly entered the barracks to make a careful estimate of each man’s term of service. He formed up the victorious troops with their own arms and distinctive decorations, each company a few paces from the next. Then the Vitellians who had surrendered, as we have described, at Bovillae,

58 and all the other soldiers who had been hunted down in the city and its neighbourhood, were marched out almost entirely without arms or uniforms. Mucianus then had them 15

sorted out, and drew up in separate corps the troops of the German army, of the British army, and of any others that were in Rome. Their first glance at the scene astounded them. Facing them they saw what looked like a fighting front bristling with weapons, while they were caught in a trap, defenceless and foul with dirt. As soon as they began to be sorted out a panic seized them. The German troops in particular were terrified at their isolation, and felt they were being told off for slaughter. They embraced their comrades and clung upon their necks, asking for one last kiss, begging not to be left alone, crying out, ‘Our cause is the same as yours, why should our fate be different?

‘ They appealed now to Mucianus, now to the absent emperor, and lastly to the powers of Heaven, until Mucianus came to the rescue of their imaginary terrors by calling them all ‘sworn servants of one emperor’, for he found that the victorious army was joining in and seconding their tears with cheering. On that day the matter ended there. A few days later, when Domitian addressed them, they received him with renewed confidence, refused his offer of lands, and begged for enlistment and their pay instead. This was only a petition, but one that could not be refused:

so they were admitted to the Guards. Subsequently, those who had grown old and completed the regular term of service

59 were honourably discharged. Others were dismissed for misbehaviour, but one by one at 154different times, which is always the safest method of weakening any kind of conspiracy. 47To return to the senate;

a bill was now passed that a loan of sixty million sesterces should be raised from private individuals and administered by Pompeius Silvanus. This may have been a financial necessity, or they may have wanted it to seem so. At any rate the necessity soon ceased to exist, or else they gave up the pretence. Domitian then carried a proposal that the consulships conferred by Vitellius should be cancelled, and that a state funeral should be held in honour of Flavius Sabinus.

6

Both proposals are striking evidence of the fickleness of human fortune, which so often makes the first last and the last first. 48It was about this time that Lucius Piso,

61 the pro-consul of Africa, was killed. To give a true explanation of this murder we must go back and take a brief survey of certain matters which are closely connected with the reasons for such crimes. Under the sainted Augustus and Tiberius the pro-consul of Africa had in his command one legion and some auxiliaries with which to guard the frontier of the empire.

62 Caligula, who was restless by nature and harboured suspicions 155of the then pro-consul, Marcus Silanus, withdrew the legion from his command and put it under a legate whom he sent out for the purpose. As each had an equal amount of patronage and their functions overlapped, Caligula thus caused a state of friction which was further aggravated by regrettable quarrels. The greater permanence of his tenure

6

gradually strengthened the legate’s position, and perhaps an inferior is always anxious to vie with his betters. The most eminent governors, on the other hand, were more careful of their comfort than of their authority. 49At the present time the legion in Africa was commanded by Valerius Festus,

64 an extravagant young man, immoderately ambitious, whose kinship with Vitellius had given him some anxiety. He had frequent interviews with Piso, and it is impossible to tell whether he tempted Piso to rebel or resisted Piso’s temptations. No one was present at their interviews, which were held in private, and after Piso’s death most people were inclined to sympathize with his murderer. Beyond doubt the province and the garrison were unfavourable to Vespasian. Besides, some of the Vitellian refugees from Rome pointed out to Piso that the Gallic provinces were wavering. Germany was ready to rebel, and he himself was in danger;

‘and,’ they added, ‘if you earn suspicion in peace your safest 156course is war.’ Meanwhile, Claudius Sagitta, who commanded Petra’s Horse,

65 made a good crossing and outstripped the centurion Papirius, who had been sent out by Mucianus and was commissioned, so Sagitta affirmed, to assassinate Piso. Sagitta further stated that Galerianus,

66 Piso’s cousin and son-in-law, had already been murdered, and told him that while his one hope lay in taking a bold step, there were two courses open to him:

he might either take up arms on the spot, or he might prefer to sail to Gaul and offer to lead the Vitellian armies. This made no impression on Piso. When the centurion whom Mucianus had sent arrived at the gates of Carthage, he kept on shouting all sorts of congratulations to Piso on becoming emperor. The people he met, who were astounded at this unexpected miracle, were instructed to take up the cry. With a crowd’s usual credulity, they rushed into the forum calling on Piso to appear, and as they had a passion for flattery and took no interest in the truth, they proceeded to fill the whole place with a confused noise of cheering. Piso, however, either at a hint from Sagitta, or from his natural good sense, would not show himself in public or give way to the excitement of the crowd. He examined the centurion, and learnt that his object was to trump up a charge against him and then kill him.

67 He accordingly had the man executed more from indignation against 157the assassin than in any hope of saving his life;

for he found that the man had been one of the murderers of Clodius Macer,

68 and after staining his hand in the blood of a military officer was now proposing to turn it against a civil governor. Piso then reprimanded the Carthaginians in an edict which clearly showed his anxiety, and refrained from performing even the routine of his office, shutting himself up in his house, for fear that he might by accident provide some pretext for further demonstrations. 5

When the news of the popular excitement and the centurion’s execution reached the ears of Festus, considerably exaggerated and with the usual admixture of falsehood, he at once sent off a party of horsemen to murder Piso. Riding at full speed, they reached the governor’s house in the twilight of early dawn and broke in with drawn swords. As Festus had mainly chosen Carthaginian auxiliaries and Moors to do the murder, most of them did not know Piso by sight. However, near his bedroom they happened on a slave and asked him where Piso was and what he looked like. In answer the slave told them a heroic lie and said he was Piso, whereupon they immediately cut him down. However, Piso himself was killed very soon after, for there was one man among them who knew him, and that was Baebius Massa, one of the imperial agents in Africa, who was already a danger to all the best men in Rome. His name will recur again and again in this narrative, as one of the causes of the troubles 158which beset us later on.

69 Festus had been waiting at Adrumetum

7

to see how things went, and he now hastened to rejoin his legion. He had the camp-prefect, Caetronius Pisanus, put in irons, alleging that he was one of Piso’s accomplices, though his real motive was personal dislike. He then punished some of the soldiers and centurions and rewarded others;

in neither case for their deserts, but because he wanted it to be thought that he had stamped out a war. His next task was to settle the differences between Oea and Lepcis.

71 These had had a trivial origin in thefts of fruit and cattle by the peasants, but they were now trying to settle them in open warfare. Oea, being inferior in numbers, had called in the aid of the Garamantes,

72 an invincible tribe, who were always a fruitful source of damage to their neighbours. Thus the people of Lepcis were in great straits. Their fields had been wasted far and wide, and they had fled in terror under shelter of their walls, when the Roman auxiliaries, both horse and foot, arrived on the scene. They routed the Garamantes and recovered all the booty, except what the nomads had already sold among the inaccessible hut-settlements of the far interior. 51After the battle of Cremona and the arrival of good 159news from every quarter, Vespasian now heard of Vitellius’ death. A large number of people of all classes, who were as lucky as they were adventurous, successfully braved the winter seas on purpose to bring him the news.

7

There also arrived envoys from King Vologaesus offering the services of forty thousand Parthian cavalry.

74 It was, indeed, a proud and fortunate situation to be courted with such splendid offers of assistance, and to need none of them. Vologaesus was duly thanked and instructed to send his envoys to the senate and to understand that peace had been made. Vespasian now devoted his attention to the affairs of Italy and the Capitol, and received an unfavourable report of Domitian, who seemed to be trespassing beyond the natural sphere of an emperor’s youthful son. He accordingly handed over the flower of his army to Titus, who was to finish off the war with the Jews.

75 52It is said that before his departure Titus had a long talk with his father and begged him not to be rash and lose his temper at these incriminating reports, but to meet his son in a forgiving and unprejudiced spirit, ‘Neither legions nor fleets,’ he is reported to have said, ‘are such sure bulwarks of the throne as a number of children. Time, chance and often, too, ambition and misunderstanding weaken, alienate or extinguish friendship:

a man’s own blood cannot be severed from him;

and above all is this the case with 16

a sovereign, for, while others enjoy his good fortune, his misfortunes only concern his nearest kin. Nor again are brothers likely to remain good friends unless their father sets them an example.’ These words had the effect of making Vespasian rather delighted at Titus’ goodness of heart than inclined to forgive Domitian. ‘You may ease your mind,’ he said to Titus, ‘It is now your duty to increase the prestige of Rome on the field:

I will concern myself with peace at home.’ Though the weather was still very rough, Vespasian at once launched his fastest corn-ships with a full cargo. For the city was on the verge of famine.

76 Indeed, there were not supplies for more than ten days in the public granaries at the moment when Vespasian’s convoy brought relief. 5

The task of restoring the Capitol

77 was entrusted to Lucius Vestinus, who, though only a knight, yet in reputation and influence could rank with the highest. He summoned all the soothsayers,

78 and they recommended that the ruins of the former temple should be carried away to the marshes

79 and a new temple erected on the same site:

the gods were unwilling, they said, that the original form of the building should be changed. On the 21st of June, a day of bright sun161shine, the whole consecrated area of the temple was decorated with chaplets and garlands. In marched soldiers, all men with names of good omen, carrying branches of lucky trees:

8

then came the Vestal Virgins accompanied by boys and girls, each of whom had father and mother alive,

81 and they cleansed it all by sprinkling fresh water from a spring or river.

82 Next, while the high priest, Plautius Aelianus, dictated the proper formulae, Helvidius Priscus, the praetor, first consecrated the site by a solemn sacrifice

8

of a pig, a sheep and an ox, and then duly offering the entrails on an altar of turf, he prayed to Jupiter, Juno, and Minerva, as the guardian deities of the empire, to prosper the enterprise, and by divine grace to bring to completion this house of theirs which human piety had here begun. He then took hold of the chaplets to which the ropes holding the foundation-stone were attached. At the same moment the other magistrates and the priests and senators and knights and large numbers of the populace in joyous excitement with one great effort dragged the huge stone into its place. On every side gifts of gold and silver were flung into the foundations, and 162blocks of virgin ore unscathed by any furnace, just as they had come from the womb of the earth. For the soothsayers had given out that the building must not be desecrated by the use of stone or gold that had been put to any other purpose. The height of the roof was raised. This was the only change that religious scruples would allow, and it was felt to be the only point in which the former temple lacked grandeur.

1 We now reach the year a.d. 7

. Vespasian had already been consul under Claudius in 51.

2 In the absence of both consuls.

i.e. Sohaemus, Antiochus, and Agrippa (cp. ii. 81).

4 Cp. ii. 85.

5 Cp. iii. 52.

6 Vespasian’s freedman (cp. iii. 12, 28.)

7 The elder brother of Galba’s adopted son Piso.

8 See ii. 65. He must by now have ceased to be absentee governor.

9 It was to the command of this legion that Galba promoted Antonius (see ii. 86).

4

Varus had served under Corbulo in Syria.

41 In his life of Agricola Tacitus speaks of Domitian’s red face as ‘his natural bulwark against shame’.

42 See chap.

9.

4

See chap. 1

.

44 i.e. Publius Celer. As this Demetrius was present with Thrasea at the end, holding high philosophical discourse with him (Ann. xvi.

4), he seems to have been a Cynic in the modern sense as well.

45 Another Stoic malcontent, brother of the Arulenus Rusticus mentioned in iii. 8

.

46 According to Dio they were two devoted and inseparable brothers. They became governors, one of Upper and the other of Lower Germany, and, being wealthy, were forced by Nero to commit suicide.

47 Cp. ii. 1

.

48 Cp. iii. 9.

49 Cp. i. 48, note 79.

5

Twenty-five.

51 Piso was a brother of Regulus’ victim. He was therefore glad to see him incapable of reprisal.

52 i.e. there was no property left to tempt Nero.

5

i.e. the money and other rewards won by prosecuting Crassus and Orfitus.

54 Nero.

55 He had recited some libellous verses on Nero and been condemned for treason.

56 Cp. ii. 67.

57 i.e. those who had surrendered at Narnia and Bovillae, as distinct from those who had been discharged after Galba’s death.

58 Chap. 2.

59 i.e. those who were either over fifty or had served in the Guards sixteen or in a legion twenty years.

6

See iii. 74.

61 See chap.

8.

62 Africa was peculiar in that the pro-consul, who governed it for the senate, commanded an army. All the other provinces demanding military protection were under imperial control. Caligula, without withdrawing the province from the senate, in some degree regularized the anomaly by transferring this command to a ‘legate’ of his own, technically inferior to the civil governor.

6

Whereas the pro-consul’s appointment was for one year only, the emperor’s legate retained his post at the emperor’s pleasure, and was usually given several years.

64 Cp. ii. 98.

65 See i. 7

.

66 See chap. 11.

67 i.e. he hoped that Piso would accept the story with alacrity and thus commit himself.

68 Cp. i. 7.

69 Under Domitian he became one of the most notorious and dreaded of informers. His name doubtless recurred in the lost books of the Histories. But the only other extant mention of him by Tacitus is in the life of Agricola (chap. 45).

7

On the coast between Carthage and Thapsus.

71 Tripoli and Lebda.

72 Further inland;

probably the modern Fezzan.

7

Vespasian was still at Alexandria.

74 Cp. ii. 82, note 41

.

75 Cp. ii. 4 and Book V.

76 It had been Vespasian’s original plan to starve Rome out by holding the granaries of Egypt and Africa. See iii. 48.

77 Cp. iii. 71.

78 Probably from Etruria, where certain families were credited with the requisite knowledge and skill. Claudius had established a College of Soothsayers in Rome. They ranked lower than the Augurs.

79 At Ostia.

8

Their names would suggest prosperity and success, e.g. Salvius, Victor, Valerius, and they would carry branches of oak, laurel, myrtle, or beech.

81 This too was ‘lucky’ and a common ritualistic requirement.

82 The ‘holy water’ must come from certain streams of special sanctity, such as the Tiber or its tributary, the Almo. The water would be sprinkled from the ‘lucky’ branches.

8

To the god Mars. The Loss of Germany 54Meanwhile,

84 the news of Vitellius’ death had spread through Gaul and Germany and redoubled the vigour of the war. Civilis now dropped all pretence and hurled himself upon the Roman Empire. The Vitellian legions felt that even foreign slavery was preferable to owning Vespasian’s sovereignty. The Gauls too had taken heart. A rumour had been spread that our winter camps in Moesia and Pannonia were being blockaded by Sarmatians and Dacians:

85 similar stories were fabricated about Britain:

the Gauls began to think that the fortune of the Roman arms was the same all the world over. But above all, the burning of the Capitol led them to believe that the empire was coming to an end. ‘Once in old days the Gauls had captured Rome, but her empire had stood firm since Jupiter’s high-place was left unscathed. But now, 16

so the Druids

86 with superstitious folly kept dinning into their ears, this fatal fire was a sign of Heaven’s anger, and meant that the Transalpine tribes were destined now to rule the world.’ It was also persistently rumoured that the Gallic chieftains, whom Otho had sent to work against Vitellius,

87 had agreed, before they parted, that if Rome sank under its internal troubles in an unbroken sequence of civil wars, they would not fail the cause of the Gallic freedom. 55Previous to the murder of Hordeonius Flaccus

88 nothing had leaked out to arouse suspicions of a conspiracy, but when he had been assassinated, negotiations passed between Civilis and Classicus,

89 who commanded the Treviran cavalry. Classicus was far above the rest both in birth and in wealth. He came of royal line and his stock was famous both in peace and war. It was his boast that his family had given Rome more enemies than allies. These two were now joined by Julius Tutor and Julius Sabinus, the one a Treviran, the other a Lingonian. Tutor had been appointed by Vitellius to watch the bank of the Rhine.

9

Sabinus’164 natural vanity was further inflamed by spurious pretensions of high birth, for he alleged that his great-grandmother’s beauty had caught the fancy of Julius Caesar during the campaign in Gaul, and that they had committed adultery. These four tested the temper of the rest in private interviews, and having bound to the conspiracy those who were considered fit, they held a conference at Cologne in a private house, the general feeling in the city being hostile to such plans as theirs. A few of the Ubii and Tungri, indeed, attended, but the Treviri and Lingonians were the backbone of the conspiracy. Nor would they tolerate deliberation or delay. They vied with each other in protesting that Rome was distracted by internal quarrels;

legions had been cut to pieces, Italy devastated, the city was on the point of being taken, while all her armies were occupied with wars of their own in different quarters. They need only garrison the Alps and then, when liberty had taken firm root, they could discuss together what limit each tribe should set to its exercise of power. 56All this was no sooner spoken than applauded. About the remnant of Vitellius’ army they were in some doubt. Many held that they ought to be killed as being treacherous and insubordinate and stained with the blood of their generals. However, the idea of sparing them carried the day. To destroy all hope of pardon would only steel their obstinacy:

it was much better to seduce them into alliance:

only the generals need be killed;

a guilty conscience and the hope of pardon would soon bring the rest flocking over 165to their flag. Such was the tenor of their first meeting. Agitators were sent all over Gaul to stir up war. The conspirators themselves feigned loyalty to Vocula, hoping to catch him off his guard.

91 There were, indeed, traitors who reported all this to Vocula, but he was not strong enough to crush the conspiracy, his legions being short-handed and unreliable. Between suspected troops on one side and secret enemies on the other, it seemed his best course under the circumstances to dissemble, as they were doing, and thus use their own weapons against them. So he marched down the river to Cologne. There he found Claudius Labeo, who after being taken prisoner, as described above,

92 and relegated to the Frisii, had bribed his guards and escaped to Cologne. He promised that if Vocula would provide him with troops, he would go to the Batavi and win back the better part of their community to the Roman alliance. He was given a small force of horse and foot. Without venturing any attempt upon the Batavi, he attracted a few of the Nervii and Baetasii

9

to his standard, and proceeded to harass the Canninefates and Marsaci

9

more by stealth than open warfare. 57Lured by the treachery of the Gauls, Vocula marched out against his enemy.

94 Not far from Vetera, Classicus and Tutor rode forward

95 on a pretext of scouting, 166and ratified their compact with the German leaders. They were now for the first time separated from the legions, and entrenched themselves in a camp of their own. At this, Vocula loudly protested that Rome was not as yet so shattered by civil war as to earn the contempt of tribes like the Treviri and Lingones. She could still rely on loyal provinces and victorious armies, on the good fortune of the empire and the avenging hand of God. Thus it was that in former days Sacrovir and the Aedui,

96 more lately Vindex and the Gallic provinces had each been crushed at a single battle. Now, again, these treaty-breakers must expect to face the same powers of Providence and Destiny. The sainted Julius and the sainted Augustus had understood these people better:

it was Galba’s reduction of the tribute

97 that had clothed them in enmity and pride. ‘They are our enemies to-day because their yoke is easy:

when they have been stripped and plundered they will be our friends.’ After these spirited words, seeing that Classicus and Tutor still persisted in their treachery, he turned back and retired to Novaesium, while the Gauls encamped a couple of miles away. Thither the centurions and soldiers flocked to sell their souls. This was, indeed, an unheard 167of villainy that Roman soldiers should swear allegiance to a foreign power, and offer as a pledge for this heinous crime either to kill or imprison their generals. Though many urged Vocula to escape, he felt that he must make a bold stand, so he summoned a meeting and spoke 58somewhat as follows:

-’Never before have I addressed you with such feelings of anxiety for you, or with such indifference to my own fate. That plans are being laid for my destruction I am glad enough to hear:

in such a parlous case as this I look for death as the end of all my troubles. It is for you that I feel shame and pity. It is not that a field of battle awaits you, for that would only accord with the laws of warfare and the just rights of combatants, but because Classicus hopes that with your hands he can make war upon the Roman people, and flourishes before you an oath of allegiance to the Empire of All Gaul. What though fortune and courage have deserted us for the moment, have we not glorious examples in the past?

How often have not Roman soldiers chosen to die rather than be driven from their post?

Often have our allies endured the destruction of their cities and given themselves and their wives and children to the flames, without any other reward for such an end save the name of honourable men. At this very moment Roman troops are enduring famine and siege at Vetera, and neither threats nor promises can move them, while we, besides arms and men and fine fortifications, have supplies enough to last through any length of war. Money, too-the other day there was enough even 168for a donative, and whether you choose to say that it was given you by Vespasian or by Vitellius, at any rate you got it from a Roman Emperor. After all the engagements you have won, after routing the enemy at Gelduba, at Vetera, it would be shameful enough to shirk battle, but you have your trenches and your walls, and there are ways of gaining time until armies come flocking from the neighbouring provinces to your rescue. Granted that you dislike me;

well, there are others to lead you, whether legate, tribune, centurion, and even private soldier. But do not let this portent be trumpeted over the whole world, that Civilis and Classicus are going to invade Italy with you in their train. Suppose the Germans and Gauls lead the way to the walls of Rome, will you turn your arms upon your fatherland?

The mere thought of such a crime is horrible. Will you stand sentry for the Treviran Tutor?

Shall a Batavian give you the signal for battle?

Will you swell the ranks of German hordes?

And what will be the issue of your crime, when the Roman legions take the field against you?

Desertion upon desertion, treachery upon treachery! You will be drifting miserably between the old allegiance and the new, with the curse of Heaven on your heads. Almighty Jupiter, whom we have worshipped at triumph after triumph for eight hundred and twenty years;

and Quirinus, Father of our Rome, if it be not your pleasure that under my command this camp be kept clean from the stain of dishonour, grant at the least, I humbly beseech ye, that it never be defiled with 169the pollution of a Tutor or a Classicus;

and to these soldiers of Rome give either innocence of heart or a speedy repentance before the harm is done.’ 59The speech was variously received, with feelings fluctuating between hope, fear, and shame. Vocula withdrew and began to prepare for his end, but his freedmen and slaves prevented him from forestalling by his own hand a dreadful death. As it was, Classicus dispatched Aemilius Longinus, a deserter from the First legion, who quickly murdered him. For Herennius and Numisius imprisonment was thought sufficient. Classicus then assumed the uniform and insignia of a Roman general, and thus entered the camp. Hardened though he was to every kind of crime, words failed him,

98 and he could only read out the oath. Those who were present swore allegiance to the Empire of All Gaul. He then gave high promotion to Vocula’s assassin, and rewarded the others each according to the villainy of his service. The command was now divided between Tutor and Classicus. Tutor at the head of a strong force besieged Cologne and forced the inhabitants and all the soldiers on the Upper Rhine to take the same oath of allegiance. At Mainz he killed the officers and drove away the camp-prefect, who had refused to swear. Classicus ordered all the greatest scoundrels among the deserters to go to Vetera and offer pardon to the besieged if they would yield to circumstances:

otherwise there was no hope for them:

they should suffer famine and sword 17

and every extremity. The messengers further cited their own example. 6

Torn by a conflict of loyalty and hunger, the besieged vacillated between honour and disgrace. While they hesitated, all their sources of food, both usual and unusual, began to fail them. They had eaten their mules and horses and all the other animals which, though foul and unclean, their straits had forced into use. At last they took to grubbing up the shrubs and roots and the grass that grew between the stones, and became a very pattern of endurance in wretchedness, until at last they soiled their glory by a shameful end. Envoys were sent to Civilis begging him to save their lives. Even then he refused to receive their petition until they had sworn allegiance to All Gaul. He then negotiated for the plunder of the camp and sent guards, some to secure the money, servants and baggage, and others to conduct the men themselves out of the camp with empty hands. About five miles down the road their line was surprised by an ambush of Germans. The bravest fell on the spot;

many were cut down in flight;

the rest got back to camp. Civilis, indeed, complained that the Germans had criminally broken faith and rebuked them for it. There is no evidence to show whether this was a pretence or whether he was really unable to restrain his savage troops. The camp was plundered and burnt, and all who had survived the battle were devoured by the flames. 61When Civilis first took up arms against Rome he made a vow, such as is common with barbarians, to 171let his ruddled hair

99 grow wild;

now that he had at last accomplished the destruction of the legions he had it cut. It is said also that he put up some of the prisoners for his little son to shoot in sport with javelins and arrows. However that may be, he did not himself swear allegiance to All Gaul, nor did he force any of the Batavi to do so. He felt that he could rely on the strength of the Germans, and that if any quarrel arose with the Gauls about the empire, his fame would give him an advantage. Munius Lupercus, one of the Roman commanding-officers, was sent among other presents to Veleda, a virgin of the Bructeran tribe who wielded a wide-spread authority.4

It is an ancient custom in Germany to credit a number of women with prophetic powers, and with the growth of superstition these develop into goddesses. At this moment Veleda’s influence was at its height, for she had prophesied the success of the Germans and the destruction of the Roman army.4

1 However, Lupercus was killed on the journey. A few of the centurions and officers who had been born in Gaul were detained as a security for good faith. The winter camps of the legions and of the auxiliary infantry and cavalry were all dismantled and burnt, with the sole exception of those at Mainz and Vindonissa.4

2 17262The Sixteenth legion and the auxiliary troops who had surrendered with it now received orders to migrate from their quarters at Novaesium to Trier, and a date was fixed by which they had to leave their camp. They spent the meantime brooding on various anxieties, the cowards all shuddering at the precedent of the massacre at Vetera, the better sort covered with shame at their disgrace. ‘What sort of a march would this be?

Whom would they have to lead them?

Everything would be decided by the will of those into whose hands they had put their lives.’ Others, again, were quite indifferent to the disgrace, and simply stowed all their money and most cherished possessions about their persons, while many got their armour ready and buckled on their swords, as if for battle. While they were still busy with these preparations the hour struck for their departure, and it proved more bitter than they had expected. Inside the trenches their disgrace was not so noticeable. The open country and the light of day revealed their depth of shame. The emperors’ medallions had been torn down4

and their standards desecrated, while Gallic ensigns glittered all around them. They marched in silence, like a long funeral procession, led by Claudius Sanctus,4

4 a man whose sinister appearance-he had lost one eye-was only surpassed by his weakness of intellect. Their disgrace was doubled when they were joined by the First legion, who had left their camp at17

Bonn. The famous news of their capture had spread, and all the people who shortly before had trembled at the very name of Rome, now came flocking out from fields and houses, and scattered far and wide in transports of joy at this unwonted sight. Their insulting glee was too much for ‘The Picenum Horse’.4

5 Defying all Sanctus’ threats and promises, they turned off to Mainz, and coming by chance upon Longinus, the man who killed Vocula, they slew him with a shower of javelins and thus made a beginning of future amends. The legions, without changing their route, came and camped before the walls of Trier. 6

Highly elated by their success, Civilis and Classicus debated whether they should allow their troops to sack Cologne. Their natural savagery and lust for plunder inclined them to destroy the town, but policy forbade;

and they felt that in inaugurating a new empire a reputation for clemency would be an asset. Civilis was also moved by the memory of a past service, for at the beginning of the outbreak his son had been arrested in Cologne, and they had kept him in honourable custody. However, the tribes across the Rhine were jealous of this rich and rising community, and held that the war could only be ended either by throwing the settlement open to all Germans without distinction or by destroying it and thereby dispersing174 64the Ubii together with its other inhabitants.4

6 Accordingly the Tencteri,4

7 their nearest neighbours across the Rhine, dispatched a deputation to lay a message before a public meeting of the town. This was delivered by the haughtiest of the delegates in some such terms as these:

-’We give thanks to the national gods of Germany and above all others, to the god of war, that you are again incorporate in the German nation and the German name, and we congratulate you that you will now at last become free members of a free community. Until to-day the Romans had closed to us the roads and rivers, and almost the very air of heaven, to prevent all intercourse between us;

or else they offered a still fouler insult to born warriors, that we should meet under supervision, unarmed and almost naked,4

8 and should pay for the privilege. Now, that our friendly alliance may be ratified for all eternity, we demand of you that you pull down those bulwarks of slavery, the walls of your town, for even wild beasts lose their spirit if you keep them caged:

that you put to the sword every Roman on your soil, since tyrants are incompatible with freedom;

that all the property of those killed form a common stock and no one be 175allowed to conceal anything or to secure any private advantage. It must also be open both for us and for you to live on either river-bank, as our forefathers could in earlier days. As daylight is the natural heritage of all mankind, so the land of the world is free to all brave men. Resume again the customs and manners of your own country and throw off those luxurious habits which enslave Rome’s subjects far more effectively than Roman arms. Then, grown simple and uncorrupt, you will forget your past slavery and either know none but equals or hold empire over others.’ 65The townspeople took time to consider these proposals, and, feeling that their apprehensions for the future forbade them to assent, while their present circumstances forbade them to return a plain negative, they answered as follows:

‘We have seized our first opportunity of freedom with more haste than prudence, because we wanted to join hands with you and all our other German kinsmen. As for our town-walls, seeing that the Roman armies are massing at this moment, it would be safer for us to heighten them than to pull them down. All the foreigners from Italy or the provinces who lived on our soil have either perished in the war or fled to their own homes. As for the original settlers4

9, who are united to us by ties of marriage, they and their offspring regard this as their home, and we do not think you are so unreason176able as to ask us to kill our parents and brothers and children. All taxes and commercial restrictions we remit. We grant you free entry without supervision, but you must come in daylight and unarmed, while these ties which are still strange and new are growing into a long-established custom. As arbitrators we will appoint Civilis and Veleda, and we will ratify our compact in their presence.’ Thus the Tencteri were pacified. A deputation was sent with presents to Civilis and Veleda, and obtained all that the people of Cologne desired. They were not, however, allowed to approach and speak to Veleda or even to see her, but were kept at a distance to inspire in them the greater awe. She herself lived at the top of a high tower, and one of her relatives was appointed to carry all the questions and answers like a mediator between God and man. 66Now that he had gained the accession of Cologne, Civilis determined to win over the neighbouring communities or to declare war in case of opposition. He reduced the Sunuci41

and formed their fighting strength into cohorts, but then found his advance barred by Claudius Labeo411 at the head of a hastily-recruited band of Baetasii, Tungri, and Nervii.411 He had secured the bridge over the Maas and relied on the strength of his position. A skirmish in the narrow defile proved indecisive, until the Germans swam across and took Labeo in the rear. At this point177 Civilis by a bold move-or possibly by arrangement-rode into the lines of the Tungri and called out in a loud voice, ‘Our object in taking up arms is not to secure empire for the Batavi and Treviri over other tribes. We are far from any such arrogance. Take us as allies. I am come to join you;

whether as general or as private it is for you to choose.’ This had a great effect on the common soldiers, who began to sheathe their swords. Then two of their chieftains, Campanus and Juvenalis, surrendered the entire tribe. Labeo escaped before he was surrounded. Civilis also received the allegiance of the Baetasii and Nervii, and added their forces to his own. His power was now immense, for all the Gallic communities were either terrified or ready to offer willing support. 67In the meantime, Julius Sabinus,412 who had destroyed every memorial of the Roman alliance,41

assumed the title of Caesar and proceeded to hurry a large unwieldy horde of his tribesmen against the Sequani,414 a neighbouring community, faithful to Rome. The Sequani accepted battle:

the good cause prospered:

the Lingones were routed. Sabinus fled the field with the same rash haste with which he had plunged into battle. Wishing to spread a rumour of his death, he took refuge in a house and set fire to it, and was thus supposed to have perished by his own act. We shall, however, relate in due course the devices by which 178he lay in hiding and prolonged his life for nine more years, and allude also to the loyalty of his friends and the memorable example set by his wife Epponina.415

84 Tacitus here resumes the thread of his narrative of the rebellion on the Rhine, interrupted at the end of chap.

7, and goes back from July to January, a.d. 7

.

85 Cp. iii. 46.

86 The danger of Druidism was always before the eyes of the emperors. Augustus had forbidden Roman citizens to adopt it. Claudius had tried to stamp it out in Gaul and in Britain, yet they appear again here to preach a fanatic nationalism. However, this seems to be their last appearance as leaders of revolt.

87 Probably they were in Rome, and were sent back to their homes to intrigue against Vitellius’ rising power.

88 See chap.

6.

89 Cp. ii. 14.

9

i.e. he was to prevent any incursions from Germany along the frontier of his canton, between Bingen and Coblenz.

91 At Mainz.

92 Chap. 18.

9

These tribes lived between the Maas and the Scheldt, and the Marsaci were round the mouth of the Scheldt.

94 Civilis, again besieging Vetera (chap.

6).

95 i.e. from the rest of Vocula’s force, which they had not yet deserted.

96 The Aedui, one of the most powerful of the Gallic tribes, living between the Saône and the Loire had revolted in a.d. 21, and held out for a short time at their chief town (Autun).

97 This had only been granted to a few tribes who had helped in crushing Vindex (see i. 8 and 51). The Treviri and Lingones had been punished. But it is a good rhetorical point.

98 His presumption took away his breath.

99 i.e. artificially reddened according to a Gallic custom. 4

Cp. chap. 69. 4

1 Under Vespasian she inspired another rebellion and was brought as a captive to Rome, where she aroused much polite curiosity. 4

2 Windisch. 4

From the standards. 4

4 Claudius the Holy;

lucus a non lucendo. 4

5 An auxiliary squadron of Italian horse, originally raised, we may suppose, by a provincial governor who was a native of Picenum. 4

6 The Ubii were distrusted as having taken the name Agrippinenses and become in some degree Romanized. The town was strongly walled, and Germans from outside only admitted on payment and under Roman supervision. 4

7 See chap. 21. 4

8 Not, of course, to be taken literally. ‘The Germans do no business public or private except in full armour,’ says Tacitus in the Germania. So to them ‘unarmed’ meant ‘unclothed’. 4

9 i.e. the veterans whom Agrippina had sent out to her birthplace in a.d. 5

. 41

West of the Ubii, between the Roer and the Maas. 411 See chap. 56. 412 Cp. chap. 55. 41

e.g. the inscriptions recording the terms of alliance granted to the Lingones by Rome. 414 Round Vesontio (Besançon). 415 The story, which Tacitus presumably told in the lost part of his History, dealing with the end of Vespasian’s reign, is mentioned both by Plutarch and Dio. Sabinus and his wife lived for nine years in an underground cave, where two sons were born to them. They were eventually discovered and executed. The Ebb-tide of Revolt This success on the part of the Sequani checked the rising flood. The Gallic communities gradually came to their senses and began to remember their obligations as allies. In this movement the Remi416 took the lead. They circulated a notice throughout Gaul, summoning a meeting of delegates to consider whether liberty or peace was the preferable alternative. 68At Rome, however, all these disasters were exaggerated, and Mucianus began to feel anxious. He had already appointed Annius Gallus and Petilius Cerialis to the chief command, and distinguished officers as they were, he was afraid the conduct of such a war might be too much for them. Moreover, he could not leave Rome without government, but he was afraid of Domitian’s unbridled passions, while, as we have already seen,417 he suspected Antonius Primus and Arrius Varus. Varus, as commanding the Guards, still had the chief power and influence in his hands. Mucianus accordingly displaced him, but, as a compensation, made him Director of 179the Corn-supply. As he had also to placate Domitian, who was inclined to support Varus, he appointed to the command of the Guards Arrecinus Clemens, who was connected with Vespasian’s family418 and very friendly with Domitian. He also impressed it upon Domitian that Clemens’ father had filled this command with great distinction under Caligula:

that his name and his character would both find favour with the troops, and that, although he was a member of the senate,419 he was quite able to fill both positions. He then chose his staff, some as being the most eminent men in the country, others as recommended by private influence. Thus both Domitian and Mucianus made ready to start, but with very different feelings. Domitian was full of the sanguine haste of youth, while Mucianus kept devising delays to check this enthusiasm. He was afraid that if Domitian once seized control of an army, his youthful self-assurance and his bad advisers would lead him into action prejudicial both to peace and war. Three victorious legions, the Eighth, Eleventh, and Thirteenth;

42

the Twenty-first-one of Vitellius’ legions-and the Second, which had been newly enrolled, all started for the front, some by way of the Poenine and Cottian421 Alps, others over the Graian18

Alps.422 The Fourteenth was also summoned from Britain, and the Sixth and First from Spain. The rumour that this force was on its way, combined with the present temper of the Gauls, inclined them to adopt a sober policy. Their delegates now met in the territory of the Remi, where they found the representatives of the Treviri awaiting them. One of these, Julius Valentinus, who was the keenest instigator of a hostile policy, delivered a set speech, in which he heaped spiteful aspersions on the Roman people, making all the charges which are usually brought against great empires. He was a clever agitator, whose mad rhetoric made him popular with the crowd. 69However, Julius Auspex, a chieftain of the Remi, enlarged upon the power of Rome and the blessings of peace. ‘Any coward can begin a war,’ he said, ‘but it is the brave who run the risks of its conduct:

and here are the legions already upon us.’ Thus he restrained them, awakening a sense of duty in all the sager breasts, and appealing to the fears of the younger men. So, while applauding Valentinus’ courage, they followed the advice of Auspex. The fact that in Vindex’s rising the Treviri and Lingones sided with Verginius is known to have told against them in Gaul. Many, too, were held back by tribal jealousy. They wanted to know where the head-quarters of the war would be, to whom were they to look for auspices and orders, and, if all went well, which town would be chosen as the seat of government. Thus dissension 181preceded victory. They angrily magnified, some their great connexions, others their wealth and strength, others their antiquity, until they grew tired of discussing the future and voted for the existing state of things. Letters were written to the Treviri in the name of All Gaul, bidding them cease hostilities, suggesting, however, that pardon might be obtained, and that many were ready to plead their cause if they showed repentance. Valentinus opposed this mandate and made his tribesmen offer a deaf ear to it. He was always less anxious to organize a campaign than to make speeches on every possible occasion. 7

The result was that neither the Treviri nor the Lingones nor the other rebel tribes behaved as if aware of the serious risks they were undertaking. Even the leaders did not act in concert. Civilis wandered over the wilds of the Belgic country, trying to catch or expel Claudius Labeo. Classicus ordinarily took his ease, apparently enjoying the fruits of empire. Even Tutor seemed in no hurry to garrison the Upper Rhine and block the Alpine passes. In the meantime, the Twenty-first legion made its way down from Vindonissa, while Sextilius Felix42

advanced through Raetia with some auxiliary cohorts. These were joined by the ‘Picked Horse’,424 a force that had been raised by Vitellius and then deserted to Vespasian. This was commanded by Civilis’ nephew, Julius Briganticus,425 for uncle and nephew hated each other 182with all the aggravated bitterness of near relatives. Tutor swelled his force of Treviri with fresh levies from the Vangiones, Triboci, and Caeracates,426 and a stiffening of Roman veterans, both horse and foot, who had either been bribed or intimidated. These first cut up an auxiliary cohort sent forward by Sextilius Felix, but on the advance of the Roman army with its generals they loyally deserted to their old flag, and were followed by the Triboci, Vangiones, and Caeracates. Tutor, followed by his Treviri, avoided Mainz and fell back on Bingium,427 relying on his position there, as he had broken down the bridge over the river Nava. However, Sextilius’ cohorts followed him up;

some traitor showed them a ford;

Tutor was routed. This disaster was a crushing blow to the Treviri. The rank and file dropped their weapons and took to the fields, while some of their chieftains, hoping it might be thought that they had been the first to lay down arms, took refuge among tribes who had never repudiated the Roman alliance. The legions which had been moved, as we saw above,428 from Novaesium and Bonn to Trier, now administered to themselves the oath of allegiance to Vespasian. This happened in Valentinus’ absence. When he arrived in furious excitement, ready to spread universal 18

ruin and confusion, the legions withdrew into the friendly territory of the Mediomatrici.429 Valentinus and Tutor then led the Treviri forcibly back into the field, but first they killed the two Roman officers, Herennius and Numisius.4

By diminishing the hope of pardon they tried to cement their bond of crime. 71Such was the position when Petilius Cerialis reached Mainz. His arrival roused high hopes. He was himself thirsting for battle, and being always better at despising his enemy than at taking precautions, he fired his men by delivering a spirited harangue, promising that directly there was a chance of getting into touch with the enemy he would engage without delay. He dismissed the Gallic recruits to their homes with a message that the legions were enough for his task:

the allies could resume their peaceful occupations, feeling assured that the war was practically ended, now that Roman troops had taken it in hand. This action rendered the Gauls all the more tractable. They made less difficulty about the war-tax, now that they had got their men back again, while his disdain only sharpened their sense of duty. On the other side, when Civilis and Classicus heard of Tutor’s defeat, the destruction of the Treviri, and the universal success of the Roman arms, they fell into a panic, hastily mobilized their own scattered forces, and kept sending messages to Valentinus not to risk a decisive battle. This only hastened Cerialis’ movements. He sent 184guides to the legions stationed in the country of the Mediomatrici to lead them by the shortest route on the enemy’s rear. Then, assembling all the troops to be found in Mainz4

1 together with his own force, he marched in three days to Rigodulum.4

2 Here, on a spot protected by the mountains on one side and the Moselle on the other, Valentinus had already taken his stand with a large force of Treviri. His camp had been strengthened with trenches and stone barricades, but these fortifications had no terrors for the Roman general. He ordered the infantry to force the position in front, while the cavalry were to ascend the hill. Valentinus’ hurriedly assembled forces filled him with contempt, for he knew that whatever advantage their position might give them, the superior morale of his men would outweigh it. A short delay was necessary while the cavalry climbed the hill, exposed to the enemy’s fire. But when the fight began, the Treviri tumbled headlong down the hill like a house falling. Some of our cavalry, who had ridden round by an easier gradient, captured several Belgic chieftains, including their general, Valentinus. 72On the next day Cerialis entered Trier. The troops clamoured greedily for its destruction. ‘It was the native town of Classicus and of Tutor:

these were the men who had wickedly entrapped and slaughtered the legions. Its guilt was far worse than that of Cremona, which had been wiped off the face of Italy 185for causing the victors a single night’s delay. Was the chief seat of the rebellion to be left standing untouched on the German frontier, glorying in the spoil of Roman armies and the blood of Roman generals?

4

The plunder could go to the Imperial Treasury. It would be enough for them to see the rebel town in smoking ruins;

that would be some compensation for the destruction of so many camps.’ Cerialis was afraid of soiling his reputation if it was said that he gave his men a taste for cruelty and riot, so he suppressed their indignation. They obeyed him, too, for now that civil war was done with, there was less insubordination on foreign service. Their thoughts were now distracted by the pitiful plight of the legions who had been summoned from the country of the Mediomatrici.4

4 Miserably conscious of their guilt, they stood with eyes rooted to the ground. When the armies met, they raised no cheer:

they had no answer for those who offered comfort and encouragement:

they skulked in their tents, shunning the light of day. It was not fear of punishment so much as the shame of their disgrace which thus overwhelmed them. Even the victorious army showed their bewilderment:

hardly venturing to make an audible petition, they craved pardon for them with silent tears. At length Cerialis soothed their alarm. He insisted that all disasters due to dissension between officers and men, or to the enemy’s guile, were to be regarded as ‘acts 186of destiny’. They were to count this as their first day of service and sworn allegiance.4

5 Neither he nor the emperor would remember past misdeeds. He then gave them quarters in his own camp, and sent round orders that no one in the heat of any quarrel should taunt a fellow soldier with mutiny or defeat. 7

Cerialis next summoned the Treviri and Lingones, and addressed them as follows:

‘Unpractised as I am in public speaking, for it is only on the field that I have asserted the superiority of Rome, yet since words have so much weight with you, and since you distinguish good and bad not by the light of facts but by what agitators tell you, I have decided to make a few remarks, which, as the war is practically over, are likely to be more profitable to the audience than to ourselves. Roman generals and officers originally set foot in your country and the rest of Gaul from no motives of ambition, but at the call of your ancestors, who were worn almost to ruin by dissension. The Germans whom one party summoned to their aid had forced the yoke of slavery on allies and enemies alike.