69 AD: The Year of Four Emperors

by Gwyn Morgan

  By this stage Narbonensis had fallen under the control of Valerius Paulinus. Whatever his title and status, he was an active soldier and had long been a friend of Vespasian. Apparently he saw no point in trying to winkle Maturus out of his mountain redoubt, but as it turned out, he had no need to. First, he rallied to his cause “all who had been discharged by Vitellius and wanted to fight again,” that is, Otho’s praetorians dismissed from service by Vitellius. And they answered the call because they respected Paulinus for having been once a military tribune in the guard. With this force Paulinus seized and garrisoned Forum Julii (Fréjus), the main harbor on the southern coast. Paulinus was not contemplating maritime adventures of his own. Forum Julii was his home, and the citizenry did all they could to help, partly out of fellow-feeling, partly in hopes that he would use his influence with Vespasian to secure them tangible rewards later. When these successes demoralized the Vitellians so completely that even Maturus decided to take the oath of allegiance to Vespasian, Valens returned to his ships with a mere ten men. He may still have planned to make for the mouth of the Rhône and from there to travel north to the German frontier, but Tacitus implies that his primary motivation was the belief that he would be safer at sea than on land. This too turned out to be wrong. Carried by a storm to the Stoechades islands (the Îles d’Hyères off Toulon), he was captured by warships Paulinus had sent in pursuit, as far as we can tell, in mid- to late November, and not long after that Paulinus sent him on, under guard, to Antonius Primus.

  With Valens’ capture, support for Vitellius evaporated outside Italy. In Spain the lead was taken by legion I Adiutrix. Still devoted to Otho’s memory, the men won over the other two units in the peninsula, VI Victrix and X Gemina. There was no more hesitation in Gaul. In Britain the situation was more complicated. Of the four legions there (II Augusta, IX Hispana, XIV Gemina Martia Victrix, and XX Valeria Victrix) one, II Augusta, strongly favored Vespasian, because he had won distinction as their legate during the Claudian invasion of the island. We could assume that similar feelings animated XIV Gemina Martia Victrix, since it had sided with Otho, but Tacitus may have lost sight of this unit. He states that “in the other legions” many officers and men owed promotion and benefits to Vitellius, and were reluctant to abandon him. And this lack of unanimity, along with all the talk of a civil war raging in Italy, prompted a cross between a civil war and an uprising among the Brigantes, a powerful tribe in Yorkshire that had been allied previously with Rome.

  The tribe’s queen, Cartimandua, having tired of her husband Venutius at an earlier point Tacitus fails to specify, decided to share her bed and her throne with his squire Vellocatus. Since this outraged her subjects, Venutius seized his chance to overthrow her and to disavow the alliance with Rome. He reduced her to such straits that she had to call in the Romans, but whichever official responded to her appeals, he refused—or was unable—to commit the legions. He just sent in some auxiliary cohorts and cavalry squadrons to rescue the queen. What happened to her is unknown, but “the kingdom was left to Venutius, the war to the Romans.” Much is made of this by students of Roman Britain, largely because the Brigantes had acted as a buffer between Roman territory in the island and the warlike tribes to the north. Now they became the leaders of the ongoing opposition to Rome, and there would be many years of fighting by much larger numbers of troops than might otherwise have been necessary. Tacitus took a different view. As is clear from the sarcastic conclusion he attaches to his narrative, and from the equally cursory but rather different account he provides in the Annals, Romans saw the business as a squalid affair, the kind of senseless behavior one had to expect from barbarian chieftains, and no real threat to their control of the island. If their forces had to fight larger numbers of recalcitrant Britons in the future, that was the price of empire—and a way for good generals to make their names.

  On the German frontier, by contrast, there was genuine danger, thanks to a mixture of “indolence on the part of the governor, mutinies among the legions, incursions from the far side of the Rhine, and treachery among Rome’s allies.” In detail it is a long and complicated story, but the prime mover was Julius Civilis, commander of one of the Batavian cohorts that had troubled Valens so much earlier in the year. Once back on the Rhine frontier, says Tacitus, Civilis proposed securing independence for his own people, and the Batavians were by no means averse to his scheme. Although they paid Rome no tribute, they were bound by treaty to supply troops, and in 69 the Vitellians pressed them hard for recruits to replace the drafts sent to Italy. Civilis did not publicize his aims in the last months of the year. Instead, he claimed to be fighting on Vespasian’s behalf by tying down Vitellian troops on the Rhine. And their commander, Hordeonius Flaccus, took no forceful measures against him, partly because he was old and inert, partly because he too inclined to support the Flavian.

  Further east again, in Moesia, there was another outbreak of trouble. When the three legions stationed in the province marched off to join Antonius Primus, the Dacian tribes on the far side of the Danube remained quiet at first, perhaps because a little intimidated by the defeat of the Rhoxolani the previous winter. But when they heard, in November, that these legions were heavily engaged in the fighting in Italy, they swept across the Danube, overwhelmed the winter camps of the auxiliary units left to guard the frontier, and seized control of the southern bank. As their next move, says Tacitus, the tribesmen were planning an all-out attack on one or more of the legionary bases in the province, but luck turned against them. As it happened, Mucianus was marching his expeditionary force through the area, and since he too had heard of the victory at Cremona, he was able to detach the core unit in his force, VI Ferrata, to counter this threat, to reinforce it with two units from the Vitellian armies that Antonius had dispersed through the Balkans after his victory (I Italica and V Alaudae), and to summon Gaius Fonteius Agrippa, governor of the province Asia, to take over command. In what remains of the Histories Tacitus does not tell us that these measures proved inadequate. The immediate threat was averted, but Josephus reports that Fonteius fell in battle against the Sarmatians in January 70, and that only when Rubrius Gallus took over Moesia in the late spring was peace at last restored.

  From the fact that Mucianus would enter Rome perhaps no more than two weeks later than Antonius Primus’ forces we can probably deduce details Tacitus neglects to mention, among them that Mucianus did not linger in the province to ensure that the situation was under control; that he never considered waiting for Fonteius Agrippa; and that he ordered VI Ferrata to stay put, rather than to try to follow in his footsteps. With a smaller force composed solely of detachments from the other units he could make better speed, and he had to overtake Antonius Primus as soon as possible if he was to win the military victory for which he hankered. This helps to explain the string of letters to Antonius and his fellow generals in some of which, as Tacitus puts it, Mucianus set out at length why they should press on with the campaign, while in others he dwelt on the advantages of delay, “careful always to phrase his advice in such a way that he could take the credit for any successes and avoid the blame for any setbacks.” This was his contribution to the stop-start nature of the offensive’s final stages, and one reason for Tacitus to think Mucianus as blameworthy as Antonius and his colleagues.

  Tacitus has one more uprising of sorts to report, in Pontus (today the northeastern littoral of Turkey bordering on the Black Sea). Earlier, this area had been a client-kingdom, but in 63/64 Nero had dethroned its ruler, Polemo II, and had attached the new province (Pontus Polemoniacus) to Galatia. The royal guard had been given Roman citizenship and turned into a cohort, while the royal fleet had been made into one more imperial squadron to police the seas. Not only did the latter step sit ill with the freedman Anicetus, previously its lord high admiral, but insult was added to injury when Mucianus commandeered the best ships and crews for his own march to Rome. So Anicetus started an uprising, allegedly in Vitellius’ behalf. Rousing the indigenous, non-G
reek population, he attacked the city of Trapezus (Trabzond), wiped out the cohort there (though taught to fight in the Roman manner, says Tacitus, they had not lost their Greek taste for indolence and indiscipline), fired the warships Mucianus had left behind, and escaped out to sea. This he was able to do because his supporters were seafarers, and they—says Tacitus, adding picturesque details to raise Roman eyebrows over a trivial affair—used “camarae” to get around. These were ships with low sides and a broad beam, fastened together without spikes of bronze or iron. The sides could be built up with planks as high as the waves, to the point where the crew was roofed in completely, and they could be rowed in either direction.

  When Vespasian heard of this, he gave some legionary detachments to Virdius Geminus, seemingly a centurion of proved worth, and sent him off to deal with the uproar. Geminus caught up with the pirates as they roved along the coast looking for plunder, and then, “having hastily constructed some warships,” presumably by modifying merchantmen, he pursued Anicetus to the mouth of the River Chobus (Khopi) in the Caucasus. Here the (unnamed) king of the Sedochezi, a local tribe, gave Anicetus refuge and, initially, defied Roman demands for the man’s surrender. He thought better of this idea, when he was offered either a monetary reward or an all-out war. The king seems to have arranged the killing of Anictus. All the other fugitives he handed over to the Romans, “and so this slave war was brought to a successful conclusion.”

  Vespasian, says Tacitus, was delighted by this turn of events. This is hardly likely (the emperor would have given the matter little thought), but the claim enables Tacitus to make his transition to Vespasian. And now that everything was going his way—Vespasian learnt of the victory at Cremona either as he marched south to Alexandria for the winter or after he had reached the city—he decided to refine the war plans formulated at Beirut. Although some prefer to ignore Tacitus’ evidence and set this change earlier, it was now that Vespasian considered invading the province Africa and cutting off its shipments of grain to Rome. The plan was never carried out, possibly because the legionary legate in Africa and commander of III Augusta, Valerius Festus, was already hedging his bets by making secret overtures to the Flavian. But it was a good idea. Since the defeat at Cremona had bottled up the Vitellian forces in Italy, they were heavily dependent on the grain Rome received from Egypt and Africa. If both lifelines were cut, the troops would commandeer what supplies could be found without regard for the civilian population, but that would create enormous unrest in the city. Besides, seizing Africa would prevent the Vitellians from using the province as a bolt-hole, a plan adopted more than once in the civil wars of the republic.

  With his survey of developments elsewhere completed, Tacitus reverts to Antonius Primus’ campaign. But here we encounter what looks like another difficulty. Tacitus does not conclude his narrative of the attack on Cremona, as I have mine, with the town’s sack. He adds a few more steps before his survey. Some items reflect well on Antonius and lay some groundwork for the survey. Then, after the survey, he reports further steps that belong in this same timeframe, but now many are charges that reflect badly on Antonius. As a result, some see in this change of perspective an indication that Tacitus has changed the source he is following. There could be a grain of truth in this, if—that is—we allow that Vipstanus Messalla’s memoir ended with the sack of Cremona. Yet this is neither helpful nor necessary. Tacitus gives us clues enough to explain the relative change in tone.

  In the earlier segment we are told first that the victorious army was unable to encamp in the ruins of the Vitellian camp outside Cremona because of the blood and gore that polluted the site, and so pulled back three miles along the Postumian Way. This was no ringing endorsement of a victory gained in civil war. And then there was the fact that some soldiers had seized individual Cremonans with the idea of selling them later as slaves. Antonius forbade this as soon as he heard of it, but the troops responded by killing their captives, until the latters’ relatives agreed to ransom them in secret. Still, the Flavians took some positive actions. They set about the reorganization of the defeated Vitellian legions in order to disperse them through the Balkan provinces, not only to ensure that they not rejoin the fray, but also to reinforce the frontiers the Flavians had stripped of men for their own campaign. As usual, Tacitus is disinclined to group the details, but this was how I Italica and V Alaudae came to be assigned to Moesia. For the rest, XXII Primigenia was sent to Carnuntum in Pannonia, to replace VII Galbiana, and XXI Rapax was returned to Vindonissa, under a new commander, Lucius Flavius Silva, the man who would reduce Masada in 73 or 74. At the same time, Antonius dispatched news of the victory to Britain and Spain and, as living proofs, he sent off two captured Vitellian officers, Julius Calenus, a military tribune from Aeduan territory, to spread the word in Gaul, and Alpinius Montanus, the Treviran commander of an auxiliary cohort, to pass it along the German frontier. And in case these measures failed to convince their intended audiences, the Flavians reinforced the patrols blocking the Alpine passes.

  The later segment Tacitus opens with the explicit statement that “Antonius acted much less blamelessly than he had before Cremona’s sack, either because he thought that the war was pretty much over, and that the rest of the campaign would be easy, or else because this success brought to the surface the greed, the arrogance, and all the other vices in his nature that had been concealed hitherto.” To this we cannot attach great importance, since it is only another of his relative judgments. Far from asserting that Antonius had been blameless previously, he represents the change in behavior as one of degree, not kind. And the charges Tacitus levels at Antonius amount to a statement that he acted in a far more demagogic fashion than he had previously. Now, as Tacitus puts it, he “stamped around” northern Italy, he treated the legions as if they belonged to him alone, and he tried to create a power base for himself. To give the troops “greater license,” he let them pick the replacements for the centurions killed in the battle, with the result that the “most turbulent” were elected. “No longer were the generals able to control the troops, but they were dragged along willy-nilly by the violent whims of the men.” And Antonius “turned this to his advantage,” and so acted “without the least regard for Mucianus’ attempts to catch up with him, behavior that was to prove far more hazardous to him than was his having ignored Vespasian’s wishes.”

  This passage is often taken as another illustration of how the troops were able to impose their wishes on their commanders. But if this were so, Tacitus would not have brought up the difference of opinion between Antonius and Mucianus. And since he states explicitly that this difference arose from Antonius’ exploiting the “violent whims of the men,” it follows that Antonius was leading the men. In other words, he did not give the men “greater license” so that they could escape his control, nor does Tacitus say so. The victims were “generals” in the plural, the commanders of the Balkan legions who began opposing Antonius’ plans more and more. Initially, Antonius tried to retain control by insisting on his contributions to their successes to date. But most of his colleagues balked. They were led by Lucius Plotius Grypus, a man whom Vespasian had recently made a senator and ordered put in charge of a legion, probably VII Claudia, the unit hitherto under Vipstanus Messalla. Tacitus accuses Grypus and his allies of currying favor with Mucianus. But the situation had changed radically. Before Cremona, the Balkan legions had to act, if they were to prevent Vitellius from accumulating larger forces. After Cremona, it could be argued that the remnants of Vitellius’ forces were shut up to Italy, and since winter was approaching, that the Balkan legions should take a breather and wait for Mucianus. So Antonius found another way of getting what he wanted. By engineering the election of the noisiest agitators as centurions, he ensured that the posts went to rankers who would defy the other generals’ wishes, and so “turned the situation to his advantage.”

  Since winter was approaching and the flat land around the Po was waterlogged by rain and flooding, the decis
ion taken by the generals—apparently still outside Cremona—was to press on only with a lightly armed, swift-moving column. The bulk of the legions, the wounded and those whose age had at last caught up with them, and even many who were suffering from neither affliction, all these were “left behind at” or, more accurately, sent back to Verona. Tacitus does not state in so many words that this represented a compromise, forced on Antonius by the procrastinators. But a compromise it was. No matter what else they disagreed upon, “Antonius and the other leaders” were in accord that “the back of the war had already been broken.” This enabled the procrastinators to hold back—and rest—the bulk of the troops at Verona. And it enabled Antonius to press on with his personal campaign, albeit only with auxiliary cohorts and squadrons, backed up by a picked force of legionaries—or so it seemed at first.