No More Learning

If they could not regain it at once,
they must spend the night in fighting. The Vitellians, for their part,
had numbers and fortune against them, but by marring their enemy's
victory, by postponing peace, by fouling houses and altars with their
blood, they embraced the last consolations that the conquered can
enjoy. Many lay more dead than alive on the towers and ramparts of the
walls and there expired. When the gates were torn down, the remainder
faced the conquerors in a body. And there they fell, every man of them
facing the enemy with all his wounds in front. Even as they died they
took care to make an honourable end.

When the city was taken, Vitellius left the Palace by a back way and
was carried in a litter to his wife's house on the Aventine. If he
could lie hid during the day, he hoped to make his escape to his
brother and the Guards at Tarracina. But it is in the very nature of
terror that, while any course looks dangerous, the present state of
things seems worst of all. His fickle determination soon changed and
he returned to the vast, deserted Palace, whence even the lowest of
his menials had fled, or at least avoided meeting him. Shuddering at
the solitude and hushed silence of the place, he wandered about,
trying closed doors, terrified to find the rooms empty; until at last,
wearied with his miserable search, he crept into some shameful
hiding-place. There Julius Placidus, an officer of the Guards, found
him and dragged him out. His hands were tied behind his back, his
clothes were torn, and thus he was led forth--a loathly spectacle at
which many hurled insults and no one shed a single tear of pity. The
ignominy of his end killed all compassion. On the way a soldier of the
German army either aimed an angry blow at him, or tried to put him
out of his shame, or meant, perhaps, to strike the officer in command;
at any rate, he cut off the officer's ear and was immediately stabbed.
With the points of their swords they made Vitellius hold up his 85
head and face their insults, forcing him again and again to watch his
own statues hurtling down, or to look at the Rostra and the spot where
Galba had been killed. At last he was dragged along to the Ladder of
Sighs,[224] where the body of Flavius Sabinus had lain. One saying of
his which was recorded had a ring of true nobility. When some officer
flung reproaches at him, he answered, 'And yet I was once your
emperor. ' After that he fell under a shower of wounds, and when he was
dead the mob abused him as loudly as they had flattered him in his
lifetime--and with as little reason.

Vitellius' home was at Luceria. [225] He was in his fifty-seventh 86
year, and had won the consulship, priesthoods, and a name and position
among Rome's greatest men, all of which he owed to no efforts of his
own, but solely to his father's eminence. [226] Those who offered him
the throne had not yet learnt to know him; and yet his slothful
cowardice won from his soldiers an enthusiasm which the best of
generals have rarely evoked. Still he had the qualities of candour and
generosity, which without moderation are liable to prove disastrous.
He had few friends, though he bought many, thinking to keep them, not
by showing moral stamina, but by giving liberal presents. It was
indubitably good for the country that Vitellius should be beaten. But
those who betrayed him to Vespasian can hardly make a merit of their
perfidy, for they were the very men who had deserted Galba for
Vitellius.

The day was already sinking into evening. The magistrates and senators
had fled in terror from the city, or were still in hiding at
dependants' houses: it was therefore impossible to call a meeting of
the senate. When all fear of violence was at an end, Domitian came
out[227] and presented himself to the generals of his party. The
crowds of soldiers at once hailed him as Caesar, and marched off,
still in full armour, to escort him to his father's house.