No More Learning

However, nobody
made any kind of set speech or mounted the platform, for there was no
one as yet with whom to curry favour.

The ex-consul Hordeonius Flaccus stood by and watched their 56
treachery. He had not the courage to check the storm or even to rally
the waverers and encourage the faithful. Sluggish and cowardly, it was
mere indolence that kept him loyal. Four centurions of the
Twenty-second legion, Nonius Receptus, Donatius Valens, Romilius
Marcellus, and Calpurnius Repentinus, who tried to protect Galba's
statues, were swept away by the rush of the soldiers and put under
arrest. No one retained any respect for their former oath of
allegiance, or even remembered it; and, as happens in mutinies, they
were all on the side of the majority.

On the night of the first of January a standard-bearer of the Fourth
legion came to Cologne,[106] and brought the news to Vitellius at his
dinner that the Fourth and Twenty-second legions had broken down
Galba's statues and sworn allegiance to the Senate and People of Rome.
As this oath was meaningless, it seemed best to seize the critical
moment and offer them an emperor. Vitellius dispatched messengers to
inform his own troops and generals that the army of the Upper Province
had revolted from Galba; so they must either make war on the rebels
immediately, or, if they preferred peace and unity, make an emperor
for themselves; and there was less danger, he reminded them, in
choosing an emperor than in looking for one.

The quarters of the First legion were nearest at hand, and Fabius 57
Valens was the most enterprising of the generals. On the following day
he entered Cologne with the cavalry of his legion and auxiliaries, and
saluted Vitellius as emperor. The other legions of the province
followed suit, vying with each other in enthusiasm; and the army of
the Upper Province, dropping the fine-sounding titles of the Senate
and People of Rome, joined Vitellius on the third of January, which
clearly showed that on the two previous days they were not really at
the disposal of a republican government. The inhabitants of Cologne
and the Treviri and Lingones, rivalling the zeal of the troops, made
offers of assistance, or of horses or arms or money, each according to
the measure of their strength, wealth, or enterprise. And these
offers came not only from the civil and military authorities, men who
had plenty of money to spare and much to hope from victory, but whole
companies or individual soldiers handed over their savings, or,
instead of money, their belts, or the silver ornaments[107] on their
uniforms, some carried away by a wave of enthusiasm, some acting from
motives of self-interest.

Vitellius accordingly commended the zeal of the troops.
He 58
distributed among Roman knights the court-offices which had been
usually held by freedmen,[108] paid the centurions their furlough-fees
out of the imperial purse,[109] and for the most part conceded the
soldiers' savage demands for one execution after another, though he
occasionally cheated them by pretending to imprison their victims.
Thus Pompeius Propinquus,[110] the imperial agent in Belgica, was
promptly executed, while Julius Burdo, who commanded the fleet on the
Rhine, was adroitly rescued. The indignation of the army had broken
out against him, because he was supposed to have intrigued against
Fonteius Capito, and to have accused him falsely. [111] Capito's memory
was dear to the army, and when violence reigns murder may show its
face, but pardon must be stealthy. So Burdo was kept in confinement
and only released after victory had allayed the soldiers' rancour.
Meanwhile a centurion, named Crispinus, was offered as a scape-goat.
He had actually stained his hands with Capito's blood, so his guilt
seemed more obvious to those who clamoured for his punishment, and
Vitellius felt he was a cheaper sacrifice.

Julius Civilis[112] was the next to be rescued from danger. He was 59
all-powerful among the Batavi,[113] and Vitellius did not want to
alienate so spirited a people by punishing him. Besides, eight cohorts
of Batavian troops were stationed among the Lingones. They had been an
auxiliary force attached to the Fourteenth, and in the general
disturbance had deserted the legion. Their decision for one side or
the other would be of the first importance. Nonius, Donatius,
Romilius, and Calpurnius, the centurions mentioned above,[114] were
executed by order of Vitellius. They had been convicted of loyalty, a
heinous offence among deserters. His party soon gained the accession
of Valerius Asiaticus, governor of Belgica, who subsequently married
Vitellius' daughter, and of Junius Blaesus,[115] governor of the Lyons
division of Gaul, who brought with him the Italian legion[116] and a
regiment of cavalry known as 'Taurus' Horse',[117] which had been
quartered at Lugdunum. The forces in Raetia lost no time in joining
his standard, and even the troops in Britain showed no hesitation.