The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete
IX. Though it was the general opinion that it would be proper to
protract the war, as the enemy were distressed by (423) famine and the
straitness of their quarters, yet he resolved with equal rashness to
force them to an engagement as soon as possible; whether from impatience
of prolonged anxiety, and in the hope of bringing matters to an issue
before the arrival of Vitellius, or because he could not resist the
ardour of the troops, who were all clamorous for battle. He was not,
however, present at any of those which ensued, but stayed behind at
Brixellum [683]. He had the advantage in three slight engagements, near
the Alps, about Placentia, and a place called Castor’s [684]; but was, by
a fraudulent stratagem of the enemy, defeated in the last and greatest
battle, at Bedriacum [685]. For, some hopes of a conference being given,
and the soldiers being drawn up to hear the conditions of peace declared,
very unexpectedly, and amidst their mutual salutations, they were obliged
to stand to their arms. Immediately upon this he determined to put an
end to his life, more, as many think, and not without reason, out of
shame, at persisting in a struggle for the empire to the hazard of the
public interest and so many lives, than from despair, or distrust of his
troops. For he had still in reserve, and in full force, those whom he
had kept about him for a second trial of his fortune, and others were
coming up from Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Moesia; nor were the troops lately
defeated so far discouraged as not to be ready, even of themselves, to
run all risks in order to wipe off their recent disgrace.
X. My father, Suetonius Lenis [686], was in this battle, being at (424)
that time an angusticlavian tribune in the thirteenth legion. He used
frequently to say, that Otho, before his advancement to the empire, had
such an abhorrence of civil war, that once, upon hearing an account given
at table of the death of Cassius and Brutus, he fell into a trembling,
and that he never would have interfered with Galba, but that he was
confident of succeeding in his enterprise without a war. Moreover, that
he was then encouraged to despise life by the example of a common
soldier, who bringing news of the defeat of the army, and finding that he
met with no credit, but was railed at for a liar and a coward, as if he
had run away from the field of battle, fell upon his sword at the
emperor’s feet; upon the sight of which, my father said that Otho cried
out, “that he would expose to no farther danger such brave men, who had
deserved so well at his hands.” Advising therefore his brother, his
brother’s son, and the rest of his friends, to provide for their security
in the best manner they could, after he had embraced and kissed them, he
sent them away; and then withdrawing into a private room by himself, he
wrote a letter of consolation to his sister, containing two sheets. He
likewise sent another to Messalina, Nero’s widow, whom he had intended to
marry, committing to her the care of his relics and memory. He then
burnt all the letters which he had by him, to prevent the danger and
mischief that might otherwise befall the writers from the conqueror.
What ready money he had, he distributed among his domestics.
XI. And now being prepared, and just upon the point of dispatching
himself, he was induced to suspend the execution of his purpose by a
great tumult which had broken out in the camp. Finding that some of the
soldiers who were making off had been seized and detained as deserters,
“Let us add,” said he, “this night to our life.” These were his very
words.
He then gave orders that no violence should be offered to any one; and
keeping his chamber-door open until late at night, he allowed all who
pleased the liberty to come and see him. At last, after quenching his
thirst with a draught of cold water, he took up two poniards, and having
examined the points of both, put one of them under his pillow, and
shutting his chamber-door, slept very soundly, until, awaking about break
of day, he stabbed himself under the left pap. Some persons bursting
into the room upon his first groan, he at one time covered, and at
another exposed his wound to the view of the bystanders, and thus life
soon ebbed away. His funeral was hastily performed, according to his own
order, in the thirty-eighth year of his age, and ninety-fifth day of his
reign. [687]
XII. The person and appearance of Otho no way corresponded to the great
spirit he displayed on this occasion; for he is said to have been of low
stature, splay-footed, and bandy-legged. He was, however, effeminately
nice in the care of his person: the hair on his body he plucked out by
the roots; and because he was somewhat bald, he wore a kind of peruke, so
exactly fitted to his head, that nobody could have known it for such. He
used to shave every day, and rub his face with soaked bread; the use of
which he began when the down first appeared upon his chin, to prevent his
having any beard. It is said likewise that he celebrated publicly the
sacred rites of Isis [688], clad in a linen garment, such as is used by
the worshippers of that goddess. These circumstances, I imagine, caused
the world to wonder the more that his death was so little in character
with his life. Many of the soldiers who were present, kissing and
bedewing with their tears his hands and feet as he lay dead, and
celebrating him as “a most gallant man, and an incomparable emperor,”
immediately put an end to their own lives upon the spot, not far from his
funeral pile.
(426) Many of those likewise who were at a distance, upon hearing the
news of his death, in the anguish of their hearts, began fighting amongst
themselves, until they dispatched one another. To conclude: the
generality of mankind, though they hated him whilst living, yet highly
extolled him after his death; insomuch that it was the common talk and
opinion, “that Galba had been driven to destruction by his rival, not so
much for the sake of reigning himself, as of restoring Rome to its
ancient liberty.”
* * * * * *
It is remarkable, in the fortune of this emperor, that he owed both his
elevation and catastrophe to the inextricable embarrassments in which he
was involved; first, in respect of pecuniary circumstances, and next, of
political. He was not, so far as we can learn, a follower of any of the
sects of philosophers which justified, and even recommended suicide, in
particular cases: yet he perpetrated that act with extraordinary coolness
and resolution; and, what is no less remarkable, from the motive, as he
avowed, of public expediency only. It was observed of him, for many
years after his death, that “none ever died like Otho.”
AULUS VITELLIUS.
(427)
I. Very different accounts are given of the origin of the Vitellian
family. Some describe it as ancient and noble, others as recent and
obscure, nay, extremely mean. I am inclined to think, that these several
representations have been made by the flatterers and detractors of
Vitellius, after he became emperor, unless the fortunes of the family
varied before. There is extant a memoir addressed by Quintus Eulogius to
Quintus Vitellius, quaestor to the Divine Augustus, in which it is said,
that the Vitellii were descended from Faunus, king of the aborigines, and
Vitellia [689], who was worshipped in many places as a goddess, and that
they reigned formerly over the whole of Latium: that all who were left of
the family removed out of the country of the Sabines to Rome, and were
enrolled among the patricians: that some monuments of the family
continued a long time; as the Vitellian Way, reaching from the Janiculum
to the sea, and likewise a colony of that name, which, at a very remote
period of time, they desired leave from the government to defend against
the Aequicolae [690], with a force raised by their own family only: also
that, in the time of the war with the Samnites, some of the Vitellii who
went with the troops levied for the security of Apulia, settled at
Nuceria [691], and their descendants, a long time afterwards, returned
again to Rome, and were admitted (428) into the patrician order. On the
other hand, the generality of writers say that the founder of the family
was a freedman. Cassius Severus [692] and some others relate that he was
likewise a cobbler, whose son having made a considerable fortune by
agencies and dealings in confiscated property, begot, by a common
strumpet, daughter of one Antiochus, a baker, a child, who afterwards
became a Roman knight. Of these different accounts the reader is left to
take his choice.
II. It is certain, however, that Publius Vitellius, of Nuceria, whether
of an ancient family, or of low extraction, was a Roman knight, and a
procurator to Augustus. He left behind him four sons, all men of very
high station, who had the same cognomen, but the different praenomina of
Aulus, Quintus, Publius, and Lucius. Aulus died in the enjoyment of the
consulship [693], which office he bore jointly with Domitius, the father
of Nero Caesar. He was elegant to excess in his manner of living, and
notorious for the vast expense of his entertainments. Quintus was
deprived of his rank of senator, when, upon a motion made by Tiberius, a
resolution passed to purge the senate of those who were in any respect
not duly qualified for that honour. Publius, an intimate friend and
companion of Germanicus, prosecuted his enemy and murderer, Cneius Piso,
and procured sentence against him. After he had been made proctor, being
arrested among the accomplices of Sejanus, and delivered into the hands
of his brother to be confined in his house, he opened a vein with a
penknife, intending to bleed himself to death. He suffered, however, the
wound to be bound up and cured, not so much from repenting the resolution
he had formed, as to comply with the importunity of his relations. He
died afterwards a natural death during his confinement. Lucius, after
his consulship [694], was made governor of Syria [695], and by his
politic management not only brought Artabanus, king of the Parthians, to
give him an interview, but to worship the standards of the Roman legions.
He afterwards filled two ordinary consulships [696], and also the
censorship [697] jointly with the emperor Claudius. Whilst that (429)
prince was absent upon his expedition into Britain [698], the care of the
empire was committed to him, being a man of great integrity and industry.
But he lessened his character not a little, by his passionate fondness
for an abandoned freedwoman, with whose spittle, mixed with honey, he
used to anoint his throat and jaws, by way of remedy for some complaint,
not privately nor seldom, but daily and publicly. Being extravagantly
prone to flattery, it was he who gave rise to the worship of Caius Caesar
as a god, when, upon his return from Syria, he would not presume to
accost him any otherwise than with his head covered, turning himself
round, and then prostrating himself upon the earth. And to leave no
artifice untried to secure the favour of Claudius, who was entirely
governed by his wives and freedmen, he requested as the greatest favour
from Messalina, that she would be pleased to let him take off her shoes;
which, when he had done, he took her right shoe, and wore it constantly
betwixt his toga and his tunic, and from time to time covered it with
kisses. He likewise worshipped golden images of Narcissus and Pallas
among his household gods. It was he, too, who, when Claudius exhibited
the secular games, in his compliments to him upon that occasion, used
this expression, “May you often do the same.”
III. He died of palsy, the day after his seizure with it, leaving behind