第63章 September - December, A.D. 69(14)

I have the very highest authority for asserting, that there was among the conquerors such an impious disregard of right and wrong, that a private cavalry soldier declared he had slain his brother in the late battle, and claimed a reward from the generals. The common law of humanity on the one hand forbade them to reward this act of blood, the necessities of the war on the other forbade them to punish it. They put him off, on the ground that the obligation was too great to be immediately discharged. Nothing more is recorded. In the earlier civil wars indeed a similar horror had occurred. In the battle with Cinna at the Janiculum, a soldier in Pompey's army, as Sisenna tells us, slew his own brother, and, on discovering the horrible deed he had committed, destroyed himself. So much more earnest among our ancestors was the honour paid to virtue, and the remorse that waited on crime. These and like instances, drawn from the recollections of the past, I shall mention not irrelevantly, whenever the subject and the occasion shall call for some example of goodness or some solace in the presence of evil.

Antonius and the other generals of the party judged it expedient to send forward the cavalry and explore the whole of Umbria for some point where the Apennines presented a more gentle ascent, and also to bring up the eagles and standards and all the troops at Verona, while they were to cover the Padus and the sea with convoys. Some there were among the generals who were contriving delays, for Antonius in fact was now becoming too great a man, and their hopes from Mucianus were more definite. That commander, troubled at so speedy a success, and imagining that unless he occupied Rome in person he should lose all share in the glory of the war, continued to write in ambiguous terms to Varus and Antonius, enlarging at one time on the necessity of following up their operations, at another on the advantage of delay, and with expressions so worded that he could, according to the event, repudiate a disastrous, or claim a successful policy. To Plotius Griphus, who had lately been raised by Vespasian to the senatorial rank and appointed to command a legion, as well as to all others on whom he could fully rely, he gave plainer instructions. All these men sent replies reflecting unfavourably on the precipitancy of Varus and Antonius, and suiting the wishes of Mucianus. By forwarding these letters to Vespasian he had accomplished this much, that the measures and achievements of Antonius were not valued according to his hopes.

Antonius was indignant, and blamed Mucianus, whose calumnies had depreciated his own hazardous achievements. Nor was he temperate in his expressions, for he was habitually violent in language, and was unaccustomed to obey. He wrote a letter to Vespasian in terms more arrogant than should be addressed to an Emperor, and not without implied reproach against Mucianus. "It was I," he said, "who brought into the field the legions of Pannonia; my instigations roused the generals in Moesia; my courageous resolution forced a passage through the Alps, seized on Italy, and cut off the succours from Germany and Rhaetia. The discomfiture of the disunited and scattered legions of Vitellius by a fierce charge of cavalry, and afterwards by the steady strength of the infantry in a conflict that lasted for a day and a night, was indeed a most glorious achievement, and it was my work. For the destruction of Cremona the war must be answerable; the civil strifes of former days cost the State more terrible loss and the overthrow of many cities. Not with messages and letters, but with my arm and my sword, have I served my Emperor. I would not seek to hinder the renown of those who in the meanwhile have reduced Asia to tranquillity. They had at heart the peace of Moesia, I the safety and security of Italy. By my earnest representations Gaul and Spain, the most powerful region of the world, have been won for Vespasian.

But all my efforts have been wasted, if they alone who have not shared the peril obtain its rewards." The meaning of all this did not escape Mucianus, and there arose a deadly feud, cherished by Antonius with frankness, by Mucianus with reserve, and therefore with the greater bitterness.