The Night at Cremona — AD 69 II: The Capitol in Flames

Also marching with Primus are the men Vitellius threw out of the Guard. Otho’s disbanded Praetorians carry their own standards. They have a score to settle with the emperor. (Tac. 3.21)

Primus rides along the ranks. He says something different to each unit. To the Praetorians he shouts: “Civilians! If you do not win, what general, what camp will take you in?” (Tac. 3.24)

Then the sun rises. The soldiers of the Third Legion, which stood for years in Syria, greet it with a loud shout, as the custom there requires. A rumor spreads that it is Mucianus with the army from the East and that the two armies are saluting each other. Perhaps Primus himself started it. The Flavians surge forward as if they had received reinforcements. The Vitellians, writes Cassius Dio, take the shout for the arrival of Mucianus and panic. (Tac. 3.24–25; Dio 65.14.3)

They flee along the road to Cremona, among wagons and war machines. The pursuit spills along the entire road. (Tac. 3.25)

From that night Tacitus records one scene with names attached. He has it from the tribune Vipstanus Messalla, who fought there. Julius Mansuetus, a native of Hispania serving in the Rapax legion, had left a little son at home. The son grew up and Galba took him into the Seventh Legion. In the pursuit the young soldier strikes down an opponent. He bends over him and recognizes his father. The father recognizes him. The son embraces the dying man and begs him not to shrink from him as from a parricide. The guilt is everyone’s, he says: how small a part of a civil war is one soldier. Then he digs a grave himself and buries his father. The story spreads through the army. The soldiers curse this war. And they go on stripping their fallen kinsmen and brothers. (Tac. 3.25)

Beneath the walls waits a camp, and behind the camp a city. The legionaries advance on the rampart under their shields, in a tortoise formation. The defenders hurl stones down at them, and finally even one of their own siege engines. The first to mount the rampart is Gaius Volusius of the Third Legion. Cremona surrenders. Olive branches hang from the walls. The defeated strike off Caecina’s chains and beg him to intercede for them. The consul comes out in the dress of his office, with lictors, and the victors rage at the sight of the traitor. Primus gives him a guard and sends him to Vespasian. (Tac. 3.27–29, 3.31; Dio 65.14.4)

Primus goes to the baths to wash off the battle. The water is too cold. A servant remarks: “It will soon be hot.” Tacitus writes that this single sentence brought down on Primus all the blame for what happened next. The city was already burning anyway. (Tac. 3.32)

Forty thousand soldiers and even more camp followers pour into Cremona. A fair happens to be on, and the city is full of merchants from all over Italy. Four days of plunder and fire. Only the temple of Mefitis outside the walls survived. (Tac. 3.30, 3.33)

Who pointed Cremona out to the soldiers as plunder — the freedman Hormus or Primus himself — Tacitus does not decide. Nor does he give numbers. Cassius Dio writes of fifty thousand dead, including those fallen in the battle. Josephus gives 30,200 of Vitellius’s soldiers and 4,500 on Primus’s side. (Tac. 3.28; Dio 65.15.2; Jewish War 4.11.3)

Vitellius still has Rome and the Guard. And one last card: he can give up power.