Vitellius
Aulus Vitellius (Latin: Aulus Vitellius; September 7 or 24, 12 or 15 - Rome, December 20, 69) was a Roman emperor who ruled from April to December 69, in the "year of the four emperors."
Vitello came from a family of the equestrian order. Under the Julio-Claudians he made a political career: he held the posts of quaestor, praetor, consul in 48 and proconsul of Africa in 60 or 61. At the end of the year 68, the Serbian emperor Sulpicius Galba appointed him governor of Inferior Germany. Already on January 1, 69, a rebellion broke out in the legions of Lower and Upper Germania, and on January 2, Aulus Vitellius was proclaimed emperor. He received the support of other western provinces: Galia Lugdunense, Aquitaine, Narbonense, and all of Hispania. Vitellius sent to Rome two armies led by Aulo Cecina Alieno and Fabio Valente, who in April defeated the supporters of the new emperor Marco Salvio Otto at Bedriacum. The latter committed suicide and his troops and the Senate swore allegiance to Vitellius.
Aulus arrived in Rome in mid-July 69. He soon learned that the governor of Judea Titus Flavius Vespasian had proclaimed himself emperor and gained the support of the entire East. The Pannonian, Moesian, and Dalmatian legions led by Marco Antonio Primo also defected to the rebels and invaded Italy. At the second battle of Bedriacum, in October, the Vitellians were defeated. When the enemy approached Rome, Vitellius negotiated with him, expressing his willingness to relinquish power and receive mercy; finally the Flavians occupied Rome with a battle in December 69, and Vitellius ended up being killed.
Biography
Origins
The gens Vitellia is first mentioned in Roman history in connection with the events of 509 BC. According to Titus Livy and Plutarch, two patrician brothers belonging to this family, whose sister was married to the founder of the Roman Republic, Lucius Junius Brutus, conspired to restore King Tarquin the Proud to power in Rome, but failed. The writer of the time of Augusto Quinto Elogio traced the genealogy of this family to Fauno, king of the aborigines, and a goddess called Vitelia, who is not mentioned in other sources. Historiography, it is generally accepted that the Vitellius-Patricians are a fictional creation of Roman analysts.
The members of the gens Vitellia in imperial times belonged to the equestrian order, and some of them moved to Rome from Nuceria in Campania or from Lucera in Apulia, but the The first version may be the result of a simple confusion. Only Suetonius speaks about the origin of the emperor Vitellius and writes that "the most diverse and dissimilar opinions" existed on this subject: some genealogists claimed that the equestrian Vitellius were descendants of the patricians, others that it was a "new, ungenerous and even obscure" family. According to the second version, the ancestor was a freedman who mended old shoes, and his son became rich "by sales and denunciations" and married an "affordable woman", the daughter of Antiochus the baker. In addition, the freedman's grandson acceded to the equestrian order.
In any case, the first of this family to be mentioned in the sources is Publius Vitellius, a Roman knight and administrator of Augustus's estate, and father of four sons, all senators. The eldest, Aulus, was consul suffect in 32 and died before his term expired; the second, Quintus, was quaestor under Augustus, and under Tiberius in 17 he was expelled from the Senate for waste; the third, Publius, rose in his career to the praetorium, but after being accused of conspiring with Lucio Sejanus, he committed suicide in 35. Finally, the fourth, Lucio, was consul three times (in 34, 43 and 47) and censor in 48. From his marriage to Sextilia, "a woman of dignity and nobility", the future emperor Aulus Vitellius was born.
Thus, unlike the Julio-Claudians, Vitellius belonged to the new aristocracy. In addition, he had a younger brother, Lucius, who was consul-suffect in 48. From a dedicatory inscription it can be known of the existence of a cousin of the emperor, Quintus Vitellius, son of Quintus.
Early Years
There is no consensus in the sources as to when Aulus Vitellius was born. Suetonius writes of the consulship of Drusus Caesar and Gaius Norbano Flaccus in 15, and Cassius Dio supports him, reporting that Vitellius lived just over fifty-four years. But according to Suetonius himself, Aulus died in his fifty-eighth year, that is, he was born in the year 12. The same date is indicated by Publius Cornelius Tacitus, Flavius Eutropius and Pseudo-Aurelio Victor. As for the day In which the future emperor was born, the sources also have two versions: the eighth day before the Kalends of October or the seventh day before the Ides of September, that is, September 24 or 7 respectively. Suetonius no longer knew which of these options was preferable. There is an opinion in historiography that it was rather on September 7, since in 69 the consuls celebrated Vitellius' birthday, and the course of the civil war makes it more plausible. this date.
In general very little is known about the life of Aulus Vitellius before he came to power, and this information is in some cases not indisputable. Suetonius reports that the future emperor spent his childhood and youth on the island of Capri, where he was one of the "spintria" of Tiberius, that is, he was among the "chosen group of girls, young men and dissolutes, inventors of monstrous pleasures", who "formed there among themselves a triple chain, and entwined in this way they prostituted themselves in his presence to arouse, by means of this spectacle, their ravaged desires". The biographer even claims that it was Aulus's beauty that ensured his father's brilliant career. This information, however, contradicts Tacitus's words that Aulus owed his elevation to his father's merit.
According to Suetonius, Vitellius was favored by the later Caesars. With Caligula he got closer because of his love of horse racing, with Claudio because of his love of gambling. In addition, Nero was grateful to Vitellius for having flattered his musical abilities. There is an opinion in historiography that there was none of this: Suetonius may have simply gleaned information from Flavian-era writers, who tried to create a negative image of Nero. Vitellius, and for this they associated him with the more evident vices of the Julio-Claudians. However, it is known that Aulus served Caligula during the races and that he retained a predilection for the blue faction for the rest of his life. By the end of Nero's reign, Vitellius was known for his greed and incredible gluttony.
The dates of Vitellius' quaestorship and praetorship are unknown, although based on the fact that one could become quaestor no earlier than the age of twenty-five, and praetor no earlier than thirty, scholars admit that the former one of these positions could have been occupied by Aulus already under Caligula, and the second unequivocally under Claudius. In the year 48 he obtained the position of consul jointly with Lucio Vipstano Publicola Mesala, and six months later he ceded the position to his brother Lucio, who he became consul suffect. The sources do not mention any military experience of Vitellius, but he was quindecimviri sacris faciundis .
For quite some time after 48, Vitellius did not hold any public office. The researchers attribute it to the political struggle that broke out in Claudio's environment, since on January 1, 49, the princeps married Agrippina the Younger, and from then on one of the "parties » of the court advocated the transition of power after the death of Claudius to his stepson Nero, while the other was on the side of his natural son, Britannicus. Vitellius was within the second "party" as was Tito Flavio Vespasiano, who apparently was his client. It was the presence of this political force that could have led Agrippina to poison her husband in the year 54. Nero, who became emperor a year later, poisoned Britannicus, which led to the total defeat of the Vitellii .
Faced with the change in situation, Aulus and his brother found a new patron in the influential imperial tutor Lucius Anneus Seneca, who was related to Aulus's second wife, Galeria Fundana, and consequently began to hold public office again.. At the beginning of the year 57, the eldest of the brothers became a member of the college of the Arvales brothers, and in the year 60 or 61 he became proconsul of the province of Africa. Lucius Vitellius succeeded him in office, while Aulus remained in Africa as legate in 61 or 62. Suetonius reports that the latter ruled the province "with rare integrity"; according to Tacitus, Vitellius earned the loyalty of the cavalry silana during his rule, which later helped him in the civil war.
In the year 63 or 64 Vitellius held the position of administrator of public buildings, with which, according to Suetonius, "he stole offerings and ornaments from the temples or substituted them, putting tin and yellow copper instead of gold and silver" Historiography suggests that in this way Vitellius may have carried out the orders of Nero, who suffered from a constant shortage of money. Earlier, in the year 62, Aulus had defended the emperor's interests in the Senate. Publius Clodius Tráea Peto had opposed the execution of the praetor Antistius, accused of "insulting his majesty" for reciting poems "in defiance of the princeps ", and had received the support of the majority; Vitellius was one of the few who defended the need to execute it, but failed. In the year 65 Aulus was a steward in Nero's games.
In the year 65 an open confrontation began between Nero and an important part of the Roman aristocracy. The emperor massacred those involved in Piso's plot and, in particular, forced Seneca to commit suicide. These events also affected the Vitellii, since in the last years of Nero's reign they held no office and were not mentioned at all in the sources. It is with these difficulties that Suetonius's account of the poverty of Aulus, who was forced to rent his entire house and put his wife and children in some attic, can be related. his political position distancing himself from Vitellius. At the same time, the latter did not divorce Galeria Fundana, despite her dangerous relationship, which may mean that his position was not so vulnerable.
Rise to power
In the year 68 there was a change of power in the Roman Empire, when the governor of Hispania Tarraconense Servio Sulpicio Galba rebelled in alliance with the governor of Galia Lugdunense Cayo Julio Vindex and became emperor, which made Nero he was forced to commit suicide. These events caused the destabilization of some provinces; in particular, the governor of Germania Inferior Fonteyo Capitón, who was related to the imperial house, was assassinated by the legates Cornelio Aquino and Fabio Valente. According to one version, these two were acting in the interest of the new emperor; another version says that it was the other way around, they tried to incite Capitón to rebellion and they killed him because they failed. In any event, Aquino and Valens expressed their allegiance to Galba, with the latter retrospectively approving of Capiton's assassination. For a time, Lower Germany was without a governor, but at the end of the year the new emperor sent Aulus Vitellius as a new legate there.
Suetonius tells the reasons for this unexpected appointment, since, according to him, the initiative belonged to one of Galba's collaborators, Tito Vinio, who was, like Vitellius, a supporter of the blue faction of the circus. Thus Servius Sulpicius, who had heard of Aulus's avarice, appointed him "not so much out of pity as contempt."To raise money for the trip to the province, Vitellius was forced to pawn the mother's pearl earring. of the.
The new governor took office on December 1, 68 and, remembering the fate of his predecessor, Vitellius tried from the beginning to win the love of his subordinates:
...being on the way to those who had found, even simple soldiers, joking in all the rests and in all the inns with the walkers and muleros, asking each one, since the dawn, if he had already had lunch, and rotting before them to prove that he had already done so. When he entered the camp he denied nothing to anyone, and by his own authority he forgave the degraded soldiers; to the defendants, he forgave the shame of the suit, and to the condemned the supplication.
Suetonio, Vit. Vit. VII, 3.
Vitelius now had four legions under his command, which he placed in winter quarters: I Germanica at Castra Bonnensia, Legio V Alaudae and XV Primigenia at Castra Vetera, and XVI Gallica at Novesium. The soldiers were very close. unhappy with the new emperor because they had participated in the defeat of Julius Vindex and were proud of this victory, but Galba only rewarded those who had joined the rebellion; the legionaries expected a donativum in connection with the change of power, but received nothing. In addition, "they kept the bright memory of Fonteyo Capitón", whose extrajudicial assassination was approved by the emperor. His procurators wrote more than once to Galba about the alarming state of mind of the legions of Lower Germania and neighboring Upper Germania.
Eventually, the unrest in the German legions turned into another mutiny. The occasion was the traditional oath to the emperor, which was to be taken on January 1 of each year. That day the soldiers of the I and V legions of the Germania Inferior threw stones at the images of Galba, while the soldiers of the XV and XVI legions limited themselves to uttering threats. Meanwhile, in Germania Superior, the IV and XXII legions, stationed in Mainz, smashed the emperor's images, tied up the officers who tried to prevent it, and swore allegiance not to Caesar, but to the "Senate and people of Rome." That same night, the standard-bearer of the IV Legion went to Colonia Agrippina and informed Vitellius of the revolt and the need to elect a new emperor, and consequently, on January 2, the troops of Lower Germania proclaimed Vitellius emperor.. There are two versions of these events: Tacitus and Plutarch report the important role of one of the legates, Fabio Valente, who already in December urged Vitellius to raise a rebellion, and on January 2 he entered Colonia Agrippina at the head of a detachment on horseback and was the first to welcome their commander as emperor. Suetonius, for his part, merely reports that Aulus' soldiers "suddenly dragged him out of his bedchamber, hailed him as emperor, and led him away." through the most crowded villages". But in any case the soldiers and officers of the German legions seem to be the main drivers of this rebellion. There is even the opinion that this action had been prepared since September 68 and that Vitellius was a mere puppet in the hands of the conspirators.
The governor refused to accept the title of Caesar, limiting himself to the name Aulus Vitellius Germanicus. He was immediately supported by the strong armies of the two German provinces, comprising a total of of seven legions with their auxiliaries. In the early days of the rebellion, the legate of Belgium Tenth Valerius Asiaticus, whose father was a close friend of Vitellius's father, and the governor of Gaul Lugdunense Junio Bleso, who led Legio I Italica and the Ala Tauriana to the Germania Inferior, went over to his side. Vitellius, to increase his popularity, ordered the execution of the commanders most hated by the soldiers, paid centurions to give permission to common soldiers, and appointed horsemen to the palace posts previously held by freemen. In addition, preparations for the march of the rebel army to Italy began.
War against Otto
In Rome, in January 69, there were also tumultuous events. Galba had turned against him not only the provincial armies, but also the Praetorians and a significant part of the aristocracy. After announcing the adoption of the young senator Lucio Calpurnio Piso Frugi Liciniano, Marco Salvio Otto, who had previously claimed the position of imperial heir, appealed to the Praetorians and staged a coup. On January 15, the Praetorians killed Galba and Piso, and Otho was consequently proclaimed emperor. In the afternoon of the same day the Romans learned of the mutiny of the German legions.
Meanwhile, new territories came under the control of Vitellius. He was recognized as emperor by the troops stationed in Recia and by the governor of Britain, Marco Trebelio Máximo. It is true that the latter had to flee his province, but Tacitus continues to write that Vitellius was "joined by a British army", though his motives for doing so are unknown. Quintus Julius Cordo, Governor of Aquitaine and Governor of Hispania, Marco Cluvio Rufus, who commanded two legions, recognized Otto, but soon sided with Vitellius. Gallia Narbonensis did so, "because the inhabitants saw the danger that was coming and understood that it was always easier to join the that it was nearer and stronger." Tacitus even claims that the eastern provinces also submitted to Otho only because they heard of him before Vitellius. But Aulus's attempt to win over the Pannonian legions on his side ended in failure.
Otho tried to end the matter peacefully and sent Vitellius a letter offering him, according to Plutarch and Tacitus, a large sum of money and every opportunity to "lead a life of ease, pleasure and leisure' and, according to Suetonius, the status of co-ruler and himself as son-in-law. In any case, Vitellius did not accept this offer. A correspondence ensued between the adversaries, in which each tried to accuse the other of all kinds of sins: indolence, extravagance, incompetence in military affairs, etc. Vitellius also tried to appeal directly to the Praetorians to induce them to his side, but failed.
As early as January 69, Aulus sent two armies into Italy. One of them, made up of forty thousand men under the command of Fabio Valente, moved through southern Gaul to Augusta Taurinorum, the other, made up of thirty thousand soldiers under the command of Aulus Cecina Alieno, through Helvecia, which is disputed by current historiography, which says that this number is overestimated by approximately half. Otto was able to counter these forces with an army of about twenty-five thousand strong. Although the Vitellians occupied the Alpine passes, in the first battles, the advantage was always on the side of the enemy. Otto's fleet, reinforced with part of the Praetorians, landed in Gallia Narbonensis, and part of Fabio Valente's army was defeated; consequently, Corsica and Sardinia were on the side of Marco Salvio. Meanwhile, Aulus Cecina had invaded Transalpine Gaul, where the Silan cavalry drew up alongside him. However, the Ottonians held Piacenza and defeated Cecina at Cremona. Finally, in the battle of the main forces at Los Castores, a passage located twelve kilometers from Cremona, Cecina was again defeated, and his army would have been destroyed if Otto's general, Gaius Suetonius Paulinus, had not ordered as a precaution that the persecution will cease.
Soon Cecina and Fabio Valente joined forces. At that time the total strength of his army could have been between thirty to forty thousand and one hundred thousand soldiers, while the Otani numbered about fifty thousand. Otto, who arrived at the theater of war, rejected the advice to delay the war. and he accepted the great battle that the Vitellian commanders wanted. The confrontation took place on April 14, 69 in Bedriacum and was chaotic and fierce. The Vitelians suddenly attacked an enemy tired from their long march; a blow to his flank by the Batavian cavalry decided everything, after which Otto's army withdrew. Although it had not been a total defeat, the next day the entire army of Otto, who had taken refuge in the camp, swore allegiance to Vitellius.Marcus Salvio, upon learning of what had happened, committed suicide, as he did not want to continue the fratricidal war.
Start of reign
After Otto's death, no one resisted the Vitellians. The senators who had remained with Marco Salvio in Brixella went to Bononia and there expressed their loyalty to Vitellius; the prefect of Rome Tito Flavio Sabino, upon learning of what had happened, made all the troops in the city swear allegiance to the new emperor. The inhabitants of the City considered Vitellius an avenger of Galba and, therefore, received the news with enthusiasm. The Senate found it necessary to confer all possible honors on Vitellius at once on April 19, 69.
Vitellius himself was in Gaul during the civil war, where he was recruiting new troops; already then Lugdunum and Tarraco began to mint coins with his image.After receiving letters from Italy, he headed south; he first made his way down the river Araris to Lugdunum, where the generals of both recently clashing sides awaited him. There he showered his six-year-old son with the insignia of imperial dignity, who received the cognomen of Germanicus. Perhaps in this way Vitellius wanted to flatter the German legions and take advantage of the good memories that still remain. he survived among the people of Tiberius's nephew Germanicus Caesar, who had died fifty years earlier.
At Lugdunum, the new princeps gave his first orders as ruler of the entire Roman Empire. He rejected the titles of Augustus and Caesar offered to him by the Senate, ordered the execution of Otto's most loyal centurions and Gnaeus Cornelius Dolabella, the second husband of his first wife, Petronia, and sent Marco Vetius Bolano as the new governor of Britain.. From Lugdunum, Vitellius headed to Rome through the Alps, Augusta Taurinorum and Cremona, where Cecina organized gladiatorial games for him. Next, presumably on May 23, he visited the battlefield of Bedriacum, still littered with corpses. According to Dio Casio, he "enjoyed this spectacle, as if he continued to triumph, but he never gave the order to bury them." Suetonius, on the other hand, claims that the emperor said: "The dead enemy always smells good, and even better if he is a citizen!"
Then Vitellius attended other gladiatorial games, this time in Bononia, where he also approved changes in the list of consuls sufects for the current year and thus, to grant Fabio Valens and Cecina this honorary position, the emperor shortened the consulate time for the others, and Marcio Marco, Valerio Marino and Pedanio Costa were completely excluded. In addition, on his way to Rome he dealt with the troops that had supported Otto and now posed a hypothetical danger to the new power, for which he dismissed many Praetorians from the service, sent the XIV Legion to Britain and commissioned the XIII to build amphitheaters in Bononia and Cremona.
In June, even before reaching Rome, Vitellius learned that the governor of Syria Gaius Licinius Mucianus and the governor of Judea Titus Flavius Vespasian recognized his authority. Since Mauretania had already gone over to his side in April, Vitellius now controlled the entire territory of the Empire. Finally, on July 17, he entered the capital at the head of an army of sixty thousand men. Suetonius claims that the soldiers entered Rome with drawn swords, and that the emperor wore a military cloak; according to Tacitus, Vitellius dressed for the occasion with a toga on the advice of some friends. That same day Aulus made his mother Augusta, and on July 18 declared himself permanent consul (consul perpetuus), made a list of consuls for For the next ten years, he delivered a panegyric in his honor before the Senate and the people, and received the rank of Pontiff Maximus. The fact that it was the day of the battle of Alia, considered disastrous, did not stop him.
The city was at the mercy of the soldiers who camped there, whom Vitellius indulged in everything. Thus, he agreed to the demand for the execution of three Gallic generals who had fought on the side of Cayo Julio Vindex the previous year; he imposed additional taxes on imperial freedmen to raise money to pay for the donativum ; it allowed soldiers to enlist in any unit they wanted, and many went on to Praetorian service, increasing the number of the renewed Praetorian Guard to 20,000 men, divided into 16 cohorts. The Praetorian Guard was now led by the prefects. Publio Sabino and Julio Prisco, who enjoyed the favor of Cecina and Valente respectively. The latter vied with each other for influence over the emperor and were the most influential men in Rome; presumably from 1 September to the end of October they held the posts of consular suffects.
One of Vitellius's efforts during these months was to banish astrologers from Rome. Sources report that the emperor did not limit his gluttony, ate three or four times a day and held feasts at different people's homes, which cost a lot of money, no less than four hundred thousand sesterces. Furthermore Suetonius writes about another vice of Vitellius, cruelty, but Cassius Dio reports that this emperor even of Otto's followers executed only a few.
War against Vespasian
In July 69 another rebellion broke out in the eastern Empire, which proved fatal for Vitellius. On July 1, in Alexandria, the governor of Egypt Tiberius Julius Alexander made the two legions of his province swear allegiance to the new emperor, Titus Flavius Vespasian, who, by order of Nero, was at the forefront of the war against the rebels in Judea. On July 3 at Caesarea Vespasian was proclaimed Caesar by his legions; His power was then recognized by the governor of Syria, Cayo Licinio Muciano. Thus, Vespasian quickly established control over all the eastern provinces and vassal kingdoms, which caused him to assemble a strong army of eight legions. He sent part of this force under Mucian to the west, with the aim of establishing a blockade on the Italian coast and obtain from the Romans the recognition of the new emperor without major confrontations on land. However, these plans were thwarted by the legions of Mesia, Dalmatia and Pannonia, which in their day had supported Otto until the end, because they deserted to the rebel side and in the autumn of 69, at the initiative of their commander Antonio Primo, they invaded Italy from the northeast.
Most of the western provincial armies refused to support Vitellius in the face of the new threat. The governors of Germania Superior and Britannia, Marco Hordeonio Flaco and Marco Vetio Bolano respectively, feared that the local tribes would rise up against them and preferred to wait, a position that the three Hispanic legates also adopted. In Africa, the local population sympathized with Vitellius after his rule, so he willingly enlisted in the army, but the legate Valerius Festus played a double game, secretly supporting Vespasian. "Unwavering loyalty" to Vitellius only it was kept by the procurator of Recia, Porcius Septiminos. As a result, the emperor could rely exclusively on the troops stationed in Italy. Against Antonio Primo moved an army led by Aulus Cecina, numbering between fifty thousand and seventy thousand soldiers.
The task of the Vitellians was to maintain the Po Valley and communications between Italy and Recia, but Antonio Primo managed to reach Verona, where the two armies stopped without fighting. Meanwhile in Ravenna Vitellius's fleet had deserted to the enemy with its commander Sextus Lucilius Baso. Aulus Cecina also plotted a betrayal and even began to put his army under an oath before Vespasian, but the legionaries rebelled against him and put him in chains. The army then began to withdraw to Cremona to join two other legions there. Antonio Primo, for his part, moved after the Vitelians, with the intention of forcing them to present battle before they had a new commander.
The decisive battle took place on October 24, 69 at Bedriacum, the same place where Otho's supporters had been defeated six months earlier. In a disorderly and fierce night combat the Vitellians were defeated, and the next day the survivors surrendered. Vitellius's second army, marching from the south at the time, hearing of what had happened, halted at Ariminus. Its commander Fabio Valente decided to cross into Gallia Narbonensis, to gather a new army, but on the way he was captured by supporters of the Flavians; the Ariminese army was blocked by the enemy. Upon learning of the second battle of Bedriacum, the governors of Britain and Spain openly defected to Vespasian. Vitellius gathered the last forces - fourteen cohorts and a legion of infantry - and placed Julius Priscus and Alphenus Varus at the head of this army, whom he ordered to occupy the Apennine passes to delay the war, which is dated to the middle of November. But at this time his second fleet, the Misenum fleet, also deserted to the enemy, so the Flavians were able to gain a foothold in Campania. Vitellius' army withdrew towards Rome, began to desert en masse and capitulated on December 15, leaving Aulus without a single soldier north of Rome.
Death
When the Flavians approached Rome, Antonio Primo offered Vitellius mercy, money, and refuge in Campania in exchange for relinquishing power. The emperor, convinced of the futility of resistance, was willing to accept; Tito Flavio Sabino, brother of Vespasiano, who was prefect of Rome, became the mediator in the negotiations that followed. Upon learning of the betrayal of the last legion, Vitellius made a decision: on the same day, December 18, 69, he descended from the Palatine, dressed in black, accompanied by his weeping relatives, clients and slaves, announced to the assembled citizens that he was relinquishing power, but the crowd and the Praetorians protested and did not allow Aulus to enter the Temple of Concord, where he was to renounce the insignia of imperial dignity, and Vitellius accordingly returned to the palace.
At this time, Tito Flavio Sabino had already begun to take control of the city. Skirmishes broke out in the streets; the Vitellians drove the prefect back to the Capitol and the next day, December 19, they stormed the hill, causing the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus to be burned in the course of the battle. Sabino was taken prisoner and assassinated in front of the emperor, although he wanted to save him; Suetonius writes that Vitellius watched the battle and the fire from Tiberius' palace, feasting. Vespasian's youngest son, Titus Flavius Domitian, who was on the Capitol, was able to escape and survive.
Upon learning of these events, the Flavian generals began to act more vigorously. On December 20 they broke into the suburbs of Rome, where the final battle was fought, in which Vitellius' soldiers, supported by the mob, desperately defended themselves, but were overwhelmed. Aulus decided to move to his wife's house on the Aventine, and from there flee to his brother, who still had a military force at Terracina, but he quickly realized that this plan was not feasible. The emperor then returned to the palace on the Palatine, which had already been abandoned by all slaves and servants. He put on a belt with gold and hid, according to some reports, in the gatehouse, according to others, in the latrine. The Flavian soldiers found him, tied his hands behind his back, and dragged him into the forum.
They carried almost naked to the Forum, with their hands tied behind their backs, a rope to their necks and their clothes torn, prodiging the worst outrages throughout the path of the way of the way of the way of the way: some threw their hair to their backs to lift their heads, as it is done with the criminals; others pushed their beard with the tip of their back to force them to show their faces; Near the Gemonies, they torn him, finally, with the swords, and by a hook they dragged him to the Tiber.
Suetonio, Vit. Vit. XVII.
Before dying, Vitellius told those who mocked him: "After all, I was your emperor!" According to Suetonius, the corpse was dragged with a hook into the Tiber; Cassius Dio writes that the Assassins cut off Vitellius' head and carried it around the city for a long time, after which the widow was allowed to bury the corpse.
After Aulus, his son and brother were killed. The following day, Cayo Licinio Muciano and Tito Flavio Vespasiano appeared in the capital and managed to restore relative order. Vitellius' death marked the end of the civil war; Vespasian, who arrived in Rome in September 70, ruled for nine years and died of natural causes.
Appearance
Suetonius reports that Aulus Vitellius was "of enormous stature", with a large belly and a face red from drunkenness. Serving Caligula in a career, the future emperor severely bruised his thigh on a chariot, the effects of this injury lasting a lifetime. Busts of Vitellius and images on coins have survived, but they do not provide sufficient material for verify Suetonius's words: it is only clear that at the end of his life Aulus was a stout man with a thick neck.
Family
Aulus Vitellius' first wife was Petronia, daughter of Publius Petronius, consul in 19, and Plaucia, although the date of marriage is unknown. The couple divorced, probably shortly after the death of Lucius Vitellius the Elder, and Petronia became the wife of Cornelius Dolabella. Later, Aulus married a second time, with Galeria Fundana. From his first marriage he had a son named Vitellius Petronianus, blind in one eye, who became his mother's heir at the cost of relinquishing paternal authority. According to Suetonius, Aulus Vitellius poisoned this son and claimed that it was a suicide, since he supposedly decided to poison him, but he committed suicide out of remorse.
In his second marriage Vitellius had a daughter and another son, who "stammered to the point of being almost considered mute". This son, born on June 6, 62, received in 69 the honorary addition to the name of "Germanicus", and died in December of that same year in Rome with his father. Vitellius promised his daughter's hand in the year 69 to Tenth Valerius Asiaticus, governor of Belgium. There is a theory that this marriage was consummated and that Decimus's son, Marcus Lolio Paulinus Decimo Valerius Asiaticus Saturninus, was the grandson of Vitellius. After Decimus' death, Vespasian arranged another marriage for Vitellia, whose name is unknown, and even gave her a dowry. The antiquarian R. Ganslik suggested that this Roman belonged to the Antonia gens, and Christian Settipani that it was Libon Rupilio Frugi, suffect consul in 88. According to this last hypothesis, the emperor's daughter was called Galeria Fundania, and he had a daughter Rupilia Faustina, grandmother of Marcus Aurelius.
Personality and Activity Assessments
In classic fonts
Information about Aulus Vitellius comes mainly from Tacitus's History, because other sources about the emperor such as the account of Suetonius, Cassius Dio, and Josephus Flavius report very little. Plutarch wrote a separate biography of Vitellius, but the text of it has been lost, as has, for example, the text of the biography written by Pompey Planta. A good memory of Aulus Vitellius was preserved only by the legions of the western provinces, because it is known that during the reign of Vespasian in Vetera, in Lower Germany, and in Belgium soldiers restored the statues of Aulus that were in the Belgian camps and villages. Ancient literature, however, portrays this emperor exclusively in negative tones.
In particular, Tacitus writes that in the Senate under Nero, Aulus Vitellius "constantly attacked the most honest men with scolding and, when rejected, immediately fell silent, as is characteristic of cowards." Mentioning his "disgusting and insatiable passion for food", he states that in the heat of the civil war "he spent his time in idleness, luxury and feasting, appearing in public drunk and gorged in broad daylight". he, the emperor, tried not to think about the future, indulged in excesses and "spent two hundred million sesterces in a few months." Suetonius also reports Vitellius' passion for food:
His voracity not only had no limits, but it was also dirty and disorderly, not being able to contain itself during the sacrifices or on the journeys. He ate on the same altars meats and cakes, which he commanded to cook in them, and on the roads he took in the taverns dishes snooping still, or which, served the day before, were half devoured.
Suetonio, Vit. Vit. XIII, 2.
Furthermore, Suetonius speaks of Vitellius' cruelty: "To punish and execute anyone and for anything was a pleasure to him." According to the author of The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Vitellius willingly executed aristocrats, astrologers, tricksters, bankrupted all his borrowers, and perhaps starved his own mother to death. It is true that Dion Cassius reports that this emperor even of Otho's supporters executed only a few.
In historiography
Researchers have different opinions about the causes of the civil war of 68-69 and, in particular, about the rebellion of Aulus Vitellius. Two main trends stand out: some scholars speak of the struggle between the provinces and Rome as the main component of this war, others of a rivalry between the provincial armies. In Soviet historiography, in accordance with the prevailing ideology, the view spread that a socio-economic crisis was the engine of events because the population of certain parts of the empire rose up against the government and was supported by the army.
The Soviet historian Sergei Kovaliev, opposed to colonialism, saw in the civil war of 1969 evidence, on the one hand, of the fragility of the Julio-Claudian social base, and on the other, of the rise of the provinces, which recover from the civil wars of the i century a. The revolts of the governors, among them Aulus Vitellius, were the first manifestation of the separatist tendencies that ended up ruining the empire. The German researcher Brigitte Ritter believes that the rebellions of 68-69 were "experiments and improvisations" due to Roman society's lack of understanding of exactly what imperial power rested on. Previously it had been passed from hand to hand within a family; now the Romans were learning by experience that they could "create princeps": "the Senate and the people of Rome," the Praetorians, or the provincial armies. Aulus Vitellius was the victim of one of these attempts.
In a certain sense, Vitellius occupies with Otto an intermediate position between the Julio-Claudians and the Flavians: the former belonged to the old republican aristocracy, while the latter had nothing to do with it, since Vespasian's father he was just a tax collector who had risen to the equestrian ring and his grandfather a mere centurion. Vitellius, for his part, belonged to the new imperial nobility, being a second-generation nobleman. Kovalev credits Vitellius as "the most insignificant" of the four emperors of 69, because his selfishness had led the empire to bankruptcy. total and discipline in the army deteriorated completely under his command. R. Ganslik writes that Vitellius lacked the strength of character of Lucius Verginius Rufus, who renounced imperial power, although he was able to seize it, and of Marcus Salvius Otho, who, seeing his cause lost, committed suicide. There is also an alternative view: the negative image of Vitellius may have been largely artificially constructed by Flavian writers, who in this way sought to enhance the legitimacy of Vitellius. Titus Flavius Vespasian. G. Walzer sees Vitellius as an outstanding tactician, who proved his worth in the war with Otto. B. Ritter devoted an entire monograph to reviewing the reports of the ancient authors. age on this subject: in the opinion of this scholar, Vitellius was a general and politician capable of uniting various social groups around him and made mercy and concord the maxims of his short reign.
According to E. Sherstnev, the rebellion of Aulus Vitellius was a turning point in the history of the crisis of 68-69: from that moment on one can speak of a full-fledged civil war. A. Egorov saw both authoritarian and senate-friendly tendencies in Aulus's politics.
Representations in art
Artists' interest in Vitellius was characteristic of the 17th century Netherlands. In particular, the painting «Bacchus» by Joachim Wtewael (c. 1618), whose head was painted in from a sculpted portrait of the emperor. The best known is «Baco» by Pedro Pablo Rubens, represented as an exorbitant reveler with a drink in his hand. The painting has been repeated twice more, its variants are kept in the Hermitage Museum, the Uffizi Gallery and the Dresden Gallery. The prototype of the head of Bacchus in Rubens's paintings was a marble bust of Vitellius, known in six repetitions; Apparently, the artist used a copy kept in the Louvre.
Aulus Vitellius is a character in several literary works. He appears in the novels "Daughters of Rome " by Kate Quinn, "The Last Caesar " by Henry Venmore-Rowland and in a series of novels by Simon Scarrow. The French director Henri Pouctal made the silent short film Vitelio in 1910.
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