Vespasian, that when his legions saluted him emperor, he shuddered at the idea of encountering the German army.

These immense veteran forces were slain, or lost to the empire, before the end of the war. Dion Cassius informs us that 80,000 men fell in the battles fought near Cremona, and 40,000 of them were Vitellians.2

After the death of Otho, and the restoration of peace, Vitellius' conduct was not less fatal to the armies than the war: he disbanded the Prætorians who had fought against him, dismissed the Gallic auxiliaries, reduced the numbers in each of the legions, ordered them not to be recruited, and granted promiscuous discharges;3 he formed, moreover, 16,000 Prætorian guards, and four city cohorts, each 1,000 strong, by drafting men indiscriminately from the legions. By these different ways the legions must have been greatly reduced; and the Gallic auxiliaries, as the Gauls had now revolted, were very probably lost to the empire.

When the war was renewed nearly 31,000 Vitellians were slain in the battle of Cremona; and about 4,500 of Antony's troops. In the many battles fought before, and in, Rome, between the Vitellians and Vespasians (without adverting to the losses when the capitol was burned, and in many other contests) fifty thousands Romans fell; and almost all Vitellius' forces which were at Rome, must have been then destroyed."

Let us now look towards the Rhine. Civilis, a German mercenary, trained in the Roman art of war, revolted: he pretended, at first, to take up arms against Vitellius, to enlist soldiers, and fight for Vespasian: by these pretexts he allured many of the Gallic towns and provinces to his party, and finally induced them to revolt from the Romans, and assert their own independence. The Roman legions were defeated in several

1 Tacit. ii. 75. Versabatur ante oculos Germanici exercitus robur, notum viro militari.

2 επεσονδε τεσσαρες μυριάδες ανδρῶν εκατερωθεν εν ταις μάχαις ταις προς τη Κρημωνη γενομεναις. Dion. Cass. lxiv. 10.

3 Tacit. Hist. ii. 93, 94. The granting promiscuous discharges, Tacitus says, was fatal to the republic-id exitiabile reipublicæ.

✦ Josephus' Wars, b. iv. c. 11.

5

Ib., and Dion. Cass.

6 Tacit. Hist. b. iii. c. 84. Josephus says all the Vitellians were cut to pieces.

I

engagements; and their winter quarters were twice taken and destroyed. After the death of Vitellius the remains of his troops,1 in the vicinity of the Rhine, revolted from the empire, out of hatred to Vespasian, and took the oath of allegiance to the empire of the Gauls. The legions which had long and bravely defended their camp now submitted to Civilis: their camp was pillaged and burned. The rest of the soldiers along the Rhine passed over to the same party. Thus, it appears, that before the end of the civil war, all Vitellius' vast army must have been lost to the empire, by death, by desertions, dismissals and revolts, or the total want of discipline. Immense as this loss was, it was not the whole. For Vespasian's party must have suffered severely in the conflicts at Rome, when the capitol was burnt, his friends defeated, and Sabinus slain. The troops commanded by Antony, would also be greatly diminished in the many battles they fought with the Vitellians; and the ruin of their discipline would be more fatal to the empire than the diminution of their numerical strength. In one battle they lost 4,500 men, and we have seen that 40,000 of Otho's troops were slain in the first campaign.

Now, if these losses be calculated, to which must be added the 20,000 slain under Vindex, the 7,000 slain by Galba, the 4,800 that revolted in the beginning of the civil commotions, the numbers slain in the Jewish rebellion, in one battle 6000, the innumerable disasters during the course of a war which pervaded every province and every army of the empire, and exposed the frontiers to the incursions of the Germans, the Dacians, and the Sarmatians, it is more than probable three-fourths of the Roman armies were either destroyed or totally disorganized.

II. The armies from this time became conscious of their power, and, that the fate of the empire and emperor was in their hands. For they knew that the prince could be made elsewhere than at Rome, and "The rapid downfall of Galba, Otho, and Vitellius had taught them to consider the emperors as the creatures of their will, and the instruments of their license."3

1 Tacitus says "the Vitellian legions." If all revolted they were five.-b. iv., c. 54. 36, 37. The effective strength of the legion must, however, by that time, have been vastly diminished by war, by desertions, and the reductions Vitellius ordered or permitted. 2 Tacit. His. iv., 59, 60, and compare c. 62.

3 Decline and Fall, c. iii., vol. 1, 89.

III. In the time of Augustus Cæsar, and at the accession of Tiberius, the Roman armies were composed entirely of citizens and allies, but during the civil wars, foreign mercenaries appear to have been freely enlisted, and before the end of the first century they formed the strength of the legions.

Gibbon observes-"The introduction of barbarian auxiliaries into those armies was a measure attended with very obvious dangers, as it might gradually instruct the Germans in the arts of war and policy, although they were admitted in small numbers and with the strictest precaution. The example of Civilis was proper to convince the Romans that the danger was not imaginary."3

It appears, then, that foreign mercenaries, at one time, were not in the Roman armies, that they were admitted in great numbers during the civil wars, and that their admission was pregnant with danger; not only however, because the Germans might learn the arts of war and policy, but also, and, especially, because a mercenary army would know little of, and care less for Roman institutions, and be always ready to revolt and sell their services. to the highest bidder. Now, when Tacitus wrote, towards the end of the first century, the citizens and allies had almost entirely disappeared from the armies; for, as D'Anville observes, they then drew all their strength from a foreign militia, and (quoting the words of Tacitus) "that there was then no strength in the Roman armies except what was foreign."

This early change in the composition of the Roman armies, appears to have escaped the notice of Mr. Gibbon, who has been led, doubtless, thereby, to make a statement which is not supported by the fact. "The Romans, after the fall of the republic,5 combatted only for the choice of masters. Under the standard of a popular candidate for empire, a few enlisted from affection, some from fear, many from interest, and none from principle. The legions, uninflamed by party zeal, were allured into civil

1 Tacit. An. b. i. c. 11.

3 Decline and Fall, c. 11.

2 Ib. Hist. b. i., 61, b. ii., 21, 35. b. iii., 33.

Ne peut-on pas être étonné de ce que dès le temps où Tacite écrivoit, c'est-à-dire vers la fin du premier siècle, les armées Romaines tiroient toute leur force des milices étrangères? Nihil validum, dit-il, in Romanis exercitibus, nisi externum.—D'Anville états formés en Europe, &c., p. 4. 5 Decline and Fall, v. p. 144.

war by liberal donatives, and still more liberal promises. A defeat, by disabling the chief from the performance of his engagement, dissolved the mercenary allegiance of his followers, and left them to consult their own safety by a timely desertion of an unsuccessful cause."

This is perfectly correct, if it be restricted to the later, but it is certainly not true as regards the first, civil wars, after the fall of the republic. It is an undoubted fact that the armies both of Otho and of Vitellius were vehemently inflamed by party zeal and love of their respective princes, (probably because few in comparison were mercenaries) and they refused to take the oath of allegiance to the rival and successful candidate, or embraced the earliest opportunity of revolting.

According to Tacitus,' Otho's troops fought with the greatest fidelity after their defeat in the murderous battle of Bebriacum; they exhorted him to be of good courage, they assured him that powerful armies still remained, that they were ready to bear and dare everything, they passionately deplored his death, many refused to survive him, and all the armies that had declared for Otho, revolted after their submission to Vitellius, and furiously opposed him. And Vitellius' soldiers were equally faithful. They deposed Cæcina from the command when he attempted to bring them over to Vespasian, and they chose to fight three battles at Cremona without a commander, and to be cut to pieces at Rome, rather than desert their cause; and the legions near the Rhine, actuated by a like party spirit, preferred a foreign servitude to the hated yoke of Vespasian. It is most probable the same army would have been equally faithful to Nero, had he not so hastily killed himself: at least it is certain they were actuated

1 Non expectavit militum ardor vocem imperatoris: "bonum habere animum" jubebant; superesse adhuc novas vires, et ipsos extrema passuros, ausurosque: neque erat adulatio.........Nec prætoriani tantum, proprius Othonis miles, sed præmissi e Moesia, "eamdem obstinationem adventantis exercitus, legiones Aquileiam ingressos" muntiabant: ut nemo dubitet potuisse renovari bellum atrox, lugubre, in certum victis, et victoribus. Hist. b. ii., 46, 49, 85, 86. b. iii., 44. And Dion Cassius and Plutarch give a like account of the devoted zeal and affection of Otho's troops. "The Pannonian army," says the former, "loved and had all affection for Otho, not only from the tongue, but even from the soul.” Εφιλουν τε τον Όθωνα και πασαν αυτῷ ευνοιαν ουκ απο της γλοττησ μονον, αλλα και απο της ψυχης είχον. 2 Tacit. Hist. b. iii., c. 13, 14, &c.

3 Ib. iii. 84.

4 Ib. iv. 54.

by party zeal; for when they extirpated the army of Vindex, they furiously persecuted, as "Galbians," all who were suspected of favouring his cause.

IV. We have seen, from the testimony of Tacitus and other historians, that the greatest part of the Roman armies were disorganized and cut to pieces in the civil wars-that the armies were, from that time, composed chiefly of mercenaries—and that they were made sensible that the fate of the government and of the emperor was in their hands; now it is not possible that an historian of the great integrity and abilities of Tacitus could have these facts before his mind, without perceiving the extreme danger of the empire, and that it was rapidly declining. Accordingly, we find him often insinuating and sometimes distinctly declaring its near and inevitable ruin.

Besides the evils inseparable from such a general and disastrous civil war, he frequently alleges that Vitellius in his short administration inflicted a deep and even fatal wound on the country: for he exhausted in feasting (six millions sterling being thus spent in a few months,) and donatives the resources of the state-reduced the numerical strength of the legion2-freely bestowed treaties on allies and the rights of Latium on foreigners remitted the tributes to some, and gratified others with immunities-that these grants could neither be made nor received with safety3 to the commonwealth-and, in a word, that he lacerated the empire without any regard to the future. Now it is plain, however necessary their resumption might be for the public good and the maintenance of authority, that the grants, having been once made, could not be safely recalled.

Nor were these the only causes that filled the mind of the great Roman historian with gloomy and foreboding thoughts of the approaching ruin of his country; for he dreaded the treachery of the allies, and above all the power of the Germans. He declares, "The Roman empire was nearly destroyed (during the civil wars), by foreign violence (of the people beyond the Rhine and the Danube,) and by the perfidy of the allies." And when the Gauls, at the termination of the civil war, returned to their

1 Tacit. Hist. b. i. 51, 2 Ib. Hist. b. ii. 69. 3 Ib. iii. 55, Salvâ republicâ. 4 Ib. Externâ vi, perfidia sociali, prope adflicta Romana res.-Hist. b. iii. c. 46.