The Histories

After the mad tyrant Nero committed suicide to avoid being beaten to death, I suspect many Romans breathed a collective sigh of relief. How could they know that what would follow was civil war? Nero was succeeded by Galba. If I have read the story correctly, Galba refused to pay cash rewards to soldiers who had supported him. "I select my troops, I don't buy them." This apparently offended some of the troops who then refused to pledge their allegiance to him. They began searching for a replacement emperor, one who would owe his power and position to the soldiers. Well, you can't have a new emperor if the old one is still alive. So, the first order of business was to assassinate Galba. They also assassinated his adopted heir, Lucius Calpurnius Piso Licinianus. In a speech prior to his death, Piso said:

"If 'constitution,' 'senate' and 'people' are merely empty phrases, it is up to you men, to see that the emperor is not created by the dregs of the army."

Galba and Piso's death on January 15, 69 AD heralded the beginning of the Year of Four Emperors -- the year Romans learned that emperors could be made by Armies rather than bloodline or senate pronouncement. The Histories by Tacitus is the story of the wars that were fought during that year. It is a tales of forced fealties, treason, bloodshed, and personal vendettas being settled at the state level. The tide of history turned on single battles. Whole companies and squadrons were surrendered to the winning side. The commanding officer hoped to gain favor with the soon to be emperor and keep his head. It is a tale as old as time.

"From time immemorial, man has had an instinctive love of power. With the growth of our empire, this instinct has become a dominant and controlling force. It was easy to maintain equality when Rome was weak. World-wide conquest and the destruction of all rival communities or petentates opened the way to the secure enjoyment of wealth and an overriding appetite for it." (Book 2, Chapter 38)

There were parts of this book I really enjoyed. I didn't much care for the protracted descriptions of the battles. Tacitus would not be accused of just presenting the facts. His bias is evident throughout the book. I am not suggesting that he made up history. But, if he thought a leader was spineless, unworthy, undisciplined and greedy, he was quick to say so.

And, he was quick to make moral judgments.

"Soon after, the boy came of age, and having been called up by Galba for services in the Seventh, chanced to encounter his father in the battle and wounded him seriously. As he was searching the prostrate and semi-conscious figure, father and son recognized each other. Embracing the dying man, the son prayed in words choked by sobs that his father's spirit would be appeased and not bear him ill-will as a parricide: the act was not a personal one, and one single soldier was merely an infinitesimal fraction of the forces engaged in the civil war. With these words, he took up the body, dug a grave, and discharged the last duty to his father. Some nearby troops noticed this, then more and more; and so throughout the lines ran a current to wonder and complaint, and men cursed this cruelest of wars. However, this did not stop them killing and robbing relatives, kinsmen and brothers: they said to each other that a crime had been done -- and in the same breath did it themselves." (Book 3, Chapter 25)

Book Five of The Histories contains Tacitus' history of the Jewish nation. It is unlike anything you will read in the Bible. Well, except he does mention Moses and finding water for the nation. But, what I am sure irritated the Roman emperors the most was:

"They hold it to be impious to make idols of perishable materials in the likeness of man: for them the Most High and Eternal cannot be portrayed by human hands and will never pass away. For this reason they erect no images in their cities, still less in their temple. Their kings are not so flattered, the Roman emperors not so honored."