To His Soldiers Before Committing Suicide

TO expose to further perils such spirit and such virtue as you now display, would, I deem, be paying too costly a price for my life. The more brilliant the prospects which you hold out to me, were I disposed to live, the more glorious will be my death. I and Fortune have made trial of each other—for what length of time is not material; but the felicity which does not promise to last, it is more difficult to enjoy with moderation. Vitellius began the Civil War; and he originated our contest for the princedom. It shall be mine to establish a precedent, by preventing a second battle for it.

Otho (A.D. 32–A.D. 69)

(69 A.D.)

Born in 32 A.D., died in 69; an associate of Nero, who made him Governor of Lusitania (Portugal); conspired for the overthrow of Galba, and after being proclaimed Emperor, was himself overthrown by Vitellius, whereupon be committed suicide.



TO expose to further perils such spirit and such virtue as you now display, would, I deem, be paying too costly a price for my life. The more brilliant the prospects which you hold out to me, were I disposed to live, the more glorious will be my death. I and Fortune have made trial of each other—for what length of time is not material; but the felicity which does not promise to last, it is more difficult to enjoy with moderation. Vitellius began the Civil War; and he originated our contest for the princedom. It shall be mine to establish a precedent, by preventing a second battle for it.

By this let posterity judge of Otho. Vitellius shall be blessed with his brother, his wife, and children. I want no revenge, nor consolations. Others have held the sovereign power longer; none has resigned it with equal fortitude. Shall I again suffer so many of the Roman youth, so many gallant armies to be laid low, and cut off from the commonwealth? Let this resolution of yours to die for me, should it be necessary, attend me in my departure; but live on yourselves. Neither let me long obstruct your safety, nor do you retard the proof of my constancy. To descant largely upon our last moments is the act of a dastard spirit. Hold it as an eminent proof of the fixedness of my purpose, that I complain of no man! for to arraign or gods or men is the part of one who fain would live.



Note: Of Otho’s funeral, Tacitus says: “He was borne on the shoulders of the pretorian soldiers, who kissed his hands and his wound amid tears and praises. Some of the soldiers slew themselves at the funeral pile, not from any consciousness of guilt, nor from fear, but in emulation of the bright example of their prince, and to show their affection. At Bedriacum, Placentia, and other camps, numbers of every rank adopted that mode of death. A sepulcher was raised to the memory of Otho, of ordinary structure, but likely to endure.” In a note to Mr. Yonge’s translation, we are reminded that Plutarch visited Otho’s tomb at Brixellum, now Brescello, on the river Po. Its materials have long since molded away, but the epitaph, written by Martial, still lives. The poet, while admitting that Otho led a dissolute life, adds that in his end he was not inferior to Cato:

“Quum dubitaret adhuc belli civilis Enyo,
Forsitan et posset vincere mollis Ortho;
Damnavit multo staturum sanguine Martem,
Et fodit certa pectora nuda manu.
Sit Cato dum vivit, sane vel Cæsar major;
Dum moritur, numquid major Othone fuit.”
—Lib. vi, 32. Read more!

To His Soldiers in Rome

I COME not now, my fellow soldiers, to excite your affection for me. In the late tumult, it was courage by exhortation; of both, to your honor be it spoken, you have enough, and to spare. But I come to request that you would moderate the impetuosity of your courage, and put limits to your affection for me. In the late tumult, it was not the love of plunder, nor ill will, that impelled you—motives from which discord and mutiny have broken out in various armies. Nor was it the fear of danger, or so much as a wish to shrink from your duty. It was your excessive regard for me, which gave you up to the impulse of passion rather than to prudence; for where judgment does not direct, it often happens that the most honorable motives of action produce fatal results.

Otho (A.D. 32–A.D. 69)

(69 A.D.)

Born in 32 A.D., died in 69; an associate of Nero, who made him Governor of Lusitania (Portugal); conspired for the overthrow of Galba, and after being proclaimed Emperor, was himself overthrown by Vitellius, whereupon be committed suicide.



I COME not now, my fellow soldiers, to excite your affection for me. In the late tumult, it was courage by exhortation; of both, to your honor be it spoken, you have enough, and to spare. But I come to request that you would moderate the impetuosity of your courage, and put limits to your affection for me. In the late tumult, it was not the love of plunder, nor ill will, that impelled you—motives from which discord and mutiny have broken out in various armies. Nor was it the fear of danger, or so much as a wish to shrink from your duty. It was your excessive regard for me, which gave you up to the impulse of passion rather than to prudence; for where judgment does not direct, it often happens that the most honorable motives of action produce fatal results.

We are going forth to a war. And must all intelligence be communicated to the army? Must every secret be disclosed? And must councils of war be held in a public assembly of the soldiers? Does the reason of things, and the opportunity, which must be seized at once or lost forever, allow such a mode of proceeding? It is as fitting that the soldier should be ignorant of some things, as that he should know others. The authority of generals, and the strictness of discipline, are such, that even the tribunes and the centurions must often receive their orders without a reason assigned. If every subaltern may discuss the reasons of his orders, discipline is at an end, and the authority of the commander falls to the ground. And shall the soldier, even at such a juncture, seize his arms in the dead of the night? Shall one or two drunken men (in last night’s frenzy I do not believe there were more) imbrue their hands in the blood of a centurion and a tribune, and rush into the pavilion of their general?

You, my fellow soldiers, have transgressed thus in your zeal for me. But amid that general hurry and confusion, and in the gloom of midnight darkness, an opportunity might have been given for an attack on me. Give Vitellius and his satellites the power of choosing, and what greater curse could they invoke? What calamity could they call down upon us, so much to be dreaded, as a turbulent and factious spirit, and all the evils of discord and sedition?—that the soldier should refuse to obey his centurion; the centurion his tribune; and that hence the cavalry and the foot soldiers, without order or distinction, should rush into destruction? It is implicit obedience rather than wrangling about orders, that gives to military operations their energy. The army that shows itself in time of peace the most quiet and orderly, is sure to be the most formidable in the day of battle. Let it be yours to arm in the cause of your country, and to face the enemy with heroic valor; and leave to me the direction and guidance of your courage. The guilt of last night extends to a few only; two only shall expiate the offense.

And you, the rest, bury in oblivion the horrors of that shameful tumult; and may no other army hear those dreadful imprecations uttered against a Roman senate. That venerable body, the head of the empire, and the ornaments of all the provinces, not even those Germans, whom, above all others, Vitellius is exciting against us, would dare to demand for punishment. And could any of the sons of Italy, and the genuine youth of Rome, demand for blood and slaughter, an order, by whose splendor and renown we dazzle the low and obscure party of Vitellius? Some states, it is true, have been induced to join his standard; he has the appearance of an army, but the senate is on our side. The commonwealth is with us; our enemies are the enemies of Rome. And when I mention Rome, do you imagine that it consists in walls, and buildings, and a pile of stones? Those mute and senseless edifices may molder away, and rise again; but the stability of empire, the peace of nations, your fate and mine, are established on the safety of the senate. Romulus, the father and founder of the city, instituted, with solemn auspices, that sacred order. From that time till the establishment of the Cæsars, it has been preserved inviolate; and as we received it from our ancestors, let us transmit it to our posterity; for as from the people at large the senate is supplied, so from the senate you derive your princes.

Note: Delivered in camp at, or near, Rome in 69 A.D., after the overthrow of Galba. Vitellius had already weakened the position of Otho and was descending from Germany with his army. Read more!

On Becoming Emperor

IN what character I now address you I am unable to declare. A private man I can not call myself, for you have bestowed upon me the title of prince; nor can I style myself a prince, while another is still in possession of the sovereign power. In what description you yourselves are to be classed, is to me a matter of doubt, and must remain so, till the question is decided whether you have in your camp the emperor of Rome, or a public enemy. Hear ye how the same voice that demands vengeance on me, calls for your destruction? So evident is it that we can neither the nor live otherwise than together.

Otho (A.D. 32–A.D. 69)

(69 A.D.)

Born in 32 A.D., died in 69; an associate of Nero, who made him Governor of Lusitania (Portugal); conspired for the overthrow of Galba, and after being proclaimed Emperor, was himself overthrown by Vitellius, whereupon be committed suicide.



IN what character I now address you I am unable to declare. A private man I can not call myself, for you have bestowed upon me the title of prince; nor can I style myself a prince, while another is still in possession of the sovereign power. In what description you yourselves are to be classed, is to me a matter of doubt, and must remain so, till the question is decided whether you have in your camp the emperor of Rome, or a public enemy. Hear ye how the same voice that demands vengeance on me, calls for your destruction? So evident is it that we can neither the nor live otherwise than together.

Such is the humanity of Galba, perhaps he has already pronounced our doom; since, without a request, of his own free will, he could consign to the sword so many thousand innocent soldiers. My heart recoils with horror, when I reflect on the disastrous day on which he made his public entry into the city; and on that his only victory, when, after receiving the submission of the suppliant soldiers, he ordered the whole body to be decimated in the view of the people. Under these auspices he entered the city of Rome—and what has been since the glory of his reign? Obultronius Sabinus and Cornelius Marcellus have been murdered in Spain, Betuus Chilo in Gaul, Fonteius Capito in Germany, and Clodius Macer in Africa. Add to these Cingonius Varro, butchered on his march, Turpilianus in the heart of the city, and Nymphidius in the camp. Is there a province, is there in any part of the empire a single camp, which he has not defiled with blood,—or, as he will tell you, reformed and amended? What all good men call a deed of barbarity, passes with him for a correction of abuses; while under specious names he confounds the nature of things, calls cruelty justice, avarice economy, and massacre military discipline.

Since the death of Nero not more than seven months have elapsed; and in that time, Icelus, his freedman, has amassed by plunder more enormous wealth than the Polycleti, the Vatinii, the Helii, were able to do. Even Titus Vinius, if he had seized the empire, would not have oppressed us with such rapacity, such wanton barbarity. As it is, he at once tramples upon us as his own subjects, and pours scorn upon us as though we were another’s. His house alone contains wealth sufficient to discharge the donative which is never forthcoming, and is daily cast in your teeth.

And that you might despair of improvement under the successor even of Galba, he has recalled from banishment a man, in his temper dark and gloomy, hardened in avarice, whom he judged the counterpart of himself. You remember, my fellow soldiers, the day on which that adoption was made—a day deformed with storms and tempests, when the warring elements announced the awful displeasure of the gods. The senate and the people are now of one mind. They depend upon your valor. It is your generous ardor that must give vigor to our honorable enterprise. Without your aid the best designs must prove abortive. It is not to a war, nor even to danger, that I am now to conduct you; the armies of Rome are on our side. The single cohort remaining with Galba is composed of citizens, not of soldiers; and they do not stand forth in his defense—they detain him as their prisoner. When they see you advancing in firm array, when my signal is given, the only struggle will be, who may charge my gratitude with the heaviest debt. There is no place for delay in a project which can not be applauded unless it be gone through with successfully.

Note: Delivered to his soldiers in camp in Northern Italy in 69 A.D. Reported by Tacitus. The Revised Oxford translation. Read more!