The condition of the capital was frightful. Vitellius had called in levies from the country to support him, and the prætorian soldiers stood firm. But many men of direction were with the partisans of Vespasian, who advanced steadily over the bodies of the troops opposing them. Fifty thousand persons lost their lives in these eventful days of the Saturnalia.
The legions under Primus succeeded in recapturing the Capitol, which was still smoking, and pushed forward into the Forum.
Meanwhile, Vitellius, in the Palatine palace, a prey to irresolution, had filled himself with wine, and then fled along with his cook and pastrycook to his wife’s house on the Aventine. Then deceived by a false report that his troops were successful, he returned to the Palatine, and found it deserted, but a roar of voices rose from the Forum below, and from the Capitol the cries of the legionaries were wafted towards him along with the smoke.
He hastened to collect all the gold he could lay his hands on, stuffed it into his cincture, assumed an old ragged suit, and then again attempted to escape; but now he found every avenue blocked. Filled with terror he crawled into the dog-kennel where the hounds, resenting the intrusion, fell on him and bit his neck and hands and legs. But now Vespasian’s soldiery invaded the palace, and a tribune, Julius Placidius, dis covering the bloated, bleeding wretch, drew him out by the foot, and he came forth thus, his hands full of dirty straw, and strands adhering to his hair and garments. A howling rabble at once surrounded him, leaping, jeering, throwing mud and stones; a few soldiers succeeded in surrounding him. His hands were bound behind his back, and a rope passed about his neck. Thus he was dragged through the streets an object of insult to the people. Some struck him in the face, some plucked out his hair. In the Forum the rabble were breaking his statues and dragging them about. One ruffian thrust a pike under the unfortunate prince’s chin and bade him hold up his head. Then said Vitellius:—
“Thou, who thus addressest me—a tribune thou art, remember I was once thy commander!”
Thereupon a German soldier, desirous of shortening his misery, struck him down with a blow of his sword, and in so doing cut off the ear of the tribune who had insulted the fallen Emperor.
At once the body of the prince, from whom the life was not sped, was dragged to the Gemonian stair, a flight of steps down which the corpses of malefactors were flung, and there he was despatched with daggers.
Longa Duilia had been kept well informed as to all that took place.
No sooner was she assured that Vitellius was dead, than she rushed into the apartment given up to Domitian.
“Salve, Cæsar! As the Gods love me, I am the first to so salute you, son of the Augustus! Oh, I am so happy! And it might have been otherwise, but you they never would have reached save over my body.”