You're the Emperor for us. Chuck Tiberius into the Tiber! Up, Germanicus!
Germanicus for Emperor! To hell with Tiberius! To hell with that bitch Livia! Up, Germanicus!
March on Rome! We're your men! Up, Germanicus, son of Germanicus!
Germanicus for Emperor!'
Germanicus was thunderstruck. He shouted: 'You're mad, men, to talk like that. What do you think I am? A traitor?'
A veteran shouted: ''None of that. General! You said just now that you'd take on Augustus' job. Don't back out!'
Germanicus then realised his mistake, and when the cheers of 'Up, Germanicus' continued he jumped off the tribunal and hurried to where his horse was standing tied to a post, intending to mount and gallop wildly away from this accursed camp. But the men drew their swords and barred his way.
Germanicus, beside himself, cried: 'Let me pass, or by God, I'll kill myself.'
'You're the Emperor for us,' they answered. Germanicus drew his sword, but someone caught his arm. It was clear to any decent man that Germanicus was in earnest, but a good many of the ex-slaves thought that he was just making a hypocritical gesture of modesty and virtue.
One of them laughed and called out; 'Here, take my sword! It's sharper!'
Old Pomponius, who was standing next to this fellow, flared up and struck him on the mouth.
Germanicus was hurried away by his friends to the General's tent. The General was lying in bed half-dead with dismay, hiding his head under a coverlet.
It was a long [i9i] time before he could get up and pay his respects to Germanicus.
His life and that of his staff had been saved by his bodyguard, mercenaries from the Swiss border.
A hurried council was held. Cassius told Germanicus that from a conversation which he had overheard while lying in the guardroom the mutineers were about to send a deputation to the regiments in the Upper Province, to secure their co-operation in a general military revolt. There was talk of leaving the Rhine unguarded and marching into France, sacking cities, carrying off the women and setting up an independent military kingdom in the South- West, protected in the rear by the Pyrenees. Rome would be paralysed by this move and they would remain undisturbed long enough to be able to make their kingdom impregnable.
Germanicus decided to go at once to the Upper Province and make the regiments there swear allegiance to Tiberius.
These were the troops who'had recently served directly under his command and he believed that they would remain loyal if he reached them before the deputation of mutineers. They had the same grievances about pay and service, he was aware, but their captains were a better set of men, chosen by himself for their patience and soldierly qualities rather than for their reputation. But first something had to be done to quiet the mutinous regiments here. There was only one course to take. He committed the first and only crime of his life: he forged a letter purporting to come from Tiberius and had it delivered to him at his tent door the next morning. The courier had been secretly sent out at night with instructions to steal a horse from the horse-lines, ride twenty miles South-West and then gallop back at top speed by another route.
The letter was to the effect that Tiberius had heard that the regiments in Germany had voiced certain legitimate grievances, and was anxious to remove them at once. He would see that Augustus' legacy was promptly paid to them and as a mark of his confidence in their loyalty would double it from his own purse.
He would negotiate with the Senate about the rise in pay. He would give an immediate and unqualified discharge to all men of twenty years' service and a qualified discharge to all who had completed sixteen years-- these would be called on for no military duty whatsoever except garrison duty.
Germanicus was not as clever a liar as his uncle Tiberius or his grandmother Livia or his sister Livilla. The courier's horse was recognised by its owner and so was the courier, one of Germanicus' own grooms. Word went round that the letter was a forgery. But the veterans were in favour of treating it as authentic and asking for the promised discharge and the legacy at once. They did so, and Germanicus replied that the Emperor was a man of his word and that the discharges could be granted that very day. But he asked them to have patience about the legacy, which could only be paid in full when they marched back to winter quarters.
There was not sufficient coin in the camp, he said, for every man to have his six gold pieces, but he would see that the General would hand over as much as there was.
This quieted them, though opinion had somewhat turned against Germanicus as not being the man they had taken him to be: he was afraid of Tiberius, they said, and not above committing forgery. They sent parties out to look for their captains and undertook to obey orders from their General again.
Germanicus had told the General that he would have him impeached before the Senate for cowardice if he did not immediately take himself in hand.
So having seen that the discharges were made in due form and all the available money distributed, Germanicus rode off to the Upper Province. He found the regiments standing-by waiting for news of what was happening in the Lower Province; but not yet in open mutiny, for Silius, their general, was a strong-minded man. Germanicus read them the same forged letter and made them swear allegiance to Tiberius; which they did at once.
There was great emotion at Rome when news arrived of the Rhine mutiny.
Tiberius, who had been strongly criticized for sending Castor out to the Balkan mutiny--which had not yet been put down--instead of going there himself, was now booed in the streets and asked why it was that the troops who mutinied were the ones whom he had personally commanded, while the others remained loyal.
[For the regiments that Germanicus had commanded in Dalmatia had not mutinied either.] He was called on to go to Germany ^95] at once and do his own dirty work on the Rhine instead of leaving it to Germanicus. He therefore told the Senate that he would go to Germany, and began slowly to make preparations, choosing his staff and fitting out a small fleet. But by the time he was ready the approach of winter made navigation dangerous and the news from Germany was more hopeful.
So he did not go. He had not intended to go.
Meanwhile, I had had a hasty letter from Germanicus, begging me to raise two hundred thousand gold pieces at once from his estate, but with the greatest secrecy: they were needed for the safety of Rome. He said no more but sent me a signed warrant which enabled me to act for him.
I went to his chief-steward, who said that he could only raise half that amount without selling property, and that to sell property would make talk, which was what Germanicus evidently wanted to avoid. So I had to find the rest myself--fifty thousand from my strong-box, which left me with only ten thousand after I had paid my initiation fee to the new priesthood--and another fifty thousand from the sale of some City property which had been left me by my father--luckily I had already had an offer for it--and such of my slaves as I could spare, but only men and women whom I considered not particularly devoted to my service. I sent the money out within two days of getting the letter asking for it. My mother was extremely angry when she heard that the property had been sold, but I was pledged not to tell her why the money was needed, so I said that I had been playing dice for too high stakes lately and in trying to recoup my heavy losses had lost twice as much again. She believed me, and 'gambler' was another stick to beat me with.
But the thought that I had not failed Germanicus or Rome was ample compensation for her taunts.
I was gambling a good deal at this time, I must say, but never either lost or gained much. I used to play as a relaxation from my work. After finishing my history of Augustus' religious reforms I wrote a short humorous book about Dice, dedicated to the divinity of Augustus; which was to tease my mother. I quoted a letter that Augustus, who had been very fond of dice, had once written to my father: in which he said how much he had enjoyed their game on the previous night, for my father was the best loser he had ever met. My father, he wrote, always made a great laughing outcry against fate whenever he threw the Dog, but if-a fellow-gambler threw Venus he seemed as pleased as if he had thrown her himself. 'It is, indeed, a pleasure to win from you, my dear fellow, and to say this is the highest praise I can bestow on a man, for usually I hate winning because of the insight it gives me into the hearts of my supposedly mast devoted friends. All but the very best grudge losing to me, because I am the Emperor and, they think, of infinite wealth, and obviously the Gods should not give more to a man who already has too much. It is my policy therefore--perhaps you have noticed it--always to make a mistake in the reckoning after a round of throws.
Either I claim less than I have won, as if by mistake, or I pay more than I owe, and hardly anyone but yourself, I find, is honest enough to put me right.' [I should have liked to quote a further passage in which there
