But this has been a very ill-judged digression, leaving Germanicus, as it were, waiting anxiously for his money while I write a book about dice. Old Athenodorus would criticise me pretty severely, I think, if he were alive now.
XVI
GERMANICUS WAS MET AT BONN BY A DEPUTATION OF senators sent by Tiberius. They really came to see whether Germanicus had been either exaggerating or minimising the seriousness of the mutiny. They also brought a private letter from Tiberius approving the promises made to the men on his behalf with the exception of the doubled bequest, which would now have to be promised to the entire Army, not merely the regiments in Germany. Tiberius congratulated Germanicus on the apparent success of the ruse but deplored the necessity of forgery. He added that whether he fulfilled the promises depended on the behaviour of the men. [By this he did not mean, as Germanicus supposed, that if the men returned to obedience he would fulfil the promises, but exactly the reverse.] Germanicus wrote back at once apologising for the expense involved in the doubling of the bequest, but explained that the money was being paid from his own purse and the men would not know that it was not Tiberius who was their benefactor; and that in the forged letter he had made it plain that only the German regiments were to benefit, making the payment a reward for their recent successful campaign across the Rhine. As for the other specific promises, the veterans of twenty years' service had already been discharged and were only remaining with the Colours until the bounty-money arrived for them.
Germanicus could ill afford this heavy charge on his estate and wrote asking me not to press him for repayment of my fifty thousand for awhile. I answered that it had not been a loan but a gift, which I was proud to have been able to make. But to return to the order of events. Two of the regiments were in their winter quarters at Bonn when the deputation arrived. Their march back under their General had been a disgraceful display: the bags which had contained the money were tied to long poles and carried mouth-downwards, between the standards. The other two regiments had refused to leave the summer camp until the whole bequest was paid them. The Bonn regiments, the First and Twentieth, suspected that the deputation had been sent to cancel the concessions and began to riot again.
Some of them were for marching to their new kingdom at once and at midnight a party broke into Germanicus' quarters where the Eagle of the Twentieth Regiment was kept in a locked shrine and, pulling him out of bed tore the key of the shrine from the thin gold chain which he wore round his neck, unlocked the shrine and seized the Eagle. As they marched shouting down the streets, calling on their comrades to "follow the Eagle" they met the senators of the deputation, who had heard the noise and came running for protection to Germanicus. The soldiers cursed and drew their swords. The senators changed their direction and darted into the headquarters of the First Regiment, where they took sanctuary with its Eagle.
But their pursuers were mad with rage and drink and if the Eaglebearer had not been a man of courage, and a good swordsman too, the leader of the deputation would have had his skull split open--a crime which would have outlawed the regiment beyond pardon and been the signal for civil war throughout the country.
The disorders continued all night, but fortunately without bloodshed except as the result of drunken brawls between rival companies of soldiers. When dawn came Germanicus told the trumpeter to blow the Assembly, and stepped on the tribunal, putting the leader of the senatorial deputation beside him. The men were in a nervous, guilty, irritable mood, but Germanicus' courage fascinated them.
He stood up, commanded silence, and then gave a great yawn. He covered his mouth with his hand and apologised, saying that he had not slept well because of the scuffling of mice in his quarters. The men liked that joke and laughed.
He did not laugh with them. "Heaven be praised that dawn is here. Never have I known such an evil night. At one moment I dreamed that the Eagle of The Twentieth flew away. What a delight to see it on parade this morning! There were destructive spirits hovering in the camp, sent beyond doubt by some God whom we have offended.
You all felt the madness and it was only by a miracle that you were prevented from committing a crime unparalleled in the history of Rome--the unprovoked murder of an ambassador of your own City who had taken sanctuary from your swords with your own regimental Deities!" He then explained that the deputation had come merely to confirm Tiberius' original promises on behalf of the Senate and to report whether they were being faithfully executed by himself.
"Well, what about it, then? Where's the rest of the bounty?" someone shouted, and the cry was taken up. "We want our bounty." But by a lucky chance the moneywagons were sighted at that moment, driving into camp under convoy of a troop of auxiliary horse. Germanicus took advantage of the situation to send the senators hurriedly back to Rome under escort of these same auxiliaries; then he supervised the distribution of the coin, having difficulty in restraining some of the men from plundering the money intended for the other regiments.
The disorder increased that afternoon; so much gold in the men's purses meant heavy drinking and reckless gambling. Germanicus decided that it was not safe for Agrippina who was now with him, to remain in the camp. She was pregnant again; and though her young sons, my nephews Nero and Drusus, were here at Rome staying with my mother and myself, she had little Gains there with her.
This pretty child had become the army mascot, and someone had made him a miniature soldier-suit, complete with tin breast-plate and sword and helmet and shield. Everyone spoilt him. When his mother put on his ordinary clothes and sandals he used to cry and plead for his sword and his little boots to go visiting the tents. So he was nicknamed Caligula, or Little Boot.
Germanicus insisted on Agrippina's going away, though she swore that she was afraid of nothing and would far rather die with him there than have news from safety of his murder by the mutineers. But he asked her whether she thought that Livia would make a good mother for their orphaned children, and this decided her to do as he wished.
With her went several officers' wives, with their children, all weeping and wearing mourning clothes. They passed on foot slowly through the camp, without their usual attendants, like fugitives from a doomed city. A single rough cart, drawn by a mule, was all their transport. Cassius Chaerea went with them as guide and sole protector. Caligula rode on Cassius' back as if on a charger, shouting and making the regulation sword-cuts and panics in the air with his sword, as the cavalrymen had taught him. They left the camp very early in the morning and hardly anyone saw them go; for there was no guard at the gate and nobody now took the trouble to blow the reveille, most of the men sleeping like pigs till ten or eleven o'clock. A few old soldiers who woke early from long habit were outside the camp gathering firewood for their breakfasts and called to ask where the ladies were off to. "To "Treves," shouted Cassius. "The Commander-in-Chief is sending his wife and child away to the protection of the uncivilised but loyal French allies of Treves rather than risk their murder by the famous First Regiment. Tell your comrades that."