[The following is in relation to what would be known as the Massacre of the Milvian Bridge. Set-up: Toward the end of emperor Nero’s reign in Rome, he had issued a decree ordering the creation of a new Roman legion, which was to draw recruits from sailors from the Roman battle fleet based on Misenum, on the west coast of Italy (this was not common practice). By the time the men had mustered in Rome, Nero had been successfully deposed, and the legion was not officially constituted. Desiring Roman citizenship, which they would have gotten by fighting as legionaries, they demanded to be officially instated by the new emperor, Galba.]
Once the much valued prize of citizenship had been dangled before them by Nero, the seamen from Misenum were determined to win it from the new emperor Galba. Consequently, when news reached Rome in October AD 68 that Galba and his column from Spain were approaching, the 5,000 sailors of the new legion went flooding out of the city gates, joining the thousands of civilians gathered there to greet him.
Three miles (4.8 kilometres) north of Rome, this ‘disorderly rabble of the seamen’, as Plutarch described them, ‘those whom Nero had made soldiers, forming them into a legion’, crowded around Galba and loudly demanded ‘to have their commission confirmed’. Preventing the emperor from being seen or heard by the crowds lining the route into the city, the ex-sailors ‘tumultuously pressed him, shouting loudly to have colours for their legion and quarters assigned to them’. Galba tried to put them off, saying he would consider the matter later, and rode on.
But the seamen were not satisfied with this response, ‘which they interpreted as a denial’ of their request. Growing ‘more insolent and mutinous’ and ‘some with drawn swords in their hands’, they continued to follow him, yelling their demands. The sight of the sailors’ drawn swords frightened Galba, and as the column approached the Milvian Bridge over the Tiber river he ‘ordered the cavalry to ride over them’. The seamen, the vast majority of whom were unarmed, ‘were soon routed’ by the cavalry. Not a man stood his ground, ‘and many of them were killed, both there and in the pursuit’ as they tried to flee back to the city.
According to Tacitus, the affair resulted in ‘the slaughter of thousands of unarmed soldiers’ of the unofficial legion by Galba’s cavalry. Cassius Dio, writing of the event more than 150 years later, estimated that ‘about 7,000 perished on the spot, and the survivors were later decimated’, with one in ten executed. [Definitely a grossly exaggerated number of the slain (thanks as always, Dio), but by all accounts, this was still nothing short of a massacre.]
Source:
Dando-Collins, Stephen. “Part II: The Legions – XIV. Unit Histories.” Legions of Rome: The Definitive History of Every Imperial Roman Legion. Thomas Dunne Books, 2012. 85-6. Print.
Original Source(s) Listed:
Plut. Galba
Tac., H, 1, 6.
Dio, LXIII, 3.
Further Reading:
Nero / Latin: Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus
Galba / Latin: Servius Sulpicius Galba Caesar Augustus
Plutarch / Greek: Πλούταρχος, Ploútarkhos
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