Antonius, however, summoned the legions to an assembly, and endeavoured to
calm them, proposing that they should encamp near the Mulvian bridge, and enter the capital on the following
day. His reason for delay was the fear that the soldiers, once exasperated
by conflict, would respect neither the people nor the Senate, nor even the
shrines and temples of the Gods. They, however, looked with dislike on all
procrastination as inimical to victory. At the same time the colours that
glittered among the hills, though followed by an unwarlike population,
presented the appearance of a
FLAVIANISTS AT
WALLS OF ROME |
hostile array. They advanced in
three divisions, one column straight from where they had halted along the
Via Flaminia, another along the bank of the
Tiber, a third moved on the Colline
Gate by the Via Salaria. The mob was routed by
a charge of the cavalry. Then the Vitellianist troops, themselves also drawn
up in three columns of defence, met the foe. Numerous engagements with
various issue took place before the walls, but they generally ended in
favour of the Flavianists, who had the advantage of more skilful
generalship. Only that division suffered which had wound its way along
narrow and slippery roads to the left quarter of the city as far as the
gardens of Sallust. The Vitellianists, taking their stand on the
garden-walls, kept off the assailants with stones and javelins till late in
the day, when they were taken in the rear by the cavalry, which had then
forced an entrance by the Colline Gate. In the
Campus Martius also the hostile armies met, the
Flavianists with all the prestige of fortune and repeated victory, the
Vitellianists rushing on in sheer despair. Though defeated, they rallied
again in the city.
