Flavian Forces Storm and Seize Rome

After the October victory near Bedriacum, Flavian commanders drove south. In December, their cohorts reached Rome’s northern approaches and forced entry. Street by street, they cleared the Campus Martius, then pressed up toward the Forum Romanum and the Palatine [2].

Tacitus describes a city turned battle map: barricades at crossroads, towers at temple steps, arrow flights from rooftops. The Via Sacra ran red. On the Capitoline, fighting and fire commingled as the Temple of Jupiter burned, a sacrilege no side intended but neither prevented [2][20].

Flavian officers coordinated assaults along multiple axes—up the Clivus Capitolinus, through the Carinae district, and across the Tiber bridges to secure the Transtiberim. The sounds were brutal and close: shield on shield, the grunt of men heaving at doors, the splinter of beams.

By nightfall on December 20, organized Vitellian resistance frayed. Isolated cohorts fell back toward the Palatine, some throwing down arms when no rally point appeared. The Flavian standards planted in the Forum told the story in metal and cloth: the city had a new master.

The capture was not just tactical. It was theatrical. Rome saw whose soldiers controlled her stones. The Senate, calculating survival, prepared to convene the next day. A tribune, Julius Placidus, hunted the man the day’s fight had made a fugitive.