No More Learning

[320] _Servius_ Sulpicius Galba.

[321] The conqueror of Vindex, now consul-elect (cp. i. 77).

[322] April 17.

[323] Cp. note 316.

[324] Ferento in Etruria.

[325] Albia Terentia was the daughter of a knight who had not
risen to office.

[326] Galba's murder and his own suicide.

[327] Reggio.

[328] Accepting Meiser's suggestion _cum initio pugnae et cum
Othonis exitu_.


VITELLIUS' PRINCIPATE

Now that the war was everywhere ended, a large number of senators, 52
who had quitted Rome with Otho and been left behind at Mutina,[330]
found themselves in a critical position. When the news of the defeat
reached Mutina, the soldiers paid no heed to what they took for a
baseless rumour, and, believing the senators to be hostile to Otho,
they treasured up their conversation and put the worst interpretation
on their looks and behaviour. In time they broke into abusive
reproaches, seeking a pretext for starting a general massacre, while
the senators suffered at the same time from another source of alarm,
for they were afraid of seeming to be slow in welcoming the victory of
the now predominant Vitellian party.
Terrified at their double danger,
they held a meeting. For no one dared to form any policy for himself;
each felt safer in sharing his guilt with others. The town-council of
Mutina, too, kept adding to their anxiety by offering them arms and
money, styling them with ill-timed respect 'Conscript Fathers'. A 53
remarkable quarrel arose at this meeting. Licinius Caecina attacked
Eprius Marcellus[331] for the ambiguity of his language. Not that the
others disclosed their sentiments, but Caecina, who was still a
nobody, recently raised to the senate, sought to distinguish himself
by quarrelling with some one of importance, and selected Marcellus,
because the memory of his career as an informer made him an object of
loathing. They were parted by the prudent intervention of their
betters, and all then retired to Bononia,[332] intending to continue
the discussion there, and hoping for more news in the meantime. At
Bononia they dispatched men along the roads in every direction to
question all new-comers. From one of Otho's freedmen they inquired why
he had come away, and were told he was carrying his master's last
instructions: the man said that when he had left, Otho was still
indeed alive, but had renounced the pleasures of life and was devoting
all his thoughts to posterity. This filled them with admiration. They
felt ashamed to ask any more questions--and declared unanimously for
Vitellius.

Vitellius' brother Lucius was present at their discussion, and now 54
displayed his willingness to receive their flattery, but one of Nero's
freedmen, called Coenus, suddenly startled them all by inventing the
atrocious falsehood that the Fourteenth legion had joined forces with
the troops at Brixellum, and that their sudden arrival had turned the
fortune of the day: the victorious army had been cut to pieces. He
hoped by inventing this good news to regain some authority for Otho's
passports,[333] which were beginning to be disregarded. He did,
indeed, thus insure for himself a quick journey to Rome, but was
executed by order of Vitellius a few days later. However, the senate's
danger was augmented because the soldiers believed the news. Their
fears were the more acute, because it looked as if their departure
from Mutina was an official move of the Council of State, which thus
seemed to have deserted the party.