down the Flavian line with huge stones.  The slaughter thus caused would have been enormous, had not two of the Flavian soldiers performed a memorable exploit.  Concealing their identity by snatching up shields from among the enemy’s dead,[65] they cut the ropes which suspended the weights of the engine.  They fell immediately, riddled with wounds, and so their names have perished.  But of their deed there is no doubt.

Fortune had favoured neither side when, as the night wore on, the moon rose and threw a deceptive glamour over the field of battle.  Shining from behind the Flavians the moon was in their favour.  It magnified the shadows of their men and horses so that the enemy took the shadow for the substance, and their missiles were misdirected and fell short.  The Vitellians, on the other hand, had the moon shining full on them and were an easy mark for the Flavians, shooting as it were out of cover.[66]

Thus being enabled to recognize his own men, and to be recognized 24 by them, Antonius appealed to some by taunting their honour, to many by words of praise and encouragement, to all by promising hope of reward.  He asked the Pannonian legions why they had drawn their swords again.  Here on this field they could regain their glory and wipe out the stain of their former disgrace.[67] Then turning to the Moesian troops, who were the chief promoters of the war,[68] he told them it was no good challenging the Vitellians with verbal threats, if they could not bear to face them and their blows.  Thus he addressed each legion as he reached it.  To the Third he spoke at greater length, reminding them of their victories both old and new.  Had they not under Mark Antony defeated the Parthians[69] and the Armenians under Corbulo?[70] Had they not but lately crushed the Sarmatians?[71] Then he turned in fury on the Guards.  ‘Peasants that you are,’ he shouted, ’have you another emperor, another camp waiting to shelter you, if you are defeated?  There in the enemy’s line are your standards and your arms:  defeat means death and—­no, you have drained disgrace already to the dregs.’

These words roused cheers on all sides, and the Third, following the Syrian custom,[72] saluted the rising sun.  Thus arose a casual 25 rumour—­or possibly it was suggested by the general’s ingenuity—­that Mucianus had arrived, and that the two armies were cheering each other.  On they pressed, feeling they had been reinforced.  The Vitellian line was more ragged now, for, having no general to marshal them, their ranks now filled, now thinned, with each alternation of courage and fear.  As soon as Antonius saw them waver, he kept thrusting at them in massed column.  The line bent and then broke, and the inextricable confusion of wagons and siege-engines prevented their rallying.  The victorious troops scattered along the cross-road in headlong pursuit.