The slaughter was marked by one peculiar horror.  A son killed his father.  I give the facts and names on the authority of Vipstanus Messala.[73] One Julius Mansuetus, a Spaniard who had joined the legion Rapax, had left a young son at home.  This boy subsequently grew up and enlisted in the Seventh legion, raised by Galba.[74] Chance now sent his father in his way, and he felled him to the ground.  While he was ransacking the dying man, they recognized each other.  Flinging his arms round the now lifeless corpse, in a piteous voice he implored his father’s spirit to be appeased and not to turn against him as a parricide.  The crime was his country’s, he cried; what share had a single soldier in these civil wars?  Meanwhile he lifted the body and began to dig a grave and perform the last rites for his father.  Those who were nearest noticed this; then the story began to spread, till there ran through the army astonishment and many complaints and curses against this wicked war.  Yet they never ceased busily killing and plundering friends and relatives and brothers; and while they talked of the crime they were committing it themselves.

When they reached Cremona a fresh task of vast difficulty awaited 26 them.  During the war with Otho[75] the German army had entrenched their camp round the walls of Cremona and then erected a rampart round the camp; and these fortifications had been further strengthened.  The sight of them brought the victors to a halt, and their generals were uncertain what instructions to give.  The troops had had no rest for a day and a night.  To storm the town at once would be an arduous and, in the absence of reserves, a perilous task.  On the other hand, a retreat to Bedriacum would involve the intolerable fatigue of a long march, and destroy the value of their victory.  Again, it would be dangerous to entrench themselves so close to the lines of the enemy, who might at any minute sally forth and rout them while they were dispersed and digging trenches.  The chief anxiety lay in the temper of the men, who were much more ready to face danger than delay.  To them discretion was disagreeable and hazard spelt hope.  Their thirst for plunder outweighed all fears of wounds and bloodshed.

Antonius also inclined to this view and gave orders for them to 27 surround the rampart.  At first they stood back and delivered volleys of arrows and stones, suffering themselves the severer loss, for a storm of missiles rained down from the walls.  Antonius then told off each legion to assault a different point of the rampart or one of the gates, hoping that by thus separating them he could distinguish the cowards from the brave and inflame them with a spirit of honourable rivalry.  The Third and Seventh took the position nearest the road to Bedriacum; the Eighth and Seventh Claudian assaulted the right-hand side of the rampart; the Thirteenth swept up to the Brixian Gate.[76] A brief delay was caused while some fetched mattocks and pickaxes from