Here, again, was a new type of task for the Flavians.  Here were 30 high walls, stone battlements, iron-barred gates, and soldiers hurling javelins.  The citizens of Cremona were numerous and devoted to the cause of Vitellius, and half Italy had gathered there for the Fair which fell just at that time.  Their numbers were a help to the defenders, but the prospect of plundering them offered an incentive to their assailants.  Antonius ordered his men to bring fire and apply it to the most beautiful of the buildings outside the walls, hoping that the loss of their property might induce the citizens to turn traitor.  The houses that stood nearest to the walls and overtopped them he crowded with his bravest troops, who dislodged the defenders with showers of beams and tiles and flaming torches.  Meanwhile, some of 31 the legionaries began to advance in ‘tortoise’ formation,[81] while others kept up a steady fire of javelins and stones.

Gradually the spirit of the Vitellians ebbed.  The higher their rank, the more easily they gave way to misfortune.  For they were afraid that if Cremona too[82] was demolished, there would be no hope of pardon; the victors’ fury would fall not on the common poor but on the tribunes and centurions, whom it would pay to kill.  The common soldiers felt safe in their obscurity, and, careless of the future, continued to offer resistance.  They roamed the streets or hid themselves in houses, and though they had given up the war, refused even so to sue for peace.  Meanwhile the tribunes and centurions did away with the name and portraits of Vitellius.[83] They released Caecina, who was still in irons,[84] and begged his help in pleading their cause.  When he turned from them in haughty contempt they besought him with tears.  It was, indeed, the last of evils that all these brave men should invoke a traitor’s aid.  They then hung veils and fillets[85] out on the walls, and when Antonius had given the order to cease firing, they carried out their standards and eagles, followed by a miserable column of disarmed soldiers, dejectedly hanging their heads.  The victors had at first crowded round, heaping insults on them and threatening violence, but when they found that the vanquished had lost all their proud spirit, and turned their cheeks with servile endurance to every indignity, they gradually began to recollect that these were the men who had made such a moderate use of their victory at Bedriacum.[86] But when the crowd parted, and Caecina advanced in his consular robes, attended by his lictors in full state, their indignation broke into flame.  They charged him with insolence and cruelty, and—­so hateful is crime—­they even flung his treachery in his teeth.[87] Antonius restrained them and sent Caecina under escort to Vespasian.