With feelings thus appeased the army marched on to Bonn, the 25 head-quarters of the First legion.  There the men were still more indignant with Flaccus, on whom they laid the blame of their recent defeat.[305] It was by his orders, they argued, that they had taken the field against the Batavians on the understanding that the legions from Mainz were in pursuit.  But no reinforcements had arrived and his treachery was responsible for their losses.  The facts, moreover, were unknown to the other armies, nor was any report sent to their emperor, although this treacherous outbreak could have been nipped in the bud by the combined aid of all the provinces.  In answer Flaccus read out to the army copies of all the letters which he had sent from time to time all over Gaul and Britain and Spain to ask for assistance, and introduced the disastrous practice of having all letters delivered to the standard-bearers of the legions, who read them to the soldiers before the general had seen them.  He then gave orders that one of the mutineers should be put in irons, more by way of vindicating his authority than because one man was especially to blame.  Leaving Bonn, the army moved on to Cologne, where they were joined by large numbers of Gallic auxiliaries, who at first zealously supported the Roman cause:  later, when the Germans prospered, most of the tribes took arms against us, actuated by hopes of liberty and an ambition to establish an empire of their own when once they had shaken off the yoke.

Meanwhile the army’s indignation steadily increased.  The imprisonment of a single soldier was not enough to terrify them, and, indeed, the prisoner actually accused the general of complicity in crime, alleging that he himself had carried messages between Flaccus and Civilis.  ’It is because I can testify to the truth,’ he said, ’that Flaccus wants to get rid of me on a false charge.’  Thereupon Vocula, with admirable self-possession, mounted the tribunal and, in spite of the man’s protestations, ordered him to be seized and led away to prison.  This alarmed the disaffected, while the better sort obeyed him promptly.  The army then unanimously demanded that Vocula should lead them, and Flaccus accordingly resigned the chief command to him.  However, 26 there was much to exasperate their disaffection.  They were short both of pay and of provisions:  the Gauls refused either to enlist or to pay tribute:  drought, usually unknown in that climate, made the Rhine almost too low for navigation, and thus hampered their commissariat:  patrols had to be posted at intervals all along the bank to prevent the Germans fording the river:  and in consequence of all this they had less food and more mouths to eat it.  To the ignorant the lowness of the river seemed in itself an evil omen, as though the ancient bulwarks of the empire were now failing them.  In peace they would have called it bad luck or the course of nature:  now it was ‘fate’ and ’the anger of heaven’.