On the next day Cerialis entered Trier.  The troops clamoured 72 greedily for its destruction.  ’It was the native town of Classicus and of Tutor:  these were the men who had wickedly entrapped and slaughtered the legions.  Its guilt was far worse than that of Cremona, which had been wiped off the face of Italy for causing the victors a single night’s delay.  Was the chief seat of the rebellion to be left standing untouched on the German frontier, glorying in the spoil of Roman armies and the blood of Roman generals?[433] The plunder could go to the Imperial Treasury.  It would be enough for them to see the rebel town in smoking ruins; that would be some compensation for the destruction of so many camps.’  Cerialis was afraid of soiling his reputation if it was said that he gave his men a taste for cruelty and riot, so he suppressed their indignation.  They obeyed him, too, for now that civil war was done with, there was less insubordination on foreign service.  Their thoughts were now distracted by the pitiful plight of the legions who had been summoned from the country of the Mediomatrici.[434] Miserably conscious of their guilt, they stood with eyes rooted to the ground.  When the armies met, they raised no cheer:  they had no answer for those who offered comfort and encouragement:  they skulked in their tents, shunning the light of day.  It was not fear of punishment so much as the shame of their disgrace which thus overwhelmed them.  Even the victorious army showed their bewilderment:  hardly venturing to make an audible petition, they craved pardon for them with silent tears.  At length Cerialis soothed their alarm.  He insisted that all disasters due to dissension between officers and men, or to the enemy’s guile, were to be regarded as ’acts of destiny’.  They were to count this as their first day of service and sworn allegiance.[435] Neither he nor the emperor would remember past misdeeds.  He then gave them quarters in his own camp, and sent round orders that no one in the heat of any quarrel should taunt a fellow soldier with mutiny or defeat.

Cerialis next summoned the Treviri and Lingones, and addressed 73 them as follows:  ’Unpractised as I am in public speaking, for it is only on the field that I have asserted the superiority of Rome, yet since words have so much weight with you, and since you distinguish good and bad not by the light of facts but by what agitators tell you, I have decided to make a few remarks, which, as the war is practically over, are likely to be more profitable to the audience than to ourselves.  Roman generals and officers originally set foot in your country and the rest of Gaul from no motives of ambition, but at the call of your ancestors, who were worn almost to ruin by dissension.  The Germans whom one party summoned to their aid had forced the yoke of slavery on allies and enemies alike.  You know how often we fought against the Cimbri and the Teutons, with what infinite