About the same time there arose a demand for the punishment of 73 Calvia Crispinilla.  But she was saved by various prevarications, and Otho’s connivence cost him some discredit.  This woman had tutored Nero in vice, and afterwards crossed to Africa to incite Clodius Macer[155] to civil war.  While there she openly schemed to start a famine in Rome.  However, she secured herself by marrying an ex-consul, and lived to enjoy a wide popularity in Rome.  She escaped harm under Galba, Otho, and Vitellius, and eventually wielded a great influence due to her being both rich and childless, considerations of the first importance in any state of society.

During this time Otho wrote constantly to Vitellius, holding out 74 various effeminate inducements, making him offers of money or an influential position, or any retreat he liked to select for a life of luxury.[156] Vitellius made similar offers.  At first both wrote in the mildest tone, though the affectation on either side was stupid and inappropriate.  But they soon struck a quarrelsome note, and reproached each other with immorality and crime, both with a good deal of truth.  Otho recalled the commission which Galba had sent out to Germany,[157] and, using the pretext of senatorial authority, sent fresh commissioners to both the armies in Germany, and also to the Italian legion, and the troops quartered at Lugdunum.  However, the commissioners remained with Vitellius with a readiness which showed they were under no compulsion; and the guards who had been attached to them, ostensibly as a mark of honour, were sent back at once before they had time to mix with the legionary soldiers.  Further than this, Fabius Valens sent letters in the name of the German army to the Guards and the City Garrison, extolling the strength of his own side and offering to join forces.  He even went so far as to reproach them with having transferred to Otho the title which had long before[158] been conferred on Vitellius.  Thus they were assailed with threats 75 as well as promises, and told that they were not strong enough to fight, and had nothing to lose by making peace.  But, in spite of all, the fidelity of the Guards remained unchanged.  However, Otho dispatched assassins to Germany, Vitellius to Rome.  Neither met with success.  Vitellius’ assassins were lost in the crowds of Rome, where nobody knows anybody, and thus escaped detection:  Otho’s were betrayed by their strange faces, since the troops all knew each other by sight.  Vitellius then composed a letter to Otho’s brother Titianus,[159] threatening that his life and his son’s should answer for the safety of Vitellius’ mother and children.  As it happened neither household suffered.  Fear was perhaps the reason in Otho’s time, but Vitellius, after his victory, could certainly claim credit for clemency.