In the meantime a riot broke out in an unexpected quarter, and, 80 though trivial at first, nearly ended in the destruction of Rome.  Otho had given orders that the Seventeenth cohort[178] should be summoned from the colony of Ostia to the city, and Varius Crispinus, a tribune of the guards, was instructed to provide them with arms.  Anxious to carry out his instructions undisturbed while the camp was quiet, he arranged that the arsenal was to be opened and the cohort’s wagons loaded after nightfall.  The hour aroused suspicion; the motive was questioned; his choice of a quiet moment resulted in an uproar.  The mere sight of swords made the drunken soldiers long to use them.  They began to murmur and accuse their officers of treachery, suggesting that the senators’ slaves were going to be armed against Otho.  Some of them were too fuddled to know what they were saying:  the rascals saw a chance of plunder:  the mass of them, as usual, were simply eager for a change:  and such as were loyal could not carry out their orders in the darkness.  When Crispinus tried to check them, the mutineers killed him together with the most determined of the centurions, seized their armour, bared their swords, and mounting the horses, made off at full speed for Rome and the palace.

It so happened that a large party of Roman senators and their 81 wives was dining with Otho.  In their alarm they wondered whether the soldiers’ outbreak was unpremeditated or a ruse of the emperor’s:  would it be safer to fly in all directions or to stay and be arrested?  At one moment they would make a show of firmness, at the next their terror betrayed them.  All the time they were watching Otho’s face, and, as happens when people suspect each other, he was just as afraid himself as they were of him.  But feeling no less alarm for the senators than for himself, he promptly dispatched the prefects of the Guards to appease the anger of the troops, and told all his guests to leave immediately.  Then on all sides Roman officials could be seen to throw away their insignia, avoid their suite, and slink off unattended.  Old gentlemen and their wives roamed the dark streets in all directions.  Few went home, most of them fled to friends, or sought an obscure refuge with the humblest of their clients.

The soldiers’ onrush could not be stopped at the gates of the 82 palace.  They demanded to see Otho and invaded the banquet-hall.  Julius Martialis, a tribune of the Guards, and Vitellius Saturninus, the camp-prefect[179] of the legion, were wounded while endeavouring to bar their progress.  On every side they brandished swords and hurled threats, now against their officers, now against the whole senate; and since they could not select any one victim for their wrath, in a blind frenzy of panic they clamoured for a free hand against all the senators.  At last Otho, sacrificing his dignity, stood up on a couch and with great difficulty restrained them by means of prayers and tears.  They returned to their camp unwillingly, and with a guilty conscience.