[272] An eminent critic has called Tacitus’ account of this
          battle an ‘historical nightmare’, but those who do not suffer
          from a surfeit of military knowledge may find that it lies
          easy upon them.  It is written for the plain man with an eye
          for situations and an ear for phrases.

THE DECISIVE STRUGGLE

This reverse reduced the Vitellians not to despair but to 27 discipline.  Not only was this the case in Caecina’s camp, who blamed his men as being readier for mutiny than for battle, but the troops under Fabius Valens, who had now reached Ticinum,[273] lost their contempt for the enemy, conceived a desire to retrieve their glory, and offered their general a more respectful and steady obedience.  There had, indeed, been a serious outbreak of mutiny, the account of which I may now resume from an earlier chapter,[274] where it seemed wrong to break the narrative of Caecina’s operations.  The Batavian auxiliaries, who had left the Fourteenth legion during the war against Vindex, heard of Vitellius’ rising while on their way to Britain, and, as I have already described,[275] joined Fabius Valens in the country of the Lingones.  There they grew insolent.  Whenever they passed the tents of the Roman soldiers, they boasted loudly that they had coerced the Fourteenth, had deprived Nero of Italy, and held the whole issue of the war in the hollow of their hand.  This insulted the soldiers and annoyed the general; brawls and quarrels ruined good discipline.  Ultimately Valens began to suspect that their insubordination meant treachery.  Accordingly, on receiving the news that Otho’s fleet 28 had defeated the Treviran cavalry[276] and the Tungri, and was now blockading Narbonese Gaul, he determined at the same time to assist his allies, and by a stroke of generalship to separate contingents that were so insubordinate and, if united, so strong.  He therefore ordered the Batavians to march to the support of Narbo.  Immediately this order became generally known, the auxiliaries began to complain and the legionaries to chafe.  ’They were being deprived of their strongest support:  here were these invincible veterans promptly withdrawn directly the enemy came in sight:  if the province was more important than the safety of Rome and the empire, why not all go there? but if Italy was the corner-stone of their success, he ought not as it were to amputate their strongest limb.’[277] In answer 29 to this presumptuous criticism, Valens loosed his lictors upon them and set to work to check the mutiny.  They attacked their general, stoned him, and chased him out of the camp, shouting that he was concealing the spoils of Gaul and the gold from Vienne,[278] the due reward of their labours.  They looted the baggage, ransacked the general’s quarters, and even rummaged in the ground with javelins and lances.  Valens, in slave’s dress, took refuge with a cavalry officer.  Gradually the