[326] Galba’s murder and his own suicide.

    [327] Reggio.

    [328] Accepting Meiser’s suggestion cum initio pugnae et cum
          Othonis exitu.

VITELLIUS’ PRINCIPATE

Now that the war was everywhere ended, a large number of senators, 52 who had quitted Rome with Otho and been left behind at Mutina,[330] found themselves in a critical position.  When the news of the defeat reached Mutina, the soldiers paid no heed to what they took for a baseless rumour, and, believing the senators to be hostile to Otho, they treasured up their conversation and put the worst interpretation on their looks and behaviour.  In time they broke into abusive reproaches, seeking a pretext for starting a general massacre, while the senators suffered at the same time from another source of alarm, for they were afraid of seeming to be slow in welcoming the victory of the now predominant Vitellian party.  Terrified at their double danger, they held a meeting.  For no one dared to form any policy for himself; each felt safer in sharing his guilt with others.  The town-council of Mutina, too, kept adding to their anxiety by offering them arms and money, styling them with ill-timed respect ‘Conscript Fathers’.  A 53 remarkable quarrel arose at this meeting.  Licinius Caecina attacked Eprius Marcellus[331] for the ambiguity of his language.  Not that the others disclosed their sentiments, but Caecina, who was still a nobody, recently raised to the senate, sought to distinguish himself by quarrelling with some one of importance, and selected Marcellus, because the memory of his career as an informer made him an object of loathing.  They were parted by the prudent intervention of their betters, and all then retired to Bononia,[332] intending to continue the discussion there, and hoping for more news in the meantime.  At Bononia they dispatched men along the roads in every direction to question all new-comers.  From one of Otho’s freedmen they inquired why he had come away, and were told he was carrying his master’s last instructions:  the man said that when he had left, Otho was still indeed alive, but had renounced the pleasures of life and was devoting all his thoughts to posterity.  This filled them with admiration.  They felt ashamed to ask any more questions—­and declared unanimously for Vitellius.

Vitellius’ brother Lucius was present at their discussion, and now 54 displayed his willingness to receive their flattery, but one of Nero’s freedmen, called Coenus, suddenly startled them all by inventing the atrocious falsehood that the Fourteenth legion had joined forces with the troops at Brixellum, and that their sudden arrival had turned the fortune of the day:  the victorious army had been cut to pieces.  He hoped by inventing this good news to regain some authority for Otho’s passports,[333] which were beginning to be disregarded.  He did, indeed, thus insure for himself a quick journey to