Meanwhile the companies which previous to the
mutiny had been sent to
Nauportus to make roads and bridges and for other
purposes, when they heard of the tumult in the camp, tore up the standards,
and having plundered the neighbouring villages and
Nauportus itself, which
was like a town, assailed the centurions who restrained them with
SOLDIERS FURTHER INFLAMED |
jeers and insults, last of all,
with blows. Their chief rage was against Aufidienus Rufus, the camp-prefect,
whom they dragged from a waggon, loaded with baggage, and drove on at the
head of the column, asking him in ridicule whether he liked to bear such
huge burdens and such long marches. Rufus, who had long been a common
soldier, then a centurion, and subsequently camp-prefect, tried to revive
the old severe discipline, inured as he was to work and toil, and all the
sterner because he had endured.