The legions had caught the infection of mutiny, and next assailed Aponius Saturnius, legate of the army of Mœsia, this time the more furiously because their rage broke out, not as before, when they were wearied with labour and military toils, but at mid-day. Some letters had been published, which Saturninus was believed to have written to Vitellius. If once they had emulated each other in valour and obedience, so now there was a rivalry in insubordination and insolence, till they clamoured as violently for the execution of Aponius as they had for that of Flavianus. The legions of Mœsia recalled how they had aided the vengeance of the Pannonian army, while the soldiers of Pannonia, as if they were absolved by the mutiny of others, took a delight in repeating their fault. They hastened to the gardens in which Saturninus was passing his time, and it was not the efforts of Primus Antonius, Aponianus, and Messalla, though they exerted themselves to the uttermost, that saved him, so much as the obscurity of the hiding-place in which he concealed himself, for he was hidden in the furnace of some baths that happened to be out of use. In a short time he gave up his lictors, and retired to Patavium. After the departure of the two men of consular rank, all power and authority over the two armies centred in Antonius alone, his colleagues giving way to him, and the soldiers being strongly biassed in his favour. There were those who believed that both these mutinies were set on foot by the intrigues of Antonius, in order that he might engross all the prizes of the war.
Complete Works of Tacitus. Tacitus. Alfred John Church. William Jackson Brodribb. Sara Bryant. edited for Perseus. New York. : Random House, Inc. Random House, Inc. 1873. reprinted 1942.
