A day spent in crime found its last horror in the rejoicings that concluded it. The Prætor of the city summoned the Senate; the rest of the Magistrates vied with each other in their flatteries. The Senators hastily assembled and conferred by decree upon Otho the tribunitial office, the name of Augustus, and every imperial honour. All strove to extinguish the remembrance of those taunts and invectives, which had been thrown out at random, and which no one supposed were rankling in his heart. Whether he had forgotten, or only postponed his resentment, the shortness of his reign left undecided. The Forum yet streamed with blood, when he was borne in a litter over heaps of dead to the Capitol, and thence to the palace. He suffered the bodies to be given up for burial, and to be burnt. For Piso, the last rites were performed by his wife Verania and his brother Scribonianus; for Vinius, by his daughter Crispina, their heads having been discovered and purchased from the murderers, who had reserved them for sale.
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.
