Thereupon, as suppliants confessing that his
reproaches were true, they implored him to punish the guilty, pardon those
who had erred, and lead them against the enemy. And he was to recall his
wife, to let the nursling of the legions return and not be handed over as a
hostage to the Gauls. As to Agrippina's return, he made the excuse of her
approaching confinement and of winter. His son, he said, would come, and the
rest they might settle themselves. Away they hurried hither and thither,
altered men, and dragged the chief mutineers in chains to Caius
Cætronius, commander of the first legion, who tried and punished them
one by one in the following fashion. In front of the throng stood the
legions with drawn swords. Each accused man was on a raised platform and was
pointed out by a tribune.
MUTINY QUELLED; ALARM AT ROME |
If they shouted out that he was guilty, he
was thrown head-long and cut to pieces. The soldiers gloated over the
blood-shed as though it gave them absolution. Nor did Cæsar check
them, seeing that without any order from himself the same men were
responsible for all the cruelty and all the odium of the deed.
The
example was followed by the veterans, who were soon afterwards sent into
Rætia, nominally to defend the province against a
threatened invasion of the Suevi, but really that they might tear themselves
from a camp stamped with the horror of a dreadful remedy no less than with
the memory of guilt. Then the general revised the list of centurions. Each,
at his summons, stated his name, his rank, his birthplace, the number of his
campaigns, what brave deeds he had done in battle, his military rewards, if
any. If the tribunes and the legion commended his energy and good behaviour,
he retained his rank; where they unanimously charged him with rapacity or
cruelty, he was dismissed the service.
