The centre of their line had been penetrated, and the Othonianists fled on
all sides in the direction of Bedriacum. The
distance was very great, and the roads were blocked up with heaps of
corpses; thus the slaughter was the greater, for captives taken in civil war
can be turned to no profit. Suetonius Paullinus and Licinius Proculus,
taking different roads, avoided the camp. Vedius Aquila, legate of the 13th
legion, in the blindness of fear, fell in the way of the furious
CAPITULATION OF OTHONIASTS |
soldiery. Late in
the day he entered the entrenchments, and found himself the centre of a mob
of clamorous and mutinous fugitives. They did not refrain from abuse or
actual violence; they reviled him as a deserter and traitor, not having any
specific charge against him, but all, after the fashion of the mob, imputing
to him their own crimes. Titianus and Celsus were favoured by the darkness.
By that time the sentries had been posted, and the soldiers reduced to
order. Annius Gallus had prevailed upon them by his prayers, his advice, and
his personal influence, not to aggravate the disaster of their defeat by
mutual slaughter. Whether the war was at an end, or whether they might
choose to resume the conflict, the vanquished would find in union the sole
mitigation of their lot. The spirit of the rest of the army was broken, but
the Prætorians angrily complained that they had been vanquished, not
by valour, but by treachery. "The Vitellianists indeed," they said, "gained
no bloodless victory; their cavalry was defeated, a legion lost its eagle.
We have still the troops beyond the
Padus, and Otho
himself. The legions of
Mœsia are coming; a
great part of the army remained at Bedriacum; these
certainly were never vanquished; and if it must be so, it is on the
battle-field that we shall fall with most honour." Amid all the exasperation
or terror of these thoughts, the extremity of despair yet roused them to
fury rather than to fear.
