About the same time, the armies in Germany took an oath to Vitellius as emperor. Upon receiving
					this intelligence, he advised the senate to send thither deputies, to inform
					them, that a prince had been already chosen; and to persuade them to peace and a
					good understanding. By letters and messengers, however, he offered Vitellius to
					make him his colleague in the empire, and his son-in-law. But a war being now
					unavoidable, and the generals and troops sent forward by Vitellius, advancing,
					he had a proof of the attachment and fidelity of the pretorian guards, which had
					nearly proved fatal to the senatorian order. It had been judged proper that some
					arms should be given out of the stores, and conveyed to the fleet by the marine
					troops. While they were employed in fetching these from the camp in the night,
					some of the guards suspecting treachery, excited a tumult; and suddenly the
					whole body, without any of their officers at their head, ran to the palace,
					demanding that the entire senate should be put to the sword; and having repulsed
					some of the tribunes who endeavoured to stop them, and slain others, they broke,
					all bloody as they were, into the banquetting room, inquiring for the emperor;
					nor would they quit the place until they had seen him. He now entered upon his
					expedition against Vitellius with great alacrity, but too much precipitation,
					and without any regard to the ominous circumstances which attended it. For the Ancilia The Ancile was a round shield, said to have
						fallen from heaven in the reign of Numa, and supposed to be the shield of
						Mars. It was kept with great care in the sanctuary of the temple, as a
						symbol of the perpetuity of the Roman empire; and that it might not be
						stolen, eleven others were made exactly similar to it. had been
					taken out of the temple of Mars, for the usual procession, but were not yet
					replaced; during which interval it had of old been looked upon as very
					unfortunate to engage in any enterprise. He likewise set forward upon the day
					when the worshippers of the Mother of the gods This ideal
						personage, who has been mentioned before, AUGUSTUS, c. lxviii., was the
						goddess of Cybele, the wife of Saturn, called also Rhea, Ops, Vesta, Magna,
						Mater, c. She was painted as a matron, crowned with towers, sitting in a
						chariot drawn by lions. A statue of her, brought from Pessinus in Phrygia to Rome ,
						in the time of the second Punic war, was much honoured there. Her priests,
						called the Galli and Corybantes, were eunuchs; and worshipped her with the
						sound of drums, tabors, pipes, and cymbals. The rites of this goddess were
						disgraced by great indecencies. begin their lamentations and wailing.
					Besides these, other unlucky omens attended him, For, in a victim offered to
					Father Dis, Otherwise called Orcus, Pluto, Jupiter Infernus, and Stygnis. He was the
						brother of Jupiter, and king of the infernal regions. His wife was
						Proserpine, the daughter of Ceres, whom he carried off as she was gathering
						flowers in the plains of Enna , in
							 Sicily . The victims offered to
						the infernal gods were black: they were killed with their faces bent
						downwards; the knife was applied from below, and the blood was poured into a
						ditch. he found the signs such as upon all other occasions are
					regarded as favourable; whereas, in that sacrifice, the contrary intimations are
					judged the most propitious. At his first setting forward, he was stopped by
					inundations of the Tiber ; and at twenty
					miles' distance from the city, found the road blocked up by the fall of
					houses. Though it was the general opinion that it would be proper to protract the war, as
					the enemy were distressed by famine and the straitness of their quarters, yet he
					resolved with equal rashness to force them to an engagement as soon as possible;
					whether from impatience of prolonged anxiety, and in the hope of bringing
					matters to an issue before the arrival of Vitellius, or because he could not
					resist the ardour of the troops, who were all clamorous for battle. He was not,
					however, present at any of those which ensued, but stayed behind at Brixellum . A town between
							 Mantua and Cremona . He had the advantage
					in three slight engagements, near the Alps , about Placentia , and a place called Castor's; The temple of Castor. It stood about twelve miles from Cremona . Tacitus gives some details of
						this action. Hist. ii. 243. but was, by a fraudulent stratagem of the
					enemy, defeated in the last and greatest battle at Bedriacum. Both Greek and Latin authors differ in the mode of spelling
						the name of this place, the first syllable being written Beb, Bet, and Bret.
						It is now a small village called Labino, between Cremona and Verona . For, some hopes of a
					conference being given, and the soldiers being drawn up to hear the conditions
					of peace declared, very unexpectedly, and amidst their mutual salutations, they
					were obliged to stand to their arms. Immediately upon this he determined to put
					an end to his life, more, as many think, and not without reason, out of shame,
					at persisting in a struggle for the empire to the hazard of the public interest
					and so many lives, than from despair, or distrust of his troops. For he had
					still in reserve, and in full force, those whom he had kept about him for a
					second trial of his fortune, and others were coming up from Dalmatia , Pannonia , and Moesia ;
					nor were the troops lately defeated so far discouraged as not to be ready, even
					of themselves, to run all risks in order to wipe off their recent disgrace. My father, Suetonius Lenis, Lenis was a name of similar
						signification with that of Tranquillus, borne by his son, the author of the
						present work. We find from Tacitus, that there was, among Otho's generals,
						in this battle, another person of the name of Suetonius, whose cognomen was
						Paulinus; with whom our author's father must not be confounded. Lenis was
						only a tribune of the thirteenth legion, the position of which in the battle
						is mentioned by Tacitus, Hist. xi 24, and was angusticlavias, wearing only
						the narrow stripe, as not being of the senatorial order; while Paulinus was
						a general, commanding a legion, at least, and a consular man; having filled
						that office A. u. c. 818. There seems no doubt that Suetonius Paulinus was
						the same general who distinguished himself by his successes and cruelties in
							 Britain . NERO, c. xviii., and
						note. Not to extend the present note, we may shortly refer to our author's
						having already mentioned his grandfather (CALIGULA, c. xix.); besides other
						sources from which he drew his information. He tells us that he himself was
						then a boy. We have now arrived at the times in which his father bore a
						part. Such incidental notices, dropped by historical writers, have a certain
						value in enabling us to form a judgment on the genuineness of their
						narratives as to contemporaneous, or recent, events. was in this
					battle, being at that time an angusticlavian tribune in the thirteenth legion.
					He used frequently to say, that Otho, before his advancement to the empire, had
					such an abhorrence of civil war, that once, upon hearing an account given at
					table of the death of Cassius and Brutus, he fell into a trembling, and that he
					neverwould have interfered with Galba, but that he was confident of succeeding
					in his enterprise without a war. Moreover, that he was then encouraged to
					despise life by the example of a common soldier, who bringing news of the defeat
					of the army, and finding that he met with no credit, but was railed at for a
					liar and a coward, as if he had run away from the field of battle, fell upon his
					sword at the emperor's feet; upon the sight of which, my father said that Otho
					cried out, " that he would expose to no farther danger such brave men, who had
					deserved so well at his hands." Advising therefore his brother, his brother's
					son, and the rest of his friends, to provide for their security in the best
					manner they could, after he had embraced and kissed them, he sent them away; and
					them withdrawing into a private room by himself, he wrote a letter of
					consolation to his sister, containing two sheets. He likewise sent another to
					Messalina, Nero's widow, whom he had intended to marry, committing her the care
					of his relics and memory. He then burnt all the letters which he had by him, to
					prevent the danger and mischief that might otherwise befall the writers from the
					conqueror. What ready money he had, he distributed among his domestics.