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Quote of the day: Many years before Agrippina had anticipa
Notes
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Historiae by Tacitus
Translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Brodribb
Book III Chapter 32: Vitellius versus Antonius Primus. On Cremona[AD 69]
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Meanwhile the population of Cremona was roughly handled by the soldiers, who were just beginning a massacre, when their fury was mitigated by the entreaties of the generals. Antonius summoned them to an assembly, extolled the conquerors, spoke kindly to the conquered, but said nothing either way of Cremona. Over and above the innate love of plunder, there was an old feud which made the army bent on the destruction of the inhabitants. It was generally believed that in the war with Otho, as well as in the present, they had supported the cause of Vitellius. Afterwards, when the 13th legion had been left to build an amphitheatre, with the characteristic insolence of a city population, they had wantonly provoked and insulted them. The ill-feeling had been aggravated by the gladiatorial show exhibited there by Caecina, by the circumstance that their city was now for the second time the seat of war, and by the fact that they had supplied the Vitellianists with provisions in the field, and that some of their women, taken by party-zeal into the battle, had there been slain. The occurrence of the fair filled the colony, rich as it always was, with an appearance of still greater wealth. The other generals were unnoticed; Antonius from his success and high reputation was observed of all. He had hastened to the baths to wash off the blood; and when he found fault with the temperature of the water, an answer was heard, "that it would soon be warm enough. Thus the words of a slave brought on him the whole odium of having given the signal for firing the town, which was indeed already in flames.

Event: Vitellius versus Antonius Primus

Plebs interim Cremonensium inter armatos conflictabatur; nec procul caede aberant, cum precibus ducum mitigatus est miles. et vocatos ad contionem Antonius adloquitur, magnifice victores, victos clementer, de Cremona in neutrum. exercitus praeter insitam praedandi cupidinem vetere odio ad excidium Cremonensium incubuit. iuvisse partis Vitellianas Othonis quoque bello credebantur; mox tertiadecimanos ad extruendum amphitheatrum relictos, ut sunt procacia urbanae plebis ingenia, petulantibus iurgiis inluserant. auxit invidiam editum illic a Caecina gladiatorum spectaculum eademque rursus belli sedes et praebiti in acie Vitellianis cibi, caesae quaedam feminae studio partium ad proelium progressae; tempus quoque mercatus ditem alioqui coloniam maiore opum specie complebat. ceteri duces in obscuro: Antonium fortuna famaque omnium oculis exposuerat. is balineas abluendo cruori propere petit. excepta vox est, cum teporem incusaret, statim futurum ut incalescerent: vernile dictum omnem invidiam in eum vertit, tamquam signum incendendae Cremonae dedisset, quae iam flagrabat.