re simply eager for
a change: and such as were loyal could not carry out their orders in
the darkness. When Crispinus tried to check them, the mutineers killed
him together with the most determined of the centurions, seized their
armour, bared their swords, and mounting the horses, made off at full
speed for Rome and the palace.

It so happened that a large party of Roman senators and their 81
wives was dining with Otho. In their alarm they wondered whether the
soldiers' outbreak was unpremeditated or a ruse of the emperor's:
would it be safer to fly in all directions or to stay and be arrested?
At one moment they would make a show of firmness, at the next their
terror betrayed them. All the time they were watching Otho's face,
and, as happens when people suspect each other, he was just as afraid
himself as they were of him. But feeling no less alarm for the
senators than for himself, he promptly dispatched the prefects of the
Guards to appease the anger of the troops, and told all his guests to
leave immediately. Then on all sides Roman officials could be seen to
throw away their insignia, avoid their suite, and slink off
unattended. Old gentlemen and their wives roamed the dark streets in
all directions. Few went home, most of them fled to friends, or sought
an obscure refuge with the humblest of their clients.

The soldiers' onrush could not be stopped at the gates of the 82
palace. They demanded to see Otho and invaded the banquet-hall.
Julius Martialis, a tribune of the Guards, and Vitellius Saturninus,
the camp-prefect[179] of the legion, were wounded while endeavouring
to bar their progress. On every side they brandished swords and hurled
threats, now against their officers, now against the whole senate; and
since they could not select any one victim for their wrath, in a blind
frenzy of panic they clamoured for a free hand against all the
senators. At last Otho, sacrificing his dignity, stood up on a couch
and with great difficulty restrained them by means of prayers and
tears. They returned to their camp unwillingly, and with a guilty
conscience.

The next day Rome was like a captured city. The houses were all shut,
the streets almost deserted, and everybody looked depressed. The
soldiers, too, hung their heads, though they were more sulky than
sorry for what they had done. Their prefects, Licinius Proculus and
Plotius Firmus, harangued them by companies, the one mildly, the other
harshl