Caesar Caligula.
Already Agrippina was in greater credit with the army than the
lieutenants-general, or even the generals--a woman had suppressed a
sedition which the authority of the Emperor was not able to restrain.
These jealousies were inflamed and ministered to by Sejanus, who was
well acquainted with the temper of Tiberius, and supplied him with
materials for hatred, prospectively, that he might treasure them up in
his heart and draw them out augmented in bitterness.

Germanicus handed over the Second and Fourteenth of the legions, which
he had brought in ships, to Publius Vitellius to conduct them by land,
that his fleet, thus lightened, might sail on the shoally sea, or run
aground with safety when the tide ebbed. Vitellius at first marched
without interruption while the ground was dry or the tide flowed within
bounds. Presently the ocean beginning to swell by the action of the
northwest wind upon it, and also by the influence of the equinoxial
constellation--at which season the sea swells most--the troops were
miserably harassed and driven about. The lands were completely
inundated; the sea, the shore, the fields, had one uniform face: no
distinction of depths from shallows, of firm from treacherous footing;
they were overturned by billows, absorbed by the eddies; beasts of
burden, baggage, and dead bodies floated among them and came in contact
with them. The several companies were mixed at random, wading now breast
high, now up to their chin; sometimes, the ground failing them, they
fell, some never more to rise. Their cries and mutual encouragements
availed them nothing; the noise of the water drowning them; no
difference between the coward and the brave, the wise and the foolish;
none between circumspection and hap-hazard, but all were involved in the
sweeping torrent. Vitellius at length, having by great exertion gained
the higher ground, withdrew the legions thither, where they passed the
night without fire and without food, many of them naked or lamed, not
less miserable than men enclosed by an enemy--for even such had the
resource of an honorable death, while these must perish ingloriously.
Daylight restored the land, and they marched to the river Unsingis,
whither Germanicus had gone with the fleet. The legions were then
embarked, while rumor reported that they were sunk; nor was their escape
believed until Germanicus and the army were seen to return.

Stertinius, who had been sent before to receive t