and Mucianus postponed their attack for the present. They
were themselves recent converts to the project of war, which the
others[219] had long fostered from various motives. The better sort
were animated by patriotism, many by mere love of plunder, some by the
uncertainty of their own fortunes. Thus, though their motives
differed, all, good and bad alike, agreed in their eager desire for
war.

About this time Achaia and Asia were thrown into 8 a groundless panic
by a rumour that 'Nero was at hand'. The accounts of his death being
many and various, people were all the more inclined to allege and to
believe that he was still alive. We shall mention in the course of
this work the attempts and the fate of the other pretenders.[220] This
time it was a slave from Pontus, or, according to other traditions, a
freedman from Italy. His skill as a singer and harpist, combined with
his facial resemblance to Nero, gave him some credentials for
imposture. He bribed some penniless and vagabond deserters by dazzling
promises to join him, and they all set out to sea. A storm drove them
on to the island of Cythnus,[221] where he found some troops homeward
bound on leave from the East. Some of these he enrolled, killing all
who resisted, and then proceeded to plunder the local merchants and
arm all the sturdiest of the slaves. Finding a centurion named Sisenna
carrying home a pair of silver hands[222] as a token of alliance from
the army in Syria to the Household Guards, he tried by various devices
to seduce him, until Sisenna took fright and escaped secretly from the
island in fear of violence. Thus the panic spread. The great name of
Nero attracted many who pined for revolution and hated the existing
state of things. The rumours waxed daily, until a chance dispelled
them. Galba had entrusted the government of Galatia and 9
Pamphylia[223] to Calpurnius Asprenas, who had been granted an escort
of two triremes from the fleet at Misenum. It so happened that with
these he touched at Cythnus. The rebels lost no time in appealing to
the ship's captains in the name of Nero. The pretender, assuming an
air of melancholy, appealed to 'the loyalty of his former soldiers',
and begged them to establish him in Syria or Egypt. The captains
either from sympathy or guile alleged that they must talk to their
men, and would come back when they had prepared all their minds.
However, they faithfully made a full report to Asprenas, on whose