32] intending to continue
the discussion there, and hoping for more news in the meantime. At
Bononia they dispatched men along the roads in every direction to
question all new-comers. From one of Otho's freedmen they inquired why
he had come away, and were told he was carrying his master's last
instructions: the man said that when he had left, Otho was still
indeed alive, but had renounced the pleasures of life and was devoting
all his thoughts to posterity. This filled them with admiration. They
felt ashamed to ask any more questions--and declared unanimously for
Vitellius.

Vitellius' brother Lucius was present at their discussion, and now 54
displayed his willingness to receive their flattery, but one of Nero's
freedmen, called Coenus, suddenly startled them all by inventing the
atrocious falsehood that the Fourteenth legion had joined forces with
the troops at Brixellum, and that their sudden arrival had turned the
fortune of the day: the victorious army had been cut to pieces. He
hoped by inventing this good news to regain some authority for Otho's
passports,[333] which were beginning to be disregarded. He did,
indeed, thus insure for himself a quick journey to Rome, but was
executed by order of Vitellius a few days later. However, the senate's
danger was augmented because the soldiers believed the news. Their
fears were the more acute, because it looked as if their departure
from Mutina was an official move of the Council of State, which thus
seemed to have deserted the party. So they refrained from holding any
more meetings, and each shifted for himself, until a letter arrived
from Fabius Valens which quieted their fears. Besides, the news of
Otho's death travelled all the more quickly because it excited
admiration.

At Rome, however, there was no sign of panic. The festival of 55
Ceres[334] was celebrated by the usual crowds. When it was reported in
the theatre on reliable authority that Otho had renounced his
claim,[335] and that Flavius Sabinus,[336] the City Prefect, had made
all the troops in Rome swear allegiance to Vitellius, the audience
cheered Vitellius. The populace decked all the busts of Galba with
laurel-leaves and flowers, and carried them round from temple to
temple. The garlands were eventually piled up into a sort of tomb near
Lake Curtius,[337] on the spot which Galba had stained with his
life-blood. In the senate the distinctions devised during the long
reigns of other empero