upon all other occasions are regarded as favourable; whereas, in
that sacrifice, the contrary intimations are judged the most propitious.
At his first setting forward, he was stopped by inundations of the Tiber;
and at twenty miles' distance from the city, found the road blocked up by
the fall of houses.

IX. Though it was the general opinion that it would be proper to
protract the war, as the enemy were distressed by (423) famine and the
straitness of their quarters, yet he resolved with equal rashness to
force them to an engagement as soon as possible; whether from impatience
of prolonged anxiety, and in the hope of bringing matters to an issue
before the arrival of Vitellius, or because he could not resist the
ardour of the troops, who were all clamorous for battle. He was not,
however, present at any of those which ensued, but stayed behind at
Brixellum [683]. He had the advantage in three slight engagements, near
the Alps, about Placentia, and a place called Castor's [684]; but was, by
a fraudulent stratagem of the enemy, defeated in the last and greatest
battle, at Bedriacum [685]. For, some hopes of a conference being given,
and the soldiers being drawn up to hear the conditions of peace declared,
very unexpectedly, and amidst their mutual salutations, they were obliged
to stand to their arms. Immediately upon this he determined to put an
end to his life, more, as many think, and not without reason, out of
shame, at persisting in a struggle for the empire to the hazard of the
public interest and so many lives, than from despair, or distrust of his
troops. For he had still in reserve, and in full force, those whom he
had kept about him for a second trial of his fortune, and others were
coming up from Dalmatia, Pannonia, and Moesia; nor were the troops lately
defeated so far discouraged as not to be ready, even of themselves, to
run all risks in order to wipe off their recent disgrace.

X. My father, Suetonius Lenis [686], was in this battle, being at (424)
that time an angusticlavian tribune in the thirteenth legion. He used
frequently to say, that Otho, before his advancement to the empire, had
such an abhorrence of civil war, that once, upon hearing an account given
at table of the death of Cassius and Brutus, he fell into a trembling,
and that he never would have interfered with Galba, but that he was
confident of succeeding in his enterprise without a war. Moreover, that
he was then encouraged to des