This move had been made either without the knowledge or against the orders of Vespasian.  His instructions were to suspend operations at Aquileia and wait for the arrival of Mucianus.  He had further added this consideration, that so long as he held Egypt and the key to the corn-supply,[34] as well as the revenue of the richest provinces,[35] he could reduce Vitellius’ army to submission from sheer lack of money and provisions.  Mucianus had sent letter after letter with the same advice, pointing to the prospect of a victory without bloodshed or bereavement, and using other similar pretexts to conceal his real motive.  This was ambition.  He wanted to keep all the glory of the war to himself.  However, the distance was so great that events outran his instructions.

Antonius accordingly made a sudden sally against the enemy’s 9 outposts, and after a slight skirmish, in which they tested each other’s temper, both sides withdrew without advantage.  Soon after, Caecina entrenched a strong position between a Veronese village called Hostilia[36] and the marshes of the river Tartaro.  Here he was safe, with the river in his rear and the marsh to guard his flanks.  Had he added loyalty to his other advantages, he might have employed the full strength of the Vitellian forces to crush the enemy’s two legions, before they were reinforced by the Moesian army, or, at least, have forced them to retire in ignominious flight and abandon Italy.  But Caecina used various pretexts for delay, and at the outset of the war treacherously yielded all his advantages to the enemy.  While it was open to him to rout them by force of arms, he preferred to pester them with letters and to wait until his intermediaries had settled the terms of his treason.  In the meantime, Aponius Saturninus arrived with the Seventh Claudian legion,[37] commanded by the tribune[38] Vipstanus Messala, a distinguished member of a famous family, and the only man who brought any honesty to this war.[39] To these forces, still only three legions and no match for the Vitellians, Caecina addressed his letters.  He criticized their rash attempt to sustain a lost cause, and at the same time praised the courage of the German army in the highest terms.  His allusions to Vitellius were few and casual, and he refrained from insulting Vespasian.  In fact he used no language calculated either to seduce or to terrorize the enemy.  The Flavian generals made no attempt to explain away their former defeat.  They proudly championed Vespasian, showing their loyalty to the cause, their confidence in the army, and their hostile prejudice[40] against Vitellius.  To the tribunes and centurions they held out the hope of retaining all the favours they had won from Vitellius, and they urged Caecina himself in plain terms to desert.  These letters were both read before a meeting of the Flavian army, and served to increase their confidence, for while Caecina wrote mildly and seemed afraid of offending Vespasian, their own generals had answered contemptuously and scoffed at Vitellius.