performance.  They had descended to flattery by way of checking opposition.  When it was decided to take the offensive, the question arose whether Otho in person should take part in the battle or hold himself in reserve.  His evil counsellors again carried their point.  Otho was to retire to Brixellum,[287] and, by withdrawing from the hazards of the field, reserve himself for the supreme control of the campaign and of the empire.  To this Paulinus and Celsus offered no further opposition, for fear of seeming to endanger the person of their prince.  From this day dates the decline of Otho’s party.  Not only did he take with him a considerable force of the Guards, Body Guard, and cavalry, but the spirit of the troops who remained behind was broken.  The men trusted no one but Otho, and Otho no one but the men.  His generals were under suspicion and their authority left in doubt.[288]

None of these arrangements failed to reach the ears of the 34 Vitellians.  Desertions were frequent, as they always are in civil war, and the scouts in their eagerness to discover the enemy’s plans always failed to conceal their own.  Caecina and Valens, counting on the fatal impatience of the enemy, remained quietly on their guard to see what they would do:  for it is always wisdom to profit by another’s folly.  Feigning an intention of crossing the Po, they began to construct a bridge, partly as a demonstration against the gladiators[289] on the opposite bank, partly to find something for their idle troops to do.  Boats were placed at equal intervals with their heads up stream and fastened together by strong wooden planks.  They also cast anchors from them to ensure the solidity of the bridge, but they allowed the hawsers to drift slack, so that when the river rose the boats might all rise with it without the line being broken.  To guard the bridge a high tower was built out on the end boat, from which they could repulse the enemy with various artillery.  Meanwhile the Othonians had built a tower on the bank and kept up a steady shower of stones and torches.

In midstream there was an island, to which the gladiators tried to 35 make their way in boats, but the Germans swam over and got there first.  When a good number of them had swam across, Macer manned some Liburnian cruisers[290] and attacked them with the bravest of his gladiators.  But they fought with less courage than soldiers, and from their unsteady boats they could not shoot so well as the others, who had a firm footing on the bank.  Swaying this way and that in their alarm, the sailors and the marines were beginning to get in each other’s way, when the Germans actually leapt into the shallows, caught hold of the boats by the stern, and either clambered up by the gangways or sunk them bodily with their own hands.  All this took place before the eyes of both armies[291], and the higher rose the spirits of the Vitellians, the greater became the indignation of the Othonians against Macer, the author and cause of their disaster.  The 36 remainder of the boats were eventually dragged off,[292] and the battle ended in flight.  The army demanded Macer’s execution.  He had been actually wounded by a lance that had been flung at him, and the soldiers were rushing on him with drawn swords when some tribunes and centurions intervened and rescued him.