1The following year struck his heart and his household with a heavy wound. 2For Otho's fleet, roaming without restraint, while it was plundering Intimilium (it is a part of Liguria) as if it were enemy territory, killed Agricola's mother on her own estates, and plundered the estates themselves and a large part of her fortune, which had been the reason for the murder. 3So Agricola, setting out to perform the solemn rites of filial devotion, was overtaken by news that Vespasian was claiming the empire, and at once went over to his side. 4The beginnings of the reign and the state of the city were directed by Mucianus, since Domitian was very young and was taking from his father's fortune nothing but licence.
5Mucianus sent Agricola to hold levies, and when he had conducted himself with integrity and energy, put him in command of the Twentieth Legion, which had been slow to take the oath, where his predecessor was said to be behaving seditiously: for the legion was too powerful and formidable even for consular governors, and the praetorian legate had no power to restrain it, whether through his own character or the soldiers' is uncertain. 6So, chosen as at once successor and avenger, he preferred, with the rarest moderation, to seem to have found them loyal rather than to have made them so.