1This infection also tainted the minds of the legions and auxiliaries, already unsettled, once it had been spread about that the loyalty of the German army was wavering. 1And the mutiny was so ready among the bad, and connivance even among the honest, that on the day after the Ides they would have seized Otho as he returned from dinner, had they not feared the uncertainties of night, the soldiers' quarters scattered throughout the city, and the difficulty of agreement among drunken men; not from concern for the state, which they were preparing, when sober, to defile with the blood of their emperor, but lest in the darkness whoever happened to be presented to the soldiers of the Pannonian or German army should be proclaimed in place of Otho, since most did not know him.
1Many signs of the mutiny that was breaking out were suppressed by those in the plot: some of them the prefect Laco made light of before Galba's ears, ignorant as he was of the soldiers' temper, hostile to any advice, however excellent, which he had not offered himself, and obstinate against those with experience.