1Otho meanwhile, contrary to everyone's expectation, did not grow sluggish in pleasures or idleness: indulgences were postponed, luxury disguised, and everything arranged to suit the dignity of empire, and so his false virtues and the vices that would return caused all the more alarm. 1He orders Marius Celsus, consul-designate, whom he had removed from the soldiers' savagery under the pretence of putting him in chains, to be summoned to the Capitol; 1he was seeking a name for clemency from a distinguished man hated by his party. 1Celsus firmly admitted the charge of having kept faith with Galba, and even claimed credit for the example. 1Nor did Otho act as though he were pardoning him, but calling the gods to witness their mutual reconciliation he at once counted him among his closest friends and soon chose him as one of his generals for the war; and Celsus, as if by fate, kept his loyalty to Otho too unbroken and unlucky.
1Celsus' rescue, welcome to the leading men of the state and celebrated among the common people, was not unwelcome even to the soldiers, who admired the very virtue that angered them.