Histories 1.77

1So they were tested with promises and threats at once, being told they were unequal in war and would lose nothing in peace; 1yet the loyalty of the praetorians did not change for that. 1But assassins were sent by Otho into Germany, and by Vitellius into the city. 1Both failed: the Vitellians did so with impunity, escaping notice in so great a multitude of men where none knew another; the Othonians were betrayed by their unfamiliar faces, since everyone there knew one another. 1Vitellius composed a letter to Titianus, Otho's brother, threatening death to him and his son unless his own mother and children were kept safe. 1And both households survived; under Otho it is uncertain whether from fear: Vitellius, as victor, carried off the glory of clemency.