1Corsica and Sardinia and the other islands of the nearby sea were kept on Otho's side by the fame of the victorious fleet. 1But Corsica was almost ruined by the rashness of the procurator Decumus Pacarius, which, in so great a mass of war, could do nothing for the overall outcome and proved fatal to himself. 1For out of hatred of Otho he resolved to help Vitellius with the forces of the Corsicans, an empty aid even if it had succeeded. 1He summoned the leading men of the island and revealed his plan, and those who dared to speak against it, Claudius Pyrrichus, captain of the Liburnian ships there, and Quintius Certus, a Roman knight, he ordered to be killed: terrified by their deaths, those present, and at the same time the crowd of the ignorant, unaware and sharing another's fear, swore allegiance to Vitellius.
1But when Pacarius began to hold a levy and to wear out undisciplined men with the duties of military service, they loathed the unaccustomed toil and reflected on their own weakness: it was an island they lived on, and Germany and the strength of the legions were far away; 1even those whom cohorts and cavalry protected had been plundered and laid waste by the fleet. 1And their minds suddenly turned against him, yet not with open force: they chose a time suited to treachery. 1When those who attended Pacarius had gone, he was killed in the baths, naked and without help; 1his companions too were butchered. 1The killers themselves carried the heads to Otho as though they were enemies'; 1and neither did Otho reward them nor Vitellius punish them, mixed up as they were, in the great welter of events, with greater crimes.