1As we have related above, the Silian cavalry squadron had already opened up Italy and carried the war across, though no one there favoured Otho, not because they preferred Vitellius, but because long peace had broken them to every kind of servitude, so that they yielded easily to whoever seized them and cared little for the better side. 1The most flourishing region of Italy, all the plains and cities between the Po and the Alps, was held by the arms of Vitellius (for the cohorts sent ahead by Caecina had also arrived). 1A cohort of Pannonians was captured near Cremona; 1a hundred cavalry and a thousand marines were cut off between Placentia and Ticinum.
1After this success the Vitellian soldiers were no longer held back by river or banks; 1indeed the Po itself provoked the Batavians and the men from across the Rhine; crossing it suddenly opposite Placentia, they seized some scouts and so terrified the rest that these reported, in panic and falsely, that Caecina's whole army was at hand.