1Day had scarcely dawned when the walls were full of defenders and the plains gleamed with arms and men: the dense column of the legions and the scattered bands of auxiliaries assailed the higher parts of the walls with arrows or stones, and attacked at close quarters the parts that were neglected or crumbling with age. 1From above, the Othonians hurled their javelins with a steadier and surer aim against the cohorts of Germans, who came on recklessly with a savage chant, their bodies bare in their native fashion, clashing their shields above their shoulders. 1The legionaries, covered by mantlets and hurdles, undermine the walls, build up a mound and batter at the gates: against them the praetorians roll down millstones, placed ready for that very purpose, with enormous weight and crash.
1Of those coming up, some were crushed, some pierced through and bloodless or mangled: as panic increased the slaughter and they were therefore wounded more fiercely from the walls, they withdrew, with the reputation of their party broken. 1And Caecina, ashamed of an assault rashly begun, so as not to sit in the same camp mocked and ineffective, crossed the Po again and set out for Cremona. 1As he departed, Turullius Cerialis surrendered to him with a good number of marines, and Julius Briganticus with a few cavalry, the latter a cavalry prefect born among the Batavians, the former a senior centurion and no stranger to Caecina, because he had commanded ranks in Germany.