1Marius Celsus agreed with the view of Paulinus; 1those who had been sent to ask the advice of Annius Gallus, injured a few days before by a fall from his horse, had reported that he held the same opinion. 1Otho was eager to fight it out; 1his brother Titianus and the praetorian prefect Proculus, impatient in their inexperience, kept declaring that fortune and the gods and Otho's own divinity were present at his counsels and would be present at his undertakings, and, so that no one should dare to oppose that view, they had given way to flattery. 1Once it had been decided to fight, they were unsure whether it would be better for the emperor to take part in the battle or to be kept out of the way.
1Since Paulinus and Celsus no longer opposed it, lest they seem to be exposing the emperor to danger, those same advocates of the worse plan pressed him to withdraw to Brixellum and, freed from the hazards of battle, to keep himself in reserve for the supreme direction of affairs and of the empire. 1That day was the first blow to the Othonian side; 1for not only did a strong force of the praetorian cohorts, the scouts and the cavalry depart with him, but the spirit of those who remained was broken, since the generals were distrusted, and Otho, who alone had the soldiers' confidence, trusting none but the soldiers himself, had left the generals' authority uncertain.