1Otho was awaiting news of the battle, not at all alarmed and firm in his resolve. 1First a gloomy rumour, then fugitives from the battle revealed that all was lost. 1The soldiers' ardour did not wait for the emperor to speak; 1they bade him keep up his courage: fresh forces still remained, and they themselves would suffer and dare the uttermost. 1Nor was this flattery: they were burning with a kind of frenzy and impulse to go into battle and revive the fortune of their party. 1Those who had stood far off stretched out their hands, and those nearest clasped his knees, Plotius Firmus most eagerly of all. 1This praetorian prefect begged him again and again not to desert a most loyal army, not to desert soldiers who had served him so well: it took greater courage to endure adversity than to abandon it; 1brave and energetic men held on to hope even against fortune; the timid and cowardly hurried in fear to despair.
1Amid these cries, as Otho had softened or hardened his expression, there was shouting and groaning. 1And not only the praetorians, Otho's own soldiers, but also those sent ahead from Moesia reported the same determination in the approaching army, and that the legions had entered Aquileia, so that no one can doubt that the war could have been renewed, grim, mournful, uncertain for victors and vanquished.