1After speaking thus, he addressed each one courteously according to his age or rank, and urged them to go quickly and not provoke the victor's anger by staying, moving the young by his authority, the old by entreaties, calm in his look, fearless in his words, checking the untimely tears of his followers. 1He ordered boats and carriages to be given to those leaving; 1he destroyed petitions and letters conspicuous for devotion to himself or for insults against Vitellius; 1he distributed money sparingly and not like a man about to die. 1Then of his own accord he comforted Salvius Cocceianus, his brother's son, a youth in his early prime, who was frightened and grieving, praising his affection and rebuking his fear: would Vitellius be so pitiless in spirit that he would not grant him even this favour in return for the safety of his whole house?
1He was earning the victor's clemency by hastening his end; 1for it was not in the last extremity of despair, but while his army was calling for battle, that he had spared the state the final hazard. 1He had won enough of a name for himself, enough nobility for his descendants. 1After the Julii, the Claudii and the Servii, he had been the first to bring the imperial power into a new family: so he should take hold of life with a high spirit, and neither ever forget that Otho had been his uncle nor remember it too much.