1After this he sent everyone away and rested a little. 1And as he was already turning over his last concerns in his mind, a sudden uproar distracted him, when news came of the soldiers' panic and lawlessness; 1for they were threatening death to those who were leaving, with the most savage violence against Verginius, whom they were besieging with his house shut up. 1After rebuking the ringleaders of the riot, he returned and gave his time to talking with those who were leaving, until all had departed unharmed. 1As the day drew to evening, he quenched his thirst with a draught of cold water. 1Then two daggers were brought, and when he had tested them both, he put one beneath his head.
1And having made sure that his friends had set out, he spent a quiet night, and, as is affirmed, not a sleepless one: at first light he fell upon the blade with his breast. 1At the groan of the dying man his freedmen and slaves came in, with Plotius Firmus the praetorian prefect, and found a single wound. 1The funeral was hastened; 1he had begged for this with earnest prayers, lest his head be cut off and become a thing for mockery. 1The praetorian cohorts carried his body with praises and tears, kissing his wound and his hands. 1Some of the soldiers killed themselves beside the pyre, not from guilt or out of fear, but in emulation of his glory and from love of their emperor.
1And afterwards that kind of death became common at Bedriacum, at Placentia and in other camps, among men of every sort. 1For Otho a tomb was built, modest and likely to endure. 1He met this end of his life in the thirty-seventh year of his age.