1From there Vitellius turned aside to Cremona and, after watching Caecina's gladiatorial show, longed to set foot on the plains of Bedriacum and survey with his own eyes the traces of the recent victory, a foul and dreadful spectacle. 1Less than forty days after the battle, there were mangled bodies, severed limbs, the rotting shapes of men and horses, ground soaked with gore, and, with trees and crops trampled flat, a dreadful desolation. 1No less inhuman was the part of the road which the people of Cremona had strewn with laurel and roses, building altars and slaughtering victims in the manner of a king; 1things which, joyful for the moment, soon brought ruin on the people themselves.
1Valens and Caecina were at his side and pointed out the places of the battle: from here the column of the legions had burst in, from here the cavalry had charged, from there the bands of auxiliaries had poured round them: and now tribunes and prefects, each extolling his own deeds, were mixing false with true, or with what was greater than the truth. 1The common soldiers too turned aside from the road with shouting and joy, recognised the ground of the fighting, and gazed and marvelled at the heap of weapons and the piles of bodies; 1and there were some who were overcome by the changeable fortune of affairs, by tears and by pity.
1But Vitellius did not turn away his eyes, nor did he shudder at so many thousands of unburied citizens: joyful, indeed, and unaware of a fate so close at hand, he was offering sacrifice to the gods of the place.