1However, Vitellius did not indulge his generals so far as not to allow the soldiers still more. 1Each man chose his own service: however unworthy, if he had so preferred, he was enrolled in the service of the city; 1on the other hand, good men who wished to remain among the legionaries or in the cavalry squadrons were allowed to do so. 1Nor were there lacking men who wished it, worn out by disease and blaming the unhealthy climate; 1yet the strength was drawn away from the legions and cavalry squadrons, and the prestige of the camp shattered, as twenty thousand men were jumbled together from the whole army rather than chosen.
Lectitō › Tacitus › Histories, Book 2
Tacitus · Historiae II
Histories 2.98
Soldiers choose their own service
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Tacitus, Historiae II. Latin text: C. D. Fisher, Cornelii Taciti Historiarum Libri (Oxford, 1911), public domain; digital text from the Perseus Digital Library, CC BY-SA. Word analysis: drafted by our own tagger (trained on the hand-checked texts on this site), with every doubtful word checked by hand. English translation and section titles: written for this app, each checked against the Latin by a second reader.