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The Annals and the Histories · Hist. 4.36

Meanwhile Civilis blockaded the Old Camp. Vocula retired first to Gelduba, afterwards to Novesium; Civilis took possession of Gelduba, and not long after was victorious in a cavalry engagement near Novesium. But reverses and successes seemed equally to kindle in the troops the one desire of murdering their officers. The legions, increased in number by the arrival of the men from the fifth and fifteenth, demanded a donative, for they had discovered that some money had been sent by Vitellius. After a short delay Hordeonius gave the donative in the name of Vespasian. This, more than anything else, fostered the mutinous spirit. The men, abandoning themselves to debauchery and revelry and all the license of nightly gatherings, revived their old grudge against Hordeonius. Without a single legate or tribune venturing to check them, for the darkness seems to have taken from them all sense of…
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Cornelius Tacitus · trans. Church & Brodribb, 1876
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