The Annals and the Histories · Hist. 2.66

Vitellius was troubled by the spirit of the vanquished legions, which was any thing but broken. Scattered through all parts of Italy, and mingled with the conquerors, they spoke the language of enemies. The soldiers of the 14th legion were peculiarly furious. They said that they had not been vanquished; that at the battle of Bedriacum only the veterans had been beaten, and that the strength of the legion had been absent. It was resolved that these troops should be sent back to Britain, from which province Nero had summoned them, and that the Batavian cohorts should in the meantime be quartered with them, because there was an old feud between them and the 14th. In the presence of such animosities between these armed masses, harmony did not last long. At Augusta of the Taurini it happened that a Batavian soldier fiercely charged some artisan with having cheated him, and that a soldier of…

Cornelius Tacitus · trans. Church & Brodribb, 1876
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