The Annals and the Histories · Hist. 3.37

He then addressed the Senate in a speech of studied grandiloquence, and was extolled by the Senators with elaborate adulation. A savage resolution against Cæcina was moved by Lucius Vitellius; the rest affected indignation at the idea that a consul had betrayed the State, a general his Emperor, a man loaded with wealth so vast and honours so numerous his benefactor, and seemed to deplore the wrongs of Vitellius, while they uttered their private griefs. Not a word from any one of them disparaged the Flavianist leaders; they censured the delusion and recklessness of the armies, and with a prudent circumlocution avoided the name of Vespasian. A man was found, who, while all regarded with great contempt both giver and receiver, wormed himself by flattery into the one day of office which remained to complete the consulate of Cæcina. On the last day of October Rosius Regulus both assumed and…

Cornelius Tacitus · trans. Church & Brodribb, 1876
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