As it was,
they expulsed the Camp-Marshal and Tribunes; and as they fled, plundered
their baggage: they likewise put to death Lucilius the Centurion, whom
they had sarcastically named _Cedo Alteram_, because when upon the back of
a soldier he had broken one wand, he was wont to call for another, and
then a third. The other Centurions lurked in concealment, all but Julius
Clemens, who for his prompt capacity was saved, in order to manage the
negotiations of the soldiers: even two of the legions, the eighth and the
fifteenth, were ready to turn their swords upon each other; and had, but
for the ninth: one Sirpicus, a centurion, was the subject of the quarrel;
him the eighth required to be put to death, and the fifteenth protected
him; but the ninth interposed with entreaties to both, and with threats to
those who would not listen to prayers.
Tiberius, however, close and impenetrable, and ever labouring to smother
all melancholy tidings, was yet driven by those from Pannonia, to despatch
his son Drusus thither, accompanied by the principal nobility and guarded
by two Praetorian cohorts; but charged with no precise instructions, only
to adapt his measures to the present exigency: the cohorts were
strengthened with an extraordinary addition of chosen men, with the
greatest part of the Praetorian horse, and main body of the German, then
the Emperor's guards.
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