" These reasonings alarmed them, and filled them with mutual
jealousies. Presently the fresh soldiers forsook the veterans, and one
legion separated from another; then by degrees returned the love of duty
and obedience. They relinquished the guard of the gates: and the Eagles
and other ensigns, which in the beginning of the tumult they had thrown
together, were now restored each to its distinct station.
Drusus, as soon as it was day, summoned an assembly, and though unskilled
in speaking, yet with a haughtiness inherent in his blood, rebuked their
past and commended their present behaviour. "With threats and terrors," he
said, "it was impossible to subdue him; but if he saw them reclaimed to
submission, if from them he heard the language of supplicants, he would
send to his father to accept with a reconciled spirit the petitions of the
legions," Hence, at their entreaty, for their deputy to Tiberius the same
Blesus was again despatched, and with him Lucius Apronius, a Roman Knight
of the cohort of Drusus; and Justus Catonius, a Centurion of the first
order. There followed great debates in the council of Drusus, while some
advised "to suspend all proceeding till the return of the deputies, and by
a course of courtesy the while to soothe the soldiers; others maintained,
that remedies more potent must needs be applied: in a multitude, was to be
found nothing on this side extremes; always imperious where they are not
awed, and to be without danger despised when frightened: to their present
terror from superstition was to be added the dread of their General, by
his dooming to death the authors of the sedition.
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