The tumult, however, swelling
again with fresh rage, he fled, but was discovered; so that, finding no
safety in lurking, from his own bravery he drew his defence, and declared
"that to himself, who was only their Camp-Marshal, these their outrages
were not done, but done to the authority of Germanicus, their General, to
the majesty of Tiberius their Emperor." At the same time, braving and
dismaying all that would have stopped him, he fiercely snatched the
colours, faced about towards the Rhine, and pronouncing the doom of
traitors and deserters to every man who forsook his ranks, brought them
back to their winter quarters, mutinous, in truth, but not daring to
mutiny.
In the meantime the deputies from the Senate met Germanicus at the altar
of the Ubians [Footnote: Cologne.], whither in his return he was arrived.
Two legions wintered there, the first and twentieth, with the soldiers
lately placed under the standard of veterans; men already under the
distractions of guilt and fear: and now a new terror possessed them, that
these Senators were come armed with injunctions to cancel every concession
which they had by sedition extorted; and, as it is the custom of the crowd
to be ever charging somebody with the crimes suggested by their own false
alarms, the guilt of this imaginary decree they laid upon Minutius
Plancus, a Senator of consular dignity, and at the head of this
deputation.
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