Besides, the young
princes would be excused, if to their father they referred such demands as
were for them improper to grant; and if they disobeyed Germanicus and
Drusus, his own authority remained to appease or punish them: but if once
they had contemned their Emperor himself, what other resource was behind?"
However, as if he had been upon the point of marching, he chose his
attendance, provided his equipage, and prepared a fleet: but by various
delays and pretences, sometimes that of the winter, sometimes business, he
deceived for a time even the wisest men; much longer the common people,
and the provinces for a great while.
Germanicus had already drawn together his army, and was prepared to take
vengeance on the seditious: but judging it proper to allow space for
trial, whether they would follow the late example, and consulting their
own safety do justice upon one another, he sent letters to Caecina, "that
he himself approached, with a powerful force; and if they prevented him
not, by executing the guilty, he would put all indifferently to the
slaughter." These letters Caecina privately read to the principal
officers, and such of the camp as the sedition had not tainted; besought
them "to redeem themselves from death, and all from infamy; urged that in
peace alone reason was heard and merit distinguished; but in the rage of
war the blind steel spared the innocent no more than the guilty.
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