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All that we have of the histories of Livy come to us through Poggio's industry as a manuscript-hunter; this same worthy found and brought away from different monasteries a perfect copy of Quintilian, a Cicero's oration for Caecina, a complete Tertullian, a Petronius Arbiter, and fifteen or twenty other classics almost as valuable as those I have named.
For the criminals, when they found against whom all this fury was bent, had also betaken themselves to their arms; neither did Caecina, nor any of the Tribunes, intervene to stay the rage; so that the soldiers had full permission to vengeance, and a licentious satiety of killing.
To Caecina this year proved the fortieth of his sustaining as officer or soldier the functions of arms; a man in all the vicissitudes of war, prosperous or disastrous, well experienced and thence undaunted.
The Cheruscans indeed were addicted to assist the Cattans, but terrified from attempting it by Caecina, who moved about with his forces from place to place; and by routing the Marsians who had dared to engage him, restrained all their efforts.
Caecina, who led his own men, was warned, that though he was to return through unknown roads, yet he should with all speed pass the causeway called the long bridges: it is a narrow track this, between vast marshes, and formerly raised by Lucius Domitius. The marshes themselves are of an uncertain soil, here full of mud, there of heavy sticking clay, or traversed with various currents.
The greatest difficulty was to maintain the Eagles; a storm of darts made it impossible to advance them, and the rotten ground impossible to fix them. Caecina, while he sustained the fight, had his horse shot, and having fallen was nigh taken; but the first legion saved him.
But some lay the blame on Caecina, saying, that out of a desire to gain the victory by himself before Fabius joined him, he committed sundry other errors of lesser consequence, and by engaging unseasonably and when he could not do so thoroughly, he very nearly brought all to ruin. When he found himself beat off at Placentia, he set off to attack Cremona, another large and rich city.
And accordingly it was agreed that the conference should be between Celsus and Gallus on one part, and Valens with Caecina on the other. As the two first were upon their journey, they met some centurions, who told them the troops were already in motion, marching for Bedriacum, but that they themselves were deputed by their generals to carry proposals for an accommodation.
Arria, the wife of Caecina Paetus, a consular person, was the mother of another Arria, the wife of Thrasea Paetus, he whose virtue was so renowned in the time of Nero, and by this son-in-law, the grandmother of Fannia: for the resemblance of the names of these men and women, and their fortunes, have led to several mistakes.
Septimius, who had for refuge fled to the tribunal of Caecina, and lay clasping his feet, was demanded with such imperious vehemence, that he was forced to be surrendered to destruction. After this no further authority remained to the Tribunes, none to the Camp-Marshals.
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