Meanwhile
the population of
Cremona was roughly handled by the
soldiers, who were just beginning a massacre, when their fury was mitigated
by the entreaties of the generals. Antonius summoned them to an assembly,
extolled the conquerors, spoke kindly to the conquered, but said nothing
either way of
Cremona. Over and above the innate
love of plunder, there was an old feud which made the army bent on the
destruction of the inhabitants. It was generally believed that in the war
with Otho, as well as in the pres-
ent, they had supported the
cause of Vitellius. Afterwards, when the 13th legion had been left to build
an amphitheatre, with the characteristic insolence of a city population,
they had wantonly provoked and insulted them. The ill-feeling had been
aggravated by the gladiatorial show exhibited there by Cæcina, by the
circumstance that their city was now for the second time the seat of war,
and by the fact that they had supplied the Vitellianists with provisions in
the field, and that some of their women, taken by party-zeal into the
battle, had there been slain. The occurrence of the fair filled the colony,
rich as it always was, with an appearance of still greater wealth. The other
generals were unnoticed; Antonius from his success and high reputation was
observed of all. He had hastened to the baths to wash off the blood; and
when he found fault with the temperature of the water, an answer was heard,
"that it would soon be warm enough." Thus the words of a slave brought on
him the whole odium of having given the signal for firing the town, which
was indeed already in flames.
