Amidst all this
a mutiny in the army all but broke out. The troops who, having been
disbanded by Vitellius, had flocked to support Vespasian, asked leave to
serve again in
the
Prætorian Guard, and the soldiers who had been selected from the
legions with the same prospect now clamoured for their promised pay. Even
the Vitellianists could not be got rid of without much bloodshed. But the
money required for retaining in the service so vast a body of men was
immensely large. Mucianus entered the camp to examine more accurately the
individual claims. The victorious army, wearing their proper decorations and
arms, he drew up with moderate intervals of space between the divisions;
then the Vitellianists, whose capitulation at Bovillæ I have already related, and the other
troops of the party, who had been collected from the capital and its
neighbourhood, were brought forth almost naked. Mucianus ordered these men
to be drawn up apart, making the British, the German, and any other troops
that there were belonging to other armies, take up separate positions. The
very first view of their situation paralyzed them. They saw opposed to them
what seemed a hostile array, threatening them with javelin and sword. They
saw themselves hemmed in, without arms, filthy and squalid. And when they
began to be separated, some to be marched to one spot, and some to another,
a thrill of terror ran through them all. Among the troops from
Germany the panic was particularly great; for they
believed that this separation marked them out for slaughter. They embraced
their fellow-soldiers, clung to their necks, begged for parting kisses, and
entreated that they might not be deserted, or doomed in a common cause to
suffer a different lot. They invoked now Mucianus, now the absent Emperor,
and, as a last resource, heaven and the Gods, till Mucianus came forward,
and calling them "soldiers bound by the same oath and servants of the same
Emperor," stopped the groundless panic. And indeed the victorious army
seconded the tears of the vanquished with their approving shouts. This
terminated the proceedings for that day. But when Domitian harangued them a
few days afterwards, they received him with increased confidence. The land
that was offered them they contemptuously rejected, and begged for regular
service and pay. Theirs were prayers indeed, but such as it was impossible
to reject. They were therefore received into the Prætorian camp. Then
such as had reached
the prescribed age, or had served the proper
number of campaigns, received an honourable discharge; others were dismissed
for misconduct; but this was done by degrees and in detail, always the
safest mode of reducing the united strength of a multitude.
