that seemed safe from inundation. Many people were swept away in the streets, still more were overtaken by the flood in shops or in their beds at home. The result was a famine, since food was scarce,[1] and the poor were deprived of their means of livelihood. Blocks of flats, the foundations of which had rotted in the standing water, collapsed when the river sank. No sooner had the panic caused by the flood subsided than it was found that, whereas Otho was preparing an expedition, its route over the Martian Plain and up the Flaminian Road was blocked. Though probably caused by chance, or the course of Nature, this mishap was turned into a miraculous omen of impending disaster.
Otho's Plans
87Otho had held a purification of the city[2] and meditated his plans for the war. Recognizing that the Pennine and Cottian Alps and all the other passes into Gaul were held by Vitellius, he decided to invade Narbonese Gaul by sea. His fleet was now a strong and reliable arm, devoted to his cause. For he had formed the full strength of a legion out of the survivors of the Mulvian Bridge massacre,[3] whom Galba's cruelty had
- ↑ Plutarch mentions that the quarter which suffered most was that which contained the retail provision-shops.
- ↑ He would lead the victim, before sacrificing it, round the ancient boundary of the city, and thus avert the disasters threatened by the alarming omens detailed in the last chapter.
- ↑ Cp. chaps. 6 and 37.
