Note 61 — Chapter LXII · TWENTY-FIRST YEAR OF THE WAR. — OLIGARCHY OF FOUR HUNDRED AT ATHENS.
Reading edition
The application of the Athenians at Samos to Alkibiadês, reminds us of the emphatic language in which Tacitus characterizes an incident in some respects similar. The Roman army, fighting in the cause of Vitellius against Vespasian, had been betrayed by their general Cæcina, who endeavored to carry them over to the latter: his army, however, refused to follow him, adhered to their own cause, and put him under arrest. Being afterwards defeated by the troops of Vespasian, and obliged to capitulate in Cremona, they released Cæcina, and solicited his intercession to obtain favorable terms. “Primores castrorum nomen atque imagines Vitellii amoliuntur; catenas Cæcinæ (nam etiam tum vinctus erat) exsolvunt, orantque, ut causæ suæ deprecator adsistat: aspernantem tumentemque lacrymis fatigant. Extremum malorum, tot fortissimi viri, proditoris opem invocantes.” (Tacitus, Histor. iii, 31.)