First Battle of Bedriacum (mid-April AD 69)

Name: First Battle of Bedriacum (mid-April AD 69)
Start: 0069-04

Romans fighting the Batavians under Civilis (the revolt of AD 69–70), print by Antonio Tempesta after Otto van Veen, 1612. An image related to the civil war of AD 69, not a record of the battle of Bedriacum.

Ignoring the advice of Suetonius Paulinus to wait for the legions from the Danube, Otho ordered an attack and himself rode off to Brixellum. His army marched with its baggage trains along a narrow road among vineyards, greeted the enemy on a false report that they were changing sides, and was routed (Tacitus, Histories 2.39–44). Suetonius writes of treachery during the negotiations (Otho 9). Dio calls it the Battle of Cremona and gives 40,000 killed on each side — a figure no one else confirms. The day is unknown; scholars generally put it at April 14.

Sources

Image: Antonio Tempesta after Otto van Veen, 1612, Metropolitan Museum of Art; Wikimedia Commons, CC0