Bedriacum: Wait or Strike?

Spring, AD 69: Vitellius’s armies come down from the Alps, and at Bedriacum Otho must decide: wait for the legions from the Danube or strike at once.

Transcript

Spring, AD sixty-nine. Two armies of Vitellius come down from the Alps.

One is led by Caecina, the other by Valens. Placentia shuts its gates on Caecina. The assault fails.

Otho’s troops are camped at Bedriacum , a village between Verona and Cremona. The legions from the Danube are several days’ march away.

A seasoned general, Suetonius Paulinus, advises waiting. The emperor’s brother and the praetorian prefect want battle at once.

What do you do?

That was Paulinus’s advice. Otho did not heed it.

That was Otho’s decision.

The soldiers wanted it. But his advisers persuaded the emperor to spare himself.

Otho orders the attack, while he himself rides off to Brixellum . Tacitus writes that this day ruined his cause.

Mid-April. The column marches along a narrow road between vineyards. Wagons get tangled up with the troops.

Someone shouts that the enemy is coming over to their side. Otho’s soldiers salute their opponents. A hostile growl answers them.

The First Legion takes an enemy eagle. But the center breaks.

The beaten troops flee to the camp at Bedriacum .