[298] About seven miles below Cremona. The Medicean MS. has Adua, but as the mouth of the Adua is seven miles west of Cremona and Bedriacum twenty-two miles east of Cremona, the figures given do not suit. For Tacitus says that they marched first four miles and then sixteen. Mr. Henderson proposes to solve the difficulty by reading _quartum decimum_ for _quartum_ in chap. 39. But his reasons are purely _a priori_. If the confluence was that of the _Arda_ with the Po, Tacitus' _quartum_ is still unsatisfactory, but the distances given in Plutarch's Life of Otho would suit the facts. He makes the first march a little over six miles. From the camp then pitched to the mouth of the Arda would be by road about sixteen miles. Thus Tacitus' first figure may be a slight underestimate and his second figure correct. The second day's march, according to Plutarch, was rather more than twelve miles, so we may suppose that the armies met about four miles short of the confluence, which was the Othonians' objective. This suits Paulinus' suggestion a few lines lower that the Vitellians need only march four miles to catch them in marching column. The whole question is fully discussed by Mr. Henderson (op. cit.) and by Mr. E.G. Hardy in the _Journal of Philology_, vol. xxxi, no. 61. [299] See 34 and 35. [300] Via Postumia. [301] The word here used, _cuneus_ (a wedge), should mean strictly a V-shaped formation, which the troops also called 'pig's-head'. But it is also used more generally of any attacking column advancing to pierce the enemy's line, or indeed of any body of men in close order. [302] Because they were on the raised Postumian road. [303] i.e. The Irresistibles. [304] The quondam marines (cp. i. 6, &c.). [305] From Lower Germany (cp. i. 55 and 61). [306] From Pannonia (cp. chap. 24). [307] Only a detachment of the Fourteenth was present at this battle, as is explained below, chap. 66. [308] The camp-prefect (chap. 29). The Batavians are the detachment which had left the Fourteenth (chap. 27). [309] This is not an allusion to the fight described in chap. 35. The gladiators, now under Sabinus (ch. 36) seem to have suffered a second defeat. [310] The fixing of this distance rests on the doubtful figures in chap. 39. In any case it must have been between fourteen and twenty miles. [311] Plutarch in describing this rout makes the same rather cynical comment. Dio puts the total loss on both sides at 40,000. [312] He had remained behind in camp (cp. chap. 33). [313] i.e. other than the Guards. [314] See chap. 32. [315] At Brixellum.