The scenes of the Pannonian mutiny were repeated. Centurions were beaten and killed, Cæcina was powerless to interpose, and in fact seems at first to have lost his head. He surrendered to the soldiers a centurion who had taken refuge at his tribunal. Another centurion at the same time fought his way through the mob; he was Cassius Chærea, destined some twenty years later to rid Rome of Caligula. Rejecting the authority of their officers, the mutineers took the whole organization of the camp into their own hands; there was no suspension of discipline, but perfect order, a fact which increased the gravity of the situation as indicating a settled purpose and skilled ringleaders. Germanicus left his civil duties to repress the mutineers if possible. He was received sullenly in the camp. Some of the men, seizing his hand under the pretext of kissing it, pressed his fingers into their mouths that he might feel the absence of their teeth; others pointed at their limbs bent with old age. Germanicus on this occasion, as at the few other times when we get a fair view of him, showed himself a man of courage, resource, and strict uprightness. Before addressing the mutineers, he insisted that they should group themselves in the customary divisions, company by company, battalion by battalion, hoping thus to restore the habit of obedience, but he was disappointed. His first question as to the causes of the mutiny raised a storm. Men stripped to show the scars of wounds, the weals raised by the centurions’ sticks; eager protests were shouted against the prices paid for discharges, the smallness of the pay; the different labours of the camp were mentioned in detail, the digging of fortifications, the collection of fodder, timber, firewood. The most serious outcry was that of the veterans demanding immediate discharge; the immediate payment of the legacy of Augustus was also demanded, and then voices were heard offering to follow Germanicus if he would claim the Empire. Germanicus at once jumped from his seat and left the tribunal. The soldiers endeavoured to force him back, whereupon he drew his sword and threatened to drive it into his own heart; a wag of the camp offered him his own sword with the observation that it was sharper. Germanicus was hurried off by his friends into his tent, and a consultation was held. Seeing that the fidelity of the Upper Army was insecure, the danger was such that Germanicus decided to yield; a letter was drawn up in the name of the Emperor granting a full discharge to men who had served for twenty years; men who had served for sixteen years were to be put on the reserve of “flagmen” for another four years; the legacy of Augustus was to be paid and doubled.