2012年11月23日星期五

what about it

"Well, what about it, then? Where's the rest of the bounty?" someone shouted, and the cry was taken up. "We want our bounty." But by a lucky chance the moneywagons were sighted at that moment, driving into camp under convoy of a troop of auxiliary horse. Germanicus took advantage of the situation to send the senators hurriedly back to Rome under escort of these same auxiliaries; then he supervised the distribution of the coin, having difficulty in restraining some of the men from plundering the money intended for the other regiments.
The disorder increased that afternoon; so much gold in the men's purses meant heavy drinking and reckless gambling. Germanicus decided that it was not safe for Agrippina who was now with him, to remain in the camp. She was pregnant again; and though her young sons, my nephews Nero and Drusus, were here at Rome staying with my mother and myself, she had little Gains there with her. This pretty child had become the army mascot, and someone had made him a miniature soldier-suit, complete with tin breast-plate and sword and helmet and shield. Everyone spoilt him. When his mother put on his ordinary clothes and sandals he used to cry and plead for his sword and his little boots to go visiting the tents. So he was nicknamed Caligula, or Little Boot.
Gennanicus insisted on Agrippina's going away, though she swore that she was afraid of nothing and would far rather die with him there than have news from safety of his murder by the mutineers. But he asked her whether she thought that Livia would make a good mother for their orphaned children, and this decided her to do as he wished. With her went several officers' wives, with their children, all weeping and wearing mourning clothes. They passed on foot slowly through the camp, without their usual attendants, like fugitives from a doomed city. A single rough cart, drawn by a mule, was all their transport. Cassius Chaerea went with them as guide and sole protector. Caligula rode on Cassius's back as if on a charger, shouting and making the regulation sword-cuts and panics in the air with his sword, as the cavalrymen had taught him. They left the camp very early in the morning and hardly anyone saw them go; for there was no guard at the gate and nobody now took the trouble to blow the reveille, most of the men sleeping like pigs till ten or eleven o'clock. A few old soldiers who woke early from long habit were outside the camp gathering firewood for their breakfasts and called to ask where the ladies were off to. "To "Treves," shouted Cassius. "The Commander-in-Chief is sending his wife and child away to the protection of the uncivilized but loyal French allies of Treves rather than risk their murder by the famous First Regiment. Tell your comrades that."
The old soldiers hurried back to the camp and one of them, the old man Pomponius, got hold of a trumpet and blew the alarm. The men came tumbling out of their tents half-asleep with their swords in their hands. "What's wrong? What's happened?"
"He's been sent away from us. That's the end of our luck and we'll never see him again."

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