The fellow must have possessed superhuman powers of persuasion.
Certainly he made a long speech in which he convinced the leaders of the
mutineers that their having associated with themselves tumultuary recruits
in Gaul and the liberated inmates of _ergastula_ in Italy was inconsistent
with their expressed loyalty to Caesar and the Commonwealth; that by such
action, they had gravely imperilled the very existence of the Republic and
the safety of their Emperor. He won them over so completely that they
acceded, without hesitation, to his dictum that they ought to do all in
their power to repair the ill effects of their error of judgment; that the
only way was to abandon their associates, to leave them for him to deal
with and to march with all speed back to Britain to reassure their fellow-
insurgents and reclaim Britain to effective loyalty.
So completely were they under his spell that they returned to their camp,
roused their men without waking any of their tumultuary associates, and
marched the whole body of veterans, in the night, across the Mulvian
Bridge and on all day to a prepared camp near Careiae, where they spent
the night. From there they marched in two days the forty-six miles to
Cosa; whence they followed the Aurelian road to Marseilles, as we had
ridden it, and from there marched across Gaul to Gessoriacum and shipped
for Britain, all in half the time in which they had come.
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