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I got the book out and found the passage I was remembering. It was from the chapter entitles, Mutiny on the Frontiers. Prior to the battle of Tutoburg. The Mutiny started in the regular army of Pannonia just after Augustus died and Tiberius had just became Emperor. They were given a suspension of normal duty to mourn the death of Augustus and rejoice at the appointment of the new Emperor.

“Before long easy living and idleness were all the troops wanted, the idea of work and discipline became distasteful’. There was a man called Percennius in the camp. Having become a private soldier after being a professional applause leader in the theatre, he was insolent of tongue and experienced in exciting crowds to cheer actors. The soldiers, simple men, were worried - now that Augustus was dead - about their future terms of service...After dark or in the evening twilight, when the better elements had dispersed to their tents and the riff-faff collected, they talked with him.

Finally Percennius had acquired a team of helpers ready for mutiny. Then he made something like a public speech. ‘Why’ he asked, ‘obey like slaves, a few commanders of companies, fewer still of battalions? Yu will never be brave enough to demand better conditions if you are not prepared to petition - or threaten - an emperor who is new and still faltering. Old men, mutilated by wounds, are serving their thirtieth or fortieth year. And even after your official discharge your service is not finished ; for you stay on with the colours as a reserve, still under canvas - the same drudgery under another name! And if you manage to survive all these hazards, even then you are dragged off to a remote country and “settled” in some waterlogged swamp or untilled mountainside. Truly the army is a harsh, unrewarding profession! Body and soul reckoned at two and a half sesterces a day - and with this you have to find clothes, weapons, tents, and bribes for brutal company-commanders if you want to avoid chores.
‘Heaven knows, lashes and wounds are always with us! So are hard winters and hardworking summers, grim war and unprofitable peace. There will never be improvement until service is based on a contract - pay, four sesterces a day; duration of service, sixteen years with no subsequent recall; a gratuity to be paid in cash before leaving the camp. Guardsmen receive eight sesterces a day, and after sixteen years they go home. Yet obviously their service is no more dangerous than yours. I am not saying a word against sentry-duty in the capital. Still, here are we among tribes of savages, with the enemy actual visible from our quarters!’

Percennius had an enthusiastic reception. As one point or another struck home, his hearers indignantly showed their lash-marks, their white hair, their clothes so tattered that their bodies showed through”.

The mutiny was quelled, Tiberius sent his son Drusus to handle it. The mutineers were put to death. But this all happened AFTER the death of Augustus and the Teutoburg battle and so I suppose the army in certain areas were insufficient.

Tiberius was a piece of work. Doing his thing on Capris. Too bad Drusus died (or murdered), they ended up getting Caligula. A true madman. On his one foreign expedition to Britannia, he had a mutiny. But instead of decimation he had the legions collect sea shells and rocks, and they came back to Rome where the madman held a Triumph for himself and added Britannacus to his long list of names. Just when the Romans thought they were out of the pan, they found themselves in the fire. But strangely, according to what is written and generally accepted, this led to Claudius who had mutiny when sending his legions to cross the English Channel. I’ll have to recheck this but I think he threatened decimation and that was enough to get their sandles on the boats. But he found significant resistance and if it weren’t for the traitorous queen of the Brigantes very well may have been pushed back across the channel. Claudius showed up with Elephants in person well after they had crossed the Thames. Funny how that works. The class dunce pulled off what Caesar couldn’t.