Aggerebatur nihilo minus caespes iamque pectori usque adcreverat, cum tandem pervicacia victi inceptum omisere. Blaesus multa dicendi arte non per seditionem et turbas desideria militum ad Caesarem ferenda ait, neque veteres ab imperatoribus priscis neque ipsos a divo Augusto tam nova petivisse; et parum in tempore incipientis principis curas onerari. si tamen tenderent in pace temptare quae ne civilium quidem bellorum victores expostulaverint, cur contra morem obsequii, contra fas disciplinae vim meditentur? decernerent legatos seque coram mandata darent. adclamavere ut filius Blaesi tribunus legatione ea fungeretur peteretque militibus missionem ab sedecim annis: cetera mandaturos ubi prima provenissent. profecto iuvene modicum otium: sed superbire miles quod filius legati orator publicae causae satis ostenderet necessitate expressa quae per modestiam non obtinuissent.

The turf was piled up nonetheless and already it had grown to chest-height, when, defeated by his relentlessness, they abandoned what they had begun. Blaesus, with great skill in speaking, said that the soldiers’ wishes would not be relayed to Caesar through mutiny and disorder: neither had their predecessors made such unconventional requests from the commanders of old, nor they themselves from the divine Augustus; and that the concerns of a fledgling emperor were being aggravated at a hardly convenient time. Yet if they were aiming to attempt in peacetime what not even the victors of the civil wars had demanded, why, contrary to their custom of obedience, contrary to the divine law of discipline, were they contemplating violence? They should appoint legates and issue orders in his presence. They shouted that Blaesus’ son, a tribune, should perform this embassy and request discharge for the soldiers after sixteen years: they would issue other orders when the first ones had succeeded. When the young man set out there was moderate peace: but the soldiery took pride because the fact that the son of a commander was the pleader for a public cause showed that they had extorted through force what they would not have obtained through moderation.