“While these events were taking place at Rome, mutinity broke out in the regular army in Pannonia. There were no fresh motives for this, except that the change of emperors offered hopes of rioting with impunity and collecting the profits afforded by civil wars.
(…)
The night looked like ending in a disastrous criminal outbreak. But this was averted by a stroke of luck. Suddenly, in a clear sky, the light of the moon was seen to decline. The soldiers did not know why this was, and detected an omen to their own situation. The waning moon seemed to provide an analogy to their own efforts: sucess would only crown the measures they were adopting if the moon-goddess shone brightly again. To produce this result they made a clattering of brass instruments and blew blasts on every sort of trumpet. The light seemed stronger, and they were happy. Then it looked dimmer, and they were mounful. Finnaly clouds hid it from view altogether. Men’s minds, once unbalanced, are ready to believe anything; and now they howled that heaven was sickened by their crimes, and endless hardships were in store for them …”
[Tacitus, “Mutinity on the frontiers”, The Annals of Imperial Rome]
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