(400)
I. The race of the Caesars became extinct in Nero; an event
prognosticated by various signs, two of which were particularly
significant. Formerly, when Livia, after her marriage with Augustus, was
making a visit to her villa at Veii [639], an eagle flying by, let drop
upon her lap a hen, with a sprig of laurel in her mouth, just as she had
seized it. Livia gave orders to have the hen taken care of, and the
sprig of laurel set; and the hen reared such a numerous brood of
chickens, that the villa, to this day, is called the Villa of the Hens
[640]. The laurel groves flourished so much, that the Caesars procured
thence the boughs and crowns they bore at their triumphs. It was also
their constant custom to plant others on the same spot, immediately after
a triumph; and it was observed that, a little before the death of each
prince, the tree which had been set by him died away. But in the last
year of Nero, the whole plantation of laurels perished to the very roots,
and the hens all died. About the same time, the temple of the Caesars
[641] being struck with lightning, the heads of all the statues in it
fell off at once; and Augustus’s sceptre was dashed from his hands.
II. Nero was succeeded by Galba [642], who was not in the remotest
degree allied to the family of the Caesars, but, without doubt, of very
noble extraction, being descended from a great and ancient family; for he
always used to put amongst his other titles, upon the bases of his
statues, his being great-grandson to Q. Catulus Capitolinus. And when he
came to (401) be emperor, he set up the images of his ancestors in the
hall [643] of the palace; according to the inscriptions on which, he
carried up his pedigree on the father’s side to Jupiter; and by the
mother’s to Pasiphae, the wife of Minos.
III. To give even a short account of the whole family, would be tedious.
I shall, therefore, only slightly notice that branch of it from which he
was descended. Why, or whence, the first of the Sulpicii who had the
cognomen of Galba, was so called, is uncertain. Some are of opinion,
that it was because he set fire to a city in Spain, after he had a long
time attacked it to no purpose, with torches dipped in the gum called
Galbanum: others said he was so named, because, in a lingering disease,
he made use of it as a remedy, wrapped up in wool: others, on account of
his being prodigiously corpulent, such a one being called, in the
language of the Gauls, Galba; or, on the contrary, because he was of a
slender habit of body, like those insects which breed in a sort of oak,
and are called Galbae. Sergius Galba, a person of consular rank [644],
and the most eloquent man of his time, gave a lustre to the family.
History relates, that, when he was pro-praetor of Spain, he perfidiously
put to the sword thirty thousand Lusitanians, and by that means gave
occasion to the war of Viriatus [645]. His grandson being incensed
against Julius Caesar, whose lieutenant he had been in Gaul, because he
was through him disappointed of the consulship [646], joined with Cassius
and Brutus in the conspiracy against him, for which he was condemned by
the Pedian law. From him were descended the grandfather and father of
the emperor Galba. The grandfather was more celebrated for his
application to study, than (402) for any figure he made in the
government. For he rose no higher than the praetorship, but published a
large and not uninteresting history. His father attained to the
consulship [647]: he was a short man and hump-backed, but a tolerable
orator, and an industrious pleader. He was twice married: the
first of his wives was Mummia Achaica, daughter of Catulus, and
great-grand-daughter of Lucius Mummius, who sacked Corinth [648]; and the
other, Livia Ocellina, a very rich and beautiful woman, by whom it is
supposed he was courted for the nobleness of his descent. They say, that
she was farther encouraged to persevere in her advances, by an incident
which evinced the great ingenuousness of his disposition. Upon her
pressing her suit, he took an opportunity, when they were alone, of
stripping off his toga, and showing her the deformity of his person, that
he might not be thought to impose upon her. He had by Achaica two sons,
Caius and Sergius. The elder of these, Caius [649], having very much
reduced his estate, retired from town, and being prohibited by Tiberius
from standing for a pro-consulship in his year, put an end to his own
life.
IV. The emperor Sergius Galba was born in the consulship of M. Valerius
Messala, and Cn. Lentulus, upon the ninth of the calends of January [24th
December] [650], in a villa standing upon a hill, near Terracina, on the
left-hand side of the road to Fundi [651]. Being adopted by his
step-mother [652], he assumed the name of Livius, with the cognomen of
Ocella, and changed his praenomen; for he afterwards used that of Lucius,
instead of Sergius, until he arrived at the imperial dignity. It is well
known, that when he came once, amongst other boys of his own age, to pay
his respects to Augustus, the latter, pinching his cheek, said to him,
“And thou, child, too, wilt taste our imperial dignity.” Tiberius,
likewise, being told that he would come to be emperor, but at an advanced
age, exclaimed, “Let him live, then, since that does not concern me!”
When his grandfather was offering sacrifice to (403) avert some ill omen
from lightning, the entrails of the victim were snatched out of his hand
by an eagle, and carried off into an oak-tree loaded with acorns. Upon
this, the soothsayers said, that the family would come to be masters of
the empire, but not until many years had elapsed: at which he, smiling,
said, “Ay, when a mule comes to bear a foal.” When Galba first declared
against Nero, nothing gave him so much confidence of success, as a mule’s
happening at that time to have a foal. And whilst all others were shocked
at the occurrence, as a most inauspicious prodigy, he alone regarded it as
a most fortunate omen, calling to mind the sacrifice and saying of his
grandfather. When he took upon him the manly habit, he dreamt that the
goddess Fortune said to him, “I stand before your door weary; and unless I
am speedily admitted, I shall fall into the hands of the first who comes
to seize me.” On his awaking, when the door of the house was opened, he
found a brazen statue of the goddess, above a cubit long, close to the
threshold, which he carried with him to Tusculum, where he used to pass
the summer season; and having consecrated it in an apartment of his house,
he ever after worshipped it with a monthly sacrifice, and an anniversary
vigil. Though but a very young man, he kept up an ancient but obsolete
custom, and now nowhere observed, except in his own family, which was, to
have his freedmen and slaves appear in a body before him twice a day,
morning and evening, to offer him their salutations.
V. Amongst other liberal studies, he applied himself to the law. He
married Lepida [653], by whom he had two sons; but the mother and
children all dying, he continued a widower; nor could he be prevailed
upon to marry again, not even Agrippina herself, at that time left a
widow by the death of Domitius, who had employed all her blandishments to
allure him to her embraces, while he was a married man; insomuch that
Lepida’s mother, when in company with several married women, rebuked her
for it, and even went so far as to cuff her. Most of all, he courted the
empress Livia [654], by whose favour, while she was living, he made a
considerable figure, and narrowly missed being enriched by the will which
she left at her death; in which she distinguished him from the rest of
the (404) legatees, by a legacy of fifty millions of sesterces. But
because the sum was expressed in figures, and not in words at length, it
was reduced by her heir, Tiberius, to five hundred thousand: and even
this he never received. [655]
VI. Filling the great offices before the age required for it by law,
during his praetorship, at the celebration of games in honour of the
goddess Flora, he presented the new spectacle of elephants walking upon
ropes. He was then governor of the province of Aquitania for near a
year, and soon afterwards took the consulship in the usual course, and
held it for six months [656]. It so happened that he succeeded L.
Domitius, the father of Nero, and was succeeded by Salvius Otho, father
to the emperor of that name; so that his holding it between the sons of
these two men, looked like a presage of his future advancement to the
empire. Being appointed by Caius Caesar to supersede Gaetulicus in his
command, the day after his joining the legions, he put a stop to their
plaudits in a public spectacle, by issuing an order, “That they should
keep their hands under their cloaks.” Immediately upon which, the
following verse became very common in the camp:
Disce, miles, militare: Galba est, non Gaetulicus.
Learn, soldier, now in arms to use your hands,
‘Tis Galba, not Gaetulicus, commands.
With equal strictness, he would allow of no petitions for leave of
absence from the camp. He hardened the soldiers, both old and young, by
constant exercise; and having quickly reduced within their own limits the
barbarians who had made inroads into Gaul, upon Caius’s coming into
Germany, he so far recommended himself and his army to that emperor’s
approbation, that, amongst the innumerable troops drawn from all the
provinces of the empire, none met with higher commendation, or greater
rewards from him. He likewise distinguished himself by heading an
escort, with a shield in his hand [658], and running at the side of the
emperor’s chariot twenty miles together.
VII. Upon the news of Caius’s death, though many earnestly pressed him
to lay hold of that opportunity of seizing the empire, he chose rather to
be quiet. On this account, he was in great favour with Claudius, and
being received into the number of his friends, stood so high in his good
opinion, that the expedition to Britain [659] was for some time
suspended, because he was suddenly seized with a slight indisposition.
He governed Africa, as pro-consul, for two years; being chosen out of the
regular course to restore order in the province, which was in great
disorder from civil dissensions, and the alarms of the barbarians. His
administration was distinguished by great strictness and equity, even in
matters of small importance. A soldier upon some expedition being
charged with selling, in a great scarcity of corn, a bushel of wheat,
which was all he had left, for a hundred denarii, he forbad him to be
relieved by any body, when he came to be in want himself; and accordingly
he died of famine. When sitting in judgment, a cause being brought
before him about some beast of burden, the ownership of which was claimed
by two persons; the evidence being slight on both sides, and it being
difficult to come at the truth, he ordered the beast to be led to a pond
at which he had used to be watered, with his head muffled up, and the
covering being there removed, that he should be the property of the
person whom he followed of his own accord, after drinking.
VIII. For his achievements, both at this time in Africa, and formerly in
Germany, he received the triumphal ornaments, and three sacerdotal
appointments, one among The Fifteen, another in the college of Titius,
and a third amongst the Augustals; and from that time to the middle of
Nero’s reign, he lived for the most part in retirement. He never went
abroad (405) so much as to take the air, without a carriage attending
him, in which there was a million of sesterces in gold, ready at hand;
until at last, at the time he was living in the town of Fundi, the
province of Hispania Tarraconensis was offered him. After his arrival in
the province, whilst he was sacrificing in a temple, a boy who attended
with a censer, became all on a sudden grey-headed. This incident was
regarded by some as a token of an approaching revolution in the
government, and that an old man would succeed a young one: that is, that
he would succeed Nero. And not long after, a thunderbolt falling into a
lake in Cantabria [660], twelve axes were found in it; a manifest sign of
the supreme power.
IX. He governed the province during eight years, his administration
being of an uncertain and capricious character. At first he was active,
vigorous, and indeed excessively severe, in the punishment of offenders.
For, a money-dealer having committed some fraud in the way of his
business, he cut off his hands, and nailed them to his counter. Another,
who had poisoned an orphan, to whom he was guardian, and next heir to the
estate, he crucified. On this delinquent imploring the protection of the
law, and crying out that he was a Roman citizen, he affected to afford
him some alleviation, and to mitigate his punishment, by a mark of
honour, ordered a cross, higher than usual, and painted white, to be
erected for him. But by degrees he gave himself up to a life of
indolence and inactivity, from the fear of giving Nero any occasion of
jealousy, and because, as he used to say, “Nobody was obliged to render
an account of their leisure hours.” He was holding a court of justice on
the circuit at New Carthage [661], when he received intelligence of the
insurrection in Gaul [662]; and while the lieutenant of Aquitania was
soliciting his assistance, letters were brought from Vindex, requesting
him “to assert the rights of mankind, and put himself at their head to
relieve them from the tyranny of Nero.” Without any long demur, he
accepted the invitation, from a mixture of fear and hope. For he had
discovered that private orders had been sent by Nero to his procurators
in the province to get (407) him dispatched; and he was encouraged to the
enterprise, as well by several auspices and omens, as by the prophecy of
a young woman of good family. The more so, because the priest of
Jupiter at Clunia [663], admonished by a dream, had discovered in the
recesses of the temple some verses similar to those in which she had
delivered her prophecy. These had also been uttered by a girl under
divine inspiration, about two hundred years before. The import of the
verses was, “That in time, Spain should give the world a lord and
master.”
X. Taking his seat on the tribunal, therefore, as if there was no other
business than the manumitting of slaves, he had the effigies of a number
of persons who had been condemned and put to death by Nero, set up before
him, whilst a noble youth stood by, who had been banished, and whom he
had purposely sent for from one of the neighbouring Balearic isles; and
lamenting the condition of the times, and being thereupon unanimously
saluted by the title of Emperor, he publicly declared himself “only the
lieutenant of the senate and people of Rome.” Then shutting the courts,
he levied legions and auxiliary troops among the provincials, besides his
veteran army consisting of one legion, two wings of horse, and three
cohorts. Out of the military leaders most distinguished for age and
prudence, he formed a kind of senate, with whom to advise upon all
matters of importance, as often as occasion should require. He likewise
chose several young men of the equestrian order, who were to be allowed
the privilege of wearing the gold ring, and, being called “The Reserve,”
should mount guard before his bed-chamber, instead of the legionary
soldiers. He likewise issued proclamations throughout the provinces of
the empire, exhorting all to rise in arms unanimously, and aid the common
cause, by all the ways and means in their power. About the same time, in
fortifying a town, which he had pitched upon for a military post, a ring
was found, of antique workmanship, in the stone of which was engraved the
goddess Victory with a trophy. Presently after, a ship of Alexandria
arrived at Dertosa [664], loaded with arms, without any person to steer
it, or so much as a single sailor or passenger (408) on board. From this
incident, nobody entertained the least doubt but the war upon which they
were entering was just and honourable, and favoured likewise by the gods;
when all on a sudden the whole design was exposed to failure. One of the
two wings of horse, repenting of the violation of their oath to Nero,
attempted to desert him upon his approach to the camp, and were with some
difficulty kept in their duty. And some slaves who had been presented to
him by a freedman of Nero’s, on purpose to murder him, had like to have
killed him as he went through a narrow passage to the bath. Being
overheard to encourage one another not to lose the opportunity, they were
called to an account concerning it; and recourse being had to the
torture, a confession was extorted from them.
XI. These dangers were followed by the death of Vindex, at which being
extremely discouraged, as if fortune had quite forsaken him, he had
thoughts of putting an end to his own life; but receiving advice by his
messengers from Rome that Nero was slain, and that all had taken an oath
to him as emperor, he laid aside the title of lieutenant, and took upon
him that of Caesar. Putting himself upon his march in his general’s
cloak, and a dagger hanging from his neck before his breast, he did not
resume the use of the toga, until Nymphidius Sabinus, prefect of the
pretorian guards at Rome, with the two lieutenants, Fonteius Capito in
Germany, and Claudius Macer in Africa, who opposed his advancement, were
all put down.
XII. Rumours of his cruelty and avarice had reached the city before his
arrival; such as that he had punished some cities of Spain and Gaul, for
not joining him readily, by the imposition of heavy taxes, and some by
levelling their walls; and had put to death the governors and procurators
with their wives and children: likewise that a golden crown, of fifteen
pounds weight, taken out of the temple of Jupiter, with which he was
presented by the people of Tarracona, he had melted down, and had exacted
from them three ounces which were wanting in the weight. This report of
him was confirmed and increased, as soon as he entered the town. For
some seamen who had been taken from the fleet, and enlisted (409) among
the troops by Nero, he obliged to return to their former condition; but
they refusing to comply, and obstinately clinging to the more honourable
service under their eagles and standards, he not only dispersed them by a
body of horse, but likewise decimated them. He also disbanded a cohort
of Germans, which had been formed by the preceding emperors, for their
body-guard, and upon many occasions found very faithful; and sent them
back into their own country, without giving them any gratuity, pretending
that they were more inclined to favour the advancement of Cneius
Dolabella, near whose gardens they encamped, than his own. The following
ridiculous stories were also related of him; but whether with or without
foundation, I know not; such as, that when a more sumptuous entertainment
than usual was served up, he fetched a deep groan: that when one of the
stewards presented him with an account of his expenses, he reached him a
dish of legumes from his table as a reward for his care and diligence;
and when Canus, the piper, had played much to his satisfaction, he
presented him, with his own hand, five denarii taken out of his pocket.
XIII. His arrival, therefore, in town was not very agreeable to the
people; and this appeared at the next public spectacle. For when the
actors in a farce began a well-known song,
Venit, io, Simus [665] a villa:
Lo! Clodpate from his village comes;
all the spectators, with one voice, went on with the rest, repeating and
acting the first verse several times over.
XIV. He possessed himself of the imperial power with more favour and
authority than he administered it, although he gave many proofs of his
being an excellent prince: but these were not so grateful to the people,
as his misconduct was offensive. He was governed by three favourites,
who, because they lived in the palace, and were constantly about him,
obtained the name of his pedagogues. These were Titus Vinius, who had
been his lieutenant in Spain, a man of insatiable (410) avarice;
Cornelius Laco, who, from an assessor to the prince, was advanced to be
prefect of the pretorian guards, a person of intolerable arrogance, as
well as indolence; and his freedman Icelus, dignified a little before
with the privilege of wearing the gold ring, and the use of the cognomen
Martianus, who became a candidate for the highest honour within the reach
of any person of the equestrian order [666]. He resigned himself so
implicitly into the power of those three favourites, who governed in
every thing according to the capricious impulse of their vices and
tempers, and his authority was so much abused by them, that the tenor of
his conduct was not very consistent with itself. At one time, he was
more rigorous and frugal, at another, more lavish and negligent, than
became a prince who had been chosen by the people, and was so far
advanced in years. He condemned some men of the first rank in the
senatorian and equestrian orders, upon a very slight suspicion, and
without trial. He rarely granted the freedom of the city to any one; and
the privilege belonging to such as had three children, only to one or
two; and that with great difficulty, and only for a limited time. When
the judges petitioned to have a sixth decury added to their number, he
not only denied them, but abolished the vacation which had been granted
them by Claudius for the winter, and the beginning of the year.
XV. It was thought that he likewise intended to reduce the offices held
by senators and men of the equestrian order, to a term of two years’
continuance; and to bestow them only on those who were unwilling to
accept them, and had refused them. All the grants of Nero he recalled,
saving only the tenth part of them. For this purpose he gave a
commission to fifty Roman knights; with orders, that if players or
wrestlers had sold what had been formerly given them, it should be
exacted from the purchasers, since the others, having, no doubt, spent
the money, were not in a condition to pay. But on the other hand, he
suffered his attendants and freedmen to sell or give away the revenue of
the state, or immunities from taxes, and to punish the innocent, or
pardon criminals, at pleasure. Nay, when the Roman people were very
clamorous for the punishment of Halotus and Tigellinus, two of the (411)
most mischievous amongst all the emissaries of Nero, he protected them,
and even bestowed on Halotus one of the best procurations in his
disposal. And as to Tigellinus, he even reprimanded the people for their
cruelty by a proclamation.
XVI. By this conduct, he incurred the hatred of all orders of the
people, but especially of the soldiery. For their commanders having
promised them in his name a donative larger than usual, upon their taking
the oath to him before his arrival at Rome; he refused to make it good,
frequently bragging, “that it was his custom to choose his soldiers, not
buy them.” Thus the troops became exasperated against him in all
quarters. The pretorian guards he alarmed with apprehensions of danger
and unworthy treatment; disbanding many of them occasionally as
disaffected to his government, and favourers of Nymphidius. But most of
all, the army in Upper Germany was incensed against him, as being
defrauded of the rewards due to them for the service they had rendered in
the insurrection of the Gauls under Vindex. They were, therefore, the
first who ventured to break into open mutiny, refusing upon the calends
[the 1st] of January, to take any oath of allegiance, except to the
senate; and they immediately dispatched deputies to the pretorian troops,
to let them know, “they did not like the emperor who had been set up in
Spain,” and to desire that “they would make choice of another, who might
meet with the approbation of all the armies.”
XVII. Upon receiving intelligence of this, imagining that he was
slighted not so much on account of his age, as for having no children, he
immediately singled out of a company of young persons of rank, who came
to pay their compliments to him, Piso Frugi Licinianus, a youth of noble
descent and great talents, for whom he had before contracted such a
regard, that he had appointed him in his will the heir both of his estate
and name. Him he now styled his son, and taking him to the camp, adopted
him in the presence of the assembled troops, but without making any
mention of a donative. This circumstance afforded the better opportunity
to Marcus Salvius Otho of accomplishing his object, six days after the
adoption.
XVIII. Many remarkable prodigies had happened from the (412) very
beginning of his reign, which forewarned him of his approaching fate. In
every town through which he passed in his way from Spain to Rome, victims
were slain on the right and left of the roads; and one of these, which
was a bull, being maddened with the stroke of the axe, broke the rope
with which it was tied, and running straight against his chariot, with
his fore-feet elevated, bespattered him with blood. Likewise, as he was
alighting, one of the guard, being pushed forward by the crowd, had very
nearly wounded him with his lance. And upon his entering the city and,
afterwards, the palace, he was welcomed with an earthquake, and a noise
like the bellowing of cattle. These signs of ill-fortune were followed
by some that were still more apparently such. Out of all his treasures
he had selected a necklace of pearls and jewels, to adorn his statue of
Fortune at Tusculum. But it suddenly occurring to him that it deserved a
more august place, he consecrated it to the Capitoline Venus; and next
night, he dreamt that Fortune appeared to him, complaining that she had
been defrauded of the present intended her, and threatening to resume
what she had given him. Terrified at this denunciation, at break of day
he sent forward some persons to Tusculum, to make preparations for a
sacrifice which might avert the displeasure of the goddess; and when he
himself arrived at the place, he found nothing but some hot embers upon
the altar, and an old man in black standing by, holding a little incense
in a glass, and some wine in an earthern pot. It was remarked, too, that
whilst he was sacrificing upon the calends of January, the chaplet fell
from his head, and upon his consulting the pullets for omens, they flew
away. Farther, upon the day of his adopting Piso, when he was to
harangue the soldiers, the seat which he used upon those occasions,
through the neglect of his attendants, was not placed, according to
custom, upon his tribunal; and in the senate-house, his curule chair was
set with the back forward.
XIX. The day before he was slain, as he was sacrificing in the morning,
the augur warned him from time to time to be upon his guard, for that he
was in danger from assassins, and that they were near at hand. Soon
after, he was informed, that Otho was in possession of the pretorian
camp. And though most of his friends advised him to repair thither
immediately, (413) in hopes that he might quell the tumult by his
authority and presence, he resolved to do nothing more than keep close
within the palace, and secure himself by guards of the legionary
soldiers, who were quartered in different parts about the city. He put
on a linen coat of mail, however, remarking at the same time, that it
would avail him little against the points of so many swords. But being
tempted out by false reports, which the conspirators had purposely spread
to induce him to venture abroad--some few of those about him too hastily
assuring him that the tumult had ceased, the mutineers were apprehended,
and the rest coming to congratulate him, resolved to continue firm in
their obedience--he went forward to meet them with so much confidence,
that upon a soldier’s boasting that he had killed Otho, he asked him, “By
what authority?” and proceeded as far as the Forum. There the knights,
appointed to dispatch him, making their way through the crowd of
citizens, upon seeing him at a distance, halted a while; after which,
galloping up to him, now abandoned by all his attendants, they put him to
death.
XX. Some authors relate, that upon their first approach he cried out,
“What do you mean, fellow-soldiers? I am yours, and you are mine,” and
promised them a donative: but the generality of writers relate, that he
offered his throat to them, saying, “Do your work, and strike, since you
are resolved upon it.” It is remarkable, that not one of those who were
at hand, ever made any attempt to assist the emperor; and all who were
sent for, disregarded the summons, except a troop of Germans. They, in
consideration of his late kindness in showing them particular attention
during a sickness which prevailed in the camp, flew to his aid, but came
too late; for, being not well acquainted with the town, they had taken a
circuitous route. He was slain near the Curtian Lake [667], and there
left, until a common soldier returning from the receipt of his allowance
of corn, throwing down the load which he carried, cut off his head.
There being upon it no hair, by which he might hold it, he hid it in the
bosom of his dress; but afterwards thrusting his thumb into the mouth, he
carried it in that manner to Otho, who gave it to the drudges and slaves
who attended the soldiers; and they, fixing it upon the (414) point of a
spear, carried it in derision round the camp, crying out as they went
along, “You take your fill of joy in your old age.” They were irritated
to this pitch of rude banter, by a report spread a few days before, that,
upon some one’s commending his person as still florid and vigorous, he
replied,
Eti moi menos empedoi estin. [668]
My strength, as yet, has suffered no decay.
A freedman of Petrobius’s, who himself had belonged to Nero’s family,
purchased the head from them at the price of a hundred gold pieces, and
threw it into the place where, by Galba’s order, his patron had been put
to death. At last, after some time, his steward Argius buried it, with
the rest of his body, in his own gardens near the Aurelian Way.
XXI. In person he was of a good size, bald before, with blue eyes, and
an aquiline nose; and his hands and feet were so distorted with the gout,
that he could neither wear a shoe, nor turn over the leaves of a book, or
so much as hold it. He had likewise an excrescence in his right side,
which hung down to that degree, that it was with difficulty kept up by a
bandage.
XXII. He is reported to have been a great eater, and usually took his
breakfast in the winter-time before day. At supper, he fed very
heartily, giving the fragments which were left, by handfuls, to be
distributed amongst the attendants. In his lust, he was more inclined to
the male sex, and such of them too as were old. It is said of him, that
in Spain, when Icelus, an old catamite of his, brought him the news of
Nero’s death, he not only kissed him lovingly before company, but begged
of him to remove all impediments, and then took him aside into a private
apartment.
XXIII. He perished in the seventy-third year of his age, and the seventh
month of his reign [669]. The senate, as soon as they could with safety,
ordered a statue to be erected for him upon the naval column, in that
part of the Forum where he (415) was slain. But Vespasian cancelled the
decree, upon a suspicion that he had sent assassins from Spain into
Judaea to murder him.
* * * * * *
GALBA was, for a private man, the most wealthy of any who had ever
aspired to the imperial dignity. He valued himself upon his being
descended from the family of the Servii, but still more upon his relation
to Quintus Catulus Capitolinus, celebrated for integrity and virtue. He
was likewise distantly related to Livia, the wife of Augustus; by whose
interest he was preferred from the station which he held in the palace,
to the dignity of consul; and who left him a great legacy at her death.
His parsimonious way of living, and his aversion to all superfluity or
excess, were construed into avarice as soon as he became emperor; whence
Plutarch observes, that the pride which he took in his temperance and
economy was unseasonable. While he endeavoured to reform the profusion
in the public expenditure, which prevailed in the reign of Nero, he ran
into the opposite extreme; and it is objected to him by some historians,
that he maintained not the imperial dignity in a degree consistent even
with decency. He was not sufficiently attentive either to his own
security or the tranquillity of the state, when he refused to pay the
soldiers the donative which he had promised them. This breach of faith
seems to be the only act in his life that affects his integrity; and it
contributed more to his ruin than even the odium which he incurred by the
open venality and rapaciousness of his favourites, particularly Vinius.