Plutarch · a new plain-English translation from the original language
Iphicrates the Athenian held that the mercenary soldier ought to love money and to crave luxury, so that in seeking supply for his desires he might fight the more recklessly; but most men judge that the soldiery, like a vigorous body, ought never to act on impulse of its own, but move only in concert with the impulse of its general.
For this reason they say that Paulus Aemilius, on taking over the army in Macedonia, which was full of talk and meddlesome interference, as though it were doing the generaling itself, gave orders that each man make his hand ready and his sword sharp, and leave the rest of the business to him.
But Plato, seeing no work for a good ruler and general in an army that is neither disciplined nor of one mind with him, but believing that the virtue of obedience, no less than that of kingship, calls for a noble nature paired with schooling in philosophy — one in which the spirited and energetic element is fittingly blended above all with gentleness and humanity — has, among many other examples, what happened to the Romans in the years following Nero's death as testimony and proof that nothing is more fearsome than a military power in command that employs uneducated and unreasoning impulses.
For Demades, after Alexander's death, compared the Macedonian army to the blinded Cyclops, seeing it making many disordered and frenzied movements; but the Roman state was overtaken by convulsions and movements like those called Titanic, being torn apart into many pieces at once and again colliding with itself from many directions — not so much through the love of power of those proclaimed emperors, as through the greed and licentiousness of the soldiery, which knocked out its commanders from one another like so many nails.
And yet Dionysius used to call the man who ruled the Pheraeans for ten months, and was then immediately put to death, 'the tragic tyrant,' mocking the swiftness of his fall; but the hearth of the Caesars, the Palatine, received four emperors in a still shorter span of time, one being brought in as though through a stage door, another led out. Yet there was one consolation for those who suffered ill: that they had no need of another's justice against the guilty, but could see them murdered by their own kind — and first and most justly of all, the man who had lured and taught them to hope for as great a reward at a change of Caesar as he himself had promised, having discredited the noblest of deeds by attaching a price to it, so that the revolt from Nero became a betrayal.
For Nymphidius Sabinus, who was prefect, as has been said, together with Tigellinus, of the court, when Nero's cause was altogether given up for lost and he was plainly about to flee to Egypt, won over the soldiers by treating Nero as already gone, as if he had fled the scene,
to proclaim Galba emperor, and he promised a donative to each man — to those called the household and praetorian troops, a sum of seven thousand five hundred drachmas for each man, and to those serving outside, twelve hundred and fifty — a sum it was impossible to raise without inflicting on all mankind ten thousand times the evils that Nero himself had inflicted,
for this immediately destroyed Nero, and shortly afterward Galba as well: the one they gave up in expectation of receiving it, the other they killed for not giving it. Then, seeking the man who would give so great a sum, they anticipated events, wasting themselves away in revolts and betrayals, or else obtaining what they had hoped for. Now to report accurately the particulars of what happened belongs to formal history, but whatever is memorable in the deeds and sufferings of the Caesars it is not fitting for me either to pass over.
That Sulpicius Galba entered the household of the Caesars as the wealthiest private citizen of all is agreed; and though he had a great claim to nobility in the house of the Servii, he himself took more pride in his kinship with Catulus, a man who was foremost in virtue and reputation among his contemporaries, even though he willingly yielded the power to others.
Galba was also in some way related by birth to Livia, Caesar's wife, and it was through Livia's influence that he advanced from the Palatine to the consulship. He is also said to have commanded an army in Germany creditably, and, having become proconsul of Libya, to have won praise along with few others. The easy simplicity of his manner of life and his frugality and lack of extravagance in expenses were, once he became emperor, held against him as stinginess, though earlier they had earned him a stale sort of reputation for orderliness and self-control.
He was sent by Nero to govern Spain, at a time when Nero had not yet learned to fear citizens of great distinction. To him, who seemed by nature also to have become gentle, old age added the further credit of caution.
But when the wicked procurators were plundering the provinces under him savagely and cruelly, he had nothing else with which to help, but by openly showing himself to share their pain and to be wronged along with them he provided in some manner a measure of relief and comfort to those condemned and sold; and when verses against Nero were being composed and circulated and sung everywhere, he neither forbade them nor joined the procurators in indignation over them; for which he was even more beloved by the people,
for he was by now a familiar figure, being in the eighth year of his command when Julius Vindex rose up against Nero, being governor of Gaul. It is said that even before the open revolt, letters had reached him from Vindex, which he neither believed nor denounced and reported, just as other governors who had received letters written to them likewise sent them on to Nero and thereby thwarted the undertaking so far as lay in their power — men who, having later taken part in it themselves, confessed that they had been no less traitors to Vindex than he had been to Nero.
But when Vindex, having openly declared the war, wrote to Galba urging him to assume the leadership and offer himself as a head to a strong body that was seeking one — the Gauls having a hundred thousand armed men and able to arm still more — Galba laid the matter before his friends for deliberation. Of these, some thought it best to wait and watch what movement and direction Rome itself would take toward this revolution;
but Titus Vinius, commander of the praetorian cohort, said to them: "Galba, what manner of deliberating is this? To ask whether we shall remain loyal to Nero is no longer the part of men who are in fact remaining loyal. Since Nero is now our enemy, we must not give up the friendship of Vindex, but must rather at once accuse him openly and make war on him, since what he wants is for Rome to be ruled by you instead of tyrannized by Nero."
As a result of this Galba announced by edict a day on which he would grant manumissions individually to those who requested them, and talk and rumor, spreading in advance, gathered a crowd of men eager for revolution. He had scarcely appeared openly on the tribunal before the whole crowd, speaking as one, greeted him with the title of emperor.
He did not at once accept this title, but after denouncing Nero, and lamenting the most distinguished of the men put to death by him, he declared that he would devote his own foresight to his country, being named neither Caesar nor emperor, but general of the senate and people of Rome.
That Vindex acted rightly and with sound reasoning in summoning Galba to the leadership, he confirmed with Nero himself as witness. For Nero, pretending to despise him and to think nothing of the affairs of the Gauls, upon learning the news about Galba — he happened to be bathing and dining at the time — overturned the table.
Nevertheless, when the senate had voted Galba a public enemy, Nero himself, wishing to jest and put on a bold face before his friends, said that quite a stroke of luck had come his way, since money was something he needed: the property of the Gauls, once they were subdued, he would carry off as plunder, and as for Galba's estate, it was already available for him to use and sell, since the man had now been declared an enemy.
So he ordered Galba's property to be sold; and Galba, on hearing this, put up for auction whatever belonged to Nero in Spain, and found many purchasers far more eager than Nero's had been.
As many were deserting Nero and virtually all were going over to Galba, only Clodius Macer in Libya and Verginius Rufus in Gaul, who commanded the German army, acted each on his own, not holding the same course; for Clodius,
who had engaged in plundering property and in the murder of men out of cruelty and greed, was plainly wavering, unable either to hold onto or to let go of his position of power; whereas Verginius, in command of the strongest legions, though they many times proclaimed him emperor and pressed him, said that he himself would not accept the leadership, nor would he allow it to be given to another, save whomever the senate should choose.
This threw Galba into no small confusion at first; but when the armies of Verginius and Vindex, their commanders having been unable, like charioteers, to hold the reins, somehow by force brought matters to a great battle and clashed together, and Vindex, after twenty thousand Gauls had fallen, took his own life, a report spread that all, in view of so great a victory, wished Verginius to assume the leadership, or else were to go over again to Nero,
then indeed Galba, becoming altogether fearful, wrote to Verginius urging him to act jointly with him and together safeguard both the leadership and the freedom of the Romans; and withdrawing again with his friends to Clunia, a Spanish city, he spent his time repenting of what had happened and longing for his accustomed and familiar inactivity rather than doing anything that circumstances required.
It was now summer, and a little before evening there arrived from Rome Icelus, a freedman, having made the journey in seven days. Learning that Galba was resting by himself, he walked briskly to his chamber, and forcing his way past the attendants and entering, announced that while Nero was still alive,
though not openly to be seen, the army first, and then the people and the senate, had proclaimed Galba emperor, and a little later word had come that Nero was dead; he himself, however, had not trusted those who reported it, but had gone to the corpse and, having seen it lying there, had come away only then convinced.
These tidings, being announced, raised Galba to great splendor, and a crowd of men gathered at his doors, having been made bold and confident by him firmly, although the speed of the news was scarcely credible. But even so, two days later Titus Vinius arrived from the camp with others, reporting in detail what the senate had decreed. This man was accordingly advanced to an honored rank; and to the freedman he gave golden rings, and Marcianus — for Icelus was now so called — held the foremost power among the freedmen.
At Rome, Nymphidius Sabinus, not gradually and by degrees but all at once and in a body, drew all affairs to himself, on the ground that Galba was an old man and could scarcely be brought to Rome even carried in a litter because of his age — for he was seventy-three years old — while the troops there, who had long been well disposed toward him and were now attached to him alone, considered him, because of the size of the donative, their benefactor, and Galba merely their debtor.
At once, therefore, he ordered Tigellinus, his colleague in office, to lay aside his sword, and giving receptions he entertained the men of consular and praetorian rank at dinner, still adding the name of Galba to the invitations; and in the camp he had many prepared to say that a delegation should be sent to Galba requesting that Nymphidius be made prefect for all time without a colleague.
And the honors and power which the senate conferred on him — hailing him as benefactor, thronging daily to his doors, and deeming him worthy to lead off and confirm every decree — raised him to still greater boldness, with the result that before long he had become not merely someone envied by his flatterers, but someone feared too,
when the consuls, having appointed public slaves to carry the decrees to the emperor, and having given them the so-called sealed diplomas — which the magistrates in each city, recognizing them, use to speed the couriers' relays of vehicles along their route — he was greatly indignant that they had not received seal and soldiers from him before sending them off; indeed it is said that he even deliberated about the consuls, but then, when they defended themselves and made entreaty, let his anger go,
Currying favor with the populace, he did not prevent them from clubbing to death anyone they caught who had belonged to Nero's circle. So they seized Spiculus the gladiator and, throwing him beneath statues of Nero that were being dragged through the forum, killed him there; and a certain Aponius, one of the informers, they overturned carts loaded with stones onto and crushed; many others they tore apart, some of whom were guilty of nothing, so that even Mauricus, a man who both was and was reputed to be among the best, said to the senate that he feared they would soon be looking for a Nero.
As Nymphidius drew nearer in this way to the fulfillment of his hopes, he did not shrink from being called the son of Gaius Caesar, the one who ruled after Tiberius. For Gaius, it seems, had known the woman who bore him while he was still a young man — she was not unattractive in appearance — she who had been born to Callistus, a freedman of Caesar, from a wage-earning seamstress.
But her liaison with Gaius was, it seems, later than Nymphidius's birth, and the charge arose that he had been fathered by Martianus the gladiator, since Nymphidia had fallen in love with him for his fame, and Nymphidius was also thought to resemble that man more closely in the cast of his features.
Yet even while admitting that he was the son of Nymphidia, he made the overthrow of Nero his own work alone, and, not thinking the rewards he was reaping sufficient — the honors, the money, and sleeping with Nero's Sporus, whom Nero, summoning him straight from the pyre while the corpse was still burning, had kept in the position of a wife and called Poppaea — he stole into the succession to the principate,
and he worked on some matters himself in Rome through his friends, with certain women and senators being secretly enlisted for him, while he sent one of his friends, Gellianus, to Spain to spy things out.
For Galba, after Nero's death, everything was proceeding well. But Verginius Rufus, still uncommitted, caused concern that he, having in addition to command of a large and most warlike force the fact that he had defeated Vindex and subdued a great part of the Roman Empire — all of Gaul, which had been in a state of rebellious upheaval — might yield to those urging him toward the principate,
for no one's name was greater, nor did anyone hold such reputation as Verginius, since he had become, in one stroke, the greatest relief to Roman affairs both from a harsh tyranny and from the Gallic wars. But he at that time held fast to his original reasoning and preserved for the senate the choice of emperor. And yet, once Nero's death became known, the multitude pressed upon Verginius again, and one of the tribunes in his tent, drawing his sword, ordered Verginius to accept either the command or the blade.
But when Fabius Valens, commander of one legion, was the first to swear allegiance, and letters arrived from Rome concerning what the senate had voted, he persuaded the soldiers, with difficulty and only after struggle, to hail Galba as their new ruler; and when Galba dispatched Flaccus Hordeonius to take his place, Verginius accepted the man. Having handed the army over to him, Verginius himself set out toward the approaching Galba, then rode back alongside him, met with neither open resentment nor any mark of honor.
Responsible for the one part of this was Galba himself, out of respect for the man; for the other, his friends, and especially Titus Vinius, who thought out of envy that he was cutting Verginius down, but did not realize that he was in fact cooperating with Verginius's good fortune, by removing the man already from the wars and evils that beset the other commanders, into a storm-free life and toward an old age filled with tranquility and rest.
As for Galba, near Narbo, a Gallic city, the envoys sent by the senate met him and welcomed him, and urged him to appear before the people who longed to see him quickly. He gave them the other kinds of meetings and interviews, humane and democratic in tone, and toward the banquets — though a great array of royal preparation and service was on hand, which Nymphidius had sent him from Nero's stores — he used none of it, but relied entirely on his own resources, and won great approval, appearing a magnanimous man and superior to vulgar extravagance,
but quickly Vinius, representing these noble, unassuming, and civic-minded qualities as mere demagoguery and an affectation unworthy of great matters, persuaded him to make use of Nero's money and not to spare royal lavishness in his receptions, and altogether the old man was, little by little, allowing himself to be perceived as coming under Vinius's control.
Now Vinius was, in matters of money, the most susceptible of anyone to corruption, and he was also guilty of offenses concerning women. For while still young and serving his first campaign under Calvisius Sabinus, which was undisciplined, he brought the commander's wife into the camp at night in soldier's dress and seduced her in the headquarters building, which the Romans call the principia.
For this Gaius Caesar had him imprisoned; but when Gaius died, he was released through good fortune. And dining once with Claudius Caesar, he stole a silver cup; Caesar, learning of it, invited him again to dinner the next day, and when he arrived, ordered his servants to bring and set nothing silver before him, but only earthenware.
This affair, then, because of Caesar's mildness, turned into more of a comedy and seemed worthy of laughter rather than anger. But the things Vinius did, once he had Galba under his control and could exercise the greatest power through money, furnished for some the cause, and for others the pretext, of tragic sufferings and great calamities.
For Nymphidius, as soon as Gellianus returned to him — the man he had sent to spy in a way on Galba — and learned that the post of prefect over the court and guard had gone to Cornelius Laco, and that Vinius held all power in his hands, while he himself had never once been allowed to stand close to Galba or speak with him privately, since everyone eyed him with suspicion and kept watch over him, was thrown into confusion,
and gathering the officers of the army, he said that Galba himself was a reasonable and moderate old man, but that, making the least use of his own judgment, he was being poorly managed by Vinius and Laco. Therefore, before they let slip the power which Tigellinus had once acquired in affairs pass into these men's hands unnoticed, envoys ought to be sent from the camp to the emperor to instruct him that, by ridding himself of these two friends alone, he would appear more agreeable and more desired by all.
But when, speaking thus, he failed to persuade them, and it seemed strange and outlandish for an old commander, as though he were a youth just tasting power for the first time, to have his choice of friends regulated for him, he turned to another course and wrote to Galba to frighten him, now saying that the city held much that was unsound and unsettled, now that Clodius Macer was withholding the grain ships in Libya, again that the German legions were stirring, and making similar inquiries about the forces in Syria and Judaea.
But since Galba paid no great heed to him nor trusted him, he resolved to act first — although Clodius Celsus of Antioch, a sensible man, well disposed and loyal to Galba, tried to dissuade him, saying he did not believe there was a single tenement building in Rome that would hail Nymphidius as Caesar. But many mocked him, and Mithridates of Pontus, jesting at Galba's baldness and wrinkled skin, said that now he seemed to be something to the Romans, but once seen, he would prove a reproach to those days that are called Caesar's.
It was resolved, then, to bring Nymphidius into the camp around midnight and proclaim him emperor. But the first of the tribunes, Antonius Honoratus, when evening came, gathered the soldiers under his own command and reproached himself, and reproached them too, for turning about so many times in so short a while, following no reasoning nor choice of the better course, but driven by some evil spirit from one betrayal into another.
"At first," he said, "we had Nero's crimes as pretexts; but now we are betraying Galba — what murder of a mother do we charge him with, or slaughter of a wife, or what stage-shame or tragic acting of the emperor's do we shrink from? But not even in Nero's case did we endure to abandon him for these things, but were persuaded by Nymphidius that he had abandoned us first and fled to Egypt.
"Shall we, then, hand Galba over to Nero, picking Nymphidia's son as our Caesar, and destroy the son of Livia just as we destroyed the son of Agrippina? Or, holding this man accountable for what he has done, shall we stand out as Nero's avengers, yet as Galba's good and faithful protectors?" When the tribune had said this, all the soldiers assented, and going to the others urged them to remain steadfast in their loyalty to the emperor,
and they won over the greater number. When a shout arose — whether because Nymphidius had been told, as some report, that the troops were already crying out his name, or because he wanted to get ahead of the unrest and wavering that was still unfolding — he came forward under many torches, carrying a speech written out in a scroll by Cingonius Varro, which he had rehearsed to deliver to the soldiers.
Yet finding the camp gates shut and a great many men standing armed along the walls, fear took hold of him; drawing nearer, he asked what it was they wanted and on whose authority they had armed themselves. When every one of them answered as with one voice that they acknowledged Galba as their emperor, he too, falling in with them, joined the acclamation and told his own followers to do the same.
But though those at the gates let him enter with a few companions, he himself was struck by a javelin; this blow Septimius took upon his shield in front of him, but as others closed in with drawn swords, he took flight, was chased down, and met his death inside a barracks room. And dragging the corpse into the open and setting a railing around it, they gave the sight for whoever wished to view it, once day came.
When Galba learned that Nymphidius had met his end in this way, and ordered the death of his fellow conspirators, as many as had not died immediately by their own hands — among whom were Cingonius, who had written the speech, and Mithridates of Pontus — it seemed that he had acted, even if justly, not lawfully nor in a manner befitting a popular ruler, in putting to death without trial men who were not obscure; for everyone had been expecting a different character of rule, being deceived, as usual, by what is said at the outset,
and they were still more distressed that a man of consular rank and loyal to Nero was ordered to die — Petronius Turpilianus. For in doing away with Macer in Libya through Trebonius, and Fonteius in Germany through Valens, he had the excuse that they were feared while under arms and at the head of armies. But nothing prevented Turpilianus, an old man, unarmed and stripped of command, from being given a hearing, if anyone were going to keep in deed the moderation he professed toward affairs.
These matters, then, incur such reproaches. But when, as he approached, he was about twenty-five stadia from the city, he encountered disorder and uproar from the oarsmen who occupied the road ahead and were pouring around on every side — these were the men whom Nero had enrolled together into a single legion and declared soldiers,
and now, being on hand to make good their claim to military standing, the emperor was denied any chance of being seen or heard by the people who came out to greet him, but shouted out demands for standards for the legion and for a proper place among the troops, clamoring for it. And when he put them off and told them to speak again later, they took the delay as a form of refusal and grew indignant, following alongside him and sparing no shouting. And when some even drew their swords, Galba ordered the cavalry to charge them. None of them stood their ground; some were struck down at once, others perished fleeing — an omen neither auspicious nor favorable for Galba as he entered the city amid so much slaughter and so many corpses. But if anyone had before held him in contempt, seeing him as weak and old, he now became to all a figure of dread and fear.
Wishing to demonstrate a great change from Nero's boundless extravagance in gifts, he seemed to miss the mark of what was fitting. For when Canus once played the flute for him at dinner — Canus being a performer of high repute — he praised and applauded him, and ordered his cashbox brought to him; and taking out some gold coins, he gave them to Canus, saying that he was granting them from his own private funds, not from the public treasury,
while the gifts Nero had given to men of the stage and the wrestling-school he ordered to be exacted back with strict rigor, all but a tenth part; and then, recovering only small and meager sums — for most of those who had received the money had squandered it, being men of dissolute and riotous lives — he sought out those to whom they had sold or given anything at all, and extracted it from them as well.
And since the matter had no limit, but spread far and wide, reaching many people, he himself lost repute for it, while Vinius incurred envy and hatred, since he made the ruler appear ungenerous and petty-minded toward everyone else, while he himself lived extravagantly, taking everything and selling it.
Hesiod says one must drink one's fill both when the jar is being opened and when it is running out; but Vinius, seeing that Galba was weak and old, gorged himself on his fortune as though it were both beginning and ending at once.
The old man was wronged, first by Vinius's bad management, and then by his slandering or blocking of the things Galba himself rightly chose to do — for example, in how he dealt with punishing Nero's henchmen.
For Galba put to death the wicked men, among them Helius, Polyclitus, Petinus, and Patrobius. The people applauded, and as they were led through the forum the crowd shouted that it was a fine and god-pleasing procession, but that gods and men alike demanded the teacher and tutor of the tyranny, Tigellinus. But that noble fellow had already forestalled them, having bought Vinius beforehand with large pledges.
Then Turpilianus, because, though himself hated for it, he had neither betrayed nor hated his commander, such a ruler though he was, and had joined in no other great wrong, was put to death — while the very man responsible for turning Nero into someone deserving death, who had then abandoned and betrayed him once he had become such, lived on: proof that no scheme was too far and no outcome too much to hope for, provided one paid Vinius.
For the Roman people had never so longed to see any spectacle as the sight of Tigellinus led off to execution, nor did they ever cease demanding him in all the theaters and stadiums, until they were rebuked by an edict of the emperor, saying that Tigellinus would not live much longer in any case, being consumed by a wasting disease, and asking them not to grow more savage nor to make his rule a tyranny.
While the people were vexed and mocked at this, Tigellinus held thanksgiving sacrifices and laid on a lavish banquet; Vinius, getting up from dinner at the emperor's table, headed off in revelry to Tigellinus's house, taking along his own daughter, who was a widow. And Tigellinus drank a toast to her of two hundred fifty thousand sesterces in silver, and ordered the leader of his mistresses to take off her own necklace, said to be worth one hundred fifty thousand, and fasten it on her.
After this, even Galba's moderate acts came under suspicion, as in the matter of the Gauls who had joined Vindex. For it was thought that they obtained relief from tribute and citizenship not through the emperor's goodwill, but by buying it from Vinius.
For these reasons the majority grew hostile to his rule; and as for the soldiers who had not received their promised bounty, at first hope led them on, that he would pay them, if not the full sum, then at any rate a sum comparable to what Nero had bestowed. But when he heard their complaints and let fall a remark fit for a great commander, saying that he was accustomed to levy soldiers, not to buy them, a terrible and savage hatred toward him entered those who heard of it; for it seemed that he was not merely cheating them himself, but laying down a law and teaching a lesson to the emperors who would come after him.
In Rome, however, this unrest was still blind and unfocused, and a certain reverence, together with Galba's actual presence, produced a dullness and hesitation in any move toward revolution, and the fact that no open beginning of change was visible held their ill-will in check and somehow concealed it. But those who had earlier served under Verginius, and were now under Flaccus in Germany, believing themselves owed great rewards for the fight they had waged against Vindex, and receiving none, were implacable toward their commanders.
As for Flaccus himself, disabled in body by a severe attack of gout and inexperienced in affairs, they held him in no account whatsoever. And once, at a public spectacle, when the tribunes and centurions offered the customary Roman prayer for good fortune to the emperor Galba, the mass of soldiers at first raised an uproar, and then, as the officers persisted in their prayers, shouted back in response, "If he is worthy."
Since similar outrages were often committed by the troops under Tigellinus as well, letters kept being sent to Galba by the procurators; and he, afraid that he was held in contempt not only because of his age but also because he had no children, resolved to adopt some young man of distinguished family and declare him his successor to the rule.
There was one Marcus Otho, a man of no obscure birth, but corrupted from boyhood by luxury and pleasure-seeking beyond almost any other Roman — such a man as Homer, speaking of Alexander, often calls "the husband of fair-haired Helen," having nothing else to give him distinction but glorifying him through his wife; so Otho too had become notorious in Rome through his marriage to Poppaea, whom Nero loved while she was still living with Crispinus, and, still respecting his own wife and fearing his mother, he had put Otho forward to court Poppaea for him.
Nero treated Otho as a friend and companion in his debauchery, and often took pleasure in being mocked by him for stinginess and lack of refinement. It is said that once, when Nero had anointed himself with the most expensive perfume and drenched Otho with it too, Otho, receiving him in turn the next day, suddenly had pipes of silver and gold spring up on all sides, pouring out perfume as if it were water and flooding the place,
But having first seduced Poppaea on Nero's behalf, and corrupting her with hopes set on Nero, he persuaded her to leave her husband. When she came to him as his wife, however, he was not content to merely share her, but chafed at having to share her at all — nor, they say, was Poppaea herself displeased at his jealousy.
Indeed it is said that she once shut Nero out when Otho was not present — whether to sharpen his pleasure by denying its satiety, or, as some say, because she found marriage to Caesar a burden but, being fond of licentiousness, was not averse to having a lover. So Otho came close to being executed for it; and it was a strange thing that Nero, who killed his own wife and sister in order to marry Poppaea, let Otho live.
Otho had Seneca's good will, and it was through Seneca's persuasion and advice to Nero that he was sent out as governor of Lusitania on the Ocean. And he showed himself to his subjects neither disagreeable nor oppressive, knowing that the office had been given him as a disguised and veiled form of exile.
Once Galba raised his revolt, Otho was, among the governors, the first to declare for him, and bringing all the silver and gold he had in cups and tableware, he gave it to be struck into coin, and he gave away those of his servants who were skilled and accustomed to attending an emperor properly in daily life. In everything else too he was loyal to Galba, and in the test of experience he seemed no less skilled in affairs than anyone; and for many days, as Galba traveled the whole road, Otho continued riding beside him in the same carriage.
During the journey and through their close association he won over Vinius as well, by conversation and gifts, and especially by yielding first place to him — so that the second place of power after him he held securely through him, while he himself enjoyed freedom from envy, assisting all who needed help without charge, and making himself affable and kind to everyone. He did a great deal for the soldiers too, and advanced many of them to commands, some by requesting it from the emperor,
and others by appealing to Vinius and to the freedmen Icelus and Asiaticus, since these two held the greatest sway of anyone around the court. And whenever he entertained Galba, he bribed the cohort on guard duty, distributing a gold piece to each man, on the pretense of honoring Galba, but actually working the political ground and courting popularity with the soldiers.
But when Galba was deliberating about a successor, Vinius brought Otho forward — nor was he doing this for nothing either, but for the sake of his daughter's marriage, an agreement having been made that Otho would marry her once he had been adopted as Galba's son and declared successor to the rule. Galba, however, always made clear that he put the common good before his own preference, and sought not to choose for himself the man most pleasing, but for the Romans the man most useful.
Indeed he seems not to have chosen Otho as heir even for his own private property alone, knowing him to be dissolute and extravagant and sunk in debts of fifty million sesterces. Hence, on hearing Vinius out, he silently and gently put off the decision. But having designated himself consul, with Vinius as his colleague, he was expected to proclaim his successor at the beginning of the year, and the soldiers would gladly have seen Otho proclaimed above any other.
But while he was still deliberating and delaying, the outbreak in Germany overtook him. For all the soldiers there alike hated Galba for not paying the bounty, though they each made their own separate pretexts: that Verginius Rufus had been cast aside in disgrace, and that the Gauls who had opposed them in battle were now being rewarded,
while those who had stayed clear of Vindex's uprising were suffering punishment — Vindex, the one man to whom, they said, Galba ought to be grateful, whom he ought to honor and to honor with public offerings even in death, since it was by him that Galba had been proclaimed emperor of the Romans.
With such talk already circulating openly in the camp, the first day of the month arrived, which they call the Kalends of January; and when Flaccus assembled them for the oath customarily sworn on behalf of the emperor, they went up to Galba's images and overturned and tore them down, and then, having sworn only on behalf of the senate and people of Rome, dispersed.
Then it occurred to the officers to fear this absence of a leader as itself a form of revolt. One of the men among them said: "What is happening to us, fellow soldiers, that we neither make another leader nor keep the one we now have — as if we were fleeing not Galba in particular, but ruling and being ruled altogether?
As for Flaccus Hordeonius, a mere shadow and phantom of Galba, let us leave him aside; but a single day's march from us is Vitellius, governor of the other Germany, son of a censor and three-time consul who in a sense shared rule with the emperor Claudius, and himself possessing, in the poverty some reproach him with, a shining proof of goodness and greatness of soul. Come, let us choose him, and show all mankind that we are better than the Iberians and Lusitanians at choosing an emperor."
Some of them were already won over by this, others not, when one standard-bearer slipped out and reported it to Vitellius by night, while many were feasting with him. Once the report had spread through the troops, Fabius Valens, commander of one legion, was the first to ride out the next day with a large body of cavalry and hail Vitellius as emperor.
In the preceding days Vitellius had seemed to hold back and shrink from it, fearing the magnitude of the office; but then, they say, full of wine and midday food, he came forward and accepted, when they gave him the name Germanicus, though he did not accept the title Caesar.
At once too the army under Flaccus, abandoning those fine democratic oaths to the senate, swore to the emperor Vitellius to do whatever was commanded.
Thus was Vitellius proclaimed emperor in Germany. On learning of the revolution there, Galba no longer put off the adoption. Knowing that some of his friends favored Dolabella, but that the majority favored Otho, neither of whom he himself approved, he suddenly, without warning anyone beforehand, sent for Piso, descendant of Crassus and Scribonia, whom Nero had put to death,
a young man whose natural disposition toward every virtue showed most plainly in his self-restraint and severity; and Galba went down to the camp to proclaim him Caesar and successor. And yet, as he set out, great signs from the heavens attended him at once; and when he began to speak in the camp, and then to read from a document, it thundered and lightninged so many times, and such a downpour and darkness poured down upon the camp and the city, that it was plain the divine power did not welcome or approve this adoption, and that it would not turn out well.
The soldiers too were sullen and dark, since even then no bonus had been given them. Those present marveled at Piso, judging from his voice and his face, that he received so great a favor without excitement, yet not without feeling, just as in Otho's countenance many signs appeared of a man bearing the loss of his hopes bitterly and with anger — he who had been the first thought worthy of adoption, and who had come nearest to attaining it, took his failure as a token of Galba's hatred and ill-will toward him.
For this reason he was not without fear for the future, but, dreading Piso, putting Galba forward as his excuse, and growing angry at Vinius, he went away full of many passions. For the seers and Chaldaeans who were always around him would not let his hope fail nor let him despair utterly, above all Ptolemy, who insisted, since he had often foretold that Nero would not kill him but would himself die first, while Otho would survive and rule the Romans — having proved that prediction true, he claimed the right not to despair of the rest either. Not least among those who spurred him on were those who secretly grieved with him and groaned along with him that he had been treated so ungratefully; and very many of those who had been in honor under Tigellinus and Nymphidius, now cast down and living humbly, corrupted him, joined in his indignation, and provoked him further.
Numbered among them were Veturius and Barbius, one holding the rank of optio, the other that of tesserarius — for so those are called who perform the service of messengers and scouts. With them Onomastus, a freedman of Otho, went about corrupting some with money and others with hopes, men already unsound and in need of a pretext. For it was not the work of four days to shift the loyalty of a healthy camp — the days that passed between the adoption and the slaughter, for they were killed on the sixth day, which the Romans reckon as the eighteenth day before the Kalends of February.
For on that day, at dawn, Galba was sacrificing on the Palatine with his friends present, and the diviner Umbricius, no sooner had he taken the victim's entrails into his own hands and examined them than he said — not in riddles but plainly — that they showed signs of great disturbance, and that danger from treachery hung over the emperor's very head, all but delivering Otho into his hands by the god's own doing,
for Otho was standing behind Galba, and was attending to what was being said and shown by Umbricius. As he grew agitated and changed color in every way from fear, the freedman Onomastus came up to him and said that the architects had arrived and were waiting for him at home — this being the agreed signal for the moment at which Otho was to go meet the soldiers.
So, claiming he had purchased an aging house and wanted the sellers to point out its faulty portions, he went off, and passing down through the so-called House of Tiberius he walked to the forum, where the golden column stood, at which all the surveyed roads of Italy end.
There, they say, the ones who first came upon him and greeted him as emperor numbered barely twenty-three; and for this reason, although in his soul he was not softened or made effeminate to match the weakness of his body, but was in fact bold and unyielding in the face of danger, he grew afraid.
But those present would not let him be, but circled around his litter with drawn swords and ordered it to be lifted, while he repeatedly cried out that he was ruined and urged the litter-bearers to hurry. Some, hearing this, were more amazed than alarmed at the smallness of the number who had dared the deed; but as he was borne thus through the forum, another band equal in number met him, and again others came up by threes and fours to join them.
Then all together they turned back with him, calling out 'Caesar' and holding out their bared swords. Martialis, the tribune who held the watch of the camp, so they say, was not privy to the plot, but, struck with astonishment and fear at the unexpected event, allowed them to enter. Once he was inside, no one resisted, for those who did not know what was being done, being surrounded singly or in pairs by those who did know and had banded together by design, at first out of fear and then persuaded, followed along.
The news was reported at once to Galba on the Palatine, while the diviner was still there and the sacred rites still in hand, so that even those most disinclined to distrust and most unmoved by such things were struck with astonishment and wondered at the divine power. As a crowd of every sort came streaming in from the forum, Vinius, Laco, and some of the freedmen took their stand by Galba himself with bared swords, while Piso went forward and fell in with the guards who were watching the courtyard.
As the Illyrian legion was encamped in the so-called Vipsanian colonnade, Marius Celsus, a good man, was sent to secure it beforehand.
While Galba was deliberating whether to go forward — Vinius not allowing it, but Celsus and Laco urging him on and rebuking Vinius rather sharply — a great rumor spread through that Otho had been killed in the camp; and shortly after there appeared Julius Atticus, a man of no small standing among the guardsmen, brandishing a bared sword and shouting that he had killed the enemy of Caesar; and pushing through those standing before Galba, he showed him the sword stained with blood.
Galba, looking at him, said, 'Who ordered you to do this?' And when the man told of his loyalty and the oath he had sworn, and the crowd shouted its approval and applauded, Galba climbed into his litter and had himself borne onward, meaning to offer sacrifice to Zeus and appear before the citizens. But as he entered the forum, like a wind veering about, a report met him that Otho had gained control of the army,
and, as happens in so great a crowd, some shouting to turn back, some to go forward, some urging courage, some crying disbelief, and the litter, as though on a wave, being carried this way and that and constantly veering aside, first horsemen appeared, then armed men advancing through the Basilica of Paulus, shouting with one voice, loudly, for the common people to get out of the way.
Now most of the crowd ran, not scattering in flight, but to the porticoes and the raised parts of the forum, as though to secure a view of a spectacle. And when Atillius Vergilio knocked down a statue of Galba, making this the beginning of the fighting, they hurled javelins at the litter; and when they failed to hit it, they came on with drawn swords. No one defended him or stood his ground, except one man alone, whom the sun looked down upon in all that great multitude as worthy of the Roman command — Sempronius Densus, a centurion,
who, though he had received no personal kindness from Galba, in defense of honor and law stood before the litter, and lifting up the vine-staff with which centurions punish those who need flogging, shouted at the attackers, commanding that the emperor be left unharmed. Then, as they pressed in on him, he drew his sword and defended himself for a long time, until, struck in the hamstrings, he fell.
As for Galba, when the litter tipped over near the place called the Pool of Curtius, he was rolled out still in his breastplate, and they ran up and struck him. He, baring his throat, said, 'Do this, if it is better for the people of Rome.'
He took many blows to his legs and arms, and, according to the most common account, a soldier named Camurius, from the fifteenth legion, finished him off; yet other versions name Terentius, or Lecanius, or Fabius Fabulus as the one who, it is said, severed his head and, finding it awkward to hold on account of his baldness, wrapped it in his own cloak to carry it.
Then those with him would not let it be hidden but made his valorous deed plain to all — running with it fixed on a spear, and, since it bore the face of an old man who had been an orderly magistrate, high priest, and consul, running like the Bacchae, turning about again and again, brandishing the spear streaming with blood. And Otho, when the head was brought to him, is said to have cried out, 'This head means nothing, comrades in arms — bring me Piso instead.'
A little later it too was brought, for the young man, wounded, had fled, and, hunted down by a certain Murcus, was slaughtered by the temple of Vesta. Vinius too was slaughtered, though he confessed he had been a party to the conspiracy against Galba, for he cried out that he was dying against Otho's wish. But they cut off his head too, and Laco's, and brought them to Otho, asking for rewards.
As Archilochus says: 'Though seven of the dead fell, whom we overtook on foot, we are a thousand slayers' — so then too many who had had no part in the killing showed their hands and swords smeared with blood and asked for rewards, presenting petitions to Otho. In any event some hundred and twenty men were subsequently exposed by these very petitions, all of whom Vitellius hunted down and put to death.
Marius Celsus also came into the camp, and though many accused him of having persuaded the soldiers to help Galba, and the crowd shouted for him to be killed, Otho did not wish it; but fearing to speak against them openly, he said he would not put him to death so quickly, for there were things he needed first to learn from the man. He therefore ordered him bound and kept under guard, and handed him over to those he trusted most.
At once the senate was convened, and, as though they had become other men, or as though other gods had come to be, they assembled and swore an oath on Otho's behalf — an oath which Otho himself, having sworn it, did not keep — and proclaimed him Caesar and Augustus, while the headless corpses were still lying in the forum in their consular robes.
As for the heads, having no more use for the heads themselves, they sold Vinius's to his own daughter, the price being two thousand five hundred drachmas; that of Piso his wife Verania received, having begged for it; and that of Galba they gave as a gift to the slaves of Patrobius.
These men, having taken it and abused and outraged it in every way, threw it down at the place where those punished by the Caesars are put to death — the place called the Sessorium. The body of Galba, Helvidius Priscus took up, with Otho's permission, and Argeius, a freedman, buried it by night.
Such was the end of Galba, a man who, though inferior to many Romans in neither birth nor wealth, surpassed all his contemporaries in the combination of wealth and birth, and who lived through the reigns of five emperors with honor and renown, so that it was by reputation rather than by power that he brought down Nero,
for of those who joined the uprising at that time, some no one thought worthy of the command, and others thought themselves unworthy of it, but Galba, both when called and when he answered the call as emperor, lent his name to the daring of Vindex, and made what was called his revolt a movement and an uprising into a civil war, since it had found a man fit to lead it.
For this reason, thinking that he was not so much taking power for himself as giving himself over to affairs, he thought it right to rule those who had been tamed by Tigellinus and Nymphidius in the way that Scipio and Fabricius and Camillus had ruled the Romans of their day,
but, undermined by old age, though as far as arms and armies were concerned he was an emperor pure and old-fashioned, in giving himself over to Vinius, Laco, and the freedmen, who sold every matter of state, just as Nero had given himself over to the most insatiable of men, he left behind him no one who longed for his rule, though many pitied his death.