Galba | Page 3

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