The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, Complete
have only to remark, in addition to similar examples in other Latin
writers, that, though Persius is acknowledged to have been both virtuous
and modest, there are in the fourth satire a few passages which cannot
decently admit of being translated. Such was the freedom of the Romans,
in the use of some expressions, which just refinement has now exploded.--
Another poet, in this period, was FABRICIUS VEIENTO, who wrote a severe
satire against the priests of his time; as also one (399) against the
senators, for corruption in their judicial capacity. Nothing remains of
either of those productions; but, for the latter, the author was banished
by Nero.
There now likewise flourished a lyric poet, CAESIUS BASSUS, to whom
Persius has addressed his sixth satire. He is said to have been, next to
Horace, the best lyric poet among the Romans; but of his various
compositions, only a few inconsiderable fragments are preserved.
To the two poets now mentioned must be added POMPONIUS SECUNDUS, a man of
distinguished rank in the army, and who obtained the honour of a triumph
for a victory over a tribe of barbarians in Germany. He wrote several
tragedies, which in the judgment of Quintilian, were beautiful
compositions.
SERGIUS SULPICIUS GALBA.
(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