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Dromo's Den
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[Up] [Dromo's Den] Galba Biography GALBA, SERVIUS SCULPIUS (5 B.C.- 69 A.D.) Roman Emperor from June, 68 A.D. to Jan. 15, 69. Born of a noble and wealthy family, he was raised to the consulship in 33, and, in the administration of the province of Aquitania under Tiberius, of Germany under Caligula, of Africa under Claudius, and of Hispania Tarraconensis. under Nero, he distinguished himself for bravery, strictness and justice. His friends had urged him, on the death of Caligula, to take possession of the throne; but he continued faithful to Claudius and therefore stood high in his favor. In 68 Julius Vindex rose with the Gallic legions against Nero and called on Galba to assume the Imperial dignity and thus rid the earth of its oppressor. Galba, who had been informed that Nero was contriving his death, came forward against him at first as the legate of the Roman people, and it was only when he beard of Nero's death that he proceeded to Rome to take possession of the throne offered him by the Praetorians. Galba was now upward of 70 years old, and it soon appeared that his character had deteriorated, as, indeed, had already been manifested in his later administrations. Indulgence to greedy favorites, ill-timed severity--above all, avarice, which led him to withhold the usual donatives to the troops--made him unpopular. The legions in Upper Germany called on the Prętorians to choose another emperor; Galba thought to soothe them, by adopting L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinianus as his coadjutor and successor; but he thus offended Otho (q.v.), who, as administrator of Lusitania, had supported Galba and looked to be rewarded. The Praetorians, who had received no donative on the occasion of Piso's adoption, were easily excited to insurrection by Otho, and the Emperor, having gone out to quell the rebellion, was cut down by the soldiers as he crossed the Forum. Consult the lives by Plutarch and Suetonius, and Henderson, Civil War and Rebellion in the Roman Empire (London, 1908). The New International Encyclopaedia, Vol. IX (New York: Dodd, Mead & Co., 1920) 402-403. |