GALBA, Sergius Sulpicius, a Roman emperor, who was born B. c. 3 and died a. ð. 69. He was descended from a family which had first risen to notice towards the latter years of the republic. His father, who was of consular rank, had some pretensions to be considered as an orator; he married Mummia, the grand-niece of L. Mummius, the conqueror of Corinth, and by her he had the emperor Galba. Of his youthful years we can give no account, excepting that he must have evinced early proofs of great abilities. Augustus is said to have foretold that he would be one of his successors on the imperial throne. We find him raised to the highest dignities of the state before he had reached the age fixed by law, consul a. d. 33, and then appointed by Caligula to the command of the troops in Gaul. On the death of that emperor (a. d. 40), he was strongly urged by his friends to put in his claim for the vacant throne; but he seems to have preferred the pleasures of retirement to the anxieties of a court. Claudius was so charmed with the moderation of his conduct, that he admitted him to his intimate friendship, and made him proconsul of Africa as a mark of his particular favour. Here he remained for two years, carrying the strictness of military discipline into all the civil arrangements of the province. On his return to Rome he retired to the privacy of the country, and took no part in public affairs till the middle of the reign of Nero. He was then invited by that emperor to assume the command of Hispania Tarraconensis, and it may be readily imagined that he did not venture to refuse such a request. This province he continued to govern for eight years; at first he distinguished himself by the severity with which he punished even venial faults, though the example given by Suetonius is a curious proof of the state of moral feeling in that age. The author expresses his surprise at the punishment of crucifixion, which Galba inflicted on a guardian who had poisoned his ward. Latterly, however, he changed his policy, and apparently passed his life in indolent repose, that he might give no cause of complaint to the suspicious Nero. That despot, however, thought him too powerful a pasha to be allowed to live, and, like the sultans of later times, sent an order for his death. His friends at Rome informed him of his impending fate, and he had therefore no other alternative than to declare his independence, proclaiming himself lieutenant of the senate and of the Roman people. But as soon as he was informed of the death of Nero, he assumed the title of emperor, being the first person not descended from the family of the Caesars who reached that high dignity.

His previous life, and the habits which he had acquired, were little suited to the scene of corruption and debasement into which he now emerged. All ranks at Rome had become, by a long course of unrestrained license, so completely demoralized, that they could ill brook the sternness of an old military disciplinarian. He does not appear to have possessed any of the mental qualities of a statesman, nor was his previous education of a character likely to fit him for the position in which he now found himself placed. The affairs of the empire seem to have been chiefly directed by three favourites of very dissimilar characters; T. Vinius, his lieutenant in Spain, a man of unbounded avarice; Laco, prefect of the praetorian band, equally distin-guished[7:10:284] for his indolence and arrogance; and the freedman Icelus, who had all the follies of a foolish upstart. Every act of theirs was ascribed to the emperor, and all classes were equally dissatisfied with their proceedings. The soldiers were refused their usual largesses, and were deeply mortified by the reply of the emperor, Legere se militem, non emere, consuesse. The soldiers in Upper Germany openly refused to take the oath of allegiance to Galba; and at Rome Otho headed a conspiracy, which was embraced by too large a body not to prove successful against a man who stood nearly alone in Rome. He was assassinated in the seventh month of his reign, and in the seventy-third year of his age, omnium consensu capax imperii nisi imperdsset, as Tacitus pithily remarks. Suetonius, Life of Galba-, Tacitus, Hist. i. 6-18, 49.