Part 3 (1/2)

From the camp they proceeded to the senate, and Galba's speech to 19 its members was no fuller or finer than to the soldiers. Piso spoke graciously, and there was no lack of support in the senate. Many wished him well. Those who did not were the more effusive. The majority were indifferent, but displayed a ready affability, intent on their private speculations without thought of the country's good. No other public action is reported of Piso during the four days which intervened between his adoption and a.s.sa.s.sination.

FOOTNOTES:

[32] i.e. the emperor's finance agent in the province of Belgica.

[33] Cp. chap. 6.

[34] A gold signet-ring was the sign of a free-born Roman knight. Its grant to freedmen was an innovation of which Tacitus disapproved.

[35] Tacitus here follows the story told by Suetonius in his life of Otho. In the _Annals_, xiii. 45, 46, Tacitus gives in detail a more probable version. It is more likely that Poppaea used Otho as a stepping-stone to Nero's favour than that Otho, as Suetonius quotes, 'committed adultery with his own wife.'

[36] See chap. 5, note 10.

[37] One of the three Commissioners of Public Revenue appointed by Nero in A.D. 62 (_Ann._, xv. 18).

[38] Lucius Calpurnius Piso Frugi Licinia.n.u.s was the son of M.

Licinius Cra.s.sus Frugi, and adopted son of L. Calpurnius Piso Frugi. His mother, Scribonia, was a descendant of Pompey.

[39] Adoption from one family into another needed in old days the sanction of the Comitia Curiata. When that a.s.sembly became obsolete, the priests summoned a formal meeting of thirty lictors, and their sanction of an act of adoption was still called _lex curiata_. Galba was now _Pontifex maximus_.

[40] Galba belonged to the _Gens Sulpicia_, and was connected through his mother, Mummia, with Q. Lutatius Catulus, who had led the senatorial party in the first half of the last century.

[41] i.e. Galba's great-grandfather had fought for Caesar against Piso's ancestor, Pompey.

[42] The children of Julia and Agrippa.

[43] Cra.s.sus Scribonia.n.u.s, cp. chap. 47, and iv. 39.

[44] i.e. co-optation, employed in former days to raise a special contingent for emergencies.

GALBA'S MEASURES OF PRECAUTION

Reports of the German rebellion grew daily more insistent and the public was always ready to believe any news, provided it was bad.

Accordingly the senate decided that a commission must be sent to the army in Germany. It was discussed in private whether Piso should go himself to add dignity to the commission, since he could carry the authority of the emperor, while the others represented the senate. It was also proposed to send Laco, the prefect of the Guards, but he objected. The senate had allowed Galba to nominate the commissioners and he showed the most miserable indecision, now nominating members, now excusing them, now making exchanges, yielding always to pressure from people who wanted to go or to stay at home according as they were determined by their hopes or their fears. The next question was 20 one of finance. After investigating all possible sources it seemed most reasonable to recover the revenue from those quarters where the cause of the deficit lay. Nero had squandered in lavish presents two thousand two hundred million sesterces.[45] Galba gave instructions that these monies should be recovered from the individual recipients, leaving each a t.i.the of their original gift. However, in each case there was scarcely a tenth part left, for these worthless spendthrifts had run through Nero's money as freely as they had squandered their own: they had no real property or capital left, nothing but the apparatus of their luxury. Thirty of the knights were entrusted with the duty of recovering the money. This commission, for which there was no precedent, proved vastly unpopular owing to the scope of its authority, and the large number of the victims. Every quarter seemed beset with sales and brokers and lawsuits. And yet lively satisfaction was caused by the discovery that the beneficiaries of Nero's bounty were as poor as the victims of his greed.

At this time several officers were cas.h.i.+ered, Antonius Taurus and Antonius Naso of the Guards, Aemilius Pacensis of the City Garrison, and Julius Fronto of the Police.[46] However, this proved no remedy.

The others only began to feel alarmed, thinking that Galba's craft and timidity had sacrificed a few, while his suspicions rested on them all.

FOOTNOTES:

[45] About twenty-three million sterling of our money.

[46] i.e. of the cohorts which formed the police and fire-brigade of the city. See chap. 5, note 10.

THE RISE OF OTHO

Meanwhile Otho had nothing to hope from a peaceful settlement: all 21 his plans demanded a disturbance. Many motives spurred him on: his extravagance would have ruined a prince, and his poverty have perplexed a private person: he was angry with Galba and jealous of Piso. He also alleged fears for his safety, by way of whetting his ambition. 'I proved a nuisance to Nero,' he would say, 'and can scarcely expect the compliment of a second exile to Lusitania.[47]

Besides, monarchs always hate and suspect the man who is mentioned as ”next to the throne”. This was what did me harm with the old emperor, and it will weigh still more with the youthful Piso, who is naturally savage and has been exasperated by a long period of exile. It would be easy to kill me. I must do and dare while Galba's authority is on the wane and Piso's not yet established. These times of change suit big enterprises; inaction is more deadly than daring; there is no call for delay. Death is the natural end for all alike, and the only difference is between fame and oblivion afterwards. Seeing that the same end awaits the innocent and the guilty, a man of spirit should at least deserve his fate.'