Servius Sulpicius Galba (3 BC–AD 69)

Galba came from the old family of the Sulpicii and was the great-grandson of Catulus (Suetonius, Galba 2–3). Under Caligula he commanded the legions on the Rhine, under Claudius he governed Africa, and from around AD 60 Hispania Tarraconensis.

In the spring of AD 68 at New Carthage he let the soldiers proclaim him, but called himself only legate of the Senate and People of Rome (Suetonius, Galba 10). After Nero’s death the Senate recognized him as emperor. He refused the Guard the money promised in his name by the prefect Nymphidius: “I levy my soldiers, I do not buy them” (Tacitus, Histories 1.5; Cassius Dio 64.3).

On January 1, AD 69, the legions of Upper Germany mutinied, and the next day Lower Germany proclaimed Vitellius. Galba adopted Piso Licinianus without promising the soldiers anything. On January 15 the Guard proclaimed Otho, and Galba was killed in the Forum by the Lacus Curtius. The sources give his last words in several versions. Tacitus writes that everyone would have thought him fit to rule, had he not ruled (Histories 1.49).