Legate of the Senate and the People — AD 69 I: You Don’t Buy Soldiers
Spring, AD 68. New Carthage, present-day Cartagena. Galba has governed Hispania for eight years. At first he was strict to the point of cruelty. Then he eased off, so that Nero would have no reason for jealousy. He himself used to say that no one has to answer for doing nothing.
Letters reach the city. The governor of Aquitania asks for help, because Gaul is rebelling. Gaius Julius Vindex calls on Galba to become the liberator and leader of the human race. And Galba’s men intercept something else: Nero’s secret orders to his agents. They are to kill Galba.
Galba agrees “without much hesitation,” driven by fear as much as by hope. He mounts a raised platform in front of which he has set up images of the men Nero put to death. Beside him stands a boy of noble family, brought back from exile in the Balearics. Galba speaks of the misfortunes of the times. The soldiers shout: “Imperator!”
A modest title, immodest preparations. Galba raises a new legion from the provincials. From the oldest aristocrats he forms something like a senate of his own. In front of his bedroom he posts young equestrians instead of soldiers. It nearly ends right there: one cavalry unit tries to go back over to Nero’s side, and slaves given as a gift by a freedman of Nero lie in wait for Galba in the narrow passage to the baths. One careless word gives them away.
In May worse news arrives. At Vesontio, today’s Besançon, the legions of Upper Germany crush Vindex’s army. The commanders had reportedly just reached an agreement, but the soldiers attacked without orders. Vindex takes his own life.
The victor is Lucius Verginius Rufus, governor of Upper Germany. His soldiers smash Nero’s statues and hail him: “Caesar! Augustus!” Someone writes those words on a banner. Verginius has them wiped off. The choice of emperor, he repeats, belongs to the Senate and the people. Plutarch adds that when news of Nero’s death came, one of the tribunes drew his sword in the tent and told him to choose: power or the blade. Verginius refused anyway.
Galba knows how many legions stand on the Rhine and how many he has himself. He withdraws to the town of Clunia. He is close to collapse. Suetonius writes that he considered everything lost.
A courier saves him. The freedman Icelus rides seven days from Rome and bursts into his chamber unannounced. Nero is dead. It is the same June in which the line of Augustus ended in Phaon’s villa — you know that night. The Senate and the people have recognized Galba as emperor. The old man drops the title of legate and takes the name of Caesar. He sets out for Rome in a general’s cloak, with a dagger hung around his neck.
In Rome a man is waiting for him who believes he is the one who gave Galba the throne. Nymphidius Sabinus, the praetorian prefect, talked the Praetorians into abandoning Nero. In return he promised them money in Galba’s name. Plutarch gives the sum: seventy-five hundred drachmas for each Praetorian, that is, thirty thousand sesterces. Such money, he adds, could not have been raised without ruining the whole world. That promise killed Nero. Soon it will kill Galba.
Nymphidius goes further. He does not mind the rumor that he is Caligula’s son, since his mother was reportedly close to the young Gaius. Plutarch notes that this affair probably came later than his birth. The prefect wants the throne for himself. One night he goes to the camp to be proclaimed emperor, with a speech learned by heart. He finds the gate shut. The tribune Antonius Honoratus has had time to ask the soldiers how many more masters they intend to betray. Nymphidius is killed in the camp by the Praetorians.
The prefect is gone. His promise remains. The Guard waits for the money promised in Galba’s name.