(c) Jerry Fielden 2000
An Emperor in trouble –
Galba’s relationship with the Roman Army
In 68 AD,
Nero, abandoned by all, had committed suicide and the
Julio-Claudian dynasty was no more. Part of the cause of his
downfall was his poor attitude towards the army, both morally
and materially,[1] and how the men in the legions and the
Praetorian Guard had reacted to it.[2] His successor Galba had
a different, more hands-on, relationship with the army but the
results were the same: he lost both the Empire and his life.
Servius (Sulpicius) Galba was born in 5 or 3
BC[3] of an illustrious senatorial family. He was adopted by
Augustus’ wife Livia and very close to her. Augustus had told
him that he would get a taste of his power and Tiberius had
not bothered hurting him when he had heard of a prediction
that Galba would be emperor one day,[4] which he became
eventually, through “fear, folly or ambition”.[5] He was
governor of Aquitania, then became consul in 33 AD under
Tiberius.
Caligula gave him a command in Germany, where he was quite
successful.[6] He was proconsul of
Africa for two years under Claudius, in 45-46 AD, earned a
triumph for his work in Germany and Africa, then he went into
semi-retirement under Nero.
Galba was finally
sent by Nero to Hispania Tarraconensis in 60 AD. In 68 AD, he
learned of the Vindex revolt in Gaul and that Nero wanted him
dead.[7] Galba corresponded with Vindex as well, and the rebel
pleaded with Galba to make a grab for power.[8] Nero had then
seized all of Galba’s property, which was quite considerable,
and Galba reciprocated by seizing Nero’s assets in Spain.[9]
It was now open war. Galba managed to get his legion all
worked up against Nero by showing them the portraits of all
the people that had been executed by the artist-emperor.
Galba’s troops then proclaimed him Emperor, but he told them
that he was only the legate of the Senate and the People of
Rome.[10]
Then Vindex was defeated by
Verginius Rufus in an unintended battle,[11] Verginius was
offered the Empire several times by his men and refused, and
Galba really began to worry.[12] But when the freedman Icelus
told him of Nero’s death and of the Senate and people
confirming Galba as Emperor, he took the name Caesar and began
to regain confidence, especially after the tidings were
confirmed by Titus Vinius, the captain of his praetorian guard
and a former governor of Southern Gaul.[13]
In
the meantime, Nymphidus Sabinus, one of the praetorian
prefects, had been plotting for Galba in Rome by promising
donatives to the praetorians on the new Emperor’s behalf.[14]
However, when Galba had gotten rid of Clodius Macer in Africa
and Fonteius Capito in Germany,[15] and had named Cornelius
Laco to replace Nymphidius’s ousted colleague Tigellinus,[16]
Nymphidius became apprehensive. He decided to attempt to gain
the position of Emperor for himself by plotting with some
friends, women and senators; he even went as far as to claim
he was Caligula’s son — fortunately for Galba, he failed and
was killed by the soldiers he had tried to win over.[17]
We will now look at Galba’s personality and
how it affected his relationship with the soldiers. He was
known as a strict disciplinarian and was reckoned to be a very
tough taskmaster who did not hesitate to do hard exercise
himself.[18] He was also known to be a just man but could be
quite severe and without pity, to the point he let a soldier
starve to death for having sold some of his own
provisions.[19] He was often cruel, as in the cases where he
killed all the soldiers and citizens of Spanish and Gallic
towns that didn’t follow him in his bid for the Empire.[20] He
was also know to be avaricious, which was not wise in these
times where it was a vital policy to be generous with the Army
and Praetorian Guard.[21] Indeed, Galba didn’t really stop to
think that the main basis of the Roman Principate was the
support of the Army.[22] Avarice seems to be the one trait
that had really angered the men and eventually caused his
downfall.[23] Maybe if he had paid the promised donatives,[24]
Otho would have never been able to suborn the Praetorian Guard
and Galba might have lived to face Vitellius: indeed,
Vitellius’s legions might have not even followed their leader
with a Galba donative in hand. When Galba adopted Piso and
designated him as successor, it would have been the perfect
time to distribute a donative to the soldiers:[25] this was
indeed customary in times of great occasions like the
accession of an emperor, the birth or adoption of a son, a
victory, etc.[26] The reason he gave for this avarice was that
he wanted to “choose his soldiers, not buy them”.[27] One can
only wonder how Galba made it that far in that day and age
when the soldiers expected more than just leadership: material
considerations were of the utmost importance to them.
Another one of Galba’s major mistakes was his
unbending attitude towards the legion stationed in Rome that
Nero had put together from fleet rowers, one of the many
legions still in Rome that Nero had assembled for the war
against Vindex[28]. This legion had come to meet him on his
route near Rome to pledge their allegiance to him and be
confirmed in their enrolment, but he told them that they would
return to their former status as rowers. When they pleaded
with him to reconsider, he refused and even had them decimated
and trampled over by his cavalry.[29] He also had many unarmed
men killed upon his arrival in Rome.[30]
A
strategic error of Galba’s was the appointment of men he
deemed innocuous or incompetent to lead the German armies. Two
cases come to mind: first that of Hordeonius Flaccus, who was
despised by his men for his weakness, and that of the future
emperor Aulus Vitellius, who was a lot more competent and
popular than Galba had thought.[31] Therefore, Galba’s
popularity with the army was rapidly fading away and going to
men like Vitellius with his German legions[32] and Otho with
the Praetorian Guard.[33] (It is interesting to note that the
Praetorians were going to be taking second place to the
provincial armies for a number of years after Galba’s
accession in many ways, like defense of the Empire and the
making of Emperors). [34] Galba might have avoided at least
the problem with Otho by adopting him as successor instead of
Piso, but Galba’s stodgy personality made him, once again, opt
for the wrong person and Piso Lucianus, a man after Galba’s
own character, was chosen to follow him in ruling the
Empire.[35] Again, the soldiers might have approved if a
donative had been distributed and words of praise for them
spoken when Galba made his speech to the army – in any event,
the occasion was ruined by his “inflexibility”.[36] Another
point in this sorry adoption affair is that Otho and his
troops had been with Galba from the start and had marched on
Rome with him; Otho and his men were definitely expecting a
bit more consideration for this help.[37] When the end came,
Galba finally did call his attackers “fellow-soldiers” and
promised a donative, but by this time, it was too late for him
and he had to stick his neck out for the execution.[38]
Galba had also seemed to be completely
disconnected from his troops and supporters; he was totally
isolated by his three favorites, Icelus, Titus Vinius and
Cornelius Laco. These men had taken a large part of power for
themselves: the three “pedagogues” were so dominant that
Galba’s popularity and prestige sank rapidly because of their
actions.[39] This situation is reminiscent of Claudius and his
freedmen, but Galba did not have that Julio-Claudian
legitimacy and the support of the Praetorians, as Claudius did.
The first of the
three, Icelus, had been
given the gold ring of the equestrian order by Galba when he
told the emperor of Nero’s death; he had then taken the name
Marcianus.[40] Icelus was also trying to become a Praetorian Prefect,[41] and was considered to be one of the most powerful
men in Galba’s court; he was also a turncoat, enough that Otho
had plotted with him and Titus Vinius as well to obtain
positions for men he favored.[42] Icelus was also reputed to
be one of Galba’s lovers.[43]
Titus Vinius,
the captain of Galba’s guard, was one of the first to incite
Galba to take power. It also appeared that he was gaining more
and more influence over the old man as events were unfolding.[44] He was also known as a thief and as a dissolute
person. [45] His exactions on the people in Galba’s name
served to further the hatred of the emperor that became more
and more prevalent in Rome as the reign went on.[46] Vinius
was really only preying on others to make his own fortune[47]
and probably didn’t care if Galba’s reputation was hurt by
this; as a matter of fact, he wasn’t adverse to helping out
Otho’s men by obtaining positions for them too.[48] As well,
he was trying to influence Galba to give the succession to
Otho, who would then marry Vinius’ daughter upon his
accession.[49] Vinius even obtained the consulate for 69 AD
from Galba for his efforts.[50] However, having failed in the
succession ploy, Vinius earned Otho’s resentment and anger.[51] This was to prove fatal to
him, even as he tried to
ally himself with Otho’s conspiracy, because he was killed by
some soldiers who thought they would obtain a reward from Otho.[52]
The case of Cornelius Laco is
interesting. He was a very arrogant man, and seems to have
come out of nowhere to be appointed as Praetorian Prefect by
Galba,[53] which helped the Nymphidius rebellion get started.[54] Was he a former subordinate of Galba’s in one of
the old emperor’s former commands and had he been elevated to
other military positions by Galba prior to this appointment?[55] It was quite a jump from being a judge’s
assistant to his present lofty position.[56] He seems to have
been trusted because when Vitellius’s rebellion had gotten
under way, some had wanted to send him instead of Piso to
negociate an agreement with the rebel general on Galba’s
behalf.[57] And Laco, as well as Vinius, may have been more
loyal than thought, because they did give the impression that
they want to protect their Emperor near the end, at least part
of the way, while Piso went to try and convince the troops to
remain faithful.[58] Unfortunately, Piso did not succeed and
Laco lost his life too.
In the end those three
hated advisers had done more harm than good to Galba and were
surely one of the prime causes of his demise.
To conclude, I believe that Galba’s problem
was one of age aggravated by his inflexible character, his
lack of generosity to his men, and his reliance on three
questionable advisers. Indeed, this is seen throughout history:
often, a leader becomes more and more inflexible with
age, and Galba did not have redeeming qualities or strengths
like Augustus’ auctoritas, Vespasian’s sense of humor or
Trajan’s courteousness.
One can consider the
more recent case of Louis XIV and the revocation of the Édit
de Nantes, which was a terrible decision based on purely
personal reasons instead of in the interest of the State (and
also Madame de Maintenon’s role in this), or one can reflect
on any of several aging dictators of modern states such as Mao
or Deng in China, or the late Stalin or Brezhnev eras in the
USSR as well. Galba was also prone to making such decisions
because of his inflexibility and to listen to unscrupulous
advisers, thus cutting himself off from his real bases of
power and losing his reputation and the goodwill of the Army,
Senate and people because of them.
And
unfortunately for Galba, he didn’t have the machinery of the
State in total control and a good rapport with the army as
some of his predecessors did before Nero or as some of these
other more modern leaders did, and that certainly was a major
cause of his downfall.
Bibliography
Plutarch, Lives, by A.H. Clough, Project
Gutenberg Etext #674, October 1996
Suétone
(Suetonius), Vies des douze Césars, présenté par Marcel
Johandeau, Librairie Générale française, 1961
Tacitus, Complete Works, The Modern Library,
Random House, New York, 1942
Campbell,
J. Brian, The emperor and the Roman Army, Clarendon Press,
Oxford, 1984
‑‑‑ The
Roman Army, 31 BC – AD 337 : A sourcebook, Routledge, London,
1994
Cizek, Eugen, Néron, l’empereur maudit,
Librairie Arthème Fayard, 1982
Coffta, David
J., “Galba (68-69 AD)”, in De Imperatoribus Romanis, An Online
Encyclopedia of Roman Emperors, September 1996, http://www.salve.edu/~romanemp/galba.html
‑‑‑, “C. Nymphidius
Sabinus (68 A.D.)”, in De Imperatoribus Romanis, An Online
Encyclopedia of Roman Emperors, September 1996, http://www.salve.edu/~romanemp/sabinus.html
Greenhalgh, P.A.L., The Year of the Four
Emperors, Weinfeld and Nicolson, London, 1975
Syme, Ronald, The Roman Revolution, Oxford
University Press, Oxford, 1939
Wellesley,
Kenneth, The long year, A.D. 69, Westview Press, Boulder, 1975
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
[1] Campbell, ERA, p. 173; Suet., Nero XXXII
[2] Cizek, p. 399
[3] Wellesley, p. 219, Note
1
[4] Suet., Galba IV
[5] Syme, p.503
[6] Suet., Galba VI
[7] Suet., Galba, VII-IX
[8] Plut., Galba 6
[9] Plut., Galba 7
[10] Suet., Galba X
[11] Wellesley, p. 5;
Plut., Galba 9
[12] Plut., Galba 9
[13] Plut.,
Galba 10
[14] Coffta, Nymphidius 2; Greenhalgh, p. 11
[15] Tac., Hist 1.7
[16] Coffta, Nymphidius 3
[17] Plut., Galba 12-18; Tac., Hist. 1.5; Greenhalgh,
pp. 20-21
[18] Suet., Galba VI
[19] Suet.,
Galba VII
[20] Suet., Galba XII
[21] Suet.,
Galba XII
[22] Syme, p. 476
[23] Tac., Hist.
1.5
[24] Suet., Galba XVI
[25] Suet., Galba
XVII
[26] Campbell, ERA, pp. 187-188
[27]
Tac., Hist. 1.5
[28] Tac., Hist. 1.6
[29]
Suet., Galba XII; Tac., Hist 1.6; Plut., Galba 18; Greenhalgh,
p. 22
[30] Greenhalgh, p. 22
[31] Tac., Hist.
1.9; Plut., Galba 26
[32] Greenhalgh, p. 16
[33] Plut., Galba 28; Tac., Hist. 1.24-1.25; Suet.,
Otho V
[34] Campbell, RA, p.186 ch. 308
[35]
Tac., Hist. 1.13-1.19
[36] Tac., Hist., 1.18
[37] Coffta, Galba 2 and 4
[38] Suet., Galba
XX
[39] Suet., Galba XIV
[40] Plut., Galba 10
[41] Suet., Galba XIV
[42] Plut., Galba 29
[43] Suet., Galba XXII
[44] Plut., Galba 14
[45] Plut., Galba 15
[46] Plut., Galba 21-22
[47] Suet., Galba XIV
[48] Plut., Galba 24
[49] Plut., Galba 25
[50] Plut., Galba 25
[51] Plut., Galba 27
[52] Plut., Galba 31
[53] Greenhalgh, p 25
[54] Plut., Galba 16
[55] Jean-Luc Gauville?
[56] Greenhalgh, p. 25
[57] Tac., Hist. 1.19
[58] Plut., Galba
28