Yet we find but corpses seven, when we come to search the plain.”
So many who took no part in these murders nevertheless dipped their hands and their swords in the blood and showed them to Otho, and sent petitions to him asking for a reward. A hundred and twenty persons were afterwards discovered to have done this by the written petitions which they sent to the emperor, all of whom afterwards Vitellius caused to be searched for and put to death. Besides these men, Marius Celsus came to the camp. Many at once accused him of having incited the soldiers to help Galba, and the mob clamoured for his execution. Otho, however, did not wish to kill him; but as he did not dare to directly oppose the soldiers, he said that he would not put him to death in such a hurry, for there were several questions which he wished to put to him. On this pretence he ordered him to be imprisoned, and entrusted him to his own most faithful followers.
XXVIII. The Senate was at once called together. Just as though they had become different men, or worshipped different gods, the senators took the oath of fealty to Otho, which Otho himself had just broken: and they addressed him as Cæsar and Augustus while the headless corpses, dressed in their consular robes, were still lying in the Forum. As the murderers had no further use for the heads, they sold that of Vinius to his daughter for two thousand five hundred drachmas. Piso’s head was given to his wife Verania,[626] at her earnest entreaty; and that of Galba was given to the slaves of Patrobius[627] and Vitellius, who subjected it to every kind of indignity, and at last threw it into the place which is called the Sessorium, where they execute those who are put to death by the emperor’s orders. Galba’s body was removed by Helvidius Priscus, with the permission of Otho: and during the night it was buried by one Argius,[628] the emperor’s freedman.
XXIX. This was the fate of Galba, who was second to few of the Romans in birth or wealth, being almost the first man of his time in both. He lived through the reigns of five emperors and obtained a great reputation, by which more than by any power at his disposal he drove out Nero: for of the many pretenders of that time some were declared by all to be unfit to reign, and some of their own accord withdrew their pretensions; but Galba was offered the throne and accepted it, so that his mere name caused the rising of Vindex, which had been regarded as a mere revolt, to be called a civil war, because an emperor took part in it. As therefore he considered that he had not so much sought for the management of the empire as he had had it pressed upon him, he thought to govern the spoiled children of Nymphidius and Tigellinus after the fashion of Scipio, Fabricius, and Camillus of old.
Though his faculties were somewhat impaired by age he proved himself in all military matters a thoroughly capable commander of the old school; but he put himself entirely into the hands of Vinius and Laco, who, just like the greedy crew that had surrounded Nero, sold everything in the state to the highest bidder; so that no one looked back with regret to his reign, though many were grieved at his death.
LIFE OF OTHO.
The young emperor[629] proceeded at daybreak to the Capitol, and offered sacrifice there. Next, he ordered Marius Celsus to be brought to him, and having embraced him, spoke kindly to him, and invited him to forget the charge which had been made against him rather than to remember his acquittal. Celsus answered with dignity, yet not without appreciation of Otho’s kindness, that the crime laid to his charge, being that of fidelity to Galba, to whom he owed nothing, ought of itself to bear witness to his character. By these words both Otho and Celsus were thought to have done themselves equal honour, and were applauded by the soldiers. After this, Otho made a mild and gracious speech to the Senate. He assigned part of the time appointed for his own consulship to Virginius Rufus, and left in force all the other appointments to consulships which had been made by Nero or Galba. He gratified several persons of advanced age, or eminent in other ways, by appointing them to offices in the priesthood, and restored to those senators who had been banished by Nero, and had returned under Galba, all of their property which had not been sold. In consequence of this, many of the leading men in Rome, who had at first shuddered at Otho’s accession, regarding him as some avenging demon who had suddenly been placed upon the throne, began to look much more hopefully upon a reign by which they themselves profited.
II. At the same time nothing delighted the common people and reconciled them to Otho so much as his treatment of Tigellinus. This wretch had hitherto escaped notice, for all thoughtful men considered him sufficiently punished already by his fear of the punishment which the people demanded as a debt due to the public, and by the incurable bodily diseases from which he suffered, while they regarded the foul debaucheries which he still even when dying continued to lust after, as a greater misery to him than death itself. Yet many thought it shame that he should still see the light of day, of which he had deprived so many noble spirits. Otho sent a messenger to the country house near Sinuessa, where Tigellinus dwelt, and where several ships were always riding at anchor in case he should wish to flee farther from Rome. Tigellinus at first offered the messenger a vast bribe to allow him to escape; and as the man refused to do so, he gave him the money nevertheless, begged of him to wait until he had shaved, and then, taking up a razor, cut his throat.