Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/468

 460 GALEA. body, the Gaulish previnces, which could already count a hundred thousand men in amis, and were able to arm a yet greater number if occasion were. Galba laid the matter before his friends, some of whom thought it fit to wait, and see what movement there might be and what inclinations disj^layed at Eome for the revolution. But Titus Vinius, captain of his praetorian guard,-'= spoke thus : " Galba, what means this inquiry ? To question whether we shall continue faithful to Nero is, in itself, to cease to be faithful.f Nero is our enemy, and we must by no means decline the help of Viudex: or else we must at once denounce hira, and march to attack him, because he wishes you to be the governor of the Romans, rather than Nero their tyrant." Thereupon Galba, by an edict, appointed a day when he would receive manumissions,J and general rumor and talk beforehand about his pur- pose brought together a great crowd of men so ready for a change, that he scarcely appeared, stepping up to the tribunal, but they with one consent saluted him emperor. That title he refused at present to take iipon him ; but after he had a while inveighed against Nero, and be- moaned the loss of the more conspicuous of those that had been destroyed by him, he oflered himself and ser- vice to his country, not by the titles of Caesar or em- peror, but as the lieutenant of the Roman senate and people. Now that Vindex did wisely in inviting Galba to the empire, Nero himself bore testimony ; who, though he chief (for which prjetor was orig- rimt." — Tacitus. inally the title, borne, for exam- | No act for the manumission pie, in old time, by the consuls) of a slave was valid by the Roman had his body-guard, or praetorian law, unless a declaration was made cohort. This had been the model to the magistrate, for the imperial praetorians in the city.
 * Every Roman cominander-in- t " Nam qui deliberant descive-