Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/486

 478 GALEA. take the weight of the government ; but on this day, being fortified, they say, by wine and a plentiful noon- day repast, he began to yield, and submitted to take on him the title of Germanicus they gave him, but desired to be excused as to that of Ctesar. And immediately the army under Flaccus also, putting away their fine and popular oaths in the name of the senate, swore obedi- ence to Vitellius as emperor, to observe whatever he commanded. Thus Vitellius was publicly proclaimed emperor in Germany; which news coming to Galba's ear, he no longer deferred his adoption ; yet knowing that some of his friends were using their interest for Dolabella, and the greatest number of them for Otho, neither of whom he approved of, on a sudden, without any one's privity, he sent for Piso, the son of Crassus and Scribonia, whom Nero slew, a young man in general of excellent disposi- tions for virtue, but his most eminent qualities those of steadiness and austere gravity. And so he set out to go to the camp to declare him-Ctesar and successor to the empire. But at his very first going forth, many signs appeared in the heavens, and when he began to make a speech to the soldiers, partly extempore, and partly reading it, the frequent claps of thunder and fiashes of lightning and the violent storm of rain that burst on both the camp and the city were plain dis- coveries that the divine powers did not look with favor or satisfaction on this act of adoption, that would come to no good result. The soldiers, also, showed symptoms of hidden discontent, and wore sullen looks, no distribu- tion of money being even now made to them. However, those that were present and observed Piso's countenance and voice could not but feel admiration to see him so little overcome by so great a favor, of the magnitude of which at the same time he seemed not at all insensi-