Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/488

 480 GALEA. had been otherwise more than the work of four days (which elapsed between the adoption and murder) so completely to infect them as to cause a general revolt. On the sixth day ensuing,* the eighteenth, as the Romans call it, before the Calends of February, the murder was done. On that day, in the morning, Galba sacrificed in the Palatium, in the presence of his friends, when Umbri- cius, the priest, taking up the entrails, and sjjeaking not ambiguously, but in plain words, said that there were signs of great troubles ensuing, and dangerous snares laid for the life of the em23eror. Thus Otho had even been dis- covered by the finger of the god ; being there just behind Galba, hearing all that was said, and seeing what was pointed out to them by Umbricius. His countenance changed to every color in his fear, and he was betraying no small discomposure, when Onomastus, his freedman, came up and acquainted him that the master-builders had come, and "were waiting for him at home. Now that was the signal for Otho to meet the soldiers. Pretending then that he had purchased an old house, and was going to show the defects to those that had sold it to him, he departed ; and passing through what is called Tiberius's house,f he went on into the forum, near the spot where a golden pillar stands, at which all the several roads through Italy terminate. Here, it is related, no more than twenty-three received and saluted him emperor ; so that, although he was not in mind as in body enervated with soft living and effem- inacy,! being in his nature bold and fearless enough in t The domiis Tiberiana was a street below, and went to the more retired portion of the irape- Golden Milestone, in the forum, rial buildings on the Palatine. Gal- just by the Temple of Satui-n. ba was sacrificing in the temple of | "Non erat Othoni mollis, ne- the Palatine Apollo. Otho left him que corpori sirailis animus." Taci- and went out by a side-entrance tus Hist. 11., 22.
 * The fifteenth of January. from the buildings, got into the