Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/491

 GALEA. 483 man." Upon this, the crowd of people set off rmming, not to fly and disperse, but to possess themselves of the colonnades and elevated places of the formn, as it might be to get places to see a spectacle. And as soon as Atil- lius Vergilio knocked down one of Galba's statues, this was taken as the declaration of war, and they * sent a discharge of darts upon Galba's litter, and, missing their aim, came up and attacked him nearer hand with their naked swords. No man resisted or offered to stand up in his defence, save one only, a centurion, Sempronius Densus,-}- the single man among so many thousands that the sun beheld that day act worthily of the Eoman em- pire, who, though he had never received any favor from Galba, yet out of bravery and allegiance endeavored to defend the litter. First, lifting up his switch of vine, with which the centurions correct the soldiers when dis- orderly, he called aloud to the aggressors, charging them not to touch their emperor. And when they came upon him hand to hand, he drew his sword, and made a defence for a long time, until at last he was cut under the knees and brought to the ground. Galba's chair was upset at the spot called the Lacus Curtius,^ where they ran up and struck at him as he lay in his corslet. He, however, offered his throat, bidding them " Strike, if it be for the Komans' good." § mar might seem to imply, but the should be a difference of reading; soldiers. AtiUius Vergilio was one and, indeed, most of the manu- of the men of the cohort on duty scripts make it Galba whom he attending Galba. attends ; and so it is in Dion Cas- t Indrisus, or Indister, is the sius also, name in the manuscripts ; Densus J The Lacus Curtius, so called, is introduced in its place on the was just in the middle of the open authority of Tacitus, in whose nar- space of the forum, rative, however, it is Piso, not § " Ferirent si ita e republica Galba, who is defended by him. videretur," are the words in Taci- This is clear from the context ; it tus, who says, however, that there
 * Not the people, as the gram- is curious, however, that there