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Rh was prudently living in retirement, when Nero appointed him to be his legate in Spain, and for eight years he governed that province with great ability. But he was in the hands of evil ministers, and resigned himself entirely to them, and these ministers were at variance with one another: on one point alone did they agree—that at Galba's age some provision ought to be promptly made for a successor. But their harmony extended only to the general principle that Galba could not live much longer, and that there was already a formidable rival in the field.

We not unfrequently meet with persons in history whose characters it is scarcely possible to draw correctly—persons who disappoint our hopes, and exceed our expectations of them. Of this class of men was Marcus Salvius Otho. Among the most profligate of Nero's companions, the Rochester of his court, he governed the province of Lusitania for several years with much credit to himself: the most luxurious and depraved of men while prosperous, his end was that of a hardy though unfortunate soldier. Nothing in his life became him like the leaving it—he died by his own hand, an Epicurean Cato: even as Rochester, if Bishop Burnet may be trusted, departed a good Christian. It is, however, to Galba's credit that he declined following the interested advice of his ministers in the appointment of a successor. "He was actuated," Tacitus thinks, "by concern for the State, and saw that the sovereign power was wrested out of Nero's hands in vain, if if were to be transferred to Otho—a duplicate of him. In the choice of a colleague Galba appears for once to have judged for himself; and his selection, though it proved unfor-