rds into the Principia [677] in the camp; all
who met him joining in the cavalcade, as if they had been privy to the
design. Upon this, sending some soldiers to dispatch Galba and Piso, he
said nothing else in his address to the soldiery, to secure their
affections, than these few words: "I shall be content with whatever ye
think fit to leave me."

VII. Towards the close of the day, he entered the senate, and after he
had made a short speech to them, pretending that he had been seized in
the streets, and compelled by violence to assume the imperial authority,
which he designed to exercise in conjunction with them, he retired to the
palace. Besides other compliments which he received from those who
flocked about him to congratulate and flatter him, he was called Nero by
the mob, and manifested no intention of declining that cognomen. Nay,
some authors relate, that he used it in his official acts, and the first
letters he sent to the (421) governors of provinces. He suffered all his
images and statues to be replaced, and restored his procurators and
freedmen to their former posts. And the first writing which he signed as
emperor, was a promise of fifty millions of sesterces to finish the
Golden-house [678]. He is said to have been greatly frightened that
night in his sleep, and to have groaned heavily; and being found, by
those who came running in to see what the matter was, lying upon the
floor before his bed, he endeavoured by every kind of atonement to
appease the ghost of Galba, by which he had found himself violently
tumbled out of bed. The next day, as he was taking the omens, a great
storm arising, and sustaining a grievous fall, he muttered to himself
from time to time:

Ti gar moi kai makrois aulois; [679]
What business have I the loud trumpets to sound!

VIII. About the same time, the armies in Germany took an oath to
Vitellius as emperor. Upon receiving this intelligence, he advised the
senate to send thither deputies, to inform them, that a prince had been
already chosen; and to persuade them to peace and a good understanding.
By letters and messages, however, he offered Vitellius to make him his
colleague in the empire, and his son-in-law. But a war being now
unavoidable, and the generals and troops sent forward by Vitellius,
advancing, he had a proof of the attachment and fidelity of the pretorian
guards, which had nearly proved fatal to the senatorian order. It had
been judged pro