ghter of Catulus, and
great-grand-daughter of Lucius Mummius, who sacked Corinth [648]; and the
other, Livia Ocellina, a very rich and beautiful woman, by whom it is
supposed he was courted for the nobleness of his descent. They say, that
she was farther encouraged to persevere in her advances, by an incident
which evinced the great ingenuousness of his disposition. Upon her
pressing her suit, he took an opportunity, when they were alone, of
stripping off his toga, and showing her the deformity of his person, that
he might not be thought to impose upon her. He had by Achaica two sons,
Caius and Sergius. The elder of these, Caius [649], having very much
reduced his estate, retired from town, and being prohibited by Tiberius
from standing for a pro-consulship in his year, put an end to his own
life.

IV. The emperor Sergius Galba was born in the consulship of M. Valerius
Messala, and Cn. Lentulus, upon the ninth of the calends of January [24th
December] [650], in a villa standing upon a hill, near Terracina, on the
left-hand side of the road to Fundi [651]. Being adopted by his
step-mother [652], he assumed the name of Livius, with the cognomen of
Ocella, and changed his praenomen; for he afterwards used that of Lucius,
instead of Sergius, until he arrived at the imperial dignity. It is well
known, that when he came once, amongst other boys of his own age, to pay
his respects to Augustus, the latter, pinching his cheek, said to him,
"And thou, child, too, wilt taste our imperial dignity." Tiberius,
likewise, being told that he would come to be emperor, but at an advanced
age, exclaimed, "Let him live, then, since that does not concern me!"
When his grandfather was offering sacrifice to (403) avert some ill omen
from lightning, the entrails of the victim were snatched out of his hand
by an eagle, and carried off into an oak-tree loaded with acorns. Upon
this, the soothsayers said, that the family would come to be masters of
the empire, but not until many years had elapsed: at which he, smiling,
said, "Ay, when a mule comes to bear a foal." When Galba first declared
against Nero, nothing gave him so much confidence of success, as a mule's
happening at that time to have a foal. And whilst all others were shocked
at the occurrence, as a most inauspicious prodigy, he alone regarded it as
a most fortunate omen, calling to mind the sacrifice and saying of his
grandfather. When he took upon him the manly habit, he drea