In the year 824 from the founding of the City, Galba usurped the empire in the Spanish provinces. As soon as he learned of Nero’s death he came to Rome; and since he offended everyone by his avarice, savagery and sloth, he adopted Piso, a noble and energetic young man, as his son and as heir to his rule; and together with him, in the seventh month of his rule, he was murdered by Otho.1
1 Anno ab urbe condita DCCCXXIIII Galba apud Hispanias usurpauit imperium. qui mox, ut Neronis mortem conperit, Romam uenit; cumque omnes auaritia saeuitia segnitiaque offenderet, Pisonem sibi nobilem industriumque adulescentem in filium atque in regnum adoptauit: cum quo septimo mense imperii sui ab Othone iugulatus est.
1Galba was proclaimed in April AD 68, the year 821 from the founding of the City by the usual reckoning. Orosius’s dates for the emperors in this book often run a few years off.
Rome atoned, through the slaughter of its princes and the civil wars stirred up, for the recent wrongs done to the Christian religion; and those standards of the legions which, restrained by divine power at the time of the apostle Peter’s coming to the City, could in no way be pulled up to stir the civil war that was being prepared through Scribonianus — now that Peter had been killed in the City and the Christians torn by punishments of every kind — let themselves loose throughout the whole world.
2 Luit Roma caedibus principum excitatisque ciuilibus bellis recentes Christianae religionis iniurias, et signa illa legionum, quae sub aduentu in urbem Petri apostoli diuinitus cohercita conuelli nullo modo ad excitandum ciuile bellum ualuerant, quod per Scribonianum parabatur, Petro in urbe interfecto et Christianis poenarum diuersitate laniatis toto se orbe soluerunt.
For Galba had at once risen up from Spain; and when he was soon crushed, Otho at Rome, Vitellius in Germany and Vespasian in Syria seized empire and arms at the same time.
3 de Hispania siquidem ilico Galba surrexerat; quo mox oppresso Otho Romae, Vitellius in Germania, Vespasianus in Syria imperia simul atque arma rapuerunt.
Let those who take offence at the Christian times acknowledge, even against their will, the power and at the same time the clemency of God: with what speed the fires of such great wars were both kindled and put down, when before, from the slightest causes, great and long-lasting disasters were stirred up, while now the mightiest crashes of great evils, resounding on every side, were lulled to sleep with the least trouble.
4 probent sane etiam inuiti potentiam simul et clementiam Dei, qui Christianis temporibus offenduntur: quanta celeritate tantorum incendia bellorum et excitata sunt et repressa, cum et antea minimis causis magnae ac diuturnae clades agitarentur et nunc maximi undique concrepantes magnorum malorum fragores minimo negotio sopirentur.
For there was now at Rome a Church, though harassed by persecution, which would make supplication to Christ, the judge of all, even for its enemies and persecutors.
5 iam enim erat Romae quamuis persecutione uexata Ecclesia, quae iudici omnium Christo etiam pro inimicis et persecutoribus supplicaret.
So Otho, when Galba and Piso had been killed at Rome and he had seized the empire amid tumults and slaughter, soon learned that Vitellius had been created emperor in Gaul by the German legions. Undertaking civil war, he first engaged the generals of Vitellius in three minor battles — one at the Alps, another near Placentia, and the third near the place they call Castores — and came out victor; but in the fourth battle, at Bedriacum, when he saw that his men were being beaten, he killed himself in the third month after he had begun to rule.
6 igitur Otho cum, Galba et Pisone Romae interfectis, inter tumultus caedesque inuasisset imperium ac mox creatum imperatorem in Gallia per Germanicas legiones Vitellium conperisset, bellum ciuile molitus tribus primum leuibus proeliis, hoc est uno apud Alpes, alio circa Placentiam, tertio circa locum, quem Castores uocant, contra Vitellianos duces congressus uictor exstitisset, quarto apud Bedriacum proelio cum animaduertisset suos uinci, mense tertio quam imperare coeperat sese interfecit.
Vitellius came to Rome as victor; and there, after committing many cruel and wicked acts and burdening human life with disgraces through an incredible appetite for gluttony, when he learned of Vespasian he first attempted to lay down the empire; afterwards, encouraged by certain persons, he drove Sabinus, Vespasian’s brother, who then suspected no harm, into the Capitol together with the other Flavians, and, setting fire to the temple, gave them all alike, amid flames and collapse mingled together, to one death and one tomb.
7 Vitellius uictor Romam uenit: ubi cum multa crudeliter ac nequiter ageret, incredibili etiam uoracitatis appetitu humanam uitam probris adgrauaret, postquam de Vespasiano comperit, primum deponere molitus imperium, post a quibusdam animatus Sabinum Vespasiani fratrem, nihil tum mali suspicantem, cum ceteris Flauianis in Capitolium compulit succensoque templo et mixta simul flamma ruinaque omnes in unum pariter interitum ac tumulum dedit.
Afterwards, deserted by his army, which went over to the name of Vespasian, and terrified as the enemy drew near, he thrust himself into a little closet near the Palace. Dragged out from there most shamefully, he was led naked along the Sacred Way and brought into the Forum while people everywhere hurled filth into his face; and in the eighth month after he had seized the rule, at the Gemonian Steps, he was put to death by the frequent piercing of the smallest wounds; then he was dragged off by a hook and sunk in the Tiber, and was deprived even of common burial.
8 post deficiente in Vespasiani nomen exercitu suo destitutus adpropinquantibusque iam hostibus trepidus cum se in quandam proximam Palatio cellulam contrusisset, turpissime inde protractus cum per uiam Sacram nudus duceretur, passim fimum in os eius coniectantibus in forum deductus, octauo quam regnum praesumpserat mense apud Gemonias scalas minutissimorum ictuum crebris conpunctionibus excarnificatus atque inde unco tractus et in Tiberim mersus etiam communi caruit sepultura.
For many days, moreover, the soldiers of Vespasian raged against the senate and people of Rome in many abominable ways with indiscriminate slaughter.
9 multis autem et nefariis modis per complures dies a Vespasiani militibus aduersum senatum populumque Romanum indiscreta caede saeuitum est.