Page:Plutarch's Lives (Clough, v.5, 1865).djvu/469

GALEA. 461 seemed to despise Vindex and altogether to slight the Gauls and their concerns, yet when he heard of Galba (as by chance he had just bathed and sat down to his morning meal), at this news he overtui-ned the table. But the senate having voted Galba an enemy, presently, to make his jest, and likewise to personate a confidence among his friends, " This is a very happy opportunity," he said, " for me, who sadly want such a booty as that of the Gauls, which must all fall in as lawful prize ; and Galba's estate I can use or sell at once, he being now an open enemy." And accordingly he had Galba's property exposed to sale, which when Galba heard of, he seques- tered all that was Nero's in Spain, and found far readier bidders. Many now began to revolt from Nero, and pretty nearly all adhered to Galba ; only Clodius Macer in Africa, and Virginius Eufus, commander of the Gennan forces in Gaul, followed counsel of their own; yet these two were not of one and the same advice, for Clodius, being sensible of the rapines and murders to which he had been led by cruelty and covetousness, was in perplex- ity, and felt it was not safe for him either to retain or quit his command. But Virginius, who had the command of the strongest legions, by whom he was many repeated times saluted emperor and pressed to take the title upon him, declared that he neither would assume that honor himself, nor see it given to any other than whom the penate should elect. These things at first did not a little distui'b Galba, but when presently Virginius and Vindex were in a manner forced by their armies, having got the reins, as it were, out of their hands, to a great encounter and battle, in which Vindex, having seen twenty thousand of the Gauls destroyed, died by his own hand, and when the report straight spread abroad, that all desired Virginius,