Galba entered Rome. Had he shown himself open-handed, he might easily have won men’s hearts; but he gave offence on every side. He partly protected Nero’s companions from public animadversion, and partly punished them. Then he behaved like a miser. Economy was certainly necessary; but he overdid it, as he gave no donation whatever to the prætorians, and a very niggardly one to the troops which he had brought with him. He moreover displayed hatred and mistrust towards the prætorians, although he had dismissed his own soldiers, except a few whom he billeted in the city. The prætorians, being ten thousand strong, were masters of his life; so that he ought to have driven them out, and decimated them as accomplices in the cruelties of Nero. The most powerful person in the city, to the disgrace of the age, was M. Salvius Otho; a man without any illustrious ancestry, whose station was entirely owing to Nero’s favour; a coxcomb of the then world in the most disgusting sense, and this implied much more depravity in ancient times than in our days; the associate of many of the profligacies of Nero:—cruelty, however, cannot be laid to his charge with certainty. He was rich, pleasing, what is called amiable; and he had that affable manner, which could not but have the greatest influence upon the minds of the prætorians. These therefore saw in him the man who could make up to them for Nero, whom they began to miss more and more. Galba, who already knew that the German troops on the Upper Rhine under Cæcina and Fabius Valens had become mutinous, and would not acknowledge him, tried to strengthen himself by adopting Calpurnius Piso, a distinguished young Roman. But that choice was an unfortunate one, as Piso had nothing to recommend him, but his high descent and his spotless character. Had not Galba been weakened by old age, his government might have become quite praiseworthy; but he lost the affection of all good men, not only by his avarice, but also because justice was shamefully abused and sold under his name by his favourites Vinius, Laco, and Icelus. Otho had reckoned on being himself adopted; whatever choice therefore Galba might have made, it would have been his ruin, if it were not Otho: yet the old soldier had after all too much love for his country to choose him. By dint of deep dissimulation, Otho got the prætorians to declare themselves at the moment when he wanted to call upon them. This was done. The city being at that time quite open, the prætorians marched in, and went straight to the forum. Galba, who had appeared in person with Piso to restore tranquillity, was stabbed before the German troops could have been moved into the town; and Otho was proclaimed emperor.