1The fourth day before the Ides of January, a day foul with rain, was disturbed beyond the usual by thunder and lightning and threats from the sky. 1This, observed from ancient times as grounds for breaking off assemblies, did not deter Galba from proceeding to the camp, since he scorned such things as matters of chance; 1or else what is fated, though foretold, is not avoided. 1Before a crowded assembly of soldiers, with an emperor's brevity, he announces that he is adopting Piso, following the example of the deified Augustus and the military custom by which man chooses man. 1And so that the mutiny should not be thought greater by being concealed, he goes so far as to assert that the Fourth and Twenty-Second legions, with only a few ringleaders of the mutiny, had not erred beyond words and shouts and would soon be back in their duty.
1Nor does he add to his speech any flattery or bribe. 1Yet the tribunes and centurions and the soldiers nearest responded in terms pleasing to hear: among the rest there was gloom and silence, as though in war they had lost the necessity of a donative which had become customary even in peace. 1It is agreed that their hearts could have been won by even the smallest generosity on the part of the thrifty old man: what harmed him was his old-fashioned rigour and excessive severity, to which we are no longer equal.