1'In what character I have come before you, comrades, I cannot say, for I cannot bear to call myself a private citizen, named emperor as I am by you, nor emperor while another reigns. 1Your own title too will remain uncertain so long as it is in doubt whether you have in your camp the emperor of the Roman people or its enemy. 1Do you hear how my punishment and your execution are being demanded together? 1So plain is it that we can neither perish nor be saved except together; 1and, merciful as Galba is, he has perhaps already promised it, he who, without anyone demanding it, butchered so many thousands of wholly innocent soldiers.
1Horror comes over my mind whenever I recall that deadly entry and Galba's only victory, when before the eyes of the city he ordered men who had surrendered to be decimated, men whom he had received into his protection at their entreaty. 1Having entered the city under these auspices, what glory has he brought to the principate, except the murders of Obultronius Sabinus and Cornelius Marcellus in Spain, of Betuus Cilo in Gaul, of Fonteius Capito in Germany, of Clodius Macer in Africa, of Cingonius on the road, of Turpilianus in the city, of Nymphidius in the camp? 1What province anywhere, what camp is there that is not bloodstained and polluted, or, as he himself proclaims, reformed and corrected?
1For what others call crimes he calls remedies, while under false names he calls cruelty severity, avarice thrift, and your punishments and humiliations discipline. 1It is seven months since Nero's end, and already Icelus has seized more than the Polyclituses and Vatiniuses and Aegialuses squandered. 1Titus Vinius would have plundered with less greed and licence if he had been emperor himself: as it is, he has treated us both as subjects, as though we were his own, and as worthless, as though we were another's. 1That one house would be enough for the donative which is never given to you and is thrown in your face every day.'