1The city soldiery, long steeped in their oath to the Caesars and brought to desert Nero more by intrigue and pressure than by their own inclination, when they realised that the donative promised in Galba's name was not being paid, that in peace there was not the same room for great services and rewards as in war, and that their favour with an emperor made by the legions had been forestalled, were already inclined to revolution and are further stirred by the crime of Nymphidius Sabinus, their prefect, who was scheming for the throne himself. 1Nymphidius, indeed, was crushed in the very attempt, but although the head of the revolt had been removed, many of the soldiers still had a guilty conscience, and there was no lack of talk denouncing Galba's old age and avarice.
1His strictness, once praised and celebrated in military renown, galled men who scorned the old discipline and had been so accustomed by Nero over fourteen years that they loved the vices of emperors no less than they had once revered their virtues. 1To this was added Galba's remark, honourable for the state but dangerous for himself, that he chose his soldiers, he did not buy them; 1for the rest did not match this pattern.