(426) Many of those likewise who were at a distance,
upon hearing the news of his death, in the anguish
of their hearts, began fighting amongst themselves,
until they dispatched one another. To conclude:
the generality of mankind, though they hated him whilst
living, yet highly extolled him after his death; insomuch
that it was the common talk and opinion, “that
Galba had been driven to destruction by his rival,
not so much for the sake of reigning himself, as of
restoring Rome to its ancient liberty.”
It is remarkable, in the fortune of this emperor,
that he owed both his elevation and catastrophe to
the inextricable embarrassments in which he was involved;
first, in respect of pecuniary circumstances, and next,
of political. He was not, so far as we can learn,
a follower of any of the sects of philosophers which
justified, and even recommended suicide, in particular
cases: yet he perpetrated that act with extraordinary
coolness and resolution; and, what is no less remarkable,
from the motive, as he avowed, of public expediency
only. It was observed of him, for many years
after his death, that “none ever died like Otho.”
I. Very different accounts are given of the origin
of the Vitellian family. Some describe it as
ancient and noble, others as recent and obscure, nay,
extremely mean. I am inclined to think, that
these several representations have been made by the
flatterers and detractors of Vitellius, after he became
emperor, unless the fortunes of the family varied
before. There is extant a memoir addressed by
Quintus Eulogius to Quintus Vitellius, quaestor to
the Divine Augustus, in which it is said, that the
Vitellii were descended from Faunus, king of the aborigines,
and Vitellia [689], who was worshipped in many places
as a goddess, and that they reigned formerly over
the whole of Latium: that all who were left of
the family removed out of the country of the Sabines
to Rome, and were enrolled among the patricians:
that some monuments of the family continued a long
time; as the Vitellian Way, reaching from the Janiculum
to the sea, and likewise a colony of that name, which,
at a very remote period of time, they desired leave
from the government to defend against the Aequicolae
[690], with a force raised by their own family only:
also that, in the time of the war with the Samnites,
some of the Vitellii who went with the troops levied
for the security of Apulia, settled at Nuceria [691],
and their descendants, a long time afterwards, returned
again to Rome, and were admitted (428) into the patrician
order. On the other hand, the generality of
writers say that the founder of the family was a freedman.
Cassius Severus [692] and some others relate that
he was likewise a cobbler, whose son having made a
considerable fortune by agencies and dealings in confiscated
property, begot, by a common strumpet, daughter of
one Antiochus, a baker, a child, who afterwards became
a Roman knight. Of these different accounts the
reader is left to take his choice.
