According To Legend, Fortune Literally Came Knocking At Emperor Galba’s Door

Servius Sulpicius Galba was born in 3 BCE, and lived through the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius and Nero. He came from an ancient aristocratic house and proved himself to be competent in governing several provinces of the empire, albeit in a ruthless manner. Over the decades of Julian-Claudian rule, Galba had good fortune. He became a governor of Aquitania during the reign of Tiberius. Caligula gave him another high office as governor of Germania Superior. Claudius followed suit, giving Galba a military and administrative position in Africa. Nero ignored him for a while, but eventually appointed Galba as governor of Tarraconensian Spain in 60 CE, a position that he would use to usurp power in Rome eight years later. By 68 CE, Emperor Nero had lost the support of several powerful governors in his empire. A rebellion broke out in Gaul, and Galba, with his Spanish legions, joined the rebels and became the leader. The Roman Senate was sympathetic to the rebels and declared Nero to be an enemy of the state. In June of 68 CE, Nero committed suicide and Galba was proclaimed emperor.

Up to this point, Emperor Galba had a fortunate life, especially by the ruthless standards of ancient Roman politics. His luck was so palpable that it apparently inspired a series of folkloric tales. The Roman biographer Suetonius (c. 70-130+), a man who loved such rumors and yarns, recorded two stories that gave a divine explanation for Galba’s fate. According to the tales presented by Suetonius, one of the reasons that Galba had a successful life was because he was a life-long favorite of the goddess Fortuna, the divine personification of fortune.

As the story goes, when Galba was a young man, the goddess Fortuna visited him in a dream. It was not a very elaborate dream—the setting was in his house and Galba never even saw the goddess. Instead, he only heard a knocking sound coming from his door. When Galba approached the locked door in his dream, he was greeted by the impatient voice of Fortuna, demanding that he let her in, lest she leave and grace someone else’s doorstep with her presence. Galba woke up before he could open the dream world’s door, so he did the next best thing and rushed to his front door in reality. When he opened it up, Galba realized that the goddess had actually left him a present—a bronze statue of Fortuna was apparently waiting just outside the threshold of his home.

According to Suetonius, Galba enshrined the statue in his summer home at Tusculum and offered it a sacrifice every month. With Fortuna on his side, Galba survived the tumultuous reigns of the Julio-Claudian emperors and even gained control of the empire, himself, when he was in his early seventies. Yet, something went wrong—his luck had an abrupt end. Suetonius wrote down another piece of folklore that offered a mythological explanation for Galba’s fall from grace. According to the tale, Galba began to slack in his sacrifices to Fortuna once he achieved the title of emperor. In particular, he allegedly halted a shipment of jewelry that was heading for the shrine of Fortuna at Tusculum, and instead donated the treasures to a temple of the goddess, Venus. Unfortunately, Fortuna, like many deities, was a jealous goddess, and she immediately invaded one of the emperor’s dreams to express her anger and sense of betrayal. When Galba awoke from the dream, he apparently tried to make things right, but he never regained Fortuna’s favor. In 69 CE, Galba was assassinated during a military coup spearheaded by his former ally, Otho.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Sketch of Emperor Galba by Rembrandt (1606–1669), with a depiction of Fortuna from "The literary digest" 1890, in front of a modified cityscape by Thomas Cole (1801–1848), all [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Twelve Caesars (Galba) by Suetonius, translated by Robert Graves and edited by James B. Rives. New York: Penguin Classics, 2007.
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Galba 
• https://www.ancient.eu/Galba/ 
• http://www.livius.org/articles/person/galba/ 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Nero-Roman-emperor  

The Odd And Exotic Culinary Dish Supposedly Loved By Short-Lived Emperor Vitellius

Emperor Vitellius was one of four emperors who ruled the Roman Empire during the chaotic year, 69 CE. The true nature of Vitellius, and that of his two predecessors, Emperors Galba and Otho, will likely always remain in relative obscurity, for the most prominent historians who lived during the late 1st century—such as Tacitus and Suetonius—were fans of the fourth and final emperor of the year, Vespasian (r. 69-79 CE). As such, the biased ancient historians unfortunately seemed to be willing to write accounts of Galba, Otho and Vitellius that were propaganda-riddled caricatures in order to make Vespasian’s reign seem all the more grand. At the least, their works were heavily influenced by Vespasian’s propaganda.

As for Emperor Vitellius, he was portrayed negatively by Suetonius (c. 70-130+) as an addict of feasting and gambling. Suetonius filled his pages with several rumors about Vitellius’ supposed gluttony. Some of the emperor’s alleged eating habits are so odd that Suetonius likely based the stories from lampoons or other mocking sources. For instance, the ancient historian would have us believe that Emperor Vitellius was gluttonous enough to steal from street vendors, to eat old discarded food scraps and to even gobble up pieces of sacrificed meat left on a god’s alter. In addition, Suetonius alleged that Vitellius hosted three or four banquets each day, and spent all the hours in-between attending feasts hosted by other citizens of Rome.

Yet, few hosts of the many feasts could ever dream of preparing one extraordinary culinary dish that was reportedly loved by the emperor. It was a huge platter of food that was given the peculiar name, “The Shield of Minerva the Protectress.” The meal’s ingredients were so bizarre that the Roman Navy allegedly had to sail to the corners of the empire to gather everything required for the recipe. According to Suetonius, a person experiencing the flavors of the Shield of Minerva would enjoy on their palate the taste of many exotic morsels, such as the brains of pheasants and peacocks, the tongues of flamingos, the liver of a pike and the milt of a lamprey. Emperor Vespasian, like most people reading the recipe now, did not find the dish to be appealing, and the so-called Shield of Minerva the Protectress was likely never prepared again after Vitellius was deposed, tortured, executed and his body disposed of in the Tiber.

Written by C. Keith Hansley.

Picture Attribution: (Still life with a glass bowl of fruit and vases, from Pompeii, c. 63 and the eruption of Vesuvius in 79 CE, [Public Domain] via Creative Commons).

Sources:

• The Twelve Caesars (Divus Claudius, 15) by Suetonius, translated by Robert Graves and edited by James B. Rives. New York: Penguin Classics, 2007.
• http://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Cassius_Dio/64*.html 
• http://www.livius.org/articles/person/vitellius/vitellius-4/ 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Aulus-Vitellius 
• https://www.ancient.eu/Vitellius/ 
• https://www.britannica.com/biography/Vespasian