One Response

1. 

   Walter Muzzy January 15, 2013 at 12:08 pm | Reply

   I’ve often wondered if *technically* after Galba was assassinated Piso would have automatically became Emperor being his adopted son and heir?

   If so, he would have been *the* shortest reigning Emperor in Roman history:-).

   [Tacitus]
   43. A noble example of manhood was on that day witnessed by our age in Sempronius Densus. He was a centurion in a cohort of the Praetorian Guard, and had been appointed by Galba to escort Piso.

   Rushing, dagger in hand, to meet the armed men, and upbraiding them with their crime, he drew the attention of the murderers on himself by his exclamations and gestures, and thus gave Piso, wounded as he was, an opportunity of escape.

   Piso made his way to the temple of Vesta, where he was admitted by the compassion of one of the public slaves, who concealed him in his chamber.

   There, not indeed through the sanctity of the place or its worship, but through the obscurity of his hiding-place, he obtained a respite from instant destruction, till there came, by Otho’s direction and specially eager to slay him, Sulpicius Florus, of the British auxiliary infantry, to whom Galba had lately given the citizenship, and Statius Murcus, one of the body-guard.

   Piso was dragged out by these men and slaughtered in the entrance of the temple.

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Enter your comment here...

Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in:

Email (required) (Address never made public)

Name (required)

Website

You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Twitter account. ( Log Out / Change )

You are commenting using your Facebook account. ( Log Out / Change )

Cancel

Connecting to %s

Notify me of follow-up comments via email.

Notify me of new posts via email.