He entertained hopes of being adopted by Galba, and expected it every day. But
					finding himself disappointed. by Piso's being preferred before him, he turned
					his thoughts to obtaining his purpose by the use of violence; and to this he was
					instigated, as well by the greatness of his debts, as by resentment at Galba's
					conduct towards him. For he did not conceal his conviction, "that he could not
					stand his ground unless he became emperor, and that it signified nothing whether
					he fell by the hands of his enemies in the field, or of his creditors in the
					forum." He had a few days before squeezed out of one of the emperor's slaves a
					million of sesterces for procuring him a stewardship; and this was the whole
					fund he had for carrying on so great an enterprise. At first the design was
					entrusted to only five of the guard, but afterward to ten others, each of the
					five naming two. They had every one ten thousand sesterces paid down, and were
					promised fifty thousand more. By these, others were drawn in, but not many; from
					a confident assurance, that when the matter came to the crisis, they should have
					enough to join them. His first intention was, immediately after the departure of Piso, to seize the
					camp, and fall upon Galba whilst he was at supper in the palace; but he was
					restrained by a regard for the cohort at that time on duty, lest he should bring
					too great an odium upon it; because it happened that the same cohort was on
					guard before, both when Caius was slain, and Nero deserted. For some time
					afterwards, he was restrained also by scruples about the omens, and by the
					advice of Seleucus. Upon the day fixed at last for the enterprise, having given
					his accomplices notice to wait for him in the forum near the temple of Saturn,
					at the gilded mile-stone, The Milliare Aureum was a pillar
						of stone set up at the top of the forum, from which all the great military
						roads throughout Italy started, the
						distances to the principal towns being marked upon it. Dio (lib. liv.) says
						that it was erected by the emperor Augustus, when he was curator of the
						roads. he went in the morning to pay his respects to Galba; and
					being received with a kiss as usual, he attended him at sacrifice, and heard the
					predictions of the augur. Haruspex, Auspex, or Augur,
						denoted any person who foretold futurity, or interpreted omens. There was at
							 Rome a body of priests, or
						college, under this title, whose office it was to foretell future events,
						chiefly from the flight, chirping, or feeding of birds, and from other
						appearances. They were of the greatest authority in the Roman state; for
						nothing of importance was done in public affairs, either at home or abroad,
						in peace or war, without consulting them. The Romans derived the practice of
						augury chiefly from the Tuscans; and anciently their youth used to be
						instructed as carefully in this art, as afterwards they were in the Greek
						literature. For this purpose, by a decree of the senate, a certain number of
						the sons of the leading men at Rome was sent to the twelve states of Etruria for
						instruction. A freedman of his, then bringing him word that the
					architects were come, which was the signal agreed upon, he withdrew, as if it
					were with a design to view a house upon sale, and went out by a back-door of the
					palace to the place appointed. Some say he pretended to be seized with an ague
					fit, and ordered those about him to make that excuse for him, if he was inquired
					after. Being then quickly concealed in a woman's litter, he made the best of his
					way for the camp. But the bearers growing tired, he got out, and began to run.
					His shoe becoming loose, he stopped again, but being immediately raised by his
					attendants upon their shoulders, and unanimously saluted by the fitle of
					EMPEROR, he came amidst auspicious acclamations and drawn swords into the
						Principia See before, note, c. i. The Principia was a
						broad open space, which separated the lower part of the Roman camp from the
						upper, and extended the whole breadth of the camp. In this place was erected
						the tribunal of the general, when he either administered justice or
						harangued the army. Here likewise the tribunes held their courts, and
						punishments were inflicted. The principal standards of the army, as it has
						been already mentioned, were deposited in the Principia; and in it also
						stood the altars of the gods, and the images of the emperors, by which the
						soldiers swore. in the camp; all who met him joining in the
					cavalcade, as if they had been privy to the design. Upon this, sending some
					soldiers to dispatch Galba and Piso, he said nothing else in his address to the
					soldiery, to secure their affections, than these few words: ",I shall be content
					with whatever ye think fit to leave me." Towards the close of the day, he entered the senate, and after he had made a
					short speech to them, pretending that he had been seized in the streets, and
					compelled by violence to assume the imperial authority, which he designed to
					exercise in conjunction with them, he retired to the palace Besides other
					compliments which he received from those who flocked about him to congratulate
					and flatter him, he was called Nero by the mob, and manifested no intention of
					declining that cognomen. Nay, some authors relate, that he used it in his
					official acts, and the first letters he sent to the governors of provinces. He
					suffered all his images and statues to be replaced, and restored his procurators
					and freedmen to their former posts. And the first writing which he signed as
					emperor, was a promise of fifty millions of sesterces to finish the
						Golden-house. See NERO, c. xxxi. The sum estimated as
						requisite for its completion amounted to $10,500,000 of our money. He
					is said to have been greatly frightened that night in his sleep, and to have
					groaned heavily; and being found, by those who came running in to see what the
					matter was, lying upon the floor before his bed, he endeavoured by every kind of
					atonement to appease the ghost of Galba, by which he had found himself violently
					tumbled out of bed. The next day, as he was taking the omens, a great storm
					arising, and sustaining a grievous fall, he muttered to himself from time to
					time: τί γαρ The two last words, literally translated, mean "long
								trumpets;" such as were used at sacrifices. The sense is, therefore,
								"What have I to do, my hands stained with blood, with performing
								religious ceremonies?" 
					 What business have I the loud trumpets to
						sound?