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Servius Sulpicius Galba (General)

1911 Encyclopedia Britannica

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Servius Sulpicius Galba of Rome

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Roman general and orator. He served under Lucius Aemilius Paulus in the third Macedonian War. As praetor in 151 B.C. in farther Spain he made himself infamous by the treacherous murder of a number of Lusitanians, with their wives and children, after inducing them to surrender by the promise of grants of land. For this in 149 he was brought to trial, but secured an acquittal by bribery and by holding up his little children before the people to gain their sympathy. He was consul in 144, and must have been alive in 138. He was an eloquent speaker, noted for his violent gesticulations, and, in Cicero's opinion, was the first of the Roman orators. His speeches, however, were almost forgotten in Cicero's time.

Livy xlv. 35; Appian, Hisp. 58-60; Cicero, De orat. i. 53, iii. 7; Brutus 21.