The Roman historian Suetonius is tracing the family of the Emperor Galba, who ruled Rome after the death of Nero (though briefly). Where did Galba’s family name come from? Suetonius asks himself. The Emperor’s ancestor, Sulpicius, was the first in the family to be known by Galba, Suetonius declares, and Sulpicius passed the family name to his descendants. But where did Sulpicius get “Galba”?
One suggestion is that after a tediously protracted siege of some Spanish town the Sulpicius in question set fire to it, using torches smeared with resin (galbanum). Another is that he resorted to galbeum, a kind of poultice, during a long illness. Others are that he was very fat, the Gallic word for which is galba; or that, on the contrary, he was very slender — like the galba, a creature which breeds in oak trees.
In other words, who knows!
source: The Twelve Caesars
by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus; translated by Robert Graves
1957/1979. Penguin Books, New York
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