Galba (cognomen)

Galba is an ancient Roman cognomen borne by a branch of the patrician gens Sulpicia.

The name is sometimes thought to be Celtic in origin, from a root related to Old Irish golb, "paunchy, fat."[1] Suetonius offers four possible derivations, including the Gaulish galba meaning "fat."[2]

Republican Rome

Imperial era

  • Servius Sulpicius Galba, orator during the reign of Augustus
  • Gaius Sulpicius Galba, consul in AD 22, oldest son of Ser. Sulpicius Galba
  • Galba, Servius Sulpicius Galba, Roman Emperor AD 68–69, younger son of Ser. Sulpicius Galba

Celts

References

  1. See Xavier Delamarre, entry on galba, Dictionnaire de la langue gauloise (Éditions Errance, 2003), p. 174, and D. Ellis Evans, Gaulish personal names: a study of some Continental Celtic formations (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1967), pp. 293, 297, 349.
  2. Other derivations from galbanum, a gum used in ancient medicine and chemical preparations; the medical treatment galbeum; and galbae, a type of insect: Suetonius, Galba 3, Bill Thayer's edition at LacusCurtius.
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