GALAXY, properly the MILKY WAY, from the Greek name yaXaEias, sc. KUKX0S, from 'yhXa, milk, cf. the Lat. via lactea. The word is more generally employed in its figurative or trans ferred sense, to describe a gathering of brilliant or distinguished persons or objects.
The Galactic Plane, or plane of the Milky Way, is frequently used as a reference plane in studies of the structure of the stellar system, since the distribution of the different classes of stars is found to be strongly related to it. The North Galactic Pole is approximately in R.A.12h 40m, Dec.+28°. Positions are ex pressed in galactic latitude and longitude, the latter being reck oned from the ascending node of the galactic plane on the equator. GALBA, SERVIUS SULPICIUS, Roman emperor (June A.D. 68 to Jan. 69), born near Terracina, on Dec. 24, 5 B.C. He came of a noble family and was a man of great wealth, but unconnected either by birth or by adoption with the first six Caesars. In his early years it is said that both Augustus and Tiberius prophesied his future eminence (Tacitus, Annals, vi. 20; Suetonius, Galba, 4). Praetor in 20, and consul in 33, he acquired a well-merited reputation in the provinces of Gaul, Germany, Africa and Spain. On the death of Caligula, he refused the invi tation of his friends to make a bid for empire, and loyally served Claudius. For the first half of Nero's reign he lived in retirement, till, in 61, the emperor gave him the province of Hispania Tarra conensis. In the spring of 68 Galba was informed of Nero's intention to put him to death, and of the insurrection of Iulius Vindex in Gaul. He was at first inclined to follow the example of Vindex, but the defeat and suicide of the latter renewed his hesita tion. When news came that Nero had been killed and the praetor ians had declared for him, he marched to Rome. At first he was welcomed by the senate and the party of order, but he was never popular with the soldiers or the people. He incurred the hatred of the praetorians by scornfully refusing to pay them the reward promised in his name, and disgusted the mob by his meanness and dislike of display. Otho's successful conspiracy followed. Galba was murdered by some cavalry near the Lacus Curtius. Tacitus rightly says that all would have pronounced him worthy of empire if he had never been emperor ("omnium consensu capax imperii nisi im perasset") .
See his life by Plutarch and Suetonius; Tacitus, Histories, i. 7-49; Dio Cassius lxiii. 23-lxiy. 6; B. W. Henderson, Civil War and Rebellion in the Roman Empire, A.D. 69-70 (19o8) ; W. A. Spooner, On the Characters of Galba, Otho and Vitellius in Introd. to his edition (1891) of the Histories of Tacitus.