Nero Claudius Drusus, later
Drusus Julius Caesar (his adoptive name) (13 BC-September 14
23Year 23 was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar.-Roman Empire:* Greek geographer Strabo publishes Geography, a work covering the world known to the Romans and Greeks at the time of Emperor Augustus – it is the only such book to survive from the ancient world.* Tiberius' son...
), was the only child of
Roman EmperorThe Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office: Latin titles such as imperator , augustus, caesar and princeps were all associated with it...
TiberiusTiberius Julius Caesar Augustus, born Tiberius Claudius Nero , was the second Roman Emperor, from the death of Augustus in AD 14 until his own death in 37. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla...
and his first wife,
Vipsania AgrippinaVipsania Agrippina was the daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa from his first wife Pomponia Caecilia Attica, granddaughter of Cicero's friend and knight Titus Pomponius Atticus. Her maternal grandmother was a descendant of Marcus Licinius Crassus...
. He was born in 7 October
15 BCYear 15 BC was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar.-Rome:* Vienna becomes a frontier city guarding the Roman Empire against the German tribes to the north....
or 14 BC with the name
Nero Claudius Drusus, and is also known to historians as
Drusus II and
Drusus Minor. Drusus was named after his paternal uncle the general
Nero Claudius DrususNero Claudius Drusus Germanicus , born Decimus Claudius Drusus also called Drusus, Drusus I, Nero Drusus, or Drusus the Elder was a Roman politician and military commander...
(who is sometimes called Nero Drusus, Drusus I, Drusus Major, or Drusus the Elder), who was Tiberius' younger brother.
Nero Claudius Drusus, later
Drusus Julius Caesar (his adoptive name) (13 BC-September 14
23Year 23 was a common year starting on Friday of the Julian calendar.-Roman Empire:* Greek geographer Strabo publishes Geography, a work covering the world known to the Romans and Greeks at the time of Emperor Augustus – it is the only such book to survive from the ancient world.* Tiberius' son...
), was the only child of
Roman EmperorThe Roman emperor was the ruler of the Roman State during the imperial period . The Romans had no single term for the office: Latin titles such as imperator , augustus, caesar and princeps were all associated with it...
TiberiusTiberius Julius Caesar Augustus, born Tiberius Claudius Nero , was the second Roman Emperor, from the death of Augustus in AD 14 until his own death in 37. Tiberius was by birth a Claudian, son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and Livia Drusilla...
and his first wife,
Vipsania AgrippinaVipsania Agrippina was the daughter of Marcus Vipsanius Agrippa from his first wife Pomponia Caecilia Attica, granddaughter of Cicero's friend and knight Titus Pomponius Atticus. Her maternal grandmother was a descendant of Marcus Licinius Crassus...
. He was born in 7 October
15 BCYear 15 BC was a common year starting on Monday of the Julian calendar.-Rome:* Vienna becomes a frontier city guarding the Roman Empire against the German tribes to the north....
or 14 BC with the name
Nero Claudius Drusus, and is also known to historians as
Drusus II and
Drusus Minor. Drusus was named after his paternal uncle the general
Nero Claudius DrususNero Claudius Drusus Germanicus , born Decimus Claudius Drusus also called Drusus, Drusus I, Nero Drusus, or Drusus the Elder was a Roman politician and military commander...
(who is sometimes called Nero Drusus, Drusus I, Drusus Major, or Drusus the Elder), who was Tiberius' younger brother. He was born and raised in
RomeRome is the capital of Italy and the country's largest and most populated municipality , with over 2.7 million residents in , while the population of the urban area is estimated by Eurostat to be 3.46 million. The metropolitan area of Rome is estimated by OECD to have a population of 3.7 million...
. Drusus was the first grandchild of statesman
Marcus Vipsanius AgrippaMarcus Vipsanius Agrippa was a Roman statesman and general. He was a close friend, son-in-law, lieutenant and defense minister to Octavian, the future emperor Caesar Augustus...
and his first wife
Caecilia AtticaPomponia Caecilia Attica or Caecilia Pomponia Attica , was the daughter of Cicero's Epicurean friend and eques, knight Titus Pomponius Atticus. Her mother, Caecilia Pilea/Pilia , daughter of Pileus/Pilius, was a maternal granddaughter of Marcus Licinius Crassus, a member of the First Triumvirate...
.
Despite his violent temper, Drusus showed promise with both military and politics. In 13, he was made a permanent member of the
SenateThe Senate of the Roman Republic was a political institution in the ancient Roman Republic. According to the Greek historian Polybius, our principal source on the Constitution of the Roman Republic, the Roman Senate was the predominant branch of government...
committee
AugustusGaius Julius Caesar Augustus was the first emperor of the Roman Empire, which he ruled alone from 27 BC until his death in AD 14.
[These are the contemporary dates; Augustus lived under two calendars, the Roman Republican until 45 BC, and the Julian after 45 BC...]
had founded to draw up the Senate's daily business. However, because Drusus was only related to the
ClaudianThe gens Claudia was one of the oldest patrician families in ancient Rome. For several centuries its members were regularly leaders of the city and empire. In the names assigned to periods by historians, the Julio-Claudian dynasty of initial Roman emperors derives in part from the gens Claudia. Any...
side of the family, rather than both the
Julians and ClaudiansThe Julio-Claudian dynasty normally refers to the first five Roman Emperors: Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula , Claudius, and Nero, or the family to which they belonged; they ruled the Roman Empire from its formation, in the second half of the first century BC, until AD 68, when the last of the line,...
, Augustus forced Tiberius to adopt
GermanicusGermanicus Julius Caesar was a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty of the early Roman Empire. He was born in Lugdunum, Gaul . At birth he was named either Nero Claudius Drusus after his father or Tiberius Claudius Nero after his uncle...
as his son and heir, removing Drusus from the succession. In 14, after the death of Augustus, Drusus suppressed a
mutinyMutiny is a conspiracy among members of a group of similarly-situated individuals to openly oppose, change or overthrow an existing authority...
in
PannoniaPannonia is an ancient province of the Roman Empire bounded north and east by the Danube, coterminous westward with Noricum and upper Italy, and southward with Dalmatia and upper Moesia....
. In 15 he became a
consul-Ancient Rome:During the time of ancient Rome as a Republic, the consuls were the highest civil and military magistrates, serving as the heads of government for the Republic. New consuls were elected every year. There were two consuls, and they ruled together...
. He was also governor of
IllyricumThe Roman province of Illyricum or Illyris Romana or Illyris Barbara or Illyria Barbara replaced most of the region of Illyria. It stretched from the Drilon river in modern north Albania to Istria in the west and to the Sava river in the north...
from 17 to 20. In 21 he was consul again, significantly with his father Tiberius as his colleague, while in 22 he received
tribunicia potestas (tribunician power), a distinction reserved solely for the emperor or his immediate successor.
Drusus married his paternal cousin
Livilla Livia Julia , most commonly known by her family nickname of Livilla was the only daughter of Nero Claudius Drusus and Antonia...
in 4. Their daughter
JuliaJulia Drusi Caesaris Filia was the daughter of Julius Caesar Drusus and Livilla and granddaughter to the Roman Emperor Tiberius.-Chronology:...
was born shortly after. They had twin sons
Tiberius GemellusTiberius Julius Caesar Nero Gemellus, known as Tiberius Gemellus was the son of Drusus and Livilla, the grandson of Roman emperor Tiberius, and the cousin of Gaius Caligula. Gemellus is a nickname meaning "the twin"...
and Tiberius Claudius Caesar Germanicus II Gemellus in 19, the latter of whom died still an infant in 23. In the same year,
GermanicusGermanicus Julius Caesar was a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty of the early Roman Empire. He was born in Lugdunum, Gaul . At birth he was named either Nero Claudius Drusus after his father or Tiberius Claudius Nero after his uncle...
died, making Drusus the new heir; Germanicus' wife
AgrippinaJulia Vipsania Agrippina or most commonly known as Agrippina Major was the distinguished and prominent Roman granddaughter of Augustus. She lived between the 1st century BC and 1st century AD...
suspected Tiberius of having killed him to allow Drusus to become his heir, but this is unlikely.
Before the birth of the twins,
Livilla Livia Julia , most commonly known by her family nickname of Livilla was the only daughter of Nero Claudius Drusus and Antonia...
may already have been in a relationship with
SejanusLucius Aelius Seianus , commonly known as Sejanus, was an ambitious soldier, friend and confidant of the Roman Emperor Tiberius...
, Tiberius'
Praetorian PrefectPraetorian prefect was the title of a high office in the Roman Empire. Originating as the commander of the Praetorian Guard, the office gradually acquired extensive legal and administrative functions, with its holders becoming the Emperor's chief aides...
. Moreover Drusus, who was naturally irascible, had once in the course of a casual argument with Sejanus raised his fist and struck him in the face. By 23 it looked as if Drusus, who made no secret of his antipathy towards Sejanus, would succeed Tiberius as emperor. For reasons of self-survival, but also because he may have had designs on the supreme power, Sejanus needed to remove Drusus. Ancient sources (
TacitusPublius Cornelius Tacitus was a senator and a historian of the Roman Empire. The surviving portions of his two major works—the Annals and the Histories—examine the reigns of the Roman Emperors Tiberius, Claudius, Nero and those who reigned in the Year of the Four Emperors...
,
SuetoniusGaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius , was an equestrian and a historian during the Roman Empire. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies of twelve successive Roman rulers, from Julius Caesar until Domitian, entitled De Vita Caesarum...
, Cassius Dio) concur that with Livilla as his accomplice he poisoned her husband. If Drusus was indeed murdered, then it was done so skillfully that his death in 23 gave rise to no suspicion, having as he did a reputation for heavy drinking. Sejanus then (25) asked for Livilla’s hand in marriage but Tiberius forbade it.
Sejanus fell in 31 (October 18). A few days later (October 26) Sejanus' former wife Apicata committed suicide, but not before addressing a letter to Tiberius claiming that Drusus had been poisoned, with the complicity of Livilla. Drusus’ cupbearer Lygdus and Livilla's physician Eudemus were now tortured, and seemed to confirm Apicata’s accusation. By the end of the year Livilla too had perished, supposedly forcibly starved to death by her own mother,
AntoniaAntonia Minor , also known as Antonia the Younger or simply Antonia was a daughter of Roman politician Mark Antony and Octavia Minor, niece of emperor Augustus, and mother of future emperor Claudius.Antonia is one of the most prominent Roman women. She is celebrated for her virtue and beauty...
.
Drusus was an avid enthusiast of gladiator fights. In fact, we hear that the sharpest swords were named "Drusian" after him. Drusus is noted to have once come to blows with Sejanus in an argument. An earlier fight with a praetorian guard (possibly Sejanus as well) earned him the ironic nickname "Castor", after the patron god of the praetorians. He features under this name in the novel
I, Claudius by
Robert GravesGraves considered himself a poet first and foremost. His poems, together with his translations and innovative interpretations of the Greek Myths, his memoir of the First World war, Good-bye to All That, and his historical study of poetic inspiration, The White Goddess, have never been out of...
, and in its BBC adaptation (in which he was played by
Kevin McNallyKevin McNally is an English actor who has worked in theatre and radio extensively in film and television.Born in Bristol, McNally spent his early years in Birmingham, attending Redhill Junior School on Redhill Road in Hay Mills and Mapledene Junior School on Mapledene Road in Sheldon...
).
He is associated with the gourmand
ApiciusMarcus Gavius Apicius is believed to have been a Roman gourmet and lover of luxury, who lived sometime in the 1st century AD, during the reign of Tiberius. He is attributed with the authorship of the Roman cookbook Apicius. The work was added to over time, and compiled by an editor during the 4th...
. Under Apicius' influence he disdained a certain vegetable of the cabbage family, earning a reprimand from Tiberius. Drusus is also recorded as using bitter
almondThe Almond is a species of tree native to the Middle East. Almond is also the name of the edible and widely cultivated nut of this tree...
s (five or six at a time) as a prophylactic against drunkenness.
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