Drusus' body was brought back to the city, and his ashes were deposited in the Mausoleum of Augustus. His consulship conferred the chance for Drusus to attain Rome's highest and rarest military honor, the spolia opima, or spoils of an enemy chieftain slain personally by an opposing Roman general who was fighting (as consuls did) under his own auspices. After Drusus' death, Antonia never remarried, though she outlived him by nearly five decades. Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus (14 January 38 BC – summer of 9 BC ), also called Drusus I or Drusus the Elder, was a Roman politician and military commander. If you want to be up to date with news on the portal and discoveries from the world of ancient Rome, subscribe to the newsletter. [email protected] | RSS | #imperiumromanum. [36] They also posthumously granted him the hereditary honorific title "Germanicus", which was given to his eldest son before passing to his youngest. At the time, it was suspected that he had been murdered by Sejanus himself. Famous Friends: During his Childhood Claudius' main friends are Germanicus, Postumus, Athenodorus.During his reign he had many acquaintances, allies, and lovers. [29] Once more he left the city before assuming office. The two brothers developed a famously close relationship that would last the rest of their lives. According to Suetonius, Claudius Drusus had just been betrothed to Junilla, the daughter of Sejanus, when he choked to death on a pear he had thrown into the air and caught in his mouth. [15] Drusus sailed to the mouth of the Ems and penetrated into the territory of the Chauci in present-day Lower Saxony. Half brother of Consul (45 & 74) - Tiberius Plautius Silvanus Aelianus; Claudia; Claudia Antonia; Claudia Octavia and Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus. He was the son of Livia Drusilla and the legal stepson of her second husband, the Emperor Augustus. This site has existed since 2004 and is the largest compendium of knowledge about the history of ancient Rome. [19], As a reward for the successes of his campaign in 12 BC, Drusus was made praetor urbanus for 11 BC when he returned to Rome for the winter. [35] Regardless of whether he was actually able to take them in combat, however, Drusus' untimely death would prevent him from ever going through with the official ceremony. In the spring of his term as praetor urbanus, he set out for the German border once more. [citation needed] Suetonius reports that he had refused to return to Rome just before his death. Later that year he led a naval expedition against Germanic tribes along the North Sea coast, conquering the Batavi and the Frisii, and defeating the Chauci near the mouth of the Weser. Sources. He remained extremely popular with the legionaries, who erected a monument (the Drususstein) in Mogontiacum (modern Mainz) on his behalf. WordPress technical support: Grzegorz Konieczny. [...] I sailed my ships on the ocean from the mouth of the Rhine to the east region up to the borders of the Cimbri, where no Roman had gone before that time by land or sea, and the Cimbri and the Charydes and the Semnones and the other Germans of the same territory sought by envoys the friendship of me and of the Roman people. Drusus was raised in Claudius Nero's house with his brother, the future emperor Tiberius, until his legal father's death. What happened that day in ancient Rome? All rights reserved. When it came back, he caught it in his mouth but he choked on it. Even the smallest amounts will allow me to pay for further corrections, improvements on the site and pay the server. You can find more information here. When it came back, he caught it in his mouth but he choked on it. The content of the portal is additionally regularly published on social channels (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Wykop, Reddit, Quora) to promote knowledge about ancient Rome. He was also brother of the Emperor Tiberius, father to both the Emperor Claudius and general Germanicus, paternal grandfather of the Emperor Caligula In 10 BC, the Chatti joined with the Sicambri and attacked Drusus' camp, but they were driven back. He is a minor character in Robert Graves' historical novel I, Claudius, as well as the BBC's adaptation of the same title in which he was played by Ian Ogilvy. Drusus was born shortly after the divorce of his mother, Livia Drusilla, from Tiberius He was also brother of the Emperor Tiberius, father to both the Emperor Claudius and general Germanicus, paternal grandfather of the Emperor Caligula, and maternal great-grandfather of the Emperor Nero. Born before his father became emperor, Claudius was betrothed to a daughter of Sejanus; this betrothal filled Sejanus, then just a prefect, with unfulfilled hopes. … Suffocated with pear. Three emperors were direct descendants of Drusus: his son Claudius, his grandson Caligula, and his great-grandson Nero. He had four children: Claudius Drusus who was drowned with a pear, Claudia, who was disinherited when he was a child, Antonia, Britannicus, the son of Messina, who was neglected by … He rejoined his wife Antonia and two children for a time in Lugdunum before the family returned to Rome, where Drusus reported to Augustus. [45] Such Claudian commemorations of Drusus' memory are thought to have become less prominent once Claudius had his own British triumph to celebrate.[46]. Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus, younger brother of Tiberius (who later became emperor) and commander of the Roman forces that occupied the German territory between the Rhine and Elbe rivers from 12 to 9 bc. [44] Claudius also completed a road from Italy into Raetia that followed the route Drusus had taken and whose road-markers commemorated Drusus' achievements in the Alpine war. Roman politician and military commander (38 BC - 9 BC), Rich, J. W. “Drusus and the Spolia Opima.”, Factorum ac dictorum memorabilium libri IX, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Nero_Claudius_Drusus&oldid=982112040, Pages using multiple image with manual scaled images, Articles with unsourced statements from May 2020, Wikipedia articles with SUDOC identifiers, Wikipedia articles with WorldCat identifiers, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License, This page was last edited on 6 October 2020, at 07:07. {"cookieName":"wBounce","isAggressive":false,"isSitewide":true,"hesitation":"","openAnimation":"bounceInDown","exitAnimation":"fadeOutDown","timer":"","sensitivity":"","cookieExpire":"2","cookieDomain":"","autoFire":"","isAnalyticsEnabled":false}, Roman Empire at time of its greatest prosperity, Presence of Romans in China according to Chinese chronicles, Brilliant film showing structure of Roman army, 10 amazing Roman monuments that hardly anyone knows about. Claudius Drusus (Classical Latin: CLAVDIVS•DRVSVS or CLAVDIVS•DRVSVS•CLAVDII•FILIVS; c. 16-20) was the eldest son of the future Roman Emperor Claudius with his first wife Plautia Urgulanilla. Consul (45 & 74) - Tiberius Plautius Silvanus Aelianus. He launched the first major Roman campaigns across the Rhine and began the conquest of Germania, becoming the first Roman general to reach the Weser and Elbe rivers. Notably, after Drusus' death, Augustus deposited the laurels from his fasces not in the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus as he had done in the past, but in the Temple of Jupiter Feretrius. [14] In spring of 12 BC, he embarked an expeditionary force, perhaps consisting of the Legiones I Germanica and V Alaudae, by ship from the vicinity of modern Nijmegen, making use of one or more canals he had built for the purpose. Suetonius, The Life of the Caesars, 27. He died of asphyxiation. In 12 BC, Drusus led a successful campaign into Germania, subjugating the Sicambri. In AD 20, Claudius Drusus was playing and he tossed a pear high in the air. [30] He quickly returned to the field, stopping to confer with his staff at Lugdunum and to dedicate a temple to Caesar Augustus at Andemantunnum, before rejoining his command at Mainz, from which the year's expedition departed in early spring. One of the most bizarre moments of Claudius’s life was when he fought a killer whale! Drusus repelled them, gaining honors, but was unable to smash their forces, and required reinforcement from Tiberius. Please enable JavaScript in your browser's settings to use this part of Geni. [25] In 19 BC, Drusus was granted the ability to hold all public offices five years before the minimum age. Subsequently, it was suspecte… [1] Rumors arose that Augustus was the child's real father, although this has never been authoritatively proven. He became quaestor the following year, fighting against Raetian bandits in the Alps. He was a patrician Claudian on his birth father's side but his maternal grandmother was from a plebeian family. [13] He is likely to have had seven legions under his command. [32] Here he is said to have seen an apparition of a Germanic woman who warned him against proceeding farther and that his death was near. When Tiberius left Italy during his term as praetor in 16 BC, Drusus legislated in his place. (Latin: communis tili cum familia Drusorum fore nepotes.) [20] He reached the Werra Valley before deciding to turn back for the season, as winter was coming on, supplies were dwindling, and the omens were unfavorable. Augustus bestowed many honors on his stepsons. [19] News of Drusus' achievements—navigating the North Sea, carrying the Roman eagles into new territory, and fixing new peoples into treaty relations with Rome—caused considerable excitement in Rome and were commemorated on coins.[19]. Nero was a traditional cognomen (third name) of the Claudii, whereas Drusus was given to a branch of the gens Livia. [40], Drusus' mother Livia, much affected by the death of her second son, took the advice of the philosopher Areus to put up many statues and images of Drusus and speak often about him. [26] Around this time, the canny Marcomannic king Maroboduus responded to the Roman incursion by relocating his people en masse to Bohemia. I believe that I can count on a wide support that will allow me to devote myself more to my work and passion, to maximize the improvement of the website and to present history of ancient Romans in an interesting form.