A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology. By various writers. Ed. by William Smith. Illustrated by numerous engravings on wood.

1088

DRUSUS.

the favour of Agrippina, and stood between him
and the hope of succession to the empire. This
produced a deep hatred of Nero in the envious
and ambitious mind of Drusus. Sejanus, too, was
anxious to succeed Tiberius, and sought to remove
out of the way all who from their parentage would
be likely to oppose his schemes. Though he already meditated the destruction of Drusus, he first
chose to take advantage of his estrangement from
Nero, and engaged him in the plots against his
elder brother, which ended in the banishment and
death of that wretched prince. (Ann. iv. 60.)
Tiberius had witnessed with displeasure the marks
of public favour which were exhibited towards
Nero and Drusus as members of the house of Germanicus, and gladly forwarded the plans that were
contrived for their destruction. He declared in
the senate his disapprobation of the public prayers
which had been offered for their health, and this
indication was enough to encourage accusers.
Aemilia Lepida, the wife of Drusus, a woman of the
most abandoned character, made frequent charges
against him. (Ann. vi. 40.) The words which he
spoke, when heated with wine or roused to anger,
were reported to the palace, and represented by
the emperor to the senate, in A. D. 30, in a document which contained every charge that could be
collected, heightened by invective. Drusus, like
his elder brother, was condemned to death as an
enemy of the state; but Tiberius kept him for
some years imprisoned in a small chamber in the
lowest part of the palace, intending to put him
forward as a leader of the people, in case any attempt to seize the supreme command should be
made by Sejanus. Finding, however, that a beliet
prevailed that he was likely to be reconciled to
Agrippina and her son, with his usual love of
baffling expectations, and veiling his intentions in
impenetrable obscurity, he gave orders, in A. D. 33,
that Drusus should be starved to death. Drusus
lived for nine days after this cruel sentence, having
prolonged his miserable existence by devouring tlhe
tow with which his mattress was stuffed. (Suet.
Tib. 54; Tac. Ann. vi. 23 )
An exact account had been kept by Actius, a
centurion, and Didymus, a freedman, of all that
occurred in his dungeon during his long incarceration. In this journal were set down the names of
the slaves who had beaten or terrified him when
he attempted to leave his chamber, the savage rebukes administered to him by the centurion, his
secret murmurs, and the words he uttered when
perishing with hunger. Tiberius, after his death,
went to the senate, inveighed against the shameful
profligacy of his life, his desire to destroy his relatives, and his disaffection to the state; and proceeded, in proof of these charges, to order the
journal of his sayings and doings to be read. This
was too much, even for the Roman senate, degraded
as it was. The senators were struck with astonishment and alarm at the contemptuous indecency
of such an exposure by a tyrant formerly so dark,
and deep, and wary in the concealment of his
crimes; and they interrupted the horrid recital,
under the pretence of uttering exclamations of detestation at the misconduct of Drusus. (Ann. vi. 24.)
In A. D. 31, a pretender had appeared among
the Cyclades and in Greece, whose followers gave
out that he was Drusus, the son of Germanicus,
escaped from prison, and that he was proceeding
to join the armies of his father, and to invade

DRYAS.
Egypt and Syria. This affair might have had
serious consequences, had it not been for the activity of Poppaeus Sabinus, who, after a sharp pursuit, caught the false Drusus at Nicopolis, and
extracted from him a confession that he was a son
of M. Silanus. (Ann. v. 10; Dion Cass. Iviii. 7.)
19. CAIUS CAESAR CALIGULA, the emperor
Caligula. [CALIGULA, p. 563, b.]
20. AGRIPPINA. [AGRIPPINA, p. 81, a.]
21. DRUSILLA. [DRUSILLA, No. 2.]
22. JULIA LivILLA. [JULIA.]
23. DRUSUS, one of the two children of the
emperor Claudius by his wife Urgulanilla. He
died at Pompeii before attaining puberty, in A. u.
20, being choked by a pear which, in play, he had
been throwing up and catching in his mouth. This
occurred but a few days after he had been engaged
to marry a daughter of Sejanus, and yet there
were people who reported that he had been fraudulently put to death by Sejanus. (Suet. Claudius,
27; Tac. Ann. iii. 29.)
24. CLAUDIA. [CLAUDIA, No. 15, p. 762, b.]
25. DRUSILLA. [DRUSILLA, No. 3.]
26. DECIMUS DRusus. In Dig. 1. tit. 13. ~ 2,
the following passage is quoted from Ulpian:Ex quaestoribus quidam solebant provincias sortiri
ex Senzatzs-consulto, quod factum est Decimo Druso
et Porcina Consulibus. It has been commonly supposed that Ulpian here refers to a general decree
of the senate, made in the consulship he names,
and directing the mode of allotting provinces to
quaestors in general. We rather believe him to
mean that it was usual for the senate, from time to
time, to make special decrees relating to the allotment of provinces to particular quaestors, and that
he intends to give the date of an early instance in
which this rwas aone. (Comp. Cic. Philipp. ii. 20.)
Had the former meaning been intended, Ulpian
would probably have said ex eo Senatus-consulto, quod
factum est. It is uncertain who Decimus Drusus
was, and when he was consul. The brothers
Kriegel, in the Leipzig edition of the Corpus Juris,
erroneously refer his consulship to A. U. c. 745
(i.. c. 9), when Nero Claudius Drusus (the brother
of the emperor Tiberius) and Crispinus were consuls. Pighius (Annal. ad A. U. C. 677) proposes
the unauthorized reading D. Bruto et Aemilio for
D. Druso et 1Porcinaa and in this conjecture is followed by Bach. (Hist. Jur. Rom. p. 208, ed. 6ta.)
Ant. Augustinus (de Nom.. Prop. Pandect. in Otto's
Thesaurus, i. p. 258) thinks the consulship must
have occurred in the time of the emperors, but it
is certain that provinces were assigned to quaestors,
ex S. C., during the republic. The most probable
opinion is that of Zepernick (Ad Siccamam de Judicio Centumvirali, p. 100, n.), who holds that D.
Drusus was consul suffectus with Lepidus Porcina
in B. c. 137, after the forced abdication of Hostilius
Marcinus.
27. C. Dausus. Suetonius (Augzust. 94) gives
a miraculous anecdote of the infancy of Augustus,
for which he cites an extant work of C. Drusus,Ut scriptum apud C. Drusum extat. Of this writer
nothing is known, but it is not unlikely that he
was connected with the imperial family. [J. T. G.
DRY'ADES. [NYMPHAE.]
DRYAS (Ap'as), a son of Ares, and brother
of Tereus, was one of the Calydonian hunters.
He was murdered by his own brother, who had
received an oracle, that his son Itys should fall by
thle hand of a relative. (Apollod. i. 8. ~ 2; Hygin,