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

1086 DRUSUS.

DRUSUS,

numerous writers who mention the death of Drusus, no one besides alludes to the broken leg.
Suetonius, whose history is a rich receptacle of
scandal, mentions the incredible report that Drusus was poisoned by Augustus, after having disobeyed an order of the emperor for his recall. It
is indeed probable enough that the emperor thought
he had advanced far enough, and that it would be
unwise to exasperate into hostility the inoffensive
tribes beyond the Elbe. Tiberius, Augustus, and
Livia were in Pavia (Ticinum) when the tidings
of the dangerous illness of Drusus reached them.
Tiberius with extraordinary speed crossed the
Alps, performing a journey of 200 Roman miles
through a difficult and dangerous country, without
stopping day or night, and arrived in time to close
the eyes of his brother. (Plin. H. N. xii. 20;
Val. Max. v. 5; Ped. Albin. 1. 89; Senec. Consol.
ad Polyb. 34.) Drusus, though at the point of
death, had yet presence of mind enough to command, that Tiberius should be received with all
the distinction due to a consular and an imperator.
The summer camp where Drusus died was called
Scelerata, the Accursed. The corpse was carried
in a marching military procession to the winterquarters of the army at Moguntiacum (Mayence)
upon the Rhine, Tiberius walking all the way as
chief mourner. The troops wished the funeral to
be celebrated there, but Tiberius brought the body
to Italy. It was burnt in the field of Mars, and
the ashes deposited in the tomb of Augustus, who
composed the verses that were inscribed upon his
sepulchral monument, and wrote in prose a memorial of his life. In a funeral oration held by Augustus in the Flaminian Circus, he exclaimed, " I
pray the gods to make my adopted sons Caius and
Lucius like Drusus, and to vouchsafe to me as
honourable a death as his."
Among the honours paid to Drusus the cognomen Germanicus was decreed to him and his posterity. A marble arch with trophies was erected
to his memory on the Appian Way, and the representation of this arch may be seen upon extant coins, as for example, in the coin annexed,
which was struck by order of Augustus. He
had a cenotaph on the Rhine, an altar near the
Lippe (Tac. Ann. ii. 7), and Eusebius (COhronicon
ad A. D. 43) speaks of a Drusus, the nephew of the
emperor Claudius, who had a monument at Mayence; but here Drusus Senior seems to be meant,
and there is probably a confusion between the son
and the father of Germanicus. It is to the latter
that the antiquaries of Mayence refer the Eichelstein and the Drusilock. Besides the coins of
Drusus, several ancient signet-rings with his effigy
have been preserved (Lippert, Dactyliothek, i. No.
610-12, ii. No. 241 and No. 255); and among
the bronzes found at Herculaneum there is one
which is supposed to contain a full-length likeness
of Drusus.
In the preceding narrative the dates have been
collected from Dion Cassius and the Epitomiser of
Livy. In assigning the precise date of events not

mentioned by those writers, it is often necessary
to have recourse to uncertain conjecture.
The misery that Drusus must have occasioned
among the German tribes was undoubtedly excessive. Some antiquaries have imagined that the
German imprecation " Das dich der Drus hole"
may be traced to the traditional dread of this terrible conqueror. The country was widely devastated, and immense multitudes were carried away
from their homes and transplanted to the Gallic
bank of the Rhine. Such was the horror occasioned by the advance of the Romans, that the
German women often dashed their babes against
the ground, and then flung their mangled bodies
in the faces of the soldiers. (Oros. vi. 21.)
Drusus himself possessed great animal courage.
In battle he endeavoured to engage in personal
combat with the chieftains of the enemy, in order
to earn the glory of the spolia opima. He had no
contemptible foe to contend against, and though
he did not escape unscathed-though, as Varus
soon had occasion to feel, the Germanic spirit was
not quelled-he certainly accomplished an important work in subjugating the tribes between the
Rhine and the Weser, and erecting fortresses to
preserve his conquests. According to Florus, he
erected upwards of fifty fortresses along the banks
of the Rhine, besides building two bridges across
that river, and establishing garrisons and guards
on the Meuse, the Weser, and the Elbe. He impressed the Germans not less by the opinion of his
intellect and character than by the terror of his
arms. They who resisted had to dread his unflinching firmness and severity, but they who submitted might rely on his good faith. He did not,
like his successor Varus, rouse and inflame opposition by tyrannous insolence or wanton cruelty to
the conquered. Whether, educated as he was in
scenes of bloodshed, he would have fulfilled the
expectations of the people, had he lived to attain
the empire, it is impossible to pronounce. He was
undoubtedly, in his kind, one of the great men of his
day. To require that a Roman general, in the heat
of conquest, should shew mercy to people who, according to Roman ideas, were ferocious and dangerous barbarians, or should pause to balance the cost
against the glory of success, would be to ask more
than could be expected of any ordinary mortal in
a similar position. It is not fair to view the characters of one age by the light of another; for he
who has lived, says Schiller, so as to satisfy the
best of his own time, has lived for all times.
(Bayle, Dict. s. v.; Ferd. Wachter, in Ersch und
Gruber's Encyclopiidie, s. v.; Wilhelm, die Feldziie des Nero Claudius Drusus in dem Nirdl.
Deutschland, Halle, 1826.)
12. TIBERIUS NERO CAESAR, the emperor
Tiberius. [TIBERIUS.]
13. GERMANICUS CAESAR. [GERMANICUS.]
14. LIVIA. [LIVIA.]
15. TI. CLAUDIUS DRUSUS CAESAR, the emperor Claudius. [CLAUDIUs, p. 775, b.]
16. DRusus CAESAR, commonly called by modern
writers Drusus Junior, to distinguish him from his
uncle Drusus, the brother of Tiberius (No. 11),
was the son of the emperor Tiberius by his first
wife, Vipsania, who was the daughter of Agrippa
by Pomponia, the daughter of Atticus. Thus, his
great-grandfather was only a Roman knight, and
his descent on the mother's side was by no means
so splendid as that of his cousin Germanicus, who