The Twelve Caesars (Penguin Classics) by Suetonius & Robert Graves

Author:Suetonius & Robert Graves
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
ISBN: 9780141915890
Publisher: Penguin Books Ltd
Published: 2007-10-24T23:00:00+00:00

Divus Claudius

1. When, three months after her marriage to Augustus, Livia gave birth to Decimus (later Nero) Drusus, the father of Claudius Caesar, people suspected that Augustus, not her exhusband, was the father. This provoked the following epigram:

How fortunate those parents are for whom

Their child is only three months in the womb!1

Drusus commanded an army against the Raeti and then against the Germans, while holding the successive ranks of quaestor and praetor. He was the first Roman general to navigate the northern Ocean, and also constructed the canals across the Rhine that still bear his name, a remarkable and demanding task. After defeating the local tribes in a series of battles, Drusus drove them far back into the wild interior, until checked by an apparition: a barbarous woman of phenomenal size, who warned him in Latin to venture no further.

These campaigns earned Drusus an ovation and triumphal decorations, and he became consul directly the praetorship ended. On resuming the war, he died at his summer headquarters, thenceforth known as ‘The Accursed Camp’. His body was carried to Rome in a coffin by relays of leading citizens from the various free towns and colonies which lay along the route. There a waiting deputation of magistrates’ clerks took it to a pyre on the Campus Martius. The army voluntarily built a cenotaph for him, at which on a fixed day every year the soldiers were to perform a ceremonial drill and the cities of Gaul offer sacrifice. The Senate voted Drusus many honours, among them a marble arch on the Via Appia decorated with trophies and the surname Germanicus to be held by himself and his descendants in perpetuity.

Drusus was, they say, no less eager for personal glory than he was unassuming and restrained in his personal style. Not content with gaining victories over the enemy, he had a longstanding ambition to win what were called ‘the Noblest Spoils’, 2 and used to chase the German leaders across the battlefield at great risk to his life. He also openly announced that, as soon as he came to power, he would restore the republic. This must be why some writers allege that Augustus was suspicious of him, recalled him from his province, and, when he did not come back at once, had him poisoned. I think it right not to suppress what seems to me a most improbable view; in point of fact, Augustus felt so deep a love for Drusus that, as he admitted to the Senate on one occasion, he made him co-heir with his adopted sons, and his public funeral speech not only eulogized Drusus but included a prayer that the gods would make these young Caesars closely resemble him and would grant them as honourable a death. Nor did he think it enough to have an adulatory inscription carved on Drusus’ tomb: he also wrote his biography.

Antonia the younger bore Drusus several children, three of whom survived him: Germanicus, Livilla and Claudius.

2. Claudius was born at Lugdunum in the

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.