Drusus

DRUSUS. — Praenomen borne by two figures of the family of Augustus. 1) Nero Claudius Drusus (called the Elder), son of Tiberius Claudius Nero and of Livia, the second wife of Augustus, b. in 38 B.C. He subdued the Raetians in the Tridentine Alps, quelled a rebellion of Gauls, but his greatest enterprise was the war against the Germans of the various tribes of the Sugambri, Usipetes, Chatti, Cherusci, Suebi, Marcomanni. He created the navigable canal (Fossa Drusiana) between the Rhine and the sea. He died in Germany in 9 B.C.; his ashes, accompanied on foot by his brother Tiberius, who was later emperor, and met by Augustus himself at Pavia, were entombed in the Augusteum. By his wife Antonia, daughter of the triumvir, he had three children: Germanicus, Livilla and Claudius. 2) Iulius Caesar Drusus (called the Younger), son of Tiberius and of Vipsania Agrippina, b. between 15 and 12 B.C., husband of Livilla, by whom he had the twins Tiberius and Germanicus. He fought victoriously in Illyricum. He died of poison administered to him by his wife at the instigation of Sejanus.

Nicola Turchi