Tiberius Claudius Drusus (c. AD 9/1220/27)
was the eldest son of the Roman Emperor
Claudius with his first wife
Plautia Urgulanilla. He had one younger sister, Claudia, who was repudiated by Claudius along with Plautia.
Background
Tiberius Claudius Drusus' grandfather was
Marcus Plautius Silvanus and his great-grandmother was
Urgulania.
Livia, the future emperor Claudius’ grandmother and the wife of the emperor
Augustus
Caesar Augustus (born Gaius Octavius; 23 September 63 BC – 19 August AD 14), also known as Octavian, was the first Roman emperor; he reigned from 27 BC until his death in AD 14. He is known for being the founder of the Roman Pr ...
, is presumed to have helped her friend Urgulania to arrange the marriage of Claudius and Plautia Urgulanilla when her grandson was around 18.
Claudius married Plautia Urgulanilla sometime between 9 and 12 AD.
Tiberius Claudius Drusus was born soon after the marriage, decades before his father became emperor.
Throughout most of his life, the emperor was his relative
Tiberius
Tiberius Julius Caesar Augustus (; 16 November 42 BC – 16 March AD 37) was the second Roman emperor. He reigned from AD 14 until 37, succeeding his stepfather, the first Roman emperor Augustus. Tiberius was born in Rome in 42 BC. His father ...
, son of Livia.
Life
Some five months after his daughter Claudia Julia was born, Claudius divorced Plautia on suspicion of adultery and complicity in the murder of Apronia, her brother's wife, who had been pushed from a window.
The divorce may have been as early as 20 to as late as AD 27.
Claudius disowned Claudia Julia by
exposing her on Urgulanilla's doorstep, believing her to be fathered by a freedman of his, but he did not dispute the paternity of his son Claudius Drusus, leaving the boy Claudius's only son at the time. A marble statue of Claudius Drusus was installed in the
Sebasteion of Aphrodisias, an ''
augusteum'' temple dedicated to the cult of the divine emperors and their family; its inscribed base was uncovered during archaeological excavations there in the late twentieth century.
Claudius Drusus was betrothed to Aelia Junilla, the only daughter of
Lucius Aelius Sejanus, the commander of the
Praetorian Guard
The Praetorian Guard (Latin: ''cohortēs praetōriae'') was a unit of the Imperial Roman army that served as personal bodyguards and intelligence agents for the Roman emperors. During the Roman Republic, the Praetorian Guard were an escort fo ...
.
In AD 20 Sejanus was reaching the height of his power, and the birth of his daughter offered an opportunity to connect his own family with the imperial
Julio-Claudian dynasty.
This betrothal filled Sejanus, then just a prefect, with unfulfilled hopes. The Roman historian
Tacitus
Publius Cornelius Tacitus, known simply as Tacitus ( , ; – ), was a Roman historian and politician. Tacitus is widely regarded as one of the greatest Roman historians by modern scholars.
The surviving portions of his two major works—the ...
wrote that the people were not satisfied with this match as they were with the betrothal of Claudius Drusus's cousin,
Nero Caesar, son of the popular general
Germanicus Julius Caesar.
Probably it was felt the nobility of the family () was to be polluted; Sejanus was not of senatorial rank and his appointment as a
praetor
Praetor ( , ), also pretor, was the title granted by the government of Ancient Rome to a man acting in one of two official capacities: (i) the commander of an army, and (ii) as an elected '' magistratus'' (magistrate), assigned to discharge vari ...
in AD 20 was an unprecedented novelty.
Claudius Drusus was ultimately never married to Aelia Junilla, who may have only been born in the year of their betrothal.
According to Tacitus:
Coinage
Probably in honour of the occasion of his betrothal to Aelia Junilla, an issue of coins is known to have been minted at
Myrina in
Aeolis
Aeolis (; grc, Αἰολίς, Aiolís), or Aeolia (; grc, Αἰολία, Aiolía, link=no), was an area that comprised the west and northwestern region of Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), mostly along the coast, and also several offshore islan ...
, on the coast of
Asia Minor
Anatolia, tr, Anadolu Yarımadası), and the Anatolian plateau, also known as Asia Minor, is a large peninsula in Western Asia and the westernmost protrusion of the Asian continent. It constitutes the major part of modern-day Turkey. The re ...
.
Myrina was of little importance at the time, and had comparatively little involvement in the
imperial cult
An imperial cult is a form of state religion in which an emperor or a dynasty of emperors (or rulers of another title) are worshipped as demigods or deities. "Cult" here is used to mean "worship", not in the modern pejorative sense. The cult may ...
.
However, in AD 17 the region suffered a major earthquake, and Myrina was one of twelve cities to receive funds for reconstruction from the ''
Fiscus
''Fiscus'', from which comes the English term "fiscal", was the name of the personal chest of the List of Roman emperors, emperors of Rome.
The word is literally translated as "basket" or "purse" and was used to describe those forms of revenue col ...
'', the imperial treasury, as well as five years' tax remission from the
Roman Senate
The Roman Senate ( la, Senātus Rōmānus) was a governing and advisory assembly in ancient Rome. It was one of the most enduring institutions in Roman history, being established in the first days of the city of Rome (traditionally founded in ...
.
It is therefore likely that the coins, of which five examples are known to exist, were issued at a time of substantial gratitude towards Tiberius.
The obverse of the bronze coins shows a draped bust of Claudius Drusus facing to the right with the legend written clockwise in .
On the reverse is a wreathed head of
Apollo
Apollo, grc, Ἀπόλλωνος, Apóllōnos, label=genitive , ; , grc-dor, Ἀπέλλων, Apéllōn, ; grc, Ἀπείλων, Apeílōn, label= Arcadocypriot Greek, ; grc-aeo, Ἄπλουν, Áploun, la, Apollō, la, Apollinis, label ...
, together with a
lyre and the name of the Myrina mint, written anti-clockwise: .
Death
The year of Claudius Drusus's death is not precisely known.
The Roman historian
Suetonius's account suggests he died in AD 20, but Tacitus's ''Annales'' suggests he was still alive in AD 23, when, according to Tacitus the emperor Tiberius's son
Drusus the Younger said of Sejanus in disgust "the grandsons of us Drususes will be his grandsons too". (.)
This suggests that Claudius Drusus was still due to marry Sejanus's daughter. Subsequently, it was suspected that Claudius Drusus had been murdered by Sejanus, but
Suetonius did not believe that. Instead Suetonius said he had choked to death on a pear he had thrown into the air. According to him, Claudius Drusus;
Legacy
Upon the death of his mother's brother Publius Plautius Pulcher during Claudius reign, his funeral
epitaph
An epitaph (; ) is a short text honoring a deceased person. Strictly speaking, it refers to text that is inscribed on a tombstone or plaque, but it may also be used in a figurative sense. Some epitaphs are specified by the person themselves be ...
mentions that he was Drusus uncle, possibly implying closeness between the two.
References
{{reflist
1st-century births
1st-century deaths
1st-century Romans
Children of Claudius
Drusus, Tiberius
Deaths from choking
Julio-Claudian dynasty
Sons of Roman emperors
Royalty and nobility who died as children