Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/1097

Rh DRUSUS. Drusiis inherited a large fortune from his father, the consul ; but, in order to obtain political influ- ence, he was profuse and extravagant in his ex- penditure. The author of the treatise de Viris flluslnhus, usually ascribed to Aurelius Victor, saj's that, from want of money, he sometimes stooped to unworthy practices. Magulsa, a prince of Mauretaniii, had tiiken refuge in Rome from the resentment of Bocchus, and Drusus was induced by a bribe to betray him to the king, who threw the wretched prince to an elephant. When Ad- herbal, son of the king of the Numidians(Micipsa), fled to Rome, Drusus kept him a prisoner in his house, hoping that his father would pay a ransom for his release. These two statements occur in no other author, and the second is scarcely reconci- lable with the narrative of Sallust. The same au- thor states, that Drusus was aedile, and gave mag- nificent games, and that when Remmius, his col- league in the aedileship, suggested some measure for the benefit of the commonwealth, he asked sarcastically, " What's our commonwealth to you?" Pighius, however {Annales, iii. p. 82), and others, considering that M. Drusus, the son, died in his tribuneship — an office usually held before that of aedile — are of opinion, that Aurelius Victor has confounded several events of the father's life with those of the son. It appears from Cicero {Brut. 62, pro Mil. 7), that Drusus was the uncle of Cato of Utica, and the great- uncle of Brutus. These relationships were occasioned by successive marriages of his sis- ter Li via. We agree with Manutius {ad Ok. de Fin. iii. 2) in thinking, in opposition to the com- mon opinion, that she was first married to Q. Ser- vilius Caepio [Caepio, No. 8, p. 535, a.], whose daughter was the mother of Brutus, that she was divorced from Caepio, and then married the father of Cato of Utica ; for Cato, according to Plutarch {Cato Mi?i. 1) was brought up in the house of his uncle Drusus along with the children of Livia and Caepio, who was then living, and who survived Dru- sus. (Liv. ^/)i<. Ixxiii.) As Cato of Utica was born B c. 95 (Plut. Cat. Min. 2, 3, 73 ; Liv. Epit. 114; Sallust. Catil. 54), and as Drusus, who died B. c. 31, survived his sister, we must suppose, unless her first marriage was to Caepio, that an extra- ordinary combination of events was crowded into the years B. c. Q5 — 91 : viz. 1st. the birth of Cato ; 2nd. the death of his father ; 3rd. the se- cond marriage of Livia ; 4th. the births of at least three children by her second husband ; 5th. her death ; 6th. the rearing of her children in the house of Drusus ; 7th. the death of Drusus. Q. Servilius Caepio was the rival of Drusus in birth, fortune, and influence. (Flor. iii. 17) Ori- ginally they were warm friends. As Caepio mar- ried Livia, the sister of Drusus, so Drusus married Servilia, the sister of Caepio {-ydyiwv eivaWayri, Dion Cass. Frag. Peiresc. 1 1 0, ed. Rein)ar. vol. i, p. 45). Dion Cassius may be understood to refer to domestic causes of quarrel ; but, according to Pliny, a rupture was occasioned between them from compe- tition in bidding for a ring at a public auction ; and to this small event have been attributed the struggles of Drusus for pre-eminence, and ulti- mately the kindling of the social war. (Plin. H. N. xxxiii. 6.) The mutual jealousy of the brothers- in-law proceeded to such great lengths, that on one occasion Drusus declared he would throw Cae- pio down the Tarpeian rock. {^De Vir. III. 66.) DRUSUS. 1079 Drusus was early an advocate of the party of the optimates. When Saturninus was killed in B. c. 100, he was one of those who took up arms for the safety of the state (Cic. pro liubir. I'erd. reo. 7), and supported the consul Marius, who was now, for once, upon the side of the senate. (Liv. Efiit. xix.) In the dispute between the senate and the equites for the possession of the judicia, Caepio took the part of the equites, while Drusus advocated the cause of the senate with such ear- nestness and impetuosity, that, like his father, he seems to have been termed patronus senalus. (Cic. pro Mil. 7 ; Diod. xxxvi. fr. fin. ed. Bipont. x. p. 480.) The equites had now, by a lex Sem- pronia of C. Gracchus, enjoyed the judicia from a. c. 122, with the exception of the short interval during which the lex Servilia removed the exclusion of the senate [see p. 880, a]. It must be remembered that the Q. Servilius Caepio who proposed this short- lived law (repealed by another lex Servilia of Ser- vilius Glaucia) was perhaps the father of Q. Servi- lius Caepio, the brother-in-law of Drusus, but was certainly a different person and of different politics. [See p. 535, a.] The equites abused their power, as the senate had done before them. As farmers of the public revenues, they committed peculation and extortion with an habitual impunity, which assumed in their own view the complexion of n right. When accused, they were tried by accom- plices and partizans, and "" it must be a hard win- ter when wolf devours wolf." On the other hand, in prosecutions against senators of the opposite faction, the equites had more regard to political animosity than to justice. Even in ordinary cases, where party feeling was not concerned, they al- lowed their judicial votes to be purchased by bri- bery and corrupt influence. The recent unjust condemnation of Rutilius Rufus had weakened the senate and encouraged the violence of the equites, when, in B. c. 91, Drusus was made tribune of the plebs in the consulate of L. Marcius Philippus and Sex. Julius Caesar. (Flor. I. c.) Under the plea of an endeavour to strengthen the party of the senate, Drusus determined to gain over the plebs, the Latins, and the Italic socii. The ardour of his zeal was increased by the attack which his enemy Caepio directed against the nobi- lity by prosecuting some of their leaders. From the conflicting statements and opposite views of Roman writers as to his motives and conduct, his character is in some respects a problem. Even party- spirit was at fault in estimating a man whose measures were regarded as revolutionary, while his political sentiments were supposed to be profoundly aristo- cratic. Velleius Paterculus (ii. 1 3 ; compare what is said by the Pseudo- Sallust in Epist.'2 ad C. Cues, de Rep. Ord.) applauds him for the tortuous policy of attempting to wheedle the mob, by minor conces- sions to their demands, into a surrender of impor- tant claims to the optimates ; but we cannot help thinking (comp. Flor. iii. 18; a. Epit. Ixx. Ixxi.), that he cared as much for self as for party — that personal rivalries mingled with honest plans for his country's good and enlightened views above the capacity of the times — that, at last, he was soured by disappointment into a dangerous con- spirator, — and that there were moments when visions of sole domination floated, however indis- tinctly, before his eyes. He was eager in the jmr- suit of popularity, and indefatigable in the endea- vour to gain and exercise influence. It was one