Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/1106

Rh 1088 DRUSUS. the favour of Agrippina, and stood between liim and the hope of succession to the empire. This produced a deep hatred of Nero in the envious and ambitious mind of Drusus. Sejanus, too, was anxious to succeed Tiberius, and sought to remove out of the way all who from their parentage would be likely to oppose his schemes. Though he al- ready meditated the destruction of Drusus, he first chose to take advantage of his estrangement from Nero, and engaged him in the plots against his elder brother, which ended in the banishment and death of that wretched prince. {Ann. iv. 60.) Tiberius had witnessed with displeasure the marks of public favour which were exhibited towards Nero and Drusus as members of the house of Ger- manicus, and gladly forwarded the plans that were contrived for their destruction. He declared in the senate his disapprobation of the public prayers which had been offered for their health, and this indication was enough to encourage accusers. Aemilia Lepida, the wife of Drusus, a woman of the most abandoned character, made frequent charges against him. (Ann. vi. 40.) The words which he spoke, when heated with wine or roused to anger, were reported to the palace, and represented by the emperor to the senate, in A. D. 30, in a docu- ment which cont'iined every charge that could be collected, heightened by invective. Drusus, like his elder brother, was condemned to death as an enemy of the state; but Tiberius kept him for some years imprisoned in a small chamber in the lowest part of the palace, intending to put him forward as a leader of the people, in case any at- tempt to seize the supreme command should be made by Sejanus. Finding, however, that a beliet prevailed that he was likely to be reconciled to Agrippina and her son, with his usual love of baffling expectations, and veiling his intentions in impenetrable obscurity, he gave orders, in a. d. 33, that Drusus should be starved to death. Drusus lived for nine days after this cniel sentence, having prolonged his miserable existence by devouring the tow with which his mattress was stuffed. (Suet. Tib .'>4; Tac. J««. vi. 23.) An exact account had been kept by Actius, a centurion, and Didymus, a freedman, of all that occurred in his dungeon during his long incarcera- tion. In this journal were set down the names of the slaves who had beaten or terrified him when he attempted to leave his chamber, the savage re- bukes administered to him by the centurion, his secret murmurs, and the words he uttered when perishing with hunger. Tiberius, after his death, went to the senate, inveighed against the shameful profligacy of his life, his desire to destroy his rela- tives, and his disaffection to the state; and pro- ceeded, in proof of these charges, to order the journal of his sayings and doings to be read. 1'his was too nmch, even for the Roman senate, degraded as it was. The senators were stnick with asto- nishment and alarm at the contemptuous indecency of such an exposure by a tyrant fonnerly so dark, and deep, and wary in the concealment of his crimes ; and they interrupted the horrid recital, under the pretence of uttering exclamations of de- testation at the misconduct of Drusus. (^«w. vi. 24.) In A. D. 31, a pretender had appeared among the Cyclades and in Greece, whose followers gave out that he was Drusus, the son of German icus, rticaped from prison, and that he was proceeuing to join the armies of his fother, and to invade DRYAS. Egypt and Syria. This affair might have had serious consequences, had it not been for the acti- vity of Poppaeus Sabinus, who, after a sharp pur- suit, caught the false Drusus at Nicopolis, and extracted from him a confession that he was a son of M. Silanus. {Ann. v. 10; Dion Cass. Iviii. 7.) 19. Caius Caesar Caligula, the emperor Caligula. [Caligula, p. 563, b.] 20. Agrippina. [Agrippina, p. 81, a.] 21. Drusilla. [Drusilla, No. 2.] 22. Julia Livilla. [Julia.] 23. Drusus, one of the two children of the emperor Claudius by his wife Urgulanilla. He died at Pompeii before attaining puberty, in a. u. 20, being choked by a pear which, in play, he had been throwing up and catching in his mouth. This occurred but a few days after he had been engaged to marry a daughter of Sejanus, and yet there were people who reported that he had been frau- dulently put to death by Sejanus. (Suet. Claudius^ 27 ; Tac. Ann. iii. 29.) 24. Claudia. [Claudia, No. 15, p. 762, b.] 25. Drusilla. [Drusilla, No. 3.] 26. Decimus Drusus. In Dig. 1. tit. 13. § 2, the following passage is quoted from Ulpian : — Ejc quaestoribus (juulam solcbant provincias sortiri ex Senatus-consultu., qutjd /actum est Decimo Druso et Porcina Omsulibus. It has been commonly sup- posed that Ulpian here refers to a gerieral decree of the senate, imuie in the consulship he names, and directing the mode of allotting provinces to quaestors in general. We rather believe him to mean that it was usual for the senate, from time to time, to make special decrees relating to the allot- ment of provinces to particular quiiestors, and that he intends to give the date of an early instance in which this was aone. (Comp. Cic. PliUipp. ii. 20.) Had the former meaning been intended, Ulpian would probably have sjiidea- eo Senuttis-consulto, qiioJ factum est. It is uncertain who Decimus Drusus was, and when he was consul. The brothers Kriegel, in the Leipzig edition of the Corpus Juris^ erroneously refer his consulship to a. u. c. 745 (b. c. 9), when Nero Claudius Drusus (the brother of the emperor Tiberius) and Crispinus were con- suls. Pighius {Antial. ad A. U. C. 677) proposes the unauthorized reading D. Bruto et Acmilio for D. Druso et Porcina, and in this conjecture is fol- lowed by Bach. {Hist. Jur. Rom. p. 208, ed. 6ta.) Ant. Augustinus {de Nom. Prop. Pa7idecl. in Otto's Tlu'saurus^ i. p. 258) thinks the consulship must have occurred in the time of the emperors, but it is certain that provinces were assigned to quaestors, ej- S. C, during the republic. The most probable opinion is that of Zepernick {Ad Siccamam de Jn- dicio Centumvirali, p. lOO, n.), who holds that D. Drusus was consul suffectus with Lepidus Porcina in u. c. 137, after the forced abdication of Hostilius Marcinus. 27. C. Drusus. Suetonius {Attgusi. 94) gives a miraculous anecdote of the infancy of Augustus, for which he cites an extant work of C. Drusus, — Ut scriptum apud C. Drusum eatai. Of this wiitei nothing is known, but it is not unlikely that he was connected with the imperial family. [J.T.G.] DRY'ADES. [Nvmphak.] DRYAS (hpvas), a son of Ares, and brother of Tereus, was one of the Calydonian hunters. He was nmrdered by his own brother, who had received an oracle, that his son Itys should fall by the hand of a relative. (ApoUod. I 8. § 2 ; Hygiu.