Chendrean Mircea - Razvan Istorie, anul I

Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus

Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus was the nephew and adopted son of the
Roman emperor Tiberius who reigned from14 a.d. to 37 B.C. He was a successful and
immensely popular general who, had it not been for his premature death, would have
become emperor. This is his story:

Early life:
Germanicus Julius Caesar was born in 15 BC in to Nero Claudius Drusus,
Drusus the Elder, the son of Augustus wife Livi by her earlier marriage, and Antonia
Minor Augustus' niece, the daughter of Mark Antony and his sister Octavia. There is no
record of his birth name, but it was probably that of his father or possibly Tiberius
Claudius Nero.
In 4 A.D., Germanicus was adopted by his uncle Tiberius and added "Caesar" to
his name, at the same time that Augustus adopted Tiberius. Thereby, Germanicus
became, after Tiberius, the heir to the Roman Empire.
The settlement of AD 4 included a plan for Germanicus to marry Agrippina the
Elder, a daughter of Augustus' daughter Julia by Marcus Agrippa. It was a productive
union in more ways than one. Not only did Agrippina offer the prestige of her Julian
blood to the Claudian branch of the family but she proved exceptionally fertile, bearing
Germanicus nine children in the next fourteen years. Six survived their father. They were
security for the dynasty, contributed to Germanicus' popularity, and became players in
the political intrigues of the mid-first century.
Of his early years and education little is known. That he possessed considerable
literary abilities, and that these were carefully trained, we gather, both from the speeches
which Tacitus puts into his mouth, and from the reputation he left as an orator, as attested
by Suetonius and Ovid, and from the extant fragments of his works.

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Military career:
Germanicus was advanced quickly as was usual, with the young men of the
imperial family destined for important careers. At the age of twenty he served his
apprenticeship as a soldier under Tiberius, and was rewarded with the triumphal insignia
for his services in crushing the revolt in Dalmatia and Pannonia. In AD 11 he
accompanied Tiberius in his campaign on the Rhine, undertaken, in consequence of the
defeat of Varus, with the object of securing the German frontier. In 12 he was made
consul, and increased his popularity by appearing as an advocate in the courts of justice,
and by the celebration of brilliant games.
So far, Germanicus had been fighting as a deputy of Tiberius, but in 13 Augustus
made him governor of Upper and Lower Germany, west of the Rhine, administratively
part of Gallia and Belgica. With the appointment came the command of eight legions,
four attached to each province.
The news of the emperor's death, 14 AD, found Germanicus at Lugdunum, Lyon,
where he was superintending the census of Gaul. Close upon this came the report that a
mutiny had broken out among his legions on the lower Rhine. The legions rioted on the
news that their recruitments would not be marked back down to 16 years from the now
standard 20. Refusing to accept this, the rebel soldiers cried for Germanicus as emperor.
Germanicus put down this rebellion himself, to honour Augustus' choice and stamp out
the mutiny, preferring to continue only as a general. In order to calm the excitement
Germanicus determined at once on an active campaign.

Campaign in the west:

During the next two years Germanicus made major incursions into German
territory east of the Rhine following the example of his father's campaigns of 12-9 BC. In
AD 15 he marched against the Chatti and then against the Cherusci led by the charismatic
chieftain Arminius. In the course of the campaign, one of the standards lost with Varus'
legions was recovered, important symbolically because it reversed the shame of the
legion's annihilation. When they found themselves in the region of the Teutoburg Forest,
the site of the massacre, they buried the Roman bones that have been left there. The
Germans harassed the Romans as they returned to the safety of the Rhine and their winter

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camps beyond. Roman invasions of Germany were always indecisive, because Rome was
never able to hold territory against an enemy that faded away after defeat only to return.
The terrain was wooded and often water-logged, and the Germans had the tactical
advantage of maneuverability.
A masterly combined movement by land and water enabled Germanicus to
concentrate his forces against the main body of the Germans encamped on the Weser, and
to crush them in two obstinately contested battles. A monument erected on the field
proclaimed that the army of Tiberius had conquered every tribe between the Rhine and
the Elbe. Great, however, as the success of the Roman arms had been, it was not such as
to justify this boastful inscription; we read of renewed attacks from the barbarians, and
plans of a fourth campaign for the next summer.
The Romans were successful, as always, against the Germans in pitched battle,
but, as always, this was not a permanent territorial conquest. Germanicus sent most of his
force back by way of the same water route as they had come, and they were caught in a
costly storm on the North Sea. By the end of the campaigning season the legions were in
their winter quarters west of the Rhine, but not before a second of the three standards lost
with Varus had been recovered.
Despite the successes enjoyed by his troops, Germanicus' German campaign was
in reaction to the mutinous intentions of his troops, and lacked any strategic value. In
addition he engaged the very German leader, Arminius, who had destroyed three Roman
legions in 9, and exposed his troops to the remains of those dead Romans. Furthermore,
in leading his troops across the Rhine, without recourse to Tiberius, he contradicted the
advice of Augustus to keep that river as the boundary of the empire, and opened himself
to doubts about his motives in such independent action.
But the success of Germanicus had already stirred the jealousy and fears of
Tiberius, and he was reluctantly compelled to return to Rome. On the 26th of May 17 he
celebrated a triumph. The enthusiasm with which he was welcomed, not only by the
populace, but by the emperor's own praetorians, was so great that the earliest pretext was
seized to remove him from the capital. He was sent to the East with extraordinary powers
to settle a disputed succession in Parthia and Armenia.

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Campaign in the east:

Germanicus fulfilled his mandate to display a Roman presence in the area and to
settle internal affairs. In the client kingdom of Armenia, he crowned Artaxias, who was a
friendly ally, and installed the first Roman governor of the new province of Cappadoccia.
In AD 19, he left Asia Minor and visited Egypt.
The chief motive for his journey was love of travel and antiquarian study, and it
seems never to have occurred to him, until he was warned by Tiberius, that he was
thereby transgressing an unwritten law which forbade any Roman of rank to set foot in
Egypt without express permission. The following year he found that the governor of
Syria, Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, had cancelled the provincial arrangements that he had
made. Germanicus in turn ordered Piso's recall to Rome, although this action was
probably beyond his authority.
Piso abandoned his command. He went to an island off the coast so that he could
return if the opportunity should arise. It seemed possible since Germanicus had fallen ill
shortly after his return from Egypt. He suspected that Piso had cursed him by placing
devotional objects like human remains, lead tablets and the like, in his house and was in
the process of poisoning him.

The trial of Piso:

Germanicus' circle lost the focus of their hopes when he died, for he took with
him their expectation of being close to the center of power in the near future. Those who
had been with him in the East returned to Rome and were waiting to challenge Piso and
Plancina, who came back bluffing their innocence of any kind of wrongdoing. Piso was
tried in the senatorial court as was appropriate since the wronged party was the emperor's
son. The primary charge was treason, insubordination and the inciting of insurrection,
with an additional charge of poisoning. The prosecution's case in regard to poison was
weak, but Piso was manifestly guilty of treason. When he saw that his case was lost, he
killed himself before the trial ended.
Tacitus supposes Tiberius may have had him murdered before he could implicate
the emperor in Germanicus' death, because he feared the people of Rome knew of the
conspiracy against Germanicus, but Tiberius' jealousy and fear of his nephew's popularity

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and increasing power was the true motive. Tiberius never escaped suspicion, if not of
instigating Germanicus’ murder, at least of prompting the enmity that ended in tragedy.
Dead, perhaps martyred, Germanicus remained a formidable force in Roman
politics.

Legacy:
The news of his death cast a gloom over the whole empire. Nor was Germanicus
unworthy of this passionate devotion. He had wiped out a great national disgrace; he had
quelled the most formidable foe of Rome. His private life had been stainless, and he
possessed a singularly attractive personality. We find this description of him in Suetonius
“The Lives of the Twelve Caesars”: “It is generally agreed, that Germanicus possessed
all the noblest endowments of body and mind in a higher degree than had ever before
fallen to the lot of any man; a handsome person, extraordinary courage, great
proficiency in eloquence and other branches of learning, both Greek and Roman; besides
a singular humanity, and a behaviour so engaging, as to captivate the affections of all
about him.”1
This is the story of the most beloved roman general, a person which embodied all
the roman qualities and virtues, a person that served as an example for his fellow citizens
by proving that loyalty and honor are not just meaningless words. The award wining
movie “The Gladiator” draw heavily on the character of Germanicus.

Bibliography
1
Suetonius Tranquillus, “The Lives of the Twelve Caesars”, http://www.scribd.com/doc/898392/The-
Lives-Of-The-Twelve-Caesars-Complete-by-C-Suetonius-Tranquillus

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1. Suetonius, Tranquillus, The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, found at

http://www.scribd.com/doc/898392/The-Lives-Of-The-Twelve-Caesars-
Complete-by-C-Suetonius-Tranquillus
2. Starr, G., Chester, A History of the Ancient World, Oxford University Press, New
York, 1991
3. Tacitus, Annals IV, found at http://www.scribd.com/doc/7025562/Tacitus-Annals