The cameo of a Roman man, most often identified as Drusus the Elder (alternatively sometimes identified as Tiberius or Germanicus). The sign at the bottom is the carver's name: Herophilos, son of Dioscourides.

DOMINA (s2) + historical references

GAGGED HER ASS

"I do care about my brother. And I care about keeping him alive. That's probably my only ambition."

Tiberius and Drusus in Domina

Antonia Minor was the complete imperial woman. She was the daughter of Octavia and Mark Antony, niece of Augustus, widow of Tiberius' brother Drusus, mother of Germanicus, and grandmother of his and Agrippina's surviving children. She was said to be as beautiful as Cenus and so gentle that she would not so much as spit. She was also the model of wifely loyalty. After the death of her husband in 9 BC, she remained a widow and decided to keep living in the house of her mother-in-law, Livia. There she raised her own three children and, after Livia's death, her grandchildren. In addition, she supervised a circle of young foreign princes who were hostages in Rome. She also helped manage her extensive estates. - Ten Caesars, Barry Strauss

hi! you say that agrippa postumus would make a nasty emperor if he become one. sometimes i wonder, what about augustus' other grandsons? from what i read (in powell's agrippa bio book) they were spoiled brats but they were young when they died. beside that, i wonder what if agrippa survived and succeeded augustus? would he face the same problem tiberius had with the senate but for different reason (i read that aristocrats hate him)? what about drusus? so yeah.. basically historical what if.

Abandon facts, all ye who enter here!

It's not clear whether Agrippa Postumus was really all that bad. I've got a longer post talking about other reasons he might have been Augustus' least-favorite grandchild. However, Augustus was usually a good judge of competence, so there probably was some reason why Postumus wasn't well-suited for ruling an empire. Augustus had also elevated Tiberius to effectively co-emperor by the last years of his reign, precisely to make Tiberius' ascension as smooth and undisputed as possible.

I suspect that the only way Postumus would come to power would be if Tiberius died just before Augustus did. But even then, it probably wouldn't be for long. Julio-Claudian emperors needed the support of the army and Senate to hold onto power, and Postumus seems to have been very good at alienating people. My best guess is that he'd get displaced by the more popular Germanicus - either by vote of the Senate or by assassination.

What about his brothers, Gaius Caesar and Lucius Caesar? Assuming that both had lived to see Augustus die in 14 CE, Gaius would've been 33, and Lucius 30. Since they both started their administrative/military careers as teenagers, and were widely popular, either one would've been in a great position to take over. This would've been great news for their mother Julia, who'd probably be recalled from exile, and for Tiberius, who didn't want to rule anyway. If both boys lived, the job would most likely go to Lucius, since Gaius asked to be released from public service after he became seriously ill.

Both boys died young enough that it's hard to gauge how capable they would've been as emperors. They weren't spoiled; if anything, Augustus seems to have put a lot of pressure on his (grand)kids. (You're probably thinking of the incidents where crowds greeted Lucius over-enthusiastically at 11, or tried to elect Gaius consul at 14. Augustus was irritated because he thought this could make the kids big-headed, but there's no indication of Gaius or Lucius actually misbehaving. Gaius also was pretty rude to Tiberius one time, but that probably stemmed from resentment of how his mother Julia had been treated, not Gaius generally being a dick.) They probably would've been average-to-decent, simply because most rulers are in peacetime, and they would've had a lot of experience under Augustus' (overbearing) watchful eye.

If Drusus had outlived Gaius and Lucius, he likely would've been Augustus' next choice of successor, and quite good at it, too. He was an able administrator and general like Tiberius, and much better at working with people. Plus, Drusus' grandkids were also Augustus' great-grandkids via Agrippina the Elder, and Augustus wanted his descendants to inherit.

There would be several other benefits, too. For one thing, Tiberius would be much happier, less overworked, and may not have had the depression/breakdown/??? that led him to retire to Rhodes. The Julian and Claudian branches of the family probably wouldn't have been at odds, at least not as much, since both saw their future in Drusus' grandkids. Drusus' outgoing personality and stronger leadership would probably be less vulnerable to the manipulations of Sejanus, so we might have seen Caligula's older brothers survive and rule instead of him. As the most skilled commander of the German campaigns, Drusus would've likely also consolidated Roman control up to the Elbe River.

Anyway, that's just my best guess. It's a shame, because Gaius, Lucius or Drusus taking over would seem more probable than all three of them dying young. Emperor Tiberius was sort of a "bad ending" from Augustus' perspective. Not the worst - worst would be civil war - but if not for some crappy luck, the Julio-Claudians might've been much happier and more well-adjusted.

Titus Livius statue at the Austrian Parliament Building in Vienna, Austria + Home Alone by Chris Columbus & John Hughes (1990)

I am not unaware that the heedlessness underlying the widespread modern refusal to believe that gods issue portents also causes prodigies no longer to be announced in public or included in the historical record. Nevertheless, as I write about bygone affairs, my mind in some way takes on an antique cast, and a certain spirit of religious respect prevents me from regarding as unworthy of recording in my history matters that the deeply sagacious men of old deemed meritorious of public attention. (43.13)

—Livy, Rome's Mediterranean Empire

Livy’s history of Rome is known in Latin as Ab Urbe Condita (‘From the Foundation of the City’) and originally consisted of 142 ‘books’ (the longest is about sixty-five pages in English). He begins with Aeneas’ flight to Italy after the Trojan War. Book 120 ends in 43 bce with the death of Cicero, which may originally have been intended as the conclusion. Livy eventually went at least as far as 9 bce; the death of Augustus’ stepson Drusus in that year was included in Book 142. Of the original work, Books 1-10 and 21-45 survive. The rest were lost before the manuscripts of late antiquity and the Middle Ages were published in modern book form during the Renaissance. Almost the entirety of Ab Urbe Condita, however, is preserved in summaries. Within a century of Livy’s death, there was at least one abbreviated version in circulation. Currently, two sets of summaries are known: one, referred to as the Periochae and varying in length from a few pages to a few sentences per book, covers all but Books 136 and 137; the second, the ‘Oxyrhynchus’ epitomes, is incomplete and fragmentary.

—Jane D. Chaplin, Intro to Rome's Mediterranean Empire by Livy

↳ family trees + Julio-Claudian dynasty (limited to the main figures)

requested by anonymous

Went to the Naples Archaeological Museum and yes I took pictures of every statue of my dude Tiberius and may (or may not) have squealed "Tibby" at least once... Also plagued my non-history nerd bestie with a passionate defense of Tiberius against allegations she didn't even know existed

Emperor Claudius & King Bran

[art credit]

Suddenly we heard a great screeching above us. We looked up and saw a number of eagles fighting. Feathers floated down. We tried to catch them. Germanicus and Castor each caught one before it fell and stuck it in his hair. Castor had a small wing feather, but Germanicus a splendid one from the tail. Both were stained with blood. Spots of blood fell on Postumus’s upturned face and on the dresses of Livilla and Agrippina. And then something dark dropped through the air. I do not know why I did so, but I put out a fold of my gown and caught it. It was a tiny wolf-cub wounded and terrified. The eagles came swooping down to retrieve it, but I had it safe hidden, and when we shouted and threw sticks they rose baffled and flew screaming off. I was embarrassed. I didn’t want the cub. Livilla grabbed at it, but my mother, who looked very grave, made her give it back to me. ‘It fell to Claudius,’ she said. ‘He must keep it.’

—I, Claudius (Chapter 5) - Robert Graves

[art credit]

“The sooner the better,” Theon Greyjoy agreed. He drew his sword. “Give the beast here, Bran.”

The little thing squirmed against him, as if it heard and understood. “No!” Bran cried out fiercely. “It’s mine.”

“Put away your sword, Greyjoy,” Robb said. For a moment he sounded as commanding as their father, like the lord he would someday be. “We will keep these pups.”

(...)

“Lord Stark,” Jon said. It was strange to hear him call Father that, so formal. Bran looked at him with desperate hope. “There are five pups,” he told Father. “Three male, two female.”

“What of it, Jon?”

“You have five trueborn children,” Jon said. “Three sons, two daughters. The direwolf is the sigil of your House. Your children were meant to have these pups, my lord.”

—A Game of Thrones - Bran I - George R. R. Martin

～～～

In the 1977 BBC adaptation of Robert Graves's I, Claudius, the scene where eight years old Claudius catches the wolf pup is called "A sign from the Gods."

The future Emperor Claudius catching a wolf pup that fell from the sky and Bran Stark and his siblings finding direwolves pups in the Summer snows, is maybe the strongest piece of evidence for King Bran that I have come across.

Read more about the influence of I, Claudius in GRRM'S ASOIAF here:

I, CLAUDIUS / GRRM / ASOIAF

The Cenotaph of Drusus, a monument to Drusus the Elder built by the Roman soldiers after their general's death in 9BC. It was originally covered in marble, which was stripped in the Early Middle Ages.

DOMINA (2021- ) Freedom (2.06)

maybe this will be the year i start correcting prosopography on wikipedia

Historical Male Characters in Domina (2021)

i think one of my favorite things about domina season 2 episode 2 was the subtle change in drusus’ attitude towards antonina. at first, it’s obvious that the person of his bride isn’t at the forefront of his mind because he’s focused on gemina so antonina is kind of a faceless figure in his mind but then he sees her again and you can SEE the surprise in his mind.

not to mention that they have them picking up eye contact again briefly after she’s walking away during their first meeting.and it becomes pretty obvious that he begins to respect her and see her as ‘antonina’ and not just his ‘future wife’ after their following encounters.

and at their wedding, it’s pretty obvious that he’s warmed to her and i’m looking forward to seeing how their relationship progresses further!

Hi! Regarding your post on Suetonius I wanted to mention that Drusus was a general before the Arminius drama occurred. He wasn’t involved in it

That's right! It was Publius Quinctilius Varus who fell for Arminius' ambush in 9 CE. It would've been pretty concerning if Drusus had been involved, considering he'd been dead for 18 years...But I do wonder if stories about him and his death may have kept influencing how Romans interacted with Germany.

You got me curious, so I looked up Wikipedia's article on the Battle of Teutoburg Forest. Apparently it's more controversial than I thought! Everybody agrees it happened, but its impact on Roman foreign policy may have been overstated by German nationalists in the 19th century. A story of "We defeated the Romans so bad they never tried to invade us again," could be useful for creating a pan-German identity in a region that had traditionally been broken up into many small states, and dominated by other countries.

Now, I don't know enough to say whether the battle was a turning point or not. I'm more struck by how 19th century people interpreted history to support the story they wanted to tell, and how they used that story to motivate policy (i.e. politically unifying Germany). Another way that history can affect us long after it happened!