Augustus

Drusus’ much-loved wife, Antonia, the daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia, and her children—two boys, Germanicus and Claudius, and a girl, Julia Livilla—moved in with Livia. The dual household on the Palatine was also home to Gaius and Lucius, Agrippa’s boys whom Augustus had adopted, and the orderly bustle of officials was counterpointed by the unruly sounds of children’s voices.

Drusus was given a splendid sendoff. His body lay in state in the Forum, where Tiberius delivered a eulogy. Augustus gave another in the Circus Flaminius. After cremation, his ashes were laid in the Mausoleum of Augustus.

Everybody liked Drusus, and it was clear that his family was shocked by his sudden death. However, it did not take long for conspiracy theorists to weave a curious tale. This was that Augustus suspected Drusus of being a revolutionary who wanted to bring back the “old Republican constitution.” Tiberius was supposed to have treacherously shown the princeps a letter from Drusus suggesting they broach the subject with their step-father. So Augustus recalled him from Germany and had him poisoned. Suetonius reports the allegation, only to dismiss it. Rightly so, for how could the arrest of Drusus have been concealed and the charade of a funeral procession stage-managed? Suetonius writes: “In point of fact Augustus felt so deep a love for Drusus while he lived that, as he admitted to the Senate on one occasion, he considered him no less an heir than were his sons,” Gaius and Lucius.

Yet there may be some truth in the claim that the brothers held republican sympathies. They could well have discussed the kind of state they would like to see in the long term, with Tiberius agreeing to raise the matter with Augustus. In 9 B.C., the year of Drusus’ consulship, Augustus took some measures to strengthen the Senate; these could have been concessions to Drusus’ wishes. Two regular meetings were to be held every month on days freed from legal and other business. Fines for nonattendance by senators were increased, and strict attendance records were kept.

Two other men whom the princeps loved joined the roster of death in the following year: Maecenas and Horace. Together with Agrippa, Maecenas had been with Augustus from the beginning. Although their relations had cooled, and Maecenas’ political influence declined, the two men were still friends. Maecenas remained loyal and always advised against despotic measures, recommending that nothing be done to limit freedom of speech and opposing the death penalty for political enemies.

Maecenas was something of a hypochondriac. In the last three years of his life he seems to have suffered from a perpetual fever; he found it hard to sleep, and arranged for music to play quietly in another room. But he put up with his infirmities, writing a little poem to his dear friend Horace:

Cripple my hand,

my foot and my hip;

shake out my loose teeth.

So long as I’m alive,

everything’s all right.

Maecenas feared death, and Horace reassured him with a touching ode, in which he promised not to outlive his patron

The same day shall heap earth

over us both. I take the soldier’s oath:

you lead, and we shall go together, both

ready to tread the road that ends

all roads, inseparable friends.

It was many years since Maecenas had talent-spotted Horace and introduced him to Augustus. The princeps had grown very fond of the tubby little poet. He used to call him “my purest of pricks” (purissimum penem) and “little charmer” (homuncionem lepidissimum). They shared a certain dry and cool realism about life.

Once Augustus asked Horace to work for him as a secretary to help him draft his correspondence. This was the last sort of job the poet would enjoy, and he declined. The princeps showed no resentment. He wrote to him good-humoredly: “Even if you were so arrogant as to spurn my friendship, I decline to return your scorn!”

Augustus greatly admired Horace’s poetry and was always trying to persuade him to write on political or public themes. The “Secular Hymn” and the odes about Tiberius and Drusus were the result. When Augustus was piqued at finding that he made no appearance in Horace’s satires and epistles, many of which took the form of conversations with friends, he protested: “I have to say I am most displeased with you, that in your copious writings of this sort you ‘converse’ with other people and not with me. Are you afraid that posterity will condemn you if you appear to have been my friend?”