Eager for Glory
Page 1
For my father Haydn Vivian Powell (1924–1993)
First published in Great Britain in 2011 by
Pen & Sword Military
an imprint of
Pen & Sword Books Ltd
47 Church Street
Barnsley
South Yorkshire
S70 2AS
Copyright © Lindsay Powell 2011
ISBN 978-1-84884-333-2
eISBN 9781848849044
The right of P. Lindsay Powell to be identified as Author of this Work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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Contents
Acknowledgements
Foreword
Chronology
List of Illustrations
Maps and Plans
Roman Names
Preface
1. Drusus the Youth
2. Drusus the Soldier
3. Drusus the Builder
4. Drusus the Explorer
5. Drusus the Commander
6. Drusus the Consul
7. Drusus the Hero
8. Assessment
Stemmata
The Step-Children of Augustus
Gazeteer
Glossary
Place Names
Ancient Sources
Notes
Bibliography
Acknowledgements
Writing about the life of another person is a fascinating challenge, especially one long dead and almost entirely forgotten. There were no living family relations or witnesses available to interview. However, there were several living people who knew parts of the story and others who did not but were nevertheless eager to help me tell it. I start with family and friends. My partner, mother, brother and, in particular, my friend Sonia St James (self-styled ‘muse to creative minds’) have all offered much appreciated encouragement throughout the project – they know how much this book meant to me. To my editor at Pen and Sword Books, Philip Sidnell, who responded enthusiastically to my proposal, graciously offered to take on this project, and guided it through to completion, I shall always be grateful.
I feel very privileged indeed that Graham Sumner agreed to kindly write the foreword to this, my first book. I have known Graham since I joined the Ermine Street Guard and have long admired his writings and illustrations, which reveal his deep knowledge of military matters of the Roman period.
This book tells the story of Drusus the Elder in both words and pictures. From the academic community I must thank David Potter, Arthur F. Thurnau Professor of Greek and Latin, Department of Classical Studies at The University of Michigan, for permission to use excerpts from his unpublished translation of the Tabula Siarensis; and Professor Ann Kuttner, Department of History of Art at the University of Pennsylvania, for permission to use insightful statements from her Dynasty and Empire in the Age of Augustus: The Case of the Boscoreale Cups.
For helping me to illustrate the story, I offer my thanks to Michael V. Craton, who patiently shot digital photographs of pieces from my coin collection; Andy R. Braeunling and the members of Historische Darstellungsgruppe München e.V., for use of their photographs; Robert Brosch and the members of Chasuari, for use of their photograph; Marie-Lan Nguyen, for her photographs of Roman portrait busts; and last, but not least, Chris Haines MBE, Mike Knowles and members of The Ermine Street Guard, a registered charity in the United Kingdom – and of which I am proud to say I am a veteran member – for use of their photographs, some of which they took specially for this book.
War stories cannot be told without the aid of maps. I sincerely thank Carlos De La Rocha of Satrapa Ediciones, whose work frequently appears in Ancient Warfare magazine, for creating the superb maps of the Roman Empire and of Drusus’ campaigns.
My thanks also go to William Stavinoha, M.D. in Austin, Texas, who very graciously corroborated the plausibility of my interpretations of medical issues described in the ancient texts. For help with Latin sources I thank Dorian Borbonus, Bob Durrett, Magister Ginny Lindzey and Michael J. Taylor.
I have quoted extracts from several ancient authors’ works whose voices add greatly to the narrative. For the translations, I used: Augustus’ Res Gestae translated by Thomas Bushnell, BSG, and reproduced with permission, 1998; Julius Caesar’s Commentarii de Bello Gallico translated by Edward Brooks in The First Six Books of the Gallic War, Chicago: The Cenn Publishing Company, 1896; Cassius Dio’s ‘PωμαϊκὴIστορία (Romaikon Istoria) translated by E. Cary based on the version by H.B. Foster in Dio’s Roman History, London: William Heinemann, 1917; Cicero’s Epistulae in The Letters of Cicero: The Whole Extant Correspondence in Chronological Order translated by Evelyn S. Shuckburgh, London: George Bell and Sons, 1905; Cicero’s Oratio pro L. Murena, IX-XI, in The Orations of Marcus Tullius Cicero, Volume 2, translated by C.D. Younge, p. 340, London: Bell, 1891; Florus’ Epitome translated by John Selby in Sallust, Florus and Velleius Paterculus, London: George Bell and Sons, 1889; Hippokrates’ Περί Aγμών (Peri Agmon) translated by Francis Adams in The Genuine Works of Hippocrates, Volume 2, London: Sydenham Society, 1849; Horace’s Carmina translated by John Conington in The Odes and Carmen Saeculare of Horace, Translated into English Verse, London: M.A. Bell and Daldy, 1863; Pliny the Elder’s Naturalis Historia translated by John Bostock and H.T. Riley in The Natural History of Pliny, Volume 3, London: Henry Bohn, 1855; Pliny the Younger’s Epistulae Selectae translated by John Delaware Lewis in The Letters of the Younger Pliny, London: Keegan Paul, 1890; Plutarch’s OἱBίοιΠαράλληλοι (Oi Vioi Paralliloi) translated by John Langhrone and William Langhorne in Plutarch’s Lives, London: William Tegg, 1868; Seneca the Younger’s De Consolatio ad Marciam translated by John W. Basore in Moral Essays, Volume 2, London: William Heinemann, 1932; Suetonius’ De Vita Caesarum translated by Alexander Thomson in The Lives of the Twelve Caesars, London: George Bell and Sons, 1893; Tacitus’ Ab Excessu Divi Augusti translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Bodribb in The Annals of Tacitus, London: MacMillan and Co., 1906; Tacitus’ De Origine et Situ Germanorum translated by R. B. Townsend in The Agricola and Germania of Tacitus, London: Methuen and Co., 1894; Tacitus’ Historiae, translated by Alfred John Church and William Jackson Bodribb in The History of Tacitus, London: MacMillan and Co., 1876; Velleius Paterculus’ Historiae Romanae translated by John Selby in Sallust, Florus and Velleius Paterculus, London: George Bell, 1889; and Vergil’s Aeneid translated by John Dryden in 1697 in an improved edition by John Carey of The Works of Virgil Translated into English Verse, Volume 1, London: George Cowie and Co., 1819. The translated extract from Consolatio ad Liviam on page 143 comes from W. Francis H. King’s Classical Quotations: A Polyglot Manual of Historical and Literary Sayings, Noted Passages in Poetry and Prose, Phrases, Proverbs and Bons Mots, London: J. Whitaker and S
ons, 1904. The quotation attributed to Pliny the Elder on page 143 comes from Josiah Hotchkiss Gilbert’s Dictionary of Burning Words of Brilliant Writers: A Cyclopaedia of Quotations from the Literature of All Ages, Bew York: Wilbur B. Ketcham, 1895.
Foreword
by Graham Sumner
Like many readers perhaps, my previous knowledge of Drusus the Elder was based almost entirely on two separate sources. The first was the portrayal of Drusus in the highly acclaimed BBC/PBS Masterpiece Theater television series I, Claudius; whilst the second was the statue of Drusus illustrated, for example, in the classic volume The Armour of Imperial Rome by H. Russell Robinson. Both depictions show Drusus as a handsome young man, an accomplished soldier and, judging from the statue, one not averse to embellishing his armour with elaborate and unnecessary decoration like so many of his contemporaries.
The television character, played by actor Ian Ogilvy, is mourned after his death by his devoted wife Antonia, as Queen Victoria did for her consort Prince Albert, and who, like the British monarch, never re-marries. While this depiction was based on the scholarly work of Robert Graves who translated the biographies of the Caesars by the Roman author Suetonius, I was politely informed by Lindsay that the statue of Drusus was in all probability not a statue of the Drusus after all but more likely one of Drusus the Younger, the son of his brother Tiberius.
This is a timely reminder then that Roman history is not always what at first it appears to be. Further evidence of this was highlighted recently by two archaeological discoveries in Britain. Firstly, for the first time in over a hundred years a spectacular Roman helmet was discovered, which would have been classified by Russell Robinson as a ‘sports type’. Only two other even remotely comparable helmets had been found in Britain but the latest discovery was of a very unusual design. Found by a man with a metal detector it sold at auction for over £2 million!
Secondly, at Caerleon in South Wales – ironically a stone’s throw away from where Lindsay was born – in the former legionary fortress of Legio II Augusta, the remains of at least two sets of Roman armour were unearthed. While one was the familiar metal strip armour we call today lorica segmentata, the second type at first analysis appears to be a strange variation of scale armour with round rather than arch-shaped scales.
Both the helmet and the armour will probably be talked about for many years to come but they illustrate that even today, after centuries of study, not everything is known about the Romans and something new and surprising may await around the corner. Of course not only artifacts can be lost and forgotten awaiting rediscovery but whole personalities can be as well. One such individual is Drusus the Elder, illuminated at last in this the first biography of an important personality from the beginnings of Rome’s empire and for which Lindsay is to be congratulated.
I first met Lindsay over twenty years ago when we served together in the world’s oldest Roman army re-enactment group, The Ermine Street Guard – a society to which, it is fair to say, we both owe a great debt. An abiding memory from those days was when the society took part in a film shoot for a television documentary series filmed in and around a recreated Celtic farmstead. Filming can be extremely tedious, involving many re-shoots or long periods of simply standing around awaiting direction. During one such period a few legionaries, including Lindsay, began throwing large stems of grass at one another like mock javelins. Suddenly, to everyone’s amusement, as Lindsay threw his ‘javelin’ the entire right shoulder section of his armour detached itself and slid unceremoniously to the ground!
It is a sad fact that we lack so many individual anecdotes like this from the Roman world. Nonetheless Lindsay has produced a highly entertaining, thoughtful and readable account of a great Roman, which I am sure will be a treasured work on any Roman enthusiast’s bookshelf.
Chester
October 2010
Chronology
List of Illustrations
Plates
1. Bust of Augustus, Ma1247 (MR 426) in the Louvre, Paris. (© Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons)
2. Bust of Liva Drusilla, Ma1233 in the Louvre, Paris. (© Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons)
3. Marble bust of Tiberius from Veies, Charamonti in the Vatican Museum, Vatican City. (© Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons)
4. Bust of veiled Nero Claudius Drusus as a boy. MFA inv. 88.346 in the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston. (© Museum of Fine Arts, Boston)
5. Bust of Nero Claudius Drusus, A.1148, Collection L. Somzée, in the Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels. (© Musées royaux d’Art et d’Histoire, Brussels)
6. Bust of Antonia Minor as Hera, Inv. 8631 in the Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Altemps, Rome. (© Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons)
7. Drusus and Antonia Minor on the Ara Pacis, Rome. (By permission of Sovraintendenza ai Beni Culturale del Comune di Roma-Museo dell’Ara Pacis)
8. Principales of the Roman army. (Courtesy of The Ermine Street Guard)
9. Legionarius in chain mail in attack stance with Mainz-type gladius unsheathed. (Courtesy of The Ermine Street Guard)
10. Legionarius of the Roman army in scale armour at the beginning of the first century CE. (Courtesy of The Ermine Street Guard)
11. ‘Marius’ mule’. (Courtesy of The Ermine Street Guard)
12. Legionarius of the Roman army in articulated plate armour at the close of the first century CE. (Courtesy of The Ermine Street Guard)
13. Armour of a high-ranking Roman officer depicted in a marble trophy from the Gardens of Sallust, close of the first century BCE. MC 42 in the Capitoline Museums, Rome. (© Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons)
14. Iron Age Celtic Warriors at the close of the first century BCE. (Courtesy of Historische Darstellungsgruppe München e.V.)
15. Iron Age Celtic Warrior at the close of the first century BCE. (Courtesy of Historische Darstellungsgruppe München e.V.)
16. Germanic warrior at the start of the first century CE. (Courtesy of Robert Brosch and Chasuari)
17. View of Val di Susa from San Michele. (© Vito James Blomo)
18. View of Trento (Tridentum) in the Adige River Valley from Cros di Maranza, Italy. (© Haneburger C./Wikimedia Commons)
19. View of the Lechtal Alps at Musau, Tyrol, Austria. (© Kai Brühne/Wikimedia Commons)
20. View of Municipium Virunum at Magdalensburg, Austria with Zollfeld and the Ulrichsberg in the background. (© Johann Jaritz/Wikimedia Commons)
21. View of the Praetorium and Odeon, Lyon (Lugdunum), France. (© Vincent Bloch/Wikimedia Commons)
22. Denarius showing Drusus and Tiberius offering olive branches to Augustus. (Author’s collection. © P. Lindsay Powell. Photo Michael V. Craton)
23. Dupondius/semis of Tiberius showing the Altar to Roma et Augustus, Lugdunum. (Author’s collection. © P. Lindsay Powell. Photo Michael V. Craton)
24. Scene XXVI from Trajan’s Column. (Conrad Cichorius/Wikimedia Commons)
25. Reconstructed Roman troop transport “Victoria” on the Gose Elbe River, filmed for the documentary Der Limes: Grenzwall gegen die Barbaren for ZDF in association with the special exhibition “Imperium Konflikt Mythos. 2000 Jahre Varusschlacht”. (© agenda/Wolfgang Huppertz)
26. View of Coast of Wadden Sea, The Netherlands. (© Dirk Ingo Franke/ Wikimedia Commons)
27. Denarius minted by L. Caninius Gallus. (Author’s collection. © P. Lindsay Powell. Photo Michael V. Craton)
28. View of Lippe River in Lünen, North Rhine Westfalia, Germany. (© Wolfgang Hunscher/Wikimedia Commons)
29. View of Elbe River at Drethem, Lower Saxony, Germany. (© Christian Fischer/Wikimedia Commons)
30. View of forest in autumn in east North Rhein Westfalia, Germany. (© Nikater/ Wikimedia Commons)
31. Bust of Nero Claudius Drusus. Ma3515 in the Louvre, Paris. (© Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons)
32. Bust of Germanicus in the Museo Nazionale Romano, Palazzo Massimo alle Terme. (© Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons)
33. Bust o
f Claudius from Lavinium, Inv. 243 in the Vatican Museum, Vatican City. (© Marie-Lan Nguyen/Wikimedia Commons)
34. Denarius minted by P. Cornelius Lentulus Marcellinus. (Author’s collection. © P. Lindsay Powell. Photo Michael V. Craton)
35. Denarius minted by Claudius showing Drusus and German weapons. (Author’s collection. © P. Lindsay Powell. Photo Michael V. Craton)
36. Sestertius minted by Claudius showing Drusus, Claudius seated on Germanic arms. (Author’s collection. © P. Lindsay Powell. Photo Michael V. Craton)
37. Denarius minted by Claudius showing Drusus and the triumphal arch. (Author’s collection. © P. Lindsay Powell. Photo Michael V. Craton)
38. Denarius minted by Claudius showing Drusus and the triumphal arch. (Author’s collection. © P. Lindsay Powell. Photo Michael V. Craton)
39. Dupondius minted by Claudius showing Drusus and the triumphal arch. (Author’s collection. © P. Lindsay Powell. Photo Michael V. Craton)
40. Ruins of Drusus’ tumulus in Mainz (Mogontiacum), Germany. (© Markus Schweiss/Wikimedia Commons)
41. Stamp issued on 10 May 1962 by Deutsche Bundespost celebrating the 2,000th anniversary of the foundation of Mainz showing the Drususstein.
42. Drusus presents barbarian people to the princeps depicted on the ‘Augustus Cup’ from Boscoreale. Taken prior to it being damaged. Bj2366 in the Louvre (A. Héron de Villefosse, Monuments et Mémoires, Fondation Eugène Piot, 1899)
Figures
1. Inscription from the milestone of the via Claudia Augusta. (Drawn by the author)
2. Ballista bolt of Legio XIX from Döttenbichl, Oberammergau. (Drawn by the author)
3. Reconstruction of troop transport based on Mainz 1. (Courtesy of Römisch-Germanisches Zentralmuseum, Museum für Antike Schiffahrt Mainz)