Chapter 7
The Homecoming
News of Drusus’ passing spread like wildfire through the camp. How, the soldiers must have asked in their bewilderment, could their fit and energetic 29-year old imperator die from a broken leg? Trained in the medical science of Hippokrates, the Roman doctor would likely have known on examining the wound that the prognosis on Drusus’ injury was bleak. Probably trained in one of the Greek medical schools, he would have read Hippokrates of Kos’ treatise On Fractures in which he writes:
Those cases in which the bone of the thigh, or of the arm, protrudes, do not easily recover. For the bones are large, and contain much marrow; and many important nerves, muscles, and veins are wounded at the same time. And if you reduce them, convulsions usually supervene; and, if not reduced, acute bilious fevers come on, with singultus and mortification.1
Leg breaks resulting from blunt trauma frequently have complications and can and do lead to death. Particular to Drusus, who was likely suffering with a fractured femur or pelvis, was what doctors today call ‘hypovolemic’ or ‘circulatory shock’ in which the heart is unable to pump enough blood to the body. It can result from a variety of causes: blood vessel damage; aseptic necrosis of bone segments from impaired circulation; and fat embolism.2 Fat embolism is a complication that occurs with long bone fractures (usually the femur). The marrowfat escapes from the bone and enters the blood stream where it travels to the lungs and brain and causes blockages leading to acute respiratory failure, altered mental status, skin changes and low platelets. The diagnosis is made clinically, but there are no specific tests for it. Even today, there is no specific treatment. All a doctor can do is manage the symptoms.
When blood supply is cut off to parts of the body, the tissue begins to die and this process is called gangrene.3 Dry gangrene occurs when the flow of blood is reduced through the arteries, hence it appears slowly and advances gradually. Wet or moist gangrene develops when the infected wound is left untreated. This condition was well known to Roman military doctors who referred to gangrene as cancer, and knew to cut out the dead tissue, clean the wound and apply fresh dressings, or if the patient showed no sign of recovery to amputate the affected limb.4 It is less likely that gangrene ended Drusus’ life.
As the accident had occurred in the open country or forest, however, Drusus would likely have been exposed to tetanus. Tetanus is an infectious disease caused by contamination of wounds from bacteria that live in the soil.5 Tetanus occurs when a wound becomes contaminated with the bacterium Clostridium tetani which is a hardy organism capable of living many years in the soil, dust and animal waste in the form of a spore. When these spores become activated and develop into gram-positive bacteria they quickly multiply and produce the very powerful toxin tetanospasmin that binds to motor nerves which in turn control muscles. The symptoms of tetanus infection are severe, uncontrollable muscle spasms during which the jaw may be ‘locked’, hence the disease is sometimes called ‘lockjaw’. In severe cases, the muscles used to breathe can spasm, causing a lack of oxygen to the brain and other organs that can lead to death.
Without access to the Roman doctor’s postmortem report, we shall probably never know for certain the actual cause of Drusus’ death. Perhaps the most that can be said is the likely cause was a fracture of one or more bones in the leg (femur, tibia or fibula) due to the blunt impact of a horse falling on it, possibly resulting in an embolism leading to hypertensive cardiovascular disease. It was a slow and miserable death.
The troops demanded the body and despite the emotional strain Tiberius maintained extraordinary composure and insisted that the troops show the same.6 The news of Drusus’ death had to be officially communicated to Livia and Augustus, and it would take a few days to reach them in Ticinum, so a messenger was dispatched immediately. Meanwhile, Tiberius saw to the practicalities of transporting the body back to Roman territory. A death mask was made so that Drusus’ face would be able to join those of his ancestors.7 Then the corpse had to be prepared for the long journey. This required the body to be washed with warm water, anointed with unguents and a form of embalming to be undertaken.8 The body was dressed in Drusus’ best clothes, which would be his toga praetexta since he was still consul of Rome, or his military armour and paludamentum since he was on campaign. A coin was slipped under Drusus’ tongue to pay Charon the ferryman who would carry his spirit across the River Styx to Paradise in the afterlife. Flowers, garlands and wreaths were strewn over the body as it lay while candles and lamps bathed the commander’s tent in subdued light.
The men of Drusus’ legions nevertheless insisted on showing their respects in their own particular way.9 To this Tiberius agreed, but it would require an extraordinary pact with the native peoples. Emissaries were sent out from the camp to the Germanic tribes to request a truce. Remarkably they granted it and suspended hostilities – such was the reverence with which his foes regarded Drusus.10 Free to move without fear of attack, the officers – tribunes and centurions – in turn carried the funeral bier on their shoulders from the summer camp back through Germania to Mogontiacum, a journey that must have taken several days as they navigated the streams, rivers and forests without the benefit of a metalled road. Once they reached the fortress on the Rhine, the men hoped that the body of their beloved commander would be cremated and his urn allowed to stay there. However, Augustus had another idea. Drusus would be buried in Rome.
Then began the long slow journey by road from the city of Mogon to the city of Romulus. Drusus’ corpse was flanked by his lictors carrying symbolically broken fasces.11 Tiberius walked in front of the hearse “all the way” to Rome in an extraordinarily moving and very public demonstration of fraternal devotion (pietas).12 The exact route is not recorded, but the cortège could have traversed Tres Galliae, rather than going via Raetia, as Drusus had been its governor for the last six years. Might the concilium Galliarum have been convened at Lugdunum to pay its last respects? The main road from Mogontiacum passed through the city so it is likely there was some form of solemn valedictory commemoration by the men who had known him personally and conducted amid the splendid surroundings of the imperial cult sanctuary he had commissioned. As news of the approaching convoy went ahead of the cortège, people turned out to line the roadsides and mourn their governor and to catch a glimpse of him – the primores, civic grandees and ordinary townsfolk of the civitates, coloniae, pagi and vici, who had benefited in different ways from Drusus’ personal generosity. The leading men of these towns took turns to bear Drusus’ corpse upon their shoulders so that they too could pay their respects and later recount in their old age to their descendants how they had played their part on that solemn occasion.13 If the route chosen went along the road that crossed the Alps via the Geneva Pass, King Cottius may also have been able to offer his condolences in person to Tiberius, Antonia and the children at Segusio. No one wanted to miss out on this extraordinary funeral march.
Augustus and Livia met the body when the cortège entered Italia. As in Tres Galliae, so too in the homeland in town after town the burghers poured out to witness an event they would remember for the rest of their lives.14 The senior men of every colonia and municipium offered their shoulders to bear the weight of the princeps’ deceased stepson and pyres everywhere burned in rememberance of him.15 It seemed the entire nation mourned for its young prince. After weeks on the road the body finally reached Rome followed by a throng of mourners who had joined Tiberius on his long walk home.16 It was received by the quaestors’ clerks (scribae questorii) who were the highest-ranking personal assistants of the magistrates.17 Drusus was, after all, still consul and this was to be a state funeral (funera dictiva).18 While the arrangements were made, the body was prepared and laid in state in the Forum Romanum.19 When the date and time of the event were decided, a herald announced it to the people of Rome in a customary form of words referring to “the famous Nero Claudius Drusus, citizen, deceased”.20
It was already autumn and with the changing of the season there was a sense of a passing era. On the day of the funeral, the procession of mourners set off from the place the body had lain in state. It would be a mistake to imagine the occasion as a modern head of state’s funeral with its sombre pomp and pageantry, flags at half-mast and troops turned out in their dress uniforms. A Roman aristocrat’s last rites were more in the style of a traditional funeral in New Orleans. Players of reed pipes led the way, followed by musicians playing flutes, horns and tubae.21 Hired mourners (praeficae) wailed their grief loudly and uncontrollably (lugubris eiulatio), occasionally breaking out into a song (naenia) in honour of the deceased. Accompanying them, men carried lit torches and dancers swirled in rhythmic steps. It was also the Roman way to mix solemn ceremony and vulgar elements of the pantomime. Clowns (mimi) joked with the onlookers, making ribald comments and coarse jests, exaggerating and ridiculing some well-known foibles of Drusus’ character.22 Just because he was dead did not mean a Roman was spared the barbed tongue of the living. Behind the praeficae and mimi followed a procession of Drusus’ ancestors. The imagines of the men Drusus had seen as a child in the cupboards of the atria of his fathers’ houses were now attached to life-size manequins dressed in clothing and bore the insignia of their various offices – consules, praefecti, tribuni – and rode in chariots as if alive.23 They were accompanied by lictors bearing their fasces as appropriate to their respective magistracies. More lictores dressed in black immediately preceded the members of the first family – Livia, Tiberius, Antonia and the children. The mourning women wore their hair dishevilled but no personal jewellery. Now came the bier (lectus) bearing the body of Drusus, uncovered so that it could be seen by the onlookers. Behind him came men carrying placards upon which were inscribed words or symbols evoking the exploits and achievements of the man in his short but eventful life.
The pompa wound its way around the Forum Romanum. When the procession reached the rostrum, it halted.24 It was customary for the body of the deceased to be raised upright so it appeared to stand and could be seen by the crowd that had assembled to watch and listen.25 The ‘ancestors’ were gathered and set down on curule chairs below the rostrum.26 As chief mourners his surviving family of Antonia, young Nero, Livilla and Tiberius sat close by. Brother Tiberius now solemnly ascended the rostrum and from there he gave the official eulogy (laudatio funebris) on behalf of his family; from this same spot as a young boy of nine he had spoken an oration in honour of his father, and here just two years before Drusus had spoken in memory of his mother-in-law, Octavia.27 Tiberius’ words are not preserved but we might imagine that he spoke of his love for his brother and his friendship for a man he truly admired; and declaimed Drusus’ military exploits in the Alps and in Germania, and the great loss all Romans felt for their young imperator. Any sense of resentment he may have had towards his brother must surely now have left him: in death Drusus could no longer be a rival.28
The funeral procession re-assembled and now departed the Forum Romanum. The bier was carried by members of the equestrian order (ordo equestris) and members of the senate.29 Protocol required that Augustus, having been on campaign and now in mourning, wait outside the pomerium – meaning ‘the post behind the wall’ – which was the sacred boundary of the city.30 The Circus Flaminius was the largest building able to accommodate a large crowd beyond the pomerium and it was there that Augustus gave the second laudatio funebris.31 Suetonius records part of his eulogy. In it, Augustus spoke in warm terms, praising his deceased stepson and prayed to the gods “to make his Caesars like him, and to grant himself as honourable an exit out of this world as they had given him”.32 This was high praise indeed. Drusus was held up as a paragon he hoped Caius and Lucius – one of whom he hoped would succeed him – should emulate. That he desired a death as honorable might have seemed to be so much spin, for it was a miserably slow and painful death, but Drusus had died in the service of his country, surrounded by his countrymen, and for a Roman, that was as good as it got.
The body was then carried in a solemn procession to the Campus Martius.33 The Romans at this period cremated their dead. A great pyre (ustrinum) had been constructed, possibly to look like an altar, decorated with pictures and statues and surrounded by cypress trees.34 Drusus’ body resting on its bier was carefully placed upon the pyre. In accordance with a very ancient custom, Drusus’ eyelids were opened and closed, and Antonia kissed him in a final and public farewell. Members of the family and close friends tossed onto the pyre Drusus’ personal belongings and items he had been fond of during his lifetime. Then a relative or friend – most likely Tiberius – set the pyre alight. To the snap and crackle of burning kindling the mourners stood aside and watched as the raging flames consumed the body. A few hours later, after the fire had burned itself out wine was poured on to the scorched bones, the ashes were gathered up, covered with oil or honey and then placed in a jar or casket.35
Drusus’ remains were destined to reside in the great mausoleum Augustus had created for himself and his family.36 In death Drusus joined the exclusive company of other members of Augustus’ family who had gone before him – his son-in-law Marcellus, his best friend Agrippa, and most recently his sister Octavia. A description of the monument in its finished state survives written by Strabo who admired its large evergreen tree-covered mound surmounted by a bronze image of Augustus (fig. 5).37 Even in its ruined state today, stripped of its earthen mound and with its brick superstructure laid bare, it is still a formidable building. At night in the summer months the flickering flames of candles and oil lamps often greet visitors taking a tour in the hope of encountering an imperial ghost. Its tumulus design echoes many of the funeral monuments of the Etruscans and Hellenistic aristocrats, perhaps stretching back to the barrows of the Bronze Age. Inside the Mausoleum of Augustus is a circular structure of concentric circles, at the centre of which originally stood a 150-foot high rectangular column of travertine.38 Surrounding it are two concentric walls that form the burial chamber. Beyond it three more concentric rings of brick and concrete extend outwards, the outermost wall measuring 300 Roman feet in diameter.39 A doorway pierces through these three outer walls forming a vaulted vestibule leading to the burial chamber. The walls of the inner sanctum contain alcoves (columbaria) at the cardinal points in which were placed the urns containing the ashes and statues.40 In one of these secluded spaces, the urn containing Drusus’ ashes was placed. Engraved on the plaque that adorned that final resting place was a verse elegy composed for him by none other than Augustus himself.41