The ruins of the mausoleum survive, as does the Ara Pacis, which reopened to the public in 2005 after a long period of restoration. The ustrinum is gone; of the Horologium, only the obelisk remains (it now stands in front of the Italian parliament).
Fate intervened once again to lop off another member of the “divine family.” In the late summer or autumn of 9 B.C., while he was at his summer headquarters, the twenty-nine-year-old Drusus had a riding accident and broke his leg. It was quickly apparent that he was not going to recover, although it is uncertain why. The Roman army employed experienced medical teams, and on campaign deployed well-equipped field hospitals. In the nature of military life, fractures were common; military surgeons had a good knowledge of how to deal with them, and the techniques of splinting and setting bones described in ancient medical texts are not greatly dissimilar to modern practice.
Some of the literary sources write of an illness rather than an accident, which may mean that it was not the broken leg that killed Drusus, but later complications. An inflammation and fever may have supervened. If there was an open wound, perhaps an infection took hold; without effective antibiotics, that could have led to gangrene and amputation.
Tiberius heard the news of Drusus’ accident when he was at Ticinum (today’s Pavia) in northern Italy reporting to Augustus about his Pannonian campaign. He rushed off in a panic to his brother. After crossing the Alps he covered two hundred miles at full stretch in a day and a night, changing his horses at intervals. The achievement was all the more remarkable in that he was traveling through unsettled territory that had only recently been conquered, with a Gallic guide as his sole companion.
As Tiberius approached his brother’s camp, someone went ahead to announce his arrival. Almost at his last gasp, Drusus ordered his legions to march out to meet him and salute him as commander in chief. He died shortly afterward, and the anguished Tiberius accompanied his body back to Italy, walking in front all the way. For most of the journey, the coffin was carried by leading men from the towns and cities through which the procession passed. Augustus and Livia met the cortège at Ticinum and traveled with it to Rome.
Livia was shattered by the death of her son. As she followed his body she was moved by the pyres that were lit in the dead man’s honor throughout the country and the crowds that came out to escort Drusus on his way.
She did not know how to comfort herself in her grief. Areius, the Alexandrian philosopher and family friend, counseled her not to bottle up her feelings, so she displayed pictures of Drusus in public places and in her private apartments and encouraged her friends and acquaintances to talk about him. However, unlike Octavia when Marcellus died, Livia maintained her dignity, and was widely respected for not overstating her grief.
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?”
When Horace’s health was in decline, Augustus wrote again: “Do as you please in my house, as if you were living with me, for this is how I always wanted our relationship, if only your health permitted it.”