Germanicus

Germanicus (born May 24, 16 or 15 bce—died October 10, 19 ce, Antioch, Syria [now Antakya, Turkey]) was the nephew and adopted son of the Roman emperor Tiberius (reigned 14–37 ce). He was a successful and immensely popular general who, had it not been for his premature death, would have become emperor.

The details of Germanicus’s career are known from the Annals of the Roman historian Tacitus, who portrayed him as a champion of republican principles and played him off in his historical chronicles against Tiberius, whom he depicted as an autocratic villain. Through his mother, Antonia, Germanicus was grandnephew of the emperor Augustus. His father was Tiberius’s brother, Nero Claudius Drusus. Germanicus’s “Julian blood” induced Augustus to have him adopted by Tiberius in 4 ce, even though Tiberius had a son of his own. At about the same time, Germanicus married Augustus’s granddaughter, Vipsania Agrippina.

Quaestor at the age of 21, Germanicus served under Tiberius in Illyricum (7–9 ce) and then on the Rhine (11 ce). As consul in the year 12, he was appointed to command Gaul and the two Rhine armies. His personal popularity enabled him to quell the mutiny that broke out in his legions after Augustus’s death (14). Although pressed to claim the empire for himself, Germanicus remained firmly loyal to Tiberius. In three successive campaigns (14–16), he crossed the Rhine to engage the German tribes, inflicting several defeats in an ultimately inconclusive struggle. Finally, having aroused the jealousy and fears of Tiberius, he was recalled to Rome.

Germanicus celebrated a triumph in Rome on May 26, 17, and the next year he became consul for the second time. Before taking office, however, he received supreme command over all the eastern provinces. While on this tour of duty he came into conflict with Gnaeus Calpurnius Piso, whom Tiberius had installed as governor of Syria. Although Piso criticized and sometimes frustrated his decisions, Germanicus managed to settle the Armenian succession, organize the previously independent states of Cappadocia and Commagene into provinces, and negotiate successfully with Artabanus III of Parthia.

Early in 19, Germanicus visited Egypt, incurring strong censure from Tiberius, because the latter’s predecessor, Augustus, had strictly forbidden Romans of senatorial rank to enter Egypt—Rome’s breadbasket—without permission. On Germanicus’s return to Syria, the differences with Piso became intolerable; finally Piso left the province. Shortly afterward Germanicus died, convinced that Piso, through the latter’s wife, Plancina, had poisoned him. Piso’s subsequent suicide (when he was prosecuted before the Senate) prevented substantiation of the poisoning charge. Tiberius never escaped suspicion, if not of instigating Germanicus’s murder, at least of prompting the enmity that ended in tragedy.

Germanicus and Agrippina had nine children. Included among the six (three sons and three daughters) who survived their father were the emperor Gaius Caligula (37–41) and Julia Agrippina, mother of the emperor Nero. The emperor Claudius (41–54) was Germanicus’s brother.