Nero Claudius Drusus Quotes

I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus This-that-and-the-other (for I shall not trouble you yet with all my titles) who was once, and not so long ago either, known to my friends and relatives and associates as "Claudius the Idiot", or "That Claudius", or "Claudius the Stammerer", or "Clau-Clau-Claudius" or at best as "Poor Uncle Claudius", am now about to write this strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point of change where, some eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I suddenly found myself caught in what I may call the "golden predicament" from which I have never since become disentangled.

While Agrippa never ruled in his own right his genes were intermingled in the blood of the Domus Augusta and it was his descendants who were destined for prominence. His daughter Vipsania Agrippina married Augustus’ step-son Tiberius, and through her Agrippa was grandfather to Drusus the Younger. As son-in-law to Augustus, his other daughter, Agrippina the Elder, married Germanicus, the son of Drusus the Elder (Nero Claudius Drusus), and through her Agrippa was the grandfather both of the future emperor Caligula and Agrippina the Younger, the mother of Emperor Nero – Agrippa’s great-grandson. Iulia also bore Agrippa three sons who were adopted by Augustus himself as his heirs, all of whom met tragic ends while still young men. Had they lived, and one of these succeeded him as emperor, the story of the Roman Empire may have taken a very different course.