GERMANICUS CAESAR (i 5 B.C.—A.D. 19), a Roman gen eral and provincial governor in the reign of Tiberius. The name Germanicus, the only one by which he is known in history, he inherited from his father, Nero Claudius Drusus, the famous general, brother of Tiberius and stepson of Augustus. His mother was the younger Antonia, daughter of Marcus Antonius and niece of Augustus, and he married Agrippina, the granddaughter of the same emperor. It was natural, therefore, that he should be regarded as a candidate for the purple. Augustus, it would seem, long hesitated whether he should name him as his successor, and as a compromise required his uncle Tiberius to adopt him, though Tiberius had a son of his own. Of his early years and education little is known. Suetonius and Ovid allow him a repu tation as an orator.
At the age of 20 he served under Tiberius, and received the triumphal insignia for crushing the revolt in Dalmatia and Pan nonia. In A.D. I I he accompanied Tiberius in his campaign on the Rhine. In 12 he was made consul, and increased his popularity by appearing as an advocate in the courts of justice, and by the celebration of brilliant games. Soon afterwards he was appointed by Augustus to the command of the eight legions on the Rhine. The news of the emperor's death (14) found Germanicus at Lugdunum (Lyons), where he was superintending the census of Gaul. Close upon this came the report that a mutiny had broken out among his legions on the lower Rhine. Germanicus hurried back to the camp, which was now in open insurrection. The tumult was with difficulty quelled, partly by concessions, for which the authority of the emperor was forged, but chiefly owing to his personal popularity. Some of the soldiers suggested that he should claim the empire for himself, but he refused. In order to calm the excitement Germanicus determined at once on an active campaign. Crossing the Rhine, he attacked and routed the Marsi, and laid waste the valley of the Ems. In the following year he marched against Arminius, the conqueror of Varus, and performed the last rites over the remains of the Roman soldiers that still lay there unburied, erecting a barrow to mark the spot. Arminius, however, favoured by the marshy ground, was able to hold his own, and it required another campaign before he was finally defeated. A masterly combined movement by land and water enabled Germanicus to concentrate his forces against the main body of the Germans encamped on the Weser, and to crush them in two obstinately contested battles.
The success of Germanicus had already stirred the jealousy and fears of Tiberius, and he was reluctantly compelled to return to Rome. On May 26, 17 he celebrated a triumph. The enthu siasm with which he was welcomed, not only by the populace, but by the emperor's own praetorians, was so great that the earliest pretext was seized to remove him from Rome. He was sent to the East with extraordinary powers to settle a disputed succes sion in Parthia and Armenia. At the same time Gnaeus Calpur nius Piso, one of the most violent and ambitious of the old nobility, was sent as governor of Syria to watch his movements. Germanicus proceeded by easy stages to his province, halting on his way in Dalmatia, and visiting the battle-field of Actium, Athens, Ilium and other places of historic interest. When he reached his destination, he found little difficulty in effecting the settlement of the disturbed provinces, notwithstanding Piso's violent and persistent opposition. At Artaxata Zeno, the popular candidate for the throne, was crowned king of Armenia. To the provinces of Cappadocia and Commagene Roman governors were assigned ; Parthia was conciliated by the banishment of the de throned king Vonones. .
After wintering in Syria Germanicus started for a tour in Egypt, but he was warned by Tiberius that he was thereby transgressing an unwritten law which forbade any Roman of rank to set foot in Egypt without express permission. On his return to Syria he found that all his arrangements had been up set by Piso. At Epidaphne near Antioch he was attacked by a fatal illness which he himself and his friends attributed to poison administered by Plancina, the wife of Piso, at the instiga tion of Tiberius. His ashes were brought to Rome in the f ollow ing year (2o) by his wife Agrippina, and deposited in the grave of Augustus. He had nine children, six of whom, three sons and three daughters, survived him, amongst them the future emperor Gaius and the notorious Agrippina, the mother of Nero. The news of his death cast a gloom over the whole empire.
He possessed considerable literary abilities ; his speeches and Greek comedies were highly spoken of by his contemporaries. In addition to monographs by A. Zingerle (Trent, 1867) and A. Breysig (Erfurt, 1892), there are treatises on the German cam paigns by E. von Wietersheim (185o) , P. Hofer (1884), F. Knoke (1887, 1889), W. Fricke (1889), A. Taramelli (1891), Dahm (19o2). See Tacitus, Annals, i.—iv. (ed. Furneaux) ; Suetonius, Augustus, Tiberius; J. C. Tarver, Tiberius (igoa) ; Merivale, Hist. of the Romans under the Empire, chs. 42, 43 ; H. Schiller, Geschichte der romischen Kaiserzeit, i. I pp. 258, 261-266, 27o-276; M. Schanz, Geschichte der romischen Literatur, pt. ii. (end ed., r9o1), and Teuffel Schwabe, Hist. of Roman Literature (Eng. tr., 19oo),