DRUSUS, the name of a distinguished family of the Bens Livia, which contributed a. large proportion of eminent men to the Roman commonwealth. The most conspicuous of the Drusi were: 1. M. Livius DRUSIIS, tribune of the people in 122 B.0 , who made it the business of his public life to thwart the democratic policy of his Colleague, C. Gracchus, and uphold the cause of the senate and nobles, which he did with much skill and ultimate success. 2. His son, who bore the same name as himself, and whose, dangerous and daring political intrigues, conducted partly for the benefit of the aristo cratic party whose sympathies he inherited, and not less for his own aggrandizement, kept Rome in perpetual turmoil and disorder from 100 B.C. till his death in 91 B.c. Though identified by birth and sympathy with the patricians, Drusus, to win the people, renewed some of the most liberal measures of the Gracchi, and carried agrarian and frumentarian laws. During the latter years of his life, he contrived to gather into his own hands the threads of the various political movements which resulted in the social war; but his almost incredible pride and arrogance had made him so many enemies, that his death, in the flower of his age, was regretted as little by his friends as by his foes. 3. The most illustrious of the Drusi was Nero Claudius Drusus, commonly called Drusus senior, the stepson of the emperor Augustus, and younger brother of the emperor Tiberits. He was born in 38 B.c., and as he grew up, developed splendid per
sonal qualities as well as the highest capacity for civil and military affairs. He began his public career in 19 B.C., and signalized himself When only 23 years old by his defeat of the Rhwti and other Alpine tribes which infested the u. of Italy. In 13 B.C., he was sent into Gaul, then in revolt, and, after crushing the rebels there, pushed across the Rhine in pursuit of their,German allies. In this campaign he subdued the Sicambri and Frisii, and forced his way to the German ocean, being the first Roman general who had done so. From this time he made the business of his life to establish the Roman supremacy in Germany, partly by conquest, and partly by the execution of great military works. Among these latter may be mentioned the canal joining the Rhine with the Ysse], the two bridges over the Rhine itself, and the embankments of the Valialis, the Waal. In 11 B.c., he conquered the Usipetes, the Cherusci, and the Suevi; in the following year, the Chatti, the Nervii, and was prosecuting the work of subjuga tion in 9 B.C., when a fall from his horse cut short his brilliant career in his 30th year. For his exploits in Germany, D. was rewarded with the title of Germanicus, but care must be taken not to confound him with the celebrated Germanicus, his own son. See GERMANICITS.