Who Killed Germanicus?

[Octavia]

Hello everyone. I was just wondering if the sources said anything about who murdered Germanicus? I don't think it was Caligula. Not sure though, but he wiould had been a young boy at the time. What do you all think happened to him and who did it? I believe it could have been poison that killed him. Not sure.

[spittle]

I firmly believe that natural causes killed Germanicus.

After years in Western Europe he travelled to Syria and Armenia where he would have been exposed to bacteria and contagion for which he had little natural immunity.

The idea of the infant Gaius (Caligula) frightening his superstitious father to death is pure fiction.

I could be wrong about this but I think the idea was never even mentioned before Robert Graves used it in his fictional work I, Claudius.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Hello everyone. I was just wondering if the sources said anything about who murdered Germanicus? I don't think it was Caligula. Not sure though, but he wiould had been a young boy at the time. What do you all think happened to him and who did it? I believe it could have been poison that killed him. Not sure.

Salve, Lady O.

Blaming Caius (Caligula) was just R. Graves' fiction.

 

PC Tacitus, C Suetonius T and Cassius Dio all openly suggested Tiberius and Livia poisoned Germanicus.

Many scholars find this quite unlikely, as Tiberius always widely supported his nephew and adopted son.

It seems more like another unsourced accusation on the second emperor from the senatorial historians.

 

Needless to say, the purported signs of poisoning over Germanicus' corpse quoted by both Suetonius and Cassius Dio are just nonsense by modern scientific standards.

[Primus Pilus]

Hello everyone. I was just wondering if the sources said anything about who murdered Germanicus? I don't think it was Caligula. Not sure though, but he wiould had been a young boy at the time. What do you all think happened to him and who did it? I believe it could have been poison that killed him. Not sure.

 

It's most likely to have been natural causes. Perhaps Piso really did poison him, but the evidence is scant. Implication of Tiberius lacks any real credibility. I once when into a rather lengthy counter to the Tiberius killed Germanicus theory, and there's really nothing to it.

[Octavia]

Thanks all. Your info really helped a lot. I thought maybe the whole thing with Caligula was crazy, and there really isn't any evidence that Piso killed Germanicus or Tiberius and Livia.

[Scipio.]

Hmm (bump) so could Sejanus possibly have been tied in with his death? I'm not sure how it might've helped him, but he seems to have poked his nose in all kinds of places.

 

Actually scratch that. Sejanus was against Drusus, so he wouldn't have cut Germanicus out because that would've made Drusus the heir -- ah, I mean it did make Drusus the heir.

 

My knowledge of these decades is hazy . . .

[Scipio.]

Yes, but speculating is more fun than that answer.

 

On the other hand Sejanus sort of gave himself control of Rome when Tiberius slipped off to Capri. What would have happened at that point if Germanicus was still alive?

[Primus Pilus]

Yes, but speculating is more fun than that answer.

 

On the other hand Sejanus sort of gave himself control of Rome when Tiberius slipped off to Capri. What would have happened at that point if Germanicus was still alive?

 

It may have turned out in a similar fashion. Provided that Germanicus were still appointed to the eastern empire, Sejanus still would've been able to cultivate his influence in Rome. They very likely would've been at odds much in the same fashion as Sejanus and Tiberius' son Drusus. However, the very existence of Germanicus and the continuation of the imperial line even after the death of Drusus may have tempered the ambition of Sejanus.

[Scipio.]

Okay . . . this is all very interesting, as I'm starting to look into Tiberius' reign for the first time.

 

Moving away from Sejjie, what about Dando-Collins' theory, suggesting Seneca? Seems to me farfetched, but then I don't know squat about Seneca either.

 

Time to study up *wanders off to shoplift some Tacitus and Seager*

[Primus Pilus]

Okay . . . this is all very interesting, as I'm starting to look into Tiberius' reign for the first time.

 

Moving away from Sejjie, what about Dando-Collins' theory, suggesting Seneca? Seems to me farfetched, but then I don't know squat about Seneca either.

 

Time to study up *wanders off to shoplift some Tacitus and Seager*

 

I haven't read Dando-Collins. He suggests Seneca as what? Seneca Minor was never really in a position to be considered as an heir if that's what Collins was getting at? He is a novelist though of course, so he can take some liberties.

[Scipio.]

Wait, what do you mean by novelist? I thought Dando-Collins does straight history -- popular/narrative/whatever-they-call-it history.

 

I haven't read the book yet but he labels Seneca as the man behind it all, and he's in it together with Agrippina, possibly an affair, too. The whole thing seems a little too romantic in my opinion, but I don't know much about the period, so ...

Edited August 25, 2008 by Scipio.

[ASCLEPIADES]

Salve, S.

Wait, what do you mean by novelist? I thought Dando-Collins does straight history -- popular/narrative/whatever-they-call-it history.

 

I haven't read the book yet but he labels Seneca as the man behind it all, and he's in it together with Agrippina, possibly an affair, too. The whole thing seems a little too romantic in my opinion, but I don't know much about the period, so ...

Checking his titles on Amazon, I would say Mr. Stephen Dando-Collins has done both genres.

 

Indeed, he wrote in Blood of the Caesars (pg. 218) "the man who masterminded the crime (against Germanicus) was none other than Lucius Annaeus Seneca, the same Seneca who became Nero's tutor".

 

Nevertheless, I would prefer the more conservative approach of MT Griffin in Seneca: A Philosopher in Politics:

"The evidence for Seneca's life before his exile in 41 is so slight, and the potential interest of these years, for social history as well as for biography, is so great that few writers on Seneca have resisted the temptation to eke out knowledge with imagination".

[Primus Pilus]

Wait, what do you mean by novelist? I thought Dando-Collins does straight history -- popular/narrative/whatever-they-call-it history.

 

I haven't read the book yet but he labels Seneca as the man behind it all, and he's in it together with Agrippina, possibly an affair, too. The whole thing seems a little too romantic in my opinion, but I don't know much about the period, so ...

 

Considering the speculation and inherent errors in his Roman works, I just figured they were all novels. That may not be fair considering I haven't read them personally, but it's just the way I feel about it based on reviews.

 

What does he cite as the source of Seneca's involvement?

[ASCLEPIADES]

Hello everyone. I was just wondering if the sources said anything about who murdered Germanicus? I don't think it was Caligula.

Here comes Caius Suetonius tranquillus, Vita Caius, cp.I:

 

Germanicus, C. Caesaris pater... annum agens aetatis quartum et tricensimum diuturno morbo Antiochiae obiit ... liuores, qui toto corpore erant, et spumas, quae per os fluebant...

 

"Germanicus, father of Gaius Caesar... died of a lingering illness at Antioch, in the thirty-fourth year of his age... the dark spots which appeared all over his body and the froth which flowed from his mouth..."

 

My first suspicion? Typhus.

But there are of course hundreds of diseases that could have explained those symptoms.

[Octavia]

I don't know what symptoms would give you spots and have you foam at the mouth. Could poison do that? In I, claudius, it was suggested he was poisoned or frightened to death. As for cipio's question about what would happened if Germanicus took over the empire after Tiberius left and all, if he got rid of Sijanus, things would have been much more stable, but that's from the personality I got from the movie about claudius.