The house of the Caesars after AD 23

AD 23: Drusus, Tiberius’s son, dies, and in the emperor’s family the house of Germanicus rises, along with a man who wants to enter it.

Transcript

AD twenty-three. Tiberius’s only son, Drusus, dies.

The emperor is left with a grandson, still a child.

Germanicus, the emperor’s adopted son, forms the second branch.

He died four years earlier.

He leaves a widow, Agrippina.

And three sons, favorites of the people.

Outside the tree stands Sejanus, who wants to enter this family.

Tacitus says his way in is Livilla.

In Sejanus’s eyes only the house of Germanicus now stands between him and power.

In two years he’ll ask the emperor for Livilla.