Abstract

In a recently published article I have suggested an amendment of the textual crux in Suetonius, Tiberius 21. 4 and an interpretation of the passage as providing direct evidence that the arrangement of the marriages of Germanicus and the younger Drusus was integral to Augustus' settlement of 26 June a.d. 4, even if they were not celebrated until early 5. This view differs from the more usual assumption that while the marriages took place in 5, the date of their arrangement was not particularly significant, or from the possibility implied by Levick that Germanicus' marriage may have been arranged to placate the ‘faction’ of the elder Julia after the consolidation in 4 of the position of Livia's descendants. The more precise hypothesis that the marriages were intended as part of the settlement may help us to bring into sharper focus some of the political events of the next few years, and this article attempts to do so; in particular it looks at the internal balance of the settlement; the anomalous separate adoption of Agrippa Postumus; and the decline and fall of Agrippa Postumus and the younger Julia. First, however, some further observations on the hypothesis in my earlier article