The Identification of Drusus the Elder: Agents and Heirs

It is curious that few have tried systematically to identify the young general in BR I:2; even if his features were destroyed like those of the sacrificant of BR II:1, the composition and figure type would lead an attentive observer to see in this young general a prince of the Julio-Claudian house.^[7] To use only the frame of reference provided by the cup itself: this is a person of high-enough stature to sponsor a legation to the emperor and appear before him in dress armor with a sword. He is strongly linked by composition and iconography to two of the divinities on the other side of the cup. In dress and function, this prince is Mars' analogue: Mars, beardless and in the same smooth, fitted cuirass,^[8] also sponsors foreign beings before the emperor. The young general's location in the composition points to the other young male in the allegory: the Genius of the Roman People also stands at the left, his body facing front, his head turned sharply in profile. Each has a very young child at his feet (Amor/foreign child); each has his lower legs hidden by figures in procession; and both supply the same visual note, the gleaming accent provided by the smooth and compact curves of their ideally modeled torsos—the Genius literally naked, the general in a fitted body cuirass that gives the same effect. In a scene focused on Augustus, a subordinate likened to the Genius of the Roman People and to Mars, youthful embodiments of the vis and virtus of the Roman people, must belong to the imperial family himself. And in relation to the other cup, this young general is the analogue to the cuirassed imperator Tiberius sacrificing to Jupiter.

Second, the young general's features (pl. 21) show that the artist did try to execute a distinctive portrait of an individual. Subsidiary and anonymous figures on these cups generally have regular oval heads and classicized features, like the young Doryphoros-type lictor in front of Angustus; this general has a much blockier head. His features are also quite different from those of Tiberius on BR II:2, who has a long, slim face with attenuated bony features and an aquiline, pointed nose; this prince has a broad, squared visage with a firm jaw and short, straight nose, hair cropped straight across his brow.

These features, together with the northern European setting indicated by the Celtic dress of the foreigners, suggest that this is Drusus the Elder. or his son Germanicus, either of whom could easily be associated with a triumphant Tiberius in the reign of Augustus. Since the depiction can be firmly tied to depictions of the Boscoreale children on the Ara Pacis (figs. 76–77; 13-9 B.C.) and on coins of 8-7 B.C. (fig. 87), this event took place when Germanicus was a child or yet unborn. That leaves Drusus the Elder as the only plausible candidate. What can be seen of his features (especially in contrast to the Tiberius of BR II:2) fits in;^[9] compare the Capitoline Museum busts of Drusus (inv. 283) and Tiberius (inv. 355) from an Italian dynastic series (figs. 109–10).^[10]