Page:EB1911 - Volume 08.djvu/635

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DRUSUS CAESAR—DRYBURGH ABBEY
  

on the 14th of September. Suetonius mentions an absurd rumour that he had been poisoned by order of Augustus, because he had refused to obey the order for his recall. The body was carried to the winter quarters of the army, whence it was escorted by Tiberius to Rome, the procession being joined by Augustus at Ticinum (Pavia). Tiberius delivered an oration over the remains in the Forum, whence they were conveyed to the Campus Martius and cremated, and ashes being deposited in the mausoleum of Augustus.

Drusus was one of the most distinguished men of his time. His agreeable manners, handsome person and brilliant military talents gained him the affection of the troops, while his sympathy with republican principles, endeared him to the people. It is not too much to say that, had he and his son lived long enough, they might have brought about the abolition of the monarchy. Although the successes of Drusus, resulting in the subjection of the German tribes from the Rhine to the Elbe, were too rapid to be lasting, they brought home the fact of the existence of the Romans to many who had never heard their name. For his victories he received the title of Germanicus. He married Antonia, the daughter of Marcus Antonius the triumvir, by whom he had three children: Germanicus, adopted by Tiberius; Claudius, afterwards emperor; and a daughter Livilla.

The chief ancient authorities for the life of Drusus are Dio Cassius, the epitomes of Livy, Suetonius (Claudius), Tacitus (portions of the Annals), Florus (whose chief source is Livy), Velleius Paterculus, and the Consolatio ad Liviam. The German campaigns were described in the last books of Livy and the lost Bella Germaniae of the elder Pliny. As would naturally be expected, they have produced an extensive literature in Germany, J. Asbach’s “Die Feldzüge des Nero Claudius Drusus” (Rhein. Jahrb. lxxxv. 14-30) being especially recommended; see also Mommsen’s History of the Roman Provinces, i.; Merivale, History of the Romans under the Empire, ch. 36; A. Stein in Pauly-Wissowa’s Realencyclopädie (1899), where other authorities are given; J. C. Tarver, Tiberius the Tyrant (1902).


DRUSUS CAESAR (c. 15 B.C.A.D. 23), commonly called Drusus junior, to distinguish him from his uncle Nero Claudius Drusus, was the only son of the emperor Tiberius by his first wife Vipsania Agrippina. After having held several curule offices, he was consul elect in A.D. 14, the year of Augustus’s death. His father, on his accession to the throne, immediately sent him to put down a mutiny of the troops in Pannonia, a task which he successfully accomplished (Tacitus, Annals, i. 24-30). As governor of Illyricum (17), he set the Germanic tribes against one another, and encouraged Catualda, chief of the Gothones, to drive out Marbod (Maroboduus), king of the Marcomanni. On his return Drusus was consul a second time (21) and in the following year received the tribunician authority from Tiberius, which practically indicated him as heir to the throne. Sejanus, who also aspired to the supreme power, determined to remove Drusus. He endeavoured to poison Tiberius’s mind against him, seduced Drusus’s wife and persuaded her to assist him in murdering her husband. Her physician Eudemus prepared and the eunuch Lygdus administered a slow poison, from the effects of which Drusus died after a lingering illness. Although Tiberius is said to have received the news of his death with indifference, there is no reason to suppose that he had any hand in it; indeed, he seems to have entertained a genuine affection for his son. Drusus was a man of violent passions, a drunkard and a debauchee, but not entirely devoid of better feelings, as is shown by his undoubtedly sincere grief at the death of Germanicus. The cunning and reserve which he exhibited on occasion were probably due to the instructions or influence of Tiberius (Annals, iii. 8), since he was himself naturally frank and open, and for this reason, notwithstanding his vices, more popular than his father. He revelled in bloody gladiatorial displays, and the sharpest swords used on such occasions were called “Drusine.”

See Tacitus, Annals, i. 76, iv. 8-11; Dio Cassius lvii. 13, 14; Suetonius, Tiberius, 62; J. C. Tarver, Tiberius the Tyrant (1902).


DRYADES, or Hamadryades, in Greek mythology, nymphs of trees and woods. Each particular tree (δρῦς) was the home of its own special Dryad, who was supposed to be born and to die with it (ἅμα).


DRYANDER, JONAS (1748–1810), Swedish botanist, was born in 1748. By his uncle, Dr Lars Montin, to whom his education was entrusted, he was sent to the university of Gothenburg, whence he removed to Lund. After taking his degree there in 1776, he studied at Upsala under Linnaeus, and then became for a time tutor to a young Swedish nobleman. He next visited England, and, on the death of his friend Dr Daniel Charles Solander (1736–1782), succeeded him as librarian to Sir Joseph Banks. He was librarian to the Royal Society and also to the Linnean Society. Of the latter, in 1788, he was one of the founders, and, when it was incorporated by royal charter in 1802, he took a leading part in drawing up its laws and regulations. He was vice-president of the society till his death, which took place in London on the 19th of October 1810. Besides papers in the Transactions of the Linnean and other societies, Dryander published Dissertatio gradualis fungos regno vegetabili vindicans (Lund, 1776), and Catalogus bibliothecae historico-naturalis Josephi Banks, Bart. (London, 1796–1800, 5 vols.). He also edited the first and part of the second edition of W. Aiton’s Hortus Kewensis and W. Roxburgh’s Plants of the Coast of Coromandel.


DRYBURGH ABBEY, a monastic ruin in the extreme south-west of Berwickshire, Scotland, about 5 m. S.E. of Melrose, and 11/4 m. E. of St Boswells station on the North British railway’s Waverley route from Edinburgh to Carlisle. The name has been derived from the Gaelic darach bruach, “oak bank,” in allusion to the fact that the Druids once practised their rites here. The abbey occupies the spot where, about 522, St Modan, an Irish Culdee, established a sanctuary—a secluded position on a tongue of land washed on three sides by the Tweed. Founded in 1150 by David I.—though it has also been ascribed to Hugh de Morville (d. 1162), lord of Lauderdale and constable of Scotland—it enjoyed great prosperity until 1322, when it was partially destroyed by the English under Edward II. It suffered again at the hands of Richard II. in 1385, and was reduced to ruin during the expedition of the earl of Hertford in 1545. After the Reformation the estate was erected into a temporal lordship and given (1604) by James VI. to John Erskine, 2nd earl of Mar. At a later date it was sold, but reverted to a branch of the Erskines in 1786, when it was acquired by the 11th earl of Buchan. In 1700 the abbey lands belonged to Thomas Haliburton, Scott’s great-grandfather, and, but for an extravagant grand-uncle who became bankrupt and had to part with the property, they would have descended to Sir Walter by inheritance. “We have nothing left of Dryburgh,” he said, “but the right of stretching our bones there.” The style in general is Early English, but the west door and the restored entrance from the nave to the cloisters are fine examples of transitional Norman. Though in various stages of decay, nearly every one of the monastic buildings is represented by a fragment. Of the cruciform church—190 ft. long by 75 broad at the transepts—there remain some of the outer walls, a segment of the choir, the east aisle of the north transept, the stumps of some of the pillars of the nave, the west gable, the south transept and its adjacent chapel of St Modan. The most beautiful of these relics is St Mary’s aisle of the north transept, in which were buried Sir Walter Scott (1832), his wife, son, his son-in-law John Gibson Lockhart, and his ancestors, the Haliburtons of New Mains. Sir Walter’s tomb is a plain block of polished Peterhead granite, inscribed only with his name and the dates of his birth and death. The next aisle is the burial-place of the Erskines of Shielhill and the Haigs of Bemersyde. On the south side of the church, at a lower level, stand the cloisters, about 100 ft. square, bounded on the west by the dungeons, on the south-west by the cellars and refectory, in the west wall of which is an exquisite ivy-clad rose window, and on the east by the chapter-house, on a still lower level. The chapter-house, a lofty building with vaulted roof, is the most complete structure of the group, and adjoining it on the south are, first the abbot’s parlour and then the library, the three apartments communicating with each other, and constituting the oldest portion of the abbey. In the grounds are many venerable trees, a yew near the chapter-house being at least coeval with the abbey.