• General Notes

  Note: Germanicus Caesar (15 BC-AD19) Roman general, son of the general Nero Claudius Drusus, and nephew and adopted son of Emperor Tiberius. Germanicus took part in campaigns against the Pannonian, Dalmatian, and Germanic tribes in eastern and northern Europe. In AD12 he was consul, and the following year Emperor Augustus appointed him to command the eight Roman legions on the Rhine. In AD14, on the death of Augustus, the legions mutinied, but Germanicus quelled the insurrection, after which he led the soldiers into battle. He routed the Marsi, a German tribe, and the next year met the German leader Arminius (Hermann), chief of the Cherusci, who in AD 9 had destroyed three Roman legions and driven their general, Publius Quintilius Varus, to suicide. The engagement was indecisive, but in AD 16 Germanicus, at great risk to his own troops, won two victories over Arminius and claimed Germany for Rome. Emperor Tiberius recalled Germanicus to Rome in AD17 because he felt the Germans could most successfully be dealt with through diplomacy. The young general was received with great enthusiasm and honored with a triumph, the traditional celebration for victorious generals. Tiberius then dispatched him to settle a dispute that had arisen in the eastern provinces of Armenia and Parthia. On this mission, Germanicus was stricken with a fatal illness at Antioch. His friends charged that he had been poisoned on orders from Tiberius, who was supposed to have been jealous of his popularity. Germanicus, widely mourned in the provinces and in Rome, was survived by his wife Agrippina and six children. These included Caligula, later emperor, and a daughter, Agrippina the Younger, who became the mother of Emperor Nero.
  

Details of  Germanicus 's family with  Vipsania Agrippina   Major