Marcus Livius Drusus edit

Career

1. 94 BCE
   Aedile edit

   The date, though uncertain, must precede 91 B. C. Drusus' station and magnificence suggests the curule aedileship, but the obscurity of Reminius the plebeian one. Seidel (FA 79) doubts that he held the office at all since it is not mentioned in his Elogium (a) and Would have preceded his tribunate, and suggests that the passage in Auct. Vir. Ill. refers to his father. But his quaestorship also is not mentioned, although he could hardly have omitted that (b). (MRR2)

2. 91 BCE
   Tribune of the Plebs edit

   Elected Tribune of the Plebs9 for 91 (a), and considered, like his advisers Aemilius Scaurus and Licinius Crassus, to be a conservative and a champion of the Senate (b), Drusus embarked upon a program of reform, in which he hoped to combine the interests and win the support of several classes: 1. the plebs by land and grain laws, with himself as one the commissioners for the assigning of land (c); 2. the senatorial and the equestrian orders, by enrolling 300 knights in the Senate and selecting the juries from the enlarged body, thus having them consist equally of senators and of former knights (d). He added a clause making the knights liable to prosecution for bribery (e). He also carried a currency law providing for the addition of one-eighth of bronze to the silver coinage (f). At least the first two measures were carried against the auspices and existing laws, and were later annulled as illegal (g). With this program he had hoped to gain support for proposals to extend the Roman citizenship to the Italian allies, but failed, in spite of promises he had made to them (h). He himself revealed to the Consuls a plot of the Allies to murder them at the Latin festival and was accused of complicity (i), and was soon afterwards murdered by some unknown agent (j).

Family