Julia Drusilla Minor: The Infant Shadow of a Dynasty
In the history of Rome, few lives were as brief or as tragically punctuated as that of Julia Drusilla, known as Drusilla Minor (39 – 41 CE). The only child of the Emperor Caligula and his fourth wife, Milonia Caesonia, she was born into a world of absolute power and died before she could even begin to understand it.
Her life serves as a grim footnote to the chaotic end of the first branch of the Julio-Claudian house.
A Birth of Divine Proclamation
When Drusilla was born in mid-39 CE, Caligula was at the height of his megalomania. He named the infant after his favorite sister and supposed lover, Drusilla, whom he had deified after her death a year prior.
To Caligula, this child was more than an heir; she was a symbol of his own perceived divinity. To emphasize her status, he took the infant to the Temple of Jupiter Capitolinus and placed her on the lap of the statue of Jupiter, claiming that the King of the Gods was her true father and that he, the Emperor, was merely her earthly guardian.
The “Wild” Princess
Even in her infancy, the Roman historians—likely seeking to emphasize the “monstrous” nature of Caligula’s bloodline—claimed that Drusilla exhibited the same erratic and violent tendencies as her father.
• The Mark of Caligula: Suetonius records that the Emperor was convinced of the child’s legitimacy because of her “natural ferocity.”
• Behavior: It was reported that even as a toddler, she would scratch and claw at the faces and eyes of other children playing with her. Rather than being concerned, Caligula reportedly delighted in this behavior, seeing it as proof of her imperial spirit.
The Massacre on the Palatine
Drusilla Minor’s life was tethered to her father’s survival. On January 24, 41 CE, a group of Praetorian guards led by Cassius Chaerea assassinated Caligula in a covered walkway on the Palatine Hill.
The conspirators knew that as long as Caligula’s wife and child lived, the threat of a vengeful restoration or a rallying point for loyalists remained. Shortly after the Emperor was cut down:
1. The Death of Caesonia: Soldiers entered the palace and found Caesonia grieving over Caligula’s body. She was put to the sword.
2. The Fate of the Child: The toddlers’s end was the most brutal of all. According to historical accounts, the young Julia Drusilla was seized by a centurion and had her brains dashed out against a stone wall.
She was only approximately twenty months old.
The End of a Branch
The death of Drusilla Minor marked the total extinction of Caligula’s direct line. While her uncle Claudius was discovered hiding behind a curtain and proclaimed Emperor shortly after, he represented a different branch of the family tree.
In the aftermath of the massacre, the Senate briefly considered restoring the Republic, but the army’s loyalty to the “House of Caesar” (specifically Claudius) ended those dreams. Drusilla Minor remains a poignant symbol of the collateral damage inherent in Roman dynastic struggles—an innocent child whose only “crime” was the name she carried.