a Goddess, as Diva Drusilla, deifying her as a representation of the Roman goddess Venus or the Greek goddess Aphrodite. Drusilla was consecrated as Panthea, most likely on the anniversary of the birthday of Augustus. In addition the other honors she was given after her death by Caligula, he also declared a period of mourning. During this time, it became a capital crime to laugh, bathe, or dine with your parents, spouse, or children. A year later, Caligula named his only known daughter, Julia Drusilla, after his dead sister. Meanwhile, the widowed husband of Drusilla, Marcus Aemilius Lepidus, reportedly became a lover to her sisters, Julia Livilla and Agrippina the Younger, in an apparent attempt to gain their support so that he could succeed Caligula. This political conspiracy was discovered during that autumn by Caligula while in Germania Superior. Lepidus was swiftly executed and Livilla and Agrippina were exiled to the Pontine Islands. Cultural references In the Robert Graves novel, I, Claudius, the narrator of the story states that he believes that Drusilla was killed by Caligula, although he admits that he does not have firm evidence of this. This theme was embellished considerably in the 1976 BBC television adaptation of I, Claudius, where Drusilla was played by Beth Morris. A pregnant Drusilla was subjected to a brutal Caesarean section by an insane Caligula, who swallows the child off-camera as Chronos did his children. A subsequent shot depicting Caligula and his blood-soaked beard was cut from the episode before broadcast in the United States, but has since been restored in later VHS and DVD releases. Teresa Ann Savoy played Drusilla in the 1979 motion picture Caligula, which showed a version of Drusilla dying from a fever, followed by a scene of Caligula licking her corpse in mourning, and then having sexual intercourse with Drusilla one last time in an act of necrophilia. Ancestry See also Julio-Claudian family tree Notes References Further reading Edmund Groag, Arthur Stein, Leiva Petersen (edd.), Prosopographia Imperii Romani saeculi I, II et III (Berlin, 1933), I 664 External links 1st-century Roman women 1st-century Romans 16 births 38 deaths Burials at the Mausoleum of Augustus Children of Germanicus Deified Roman women Incest Julii Caesares Julio-Claudian dynasty People from Koblenz