Nero Claudius Drusus, nephew and stepson of Roman emperor Augustus, is easily elected Consul for 9 BCE, but once more leaves the city before assuming office.

He once again smashes the Chatti, and then begins a campaign against the Marcomanni, but is turned back across the Rhine.

Drusus dies soon after in consequence of a fall from a horse, lingering on for a month after the accident.

His brother Tiberius Claudius Nero, who had been at Ticinum, on the Po River, south of what is now Milan, four hundred miles away, rides day and night to be with his younger brother, arriving just in time to see Drusus die.

Interestingly, soon before his death Drusus had written a letter to Tiberius complaining about the style in which Augustus rules.

Suetonius reports that he had refused to return to Rome just before his death.

Tiberius escorts the body back to Rome, walking in front of it on foot all the way.

Drusus' ashes are deposited in the Mausoleum of Augustus.

He remains extremely popular with the legionaries, who erect a monument (the Drususstein) in Moguntiacum (modern Mainz) on his behalf.

Remnants of this are still standing.

His family is granted the hereditary honorific "Germanicus", which is given to his eldest son before passing to his youngest.

Augustus will later write a biography of him that does not survive.

Drusus had in about 16 BCE married the younger Antonia, daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia.

Their surviving children are Germanicus, Livilla, and Claudius, who will later become emperor.