Background
His mother Livilla was either put to death or committed suicide because she had been plotting with Sejanus to overthrow Tiberius, and also because she may have worked with Sejanus to poison her husband.
His mother Livilla was either put to death or committed suicide because she had been plotting with Sejanus to overthrow Tiberius, and also because she may have worked with Sejanus to poison her husband.
Gemellus is a nickname meaning "the twin". Gemellus" father Drusus died mysteriously when Gemellus was only four. lieutenant is believed that Drusus died at the hands of the Praetorian Prefect, Lucius Aelius Sejanus.
Little is known about Gemellus" life, as he was largely ignored by most of the Imperial family, so much so that one of the major landmarks of his youth, the toga virilis, wasn"t celebrated until he was eighteen.
The normal age to celebrate this was fourteen years. Livilla had been Sejanus" lover for a number of years before their deaths, and many including Tiberius believed that both Gemelli were really Sejanus" sons.
Tiberius died March 16, 37 AD, and Caligula became Emperor. Suetonius writes that Caligula "sent a military tribune to kill young Tiberius without warning, on the pretext that Tiberius had insulted him by taking an antidote against poison -his breath smelled of lieutenant. young Tiberius" breath smelled of medicine taken for a persistent cough which was gaining a hold on his lungs."
Little has been written about Gemellus.
Most of the information we know about him has been connected to material about Caligula.
In the episode "Zeus, by Jove!" of the 1976 British Broadcasting Corporation television series I, Claudius, based on the novels I, Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves, Gemellus was portrayed by Douglas Melbourne. In this version Gemellus is beheaded as a child on the orders of Caligula as a cure for his constant coughing. The novel outright states that Gemellus is the son of Sejanus and not Castor.
In the theatrical film Caligula he was portrayed by Bruno Brive.