Germanicus

Born into the patrician gens Claudia in 15 BC, Germanicus inherited his name from a father who never knew him - the agnomen awarded posthumously for victories in Germania. Adopted by his uncle Tiberius in AD 4, he married Augustus's granddaughter Agrippina and climbed Rome's ladder young: quaestor at an illegal age, consul by 12, then proconsul commanding a third of the empire's legions. From AD 14 to 16 he drove into Germania, reversed the catastrophe of the Teutoburg Forest, and brought back two lost eagles. He triumphed in Rome in 17, reorganized Asia Minor the next year, then fell ill in Antioch during a bitter feud with Syria's governor. He died there in October 19, thirty-three years old, poison suspected but unproven, leaving three children - one of whom would become Caligula.