Laudator Temporis Acti

Suetonius, Life of Claudius 27.1 (tr. J.C. Rolfe):

He had children by three of his wives: by Urgulanilla, Drusus and Claudia; by Paetina, Antonia; by Messalina, Octavia and a son, at first called Germanicus and later Britannicus. He lost Drusus just before he came to manhood, for he was strangled by a pear which he had thrown into the air in play and caught in his open mouth.

liberos ex tribus uxoribus tulit: ex Vrgulanilla Drusum et Claudiam, ex Paetina Antoniam, ex Messalina Octaviam et quem primo Germanicum, mox Britannicum cognominavit. Drusum prope iam puberem amisit piro per lusum in sublime iactato et hiatu oris excepto strangulatum...

D.L. Page, Further Greek Epigrams (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1981), p. 99 (on Greek Anthology 9.488, by Tryphon):

On the strange death of Terpes; somebody threw a fig which struck him in the mouth while he was singing; it choked him, and he died.

The story recalls the popular tale about Anacreon's death, that he was choked by a grape-pip, and it has something in common with Leonidas 7.504 = HE lxvi (imitated by Apollonides 7.702 = PG xii) on a fisherman choked by swallowing a fish. Peek 1322, an inscription dated II—III A.D., describes a similar death, choking by a fish, if the supplement is correct, [ἰχθυ]βόρος δ' ἀφάτως λαιμὸς ἔκλεισε πνοάς; but the closest parallel is the story told by Suetonius Claud. 27 about the death of Drusus, son of the emperor Claudius and Urgulanilla, Drusum...amisit, piro per lusum in sublime iactato et hiatu oris excepto strangulatum.