Summary

Claudius, born on August 1, 10 BC in Lugdunum (Lyon) and died on October 13, 54 in Rome, was the fourth Roman emperor, reigning from 41 to 54 AD.

Born in Gaul, son of Drusus and Antonia the Younger (daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia), he was the first emperor born outside Italy. Despised as a child because of his physical deficiencies, he was the unloved one of the imperial family and became an adult with an unsure speech and gait, kept away from any public activity. The only adult representative of the Julio-Claudian dynasty after the assassination of Caligula in 41 AD, he was proclaimed emperor by the praetorians, whom he rewarded with a considerable gratuity (a donativum), thus inaugurating a dangerous dependence.

Lacking political experience but well educated, Claude proved to be a capable administrator. He was interested in public affairs, worked with the Senate on laws and presided over trials. His administration of the Empire reinforced centralization by organizing offices run by his freedmen. He enlarged the Empire by annexing new territories, the future provinces of Lycia, Mauretania, Noricum and Thrace. In 43, he started the conquest of Britain, which earned him and his son the nickname of Britannicus.

Open to the promotion of the provincials, it extends the Roman citizenship to many cities in the provinces, in particular in Gaul where it was born. Sensitive to the demands of the Gallic notables, he obtained in 48 from the Senate that they could have access to the public magistracies of Rome and thus to the Senate itself. Censor, it renews the manpower of this institution, eliminating those which do not fill any more the conditions to sit there, which alienates a part of the nobility in place to him.

His private life was not very happy: Messalina, his third wife, gave him two children, Octavia and Britannicus, but his misconduct, or his political ambition, pushed Claudius to have her executed. In fourth marriage, he married his niece Agrippina the Younger, who made him adopt Nero. Claudius died in 54, poisoned at the instigation of Agrippina according to most historians. Nero succeeded him.

The physical weaknesses of Claudius and the influence lent to his wives and freedmen made him despised by the ancient authors, a point of view taken up by historians until the 19th century. Since then, the most recent opinions nuance these negative judgments and re-evaluate the importance of this emperor to consider him as a notable continuator of the work of his predecessors.

Claudius was very severely described by his contemporary Seneca, for personal reasons, and then by later ancient historians who built a strongly devalued image of the emperor, presented as weak in body and mind and manipulated by his entourage. This vision only changed from the 19th century onwards to a clearly valorizing position. Two historiographical inflections then took place, one during the 1930s and one during the 1990s. The first strongly revalorizes the centralizing and bureaucratic aspect, a position that was largely nuanced during the 1990s, when two colloquiums produced numerous works providing a more detailed analysis of his life and reign.

The bias of ancient literary sources

The ancient sources present Claudius in a negative way, at best considered as a fool marked by physical defects and toy of his wives and freedmen, at worst as an unworthy tyrant, as cruel as his predecessor Caligula.

Seneca, familiar with the family of Germanicus, Claudius' brother, and the imperial court, was exiled by Claudius to Corsica in 41, at the instigation of Messalina, and only returned in 49, thanks to Agrippina. Contemporary of Claudius but hostile, he expresses his resentment after Claudius' funeral in a pamphlet, the Apocoloquintosis (from the Greek Ἀποκολοκύνθωσις "pumpkin patch"), a caricatural catalog of the defects and physical deficiencies of the deceased. Further details about Claudius' physique, and also about his work and policy toward physicians, appear in the Natural History of Pliny the Elder, which belongs to the next generation.

The negative vision of ancient historians

The historians of the second century, Tacitus, Suetonius and Dion Cassius, are the most abundant sources available. They shaped the negative view of Claudius. Tacitus' Annals, his last work (probably composed under Trajan), follows chronological order year by year and extends from the death of Augustus to that of Nero, with a significant gap between the years 38 to 47 (books VII to X and the beginning of book XI, lost) which corresponds to the reign of Caligula and the first half of Claudius' reign. Suetonius was a biographer, who grouped events together without concern for chronology and studied the personality of each emperor in the Life of the Twelve Caesars. His Life of Claudius, combining positive and negative points, places him somewhat apart, between the "bad" emperors Tiberius, Galba and Domitian and the "good" princes with some defects, such as Julius Caesar and Vespasian. Suetonius, and Tacitus even more so, consider Claudius as unworthy to reign. Finally, Dion Cassius dedicates the sixtieth book of his Roman History to the reign of Claudius, which compensates for the gap in Tacitus' Annals. However, after the year 47, this history only reached the modern era through extracts transcribed by Byzantine abbreviators, and may therefore be incomplete.

The progressive rehabilitation of the reign of Claudius

The negative portrait of Claudius portrayed by ancient authors is integrated without any hindsight by early modern authors such as Edward Gibbon in their presentation of the "Roman decadence". This depreciation is the cause of the lack of interest of art historians in the study of the iconography of the emperor. The first exhaustive survey did not arrive until 1938 with the work of Meriwether Stuart, and the critical analyses during the 1980s. The first nuances to the depreciative judgments constantly taken up again occur with the first numismatic, epigraphic and papyrological studies during the 19th century.

The rehabilitation began in 1932 with the work of Arnaldo Momigliano, who highlighted the care and fairness Claude brought to the administration of the Empire. This author is carried by the intellectual context of the great works and the planning of the Mussolini Italy. His biography thus insists on a reformer, bureaucrat and centralizer Claudius. This vision meets a favorable echo in the United States in the middle of Roosevelt's New Deal, then Vincenzo Scramuzza published in 1940 The Emperor Claudius.

In her historiographical assessment, Anne-Claire Michel states that "post-war historians and especially those of the 1990s have qualified this excessive valorization and re-evaluate the contribution of the emperor to the history of the principate. To this end, two international colloquia were organized in the early 1990s, one in France. They marked the 2000th anniversary of Claudius' birth and redefined the portrait of this emperor, who was once known for his ineptitude. This scientific cooperation between historians and archaeologists aims to analyze whether the Claudian principate constitutes a turning point in imperial history. The conclusions drawn from these researches and reflections are clear, the years 41 to 54 are part of the continuity of the previous reigns, notably the Augustan ambitions, and prove the acceptance of the new regime by the Roman people. At the same time, Barbara Levick published a biography that definitively nuanced several clichés of Claudius' life, whether on his arrival in power, which was not due to chance alone, or on his centralizing work.

During the 2000s, several historians continued to be interested in the emperor and his reign and further enriched the knowledge we have of Claudius. Annalisa Tortoriello thus completed our knowledge of imperial politics; Donato Fasolini established in 2006 a complete bibliographical work on Claudius; Josiah Osgood carried out a historiographical synthesis of the principate and a study of the diffusion of his image in the provinces.

The historiography of the end of the XXth century establishes that the ancient literary sources judge the emperors essentially according to their relations with the Senate. Thus, the popular character of a great part of the decisions of Claudius and his defiance towards this institution after numerous plots explain the insistence and the bias of a number of authors. This negative portrait is more broadly in line with the rejection by the majority of intellectual elites of the new form of government set up by Augustus, who had retained republican forms, and constantly reinforced by his successors, who gradually moved away from the prince collaborating closely with the Senate. A more recent historiographic vision considers this interpretation as exaggerated, and sees in the writings of Tacitus and Suetonius the will to emphasize the qualities of the first Antonines, in contrast with the Julio-Claudians, and more particularly for the couple Claudius-Messalina, whose defects are opposed to the exemplary husbands Trajan and Plotina.

Claudius is part of the third generation of the Julio-Claudians. Last child of Drusus the elder and Antonia the younger, he was born in Lugdunum in 10 BC. His father died the following year and he was raised with severity by his mother and grandmother. The ancient authors describe him as a little retarded and afflicted with physical defects, which motivated his family's relative exclusion from public ceremonies. His physical problems have been variously diagnosed by contemporary authors, while he shows real intellectual abilities during his studies.

Origin

Claudius belongs by his grandfather Tiberius Claudius Nero to the illustrious patrician family of the Claudii. The latter married Livia, and had two sons, Tiberius and Drusus the elder, before the emperor Augustus forced Livia, pregnant with Drusus, to divorce and marry him. They have no children, in spite of the rumour that Drusus was the illegitimate son of Augustus. Later, Augustus strengthens his ties with the Claudii by marrying Drusus to his niece Antonia the Younger, daughter of Mark Antony and Octavia the Younger. Drusus and Antonia have as children Germanicus, Livilla and Claudius, and perhaps two other children who died very young.

Claude is thus of the third generation of the julio-claudian imperial family, according to complicated alliances between the two families.

Childhood

While her husband Drusus was leading the Roman armies across the Rhine, Antonia gave birth to Claudius on August 1, 10 BC, in Lugdunum (Lyon), where Augustus had established his quarters. He took the name of Tiberius Claudius Nero.

In 9 BC, his father Drusus died during his campaigns in Germania, his leg broken after a fall from a horse. During his public funeral, the Senate posthumously awarded him the nickname of Germanicus (victor over the Germans), which could be passed on to his sons. Claudius, then one year old, was raised by his mother Antonia who retired to the countryside and remained a widow. She describes this sickly child as a runt and sees in him a standard of stupidity. It seems that she ended up entrusting him to her grandmother Livia. Livia is not less hard, she often sends him short and dry letters of reproach. He is badly regarded by his family, more especially as his brother Germanicus has all the qualities which he does not have. He is entrusted to the surveillance of a "responsible of beasts of burden", charged to punish him severely at the least pretext.

Health problems, envisaged pathologies

The family rejection is caused by the weakness of the young Claude. From the beginning of his biography, Suetonius indicates that Claudius undergoes various diseases persisting during all his childhood and his youth. Sénèque puts in scene the goddess Fever which lives many years with him. Dion Cassius evokes a Claudius raised in the disease since the childhood, affected by a tremor of the head and the hands. The first two authors provide the essential of the known physical details. For Suetonius, Claudius has weak knees, making him stagger, his head wobbles perpetually. He has an unpleasant laugh. When he is carried away by anger, he stutters, his mouth foams and his nostrils run, his face appears hideously deformed. In the Apocoloquintosis, Seneca, who was in contact with him, confirms or specifies several symptoms: Claudius "shakes his head incessantly; he drags his right foot ... answers with garbled sounds and an indistinct voice". Seneca also alludes to a possible deafness. Suetonius and Dion Cassius also say he was apathetic, slow-witted and easily confused.

Nevertheless, Claude does not seem to suffer from any infirmity in his moments of calm. Régis Martin summarizes by noting a serene character at rest, which can alternate with a series of tics during movements and under the blow of emotion. One then notices a weakness of the legs which can lead to claudication, uncontrolled head nodding, speech disorders, with sometimes runny nose and mouth, a tendency to deafness. On the other hand, the accusations of debility of mind cannot be taken into account in front of the intellectual qualities of Claude attested by his culture.

Various diagnoses on these physical deficiencies observed from childhood are proposed. The hypothesis of a premature birth, envisaged in 1916 by the American Thomas de Coursey-Ruth, deduced from the qualifications of Claude's mother (a runt that was simply unformed), was not accepted. Before the Second World War, poliomyelitis (then called "infantile paralysis") was often considered as the cause. This was the idea of Robert Graves in his novel I, Claude, published in 1934. According to George Burden and Ali Murad, a number of Claude's disorders suggest that he has Tourette's disease. However, polio or Tourette's disease does not explain all of the symptoms previously described, and recent theories have focused on cerebral palsy, described by Ernestine Leon. Dr. Mirko Grmek reports a neurological pathology that overlaps with all of Claude's symptoms, Little's disease (or spastic diplegia), which occurs in infants who have had a difficult delivery, with insufficient blood flow resulting in more or less extensive brain damage. The repercussions can be gait disorders, causing spastic crossing of the legs "in scissors", speech disorders such as a jerky voice and uncontrolled movements of the face and upper limbs, while preserving a normal intelligence.

Adolescence

In 6 AD, Germanicus and Claudius presided over the funeral games in honor of their deceased father. To prevent the mockery of the public that could cause the sight of its tics, Claude attends the head hidden under a hood. The taking of the virile toga between fifteen and seventeen years is a rite of passage for a young Roman, which marks its exit of childhood. Because of the state of health of Claude, the family organizes the ceremony in clandestinity, by making it carry in litter to the Capitol in the middle of the night, without any solemnity.

Claude applies himself to his studies, but without awakening consideration at his mother Antonia nor his grandmother Livia. In 7, one engages Tite-Live to inculcate him the history, assisted by Sulpicius Flavius and by the philosopher Athénodore. The teenager studied rhetoric and wrote in an "apology of Cicero" the defense of his style against the criticisms of Asinius Gallus. According to a missive sent to Livia, Augustus is surprised by the clarity with which Claudius pronounces a speech in private, he who expresses himself with confusion.

Claudius begins a Roman history, in two books, starting from the death of Julius Caesar and covering the Roman civil wars and the second triumvirate. The rereading and the reproaches made by his mother and grandmother indicate to him that he cannot tell this period with sincerity. When, later, Claudius resumed writing Roman history, he started from the period of peace after the civil wars.

The marriage of young Claude is arranged by his entourage. Thus, in the same way that Germanicus was married to Agrippina the Elder, grand-daughter of Augustus, Claudius is promised to Aemilia Lepida, great-grand-daughter of Augustus, consanguineous alliances which tighten the lines of the Julii and the Claudii and reinforce their prestige. But these engagements are broken after the conspiracy of the parents of this one against Augustus. A second fiancée, Livia Medullina, descendant of the illustrious Camilla, died of illness on the day planned for the wedding. Around 9 AD, Claudius, then 18 years old, was married to Plautia Urgulanilla, daughter of Plautius Silvanus, a protégé of Livia. In 12 AD, Plautia gave him a son, Drusus, who died in his teens.

Historical analyses construct two opposite visions of Claudius before his accession: following a literalist reading of Suetonius, he was very early judged unfit for the role of emperor by Augustus and Tiberius; sidelined for years from any public function, and isolated for a long time, he owed his accession to the Empire only to the death of his numerous competitors and to the late hopes that a part of the Senate and the Praetorian forces put in him.

According to a more favorable point of view, one cannot affirm the exclusion of Claudius, deprived of any dynastic importance before his advent. Contrary to the impression left by Suetonius, he appears from the principate of Augustus as a full member of the Domus Augusta, the nebula of natural or adoptive filiations and matrimonial alliances organized around Augustus' kinship. Two elements are considered in this approach: the inclusion of Claudius in the matrimonial strategies and his presence in the official imperial statuary, which constitutes an alternative source to Suetonius' depreciatory writings.

Place of Claudius in the Domus Augusta

In 4 AD, after the death of his grandsons Caius and Lucius Cesar, Augustus organized once again his succession by tightening the links between his lineage, the Julii, and the family of the Claudii, stemming from Livia: he adopted as his sons his last grandson Agrippa Postumus and his son-in-law Tiberius, and obliged him to adopt in his turn his nephew Germanicus, which left Claudius out of the direct line of succession.

In 12 AD, Germanicus received the Consulate and presided over the Ludi Martiales. On the occasion of this event, Augustus answers to Livia in a letter quoted by Suetonius on the attitude to adopt towards Claudius, once and for all. After having discussed it with Tiberius, he informs Livia and Antonia that he does not want that Claude is in the imperial box, because it would attract the glances and the mockeries which would reflect on his family. He admits however that he takes part in the preparation of the meal of the priests, provided that his brother-in-law Silvanus guides him and supervises him. Barbara Levick sees in this letter the official decision to exclude Claude of any public event, and thus of the imperial succession. According to Pierre Renucci, Claude can make some public appearances, by being framed by relatives or friends, but notes that he will not make anything more. Frédéric Hurlet is more nuanced, and notes that it is normal that Augustus is concerned with taking care of appearances, but that he expresses in this letter and other more benevolent ones his desire to form the young Claude by giving him examples to imitate.

The letters of Augustus transcribed by Suetonius may imply that the emperor kept Claudius apart, but the official affirmation of his membership in the Domus Augusta is attested by the groups of statues representing the members of the imperial dynasty. The most notable is the group that adorned the city gate of Pavia. While the arch, statues and dedications have disappeared, the inscription of a series of dedications was clumsily transcribed in the 11th century and reconstructed by Theodor Mommsen. Dated in the years 7 and 8 AD, they name Augustus and Livia and all their male descendants at that date: to the right of Augustus four names, Tiberius, Germanicus and their respective sons Drusus the Younger and Nero Caesar; to the left of Livia four other names, the deceased princes Caius and Lucius Caesar, together with Drusus Caesar, Germanicus' second son, and finally Claudius. Several scholars have suggested that the name of Claudius was added later because its presence contradicts the marginalization insinuated by Suetonius, but Frédéric Hurlet refutes this possibility because it would lead to impossible irregularities in the layout of the dedications.

The succession of Augustus

Augustus died in 14 AD. His will distributes his fortune to Tiberius and Livia in the first rank, then to Drusus the Younger, Germanicus and his three sons in the second rank, and relegates Claudius as the third rank heir, along with various relatives and friends, with a particular legacy of 800,000 sesterces. Although this testament has only a private value, it corresponds to the diagram of political succession prepared by Augustus, in the absence of any official rule of transmission of the power.

Whatever the disdain of the imperial family underlined by Suetonius, it seems proven that Claude collects in these circumstances a certain public esteem. The knights chose Claudius to lead their delegation and to discuss the modalities of their participation in the funeral procession of Augustus, while the senators added him to the college of the priests created for the worship of Augustus, the Sodales Augustales, in company of Tiberius, Germanicus and Drusus the Young. Frédéric Hurlet notes that Claude is then regarded as one of the spiritual heirs of Augustus, on the same level as his three parents. However, the priestly functions, only official role granted to Claude, are only minor dignities granted to any young aristocrat of high rank.

Under the reign of Tiberius

After the death of Augustus, Claude solicits his uncle Tiberius to obtain the same honours as his brother Germanicus. According to Levick, Tiberius maintains the exclusion agreed with Augustus, and answers by granting to Claude only the consular ornaments. Claude insists, Tiberius returns to him a note saying that he sends him forty aurei for the Sigillaires, festival where one offers small gifts to the children. When the senators propose that Claude takes part in their debates, Tiberius refuses again.

In October 19 AD, Germanicus died suddenly in the East. The urn containing his ashes was brought back to Italy to organize his public funeral, probably in January 20 AD. The funeral procession was welcomed in Terracina, 100 km from Rome, by Claudius and his cousin Drusus the Younger accompanied by consuls, senators and citizens, while neither Antonia the Younger, mother of the deceased, nor Tiberius, his adoptive father, were present. Among the monuments decreed by the Senate in the honor of Germanicus, one knows precisely the statuary of an arch at the entry of the circus Flaminius, thanks to the inscription of the Tabula Siarensis: in addition to Germanicus on a tank appear there his parents, his brother Claudius and his sister Livilla, and his children, with the exclusion of Tiberius and the descent of this last. Levick affirms that Claudius is in a humiliating place, between the sister of Germanicus and his children, a judgement that Hurlet considers abusive insofar as the precise disposition of the statues is unknown.

Germanicus left a widow, Agrippina the Elder, and six children, including three sons who were opposed as heirs apparent to Drusus the Younger, son of Tiberius and husband of Livilla, sister of Germanicus and Claudius. The rivalries during the following years between the two family branches are worsened by the intrigues of the ambitious prefect of the prétoire Séjan, former close to Germanicus, man of confidence of the emperor and hated by Drusus the Young. Séjan gets closer to Domus Augusta by the promise in 20 of a marriage between his daughter and Drusus, son of Claude. The marriage however does not take place, because the young man dies before, choked by a pear which he played to catch with his mouth.

In 23, the son of Tiberius Drusus the Younger (Drusus II) dies, poisoned by Sejan with the complicity of Livilla, a forfeit only revealed years later. This disappearance leaves in the line of succession only the two young sons that he had of Livilla, and the three sons of Germanicus, two teenagers, Nero and Drusus III, and Caius still child. Tiberius began the promotion of Nero and Drusus III, by making them grant the questorship five years before the legal age, and by marrying Nero to the daughter of the deceased Drusus II. But Claude is for the first time the only adult relative of the old Tiberius, which would make him a potential heir. It is probably from this moment that dates the reflexion of his sister Livilla who, having heard that he would be one day emperor, deplores publicly that such a misfortune and such a shame are reserved to the Roman people. According to Frédéric Hurlet, Livilla's resentment does not reflect her brother's incapacity as Suetonius suggests, but is better understood by the fear that Claudius would oust his sons.

Around 24, Claudius repudiated Plautia Urgulanilla, under the accusation of debauchery and adultery, and sent back her daughter, a baby of a few months, considered illegitimate. He remarried soon after, the same year or certainly before 28 or 30, with Ælia Pætina, daughter of a former consul and linked to the family of Séjan, of whom he had a daughter, Claudia Antonia. Claudius appears very rarely in the years 23 to 30, as if neutralized by this alliance, while Sejan and Livilla eliminate Agrippina the Elder and her sons Nero and Drusus. Their plots are denounced to Tiberius in 31: Séjan is then executed, Livilla disappears and is struck of damnatio memoriae. Claudius resumed his distance by divorcing Ælia Pætina, who had become embarrassing because of her family ties with Séjan.

Scholarly works

Claudius was a prolific writer throughout his life. According to the historian Arnaldo Momigliano, it is during the reign of Tiberius, corresponding to the peak of Claudius' literary production, that it becomes politically frowned upon to speak about republican Rome. If Velleius Paterculus, who spared Octavian and Tiberius and flattered Sejan, was published, Aulus Cremutius Cordus was condemned in 25 AD, accused of having composed Annals praising the assassins of Caesar Brutus and Cassius.

Young people turn to the more recent imperial history, or to little known ancient subjects. Claudius was at this time one of the few scholars interested in both fields. In addition to his History of the Reign of Augustus, written in forty-one books in Latin, probably one per year for the period between 27 BC and 14 AD, the first version of which in two books had caused him difficulties, his works include a History of the Tyrrhenians (Greek name for the Etruscans) in twenty volumes and a History of Carthage in eight volumes, both in Greek. These Histories, begun under the aegis of Titus Livius, were probably completed before the proclamation of Claudius. Arnaldo Momigliano, who nevertheless rehabilitates the government of Claudius, despises these historical works and classifies them with the row of pedantic compilations of former authors.

Jacques Heurgon contradicts it in 1954 by affirming the seriousness of the Etruscan interest of Claude. Indeed, his marriage during fifteen years with Plautia Urgulanilla, stemming from a powerful Tuscan family, had to open him the access to the Etruscan culture. We notice it when he supports before the Senate the maintenance of the college of the haruspices, because "it was not necessary to let perish the most ancient of the cultivated arts in Italy". And in his speech on the Gallic senators, he gives details of the Etruscan kings of Rome appreciably different from those of Tite-Live.

Finally, he writes his autobiography in eight volumes that Suetonius judges devoid of spirit. Claudius severely criticizes his predecessors and members of his family in the speeches that have survived.

None of these works has survived. Suetonius lists Claudius' works, but seems to draw only from his autobiography to report the severity he suffered as a child. Claudius is also the source of some passages in Pliny the Elder's Natural History on geography and natural history.

Claudius also proposed a reform of the Latin alphabet by adding three new letters, two of which are the equivalent of modern letters: the V (the digamma inversum Ⅎ), a consonant that the Latin writing does not distinguish from the vowel U (the sonus medius) and a third (the antisigma) transcribing the sounds PS . He published before his accession a writing proposing them and instituted them in an official way during his censorship, but his letters did not last after his reign.

Despised leisure activities

Put aside, Claudius does not devote himself only to intellectual leisure. According to Suetonius, he surrounded himself with despicable people and devoted himself to drunkenness and games. He was an avid dice player, which Seneca caricatures by showing him shaking a horn with a hole in it, and he even wrote a treatise on this game, which was lost like his other writings.

He frequents the banquets with a goinfrerie without measure, drinking and eating until sinking in the torpor. Aurelius Victor evokes a Claudius "shamefully subjected to his stomach". In the eyes of the Roman historians these excesses are the sign of a lack of education, a defect of self-control and a submission to his senses, defects characteristic of a tyrant. He sometimes experienced stomach pains so severe that he spoke of committing suicide. Here again, several medical interpretations are possible: chronic pancreatitis, linked to alcohol abuse and very painful, peptic ulcer or stomach dyspepsia. Seneca also makes in his Apocoloquintosis a caricatured allusion to the flatulence and gout affecting Claudius, flatulence being able to coincide with dyspepsia and gout, a hyperuricemia in modern terms, a likely ailment given his food excesses.

Succession of Tiberius

Tiberius died on March 16, 37. Tacitus affirms that he hesitated on the choice of his successor, between his adoptive and natural grandsons, Caligula, a young inexperienced man, and Tiberius Gemellus, still child, and that he even thought of Claude, of more mature age and desirous of the Good, but whose "mental weakness" ("imminuta mens") constituted an obstacle. His will designates as co-heirs Caligula and Gemellus, equally. Caligula took the lead with the help of the prefect of the praetorium Macron, who had him acclaimed before being confirmed by the Senate. Shortly afterwards, he eliminated Tiberius Gemellus by accusing him of an alleged poisoning attempt.

The will of Tiberius places Claudius as third line heir, as had Augustus, with all the same a bequest of two million sesterces, and recommends him and other relatives, to the armies, the Senate and the Roman people.

Senator under Caligula

Immediately proclaimed emperor, Caligula multiplied the demonstrations of filial piety, celebrated funeral ceremonies in the honor of Tiberius and his deceased parents Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder, granted titles to his grandmother Antonia the Younger. Appointing himself consul suffect, he takes his uncle Claudius as colleague during two months, from July 1 to August 31, which makes him finally enter the Senate. Even if this promotion is the greatest possible honor for Claudius, it is late - he is 46 years old - and is not enough to give him the influence he could hope for. Moreover, he did not give all satisfaction in his functions, because Caligula accuses him of negligence in the follow-up of the installation of statues dedicated to his late brothers Nero and Drusus.

Suetonius reports Caligula's changing attitude towards Claudius: he let him preside over some shows in his place, an opportunity to be acclaimed as "uncle of the emperor" or "brother of Germanicus". But when Claudius was part of a delegation sent to Germania by the Senate to congratulate the emperor for having escaped a plot, Caligula was indignant that his uncle was sent to him as if he were a child to be ruled.

In October 38, a fire ravaged the Aemiliana district, which was located in the suburbs of Rome.

According to Suetonius, Claudius, who had taken refuge for two days in a public building, used all possible means to fight the fire, sending soldiers and his slaves, calling the magistrates of the plebs from all the districts, and rewarding on the spot the help of the volunteer firemen. After the destruction of his house in the fire, the Senate voted for its reconstruction with public funds.

Claudius was then a mature man, with a well-made and slender waist, whose white hair added to the natural kindness of his face, giving, according to Suetonius, grandeur and dignitas to his whole being. He married Messalina, a grand-niece of Augustus much younger than him and who immediately gave him two children, Octavia and Britannicus.

In the absence of ancient sources, we know nothing about Messalina before she became empress, except her ancestry: by her father Marcus Valerius Messalla Barbatus (en) and by her mother Domitia Lepida Minor, she is a great-granddaughter of Octavia the Younger, who is the sister of Augustus, and also the grandmother of Claudius. On the other hand, the date of birth of the bride, her age, the date of this union and especially her reason are all conjectural. The only known chronological reference points are: 12 years as minimum legal age of marriage of a Roman woman and the birth of Britannicus twenty days after the proclamation of Claudius according to Suetonius, that is to say February 12, 41. All the historians agree to place the marriage under Caligula, a little before 41 according to Ronald Syme, perhaps at the time of the consulship of Claudius in 37 for C. Ehrhardt, or still in 38 or at the beginning of 39 for Levick to place the birth of Octavia one year or two before that of her brother, in 39 or at the beginning of 40.

Messalina, wealthy and of a prestigious lineage, was one of the best parties of the moment, capable of bailing out Claudius. For certain historians, Caligula neutralized her by marrying her to Claudius and thus avoided legitimizing another aristocrat, capable of being a potential suitor. Barbara Levick also points out that Messalina's family, and especially her aunt Claudia Pulchra, faithfully supported Agrippina the Elder under Tiberius, in spite of the lawsuits incurred. The prestigious alliance with the imperial family would then be a kind of reward.

According to Suetonius, Claudius' promotion as a senator did not earn him any more respect at the imperial court: he was ridiculed when he fell asleep, as was often the case at the end of meals, by bombarding him with pits or by having him woken up under the whip of jesters. In the Senate, even though he is integrated into the group of the former consuls, he is given the floor only last. Lastly, he is almost ruined when one imposes to him his adhesion to a college of priests, which obliges him to pay eight million sesterces.

Several honorary inscriptions dated between 37 and 41 show on the contrary that Claudius knew a certain prestige in the provinces, like that on a base of statue near the temple of Rome and Augustus of Pola in Illyria, in Alexandria of Troade in Asia, dedicated by a knight become duumvir of this colony. Another inscription in Lugdunum, near the municipal temple, associates Caligula with an imperial princess and Claudius, it could date from Caligula's stay in Gaul at the end of the summer of 39 or more likely in 40.

After more than three years of reign, the discontent against Caligula is such that many wish his disappearance, and some will dare to take action.

In the rivalry between the pretenders to the succession, Claudius found "in spite of himself" the effective support of the armed forces stationed in Rome, while the Senate, venerable but impotent assembly, was unable to restore a regime of republican appearance and had to ratify the proclamation of the new emperor.

The murder of Caligula

Caligula was assassinated on January 24, 41. The account of his murder by Flavius Josephus is the most detailed and predates that of Suetonius: Caligula left a theatrical performance around noon, accompanied by Claudius, his brother-in-law Marcus Vinicius, Valerius Asiaticus and an escort of three tribunes of the praetorium, including Cassius Chaerea and Cornelius Sabinus. In a passage leading to the palace, Claudius, Vinicius and Asiaticus left Caligula, giving, voluntarily or not, the opportunity to Cassius Chaerea and Sabinus to strike Caligula to death.

His wife Caesonia and daughter Julia are also killed during the operation. When the Germans of Caligula's personal guard learn of his death, they randomly kill three senators present at the murder scene.

When Claude learns of the murder of his nephew, he moves away, not knowing if the murderers are not after him. He is discovered there by a soldier and his companions who put Claude in safety by carrying him in a litter to the camp of the praetorian guard, letting believe that he is dead. According to Renucci, who takes again the famous narration of Suetonius, Claudius thus escapes a fatal fate: he could have been killed by the loyalists considering him as a plotter or by the murderers wanting to eliminate all the dynasty. Castorio considers this scene of anthology of a frightened Claude, discovered by chance and proclaimed in spite of him emperor, as a not very credible caricature:

Caligula had made too many enemies for the act of Chaerea to be an isolated initiative. Flavius Josephus gives the name of a conspirator, Callistus, freedman of Caligula, rich and influential, but who feared the arbitrariness of his master and served Claudius secretly. Castorio estimates that Callistus would not have taken the risk of a plot, without having the insurance of the protection of Claude in the event of success. Lastly, Castorio does not exclude that this advent of Claude, "by chance", is an account forged a posteriori, which offers the advantage of exonerating Claude of a participation in the plot, even if it means passing for coward and ridiculous have supposed a direct participation of Claude in the conspiracy, or his tacit acceptance, in the current state of our knowledge, nothing makes it possible to validate these assumptions.

The Senate and Claude

Immediately, the consuls Cn. Sentius Saturninus and Q. Pomponius Secundus gathered the Senate and, with urban cohorts, took control of the Capitol and the forum. The Senate sends two messengers to Claudius, tribunes of the plebs sacrosanct and not senators to avoid leaving hostages, to convince him to come to explain himself to the assembly. Claude in his turn avoids moving, and asks the messengers to transmit his good intentions to the Senate.

Some historians, based on Flavius Josephus, believe that Claudius was influenced by the Judean king, Herod Agrippa. However, a second version by the same author, probably based on a Life of Agrippa, minimizes his role in the events. Herod Agrippa, after having convinced Claudius not to give up power, went to negotiate with the Senate and convinced it not to take up arms. He makes believe that Claudius cannot come because he is retained by force by the praetorians.

Caligula's assassins had not planned a replacement. Several names circulated: Caligula's brother-in-law, Marcus Vinicius, Lucius Annius Vinicianus or Valerius Asiaticus. None was retained, and some high ranking people such as Galba were contacted.

In any case, the Praetorian Guard acclaimed Claude emperor from the evening of the 24th, or at the beginning of the 25th. The Senate can only endorse. Claude promises a donativum of 15 000 sesterces according to Suetonius or 5 000 drachmas according to Josephus (that is to say 20 000 sesterces) to each praetorian. This sum, ten times higher than what had agreed his predecessor, persuaded the last partisans of the Senate to rally with him. The assembly tried a last maneuver by sending Cassius Chaerea, one of the officers who had killed Caligula, but he was received by praetorians shouting at the new emperor and taking out their swords. Claudius answers via Agrippa that he had not wished the power, but that he kept it, having been appointed by the guards. He adds that he will govern with the Senate.

Ultimately, the tragic episode of the assassination of Caligula and the advent of Claudius reinforces the imperial principle, by showing that, even in vacancy of this authority, the Senate does not manage to restore the Republic. The army and the people took their side for the imperial regime.

First steps

As soon as his accession, Claudius worked to reassure, to restore his reputation and to establish his legitimacy. He announced by edict that his anger would be short and harmless, he refuted his alleged stupidity by affirming that he was feigning, to escape Caligula's threats.

Claude decreed immediately a general amnesty, only Cassius Chaerea was executed, because one cannot assassinate an emperor with impunity. His accomplice, the tribune Cornelius Sabinus, was amnestied, but he committed suicide out of solidarity. Claudius had the poisons found in Caligula's apartment destroyed and all his compromising files burned, but refused to have his memory condemned by a damnatio memoriae and to have the day of his death noted as a day of celebration. He recalled the exiles of the previous reign, including his nieces Agrippina the Younger and Julia Livilla.

Claudius did not have as much legitimacy as his predecessors, because he was not descended from Augustus either by blood or by adoption; he therefore insisted, as soon as he was proclaimed, on his belonging to the domus Augusta, the house of Augustus. He promises to govern by taking example on Augustus. He is now called Tiberius Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus: he adopts the name of Augustus as his predecessors at the beginning of their reign, and the cognomen of "Caesar" which becomes on this occasion a title while it had been transmitted until Caligula only by natural descent or adoption. It is probably the Senate which is at the initiative of this transformation. On the other hand, he refused to take as a first name the title of Imperator, too much connoted militarily ("victorious commander"). He kept the honorific nickname of Germanicus, a link with his late heroic brother, and frequently used the expression "son of Drusus" (filius Drusi) in his titles to recall his exemplary father and to appropriate his popularity. He deifies his paternal grandmother Livia, the wife of the divine Augustus, and grants his late mother Antonia the Younger the title of Augusta. Finally, he waited thirty days before coming to accept the honors and titles due to the emperor, as well as that of Father of the Fatherland which he will take only one year later.

A few days after the accession of her husband, on February 12, Messalina gave birth to an imperial heir, whom Claudius named Tiberius Claudius Germanicus, the future Britannicus. The same year 41, the imperial couple completes the family alliances: Claudius marries his eldest daughter Claudia Antonia to Pompey Magnus, illustrious descendant of Pompey, betroths his second daughter Claudia Octavia, still child, to Junius Silanus and makes them award the first honors of the vigintivirate.

On her side, Messaline accused of adultery Julia Livilla, sister of Caligula, and her presumed lover Seneca. Sent back into exile, Julia Livilla died or was executed soon after. Modern historians admit that Messalina could have feared the importance of Julia Livilla, previously accused of conspiracy and exiled, and moreover wife of Marcus Vinicius, considered by the Senate as possible successor of Caligula.

Relations with the Senate

Claude imposes himself to the Senate while considerably weakening its authority, and many senators certainly felt resentment of it. Claude, as a good politician, understands it and assures the powerful institution of his respect while cracking down mercilessly when a plot is unmasked.

Unlike Caligula, Claudius was careful to spare the senators, showing them the courtesy due to their rank. For example, during regular sessions, the emperor sat among the assembly of the Senate, speaking when it was his turn and rising to address the assembly, although standing for long periods was difficult for him. During the presentation of a law, he sits on the bench reserved for the tribunes in his role as bearer of the tribune power (being a patrician, the emperor cannot officially be tribune of the plebs but this power was granted to the previous emperors). Suetonius, failing to pin him down for his lack of civility, insinuates that he shows too much.

Nevertheless, Claude remains prudent and, after having requested the agreement of the Senate, is accompanied in the curia of an escort of protection formed of the prefect of the praetorium and of military tribunes.

According to an extract of speech found on a fragment of papyrus, Claude encourages the senators to debate the bills. Claudius also cracks down on absenteeism in the Senate, so much so that, according to Dion Cassius, several senators severely punished for their absence commit suicide, an episode lacking in precision, of which one does not know the share of reality or of slander.

In '45, in order to cut short the absences, Claude withdrew from the Senate the right to issue leaves, and had it exclusively attributed to him.

Nevertheless, threats quickly emanated from a part of the Senate. Executions and suicides of senators will follow one another, for plots or imperial suspicions, reported by Suetonius, Dion Cassius and Tacitus. These explain them by the fearful character of Claude, dreading an assassination and play of the intrigues of a perverse Messaline, supported by its freedmen. These historians justify the accusations formulated by Messaline by her jealousy against the possible rivals, her greed for the goods of her victims or her will of sexual domination, sometimes even both. The attitude of modern historians varies from respect for the great ancient authors, where everything is true, to circumspection that tries to disentangle the true from the false in order to reinterpret history, to hypercriticism, which denies any historical certainty on the negative presentation of the intentions of Claudius and his entourage. Among the theories interpreting imperial motivations, Levick considers that the imperial couple conciliates potential rivals, and waits until they are vulnerable to eliminate them if the danger persists. Renucci shares this view: Tacitus and the other historians should not be read at face value, but imply much more than they express. For him, Claudius does not hesitate to eliminate those he fears, even if it means trying to put them to sleep at first by various honors and alliances, in order to eliminate them when the opportunity arises.

Shortly after the proclamation of Claudius, in 42, Suetonius and Dion Cassius quote a first execution of a senator, that of Appius Silanus, legate in Spain then husband in second marriage of Domitia Lepida, the mother of Messalina. According to Dion Cassius, he would have offended Messaline by refusing to be her lover. While expressing reservations, Suetonius exposes with a rocambolical machination: by exploiting the fear of Claudius, Messalina then the freedman Narcissus claim to have dreamed of his assassination by Appius Silanus, and obtain his killing as soon as he presents himself at the palace. Modern historians doubt this account, too much in conformity with the image of a criminal and frustrated Messalina and of a cowardly Claudius manipulated by his entourage. For Levick, followed by Renucci, Claudius is neither stupid nor innocent and it is him who inspired a preventive elimination of Silanus, after having attracted him to the imperial court. Others suppose a plot of Silanus, discovered in time.

Shortly after, Scribonianus, legate of Dalmatie, revolted, incited by the senator Vinicianus, quoted in 41 as a possible successor of Caligula and fearing to pay it with his life. Badly prepared, perhaps improvised following the execution of Appius Silanus, the attempt is a failure, the soldiers refuse to follow Scribonianus who commits suicide or is killed. Caecina Paetus, member of the conspiracy, is arrested in Dalmatie and transferred to Rome. His wife Arria encourages him to commit suicide by stabbing herself. According to Dion Cassius, the indictments are made in the Senate, in the presence of Claude, and a great number of conspirators, senators of which Vinicianus and knights, prefer the suicide to the denunciation and the torture orchestrated according to Dion Cassius by Messaline and Narcisse.

But, contrary to the proceedings carried out under Tiberius, the children of the conspirators were spared. This aborted sedition shows the fidelity of the army to Claude, confirmed during all his reign. After this alert, he had the Senate vote the title of Claudia Pia Fidelis to reward the legions of Dalmatia who refused to march against him, a way of calling on the senators to show their support to the emperor.

Dion Cassius situates during the years 46 and 47 AD a series of eliminations in the imperial family, targeting the sons-in-law of Claudius and the entourage of Caligula's sisters, Agrippina the Younger and Julia Livilla.In 46, according to Dion Cassius, Messalina poisoned Marcus Vinicius, Caligula's ex-brother-in-law, who would have refused to be her lover. Dion also indicates that he was suspected of wanting to avenge the death of his wife Julia Livilla.An attempt to assassinate Agrippina's son, the little Domitius Ahenobarbus, future Nero, also imputed to Messalina, is qualified as a fable by Suetonius.

In 46 or 47, Claudius' son-in-law Pompey Magnus was executed for reasons that neither Suetonius nor Dion Cassius indicate but that modern historians suppose to be the will of Messalina and perhaps that of Claudius to eliminate a possible competition from their son Britannicus. The execution at the same time of Pompey's father Crassus Frugi (en) and of his mother, is evoked only by Seneca, who makes Claudius responsible for it. Claudia Antonia was remarried to Messalina's half-brother, Faustus Sylla, a less problematic son-in-law.

In 46, Asinius Gallus, grandson of the orator Asinius Pollio and uterine brother of Drusus II, and Statilius Corvinus, former consul, set up a palace revolution with freedmen and slaves of Claude. Asinius Gallus is only exiled. The ancient sources are laconic, the fate of Corvinus and that of the other accomplices are unknown.

In 47, is put in charge Decimus Valerius Asiaticus, rich senator native of Vienna, very influential in Gaul, twice consul. The accusation of adultery masks other motives. Tacitus accuses Messalina of coveting his gardens, a conventional motive, then exposes more worrying suspicions: Asiaticus could raise the Gauls and the army of Germania. Moreover Asiaticus was present at the time of the murder of Caligula and would have been evoked for his succession. Arrested before his supposed departure for Germania, he appeared before Claudius, who left him only the choice of his way of death. He thus opened his veins in his gardens. For Renucci, Asiaticus could be one of the last to pay with his life for his involvement in Caligula's assassination. One year later, in his speech on the admission of the Gauls, Claude qualifies him without naming him of "brigand" (latro) and of "prodigy of palestra".

The extent of this succession of purges is not precisely known, but according to Suetonius and Seneca, Claudius during his reign would have pushed to the suicide or made execute thirty-five senators and more than three hundred knights. Among these victims, eighteen are identified by name, and only two died after 47. Renucci thus situates most of the eliminations as a continuation of the seizure of power in 41, and assumes that a hard faction of Caligula's opponents did not join his successor.

To conclude by enumerating these cases to a reign of terror is risky, and their count (eighteen individual or grouped suicides provoked over thirteen years) seems low compared to other reigns (52 cases under Tiberius in 23 years, 15 under Caligula in 4 years, 42 under Nero in fourteen years), knowing that this comparison must be taken with precaution because the indications of the ancient authors are incomplete and selective.

In 47 and 48 AD, Claudius exercised the censorship with Lucius Vitellius. This function, which had fallen into disuse after Augustus, allowed him to renew the staff of the Senate, the senatorial order and the equestrian order gathering the knights, while respecting the republican appearances. It removes from the Senate many senators who do not answer any more the moral qualities or the financial conditions expected, but according to a method already practised by Augustus, it warns them individually in advance and allows them to resign without public humiliation. At the same time, it makes vote for the provincial holders of the Roman citizenship the right to be candidates to the magistratures of the cursus honorum, which makes them enter the Senate at the end of their mandate. The Claudian Table engraved in Lugdunum preserves his speech on the admission of Gallic senators. It completes the ranks of the Senate by the inscription of the new magistrates, and to reach the six hundred manpower, inaugurates a new practice, the adlectio: it registers of office knights answering the conditions of fortune and honorability, without it being necessary for them to have exerted beforehand the questorship.

It makes up for the extinction of the patrician lines by granting this quality to the oldest senators, or to those whose parents had illustrated themselves.

Claudius and the Empire

After the disorders of Caligula, Claudius wanted to restore the Roman State, by developing its centralization. Assisted by competent freedmen, he strengthened the administration begun by Augustus, supervised the government of the provinces by limiting abuses and guaranteed Roman peace by annexing several client kingdoms. More than Augustus, he was interested in the provincials and generously spread the Roman citizenship.

Coinage was a powerful propaganda tool for the Roman emperors, easily reaching millions of inhabitants of the Empire. Claudius used it for his gold (aureus) and silver (denarius) coinage, and in considerable quantities for the smaller species in brass (sesterce) and bronze (ace and its submultiples). The brass and bronze coinage of the Roman workshop was supplemented in the West by issues made in military camps and by imitations produced by local offices tolerated by the authorities. By their abundance, these issues, official and imitated, replace the old Gallic and Spanish currencies, provoke the closing of the small monetary workshops still active in some provincial municipalities and feed the small trade in Gaul, Germania and Brittany.

We can distinguish four themes in the coins of Claude:

From the first issues in 41

On the other hand, no currency is emitted with the effigy of Messaline in Rome or in Lugdunum. Numerous cities of the Eastern part of the Empire which benefit from their monetary independence strike coins which exalt the fecundity of Messalina, mother of the heir apparent of the emperor. Nicaea and Nicomedia show her wearing ears of wheat, an attribute of Demeter, goddess of fertility. An issue from Alexandria shows her presenting in her open hand two miniature figures, her two children. Struck in Caesarea of Cappadocia, the portrait of Messalina bears on the reverse Octavia and Britannicus holding hands accompanied by their half-sister Claudia Antonia.

In the affirmation of the legitimacy of Claudius, more astonishing are the coins which recall his proclamation by the military. One shows as early as 41-42, with numerous later strikes, the emperor associated with the praetorian guards. A second with the legend PRAETOR(iani) RECEPT(i) shows the emperor and a soldier shaking hands. It is likely, according to Levick and Campbell, that these coins rewarded the praetorians who proclaimed Claudius emperor, but these types were later reused:

Victory is an obligatory condition for the recognition of the power. But Claudius at his advent cannot boast any personal military exploit or of his generals. He celebrates those of his father by issues with the profile of Drusus with the reverse side a triumphal arch, an equestrian statue between two trophies and the inscription DE GERMANIS. From 46 and until 51, Claudius celebrates his conquest of Brittany with coins with the identical reverse, and the mention DE BRITANN(is).

Monetary series issued for the merits of Augustus are reproduced by Claudius: the figuration of a crown in oak leaves with the legend OB CIVES SERVATOS represents the civic crown granted to the defender of the Roman citizens, Augustus formerly, Claudius at present who placed it on the roof of his house. Another recovery of Augustan coins, the coins of the monetary workshop of Lugdunum showing the altar of the federal sanctuary of the Three Gauls and captioned ROM AND AVG, known by a rare quadrans. They recall the place and the day of birth of Claudius, which coincide with the day of consecration of this altar.

Allegories related to the politics of Claudius appear on the coins of the beginning of his reign in 41

No more under the Republic than under the Empire, the Senate had no operational capacity to administer the Empire: only a treasury, the Aerarium, with limited financial means, no administrative or technical staff or offices, except for archives. Under the Republic, magistrates and provincial governors were assisted by their staff, slaves and freedmen, while quaestors managed their treasury. Augustus organized the management of the imperial provinces which he administered by his legates and that of his private domains on this model, with the freedmen and the slaves of his house, the domus Augusta. He created to manage the collected incomes an imperial fund, the fiscus, parallel to the Aerarium. Claudius inherited this embryonic administration and developed it by specializing offices, each under the authority of a freedman of the domus Augusta.

The most important service is that of the finances (a rationibus), which manages the treasure of the imperial house (the fiscus), in relation to the provincial fisci. The service of the administrative correspondence (ab epistulis), probably created by Augustus in connection with the imperial post office, is directed by Narcissus, former slave of Caligula. Narcissus was Claudius' most trusted man, and sometimes his spokesman, for example in 43 to appease a recalcitrant legion during the campaign in Brittany.

Claudius, who actively exercised his judicial role, created a service dealing with the causes evoked in appeal to the emperor (a cognitibus) and the requests (ab libellis), entrusted to Callistus, former freedman of Caligula. A last service (a studiis) deals with the various questions, the documentary research and the drafting of the documents and the official speeches, which is executed in 47 for obscure reasons, on an accusation of Messaline according to Dion Cassius. His post is taken again by Callistus.

This organization does not make a clear distinction between the private incomes of the emperor and those of the State, which explains why it gives an important weight to the personnel of the house of Augustus. The high responsibility of these men, of lower social rank and Greek moreover, plays in the negative image transmitted by the historians who repeat all that Claude is subjected to their influence. Moreover, the enormous wealth of several of them is worth to them a reputation of corruption. Dion Cassius affirms that they sold the title of Roman citizen at first at a high price, then at a low price, the military offices and those of procurator and governor, and even the foodstuffs, creating a shortage. Pliny the Elder notes that Pallas, Narcissus and Callistus were richer than Crassus, the richest man of the republican era after Sylla with goods estimated at two hundred million sesterces.

However, these same accusing sources admit that these freedmen were loyal to Claudius. Finally Suetonius even recognizes them a certain effectiveness.

Under the reign of Claudius, the Empire experienced a new expansion, which had been limited since the time of Augustus. Territories already under Roman protectorate were annexed: Noricum, Judea after the death of its last king Herod Agrippa I in 42, Pamphylia and Lycia in 43, following a local revolt and the murder of Roman citizens. After the assassination by Caligula of the king of Mauretania Ptolemy, and the insurrection of one of his freedmen, Ædemon in 40, the agitation of the Moorish tribes continued in 42 and 43. In 43, the former kingdom was divided into two provinces, Caesarian Mauretania and Tingitan Mauretania.

Britannia (present-day Great Britain) is an attractive target because of its wealth, already recognized by Roman traders. The conquest, envisaged by Caligula, is started by Claude in 43. He sent Aulus Plautius at the head of four legions, taking as a pretext the call for help of a local ally in difficulty. Claude himself goes in the island with his sons-in-law during a fortnight to collect the victory.

In autumn 43 and before his return to Rome, the Senate grants him a triumph and the construction of a triumphal arch in Rome and another in Boulogne-sur-Mer. The Senate also gave him the honorary title of "Britannicus" which he accepted only for his son, and did not use himself. The triumph of Claudius was celebrated in 44, a ceremony that Rome had not known since that of Germanicus in 17. Messalina followed the triumphal chariot in carpentum, with several generals dressed in triumphal ornaments. The use of a carpentum is an exceptional honor granted to Messalina, because to circulate in this carriage harnessed to two wheels is the privilege of the Vestals, which was granted before only to Livia.

Claudius finally had a military glory like his parents, and succeeded where Julius Caesar himself had failed, subduing the Bretons and the Ocean. He renewed this triumph by establishing an annual festival to commemorate it. In 47, he marched alongside Aulus Plautius, who received an ovation. In 51, he celebrated the capture of the Breton leader Caratacos by re-enacting the storming of a Breton city on the Champ de Mars.

In 46, the Romans intervened in Thrace, whose assassination of king Rhémétalcès III by his wife was followed by a revolt against the Roman supervision. The historical testimonies on the conflict are late and reduced to some passages in Eusebius of Caesarea and George the Syncelle. The conquered kingdom is divided in two, the north is attached to Mésie and a new province of Thrace is created. This annexation pushes back the border on the Danube and secures the imperial provinces of Macedonia and Achaia, of which Claude gives the control to the Senate.

On the Rhine front, Claudius remained on the defensive strategy advocated by Augustus and followed by Tiberius, especially since several legions based in the Rhine provinces were now engaged in Britain. The Germanic peoples sometimes tried to make looting incursions into the Empire, followed by Roman reprisals. In 47, the legate of Germania inferior Corbulon hunted the pirates based at the mouth of the Rhine, brought back the Frisians in a vague Roman protectorate, and intervened against the Chauques. Claudius awarded him the triumphal ornaments, an honorary conclusion accompanied by the order not to prolong his military campaign beyond the Rhine.Corbulon then occupied his troops in digging a canal between the Rhine and the Meuse. The strategic organization of the Rhine sector was completed. Claudius completed the crossing of the Alps through the Brenner Pass, linking Italy to Germania and thus putting the finishing touches to the work begun by his father Drusus.

Claude shows, with regard to the provincials, an opening of spirit and a benevolence which one notes in his famous speech on the opening of the Senate to the Gallic notables and also by measures ignored of the ancient authors and punctually traced by various epigraphic sources. The historian Gilbert Charles-Picard estimates that this innovative attitude comes from the double Greek and Latin culture of Claude, perfectly bilingual, and of his historical erudition which inspires him a sympathy for the overcome people.

From literary sources and a few epigraphic inscriptions, a number of provincial governors have been identified by historians, a sample that only partially covers the Empire. Nevertheless, it can be seen that few governors appointed by Caligula were maintained under Claudius, and that the latter were men trusted by Claudius or his friends. If some governors are new men, a great number are senators resulting from the old Roman nobility. In the imperial provinces which depended on the emperor, the competent governors were kept in office for four or five years, and sometimes rewarded with triumphal ornaments, while the governors of senatorial provinces only served for one year, with a few exceptions such as Galba, proconsul of Africa for two years to restore order, or others in Achaia and Crete.

Claudius was careful to limit the abuses of the governors. To fight against those who were too late in taking up their post, he imposed that all new governors leave Rome before the first of April to go to their provinces. He also forbade governors to serve two terms in a row, a practice designed to avoid legal proceedings in Rome. This measure allowed the citizens they had wronged to impeach them at the end of their assignment. In the same way, the legates who accompanied the governors had to stay in Rome for a certain time before leaving for another mission, the time it took for an accusation to be formulated against them.

Claudius also settled the question of responsibility for tax disputes in the provinces, whether imperial or senatorial: the collection of revenues for the imperial treasury, the fiscus, was carried out by procurators appointed by the emperor, while the handling of disputes was in principle the responsibility of the provincial governor. In 53, Claudius gave the procurators of the fiscus the right to judge disputes and had this transfer of judicial authority ratified by the Senate. This measure was criticized by Tacitus, who noted the erosion of the judicial power that had previously belonged to the praetors and therefore to the senators, to the benefit of the knights and freedmen of the emperor.

Claude tries to remedy the abuses of use of the imperial post office by people not having right there, the cursus publicus, whose load weighed heavily on the cities as the inscription of Tegea in Achaïe indicates it.

Claudius carried out a census in 48 which counted 5,984,072 Roman citizens, an increase of nearly one million since the one conducted at the death of Augustus.

Claude shows a remarkable opening for the concession of the Roman citizenship: he naturalizes on a purely individual basis of many Easterners. The creation of Roman colonies or the promotion of Latin cities to the status of colonies naturalized collectively their free residents. These colonies were sometimes formed from pre-existing communities, especially those that included elites who were able to rally the population to the Roman cause. In recognition, these cities inserted the name of Claudius in their toponym: Lugdunum became the Colonia copia Claudia Augusta Lugudunum, Cologne the Colonia Claudia Ara Agrippinensium.

Naturalization by military promotion is another way opened by Claude. In law, citizenship was required for the enlistment of legionaries, but local recruitment brought into the army many peregrines, provincials without citizenship rights, as legionaries with a fictitious citizenship right or as auxiliaries. Claudius generalized the granting of citizenship by awarding it by military diploma at the end of the service for the auxiliary soldier, for his concubine and their children.

This generosity towards the provincials arouses the annoyance of senators, like Seneca who claims that Claudius "wanted to see in toga all the Greeks, the Gauls, the Spaniards and the Bretons". Claudius was nevertheless rigorous and required that the new citizens knew Latin. In individual cases of usurpation of citizenship, Claudius could, according to Suetonius, be severe and have offenders beheaded, or return freedmen who usurped the rank of knight to their slave status.

The pragmatism of Claudius appears in the edict preserved by the Tabula Clesiana, by which he finds a realistic solution to the situation of the Anaunes (it), a tribe close to Trent. An envoy of Claudius had discovered that many inhabitants had obtained the Roman citizenship abusively. After investigation, and rather than crack down, the emperor declared that from that day on they would be considered as holding full citizenship: depriving them of their illegally acquired status would have caused more serious problems than the breach of the rule.

Claudius and Rome

In 49 AD, Claudius extended the urban perimeter of Rome (the pomerium) and included the Aventine. He followed an ancient custom which wanted the extension of the territory subjected to the Romans to authorize the extension of the limits of the city of Rome, justified for Claude by the conquest of Brittany. However, if one follows Seneca, this right is valid only for the annexations carried out in Italy, which puts in doubt the legitimacy of the extension of Claude.

Like his predecessors, Claudius held the imperium, which gave him the right to judge, and the tribunitian power, which made him the recipient of appeals from condemned citizens. Contrary to his predecessors, Claudius assiduously exercises his attributions. He sat in the forum from morning to evening, sometimes even on holidays or religious dates, traditionally off. He judged a great number of cases, personally or in the company of a consul or a praetor. Suetonius admits the quality of some of his judgments but, as usual, he concludes negatively, alternately circumspect and perceptive, or dizzy and hasty, sometimes with a lightness that resembled madness", opinions that he illustrates with examples that most often turn Claudius into ridicule.

In addition to his personal activity as a judge, Claudius took several measures to improve the functioning of the judiciary and to reduce the congestion of the courts of Rome, in the face of the multiple legal abuses and the inflation of the volume of cases. To limit the length of legal proceedings, he obliged judges to close their cases before the courts became vacant. It increases the capacity of the courts by extending the length of sessions to the whole year. To fight against the dilatory maneuvers of plaintiffs who were absent after having brought their accusation, while they obliged the accused to remain in Rome and lengthen the procedure, Claudius obliged these plaintiffs to remain, also, in Rome during the treatment of their cases, and enjoined the judges to render a sentence against them in case of unjustified absence.

Pierre Renucci explains the congestion of the courts by the surge of trials in maiestas under Tiberius, originally against the Roman people, then against the person or the image of the emperor. The legal reward for the accusers, which gave them a quarter of the property of the condemned man, encouraged denunciation for even the most trivial reasons, such as drunken talk or careless jokes. Without returning on the legal provisions of the setting in charge, Claude puts a stop to the trials of maiestas by defying the slanderers.

Claudius arbitrated disputes in the provinces which were submitted to him, such as the affair of Alexandria. At the beginning of his reign, the Greeks and the Jews of Alexandria each sent him an embassy following riots between the two communities. In response, Claudius had two Greek agitators from Alexandria executed and wrote a Letter to the Alexandrians which refused to take sides on those responsible for the uprisings but warned that he would be implacable against those who would take them up again; he reaffirmed the rights of the Jews in this city but forbade them at the same time to continue sending settlers there en masse. According to Josephus, he then recognized the rights and freedoms of all the Jews in the empire.

In contrast to his judicial action, his legislative achievements were praised by ancient authors. Claudius worked for the restoration of morals, wishing to make rank coincide with wealth, honorability and prestige. Thus, in the spectacles, the senators and the knights find privileged places.

Claude takes very many edicts on the most various subjects, of which Suetonius quotes an anthology, of which some derisory, such as the authorization of the flatulences during the banquets, an on-dit peddled with the conditional by Suetonius, but nevertheless abundant quoted.

More seriously, Claudius translated into several laws the evolution of the customs of his time in favor of the improvement of the fate of the slaves and the emancipation of the women. A famous decree dealt with the status of sick slaves; until then, masters abandoned sick slaves at the temple of Aesculapius in the Tiberine Island and recovered them if they survived. Claudius decided that cured slaves would be considered freed and that masters who chose to kill their slaves rather than take this risk would be prosecuted for murder. For the first time in antiquity, the killing of a sick slave by his master was considered a crime.

Other decrees of note concern women's rights: Claude abolished, for wives, the guardianship of a member of their family of origin, an exemption that existed only for mothers of more than three children. Another decree remedied an injustice in inheritance law by placing the mother married sine manu among the heirs of her child, when he died without having made a will.

In parallel with these emancipatory decisions, Claudius strengthened the prerogatives of the Pater familias, whether over the property of his family or by reinforcing his authority more generally.

From the beginning of his reign, which was marked by a famine in Rome, Claudius was insulted by the forum crowd and pelted with bread croutons. It is necessary to know that in Rome, some 200 000 poor citizens receive a free allocation of wheat, provided by the Roman State, largely imported from the provinces, and materially ensured by the care of the emperor. Claudius immediately decided to take measures to encourage the arrival of wheat in Rome, even during the winter, a season of storms and stoppage of navigation: he promised to take charge of losses caused by shipwrecks, thus becoming the insurer of merchant ships. The shipowners of trade ships obtained legal privileges, such as citizenship and the exemption of the penalties striking the single ones and the couples without children according to the Papia-Poppea law.

Claudius also redefined the responsibilities of supply: he entrusted the operations of distribution to the population to a procurator called ad Miniciam, named after the portico in Rome where it was carried out. The port administration of Ostia and the transport of wheat to Rome were under the responsibility of the quaestor, a junior magistrate in office for only one year. Claudius replaced him with a procurator whom he appointed and maintained according to his competence. Finally, Claudius did not hesitate to travel himself to monitor the arrival of wheat in Ostia.

Apart from the renovation of Pompey's theater and the construction of marble barriers in the Circus Maximus, Claudius launched or continued major construction projects to improve the supply of Rome. These works, whose financing was only possible thanks to imperial finances, lasted for years and left works that Pliny the Elder described as "marvels that nothing surpasses" ("invicta miracula").

Claudius ensured the water supply of Rome by restoring in 45 the Aqua Virgo, damaged under Caligula; he continued the construction of two aqueducts, the Aqua Claudia, which had been started under Caligula, and the Aqua Anio Novus. These two works, respectively sixty-nine and eighty-seven kilometers long, reached the city in 52, joining at the Porta Maggiore. The restoration and the construction of these two aqueducts cost 350 000 000 sesterces, more than any other evergetic work known by the epigraphy, and spread out over fourteen years.

In Rome, he had a navigable canal dug on the Tiber that led to Portus, his new port, located three kilometers north of Ostia. This port is built in a semicircle around two breakwaters, with a lighthouse at its mouth.

Claudius also wished to increase the arable surface in Italy. He took up Julius Caesar's project of draining Lake Fucin, by emptying it through a canal of more than five kilometers drifting to the Liris. The excavation work lasted eleven years, under the supervision of Narcissus. The work is completed with the drilling of the tunnels of Claude until the basin of the lake, but the expected emptying is a failure: the emptying emissary is higher than the bottom of the lake and does not empty it completely, spoiling the inauguration organized by Claude.

Claude shows himself conservative of the official religion, and makes decree that the pontiffs take care so that the knowledge of the ancient rites kept by the Etruscan haruspices is not lost. He rehabilitated ancient practices, such as reciting the formula of the fetishes during treaties with foreign kings. He himself, as pontifex maximus, applied himself to ward off bad omens, by having festivals announced if the earth shook in Rome, or by having propitiatory prayers recited and dictated to the people from the tribune of the Rosters if a bird of ill omen was seen on the Capitol.However, he avoided excesses of religious formalism, and put a brake on the excessive repetition of celebrations in case of a defect in the unfolding of the ritual prescriptions. It decrees that a celebration which went badly can be repeated only once, which puts an end to the abuses caused by the contractors of spectacles which benefit from these multiplications and even provoke them.

He refused the request of the Greeks of Alexandria who wished to dedicate a temple to him, arguing that only the gods could choose new gods. He re-established some holidays that had fallen into disuse and cancelled many foreign celebrations instituted by his predecessor Caligula.

Claudius was concerned about the diffusion of oriental mystery cults in the City and looked for Roman equivalents. For example, he wanted to establish in Rome the Eleusis Mysteries.

Like Augustus and Tiberius, Claudius was rather hostile to foreign religions. He forbade Druidism. He expelled from Rome the astrologers and the Jews, the latter for troubles that Suetonius attributes "to the instigation of a certain Chrestus". The other ancient authors more or less agree with this provision. The Acts of the Apostles incidentally mentions this decree of removal while Flavius Josephus does not mention it. Dion Cassius minimizes its scope: "The Jews having once again become too numerous to be expelled from Rome without causing trouble, he did not expel them, but forbade them to assemble and live according to the customs of their fathers. The motives and the reasons for Claudius' actions towards the Jews remain obscure at the present time. He seems to have acted essentially to maintain public order in Rome, disturbed by clashes between members of the community. In 41, he closed the synagogues; in 49, he expelled several Jewish personalities. Suetonius suggests that these incidents came from the Christians. On the other hand, Levick considers the hypothesis that Claudius was the author of the "decree of Caesar" punishing attacks on graves to be extravagant.

Claudius was opposed to conversions, whatever the religion, including in the regions where he granted the inhabitants freedom of belief. The results of all these efforts were recognized, and even Seneca, who nevertheless despised the old superstitious practices, defended Claudius in his satire the Apocoloquintosis.

Shows, circus games and theatrical performances, played an important role in public life in Rome. They were organized during religious ceremonies and festivals, and were an opportunity for the emperor to meet his people.

According to Suetonius and Dion Cassius, Claudius was passionate about the games of the amphitheatre. They make of him a cruel being, thirsty of blood, enjoying the spectacles of the gladiators and more still unworthy amateur of the mediocre spectacles of midday, devoted to the killings of condemned. Cruelty is one of the vices that the ancient authors underline to forge the character of a tyrant, but the assertions of Suetonius taken up by Dion Cassius are in contradiction with the writings of Seneca. The latter clearly condemns these staged murders. However, in his Apocoloquintosis, which charges Claudius with all the defects, Seneca makes no allusion to an attraction for bloody spectacles, hence Renucci's doubt about this cruelty reported by Suetonius: reality or gossip?

Suetonius is more credible when he depicts Claudius' attitude during the shows he gives: he familiarly calls out to the spectators, circulates tablets with his comments on them, makes jokes and encourages the reactions of the audience, thus maintaining his popularity with the Roman crowd.

Among the games that Claude personally gives, two are exceptional for their size and rarity: the secular games and the naumachy of Lake Fucin.

The secular games of 47 mark the 800th anniversary of the foundation of Rome. As Augustus had also organized some in 17 BC, Suetonius ironizes on this secular character, and the formula of announcement of "games that nobody saw", since some spectators attended the previous ones. However, André Piganiol underlines that the two games are not comparable, because Claudius creates a new type of celebration, the birthdays of Rome, different from the games of Augustus, expiatory of the disorders of a finished century and announcing the new century. At the time of one of the ceremonies, the young nobles carry out on horseback complex evolutions, and the applause of the crowd the most nourished are for the young Domitius Ahenobarbus, son of Agrippina the Young, last descendant of Germanicus and grand-nephew of Claude, at the expense of his son Britannicus, which can only worry the empress Messaline.

Another exceptional performance was organized in 52, for the inauguration of the diversion of the lake Fucin: a naumachy, a naval battle opposing two fleets and thousands of condemned, a spectacle that only Caesar and Augustus had shown before. Suetonius' narrative contains the only known quotation of the famous formula Morituri te salutant. And always according to Suetonius, Claudius makes a fool of himself by entering into a memorable anger when the extras refuse to fight, believing they have been pardoned.

Claude and Lyon

Faint epigraphic clues make it possible to attribute to Claude some monumental achievements in his native city, such as the baths of the rue des Farges (50 to 60 AD). In the 18th century, the discovery of lead pipes bearing his name on the hill of Fourvière led to the belief that he was behind the aqueduct of the Gier, until another inscription linked him to Hadrian; Claude did create an aqueduct, that of the Brévenne or that of the Yzeron. Moreover, two fountains were built under his reign, the one on the site of the Incarnate Word and the one at Choulans.

Private life of the emperor

The anecdotes collected by Suetonius and Dion Cassius to depreciate the private life of Claudius, who became emperor, abound, and change scale: his table excesses gathered up to six hundred guests. Even more scandalous, lured by the smell of cooking, Claudius abandoned the court where he was sitting to invite himself to the meal of the brotherhood of the Salians, thus revealing himself to be a slave to his appetites to the detriment of his judicial role.

The ancient authors forge for the posterity the image of a timid emperor, easily manipulated by his freedmen and his wife. The reputation which they give to Messalina is even worse. Juvenal's satire describing Messalina leaving the imperial palace to prostitute herself in the lower quarters makes her the figure of uncontrolled and unlimited female concupiscence. In addition to the physical eliminations for which historians make responsible her jealousy and her greed, they lend her multiple lovers, that she chooses herself in all social classes. The men who refuse to submit to her desires are forced by trickery or force. Claude is depicted as the old fool of the comedies, deceived without his knowledge, sometimes even with his involuntary complicity, when Messaline asks him to order the mime Mnester to do what she will ask him.

Her last lover, the senator Caius Silius, is the cause of her end in 47. Summarized in a few lines by the abbreviators of Dion Cassius, mentioned by Suetonius, this episode is staged at length by Tacitus, who uses his rhetorical art to mix factual elements with comic traits and moralizing and political undertones. After the secular games of 47, Messalina falls in love with the senator Caius Silius, of close relatives of Germanicus, described by Tacitus as "the most beautiful of the young Romans", whom she forces to separate from his wife. Still according to Tacitus, Silius gives in to Messalina, sure that his refusal would bring him death and also hoping for large rewards for his acceptance, which he obtains: without discretion, Messalina frequents assiduously the residence of Silius and even transfers there furniture, slaves and freedmen coming from the imperial house.

The liaison of the lovers culminates in their official marriage, a risk that Tacitus qualifies as fabulous, while being like the other historians persuaded of its authenticity. While Dion Cassius affirms that Messalina had the desire to have several husbands, Tacitus attributes the idea of this marriage to Silius, preferring risk to expectation, willing to maintain Messalina's powers and to adopt her son Britannicus. Taking advantage that Claude stays in Ostia to supervise the arrivals of corn, Messaline remains in Rome. Her union with Silius is celebrated in the rules, according to a date announced in advance, with a contract signed before witnesses, ceremony with taking of the auspices, sacrifice to the gods and nuptial banquet. Suetonius is the only one to reveal a manipulation at the limit of the plausibility: Claude also signs the contract of marriage, because one makes him believe in a simulated marriage, intended to divert a peril which would have threatened it according to the omens. For Castorio, this element that Tacitus and Dion Cassius ignore is only a rumour without historical foundation, participating in the image of imbecility of Claude. In any case, the specialists of the Roman right consider that the marriage of Messaline, duly celebrated, has for effect the repudiation of Claude.

Instead of making themselves masters of Rome, the bride and groom lead in their gardens a festival of the grape harvests which turns to the bacchanal, implausible episode of the account of Tacite. The retaliation is organized by the freedmen Callistus, Narcissus and Pallas. Convinced that this marriage is going to make Silius the new emperor, they fear not to benefit from the same complaisance as with Claude. Another reason, by making condemn Polybe to death, one of theirs, Messaline broke their bonds of complicity. It is thus necessary for them to eliminate Messaline by preventing any meeting with Claude, whom it could amadouer. According to Tacitus, only Narcissus acts, the two others remain passive, Pallas by cowardice, Callistus by prudence. Narcissus goes to Ostia, makes inform Claude of the remarriage of Messaline, and brings back to Rome his panicked master. They go towards the barracks of the praetorians, but, it seems by distrust towards one of the prefects of the praetorium, Claude entrusts the full military powers to Narcisse, for one day. After some words addressed to the soldiers on his misfortune, Claude returns to the palace and presides over an improvised court. Arrested on the forum, Caius Silius begs that his death be hastened. Other former lovers of Messaline were executed, including Mnester, who protested that he had only obeyed the order of Claudius. The repression also strikes the prefect of the vigils and a head of school of gladiators, which would indicate armed complicities, although of weak combative value vis-a-vis the prétoriens. Finally, Claude dines copiously; soon stuffed, he loses anger and lucidity, and asks for Messaline. Narcissus then takes the initiative to send soldiers to kill Messaline in the gardens which she had taken to Valerius Asiaticus. Then, the Senate decides the damnatio memoriae of Messaline, by the destruction of its statues and the hammering of its name on the inscriptions.

If Tacitus supports his scenario on the mad libido of Messalina and the fatalistic passivity of Silius, facing the blindness and the weakness of Claudius compensated by the reactivity of his freedman, a version accepted for a long time, some modern historians reject these stereotypes and reinterpret the course of the facts. Thus in 1934, Arnaldo Momigliano sees Caius Silius as the leader of a senatorial revolution, a plot accepted by Messalina, who feels threatened by the rise in popularity of Agrippina's son. An original revision was proposed in 1956 by Jean Colin, who refuses to see a real plot or marriage between Messalina and Silius. As Tacitus describes it, while Claudius is in Ostia, they celebrate the festival of the grape harvest, during which, according to Colin, Messalina follows a ritual of bachic initiation, similar to a wedding ceremony. Narcissus would then have presented to Claude this initiation like a true marriage threatening his power and obtained the elimination of Messaline and Silius. Castorio remarks that this ingenious thesis requires a Claude grossly duped, a caricature that historians no longer admit. But it is necessary to note that in spite of more than fifty years of research on incomplete and biased writings, the historians could not propose a reconstitution acceptable by a majority of their fellow-members.

The disappearance of Messaline aroused new matrimonial ambitions in the imperial house, each freedman had his candidate: Pallas supported Agrippina the Younger, the last living child of Germanicus, Calliste was for Lollia Paulina, daughter of a consul and childless, finally Narcissus proposed a remarriage with Ælia Pætina, formerly repudiated by Claudius but blameless. Claudius leaned towards Agrippina, but marrying his niece was considered an incest and forbidden by the Roman custom. But Claudius easily obtained from the Senate a new law authorizing him to marry Agrippina, "in the best interest of the State".

Immediately empress, Agrippina obtains honors that Messaline had not received: she receives the title of Augusta and coins are emitted with her portrait as well as others showing the young Nero. She made raise the exile of Seneca and entrusted him the education of his son. She broke Octavia's engagement to Lucius Silanus, by having him accused of incest with his own sister, and then betrothed Nero to Octavia. Finally, she eliminates her rival Lollia Paulina by accusing her of having consulted magicians on the marriage of Claudius. The latter made her exiled by the Senate for this dangerous project, then she was forced to commit suicide. Finally in 50, pretexting the examples of Augustus and Tiberius who had prepared their succession on two young heirs, Agrippina makes adopt her son by Claudius, the young Domitius Ahenobarbus becomes Claudius Nero, brother of Britannicus and his elder of three years. In 53, Nero married Octavia and made at sixteen years his first performance in the Senate, by pronouncing an erudite speech in favor of the exemption of taxes of Troy, city ancestor of the Romans, then another in favor of the islands of Rhodes, to grant them the internal autonomy. In 54, Agrippina strengthens still its position by making condemn the maternal grandmother of Britannicus Domitia Lepida that it finds too familiar with Nero, by accusing it to have practised bewitchments and created disorders in Calabria with its slaves.

Claude's possessions

Claudius inherited from Caligula numerous properties in and around Rome, including many horti (gardens) grouped in three districts of the capital, to the north, to the east and on the right bank of the Tiber. To the north, on and between the slopes of the Pincio and the Quirinal, are the Sallustiani horti, very close to the center of Rome. To the east, on the Esquiline, Claudius had several estates, including the horti Maecenatis; not far from there were the horti Maiani and Asiniani. Along the Tiber are the horti Agrippinae.

Claudius also took possession of the Domus Augustana located south-west of the Palatine, built in several stages and with a poorly known outline. The center of this complex includes the House of Augustus itself, a temple of Apollo, a quadriportico, two libraries and several architectural elements that are very poorly known: the house of Tiberius, a temple of Magna Mater, an Aedes caesarum and the Ludi palatini. The later constructions, notably under the Flavians, largely destroyed the previous buildings.

When he inherited this complex, Claudius proceeded to two symbolic actions to reinforce his legitimacy through these buildings. When he was awarded the naval crown by the Senate, he displayed it on the top of his house, alongside the civic crown received by Augustus. Moreover, in 49, he redefined the Romulan pomerium, especially on the Palatine, in order to refer, like Augustus, to the founding myths of Rome.

During his reign, Claudius undertook several modifications of the imperial palace. He had the central cryptoporticus surmounted by one floor, with a waterproofed floor, a garden and a marble basin. In the Domus Tiberium, he created a summer triclinium with a luxurious decoration in the IVth Pompeian style, the baths of Livia would have been started under Claudius.

According to Suetonius and Tacitus, in the months before his death, Claudius regretted his marriage to Agrippina and the adoption of Nero; he openly lamented his "impure, but not unpunished" wives and considered giving his manly toga to Britannicus, although he was not yet old enough. If Dion Cassius affirms that Claudius wants to eliminate Agrippina and to designate Britannicus as his successor, the other authors are less clear on the intentions of Claudius. He was sixty-four years old and his health had deteriorated. According to Suetonius, he feels that his end is near, makes his will and recommends to the senators to take care of his sons.

Poisoning

Claude died on the morning of October 13, 54, after a feast finished in drunkenness and drowsiness, followed by a painful coma during the night. All the ancient authors who speak about the death of Claude evoke the thesis of the poisoning with a dish of mushrooms. Tacitus, Suetonius and Dion Cassius accuse Agrippina of being the instigator, Flavius Josephus reports on rumours that appeared quickly. Seneca, Agrippina's protégé, is of course an exception and speaks of a natural death.

But some details on the circumstances of the death vary. Suetonius exploits various sources, and notes that Claudius died in Rome, during the traditional meal of the Augustan sodales, or during a banquet in the Palace. The effect of the poison is described by Suetonius according to the two versions he has collected: either a single ingestion causes daze and loss of speech, then death after a long agony, or Claudius experiences a respite, rejects part of his meal by vomiting and diarrhea, before receiving a new poisoned dose. If Dion Cassius reports a poisoning in a single attempt, Tacitus retains only the second version, with the use of a feather introduced by the physician Xenophon into the gullet, allegedly to help Claudius vomit and coated with a violent poison. This last detail is doubtful, because no ancient poison is known to act by direct contact with the mucous membranes.

The death of Claudius is one of the most debated episodes. Some modern authors doubt that Claudius was poisoned and have spoken of madness or old age. Ferrero attributes his death to a gastroenteritis. Scramuzza recalls that it is a commonplace to make of every emperor the victim of a criminal act, but admits the thesis of the poisoning. Levick hypothesizes a death caused by the tensions generated by the conflict of succession with Agrippina but concludes that the course of events makes the assassination more probable. Medically, several details provided by the ancient authors, the inability to speak but the persistence of sensitivity to pain, diarrhea, semi-comatose state, are consistent with symptoms of poisoning. Other authors, however, point out that it could be food poisoning or accidental poisoning or infarction. While it remains difficult to state with certainty the cause of Claudius' death, Eugen Cizek notes a significant anomaly in the imperial circular announcing the accession of Nero: it only mentions Claudius' death very briefly, which is contrary to all custom.

Apotheosis and posterity

The day after the death of Claudius, Agrippina consigns Britannicus in its apartments and presents Nero to the praetorians, this last one promises a donativum equivalent to that which had given his father. Then he pronounces a speech in front of the Senate, which awards him the imperial titles and decrees the apotheosis of Claude.

Claudius is thus the first deified emperor after Augustus. This divinization is commemorated by a coinage. Agrippina built a temple dedicated to his cult, the Temple of Divine Claudius, on a huge terrace built on the Caelius. Nero abolished this cult after the death of Agrippina and transformed this temple into a nymphaeum dominating the Domus aurea. Vespasian restored it and re-established the cult of the divine Claudius.

The divinization of Claude is celebrated in several provinces, but its worship does not last, except in some cities which owe him a particular favour, such Asseria (en) in Dalmatie.

According to Levick, the men of letters completely ignored this divinization, played with it or mocked it, such as Gallion, the brother of Seneca, who declared that Claudius was pulled up to heaven with a hook, like the criminals who were thrown into the Tiber. Dion Cassius reports that Nero, Agrippina and Gallion later joked about the death and apotheosis of Claudius, declaring that mushrooms were indeed a dish of the gods, since he had become a god thanks to them. Seneca in his turn added a satire parodying the apotheosis of Claudius, the Apocoloquintosis.

Having reasons to hate him and tutor of Nero, Seneca leads the reaction against the memory of Claudius. He composed the speech of investiture to the Senate of Nero enumerating a list of political failures attributed to Claudius, making it possible to show to the senators worried about their prerogatives that Nero takes into account the faults of his predecessor. This text has the same goal as the first Bucolica, written by Calpurnius Siculus: to announce a new golden age where the Senate would have its full place in the conduct of the state. Seneca, with De Clementia also takes part in this literary and political operation. In the Apocoloquintosis, he stages a series of successive condemnations that Claudius undergoes and which are as many questionings of his political legitimacy, of his policy of granting the Roman citizenship and of opening the Senate to the provincial elites.

Successor of Nero, Vespasian sees in Claudius a valuable predecessor. Indeed, he began his political career with Claudius in 51 and is like him in lack of legitimacy and close to the people. When he promulgated the Lex de imperio Vespasiani, he placed him alongside Augustus and Tiberius to legitimize his actions. Thus, Claudius is represented with Augustus in the monuments of the Capitol of Vespasian of Brescia.his son Titus, raised alongside Britannicus, raises the memory of the latter, and by extension that of Claudius. Like his father, he resumed the cult of Claudius and completed his temple at the expense of the Golden House of Nero. Vespasian and Titus lead a policy of inspiration close to that of Claudius, and reinforce a part of the Claudian legislation: the loan to the minors, the connections between free women and slaves, for the demolition of buildings. They also repaired the Aqua Claudia.

During his reign, the emperor's image was disseminated in proportion to his status, and therefore on the same scale as his predecessors. On the other hand, the analysis of this collection of portraits has long suffered from its very negative reputation. It was only at the end of the 20th century that specialists began to re-evaluate the artistic production dedicated to him, on a par with other Roman emperors.

The portraits of Claude in antiquity

Since literary descriptions of the emperor were unanimously negative, art historians have long neglected the study of Claudius' portraits; after the pioneering work of Meriwether Stuart in 1938, it was not until the 1980s that new work overcame preconceptions. It seems that still in 2018, "the importance of figurative testimonies, whose richness and variety are surprising, still seems to be underestimated." Thus, Claudius is the last Julio-Claudian not to have been the subject of a volume in the collection Das römische Herrscherbild. A volume is in preparation in 2018 under the direction of Anne-Kathrein Massner.

The coins are the main source of information for the study of the imperial portrait; they represent a very characteristic physiognomy: voluminous skull cap, powerful neck, protruding ears, drooping eyelids and fleshy lips. This makes it possible to identify Claudius in statuary. Moreover, Claudius' head is very regularly surmounted by a corona civica, indicating that his accession avoided a civil war; after Augustus, Claudius is the most regularly crowned in statuary and glyptics of all the Julio-Claudian emperors.

The scientific consensus in 2018 recognizes in Claude's portrait three official types that follow each other chronologically, even if their respective durations are still the subject of debate.

Claude in modern and contemporary painting

Claudius is a subject exploited from time to time in classical painting, always by taking up without distance the texts of the ancient authors, and thus representing him largely to his disadvantage, for example in Lawrence Alma-Tadema in 1871. Later, the subject of the Grand Prix de Rome of 1886 was the same extract from Suetonius narrating the passage of Claudius hidden behind a hanging. Charles Lebayle won this prize. The life of Claudius is also a source of inspiration in Lematte's 1870 painting, The Death of Messalina.

Claude in movies and television

Claudius has been of far less interest to scriptwriters and filmmakers than other emperors such as Nero or Caligula.  The character of Claudius is indeed a double victim of the ferocious portrait of Suetonius: too buffoonish to be tragic, not monstrous enough to be edifying, Claudius has long been confined to the role of stooge of his entourage ".

His character is played by actor Derek Jacobi in I Claudius Emperor (1976), a successful mini-series of the BBC, centered around the life of the Emperor Claudius, drawn from the books I Claudius and Claudius the God by Robert Graves that the director Josef von Sternberg had also tried to bring to the screen in 1937 under the title I, Claudius.

Ancestry

At his death in 54 AD, Claudius had the following title:

A temple was dedicated to Claudius at Camulodunum (Colchester), the first capital and first Roman colony of the province of Brittany.

Sources

1. Claudius
2. Claude (empereur romain)