CLAUDIUS 41AD Amphipolis Macedonia Artemis on Bull Ancient Roman Coin i24926

Item: i24926

 Authentic Ancient

Coin of:

Claudius – Roman Emperor: 41-54 A.D. –
 Bronze 20mm (7.42 grams) of Amphipolis in
Macedonia
Reference: RPC I 1639; SNG ANS -; BMC
Macedonia pg. 54, 88; SNG Copenhagen 98; Laffaille
-.
TI ΚΛΑΥΔΙΟΣ


ΣEBAΣTOΣ, Claudius standing left,
right hand raised, holding eagle tipped sceptre in
left.

ΑΜΦΙΠΟΛΙΤΩΝ, Artemis Tauropolos riding a bull
right, holding a veil over her head.

You are bidding on the exact item pictured, provided
with a Certificate of Authenticity and Lifetime
Guarantee of Authenticity.  

Artemis Tauropolos in ancient
Greece, was an epithet for the goddess
Artemis
, variously
interpreted as worshipped at
Tauris
, or pulled
by a yoke of bulls, or hunting bull goddess. A
statue of Artemis “Tauropolos” in her temple at
Brauron
in Attica
was supposed to have been brought from the
Taurians
by
Iphigenia
.
Tauropolia
was also
a festival of Artemis in Athens.

There was a Tauropolion, a
temple in a
temenos
sacred
to Artemis Tauropolos, in the north Aegean island of
Doliche (now
Ikaria
).

Artemis was one of
the most widely venerated of the Ancient Greek deities. Some scholars believe
that the name, and indeed the goddess herself, was originally pre-Greek. Homer
refers to her as Artemis Agrotera,
Potnia Theron
< Artemis of the wildland,
Mistress of Animals”. In the classical period of
Greek mythology
, Artemis (Greek:
(nominative)
Ἄρτεμις, (genitive)
Ἀρτέμιδος) was often
described as the daughter of

Zeus and Leto
, and the twin sister of
Apollo
. She was the Hellenic goddess of the
hunt, wild animals, wilderness, childbirth, virginity and young girls, bringing
and relieving disease in women; she often was depicted as a huntress carrying a
bow and arrows. The deer
and the
cypress
were sacred to her. In later
Hellenistic times, she even assumed the ancient role of
Eileithyia
in aiding childbirth.

Artemis later became identified with
Selene
, a
Titaness
who was a Greek moon goddess,
sometimes depicted with a crescent moon above her head. She was also identified
with the Roman goddess
Diana
, with the
Etruscan
goddess
Artume
, and with the Greek or
Carian
goddess
Hecate
.

Amphipolis
was an
ancient

Greek

city
in the region
once inhabited by the
Edoni
people in the
present-day
periphery
of
Central Macedonia
.
It was built on a raised plateau overlooking the
east bank of the
river

Strymon
where it
emerged from Lake Cercinitis, about 3 m. from the
Aegean Sea
. Founded
in 437 BC, the city was finally abandoned in the 8th
century AD. The present municipality Amfipoli, named
after the ancient city, occupies the site.
Currently, it is a municipality in the
Serres Prefecture
,
Central Macedonia

with a population of 3,623 (2001 census).

Tiberius Claudius Caesar
Augustus Germanicus (1 August 10 BC – 13 October
AD 54) (Tiberius Claudius Drusus from birth
to AD 4, then Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus
from then until his accession) was the fourth
Roman Emperor
, a
member of the
Julio-Claudian dynasty
,
ruling from 24 January AD 41 to his death in AD 54.
Born in
Lugdunum
in
Gaul
(modern-day
Lyon
,
France
), to
Drusus
and
Antonia Minor
, he
was the first Roman Emperor to be born outside
Italia
.

He was reportedly afflicted with
some type of disability, and his family had
virtually excluded him from public office until his
consulship
with his
nephew
Caligula
in AD 37.
This infirmity may have saved him from the fate of
many other Roman nobles during the purges of
Tiberius
‘ and
Caligula’s reigns; potential enemies did not see him
as a serious threat to them. His very survival led
to his being declared emperor (reportedly because
the
Praetorian Guard

insisted) after Caligula’s assassination, at which
point he was the last adult male of his family.

Despite his lack of political
experience, Claudius proved to be an able
administrator and a great builder of public works.
His reign saw an expansion of the empire, including
the
conquest of Britain
.
He took a personal interest in the law, presided at
public trials, and issued up to 20 edicts a day;
however, he was seen as vulnerable throughout his
rule, particularly by the nobility. Claudius was
constantly forced to shore up his position. This
resulted in the deaths of many
senators
. Claudius
also suffered setbacks in his personal life, one of
which may have led to his murder. These events
damaged his reputation among the ancient writers,
though more recent historians have revised this
opinion.

 Family
and early life

Claudius was born on 1 August 10
BC, in
Lugdunum
,
Gaul
, on the day of
the dedication of an altar to
Augustus
. His
parents were
Nero Claudius Drusus

and
Antonia
, and he had
two older siblings named
Germanicus
and
Livilla
. Antonia
may have had two other children who died young, as
well.

His maternal grandparents were
Mark Antony
and
Octavia Minor
,
Caesar Augustus’ sister, and as such he was the
great-great grandnephew of
Gaius Julius Caesar
.
His paternal grandparents were
Livia
, Augustus’
third wife, and
Tiberius Claudius Nero
.
During his reign, Claudius revived the rumor that
his father Drusus was actually the illegitimate son
of Augustus, to give the false appearance that
Augustus was Claudius’ paternal grandfather.

In 9 BC, Drusus unexpectedly died
on campaign in Germania, possibly from illness.
Claudius was then left to be raised by his mother,
who never remarried. When Claudius’ disability
became evident, the relationship with his family
turned sour. Antonia referred to him as a monster,
and used him as a standard for stupidity. She seems
to have passed her son off on his grandmother Livia
for a number of years.^[1]
Livia was little kinder, and often sent him short,
angry letters of reproof. He was put under the care
of a “former mule-driver”^[2]
to keep him disciplined, under the logic that his
condition was due to laziness and a lack of
will-power. However, by the time he reached his
teenage years his symptoms apparently waned and his
family took some notice of his scholarly interests.
In AD 7,
Livy
was hired to
tutor him in history, with the assistance of
Sulpicius Flavus. He spent a lot of his time with
the latter and the philosopher
Athenodorus
.
Augustus, according to a letter, was surprised at
the clarity of Claudius’ oratory.^[3]
Expectations about his future began to increase.

Ironically, it was his work as a
budding
historian
that
destroyed his early career. According to Vincent
Scramuzza and others, Claudius began work on a
history of the
Civil Wars
that was
either too truthful or too critical of Octavian.^[4]
In either case, it was far too early for such an
account, and may have only served to remind Augustus
that Claudius was Antony’s descendant. His mother
and grandmother quickly put a stop to it, and this
may have proved to them that Claudius was not fit
for public office. He could not be trusted to toe
the existing party line. When he returned to the
narrative later in life, Claudius skipped over the
wars of the second triumvirate altogether. But the
damage was done, and his family pushed him to the
background. When the
Arch
of
Pavia
was erected
to honor the imperial clan in AD 8, Claudius’ name
(now Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus after his
elevation to
paterfamilias
of
Claudii Nerones on the adoption of his brother) was
inscribed on the edge—past the deceased princes,
Gaius
and
Lucius
, and
Germanicus’ children. There is some speculation that
the inscription was added by Claudius himself
decades later, and that he originally did not appear
at all.^[5]

When Augustus died in AD 14,
Claudius — then 23 — appealed to his uncle
Tiberius
to allow
him to begin the
cursus honorum
.
Tiberius, the new emperor, responded by granting
Claudius consular ornaments. Claudius requested
office once more and was snubbed. Since the new
emperor was not any more generous than the old,
Claudius gave up hope of public office and retired
to a scholarly, private life.

Despite the disdain of the
imperial family, it seems that from very early on
the general public respected Claudius. At Augustus’
death, the
equites
, or
knights, chose Claudius to head their delegation.
When his house burned down, the Senate demanded it
be rebuilt at public expense. They also requested
that Claudius be allowed to debate in the senate.
Tiberius turned down both motions, but the sentiment
remained. During the period immediately after the
death of Tiberius’ son,
Drusus
, Claudius
was pushed by some quarters as a potential heir.
This again suggests the political nature of his
exclusion from public life. However, as this was
also the period during which the power and terror of
the Praetorian
Sejanus
was at its
peak, Claudius chose to downplay this possibility.

After the death of Tiberius the
new emperor
Caligula
(the son
of Claudius’ brother
Germanicus
)
recognized Claudius to be of some use. He appointed
Claudius his co-consul in AD 37 in order to
emphasize the memory of Caligula’s deceased father
Germanicus. Despite this, Caligula relentlessly
tormented his uncle: playing practical jokes,
charging him enormous sums of money, humiliating him
before the Senate, and the like. According to
Cassius Dio
, as
well a possible surviving portrait, Claudius became
very sickly and thin by the end of Caligula’s reign,
most likely due to stress.^[6]

 Reign

 Accession
as emperor

On 24 January, AD 41, Caligula
was assassinated by a broad-based
conspiracy

(including Praetorian commander
Cassius Chaerea
and
several
Senators
). There is
no evidence that Claudius had a direct hand in the
assassination
,
although it has been argued that he knew about the
plot — particularly since he left the scene of the
crime shortly before his nephew was murdered.^[7]
However, after the deaths of
Caligula’s wife
and
daughter, it became apparent that Cassius intended
to go beyond the terms of the conspiracy and wipe
out the imperial family. In the chaos following the
murder, Claudius witnessed the
German
guard cut
down several uninvolved noblemen, including many of
his friends. He fled to the palace to hide.
According to tradition, a Praetorian named Gratus
found him hiding behind a curtain and suddenly
declared him
princeps
.^[8]
A section of the guard may have planned in advance
to seek out Claudius, perhaps with his approval.
They reassured him that they were not one of the
battalions looking for revenge. He was spirited away
to the Praetorian camp and put under their
protection.

The Senate quickly met and began
debating a change of government, but this eventually
devolved into an argument over which of them would
be the new
Princeps
. When they
heard of the Praetorians’ claim, they demanded that
Claudius be delivered to them for approval, but he
refused, sensing the danger that would come with
complying. Some historians, particularly
Josephus
,^[9]
claim that Claudius was directed in his actions by
the
Judean
King
Herod Agrippa
.
However, an earlier version of events by the same
ancient author downplays Agrippa’s role^[10]
— so it is not known how large a hand he had in
things. Eventually the Senate was forced to give in
and, in return, Claudius pardoned nearly all the
assassins.

Claudius took several steps to
legitimize his rule against potential usurpers, most
of them emphasizing his place within the
Julio-Claudian family. He adopted the name “Caesar”
as a
cognomen
— the name
still carried great weight with the populace. In
order to do so, he dropped the cognomen “Nero” which
he had adopted as paterfamilias of the Claudii
Nerones when his brother Germanicus was adopted out.
While he had never been adopted by Augustus or his
successors, he was the grandson of Octavia, and so
felt he had the right. He also adopted the name
“Augustus” as the two previous emperors had done at
their accessions. He kept the honorific “Germanicus”
in order to display the connection with his heroic
brother. He deified his paternal grandmother Livia
in order to highlight her position as wife of the
divine Augustus. Claudius frequently used the term
“filius Drusi” (son of Drusus) in his titles, in
order to remind the people of his legendary father
and lay claim to his reputation.

Because he was proclaimed emperor
on the initiative of the Praetorian Guard instead of
the Senate — the first emperor thus proclaimed —
Claudius’ repute suffered at the hands of
commentators (such as
Seneca
). Moreover,
he was the first Emperor who resorted to
bribery
as a means
to secure army loyalty. Tiberius and Augustus had
both left gifts to the army and guard in their
wills
, and upon
Caligula’s death the same would have been expected,
even if no will existed. Claudius remained grateful
to the guard, however, issuing coins with tributes
to the praetorians in the early part of his reign.

 Expansion
of the empire

Under Claudius, the empire
underwent its first major expansion since the reign
of Augustus. The provinces of
Thrace
,
Noricum
,
Pamphylia
,
Lycia
, and
Judea
were
annexed
under
various circumstances during his term. The
annexation of
Mauretania
, begun
under Caligula, was completed after the defeat of
rebel forces, and the official division of the
former client kingdom into two imperial provinces.

^[11]
The most
important new expansion was the
conquest of Britannia
.^[12]

In AD 43, Claudius sent
Aulus Plautius
with
four
legions
to Britain
(Britannia) after an appeal from an ousted
tribal ally. Britain was an attractive target for
Rome because of its material wealth — particularly
mines and
slaves
. It was also
a haven for
Gallic
rebels and
the like, and so could not be left alone much
longer. Claudius himself traveled to the island
after the completion of initial offensives, bringing
with him reinforcements and elephants. The latter
must have made an impression on the
Britons
when they
were used in the capture of
Camulodunum
. He
left after 16 days, but remained in the provinces
for some time. The Senate granted him a
triumph
for his
efforts, as only members of the imperial family were
allowed such honors. Claudius later lifted this
restriction for some of his conquering generals. He
was granted the honorific “Britannicus” but only
accepted it on behalf of his son, never using the
title himself. When the British general
Caractacus
was
captured in AD 50, Claudius granted him
clemency
.
Caractacus lived out his days on land provided by
the Roman state, an unusual end for an enemy
commander.

Claudius conducted a
census
in AD 48
that found 5,984,072 Roman citizens,^[13]
an increase of around a million since the census
conducted at Augustus’ death. He had helped increase
this number through the foundation of Roman colonies
that were granted blanket
citizenship
. These
colonies were often made out of existing
communities, especially those with elites who could
rally the populace to the Roman cause. Several
colonies were placed in new provinces or on the
border of the empire in order to secure Roman
holdings as quickly as possible.

 Judicial
and legislative affairs

Claudius personally judged many
of the legal cases tried during his reign. Ancient
historians have many complaints about this, stating
that his judgments were variable and sometimes did
not follow the law.^[14]
He was also easily swayed. Nevertheless, Claudius
paid detailed attention to the operation of the
judicial system. He extended the summer court
session, as well as the winter term, by shortening
the traditional breaks. Claudius also made a law
requiring plaintiffs to remain in the city while
their cases were pending, as defendants had
previously been required to do. These measures had
the effect of clearing out the docket. The minimum
age for jurors was also raised to 25 in order to
ensure a more experienced jury pool.^[15]

Claudius also settled disputes in
the provinces. He freed the island of
Rhodes
from Roman
rule for their good faith and exempted
Troy
from taxes.
Early in his reign, the
Greeks
and
Jews
of
Alexandria
sent him
two embassies at once after riots broke out between
the two communities. This resulted in the famous
“Letter to the Alexandrians”, which reaffirmed
Jewish rights in the city but also forbade them to
move in more families en masse. According to
Josephus
, he then
reaffirmed the rights and freedoms of all the Jews
in the empire.^[16]
An investigator of Claudius’ discovered that many
old Roman citizens based in the modern city of
Trento
were not in
fact citizens.^[17]
The emperor issued a declaration that they would be
considered to hold citizenship from then on, since
to strip them of their status would cause major
problems. However, in individual cases, Claudius
punished false assumption of citizenship harshly,
making it a capital offense. Similarly, any freedmen
found to be impersonating equestrians were sold back
into slavery.^[18]

Numerous edicts were issued
throughout Claudius’ reign. These were on a number
of topics, everything from medical advice to moral
judgments. Two famous medical examples are one
promoting
Yew
juice as a cure
for snakebite,^[19]
and another promoting public flatulence for good
health.^[20]
One of the more famous edicts concerned the status
of sick slaves. Masters had been abandoning ailing
slaves at the
temple of Aesculapius

to die, and then reclaiming them if they lived.
Claudius ruled that slaves who recovered after such
treatment would be free. Furthermore, masters who
chose to kill slaves rather than take the risk were
liable to be charged with murder.^[21]

 Public
works

Claudius embarked on many public
works throughout his reign, both in the capital and
in the provinces. He built two
aqueducts
, the
Aqua Claudia
, begun
by
Caligula
, and the
Anio Novus
. These
entered the city in AD 52 and met at the famous
Porta Maggiore
. He
also restored a third, the
Aqua Virgo
.

He paid special attention to
transportation. Throughout
Italy
and the
provinces he built roads and canals. Among these was
a large canal leading from the
Rhine
to the sea,
as well as a road from Italy to Germany — both begun
by his father, Drusus. Closer to Rome, he built a
navigable canal on the
Tiber
, leading to
Portus
, his new
port just north of
Ostia
. This port
was constructed in a semicircle with two
moles
and a
lighthouse at its mouth. The construction also had
the effect of reducing flooding in Rome.

The port at Ostia was part of
Claudius’ solution to the constant grain shortages
that occurred in winter, after the Roman shipping
season. The other part of his solution was to insure
the ships of grain merchants who were willing to
risk traveling to Egypt in the off-season. He also
granted their sailors special privileges, including
citizenship and exemption from the
Lex Papia-Poppaea
,
a law that regulated marriage. In addition, he
repealed the taxes that
Caligula
had
instituted on food, and further reduced taxes on
communities suffering
drought
or
famine
.

The last part of Claudius’ plan
was to increase the amount of arable land in Italy.
This was to be achieved by draining the
Fucine lake
, which
would have the added benefit of making the nearby
river navigable year-round.

^[22]
A tunnel
was dug through the lake bed, but the plan was a
failure. The tunnel was crooked and not large enough
to carry the water, which caused it to back up when
opened. The resultant flood washed out a large
gladiatorial exhibition held to commemorate the
opening, causing Claudius to run for his life along
with the other spectators. The draining of the lake
was revisited many times in history, including by
emperors
Trajan
and
Hadrian
, and
Holy Roman Emperor

Frederick II
in the
Middle Ages
. It was
finally achieved by the Prince
Torlonia
in the
19th century, producing over 160,000 acres (650 km²)
of new arable land.^[23]
He expanded the Claudian tunnel to three times its
original size.

 Claudius
and the Senate

Because of the circumstances of
his accession, Claudius took great pains to please
the Senate. During regular sessions, the emperor sat
among the Senate body, speaking in turn. When
introducing a law, he sat on a bench between the
consuls in his position as Holder of the Power of
Tribune
(The
emperor could not officially serve as a Tribune of
the Plebes as he was a
Patrician
, but it
was a power taken by previous rulers). He refused to
accept all his predecessors’ titles (including
Imperator
) at the
beginning of his reign, preferring to earn them in
due course. He allowed the Senate to issue its own
bronze coinage for the first time since Augustus. He
also put the imperial provinces of
Macedonia
and
Achaea
back under
Senate control.

Claudius set about remodeling the
Senate into a more efficient, representative body.
He chided the senators about their reluctance to
debate bills introduced by himself, as noted in the
fragments of a surviving speech:

If you accept these
proposals, Conscript Fathers, say so at once
and simply, in accordance with your
convictions. If you do not accept them, find
alternatives, but do so here and now; or if
you wish to take time for consideration,
take it, provided you do not forget that you
must be ready to pronounce your opinion
whenever you may be summoned to meet. It ill
befits the dignity of the Senate that the
consul designate should repeat the phrases
of the consuls word for word as his opinion,
and that every one else should merely say ‘I
approve’, and that then, after leaving, the
assembly should announce ‘We debated’.^[24]

In AD 47 he assumed the office of

Censor
with
Lucius Vitellius
,
which had been allowed to lapse for some time. He
struck the names of many senators and equites who no
longer met qualifications, but showed respect by
allowing them to resign in advance. At the same
time, he sought to admit eligible men from the
provinces. The
Lyons Tablet

preserves his speech on the admittance of Gallic
senators, in which he addresses the Senate with
reverence but also with criticism for their disdain
of these men. He also increased the number of
Patricians
by
adding new families to the dwindling number of noble
lines. Here he followed the precedent of
Lucius Junius Brutus

and
Julius Caesar
.

Nevertheless, many in the Senate
remained hostile to Claudius, and many plots were
made on his life. This hostility carried over into
the historical accounts. As a result, Claudius was
forced to reduce the Senate’s power for efficiency.
The administration of Ostia was turned over to an
imperial
Procurator
after
construction of the port. Administration of many of
the empire’s financial concerns was turned over to
imperial appointees and freedmen. This led to
further resentment and suggestions that these same
freedmen were ruling the emperor.

Several
coup
attempts were
made during Claudius’ reign, resulting in the deaths
of many senators.
Appius Silanus
was
executed early in Claudius’ reign under questionable
circumstances. Shortly after, a large rebellion was
undertaken by the Senator Vinicianus and
Scribonianus
, the
governor of
Dalmatia
and gained
quite a few senatorial supporters. It ultimately
failed because of the reluctance of Scribonianus’
troops, and the
suicide
of the main
conspirators. Many other senators tried different
conspiracies and were condemned. Claudius’
son-in-law
Pompeius Magnus
was
executed for his part in a conspiracy with his
father Crassus Frugi. Another plot involved the
consulars Lusiius Saturninus, Cornelius Lupus, and
Pompeius Pedo. In AD 46,
Asinius Gallus
, the
grandson of
Asinius Pollio
, and
Statilius Corvinus were exiled for a plot hatched
with several of Claudius’ own freedmen.
Valerius Asiaticus

was executed without public trial for unknown
reasons. The ancient sources say the charge was
adultery
, and that
Claudius was tricked into issuing the punishment.
However, Claudius singles out Asiaticus for special
damnation in his speech on the Gauls, which dates
over a year later, suggesting that the charge must
have been much more serious. Asiaticus had been a
claimant to the throne in the chaos following
Caligula’s death and a co-consul with the Statilius
Corvinus mentioned above. Most of these conspiracies
took place before Claudius’ term as
Censor
, and may
have induced him to review the Senatorial rolls. The
conspiracy of
Gaius Silius
in the
year after his Censorship, AD 48, is detailed in the
section discussing Claudius’ third wife,
Messalina
.
Suetonius states that a total of 35 senators and 300
knights were executed for offenses during Claudius’
reign.^[25]
Needless to say, the necessary responses to these
conspiracies could not have helped Senate-emperor
relations.

 The
Secretariat and centralization of powers

Claudius was hardly the first
emperor to use
freedmen
to help
with the day-to-day running of the empire. He was,
however, forced to increase their role as the powers
of the
Princeps
became
more centralized and the burden larger. This was
partly due to the ongoing hostility of the senate,
as mentioned above, but also due to his respect for
the senators. Claudius did not want free-born
magistrates to have to serve under him, as if they
were not peers.

The secretariat was divided into
bureaus, with each being placed under the leadership
of one freedman.
Narcissus
was the
secretary of correspondence.
Pallas
became the
secretary of the treasury.
Callistus
became
secretary of justice. There was a fourth bureau for
miscellaneous issues, which was put under
Polybius
until his
execution for treason. The freedmen could also
officially speak for the emperor, as when Narcissus
addressed the troops in Claudius’ stead before the
conquest of Britain. Since these were important
positions, the senators were aghast at their being
placed in the hands of former slaves. If freedmen
had total control of money, letters, and law, it
seemed it would not be hard for them to manipulate
the emperor. This is exactly the accusation put
forth by the ancient sources. However, these same
sources admit that the freedmen were loyal to
Claudius.^[26]
He was similarly appreciative of them and gave them
due credit for policies where he had used their
advice. However, if they showed treasonous
inclinations, the emperor did punish them with just
force, as in the case of Polybius and Pallas’
brother,
Felix
. There is no
evidence that the character of Claudius’ policies
and edicts changed with the rise and fall of the
various freedmen, suggesting that he was firmly in
control throughout.

Regardless of the extent of their
political power, the freedmen did manage to amass
wealth through their positions.
Pliny the Elder

notes that several of them were richer than
Crassus
, the
richest man of the
Republican
era.^[27]

 Religious
reforms

Claudius, as the author of a
treatise on Augustus’ religious reforms, felt
himself in a good position to institute some of his
own. He had strong opinions about the proper form
for state religion. He refused the request of
Alexandrian Greeks to dedicate a temple to his
divinity, saying that only gods may choose new gods.
He restored lost days to festivals and got rid of
many extraneous celebrations added by Caligula. He
reinstituted old observances and archaic language.
Claudius was concerned with the spread of eastern
mysteries within the city and searched for more
Roman replacements. He emphasized the
Eleusinian mysteries

which had been practiced by so many during the
Republic. He expelled foreign astrologers, and at
the same time rehabilitated the old Roman
soothsayers (known as
haruspices
) as a
replacement. He was especially hard on
Druidism
, because
of its incompatibility with the Roman state religion
and its
proselytizing

activities. It is also reported that at one time he
expelled the Jews from Rome, probably because the
appearance of Christianity had caused unrest within
the Jewish community.^[28]
Claudius opposed proselytizing in any religion, even
in those regions where he allowed natives to worship
freely. The results of all these efforts were
recognized even by Seneca, who has an ancient Latin
god defend Claudius in his satire.^[29]

 Public
games and entertainments

According to Suetonius, Claudius
was extraordinarily fond of games. He is said to
have risen with the crowd after gladiatorial matches
and given unrestrained praise to the fighters

^[30]
.
Claudius also presided over many new and original
events. Soon after coming into power, Claudius
instituted games to be held in honor of his father
on the latter’s birthday.^[31].
Annual games were also held in honor of his
accession, and took place at the Praetorian camp
where Claudius had first been proclaimed emperor.^[32].
Claudius performed the
Secular games
,
marking the 800th anniversary of the founding of
Rome. Augustus had performed the same games less
than a century prior. Augustus’ excuse was that the
interval for the games was 110 years, not 100, but
his date actually did not qualify under either
reasoning.^[32]
Claudius also presented naval battles to mark the
attempted draining of the Fucine lake, as well as
many other public games and shows.

At Ostia, in front of a crowd of
spectators, Claudius fought a
killer whale
which
was trapped in the harbor. The event was witnessed
by
Pliny the Elder
:

A killer whale was
actually seen in the harbor of Ostia, locked
in combat with the emperor Claudius. She had
come when he was completing the construction
of the harbor, drawn there by the wreck of a
ship bringing leather hides from Gaul, and
feeding there over a number of days, had
made a furrow in the shallows: the waves had
raised up such a mound of sand that she
couldn’t turn around at all, and while she
was pursuing her banquet as the waves moved
it shorewards, her back stuck up out of the
water like the overturned keel of a boat.
The emperor ordered that a large array of
nets be stretched across the mouths of the
harbor, and setting out in person with the
Praetorian

cohorts gave a show to the Roman people,
soldiers showering lances from attacking
ships, one of which I saw swamped by the
beast’s waterspout and sunk. — “Historia
Naturalis” IX.14-15.^[33]

Claudius also restored and
adorned many of the venues around Rome. The old
wooden barriers of the Circus Maximus were replaced
with ones made of gold-ornamented marble.^[32]
A new section of the Circus was designated for
seating the senators, who previously had sat among
the general public.^[32]
Claudius rebuilt Pompey’s Theater after it had been
destroyed by fire, throwing special fights at the
rededication which he observed from a special
platform in the orchestra box.^[32]

 Death,
deification, and reputation

The general consensus of ancient
historians was that Claudius was murdered by poison
— possibly contained in mushrooms or on a feather —
and died in the early hours of 13 October, AD 54.
Accounts vary greatly. Some claim Claudius was in
Rome^[34]
while others claim he was in Sinuessa.^[35]
Some implicate either
Halotus
, his
taster,
Xenophon
, his
doctor, or the infamous poisoner
Locusta
as the
administrator of the fatal substance.^[36]
Some say he died after prolonged suffering following
a single dose at dinner, and some have him
recovering only to be poisoned again.^[34]
Nearly all implicate his final wife, Agrippina, as
the instigator. Agrippina and Claudius had become
more combative in the months leading up to his
death. This carried on to the point where Claudius
openly lamented his bad wives, and began to comment
on Britannicus’ approaching manhood with an eye
towards restoring his status within the imperial
family.^[37]
Agrippina had motive in ensuring the succession of
Nero before Britannicus could gain power.

In modern times, some authors
have cast doubt on whether Claudius was murdered or
merely succumbed to illness or old age.^[38]
Some modern scholars claim the universality of the
accusations in ancient texts lends credence to the
crime.^[39]
History in those days could not be objectively
collected or written, so sometimes amounted to
committing whispered gossip to parchment, often
years after the events, when the writer was no
longer in danger of arrest. Claudius’ ashes were
interred in the
Mausoleum of Augustus

on 24 October, after a funeral in the manner of
Augustus.

Claudius was deified by Nero and
the Senate almost immediately.^[40]
Those who regard this homage as cynical should note
that, cynical or not, such a move would hardly have
benefited those involved, had Claudius been “hated”,
as some commentators, both modern and historic,
characterize him. Many of Claudius’ less solid
supporters quickly became Nero’s men. Claudius’ will
had been changed shortly before his death to either
recommend Nero and Britannicus jointly or perhaps
just Britannicus, who would have been considered an
adult man according to Roman law only in a few
months.

Agrippina had sent away Narcissus
shortly before Claudius’ death, and now murdered the
freedman. The last act of this secretary of letters
was to burn all of Claudius’ correspondence—most
likely so it could not be used against him and
others in an already hostile new regime. Thus
Claudius’ private words about his own policies and
motives were lost to history. Just as Claudius has
criticized his predecessors in official edicts (see
below), Nero often criticized the deceased emperor
and many of Claudius’ laws and edicts were
disregarded under the reasoning that he was too
stupid and senile to have meant them.^[41]
This opinion of Claudius, that he was indeed an old
idiot, remained the official one for the duration of
Nero’s reign. Eventually Nero stopped referring to
his deified adoptive father at all, and realigned
with his birth family. Claudius’ temple was left
unfinished after only some of the foundation had
been laid down. Eventually the site was overtaken by
Nero’s Golden House.^[42]

The
Flavians
, who had
risen to prominence under Claudius, took a different
tack. They were in a position where they needed to
shore up their legitimacy, but also justify the fall
of the Julio-Claudians. They reached back to
Claudius in contrast with Nero, to show that they
were good associated with good. Commemorative coins
were issued of Claudius and his son Britannicus—who
had been a friend of the emperor
Titus
. When Nero’s
Golden House was burned, the Temple of Claudius was
finally completed on Caelian Hill.^[42]
However, as the Flavians became established, they
needed to emphasize their own credentials more, and
their references to Claudius ceased. Instead, he was
put down with the other emperors of the fallen
dynasty.

The main ancient historians
Tacitus
,
Suetonius
, and
Cassius Dio
all
wrote after the last of the Flavians had gone. All
three were senators or equites. They took the
side of the Senate in most conflicts with the
princeps, invariably viewing him as being in the
wrong. This resulted in biases, both conscious and
unconscious. Suetonius lost access to the official
archives shortly after beginning his work. He was
forced to rely on second-hand accounts when it came
to Claudius (with the exception of Augustus’ letters
which had been gathered earlier) and does not quote
the emperor. Suetonius painted Claudius as a
ridiculous figure, belittling many of his acts and
attributing the objectively good works to his
retinue.^[43]
Tacitus wrote a narrative for his fellow senators
and fitted each of the emperors into a simple mold
of his choosing.^[44]
He wrote Claudius as a passive pawn and an
idiot—going so far as to hide his use of Claudius as
a source and omit Claudius’ character from his
works.^[45]
Even his version of Claudius’ Lyons tablet speech is
edited to be devoid of the emperor’s personality.
Dio was less biased, but seems to have used
Suetonius and Tacitus as sources. Thus the
conception of Claudius as the weak fool, controlled
by those he supposedly ruled, was preserved for the
ages.

As time passed, Claudius was
mostly forgotten outside of the historians’
accounts. His books were lost first, as their
antiquarian subjects became unfashionable. In the
second century,
Pertinax
, who
shared his birthday, became emperor, overshadowing
commemoration of Claudius.^[46]

 Marriages
and personal life

Claudius’ love life was unusual
for an upper-class Roman of his day. As
Edward Gibbon

mentions, of the first fifteen emperors, “Claudius
was the only one whose taste in love was entirely
correct”—the implication being that he was the only
one not to take
men
or
boys
as lovers.
Gibbon based this on Suetonius’ factual statement
that “He had a great passion for women, but had no
interest in men.”^[47]
Suetonius and the other ancient authors used this
against Claudius. They accused him of being
dominated by these same women and wives, of being
uxorious
, and of
being a
womanizer
.

Claudius married four times. His
first marriage, to
Plautia Urgulanilla
,
occurred after two failed betrothals (The first was
to his distant cousin
Aemilia Lepida
, but
was broken for political reasons. The second was to
Livia Medullina
,
which ended with the bride’s sudden death on their
wedding day). Urgulanilla was a relation of Livia’s
confidant
Urgulania
. During
their marriage she gave birth to a son, Claudius
Drusus. Unfortunately, Drusus died of asphyxiation
in his early teens, shortly after becoming engaged
to the daughter of
Sejanus
. Claudius
later divorced Urgulanilla for adultery and on
suspicion of murdering her sister-in-law Apronia.
When Urgulanilla gave birth after the divorce,
Claudius repudiated the baby girl, Claudia, as the
father was one of his own freedmen. Soon after
(possibly in AD 28), Claudius married
Aelia Paetina
, a
relation of Sejanus. They had a daughter,
Claudia Antonia
. He
later divorced her after the marriage became a
political liability (although Leon (1948) suggests
it may have been due to emotional and mental abuse
by Aelia).

In AD 38 or early 39, Claudius
married
Valeria Messalina
,
who was his first cousin once removed and closely
allied with Caligula’s circle. Shortly thereafter,
she gave birth to a daughter
Claudia Octavia
. A
son, first named Tiberius Claudius Germanicus, and
later known as
Britannicus
, was
born just after Claudius’ accession. This marriage
ended in tragedy. The ancient historians allege that
Messalina was a
nymphomaniac
who
was regularly unfaithful to Claudius —
Tacitus
states she
went so far as to compete with a
prostitute
to see
who could have the most sexual partners in a night^[48]
— and manipulated his policies in order to amass
wealth. In AD 48, Messalina married her lover
Gaius Silius
in a
public ceremony while Claudius was at
Ostia
. Sources
disagree as to whether or not she divorced the
emperor first, and whether the intention was to
usurp the throne. Scramuzza, in his biography,
suggests that Silius may have convinced Messalina
that Claudius was doomed, and the union was her only
hope of retaining rank and protecting her children.^[49]
The historian
Tacitus
suggests
that Claudius’s ongoing term as Censor may have
prevented him from noticing the affair before it
reached such a critical point.^[50]
Whatever the case, the result was the execution of
Silius, Messalina, and most of her circle.^[51]
Claudius made the
Praetorians
promise
to kill him if he ever married again.

Despite this declaration,
Claudius did marry once more. The ancient sources
tell that his freedmen pushed three candidates,
Caligula’s former wife
Lollia Paulina
,
Claudius’s divorced second wife Aelia, and
Claudius’s niece
Agrippina the younger
.
According to Suetonius, Agrippina won out through
her feminine wiles.^[52]
The truth is likely more political. The
coup
attempt by
Silius probably made Claudius realize the weakness
of his position as a member of the Claudian but not
the Julian family. This weakness was compounded by
the fact that he did not have an obvious adult heir,
Britannicus being just a boy. Agrippina was one of
the few remaining descendants of Augustus, and her
son Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (later known as
Nero
) was one of
the last males of the imperial family. Future coup
attempts could rally around the pair, and Agrippina
was already showing such ambition. It has been
suggested in recent times that the Senate may have
pushed for the marriage to end the feud between the
Julian and Claudian branches.^[53]
This feud dated back to Agrippina’s
mother’s
actions
against Tiberius after the death of her husband
Germanicus, actions which Tiberius had gladly
punished. In any case, Claudius accepted Agrippina,
and later adopted the newly mature Nero as his son.

Nero was made joint heir with the
underage Britannicus, married to Octavia and heavily
promoted. This was not as unusual as it seems to
people acquainted with modern hereditary monarchies.
Barbara Levick

notes that Augustus had named his grandson
Postumus Agrippa

and his stepson Tiberius joint heirs.^[54]
Tiberius named his great-nephew Caligula joint heir
with his grandson
Tiberius Gemellus
.
Adoption of adults or near adults was an old
tradition in Rome when a suitable natural adult heir
was unavailable. This was the case during
Britannicus’ minority. S.V. Oost suggests that
Claudius had previously looked to adopt one of his
sons-in-law to protect his own reign.^[55]
Faustus Sulla
,
married to his daughter
Antonia
, was only
descended from Octavia and Antony on one side — not
close enough to the imperial family to prevent
doubts (that didn’t stop others from making him the
object of a coup attempt against Nero a few years
later). Besides which, he was the half brother of
Messalina
, and at
this time those wounds were still fresh.
Nero
was more
popular with the general public as the grandson of
Germanicus and the direct descendant of Augustus.

 Claudius’
affliction and personality

The historian
Suetonius
describes
the physical manifestations of Claudius’ affliction
in relatively good detail.^[56]
His knees were weak and gave way under him and his
head shook. He stammered and his speech was
confused. He slobbered and his nose ran when he was
excited. The
Stoic

Seneca
states in
his
Apocolocyntosis

that Claudius’ voice belonged to no land animal, and
that his hands were weak as well;^[57]
however, he showed no physical deformity, as
Suetonius notes that when calm and seated he was a
tall, well-built figure of
dignitas
.^[56]
When angered or stressed, his symptoms became worse.
Historians agree that this condition improved upon
his accession to the throne.^[58]
Claudius himself claimed that he had exaggerated his
ailments to save his own life.^[59]

The modern diagnosis has changed
several times in the past century. Prior to
World War II
,
infantile paralysis

(or polio) was widely accepted as the cause. This is
the diagnosis used in
Robert Graves
‘
Claudius novels
,
first published in the 1930s. Polio does not explain
many of the described symptoms, however, and a more
recent theory implicates
cerebral palsy
as
the cause, as outlined by Ernestine Leon.^[60]
Tourette syndrome

is also a likely candidate for Claudius’ symptoms.^[61]
As a person, ancient historians described Claudius
as generous and lowbrow, a man who sometimes lunched
with the
plebeians
.^[62]
They also paint him as bloodthirsty and cruel,
overly fond of both
gladiatorial
combat
and executions, and very quick to anger (though
Claudius himself acknowledged the latter trait, and
apologized publicly for his temper).^[63]
To them he was also overly trusting, and easily
manipulated by his wives and freedmen.^[64]
But at the same time they portray him as paranoid
and apathetic, dull and easily confused.^[65]
The extant works of Claudius present a different
view, painting a picture of an intelligent,
scholarly, well-read, and conscientious
administrator with an eye to detail and justice.
Thus, Claudius becomes an enigma. Since the
discovery of his “Letter
to the Alexandrians” in the last century,
much work has been done to rehabilitate Claudius and
determine where the truth lies.

 Scholarly
works and their impact

Claudius wrote copiously
throughout his life.
Arnaldo Momigliano
^[66]
states that during the reign of Tiberius — which
covers the peak of Claudius’ literary career — it
became impolitic to speak of republican Rome. The
trend among the young historians was to either write
about the new empire or obscure antiquarian
subjects. Claudius was the rare scholar who covered
both. Besides the history of Augustus’ reign that
caused him so much grief, his major works included
an
Etruscan
history
and eight volumes on
Carthaginian

history, as well as an Etruscan Dictionary and a
book on dice playing. Despite the general avoidance
of the imperatorial era, he penned a defense of
Cicero
against the
charges of Asinius Gallus. Modern historians have
used this to determine both the nature of his
politics and of the aborted chapters of his civil
war history. He proposed a reform of the
Latin alphabet
by
the addition of
three new letters
,
two of which served the function of the modern
letters W and Y. He officially
instituted the change during his censorship, but
they did not survive his reign. Claudius also tried
to revive the old custom of putting dots between
different words (Classical Latin was written with no
spacing). Finally, he wrote an eight-volume
autobiography that Suetonius describes as lacking in
taste.^[67]
Since Claudius (like most of the members of his
dynasty) heavily criticized his predecessors and
relatives in surviving speeches,^[68]
it is not hard to imagine the nature of Suetonius’
charge.

Unfortunately, none of the actual
works survive. They do live on as sources for the
surviving histories of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.
Suetonius quotes Claudius’ autobiography once, and
must have used it as a source numerous times.
Tacitus uses Claudius’ own arguments for the
orthographical innovations mentioned above, and may
have used him for some of the more antiquarian
passages in his annals. Claudius is the source for
numerous passages of
Pliny’s

Natural History
.^[69]

The influence of historical study
on Claudius is obvious. In his speech on Gallic
senators, he uses a version of the founding of Rome
identical to that of Livy, his tutor in adolescence.
The detail of his speech borders on the pedantic, a
common mark of all his extant works, and he goes
into long digressions on related matters. This
indicates a deep knowledge of a variety of
historical subjects that he could not help but
share. Many of the public works instituted in his
reign were based on plans first suggested by
Julius Caesar
.
Levick believes this emulation of Caesar may have
spread to all aspects of his policies.^[70]
His censorship seems to have been based on those of
his ancestors, particularly
Appius Claudius Caecus
,
and he used the office to put into place many
policies based on those of Republican times. This is
when many of his religious reforms took effect and
his building efforts greatly increased during his
tenure. In fact, his assumption of the office of
Censor may have been motivated by a desire to see
his academic labors bear fruit. For example, he
believed (as most Romans) that his ancestor Appius
Claudius Caecus had used the censorship to introduce
the letter “R”;
^[71]
and so used his own term to introduce his new
letters.

 In
literature and film

Probably the most famous
fictional representation of the Emperor Claudius
were the books
I, Claudius
and

Claudius the God

(released in 1934 and 1935) by
Robert Graves
, both
written in the
first-person
to
give the reader the impression that they are
Claudius’
autobiography
.
Graves employed a fictive artifice to suggest that
they were recently discovered, genuine translations
of Claudius’ writings. Claudius’ extant letters,
speeches, and sayings were incorporated into the
text (mostly in the second book, Claudius the God)
in order to add authenticity.

In 1937 director
Josef von Sternberg

made an unsuccessful attempt to film
I, Claudius
,
with
Charles Laughton
as
Claudius. Unfortunately, the lead actress
Merle Oberon

suffered a near-fatal accident and the movie was
never finished. The surviving reels were finally
shown in the documentary The Epic That Never Was
in 1965, revealing some of Laughton’s most
accomplished acting. The motion picture rights have
been obtained by
Scott Rudin
, with a
theatrical release planned for 2010.

Graves’s two books were also the
basis for a
thirteen-part British
television adaptation
produced by the
BBC
. The series
starred
Derek Jacobi
as
Claudius and
Patrick Stewart
as
Sejanus, and was broadcast in 1976 on
BBC2
. It was a
substantial critical success, and won several
BAFTA
awards. The
series was later broadcast in the
United States
on
Masterpiece Theatre

in 1977. The DVD release of the television series
contains the “The Epic that Never Was” documentary.

Claudius has been portrayed in
film on several other occasions, including in the
1979 motion picture
Caligula

Giancarlo Badessi
in which the character was depicted as an idiot, in
complete contrast to
Robert Graves
‘
portrait of Claudius as a cunning and deeply
intelligent man. In the parody
Gore Vidal’s Caligula
,
which advertises itself as a remake of the original
film, Claudius is portrayed by
Glenn Shadix
.