Claudius I

Roman emperor (r. 41-54 c.e.)

• Born: August 1, 10 b.c.e.
• Birthplace: Lugdunum, Gaul (now Lyon, France)
• Died: October 13, 54 c.e.
• Place of death: Rome (now in Italy)

Coming to power after the politically and financially devastating reign of Caligula, Claudius I completed the centralizing tendencies of Roman Imperial government by creating a bureaucracy that was totally professional in training and totally loyal in its devotion to the Imperial concept of government.

Early Life

Tiberius Claudius (KLAW-dee-uhs) Drusus Nero Germanicus was born in Lugdunum, Gaul (modern Lyon, France), the youngest son of the elder Drusus and Antonia Minor. The father of Claudius was the stepson of the emperor Augustus, and his mother was Augustus’s niece. Despite such illustrious parentage, Claudius was never expected to hold any important government office or military post. Although his elder brother Germanicus was adopted into the Imperial family by his uncle, the future emperor Tiberius, Claudius was not considered to be in line for the throne because he was physically handicapped. In an age when physical beauty and perfection were admired, he was an embarrassment to the Imperial family.

Claudius’s multiple handicaps and infirmities were readily apparent. He had weak knees, trembling hands, and a wobbly head; he dragged his right foot, walked with a limp, stuttered when he spoke, and drooled uncontrollably. Desiring to preserve an image of power and authority in the eyes of the Roman people, the Imperial family kept Claudius’s public appearances to a minimum. Although not permitted a career in government service, Claudius received an excellent education. As he grew older, he became more and more interested in historical studies and wrote numerous scholarly works on Roman, Etruscan, and Carthaginian history. In addition, he wrote an apology for Cicero and composed an autobiography. Not content to limit himself to historical work, Claudius studied philological problems of Latin and introduced three new letters into the Latin alphabet.

During the reigns of Augustus and Tiberius, Claudius continued to have little part in affairs of state. When his nephew Caligula ascended the throne, however, Claudius’s life changed dramatically. In July, 37 c.e., Claudius became consul along with Caligula. Although consuls lacked any real power, they enjoyed considerable prestige. Still, such public recognition only made life more difficult for Claudius. Even though he was related to the reigning emperor, Claudius was the frequent butt of cruel jokes and insults, the ever-present, easy target for court jesters and practical jokers. Indeed, this was probably the most difficult and dangerous time of his life. To protect himself from the murderous whims of his mad nephew, Claudius endured the insults and played the fool. People were all too ready to believe him mentally as well as physically handicapped. The role of the simpleton was a convenient ruse that saved Claudius’s life on more than one occasion.

Life’s Work

When Caligula became so autocratic as to attempt the establishment of a Hellenistic-style monarchy, assassins killed him along with his wife and daughter. While searching the Imperial palace, a soldier of the Praetorian Guard discovered Claudius hiding behind a curtain. After dragging Claudius to the Praetorian camp, the soldiers quickly realized the advantage to them of perpetuating the Imperial system. Thus, the Praetorian Guard hailed Claudius emperor on January 25, 41 c.e., while the senate was still trying to decide what to do.

Despite the unusual circumstances of his coming to the throne, Claudius was not a revolutionary. He wasted no time in capturing and punishing the assassins of Caligula while simultaneously distancing himself from his predecessor’s policies. As emperor, Claudius looked on Augustus as his role model, following his lead in attempting to revive the traditional religious practices and political institutions of the Roman Republic. Despite his amicable overtures toward the senate, Claudius learned what Augustus had learned: The senate, never having renounced its claim to state leadership, was resentful of being dominated by an emperor. Claudius tried to show respect for the senate by giving back provinces that Tiberius had made Imperial (Achaea and Macedonia), appointing Imperial legates of senatorial rank, allowing the senate to issue copper coinage in the provinces, and enforcing senatorial resolutions. Despite all of his efforts at cooperation, the senate was not very receptive. Eventually, this lack of response led Claudius to work against the senate and to concentrate all the power of the government in his own hands.

After a lapse of sixty-eight years during which the office of censor had gone unoccupied, Claudius temporarily restored and held it for eighteen months in 47-48 c.e. As a result of his censorship, numerous old senatorial families were discredited and expelled from the senate, while many new provincial families were admitted. Imperial oversight of the senate also extended to those aspects of government that had been traditionally controlled by the senate. The aerarium Saturni and the fiscus were both brought under close Imperial supervision through the Imperial appointment or nomination of the officials who ran these treasuries.

Not able to rely on the old senatorial aristocracy for administrative support, Claudius set himself the task of creating an executive staff manned by freedmen who were to be obedient only to the emperor. While freedmen had been used in government since the reign of Augustus, Claudius made more extensive use of them by placing them in charge of government departments and entrusting them with confidential tasks. This practice guaranteed the emperor’s independence from the senate and antagonized the aristocratic elite of Rome. The freedmen Narcissus and Pallas became rich and powerful as Claudius’s closest and most trusted advisers. With the establishment of a centralized administration directly under the emperor’s control, Claudius was able to extend his jurisdiction into senatorial provinces.

At the same time, Claudius sought uniformity of administration and equal status for the provinces. Historically, Rome and Italy had enjoyed privileged positions within the Empire, while the provinces’ status had been inferior. Claudius tried to eliminate this inequality by extending citizenship rights to various provincial communities and by establishing Roman colonies, particularly in the newer Imperial provinces such as Britain and Mauretania. This policy, while politically and militarily motivated, had the effect of quickening the pace of provincial Romanization.

Claudius was as aware as Augustus had been that the army was the real power base of the Roman government. Although he lacked military experience, Claudius needed to assume the image of a military leader and so was hailed imperator twenty-seven times. While not known in history for his military exploits, Claudius did expand the Empire. Under Claudius, Rome conquered Mauretania in 41 c.e., Britain in 43, and Thrace in 46. In addition, Claudius established the province of Lycia in 43 and the province of Judaea in 44.

In an effort to improve communications and the movement of troops, Claudius instituted a great road-building program. Not only did these roads tie the provinces closer to Rome, but they also stimulated trade between and among the provinces. Whenever Claudius saw an opportunity to expand trade and commerce, he immediately improved area roads and port facilities and built warehouses. The level of trade within the Empire and with foreign lands increased dramatically under Claudius.

Despite his emphasis on improving the economic condition of the provinces, Claudius did not neglect Italy, in general, or Rome, in particular. In central Italy, Claudius employed thirty thousand men for eleven years to drain the Fucine Marsh and reclaim much-needed arable land. What Julius Caesar and Augustus had only planned, Claudius accomplished. To increase the watersupply of the capital, Claudius completed an aqueduct, begun by Caligula, which brought water to Rome from a distance of 62 miles (100 kilometers). He also built the Aqua Claudia, which brought water from 45 miles (73 kilometers) away. To guarantee Rome a secure supply of grain all year round, Claudius insured grain shippers against any loss so that they would continue to sail in the winter months. If a ship owner put his ships in the service of the grain trade for six years, he was granted full Roman citizenship. In order to handle the increased volume of trade, Claudius rebuilt the port of Ostia and built the new port of Portus, outfitting both ports with appropriate warehouses.

Keeping true to his Augustan ideals, Claudius tried to rekindle the old republican virtues through a religious restoration. By reviving ancient religious rites and linking them to Rome’s glorious past, he tried to instill in the Romans of the Empire both the patriotism and the religious belief of an earlier generation. Claudius founded a College of Haruspices and held the Secular Games for Rome’s eight hundredth birthday. To keep the religion of Rome focused on the traditional gods, Claudius extended the pomerium (religious boundary) and expelled Jews from the city. Religion as practiced outside Rome, however, was a different matter. With the exception of Druidism (because of its practice of human sacrifice), religious practices indigenous to the provinces were allowed to flourish.

If Claudius had a failing, it was in his relationships with his wives. Despite marrying four times, Claudius was unable to achieve marital happiness. His first two marriages, to Plautia Urgulanilla and Aelia Paetina, ended in divorce. His marriage to Valeria Messallina produced two children, Octavia (who later married Nero) and Britannicus. Messallina was executed in 48 c.e. as a result of the intrigues of Narcissus. Claudius’s fourth marriage was to his niece Agrippina the Younger, whose cause was championed by Pallas. Agrippina succeeded, in 50 c.e., in getting Claudius to adopt her son Nero (from an earlier marriage) as his heir and the guardian of his own son, Britannicus.

Having lived his early life as a scholarly historian, Claudius ended his days as a very involved ruler of one of the greatest empires in history. A dish of poisoned mushrooms offered to him by Agrippina was the cause of his death. Although Claudius had pulled Rome from the brink of chaos after the disastrous reign of Caligula, he did not show the same acumen in leaving Rome in the hands of Nero. While Nero was not as outrageous as Caligula, he proved to be such a major disappointment to the Romans that he was the last of the Julio-Claudians to rule.

Significance

Claudius, a man never intended to assume control of Rome, a man having symptoms of what may have been cerebral palsy, a man more comfortable in a scholar’s library than in an emperor’s palace, ruled and profoundly changed the Roman Empire. While trying to maintain an Empire-wide approach to the administration of the Empire, Claudius was, nevertheless, a major contributor to the evolution of a highly centralized and autocratic governmental administration.

Claudius’s reforming tendencies and his emphasis on equality and justice show a basic contradiction in thinking. In trying to bring about equality by admitting provincials to the senate, Claudius was perpetuating the inequality of the old republican class structure. While honoring the senate in various ways, he actively worked to undermine it by creating an executive staff that guaranteed that all would be under the emperor’s control. Thus, even though Claudius was attempting new approaches to old problems, he was bound too closely to Augustan tradition to be a strong champion of the new ideals of his age.

Bibliography

Graves, Robert. I, Claudius: From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius, Born 10 B.C., Murdered and Deified A.D. 54. Vancouver, Wash.: Vintage Books, 1989. Although this acclaimed work is a historical novel, it captures the essence of a famous period in history.

Levick, B. M. “Antiquarian or Revolutionary? Claudius Caesar’s Conception of his Principate.” American Journal of Philology 99 (1978): 79-105. The author maintains that Claudius was not a disinterested observer of contemporary events before his accession to the throne. As a historian, Claudius developed his own ideas on how the Imperial government should be organized. Levick believes that Claudius used Julius Caesar as his role model rather than Augustus.

Momigliano, Arnaldo D. Claudius: The Emperor and His Achievement. Reprint. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1981. Momigliano believes that Claudius modeled himself on Augustus and tried to find some common ground with the senate. The centralization of the Imperial administration was the direct result of the senate’s rejection of Claudius’s offer of cooperation. Despite its brevity, this book is one of the seminal works on Claudius.

Scramuzza, Vincent M. The Emperor Claudius. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1940. The first full-scale biography of Claudius to appear in English. The author has gathered and analyzed all the available archaeological, epigraphic, and literary evidence on the life of Claudius and has presented it in a most readable form. The coverage is comprehensive, thorough, and sound.

Scullard, H. H. From the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68. New York: Routledge, 1988. Gives a straightforward account of Roman history during the last century of the Roman Republic and the first century of the Roman Empire. Scullard shows the financial and administrative problems caused by Gaius (Caligula) and the important changes that occurred under Claudius.

Suetonius. Lives of the Twelve Caesars. Revised and translated by Robert Graves. New York: Welcome Rain, 2001. Contains a chapter on Claudius, together with other chapters on his predecessors and successors. While Suetonius is one of the most important sources of information on Claudius, he is not always reliable. Still, he is useful because he preserves much contemporary detail that otherwise would be lost.