Claudius

Family: Julio-Claudian · Role: uncle and consul · First appears: Caligula 15

Claudius was born at Lyons and left an infant after his father’s death. Illness impaired his mind and body, and he remained under a pedagogue’s direction through much of his minority. Antonia called him “an abortion of a man, that had been only begun, but never finished, by nature,” while Augusta treated him with contempt; Livilla later openly objected to the prospect of his becoming emperor, and Augustus’s letters recorded both favourable and unfavourable opinions of him. After Germanicus was adopted into the Julian family, Claudius assumed the cognomen Germanicus.

Under Tiberius, Claudius received the honorary appendages of the consulship but not a legitimate appointment, and he abandoned hopes of advancement. The senate nevertheless added him to the Augustal college, rebuilt his burned house at public expense, and granted him voting rights among consular men before the decree was repealed; Tiberius insisted that he be excused on account of his imbecility, though he later named him among his heirs and left him two million sesterces. Under Caligula, Claudius became his uncle’s colleague in the consulship, held office jointly with him for two months, completed one of his works, and was spared only “for a laughing-stock.” After Caligula’s death, Claudius ordered his stored poisons thrown into the sea and came to the empire unexpectedly in his fiftieth year, when a common soldier hailed him as emperor.

As emperor, Claudius secured divine honours for Livia, instituted annual games for Drusus the Elder—whose birthday he also linked with Mark Antony—and cancelled the acts of Caligula while forbidding the day of his assassination to become a festival. He faced conspiracies from Gallus Asinius, Statilius Corvinus, Furius Camillus Scribonianus, and others, and rebelled against or punished several associates, including Appius Silanus, Cneius Pompeius Magnus (son-in-law of Claudius), and Silanus. He conducted the British expedition with Aulus Plautius, returned in less than six months, and celebrated a triumph; Vespasian served in that campaign, while Lucius Vitellius was entrusted with the care of the empire during Claudius’s absence. Claudius also favoured his freedmen Posides, Felix, Harpocras, Polybius, Narcissus, and Pallas, granting them commands, honours, presents, or assistance in his studies.