Claudius was an acclaimed Roman Emperor by the Praetorians from 41 to 54, who extended Roman rule in North Africa and made Britain a province.
Background
Claudius was born in Lugdunum, Gaul (modern Lyon, France) on August 1, 10 B.C. and was the son of Drusus and Antonia. He had two older siblings, Germanicus and Livilla. His maternal grandparents were Mark Antony and Octavia Minor, Augustus' sister, and he was therefore the great-great grandnephew of Gaius Julius Caesar. His paternal grandparents were Livia, Augustus' third wife, and Tiberius Claudius Nero. After his father's death, Claudius was left to be raised by his mother, who never remarried.
Education
Claudius was educated in history by his tutor Levy, who recognized and encouraged his inclination for historical studies. He even wrote a pamphlet defending the republican politician and orator Cicero, a history of Rome with the principate of Augustus, books of Etruscan and of Carthaginian history, all in Greek; an autobiography; and a historical treatise on the Roman alphabet with suggestions for orthographical reform, but all his works were lost.
Career
Although Claudius was the sole surviving heir of Augustus after the assassination of Caligula, he was given the throne primarily because of the support shown him by the imperial troops. He assumed the throne unwillingly in 41; indeed, he is said to have been found cowering in a closet after Caligula's death was announced.
Claudius began his rule with a great deal of enthusiasm and effort.
The aristocracy, which had hoped for a restitution of their former powers and privileges after the death of Caligula, was disappointed and angered when the new emperor surrounded himself with his friends, mainly slaves and freedmen. The middle class was shocked, feeling that Claudius's associates were degrading the dignity of the imperial power.
This dissatisfaction led to the first conspiracy against the Emperor, in A. D. 42. The plot was crushed, but further trouble arose in 48. It was Narcissus, the emperor's minister of letters (i. e. he was the man who helped Claudius deal with all his matters of correspondence) who in AD 48 took the necessary actions when the emperor's wife Valeria Messalina and her lover Gaius Silius attempted to overthrow Claudius, when he was away at Ostia. Their intent was most likely to place the Claudius' infant son Britannicus on the throne, leaving them to rule the empire as regents.
Claudius was extremely surprised and appears to have been indecisive and confused as to what to do. So it was Narcissus who took hold of the situation, had Silius arrested and executed and Messalina driven into suicide.
But Narcissus was not to benefit from having saved his emperor. In fact it became the reason of his very downfall, as the emperor's next wife Agrippina the younger saw to it that the freedman Pallas, who was finance minister, soon eclipsed Narcissus' powers.
Agrippina was granted the title of Augusta, a rank no wife of an emperor had held before. And she was determined to see her twelve year old son Nero take the place of Britannicus as imperial heir.
She successfully arranged for Nero to be betrothed to Claudius' daughter Octavia, and a year later Claudius adopted him as son.
Then on the night of the 12 to 13 October A.D. 54 Claudius suddenly died.
The details surrounding Claudius's death are unclear, although many ancient historians, including Tacitus, say that he may have been poisoned by Agrippina.
Achievements
During his rule, Britannia was conquered and Mauritania, Thracia and Licia were added to the empire.
Claudius also reformed the military. The granting of Roman citizenship to auxiliaries after a service of twenty-five years was introduced by his predecessors, but it was under Claudius that it truly became a regular system.
Many public works were accomplished, most of which of public interst (the port of Claudius near Ostia, the Claudian aqueducts in Rome, etc.).
Having a personal interest in law, he presided at public trials, and issued up to twenty edicts a day.
Politics
By family tradition and antiquarian inclinations, Claudius was in sympathy with the senatorial aristocracy; but soldiers and courtiers were his real supporters. He, however, respected and frequently consulted both the Senate and the magistrates, groups whose prerogatives had been absorbed previously by the emperors.
Claudius began the campaign that led to the eventual conquest of Britain, and the imperial armies were successful in repelling the threatened German invasions. He supported Roman control of Armenia, but in 52 he preferred the collapse of the pro-Roman government to a war with Parthia, leaving a difficult situation to his successor.
In the civil administration, many measures demonstrate Claudius’s enlightened policy. The Emperor initiated a number of reforms of the Roman legal and administrative systems, and he reestablished sound fiscal policies. Claudius also took great care in his function as a judge, presiding over the imperial law-court. He instituted judicial reforms, creating in particular legal safeguards for the weak and defenceless. He also built many monuments and public works in Rome.
In his religious policy Claudius respected tradition; he revived old religious ceremonies, celebrated the festival of the Secular Games in 47, made himself a censor in 47, and extended in 49 the pomerium of Rome. He protected the haruspices (diviners) and probably Romanized the cult of the Phrygian deity Attis. According to the biographer Suetonius in Claudius, during a period of troubles Claudius expelled the Jews from Rome for a short time; Christians may have been involved. Elsewhere he confirmed existing Jewish rights and privileges, and in Alexandria he tried to protect the Jews without provoking Egyptian nationalism.
Claudius increased the control over the treasury and the provincial administration and apparently gave jurisdiction in fiscal matters to his own governors in the senatorial provinces. He created a kind of cabinet of freedmen, on whom he bestowed honours, to superintend various branches of the administration.
Personality
Kept in the background and often ignored during the reigns of Augustus, Tiberius, and Caligula, Claudius gained a reputation for stupidity, gluttony, and licentiousness. Ill health, unattractive appearance, clumsiness of manner, and coarseness of taste did not recommend him for a public life. Although he is pictured by contemporary historians as a man incapable of anything, Claudius seems to have been, in fact, an excellent scholar, linguist, and writer.
However, Claudius was a man of extremely weak character, easily swayed and led. That same elasticity of nature which had enabled him to survive his predecessor's reign of terror now made him an emperor completely governed by those around him. Claudius was constantly forced to shore up his position; this resulted in the deaths of many senators. These events damaged his reputation among the ancient writers, though more recent historians have revised this opinion.
Physical Characteristics:
Claudius was short, possessed neither natural dignity nor authority. He had a staggering walk, 'embarrassing habits', and 'indecent' laugh and when annoyed he foamed disgustingly at the mouth and his nose ran. He stammered and had a twitch. He was always ill, until he became emperor. Then his health improved marvelously, except for attacks of stomach-ache, which he said even made him think of suicide.
In history and in the accounts of ancient historians, Claudius comes as a positive mishmash of conflicting characteristics: absent-minded, hesitant, muddled, determined, cruel, intuitive, wise and dominated by his wife and his personal staff of freedmen.
Connections
Claudius married four times. His first wife, Plautia Urgulanilla, gave birth to a son, Claudius Drusus. Drusus died of asphyxiation in his early teens.
Claudius later divorced Urgulanilla for adultery, thus when Urgulanilla gave birth after the divorce, Claudius repudiated the baby.
In 28, Claudius married Aelia Paetina. The marriage produced a daughter, Claudia Antonia. Claudius later divorced Aelia, after the marriage became a political liability.
Claudius's third wife was Messalina, whom he married in 38. 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. Messalina influenced the Emperor to retaliate against the aristocracy and became involved in a scandal with a Roman senator, Silius. Messalina and Silius were killed, and Claudius married Agrippina, an act contrary to Roman law, as she was his niece. Claudius therefore changed the law. Agrippina was the mother of Claudius's successor, Nero. A woman of immense capability and driving ambition, she persuaded Claudius to set aside his own son, Britannicus, and adopt Nero as his heir.
Father:
Nero Claudius Drusus
Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus (January 14, 38 B.C. – 9 B.C.), born Decimus Claudius Drusus, also called Drusus Claudius Nero, Drusus, Drusus I, Nero Drusus, or Drusus the Elder was a Roman politician and military commander.
Mother:
Antonia Minor
Antonia Minor, also known as Julia Antonia Minor, Antonia the Younger or simply Antonia (31 January 36 B.C. - 1 May A.D. 37) was the younger of two daughters of Mark Antony and Octavia Minor. She was a niece of the Emperor Augustus, sister-in-law of the Emperor Tiberius, paternal grandmother of the Emperor Caligula and Empress Agrippina the Younger, mother of the Emperor Claudius, and both maternal great-grandmother and paternal great-aunt of the Emperor Nero.
child:
Claudius Drusus
Tiberius Claudius Drusus (c. A.D. 16 – A.D. 20) was the eldest son of the future Roman Emperor Claudius with his first wife Plautia Urgulanilla.
child:
Claudia Antonia
Claudia Antonia (c. A.D. 30–A.D. 66) was the daughter and oldest surviving child of the Roman Emperor Claudius and the only child of his second wife Aelia Paetina.
child:
Claudia Octavia
Claudia Octavia (late A.D. 39 or early A.D. 40 – 8 June A.D. 62) was an Empress of Rome. She was the daughter of the Emperor Claudius, and stepsister and first wife of the Emperor Nero.
child:
Britannicus
Tiberius Claudius Caesar Britannicus (c. 12 February A.D. 41 – 11 February A.D. 55), usually called Britannicus, was the son of Roman emperor Claudius and his third wife Valeria Messalina. For a time he was considered his father's heir, but that changed after his mother's downfall in 48.
Livia Drusilla (30 January 58 B.C. – 28 September 29 A.D.), also known as Julia Augusta after her formal adoption into the Julian family in AD 14, was the wife of the Roman emperor Augustus throughout his reign, as well as his adviser. She was the mother of the emperor Tiberius, paternal grandmother of the emperor Claudius, paternal great-grandmother of the emperor Caligula, and maternal great-great-grandmother of the emperor Nero.
Brother:
Germanicus
Germanicus (24 May 15 B.C. – 10 October A.D. 19) was a member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty and a prominent general of the Roman Empire, who was known for his campaigns in Germania.
Sister:
Livilla
Claudia Livia Julia (c. 13 B.C. – A.D. 31) was the only daughter of Nero Claudius Drusus and Antonia Minor and sister of the Roman Emperor Claudius and general Germanicus, and thus the paternal aunt of the emperor Caligula and maternal great-aunt of emperor Nero, as well as the niece and daughter-in-law of Tiberius.
grandmother:
Octavia Minor
Octavia the Younger (69 B.C. – 11 B.C.), also known as Octavia Minor or simply Octavia, was the elder sister of the first Roman Emperor, Augustus (known also as Octavian) and the half-sister of Octavia the Elder. She was also the great-grandmother of the Emperor Caligula and Empress Agrippina the Younger, maternal grandmother of the Emperor Claudius, and paternal great-grandmother and maternal great-great-grandmother of the Emperor Nero.
Tiberius Claudius Nero (85–33 B.C.) was a politician who lived in the last century of the Roman Republic.
1st wife:
Plautia Urgulanilla
Plautia Urgulanilla was the first wife of the future Roman Emperor Claudius. They married sometime around the year 9 A.D. when Claudius was 18 years old. According to Suetonius, Claudius divorced her in 24 on grounds of adultery by Plautia and his suspicions of her involvement in the murder of her sister-in-law Apronia.
2nd wife:
Aelia Paetina
Aelia Paetina was the second wife of the Roman Emperor Claudius.
Agrippina the Younger (6 November A.D. 15 – 23 March A.D. 59), also referred to as Agrippina Minor was a Roman empress and one of the more prominent women in the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Her father was Germanicus, a popular general and one-time heir apparent to the Roman Empire under Tiberius; and her mother was Agrippina the Elder, a granddaughter of the first Roman emperor Augustus. She was also the younger sister of Caligula, as well as the niece and fourth wife of Claudius.
