Claudius

Claudius [Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus] (10 BC–AD 54), Roman emperor, was born at Lugdunum (Lyons) on 1 August 10 BC. His father was Nero Claudius Drusus, brother of the emperor Tiberius, and at the time governor of Gaul; his mother was Antonia, the daughter of Marcus Antonius and Octavia, the sister of the emperor Augustus. Despite this impeccable pedigree, Claudius did not advance to the offices that would have been normal for a person destined by birth for an important public career. According to Tacitus (AD 56–113) this was because he was largely blocked from such distinctions by Tiberius, who was emperor from AD 14 to AD 37, due to his ‘weak-mindedness’ (Tacitus, 6.46). In fact, encouraged by the great Roman historian Livy (c.64 BC–AD 12), he became a very considerable scholar, writing works on the Etruscans and the Carthaginians, on Augustus's principate, and an autobiography; none survives, but their accomplishment points to an active and focused mind, and one well versed in Greek, the language in which he wrote. His reputation as a scholar proved sufficiently durable for Robert Graves to publish his purported autobiography, I, Claudius and Claudius the God, in 1934. Claudius did suffer, however, from severe physical disabilities, one likely reason for his being debarred from significant early office. Although well built, he dragged his right leg, spoke in a stammering voice that was barely comprehensible, being ‘raucous and throaty’, and when angry ‘would foam at the mouth and trickle at the nose’. His laughter was ‘unseemly’, and his head and hands shook, all features which modern scholarship tends to interpret as signs of the condition of cerebral palsy. However, Suetonius (c.AD 69–140) does note that, while he was emperor, his health was excellent except for attacks of stomach pains that may have been heartburn; indeed, he had a particular interest in medicine, and took a favourite doctor from Cos, Gaius Stertinius Xenophon, on his journey to Britain in AD 43 (Suetonius, 31).

With the succession of his nephew Gaius (Caligula) in AD 37, Claudius's hopes of political advancement took a brief upturn. He held the consulship, as Gaius's colleague, from 1 July to 31 August 37, giving him his first taste of power. He several times presided at public shows in lieu of Gaius, bringing him acknowledgement from the people, who cried ‘success to the emperor's uncle’. Even so, he was continually insulted, not least because he was straitened financially, having only a comparatively modest inheritance. When he was obliged to become part of the priesthood of Gaius in AD 40, involving the payment of a huge sum of money, he had to borrow from the public treasury; when he could not meet his debts, his property was put up for sale to make up the deficiency. Humiliation and contempt were in fact constant companions in Claudius's life under Gaius, not least at the instigation of the emperor himself. Indeed, Gaius became ever more loathed among the political classes, whether for his autocratic manner, his swingeing taxes, or his lack of military achievement. His near-inevitable assassination came on 24 January AD 41, by officers of the praetorian guard. It took place as he passed along a passage out of the theatre on the Palatine on his way to the palace. According to the sources, Claudius, the 49-year old scholar, apparently fearful of his own life, hid in the palace on a balcony behind some curtains; a soldier, seeing his protruding feet, hauled him out and, in Suetonius's words, ‘when Claudius fell at his feet in terror, he hailed him as emperor’. Claudius was then taken to the fort of the praetorian guard and, while the senate argued about whether to restore the republic, stayed there overnight and managed to secure, partly through bribery, the support of the guard. Although the senate initially declared Claudius a ‘public enemy’, a month later he could enter the building, albeit with bodyguards, and be confirmed as emperor.
Although Suetonius describes Claudius's elevation as ‘a freak of fortune’, modern historical evaluation of the evidence suggests a highly discreet behind-the-scenes involvement with Gaius's assassination, and a prior striking of deals with those who thought that they had something to lose by the restoration of the republic. Likewise, given the nature of his accession and the lack of any sort of military achievement, he would have been well aware of the need for some sort of triumph. It was a point brought home by a brief and unsuccessful revolt against him in Dalmatia the following year. Territorial acquisition must have seemed the obvious course. Here he was able to claim much of the credit for the creation of two new provinces in north Africa, Mauretania Caesariensis and Mauretania Tingitana. Although properly the result of Gaius's order to assassinate the Moorish ruler, Ptolemy, in AD 40, it was mainly Claudius's generals who suppressed the ensuing uprisings, and brought about order. Both he and the commander, Marcus Crassus Frugi, received triumphal insignia from the senate.

It was Claudius's conquest of Britain that was, however, to be his greatest achievement. It was an obvious target. Not only would he be following in the footsteps of the deified Julius Caesar—and would hope to surpass him by creating a permanently held province—but Britain was known to export grain, cattle, gold, silver, iron, hides, slaves, and hunting dogs. This would help to refill a treasury depleted by Gaius's extravagant spending, but would also provide booty for his soldiers. Moreover, occupation of Britain would allow a further geographical separation of the legions; there was by now a concentration of eight along the Rhine–Danube frontier, and the revolt of AD 41 was a reminder of the dangers posed by disaffected commanders. The decision to launch the conquest, already contemplated by Gaius, cannot have been difficult.

Britain at that time was ruled by a series of tribal leaders. The more advanced issued coins, mostly bearing their name, but lived in settlements of no architectural pretension, although they were often provided with quite elaborate defences of earthen banks and ditches. Until his death about AD 40, the leading figure was Cunobelinus (Shakespeare's Cymbeline), ruler of the Catuvellauni of what is now Hertfordshire. During his long reign of some forty years, he instigated a considerable expansion of Catuvellaunian power into adjoining regions. His original base may have been at Verulamium (St Albans), but he later set up a new capital at Camulodunum (Colchester), already a royal seat of the Trinovantes. Pro-Roman in stance, Cunobelinus posed no threat to the adjacent province of Gaul; however, when his two sons, Caratacus and Togodumnus, succeeded him, matters altered, for they were both warlike and fiercely opposed to Rome. The territory of the Atrebates (modern Hampshire) was probably overrun by one or the other of them, and the ruler, Verica, expelled. He fled to Rome, and appealed to Claudius for intervention. It provided a perfect justification for the conquest.

Preparations for the invasion were thorough. Not the least was the organization of the commissariat by the procurator of northern Gaul, Graecinius Laco, who was subsequently awarded the privilege of having a statue of himself erected in Rome for his work. The Britons had the reputation of being doughty fighters, and the channel, known as the Ocean, was so fearsome a barrier that initially the troops refused to embark. Eventually, however, probably in May or June AD 43, some 40,000 soldiers set sail from Gesoriacum (Boulogne). In command was Aulus Plautius, a distinguished man who came from the Balkan province of Pannonia, where he had been governor. He brought with him the ninth legion (IX Hispana) while three other legions, the II Augusta, XIV Gemina, and XX Valeria, were summoned from the Rhine; auxiliary troops were also drafted in. It was a formidable force, a comment both on the perceived strength of the opposition and on Claudius's manifest intention to succeed.

Plautius had divided his invasion fleet into three. Where they landed is not known for certain, but Rutupiae (Richborough, in east Kent) is a strong probability on archaeological grounds, while another detachment may have headed for Noviomagus (Chichester) in a part of Verica's former kingdom. Initial skirmishes were followed by a great battle, which took place over two days (an unusual feature in antiquity), very likely at the River Medway. The fighting then moved on to the Thames, where the Britons were eventually ousted and Togodumnus was killed. The Romans now halted their advance, and sent for Claudius, as he had instructed. When word reached Rome, Claudius immediately began the arduous journey by sea to Massalia (Marseilles) and overland to Gesoriacum. With him were a considerable number of senior senators, doubtless brought to stop them from plotting in Rome, and also some elephants, which were commonly used in the Hellenistic world to frighten the enemy. The ancient sources disagree on Claudius's military achievements in Britain; but they were very likely real, and the Roman name for Chelmsford, Caesaromagus, may reflect his presence at a significant battle. Before long, he and the army had reached Camulodunum and captured it. When later the storming and sacking of a town, and the surrender of the British kings, was re-enacted in the Campus Martius in Rome, it was almost certainly the taking of Camulodunum that was being portrayed.

Claudius is said to have stayed only sixteen days in Britain, and by early in AD 44, after some six months away, he was back in Rome. There he received a triumph (the first for a princeps or emperor since 29 BC), and the building of two celebratory arches was voted by the senate: one in Rome and the other in Gaul, where he had embarked. The triumphal arch in Rome was dedicated in AD 51, and the surviving part of the inscription records that it was put up ‘by the Roman Senate and People because he [Claudius] had received the surrender of eleven British Kings, defeated without loss, and for the first time had brought barbarian peoples from beyond the Ocean under Roman rule’ (Inscriptiones, 6, no. 920). A coin was struck, showing an equestrian statue of Claudius on top of an arch, inscribed DEBRITANN[IS], thus disseminating the news of the conquest throughout the empire; and a triumphal arch was erected by the citizens of Cyzicus and a relief, with Claudius subduing Britannia, at Aphrodisias. Both were places in far-off Asia Minor: it was a famous victory.

Meanwhile, the Roman army pressed on in Britain. By AD 47, when Aulus Plautius returned to Rome to the great honour of an ovation, all of the territory as far as the road known as the Fosse Way (from Exeter to Lincoln) had been taken. Under the new governor, Ostorius Scapula, significant advances were made into eastern Wales and Cheshire. The Mendip lead and silver mines were in production by AD 49, and a network of forts and roads established; while Camulodunum, initially a legionary fortress, was in the same year converted into a colonia for retired legionaries. In AD 51, Caratacus himself was finally captured and taken to Rome. The new province was thus firmly established, and Claudius's own position as emperor was likewise now secure.

Claudius never again left Italy, despite the annexation of other territory in the Balkans (the province of Noricum) and Lycia, in south-west Asia Minor. He was responsible for great public works, like the harbour at Ostia and aqueducts serving Rome; and he also had an active private life. He was married four times: to Plautia Urgulanilla (AD c.10); to Aelia Paetina (in AD 28 or before); to Valeria Messal(l)ina (AD c.38); and finally to Julia Agrippina (AD 49), who survived him. He died in Rome on 13 October AD 54, it is said by poison, to be succeeded by Nero. He may have been buried in the Mausoleum of Augustus, in the Campus Martius in Rome, but this is unproven.

Claudius's intervention in British affairs was, literally, to change the face of the country. Although he was not responsible for the conquest of the whole province, which took decades, many of today's lowland towns and cities (not least London) originated during his principate, just as the essentials of the road network are owed to Roman engineers. Claudius, who gained so much from the conquest, would surely have taken a personal interest in these matters; it was an epoch which properly marks the beginning of British history.

Sources

Suetonius, Claudius, ed. H. E. Butler and M. Cary (1927) • Dio's Roman history, ed. and trans. E. Cary, 7 (1924), lx • C. Tacitus, The histories [and] the annals, ed. and trans. C. H. Moore and J. Jackson, 2 (1931) • A. K. Bowman, E. Champlin, and A. Lintott, The Cambridge ancient history, 2nd edn, 10 (1996), 229–41, 503–16 • E. M. Smallwood, Documents illustrating the principates of Gaius, Claudius, and Nero (1967) • B. Levick, Claudius (1990) • S. S. Frere, Britannia: a history of Roman Britain, 3rd edn (1987) • P. Salway, Roman Britain (1981) • G. D. B. Jones and D. Mattingly, An atlas of Roman Britain (1990) • D. R. Dudley and G. Webster, The conquest of Britain (1965) • K. T. Erim, ‘A relief showing Claudius and Britannia from Aphrodisias’, Britannia, 13 (1982), 277–85 • S. B. Platner and T. Ashby, A topographical dictionary of ancient Rome (1929) • W. Henzen and others, Inscriptiones urbis Romae latinae, no. 920