Claudius, 10 B.C.-A.D. 54; ruled 41-54
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TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS DRUSUS CAESAR.
I. Livia, having married Augustus when she was pregnant, was within three
months afterwards delivered of Drusus, the father of Claudius Caesar, who had at
first the praenomen of Decimus, but afterwards that of Nero; and it was
suspected that he was begotten in adultery by his father-in-law. The following
verse, however, was immediately in every one's mouth:
Tois eutychousi kai primaena paidia.
Nine months for common births the fates decree;
But, for the great, reduce the term to three.
This Drusus, during the time of his being quaestor and praetor, commanded in
the Rhaetian and German wars, and was the first of all the Roman generals who
navigated the Northern Ocean. He made likewise some prodigious trenches beyond the
Rhine, which to this day are called by his name. He overthrew
the enemy in several battles, and drove them far back into the depths of the
desert. Nor did he desist from pursuing them, until an apparition, in the form
of a barbarian woman, of more than human size, appeared to him, and, in the
Latin tongue, forbad him to proceed any farther. For these achievements he had
the honour of an ovation, and the triumphal ornaments. After his praetorship, he
immediately entered on the office of consul, and returning again to Germany,
died of disease, in the summer encampment, which thence obtained the name of
"The Unlucky Camp." His corpse was carried to Rome by the principal persons of
the several municipalities and colonies upon the road, being met and received by
the recorders of each place, and buried in the Campus Martius. In honour of his
memory, the army erected a monument, round which the soldiers used,
annually, upon a certain day, to march in solemn procession, and persons deputed
from the several cities of Gaul performed religious rites. The senate likewise,
among various other honours, decreed for him a triumphal arch of marble, with
trophies, in the Appian Way, and gave the cognomen of Germanicus to him and his
posterity. In him the civil and military virtues were equally displayed; for,
besides his victories, he gained from the enemy the Spolia Opima /1/, and frequently marked out the German chiefs in the
midst of their army, and encountered them in single combat, at the utmost hazard
of his life. He likewise often declared that he would, some time or other, if
possible, restore the ancient government. In this account, I suppose, some have
ventured to affirm that Augustus was jealous of him, and recalled him; and
because he made no haste to comply with the order, took him off by poison. This
I mention, that I may not be guilty of any omission, more than because I think
it either true or probable; since Augustus loved him so much when living, that
he always, in his wills, made him joint-heir with his sons, as he once declared
in the senate; and upon his decease, extolled him in a speech to the people, to
that degree, that he prayed the gods "to make his Caesars like him, and to grant
himself as honourable an exit out of this world as they had given him." And not
satisfied with inscribing upon his tomb an epitaph in verse composed by himself,
he wrote likewise the history of his life in prose. He had by the younger
Antonia several children, but left behind him only three, namely, Germanicus,
Livilla, and Claudius.
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XV. But in hearing and determining causes, he exhibited a strange
inconsistency of temper, being at one time circumspect and sagacious, at another
inconsiderate and rash, and sometimes frivolous, and like one out of his mind.
In correcting the roll of judges, he struck off the name of one who, concealing
the privilege his children gave him to be excused from serving, had answered to
his name, as too eager for the office. Another who was summoned before him in a
cause of his own, but alleged that the affair did not properly come under the
emperor's cognizance, but that of the ordinary judges, he ordered to plead
the cause himself immediately before him, and show in a case of his own, how
equitable a judge he would prove in that of other persons. A woman refusing to
acknowledge her own son, and there being no clear proof on either side, he
obliged her to confess the truth, by ordering her to marry the young man /2/.
He was much inclined to determine causes in favour of
the parties who appeared, against those who did not, without inquiring whether
their absence was occasioned by their own fault, or by real necessity. On
proclamation of a man's being convicted of forgery, and that he ought to have
his hand cut off, he insisted that an executioner should be immediately sent
for, with a Spanish sword and a block. A person being prosecuted for falsely
assuming the freedom of Rome, and a frivolous dispute arising between the
advocates in the cause, whether he ought to make his appearance in the Roman or
Grecian dress, to show his impartiality, he commanded him to change his clothes
several times according to the character he assumed in the accusation or
defence. An anecdote is related of him, and believed to be true, that, in a
particular cause, he delivered his sentence in writing thus: "I am in favour of
those who have spoken the truth." By this he so much forfeited the good opinion of the
world, that he was everywhere and openly despised. A person making an excuse for
the non-appearance of a witness whom he had sent for from the provinces,
declared it was impossible for him to appear, concealing the reason for some
time: at last, after several interrogatories were put to him on the subject, he
answered, "The man is dead;" to which Claudius replied, "I think that is a
sufficient excuse." Another thanking him for suffering a person who was
prosecuted to make his defence by counsel, added, "And yet it is no more than
what is usual." I have likewise heard some old men say,
that the advocates used to abuse his patience so
grossly, that they would not only call him back, as he was quitting the
tribunal, but would seize him by the lap of his coat, and sometimes catch him by
the heels, to make him stay. That such behaviour, however strange, is not
incredible, will appear from this anecdote. Some obscure Greek, who was a
litigant, had an altercation with him, in which he called out, "You are an old
fool."
It is certain that a Roman knight, who was prosecuted
by an impotent device of his enemies on a false charge of abominable obscenity
with women, observing that common strumpets were summoned against him and
allowed to give evidence, upbraided Claudius in very harsh and severe terms with
his folly and cruelty, and threw his style, and some books which he had in his
hands, in his face, with such violence as to wound him severely in the cheek.
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XXI. He often distributed largesses of corn and money among the people, and
entertained them with a great variety of public magnificent spectacles, not only
such as were usual, and in the accustomed places, but some of new invention, and
others revived from ancient models, and exhibited in places where nothing of the
kind had been ever before attempted. In the games which he presented at the
dedication of Pompey's theatre, which had been burnt down, and was rebuilt by him, he
presided upon a tribunal erected for him in the orchestra; having first paid his
devotions, in the temple above, and then coming down through the centre of the
circle, while all the people kept their seats in profound silence.
He likewise exhibited the secular games, giving out that Augustus had anticipated the regular
period; though he himself says in his history, "That they had been omitted
before the age of Augustus, who had calculated the years with great exactness,
and again brought them to their regular period."
The crier was therefore ridiculed, when he invited
people in the usual form, "to games which no person had ever before seen, nor
ever would again;" when many were still living who had already seen them; and
some of the performers who had formerly acted in them, were now again brought
upon the stage. He likewise frequently celebrated the Circensian games in the
Vatican, sometimes exhibiting a hunt of wild beasts, after
every five courses. He embellished the Circus Maximus with marble barriers, and
gilded goals, which before were of common stone
and wood, and assigned proper places for the senators,
who were used to sit promiscuously with the other spectators. Besides the
chariot-races, he exhibited there the Trojan game, and wild beasts from Africa,
which were encountered by a troop of pretorian knights, with their tribunes, and
even the prefect at the head of them; besides Thessalian horse, who drive fierce
bulls round the circus, leap upon their backs when they have exhausted their
fury, and drag them by the horns to the ground. He gave exhibitions of
gladiators in several places, and of various kinds; one yearly on the
anniversary of his accession in the pretorian camp,
but without any hunting, or the usual apparatus;
another in the Septa as usual; and in the same place, another out of the common
way, and of a few days' continuance only, which he called Sportula/5/; because when
he was going to present it, he informed the people by proclamation, "that he
invited them to a late supper, got up in haste, and without ceremony." Nor did
he lend himself to any kind of public diversion with more freedom and hilarity;
insomuch that he would hold out his left hand, and joined by the common
people, count upon his fingers aloud the gold pieces presented to those who came
off conquerors. He would earnestly invite the company to be merry; sometimes
calling them his "masters," with a mixture of insipid, far-fetched jests. Thus,
when the people called for Palumbus, he said, "He would give them one when he could catch
it." The following was well-intended, and well-timed; having, amidst great
applause, spared a gladiator, on the intercession of his four sons, he sent a
billet immediately round the theatre, to remind the people, "how much it behoved
them to get children, since they had before them an example how useful they had
been in procuring favour and security for a gladiator." He likewise represented
in the Campus Martius, the assault and sacking of a town, and the surrender of
the British kings, presiding in his general's cloak. Immediately before
he drew off the waters from the Fucine lake, he exhibited upon it a naval fight.
But the combatants on board the fleets crying out, "Health attend you, noble
emperor! We, who are about to peril our lives, salute you;" and he replying,
"Health attend you too," they all refused to fight, as if by that response he
had meant to excuse them. Upon this, he hesitated for a time, whether he should
not destroy them all with fire and sword. At last, leaping from his seat, and
running along the shore of the lake with tottering steps, the result of his foul
excesses, he, partly by fair words, and partly by threats, persuaded them to
engage. This spectacle represented an engagement between the fleets of Sicily
and Rhodes; consisting each of twelve ships of war, of three banks of oars. The
signal for the encounter was given by a silver Triton, raised by machinery from
the middle of the lake.
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XXVIII. Amongst his freedmen, the greatest favourite was the eunuch Posides,
whom, in his British triumph, he presented with the pointless spear, classing
him among the military men. Next to him, if not equal,
in favour was Felix /6/,
whom he not only preferred to commands both of cohorts
and troops, but to the government of the province of Judaea; and he became, in
consequence of his elevation, the husband of three
queens /7/. Another favourite was Harpocras, to whom he granted
the privilege of being carried in a litter within the city, and of holding
public spectacles for the entertainment of the people. In this class was
likewise Polybius, who assisted him in his studies, and had often the honour of
walking between the two consuls. But above all others, Narcissus, his secretary,
and Pallas, the comptroller of his accounts, were in high favour
with him. He not only allowed them to receive, by decree of the senate, immense
presents, but also to be decorated with the quaestorian and praetorian ensigns
of honour. So much did he indulge them in amassing wealth, and plundering the
public, that, upon his complaining, once, of the lowness of his exchequer, some
one said, with great reason, that "It would be full enough, if those two
freedmen of his would but take him into partnership with them."
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