When he awarded triumphal regalia to Lucius Junius Silanus (the prospective husband of his daughter Octavia) and to numerous elder men at Rome, all on the slightest of excuses, the legions in Germany sent him a round-robin begging that he would issue the same honour to every provincial governor-general on his appointment—otherwise he would try to win it in the field by provoking frontier incidents. He granted Aulus Plautius a triumphal ovation, going out to meet him when he entered the City and courteously giving him the wall on his way up to the Capitol and down again. Moreover, Gabinius Secondus was permitted to adopt the surname ‘Cauchius’ for his victory over the Cauchians, a German tribe.
25. Claudius made new regulations for the military careers of knights: after commanding an infantry battalion, they were promoted to a cavalry squadron, and then rose to a full colonelcy. He also introduced a so-called ‘supernumerary’ army service for performance in name only, though it counted as effective; and persuaded the House to issue a decree, forbidding soldiers to pay complimentary calls on senators. Any freedman who tried to pass himself off as a knight found his property confiscated; and if one proved ungrateful to his former master and caused him annoyance, back he went to slavery—Claudius told the lawyers engaged in such cases that a patron should not be placed in the disgraceful position of having to sue the man he had himself manumitted.
Finding that a number of sick or worn-out slaves had been marooned by their owners on the Island of Aesculapius in the Tiber, to avoid the trouble of giving them proper medical attention, Claudius freed them all and ruled that none who got well again should return to the control of his former owner; furthermore, that any owner who made away with a sick slave, for the same mean reason, should be charged with murder. One of his edicts banned travel through any Italian town except on foot, in a sedan-chair, or in a litter. He also stationed fire brigades at Puteoli and Ostia.
It now became illegal for foreigners to adopt the names of Roman families, and any who usurped the rights of Roman citizens were executed on the slopes of the Esquiline Hill. Tiberius had converted the provinces of Greece and Macedonia into a private domain of his own; Claudius deeded them back to the Senate. He deprived the Lycians of national independence to punish their love of savage vendettas; but restored the Rhodians’ independence to express his pleasure at their recent moral improvement. In granting the Trojans, as founders of the Roman race, perpetual exemption from tribute, he supported his act by reading aloud an ancient letter written in Greek to King Seleucus of Pergamum, from the Senate and People of Rome, with a promise of loyal friendship on condition that Seleucus should ‘keep their Trojan kinsfolk free from all imposts’. Because the Jews at Rome caused continuous disturbances at the instigation of Chrestus,68 he expelled them from the City. When the German envoys first visited the Theatre, they took their seats among the common people, but, noticing the Parthian and Armenian envoys seated with the Senators in the orchestra, went to join them—were they not just as brave and nobly born? Claudius admired their simple confidence and let them remain there. Augustus had been content to prohibit any Roman citizen in Gaul from taking part in the savage and terrible Druidic cult; Claudius abolished it altogether. On the other hand, he attempted to transfer the Eleusinian Mysteries from Athens to Rome; and had the ruined Temple of Venus on Mount Eryx in Sicily restored at the expense of the Public Treasury. Whenever he concluded a treaty with foreign rulers, he sacrificed a sow in the Forum, using the ancient formula of the Fetial priests. Yet all these acts, and others like them—indeed, one might say, everything that Claudius did throughout his reign—were dictated by his wives and freedmen: he practically always obeyed their whims rather than his own judgement.
26. Claudius was twice betrothed while still a boy: to Augustus’s great-grand-daughter Aemilia Lepida, and to Livia Medullina Camilla, a descendant of the famous dictator Camillus. However, when Aemilia Lepida’s parents offended Augustus her engagement was broken off; and Livia Medullina died of some illness on what should have been her wedding day. His first wife, Plautia Urgulanilla, whose father had won a triumph, he divorced for scandalous misbehaviour and the suspicion of murder; his next, Aelia Paetina, daughter of an ex-consul, he also divorced, for slighter offences. Then he married Valeria Messalina, daughter of his cousin Messala Barbatus. It turned out that she was not only guilty of other disgraceful crimes, but had gone so far as to commit bigamy with Gaius Silius, and even sign a formal marriage contract before witnesses; so Claudius executed her and told the Guards Division that, having been unfortunate in his wives, he was resolved to live a celibate life in future—they could kill him if he did not keep his word!
Almost at once, however, he planned either to marry Lollia Paulina, Caligula’s widow, or to re-marry his divorced wife Aelia Paetina; but it was Agrippina, daughter of his brother Germanicus, who hooked him. She had a niece’s privilege of kissing and caressing Claudius, and exercised it with a noticeable effect on his passions: when the House next met, he persuaded a group of senators to propose that a union between him and her should be compulsorily arranged, in the public interest; and that other uncles should likewise be free to marry their nieces, though this had hitherto counted as incest. The wedding took place without delay, but no other uncle cared to follow Claudius’s example, except one freedman, and one leading-centurion whose marriage he and Agrippina both attended.
27. He had children by three of his wives. Urgulanilla bore him Drusus and Claudia; Drusus died just before he came of age, choked by a pear which he had playfully thrown up and caught in his open mouth; since he had been betrothed, only a few days previously, to Sejanus’s daughter, the tradition that Sejanus murdered him becomes still less plausible. Claudia’s real father was Claudius’s freedman Bota. Claudius disavowed paternity and, though she was born nearly five months after the divorce, had her laid naked outside Urgulanilla’s house-door. Aelia Paetina bore him Antonia, who was twice married: first to Gnaeus Pompey and then to Faustus Sulla, both young noblemen of distinction. Messalina’s children were Octavia, who was betrothed to Lucius Silanus before marrying Claudius’s step-son, the notorious Nero; and Germanicus, afterwards called Britannicus, born on the twenty-second day of his father’s reign, while he was also Consul for the second time. Claudius would often pick little Britannicus up and show him to the troops, or to the audience at the Games, either seated in his lap or held at arms’ length. His cry: ‘Good luck to you, my boy!’ was loudly echoed on all sides. Of his three sons-in-law, Claudius adopted only Nero; Pompey and Sulla were put to death.
28. Among Claudius’s favourite freedmen were Posides the eunuch, to whom he actually awarded, at his British triumph, the honour of a headless spear, along with soldiers who had fought in the field. For Felix he had an equally high regard, giving him command of infantry battalions and cavalry squadrons, and the Governorship of Judaea; this Felix married three queens.69 Then there was Harpocras, who earned the privileges of riding through Rome in a litter and staging public entertainments as though he were a knight. Claudius had an even higher regard for Polybius, his literary mentor, who often walked between the two Consuls. But his firmest devotion was reserved for Narcissus, his secretary, and Pallas, his treasurer, whom he encouraged the Senate to honour with large gifts of money and the insignia of quaestors and praetors as well. They were able to acquire such riches, by legitimate and illegitimate means, that when one day Claudius complained how little cash was left in the Privy Purse, someone answered neatly that he would have heaps of pocket money if only his two freedmen took him into partnership.
29. As I mention above, Claudius fell so deeply under the influence of these freedmen and wives that he seemed to be their servant rather than their emperor; and distributed titles, army commands, indulgences or punishments according to their wishes, however capricious, seldom even aware of what he was about. I need not dwell on matters of lesser importance: how he revoked grants, cancelled edicts, brazenly amended the texts of letters-patent he had issued, or at least subs
tituted new versions for the old. Suffice it to record that he executed his father-in-law Appius Silanus; Julia, daughter of Tiberius’s son Drusus; and Julia, daughter of his own brother Germanicus—all on unsupported charges and without the right to plead in self-defence. Gnaeus Pompey, who had married his daughter Antonia, was stabbed to death while in bed with a favourite catamite; and Lucius Silanus, whom Claudius had betrothed to his daughter Octavia, lost his praetorship and, four days later, had orders to commit suicide; this was the very New Year’s Day on which Claudius married Agrippina. He executed thirty-five senators and 300 Roman knights, with so little apparent concern that once, when a centurion reported that So-and-so the ex-Consul was now duly despatched, and Claudius denied having given any such command, his freedmen satisfied him that the soldiers had done right not to wait for instructions before taking vengeance on a public enemy. It is very difficult, however, to believe that they tricked Claudius into signing the marriage contract between Messalina and her lover Silius by an assurance that the marriage was a mere fiction: a transference of portended dangers threatening ‘Messalina’s husband’, from himself to someone else.
30. Claudius had a certain dignity of presence, which showed to best advantage when he happened to be standing or seated and expressing no emotion. This was because, though tall, well-built, handsome, with a fine head of white hair and a firm neck, he stumbled as he walked owing to the weakness of his knees; and because, if excited either by play or serious business, he had several disagreeable traits. These included an uncontrolled laugh, a horrible habit, under the stress of anger, of slobbering at the mouth and running at the nose, a stammer, and a persistent nervous tic—which grew so bad under emotional stress that his head would toss from side to side.
31. His health was wretched until he succeeded to the throne, when it suddenly became excellent, except for violent stomach-aches which often, he said, made him think of suicide.
32. He gave many splendid banquets, usually in large halls, and at times invited no fewer than 600 guests. One banquet was held close to the debouchment of the Fucine Lake on the day it was emptied; but the water came rushing out in a deluge and almost drowned him. His sons and daughters, like those of other important officials, were always expected to dine with him; sitting in old-fashioned style at the ends of the couches on which their parents reclined. Once, when a guest was believed to have pocketed a golden bowl, Claudius invited him again the next evening, this time setting a small earthenware basin in front of him. Some say that he planned an edict to legitimize the breaking of wind at table, either silently or noisily—after hearing about a man who was so modest that he endangered his health by an attempt to restrain himself.
33. No matter where Claudius happened to be, he always felt ready for food or drink. One day, while he was judging a case in Augustus’s Forum, the delicious smell of cooking assailed his nostrils. He descended from the Tribunal, closed the court, and went to the dining room of the Leaping Priests in the near-by Temple of Mars, where he immediately took his place at the meal he had scented. It was seldom that Claudius left a dining-hall except gorged and sodden; he would then go to bed and sleep supine with his mouth wide open—thus allowing a feather to be put down his throat, which would bring up the superfluous food and drink as vomit.
He slept in short snatches, being usually awake before midnight; but let him begin to nod in Court and the lawyers had difficulty in rousing him, however loud they shouted. His feelings for women were extremely passionate, but boys and men left him cold. So fervent was his devotion to dice that he published a book on the subject, and used to play, while out driving, on a special board fitted to his carriage which kept the dice from rolling off capriciously.
34. His bloodthirstiness appeared equally in great and small matters. For instance, if evidence had to be extracted under torture, or parricide punished, he allowed the Law to take its course without delay and in his own presence. Once, when an old-fashioned execution70 had been ordered at Tivoli and the criminals had been tied to their stakes, nobody could be found capable of carrying it out; but Claudius summoned a specialist from Rome and was so set on witnessing the procedure that he waited until dusk for the man’s arrival. At gladiatorial shows, whether or not they were staged by himself, he ruled that all combatants who fell accidentally should have their throats cut—above all net-fighters, the death agony on whose faces was not hidden by any helmets. When a pair of gladiators mortally wounded each other he sent for their swords and had pocket-knives made from them for his personal use. Claudius so greatly enjoyed wild-beast shows and the fencing matches during the luncheon interval that, after he had spent the whole morning in the amphitheatre from daybreak until noon, he would dismiss the audience, keep his seat, and not only watch the regular combats but extemporize others between the stage carpenters, and similar members of the theatre staff, as a punishment for the failure of any mechanical device to work as it should. He even forced one of his pages to enter the arena and fight in his gown.
35. Claudius was so timid and suspicious that, though making a show of simplicity in the early days of his reign, as I mention above, he never attended a banquet unless with an escort of javelin-bearing Guards, and waited upon by soldiers. Before entering a sick-room he always had it carefully gone over: pillows and mattresses were prodded, and bedclothes shaken out. Later, he even required all visitors to be searched when they came to pay him a morning call, and excused no one. Indeed, it was not until the end of his reign that he reluctantly gave up the practice of having women, boys, and girls pawed about during these routine examinations, and of removing the stylus-case from every caller’s attendant or secretary. Camillus the rebel felt sure that Claudius could be frightened into abdication merely by insolent threats, without the need of declaring war; and Claudius did in fact seriously ask his privy council whether he should comply with Camillus’s demands.
36. Baseless rumours of conspiracies caused Claudius such alarm that he wished himself back in private life. After the arrest of the man with the dagger, he sent out town-criers to call an immediate meeting of the Senate, at which he protested tearfully that no place was safe for him any longer; and failed to appear in public during the next few days. Nor did Messalina’s insulting behaviour destroy the extravagant love he bore her, so much as terror that she planned to seat her lover Silius on the throne; and when the news of their marriage reached him he fled ignominiously to the Guards’ Camp, asking again and again as he went: ‘Am I still Emperor?’
37. At the slightest hint of danger he would take instant action against his supposed enemy. Once a morning caller drew Claudius aside and whispered: ‘In my dreams last night you were murdered. I would recognize your assailant if I saw him.’ Presently he shouted: ‘Look! There he is, handing in a petition!’ Claudius had the petitioner arrested as if caught in the act, and hurried away to execution; unaware that the two men were at law together. Appius Silanus is said to have been the victim of a similar ruse; for when Messalina and Narcissus decided to get rid of him they agreed that Narcissus should run in alarm to Claudius’s bedroom just before dawn and pretend that he had dreamed of a violent attack on him by Appius. Messalina would then awake and exclaim with pretended astonishment: ‘Why, it comes back to me now! I have dreamed the same dream for the last few nights.’ They would have already sent Appius a summons to visit Claudius, so that when someone else announced that he was forcing his way into the Imperial quarters, Claudius would take this as positive proof that the dreams were true, accuse Appius of attempted murder and sentence him to death. The plan worked; and the next day Claudius blandly told the Senate what had happened, incidentally thanking Narcissus for exercising such vigilance even while asleep.
38. In one edict he confessed to the faults of anger and resentment; but undertook that his anger would never last long, nor his resentment be unjustified. Then there was his bitter letter reprimanding the citizens of Ostia because they had sent no ships to meet him when he sailed up the Tiber, whi
ch made him feel ‘reduced to the ranks’; yet he as suddenly forgave them and sent what amounted to an apology for the warmth of his remarks.
If pestered in public by applicants of every sort, Claudius used to push them away with his own hands. Among the innocent people whom he banished without a hearing were a quaestor’s clerk who had once treated him contemptuously in a court case before his accession; and a senator of praetorian rank who, while aedile, had fined Claudius’s tenants for illegally selling cooked food and then whipped his bailiff because he protested. The same resentment made Claudius deprive the aediles of their control over the cookshops.
Instead of keeping quiet about his stupidity, Claudius explained, in a few short speeches, that it had been a mere mask assumed for the benefit of Caligula, and that he owed both life and throne to it. Nobody, however, believed him, and soon a book was published entitled The Fool’s Rise to Power; the thesis being that no one would act the fool unless he were a fool already.
39. Claudius’s scatter-brainedness and shortsightedness—or if you prefer the Greek terms, his meteoria and ablepsia—were truly remark able. After executing Messalina, he went in to dinner, and presently asked: ‘Why is her ladyship not here?’ On several occasions he sent for men to give him advice or throw dice with him; and, when they did not appear, followed this up with a reproachful message calling them slugabeds—quite unaware that he had just sentenced them to death.
While planning his technically incestuous marriage with Agrippina, he made certain most unsuitable public references to her: such as ‘my daughter and foster-child, born and bred in my lap, so to speak.’ And shortly before adopting his step-son Nero—as though this were not wrong enough, when he already possessed a grown-up son—gave out with pride more than once that nobody had ever yet been adopted into the Claudian family.