Emperor Claudius Essay -- essays research papers

IntroductionTiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus (b. 10 BC, d. 54 A.D. emperor, 41-54 A.D.) was the third emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. His reign represents a routine point in the history of the Principate for a number of reasons, not the least for the manner of his accession and the implications it carried for the nature of the office. During his reign he promoted administrators who did not belong to the senatorial or equestrian classes, and was later vilified by authors who did. He followed Caesar in carrying Roman arms across the English Channel into Britain nevertheless, unlike his predecessor, he initiated the full-scale appropriation of Britain as a province, which remains today the most closely studied corner of the Roman Empire. His relationships with his wives and children provide detailed insights into the perennial difficulties of the succession problem set about by all Roman Emperors. His final settlement in this regard was not lucky he adopted his fourth wifes son, who was to reign catastrophically as Nero and bring the dynasty to an end. Claudiuss reign, therefore, was a mixture of successes and failures that leads into the last phase of the Julio-Claudian line.Early Life (10 BC - 41 A.D.)Claudius was born on 1 August 10 BC at Lugdunum in Gaul, into the heart of the Julio-Claudian dynasty he was the son of Drusus Claudius Nero, the son of Augustuss wife Livia, and Antonia, the daughter of Mark Antony. His uncle, Tiberius, went on to become emperor in AD 14 and his brother Germanicus was marked out for succession to the purple when, in AD 4, he was adopted by Tiberius. It might be expected that Claudius, as a well-connected imperial prince, would have enjoyed the active public life customary for young men of his standing but this was not the case. In an age that hated weakness, Claudius was unfortunate enough to have been born with defects. He limped, he drooled, he stuttered and was constantly ill. His family members mistook these physi cal debilities as reflective of mental infirmity and generally unploughed him out of the public philia as an embarrassment. A sign of this familial disdain is that he remained under guardianship, like a woman, even after he had reached the age of majority. Suetonius, in particular, preserves comments of Antonia, his mother, and Livia, his grandmother, which are particularly cruel in their assessment of the boy. From t... ...and cautious nature, he had a cruel streak, as suggested by his habituation to gladiatorial games and his fondness for watching his defeated opponents executed. He conducted closed-door trials of leading citizens that frequently resulted in their ruin or deaths -- an unprecedented and tyrannical pattern of behavior. He had his wife Messalina executed, and he personally presided over a court in the Praetorian Camp in which many of her hangers-on lost their lives. He abandoned his throw son Britannicus to his fate and favored the advancement of Nero as his suc cessor. At the same time, his reign was marked by some notable successes the invasion of Britain, stability and cheeseparing government in the provinces, and successful management of client kingdoms. Claudius, then, is a more enigmatic figure than the other Julio-Claudian emperors at once careful, intelligent, aware and respectful of tradition, but given to bouts of rage and cruelty, willing to sacrifice precedent to expediency, and utterly ruthless in his treatment of those who crossed him. Augustuss suspicion that there was more to the timid Claudius than met the eye was more than fully borne out by the events of his unexpected reign.