The History of Rome: Rise and Fall of the Empire. John Bagnell Bury
to the senate and the Roman people to put into practice the constitutional theory that the Empire was elective.
As soon as the assassination became known, the consuls Sentius Saturninus and Pomponius Secundus ordered the urban cohorts to post themselves in various parts of the city, and immediately called together the senate to deliberate on what was to be done. The fathers met in the temple of Capitoline Jupiter, and not, as usual, in the Curia Julia, as though in this building they would have been under the influence of the Julian name. They were unanimous in denouncing the tyrannical rule of Gaius, in abolishing his unpopular taxes, and in promising a donative to the soldiers. But they were divided on the more momentous question as to the future of the state. Some held that the free Republic should be restored and the constitution of the Caesars abolished; others voted that the Principate should continue, but in another family, and there were not wanting candidates for the supreme place. They could come to no agreement, but, before they separated, a decree was parsed in honor of Cassius Chaerea and the other conspirators, and the watchword given by the consuls to the city cohorts was Libertas. Chaerea then sent an officer to put to death the Empress Cassunia and her infant daughter.
But the solution of the difficulty did not rest with the senate. The praetorian guards had already determined that the Empire was not to be abolished, and who the next Emperor was to be. In the confusion which followed the assignation, some of these soldiers had rushed into the palace in search of plunder, and had discovered, hidden behind a curtain, in fear of his life, Claudius, the son of Drusus and brother of Germanicus. They greeted him with the title Imperator, and carried him off to the praetorian camp. The restoration of the Republic would have meant the dissolution of the guards, and they were naturally resolved to hinder it. Claudius wavered before accepting the dignity which was thus thrust upon him and of which he had perhaps never dreamt. But the insistence of the soldiers, the voice of the people who gathered round the senate on the following morning, and the counsels of Herod Agrippa, who went to and fro between the senate and the camp, determined him to yield; and he promised the guards, when they took the oath of allegiance, a donative of 15,000 sesterces each. He was the first of the Caesars who bought the fidelity of the soldiers by a donative. It would have been useless for the senate to attempt to struggle against the will of the praetorians, even if the urban cohorts had continued to support it, but these went over to the other side.
Claudius was then conducted to the palace by the praetorians, and he ordered the senate to come to him there. The senators did not dare to refuse; only the conspirators Chaerea and Sabinus held out, and protested against the replacement of a madman by an idiot. The usual decrees were passed conferring the imperial powers upon Claudius, the first, but by no means the last, Roman Emperor who was elected by the will of the praetorian guards.
Chaerea and others of the conspirators were immediately executed. Sabinus was pardoned, but killed himself by falling on his sword, having declared that he could not survive the accession of another Caesar. For all the other acts of the short interregnum a general pardon was proclaimed. But the assassination of his nephew had made a deep impression on Claudius, and he adopted the practice of keeping guards continually posted round his person, even when he sat at table. All persons who were admitted to the imperial apartments were searched before they entered.
The new Emperor, Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus, was born at Lugudunum on the day on which the temple of Augustus and Rome was dedicated there by his father (10 B.C.). He was thus about fifty years of age when he came to the throne. He had always been regarded and treated by his family as half an imbecile, but his defects seem to have been physical rather than mental. His constitution was weak: his hands trembled; he halted on one leg; and his speech was thick. Laboring under these disadvantages, he was neglected by his mother, who described him as a “monster”, and left to the care of servants. His grandmother Livia ignored him. Augustus, indeed, recognized that he was not such a fool as he seemed, but slighted him, deeming him worthy of no higher dignity than an augurate, and leaving him only a very small bequest in his will. Tiberius treated him with undisguised contempt, and seeing no hope of a public career, Claudius retired to the country, devoted himself to literature, and amused himself with the society of low people. Under his nephew Gaius he was promoted to the dignity of the consulship, and thereby entered the senatorial rank. But his wanton kinsman forced him to submit to all kinds of indignities and insults. He was slighted in the curia, and at the court was the butt of the Emperor’s rollicking companions. The senate selected him as the head of a deputation to Gaius in Gaul, and on that occasion he was ducked in the river Rhone. He was created priest to Gaius as Jupiter Latiaris, and ruined by the enormous expenses which devolved upon him in that capacity. Yet, as Gaius had no children, the more farsighted, like Herod Agrippa, saw that Claudius might one day be a candidate for empire, and took care to maintain friendly relations with him.
He wrote three large historical works: a history of the Etruscans, in twenty Books; a history of the Carthaginians, in eight Books: and a history of the Roman state since the battle of Actium, in forty-one Books. He also wrote his own biography, in eight Books; a defence of Cicero against the censures of Asinius Gallus; a treatise on dice-playing, and a Greek comedy. The Etruscan and Carthaginian histories were also written in Greek. He studied grammar, and attempted to enrich the Latin alphabet by three new letters, which, however, did not survive his reign. But though he was crammed with antiquarian lore, he had little judgment in applying it, and the circumstances of his early life did not tend to make him practical. Yet it was a gross misrepresentation to say that he was half-witted. When he came to the throne he surprised all by showing considerable talent for administration, as well as a genuine anxiety for the welfare of the state. He was a weak-minded pedant, and lived under the influence of his wives and his freed-men, but he was far from being an imbecile. He and James I of England, to whom he has aptly been compared, are the two notorious examples of pedants on the throne. They were alike also in their ungainly figures, coarse manners, and want of personal dignity. The face of Claudius, as represented in his busts, was handsome, and has a look of pain or weariness, which gives it a certain interest.
Claudius did not belong, strictly speaking, to the house of the Caesars. He had not been transferred into the Julian gens, like his uncle Tiberius and his brother Germanicus. When therefore he adopted the name “Caesar”, it was in strictness no longer a family name, but an imperial title. Yet Claudius had been so closely associated with the family of the Caesars that his assumption of the Julian cognomen may have hardly seemed an innovation. The Claudians and Julians had been so closely connected since the marriage of Augutus and Livia that they were almost regarded as a single house. It was the policy, of Claudius to emphasize his connection with Augustus. He caused the divine honors, which Tiberius had refused, to be granted to his grandmother Livia Augusta. His position was perhaps further strengthened by his marriage with Valeria Messalina, who was a descendant of Octavia, the sister of Augustus. Their daughter Octavia was intended to be the bride of L. Junius Silanus, who was a great-great-grandson of Augustus; and his other daughter, Antonia, by a former wife, was affianced to Cn. Pompeius Magnus, who was connected through his parents with several distinguished families.
The reign of Claudius was marked by a reaction against that of Gaius, as that of Gaius had been marked by a reaction against that of Tiberius. The new Emperor showed himself clement and moderate. The acts of Gaius were annulled; the estates which he had confiscated were restored to their owners, and the statues of which he had lobbed the temples of Greece and Asia were sent back to their homes. Exiles and prisoners who were suffering under the charge of treason, were pardoned, and Julia and Agrippina, the nieces of the Emperor, were recalled from the banishment to which they had been condemned by their brother. The new year’s presents, which Gaius had demanded from his subjects, were forbidden, and the Emperor accepted the inheritance of no man who had relatives. But the aristocrats were not at first contented with the rule of one whom they had been taught to regard with a pitying contempt. The fate of Gaius showed how easy it was to overthrow an Emperor, and there were not wanting aspirants to the supreme power. A conspiracy was formed to strike down Claudius and set in his place L. Annius Vinicianus, a prominent senator. The movement was supported by Furius Camillus Scribonianus, governor of Dalmatia, who undertook to march into Italy at the head of the two legions under his command, and sent a message of insolent defiance to Claudius, who was so terrified that he thought of resigning the Empire. But the soldiers refused to follow their commander when