Claudius

The Lives of the Twelve Caesars #5

by Suetonius

"The first-century emperor Claudius did not leave the fledgling Roman Empire as he had found it: his contribution was to turn its developing institutions into an imperial tradition. But the ancient sources represent him as an odd personality - active but manipulated by his inferiors, at once distracted and awkward and cruel. Suetonius' biography is a rich offering of both solid fact and the prejudicial anecdotes that his contemporaries and the generation that followed thought worth repeating, raw material for exploring the man and his reign. This commentary provides context for the text's abundant information, but form is not neglected, and attention is given to Suetonius' intelligent and conscious marshalling of his material, and guidance offered to students reading the biographer's often densely compressed style. This is the first English commentary on the Claudius Life to deal with both historical and stylistic issues."--BOOK JACKET.

Genres: History, Biography, Nonfiction, Biography Memoir, Roman, Classics

Kindle Edition

About the author

Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus, commonly known as Suetonius (ca. 69/75 - after 130), was a Roman historian belonging to the equestrian order in the early Imperial era. His most important surviving work is a set of biographies of twelve successive Roman rulers, from Julius Caesar until Domitian, entitled De Vita Caesarum. Other works by Suetonius concern the daily life of Rome, politics, oratory, and the lives of famous writers, including poets, historians, and grammarians. A few of these books have partially survived, but many are entirely lost.

Reviews

[Glenn Russell · Rating 5 out of 5]

After the bloodbaths during the reign of the two preceding emperors, Tiberius and Caligula, who were both assassinated, there was one man left standing in the imperial family -- 50 year-old Claudius. Being crippled and having a speech impediment, Claudius wasn't seen as a particular political threat, thus he was spared. So, in 41 AD the armed imperial bodyguards known as the Pretorian Guard proclaimed Claudius emperor. And, turns out, although lacking in political experience, Claudius became a competent administrator and leader, building roads, aqueducts and canals throughout the Empire and officiating at many public law courts. He also was a complete eccentric, which makes for lively reading. How lively? Below are quotes from Suetonius along with my brief comments:

"His mother, Antonia, frequently called him "an abortion of a man, that had been only begun, but never finished, by nature." And when she would upbraid any one with dullness, she said, "He was a greater fool than her son, Claudius." His sister, Livilla, upon hearing that he was about to be created emperor, openly and loudly expressed her indignation that the Roman people should experience a fate so severe and so much below their grandeur." ---------- This inclusion by Suetonius underscores how the Greco-Roman world put great value on physical appearance and bodily harmony. I mean, even to be slandered by your own mother and sister. Good grief.

"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. . . . 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. . . . 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 true eccentric! Marrying a mother to her son and enjoying watching a man's hand cut off. Thank goodness there has been some progress in law courts in most countries in the past 2000 years.

"Having, amidst great applause, spared a gladiator, on the intercession of his four sons, he sent a billet immediately round the theater, to remind the people, "how much it behooved them to get children, since they had before them an example how useful they had been in procuring favor and security for a gladiator." ---------- Such a great reason for having children: they can plead for your life in front of the emperor!

"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." ---------- Here is an emperor who knows the way to win over the hearts and minds of the Roman people and senators: lots of spectacular displays of exotic animals being killed and a much improved view of chariot races, an event even surpassing gladiators in entertainment value.

My personal favorite of eccentricities of Claudius is him stating: "As I have been so unhappy in my marriages , I am resolved to continue in future unmarried; and if I should not, I give you leave to stab me." He was, however, unable to persist in this resolution; for he began immediately to think of another wife." ---------- Come on, Claudius, such a quick switch. Make up your mind! Do you want to be married or remain a bachelor?

"It is said, too, that he intended to publish an edict, "allowing to all people the liberty of giving vent at table to any distension occasioned by flatulence," upon hearing of a person whose modesty, when under restraint, had nearly cost him his life." ---------- Thanks, Claudius. Just what people need: a proclamation giving them permission to fart after eating.

"He would match others with the beasts, upon slight or sudden occasions; as, for instance, the carpenters and their assistants, and people of that sort, if a machine, or any piece of work in which they had been employed about the theater did not answer the purpose for which it had been intended." ----------- Throwing workmen to the lions if their craftsmanship isn't perfect. Now that's extreme. Unfortunately for Claudius, his wife also wanted to get in on the fun. She poisoned her husband so her sweetheart of a son could take over as emperor. But not that much fun for the Romans - her son was Nero.

[Nina · Rating 3 out of 5]

de helft van dit hoofdstuk + een stukje over Caligula’s leven gelezen in het Latijn, maar ik ben toch grotere fan van Seneca’s schrijfstijl (voor Latijn Taal & Tekst)

[Allen McDonnell · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nearly contemporary perspective on the life of Emporer Claudius. Worth reading for anyone interested in the Roman Empire in the first century.

[Silvio Curtis · Rating 5 out of 5]

Read for class. Suetonius's biography of the Roman emperor Claudius (mid first century). Claudius was known for having a neuromotor disability that made him stutter, for writing some erudite histories, for speaking in a polished way but with what Suetonius considers a lack of decorum (for example, almost ruining a gladiatorial fight with a poorly timed and lame joke that made the gladiators think he was releasing them), and for an astonishingly poor memory about who of his associates, friends, and wives he had just had executed. I think he has to have been trying to make a point about something sometimes, but whatever it was was lost on his contemporaries and therefore lost to us as well. This is a description of personality, not a narrative, so the only chronological sections are Claudius's life before becoming emperor and his death (supposedly he was poisoned by his wife Agrippina).

[Blaze · Rating 4 out of 5]

Although this account is written almost two thousand years ago, it reads like a tabloid. We are informed what Claudius looked like when he slept, that he was foaming around the mouth when was upset and what happened when he drank too much. His marriages, well the bad ones at least, are given extensive coverage. Suetonius sure liked to revel in juicy details. 

Claudius is not put forward in a very positive light. He is described as being a pawn of others and doubts are cast to his ascension as emperor. That he was no military man is evident, but he is credited for his writing. Sadly, his histories are lost to us. One could only wish that his account of the Etruscans would have survived.

[Lori Spier]

The Lives of the Twelve Caesars by Gaius Suetonius Tranquillus (1993)