Claudius
(This is page two; click here for
page one)
Because he was sick, Claudius stayed home most of the time
and did not go to parties or join the army, and he didn't run for election to
anything. Mostly he read books, and wrote histories and scientific papers. So Augustus, Tiberius, and Caligula didn't notice him, and they didn't
think to kill him when they were killing most of their other relatives.
But in 37 AD, when Claudius was 46 years old, Caligula did decide to make his uncle Claudius consul. Probably he wanted to remind people how much they had liked Caligula's father (Claudius' brother) Germanicus. Caligula made fun of Claudius and bullied him all the time, and made Claudius miserable. But people noticed Claudius more because of that.
Then four years later when Caligula was killed, people
realized that Claudius was the only living man descended from Augustus,
so they made him emperor. Claudius was now 50 years old. People must not have been expecting much, but actually
Claudius turned out to be a good emperor - his disabilities didn't keep him from being
a smart guy.
Claudius made the Roman Empire even bigger than it already was by
sending armies to conquer Britain (modern England), and by political takeovers of other places, including Judaea (modern Israel). He also worked to
make the court system fairer, although he was easy to persuade and sometimes not as fair as he
wanted to be. He also gave slaves more rights than they had had before. And he built a great port at Ostia, to make it easier to bring wheat into Rome from Africa and Egypt by ship.
Even so, many Senators hated Claudius and tried to kill him. Because of this,
he didn't trust Senators, and he used mainly freed slaves as his helpers. Of course this made
the Senators hate Claudius even more. But in the end Claudius was poisoned by his wife
Agrippina the Younger, who wanted power for herself and her son Nero. Claudius died in 54 AD, when he was 64 years old, probably from eating poison mushrooms.
Agrippina
Nero
More about the Julio-Claudian emperors
For more on the Julio-Claudians, check out these books from Amazon.com or from your library:
Classical Rome, by John Clare (1993). For kids, the whole political history from beginning to end.
Oxford First Ancient History, by Roy Burrell (reissued 1997). For kids. It skips around a lot, not trying to tell everything, just highlights.
The Romans: From Village to Empire, by Mary Boatwright, Daniel Gargola, and Richard Talbert (2004). Okay, it's a little dry, but it is up to date and has all the facts you could want.
The Roman Revolution, by Ronald Syme (1960). Still a classic.
From
the Gracchi to Nero: A History of Rome from 133 B.C. to A.D. 68
by H. H. Scullard (1959, 5th edition 1990). Another classic.
More about the Julio-Claudians
Year of the Four Emperors
Main Roman history page
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