CLAUDIUS, THE STOLID
[Illustration: CLAUDIUS]
After Caligula’s death the Senate was convened in the Temple of Jupiter
on the Capitoline Hill,--not in the accustomed Curia or Senate House,
because that bore the now hated name of Julian from the family to
which the slain emperor belonged. The body first of all issued decrees
denouncing the tyranny of Caligula and giving honor to the “restorers
of public freedom,” as the assassins were called, and especially to the
ringleader of these, Chærea. They also granted a remission of some of
the most unpopular taxes that Caligula had enforced. Some were ready
to vote that the memory of the Cæsars should be entirely abolished and
that the government should be restored to the simple republican form
it had in the days of the Scipios and Cato. Others thought that the
monarchy should be continued, but in an entirely different family line.
Chærea, emboldened by his public honors, gave orders to a military
tribune, who hastened to put to death Caligula’s wife and only child.
It was properly a question for the Senate to decide,--who should be the
successor to the imperial throne. While that body was deliberating,
the matter was summarily settled by the action of the Prætorian Guards.
In the general confusion some of them had begun plundering the imperial
palace. There they had found, half-hidden behind a curtain in an
obscure corner, a man about fifty-five years old, whom they recognized
as Claudius, the son of Drusus and the uncle of Caligula. He sank at
their feet probably expecting nothing but death. But they dared not do
otherwise than respect the blood of the Cæsars. They were more loyal
than the great body of the Senators to the royal family. So they hailed
Claudius as emperor and carried him, astonished and protesting, to
their camp. When in the morning it was found that the Senate had come
to no conclusion, Claudius found courage to allow the soldiers to have
their way and to swear allegiance to him. In return for their devotion
he promised them a large donation in money.
Herod Agrippa I, who had been such a friend of Caligula and who was
still in Rome, advised the Senators that the wisest thing that they
could do would be to yield to the wishes of the soldiers. This was an
act for which, as we shall see, he was afterward generously rewarded
by Claudius. In spite of some determined opposition, therefore, he
was proclaimed the successor to the throne, the first of many Roman
emperors who owed their elevation to the military power of the
prætorian guard.
Claudius was born at Lugdunum, or Lyons, in Gaul, August first, in
the year 9, or 10, before Christ. From his childhood he seems to have
been weak in body and retiring in spirit. He had been neglected, if
not despised, by the great Augustus. His own parents had been ashamed
of him as a feeble invalid. He had not been thought of as worthy
to fill any high office at the imperial court. He had once asked
the emperor Tiberius for larger responsibilities, but had received
scarcely more than empty honors. He is said to have had some form of
paralysis, to have trembled in his hands and to have had an imperfect
utterance. Caligula had elevated him to the consulship and had given
him an honorable seat at public spectacles; but in private he had been
made the butt of coarse jokes and of much ridicule. He had resigned
himself, therefore, to quiet pursuits, had settled down to the opinion
that there were no great things for him in life, and had turned his
attention to literary studies. He was the author, with some assistance,
of several historical volumes and of a life of Cicero. He may have
been, for that period, a fair sort of citizen, and when he was made
emperor it was certainly an agreeable change for the people from the
outrageous extravagancies of Caligula.
At the outset of his reign he modified some of the harsh enactments of
his predecessors; returned to their owners several private estates,
which had been confiscated; gave back to various cities the statues
of heroes, which had been removed from them, and restored the temples,
which Caligula had desecrated, to their original uses. He also executed
the murderer of Caligula. Fearing violence, he caused his own person to
be guarded. He respected the dignity of the Senate, made the Senators
responsible for the discharge of their duties, and increased their
number by promoting to that honor men from the equestrian rank.
In this matter he did not confine his view to Italy but extended it to
Gaul, the province in which he had been born. He made a speech in the
Senate defending the measure. This speech was copied on brazen tablets
and preserved by the people of Lugdunum (Lyons). One of these was
discovered three centuries ago and is now to be seen, well preserved
and clearly legible, in the museum of that city. He discontinued all
encouragement to spies and informers. He ordained that sick slaves
abandoned in the temple of Esculapius should be free if they recovered.
He provided also for the amusements of the people, keeping up the
popular gladiatorial shows and sometimes going as far as to bandy
jokes with the bystanders about the performers. His responsibilities
developed in him unexpected independence and force; and all these
labors were not unfavorable to the improvement of his health.
The Roman army was active at this time on the frontiers of Gaul and
Germany. Claudius determined to carry out the plan that Augustus had
formed of invading Britain. He even entered that country in person,
crossing the channel and joining the Roman general, Aulus Plautius, in
his campaign against the natives. He was absent from Rome six months
and achieved such military success that on his return a public triumph
was accorded to him by the Senate. On this occasion he added to his
name the title Britannicus, which afterwards became also the special
designation of his son.
A little later in the reign of Claudius, Caractacus, a British chief,
who had resisted the Roman forces, was captured and brought to Rome,
with his wife and daughter. All at the imperial court were impressed
with the noble bearing of this prisoner as he pleaded eloquently for
his life. Claudius, let it be said to his credit, extended to him the
imperial clemency. I shall have occasion to refer to the invasion of
Britain by Claudius when I come to speak, in a later chapter, of Paul’s
friends at Rome and among them of the woman Claudia and her possible
British origin and relations.
Claudius was generous and tactful with the princes who were subject to
the Roman empire. He established Antiochus in Comagene, Mithridates on
the Bosphorus, for the favor I have mentioned, and Herod Agrippa I in
Galilee with Judea and Samaria added to his domain. It was during the
reign of Claudius that this Herod Agrippa I “stretched forth his hands
to vex certain of the church,” as Luke records for us in the twelfth
chapter of the Acts. “And he killed James, the brother of John, with
the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further
to take Peter also.” Peter was wonderfully delivered from prison. But
Herod was soon after smitten with a dreadful disease. It was when he
had made a proud demonstration before the people, as is described to us
in the same chapter as follows:
Herod was highly displeased with them of Tyre and Sidon: but they
came with one accord to him, and, having made Blastus the king’s
chamberlain their friend, desired peace; because their country was
nourished by the king’s country. And upon a set day Herod, arrayed
in royal apparel, sat upon his throne and made an oration unto
them. And the people gave a shout, saying, “It is the voice of a
god and not of a man.” And immediately the angel of the Lord smote
him, because he gave not God the glory; and he was eaten of worms
and gave up the ghost. But the word of God grew and multiplied.
The famous cities of Trèves in France, Cologne on the Rhine, and
Colchester in England owe their origin to the reign of Claudius. The
original name of Cologne was Colonia Agrippinensis for Agrippina, who
was born in this vicinity. As empress she assumed a leadership in
military matters never before occupied by a woman, and made it her
boast that she was the first of her sex thus to found a colony of
Roman veterans. Colchester, meaning the camp on the river Colne, was
on the site of the ancient town of Camelodunum, the residence of the
principal potentate of southern Britain, the chief of the Trinobantes.
When these people were put to flight, Claudius established there a
Roman camp and colony to keep them and the other barbarous tribes in
awe. They were taught to ascribe the victory of the Romans to the favor
of certain divinities; and among the shrines erected in the colony
was a temple of unusual size for the worship of Claudius himself.
Such divine honors, we have seen, had sometimes been accepted by his
predecessors. Two miles of city walls and other relics dating from the
period of the Roman occupation may still be seen at Colchester.
From Caius Caligula, Claudius had received an exhausted public treasury
and empty granaries. Scanty harvests produced several periods of famine
in different parts of the world. Secular historians say that one of
these occurred in Palestine and Syria during his reign. We read in
Acts ii, 28, how such a famine was predicted by the prophet Agabus at
Antioch, so that the disciples there determined to send relief to their
brethren in Judea, which they did by the hands of Barnabas and Saul;
and the sacred writer says this famine occurred in the days of Claudius
Cæsar. As one of the means for bringing Egyptian wheat to Rome more
quickly, and thus preventing such periods of destitution of bread in
the imperial city again, Claudius directed the building of a larger
harbor at the mouth of the Tiber, an enterprise that required much
massive masonry and which for a long while facilitated the commerce
of the empire. In course of time the action of stream and wind and
tide has filled up and wellnigh obliterated it. He also in seven years
carried on to completion the mighty aqueduct for bringing water to Rome
from the Alban hills,--an engineering achievement that has been always
known as the Claudian Aqueduct. The traveler still wonders at its great
arches stretching across the lonely Campagna. Tunneling a mountain to
afford a better outlet for Lake Fucinus was another great piece of
engineering in his day, the completion of which was fitly celebrated by
naval evolutions and a sham battle on the Lake.
[Illustration: CLAUDIAN AQUEDUCT]
If we could confine our view of Claudius to the facts now stated, we
might think of him as one who in many respects quite disappointed the
low estimate of him that the majority of men held at the beginning of
his career. But, alas! his great weakness lay in his proneness to be
too easily duped and controlled by others. This was specially marked
in the influence over him of his vicious wives. The first lady who was
betrothed to him in his youth was repudiated by him because she was not
approved by the emperor Augustus. The next died on the day appointed
for the nuptials. The third, named Urgalania, became the mother of
two children. One of these was choked to death by a pear he tried to
swallow. Afterward Claudius divorced this wife, having discovered
that she was unfaithful; and he ordered her second child to be
exposed to die. The next wife was also divorced as unsuitable. The last
two were Messalina and Agrippina, both of whom, as we shall see, lived
to acquire great infamy.
Messalina, the granddaughter of Mark Antony, was married to Claudius
when he had no prospect of coming to the throne. She is said to have
been at that time only fifteen years old. She became an intensely
ambitious woman, of no moral principle. She was particularly jealous of
Julia and Agrippina, the two nieces of the emperor, who, like herself,
were brilliant but wicked women. She had no respect for her husband,
and when he became emperor used her position to gain her personal ends.
She was frightfully immoral. Her name, indeed, has become a byword for
female depravity. She took bribes from others and wheedled presents
from her husband.
After the accession of Claudius, the philosopher Seneca had emerged
from the obscurity into which the jealousy of Caligula had forced him.
It would have been well for his own peace of mind if he had continued
to pursue his reflections in private. It has been well said that all
Seneca gained for himself from his career of ambition at court was to
be suspected by one emperor, banished by a second, and murdered by a
third.
Claudius was not only under the influence of an infamous wife but he
had also given himself largely to be controlled by certain evil men
chosen from the ranks of freedmen. The lower class of Roman slaves
had little hope of bettering their condition. But there was a higher
class, principally from Greece and Syria, who were finely trained and
educated, and who could calculate on obtaining their freedom early
in life, when they might come into many opportunities of being the
favorite employees, if not the intimate counselors, of their former
masters and others. Some of them were shrewd enough to rise to great
distinction and power and figure prominently upon the pages of history.
In the court of Claudius there were several freedmen of this character.
There were Narcissus, his private secretary; Polybius, his literary
adviser, and Pallas, his accountant. We may also include another
freedman of whom we read in Scripture, Felix, the brother of Pallas,
who became the procurator of Judea, before whom the Apostle Paul was
arraigned. The first three of these men, if not the fourth, became
noted for their accumulation of great riches and for their insolence.
Some scholars,--such as Lightfoot and Ramsey,--have thought that the
Narcissus we here speak of was the man some of the slaves of whose
household were known to the Apostle Paul to be Christians and secured
from him greetings in Romans xvi, 11.
Narcissus, Polybius, and Pallas gradually came into control of the
execution of the laws. Two of them, Narcissus and Pallas, acquired
their wealth often by dishonest means. Once when Claudius complained
that the imperial revenues were too small, it was replied that he
would be rich enough if his two wealthy freedmen would take him into
partnership. By their accusations they obtained from Claudius severe
judgments on different individuals whom they hated. He was aroused by
them to put down some conspiracies against his own person, but seems
scarcely to have been aware of many evils that were flourishing while
he was maintaining the routine of government or presiding at splendid
banquets. At these he disgraced himself by gluttony and intemperance. A
stolid worker in his prime, he became a stupid dotard in his age.
The Roman court had now become so degenerate that its record takes the
form of a scandalous chronicle. It was surely a miserable place for
a man to be found who put forth, as did Seneca, exalted apothegms of
moral philosophy. Using opportunities for the investment of inherited
wealth, he became extremely rich and, although he was one of the most
enlightened men of his age, he had allowed himself to be placed in a
most contaminating environment. Perhaps it was his detestation of the
conduct of the empress that made him a partisan of her rivals, so that
Messalina could find a pretext for accusing him of an intrigue with
Julia. Julia was exiled and then put to death.
No positive evidence of Seneca’s guilt has come down to us. On the
contrary, he has been pronounced innocent by some students of
history. But he was condemned by the Senate and banished to the barren
shores of Corsica. He tells us that Claudius tried to prevent this,
but Messalina’s schemes were too deeply laid to be thwarted. It is
remarkable that Seneca does not abuse her in any of his writings that
have come down to us. He bade farewell to his noble-minded mother and
his beloved brother Gallio, to his nephew Lucan, the promising young
poet, and to Marcus his little boy, and then left the city, banishment
from which was the sorest of trials to a Roman. He retired to his place
of exile. There, amid disagreeable surroundings, he consoled himself
with his philosophy and wrote a “Consolation” to his mother, Helvia,
which is one of the noblest of his works. It must, however, be admitted
that his fine moral precepts did not prevent his writing a letter to
Polybius in which he abjectly flatters Claudius, manifestly in order to
secure his release and his return to Rome. If he expected this through
the intervention of Polybius, he was disappointed, for that freedman
and favorite, though he had formerly much influence with Messalina,
soon forfeited his life through her machinations.
Messalina succeeded a long time in concealing her real character, but
when her shamelessness reached its highest pitch in her open marriage
to another man, the indignation of the emperor was aroused. Then
followed a new scene of tragedy. She had apparently persuaded Claudius
that it was a mock marriage for a frolic, but all Rome knew better
and regarded it not only as a vile procedure but an attempt to usurp
the political throne. Some time before this, Messalina had coveted the
gardens on the Pincian Hill, which had long been famous as the property
of the luxurious Lucullus, and which at the present day may be a part
of the grounds of the Villa Medici. After Lucullus it belonged to
Valerius Asiaticus. So Messalina had suborned her son’s tutor, Silius,
to accuse Asiaticus of corrupting the army. Thus she secured his death
and then took possession of the gardens. Here, as the wild revelries
that followed the detestable wedding ceremonies were at their height,
one of the guests, Vettius Valens, climbed to the top of a tree; and,
when they asked what he saw, he replied in language intended for a jest:
“I see a fierce storm approaching from Ostia.”
It was well known that the emperor was at that place. The storm was
indeed approaching. Messengers soon arrived, saying Claudius was on
the way. The news fell like a thunderbolt. Messalina implored the
protection of Vibidia, the chief of the Vestal Virgins. With her
children she hastened across the city to the Ostian gate to plead for
the emperor’s mercy on his arrival. She mounted the cart of a market
gardener, which happened to be passing. But Narcissus absorbed the
attention of the emperor as she approached by accounts of her crimes;
and Messalina was coldly passed by. That evening, as Claudius enjoyed
the pleasures of his table, he showed some signs of softened feeling
at mention of her. Narcissus knew that delay would be dangerous to
himself. So he sent a tribune and centurions to kill the empress in
the garden of Lucullus, to which she had returned. She was weeping
in despair when the doors were battered down and the tribune and his
men stood before her. She took a dagger in her hand and when she had
twice stabbed herself in vain the tribune gave the fatal blow. In her
death she has been well compared with Jezebel of old, who was slain
on or near the ground she had wickedly taken from its owner. Claudius
was still lingering at his dinner when he was informed that she had
perished. He asked no questions and manifested no emotion.
Not long after this the emperor married Agrippina II, the sister of
Caligula, and the daughter of Germanicus and the older Agrippina. To
distinguish her from her mother she is generally called Agrippina the
Second. She was a niece of Claudius.
The marriage of such close relations was repugnant to most Romans. But
the artful woman managed to overcome all objections, and the wedding
took place. She had inherited none of the virtues of her distinguished
parents, had been brought up by wicked relatives, and had been married
to Cnæus Domitius Ahenobarbus, one of the worthless young nobles of
that day. By him she had one son, upon whom she lavished her natural
affections. After her marriage to the emperor she worked constantly
in the interests of this son, cherishing for him the greatest
expectations. One of her first steps was to secure his betrothal
to Octavia, the daughter of the emperor. She also induced Claudius
formally to adopt him into the Claudian family, to place him in the
line of succession with his own son, Britannicus, and, inasmuch as he
was three years older than Britannicus, to give him actual precedence
in many honors. On this adoption the young man received a new name and
became known as Claudius Domitius Nero.
Agrippina also managed to get rid,--by banishment, disgrace, or
death,--of one after another of the women who had been her rivals at
the imperial court. Among these were Lepida and Calpurnia. Against the
rich Lollia Paulina she brought a charge of sorcery and treason, and so
obtained the confiscation of most of her property and her banishment
from Italy. It is said that not even this satisfied her, but that she
sent a tribune to bring her the head of her enemy, and that when it was
laid before her she lifted the lips with her own hand to make sure, by
marks on the teeth, of its identity. This horrid story is quoted by
Merivale and others from the ancient historian, Dion. It has been well
said that she must have even surpassed Lady Macbeth in her malignant
and frigid cruelty.
Tacitus says that it was with a hope of counteracting the unpopularity
that these horrors had aroused in the public mind that Agrippina
recalled Seneca from his exile in Corsica and made him the tutor of
her son. Thus, again, was this great philosopher brought back into
the scenes of court and the public life at Rome. And thus Agrippina
would undo some of the work of Messalina, whom she had heartily hated.
She may have been influenced also by the consideration that Seneca
was indignant with Claudius, and this might make him more helpful to
her and to her son if any antagonism should arise between her and her
husband. Of course, it would have been better for Seneca if he had
stayed in Corsica. He came back into a most perilous environment. He
may have been encouraged to do so by the knowledge that a man of the
old faithful type, Afranius Burrus, was to have the very important post
of prefect of the prætorian guard. Perhaps these two men were patriotic
in their purpose and trusted that they were going to be able to keep
matters from growing worse.
Agrippina, while she left to the emperor the friends he liked and
all the insignia of power, constantly abused his confidence. It is
strange that he was so pliant to her scheming and malicious will. He
seems to have been, ordinarily, dull and stupid, but when aroused he
was impulsive and vindictive. At last his freedman and secretary,
Narcissus, began to open his eyes to the extent to which he had been
duped by his wife and to her disregard of all obligations to him. He
seemed deeply moved by the discovery and remarked that it had been his
fate always to bear and then to punish the wickedness of his wives.
These words, repeated to Agrippina, showed her clearly that if she
was going to succeed in her purpose of getting the throne for her
son, Nero, it would not do for her to risk any delay. She knew that
she could do nothing injurious to her husband in the presence of his
secretary, Narcissus. So she arranged with the physician of Narcissus
that he should be sent away to some medicinal springs for his health.
When he was gone she proceeded with her atrocious plan. By some means
she secured the connivance of Halotes, the emperor’s prægustator (the
slave whose duty it was to protect him from poison by tasting every
dish before it was presented to him) and of Xenephon of Cos, his
physician. Then she consulted with Locusta, the infamous woman who is
known to have been a professional poisoner, often resorted to in those
turbulent days. The very existence of such a person is a frightful
indication of the prevailing enormities. A compound was sought that
might be best suited for the special purpose, not too rapid in its
action to excite suspicion and not too slow, lest Claudius should have
time to arrange something for Britannicus. The poison was administered
to him in a dish of mushrooms, of which he was extravagantly fond. It
is said that Agrippina herself handed him a choice morsel of the food
when he was somewhat intoxicated, and it immediately caused him to be
silent. Afterward, when there were indications that, on account of
his gluttony, it might be ineffective, a physician was induced, under
pretense of causing vomiting and so giving him relief from pain, to
thrust a feather smeared with a deadly liquid down his throat. This
completed the wicked work. Before morning this Cæsar was a corpse.
While all these exciting scenes were taking place in the reign of
Claudius, the Apostle Paul had been prosecuting his wonderfully earnest
ministry of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and was making missionary
journeys in Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece. It is in connection with
his meeting Aquila and Priscilla at Corinth that we read in Acts xviii,
1, that “Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome.”
The Roman historian, Suetonius, speaks of this decree and says it was
issued because the Jews were “constantly making a disturbance, Chrestus
being the instigator.” No prominent Jew named Chrestus being otherwise
known in the records of that time, some have queried whether Chrestus
may not be here a Latin corruption of the Greek word Christos, and
whether these disturbances among the Jews may not have been disputes
about the Christ, or Messiah, whom they expected, or even about Jesus
as claiming to be that Messiah. The suggestion is interesting, but we
cannot prove it to be correct.
Like his predecessors, Claudius is represented to us by ancient art in
the shape of many statues and busts. The one chosen to illustrate these
pages shows him to us in a flattering manner, as if he possessed the
attributes of Jupiter. He is standing half-draped, with a wreath of oak
leaves about his head, his left hand upraised to grasp the upper end
of a long staff, and with an eagle at his right foot. The figure is
not without some majesty, but there seems to be a look of anxiety and
weariness upon his face. Surely, he had enough to make him anxious and
weary in both his public and his private life. Unexpectedly called upon
to be an emperor, he had wrought industriously in the public service;
but he had not been equal to the moral strain of such a high position
and had been the undiscerning dupe of iniquitous and malicious enemies.
His worst foes had been those of his own household.