Regarding Robert’ Grave’s novel of the roman emperor Claudius: I’ve often wondered if Graves was right about Claudius’ epiphany in his old age. Supposedly, the old emperor realizes that his (enlightened) rule over Rome had been a mistake. His reforms and repairs to the corrupt imperial structure had been the wrong thing to do, as they had made it easier for the roman people to accept autocracy. He reflects to himself “with my own hands I had repaired the ruin my predecessors had spread…I had made Rome and her people used to tyranny”. So, he (Claudius) decides that he must bring about the FALL of the empire and its corrupt government-only then will the old republic and the old roman virtues be restored,
Is there any historical evidence that the real emperor Claudius thought this way? And, if the republic had been restored, would the Roman republic be a better place (and possibly not fallen to the barbarians in the 5th century)?
I Claudius is a novel and Graves’s interpretation of the title character is often if not usually at odds with what’s known of the real man. The real emperor does seem to have been an intellectual and was certainly an improvement over Caligula and Tiberius, but he was also a horny old drunk with a very definite cruel streak and talent for vindictiveness and not nearly as naive or Republican as his literary counterpart. He was also probably senile in his later years (even though he was only in his 60s- alcoholism and physical impairments could have hastened it).
So probably, no.
The real Claudius was a wise emperor, but a very, very poor judge of character, especially when it came to his family. So, I would guess that he named Nero as his successor because he honestly thought Nero was a good choice.
Oy.
(On preview, what Sampiro said.)
Also, Claudius himself never knew the republic; he was born into the imperial family after it had drawn its last breath.
Further, the last 100 years or so of the republic, about which we know most, was a century of constant disruption: 3 civil wars (Sulla/Marius, Pompey/Caesar, Antony/Octavian that finally ended it) and much fighting in the provinces. For the average plebeian, fish-monger, freedman, or wealthy merchant, the peaceful Rome and (most) core provinces under the empire was really a vast improvement. It was primarily the upper classes who were disenfranchised by the empire as opposed to the republic.
Not that Claudius, however enlightened, would have worried about the fishmonger.
I’ve wondered that same thing. Overall, he came to the wrong conclusion. History has shown that it’s during times of strife and uncertainty that people turn to strong rulers. By creating a peaceful reign, he actually created an environment conducive to republican sentiments. To go with the book rather than history, Claudius should have tried to hand over some of his powers to the senate and the bureaucracy. And then start purging anyone who might try to pull a Ceaser and assume power after his death. Instead, he built up the peoples’ trust just to hand them over to Nero of all people.
Was the real Claudius murdered by nero’s mother? And Claudius’ stepson (Germanicus)-was he the upright, honest young man portrayed in the novel? or was he another dissolute romanupper class snob?
Most scholars think that Aggripina was behind the poisoning of Claudius. As for Britannicus (who was Claudius’s son, not his stepson), I haven’t heard anything bad about him. Of course, he was only 14 when he died.
To the first Q- yeah, I’ve never seen any debate about Claudius’s death- death by poison mushrooms served by Agrappina, Nero’s Mom (and I think Caligula’s sister, but not the one he deified at her death & probably shagged- Drusilla?)
I did my doctoral thesis on Claudius. Well, it was more of a Masters dissertation.
OK, it was a high school project.
Anyhoo, Claudius was clever and scholarly, but about as much of a shit as most Emperors. There were plenty of judicial murders and whatnot while he was in charge, and they can’t all be put down to his wives and freemen.
Nero and or Agrippina killed Britannicus (Claudius’s son with Messalina) soon after his father’s death. Nero was by this time married to Claudia Octavia, Brit’s full sister. He later divorced her to favor his mistress Poppaea, which caused a near riot because she was extremely popular, so he exiled her which caused even more anger among supporters. Fearful she was the center of a rebellious movement, Nero had her smothered to death (by reports of Dio Cassius anyway).
Brit & Octavia had three older half siblings. Claudius Drusus and Claudia were the children of his first wife Urgulania (his morbidly obese giantess wife in the book [IIRC they had to break down a wall to remove her body in Graves]). Drusus died young very soon after his betrothal to the daughter of Sejanus, which allowed Sejanus to make a more advantageous match for the girl (and of course gives “just cause” in suspicion) and Claudia was disowned as illegitimate (i.e. not the child of Claudius by her father- nothing is known of what happened to her other than she was used as cause for Clau-Clau-Clau to divorce her mother). With his second wife Aelia Paetina (stepsister of Sejanus- just as the book implies, even though Claudius was the Ringo of the Imperial Beatles, he was still a great match for a common born family to snatch and that’s why Sejanus arranged the marriage) he had Claudia Antonia. Her first husband was Pompey (a descendant of Pompey Magnus); Graves uses Suetonius’s version and has her father kill him as a favor to his daughter because he’s homosexual and abusive, but other historians (Tacitus, Dio) say he was more likely killed by Messalina to clear the way for Antonia to marry her brother, which she did. This marriage produced children (all of whom died in infancy).
After her father’s death Nero killed her second husband in a probably justified charge of treason. Antonia was actually proposed to by Nero (even though she was much older) when he was between marriages and spurned him, and then began courting one of his political enemies which was seen as (perhaps correctly) treason and resulted in her own execution. She was the last of Claudius’s line (though his brother Germanicus had descendants [including of course Nero]).
The Roman Republic lived and died according to the natural lifecycle of political regimes. The system proved an effective means for governing a modest-sized city state comprised mostly of farmers. When, after hundreds of years and countless wars, the Roman state had effectively become masters of most of Europe and the Middle East, every flaw in the Republican form of government opened like a fissure. Hamstrung by innefficiency and sabotaged from within by those intent on enriching themselves or holding onto power, the system collapsed. Though possessed of an amazing ability to cling to absurdly outdated laws, customs and institutions, the Roman people still had a pragmatic streak, and finally embraced a new form of government that promised to put an end to a hundred years of civil wars. Thus, the empire.
If, as Graves and some others contend, there were certain persons of power who clung to romantic notions of restoring the republic, they would have been doomed to failure.
As to the question of Claudius’ murder, Nero (if historians’ accounts are to be believed, and that’s ALWAYS a big “if”) certainly clung to the mushroom story. Somewhere (sorry, no time to look up a cite) he is recorded as saying words to the effect of: “mushrooms are truly the food of the gods…in fact it was a mushroom that made a god of my late lamented predecessor.”
Coincidently, I just watched the Masterpiece Theatre production of “I Claudius” last week. Hadn’t seen it in years. Wonderful work. I highly reccomend it. Quite rivetting.
Agreed! I saw it for the first time when I was around 11 with my mother, and now that I’m in my 30’s I recently bought the collection. That music! Those snakes! That evil, evil Livia!
Graves based his novel largely on The Twelve Caesars, by Suetonius (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Suetonius), who is widely regarded as unreliable; he lived and wrote during the reign of Hadrian, he was of the senatorial party, and he was anxious to include every bit of salacious gossip he could find to smear the Julio-Claudian emperors.
Or *I, CLAVDIVS * as I used to insist on calling it in a misguided attempt at humour.
I don’t know, I thought it was fvnny.
Thanks to this thread, I just rewatched the first two episodes. Wheeee!
Nitpick: Suetonius was an equestrian, not a senator.
He was writing biography, not history, and never claimed to be doing otherwise (he also wrote biographies of the great poets). His ‘model’ emperor was Augustus; if you read later imperial bios by him, he seems to compare them to Augustus (generally unfavourably). He also seems to have got bored by the end of it.
Where I live the DVD with all 13 episodes costs just a mere $6. Now, tell me you envy me!
What’s the difference? Isn’t a biography just a history centered around a single person?