The emperor Claudius, uncle of Caligula and brother of Germanicus, had never been adopted by Tiberius; whereas all the other emperors were, by a fiction, the sons of their predecessors. He had preserved his life in the reign of Caligula only as it were by a miracle; and he was then fifty years of age. Whilst of Caligula we can but speak as of a monster, Claudius deserves our deepest pity; yet he has done very bad things which betoken a turn for evil, though this indeed was only developed by his misfortunes. Even his mother Antonia, a daughter of the triumvir Antonius, called him a portentum hominis; he was an ἀτελέστον; he had capacities and talents; yet he was deficient in what really constitutes human reason, whence, in a psychological point of view, he was a real curiosity. Although he had a desire of knowledge, application, memory, and a taste for science and literature, he was wanting in judgment and discretion, so that he often said and did things which were downright stupid: it is as if a thick rind had grown round his better nature, which he but seldom broke through; there are a great many absurdities of his on record. Suetonius is very instructive with regard to him, very aptly describing his character by the Greek words ἀβλεψία and μετεωρία. The Greeks always have most adequate expressions to draw characters; those phrases mean a thoughtless absence of mind and a want of reflection, when one says what is most preposterous, and one leaves untold what ought to have been told: there was a complete disproportion between his thoughts and his power of uttering them, and this it is, what those Greek words admirably express. By the whole of his family he was knocked about, being the brother of those distinguished persons who possessed the whole love of the family. Old Augustus, who always felt such circumstances keenly, wished to keep him altogether aloof from the public gaze, whilst his grandmother Livia treated him with peculiar harshness and imperiousness. The unfortunate youth took this to heart. Had he been brought up with kindness, he would have become a good, plodding, and somewhat weak-headed man: as it was, he became vicious, and the feeling that he was despised made him a coward; so that he always kept in the background, and whenever he at all wished to put himself forward, it was but to meet with a failure. Thus he found his only comfort in literature. Livy, whose kind heart may even be seen from his work, had great pity on him, and, trying to find him some occupation, encouraged him to write history. Now, as he knew a great many things, he deemed himself to be called upon to write the history of the civil wars; and he told it in such an honest manner, that his family got very angry with him. Afterwards, he wrote memoirs of Augustus, which they allowed to pass muster, but so as only to despise their author. He was indeed thoroughly honest; yet he always got little thanks for it. Augustus would not give him any employment, on account of his dreadful stupidity; Tiberius, although he did not care much for him, gave him even the consulship. He was married more than once. The profligacy of the female sex at that time went beyond all bounds: Augustus had striven in vain to repress it; Tiberius promulgated some legal decisions against it, yet without any result. Claudius therefore was highly unfortunate in this respect also; he attached himself very affectionately to the women who betrayed and disgraced him.

Thus Claudius, generally despised, had reached his fiftieth year when Caligula was murdered. His behaviour as emperor at first was reasonable and good; he made no one smart for the childish attempt to restore the republic, there was a general abolitio dictorum factorumque. A few only of the murderers of Caius he had executed, although they had deserved very well of the Roman world. He also was the first who, on entering upon his power, gave a donativum to the soldiers. Caius already had undertaken the government, without repeating that farce which Tiberius still played; Claudius also forbore to do so. His reign, which lasted fourteen years, was at first truly a relief after that of Caius; people felt comforted, and cherished hopes, whilst he on his side made many good regulations. Yet he was altogether without any will of his own; had he had an honest friend whom he could have entirely relied on, his rule might have been good and praiseworthy. But he did not go beyond the walls of his palace; he only sought to amuse his ladies, and lived almost exclusively with slaves and freedmen, as he was generally despised by men of rank. He was in fact of a kind and loving temper; but he was shy and timid. Slaves now stood forth as his advisers and friends; just as Don Miguel’s most intimate confidant is his barber. Very likely, Polybus, or Polybius, before whom Seneca humbled himself, was far from being altogether contemptible;—the Greek slaves received a very good education in the Roman houses; if they had good abilities, they were very accomplished. Pallas and Narcissus, on the other hand, were men of a different stamp; thoroughly bad, and of insatiable rapacity, they plundered the empire. By the influence of these men, and owing to his unhappy marriage with Agrippina, his own brother’s daughter, who was very beautiful, but who had not a trace of the virtues of her parents, he was ruled with absolute sway. She, being without virtue and shame, by her intrigues succeeded in getting him to adopt Nero, her son by her first marriage, although Claudius had a son of his own, Britannicus. Hence it was that his reign became so disgraceful and disastrous; a large number of innocent men were also put to death under his rule, though not so many as under other emperors. Whenever Narcissus demanded a victim, Claudius was his tool; so that his life was one continual degradation.

There were, however, considerable works executed in his reign. The finest and most magnificent aqueduct which has been carried on to Rome, the Aqua Claudia, was built by him; and there is no doubt but that in the restoration of the city in the fifteenth century, it might have been completely repaired. Other relics also of his buildings are in the very grandest style; the two great arches, known under the name of the Porta Maggiore are undoubtedly his. He likewise accomplished the draining of the Lake Fucinus into the Liris, which Augustus had given up in despair: the fallen in vaults may still be seen. At first, some mistakes were made in the levelling, and an attempt to let off the water miscarried; but the fault was soon remedied.

He undertook a warlike expedition against Britain, a country which no one had thought anything about since the time of Julius Cæsar; and he extended the boundary of the Roman empire thus far. He himself led the army over, and established a province which comprised the greater part of south-eastern England, and in which colonies and municipia were soon founded: from thence the subjection of Caledonia was afterwards effected. He died, being undoubtedly poisoned by his wife Agrippina; for she wanted to secure the succession for her son Nero, as she knew that Claudius was sorry that he had adopted him, and wished to reinstate Britannicus in his rights. He had always been unhappy,—fortune indeed had been too hard upon him,—and he died despised and laughed at; an instance of which we have in the Ludus de morte Claudii Cæsaris (incorrectly called ἀποκολοκύνθωσις) written by Seneca.