Strange Cousin Susan

ancientcharm:

Claudius: The fool of the dynasty.
Claudius was born in Lugdunum, Gaul on August 1, 10 BC. On his mother’s side, he was the grandson of the legendary Mark Antony and great-nephew of emperor Augustus. His father was the son of the Empress Livia and brother of the later Emperor Tiberius. He had blood ties with Julius Caesar.
According to historical sources: It was common that his mother, Antonia the Younger, when mocking someone, to say: “You are more stupid than my son Claudius.” His sister, Livilla, after hearing the Augur (the priest who announced the omens) say that her younger brother would be emperor, exclaimed: “May the gods save Rome from such misfortune. That would be the end of the empire.” His grandmother, Livia, avoided talking to him because “when he was a child, the empress felt uncomfortable seeing and hearing him.” During his childhood, the family avoided taking him to public events so as not to be seen. All this because Claudius was lame, stuttered and had a tic.
For almost his entire life, that is, during the long reigns of his great-uncle Augustus and his uncle Tiberius, he was prevented from holding office because of his “defects.” And from a very young age it was determined that he could never be heir to the throne.

Three wives, and three troubles.
Year 9: The Empress Livia convinced a senator who was a close friend of her family, to marry her daughter, Plautia Urgulanilla, to her 18-year-old grandson. They had a son, Claudius Drusus, who died at 14-15 years old when he threw a piece of pear into the air to catch it in his mouth and the piece got stuck in his throat. Years before the son’s death, a girl was born. But months later, Claudius noticed that the baby looked more like one of his freedmen than him. Claudius publicly declared that the girl was not his daughter. This scandal occurred at the same time that her brother-in-law, Plautia’s brother, murdered her wife by throwing her out of a window. After this, Claudius immediately divorced.
Year 28: The prefect of the Praetorian Guard, Sejanus, since the emperor’s self-exile, was plotting to occupy the throne. Knowing that no one would accept an emperor who was not related to the dynasty, he married his sister, Elia Paetina, to the “fool of the imperial family.” They had a daughter named Antonia. In the year 31 the plots and murders of Sejanus were discovered; Emperor Tiberius sentenced him and his accomplices to death. Claudius was forced to divorce the relative of the traitor, but he never abandoned his daughter Antonia.
Year 38: During the reign of his nephew Caligula, Claudius married a woman who was a member of the dynasty. The young and beautiful Valeria Messalina was the granddaughter of Antonia the Elder (sister of Claudio’s mother). Antonia the Elder was the first daughter that Mark Antony had with Augustus’s sister. Ten years later, this third marriage will end in worse circumstances than the first two.
Interestingly, the “mad" emperor Caligula was the first to recognize that Claudius had the skills to hold an important position. Claudius at 46 years old had the well-deserved important office thanks to his nephew. He was appointed consul.

The less thought day.
On January 24, 41, the emperor was assassinated by the Praetorian Guard in collusion with several senators. Minutes later, the emperor’s wife and daughter, a 1-year-old baby, were also murdered.
And what no one would have thought possible happened: At the age of 50 Claudius became Caesar. The fourth emperor of Rome.
According to the historians Flavius Josephus and Cassius Dion, Claudius, terrified, thinking that the senators’ plan was to exterminate all the members of the imperial family to restore the republic, hid behind a curtain. A Praetorian soldier found him and immediately proclaimed him emperor because he was the only male in the dynasty who could rule, the other remaining member being his 3-year-old grandnephew Lucio Domitius, whom 9 years later Claudio himself would give the famous name Nero.

The conquer.
Claudius surprised Rome by proving to be not only an intelligent emperor but also a conqueror who would make the empire greater. In 43, Claudius begins the campaign to conquer Britannia.
Although this was his most famous conquest and territorial expansion, it was not the only one.
Claudius annexed the province of Mauretania, on the northwestern coast of Africa. Noricum: Present-day central Austria (west of Vienna), part of Bavaria (Germany), northeastern Slovenia, and part of the Italian Alps. Thrace (Bulgaria) And he made the Danube River a new border of the Roman Empire.

Claudius: The emperor.
He distinguished himself for his policy of Meritocracy. He rewarded for ability , not for personal sympathies. He allowed men from of non-aristocratic origin access to the Senate. Claudius gained the respect of the Senate, the army and the people at the same time, something that had not been seen in Rome since the time of Augustus.
He had two children with his third wife: Octavia, born late year 39, and Tiberius Claudius, later nicknamed Britanicus due the conquest of Britannia, born 19 days after Claudius’ accession to the throne.
He wrote many works, most during the reign of Tiberius. In addition to a history of the reign of Augustus and some treatises on the game of dice, his great passion, among his main works are a History of Etruscan civilization in twenty books, a History of Carthage in eight volumes, and a dictionary of the Etruscan language.
Pliny the Elder refers to Claudius as “One of the best writers”.
In the year 47 Claudius celebrated the Ludi Saeculares of the eighth centenary of the founding of Rome.
The tragic end of the empress.
Empress Valeria Messalina becomes the lover of Senator Gaius Silius. Taking advantage of her lineage as a woman of the Julius Claudia dynasty, she convinced that man that together they could take the throne from Claudius. In 48, while Claudius was in Ostia, Messalina divorced him and married Silius. Three freedmen arrived in Ostia to give the incredible news to the emperor.
According to Tacitus: <<Claudius, having returned to the palace, ordered that Messalina be brought to him, but the freedman Narcissus, fearing that the emperor would forgive her, ordered a freedman, a centurion, and some tribunes to proceed with the execution. The woman was overtaken in the gardens and executed; informed of his wife’s death while he was at the table, Claudio would not have asked any more questions. >>
The senator and his group of accomplices and supporters were also executed.
Seven years earlier: Claudius ordered the return of his nieces, daughters of his deceased brother Germanicus:, Livilla and Agrippina the Younger, both exiled by Caligula in 39. Livilla was highly favored by Claudius, and Agrippina the Younger was ver loved by the people. This situation caused Messalina worry and jealousy.
Messalina, through intrigue, in a very short time managed to send Livilla back into exile, along with the philosopher Seneca -a close friend and ally of Agrippina the Younger- accusing them of being lovers and conspiring. Livilla died in exile months later.
But Mesalina could not make Agrippina the Younger disappear, who was extremely cunning and more dangerous than Livilla because she had a son, that is, a candidate for the throne who, to make matters worse, was older than Messalina’s son. In all likelihood, this could be the reason Messalina attempted to overthrow Claudius.
The fourth wife, and the death.
If Senator Gaius Silius was able to use Messalina’s lineage to try to overthrow Claudius by marrying her, what could another do who marries the widow Agrippina, a direct descendant of Divine Augustus? This was the reason for the incredible decision to marry her niece: simply so that no other man could marry her. Agrippina immediately accepted the proposal to become empress of Rome.
The marriage between an uncle and his niece was considered incest and a crime in Rome. However, this was not an incestuous relationship but a political union. Even so, dispensations had to be presented to the Senate and religious authorities, and there were endless ceremonies.
Finally, in the year 49, in an unprecedented event in Roman history, the 58-year-old Emperor married his own 33-year-old niece. Immediately she gets Claudius to bring her close friend Seneca from exile. Agrippina appoints Seneca as her son’s tutor and teacher.
In 50, at Agrippina’s request, Claudius adopts his great-nephew Lucius as his son and changes his name to Claudius Nero. Agrippina’s son becomes the main heir to the throne; Claudius’s own son, comes second. No historian can explain why Claudius made that strange decision. Later, Agrippina also convinces Claudius to marry his daughter Octavia to Nero. At that time Nero and Octavia are around 14 and 12 years old respectively. Claudius granted Agrippina the title of Augusta.
In 54, October 13, at age 64, the emperor died suddenly during a banquet, after having eaten mushrooms, according to Juvenal’s version.
There are several versions about his death, however they all agree on the theory that the emperor was poisoned. Personally, I want to believe that his death was due to natural causes.
Below, a text that is not mine but from a very important site with an extensive article on the death of Emperor Claudius. I copy and paste the final part that I was happy to read.
However, as Levick points out, those present at the banquet do not seem to have suspected poisoning of any sort; moreover, the eunuch Halotus, whose job was to taste the Emperor’s food, kept his job when Nero assumed the throne—evidence that nobody wanted to put him out of the way, either as an accomplice or as a witness to assassination.
We see no reason to believe that Claudius was murdered. All the features are consistent with sudden death from cerebrovascular disease, which was common in Roman times. Towards the end of 52 AD, at the age of 62, Claudius had a serious illness and spoke of approaching death. Around that time there were changes in his depiction in busts, cameos and coins—with thick neck, narrow shoulders and flat chest. The Apocolocyntosis, addressed to an audience some of whom were present at the death, makes clear that there is no need to postulate poisoning, accidental or otherwise.
Text : © 2002, The Royal Society of Medicine.
The Divine Claudius.
Sculpture of Claudius deified (1st Century) Vatican Museums. Pictured by Gary Todd.
After his death, like Augustus, he was deified. He had the title of Divine Claudius and temples where he was worshiped.
The child who they said would never be emperor not only became an emperor but also a god.