Family Background and Accession

Claudius

In this course, Dr Matthew Nicholls (University of Oxford) explores the reign of the fourth Roman emperor, Claudius. In the first module, we think about Claudius’ family background and the unlikeliness of his route to power. After that, in the second module, we think about the role of the army, the senate and the people of Rome in Claudius’ accession. In the third module, we think about Claudius’ early life and upbringing – including his scholarly interests – before turning in the fourth and fifth modules to consider the primary achievements of his reign, including the conquest of Britain and his work to secure the grain and water supply to the city of Rome. In the sixth and final module, we think about the role of Claudius’ wives and freedman advisors in his reign, and especially on his (unfair?) presentation in some historians as a stock figure from Roman comedy.

Family Background and Accession

In this lecture, we introduce the figure of Claudius, focusing in particular on: (i) a statue depicting Claudius as Jupiter, which features an Olympian body with the head of a fifty-year old man; (ii) Claudius’ unlikely route to the succession; (iii) the different factions in Rome at the time of Claudius’ succession and what they wanted from their new emperor: the army, the senate and the people of Rome; and (iv) the sources available to the modern historian for the reign of Claudius – Tacitus, Suetonius, Cassius Dio and Josephus – and the limitations of each.