CLAUDIUS, the name of a famous Roman gens. The by form Clodius was regularly used for certain Claudii in late repub lican times, but otherwise the two forms were used indifferently. The gens contained a patrician and a plebeian family; the chief representatives of the former were the Pulchri, of the latter the Marcelli (see MARCELLUS) . The following members deserve particular mention:— I. APPIUS SABINUS INREGILLENSIS, or REGILLENSIS, CLAUDIUS, so called from Regillum (or Regilli) in Sabine territory, founder of the Claudian gens. His original name was Attus or Attius Clausus. About 504 B.C. he settled in Rome, where he and his followers formed a tribe. In 495 he was consul, and his enforce ment of the laws of debt was one of the chief causes of the "secession" of the plebs to the Sacred Mount. See Suetonius, Tiberius, i.; Livy ii. 16-29; Dion. Halic. v. 4o, vi. 23, 24 2. CLAUDIUS, APPIUS, surnamed CRASSUS, a Roman patrician, consul in 471 and 451 B.C., and in the same and following year one of the decemvirs. At first he was conspicuous for his aristocratic pride and bitter hatred of the plebeians. Twice they refused to fight under him, and fled before their enemies. He retaliated by decimating the army. He was banished, but soon returned, and again became consul. In the same year (451) he was made one of the decemvirs who had been appointed to draw up a code of written laws. He managed, by courting the people, to secure his re-election for the year 45o, and the new decemvirs, under his leadership, began a reign of terror. Matters were brought to a crisis by the affair of Virginia, the daughter of Virginius, a ple beian centurion. Claudius, desiring to possess her, got a client to swear falsely that she was the child of his slave, and judgment was given in his favour. To save her, Virginius killed her with his own hand. An insurrection was the result, and the people seceded to the Sacred Mount. The decemvirs were finally com pelled to resign and Appius Claudius died in prison, either by his own hand or by that of the executioner. For a discussion of the character of Appius Claudius, see Mommsen's appendix to vol. i.
of his History of Rome, also Livy iii. 32-58; Dion. Halic. x. 59, xi. 3.
3. CLAUDIUS, APPIUS, surnamed CAECUS, Roman patrician and author. In 312 B.C. he was elected censor without having been consul. During his censorship, which he retained for five years, in spite of the lex AemiIia which limited the tenure of that office to 18 months, he filled vacancies in the senate with men of low birth, in some cases even the sons of freedmen (Diod. Sic. xx. 36; Livy ix. 3o; Suetonius, Claudius, 24) . He abolished the old free birth, freehold basis of suffrage. He enrolled the freedmen and landless citizens both in the centuries and in the tribes, distribut ing them through all the tribes and thus giving them practical control of the elections. In 304, however, the landless and poorer freedmen were limited to the four urban tribes, and the effect of Claudius's arrangement was annulled. Appius Claudius trans ferred the charge of the public worship of Hercules in the Forum Boarium from the Potitian gens to a number of public slaves. He further invaded the exclusive rights of the patricians by directing his secretary to publish the legis actiones (methods of legal prac tice) and the list of dies fasti (or days on which legal business could be transacted). Lastly, he gained enduring fame by the construction of a road and an aqueduct, which—a thing unheard of before—he called by his own name (Livy, ix. 29; Frontinus, De Aquis, "5; ; Diod. Sic. xx. 36) . In 307 he was elected consul for the first time. In 298 he was interrex ; in 296, as consul, he led the army in Samnium (Livy, x. 19) . During the next year he was praetor, and he was once dictator. In spite of his political re forms, he opposed the admission of the plebeians to the consul ship and priestly offices ; his probable aim was to strengthen the power of the magistrates and lessen that of the senate. He was already blind and too feeble to walk, when Cineas, the minister of Pyrrhus, visited him, but so vigorously did he oppose every con cession that all the eloquence of Cineas was in vain, and the Romans forgot past misfortunes in the inspiration of Claudius's patriotism (Livy, x. 13 ; Justin, xviii., 2 ; Plutarch, Pyrrhus, 19). The story of his blindness, however, may be merely a method of accounting for his cognomen. Tradition regarded it as a punish ment for his transference of the cult of Hercules from the Potitii.
His speech against peace with Pyrrhus was the first that was transmitted to writing, and thereby laid the foundation of prose composition. He was the author of a collection of aphorisms in verse mentioned by Cicero (of which a few fragments remain) , and of a legal work entitled De Usurpationibus. It is very likely also that he was concerned in the drawing up of the Legis Actiones published by Flavius. He also interested himself in grammatical questions, distinguished the two sounds R and S in writing, and did away with the letter Z.
See Mommsen's appendix to his Roman History (vol. i.) ; trea tises by W. Siebert (1863) and F. D. Gerlach (1872), dealing especially with the censorship of Claudius.
4. CLAUDIUS, PUBLIUS, surnamed PULCHER, son of (3). He was the first of the gens who bore this surname. In 249 he was consul and appointed to the command of the fleet in the first Punic War. Instead of continuing the siege of Lilybaeum, he decided to attack the Carthaginians in the harbour of Drepanum, and was completely defeated. The disaster was commonly attributed to Claudius's treatment of the sacred chickens, which refused to eat before the battle. "Let them drink then," said the consul, and ordered them to be thrown into the sea. Having been recalled and ordered to appoint a dictator, he nominated a subordinate official, but the nomination was at once overruled. Claudius him self was accused of high treason and heavily fined. He must have died before 246, probably by his own hand. See Livy, Epit., 19; Polybius, i. 49; Cicero, De Divinatione, i. 16, ii. 8; Valerius Maxi mus, i. 4, viii. I.
5. CLAUDIUS APPIUS, surnamed PULCHER, Roman statesman and author. He served under his brother-in-law Lucullus in Asia (72 B.C.) and was commissioned to deliver the ultimatum to Tigranes, which gave him the choice of war with Rome or the surrender of Mithradates. In 57 he was praetor, in 56 propraetor in Sardinia, and in 54 consul with L. Domitius Ahenobarbus.
Pompey reconciled him to Cicero, whose return from exile he had opposed. In 53 he became governor of Cilicia. During this period he carried on a correspondence with Cicero, whose letters to him form the third book of the Epistolae ad Familiares. Claudius re sented the appointment of Cicero as his successor, avoided meet ing him, and issued orders after his arrival in the province. On his return to Rome Claudius was impeached by P. Cornelius Dola bella, and was obliged to make advances to Cicero, since it was necessary to obtain witnesses in his favour from his old province. He was acquitted, and a charge of bribery against him also proved unsuccessful. In 5o he was censor, and expelled many of the members of the senate. When Caesar marched on Rome he fled from Italy. fle was appointed by Pompey to the command in Greece, and died in Euboea about 48, before the battle of Phar salus. He wrote a work on augury, the first book of which he dedicated to Cicero. See Orelli, Onomasticon Tullianum.