CLAUDIUS I, or, in full, TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS DRUSUS NERO GERMANI CUS, 4th Roman emperor: b. Lyons, 10 a.c.; d. 54 A.D. He was the youngest son of the elder Claudius Drusus Nero and Antonia the younger, the daughter of Augustus' sister. His early education was left to women and slaves; owing to his ill health it was thought he would never become a robust man. He accordingly escaped the hostile notice of Caligula, and availed himself of the leisure and more or less enforced retirement to compose extensive lit erary works in Latin and Greek, which have unfortunately not been preserved. Among other works he wrote a Roman history, em bracing the period from the death of Cwsar to his own time. After the murder of Caligula, the body-guard, who were ransacicing the palace, discovered him secreted in a corner, dragged him out and proclaimed him emperor (41 A.D.). The Senate, who had determined on the restora tion of the republic, were forced to confirm the appointment. Claudius, suddenly transferred from retirement and oppression to uncontrolled power, distinguished the beginning of his reign by some praiseworthy acts; he recalled the exiles and restored their estates to them; embellished Rome and erected several large buildings for the public good. He made Mauretania a Roman
province; his armies fought successfully against the Germans, and kept possession of several strong places in Britain. But while he was living in comparative retirement (for he never wholly abandoned the practice of earlier years), his wives, particularly the infamous Messalina, together with his freedmen, ad ministered the government, sold offices and places of honor and committed the greatest atrocities unpunished. He died of poison ad ministered by his fourth wife, Agrippina (mother of Nero), who entertained the sus picion that her husband (and uncle) might otherwise live long enough to withdraw his appointment of Nero as successor to the Im perial power. Claudius was deified in due course. His deification was the cause of Seneca's pasquinade entitled (Apocolocyntosis.'