When the mad Roman Emperor Caligula was assassinated in 41 AD, his uncle Claudius ran to one of the palace’s apartments and hid behind a curtain. Claudius was soon discovered by the praetorian guards and escorted to their camp, where he was introduced to the troops who proclaimed him emperor.
Despite being the youngest son of Nero Drusus (brother of Emperor Tiberius) and Antonia the younger (daughter of Mark Antony and Emperor Augustus’ sister Octavia), Claudius was never a front-runner to be the Roman Emperor. Deemed an embarrassment at court due to his poor health and alarming lack of social skills, it was only when Caligula came to power that he was eventually offered a consulship as a colleague to the emperor himself only to be treated horribly by the young emperor and suffer public scorn at court.
Despite his image as the slow-witted member of the imperial family,
Claudius’ initial moves in office were thoughtful and decisive. Though he sentenced Caligula’s assassins to death, he did not launch further investigations on the matter. Instead, he eliminated treason trials, burned criminal records, and destroyed Caligula’s fabled stockpile of poison.
A bust of Emperor Claudius. (Michael Cambridge / CC BY-SA 4.0)
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