After Caligula’s death the Senate was convened in the Temple of Jupiter on the Capitoline Hill,—not in the accustomed Curia or Senate House, because that bore the now hated name of Julian from the family to which the slain emperor belonged. The body first of all issued decrees denouncing the tyranny of Caligula and giving honor to the “restorers of public freedom,” as the assassins were called, and especially to the ringleader of these, ChÆrea. They also granted a remission of some of the most unpopular taxes that Caligula had enforced. Some were ready to vote that the memory of the CÆsars should be entirely abolished and that the government should be restored to the simple republican form it had in the days of the Scipios and Cato. Others thought that the monarchy should be continued, but in an entirely different family line.

ChÆrea, emboldened by his public honors, gave orders to a military tribune, who hastened to put to death Caligula’s wife and only child. It was properly a question for the Senate to decide,—who should be the successor to the imperial throne. While that body was deliberating, the matter was summarily settled by the action of the PrÆtorian Guards. In the general confusion some of them had begun plundering the imperial palace. There they had found, half-hidden behind a curtain in an obscure corner, a man about fifty-five years old, whom they recognized as Claudius, the son of Drusus and the uncle of Caligula. He sank at their feet probably expecting nothing but death. But they dared not do otherwise than respect the blood of the CÆsars. They were more loyal than the great body of the Senators to the royal family. So they hailed Claudius as emperor and carried him, astonished and protesting, to their camp. When in the morning it was found that the Senate had come to no conclusion, Claudius found courage to allow the soldiers to have their way and to swear allegiance to him. In return for their devotion he promised them a large donation in money.

Herod Agrippa I, who had been such a friend of Caligula and who was still in Rome, advised the Senators that the wisest thing that they could do would be to yield to the wishes of the soldiers. This was an act for which, as we shall see, he was afterward generously rewarded by Claudius. In spite of some determined opposition, therefore, he was proclaimed the successor to the throne, the first of many Roman emperors who owed their elevation to the military power of the prÆtorian guard.

Claudius was born at Lugdunum, or Lyons, in Gaul, August first, in the year 9, or 10, before Christ. From his childhood he seems to have been weak in body and retiring in spirit. He had been neglected, if not despised, by the great Augustus. His own parents had been ashamed of him as a feeble invalid. He had not been thought of as worthy to fill any high office at the imperial court. He had once asked the emperor Tiberius for larger responsibilities, but had received scarcely more than empty honors. He is said to have had some form of paralysis, to have trembled in his hands and to have had an imperfect utterance. Caligula had elevated him to the consulship and had given him an honorable seat at public spectacles; but in private he had been made the butt of coarse jokes and of much ridicule. He had resigned himself, therefore, to quiet pursuits, had settled down to the opinion that there were no great things for him in life, and had turned his attention to literary studies. He was the author, with some assistance, of several historical volumes and of a life of Cicero. He may have been, for that period, a fair sort of citizen, and when he was made emperor it was certainly an agreeable change for the people from the outrageous extravagancies of Caligula.

At the outset of his reign he modified some of the harsh enactments of his predecessors; returned to their owners several private estates, which had been confiscated; gave back to various cities the statues of heroes, which had been removed from them, and restored the temples, which Caligula had desecrated, to their original uses. He also executed the murderer of Caligula. Fearing violence, he caused his own person to be guarded. He respected the dignity of the Senate, made the Senators responsible for the discharge of their duties, and increased their number by promoting to that honor men from the equestrian rank.

In this matter he did not confine his view to Italy but extended it to Gaul, the province in which he had been born. He made a speech in the Senate defending the measure. This speech was copied on brazen tablets and preserved by the people of Lugdunum (Lyons). One of these was discovered three centuries ago and is now to be seen, well preserved and clearly legible, in the museum of that city. He discontinued all encouragement to spies and informers. He ordained that sick slaves abandoned in the temple of Esculapius should be free if they recovered. He provided also for the amusements of the people, keeping up the popular gladiatorial shows and sometimes going as far as to bandy jokes with the bystanders about the performers. His responsibilities developed in him unexpected independence and force; and all these labors were not unfavorable to the improvement of his health.

The Roman army was active at this time on the frontiers of Gaul and Germany. Claudius determined to carry out the plan that Augustus had formed of invading Britain. He even entered that country in person, crossing the channel and joining the Roman general, Aulus Plautius, in his campaign against the natives. He was absent from Rome six months and achieved such military success that on his return a public triumph was accorded to him by the Senate. On this occasion he added to his name the title Britannicus, which afterwards became also the special designation of his son.

A little later in the reign of Claudius, Caractacus, a British chief, who had resisted the Roman forces, was captured and brought to Rome, with his wife and daughter. All at the imperial court were impressed with the noble bearing of this prisoner as he pleaded eloquently for his life. Claudius, let it be said to his credit, extended to him the imperial clemency. I shall have occasion to refer to the invasion of Britain by Claudius when I come to speak, in a later chapter, of Paul’s friends at Rome and among them of the woman Claudia and her possible British origin and relations.

Claudius was generous and tactful with the princes who were subject to the Roman empire. He established Antiochus in Comagene, Mithridates on the Bosphorus, for the favor I have mentioned, and Herod Agrippa I in Galilee with Judea and Samaria added to his domain. It was during the reign of Claudius that this Herod Agrippa I “stretched forth his hands to vex certain of the church,” as Luke records for us in the twelfth chapter of the Acts. “And he killed James, the brother of John, with the sword. And because he saw it pleased the Jews, he proceeded further to take Peter also.” Peter was wonderfully delivered from prison. But Herod was soon after smitten with a dreadful disease. It was when he had made a proud demonstration before the people, as is described to us in the same chapter as follows:

Herod was highly displeased with them of Tyre and Sidon: but they came with one accord to him, and, having made Blastus the king’s chamberlain their friend, desired peace; because their country was nourished by the king’s country. And upon a set day Herod, arrayed in royal apparel, sat upon his throne and made an oration unto them. And the people gave a shout, saying, “It is the voice of a god and not of a man.” And immediately the angel of the Lord smote him, because he gave not God the glory; and he was eaten of worms and gave up the ghost. But the word of God grew and multiplied.

The famous cities of TrÈves in France, Cologne on the Rhine, and Colchester in England owe their origin to the reign of Claudius. The original name of Cologne was Colonia Agrippinensis for Agrippina, who was born in this vicinity. As empress she assumed a leadership in military matters never before occupied by a woman, and made it her boast that she was the first of her sex thus to found a colony of Roman veterans. Colchester, meaning the camp on the river Colne, was on the site of the ancient town of Camelodunum, the residence of the principal potentate of southern Britain, the chief of the Trinobantes. When these people were put to flight, Claudius established there a Roman camp and colony to keep them and the other barbarous tribes in awe. They were taught to ascribe the victory of the Romans to the favor of certain divinities; and among the shrines erected in the colony was a temple of unusual size for the worship of Claudius himself. Such divine honors, we have seen, had sometimes been accepted by his predecessors. Two miles of city walls and other relics dating from the period of the Roman occupation may still be seen at Colchester.

From Caius Caligula, Claudius had received an exhausted public treasury and empty granaries. Scanty harvests produced several periods of famine in different parts of the world. Secular historians say that one of these occurred in Palestine and Syria during his reign. We read in Acts ii, 28, how such a famine was predicted by the prophet Agabus at Antioch, so that the disciples there determined to send relief to their brethren in Judea, which they did by the hands of Barnabas and Saul; and the sacred writer says this famine occurred in the days of Claudius CÆsar. As one of the means for bringing Egyptian wheat to Rome more quickly, and thus preventing such periods of destitution of bread in the imperial city again, Claudius directed the building of a larger harbor at the mouth of the Tiber, an enterprise that required much massive masonry and which for a long while facilitated the commerce of the empire. In course of time the action of stream and wind and tide has filled up and wellnigh obliterated it. He also in seven years carried on to completion the mighty aqueduct for bringing water to Rome from the Alban hills,—an engineering achievement that has been always known as the Claudian Aqueduct. The traveler still wonders at its great arches stretching across the lonely Campagna. Tunneling a mountain to afford a better outlet for Lake Fucinus was another great piece of engineering in his day, the completion of which was fitly celebrated by naval evolutions and a sham battle on the Lake.

If we could confine our view of Claudius to the facts now stated, we might think of him as one who in many respects quite disappointed the low estimate of him that the majority of men held at the beginning of his career. But, alas! his great weakness lay in his proneness to be too easily duped and controlled by others. This was specially marked in the influence over him of his vicious wives. The first lady who was betrothed to him in his youth was repudiated by him because she was not approved by the emperor Augustus. The next died on the day appointed for the nuptials. The third, named Urgalania, became the mother of two children. One of these was choked to death by a pear he tried to swallow. Afterward Claudius divorced this wife, having discovered that she was unfaithful; and he ordered her second child to be exposed to die. The next wife was also divorced as unsuitable. The last two were Messalina and Agrippina, both of whom, as we shall see, lived to acquire great infamy.

Messalina, the granddaughter of Mark Antony, was married to Claudius when he had no prospect of coming to the throne. She is said to have been at that time only fifteen years old. She became an intensely ambitious woman, of no moral principle. She was particularly jealous of Julia and Agrippina, the two nieces of the emperor, who, like herself, were brilliant but wicked women. She had no respect for her husband, and when he became emperor used her position to gain her personal ends. She was frightfully immoral. Her name, indeed, has become a byword for female depravity. She took bribes from others and wheedled presents from her husband.

After the accession of Claudius, the philosopher Seneca had emerged from the obscurity into which the jealousy of Caligula had forced him. It would have been well for his own peace of mind if he had continued to pursue his reflections in private. It has been well said that all Seneca gained for himself from his career of ambition at court was to be suspected by one emperor, banished by a second, and murdered by a third.

Claudius was not only under the influence of an infamous wife but he had also given himself largely to be controlled by certain evil men chosen from the ranks of freedmen. The lower class of Roman slaves had little hope of bettering their condition. But there was a higher class, principally from Greece and Syria, who were finely trained and educated, and who could calculate on obtaining their freedom early in life, when they might come into many opportunities of being the favorite employees, if not the intimate counselors, of their former masters and others. Some of them were shrewd enough to rise to great distinction and power and figure prominently upon the pages of history. In the court of Claudius there were several freedmen of this character. There were Narcissus, his private secretary; Polybius, his literary adviser, and Pallas, his accountant. We may also include another freedman of whom we read in Scripture, Felix, the brother of Pallas, who became the procurator of Judea, before whom the Apostle Paul was arraigned. The first three of these men, if not the fourth, became noted for their accumulation of great riches and for their insolence. Some scholars,—such as Lightfoot and Ramsey,—have thought that the Narcissus we here speak of was the man some of the slaves of whose household were known to the Apostle Paul to be Christians and secured from him greetings in Romans xvi, 11.

Narcissus, Polybius, and Pallas gradually came into control of the execution of the laws. Two of them, Narcissus and Pallas, acquired their wealth often by dishonest means. Once when Claudius complained that the imperial revenues were too small, it was replied that he would be rich enough if his two wealthy freedmen would take him into partnership. By their accusations they obtained from Claudius severe judgments on different individuals whom they hated. He was aroused by them to put down some conspiracies against his own person, but seems scarcely to have been aware of many evils that were flourishing while he was maintaining the routine of government or presiding at splendid banquets. At these he disgraced himself by gluttony and intemperance. A stolid worker in his prime, he became a stupid dotard in his age.

The Roman court had now become so degenerate that its record takes the form of a scandalous chronicle. It was surely a miserable place for a man to be found who put forth, as did Seneca, exalted apothegms of moral philosophy. Using opportunities for the investment of inherited wealth, he became extremely rich and, although he was one of the most enlightened men of his age, he had allowed himself to be placed in a most contaminating environment. Perhaps it was his detestation of the conduct of the empress that made him a partisan of her rivals, so that Messalina could find a pretext for accusing him of an intrigue with Julia. Julia was exiled and then put to death.

No positive evidence of Seneca’s guilt has come down to us. On the contrary, he has been pronounced innocent by some students of history. But he was condemned by the Senate and banished to the barren shores of Corsica. He tells us that Claudius tried to prevent this, but Messalina’s schemes were too deeply laid to be thwarted. It is remarkable that Seneca does not abuse her in any of his writings that have come down to us. He bade farewell to his noble-minded mother and his beloved brother Gallio, to his nephew Lucan, the promising young poet, and to Marcus his little boy, and then left the city, banishment from which was the sorest of trials to a Roman. He retired to his place of exile. There, amid disagreeable surroundings, he consoled himself with his philosophy and wrote a “Consolation” to his mother, Helvia, which is one of the noblest of his works. It must, however, be admitted that his fine moral precepts did not prevent his writing a letter to Polybius in which he abjectly flatters Claudius, manifestly in order to secure his release and his return to Rome. If he expected this through the intervention of Polybius, he was disappointed, for that freedman and favorite, though he had formerly much influence with Messalina, soon forfeited his life through her machinations.

Messalina succeeded a long time in concealing her real character, but when her shamelessness reached its highest pitch in her open marriage to another man, the indignation of the emperor was aroused. Then followed a new scene of tragedy. She had apparently persuaded Claudius that it was a mock marriage for a frolic, but all Rome knew better and regarded it not only as a vile procedure but an attempt to usurp the political throne. Some time before this, Messalina had coveted the gardens on the Pincian Hill, which had long been famous as the property of the luxurious Lucullus, and which at the present day may be a part of the grounds of the Villa Medici. After Lucullus it belonged to Valerius Asiaticus. So Messalina had suborned her son’s tutor, Silius, to accuse Asiaticus of corrupting the army. Thus she secured his death and then took possession of the gardens. Here, as the wild revelries that followed the detestable wedding ceremonies were at their height, one of the guests, Vettius Valens, climbed to the top of a tree; and, when they asked what he saw, he replied in language intended for a jest:

“I see a fierce storm approaching from Ostia.”

It was well known that the emperor was at that place. The storm was indeed approaching. Messengers soon arrived, saying Claudius was on the way. The news fell like a thunderbolt. Messalina implored the protection of Vibidia, the chief of the Vestal Virgins. With her children she hastened across the city to the Ostian gate to plead for the emperor’s mercy on his arrival. She mounted the cart of a market gardener, which happened to be passing. But Narcissus absorbed the attention of the emperor as she approached by accounts of her crimes; and Messalina was coldly passed by. That evening, as Claudius enjoyed the pleasures of his table, he showed some signs of softened feeling at mention of her. Narcissus knew that delay would be dangerous to himself. So he sent a tribune and centurions to kill the empress in the garden of Lucullus, to which she had returned. She was weeping in despair when the doors were battered down and the tribune and his men stood before her. She took a dagger in her hand and when she had twice stabbed herself in vain the tribune gave the fatal blow. In her death she has been well compared with Jezebel of old, who was slain on or near the ground she had wickedly taken from its owner. Claudius was still lingering at his dinner when he was informed that she had perished. He asked no questions and manifested no emotion.

Not long after this the emperor married Agrippina II, the sister of Caligula, and the daughter of Germanicus and the older Agrippina. To distinguish her from her mother she is generally called Agrippina the Second. She was a niece of Claudius.

The marriage of such close relations was repugnant to most Romans. But the artful woman managed to overcome all objections, and the wedding took place. She had inherited none of the virtues of her distinguished parents, had been brought up by wicked relatives, and had been married to CnÆus Domitius Ahenobarbus, one of the worthless young nobles of that day. By him she had one son, upon whom she lavished her natural affections. After her marriage to the emperor she worked constantly in the interests of this son, cherishing for him the greatest expectations. One of her first steps was to secure his betrothal to Octavia, the daughter of the emperor. She also induced Claudius formally to adopt him into the Claudian family, to place him in the line of succession with his own son, Britannicus, and, inasmuch as he was three years older than Britannicus, to give him actual precedence in many honors. On this adoption the young man received a new name and became known as Claudius Domitius Nero.

Agrippina also managed to get rid,—by banishment, disgrace, or death,—of one after another of the women who had been her rivals at the imperial court. Among these were Lepida and Calpurnia. Against the rich Lollia Paulina she brought a charge of sorcery and treason, and so obtained the confiscation of most of her property and her banishment from Italy. It is said that not even this satisfied her, but that she sent a tribune to bring her the head of her enemy, and that when it was laid before her she lifted the lips with her own hand to make sure, by marks on the teeth, of its identity. This horrid story is quoted by Merivale and others from the ancient historian, Dion. It has been well said that she must have even surpassed Lady Macbeth in her malignant and frigid cruelty.

Tacitus says that it was with a hope of counteracting the unpopularity that these horrors had aroused in the public mind that Agrippina recalled Seneca from his exile in Corsica and made him the tutor of her son. Thus, again, was this great philosopher brought back into the scenes of court and the public life at Rome. And thus Agrippina would undo some of the work of Messalina, whom she had heartily hated. She may have been influenced also by the consideration that Seneca was indignant with Claudius, and this might make him more helpful to her and to her son if any antagonism should arise between her and her husband. Of course, it would have been better for Seneca if he had stayed in Corsica. He came back into a most perilous environment. He may have been encouraged to do so by the knowledge that a man of the old faithful type, Afranius Burrus, was to have the very important post of prefect of the prÆtorian guard. Perhaps these two men were patriotic in their purpose and trusted that they were going to be able to keep matters from growing worse.

Agrippina, while she left to the emperor the friends he liked and all the insignia of power, constantly abused his confidence. It is strange that he was so pliant to her scheming and malicious will. He seems to have been, ordinarily, dull and stupid, but when aroused he was impulsive and vindictive. At last his freedman and secretary, Narcissus, began to open his eyes to the extent to which he had been duped by his wife and to her disregard of all obligations to him. He seemed deeply moved by the discovery and remarked that it had been his fate always to bear and then to punish the wickedness of his wives.

These words, repeated to Agrippina, showed her clearly that if she was going to succeed in her purpose of getting the throne for her son, Nero, it would not do for her to risk any delay. She knew that she could do nothing injurious to her husband in the presence of his secretary, Narcissus. So she arranged with the physician of Narcissus that he should be sent away to some medicinal springs for his health. When he was gone she proceeded with her atrocious plan. By some means she secured the connivance of Halotes, the emperor’s prÆgustator (the slave whose duty it was to protect him from poison by tasting every dish before it was presented to him) and of Xenephon of Cos, his physician. Then she consulted with Locusta, the infamous woman who is known to have been a professional poisoner, often resorted to in those turbulent days. The very existence of such a person is a frightful indication of the prevailing enormities. A compound was sought that might be best suited for the special purpose, not too rapid in its action to excite suspicion and not too slow, lest Claudius should have time to arrange something for Britannicus. The poison was administered to him in a dish of mushrooms, of which he was extravagantly fond. It is said that Agrippina herself handed him a choice morsel of the food when he was somewhat intoxicated, and it immediately caused him to be silent. Afterward, when there were indications that, on account of his gluttony, it might be ineffective, a physician was induced, under pretense of causing vomiting and so giving him relief from pain, to thrust a feather smeared with a deadly liquid down his throat. This completed the wicked work. Before morning this CÆsar was a corpse.

While all these exciting scenes were taking place in the reign of Claudius, the Apostle Paul had been prosecuting his wonderfully earnest ministry of the Gospel of Jesus Christ and was making missionary journeys in Asia Minor, Macedonia, and Greece. It is in connection with his meeting Aquila and Priscilla at Corinth that we read in Acts xviii, 1, that “Claudius had commanded all the Jews to depart from Rome.” The Roman historian, Suetonius, speaks of this decree and says it was issued because the Jews were “constantly making a disturbance, Chrestus being the instigator.” No prominent Jew named Chrestus being otherwise known in the records of that time, some have queried whether Chrestus may not be here a Latin corruption of the Greek word Christos, and whether these disturbances among the Jews may not have been disputes about the Christ, or Messiah, whom they expected, or even about Jesus as claiming to be that Messiah. The suggestion is interesting, but we cannot prove it to be correct.

Like his predecessors, Claudius is represented to us by ancient art in the shape of many statues and busts. The one chosen to illustrate these pages shows him to us in a flattering manner, as if he possessed the attributes of Jupiter. He is standing half-draped, with a wreath of oak leaves about his head, his left hand upraised to grasp the upper end of a long staff, and with an eagle at his right foot. The figure is not without some majesty, but there seems to be a look of anxiety and weariness upon his face. Surely, he had enough to make him anxious and weary in both his public and his private life. Unexpectedly called upon to be an emperor, he had wrought industriously in the public service; but he had not been equal to the moral strain of such a high position and had been the undiscerning dupe of iniquitous and malicious enemies. His worst foes had been those of his own household.