Produced by Tapio Riikonen and David Widger
By
C. Suetonius Tranquillus;
To which are added,
The Translation of
Alexander Thomson, M.D.
revised and corrected by
T.Forester, Esq., A.M.
(192)
I. The patrician family of the Claudii (for there was a plebeian familyof the same name, no way inferior to the other either in power ordignity) came originally from Regilli, a town of the Sabines. Theyremoved thence to Rome soon after the building of the city, with a greatbody of their dependants, under Titus Tatius, who reigned jointly withRomulus in the kingdom; or, perhaps, what is related upon betterauthority, under Atta Claudius, the head of the family, who was admittedby the senate into the patrician order six years after the expulsion ofthe Tarquins. They likewise received from the state, lands beyond theAnio for their followers, and a burying-place for themselves near thecapitol [284]. After this period, in process of time, the family had thehonour of twenty-eight consulships, five dictatorships, sevencensorships, seven triumphs, and two ovations. Their descendants weredistinguished by various praenomina and cognomina [285], but rejected bycommon consent the praenomen of (193) Lucius, when, of the two races whobore it, one individual had been convicted of robbery, and another ofmurder. Amongst other cognomina, they assumed that of Nero, which in theSabine language signifies strong and valiant.
II. It appears from record, that many of the Claudii have performedsignal services to the state, as well as committed acts of delinquency.To mention the most remarkable only, Appius Caecus dissuaded the senatefrom agreeing to an alliance with Pyrrhus, as prejudicial to the republic[286]. Claudius Candex first passed the straits of Sicily with a fleet,and drove the Carthaginians out of the island [287]. Claudius Nero cutoff Hasdrubal with a vast army upon his arrival in Italy from Spain,before he could form a junction with his brother Hannibal [288]. On theother hand, Claudius Appius Regillanus, one of the Decemvirs, made aviolent attempt to have a free virgin, of whom he was enamoured, adjudgeda slave; which caused the people to secede a second time from the senate[289]. Claudius Drusus erected a statue of himself wearing a crown atAppii Forum [290], and endeavoured, by means of his dependants, to makehimself master of Italy. Claudius Pulcher, when, off the coast of Sicily[291], the pullets used for taking augury would not eat, in contempt ofthe omen threw them overboard, as if they should drink at least, if theywould not eat; and then engaging the enemy, was routed. After hisdefeat, when he (194) was ordered by the senate to name a dictator,making a sort of jest of the public disaster, he named Glycias, hisapparitor.
The women of this family, likewise, exhibited characters equally opposedto each other. For both the Claudias belonged to it; she, who, when theship freighted with things sacred to the Idaean Mother of the Gods [292],stuck fast in the shallows of the Tiber, got it off, by praying to theGoddess with a loud voice, "Follow me, if I am chaste;" and she also,who, contrary t