SECT. II. — ADMINISTRATION OF CLAUDIUS
Claudius endeavored to model his statesmanship on that of Augustus. He set himself to restore the relations of cordiality which had subsisted between senate and Princeps under the first Emperor. The division of power between them was strictly maintained, and Claudius was prompted by his passion for antiquity to preserve the dignity of the senate. He reserved for memoirs of that ancient order special seats in the Circus Maximus. The influence of the senate was also increased by the rivalry which existed between the freedmen and the wives of the Emperor, each party seeking a support in the authority of the senate. The list of the order had not been revised since the reign of Augustus, and Claudius undertook the unpopular task, which his two predecessors had omitted. The task was necessary, but like most things which Claudius did, he performed it in a manner which excited ridicule. Instead of simply assuming censorial power, he revived (47,48 A.D.) the office of censor—a title which Augustus had avoided—and held a lustrum. His colleague in the office was L. Vitellius. The act was harmless, but it seemed to savor of the antiquarian on the throne, and when the zealous censor issued fifty edicts in one day, there was matter for jest in Rome. But useful business was done. Many new members were admitted into the senate, and the equestrian order was also revised. Claudius showed that he had not forgotten the land of his birth, by paving the way for extending the ius honorum to the three Gauls, so far as they already possessed the civitas sine suffragio. Natives of Gallia Narbonensis, of Spain and Africa, had already been admitted to the senate, and the magistracies; Claudius extended the privilege to the Aedui, who, as the first Gallic allies of Rome, were called the “brothers of the Roman people”. This mark of favor came fitly from the son of Drusus, the brother of Germanicus, and the conqueror of Britain. The speech which Claudius pronounced on this occasion before the senate was characteristic of the man. Two considerable fragments of it have been preserved on bronze tablets, which were dug up at Lyons, and we can judge from these remains that the oration was long and rambling, displaying knowledge of the ancient history of Rome, which bore very little on the matter in hand, and illustrating that want of sense of proportion, which made even the best acts of Claudius seem a little absurd. After a long and tedious historical disquisition, he suddenly breaks out in an address to himself which is simply grotesque: “But it is high time for thee, O Tiberius Caesar Germanicus, to unfold to the conscript fathers the aim of thy discourse”.
Like Augustus, Claudius was specially empowered by the senate (in the year of his censorship) to increase the number of patrician families, which were gradually dwindling, with a view to the conservation of religious ceremonies. This was a work thoroughly congenial to the spirit of the antiquarian sovereign. He also received powers to enlarge the Pomoerium, so as to include the Aventine hill, which had hitherto lain outside the limits of the city in its narrower sense. As an imitator of Augustus and a student of Etruscan archeology, he naturally made the maintenance of religion a special care, and did away with the oriental rites which had come into practice at the court in the reign of Gaius. The Jews were tolerated in Rome until their seditions caused him to expel them again, as they had been expelled by Tiberius. In the eight hundredth year of the city, which fell in this reign (47 A.D.), Claudius as Pontifex Maximus celebrated the Ludi Saeculares, though they had been celebrated sixty-three years before by Augustus. He founded a college of sixty haruspices for the official maintenance of Etruscan auguries. But in his zeal for religion he did not neglect the dictates of worldly wisdom, and limited the number of holidays, which interfered with the course of business.
Claudius also imitated his great model in devoting himself assiduously to the administration of justice. He used to sit patiently, hour after hour, through tedious judicial investigations in the open forum, or in the Basilica Julia. But while we may recognize his good intentions, it is doubtful whether such personal activity of a sovereign in administering justice is not more harmful than beneficial. He annulled the laws of treason, suppressed the practice of delation, and promised that no Roman citizen should be submitted to the pain of torture. He did away with the innovation introduced by Gaius, that slaves might give evidence against their masters. In connection with these measures, which were designed to preserve the dignity of the Roman citizen, it may be mentioned that he meted out strict punishment to those who claimed the franchise on false pretences. He also regulated marriages between free women and slaves, and defined the legal position of their children as servile.
Some important administrative changes were made in the reign of Claudius. Judicial authority was committed to the procurators, who managed the affairs of the fiscus in the provinces. Thus, suits concerning fiscal debts were withdrawn from the ordinary tribunals; but those who were not satisfied with the award of the imperial procurator could appeal to the Emperor. Claudius also made a new arrangement for the administration of the aerarium. It will be remembered that Augustus had transferred this treasury from the urban quaestors to twopraetores aerarii. Claudius restored it to the quaestors, but with a modification of the old arrangement. The two treasurers were selected from the quaestors, not by lot, but by the choice of the Emperor, and they held office for three years, under the title of quaestores aerarii Saturni (44 A.D.). The tendency to return to old constitutional forms was also manifested in the revival of the legislative power of the comitia of the people. Some of the laws of Claudius took the form ofplebiscita. But it was the unpractical experiment of an antiquarian, and all his important legislation took the form of senatusconsulta.
His reign was distinguished by the execution of works of public utility. He completed the aqueduct which had been begun by Gaius, and left unfinished; and from him it derived the name of Aqua Claudia. A much greater work was the construction of the Portus Romanus. When Claudius came to the throne, the public granaries were empty, and Rome was threatened with a famine. The immediate necessity was relieved by extending privileges to private trade in corn; but the scarcity continued, and one of the chief and abiding causes was the want of a good haven close to Rome. The mouth of the Tiber was silted up with sand, and the corn-ships from Egypt were obliged to anchor at Puteoli. Claudius supplied this great want by making a new haven, a little above the well-nigh deserted port of Ostia, and connected with the river by an artificial channel. The haven was formed by two immense moles built out into the sea, and a lighthouse was erected at the entrance. This undertaking involved a large outlay, but it was of great and permanent utility. A still vaster enterprise was the draining of the Fucine Lake in the land of the Marsi, but the cost and the labor were not recompensed by the results. The agriculture of the Marsians suffered constantly from the swelling of the waters of the lake, and Claudius undertook to hinder this calamity by constructing a tunnel, three miles in length through Monte Salviano, to carry away the overflow into the river Liris. The work of thirty thousand men for eleven years (41-51 A.D.) was spent on this design, but the tunnel did not prove permanently efficient, like that which drained the Alban Lake. Claudius celebrated the completion of the work by a mimic naval battle on the lake, like one which Augustus had exhibited in an artificial basin in the Transtiberine suburb of Rome, but on a much larger scale. Claudius equipped vessels of three and four banks of oars, with nineteen thousand men. He lined the shores of the lake with a continuous platform of rafts to prevent the galley-slaves from escaping, but full space was left for the operations of a sea-fight. Divisions of praetorian cohorts and cavalry were posted on the rafts, with a breastwork in front of them, from which they could direct missiles against any of the naval gladiators who tried to escape. An immense multitude of people, both from Rome and the neighboring towns, had gathered, both to see the wonderful spectacle, and to show their respect for the Emperor; and the banks, the slopes, and the hill-tops were crowded with spectators, so that the scene resembled a vast theatre. The Emperor, dressed in a splendid military cloak, and his wife Agrippina, also wearing a military cloak, presided. Though the combatants were condemned criminals, they fought bravely, and when much blood had been shed, they were allowed to separate. The story is told that when they saluted Claudius with the words, Salve, imperator, morituri te salutant, (“Hail, Emperor! men doomed to die greet thee”), he answered with aut non (“Or not” doomed to die); and they, taking the words as a pardon, refused to fight. Claudius at first thought of having