Claudius Caesar
10 BC – 54 · Generation IV · Roman emperor (r. AD 41–54) · Julio-Claudian
Claudius (10 BC – AD 54). Roman emperor (r. AD 41–54). Married Valeria around AD 38. The stammering scholar the family hid away — found behind a curtain after Caligula’s murder and made emperor by the Guard. He later married his niece Agrippina the Younger and adopted her son Nero. Born at Lugdunum in Gaul, he was the first emperor to come into the world outside Italy. His limp and tremor, the legacy of a childhood illness, probably kept him alive: no one thought him dangerous enough to purge under Tiberius or Caligula. In power he confounded expectations — a capable manager who put freedmen at the head of the palace bureaus, refilled a treasury drained by Caligula, and covered the empire with new roads, waterworks and harbour works. It was under him that the legions landed in Britain and the conquest of the island began. A devotee of the courtroom, he sat as judge himself and poured out rulings on everything from the treatment of sick slaves to medical advice. Yet he never felt secure, and many senators died as he defended his position — a stain the ancient writers never forgave, though modern historians judge him more kindly. Most of the old sources believed his wife Agrippina poisoned him.
One of 16 people of Julio-Claudian (69 BC–68) in this archive. Rome’s first imperial family: the Julii and the Claudii joined by marriage and adoption, Augustus to Nero.
Line of descent: Tiberius Claudius Nero → Drusus the Elder → Claudius Caesar.
Parents
- Drusus the Elder (38 BC – 9 BC)
- Antonia Minor (36 BC – 37)
Siblings
- Germanicus Caesar (15 BC – 19)
Partners
- Married Valeria Messalina (20 – 48) in 38 — 2 children together
- Married Agrippina the Younger (15 – 59) in 49
Children
- Britannicus Caesar (41 – 55)
- Claudia Octavia (39 – 62)
- Nero Caesar (37 – 68)
Life
- 10 BC — Born
- 38 — Married Valeria
- 54 — Died