Episode 71. Claudius: The Emperor Behind the Curtain

Works Cited Primary Sources Cassius Dio. Roman History, Book 60. The continuous Greek-language narrative for the full reign. Particularly important for the Britain campaign of 43 CE, where the Tacitean account is lost.Josephus. Jewish Antiquities, Books 19 and 20. Substantial first-century material on the accession and on Claudius's eastern policy.Juvenal. Satires, especially Satire 6. Verse satire from the early second century preserving the most extreme version of the Messalina material. To be treated with the source-criticism the Part Six discussion outlined.The Lyon Tablet (the Tabula Claudiana). Bronze inscription preserving Claudius's actual speech to the Senate of 48 CE on the admission of Gallic notables to the senatorial order. The only surviving Roman document where we can compare a literary version of an imperial speech (Tacitus, Annals 11.24) with the actual delivered text.Pliny the Elder. Natural History. Various references throughout, including the Messalina material at 10.172.Seneca. Apocolocyntosis. The satirical pamphlet written shortly after Claudius's death. The most extensive surviving contemporary text on the emperor by a writer who had served as a senator under him and as tutor to his successor. Brutally hostile but unusually informative about aristocratic attitudes.Suetonius. Life of Claudius. The principal biographical source for the accession and the early reign that Tacitus does not cover. Preserves the Augustan correspondence about Claudius's childhood, the donative figure for the Praetorians, and the death scene.Tacitus. Annals, Books 11 and 12. The principal Latin narrative for the years 47 through 54 CE. Book 11 begins partway through the reign—the opening seven years are in the lost Books 7 through 10. Book 12 includes the Agrippina marriage, the Nero adoption, and the death scene. Tacitus's hostility to the freedmen administration and to Agrippina shapes his presentation throughout.Secondary Sources Barrett, Anthony A. Agrippina: Sex, Power, and Politics in the Early Empire. Yale University Press, 1996. The standard treatment of Agrippina the Younger. Indispensable for Parts Six and Seven.Joshel, Sandra, and various contributors. The Routledge Companion to the Reign of the Emperor Claudius. Routledge, 2020. Recent collection of scholarly essays covering the major analytical questions about the reign.Levick, Barbara. Claudius. Yale University Press, 1990. The standard modern English-language treatment. The reference for most analytical decisions in this episode.Momigliano, Arnaldo. Claudius: The Emperor and His Achievement. Oxford, 1934 (translated from the Italian). The classic mid-twentieth-century revisionist defense of Claudius's administrative reforms. Still valuable as the foundational modern reassessment.Support this podcast at — https://redcircle.com/real-roman-history/donations