Page:Dictionary of Greek and Roman Biography and Mythology (1870) - Volume 1.djvu/793

Rh CLAUDIUS. Tilii, and for violence by Sex. Tettius. (Cic. ad Film. viii. 8.) 48. P. Clodius, son of P. Clodius and Fulvia, was a child at the time of his father's death. Milo was accused of havinpr attempted to get him into his power, that he might put him to death. (As- con, in Milon. p. 3G.) His step- father Antonius spoke of him as a hopeful lad. (Cic. ad Att. xiv. 13, A.) According to Valerius Maxinms (iii. 5. § 3) his youth was spent in gluttony and debauch- ery, which occasioned a disease of which he died. 49. Clodia. [Claudia, No. 12.] There are several coins of the Claudia gens. A specimen is given below : it contains oh the obverse the head of Apollo, with a lyre behind, and on the reverse Diana holding two torches, with the in- scription P. Clodius M. f., but it is uncertain to which of the Claudii this refers. [C. P. M.] CLAU'DIUS. The following were plebeians, or freedmen of the patrician Claudia gens. 1. Q. Claudius, a plebeian, was tribune of the plebs in b. c. 218, when he brought forward a law that no senator, or son of a person of senatorial rank, should possess a ship of the burden of more than 300 amphorae. (Liv. xxi. 63.) The Q. Clau- dius Flamen, who was praetor in B. c. 208, and had Tarentum assigned to him as his province, is probably the same person. (Liv. xxviL 21, 22, 43, xxviii. 10.) 2. L. Clodius, praefectus fabrum to App. Clau- dius Pulcher, consul B.C. 54. [Claudius, No. 38.] (Cic. ad Fam. iii. 4—6, 8.) He was tribune of the plebs, b. c. 43. (Pseudo-Cic. ad Brut. i. 1 ; comp. Cic. ad AU. xy. Z.) 3. App. Claudius, C. f., mentioned by Cicero in a letter to Brutus. {Ad Fam. x. 0,2.) Who he was cannot be determined. He attached him- self to the party of Antony, who had restored his father. Whether this Appius was the same with either of the two of this name mentioned by Ap- pian {B. C. iv. 44, 51) as among those proscribed by the triumvirs, is uncertain. 4. Skx. Clodius, probably a descendant of a freedman of the Ckiudian house, was a man of low condition, whom P. Clodius took under his patro- nage. (Cic. pro Cad. 32, pro Dom. 10.) In B. c. 58 we find him superintending the celebration of the Compitalian festival. (Cic. in Pison. 4 ; Ascon. p. 7, Orell.) He was the leader of the armed bands which P. Clodius employed. (Ascon. /. c.) The latter entrusted to him the task of drawing up the laws which he brought forward in his tribuneship, and commissioned him to carry into effect his lex frumentaria. (Cic. pro Dom. lO", 18, 31, 50, de Har. licsp. 6, pro Sesct. 64.) We find Sextus the accomplice of Publius in all his acts of violence, (pro Cael. 32.) In 56 he was impeached by Milo, but was acquitted. (Cic. ad Q. Fr. ii. 6, pro Cael. 32.) For his proceedings on the death of P. Clodius Pulcher see No 40 ; Cic. pro Mi/.. 13, 33; Ascon. pp. 34, 36, 48, He was impeached by C. Caescnnius Philo and CLAUDIUS. 775 M. Aufidius, and condemned. (Ascon. in Milon. p. 55.) He remained in exile for eight years, but was restored in 44 by M. Antonius. (Cic. ad AH. xiv. 13, A. and B.) Cicero {pro Dom. 10, 31, pro Cael. 32) charges him with having carried on a criminal correspondence with Clodia (Quadran- taria). 5. Skx. Clodius, a Sicilian rhetorician, under whom M, Antonius studied oratory, and whom he rewarded with a present of a large estate in the Leontine territory. (Cic. ad Ait. iv. 15, Phil. ii. 4, 1 7, iii. 9 ; Dion Cass. xiv. 30, xlvi. 8 ; Suet. de Clar. Rhet. 5.) 6. P. Clodius, M. F. appears on several coins which bear the image of Caesar and Antonius. (Eckhel, V. p. 172; Vaillant, Anton. Nos. 14, 15, Claud. 43 — 46.) He is probably the same with the Clodius whom Caesar in B. c. 48 sent into Macedonia to Metellns Scipio (Caes. B. C. iii. 57), and with the Clodius Bithynicus mentioned by Appian {B. C. v. 49), who fought on the side of Antonius in the Perusian war, and was taken prisoner and put to death in B. c. 40 by the command of Octavianus. 7. C. Claudius, probably the descendant of a freedman of the Claudian house, was one of the suite of P. Clodius on his last journey to Aricia. (Cic. pro Mil. 17; Ascon. iii Milon. p. 33, Orell.) 8. C. Claudius, a follower of ^L Brutus, who by the direction of the latter put C. Antonius to death. [Antonius, No. 13, p. 216.] (Dion Cass, xlvii. 24 ; Plut. Anton. 22, Brut. 28.) He was afterwards sent by Brutus in command of a squad- ron to Rhodes, and on the death of his patron joined Cassius of Parma. (Appian, ^. C. v. 2.) [C.P.M.] CLAU'DIUS I., or, with his full name, Tib. Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, was the fourth in the series of Roman emperors, and reign- ed from A. D. 41 to 54. He was the grandson of Tib. Claudius Nero and Livia, who afterwards married Augustus, and the son of Drusus and An- tonia. He was born on the first of August, b. c. 10, at Lyons in Gaul, and lost his father in his infancy. During his early life he was of a sickly constitution, which, thoagh it improved in later years, was in all probability the cause of the weakness of his intellect, for, throughout his life, he shewed an extraordinary deficiency in judg- ment, tact, and presence of mind. It was owing to these circumstances that from his childhood he was neglected, despised, and intimidated by his nearest relatives ; he was left to the care of his paedagogues, who often treated him with improper harshness. His own mother is reported to have called him a portentum hominis^ and to have said, that there was something wanting in his nature to make him a man in the proper sense of the word. This judgment, harsh as it may appear in the mouth of his mother, is not exaggerated, for in everything he did, and however good his intentions were, he failed from the want of judgment and a proper tact, and made himself ridiculous in the eyes of others. Notwithstanding this intellectual deficiency, however, he was a man of great indus- try and diligence. He was excluded from the so- ciety of his family, and confined to slaves and wo- men, whom he was led to make his friends and confidants by his natural desire of unfolding his heart. During the long period previous to his ac- cession, as well as afterwards, he devoted the greater part of his time to literary pursuits,