Page:Encyclopædia Britannica, Ninth Edition, v. 5.djvu/830

816 gardless of veracity, is in general far less offensive than usual in his age, a circumstance attributable partly to his more refined taste and partly to the genuine merit of his patron Stilicho. He is a valuable authority for the history of his times, and is rarely to be convicted of serious inaccu racy in his facts, whatever may be thought of the colour ing he chooses to impart to them. As correctly observed by his latest critic, Mr Hodgkin, he was animated by true patriotic feeling, in the shape of a reverence for Rome as the source and symbol of law, order, and civilization. Outside the sphere of actual life he is less successful ; his Rape of Proserpine, though the beauties of detail are as great as usual, betrays his deficiency in the creative power requisite for dealing with a purely ideal subject. This denotes the rhetorician rather than the poet, and in general it may be said that his especial gifts of vivid natural description and of copious illustration, derived from extensive but not cumbrous erudition, are fully as appro priate to eloquence as to poetry. In the general cast of his mind and character of his writings, and especially in his faculty for bestowing enduring interest upon occasional themes, we may fitly compare him with Dryden, remember ing that while Dryden exulted in the energy of a vigorous and fast-developing language, Claudian was cramped by an artificial diction, confined to the literary class. Claudian s works must have been carefully edited in his own time, for his epigrams include several short pieces evidently prepared for insertion in or rejected from poems of greater compass. The editio princeps was printed at Vicenza in 1482 ; the best subsequent editions are those by Gesuer (1759), Burmann (1760), and Jeep (1872). There is a complete English translation of little merit, by Abraham Hawkins (London, 1817), and a version of the Rape of Proserpine, by Dean Howard. Some excellent criticism on Claudian will be found in Professor Ramsay s article in Smith s Classical Dictionary, and in two lectures by Mr Thomas Hodgkin (Newcastle, 1875).  CLAUDIUS,, a Roman patrician and author of the 4th century B.C. In 312 B.C. he was elected censor without having passed through the office of consul. His censorship was remarkable for the actual or attempted achievemsnt of several great constitutional changes. He filled vacancies in the senate with men of low birth ; and when his list was rejected, and C. Plautius, his colleague, resigned, he continued, in defiance of custom, to hold the office alone. He also retained it for five years, despite the ^Emilian law, which limited the duration of its tenure to a year and a half. He transferred the charge of the public worship of Hercules in the Forum Boarium from the hands of the Politian gens to that of public slaves. Hedistributed the libertini among all the tribes ; and he further invaded the exclusive rights of the patricians by directing his secretary Cneius Flavius (whom, though a freedman, he made a senator) to publish the legis actiones and the list of dies fasti (or days on which legal business could be transacted). And lastly, he gained enduring fame by the construction of a road and an aqueduct, which a thing unheard of before he called by his own name. In the year after his resignation of the censorship (307) he was elected consul. In 298 he was made interrex ; and in 296, as consul, he led the army in Samnium, and the armies of the two consuls gained a victory over the Etruscans and Samnites ; but he never triumphed, nor does his military career appear to have besn at all distinguished. Next year he was praetor, and he was once dictator. To the Ogulnian law admitting the plebeians to the offices of augur and pontifex he was strongly opposed ; and his advocacy of the cause of the democracy seems to have ended with his censorship. His ambition and his pride of race were, however, accompanied by a passionate love of Rome. He was already blind and tottering with age when Cineas, the minister of Pyrrhus visited him, but so vigorously did he oppose every concession that all the eloquence of Cineas was in vain, and the Romans forgot past misfortunes &quot;in the inspiration of his patriotism. The story of his blindness, however, may be merely a method of accounting for his cognomen. Appius Claudius Caacus is also remarkable as the first of the Roman writers, both in verse and prose, of whom we know anything. He wrote a poem which is mentioned by Cicero, but of which the remaining fragments are of the smallest, and a legal work entitled De Usurpationibus. Itis very likely also that he was concerned in the drawing up of the Legis Actiones published by Flavius. His Sententioe, which include the famous dictum &quot; Every one is the architect of his own fortunes,&quot; were read by Panaatius, but are now lost.  CLAUDIUS,, was, according to Livy, a patrician notorious for his pride and cruelty and his bitter hatred of the plebeians. Twice they refused to fight under him, and, fleeing before their enemies, brought upon him defeat and disgrace. He retaliated by decimating the army. At length they effected his banishment, but he quickly returned, and again became consul. In the same year (451 B. c.) he was made one of the decemviri who had been appointed to draw up a code of written laws, and so carefully did he act during his first year of office that he was the only one of the ten who was re-elected. With Claudius at their head, the new decemviri appear to have resolved on retaining permanent authority, but an outburst of popular feeling suddenly crushed their power. Enamoured of the beautiful daughter of the plebeian centurion Virginius, Claudius attempted to seize her by an abuse of justice. One of his clients, Marcus Claudius, swore that she was the child of a slave belonging to him, and that she had been stolen by the childless wife of the centurion. Virginius was summoned from the army, but a private message was sent at the same time instructing the general to detain him. The first messenger was more speedy than the second, and on the day of trial Virginius was present to expose the conspiracy. Still judgment was given according to the evidence of Marcus, and Claudius commanded Virginia to be given up to him. There was but one way of escape, and in despair, her father seized a knife from a neighbouring stall and plunged it in her side. The popular passion was deeply stirred. Virginius, with Icilius, the betrothed lover of his daughter, and Numitorius, her uncle, hurried to arouse the army ; Horatius and Valerius put themselves at the head of the people. The decemviri were overthrown ; and Appius Claudius died in prison, either by his own hand or by that of the executioner. Mommsen rejects the view given as above by Livy, and is inclined to hold that Claudius, as decemvir, was the pretended champion of the plebs, and that the revolution which ruined him was a return of the people to the rule of the patricians, who are represented by Horatius and Valerius. See appendix to vol. i. of his History of Rome.  CLAUDIUS, or (10 B.C. 54 A.D.), the first Roman emperor of the name, born at Lugdunum (Lyons), in 10 B.C., was the son of Drusus and Antonia, and grandson of Li via, the wife of Augustus. Paralyzed and lame, and unable to speak with distinctness, he was an object of scorn even to his mother; and the natural diffidence and timidity of his character were increased by neglect and insult, till he was regarded as little better than an imbecile. His time was spent chiefly in the society of servants, and devoted to the industrious pursuit of literature ; and until his accession he took no real part in public affairs, though Caligula honoured 