Product Description

Barbara Levick's authoritative study reassesses the reign of Claudius, examining his political objectives and activities within the constitutional, political, social and economic development of Rome.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #580670 in Books
• Published on: 1993-05-05
• Original language: English
• Number of items: 1
• Binding: Paperback
• 256 pages

From the Back Cover
Claudius became emperor after the assassination of Caligula, and was deified by his successor Nero in AD 54. Opinions of him have varied greatly over succeeding centuries, but he has mostly been caricatured as a reluctant emperor, hampered by a speech impediment, who preferred reading to ruling.
Barbara Levick's authoritative study reassesses the reign of Claudius, examining his political objectives and activities within the constitutional, political, social and economic development of Rome. Out of Levick's critical scrutiny of the literary, archaeological and epigraphic sources emerges a different Claudius - an intelligent politician, ruthlessly determined to secure his position as ruler.
A history of political and domestic intrigue, as well as an investigation into the development and limits of imperial power, this study is essential reading for historians of the Roman Empire.

Customer Reviews

Will the real Claudius please stand up?
Barbara Levick's 'Claudius' is a good resource to use when falling under the Claudian spell of such works as Graves' 'I, Claudius' and 'Claudius the God', or the 'I, Claudius' BBC production. This will help put a proper historical perspective on the man and emperor, Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus. Get used to the panoply of names-each noble Roman shares many names with the others in his family, thus making history often confusing.
Among the things Graves' readers might miss (and certainly the television-only set will miss) is that Claudius was married four times, had five children, and was much more less of a dolt in these matters than one would realise.

Levick explores some of the intrigues of the Julii Caesares as well as the Claudii Nerones; she explores the history from all angles. She looks to the politics and the sociological realities of family and court life to explain what ambitions Claudius really had, and what he might actually look forward to accomplishing in his life. 'Seneca's scathing comment on Claudius after his death was that `nobody thought he had ever been born'. In connection with this a remark of his mother Antonia recorded by Suetonius may be relevant. He claims that Antonia used to speak of her son (she need only have said it once for it to be presented as a leitmotiv!) as `a monstrosity of a human being, one that Nature began and never finished'. Antonia's hostility to her `unfinished' youngest child was probably intensified when she almost immediately lost her husband, and, a quarter of a century later, her even more brilliant elder son: now primacy was lost to her family.'

Levick explores Claudius' childhood and education, which continued past the usual age, given his apparent deformities. His tutors attended him well past the usual age of tutelage. She spend a little time also writing of his princeps under Tiberius and Gaius Caligula, which shows he was not universally ignored or despised, and so his accession, though unlikely, was by no means improbable.

C.E. Stevens makes the claim that Claudius was the first Roman Emperor; Augustus put together a bundle of offices and powers, which Tiberius variously held and let lapse; Caligula informed the senate of his accession and took all honours almost instantly, so perhaps Stevens is incorrect in his assessment. However, Claudius helped to formalise this automatic transfer of powers and offices as a right of imperial position, such that all future emperors, upon taking the name Caesar as a title (Claudius took it as a name, the prestigious cognomen of his illustrious ancestor) would also instantly have the array of offices and powers at their disposal.

Levick continues to explore Roman society and body politic under Claudius by segment: social classes (senate, equestrian order, and aristocracy), the legal machinery (with which he was particularly interested in, and made a shift from tradition to that of individual welfare, a novel approach for the day), finance and the economy (including Claudius' ambitious public works projects), and she gives particular attention to Claudius' military campaigns and progresses, especially his triumphant battles in Britain.

Levick concludes with an examination of the legacy of Claudius over the ages. Beginning with Nero's accession speech to the Senate, drafted by Seneca (who hated Claudius) which listed in great number and detail all of Claudius' failings, to the uneven revisions during the later Flavians (who took seriously Claudius' social legislation and deification at the expense of Nero's memory), then later historians, then being dropped from all but a few official functions by the third century. Fifth and sixth century historians such as Orosius and Malalas showed Claudius through the lens of their own agenda, to show God at work in the world through his clemency and care for stricken cities. By the time of George Syncellus in the eighth century, he was portrayed as a bloodthirsty man with some courage (given his battles in Britain, Germany and Thrace).

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Claudius' reign has been revised in view once more, by work such as that of Mommsen, Momigliano, and others studying his achievements, proclaiming him as the emperor who was `the great establisher of norms', and paying particular attention to his organisational ability with regard to civil and military matters.

Claudius, alas, was a usurper, and seen as such all through his reign, and even after (often as a model by which others used the army to seize power). He was never really secure. But he was successful against high odds, and a source of stability in a era which needed such.

The Wikipedia entry is more interesting
Please do your best to avoid this terribly boring biography. It runs to about two hundred pages but it took me months to read. Levick has no flair whatsoever as a writer and makes no attempt to interest or entertain the reader. Occasionally she makes what we must take for witty comments, only because she punctuates them with exclamation marks. The effect of this is as if you are listening to an extremely dry anecdote, after dinner over a glass of wine, at a coma inducing academic function.

The main problem is that Levick seems to think of writing history as nothing more than compiling a list of events. For example, rather than merely stating that Claudius built a fair amount of roads during his reign, we are treated to a detailed list of all the roads he was responsible for in the Empire. For me, she may as well have said what he had for breakfast everyday of his 13 years as emperor.

The book is not in chronological order but is divided into chapters reflecting different aspects of the reign and as such it can be very confusing. We have to often jump forward and back, and in doing so remember who certain people were, when they first came on the scene or when they died. Indeed, Levick makes no attempt to describe any of these figures as people at all. They are just another list to be paraded in front of us.

There is also too much comment on other emperors, both before and after Claudius, and not enough about the man himself. I have to say that I feel no more knowledgeable about him, or the events in his reign after reading this book.

The only good things about this book are the maps and photos, which are excellent.

Overall this is only a good book for you if you are required to write a university essay on the man or the period. Otherwise the Wikipedia entry is far more interesting.