ABSTRACT

In the confusion that followed the murder of Gaius a soldier of the Praetorian Guard found Claudius hiding behind a curtain in the palace on the Palatine and rushed him off to the camp of the Guard. At first uncertain whether he was going to be killed or made emperor Claudius soon found that the Praetorians realized that their own interest demanded the continuance of the Principate and that a son of Drusus and a brother of Germanicus, even if not a soldier himself, had at least a family tradition to commend him. Meantime the Senators were debating whether the Republic might be restored or, if not, who among them might be made Princeps, but, in Gibbon’s famous words, ‘While the Senate deliberated, the Praetorian Guards had resolved.’ Their resolution was in fact fortified by a promise from Claudius to give a donative of 15,000 sesterces to each man; this attempt to reward, if not to buy, the loyalty of troops, though not without precedent, did not provide a healthy example for future emperors.2 After Claudius had rejected a demand from the Senate to submit, his friend Herod Agrippa negotiated for him, and the Senate, which lost the support of the Urban Cohorts, was compelled to give in: on 25 January .. 41 it accepted Claudius as the new Princeps, on whom the titles and powers of his predecessors were then conferred.