ABSTRACT
The stemma of the patrician Claudii sprang from Appius or Attus Claudius (Attius Clausus in Livy), an early immigrant from Regillum in the Sabine country.3 It claimed its first consulship for 493 BC, and by the end of the Republic boasted twenty-eight consulships, five dictatorships, seven censorships, six triumphs, and two ovations (Suetonius’ count). The political outlook of a family prominent for nearly half a millennium has not surprisingly been a matter of controversy since ancient times: ultra-patrician on one view, the Claudii emerge as champions of the people, the urban plebs, on the other.4 Annalists and publicists of the late Republic worked up the family traditions and information provided by the Fasti, or lists of magistrates, into accounts that reflect their own preoccupations and prejudices.5 They offered Suetonius a rich harvest of anecdotes illustrating eccentricity, ambition, and self-confidence (the notorious Claudian adrogantia) and Tacitus a facile explanation of some aspects of the conduct and manner of Tiberius.6
