ABSTRACT
This chapter provides the notions of reputation management and theories of legitimacy to render explicit how military campaign was vital for Claudius's survival at the helm of Roman politics. Claudius was seen to be idiosyncratic and verging on madness; this lost him almost all personal authority with the people close to him. He knew that the Praetorian Guard, to whom he owed his power, would remain his constitutive public. Claudius failings become considerably aggravated if viewed against the backdrop of Roman society and political culture of the time. The Roman army was heading for lands known to be inhabited by mysterious Druids, ferocious warriors and, so it was rumored, monsters. The official reason given by the government for the rise of increasingly defiant local chieftains on Britannia who threatened trade and commercial relationships with the empire were little more than a pretext for Rome's military actions.
