many

numerous men for all parts of the war forces, especially the cavalry and the fleet, as this old home of gladiators and mercenary soldiers'.'

In Gaul it is reasonable to suppose that such seeds of disorder as had survived the suppression of the rising under Tiberius 2 may have been quickened into further vitality by the baleful presence of Gaius and his army in 792, A. D. 39, and the following year. This may serve to explain a repressive measure of considerable importance, whereby a former decree of Tiberius for the extirpation of Druidism was to be repeated and energetically carried out 3. The object was to remove a national hotbed of sedition, and to bring under Roman influence those of the nobility hitherto educated in the schools of the priests; a result which the events of a generation later would show to have been very imperfectly attained. Otherwise these great provinces were to be dealt with by concession of privileges, and by the patronage which it was natural that an emperor born in Gaul should lavish on them.

In Germany the long quiet following on the recall of Germanicus and downfall of Maroboduus (interrupted only by the unsubdued revolt of the Frisians in 781, A.D. 286) had been rudely broken by the absurd invasion of Gaius 7; and we find the peace of the frontier threatened. The once formidable Cherusci seem already to have begun to sink into insignificance; and are only heard of some years later as stooping to accept a Romanised prince, son of the renegade Flavus, as their chief 10; but their standing rivals the Chatti" brought upon themselves an invasion, in which the last of the three eagles lost with Varus was incidentally recovered 12; while the Chauci 13, notwithstanding a chastisement at the beginning of this period from Q. Gabinius Secundus 14, were still emboldened six years later to pillage the Gallic coast with small piratical ships 15. This raid was energetically repulsed by Corbulo, who had also reduced the Frisii to submission, and was preparing a bold forward

10 On Italicus and his vicissitudes, see 11. 16-17.

11 See 1. 55, 1, and note.

12 Dio, 60. 8, 7. A subsequent predatory raid is described as punished by P. Pomponius, and as resulting in the restora tion of some captive survivors of the army of Varus (12. 27, 3; 28, 2).

13 On this tribe, once, in part at least, subject to Rome, see 1. 38, 1, and note. They must be supposed to have recovered their independence when the Romans withdrew.

14 He received the surname 'Chaucicus' (Suet. Cl. 24).

15

II. 8, I, foll.

movement which would have carried him even beyond the Weser1, when he was peremptorily ordered to withdraw behind the Rhine, and to evacuate even what he had already won. This policy, whether of timidity or prudence, became a permanent law; and although some tribes still remained in subjection, and tracts of pasture land are retained for the commissariat of the legions, no trace of military occupation on the right bank of the Lower Rhine remains 5.

3

All other military achievements of this period are eclipsed by the invasion and permanent occupation of Britain, the first and (till the time of Trajan) the only great departure from the cautious policy bequeathed by Augustus to his successors, and (as Claudius and his flatterers were never weary of repeating 7) the first and only establishment of a transoceanic province. We need only note here the forethought and strategic ability with which it was carried out, on a scale which recognised at once the practicability and the difficulties of the enterprise".

This review of the foreign policy of Claudius would still be incomplete without a notice of the manner in which he conceives and carries out, with a boldness far beyond that of his immediate predecessors, the Roman idea of consolidation consequent upon conquest. Personal predilection, as well as the ripeness of the country for the application of the principle, combine to make Gaul the chief field in which this policy is displayed. It may probably have been from him that Vienna received its full burgess rights; and the general measure by which the highest civic privilege, the 'ius honorum,' was extended to those who in all the three provinces of Gallia comata had hitherto enjoyed a more to limited citizenship, and Aeduan senators were seen at Rome 10,

Transal

10. marks

ideas of the dictator Caesar 11
Generally, the large increase
is probably due in no small

a step more in accordance with the bold
than with those of the early principate.
of civic population noted at his census 12
measure to his own comprehensive policy; and the sarcasm of Seneca 13,
who, himself one of the greatest gainers by former bestowal of 'civitas

on provincial subjects, lends his pen to give expression to the exclusiveness of Roman aristocracy, is only discreditable to himself.

3

4

Colonisation, always a powerful engine in the Romanization of the empire, had been in abeyance since the days of Augustus, but now receives an energetic impulse. To Claudius the famous towns of Augusta Treverorum' (Trier or Treves) and, in his later years, Colonia Agrippinensis 2 (Köln), and Camulodunum (Colchester) owed their status; while less celebrated instances such as Sabaria (Stein) in Pannonia, Aequum in Delmatia, Apri in Thrace, Iconium in Lycaonia, Archelais in Cappadocia, Ptolemais (Acre) in Syria, and no less than six places (Tingi, Lixus, Iol or Caesarea, Oppidum Novum, Rusucurium, and Tipasa) either colonised or otherwise endowed with civic or Latin rights in the newly constituted provinces of Mauretania 10, show a steady purpose carried out in all parts of the empire.

8

5

9

11

The names assumed by towns, as Claudiopolis 11 (Bithynia and Cappadocia), Neo-Claudiopolis 12 (Galatia), Claudia Paphos 13 (Cyprus), seem to point to a gift of some favours or privileges which we cannot identify, as may also be the case with some of the many statues, medals, &c. belonging to this time, found in various places throughout the Roman world 14.

This sketch of the general policy at home and abroad, as initiated at the outset, and in many points consistently maintained throughout 15, will sufficiently support the credit for statesmanship which must be awarded to Claudius personally or shared by him with advisers 16 whom he had at least the good sense to follow; and will show how great deduction must be made from the representations of Roman satirists. Yet the satire is

should be noted in the above list that where we have only the name to go by, the foundation might equally have been due to Nero; but in most of the cases mentioned there are distinct grounds for assigning it to Claudius.

15 It will be seen from the references that several of the matters mentioned belong to the later period, covered by the extant Books of the Annals.

16 Among persons of the position of senators and statesmen, his most trusted adviser must have been L. Vitellius, a man of base character but of undoubted ability (see 6. 28, 1; 32, 5, etc.). Galba was also among his most intimate friends (Suet. Galb. 7); but it is impossible to distinguish their sphere of advice from that of his three great freedmen (see below, pp. 38, 39).

not without foundation in so far as the scheme of government was even at the outset impracticable or inconsistently carried out, and passed into a system showing manifold special vices of its own as time went on.

In the first place, it must have been plain to all who had insight, that the professed return to the Augustan idea of a dual government shared between the princeps and the senate was not really a bona fide restoration of what even at its best had been in many important points no more than a fiction1. The senate, shattered by a reign of terror of almost ten years' continuous duration 2, had neither the prestige nor the moral dignity to resume its lost position; nor have we any record of such discussion of public questions as is found in the best years of Tiberius 3, or even such as the policy of the early Neronian government and the independence of individual senators (as Thrasea 5) combined to realise for a short time afterwards. It was therefore no less perhaps from the necessity of the case than from the deliberate intention to encroach, that the political importance of the emperor's own functionaries is now so greatly augmented, and that from this period is mainly to be dated a new departure in the system of government, by which more and more of the work of the state is taken out of the hands of the senate and its magistrates, and knights, or freedmen, as ministers of the emperor and responsible to him alone, are found presiding over new departments of state at home, or with increased power and independence throughout the empire. Again, the circumstances under which Claudius had attained his power had stamped a character upon it and formed a precedent.

1 See Introd. I. vi. pp. 79–81.

2 Since the fall of Seianus there had been no respite, except the short reaction at the first accession of Gaius.

3 See 4. 6, 2, and note.

See 13. 4, 3, and note.
See 13. 49, I, etc.

These changes are fully set forth in Hirschfeld's work (see especially the summary in p. 281 foll.). The great department a rationibus' has been already noticed (see above, p. 29): from this time dates also the great importance of those ab epistulis' and 'a libellis,' the former as that through which passed all despatches to or from generals and governors, the latter as the channel of all petitions. A procurator and staff replaces the 'quaestor Ostiensis' (Hirschf. p. 139), and probably the other quaestors with provinciae Italicae' (see 4. 27, 2, and note); other such officers relieve the quaestors ofstratura viarum' (Hirschf. p. 152); functions hitherto belonging to senators pass to a 'praefectus cura

torum alvei Tiberis,' 'procurator ad ripas Tiberis,' and 'procurator aquarum' (Id. pp. 153, 163); and the increased supersession of other tribunals by that of the princeps brings in a 'procurator a cognitionibus' (Id. p. 208).

7 Besides the judicial powers given to 'procuratores rei familiaris' (12.60), it is noticed that the procurators governing provinces become more numerous and less dependent. Hirschfeld thinks the procuratorship of Judaea (which was subordinate to the legatus of Syria) the only province thus definitely organised under Augustus (p. 288); and it is certain at any rate that the provinces under knights, even if not (as he thinks) mere military 'praefecturae' without civil jurisdiction, were, at first, few and unimportant (see Introd. i. vii. p. 99): under Claudius even the newly acquired and extensive provinces of Thracia and the two Mauretaniae were held by governors of this rank, and even a freedman (Felix) is procurator of Judaea.

Himself the most unmilitary of emperors, he owed his imperium to the soldiers' oath, in which the senate had afterwards acquiesced; and this subordination of the senatorial decree to the military praerogativa,' purchased by a lavish donative, is seen again at the accession of his successor1, and acquires a still more terrible prominence in later history. If again, as is probable, the military garrison of Rome was at this time substantially increased, the change must have been forced on the observation of all.

Nor were the character and surroundings of Claudius favourable to a permanent realisation of any good ideal of government, whether personal or constitutional, supposing him to have honestly contemplated it. Even the best side of his secluded life, his historical study, while it was in no respect a sufficient substitute for the great military achievements and important civil duties which had formed the training of Tiberius, had the positive fault of infecting his administration with the pedantry of a bookworm, and the vanity natural to one extolled by his courtiers as a miracle of learning and wisdom, and thus laid him fatally open to the assaults of pasquinade and satire. The Roman aristocrats, who cordially disliked the idea of admitting the natives of Gallia comata' within their ranks, would gladly seize on the abundant ground of ridicule afforded by the rambling erudition with which the proposer obscured rather than illustrated the practical reasons for the change. The antiquarianism that could not be satisfied with the actual exercise of censorial powers, but must needs revive the censorship itself, could only bring out into stronger light the incongruities and inequalities of his action in the office; while, in smaller matters, those who had their jest

1.Sententiam militum secuta patrum consulta' (12. 69, 3).

2 That the praetorian cohorts, which were nine in number under Tiberius (4. 5, 5), were not less than twelve in the time of Nero, is shown by the inscription to Gavius Silvanus, cited on 15. 50, 3. As the increase is not noted in any extant part of the Annals, it is suggested by Mommsen (Hermes, xvi. 643-647) that it was made by Claudius on his accession, in recognition of their services, and may have been mentioned in its place by Tacitus. He thinks it also probable that the urban cohorts, though they had not rendered similar service, became at the same time, perhaps, six. Their numbers are reckoned on continuously from those of the praetorians, and we find a Sixteenth urban cohort in an inscription of 819, A.D. 66 (Wilm. 1617), and it is suggested that the cohorts named as xvii

and xviii (H. 1. 80, 1, and Med. text of H. 1. 64, 6) were urban. Of these, however, the former is generally taken to have been a 'cohors vigilum' (see Suet. Cl. 25); and in the latter place the text has generally been altered.

3 The prevailing tone of flattery may be judged from Seneca's Consolatio ad Polybium' (see above, p. 23).

See the fragments of the speech (Appendix to Book 11). A similarly disproportionate pedantic retrospect prefaces his real reason for granting immunity to the island of Cos (12. 61). The edict on the citizenship of the Anaunians, dated March 15, A.D. 46 (discovered in 1869), is noted by Mommsen (Hermes, iv. 99-131) as showing a similar pedantry in the strange grotesqueness of its style.

5 See note on II. 13, 1.

6 See Suet. Cl. 16, where account is