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Notes Display Latin text | Claudius, Chapter 2: The youth of Claudius. | Next chapter Return to index Previous chapter |
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Claudius was born at Lyons, in the consulship of Jullus Antonius and Fabius Africanus, upon the first of August, the very day upon which an altar was first dedicated there to Augustus. He was named Tiberius Claudius Drusus, but soon afterwards, upon the adoption of his elder brother [Note 1] into the Julian family, he assumed the cognomen of Germanicus. He was left an infant by his father [Note 1], and during almost the whole of his minority, and for some time after he attained the age of manhood, was afflicted with a variety of obstinate disorders, insomuch that his mind and body being greatly impaired, he was, even after his arrival at years of maturity, never thought sufficiently qualified for any public or private employment. He was, therefore, during a long time, and even after the expiration of his minority, under the direction of a pedagogue, who, he complains in a certain memoir, was a barbarous wretch, and formerly superintendent of the mule-drivers, who was selected for his governor on purpose to correct him severely on every trifling occasion." On account of this crazy constitution of body and mind, at the spectacle of gladiators, which he gave the people, jointly with his brother, in honour of his father’s memory, he presided, muffled up in a pallium, a new fashion. When he assumed the toga of manhood, he was carried in a litter, at midnight, to the Capitol, without the usual ceremony. Note 1: elder brpother = Germanicus |