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Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Claudius

masc. proper name, from the name of two Roman gentes, perhaps related to claudus "lame," which is of unknown origin. Related: Claudian.

Wiktionary
claudius

n. (given name male from=Latin).

Wikipedia
Claudius

Claudius (; ;Classical Latin spelling and reconstructed Classical Latin pronunciation of the name of Claudius:


  1. 1 August 10 BC – 13 October 54 AD) was Roman emperor from 41 to 54. A member of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, he was the son of Drusus and Antonia Minor. He was born at Lugdunum in Gaul, the first Roman Emperor to be born outside Italy. Because he was afflicted with a limp and slight deafness due to sickness at a young age, his family ostracized him and excluded him from public office until his consulship, shared with his nephew Caligula in 37.

Claudius' infirmity probably saved him from the fate of many other nobles during the purges of Tiberius and Caligula's reigns; potential enemies did not see him as a serious threat. His survival led to his being declared Emperor by the Praetorian Guard after Caligula's assassination, at which point he was the last man of his family.

Despite his lack of experience, Claudius proved to be an able and efficient administrator. He was also an ambitious builder, constructing many new roads, aqueducts, and canals across the Empire. During his reign the Empire began the conquest of Britain (if the earlier invasions of Britain by Caesar and Caligula's aborted attempts are not counted). Having a personal interest in law, he presided at public trials, and issued up to twenty edicts a day. He was seen as vulnerable throughout his reign, particularly by elements of the nobility. Claudius was constantly forced to shore up his position; this resulted in the deaths of many senators. These events damaged his reputation among the ancient writers, though more recent historians have revised this opinion. Many authors contend that he was murdered by his own wife. After his death in 54 AD (at age of 63), his grand-nephew and adopted son Nero succeeded him as Emperor.

He was a descendant of the Octavii Rufi (through Gaius Octavius), Julii Caesares (through Julia Minor and Julia Antonia), and the Claudii Nerones (through Nero Claudius Drusus); he was a great-nephew of Augustus through his full sister Octavia Minor, a nephew of Tiberius through his father Drusus, Tiberius' brother, an uncle of Caligula and finally a great-uncle of Nero through Caligula's father and Nero's grandfather Germanicus, his brother.

Claudius (disambiguation)

Claudius is a name of Latin origin, meaning "Crippled".

Claudius was the fourth Roman Emperor reigning from 41 to his death in 54.

Claudius may also refer to:

Usage examples of "claudius".

Under the specious pretext of abolishing human sacrifices, the emperors Tiberius and Claudius suppressed the dangerous power of the Druids: but the priests themselves, their gods and their altars, subsisted in peaceful obscurity till the final destruction of Paganism.

Quintii, Capitolinus and Cincinnatus, and his own uncle, Caius Claudius, a man most stedfast in the interest of the nobility, and other citizens of the same eminence, he appoints as decemvirs men by no means equal in rank of life: himself in the first instance, which proceeding honourable men disapproved so much the more, as no one had imagined that he would have the daring to act so.

Appius Claudius, because he had dissuaded the law, and now with greater authority blamed the issue of a measure which had been found fault with by himself, the consul Servilius appoints dictator by the general wish of the patricians, and a levy and cessation of business are procaimed.

More than Julius Classicus, who simply displayed his ambitions, Claudius CivilisBurhmundyearned to speak into a sympathetic ear, unburden himself to somebody who laid no claims on him.

Appius Claudius, the son of Appius, who was both hated by and hated the commons, ever since the contests between them and his father.

The dark, unrelenting Tiberius, the furious Caligula, the feeble Claudius, the profligate and cruel Nero, the beastly Vitellius, and the timid, inhuman Domitian, are condemned to everlasting infamy.

Not that Claudius himself was so indispensable, he knew, but an Empire ruled by a palace whore and that vain and limited Gaius Silius, a pretty youth who spoke too often and too grandiloquently in the Senate, would surely court disaster.

Lucius was not a patrician Claudian praenomen, yet the Rex Sacrorum was certainly a patrician Claudius.

The new governor of Asia Province, Gaius Claudius Nero, had arrived in Pergamum and taken over, and Sulla had given Lucullus permission to come home, at the same time informing him that he and his brother, Varro Lucullus, would be curule aediles the next year.

He visited Troy to do homage to his ancestor Aeneas, he went to Pessinus several times, and back to Byzantium, and anywhere, it seemed, save Pergamum and Tarsus, where Claudius Nero and Dolabella remained an extra year after all.

Claudius, Agrippina, and the rest of the imperial party, who had to run for their very lives.

Aulus took a deep breath, hoped he had searched out the proper language to pry the blinders off Claudius, and then launched into a lengthy, well-documented warning on the activities of Agrippina and Pallas.

Claudius and Agrippina were having a disagreement over a minor household matter, and Claudius drank more wine than usual to blot out the nagging voice and presence reclining next to him at the table.

Claudius himself who is writing this book, and no secretary of his, and not one of those official annalists, either, to whom public men are in the habit of communicating their recollections, in the hope that elegant writing will eke out meagreness of subject-matter and flattery soften vices.

Rome by soldiering, but by stirring up so much trouble for Tigranes in Antioch that the King of Kings had rued his decision to put Appius Claudius Pulcher in his place by making him kick his heels for months waiting for an audience.