(The Name) Claudius

vol. III p.2662-2667

Claudius

The name of a Roman gens, derived from the Sabine Clausus. The other form Clodius is actually only different from Claudius in terms of spelling (cf. Stolz Hist. Gramm. d. lat. Spr. I 1, 210), <page break 2662/2663> and first began to be used regularly by a few Claudii at the end of the republic, while otherwise both forms were often used with no difference. In Rome, there was a patrician and a plebeian family with this name; the main line of the first were the Pulchri, the second were the Marcelli (Ascon. Scaur. p.22. Suet. Tib. 1). <10> Suet. Tib. 1 gives an overview of the history of the patrician gens: patricia gens Claudia ….. orta est ex Regillis, oppido Sabinorum. inde Romam recens conditam cum magna clientium manu commigravit, auctore Tito Tatio consorte Romuli, vel, quod magis constat, Atta Claudio gentis principe, post reges exactos sexto fere anno; atque in patricias cooptata agrum insuper trans Anienem clientibus locumque sibi ad sepulturam sub Capitolio publice accepit. deinceps procedente tempore duodetriginta consulatus, dictaturas quinque, censuras septem, triumphos sex, duas ovationes adepta est. <20> Elsewhere, only Vergil references the first version Suetonius gives about the family’s migration, in Aen. VII 707ff.: Clausus ….. Claudia nunc a quo diffunditur et tribus et gens per Latium postquam in partem Roma data Sabinis. If the Roman annals were aware of this story, then eg. Dionys. II 46, 3 would definitely have mentioned it. <30> For this reason, it is hardly right to assume that their immigration was originally handed down over time; instead, that version stands alongside the two versions given by Suetonius as a later scholarly invention, which ancient family tradition described and which was told fundamentally the same way by different authors (cf. Liv. II 16, 4. IV 3, 14. X 8, 6. Tac. ann. IV 9, XI 24. XII 25. Gell. XIII 23, 8. Auct. de praen. 6. Sil. Ital. XVII 33. Dionys. V 40, 3. XI 15. Plut. Popl. 21, 4-9. Appian. reg. frg. 12. Zonar. VII 13; about the small deviations, Schwegler R. G. II 57f.). <40> They say their homeland was the otherwise unknown city of Regillum, near the Sabines, and the oldest Claudii usually had cognomina which referenced this origin, but, of course, they were actually only invented later (Regillum is mentioned by Liv. Suet. Dionys. Appian.; cognomina of the consuls of 259 = 495, 283 = 471 and 294 = 460 in Idat. Chron. pasch. Dionys. Sabinus, in Chronogr. Inreligiense; others see below). <50> The remarkable cognomen Inregillensis, for which reason the city was also named Inregillum, came about - according to a theory from Mommsen (CIL I² p.32 on 392 CE) - from a misinterpretation of the ancient abbreviation Crassinregill. (f. Cap. on 303. 304 CE), the correct interpretation of which is rather Crassinus Regillanus (Ῥήγιλλος Diod. XI 85, 1; Ῥηγιλλανός Diod. XII 23, 1; Regillianus Suet Tib. Note: for the sake of convenience, the conventional forms of the cognomina have been maintained in the family tree and in the titles). <60> The reason for why the family emigrated out of Regillum is given as the fact that its head wanted peace with Rome, and therefore ended up in conflict with his fellow countrymen; <page break 2663/2664> supposedly, the number of emigrants was five thousand. Even if these details are also unhistorical, and if we simply don’t know the context for the events, we can still be sure of the basic core of the story: that the whole Claudian gens immigrated from abroad at the beginning of the republic, and was welcomed into the Roman state (about the cooptation from the patricians, cf. Mommsen Röm. Forsch. I 174; St.-R. III 30, 1. 32, 2). <10> The name of the Claudia tribe (above p.2650f.) speaks for the old date of the immigration, and it must also be noted that the patrician Claudii of the later time periods were in the Quirina or Palatina tribes (cf. Mommsen St.-R. III 788; S.-Ber. Akad. Berl. 1895, 894; about the Nerones see below). As a reminder of their Sabine heritage, only the Claudii out of all the patrician gentes bore the name Appius, <20> which the first immigrant had changed his earlier Sabine Attus (Atta, Attius cf. Schwegler R. G. II 57, 5) into (cf. vol. II p.242. 2252); even in the 3rd century AD there is a consul (nr. 16) who calls himself progenies Claudius Appiadum (CIL X 1688). Apart from Ap., in the main branches of the patrician family only the praenomina C. and P. appear (about L. Q. and the praenomina of the Nerones, see below). <30> Macrob. sat. I 16, 7 names their family cult; to glorify themselves, they figured that they could trace their family line back from the time of the empire directly, without adoption (Tac. ann. XII 25). [from suppl. III p.252: On the family-cult of the Claudii, also cf. Fest. 238. 343. (supplemented by Mommsen St.-R. II 35, 1.)] In their historical works, Livy and Dionysios continuously describe the Claudians of the ancient republican time period, in the most vivid way, as typical representatives of aristocratic pride, arrogance, and anti-popular stuck-up young noblemen, <40> and since then the idea of the vetus atque insita Claudiae familiae superbia (Tac. ann. I 4; cf. especially Suet. Tib. 2, also Sil. Ital. XVII 33) has been continuously repeated. Mommsen was the first to show this viewpoint to be wrong and invalid in his relevant work: Die patricischen Claudier (Röm. Forsch. I 285ff.), and even if his idea that it’s based on lies from Licinius Macer isn’t evidenced and shouldn’t be agreed with, <50> his conclusions are still valid in their main ideas and have found almost universal agreement (noteworthy comments in Nitzsch Gesch. d. röm. Rep. I 69; objection against Mommsen without value by Lohse Die Häupter des patricischen Claudiergeschlechts, Chemnitz 1891; on the history of the main branch of the family, cf. further Lübbert De gentis Claudiae commentariis domesticis, Kiel 1878). There is no talk of specific Claudian family politics around the end of the republic; <60> however, as far as people have tried to recognise certain traits common to the different members of the family, at the forefront they have always included a clear understanding of the demands of the time, and an energetic grasp on all tools to support Rome’s greatness in very different areas. Later, their clients contained incredibly famous Greek cities for generations, like Sparta (Suet. Tib. 6) and Pergamon (Inschr. von Pergamon II 409). <page break 2664/2667>

[Münzer.]

Family Tree of the Patrician Claudii

Note: This version is hyperlinked to the articles, but underneath it is a screenshot from the RE for those on mobile devices or who wish to see the whole family tree at once. I'm aware the HTML version is rather cumbersome.

During the empire, the name became so common as a result of the emperors Claudius and Nero handing out so many citizenships that it was often shortened to Cl. The large number of Claudii in the Greek east of the empire, many of which were in the senate in the 2nd century CE, is striking, and perhaps owes to Nero’s preference for its Hellenistic character. <10>

[Groag.]

This article is referenced by: Ap. Claudius Crassus Inregillensis (122), Ap. Claudius Sabinus Inregillensis (321)