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Updated: June 2, 2025
As for Caligula's uncle Claudius, it was not to have been expected that he would have rendered his nephew any aid, for he was a man of such extraordinary mental imbecility that he was usually considered as not possessed even of common sense; and all the others who might have been expected to defend him, either fled from the scene, or stood by in consternation and amazement, leaving the conspirators to wreak their vengeance on their wretched victim, to the full.
Claudius, as has already been said, was Caligula's uncle; and as Caligula and Agrippina were brother and sister, he was, of course, Agrippina's uncle too. He was at this time about fifty years of age, and he was universally ridiculed and contemned on account of his great mental and personal inferiority. He was weak and ill-formed at his birth, so that even his mother despised him.
We accustom ourselves to what we see; and I have sometimes told you, that I doubted whether Caligula's horse being made a consul would have surprised us so much as we imagine." Memoirs, vol. i., p. 261.
Another long digression marks the beginning of the nineteenth book of the Antiquities, where Josephus leaves Jewish scenes and inserts an account of Caligula's murder and the election of Claudius as Emperor. This narrative, while of great interest for students of the Roman constitution, is out of all proportion to its place in the Jewish chronicle.
Claudius was a younger brother of Germanicus; therefore Tiberius' nephew, Caligula's uncle, and a brother-in-law to Agrippina. Mr. Baring-Gould says that somewhere deep in him was a noble nature that had never had a chance: that the soul of him was a jewel, set in the foolish lead of a most clownish personality.
Claudius had recalled to Rome the two victims of Caligula's Egyptian caprices, Agrippina and Julia Livilla; but if the latter no longer found a brother in Rome to persecute them, they did find their aunt, and they had gained but little by the exchange.
And yet the man himself was so attractive tall, stalwart, and well-looking no feature of his face or limb of his athletic form recalling the gross tyrant who concealed worse than Caligula's ugliness from sight in secret chambers that I shook this preconception from my mind. As it turned out, Filippo Visconti had nothing in common with his infamous namesake but the name.
We do not venture to assign them, but translate literally from Suetonius. CLAUDIUS had a brain as sluggish as Caligula's was over-excitable; nevertheless he prosecuted literature with care, and published several works.
Suddenly he ceased in his ravings; a loud crash as of crumbling walls had rent the air, followed by shrieks and loud hissing sounds and that perpetual cry, awesome in its weird monotony: "Death to the Cæsar! Death!" Caligula's face was contorted with terror, his cheeks were grey like those of the dead. He made a quick movement forward and suddenly clutched Dea's wrist.
The songstress and the kickeress get their thousands of dollars per week, while "the poor devil of a workingman" must be satisfied with a dollar a day cash and barrels of unlimited confidence. Caligula's horse wore a collar of pearls and drank from an ivory trough. Nero fiddled while Rome was burning.
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