Table Of ContentCLAUDIUS
THE EMPEROR AND HIS
ACHIEVEMENT
CLAUDIUS
THE EMPEROR AND HIS
ACHIEVEMENT
BY
ARNALDO MOMIGLIANO
TRANSLATED BY
W. D. HOGARTH
WITH A NEW
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BARNES & NOBLE INC.
NEW YORK
English translation originally published by the
Clarendon Press: 1934
Reprinted, by arrangement with the Clarendon Press, with a
new preface, bibliography, and minor corrections for
W. Heffer & Sons Ltd: 1961
PR.INrED IN GREATB RITAIN
TO
MY WIFE
PREFACE TO THE ENGLISH EDITION
F the English edition the text of this book has been
OR
revised throughout: corrections have been made and
the treatment of many points has been amplified. The sug
·gestions offered in reviews of the Italian edition have, of
course, been taken into account, and I have received some
valuable notes from friends, among whom I should like
to make particular mention of Sig. D. M. Pippidi of the
Rumanian Academy at Rome: in general, however, the
materials for revision have been supplied by my own
further study of the problems.
My sincere thanks are due to the Delegates of the Claren
don Press for their readiness to undertake this translation
at a time of great difficulty; to Sig. Vallecchi, the pub
lisher of the Italian edition, for according his permission;
and to my translator. I hope that this little book may not
seem altogether unworthy of translation into the language
in which many of the most valuable studies of the Roman
Empire have been written.
A. M.
REGIA UNIVERSITA
ROMA
NOTE
THE English version has been revised by Mr. H. M. Last,
to whom the translator is greatly indebted for advice and
criticism.
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
S of innocence cannot be turned into songs of
ONGS
experience. I wrote this little book when I was a
post-graduate student in Rome almost thirty years ago.
If I were to begin to put my hand to it now, it would dis
integrate. As there seems still to be some demand for it,
all that I can do is to provide a bibliographical appendix.
Soon after the English translation of my book in 1934
there appeared the excellent chapter in the Cambridge
Ancient History, Vol. X, by that fine scholar M. P.
Charlesworth whose untimely death we all regret.1 Six
years later another scholar-and another friend too early
lost, V. Scramuzza-produced his book The Emperor
Claudius (Harvard U.P., 1940). Both works are provided
with very good bibliographies, and some further inf or
mation was added in my review of Scramuzza in Journ.
Rom. Studies 32, 1942, 124. In the new bibliographical
appendix to this book I have thought it best to confine
myself (with few exceptions) to the literature which
appeared after my review of 1942. Needless to say, even
within these limits I have made a selection, but I cannot
hope to have selected invariably well.
I wrote my Claudius in 1931 because I was tired of the
current studies on the Augustan principate. They were
either mere constitutional history or mere political apology
or, more often, both together. Claudius seemed to me a
good starting point for an analysis of the contradictions
between the republican utterances and the despotic acts
of the first Roman Emperors. The case of Claudius was
the more instructive because one could not doubt (a s one
could well doubt in the case of Augustus) the sincerity of
his traditionalism and the depth of his knowledge of Roman
PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
ll:
republican history.2 A German scholar, W. Steidle,3 has
referred to my Claudius as the typical example of an
arbitrary reconstruction against the data of the sources.
This seems to me characteristic of the attitude of mind
which it was my purpose to fight. More recently R. Syme
has mentioned my book as an example of the natural and
inevitable sympathy of a modern pedant for an ancient
one. 4 This I take almost as a compliment, though I doubt
whether it does entire justice to my intentions.
As I said, I shall not go into the details that I now
<!onsider to be wrong-headed or superficial, because I
should then have to writ~ another book. I shall only add
that I regret having attributed the Nazareth inscription
on·-violation of tombs to Claudius' time. There was never
any good reason to do so, and the inferences some scholars
have drawn from this attribution make me even keener to
dissociate myself from it. If I had now to talk about
Claudius' erudition, I should certainly use the brilliant
J.
remarks by Heurgon, C. R. Acad. Inscr. 1953, 92-7.
Less cogent seems to me the interesting suggestion by my
friend Syme that Tacitus largely used Claudius' speeches
for his antiquarian digressions. I have explained my dis
agreement on this point in my review of Syme's Tacitus
in Gnomon 1961.5
I would conclude with a personal note. This old little
book owes whatever reputation it has in the Anglo-Saxon
world to a review by H. M. Last in Journ. Rom. Studies
22, 1932, 230. Last also suggested, and arranged for, the
English translation. Now that Last is dead, I should like
here to pay a tribute to a friend whose generosity and
loyalty were equal to his immense knowledge.
A.M.
UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
JUNE 196o.
x PREFACE TO THE NEW EDITION
NOTES
1 Charlesworth also collected Documents illustrating the reigns
of Claudius and Nero, Cambridge 1939.
2 See my answer to some critics in La Nuova Italia 3, 1932,
320-1.
3 Sueton und die antike Biographie, Milnchen 1951, p.85:
"Auf der anderen Seite aber ist es recht wenig kritisch, wenn
bei den Kaisem des I. Ja hrhunderts manche modemen His
toriker schnell zu Entwilrfen bereit sind, die aller antiken
Oberlieferung widersprechen. Ein letztes Beispiel hierfilr
bietet etwa A. Momigliano u.s.w.". Cf. p.100.
4 Tacitus I, 436: " Redress has been forthcoming in generous
measure, with amicable prepossessions in favour of a Caesar
who acknowledged the teaching of Livy and was himself a
voluminous writer; for a scholar and an historian ought to be
treated with respect."
5 See now also the admirable chapter by A. Garzetti, L'impero
da Tiberio agli Antonini, Bologna 196o, 111-152 (notes 6oa-
617).
