Talk:Claudia gens

Untitled

Nero the Emperor of Rome bruns Rome down to the Ground and PLays a Fiddle... He Blammed the Christians For the fire that he had sent people to go and burn his town of Rome... The Christians were burnt with a torch...The GOOD thing that Nero did was stopped blood sports...Nero was and evil man he killed Familt members...

• What does that have to do with this article? -- SFH 22:22, 26 February 2006 (UTC)

Etymology

Is it true that the name comes from 'claudus' meaning lame?

That is how Antoine Meillet explains Claudius. Is it true? Who knows; the Romans were apparently innovating Claudius to serve instead of Clausus. No one knows what Clausus means. Why would they call the man lame? There is no evidence any of them were lame. It is possible the Romans knew Clausus meant lame. All this is total speculation. I think I will cover it in the article.Dave (talk) 10:45, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Addition Made

I added the note regarding Claudians without cognomen--Al-Nofi 18:08, 29 May 2007 (UTC)

Unnexistent people

Theres listed some people unnexistent:

• Gaius Claudius, consul 454(?)
• Appius Claudius P.f. Crassus Inregillensis, consul 346 BC

I will check more...--83.52.17.74 19:36, 14 June 2007 (UTC)

There are a lot of non-existent people in there, the whole thing needs a thorough going-over. This article is unsat but there is some good information in it. Needs work.Dave (talk) 10:47, 10 September 2009 (UTC)

Asellus's suit against Scipio

Scipio Aemilianus by A. E. Astin, Ch. XI seems to think that Ti. Claudius Assellus' suit against Scipio was in -140, not -139. To borrow a phrase from a controversial group, should we "teach the controversy"? Or is there some quick resolution here? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.186.82.229 (talk) 09:52, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

• A brief search for the original sources didn't really clear up the date this occurred. The DGRBM says it occurred when Asellus was Tribune of the Plebs in 139. Some modern histories say that this occurred in 140. Do we know for certain in which year Asellus was tribune? Broughton also gives 140. I would say that 139 in DGRBM is in error. Good source, occasionally mistaken. Dates easy to transpose by a year. I'll change the article text; if anyone ever finds evidence that it was 139 we can change it back. P Aculeius (talk) 12:40, 26 August 2012 (UTC)

Julio-Claudian Nerones

Germanicus's sons Nero, Drusus and Gaius were never Claudii Nerones and as such probably should not feature on this list, just as nobody from the Julio-Claudian dynasty after Caligula is shown in the Julia gens page. Germanicus's name was also certainly not Decimus Claudius Nero, as is currently displayed here. It was probably the same as his father, but in reality it's not attested anywhere. Avis11 (talk) 17:54, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

They most certainly were Claudii Nerones—they were direct descendants of this branch of the gens and no other. Members of the Julio-Claudian dynasty descending from Tiberius' father bear various surnames, often serially, but did not and never did constitute separate and independent families. They're in this article because they were all Claudii, by birth or adoption; most of them were never Julii, which is why they're not included on that page as well, although if they had been Julii, they would be properly included there. So as far as where they belong, they're in the proper place.

As for Germanicus, he was almost certainly not born "Tiberius", since that was his brother's name. A century later it would not have been unusual for two brothers to share the same praenomen and be distinguished solely by their cognomina, but at this period it was highly unusual. If he was named after his father, he's more likely to have borne his father's birth name, Decimus, than the affected Nero; and the fact that his brother bore a traditional praenomen suggests that this was the case. Certainly Nero is an extraordinary praenomen and would require extraordinary proof. I was hoping that Drumann would shed some light on the matter, but the Claudii Nerones aren't included, probably due to their association with the imperial family. The most that I can say is that Decimus is the most likely of the three names, but I can't point to a scholarly source attesting it at the moment. P Aculeius (talk) 19:04, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

Well, this source (pp. 363–8) appears to accept the notion that he was called Tiberius Nero, but I agree that it sounds inherently unlikely. Most other sources seem to think that "Nero Claudius Drusus" is the most likely birth name (by the linked source's admission). It doesn't seem at all extraordinary if there was already a precedent for it, i.e. his own father did it – especially given that Drusus the Elder had long already discarded "Decimus" by the time Germanicus was born. The use of "Decimus" as a praenomen is in any event unprecedented in this family.

It seems a bit much to display "Decimus" as established fact, as it currently appears. To reflect scholarly uncertainty, perhaps the praenomen should be done away altogether, and have Germanicus displayed as "Claudius D. f. Ti. n. (Drusus? Nero?)". Surely the cognomen here should be Drusus (keeping in line w/ his father) and not Nero, as is currently displayed? Avis11 (talk) 19:52, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

It's not clear when Nero Claudius Drusus substituted his surname for his original praenomen—and in any case there was no legal process involved: at most it was a personal decision. There's a short article on the subject on JSTOR, which seems like a good analysis, but it concludes that in any case he must have done it some time before his sons were born. IMO that doesn't require changing their filiations—but it doesn't tell us what Germanicus' proper name was, either. At this stage the solution I'd consider would be calling him "Nero Claudius D. f. Ti. n. Drusus", with a footnote indicating the uncertainty about his birth name. I don't want to put question marks in the list—it's not done in any other instance, although m-dashes might be in filiations. Parentheses are usually used for inferred names, not possible alternatives that really need further explanation. That's what footnotes are for! P Aculeius (talk) 22:39, 11 October 2020 (UTC)

I wasn't suggesting literally putting question marks and garbling up the names – just outlining the uncertainty and implicitly asking your opinion. Admittedly I did not think of adding footnotes at first: my first instinct was to just omit the uncertainty and leave the detailed explanations to the article on Germanicus proper. I did what you suggested though. Avis11 (talk) 00:13, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

Inregillensis etc.

Is there any reason Regillensis is preferred over Inregillensis when the latter is overwhelmingly used by secondary sources? The order of names "Sabinus Regillensis" also seems off: I'm familiar with the inverted order only, and the footnote saying the Fasti was subjected to later emendations is not properly referenced. The Fasti also does not give the surname Inregillensis for the consular tribune of 403 but does so for the consul in 349, yet their filiations are identical. If both have the same surname and filiation, they must be identical, otherwise the tr.cos.403 must not be called that. Am I missing something? Avilich (talk) 22:39, 25 March 2021 (UTC)

Technically the difference is simply a matter of preference—but since the first Appius Claudius was from Regillum, and the surname Regillensis is also known from the Postumia gens, it makes much more sense than the otherwise inexplicable Inregillensis, which makes no sense, and has, as far as I can recall, no parallel in Roman onomastics—why would anyone add a preposition to a surname derived from a place? That's not how any other Roman surnames I can think of were formed—or any names at all. And no source claims that he was from a place called Inregillum, as far as I know. Until recently this was consistent across both this article and individual biographical articles—the one on the consular tribune of 403 is, I think, the first to break this pattern and prefer Inregillensis. I could have moved it when I found it—yesterday—but I deferred to the choice made by that article's author, and merely created a redirect so that someone following the orthography in the gens article would still find it.

The order of some surnames varies from source to source; here I'm following the source I was using when I was first writing this article. Drumann, I see, always places Sabinus after Inregillensis, while PW places Sabinus first twice, and Inregillensis once, but once Sabinus is omitted, always places Inregillensis at the end. The DGRBM gives Sabinus Regillensis, except for the decemvir, for whom it places Regillensis between Crassus or Crassinus and Sabinus—the same arrangement given by PW. However, to a large extent this is hair-splitting. Even if these names are authentically attributed to this distant period, they didn't ordinarily use all their names on a daily basis—they probably used just two, or sometimes three, except when they wanted to sound particularly impressive—and that usage may in some respects be a retrojection of later onomastic practices onto an earlier time; some scholars have argued that cognomina were barely used even among the aristocracy until the late Republic, and that most such occurrences in earlier times are anachronisms. I don't think that's the majority position now, but there's probably a grain of truth to it, and we shouldn't be too dogmatic about one version being correct and another found elsewhere incorrect. I think that the Romans would have found our concept of there being an official, i.e. legal, version absurd.

The identity of the consular tribune of 403 and the consul of 349 is not established, and their filiations are disputed, as indicated by a previous editor (I note that Drumann regards them as separate persons of uncertain relationship; PW treats them together as Claudius No. 122; the DGRBM considers them uncle and nephew). There are many sources we could go by to work out how they were related, or if it's possible for them to have been identical—but it's rather improbable that they are the same, even though the Fasti seem to give the same filiation—especially since there's no reason why one couldn't be the nephew or cousin of the other, which might explain the filiation, although that could also be a mistake. For the same man to have stood at the head of the Roman state twice, fifty-four years apart, is exceptional; it may have happened in one or two cases, such as Marcus Valerius Corvus or Quintus Fabius Vibulanus—men who, unlike either of these Claudii, covered themselves in glory—but it's much more likely that the one of 349 was the son or nephew of the one of 403.

If we suppose that, even at this early period, it would have been unusual to be elected consular tribune before the age of thirty, a thirty-year-old Claudius in 403 would have been nearly eighty-five in 349—not merely old by the standards of the day, but by today's standards as well. And no doubt this is one reason modern scholars doubt that the two Claudii could have been the same person, meaning either that the filiation reported in the fasti is wrong for one of them, or that we simply know their family imperfectly—something we can probably assume to be the case, even if we're not sure about the filiation. If the assertion that the fasti were subject to some editing (or perhaps errors) is controversial, I'm not aware of it—even sources that generally accept nearly all of the contents seem to accept that some degree of editing or interpolation occurred, even though it's not always clear where.

Now, as to whether to include the surname, we quite often see surnames borne by all the members of a family down to a certain point, then replaced by another; or they are omitted for a generation or two, but then reappear, from which it may be inferred that they belonged to the intervening generations as well, but were omitted from surviving written sources, perhaps for convenience. Note that as late as Livy's time it was quite normal to omit cognomina altogether when discussing early figures; and many of the surnames found in current reconstructions of the fasti are merely inferred. Drumann infers Inregillensis for several generations, down to the dictator of 337, and here he is followed by PW; the DGRBM continues it only down to the decemvir, but if we suppose that the consul of 349 and the dictator of 337 bore it, then presumably so did the consular tribune of 403, even if it isn't mentioned in the surviving sources. P Aculeius (talk) 00:40, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Thanks for taking the time to explain in detail. Livy (6.40) says that Appius, grandson of the decemvir (and thus the consular tribune of 403), was alive in 368, 35 years after his tribunate, so I don't see much difficulty in identifying him as the dictator of 362 or perhaps even the consul of 349. He could have assumed his first office at a very young age, like Valerius Corvus supposedly did. That he did die early in his consulship perhaps supports the idea that he was elderly. Or, as you said, we don't know the family in full and there could very well have been a cousin with identical name and filiation. Avilich (talk) 01:10, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

I think we can take for granted that we don't know the family in full—the idea that the Claudii held power for many centuries, but that there were never more than two or three adult male Claudii at a time before the time of Caecus, and seldom more than four or five thereafter, seems ridiculous. Doubtless there were numerous younger brothers who only rarely entered public life, or appear in the pages of history, but who had descendants of their own—typically leading more modest lives, but occasionally rising to prominence. Which doesn't resolve our question here, or prove whether the filiations in the fasti are correct, but it's worth bearing in mind that we probably know only a small fraction of the members of even the most prominent patrician families, and that much of what we know—or think we know—about how they were related has had to be reconstructed or inferred. And this process probably dates to Roman times—Fabius Pictor, Dionysius, Livy, etc. probably had to make their own inferences, or depend on others who claimed to have knowledge, although they also reconstructed the families based on logic and their best guesses, about persons who lived centuries earlier. P Aculeius (talk) 04:44, 26 March 2021 (UTC)

Filiation

I don't think filiation should be included when an individuals ancestry is disputed. Many of the ones included in this article seem to be based on speculation. ★Trekker (talk) 11:37, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

I believe all of them come from reliable secondary sources, however. The earlier ones are probably based on Drumann, whom I believe devoted nearly an entire volume to the Claudii; the later ones may come directly from first-century BC sources mentioning who the father-in-law/son-in-law/brother-in-law of so-and-so was. A few may be uncertain—but if that's the best guess of the scholars, then I see no reason not to include them until and unless some other source comes along with a different opinion. P Aculeius (talk) 13:08, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

But there are cases when scholars have different opinions, then who do we pick from? Many of these items of lesser known individuals have no articles, and therefore lacks explanations for why a majority prefer one over the other.★Trekker (talk) 14:18, 26 July 2022 (UTC)