Claudius

"Soon the new empire [of Claudius] fell into ruin. They say it was due to the lustfulness of Messalina, the prince's wife, and the insolence and evil deeds of Narcissus, her freedman; as if Narcissuses and Messalinas could live and rule an empire, except in times and places capable of such ugliness. Nor was Claudius so good-natured that, as it is written in the histories, he took so much delight in gladiatorial games, that he had a large number of slaves and freedmen thrown to the wild beasts, that he had gladiators slaughtered for the pleasure of seeing them gasping for breath, And from the plebeians he immediately moved on to the nobles, and the first to fall was Gaius Appius Silanus, governor of Spain."

"Claudius, who was a good emperor, then victim of Messalina's ugliness, for Seneca's bloody irony, who flattered him while he was alive and defamed him after his death, for the stories collected by Suetonius, he paid, first in life and then in history, in literature, in novels and in theatre, the ridicule brought upon him by Messalina's turpitudes, which he tolerated for too long, although, as we said, he did not reach the gullibility of Marcus Aurelius."

"Of poor health, unattractive in appearance and stuttering in anger, Claudius had neither the greatness of Augustus nor the severity of Tiberius, nor did he distinguish himself in the field as either of them did. Family events enveloped and overwhelmed him in such a way that his figure has remained inseparable from that of his last two wives; but if the scholar researches his political life in the accounts of historians, it becomes easier, better than for Tiberius, to discover the real Claudius beneath the false image, which has provided one of the favourite topics for comedy, novels and many books that appear to be scholarly."

"In more than one field, he took decisive steps and created the precedents on which the future development of the imperial bureaucracy was to be based, especially under the Flavians and Antonines. The careful diligence with which he followed even the smallest details of the administrative life of the empire is proven, for example, by the large number of inscriptions and papyri that have come down to us, which reproduce his letters and edicts, and by the frequent mention of such documents in our literary sources. Of these, the most notable are perhaps the fragments found at Tegea, from an edict relating to the organisation of the imperial postal service (cursus publicus), and the aforementioned letter to the Alexandrians. In the latter document, dealing with the complex problem of the municipal organisation of Alexandria (the question of the βουλή) and the delicate subject of relations between the Jews and Greeks of that city, Claudius shows a surprising amount of knowledge, a perfect understanding of the current conditions, observed from their practical rather than theoretical side, and exquisite tact."

"It is impossible to understand how such a man could have been simultaneously a laughing stock in the hands of wives and freedmen. All the documents signed by him were certainly either written or carefully reviewed by him personally, since they all display not only the same peculiar style, but also the same peculiar logic and the same manner of reasoning. The truth is [...] that only in his last years, when his mental powers were steadily declining, did Claudius allow himself to be dominated by the will of those around him; and it may be that even for this period the reality of the facts has been somewhat exaggerated by Tacitus and other writers of the senatorial party."

"When night falls, the sovereign [Valeria Messalina], in disguise, goes to the infamous suburbs of Suburra. There, in the most sordid brothels, she offers herself to the porters. If her august husband, at the same time, has taken it into his head to attend a torture session, the imperial palace of the Caesars will be empty: the emperor is in prison, the empress in the brothel."

"Tacitus refers to him as “'iners”', which can be translated as inept. Tartaglia always looks dazed, with a slightly silly smile. Seneca says that “his voice resembled that of a sea calf”. A bon vivant, very fond of sex, a great eater and drinker, he spends a lot of time at the table, gorging himself and getting very drunk."