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Claudius’ Tragic Youth
Born in 10 BC to Drusus and Antonia Minor, Emperor Claudius was the grandchild of Mark Antony and Augustus’ sister Octavia on his mother’s side and Livia and her first husband Tiberius Claudius Nero on his father’s side. One might think that being born into such an influential line of the ruling family would have brought him great fortune. But emperor Claudius’ life was filed with hardships from an early age.
When he was young, Claudius was plagued with several disorders that caused him to be alienated and treated harshly by his family. Suetonius tell us, “His mother Antonia often called him “a monster of a man, not finished but merely begun by Dame Nature”; and if she accused anyone of dullness, she used to say that he was “a bigger fool than her son Claudius.” His grandmother Augusta always treated him with the utmost contempt, very rarely speaking to him; and when she admonished him, she did so in short, harsh letters, or through messengers. When his sister Livilla heard that he would one day be emperor, she openly and loudly prayed that the Roman people might be spared so cruel and undeserved a fortune.”