Claudius elevated by the Praetorians

The palace had barely cleared of blood when the Praetorians made their move. Claudius, uncle to Caligula, scholar of antiquity, and political afterthought to many, was found hiding—Suetonius says behind a curtain, a tremor running through him. The Guard, weighing options with professional speed, chose to elevate him. Their acclamation clanged louder than any senatorial debate [3][14].

The Senate met in the Curia Julia, voices at first incredulous, then ambitious. Could the Republic be restored? Could a committee replace a princeps? The questions filled the room with talk, but not decision. Outside, in the camp by the Porta Viminalis, soldiers beat out their answer on bronze shields. Claudius was escorted there, lifted onto a platform, and presented to the men whose spears shaped Rome’s reality [3][14].

Claudius accepted. He promised donatives, acknowledged the Guard’s role, and let the artificiality of the moment be obvious: this was an empire where the military could choose a ruler in a single afternoon. The color of the day was iron. The sound, the confident drum of boots on packed earth. The Senate’s assent, when it came, ratified what had already happened [3][14].

Once installed on the Palatine, Claudius set about demonstrating a different kind of strength. He published edicts, heard cases, and began building. The Met’s essays stress his administrative drive; coins and inscriptions would soon present him as a restorer by law, a conqueror by delegation [10]. But the memory of how he came to power never left the marble.

That memory shaped his policy. He courted the Guard and the populace, built aqueducts and arches, and looked across the Channel to a conquest that bullion could advertise. The veneer of Augustan constitutionalism held; through it, one could see the fingerprints of soldiers [10][14].