Claudius’ Physical Attributes and his Political Authority in Suetonius’ Claudius

Claudius’ Physical Attributes and his Political Authority in Suetonius’ Claudius

Suetonius vividly describes the facial features and bodies of individual emperors in his biographical collection De Vita Caesarum (Bradley 1978, Hurley 2001, Wardle 2014); the description of Claudius has garnered considerable interest due to his physical disability. Scholars have traditionally read this passage diagnostically, concluding that Claudius had cerebral palsy (Leon 1948, Martin 1989, Levick 1990) or Tourette’s syndrome (Murad 2010). Others see in Suetonius’ description a moralizing judgment in accordance with ancient theories of physiognomy. Despite recent studies that have argued for Suetonius’ literary capabilities (Lounsbury 1987, Murphy 1991, Damon 2014, Dunsch 2015, Ash 2016, Garrett 2018), suspicion persists about Suetonius’ ability to employ his literary form to conduct political analysis (Mouchová 1968, Wallace-Hadrill 1983, Hurley 2014). This paper builds on previous scholarship to show how Suetonius employs his description of Claudius as a prompt for his readers to consider the nature of autocratic rule at Rome. Scholars have typically analyzed the physical appearances of the emperors as isolated rubrics, but I demonstrate that the description of Claudius has connective tissue with the surrounding passages and that Suetonius uses the description as a metaphor for Claudius’ principate.

Suetonius’ depiction of Claudius’ physical features is surprisingly bifurcated (Cl. 30). Claudius’ facial features are striking and handsome, at least when was standing, sitting, or lying down. They even confer on him an authority and dignity of form (Auctoritas dignitasque formae). The emperor’s movements, however, were more contemptible in Suetonius’ telling: his walk, laugh, drooling, and stutter all made him look disreputable (dehonestabant). Through this contrasting description, Suetonius suggests the possibilities of two principates – one ruled in accordance with the authority and dignity that his features conveyed and another ruled by a man whose behavior undermines that authority. Suetonius starts this section by noting that he will discuss Claudius’ authority, one of only two times in the entire collection that Suetonius starts a section on an emperor’s physical description with the word auctoritas (cf. Tit. 3). In both circumstances, Suetonius discusses the fitness of both men to rule, and the word auctoritas signals such a discussion (TLL Münscher 2.0.1233.52-53).

Scholars often treat these descriptions of an emperor’s physical attributes in isolation, mining them for historical data (Hurley 2001). In starting his description of Claudius’ striking features and his physical limitations with the word auctoritas, Suetonius ties the description to one of the biography’s prominent themes. Claudius is judged to have been an effective emperor whose reign was nonetheless commandeered by his wives and freedmen (25.5). His excessive behavior was a source of trouble for the state. Claudius’ passive physical attributes could have conferred authority upon him; his physical behaviors are what undermine his apparent authority. But notably, the two rubrics that follow the description depict increasingly excessive behavior (31-33.1-2), culminating in a characterization of Claudius as so gluttonous or sleep-deprived that he cannot fulfill civic functions. By increasing the excessiveness of Claudius’ behavior in these rubrics, Suetonius suggests it was not the emperor’s laugh or stutter that compromised his reign, but his indulgence in vices. The physical description of Claudius starts an analysis of his political capabilities; it does not end it.