if you hide terrified behind a curtain during a bloody coup, you would expect not to survive. the absurd part is that you walk out as master of the world. that is what happened to claudius on 24 january of 41 ce, and it is probably the most ridiculous rise to power in all of roman history.
that morning, emperor caligula had just been murdered in a corridor of the imperial palace. after four years of an increasingly erratic and cruel reign, a conspiracy of praetorian guard officers — led by cassius chaerea, a tribune whom caligula constantly humiliated — had cornered and stabbed him as he left some games. the sources speak of about thirty wounds. afterwards, the conspirators set about purging his family so no one would be left to avenge the dead man or claim the throne.
claudius was the uncle of the murdered emperor. lame, stammering, with tics and health problems, he had been treated all his life as the dimwit of the imperial family: kept away from offices, mocked at banquets, considered incapable. that reputation for uselessness had, paradoxically, saved his life until then, because nobody saw him as a threat. but that day, with the praetorians ransacking the palace and killing in cold blood, claudius was certain he was next on the list. seized by panic, he hid behind a curtain on a terrace. modern historiography nevertheless suspects that this image of a terrified claudius found by chance is partly self-propaganda — the pose of the reluctant ruler — and that his role in the coup may have been more active than the anecdote suggests.
the soldier drew the cloth aside expecting a survivor of the fallen regime. he found, without knowing it, the next master of rome.
a common soldier saw a pair of feet poking out from beneath the curtain. he drew the cloth aside, recognised claudius shaking, and then the unexpected happened: instead of killing him, he knelt and saluted him as imperator. the guard’s calculation was purely self-interested. the praetorians were an elite force whose salaries, privileges and reason for existing depended on there being an emperor to protect. without an emperor, they were redundant. they urgently needed a living member of the imperial family to legitimise their own position, and claudius was the last adult male left.
they took him to the praetorian camp and proclaimed him emperor that same day. the decisive detail, and the one legend tends to skip, is that claudius sealed the pact with money: he promised every soldier a donativum, an extraordinary bonus of fifteen thousand sesterces. it was, as far as we know, the first time a roman emperor openly bought his throne from the troops, and it set a poisonous precedent for the centuries that followed. the senate, which had fantasised about restoring the republic by taking advantage of the chaos, had no legions to oppose them and ended up giving in.
what followed disproved his reputation as a useless man. claudius ruled for thirteen years, reformed the administration, extended citizenship, raised aqueducts and harbours, and conquered britannia, something not even caesar had managed to consolidate. it turned out the supposed dimwit was the only one in his family with real talent for surviving and for ruling. of course luck has its price: he ended up, according to tradition, poisoned by his wife to open the throne for her stepson. his name was nero.
