You have to be a pretty special person to become the Emperor of the Roman Empire and in the most usual of circumstances having a limp, being a stutterer and suffering partial deafness would normally exclude you. However in the case of the Emperor Claudius these were all factors that actually worked in his favour. Claudius was living in the time of two of the most outright dangerous and also possibly insane previous leaders in Tiberius and the infamous Caligula. Because of his issues it is thought that no one considered Claudius a threat or in any way credible. When the army became pig sick of Caligula’s weird orders they removed him from office in the permanent way that Generals tend to do when they have had enough of someone They turned to Claudius as they thought they could control him and scaring him witless when they turned up fully armed to proclaim him. The first thing he did was get rid of them by sending them off to invade Britain making him look like a hero and keeping them very busy for many years.
Claudius is the first Emperor to have been born outside of Rome. He was born to some major nobles that were related to Julius Caesar and Mark Antony in Gaul and he was related to Caligula as he was his Uncle. He came to Rome to enjoy the finer things that modern Roman living could provide like, Gladiator games, functioning sewers and a nice tidy Villa outside of the city with a working hypocaust to keep the chill out. The hypocaust works in the same way as a boiler and it needed putting in properly too.
What came as something of a surprise to the army and the nobility was whereas they thought he’d be and easily manipulated waster he was, in fact, extremely good at being an Emperor. Sending the army off to fight was a top idea but he also ordered the building of many roads and water systems such as aqueducts so people did not have to walk miles to get a drink and canals to aid the transport of goods throughout Italy, especially from the Port of Ostia. He was also pretty skilled at law and Inspirational Speaker when it came to getting his plans approved and was not afraid to make new laws. He was very much like the examples of speakers that we can find nowadays – like https://www.adventureman.org/conference-speaker/inspirational-speaker/ – in that he shared his visions for the future and a better world. But this began to annoy the upper echelons of Roman life and he found that he was constantly having to put down potential uprisings, usually by having Senators murdered.
After his death Nero took over. He was such a complete waste of space that most wanted Claudius back.
