I, TIBERIUS CLAUDIUS DRUSUS NERO GERMANICUS ..., This page is dedicated to the name Claudius and provides some selected information about it, especially Emperor Claudius and the ancient Roman Claudian Dynasty.
The name Claudius The name relies on the ancient roman dynasty of the Claudii, a very old roman patrician family. This family or the name, in turn, is probably rooted in the person of Attius Clausus and its name (latin "claudeo" means to limp, might have influenced the name).
Seal of Claudius This "Seal" is based on an original ancient Roman coin issued during the reign of Emperor Claudius, i.e. there was no such seal in reality, just the coin. I authorize all my orders using this seal. Just kidding... ;-) During the reign of Claudius, a lot of coins like this were issued throughout the empire.
The following "seal" corresponds to the flip side of the same coin, showing an arch built for Emperor Claudius' father, Nero Claudius Drusus Germanicus.
Epigraphics: Roman names Complete roman names consist of five elements: first name (praenomen), family name (nomen gentile), descent (filiation, son of the father who is mentioned by his first name), tribe (as a criteria for the roman civil liberty) and co-name (cognomen). The titles of the emperors / caesars correspond to this scheme: after the late Augustus used Imp(erator, Emperor) as a first name (praenomen imperatoris) since 39 BC, at first the successors of the Iulic-Claudic dynasty (except Nero) didn't do this for political reasons. Since the period of the Flavier, this denomination of rulers was used stereotypically and the individual first name was abandoned until Hadrian (including him); an exception is Titus since his father had the same name. So the caesar's nomenclature since Vespian is: Imp. Caesar (cognomen/filiation) Augustus Ancient Roman coin terms The following gives a brief overview of abbreviations used on ancient roman coins.
An arch for Claudius CIL VI 920 = ILS 216 (Rome) This is the inscription (and the full version of the abbreviations) on a triumphal arch built for Tiberius Claudius I, Claudius - by Robert Graves Robert von Ranke-Graves wrote two very successful books about Claudius, called 'I Claudius' and 'Claudius the God'. They were made into movies 1937 and 1976, lastly in an excellent 13 part BBC series (650 minutes) with Sir Derek Jacobi as Claudius. It won an Emmy (Tim Harvey for Outstanding Art Direction for a Drama Series) plus several other prizes and nominations. The average user rating on IMDB's movie rating is 9.4 (~2500 votes). I, Claudius (book), Claudius the God (book) and I, Claudius (TV series) at amazon.co.uk: see the links below. Links Ancient Coin Market - www.ancientcoinmarket.com I, Claudius - books and TV series
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