CITY OF DAVID — See .TrnnsALEM. CITY OF SALT.— See Salt City. CITY OF WATERS and CITY ROYAL.-See Rabbah.
CLASPS.— RV for KV Taches (wh. see).
CLAUDIA (KXai<J/a).— A Christian lady at Rome, who, with Eubulus, Pudens, and Linus, was on intimate terms of friendship with St. Paul and Timothy at the time of St. Paul's second imprison- ment (2 Ti 4^'). The name suggests a connexion with the imperial household, but whether as a member of the gens Claudia or as a slave there is nothing to decide. Tradition treats her as the mother or, less probably, the sister of Linus {Apost. Const, vii. 46, AiVos 6 KXai'Slas) ; she may also nave become wife of Pudens, if they are to be identified with Claudius Pudens and Claudia Quinctilla, whose inscription to the memory of their infant child has been found between Rome and C)»tia {CIL yi. 15,000). Another very ingenious but precarious conjecture identifies her with Claudia Rulina, wife of Martial's friend, Aulus Pudens (Martial, Epirrr. iv. 1,3, xi. 53). On this theory she would be of British origin, a lady of high character end cultivation, and the mother of three sons; perhap the daughter of the British king Tiberius Claudius Cogidubnus, who had taken the name of
Rufina from Poiiii)onia, the wife of Aulus Plautus, the Roman commander in Britain, and had come to Rome in her train (T. Williams, Clnudia and Pudens, Llandovery, 1848; E. H. Phimptre in Ellicott, N.T. Comm. ii. p. 185; but against the theorv, Lightfoot, Apost. Fathers, Clem. i. pp. 29 and 76 -79). W. LocK.
CLAUDIUS (KXoi'ffios), the name by which the
fourth emperor of Rome is commonly known. Tiberius Claudius Dnisus Nero Germanicus was the son of Nero Claudius Drusus and of Antonia, whose mother, Octavia, was a sister of the emperor Augustus. Bom at Lyons on 1st August, B.C. 10, he was of weak health and apparently feeble intellect (see the opinion of Augustus as given in Suet. Claud. 4, and the excuse of C. himself in Suet. Claud. 38) ; consequently he was kept in retirement, without being allowed to hold any but unimportant offices, until the reign of Gains, while the honours conferred upon him by the latter would scarcely seem to have been senously meant. His time was occupied in historical and literary studies, as well as in less creditable occupations (Suet. Claud. 33. 41-42), until the praetorian guards, by a freak which disappointed all previous expectations (cf. Tac. Ann. iii. 18. 7), raised him to the principate on 24th Jan. A.D. 41 — a position which he occupied until he was murdered by his wife Agrippina, on 12th Oct. 54.
Recent inquiry has conclusively shown that the government of the Roman Empire under Claudius compares not unfavourably with that of the other early emperors. It is pointed out that C, although originally appointed through military influence at a time when the restoration of the republic was being seriously discussed, managed to conciliate the Senate and to obtain a permanent reputa- tion as a constitutional ' princeps ' ; while, at the same time, considerable advances were made under his rule towards concentrating power more completely in the hands of imperial officers. The views of C. on the citizenship (see the speech quoted in Fumeaux, Annals of Tacitus, ii. 208) show him to have been very different from the colourless figure to which traditional historians, following exclusively one side of the picture drawn by Tacitus and Suetonius, have reduced him. It might, however, be argued that the present re- action in his favour is going too far. He allowed his wives, Messalina and Agrippina, whether through their influence over him, or even with- out his knowledge, to interfere with the course of justice, and to do incalculable harm in Rome ; ht entrusted power to subordinates in a way which (in spite of the just remarks of Bury, Student'* Mom. Emp. 244) shows him to have been but a weak ruler ; and it is probable that C. should be considered to have haA good intentions in certain respects, but to have been, for most practical pur- poses, powerless ; while the efifects of his reign, for good or evil, will have to be mainly set down to the credit of his leading freedmen, over whom he had proverbially little control (cf. Seneca, Ludut de morte Ctaudii, vi. 2).
For the events mentioned in NT which fall in the reign of Claudius, see Chronolooy OF THB New Te.stament.
The emperor is twice mentioned by name : —
(I) In Ac 11"* the prophecy by Agabus of a famine ' over the whole world ' is said to have been fulfilled 'in the time of C. ' Meyer and others protest against interpreting these words of any other famine than that to which Joseohus refers (Ant. XX. ii. 5, v. 2) as occurring uimer Cuspius Fadiis and TiWrius Alexander. Wieseler (Chron. apost. Zeit. p. 159), though puzzled by the allusion
CLAUDIUS LYSIAS
CLAY
447
in Ant. III. xv. 3 to the high priest Ishmael, fixes the date of this famine, with considerable prob- ability, at A.D. 45, adding that it may well have lasted for more than one year. There seems to be no reason to doubt that this famine is the one referred to in Ac 11^. At the same time it must be noted that famines seem to have been unusually prevalent during the reign of C. (see, for instance, Dio, Ix. 11 ; Eus. Chron. ii. p. 152, ed. Seh. ; Suet. Claud. 18, 'assiduie sterilitates ') ; the person of C. was in danger from this cause (Tac. An7i. xii. 43), and the emperor became so sensitive on the point as to allow a dream, which was interpreted as foretelling dearth, to bring about the ruin of two Kom. knights (Tac. Ann. xi. 4). The carelessness of Gaius as regards the com supply (Sen. de Brev. Vit. xviii. 5 ; Dio, lix. 17. 2) catised great difficulties to C. on his accession, and very vigorous measures were at once taken by the latter, and continued throughout his reign (Suet. Claud, xviii. 20 ; cf. Lehnjann, Claudius, p. 135). When it was noticed that, in spite of the.se special precautions, famines were a characteristic of^ the time of C, it is not hard to see how the prophecy may have come to be regarded as amply fulfilled, even if taken in the widest sense.