He reigned twenty-three years. He was prudent and fortunate in war, and thus became worthy to be the successor of Augustus. In literature he was highly accomplished, but still more remarkable for eloquence, being happier in unpremeditated replies than in set speeches. He was charged with dissembling, inasmuch as he assumed indifference to those he really loved and courtesy to persons he disliked[1].
Caius, surnamed Caligula, ruled the empire of the world about five years.
Claudius, who succeeded him A.D. 62[2], and U.C. 798, visited Britain in the fourth year of his reign, and received the submission of some revolted tribes without recourse to arms. He added the Orkney Islands[3], already mentioned, to the empire, and, returning to Rome after an absence of six months, assumed for himself and his son the surname of Britannicus, which is given him by Juvenal;[4]:—
- "And show'd, Britannicus, to all that cause,
The womb that bore thee."
In this year that grievous famine prevailed in Syria, which is recorded by St. Luke in the Acts of the Apostles to have been predicted by Agabus. In the time of Claudius, Peter, the chief founder of our faith, became bishop of Rome, which see he filled for twenty-five years, i.e. to the last year of Nero. Vespasian, commissioned by Claudius, went into Gaul, and afterwards to Britain, where he had thirty-two engagements with the enemy, reduced two very
- ↑ Aurel. Victor.
- ↑ The real date of the expedition of Plautius, under Claudius, as A.D. 44, U.C. 796. The same year upon his general's success, the Emperor himself crossed over to Britain, but only remained in the island sixteen days. This happened ninety-seven years after Caesar's abandonment of his enterprise. Bede says that "he was the only one either before or after Julius Caesar, who had dared to land in the island," so that Henry of Huntingdon's store of the "revolted tribes" seems to be pure invention.
- ↑ This also is incorrect. The Orkneys were not reduced till the conquests of Agricola under Vespasian, and his successors reduced the northern parts of Britain to subjection.
- ↑ Juv. Sat. vi. 124.
