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IV.
CLAUDIUS.
DID Claudius live to posterity only in the laws he en-
acted, the buildings he constructed and the statues
we still have of him, one would involuntarily be misled
into a flattering conception of the successor of Caligula.
The statues of Claudius in the galleries of Rome, surprise.
"The misbegotten," as his own mother called him, the
lover of gladiatorial games, the glutton and wine-bibber,
the learned dunce, the semi-idiot without a will of his
own—all epithets that have been heaped upon his head
—
is it possible he had any likeness to these statues that
meet us with melancholy and mildness in the regular Ju-
lian features ?
Yes, from all that we know of Roman portrait art, we
are obliged to think so. One cannot reproach that art
with flattering: it gave what the Romans asked of it
—
rough, immitigable truth to nature; and it made no ex-
ception for the Csesars and their house, not even for
their women.
Proofs of this, almost repulsive, are to be found. An
empress, arrived at a more than mature age, is to be rep-
resented as Venus. It is possible that she would rather
decline this honor, that she belongs to
^^
die alte11, die sick klug ver/mellcn,’’
but she has duties towards her dignity as Caesar’s spouse,
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