Avera, and welcome to Emperor of Rome, a podcast on the rulers of the ancient world's most famous leaders.

I'm your host Matt Smith, and with me as always is Dr. Rianna Evans,

a lecturer in ancient Mediterranean studies at Latrobe University.

This is episode X-V-I-I-I-I-I-I-The life of Claudius.

When we last left Claudius, he had been made emperor which no one, including had expected and he'd use the power to

conquer Britannia. In his role as Caesar he would bring his own style to the

position and he would make decisions that the Senate didn't always agree with.

He is Rianna Evans. The Senate had a very ambivalent relationship with Claudius. It

started reasonably well. He wasn't

Caligula, which has got to be a good thing from the senatorial point of view.

But they always felt like they hadn't been in charge of appointing him they hadn't really been consulted and he didn't

always do what made them happy so for example not too far into his reign he introduced Gauls into the Senate.

They're Roman citizens that lots of people in Gaul have been enrolled into Roman citizenship,

but he's taking kind of high up Roman Gauls and bringing them into the Senate,

enrolling them in the Senate and previously only Italians have been in the Senate and

they sort of think of that as their area.

So this is quite a shock and it brings out some real prejudices,

some real xenophobia from the senators.

We don't have all of Tacitus's work for this period. He's a really important historian.

So there's a big gap. None of Caligula is there. But about halfway through Claudius's

rain, we get Tacitus back, and one of the earliest parts of that

is where he discusses this introduction of Gauls into the Senate, and he gives us speeches from both

...