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| 37–41 |
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| Gaius CALIGULA (b. 12), emperor. Greeted with enthusiasm, Gaius's reign turned into a tyranny, marked by extravagant spending and the execution of senators. Though the follies ascribed to him may be exaggerated, his conduct was irrational, and he may have been unbalanced. Behind his behavior may have lain the desire for an absolute monarchy. He had his sister and himself worshiped as gods and attempted to erect a statue of himself in the temple of Jerusalem. | 1 |
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| 39 |
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| Caligula's campaign into Germany was stopped by a conspiracy led by Cn. Cornelius Lentulus Gaetulicus. | 2 |
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| 40 |
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| A campaign against Britain was aborted before it began. | 3 |
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| 41, Jan. 24 |
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| Caligula was assassinated by conspirators of senators, palace ministers, and the praetorian guard, the latter led by the tribune Cassius Chaerea. The attempt of the senate to make their own candidate emperor, or to restore the Republic, was frustrated by the praetorian guard who supported Caligula's scholarly uncle Claudius and imposed him on the senate as emperor. Claudius's political position was consequently weak, forcing him to bolster it through marriage and political alliances. | 4 |
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| 41–54 |
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| Tiberius CLAUDIUS Drusus (b. 10 B.C.E.) ruled for nearly 14 years and was responsible for a number of significant changes. He extended the Empire through conquest and annexation, adding the two Mauretanian provinces (Tingitana and Caesariensis) (41–43), Britain (43) (See 55 B.C.E.–c. 450 C.E), Lycia (43), Thrace (46), and Noricum (46). Claudius eventually made Judaea a procuratorial province (44). Under Claudius the role of imperial freedmen in the imperial administration grew, and such men as Narcissus, Polybius, Pallas, and Callistus became wealthy and powerful, much to the chagrin of the senate. Claudius recruited wealthy nobles from Transalpine Gaul into the senate (48) and transferred supervision of the state treasury (aerarium) from two praetors to quaestors appointed by the emperor. Pilloried by ancient sources for being the dupe of his wives and servants, Claudius's behavior should be attributed to his chronic political weakness. Threatened by real and potential conspiracies, Claudius tried and executed many senators. | 5 |
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| 42 |
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| The governor of Dalmatia, L. Arruntius Camillus Scribonianus raised rebellion in his province, accompanied by a senatorial conspiracy in Rome. The army remained loyal to the Julio-Claudian dynasty, and the threat to Claudius ended quickly. Trials and executions of senators followed. | 6 |
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| 43 |
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| To establish a military reputation for Claudius, Britain was invaded. By 49, the Romans had reached Lincoln and Chester and south Wales. Claudius himself visited the island. The British leader Caractacus was finally captured in 51. | 7 |
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| 47 |
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| Claudius revived the censorship and celebrated secular games (ludi saeculares). | 8 |
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| 48 |
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| On the execution of his wife, Messalina, Claudius was permitted by a special senatorial enactment to marry his niece Agrippina. In 50 he adopted her son, Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, who took the name Nero and ousted from the succession Claudius's son by Messalina, Britannicus (b. 41 or 42 and inheriting his name from his father's British triumph). In 53 Nero married Claudius's daughter by Messalina, Octavia. | 9 |
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| 54 |
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| Claudius died (Oct. 13), probably from poison administered in a dish of mushrooms by Agrippina. When Agrippina secured the recognition by the praetorian guard of Claudius Nero Caesar as successor, the senate then conferred on him the imperial powers. | 10 |
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| 54–69 |
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| Claudius NERO Caesar came to power when he was sixteen and began his rule well under the guidance of the praetorian prefect Sextus Afranius Burrus and the orator-philosopher L. Annaeus Seneca, who with Agrippina kept the phil-Hellenic young emperor's avidity for poetry, music, painting, sculpture, and horseracing, as well as his hooliganism, under restraint. The discharge of Pallas and the murder of Britannicus were political acts, but Nero soon chafed and deserted his wife Octavia, first for the freedwoman Acte and then for Poppaea Sabina, the wife of his friend Otho. Tiring of her interference, Nero then murdered his mother Agrippina in 59. After the death of Burrus in 62, Seneca was dismissed, Octavia was divorced, then murdered, and Nero married Poppaea. Restraint had come to an end, and Nero began to rule as an autocrat. His court became a center of literary and artistic patronage; he wooed and won popular favor with lavish spending and displays. Nero's conduct and his executions of senators alienated the upper classes, but it was his neglect of the military that brought his rule to an end. He was the first emperor never to have visited the armies and the last of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. | 11 |
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| 55–63 |
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| The general Cn. Domitius Corbulo was sent to settle the Parthian problem. Corbulo successfully invaded Armenia and took Artaxata (58) and Tigranocerta (59). In 61, however, Nero replaced him with Paetus, who was thoroughly defeated at Rhandeia (62). In 63, therefore, Corbulo's solution, peace without conquest, was accepted by Nero. The Parthian Tiridates came to Rome in 66 to receive his crown. | 12 |
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