06-06-2017 (Photo: Artist

Lawrence Alma-Tadema (1836–1912) Link back to Creator infobox template wikidata:Q240526 Title

English: Proclaiming Claudius Emperor, opus XLVIII 中文: 克勞狄皇帝加冕 Date 1867 Medium oil on panel Dimensions 46.8 × 60.7 cm (18.4 × 23.9 in) Object history Provenance: Commissioned by Ernest Gambart, London, 1867; José de Murietta, Marquis de Santurce, by 1867, his sale, Christie's, 7 April 1883, lot 163 (sold for £535 10s.); Sir Sam Wilson, his sale, Phillips, 28 February 1912, lot 15 (sold for £462); W. W. Sampson, London, until 1912; William E. Cain, Wargrave, Berkshire, his sale, Sotheby's, 14 June 1966 (bought Fine Art Society, London); Charles F. Stein, Baltimore, Maryland, by 1972; Private collection Inscriptions signed and dated l.r.: L. Alma-Tadema 67 Source/Photographer Sotheby's) http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/contact http://JohnBatchelorShow.com/schedules Twitter: @BatchelorShow

I, Claudius meets I, Trump. @VDHanson @HooverInst @ThadMcCotter

"Sound familiar?

Roman intellectuals hated Claudius, who hit back blow-for-blow at them for their slights and snark, and showed no mercy to plotters and conspiracists. After Claudius’s death, the court toady and philosopher Seneca—pal of Claudius’s successor, the sinister and murderous Nero—wrote a cruel satire on Claudius’s supposed crudity and buffoonery. Seneca’s Apocolyncotosis (The “Gourdification” of the Divine Claudius) mocks Claudius’s halting speech and off-putting mannerisms. He also poked fun at Claudius’s lowbrow friends, and his penchant for crass popular entertainment.

Later Roman historians, drawing on now lost contemporary accounts of Claudius, reflect the same prejudices. In the biography of Suetonius and throughout the Annals of the historian Tacitus, the accidental emperor Claudius comes off as little more than an impulsive bumbler, an accidental emperor who came to power on a fluke and whose lack of Julian elegance made him more a buffoon than the head of the global Roman Empire of some 60 million citizens.

Claudius’s 50 years of private life before becoming emperor were also the stuff of court gossip and ridicule. He would marry four times and was often flattered and manipulated by younger women.

Modern historians, however, have corrected that largely negative view and ancient bias.

Claudius’s rule of some 13 years as emperor was marked by financial reforms and restoration after the disastrous reign of the spendthrift Caligula. Claudius-haters like Seneca, Suetonius, and Tacitus focused mostly on Claudius as the uncouth outsider—and overlooked what he had done for Rome after the disasters of the Caligula regime.

The empire under Claudius grew and was largely at peace. Rome annexed Britain, and added a variety of border provinces in the east. While court insiders and gossipers ridiculed Claudius’s supposed ineptness, he nonetheless assembled one of the most gifted staffs of advisers and operatives—many of them freed slaves—in the history of the Julio-Claudian and Flavian dynasties.

Claudius was foremost a builder and a pragmatist. Some of the Roman Empire’s most impressive archaeological remains (such as the Aqua Claudia and Aqua Anio Novus aqueducts and the reconstituted port at Ostia) date from his reign, as he focused on constructing new infrastructure and improving Roman roads, bridges, ports, and aqueducts.

The early few months of the Trump presidency are, in many ways, Claudian. Trump is likewise an outsider who, in the view of the Washington aristocracy, should never have been president.

The thrice-married Trump was supposedly too old, too crude, too coarse, and too reckless in his past private life. His critics now allege that the blunt-talking Trump suffers from some sort of psychological or physical ailment, given that his accent, diction, grammar, and general manner of speaking, as well as his comportment, just don’t seem presidential.

If Claudius constantly scribbled down observations on imperial life (unfortunately n...