The Early Principate (AD 14-69): The Julio-Claudians

Members of the imperial family are now called the Julio-

Claudians because of their relation by blood or adoption either to
Augustus, who was adopted into the Julian family by Julius
Caesar, or to Livia, whose sons had been born into the Claudian
family

Tiberius (14-37)
Augustus’ heir; largely absent from Rome for thirty years between
his twenties and his fifties.
Great military background during his military service.
He seems to have been a secretive, reticent soul; he never
developed the easy familiarity with his peers that Augustus
enjoyed.
His own son Drusus the Younger dies prematurely in 23.
As Princeps he broke with the Augustan precedent of building and
other expenditure; After 12 years as a Princeps, in 26 he moved to
the island of Caprae (modern Capri) in the Bay of Naples. He
never returned to Rome, and his relationship with the elite and the
populace remained at a low ebb to his death in 37.
Gaius (Caligula) (37-41)

Tiberius’ grandnephew and successor Gaius is known by the

nickname Caligula given him for the miniature military boots
(caliga) that he wore as a toddler when he lived in military camps
with his parents, Germanicus and Agrippina the Elder.

Glorious lineage, but suffered severe bouts of epilepsy throughout

his life. At Tiberius’ death the senate immediately conferred
imperial power upon him. Good beginning of his principate but
within a year he fell serious ill and, although he recovered, his
erratic behavior escalated. By 39 he had quarrelled violently with
the senate and was ruling more and more autocratically.

Gaius’ deficient military leadership was the root cause of his

assassination by members of the Praetorian Guard, whom he had
relentlessly humiliated. Few mourned his passing.
Claudius (41-54)

Gaius’ uncle, Claudius, had endured various illnesses in his youth,

and he was deaf in one ear as well as lame. The historian Livy was
one of his tutors; he had a scholar’s mind and training.

His fourth wife and niece Agrippina the Younger by 53 had

secured the succession of her own son Nero.

Claudius’ imperial power was due to the Praetorians. His

reputation in the literary record is mixed at best, despite his
deification at death.
Nero (54-68)

Nero was not yet seventeen when he succeeded Claudius.

At first, without doubt, Nero did heed his two tutors – Lucius
Annaeus Seneca, a brilliant philosopher, and Sextus Afranius
Burrus, a learned eques.

His interests were in the arts and showmanship rather than in

government and the military.

In 59 Nero staged the Juvenalia festival marking the official

shaving of his beard for the first time, and the same year he had his
mother Agrippina killed. Murder of his wife Octavia, Claudius’
daughter in 62.
He forced Seneca into retirement and then to suicide three years
later in 65.

As time went on, and particularly after 59, Nero adapted his public
image ever more to the masses, and ever less to the senators and
equites.

He was rumored to have caused the great fire of 64, which

damaged 11 of Rome’s 14 regions.

His death was generally mourned by the populace of Rome, for he

was the most popular of the Julio-Claudians.