EMPEROR CLAUDIUS OF ROME

(THE ADVANTAGE OF DILIGENCE, THE FOOLISHNESS OF LUST AND THE DESTRUCTION BY MARRIAGE MISTAKES)

Claudius was the fourth Roman emperor; he reigned from 41 to 54 AD.

He was born on 1st of August 10 BC and died on 13th of October 54 AD, of poison from his fourth wife.

There are two things of note about this Roman ruler; one is positive and the other negative. Let’s briefly examine and learn from them.

Claudius was the son of a popular and successful Roman general and the nephew of Emperor Tiberius, the second Roman emperor.

He was characterised by four things that made him totally unfit for any public affairs; he was sickly, ugly, clumsy and rough. His family saw him as an embarrassment and never involve him in imperial activities.

He was left to himself, since he didn’t show any promise for the future. But Claudius buried himself in studies and turned himself into an author.

A Roman historian by the name Livy recognised the young man’s potential for historical studies and writing, and encouraged him. He began to study history, and started his writing career by writing a pamphlet, and then he started writing histories.

He wrote Roman history from the time of Emperor Augustus. He wrote twenty books on Etruscan history and eight books on Carthaginian history. He also wrote an autobiography and a historical treatise on Roman alphabet with suggestions for orthographical reform.

While being ignored by his family, he was making himself useful in the secret place of studying and writing, without any thought that he could ever become a ruler.

He became a member of various religious colleges within Rome, and during his older brother’s son Gaius’s reign as the third emperor of Rome, Claudius became a consul, in 37 AD.

But when his nephew the emperor was assassinated on January 24, 41 AD, the Praetorian Guards, the imperial household troops, made him the next emperor the following day, after a soldier discovered him trembling in the palace.

Though the Roman Senate initially did not want to accept him as the next emperor, but the soldiers, courtiers, freedmen and foreigners who had been his friends in those days when he was neglected by his family supported him and helped him to the imperial throne.

His diligence in studying and writing and his friendship with people helped him to the throne.

Diligence is important for achievements in life and friendship or relationship development is very vital to your elevation unto greater heights.

Don’t be bothered about what people think of you now or how certain persons treat you, just discover what you can do best and where you can shine in life, start doing something in that area and keep building yourself, focus all your mind and efforts on it and concentrate your energy to it.

Don’t allow unnecessary distractions in your life and ensure you start and keep producing results in that area of your focus.

If you keep yourself busy that way, it’s just a matter of time, the world shall come for you and offer you a throne you don’t even deserve.

One of the major reasons why many people don’t succeed in life is they allow too much distractions in their lives and allow too many things to occupy their minds.

Some are distracted by too many visions and goals in life and want to achieve almost everything at once without taking time to select the most important and focus on those ones to produce results with them.

Others are distracted by what certain people think of them or what people say about them or would say about their actions.

Some allow their past to bother them and keep holding them back from moving forward in life and others allow the wrong people to come into their lives, stay in their lives and change the direction of their lives from the right route to a wrong one.

But one thing is needful, focus!

You need to discover the most important thing in your life that needs all of your energy at a time. What is that thing that if you do could give you all the other things you want or need in your life? That is the one thing you need to choose from among the many things you have in mind and focus on it in life.

Like Claudius, if you do just that, not minding what people think of you right now or who has gone ahead of you in life and who has not, if you focus on doing the one thing that is needful in life, building yourself on it and producing results with it, the world will come for you and put you on the throne you never believed you could ever sit on in life. They would give you an offer beyond your imagination.

But, when you get to that throne, you must maintain your focus. You must keep doing the same thing that you did that brought you to the throne.

If you lose focus like Claudius did, you might just end like Claudius ended.

The other side of Claudius was a foolish one, which eventually led to his death.

He was lustful and unsatisfactory with one woman, which made him divorce his first wife; this happened before he came to the throne. He had a bad character that he never take time and efforts to deal with in his life. That was what brought about his downfall and made him lose his children too.

He again divorced the second wife and married the third.

While the Roman emperor, he divorced his third wife and married his niece Agrippina.

This fourth marriage was against the Roman law, Claudius changed the law to legalise the marriage and satisfy his lust.

Although Claudius had a son, who was meant to be the next emperor after him, but in order to satisfy his new wife’s desire for power, he adopted her son Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus, to the disadvantage of his own son Britannicus, and also gave his own daughter as wife to his adopted son.

After this, Claudius’s new wife poisoned him and her son who became the infamous emperor Nero came to the throne.

Not long after Nero assumed the imperial throne of Rome, he murdered Claudius’ son Britannicus by poison and killed his own wife Octavia, Claudius’s daughter.

Historians attribute Claudius’s mistakes to his weakness of character and the influence of his wives on him. His lust made him a fool and he lost both his own life and his children, each of whom was murdered after his death.

Now, if you don’t mind, please tell me, what did you learn from this Lecture? You can make additional lessons too for us all to learn better.

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I am A. T. ADENEKAN

Founder, The King’s People Connection & Happy Marriage Training Programme