use of his
ungainly figure and limited mentality had never been seriously considered
for the principate. He was learned and pedantic, but lacking in energy and
resolution. His greatest weakness was that he was completely under the
influence of his wives, of whom he had in succession four, and his
favorite freedmen.

*Policy.* In general the policy of Claudius followed that of Augustus and
Tiberius. But in 47 A. D. he assumed the censorship for five years, an
office which Augustus had avoided because it set its holder directly above
the Senate.

In the capacity of censor, Claudius extended to the Gallic Aedui the _jus
honorum_ and consequently the right of admission to the Senate. This was
in accord with his policy of generously granting citizenship to the
provincials. The census taken in 47 and 48 A. D. showed approximately six
million Romans, nearly a million more than in the time of Augustus.
Claudius also renewed the attempt of Julius Caesar to occupy the island of
Britain. In 43 A. D. his legates Aulus Plautius, Vespasian and Ostorius
Scapula subdued the island as far as the Thames, and in the following
years extended their conquests farther northward. The southern part of the
island became the province of Britain. In 46 A. D., Thrace was
incorporated as a province at the death of its client prince.

*Influence of freedmen.* During the rule of Claudius the real heads of the
administration were a group of able freedmen, Narcissus, Pallas, Polybius
and, later, Callistus. While it is true that they abused their power to
amass riches for themselves, they contributed a great deal to the
organization of the imperial bureaucracy. Their influence caused the
widespread employment of imperial freedmen in procuratorial positions.

*Agrippina the younger.* In 49 A. D. the plot of Messalina, the third wife
of Claudius, and her lover Gaius Silius, to depose the princeps in favor
of Silius, endangered the power of the trio Pallas, Narcissus and
Callistus. It was Narcissus who revealed the conspiracy to Claudius,
secured his order for the execution of Messalina, and saw that it was
carried into effect. But it was Pallas who induced the princeps to take as
his fourth wife his own niece Agrippina, whose ambitions were to prove his
ruin.

*Death of Claudius.* By Messalina Claudius had a son Britannicus and a
daughter Octavia, but Agrippina determined to secure the succession for
Domitius, her son by her previous husband Lucius Do