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<p>[QUOTE=&quot;Tejas, post: 8025707, member: 84905&quot;]That is fair enough. Maybe Suetonius was completely mistaken when he wrote the following ...</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;... Then at last Claudius abandoned all hope of advancement and gave himself up to idleness, living in obscurity now in his house and gardens in the suburbs, and sometimes at a villa in Campania; moreover from his intimacy with the lowest of men he incurred the reproach of <b>drunkenness and gambling, in addition to his former reputation for dulness.</b>...&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot; ....But all this did not save him from constant insults; for if he came to dinner a little after the appointed time, he took his place with difficulty and only after making the round of the dining-room. Whenever he went to sleep after dinner, which was a habit of his, <b>he was pelted with the stones of olives and dates, and sometimes he was awakened by the jesters with a whip or cane, in pretended sport. They used also to put slippers on his hands as he lay snoring, so that when he was suddenly aroused he might rub his face with them</b>....&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p>&quot; ...But in hearing and deciding cases he <b>showed strange inconsistency of temper</b>, for he was now careful and shrewd, sometimes hasty and inconsiderate, occasionally silly and <b>like a crazy man</b>. </p><p><br /></p><p>&quot;... But most of all he was devoted to his secretary Narcissus and his treasurer Pallas, and he gladly allowed them to be honoured in addition by a decree of the senate, not only with immense gifts, but even with the insignia of quaestors and praetors. <b>Besides this he permitted them to amass such wealth by plunder, that when he once complained of the low state of his funds, the witty answer was made that he would have enough and to spare, if he were taken into partnership by his two freedmen</b>.</p><p><br /></p><p><b>Wholly under the control of these and of his wives, as I have said he played the part, not of a prince, but of a servant</b> lavishing honours, the command of armies, pardons or punishments, according to the interests of each of them, or even their wish or whim; and that too for the most part in ignorance and blindly....&quot;</p><p><br /></p><p><br /></p><p>It is absolutely possible that Suetonius presented us with a wholly inaccurate depiction of Claudius. I guess we will never really know.[/QUOTE]</p><p><br /></p>

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