Beschreibung
Harvard University Press, 1940. Hardcover, 328 pp., with map in pocket affixed to inside rear cover. Harvard Historical Studies Vol. XLIV. First Edition. Good / NO dust jacket. Brown cloth covered boards with gold lettering on front and spine. Light bumping and scuffing to edges of covers and light to moderate overall scuffing, aging and soiling to covers as well. Binding tight. Pages lightly aged but otherwise unmarked. NOT Ex-Library. NO remainder marks. [From "The Problem", page 3] The Emperor Claudius is one of the most perplexing problems in Roman history. His own utterances which have been transmitted to us in stone, bronze or papyrus, few though they are, show that he possessed sound practical judgment and no little political wisdom. His administration was enlightened in domestic affairs. In the foreign field he solved with dignity the main problems inherited from his predecessors. He endowed the Principate with those policies which, continued by Vespasian, Trajan, and Hadrian, made it more efficient and at the same time more humane. Despite these facts the cumulative judgment of antiquity agrees in portraying him as a fool and a baneful influence on the development of the Empire. Although this discrepancy between Claudius' record and its appraisal by the ancient writers had been noted for some time, it was the discovery in 1920 or 1921 of a letter of his to the city of Alexandria that made that appraisal no longer tenable. Upon careful analysis, this document so contradicts the judgment tradition has given of the fourth Emperor as to challenge students of Roman history to a fresh inquiry into the whole problem of his personality and achievements . . . The purpose of this study, then is not primarily to unearth new data on Claudius' reign but to seek new light on the motives and principles that actuated his administration. The baffling psychology of the man, his conception of the Empire and of his own role in it, and the pressure from individuals and groups to which he was exposed have been the guiding posts in the author's quest. Fully as important for this study as Claudius' personality are those factors, largely independent of him, leading to the inevitable tightening of the imperial machinery and the shaping of the foreign policy. In brief, the problems with which Claudius came to grips have been studied in the light of precedent and his own character as well as the forces that crowded and clamored around him. Roman tradition took little notice of this canon of historical reconstruction, and not alone beca use of the uncritical methods of that age, nor yet because of unconscious partisan bias, but to a large extent because of deliberate misrepresentation. Was it not Seneca, a contemporary and critic of Claudius, who asked, Quis unquam ab historic iuratores exegit?. Bestandsnummer des Verkäufers 20240812023
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