Claudius Found Behind the Curtain

On 24 January AD 41, the emperor Caligula was stabbed to death in a passage of the palace on the Palatine by officers of his own guard, led by the tribune Cassius Chaerea. In the confusion that followed, his German bodyguards ran through the palace killing anyone they met, and the Senate met to talk of restoring the Republic.

Claudius, Caligula's uncle, was fifty years old. Mocked by his family for his limp and his stammer, he had been kept out of public life for most of his years and had spent them in scholarship. Suetonius says that when he heard of the murder he crept away in terror and hid on a balcony behind the curtains of the doorway. A soldier running through the rooms happened to see his feet beneath the hanging, pulled him out to ask who he was, and recognized him. As Claudius fell at his feet in fear, the soldier saluted him as emperor. Josephus gives the soldier's name as Gratus. The guardsmen took Claudius to the Praetorian camp in a litter, and while the Senate argued, the soldiers swore allegiance to him. He promised each man a large gift of money, the first of the Caesars, Suetonius notes, to buy the loyalty of the troops. He went on to rule for thirteen years and to add Britain to the empire.