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2Thus it was that Tiberius Claudius Nero Germanicus, the son of Drusus the son of Livia, obtained the imperial power without having been previously tested at all in any position of authority, except for the fact that he had been consul. He was in his fiftieth year.
In mental ability he was by no means inferior, as his faculties had been in constant training (in fact, he had actually written some historical treatises); but he was sickly in body, so that his head and hands shook slightly. 2Because of this his voice was also faltering, and he did not himself read all the measures that he introduced before the senate, but would give them to the quaestor to read, though at first, at least, he was generally present. Whatever he did read himself, he usually delivered sitting down. 3Furthermore, he was the first of the Romans to use a covered chair, and it is due to his example that to -day not only the emperors but we ex-consuls as well are carried in chairs; of course, even before his time Augustus, Tiberius, and some others had been carried in litters such as women still affect even at the present day. 4It was not these infirmities, however, that caused the deterioration in Claudius so much as it was the freedmen and the women with whom he associated; for he, more conspicuously than any of his peers, was ruled by slaves and by women. From a child he had been reared a constant prey to illness and great terror, and for that reason had feigned a stupidity greater than was really the case (a fact that he himself admitted in the senate); 5and he had lived for a long time with his grandmother Livia and for another long period with his mother Antonia and with the freedmen, and moreover he had had many amours with women. Hence he had acquired none of the qualities befitting a freeman, but, though ruler of all the Romans and their subjects, had become himself a slave. They would take advantage of him particularly when he was inclined to drink or to sexual intercourse, 6since he applied himself to both these vices insatiably and when so employed was exceedingly easy to master. Moreover, he was afflicted by cowardice, which often so overpowered him that he could not reason out anything as he ought. They seized upon this failing of his, too, to accomplish many of their purposes; 7for by frightening him they could use him fully for their own ends, and could at the same time inspire the rest with great terror. To give but a single example, once, when a large number of persons were invited to dinner on the same day by Claudius and by these associates, the guests neglected Claudius on one pretence or another, and flocked around the others.
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