Claudius Pulcher, Appius

▪ Roman politician [died circa 130 BC]

died c. 130 BC

      Roman politician, father-in-law of the agrarian reformer Tiberius Sempronius Gracchus. Claudius served on the Gracchan land commission from 133 until his death. He was consul in 143 and censor in 136. His prestige as princeps senatus (“senior senator”) enabled him to provide powerful support for Gracchus' cause and to escape the violence that in 133 destroyed the reformer and many of his followers.

▪ Roman politician [died circa 48 BC]

died 48 BC

      Roman politician, a leading member of the senatorial party opposed to the powerful general Julius Caesar.

      From 72 to 70 Claudius served in Anatolia under his brother-in-law, Lucius Licinius Lucullus, in the war against Mithradates VI, king of Pontus. He was praetor in 57, governor in Sardinia in 56–55, and consul in 54. Although Claudius had opposed the return of Cicero (Cicero, Marcus Tullius) from exile in 57, the two men were reconciled by Caesar's rival, Pompey the Great. Claudius and Cicero corresponded from 53 to 50, while Claudius was governor of Cilicia in southeastern Anatolia, but they then quarrelled. Nevertheless, Cicero's testimony helped acquit Claudius of a charge of treason (51). In 50 Claudius became censor, and at the beginning of the Civil War (Caesar against Pompey and the Optimates, 49–45) he fled from Italy. Appointed by Pompey to the command in Greece, Claudius died shortly afterward. He wrote a work on augury, the first book of which he dedicated to Cicero.

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