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Chapter 1: Who was Claudius and why is he significant in Roman history?
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Welcome back to Finn vs History. Joining me is Horatio Gould. I'm the Emperor. Today we're talking about Claudius. We're back in ancient Rome. These have been some of my favourite episodes.
Yes. We're going back to the ancient world, but these are very much the lily pads in which you feel safe, right? I love the Roman emperors. It's the only place that you feel you can... It's the wall of the ice rink which you can hold on to in the ancient world. It's the only place where I get to explore the ancient world where you're not half asleep or purposely nosediving the podcast.
I don't think that's fair. I think I found a prehistoric statue of a guy doing a Hitler salute.
Yeah, that's true. That really fired me up. That got me through that episode. Yeah, you very much so.
We're talking about Claudius today.
And we're also, sorry, we're dressed as the sofa today.
We are dressed as the sofa. And before anyone comments, I'm aware that there will be a lot of gunt on show in this episode. You're a gun buncher. My gun is bunching in this suit. There's a lot of material in it. I'm essentially dressed as a corduroy curtain. And I apologize to any ladies watching, but my gun is punched.
But it sort of looks like we're like kind of hit men who are trying to hide. In the sofa. In the sofa. We're dressed up as one of the cushions. I mean, I'm dressed as the sofa cushion. You're dressed as the wall.
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Chapter 2: What were the circumstances surrounding Caligula's assassination?
We're going, what are they wearing? We're going to have to dress as they do. Yes, I do. For anyone looking, I've got a lot of room in the fupa. My pussy hair is not as fat as it looks in this suit. But we digress. We need to talk about Claudius. Okay, so we have previously, we've talked about Nero, who is the emperor after Claudius. And we've talked about Caligula.
Probably our wildest episode, I'd say, was Caligula. And this episode will be a kind of sequel. It will be, you know,
where are we let's just so this is the emperor claudius is between caligula and nero it's betwixt the mad cunts basically yes caligula and nero are by words for tyranny and um but claudius is kind of the hipster's choice i think so he's my favorite emperor we've looked at so far i think it's a very interesting story it doesn't follow the normal narratives because a lot of roman emperors they're either like chads yes or they're just mental
with no real light and shade. It's just, I marry my whore. It's just a zany fucking... Well, I'll fuck you then. Yeah, I fucked everyone's wives. I burn it all down. There's not really any sort of nuance there. It's just full throttle. I'm mental. But Claudius has a lot... His whole life story is very... It's kind of the most interesting character.
It's a very unique story, actually. I'd say so. Of any ruler, really. But we ended the last episode with Caligula. Now, Caligula had been a promising early leader. He'd been raised on Tiberius, who was Epstein, Epsteinius. Yes. Epstein's Island.
So it's not been a great... Yeah, the track record so far for Epstein.
No, it goes Blair... pedophile, mad cunt, Claudius, mad cunt. Caligula had been assassinated by his Praetorian guard. He'd been a promising ruler, but then he'd had a stroke and the stroke had pushed down on the pedophile bit of his brain and the foreign accent syndrome. So he'd gone to sleep a Caligula, he'd woken up a Carigara, and he was then assassinated by his Praetorian guard.
Because he was fast bowling babies against the wall, was he not?
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Chapter 3: How did Claudius become emperor despite his disabilities?
No, they then took his baby and they Cambodian cricketed it into a wall. Sorry. Yeah. So, yeah, it's the long road to Pol Pot, bowling babies against trees in Cambodia. They took Caligula's son, they killed his wife, and they take his son and they play squash with it, I think was the term you used. They chucked it at a baby, lights out, night-night. But hiding behind the curtain...
in the corridor where Caligula was assassinated, quivering, drooling, was a disabled man with Tourette's who would go on to inherit the Roman Empire against all the odds. But who is this man? How did we end up here? How did we get here?
you're probably wondering you're probably wondering how I got here that's how Claudius would say so Claudius is discovered quivering underneath the curtain a coward and I love a coward historically there's something brilliant heroes write most of history but it's nice when you see a true quivering coward there's something inherently funny about someone who's truly cowardly yes
And that he then goes on to become emperor in a world of, you know, chads. It's not a very woke time. As you've said, part of the reason I like the Roman emperors is incredibly binary, masculine, fascistic time. Yes. Men with big chins and broad chests chucking babies against walls.
Yeah, it could be that it's far from woke.
as you can sort of get the roman era there's none of the idea of social justice is just so far it's about how many barbarians have you suppressed yes you know any form of weakness is seen as a it's weakness i tell you what it's quite woke is that only the praetorian guards are allowed to have a sword in the in the city of rome yes that's quite woke sure that's like uh in america and they go i can't i mean i can't take that's a red tape yeah it definitely is you know they don't have an open carry policy in rome yeah all
So, again, let's just refresh the Roman Emperor timeline. Julius Caesar crosses the Rubicon at some point. Then Augustus, Blair, the Titan, he becomes God. He adopts an old man, Tiberius, who then becomes a paedophile on an island in Capri. Now, growing up on this island is Caligula. When Caligula is assassinated, Claudius is discovered behind the curtain quivering.
Now, he is born Claudius on August the 1st, 10 BC. And like any Roman emperor or Brazilian footballer, he has too many names. And they're also all the names of other people in this story. So I'm not actually going to say what his name is because it's just going to confuse us.
They all have each other's names. I'll be Horatio Gould, Charlie Milner, Finn Taylor. That'll be my name.
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Chapter 4: What role did the Praetorian Guard play in Claudius’ rise to power?
Ladies. Yeah. How many times must I warn you? You're not welcome here. Yeah. Okay. Wear two pairs of pants if you're tuning in. We're discussing the Julio-Claudian line. His father is Nero Claudius Drusus. His parents, Olivia Drusilla, who is married to Augustus, and Tiberius Claudius Nero. Now, that is the last three emperors, but that's none of them.
Okay, so that's like Rubino being called Ronaldinho, Ronaldo, Rivaldo.
Yeah.
He's nothing to do with that.
Or Keir Starmer called Tony Blair, Gordon Brown, David Cameron. Yes. Forget all of them.
His mother is Antonia the Younger, and her parents are Octavia the Younger, who's Augustus' sister, and Mark Antony, Cleopatra's, the personal trainer who lives in Dubai.
So the Julian-Claudian line, because it went from a republic to an empire, it's about trying to trace it back to either Julius Caesar or, more importantly, Augustus, who was such a successful ruler, he calmed everything down, and it's basically... all of these emperors are trying to state their claim to going back to Augustus.
It's the opposite of Tony Blair, who was successful, but everyone's trying to distance themselves from him. So it's like, how much stock have you got in the Labour Party? Well, how close were you to Blair? So Claudius is a descendant of Julius Caesar through the Julian line, which is very important. Now, he has two older siblings. One of them is Germanicus, who is Caligula's dad.
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Chapter 5: What were Claudius' early life challenges and how did they shape him?
Germanicus is the popular general hero.
He had a lot of success in Germany. Yes. So he got the name.
Germanicus.
So Tony Blair, if he'd been successful, would he be called Arachicus?
No, he'd be called Kosovus. Kosovus. He'd be called Sierra Leoneus and Northern Irons. That's Tony Blair. Okay. We must not just judge him by Arachicus. Yes. Okay. You know, Germanicus is not called, I don't know, fucking Gaulius. Yes. Right? Yeah. Because he's defined by his successes. For sure. Personally, I see Tony Blair as Kosovas, Sierra Luna, Northern Islanders. Yeah, short starters. Yeah.
Yeah. Minimum wages. Minimum wages. civil civil unionists okay there's lots of us's in tony blair's name that's not iraq university yes polytechnicus yeah he did a lot he did a lot anyway on july 3rd our neighbors are coming over accept the invite hi come in to the film critics are calling the funniest film of the year we want to propose to you that we share an experience together
Say thank you, Joe.
Thank you. Very flattering. Starring Seth Rogen, Olivia Wilde, Penelope Cruz, and Edward Norton.
We feel a very strong connection with you. If we were proceeding with this... Yeah, how would this shake down?
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Chapter 6: How did Claudius navigate his family dynamics and political intrigue?
Well, I'd call him Brexit-ous gay marriage-ous.
and then john major is uh sodomite sodomus sodomus he uh legalized sodomy he did we must never forget john may rot begins with major okay mate the fucking barn doors flew off when major legalized did he did no he decriminalized it decriminalized i think it's very late isn't it yeah 90s the 90s so is it like you're not allowed to deal sodomy but you're allowed to you can do it in your own home but you can't be a sodomite dealer no you can't be buggering someone in a public car park
What's a buggery? That's public sodomy, isn't it? Yeah. Charlie, could you just find out the legal definitions of buggery, sodomy, and then just homosexuality?
All I know is that any privately educated man of a certain age has been buggered.
Buggery is a specialised British English word that refers to anal sex and sometimes other non-procreative sexual acts.
Now, that's it. I remember Joanne McNally when she came on saying that buggery is technically cunnilingus, which is very funny. Just to walk in on a man and go, stop that buggery now. What are you doing? Wash your mouth out, you bugger. Yes. Claudius is... His dad is Germanicus, who is Caligula's dad. Caligula. Sorry. His brother is Germanicus, whose son is Caligula. Now, Caligula... Yeah.
If you've not heard that episode, maybe listen to that one first. He is the emperor. And so he then goes on this huge killing spree where he sort of purges any potential rival. But Claudius is never purged. And why is that? At some point in Claudius' early childhood, he becomes very ill. And we don't really know. Historians are trying to work out what the modern-day equivalent of this would be.
But his symptoms are partially deaf, a stutter, a limp, and a constantly running nose and drooling all the time.
He also laughed inappropriately while drawing it. So now... Basically, if he was born now, he would have a Channel 4 series. Oh, he'd be the commissioner of Channel 4. But this is a very, very different time. And the view of disability is the opposite of the view of disability now.
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Chapter 7: What were the notable achievements and failures of Claudius' reign?
Nowadays, I would say we're getting very close to a stage where nerds are identifying as disabled. in that if you let that autism, if you sort of plough that furrow too far, you will just push through to just people who are just a bit nerdy. If you broaden the autism spectrum so much, as you've often talked about how you prefer a disability that's binary.
Yeah, traffic. Traffic-like system. What is it again? Green, normal, yellow, bit odd, red down syndrome.
Perfect. I know where I stand. I know where I stand.
Green, yellow, red.
Yeah.
Um, we've got the full traffic light system here on 10 versus history. Okay. Uh, now exactly under the 2010 act, right. And the 2010 disability act dyslexia is a disability.
Well, I've got dyspraxia, so I'm disabled.
Yes. Well, this is my point is that in the nineties, you were not disabled. You were just wobbly. In the 90s, you didn't have ADHD, you were just late.
But then how is that similar to now?
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Chapter 8: What can we learn from Claudius' approach to leadership and governance?
Oh my God, you've just crystallized what my problem with today is. It is reverse phrenology. It's taking everything that we work so hard for and flipping it and it's inverting science.
Yeah, you'd be terrible for this. Do you want it? Yeah, yeah. Have it.
You're clearly awful. Have the company. My point is, is that they actually, I suppose, they're, you know, I grew up in a world where disability had quite a high threshold. And that threshold has been lowered as I've got older. I see in the Roman age, they had quite a wide net for what it, basically, if you weren't ripped, and tall, you were disabled. Which I feel like is the direction of travel.
It's horseshoe, right?
It's come back round.
But you're right in that the status is very different. He was not getting a free laptop or a free stone tablet or whatever. Basically, he has the impression that he's dim-witted and unfit for public life. Because to be fair, he's got a constantly running nose and he's drooling all the time.
And he limps.
He limps, he's drooling and he laughs. He laughs. Yeah, it's like Charlie when he just laughs out of no reason. And to be fair, if you are voting for someone from the public office, and they're just like... And there's a guy who's got really strong concerns about immigration, and there's this guy just constantly running nose. You can't even stop your nose running, let alone the boats, you know?
What is it, Charlie?
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