January 25, AD 41

Claudius

The Senate yields to Claudius after the Praetorian acclamation

Claudius's own litter-bearers had fled, so the soldiers took turns carrying him to their camp. He spent the night there while the Senate sat on the Capitol and talked about liberty.

The night in the Praetorian camp

Caligula was assassinated in the imperial palace on 24 January 41 — Suetonius dates the killing to the ninth day before the Kalends of February.

Suetonius says a soldier found Claudius hiding behind curtains, hailed him emperor and took him to the Praetorian camp. Claudius spent the night there while the consuls, the Senate and the city cohorts occupied the Forum and the Capitol.

Fifteen thousand sesterces a man

The next day senatorial plans stalled amid disagreement while a crowd outside called for Claudius. He accepted the soldiers' oath and promised each man a donative.

Suetonius puts that donative at 15,000 sesterces per guardsman; Josephus gives 5,000 drachmas. Josephus also preserves competing versions of the night's negotiations — one emphasizing senatorial tribunes sent to Claudius, another giving Herod Agrippa a central role as intermediary.

The Senate had perhaps three thousand men

The modern De Imperatoribus Romanis account estimates the Senate-aligned force at three or four urban cohorts, perhaps 3,000 men. With its own troops deserting or plainly outmatched, the Senate capitulated.

Claudius was formally invested with the powers of the princeps on 25 January, in what Suetonius reckons as the fiftieth year of his life.

Within days he summoned the Senate, entered Rome under military escort and moved against the principal participants in Caligula's assassination.

Sources

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What the sources leave uncertain

The date and outcome are well supported, but ancient accounts differ about how willingly Claudius participated and whether senatorial tribunes or Herod Agrippa conducted the decisive negotiations.
The curtain episode comes from a literary tradition favorable to Claudius's image as a reluctant ruler; modern historians treat his exact behavior cautiously.
Ancient sources disagree about the size of the accession donative: Suetonius gives 15,000 sesterces per guardsman, while Josephus gives 5,000 drachmas.