drove the Carthaginians out of the island 287. Claudius Nero cut off Hasdrubal with a vast army upon his arrival in Italy from Spain, before he could form a junction with his brother Hannibal 288. On the other hand, Claudius Appius Regillanus, one of the Decemvirs, made a violent attempt to have a free virgin, of whom he was enamoured, adjudged a slave; which caused the people to secede a second time from the senate 289. Claudius Drusus erected a statue of himself wearing a crown at Appii Forum 290, and endeavoured, by means of his dependants, to make himself master of Italy. Claudius Pulcher, when, off the coast of Sicily 291, the pullets used for taking augury would not eat, in contempt of the omen threw them overboard, as if they should drink at least, if they would not eat; and then engaging the enemy, was routed. After his defeat, when he (194) was ordered by the senate to name a dictator, making a sort of jest of the public disaster, he named Glycias, his apparitor.
The women of this family, likewise, exhibited characters equally opposed to each other. For both the Claudias belonged to it; she, who, when the ship freighted with things sacred to the Idaean Mother of the Gods 292, stuck fast in the shallows of the Tiber, got it off, by praying to the Goddess with a loud voice, “Follow me, if I am chaste;” and she also, who, contrary to the usual practice in the case of women, was brought to trial by the people for treason; because, when her litter was stopped by a great crowd in the streets, she openly exclaimed, “I wish my brother Pulcher was alive now, to lose another fleet, that Rome might be less thronged.” Besides, it is well known, that all the Claudii, except Publius Claudius, who, to effect the banishment of Cicero, procured himself to be adopted by a plebeian 293, and one younger than himself, were always of the patrician party, as well as great sticklers for the honour and power of that order; and so violent and obstinate in their opposition to the plebeians,