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CLAUDIUS’ HUMILIATION AT SUETONIUS, DIVVS CLAVDIVS 8

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 November 2022

Shawn O'Bryhim
Shawn O'Bryhim*
Affiliation:
Franklin & Marshall College
*
[email protected]
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Abstract

Suetonius says that court jesters put slippers on Claudius’ hands while he napped during Caligula's dinner parties so that he would rub his face with them when he awoke. Since touching someone with the sole of a shoe was an insult, the joke is that Claudius insulted himself when he unwittingly rubbed his own face with the slippers.

Keywords

ClaudiusSuetoniusinsultsoleslipperssoccicopreae
Type
Shorter Notes
Information
The Classical Quarterly , Volume 72 , Issue 2 , December 2022 , pp. 955 - 956
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Copyright
Copyright © The Author(s), 2022. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of The Classical Association

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References

1 Smilda, H., C. Suetonii Tranquilli Vita Diui Claudii (Groningen, 1896), 32Google Scholar notes that socci were suitable for this practical joke because they did not have laces. Cf. Isid. Etym. 19.34.12 socci—saccum habent, in quo pars plantae inicitur—nam socci non ligantur, sed tantum intromittuntur. Hurley, D., Suetonius Diuus Claudius (Cambridge, 2001), 89Google Scholar adds that they were ‘worn by women, comic actors and effeminate men’.

2 Beard, M., Laughter in Ancient Rome: On Joking, Tickling, and Cracking Up (Berkeley, 2014), 143–4Google Scholar. See also Kierdorf, W., Sueton: Leben des Claudius und Nero (Paderborn, 1992), 86Google Scholar: ‘Die socci sind leichte Schuhe, die in Rom nur von Frauen und Weichlingen getragen wurden.’

3 This translation is from The New Oxford Annotated Bible with the Apocrypha (New York, 1973). See also Nacht, J., ‘The symbolism of the shoe with special reference to Jewish sources’, The Jewish Quarterly Review 6 (1915), 1–22CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 5–7.

4 http://www.cnn.com/2003/WORLD/meast/04/09/sprj.irq.statue/index.html (accessed April 16, 2021) and https://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/meast/12/14/bush.iraq/ (accessed April 16, 2021).

5 https://www.nytimes.com/1993/07/10/world/baghdad-journal-a-new-graphic-message-from-saddam-hussein.html (accessed April 16, 2021).

6 Opper, T., The Meroë Head of Augustus (London, 2014), 26–7Google Scholar.

7 O'Bryhim, S., ‘Arachne's victory’, New England Classical Journal 41 (2014), 288–302Google Scholar, at 293–4.

8 Young, Y., ‘A painful matter: the sandal as a hitting implement in Athenian iconography’, Humanities and Social Sciences Communications 7.64 (2020), 1–11CrossRefGoogle Scholar, at 7.

9 Clarke, J., Looking at Lovemaking: Constructions of Sexuality in Roman Art, 100 b.c.–a.d. 250 (Berkeley, 1998), 235–6CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Clarke, J., ‘Representations of the cinaedus in Roman art’, Journal of Homosexuality 49 (2005), 271–98CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed, at 288–91.

10 For the use of calcare = ‘to tread on insolently’, see OLD s.v. calco 7.

11 See Galleffi, Cardinal, Lucerina beatificationis et canonizationis serui dei P. Francisci Antonii (Rome, 1832), 163Google Scholar: ‘si faceva da suoi studenti calpestare la faccia colle scarpe de’ loro piedi prima sporcate tra sputi e poi poste sulla sua faccia dicendo a quelli “calpestate pure e premete la faccia di questo povere peccatore”.’