A Dictionary of Greek and Roman biography and mythology

1. APP.CLAUDIUSSABINUSREGILLENSIS, a Sabine of the town of Regiilum or Regilli, who in his own country bore the name of Attus Clausus (or, according to some, Atta Claudius; Dionysius calls him Τίτος Κλαύδιος), being the advocate of peace with the Romans, when hostilities broke out between the two nations shortly after the beginning of the commonwealth, and being vehemently opposed by most of his countrymen, withdrew with a large train of followers to Rome. (B. C. 504.) He was forthwith received into the ranks of the patricians, and lands beyond the Anio were assigned to his followers, who were formed into a new tribe, called the Claudian. (Liv. 2.16, 4.3, 10.8; Dionys. A. R. 5.40, 11.15; Sueton. Tib. 1; Tac. Ann. 11.24, 12.25; Niebuhr, i. p. 560.) He exhibited the characteristics which marked his

descendants, and, in his consulship (B. C. 495), shewed great severity towards the plebeian debtors. (Liv. 2.21, 23, 24, 27; Dionys. A. R. 6.23, 24, 27, 30.) Next year, on the refusal of the commons to enlist, we find him proposing the appointment of a dictator. (Liv. 2.29.) We find him manifesting the same bitter hatred of the plebs at the time of the secession to the Mons Sacer, in B. C. 494 (Dionys. A. R. 6.59, &c.), of the famine in 493 (Dionys. A. R. 7.15), and of the impeachment of Coriolanus. (Dionys. A. R. 7.47, &c.) He is made by Dionysius (8.73, &c.) to take a prominent part in opposing the agrarian law of Sp. Cassius. According to Pliny (Plin. Nat. 35.3) he was the first who set up images of his ancestors in a public temple (that of Bellona).