Having spent the greater part of his life under these and like circumstances, he became emperor in his fiftieth year by a remarkable freak of fortune. When the assassins of Gaius shut out the crowd under pretence that the emperor wished to be alone, Claudius was ousted with the rest and withdrew to an apartment called the Hermaeum; and a little later, in great terror at the news of the murder, he stole away to a balcony hard by and hid among the curtains which hung before the door. Ashe cowered there, a common soldier, who was prowling about at random, saw his feet, and intending to ask who he was, pulled him out and recognized him; and when Claudius fell at his feet in terror, he hailed him as emperor. Then he took him to the rest of his comrades, who were as yet in a condition of uncertainty and purposeless rage. These placed him in a litter, took turns in carrying it, since his own bearers had made off, and bore him Camp in a state of despair and terror, to thc while the throng that met him pitied him, as an innocent man who was being hurried off to execution. Received within the rampart, he spent the night among the sentries with much less hope than confidence;4 for the consuls with the senate and the city cohorts had taken possession of the Forum and the Capitol, resulved on maintaining the public liberty.2 When he too was summoned to the House by the tribunes of the commons, to give his advice on the situation, he sent word that “he was detained by force and compulsion.”” But the next day, since the senate was dilatory in putting through its plans because of the tiresome bickering of those who held divergent views, while the populace, who stood about the hall, called for one ruler and expressly named Claudius, he allowed the armed asscmbly of the soldiers to swear allegiance to him, and promised each man fifteen thousand sesterces ; being the first of the Caesars who resorted to bribery to secure the fidelity of the troops.