The Claudii were among the most prominent patrician families (gens) in ancient Rome. They can claim a consul as far back as the second decade of the 5th century BC. This prominence extended throughout the Republic and into the Principate.

According to Suetonius, the Claudii could point to 28 consulships, 5 dictatorships, 7 censorships, 7 triumphs and 2 ovations. Prominent Claudians provided great service to the state; Appius Caecus dissuaded the senate from agreeing to a peace treaty with Pyrrhus that would have been to the detriment of the republic; during the first Punic War, Claudius Candex first passed the straits of Sicily with a fleet and drove the Carthaginians from the island; during the second Punic War, Claudius Nero cut off Hasdrubal with a reinforcing army in northern Italy before he could join forces with his brother Hannibal. However, Marcus Claudius Marcellus, who, after Scipio Africanus, was the most successful Roman general during the second Punic War, was the most famous Claudian from the plebeian side of the family.

Tiberius, the second Roman Emperor, was a Claudian on both his father’s and his mother’s side. His father was a quaestor with Julius Caesar in Alexandria. It was he who surrendered his wife Livia Drusilla to Augustus even though she was at the time pregnant with Tiberius. The imperial Claudian line comes to an end with the death of the Emperor Nero (adopted into the family by the Emperor Claudius) in 69 AD. The family, however, continues to produce consuls into the late 5th century AD. It is remarkable, when you consider that this family had a continuous history for more than 940 years, much of it spent in public service to the Roman State.