r his cognomen. Tradition regarded it as the punishment of his
transference of the cult of Hercules from the Potitii.

Appius Claudius Caecus is also remarkable as the first writer mentioned
in Roman literature. His speech against peace with Pyrrhus was the first
that was transmitted to writing, and thereby laid the foundation of
prose composition. He was the author of a collection of aphorisms in
verse mentioned by Cicero (of which a few fragments remain), and of a
legal work entitled _De Usurpationibus_. It is very likely also that he
was concerned in the drawing up of the _Legis Actiones_ published by
Flavius. The famous dictum "Every man is the architect of his own
fortune" is attributed to him. He also interested himself in grammatical
questions, distinguished the two sounds R and S in writing, and did away
with the letter Z.

See Mommsen's appendix to his _Roman History_ (vol. i.); treatises by
W. Siebert (1863) and F.D. Gerlach (1872), dealing especially with the
censorship of Claudius.

4. CLAUDIUS, PUBLIUS, surnamed PULCHER, son of (3). He was the first of
the gens who bore this surname. In 249 he was consul and appointed to
the command of the fleet in the first Punic War. Instead of continuing
the siege of Lilybaeum, he decided to attack the Carthaginians in the
harbour of Drepanum, and was completely defeated. The disaster was
commonly attributed to Claudius's treatment of the sacred chickens,
which refused to eat before the battle. "Let them drink then," said the
consul, and ordered them to be thrown into the sea. Having been recalled
and ordered to appoint a dictator, he gave another instance of his
high-handedness by nominating a subordinate official, M. Claudius
Glicia, but the nomination was at once overruled. Claudius himself was
accused of high treason and heavily fined. He must have died before 246,
in which year his sister Claudia was fined for publicly expressing a
wish that her brother Publius could rise from the grave to lose a second
fleet and thereby diminish the number of the people. It is supposed that
he committed suicide.

Livy, _Epit._, 19; Polybius i. 49; Cicero, _De Divinatione_, i. 16,
ii. 8; Valerius Maximus i. 4, viii. I.

5. CLAUDIUS, APPIUS, surnamed PULCHER, Roman statesman and author. He
served under his brother-in-law Lucullus in Asia (72 B.C.) and was
commissioned to deliver the ultimatum to Tigranes, which gave him the
choice of war with Rome or the surrender