Claudia Rufina

Claudia Rufina was a woman of British descent who lived in Rome c. 90 AD and was known to the poet Martial. Martial refers to her in Epigrams XI:53, describing her as "caeruleis [...] Britannis edita" ("sprung from the blue Britons", presumably in reference to the British custom of painting themselves with woad). He praises her for her beauty, education and fertility.

Claudia is probably identical with the "Claudia Peregrina" ("Claudia the Foreigner") whose marriage to his friend Aulus Pudens, an Umbrian centurion to whom several of his poems are addressed, Martial describes in Epigrams IV:13. She may also be the Claudia whose height Martial compares to the Palatine colossus, a gigantic statue that once stood near the Palatine Hill (Epigrams VIII:60).

The second epistle to Timothy in the New Testament contains a passage which reads "Eubulus saluteth thee, and Pudens, and Linus, and Claudia, and all the brethren." It has long been conjectured that the Claudia and Pudens mentioned here may be the same as Claudia Rufina and her husband. William Camden's 1586 work Britannia makes this identification, citing John Bale and Matthew Parker. Camden's contemporary, the Vatican historian Caesar Baronius, came to the same conclusion in his Annales Ecclesiastici. In the 17th century James Ussher agreed, and identified the Linus mentioned as the early Bishop of Rome of that name (Pope Linus's mother's name is given as Claudia in the Apostolic Constitutions).John Williams made the same identification in the 19th century.

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