“ | SPQR, Mom! SPQR forever! | ” |
–Claudia after learning her mother is a minor goddess in, Camp Jupiter Classified: A Probatio’s Journal. |
Claudia is a Roman demigod, a daughter of Cardea, and a legacy of Mercury. She is a legionnaire in the Fourth Cohort. Her notes on her first few days at Camp Jupiter during the misfortunes helped create Camp Jupiter Classified: A Probatio's Journal.
History[]
Early Life[]
Claudia was born to an unnamed father, who is a grandson of Mercury and a former centurion of the fourth cohort, and Cardea, the goddess of hinges. Cardea left her father soon after she was born.
Learning her Family's Lineage[]
On her twelfth birthday, her father revealed that they are descendants of the Roman god Mercury, him being the messenger god's grandson and her being his great-granddaughter.
He left out that Claudia's mother Cardi, whom he had always said simply wasn't "around anymore", was actually a minor goddess.
Start of a New Life[]
Soon wolves came for her and brought her to the Wolf House. There she survived Lupa's training by building traps and evading the wolves as much as possible. After completing Lupa's training, she headed south to the San Francisco Bay Area. Claudia made it to camp and was accepted into the Twelfth Legion Fulminata and placed into the Fourth Cohort, like her father was, as a probatio.
The Trials of Apollo[]
Camp Jupiter Classified: A Probatio's Journal[]
During her first few days at Camp Jupiter, she was placed in the Fourth Cohort with little trouble, she later learned it was due to a need to refill their numbers after the Second Demigod Civil War.
The following day, Claudia buys things at the local market and after she goes to the Temple of Mercury and finds a letter she thinks is from Mercury and takes it, does poorly during weapons training, and bumps into Frank Zhang leaving his father's temple and laughing at the son of Mars.
The following day, she is assigned to clean the trash out of the aqueducts along with a fellow Probatio named Blaise, a son of Vulcan, who leaves her when he fills his sack. Claudia gets lost and eventually finds a way out, coming face to face with Reyna Ramírez-Arellano and her mechanical dogs in the daughter of Bellona's office as a result. She shows Reyna bag of trash and dead rodents and she leaves without too much issue.
The following day, as she is constructing an arch for their fort for the War Games, a fellow member of the fourth, a daughter of Janus named Janice tells the legacy of Mercury to use a key stone as the arches she makes keep collapsing and her advice works. Claudia treats her to pastries at Bombilo's Coffee Shop and they become fast friends. While in New Rome she sees a faun named Elon eating pieces of soda cans off a string.
That night she has a dream of a time in the 1990s of a new recruit, a girl, wandering into camp and showed her Letter of Recommendation to Terminus, soon a centurion approaches and she realizes it is her dad. He lets her pass and he is shocked by the letter. As the dream goes on, she sees the girl being bullied and sneered at by the others in the Fourth Cohort. He father then requests the new recruit be dismissed to the praetors and they consider it. That night, the girl sneaks out of camp and trips over a trash can on the way out and glares at the legacy of Mercury. Claudia awakes and chooses not to tell Leila about her dream.
The following day, Claudia learns how to harvest materials and care for the animals at camp. As she puts elephant dropping in a bag, she does not get away soon enough and gets picked up by Aquila, a giant eagle, that takes the bag to a local dump and she climbs on her back before the bag is dropped. She sees a woman come out of a trailer and watch the eagle fly off. Claudia feels the woman saw her as they fly off and she enjoys the view on the way back to camp. She gets off with a light scolding and goes about her day.
The following day, Claudia's Mercury action figure is altered to look like he is ready for battle and she finds his coin purse missing. She asks Janice if she should tell the centurions, but the daughter of Janus tells her not to. She later finds the coin purse in her pillow along with a note saying Inveint MV, which she thinks means that she must find a man or boy with the initials MV. In the morning she asks around but no one knows anyone by those initials and stop when she gets funny looks. In the afternoon, she digs trenches with Lynda from the Second Cohort who does not stop talking until the legacy of Mercury throws dirt in her face. That night she and Janice lean back to back with their shields during the war games, a deathball match, and they land in a trench. While the daughter of Janus gets out of it relatively unharmed, Claudia twists her ankle and bangs up her shield.
In the morning, something was wrong with the aurae in the Mess Hall as they only served oatmeal, causing a riot among the legion until Frank announced donuts from Bombilo's Coffee Shop were being prepared and they rushed over to get them. As she went over she saw Elon peaking into the window of the mess hall and she offered him the rest of her oatmeal, which he cruelly rejected. By the time she reached the donuts the only ones left were coconut.
The following day, she was on sentry duty with Julius, a son of Mars with three years of service, she desperately has to use the bathroom and rushes to the nearest bathroom after telling Julius. When she reaches the nearest bathroom she finds it occupied and hears a female voice coming from the inside. She knocks and a few seconds later Elon emerges. After using the bathroom, she returns to sentry duty and tells Julius about the incident, he tells her Elon must have been meeting up with a naiad but she feels it is something else.
The following day, she goes to the forge to have her shield fixed by Blaise, who greets her by name. She finds a weighted net and starts swinging it around, knocking over objects. She goes to pick up a book and the son of Vulcan tells her it belonged to the ghost of the demigod son of Vulcan named Mamurius Veturius. He tells her the ghost has not been to the forge, his favorite haunting spot, all week and she leaves when her shield is fixed.
The following night, she and the rest of her cohort are awakened when a couple from the First Cohort sneak into the Bathhouse to find it filled with dead rats. The following day after the decomposable dropping bags break and the dropping rain down on camp, the praetors cancel the afternoon march and the legacy of Mercury uses this time to research Mamurius Veturius at the New Rome University library. Claudia finds the book she needed as it literally fell into her hands and she sees a dark haired woman in the corner of her eye. She learns he was ordered by King Numa, the successor of Romulus, to create eleven identical copies of an ancile, a cello-shaped shield, given to him by the gods for strengthening Rome so that an enemy will not be able to tell the real from the fakes. She learns the real ancile will protect Rome as long as it is in Roman possession. She remembers the eleven shields on the ceiling of the Temple of Mars and wonders where the real one is. She puts it off for the following day and gets exited for the gladiator fights that night. She enjoyed the gladiator fights up until the arena was flooded and Reyna ended the match. But she missed it due to having to head to the bathroom to wash blood off her face.
Early the following morning, a horn is blown and the legion assembles only to be ambushed by the ballistas on the sentry town that stopped when the arrows ran out. She twisted her ankle and went to get healed, but the Ambrosia and Nectar supplies have vanished. She goes to Temple Hill to find the Temple of Mars closed and Elon sleeping in the back clutching a bottle. The following day she realizes the real ancile is at the Via Praetoria and goes to check up on it. When their she overhears Frank and Reyna putting the prices together and thinking she is the reason behind everything. The daughter of Bellona wants to call her before the senate but the son of Mars convinces her to wait until they have actual proof. She heads back to the barracks to think of ways to prove her innocence without let the praetors know they are suspicious of her. Claudia headed to the boundary line of New Rome and managed to get the attention of Terminus and Julia. After reminding him of her father, she asked about the girl he refused to let in. He explained she smelled like rotten eggs before vanishing. She then writes her findings in her journal so the praetors know she is helping and narrows the girl's parentage to two goddess, Cloacina, the sewer goddess and Mefitis, the goddess of noxious vapors from the earth. Knowing the former has two kids at camp and they do not smell like rotten eggs, she focuses on the latter.
After thinking about it, Claudia thinks the woman at the dump is behind it and realizes Elon is helping her. She returns to Temple Hill and finds Elon missing, but finds the bottle he was holding and opens it. She realizes it contains the ghost of Mamarius Veturius. She releases him and he explains Elon lured him away from the forges and trapped him in a bottle and demanded he reveal the real ancile. He refuses and the faun takes them one by one unit he found the real one. As the ghost returns to the forge, she thin of a plan to get the acile back.
Claudia enlists the help of Janice, Blaise, and Mamurius in getting the ancile back. They agree and construct a device consisting of two shields and they grab some equipment that the legacy of Mercury hid in the aviary as she went to sentry duty. She stopped by the bathroom and overheard Elon talking to Mimi, the mastermind behind the ancile theft, who said she was going to crush the shield in two days. Claudia realizes that will destroy all nature spirits, monsters, and minor deities associated with Rome as well as New Rome. She bribes someone to take her shift and goes to the aviary to take Aquila out for a reconnaissance flight over the scrap yard when Reyna reveals herself. She tells Reyna she wants to speak with her and Frank in the praetoria. Reyna confines the probatio to her quarters until she can find Frank. She tells the praetors everything she knew and Frank asks her if others are involved, when she says nothing Reyna calls Janice and Blaise in and Frank says they came to him when they learned she was confined to her bunk. Reyna complements her loyalty and requests to make a change to her plan, to have Frank fly her to the dump rather then Aquila, Claudia agrees.
Things go badly as the bag load with their supplies was only filled with Hannibal's droppings and Frank crashed and broke his wing-arm. Claudia, Janice, and Blaise are then forced to lug their equipment to the dump and gar guided by Elon, who feels guilty for dooming New Rome. They reach the dump and set up a trap outside Mimi's trailer. She hides on the roof as the others hide in the Janus can. As the son of Vulcan throws a rock at the door, Mimi emerges and gets entangled in their trap. The legacy of Mercury searches the trailer and finds the ancile hidden under a sheet. As she emerges, Frank and two eagles come and take them back to camp.
After the ancile is returned, Claudia walks around New Rome and finds a woman standing in a doorway that she recognizes as her mother. The woman introduces herself as Cardea, the goddess of thresholds and hinges and congratulates her for retrieving the ancile. As her mother starts to fade she gives Claudia her tattoos and bids her farewell.
Appearance[]
Claudia is said to take after her mother, with long dark wavy hair that she keeps in a ponytail, dark eyes, high cheekbones, and a large nose.
After retrieving the ancile, Claudia gets a tattoo of a caduceus and a hinge with a single stripe.
Personality[]
Claudia is shown to be resourceful, building traps for Lupa's wolves when at the Wolf House. She is also caring, offering Elon her oatmeal as he was looking into the Mess Hall. Claudia is also protective of her friends, as she was hesitant to tell the praetors of their involvement.
Abilities[]
Relationships[]
Family[]
Claudia thinks very highly of her mother and never knew much about her. When she was younger, she just thought she was a normal woman named Cardi who left her when she was a baby. Cardi cares a lot about Claudia and gave her messages to help her defeat Mimi.
After Claudia defeats Mimi, Claudia finds Cardea on the doorway of a modest home and instantly recognizes her as her mom, and the goddess of doorways and thresholds, thanks to her class for identifying deities. She then gave Claudia her Tattoo, and whispered to her, "Senatus Populusque Romanus."
Claudia greatly respects and loves her mother. She is also very grateful to Cardea for the help she provided.Claudia loves and respects her father greatly and often spent time with him, watching wrestling matches on television together. The daughter of Cardea would think about the former centurion often during her first month at Camp Jupiter.
While she has never met her great-grandfather, Claudia respects him and does her best to honor the messenger god. When Claudia arrives at camp, she gets an action figure of him using her bartering skills she inherited from him.
While they have not met in person, the messenger god has helped Cardea deliver messages to his mortal great-granddaughter, showing that he cares for his legacy to some extent.Friends[]
Claudia and Janice become friends when Claudia is building a fort for the war games, and Janice tells her to put a keystone in it. It works, and Claudia takes Janice out for pastries at Bombilo's Coffee Shop. They bonded over their experiences with Lupa and both having single parents. Claudia thinks it’s cool that Janice was raised in New Rome and ironic that her name rhymes with her fathers.
The two become close friends and spend most of their time together, sticking together in the war games and attending a gladiator match together. They are in the same ID deity class and they quiz each other on minor gods and goddesses.
They team up together with Blaise and Mamurius Veturius to find the missing ancle, and they come clean about their plan to the praetors.
Claudia and Blaise first meet when they are both assigned to aqueduct duty together. Claudia tries to talk to him, but he runs away. She later visits him in the forge to get her shield fixed. She accidentally knocks over a book and pages through it, which Blaise explains is the book of his dead half brother, Mamurius Veturius.
Claudia later goes to the forges to tell Blaise about her mission to defeat Mimi, and he swears to help her since Mamurius told him how she freed him. Claudia convinces him to not tell Reyna or Frank about their plan and they decide to meet in the forges. Claudia notes how in awe she is how fast Blaise crafted the trash can she designed. Claudia jokes in her journal about how she’s in love with Blaise and how he is in love with her, but she puts a "JK" after it. Blaise, along with Mamurius and Janice, come clean to the praetors about Claudias plan.
After they complete their plan, Blaise asks Claudia if he can explore New Rome with her, and Blaise blushes and stammers, making Claudia wonder if he really is in love with her.
Claudia meets Elon when he is sitting by the trash eating soda cans, and she feels sorry for him. At breakfast later, Claudia sees Elon looking through the Mess Hall and she offers him her oatmeal, but Elon refuses saying that he doesn’t get leftovers and only gets the pick of the litter. Claudia gets annoyed, thinking that he doesn’t deserve the oatmeal if he talks about himself in the third person and takes pride in eating trash. She later finds him talking to a girl in the bathroom.
She gets suspicious of him when she sees him sleeping behind the Temple of Mars after Frank Zhang closes it. Claudia then finds out he was enlisted by Mimi to steal the ancle that gives Rome its power. Claudia spies on Mimi and Elon and finds out she is trying to destroy the ancle to destroy Rome forever, freaking out Elon. Mamurius Veturius forces Elon to help Claudia, Janice, and Blaise retrieve the ancle abs Elon happily helps, feeling guilty about the damage he caused, and guides them to Mimi.
After the legacy of Mercury freed him, Mamurius was greatful towards her and managed to convince Elon to guide her, Janice, and Blaise to the dump to get the ancile back.
After it is returned, Claudia sees that he is being added to the wall of fallen heroes at the library at New Rome University and is happy that the son of Vulcan is finally being recognized as a hero.Gallery[]
Etymology[]
- Claudia is an Italian feminine given name derived from the Roman name "Claudius", which in turn means "lame, crippled". Claudia admits that her father named her after the Roman Emperor Claudius.
Trivia[]
- Claudia is the second legacy to have a point of view in any of Rick Riordan's books. The first being Frank Zhang.
- However her revelation as both a demigod and a legacy reverses Frank's revelation. Where as Frank learned of being a legacy after learning of being a demigod, Claudia learns she is a demigod after finding out she is a legacy.
- Claudia enjoys oatmeal for breakfast.
- She is not a fan of coconut donuts.
- Claudia is the only known legionnaire to have more than one tattoo.