I, Claudius (1934)

One of the giants in the field, Robert Graves' artful stitching of Tacitus and Suetonius' accounts of the life of the Fourth Roman emperor, reads well, and holds up today. Lacking some of the more immediate details of domestic life, and the remarkable numbers of suicides and outright assassinations, this is a clear portrait of the narrator, and most especially of his remarkably vicious grandmother, Livia the wife of Augustus. The choice of the life of the studious Julio-Claudian, allowed Graves to avoid going into the details which may appeal to the modern taste for bedroom scenes and gritty sword fights. Read it to discover the "high road" of historical imagination, and, because it is a hard book to stop once you start. ( )

Graves' scholarship comes through very clearly in this work, and he takes meticulous care in the detail with which he addresses the intrigues of Rome. In that respect, it reminded me strongly of Pride and Prejudice--but the pacing was more like a summary of a longer work. The sections in which he characterized Claudius were strongest, but my taste for those is likely a symptom of being used to modern narratives. The tone was reminiscent here and there of Caesar, of Herodotus, and in language, he used a hybridization technique, with very little Latin. It was a useful technique to make Claudius into a historian, and the reader could clearly see where his biases and prejudices affected his opinions on things. An interesting work to read alongside historical fiction theory articles. ( )

Claudius, fourth Emperor of Rome, is said to have composed an autobiography now lost to history. In the 1930s a cash-strapped Robert Graves decided to try filling in this blank with a two-volume fictional work. In this first volume, he has Claudius describe the rule of the first three Emperors, all of whom he knew during his lifetime. It is as wonderful a companion to Tacitus' Annals as I had hoped. It fills in the story of Augustus which Tacitus spent little time on, and clarifies the crimes of Tiberias (whom I'd found at least somewhat sympathetic, but not at all now). Tacitus' coverage of Caligula has been lost but it's all here. I doubt whether Graves selected Claudius as his narrator so much for the purpose of redeeming his image (although in this first volume at least he certainly does that), as much as because he could tell the story of the early Roman Empire from an ideal point of view.

This fictional memoir approach makes it comparable to Yourcenar's account of Hadrian. This is not as dense, but both heavily rely on telling more than showing, and feature an enormous amount of detailed family relationships, military maneuvers and political machinations. They differ in two significant respects. For one, Robert Graves waxes more poetic than Yourcenar - literally, in his recounting of invented prophecies, quoting from Homer, etc. Secondly, Graves in particular is a wizard at completing our knowledge of events beyond what's recorded. I was too often forgetting that I was reading fiction, wondering in surprise about some astonishing fact before I had to remember that it wasn't (necessarily) how events actually occurred. Graves writes a very plausible and often exciting story, one that makes an enormous villain out of Livia and a victim out of Julia, swaps Postumus with his impersonator, attributes definitive blame for various deaths, and does various other tricks. I picked up on a few of these thanks to other reading (e.g. Tacitus) and by referring to the internet, but I'm sure I missed a few gems. An annotated edition of this novel would be brilliant, if it could cite through endnotes which parts of the narrative can be found in contemporary sources and which appear to be invented.

I would suggest that nothing Graves speculated is entirely implausible. He adheres to the known history, and what makes this so fascinating is that quite possibly he's guessed right on all counts. Who can say now? ( )

I received this book as a gift, and I wasn't aware that it was first published in 1934 until I opened it up to read it. Like any true classic, the book is unforgettable. The language is incomparable, the descriptions are incredible and the characterization is second-to-none. The book is written is the first person and it appears to be written by Emporer Claudius himself. It is not an easy book to read. Graves knew his subject so well, and described everything so realistically, that all the atrocities, murder, rampant lawlessness and mayhem felt like I was reading this in a newspaper in the present day. The book covers the time from 10 BC to 64 AD. This time frame is when Rome saw four emperors - the Great Augustus, the slippery Tiberius, the raving lunatic Caligula, and finally, at the end, sensible, quiet Claudius. It does not cover Claudius' reign, but his life up to that moment is brought to life in vivid detail. Graves packs so much into these pages. We see the depravity, the lawlessness, the cruelty and all the pomp and circumstance through the eyes of the lame stammerer Claudius It is hard to believe that this is a fiction book. It is almost impossible to believe that it isn't Claudius' autobiography because the book is so real. Fascinating stuff here, and a very thorough history lesson of Ancient Rome. It was a great way for me to spend a few days in late October as the days are getting shorter and cooler. I do admit that I need to read something a little lighter now. That should get the ghosts of the Roman past out of my brain where they have been residing while I was reading this classic. I highly recommend this book to any history lovers interested in ancient civilizations. ( )

When released in 1934 it was a reimagined and groundbreaking way to present Roman history, with a historical figure narrating his own tale.

While Claudius is the narrator, from the beginning the story has an almost total focus on Livia as the grand mover behind everything in the Julio-Claudian family, including directing all of Augustus' actions. While this view does draw on the available historical evidence, it's a rather narrow view when seen through 21st century eyes.

Abridged audiobook (2007 CSA Word version) read by Derek Jacobi:

The book is read well by Derek Jacobi, who is very familiar with the story having played the role of Claudius on both television and radio.

This is an older style of audiobook where musical interludes are inserted as chapter breaks. The musical interlude is from Vivaldi's Four Seasons, which makes it an additionally anachronistic interruption. ( )