I, Claudius
A policy which I have tried to follow over the years is to read a book before I watch a film or television serial version. Books tend to be richer and more complex. Seeing the simplified, and sometimes warped visual version is fine, but better if you know the ‘real story’. I often see these film versions as offering a shorter, alternative, even a different approach to a great story. However, sometimes I am tricked, and see the television version first, and only get to the book later. Such was the case with I, Claudius [the correct title is I, Claudius, but the Word software editor keeps encouraging me to type I Claudius, so please excuse mistakes!].
Back in 1965, the poet Robert Graves was interviewed by the moderately controversial satirist and journalist Malcolm Muggeridge, in the BBC show Intimations. Early in the interview, we learn Graves confessed he wrote I, Claudius“mainly because he needed the money to pay off a debt, having been let down in a land deal. He needed to raise £4000 [equivalent to more than a quarter million pounds in 2023], but with the success of the books he brought in £8000 in six months” and got himself out of trouble. I, Claudius was written in the form of an autobiography, with Claudius commenting on events in Rome up to AD 41. A second volume, Claudius the God, covered his time as emperor from AD 41 up to his assassination in AD 54. Despite the fact it was written for money and rather dismissed by Graves in favour of his poetry in that Muggeridge interview, in 2005 the novel was chosen by Time as ‘one of the best English-language novels from 1923 to the present day’.
It was also the basis for a twelve-part television series produced by the BBC in 1976. I, Claudius is frequently cited as one of the best British television shows and even one of the best television shows in history. In 2007, it was listed as one of Time magazine’s ‘100 Best TV Shows of All-TIME’ (!) and placed at #9 on BBC America’s poll of the 10 best British dramas of all time. In 2016, it was ranked #8 out of 11 in a list of ground-breaking British TV moments. The “lust for power, devious plotting and mesmerising machinations” displayed in the show foreshadowed such later series as The Sopranos, Game of Throne and House of Cards. An outstanding series made all the more so by the extraordinary performance by Derek Jacobi, who presented Claudius as a stammering, twitching and very unlikely Emperor, always struggling under the machinations of his evil grandmother Livia (played to perfection by Siân Phillips). It was brilliant television.
I, Claudius is an historical novel, apparently written by Claudius. Robert Graves made as much use as he could of the historical information of the time, especially concerning, dates, events and places, but the dialogue and some of the characters are clearly the work of literary imagination. What parts are true? Claudius was the fourth Emperor of the Roman Empire, from AD 41 to 54, with a good pedigree: a member of Rome’s first ‘imperial’ family, he was a grandson of Mark Anthony and great-nephew of Augustus. He did have a persistent stammer, a limp, and other nervous tics, which meant many saw him as mentally deficient, and certainly not as a threat to his ambitious relatives.
If that sounds like the ideal starting point for a story, it was. Robert Graves uses Claudius’ peculiarities to create a sympathetic character whose survival in a family of ambitious murderers depends upon their incorrect assumption that he is a harmless idiot. Graves translated Suetonius’ Lives of the Caesars before writing the novels. Later he went on to claim that Claudius came to him in a dream one night and demanded that his real story be told. After all, the real Claudius was a trained historian and is known to have written an autobiography (now lost) in a series of eight books that covered the same period. Just a little bit of artistic licence …
The set up for I, Claudius, and the second book, Claudius the God, is ingenious. Graves came up with the idea that Claudius visited the Sybil, a prophetess, in the Temple of Apollo in Cumae. He learns he will be one of the Caesars to rule Rome, and Claudius assumes that he can tell the identity of the last emperor described in the prophecy. Graves establishes a fatalistic tone, Claudius correctly predicting his assassination and succession (by Nero). The Sibyl tells Claudius that he will “speak clear”. He believes this means his secret memoirs will be found one day and, having written the truth, will speak clearly, in contrast to his contemporaries, who had to distort their histories to appease the ruling family, and in retrospect they will seem like the stammerers. Given he will keep a record of his life for later readers, Claudius explains that he wrote in Greek, which he saw as “the chief literary language of the world”. It’s a device that allows Robert Graves to explore Latin wordplay. It also gives him the freedom to allow Claudius to describe his grandmother Livia as a vicious schemer, controlling Rome from behind the scenes. Altogether a great starting point.
There’s a lot going on in Rome. Claudius’ account begins before his own story. The beginning was when the Empire was being established, and Augustus became Emperor, although in doing so claiming he would eventually restore the former Republic. Augustus had a tough time, as no less than four of his favoured successors die in turn. Claudius reveals this was the work of Livia, who was Augustus’ third wife (and is also Claudius’ paternal grandmother). Livia, having cleared the way, plans make her son Tiberius (Claudius’ uncle) succeed Augustus as the next emperor. When Claudius is born, he is sickly and weak, and promptly ignored: he is advised by his idol, Asinus Pollio to play the fool to survive.
It gets increasingly complicated. When Augustus dies, Tiberius is declared emperor, though it’s his mother Livia who retains her power and influence as empress. Unfortunately, the Roman legions in Germany refuse to accept the unpopular Tiberius and decide to mutiny, while declaring Germanicus emperor. Shocked and confused, Germanicus refuses, announcing his loyalty to Tiberius. Leaving on one side some twenty or more complications, eventually Germanicus comes under the threat of witchcraft , and dies from poison. In the midst of her various manipulative exercises, Livia predicts that Caligula (and not his older brothers) will become emperor and that Claudius will succeed him, while privately admitting to Claudius that she ordered the various poisonings and assassinations of several key characters. She begs Claudius to swear to deify her as a goddess, believing it will grant her a blissful afterlife. Later invited to Livia’s deathbed Claudius swears that Livia will become the Queen of Heaven, which moves Livia to declare he is ‘no fool’ before she dies.
Tiberius, now free of Livia, executes hundreds of influential citizens on false charges of treason and retreats from public life to the island of Capri (as we would all do, of course). The old and feeble Tiberius is smothered to death and Caligula is declared emperor. At first, he appears to be enlightened and kind. To his surprise, Claudius is recalled to Rome from his peaceful life in Capua, where he has been writing history, living with his prostitute companion Calpurnia. Back in Rome he becomes the butt of many taunts and practical jokes by the Imperial Court. After recovering from a severe illness, Caligula descends into madness, and is assassinated, along with his wife and daughter.
Horrified, Claudius, who had been hiding behind a curtain, is discovered by one of the disgruntled Praetorian Guard killers. Realising they need a new leader, the Guards suddenly and somewhat bemusedly declare Claudius emperor. Claudius explains he does not want to be emperor and only wants to see the Republic restored, but the Guards ignore him. Almost on a whim, he accepts for the sake of his wife and unborn child, and for the access the emperorship will give him to valuable historical documents. As emperor he will finally be able to fulfil his hopeful expectation that people will read his books. That skeletal outline ignores yet more dozens of sub-plots and complications: Life was fun in Rome back then!
In the text, I, Claudius begins with some background as to why Claudius is writing this book, and then we quickly move on to his hilarious encounter with the Sybil (in fact he meets the previous and now dead Sybil, too) which sets the tone for two things: this is going to be a complex story, but some images and issues are going to be painfully clear. At the beginning of Chapter 3, Claudius is writing about his grandmother, Livia:
“The name Livia is connected with the Latin word which means Malignity. My grandmother was a consummate actress, and the outward purity of her conduct, the sharpness of her wit, and the graciousness of her manners deceived nearly everybody. But nobody really liked her: malignity commands respect, not liking. She had a faculty for making ordinary easy-going people feeling acutely conscious in her presence of their intellectual and moral shortcomings. I must apologise for continuing to write about Livia, but it is unavoidable: like all honest Roman histories, , this is written ‘from egg to apple’: I prefer the thorough Roman method, which misses nothing, to that of Homer and the Greeks generally, who love to jump in the middle of things, and then work backwards or forwards as they feel inclined.”
How can you not want to read on.
Part of Robert Graves skill comes in not covering the details of everything, but leaving space for you to draw your own conclusions. Early on, as we learn more and more about Livia’s manipulation of the Empire, she is faced with a challenge. If the Empire is to continue, then Augustus needs an heir. His sister’s son, Marcellus is the clear choice (even if there was a ‘myth’ than the role of emperor was not a matter of birth). Augustus had adopted Marcellus as his own son. As his wife, Livia makes a great deal of supporting this. However, she clearly wants Agrippa to be the next choice (although we discover she has a more complex long-term plan in mind). Agrippa was Augustus’ son-in-law! What a conundrum
However, to quote “Augustus caught a slight chill which took an unexpected turn, with fevers and vomiting. Livia prepared his food with her own hands during this illness, but his stomach was so delicate he could keep nothing down. He was growing weaker and weaker, and felt at last he was on the point of death.” What luck for Livia. Unable to speak, and ‘guided’ by Livia, Augustus chose his heir – Agrippa! “And from this moment Augustus began mysteriously to recover: the fever abated and his stomach accepted food”. Yup, and you won’t be surprised that Agrippa grew in importance, but, worried about his own future, decided to leave Rome to rule over the Eastern Provinces.
Does that give you a flavour of I, Claudius? All that I’ve revealed took place in the first 23 pages of the first volume of Claudius’ life, which runs to 349 pages. One of the benefits of the edition I read was that it contained a family tree replacing the traditional front-end papers. Actually, it was so complicated, I had to recourse to Wikipedia to understand the complicated relationships, the evolving series of marriages and more! Indeed, the various relationships are so complex that frequent recourse to the family tree was only partial help: perhaps I should have made notes as I read along.
If I, Claudius was about events before he became emperor, Claudius The God deals with the short fourteen years of his reign. One thing is clear. After Caligula is assassinated, Claudius was quick to see his own safety would depend on clearing away a few challenges, and promptly bumps off the leader of the assassins and several of his supporters. However, this could be considered an unfortunate short-term blip in his approach, and soon after he busily engaged in improving trade, building a harbour in Ostia, quelling a few military mutinies, and conquering Britain. Well, you might have thought that, but there was more going on!
Much that happens during his reign is the consequence of manipulation and trickery by his wife Messalina, who manages to kill several of her enemies, enjoys adultery, and indulges in bribery. Her master plan is to get her lover, Gaius Silius, to murder Claudius, but the plot fails, and Messalina and Silius are arrested and executed. Drunk for some of the time on an ‘Olympian Mixture’, he eventually recovers (dries out?), decides that the Republic can be sustained only through being ruled by a mad monarch rather than a benevolent one. He plays the role of a weak and easily manipulated fool, incestuously marries his niece, Agrippinilla, who he despises, while she is busily plotting to ensure her son Nero becomes emperor. And so it goes on. It was an action-packed fourteen years, all documented in this compelling, vivid and sometimes stunning novel.
What do we make of historical fiction like this? It isn’t entirely fiction, and Graves did research and use a lot of what had been discovered about the life and times of Rome at the time. However, what facts there are almost disappear in the colourful exaggerations that are added to the story. Embellished, for sure, and yet in another sense, an introduction to the power politics of Rome that seems to bear a somewhat uncomfortable similarity to the bizarre things that go on in the US ‘republic’. Dynasties and greed keep reappearing, and we can see much of current behaviour mirrored in the excesses of the past.
Of course, we can write off both Rome and Washington as excesses, and nothing to do with the rather more prosaic lives of politicians in Australia. In comparison, we’re boring – aren’t we? Perhaps we are waiting for an Australian equivalent to Primary Colors to be published. Do you remember Joe Klein’s book? It was a the thinly veiled account of the presidential campaign of a southern governor, described as a ‘roman à clef’, a work of fiction based on real people and events surrounding Bill Clinton’s first presidential campaign in 1992. Surely, we have an Australian writer who can did up enough scandal to make our otherwise boring processes of prime ministerial elections fun!
It’s more than that, of course. We want these stories for more than entertainment. It suits our fantasies, or fears, to believe that our leaders a weak and venal, not all that different from ourselves. If we are fascinated by power, we are even more drawn to the flawed people seeking power. I suspect we actually hope they will be much less than their public images suggest: driven by money, lust and outright stupidity. It’s reassuring, because, if you think about it, if that is what they are like, why, we could do a much better job than they did! Claudius might be a step too far away from our lives today, while Primary Colors is much closer to the world we know. Surely, we can learn from both: sexual misbehaviour is fine, but add a bit of poisoning, dubious alliances, and promises made to be broken. Hey, we can do that! Reading books like these and seeing how many are like them, you can’t help but wonder if there is another truth here: it’s possible we don’t want our leaders to be paragons of virtue but prefer them flawed and greedy. Characteristics like these make them ‘real’: In Australia, for sure, we love to cut down ‘tall poppies’, and ‘too good’ leaders are certainly ripe for a little reduction in size. Perhaps the ideal plan is to stammer your way to success!
