★★★☆☆ Tragic, and, alas, a bit tedious

Claudius the God

Robert Graves

Robert Graves's I, Claudius introduced Claudius, the man who would become Rome's fourth emperor. He was underestimated because of his lameness and his stutter, called "Claudius the Idiot" by his family and associates, as well as other unsavory names.

Claudius, as presented by Graves in that fictional autobiography, is an appealing figure. He is intelligent, humble, and (by the admittedly low standards of the time) humane. He genuinely wants to restore the Roman Republic. I, Claudius ends with Claudius being elevated to Emperor. He is genuinely unhappy about this, but accedes to prevent bloodshed and disaster.

In Claudius the God he finds, tragically, that Empire is a trap he cannot escape. It is never possible to set aside the burden without causing even greater disaster. Worse, it is impossible to remain humane and remain Emperor. He gradually becomes ever worse.

In I, Claudius he, a 51-year-old man, married the beautiful 15-year-old girl Messalina. Well, that was never going to turn out well. Messalina was probably not the immoral disaster that she is presented as in Claudius the God. But remember, this is Claudius's autobiography -- we are seeing her as he came to believe she was, with the gradual loss of his judgment and under the influence of his counselors. It is not implausible that Claudius the God is accurate in that sense.

The sadness of the story is not the main flaw of Claudius the God. Graves seems not to have been quite sure whether he was writing a history or a novel -- consequently, Claudius the God is neither good history nor a good novel. There are long tedious sections in which Claudius tells of of his achievements and projects for the betterment of Rome. These interrupt the story.

Claudius the God is good, but it is not as good as I, Claudius. I, Claudius is unabashedly a novel. It's a historical novel, to be sure, but its primary goal is to tell Claudius's story, not the history of Rome.

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