Claudius the God (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Claudius, the god and his wife Messalina; the troublesome reign of Tiberius Claudius Caesar, emperor of the Romans (born B.C. 10, died A.D. 54)". Worldcat entry for 1st edition of Claudius the God. I, Claudius: from the autobiography of Tiberius Claudius, born B.C. 10, murdered and deified A.D. 54". Worldcat entry for 1st edition of I, Claudius. A radio adaptation of the Graves novels by Robin Brooks and directed by Jonquil Panting, was broadcast in six one-hour episodes on BBC Radio 4 beginning 4 December 2010. The cast featured Tom Goodman-Hill as Claudius, Derek Jacobi as Augustus, Harriet Walter as Livia, Tim McInnerny as Tiberius and Samuel Barnett as Caligula. The View from London". Time. 18 September 1972. Archived from the original on 29 January 2009 . Retrieved 14 September 2008.

Claudius the God by Robert Graves, Barry Unsworth - Waterstones

There are the regular purges and execution of plotters, a war of conquest in Britannia and a new religion springing out of the East and rapidly sweeping westward. As he attends to all this, Claudius swears to the reader that he never departed from his principles, hopes he can justify his inconsistent acts and asks the reader if he realistically could have done any differently. Many other senators tried different conspiracies and were condemned. Claudius's son-in-law Pompeius Magnus was executed for his part in a conspiracy with his father Crassus Frugi. Another plot involved the consulars Lusius Saturninus, Cornelius Lupus, and Pompeius Pedo.Writing in the first-person (from an unspecified time period, presumably late in his own reign as emperor), Claudius establishes himself as the author of this history of his family and insists on writing the truth, which includes harsh criticisms of the deified Augustus and especially of Livia. The narrative begins prior to his own birth, as he describes many of the events leading to the foundation of the Roman Principate and the increasingly firm emplacement of Augustus as emperor despite Augustus' own publicly expressed intention to eventually restore the former Republic. During his prosperous reign, Augustus is plagued by personal losses as his favored heirs, Marcellus, Marcus Agrippa, Gaius Caesar, and Lucius Caesar, die. Claudius reveals that these untimely deaths are all the machinations of Augustus' third wife Livia (who is also Claudius' paternal grandmother), a calculating murderess who seeks to make her son Tiberius (Claudius' uncle) succeed Augustus as the next emperor. Graves's two books were the basis for an I, Claudius TV series by the BBC. The series starred Derek Jacobi as Claudius and was broadcast in 1976 on BBC2. It was a substantial critical success, and won several BAFTA awards. The series was later broadcast in the United States on Masterpiece Theatre in 1977. The DVD release of the television series contains The Epic that Never Was documentary.

I, Claudius/Claudius the God by Robert Graves | Goodreads

In 1937, director Josef von Sternberg attempted a film version of I, Claudius, with Charles Laughton as Claudius. However, the lead actress, Merle Oberon, had a near-fatal car accident and the movie was never finished. The surviving reels were featured in the BBC documentary The Epic That Never Was (1965). The motion picture rights for a new film eventually passed to producer Scott Rudin. [103] Already, while alive, he received the widespread private worship of a living princeps [93] and was worshipped in Britannia in his own temple in Camulodunum. In literature, Claudius and his contemporaries appear in the historical novel The Roman by Mika Waltari. Canadian-born science fiction writer A. E. van Vogt reimagined Robert Graves's Claudius story, in his two novels, Empire of the Atom and The Wizard of Linn.He was similarly appreciative of them and gave them due credit for policies where he had used their advice. However, if they showed treasonous inclinations, the Emperor punished them with just force, as in the case of Polybius and Pallas's brother, Felix. There is no evidence that the character of Claudius's policies and edicts changed with the rise and fall of the various freedmen, suggesting that he was firmly in control throughout.

Claudius the God - Penguin Books UK

The title of the book is both symbolic and ironic. Ironic because the reader is familiar with Claudius’ humanity, his faults and failings, even as he is well on the path to being worshiped as a god as his imperial predecessors have been. Ironic too because Claudius himself is somewhat agnostic and performs at least some of his religious duties more out of obligation rather than any true faith in the powers behind such devotions. It is symbolic because this is an era where the space between the human and the divine is being rapidly populated with the semi-divine or of humans being promoted to divinity, from the Emperor Augustus to Jesus. Yet again we have to remind ourselves of what we are always in danger of forgetting as we read this compelling narrative, with its impeccable research, the tremendous intellectual feat of organisation that it represents. It is fiction, after all. The madness having reached a tempest is finally quelled by Cassius Chaerea, a captain of the Praetorian Guard who plots with the other captains to assassinate Caligula, along with his wife and daughter. Horrified, Claudius hides behind a curtain and is discovered by a disgruntled Praetorian Guard. Realizing they need a new emperor, the Guards suddenly and bemusedly declare Claudius emperor. Claudius pleads that he does not want to be emperor and only wants to see the Republic restored, but the Guards ignore him. He sadly accepts for the sake of his wife and unborn child, and for the access the emperorship will give him to valuable historical documents, on a whim deciding that as emperor he will finally be able to demand that people read his books. I brooded over the problem. Wasn’t it Plato who wrote that the only sound excuse that anyone can offer for ruling is that by doing so he avoids being ruled by people inferior in talents to himself? There is something in that. But I was afraid, on the contrary, that if I resigned, my place would be taken by someone superior in talents […] so that the monarchy would become stronger than ever and the Republic never be restored. In any case, the moment of tranquility had not come. I must get to work again. He paid special attention to transportation. Throughout Italy and the provinces he built roads and canals. Among these was a large canal leading from the Rhine to the sea, as well as a road from Italy to Germany – both begun by his father, Drusus. Closer to Rome, he built a navigable canal on the Tiber, leading to Portus, his new port just north of Ostia. This port was constructed in a semicircle with two moles and a lighthouse at its mouth, reducing flooding in Rome.

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Claudius has survived the murderous intrigues of his predecessors to become, reluctantly, Emperor of Rome. Here he recounts his surprisingly successful reign: how he cultivates the loyalty of the army and the common people to repair the damage caused by Caligula; his relations with the Jewish King Herod Agrippa; and his invasion of Britain. But the growing paranoia of absolute power and the infidelity of his promiscuous young wife Messalina mean that his good fortune will not last forever. In this second part of Robert Graves's fictionalized autobiography, Claudius - wry, rueful, always inquisitive - brings to life some of the most scandalous and violent times in history. Claudius was born on 1 August 10BC at Lugdunum (modern Lyon, France). He had two older siblings, Germanicus and Livilla. His mother, Antonia Minor, may have had two other children who died young. Claudius's maternal grandparents were Mark Antony and Octavia Minor, Augustus's sister, and he was therefore the great-great-grandnephew of Gaius Julius Caesar. His paternal grandparents were Livia, Augustus's third wife, and Tiberius Claudius Nero. During his reign, Claudius revived the rumor that his father Nero Claudius Drusus was actually the illegitimate son of Augustus, to give the appearance that Augustus was Claudius's paternal grandfather. In the 1981 Franco-Italian film Caligula and Messalina, he was portrayed by Gino Turini (as John Turner). All Time 100Novels". Time. 16 October 2005. Archived from the original on 19 October 2005 . Retrieved 4 May 2010.

Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina Summary Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina Summary

The Emperor Claudius, 41 AD Letter to the Alexandrians adapted from source: Loeb Classical Library (ed. A.S.Hunt and G.C. Edgar) 1934, pp8-89This marriage ended in tragedy. The ancient historians allege that Messalina was a nymphomaniac who was regularly unfaithful to Claudius— Tacitus states she went so far as to compete with a prostitute to see who could have more sexual partners in a night [55]–and manipulated his policies to amass wealth. In 48, Messalina married her lover Gaius Silius in a public ceremony while Claudius was at Ostia. Claudius was described as physically repulsive, weak, and easily manipulated by his wives and companions by Suetonius, [9] but this historian cannot be entirely trusted. The surviving works of Claudius present a different view. They paint a picture of an intelligent, scholarly, well-read, and conscientious administrator with an eye to detail and justice. Thus, Claudius becomes an enigma. Since the discovery of his letter to the Alexandrians in the last century, [10] much work has been done to rehabilitate Claudius and determine where the truth lies. However, as the Flavians became established, they needed to emphasize their own credentials more, and their references to Claudius ceased. Instead, he was lumped with the other emperors of the fallen dynasty. His state-cult in Rome probably continued until the abolition of all cults of dead Emperors by Maximinus Thrax in 237–238. [97] The Feriale Duranum, probably identical to the festival calendars of every regular army unit, assigns him a sacrifice of a steer on his birthday, the Kalends of August. [98] And such commemoration (and consequent feasting) probably continued until the Christianization and disintegration of the army in the late 4th century. [97] Views of ancient historians [ edit ] At Ostia, in front of a crowd of spectators, Claudius fought an orca which was trapped in the harbour. The event was witnessed by Pliny the Elder: