Me, Myself, & I, Claudius

I have been very excited to read I, Claudius ever since I saw it on the list. It's one of those books I have just always wanted to read. This project may take 5 years to do, but I am having a great time doing it.

Just because you have been wanting to read a book for a long time, it doesn't follow that you will love the book once you read it. There were many things that disappointed me about this book. The first is that it reads more like a history textbook than a novel. I don't know the history of historical fiction, so it could be that this book was a forerunner in the genre and is remarkable for that reason. Related to the first disappointment is the second: for a book filled with dramatic stories, there is very little drama. Things do not unfold in such a way that you are kept in suspense at all. It's all very factual. The anecdotes are amusing and striking (and I was sent to my old textbooks and Wikipedia to see what Graves was making up), but they aren't dramatic. And connected to these first two disappointments is the third: the plot is missing. We follow the Roman Empire through three generations of emperors, and we have something of a main character in Claudius, but the unifying action that brings it all together is missing.

Now all that being said, I enjoyed the book a great deal for what it was. The unifying principle was not a character's desires, goals, or actions; the unifying principle was the moral fall of the Roman Empire. We follow the empire from the first emperor following Caesar to the installation of Claudius as emperor. Even as Augustus rules, Claudius believes that the hope for a rebirth of the republic is simply a fantasy. And what we see is that the absolute power of being emperor corrupts absolutely, even if it does so through generations instead of through one single person.

This focus on the corruption of a government and the corresponding erosion of civil rights makes perfect sense in its historical context. In 1934, when this book was initially published, we are heading into the second World War. Europe is uneasy and Germany's chancellor is Adolf Hitler. Central government powers are being consolidated and strengthened and many heads of states are strong personalities. In many ways the novel seems prescient, as Graves discusses treason trials and informers and a whole people seemingly powerless to stand up to one man. He even discusses the army being consolidated under Tiberius and Sejanus, disconnecting the army from the people and aligning it instead with the ruler. At times I would have told you this novel was written in 1948 when Orwell was publishing 1984.

From my brief research on the subject, Graves seems to have had some views on gender politics . . . with which I would have to disagree. I find it fascinating that Livia becomes the big villain in the first half of the novel. Apparently Tacitus's Annals made some suggestions about Livia's influence over Augustus, but Graves took it all to a whole new level, making her a villain that Shakespeare would love to include in a play. The women who are good in this novel are ridiculously good, and the those who are bad are near evil. The men who do wrong are mean, and Sejanus does give Livia a run for her money, but he is not nearly as accomplished as she is. Castor is a meany, but Livilla is wretched. In some ways, the men in this novel are simple. They've got honor and codes and they fight, but everything is pretty straight forward for them. The women are smarter, and when inclined, devious. I read in an interview that Graves sees women as the moral centers of our world (not a new position); if that is the case, what roles do women and men play in the collapse of this society?

And what a collapse! The moral depravity in this novel is breathtaking. Whoever wants to complain about the youth of today should give this novel a read. The youth look pretty fantastic comparatively.

I am very glad that I read this novel, and I am very excited to rent the 1976 miniseries, which must put all the drama together into something genuinely dramatic, a Sopranos in ancient Rome. John Hurt, Derek Jacobi, and even a young Patrick Stewart as Sejanus . . . seriously? How good does that sound?