On Tuesday I finished the book Claudius the God by Robert Graves. This is the sequel to I, Claudius, which I finished last month. Both of these novels are historical fiction. They are written as the autobiography of the First Century AD Roman emperor Claudius. I liked reading both of them.
It should be mentioned, I have a lot of background knowledge of the Ancient Roman world. There is even documentary evidence of this hanging on my wall.
The book felt very authentic. If I was given the book and told it was actually written by Claudius himself I would have believed it. The details about the festivals, government structure, religious rites, battles, political intrigue, and character descriptions were exactly what I expected. The writing style was in line with other writers of the time and all of the allusions to Homer and mythic people were perfectly used.
I, Claudius is a history of the Roman Empire from its start under Augustus to the moment Claudius is acclaimed the fourth emperor. Picking up immediately after, Claudius the God covers Claudius's reign until right before his death. Claudius was a good emperor and when compared to the madness of his predecessor Caligula and successor Nero he looks even better.
I would recommend you take a few notes when reading to help keep all of the characters straight. Just a name and three or four words for each is all that is necessary. I already knew a few of the historical characters but I still lost track of who did what to whom. The books had a combined total of over 1,000 pages so there were a lot of people. Some of the characters and superfluous stories could be cut from both books without losing the spirit of the work.
I do not know very much about the historical Claudius. When I started reading the books I developed a very favorable view of him. This continued well into the second book. Then near the end my opinion of Claudius turned negative; he became complicit in everything terrible his successors had done.
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