I, Claudius

by Robert Graves

He was always boasting of his ancestors, as stupid people do who are aware that they have done nothing themselves to boast about.

At first we were a mere handful, you know, but when we took to marriage and begot children we came to vie with neighbouring states not only in the manliness of our citizens but in the size of our population too. We must always remember this. We must console the mortal part of our nature with an endless succession of generations, like torch-bearers in a race, so that through one another we may immortalize the one side of our nature in which we fall short of divine happiness.

‘It’s not disillusion, sir. I see now, though I hadn’t considered the matter before, that there are two different ways of writing history: one is to persuade men to virtue and the other is to compel men to truth. The first is Livy’s way and the other is yours: and perhaps they are not irreconcilable.’

He had asked them with a smile whether they thought he had acted well in the farce; which is the question that actors in comedies put to the audience at the conclusion of the piece.

I heard a man in the street say that it was as though the sun had set, and would never rise again. Of my own sorrow I cannot trust myself to write.

The loving gratitude of the Senate and the people of Rome and of our allies is the fairest temple I would raise – a temple not of marble but more enduring than marble, a temple of the heart.

And if you are not queen, my dear, Think you that you are wronged?

‘You do well to desert the setting for the rising sun.’