I, Claudius

by Robert Graves

ROBERT GRAVES was born in 1895 in Wimbledon, son of Alfred Perceval Graves, the Irish writer, and Amalia Von Ranke. He went from school to the First World War, where he became a captain in the Royal Welch Fusiliers. Apart from a year as Professor of English Literature at Cairo University in 1926 he earned his living by writing, mostly historical novels which include: I, Claudius; Claudius the God; Sergeant Lamb of the Ninth; Count Belisarius; Wife to Mr Milton; Proceed; Sergeant Lamb; The Golden Fleece; They Hanged My Saintly Billy; and The Isles of Unwisdom. He wrote his autobiography, Goodbye to All That, in 1929 and it rapidly established itself as a modern classic. The Times Literary Supplement acclaimed it as ‘one of the most candid self-portraits of a poet, warts and all, ever painted’, as well as being of exceptional value as a war document. His two most discussed non-fiction books are The White Goddess, which presents a new view of the poetic impulse, and The Nazarine Gospel Restored (with Joshua Podro), a re-examination of primitive Christianity. He translated Apuleius, Lucan, and Suetonius for the Penguin Classics series, and compiled the first modern dictionary of Greek Mythology, The Greek Myths. His translation of The Rubáiyát of Omar Khayyám (with Omar Ali-Shah) is also published in Penguin. He was elected Professor of Poetry at Oxford in 1961, and made an Honorary Fellow of St John’s College, Oxford, in 1971. Robert Graves died on 7 December 1985 in Majorca,...

I sent the money out within two days of getting the letter asking for it. My mother was extremely angry when she heard that the property had been sold, but I was pledged not to tell her why the money was needed, so I said that I had been playing dice for too high stakes lately and in trying to recoup my heavy losses had lost twice as much again. She believed me, and ‘gambler’ was another stick to beat me with. But the thought that I had not failed Germanicus or Rome was ample compensation for her taunts.

For I must make it plain, if I have not already done so, that however criminal the means used by Livia to win the direction of affairs for herself, first through Augustus and then through Tiberius, she was an exceptionally able and just ruler; and it was only when she ceased to direct the system that she had built up that it went wrong.

And how do I know about all this? Because many many years later when the dossiers came into my possession I worked the cipher out myself.

The girl being a virgin was still more strongly protected by law. There was no precedent for executing a virgin whose only crime was being her father’s daughter. When she was carried off to prison she did not understand what was happening and called out: ‘Don’t take me to prison! Whip me if you like and I won’t do it again!’ She apparently had some girlish naughtiness on her conscience. Macro gave orders that, to avoid the ill-luck that would befall the City if they executed her while still a virgin, the public executioner should outrage her. As soon as I heard of this, I said to myself: ‘Rome, you are ruined; there can be no expiation for a crime so horrible,’ and I called the Gods to witness that though a relative of the Emperor I had taken no part in the government of my country and that I detested the crime as much as they did, though powerless to avenge it.

The worse you treat them, the more they’ll honour you.’

‘So, I’m Emperor, am I? What nonsense! But at least I’ll be able to make people read my books now. Public recitals to large audiences. And good books too, thirty-five years’ hard work in them.