Robert Graves’s fictional biography of the Roman Emperors from Augustus to Caligula is a fascinating work. It starts with the reign of Augustus and Livia. Augustus is succeeded as Caesar by Tiberius and Tiberius proclaims Caligula as his successor. After the assassination of Caligula and under the most fortuitous circumstances, Claudius is chosen as the Emperor. All along as these most excruciating and vile events of Roman history unfold; the killing of brothers and sisters, parricide, regicide and homicide, murder and adultery of all possible forms practiced by all and sundry, the most perverse ways of sexual depravity being the known preference of the Caesars, Claudius is on the fringe of events, faithfully planning his vocation as historian, far above all else and recording them in detail for posterity.
All this is a fictionalized account which may probably have only a skeleton here and there in history or chronicle. To visualize the events on such a scale, to imagine the sequence of events and the characteristic traits of these historical personalities is a magnificent achievement.
I. Claudius attempts to provide some answers to some of the unanswered incidents of Roman history; the disappearance of Posthumous, the death of Germanicus, the death of Drusilla etc.
It is Graves’s conscious narrative that gives the tale an unhistorical, unbiographical feel. The technique of infiltration, employed to perfection, the presence of Claudius who can be counted upon to provide the insider’s view of all the accounts is Graves’s master stroke.
Biography has been rendered as fiction. History is transformed into a narrative. What was merely interesting has been made enchanting.