Robert Graves · 1934
I, Claudius
From the Autobiography of Tiberius Claudius
“I, Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus, this-that-and-the-other… am now about to write this strange history of my life; starting from my earliest childhood and continuing year by year until I reach the fateful point where, eight years ago, at the age of fifty-one, I found myself caught in the ‘golden predicament.’”
A crippled, stammering historian survives the madness of the Roman imperial family — and against all odds, becomes emperor. Robert Graves's masterpiece of historical fiction brings the Julio-Claudian dynasty to blood-soaked life.
Begin ReadingIn the year 41 AD, the Roman emperor Caligula was assassinated by his own Praetorian Guard. In the chaos that followed, the guardsmen found a terrified old man hiding behind a curtain in the palace — a stammering, limping embarrassment to the imperial family whom everyone had spent decades ignoring, mocking, or trying to kill. They proclaimed him emperor. His name was Tiberius Claudius Drusus Nero Germanicus. He was fifty-one years old, and he would become the fourth ruler of the Roman Empire almost by accident.
“Was it better to be the fool who survived, or the hero who was murdered?”
— I, Claudius
Robert Graves published I, Claudius in 1934, framing it as the secret autobiography of Claudius himself — discovered nineteen centuries later and translated for a modern audience. He drew his material from the Roman historians Suetonius and Tacitus, and the result is one of the most astonishing works of historical fiction ever written: a world of poison, politics, prophecy, and survival at the heart of the most powerful family that has ever lived.