old fashioned German bashing. Add to the mix his ingenious use of age-old fairy-tale themes that one finds in such stories as “Cinderella” and “The Ugly Duckling” and in such venues as elementary school playgrounds where bullies are forever beating up on the lame and innocent, along with an atmosphere beginning to smell ripe with the familiar stench of war, and the result was welltimed, well-written and imaginatively inspired historical soap opera that hit the hearts and charts of the English-reading populace.

Graves was, by any account, a serious scholar and a man of high literary talent. With I, Claudius, Graves spent several years of assiduous research into Roman history and customs. While I, Claudius relies on Graves’s boundless imagination for its storytelling, the major events depicted in the novel have a historical basis, and the dates within the story coincide with what we know of Rome’s history. But a historical novel must do more than simply provide an accurate recording of history. A good historical novel, in addition to offering the reader a compelling story to follow, should also provide an insight into the times in which it was written. By any measurement, did I, Claudius provide its readers of 1934 insights into their own worlds?

An obvious place to look for an answer to this question is in the way the book portrays Rome’s relationship with its outlying areas, particularly the Germans. Doing so would show how Graves presented his reader, if he did so at all, with insight into the “German question,” a growing and pressing concern for him and his fellow Europeans in 1934.

In 1933, Adolph Hitler had come to power in Germany. While it would be a few more years before Germany would invade its neighbors, the psychological and political war had already begun. Europe could already hear the figurative echoes of the marching black boots of the National Socialists.

A large part of Graves’ novel is devoted to the German campaigns of Claudius’s brother Germanicus. The Germans that Germanicus’ and Claudius’s father Drusus had conquered, Claudius tells us, had quickly adapted to “Roman ways, learning the use of coinage, holding regular markets and even meeting in assemblies that did not end, as their former assemblies had always ended, in armed battles.” In other words, Roman occupation had relieved the Germans of “their old barbarous ways,” but when Varus, a political appointee of Augustus, entered the picture, he began abusing the Germans who, in turn, secretly planned a mass rebellion. Varus, believing the Germans to be a “stupid race” of men who respected you only when you hit them, ignored warnings of a rebellion from his own staff, and a horrible massacre ensued, in which only Cassius, the officer who would one day assassinate the Emperor Caligula, survived. News of Rome’s previously unimaginable defeat spread panic throughout Rome, and Romans believed that the German hordes were ready to knock on the city gates. News and rumors of German barbarity spread. As Claudius/Graves note:

Meanwhile, the Germans hunted down all the fugitives from Varus’s army and sacrificed scores of them to their forest-gods, burning them alive in wicker cages . . . The Germans also enjoyed a long succession of tremendous drinking-bouts on the captured wine, and quarreled bloodily over the glory and the plunder.”

When Germanicus later returned to the front to avenge the massacre, he wrote to Claudius:

The Germans are the most insolent boastful nation in the world when things go well with them, but once they are defeated they are the most cowardly and abject. Never trust a German out of your sight, but never be afraid of him when you have him face to face.

Can an argument be made that Graves is merely using the facts of Roman history to lift a mirror to the situation of 1934 Europe? If that is the case, then what “insight” does Claudius’s account afford the reader?

Any possible argument that Graves is building a case for Great Britain to defend itself against Germany here falls short when one considers the story of I, Claudius as a whole. Rome, under Augustus, and then less successfully under Caligula, was an imperial country with imperialistic aims. Its vision was to rule the world, from horizon to horizon; any useful analogy in this context would bring the reader to view Germany, not Great Britain, as the modern day Rome. If that is the case, then who would the Germans be? Certainly not the Brits, and certainly not the Americans—both races of people who considered themselves among the most civilized in the world and far from the barbaric natures that Claudius depicts.

The problems Rome was having with its colonies were problems all imperial forces have always had, and will always have, with their colonies: whenever the colonizer has tried to impose its own will on its subjects, the subjects have rebelled forcefully and usually violently.

No, the only purposes these passages effectively served, aside from the obvious ones of relating the history of Rome as it actually was, were to feed into the existing and growing fear of the German threat. After World War I, European leaders could not trust Germany’s intentions, and their imposition of the humiliating Versailles Treaty only fanned the flames of German anger. That anger, in turn, fanned the flames of hatred against and fear of the German race. Whether conscious or not, Graves had pulled from ancient history the same themes of fear of the “outsider” and “other” that Europeans were still experiencing nearly 2000 years later. Graves is offering nothing insightful here; he is merely fanning the flames of anti- German sentiment, a sentiment that would help in the sales of his book.

So what of the possible argument that Graves is using ancient Rome to depict Germany or, better yet, the fascist states of Italy or Spain? On a superficial level, one could make this argument, as there are several characteristics that both the fascists and the national socialists shared with Rome of Augustus, Tiberius and Caligula. For starters, as already mentioned, the Roman Empire, like Nazi Germany, had visions of world domination. The consolidation of political power in the hands of a single individual—Franco in Spain, Mussolini in Italy and Hitler in Germany—also mirrored that of Rome, and like Rome, once power was consolidated by the respective parties, no method was considered too cruel to help the parties retain that power. Rome’s praetorian guard also found distant relatives in the fascist and nazi states, as did Roman regalia and the classical attributes and themes on which the Roman Empire was built. But beyond that, one would be hard pressed to see any useful parallels. For instance, one of the most striking features of Germany and Italy were their regimentation; while the elites certainly had opportunities for the same illicit and licentious behavior as the Roman elite, and while they certainly did not hesitate to indulge in them, the ultimate ideology of the parties was always of paramount importance. Although the Holocaust was certainly as “depraved” as anything that Claudius described, Germany’s execution in exterminating Jews and other “undesirables” was far more planned and systematic than any of the cruelties enacted by Rome.

What I, Claudius does offer contemporary readers, however, is the opportunity to rubber-neck at the figurative train wrecks that littered the Roman empire. Powerful men and women, immortalized by their lineage and their positions of power and prestige, were done in by their own lasciviousness, greed, sexual depravity, and conspiracies. I, Claudius was provided with all the makings of a high-brow soap opera decades before General Hospital, As the World Turns, or West Wing would rivet generations of Americans and Brits to their couches. And comparing I, Claudius to television series is by no means anachronistic or mixing metaphors, for it was the British Broadcasting Company and America’s Public Broadcasting System, with the help of a brilliant performance by the British actor Derek Jacobi playing Claudius, that one could argue ultimately raised the book from its place as a solid, if forgettable, novel, to that of one the greatest novels ever written, at least in the eyes of Modern Library’s panel of judges.

Of course, one could argue with equal vigor that regardless of the success of the television series, the book would not survive if it was not good. There are countless examples, after all, of stellar movies that are based on all-but-forgotten books. This is true, and this brings us back to the original argument that Robert Graves knew what he was doing. By creating an archetypal character in Claudius (a composite “ugly duckling,” “Cinderella,” and bullied school boy), surrounding him with some of the richest and most memorable characters in history, and describing their respective demises in agonizing detail, Graves found for himself a winning recipe for a money-maker. But to be considered great, Claudius’s account of his life through 41 A.D. would have to have offered us insights into the 1934 world of its readers. If the insight that Graves is offering his readers is how train wrecks rivet us, then, yes, his novel is a great one, but otherwise I, Claudius the book offers little more than I, Claudius the television series and takes much longer to get through.

Source: Mark White, Critical Essay on I, Claudius, in Novels for Students, Thomson Gale, 2005.

The historical novel is a type of novel that generally distinguishes itself by being set in a time period previous to the one in which the author lives. Most storylines can be set in the past, usually for the simple purpose of establishing a backdrop to a story that is peopled by fictional characters. Even when the social situation of the time period is essential to the plot, it is the characters that dominate the story. For some plots, the historical time period is an interesting enhancement but is otherwise irrelevant; for example, the plot and characters of Cold Mountain could have been set in any war time, just as Romeo and Juliet has been adapted to a variety of time periods and worked very well in the twentieth-century New York City adaptation we all know as West Side Story. Certainly, the author and editor take pains to assure the accuracy of the historical setting, being careful not to use inappropriate fashion or language, or mention any event that had not yet happened or any device that had not yet been invented. With some historical novels, such as the currently popular Patrick O’Brian naval series set in the Napoleonic era, it is the remarkable extent of the detail about life in those times that has fascinated readers and gained the most acclaim. Then there is the type of historical novel as written by Robert Graves in I, Claudius.

From among the genre’s options, Graves chose to write a fictional story using real characters in a real setting; that is, his story was based on historical figures as well as a historical time period. The difference between a history book and a historical novel about real people is that the history book should be based solely on known facts, while the historical novel contains elements that may not be verifiable. In fact, some of the story may be a total invention of the author. Richard Cavendish, a reviewer for History Today, commented that “When the authors know their stuff, historical novels can make as enticing and informative a path to history as proper history books, which are not after all invariably free of fiction.” In the case of I, Claudius, the story is based on careful and extensive research on the part of Graves, but then he filled in the areas that historians would ordinarily leave blank or mark as questionable, unknown. Graves connects the known history with plausible assumptions and unique interpretations about the unknown motivations and behind-the-scene intrigues of the figures involved.

Graves took theories and suggestions from historians and wrote a story that plays out the possibilities. Daniel Aaron in an article for American Heritage, suggests that when a novelist, such as Gore Vidal writing Lincoln as a novel and not as a biography, “mixes disagreed-upon facts and agreed-upon facts, he is creating an extra but not necessarily nonhistorical compound.” In other words, when Graves addressed the “what if” of history through fiction, he might have actually guessed the truth. After all, those who were recording events at the time they were occurring might have done so with bias or malicious intent. Is a record of history always a fact just because it is written down, or might there be more to the story? Might some important link have been left out for purposes of discretion or just lack of space? If so, might not a writer be able to reconnect the links through both research and imagination?

Graves was actually a poet who brought his literary sensitivities to his historical research as well as a gift for psychological analysis. With these attributes, he was able to discern relationships and an unfolding of events that an academic historian would not have reported. Graves was also aware of the social and political biases of Roman historians such as Suetonius and Tacitus that caused them to disregard any evidence of intelligence and savvy in Claudius. In an interview about I, Claudius, Graves explained that he felt that Roman historians:

. . . had obviously got Claudius wrong . . . I didn’t think I was writing a novel. I was trying to find out the truth of Claudius. And there was some strange confluent feeling between Claudius and myself. . . . It’s a question of reconstructing a personality.

Graves studied a number of documents that Claudius wrote in an effort to get to know the onetime emperor of Rome. Adding this knowledge to the realization that Claudius had cerebral palsy led Graves to conclude that “The whole scene is so solid, really, that you feel you knew him personally, if you’re sympathetic with him. The poor man.”

Thomas Fleming, himself a historical novelist, notes that “Sometimes it is a special insight into a historical character that triggers an imaginative explosion.” Indeed, when Graves dared to venture into the mind of Claudius, he discovered that Claudius was perhaps not the deformed idiot that his family thought him to be, but a wily intellectual with enough survival instincts to play up his infirmities and thus put himself at a safe distance from the imperial intrigues. Then Graves was ingenious enough to construct the novel as if it were the autobiography of Claudius. What better proof of Claudius’ abilities and insights? Who better to explain his deception and serve as a bird’s-eye observer to important historical events than Claudius himself?

Fleming also advises that “fact can and should be woven into fiction so seamlessly [that] readers never stop to ask what is true in the literal sense and what is imaginative.” Graves certainly accomplishes that feat, even though he uses language that is very British, which sometimes jars the reader out of the illusion that the novel is the autobiography of Claudius. When Tiberius calls for an omelet and a couple of beef-cutlets, one has to wonder if these items were ever really on the menu in ancient Rome. “It has been difficult at times to find suitable renderings for military, legal and other technical terms,” Graves tells the reader in the “Author’s Note.” Nonetheless, his care in using correct terms in technical areas may or may not have carried over to other areas as well. In addition, the plan to hide the autobiography “in a lead casket and bury it deep in the ground,” trusting the Sibyl’s prophecy that it will be found in nineteen hundred years, is a contrivance of the author, as is the “confidential history” explanation. Therefore, the reader starts out knowing what game the author is playing with imagination and historical events. Nonetheless, as the novel progresses, everything seems so perfectly plausible that readers eventually forget the device of the novel. As Fleming adds, “All that should matter is the conviction that they are being taken inside events in a new revelatory, personal way.” There is nothing more personal than an autobiography, and revelations abound as Claudius confides in the audience.

Graves also saw the members of the Roman imperial family during the life of Claudius in a different light from historians. Using the character of Claudius as an observer and astute, skeptical reporter, Graves is able to turn rumors—that historians are obligated to ignore—into the juiciest parts of the novel. Consequently, there are some differences between his characters, drawn from history, and the generally accepted description of these people found in the annals of history. In other words, Graves may have assigned guilt or credit to different parties than the ordinary history book would because he felt that he had discerned the truth that was kept out of the public record.

Although some critics feel that historical fiction is most successful when it precisely and consistently reproduces the attitudes and lifestyles of its time period, it seems to be the nature of historical novels that they include a note of satire on contemporary times. Graves indicated an interest in using his novels to convey a modern message, and there are some telltale signs of this practice in I, Claudius, written in 1934. Graves was one of the first in Britain to warn of the potential trouble with the growth of fascism in Europe, particularly Germany. His description of Germans in I, Claudius are quite revealing of an attitude:

If Germans ever become civilized it will then be time to judge whether they are cowards or not. They seem, however, to be an exceptionally nervous and quarrelsome people, and I cannot make up my mind whether there is any immediate chance of their becoming really civilized.

Some readers feel that I, Claudius was written to parallel the fall of the British empire, although the fall of the Roman empire came long after the life of Claudius. Since the novel concentrates on relationships within the ruling family, other readers might suspect that I, Claudius is a parody of the Mafia since there are coincidentally so many striking similarities in the operation of this “family business.” For example, the remorseless Livia said that she “never contrived a murder” for her own benefit but only to remove those people who might stand in the way of the succession of her own sons and grandsons. This mentality is classic Mafia: knock off the competition to increase your own power and territory, but do not feel guilty because it is only business.

The historical novel can be a valuable educational tool because it teaches history in a format that readers find palatable and enjoyable. Readers start out reading a story and end up with new knowledge about a certain time period. Also, just as when movie-goers see “based on a true story” in the credits and dash home to look up the facts or check to see if there is a book on the subject, the historical novel has the potential to revive popular interest in the time period of the story (e.g., the renewed interest in the actual events connected to the Titanic after the blockbuster movie named after the ill-fated ship). Even more, Aaron, writing about what we can learn from a historical novel, speculated that “in reshaping popular conceptions of the past [historical fiction] might even revolutionize the study of history.” An ethical historical novelist will not purport that his/her version of history is closer to the truth than what has been previously established, but will stimulate scholars into considering the “what ifs” and perhaps reexamining the records in a new light. Such is the accomplishment of Graves and I, Claudius in that his extensive research, combined with psychological analysis and compassionate sensitivity, results in previously unconsidered possibilities for the motivations, credit, and blame for some of Roman history’s most famous people, and perhaps raises the reputation of “poor Claudius.”

Source: Lois Kerschen, Critical Essay on I, Claudius, in Novels for Students, Thomson Gale, 2005.