Claudius The God and his wife Messalina

Robert Graves

In the sequel to I, Claudius a republican Roman Emperor writes the inside story of his reign.

Men classed Claudius as a pitiful fool. But the reign he describes is far from folly. Reluctantly launched into the purple, he emerges as a man who erred on the side of good nature and credulity. It is the common people and the common soldiers who sustain him in his efforts to repair the damage of Caligula’s reign, in his relations with the Jewish king, Herod Agrippa, his conquest of Britain, and his final reckoning with his promiscuous wife, Messalina.

In one of the finest historical reconstructions of the century Robert Graves has created a character to compare with Dostoyevsky’s Prince Myshkin.