Claudius the God
By (Author) Robert Graves
Introduction by Barry Unsworth
Penguin Books Ltd
Penguin Classics
31st August 2006
3rd August 2006
United Kingdom
General
Fiction
823.912
Paperback
448
Width 129mm, Height 198mm, Spine 25mm
332g
First time published individually in Modern Classics, together with I, CLAUDIUS Claudius has survived the murderous intrigues of his predecessors to become, reluctantly, Emperor of Rome. Here he recounts his surprisingly successful reign- how he cultivates the loyalty of the army and the common people to repair the damage caused by Caligula; his relations with the Jewish King Herod Agrippa; and his invasion of Britain. But the growing paranoia of absolute power and the infidelity of his promiscuous young wife Messalina mean that his good fortune will not last forever. In this second part of Robert Graves's fictionalized autobiography, Claudius - wry, rueful, always inquisitive - brings to life some of the most scandalous and violent times in history.
Robert Graves was born in 1895 in Wimbledon. He went from school to the First World War, where he became a captain in the Royal Welch Fusiliers and was seriously wounded at the Battle of the Somme. He wrote his autobiography, Goodbye to All That, in 1929, and it was soon established as a modern classic. He died on 7 December 1985 in Majorca, his home since 1929.