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The Big Read II: I, Claudius -- Robert Graves Chapters 30-34

Chapter Thirty -- Caligula = Mr. Crazy.

• I never had much regard for Claudius' mother, what with her treatment of him and all, but I did respect her at the end for just going for it and telling off Caligula.  It was clear that she was done with life, but speaking to him like that was a gamble, I think.  (If he'd been in a different mood, it's quite possible that her death wouldn't have been on her own terms.)

• Cassius Chaerea is still alive?  Wow.  I hope he doesn't come to a bad end.  He's awesome.

• I knew Macro's governorship of Egypt had to be a trick.  Caligula learned some of his tricks from Tiberius, eh?  And he got rid of Macro's wife, too.  (I knew that was coming -- back in the last chapter, Claudius mentioned that Caligula was tiring of their affair.)

• Re: the story of Caligula taking a fancy to someone else's new bride, carrying her off to the Palace, marrying her and then divorcing and banishing her in two months' time -- Good Lord. 

• More of Caligula's crazy:

"Drusilla died.  I am certain in my own mind that Caligula killed her but I have no proof.  whenever he kissed a woman now, I am told, he used to say:"As white and lovely a neck as this is, I have only to give the word, and slash! It will be cut clean through."  if the neck was particularly white and lovely he could sometimes not resist the temptation of giving the word and seeing his boast proved true.  In the case of Drusilla, I think that he struck the blow himself." 

What do the different histories say about Drusilla?  Was she a willing participant in Caligula's games (madness?  lifestyle?), or was she caught in a horrible situation due to being his sister?  The bit way-back-when about something green in his bedroom suggested to me that he'd drugged her that first time they were caught, and I've wondered about that ever since.

• Calpurnia continues to be wise and witty, to prefer cash to luxury items, and is the best thing in Claudius' life, from what I can gather.

• "I wish you had only a single neck.  I'd hack it through!"  That's a tantrum from a spoiled child.  Why doesn't someone realize that Caligula himself only has a single neck?  Why on earth would Claudius avenge Caligula's death?

• "The crowd jeered and booed them.  This was what Caligula had been waiting for.  He sent his officers to arrest the men who were making the most noise and put them into the arena to see if they would do any better.  The mangy lions and panthers and sick bears and worn-out bulls made short work of them."  He's horrid, but he's got a talent for irony. 

• Geek moment:  I realized that Caligula was probably the inspiration for the young Centuari emperor from Babylon 5.  (The one that Londo and Vir assassinate with G'Kar's help.)

• I'm glad to see that the general populace is finally starting to grumble.

• Ooo.  Caligula ran away from the amphitheater due to the crowd's ugliness and told Claudius to "take on the presidency from him".  Claudius calms the crowd and then, in a few days, when Caligula slinks back into town, manages him splendidly as well. 

• "...both forgeries in my opinion, but such early forgeries as to be practically genuine..."  Heh.  "It was the most impressive theatrical spectacle, I should think, that the world has ever seen, and I am sure it was the most pointless.  But how everybody enjoyed it!"  Double-heh. 

• This was so ridiculously horrible that, yes, I admit it, it made me laugh:

"The effect of drink on Caligula was always to make him a little mischievous.  At the head of the Scouts and the German bodyguard he charged about the island and along the line of shops, pushing people into the sea.  The water was so calm that it was only the dead-drunk, the decrepit, the aged and little children who failed to save themselves.  Not more than two or three hundred were drowned." 

I realize that that makes me a bad person.

Chapter Thirty-One -- "His new ways of raising money were most ingenious and amused all but the victims and their friends or dependents."

• A perfect example of why Claudius has survived for so long:

When I say that I won my five thousand, I mean that I would have won it if I hadn't been tactful enough to call the bet off.  "For one man to kill five isn't fair fighting," I said.

• Caligula is now channeling Tiberius.  Great.  As if one or the other isn't bad enough.

• Caligula has finally publicly announced his Divinity.  I had hoped that that might be too much for the people of Rome, but they seem to have taken it in stride.

• Another close call for Claudius.  Phew.  He's so good at playing Caligula.  But, then, he's known Caligula for Caligula's entire life.  That's got to give him an edge, even with the crazy.

• I KNEW IT.  All of those gifts Claudius gave Calpurnia finally came in handy.  (The scenes where he promised her gifts and she said she preferred cash reminded me of the money enclosed in the letters Steve Martin would write home in The Jerk -- the money that turned everything around at the end.  I can't believe I just compared I, Claudius to The Jerk.)

• ""Will you make me a Goddess is I kill Mamma?"  the little fiend lisped.  "I hate Mamma.""  Super.  Wait, who was it that Claudius said was shaping up to the the Baddest of the Bad Claudians?

• So long to Ganymede (executed), Lesbia and Agrippinilla (both banished). 

• The scene at Lyons was amazing.  Did Caligula ever act on his whim to burn the poetry? 

Chapter Thirty-Two -- Caligula goes to war, comes home and goes even more crazy.

• A scary moment:

He looked at me, uncomfortably, through narrowed eyelids.  "Do you think I'm mad?" he asked, after a time.

I laughed nervously.  "Mad, Caesar?  You ask whether I think you mad?  Why, you set the standard of sanity for the whole habitable world."

• Excellent.  His battle against Neptune was a shining example of his sanity.  As was this:  "For German captives he had three hundred real ones and all the tallest men he could find in France, wearing yellow wigs and German clothes and talking together in a jargon supposed to be German."

• Why are the soldiers always doing things like burning down the prostitutes' quarter?  You'd think that'd be a place they'd want to protect with their lives.

• I'm sort of amazed Caligula hasn't been struck by lightning.  I loved this:  "But the ship was struck by lightning just before it was launched.  Or this, at least, was the report--I believe, really, that the superstitious crew burned it on purpose."  I also, of course, loved the story about the French shoemaker.

• "For Caligula made use to the medicine chest that he had inherited from my grandmother Livia."  Who, by the way, still hasn't been made into a Goddess, right?

• Caligula's dance results in yet-another marriage for Claudius.  I feel bad for Calpurnia. 

Chapter Thirty-Three -- Except for the "Claudius dies, too" part of the plot, I LOVE CASSIUS CHAEREA.

• I can't believe that he referred to himself as "not very clever".  I know he's big into the self-deprecation, but that's just silly.

• An assassination plot that doesn't work out (and may or may not have not been a plot to begin with) gets Caligula all worked up.  He is rather cowardly, isn't he?  (I loved it when he ran away from the non-existent army in the last chapter.)

• Another plot, this time more successful.  I think.

Chapter Thirty-Four -- "They said I looked like a criminal being hauled away to execution."

• Caligula's assassination was very bloody.  It was the "severing his jaw" that really got me.

• Claudius is finally made Emperor. He was, of course, the second nominee.  The first was Caligula's horse.

• The end.  That was rather... sudden.  Maybe Robert Graves got writer's cramp.  Well, obviously, I've got to read Claudius the God -- and soon.

Previous posts:

Reading schedule
Chapters 1-3
Chapters 4-6
Chapters 7-10
Chapters 11-13
Chapters 14-16
Chapters 17-19
Chapters 20-22
Chapters 23-26
Chapters 27-29

Other reader/bloggers:

Adventures in Multiplicity
Becky's Book Reviews
There's Always Time for a Book (even on vacation in Spain!)

The Big Read II: I, Claudius -- Robert Graves Chapters 27-29

Chapter Twenty-Seven -- In which Tiberius is a million times worse than Livia ever was.

• Ah ha!:

"I could never have thought it possible that I would miss Livia when she died. ... For it was clear that it had long been only the fear of his mother that had kept Tiberius within bounds. ... Everyone was wondering on just how much popular support Germanicus's family could count on now that Tiberius was preparing to victimize them; and whether it would not be safer to go against Tiberius than against the populace."

I vote to go against Tiberius!  Take him down!  Come ON!  Er, but that means Caligula would be up next, right?  And there are only five chapters after this one?  Yeesh.  I really am going to have to read Claudius the God.

I've been thinking about the "Livia was just and capable" bit in the last section.  The big difference between Livia and Tiberius' murderous tendencies is that Livia murdered mostly for personal gain and for (in her mind) the Good of the Empire.  (Camilla may have taken issue with that.)  Tiberius takes people out because he's embarrassed by them, scared of them, angry or he just feels like it.  He's ruled by his desires, and Livia used her head.  Of the two, I'd much rather live under Livia's rule than Tiberius'.  She, at least, was consistent in her scariness -- Tiberius' feelings changed daily. 

And, of course, I like Livia more than Tiberius for the same reason that I found Maxim more likable after I found out what Really Happened to Rebecca -- Livia is a tough lady, and Tiberius is a wiener.

• Auuugh.  See?  In two pages, Tiberius has banished Agrippina (who he first beat until she lost the sight in one eye) and Nero, locked up Drusus, had the Senate Recorder (who spoke out against Tiberius' desire to go after Germanicus' family) killed (it says he committed suicide), and locked up Gallus in a tiny room where he's being kept, alive and miserable.  I'm still hoping Gallus will make it, though -- if he died in that tiny room, wouldn't Claudius have said so, to finish off his part of the story? 

• Well, that's a different way of going about things:

The first thing that happened was that Helen became an invalid--we know now that Livilla had given her the choice of taking to her bed as if she were ill or of taking to her bed because she was ill.

Nice to give Helen a choice, I guess.  I'd have gone to Naples, too -- who in their right mind (that clearly excepts Livilla) would want to marry Sejanus?

• So.  Sejanus.  I admit that Tiberius' handling of Sejanus himself was somewhat impressive (though I wonder how much of the planning was done by him and how much was done by Caligula). While I was glad to see him go, my eyeballs popped more and more as I read about what was done to his family and friends.  Horror-level-wise, it even beat the lobster.  Livilla's death was something else, too.

• What does Tiberius do with all of the money he's raking in?  Swim in it like Scrooge McDuck?

Chapter Twenty-Eight -- FINALLY!

• Auuugh.  They all died.  Gallus, Agrippina, Drusus, Nero.  And Tiberius' letter to the Senate about Gallus' death "...regretting, in the case of Gallus, that "the press of public business had constantly postponed his trial so that he had died before his guilt could be proved"."  He killed my Gallus, and he killed him slow.  I hate Tiberius so very, very much.

• "She was accused of adultery with a slave and not being able to deny the charge (for she was found in bed with him) took her own life."  That's the first time I've laughed in a while.  (Which obviously isn't to say that I'm not enjoying myself.  I laughed, too, when Claudius said that when Tiberius suffered from attacks of remorse, Caligula cheered him up by talking about new kinds of vice.)

• I keep reading Macro as Marco.

• What a scene!  The I'm-Not-Dead-Yet-Tiberius scaring the wits out of the would-be-thieving-slave, Caligula terrified about stealing the signet ring early, and Macro taking matters into his own hands and smothering Tiberius.  It probably makes me a bad person, but the whole picture was pretty comical.  I do suspect that the days of Caligula will make me long for the days of Tiberius.  Funny that Livia told everyone that Augustus was still alive for a day after he'd already died, and Marco told everyone that Tiberius had been dead an hour when he was still alive.

• I'm rather glad to see that the people of Rome didn't suddenly decide that Tiberius was wonderful just because he was, you know, dead. 

Chapter Twenty-Nine -- Hey, Big Spender.

• "It amused Caligula at first to encourage the absurd misconception that everyone but myself and my mother and Macro and one or two others had of his character, and even to perform a number of acts in keeping with it."  Claudius has me giggling again.

• Somehow I suspect that Caligula will have no qualms about taking out Macro, not to mention Gemellus. 

• What was with Tiberius' will?  Was he feeling super-guilty when he wrote it?

• And why is Caligula bothering to do right by Claudius?  Is it because of Thrasyllus' predictions?  Those seem to be the only thing he'd put much stock in -- it isn't like he had any real respect for Livia or Tiberius.

• Calpurnia is fab: 

"I'd prefer cash," she said, "if you don't mind."

• Caligula has gone through seven million gold pieces in three months.  I'm with Calpurnia.  There is no fun on the horizon.

• "...Caligula's stern speeches against all sorts of immorality..."  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!  And then:  "His own morals seemed not to come into the scope of his scriptures."  Heh.

• Part of me wants to know what Caligula and "The Scouts" get up to.  Most of me doesn't.

• "Caligula's three sisters, Drusilla, Agrippinilla and Lesbia, had all been married to noblemen; but he insisted on their coming to the Palace and living there.  Agrippinilla and Lesbia were told to bring their husbands with them, but Drusilla had to leave hers behind; his name was Cassius Longinus and he was sent to govern Asia Minor."  Greaaaaat.  That won't get people talking or anything.

• I shouldn't have been surprised, but I was:  I almost fainted when Caligula revealed the truth about Germanicus' death.  As for all of the I'm-A-God stuff, well, we always knew he was bonkers.

Previous posts:

Reading schedule
Chapters 1-3
Chapters 4-6
Chapters 7-10
Chapters 11-13
Chapters 14-16
Chapters 17-19
Chapters 20-22
Chapters 23-26

Other reader/bloggers:

Becky's Book Reviews
Adventures in Multiplicity

The Big Read II: I, Claudius -- Robert Graves Chapters 23-26

Chapter Twenty-Three -- D-I-V-O-R-C-E.

• Why is Sejanus being nice to Claudius?  I'm very suspicious.  And of course Tiberius would keep all of the winnings.  Jerk.  I'm just surprised there was no mention of Leek Green being hobbled.

• Claudius' mother says:

"Caligula's a monster and Drusilla's a she-monster, and you're a blockhead, and I believe my eyes more than their oaths or your nonsense.  I shall go to Tiberius first thing to-morrow."

That's the first sensible thing (minus the blockhead bit, of course) that's she's said in 265 pages.  Of course, I still don't know what they did or if they did it.  I am surprised Claudius is so ready to defend Caligula, especially, what with the whole arson-at-age-three thing.  I love my Claudius, but he seems much too trustworthy, considering the events he's witnessed and the life he's led.

• Plautius on his reasons for divorcing Numantina:

But, to tell the truth, I've been rather a fix lately with some debts.  I had bad luck some years ago as a junior magistrate.  You know how much one is expected to spend out of one's own pockets on Games.  Well, to begin with, I spent more than I could afford and had extremely bad luck besides, you may remember.  Twice there was a mistake made in procedure halfway through the Games and I had to start all over again the next day.  The first time it was my own fault: I used a form of prayer which had been altered by statue two years previously.  The next time a trumpeter who was blowing a long call had not taken a deep enough breath:  he broke off short and that was enough to end things a second time.  So I had to pay the sword-fighters and charioteers three times over.

WHAT A RACKET!  I wonder if the sword-fighters and charioteers ever paid the trumpeters to screw up.  And then Urgulanilla throws the new wife out the window!  Yow.  "She groped for my throat in the dark."  To check if he's asleep?  To kill him?  Was that a super-close call?  Wow.  So Urgulanilla brought about her brother's death.  Did she just do it because she was angry on Numantina's account?  Because she wanted his money?  The first seems most likely -- she doesn't seem bright enough for much strategic planning.  Then again, a lot of people think Claudius isn't all that bright, either.   

• Wow.  Sejanus took advantage of Urgulanilla's Numantina obsession and made it possible for Claudius to re-marry?  WHAT is his angle?  Ah.  He wants Claudius to marry his adopted sister.  Well, at least he didn't insult Claudius' intelligence by trying to flatter him into it.

• OH.  MY.  GOD.  Not only did Sejanus bring about the divorce, but he manipulated Urgulanilla into murdering Apronia in the first place?  This guy is a younger, male Livia.  Watch out for him, Claudius! 

• The bit about Urgulanilla's will was a bit of a heart-breaker:

"I don't care what people say, but Claudius is no fool."  She left me a collection of Greek gems, some Persian embroideries, and her portrait of Numantina.

The portrait of Numantina was her (I'd assume) most prized possession, and she left it to her long-divorced husband.  Sad that she didn't have anyone else.  But I'm glad that Claudius was always decent to her.

Chapter Twenty-Four -- Tiberius vs. Livia.

• Tiberius and Livia aren't speaking.  Please, please, please let that mean that she'll take him out soon.

• Tiberius is either very brave, very stupid, or he's got a whole lot more on Livia than I thought:

And the day before he had refused to appoint one of her nominees to a vacant judgeship, unless he were permitted to qualify the appointment with:  "This person is the choice of my mother, Livia Augusta, to whose importunities in his interest I have been forced to give way, against my better knowledge of his character and capacities."

• "Perhaps, ladies, it would be best to say nothing to your husbands about these peculiar letters.  I did not realize, in fact, when I began to read, how--how peculiar they were.  I am not asking you this on my own account but for the sake of the Empire."  HA!  She had fifty-two years of Augustus' letters to choose from and she just happened to pick the ones that would be the most damaging to Tiberius?  Eighty-three years old and she's still got it.  Tiberius can't last much longer.  Right?

• Well, gosh, Tiberius.  Why ever would you think that Lentelus had something against you?  What, because you drove his father to suicide and then he left his entire fortune to you out of fear?  NONSENSE.  Or because you raised ridiculous charges of treason against him?  No man in his right mind would ever hold a grudge because of little things like that.

• "But this wonderful old woman was not defeated yet, as you shall read."  I really love it that Claudius seems to feel the same awe about Livia that I do.  He hates her, of course, but there's a good amount of respect there, too.  His mood changes so much depending on what he's writing about, and it's so easy to pick up on it.  I can't think of many other books that have felt like this.

• And I'm impressed that he's attempting to be fair:

Of six million Roman citizens, a mere two or three hundred suffered for Tiberius' jealous fears.  And I do not know how many scores of millions of slaves and provincials, and allies who were subjects in all but name, benefited solidly by the Imperial system as perfected by Augustus and Livia and carried on in this tradition by Tiberius.  But I was living in the apple's core, so to speak, and I can be pardoned if I write more about the central canker than about the still unblemished and fragrant outer part.

It's the historian in him, I'm sure, that drives him to be fair.  Because he's in it, and he's been much more fair than I ever could be.

• Ah.  But then he followed all of that up with a somewhat hilarious story about yet another Sejanus-engineered situation. The image of the drill sergeant bawling out horrible things about Tiberius in front of the entire Senate killed me.  And then Claudius followed it up with Tiberius' awful treatment of Agrippina (not to mention all of her friends).  So it went:  See, Tiberius Wasn't That Bad -- But I'll Follow That Up By Telling You About The Lives He Ruined.  It does seem like the era of Livia and Tiberius is coming to an end.

Chapter Twenty-Five -- My Dinner with Livia.

• This sums up the entire chapter:  "This conversation was like the sort one has in dreams--mad but interesting."  Caligula will be the next Emperor, Livia will die in three years, and Claudius has sworn not only to make Livia a Goddess after her death, but to avenge Caligula's murder after it happens.  Phew.  I don't even remotely doubt any of this.  And I suspect I'll be back to re-read this chapter a couple of times.  WHAT DID LIVIA DISCOVER IN CALIGULA'S ROOM?  It was green.  Has he been drugging his sister with those green sex flies?

Chapter Twenty-Six -- Tiberius is Emperor in Name Only; the Death of Livia.

• Wow.  Sejanus really is going for it, isn't he?  Power grab city.  Tiberius is pretty much done being the Emperor -- out of Rome and just passing instructions on to Sejanus -- though he's going to live for another eleven years.  Oh, and he's still a pervert.

• Oh, hell.  Now I'm all worried about Gallus again.  He's made it so far!  Can't he an Agrippina have a happy ending?  Please?

• The last interaction between Tiberius and Livia was rather wonderful.

• Of all the things Tiberius has done, somehow I found the lobster incident the most shocking.

• Claudius' new wife has "the loud persistent eloquence of an auctioneer in the slave-market".  Poor guy.

• Uh oh.  While I'm finding Gallus' harassment of Sejanus hilarious (of course), this was very worrisome:  Tiberius is planning to "take steps to silence Gallus".

• Caligula shows his true colors at Livia's deathbed, laughing at her and telling her that he's not going to keep his word -- that she can "go to Hell and stew there forever".  Livia finally dies, with Claudius by her side.  Tiberius, of course, doesn't pay out any of her bequests, including the twenty thousand gold pieces she left to Claudius.  (Man, she really turned around about him in her last few years, didn't she?)  I'm strangely depressed that her part of the story is over.

Previous posts:

Reading schedule
Chapters 1-3
Chapters 4-6
Chapters 7-10
Chapters 11-13
Chapters 14-16
Chapters 17-19
Chapters 20-22

Other reader/bloggers:

Reading with Becky
Adventures in Multiplicity

The Big Read II: I, Claudius -- Robert Graves Chapters 20-22

Chapter Twenty -- Another one bites the dust.

• "So these two histories, each of which I could have written in a year or two if I had been less conscientious, kept me busy for some twenty-five years."  Heh.

• "This was only one of many recent occasions on which Caligula had spoken insolently to Germanicus, and Germanicus now decided that it was no use treating him in the gentle, friendly way he treated the other children--that the only course with Caligula was strict disciple and severe punishments."  Uh oh.  Somehow I don't see that going well in the long run.  (Not that I have another option in mind!)

• Man, these poor guys can't win with me.  I want Tiberius to Be Good, but at the same time, I want Germanicus to occasionally Be Bad.  Case in point:  I'd have approved if he'd abandoned Piso in the storm.

• Another character I'd like to see taken down:  Sejanus.  "Perhaps the best course of action for them to take, he said, would be to pay whatever protection-money was demanded with as little fuss as possible."  GAH.

• "...incompetent, avaricious, bloody-minded sexagenarian debauchee."  Okay, Germanicus just made up for not abandoning Piso.  That was AWESOME. 

• A page later:  Oh, good lord.  Please let Agrippina pull a Livia and poison Plancina.  I think she's more likely to Be Bad in a Good Way than Germanicus. 

• "...the great stone statue of Memnon, the breast of which is hollow, and which shortly after the sun rises begins to sing, because the air in the hollow becomes warm and rises in a current through the pipe-shaped throat."  That's so cool! 

• Germanicus is poisoned!  (Maybe.)  Not dead yet, though.

• "Germanicus had always been extremely superstitious like every member of our family but myself:  I am only somewhat superstitious."  Hee hee hee.  A few paragraphs later:  OH MY GOD.  I can't blame him for being superstitious.  And no wonder the house was smelly.

• He DIED??  I really thought the only way he'd die would be in battle or some other straightforward way.  He just seemed like that kind of guy.  Man, I'm more upset than I thought I'd be.

Chapter Twenty-One -- The trials of Piso and Plancina.

• This chapter had me so hooked that I didn't take any notes other than:  WOW.  No wonder Plancina and Livia are friends.  Also, I'm glad that Gallus is still alive.  And Sejanus and Livilla are a well-matched couple, even if they aren't married.  And holy cow, can Livia and Tiberius even go out in public?  Everyone HATES them.

Chapter Twenty-Two -- In which I become REALLY frustrated with the Senate. 

• More on Tiberius' sexual depravity:

But one woman, a Consul's wife, committed suicide afterwards in the presence of her friends, telling them that she had been forced to save her young daughter from Tiberius's lust by consenting to prostitute herself to him, which was shameful enough; but then the Old He-Goat had taken such advantage of her complaisance by forcing her to such abominable acts of filthiness with him that she preferred to die rather than to live on with the memory of them. 

Yikes.  Once again, Claudius leaves it to the imagination.

• "Agrippina did not trust her, but it was clear that Livia and Tiberius were at enmity, and she felt, she told me, that if she had to choose between the protection of one or the other she would prefer to be under Livia's."  Same here.  But as Claudius points out, what will happen when Livia dies?  (I LOVE it, by the way, that she's probably the one behind the nasty songs about Tiberius.)

• Livia and Caligula have a strong bond.  Super.  (And by super, of course, I mean not super at all.)

• "It was clear that Livia, not having been consulted about the marriage of one of her own great-grandchildren, had arranged for the child to be strangled and the pear crammed down his throat afterwards.  As was the custom in such cases, the pear tree was charged with murder and sentenced to be uprooted and burned."  Livia had been so much in the background for a while there that I'd stopped seeing her as a major player -- clearly these last few chapters have proved me wrong.  Were the Romans the only ones who charged objects with murder?  I feel like I've run across that before.

• On the story behind Castor's nickname:  Ewwww.  Aaaaand then he dies.

• The young people are really coming into their own, Livilla especially.

• The Leek Green party sounds like the least-scary secret society name ever, but Tiberius is super-paranoid and easily-led.  (Have I mentioned lately that I hate him?  Sejanus is horrible, but he at least gets points for having a Big Brain.)

• Silius.  WOW.  That was HARDCORE, right down to the pre-planning.  Gallus continues to be wonderful.

• What is wrong with the Senate?  Why don't they just rush Tiberius and Take Him Out?

• "So the tragedy, which everyone had laughed at because it was so lamely and wretchedly composed, won a sort of dignity by having all its copies called it and burned and its author executed."  For the most part, these chapters have had me laughing a lot less -- but that line got a guffaw.

Previous posts:

Reading schedule
Chapters 1-3
Chapters 4-6
Chapters 7-10
Chapters 11-13
Chapters 14-16
Chapters 17-19

Other reader/bloggers:

Reading with Becky
Adventures in Multiplicity
Garish & Tweed

The Big Read II: I, Claudius -- Robert Graves Chapters 17-19

Sorry I missed Friday -- the time change finally caught up with me and I slept through my alarm.  Twice. 

Then I had to work Saturday and ended up in Migraine City.  LAME. 

And Sunday was busier than I expected, as it has a tendency to be.  Anyway...

Chapter Seventeen -- Comedy in the Senate, Claudius' Sex Life, a Dream Prophecy.

• On Tiberius' communication with the Senate:

The Senate soon found that if he spoke with studied elegance in favour of a motion he meant that he wanted it voted against, and that if he spoke with studied elegance against it this meant that he wanted it passed; and that on the very few occasions when he spoke briefly and without any rhetoric he meant to be taken literally.  Gallus and an old wag called Haterius used to delight in making speeches in warm agreement with Tiberius, enlarging his arguments to a point only just short of absurdity and then voting the way he really wanted them to vote; thus showing that they understood his tricks perfectly.

Fabulous.  I continue to love (and worry about) Gallus.  And Haterius sounds like the sort of name a friend of mine would choose to use in a Death Metal Forum.

• "When they saw that there was nothing that Tiberius hated so much as hearing Livia praised they kept it up.  Haterius ever suggested that just as the Greeks were called by their fathers' names, so Tiberius should be named after his mother and that it should be a crime to call him other than Tiberius Liviades--or perhaps Livigena would be the more correct Latin form."  Oh.  My.  God.  First of all, I'm shocked that he hasn't offed them yet.  Second, I totally want to be friends with them.

• "Though Tiberius hated his mother more than ever, he continued to let her rule him."  And that, my friends, is my issue with Tiberius.  I'd probably respect him more if he ran away in the middle of the night... or broke down and indulged in a little matricide.  (The second option really wouldn't work out all that well, because then he'd really, truly be in power, and that, I suspect, would be disastrous.)

• Wow.  Sejanus (doesn't Janus the God have two faces?) sounds like a younger, male Livia.  Except I doubt he would make "an exceptionally able and just ruler".

• I admit it.  I glazed over during the description of the code.  I do the same thing when I hit the code bits in the Dorothy Sayers books.  (Happily, this was just a few lines.  In the Lord Peter stories, the codes go on forever.)

• "I published the book and one or two people said that my suggestions were sensible, but of course it had absolutely no result."  Awww.  Poor Claudius.  Again.

Chapter Eighteen -- The Return of Postumus.

•  Holy cow, I can't believe how quickly things have changed:

...popular feeling now ran so strongly in sympathy with Postumus and against Tiberius and Livia that if a single favourable word had come from Germanicus the whole City, including the Guards and the City battalions, would have come over to him at once.

Where is Germanicus??  I am Freaking Out.  I do love it that not even the general populace believes that Tiberius is really in power.

• NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO:

Tiberius told a slave to strike Postumus on the mouth for his insolence, and he was then put on the rack and asked to reveal his fellow-conspirators.  But he would only tell scandalous anecdotes of the private life of Tiberius, which were so disgusting and so circumstantial that Tiberius lost his temper and battered his face in with his great bony fists.  The soldiers finished the bloody work by beheading him and hacking him into pieces in the cellar of the Palace.

I am so depressed.  Something really, really horrible had better happen to Tiberius.  Really, really, really horrible.  Really, really, really, really horrible.  Times a bazillion.  I'm VERY upset.  I mean, I KNEW there was no way that Postumus would get away with being so ridiculously awesome, but I HOPED that he would -- you know?

• I know that I shouldn't worried about Claudius because he's, you know, the one telling the story -- but knowing that someone (probably Livia or Tiberius or in the employ of Livia or Tiberius) intercepted all those letters to Germanicus...  Yeah, I'm worried.

Chapter Nineteen -- Comedy on the German Front, Germanicus' return home, the End of Hermann.

• "Come on then, you one-eyed bean-eating slave, you!"  Heh.  Claudius is right -- that conversation was hilarious.  And Germanicus gets mega-points from me for transcribing it.

• In the description of Germanicus' triumphal procession, 'cars' are mentioned a few times.  I couldn't help but picture convertibles.

• Rats!  Claudius is sent to Carthage so he can't tell Germanicus about Postumus.  There MUST be a way for him to get around Livia's spies.  I'm shocked that there hasn't been an attempt on his life.

• Professional informers.  That's all Rome needs.

• We finally get the fleshed-out version of the Urgulania Gets Summoned to Debtors' Court story.  Livia really has mellowed -- in the old days, she'd have never paid the debt.  She would have just poisoned Calpurnius.

• Hermann finally gets done in, and by his own family, too -- moral:  Don't Get Too Big For Your Britches.  There has been a lot of hacking to pieces over the last few chapters.

Previous posts:

Reading schedule
Chapters 1-3
Chapters 4-6
Chapters 7-10
Chapters 11-13
Chapters 14-16

Heidi's way-cool bubbl.us page

Other reader/bloggers:

Adventures in Multiplicity (on the mind map)
Reading with Becky
Garish & Tweed

The Big Read II: I, Claudius -- Robert Graves Chapters 14-16

Chapter Fourteen -- The Augustus Aftermath.

• On the Senate's debate about officially deifying Augustus:

It is possible that Gallus would have succeeded in blocking the decree by this appeal to Roman pride and sanity had it not been for a man called Atticus, a senior magistrate.

Once again, Claudius subtly (har har) slips his opinion in there.  I love it when he does that.  And then, just a little bit later, when he writes about the deaths of Romulus and Hercules, he does his story within a story thing -- I love that.  (Okay, about the reference to Hercules being poisoned by his wife -- was Gallus suggesting that there WAS a parallel, that there was NOT a parallel, and if he was saying there was NOT a parallel, was he actually saying there was?  My head hurts.)

• The Vestal Virgins have Augustus' will?  Oh, I'm sure it's totally safe with them, then.  Not.

• Wait, Tiberius KNEW about the suppressed will?  Dirtbag.  Even if he went along with the suppression because he's afraid of Livia, couldn't he have, I don't know, left it lying around in public somewhere?

• Gallus rules.  I hope nothing bad happens to him due to calling Tiberius' crappy bluff.

• Ah.  Yes.  Fear of Livia is clearly part of Tiberius' assholic behavior:

There was another explanation of this cautious behavior of his, namely that Livia had boasted in pubic that he was receiving the monarchy as a gift from her hands.  She made the boast not only to strengthen her position at Augustus's widow but to warn Tiberius that if her crimes ever came to light he would be regarded as her accomplice, being the person who principally benefited from them.

• So now everyone but Livia thinks Postumus is dead.  Where IS he?

Chapter Fifteen -- Mutiny and Dice.

• "They asked why in Hell's name had he come then if he had no power to do anything for them."

Fair question.  And, sheesh, I don't blame the soldiers for revolting in either situation.  Also, why do they know what a beast Livia is when it's taken the people so much closer to her so much longer to figure it out?  Is it just easier to see the Eeevil from a distance, did Everything Change after Augustus' death, or are Rumors Flying?  I don't know why I'm feeling so indecisive today. 

• While I don't blame the soldiers for revolting, sacking France might be a tad excessive.  March on Rome, guys!  March on Rome!  (Sorry.  I've developed a real dislike for Tiberius.)

• Tiberius plans to go to Germany to "do his own dirty work":

He therefore told the Senate that he would go to Germany, and began slowly to make preparations, choosing his staff and fitting out a small fleet.  But by the time he was ready the approach of winter made navigation dangerous and the news from Germany was more hopeful.  So he did not go.  He had not intended to go.

I wish I had a time machine.  I'd go back in time and spray-paint TIBERIUS STINKS on every available surface.

• Claudius' humorous book on dice falls flat.  Claudius just can't win.  Also, what happens if he runs out of money?  And did the real will get destroyed?  Will it be discovered at the eleventh hour, just as Claudius is about to marry the eeevil Stefano DiMera because he's broke?  Oh, wait.  Sorry.  I'm mixing up my soaps.

Chapter Sixteen -- Enter Caligula.

• As I said, Enter Caligula.  I wondered when he would turn up.  No, I've never seen the movie.

• Wow.  Everyone is so open about their distrust of Livia now:

Germanicus insisted on Agrippina's going away, though she swore that she was afraid of nothing and would far rather die with him there than have news from safety of his murder by the mutineers.  But he asked her whether she thought Livia would make a good mother for their orphaned children, and this decided her to do as he wished.

Well, open about it as long as Livia isn't there, I'd wager.

• Holy cow, these soldiers are fickle.  All it finally took was the loss of young Caligula the good luck charm, and they ended it.  Almost a hundred men beheaded in two hours.  What a gruesome scene.  And then:

So everything was all right again at Bonn, and Caligula was told by the men that he had put down the mutiny single-handed and that one day he'd be a great emperor and win wonderful victories; which was very bad for the child, who was already, as I say, disgracefully spoilt.

Uh oh.

• "He divided his forces into four columns and wasted the country on a fifty-mile frontage, burning the villages and slaughtering the inhabitants without respect for age or sex."  I wouldn't have expected that from Germanicus.

• And, at three years old, Caligula burns Claudius' house down.  On purpose.  Excellent.  Is it wrong of me to dislike a three-year-old so intensely?  Probably.  I do really hope something awful happens to Tiberius.  (I think he makes me crazy because, while he is one of the Bad Apple Claudians, he is still "easily tempted to virtue", so I feel like he should step up.)  To balance all that out, I totally adore Agrippina.

Previous posts:

Reading schedule
Chapters 1-3
Chapters 4-6
Chapters 7-10
Chapters 11-13

Other reader/bloggers:

Becky's Online Reading Group
Garish & Tweed
Adventures in Multiplicity
There's Always Time for a Book

The Big Read II: I, Claudius -- Robert Graves Chapters 11-13

Chapter Eleven -- Famine, sword fights, fainting, banishment and a secret alliance.

• "There were some present who saw an omen in this similarity between my dress and Augustus's, further remarking that I had been born on the first day of the month named after him, and at Lyons, too, on the very day that he had dedicated an altar there to himself.  Or, at any rate, that was what they said they had said, many years after."  No, he's not cynical at all, is he?  He's probably right, of course.  How did that work, dedicating an altar to yourself?  Were offerings to the gods made there in your name, or were offerings made to you?

• So, usually the sword fights were WWF-style fakery?  Did they usually go easier on the gentlemen-turned-slaves-turned-sword-fighters than on the regular slaves?  I know nothing about this period, and clearly need to know more.  I need a list of books, please.

• "...and a third had his shield-arm lopped off close to the shoulder, which caused roars of laughter."  This is not one of those historical novels that makes me thing, "Le sigh and le swoon.  I was born in the wrong era."

• The fight between the Roach and the Thessalian was wonderful and awful:  "Then he returned to the pleasant task of goading and dispatching an unarmed man."  Livia's comment about it at the end was also wonderful and awful:  "And served him right.  That's what comes of underrating one's opponent.  I'm disappointed in that net-man.  Still, it has saved me that five hundred in gold, so I can't complain, I suppose."  (I suspect I would have enjoyed the scene much less if the underdog hadn't won.)

• Claudius' faint at the fight made Livia think even less of him -- and a good thing, too, since she discovered his father's biography the next day.

• Well, we knew it was only a matter of time:  Livia got rid of Postumus.  But she only got him banished, so there's still hope -- and he, The Embodiment of Awesomeness, took the opportunity to let loose:

I said to Livia: 'Aemilia's reward for this lie is to be married to Silanus, isn't it?  And what does Livilla get?  Did you promise to poison her present husband and provide her with a handsomer one?'  Once I had mentioned poison I knew that I was doomed.  So I decided to say as much as I could while I had the opportunity.  I asked Livia just how she had arranged the poisoning of my father and brothers and whether she favoured slow poisons or quick ones.

I'm rather shocked that she didn't have him killed on the spot.  And he didn't even stop there -- he let Augustus have it, too:

I told him that in name he was Emperor of the Romans but in fact he was less free than the girl slave of a drunken bawd-master, and that one day his eyes would be opened to the unnatural crimes and deceits of his abominable wife.  But meanwhile, I said, my love and loyalty to him remain unchanged.

I confess I found it rather satisfying when Castor's front teeth got knocked out.  I'm looking forward to Claudius' super-spy messages.

Chapter Twelve -- War in the Balkans, war in Germany, more banishment and Ovid goes into voluntary exile.

• So Claudius' research and writing helped win the war, but he didn't get any public acknowledgment.  I almost always sense that Claudius is smirking at Augustus, but affectionately and somewhat sympathetically:

I could extract little or no useful matter from these eulogies and Augustus in reading my book must have felt himself slighted.  He identified himself so closely with the success of the war that he moved from Rome to a town on the North-East frontier of Italy, to be as near as he could to the fighting; and as Commander-in-Chief of the Roman Armies he was continually sending Tiberius not very helpful military advice.

I feel a little bit bad for Augustus.  He's so sadly loser-y.  That last sentence made me envision David Brent and Michael Scott decked out Roman-style.

• Long live The Roach:

Cassius had a big supply of bows and arrows in his fortress and taught everyone, even the women and slaves, to use them.

• It's a good thing there are so many islands:

The close of the year was marked by the banishment of Julilla on the charge of promiscuous adultery--just like her mother Julia--to Tremerus, a small island off the coast of Apulia.  the real reason for her banishment was that she was just about to bear another child, which if it were a boy would be a great-grandson of Augustus, and unrelated to Livia; Livia was taking no risks now.

What's Livia's reasoning here?  To keep her bloodline in power just for the sake of doing so, because she has more control over them, because they're less likely to pull a Postumus and question her authority, or all of the above? 

Chapter Thirteen -- The end of Augustus.

• "Though Fate had decreed against his grandsons succeeding him he would surely one day reign again, as it were, in the persons of his great-grandchildren."  Returning to what I was wondering about above, is that also Livia's train of thought?  Does she want her descendants to rule because even after she's dead, she'll still be in charge? 

• I just lost a whole lot of respect for Germanicus.  Comparing Livia to the Good Goddess?  That's the silliest thing I've ever heard.  I rarely have patience for characters who always think the best of everyone.

• Five pages later, and I like Germanicus again.  I'm so fickle. 

• Augustus finally steps up.  And then dies.  (Did Livia manage to poison him?  Probably.  And poor Marcia -- I'm surprised Livia didn't take her out along with Fabius.)  Damn.  But Postumus is still on the loose!

Previous posts:

Reading schedule
Chapters 1-3
Chapters 4-6
Chapters 7-10

Other reader/bloggers:

Becky's Online Reading Group

The Big Read II: I, Claudius -- Robert GravesChapters 7-10

Chapter Seven -- Love and Marriage, Love and Marriage

• Urgulanilla.  Yow.  Translation?  Diminutive of... something, right?  I should really learn this stuff.

• Oh, my.  What an attractive description of marriage.  That paragraph had a different tone and pacing -- rather than Claudius telling me about the ladies, I could see and hear the ladies themselves (well, a caricature of them) philosophizing to each other about their reasons for not marrying. 

Zeeney from The Long Secret came to mind, oddly.  (Even though she was married.  It was more her personality -- consciously, carefully languid, deliberately world-weary.)  I pictured Zeeney and an amalgam of characters Joanna Lumley has played.  Anyway.

• "Knights, if they married at all, married for rich dowries, not for children or for love, and a freedwoman was not much of a catch; and besides knights, especially those recently raised to the order, had strong feelings about marrying beneath them."  So that stereotype about people with New Money being more actively snobby than people with Old Money is a pretty old one, huh?

• "As time went on suitable candidates for priesthood were increasingly difficult to find."  Yeah, I'll bet.

• "...but as you will soon see it did not trouble her for long..."  Uh oh.

• I WANT TO KICK AUGUSTUS.  I spluttered all the way through his conversation with Medullinus.  Somehow, I'm not feeling very hopeful about the outcome of this love-match -- it would just be too nice of a thing for Claudius to marry someone he loved and who loved him back.  And, of course, there was that mention of Urgulanilla at the beginning of the chapter.

• "...there would be no feast, merely the usual ritual sacrifice of a ram whose entrails would then be examined to see whether the auspices were favourable.  Of course they would be; Augustus, officiating as priest, in compliment to Livia, would see to that."

• Yep.  Now I'm feeling the hate towards Livia.  I really liked poor Camilla, even though I only knew her for about a page and a half.

• Postumus, in love with Lavilla?  He seemed so much brighter than that.

• A Pillow Debate on Force and Gentleness is just hilarious:

Livia answers:  "You are quite right and I have a piece of advice to give you--that is, if you are willing to accept it and will not blame me for daring, though a woman, to suggest to you something which nobody else, even of your most intimate friends, would dare to suggest."

...

But in the case of the rest, whose errors, committed wilfully or otherwise, are due to youth or ignorance or misapprehension, we should, I believe, merely rebuke them, or punish them in the mildest possible way.

Ha.  Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha.  Beastly woman.  (Yes, I'm still mad about Camilla.)

Chapter Eight -- In which we meet Urgulanilla and her mother.

• The Livia/Urgulania plan is rather brilliant, but so very eeeevil.  (I wouldn't have called it evil if it were just a means to an end, but they're getting a kick out of it too:  "The two got a great deal of amusement out of this game and Livia plenty of useful information and assistance in her plans.")

• "Later, I shall tell how once, when summoned by a senator to whom she owed a large sum of money to appear before the magistrates in the Debtors' Court, she refused to obey the summons; and how, to avoid the scandal, Livia paid up."  Well, thanks, Claudius.  I'll be looking forward to you telling that story.  ("Later, after the next two commas, I shall tell how once, ...")  Sheesh!  Did Robert Graves giggle when he wrote sentences like that?  I hope so.  I've been giggling as I read them.

• It would be nice to see Claudius and Urgulanilla team up like in Freak the Mighty and take out Livia and Urgulania, but somehow I don't think it's likely to happen.

Chapter Nine -- In which our young historian talks with two old historians and is given a piece of advice.

• "I see now, though I hadn't considered the matter before, that there are two different ways of writing history:  one is to persuade men to virtue and the other is to compel men to truth.  The first is Livy's way and the other is yours: and perhaps they are not irreconcilable."

• Here's the advice:

"Now listen!  Do you want to live a long busy life, with honour at the end of it?"

"Yes."

"Then exaggerate your limp, stammer deliberately, sham sickness frequently, let your wits wander, jerk your head and twitch with your hands on all public or semi-public occasions."

Pollio also tells him that both his grandfather and father were poisoned, but no names are named.

Chapter Ten -- In which we are treated to some of Livia and Augustus' private correspondence and Postumus flirts with death.

• Livia on Postumus:

I consider that Death has been extremely unkind to take off his two talented brothers and leave us only with him.

Watch your step, Postumus!  Also, didn't Livia orchestrate the downfall of his "two talented brothers"?

• Part of me feels insulted by Livia's condescension and dismissal of Claudius, but mostly I'm just glad she doesn't see his as a threat.  Augustus surprised me a few times here, so much so that I didn't even feel like kicking him.

See?  Postumus is practically ASKING to be bumped off:

"Soon he is reprimanded by Livia for his changed manner and for his surliness towards her.  "What's poisoned you?" she asks.  He replies, grinning, "Maybe you've been putting something in my soup."

Now I'm afraid to read Chapter Eleven.

Previous posts:

Reading schedule
Chapters 1-3
Chapters 4-6

Other reader/bloggers:

Becky's Online Reading Group
There's always time for a book
Garish & Tweed
Adventures in Multiplicity

The Big Read II: I, Claudius -- Robert GravesChapters 4-6

Don't forget to let me know if you're posting as you read!

Chapter Four:  In which we learn about the circumstances behind Claudius' father's death.

• Back at the beginning of Chapter Two, there was a bit that suggested Livia had an issue (to put it mildly) with Claudius' father -- her own youngest son.  Now we know why:

By ill-luck the letter was delivered to Tiberius while he was in the presence of Augustus and Livia.  "A despatch from your noble brother!" the Imperial courier called out, handing it to him.  Tiberius, not suspecting that there was anything in the letter that should not be communicated to Livia and Augustus, asked permission to open and read it at once.  Augustus said: "By all means, Tiberius, but on condition that you read it aloud to us."

Seriously, I literally clutched my chest and said, "Nooooooooooo!"  (It's a good thing I've been reading this when Josh is out of the house.)  Then I thought, "Well, he's dead."

And he was!  No kind huntsman* for poor Drusus.  Instead, he gets a physician sent by his loving (hah!) mother who lets him die of gangrene or maybe poison (or hell, maybe both).

• I know the Very Private Letter That is Read Aloud to Exactly the Wrong People device has been used in lots of other things, but I can't think of any at the moment.  It makes me cringe every time -- it's always so painful because as the reader, I usually know what's coming and that just makes it all the worse.

• I've got to say, I want to kick Augustus.  Livia, I can respect.  She's conniving and manipulative and scary, but she's also strong-willed, very smart and very tough.  Augustus just lets himself be bossed.  Is Tiberius really the only person who suspects Livia of being a poisoner?  Everyone who ticks her off ends up sick or dying!  Eating dinner with her must have been nerve-wracking.

• "Claudius, you tedious old fellow..."  I love him. 

*I don't know why I thought of Snow White.  Because he was in Germany?

Chapter Five:  In which Claudius finally shows up in his own autobiography and we learn about his early years. 

• "My grandmother Livia made him do this to please Augustus, I may say.  Tiberius was not religious-minded and very stingy with money."  His little asides are hilarious, and the build-ups to them -- in this case, about what the temple had been before and the changes that had been made -- are so well done.

• "Well, I must be thankful, I suppose, that I have never had the strangury."  This made me laugh so much that I snorted.  Again with the build-up.

• Claudius' sister Lavilla sounds like a real peach.  Not.

• In another voice, this early history could be full of self-pity -- in Claudius', it sounds like he's smirking at everyone.  There's pain, for sure, and anger, but the humor balances it out, and then some.

• I will not be pleased if something bad happens to Athenodorus.

• More beastly Lavilla:

She interrupted, laughing noisily:  "Wretched Rome, with him as her protector!  I hope to God I'll be dead before then!"

The Auger turned on her and pointed with his finger.  "Impudent girl," he said, "God will no doubt grant your wish in a way that you won't like!"

Couldn't you hear a thunderclap there?  I could.  That and Nelson Muntz.

• "He was always boasting of his ancestors, as stupid people do who are aware that they have done nothing themselves to boast about."  Nice.

• I love it when an author can make history so human:

Triumphs, besides, are very bad for military discipline.  Soldiers get drunk and out of hand and usually finish the day by breaking up the wine-shops and setting fire to the oil-shops and insulting the women and generally behaving as if Rome were the city they had conquered, not some miserable log-hut encampment in Germany or sand-burrowed village in Morocco.

I mean, obviously history is human, but I don't think it's an easy thing to make it feel that way.  You think?

• He made me laugh out loud again with the stories of Cato and the thunderstorm and about Cato and Postumus.  But now I'm all worried about Postumus.  Practically every time Livia takes an interest in someone, they end up dead.

• Claudius, rather than dismissing Sulpicius as useless, made use of his talent -- seems like that's a character trait that will serve him well.

Chapter Six:  Which is a showcase of Livia's Amazing Manipulation Skills.

• I go back and forth between thinking Livia is horrible (killing off Drusus) and awesome (her handling of Augustus and everyone else she comes into contact with).  She's such a fantastic character.  And she has a spy-system!

• This bit starts out so very soap-opera-y, but then takes quite the turn:

"Julia decided to forget that she had ever loved Tiberius.  She had suffered much from him.  Not only did he treat her with the greatest contempt whenever they were alone together, but he had begun cautiously experimenting in those ludicrously filthy practices which later made his name so detestable to all decent-minded people; and she had found out about it."

First sentence:  Right hand to forehead, swoon.  Second sentence:  Left hand to forehead, swoon.  Third sentence:  Uhhhh... yikes.

• "What Livia very cruelly gave her was a distillation of the crushed bodies of certain little green flies from Spain, which so stimulated her sexual appetite that she became like a demented woman."  Oh.  My.  God.

• "She did a good piece of business on the side, too, by singling out for special mention as Julia's partners in adultery three of four men whom it was to her interest to ruin."  The woman is AMAZING.  No opportunity wasted.

• "But somehow he was given the wrong medical treatment, and his health, which from no apparent cause had been failing him for the last two years, became seriously affected: he lost all power of mental concentration."  HAH!  Somehow.  From no apparent cause.  I say again, HAH!

Previous posts:

Reading schedule
Chapters 1-3

Other reader/bloggers:

Becky's Online Reading Group
There's always time for a book
Adventures in Multiplicity
Garish & Tweed

The Big Read II: I, Claudius -- Robert GravesChapters 1-3

Chapter One -- In which Claudius tells us of his previous autobiography and about the two prophecies that led him to write this one.

• On his previous life history, and what I assume I, Claudius will not be:

I let it be a dull book, recording merely such uncontroversial facts as, for example, that So-and-so married So-and-so, the daughter of Such-and-such who had this or that number of public honours to his credit, but not mentioning the political reasons for the marriage nor the behind-the-scene bargaining between the families.  Or I would write that So-and-so died suddenly, after eating a dish of African figs, but say nothing of the poison, or to whose advantage the death proved to be, unless the facts were supported by a verdict of the Criminal Courts.  I told no lies, but neither did I tell the truth in the sense that I mean to tell it here.

• He's got a habit of digressing, of giving out little nuggets of other stories, and it's making me crazy because they're all interesting!  I want to know more about everything, everything, everything.  He's a huge tease, even if it's inadvertent -- the hints he's given of what's to come have made me eager to read more.  He seems self-deprecating and humble (not many characters would have told a story like his about the visit to the Sibyl without editing it to be a bit more flattering) and snarkily funny, in a blink-and-you'll-miss-it way:

The verses were copied out in Augustus's own beautiful script, with the characteristic mis-spellings which, originally made from ignorance, he ever afterwards adhered to as a point of pride.

Chapter Two -- In which we learn more about Claudius' family history, and a whole lot about his terrifying-with-a-capital-T grandmother.

• More digressions here, and they continue to entertain.  My favorites were the bit about the popular ballad that lists different members of the Claudian family, including Claudius the Fair, "who, when the sacred chickens would not feed, threw them into the sea, crying "Then let them drink", and so lost an important sea battle" and the bit about Claudia, sister of Claudius the Fair.

• "It is my belief that she put all these scandals about herself in order to have something to reproach him with."  Nice.  Livia = Queen of Manipulation.

• "About this time Julia went quite bald."  The matter-of-factness of this sentence threw me.  I had to read it three times before continuing.  I'm going to stick with Claudius and hope that the wig made of a "whole scalp of a German chieftain's daughter shrunk to the exact size of Julia's head and kept alive and pliant by occasional rubbing with a special ointment" was not for real.

• Again with the build-up and back-up:

Most women are inclined to set a modest limit to their ambitions; a few rare ones set a bold limit.  But Livia was unique in setting no limit at all to hers, and yet remaining perfectly level-headed and cool in what would be judged in any other woman to be raving madness.  It was only little by little that even I, with such excellent opportunities for observing her, came to guess generally what her intentions were.  But even so, when the final disclosure came, it came as a shock of surprise.  Perhaps I had better record her various acts in historical sequence, without dwelling on her hidden motives.

Auuuugh!  Just tell me!  Sigh.  I've never dealt well with suspense.

• Wow.  The Roman Senate could just create new Divinities?  For real?

• Livia is terrifying, yes.  But she's also impressive and fascinating. 

Chapter Three -- In which it is implied that Livia is responsible for at least one divorce, two deaths and the threat of a third.

• "The name "Livia" is connected with the Latin word which means Malignity."  Seems like you'd be kind of asking for it to give that name to your child, huh?

• "And from this moment Augustus began mysteriously to recover..."  HAH!

• Phew.  CC wasn't kidding when she said this was the Granddaddy of All Political Intrigue Novels -- I thought about making a chart to make the Livia/Augustus/Agrippa/Marcellus/Julia/Tiberius story more visual and easy to remember, but I didn't.  Let's just hope that my brain is big enough to hold on to all of it.

• Part of the reason this book has me so hooked (and it does, in a big way) is that Claudius isn't only talking about the political motivations behind the actions -- he's also talking about the emotional motivations.  Marcellus' death had a whole lot to do with Livia's jealousy of Octavia, and Agrippa's reasons for coming back to support Augustus were pretty much purely emotional.  (Actually, so were his reasons for his self-imposed exile.)  And I love it that Claudius says, "Claudius, Claudius, you said that you would not mention Livia's motives but only record her acts", but then continues to speculate on everyone's motivations.  Hooray!  I'm enjoying this so much.

Previous posts:

Reading schedule

Other reader/bloggers:

Becky's Online Reading Group
There's Always Time for a Book
Adventures in Multiplicity
garish & tweed

Get ready, get set...

...and on Monday, GO!

Don't forget:  The Big Read II begins on Monday.

My copy of I, Claudius has been staring at me for weeks.

The Big Read II: I, Claudius

You want it, you got it -- we'll be reading I, Claudius for The Big Read II.  Nothing like a little court intrigue for late winter.

My reading schedule is:

March 3 -- Chapters 1-3
March 5 -- Chapters 4-6
March 7 -- Chapters 7-10
March 10 -- Chapters 11-13
March 12 -- Chapters 14-16
March 14 -- Chapters 17-19
March 17 -- Chapters 20-22
March 19 -- Chapters 23-26
March 21 -- Chapters 27-29
March 24 -- Chapters 30-34

So, get your copies ready -- you've got almost two weeks to find one.  If you're totally anti reading this book, there's always next time.  And definitely feel free to email me suggestions or leave them in the comments. 

If you don't know how this works*, take a look at my intro to the first Big Read.

*Basically, it works however you want it to work.