Claudius the God (Penguin Modern Classics)

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Nero was made joint heir with the underage Britannicus, married to Octavia and heavily promoted. Nero was popular with the public as the grandson of Germanicus and the direct descendant of Augustus. On 24 January 41 CE, Caligula was assassinated by a broad-based conspiracy. There is no evidence that Claudius had a direct hand in the assassination, although it has been argued that he knew about the plot. In the chaos following the murder, Claudius witnessed the German guard cut down several uninvolved noblemen, [2] including some of his friends. He fled to the palace to hide. According to tradition, a Praetorian named Gratus found him hiding behind a curtain and suddenly declared him emperor. [3] A section of the guard may have planned to seek out Claudius, perhaps with his approval. They reassured him that they were not one of the groups looking for revenge. He was put under their protection. For Urgulanilla, see Suetonius, Life of Claudius, Section 26.1; for the 20 books, same work, Section 42.2.

Claudius - Wikipedia

MAGAZINE, DISCLAIMER (2 March 2018). "I, Claudius: An Epic That Changed Television". Medium . Retrieved 29 August 2023. Claudius was born on 1 August 10BC at Lugdunum (modern Lyon, France). He had two older siblings, Germanicus and Livilla. His mother, Antonia Minor, may have had two other children who died young. Claudius's maternal grandparents were Mark Antony and Octavia Minor, Augustus's sister, and he was therefore the great-great-grandnephew of Gaius Julius Caesar. His paternal grandparents were Livia, Augustus's third wife, and Tiberius Claudius Nero. During his reign, Claudius revived the rumor that his father Nero Claudius Drusus was actually the illegitimate son of Augustus, to give the appearance that Augustus was Claudius's paternal grandfather. first-person stories are written as if the character in the story were speaking himself or herself. See the title of the first book. Continuing the saga begun in I, Claudius, Robert Graves's Claudius the God is a compelling fictional autobiography of the Roman emperor, published with an introduction by Barry Unsworth in Penguin Modern Classics. One of those aspects are the threads of history and literature which in I, Claudius were wonderfully fused but in Claudius the God become slightly frayed. Parts of Claudius the God are like reading a history book and parts are like reading a novel.What I wish to emphasise most of all in this account of my activities as Emperor is that up to this point at least I acted, so far as I knew how, for the public good in the widest possible sense. I was no thoughtless revolutionary and no cruel tyrant and no obstinate reactionary: I tried to combine generosity with common sense wherever possible and nobody can accuse me of not having done my best. I, Claudia is a 2001 one-woman play written by Kristen Thomson. The play and its 2004 CBC adaptation recount the difficult transition into adolescence of Claudia, a 12-year-old girl struggling with her parents' divorce. Thomson played all of the roles, using masks to change character. [36] A 2018 novel by Mary McCoy is also titled I, Claudia. This work resets the characters from Graves' book into a modern-day private high school that labors under a problematic power structure. [37] See also [ edit ] As time passed, Claudius was mostly forgotten outside of the historians's accounts. His books were lost first, as their antiquarian subjects became unfashionable. In the 2nd century, Pertinax, who shared his birthday, became emperor, overshadowing commemoration of Claudius. [102] In modern media [ edit ] When Augustus died in AD14, Claudius – then aged 23 – appealed to his uncle Tiberius to allow him to begin the cursus honorum. Tiberius, the new Emperor, responded by granting Claudius consular ornaments. Claudius requested office once more and was snubbed. Since the new emperor was no more generous than the old, Claudius gave up hope of public office and retired to a scholarly, private life.

Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina Summary Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina Summary

Kit, Borys (12 September 2008). "Director Jim Sheridan eyes I, Claudius". Reuters . Retrieved 20 January 2011. But the era of plots and intrigues, assassinations and rebellions has not ended just because Claudius is now Emperor. Conspiracies aimed at his downfall or murder surround Claudius and his wife Messalina is not the only one close to him he should not trust. The Emperor Claudius, 41 AD Letter to the Alexandrians adapted from source: Loeb Classical Library (ed. A.S.Hunt and G.C. Edgar) 1934, pp8-89The attempted coup d'état by Silius and Messalina had probably made Claudius realize the weakness of his position since he did not have an obvious adult heir, Britannicus being just a boy. Agrippina's son Lucius Domitius Ahenobarbus (the emperor Nero) was one of the last males of the imperial family. Future coup attempts could rally around the pair, and Agrippina was already showing such ambition. In any case, Claudius accepted Agrippina, and later adopted the newly mature Nero as his son. An episode from "Claudius the God" was adapted for comics in the EC Comics Two-Fisted Tales #36, in a story titled "Battle!", written by Colin Dwakins and drawn by Reed Crandall.

Claudius Series by Robert Graves - Goodreads

Harvey Sir Paul (1937). "Claudius". The Oxford Companion To Classical Literature. Oxford At The Clarendo Momigliano, Arnaldo. 1934. Claudius: the Emperor and his achievement. Trans. W.D. Hogarth. Heffer, Cambridge. It was becoming increasingly difficult for me now to sustain my Republican convictions. What a farcical situation- myself, the only true anti-monarchist, forced to act as a monarch! The historian Suetonius describes the physical manifestations of Claudius's condition in relatively good detail. [65] His knees were weak and gave way under him and his head shook. He stammered and his speech was confused. He slobbered and his nose ran when he was excited. The Stoic Seneca states in his Apocolocyntosis that Claudius's voice belonged to no land animal, and that his hands were weak as well. [66] Claudius depicted as the Roman god JupiterThe novel has also been adapted for opera by Igor Escudero [21] under the title I, Claudius and Claudius the God (2019). [22]

Claudius the God - Penguin Books UK

Claudius married four times. His first marriage, to Plautia Urgulanilla, occurred after two failed betrothals. During their marriage she gave birth to a son, Claudius Drusus. Unfortunately, Drusus died of asphyxiation in his early teens, shortly after becoming engaged to Junilla, the daughter of Sejanus. Claudius later divorced Urgulanilla for adultery and on suspicion of murdering her sister-in-law Apronia. When Urgulanilla gave birth after the divorce, Claudius repudiated the baby girl, Claudia, as the father was one of his own freedmen. Claudius was described as physically repulsive, weak, and easily manipulated by his wives and companions by Suetonius, [9] but this historian cannot be entirely trusted. The surviving works of Claudius present a different view. They paint a picture of an intelligent, scholarly, well-read, and conscientious administrator with an eye to detail and justice. Thus, Claudius becomes an enigma. Since the discovery of his letter to the Alexandrians in the last century, [10] much work has been done to rehabilitate Claudius and determine where the truth lies.

Plautia Urgulanilla was the granddaughter of Livia's confidant Urgulania. During their marriage she gave birth to a son, Claudius Drusus. Drusus died of asphyxiation in his early teens, shortly after becoming engaged to Junilla, daughter of Sejanus. Modern assessments of his health have changed several times in the past century. Prior to World War II, infantile paralysis (or polio) was widely accepted as the cause. This is the diagnosis used in Robert Graves's Claudius novels, first published in the 1930s. The New York Times wrote in 1934 that Claudius suffered from infantile paralysis (which led to his limp state) and measles (which made him deaf) at seven months of age, among several other ailments. [69] Polio does not explain many of the described symptoms, however, and a more recent theory implicates cerebral palsy as the cause. [54] Tourette syndrome has also been considered a possibility. [70] [71] Two drastically different oil paintings by Lawrence Alma-Tadema of Claudius being proclaimed emperor by Gratus.