I, Claudius

19 hrs. 24 min.

Romance & Prose

Language Russian

Author Robert Graves

Narrator Vyacheslav Gerasimov

Description

Emperor Claudius was considered an idiot during his life (and after death). And not just an idiot—an idiot in the purest, natural way, like Shveik.

Even to power he came by sheer misunderstanding: after Caligula was murdered, the legionaries dragged him out of somewhere—desperately resisting—and hauled him away with shouts: “You’ll be emperor. If you can’t—then we’ll teach you. If you don’t want to—we’ll force you.”

However, the “idiot” managed to accomplish a lot. So, he ruled Rome for 13 years. During that time:
He finished the conquest of Britain, continued the policy of romanization and gradual provision of civil rights to the conquered population, built a new aqueduct (aqua Claudia with a daily water volume of 191.2 thousand cubic meters, 59 km long, and costing 55.5 million sesterces), built the port of Portus, carried out the draining of Lake Fucine (through an underground channel).
And he ensured the country 13 calm years—between Caligula and Nero.

In his dilogy, Robert Graves tells the story of Claudius’s life. In the first part—of a smart man forced to pretend to be an idiot in order to survive. In the second—of a peaceful historian who, by accident, turned out to be the Roman emperor. It’s worth noting the very scrupulous work with sources.

Robert Graves (1895–1985) is the greatest English prose writer and lyric poet, a connoisseur of antiquity whose work is popular all over the world.
The famous novel “I, Claudius,” which tells about Roman emperor Claudius and his predecessors. With great mastery, the author recreated events from one of the most dramatic periods in Roman history (1st century BC—1st century AD).