Books: Roman Revival

I, CLAUDIUS—R.obert Graves—Smith & Haas ($3).

"What sort of speech did Caesar make before the Battle of Pharsalia? Did he beg us to remember our wives and children and the sacred temples of Rome and the glories of our past campaigns? By God, he didn't!

He climbed up on the stump of a pine-tree with one of those monster-radishes in one hand and a lump of hard soldiers' bread in the other, and joked, between mouthfuls."

In such a contemporary, conversational tone Robert Graves writes his historical novel about the Emperor Claudius (B. C. 10-A. D. 54). Readers for whom the life of ancient Rome has been mummified by academic historians, museums and Latin grammar will give Author Graves a rising vote of thanks. He has done what few historians can do by making a complicated period of history as exciting, as plausible, as a well-told story.

Hero-narrator is Claudius himself, least considered member of that Imperial family whose fine flower was Augustus, first Emperor of Rome. Born prematurely, and afflicted all his life with a limp, a stammer and a sense of humor. Claudius lived to thank his stars that he was not a conspicuous member of his clan. His grandmother Livia, Augustus' wife, was a woman of decided and dangerous character and her schemes for ruling the Empire made frequent use of murder. Claudius was not even allowed to marry whom he liked. The pretty girl he wanted was murdered on their betrothal day; thereafter he was given in succession a sluggish giantess and a cold-blooded socialite. Eventually he managed to divorce them both and enjoy a quiet interlude with a sensible mistress. Since he was not judged fit for public office, he studied history and planned to write the true story of his family. His father Drusus. his brother Germanicus both came to suspiciously sudden ends. When the good Augustus died (by his wife's poison) and was succeeded by the vicious Tiberius, Claudius lived in observant retirement. Under the rule of the madman Caligula he found himself in the unenviable position of middle-aged court butt.

Thanks to his sagacity and his apparent incompetence, Claudius came unscathed through the ruthless realpolitik of Augustus' reign, the tyrannies of Tiberius', the craziness of Caligula's. A Roman of the old school, nostalgic for the Republic, he saw that Rome was headed in a showier direction. His stoicism kept him fairly equable through bankruptcy, an accusation of treason, a near-drowning, when he was thrown into the River Rhone by Caligula's orders. In the sabbatanic orgies at the palace Claudius played well his appointed role of buffoon, bided his time. But when a conspiracy finally rid Rome of Caligula, only a threat of death from the Palace Guard made Claudius choose the unwanted post of Emperor. He comforted himself by thinking that now he could give public readings from his history, and people would have to come and pay attention.