Å·±¦ÓéÀÖ

Game of Romes

History is the lie of the victors. Or so that’s what they say. But in the case of I, Claudius hailed as one of the best pieces of historical fiction written to date, the so-called lie is either heightened or degraded, depends on how you see it, into a dramatic tale of cunning, deceit, depravity and the glories of ancient Rome chalked with enough back-stabbing, affairs, incest, assassinations, and debauchery you’d doubt whether you’ve unearthed an ancient tabloid. Granted there are certain truths that only a tabloid can tell. Of course, in this case it is idiotic to look for historical accuracy in fiction but certain things that happen are just so wicked that you have to wonder whether these lies are just that. This review aims to take on the impossible task of diluting the deceitful mixture to separate the lies of the writer from the more essential lies of the victors.

There's actually very little in I, Claudius that's entirely unattested. But the thing is Robert Graves based on historical works that are biased and unreliable and he portrays the characters in a way to fit his underlying narrative. Graves relied most heavily on Suetonius and Tacitus. He drew on Suetonius and a host of late Roman authors who are inaccurate at best, particularly for his narration of the earlier emperors to provide all sorts of juicy gossip that those works are full of. But then he had a problem. There was a sharp division among writers of the 1st and 2nd Centuries, A.D. as regards Claudius. Many of his contemporaries, and particularly the Neronians, saw Claudius as the bumbling old idiot that you can find in the pages of Seneca and Suetonius. However, under the Flavians Claudius became a model emperor, who was a struggling intellectual and who expanded Roman power militarily and through his public works, rather than the idiot who let everyone else do all the work for him and eventually had to rely on his wife so much that he fell into her trap easily. Graves chooses the Flavian view of Claudius, and attempts to explain away the aspects of his character seen negatively by Suetonius and Seneca by various means. Graves claimed that it occurred to him while reading through Suetonius and Tacitus that perhaps Claudius was not really as stupid as everyone else thought and that he was cleverly trying to stay alive in a time of intrigue and plotting that undoubtedly would have killed him otherwise. As a result, the works are highly sifted and selected to provide particular, no matter how unlikely, versions of the events that took place.

There's nothing to suggest that Claudius, Livia, Augustus, or any of the other characters thought many of the things that Graves puts in their minds. We know they did certain things, and there are a number of reasons why they might have done so. Graves picks the reasons he particularly likes and crafts a very good story from it, imagining that it is true, whether it is or not. The other thing that Graves fabricates is holes in the record. Graves is very fond of linking events together that probably didn't have any connection--the famous example is the important character of Cassius Chaerea, who appears all over the place and is a major plot-driver. The historical Cassius Chaerea is only known as the prefect of the Praetorian Guard who was hated and teased by Caligula and eventually was one of the leaders of the plot to murder him. Whenever Chaerea appears elsewhere in I, Claudius Graves is in fact imposing his character on a historical person. Basically, whenever Chaerea appears before then he's actually playing someone who the record says was named Cassius, and that Graves assumes or pretends was Chaerea, for plot purposes. There's no reason to suggest, for example, that the same Cassius who led the survivors out of the Teutoburg was the guy who killed Caligula--Cassius was, after all, the name of one of the largest families in Rome.

As I end, let me entertain you a bit. If you’ve ever watched Game of Thrones then you should know never to underestimate the weak, repulsive ones. What they lack in strength or in beauty, they make up for in cunning and intelligence. Permit me to say this but I do think Grave’s version of Claudius is, in a certain sense, the true Tyrion. Of course he’s not a dwarf, but he’s deformed in his own way. He’s lame, bowlegged, and a chronic stammerer. He comes from a family that comes to power because of a deceitful but nevertheless remarkable woman Livia aka Cersei then becomes the steward of sorts to his insane nephew Geoffrey or Caligula rather. Not that I’m trying to say Game of Thrones is based on I, Claudius or Roman history, or that Tyrion will become king of the seven realms. I’m just saying that they’re both entertaining, they’re both fiction, but that doesn’t mean they’re both trash. Sometimes you need a lie to get to the truth. Immediately after the book was published the classical community exploded, with some denouncing the book and condemning Graves (who explicitly states that he was not attempting any sort of historical or professional publication with the book, merely his own fancy), but it also initiated scholars to go back and revisit the textual material. In general the book prompted a mass re-reading of all the material on Claudius, if only to fact-check Graves, and a great deal of things that were overlooked until then popped out. This coincided with a revisiting of the emperors in general. So it did have some sort of significance for academics, and it did and continues to awaken the layman’s curiosity about roman emperors and consequently about ancient roman history.

And for Game of Thrones, well the truth is, it’s just awesome.