I finished "Claudius the God" on audiobook a few days ago.
I felt -- and I almost feel sappy saying this -- almost a palpable sadness, like an old friend was going away that I wasn't going to see again.
I guess good books do that.
But more than that, Emperor Claudius was a real figure... yet, the lack of comprehensive records on his reign let Robert Graves write an account with a relatively free hand. He left you wondering if Claudius was really an idiot, or if he was an idiot who got himself straightened out after he came into power, or if he was really a remarkable genius and cloaked it in foolishness to survive all the purges and assassinations.
Of course, the real Claudius was probably not so noble as Graves's historical-fiction Claudius.
And yet, as the book wound down...
...it didn't help that I already knew how it ended.
You might want to skip this part if you're going to read or listen to the book, but maybe not. It's Roman history. Nothing that happens is so surprising for the early Imperial period, with all its intrigues and treacheries.
Claudius is able to survive all the various purges and assassinates. Almost all his decisions work out well... he is lucky only a few times, when things could have gone either way. But mostly, he governed well.
But then he made a decision that was to unmake him, his heirs, and Rome.
On the eve of an insurrection, he caught his third wife -- Messalina -- pledging herself in marriage a man that would overthrow Claudius and the Roman government. He loved Messalina, and didn't want to believe it, but his advisors showed him the indisputable evidence, and the party of insurrectionists was broken up, arrested, and brought to justice.
Claudius at that point, after so many bad and treacherous marriages, took an oath not to marry again.
Breaking it was the most foolish thing he did.
Claudius's nice, Julia Agrippina, was broadly known as ruthless and disloyal. You can, at your leisure, look her up on Wikipedia. She had betrayed just about everyone she had come across.
Working her political skills, Agrippina is thought to have begun an affair with one of Claudius's top ministers, Pallas, who then recommended the Emperor Claudius should take a new wife and marry Agrippina.
We'll never know the real Claudius's motivations. In the book, it says that he was worried of his children growing up without a mother, and he felt unable to handle the reigns of Rome's government without a trusted confidant and wife. Claudius looked for someone who could aid in these duties, and chose Agrippina.
This was a blunder. Aside from her general disloyalty and disreputable character, Agrippina had an adult son. You know his name -- it is Nero. He inherited Rome.
You perhaps do not know the name of Claudius's son. It was Britannicus.
You don't know Britannicus's name because, after Agrippina poisoned Claudius, Agrippina and Nero executed Britannicus and Claudius's daughters, too. And most of his friends and allies.
The whole Claudius saga, from Graves's "I, Claudius" describing Claudius's time as a forgotten cast-aside from the Julio-Claudian dynasty... to his reign as Emperor in "Claudius the God..."
The whole thing was magnificent, swooping, grand. You can almost feel Claudius as a friend to you, making his way in a strange and hostile world, and doing his best despite it.
And then... as the curtains come down, as it all comes to an end... such a worthy life... a single mistake...
Sigh. We all wish to believe in karma, don't we? That good people will endure and win in the end?
Even the author, Robert Graves, goes out of his way to foreshadow Claudius making mistakes, seeming to have him make errors of pride or insolence, to soften the blow that comes. Young Britannicus rejects an offer to go hide in Britain.
It's all fanciful; it's all that deep karmic longing for a just world.
No; the lesson must be opposite. The good guys don't automatically win. Karma is not one of the laws of physics. Play carefully -- the stakes are high. Nothing matters more -- and life is a game you can lose.