A review by owl139
Claudius the God and His Wife Messalina by Robert Graves

5.0

I finished Claudius the god. Again I enjoyed it very well written with lots of interesting history mixed with the fiction. Interesting seeing how even a noble leader like Claudius starting to use his power to settle personal scores. Also his apathy at ruling after the reval of Messalina's "activities" and eventual betrayal was really well done as that kind of thing could definitely break a man. Also it was a very fitting way of winding down the story and by extension claudius role in history, since despite the intrigue around Agrippina the Younger and Nero it was beyond the scope of his life. Which based on the 3 accounts of his death I agree was probably poison.

Despite thinking it could have been handled more naturally since it seems to come into the story left field and then leave again close to the end I liked the stuff with Herod Agrippa, the Jews and the references to christ and early Christianity.

My only criticisms if you could call them that is I wished it was longer and went into more detail about stuff. But i understand it is a novel and not a history book so it would loose focus if it did