![]() ![]() While never claiming officially to be an historian Graves was a close descendant of German historian Leopold von Ranke and prized historical accuracy. We are simply being told the bloody, scheming, erotic and shocking tale of Rome's ruling dynasty at the peak of its imperial power, spun out as an captivating yarn. More importantly he has such a fine actor's grasp of text and meaning that we never, for one moment, feel that we are being read to. Nelson Runger's voice rumbles along with just the right timbre and clarity for the character of the wily and learned Claudius. ![]() The choice of reader is critical, as we are listening to an elderly man tell his long and convoluted life story. As the title siggests, the books are written in the first person, as the autobiography of the partly disabled, sickly survivor of the Claudian wing of the Roman aristocracy who became emperor by flying below the radar and outliving all the other candidates. Bear in mind that the BBC at the peak of its tour de force of TV drama production in the '70s and '80s made these two books into a masterpiece surpassed only (perhaps) by Brideshead Revisited. Think well-spun tale, full of twists and turns, subterfuges and bloody tyranny. Put aside all thought of stuffy classics. ![]()
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