I don't see what's wrong with lechery, I'm in favor of it. The Romans were big on it, Catullus, Ovid, Petronius, and I, Claudius is in fact pretty discreet. More so than Gore Vidal's' great and highly libidinous American historical novels, Burr through Hollywood, which are sort of our version of Graves on Rome. You want real lechery, read Graves' poetry -- he is one of the great erotic poets.
No, it's not history from below. Yes, it focuses on the private lives and tragedies of a handful of Roman aristocrats. OK, you want to read a historical novel that takes the other approach, read Howard Fasts' Spartacus. Graves' other historical fiction, which you probably haven't read -- for example, Count Belisarius, Wife to Mr. Milton, Sgt. Lamb's America, have almost no sex, but only an American would complain that a work contained too much sex. Graves' history is Tacitus leavened with Suetonius, and maybe the masses would be better off reading the Annals, which I love, but the masses ain't gonna, and, Tacitus can't touch Graves as a popular storyteller. (Of substantially accurate stories.)
--- Robert Wrubel <bobwrubel at yahoo.com> wrote:
> what is it about I Claudius? It just seems like
> crap
> to me. Robert Graves book on Travelling in Greece
> is
> superb, as is every shorter work I can remember
> reading, but turn him loose on history and you wind
> up
> with lechery. Anthony Burgess' contrapuntal
> narration
> of the story of the early apostles and decadent
> contemporary Romans is much better, as fiction and
> history. Gibbon is pretty good, too.
> BobW
> --- Charles Brown <charlesb at cncl.ci.detroit.mi.us>
> wrote:
>
> >
> >
> > >>> andie nachgeborene
> > Robert Graves', I, Claudius
> > A book on the Borgias by some 60's Italian
> historian
> > Machiavelli's Prince and the Discoursi on Livy
> > (random
> > selections as I read along with the Borgias)
> > Plan to start a book on the Medici next
> > Gary Wills' Venice: the Lion City
> > Just finished: Ross King, Brunelleschi's Dome and
> > Michelangelo and The Pope's Ceiling (along with
> the
> > very good guide illustrated to Mike & Raphael you
> > get
> > in the Vatican, for the pix)Plan to start Tony
> > Grafton's book on Alberti: Master Builder of the
> > Renaissance, just bought this to follow up on the
> > Brunelleschi
> > May take Graves' Claudius the God as my next train
> > reading
> > Plan to restart Pynchon's Against the Day, read
> > aloud
> > with la Espouza
> > Various books and papers on class actions for a
> > paper
> > I'm writing
> > Various texts on federal civil procedure for a
> > course
> > I'm teaching
> > Recently finished the new Harry Potter (eh, a real
> > disappointment)
> > Manera's Borgia series, Blood for the Pope and
> > Incest
> > and Power (classy or any way well drawn
> > semi-historical pornographic comix)
> > Some recent Serpieri Druuna books (more classy or
> > any
> > way well drawn sci fi pornographic comix)
> > At my kids' instigation I read through (again
> Thomas
> > Harris Hannibal Lecter books, except for Hannibal
> > Rising) ("I'll eat you up, I love you so.")
> >
> > ^^^^^^^^
> >
> > CB: Sounds like you are a voracious reader reading
> > about the
> > voracious.
> >
> >
> >
> > ___________________________________
> >
>
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> >
>
>
> ___________________________________
>
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>
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