Continuation of the work I, Claudius, this novel focuses on the reign of Claudius as emperor and the first years of Herod Agrippa as ruler, with an attachment to historical sources that finds its maximum expression in Claudius' famous speech before the Senate about voting and juries.
Stuttering, crippled, suffering from various nervous tics, despised by his bloodthirsty relatives (such as his nephew Caligula), Claudius managed, however, to survive them all, accompanied by his lascivious wife, until he was murdered at the hands of Agrippina, the emperor's mother. Nero. The way in which Graves manages to make the presentation of his own death credible, in what is presented as an autobiography, is worthy of Graves' talent and has gone down in history as one of the most ingenious and successful literary devices.