Oimoi. I stand corrected. Dionysus it was.
I only just recognized Bernard Hill the last time I was watching this, a couple of weeks ago. He’s the guard who has the bright idea that Caligula’s idiot uncle be the next Emperor.
My favorite scene is at Livia’s birthday dinner, where Claudius asks his grandmama to explain some of the mysterious deaths that have happened in their family; he isn’t stammering for once, and she realizes that he isn’t as stupid as she’s always believed.
If you rent the DVD, check out the documentary on the last disk, about the 1930s film version of “I Claudius” that was never finished. There are some impressive and touching takes of Charles Laughton as Claudius giving his speech to the Senate.
HISTORICAL SPOILERS
A historical inaccuracy in ROME (I know, it wasn’t going for documentary, but still- this is MAJOR deviation) was that they cut out Octavius/Augustus’s first two wives. Getting rid of his first wife, Clodia, presents no real problem, but his second- Scribonia- was the mother of his only legitimate child, Julia.
When he marries Livia she’s pregnant with her first husband’s child, but the implication is it’s her first child.
The major problems created:
1- Julia later married Agrippa (a character in ROME) and had several children
2- Julia still later married Tiberius
3- Livia’s second son (by her first husband) was Claudius Germanicus who was the father of the Emperor Claudius (of I, ____ fame) and who married Antonia (daughter of Octavia and Antony- or of Octavia and Agrippa, illegitimately, in the miniseries ROME)
4- In addition to her own quite interesting antics (very much a part of I CLAUDIUS)
Julia’s children are very important in I CLAUDIUS and she was the grandmother of (among others) the emperor Caligula and Agrippin(ill)a (who was the niece/fourth wife of Claudius and the mother of the Emperor Nero)
They kind of screwed the Poochvus on the genealogy thing all around.
The miniseries begins about 51 BCE (the capture of Vercingetorix) and concludes after the deaths of Mark Antony and Cleopatra (30 BCE), a time span of 21 years, yet an infant born around 50 is still a child at the end of the series.
Also in real life, Atia- the mother of Octavius, is totally fictitious as seen in ROME. The real woman was married at the time the first part of the miniseries takes place (she remarried [L. Marcius Philippus] very soon after the death of Octavius and Octavia’s father and in fact Octavius was close to his stepfather) and died soon after the death of her uncle Julius Caesar (in the miniseries she survives Tony and Cleo).
That said, I still LOVED the miniseries, warts et omnia, because of its completely unromantic and, amazingly for historical deviation, the most accurate look at Roman life we’re probably like to see. I love how they incorporate religion, slaves, violence towards captives, etc., into “no moral judgment” facts of everyday life. Be sure to watch it with the ALL ROADS LEAD TO ROME feature on the DVD though- it gives great explanation as to what’s going on that you wouldn’t ordinarily know. (Examples: a pop-up will explain exactly what ritual is being performed at this household shrine [a lararium], or tell you that “a confession from a slave was legally inadmissible unless it was obtained by torture [and torturers were usually undertakers]” or “Servilia’s curse translates as …”).
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I CLAVDIVS has nowhere near the budget and most if not all of it is filmed on videotape and sound stages, but it’s still absolutely excellent. Historically it’s more accurate in terms of genealogy anyway, though probably not characterization. (A lot of historians believe Caligula was probably not as insane as his reputation [that he was probably grossly exaggerated by later historians wishing to please his successors] and there’s almost no doubt that the real Claudius was a LOT more cunning and crafty than his often naive counterpart, while Livia was probably not the she-wolf she is in the miniseries- but reminding yourself it’s a family historical drama it’s fantastic, and if Livia wasn’t like the divine Sian then she by Jove should have been. 
Something that helps with I CLAUDIUS though- download and print a simple genealogical table of the Julio-Claudian emperors. You sometimes need a scorecard to remember “whose daughter is she again?” or “wait… isn’t she his… oh okay, just cousins”.
Sidenote: When Peter O’Toole was at the Oscars last year he was escorted by his ex-wife Sian. She still looks regal (and evidently they had a friendly divorce; they’ve been split up for 30 years and he has a kid with another woman since then but they seemed quite friendly). Photo: Lorcan O’Toole (Peter’s son by a post marital fling), Sian, Peter.
My favorite’s include Augustus’s death (great use of still frame to save money) and her complex emotions in the scene, followed by her motherly advice:
“Oh…Tiberius… don’t eat the figs.”
Or when she endearingly tells Claudius “Tiberius is the biggest fool in my family… I always assumed that was you, but… I was wrong.”
And the entire family’s reaction at Claudius’s first wedding.
Claudius’s ingenious toadying to Caligula, especially when asked his opinion of Caligula’s dance (“It… was… indescribable!”).
His exchange with Agrippina:
Aggie: We all did things under the rule of my late brother we might not normally have done.
Clau: Yes, that is true. Although some of us seem to have done them a lot more willingly than others.
Aggie: You are not exactly the lover I would dream of.
Claud: I should imagine not. Though what sort of romantic dreams you do are not something I wish to imagine. Certainly not on a full stomach.
Even with the $100 million budget HBO had it would be difficult to improve on the miniseries just because of the brilliance of the acting and screenwriting.
Go with both. I, Claudius was shot on the cheap but has some unforgettable moments and a lot of great dialogue and performances.
Rome is more visceral and violent overall, but has all of the strong points mentioned above and a much bigger budget.
My favorite take on the man who became Augustus:
Augustus, as presented in I, Claudius is clearly the aged and settled man described in the second paragraph – which in no way contradicts the phenomenon described in the first.
And indeed, in “Rome” he was shrewd and not exactly lovable, but clearly brilliant and calculating, even as a kid. (Did anyone else feel a bit freaked out by the second actor playing Octavian–the glassy eyed, no blinking dude?)
He mostly annoyed the crap out of me. I liked Max Pirkis’ portrayal of him as a young kid - brilliant, cunning, curious, ambitious. The older guy…meh. It’s like they were going for an older version but replaced cunning and ambitious with evil and calculating. I feel that the older Octavian fell short of the mark. Same with the *Rome *version of Livia - she was just nasty and kinky, not a twisted mastermind like in I, Claudius.
Well, she was still very young. Give her time to learn. And there’s a great scene, where she’s in bed with Octavian, and she figures out a big chunk of his political strategy - she’s getting it.
I swear I recall her being interviewed on British TV about 10 years ago and mentioning that she’d only seen him once since they broke up. Many years later he’d spotted her in the street in London, come up, said hello, kissed her, wished her well and then just carried on without any further fuss. It was evident that she considered this a particularly classy way for him to deal with a potentially awkward moment. Nice to see them friends now.
It’s several decades since I’ve read the books or seen the series at any great length. What I found most striking about the former was the sheer density of the plotting: virtually any page has enough happening that any other author would happily stretch that bit of the story into an entire novel. The TV version streamlines most of that.
Of course, it’s only recently that I twigged that the opening credits of Blackadder II are a piss-take of those from … wait for it … I, Claudius.
Especially streamlined are the last two episodes. For those who don’t know, the miniseries is actually based on two books-
I CLAUDIUS- dictated by the emperor but covers the events from before his birth until he’s proclaimed emperor.
CLAUDIUS THE GOD- actually the longer of the two books- covers his reign to his death.
The first 10 books cover IC while CTG (the longer book) is condensed into two episodes.
A few not particularly major characters are deleted (Claudius’s daughter Antonia and some of his servants over the years) while others (his brother Germanicus, Herod Agrippa, others) are present but not nearly as major as they are in the books. All in all they did a great job of keeping it flowing without sacrificing too much.
Charles Laughton owned the movie rights when the novels were bestsellers and was to star in a movie version starring himself and Merle Oberon (as Messalina). For various reasons it never came to be, though I think he did shoot a few scenes. (As well in that there’s no way he could have condensed the book into even a 4 hour movie, but a pity in that Laughton would have been perfect as Claudius.)
ETA: Youtube, thou art beautiful beyond measure.
I used to belong to an improv group of theater students and I always wanted to do a sketch called I CLAVDIVS LOVE LVCY. The plot involves Lucy forgetting that Claudius is bringing Caligula to dinner, of course.
It wasn’t able to be because I wanted a Roman mosaic of a heart for the opening credits with a snake slithering across. We had no budget for the mosaic and none of us were willing to touch a snake anyway. Pity, because the script was pretty good.
One of my favorite “sequential thread” type wordings ever on TV was when BRAVO reaired I.C. back in the early 90s. It was the episode in which Livia dies, and it followed a South Bank Show interview with Gore Vidal. The “Tonight on Bravo” ad aired
GORE VIDAL
QUEEN OF HEAVEN
I’m sure Gore would have sued (he keeps his lawyers on speed dial) but I thought it was hysterical.
I have a feeling he would have loved that joke.
Why is everybody laughing, practically in hysterics? It’s a guy with a limp. How unusual could that possibly have been in ancient Rome (or even modern Rome, for that matter)?
Yeah, yeah, I realize the scene is shorthand to establish just how disrespected Claudius was, but geez…
I saw Sian Phillips in an episode of Midsomer Murders, shot in 2006. The resemblance the “aged” Livia bore to her was uncanny. As in, the aging makeup they put on Sian in 1976 to make her look like a 70-or-so-year-old Livia actually looks very much the way Sian did in 2006, when she was 72.
Probably to toady to Caligula and Livia. (It’s a bit of a shock when Livia is actually respectful of Claudius for the first time.)
I remember watching I, Claudius when it was on “Masterpiece Theater”, too. I agree that Derek Jacobi was masterful as the title character. I remember it for one other reason. It was one of the few times I remember seeing Patrick Stewart (sorry, I don’t remember his character) with hair. Not much hair…just a curly fringe & mostly blonde/grey, but hair.
Love, Phil
Rome had a physical culture attitude. Beautiful is good, and ugly or deformed is evil. Many people thought that Claudius should have been exposed at birth [ left on a hillside to die of exposure or be rescued by someone and raised to be a slave]
People who were invalids or deformed were frequently in history [not just Rome] were frequently locked away ‘decently out of sight’ hence the trope of the deformed child kept in the attic or basement … or the woman who went insane being kept chained in the basement, or even the cursed and deformed brother in the movie The Oblong Box being kept locked up and word out and around that he had died inafrica…
I you really want the definitive version, you should see Me Claudius, starring Cookie Monster. (Probably on YouTube.)