The greatest mini-series ever. My high points: Caligula’s midnight performance, and The Contest.
Yep, John Hurt as Caligula was a hoot. “People are awwwfffuuuulll!”
Lots of very good actors giving their best in that one… George Baker was good, I thought he did an excellent job of making Tiberius, if not likeable, at least understandable.
But, on balance, I think Sian Phillips stole the show.
(Region 2 DVD of I, Claudius is due out around the end of September, I’m told.)
“Oh, by the way. Don’t eat the figs.”
Ah, I adore I, Clavdivs! Alternately known as I, Clamdip. Plnnr and I honed in on the same scene, which has since become a catch-phrase amongst my friends. After Caligula kills his wife and frames his best friend for it, he turns to a guard and deadpans, “Aren’t people awful?”
And of course Livia is a role model for us all. Anyone ever read Suetonius? Delightful.
I’ve sometimes thought that She, Livia might be an appropriate alternate title. 
Sian Phillips’ Livia and Katharine Hepburn’s Eleanor in Lion in Winter are my role models for later life. Okay, maybe not the murdering off all the relatives part (I’m generally fond of my relations), but I do aspire to being such a magnificent old dragon one day. I only hope I have the cheekbones for it.
Aside from Livia, many of my favorite scenes are those featuring Herod. I like James Faulkener’s portrayal of a Romanized Jew. One of my favorite lines, from Augustus: “Only one god? That won’t do. Why not borrow some of ours?”–as if he’s offering a cocktail at a party.
Another favorite scene: Livia’s dinner party just before she dies, where Claudius goes “mask off” for a frank talk with his grandmother.
The videotape set of I, Claudius that I have includes the 1950’s documentary, “The Epic that Never Was,” about the unfinished 1930’s film version. Surviving scenes are featured: Flora Robson as Livia, Charles Laughton as Claudius, and Merle Oberon as Messalina. Fascinating to compare these fragments with the series.
Robert Graves should be required reading…
Check out one of his other works… Claudius the God.
I, Claudius and Claudius the God are two of my favorite books. I’ve read them over and over. Never saw the series but it sounds grand.
Funny, George Baker was the only actor I didn’t think was outstanding, but Zeus knows Tiberius is not a crowd-pleasing part.
Favorite lines (from memory, so pardon the mistakes):
Augustus: Is there anyone in Rome who HASN’T slept with my daughter???!!!
Claudius: (after having revealed the whole plot) And I said all that without st-st-stuttering.
Claudius’s sister (I think): They say you were the most beautiful woman in the world.
Livia: Well, there was one other. In Egypt. But she didn’t last as long.
Livia: He wants the truth, he says. Just a small thing.
Livia: You’re not twitching now. Lost your stammer too, I see.
Senator: There are those who say you are deaf. That you have a speech impediment. That you have no experience with government.
Claudius: And that I am half-witted besides, I know. As for experience, does anyone in the Senate have more? At least I have watched my family run this empire since you so cowardly gave it over to us. As for deafness, it is true I am hard of hearing. But you will find it is not for want of listening. As for my speech, it is true I have an impediment. But isn’t what a man says more important than how ling it takes him to -
(struggle) - SAY it! Finally, as for the charge that I am half-witted. Well, I have survived with half my wits while many others have died with all of theirs. So perhaps it is the QUALITY not the QUANTITY of wits that count.
Nero: What a pretty thing fire is.
Prophet: Someday Rome will be wretched and Claudius will save it.
Claudius’s sister: Ha! I hope I’m dead before that happens.
Antonia: You wicked girl! Go to your room without supper!
Antonia: (to her son Claudius) Oh, you’ll survive Caligula. You’d survive the great flood, I know that now.
Augustus: You must realize that when you have trusted your wife for years, when she has been your right arm, it is hard to believe that she has been plotting against you.
Claudius’ friend, can’t remembe the name: Believe it, father.
Augustus: Oh, I do. I do.
Caligula: How could a smelly old woman like you be a goddess?
And of course…
Claudius: Oh well. You can’t survive them all!
And an important question: Who is the ONE character in the series who dies of natural causes?
Livia died of natural causes, I believe.
This is my favorite series, as well. And I was just thinking of checking to see if I can find it on DVD to add to my movie library.
I loved the scene when, after the Emperor’s guard finds Claudius behind the hangings and “appoints” him Emperor, Claudius gives a powerful, non-stuttering speech to the senators about how they should just accept his new rank, as they are powerless against the guard to do anything about it. Damn! It has been many years since I’ve seen it – gonna have to find it on DVD.
[Comic Book Guy Voice] Best. Episode. Ever. [/CBGV]
The book(s) are wonderful as well. I haven’t been able to track down a copy of Claudius the God in my local library, so haven’t read it yet.
But the show covered more that the book I, Claudius so I must assume that it from C the G.
And how is it that nobody has mentioned the sinister Sejanus yet? Give it up for Patrick Stewart!
They ran the whole thing on Trio a few months ago – first over several nights, then as a marathon.
Taped them off PBS one night (actually, two nights). History Channel show’d them once but I think they edited them.
The line I can’t get out of my head is from the last episode when Claudius’ son keeps saying how he’s “put on my manly gown!”
Somehow ‘manly’ and ‘gown’ don’t go together…
I’ve also read that, as great as the series was, it took a lot of artistic licenses especially with the way it portrayed Claudius. He wasn’t such a nice guy. He was no Caligula but he wasn’t the altruistic saint Derek Jacobi played him as.
I kept expecting Sejanus to yell “Engage!”
I watch the series whenever PBS runs it.
“Sharpe,” too.
Stewart is great as Sejanus, but then he is usually great. (Did you see the two LeCarre series TINKER TAILOR and SMILEY’S PEOPLE?) They hired Stewart to play the villain, Karla, which must have been pretty expensive considering that Karla is only on screen for about five minutes and never says a word. But Stewart makes it all worth while.)
Another character who came out much nicer in the series than in real life is Augustus. He comes off on the show as a fairly lovable old gent. Easy to forget he could be lovable because he’d had all his rivals killed.
Claudius’s father (I think): Why would you want to invade Britain anyway? The weather is awful and the people are barbarians.
Claudius the God tells the story of Herod (who is more or less left out of the book I,C) and then tells of Claudius’s reign.
The one thing in the books I most wished they had left in the series was how Herod saved the people in the Coliseum when Caligula was killed. According to CTG the German guards had decided to kill everyone in the Colliseum (since tehy didn’t know who had killed the emperor). Herod burst in and told them that Caligula had come back to life and was at the palace waiting for them. The guards ran off and he told the people to get the heck out…
Definitely the best mini-series I ever saw. Unless you count the Prisoner.
Fifteen Iguana
Oooh, I, Claudius. I’ve got to watch that again sometime. Derek Jacobi rocks my world.
Something to add to Fifteen Iguana’s quote collection –
Caligula (speaking to the dying Claudius from beyond the grave): I’m not the Messiah after all! You could’ve knocked me over with a feather when they told me!
Thanks Katisha (is it true people travel miles to see your left elbow) for reminding me of Claudius’s vision of the dead. Another line from that is:
Livia: You’re a fool, boy. They say it’s not your fault. But if it isn’t yours, whose is it?
And I just remembered Livia’s passionate speech to the gladiators, demanding that they fight properly. Can’t do it justice here.
Sian Phillips was amazing.
And the one line in the series that is supposedly a quotation from the real person:
Caligula (to the citizens gathered in the colliseum): If you had one neck I’d hack it through.
Fifteen Iguana
My word, some of you must have memorized the series for a class.
Iguana, you quote almost all of my favorite scenes.
But no-one mentioned the scene in which Caligula, well, copped a feel off Livia. How could such a simple scene be so gruesome?
I loved the scene where Messilina’s mother tries to convince her to commit suicide.
History fans should check the I, CLAVDIVS PROJECT web site:
With plot summaries:
http://www.anselm.edu/internet/classics/I,CLAUDIUS/sumfram.html
Historical evidence chart (very good, with Latin sources):
http://www.anselm.edu/internet/classics/I,CLAUDIUS/evchafr.html
Analysis of the episodes:
http://www.anselm.edu/internet/classics/I,CLAUDIUS/analyfrm.html
Click on the episode number (in roman numerals of course!) to see the charts and articles.
I love the scenes when the loaded dice of Herod are introduced and then used by Caligula.
I’m sure it’s no accident that Tony Soprano’s manipulative mother was named Livia.
Both of those are down to being faithful to the book, I think… Robert Graves is interested in portraying Claudius as a complex and sympathetic character, and that sometimes involves re-interpreting history. The biggest example, IMHO, is all that stuff about Claudius’s deep-laid plan to be deliberately ineffectual as a ruler so that the Empire will fall and the Republic will be restored… it seems far more likely, to me, that he just went senile and stopped caring.
As for the “manly gown” - Graves took a deliberate stylistic decision to avoid any Latin words, even well-known Latin words, in his text, preferring an English equivalent (so, we get references to someone being “Protector of the People” rather than “Tribune”, or the Roman army having “sergeants” instead of “centurions”). The “gown” is Graves’s alternative for the toga; the “manly” bit refers to the toga virilis: putting on your first grown-up toga was a rite of passage into adulthood for a Roman male (kind of like a vastly more complicated version of long trousers).