So I just rewatched I, Claudius (also know in my house as I, Clvdivs or I, Clamdip), following along in my Suetonius, and now I am reading Robert Graves. Can anyone recommend good non-fiction on the period and the people? I get the feeling that Suetonius is like The Weekly World News: highly entertaining, but with quite an agenda. And Graves is based on Sueutonius. I want to know if Livia and Caligula and others have gotten a bum rap over the years!
Tacitus.
Also Plutarch and Livy. (who is, of course, a character in I Claudius.
This wiki article summarizes what various historians have to say about Livia:
I’d say Tacitus, also. If you’re looking for a straight-up history book, however, (rather than a contemporary’s account), well, there’s always Gibbon. 
I’d also like to briefly mention in passing that I, Claudius is based on much more than just Suetonius- in fact, he gets rather snippy about this in the foreword to Claudius the God, pointing out that he consulted a host of original sources. Take that for whatever it’s worth, I guess.
bibliophage speaks about Caligula.
Vnfortvnately, no matter how mvch thovght I gave it, no. I strvck ovt.
It’s been a while, but doesn’t Gibbon start at Marcus Aurelius?
Has anyone good written recently about them? Like, in the past 25 years or so?
As for Wikipedia, I put it somewhere around Suetonius for being interesting but highly dubious factually.
I agree that Wiki needs to be used with a critical eye, but in this case (as I said) it’s a decent summary of what others have said. With cites and everything.
Anyone so inclined can use the article as a guide to track down the source material cited.
Try Michael Grant’s “The Twelve Caesars” - published in 1973, but it’s not like there’s been much new primary source material for a millenium or so.
Try Michael Grant’s The Twelve Caesars. It’s recent, and very readable, and done by a respectable historian. (My rule of thumb for Graves is to take him with a lot of salt. I’m convinced that he knew the facts, but he has his own ideas about history and mythology that keeps him from repeating them straight.):
Actually, try McCullogh’s (sp?) (terribly titled) Master of Rome ™ series. As I understand it, she went to all the source material and while she’s taken liberties with the narrative, I think all the facts are right. It’s a fun read anyway.
Strictly speaking, either “I, CLAVDIVS” or “I, Claudius”. In the Latin alphabet as used by the Ancient Romans, “u” is the lower case form of “V”.
Hmmm, Grant seems a little above my heard, from what the reviews say. I wonder if there are any good individual bios of Claudius, Livia, etc., rather than overall histories?
I enjoyed The First Century by William Klingaman - a history of (obviously) the first century. It’s not just the Roman imperial family; it also has large sections on early Christianity and China.
And Amazon has used copies for just ninety cents.
Writes Eve:
What? Grant over the head of our own biographer?
Not a chance of it. Grant’s a popular writer. I listened to this one (unabridged) while commuting in my car. It’s not a mass of scholarly footnotes - I think it’ll fit right in with your loves.
Seriously, Grant is a very good writer - it’s a scholarly work but doesn’t read like one. Allan Massie has written some volumes on individual Emperors, but they are novelisations (I think, I haven’t actually read any), but he’s a good and methodical writer usually, so it might be worth checking him out.
And, as we all are aware, VBB converts SHOUTING SOLID CAPS (which I’m sure Eue would have used, to Annoying Initial Caps. Vnreasonable it is to think that she would haue made such a greiuious error!
We just re-watched the series, too. Fun to catch a very young Patrick Stewart as Sejanus.
Anthony A. Barrett wrote Caligula: The Corruption of Power in 1989. I don’t remember whether I thought it was any good, but it is from Yale University Press. It’s got 3.5 starson Amazon.
Damn software, not keeping up with proper 1st century Latin usage!
(Or should I say “softuuare”, since Latin didn’t have a double-u letter?)