<human>: I, Claudius (1934) is a novel by English writer Robert Graves, written in the form of an autobiography of the Roman Emperor Claudius. Accordingly, it includes the history of the Julio-Claudian Dynasty and the Roman Empire, from Julius Caesar's assassination in 44 BC to Caligula's assassination in 41 AD. The 'autobiography' of Claudius continues (from Claudius' accession after Caligula's death, to his own death in 54) in Claudius the God (1935). The sequel also includes a section written as a biography of Herod Agrippa, contemporary of Claudius and future King of the Jews.

Claudius was the fourth Emperor of Rome (r. 41-54 AD). Historically, Claudius' family kept him out of public life until his sudden coronation at the age of forty-nine. This was due to his being perceived as being a dolt due to his stammering, limp and other nervous tics. This made others see him as mentally deficient and also therefore not a threat to his ambitious relatives. Even as his symptoms began to wane in his teenage years, he ran into trouble for his work as a budding historian. His work on a history of the civil wars was too truthful and too critical of the reigning emperor Augustus and his mother and grandmother quickly put a stop to it. This episode reinforced their initial suspicions that Claudius was not fit for public office. This is how he was defined by scholars for most of history, and Graves uses these peculiarities to develop a sympathetic character whose survival in a murderous dynasty depends upon his family's incorrect assumption that he is a harmless idiot.  Graves's interpretation of the story owes much to the histories of Gaius Cornelius Tacitus, Plutarch and (especially) Suetonius (Lives of the Twelve Caesars). Graves translated Suetonius before writing the novels. Graves claimed that after he read Suetonius, Claudius came to him in a dream one night and demanded that his real story be told. The life of Claudius provided Graves with a way to write about the first four Emperors of Rome (Augustus, Tiberius, Caligula, and Claudius) from an intimate point of view.  In addition, the real Claudius was a trained historian and is known to have written an autobiography (now lost) in eight books that covered the same time period. I, Claudius is a first-person narrative of Roman history from the reigns of Augustus to Caligula; Claudius the God is written as a later addition documenting Claudius' own reign.  Graves provides a theme for the story by having the fictionalised Claudius describe a visit to Cumae, where he receives a prophecy in verse from the Sibyl, and an additional prophecy contained in a book of "Sibylline Curiosities". The latter concerns the fates of the "hairy ones" (i.e. The Caesars - from the Latin word "caesar", meaning "a fine head of hair") who are to rule Rome. The penultimate verse concerns his own reign, and Claudius assumes that he can tell the identity of the last emperor described. From the outset, then, Graves establishes a fatalistic tone that plays out at the end of Claudius the God, Claudius predicts his own assassination and succession by Nero.  At Cumae, the Sibyl tells Claudius that he will "speak clear." Claudius believes this means that his secret memoirs will be one day found, and that he, having therein written the truth, will speak clearly, while his contemporaries, who had to distort their histories to appease the ruling family, will seem like stammerers. Since he wishes to record his life for posterity, Claudius chooses to write in Greek, since he believes that it will remain "the chief literary language of the world." This enables Graves to offer explanations of Latin wordplay or etymologies that would be unnecessary for native Latin speakers. CANNOTANSWER

What did he do as the emperor
<bot>: CANNOTANSWER