I, Claudius is streaming on Acorn TV, which is offering a 30 day free trial, so here we go.

Brian Blessed is so large and loud. I love him.

Tiberius: Frankly, I wouldn't have thought you cared whether he lived or died.

Livia: Oh I care very much whether he lives or dies.

Sian Phillips is the MVP of this series.

The scenes with Tiberius and his brother Drusus are genuinely touching and I wish there were more of them, and more of Tiberius the man before he becomes a monster.

Blessed's performance as Augustus is very light-hearted, but there are a number of scenes where he is clearly ready to snap and you get a glimpse of the man whose anger and guile powered his rise to dominance.

It's rarely a full rage, but a strong controlled burn.

The whole scene where Augustus berates Tiberius for visiting his ex-wife is like Santa Claus the Mafia Boss, telling you that everything is going to be fine if you just follow orders.

I also love how Augustus ends his tirade with a plea for family togetherness and then a letter from Drusus arrives for Tiberius, slamming the corruption and autocracy in Rome.

Augustus: No divorce! You've been married three times already. How many marriages do you want?

Julia: That's not my fault! I was widowed twice!

Augustus: How a woman can get herself widowed twice is beyond me.

I love this script.

Episode 1 moves more quickly than I recalled, but I still think it's not necessarily the best introduction. A lot of characters show up and then vanish.

It does immediately highlight the relationship between Livia and Tiberius, the central force for the first half of the show.

Episode 2 tomorrow night.

OK. Time for Episode 2 of I, Claudius, the first in which the young Claudius is an active (minor) character, and not just the narrator.

Antonia: It is a terrible thing to accuse someone of poisoning without proof.

Oh Antonia. You cranky old stickler.

When the young Livilla mocks the idea of young Claudius becoming Rome's protector, saying she'd rather die, Antonia punishes her by sending her to her room without supper.

This is excellent foreshadowing.

Augustus preaching to the equites about the importance of marriage, and using an awkward twitching Claudius as an example of noble Roman childhood isn't having the impact he wants.

But "And don't think you can get around it by getting engaged to a nine year old."

On finding a suitable match for Claudius.

Livia: Most women marry fools but it takes them a while to find out.

Brian Blessed is not a convincing crier.

Sian Phillips was only in her early 40s when I, Claudius aired, and the show has famously terrible makeup.

However, she persuasively plays a woman decades older.

Historically, Lucius Agrippa Caesar died before Gaius, not after, and of an illness, not a boating accident.

But ancient writers did suspect foul play in the deaths of both men.

The series starts to take shape more in episode 2. Still a lot of characters vanishing - we never get to know Gaius at all - but both Lucius and Julia are well drawn, and Frances White's anguished pleas as she is hauled off to exile are very sad.

Also, the stakes are clearer and we see Livia as more than a poisoner. She is a towering matriarch and a brutal manipulator.

The decline of Augustus is apparent, and the viewer is to assume that he has had too much grief too quickly and has lost his will.

Tomorrow night, episode 3.

Time for Episode 3: "What Shall We Do About Claudius?"

Augustus ranting about the smuttiness of Ovid is great. Horace! Now that is poetry! Something the kids can listen to!

Augustus: What legion are you with?

Legionary: I was with the 19th.

Augustus: Were you transferred.

Legionary: No. The 19th Legion does not exist any more.

The German victory at Teutoberg Forest is one of the most consequential events in Roman history. Augustus takes it badly

The bitchy squabble between Asinius Pollio and Livy over who is the better historian is an underappreciated scene in the series, but much stronger in Graves's book, where the discussion turns to the role of the historian.

Pollio's history of The Civil Wars is lost, of course, but it allegedly tried to correct some of Caesar's facts. Pollio had marched with Caesar, and was undecided in the wars of the Second Triumvirate (he arguably missed his opportunity to be kingmaker in the Mutina War.)

Augustus talking succession.

"I say succeed, but we are not kings. We have no divine right to rule. But..."

Augustus himself, of course, was named heir to Julius Caesar, but legally to Caesar's property and name. Caesar's titles were awarded by the Senate and could not be passed on.

But the name and the gold meant he could control the armies - the real legacy of his great uncle.

Augustus: Are you sure this girl will marry him (Claudius)?

Livia: What does it have to do with her?

Ah, the romance.

Livia hectoring the gladiators.

"These games are being degraded by the increasing use of professional tricks to stay alive. And I won't have it."

Episode 3 ends with the flight of Postumus, trying to escape arrest for a false rape accusation, and the mockery of Claudius at his marriage to an Amazon of a woman.

Historically, Postumus becomes one in a long line of "but the dead/imprisoned one is a fake and I am the real person" events through history.

I think the Magi coup with the false Bardiya after the death of Cyrus is the first recorded example of this ruse?

Tomorrow, episode 4, where we say our farewell to Brian Blessed.

Time for the return to I, Claudius with Episode 4 "Poison is Queen".

The aged Claudius who narrates the story does not want his slaves to clean up his messy office.

I understand completely.

The meeting between Augustus and the exiled Postumus is greatly diminished by Blessed's total inability to convincingly cry on camera.

Livia's wheedling the Chief Vestal for information on Augustus changing his will is such clever scripting.

And now Augustus is sick and the audience knows what that means.

The scene where Fabius and Augustus discuss the omens is quite droll.

Augustus says a C struck by lightning means he will die in 100 days.

Fabius: Why not weeks? Or months? Or you could live to 100.

Augustus: Really...perhaps I went to the wrong augur.

The look of instant weariness on Livia's face whenever Claudius stammers in her direction is testimony to the greatness of Sian Phillips.

George Baker's Tiberius is an underrated performance, at least before he goes full madman. There is a lot of deep anger.

But I much prefer Andre Morell's job in the 1968 serial The Caesars, a proto-IC from ITV.

Augustus making nice to Claudius this late in his life is so very sad.

Augustus: I'm a republican at heart.

L
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As Augustus dies, Livia speaks to him from off-screen, an almost plaintive speech about how if Augustus had only listened to her more, there would have been less tragedy in his life.

"Nothing I ever did was for myself. Only for you. And for Rome. As a Claudian should."

It's a very moving speech in favor of her version of events and motivations, and is the first of two times in the series that Livia appears truly human and vulnerable.

Then the scene ends with her telling Tiberius to not touch the figs.

44:00 of episode 4 -- the first Patrick Stewart sighting.

His Sejanus is excellent.

Episode 4 ends with the aged Claudius yelling at an empty chair, haunted by the laugh of his evil grandmother Livia.

This episode is a major turning point in the series, and is also the strongest of the Augustus episodes.

Even though I know better than I did when I was a young man who first encountered I, Claudius, the Blessed portrayal of a puttering and somewhat overwhelmed Augustus has stuck with me in my imagination.

It is not a well-rounded or accurate Augustus, nor is it even the Augustus of the book, who often feels remote.

But it is the right portrayal for this series, Augustus as the last good chance the empire had to go right.

Tomorrow, Episode 5, "Some Justice"

OK, on to Episode 5 of my I, Claudius rewatch.

The episode begins with the aged Claudius in the toilet, which is appropriate for the sewer that Rome will become under Tiberius.

I forgot how suddenly Germanicus dies. There is no build-up at all. Just a brief narration and then the body.

This episode is primarily about the results of that death, not the scheming that led to it.

We get our first look at the young Caligula by his grieving mother's side.

Agrippina is a sympathetic character in this series, and in Graves's book. But she was probably a pain to deal with.

Angry crowds protest the death of Germanicus.

TIberius: Why did they admire him so?

Sejanus: When you're not the emperor, you always have the emperor to blame.

(This does not answer the question at all)

Tiberius: They always preferred him to me. Why?

Livia: You just do not have a loveable nature.

Thanks mom.

Sejanus: If we was profoundly loved, he is also profoundly dead.... Everyone is loved when he's dead.

Livia: I wouldn't count on that if I were you.

This episode sparkles with dialogue that in five minutes establishes the stakes for Agrippina, Tiberius, Livia and Sejanus.

Herod Agrippa is one of the great side characters in this drama. He is not just a friend to Claudius, but as an outsider, a commentator on Roman beliefs and mores. The violence of their games, their superstitions, their hypocrisies.

Agrippina: He made a propitiating sacrifice of nine black puppies to Hecate...

(Herod Agrippa laughs)

Agrippina (annoyed): WHICH WAS THE PROPER THING TO DO.

Antonia, on hearing that young Caligula wants to share a bed with his sister:

"Syria is no place to raise a Roman child"

Every time Piso speaks, you can tell that he is digging his own grave with Tiberius. He just won't shut up.

Piso on the Imperial letters he has: "They will plead our case better than Cicero would have done."

Cicero, who famously fumbled a murder case because he was intimidated by the soldiers surrounding the court.

As is often the case in this show, the wife is wiser than the husband. Plancina knows the trial of Piso is going poorly.

This is a strong theme in I, Claudius. Women cannot rule the empire, but they are wise enough to direct and understand events.

Piso and Plancina are only in this episode, but they get a lot of screen time. The performances by Stratford Jones and Irene Hamilton are top notch.

Livia did everything to put Tiberius on the throne and he does not appreciate it, and it drives her absolutely crazy. He wants to be independent of her control, but she wants to retain power.

It is such a well-played personal conflict.

This episode is considerably more focused than many others in the series. It has a single major conflict point - the trial of Piso - and most of the character is revealed in how they handle it.

Tomorrow, Episode 6: Queen of Heaven, which has one of my favorite pieces of acting and some of my favorite dialogue in the whole thing.

It is time for more I, Claudius.

Episode 6 opens with Lollia telling a story of Tiberius's perversions and how she was forced into them.

Until now, the depravity of Tiberius has not been a plot point. Earlier, Julia had made allusions to his sexual tastes, but this plot point arrives all of a sudden.

John Hurt's Caligula is supremely creepy right from the start.

At this point, Tiberius is all paranoia, and nothing Agrippina can say can reassure him, which isn't surprising because she is so obvious resentful and a center of an alternate court.

Claudius chugging three goblets of wine at the opening of Livia's birthday party is a small bit of acting, but it works very well.

Livia's plea to become a goddess - so she can avoid eternal torment for the crimes she has committed - is wonderfully performed by Sian Phillips. I love this episode so much because of this performance.

Livia: If he (Caligula) doesn't make me a goddess, I will be in hell. Hell. Suffering torments, day and night, year after year after year.

And Claudius bargains his guarantee to see this to happen in return for Livia's murderous secrets.

Livia: Gaius I had poisoned when he was in Syria.

Claudius: You have a long reach.

Livia: The empire is very large. I need one.

Sejanus: Whom will you marry?

Claudius: Marry? I'm just getting divorced.

Sejanus: Yes, but you don't want to live alone.

Claudius: I was living alone all the time I was married.

Sejanus: Then it doesn't matter whether you marry or not.

Claudius: I'd rather not.

Livia softly crying as Caligula tells her that he will never make her a goddess, and she will suffer in hell, while he ascends to be the greatest god in history.

Such a quiet and sad and powerful ending to this episode.

Claudius comes in and promises he will see that she gets her deification, but really, the episode ends thematically with Livia's tears.

There are a lot of highs to come in the series, but this is the emotional peak, as we say goodbye to Dame Sian Phillips.

Tomorrow, Episode 7: Reign of Terror.

Back to the sewers of Rome we go. I, Claudius, episode 7.

Reign of Terror is about the purges led by Sejanus, targeting the family of Agrippina, and Tiberius's retreat to Capri. It is a episode full of cruelty.

Antonia is probably the coldest character in the series. There is no room for passion or love, her heart hardened by losses, especially of her beloved husband. At this point, only two children survive; she thinks Claudius is a fool and Livilla is wicked.

She is right about one.

Apicata, the ex-wife of Sejanus, comes to Antonia seeking her influence so that Apicata can get custody of her children - sure they will be treated poorly by Livilla.

Antonia does not care. Apicata knew what Sejanus was and let him hurt others, so she can pound sand.

Patrick Stewart's Sejanus is very much not Picard, but there are some similarities in how he plays the characters.

There is a calmness and a resolve, a diplomatic mien that can cover real threat.

Picard, however, was allowed to get angry. We never see an angry Sejanus.

Livilla, on the other hands, freaks out when Sejanus tells her of Tiberius plan that Sejanus marry Livilla's daughter instead.

This is not protectiveness of her daughter, but jealousy and anger that she is being denied the marriage herself.

Livilla is trash.

We get the first quiet stirrings of Senatorial resistance to Sejanus's accusations, but the house still overwhelmingly approves the new arrests.

Aelia, the sister of Sejanus, carries messages between him and Livilla while they take a break.

Aelia: He loves you!

Livilla; He manages very well without seeing me.

Aelia: Men are different.

No, Aelia, we're really not.

Claudius the Historian is very annoyed that the publisher is illustrating his history of Carthage with elephants.

"Our esteemed client disapproves of elephants"

The scales fall too late from Tiberius's eyes, and there are no men of integrity with the power to take down Sejanus.

Caligula suggests using Macro, the second in command of the Praetorians - he can't rise as long as Sejanus is number one.

It is unclear, historically, when Macro joined the Praetorians, but he had served as the commander of the vigiles - Rome's civic defense squad that handled petty crime and fires.

Tiberius names Caligula as his heir.

"Rome deserves you. I will you nurse you like a viper to its bosom."

Caligula: Is that a joke?

Tiberius: It will be.

At this point, Sejanus is Consul and should not be wearing his military uniform in the Senate.

Boy, I really hope somebody got fired for that blunder.

Curiously, they shoot the death of Sejanus from his point of view. A first person look at his cell being opened and the guards approaching.

We don't get this perspective often in the series, and the only other truly notable instance is the concluding scene of the series.

Antonia locks her daughter Livilla screaming in her room to starve to death.

Claudius: How can you leave her to die?

Antonia: That's her punishment.

Claudius: How can you bear to sit out here and listen to her?

Antonia: And that's mine.

Foreshadowing from episode 2: https://twitter.com/TroyGoodfellow/status/1250194373179998208

Claudius is overwhelmed by the horrors of the revenge on Sejanus and his family and followers. But even he refuses to protect his wife, Sejanus's sister, from the anger of the troops and the mob.

Rome is finished, he cries. And he's half a century late.

Episode 7 ends with a view of the bodies piled on the Senate steps. We don't know how many died in this purge, but it is suspected that the historian Velleius Paterculus was one of the victims.

He is the only historian whose surviving work talks about how awesome Sejanus was.

Tomorrow night, Episode 8 and we get a new emperor. John Hurt takes the throne in "Zeus, By Jove!"

On to Caligula. Episode 7 of I, Claudius. We are now in the second half of the series.

"We are at the dawn of a new golden age! A son of Germanicus has come before us!"

There is always hope. The belief that things cannot get any worse, with one tyrant dead.

The unfortunate Gemellus is portrayed as a child, maybe 9 or 10 years old. Historically, he was 18 when Tiberius died.

However, he had not yet assumed the toga of manhood, which is very odd, and our sources do refer to him in childlike ways.

Graves and the series portray Caligula as a natural monster, though historians quibble on whether the illness early in his reign was the real onset of madness.

I do love the series's sound effect of galloping horses to portray the throbbing in Caligula's head when he gets heated up in his anecdote about the alleged divine intervention that stopped his assassination of Tiberius.

Caligula waking from his deathbed and proclaiming himself a deity is one of the master scenes in the show.

Claudius instantly knows what is up, and plays the bowing supplicant to calm the emperor's temper.

Caligulua: I've never really been ill.

Claudius: Oh?

Caligula: I've been undergoing a metamorphosis.

Claudius: Was it painful?

Caligula: It was like a mother giving birth to herself.

Claudius to Drusilla: He wants to see you. He has become a god. Oh, you're a god, too.

To Herod: We're not.

There was a tweet going around last week about the way that Claudius and Herod celebrated Caligula's divinity, because it would immediately reveal his incompetence for all to see and Rome would be restored.

Then Macro explains to the senate what is happening and they all bow.

There is a great deal of cowardice in political institutions. You almost never see institutions acting bravely, or risking their collective neck.

So, here, Macro underlines that this is the nature of miracles and the Senate should suck it up and everyone submits.

Macro: Although he is now a god, he is still the same lovable young man we've always known.

"If we worship the divine Augustus after his death doesn't it make sense to worship his great grandson while he is still alive?"

Lentulus, the biggest suck-up in the Senate, is the one who convinces his colleagues to embrace the divine, and is also the one who prayed that the gods take his life instead of the emperor's.

Now, Caligula says, Lentulus owes the gods.

Antonia, of course, has no time for the weak men who surround her. Will no one strike him down?

"It is very difficult, mother."

When Caligula reveals his transformation, Claudius tells him the story of Zeus, Metis and Athena. This story hangs over Drusilla's pregnancy for the entire episode.

Antonia very bitterly plans her own death, and still has no patience for Claudius. She thinks she has stayed too long, Claudius is a disappointment, and Rome is not what it was.

The murder of Drusilla and Caligula's bloody lips still shock, even though you know it is coming.

Caligula's short reign just gets the one more episode - tomorrow night's "Hail, Who?"

The texture of Caligula's reign is still a bit of a mystery for historians - contemporary sources are mostly lost, and the most hostile sources are the ones that survived - and there have been efforts to rehabilitate his reputation.

I stick with the traditional understanding.

All of the Julio-Claudians after Augustus have hostile sources, and each are reported as cruel, lustful, sinful, treacherous.

But even if some of the details of Caligula's madness are exaggerated ("He appointed his horse to the senate ironically!"), it is A LOT OF STUFF.

British historian Mary Beard did a good TV show about Caligula and I recommend seeking it out.

On to the next episode. Episode 9 is the first (and only?) episode of I, Claudius to not begin with the aged emperor flashing back to the events of the episode. It starts in the middle of the story, with Claudius and his mistress at home.

The royal brothel, which is portrayed as government sanctioned rape, is another sign of the general sickness in the body politic. Senators would rather sell their wives into prostitution than gather to organize opposition to Caligula's madness.

Caesonia: He's sick. He needs good people around him.

Claudius: He's killed them all.

Claudius saves the lives of the senatorial envoys by quoting Homer.

As one does.

Praetorian prefect Cassius Chaerea makes his first appearance in this episode. He will be the lead assassin.

Chaerea had been mentioned once before on the series though - as the corps commander who kept his head in the debacle at Teutoberg Forest.

Caligula: Am I mad?

Claudius: You set the standard of sanity for the whole world.

He's not wrong.

Caligula's war against Neptune is one of those great anecdotes that is almost too much to believe.

Caligula's dance is a brave piece of wtf.

Claudius immediately falls in love at first sight with the young, pretty Messalina, like many a dumbass throughout history.

"The noble senator, Incitatus"

Poor horse.

This assassination plan has the restoration of the Republic as its goal, and, this will be one of the last attempts to make this come to pass.

One of the senators balks at the idea of including the entire royal family on the murder list, including Claudius, but Cassius Chaerea points out that if any are left alive, they will go after the assassins.

Cassius Longinus made a similarly correct argument to Brutus once.

The Praetorians, looting the palace, know they need an emperor to justify their place in Rome, so they turn to Claudius.

It ends up being the Platonic idea that the only person qualified to rule is someone that doesn't want the job, but it starts as pure convenience.

And that ends episode 9. Claudius is proclaimed emperor by the guards, he has a pretty young wife, and the monster is dead.

Happy ending, right?

John Hurt's performance as Caligula in the series is justly praised. From the moment adult Caligula steps on the stage he is a clear and unique personality in a show with a lot of gray acting.

Caligula has been played on screen many times of course, but Hurt dominates I think.

The only equally prominent Caligula performance is Roddy McDowell in Bob Guiccione's quasi-porn epic "Caligula". I have not seen it and have little interest.

That movie did have a great cast aside from the Penthouse Pets. O'Toole, Gielgud, Mirren.

Caligula sometimes pops up in Christian themed entertainment, notably the 1985 "A.D." miniseries about the early church and a couple of major peplum movies - "The Robe" and "Demetrius and the Gladiators".

Hurt's performance in I, Claudius stands out, I think, not just because Caligula is a fantastically arch and camp character to play, but because there is a sense that this man wants both love and fear from everyone around him and he can't figure out how to make that work.

Recording a podcast tomorrow night, but if I have time, episode 10.

Episode 10 of I, Claudius. Let's see how the new emperor makes out.

We open with the senate calling for the "sanity of a republic!"

I'm a staunch republican, but you can't call the last fifty years of the Roman Republic "sane".

At this point in the series, I don't think it quite works to have the Senate laugh at the idea of Claudius as emperor - especially with the backing of the Praetorian guard.

Claudius is a survivor, a popular link to the royal family, and has swords.

Claudius is, of course, miserable. He does not want the job, and feels more like a prisoner than an emperor.

Note that this is still early in the empire - the idea of the guard choosing someone outside the royal family to be emperor or raising a general to the high seat is not even considered.

Rome's best run of emperors, of course, was not related by blood. Nor raised by the armies.

Herod arrives just in time to advise Claudius.

I do like Herod.

Herod has the worst fake beard I have seen.

Herod's point that Claudius refusing the crown would mean certain civil war is obviously correct. With no acclaimed alternative acceptable to everyone, there was no way that a republic would have lasted longer than a few months before a general seized control.

But this is really the Praetorians' play, and if Claudius did not want to be emperor, they would likely have found someone else willing to do it. Claudius is simply the easiest solution for everyone, if the Senate will just bow to their pressure.

Claudius asking the Senate for their sympathy because he doesn't think he should be emperor, either, is very funny and played very well.

Senator: You are not fit to emperor.

Claudius: I agree. Neither was my nephew.

Senator: Then what's the difference between you?

Claudius: He would not have agreed. And by now your head would be on that floor.

"I have survived with half my wits while thousands have died with their wits intact."

I wonder how these loving scenes between Claudius and Messalina played to people who did not know the history or are new to the show?

"I want to be Livia to your Augustus."

L
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Claudius tells Herod that he is one of the few real friends he has ever had.

Herod tells Claudius to trust no one.

This is not skillful writing.

Pallas: Are you saying there is less selfishness in wanting the price of corn to be low rather than high?

Narcissus: More people want it to be low.

Pallas: Doesn't that add up to more selfishness rather than less?

Claudius is so crestfallen when Messalina asks to sleep in a different bed. He looks like a kicked puppy, even under all those layers of makeup.

Claudius's new doctor prescribes ample farts.

"The man who prefers good manners to good health is a fool"

"I suggest you read as little as possible. Get your secretaries to read everything to you."

This doctor comes with an Audible promotion.

Messalina puts the moves on Appius Silanus, her new father-in-law, whom she has loved since she was a little girl.

Silanus is very slow on the uptake, and not here for it. "These are the sort of dreams we put aside when we grow up."

She also says this is all Claudius's idea and accuses him of adultery with senatorial wives.

Silanus, of course, is doomed.

Silanus: I've lived too long to become the bedtime toy of a 17 year old girl.

Messalina: We shall see.

In this scene, Sheila White swiftly moves from honeyed words to anger to petulance with amazing ease.

Silanus tries to stab Claudius, fails, and this screws up all of Messalina's plans.

To her mother: "Do you think I brought him back from Spain for you?"

Messalina still pleads for Silanus's life, but Claudius has no choice. Goodbye Appius Silanus, the republican senator we knew for one episode.

The theme of "Fool's Luck" is the limits of Claudius's abilities. He is very good at some things - he easily defeats the corn lobby's efforts to scupper his port plans.

But he trusts love too much, so Messalina can easily fool him and Herod has his own agenda.

We have a Claudius who is wise, but who is not great at reading people, which is partly in defiance of earlier epsiodes where Claudius seems to know what is going on around him.

But remember that he is often told what is happening, by people he trusts.

And, that trust is never betrayed! Claudius is openly hated by his mother, his earlier wive and his grandmother, but they never betray him either.

His friends and allies are always straight with him.

In a court full of lies, Claudius was usually dealt with honestly or cynically

Now, as the source of all power, he is surrounded by flatterers and people who claim to love him, or whom he loves.

His freedmen plot to kill his port plan, his wife plots adulteries and her own power base, his oldest friend plots rebellion.

Tomorrow, Episode 11, "A God in Colchester"