A review by uhambe_nami
Claudius the God: And His Wife Messalina by Robert Graves

5.0

Claudius the God starts where I, Claudius left off, at the scene of the assassination of Caligula. The first four chapters are dedicated to Herod Agrippa, the Jewish king who grew up in Rome. Claudius calls him a 'scoundrel with a golden heart'. He then continues to relate how he managed to clean up the political and financial mess that Caligula left behind and undertook some major works in Rome (two aqueducts that doubled the water supply in the city, the draining of a lake, and the harbour of Ostia). Leading up to the invasion of Britain, Claudius gives us the historical background of the Celtic tribes, the Druids, Stonehenge and the British women with their "fierce tempers".
Beautifully written and totally engrossing, historical fiction does not get much better than this.