Roman Empire – The Book-Butterfly

Robert Graves: I, Claudius

In the heat of the 2022 election season, I read two of literature’s Roman Empire trinity: Marguerite Yourcenar’s Memoirs of Hadrian and John Williams’ Augustus. It was, perhaps, a subconscious response to how my nation’s “history” was being crafted to suit narratives while facts were being doubted and ridiculed.

The novels led me to plead that if we dare to question history, we need also the courage to question our motives and ask ourselves what kind of people our convictions empower. That we have the son of the dictator as president is proof that my plea was futile.

As political temperatures rise once again, simply because the very same people who refused to listen to history are stewing in the consequence of their choices, I found myself drawn to Robert Graves’ I, Claudius.

Writers are discouraged to begin any piece of writing with “I”. It’s clever how this book pretends to break that rule with its title and then proceeds to construct the story, not of one man, but of an empire. While I prefer the elegant prose of Hadrian and favor the compassion with which Augustus treats its subjects, especially the women, Claudius completes the trinity with its wit and brilliant insight into the inner workings of politics, power, and the process of writing history.

“…there are two ways of writing history: one is to persuade men to virtue and the other is to compel men to truth… and perhaps they are not irreconcilable.”

I, Claudius renders many books inconsequential and makes a reader wonder why they beat around the bush before undertaking it. The OG Game of Thrones but better, if Robert Graves will allow me such language.

Reading about corrupt rulers draining the treasury, entertaining the masses with shallow amusements and feeding them with false narratives, and all the political maneuvering and violence tells me that we have not come very far. The only difference is that, at a time when the Roman Empire transitioned from representative democracy to centralized imperial authority, the people were not to blame for electing crooks.

Flowers from a Book

Augustus to a young Julia, on Cleopatra:

“…that was Cleopatra, she was Queen of a great country. She was an enemy to Rome; but she was a brave woman, and she loved her country as much as any Roman might love his; she gave her life so that she might not have to look upon its defeat.”

This passage is an example of the compassion with which John Williams treats his characters.

My copy of Augustus being secondhand, it was a lovely surprise to find this pressed beauty tucked between the pages featuring Cleopatra.

Link to main entry on Augustus

John Williams: Augustus

*“Father, has it been worth it? Your authority, this Rome that you have saved,*
*this Rome that you have built? Has it been worth all that you have had to do?”*

To have made palpable not only history, but the scope of human nature and the heart’s confidentialities; to have justly raised some of history’s forgotten women from the footnotes of the annals; to have retrieved a legendary man from his pedestal so he could tread in our minds as a mere mortal; to have given pensive credence to a line from that famous Quartet by Durrell in that the real ruins of Europe are its great men; there is but one word for the man, this book, the writing — august.

I have not read a more majestic novel!

As much as I want to reiterate the praises heaped upon this work and repeat the passages that moved me, I wish to put emphasis on what makes it meaningful to me as a woman — the noteworthy backstory, underscored by John McGahern in this edition, about the catalyst that gave us this book. In a conversation with writer Morton Hunt, John Williams learned the story of Augustus’ daughter Julia, whom the emperor deeply loved, but whom he sent into exile because she had broken the laws on adultery that he himself had enacted. The fascination with the fact that the only child of the first emperor of the Roman Empire had been overlooked in the histories led Williams to an immersion into the Roman world, which resulted in this work in which Julia is the heart.

It is this heart that grants us a compassionate portrait of Augustus. With this work published in 1971, and with that subtle power distinctly his, John Williams penned a revolutionary and enlightening approach on how to treat history’s women alongside the men — not to raise them unreasonably into women who played bigger roles in history than they actually did, but to remind us that they existed, they lived, and that they mattered.

Greeting this month with Memoirs of Hadrian and ending it with Augustus feels like a paradox at a time in my country when “history” is crafted to suit narratives and facts are doubted because they are purportedly written by the victors.

Friends, Romans, countrymen… in this, our history differs, because we have history written not by the victors but by the victims, and by those who became victims by speaking the truth. If we have the courage to question our history, we need also the courage to question our motives, and most of all, ask ourselves what kind of people our convictions empower.

“…nor did I determine to change the world so that my wealth and power might be enhanced… it was more instinct than knowledge, however, that made me understand that if it is one’s destiny to change the world, it is his necessity first to change himself.”

Literary Symmetry

“I have relinquished Rome to the mercies of Tiberius and to the accidents of time.”

Augustus, John Williams (1971)

“I accept with calm these vicissitudes of Rome Eternal.”

Memoirs of Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar (1951)

“The barbarian will become the Rome he conquers; the language will smooth his rough tongue; the vision of what he destroys will flow in his blood.”

Augustus, John Williams (1971)

“If ever the barbarians gain possession of the world then will be forced to adopt some of our methods; they will end resembling us.”

Memoirs of Hadrian, Marguerite Yourcenar (1951)