Remaining faithful to the ancient sources yet not boring us with extra- neous details Robert Graves wrote I, Claudius in 1934 when the cruelty of even the worst emperors was mirrored in Adolph Hitler and by a Nazi barbarism that threatened the boundaries of human decency. As I re-read I, Claudius and its sequel Claudius the God (1940) I was intrigued by the connection between personal poverty and power. Claudius was never poor economically though Graves often refers to him as poor uncle Claudius. His was a patient poverty, humble, humourous and wise. He may have looked like a