the I, Claudius series is fantastic and I absolutely love it. It's very faithful to Robert Graves' books I, Claudius and Claudius the God. But how accurate is it historically?

Well firstly it suffers the same problems of most TV or film adaptations or historical events, by condensing events and characters down into a manageable size for their format. As example of a minor inaccuracy for plot clarity would be how Tiberius' son is called "Castor," Tiberius' son was named Drusus after Tiberius' brother, but as Drusus the Elder had previously been on the series it might have confused some in the audience. Castor was a nickname given to Drusus the younger, after a gladiator iirc. The series spans over 75 years from 23 BC to AD 54, so of course some condensing of the facts is needed, and I don't think that should be considered alone to make the series inaccurate. Some costuming, especially the Praetorians armor, and set dressing might not be totally accurate to the first century BC/AD, but it's better than many other "holloywood Romans" and gives a good sense of Romanness. So now that I've got the minor nitpicky things mentioned let's move into the meat of the topic.

I, Claudius presents Livia and a scheming black widow who has a hand in killing everyone in the way of Tiberius' elevation to emperor, including the murder of Augustus. First she is depicted as poisoning Marcellus who died of an illness in 23 BC. In that same year Augustus was also very very ill and was thought to be on his deathbed, the sudden death by illness of a young and popular member of the Imperial family is of course ground zero for rumors of all kinds. Our ancient sources do implicate Livia, but I'll quote one of those sources Cassius Dio here: "Livia, now, was accused of having caused the death of Marcellus, because he had been preferred before her sons; but the justice of this suspicion became a matter of controversy by reason of the character both of that year and of the year following, which proved so unhealthful that great numbers perished during them." The other murderous events are similarly more rumor than facts, Gaius an Lucius Caesar were both far from Rome when they died. Lucius who actually died a year and a half before Gaius (another of the shows minor inaccuracies) died of illness in Marseilles while traveling to Spain, while Gaius died of wounds received fighting in Armenia, both events seem pretty hard to engineer by Livia, though the boating accident setup is great TV. Lastly for the poisoning of Augustus is rumored by both Tacitus and Cassius Dio, the illness and death of a 75 year old man who had been sickly for much of his younger life is much more likely than being murdered by his wife of the past 50+ years. I adore Brain Blessed's portrayal of Augutus, but it does make him seems a bit like a bumbling fool who's deceived by his wife and daughter. Augutus was a shrewd and cunning politician who navigated the waters of the collapsing republic without getting killed like his adoptive father Julius Caesar, certainly the man was no fool.

The reign of Tiberius is probably the most accurate part of the series, the rivalry between the popular Germanicus and the gloomy Tiberius is a notable part of Tiberius' early reign. the suspicious death of Germanicus and the trail of Piso falls in line with our sources and we even have a surviving inscription of the Senatus Consultum on the Piso affair giving us the account not just of our historians but the senate itself. Tiberius retreat from public affairs and the rise of Sejanus, again are pretty well depicted. Plus who doesn't love evil Patrick Stewart? The show hints at Tiberius' sexual deviance which we hear reported by Suetonius but again like Livia this is likely more character assassination that fact.

Caligula's historical reign is the most poorly attested of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, as the portions of Tacitus' Annals that cover his reign and part of Claudius' are missing. So truthfully giving you a list of inaccurate things for Caligula's life and reign is a hard task. The allegations of incest with his sisters is likely character assassination painting him as a tyrant like the Egyptian Pharaohs practice of sibling marriage or Persian practices. Same with the claiming divinity, Caligula was the great grandson of Augustus who had been deified, just as had Julius Caesar So he was descended from divinity. Further the imperial cult was devoted to the Genius (a difficult concept to summarize, but think of a spirit or soul) of an emperor, no emperor would have claimed being a living god, to do so would have smacked of Eastern Despotism to the Roman aristocracy. Was Caligula insane? Well diagnosing mental illness in someone who is long dead and who's life is reported to us through biased an hostile sources is a futile task, the truth is a 24 year old with no experience was suddenly thrust into absolute power. His father had died mysteriously, his mother and brothers were caught up in the purges of Sejanus, and his last few years before becoming emperor had been with the gloomy and paranoid Tiberius. So I might speculate that his mental health was under much more strain than that of a modern 24 year old who is dealing with college debt and worried about finding a job, but I'm only guessing.

Finally Claudius' reign, again it is pretty good about being in line with what our ancient sources tell us. Claudius was very reliant on his freedmen like Narcissus and Pallas. His wife Messalina's affairs and crazy marriage with Gaius Sillius while Claudius was away at Ostia are reported to us, but we honestly don't really know what the heck is up with that. His marriage to his niece Agrippina is accurate. She is rumored to be a shrewd and ambitious empress, but like Livia, she was a women in power so our sources don't have much good to say about her. All our ancient sources agree that she poisoned Claudius, but like Augustus the death of a 63 year old man can be attributed to more mundane things. Did Claudius secretly favor his son Britannicus and urge him to hide in Britain, not that we know of.

The series I, Claudius does a pretty good job of following some of our ancient source material, particularly Suetonius' Lives of the Caesars. Does that make it historically accurate? Not exactly. Robert Graves when writing I, Claudius and Claudius the God took the sources that gave him the best, juiciest material for his works and it makes for great TV. So I give the show credit for giving a sense of what life might have been like in up on the Palatine Hill, because certainly there was palace intrigue and mischief, but not being 100% true to the historical events.