What a book! Really enjoyed this one. My first Graves, and it almost certainly won’t be my last. I think he did excellent stuff with character in this one. The fact that the novel ends with him being thrown in the air and declared emperor and his only thoughts are of how his books will now be more popular is brilliant (not a spoiler, he says he’s emperor from the start). Such great character-work: Tiberius’s slow descent into madness, Livia’s real motivations being revealed, Sejanus’s rise to fame, Caligula’s madness, Augustus’s eccentricities and, of course, everything Claudius does. Everyone felt really real. A bit slow at times, but the moment he is invited over for dinner by a certain character, you can feel the endgame being set-up, and the ramp-up towards the end is excellent, I think. Rating: 7.42/10 or 3.71/5 My book rating system is pretty straightforward. Each of the sub-scores below is scored out of 10 and then I take the average. Sub-scores: 1. How much does it justify its length? 7/10. There’s definitely around 50 pages that could have been removed to the benefit of this book. 2. Enjoyment, or the straightforward pleasure of reading the book. 7/10. Really enjoyed most of this. I feel a lot of the war stories could have been removed as they felt like digressions from the story. Though I feel more could have been done with the narrator element of this, I won’t complain that a story isn’t what I wanted it to be. 3. Writing Style 8/10. Excellent. I think Graves really does a good job of bringing us into the world with the language. As an aside, I do appreciate the modernisations of the place names, as well. 4. Character Work 10/10. Excellent stuff. I feel Graves really did amazing stuff with characters here. But I’ve spoken enough on this in the main review. 5.Plot 7/10. I like the plot structure. 6. How absorbed/obsessed I was with the book while reading it. 7/10. Started this twice. First time, I dropped off after 128 pages. Second time I finished it. The second time, it carried me away. 7. Pacing 6/10. I think there was a fair bit of digressions that could have been removed. Around 50 pages as I said above could easily have been dropped.