The Big Read II: I, Claudius Ch. 7-10

If I can find the time (yeah right) I really must make a chart of all these names and intrigues. I could try using bubbl.us or mind42. A history teacher comments at BoD that it does settle down.

Chapter 7: Betrothals and Loves
"I shall try to devote these next chapters strictly to events that happened between my ninth and sixteenth years. Mostly it is a record of the betrothals and marriages of us young nobles."

Methinks Claudius is channeling the future historian Robert Graves.

There is trouble among the nobles: they're not marrying (but are fooling around with slaves and freedwomen), and Augustus scolds them, "by this time...an old man with all the petulance and crankiness of an old man who has been at the head of affairs his whole life."

Claudius sees that it is the women, really, who don't want to marry. They lose autonomy, as well as dowry, by marrying. Perhaps feminism has been around a long long time...it was just more hidden back then. Augustus compensates by making his grandchildren marry young. [Me slapping hand on forehead. Ooooohhh! That's why they do that. Duh.]

Augustus is tickled that Claudius has found a girlfriend, Medullina. Claudius calls her by her last name, Camilla, referring to hunting priestesses dedicated to Diana. Camilla is a "champion runner." Claudius also uses his last name, because it means "cripple." The two bond.

Augustus actually makes a decision without Livia, and arranges their betrothal. Of course, Camilla is poisoned. Why does Livia care so much to ruin Claudius's life? Livia pretends she doesn't like to have to do it, but she arranges a betrothal between Aemilia and Claudius. Aemilia is one of the bad ones.

Postumus is in love with Livilla. That can't be good.

The chapter ends with a cliffhanger. Claudius seems to like to do that. He says, "Meanwhile [Livia] had to pay a debt of honour to her friend Urgulania, a woman whom I have not yet mentioned bu who is one of the most unpleasant characters in my story."

Chapter 8: Arranged marriage
Livia secured religious power through Urgulania. Urgulania judges which Vestal Virgins are actually virginal.

Now I've been calling Livia evil all along, bet here's the first time (that I've noticed) that Claudius calls her evil. They've arranged his betrothal to U's daughter Urgulanilla. Rhymes with Godzilla, she's a "young, female Hercules."

They stood there, Claudius "nervous and fidgety," Urgulanilla "massive and expressionless."

"...the solemnity of the two evil old grandmothers gave way, and they burst into uncontrolled laughter. ...it was...a hellish sobbing and screeching, like that of two old drunken prostitutes watching a torture or crucifixion." It is a joke to them, like the crossing of a camel and an elephant.

Chapter 9: Prophetic advice
In Chapter 5, Athenodorus arranges for Claudius to meet Livy, a historian. For Claudius this is like meeting a pop star. I didn't mention it because I'm already trying to write way too much. So now Livy comes along with another historian, Pollio. These old know-it-alls place a bet on what Claudius might be reading. Claudius wins Pollio's championship by first seeming to insult him, "I'm glad to say, sir, that you lose." And then revealing that he is reading Pollio's books.

This sparks an argument between Livy and Pollio, because their philosophy of history differs. It reminds me of the debate back when I was in college, whether to read Homer translated by Lattimore, or by Fitzgerald. The first was more literal, the latter more poetic. Pollio is to Lattimore as Livy is to Fitzgerald. Claudius is quite the diplomat.

Pollio says, "History is a true record of what happened, how people lived and died, what they did and said; an epic theme merely distorts the record."

Pollio presses Claudius to reveal inaccuracies he'd found in Livy's epic themes. Sepicius moderates, "You make it very difficult for the boy, you jealous fellows. What do you expect him to answer?" Ah, if Livia only knew the champions Claudius was gaining.

"It would serve the cause of the truth," said Pollio gently. "Wouldn't that be something?"
"And if by serving the cause of truth we admit our revered ancestors to have been cowards, liars, and traitors? What then?"

Claudius thinks perhaps the two views "are not irreconcilable." I wonder if we see a bit of Robert Graves' own internal dialog. It is Pollio who tells Claudius that if he wants to live long, he should exaggerate his limp, his stammer, his sickness. It is Pollio who warns him that his father and grandfather were both poisoned. He is an old man; he knows he is going to die. Before he does, he leaves books to Claudius in his will. Nobody thinks Pallio could have meant this Claudius, so Tiberius gets them.

Chapter 10: Marriage, letters, Postumus done for...
Livia keeps Claudius's coming of age and marriage a private affair. He has a child, Drusillus, a spiteful and haughty one.

Claudius learns what his grandparents thought of him after their deaths, in their letters. Ah, Augustus, why are you such a fool with Livia over and over? He tells her in a letter that he secretly witnessed Claudius demonstrate exemplary oratory argument. Fortunately for Claudius, Livia dismissed the story, taking Claudius for a parrot. (Or did she? We shall see. I never ever ever trust something Livia says.) Claudius is given light priest duty for public show.

Postumus is pushed further out of favor by Livia and her toadies. He stops playing the sociopath's game.

He is then called to account by Augustus, and shows no contrition, insisting that Plautius deserved his ducking for speaking in an insulting way to me; at the same time he complains to Augustus that his inheritance is being unjustly withheld. [it is of course] Soon he is reprimanded by Livia for his changed manner and for his surliness towards her. "What's poisoned you?" she asks. He replies, grinning, "Maybe you've been putting something in my soup." When she demands an explanation of this extraordinary joke he replies, grinning still more vulgarly: "Putting things in soup is an old trick among stepmothers."

A Review Contest: The Great Gatsby

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The other reviews are here.

The Big Read II: I, Claudius Ch. 4-6

Chapter 4: Tiberius and Livia circling like wolves

Claudius's father sends a letter to his brother Tiberius. Unfortunately, Tiberius opens it in the presence of Livia and Augustus. Augustus "secretly approved of the sentiments expressed in the letter," (that while Drusus loves Augustus, sadly his own mother is evil, and Tiberius must try to, um, persuade Augustus to retire).

Tiberius and Livia are like wolves circling for the grab, or the feint. For now it is a draw. "And supreme power for her had come to be more important than life or honour; she had sacrificed so much for it. Yet she was able to disguise her feelings. She pretended to take Augustus's view that my father was merely sick, and she told Tiberius that she thought his censure too severe." She sends her doctor.

Drusus is too ill to return. He broke his leg. (Was the doctor there when that happened?) It is now gangrenous. (Would a doctor at that time know how to treat, or to infect, such a wound?) Drusus's last words to Tiberius, "Rome has a severe mother: Lucius and Gaius have a dangerous stepmother." (Julia and Agrippa's children, adopted by Augustus.) I think I need a diagram to keep track of these kids and adoptions and shuffled wives. Livia knows Tiberius knows she likes to poison people. She likes her advantage in this. The Senate pacifies her with statues and privilege.

Claudius reproves himself for not getting to his own story. Of his parents' seven children, only he, his brother Germanicus, and his sister Livilla lived beyond childhood. Livilla, eh?

Chapter 5: How Claudius survives, even thrives
Claudius was a sickly child. How sick was he? Claudius says he "perhaps only lived because the diseases could not agree as to which should have the honour of carrying me off." Measles (German?) malaria, erysipelas, colitis, and infantile paralysis that left a permanent limp.

Livilla taunts Claudius with his mother's ambivalence. Yep, she's a mini-Livia. Germanicus, on the other hand, is one of the good ones. The strong, heartless Livia hardly thinks of Claudius as a person, of course. Augustus, ever attracted to health, was also repulsed, though he did try to be familial. Somewhat. He dissed Claudius in Greek to his friend Athenodorus, not knowing the idiot Claudius understood Greek. A-dorus pulled little Claudius close, inviting him to speak. The usually stuttering Claudius did, perfectly, in Greek.

Hmmm. There are certain people who attract love from all, well all but those who have no heart left to love, and those people seem to be the ones who give love and friendship to the freakish Claudius. Germanicus, Athenodorus, and Postumus, the third (postmortem) son of Agrippa and Julia.

There's a mythic story about eagles fighting in the sky. As feathers drop, the children grab them. Blood spatters. "And then something dark dropped through the air. I do not know why I did so, but I put out a fold of my gown and caught it. It was a tiny wolf-cub, wounded and terrified."
Oh. Hey....so that's why I was drawn to the wolf metaphor. (The a-ha comes from reading the 3 chapters, then reviewing it to write. I was forgetting the wolf-cub as I described T and L as wolves. The portents.) This also makes me think of the story of Devadatta, Siddhartha, and the Swan. Maybe I'll come back to that.

Being the invalid he is, Claudius spends more time with women than with boys. He doesn't mind. His tutor, Cato, made him read Cato, the Censor, the man's ancestor, "who of all the character in Roman history is to me perhaps the most hateful as having persistently championed the cause of "ancient virtue" and made it identical in the popular mind with churlishness, pedantry, and harshness."

Cato gloried in triumphs, a certain number of thousands people dead in battle. Augustus discontinued the practice, no more public recognition of triumphs. Cato the Censor treated slaves like cattle. Cato the tutor boxed Claudius's ears, and then some. Postumus saved Claudius from that.

{Cato the Censor "brought the Punic Curse on Rome." ... "By harping incessantly on the menace of Carthage he brought about such popular nervousness that, as I have said, the Romans eventually violated their most solemn commitments and razed Carthage to the ground." You know what I'm thinking of... }

Postumus stops Cato, invokes this Roman proverb I find delightful: "Those that can't beat the ass, beat the saddle." He provokes Cato into saying too much, and after that no more beatings. Cato moves on to the Boys College. How'd he get that cushy spot? Livia requires reports on the students to plan future marriage alliances. Livia again! While Postumus is the natural prince among the boys, with Cato spying for Livia, that can't be good in the long run.

The best thing for Claudius, Athenodorus becomes his tutor. "He proposed to teach me not facts which I could pick up anywhere for myself, but the proper presentation of facts. And this he did."

I swear, and Claudius thinks so too, Livia must have got word that Claudius was actually enjoying life, so he got a new tutor, Sulpicus. But A-dorus had given him the tools he needed, and C quickly learned that Sulpicus could give him all the facts he needed to explore the implications of history.

Chapter 6: Tiberius and Julia
Tiberius must play to Livia's every move. Julia is banished for infidelity. Augustus is still no friend to Tiberius. Augustus is grief-stricken over having to banish Julia.

Backstory of T and J: Daddy, I want to marry that man. Daddy, please?
T, you must marry my daughter. I don't care if you love your wife. T is a cold husband.

But wait. It turns out a certain wicked witch gave the smitten Julia (could this be the first time she chose her husband herself?) a potion made from "crushed bodies of certain little green flies from Spain." Julia developed a dependency, couldn't help her infidelities. Or too much time with Livia poisons hearts as well as physical bodies.

After 5 years or more, Augustus finally brings himself to ask how big the island of exile is, and Julia gets moved to a nicer one. Even the people wanted Julia back; Claudius interprets this as hostility to Livia.

Somewhere in there Tiberius' sexual anomalies are mentioned, and Lucius dies mysteriously. Gaius was useful in Livia's machinations. She had pushed him through to appointments he was too young for. Malleable. But he too succumbed to a mysterious ailment and an inexplicably infected wound. Inexplicable things keep happening in this family. Tiberius is back in Augustus' good graces. Livia has everyone where she wants them: in her power, or dead. What, I wonder, is going to happen to good Postumus?

Eats Near Hollywood Library: Hollywood Burger Bar

So you're in the Hollywood district and you're hungry for a burger (in my case a veggie burger) and you see this:



Do not be tempted by the B-list celebrity gimmick. Do not think that because it's big and a newly renovated building that the restaurant must be good. It's not. I went there once, chose two vegetarian appetizers that with tip came to $20, and they were kinda lame. If you must go there, don't choose anything with tomatoes, that's all I can say. Even the Hollywoodian that was quite excited about Mark Lindsay opening a restaurant has lost her enthusiasm. She said the burger wasn't that great either. Now I hear they've raised their prices. Like that's going to bring more people in.

So you still want that burger. Why don't you just go kitty corner across the street, and squeeze into the Hollywood district landmark, the Hollywood Burger Bar?



The only day I have a lunch hour while working over there is Saturday. Sometimes it can be quite busy, thus I say "squeeze into."

They may just have good old diner food, but they have the Garden burger and the Boca burger for vegetarians. You'll pay at least half as much as the Rock and Roll joint, you have the veggie options, and I'm sure it tastes better. They know their burgers and fries here. I'll bet they know their milkshakes too. I wouldn't know. I'm always too full from the burger and fries to try one. (and some Hollywoodians still go to McD's. What's up with that?)

Tell me, did I choose the Boca, or the Garden burger?

The Big Read II: I, Claudius

I'm not sure I have the time for this, but I am intrigued at the idea of reading a book this way. I've read books with deadlines for chapters before for classes, but I don't recall that I've ever written on one chapter by chapter. I guess this could end up being my version of a Cliff's notes, so get ready for spoilers in these posts.

What the hell am I talking about, you ask? One of my favorite book bloggers started this thing called The Big Read. This is the second one; I missed the first book. We'll be reading I, Claudius by Robert Graves. Already I am two days behind.

The schedule:
March 3 -- Chapters 1-3
March 5 -- Chapters 4-6
March 7 -- Chapters 7-10
March 10 -- Chapters 11-13
March 12 -- Chapters 14-16
March 14 -- Chapters 17-19
March 17 -- Chapters 20-22
March 19 -- Chapters 23-26
March 21 -- Chapters 27-29
March 24 -- Chapters 30-34

In case you didn't know, I, Claudius is an historical fiction about a Roman Emperor (Claudius) after Julius, Augustus, Caligula. I read that Robert Graves based it on Tacitus, among other things. I read some of that and Plutarch's Lives and Herodotus in college but I remember nothing. Not a damn thing.

Chapter 1
In which Claudius informs us he has been known as "Claudius the Idiot" and "Claudius the Stammerer." He also informs us that he wrote another book much earlier in his life, but it was so very dull.

He visits an oracle, the Sibyl at Cumae. "I came into the inner cavern, after groping painfully on all-fours up the stairs, and saw the Sibyl, more like an ape than a woman, sitting on a chair in a cage that hung from the ceiling, her robes red and her unblinking eyes shining red in the single red shaft of light that struck down from somewhere above. Her toothless mouth was grinning. There was a smell of death about me." Turns out that was literal. "The reigning Sibyl always lived with her predecessor."

And I find myself wondering, am I reading the predecessor to Monty Python?

After all, she gives a hilarious oracle. I'm already quoting quite enough, so here's just one stanza (she mocks his stammer):

But when he's dumb and no more here,
Nineteen hundred years or near,
Clau-Clau-Claudius shall speak clear.

And so the clever Claudius The Idiot (or Robert Graves) tells us that that is why we are reading his so-not-dull autobiography nineteen hundred years later. He has faith in the oracle. Claudius is 51, and is or about to be emperor.

Chapter 2
Before we get the dish on why Claudius is experiencing this "golden predicament," he figures he'd better go back to the beginning, and that is to the making of his evil* grandmother, Livia. I have to think carefully to keep things straight, as it seems in the Emperor circles in Ancient Rome, divorces and marriages are traded about like changes of clothes, and Livia knows just how to machinate this to her advantage. "Augustus ruled the world, but Livia ruled Augustus."

I find myself wondering how often I am going to think of America's current emperorship. "Livia realized now that the title of king could be waived so long as Augustus could control the substantial powers of kingship." He eventually controlled the armies, decided on war, controlled the treasury, and controlled the provinces. "The Senate were anxious to vote him whatever title he would accept, short of King: they were afraid to vote him the kingship for fear of the people."

Chapter 3
"The name "Livia" is connected with the Latin word which means Malignity."
More of Livia's machinations: Augustus suffers a mysterious illness; she has him name Agrippa (his friend) his heir. Conflict ensues between Agrippa and Marcellus (Augustus' adoptive son). Agrippa goes away. OK then Marcellus develops a mysterious illness, much like Augustus. Marcellus dies. Hmmm, Claudius is saying to us readers nineteen hundred years in the future. OK then there is a flurry of wife-shuffling, and Livia is pelted with rotten eggs by an angry mob. (Go mob.) Agrippa is petulant over the whole Marcellus thing, but he and Augustus make up. More wife-shuffling, Agrippa gets Julia that he's always secretly loved. Claudius says, "My grandmother Livia was far from pleased with the bargain made with Agrippa..." Livia bided her time. Nine years later Agrippa died suddenly. More wife-shuffling. Somehow the wife-shuffling seems to determine who gets the power.

The wife shuffled the most was little Julia. She was the child of Augustus' first wife, born just as Livia stole him away. Julia stayed with Augustus. Livia's child, Claudius's father, was returned to the man she'd left, even though she'd told him the baby was not his in order to get her divorce. Julia became known for her beauty, and of course her wicked stepmother Livia was jealous. For some inexplicable reason Julia went bald. Augustus got the girl a wig rumored to be "the whole scalp of a German chieftain's daughter shrunk to the exist size of Julia's head." Mel Brooks, don't you want to do this story about blond bimbo tossed around by a power-grubbing stepmother?

Oh yes, Claudius has been talking about good Claudians and bad Claudians. His uncle Tiberius, bad. His father, good, the best. As a general, Tiberius flogged his men. Claudius's father treated his like Roman citizens, and had them determine discipline amongst themselves. He inspired his troops. Tiberius created deceptive cunning criminal troops. I'm wondering, who is Caligula? Not Claudius's father? Ah, no. Here's the chart. And here's the timeline.

*I should mention, when I say "evil" I don't really mean that. I may mean pathological, or mistaken, or lost, or greedy; I don't really believe in evil. It's fun to say it though.

Fight the Power

Comcast is our internet provider. I really like having high-speed internet. But they are so annoying, and they are trying to keep their corporate power and squelch the rights of individuals. What to do? Fight for net neutrality.

I really like the bit where the fist grabs the flowing stream of bits and stops it. It is a simple, vivid depiction of what comcast and other giant corporate entities are doing to our freedom.

Save the internet.