Books like I, Claudius
A stammering historian narrates the blood-soaked reigns of Rome's first emperors from the inside, having survived by being too foolish to kill.
Explore books like this on the map12 books for readers of I, Claudius
Augustus
The rise of Octavius from Caesar's adopted heir to the first emperor of Rome, told through letters and memoranda by the people around him.
Quo Vadis
In Nero's Rome, the young patrician soldier Marcus Vinicius falls for Lygia, a hostage princess who has secretly become a Christian, as the city moves toward fire and persecution.
Memoirs of Hadrian
The Roman emperor Hadrian writes a letter to his successor from his deathbed, reflecting on power, love, philosophy, and the architecture of a civilisation.
Wolf Hall
Thomas Cromwell rises from blacksmith's son to Henry VIII's most powerful adviser, navigating the king's desire for a new wife and the reshaping of England.
The History of Rome
Mommsen's history of the Roman Republic, from the founding of the city to the rise of Julius Caesar, the work cited when he won the Nobel.
Tai-Pan
A ruthless trader builds a dynasty in nineteenth-century Hong Kong, clawing power from the chaos of the opium wars and the birth of the colony.
Imperial Woman
The rise of Tzu Hsi, a beautiful young girl chosen as a concubine for the Emperor of China in 1852, who will become the Empress Dowager and rule the dynasty for half a century.
Barabbas
Barabbas, the thief freed in place of Jesus, watches the crucifixion from a distance and can't stop thinking about the man who died in his place, or about the people who believe in him.
Caligula
A play: after the death of his sister Drusilla, the young emperor Caligula decides that men die and are not happy, and sets out to use his absolute power to live by that truth.
River God
Taita, a gifted eunuch slave in ancient Egypt, tells of the love between his young mistress Lostris and the soldier Tanus, which her powerful father forbids, as Egypt is torn by civil war and threatened by invaders with horses and chariots.
The Given Day
An Irish cop torn between his family and his union and a Black man on the run from Tulsa meet in Boston in 1919, as anarchist bombs go off and the police head towards a strike.
Leo Africanus
Hasan al-Wazzan, born in Granada before its fall, tells his life: exile to Fez, travels through Africa, capture by pirates and a new life in Rome under the protection of the Pope.