I, Claudius
is a
historical novel
by English writer
Robert Graves
, published in 1934. Written in the form of an
autobiography
of the
Roman Emperor
Claudius
, it tells the history of the
Julio-Claudian dynasty
and the early years of the
Roman Empire
, from
Julius Caesar
's
assassination in 44 BC
to
Caligula
's assassination in AD 41. Though the narrative is largely fictionalized, most of the events depicted are drawn from historical accounts of the same time period by the Roman historians
Suetonius
and
Tacitus
.