One of the best histories of any age I have ever read. Graves brings to life the remarkable awfulness of life within the Roman Empire, and demonstrates with alarming exactness how bad people can be, given motive and opportunity. The maxim that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is demonstrated here in spades. Paranoia and bloodlust within the few ruling families of ancient Italy are rampant, but the level-headed Claudius holds your faith that good might ultimately "triumph" (i.e., until the whole thing goes downhill again--why can't human society ever achieve sustained equilibrium?). I can understand now how Italy tolerated the buffoonish Prime Minister Berlusconi for so long. Compared with their Imperial past, his antics were a walk in the park.