This is an intriguing story! I picked it up as a compromise - Robert Graves' Goodbye to All That was the next on my list, but I didn't feel like WW1, so went with his more popular fiction. It paid off. Claudius is an excellent narrator, the procession of Roman emperors relayed in sordid detail without his judgment getting in the way of a good story. 
 I'll read the sequel next month. Didn't think it would jive with the holiday mood.