Despised for his weakness and regarded by his family as little more than a stammering fool, the nobleman Claudius quietly survives the intrigues, bloody purges and mounting cruelty of the imperial Roman dynasties. In 'I, Claudius' he watches from the sidelines to record the reigns of its emperors - from the wise Augustus and his villainous wife Livia to the sadistic Tiberius and the insane excesses of Caligula.