Whatever one makes of the accuracy of the journalist Michael Wolff’s depiction of President Trump, it cannot all be the product of an overheated imagination. What makes it so interesting is that his picture of total dysfunctionality is typical of Roman historians’ accounts of many emperors.
Suetonius (d. c. ad 125), for example, was a high-ranking imperial secretary to the emperor Hadrian. In his Lives of the Caesars, he covered the period from Julius Caesar, Augustus and all the other early emperors — most notoriously Caligula and Nero — through to Domitian (d. ad 96).
Take his portrait of the viciously self-indulgent Caligula. His desire to humiliate senators and officials and to put on shows, dress up, act, sing and dance, made him very popular with the people. Consuls who forgot his birthday were stripped of office for three days.
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