The US president’s refusal to concede the election looks unnervingly familiar to a classicist – ancient Rome offers valuable lessons about letting go of power
A lot of men have probably wished for four more years. A little under that time after assuming absolute power, Gaius Caesar was dead, assassinated by the men who were paid to protect him. We more usually know him as Caligula: a man who revealed himself to be every kind of monster soon after becoming emperor of Rome.
It probably wasn’t his depravity that did for Caligula, however: if our sources are to be believed, sexual deviance was pretty much par for Roman emperors. Abusing so much power must have been irresistible. Perhaps the reasoning was that when you’re a star, they let you do it. The real problem for the men surrounding him was his unpredictability. At the time of his death, he was pondering giving high political office to Incitatus, his favourite horse.
