When a person stood on a stage facing a crowd of thousands below, he could not hear what they were saying.
Everyone was shouting, their voices blending into a noisy sea, but the person onstage could still see the expressions on the faces in the crowd.
When people felt hidden within a crowd, they felt safe. They could reveal their true selves, and the person onstage could see those expressions with perfect clarity.
Cheers were certainly pleasing to hear, but people could easily lose themselves in them—not just those being cheered, but those doing the cheering as well. Swept up in a crowd, people followed the passion and did the same thing together. Sometimes it was for the leader onstage, sometimes for the event in the arena.
Perhaps America had many problems, but there was one thing it had truly accomplished.
In an army, it was impossible for the president and a county magistrate to have no chain of command between them. Thus, even if the magistrate defied the president's orders, the president could not simply dismiss him. Clovis, King of the Franks, had once greatly desired a vase, but it was another warrior's share of the spoils. The warrior believed taking it would violate the tribe's custom for distributing plunder, so he opposed Clovis's request. Clovis said nothing at the time, but later, during an inspection, he found an excuse to draw his battle axe and split the soldier's head open.
Caligula's real name was Gaius Caesar. The soldiers gave him the nickname Caligula, meaning Little Boots. He had been a fairly adorable child, but his grandfather Tiberius was not a merciful old man.
He shared a name with Tiberius Gracchus, who had initiated reforms at the end of the Roman Republic, but they were entirely different people. Tiberius