Logical Reasoning

PT149 · S1 · Q23 The traditional view of the Roman emperor

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The traditional view of the Roman emperor Caligula as a cruel and insane tyrant has been challenged by some modern historians.

Conclusion

Caligula was not a cruel and insane tyrant.

Evidence

Little documentation of his supposed cruelty or outrageous behavior has survived, and what has survived was written by his enemies.

Evaluate

The two big questions I would have for this author's evidence are 1. How much documentation do you expect to have from the time period of an ancient Roman emperor, or how much do you expect from an emperor if they were cruel and insane?

Is it possible that Caligula did crazy mean stuff, but whatever documentation there was has just been lost to the sands of time?

Do we have ample documentation of his reign suggesting that he was a normal emperor? If we have almost no documentation of his reign at all, then that doesn't really seem like evidence one way or the other.

Is it possible that, were he to be cruel and insane, he might have aggressively prosecuted anyone who was attempting to document his cruelty?

2. The fact that the surviving histories are written by his enemies doesn't mean they're false histories. If Caligula were as cruel and insane as alleged, then wouldn't he have tons of enemies? Thus, it might be that any history from the period (but for that of his most ardent loyalists) is going to sound like, "This Caligula guy was nuts!"

Goal

We either want to rule out one of these objections or find an answer that supplies more plausibility to the idea that Caligula was not cruel and insane.

23.

Which one of the following, if true, adds the most support for the challenge from the modern historians?

  1. There is less documentation of

    Weakens, if anything

    If Caligula was anomalous for providing us with less documentation than other emperors did, then it somewhat hurts the author's argument. Our author is thinking, "There's little documentation because his reign was unremarkable. There really weren't these cruel and insane deeds to document." But if we say, "Actually there's little documentation for some other reason; his reign in general is a blind spot when it comes to documentation" then the lack of documentation no longer works as a premise for the author's case.

    27% picked this

  2. People who have lived under

    Weakens, if anything

    This starts to sound like the objection we were making: maybe it's "written by his enemies" because anyone living under the reign of a cruel and insane dude would be his enemy! Overall, this answer should seem like it's telling us very little more than common sense. People who are subjected to cruel overlord are more likely to have an unfavorable than favorable view of that person. It doesn't have anything to do specifically with Caligula, so it's not helping us to assess whether he was / wasn't a cruel and insane tyrant.

    13% picked this

  3. Correct

    The specific outrageous acts attributed

    Why this is right

    Before I defend this answer, I want to acknowledge that I definitely didn't pick this, and when I found out it was correct it basically broke my heart. I believe I said stuff like, "I just don't get you anymore, LSAT." :) The idea behind this answer is that it adds some plausibility to the author's argument, by making it seem like the allegations of cruelty and insanity leveled against Caligula were just recycled fabrications that had been used on previous leaders. It's kind of like if parents who were nervous about TikTok recycled all the bad things people used to say about Facebook, which recycled all the bad things people used to say about video games, which recycled all the bad things people used to say about MTV. The idea is that when the same accusation is continually leveled against different things, it starts to lose credibility. If Megan keeps breaking up with people for the same reason: they "have a toxic energy", then maybe her friends start doubting that accusation and think the problem is really with Megan. What's supposed to make this answer sound "suspicious" is that the specific things attributed to Caligula were very similar to things attributed to other rules alleged to be cruel. If we hear that "Caligula used to rip the fingernails off his political opponents" it sounds scary. But if we find out that earlier writings accused previous rulers of being so cruel that they would "rip the fingernails off their political opponents", then it starts to sound less like an honest description and more like fear-mongering done by opponents. So, again, the intent of this answer is that it tries to make the specific allegations against Caligula sound more phony because it's unlikely that multiple cruel tyrants would engage in specific outrageous acts that were very similar. [face palm]

    Skill tested: Strengthen · how this choice captures the argument's function is the move to repeat next time.

    48% picked this

  4. The little documentation that survives

    Weakens, if anything

    The author has tried to devalue the legitimacy of the surviving evidence, saying that it's written by enemies. This answer makes Caligula sound crueler than other tyrants, so that goes in the opposite direction of the author's argument.

    6% picked this

  5. There is ample documentation of

    No Impact

    If this answer referred to other ancient tyrants and said, "For these other tyrants, who are known to have been cruel, there was ample documentation", that would strengthen the argument. It would rule out the objection that we lack documentation, not because Caligula didn't do awful things, but because it's been a couple millennia so documentation is just hard to come by no matter what. Since this is instead about modern tyrants (who live in a world of smartphones and digital cameras and 24 hour news and the internet, etc), it's not really surprising that there's ample documentation.

    6% picked this

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