2 - The Dictator's Dilemma
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 05 June 2012
Summary
Sympathy for the dictator
The most obvious feature of dictatorship is that dictators typically have enormous power over their people. Yet there is one thing that even dictatorial powers cannot give them: the minds of their subjects. Dictators cannot – either by using force or the threat of force, or by promises even of vast sums of money or chunks of their empires (if any are available) – know whether the population genuinely worships them or worships them because they command such worship. The case of the Roman emperor Nero provides a good illustration. Of all of his accomplishments, Nero was most proud of his lyre playing and, while emperor, he often entered musical contests. The art scene in Rome did not satisfy him and he headed for Greece. According to the profile of him by Gaius Suetonius, in his celebrated The Twelve Caesars (1957):
His main reason [for leaving Rome] was that the [Greek] cities which regularly sponsored musical contests had adopted the practice of sending him every available prize for lyre playing; he always accepted these with great pleasure, giving the delegates the earliest audience of the day and invitations to private dinners. Some of them would beg Nero to sing when the meal was over, and applaud his performance to the echo, which made him announce: “The Greeks alone are worthy of my efforts, they really listen to music.” (p. 224)
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- The Political Economy of Dictatorship , pp. 20 - 40Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 1998
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