PrepTest 149, Section 1, Question 23
The traditional view of the Roman emperor Caligula(48 more words not shown)
Which one of the following,(13 more words not shown)
- AThere is less(19 more words not shown)
- BPeople who have(18 more words not shown)
- CThe specific outrageous(24 more words not shown)
- DThe little documentation(25 more words not shown)
- EThere is ample(15 more words not shown)
Reading the argument
An enemy can still tell the truth about you.
So the hostile authorship doesn't settle whether the traditional picture of Caligula is wrong. The shortage of surviving contemporary documents doesn't settle it either. Documents could have been lost, including records of bad conduct. We need more than 'not much survives' to conclude that the accusations were unfair.
What we’re looking for
To strengthen the historians' challenge, my first thoughts are positive contemporary accounts of Caligula or a reason to distrust these particular hostile accounts. Evidence that the writers were unreliable would give us something beyond the mere fact that they disliked him. We're trying to support doubt about the traditional portrayal, not prove Caligula was wonderful in every respect.
Working the answers
- A
If documentation of all kinds is scarce, then a shortage of documentation about cruelty becomes less telling. We might simply have little information about anything from his reign. A doesn't give a reason to favor a kinder portrayal over a cruel one; it helps explain why evidence of either could be missing.
- B
Being regarded as a cruel tyrant could naturally go with being viewed unfavorably. But that doesn't tell us whether the unfavorable reports are accurate. B says 'regarded as,' so it doesn't establish that the ruler actually was cruel, either. It leaves the central reliability question unresolved.
- CCorrect
These sound like accusations that could have been recycled from older accounts of supposedly cruel rulers. That gives us a reason to suspect a familiar hostile story rather than an accurate report of Caligula's particular conduct. Similarity doesn't prove copying—different rulers could commit similar acts—but it provides some support for the historians' challenge. It is more specific evidence about the accounts than simply knowing the authors were his enemies.
- D
This supplies contemporary evidence of a particularly harsh reputation: people then believed Caligula was crueler than other rulers already considered tyrants. That doesn't prove every allegation, but it supports the traditional negative picture rather than the modern historians' challenge to it.
- E
Someone else doing worse things doesn't mean Caligula wasn't cruel. The traditional view doesn't require him to be the worst ruler in all of history. A comparison with modern tyrants therefore doesn't undermine the description the historians are challenging.
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