FRIDAY, DECEMBER 19, 2025
Is there any way this could be dangerous? It was once believed that an earlier potentate had named his horse to a seat in the Senate.
The Senate in question was that of Rome. According to the leading authority, this naming may never have happened:
Caligula
Gaius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, also called Gaius and Caligula, was Roman emperor from AD 37 until his assassination in 41. He was the son of the Roman general Germanicus and Augustus' granddaughter Agrippina the Elder, members of the first ruling family of the Roman Empire. He was born two years before Tiberius became emperor. Gaius accompanied his father, mother and siblings on campaign in Germania, at little more than four or five years old. He had been named after Gaius Julius Caesar, but his father's soldiers affectionately nicknamed him "Caligula" ('little boot').
...Tiberius died in 37, and Caligula succeeded him as emperor, at the age of 24.
Of the few surviving sources about Caligula and his four-year reign, most were written by members of the nobility and senate, long after the events they purport to describe. For the early part of his reign, he is said to have been "good, generous, fair and community-spirited" but increasingly self-indulgent, cruel, sadistic, extravagant and sexually perverted thereafter, an insane, murderous tyrant who demanded and received worship as a living god, humiliated the Senate, and planned to make his horse a consul. Most modern commentaries instead seek to explain Caligula's position, personality and historical context. Some historians dismiss many of the allegations against him as misunderstandings, exaggeration, mockery or malicious fantasy.
[...]
Caligula shared many of the popular passions and enthusiasms of the lower classes and young aristocrats: public spectacles, particularly gladiator contests, chariot and horse racing, the theatre and gambling, but all on a scale which the nobility could not match. He trained with professional gladiators and staged exceptionally lavish gladiator games, being granted exemption by the senate from the sumptuary laws that limited the number of gladiators to be kept in Rome. He was openly and vocally partisan in his uninhibited support or disapproval of particular charioteers, racing teams, gladiators and actors, shouting encouragement or scorn, sometimes singing along with paid performers or declaiming the actors' lines, and generally behaving as "one of the crowd." In gladiator contests, he supported the parmularius type, who fought using small, round shields. In chariot races, he supported the Greens, and personally drove his favorite racehorse, Incitatus ("Speedy") as a member of the Green faction. Most of Rome's aristocracy would have found this an unprecedented, unacceptable indignity for any of their number, let alone their emperor.
[...]
Suetonius and Dio outline Caligula's supposed proposal to promote his favorite racehorse, Incitatus ("Swift"), to consul, and later, a priest of his own cult. This could have been an extended joke, created by Caligula himself in mockery of the senate. A persistent, popular belief that Caligula actually promoted his horse to consul has become "a byword for the promotion of incompetents," especially in political life. It may have been one of Caligula's many oblique, malicious or darkly humorous insults, mostly directed at the senatorial class, but also against himself and his family. Winterling sees it as an insult to the consulars themselves...David Woods believes it unlikely that Caligula meant to insult the post of consul, as he had held it himself. Suetonius, possibly failing to get the joke, presents it as further proof of Caligula's insanity, adding circumstantial details more usually expected of the senatorial nobility, including palaces, servants and golden goblets, and invitations to banquets.
Did Caligula really name "Speedy" as a consul? We have no idea. As for the claim that the emperor was "insane," we note again that the preferred language seems to be changing with respect to what is still widely known as "mental illness."
Stating the obvious, serious forms of what was once called "mental illness" are always a human tragedy. Indeed, if we regard some such "mental illness" as an actual illness, we may be disinclined to react to the behaviors which result as if they represented ethical choices made by the afflicted party.
(That doesn't mean that concerned parties may not work to make such behaviors stop, or to remove power from the afflicted party.)
We'll continue with this rumination on Monday, even as Christmas approaches. For today, we merely take note of today's key renaming—a high-profile renaming which took place right in our own nation's capital.
This renaming is that of the Kennedy Center. In this morning's print editions, the New York Times reports:
WHITE HOUSE MEMO
As Trump Puts His Brand on Washington, the Kennedy Center Gets a New Name
President Trump’s takeover of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts reached its inevitable apogee on Thursday afternoon when it was announced that the center’s board of trustees had voted to rename it the Trump-Kennedy Center.
Even though Mr. Trump had already been calling it that for months in trollish posts online, he acted shocked that his handpicked board had thought to do this for him.
“I was honored by it,” he told reporters at the White House. “The board is a very distinguished board, most distinguished people in the country, and I was surprised by it. I was honored by it.”
Earlier that day, he had called into a meeting of the board, which is now made up almost entirely of people who are loyal to him. (By law, there are a handful of members of Congress from both parties who sit on the board, as well.)
[...]
The performing arts center is, by law, designated the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts—it was built to be a living memorial to the slain 35th president—and it has been generally understood that the power to change the name lies with Congress.
"By law," that has always been the name. Today we had renaming, or at least an attempt at same.
At any rate, the president's name is now up on the wall of the Trump-Kennedy. Also, the East Wing is on the ground, and the ballroom just keeps getting bigger.
The proposed Arc de Trumpth has recently been discussed right there in the Oval Office. We've conquered the Gulf of America.
We return to our basic point:
Every (serious) "mental illness" is a human tragedy—a loss of human capability and potential. Because our culture tends instead to stigmatize such conditions, we lack the ability to talk about mental health and mental illness, except with respect to people who hear voices and engage in street crime.
Somewhere ages and ages hence, future journalists may have the ability to conduct fuller discussions of such conditions. For today, we ask you if this outline of characteristics sounds like anyone you know:
Grandiosity
In psychology, grandiosity is a sense of superiority, uniqueness, or invulnerability that is unrealistic and not based on personal capability. It may be expressed by exaggerated beliefs regarding one's abilities, the belief that few other people have anything in common with oneself, and that one can only be understood by a few, very special people. Grandiosity is a core diagnostic criterion for hypomania/mania in bipolar disorder and narcissistic personality disorder
Measurement
Few scales exist for the sole purpose of measuring grandiosity, though one recent attempt is the Narcissistic Grandiosity Scale (NGS), an adjective rating scale where one indicates the applicability of a word to oneself (e.g. superior, glorious).
Grandiosity is also measured as part of other tests, including the Specific Psychotic Experiences Questionnaire (SPEQ), Personality Assessment for DSM-5 (PID-5), Psychopathy Checklist-Revised, and diagnostic interviews for bipolar disorders and NPD. The Grandiosity section of the Diagnostic Interview for Narcissism (DIN), for instance, describes:
- The person exaggerates talents, capacity, and achievements in an unrealistic way.
- The person believes in their invulnerability or does not recognize their limitations.
- The person has grandiose fantasies.
- The person believes that they do not need other people.
- The person over-examines and downgrades other people's projects, statements, or dreams in an unrealistic manner.
- The person regards themself as unique or special when compared to other people.
- The person regards themself as generally superior to other people.
- The person behaves self-centeredly and/or self-referentially.
- The person behaves in a boastful or pretentious way.
Specific manifestations
In narcissism
Grandiose narcissism is a subtype of narcissism with grandiosity as its central feature, in addition to other agentic and antagonistic traits (e.g., dominance, attention-seeking, entitlement, manipulation). The term "narcissistic grandiosity" is sometimes used as a synonym for grandiose narcissism.
In bipolar disorder
Grandiosity is a core diagnostic feature of the manic and hypomanic episodes of bipolar disorder type 1 and 2, respectively. The presentation varies across disorder type, but generally manifests as extreme self-confidence associated with a bold, proactive pursuit of certain (often unrealistic) goals, including writing a book, publicity-seeking over ideas or inventions devised without appropriate knowledge, experience or expertise, or taking major risks (e.g., in business or with finances) on the assumption that one cannot fail.
And so on from there, at some length. As you can see:
According to the leading authority, grandiosity is a clinical diagnosis. It's found right there in the DSM-5. We add to our earlier question, creating a list of two:
Our questions:
- Does that sound a bit like someone you know?
- Is there any chance that this sort of thing could possibly be dangerous?
Tomorrow: Susie Wiles on President Clinton
Starting Monday: Empathy and illness
