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

on October 16 at 02:39AM


Hello, Can someone explain why the strongest support is C? I'm not understanding this one at all.

1 Reply

on October 16 at 06:10PM

Hello @lerondagates,

First, let's identify the challenge given by modern historians.

Challenge: The traditional view is that Caligula was a cruel and insane tyrant, but maybe this is not true.
Support 1: There is little documentation of his cruel or outrageous behavior.
Support 1: The history of Caligula was written by his enemies.

We need an answer choice that supports the possibility that Caligula was not cruel or insane.

A. We've already acknowledged limited documentation about Caligula's cruelty. It doesn't help our argument that other types of documents are limited as well.

B. We do not have history written by Roman citizens under Caligula. We only have the history written by Caligula's enemies. This doesn't help us.

C. This answer choice makes Support 1 even stronger. We have some, but little, documentation about Caligula's specific cruel acts. C suggests that even the documents we have are questionable. These may have been stories about other cruel leaders that were retold, or simply lasting myths that do not accurately depict Caligula's actions. Reinforcing Support 1 is what makes C correct.

D. This supports the idea that Caligula was cruel, which weakens the modern historians' argument.

E. Modern tyrants have nothing to do with this passage.