The Great Dictator something curiously appropriate about the little tramp impersonating the dictator, for by 1939 Hitler and Chaplin were perhaps the two most famous men in the world. The tyrant and the tramp reverse roles in "The Great Dictator", permitting the eternal outsider to address the masses". In "The 50 Greatest Jewish Movies" (1998), Kathryn Bernheimer writes, "What he chose to say in "The Great Dictator", however, was just what one might expect from the Little Tramp. Film scholars have often noted that the Little Tramp resembles a Jewish stock figure, the ostracized outcast, an outsider." Several reviewers of the late 20th
Roman dictator doubt the authenticity of these "dictator years". Initially a dictator's power was not subject to either "provocatio", the right to appeal from the decision of a magistrate, or "intercessio", the veto of the tribunes of the plebs. However, the "lex Valeria", establishing the right of appeal, was not abrogated by the appointment of a dictator, and by 300 BC even the dictator was subject to "provocatio", at least within the city of Rome. There is also evidence that the power of the plebeian tribunes was not vitiated by the dictator's commands, and 210 BC, the tribunes threatened to prevent elections