The Great Dictator noted Chaplin's use of Wagner's "Lohengrin" prelude when Hynckel dances with the globe-balloon. Chaplin repeated use of the "Lohengrin" prelude near the conclusion, when the exiled Hannah listens to the Jewish barber's speech celebrating democracy and freedom. The music is interrupted during the dictator's dance but it is heard to complete and climax in the barber's pro-democracy speech. Commenting on this, Lutz Peter Koepnick writes in 2002, Chaplin's film was released nine months after Hollywood's first parody of Hitler, the short subject "You Nazty Spy!" by the Three Stooges, which premiered in January 1940. Chaplin had been planning his feature-length
Roman dictator one extraordinary case, "senatus legendi causa", to fill up the ranks of the Senate after the Battle of Cannae. These reasons could be combined ("seditionis sedandae et rei gerundae causa"), but are not always recorded or clearly stated in ancient authorities, and must instead be inferred. In the earlier period it was customary to nominate someone whom the consul considered the best available military commander; often this was a former consul, but this was never required. However, from 360 BC onward, the dictators were usually "consulares". Normally there was only one dictator at a time, although a new dictator could