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Comment by twangist | Hacker News Reader

There are no mentions of Trump in the first two paragraphs.

In the first, the author likens Suetonius, author of "The Twelve Caesars", to Michael Wolff, author of a book about a Trump WH scandal and intrigue.

In the second, he references Mar-a-Lago.

If these comparisons to the present "detract" from the "interest" of the article for you, rest assured that's a personal thing.

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As I understand, the two main sources of the era were Suetonius and Tacitus, and between them Suetonius were more of the gossipy type in comparison. Thus, the comparison with Wolf seems quite well founded.

I’m guessing the part you didn’t quote at the end of the paragraph: “ As reported by Suetonius, the Michael Wolff of ancient Rome, he never forgot a slight, slept only a few hours a night and married several times, lastly to a woman named Milonia.”

Milonia is close to Melania. This doesn’t add anything useful to the article (what does it matter what his wife’s names were unless they were famous in their own right?), which is why I’m guessing the OP found this objectionable.

Of course she was famous, she was the empress of Rome!

Milonia Caesonia and Caligula were in love before he took her as 4th (and final) wife, after ditching the previous one because she gave him no children and was labeled as infertile.

Milonia gave Caligula his only daughter, Giulia Drusilla.

Legends say she gave Caligula a love potion that made the emperor crazy for her and they conceived their daughter the first night of marriage, other say one month later.

When Caligula was killed, few hours later Milonia was stabbed by a centurion and the poor Giulia Drusilla was crushed against a wall. She was only one year old.

The Julio-Claudian era of Roman history is so incredibly fascinating. The family ties are hard to keep track of though. But it helps to hear the stories told multiple times. Currently I am listening to the Emperors of Rome podcast. It is one if the best podcasts I have listened to, all categories included.

I don't think it was simply a comparison to the present that irked the GP, I think it was the comparison between Trump, who, for all his faults, isn't quite at the level of a guy who had incestuous relations with his sisters, had people killed for amusement, and had a desire to make his horse a consul. It is mostly a harmless admission of the writer's bias - if this was written in the early '70s, there'd be comparisons to Camp David instead of Mar-a-Lago most likely. I don't particularly think it detracts from the piece.

> isn't quite at the level of a guy who had incestuous relations with his sisters, had people killed for amusement, and had a desire to make his horse a consul.

Note that the sisters and horse thing are probably not true; I don’t think either are taken particularly seriously by modern historians. Caligula certainly did do plenty of strange things, though.

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