“He [the emperor Claudius] did not, indeed, keep silent on the subject of his own stupidity but asserted in severel little speeches that he deliberately pretended to be stupid when Caligula was in power, since otherwise he would not have survived and risen to his present station. However, he did not convince people, for shortly afterwards a book appeared under the Greek title ‘The rise of Idiots’, which argued that no one would make a pretence of stupidity”.- Suetonius, the Deified Claudius, 38.
Now I’m not saying I buy into the central idea behind Robert Graves I Claudius nor am I even saying that I believe Claudius is telling the truth here but it takes a special kind of idiot to believe that people don’t pretend to be idiots (especially in politics), either that or they were themeselves pretending to be idiots.
btw, does anyone else kinda wan’t to read ‘The rise of idiots’, I suspect it might have been quite dull (and as my previous comment makes clear quite possibly not particularly intelligent) but still, there’s the possibility.
Regards, Samuel.
Unless that book was a satiric approach to Claudius’ reign or rise thereof.