To understand Trump, we should look to the tyrants of ancient Rome

His disdain for the norms of democracy makes it hard to understand the US president – but he has precedents in emperors such as Commodus, Nero and Tiberius

He looks like a strong man – the strongest. Holding a huge club to beat his enemies with, the Roman emperor Commodus wears a lion skin over his bearded, empty-looking face in a marble portrait bust made in the second century AD, which is one of the treasures of Rome’s Capitoline Museum. He is posing as the mythic hero Hercules, whose muscular might made him victorious in one spectacular fight after another. The portrait literally equates the strength of Hercules with the power of the emperor.

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