Self-study
Conclusion The traditional view of the Roman emperor Caligula as a cruel and insane tyrant has been challenged by some modern historians. ████ █████ ███ ████ ██████ █████████████ ██ ██████████ ███████ ███████ ██ ██████████ ████████ ████████ ████ ███ ████ ██ ███ █████ ███ ████ ███ █████████ ████ ████ ████ ████ ██ ██ ████ ███████ ██ ███ ████████
The Modern Historians' Argument
The traditional view of Caligula is that he was a cruel and insane tyrant. Some modern historians think this view is wrong. Why? Two reasons.
First, very little documentation of Caligula's alleged cruelty or outrageous behavior survives from his actual reign. The suggestion here, though not explicitly stated, is that if Caligula really were as cruel and insane as the traditional view suggests, you'd expect more documentation from his time to back that up. To the modern historians, the scarcity of that evidence casts doubt on the traditional view.
Second, the histories that do survive were written by Caligula's enemies. The modern historians find this important because enemies probably have a motive to exaggerate or fabricate claims of cruelty and insanity. If the only accounts we have come from people who had reason to make Caligula look bad, then modern historians think those accounts might not be trustworthy.
Put these two points together, and the historians' challenge amounts to this: the evidence for the traditional view is both thin and biased, so we shouldn't accept it at face value.
Anticipation
We're looking for an answer that adds support to the historians' challenge. That means we want something that gives us more reason to doubt the traditional view of Caligula as a cruel and insane tyrant.
The historians' argument rests on two premises: the surviving evidence is scarce, and the evidence that does exist comes from hostile sources. But have the historians done enough to show that those premises give us reason to doubt the traditional view? The relevance of that evidence is based on at least two assumptions.
First: if Caligula were a cruel and insane tyrant, more documentation would have survived.
Second: The fact reports of his cruelty and outrageous behavior were written by his enemies suggests that those reports are not accurate.
You might have overlooked those assumptions because they seem very reasonable, and maybe you yourself even made those assumptions in order to make better sense of the historians' argument. But they're assumptions nonetheless, and so we can strengthen the argument by helping to show that those assumptions are true.
Let's keep an open mind, though. The correct answer might strengthen the challenge in a way we haven't anticipated.
23.
Which one of the following, ██ █████ ████ ███ ████ ███████ ███ ███ █████████ ████ ███ ██████ ███████████
a
There is less █████████████ ██ ███ ████ ████ ██████████ █████ ████ ████ ███ ██████ ██ ████ █████ █████ ████████ ██ ██████████ ████
This actually undermines the historians' argument rather than supporting it. The historians point to the scarcity of documentation about Caligula's cruelty as evidence that the traditional view is wrong. But if there's less documentation of any sort from Caligula's reign, then the scarcity of cruelty documentation isn't meaningful. It's just part of a general pattern of poor record-keeping from that period. In other words, (A) provides an innocent explanation for the thin evidence: not that Caligula wasn't cruel, but that we simply don't have many records from his reign about anything.
b
People who have █████ █████ ███████ ████████ ██ █ █████ ██████ ███ ████ ██████ ██ ████ ████ ██████ ███████████ ████ ██████████
This doesn't help us figure out whether the hostile accounts of Caligula are accurate. (B) tells us that people living under a reputed tyrant tend to view that person unfavorably, but that's consistent with both possibilities: the negative views could reflect genuine cruelty, or they could reflect bias. Since (B) doesn't help us distinguish between those two scenarios, it doesn't add support to the historians' challenge.
c
The specific outrageous ████ ██████████ ██ ████████ ██ █████ █████████████ ███ ████ ███████ ██ ████ ██████████ ██ ███████ ████████ ██ █████ ██████ ███████ ██ ██ █████ ████████
This strengthens the historians' argument by giving us a concrete reason to distrust the surviving accounts. If the specific outrageous acts attributed to Caligula closely resemble acts attributed to other alleged tyrants in earlier writings, that's a red flag. It suggests that Caligula's enemies may have been recycling stock accusations rather than documenting real events. It helps connect the historians' second premise (the histories were written by enemies) to the suggestion that the histories might be unreliable in their claims about Caligula's cruelty.
d
The little documentation ████ ████████ ████ ██████████ █████ █████████ ████ ███ █████ ██████ ████████ ████████ ██ ██ ███████ ████ █████ ████████ ███ ████ ██████ ███████ ██ ██ ████████
This tells us what people during Caligula's reign believed about his cruelty relative to other emperors. But what people believed doesn't tell us whether those beliefs were accurate. The whole point of the historians' challenge is that the surviving record may not reflect reality.
e
There is ample █████████████ ██ ██████ ███████ █████ ███████████ ███ ██████████ ████ █████ ████ █████ ██████████ ██ █████████
The existence of modern tyrants who did worse things than what was attributed to Caligula doesn't tell us whether the things attributed to Caligula actually happened. Maybe Caligula really did those things, and modern tyrants simply did worse. Or maybe Caligula didn't do those things at all. Either way, (E) doesn't help us figure out whether the accounts of Caligula's behavior are reliable, which is what the historians' challenge is about.