Mubarak and Ben Ali comas: What would Tacitus say?

Mubarak and Ben Ali comas: What would Tacitus say?

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Mubarak and Ben Ali: what would Tacitus say?

Mary Beard
The Times
February 19, 2011

So the story is that Mubarak and Ben Ali are now both desperately ill — indeed, it is said, in a coma. And there have been a handful of sharp comments, wondering what the “Deposed Dictator Syndrome” (DDS) actually is — and how convenient it might be as a protective device against assassination.

I couldn’t help thinking how Roman it all looked. There is a whole series of similar scenarios, brilliantly concocted by the brilliant Tacitus (I say ‘concocted’ because he cant possibly have known what went on). They are all centred on the grimy last moments of autocrats and dictators.

The basic rule for Tacitus is that despots don’t die a natural death. In the midst of a power struggle they get smothered or poisoned, while the word is put out that they have been struck down by some nasty illness. Alternatively, they have long died (and this is more the ‘Soviet president scenario’), while the word is put out that he is still hanging on to life — until the new emperor is ready to be presented to the troops and the people. Livy even manages to retroject this scenario to the earliest kings of Rome, and has Tanaquil easing Servius Tullius onto the throne, by carefully managing the death of Tarquinius Priscus. (And it is the emperor Tiberius at the top of this post.)

It’s not hard to invent what Tacitus might have to say about the roles of Susan Mubarak, Gamal, Alaa, Suleiman — and a few strategically placed pillows and poisoned mushrooms.

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Alex Jones: The Takedown of Hosni Mubarak

Will hated dictator syndrome become contagious?

Mojtaba Sadeghian
Tehran Times
February 19, 2011

• A d v e r t i s e m e n t
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It seems that a number of dictators in North Africa and the Middle East have entered retirement in a way they never imagined.

Is it a coincidence that deposed despots Zine El Abidine Ben Ali and Hosni Mubarak each purportedly went into a coma shortly after stepping down?

Ariel Sharon also went into a coma for his retirement. However, for the Israeli dictator the sequence of events was a bit different since he became incapacitated while still in office.

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