One day [Caligula] was on the Oration Platform in the Market Place dressed as Jove and making a speech. “I intend shortly,” he said, “to build a city for my occupation on top of the Alps. We Gods prefer mountain-tops to unhealthy river-valleys. From the Alps I shall have a wider view of my Empire -- France, Italy, Switzerland, the Tyrol and Germany. If I see any treason hatching anywhere below me, I shall give a warning growl of thunder so! (He growled in his throat.) If the warning is disregarded I shall blast the traitor with this lightning of mine, so! (He hurled his piece of lightning at the crowd. It hit a statue and bounced off harmlessly.) A stranger in the crowd, a shoemaker from Marseilles on a sight-seeing visit to Rome, burst out laughing. Caligula had the fellow arrested and brought nearer the platform, then bending down he asked frowning: “Who do I seem to you to be?” “A big humbug,” said the shoemaker. Caligula was puzzled. “Humbug?” he repeated. “I, a humbug!” “Yes,” said the Frenchman, “I’m only a poor French shoemaker and this is my first visit to Rome. And I don’t know any better. If anyone at home did what you’re doing he’d be a big humbug.”Caligula began to laugh too. “You poor half-wit,” he said. “Of course he would be. That’s just the difference.”
-- Robert Graves, I, Claudius.