Under some emperors, the imperial court was a social space in which writers could seek and obtain patronage. However, as this chapter cautions, later generations of writers romanticized such patronal relationships (especially those of the Augustan era), so we must be wary of accepting fantasy as truth. The chapter accordingly commences with a discussion of evidence and methodology. What counts as evidence for an author’s presence and activities in the imperial court? It then focuses on common themes that reflect the experience of authors from Augustus to the Severan dynasty, after which evidence for court patronage becomes even patchier. These are: the court as a privileged performance space for literature; the polarities of ‘autonomy’ and ‘subservience’ that defined the patronage relationship between author and emperor; and the ways in which the writer both contributed and conformed to the official messaging of the regime.

Chapter 3 traces the nature and trajectory of the Trump administration – especially given he was a president who came into office without any political, government, or military experience whatsoever. While for a time there were several “adults in the room,” for example Secretary of Defense James Mattis, in relatively short order they disappeared from the administration. This left the federal government in the hands effectively of only those who were reliable and relentless Trump loyalists. Trump’s extraordinary need for, insistence on, almost slavish personal and political loyalty meant that turnover in the administration was inordinately high which, among other things, explains why it was so poorly equipped to cope with the pandemic.