LR Question 23 Explanation
QUESTION TEXT: The traditional view of the Roman emperor Caligula…
QUESTION TYPE: Strengthen
CONCLUSION: The historians conclude that Caligula wasn’t a cruel and insane tyrant.
REASONING: There’s little direct evidence of Caligula’s alleged cruel behaviour. And most of the surviving histories about him were written by his enemies.
ANALYSIS: I could think of no prephrase here. And the facts are reasonable clear in and of themselves:
- We have little direct evidence of Caligula’s cruelty.
- The histories were written by his enemies.
The challenge here is in the answer. The right answer is subtle and indirect.
___________
- This just tells us we can’t really know much about Caligula’s reign. But it adds no specific support to the claim that Caligula wasn’t cruel. We already knew we had little evidence of his cruelty. Saying we have little evidence of, say, farming records from his era adds nothing to that lack of evidence.
- You may have picked this thinking that it means Caligula made many enemies by being unpopular, and these enemies wrote against him.
That’s just speculation: all leaders have enemies (especially emperors), so the mere presence of histories written by enemies doesn’t tell us how unpopular Caligula was. - CORRECT. This suggests the historians copied the allegations from earlier histories. E.g. Suppose Romulus was accused of beheading his advisors in an earlier history. And then historians also accused Caligula of beheading his advisors, with no direct evidence.
It might be the case that the historians hated Caligula, and looked through history books to find things to accuse him of. This answer helps cast doubt on the histories.
(If historians had to copy allegations from earlier histories that means Caligula probably didn’t do those things himself.) - This weakens the argument! It suggests that people thought Caligula was a tyrant.
- So? We’re not ranking tyrants here. The only question is whether Caligula was a tyrant. Not everything is a contest: you can be a tyrant even if you aren’t the worst one.
Recap: The question begins with “The traditional view of the Roman emperor Caligula”. It is a Strengthen question. Learn how to master LSAT Strengthen questions on the LSAT Logical Reasoning question types page.
More Resources for Strengthen Questions
- Intro Course lesson: This intro course lesson covers Strengthen questions.
- Mastery Seminar lesson: This LR Mastery seminar lesson covers strengthen questions.
this is the worst LSAT question I have ever seen, this is clearly quite a jump to the idea that “historians/enemies copied the allegations from earlier histories” in order to accuse him of things. This question is ridiculous.
Just two sections later on this same test (PT149) you say on section 3 Q8 that “You might have thought that this answer means humans cut down native plants to plant mainland crops for their animals, but that’s a stretch. YOU HAVE TO GO BY WHAT THE ANSWER ACTUALLY SAYS, NOT WHAT IT COULD POTENTIALLY IMPLY.”
The historians’ challenge is already that the surviving histories may be unreliable because they were written by Caligula’s enemies and there is little direct documentation from his reign.
C adds support by showing that the specific outrageous acts attributed to Caligula resemble accusations already used against earlier alleged tyrants.
That makes those accusations look less like independent, well-supported historical evidence and more like stock anti-tyrant tropes. So C doesn’t prove the traditional view is false, but it does give a reason to be more skeptical of the hostile histories.
I get why it seems contradictory to S3, Q8 but it’s different. In that question, answer E only says large land mammals prefer mainland plants over island plants. By itself, that does not support the idea that island plants are going extinct because mammals eat them. If anything, it slightly cuts against that mechanism.
To make E help, you’d have to add an extra story: humans brought mainland plants/crops, mammals ate those, and somehow native island plants lost habitat or were indirectly affected. That causal chain is not in the answer.
The inference from C here is much closer to the actual wording: “The specific outrageous acts attributed to Caligula in Roman documentation are very similar to acts attributed in earlier writings to other rulers alleged to be cruel tyrants.” You’re allowed and supposed to make common sense assumptions on the LSAT. If it’s written by his enemies, there’s no evidence of his tyranny, AND what they’re saying Caligula did is very similar to tyrannical acts that have been written about before, then the only reasonable and common sense reading of answer C is that they found inspiration for the allegations somewhere.
I’m not sure how else you could read C than copying. Also, Strengthen answers will necessarily bring in new information. We’re asked – if true – which would support the argument. And it doesn’t have to prove the stimulus correct, it’s only asking what most supports the historians’ challenge.
Hope that helps. Let me know if you have further questions.