If frequency of occurrence were used to determine whether or not a phenomenon is abnormal, perhaps the dictator would have to be classed as normal. Within political systems embodying the principles of representative government, however, he represents a disease just as surely as a group of cells which suddenly start overwhelming their neighbors. The novel displays not only fictitious tyrants, but real ones as well, from Caesar in Wilder’s _The Ides of March_ (1948) to Koestler’s thinly disguised Stalin in _Darkness at Noon_. The authors usually describe how they act and what made them that way. Since _The Ides of March_ uses the diaries and letters of several Roman citizens, the reader learns precisely what Caesar’s contemporaries thought of him and what Caesar thought of himself. In the accounts of his enemies, he is a profligate and pervert, a destroyer of liberty. His own writings reveal him as a man who is cold and self-centered but devoted to Rome and possessed of amazingly catholic and intelligent interests. Trying to free his countrymen from superstition, mythology, and barbarism, he rationalizes his dictatorship on the basis that the people will not assume the duties of self-government. He writes: But there is no liberty save in responsibility. That I cannot rob them of because they have not got it.... The Romans have become skilled in the subtle resources for avoiding the commitment and the price of political freedom. They have become parasites upon that freedom which I gladly exercise--my willingness to arrive at a decision and sustain it--and which I am willing to share with every man who will assume its burden. Like Caesar, most authoritarian rulers appear to believe that they are working in the best interests of their people. Most often this is a rationalization of an enormous drive to personal power, but whatever its source it is almost always a component of the totalitarian mentality. Some absolutists, like Stendhal’s Ernesto IV of Parma, make no pretense of extraordinary concern for their subjects. But the modern pattern is for the Duce, Führer, or Father of the People to associate himself with the masses, at least verbally. This is as true of state dictators such as Chuck Crawford, Hank Martin, and Willie Stark as it is of General Arango in _The Fancy Dress Party_. The three Americans also have in common their origins as members of the lower or lower middle class of southern whites. Each starts with a seemingly genuine desire to better the lot of his group. Their careers provide a study of the same infection which attacks the Duke of Omnium, “the poison of place and power and dignity.” And this transition from crusader to sick man gives insight into the process by which dictators are made. =Men Behind the Scenes=