Dictators

Here is a translation apposite to our times from the Roman historian Sallust:

Lucius Catiline, born of noble origin, had great vigor of mind and body, but a wicked and perverse disposition. From adolescence, he rejoiced in internecine wars, murders, robberies, and civil discord, and he exercised his youth in these pursuits. Physically, he could tolerate hunger, exhaustion, and sleeplessness beyond what anyone could believe. His mind was reckless, devious, and changeable, simulating and dissimulating whatever it chose, coveting the goods of others, extravagant with its own, avaricious in its desires, adequate enough at speaking, but wholly inadequate at thinking.

His vulgar mind continually longed for extravagant things, unbelievable things, things that were grandiose beyond measure. After the dictatorship of Lucius Sulla, he invaded with the most extreme lust of capturing the state, nor did he have the slightest compunction about the means by which he would do this, so long as it would secure rule for him. His insolent spirit was driven more and more by lack of financial resources and by the common knowledge of his crimes, and both of these were exacerbated by the practices I mentioned above. What is more, those practices stimulated the character of the degenerate populace, which was plagued by the most vile and contrary evils—extravagance and avarice.

Remind you of anyone we know? Maybe a presidential would-be dictator?

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Here is the original (Sallust, Bellum Catilinae 5–6):

L. Catilina, nobili genere natus, fuit magna vi et animi et corporis, sed ingenio malo pravoque. Huic ab adulescentia bella intestina, caedes, rapinae, discordia civilis grata fuere ibique iuventutem suam exercuit. Corpus patiens inediae, algoris, vigiliae supra quam cuiquam credibile est. Animus audax, subdolus, varius, quoius rei lubet simulator ac dissimulator, alieni adpetens, sui profusus, ardens in cupiditatibus; satis eloquentiae, sapientiae parum.

Vastus animus immoderata, incredibilia, nimis alta semper cupiebat. Post dominationem L. Sullae lubido maxuma invaserat rei publicae capiundae, neque id quibus modis adsequeretur, dum sibi regnum pararet, quicquam pensi habebat. Agitabatur magis magisque in dies animus ferox inopia rei familiaris et conscientia scelerum, quae utraque eis artibus auxerat quas supra memoravi. Incitabant praeterea corrupti civitatis mores, quos pessuma ac diversa inter se mala, luxuria atque avaritia, vexabant.