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Is it too much of a hermeneutic leap to detect a connection in the proximity of the reviews of Martijn Icks' book on the Emperor Elagabalus, famous for "his sexual depravity and orgiastic rituals", and Maurizio Viroli's The Liberty of Servants: Berlusconi's Italy (Books, 10 November)? Maybe both decadent emperors are not the best representatives of "Roman values"...

Anna Notaro, Programme leader, Contemporary Media Theory, Duncan of Jordanstone College of Art & Design, University of Dundee