Chap­ter XVI begins in a qui­et room where the mood has shifted—dinner is over, the women have with­drawn, and the port is mak­ing its rounds. A dif­fer­ent kind of con­ver­sa­tion takes shape, led by Mr. Sco­gan, whose mind always seems to be oper­at­ing a lay­er above the rest. His tone is light but laced with the grav­i­ty of deep­er thought, draw­ing the curios­i­ty of Gom­bauld. Sco­gan, amused by his inter­nal game, reveals that he’s been men­tal­ly match­ing each of the men present with one of the six ear­ly Roman emper­ors. Julius, Augus­tus, Tiberius, Caligu­la, Claudius, and Nero become tem­plates for human nature in his eyes, not as rulers, but as mag­ni­fied reflec­tions of per­son­al­i­ty traits. The com­par­i­son is both humor­ous and cut­ting, as Sco­gan points out how his­to­ry repeats itself in char­ac­ter long before it does in events. This act of intel­lec­tu­al play paints a curi­ous pic­ture: how thin the line is between philoso­pher and satirist.

Each Cae­sar, in Scogan’s view, rep­re­sents a com­plete char­ac­ter type. By imag­in­ing his com­pan­ions through this exag­ger­at­ed fil­ter, he reduces their per­son­al­i­ties to myth­ic pro­por­tions. Denis, for instance, is seen as a kind of Nero in waiting—artistic, sen­si­tive, and capa­ble of tragedy if placed in a seat of unchecked pow­er. Ivor is likened to Caligu­la, his charm and inten­si­ty always tee­ter­ing toward self-indul­gence. Sco­gan, on being asked which Cae­sar he resem­bles, insists that he is all but Claudius—a fig­ure he finds too remote from his nature to con­sid­er. He claims, only half in jest, that had his life not been lim­it­ed by trivialities—an Angli­can upbring­ing and end­less small obligations—he might have expressed his latent poten­tial ful­ly. The sug­ges­tion is nei­ther arro­gance nor regret, but a play­ful jab at the idea that envi­ron­ment shapes what form our inner selves can take.

As the talk deep­ens, Sco­gan moves from play­ful imper­son­ations to some­thing more seri­ous. He warns of the dan­ger­ous poten­tials lying dor­mant in ordi­nary peo­ple, which might awak­en if placed in the wrong—or right—setting. The idea is chill­ing: giv­en dif­fer­ent cir­cum­stances, even the most well-man­nered could become tyrants. He uses the anal­o­gy of bees cre­at­ing a queen only under cer­tain con­di­tions. In the same way, soci­ety occa­sion­al­ly births a “lit­tle Cae­sar” when the atmos­phere favors their emer­gence. His argu­ment, though framed in jest, cri­tiques human sus­cep­ti­bil­i­ty to pow­er and the insta­bil­i­ty of virtue when test­ed by oppor­tu­ni­ty. His­to­ry, he implies, does not cre­ate monsters—it reveals them.

Look­ing back­ward, Sco­gan traces this idea through var­i­ous atroc­i­ties com­mit­ted not just in ancient Rome but also in the last few gen­er­a­tions. He recalls the nine­teenth cen­tu­ry, not as a gold­en era, but as a time rich in hypocrisy, where great cru­el­ty hid beneath lay­ers of pol­ished civil­i­ty. The world has mere­ly shift­ed its costumes—its core remains vio­lent. He ref­er­ences the post-war peri­od as a prime exam­ple of mod­ern bar­bar­i­ty cloaked in progress. Here, the past isn’t some dis­tant horror—it’s just today’s mir­ror, slight­ly dusty. Through this lens, the Cae­sars of old are no more than pre­de­ces­sors to con­tem­po­rary actors play­ing roles on a famil­iar stage.

This dis­cus­sion, although fil­tered through wit, car­ries a sense of moral exhaus­tion. Scogan’s tone veers from cyn­i­cal to prophet­ic, paint­ing a world where evil is not an excep­tion, but a pat­tern. His conclusion—brutal yet realistic—is that civ­i­liza­tions man­u­fac­ture their own devour­ers. From ancient empires to mod­ern democ­ra­cies, the tools that ele­vate soci­ety can also ruin it, depend­ing on who wields them. He makes no clear judg­ment, offer­ing no call to action, only obser­va­tion. It’s this detach­ment that makes his com­men­tary so potent. He doesn’t plead for change—he sim­ply asks lis­ten­ers to see things as they are.

For read­ers today, the chap­ter res­onates with unset­tling clar­i­ty. The idea that peo­ple can become dras­ti­cal­ly dif­fer­ent under altered cir­cum­stances is both a warn­ing and a chal­lenge. It speaks to the fragili­ty of morals when test­ed by pow­er or trau­ma. This is espe­cial­ly rel­e­vant in times of polit­i­cal insta­bil­i­ty or social upheaval, when lead­er­ship often reveals more about the fol­low­ers than the leader. Mr. Scogan’s reflec­tions invite us to ques­tion not only author­i­ty but also our own poten­tial for transformation—for bet­ter or worse. The com­par­i­son to bees isn’t just poet­ic; it’s painful­ly accu­rate in how soci­eties orga­nize, rebel, and cre­ate hier­ar­chy under pres­sure. In essence, his speech is not a rant—it’s a mea­sured inven­to­ry of what hap­pens when human nature is giv­en just enough room to expand.

The take­away isn’t entire­ly bleak. Scogan’s dark humor and intel­lec­tu­al clar­i­ty serve as reminders that aware­ness itself can be a form of resis­tance. To iden­ti­fy the pat­terns of his­to­ry is to inter­rupt them—at least par­tial­ly. Read­ers who rec­og­nize these echoes may feel more pre­pared to break cycles rather than repeat them. Even so, the chap­ter doesn’t aim to pro­vide hope—it only opens eyes. And in the realm of satire and reflec­tion, that may be the most respon­si­ble kind of writ­ing.