The Elder Seneca (died c 39 AD) reports hearing a braggart boasting that he might be the equal of the top figures in several fields, “if I were a gladiator, I would be Fusius; if I were a dancer, I would be Bathyllus, etc.” Seneca continues: “I couldn’t hold my temper and shouted: ‘If you were a sewer, you would be the Biggest Sewer,” i.e., Rome’s Cloaca maxima.

This story was brought to mind by Trump’s speech at the United Nations. Lying and bragging and threatening are Trump’s “safe place,” the source of this ever-flowing, often flooding Cloaca maxima of self-promotion.