or, more relaxed "It´s OK if they hate us as long as they are afraid of us."

It is a quotation from the Roman tragic poet Lucius Accius around 170 B.C., and is said to have been a favourite saying of the Roman Emperor Caligula, who certainly lived it out, and got himself murdered for it some 200 hundred years later.

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Note added at 2003-03-09 06:59:48 (GMT) Post-grading
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It may all be untrue, but Caligula is the one of whom they said he had sexual relationships with his sisters, and ridiculed the Senate by having his horse appointed to the office of consul. He held more or less permanent drunken orgies, had himself declared a god, and had anyone who tried to oppose him murdered. There was no impeachment - assassination was the only way.