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    S cipio Africanus, as men who were easily able to exist without

    emotional dependence on others.

    In reality, these men were anything but self-contained. Their

    fortunes from one day to the next relied on the loyalty of tens of

    thousands of troops.   And it hung on their ability to maintain the

    confidence of figures even further removed from them in the grand

    web of the superorganism: the powers of the state back home.  Without

    the financial backing of the Roman senate and the council of Carthage,

    both men's efforts would have been doomed.61

    When Rome's senators accused Scipio of pilfering money from

    the public treasuries, the general was far from indifferent to the charge.

    He burst into the Senatorial hall with his account books, tore them up

    in front of the lawmakers, and stormed out of Rome, never to return.

    Not exactly the gesture of a man untouched by the opinions of others.62

    Historian Bradford, convinced that Scipio was, indeed, a master

    of self-reliance, had probably been deceived by a trick of aristocracy, a

    theatrical charade used by those who wish to exert power over others.

    It's a device even ambitious chimpanzees employ to maintain

    authority.  The ruse goes something like this.  The dominant male sits

    in the center of a noisy multitude looking utterly indifferent to what

    goes on around him.  Lower ranking monkeys nervously glance left,

    right and behind them for clues as to what they should do next. They

    cast frequent, furtive glances at the master chimp to see if it is time for

    them to honor him with a deferentially downcast gaze or to discover if

    he has turned aside.  For when his back is toward them, the underlings

    can get away with some forbidden gesture.  But the lofty head of the

    chimpanzee clan seems to look at no other.  He gives the impression

    that he need take his cues from no mere earthly beast.63

    Even the hierarchy-topping monkey who looks so impressively

    aloof, however, is boiling with social emotions he doesn't dare show.

    Ethologist Frans De Waal made a six-year study of chimps in Belgium's

    Arnhem Zoo and published the results in a brilliantly illuminating

    volume called Chimpanzee Politics.  In it, De Waal describes two males

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