With all the petro-state's resources at his command, the gift of the gab and the power to force the broadcast media to carry his long-winded speeches live, he is a formidable opponent.
More dubiously, Mr. Casson argues that "the library was surely in existence during Antony's dalliance with Cleopatra, the years leading up to the Battle of Actium in 31 B.C., because it was rumored that Antony gave the 200,000 books in the library of Pergamum, a city within his sphere of command, as a gift to his inamorata, a gift that could only have been intended for the Alexandrian library".
Mr. Kelly, despite his constitutional lasciviousness, is a direct inheritor of the church's inspired shouts, a channeler of outrageously deep sentiment and in easy command of his gift.
Mr. Strait wasn't any more revealing at the PNC Bank Arts Center here on Friday night, a country superstar in complete command of his gift and of exactly how much of it to mete out at any given moment.
The album finds Mr. Gibb in full command of his gift for airborne melodic hooks carried on misty whooshes and anchored by feathery beats that allude to everything from early rock 'n' roll ("Come Tomorrow") to light disco ("Night of My Life").
Undeterred by humility, Phillips was a great talker and a good-looker in full command of his gifts, at least in his prime.
A Williams play demands a command of largesse, a gift for infusing ostensibly grotesque or otherwise off-putting characters with humanity.
Laslett had a remarkable gift for commanding an audience beyond academia - a reflection perhaps of his Third Programme days.
This powerhouse of a novel sees crime writer Gillian Flynn come into her own as a dramatic storyteller in full command of her many gifts.
"When the war crimes allegations were made," he says, "for some in the high command they were like a gift from God and they pursued them with the utmost vigour.
In this, her first solo album, she reveals a happy affinity for Berlioz's style, assisted by a fine command of French and a gift for spinning long vocal lines that never lose their essential energy.
