The megalomania of Benito Mussolini lies at the root of this story, although the dictator himself does not appear again after this startling monologue.  

Biographies of Mussolini include:

Mussolini by R J B Bosworth

Mussolini and Italian Fascism by Hamish Macdonald

Mussolini and Fascism by Patricia Knight

 

 Mussolini's imperial ambitions were already in play long before the invasion of Greece.    Italy invaded Abyssinia (Ethiopia) in 1935, using chemical weapons and adopting a widespread policy of civilian slaughter.    His goal was to create a New Roman Empire in the Mediterranean and East Africa.

 

The Symposium by Plato includes the speech by Aristophanes on the origin of homosexuality:

Men who are a section of that double nature which was once called androgynous are lovers of women; adulterers are generally of this breed, and also adulterous women who lust after men. The women who are a section of the woman do not care for men, but have female attachments; the female companions are of this sort. But they who are a section of the male follow the male, and while they are young, being slices of the original man, they have affection for men and embrace them, and these are the best of boys and youths, because they have the most manly nature.  The Full Speech

The Symposium by Plato