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Izabella Kaminska Correspondent—

A long time ago, in a republic far away, a civil war broke out igniting a fake news crisis. It started when Julius Caesar appointed himself dictator for life in 44BC, a move that unnerved traditionalist republican factions which considered it an attack on Roman liberty. Led by Brutus and calling themselves “the liberators”, the group’s members conspired to assassinate Caesar on the Ides of March, stabbing him 23 times until he died on the senate floor.

But rather than re-establish the republican system, all this did was unleash a brutal power struggle between two of Caesar’s most prominent supporters; Mark Antony, his loyal confidant and general, and Octavian, Caesar’s adopted son and self-styled successor.

What followed was an unprecedented disinformation war in which the combatants deployed poetry and rhetoric to assert the righteousness of the respective campaigns. From the outset, Octavian proved the shrewder propagandist, using short, sharp slogans written upon coins in the style of archaic tweets.

His theme was that Antony was a Roman soldier gone awry; a philanderer, a womaniser and a drunk not fit to lead, let alone hold office. Most importantly, he asserted Antony had been corrupted by his love affair with Cleopatra, the leader of a foreign land.

As Cleopatra’s puppet, no one could be sure if Antony was truly loyal to Rome or if his allegiance was to Egypt, a nation that had long resisted Romanisation. Antony had spent too much time in the eastern empire and become overly enamoured of the idea of Hellenistic monarchy — anathema to the Roman republican mind, or so the propaganda went.

While Antony’s plebeian roots and libidinous nature jarred with the image of the virtuous Roman statesman, there was no denying his natural charisma or flair for military leadership. Octavian knew his troops adored him precisely because of his appetite for luxury, drink and sexual excess. And in the provinces these traits had even helped to establish him as nothing less than a god.

To win the information war, Octavian would have to turn these strengths into weaknesses. Domestic discontent about the demise of traditional Roman values in the face of cultural contamination from the colonies was already brewing. Octavian knew that if he could convince the public he stood for everything Roman, virtuous and traditional — and that Antony represented everything foreign, barbarian and illiberal — he would be able to tap into an exceptionally powerful political mood.

Rome’s republicans never fell for the rhetoric because they saw it for what it was, fake news. In the end, they sided with Octavian not because they trusted him more than Antony but because they viewed him as the lesser of two evils.

The power struggle between the men culminated in the Battle of Actium in 31BC, which Octavian won decisively. Yet, from the perspective of the Roman constitution, the battle had been waged unconstitutionally against a fellow citizen. Octavian understood that this could be used against him one day. A counter-narrative would have to be constructed.

Commenting on the war, the eminent ancient historian Ronald Syme, author of the classic 1939 book, “The Roman Revolution”, observed that “of the facts there is and was no authentic record”.

Octavian’s official version of events decreed that “a degenerate Roman was striving to subvert the liberties of the Roman people to subjugate Italy and the West under the rule of an oriental queen”.

Everyone knew the account was fraudulent but it was still enough to consolidate Octavian’s rule and open the door to his reinvention as Augustus, the first emperor of Rome. Fake news had allowed Octavian to hack the republican system once and for all. — The Financial Times.