Caesar Is Lying to You

Photo by Nemanja Peric on Unsplash

Propaganda in Ancient Rome

Propaganda is nothing new, it seems. Alex Pollok, in his senior theses at the Dominican University of California wrote all about how it worked in Ancient Rome. The following information is from his paper.

To boost his fame and popularity, Julius Caesar wrote stories about his battle victories directed at the plebeians, or common people of the Roman Empire. Most of them couldn’t read, so he also sent readers to Rome to do nothing else but read from his book out loud in public. He kept the stories short and simple so the lower-class people could easily see how great he was.

Augustus copied some of Julius Caesar’s methods. Added to the written word were statues of Augustus doing all sorts of leader-type things: being a statesman, giving a speech, in military uniform. Coins were minted advancing the same narratives. Monuments were placed in central urban places to remind people of how great this Augustus guy was.

Augustus wr…