How Can We Prevent Character Assassination?

Corruption in the Ancient World

Dear Classical Wisdom Reader,

This week we move from actual assassination in the ancient world to something we experience a lot more today - that of character assassination. 

It’s a popular tactic, both now and then, and extremely powerful. 

Octavian’s blatant propaganda and character assassination of Cleopatra, branding her as a wanton harlot and corruptor of good Roman men, lasted until... well, it still persists. 

Today this method of attack is employed by the rich and powerful as well the tik tok wielding masses alike. Sometimes it’s a clear ad hominem. Don’t agree with me? Then you must be a bigot/racist/snowflake/etc. It’s the weakest of arguments - and a good reminder that we should always address the ideas, not the person. 

But just as frequently, character assassination (or what we would term ‘cancel culture’) rears its ugly head with a simple stroke of the delete button. Why make something up, when you can just take a word, a phrase, a look out of context...and let the assumptions pile up in your favor? (Indeed, if you ever see a slander/headline that uses just one word, you can be assured that the context has been removed on purpose... because context more often than not, takes out a great deal of the sting or clarifies the point entirely). 

This is so common, I can guarantee you that no matter where you are on the political or cultural spectrum, you will have been prey to this tactic!

Indeed, it happens to us all - even the other week I realised I had accidentally done it myself when a reader helpfully pointed out an important omission regarding Cicero’s quote about an unjust peace and a just war, which neglected to include the critical context of civil war. 

He writes: equidem ad pacem hortari non desino; quae vel iniusta utilior est quam iustissimum bellum *cum civibus* ('For my part I do not cease from encouraging [everyone] toward peace, which is more beneficial than the most unjust war *with fellow citizens*. 

The prevalence of this occurrence is something to consider...

How can we prevent character assassination? Both of ourselves and others? And how can we ensure that we don’t unthinkingly propagate it as well? 

Leave your thoughts in the comments section below and contribute to the great conversation! 

As for today, in lieu of our regular Monday mailbag, we’ll look at an important historical incidence of character assassination... as well as accurate accusations: that of bribery. 

Enjoy this illuminating article on corruption in the Classical World and be reassured that while politicians have always been crooked... life has continued to go on... 

All the best,
Anya Leonard
Founder and Director
Classical Wisdom 

P.S. This week we will look at one ancient heroine who has arguably suffered the worst character assassination of all the mythical/potentially historical figures of the ancient world: MEDEA.

Members: Watch your inbox this week for a special deep dive and decide if she deserves her reputation…

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Corruption in the Classical World

By Ronan McLaverty-Head

The barbs traded between Demosthenes and Aeschines in 4^th century BC Athens would not be out of place on the news today. 

After their attempt to draw up a treaty between Athens and Philip of Macedon, Demosthenes and Aeschines fell out spectacularly. Demosthenes accused Aeschines of corruption of the highest order—treason (παραπρεσβεία γραφή “false embassy”)—claiming that Aeschines had been bribed by Philip. 

Aeschines countered with an ad hominem, claiming that Timarchus, who had joined Demosthenes in his accusations, had a reputation of being a male prostitute and was therefore disqualified from offering a view. In reply, Demosthenes accuses Aeschines of a further raft of deceit. Demosthenes tried to prove the bribery with circumstantial evidence but failed to offer undisputed proof. 

This highlights one of the problems of judging such accusations of corruption: as works such as these are intended to denigrate an opponent—a character assassination—they should often be taken with a pinch of salt. However, the point here is not so much whether Aeschines was in fact corrupt but that Athenian society clearly had a view of something that counted as corruption: bribery.

Bust of Demosthenes (British Museum, London), Roman copy of a Greek original sculpted by Polyeuktos.

“As for the question of bribery or no bribery, of course you are agreed that it is a scandalous and abominable offence to accept money for acts injurious to the commonwealth ... the man who takes them and is thereby corrupted can no longer be trusted by the state as a judge of sound policy” (Demosthenes, On the False Embassy).

Views on corruption in Rome were similar. In 70 BC, Cicero made his name as a lawyer in a series of speeches in the corruption trial of Gaius Verres, the former governor of Sicily. Cicero’s charges against Verres included embezzlement and extortion. As is often the case with Cicero, it is sometimes difficult to separate his rhetorical flourishes from fact but again what matters is that the rhetoric would have had no power had his audience not already considered embezzlement and extortion to be practices unbefitting a public official.

As Frank H. Cowles says, “Verres had been only a type. He had stood for the whole corrupt system.” 

Concern about corruption went to the very top of Roman society. Emperor Alexander Severus (AD 208 – 235) indicted an imperial official who had received money for peddling influence at court, an influence he apparently did not have. This practice was known as fumum vendere – "smoke-selling" – and the punishment was grimly appropriate: a fire of wet logs was set around the accused and he suffocated to death.

“Thereupon Alexander ordered him to be indicted, and when all the charges had been proved by witnesses … he issued instructions to bind him to a stake [and] ordered a fire of straw and wet logs to be made and had him suffocated by the smoke, and all the while a herald cried aloud, ‘The seller of smoke is punished by smoke’” (Historia Augusta: Life of Severus Alexander).

Manuscript Pal. lat. 899 which contains the Historia Augusta. Source: heidelberg.de.

(Ironically, Severus Alexander, when campaigning against Germanic tribes, tried to buy peace by engaging in bribery. This alienated many in his army and led to a successful conspiracy against him.) 

Any modern reader of classical sources will no doubt notice that cases such as these are actually relatively rare and might therefore conclude that the classical world mostly turned a blind eye to what we would consider to be corruption. Such a conclusion makes two mistakes. 

First, as today, corruption is often difficult to prosecute, something that the relatively few legal cases concerning corruption from Roman courts suggest.

Second, what we might see as corruption may not have been corruption when judged by classical standards. Officials were often unsalaried and the charging of fees was a way of collecting income and managing access to an official’s time. Similarly, a whole system of patronage—you scratch my back, I’ll scratch yours—could be bypassed by those without connections by the exchange of money. “Bribery” was in this sense a social leveller.

Does such a thing count as corruption? Much depends on who benefits. Cicero’s admonition still rings true:

“Let those who are to preside over the state obey two precepts of Plato: one, that they so watch for the well-being of their fellow-citizens that they have reference to it in whatever they do, forgetting their own private interests; the other, that they care for the whole body politic, and not, while they watch over a portion of it, neglect other portions” (Cicero, On Moral Duties).

Alas, Cicero’s salus populi is not yet suprema lex.