What the Romans Did for Us: On the Age-Old Art of Propaganda

What the Romans Did for Us: On the Age-Old Art of Propaganda

“At the heart of authoritarian propaganda is the manipulating of reality. The authoritarian must undermine this,” said Yale philosophy professor Jason Stanley, author of How Propaganda Works, in an interview with Index.

The birth of mass media meant that propaganda didn’t need to confine itself to unmoving imagery. Instead, people’s minds could be influenced in a far more interactive way. Lenin called the radio “a newspaper without paper… and without boundaries” and used it to promote the Bolshevik message. And the revolution was televised, first at the cinema and then on TV. Sergei Eisenstein’s most famous films – October, Battleship Potemkin and Alexander Nevsky – were huge successes precisely because they fused technical brilliance with politically correct storylines.

The myriad possibilities of propaganda were not lost on Hitler, either. He devoted two chapters of Mein Kampf to it and, once in power, recruited a minister of propaganda, Joseph Goebbels, who declared that with enough repetition and understanding of the human psyche, people could be convinced that a square was a circle.

Propaganda once again changed with the advent of the internet as information, or misinformation, could be spread with a simple click. Yet even though the game has moved on, the rules remain the same. Whether it’s a fabricated blog post, a viral video of North Korea bombing Washington or tirades of tweets telling everyone you’re going to Make America Great Again, these are all timeless tactics repackaged for the modern day.

What Have the Roman's Ever Done for Us?