Mind-Munitions

42
Propaganda in the Ancient World
friends and loyalties, and Roman citizenship came to be extended
to non-Romans as a means of attracting their support.
However, it was these very characteristics that were to be Caesar’s
undoing. By courting the crowd, often by attacks on certain nobles,
he ended up alienating the aristocracy. His propaganda became too
blatant and counter-productive. The hostile Suetonius wrote:
Not only did he accept excessive honours … a statue placed among the
kings and a throne in the orchestra at the theatre – he also allowed to be
decreed to himself honours even surpassing human rank, such as a
golden seat in the Senate house and on the tribunal, a ceremonial
carriage and litter in the Circus processions, temples, altars, images
next to those of the gods, a ceremonial couch … and a month named
after himself.
The more sympathetic Dio admitted: ‘Caesar did sometimes
make a mistake by accepting some of the honours voted him, and
believing that he really deserved them, but most at fault were those
who after beginning by honouring him as he deserved, then led him
on and blamed him for what they voted to him.’ The aristocratic
conspirators who assassinated him in March 44 BC were also to
learn the unpredictability of the mob in the years that followed.
Undoubtedly believing that they were acting with public support,
Brutus and his fellow-conspirators eventually became victims of the
very propaganda campaign they had directed at Caesar’s power
and person.
Caesar was the historian of his own wars but, as with most
memoirs, his writings were less concerned with providing strictly
accurate information than with vindicating his actions in the eyes
of his contemporaries. In other words, they are essentially propagandistic.
This does not invalidate, for example, Caesar’s Commentaries
as historical evidence; it simply means they should be handled with
caution. Published in 51 BC, the seven books dealing with the
Gallic War (58-52 BC) often tell us as much about the political
crisis facing Caesar at that time as they do about his military
achievement. This is even more apparent from the two books
Caesar wrote about the Civil War in which, even when addressing
his troops before battle, Caesar portrays himself as a lover of peace
forced reluctantly to fight his enemies, to whom he is nonetheless
magnanimous in victory. The significance of such orations was
described by Cicero, who said that although military commanders