Historical investigation illustrates the adroit employment of fake news by the Romans to secure military victories, undermine enemy morale, and legitimize their dominion across the Mediterranean.
A scholarly piece authored by Jorge Barbero Barroso of the Universidad Autónoma de Madrid, published in the journal Dialogues d’Histoire Ancienne, sheds a fascinating and underexplored light on Rome’s unstoppable ascent. This research posits that legionaries and engineering corps were not the sole means of conquest. The Romans were also virtuosos of psychological warfare and information manipulation, weaponizing rumors and disinformation as strategic assets in their military campaigns and within the intricate diplomatic web of the ancient Mediterranean.
The study commences by drawing a parallel intelligible to any contemporary reader: the circulation of rumors and bogus reports is not an invention of the digital age. It represents an atavistic form of communication. In the ancient world, where oration held a foundational role, a rumor could travel with startling velocity, morph en route, and exert decisive influence. As Barbero Barroso notes, in Ancient Rome, election outcomes were marked by potential, sudden shifts, capable of destabilizing candidates due to the dissemination of slanderous or, conversely, highly favorable news.
The research focuses on the period of the Roman Republic’s peak expansion, spanning the 3rd to the 1st centuries BCE, and scrutinizes the impact these phenomena had on critical decision-making processes.
Amidst wartime, informational control was a matter of life and death. Historical records, such as the accounts of Livy or Polybius, reveal that rumors often outpaced official couriers. This created fertile ground for strategic manipulation.
The investigation highlights several salient instances. General Scipio Africanus, during his campaign in Hispania (206 BCE), managed to quell a mutiny among his troops that had been sparked by exaggerated falsehoods about the severity of his illness.
In Gaul (58 BCE), Julius Caesar had to pacify his soldiers who were unnerved by rumors concerning the superhuman ferocity of Germanic warriors, spread by Gallic traders.
The Romans were entirely willing to fabricate their own deceptions. At the commencement of the First Punic War (264 BCE), Consul Claudius circulated a fabricated report that he awaited new directives from Rome before embarking; this ruse enabled him to bypass a Carthaginian blockade.
In the Battle of the Metaurus River (207 BCE), Consul Gaius Claudius Nero instructed his troops to shout during combat to simulate the arrival of reinforcements, a tactic that entirely crushed the enemy’s resolve.
Intriguingly, Roman sources consistently portray the use of rumors by their adversaries as acts of perfidy and treason. For example, Hannibal is recounted during the Second Punic War as ordering the devastation of all Italian lands except those belonging to the Roman dictator Fabius Maximus, intending to sow the belief that Fabius was a collaborator working with Carthage.
The diplomatic sphere proved equally susceptible. In a multipolar and competitive environment, any piece of intelligence, true or false, held the power to instigate conflict or forge alliances.
The article demonstrates how the Roman Senate progressively sought to centralize and regulate the flow of geopolitical intelligence, portraying itself as the sole trustworthy adjudicator. It routinely dispatched envoys to verify intelligence received from all corners of the known world.
For instance, in 203 BCE, in reaction to a rumor that Macedonian King Philip V was dispatching forces to aid Carthage, the Senate immediately dispatched three high-ranking emissaries to conduct an inquiry.
A rumor originating from Rhodes in 202 BCE, suggesting a secret pact between Macedon and the Seleucid Empire, became one of the catalysts prompting Rome’s military intervention in Greece and Asia, thereby permanently reshaping the Mediterranean map.
Yet, disinformation also functioned as an active diplomatic tool. Following his defeat by the Romans (275 BCE), King Pyrrhus of Epirus instructed his envoys to lie, proclaiming the formation of an alliance with King Antigonus of Macedon, despite negotiations having actually failed. This false rumor bought him a temporary reprieve, deterred adversaries, and kept hesitant allies in check.
Another audacious maneuver involved Scipio Africanus. In 204 BCE, his Numidian ally, Syphax, defected to Carthage, sending emissaries to announce the change. Scipio took a calculated risk, quickly dealt with the envoys, and promulgated the counter-narrative: that these delegates had come seeking Rome’s intervention in Africa. This falsehood helped sustain his troops’ fighting spirit.
The research pointedly observes that rumors were a double-edged sword, difficult to manage, and occasionally turning against the party that initiated them. They could also precipitate disastrous policy choices. The article cites the case of Consul Gaius Hostilius Mancinus (137 BCE), who, under the pressure of a false report regarding the arrival of vast enemy Celtiberian reinforcements, concluded a dishonorable peace treaty which the Senate subsequently refused to ratify, resulting in Mancinus himself being handed over to the Spanish populace as punishment.
The author concludes that the analysis of rumors transcends mere anecdotalism. It reveals how Rome not only seized territory but actively constructed a narrative of its own supremacy. In historical accounts, when a Roman employed deceit, it was portrayed as stemming from ingenuity or dire necessity; when an enemy did so, it was attributed to innate perfidy. This dichotomy between the Roman and the non-Roman, Barbero Barroso writes, served as a crucial propellant for Roman expansionism, feeding the discursive validation that authorized it.
The scholar ultimately determines that rumors represent a domain of inquiry that is far from trivial; rather, they hold a decisive role, both historically and historiographically, in shaping perceptions within the narratives of the conflicts that shook the Mediterranean. He adds: “Disinformation, in this context, is likely an instrument sometimes added to the narrative later on, serving as an argument where the dichotomy between Romans and non-Romans becomes evident.”
Barbero Barroso’s work illuminates a concealed facet of Roman expansion and offers a deeply resonant historical insight: the struggle to control the narrative, to sow doubt within the foe, and to justify one’s own authority through information—or disinformation—is as ancient as civilization itself. Rome possessed this understanding implicitly and wielded it with an efficacy that contributed fundamentally to the creation of an empire.
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