More than 2,000 years ago, the famous Roman politician Marcus Tullius Cicero once accused his enemy Clodius of incest with his brothers and sisters.
But far from being shocking to people living at the time, this type of insult was just a part of normal everyday life, according to one prominent historian.
Professor Dr Martin Jehne of the Technische Universität Dresden says modern insults are nothing compared to those flung around ancient Rome.
According to the historian’s findings, Romans could be even more cruel than the trolls of today and would often stoop to sexual slurs to insult their opponents.
Professor Jehne said withstanding and overcoming insults can ultimately have a politically stabilising effect in society, with those who exchanged vile taunts often working together in the near future.
Likewise, the common people were allowed to insult the elite – who could not retort – helping to curb their ‘omnipotence fantasies’, Professor Jehne claims.
More than 2,000 years ago, the famous Roman politician Marcus Tullius Cicero (bust, pictured) once accused his enemy Clodius of incest with brothers and sisters. This type of insult was normal, according to one historian
Political debates in ancient Rome were conducted with great harshness and personal attacks, according to Professor Jehne.
Speaking ahead of his talk next month at the 52nd Meeting of German Historians, Professor Jehne said that vile insults and sexual slurs did not harm a Roman’s standing in society – unlike today, when such behaviour will see users swiftly removed from social networks and banned from public office.
‘The Romans didn’t seem to care much. There was the crime of iniuria, of injustice — but hardly any such charges,’ he said.
Slander in the Roman Republic (509-27 BC) was extreme, even by modern standards.
‘The famous speaker and politician Marcus Tullius Cicero (106-43 BC), for instance, when he defended his supporter Sestius, did not shrink from publicly accusing the enemy Clodius of incest with brothers and sisters,’ said Professor Jehne – a sexual practice that was also considered illegal in Rome.
‘Clodius, in turn, accused Cicero of acting like a king when holding the position of consul. A serious accusation, since royalty in the Roman Republic was frowned upon.’
This shows there were very few limits in political dispute, Professor Jehne said.
This differs from today, where intensive thought is given to the limits of what is permitted in debates and the limits of free speech.
Since investigating abuses in the Roman Republic, Professor Jehne says he is now much more relaxed about today’s debates on social networks.
He says his research has led him to ‘considerably reduce [his] level of excitement at new abuses in the present – at any rate, it was not the abuses that caused the downfall of the Roman Republic,’ he said.
According to Professor Jehne, the highly hierarchical Roman politics sounded rough, but was not without its rules.
Clodius (bust, pictured) accused Cicero of acting like a king when holding the position of consul. This was a serious accusation, since royalty in the Roman Republic was frowned upon
Pictured is the Colosseum in Rome. It was used for gladiatorial contests and public spectacles. Since investigating abuses in the Roman Republic, Professor Jehne is more relaxed about today’s debates in social networks
‘Politicians ruthlessly insulted each other.
‘At the same time, in the popular assembly, they had to let the people insult them without being allowed to abuse the people in turn – an outlet that, in a profound division of rich and poor, limited the omnipotence fantasies of the elite.’
Politicians and the public hardly took abuse at face value.
‘A certain Roman robustness in dealing with abusive communities such as AfD [Alternative for Germany] or Pegida [Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West] could help to reduce the level of excitement and become more factual,’ he claims.
According to the historian, Romans were proud of their ruthless wit at the expense of others.
‘They considered this an important part of urbanitas, the forms of communication of the metropolitans, in contrast to the rusticitas of the country bumpkins.
‘When you were abused, you stood it, and if possible, you took revenge,’ he said.
The harsh words also had a politically stabilising effect.
Opponents at the receiving end of the invectives would often work together again soon afterwards and maintain normal contact – showing there were no hard feelings, Professor Jehne said.
In fact, these insults were an ‘integral part of life’ in the Roman empire.
The political climate remained reasonably stable: murders to avenge honour were only committed in the exceptional situation of a civil war.
At the 52nd Meeting of German Historians in Münster in September, Professor Jehne will speak about the culture of conflict in ancient Rome.
HOW IMPORTANT ARE ROMAN ROADS?
Via Giulia Augusta leading across the Pont Flavien in Saint-Chamas in southern France, is pictured above
Roman roads were large structures, typically measuring 16 to 23ft (five to seven metres) wide.
They reached a height of around one-and-a-half feet (half a metre) in the centre.
While the Romans were famous for building roads in straight lines, the discovery of a road between Ribchester and Lancaster shows they also took the natural geography of a place into account, to avoid steep hills, for example.
The roads were used to transport goods efficiently and for marching soldiers.
Preservation of Roman roads in the UK varies, with some still protruding from the land and easily visible.
Others are hidden under earth and have only been found thanks to Lidar.
For decades after the 43AD Roman invasion of Britain, a large region of the North, including what is now Lancashire, Yorkshire and Cumbria, was controlled by a Celtic tribe known as the Brigantes.
Roman writer Tacitus wrote it was the collapse of the marriage between Queen Cartimandua of the Brigantes – a Roman ally and her husband Venetius – that led to a showdown with Rome.
Roman roads were large structures, typically measuring 16 to 23ft (five to seven metres) wide. In the image above left, chariot ruts can be seen on the Via Domitia near Ambrussum. On the right, a view of Via Applia Antica
Following their divorce, Venetius organised a revolt in 69AD and Cartimandua fled.
The Emperor Vespasian then sent a force under Britain’s new governor, Quintus Petilius Cerialis, to put down the rebellion and conquer northern England.
Building roads to link up forts and settlements across this rugged landscape was a vital part of this decades-long conquest of the North.
The Romans purposefully built their roads to be very straight to make journey times as short as possible.
As compasses were yet to be invented, Roman surveyors used a piece of equipment called a groma – a wooden cross with weights hanging down from it – to help make the roads straight.
The roads were used to transport goods efficiently and for marching soldiers.
Preservation of Roman roads in the UK varies, with some still protruding from the land and easily visible.
Many of the roads paved direct routes between isolated regions and towns.
This network greatly encouraged trade at the time as the travel time was slashed.
Research has found that many of the roads that have existed for millennia have formed the backbone of economic routes to this day.