Going Viral in Ancient Rome: Spreading and Controlling Information in the Roman Republic Dissertation Presented in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for the Degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of The Ohio State University By Brendan James McCarthy, M.A. Graduate Program in History The Ohio State University 2018 Dissertation Committee: Nathan S. Rosenstein, Advisor Greg Anderson Tina Sessa Copyright by Brendan McCarthy 2018 Abstract In recent years scholars have discussed the role of communication in the Roman political system. These studies have focused mostly on major public events like votes and contiones. This study will add to that discussion by looking at word-of-mouth communication. Rome’s political elite formed information networks to spread news and took great care that their public events like contiones and ludi were well attended and made news. Rome’s non-elite lived in a thriving city that encouraged the movement of people and information. Using theories taken from communications studies, sociology and the spatial turn of archeology, this study will examine the way information was spread after public events. The Roman elite relied on word-of-mouth to ensure that their reputations grew and their agendas received public support. They took great care to ensure that their public events would become news by encouraging favorable audiences to share accounts of the events with their peers. Sharing news, therefore, would have been an integral way from Romans to participate in politics. i Dedication Dedicated to my grandfather, Edwin McCarthy, who loved history and now is history ii Acknowledgements This project was a long time in the making and I am grateful for all the support I received throughout the process. Thank you to all the faculty in the History department for their open support and wonderful ideas. Not all of those ideas made it into this dissertation, but many did. Chief among the faculty, I must thank my advisor, Nate Rosenstein for all of the meetings and edits he gave me. Thanks also go to my undergraduate advisor, Linda Hall. When I was at St. Mary’s, I always left her office feeling like a million bucks. She has continued to provide me support by sending me opportunities and reviews to help my dissertation along. I also want to thank my fellow graduate students. I have learned so much about the craft of history by talking with my peers in the office and I have received countless book recommendations and helpful tips over my years here. I can only hope that my future colleagues will be as generous and supportive. Special thanks go to Frank McGough and Lee Marmor, my one-time roommates. Our house was very messy when we were going through our candidacy exams, but our library-receipt based home decor was well worth it. Even though they are far away now, the support I continue to receive from them is a source of inspiration. I am deeply indebted to my family. My mother deserves great credit for fielding panicked calls for the last seven years and calming my concerns for all that time. My iii father deserves perhaps even greater credit as the one family member who has read my one published paper. Despite all that has happened in their lives since I entered graduate school, they have always been a bulwark for me, giving me the confidence I needed to finish this process even when it looked most desperate. My aunts, uncles, and cousins have always been supportive and interested in my project. I rarely see their eyes glaze over when I talk history. Finally, my greatest gratitude goes to my wife, Hallie. We started dating when I was a junior at St. Mary’s, so she has been a part of my graduate school journey from its inception. She took a big risk and moved away from her family in DC at the start of my second year in the program. In May 2015, we got married. I have always admired her curiosity and insight. Even when I was most jaded about my project and field, her curiosity kept me inspired. She has a knack for asking the right questions at the right time. More than anything else I admire and thank her for her total love and support. iv Vita 2007................................................................St. Ignatius High School 2011................................................................B.A. History, St. Mary’s College of Maryland 2013................................................................M.A. History, The Ohio State University 2011 to present ...............................................Graduate Teaching Associate, Department of History, The Ohio State University 2017 to present ...............................................Graduate Teaching Fellow, Department of History, The Ohio State University Publications “Avitus of Vienne.” A Critical Introduction and Reference Guide to Letter Collections in Late Antiquity. Edited by Edward Watts, Christiana Sogno and Brad Storin. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2017. “August 2014: Celebrating Roman Emperor Augustus.” Origins: Current Events in Historical Perspective. http://origins.osu.edu/milestones/august-2014-celebrating- roman-emperor-augustus Fields of Study Major Field: History v Table of Contents Abstract ................................................................................................................................ i Dedication ........................................................................................................................... ii Acknowledgements ............................................................................................................ iii Vita ...................................................................................................................................... v Introduction ......................................................................................................................... 1 Chapter 1: The High Price of Information ........................................................................ 27 Chapter 2: Word on the Street .......................................................................................... 75 Chapter 3: All the News That’s Fit to Share ................................................................... 110 Chapter 4: Stage Managing Public Oratory .................................................................... 136 Chapter 5: Give the Audience What They Want ............................................................ 170 Conclusion ...................................................................................................................... 205 Bibliography ................................................................................................................... 227 vi Introduction Social media played a large role in the 2016 presidential election. Websites like Facebook and Twitter became major outlets for political news and discussion, and targets for advertising budgets. News articles, fabricated stories, and opinion pieces were shared between friends and followers. The news people received and the opinions they shared were dependent on their social connections, not the channels they watched and publications they read. Studies and editorials have shown that social media has changed the way Americans share information, placing social networks, not national media, at the center of political life. By encouraging the spread of information between users’ social networks, major campaigns created a cost-effective way to reach a large and motivated audience. Social media has allowed people to interact in large digital communities with billions of users from every region of the world with seemingly minimal oversight. Connecting with people across oceans and subcultures has never been easier, yet studies have shown that users still self-select communities based on narrow ideological factors.1 A study released earlier this year has found that Twitter uses segregate themselves into 1 Eveland, Jr., “Linking Social Network Analysis to the Spiral of Silence, Coorientation, and the Political Discussion: The Intersection of Political Perceptions and Political Communication.” 1 politically homogeneous communities.2 Research into Facebook discovered that algorithms the site uses to decide what advertisements and public posts to share withusers creates segregated networks of people defined by ideology based on their reads and likes. The technology that allows so many different people to connect also allows, and even encourages, isolated communities to develop. Using the digital trail of social media, the liberal bubble, ivory tower, silent majority, and other ideological divisions can clearly be seen. It is easier than ever to study how people cultivate their social networks and community norms and how the news we share and opinions we form affect our interactions with others. Instead of exposing people to new and diverse ideas, social media has created distinct groups which encourage particular forms of thought and share only material that conforms with their worldview.3 In 2016, American politicians learned how to use social media to further their campaigns. They could rely on digital communities to publicize information and gain support with only a small investment of their own. This study will show that many of the same practices used in the 2016 elections would have seemed normal to Romans. Chants like “lock her up” would have been perfectly normal in ancient Rome (correcting for gender, of course), and spreading short and simple messages through social networks was as integral for