History made Beautiful
An ancient oracle told by a Pythian priestess says, “But when the time shall come that the female conquers in battle, driving away the male, and wins great glory in Argos, then many wives of the Argives shall tear both cheeks in their mourning.” The female whom this oracle refers to was Telesilla.
Disinformation and propaganda have featured in human communication since at least the ancient Roman period. Apart from using biographers and their writings to discredit the reputation of the Roman general Mark Antony, Octavian, the adopted heir of Julius Caesar, also waged a propaganda campaign in the form of brief, sharp slogans written on coins to portray Antony as a womanizer and a drunk. Through his use of propaganda, Octavian also implied that Mark Antony had been corrupted by his affair with the Egyptian queen Cleopatra and had become Cleopatra’s puppet. This early use of disinformation campaign had allowed Octavian to change the republican system once and for all and led to his road to becoming Augustus, the first Roman Emperor.
In the 1600s in Japan, the samurai went through a bad time that led to a lot of changes. It was also a time when it was painfully clear that because of their place in society, samurais were not only the first people to go into battle, but they also had to take the most damage when the government changed. Ironically, the hardest time in a samurai’s life wasn’t when he was fighting, but when he was at home in peace.
Martini Fisher 