Episode 94 - The Crime of Slander
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Episode 94 - The Crime of Slander
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About this listen
In the small, face-to-face societies of the ancient world, a person's reputation was their most valuable asset. A false accusation or a vicious rumor could be devastating. Both Greek and Roman law developed legal actions to combat slander and defamation.
This episode investigates the laws against verbal injury. In Athens, the dike kakegorias was a private lawsuit a citizen could bring against someone for using specific, prohibited words, such as calling them a murderer or a shield-thrower in battle. In Rome, as we've seen, slander was covered by the broad concept of iniuria. We look at how these laws were used in the cutthroat world of politics, where smearing an opponent's character was a standard tactic.
The laws against slander reveal the immense importance of honor in classical society. They also highlight a fundamental legal problem: how to balance the protection of an individual's reputation with the right to free speech. The struggles of the ancient courts to navigate this issue are remarkably similar to the challenges faced by our own legal systems today.