Fama and Fake News
Dido is the queen of Carthage, and when first husband, Sychaeus, dies, she makes a vow never to love again. At the start of Book 4 of the Aeneid, however, Dido breaks her promise by falling in love with and marrying Aeneas. When the people of Carthage find out about this, the story sends them into complete distress. Vergil paints a very vivid picture of this hysteria, personifying the rumor as a horrific winged monster who “under every feather of her body … has an eye that never sleeps” and has “just as many tongues as eyes” (4.228–229). By describing the features and behaviors of this beast so vividly, Vergil offers valuable insight into how rumors and information spread in ancient times. These descriptions can then be compared with how news, particularly fake news, is circulating in the present. There are many parallels between Vergil’s description of how rumor rages through Carthage, and how fake news currently spreads in America. Only nowadays, the process is even further accelerated and intensified by technology.
The source of a rumor or a false news story, both in Carthage and in the present, is almost always hidden and unknown. When Vergil paints the picture of the horrific monster, Rumor, he writes that as she moves, “she treads the ground and hides her head in the clouds” (4.223). This line is symbolic of how a destructive rumor affects a population. All while the body, wings, and many eyes of this beast are wreaking havoc on Carthage, no citizen is aware of the monster’s true identity. By obscuring its head in the clouds, Rumor disguises itself and becomes unidentifiable as the true root of the chaos. This leads people to believe that the actual content of a rumor is what is causing a problem when in reality, the turmoil should actually be attributed to the fear caused by the rapid way in which a distorted story is being spread. Fake news sparks unrest in the same exact way. In 2016, 126 million Americans were shown Russian-backed, politically-oriented fake news stories via Facebook.” (Lee and Kent, 2016). These stories caused mass outrage and confusion, and they influenced many people to change their minds about the year’s election. While these people were led to believe that the true issue was that Hillary Clinton sold weapons to ISIS or that a pizzeria in Washington was a front for a human trafficking organization, the actual problem was that Russian hackers were able to create fast-spreading stories that provoked fear and anger. People who were affected however, had no idea where these stories were coming from. Much like Rumor did, these hackers hid their heads in the clouds, and let their articles cause the destruction.
News and rumors that spread quickly often do so by feeding off fear and generating even more anger and hatred. In the Aeneid, when rumor reaches King Iarbus that Dido married Aeneas, Iarbus immediately demeans Aeneas using degrading racial stereotypes which categorize Eastern men as effeminate and weak. In a prayer to Jupiter, Iarbus asserts that “Leading his troupe of eunuchs, his hair oozing oil, he revels in all that he has filched” (4.270). Because rumor can only deliver simplified and distorted versions of the truth, it naturally generates a lot of harmful generalizations, unfounded hatred, and racist sentiments in particular. In fact, Vergil describes the very creation and birth of Rumor as an act of hatred that “Mother earth produced, busting in rage against the Gods.” (4.224–225). In today’s world, fake news and hatred are still concepts which are deeply interconnected. When monitoring the correlation between the two, a study found that in December 2016, “out of 49 articles on hate speech published… 37 articles also dealt with fake news” (Gollatz, 2018). Much like in the Aeneid, news is often still distorted in order to play into harmful racial and gender stereotypes. This gives these false stories implications that are even more harmful, and leads to even more destruction.
Both in the Aeneid and in modern day, the most dangerous thing about rumors and fake news is the way that they blend in with the truth. As Vergil describes Rumor terrorizing Carthage, he writes that she is “Clinging as fast to her twisted lies as she clings to words of truth” (4.236–237). This is the true reason that rumor is able to cause so much panic– the stories it spreads are just as often fact as they are fiction. Any given piece of information is just as likely to be true as it is to be false, and most of the time, the two are blended together in such a way that it is impossible to distinguish which is which. Because these stories often do have truthful cores, they make it easier to believe wildly exaggerated lies that are also woven in. Vergil acknowledges this when he writes that Rumor is “in her glory … bruiting her song of facts and falsehoods mingled” (4.238–239). Oftentimes, the faster a story spreads, the more emotion is often attached to it and thus the more it becomes distorted. While the rapid spread of information nowadays may have some upsides, the downsides are also magnified even further. A study conducted at the University of Utah found that “Three in four Americans overestimate their relative ability to distinguish between legitimate and false news headlines,” and that on average, “respondents place themselves 22 percentiles higher than warranted” (Lyons, 2021). This demonstrates that rumor and fake news does not just target gullible people, it also affects those who are actively aware of it as a phenomenon. Facts and lies have been unseperably tangled since ancient times, and nowadays, it is no easier to figure out which is which. Just because news itself is easier to access, it does not mean that the truth is any easier to discern.
The many parallels that can be drawn between Rumor in the ancient world and fake news of the present day all illustrate that there are some phenomena which simply have not changed over the past few millennia. Whether rumor and panic are simply a part of human nature, or people just have not found a way to get rid of them yet, it is clear that all the technological and scientific progress we have made since Aeneas and Dido’s time has left some circumstances and behaviors completely unaltered. Technology may have transformed the actual method that was used to spread information, but it has not changed our behaviors and how we interact with fast-spreading stories. Thus, whether it was Fama racing through Carthage or fake news spreading across Facebook, rumor has remained the same.
–Becca Carballal ‘24
Bibliography:
Gollatz, Kirsten, and Jenner, Leontine. “Hate speech and fake news — how two concepts became intertwined and politicized.” Zenodo, 15 March, 2018, https://doi.org/10.5281/zenodo.1197174. Accessed 30 May 2023.
Lee, Carol, and Jo Kent. “Facebook Says Russian-Backed Election Content Reached 126 Million Americans.” NBC News, 30 Oct. 2018, www.nbcnews.com/news/ us-news/russian-backed-election-content-reached-126-million-americans-facebook-saysn815791. Accessed 30 May 2023.
Lyons, Benjamin. “Overconfidence in News Judgments Is Associated with False News Susceptibility.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 118, no. 23, 8 June 2021, www.pnas.org/doi/full/10.1073/pnas.2019527118. Accessed 30 May 2023. Virgil. The Aeneid. Translated by Robert Fagles, London, Penguin, 2010.
