According to Cicero, from the beginning of Roman history the Pontifex Maximus compiled on a white board the most important events that had occurred in Rome during the year, as well as the names of the consuls and other magistrates of the Republic, and placed it in a public place where everyone could read it.
These records were called Annales Maximi and they were compiled annually until, for reasons that Cicero does not explain, they ceased to be done in 131 BC. From that year the annals began to be compiled by writers like Cato, but privately.
The citizens of Rome had no official source of information in their daily lives that would provide them with knowledge of what was happening in the city, beyond popular gossip and word of mouth. That is why Julius Caesar decided in the year 59 B.C. that it was necessary to create a kind of daily newsletter to remedy this deficiency.
In that year he ordered that public officials publish daily minutes, on the same type of white board (called an album). ) that was used in ancient times for annals, and placing them on bulletin boards or public places, such as the Forum of Rome, so that everyone could read them.
They were called Acta diurna (literally daily events ) and due to their own characteristics, many historians consider that they were a clear predecessor of modern newspapers. According to Luis Alberto Hernando, this is the first reliable example of journalism in the history of mankind, although, as is logical, it does not meet all the characteristics that are currently required , but many more than you might think.
They not only included the matters dealt with in the Senate, the laws and official and public provisions of the magistrates, but were also complemented with social gossip, exceptional, curious or interesting events, information on crimes and crimes, construction of new buildings, and various notices. of a social nature (births, marriages, divorces, deaths), military or municipal (announcements of public games, festivities, supply of grain, etc.).
They were probably not published daily, but with some regularity. After being exposed to the public for a few days, they were removed and kept together with other public documents. Public and private scribes made copies of the acts, adding other current information to the official news, and sent them to the governors and the provinces for distribution as well.
After Caesar's death, Emperor Augustus continued its publication, acknowledging the usefulness of the acts as government propaganda, although excluding from them the minutes of the sessions of the Senate. Some scholars believe that they must have even contained graphic representations showing the battles and victories of the empire, similar to the representations on the triumphal arches.
We know what type of content they included and we have a certain idea of what they were like thanks to the mentions of some Latin authors. Petronius, in his work Satyricon offers a parody of the Acta diurna , in which a series of ridiculous facts are listed:
Pliny the Elder tells several stories that he read in the Acta diurna , one about a dog's fidelity to his owner, another about the conflict between two families during a funeral, and a third about a trial. Cassius Dio collects the story of an architect who saved a portico from collapse, also taken from the records, but only to note that the emperor Tiberius did not allow the name of the savior to be published, because he was jealous of the great achievement of the savior. architect .
Seneca complains that the acts publish long lists of divorces, because ever since every gazette has a divorce case, they (the Romans) have learned to do what they previously only knew by hearsay .
The Day Act they were published until at least 235 AD. (or possibly until the transfer of the imperial capital to Constantinople in 330 AD). Unfortunately, no original fragment has survived to this day, only mentions of them in the work of writers such as Tacitus or Suetonius. It is known that all the minutes included, at the end of the news and announcements, the phrase publicare et propagare , that is, the obligation for all citizens and non-citizens to publicize and disseminate them.
Fonts
Suetonius , Life of Caesar | Brian J. Wright , Ancient Rome's Daily News Publication With Some Likely Implications For Early Christian Studies | Encyclopaedia Britannica | William Smith , A Dictionary of Greek and Roman Antiquities | Luis Alberto Hernando Cuadrado , The daytime minutes and the journalistic record | William Stearns Davis , A Day in Old Rome:A Picture of Roman Life | Wikipedia