Barely a day passes without yet another Russian explanation for the Salisbury nerve agent attack. What’s new? Such disinformation has a very ancient history.
After Caesar’s assassination in 44 bc, his old friend Mark Antony and the 18-year-old Octavian, Caesar’s adopted son and heir, emerged as the two contenders for power. In 32 bc, it had become clear that it war between them was inevitable. At this critical juncture, two allies of Antony deserted to Octavian, and revealed that Antony had a will, which had been lodged with the Vestal Virgins. It was illegal to open the will of a living man, and the Virgins told Octavian that they would not touch it. So Octavian simply seized it, looked over it — alone and unsupervised — marked some incriminating passages and read it out to the senate.
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