II.

Early History

Censorship and the ideology supporting it go back to ancient times. Every society has had customs, taboos, or laws by which speech, play, dress, religious observance, and sexual expression were regulated.

A.

Greek Censorship

In Athens, where democracy first flourished, Socrates preferred to sacrifice his life rather than accept censorship of his teachings. Charged with the worship of strange gods and with the corruption of the youth he taught, Socrates defended free discussion as a supreme public service. He was thus the first person to formulate a philosophy of intellectual freedom. Ironically, his disciple Plato was the first philosopher to formulate a rationale for intellectual, religious, and artistic censorship.

Plato believed that art should be subservient to morality; art that could not be used to inculcate moral principles should be banned. In the ideal state outlined in The Republic, censors would prohibit mothers and nurses from relating tales considered bad or evil; and in Laws, Plato proposed that wrong beliefs about God or the hereafter be treated as crimes and that formal machinery be set up to suppress heresy.

In the 5th century bc the Athenian philosopher Anaxagoras was punished for impiety; Protagoras, another leading philosopher, was charged with blasphemy, and his books were burnt. These instances of repression and persecution in Athens were not truly typical of Greek democracy, for the freedom to speak openly in private or in the assembly was usually respected.

B.

Roman Censorship

In Rome the general attitude was that only people in authority, particularly members of the Senate, enjoyed the privilege of speaking freely. Public prosecution and punishment, supported by popular approval, occurred frequently. The Roman poets Ovid and Juvenal were both banished. Authors of seditious or scurrilous utterances or writings were punished. Emperor Caligula, for example, ordered an offending writer to be burnt alive, and Nero deported his critics and burnt their books.

The far-flung Roman Empire could not have lasted for some four centuries had it not maintained a policy of toleration towards the many religions and cults of the diverse nations and races it ruled. The only demand made was that Roman citizens, as a political act, worship the imperial person or image; beyond that, all citizens were free to worship their own gods and to observe their own rites and rituals. To Jews and early Christians, however, emperor- or image-worship was idolatry, and they refused to obey. They were persecuted and frequently martyred for their religious beliefs.