Quote Originally Posted by Mulceber View Post
I was more surprised by the idea that the Romans had something approaching a newspaper - I find that hard to believe given that paper was expensive and they had no printing press. But who knows, I could be wrong. Anyone care to verify?

edit: just wiki'd it - they were written on clay or soft metal and were posted in the forum. Also, the article listed above described them badly, as it suggested Julius Caesar invented them when in actuality he only made them public (they'd previously been the private records of the Senate). I guess that was the Romans' nod to transparency in government. -M
well, it's easy to be transparent when news takes days to weeks to get from point A to point B. by that time, the information would often (though not always) be irrelevant anyways to what was going on at the source.
It also helped that public release, I think, would make Caesar look good. though I'm not sure why....