“What if I told you that Trump’s much-maligned tactics were not that different from those deployed by one of the most respected and accomplished orators and debaters in history? Back in Ancient Rome, the statesman, lawyer, and rhetorician Marcus Tullius Cicero was notorious for the invective he rained down upon his rivals. As the classical historian Valentina Arena has pointed out, in one famous argument, Cicero called his opponent Piso, the father-in-law of Julius Caesar, a belua (“monster”), bustum rei publicae (“funeral pyre of the commonwealth”), carnifex (“butcher”), furcifer (“scoundrel”), maialis(“gelded pig”), and inhumanissimum ac foedissimum monstrum (“most foul and inhuman monster”). Cicero, Arena added, also mocked his opponent’s physical appearance, including his “hairy cheeks and discolored teeth.” (Positively Trumpian!)”

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