Free Republic

A TikTok contrarian once made waves with a bold claim that the Roman Empire wasn't real—something she later tried to walk back by saying her original video was just a "metaphor." But her timelines and writings are full of strong claims about ancient Rome, with just enough factual evidence that she might seem credible.To be clear, the Roman Empire was real, and acknowledging the evidence and impact of that period of rule is vital to the histories of people the ancient Romans subjugated over a millennium...In one now-deleted video, writer Donna Dickens—who goes by @momllennial_ and @momllennial_returns on TikTok, and...

Jean Hardouin (1646-1729) was a scholar of classical literature. In 1685 he published an edition of Pliny's Natural History. There was nothing unusual about the edition itself, which was considered to be of merit and very well edited. What was unusual was that despite being so knowledgeable about classical literature, Hardouin had very strange ideas about its origins. According to Hardouin, the majority of classical Greek and Roman literature had not been produced by Greek and Roman authors. Instead, it had been forged during the Middle Ages by a group of Benedictine monks. He also argued that all extant Greek...

Self-proclaimed Biblical scholar Joseph Atwill has written a book in which he claims that Jesus was fabricated by a little-known group called the Flavians. He also claims he has some sort of “smoking gun” type of “confession” from these ancient people that proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that they entered into a conspiracy with the Roman government of the time to fabricate a character called Jesus as a “gentle Messiah” figure to wage psychological warfare on, and control, the masses so they would pay Caesar taxes without complaining. He is apparently going to present this evidence at a...

MARK COLVIN: William Shakespeare is one of the most significant figures in history about whose actual life we know the least. Very little survives in his handwriting and the records of him are scanty but mostly concerned with money and lawsuits. This absence has proved the breeding ground for all sorts of conspiracy theories, mostly suggesting that someone much more aristocratic wrote the works of the man we call Shakespeare. Some have said it was Francis Bacon, others the Earl of Oxford. There's even a school that believes Christopher Marlowe wrote Shakespeare even though he was stabbed to death years...