What Kimmel and Colbert can learn from ancient comedians who ticked off their leaders
S E E D E D C O N T E N T
President Trump's celebration of Jimmy Kimmel's (now brief) and Stephen Colbert's (still happening) removal from the air — along with his calls for canceling other late-night comedians — may feel very 2025. But for classics scholars, it feels a lot like the ancient world.
In fifth century B.C. Athens, it was a point of civic pride that comedians could say pretty much anything they wanted to the people in power.
"They could crack merciless jokes about politicians as those politicians sat in the audience," said Mike Fontaine, a professor of classics at Cornell University and the author of a book about ancient jokes. "And nothing happened to those comedians."
But, of course, there were limits. Starting in the fourth century B.C., when the ancient Greek world became more autocratic, comedians who said things that displeased their rulers could land themselves in a lot of trouble.
"The patterns are identical, which makes all this totally predictable," said Fontaine. "The reason we have to focus on ancient Greece and Rome is because those are examples of democracies that slid into authoritarian states."
Two Greeks and a Roman walk into a bar …
Fontaine said the Greek philosopher Plutarch shared stories about the fates of comics who dared to make fun of their leaders in a treatise titled The Education of Children from around 100 A.D.
One of these cautionary tales concerns the Ancient Greek satirist Sotades, who lived in Alexandria in the third century B.C. When the ruler at the time, Ptolemy, married his sister, Arsinoe, Sotades wrote a poem telling the king, "εἰς οὐχ ὁσίην τρυμαλιὴν τὸ κέντρον ὠθεῖς." Rough translation: "You're pushing your scepter into an ungodly hole."
"Ptolemy didn't think it was funny. So he had him hauled away and put in prison," Fontaine said, adding that Sotades escaped, but was eventually caught. "And he was closed up in a lead coffin and thrown into the sea, where he drowned."
Plutarch's same treatise also gets into the tale of Theocritus of Chios. The fourth century B.C. poet and politician was known for his witty criticisms of powerful figures. But Fontaine says things took a serious turn when Theocritus got a gig working for a king named Antigonus the One-Eyed.
"He rather stupidly made a couple of jokes about Antigonus missing one eye," Fontaine said.
The punchline to one of these jokes refers to the king as a cyclops — the cannibalistic, one-eyed monster of Greek mythology. For this, Fontaine said the king promptly had Theocritus executed.
It wasn't just ancient Greek comedians who met similarly grisly fates for making politically incendiary quips.
Fontaine said Plutarch also shares a similar story about the Roman statesman and caustically funny orator Marcus Tullius Cicero. In the biography Life of Cicero , Plutarch describes Cicero's death at the hands of followers of Rome's strongman leader Marc Antony.
"Cicero delivered a famous series of speeches called The Philippics , where he roasted Mark Antony over and over. He derided him in all kinds of terms; some funny, some not so funny," Fontaine said. "Mark Antony didn't think it was funny at all."
Comedians under fire — then and now
President Trump similarly didn't find Kimmel's recent remarks on Jimmy Kimmel Live! that took aim at supporters of the slain right-wing pundit Charlie Kirk entertaining — though Kimmel hasn't been thrown behind bars (or worse) as a result, and this wasn't a direct jibe at Trump, though Kimmel has made many of those over the years.
Instead, two days after the controversial monologue, ABC pulled Kimmel's late-night show indefinitely, bowing to threats from the FCC chairman against stations carrying the program. Though Kimmel has since returned to the airwaves, two major broadcast groups — Sinclair and Nexstar — continue to refuse to air his show in their broadcast areas.
But scholars see a direct link between the fates of ancient comedians living through collapsing democracies and the crackdown on their descendants today, noting the importance of ancient Greek and Roman writings to the founders of this country.
"The founders absolutely read Plutarch," said Stanford University history department chair Caroline Winterer, who studies the influence of the ancient world on early American history. "And they often alluded to people who dared in these early democracies, these nascent republics, to look tyranny in the face and say that tyrants were a threat to the very survival of democracies and republics, which ultimately rest not on the will of one, but on the good of the many."
Winterer said like the ancients, the creators of the U.S. Constitution possessed the general belief that those in power should have thick skins.
"Because along with the adulation of the masses comes the discontent of the masses with one of the sublimest weapons that we have in our arsenal of free speech," Winterer said. "And that is wit and humor."
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The thin skinned White House is once again aiming at Jimmy Kimmel:
What we should all know by now and should have learned eons ago is that many, if not most, rightwing conservatives are MASSIVE hypocrites as evidenced by their obvious attempt to cancel comedians and late-night talk show hosts on the left. Talk about cancel culture. They are desperate to cancel anything and everything they disagree with. If this was a conservative comedian or Fox News host making a joke about Bidens eventual inevitable demise all we'd be hearing right now are screams about first amendment rights to say what they wanted and how terrible and horrible and unacceptable cancel culture is when directed at conservative things and people they like. Though, it's not like we should expect anything different from such dishonest self-centered Christo-fascists. Stomping on other people's rights and canceling others culture in order to give themselves and their white Christian conservative culture additional privilege is their brand.
I'm gonna ignore the assholes when Biden does eventually pass. Nothing they say will be worth reading or taking umbrage with. You know why? When your child is acting up and having a tantrum...you throw them in their bedroom and let them scream it out. Don't give them any attention
decades ago 2nd son decides to throw his 1st tantrum in the grocery store over an item I wouldn't buy him. he throws himself on the floor screaming and thrashing around. my daughter is in the cart and oldest son is beside it and they're both looking at me. so I look at my oldest son and say come on, then haul ass down the aisle away from the tantrum.the tantrum thrower didn't realize we had taken off until we turned the corner out of the aisle. he finally catches up to us and reignites his meltdown on the floor and we take off again for another aisle. the third time he caught up to us he had become a bit more melancholy and that was the last public tantrum I ever experienced. not surprisingly, his little sister that had witnessed the entire event never threw a public tantrum. one and done teachable moments as a parent were fun for me.
tsk, tsk, tsk, that's what happens when you say something mean about the slovenian porn star that jerked off the maga potus on the first date, got knocked up on the 2nd date, then negotiated a lucrative prenup on the the 3rd ...
I am so goddamned sick and tired of the snow flakes living in the White House. You assholes signed up for this. So all those time previous prezzes got roasted was all in big fun? But it's not any more because it's you? Do you know what that makes you look like?
That you have no spine. You're a coward. And you're too goddamned thin skinned to be POTUS and FLOTUS
I will be so fucking glad when these 2 criminals are gone
careful, some maga knuckle dragger might interpret that as a threat against an incompetent bag of shit ...
oh look, the 1st amendment is under fire by the guy that swore an oath twice to preserve, protect, and defend the constitution ...
He had his fingers crossed behind his back
he needs to plug his dick into his asshole and then go fuck himself ...
That would be quite a fete for physics
Kimmel and Colbert aren’t comedians though
Comedian: - noun:
a professional entertainer who amuses by relating anecdotes, acting out comical situations, engaging in humorous repartee, etc.
an actor in comedy.
a writer of comedy.
any comical or amusing person.
I do think it's pretty funny that so many rightwing conservative conceited assholes think that they get to define what is or isn't funny. It's very likely because they've spent their lives being the butt of most jokes. It's why, if you do any research, you'll find out that something like 90% of comedians are liberal and 92% of late-night political jokes target conservatives if you believe the NY Post. It's clearly very hard for conservatives to define humor since the whole world is always laughing at them for being so fucking dense and self-absorbed that they don't even realize the laughter is directed at them. Personally, it amazes me that there were 8% of the jokes not targeting rightwing conservatives since they do such stupid shit and vote for the worst possible candidates all the time.
Comedians and satire can seriously turn the tide against all manner of corruption, injustice, or tyranny.
All the right wing is doing is calling attention to it, actually exalting it to a high level because the right wing can dish out far worse but literally cannot take a joke. Even if a joke is in bad taste, they flood social media with far worse.