ABSTRACT
In his philosophical treatise, ‘On Providence’, the Neronian philosopher and statesman Seneca the Younger asks, ‘Why do so many bad things happen to good people?’ (Dialogues 1.2.1). This enduring question has two equally discomfiting answers. Either good people are subject to the fickle, capricious, unstable forces of fate, or they are victims of evil plots. Such is the irresistible ‘temptation of conspiracy theory’, in the seminal formulation of Dieter Groh (1987). Although there is no word for ‘conspiracy theory’ in the Latin language, the ancient Romans proposed explanations for historical events in which conspiracy played a significant causal role. Furthermore, sometimes proposed explanations conflicted with official explanations of the same historical events.
