We live in the so-called Age of Terror. After the watershed of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, and later the London bombings, many argue that the politics of fear have been used by Governments around the world to maintain power and justify censorship of the arts.
But the politics of fear – and indeed censorship of the arts – have been with us for millennia.
Around 483 BC the Athenian politician and general Themistocles played on a longstanding feud between the people of Athens and neighbouring Aegina, in order to raise funds to build warships that were eventually used to defeat the Persians. Little has changed, politically speaking, since then.
