Everybody “does mail” in meetings. These days it’s email, and earlier it was snail mail; whether the attendees sit with a glassy stare fixed on their notebook screens or they shuffle piles of paper, the impact on the meeting’s effectiveness is obviously negative. This is hardly new behavior… as a hilarious anecdote from ancient Rome illustrates. This is a true story, documented by Plutarch.

The attendee in question is none less than Julius Caesar himself, who was standing in front of the Roman senate, engaged in a debate with his arch-opponent Cato (the younger). Someone came in and delivered a letter to Caesar in the middle of the meeting, and he couldn’t resist reading it – much like a manager glancing at his BlackBerry screen today. Cato seized the opportunity and declared that this must be a letter from enemies of Rome and insisted it be surrendered and read. Caesar gave him the letter, and we can only imagine the strait-laced Cato’s indignant embarrassment when he read it to discover that it was a love letter from Servilia, Caesar’s mistress and mother to Brutus. It didn’t help that Servilia was Cato’s own sister…

Plutarch describes Cato’s reaction: he threw the note to JC with a curse and moved on. He doesn’t tell us what Caesar did, but I can imagine that – being anything but strait-laced – he must’ve rather enjoyed himself…

If you’re curious, here is the original story: It is said also that when the great conspiracy of Catiline, which came near overthrowing the city, had come to the ears of the senate, Cato and Caesar, who were of different opinions about the matter, were standing side by side, and just then a little note was handed to Caesar from outside, which he read quietly. But Cato cried out that Caesar was outrageously receiving letters of instruction from the enemy. At this, a great tumult arose, and Caesar gave the missive, just as it was, to Cato. Cato found, when he read it, that it was a wanton bit of writing from his sister Servilia, and throwing it to Caesar with the words “Take it, thou sot,” turned again to the business under discussion.