Stephen Roth was born in Romania. He became a cartoonist but along with other left-wing artist such as George Grosz, John Heartfield, Thomas Heine, Arthur Szyk, Walter Trier, Joseph Flatter, and Saul Steinberg, Roth was driven out of occupied Europe.

Roth moved to London and provided a large number of cartoons to magazines and newspapers during the Second World War. In 1943 he published a book of anti-Nazi cartoons called Divided They Fall.

One of Rothh's most famous cartoons was The Sword of Damocles. Mark Bryant has pointed out in his book, World War II in Cartoons (1989): "Stephen Roth's cartoon alludes to Dionysius I, tyrant of ancient Syracuse, who invited Damocles to dine with him, a sword suspended by a hair above the guest's head. This story, illustrating the tyrant's life of luxury at the cost of insecurity, is very appositely used by Roth. Hitler's anxiety is evident as Churchill counts down to D-Day and the start of the Second Front invasion from the West."