The Rise of History’s Greatest Emperor: An Untold Story - Alex Petkas

0:00 Why is learning about Roman history useful

0:02 or instructive at helping us in the modern world?

0:06 Why should anybody care?

0:07 I think that so when I was starting my podcast,

0:15 uh I I'd been doing it for a couple of months with a kind

0:18 of hunch on this question and I wasn't

0:21 really able to articulate it to my satisfaction.

0:25 Um but it a friend of mine a few

0:28 months in recommended that I read this book by Nietze

0:33 one of his early books that um and I

0:36 had read some niche before it's called on the advantage

0:40 and disadvantage of history for life and niche talks

0:45 in there about how history can sort of drain

0:50 the life out of you and turn you into a kind

0:53 of crippled um you know shell of a person.

0:57 It can kind of uh get you

0:59 in this state where you question all of your decisions.

1:04 Uh it can kind of overload you with knowledge

1:06 and cause you to retreat into the the cloister

1:10 or the library or you know be a kind

1:14 of opiate for a life that is not fulfilling.

1:18 Um but he says that and and he quotes Gerta

1:21 at the beginning of that that book that something like uh Gerta said,

1:26 "I hate all knowledge that does not quicken and enliven me like

1:32 away with it." And and history can be very quickening and enlivening.

1:37 And the way that Nze frames it is um the most like

1:40 enlivening approach to history is embodied

1:44 by one of his favorite authors, Plutarch.

1:47 this this great ancient philosopher who was also

1:50 one of history's most widely read and entertaining

1:53 biographers and um and Plutarch embodies this mode

1:59 of reading history or mode of like approaching

2:03 any number of subjects really not not just

2:05 history kings and battles but like art history

2:08 or like engineering um statuary and he calls

2:13 it monumental the monumental approach to where you're

2:19 looking not so much for precise facts um

2:23 although the facts kind of matter for the story

2:26 you're looking for examples of greatness you're

2:29 and you're looking for those examples and this is

2:32 me interpreting niche a little bit but I I think of history as a kind

2:38 of uh source for finding your true self

2:45 for like you're kind of looking for yourself.

2:47 You're looking for somebody who's trying to do

2:49 something um that is the that represents

2:54 a version of the greatest thing that you could do with your own life.

2:58 And so it's about like finding resonance for uh for achievement.

3:03 And I I think this is what the greats tend to get out of history.

3:06 There's a lot of stories of this happening.

3:08 U Julius Caesar and the statue of Alexander is a famous one.

3:12 So I that's what I look to history for and it's

3:16 where I've gotten a lot of my own inspiration.

3:19 Um and I I think it's about um ultimately about like emulation, imitation.

3:26 And there's there's a lot of philosophy around

3:29 this that we could dig dig into a little deeper.

3:31 Isn't it crazy that we think about history as being one thing

3:34 or at least the uninformed amongst us think about history as being one thing?

3:38 But I found out recently that ancient Egypt

3:42 had their own Egyptologists because Egypt was so old.

3:49 Yeah.

3:47 That 2,500 BC was studying 5,000 BC.

3:53 Yeah.

3:53 So the same thing that people of history

3:55 were learning from people from their history.

3:58 Yeah.

3:58 And uh I uh I studied for a little while

4:02 with this great scholar when I was in grad school

4:04 and he said um he he was a specialist

4:07 in the late Roman world like um 4th century AD and it's

4:13 uh he would always say you know late antiquity is

4:16 a very old world and and it is because they have

4:21 been they are in the in the 4th century AD

4:25 they're as far away from Homer as we are from Charlemagne.

4:29 You know, it's crazy to think the world hasn't changed as much

4:32 for them as it has for us since that that time period.

4:35 But even Plutarch, who's a kind of model for for so many things for me,

4:39 he's he's a Greek philosopher in living in the Roman

4:42 Empire in the reign of um Hadrien Traan.

4:46 So, you know, Roman peace about 100 AD is like his, you know, apogee.

4:51 He's studying and doing the biographies of figures that lived um 500,

4:56 700 down to around 100 to 200 years before him.

5:01 So, it's all really old and they they already kind

5:03 of have this deep conception of um what history is,

5:06 what what it's for and and uh and a sense of tradition and like you know,

5:11 I think we we we can learn a lot

5:12 from the way that they approach their own history

5:13 which is often very different from the way

5:15 that we approach them or we approach our own history.

5:18 What about Julius Caesar?

5:19 What can we learn about living a good life from him?

5:22 Well, to to come back to this example that uh is

5:26 probably my favorite story about Caesar and it's a famous story.

5:30 So, you know, people might have heard of it,

5:32 but uh maybe they haven't like kind of grasped the true meaning of it.

5:37 So, Caesar is a young man in um sort of midcareer, early 30s.

5:44 He's gotten a job as a quester and um

5:47 that's like for for what he gets sent sent off

5:51 for his tour of duty one year to Spain which

5:55 is a Roman province and a quester is like a chief

5:59 of staff the the paper guy for like a Roman

6:03 governor um a console or a proconsul and at one

6:07 of one of his leisure moments Caesar is uh going

6:11 around with his friends in a a temple And a temple, it's a temple to Hercules.

6:17 And a temple in antiquity is kind of like a museum.

6:19 That's like where you would put great statues and art and um you know,

6:26 dedications and you know, gold and stuff on the walls.

6:29 And he's going in there,

6:31 they're like touring the museum as it were, Caesar and his buddies.

6:35 And you know, his buddies kind of keep moving on and they

6:37 realize they look back Caesar is is not with them.

6:40 and he's he's standing in front of a statue

6:43 of Alexander the Great in this temple of Hercules.

6:45 And um and they're like, "Aar, what are you coming?

6:49 What wait a sec?

6:51 Are you crying?" Cuz he's weeping in front of the statue of Alexander the Great.

6:56 And he looks to them and he says,

6:57 "Do you not think it is a matter for tears that when Alexander was my age,

7:02 he was the ruler of so many great peoples

7:05 and yet I have done nothing worthy of great

7:08 renown?" [gasps] And this is only one of two

7:12 instances that we know of where Julius Caesar cried.

7:17 Uh the Romans weren't really into crying as much as the Greeks.

7:22 I think they they were a little bit more open.

7:24 I they were about like us.

7:26 The Greeks are crying all the time.

7:27 I mean, if you read Homer, you know, Achilles is, you know,

7:31 balling and throwing ash on himself when

7:33 his buddy Patrick dies in the Trojan War.

7:36 Um, and in the Odyssey,

7:37 it's like it's like every single time somebody mentions the word Troy,

7:41 like everybody just bursts out in tears and you know,

7:44 his family's always crying for him because they don't know where

7:47 he's where he is and Adysius is always crying about everything.

7:50 But the the Romans were a little bit more restrained.

7:52 So, so I think for for Julius Caesar to cry there,

7:56 it it's something happened that was really significant for him.

8:02 And how I read that is Caesar, I mean,

8:06 he's he's already had a pretty promising career so far.

8:10 Um, some some great stories already have happened from from early in his youth.

8:15 He's uh he's a quester, which is not nothing.

8:18 Um, he's got the Roman Medal of Honor equivalent,

8:21 is the the Civic Crown for risking his life to save a fellow citizen.

8:26 But he's kind of looking back on his 20s and he's thinking,

8:32 I've just been screwing around the whole time.

8:35 This is what I have to do.

8:36 He's he's like he's realizing in this moment what what his destiny

8:42 is or or if you want to not use the word destiny,

8:46 he's realizing like what he should be doing.

8:48 And and that's the moment where it it kind of hits him.

8:51 painful to realize that you haven't been living the life to the to the full

8:57 extent of what you should be doing and are capable of doing.

9:00 And I think that's a that's a really powerful

9:02 moment for um and it kind of like encapsulates

9:08 how is what why I think it's uh resonates with me so much.

9:12 That's how we need to be approaching history.

9:14 That's how we need to be approaching the greats.

9:16 like you you need to be looking for that moment of resonance with somebody

9:20 that just like cracks you open and like ah I realize it now personally I don't

9:25 have that with Julius Caesar himself you know I'm not trying to do the Julius

9:28 Caesar thing and it's not every Roman who's great who had that kind of thing

9:34 with Alexander the Great I mean that that says a lot about a man that he

9:37 really sees himself as like somebody who

9:40 needs to emulate Alexander um but but you

9:45 You can definitely learn from that lesson

9:46 of like trying to find that that unique

9:49 resonance with somebody who kind of tells you what you're supposed to be like.

9:52 And I think that Caesar had this like

9:53 depth to him that that illust illustrates also.

9:58 What does that tell us about Caesar's ambition?

10:01 Level of ambition.

10:02 Yeah.

10:03 Well, off off the charts for sure.

10:05 But I think that you can also understand a lot

10:10 about Caesar's ambition from looking earlier in his childhood.

10:14 So, um, and and there's a great story on this, but I

10:18 kind of kind of give the context like laying out, um, Caesar's world.

10:25 So, he grows up in Rome in and he's from this great family,

10:30 you know, on the one hand.

10:32 So, he's got on his mom's side,

10:34 the the the Anki Marquee go back to the King Ankas Marius.

10:40 It's the Marquee family.

10:41 They go back to King Ankus Marcus.

10:43 this quai mythical Roman king from the 6th century BC,

10:48 you know, 500 years of history on his mom's side.

10:52 And then on his dad's side, they're they're the Julius clan.

10:56 And they go all the way back to the mythic founder of Rome,

11:00 Anias, who was the son of Venus and immortal.

11:04 And so they, you know, 1,200 years on that side.

11:06 So they've got some real blue blood, but they're kind of they haven't really

11:13 accomplished a lot in the past few generations.

11:15 They're not one of the like power elite families.

11:18 Um uh like the Matelli or the Cornel.

11:23 There's there's like other families that are

11:24 a lot more prominent than the Julius family.

11:26 They live in a kind of seedy part of Rome, the Sabura.

11:31 And he grows up in this kind of dirty part of town.

11:35 I mean, I know you worked in the kind

11:37 of event and the the nightclub world like Caesar would have

11:40 been like a kid hanging out in the street playing

11:43 dice with his buddies outside of outside of a bar.

11:46 This the Saburo was a kind of place that you you

11:50 didn't really want to live if you had a better option,

11:53 but you know, every young aristocrat on a summer night like to go visit.

11:58 there's like brothel and and so he's uh

12:01 in contact with the the the underbelly of Rome

12:05 and his family has is aligned on the what

12:10 you call the Roman left uh of politics.

12:13 There's there's two main you can call them factions or kind of political styles,

12:18 but there's two kind of main poles in Roman politics.

12:22 And um on the one hand, there are the optimists,

12:24 the the kind of oligarchic or aristocratic faction um who stand

12:30 for the ancient prerogatives of the Senate and the you know the tradition.

12:36 They they tend to monopolize the priesthoods.

12:38 They're all about what family are you from?

12:41 Who are you marrying?

12:42 and uh so and so's great great-grandfather was a console.

12:46 Who are you?

12:47 That whole attitude and they're they're very much for the status quo.

12:54 And on the other hand,

12:55 you have the populists who are about things like land reform,

13:00 redistributing public lands.

13:02 Uh they're really into uh merit and promoting talented outsiders.

13:07 And and Caesar has really strong connections there because his um his aunt

13:15 is married to one of the greatest populist figureheads in Roman history,

13:20 this guy Gas Marius, who was an outsider himself to the Roman power elite,

13:24 but kind of forced his way in by talent.

13:27 He wins a number of wars for them.

13:30 And um and so he he grows up with gas Marius as his uncle.

13:34 uh and Marius you know made a big fortune

13:37 in his career like from starting very low and then he

13:41 kind of married into respectability which Caesar's family represents kind

13:44 of poor respectability and and then [clears throat] um there is

13:51 uh Caesar loses his dad when he uh when he's

13:54 a teenager his dad like drops dead tying his shoes one

14:00 day kind of a freak thing uh maybe had a heart

14:02 attack and maybe Caesar's probably early teens at that point.

14:06 And his dad actually looked like he was on a good track.

14:10 He he been a preacher, hadn't been console.

14:13 Preer is the second highest office.

14:15 Console's the highest.

14:16 And he he died just before he got a shot to run for console.

14:20 Um so Caesar like had a f father figure but lost him.

14:25 And then um so I I I imagine Gas Marius might

14:29 have been kind of like a father figure to to Julius Caesar.

14:32 I we don't know a lot about that.

14:33 But um what what hap what ended up happening

14:37 is Caesar um promising young man 16 years old.

14:46 He is he he gets u a great opportunity

14:50 to marry the daughter of one of the most powerful men

14:54 in Rome who is Marius's colleague his associate this guy

14:58 SA who uh has a run for he he's he's consil

15:01 for like 3 years and also a populist also kind

15:04 of against the oligarchic uh establishment and right around the time

15:10 that this is happening this incredibly bloody war breaks about civil

15:16 war between the optimists and the populists and it's very complicated.

15:19 We go in the details if you want

15:21 but essentially Marius dies toward the beginning of the war.

15:24 Cinned dies a little a little further

15:26 in the the optimates led by a man named Lucius

15:32 Cornelius Sulla win this war just like blood running

15:37 through the the whole like every valley in Italy.

15:39 I mean, tens of thousands,

15:41 maybe more than a hundred thousand Roman citizens, Roman allies killed.

15:45 It's it's just horrific.

15:46 It's it's I probably worse than than the civil

15:49 war that he ends up fighting later in his life.

15:51 But um so Caesar is married to Sa's daughter and when

15:59 Sullah comes like marches into Rome after winning the civil war,

16:03 he was you know came like invaded Italy from a foreign campaign.

16:07 He comes into Rome and he gets elected dictator.

16:11 He kind of forces himself to be elected dictator which is like

16:13 a temporary office at Rome and he's uh he's kind of mopping up.

16:18 He um does famously the this campaign called the prescriptions

16:26 which is basically a purge of all of his enemies.

16:29 It's never been done in Roman history.

16:31 They'd never had a civil war before.

16:33 for 400 years they'd had civic more more or less civic concord and um

16:39 there had been some incidents uh

16:40 in the previous generation but nothing like this.

16:44 Solah posts the names of all the people from the leadership classes of Rome.

16:51 The rich some of the richest men, the most influential,

16:54 well-connected grand family men from the populist faction that he

16:58 blames for um picking this fight and starting the war.

17:04 And if your name is on that list in the procriptions,

17:08 you know, he posts them in the Senate.

17:09 You have a bounty on your head

17:12 and your entire estate is confiscated, state property now,

17:18 and there's more than a thousand names that end

17:21 up getting put up in those prescription lists.

17:23 So, heads roll.

17:25 People are tossing heads in front of the feet

17:27 of Saul as he's sitting in his like consularor throne.

17:30 Uh they're collecting their reward.

17:32 Um it's a it's just this reign of terror for a few months.

17:37 And Salah is also calling other kinds of shots.

17:40 I mean he's rewriting the constitution as a dictator.

17:43 He's trying to make sure that the populists could just

17:45 keep their head underwater for generations that nothing like this war

17:50 could ever happen again because his enemies and the kind

17:53 of principles that they represent will just be so hamstrung and handcuffed.

17:58 But uh one of the things that he does is he approaches younger

18:04 men in Rome and kind of tests their loyalty by making them get divorces.

18:11 Pompy is another promising young man around this time

18:15 who ends up being Caesar's friend and rival.

18:18 He's a few years older and he goes to Pompy Solah and he says,

18:21 "Pompy, you know, you've been a loyal servant.

18:24 Uh you brought me a legion in the civil war.

18:27 you you you sided with me early.

18:29 Uh, I'm very grateful for that, but you know what?

18:31 You're married to the wrong woman.

18:33 I have a better one for you." And Pompy says, "Yes,

18:37 sir." And he and he divorces his his former

18:39 wife and he marries whoever Solah picks for him.

18:43 And then Salah remember this is a guy who, okay, a subordinate of Salah,

18:51 a friend of his, wanted to run for console after Salah becomes the dictator.

18:55 You know, there's still elections going on.

18:56 on.

18:56 There's still offices um that need filling.

19:00 This guy comes to Solah and he says, "Hey,

19:01 Salah, I want to you know, we won the war.

19:04 I I I want to run for console." And Solah's like um you know,

19:09 you haven't even been preer.

19:10 This this would this would be a bad look.

19:12 I don't think this is your year.

19:14 You should stand down.

19:15 And the guy says, "Thank you for your advice.

19:17 Uh I'm going to run anyway." And so one day, Saul is sitting in uh in like one

19:23 of his cural chairs there in one of the public buildings,

19:26 looking out over the forum and watches as the men

19:30 that he ordered to do the deed go up to this guy

19:33 and murder him in broad daylight in the forum because

19:39 he he defied Sullah and he tried to, you know,

19:42 run for office when Sullah said no.

19:44 So this is the kind of guy you're dealing with.

19:45 Now Sullah comes to Caesar.

19:48 Caesar's 18 years old and he says, "Caesar,

19:52 you're married to the daughter of uh one of my late worst enemies,

19:58 Sa." Uh he's, you know, and you can understand his perspective.

20:02 You know, SA was a symbol of everything that Solah wanted to crush.

20:06 And um and he says, "You need to divorce her." [gasps] And Caesar says,

20:13 "You know, thank you very much for your advice.

20:15 Um you know, go screw yourself." and he and he they skips town.

20:19 [laughter] He says no.

20:21 And so so Caesar is running through the mountains of central Italy.

20:26 He's on the run.

20:27 Sullah's got guys hunting him down.

20:30 Uh this goes on for several weeks.

20:32 Caesar gets dysentery and you know Oregon Trail style and he

20:37 just uh he gets caught and manages to bribe the people who

20:42 catch him to not bring him back to Sullah but to bring

20:45 him back to his his family to like his relatives and friends

20:49 and then they go and they they go and plead with the dictator

20:52 Sullah gez you know uh this was really out of line

20:56 on the part of Caesar he's a young hotthead you understand um

21:00 you know he'll be We'll we'll make sure that he behaves himself.

21:04 He's only a kid.

21:05 Uh don't worry.

21:06 Please can you please spare him?

21:07 You know, cuz Sullah wants to execute him.

21:09 Obviously, I mean, he's got an image to uphold, right?

21:12 Like, and Solah relents and he says, "Very well,

21:17 but you are fools if you don't see many

21:20 Amarius in that boy." [sighs and gasps] And so, uh, Caesar gets off.

21:27 Now, why did he do that?

21:30 Like what does that say about him and and what he's got in mind for his future?

21:36 All right, one explanation is Caesar's a showman.

21:40 He's a natural showman.

21:41 He knows if he can defy the dictator and get away with it,

21:46 people are going to be talking about this for his entire life,

21:49 they're going to talk about it all around town.

21:52 And sure enough, you know, we're still talking about it today.

21:54 Like it worked as a as a kind of PR stunt.

21:58 On the other hand, he knows that um this girl is is a symbol

22:07 of of his um all of his populist connections that have mostly been decapitated

22:15 like everything that Caesar had had like aspired to you know think

22:18 you think as a teenager you know you got a great career ahead

22:21 of you know you're you know the top guys in this party

22:24 like the the trajectory is clear and it's all just been like liquidated,

22:29 turned to blood, and she's like one of the last living symbols of that.

22:34 And he knows that if he um he knows the kind

22:38 of like he's kind of calling his shot in a way.

22:41 He's he's he's he's seeing a a career for himself on the populist side,

22:46 on the kind of uh revolutionary, if you will, side of Roman politics.

22:50 and he's sort of building building a career with this clairvoyance about where

22:55 he's headed for the rest of his life already there at age 18.

22:58 [gasps] And I think that one final piece of this is

23:01 it had a lot to do with just family, you know,

23:04 and who he was and he didn't want to be pushed around

23:06 by anybody and he was willing to die rather than to let that happen.

23:11 And the fact that he I think one

23:14 of this the final things that this illustrates about

23:16 Caesar is Caesar was for all this you

23:19 could criticize about the guy he was incredibly loyal

23:22 to the people that um that were close to him to his friends loyal to a fault

23:28 and he was loyal to this to this wife uh Cornelia all the way up to her death.

23:36 Uh I I can't prove this and I wouldn't even try

23:39 but Caesar was famously uh good with the ladies and uh

23:43 you know slept with a lot of senators wives and so

23:47 forth and had a lot of girlfriends on the side

23:49 but we don't know of any specific cases where he did

23:52 that with while he was married to his first wife Cornelia

23:56 and she ends up being the the mother of his only

23:59 daughter uh his only child child up until the very end Julia.

24:04 Uh, but I think that it was it

24:05 was something about proving loyalty to that woman.

24:08 But I think you see in that, you know,

24:09 to answer your question about, you know, what are his ambitions?

24:12 Like they're grand already.

24:14 You can see that in in him as a young man.

24:16 He like he knows he's destined for for something big.

24:20 He's smart, talented, handsome, and so forth.

24:24 Um, and uh, and he was just going to he

24:27 was going to ride that horse as long as he could.

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25:48 What was that story about Caesar and the pirates?

25:50 That was when he was young, right?

25:51 Yeah.

25:52 Yeah.

25:52 That's another great story.

25:53 Another another kind of like flash of his brilliance.

25:54 So he's uh he's off coorting in Asia, Asia Minor as a young man.

26:00 And um this is before Pompy cleans up the seas for the pirates.

26:04 And so he gets um captured by pirates as one does during those times.

26:10 And he um I think he's like on a study trip actually uh at the time.

26:17 So it's it's he's very young like 20 23.

26:22 And the uh the pirates want to ransom him.

26:27 And uh Caesar says, "What you're asking is insulting.

26:33 Like you're asking 20 million sisters.

26:36 You need to double it.

26:37 Like you don't know what you've got on your hands here."

26:40 [laughter] U because I think partly because they kind of trolled him.

26:45 partly because he is uh he knows that if he gets ransomed for more money,

26:50 it's going to make a better story and people are going to think more

26:53 of him because like you know the Greek word for honor is um is team A.

26:58 It means price, you know,

27:00 it's it's the pri it's literally the price that you your comrades

27:06 would be willing to ransom you for if you got captured.

27:09 [laughter] Like it's it's quantifiable.

27:11 It's very quantified.

27:12 Like in Homer, you know, uh it's we think of honor as this abstract thing,

27:16 but it's like how much are you really worth?

27:18 You know, you could put a number on that.

27:19 So Caesar kind of gets that.

27:21 He basically bids on his own auction.

27:23 Yeah.

27:23 Right.

27:24 [laughter] And and uh and the funny thing about that story is uh well

27:29 there's a lot of funny things but you know while he's there with the pirates

27:32 Plutarch um who's his greatest biographer uh says uh you know Caesar would sort

27:38 of um he was he would joke around with them and he would uh write compositions.

27:44 He's like, you know,

27:46 rocking around in the hole there writing speeches

27:48 and he would he would declare them in front

27:50 of the pirates and he'd make them laugh and cry and then he would just say,

27:54 "You people have no taste.

27:55 I can't believe that I'm I'm hanging

27:57 out with you." [laughter] And they would say,

27:59 "Oh, Caesar." And then he said, "You know,

28:01 someday uh I'm going to come back after after you ransom me

28:05 and I'm going to execute every single one of you." And they said,

28:09 "Ah, [laughter] I'll see this kid.

28:11 We love this kid.

28:12 Pour him another drink." you know, and then that's exactly what he does, right?

28:17 He gets ransomed and um and he uh

28:21 the the local governor that um that is responsible

28:25 for that part of the sea is um uh I I think he no he he raises a a fleet

28:32 with his own funds and he goes and he you

28:35 know he knows where these guys hide out their little

28:37 cove and he captures the pirates and he brings them

28:41 to the governor and the governor is sort of doawling.

28:44 he doesn't really have a great plan for these pirates.

28:46 And so he Caesar goes and he crucifies all of them uh to make a statement.

28:51 But you know because they were such uh kindly hosts to them,

28:54 he does them the the courtesy of having

28:57 their throat slit before they get crucified

29:00 so they don't you know have to be there in agony for several days dying.

29:04 Gives them a short death.

29:05 So you know I think it you know perfect combination of his his winning

29:09 charm his deep sense for the political stakes of every single thing that he

29:15 does you know raising his price making a scene and making a statement

29:19 by you know fulfilling his promise to in in the most coldblooded way possible.

29:26 Why did he become so popular?

29:27 What was what were the levers that he was pulling on?

29:30 Well, before he becomes a commander,

29:33 at least Caesar is uh just a really stylish guy.

29:37 He he has a flare for fashion.

29:40 You know, he wears his his toga a little differently than than everybody else.

29:44 It's a little looser.

29:46 Uh you know, it's kind of like, you know, when I was in high school,

29:50 a lot a lot of kids would like let their pants sag down.

29:53 It was like the cool look.

29:55 Yeah, the Caesar's doing that.

29:56 Like, let's let's let our toga sag a little bit.

29:58 Uh but it but it was it was like you know it was stylish and classy

30:02 and and kind of um and and you know

30:06 the older men at Rome would say oh that's effeminite.

30:10 Um but Caesar knew that it would draw draw attention that he could pull it off.

30:16 And um one of the ways that he attracts attention is

30:19 by prosecuting uh corrupt governors when he's just in his 20s.

30:25 you know, he he does these sort of um sort of publicity stunt DA like

30:30 young DA prosecuting the um whatever city

30:34 councilman and he he loses I think most

30:38 of these but he makes a statement of of what he stands for and and I

30:42 think he knows from a very early

30:44 age that he's kind of an anti-establishment figure.

30:46 Solah has dies soon after he becomes a dictator and and like

30:50 in his youth um Saul basically firmly established the optimate

30:56 oligarchy and everybody in power now in Rome was like

30:59 a buddy of Sullah and they they have no serious challengers.

31:04 They're corrupt, they're fat, they're slow,

31:07 uh they're plundering the provincials and Caesar kind of takes

31:10 a stand for justice like throughout his early career.

31:13 And um in one of these one of these cases he

31:18 um there was a there was a riot 30 years earlier.

31:23 This is funny.

31:24 And um and and some populist leaders,

31:27 you know, people from Caesar's faction got murdered.

31:30 Saturninus was the the most well there was a riot

31:33 in the forum and then they they arrested the guys.

31:36 They put them in the Senate house and then

31:38 people snuck up to the roof in the night.

31:40 they they removed the the roof tiles and they like hurled these like

31:43 roof tiles down on Saturninus and his buddies and they killed him.

31:48 So, uh there was some violence

31:50 in the streets in Rome that the generation before.

31:52 And so Caesar picks one of the last surviving men to have

31:58 been vaguely implicated in this riot as somebody with, you know,

32:04 blood on his hands metaphorically

32:06 for the for the death of Saturninus and his associates.

32:09 Um, and the guy is like this emaciated old old gentleman,

32:15 um, Riberious, and he says, you know, uh, we're gonna we're going to hold

32:20 you responsible for your crimes 30 years ago.

32:23 Like Rome is Rome is a place of justice.

32:26 And, uh, they basically, you know, long story short,

32:29 they get they get him convicted and in the special

32:33 court that they call the punishment is crucifixion.

32:38 Like, so they're going to publicly execute

32:40 this like 80-year-old man who probably doesn't even

32:44 know what day it is and there's some

32:48 lastm minute uh political shenanigans by Riberious's friends.

32:53 They like raise this flag and they, you know,

32:56 they there's a kind of like political chicainery where you can say

32:59 the omens are bad and and it kind of calls off the whole thing.

33:02 And Caesar, I think, kind of expected them to do that.

33:04 Um but uh it the point was about the statement, you know,

33:09 that oligarchs, aristocrats from the establishment

33:14 can't get away with murder anymore.

33:15 Not in this town anymore.

33:17 I think that was a big piece of why he was popular before he ever led an army.

33:22 Now, when he started leading armies, that's a whole different story.

33:24 Like he was a master at getting um at like winning the respect of his soldiers.

33:31 He was always fighting in the front lines.

33:33 There's many stories about this um the incredible loyalty

33:37 that that his soldiers in particular had for him.

33:40 Um but he you know he's kind of a playboy in his in his youth

33:44 and uh he just was was a fun guy to be around.

33:46 He's always giving gifts.

33:49 He's um he's in debt all the time up to his ears

33:53 and he somehow always finds a way to pay off his creditors.

33:57 Um uh he he was just a a really magnetic guy to be around.

34:02 What was the loyalty that he generated?

34:04 Just how loyal were his followers?

34:06 Well, so one instance of this is in the Civil

34:11 War that illustrates this is uh this guy

34:14 Granius Petro is um a guy we wouldn't know

34:19 his name otherwise but he's a quester in Caesar's army

34:24 and gets he's a ship captain gets gets

34:29 his ship captured by Caesar's enemies in the civil war

34:33 and um and So he's brought aboard the ship

34:38 with his fellow sailors uh and and the the enemy commander,

34:44 the optimate commander says, "Uh, Granius Petro, you know,

34:49 we're going to we're going to be nice to you guys.

34:50 Now, normally since you you all are traitors,

34:53 what we should do is slit your throats and throw you overboard,

34:57 but we're going to be very kind.

34:59 You know, Caesar's a kind man.

35:00 We know he's the enemy of the state and tyrant and lawless,

35:03 but we're going to we're going to not let him morally outclass us.

35:07 We're just going to sell you in the slave market, all of you.

35:09 [gasps] Um, and hopefully you'll get ransomed, maybe.

35:13 But Granny Petro, you, however, may go free.

35:16 He's the he's their leader.

35:19 And uh, but you have to go and tell Caesar what

35:22 we did here and tell him that his war effort is feudal,

35:25 that he should surrender to the lawful government of the republic.

35:29 And Granius Petro says, "It is the custom of Caesar soldiers to give

35:35 mercy but not to receive it." Then he pulls out a dagger and he stabs himself

35:39 to death right in front of the the enemy console.

35:44 That's the kind of loyalty that Caesar had.

35:46 Like this guy would rather die than, you know,

35:50 be ashamed by letting his enemies spare him.

35:53 Um, another great instance, uh, I mean, the Caesar soldiers had this incredible

36:00 endurance throughout all of his campaigns.

36:03 They're willing to fight for him to to the death.

36:06 You know, stories about soldiers getting shot in the eye,

36:10 shot in the arm, shot in the leg,

36:12 taking hundreds of blows, and then they don't leave the fight,

36:14 they just have to be dragged away by their companions.

36:17 Uh, one instance again later from Caesar's career,

36:20 his um he's fighting this this great um kind of trench war,

36:25 siege war with um with Pompy.

36:29 There's like a 17 mile wall that he's built around Pompy's camp

36:34 to wall him into the coast in Greece and Pompy's built another counterwall.

36:38 So, it's this dragging dragging long siege

36:40 warfare and the supplies are getting choked.

36:42 Caesar cuts off the water to Pompy.

36:44 The animals are starving and dying in Pompy's camp.

36:47 But Caesar is even in worse straits because they've eat 20,000 30,000 men.

36:53 They're they're eating the all the food in the area.

36:56 They're like running out of food and they're having

36:58 to go and collect weeds and bake them into these horrible,

37:04 disgusting cakes and just eat them.

37:06 And um and at some point uh Pompy's guys have

37:10 enough food and water personally even though the animals are dying.

37:13 They call over to Caesar's men across the wall.

37:15 They say, you know, "Hey, Roman, getting hungry over there?" And uh Caesar's

37:22 soldiers catapult over some of these horrible

37:25 loaves of nasty food that they're eating

37:28 just to show what they're willing to eat.

37:31 They're willing to like starve to death before giving up the fight.

37:36 And one of these these cakes, you know, imagine like a cow patty.

37:40 One of these cakes is brought to Pompy, you know, his his enemy, the commander.

37:44 And he says, "Good God, we are fighting with beasts." [laughter] And and uh

37:52 and they go to Caesar and they say,

37:53 "We would rather eat tree bark than surrender."

37:56 Um and how was he able to generate that?

38:00 He fights in the front lines with them all the time.

38:03 He's he risks his life um right up right up there with the centurions.

38:09 He knows all the centurions in his army by name.

38:11 There's like one centurion for every 80 men and uh he's got an army of 30,000.

38:18 He remembers their names.

38:19 He like takes the time to do that.

38:21 He um he also uh is he's very generous with with gifts.

38:31 And he what what what he'll do is he'll eat the same food that they eat.

38:35 I don't know if he ate those cow patties,

38:37 but I imagine he did because he had this habit of like if

38:40 if the if the olive oil was rancid and there was good olive oil,

38:44 but the the troops were eating the bad olive oil,

38:46 he would eat the bad olive oil.

38:48 if his uh if his troops are sleeping in the on the ground,

38:51 if his officer core, they're, you know,

38:53 he's always going around uh like lightning speed blitzing around

38:58 the campaigns and often they have to stay in weird places.

39:01 You know, if his officers are sleeping on the ground, he'll sleep on the ground.

39:04 He'll give a good one bed.

39:06 We'll give it to the weakest of us, which is not me, you know.

39:09 Uh so he's he's always there with them.

39:12 Um but he's also you he's very lavish with these guys, too.

39:16 like he his his um what he does he does amass a lot

39:25 of money when he's conquering Gaul for example [gasps] but it's always

39:30 only to give it to his friends to give it to the people

39:33 of Rome to do something with it to it's all he always

39:36 sees money as a tool and and riches as a tool and gift

39:39 as a tool uh to to to like win to bind people

39:45 closer to himself self cuz this is this is where his real power

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40:58 What was the relationship between him and Pompy?

41:01 Because you said previously they were sort

41:03 of loosely affiliated and then they do the triumvirate.

41:06 So instead of trying to beat them,

41:09 he actually decides to do that thing with Cassus and Pompy.

41:13 What's the arc of his big enemies across his life?

41:18 Yeah.

41:18 So Pompy is um they're they're friendly for most of their career.

41:23 And um Pompy is a kind of moderate populist.

41:27 Uh Pompy mostly wants to uh in his early career he's a he's fights for Solah

41:34 but soon after Solah dies you know Pompy

41:37 doesn't he's not really into politics that much.

41:39 He mostly wants to just get himself sent off as commander of Rome's armies

41:46 to fight all kinds of wars because that's I think that's his happy place.

41:50 Pompy is um an excellent administrator.

41:54 He's great at logistics.

41:56 Uh, I think he's he's kind of a big guy, too.

41:59 And so Caesar helps him a lot in his early

42:02 career to get these extraordinary commands is what they call them.

42:05 Like Pompy doesn't hold office until he's 35.

42:09 And usually to become console, which is what he becomes,

42:12 you would have to have like, you know, a whole sequence of offices.

42:16 But Pompy's just he's just a golden boy.

42:19 Poppy is um he's he's got this combination

42:24 of charm and he's got this boyish look.

42:27 He's got this little quiff in his hair.

42:30 He kind of looks like Alexander and he

42:32 kind of models himself off of Alexander the Great.

42:34 I mean Caesar and Pompy both are like Alexander uh Alexander

42:38 stands and um but he's also got this ruthlessness to him too.

42:46 uh they called him the kid butcher when he was

42:48 younger and the Romans just loved this combination of coldblooded forcefulness,

42:55 brutality even, you know,

42:56 in a controlled way and then boyish charm uh which Pompy had.

43:00 But the way that they really get in um in into cahoots

43:08 in the first triumvirate is so even though Caesar's kind of friendly with Pompy,

43:13 helps him out here and there, he's not like really tight with Pompy.

43:22 Who he is tight with is Craas, the richest man in Rome.

43:26 Another fascinating figure that I did a did a biography on on the cost of glory.

43:31 He uh crass finances Caesar's career.

43:36 He's basically the one holding the note

43:39 for all of Caesar's colossal political debts.

43:43 Um, and there comes a point when Caesar is

43:46 ready to run for console that Craas has a problem

43:50 and Pompy has a lot of problems that they

43:52 can't get solved in the Senate and in politics.

43:56 Pompy has just come back from this glorious eastern campaign.

43:59 He's defeated this general Mithrates.

44:02 He's uh he's essentially conquered Judea.

44:06 Uh, and he's he's defiled the temple in Jerusalem.

44:10 Um, but he's come back glorious with a bunch of soldiers that need rewards.

44:15 He wants to settle his soldiers.

44:17 He wants the Senate to ratify all of the arrangements,

44:22 the treaties that he made, you know, appointing a client king here,

44:26 you know, getting a city constitution ratified there.

44:28 and he's got a lot of a lot of interest in that like materially,

44:33 you know, people um sending him money

44:36 and promising to support him and war or politics.

44:40 So, Pompy has a lot of needs

44:41 and and it's it's all getting blocked by the Senate.

44:44 He's just not that great at the political game.

44:47 His and and by this point,

44:49 Pompy is sort of an outsider from the from the optimist,

44:52 from the from the kind of establishment conservatives um who are blocking Pompy.

44:58 They think he's getting too powerful.

44:59 Caesar is nobody at this point.

45:00 I mean, yeah, he's a promising young politician,

45:03 but he's not he's not like a powerful man.

45:05 Uh so we we talk about the triumvirate.

45:07 Uh but it's it's Caesar brokering a deal with Pompy.

45:11 And then Craus on the other hand has some tax breaks he

45:14 wants for his u basically his portfolio

45:18 companies who are equestrian tax collectors.

45:21 And um they can't get it through the Senate.

45:23 Both Pompy and Craas are outsiders to the Optimate establishment.

45:30 The main guy who's the kind of figurehead of the of the conservatives is

45:35 this young guy Ko who becomes who's

45:37 the Stoic famously becomes Caesar's worst nemesis.

45:41 And Caesar basically comes to these these two um big shots,

45:45 the two big fish in Rome, Pompy and Craus,

45:48 richest man and then the most glorious general.

45:50 and he says, "You guys hate each other.

45:53 You've hate each other for a long time.

45:54 You've always been trying to smile in public when you're next to each other,

45:58 but then stab each other in the back behind the scenes.

46:01 But look, you both have needs.

46:05 I can I can I can fix them.

46:07 I can fix this.

46:08 I can get your legislation passed, Pompy.

46:10 I can get your legislation passed, crisis.

46:13 Support me in the console ship, and I'm going to ask for a favor down the line,

46:18 but let's not worry about that right now." and they say,

46:20 "All right." And so it's basically the triumph is

46:23 Caesar brokering this deal between these two top guys,

46:25 which is a great that's a great strategy, I think,

46:28 if you're if you're like down here and there's men up here

46:31 that have a need to help find the way to help them out.

46:33 And and the biggest thing that's blocking each of them really is each other.

46:38 Like Crass is like pushing the Senate to not ratify Pompy's legislation.

46:45 Pompy is going to use his clients to kind of push against Crass.

46:48 you know, making peace between the two of them.

46:50 Um, and and it was a pretty good relationship for a long time.

46:53 And and once once Caesar gets elected console,

46:56 his dear dear daughter Julia is one child uh up to that point,

47:02 he marries her off to Pompy the Great,

47:05 and he becomes Pompy's father-in-law, even though he's a younger man somewhat.

47:10 And by all accounts, that marriage was not just a political marriage,

47:14 but became a very loving relationship.

47:17 Um, and so, uh, you know, they had this long connection, uh,

47:23 long before the Civil War that made them mortal enemies of each other,

47:28 which I think is what makes it kind of even more tragic and bitter.

47:32 And then how do Pompy and Caesar end up at war?

47:37 Well, that's you know a long story I guess but in some

47:43 when Caesar h how it all happens how how this breakdown happens is

47:50 when Caesar goes off when he finishes his consil ship he gets

47:56 Pompy and Craus to support him to have himself sent off to Gaul.

48:03 So far, you know, Caesar hasn't had his Alexander moment.

48:07 This is his chance to do some real worldchanging conquest.

48:13 And uh he spends the years 59 is the first triumvirate.

48:17 So he spends the years 58 through 52 conquering Gaul.

48:22 And um Rome controls a little strip along the coast.

48:26 Gaul is France of course.

48:28 Um but but the Gauls, the Kelts, uh is the other name for them.

48:34 They are not just a kind of you know peaceable farmer unsuspecting society

48:41 of you know we just we just want to like live our our peaceful lives.

48:45 Why are these Romans coming and conquering us?

48:47 I mean this is a confederation of war incredibly

48:51 warlike tribes who have threatened Rome on many occasions.

48:55 And um just in the previous generation,

48:58 there was a great golic invasion that stopped by gas Marius.

49:03 And um and so the and they and in several centuries

49:07 earlier the the Gauls like actually sacked the city of Rome,

49:10 like taken the only time that ever happened up to that point.

49:13 So there's a real threat there arguably.

49:17 And uh you know we could get into how Caesar conquered Gaul but how Pompy

49:22 and Caesar fell out with each other is it's a long story that basically while

49:29 Caesar's away he he is absent from the city of Rome and from Italy

49:34 for um seven years well really eight years

49:40 um before the conflict between them breaks out.

49:44 And while he's away, Craas dies.

49:48 And Craas was a kind of fulcrum balancing out Caesar and Pompy.

49:53 Um, he got dies on this great Persian expedition,

49:56 this campaign to invade not Iran,

49:59 but Iraq where there the Persians were in charge.

50:03 Um so that that was uh the kind of like last

50:07 when you have three men they can kind of balance each

50:09 other out but when it becomes two men there's there's

50:13 a polarity there that can really be inflamed and this is exactly

50:18 what the establishment people see people like KO see Caesar has

50:24 always been a revolutionary in their opinion he's always been trying

50:28 to make a grab at supreme power they they they had

50:31 their eye on him since he since he was a young man.

50:33 Solo was right about this kid, there is many Mariuses in him.

50:37 And they, you know, Pompy has has been an outsider,

50:41 but they they see sort of late in the game after Craus

50:44 dies that if they can kind of court Pompy into the establishment.

50:49 He's always wanted their approval.

50:50 You know, Pompy has always just wanted to be

50:53 this glorious general welcomed by the blue bloodoods,

50:56 the great families, and they never really had it.

51:00 And so they see their chance.

51:02 Ko and company like, let's make Pompy a respectable man.

51:06 Let's make him our shield,

51:08 our shield against Caesar because Caesar's going to come back at some point

51:11 and he's going to come back richer

51:13 and more powerful and more glorious than ever.

51:16 And he's going to just push us around in politics and and maybe maybe

51:20 maybe he's going to try to take over the thing and make himself a monarch,

51:24 which I think was a self-fulfilling prophecy.

51:25 Like that wasn't really his intent at that point.

51:28 But basically they say Caesar, it's like 51 BC at this point.

51:34 Caesar's been in Gaul for 8 years.

51:36 He's got so many well-trained legions.

51:41 Um and uh and basically his enemies are saying you can't

51:47 we're not going to let you come back except under circumstances where

51:54 you will face accountability prosecution potentially for all of the bad

51:59 things you did in your earlier career including when you were console.

52:04 And they basically, you know, long story short, they kind of play Pompy and C,

52:09 they especially kind of get into Pompy's head and play

52:11 him off of Caesar uh in this gradual shift of alliances.

52:17 And importantly importantly, Caesar's daughter Julia, Pompy's, you know,

52:23 the love of Pompy's life by all accounts, she dies in childbirth in 54.

52:29 And um that was like the link that held them the final tether.

52:33 The final tether that held them together.

52:35 Um and after that the civil war

52:37 cuz otherwise there would have been some leverage over Caesar.

52:41 Yeah.

52:41 We have your daughter.

52:43 Oh yeah.

52:43 I had thought about that.

52:45 I I think they couldn't have gotten Pompy's head because, you know,

52:48 they would have had a Caesar's grandson,

52:51 Pompy's son, would have would have bound them together.

52:53 It was a boy that was born uh that died soon after his mother died.

52:58 Um, so I I I think that it it wasn't

53:01 an an obvious fit for Pompy to be um their shield, their man.

53:06 He had always been an outsider and uh Caesar

53:09 could have kind of kept him kept him loyal.

53:11 It's very hard when you're in France and this is all happening in Rome,

53:15 but Caesar has a lot of lieutenants to really, you know,

53:18 men of letters trying to kind of keep

53:20 the peace and keep up his contacts in Rome.

53:23 like if he had been able to be there in person,

53:25 he believed he could have he could have

53:27 settled the seas and won Pompy back over.

53:30 And this is one of the things after the war broke out

53:32 that he kept trying over and over again like let's just meet just Yeah.

53:36 the civil war.

53:37 Let's just meet.

53:38 Let's uh let's work this all out.

53:39 But he didn't want to.

53:40 Yeah.

53:40 Pompy didn't want to at that point.

53:42 He'd already hardened his heart.

53:44 He was supposed to be Pompy was supposed

53:45 to be one of the greatest generals ever, right?

53:47 And he didn't he not outnumber Caesar as well?

53:50 Yeah, he greatly did.

53:51 He had he Pompy was brilliant in the Civil War.

53:55 He defeated Storius.

53:56 He c he conquered the the pirates in like three months earlier in his career.

54:02 I mean, he's a brilliant administrator.

54:05 Um, some people think he's overrated as a general.

54:07 I mean, he was really good, but I think Caesar was a better general.

54:11 But but

54:14 evidently

54:13 evidently, but he he definitely had by all by the look of it all the advantages.

54:18 When Caesar invades Italy, crosses the Rubicon.

54:21 Um, you know, Pompy has a lot of legions on paper,

54:26 but they're they're fresh recruits.

54:28 What's the story of crossing the Rubicon?

54:30 Yeah.

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55:37 That's join.woop.com/modernwisdom.

55:42 I mean, I it's something that I've heard people say all the time.

55:45 It's a Rubicon moment, crossing of the Rubicon.

55:48 I have no idea what that means.

55:49 I I don't know the story.

55:50 I don't understand why it's significant.

55:52 I don't know what it's supposed to symbolize.

55:55 Yeah.

55:55 So there's a kind of a complicated buildup, a standoff.

56:00 You know, everybody's always kind of ratcheting

56:03 up their demands as Caesar's like,

56:04 I want to come back to Rome, don't without prosecution.

56:08 And the Senate's like over our dead bodies.

56:11 Uh here, you know, concessions going back and forth being rejected.

56:15 And so as this is all going on, Caesar's getting his getting his armies ready.

56:21 He doesn't want to fight a civil war.

56:23 I think he's, you know, and he always said that.

56:25 And I I think it's right because he's just come back from Gaul.

56:28 Yeah, he's just come back from Gaul.

56:29 He's sevenyear campaign, eightyear campaign straight into a civil war.

56:33 Right.

56:33 Basically, he's he's at war from 58 BC until 45 BC almost constantly.

56:41 I mean, the energy of the man [sighs and gasps] and and he's got two advantages.

56:46 Um so, so basically he's got uh I think he's got 10 legions at this point,

56:51 something like 40,000 men,

56:52 but they're all kind of strung out over Gaul and forts.

56:54 They're they're not close.

56:55 He's got one legion with him on the border,

56:58 the legal border between Italy and um basically northern Italy.

57:04 What we call northern Italy today was what they would call cis Alpine Gaul.

57:09 It's um it's it's not like Italy proper.

57:12 And um if you uh lead an army into Italy without disbanding it,

57:19 it's like technically an act of war.

57:22 like your consils are supposed to disband

57:24 their armies before they reenter Italy.

57:27 And so the border between sis Alpine Gaul and Italy proper is the Rubicon River.

57:35 It's this insignificant stream near Ravena

57:38 in northern Italy on the Adriatic coast.

57:42 And um and so Caesar's camped at Revena and he is negotiating

57:50 with the with the Senate envoys going back and forth back and forth.

57:54 It's not looking good.

57:55 Caesar doesn't want to fight a war, but he's going to be ready.

57:58 You know, he's not he's not about to pretend like this couldn't happen.

58:02 I think Pompy wasn't really ready for it.

58:04 But so he's got one legion there with him at Revena.

58:09 Not a lot of men, 400 uh 4,500 men or so.

58:16 And at at at this final moment, the negotiations break down.

58:21 And the Senate declares him a public enemy.

58:23 They say, "Caesar is is is, you know, he's not responding to our demands.

58:29 We've had enough." They officially basically declare war on him.

58:34 And the moment he gets that advice, the very next day, actually,

58:39 he was um he knew what he was going to do the next day,

58:43 but he pretends like nothing's happening on that day.

58:47 He's just going to go about his business in Revena.

58:49 He goes to the gladiatorial shows.

58:51 He inspects his troops.

58:53 He has dinner with his friends.

58:54 It's just a normal day.

58:56 No big deal.

58:57 But he secretly sends the order out to his troops to muster.

59:01 and he uh finds his way to the Rubicon.

59:04 He apparently like gets lost in the woods cuz it's dark.

59:07 I mean, there's there's all these kind of elaborate tales about this.

59:10 And one of the ancient sources, not Plutarch, who's a little bit more sober.

59:15 Uh one of the ancient sources, Suatonius,

59:17 I think it is, says, you know, you know, as he stood there before the Rubicon,

59:22 he saw a great winged figure blowing a trumpet.

59:26 It's like the gods are like calling him to war.

59:29 It's like the Vularies or something.

59:31 Um, but what [clears throat] he says is um he's there with his officers and he

59:38 knows if he crosses that river that uh

59:43 it's he's he's declaring war back on the Senate.

59:48 [gasps] Um and so he says, "Let the eye be cast." and the the famous words.

59:56 It's actually a quote from one of his favorite dramas

59:59 or a comedy from Manander like let the die be

1:00:02 cast as as one does when one is entering upon

1:00:06 a highly risky thing with uncertain results as Plutarch says.

1:00:09 And so he crosses the the Rubicon very quickly and within [snorts] a day

1:00:16 he is just blitzed down and captured a city in in Italy proper

1:00:21 and he just he has one of his advantages as I was saying

1:00:25 is he loves to be underestimated

1:00:28 and he's really good at getting himself underestimated.

1:00:32 Um, and they didn't think he would do it.

1:00:35 And he he only uh goes into Italy with one legion.

1:00:41 And this the Senate has like 10 legions in Italy.

1:00:45 I mean, he's vastly outnumbered, but everybody else arrives really quickly.

1:00:48 The other advantage is he's really fast.

1:00:51 And so he blitzes through Italy and pretty soon Pompy um

1:00:55 and the Senate decide they've got to they've got to get out of there.

1:00:57 They've got to think rethink their grand strategy.

1:00:59 and they [clears throat] they they go to Greece

1:01:01 to basically muster up and um collect a bunch

1:01:05 of ships and a bunch of troops in the east

1:01:06 and come back and reinvade Italy and destroy Caesar.

1:01:10 But but it doesn't work out that way.

1:01:13 Why?

1:01:13 Well, they were hoping they knew that Caesar didn't have any ships.

1:01:19 Basically, he doesn't have troop transports.

1:01:21 So, he's not able to cross over and catch them and take the war to Greece.

1:01:26 he's not able to draw on his great advantage, which is speed.

1:01:29 And they're hoping to uh essentially kind of blockade Italy and starve him out.

1:01:34 Rome, if you blockade Rome,

1:01:38 the people will starve quickly because they're getting the majority

1:01:41 of their grain from places like Sicily, North Africa,

1:01:46 uh not yet Egypt, but it's a, you know,

1:01:49 it's the biggest city in the world at that point,

1:01:51 at least in the West, million people maybe.

1:01:54 and uh you can't get that much grain in from the countryside on carts,

1:01:58 you know, so they bring it in on ships.

1:02:00 So they're hoping to basically starve the people

1:02:02 of Rome and makes these are really unpopular.

1:02:05 Um and so uh he doesn't have ships, he can't go catch them.

1:02:09 So there's also um Pompy's got guys in Spain that start

1:02:13 up a uh they you know holding out against Caesar

1:02:18 and you know Caesar's only controls Italy and Gaul and [snorts]

1:02:22 so he has to go fight a war in Spain

1:02:24 first before he can go catch Pompy in Greece

1:02:27 and uh you know basically by by leaving um by leaving

1:02:31 Italy rather than settling it then and there his enemies

1:02:35 are essentially saying they're willing to make this a world war,

1:02:39 which is exactly what happens.

1:02:41 There's there's a war fought in Spain first.

1:02:44 Caesar comes and he and he um defeats them in Greece.

1:02:48 Then he uh goes to Egypt.

1:02:51 There's another war there.

1:02:52 Then there's another war in Asia Minor.

1:02:54 Then there's war in North Africa.

1:02:56 And then there's the final kind of embers of the war in Spain.

1:02:59 I mean, he he he visits every single province

1:03:02 in the Roman Empire and carries war to almost all of them.

1:03:07 Wow.

1:03:07 Yeah.

1:03:07 You mentioned Egypt there.

1:03:08 What's the story of Caesar and Cleopatra?

1:03:11 Yeah.

1:03:12 Well, so um fast forward, you know, Caesar's first campaign is in Spain.

1:03:20 His second campaign in the civil war is um is

1:03:24 in Greece where he defeats Pompy at the battle of Farcelus,

1:03:28 which is the really should have been the the last battle.

1:03:31 Should have been the decisive battle.

1:03:34 And uh um Pompy flees and makes his way to Egypt.

1:03:39 They don't know where he went for for a while.

1:03:41 Um but Caesar finally figures out he's

1:03:43 gone to Egypt because Pompy has friends there.

1:03:47 And as soon as he gets on shore, actually doesn't ever ever reach the shore.

1:03:53 He he basically comes up with his warships and the Egyptians say,

1:03:58 "Oh yes, we're really glad to see you, Pompy.

1:04:00 Uh come come ashore.

1:04:03 We we've got the whole reception ready for you.

1:04:05 Just get in this little boat and you know there's there's reefs

1:04:10 that a big ship like yours would would probably found her on.

1:04:13 So just trust us.

1:04:14 We're going to get you in this little boat and take you to shore

1:04:17 and and uh you know Pompy gets on the boat.

1:04:22 He he probably knows what's going to happen, but he's

1:04:26 he has no hope at this point.

1:04:27 He's just crust fallen.

1:04:28 He's he's dispirited.

1:04:30 He thought he was going to win against Caesar.

1:04:32 It was an upset victory at Farsculus and um

1:04:35 I think it just kind of shattered him and I think there's

1:04:39 I'm trying to remember exactly how they frame him.

1:04:41 There's a moment where the the boat captain is like come on Pompy,

1:04:44 there's nothing to be worried about.

1:04:45 You can trust us.

1:04:47 Um and Pompy said, you know, if I were worried about my life,

1:04:54 I would not get in this boat.

1:04:57 Like I mean I think he knew

1:05:03 because on that boat they murdered him in front of the eyes of his son,

1:05:09 in front of the eyes of his wife, in front of the eyes of all of his friends

1:05:12 once they get a little away from the the warship.

1:05:13 He never makes it to shore.

1:05:15 They murder him.

1:05:16 Who's they?

1:05:17 The Egyptians.

1:05:18 So who is they?

1:05:21 What's going on in Egypt right now is there's a civil war happening.

1:05:26 Egypt is ruled by at this point by uh

1:05:30 the tools who are a Greco Macedonian ruling class.

1:05:35 Their capital is Alexandria which is a great

1:05:37 Greek city founded by Alexander the Great.

1:05:39 He's he's he's everywhere, isn't he?

1:05:42 And so, uh, there's a conflict going on between these two like teenage,

1:05:50 one is a teenager, one's a 20-year-old, like siblings of the pharaoh who died.

1:05:54 You know, it's funny to think of these Greeks as pharaohs,

1:05:57 but that's what they would have called them in Egypt.

1:05:59 And um Pompy was hoping that all the favors he

1:06:03 did for them earlier would ingratiate him to the Egyptian regime.

1:06:10 But they basically saw Caesar won at Farsculus.

1:06:14 He's probably going to be the winner in this war

1:06:16 even though it might go on for a while.

1:06:18 What would what would make Caesar really happy is if

1:06:22 we just killed Pompy and presented Caesar with Pompy's head

1:06:26 and said, "Hey, we did you a favor.

1:06:29 And if we did that, you know, if if we let Pompy live,

1:06:34 he's probably going to try to raise an army and try

1:06:37 to use Egypt as a base and drag on the war.

1:06:40 And we're going to have Roman troops just ripping this place.

1:06:44 in the middle of our own war, it's going to be just a total mess.

1:06:48 So, they kind of nip it in the bud.

1:06:50 [gasps] And um I I it kind of made sense.

1:06:54 I think what would would have made more sense is

1:06:56 for them to just arrest Pompy because Caesar wanted Pompy alive.

1:06:59 Actually, he kept on pardoning his enemies during the civil war.

1:07:03 Yes, he wanted to pardon Pompy.

1:07:04 He pardoned enemy after enemy.

1:07:07 Uh Dimmitius, uh Petro, Petraeus.

1:07:11 I mean, you could list names and names.

1:07:13 He's always sparing his enemies.

1:07:15 Some would say that he was too kind

1:07:17 to his enemies because they end up assassinating him.

1:07:20 We'll get to that maybe.

1:07:22 But um and Caesar also knows that uh

1:07:25 if Pompy if he captures Pompy and spares him,

1:07:28 if he if he could just get in the same room face to face

1:07:31 with this man that he hasn't seen in the better part of 10 years,

1:07:37 that they could work something out.

1:07:39 he could convince Pompy to get the troops to stand down,

1:07:42 to get everybody to to stand down.

1:07:44 There's no way that this war could carry

1:07:46 on if Pompy and Caesar come to an agreement finally.

1:07:51 That's what he really wanted.

1:07:52 Um he wanted to make peace.

1:07:54 He didn't he didn't want to fight this war, but you know,

1:07:56 he was willing to fight it if if they wanted to fight it with him.

1:07:59 And so, you know, when he lands ashore,

1:08:01 they present him with the signate ring of Pompy.

1:08:05 This has a great I think it had a a lion on it.

1:08:08 It was unmistakable.

1:08:10 And then they give him the head of Pompus.

1:08:13 Just in case you weren't sure.

1:08:14 Here you are.

1:08:14 Just in case you weren't sure whose ring that is.

1:08:16 [laughter] Okay.

1:08:17 From the hand of the head ring that is.

1:08:19 Yeah.

1:08:19 Yeah.

1:08:19 Yeah.

1:08:20 Do Do you know Do you want to guess it?

1:08:22 [laughter] There it is.

1:08:24 [gasps]

1:08:24 And that's the second time that uh that he's said to have cried, you know.

1:08:30 Council of Rome.

1:08:31 Um he I think he cried because this was his friend.

1:08:36 Mhm.

1:08:36 It really was his friend.

1:08:38 And um he all his well the cynics will say

1:08:44 that there were crocodile tears that Caesar was secretly happy.

1:08:49 But I think that's totally false.

1:08:50 Like he really wanted Pompy alive.

1:08:52 And I think he did still kind of hold out hope that they would,

1:08:54 you know, be able to come to an agreement.

1:08:56 Of course, Caesar would be the the big man now

1:08:58 and Pompy would be kind of his career would be over.

1:09:01 Let's be frank.

1:09:02 um after losing the civil war, maybe he could go into a dignified exile,

1:09:06 but this was the father of his ch of his son before his son died.

1:09:09 This was the the man who um who took care of his daughter.

1:09:13 Like they had this really personal relationship.

1:09:16 [gasps] Um and uh so Caesar was actually quite pissed and he uh

1:09:22 he ended up killing all the men who who called the hit on Pompy.

1:09:27 Oh, why?

1:09:27 Yeah.

1:09:27 because they were basically um the the sibling of the rival tools that's

1:09:36 controlling Alexandria is this this kid Tommy Tommy the 13th I think he's like

1:09:44 15 and it's it's actually he's kind of he's he's being kind of ruled

1:09:52 by this this um general that he has and this this court unic,

1:09:58 you know, as as one has in Egypt.

1:10:00 One one one needs Unix to do things and, you know,

1:10:03 one of them was a kind of Chamberlain and was

1:10:06 kind of pushing the kid around and calling the shots

1:10:09 and um and so the way that the war goes

1:10:14 basically and Cleopatra are Cleopatra is the other the other sibling.

1:10:21 I forgot to mention that.

1:10:23 Uh she's off in the wilderness.

1:10:25 who knows where she is.

1:10:26 When Caesar arrives, Caesar is welcomed with kind of, you know,

1:10:30 fake smiles by the Egyptians who just want the Romans gone.

1:10:35 They're ro Egypt has been um it's [snorts] not a Roman province.

1:10:39 It's important to understand it's a Roman client kingdom.

1:10:43 They're independent.

1:10:45 They have their own tradition.

1:10:46 They want to keep it that way.

1:10:48 Alexandria is the most glorious city in the Mediterranean.

1:10:51 Rome might be bigger, but it's a dirty place.

1:10:54 Alexandria is a city of marble and culture.

1:10:57 They've got the library.

1:10:58 They've got, you know, Alexander's tomb there.

1:11:01 [gasps] Uh, and they just want the Romans

1:11:03 to kind of leave them to their own devices.

1:11:05 Maybe be allies, but basically they want Caesar gone as soon as possible.

1:11:10 And Tommy represents the kind of uh [sighs and gasps]

1:11:14 more Egyptian independence um party in in in Egypt in Alexandria.

1:11:23 He's loved by the people.

1:11:24 Actually, Cleopatra was actually the unpopular one.

1:11:27 And that's exactly the kind of person that Caesar likes to support.

1:11:31 Um because the story [clears throat] is um

1:11:35 he's been there for a couple of weeks.

1:11:38 This is after he went to go and find Pompy.

1:11:42 Yeah.

1:11:42 Finds head and hand.

1:11:44 Yeah.

1:11:44 And sticks about.

1:11:45 Yeah.

1:11:46 He's he's sticking around in Egypt in Alexandria.

1:11:49 Um trying to figure out what he's going to do.

1:11:51 There's a war going on there.

1:11:52 And anytime the Romans see a war amongst people on the fringes,

1:11:57 they see an opportunity to come in and intervene and uh that's a way

1:12:02 to kind of extend your power and maybe end up controlling the place directly.

1:12:05 Egypt is the most by far the richest um kingdom,

1:12:10 land area in all the Mediterranean.

1:12:13 Why?

1:12:13 What have they got?

1:12:14 They So, for one thing, they've got the Nile, which you know,

1:12:17 you can like eat an apple and spit

1:12:18 the seeds on the ground and get wonderful fruit.

1:12:21 I mean it's incredibly fertile because of the flooding of the Nile.

1:12:24 They've also got uh very very rich mines like

1:12:29 mineral resources in the in the eastern desert especially.

1:12:32 So you know p exotic marble porefree gems you

1:12:38 know agot amethyst emerald I don't know what the difference

1:12:40 between any of these things is frankly but um

1:12:43 and they've got a lot of gold too in those mines.

1:12:46 There's still gold in Egypt.

1:12:47 They're still mining gold there.

1:12:49 So it's incredibly rich.

1:12:51 It's just, you know, Alexandria is a city of marble and gold.

1:12:54 Um, and it ends up later becoming Rome's bread basket, you know,

1:12:58 just you can feed the entire I you could

1:13:01 feed a lot of people from from the Nile.

1:13:04 Um, so and and Romans kind of like wanted there's,

1:13:08 you know, Pompy wanted to intervene in Egypt.

1:13:12 There was another conflict with the fat king that died,

1:13:17 the father of Cleopatra and Tommy.

1:13:20 And uh people were hoping to pluck that cherry, but it just never worked out.

1:13:24 Like Egypt is kind of despite it's kind of incredible

1:13:27 that Egypt was still independent at that point cuz Rome the Roman

1:13:31 kind of greedy Roman uh governors had just been circling

1:13:35 it like vultures and they just hadn't had their chance yet.

1:13:38 Now Caesar has a chance, you know.

1:13:41 Um but they don't want that to happen.

1:13:44 So Cleopatra enters the story at this point.

1:13:47 Caesar's in the Royal Palace and um and I

1:13:53 don't if you've seen that movie with Elizabeth Taylor, the Cleopatra movie, but

1:13:58 no.

1:13:57 Uh so the way that they portray it in the movie is not that far off,

1:14:02 but basically Caesar's there in in a study in the library uh

1:14:07 or in in the in the palace and um a servant comes in with a rug and he's like,

1:14:13 "Caesar, we have a gift for you." and he says,

1:14:16 "All right, well, what's in what's in the rug?"

1:14:18 And he tries to threatens to poke at it,

1:14:20 but basically Cleopatra sneaks herself in on a little

1:14:26 on a little raft and um is carried in as though she's a mattress as like

1:14:31 a rolled up mattress is is what Plutarch says.

1:14:35 Someone's got a yoga mat in her arm, but it's secretly Cleopatra.

1:14:38 Yeah.

1:14:38 Yeah.

1:14:38 And then uh and then you know it's presented to Caesar as a gift.

1:14:43 Jared, chat chat this image.

1:14:44 Do you want to see what it looks like?

1:14:45 Yeah.

1:14:45 Yeah.

1:14:45 Yeah.

1:14:45 It's it's a great scene from uh from the Cleopatra.

1:14:48 It's it's a rug in the in the movie which is

1:14:51 a great movie and the most expensive movie ever when it was made.

1:14:56 No way.

1:14:56 Actually, yeah.

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1:16:13 Okay, so she gets carried in.

1:16:14 So she gets carried in and uh you know she knows how to make an interest too.

1:16:21 From that moment Caesar sees like all right

1:16:24 this is this is another show person like myself.

1:16:27 She's 20 years old.

1:16:29 So she's the oldest of the siblings.

1:16:32 Um speaks all kinds of languages.

1:16:35 Obviously she knows she's a native Greek speaker.

1:16:37 She speaks Egyptian and Latin and, you know, Syrian and and on and on.

1:16:44 She's very very charming and clever.

1:16:48 She might not have led with her looks,

1:16:51 but you'll hear stories that Cleopatra was actually kind of ugly and she was,

1:16:55 you know, more of a great conversation partner, but she was she was beautiful.

1:16:59 Like she maybe she wasn't like a 10, but she was an eight at least.

1:17:04 Um, yeah, that's a great image.

1:17:07 See if you can do Cleopatra Elizabeth Taylor rug scene.

1:17:12 See if that turns up some results.

1:17:16 Um, and um, and she had a knack for power.

1:17:21 Like, she knows how to play the heartstrings of a man.

1:17:26 She's uh um she's got she knows Caesar's weakness.

1:17:32 Caesar has his weakness for smart, high status women.

1:17:36 He's on his third wife now, but she's back in Rome.

1:17:39 Yeah.

1:17:39 Yeah.

1:17:40 You want to play it?

1:17:41 Yeah.

1:17:41 Yeah.

1:17:42 The rug is such a delicate [music] weave, if I may untie it for you.

1:17:46 Turn it over first.

1:17:49 But the rug is now right side up.

1:17:50 I understand, but I want it the wrong side up.

1:17:53 Or should I flip it over with my saw?

1:17:55 No, no, no.

1:18:01 I find one can tell more about the quality

1:18:03 of merchandise by examining the uh backside first.

1:18:11 [music] All hail Cleopatra, kindred of Horus and Ra,

1:18:15 beloved of the moon and sun,

1:18:17 daughter to Isis, [music] and of upper and lower Egypt, queen a damsel.

1:18:30 [sighs and gasps] [laughter]

1:18:36 So, yeah, she knows how to make an interest, right?

1:18:39 It was something like that.

1:18:40 That's not far off.

1:18:43 And um and she also knows how to play the kind of wound.

1:18:46 I mean, I think Elizabeth Taylor does that really well.

1:18:48 Oh, [gasps] my back.

1:18:50 Oh.

1:18:50 Oh, let me help you up, madam.

1:18:53 Um, and so basically Cleopatra wins him over very quickly and uh because she

1:19:01 does this she's she's sort of on the losing side of the war currently.

1:19:05 Um, but Caesar says we can we can reconcile you you guys.

1:19:11 I'll be your mediator and you know told him

1:19:15 he hates this idea or his rather his unic

1:19:18 and his general hate this idea because they know like

1:19:21 it's nice that the unic has got such say here.

1:19:25 Yeah.

1:19:25 Let's listen to the guy that chopped his dick off.

1:19:27 Yeah.

1:19:27 Well, you he's a very learned man.

1:19:29 You know, he has other talents.

1:19:30 Well, he's got nothing else to do, right?

1:19:33 Um, and you know, of I think I don't know how they did this in Egypt,

1:19:37 but often like it would be the parents that did it to like it's an offering.

1:19:42 Yeah.

1:19:42 Promote the kid.

1:19:43 And Yeah.

1:19:44 There's there's something really You got to do it with the second one.

1:19:47 If you do it with the first one,

1:19:48 like if we don't have another one, that's the end of the bloodline.

1:19:50 Yeah.

1:19:50 Yeah.

1:19:51 Okay.

1:19:52 Um, but if he does well, you know,

1:19:54 he could he could do great things for his nephews at least.

1:19:59 [laughter] Yeah.

1:19:59 Yeah.

1:20:00 Yeah.

1:20:00 Yeah.

1:20:01 There's no way to make that a good deal.

1:20:03 Uh so uh anyway, Caesar uh basically offers to moderate between

1:20:10 them and the offer is uh rejected and long story short,

1:20:16 he ends up picking Cleopatra and uh Toli ends

1:20:20 up who's [cough and clears throat] the younger brother.

1:20:22 The younger brother.

1:20:25 Yep.

1:20:24 Yeah.

1:20:24 He ends up uh sort of getting his hand forced by his um by his general

1:20:30 Achilles and and the unic and they try

1:20:34 to have another like coup attempt against Caesar.

1:20:38 Caesar defeats them and the boy is um

1:20:42 apparently drowned in the Nile in a boating.

1:20:45 The younger brother.

1:20:46 Yeah.

1:20:46 Yeah.

1:20:46 Like not not like he's murdered but there

1:20:48 was a battle and he was just not found.

1:20:51 Probably drowned in the Nile.

1:20:53 Um it was um tight family with the tolamese then.

1:20:57 I mean they are always trying to murder each other and and one up

1:21:00 each other and and and sure enough like Cleopatra has this younger sister too

1:21:05 arinoi and she tries to revolt and Caesar crushes her as well and actually

1:21:10 captures her and takes her back to Rome and uh marshes her in the triumph.

1:21:15 Was there any suggestion that Cleopatra and Caesar got it on?

1:21:19 Oh, more than a suggestion.

1:21:20 Like they become lovers like for real and they have a kid too,

1:21:26 which is fascinating to think about the ramifications of this.

1:21:31 But so yeah, basically Caesar's never going to turn

1:21:35 down a a good offer from a high status woman.

1:21:39 And you know, she's a living goddess by Egyptian tradition.

1:21:43 She is daughter of Isis, daughter of Isis.

1:21:46 not just daughter of Isis, but living embodiment of Isis.

1:21:49 Like just like she said, there there's a kind of uh you know,

1:21:54 fully God, but fully human sort of thing going on with with the pharaohs.

1:21:59 Uh son of son and kind of like divine avatar of Aman

1:22:04 Rah or is it um Osir [clears throat] it's Osiris with the pharaohs.

1:22:09 So anyway, she's worshiped as a divinity while she's alive.

1:22:12 there's great um reliefs like so she she gets portrayed as a Greek

1:22:18 to her Greek subjects as the tomies do like you know

1:22:21 looks like a normal human kind of classical statue face and then

1:22:24 there are reliefs of her portrayed as like an Egyptian hieroglyphic lady too

1:22:29 might be worth pulling up Jared I want to see this

1:22:32 Cleopatra Egyptian relief something like that a really

1:22:37 interesting place you know to Alexandria [gasps] Um,

1:22:43 it's blending two things together.

1:22:44 It feels like the phasing out of the old world and the phasing

1:22:47 in of what would sort of become this what then would be more cosmopolitan,

1:22:51 what then would be built more around rhetoric,

1:22:55 philosophy, what then would have been seen as modern

1:22:57 and sort of this sort of passing off,

1:22:59 but you've got that both of them are happening at the same time.

1:23:02 And I guess it there you go.

1:23:04 That's her and I think that's her and her brother.

1:23:06 Oh, that's her son Cesarian.

1:23:08 So there is Cleopatra on the left.

1:23:11 Um, and the other one is the son of Julius Caesar.

1:23:16 That's their kid, Cesar.

1:23:17 No way.

1:23:18 The image on the left.

1:23:19 Open that up, Jared.

1:23:21 So there you go.

1:23:24 Wow.

1:23:24 Yeah.

1:23:24 So that's proper 3000 BC looking, right?

1:23:28 Like that you could that could be like scratched into a pyramid.

1:23:32 You wouldn't know the difference.

1:23:33 Yeah.

1:23:33 Yeah.

1:23:33 Yeah.

1:23:34 Yeah.

1:23:34 Oh god.

1:23:35 And there's a guy in the bottom corner.

1:23:36 Look at how huge that is.

1:23:38 really big.

1:23:38 Holy[ __] And that's the son

1:23:41 that's the, you know, illegitimate son of Cleopatra.

1:23:44 And not that illegitimate.

1:23:45 I mean, he's 15t tall.

1:23:47 Pretty legit to me.

1:23:48 Yeah.

1:23:48 Exactly.

1:23:48 What was he called?

1:23:49 Cesarion is was his nickname.

1:23:51 Little Caesar.

1:23:54 Yes.

1:23:54 He started a great pizza chain and uh didn't [laughter] go so well.

1:23:58 And then he became a pizza magnate.

1:24:01 Saw where the real money was.

1:24:02 Yeah.

1:24:03 Yeah.

1:24:03 Yeah.

1:24:03 Yeah.

1:24:04 Um, but he uh his his his official name was I think like Tomlamy the 14th,

1:24:09 you know, like every single freaking person in that dynasty

1:24:13 is named Tlamy if they're a boy or either Cleopatra or Arsenoi.

1:24:19 And there's not a lot of names.

1:24:20 I think that might have something to do with this idea that like

1:24:23 you you continue to be the embodiment of the same god through the generations.

1:24:27 So you like have to take on that dynastic.

1:24:29 You know Dollali's story, Salvador Dolly.

1:24:31 I don't know if I do.

1:24:32 So his parents had a son about a year or so,

1:24:39 year and a half before Dari was born.

1:24:40 No, sorry, two years before Dari was born.

1:24:42 Uh who was also called Salvador and they that son died.

1:24:48 And then they had another son and called him the same name.

1:24:52 And when he was aged two took him to his dead brother's grave and said,

1:24:56 "This is who you are.

1:24:58 This is you.

1:24:58 You are the reincarnation of your dead brother." Wow.

1:25:02 I mean, it's just you.

1:25:03 It's you again.

1:25:04 So, that was the start of his life.

1:25:06 He's Dari's[ __] fascinating.

1:25:08 But, yeah, that was how he was sort of brought into the world as this

1:25:12 weird uh recreation of a dead baby.

1:25:17 That is amazing.

1:25:18 Yeah.

1:25:18 Cool.

1:25:18 E.

1:25:19 All right.

1:25:19 So, what was Caesar's last night?

1:25:22 Like you mentioned he's accumulated a bunch of enemies,

1:25:25 but maybe not shaken the etcher sketch enough to actually get rid of them all.

1:25:29 Keeps pardoning them.

1:25:30 He's maybe erroneously deciding to be uh uh forgiving.

1:25:37 Mhm.

1:25:36 What does the final day of Caesar's life look like?

1:25:40 So, um the leadup to this is important because Caesar is uh you know,

1:25:48 [clears throat] he he knows that there are assassination plots.

1:25:53 There were even assassination plots 18 months earlier when

1:25:56 he got back to Rome finally from the African

1:25:58 campaign where he u defeated Ko and friends

1:26:02 [gasps] and Cicero mentions this in a speech.

1:26:05 He gives a speech in front of Caesar.

1:26:07 He's like Caesar um I have heard it is

1:26:11 it has been said that you you tell people I

1:26:14 have lived long enough either for nature or for glory

1:26:19 because he knows about assassination attempts and he dismisses them.

1:26:22 says, "You know what?

1:26:23 If they want to kill me, I've had a good run." How old is he at this point?

1:26:27 He is, so this is 46 when he gets back.

1:26:30 So, he would be 54, born in 100 BC.

1:26:35 Uh, and 44 is is the eyides of March when he dies.

1:26:38 So, [clears throat] that's that's how old he ends up being.

1:26:40 But, I mean, you know, that's pretty old for a Roman.

1:26:45 Like, he's had a pretty good run so far.

1:26:48 And uh but he dismisses these these uh these um

1:26:52 plots and you know the information just keeps coming in.

1:26:58 Sure.

1:26:58 And sure people are trying to kill you.

1:27:00 Caesar, can you please up your security detail?

1:27:06 Can you please give yourself a bodyguard?

1:27:09 Like we're begging you.

1:27:11 His friends are begging him.

1:27:12 And he says not going to do that.

1:27:14 That's what tyrants do.

1:27:16 And sure enough, like this is the kind of classic

1:27:19 mo mold of how tyrants seize power by cystus at Athens.

1:27:22 I mean, you can multiply a lot of examples.

1:27:24 You get a bodyguard first.

1:27:25 You say, "Oh no, there's threats against my life.

1:27:27 I need a bodyguard, citizens.

1:27:28 I just want to be your servant." And [snorts]

1:27:30 and and then that's how you seize power.

1:27:32 And Caesar knows that that's the pattern.

1:27:34 He's not going to do it.

1:27:35 And and it comes the point where people

1:27:37 are continuing to bring in names of potential conspirators.

1:27:43 And Caesar says, "I've had it.

1:27:47 Anybody bringing me more talk about an assassination

1:27:50 plot is going to face consequences." He's like,

1:27:52 "You're gonna get fired if I hear another about you bringing me

1:27:56 an assassination plot." He doesn't want to he doesn't want to hear it.

1:27:59 I think that's because he didn't want to rule over a subjugated,

1:28:08 you know, cowed populace.

1:28:10 He wanted to rule over free Romans.

1:28:14 Um and he didn't want a police state.

1:28:16 He didn't want he wanted people to feel free

1:28:18 to say what they whatever they wanted to say.

1:28:20 Uh this is clearly demonstrated by a lot of his actions.

1:28:23 You know, people are criticizing him.

1:28:25 They're making jokes about at Caesar's expense.

1:28:27 You there's certain lines that you don't cross.

1:28:29 Um but he doesn't want to um up his security detail.

1:28:35 the very last night the 14th of March he, you know,

1:28:43 it's a normal day of business, busy day at at work.

1:28:47 He's got this incredible crushing burden of, you know,

1:28:51 cases to hear and petitions and laws needing passing.

1:28:54 And he's also preparing for this great expedition to Partha.

1:29:01 He's going to avenge Craas.

1:29:02 Craas was killed by the Parththeians.

1:29:04 They captured Roman eagles about 10 years earlier.

1:29:07 So, he's he's just trying to get get through the next 3 days to get

1:29:12 out of town and go back to I mean Caesar was good at politics,

1:29:17 but I think better at war.

1:29:19 I think he's better at war.

1:29:20 Yeah.

1:29:20 Or he's equally as good at war and it's probably a happier place for him.

1:29:24 Even in BC times, people were still drowning in admin is what you're saying.

1:29:28 Oh, yeah.

1:29:28 I mean, like the load that he's carrying.

1:29:33 Yeah.

1:29:33 It's it's a universal problem.

1:29:35 Once they invent writing, you know, it's it's over.

1:29:37 __] game over.

1:29:38 Yeah.

1:29:38 Yeah.

1:29:38 Yeah.

1:29:39 It's the email inbox of ancient Rome.

1:29:41 Yeah.

1:29:41 And it's funny you should mention email.

1:29:43 So, um, on the last night, Caesar is having dinner.

1:29:49 As you know, he he has a like formal dinner every night.

1:29:52 There's like nine seats at a typical Roman feast.

1:29:55 You you circle around on couches around

1:29:58 a central table and everybody kind of lies down.

1:30:01 It's It's weird, but that's how they did it.

1:30:03 And uh horrible for the digestion.

1:30:05 It's horrible for the dig digestion,

1:30:06 but one advantage is everybody has to have the same

1:30:09 conversation cuz you're all pointed toward the center of the circle.

1:30:13 Yeah.

1:30:13 As opposed to an elongated table where this group

1:30:16 over there is speaking like that and this group.

1:30:18 That's interesting.

1:30:19 I remember um was it who was it that suggested that the size of glasses

1:30:26 of wine were getting too big around the table?

1:30:29 Was it maybe Aristotle?

1:30:32 And he made a special kind of cup and if you overfilled the cup,

1:30:36 the entire thing drained.

1:30:38 Oh yeah.

1:30:39 Basically his problem was that he wanted to have these really

1:30:41 interesting conversations at dinner and people were just getting too drunk.

1:30:45 This is before coffee came around and there's this interesting story which

1:30:49 before I mean they should have had the neutropic toothpicks.

1:30:52 um you there's that big transition was in sort

1:30:57 of the middle ages in uh the UK where

1:31:02 Britain started to go from just having ale houses

1:31:04 to having uh coffee shops as well and this is

1:31:08 a boon in uh innovation because people aren't just

1:31:12 pissed all the time they're just not drunk as much

1:31:15 they're stimulated and they're going and getting stuff done

1:31:17 anyway I think it's Aristotle that had this issue

1:31:20 and his problem was I want to go

1:31:22 to dinner and have all of these interesting conversations,

1:31:24 but everybody drinks their wine so fast.

1:31:28 Yeah.

1:31:28 That the the conversation degenerates into nothingness.

1:31:31 So his suggestion was to his host to make the cup smaller.

1:31:35 Says people will drink the same number,

1:31:37 but they'll not realize that they're having less.

1:31:39 And supposed to be I think it's like an Arisatilian cup.

1:31:43 Jared, do a chachi search.

1:31:46 What was the ancient cup that was made to ensure people didn't overfill it?

1:31:54 Uh maybe Aristotle.

1:31:56 And it's this interesting this interesting point that okay,

1:31:58 well, if we reduce it down,

1:31:59 it means that the conversational quality will be a bit better.

1:32:02 But I suppose if you're sat

1:32:02 in a you're probably thinking of the Pythagorean cup.

1:32:06 Yeah.

1:32:06 Also called the cup of greed or greedy cup.

1:32:08 It's a special drinking cup from ancient Greece designed

1:32:10 so that if you fill it past a certain level, it empties completely.

1:32:14 H Isn't that cool?

1:32:15 That's brilliant.

1:32:15 Oh, because it's a siphon.

1:32:17 Yeah, that's right.

1:32:17 It's got a hidden siphon inside the central collet.

1:32:20 If you pour wine below the mark line, the cup works normally.

1:32:22 If you pour above the line, the siphon activates and the entire cup

1:32:25 drains out through the bottom of the stem.

1:32:27 For someone who tries to take more than their fair share,

1:32:30 they end up with nothing.

1:32:32 Legend says Pythagoras used it to teach

1:32:34 moderation and fairness among workers or students.

1:32:35 And the lesson is greed causes you to lose everything.

1:32:39 Isn't that[ __] cool?

1:32:40 So Greek, that say moderation.

1:32:42 Yeah.

1:32:43 Wise man, Pythagoras.

1:32:44 Well, you know, it's funny because I mean,

1:32:46 and in Plato's symposium that that they decide to pour the the wine,

1:32:53 they pour water in the wine often for moderation so that

1:32:56 you drink you drink less.

1:32:57 But they wanted to pour the wine really

1:32:58 really light that night because they they all

1:33:00 got smashed the night before and they want

1:33:02 to have like a chill conversation that night.

1:33:04 But Ko, Caesar's nemesis, was actually known to be a bit of a tippler.

1:33:10 like he would he would often show up

1:33:12 to the Senate kind of [snorts] smelling of wine.

1:33:18 Yep.

1:33:17 And but that would be because he liked

1:33:19 to drink for a long time having philosophical

1:33:23 conversations and it was it was this kind

1:33:25 of conversation that that was happening Caesar's last night.

1:33:29 So Caesar is at the house of Lepodus and he invites

1:33:36 a number of people to the to be among the nine.

1:33:40 Lepedus is um good good trusted friend of his and one of them is Desimus Brutus.

1:33:47 This is not the the Brutus that appears in Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar,

1:33:50 you know, and you too Brutus, it's a different Brutus,

1:33:53 but actually was a Brutus that was closer

1:33:55 to Caesar in in point of fact historically, funny enough.

1:33:58 So does Shakespeare get that confused?

1:34:00 Does he amalgamate the two on purpose?

1:34:02 Plutarch gets it confused.

1:34:03 This is like one of the one of the kind

1:34:05 of flaws of Plutarch's um biography of Caesar.

1:34:09 He thinks that um Marcus Brutus who is actually not I

1:34:15 mean close to Caesar he is um because he's the son

1:34:19 of Caesar's favorite girlfriend Cervilia but Desimus Brutus was a lot closer

1:34:24 to him because he was a a lieutenant of his in Gaul.

1:34:27 I mean they're distantly related these two Brutuses but they're not

1:34:31 close or anything but Desimus was like naval commander against the Veneti.

1:34:36 He's been brilliant in the civil war, crucial in the battle of Marseilles.

1:34:41 And and in fact, Desimus Brutus was in his will as a second.

1:34:47 Desimus is one of the men who who stabbed him the very next day.

1:34:50 M he's sitting there with him at dinner the night before

1:34:55 and they're they're they're sitting there having their conversation

1:35:00 as one does as as you know a lot of final night scenes of uh you know great

1:35:07 Romans and great Greeks are like these like philosophical conversations

1:35:11 and I think that's because they had them a lot actually it's very normal

1:35:15 and so like [clears throat] the last supper of Jesus that's I mean

1:35:19 there were maybe a few additions But he was probably speaking like that most.

1:35:22 Yeah, you they like all here we go again.

1:35:24 Just a Tuesday.

1:35:26 [gasps] So Caesar is sitting there as the conversation's going on.

1:35:30 I find this really fascinating.

1:35:33 He's he's he's doing his clearing his inbox actually cuz he's a busy guy.

1:35:39 One has to.

1:35:41 And his secretary is sitting there kind of feeding him

1:35:43 letters that need to go out that he needs to sign.

1:35:46 And so he's writing sincerely on them, you know, signing his name, right?

1:35:50 But the way you do that in Latin, the custom is you write valet, farewell.

1:35:57 So all through the night,

1:35:58 he's writing farewell, farewell, farewell on these letters.

1:36:03 And that's what you would have done typically.

1:36:05 That's what you would have done to say goodbye.

1:36:07 Uh but but I mean the fact that he's like filling out letters during dinner.

1:36:11 I mean this guy has got a __] ton of work to do.

1:36:14 Yeah.

1:36:14 And he's just trying to get it's brainless.

1:36:16 He's just kind of Yeah.

1:36:17 Yeah.

1:36:17 Yeah.

1:36:17 Whatever.

1:36:18 Yes.

1:36:18 And go on Casius.

1:36:19 Yes.

1:36:20 And um I find that striking.

1:36:23 But at some point in the night he proposes

1:36:27 a theme for the philosophical conversation that's going on.

1:36:31 Desimus is sitting right there.

1:36:34 what is the best kind of death?

1:36:37 And the conversation goes this way and that way.

1:36:42 Somebody brings up the example of Cyrus the Great,

1:36:45 the great king of Persia who founded the Persian Empire.

1:36:49 Um, Zenapon says, doesn't he, that Cyrus made all these arrangements before

1:36:54 his death that he wanted to be buried in this way and this should happen and so

1:36:57 forth after he was um after he was gone.

1:37:00 And of course Caesar had read this book Zenapon Cyropidia.

1:37:04 And Caesar's turn comes to him and he says that sounds horrible.

1:37:09 I don't want a long slow death.

1:37:11 The best kind of death is one that comes sudden, swift, and unexpected.

1:37:21 You know what is Desimus thinking at that at that moment?

1:37:23 But that that's well attested that that's what

1:37:26 the conversation was about at some point that night.

1:37:29 Prophetic.

1:37:29 [sighs] Yeah, man.

1:37:30 And then he goes home late and bad dreams.

1:37:34 His, you know, if you've heard the [snorts] read the Shakespeare play,

1:37:38 there's all these omens.

1:37:39 You know, his wife has this dream that she's she gets him up

1:37:42 in the middle of the night that like wind blows open the shutters and, you know,

1:37:46 he has to get up and shut them and calm down Kalpernia.

1:37:50 And um she had this dream that she was like holding the bloody

1:37:53 Caesar like looking at their house as it's like burning and collapsing.

1:37:59 And there's all these, you know, birds are acting weird.

1:38:02 So the story goes.

1:38:03 I mean, a lot of these omens typically

1:38:05 happen around great events in the ancient sources, but you know, who knows?

1:38:09 I mean I mean that the the murder of a guy like Julius Caesar really is

1:38:13 a kind of like if if ever a death is a rip in the fabric of reality,

1:38:17 you know, like that that comes pretty close.

1:38:21 Um, so that was how he spent his last night.

1:38:23 It's a very unsettled night.

1:38:25 And what about the next day?

1:38:27 So it's I think Caesar was um I he has a reputation for dismissing omens.

1:38:38 He did this when he was console.

1:38:40 You know his enemies are trying to obstruct him

1:38:42 in in the um in the assemblies and they're they're saying,

1:38:46 "Oh, I saw a bird flying the wrong way and I heard thunder.

1:38:51 I heard thunder.

1:38:52 It's a blue sky." And he's like, "I didn't hear you, though.

1:38:56 let's get on with business.

1:38:57 You know, he just ignores omens for most of his career.

1:38:59 Sometimes the omens are bad and he's like,

1:39:01 let's fight the battle anyway and he wins.

1:39:04 But all these, you know, his wife is saying, I had a bad dream.

1:39:08 I don't have a good feeling about this.

1:39:11 And ancient omens, I think, are often kind of uh it's a system that's in place.

1:39:19 So before you you go into a campaign,

1:39:23 you before you go into battle, you sacrifice to the god.

1:39:26 You know, you you cut open a piglet or a whatever it is,

1:39:31 and you read the intrails or you get the sacred chickens out,

1:39:34 and you see, do the sacred chickens want to eat

1:39:36 their their uh their feed or are they staying in their cage?

1:39:40 You know, what does this mean?

1:39:42 And it's kind of like opening up a space for intuition.

1:39:46 The generals often have to make decisions.

1:39:48 Leaders often have to make decisions that could be the right decision,

1:39:54 but to have to explain why you're making that decision

1:39:57 is um would would would undermine the project somehow.

1:40:03 Like you don't you want to have a a way of explaining intuition.

1:40:06 That's that's how a lot of anthropologists explain.

1:40:09 I think that's really compelling.

1:40:10 Um but so I think his wife had a bad feeling.

1:40:14 I think he had a bad feeling at some point.

1:40:16 He was apparently kind of un like stomach issues.

1:40:22 It's unspecified, but he felt like out of sorts that morning.

1:40:27 And he was supposed to go to the Senate.

1:40:29 There was some business, some important business at hand.

1:40:33 They a dispute between Mark Anthony and uh Dolabella, blah blah blah.

1:40:38 And he's like, "Maybe I don't want to go to the Senate today.

1:40:40 I'm feeling out of sorts.

1:40:41 My wife is telling me to stay home.

1:40:44 uh he goes, you know, down the street.

1:40:47 He he lives in the forum, the Senate's meeting about a mile away.

1:40:51 He goes down the street to a buddy's house and to say hi

1:40:55 and they they do a little sacrifice and that sacrifice contains bad omens.

1:41:01 We don't know the details, but like he's this is really striking.

1:41:04 So he they he decides to just stay home that day.

1:41:08 And who shows up at his door?

1:41:10 But Desimus Brutus, the guy he was having dinner with last night.

1:41:14 He says, "Caesar, I heard that you are listening

1:41:18 to the the ravings of a of a woman.

1:41:23 I mean, I've never heard Caesar to be uh bothered by omens in his career.

1:41:28 Think of all the battles that we've won after bad omens.

1:41:30 Like, come on, Caesar.

1:41:31 Let's, you know, the Senate's counting on you.

1:41:32 They they all cleared their schedules.

1:41:34 They're busy men.

1:41:34 And you know, you're really trying to make them feel like Rome is the same Rome.

1:41:40 This is a whole other issue that, you know,

1:41:42 he is kind of becoming this monarchic figure in Rome.

1:41:45 Uh he's getting getting accused of wanting to make himself king.

1:41:49 He's getting accused of wanting to make himself a god,

1:41:52 which is not entirely off base.

1:41:54 We could get to that.

1:41:55 But so, you know, Desimus makes some good arguments.

1:42:01 Come on, soldier up.

1:42:02 is a fellow soldier.

1:42:04 And so Caesar reluctantly at first, but you know,

1:42:07 he kind of allows himself to be persuaded by Desimus.

1:42:10 And it's funny, you know, I mean,

1:42:12 whenever Caesar goes anywhere in Rome, the crowds, the throngs,

1:42:15 people are saying, Caesar, kiss my baby or can you,

1:42:20 you know, cancel my debt, blah, blah, blah.

1:42:22 But, uh, and this is again well attested.

1:42:25 This happens in in Shakespeare's play, but you know,

1:42:28 apparently he had a client uh like a friend of his whose

1:42:31 house he had stayed at in Asia once and um the young man,

1:42:37 the son of the house was in Rome studying

1:42:41 philosophy and probably was connected with the other Brutus,

1:42:46 Marcus Brutus, who was one of the ring leaders of the assassination.

1:42:50 And this kid, I forget what his name is,

1:42:53 comes up to Caesar and like Caesar knows him and he passes a letter to Caesar.

1:42:58 He says, "Caesa, you have to read this urgently."

1:43:01 [gasps] Uh Caesar's probably being carried in a litter,

1:43:03 but he gets the letter to Caesar and apparently Caesar

1:43:06 has this in his hand and plans to read it.

1:43:10 But this would have been basically the guy was trying to tell

1:43:14 him about the plot that was very much in action that day

1:43:19 that was underway that he was walking right into.

1:43:21 So Brutus went to try and encourage Caesar to leave

1:43:25 the home to sort of question his agency and sovereignty and belief

1:43:29 in himself to remind him of what he'd done in the past

1:43:32 in an attempt to get him out of the house so that he could be carried through so

1:43:36 that he could arrive at the place for the assassination.

1:43:39 Well put.

1:43:39 Yeah.

1:43:40 So that was, you know,

1:43:43 the Senate meeting that they were that they ended up doing the deed at, uh,

1:43:46 murdering him in the Senate.

1:43:49 And, uh, and there, you know, the two Brutuses,

1:43:52 the one that he was with dinner with the night before was the, um,

1:43:56 the guy who got him to come, the guy that's in his will.

1:44:01 Incredible.

1:44:03 And so he, yeah, he gets to the Senate House.

1:44:05 Once again, the omens are bad.

1:44:07 You know, as you always sacrifice, you do some whatever you do uh before going

1:44:13 into the Senate to kind of inaugurate the meeting.

1:44:16 Councils usually do this.

1:44:17 I think Caesar's console that year.

1:44:19 Um and uh omens are bad, but he goes in anyway.

1:44:25 Yeah.

1:44:26 And he's he's in the Senate House.

1:44:29 uh as and it's his throne as dictator is

1:44:35 right under the statue of Pompy the Great because

1:44:41 the place that they're actually meeting is not the old

1:44:43 Senate house which burned down a couple of years earlier.

1:44:46 It's this new complex um that that Pompy built

1:44:50 with the spoils of his war in the east.

1:44:52 And it's like a little basement or not basement,

1:44:55 it's like a a room off the complex that Pompy built for the Senate

1:44:59 to meet in in the forum in uh so it's it's outside the primarium.

1:45:03 It's in it's in the campus marshes now.

1:45:05 So it's um I forget what that part of Rome is called.

1:45:08 Um but basically it was an area that wasn't very built up.

1:45:12 So you could plant this massive, you know, stone complex with multiple buildings

1:45:18 pretty easily uh in this unclaimed land.

1:45:21 So, he had to actually walk from the forum.

1:45:23 It was like a it's probably a 20-minute walk.

1:45:25 Yeah.

1:45:27 Um, [clears throat] but that is where the Senate is now officially meeting.

1:45:32 And of course, there was a statue of Pompy as conqueror,

1:45:35 you know, in this prominent place in the Senate House.

1:45:38 And it's it's in front of the statue of Pompy the Great that the petitioners

1:45:41 come up that the assassins come up pretending to have some urgent business.

1:45:48 Please, my brother is in exile.

1:45:50 Caesar, can you get him pardoned?

1:45:52 No, this is not the time.

1:45:54 Please, Caesar.

1:45:55 And Brutus comes up and Desimus comes up, the other Brutus, and Casus comes up.

1:46:00 Caesar, this is a worthy uh friend of yours.

1:46:02 We we we we beg you.

1:46:04 Please, you know, you you must spare.

1:46:05 And then that's when they have him distracted.

1:46:08 They grab his robe and he at some point before he actually gets stabbed,

1:46:11 he's like they're grabbing him.

1:46:13 He's like, "What's going on here?

1:46:14 This is violence." M

1:46:16 and uh and that's I think when he realizes at least when the first blow

1:46:21 struck that every man that's surrounding him 15

1:46:24 or 20 guys probably there was a bit

1:46:27 there were more people in on the plot but some are holding the doors you

1:46:31 know keeping the perimeter to make sure uh but yeah and uh and they did

1:46:39 the deed and you know after they kill Um after they stab him there is

1:46:49 that moment that is in Plutarch where he turns to Brutus the the more famous one

1:46:55 his uh and this is remember like he's

1:46:58 the son of Caesar's like top girlfriend Cervilia

1:47:03 and he had a relationship with this kid like he was looking out for his career

1:47:08 uh he was promoting him the kid fought on Pompy's side

1:47:10 in the civil war for some family reasons but he spared him.

1:47:14 So many of these men he's spared.

1:47:16 [gasps] And some of them are his trusted like long-term loyalists.

1:47:21 It's not just former enemies that were spared, that were resentful.

1:47:26 It's former loyalists.

1:47:28 And uh and he says to to Brutus, "You two child kaisuton uh at two brute

1:47:36 as as Shakespeare says." Um and then they, you know, he bleeds out.

1:47:41 Who knows how long it takes, but amazingly the Senate clears out pandemonium.

1:47:48 I mean, to kill Julius Caesar,

1:47:50 like this is this is like a a horrifying idea because it

1:47:56 it it really threatens to plunge the Republic back into civil war again.

1:48:00 He's the lid holding it all down.

1:48:02 This is why Cicero told him that he needs

1:48:05 to have a bodyguard because so much is at stake.

1:48:07 If you get killed now, we're all screwed.

1:48:10 M that's that's what Cicero was saying 18 months earlier and he

1:48:14 was very much correct and uh but the Senate House

1:48:18 clears out and he's just there alone on the floor

1:48:23 and nobody wants to grow approach him and and and draw

1:48:27 close because they're afraid that you know one of the assassins

1:48:30 will see them and implic you know they nobody knows

1:48:34 like what is what is the potential risk of me

1:48:37 tending to Caesar's body and so he just lies there first that becomes Yeah.

1:48:43 Yeah.

1:48:44 Um and then eventually some of Caesar's slaves go in there.

1:48:47 They can only find three men.

1:48:49 It takes four men to hold a a litter.

1:48:51 They can only find three guys to carry Caesar's body back to his house.

1:48:56 Uh and it starts to rain on their way back and the streets are lined.

1:49:00 People see his his like arm hanging out.

1:49:04 Um and he's brought back to Kalpernia.

1:49:07 So, [gasps] still gets me.

1:49:10 I mean, I think I think that you can you could say a lot about Caesar,

1:49:12 but I I do think that he um he he managed to identify his own success,

1:49:24 his own legacy with what he saw as the flourishing of Rome.

1:49:31 you know, it wasn't just about his own glory, or it was,

1:49:34 but to the extent that he felt like he was

1:49:38 the man most responsible for whether the state survived and flourished.

1:49:43 And uh so I, you know, but that's not how his enemies saw it, was it?

1:49:50 What convinced them that he needed to go?

1:49:53 Well, they saw that after [clears throat] the civil war,

1:50:00 Caesar was unquestionably not just the the the first among equals,

1:50:07 not just the first man in Rome, but like something was changing.

1:50:12 You know, Caesar had fought fought all of his career to end

1:50:16 corruption and the the strangle hold

1:50:19 of the the establishment oligarchy over offices.

1:50:23 I mean there was incredible wealth inequality and there's this kind

1:50:28 of like tight click of people that control everything and they get

1:50:31 to abuse the provincials at will if they're you know the typical

1:50:36 way that you uh rise up in Rome is by winning

1:50:40 elections and then going out and uh being governor and usually

1:50:44 it's very expensive to get elected and then you have to go

1:50:48 into debt and you recoup your money by by robbing the Greeks

1:50:53 or the Gauls or the Spaniards and taking bribes and stuff.

1:50:58 It's a system that highly incentivizes corruption

1:51:00 and Caesar wanted to change that among other things.

1:51:05 and um and and I think he eventually

1:51:10 decided that this whole game that we've been

1:51:14 playing at Rome for 450 years since the republic

1:51:19 was founded since they drove out the kings.

1:51:22 You know, you got to remember the Romans have been inoculated

1:51:24 against kings much in the same way we are as Americans.

1:51:27 Like America was founded by us rejecting King George III.

1:51:31 Rome was the republic rather was founded by driving out Tarquin the proud who

1:51:36 was this brutal you know corrupt tyrant in their eyes and then that it was

1:51:42 a a collective government you have elections

1:51:44 for office you know you have assemblies to vote

1:51:47 on laws and all this stuff that's what the republic is to them that's what

1:51:51 Rome is to them and uh and this is also the game that people like

1:51:58 Desmos Brutus his friend Brutus the other

1:52:00 Brutus Casius uh basically everybody in the republic

1:52:06 every everybody in the leadership classes had

1:52:08 been playing had been had been expecting

1:52:11 to play for their whole lives which is you know this is how you get honor.

1:52:16 You get honor by service to the republic.

1:52:18 You get honor by winning elections.

1:52:19 You get honor by winning wars.

1:52:21 But now Caesar is basically trying to kind of transition

1:52:28 the political system into um something resembling a monarchy.

1:52:34 He doesn't want to call it a king, a kingship.

1:52:36 He doesn't want to call himself king,

1:52:39 but he he's really deliberately taking all the authority into himself because I

1:52:44 think he sees that his legacy depends on if if he releases power,

1:52:52 he's kind of a control freak, you might say.

1:52:54 If he lets go, then it's all going

1:52:57 to kind of dissolve again that people are going

1:52:59 to undo his legislation and um they're going to go

1:53:03 back to revert to the way that things were.

1:53:06 And this is one of the reasons why he

1:53:07 just feels like he has to hold on to power.

1:53:10 Um but what it what it puts him in this uncomfortable position uh for is

1:53:19 every honor now in the past used to be given by the Roman people.

1:53:26 You used to have supreme responsibility as a console.

1:53:29 If you're going to command Rome's armies,

1:53:32 uh you are the guy who wins the victory.

1:53:35 If you win the console ship,

1:53:36 it's because the people of Rome elected you console and so on and so on.

1:53:41 Honor is granted by the state.

1:53:44 And now it seems clear Caesar's been handing

1:53:48 out offices basically like he's been picking the consoles,

1:53:51 he's been picking the preers,

1:53:53 he's been drafting the laws and getting the Senate to rubber stamp them.

1:53:59 All the honor flows from this one man.

1:54:02 And how is that not slavery in the eyes of a proud Roman?

1:54:07 like you the the most Aristotle talks about the most difficult thing

1:54:12 that a uh politician has to do and their most important duty of a statesman

1:54:17 is to correctly wisely distribute honors because this is for a guy like Caesar

1:54:24 and for a guy like Desimus for for any

1:54:25 of these these you know super uh Chad Roman

1:54:31 statesman uh aspirants the thing the the prize that you're playing

1:54:36 for is It's not wealth in at least it shouldn't be.

1:54:41 It's not it's not pleasure.

1:54:42 It's not like fame as such or status as such.

1:54:46 It's honor.

1:54:46 That's what Aristotle would say that that the highest form of the statesman,

1:54:51 the great sold man is one who desires great things,

1:54:57 considers himself worthy of them and is correct in that judgment.

1:55:02 And that means um [clears throat] being worthy of of great things.

1:55:08 But what are the greatest things to desire?

1:55:10 I mean this is a question that's perplexed philosophers.

1:55:15 What is it what is a good life?

1:55:16 What is worthy of desire?

1:55:17 Uh what what is it um what does it mean to be worthy of something?

1:55:24 And aerosol says the highest thing that you

1:55:25 can desire of external goods is honor.

1:55:30 the price that you would be paid for a ransom note.

1:55:33 Yeah.

1:55:33 Yeah.

1:55:33 Essentially.

1:55:35 And uh you know you can desire virtue, you can desire inner peace,

1:55:39 you can desire wholeness, you can desire wisdom,

1:55:43 but those are all internal goods.

1:55:46 But but of of the things that you can kind of strive for, it's honor.

1:55:51 And so this is the highest prize that that um an ambitious man could like,

1:55:57 you know, make a career on.

1:55:59 pursue virtue, you need to be virtuous to be really worthy of honor, etc.

1:56:05 Um, but and you know, for for a great sold man,

1:56:09 even honor is maybe a small prize because like honor can be corrupted, right?

1:56:15 Um, corrupt people get get voted honors all the time.

1:56:19 Uh, so I don't think that's a problem Caesar had solved.

1:56:22 He's the brilliant, brilliant statesman,

1:56:24 legislator, politician, brilliant with people.

1:56:26 But like to get a whole political class of ambitious young men,

1:56:34 I mean, all the guys that kill him are like late 30s, early 40s.

1:56:37 They're like in their prime

1:56:39 and they still got a lot of gas left and they're seeing

1:56:44 the whole game has been just screwed.

1:56:47 Like I was raised to want honor and honor

1:56:51 is is what the people of Rome give you.

1:56:53 And now I'm I'm supposed to like do all of this stuff that I was going to do.

1:57:00 Command armies, uh, you know, pass laws.

1:57:05 I'm going to all do it as Caesar's employee.

1:57:09 Right.

1:57:09 Right.

1:57:10 Never a boss, never a patron, always a client.

1:57:13 I think that was intolerable for it was like a meaning crisis for them.

1:57:16 The the situation that they did put themselves into is

1:57:19 that for the rest of time they would be seen as an assassin.

1:57:22 Yeah.

1:57:23 I mean, I guess maybe it's preferable

1:57:26 to be a powerful assassin than a a peaceful

1:57:30 subordinate maybe in Roman times or at least

1:57:35 in their version of this philosophy.

1:57:37 Yeah.

1:57:38 You know, it was an interesting blend to to think that it would be

1:57:41 better to be mutinous and a rebel against somebody that was a great leader

1:57:47 but may have pushed the power too far compared with being a part of an existing

1:57:57 structure that had sort of raised Rome up to be a really great empire.

1:58:01 [snorts] Yeah.

1:58:02 Yeah, at the very least they saw more meaning

1:58:04 in that path than the other path at the time.

1:58:07 There was more self-determination.

1:58:09 Yeah.

1:58:09 Which is super important.

1:58:10 They had a lot more agency.

1:58:12 I It's very understandable.

1:58:15 Dante still puts them in the ninth circle of hell [laughter] betraying a friend.

1:58:22 __] Yeah, Alex, you absolutely rule.

1:58:24 Dude, this has been so much fun.

1:58:28 So great.

1:58:28 And I there's, you know,

1:58:30 literally 2,000 years of history that we could go through.

1:58:32 Before we close, I got you a little gift.

1:58:34 Oh, thank you.

1:58:35 Um, you know, I don't know how much of a Roman Empire fan you are,

1:58:40 Chris, but I'm trying to make you one.

1:58:42 Okay.

1:58:42 So, um, this is a coin that I got from Kinser Coins, uh, which I recommend.

1:58:49 It's It's Hrien.

1:58:51 You're You're a northern Brit, right?

1:58:54 Yep.

1:58:54 I've been to Hrien's Wall many a time.

1:58:56 I figured I figured.

1:58:57 And uh you know, if you look at this, he's got a nice little beard.

1:59:01 I mean, I see a little resemblance there.

1:59:03 As a matter of fact,

1:59:05 it says it says on there, Hadriana uh Augustus, Hrien Augustus.

1:59:11 And um dude, this is so cool.

1:59:14 It says COS on the other side.

1:59:16 That means console.

1:59:16 So, it was minted when he was a console.

1:59:18 And is that are those stars?

1:59:20 Is that I think they're stars on the What would be the bottom?

1:59:25 The Yeah, this is uh what is on the back that someone stood in a toga?

1:59:30 Yeah, I think that this is Roma.

1:59:35 Like she's the the goddess that emod

1:59:40 is like the divine tutillary goddess of Rome.

1:59:43 I can't believe you got me that.

1:59:45 Yeah, dude.

1:59:44 That is so[ __] cool.

1:59:47 Hrien is is the last um emperor that Plutarch lived under.

1:59:51 He was um so he's kind of special to me.

1:59:54 not to be emulated in everything.

1:59:56 You know, Hrien had a you know, he did he did a lot of things Greek style,

2:00:01 but he was a great he was a great fan of the Greeks, the patron of the Greeks.

2:00:04 So, um this is so good and thank you so much.

2:00:07 This honestly is I could have sat and listened to you for the rest of the month.

2:00:12 Uh where should people go?

2:00:13 You've got so much stuff going on.

2:00:15 Yeah, Cost of Glory podcast, wherever you get your podcasts.

2:00:19 Um Spotify, I'm on YouTube, too.

2:00:22 We're trying to make more videos to the audio content and you

2:00:26 can go to cost ofglory.com and I'm I do other stuff beside the

2:00:29 retreats and stuff, right?

2:00:30 Yeah.

2:00:30 Yeah, we run retreats um in Greece and Rome and

2:00:34 men go and reenact is this lapping?

2:00:35 Are they reenacting?

2:00:37 We have we haven't done a lar battle yet.

2:00:40 Uh we've gotten some demand from that and we've got

2:00:42 you're really tapping into the uh men think

2:00:44 about the Roman Empire once every 30 minutes thing.

2:00:46 Yeah, we're trying to crank that up.

2:00:48 [laughter] It's not enough.

2:00:49 I want to get it up to every 15.

2:00:50 Never enough.

2:00:51 Yeah.

2:00:51 Can you ever forget it?

2:00:52 Oh man, this is so good, dude.

2:00:54 S's been unreal.

2:00:55 I appreciate you.

2:00:56 I can't wait to have you back on.

2:00:58 Yeah, anytime.