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

Why is learning about Roman history useful or instructive at helping us in the modern world? Why should anybody care? I think that So, when I was starting my podcast, I had I'd been doing it for a couple of months with a kind of hunch on this question. And I wasn't really able to articulate it to my satisfaction. But it a friend of mine a few months in recommended that I read this book by Nietzsche. One of his early books that and I'd read some Nietzsche before. It's called On the Advantage and Disadvantage of History for Life. And Nietzsche talks in there about how history can sort of drain the life out of you and turn you into a kind of crippled shell of a person. It can kind of get you in this state where you question all of your decisions. It can kind of overload you with knowledge and cause you to retreat into the the cloister or the library or, you know, be a kind of opiate for a life that is not fulfilling. But he says that and and he quotes Goethe at the beginning of that that book that something like Goethe said, I hate all knowledge that does not quicken and enliven me. Like away with it. And and history can be very quickening and enlivening. And the way that Nietzsche frames it is um the most like enlivening approach to history is embodied by one of his favorite authors, Plutarch, this this great ancient philosopher who was also one of history's most widely read and entertaining biographers. And um and Plutarch embodies this mode of reading history or mode of like approaching any number of subjects really, not really not just history, kings and battles, but like art history or like engineering, um statuary, and he calls it monumental the monumental approach to history. Where you're looking not so much for precise facts, um although the facts kind of matter for the story. You're looking for examples of greatness. You're and you're looking for those examples, and this is me interpreting Nietzsche a little bit, but I I think of history as a kind of a source for finding your true self. For like you're kind of looking for yourself. You're looking for somebody who's trying to do something um that is the that represents a version of the greatest thing that you could do with your own life. And so it's about like finding resonance for uh for achievement. And I I think this is what the greats tend to get out of history. There's a lot of stories of this happening. Um Julius Caesar and the statue of Alexander is a famous one. So I that's what I look to history for and it's where I've gotten a lot of my own inspiration. Um and I I think it's about um ultimately about like emulation imitation. And there's there's a lot of philosophy around this that we could dig dig into a little deeper. Isn't it crazy that we think about history as being one thing or at least the uninformed amongst us think about history as being one thing, but I found out recently that ancient Egypt had their own Egyptologists because Egypt was so old that 2500 BC was studying 5000 BC. Yeah. So the same thing that people of history were learning from people from their history. Yeah, and uh I I studied for a little while with this great scholar when I was in grad school and he said um he was a specialist in the late Roman world like um 4th century AD and it's uh he would always say, you know, "Late antiquity is a very old world." And and it is because they have been they are in the in the 4th century AD they're as far away from Homer as we are from Charlemagne, you know? It's crazy to think I mean the world hasn't changed as much for them as it has for us since that that time period. But even Plutarch, who's a kind of model for for so many things for me, he's he's a Greek philosopher in living in the Roman Empire in the reign of um Hadrian, Trajan, so you know, Roman peace about 100 AD is like his, you know, apogee. He's studying and doing the biographies of figures that lived um 500, 700, down to around 100 to 200 years before him. So, it's all really old and they already kind of have this deep conception of um what history is, what what it's for and and uh and a sense of tradition and like, you know, I think we we can learn a lot from the way that they approach their own history, which is often very different from the way that we approach them or we approach our own history. Hm. What about Julius Caesar? What can we learn about living a good life from him? Well, to to come back to this example that uh probably my favorite story about Caesar and it's a famous story so people might have heard of it but uh maybe they haven't like kind of grasped the true meaning of it. So, Caesar is a young man in um sort of mid-career, early 30s. He's gotten a job as a quaestor and um that's like for for what he gets sent sent off for his tour of duty one year to Spain which is a Roman province. And a quaestor is like a chief of staff the paper guy for like a Roman governor a consul or a proconsul and at one of one of his leisure moments Caesar is going around with his friends in a a temple. And the temple it's a temple to Hercules and a temple in antiquity is kind of like a museum that's like where you would put great statues and art and you know dedications and you know gold and stuff on the walls. And he's going in there they're like touring the museum as it were Caesar and his buddies and you know his buddies kind of keep moving on and they realize they look back Caesar is is not with them and he's he's standing in front of a statue of Alexander the Great in this temple of Hercules. And and they're like Caesar are you coming what wait a sec are you crying? Cuz he's weeping in front of the statue of Alexander the Great. And he looks to them and he says do you not think it is a matter for tears that when Alexander was my age he was the ruler of so many great peoples and yet I have done nothing worthy of great renown. >> [gasps] >> And this is only one of two instances that we know of where Julius Caesar cried. The Romans weren't really into crying as much as the Greeks. I think they were they were a little bit more open I think they were about like us. The Greeks are crying all the time. I mean if you read Homer you know Achilles is you know bawling and throwing ash on himself when his buddy Patroclus dies in the Trojan War and in the Odyssey it's like it's like every single time somebody mentions the word Troy like everybody just bursts out in tears and you know, his family's always crying for him cuz they don't know where he's where he is and Odysseus is always crying about everything. But the the Romans were a little bit more restrained. So so I think for for Julius Caesar to cry there, it it's something happened that was really significant for him. And how I read that is Caesar I mean, he's he's already had a pretty promising career so far. Um some some great stories already have happened from from early in in his youth. He's uh he's a quaestor, which is not nothing. Um he's got the Roman Medal of Honor equivalent, the the civic crown for risking his life to save a fellow citizen. But he's kind of looking back on his 20s and he's thinking I've just been screwing around the whole time. This is what I have to do. He's he's like he's realizing in this moment what what his destiny is. Or or if you want to not use the word destiny, he's realizing like what he should be doing. And and that's the moment where it it kind of hits him. It's painful to realize that you haven't been living the life to the to the full extent of what you should be doing and are capable of doing. Mhm. And I think that's a that's a really powerful moment for um it it it it kind of like encapsulates how is what why I think it's uh resonates with me so much. That's how we need to be approaching history. That's how we need to be approaching the greats. Like you you need to be looking for that moment of resonance with somebody that just like cracks you open and like ah, I realize it. Now, personally, I don't have that with Julius Caesar himself. You know, I'm not trying to do the Julius Caesar thing. And it's not every Roman who's great who had that kind of thing with Alexander the Great. I mean, that that says a lot about a man that he really sees himself as like somebody who needs to emulate Alexander. Um But but do you know, you can definitely learn from that lesson of like trying to find that that unique resonance with somebody who kind of tells you what you're supposed to be like. And I think that Caesar had this like depth to him that that illustrates also. What does that tell us about Caesar's ambition, level of ambition? Yeah. Well, off the off the charts for sure. But I think that you can also understand a lot about Caesar's ambition from looking earlier in his childhood. So, um And and there's a great story on this, but I kind of got to give the context like laying out um Caesar's world. So, he grows up in Rome and and he's from this great family, on the one hand. So, he's got on his mom's side, the the the Anky Marky go back to the King Ancus Marcius. It's the Marky family that go back to King Ancus Marcius, who's just it's quasi-mythical Roman king from the 6th century BC, you know, 500 years of history on his mom's side. And then on his dad's side, they're they're the Julius clan. And they go all the way back to the mythic founder of Rome, Aeneas, who was the son of Venus and a mortal. And so, they you got 1,200 years on that side. So, they've got some real blue blood. But, they're kind of they haven't really accomplished a lot in the past few generations. They're not one of the like power elite families. Um Uh like the Metelli or the Cornelii. There's there's like other families that are a lot more prominent than the Julius family. And they they live in a kind of seedy part of Rome, the Suburra. And he grows up in this kind of dirty part of town. I mean, I know you worked in the kind of event and the nightclub world. Like, Caesar would have been like a kid hanging out in the street playing dice with his buddies outside of outside of a bar. This the Suburra was a kind of place that you you didn't really want to live if you had a better option, but, you know, every young aristocrat on a summer night like to go visit. There's like brothels and And so, he's in contact with the the the underbelly of Rome, and his family has is aligned on the what you would call the Roman left of politics. There's there's two main you can call them factions or kind of political styles, but there's two kind of main poles in Roman politics. And on the one hand, there are the optimates, the the kind of oligarchic or aristocratic faction, um who stand for the ancient prerogatives of the Senate and the you know, the tradition. They they tend to monopolize the priesthoods. They're all about what family are you from, who you're marrying, and so-and-so's great-great-grandfather was a consul, who are you? That whole attitude. And they're they're they're very much for the status quo. And on the other hand, you have the populists who are about things like land reform, redistributing public lands. They're really into merits and promoting talented outsiders. And and Caesar has really strong connections there because his um his aunt is married to one of the greatest populist figureheads in Roman history, this guy Gaius Marius, who was an outsider himself to the Roman power elite, but kind of forced his way in by talent. He wins a number of wars for them. And so he grows up with Gaius Marius as his uncle. And Marius, you know, made a big fortune in his career like from starting very low and then he kind of married into respectability, which is Caesar's family represents kind of poor respectability. And and then [clears throat] there is Caesar loses his dad when he when he's a teenager. This is dad like drops dead tying his shoes one day, kind of a freak thing. Maybe he had a heart attack. And Caesar's probably early teens at that point. And his dad actually looked like he was on a good track. He he been a praetor, hadn't been consul. Praetor is the second highest office, consul is the highest. And he died just before he got a shot to run for consul. So Caesar like had a father figure but lost him. And then So I imagine Gaius Marius might have been kind of like a father figure to to Julius Caesar. I mean we don't know a lot about that. But um what what happened up happening is Caesar promising young man 16 years old he is he he gets a great opportunity to marry the daughter of one of the most powerful men in Rome. Who is Marius's colleague, his associate, this guy Cinna, who has a run for he's he's consul for like 3 years and also a populist, also kind of against the oligarchic establishment. And right around the time that this is happening this incredibly bloody war breaks out. Civil war between the optimates and the populists. And it's very complicated, we can go into the details if you want, but essentially Marius dies toward the beginning of the war, Cinna dies a little a little further in, and the the Optimates led by a man named Lucius Cornelius Sulla win this war. Just like blood running through the the whole like every valley in Italy. I mean, tens of thousands, maybe more than 100,000 Roman citizens, Roman allies killed. It's It's just horrific. It's It's I'd probably worse than than the civil war that he ends up fighting later in his life. But, um so Caesar is married to Cinna's daughter. And when Sulla comes like marches into Rome after winning the civil war, he was you know, came like invaded Italy from a foreign campaign. He comes into Rome and he gets elected dictator. He kind of forces himself to be elected dictator, which is like a temporary office at Rome. And he's uh he's kind of mopping up. He um does famously the this campaign called the proscriptions, which is basically a purge of all of his enemies. Never been done in Roman history. They'd never had a civil war before. They for 400 years they'd had civic more more or less civic concord. And um there'd been some incidents uh in the previous generation, but nothing like this. Sulla posts the names of all the people from the leadership classes of Rome. The rich Some of the richest men, the most influential, well-connected, grand family men from the populace faction that he blames for um picking this fight and starting the war. And if your name is on that list in the proscriptions, you know, posts them in the Senate, you have a bounty on your head and your entire estate is confiscated. State property now. And there's more than a thousand names that end up getting put up in those proscription lists. So, heads roll, people are tossing heads in front of the feet of Sulla as he's sitting in his like consular throne. Uh they're collecting their reward. Um it's a it's just this reign of terror for a few months. And Sulla is also calling other kinds of stuff. I mean, he's rewriting the constitution as a dictator. He's trying to make sure that the populace to just keep their head underwater for generations that nothing like this war could ever happen again because his enemies and the kind of principles that they represent will just be so hamstrung and handcuffed. But, uh one of the things that he does is he approaches younger men in Rome and kind of test their loyalty by making them get divorces. Pompey is another promising young man around this time who ends up being Caesar's friend and rival. He's a few years older. And he goes to Pompey, Sulla Sulla, and he says, "Pompey, you know, you've been a loyal servant. Uh you brought me a legion in the Civil War. You you you you sided with me early. Uh I'm very grateful for that. But, you know what? You're married to the wrong woman. I have a better one for you." And Pompey says, "Yes, sir." And he he divorces his his former wife and he marries whoever Sulla picks for him. And then Sulla uh reme- remember this is a guy who okay, a subordinate of Sulla, a friend of his, wanted to run for consul after Sulla becomes the dictator. You know, there's still elections going on. There's still offices um that need filling. This guy comes to Sulla and he says, "Hey, Sulla, I want to you know, we won the war. I I I I want to run for consul." And Sulla's like, "Um you know, you haven't even been praetor. This this would be This would be a bad look. I don't think this is your year. You should stand down. And the guy says, "Thank you for your advice. I'm going to run anyway." And so one day, Sulla is sitting in in like one of his curule chairs there in one of the public buildings looking out over the forum and watches as the men that he ordered to do the deed go up to this guy and murder him in broad daylight in the forum. Because he he defied Sulla and he tried to you know run for office when Sulla said no. So this is the kind of guy you're dealing with. Now Sulla comes to Caesar. Caesar's 18 years old and he says, "Caesar, you're married to the daughter of one of my late worst enemies, Cinna. He's you know and you can understand his perspective. You know, Cinna was a symbol of everything that Sulla wanted to crush. And um and he says, "You need to divorce her." >> [gasps] >> And Caesar says, you know, "Thank you very much for your advice. You know, go screw yourself." And he and he they skips town. >> [laughter] >> He says no. And so and so Caesar is running through the mountains of central Italy. He's on the run. Sulla's got guys hunting him down. This goes on for several weeks. Caesar gets dysentery and you know, Oregon Trail style and he just he gets caught and manages to bribe the people who catch him to not bring him back to Sulla but to bring him back to his his family to like his relatives and friends. And then they go and they they go and plead with the dictator, Sulla. Jeez, you know, this was really out of line on the part of Caesar. He's a young hothead. You understand. You know, he'll be good. We'll make sure that he behaves himself. He's only a kid. Don't worry. Please can you please spare him? You know, cuz Sulla wants to execute him, obviously. I mean, he's got an image to uphold, right? Like And Sulla relents, and he says, "Very well, but you are fools if you don't see many a Marius in that boy." >> [sighs and gasps] >> And so uh Caesar gets off. Now, why did he do that? Like, what does that say about him and and what he's got in mind for his future? All right. One explanation is Caesar's a showman. He's a natural showman. He knows if he can defy the dictator and get away with it, people are going to be talking about this for his entire life. They're going to talk about it all around town. And sure enough, you know, we're still talking about it today. Like, it worked as a as a kind of PR stunt. On the other hand, he knows that um this girl is is a symbol of of his um all of his populist connections that have mostly been decapitated. Like, everything that Caesar had had like aspired to. You know, think you think as a teenager, you know, you got a great career ahead of you, you know, you're you know the top guys in this party, like the the trajectory's clear, and it's all just been like liquidated, turned to blood. And she's like one of the last living symbols of that. And he knows that if he um he knows the kind of like he's kind of calling his shot in a way. He's he's he's he's seeing a uh career for himself on the populist side, on the kind of uh revolutionary, if you will, side of Roman politics. And he's sort of building building a career with this clairvoyance about where he's headed for the rest of his life, already there at age 18. Mhm. >> [gasps] >> And I think that one final piece of this is it had a lot to do with just family, you know, and who he was and he didn't want to be pushed around by anybody and he was willing to die rather than to let that happen. And the fact that he I think one of the the final things that this illustrates about Caesar is Caesar was for all this you could criticize about the guy, he was incredibly loyal to the people that that were close to him, to his friends. Loyal to a fault and he was loyal to this to this wife uh Cornelia all the way up to her death. I and I can't prove this and I wouldn't even try, but Caesar was famously good with the ladies and uh you know slept with a lot of senators' wives and so forth and had a lot of girlfriends on the side, but we don't know of any specific cases where he did that with while he was married to his first wife Cornelia and she ends up being the the mother of his only daughter. Uh his only child child up until the very end, Julia. Uh but I think that it was it was something about proving loyalty to that woman. But I think you see in that you know to answer your question about you know what are his ambitions like? They're grand already. You can see that in in him as a young man. He he like he knows he's destined for for something big. He's smart, talented, handsome and so forth um and uh and he was just going to he was going to ride that horse as long as he could. Before we continue, I wish someone had told me 5 years ago to stop overthinking nutrition and just find something that works. 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And uh Caesar says, "What you're asking is insulting. Like, you're asking 20 million sesterces. You need to double it. Like, you don't know what you've got on your hands here." >> [laughter] >> Um because I think partly because to kind of troll them, partly because he is uh he knows that if he gets ransomed for more money, it's going to make a better story, and people are going to think more of him cuz like, you know, the Greek word for honor is um is timē. It means price. You know, it's it's the pri- it's literally the price that you your comrades would be willing to ransom you for if you got captured. >> [laughter] >> Like, it's it's quantifiable. It's very quantifiable. Like in Homer, you know, uh it's the we think of honor as this abstract thing, but it's like, how much are you really worth? You know, you can put a number on that. So, Caesar kind of gets that. He basically bids on his own auction. Yeah, right. >> [laughter] >> And and uh and the funny thing about that story is uh well, there's a lot of funny things, but you know, while he's there with the pirates, Plutarch, um who's his greatest biographer, uh says, uh you know, Caesar would sort of um he was he would joke around with them, and he would uh write compositions. He's like, you know, rocking around in the hole there writing speeches, and he would he would declaim them in front of the pirates, and he'd make them laugh and cry, and then he would just say, "You people have no taste. I can't believe that I'm I'm hanging out with you." >> [laughter] >> And they would say, "Oh, Caesar." And then he said, "You know, someday uh I'm going to come back after after you ransom me, and I'm going to execute every single one of you." And they said, "Ah, >> [laughter] >> oh, Caesar's kid. We love this kid. Pour him another drink." You know, and then that's exactly what he does, right? He gets ransomed, and um and he uh the the local governor that um that is responsible for that part of the sea is um uh I I think he No, what he he raises a a fleet with his own funds, and he goes and he, you know, he he knows where these guys hide out, their little cove, and he captures the pirates, and he brings them to the governor, and the governor is sort of doddling. He doesn't really have a great plan for these pirates, and so he Caesar goes and he crucifies all of them uh to make a statement. But, you know, because they were such uh kindly hosts to them, he does them the the courtesy of having their throats slit before they get crucified, so they don't, you know, have to be there in agony for several days dying. He gives them a short death. So, he you know, I think it you know, perfect combination of his his winning charm, his deep sense for the political stakes of every single thing that he does, you know, raising his price, making a scene, and making a statement by you know, fulfilling his promise to in in the most cold-blooded way possible. Why did he become so popular? What was What were the levers that he was pulling on? Well, before he becomes a commander at least, Caesar is uh just a really stylish guy. He He has a flair for fashion, you know, he wears his his toga a little differently than than everybody else. It's a little looser. Uh you know, it's kind of like you know, when I was in high school, a lot a lot of kids would like let their pants sag down. It was like the cool look. Yeah, well, this Caesar's doing that. Like, let's let's let our toga sag a little bit. Uh but it but it was it was like, you know, it was stylish and classy and and kind of um And And you know, the older men at Rome would say, "Oh, that's effeminate." Um but Caesar knew that it would draw draw attention, and he could pull it off. And um one of the ways that he attracts attention is by prosecuting uh corrupt governors when he's just in his 20s, you know, he he does these sort of um sort of publicity stunt DA like young DA prosecuting the um whatever city councilmen. And he he loses, I think, most of these, but he makes a statement of of what he stands for. And And I think he knows from a very early age that he's kind of an anti-establishment figure. Sulla has dies soon after he becomes a dictator. And And like in his youth um Sulla basically firmly established the Optimate oligarchy. And everybody in power now in Rome was like a buddy of Sulla. And they they have no serious challengers. They're corrupt. They're fat. They're slow. Uh they're plundering the provincials. And Caesar kind of takes a stand for justice like throughout his early career. And um in one of these one of these cases he um there was a there was a riot 30 years earlier. This is funny. And um and and some populist leaders, you know, people from Caesar's faction got murdered. Saturninus was the the most Well, there was a riot in the forum and then they they arrested the guys. They put them in the Senate house. And then people snuck up to the roof in the night. They they removed the the roof tiles and they like hurled these like roof tiles down on uh Saturninus and his buddies and they killed them. So uh there was some violence in the streets in Rome that the generation before. And so Caesar picks one of the last surviving men to have been vaguely implicated in this riot as somebody with you know, blood on his hands metaphorically for the for the death of Saturninus and his associates. Um and the guy is like this emaciated old old gentleman um Rabirius. And he says, you know, uh we're going to we're going to hold you responsible for your crimes 30 years ago. Like Rome is Rome is a place of justice. And uh they basically, you know, long story short, they get they get him convicted. And in the special court that they call the punishment is crucifixion. Like, so they're going to publicly execute this like 80-year-old man who probably doesn't even know what day it is. And there's some last-minutes uh political shenanigans by Rabirius's friends. They like raise this flag and they you know oh they there's a kind of like political chicanery where you can say the omens are bad and and it kind of calls off the whole thing. And Caesar I think he kind of expected them to do that. Um but uh it the point was about the statement, you know, that oligarchs, aristocrats, and the establishment can't get away with murder anymore. Not in this town anymore. I think that was a big piece of why he was popular before he ever led an army. Now when he started leading armies, that's a whole different story. Like he was a master at getting um like winning the respect of his soldiers. He's always fighting in the front lines. There's many stories about this. Um the incredible loyalty that that his soldiers in particular had for him. Um but you know you know he's kind of a playboy in his in his youth and uh he just was was a fun guy to be around. He's always giving gifts. He's um he's in debt all the time up to his ears and he somehow always finds a way to pay off his creditors. Um uh he he was just a a really magnetic guy to be around. What was the loyalty that he generated in his loyal warriors followers? Well, so one instance of this is uh in the Civil War that illustrates this is uh this guy Granius Petro is um a guy we wouldn't know his name otherwise, but he's uh a quaestor in Caesar's army and uh gets he's ship captain. Gets gets his ship captured by Caesar's enemies in the civil war and um and so he's brought aboard the ship with his fellow sailors uh and and the the enemy commander the Optimates commander says uh Granuis Petro you know we're going to we're going to be nice to you guys. Now normally since you you all are traitors what we should do is slit your throats and throw you overboard. But we're going to be very kind you know Caesar's a kind man we know he's the enemy of the state and tyrant and lawless but we're going to we're going to not let him morally outclass us. We're just going to sell you in the slave market all of you. >> [gasps] >> Um and hopefully you'll get ransomed maybe. But Granuis Petro you however may go free. He's the he's their leader. And uh but you have to go and tell Caesar what we did here and tell him that his war effort is futile that he should surrender to the lawful government of the Republic. And Granuis Petro says it is the custom of Caesar's soldiers to give mercy but not to receive it. Then he pulls out a dagger and he stabs himself to death right in front of the the enemy consul. That's the kind of loyalty that Caesar had. Like this guy would rather die than you know be ashamed by letting his enemy spare him. Um another great instance uh I mean the Caesar's soldiers had this incredible endurance. Throughout all of his campaigns they're willing to fight for him to the to the death. You know stories about soldiers getting shot in the eye shot in the arm shot in the leg taking hundreds of blows and then they don't leave the fight they just have to be dragged away by their companions. Uh one instance again later from Caesar's career his um he's fighting this this great um kind of trench war siege war with um with Pompey. There's like a 17-mi wall that he's built around Pompey's camp to wall him into the coast in Greece, and Pompey's built another counter wall. So, that is this dragging, dragging long siege warfare, and the supplies are getting choked. Caesar cuts off the water to Pompey. The animals are starving and dying in Pompey's camp, but Caesar is even in worse straits because they've eaten They know he's got a 20,000, 30,000 men. They're They're eating the all the food in the area. They're like running out of food, and they're having to go and collect weeds and bake them into these horrible, disgusting cakes and just eat them. And at some point, Pompey's guys having a food and water personally even though the animals are dying. They call over to Caesar's men across the wall. They say, You know, "Hey, Roman. Getting hungry over there?" And Caesar's soldiers catapult over some of these horrible loaves of nasty food that they're eating just to show what they're willing to eat. They're willing to like starve to death before giving up the fight. And one of these these cakes, you know, imagine like a cow patty. Yeah, one of these cakes is brought to Pompey, you know, his his enemy, the commander. And he says, "Good god, we are fighting with beasts." >> [laughter] >> And And And they go to Caesar, and they say, "We would rather eat tree bark than surrender." And how was he able to generate that? >> Mhm. He fights in the front lines with them all the time. He's He risks his life right up right up there with the centurions. He knows all the centurions in his army by name. There's like one centurion for every 80 men, and he's got an army of 30,000. He remembers their names. He like takes the time to do that. He um he also uh is he's very generous with with gifts and he what what what he'll do is he'll eat the same food that they eat. I don't know if he ate those cow patties, but I imagine he did because he had this habit of like if if the if the olive oil was rancid and there was good olive oil, but the the troops were eating the bad olive oil, he would eat the bad olive oil. If his uh if his troops are sleeping in the there, you know, he's always going around uh like lightning speed blitzing around campaigns and often they have to stay in weird places, you know, if his officers are sleeping on the ground, he'll sleep on the ground. He'll give a good the one bed uh we'll give it to the weakest of us, which is not me, you know. Uh so he's he's always there with them. Um but he's also he is very lavish with these guys, too. Like he he his his um what he does he does amass a lot of money when he's conquering Gaul, for example, >> [gasps] >> but it's always only to give it to his friends, to give it to the people of Rome, to do something with it, to it's all he always sees money as a tool and and riches as a tool and gifts as a tool uh to to to like win to bind people closer to himself cuz this is this is where his real power lies and this is what where I think in general real power lies. 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He mostly wants to just get himself sent off as commander of Rome's armies to fight all kinds of wars cuz that's I think that's his happy place. Pompey is a excellent administrator. He's great at logistics. I think he's he's kind of a big guy, too. And so, Caesar helps him a lot in his early career to get these extraordinary commands is what they call them. Like, Pompey doesn't hold office until he's 35. And usually, to to consul, which is what he becomes, you would have to have like you know, a a whole sequence of offices. But Pompey's just he's just a golden boy. Pompey is um he's he's got this combination of charm and he's got this boyish look. He's got this little quiff in his hair. He kind of looks like Alexander and he kind of models himself off of Alexander the Great. I mean, Caesar and Pompey both are like Alexander uh Alexander stands. And um but he's also got this ruthlessness to him, too. Uh they called him the kid butcher when he was younger. And the Romans just love this combination of cold-blooded forcefulness, brutality even, you know, in a controlled way, and then boyish charm uh which Pompey had. But the way that they really get in um in into cahoots in the first Triumvirate is So, even though Caesar's kind of friendly with Pompey, helps him out here and there he's not like really tight with Pompey. Who he is tight with is Crassus, the richest man in Rome, another fascinating figure that I did a did a biography on on the Cost of Glory. He uh Crassus finances Caesar's career. He's basically the one holding the note for all of Caesar's colossal political debts. Um and it there comes a point when Caesar is ready to run for consul that Crassus has a problem and Pompey has a lot of problems that they can't get solved in the Senate and in politics. Pompey's just come back from this glorious Eastern campaign. He's defeated this general Mithridates. He's uh he's essentially conquered Judaea uh and he's he's defiled the temple in Jerusalem. Um but he's come back glorious with a bunch of soldiers that need rewards. He wants to settle his soldiers. He wants the Senate to ratify all of the arrangements, the treaties that he made, you know, appointing a client king here, you know, getting a city constitution ratified there. And he's got a lot of a lot of interest in that, like, materially, you know, people um sending him money and promising to support him in war or politics. So, Pompey has a lot of needs and and it's it's all getting blocked by the Senate. He's just not that great at the political game. His And And by this point, Pompey is sort of an outsider from the from the Optimates, from the from the kind of establishment conservatives, um who are blocking Pompey. They think he's getting too powerful. Caesar's nobody at this point. I mean, yeah, he's a promising young politician, but he's not he's not like a powerful man. Uh so, we we talk about the Triumvirate, uh but it's it's Caesar brokering a deal with Pompey and then Crassus on the other hand has some tax breaks he wants for his um basically his uh portfolio companies, who are equestrian tax collectors. And um they can't get it through the Senate. Both Pompey and Crassus are outsiders to the Optimates establishment. The main guy who's the kind of figurehead of the of the conservative is this young guy Cato, who becomes who's a stoic, famously becomes Caesar's worst nemesis. And Caesar basically comes to these with these two um big shots, the two big fish in Rome, Pompey and Crassus, richest man and then the most glorious general. He says, "You guys hate each other. You've hated each other for a long time. You've always been trying to smile in public when you're next to each other, but then stab each other in the the behind the scenes. But look, you both have needs. I can I can I can fix them. I can fix this. I can get your legislation passed, Pompey. I can get your legislation passed, Crassus. Support me in the consulship. And I'm going to ask for a favor down the line. But let's not worry about that right now. And they say, "All right." And so it's basically the triumvirate is Caesar brokering this deal between these two top guys, which is a great It's a great strategy, I think, if you're if you're like down here and there's men up here that have a need to help find a way to help them out. And and the and the the biggest thing that's blocking each of them really is each other. Like Crassus is like pushing the Senate to not ratify Pompey's legislation. Pompey is going to use his clients to kind of push against Crassus. So you know, making peace between the two of them. Um and and it was a pretty good relationship for a long time. And And once once Caesar gets elected consul, his dear dear daughter, Julia, his one child up to that point, he marries her off to Pompey the Great. And he becomes Pompey's father-in-law, even though he's a younger man somewhat. And by all accounts, that marriage was not just a political marriage, but became a very loving relationship. Um and so uh you know, they had this long connection uh long before the Civil War that made them mortal enemies of each other, which I think is what makes it kind of even more tragic and bitter. Mhm. And then how do Pompey and Caesar end up at war? Well, that's you know, a long story, I guess. But in sum, when Caesar How it all happens, how how this breakdown happens is when Caesar goes off when he finishes his consulship, he gets Pompey and Crassus to support him to have himself sent off to Gaul. So far, you know, Caesar hasn't had his Alexander moment. This is his chance to do some real world-changing conquest. And uh he spends the years 59 is the first triumvirate, so he spends the years 58 through 52 conquering Gaul. And um Rome controls a little strip along the coast. Gaul is France, of course. Um but but the Gauls, the Celts uh is the other name for them, they are not just a kind of you know, peaceable farmer, unsuspecting society of, you know, "We just we just want to like live our our peaceful lives. Why are these Romans coming and conquering us?" I mean, this is a confederation of war incredibly warlike tribes who have threatened Rome on many occasions. And um just in the previous generation, there was a great Gallic invasion that stopped by Gaius Marius. And um and so the and and they and in several centuries earlier, the the Gauls like actually sacked the city of Rome, like taken it the only time that ever happened up to that point. So there's a real threat there, arguably. And uh you know, we could get into how Caesar conquered Gaul, but how Pompey and Caesar fell out with each other is it's a long story that basically while Caesar's away, he he is absent from the city of Rome and from Italy for um 7 years, well, really 8 years um uh uh before the conflict between them breaks out. And while he's away, Crassus dies, and Crassus was a kind of fulcrum balancing out Caesar and Pompey. Um, he got dies on this great Persian expedition, this campaign to invade not Iran, but the Iraq where the there were the Persians were in charge. Um, so that that was uh the kind of like last you know, when you have three men, they can kind of balance each other out. But when it becomes two men, there's there's a polarity there that can really be inflamed. And this is exactly what the establishment people see, people like Cato see. Caesar has always been a revolutionary in their opinion. He's always been trying to make a grab at supreme power. They you know, they they they had their eye on him since he was since he was a young man. Sulla was right about this kid. There is many Marius's in him. And they you know, Pompey has has been an outsider, but they they see sort of late in the game after Crassus dies that if they can kind of court Pompey into the establishment. He's always wanted their approval, you know? Pompey has always just wanted to be this glorious general welcomed by the blue bloods, the great families, and they never really had it. And so they see their chance, Cato and company. Like let's make Pompey a respectable man. Let's make him our shield, our shield against Caesar because Caesar's going to come back at some point, and he's going to come back richer and more powerful and more glorious than ever, and he's going to just push us around in politics. And and maybe maybe maybe he's going to try to take over the thing and make himself a monarch, which I think was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Like that wasn't really his intent at that point. But basically they say, Caesar, it's like 51 BC at this point. Caesar's been in Gaul for 8 years. He's got uh so many well-trained legions. Um, and uh and basically his enemies are saying, "You can't We're not going to let you come back except under circumstances where you will face accountability, prosecution potentially, for all of the bad things you did in your earlier career, including when you were consul. And they basically, you know, long story short, they kind of play Pompey and see They especially kind of get into Pompey's head and play him off of Caesar uh in this gradual shift of alliances. And importantly, importantly, Caesar's daughter, Julia, Pompey's, you know, the love of Pompey's life by all accounts, she dies in childbirth in 54. And um that was like the link that held them >> tether. >> final tether that held them together. Um and after that, the Civil War Cuz otherwise, there would have been some leverage over Caesar. Yeah. We have your daughter. Oh, yeah. That I hadn't thought about that. But I I think they couldn't have gotten Pompey's head because, you know, they would have had a Caesar's grandson, Pompey's son, would have would have bound them together. It was a boy that was born uh that died soon after his mother died. Um so I I I think that it it wasn't an an obvious fit for Pompey to be um their shield, their man. He'd always been an outsider and uh Caesar could have kind of kept him kept him loyal. It's very hard when you're in France and this is all happening in Rome. Mhm. But Caesar has a lot of lieutenants really, you know, men of letters trying to kind of keep the peace and keep up his contacts in Rome. But like if he had been able to be there in person, he believed he could have he could have settled the seas and won Pompey back over. And this is one of the things after the war broke out that he kept trying over and over again. Like, "Let's just meet. >> The Civil War. Let's just meet. Yeah, the Civil War. Let's just meet. Let's uh let's work this all out." >> But he didn't want to. Yeah, Pompey didn't want to at that point. He'd already hardened his heart. He was supposed to be Pompey was supposed to be one of the greatest generals ever, right? And he did he not outnumber Caesar as well? Yeah, he greatly did. He had Pompey was brilliant in the Civil War. He defeated Sertorius. He he conquered the the pirates in like 3 months earlier in his career. I mean, he's a brilliant administrator. Um some people think he's overrated as a general. I mean, he was really good, but I think Caesar was a better general. But but Pompey had evidently but he he definitely had by all by the look of it all the advantages when Caesar invades Italy crosses the Rubicon. Um you know, Pompey has a lot of legions on paper, but they're they're fresh recruits. >> What's the story of crossing the Rubicon? Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Whoop. According to my Whoop, I've tracked nearly 2,000 days of my life. And the thing that still gets me is that I could have predicted almost every bad day before it happens. That's because Whoop gives you a complete picture of your health every single day. Your sleep, your workouts, your recovery, your breathing, your heart rate, even your steps. And over time, you get to see what's working and what isn't. And the Whoop 5.0 is the best version yet. It's 7% smaller, you get more than 2 weeks of battery life from a single charge. health span tracking to see how your daily habits affect your pace of aging. It's even got hormonal insights for the women that are listening. I'm a huge fan. This thing rules. It's been a huge part of my health journey, and it's why it's the only wearable that I've ever stuck with. Best of all, you can join for free. Pay nothing for the brand new Whoop 5.0 strap, and you get your first month for free, and there's a 30-day money-back guarantee. So, you can buy it for free, try it for free. If you don't like it after 29 days, they just give you your money back. Right now, you can get the brand new Whoop 5.0 and that 30-day free trial by going to the link in the description below or heading to join.whoop.com/modernwisdom. join.whoop.com/ modern wisdom. I mean, it's something that I've heard people say all the time, to Rubicon moment, crossing of the Rubicon. I've no idea what that means. I don't know the story. I don't understand why it's significant. I don't know what it's supposed to symbolize. Yeah, so there's a kind of complicated build-up, a standoff, you know, everybody's always kind of ratcheting up their demands as Caesar's like, I want to come back to Rome don't without prosecution. And the Senate's like, over our dead bodies. Uh, here, you know, concessions going back and forth, being rejected. And so, as this is all going on, Caesar's getting his getting his armies ready. He doesn't want to fight a civil war. I think he's, you know, he and he always said that and I I think it's right. >> Cuz he's just come back from Gaul. Yeah, he's just come back from Gaul. He's seven-year campaign, eight-year campaign, straight into a civil war. Right. Basically, he's he's at war from 58 BC until 45 BC almost constantly. I mean, the energy of the man. >> [sighs and gasps] >> And and he's got two advantages. So, so basically, he's got I think he's got 10 legions at this point, something like 40,000 men, but they're all kind of strung out over Gaul in forts. They're they're not close. He's got one legion with him on the border, the legal border between Italy and um, basically northern Italy, what we call northern Italy today was what they would call Cisalpine Gaul. It's it's it's not like Italy proper. And if you uh, lead an army into Italy without disbanding it, it's like technically an act of war. Like you're Consuls are supposed to disband their armies before they reenter Italy. And so, the border between Cisalpine Gaul and Italy proper is the Rubicon River. It's this insignificant stream near Ravenna in northern Italy on the Adriatic coast and um and so Caesar's camped at Ravenna and he is negotiating with the with the Senate. Envoys going back and forth, back and forth. It's not looking good. Caesar doesn't want to fight a war, but he's going to be ready. You know, he's not he's not about to pretend like this couldn't happen. I think Pompey wasn't really ready for it. But so he's got one legion there with him at Ravenna. Not a lot of men. 400 and I 4,500 men or so. And at at at this final moment, the negotiations break down and the Senate declares him a public enemy. They say Caesar is is is you know, he's not responding to our demands. We've had enough. They officially basically declare war on him. And the moment he gets that advice the very next day. Actually, he was um he knew what he was going to do the next day, but he pretends like nothing's happening on that day. He's just going to going to go about his business in Ravenna. He goes to the gladiatorial shows. He inspects his troops. He has dinner with his friends. It's just a normal day, no big deal. But he secretly sends the order out to his troops to muster and he finds his way to the Rubicon. He apparently like gets lost in the woods cuz it's dark. I mean there's there's all these kind of elaborate tales about this. And one of the ancient sources, not Plutarch who's a little bit more sober, one of the ancient sources, Suetonius I think it is, says, you know, you know, as he stood there before the Rubicon, he saw a great winged figure blowing a trumpet. It's like the gods are like calling him to war. It's like the Valkyries or something. Um but what he [clears throat] says is um he's there with his officers and he knows if he crosses that river that uh it's he's he's declaring war back on the Senate. >> [gasps] >> Um and so he says, "Let the die be cast." And the the famous words is actually a quote from one of his favorite dramas or a comedy from Menander. Like let the die be cast. As as one does when one is entering upon uh a highly risky thing with uncertain results as Plutarch says. Mhm. And so he crosses the the Rubicon very quickly and within >> [snorts] >> a day he is just blitzed down and captured a city in in Italy proper and he just he has one of his advantages as I was saying is he loves to be underestimated and he's really good at getting himself underestimated. Um and they didn't think he would do it. And he he only uh goes into Italy with one legion and the the Senate has like 10 legions in Italy. I mean, he's vastly outnumbered. But everybody else arrives really quickly. The other advantage is he's really fast. And so he blitzes through Italy and pretty soon Pompey um and the Senate decide they've got to they've got to get out of there. They got to think rethink their grand strategy and they [clears throat] they they go to Greece to basically muster up and um collect a bunch of ships and a bunch of troops in the east and come back and reinvade Italy and destroy Caesar. But but it doesn't work out that way. Why? Well they were hoping they knew that Caesar didn't have any ships. Basically, he doesn't have troop transports. So he's not able to cross over and catch them and take the war to Greece. He's not able to draw on his great advantage, which is speed. And they're hoping to uh essentially kind of blockade Italy and starve him out. Rome, if you blockade Rome, the people will starve quickly because they're getting the majority of their grain from places like Sicily, North Africa, uh not yet Egypt, but it's a you know the the biggest city in the world at that point, at least in the West. Million people maybe. And uh you can't get that much grain in from the countryside on carts, you know? So, they bring it in on ships. So, they're hoping to basically starve the people of Rome and make Caesar really unpopular. Um and so, uh you know, he doesn't have ships, he can't go catch them. So, there's also um Pompey's got guys in Spain that start up a uh they, you know, holding out against Caesar and you know, Caesar's only controls Italy and Gaul. And he [snorts] So, he has to go fight a war in Spain first before he can go catch Pompey in Greece. And uh you know, basically by by leaving um by leaving Italy rather than settling it then and there, his enemies are essentially saying they're willing to make this a world war, which is exactly what happens. There's There's a war fought in Spain first. Caesar comes and he and he um defeats them in Greece. Then he uh goes to Egypt. There's another war there, then there's another war in Asia Minor, then there's in the war in North Africa, and then there's the final kind of embers of the war in Spain. I mean, he he he visits every single province in the Roman Empire and carries war to almost all of them. Wow. Yeah. You mentioned Egypt. What's the story of Caesar and Cleopatra? Yeah. Well, so um fast forward, you know, the Caesar's first campaign is in Spain, his second campaign in the Civil War is um is in Greece where he defeats Pompey at the Battle of Pharsalus, which is the really should have been the the last battle, should have been the decisive battle. And uh um Pompey flees and makes his way to Egypt. They don't know where he went for a for a while, um but Caesar finally figures out he's gone to Egypt because Pompey has friends there and as soon as he gets on shore, actually doesn't ever ever reach the shore. He he basically comes up with his warships and the Egyptians say, "Oh yes, we're really glad to see you, Pompey. Uh come come come ashore. We've got the whole reception ready for you. Just get in this little boat and you know, there's there's reefs that a big ship like yours would would probably founder on, so just trust us. We're going to get you in this little boat and take you to shore." And and and uh you know, Pompey gets on the boat. He he probably knows what's going to happen, but he's he has no hope at this point. He's just crestfallen. He's he's dispirited. He thought he was going to win against Caesar. It was an upset victory at Pharsalus and um I think it just kind of shattered him. And I think there's the I'm trying to remember exactly how they framed it. There's a moment where the the boat captain is like, "Come on, Pompey. There's nothing to be worried about. You can trust us." Um and Pompey said, you know, "If I were worried about my life, I would not get in this boat." Like I mean, I think he knew. Because on that boat, they murdered him in front of the eyes of his son, in front of the eyes of his wife, in front of the eyes of all of his friends. Once they get a little away from the the warship, he never makes it to shore. They murder him. Who's they? The Egyptians. So, who is they? What's going on in Egypt right now is there's a civil war happening. Egypt is ruled by at this point by uh the Ptolemies, who are a Greco-Macedonian ruling class. Their capital is Alexandria, which is a great Greek city founded by Alexander the Great. He's He's He's everywhere, isn't he? And so, uh there's a conflict going on between these two like teenage uh one is a teenager, one's a 20-year-old like siblings of the pharaoh who died. You know, it's funny to think of these Greeks as pharaohs, but that's what they would have called them in Egypt. And um Pompey was hoping that all the favors he did for them earlier would ingratiate him to the Egyptian regime. But, they basically saw Caesar won at Pharsalus. He's probably going to be the winner in this war, even though it might go on for a while. What would What would make Caesar really happy is if we just killed Pompey and presented Caesar with Pompey's head hm and said, "Hey, we did you a favor. And if we did that, you know, if if we let Pompey live, he's probably going to try to raise an army and try to use Egypt as a base and drag on the war, and we're going to have Roman troops just ripping this place >> of our own war. In the middle of our own war, it's going to be just a total mess. Hm. So, they kind of nip it in the bud. >> [gasps] >> And um I I I kind of made sense. I think what it would would have made more sense is for them to just arrest Pompey, because Caesar wanted Pompey alive, actually. He kept on pardoning his enemies during the civil war. >> he wanted to pardon Pompey. He pardoned enemy after enemy. Domitius um Petr- Petraeus. I mean, you could list names and names. He's always sparing his enemies. Some would say that he was too kind to his enemies cuz they end up assassinating him. We'll get to that maybe. But and Caesar also knows that if Pompey, if he captures Pompey and spares him, if he if he could just get in the same room face-to-face with this man that he hasn't seen in the better part of 10 years. They could work something out. >> Mhm. He could convince Pompey to get the troops to stand down, to get everybody to to stand down. There's no way that this war could carry on if Pompey and Caesar come to an agreement finally. That's what he really wanted. He wanted to make peace. He didn't He didn't want to fight this war, but you know, he was willing to fight it if they if they wanted to fight it with him. And so, you know, when he lands ashore they present him with the signet ring of Pompey. This has a great I think it had a a lion on it. It was unmistakable. And then they give him the head of Pompey. Just in case you weren't sure. >> Just in case you weren't sure whose ring that is. >> [laughter] >> Came from the hand of the head of Pompey. >> is? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Oh. Do Do you know? Do you want to guess? >> [laughter] >> There it is. >> [gasps] >> And that's the second time that that he's said to have cried. Yeah. Why why did >> of Rome. Um He I think he cried because this was his friend. Mhm. It really was his friend and he all his Well, the cynics will say that they were crocodile tears. The tears were secretly happy. I think that's totally false. Like he really wanted Pompey alive and I think he did still kind of hold out hope that they would you know, be able to come to an agreement. Of course, Caesar would be the the big man now and Pompey would be kind of his his career would be over. Let's be frank. Um after losing a civil war, maybe he could go into dignified exile, but this was the father of his of his son before the son died. This was the the man who who took care of his daughter. Like they had this really personal relationship. >> [gasps] >> And so Caesar was actually quite pissed and he uh he ended up killing all the men who who called the hit on Pompey. And why? >> Yeah, because they were basically um the the sibling of the rival Ptolemies that's controlling Alexandria is this kid Ptolemy. Ptolemy the 13th, I think. He's like 15. And it's it's actually he's kind of he's he's being kind of ruled by this this um general that he has and this this court eunuch. You know, as as one has in Egypt. One one one needs eunuchs to do things and you know, one of them was the kind of chamberlain and was kind of pushing the kid around and calling the shots. And um and so the way that the war goes basically s- Ptolemy and Cleopatra are it Cleopatra's the other the other sibling. Forgot to mention that. Uh she's off in the wilderness, who knows where she is when Caesar arrives. Caesar is welcomed with kind of you know, fake smiles by the Egyptians who just want the Romans gone. They're Ro- Egypt has been um it's [snorts] not a Roman province, it's important to understand. It's a Roman client kingdom. They're independent, they have their own tradition, they want to keep it that way. Alexandria is the most glorious city in the Mediterranean. Rome might be bigger, but it's a dirty place. Alexandria is a city of marble and culture. They've got the library, they've got, you know, Alexander's tomb there. >> [gasps] >> Uh and they just want the Romans to kind of leave them to their own devices. Maybe be allies, but basically, they want Caesar gone as soon as possible. And Ptolemy represents the kind of uh >> [sighs and gasps] >> more Egyptian independence um party in in in Egypt and Alexandria. He's He's loved by the people, actually. Cleopatra was actually the unpopular one. And that's exactly the kind of person that Caesar likes to support. Um because haha the story [clears throat] is um he's been there for a couple of weeks. This is after he went to go and find Pompey Yeah. finds head and hand Yeah. and sticks about. Yeah. He's He's sticking around in Egypt and Alexandria. Um trying to figure out what he's going to do. There's a war going on there. And anytime the Romans see a war amongst people on the fringes, they see an opportunity to come in and intervene. And uh that's a way to kind of extend your power and maybe end up controlling the place directly. Egypt is the most by far the richest um kingdom, land, area in all of the Mediterranean. Why? What have they got? They So the for one thing, they've got the Nile, which, you know, you can like eat an apple and spit the seeds on the ground and just get wonderful fruit. I mean, it's incredibly fertile cuz of the flooding of the Nile. They've also got uh very, very rich mines, like mineral resources in the in the eastern desert, especially. So, you know, porf- exotic marble, porphyry, gems, you know, agate, amethyst, emerald. I don't know what the difference between any of these things is, frankly, but um and they've got a lot of gold, too, in those mines. There's still gold in Egypt. They're still mining gold there. So, it's incredibly rich. It's you know, Alexandria's a city of marble and gold. Um and it ends up later becoming Rome's breadbasket. You know, just you can feed the entire you can feed a lot of people from from the Nile. Um So and and Rome is kind of like wanted you know Pompey wanted to intervene in Egypt. There was another conflict with the fat king that died father of Cleopatra and Ptolemy and people were hoping to pluck that cherry but it just never worked out. Like Egypt is kind of despite it's kind of incredible that Egypt was still independent at that point because Rome the Roman greedy Roman uh governors had just been circling it like vultures and they just hadn't had their chance yet. Now Caesar has a chance, you know. Um but they don't want that to happen. So Cleopatra enters the story at this point. Caesar's in the royal palace. And um and I don't know if you've seen that movie with Elizabeth Taylor the Cleopatra movie but No. Uh so the way that they portrayed in the movie is not that far off but basically Caesar's there in in a study in the library or in in the in the palace and a servant comes in with a rug and he's like Caesar we have a gift for you and he says all right well what's in what's in the rug and he tries to threatens to poke at it but basically Cleopatra sneaks herself in on a little on a little raft and is carried in as though she's a mattress as like a rolled up mattress is is what Plutarch says. Like someone's got a yoga mat in their but it's secretly Cleopatra. >> Yeah yeah. And then and then you know it's presented to Caesar as a gift. >> Show it to chat chat GPT this image. I want to see what it looks like. >> Yeah yeah yeah it's it's it's a great scene from from the Cleopatra movie. It's a rug in the in the movie. Which is a great movie and the most expensive movie ever when it was made. 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So, if you're not sure, you can buy Fiber Plus, try it for 29 days. If you don't love it, they'll just give you your money back. And they ship internationally. Right now, you can get up to 35% off your first subscription and that 30-day money-back guarantee by going to the link in the description below or heading to livemomentous.com/modernwisdom and using the code modernwisdom at checkout. That's l i v e m o m e n t o u s.com/modernwisdom and modernwisdom at checkout. Okay, so she gets carried in. So, she gets carried in and uh you know, she knows how to make an interest, too. From that moment, Caesar sees like, "All right, this is this is another show person like myself." She's 20 years old. So, she's the oldest of the siblings. Um speaks all kinds of languages. Obviously, she knows she's a native Greek speaker. She speaks Egyptian and Latin and you know, Syrian and and on and on. She's very, very charming and clever. She might not have led with her looks, but you'll hear stories that Cleopatra was actually kind of ugly and she was, you know, more of a great conversation part. But she was she was beautiful. Like she Maybe she wasn't like a a 10, but she was an eight, at least. Um Yeah, that's a great image. See if you can do Cleopatra Elizabeth Taylor rug scene. See if that turns up some results. >> Mhm. Um And um And sh- she had a knack for power. Like she knows how to play the heartstrings of a man. She's uh um She's got She knows Caesar's weakness. Caesar has his weakness for smart, high-status women. Mhm. He's on his third wife now, but she's back in Rome. Yeah, yeah. You want to play it? >> Yeah, yeah, yeah. The rug is such a delicate [music] weave. If I may untie it for you. Turn it over first. But the rug is now right side up. I understand, but I wanted the wrong side up. Or should I flip it over with my sword? >> No, no, no. I find one can tell more about the quality of merchandise by examining the uh backside first. >> [music] >> All hail Cleopatra, kindred of Horus and Ra, beloved of the moon and sun, daughter to Isis, >> [music] >> and of upper and lower Egypt, queen. A damsel. >> [sighs and gasps] [laughter] >> So, yeah, she knows how to make an entrance, right? It was something like that. That's not far off. And um and she also knows how to play the kind of wound I mean I think Elizabeth Taylor does that really well. >> [gasps] >> My back. Oh, oh, let me help you up, madam. Um and so basically Cleopatra wins him over very quickly. And uh because she does this she's she's sort of on the losing side of the war currently. Um but Caesar says we can we can reconcile you you guys. I'll be your mediator. And you know Ptolemy hates this idea or his rather his eunuch and his general hate this idea because they know like It's nice that the eunuch has got such say here. Yeah, let's listen to the guy that chopped his dick off. >> Yeah, well, you know, he's a very learned man, you know, he has other talents. >> got nothing else to do. Right. Um and you know, off I think I don't know if how they did this in Egypt, but often like it would be the parents that did it to like It's an offering. >> Yeah, promote the kid and yeah, there's there's something really >> You got to do it with the second one. If you do it with the first one, you like we don't have another one, that's the end of the bloodline. >> Yeah, yeah. Okay. Um but if he does well, you know, he could he could do great things for his nephews at least. >> [laughter] >> Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. There's no way to make that a good deal. Uh so uh anyway, Caesar uh basically offers to moderate between them and the offer is uh rejected and long story short, he ends up picking Cleopatra and uh Ptolemy ends up Who's [cough and clears throat] the younger brother? >> brother. Yep. Yeah, he ends up uh sort of getting his hand forced by his um by his general Achilles and and the eunuch and they try to have another like coup attempt against Caesar. Caesar defeats them and the boy is um apparently drowned in the Nile in a boating the younger brother. Yeah, yeah, like not not like he's murdered but there was a battle and he was just not found. Probably drowned in the Nile. Um it was um tight family with the Ptolemies then. I mean they are always trying to murder each other and and one up each other and and and sure enough like Cleopatra has this younger sister too, Arsinoe, and she tries to revolt and Caesar crushes her as well and actually captures her and takes her back to Rome and uh marches her in the triumph. Was there any suggestion that Cleopatra and Caesar got it on? Oh, more than a suggestion. Like they become lovers, like for real. And they have a kid, too. Which is a fascinating to think about the ramifications of this. But so, yeah, basically Caesar's never going to turn down a uh a good offer from a high-status woman. And you know, she's a living goddess by Egyptian tradition. She >> Daughter of Isis. Not just daughter of Isis but living embodiment of Isis. Like just like she said, there's a kind of uh you know, fully god but fully human sort of thing going on with with the pharaohs. Uh son of son and kind of like divine avatar of Amun-Ra. Or is it Osiris [clears throat] Osiris with the pharaohs. So, anyway, she's worshipped as a divinity while she's alive. There's great um reliefs like so she she gets portrayed as a Greek to her Greek subjects as the Ptolemies do. Like, you know, looks like a normal human kind of classical statue face. And then there are reliefs of her portrayed as like an Egyptian hieroglyphic lady, too. Might be worth pulling up. >> I want to see I want to see this. Cleopatra Egyptian relief, something like that. A really interesting place, uh uh you know, Ptolemaic Alexandria. Mhm. >> [gasps] >> Um It's blending two things together. It feels like the phasing out of the old world and the phasing in of what would sort of become this what then would be more cosmopolitan. >> Mhm. What then would be built more around rhetoric, philosophy, what then would have been seen as modern and sort of this sort of passing off of but you've got the both of them are happening at the same time. I guess it There you go. That's her and I think that's her and her brother Oh, that's her son, Caesarion. That So, there is Cleopatra on the left um and the other one is the son of Julius Caesar. That's their kid, Caesarion. No way. That image on the left, open that up, Jared. There you go. Wow. Yeah, so that's proper 3,000 BC looking >> Right, like that you could that could be like scratched into a pyramid. You wouldn't know the difference. >> yeah, yeah. Yeah. Oh god, and there's a guy in the bottom corner. >> Yes. Look at how huge that is. Really big. >> Holy [ __ ] And that's the son. That's the you know, illegitimate son of Cleopatra and Not that illegitimate. I mean, he's 15 ft tall. >> Yeah, exactly. What was he called? Caesarion is was his nickname, Little Caesar. Yeah. Yes, he started a great pizza chain and didn't go [laughter] so well. And then he became a pizza magnate. Saw where the real money was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Um but he His His His official name was I think like Ptolemy the 14th. Yeah. Like every single freaking person in that dynasty is named Ptolemy if they're a boy or either Cleopatra or Arsinoe. And there's not a lot of names. I think that might have something to do with this idea that like you know you know you continue to be the embodiment of the same god through the generations. So you like have to take on that dynastic name. >> Dali's story, Salvador Dali? I don't know if I do. >> So his parents had a son about a year or so year and a half before Dali was born. No, sorry, 2 years before Dali was born uh who was also called Salvador. And they uh that son died and then they had another son and called him the same name. And when he was aged two, took him to his dead brother's grave and said, "This is who you are. This is you. You are the reincarnation of your dead brother." Wow. I mean it's just you. It's you again. So that was the start of his life. He's Dali's [ __ ] fascinating. But yeah, that was how he was sort of brought into the world as this weird um recreation of a dead baby. That is amazing. Yeah, cool, eh? All right, so Mhm. What was Caesar's last night like? You mentioned he's accumulated a bunch of enemies, but maybe not shaking the Etch A Sketch enough to actually get rid of them all. Keeps pardoning them. He's maybe erroneously deciding to be uh uh forgiving. Mhm. What does the final day of Caesar's life look like? So um the lead up to this is important because Caesar is uh you know you know he [clears throat] he knows that there are assassination plots. There were even assassination plots 18 months earlier when he got back to Rome finally from the African campaign where he uh defeated Cato and friends. >> [gasps] >> And Cicero mentions this in a speech. He gives a speech in front of Caesar. He's like, "Caesar uh um I have heard it is it has been said that you you tell people I have lived long enough either for nature or for glory. Because he knows about assassination attempts and he dismisses them. He says, "You know what? If they want to kill me, I've had a good run." Mhm. How old is he at this point? He is So, this is 46 when he gets back, so he would be 54. Born in 100 BC. Mhm. And 44 is is the Ides of March when he dies. So, that's [clears throat] that's how old he ends up being. But, I mean, you know, that that's pretty old for a Roman. Like, he's had a pretty good run so far. And but he dismisses these these uh these um plots. And you know, the information just keeps coming in surer and surer. People are trying to kill you, Caesar. Can you please up your security detail? Can you please give yourself a bodyguard? Like, we're begging you. His friends are begging him and he says, "Not going to do that. That's what tyrants do." And sure enough, like, this is the kind of classic mold of how tyrants seize power. Pisistratus of Athens, I mean, you can multiply a lot of examples. You get a bodyguard first. You say, "Oh, no, there's threats against my life. I need a bodyguard, citizens. I just want to be your servant." And >> [snorts] >> and and then that's how you seize power. And Caesar knows that that's the pattern. He's not going to do it. And And it comes to the point where people are continuing to bring in names of potential conspirators. And Caesar says, "I've had it. Anybody bringing me more talk about an assassination plot is going to face consequences." He's like, "You're going to get fired if I hear another about you bringing me an assassination plot." He doesn't want to He doesn't want to hear it. And I think that's because he didn't want to rule over a subjugated, you know, cowed populace. He wanted to rule over free Romans. >> Mhm. Um and he didn't want a police state. He didn't want He wanted people to feel free to say what they whatever they wanted to say. Uh this is clearly demonstrated by a lot of his actions. You know, people are criticizing him, they're making jokes about at Caesar's expense. You know, there's certain lines that you don't cross. Um but he doesn't want to um up his security detail the very last night. Thir- the 14th of March he you know, it's a normal day of business, busy day at at work. And he's got this in- credible, crushing burden of the you know, cases to hear and petitions and laws needing passing. And he's also preparing for this great expedition to Parthia. He's going to avenge Crassus. Crassus was killed by the Parthians, they captured Roman eagles about 10 years earlier. So, he's he's just trying to get get through the next 3 days to get out of town and go back to I mean, Caesar was good at politics, but I think better at war. I think he's better at war. Yeah. Or he's equally as good at war. It's probably a happier place for him. Even in BC times, people were still drowning in admin, is what you're saying? >> Oh, yeah. I mean, like the load that he's carrying. Oh, yeah. It's it's a universal problem. Once they invent writing, you know, it's it's over. >> [ __ ] game over. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the email inbox of ancient Rome. Yeah. And it's funny you should mention email. So, um on the last night Caesar is having dinner. As you know, he he has a like formal dinner every night. There's like nine seats at a typical Roman feast. You you circle around on couches around a central table and you everybody kind of lies down. It's it's weird, but that's how they did it. >> Mhm. And uh >> Horrible for the digestion. >> It's horrible for the digest- digestion, but one advantage is everybody has to have the same conversation. Cuz you're all pointed toward the center of the circle. >> Yeah, as opposed to an elongated table. >> Yeah, so This group over there is speaking like that and this group Yeah. It's interesting. I remember um was it Who is it that suggested that the size of glasses of wine were getting too big around the table? Was it maybe Aristotle? Mhm. And he made a special kind of cup and if you overfilled the cup the entire thing drained. Oh, yeah. >> Basically, his problem was that he wanted to have these really interesting conversations at dinner and people were just getting too drunk. This is before coffee came around and there's this interesting story which you probably >> and all >> I before neutronic I mean they should have had the neutropic toothpicks. Um You there's that big transition was it in sort of the Middle Ages in uh the UK where Britain started to go from just having alehouses to having uh coffee shops as well and this is a boon in uh innovation because people aren't just pissed all the time. They're just not drunk as much. They're stimulated and they're going and getting stuff done. Anyway, I think it's Aristotle that had this issue. And his problem was I want to go to dinner and have all of these interesting conversations, but everybody drinks their wine so fast that the the conversation degenerates into nothingness. So, his suggestion was to his host to make the cup smaller. He says people will drink the same number, but they'll not realize that they're having less. >> Just And it's supposed to be I think it's like an Aristotelian cup. Jared, do a chat GPT search. What was the ancient cup that was made to ensure people didn't overfill it? Uh maybe Aristotle. And it's this interesting this interesting point that okay, well, if we reduce it down it means that the conversational quality will be a bit better. But I suppose if you're sat in a you're probably thinking of the Pythagorean cup. >> Pythagoras. Yeah, also called the cup of greed or greedy cup. It's a special drinking cup from ancient Greece designed so that if you fill it past a certain level, it empties completely. Hm. Isn't that cool? >> That's brilliant. Oh, it's cuz it's a siphon. Yeah, that's right. >> a hidden siphon inside the central column. If you pour wine below the mark line, the cup works normally. If you pour above the line, the siphon activates and the entire cup drains out through the bottom of the stem. For someone who tries to take more than their fair share, they end up with nothing. Legend says Pythagoras used it to teach moderation and fairness among workers or students. And the lesson is greed causes you to lose everything. Isn't that [ __ ] cool? >> So Greek. That's sick. >> Moderation. Yeah. Wise man Pythagoras. Well, you know, it's funny because I mean it and and Plato's symposium that that they decide to pour the the wine they pour water in the wine often for moderation so that you don't you drink less. But they wanted to pour the wine really really light that night because they they're all got smashed the night before and they want to have like a chill conversation that night. But Cato, Caesar's nemesis, was actually known to be a bit of a tippler. Like he would he would often show up to the Senate kind of >> [snorts] >> smelling of wine. Yep. And but that would be because he liked to drink for a long time having philosophical conversations. And it was it was this kind of conversation that that was happening Caesar's last night. So Caesar is at the house of Lepidus and he invites a number of people to the to be among the nine. Lepidus is good good trusted friend of his. And one of them is Decimus Brutus. This is not the the Brutus that appears in Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, you know, "And you too, Brutus." It's a different Brutus. But actually was the Brutus that was is to Caesar in in point of fact historically, funny enough. So, did Shakespeare get that confused? Well, he Was he amalgamate the two on purpose? >> Plutarch gets it confused. This is like one of the one of the kind of flaws of Plutarch's um biography of Caesar. He thinks that um Marcus Brutus who is actually not I mean close to Caesar, he is um because he's the son of Caesar's favorite girlfriend, Servilia. Mhm. But Decimus Brutus was a lot closer to him because he was a a lieutenant of his in Gaul. I mean they're distantly related, these two Brutuses, but they're not close or anything. But Decimus was like naval commander against the Veneti. He's been brilliant in the Civil War. Crucial in the Battle of Marseille. And And in fact, Decimus Brutus was in his will as a second. Decimus is one of the men who who stabbed him the very next day. He's sitting there with him at dinner the night before. And they're they're they're sitting there having their conversation as one does. As as you know, a lot of final night scenes of uh you know, great Romans and great Greeks are like these like philosophical conversations. And I think that's because they had them a lot actually. It's very normal. And so Like [clears throat] the Last Supper of Jesus, that's I mean there were maybe a few additions, but he was probably speaking like that mostly. >> Yeah, like all right, here we go again. Just Tuesday. >> [gasps] >> So, Caesar is sitting there as the conversation's going on. I find this really fascinating. He's he's he's doing his clearing his inbox actually. Cuz he's a busy guy, one has to, and his secretary's sitting there kind of feeding him letters that need to go out that he needs to sign. And so he's writing sincerely on them, you know, signing his name. But the way you do that in Latin the custom is you write vale. Farewell. So all through the night he's writing farewell, farewell, farewell on these letters. And that's what you would have done typically? >> That's what you would have done to say goodbye. Uh but but I mean the fact that he's like filling out letters during dinner. Mhm. I mean this guy has got a [ __ ] ton of work to do. And he's just trying to get it's brainless. He's just kind of Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Whatever. Yes. Go on Cassius. Yes. And um But I find that striking. But at some point in the night she proposes a theme for the philosophical conversation that's going on. Decimus is sitting right there. What is the best kind of death? And the conversation goes this way and that way. Somebody brings up the example of Cyrus the Great, the great king of Persia who founded the Persian Empire. Um Xenophon says, doesn't he that Cyrus made all these arrangements before his death that he wanted to be buried in this way and this should happen and so forth after he was um after he was gone. And of course Caesar had read this book, Xenophon's Cyropaedia. And Caesar's turn comes to him and he says, that sounds horrible. I don't want a long slow death. The best kind of death is one that comes sudden, swift, and unexpected. You know, what is Decimus thinking at that at that moment? But that that's well attested that that's what the conversation was about at some point that night. Prophetic. Yeah, [sighs] man. And then you know, he goes home late and bad dreams. You know, if you've heard the read [snorts] the Shakespeare play, there's all these omens. You know, his wife has this dream that she's She gets him up in the middle of the night that like wind blows open the shutters and you know, he has to get up and shut them and calm down Calpurnia. And she had this dream that she was like holding the bloody Caesar like looking at their house as it's like burning and collapsing. There's all these you know, birds are acting weird. So the story goes you know, a lot of these omens typically happen around great events in the ancient sources, but you know, who knows? I mean I mean the the the murder of a guy like Julius Caesar really is a kind of like if if ever a death is a rip in the fabric of reality, you know, like that that comes pretty close. Um so that was how he spent his last night. It's a very unsettled night. And what about the next day? So it's I think Caesar was um I mean he has a reputation for dismissing omens. He did this when he was consul. You know, his enemies are trying to obstruct him in in the um in the assemblies and they're they're saying, "Oh, I saw a bird flying the wrong way." And "I heard thunder. I heard thunder." It's a blue sky and he's like "I didn't hear you though. Let's get on with business." You know, he just ignores omens for most of his career. Sometimes the omens are bad and he's like, "Let's fight the battle anyway." And he wins. But all these you know, his wife is saying, "I had a bad dream. I don't have a good feeling about this." And ancient omens I think are often kind of uh it's a system that's in place. So before you you go into a campaign you uh before you go into battle, you sacrifice to the gods. You know, you cut open a piglet or a whatever it is and you read the entrails. Or you get the sacred chickens out and you see how are the sacred chickens want to eat their their uh their feed or are they staying in their cage? You know, it's what does this mean? And it's kind of like opening up a space for intuition. The generals often have to make decisions. Leaders often have to make decisions that could be the right decision, but to have to explain why you're making that decision is um would would would undermine the project somehow. Like you don't you want to have a way of explaining intuition. That's That's how I a lot of anthropologists explain. I think it's really compelling. Um but so I think his wife had a bad feeling. I think he had a bad feeling at some point. He was apparently kind of un like I had this stomach issues. It's unspecified, but he felt like out of sorts that morning. >> Mhm. And he was supposed to go to the Senate. There was some business, some important business at hand. A dispute between Mark Antony and uh Dolabella, blah blah blah. And he's like maybe I don't want to go to the Senate today. I'm feeling out of sorts. My wife is telling me to stay home. Uh he goes, you know, down the street. He He lives in the Forum. The Senate's meeting about a mile away. He goes down the street to a buddy's house and to say hi and they they do a little sacrifice. And that sacrifice contains bad omens. We don't know the details, but like he's it's really striking. So he he decides to just stay home that day. And who shows up at his door? But Decimus Brutus. The guy he was having dinner with last night. He says, "Caesar, I heard that you are listening to the the ravings of a of a woman. I mean, I've never heard Caesar to be um bothered by omens in his career. Think of all the battles that we've won after bad omens. Like, come on, Caesar. Let's The Senate's counting on you. They They all cleared their schedules. They're busy men, and you you really trying to make them feel like Rome is the same Rome. This is a whole other issue that, you know, he is kind of becoming this monarchic figure in Rome. Uh he's going to getting accused of wanting to make himself king. He's getting accused of wanting to make himself a god, which is not entirely off base. We could get to that, but So, you know, Decimus makes some good arguments. Come on, soldier up. He's a fellow soldier. And so Caesar reluctantly at first, but you know, he kind of allows himself to be persuaded by Decimus. And it's funny, you know, I mean, whenever Caesar goes anywhere in Rome, the crowds, the throngs, people are saying, "Caesar, kiss my baby." Or "Can you, you know, cancel my debt?" Blah, blah, blah. But uh and this is again well attested. This happens in in Shakespeare's play, but, you know, apparently he had a client, uh like a friend of his whose house he had stayed at in Asia once. And the young man, the son of the house, was in Rome studying philosophy. And probably was connected with the other Brutus, Marcus Brutus, who was one of the ringleaders of the assassination. And this kid, I forget what his name is, comes up to Caesar and like Caesar knows him and he passes a letter to Caesar. He says, "Caesar, you have to read this urgently." >> [gasps] >> Uh Caesar's probably being carried on a litter, but he gets the letter to Caesar. Apparently, Caesar has this in his hand and plans to read it, but this would have been Basically, the guy was trying to tell him about the plot that was very much in action that day. Underway. That was underway that he was walking right into. So, Brutus went to try and encourage Caesar to leave the home to sort of question his agency and sovereignty and belief in himself to to him of what he'd done in the past in an attempt to get him out of the house so that he could be carried through so that he could arrive at the place for the assassination. Well put. Yeah. So that was you know the Senate meeting that they were that they ended up doing the deed at murdering him in the Senate. And uh and there you know the two Brutus's the one that he was with dinner with the night before was the um the guy who got him to come the guy that's in his will. Incredible. And so he yeah he gets to the Senate house once again the omens are bad. You know as you always sacrifice and do some whatever you do before going into the Senate to kind of inaugurate the meeting consuls usually do this. I think Caesar's consul that year. Um and uh omens are bad but he goes in anyway. Yeah. And and he's he's in the Senate house. Uh and and it's his throne as dictator is right under the statue of Pompey the Great. Because the place that they're actually meeting is not the old Senate house which burned down a couple of years earlier. It's this new complex um that that Pompey built with the spoils of his war in the East and it's like a little basement or not basement it's like a a room off the complex that Pompey built for the Senate to meet in. In the forum? In uh so it's it's outside the pomerium it's on it's in the Campus Martius now so it's um I forget what that part of Rome is called um but basically it was an area that wasn't very built up so you could plant this massive you know stone complex with multiple buildings pretty easily uh in this unclaimed land. So he had actually walk from the forum it was like a it's probably a 20 minute walk. Yeah. Um but [clears throat] it that is where the Senate is now officially meeting. And of course there was a statue of Pompey as conqueror, you know, in this prominent place in the Senate house, and it's it's in front of the statue of Pompey the Great that the petitioners come up or that the assassins come up pretending to have some urgent business. "Please, my brother is in exile. Caesar, can you get him pardoned?" No, this is not the time. Please, Caesar, and Brutus comes up, and Decimus comes up, the other Brutus, and Cassius comes up. Caesar, this is a worthy friend of yours. We we we we beg you. Please, you know, you you must spare. And then that's when they have him distracted. They grab his robe, and he at some point before he actually gets stabbed, he's like They're grabbing him. He's like, "What's going on here? This is violence." And uh And that's I think when he realizes at least when the first blow struck. Every man that's surrounding him, it's 15 or 20 guys, probably. There was a There were more people in on the plot, but some are holding the doors, you know, keeping the perimeter to make sure uh the But yeah. And uh and they did the deed. And you know, after they kill him, um after they stab him, there is that moment that is in Plutarch where he turns to Brutus, the the more famous one, his uh And this is Remember, like he's the son of Caesar's like top girlfriend, Servilia. And he had a relationship with this kid. Like he was looking out for his career. Uh he was promoting him. The kid fought on Pompey's side in the Civil War for for some family reasons, but he spared him. So many of these men he spared. >> [gasps] >> And some of them are his trusted like long-term loyalists. It's not just former enemies that were spared that were resentful. It's former loyalists. And uh and he says to to Brutus, "You too, child." Kai su technon. Uh et tu Brute as as Shakespeare says. Um and then they, you know, he bleeds out. Who knows how long it takes, but amazingly, the Senate clears out. Pandemonium. I mean, to kill Julius Caesar like this is this is like a a horrifying idea because it it it really threatens to plunge the Republic back into civil war again. He's the lid holding it all down. This is why Cicero told him that he needs to have a bodyguard because so much is at stake. If you get killed now, we're all screwed. That's That's what Cicero was saying 18 months earlier, and he was very much correct. And uh but the Senate house clears out. He's just there alone on the floor. And nobody wants to go approach him and and and draw close because they're afraid that, you know, one of the assassins will see them and implic- you know, they Nobody knows like what is what is the potential risk of me tending to Caesar's body? And so he just lies there for I become cowards. Yeah. Yeah. Um and then eventually some of Caesar's slaves go in there. They can only find three men. It takes four men to hold a a litter. They can only find three guys to carry Caesar's body back to his house. Uh and it starts to rain on their way back, and the streets are lined. People see his his like arm hanging out. Um and he's brought back to Calpurnia. So >> [gasps] >> still gets me. I mean, I think I think that you can you can say a lot about Caesar, but I I do think that he um he he managed to identify his own success, his own legacy, with what he saw as the flourishing of Rome. You know, it wasn't just about his own glory. Or it was, but to the extent that he felt like he was the man most responsible for whether the state survived and flourished. And uh so I you know But that's not how his enemies saw it, was it? What convinced them that he needed to go? Well, they saw that after the [clears throat] Civil War, Caesar was unquestionably not just the the the first among equals, not just the first man in Rome, but like something was changing. You know, Caesar had fought fought all of his career to end corruption and the the stranglehold of the the establishment oligarchy over offices. I mean, there was incredible wealth inequality and this is kind of like tight click of people that control everything and they get to abuse the provincials at will if they're, you know, the typical way that you uh rise up in Rome is by winning elections and then going out and uh being governor. And usually it's very expensive to get elected. And then you have to go into debt and you recoup your money by by robbing the Greeks or the Gauls or the Spaniards and taking bribes and stuff. It's a system that highly incentivizes corruption. And Caesar wanted to change that, among other things. And um and and I think he eventually decided that this whole game that we've been playing at Rome for 450 years since the Republic was founded since they drove out the kings. You got to remember the Romans have been inoculated against kings much in the same way we are as Americans. Like America was founded by us rejecting King George the III. Rome was the Republic rather was founded by driving out Tarquin the proud who was this brutal, you know, corrupt tyrant in their eyes. And then that it was a a collective government. You have elections for office, you know, you have assemblies to vote on laws and all this stuff. That's what the Republic is to them. That's what Rome is to them. And uh And this is also the game that people like Decimus Brutus, his friend Brutus, the other Brutus Cassius uh basically everybody in the Republic every everybody in the leadership class has had been playing had been I've been expecting to play for their whole lives which is you know, this is how you get honor. You get honor by service to the Republic. You get honor by winning elections. You get honor by winning wars. But now Caesar is basically trying to kind of transition the political system into um something resembling a monarchy. Hm. Doesn't want to call it a king a kingship. Doesn't want to call himself king, but he he's really deliberately taking all the authority into himself because I think he sees that his legacy depends on if if he releases power he's kind of a control freak you might say. If he lets go then it's all going to kind of dissolve again. That people are going to undo his legislation and um they're going to go back to revert to the way the things were. And this is one of the reasons why he just feels like he has to hold on to power. Um but what it what it puts him in this uncomfortable position uh for is every honor na- in the past used to be given by the Roman people. You used to have supreme responsibility as a consul. If you're going to command Rome's armies, uh you are the guy who wins the victory. If you win the consulship, it's because the people of Rome elected you consul, and so on and so on. Honor is granted by the state. And now it seems clear Caesar's been handing out offices basically. Like he's been picking the consuls, he's been picking the praetors. He's been drafting the laws and getting the Senate to rubber stamp them. All the honor flows from this one man. And how is that not slavery in the eyes of a proud Roman? Like you the the most Aristotle talked about the most difficult thing that a uh politician has to do and their most important duty as of a statesman is to correctly, wisely distribute honors. Cuz this is for a guy like Caesar and for a guy like Decimus for for any of these these, you know, super uh Chad Roman uh statesman uh aspirants, the thing the the prize that you're playing for is not wealth, in at least it shouldn't be. It's not it's not pleasure, it's not like fame as such or status as such, it's honor. That's That's what Aristotle would say. That that the highest form of the statesman, the great-souled man, is one who desires great things, considers himself worthy of them, and is correct in that judgment. And that means um um >> [clears throat] >> being worthy of of great things. But what are the greatest things to desire? I mean, this is a question that's perplexed philosophers. But Aristotle says a good life. What is it What is a good life? What is worthy of desire? Uh What is it What is it? Um What does it mean to be worthy of something? And Aristotle says the highest thing that you can desire of external goods is honor. The price that you would be paid for a ransom, no? >> Yeah. Yeah, essentially. And uh you know, it you can desire virtue, you can desire inner peace, you can desire wholeness, you can desire wisdom, but those are all internal goods. But But of of the things that you can kind of strive for, it's honor. And so, this is the highest prize that that um an ambitious man could like you know, make a career on. You know, pursue virtue. You need to be virtuous to be really worthy of honor, etc. Um But And you know, for for a great souled man, even honor is maybe a small prize because like honor can be corrupted, right? >> Mhm. Um corrupt people get get voted honors all the time. Uh so, I don't think that's a problem Caesar had solved. He's a brilliant brilliant statesman, legislator, politician, brilliant with people, but like to get a whole political class of ambitious young men. I mean, all the guys that kill him are like late 30s, early 40s. They're like in their prime, and they still got a lot of gas left, and they're seeing the whole game has been just screwed. Like I was raised to want honor, and honor is is what the people of Rome give you. And now I'm I'm supposed to like do all of this stuff that I was going to do, command armies, uh you know, pass laws. I'm going to all do it as Caesar's employee. Right. Right? Never a boss. Never a patron, always a client. I think that was intolerable for them. It was like a meaning crisis for them. But the the situation that they did put themselves into is that for the rest of time they would be seen as an assassin. Yeah. I mean, I guess maybe it's preferable to be a powerful assassin than a peaceful subordinate maybe in Roman times. Or at least in their version of this philosophy. Yeah. You know, like it's an interesting blend to to think that it would be better to be mutinous and a rebel against somebody that was a great leader, but may have pushed the power too far compared with being a part of an existing structure that had sort of raised Rome up to be a really great empire. >> [snorts] >> Yeah, at the very least they saw more meaning in that path than the other path at the time. There was more self-determination. Yeah. Which is super important. >> They had a lot more agency. I mean, it's very understandable. Dante still puts them in the ninth circle of hell. >> [laughter] >> Betraying a friend. >> [ __ ] Yeah. Alex, you absolutely rule, dude. This has been so much fun. It's so great. And I there's, you know, literally 2,000 years of history that we could go through. Before we close, I got you a little gift. Oh, thank you. Um you know, I don't know how much of a Roman Empire fan you are, Chris, but I'm trying to make you one. Okay. So, um this is a coin that I got from Kinser Coins, uh which I recommend. It's It's Hadrian. You're You're a northern Brit, right? >> Yep. I've been to Hadrian's Wall many a time. >> I figured I figured and you know, if you look at this He's got a nice little beard. I mean that I see a little resemblance there as a matter of fact. It says it says on there Hadrianus Augustus Hadrian Augustus. And um Dude, this is so cool. It says COS on the other side that means consul. So it was minted when he was a consul. And is that are those stars? Are those that I think they're stars. On the what would be the bottom The yeah, this is uh >> What is on the back? It's someone stood in a toga? Yeah, I think that this is Roma. Roma Like it's she's the the goddess that embodies like the divine tutelary goddess of Rome. I can't believe you got me that. >> Yeah. Dude, that is so [ __ ] cool. Hadrian is is the last emperor that Plutarch lived under. He was so he's kind of special to me. Not to be emulated in everything, you know, Hadrian had a Yeah, he he did he did a lot of things Greek style. He but he was a great he was a great fan of the Greeks, the patron of the Greeks. So um this is so good. Thank you so much. This honestly is I could have sat and listened to you for the rest of the month. Uh where should people go? You've got so much stuff going on. Yeah, Cost of Glory podcasts wherever you get your podcasts um Spotify. I'm on YouTube, too. We're trying to make more videos to the audio content and you can go to costofglory.com and I'm I do other stuff beside the podcast. >> and stuff, right? >> Yeah, yeah, we run retreats um in Greece and Rome and >> go and reenact? Is this larping? Are they reenacting? We haven't We haven't done a larp battle yet. Uh we've gotten some demand from that and we've gotten >> You're really tapping into the uh men think about the Roman Empire once every 30 minutes thing. >> Yeah, we're trying to crank that up. >> [laughter] >> It's not enough. I want to get it up to every 15. >> Never enough. Yeah. Yeah, can you ever forget it? Oh man, this is so good. Dude, today's been unreal. I appreciate you coming. I can't wait to have you back on. Yeah. Anytime.