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

Modern Wisdom

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  • Why History Should Awaken Action
    • Alex Petkas says history matters when it quickens action instead of becoming dead knowledge.
    • He uses Nietzsche and Plutarch to argue we should study the past for examples of greatness we can emulate. Transcript: Chris Williamson Why is learning about Roman history useful or instructive at helping us in the modern world? Why should anybody care? Alex Petkas I think that, so when I was starting my podcast, 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 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 cloister or the library or, you know, be a kind of opiate for a life that is not fulfilling. But he says that, and he quotes Goethe at the beginning of that book, that something like, Goethe said, I hate all knowledge that does not quicken and enliven me, like away with it. And history can be very quickening and enlivening. And the way that Nietzsche frames it is the most enlivening approach to history is embodied by one of his favorite authors, Plutarch, this great ancient philosopher who was also one Of history’s most widely read and entertaining biographers. History or mode of like approaching any number of subjects, really not just history, kings and battles, but like art history or like engineering, statuary, and he calls it monumental, The monumental approach to history, where you’re looking not so much for precise facts, although the facts kind of matter for the story. You’re looking for examples of greatness. And you’re looking for those examples, and this is me interpreting Nietzsche a little bit, but I think of history as a kind of source for finding your true self. You’re kind of looking for yourself. You’re looking for somebody who’s trying to do something 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 achievement. And I think this is what the greats tend to get out of history. There’s a lot of stories of this happening. Julius Caesar and the statue of Alexander is a famous one. So that’s what I look to history for. And it’s where I’ve gotten a lot of my own inspiration. (Time 0:00:00)
  • Caesar Wept Before Alexander’s Statue
    • Caesar wept before Alexander’s statue in Spain because, by that age, Alexander had ruled vast peoples while he felt he’d achieved nothing.
    • Alex Petkas treats the scene as Caesar’s painful recognition of the life he believed he should live. Transcript: Alex Petkas What about Julius Caesar? What can we learn about living a good life from him? Well, to come back to this example, that is probably my favorite story about Caesar. And it’s a famous story. So people might have heard of it, but maybe they haven’t like kind of grasped the true meaning of it. So Caesar is a young man in sort of mid-career, early 30s. He’s gotten a job as a quester. And that’s like, for what, he gets sent off for his tour of duty one year to Spain, which is a Roman province. And a quester is like a chief of staff, the paper guy for like a Roman governor, consul or a pro consul. And at one of his leisure moments, Caesar is going around with his friends in a temple and a 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 not with them. And he’s standing in front of a statue of Alexander the Great in this temple of Hercules. And they’re like, Caesar, are you coming? Wait a sec. Are you crying? Because 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, yet I have done nothing worthy of great Renown. 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. They were a little bit more open. They were about like us. The Greeks are crying all the time. I mean, if you read Homer, Achilles is bawling and throwing ash on himself when his buddy Patroclus dies in the Trojan War. And in the Odyssey, it’s like every single time somebody mentions the word Troy, everybody just bursts out in tears. And his family’s always crying for him because they don’t know where he is. And Odysseus is always crying about everything. But the Romans were a little bit more restrained. So I think for Julius Caesar to cry there, it’s something happened that was really significant for him. And how I read that is Caesar, I mean, he’s already had a pretty promising career so far. Some great stories already have happened from early in his youth. He’s a quester, which is not nothing. He’s got the Roman Medal of Honor equivalent, 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 realizing in this moment what his destiny is. Or if you want to not use the word destiny, he’s realizing like what he should be doing. And that’s the moment where it kind of hits him. It’s painful to realize that you haven’t been living the life to the full extent of what you should be doing and are capable of doing. And I think that’s a really powerful moment for, and it kind of like encapsulates how, is why I think it 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 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 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, you know, definitely learn from that lesson of trying to find that unique resonance with somebody who tells you what you’re supposed to be like. And I think that Caesar had this depth to him that illustrates also. (Time 0:05:18)
  • Caesar Mocked His Pirates Then Crucified Them
    • Captured by pirates, Caesar mocked their low ransom and told them he would return and execute them.
    • After release, he raised a fleet, captured them, and crucified them after first cutting their throats as a grim courtesy. Transcript: Chris Williamson What was that story about Caesar and the pirates? That was when he was young, right? Yeah. Yeah. That’s another great story. Alex Petkas Another, another kind of like flash of his brilliance. So he’s, uh, he’s off cavorting in Asia, uh, Asia miners, young man. And, um, this is before Pompey cleans up the seas for the pirates. And so he gets captured by pirates, as one does during those times. And he, I think he’s like on a study trip, actually, at the time. So he’s very young, like 20, 23. And the pirates want to ransom him. And 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. Because I think partly because to kind of troll them, partly because he is, 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 because like, you know, the Greek word for honor is, is team A. It means price, you know, it’s, it’s the price is literally the price that you comrades would be willing to ransom you for if you got captured. Like, it’s quantifiable. It’s very quantifiable. Like in Homer, you know, we think of honor as an 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. And the funny thing about that story is, well, there’s a lot of funny things. But, you know, while he’s there with the pirates, Plutarch, who’s his greatest biographer, says, you know, Caesar would sort of, he would joke around with them. And he would write compositions. He’s like, know, rocking around in the hole there, writing speeches. And 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 hanging out with you. And they would say, oh, Caesar. And then he said, you know, someday I’m going to come back after you ransom me and I’m going to execute every single one of you. And they said, ah, I’ll seize this kid. We love this kid. Pour him another drink. You know, and then that’s exactly what he does. Right. He gets ransomed. And he, the um, that is responsible for that part of the sea is, um, uh, I think he, no, he raises a fleet with his own funds and he goes and he, you know, 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 dawdling. 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 a kindly host to them, he does them the, the courtesy of having their throat 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 I think it’s a perfect combination of his winning charm, his deep sense for the political stakes of every single thing that he does, raising his price, making a scene, and making a Statement by fulfilling his promise in the most cold blooded way possible. (Time 0:25:48)
  • How Caesar Won Rome Before Commanding Armies
    • Caesar first became popular as a stylish anti-establishment aristocrat who prosecuted corrupt governors and signaled justice against entrenched elites.
    • Alex Petkas says he paired playboy charisma, gifts, and visible public stunts with attacks on Sullan oligarchs. Transcript: Alex Petkas 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 just a really stylish guy. 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. You know, it’s kind of like, you know, when I was in high school, a lot of kids would like let their pants sag down. It was like the cool look. Yeah, the Caesar’s doing that. Like, let’s let our toga sag a little bit. But it was like, you know, it was stylish and classy. Kind of, and, you know, the older men at Rome would say, oh, that’s effeminate. But Caesar knew that it would draw attention, that he could pull it off. And one of the ways that he attracts attention is by prosecuting corrupt governors when he’s just in his 20s. He does these sort of publicity stunt, like young DA prosecuting the whatever, city councilmen. And he loses, I think, most of these, but he makes a statement of what he stands for. And I think he knows from a very early age that he’s kind of an anti-establishment figure. Sulla dies soon after he becomes a dictator. And in his youth, Sulla basically firmly established the ultimate oligarchy. And everybody in power now in Rome was like a buddy of Sulla. And they have no serious challengers. They’re corrupt, they’re fat, they’re slow, they’re plundering the provincials. And Caesar kind of takes a stand for justice throughout his early career. And in one of these cases, there was a riot 30 years earlier. This is funny. And some populist leaders, people from Caesar’s faction got murdered. Saturninus was the most, well, there was a riot in the forum and then they arrested the guys, they put them in the Senate house and then people snuck up to the roof in the night. They removed the roof tiles and they hurled these roof tiles down on Saturninus and his buddies and they killed him. So 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 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, the Rabirius. And he says, you know, uh, we’re gonna, we’re gonna hold you responsible for your crimes 30 years ago. Like Rome is a place of justice. And they basically, you know, long story short, 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 minute, uh, political shenanigans by Rabirius’s friends. They like raise this flag and they, you know, Oh, there’s a kind of like political chicanery where you can say the omens are bad and it kind of calls off the whole thing. And Caesar, I think it kind of expected them to do that. Um, but, uh, the point was about the statement, you know, that oligarchs, aristocrats from 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 a master at winning the respect of his soldiers. He was always fighting in the front lines. There’s many stories about this, the incredible loyalty that his soldiers in particular had for him. But he was 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. (Time 0:29:25)
  • Why Caesar’s Soldiers Would Die For Him
    • Caesar forged extreme loyalty by sharing hardship, remembering centurions’ names, and fighting in the front lines.
    • His men starved through siege conditions, ate weed-cakes, and still said they would rather eat tree bark than surrender. Transcript: Alex Petkas What was the loyalty that he generated? Just how loyal were his followers? Well, so one instance of this is in the Civil War that illustrates this is this guy, Granius Petro, is a guy we wouldn’t know his name otherwise, but he’s a quester in Caesar’s army and, Uh, gets, he’s a 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 optimist commander says, uh, granius Petro, you know, we’re gonna, we’re Gonna 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 gonna 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 gonna, we’re gonna not let him morally outclass us. We’re We’re just going to sell you in the slave market, all of you. Um, and hopefully you’ll get ransomed maybe, but Grannyus 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 Granius 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 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 enemies spare him. Another great instance, I mean, the Caesar soldiers had this incredible endurance throughout all of his campaigns. They’re willing to fight for him to the death. 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. One instance, again, later from Caesar’s career, he’s fighting this great kind of trench war, siege war with Pompey. There’s like a 17-mile 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 it’s 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. He’s got 20,000, 30,000 men. They’re eating all the food in the area. They’re 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, um, and at some point, uh, Pompey’s guys have enough 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, uh, 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 starve to death before giving up the fight. And one of these cakes, imagine a cow patty. One of these cakes is brought to Pompey, know his his enemy the commander and he says good god we are fighting with beasts and and uh and they go to caesar and they say we would rather eat Tree bark than surrender um and how was he able to generate that he fights in the front lines with him all the time he’s he risks his life 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 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 troops were eating The bad olive oil, he would eat the bad olive oil. If his troops are sleeping on the ground, if his officer corps, he’s always going around lightning speed, blitzing around campaigns, and often they have to stay in weird places. If his officers are sleeping on the ground, he’ll sleep on the ground. He’ll give a good one bed. 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’s very lavish with these guys too. Like he, his, his, um, what he does, he does amass a lot of money when he’s conquering Gaul, for example, but it’s always only to give it to his friends, to give it to the people of Rome, to Do something with it. He always sees money as a tool and riches as a tool and gift as a tool to win, to bind people closer to himself. Because this is where his real power lies. And this is where I think in general real power (Time 0:34:02)
  • Caesar Built Power By Brokering The Triumvirate
    • The First Triumvirate worked because Caesar solved mutual blockages for Pompey and Crassus while they still distrusted each other.
    • He traded political help for future backing, then bound Pompey closer by marrying him to Julia. Transcript: Chris Williamson What was the relationship between him and Pompey? Because you said previously they were sort of loosely affiliated and then they do the triumvirate. So instead of trying to beat them, he actually decides to do that thing with Crassus and Pompey. What’s the arc of his big enemies across his life? Yeah. Alex Petkas So Pompey is, they’re friendly for most of their career. And Pompey is a kind of moderate populist. Pompey mostly wants to, in his early career, he fights for Sulla, but soon after Sulla dies, Pompey doesn’t, he’s not really into politics that much. He mostly wants to just get himself sent off as commander of Rome’s armies to fight all kinds of wars. Because I think that’s his happy place. Pompey is an excellent administrator. He’s great at logistics. I think 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 become consul, which is what he becomes, you would have to have like, you know, a whole sequence of offices. But Pompey’s just he’s just the golden boy. Pompey is 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. Uh, 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 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 really tight with Pompey. Who he is tight with is Crassus, the richest man in Rome, another fascinating figure that I did a biography on, on the cost of glory. Crassus finances Caesar’s career. He’s basically the one holding the note for all of Caesar’s colossal political debts. And 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 has just come back from this glorious Eastern campaign. He’s defeated this general Mithridates. He’s essentially conquered Judea and he’s defiled the temple in Jerusalem. 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, 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 sending him money and promising to support him in war politics. So Pompey has a lot of needs and it’s all getting blocked by the Senate. He’s just not that great at the political game. And by this point, Pompey is sort of an outsider from the optimists, from the kind of establishment conservatives who are blocking Pompey. They think he’s getting too powerful. Caesar is nobody at this point. I mean, yeah, he’s a promising young politician, but he’s not like a powerful man. So we talk about the triumvirate, but it’s Caesar brokering a deal with Pompey. And then Crassus, on the other hand, has some tax breaks he wants for basically his portfolio companies who are equestrian tax collectors. And they can’t get it through the Senate. Both Pompey and Crassus are outsiders to the optimum establishment. The main guy who’s the kind of figurehead of the conservatives is this young guy, Cato, who’s the Stoic, famously becomes Caesar’s worst nemesis. And Caesar basically comes to these two 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 back behind the scenes. But look, you both have needs. 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, that’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 the way to help them out. And, and 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 crass. So, you know, making peace between the two of them. Um, and, and it was a pretty good relationship for a long time. And once, once Caesar gets elected consul, his dear, dear daughter, Julia, his one child, uh, up to that point, he marries her off to Pompey the Great. And he becomes Pompey’s father-in even though he’s a younger man somewhat. And by all accounts, that marriage was not just a political marriage, but it became a very loving relationship. And so, you know, they had this long connection long before the Civil War that made them mortal enemies of each other, which I think is what makes it kind of even more (Time 0:40:57)
  • How Caesar Brokered The First Triumvirate
    • Caesar positioned himself as the broker between Pompey (the great general) and Crassus (the richest man) by offering to get each of their agendas through the Senate.
    • He framed their rivalry as mutual needs he could resolve, promising legislative wins and future favors in exchange for political support.
    • To cement the alliance he arranged the marriage of his daughter Julia to Pompey, creating both political and personal bonds.
    • That marriage reportedly became genuinely loving, deepening the connection between Caesar and Pompey long before their eventual civil war.
    • The arrangement neutralized their mutual obstruction and allowed Caesar to rise from outsider to central power broker in Rome. Transcript: Alex Petkas 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 back behind the scenes. But look, you both have needs. 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, that’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 the way to help them out. And, and 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 crass. So, you know, making peace between the two of them. Um, and, and it was a pretty good relationship for a long time. And once, once Caesar gets elected consul, his dear, dear daughter, Julia, his one child, uh, up to that point, he marries her off to Pompey the Great. And he becomes Pompey’s father-in even though he’s a younger man somewhat. And by all accounts, that marriage was not just a political marriage, but it became a very loving relationship. (Time 0:45:50)
  • How Pompey Was Turned Against Caesar
    • Caesar and Pompey became enemies after distance, Julia’s death, Crassus’s death, and Senate pressure turned a three-way balance into a dangerous two-man rivalry.
    • Alex Petkas argues Cato’s camp made Pompey their shield against Caesar and helped create the conflict they feared. Transcript: Chris Williamson And then how do Pompey and Caesar end up at war? Alex Petkas A long story, I guess, but in some, when Caesar, how it all happens, 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 he spends the years, 59 is the first triumvirate, so he spends the years 58 through 52 conquering Gaul. And Rome controls a little strip along the coast. Gaul is France, of course. But the Gauls, the Celts is the other name for them. They are not just a kind of, you know, peaceable farmer, unsuspecting society of, you know, we just want to like live our peaceful lives. Why are these Romans coming and conquering us? I mean, this is a confederation of incredibly warlike tribes who have threatened Rome on many occasions. And just in the previous generation, there was a great Gallic invasion that stopped by Gaius Marius. And several centuries earlier, the Gauls actually sacked the city of Rome, taken at the only time that ever happened up to that point. So there’s a real threat there, arguably. And 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 is absent from the city Of Rome and from Italy for seven years, well, really eight years 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. He dies on this great Persian expedition, this campaign to invade not Iran, but Iraq, where the Persians were in charge. So that was the kind of like last, when you have three men, they can kind of balance each other out. But when it becomes two men, 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 had their eye on him since he was a young man. Sulla was right about this kid. There is many Mariuses in him. And Pompey has been an outsider, but 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 he’s 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 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 eight years. He’s got 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 console. And they basically, you know, long story short, they kind of play Pompey and Caesar, 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 the final tether, final tether that held them together. Um, and after that, the civil war. Chris Williamson Cause otherwise there would have been some leverage over Caesar. We have your daughter. Alex Petkas Oh yeah. I hadn’t thought about that. But 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 bound them together. It was a boy that was born that died soon after his mother died. So I think that it wasn’t an obvious fit for Pompey to be their shield, their man. He’d always been an outsider, and Caesar could have kind of kept him loyal. It’s very hard when you’re in France and this is all happening in Rome, 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 if he had been able to be there in person, he believed 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 Pompey. The Civil War. Yeah, the Civil War. Let’s just meet. Let’s work this all out. (Time 0:47:32)
  • What Crossing The Rubicon Actually Meant
    • Crossing the Rubicon meant bringing an army from Cisalpine Gaul into Italy proper, an act that effectively declared war.
    • After the Senate named him a public enemy, Caesar crossed with one legion and blitzed through Italy before Pompey could respond. Transcript: Chris Williamson The story of crossing the Rubicon? Yeah. This episode is brought to you by Whoop. According to my Whoop, I’ve tracked nearly 2000 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 two weeks of battery life from a single charge. It’s got 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 slash modern wisdom. That’s join.whoop slash modern wisdom. I mean, it’s something that I’ve heard people say all the time. It’s a Rubicon moment, crossing of the Rubicon. I have 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. Alex Petkas So there’s a kind of a complicated buildup, a standoff, you know, everybody’s always kind of ratcheting up their demands as Caesar’s like, I want to come back to Rome without prosecution. And the Senate’s like, over our dead bodies, you know, concessions going back and forth, being rejected. And so as this is all going on, Caesar’s getting his armies ready. He doesn’t want to fight a civil war. I think he’s, you know, and he always said that. And I think it’s right. Because 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 and he’s got two advantages. 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 and forts. They’re not close. He’s got one legion with him on the border, the legal border between Italy and basically Northern Italy. What we call northern Italy today was what they would call Cisalpine Gaul. It’s not like Italy proper. And if you lead an army into Italy without disbanding it, it’s like technically an act of war. 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, 4,500 men or so. And at this final moment, the negotiations break down and the Senate declares him a public enemy. They say, Caesar is, you know, he’s not responding to our demands. We’ve had enough. And they officially basically declare war on him. And the moment he gets that advice, the very next day, actually, he knew what he was going to do the next day, but he pretends like nothing’s happening on that day. He’s 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 gets lost in the woods because it’s dark. I mean, 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, as he stood there before the Rubicon, he saw a great Winged figure blowing a trumpet. It’s like the gods are calling him to war. It’s like the Valkyries or something. But what he says is he’s there with his officers and he knows if he crosses that river that he’s declaring war back on the Senate. And so he says, let the die be cast. And the famous words, it’s actually a quote from one of his favorite dramas or a comedy from the Nander, like let the die be cast as, as one does when one is entering upon a highly risky thing With uncertain results, as Blutarch says. And so he crosses the Rubicon very quickly. And within a day, he has just blitzed down and captured a city 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 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 and the Senate decide they’ve got to get out of there. They’ve got to rethink their grand strategy. And they go to Greece to basically muster up and collect a bunch of ships and a bunch of troops in the east to come back and reinvade Italy and destroy Caesar. 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. (Time 0:54:28)
  • Pompey’s Murder Shocked Caesar In Egypt
    • After Pharsalus, Pompey fled to Egypt, where advisers murdered him to curry favor with Caesar and avoid hosting the losing side.
    • Caesar reportedly cried when shown Pompey’s head and ring because he had wanted Pompey alive and pardoned. Transcript: Alex Petkas You mentioned Egypt there. What’s the story of Caesar and Cleopatra? Yeah. Well, so, fast forward, you know, Caesar’s first campaign is in Spain. His second campaign in the Civil War is in Greece, he defeats Pompey at the battle of Pharsalus, which is the really should have been 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 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 he doesn’t ever reach the shore, he basically comes up with his warships, and the Egyptians say, oh yes, we’re Really glad to see you, Pompey. Come ashore, we’ve got the whole reception ready for you. Just get in this little boat. And there’s reefs that a big ship like yours would probably founder on. So just trust us. We’re going to get you in this little boat and take you to shore. And Pompey gets on the boat. He probably knows what’s going to happen, he has no hope at this point. He’s just crestfallen. He’s dispirited. He thought he was going to win against Caesar. It was an upset victory at Pharsalus. And I think it just kind of shattered him. And I think there’s, I’m trying to remember exactly how they frame it. There’s a moment where the boat captain is like, come on, Pompey, there’s nothing to be worried about. You can trust us. 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 way from the warship, he never makes it to shore. They murder him. Who’s they? What’s going on in Egypt right now is there’s a civil war happening. Egypt is ruled at this point by 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 everywhere, isn’t he? And so there’s a conflict going on between these two teenage, one is a teenager, one’s a 20-year siblings of the pharaoh who died. It’s funny to think of these Greeks as pharaohs, but that’s what they would have called them in Egypt. 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 make Caesar really happy is if we just killed Pompey and presented Caesar with Pompey’s head and said, hey, we did you a favor. And if we did that, you know, 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 apart. In the middle of our own war. In the middle of our own war, it’s going to be just a total mess. So they kind of nip it in the bud. And it kind of made sense. I think what would have made more sense is for them to just arrest Pompey because Caesar wanted Pompey alive, actually. Chris Williamson He kept on pardoning his enemies during the Civil War. Alex Petkas Yes, he wanted to pardon Pompey. He pardoned enemy after enemy uh domitius uh patro patraus 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 because They end up assassinating him we’ll get to that maybe but um and Caesar also knows that if Pompey, if he captures Pompey and spares him, if he could just get in the same room face-to with This man that he hasn’t seen in the better part of 10 years, that they could work something out. He could convince Pompey to get the troops to stand down, to get everybody 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 want to fight this war, but he was willing to fight it if they wanted to fight it with him. And so when he lands ashore, they present him with the signet ring of Pompey. This has a great, I think it had a lion on it. It was unmistakable. Chris Williamson And then they give him the head of Pompey. Just in case you weren’t sure. Here you are. Just in case you weren’t sure whose ring that is. Yeah. Came from the hand of the head. Do you know whose ring that is? Yeah, yeah, yeah. Alex Petkas Do you know? Do you want to guess? There it is. And that’s the second time that said to have cried. He was the consul of Rome. I think he cried because this was his friend. It really was his friend. And he all, his, well, the cynics will say that there were crocodile tears, that Caesar was secretly happy. But 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 big man now and Pompey would be kind of, his career would be over, let’s be frank, after losing a civil war. Maybe he could go into a dignified exile. But this was the father of his son before the son died. This was the man who took care of his daughter. Like, they had this really personal relationship. And so Caesar was actually quite pissed. And he ended up killing all the men who called the hit on Pompey. No way. Yeah, because they were basically the sibling of the rival Ptolemies that’s controlling Alexandria is this kid Ptolemy. Ptolemy the 13th, I think. He’s 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 (Time 1:03:07)
  • Cleopatra’s Entrance Won Caesar Over
    • Cleopatra smuggled herself into Caesar’s palace quarters rolled in bedding, making a theatrical entrance aimed at winning him over.
    • Alex Petkas says her languages, charm, and instinct for power helped Caesar choose her side in Egypt’s civil war, and they became lovers. Transcript: Alex Petkas Okay, so she gets carried in. So she gets carried in and, you know, she knows how to make an interest too. From that moment, Cesar sees like, all right, this is another show person like myself. She’s 20 years old. She’s the oldest of the siblings. Speaks all kinds of languages. Obviously, she’s a native Greek speaker. She speaks Egyptian and Latin and Syrian 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 beautiful. Like, maybe she wasn’t like a 10, but she was an eight at least. Yeah, that’s a great image. See if you can do Cleopatra Elizabeth Taylor rug scene. See if that turns up some results. And 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 he’s on his third wife now but She’s back in rome yeah yeah you want to play it yeah yeah the rug is such a delicate weave. Chris Williamson If I may untie it for you. Turn it over first. But the rug is now right tied 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 backside first. All hail Cleopatra, kindred of Horace and Ra, beloved of the moon and sun, dotted to Isis, and of upper and lower Egypt, queen. Alex Petkas So, yeah, she knows how to make an interest, right? It was something like that. It’s not far off. And she also knows how to play the kind of wound. I mean, I think Elizabeth Taylor does that really well. Oh, my back. Oh, let me help you up, madam. And so, basically, Cleopatra wins him over very quickly. And because she does this, she’s sort of on the losing side of the war currently. But Caesar says, we can reconcile 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. Chris Williamson It’s nice that the eunuch has got such say here. Yeah. Let’s listen to the guy that chopped his dick off. Alex Petkas Yeah. Well, you know, he’s a very learned man. You know, he has other talents. He’s got nothing else to do. Right. And, you know, I think, I don’t know how they did this in Egypt, but often like it would be the parents that did it to like. Chris Williamson It’s an offering. Yeah. Promote the kid. And yeah, there’s something really. You got to do it with the second one. If you do it with the first one, like if we don’t have another one, that’s the end of the bloodline. Alex Petkas Yeah. Yeah. Okay. But if he does well, you know, he could do great things for his nephews at least. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. There’s no way to make that a good deal. So anyway, Caesar basically offers to moderate between them and the offer is rejected. And long story short, he ends up picking Cleopatra and Ptolemy ends up- Who’s the younger brother. Younger 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 apparently drowned in the Nile in a boating. The younger brother. Yeah, yeah. Not like he’s murdered, but there was a battle, and he was just not found. Probably drowned in the Nile. It was unfortunate. 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 fascinating to think about the ramifications of this. But so yeah, basically Caesar’s never going to turn down a good offer from a high-status woman. And she’s a living goddess by Egyptian tradition. She is- Daughter of Isis. Daughter of Isis. Not just daughter of Isis, but living embodiment of Isis. Just like she said, there’s a kind of fully God, fully human sort of thing going on with the pharaohs, son and kind of like divine avatar of Amun-Ra, or is it Osiris with the pharaohs? So anyway, she’s worshipped as a divinity while she’s alive. There’s great reliefs. So 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. Jared, I want to say this. Cleopatra, Egyptian relief, something like that. A really interesting place, Ptolemaic Alexandria. Chris Williamson 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, 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, but you’ve got the, both of them are happening at the same time. Alex Petkas And I guess it, there you go. That’s her and I think that’s her and her brother. Oh, that’s her son, Caesarian. So there’s Cleopatra on the left. Um, and the (Time 1:16:13)
  • How Caesar Was Lured Into The Senate Trap
    • Caesar nearly stayed home after bad omens and Calpurnia’s fears, but Decimus Brutus shamed him into attending the Senate.
    • He carried an unread warning letter into Pompey’s complex, where conspirators crowded him with petitions and stabbed him beneath Pompey’s statue. Transcript: Alex Petkas It was a very unsettled night. And what about the next day? So it’s, I think Caesar was, um, he has a reputation for dismissing omens. He did this when he was consul. His enemies are trying to obstruct him in the assemblies. And 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. 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 a, it’s a system that’s in place. So before you, you go into a campaign, you are, before you go into battle, you sacrifice to the God, 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, do the sacred chickens want to eat their, their, uh, their feed or are they staying in their cage? You know, what does this mean? 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 a lot of anthropologists explain. I think that’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 stomach issues. It’s unspecified, but he felt like out of sorts that morning. And he was supposed to go to the Senate. There was some business, some important business at hand. They did a dispute between Mark Antony and 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. He goes, you know, down the street, 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 do a little sacrifice. And that sacrifice contains bad omens. We don’t know the details, but it was really striking. So 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 you are listening to the ravings of a woman. I mean, I’ve never heard Caesar to be bothered by omens in his career. Think of all the battles that we’ve won after bad omens. Like, come on, Caesar, the Senate’s counting on you. They all cleared their schedules, they’re busy men. And you’re really trying to make them feel like Rome is the same Rome. This is a whole other issue that he is kind of becoming this monarchic figure in Rome. He’s 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, it’s easier kiss my baby or can you, you know, cancel my debt, blah, Blah, blah. But, and this is again, well attested. This happens in Shakespeare’s play, but, you know, apparently he had a client, 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. Uh, Caesar’s probably being carried in a litter, but he gets the letter to Caesar and 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. Chris Williamson 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 remind 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. Alex Petkas Well put. Yeah. So that was the Senate meeting that they ended up doing the deed at, murdering him in the Senate. And the two Brutuses, the one that he was with dinner with the night night before was the, um, the guy who got him to come the guy that’s in his will. Incredible. And so, yeah, he gets to the Senate house. Once again, the omens are bad, you know, as you always sacrifice, do some, whatever you do, uh, 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 he’s, he’s in the Senate house. Uh, 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 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 room off the complex that Pompey built the Senate to meet in. In the forum? In, uh, so it’s, it’s outside the pomerium. It’s in, 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 in this unclaimed land. So he had to actually walk from the forum. It was probably (Time 1:38:23)
  • Why Caesar’s Assassins Thought Killing Him Was Necessary
    • Caesar’s killers believed monarchy destroyed the Roman system that gave ambitious men honor through elections, commands, and public recognition.
    • Alex Petkas says Caesar centralized offices and honors so completely that proud Romans felt reduced from actors in the republic to Caesar’s employees. Transcript: Chris Williamson What convinced them that you needed to go? Alex Petkas Well, they saw that after the Civil War, Caesar was unquestionably, not just the first among equals, not just the first man in Rome, but like something was changing. All of his career to end corruption and the stranglehold of the establishment oligarchy over offices. I mean, there was incredible wealth inequality. And there’s this kind of like tight clique of people that control everything and they get to abuse the provincials at will. If they’re, you know, the typical way that you rise up in Rome is by winning elections and then going out and 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 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 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. It’s like America was founded by us rejecting King George III. Rome was, the Republic rather, was founded by driving out Tarquin the Proud, who was this brutal, corrupt tyrant in their eyes. And then it was a collective government. You have elections for office, 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 this is also the game that people like Desmus Brutus, his friend, Brutus, the other Brutus, Cassius, basically everybody in the Republic, everybody in the leadership classes Had been playing, had 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 something resembling a monarchy. He doesn’t want to call it a kingship. He doesn’t want to call himself king, but he’s really deliberately taking all the authority into himself because I think he sees that his legacy depends on. 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 that 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 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, 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. 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? The most, Aristotle talked about the most difficult thing that a politician has to do. And their most important duty of a statesman is to correctly wisely distribute honors because 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 statesman uh aspirants the thing the the prize that you’re playing for is not wealth, at least it shouldn’t be. It’s not pleasure. It’s not like fame as such or status as such. It’s honor. That’s what Aristotle would say, 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 being worthy of great things. But what are the greatest things to desire? I mean, this is a question that’s perplexed philosophers. What is a good life? What is worthy of desire? What does it mean to be worthy of something? And Aristotle says the highest thing that you can desire of external goods is honor. Essentially. And you can desire virtue, you can desire inner peace, you can desire wholeness, you can desire wisdom, but those are all internal goods. But of the things that you can kind of strive for, it’s honor. And so this is the highest prize that an ambitious man could make a career on, pursue virtue. You need to be virtuous to be really worthy of honor, et cetera. Um, but, and, and, you know, for, for a great sold man, even honor is maybe a small prize because like honor can be corrupted, right? Um, corrupt people get, get voted honors all the time. I don’t think that’s a problem Caesar had solved. He’s a brilliant, brilliant statesman, legislator, politician, brilliant with people, but to get a whole political class of ambitious young men, I mean, all the guys that kill them Are late 30s, early 40s. They’re 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 (Time 1:49:50)