1 00:00:17,039 --> 00:00:20,960 We're back with another edition of the Federalist Radio Hour. I'm Emily Jasinski, 2 00:00:21,039 --> 00:00:23,600 culture editor here at the Federalist. As always, you can email the show 3 00:00:23,640 --> 00:00:27,480 at radio at the Federalist dot com, follow us on Twitter at fdr LST. 4 00:00:27,679 --> 00:00:31,679 Make sure to subscribe wherever you download your podcasts, and to the premium 5 00:00:31,760 --> 00:00:35,880 version of our website as well. I'm joined today by my colleague David Harsani, 6 00:00:35,960 --> 00:00:39,240 senior editor at The Federalist, host of Your Wrong as well, and 7 00:00:39,399 --> 00:00:42,920 we are both delighted to be joined by our guest Tom Holland, who is 8 00:00:42,960 --> 00:00:47,119 the author of the new book Packs, War and Peace in Rome's Golden Age 9 00:00:47,119 --> 00:00:50,880 and the host of one of David and my favorite podcasts, rest Is History. 10 00:00:51,240 --> 00:00:54,560 Tom, thanks for coming on Federalist Radio Hour. Thank you very much 11 00:00:54,560 --> 00:00:57,200 for having me to wait to be here. Yeah. Absolutely, David and 12 00:00:57,280 --> 00:01:00,799 I have both made our way through Packs, which is achievements. So first 13 00:01:00,840 --> 00:01:03,920 of all, congratulations on that. It must have been the guy. It 14 00:01:03,959 --> 00:01:08,159 must have been a real labor of love, because like Dominion, like many 15 00:01:08,200 --> 00:01:12,159 of your books, it is just the level of detail is really incredible, 16 00:01:12,159 --> 00:01:15,680 the level of storytelling is really incredible, and on that level, I wanted 17 00:01:15,719 --> 00:01:19,719 to ask one of the things you have spent a lot of time thinking about 18 00:01:19,760 --> 00:01:25,640 over the years is where these various kind of seasons in history start. Here. 19 00:01:25,760 --> 00:01:30,319 You start Packs with with Nero, you end with Hadrian. And what 20 00:01:30,480 --> 00:01:33,439 is it, Tom that you think you know those are? Why are those 21 00:01:33,480 --> 00:01:38,239 the sort of good landmarkers for Packs after all of your research and thought that 22 00:01:38,280 --> 00:01:42,079 went into this book. Well, it's the It's the third actually in a 23 00:01:42,239 --> 00:01:46,359 series of books that I've written on the history of the Roman Empire. The 24 00:01:46,359 --> 00:01:51,200 first one, Rubecon, covered the claps of the Republic up to the up 25 00:01:51,239 --> 00:01:55,840 to the emergence of the man who will be Augustus, and then the second 26 00:01:55,879 --> 00:02:00,799 one, Dynasty, covered the family of Augustus, and Packs opens with the 27 00:02:00,879 --> 00:02:05,560 suicide of Nero. As you said, who is the last of the fact 28 00:02:05,560 --> 00:02:08,400 the family of Augustus, And as by this point has become a god. 29 00:02:08,479 --> 00:02:13,280 I mean, he's literally been elevated into the heavens, and so all those 30 00:02:13,520 --> 00:02:17,599 like Nero who can claim a blood link to him in a sense are touched 31 00:02:17,759 --> 00:02:23,879 by a hint of the divine. And that's why Nero is acknowledged as the 32 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:29,080 ruler of the world. There's a sense that because he shares in the divine 33 00:02:29,199 --> 00:02:34,199 character of Augustus, he's uniquely qualified to rule the empire. But when he 34 00:02:34,719 --> 00:02:38,080 when he goes everywhere, everyone else he was a member of augustus family has 35 00:02:38,080 --> 00:02:43,960 already been wiped out. Nero leaves no one behind him, And so for 36 00:02:44,000 --> 00:02:46,919 the first time, the Romans are facing the issue of, well, if 37 00:02:47,000 --> 00:02:51,120 we don't have someone from the family of Augustus to rule us, then what 38 00:02:51,159 --> 00:02:53,080 are we going to do? Do you know, do we go back and 39 00:02:53,319 --> 00:02:58,360 reconstitute a republican system of government or do we try and find someone else to 40 00:02:58,439 --> 00:03:00,479 rule us as an empire as an em But if we're going to do that 41 00:03:00,800 --> 00:03:08,039 on what basis? And so these are massive questions that potentially threaten not just 42 00:03:08,240 --> 00:03:13,759 Rome but the whole fabric of the empire with collapse. So that seemed a 43 00:03:13,800 --> 00:03:19,479 kind of very obvious breakpoint, the moment where Rome ceases to be ruled by 44 00:03:19,879 --> 00:03:23,919 Augustus's dynasty and the process by which they start to construct a framework of rule 45 00:03:24,319 --> 00:03:31,000 that doesn't require you to be descended from a god. And initially it looks 46 00:03:31,039 --> 00:03:35,199 as though the Romans are not going to be able to solve this because the 47 00:03:35,319 --> 00:03:39,319 year after Nero's death eighty sixty nine is commemorated as the Year of the Four 48 00:03:39,360 --> 00:03:44,879 Emperors. And any year in which you have four emperences what good news by 49 00:03:45,080 --> 00:03:49,319 large because it implies as a very rapid turnover, and it's a it's a 50 00:03:49,319 --> 00:03:52,840 period of a violent civil war, and people do indeed think that the Roman 51 00:03:52,879 --> 00:03:58,400 Empire might fall, but it doesn't. The Emperor of Vespasian, who emerges 52 00:03:58,520 --> 00:04:02,240 from the cycle of civil war, establishes rown back on very secure foundations, 53 00:04:02,280 --> 00:04:10,000 and you then get a succession of emperors who establish a process of succession that 54 00:04:10,039 --> 00:04:15,040 proves very effective, and the empire is largely at peace. And so I 55 00:04:15,399 --> 00:04:19,600 finished really with Hadrian, because Hadrian, in some ways is quite light Nero. 56 00:04:19,800 --> 00:04:24,160 He's a man with great interest in Greek culture, he's a man with 57 00:04:25,399 --> 00:04:30,439 artistic tastes, but he's also incredibly different, and so I wanted to counterpoint 58 00:04:30,519 --> 00:04:35,800 Nero with Hadrian, because it's about eighty years. It's pretty much the span 59 00:04:35,879 --> 00:04:43,879 of someone's life, and the Roman Empire by the time Hadrian dies, in 60 00:04:43,920 --> 00:04:47,879 some ways is recognizably the same that it has been when Nero dies, but 61 00:04:47,959 --> 00:04:53,920 in other quite significant ways is in a process of change and that process of 62 00:04:54,040 --> 00:04:57,879 change will accelerate in the decades and centuries that follow. So I think it's 63 00:04:58,000 --> 00:05:02,439 really there's a kind logical coherence to it. And the book is called Packs 64 00:05:03,160 --> 00:05:11,160 Peace because partly because this is commemorated as the Golden Age of Roman peace, 65 00:05:11,759 --> 00:05:15,160 but also because, as that Psycho civil war suggests, at the beginning of 66 00:05:15,160 --> 00:05:19,800 the period, peace exists in the context of war. The Roman packs the 67 00:05:19,879 --> 00:05:25,399 packs Romana is upheld at the point of a sword. So for a book 68 00:05:25,439 --> 00:05:30,279 that has as its title the latter word for peace, there's actually an awful 69 00:05:30,319 --> 00:05:34,720 lot of violence in this book. I was I was unhappy to see that 70 00:05:34,759 --> 00:05:41,839 The packs Romana's book ended by two violent suppressions of Judea. You know, 71 00:05:42,040 --> 00:05:45,560 starts with one end with another book end. Those are two other two other 72 00:05:45,600 --> 00:05:49,120 book ends before we get that. I'm sorry, Yeah, that's good about 73 00:05:49,120 --> 00:05:53,720 Nero a little bit. You know, in our imagination, Neuro is one 74 00:05:53,759 --> 00:05:57,439 of the worst emperors, right, just maybe a child murderer, a person 75 00:05:57,439 --> 00:06:00,879 who fiddles while Rome burns, maybe even burned Rom down himself, correct, 76 00:06:00,920 --> 00:06:04,319 you know, to build his palaces and gardens and so forth. But I've 77 00:06:04,360 --> 00:06:08,800 seen some you know, people claim that that's a revisionist history of him, 78 00:06:08,920 --> 00:06:11,680 or do we have a proper sense of who Nero was? What was he 79 00:06:11,720 --> 00:06:16,160 as bad as we think? It's incredibly difficult, particularly with emperors who were 80 00:06:16,160 --> 00:06:19,720 commemorated by historians as bad emperors. And there's no question, I mean, 81 00:06:19,800 --> 00:06:25,399 Nero is up there with Caligula as the archetypal bad emperor. But I think 82 00:06:25,399 --> 00:06:29,240 it is possible to get some sense of what Nero thought he was up to, 83 00:06:29,879 --> 00:06:33,720 partly by passing the historical records and partly by looking at things like his 84 00:06:33,839 --> 00:06:40,600 coinage and his architectural projects. And the thing is is that Nero was. 85 00:06:41,720 --> 00:06:46,279 He was what the Romans would call a popularist, what we might call a 86 00:06:46,319 --> 00:06:53,279 populist, who appealed over the heads of the traditional elites to a vast number 87 00:06:53,319 --> 00:07:00,319 of people who quite enjoyed watching Nero trample on the traditional norms and in salt 88 00:07:00,439 --> 00:07:06,480 the traditional power brokers. Unfortunately for Nero, it's this is the class of 89 00:07:06,519 --> 00:07:12,160 person who end up writing the history so to pursue I think are not entirely 90 00:07:12,199 --> 00:07:16,519 tendentialist modern parallel. It's as though historians writing in two thousand years time have 91 00:07:16,879 --> 00:07:24,720 only the New York Times for evidence for why people voted for Donald Trump. 92 00:07:25,680 --> 00:07:29,079 I mean, it gives you, it would definitely give you an outline. 93 00:07:29,160 --> 00:07:32,160 It would definitely give you a sense that Trump was incredibly unpopular with the class 94 00:07:32,160 --> 00:07:35,160 of people who write and read The New York Times. But it might not 95 00:07:35,680 --> 00:07:40,560 enable you entirely to get to grips with the nature of Trump's appeal. And 96 00:07:40,600 --> 00:07:44,279 I think in Mutaritis mutandis, there's an element of that in trying to work 97 00:07:44,319 --> 00:07:48,639 out what Nero is about. And as I say, Nero has this kind 98 00:07:48,720 --> 00:07:53,920 of semi divine status because he's descended from from Augustus, and he makes incredible 99 00:07:53,920 --> 00:07:59,000 play with it. So all the stuff about him, you know, well, 100 00:07:59,079 --> 00:08:01,240 killing his mother, for instance, you'd say matricide, that's a bad 101 00:08:01,279 --> 00:08:05,480 thing. I mean, nobody thinks thinks matricide is is a good thing. 102 00:08:05,839 --> 00:08:09,439 But actually quite a lot of heroes in Greek tragedy kill their mothers. And 103 00:08:09,639 --> 00:08:13,240 if you're the kind of person who's descended from a god and kills your mother, 104 00:08:13,680 --> 00:08:16,480 you are very much out of the normal. And I think that that 105 00:08:16,639 --> 00:08:20,040 is part of what Nero is doing, because the extraordinary thing about the matricide, 106 00:08:20,040 --> 00:08:24,000 he doesn't try and cover it up. I mean, he publicly lays 107 00:08:24,000 --> 00:08:26,720 claim to it, and he takes on the role on the public stage of 108 00:08:26,839 --> 00:08:31,680 people who had ancient heroes who had killed their mother. So he's playing a 109 00:08:31,759 --> 00:08:37,799 kind of but you know, he's he is an astonishing figure because he is 110 00:08:39,480 --> 00:08:45,480 turning to his political advantage things that you would think would simply be beyond in 111 00:08:45,559 --> 00:08:48,519 doing that, of which I guess killing his mother would be the most shocking 112 00:08:48,600 --> 00:08:52,000 example, But there are others well. I mean, even appearing on a 113 00:08:52,039 --> 00:08:54,480 stage is a terrible thing. Romans are not supposed to appear on the stage. 114 00:08:54,600 --> 00:08:58,600 Actors are classed by the Romans with the very lowest of the low, 115 00:08:58,639 --> 00:09:05,360 so with gladiators and with prostitutes. But again, Nero does this because he 116 00:09:05,759 --> 00:09:07,879 because he can, just as he enters the Olympics, because he can, 117 00:09:09,159 --> 00:09:13,360 just as he plays the liar, which is kind of closer to a sittar 118 00:09:13,519 --> 00:09:16,600 really than the kind of thing that angels play on Christmas cards. So it's 119 00:09:16,679 --> 00:09:24,320 equivalent to say, a president of the United States today, headlining in an 120 00:09:24,320 --> 00:09:31,440 Oscar winning film, winning a Grand Prix, perhaps in Monaco, headlining at 121 00:09:31,480 --> 00:09:35,080 the Glastonbury Festival. I mean, these are things that I think if a 122 00:09:35,120 --> 00:09:39,480 president did this today, people probably wouldn't be very approving of it, think 123 00:09:39,519 --> 00:09:43,200 it's it's undignified, but there'd be a big constituency you'd be rather impressed if 124 00:09:43,200 --> 00:09:45,840 you could carry that off. And I think that that's kind of what Nero 125 00:09:46,039 --> 00:09:50,399 is doing. It's sort of like hosting the Celebrity Apprentice, Yes, thinking 126 00:09:50,440 --> 00:09:52,279 the same thing. It kind of, I mean, it kind of is 127 00:09:52,399 --> 00:09:56,799 there is, except that it's much bigger than that. It's you know, 128 00:09:56,879 --> 00:10:01,559 just hosting a TV show that's not big enough. You've got to You've got 129 00:10:01,559 --> 00:10:05,559 to be the star of the biggest blockbuster the Hollywood's ever produced. That's the 130 00:10:05,639 --> 00:10:11,320 neronean level. Don't say that because now Donald Trump is going kind of audition 131 00:10:11,480 --> 00:10:15,159 for something. I actually I have a question about Nero sort of on that 132 00:10:15,279 --> 00:10:22,240 same in that same vein my Latin is terrible. But popeia papia, papia. 133 00:10:22,320 --> 00:10:26,440 Okay, So I want to ask besor sex and gender at this period 134 00:10:26,679 --> 00:10:28,960 in Roman history, because you write, an immense reward was offered to anyone 135 00:10:30,000 --> 00:10:33,519 capable of implanting a uterus within the eunuch. This, of course, even 136 00:10:33,519 --> 00:10:37,159 for a man of Nero's genius for bending reality to his will was an ambition 137 00:10:37,240 --> 00:10:39,919 too far, but the sterility of Papa he had fashioned for himself did not 138 00:10:41,000 --> 00:10:45,159 prevent her presence on the capitol that January morning from carrying an unsettling charge. 139 00:10:45,279 --> 00:10:48,120 What Nero offered to the Roman people was the assurance that the mundane could be 140 00:10:48,159 --> 00:10:52,480 rendered fantastical, the predictable spiced up with an unexpected, and the world of 141 00:10:52,480 --> 00:10:58,600 the everyday fused with that of myth. To what in this period of Rome 142 00:10:58,720 --> 00:11:01,240 did it mean And there's some of this with Hadrian two later, as you 143 00:11:01,279 --> 00:11:03,919 said, like eighty years later, But what in this period of Rome did 144 00:11:03,960 --> 00:11:13,440 it mean that that Nero had Papeia and was sort of approaching Papeia in this 145 00:11:13,519 --> 00:11:16,279 way so publicly, which to us would strike us again as a's maybe a 146 00:11:16,279 --> 00:11:22,200 little bit bizarre, but at the time seems perfectly normal. Okay, There's 147 00:11:22,600 --> 00:11:31,360 quite a lot of trumpact there, because Papeia was was was Nero's wife, 148 00:11:31,720 --> 00:11:35,799 whom he adored, who he had got pregnant with if it had been a 149 00:11:35,879 --> 00:11:39,480 boy, would have been his heir as emperor. And then she dies. 150 00:11:39,559 --> 00:11:43,519 According to malign gossip, he was supposed to have kicked her to death after 151 00:11:43,559 --> 00:11:46,120 she nagged him for being laid home from the races, But we don't know 152 00:11:46,159 --> 00:11:48,559 if that's true or not. But what we do know is that Nero was 153 00:11:48,600 --> 00:11:54,159 devastated at her death and gave her a sumptuous funeral, elevated to the ranks 154 00:11:54,159 --> 00:11:58,279 of the gods, and he then went on to marry another woman who was 155 00:11:58,440 --> 00:12:01,240 like Papa. She was very astocratic, she was very witty, she was 156 00:12:01,360 --> 00:12:05,639 very sophisticated. Seems very much to have been Nero's type of woman. But 157 00:12:07,679 --> 00:12:11,399 she didn't look like Papaya, who had been the most glamorous and seductive woman 158 00:12:11,440 --> 00:12:18,399 of her generation. And so Nero looked around for someone who resembled Papaya, 159 00:12:20,559 --> 00:12:24,000 and the poor unfortunate on whom his agent's gaze settled wasn't a girl but a 160 00:12:24,080 --> 00:12:31,519 boy whom he had castrated and taught to kind of do her cosmetics where the 161 00:12:31,559 --> 00:12:35,320 clothes behave, as Papa had done and nearer. From that point on, 162 00:12:35,440 --> 00:12:39,919 treated this boy, who he called Sporus in Greek that means spunk, kind 163 00:12:39,960 --> 00:12:45,919 of again a kind of horrible joke. He treated her as a kind of 164 00:12:45,919 --> 00:12:50,159 second wife. So this poor boy who's been turned into this kind of similar 165 00:12:50,200 --> 00:12:54,039 arcram of the dead empress. When Nero dies, he becomes a kind of 166 00:12:54,120 --> 00:13:00,600 trophy of war, and he gets passed around various warlords and are in the 167 00:13:00,600 --> 00:13:05,200 possession of of one emperor, who by this point decides that the poor Sporus 168 00:13:05,240 --> 00:13:07,919 is soiled goods, and so he decides that he's going to make himself popular 169 00:13:09,039 --> 00:13:15,720 by dressing Sporus up as Persephone, who is the daughter of the Goddess of 170 00:13:15,720 --> 00:13:18,159 the Harvest, who gets abducted and raped by Hades, the king of the 171 00:13:18,240 --> 00:13:22,639 underworld, and he decides that he's going to have Sporus raped to death in 172 00:13:22,679 --> 00:13:28,000 the arena by gladiators dressed up as Hades, and this is how he's going 173 00:13:28,039 --> 00:13:31,600 to make himself popular. And I think that what you see there in that 174 00:13:31,840 --> 00:13:39,200 entire story is just how radically different some of the standards and morals and ethics 175 00:13:39,240 --> 00:13:43,200 of Roman life were. Firstly, that you could make a dream of making 176 00:13:43,200 --> 00:13:46,639 yourself popular by having someone kind of rape to death, say on the equivalent 177 00:13:46,639 --> 00:13:54,399 of primetime TV. And secondly, the complexity of sexuality and of gender as 178 00:13:54,480 --> 00:14:00,679 understood by the Romans, which was radically radically different to ours, so different, 179 00:14:01,399 --> 00:14:05,200 and I think that that's part of The fascination of studying ancient Rome is 180 00:14:05,240 --> 00:14:15,039 that it's less the similarities between ourselves and the distant Roman past, but rather 181 00:14:15,120 --> 00:14:18,840 the way in which it opens our eyes to just how contingent, just how 182 00:14:18,919 --> 00:14:28,440 relative. 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Head at trifume dot com slash federalist and use the code federalists to 205 00:16:07,279 --> 00:16:15,879 save an additional ten percent off your order today. So after Nero, we 206 00:16:15,960 --> 00:16:21,039 have he killed himself in sixty nine or sixty eight, sixty and sixty nine 207 00:16:21,080 --> 00:16:22,720 is the year or the four Emperors on. You know, it's a long 208 00:16:22,799 --> 00:16:26,679 story, but one of my takeaways is that austerity is not actually ever popular 209 00:16:27,080 --> 00:16:32,080 in politics. You know, it will get you killed in Rome, but 210 00:16:32,159 --> 00:16:37,519 it did remind it did also my takeaway was that though authoritarian, it's also 211 00:16:37,600 --> 00:16:41,039 sort of a mobocracy, right like you have all these people who can just 212 00:16:41,080 --> 00:16:45,600 simply overturn the autocracy if there there's not enough bread or not enough gladiators or 213 00:16:45,639 --> 00:16:51,000 whatever. Was this the case through packs or was it just that year that 214 00:16:51,039 --> 00:16:55,279 you had this kind of you know, tension. No, I think it's 215 00:16:55,840 --> 00:16:59,279 I think it runs throughout the period of Raymand history. I think that to 216 00:16:59,360 --> 00:17:03,039 be emperor is a terrifying thing. You are a constant risk. You're a 217 00:17:03,160 --> 00:17:07,680 risk from from enemies within the palace. You're at risk from conspiring senators. 218 00:17:07,960 --> 00:17:12,640 You're at risk from the military, the praetorians who serve as your bodyguard. 219 00:17:14,039 --> 00:17:18,599 You're at risk from the legions who are stationed on the distant frontiers. And 220 00:17:18,640 --> 00:17:22,319 as you say, you're at risk from them from the mob that the million 221 00:17:22,359 --> 00:17:26,319 and more people who live in Rome. That's a greater concentration of people in 222 00:17:26,319 --> 00:17:30,720 a single place than the world had ever seen before. And it is a 223 00:17:30,839 --> 00:17:36,319 terrifying force if it goes wrong. And the famous comment that the poet the 224 00:17:36,359 --> 00:17:41,839 satirist juvenile makes about the mob in Rome that you have to pacify them with 225 00:17:41,880 --> 00:17:47,000 bread and circuses is pretty accurate, because if the people starve, if the 226 00:17:47,079 --> 00:17:49,799 supply of grain, which has to come from Africa and Egypt, is not 227 00:17:51,039 --> 00:17:55,720 provided by the emperor, then he's basically toast. And likewise, if they 228 00:17:55,720 --> 00:18:00,440 are not given the entertainments that they expect, then again their hostility to the 229 00:18:00,480 --> 00:18:04,759 figure of the empire emperor is such that it can very easily result in his 230 00:18:04,799 --> 00:18:11,519 overthrow. So you you talking reference to the earth the four emperors that austerity 231 00:18:11,559 --> 00:18:15,480 doesn't work. I mean, I'm guessing is an allusion to Galba, who 232 00:18:15,559 --> 00:18:19,000 is the emperor who steps into the shoes of Nero and proves an absolute failure 233 00:18:19,039 --> 00:18:23,599 at it because he's such a contrast to Nero. He's so determined to uphold 234 00:18:23,680 --> 00:18:33,359 the kind of the traditional assumptions and disciplines and austerities of the primordial republic that 235 00:18:33,440 --> 00:18:37,440 he refuses to give the people what Nero had given them, namely entertainment and 236 00:18:37,559 --> 00:18:41,440 fun and dash and color, And so he only lasts a few months. 237 00:18:42,640 --> 00:18:56,960 So I I think that that the responsibility to keep Rome happy is one that 238 00:18:56,119 --> 00:19:00,720 no emperor can afford to neglect. And it is crucial part of the jeopardy 239 00:19:00,799 --> 00:19:08,519 that runs throughout this and it's why a really good emperor essentially has to be 240 00:19:10,279 --> 00:19:14,519 he has to be John McCain and Donald Trump simultaneously. You know, you 241 00:19:14,559 --> 00:19:19,279 have to you have to earn the respect of your senatorial colleagues, but you 242 00:19:19,440 --> 00:19:26,599 also have to amuse and entertain people who may despise those kind of traditional figures. 243 00:19:26,519 --> 00:19:30,839 Augustus was brilliant at it. Many a Vespasian, the emperor who emerges 244 00:19:30,920 --> 00:19:36,200 from the earth of the four empers, was equally brilliant at it. Trajan 245 00:19:36,279 --> 00:19:40,079 and Hadrian, who are the two great figures of the early second century a 246 00:19:40,160 --> 00:19:45,599 d also had that talent. It requires incredible political skills, I think to 247 00:19:45,680 --> 00:19:51,480 wield power in Rome successfully. And you know, and the whole thing of 248 00:19:51,720 --> 00:19:57,039 of say, going to the policy and people will immediately think of Gladiator and 249 00:19:57,440 --> 00:20:03,440 Commodus in that. And what that actually catches very well is that there is 250 00:20:03,480 --> 00:20:10,920 a possibility that the emperor can lose the crowd. There aren't many autocracies. 251 00:20:11,000 --> 00:20:15,680 There aren't many imperial systems, whether whether in antiquity or in the modern age, 252 00:20:15,079 --> 00:20:23,279 where the autocrat is putting himself in front of a menacing crowd to quite 253 00:20:23,279 --> 00:20:29,440 the same degree. And so that's why the Colisseum, although it obviously to 254 00:20:29,519 --> 00:20:33,640 us it symbolizes blood sports and the horrors of gladiatorial combat, it is also 255 00:20:33,720 --> 00:20:40,799 in that sense quite a kind of democratic structure as well. It's a place 256 00:20:40,799 --> 00:20:45,880 where the emperor meets with the people. Do the people of Rome in this 257 00:20:47,000 --> 00:20:52,480 time period? And maybe it's this is helpfully sort of broken into tears about 258 00:20:52,559 --> 00:20:55,920 what we know from Roman elites at the time. I don't know, however, 259 00:20:56,200 --> 00:20:57,720 it's easier to break this down or understand it. But do they have 260 00:20:57,839 --> 00:21:03,920 a sense that they're living through, that they're living through that this time in 261 00:21:03,119 --> 00:21:07,880 history that is different, like a different moment in Roman history? And I 262 00:21:07,920 --> 00:21:10,599 asked that because there are times in the book that we're really striking. You're 263 00:21:10,599 --> 00:21:12,880 writing about someone who could have been alive to see what happened with Near, 264 00:21:14,119 --> 00:21:17,759 see what happened with Hadrian, And it's it's very resonant now because at the 265 00:21:17,759 --> 00:21:22,839 pace of technological advancement, etcetera, etcetera. And even just thinking about the 266 00:21:22,880 --> 00:21:27,319 Oppenheimer series that you guys did unrest this history, the sort of incredible clip 267 00:21:27,480 --> 00:21:30,359 that thinks of advanced just in the last one hundred years. It's it's very 268 00:21:30,400 --> 00:21:34,319 resonant. Now, do people then have a sense of that the sort of 269 00:21:34,440 --> 00:21:40,079 change that's happening amidst their own lives. I think on one level they don't, 270 00:21:40,519 --> 00:21:45,240 because for most people, the events in the capital or even in the 271 00:21:45,279 --> 00:21:49,720 major cities of the Empire are very distant. Most people are at a pretty 272 00:21:49,880 --> 00:21:57,559 fair remove from the centers of power, and society is incredibly conservative. Most 273 00:21:57,599 --> 00:22:03,839 people are living the lives their parents and their grandparents lived, and that feeds 274 00:22:03,920 --> 00:22:08,680 into a gut assumption that is pretty much universal across the Empire, and is 275 00:22:08,720 --> 00:22:12,759 certainly very much taken for granted by the Romans that all change is bad. 276 00:22:14,519 --> 00:22:18,119 So they have a phrase raising of it's literally kind of new matters, new 277 00:22:18,200 --> 00:22:22,759 things, which is equivalent to us for violent revolution, raising of a bad 278 00:22:23,519 --> 00:22:27,519 change is bad, And so when change does happen, it's invariably dressed up 279 00:22:27,559 --> 00:22:32,880 as being a return to basics, a return to the traditional ways of doing 280 00:22:33,000 --> 00:22:37,240 things, And the fear is is that change will result in the collapse of 281 00:22:37,400 --> 00:22:41,279 order. And so that's why the Year of the Four Emperors is so terrifying 282 00:22:41,400 --> 00:22:47,079 for people. They think that this piece that Augustus had won and which had 283 00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:51,400 endured for a hundred years, is in serious danger of collapse. And even 284 00:22:51,519 --> 00:23:00,440 after Vespasian has re established internal peace, the fear that spasm of phil betrayed 285 00:23:02,200 --> 00:23:07,440 anger on the part of the gods, who are basically to worship the gods 286 00:23:07,559 --> 00:23:11,359 is to take out an insurance policy against calamity, and if calamity happens, 287 00:23:11,400 --> 00:23:17,079 then it suggests that you've taken out of the wrong insurance policy. The gods 288 00:23:17,160 --> 00:23:18,720 are annoyed. Therefore, you've got to try and work out what you can 289 00:23:18,759 --> 00:23:22,279 do to pacify the gods. Vespasian seems to be very good at that. 290 00:23:22,359 --> 00:23:26,279 He has a successful ten year reign. It seems that the gods are pleased. 291 00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:30,839 But then when he dies and he succeeded by his son Titus, who 292 00:23:32,759 --> 00:23:37,519 only rules for two years, but that rule is racked by terrible convulsion. 293 00:23:37,720 --> 00:23:41,920 So there's the Temple of Jupiter in the capitol is burnt down. This is 294 00:23:42,000 --> 00:23:47,880 the most sacred building in Rome. There's a terrible plague that hits the capital 295 00:23:48,000 --> 00:23:51,640 again, this could only be caused by the anger of the gods. And 296 00:23:51,720 --> 00:23:56,319 then, of course Titus's reign witnesses probably the most famous natural disaster, not 297 00:23:56,440 --> 00:24:00,720 just in Roman history, but quite possibly in the whole span of global history, 298 00:24:00,000 --> 00:24:04,720 the eruption of Vessevius, which buries the towns of Pompeii and Herculaneum. 299 00:24:06,160 --> 00:24:10,640 And again this can only be interpreted as an expression of the wrath of the 300 00:24:10,720 --> 00:24:14,880 gods, and so in the wake of those disasters, Titus dies a couple 301 00:24:14,920 --> 00:24:18,359 of years after the eruption of Vessevius and succeeded by his brother Demisian, who 302 00:24:18,480 --> 00:24:25,920 is remembered by Roman historians in very negative lights. He seems being very authoritarian, 303 00:24:26,079 --> 00:24:29,519 very dictatorial. But I think Demission would say he had to do that 304 00:24:30,160 --> 00:24:33,519 because otherwise the fury of the gods would not be pacified and the whole world 305 00:24:33,559 --> 00:24:41,640 would collapse. So I mean to us that that may seem implausible, but 306 00:24:41,720 --> 00:24:45,759 I think Demission absolutely one hundred percent believed that. And it has to be 307 00:24:45,839 --> 00:24:49,119 said that his efforts to set Rome back on foundations did work, and a 308 00:24:49,240 --> 00:24:53,839 lot of the prosperity that the Trajan and Hadrian, who were remembered by the 309 00:24:53,960 --> 00:24:57,960 Romans as good emperors, is founded on the spadework that Demission had done. 310 00:24:59,480 --> 00:25:02,920 I think by the time you reach the end of this period, so the 311 00:25:02,960 --> 00:25:10,119 death of Hadrian, people are starting to think, actually, we are living 312 00:25:10,160 --> 00:25:14,680 in an age of unprecedented peace. This is astonishing. The world is getting 313 00:25:15,279 --> 00:25:22,759 richer. We are living in a fantastic garden where the blooms are dazzling beyond 314 00:25:22,799 --> 00:25:30,200 the dreams of previous generations, where the lawns are exquisitely well kept, where 315 00:25:30,599 --> 00:25:37,599 the paths are perfectly swept, and there is a feeling that perhaps the gods 316 00:25:37,640 --> 00:25:41,359 have brought the Roman people and the other peoples of the world with them to 317 00:25:41,799 --> 00:25:47,359 a condition of perfect felicity. There is that kind of that comes to be 318 00:25:47,559 --> 00:25:51,400 a kind of suspicion, perhaps the end of history, if you want to 319 00:25:52,079 --> 00:25:56,519 call it like that. Let me ask you a broader question about Rome that 320 00:25:56,599 --> 00:26:00,680 I've been wondering about, if actually counter his story questions. So you know, 321 00:26:00,920 --> 00:26:06,119 all these emperors, they always give lip service to republican virtues and things 322 00:26:06,200 --> 00:26:08,799 like that, but really they're not republicans anymore. They're authoritarian in many ways 323 00:26:08,839 --> 00:26:11,759 and so forth. But do you think that Rome would have been as successful 324 00:26:11,799 --> 00:26:17,039 and if Augustus hadn't won, or if the republic had remained, or Caesar 325 00:26:17,079 --> 00:26:19,319 didn't cross the rubicon. I mean, would would Rome have been as powerful 326 00:26:19,359 --> 00:26:25,880 and as large and as enduring in a republican system. I don't think so. 327 00:26:26,200 --> 00:26:32,119 I think that the size of the possessions that Rome had come to rule 328 00:26:32,240 --> 00:26:38,599 by the time of Julius Caesar was such that it required an autocracy to govern 329 00:26:38,680 --> 00:26:45,559 it. And I think furthermore that the republican system of government, which had 330 00:26:45,599 --> 00:26:49,920 served Rome so well and had served to win it its empire, had come 331 00:26:51,079 --> 00:26:57,319 to be a cause of instability, essentially because the only way that in an 332 00:26:57,359 --> 00:27:02,519 empire that spanned the Mediterranean beyond, the only way that the empire could function 333 00:27:03,119 --> 00:27:07,640 was if certain men were given lengthy terms of power at the heads of legions, 334 00:27:08,160 --> 00:27:11,960 and that, of course proved an irresistible temptation to people like pomp with 335 00:27:12,079 --> 00:27:15,640 Great to Julius Caesar, and in the long run, to Augustus. Now, 336 00:27:15,720 --> 00:27:22,799 I think the Romans were incredibly lucky that out of this relentless sequence of 337 00:27:22,880 --> 00:27:30,680 civil wars I mean, lasting for several decades, a man as able as 338 00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:33,319 Augustus emerged. I mean, I think there's a case for saying that he 339 00:27:33,559 --> 00:27:41,000 is the ablest politician in the entire history of the Western tradition. His genius 340 00:27:41,759 --> 00:27:48,920 is rather like Vespasians, was to heal the wounds of civil war, to 341 00:27:48,119 --> 00:27:55,000 return Rome to a condition of peace. But the challenge facing Augustus was much 342 00:27:55,119 --> 00:28:00,839 greater, namely, how to reconcile a people who treasured their republican traditions with 343 00:28:02,000 --> 00:28:07,799 the autocracy that was required. And Augustus's solution was to fail his own power 344 00:28:08,359 --> 00:28:12,480 and to amplify the power of the Senate and the people. So essentially everyone 345 00:28:12,599 --> 00:28:19,880 was kind of playing a role. Subsequent emperors lacked Augustus's talent, and it 346 00:28:19,960 --> 00:28:26,640 became the nakedness of the autocracy became kind of increasingly evident. But as I 347 00:28:26,759 --> 00:28:33,720 was saying earlier, an emperor who relied on his autocratic powers too totally was 348 00:28:33,799 --> 00:28:40,799 unlikely to last for long. They're what you know. An emperor had to 349 00:28:41,720 --> 00:28:49,200 always be conscious of how how unstable his position inherently was, in large part 350 00:28:49,279 --> 00:28:53,920 because those republican traditions do subsist. The Senate still exists, The idea that 351 00:28:55,000 --> 00:28:57,960 people have that they are the true arbiters of Rome still exists. The idea 352 00:28:59,039 --> 00:29:03,599 of allegiances allegio, a legion that was originally a levy, a levy of 353 00:29:03,640 --> 00:29:10,519 the Roman people, and so a sense that legions somehow are the Roman people 354 00:29:10,680 --> 00:29:14,720 in arms that endures as well. And that means that if a legion decides 355 00:29:14,759 --> 00:29:17,920 that they don't like an emperor, then it's entirely possible that they may feel 356 00:29:17,960 --> 00:29:21,279 that they have a constitutional duty to rebel against him, which is what happens 357 00:29:21,359 --> 00:29:25,759 in the ear of the Four Emperors. So yeah, I think that the 358 00:29:25,839 --> 00:29:33,759 autocratic system of government was crucial in enabling Rome to endure, but the inheritance 359 00:29:33,799 --> 00:29:38,519 of the republican past leavened that autocracy ensure that it wasn't kind of overweening in 360 00:29:38,559 --> 00:29:41,960 the way that say, the Persian monarchy perhaps had been, or the peronic 361 00:29:42,039 --> 00:29:48,720 system of government in ancient Egypt. Hey, y'all, this is Sarah Carter, 362 00:29:48,880 --> 00:29:53,079 investigative columnist and host of The Sarah Carter Show. Thanks for listening to 363 00:29:53,200 --> 00:29:57,160 the Federalist. 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Super Beats is the number one pharmacist 372 00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:36,640 recommended beat brand for cardiovascular health support. It's blood pressure support you can trust. 373 00:30:36,880 --> 00:30:41,039 Get a free thirty day supply of super Beats heart shoes and fifteen percent 374 00:30:41,160 --> 00:30:45,440 off your first order by going to get Superbeats dot com and use promo code 375 00:30:45,519 --> 00:30:51,839 Sarah. That's SAAR eight Yet Superbeats dot Com code Sarah to get fifteen percent 376 00:30:51,920 --> 00:31:02,519 off your first order yet Superbeats dot Com promo code Sarah. There's a really 377 00:31:02,559 --> 00:31:04,039 interesting part in the book where you talk about Gibbon. You talk about sort 378 00:31:04,079 --> 00:31:07,799 of what's been learned since Gibbon, and it made me wonder if there are 379 00:31:07,920 --> 00:31:11,279 some top lines, you know, not the particulars you could probably fill an 380 00:31:11,400 --> 00:31:15,640 entire book with, but if there are big things that maybe you know. 381 00:31:15,720 --> 00:31:18,640 Folks of the Enlightenment, if they were reading Gibbon, You know, how 382 00:31:18,759 --> 00:31:23,759 different is our understanding of that period now just based on archaeology, based on 383 00:31:25,079 --> 00:31:27,039 all of the sort of high tech research we've been able to do in the 384 00:31:27,119 --> 00:31:32,640 last several centuries. Are there are there big things that that sort of change 385 00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:36,960 that narrative that we have discovered in the centuries since well, I mean, 386 00:31:37,000 --> 00:31:44,680 I think the scale of archaeology is enormous, and perhaps the most important in 387 00:31:44,759 --> 00:31:48,640 terms of understanding the functioning of the empire as well as the high politics is 388 00:31:48,720 --> 00:31:53,759 the number of inscriptions that have been dug up, Because so if we are 389 00:31:53,839 --> 00:31:59,599 relying solely on the records of the historians and biographers, say Caacitus and Suetonius 390 00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:02,720 are the most celebrated in this period, I mean, they give us incredibly 391 00:32:02,880 --> 00:32:07,680 vivid accounts of the high politics at the heart of the empire, but they 392 00:32:07,799 --> 00:32:14,720 don't enable us to work out the functioning, say of cities in this period, 393 00:32:14,920 --> 00:32:17,599 or the way the countryside works, or the way that networks of alliances 394 00:32:19,039 --> 00:32:23,480 were spun across the entire span of the empire. And I suppose the archetype 395 00:32:23,640 --> 00:32:30,279 of what we have learned since Gibbon was writing is the degree of excavations that 396 00:32:30,319 --> 00:32:34,960 have happened at POMPEII, because when Gibbon was writing, those excavations were just 397 00:32:35,119 --> 00:32:42,920 starting. But now you can walk around the streets of Pompei and Herculaneum as 398 00:32:43,000 --> 00:32:45,599 a tourist. There's still quite a lot to be dug up, and so 399 00:32:45,759 --> 00:32:49,759 fresh things are being discovered, you know, as we sit here, people 400 00:32:49,799 --> 00:32:54,359 are digging, digging away at it. But we simply know much more about 401 00:32:54,400 --> 00:33:01,240 how the Roman Empire functioned than Gibbon. Ever, did I feel like, 402 00:33:01,319 --> 00:33:05,640 I don't know, if you saw this recent debate online about Sparta and whether 403 00:33:05,680 --> 00:33:08,559 we should be celebrating Sparta or not. I think these kinds of debates are 404 00:33:08,880 --> 00:33:15,079 kind of silly because most ancient people would would seem very immoral to us, 405 00:33:15,160 --> 00:33:17,960 or they saw the world completely different than us, like almost an alien kind 406 00:33:19,039 --> 00:33:22,240 of you know, people right to us. But I do wonder if there 407 00:33:22,279 --> 00:33:25,839 are similarities that you think should be celebrated about Rome, you know, or 408 00:33:27,000 --> 00:33:30,480 like, you know, people are always saying that the Roman Empire America is 409 00:33:30,519 --> 00:33:32,480 going to fall like the Roman Empire, which I think is really lack lacking 410 00:33:32,480 --> 00:33:37,119 analogy. But are there things that Romans came up with that we still use 411 00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:39,880 that are worthwhile, Like citizenship, for instance, I always think of Rome 412 00:33:39,960 --> 00:33:44,839 as being like late late eighteenth century New York or something, where people were 413 00:33:44,880 --> 00:33:49,039 given citizenship from all over the world and you know, lived together in a 414 00:33:49,119 --> 00:33:52,319 kind of diverse way that most people have never lived before before Rome, certainly, 415 00:33:52,480 --> 00:33:54,960 maybe even later. So I don't know, do you do you think 416 00:33:55,000 --> 00:34:00,319 that it's worth celebrating that civilization in any way? Almost from the moment that 417 00:34:00,440 --> 00:34:04,559 Rome fell, people wanted to to kind of replicate it, to set it 418 00:34:04,640 --> 00:34:09,039 back up again, to copy it, to emulate it. So you know, 419 00:34:09,119 --> 00:34:15,079 whether it's is Charlemagne having himself crowned in Rome in the eighty eight hundreds 420 00:34:15,280 --> 00:34:29,880 as emperor, whether it's the papacy laying claim to a kind of Roman sphere 421 00:34:30,000 --> 00:34:34,440 of power. Yeah, whether whether it's Napoleon, Hitler, Mussolini. I 422 00:34:34,519 --> 00:34:38,400 mean, all of them were fascinated by the example of Rome. But I 423 00:34:38,519 --> 00:34:45,400 think that the country that has most fruitfully engaged with that Roman inheritance is the 424 00:34:45,519 --> 00:34:52,440 United States, because the Rome that inspired the founding fathers was the Rome of 425 00:34:52,880 --> 00:34:58,360 the of the Republic, not of the Empire. The Roman Republic was founded 426 00:34:58,400 --> 00:35:00,679 in the wake of the expulsion of a kid and of course, the American 427 00:35:00,760 --> 00:35:07,159 Republic was founded in exactly the same way, and Jefferson in particular was very 428 00:35:07,280 --> 00:35:15,960 keen on the whole idea of civic you know, civic farmers answering the court, 429 00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:20,519 you know, leaving their plow to answer the needs of their nation and 430 00:35:20,559 --> 00:35:25,239 then returning to it and all that kind of thing. And the fact that 431 00:35:25,320 --> 00:35:31,519 you have a Senate and a Capitol in your capital city is obviously not coincidence. 432 00:35:32,079 --> 00:35:37,480 So I think that the corrollar of that, in turn, is that 433 00:35:37,639 --> 00:35:42,639 Americans, again, right from the beginning, seem to have been haunted by 434 00:35:42,719 --> 00:35:45,400 two nightmares, of which the famous one is the collapse of the Roman Empire, 435 00:35:45,440 --> 00:35:49,840 that declined and fall of the Roman Empire, that the idea that it 436 00:35:50,000 --> 00:35:53,840 might all be swept away, and that you know, in distant ages people 437 00:35:54,000 --> 00:36:00,599 will poke among the rubble of the Capitol or the White House. But there 438 00:36:00,719 --> 00:36:10,079 is also another nightmare which haunts America because of that kind of founding self identification 439 00:36:10,199 --> 00:36:15,119 with the Roman Republic, which is the Republic might fall, that an American 440 00:36:15,199 --> 00:36:25,320 caesar might emerge, that the frameworks of the Republic may atrophy and be treated 441 00:36:25,519 --> 00:36:30,760 as Augustus treated. The traditions of the Roman Republic, and that seems to 442 00:36:30,800 --> 00:36:35,280 I mean, if it's any if it you know, chers American listeners up. 443 00:36:35,880 --> 00:36:37,239 I know that lots of people are worrying about this at the moment, 444 00:36:38,280 --> 00:36:45,400 but people have been worrying about that literally since George Washington was president. You 445 00:36:45,480 --> 00:36:49,320 know, the whole thing about Washington. I think George the third said, 446 00:36:49,840 --> 00:36:52,960 if you know, did he Nobody expected that George Washington would lay down his 447 00:36:53,079 --> 00:36:55,719 power, and George the third said, if he does, he will be 448 00:36:55,760 --> 00:37:04,719 the greatest man of his age. The fact that Washington did this is this 449 00:37:04,920 --> 00:37:08,000 is a very Roman example. So the famous that was when was it made 450 00:37:08,039 --> 00:37:12,000 eighteen thirties. I think of him in his wig and his toga. I 451 00:37:12,039 --> 00:37:15,239 mean, it's that colossal statue that I think used to be in the Senate, 452 00:37:15,639 --> 00:37:19,880 in the in the capital. I mean that that's the expression of this 453 00:37:20,079 --> 00:37:24,320 idea that you answer the call of your country, you serve, and then 454 00:37:24,400 --> 00:37:30,320 you lay it down, which I guess is why the attack, the attack 455 00:37:30,400 --> 00:37:34,960 on the Capitol Hill and the events that made the context to the current election 456 00:37:35,800 --> 00:37:40,400 are kind of unsettling because it does seem to it does seem to cast a 457 00:37:40,559 --> 00:37:46,320 kind of shadow over that tradition. But I think that the Roman Republic went 458 00:37:46,400 --> 00:37:51,199 through a lot, and I think the American Republic is going only going through 459 00:37:51,239 --> 00:37:55,440 the bearers of breezes compared to what the Reman Republic survived. So I think 460 00:37:55,519 --> 00:38:00,840 that the study of the Roman of the late Republic will offer any Americans worried 461 00:38:00,840 --> 00:38:04,119 about the future of their democracy. Just follow up, Emily, Sorry, 462 00:38:05,159 --> 00:38:07,559 I was going to say, that's funny because Senator Rubio's new book opens with 463 00:38:07,599 --> 00:38:10,960 an epigraph of Gibbon about the fall of Rome. But anyway, go ahead, 464 00:38:12,000 --> 00:38:16,239 do but Washington's are Cincinnatis? Was he real? Did he actually go 465 00:38:16,320 --> 00:38:23,679 back to his farm or Cincinnati? Probably? I mean, we know. 466 00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:30,239 But but but what I mean is the republic itself seemed to have been probabling 467 00:38:30,320 --> 00:38:34,079 already with Sula and all those people. Like. What I mean is I 468 00:38:34,119 --> 00:38:36,960 think that the republic itself was sort of wasn't it a little bit of a 469 00:38:37,039 --> 00:38:39,880 myth of how it was run. I think America is a better republic than 470 00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:44,119 Rome, is what I'm trying to say. Were more absolutely, absolutely, 471 00:38:44,960 --> 00:38:47,679 But but just to pick up on something that you mentioned earlier about the ideals 472 00:38:47,679 --> 00:38:52,159 of citizenship. One of the one of the achievements of Rome is to go 473 00:38:52,519 --> 00:39:00,400 from being a city state in which the bonds of citizenship are paramount. Everyone 474 00:39:00,519 --> 00:39:07,079 within the limits of the city of Rome can be expected to understand the traditions 475 00:39:07,159 --> 00:39:10,559 the gods, the kind of the network of familial relationships, of patronage and 476 00:39:10,639 --> 00:39:17,360 clientage that animate the fabric of a city, and go from that to Rome 477 00:39:17,440 --> 00:39:22,320 being simply the capital city of an enormous expanse of people, lots of whom 478 00:39:22,719 --> 00:39:24,320 may not speak Latin, will not be familiar with the City of Rome, 479 00:39:24,599 --> 00:39:29,119 will not worship the gods all this kind of thing, and yet over the 480 00:39:29,239 --> 00:39:34,480 course of the existence of the Empire, they construct a sense of identity that 481 00:39:35,400 --> 00:39:40,599 enables people, whether in Britain or in Arabia, to feel Roman, to 482 00:39:40,719 --> 00:39:45,679 the extent that when the Roman Empire finally collapses, the capital of the Roman 483 00:39:45,760 --> 00:39:51,639 Empire that gets captured isn't in Italy at all. It's on the shores of 484 00:39:51,639 --> 00:39:59,400 the Bosphorus. The Greeks who defend Constantinople when it falls in fourteen fifty three 485 00:40:00,000 --> 00:40:07,559 all themselves Romans. M. David's point reminded me of just like last week, 486 00:40:07,679 --> 00:40:12,119 my boyfriend and I toured Mount Vernon and there's a bust of Washington as 487 00:40:12,159 --> 00:40:16,119 Cincinnatus in his study in his office, and my boyfriend us the tour guide, 488 00:40:16,599 --> 00:40:20,920 did Washington have that made of himself? And she was like, no, 489 00:40:21,079 --> 00:40:23,599 it was a gift that would sort of defeat the purpose of Washington as 490 00:40:23,679 --> 00:40:29,639 Cincinnatis. But on that note, one of the biggest questions Tom obviously, 491 00:40:29,719 --> 00:40:36,559 because it goes straight back to dominion and the sort of difficulty of as David 492 00:40:36,639 --> 00:40:39,440 just alluded to, studying this time period, writing about this time period. 493 00:40:39,599 --> 00:40:43,159 Actually, I'll let you speak because you say this better. You right, 494 00:40:43,199 --> 00:40:45,920 The Roman Empire and at heyday was a world very different from ours, and 495 00:40:45,000 --> 00:40:49,480 it is perilous to write about it in a language such as English, one 496 00:40:49,559 --> 00:40:52,119 that has been shaped and weathered by over a millennium of Christian assumptions without being 497 00:40:52,119 --> 00:40:55,719 alert to just how tracherous and medium it can potentially be. Talk to us 498 00:40:55,719 --> 00:41:04,840 about the difficulty of actually using the English language to convey some of the differences, 499 00:41:05,679 --> 00:41:08,639 or even just to convey some of the mores and the decisions that were 500 00:41:08,679 --> 00:41:13,960 made in Rome. I found, I mean, I found this right. 501 00:41:14,400 --> 00:41:17,440 For as long as I've been writing about the pre Christian world using words that 502 00:41:17,480 --> 00:41:23,719 are freighted with Christians significations and assumptions. So religion would be an example. 503 00:41:24,400 --> 00:41:27,920 I mean, you know, when you're a child or even you know, 504 00:41:28,039 --> 00:41:30,719 as an adult, you can often get a book, say on Ancient Egypt 505 00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:34,199 or ancient Greece or ancient Road, where there'll be a chapter on religion, 506 00:41:35,400 --> 00:41:37,920 and it will talk to you about the gods and so on, and temples 507 00:41:37,960 --> 00:41:40,880 and things like that. And the assumption is is that they're that religion is 508 00:41:40,920 --> 00:41:45,360 something that can be separated out from the fabric of everything else that is happening 509 00:41:45,440 --> 00:41:54,119 in Athens or in Rome. This is an entirely Western Christian way of understanding 510 00:41:54,199 --> 00:41:58,840 the world, the idea that there is something called religion which is separate from 511 00:41:58,920 --> 00:42:06,280 something called the secular. This emerges from the Latin traditions that are really articulated 512 00:42:06,320 --> 00:42:09,960 by Saint Augustine as the Roman Empire is collapsing, and have kind of evolved 513 00:42:10,039 --> 00:42:15,400 over the course of one and a half millennia of Latin Christian history to give 514 00:42:15,559 --> 00:42:21,400 us the situation that people in the West now take for granted that religion is 515 00:42:21,480 --> 00:42:24,039 something that can be separated out from the secular. You know, so the 516 00:42:24,119 --> 00:42:30,239 whole separation of church and state. That's so foundation in the United States. 517 00:42:30,480 --> 00:42:31,840 I mean, that's something that would have meant nothing to the Romans, that 518 00:42:32,159 --> 00:42:38,800 it would have been inconceivable to them. Or again, you talked about sexuality, 519 00:42:38,920 --> 00:42:44,519 so we have we have we take for granted that there is something called 520 00:42:44,599 --> 00:42:51,480 homosexuality and heterosexuality. Again, these are words that meant nothing for the Romans 521 00:42:51,559 --> 00:42:53,199 at all, And people say, you know, was was so and so 522 00:42:53,400 --> 00:42:59,679 homosexual? No, because it's like saying Juliuses are invaded France. I mean 523 00:42:59,719 --> 00:43:01,599 you kind of get the idea. I mean, it's kind of in the 524 00:43:01,719 --> 00:43:07,480 right ballpark, but the anachronism is absolutely glaring. So the way, you 525 00:43:07,519 --> 00:43:15,360 know, it's not just that our morals and ethics have been altered by the 526 00:43:15,519 --> 00:43:21,599 process of Christianization, it's also that the way we understand how societies function or 527 00:43:21,840 --> 00:43:24,920 that sexuality operates, that's changed as well. And I think the risk is 528 00:43:25,000 --> 00:43:31,239 always that we assume that things we take for granted are to be equated with 529 00:43:31,400 --> 00:43:36,480 human nature. And I think that that's one of the fascinations of studying history, 530 00:43:37,079 --> 00:43:40,559 is that you know, there is no period of history or no place 531 00:43:42,199 --> 00:43:45,000 in the world that doesn't serve as a reminder to you when you study it, 532 00:43:45,400 --> 00:43:52,920 that there are an infinite ways of being human and that our assumptions are 533 00:43:52,119 --> 00:43:58,840 not human nature. Our assumptions are bred by very very distinctive kind of cultural 534 00:43:58,920 --> 00:44:01,719 processes. And if you look back at the Roman Empire, well that's why 535 00:44:01,760 --> 00:44:06,119 I say, what's fascinating about them is not the way they would just like 536 00:44:06,320 --> 00:44:13,679 us, but the way they were nothing like us. The Washdot on Wall 537 00:44:13,719 --> 00:44:17,159 Street podcast with Chris Murkowski. Every day Chris helps unpack the connection between politics 538 00:44:17,199 --> 00:44:21,320 and the economy and how it affects your wallet. Gas prices have never been 539 00:44:21,440 --> 00:44:23,400 this high at this time of the year. Ever, with the fall season 540 00:44:23,480 --> 00:44:28,000 approaching, diesel prices are expected to go up for farmers, which in turn 541 00:44:28,119 --> 00:44:31,639 causes your grocery bill to skyrocket. With no strategic petroleum reserve to tap into, 542 00:44:31,920 --> 00:44:35,440 is there ever an end in sight? Whether it's happening in DC or 543 00:44:35,480 --> 00:44:37,239 down on Wall Street, it's affecting you financially. Be informed. Check out 544 00:44:37,239 --> 00:44:40,760 the Watchdoto on Wall Street podcast with Chris Markowski on Apple, Spotify or wherever 545 00:44:40,840 --> 00:44:50,039 you get your podcasts. Right reminds me of Judaism a little, since it's 546 00:44:50,079 --> 00:44:53,440 so ancient. It is both sort of ethnicity and faith combined, and people 547 00:44:53,519 --> 00:44:57,679 wrote put the Bible together, probably made no distinction between those two things. 548 00:44:57,960 --> 00:45:01,199 But since I'm on the topic, I'd like to ask you quickly about those 549 00:45:01,239 --> 00:45:07,239 two revolts I mentioned at the beginning. Were jew with the Jews or Judean's 550 00:45:07,360 --> 00:45:14,840 more prone to being rebellious than other people in the Empire? Or was there 551 00:45:14,920 --> 00:45:16,320 something special about them? Was it because they were on the fringe of the 552 00:45:16,400 --> 00:45:20,679 empire? Were they more but two backwards for Rome? What was the reason 553 00:45:20,760 --> 00:45:24,440 do you think for those revolts? So I would say Jew is another word 554 00:45:25,800 --> 00:45:30,480 that is incredibly treacherous for an English speaker to use, because Jew comes with 555 00:45:30,599 --> 00:45:37,639 all kinds of obvious significations that are not relevant to two thousand years ago. 556 00:45:38,280 --> 00:45:44,199 And the risk of saying two Jewish revolts against Rome is that it makes it 557 00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:52,400 sound inherently religious, because Jew is obviously a religious marker as well as an 558 00:45:52,440 --> 00:45:58,239 ethnic marker. But I'd say that's why throughout packs I use the word Judean. 559 00:45:59,079 --> 00:46:01,239 They are the people of the province of Judea in the way that Gauls 560 00:46:01,280 --> 00:46:08,079 other people of Gaul or Greeks come from Greece or whatever they are, they 561 00:46:08,159 --> 00:46:14,960 are the people of a distinct area. Now, the Romans absolutely see the 562 00:46:15,000 --> 00:46:17,360 Judeans as being very weird. The fact that they have a single god, 563 00:46:19,239 --> 00:46:22,679 that's very odd. The fact that they men circumcise themselves, and that they 564 00:46:23,119 --> 00:46:27,480 kind of have weird dietary laws, and you know, the Romans all seems 565 00:46:27,519 --> 00:46:31,280 completely mad. But that's not exceptional because the Romans see everybody is being weird. 566 00:46:32,039 --> 00:46:37,920 So the Jews Judeans, i should say, so, you know, 567 00:46:37,960 --> 00:46:40,280 they only work in one god. But it's not like they go around castrating 568 00:46:40,320 --> 00:46:45,159 themselves like the Syrians do. It's not like they worship gods with animal heads 569 00:46:45,559 --> 00:46:49,480 like the Egyptians do. It's not like they sacrifice people in kind of oaken 570 00:46:49,559 --> 00:46:52,800 glades like the Britons do. To the Romans, the Romans see themselves as 571 00:46:52,880 --> 00:46:55,719 the most moral people in the world, the people who the gods have most 572 00:46:55,800 --> 00:47:00,559 favored and who therefore have the best understanding of the gods. And the proof 573 00:47:00,599 --> 00:47:04,280 of that is that they rule this vast empire. So by definition, everyone 574 00:47:04,320 --> 00:47:07,199 else is basically wrong, because otherwise they'd be ruling the world. So when 575 00:47:07,239 --> 00:47:10,679 the Romans look at the Judeans, they see a peculiar people, but they 576 00:47:10,760 --> 00:47:17,079 don't see a people who are driven by, for instance, their worship of 577 00:47:17,119 --> 00:47:22,000 a single god, to endlessly rising revolt. Because the Romans are very aware 578 00:47:22,079 --> 00:47:28,599 that they they They've been ruling the Judeans since Pompey the Great turned up and 579 00:47:28,679 --> 00:47:31,519 walked into the innermost sanctum of the temple and found that there was nothing there. 580 00:47:32,840 --> 00:47:36,920 And the Judeans didn't revolt on that occasion, and they haven't really revolted 581 00:47:37,000 --> 00:47:40,119 since. And before that, you know, they had a slight run in 582 00:47:40,199 --> 00:47:45,519 with a with a Greek king, but basically they paid their taxes to Alexander 583 00:47:45,599 --> 00:47:49,039 and his immediate airs, and before that they were subject to the Persian kings 584 00:47:49,079 --> 00:47:52,440 and they paid their taxes to them. So actually, the Judeans are, 585 00:47:52,760 --> 00:47:54,920 in the opinion of the Romans, are much more suited to being subjects of 586 00:47:55,000 --> 00:48:00,719 a world empire than say the Britons, who have no cities, no towns, 587 00:48:00,760 --> 00:48:07,280 no experience of paying taxes, and are completely barbarous. So I don't 588 00:48:07,320 --> 00:48:15,000 think that there was anything inherent in Judea in the first century AD that made 589 00:48:15,039 --> 00:48:19,519 it inevitable that they would rise in rebellion. Again, I think it's about 590 00:48:19,639 --> 00:48:25,159 contingency, and it takes us back to Nero. Because a great fire has 591 00:48:25,239 --> 00:48:30,719 destroyed vast suaves of Rome. Nero wants to rebuild it. And to rebuilding 592 00:48:30,840 --> 00:48:36,440 on the scale that is appropriate to Nero's dreams requires an enormous amount of money, 593 00:48:36,920 --> 00:48:39,960 and so he sends tax collectors out across the empire to leashed provincials, 594 00:48:40,679 --> 00:48:47,679 and he sends a particularly avaricious tax collector to Judea, which prompts all kinds 595 00:48:47,760 --> 00:48:55,559 of unhappiness demonstrations and so on. And these demonstrations snowball and it culminates in 596 00:48:55,639 --> 00:49:01,119 a legion being cut to death in an ambush. And on one level, 597 00:49:01,280 --> 00:49:05,960 this is a great triumph. I mean, you know, it's the worst 598 00:49:06,000 --> 00:49:13,000 military disaster that's affected a Roman army since the destruction of the Three Legions in 599 00:49:14,639 --> 00:49:17,599 the reign of Augustus in Germany. But what it means for the Judeans is 600 00:49:17,639 --> 00:49:24,000 that the Romans cannot possibly allow this to pass, so they have to they 601 00:49:24,119 --> 00:49:31,320 have to kind of oblige the Judeans to surrender, and it leads to the 602 00:49:31,760 --> 00:49:36,480 ultimate calamity, which is the destruction of Jerusalem and the Temple. And from 603 00:49:36,519 --> 00:49:42,400 that point on, I think things do become different because the man who had 604 00:49:42,440 --> 00:49:45,920 been leading the suppression of the rebellion in Judea was Vespasian, who goes on 605 00:49:46,039 --> 00:49:52,440 to become emperor of the entire Roman world, and the man who captures Jerusalem 606 00:49:52,480 --> 00:49:58,079 and destroys the temple is Vespasian's son and heir, Titus, who is emperor 607 00:49:58,159 --> 00:50:08,840 when Vesuvius erupt. And this enables Vespasian and Titus to present themselves as Roman 608 00:50:09,000 --> 00:50:13,760 figures who are reassuring the old fashioned in that they have won a great victory 609 00:50:13,920 --> 00:50:27,079 over barbarous and enemies and distant lands. And this in turn means that Vespasian 610 00:50:27,119 --> 00:50:32,280 and his dynasty, the Flavians, are endlessly going on about how the destruction 611 00:50:32,400 --> 00:50:37,719 of Jerusalem and the suppression of the Judean revolt is a much greater feat than 612 00:50:37,800 --> 00:50:43,000 it actually was, and the danger from the Judeans is much greater than it 613 00:50:43,079 --> 00:50:52,199 actually was. M hm. So I actually this is the last story. 614 00:50:52,519 --> 00:51:00,880 So I didn't let me just let me finish that. Oh I say that 615 00:51:01,280 --> 00:51:07,400 Vespasition was over doing their victory and so just and so it's this that then 616 00:51:08,719 --> 00:51:28,400 something, and it's this that it means that the Flavian emperors come up with 617 00:51:28,480 --> 00:51:31,599 the Wieze, that when when the Temple of Jupiter actually burns down twice, 618 00:51:31,760 --> 00:51:37,119 once in the Earth of the Four Emperors and then then again in the under 619 00:51:37,199 --> 00:51:42,000 Titus, that the money that had gone been paid by the Judeans towards the 620 00:51:42,039 --> 00:51:47,280 upkeep of their own temple instead should be devoted to funding the rebuilding of the 621 00:51:47,320 --> 00:51:52,360 Temple of Jupiter. And that kind of that kind of tax is something exceptional, 622 00:51:53,000 --> 00:51:59,760 and it serves to entrench a sense of division between Roman and Judean that 623 00:52:00,079 --> 00:52:05,480 until the Judaean revolt had not existed. So I think that that what today 624 00:52:05,559 --> 00:52:12,079 we would kind of rabbinical Judaism, the Judaism that we are familiar with today, 625 00:52:12,800 --> 00:52:19,079 the post Temple Judaism, that is what that is the kind of that 626 00:52:19,280 --> 00:52:22,920 is a corollary of this terrible war. And it's why of all the wars 627 00:52:23,000 --> 00:52:30,360 fought by the Romans, that that that opening, that that opening war that 628 00:52:30,440 --> 00:52:35,840 sees the destruction of the temple is so seismically influential on future ages. So 629 00:52:36,039 --> 00:52:39,280 right to this day Temple Mount where where the temple stood and where today the 630 00:52:39,360 --> 00:52:44,760 dome of the Rock stands. I mean, the emirs were able to build 631 00:52:44,800 --> 00:52:47,480 the Dome of the Rock in the seventh century, because Titus had destroyed the 632 00:52:47,559 --> 00:52:55,400 temple certain six hundred years earlier. And it's because of Titus that we have 633 00:52:55,599 --> 00:53:00,880 this terrible flash point in Jerusalem. Now, I mean, that is quite 634 00:53:00,920 --> 00:53:07,320 a legacy for a war to have. You know. Actually, in church, 635 00:53:07,880 --> 00:53:09,239 the church that I go to, the pastor has used dominion a couple 636 00:53:09,280 --> 00:53:15,239 of times and in a specific way that you're right about impacts. Just how 637 00:53:15,159 --> 00:53:17,320 you may use the word irony or maybe I'm putting in your mouth, you 638 00:53:17,320 --> 00:53:20,239 can correct me, Tom, But the irony of the fact that you have 639 00:53:20,400 --> 00:53:27,000 this this period of abject strength and success for Rome is also the period that 640 00:53:27,800 --> 00:53:36,079 creates the conditions for Christianity eventually to kind of overcome Rome. And what's interesting 641 00:53:36,199 --> 00:53:38,360 there, I mean the pastor has even just used the example of roads, 642 00:53:38,960 --> 00:53:44,079 just just having roads to be able to get easily from one place to the 643 00:53:44,159 --> 00:53:46,039 other. I wanted to ask you, Tom, about what some of those 644 00:53:46,039 --> 00:53:52,480 conditions are in the in the packs that lead to what comes next. Well, 645 00:53:57,239 --> 00:54:04,880 probably the greatest negative account of Roman civilization, and I think probably the 646 00:54:05,039 --> 00:54:10,480 single most influential anti imperial text ever written is by a Christian. In this 647 00:54:10,599 --> 00:54:15,599 period, namely the Revolution, the revelation of Saint John, who sees the 648 00:54:15,679 --> 00:54:21,519 whrror of Babylon, and the whore of Babylon is indisputably Rome. And the 649 00:54:21,639 --> 00:54:25,320 fall of the whor of Babylon. John describes it as being the collapse of 650 00:54:25,440 --> 00:54:30,639 trade networks. So he describes the who as being a raid in jewels and 651 00:54:30,760 --> 00:54:37,800 purples and so on that are brought to her by ships from across the entire 652 00:54:37,320 --> 00:54:43,039 sweep of the Mediterranean Sea. So it's actually very sophisticated understanding of how imperialism 653 00:54:43,119 --> 00:54:49,639 works. And the Christians, you know, the test Rome as as as 654 00:54:49,719 --> 00:54:52,400 Babylon. But at the same time, as you say, the Roman Empire 655 00:54:52,480 --> 00:54:59,719 has has furnished Christians with the condition that enable them to spread their self consciously 656 00:55:00,119 --> 00:55:06,559 universalist message. The Judeans are the people of Judea. They are an ancient 657 00:55:06,639 --> 00:55:12,480 people. They therefore deserve respect. Christians are something completely new, so new 658 00:55:12,559 --> 00:55:15,559 that it's very difficult for Romans to get their heads around them. These are 659 00:55:15,639 --> 00:55:22,199 a people who claim to belong to a universal people, a Catholic people, 660 00:55:22,280 --> 00:55:29,119 if you want to put it in Greek. And this of course is very 661 00:55:29,199 --> 00:55:32,639 full of pregnancy. In the future because actually what will happen is that in 662 00:55:32,800 --> 00:55:38,559 due course Roman identity will come to allide with Christian identity. And because Christian 663 00:55:38,639 --> 00:55:45,599 identity is self consciously universalist and not tied to a particular city or a particular 664 00:55:45,840 --> 00:55:51,800 expanse of territory, therefore it becomes ideally suited to merging with a Roman identity 665 00:55:51,920 --> 00:55:55,320 that has come to cover the vast sweep that it does. But in this 666 00:55:55,519 --> 00:56:00,800 period Christians are I mean, apparently the metaphor that I use in the introduction, 667 00:56:01,199 --> 00:56:07,719 they are like tiny mammals in a Mesozoic world dominated by dinosaurs. And 668 00:56:08,199 --> 00:56:12,320 although in the long run the mammals will inherit the earth and the Christians will 669 00:56:12,360 --> 00:56:19,519 inherit the earth impacts, I'm interested in the dinosaurs. My last question, 670 00:56:19,599 --> 00:56:23,599 it's just about It's not very serious, but I wanted to know since Rome, 671 00:56:23,920 --> 00:56:27,199 and you know, has dominated or you know, it's been a part 672 00:56:27,239 --> 00:56:30,119 of our imagination almost since it fell in Western imagination, at least what it's 673 00:56:30,119 --> 00:56:32,880 been part of our popular culture as well, is there you know, there 674 00:56:32,880 --> 00:56:36,599 are a lot of movies about Rome, a lot of shows about Rome. 675 00:56:36,800 --> 00:56:39,800 A lot of them are terrible, I think, probably not historically accurate. 676 00:56:39,920 --> 00:56:44,920 Most most often. But is there one that you enjoy the most or be 677 00:56:45,079 --> 00:56:50,280 think is the most accurate depiction of how Roman life maybe was. I think 678 00:56:50,360 --> 00:56:54,960 that the film that is most accurate is Fellini Satiricon, which is an adaptation 679 00:56:55,079 --> 00:57:05,320 of a kind of novel that exists in fragments written by Nero's arbiter of excellence 680 00:57:05,719 --> 00:57:08,519 of elegance, sorry, who ended up inevitably being forced to kill himself. 681 00:57:09,320 --> 00:57:15,559 But it's a kind of vision of the underbelly of Roman life. It's kind 682 00:57:15,599 --> 00:57:22,840 of two neerdo wells in a port city has read men, and it has 683 00:57:22,960 --> 00:57:29,280 slaves and prostitutes and all kinds of people. And Felini, I think, 684 00:57:29,400 --> 00:57:35,400 touches on something that's very true to the kind of alien and unsettling way that 685 00:57:35,480 --> 00:57:39,199 looked to our way of thinking that the Romans thought. But I do think 686 00:57:39,239 --> 00:57:43,679 that the most famous is also one of the very best, which is Gladiator, 687 00:57:43,960 --> 00:57:47,960 which I've already mentioned. And actually it's the inaccuracies and that that kind 688 00:57:49,000 --> 00:57:52,599 of make it accurate, which makes sound ridiculously to say. But if you 689 00:57:52,639 --> 00:57:58,320 think of the coliseum in Gladiator, it's much much larger than the actual that 690 00:57:58,400 --> 00:58:02,800 the actual Colisseum was but it's precisely the stupefying scale of it that enables it 691 00:58:02,880 --> 00:58:07,039 to convey a sense of how stupefying the Colisseum must have been to people who've 692 00:58:07,079 --> 00:58:12,920 never seen a building on that scale before. You kind of need grotesquely exaggerated 693 00:58:13,039 --> 00:58:17,079 cgi to simulate the impact that the original coliseum had. And likewise, all 694 00:58:17,159 --> 00:58:23,480 the Vietnam esque use of napalm in the opening sequence where the Romans are facing 695 00:58:23,519 --> 00:58:29,119 the Germans. I mean, I don't think the napalm, but again it 696 00:58:29,239 --> 00:58:31,880 does convey how terrifying it must have been to confront the Roman war machine. 697 00:58:32,760 --> 00:58:39,360 So again the exaggeration I think is part of the accuracy there. Well two 698 00:58:39,480 --> 00:58:44,000 is coming. Did you guys know that I did, Yes. I think 699 00:58:44,000 --> 00:58:47,480 it's actually Hopkins is Vespasian. I think, yeah, Denzel Washington is nature 700 00:58:47,519 --> 00:58:52,639 who He's Yeah, very exciting. Can't wait. They should just the Napoleon 701 00:58:52,719 --> 00:58:58,320 movie. It should just be Gladiator too. They don't even Yeah, well, 702 00:58:58,360 --> 00:59:00,360 I I what's that too? Half house? And they've squeezed the whole 703 00:59:00,400 --> 00:59:04,239 life of Napoleon into that. I don't know how they've done that. Yeah, 704 00:59:04,679 --> 00:59:07,800 we'll see if they really do it. By Tom Holland Thank you so 705 00:59:07,960 --> 00:59:12,559 much for joining us. The book is packs More in Peace in Rome's Golden 706 00:59:12,639 --> 00:59:16,159 Age. You can listen to more from Tom and its co host Dominic at 707 00:59:16,320 --> 00:59:20,880 the Rest is History. A wonderful podcast, a wonderful book. So rich, 708 00:59:21,079 --> 00:59:22,639 Tom, Thank you for joining us, Thanks so much for having me. 709 00:59:23,119 --> 00:59:27,079 Of course. I'm Emilijashinski, culture editor here at the Federalist, joined 710 00:59:27,079 --> 00:59:30,519 today by my colleague David Arsani, Senior editor at the Federalist. We'll be 711 00:59:30,599 --> 00:59:34,239 back soon with more. Until then, the lovers of freedom and anxious for 712 00:59:34,360 --> 00:59:40,880 the pray right, what are you wrong