Speaker 1: Welcome to Softcore History. What is up? Welcome back to
Softcore History. I am your host for the week, Rob Fox,
joined as always by Dan Jester. We're coming to you
over that Christmas holiday. Welcome to our show. Thanks for
listening while you're driving, or shopping, or avoiding family, whatever
you're doing.
Speaker 2: Getting out of the house. You've been with the extended family,
your parents maybe kids, for forty eight to seventy two hours.
Speaker 1: At this point, you told them you're going to visit
a friend. They don't know that that friend odeed six
years ago. You're just out driving.
Speaker 2: You're going for a nice drive, maybe getting some tobacco
in yea, maybe drinking and driving.
Speaker 1: I hope you're not, but yeah, I don't drink and
drive like a lot, you know, maybe like a two beer.
Go out to see a movie, have a beer or
two at the movie time.
Speaker 2: You got a handgun in your lap. You're staring off
into the distance.
Speaker 1: Wait. I actually thought of a fun game to play
for people over at Christmas break Every night you go out,
tell your mom you're going to meet a friend of
yours who odeed, and do that every night until she
knows that one of them odeed.
Speaker 2: Until she figures it out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So it's like first night, like, yeah, Mom,
I'm going to see uh.
Speaker 2: You know, your parents are the ones that usually break
that news to you, though maybe not for you, but
since I've been out of Philadelphia, it's usually my parents
are like, oh, so and so unfortunately past.
Speaker 1: The only one my parents I feel like, no Abount
is one of my brother's friends who oded like fucking
eight years ago at this point.
Speaker 2: But my parents are They're always like, oh, hey, just
so you know, this person died, this person died, this
person died. Hope you have a good day.
Speaker 1: Yeah. I ran into uh, Joey Tromoli's parents and they
were coming back from his funeral. He died.
Speaker 2: Had a lot of good sounds with Tremoli.
Speaker 1: Joey good guy, got fucked up at his house sophomore year.
He's a good guy. Got a hand job at his house,
and that's all that qualifies for him being a good
guy like you, even though you know for a fact
that like he wasn't paying his child support for years.
You're just like, yeah, but that party, that.
Speaker 2: Partyhore tenth grade fucking upperclassmen, give me an h because
he gave you behind his dad shed.
Speaker 1: That's a core memory, you know what I mean? Like,
it doesn't matter how many core memories that are negative
that he gave to the six year old he left behind. Yes,
he gave you a positive core memory.
Speaker 2: And that's what's important. And that kid didn't really deserve
more money. It's good his mother's actually asking for too much.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that kid didn't know the real Joey. I never will.
Speaker 2: No. I mean, Joey barely could hold a job.
Speaker 1: Joey.
Speaker 2: I mean, what kind of child support does he need
to provide? He's he's in and out of rehab.
Speaker 1: Joey was too good for this world. Yeah, it's too
good for it. Yeah, r I p to this fictional
Philadelphian slash Saint Louis. I don't know. It's always Italian
or Irish.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you might as well make it just Mickey McPherson.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I feel like me and you though grew up
with very similarly named people. It's the Irish Catholics, Yes,
Irish Italian Catholic. Like if I just if I just
I might do this one day for like a Patreon
Patreon dot com.
Speaker 2: Because every area had their parishes, right, each church parish
you from.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was in kind of like a mixed parish,
but like the South, like South city parishes.
Speaker 2: I was our lady of Fatima, Christ the King, Christ
the Kun. I had some beef with some Christ of
the Kings really yeah, mainly you. But no, I mean
I hated saying Thomas Quinas. I hated.
Speaker 1: OLP.
Speaker 2: I just didn't like OLP.
Speaker 1: Saint Blaize fuck Saint Blaze their arrival in baseball for
a Whileah in the.
Speaker 2: Day, Holy Cross fucked us up a lot in Cyo
bassball and football.
Speaker 1: Okay, trying to think of other other schools, other grade
schools that pissed me off back in the day, Uh,
Saint Blaize is really the main one. Saint Rock's was soft.
Speaker 2: Do you ever tried to make all Catholic? No, you
didn't reach all Catholic status in tennis?
Speaker 1: Tennis tennis back then, Oh you didn't.
Speaker 2: I didn't know any sport you played.
Speaker 1: So I played all the sports in like K through eight. No,
like high school, high school, just tennis. Yeah, yeah, that's
what I'm saying. No, No, I only I didn't play.
Speaker 2: I didn't go to a Catholic high school. So I
couldn't make the All Catholic team.
Speaker 1: That's not it's just all conference. At that point, we
were in a Catholic con like our conference was like
all Catholic schools, kind of like the Big Eastern Basketball now.
But yeah, I wouldn't make anything. I only played JV
and then quit to do theater full time.
Speaker 2: Did you even make a varsity letter?
Speaker 1: Dude? It's a country club sport at a private school.
Speaker 2: Come on, come on, dude, So you're you're ass. You're
a bad tennis.
Speaker 1: Player, No, dude, because JV one of the reason I
quit JV tennis honestly, other than I like theater better.
Speaker 2: Your coach, y'all? At you what your coach was mean?
Speaker 1: He was mean to me. Yeah, I'll never forgive him.
Speaker 2: No.
Speaker 1: I liked our coach. He's my French teacher and he
didn't give a fuck about anything.
Speaker 2: My French teacher was also my dad's golf coach, and
he's my golf coach nice and I have the same
name as my dad, so we already hated me.
Speaker 1: Oh perfect, Yeah, coach Lil sal No. So JV tennis
sucked because they only let JV play doubles. You couldn't
play singles in JV. I'm much better singles player than
a doubles player. I only liked playing singles. I still
do to this day. I don't really like playing doubles.
Speaker 2: So you're not a big pick a ball guy.
Speaker 1: That's a different I just don't care about pickleball, so
I don't care if there's someone else there or not.
Speaker 2: I didn't care about pickleball until they took one of
the basketball courts at Lifetime Fitness.
Speaker 1: They take all the courts. It's a virus. They take
the tennis courts. It doesn't stop.
Speaker 2: I don't know how it's gotten this big, but it has,
and I don't care for it. You can like I'm
cool with for tyrees playing pickleball, like it's probably more
their speed than tennis at this point.
Speaker 1: Well, yeah, eventually you can't can't cover a tennis court
when you're fucking sixty.
Speaker 2: But nothing infuriates me more than just like kids in
their twenties people our age just being all about pickleball.
Speaker 1: I mean, I'll play pickleball just because it's fun, but like, yeah,
I don't know about making it your whole fucking thing,
because it is like it it's a weird fucking they're
tennis Larper's hobby to just like ride for to get
really into it. And now it's becoming a thing where
all the if you go to like a website like
Adidas or Nike and you go to their tennis shoes,
now it's tennis slash pickleball shoes.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And I mean Joey got really in the pickleball
before you odd.
Speaker 1: Yeah, that was this one thing. He's really turning a corner.
He got addicted to pickleball, but not not quick enough.
Speaker 2: Not quick enough. It didn't pull him out of the darkness.
Speaker 1: Now, poor guy, poor Joey. Well it's good. In today's episode,
today we're talking about a little bitch, a dog, a pussy,
a big cat, a pussy, a fucking bitch. Dude, this
guy fucking a cuck, soft ass bitch, ass motherfucker.
Speaker 2: Your father that left you, Well, my father didn't leave.
So he came back. He left for a night.
Speaker 1: He couldn't do it.
Speaker 2: He went to grab some milk, maybe some SIGs, and
then he saw his reflection in the rear view mirror,
made eye contact with himself, stared directly into his soul
and He's like, I guess I'll put up with this
for the rest of my life.
Speaker 1: To be fair, be a cigar from my father. But yeah,
I can't disprove that you're herodotusing money early years. Yeah,
fair enough. All you know is I had a father.
You're filling in the place.
Speaker 2: I'm giving details. Yeah, that need to be added.
Speaker 1: Makes a better story. But yeah, we're talking about this
gay little bitch, this pussy Now. Granted, sure, he was
a cavalry commander by the age of twenty six and
won a lot of important battles for his country. At
twenty nine, he became arguably a key general under one
of the greatest military commanders of all time. Still though,
little bitch. Even though he helped conquer an unforbidding land, bitch,
he was instrumental in winning major battles and putting down revolts,
But still a little pussy bitch. He was then promoted
and commanded even more men, reconquered lands taken from them. Bitch.
Pussy saw combat over and over again in most of
his major battles, but absolute soft little bit.
Speaker 2: Today we're talking about George Washington.
Speaker 1: Not far off because this is at least how people,
or how one person in particular came to portray mark Antony,
General mark Antony of the Roman Republic. We're talking about
the propaganda campaign that Octavian aka Augustus Caesar ran against
mark Antony in order to make himself more powerful and
ultimately become the sole ruler and first Emperor of Rome.
Speaker 2: And it was by Antony. Bothers me, why just be Anthony?
The h ad the fucking h.
Speaker 1: They added that later they didn't have H's back then,
It's just kidding. They probably did.
Speaker 2: It was a New World letter.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, except for Herodatus Horotis was actually Erototus. You
don't realize that. Yeah, it was added. The age was
added much much later. But now we're talking about mark Antony.
And my favorite thing about so one of my favorite
things about ancient Rome in that it's total bullshit and
we don't give it enough like as a general public.
I'm sure historians do, but as a general public we
really don't think enough about how our understanding of the
republic to empire transition and the key figures in it
are all basically the epitome of histories written by the winners,
and we kind of just culturally and even from a
historical perspective, until you get really into the weeds, kind
of just take them at their propagandist word.
Speaker 2: Yeah, there were sometimes the Roman soldiers would go in
kill the emperor and then just sell the seats of
the highest bidder.
Speaker 1: The praetorian guard. Yeah that's a fun time. That was
a couple hundred years later.
Speaker 2: But yeah, so really the guy that was in power
had no power.
Speaker 1: For in a certain era, that's not inaccurate. Like if
you pissed off, this is like the equivalent of like
pissing off. I wouldn't say like this secret Service, but
like maybe just the Pentagon, I guess or something. If
the Secret Service CIA, well, the Secret Service had like
a la carte to just dispose of anyone, right, right.
So Mark Anthony was although one historian, Adrian Goldsworthy kind
of says he wasn't that great of a commander. Was
and was We kind of take a sort of like
almost Shakespearean view of Mark Antony. The general consensus is
that he was a very good general and certainly an
experienced soldier who saw a lot of battles and a
lot of combat and stuff like that.
Speaker 2: But do we give the Romans too much credit. Were
they getting easy dubs?
Speaker 1: No, no, no, take like conquering, the conquering and subduing
and keeping the amount of territory they had, and then
especially places.
Speaker 2: Like that's certainly impressive, Like I'm saying, were they already
well established to the point that some of the guys
later on just kind of kept the wheels going.
Speaker 1: Oh, turn key operation certainly the same way, like.
Speaker 2: As long as the system's in place, Yeah, it's you
know the Syracuse zone, Yes, yeah, it's.
Speaker 1: Plug and play. And that is absolutely true. It's very
much like uh, I would say, not too indifferent from
like the United States of America, right.
Speaker 2: Like.
Speaker 1: It is even if you're a bad president, for example,
like you're still doing better than the rest of the
world most likely. And the United States is such a
humongous and powerful economy that it's almost it's very difficult
to i to fuck things up unless you almost do
it by force, because like the arc, it's gonna win
in the end, the money is gonna wine. So like
it's it's like it's like trying to damn a waterfall
or so, you know, like it's you can't it's an
unstoppable force almost it would take it takes almost sup
not supernatural, but like like acts of God to actually
fuck it up like a person can't do it.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, No, who would be regarded as like the
best frum in general? Then? Is it somebody from the
uh the Punic.
Speaker 1: Wars Sippio Africanus would be up there? Certainly Caesar is
on the very very short list. So it's Pompey. Yeah,
by the way, Pompey did a lot of incredible ship
pumpy whatever. And then there's later guys to it. And
then if you want even want to count like Eastern
Roman generals, Belisarius is is as good as anyone that
ever lived. Probably, so yeah, there's a lot. But Caesar
is up there, and mark Antony is I would say
mark Antony maybe maybe maybe a good comp I don't
know for sure, but maybe a good comp would be like,
h uh, Antony is is the Sherman too. Caesar's grant
did Sherman's dope though, I know, But mark Antony's kind
of dope too?
Speaker 2: Does he burness to the ground a lot of them
all the time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, But Antony was a badass motherfucker who eventually got
portrayed in the eyes of Romans as.
Speaker 2: Reputation as a little tiny bitch cuck a bitch soft
does his wife cheat on them? The opposite, he cheated
on his wife, oh boy.
Speaker 1: And that plays into it quite a bit.
Speaker 2: That makes you, uh, cook though, so cook, you're cut
queen in.
Speaker 1: Here's I'll explain. We'll get into how but and they
make a very direct comparison in a way that makes sense. Okay,
But one thing that's gonna crop up over and over again.
So all of this essentially is legitimized. Probably isn't the
right word, but like it's made not probable. What am I?
What am I thinking of It's it's made like like
it could be possible. Seems like it seemed like it
could be possible because of who he was fucking, which
is Cleopatra. And so the general thing that inspires all
this is that, oh, he's adopting Eastern ways, and Eastern
is essentially would be like today's code for just gay.
Speaker 2: Also, she's kind of the hoe.
Speaker 1: I don't know that she's cheating on him. She's a pragmatico.
She's fucking she's she's fucking him. And actually they from
all historical accounts, they're not ever away from each other
for very long once they start dating or whatever, so
like it's just that banging each other.
Speaker 2: Like there she's fucking servant boys.
Speaker 1: As far as I can tell, they're genuinely in love.
But also that's not cheating, that's just jacking off into
the servant boy.
Speaker 2: That's not well, they're jacking off into her.
Speaker 1: No, I don't think so. I think she's keeping it
from Mark.
Speaker 2: Okay, but Mark is probably creampie only from Mark.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but Mark's probably jacking I mean, they had a
lot of kids together, Anthony and Cleopatra.
Speaker 2: And we're certain they were his Yeah, okay.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, it seems to be like I said, they
were not away from each other for very long once
they started their thing. They were kind of always together.
She was not a good ruler. Well she rolled the dice,
I think, and I don't blame her.
Speaker 2: And what happens when a little a woman about her.
Speaker 1: I say this later in the episode, but Mark Anthony
doesn't really do himself any favors, you know what I mean,
Like he really kind of like tosses gasoline onto the propaganda.
But I just kind of but what's funny is though,
the way he does it is that like it's very
clear that he's the opposite of what they're saying, and
he's just doing whatever the fuck he wants because he's
a dude, Like he's kind of badass and he's like,
fuck this, I'm gonna impose my will and do whatever
the fuck I want. But it plays into the narrative
that Octavian is putting forward.
Speaker 2: Can he control Cleopatra to do whatever he wants?
Speaker 1: I think I'm talking on my ass here, obviously, because
I'm not a historian. I'm not an expert on this. This
is softcore history. But I think they were genuinely in love.
Speaker 2: Okay, but can he steamroller?
Speaker 1: Yeah he can, he yes, But I think he's.
Speaker 2: So he's really in power in Egypt.
Speaker 1: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, he's the one. And I mean
Cleopatrick is a client queen, yeah you know what I mean.
And he that is his domain, the eastern part of
the Empire is kind of what he's running.
Speaker 2: And so so what Daddy says, Cleopatrick does, but she
has his ear like it's a partnership. Yeah, I guess,
But either way, it's how well she's sucking that how.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and he's getting late. But but the thing of
it is, though, is that she.
Speaker 2: Has the golden mouth.
Speaker 1: Yeah, she's a Nancy Reagan throacout.
Speaker 2: Was Anthony the one that gave her the name? Or no,
that was Caesar, wasn't.
Speaker 1: It probably was probably Caesar because she had a kid
with Caesar too. Yeah, Caesarean.
Speaker 2: But the whole point is he cut because he was
after Caesar.
Speaker 1: No, they don't say that. In fact, they try to
kind of. They actually Octavian doesn't want to bring up
the fact that Caesar's with her at all because she
had a son through Caesar. Yeah, and so.
Speaker 2: That's too, so added legitimacy to the sun.
Speaker 1: Yes, yeah, he didn't. That's something that they did not
want to bring up in any way whatsoever. So they
didn't talk about that really because that would have lent
credence to the fact that there was another rightful heir
to Caesar who was not Octavian, because he Octavian wasn't
even Caesar's kid, right, he was the adopted son of
Caesar in his will and sees will. So like they
didn't find out about that until after host death.
Speaker 2: Adoption.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, literally, so.
Speaker 2: That sounds us.
Speaker 1: The whole point of this is, though, is that Octavian
portrays Anthony as Eastern, which is a twofold insult. And
we'll get into how he does it, but it's a
twofold insult. One maybe most not maybe definitely most important
is that it means he's foreign. Now, he's not Roman,
he's been lost to the East, of course, foreigner, but
also what type of foreigner is he? And that is
like again, like we joked around in the Herodotous episode
last week, we talked about the pisions marching on on Greece.
It's just a parade of gay weirdos. Well that's Egypt.
That's well, it's Egypt, but it's the East, right, Like
it's they're not strong, you know, body Roman true men, right,
these are soft, artistic gay lord even though everybody's doing
gay stuff. But like it's you're just like, yeah, he's weak,
he's he's effeminate. That's the Eastern man is effeminate. Yeah,
he's gay.
Speaker 2: They're doing it in a twink way, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And that is how he is portrayed. Because he's having
sex with the most famous woman in the East. So
he's he's a feminine.
Speaker 2: Uh, it's like calling Travis Kelcey gay.
Speaker 1: Now, I know, dude's got fucking Taylor Swift. We're fucking queer,
Like what that is happening? I know, it's fucking crazy.
Speaker 2: She's got no curves.
Speaker 1: That is actually a great comp Travis Kelcey is a
soft football player now because he's having sex with a
famous pop star who writes girly songs. So he's a bitch.
That is what happened to Mark Antony and the propaganda.
That's a perfect analogy.
Speaker 2: Home runs every now and then. Contact Hitter though, you know.
Speaker 1: So. In forty three BC, the second Triumvirate happens. It's
between Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus. Essentially in the wake of
Caesar's assassination assassination, they start running the country. And during
these years, Antony's kind of running the East. He's invading Parthia.
He kind of wants to Antony has his own designs
on Grandeur. He kind of wants to do Alexander the
Great shit right, conquer more the East, stuff like that.
Octavian stays in Italy where he kind of strengthens his
power with the Roman people in the Roman senate Lepidus
is a nobody and he gets kicked out in thirty
six BC. So Octavian aka Augustus, the man who would
become the first emperor. He wants to be the emperor.
He wants to be sole power. Had they both like,
he has designs on I think something. Well, Caesar, I
guess had designs on this, but he has designs on
something that I think nobody else alive at that very
moment had designs. I don't think Anthony had designs necessarily
on singular lifelong monarchal pas.
Speaker 2: So forgive me, I'm not as plugged into the alpha
male Roman history grind. You know, I haven't been reading
up on my meditations from Marcus Aurelius. But what's the
difference between Caesar and emperor?
Speaker 1: What do you mean?
Speaker 2: Wasn't Julius Caesar an emperor?
Speaker 1: No, he was dictator for life.
Speaker 2: I guess what's the difference between dictator and emperor?
Speaker 1: The title hadn't been invented.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, same, same though.
Speaker 1: Yeah, dictator was more like the actual term they would
use at the time for someone who's solely in charge,
and Caesar was like, you know, what you're gonna make
me that for life and imperator imperatore was what Augustus
was and that was so he was the first Yeah, emperor.
Speaker 2: So it's just the first title, first time it's ever
been mentioned. Yeah, but same power, right.
Speaker 1: Right, And they really wanted to avoid the word king.
That's why these other titles are used because Romans fucking
hated kings. Think about like someone trying to declare themselves
king of America in the eighteen tens. Yeah right, no,
no kings, No fucking kings. They fucking hated kings, and
that was a good piece of propaganda they would use
against all their enemies, right, like we're fighting a king, right,
we're fighting a Carthaginian king. Even if someone wasn't a king,
they'd call him a king just because that was a
slanderous the same way we today actually might call someone
a dictator, like Americans will just throw dictator, right because
Hitler was a dictator. And that really is the gist
of it, like that, we I don't think we necessarily
super duper hated dictators prior to World War Two, like
we didn't like them. Santa Ana was a dictator in
Mexico when we fought him, but dictator really got it
became like a filthy word from World War Two afterwards,
where we would just throw that at anybody, sodami.
Speaker 2: The king's actually gotten softer.
Speaker 1: It has king like, oh the King of Jordan, look
at that. Look cute.
Speaker 2: Look king, he's a dictator.
Speaker 1: The king is something. There's no functional difference.
Speaker 2: No, but we're like the King of Jordan he's dope.
Speaker 1: Or like the King of England, like, oh England is king.
Speaker 2: Again, that's not really a thing though, that's kind of
more like symbolic.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but we do think it's cute when a country
has a king but a dictator. Yeah, but King of
Jordan's a dictator. What he says goes yeah, Like it's
the same fucking thing.
Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, I just didn't know if Yah, Emperor was softer.
Speaker 1: Or for them it was it was just not you
know what I mean. Was he voted, Yeah, but like.
Speaker 2: The same did he have to like listen to the Senate.
Speaker 1: You can't throw what they say out completely out the window.
Speaker 2: Didn't Caesar do that? Granted he was stabbed.
Speaker 1: I mean Caesar didn't listen to them as much as
they would have liked, and that was the problem. And
they were also just like he's trying to become a king,
because they were like, that's what dictator for life is.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's the fucking king, just like no term limits,
you know.
Speaker 1: Yeah, which is why they stabbed him. As soon as
lepidist was out, Octavian was like, all right, it's just
me and Anthony. This is going to come to a
head at some point because I know what I want
and I don't even think Anthony wanted to be sole ruler,
but I think he also kind of knew that Octavian
was going to become a problem for him one way
or the other, and he certainly didn't want to bend
the kneed Octavian.
Speaker 2: You don't want to serve the Octoman.
Speaker 1: The kid who was a teenager when he became in
the Triumph, when he went into the triumvirate with Anthony,
who was a hardened veteran who helped conquer Gaul and
then beat like he was the one who beat Caesar's
assassin's brutus and stuff in that civil war. Octavian was
just a bitch. Like Octavian's is a soft hands dude,
no combat, no war like Anthony wins all the wars
against the people who fought against him and Octavian and stuff.
After the assassination, like Antony does the dirty work for
pretty much everything.
Speaker 2: Octavian had a silver spoon, showed.
Speaker 1: Up as literally yes he was. Yeah, watched you watch
the show Room. That's exactly how it is. Although Octavian
I love the character Actavian in Rome, but yeah, he's
a soft hands, rich kid who has lust for power
and wants to get it. Antony also wants power and
glory and fame. I just don't think he had designs
on completely remaking the Republic or anything. He just kind
of wanted to be like the great one, like just
continue it. He wanted to be on Mount Rushmore. Yeah right,
but he didn't want to make a new title for
himself as far as I know.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean making the title is not really an
accomplishment though.
Speaker 1: On this note, Yeah cool. So Octavian and Anthony propaganda
started going back and forth. The first major turning point
was in thirty five BC when Octavia, who was Octavian's
sister and Antony's wife that was of course a political
marriage to help be like, yeah, we're friends when everything
they're not. Octavia took a trip to visit Antony in Athens,
and at this point Anthony and Cleopatra were already banging.
They had been banging for like six years, right, but
that's not necessarily that crazy for him to bang other people. However,
it was a lot more of a he's a soldier.
Speaker 2: On the road.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it was more of a public affair than people
were used to Anyway. She shows up, that's a.
Speaker 2: Little disrespectful, just kind of throwing it in her face.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and in everyone's face, right for her to know
about and just be embarrassed by. Yeah, So she shows
up and she brings them like vital supplies, animals, clothing, money, armor,
and units of the Praetorian Guard. Anthony accepted and received
her gifts, but he didn't ever receive her. He sent
a messenger to be like, thanks, you can leave. Oh
it's pretty sick, And she left, and Octavian seized on
that opportunity to depict Antony.
Speaker 2: He's got to bang his wife as a piece of shit, Yeah, Octavian,
Why didn't Octavian go for the wife who marc Antony?
Speaker 1: Marc Antony's wife is Octavian's sister.
Speaker 2: Yeah, but you gotta cook Mark anyway, you can't.
Speaker 1: Ye, Well, that doesn't really work because they're not really
down with incest. This isn't like a Habsburg situation or
an Egypt situation.
Speaker 2: That's where the Romans drawl of the line you can
fuck anything except your sister.
Speaker 1: Look, man, it's all arbitrary. The hole as a hole, they.
Speaker 2: Don't really portray that.
Speaker 1: And Gladiator who just drawn lines bro pretty.
Speaker 2: Sure Joaquin Phoenix wants to bonus system.
Speaker 1: Yea. Everyone else thinks it's weird, including the sister. That's fair.
So Octavian is like, you.
Speaker 2: Gonna do what you gotta do. Though, if you if
you really want to go out this man's throat and
you gotta, you gotta take a shot at him. Sometimes
you suck it up.
Speaker 1: Well, suffice it to say, Octavian did fuck his sister.
He killed his sister, just in a different way. Yeah.
So Octavian was like, my sister is a good, virtuous
Roman woman, a good they just think, just just in
your head, replace Roman with Christian even though Christianity doesn't
even exist yet. It's like a good Christian woman, like
a good honest woman you know, a pious, like conservative woman,
like she's a good woman. And Anthony is in an
Athens banging a slut, a dirty Eastern slut. It's not
Roman at all. So uh, Octavian is like Anthony, who
helped us conquer Gaul, who fucking conquered land from the Parthians,
who defeated the people who killed my father. I don't
think he cares about Rome anymore.
Speaker 2: If there's ever a man that should be able to
fuck whoever he wants.
Speaker 1: Right, this guy's resume is bananas.
Speaker 2: He expanded the empire.
Speaker 1: So here's the thing about that visit though, And here's
how Octavian fucked his sister. He knew Anthony was going
to do that, and he was the one who sent
her to do it, sent her to visit him knowing
that Anton and I don't know if she knew or not,
but he knew that Anthony was going to be a
dick to her, and he sent her knowing Anthony was
going to be a dictors. Did he ever love her, No, no,
it was a political arranged marriage. But he sent his
sister to go get embarrassed.
Speaker 2: Did they ever have kids together?
Speaker 1: Yeah? I think they did have a kid. Actually, okay,
I believe they did. But he sent his sister to
go get publicly embarrassed to make himself look better.
Speaker 2: To be a cut queen.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so the propaganda campaign begins in earnest.
Speaker 2: She was just a cog in the machine.
Speaker 1: She was just a fucking pond dude.
Speaker 2: Yeah, just that's unfortunate.
Speaker 1: Get knocked off. I mean she didn't die, like get
killed or anything, but she was just embarrased like heirs to.
So the propaganda campaign starts to begin in earnest. Octavian
does things like give out coins to the Roman public
with brief mean slogans on them, portraying Antony as a
womanizer and a drunk and also effeminate.
Speaker 2: We should do that now we just get like a
crisp one hundred dollars bill.
Speaker 1: We do do that now, not with the coins.
Speaker 2: But we do like portray no, I want to all
my currency, like just a one hundred dollars bill with
Donald Trump on it.
Speaker 1: That just says like slut, Like he's slut, just a slut. Yeah,
probably backfire though, you gotta find a different thing. But
it is kind of like like, I mean, like Trump
making fun of McCain for getting captured. Right, it's like, ah, right, yeah,
you're in the army or like whatever, you're in the military.
Speaker 2: But gay, no, no, just mccainn on the twenty it
just says loser.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I like truly, Like it's just it's that type
of thing where it's like, hold on, hold on, hold on, man,
hold on a minute, and it's that's a perfect example too,
because it's like you have Trump who has never been
anywhere near the military minus I guess a high school
maybe military academy, being like, that guy's service is pathetic. Yeah,
that guy's service doesn't count anymore. He got captured because
he got captured. And it's like, but he he was there,
he did a thing. You didn't do anything. And people
bought this from Octavian too. They're like, yeah, yeah, yeah,
I think Mark Anthony might be a pussy the rich kids, right,
the rich kid.
Speaker 2: And by the way, if you said enough, it becomes true.
Speaker 1: Yeah. And by the way, this whole time, Octavian was
presenting himself as a good, uh honest, simple man like
Roman who believed in like conservative Roman values right, like well,
old conservative is not the right word, like just old
Roman values right, So and Antony Anthony meanwhile, was off
doing like weird heterosexual sex, but in a gay pride
parade type of way. So he sucks and he is
not He's not a real Roman anymore. He also so
he implied that not only had Anthony been corrupted by
his affair, but that Cleopatra was his puppet master. Now
and like I said, or Anthony Octavian soft hands never
actually did anything on his own.
Speaker 2: But another reasons, Cleopatri are going to be the puppet master.
When her hands and mouth are busy.
Speaker 1: Exactly, they're not up. Well maybe there's a finger up there.
We don't know.
Speaker 2: Well, crank two hander? You think Mark Antony had a
two hander?
Speaker 1: I hope so, although that wouldn't be very Roman of him,
because Romans had tiny, fancy penises. That's the ideal Roman hog.
It's a piglet.
Speaker 2: They had knobs.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you just want an acorn.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, acorn. That's how it's portrayed in all the statues.
Speaker 1: That's a good penis.
Speaker 2: That's a sophisticated dick.
Speaker 1: That's that's it.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I said all the time, high society, small dick.
Speaker 1: My wife is like I just I don't feel it.
I'm like, then, why don't you go to Applebee's and
find one you can feel, you dumb bitch.
Speaker 2: Go find a peasant, dick.
Speaker 1: Yeah, go find a good one. Go to the stables, idiot.
But one of the reasons that this Octavian did this
and it went hard and what did the thing with
his sister and then went hard after mark Antony, is that, uh,
believe it or not. When all this started, mark Antony
was definitely the more popular of the two guys. You
don't say, yeah, the conquered, accomplished General Caesar's right hand general,
the guy who beat the people.
Speaker 2: Now did the Roman public feel about Caesar?
Speaker 1: Though? The plubs liked him.
Speaker 2: But after the fact, even when he died, Yeah, they
thought he pulled his own thought he got sucked over
even though he was apps.
Speaker 1: I mean, but I guess you could say what Caesar
was doing, really, I don't think I had much of
an effect on them. Now. It was a republic, like
they weren't. They're not voting, they're not voting for consul
fucking build the breadmakers not doing it.
Speaker 2: You know, he definitely deserved to get stabbed a couple
of times. Maybe not that many times.
Speaker 1: Everyone had to get a licking. Yeah, you don't want
to you know, you don't want to say you're the
one guy who didn't stab Caesar needs some.
Speaker 2: Blood on your hands.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So, like I said, primary goal to portray Antony
as Eastern, which basically means soft and uh whipped, those
are the two things. And and not Roman. So Plutarch
another famous ancient historian.
Speaker 2: That's not a person, Plutarch, No, Skuy, Skuy. I'm not
taking the word of Plutarch seriously.
Speaker 1: That's fine. I mean he was writing kind of propaganda,
I guess, because uh, I don't think he was a
big fan of Marc Anthony necessarily. He wrote Mark Anthony
being in Alexandria, there to keep holiday like a boy
in play and diversion, squandering and fooling away and enjoyments
that most costly, as Antiphon says, of all valuables time.
So Anthony was just there wasting time, screwing, not serious,
just fucking. Yeah. Now here's another way, another very important
way that Octavian portrayed Anthony as soft, whipped cook whatever
you want to call it, whatever, whatever form of effeminine
you want to do.
Speaker 2: Get the power of sars out. Yeah, let's get some.
Speaker 1: Some new word alphathosaurus.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's what's powers.
Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, it doesn't matter, like it's a sou Roman
noble families kind of like as they're sort of to
like hype themselves up, kind of had origin stories about
where they came from, right, who they were descended from,
and it was always ancient Greek heroes, and the antone
for them it was Hercules. They were descended from one
of Hercules' sons, because I guess Hercules fucked a lot.
So Octavian seized on this. I didn't know this about Hercules,
but he was like, oh yeah, yeah, Antony's Hercules. He's
descended from Hercules. You know what version of Hercules he's
descended from. He's descended from the version that was enslaved
by Omphale, the barbarian woman who buys Hercules as a slave.
I don't know how Hercules got there, by the way.
I don't know how he became the man who could
like stronger than anyone and could just like rip chains
off became a slave, but he did. I guess at
some point she bought him as a slave for a
mere three silver talents, and I guess like after Hercules
was her slave, she to like further embarrass him, would
make him do chores in women's clothing.
Speaker 2: He had to wear a dress.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so she was like cleaning the kitchen and put
this stress on, sweet.
Speaker 2: Little made outfit.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he goes, sweetie, you little bit, here's a duster. Yeah.
So Antony portrayed I'm sorry, Octavian portrayed Antony as that
version of Hercules. And he said that Cleopatra was essentially
the barbarian queen, the foreign queen, not barbarian. Better put
it a foreign because the Easterners weren't considered barbarians necessarily,
because barbarians were at least tough.
Speaker 2: Yeah.
Speaker 1: I feel like if you run the Gamut, it's like
the barbarians, like the Germans and Gauls and stuff like that.
We're almost like ape peep, you know what I mean,
all muscle, no brain.
Speaker 2: Cleopatra, though, was not fully Egyptian though, No, she was
was Greek Greek, Yeah I know, but she was the
Ptolemy's have been there for hundreds of years, and so
they were like a Greek Egyptian hybrid.
Speaker 1: At this point, they're very Easternized. Yeah, they were not
Athens Greek in any meaningful way. They were like, I
don't know tex Mex Greek, dude, think of the nose
on that girl? Uh what the Greek knows? Oh yeah,
I mean there's like renderings of her.
Speaker 2: She's not like traditionally attractive.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they actually did give her a fucking.
Speaker 2: Pretty good honker on here.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a big Oh yeah it was Greek. Yeah,
would you though the woman with the golden mouth? You
gotta take it out for a test rat?
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think you gotta try at least once, like undoubtedly,
I'm not even not even gonna act like that wouldn't happen.
But so they essentially said.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you travel through time, even if you're with your wife.
Feel like I gotta give this a go.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm like, babe, when are we gonna be back
here never? Or we're never gonna leave here? Because I
don't know that we walked through a wormhole and I
don't know if that's coming back right.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I don't know if this is sliders, Like do
we have a set time where we have to go through?
Speaker 1: Yeah, we might just have to wait out, like like
if you go back and time to thirty BC.
Speaker 2: Like literally, you see Jerry o'connellen my strategy.
Speaker 1: If I accidentally got sent back in time to like
thirty BC years zero BC, I'd be like, well, I'm
gonna have to wait between thirty and fifty years, find Jesus,
hope that that's real, and be like, hey, buddy, I'm
from the future. Can you do magic for me? Yeah?
Is there any way? What else would you do? You
go to Bagdad and hope that they have us, and
hope they have the backup plan. Jerusalem's closer. I'll go
there first and be like.
Speaker 2: Well you got time. You go to Bagdad, you find the.
Speaker 1: Gateway and be like, you know what an ultiboy is.
Speaker 2: I was an eltiboy. That's not a thing yet.
Speaker 1: What is that? Yeah? But as you're just like your
best cause scenario there is, he turns around and can
speak perfect English and you're like, oh they God, Oh
I know you're real. I know you're real. The whole
time I knew it was all real. Please send me back,
Please send me back, Please send me back.
Speaker 2: I think you wait till after he's crucified, though, and
he comes back to life. Yeah, maybe he'd be his
thirteenth apostle.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'll be like, hey, what are these guys' names.
I'll tell you which one's an asshole?
Speaker 2: Now? Is Judas actually the most important apostle?
Speaker 1: Yeah?
Speaker 2: Without Judas, there is no death. Yeah Judas, but he
dies for his sins.
Speaker 1: Hard to hate in my opinion, he played his part.
So they also portrayed Mark Antony for whatever reason. I
think Anthony to ingratiate himself to uh certain cities and
stuff like that, would portray himself as Dionysus as well,
And they also seized on that. They're like, yeah, he's
not even Hercules, even though he's the fucking bitch Hercules.
When he is Hercules, he's also Dionysus, which is like
the soft handiest god there is, right, fucking wine and
pussy and like it's just nothing, the dopest god. Yeah,
he's sweet. I think guy that gets drunk, very frivolous fucks,
very frivolous feasts and fucks. Yeah. Um so again, like
I said, Anthony doesn't really help his case, even though
I think he's doing all of this in a way
that's like I will do whatever I want. I am
my own man, I have nothing to prove to anyone.
I'm gonna look out for me and my family because
I do think him and Cleopatra were genuinely in love.
They were rarely apart from each other all this stuff.
So in thirty four BC, Antony and Cleopatra held an
extravagant triumph in Alexandria, Egypt to celebrate Antony's conquest of
Armenia and its annexation into the Roman Empire. This was
even though Romans, through triumphs all the time, perceived to
be theatrical and arrogant and and like totally the antithesis
of what a Roman would do. Plus he didn't even
throw it in Rome. He threw it in Alexandria, which
means he's Eastern.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and he's not even trying to appease the Roman
people at this point.
Speaker 1: Which he's not. And again, even though I kind of
think he's operating in the in the mindset of fuck
fuck the haters, Like it's like, you're not doing yourself,
you're not playing the game, you're not doing yourself any
fucking face.
Speaker 2: Explaining the empire.
Speaker 1: I know. I agree. Uh, Also to not help matters
in terms of narrative, the triumph was for him and Cleopatra,
and they both sat on thrones of gold, and they
were lower thrones for their sons. They had a lot
of kids. Antony wanted to confirm the queen's power or
are there.
Speaker 2: Direct descendants from these two still alive today?
Speaker 1: Probably that'd be sick. It would not surprise me.
Speaker 2: It'd be cool if you found that out.
Speaker 1: I mean, they had enough kids that it would be
shocking if because they didn't all get killed by Octavian.
Speaker 2: Really, we're right, there had to be some type of
family tree that you can trace all the way back then.
Speaker 1: Almost certainly I would be shocked if there wasn't, Like
someone would have to at least one have told if
there was, so, Anthony de cleared Cleopatra the queen of Egypt.
Now that still meant that she was a client queen,
but whatever, queen of Egypt, Cyprus, Libya, and Syria, and
their children were rulers of Armenia, Media, Parthia, Phoenicias, Syria
and Cilicia. So basically the whole Eastern area was divided
up amongst their family, but under the umbrella of Rome.
As far as I'm aware, I could be totally wrong
about that. But anyway, the Romans were like, dude, what
the fuck is this guy is gone native? Like Octavian's right,
he is a he is the Eastern little little boy now,
like what is wild? Yeah? And the for whatever reason,
the Egyptians were like especially weirdos to the Romans. I
think because they were.
Speaker 2: Probably because they were an empire and they got conquered
by two more empires.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and their stuff was like so ancient that they
were viewed as like very foreign and alien. And I
don't know, maybe the Pyramids freaked people out, I.
Speaker 2: Like truly, so, I mean, thank the Ananachi for that.
Speaker 1: Only they knew. So Octavian went to the Roman Senate
and denounced that triumph to the Roman people and gathered
more public disapproval of Antony's behavior. Again, he was depicted
as un Roman, a slave to Cleopatra. Now Antony, for
his part, he tried to clap back. But Anthony's not
a politician. He really picked the wrong game.
Speaker 2: He's bad at just going after other dudes. Verbally.
Speaker 1: I think in a way you can almost call this
like a Ulysses this Grant situation, right, like a much
better general than political administrator. He doesn't Anthony doesn't play
the political game well, like he's a bull, you know
what I mean, Like he just he's a knuckle dragger,
charges in, does what he wants, he tries. God bless him.
But Octavian, Octavian wasn't built for battle. This is the
arena Octavian was built for. And Octavian runs fucking circles
around him in the political game. But Anthony does try
to clap back with his own propaganda efforts. Antony made
sure everyone knew that Octavian was like a weakling, like
a little timid boy at the Battle of Philippi, like
Anthony won it. Octavian was useless. Octavian got I think
Octavian like fell ill or something. It was just something
where it was like Octavian was a bitch, Like Octavian
was weak, you know what I mean, Like he's like, no,
he used the one. But honestly, this really just sounded
like Anthony being like n uh you are you are
that what you're calling?
Speaker 2: Yeah, but he's saying things people probably already know, right.
Speaker 1: People know that he's a soft hand. People know Octavian
grew up soft. People know Octavian's not a soldier.
Speaker 2: And a lot of people can't relate with the soldiers anyway.
Speaker 1: And also, it doesn't matter what Octavian is because what
he's saying is so well said that they just like it.
Speaker 2: The messaging sounds better.
Speaker 1: It sounds better. Mark Anthony also also respread the rumor
that Julius Caesar was uh banging Octavian when Octavian was
a kid.
Speaker 2: At his concubine.
Speaker 1: Yeah, he's like Octavian was getting it. He's like, I
should know. I was there, I was in that tent.
Speaker 2: Sometimes he's also a eunuch.
Speaker 1: They he probably should have said that, to be honest,
but I think Octavian might have had kids at that point.
But he should have said it anyway, because because none
of it matters, he doesn't have to be true.
Speaker 2: Apparently not. Was Octavian getting his back blown out by Caesar?
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't think so.
Speaker 2: Potentially I don't think so.
Speaker 1: But I don't know. I really don't. I don't know
off the top of my head.
Speaker 2: Why else is he leaving them the kingdom.
Speaker 1: I feel like it was considered a little surprising at
the time, if I recall correctly, But I can't get
into more details. I mean, I could herodotous it. I'd
just be like, yeah, dude, they were banging.
Speaker 2: He's at least giving him hand gibbers.
Speaker 1: I mean, Caesar had a lot of rumors about male
and male love affairs and where he was. There was
one where he was the bottom and his soldiers were like,
kind of give him shit for it in marching songs.
Speaker 2: Dude, don't tell the Alphas that they were upset enough
when the Alexander of the Great Show came out and
he was banging.
Speaker 1: Dudes at all, like even topping.
Speaker 2: Yeah, the Alphas hate that. What's more, can't you can't
you can't be talking about their heroes this way.
Speaker 1: Look, the only gay sex is between two chicks.
Speaker 2: That's true. Fold stop, you can dominate another man.
Speaker 1: That's truly one of my favorite jokes from thirty Rock.
It's like me, I'm the gay one, you have sex
with women, you're the gay one. You win sex with
the man. That's as straight as it gets.
Speaker 2: Domination.
Speaker 1: Yeah. So the tension between the two hit a boiling point,
and another civil war was imminent, But it wasn't a
civil war for two reasons. One Antony had been effectively
declared not Roman.
Speaker 2: He defected.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they're like, he's not even a Roman anymore. It's
not a civil war. And by the way, the Roman
Roman populace at this point was like, we can't do
another fucking civil war, dude. It had been like decades
of civil war on it off, and they're just like
we don't.
Speaker 2: Yeah, they're like, uh, we need food for the city. Yeah,
we're tired of giving out supplies.
Speaker 1: We're tired of just like come on. So the war
was portrayed as one, Anthony wasn't Roman, and two it's
not even again Antony against Anthony, it's against Cleopatra. And
she has just like made him her puppets, so he
doesn't even count. Like we're fighting Cleopatra. She's the bad guy.
So that's how the war was justified. It was not
a civil war. It was a foreign war. And I
think this is a quote from Octavian. Worst of all,
they are not ruled by a man, but are the
slaves of a woman. So they were like, any legions
you fight that are from Anthony, whatever, these are all
they're slaves to a foreign woman. Don't worry about it. Now,
the public sentiment had swung heavily against against antony, the war,
the decades long war, hero who had seen combat, who
had done everything a man's man, a classic Roman man
could possibly do.
Speaker 2: Uh, wasn't enough?
Speaker 1: Wasn't enough? Because what have you done for me lately?
Speaker 2: Always has been that type of society. People forget pretty easily.
Speaker 1: People forget easily, and they just they hear what they
want to hear. It doesn't matter that this man had
seen combat dozens, if not maybe hundreds of times. I
don't even know.
Speaker 2: You got a new generation growing up now, a new generation,
a new group of men or women that are coming
up that were, you know, mere kids when he was
doing his thing, and now their teens there in their twenties,
positions of power, and they're like, I don't know what
the fuck he ever did?
Speaker 1: I mean, that is like a thing now right where
it's like you get like Gen Z and Gen Alpha
kind of just being like, I mean, how bad was
the Holocaust really? Because they just weren't.
Speaker 2: They don't they don't know.
Speaker 1: They're getting too far removed. Yeah, Like I've met people
who were in the Holocaust. There's not that there's not
a lot of them left.
Speaker 2: Kids that were born after nine to eleven.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean, was it that crazy?
Speaker 2: They just use it as a punchline.
Speaker 1: I mean, well, it's funny.
Speaker 2: It is funny.
Speaker 1: It does get cringe though. It's like all right, yeah,
we get it. Nine eleven. Sure, note eleven happened, but
it's also funny. But yeah, it's the same thing. It's
the same thing. It's like, I mean, it's the same
way we treat Pearl Harbor. Yeah, we don't even care
about Pearl Harbor. Now that was like a traumatic event
for people of that generation, but we're just like, oh yeah, okay,
I mean like, yeah, that bombed the military base. But then,
I mean we won the war, so it's all pretty chill.
Yeah right, I mean it's not that big of a deal.
Speaker 2: Two thousand we gave them a one two punch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's fun. But I assume when Pearl Harbor happened,
people were like, oh my fucking god, like just tear
like we did it at the Battle of Lau. Was
that on the Patreon?
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's on the patrio.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the Battle of La Patreon komslash software history. People
were terrified that the Japanese are about to land in
California at any moment they were shelling California from a
submarine like terrifying times. And now we're just like those
idiots shot at a balloon for three hours.
Speaker 2: It was a bad movie, long, long movie.
Speaker 1: What nineteen forty one? No Pearl Harbor. Oh no, that's
a great movie. I love that movie. I love Pearl Harbor.
Speaker 2: That sounds surprising you like bad movies.
Speaker 1: That's fair. Here's the thing, though, The combat scenes are
actually excellent, like genuinely every scene that's combat is really
fucking good.
Speaker 2: Who's your favorite at Kuba?
Speaker 1: Nah, it's Ben, It's Ben? Okay uh So, public sentiment
now completely against Anthony. The war of Actium is on.
The Senate declares war on Cleopatra. They blamed and they
blamed her for corrupting the Great General Mark Antony, like
you ruined him. We're not even fighting Marc Antony anymore.
He's like a fake version of himself. And although the
Senate did majority go to Octavian, forty percent of the Senate,
along with both consuls, sided with Antony and left Rome.
But years later, when Octavian, when the winner was writing history,
Octavian wrote that the whole of Italy voluntarily took oath
of allegiance to me and demanded me as its leader
in the war in which I was victorious at Actium.
So he was like all of Italy was like, hey,
you gotta save us man against this soft guy who's.
Speaker 2: So who is Octavian's guy who was his general?
Speaker 1: Grippa? Maybe? Yeah, but Agrippa also a great, great Roman general.
And Agrippa was almost like Anthony in a way in
that he wasn't very politically talented either. But unlike Anthony,
he also wasn't really a fame horror. That's kind of
Anthony's downfalls. Like Anthony, one of the credit, he's a
fame whore and he's party boy. So he liked to
get fucked up. He liked being famous. Now to his credit,
he did. He put his money where his mouth was,
you know what I mean. Like he backed it up,
like he was like, I'm gonna be a famous general
and then went and won battles and did famous general shit. Yeah,
he was just too in love with the fame.
Speaker 2: You need this kind of hard nose, blue collar type
guy to come in though. For Octavian, Yeah, that's how
you won a war. Because he doesn't want the accolades.
He doesn't want any of the attention. He just wants
to get down the beach.
Speaker 1: Well, Grippa was like I think Agrippa also too, was like,
live a pretty good life if I just win battles
for this guy.
Speaker 2: Also, if you stay off people's radar. Two, yeah, like
you just do your job, you reap the rewards, but
you never like ask for more. You're gonna live a
pretty good life. Like you're you're not in the crosshairs,
you're not a target. You do your job, you show up. Yeah,
yeah paid, you're good.
Speaker 1: And he I think so Grippa just uh he did
die at the age of like fifty, but it's a life.
But he was not like he just died like he
wasn't killed or anything like that. He just you know,
that's how shit goes and back then. But yeah he
uh yeah, so so he had Octavian had like a
good commander to help because he wasn't able to do
that shit on his own. He was mostly not mostly
entirely a brilliant politician and a brilliant propagandist. And by
the way, the reason we view Caesar the way we do,
which is still like when you think of Caesar, you
do kind of reflexively think like, man, I can't believe
they got him. He's a goat, can't believe they killed him.
Speaker 2: But he's not. You look, you dig into the details,
and oh, he sucks.
Speaker 1: Like he's a piece of shit. He deserved to get stabbed,
like and everything we believe about them is I'm not
saying like the other Roman sentators like pious, upstanding people
or whatever, but it is. It is this type of
situation where I mean like he was trying to become
king on like there was no other explanation for it.
And my favorite Caesar story to prove that he's a
piece of shit is that he essentially was just like
sad that he he like wept in front of a
statue of Alexander the Great because Alexander the Great had
already done so much by his thirties and Caesar hadn't
done hardly anything, Like he was just a rich military
commander who you know, was living a good life, but
he he was sad that he wasn't a godlike figure
like Alexander the Great, and he wanted that fame and
he wanted that sort of like lasting immortality.
Speaker 2: My allegiance is to the Republic for democracy.
Speaker 1: So that is how Octavian Caesar Augustus made one of
the most accomplished Roman military commanders maybe ever.
Speaker 2: Public Enemy number one.
Speaker 1: By way of making him sound soft, pussy whipped, pussy whipped,
weak and kind and effeminate.
Speaker 2: Sometimes you gotta do that to your boy he starts
dating a girl you don't like, Like, ah, dude, you
either break up with her or we gotta trash your reputation.
Speaker 1: Dude, Brandon always kind of sucked. Dude, like he kind
of just hung around because Kyle and fucking Jeremy Brahm around.
I don't really locked in my mind.
Speaker 2: Right like dude Kyle. He was never part of the Core.
Speaker 1: Four nah man, Like we just kind of didn't. He
just like had weed a lot or something like dude,
fuck him.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he like never laughed anything and kind of brought
down the vibes.
Speaker 1: It's high key fucking dumb as fuck too, Like didn't
you like light his car on fire in your yard?
Speaker 2: He would like go out of his way to hit
on other people's girlfriends.
Speaker 1: Yeah, dude when they were like drunk as fuck too
very touchy. Yeah, even his dudes it was kind of
kind of fucking weird dude, but yeah, they just completely
It still just cracks me up like that. It worked
too that the softest boy in Rome made the hardest
dude left alive, because look, I'm talking shit on Caesar,
but credit where credits due. Caesar's bad ass motherfucker. Yeah,
whether you like him or not, bad ass motherfucker. So
the hardest dude left in Rome is portrayed Charman soft
effectively as an effeminate soft boy by the softest boy
in Rome, who, out of a complete surprise, apparently got
the keys to the kingdom handed to them, and then
one and then one.
Speaker 2: Fucking crazy what happened to Mark Antony?
Speaker 1: He killed himself after the Battle of Actum. Cleopatra killed herself.
Speaker 2: Okay, I didn't know that. This is a blind spot
for me.
Speaker 1: Yeah, they committed suicide.
Speaker 2: I'm not like into Roman history.
Speaker 1: I'm not necessarily like Super Injured either, though I play
the games and stuff like that. I'm definitely more into, like, I'd.
Speaker 2: Be more into Greek history than Roman.
Speaker 1: Yeah, ancient history in general. I like find fun, but
I don't like, Oh I was gonna play a history game,
I'd rather play like Civil War, Napoleonic era, World War One, Victorian.
Speaker 2: I mean, I'd rather do the Byzantines.
Speaker 1: I really want to read more about the Byzantine era
because I find that fascinating. But yeah, that's what I got.
Would you learn to know?
Speaker 2: I think message in message in is and has always
been the most important part of conquering.
Speaker 1: It doesn't matter who the person is, what's true or
what's not true, it's it's it's who's the most insistent.
Speaker 2: And if you say something long enough, it'll become the truth.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Hm, who's today, Taylor?
Speaker 2: I'm gonna go with Cleopatrice. She caused all this could
have been a great man.
Speaker 1: I was. I was gonna say, love love, Love is Taylor.
Speaker 2: Or just really good pussy.
Speaker 1: Look they were in love. I think that had to
be a part of it. Because he also put all
all the kids in his will and not his Roman
kids in the will.
Speaker 2: So they didn't kill any of the kids either.
Speaker 1: It was just maybe some. I didn't look, and I
don't remember off top of my head.
Speaker 2: Was it like a suicide pact Cleopatra. Did they do
it at the same time or different times?
Speaker 1: No, I don't it's it's like portrayed at the same time,
I don't think it was. Okay, And and Anthony killed
himself in like the traditional Roman soldier way too. He
wanted to die a Roman like, die in a Roman
way since he had been portrayed, so he is like
suppuku on Roman. Yes, like literally Roman sopuku. And then
but like, honestly, like a lot of this reads to
me as just the actions.
Speaker 2: Of Cleopatric poison herself.
Speaker 1: I think so. But I think there's like a legend
she had a poisonous snake.
Speaker 2: Bier okay, became Medusa.
Speaker 1: Yeah, but uh, this strikes me as the actions partly
of a man who was in love mhm with himself himself,
but also Cleopatra, Like, I think he was making decisions
based on his partner and not politics.
Speaker 2: Also, if some like younger softer dude was your boss
and was telling you what to do, I'm just you're
gonna have a hard time taking command or order from him.
Speaker 1: Or taking what he says seriously. And Anthony, by the way,
did not take what he said seriously never, which is
a huge problem, which is what fucked him so bad. Dude.
Speaker 2: There's so many people who think about it. In corporate
America now that are like in their forties or fifties,
they have these kids coming up that are like in
their mid twenties, late twenties, early thirties, that like fresh
pups out of school, coming in and telling them what
to do. And he's like, dude, I've been doing this
job for thirty forty years at this point.
Speaker 1: Yeah fuck off. Yeah, he didn't want to listen to him.
He didn't realize how talented the kid was at certain things.
Speaker 2: But you probably should listen to them because you're at
the same job you've had for twenty years. At least
you got to middle management and never tried anything after.
Speaker 1: You've got to pay attention, right, you gotta pay attention.
You gave up on your dream, and this kid's got
more energy than you do.
Speaker 2: He's got greater ambitions.
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well that is all I've got for today. Thank
you so much for listening. Uh A has always subscribed
to the Patreon Patreon dot com slash software history lead
review like Apple, Spotify, blah blah blah. You get the idea.
Merry Christmas, r I P.
Speaker 2: Joey Smole or whatever is the from whatever.
Speaker 1: Yeah, uh for Daniel Jester, I'm Rob Fox.
Speaker 2: You just got saucer.