Speaker 1: Meaning a light. Man like this man letting butterfly flapping
Speaker 1: and wing. They've down in a forest.
Speaker 2: Man, it gonna cause the tree fall, letting five thousand
Speaker 2: miles away.
Speaker 1: Man, nobody seen it. Nobody else.
Speaker 2: See.
Speaker 1: You don't need no man like you followed another story and.
Speaker 3: You got back in fact that man.
Speaker 1: Man, don't black to nag on the panel.
Speaker 2: Man, you don't matter man, I know anyway. All right,
Speaker 2: Alex Petkis, welcome back to the Jay Burden Show.
Speaker 3: How you doing man, Great to be back, mister Burden.
Speaker 3: I'm well, how are you.
Speaker 2: I'm doing quite well. I'm excited to have you back on.
Speaker 2: Not simply because the last episode did well, people liked it,
Speaker 2: they wanted you back, but also because we left off
Speaker 2: halfway through the story. Right, We left off just before
Speaker 2: Caesar assumed his role as a preech over. You know
Speaker 2: what is modern day Spain? And I'm gonna go ahead
Speaker 2: and assume most people have listened to the last one.
Speaker 2: If not, you can. It's easy to find the last
Speaker 2: time I talked to Alex where we went through the
Speaker 2: early life of Caesar, and now we're continuing on with
Speaker 2: the narrative.
Speaker 3: Yes, well, so we left off with the Caesar was
Speaker 3: elected praetor, he causes a ruffle with the Catalinarian conspiracy.
Speaker 3: I don't think he's quite left the city limits yet,
Speaker 3: so maybe we should start with how he gets out
Speaker 3: of Rome and the challenges he faced there. So Caesar
Speaker 3: is he's always been a promising politician. He's always been
Speaker 3: able to convince people to take bets on him, financial
Speaker 3: and otherwise. And Caesar is in a crushing load of
Speaker 3: debt right now. That's kind of important for the story
Speaker 3: because the way that you I think we talk about
Speaker 3: this last time, the way that you get elected offices,
Speaker 3: you spend a ton of money, as always in a
Speaker 3: semi democratic system, and then somehow you make it back.
Speaker 3: And he's hoping to make it back as a provincial
Speaker 3: governor of Spain. But he's he's under so much debt
Speaker 3: that his creditors don't want to let him leave town.
Speaker 3: And you know, if he can't leave down, well, he
Speaker 3: can't pay him back Kenny. So he eventually gets his
Speaker 3: friend Crassus, who's who's his political patron. I'm not sure
Speaker 3: how much we talked about Crassis last time, but Crassus
Speaker 3: is the richest man in Rome. He Caesar learned so
Speaker 3: much from Crassus. I did a whole series on Crassus
Speaker 3: and came to appreciate how big of an impact Crassus
Speaker 3: had on Caesar politically, like stylistically, you know, recruiting men
Speaker 3: from outside the typical political elite populism, sort of crafty
Speaker 3: measured populism. But but so Krasis eventually stands surety for Caesar.
Speaker 3: He's personally guarantees the loans that the the debtors are
Speaker 3: or the creditors are clamoring Caesar repay before he leaves town.
Speaker 3: And Caesar manages to escape and gets off to his
Speaker 3: provincial assignment at last in Spain. So I'll see what
Speaker 3: what's of interest in Spain. Well, when he's in Spain,
Speaker 3: he finds some unruly tribes to you know, peace, keep around,
Speaker 3: does a little campaigning Lusitania or Western Hispania, Portugal, southern
Speaker 3: southern Spain, and comes back.
Speaker 1: Does he come back early?
Speaker 3: He comes back sort of more or less on time,
Speaker 3: after having a pretty successful year as governor in Spain,
Speaker 3: you know, settling disputes and the typical thing, but with
Speaker 3: a military victory under his belt, and he gets the
Speaker 3: Senate to approve him for a triumph, which, as you're aware,
Speaker 3: is the highest honor that any Roman could hope for. Really,
Speaker 3: it's even better than being consoles. Plenty of consuls never
Speaker 3: had a triumph and wish they had. But you know,
Speaker 3: once these opportunities don't come very often. See the Ultimate
Speaker 3: Glory and Caesar. If he gets a triumph after just
Speaker 3: being preeter, it's like his political career has made. Everybody's
Speaker 3: going to know his name and his face if they
Speaker 3: didn't already. But the problem that he's facing now is
Speaker 3: he he wants to run for console for the upcoming year,
Speaker 3: and technically you have to make your application to be
Speaker 3: the candidate a candidate for consul in the city limits
Speaker 3: of Rome. But if you enter the city limits of
Speaker 3: Rome before you triumph, then you can have a triumph.
Speaker 3: Because a triumph is a ceremonial crossing of the boundary
Speaker 3: from outside the city into the city. And that that
Speaker 3: crossing is a really important moment religiously and politically because
Speaker 3: it means you're you're legally laying down your imperium, your
Speaker 3: your supreme power that a general has, you know, because
Speaker 3: a general out in the field can execute Roman citizens,
Speaker 3: you know, uh do whatever he wants without any penalty.
Speaker 3: It's like he's got the life and death power over
Speaker 3: his troops, which is important for discipline.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 3: He gets the Senate to vote him an exception to
Speaker 3: be able to apply for the consulship in absentia, laying
Speaker 3: a pattern that that will become very ominous later in
Speaker 3: his career, so that he can have but have it
Speaker 3: both ways. And his enemies, Cato, the most vociferous among them,
Speaker 3: who's already, as we talked about last time, got his
Speaker 3: eye on Caesar as a tyrant on the make Kato
Speaker 3: blocks him. I think that the Senate was willing technically,
Speaker 3: and they didn't actually formally ratify the motion to let
Speaker 3: Caesar run for console and absentia, and so Cato philibusters. Essentially,
Speaker 3: he runs out the clock. It's one thing that he
Speaker 3: was really good at is just talking on and on
Speaker 3: and on, and once the sun goes down, then meeting
Speaker 3: adjourns for the day and you got to wait till
Speaker 3: the next day, and all kinds of obstructionism you can
Speaker 3: do in a republican constitution. And so Cato's filibustering. He's
Speaker 3: trying to make sure that Caesar has to basically choose
Speaker 3: between getting his triumph or running for Console for the
Speaker 3: next year, because the deadline is fast approaching, and I
Speaker 3: think everybody was betting.
Speaker 1: That Caesar would.
Speaker 3: Would just wait, that Cato would succeed in slowing him
Speaker 3: down for a year and kind of make him cool
Speaker 3: as heels in private practice. But Caesar very ostentatiously, just
Speaker 3: as soon as the the kind of deadline is imminent,
Speaker 3: he just crosses into the city limits and foregoes the triumph,
Speaker 3: which was a shock to everybody because, you know, for
Speaker 3: the reason we discussed, Caesar didn't want to wait a
Speaker 3: year to become console. He had a plan and he
Speaker 3: kind of stuck it in Kato's face.
Speaker 1: Mute.
Speaker 3: Yeah, Kato won the battle in the sense that Caesar
Speaker 3: didn't get his triumph, but Caesar kind of won the war,
Speaker 3: and that you know, he saw power as a route
Speaker 3: to get other triumphs in the future, and he knew
Speaker 3: that he could get elected consul, and and so that's
Speaker 3: what he did. He just didn't want to wait a year.
Speaker 3: Press fast forward, let's get let's get it done with.
Speaker 3: It's just an honor, which I love that story. It
Speaker 3: just shows how how how how much Caesar knows what
Speaker 3: he wants and how quickly he wants to how that
Speaker 3: moment where he was standing in front of the statue
Speaker 3: of Alexander the Great. You know, he's got to get
Speaker 3: serious now, Like if he really wants to achieve something,
Speaker 3: he can't pitdle around, you know, racking up badges, merit
Speaker 3: badges for his sash.
Speaker 1: He's he's he's got to be focused. And I think
Speaker 1: that's a good indication of it.
Speaker 2: So several things there. One, of course, you're completely right,
Speaker 2: and I love this moment as sort of a character
Speaker 2: study in miniature of Caesar. Right, he is giving up honor, right,
Speaker 2: glory again, right, the biggest gold star of them all,
Speaker 2: a triumph for power and ultimately, well, you know, we'll
Speaker 2: see this. There's more where that comes from. Right, He
Speaker 2: you know, is later receives that and many other honors.
Speaker 2: But I think it's sort of this perfect snapshot in
Speaker 2: a similar but slightly different way as in the Execution
Speaker 2: of the Pirates who who you know, captured him for
Speaker 2: a year or so, right where you see these little
Speaker 2: incidents which kind of offer you a view of the man.
Speaker 2: But to backtrack, ever, so slightly. And I don't have
Speaker 2: a citation on this, It's been a while since I've
Speaker 2: gone through the primary sources. But to what degree did
Speaker 2: Caesar's cratorship in Spain relieve him from debt? Was he
Speaker 2: able to use sort of his winnings to get people
Speaker 2: off his back or was that something that was sort
Speaker 2: of plaguing him throughout his entire career.
Speaker 3: Well, we don't really know any details about this. I
Speaker 3: think it's likely that he he you know, captured some
Speaker 3: slaves that he was able to you know, captured prisoners,
Speaker 3: he was able to sell his slaves, or did some
Speaker 3: plundering at least paid them down enough to get them
Speaker 3: office back. But no, I as far as we know,
Speaker 3: he's probably going to take out an even bigger loan
Speaker 3: to become consul, and Crassus is just going to guarantee
Speaker 3: it again or personally underwrite it. And this isn't his
Speaker 3: only run in with bad debt. You know, he takes
Speaker 3: out a lot of loans to run for the office
Speaker 3: of pont effects Maximus. This is in the same year
Speaker 3: that he was elected praetor he gets selected you know,
Speaker 3: the chief Magistracy or the chief Priesthood of Rome, and
Speaker 3: he's going because these are elected at that time. Funny enough,
Speaker 3: and as he's going out to the voting grounds for
Speaker 3: the pont Effects Maximus election, you know, he leaves the
Speaker 3: house and he tells his mom, well, mom, either I'm
Speaker 3: going to come back pont Effects Maximus, or you're never
Speaker 3: gonna see me again, because I'm gonna If I lose,
Speaker 3: I'm screwed and I have to skip town forever because
Speaker 3: you know, the debtors are just gonna eat me alive
Speaker 3: or the creditors.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 3: Now his big financial win ends up being the Gallic campaign,
Speaker 3: which is fabulously lucrative as a matter of fact. But
Speaker 3: I'm not sure about the Spain incident.
Speaker 2: So at this point, right, we sort of need to
Speaker 2: address the triumvirate and also you know his consulship. These
Speaker 2: of course they are linked. So I'm curious to what
Speaker 2: degree is the triumvirate formalized? You know, does to seizear
Speaker 2: walk in and say, hey, these are my two buddies.
Speaker 2: We are now the triumvirate. This is who in charge?
Speaker 2: Who is in charge? Or is it a description of
Speaker 2: sort of a as you could say, informal collusion.
Speaker 3: Well, the technical term that was used by contemporaries was
Speaker 3: the three headed monster, which is to say it was
Speaker 3: not actually a formal, a legal agreement in any way
Speaker 3: it was. It was an informal kind of back room,
Speaker 3: smoke filled cigar room handshake agreement. But to what is
Speaker 3: the the triumvir or the first Triumvirate. Well, you've got
Speaker 3: in Rome two incredibly powerful men, one of his crasses
Speaker 3: who we mentioned, and one of them is Pompey. Caesar's
Speaker 3: sort of they're friendly at this point, and they get
Speaker 3: more friendly before they have a falling out. These are
Speaker 3: the two greatest men in Rome that the Crassus has
Speaker 3: wealth and political influence and political savvy. Pompey has military
Speaker 3: glory and by this time even more wealth because he's
Speaker 3: just come back from the East from his grain and campaigns,
Speaker 3: defeated Mithridates and you know, desecrated the temple at Jerusalem,
Speaker 3: possibly on accident, but possibly he knew what he was doing.
Speaker 1: And very rich.
Speaker 3: But they both have needs, they both have big needs.
Speaker 3: Crassis is getting blocked in the Senate because he is
Speaker 3: an investor in some tax farming operations. Some Equestrian businessmen
Speaker 3: like promised that they would, you know, return to the
Speaker 3: Senate a huge sum of money from collecting taxes in
Speaker 3: the East, and they realized that the East has just
Speaker 3: been utterly ravaged and plundered by Pompey's campaigns and there's
Speaker 3: just no way that they can make up the shortfall.
Speaker 3: So they're trying to get They're trying to get their
Speaker 3: debt to knock down so they can come up short
Speaker 3: on the contract. Otherwise they're going to be ruined and
Speaker 3: they therefore Crasses is maybe not gonna be ruined, but
Speaker 3: going to be hurting financially. Crass is trying to champion
Speaker 3: these questrian businessmen, but it's not happening. Cato and the
Speaker 3: Optimates are filibustering and doing their obstructionism thing. Pompey needs
Speaker 3: his veterans resettled. He's got all these men counting on
Speaker 3: him to give him pots of land after their successful service,
Speaker 3: loyal service to him and to roam. He's getting blocked there.
Speaker 3: He's also got all these arrangements that he's made in
Speaker 3: the East with client kings and various states and put
Speaker 3: down law codes and just kind of like his signature
Speaker 3: piece of legislation which was very well done and well
Speaker 3: thought through, and it happened to benefit him immensely, the
Speaker 3: arrangements that he set up with all these city states
Speaker 3: and client kingdoms that are now his clients. And he's
Speaker 3: getting blocked there too by Cato and the Optimists. You know,
Speaker 3: they're doing the typical thing that Cato and the Optimates do.
Speaker 3: The Conservatives. They don't want any man rising above the
Speaker 3: rest of the poppies, and so Crassis and Pompey both
Speaker 3: kind of get the shaft politically that this is going
Speaker 3: on as Caesar is running for Console. Maybe this is
Speaker 3: one of the reasons why Caesar wanted to be Console
Speaker 3: that year and not to wait another year, because he
Speaker 3: saw this opportunity, he saw the stars aligning. Caesar is
Speaker 3: not really a powerful man at this point. He's promising,
Speaker 3: he's got talent, he's got a good patron. But he
Speaker 3: so he makes a deal with basically with Pompey and Crassus.
Speaker 3: You could call it a duum for it. It's like
Speaker 3: twin towers and then a little bridge, a little tightrope
Speaker 3: with the guy walking between them, and that's Caesar. But
Speaker 3: what he does, what he will have that he can
Speaker 3: bring to the table is executive power. As console, he'll
Speaker 3: be able to pass through legislation that favors both of them.
Speaker 3: And the only thing that he really asks of them
Speaker 3: is and goes to show that Pompey and Crassis were
Speaker 3: not buddies. He asks them not to injure the other's
Speaker 3: interests each of them, so it's actually like a negative agreement.
Speaker 3: So I'm not going to screw you if you promise
Speaker 3: not to screw me. That's all he gets them to
Speaker 3: agree to, which is enough to be a mortal threat
Speaker 3: in the eyes of the optimates, because you know, the
Speaker 3: whole idea of the Republican Constitution is the great men
Speaker 3: kind of keep each other in check. So they're not
Speaker 3: going to keep each other other in check. And so
Speaker 3: it's all arranged kind of secretly behind the scenes, and
Speaker 3: it doesn't come out until well into Caesar's consulship that
Speaker 3: there's there's some collusion going on.
Speaker 2: So speaking to Caesar's consulship, there's sort of a series
Speaker 2: of reforms right that Caesar tempts and then passes. And
Speaker 2: we've been speaking at multiple points about this sort of
Speaker 2: populist and elitist in the broadest possible terms factions within
Speaker 2: Roman politics. And you know, on one hand, right, look
Speaker 2: at Caesar's lineage, which we mentioned earlier, but on the
Speaker 2: other he is in bed with the most powerful men
Speaker 2: in Rome. How can we characterize Caesar's period is consule?
Speaker 2: What does he do? What are sort of the most
Speaker 2: important moments of that time?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, Pompy and Crasis both are kind of outsiders politically.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know, Crasus is from a noble family,
Speaker 3: and he kind of grew up on the inside. His
Speaker 3: father was a consul. But Crassus has has built up
Speaker 3: an independent power base and like doesn't want to be
Speaker 3: dependent on the oligarchic click of power brokers. And Pompey similarly,
Speaker 3: is a kind of modern populists. And the main thing
Speaker 3: that he wants is extraordinary commands so that he can
Speaker 3: go and fight glorious wars and come back and be honored.
Speaker 3: But he's not really great at the political game. And
Speaker 3: and he's he's not from one of the noble families himself,
Speaker 3: although his dad was at consul to be fair, so,
Speaker 3: so they're they're kind of antagonists to the the aristocratic
Speaker 3: core and uh, and they sort of stand above it
Speaker 3: a little bit outside of it, a little bit above it,
Speaker 3: and and so what what Caesar?
Speaker 1: I mean?
Speaker 3: Kind of same same goes for Caesar in his way.
Speaker 3: What's heesters consulship is chiefly aimed at is furthering the
Speaker 3: interests of Crassus and Pompey and himself, but through a
Speaker 3: just brilliant program of legislation that I think Geltzer puts
Speaker 3: it really well. Call I won't remember his exact words,
Speaker 3: but essentially, the office of the consul had become a
Speaker 3: kind of rubber stamp for policies that the Senate approved.
Speaker 3: They didn't have a lot of real political agency to
Speaker 3: it for several decades, partly because all the consuls tend
Speaker 3: to be insiders, and they're not gonna, you know, they're
Speaker 3: not going to get the support of the people they
Speaker 3: need to get elected if they're in any way threatening
Speaker 3: to rock the vote. So it's it's a filtering problem
Speaker 3: on the one hand. But on the other hand, there's
Speaker 3: there's so much obstructionism in the available to people who
Speaker 3: want to block.
Speaker 1: Policies and reforms.
Speaker 3: That the only real way that change tended to happen
Speaker 3: for radical or sort of even moderate reforms was through
Speaker 3: the office of Tribune of the Plubs, which kind of
Speaker 3: is a to ignore the Senate, Like you don't have
Speaker 3: to get the Senate's approval to pass laws. You know,
Speaker 3: you might get murdered in the streets during or after
Speaker 3: your term, or you know, become a political nobody in exile.
Speaker 3: But at least you can get like laws passed if
Speaker 3: you're willing to take that risk.
Speaker 1: And so what I like to think.
Speaker 3: Actually that one of the big overriding policies of Caesar's
Speaker 3: consulship was to prove that the Senate and the Optimists
Speaker 3: didn't actually run the show at Rome. It was a
Speaker 3: kind of a procedural point that he was making. And
Speaker 3: so he passes these reforms, like there's a law and
Speaker 3: order type reform to cut back on the abusive practices
Speaker 3: and exploitation of provincial governors. He does manage to get
Speaker 3: Pompey's soldiers rewarded for their service and distributes land, and
Speaker 3: he doesn't drain the treasury because provides the funds from
Speaker 3: his war plunder. Crassus's equestrian businessmen they do get there,
Speaker 3: they get their contract knocked down, so they don't, you know,
Speaker 3: end up in financial ruin but you know, you could
Speaker 3: make the case that, as Cicero would, that the Equestrians
Speaker 3: are like a really important pillar of stability, and doing
Speaker 3: the Equestrians a favor was actually very much in the
Speaker 3: Senate's interest. So there's all these kind of ways that
Speaker 3: Caesar just kind of passes, all these reasonable policies, they're
Speaker 3: all like really good laws, and he gets merciless obstruction
Speaker 3: from Cato and the other consoles, an enemy of Caesar, Bibulous,
Speaker 3: and their objections to Caesar just are any any success
Speaker 3: that he has is even if it seems good for Rome,
Speaker 3: it's actually bad for Rome because it's Caesar having the
Speaker 3: success and he's a bad man and a tyrant on
Speaker 3: the make. And this is Cato's only reason for objecting
Speaker 3: to some of Caesar's policies. Amazingly, and to pass through
Speaker 3: his laws, he ends up breaking with some procedural points
Speaker 3: in Roman constitutional traditionalism. So Bibulous the other consul tries
Speaker 3: to declare all of the voting days for the rest
Speaker 3: of the year public holidays, so that no law can
Speaker 3: be voted on. And this is you know, unprecedented and
Speaker 3: kind of unprincipled, but it's legal. It's his it's his
Speaker 3: legal right as a consul, because consoles get to declare
Speaker 3: what the religious holidays are and you can't. You can't
Speaker 3: vote on a holiday. And then Caesar just ignores this,
Speaker 3: and all right, well, you know I didn't hear bibulous objecting.
Speaker 3: I'm just going to do this, and you know, the
Speaker 3: people show up to vote, the votes happen, the laws
Speaker 3: are passed, and you know, traditionalists might be pulling their
Speaker 3: hair out and lamenting the loss of piety all kinds
Speaker 3: of things, but it just happens. It kind of shows.
Speaker 3: These are kind of shows that sometimes you can just
Speaker 3: do things and and test how far the limits go
Speaker 3: by by bending or even breaking with procedural norms. So
Speaker 3: it is a very disturbing year in a lot of
Speaker 3: ways for the common Roman man who is just not
Speaker 3: sure what to expect. I mean, these laws are getting broken,
Speaker 3: and nothing seems to are these you know, these rules
Speaker 3: are getting broken. In politics, nothing seems to be happening
Speaker 3: except grand standing by the traditionalists.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: And and yet they do have a kind of a
Speaker 3: backlash publicly, like Pompey actually faces a lot more of
Speaker 3: the backlashan than Crassus, as Pompy is just a lot
Speaker 3: more visible as a target of ire. He gets soldiers
Speaker 3: to show up for some of these important votes so
Speaker 3: they can have a quorum, and Pompy kind of loses
Speaker 3: a lot of clout in that year, but Caesar gets
Speaker 3: you know, it tests his own popularity too, because many
Speaker 3: people are you know, railing against him in public, politicians
Speaker 3: in particular. So yeah, it's it's a it's a it's
Speaker 3: a most disturbing year for Rome. But but a lot
Speaker 3: of stuff gets done, like a like a more stuff
Speaker 3: than ever gets done, and anyone's anyone's consulships. Caesar just
Speaker 3: knows how to manipulate the system and get policies pushed through.
Speaker 3: So it shows his legislative brilliance, and it shows this
Speaker 3: kind of lack of scruple when it comes to silly
Speaker 3: traditions that get in the way of progress. A lot
Speaker 3: of lessons there.
Speaker 2: So the next part of the story is a massive
Speaker 2: topic in its own right, and so at the risk
Speaker 2: of getting kind of lost in the Gallic Wars, it
Speaker 2: might be best if we speak about this primarily from
Speaker 2: a political angle, right, What is happening with Caesar's appointment
Speaker 2: to this role? Obviously, you know, I don't know if
Speaker 2: we have the time to go into you know this
Speaker 2: what five or seven I can never remember year period
Speaker 2: of you know, intense conflict. But at the same time,
Speaker 2: while Caesar is out of Rome, politics is still developing, right,
Speaker 2: he is still an ambitious man. There is at least
Speaker 2: some correspondence back home. And so if you could, could
Speaker 2: you describe, well, one, how does Caesar end up trapesing
Speaker 2: around France? Right? And two? Well, what happens while he's there?
Speaker 2: What happens to the triumvir?
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, Caesar's enemies, you know, they anticipated this is
Speaker 3: a talented guy. We have to here's what we can
Speaker 3: do to slow him down, even though he's just been
Speaker 3: elected consul. So between him being elected consul in late
Speaker 3: summer of sixty and him actually beginning his term January first,
Speaker 3: fifty nine, the Senate actually in that period, once the
Speaker 3: consuls are elected, or at some point before the consul
Speaker 3: begins his term, it might be before they actually get elected. Anyway,
Speaker 3: they assign the provincial governorships that are two commenced after
Speaker 3: your year as consul. So, right, you get sent out
Speaker 3: as a governor after you are a consul. And that's
Speaker 3: the time to make back your debt, money and plunder.
Speaker 3: But Caesar gets this just laughably silly post assigned to
Speaker 3: him as his province, which is like the roads and
Speaker 3: forests of Italy. It's like nothing. I mean, that's going
Speaker 3: to be his scope for all of his ambition for
Speaker 3: the year fifty eight through fifty seven. And so he's
Speaker 3: not happy with this, and he gets a tribune in
Speaker 3: front of his Vitinius to pass a law to assign
Speaker 3: him Cis Alpine Gaul first and then later Transalpine Gall
Speaker 3: is added because the governor of Transalpine Gaull Mattelus, dies
Speaker 3: in suspicious circumstances and it kind of frees up this
Speaker 3: this wild area. And and you know Caesar's had his
Speaker 3: mind on this place for a long time. I mean,
Speaker 3: it's not an accident that Vitinius assigns him Cis Alpine
Speaker 3: and then Transalpine Gaul. I think Caesar has studied the
Speaker 3: situation pretty carefully. You know, he's been operating in Spain nearby,
Speaker 3: and he knows the political situation there. But this is
Speaker 3: really where he sees a possibility for a kind of
Speaker 3: career making epic making conquest, something to rival Pompey's victories
Speaker 3: and the victories of Sola and Marius in the past.
Speaker 3: So so as soon as his term of office is up,
Speaker 3: he's already got the law passed by Vitineus. His enemies
Speaker 3: in Rome are already just putting together a deluge of
Speaker 3: briefs to prosecute him for all kinds of things, all
Speaker 3: kinds of you know, indiscretions and you know, unconstitutional acts
Speaker 3: the very day his consulship ends, and so he leaves
Speaker 3: town a lot earlier than he has to, just to
Speaker 3: get out of the city limits of Rome and to
Speaker 3: begin his provincial governorship early, which gives him immunity. You
Speaker 3: can't be prosecuted when you're a governor. And so he's
Speaker 3: got his back to the wall the whole Gallic campaign.
Speaker 3: I think that's important to keep in mind that, you know,
Speaker 3: the optimates are already from fifty nine and fifty eight there.
Speaker 3: They just you know, got a target painted on him.
Speaker 3: They've declared war on him. Essentially, whenever he returns, he
Speaker 3: knows he's he's going to face an onslaught. And so
Speaker 3: this is this is what's what's kind of going on
Speaker 3: while he's away from the beginning of fifty eight all
Speaker 3: the way until forty nine is when he re enters Rome.
Speaker 3: Finally he's away for nearly ten years the Gallic campaigns.
Speaker 3: You know, Rome is in control of the coastline of
Speaker 3: France Transalpine gaul is like you know, the Rohan Valley's
Speaker 3: the southern Rhone Valley and you know Marseille along the
Speaker 3: they have some holdings there, kind of like a road
Speaker 3: to Spain essentially with some hinterland, but you know, it's
Speaker 3: wild country. Tribal federations constantly warring with each other, occasionally
Speaker 3: incursions into Rome from Kimbri and the Teutones and the
Speaker 3: generation or two before invaded Italy and we're threatening Rome
Speaker 3: itself with maybe more than one hundred thousand men. But
Speaker 3: it's not like this is a peaceful, you know, Bucolic
Speaker 3: agrarian society that is just mining its own business. I mean,
Speaker 3: these are these are dangerous peoples, like right.
Speaker 1: On the northern border.
Speaker 3: So there is a kind of geopolitical justification for it.
Speaker 3: But you know, Caesar also has conquest on his mind.
Speaker 2: And obviously, like I said earlier, the subjugation of Goal
Speaker 2: is it's a narrative, right it's incredibly interesting, and just
Speaker 2: because we are skipping over it does not mean it
Speaker 2: is unimportant. But primarily in you know, doing sort of
Speaker 2: a political analysis, if you will, of the life of Caesar,
Speaker 2: you have to cut somewhere, right, and so I just
Speaker 2: wanted to put that in as sort of a tonic
Speaker 2: to you know, everyone listening to this. Right, So, Caesar
Speaker 2: ultimately conquers you know, obviously a large portion of France,
Speaker 2: Germany sort of this expedition to England, and during that time,
Speaker 2: as far as I understand, there's sort of this debate
Speaker 2: over how long he has been given power that on
Speaker 2: its face seems kind of boring and technical, right a
Speaker 2: you know, legal ease, but actually does matter quite a
Speaker 2: bit for our story. So if you could, could you
Speaker 2: explain that debate about out sort of how long his
Speaker 2: power is legitimate and then maybe why that matters to
Speaker 2: our narrative.
Speaker 3: Yeah, So the command that he was given by Vitinius
Speaker 3: in fifty nine is a five year command in Gaul,
Speaker 3: and so he needs to get it renewed to finish
Speaker 3: the war. Basically, gall is not really pacified until takes
Speaker 3: him till fifty two, more or less really into fifty one,
Speaker 3: there's some mop up operations and so in and the
Speaker 3: Triumvirate starts to pray a little bit. Crasses and Pompey
Speaker 3: they don't like each other, and they kind of get
Speaker 3: tired of, you know, not screwing each other over, and
Speaker 3: so Caesar's always trying to kind of keep them, keep
Speaker 3: them at peace with each other, so they can support
Speaker 3: him while he's exposed in a way. This eventually gets
Speaker 3: harder when well, when Pompey's married to Caesar's daughter and
Speaker 3: she died in fifty four in childbirth. That was a
Speaker 3: big blow, and apparently they loved each other genuinely. Pompey's crushed,
Speaker 3: Caesar's crushed. Caesar tries to renew the marriage alliance with
Speaker 3: a niece of his, Pompey just is not in the mood.
Speaker 3: Crassus then goes to Parthia on his famous ill fated
Speaker 3: expedition and dies the battle shortly after the Battle of Karrai.
Speaker 3: So it's only Pompey and Caesar around fifty two. Now
Speaker 3: what happens in between. Caesar gets another tribune, Tribonius in
Speaker 3: fifty five to pass another law, and he's meanwhile arranged
Speaker 3: for Crassus and Pompey to be the consoles of that
Speaker 3: year too, so kind of like renewing all the things
Speaker 3: for another five years. In fifty five, and the Law
Speaker 3: of Trebonius extends Caesar's command another five years. In Gaul
Speaker 3: passed the against you know, heroic obstructionism by Cato, and
Speaker 3: there's riots in the forum and it's it's a messy
Speaker 3: situation back home. But Caesar's kind of the puppet master
Speaker 3: in a lot of ways, making a lot of this
Speaker 3: stuff happen through correspondence and gifts of gold. He's got
Speaker 3: gold coming in from his you know, conquests up to
Speaker 3: that point. And what ends up being the sticking points.
Speaker 3: There's a couple. One is, okay, when what does five
Speaker 3: years mean for the second extension of his command. Well,
Speaker 3: it could be five years from the time when the
Speaker 3: law was passed in fifty five, so then that'd be
Speaker 3: fifty four three two one fifty. It could be from
Speaker 3: the expiry of the previous command, which arguably would be
Speaker 3: in at the end of fifty four. There's there's a
Speaker 3: few ways to calculate. It's likely that it wasn't actually specified,
Speaker 3: but you could you could come up with the range
Speaker 3: of easily two years in which that second command is
Speaker 3: supposed to end. But even before that range approaches, there
Speaker 3: are men in the Senate calling for Caesar to be
Speaker 3: recalled because on the grounds that the war is over
Speaker 3: after his victory with Versu Ghetoricks, you know in fifty two,
Speaker 3: the Great Gallic rebel. All right, they start trying to
Speaker 3: recall Caesar, and he's like, hey, my five years is enough.
Speaker 1: Shut up. The war isn't even over.
Speaker 3: There's like still rebellions going on, and Romans are dying
Speaker 3: and Galls are dying.
Speaker 1: The war is not over. Leave me alone.
Speaker 3: And and another very important sticking point comes up. So he's,
Speaker 3: you know, he's facing these calls for him to come
Speaker 3: back and lay down his command. He's got to come
Speaker 3: back at some point and lay down his command. And
Speaker 3: he decides what he wants to do is to run
Speaker 3: for consul in absentia, just like he got the Senate
Speaker 3: to agree to in principle. They didn't have to end
Speaker 3: up acting on it back in back in sixty. And
Speaker 3: his reason for that is if he can, if he
Speaker 3: can run for console and absentia, you can even get
Speaker 3: elected in absentia, then he can go seamlessly from being
Speaker 3: a pro consul to being a console again, which gives
Speaker 3: him legal immunity continuously. And you know, his enemies for
Speaker 3: the last eight years have just been saying, the moment
Speaker 3: Caesar sets foot in Rome, he's gonna get subpoena after subpoena,
Speaker 3: or we're gonna just we're gonna bleed him dry. And
Speaker 3: the course he's gonna get exiled. You know, he's going
Speaker 3: to face accountability for his crimes and they're going to
Speaker 3: ruin him politically, and they're they're making no secret of it, right,
Speaker 3: and sometimes they'll dress it up in nice language. But
Speaker 3: you know, Caesar sees that there's that target on his
Speaker 3: forehead has just gotten bigger and bigger. The more successful
Speaker 3: he's got, the more of a threat he's become.
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 3: He wants to run for console and absentia because if
Speaker 3: he can just get back and uh, you know, at
Speaker 3: least have a year in the city without without prosecution,
Speaker 3: he could probably like make some friends, bribe some people,
Speaker 3: get get things favorable to him, and figure it out
Speaker 3: from there. But they really, the optimist really don't want
Speaker 3: to let that happen, and they eventually end up kind
Speaker 3: of bringing Pompey over into their circle that they like
Speaker 3: play on his paranoia about being surpassed by the younger
Speaker 3: man Caesar, and they start to tell Pompey that, you know,
Speaker 3: if Caesar comes back as you're equal, that means that
Speaker 3: he's beaten you and therefore you're his inferior. Like it
Speaker 3: becomes this kind of ego battle. There can only be
Speaker 3: one first man in Rome. Right if you say Caesar
Speaker 3: is also the first man in Rome, that can set
Speaker 3: that very concession makes you the second man in Rome, Pompy, right,
Speaker 3: which actually kind of makes sense. It's it's a real
Speaker 3: pickle politically for Pompey. But the legal detail is in
Speaker 3: fifty two, Yeah, fifty two, Pompey actually agrees so that
Speaker 3: there's a law of ten tribunes passed that like, all
Speaker 3: the tribunes unite and pass the law that Caesar can
Speaker 3: run in absentia. And then Pompy comes and passes another
Speaker 3: law that says that that rules that nobody can run
Speaker 3: at absentia, and Pompey had approved that earlier law of
Speaker 3: the tribunes. He was consoled that year he's the sole consul.
Speaker 3: There's so many details to go into the story, but
Speaker 3: I think we're getting the big the big picture here.
Speaker 1: So Pompey.
Speaker 3: Kind of turns from supporting Caesar's you know, licensed to
Speaker 3: run at absentia and kind of say his career politically,
Speaker 3: to ruling it out. And then Caesar's supporters, because he's
Speaker 3: got him in run, they're like, Pompy, what's going on?
Speaker 3: This is this is absurd. You just you know, went
Speaker 3: back on your word. And Pompey says, oh, no, I
Speaker 3: didn't mean Caesar. Of course, an exception should be made
Speaker 3: for Caesar. You know, go and go and write accept
Speaker 3: Caesar the under the tablet of the law slave. So
Speaker 3: you know, somebody goes and writes accept Caesar under no
Speaker 3: one shall run for office in absentia, and it has
Speaker 3: no legal force.
Speaker 1: I mean, it's not convincing. But pomp he's always trying
Speaker 1: to kind of like.
Speaker 3: Keep his cards close and give himself options, and you know,
Speaker 3: basically he wants to hold all the cards and and
Speaker 3: and only to let Caesar back on his own terms.
Speaker 3: And so it's like a stick he can kind of
Speaker 3: hold over Caesar. And so Caesar feels very betrayed by this,
Speaker 3: like he can tell the trust is breaking down, and uh,
Speaker 3: you know, long story short that demands for recall come
Speaker 3: come louder and and they're trying to argue back and
Speaker 3: forth about what terms he should be allowed to re
Speaker 3: enter the city. Okay, is he allowed to if he's
Speaker 3: not allowed to run for console and absentia? Does he
Speaker 3: have to lay down? Does he have to dismiss disband
Speaker 3: all of his armies? All right, well, maybe Pompy should
Speaker 3: disband all of his armies. No, but Pompy uh has
Speaker 3: has imperium from this other office. There's there's all these
Speaker 3: kind of legal chicaneries going back and forth that are
Speaker 3: not that that are ultimately aiming at trying to give
Speaker 3: the optimist in the Senate the upper hand both politically
Speaker 3: and militarily if any breakdown should happen. And uh, and
Speaker 3: that sort of gets you in very broad strut strokes
Speaker 3: to the end of fifty and the beginning of forty nine.
Speaker 3: He crosses the rubicon in January of forty nine BC.
Speaker 2: So obviously that is another famous moment, right. The exact
Speaker 2: wording of that phrase debated, of course, but I like it.
Speaker 2: You know, it's the sort of even if it's not true,
Speaker 2: I want it to be, so I'll just refer to
Speaker 2: it as completely true. So at this point, effectively we're
Speaker 2: witnessing a constitutional crisis. This is a deep fracture in
Speaker 2: the Roman conception of politics. So one, if you could,
Speaker 2: could you explain why one the situation Caesar was in
Speaker 2: and why effectively breaking all of these conventions was necessary, right,
Speaker 2: why it had to be done. And obviously we're going
Speaker 2: to have to again for the sake of time, sort
Speaker 2: of a lied through the specifics of course of the
Speaker 2: you know, the Roman civil war. But you know it
Speaker 2: is at least notable that there is a Roman civil war, right,
Speaker 2: this has come to blows. So I guess if you
Speaker 2: could start with that, the crossing of the rubicon, right,
Speaker 2: bringing armed men in? Why is that significant other you know,
Speaker 2: of course than the obvious.
Speaker 3: So the situation Caesar's in, and he talks about this
Speaker 3: in his commentaries, is, you know, putting aside all of
Speaker 3: the legal technicalities, what is really at stake for him
Speaker 3: is the attitude and the actions of both Pompey and
Speaker 3: especially of the bad men who are corralling him into
Speaker 3: their faction.
Speaker 1: Is they don't.
Speaker 3: They're not giving Caesar his proper dignity, his dignitas, his honor.
Speaker 3: They're sort of dishonoring Caesar by you know, I mean,
Speaker 3: this guy has conquered a mortal enemy of Rome that
Speaker 3: has been a threat on the northern border for three centuries.
Speaker 3: He's brought incredible amounts of money into the treasury and
Speaker 3: built buildings, started building projects in Rome. And he's it's
Speaker 3: it's you know, he's won the games, he's done. He's
Speaker 3: performed very well at the game of service to the Republic,
Speaker 3: and many men have lost their lives in that and
Speaker 3: that effort. Caesar has got something like ten legions, many
Speaker 3: of them quite well trained, veteran legions, fiercely loyal in him.
Speaker 2: And that was exactly what I was going to mention, Right,
Speaker 2: It's not just that he has men, but he has
Speaker 2: men that are loyal to him. Caesar as an individual.
Speaker 3: Very importantly, Yeah, and he's his demands are like, let
Speaker 3: me come back to Rome in peace on fair terms
Speaker 3: that are not insulting, they're not obviously insulting. And he
Speaker 3: makes many many concessions, like he offers to dismiss most
Speaker 3: of his legions. He wants Pompey to dismiss his legions too,
Speaker 3: and eventually he lets go of even that requirement, like
Speaker 3: he's really trying to make a deal. It's it's not
Speaker 3: that he wants to fight a war on Rome, and
Speaker 3: he says that, and I think that his actions actually
Speaker 3: show that this is the case that he's he's doing
Speaker 3: his best to avert this constitutional crisis. But there are
Speaker 3: some lines that he's just not willing to bend on,
Speaker 3: and one of them is, you know, the right not
Speaker 3: to be persecuted in the courts until he's exiled, the
Speaker 3: right not to be kind of politically assassinated by his enemies,
Speaker 3: to subject himself to merciless law fair and that is
Speaker 3: not something that they're willing to concede to him. Oh,
Speaker 3: you have to face accountability. And so eventually he's on
Speaker 3: the northern border of Italy, the legal northern border, which
Speaker 3: is the Rubicon River, the small stream. It's not even
Speaker 3: fully agreed by scholars which stream is the Rubicon, but
Speaker 3: it's somewhere around Ravenna. And because that's where he's camped,
Speaker 3: and he's got one legion with him, just one legion,
Speaker 3: and the Senate declares war essentially on him. In early January,
Speaker 3: they declared the Ultimate Decree. And this was very unpopular,
Speaker 3: you know, when proposals were made by friends of Caesar
Speaker 3: that both Pompey and Caesar laid down, dismiss all of
Speaker 3: their legions and become private citizens. It was hugely popular.
Speaker 3: Like the citizens are cheering. Most of the Senate voted
Speaker 3: in favor of that measure, like they nobody wants a
Speaker 3: war except for the optimate hardliners, and Caesar is willing
Speaker 3: to fight it if they insist. So that's the kind
Speaker 3: of context of the Rubicon moment. And and you know,
Speaker 3: so crossing that under arms that border from his province
Speaker 3: of trans Cisopine goal into Italy would constitute an act
Speaker 3: of war, although they've already kind of declared war on
Speaker 3: him by declaring him an enemy of the state with
Speaker 3: this Ultimate Decree, so he kind of he waits carefully
Speaker 3: for them to strike the first legal constitutional blow, as
Speaker 3: it were, you know, because he's always conscious of these things,
Speaker 3: of doing what he does with the utmost scruple possible,
Speaker 3: you know, ignoring scruples some in his consulship, but you know,
Speaker 3: generally he wants he wants law and order on his side,
Speaker 3: and that's that's when he decides across the rover after
Speaker 3: they essentially declare him a public enemy. And he's very
Speaker 3: swift and he he's he moves faster than they expected
Speaker 3: and kind of tears through Italy. The Senate and Pompy
Speaker 3: end up abandoning Italy. You know, long story of the
Speaker 3: details on that. But you know, of course he wins
Speaker 3: the war many times over. It's like, all right, farseless, bloody,
Speaker 3: bloody slaughter of the senatorial aristocracy. War's over right, Nope,
Speaker 3: we're going to fight again, all right. In Africa they
Speaker 3: killed you know, Mattellus Cato and tens of thousands of
Speaker 3: Roman troops. The war's over right, Nope, we gotta fight
Speaker 3: it again. In Spain, it just it keeps kind of resurging.
Speaker 3: There's an Egyptian campaign. I mean, it's a whole saga.
Speaker 3: I did an eight part series on the Gallic Wars
Speaker 3: and a three part series on the Civil War, and
Speaker 3: even then I felt like I just scrashed the surface.
Speaker 3: It's there's a lot of really interesting political details that
Speaker 3: come out in that process. But you know, they thought
Speaker 3: that they had the advantage, and they did financially in
Speaker 3: terms of like like raw man power, maybe, but they
Speaker 3: did not have Caesar's clarity, his unity of command, and
Speaker 3: they certainly didn't have the kind of veteran talent that
Speaker 3: he had in his numerically inferior but morally in terms
Speaker 3: of morale, much superior forces.
Speaker 2: So one of the long running character I guess features
Speaker 2: we could say of Caesar is his mercy, his clemency,
Speaker 2: his willingness to let people back on side. So how
Speaker 2: does that play out throughout this civil war? Obviously, now
Speaker 2: he is dealing with his own people, and so it's
Speaker 2: a to put it mildly, it's a delicate area to
Speaker 2: operate it. So do we see Caesar act in that
Speaker 2: same way through the civil war?
Speaker 3: Yes, like phenomenally so, especially early on. So he he
Speaker 3: captures dimicious Heno Barbas, one of his great enemies at Corfinium,
Speaker 3: this early battle in Italy, spares him, even lets the
Speaker 3: guy leave with the money and just keeps the troops.
Speaker 3: He spares his enemies in Greece. He grants mercy to
Speaker 3: Brutus and many many other Cicero. He's offering clemency over
Speaker 3: and over in the early parts of the campaign, and
Speaker 3: many people take him up on it. I forgot that
Speaker 3: there's two Spanish campaigns actors. The first Spanish campaign that
Speaker 3: that he fights before he goes over to Greece against
Speaker 3: Pompey's generals in Spain Battle of Ilerda and spares Aphranius
Speaker 3: and betray Us. They go over to keep, you know,
Speaker 3: fighting on Pompey's side after that, and he does what
Speaker 3: he doesn't do is spare people generally more than once.
Speaker 3: He does it in the case of demicious arguably, but
Speaker 3: you know, he's but he's generally very like merciful and
Speaker 3: he just wants the war to end, and he sees
Speaker 3: that mercy is is the way to keep the moral
Speaker 3: upper hand. And I think he generally doesn't like shedding
Speaker 3: Roman blood. I mean, who would, while the Optimists seem
Speaker 3: not to mind when it comes to executing Caesar's troops
Speaker 3: that they captured.
Speaker 1: There's a very.
Speaker 3: Several disturbing scenes of this throughout the Civil War of
Speaker 3: the optim that's Lobbyanus and betray Us executing Caesar's soldiers
Speaker 3: when they capture them, and Caesar generally doesn't do that.
Speaker 3: There are a few instances where he doesn't restrain his
Speaker 3: own troops, who are just enraged in a murderous frenzy
Speaker 3: late in the war, after they've been fighting for several years,
Speaker 3: and they're very understandably frustrated this is going on. But
Speaker 3: you know, famously, right Brutus and Cassius and many others
Speaker 3: who he spared end up being the men who organize
Speaker 3: and carry out the assassination on the eydes of March
Speaker 3: forty four.
Speaker 2: So there are several things that I want to talk about.
Speaker 2: I think that early early in the war, one of
Speaker 2: the most devocative scenes, of course, is the Senate fleeing Rome.
Speaker 2: Obviously there's a certain level of just clear significance to
Speaker 2: that you're departing from the seed of power. But what
Speaker 2: is the I guess, kind of ritual significance of the
Speaker 2: Senate being in Rome, Because seemingly, if this is a
Speaker 2: fight over legitimacy, if you've abandoned Rome, he's in charge of,
Speaker 2: you know, the city that the whole empire is named
Speaker 2: out of. Seemingly that would indicate that at least by
Speaker 2: force of arms, he is the rightful ruler of Rome.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I think this kind of underlines sort of Pompey's
Speaker 3: political foolishness or amateurism. You know, the city of Rome
Speaker 3: is has this incredible symbolic force to it, and Pompey
Speaker 3: abandons Rome in Italy because he has a lot more
Speaker 3: troops in the east and they have a very powerful navy,
Speaker 3: so they think that they can kind of blockade Caesar
Speaker 3: in Italy and in Rome because if the grain shipment
Speaker 3: stopped coming into the port of Ostia, the city will
Speaker 3: starve within a few weeks. So that's kind of what
Speaker 3: they're hoping to do, is drag out the war much
Speaker 3: much longer. And it's a kind of military logic to it.
Speaker 3: It's a grim, gruesome, cruel logic. But it wasn't a
Speaker 3: terrible plan just militarily, but politically it was really bad
Speaker 3: because for the for the reasons you said, you know,
Speaker 3: he insists, Pompy insists that everybody in the Senate join him,
Speaker 3: and if anybody who doesn't join him, though, he'll regard
Speaker 3: as an enemy.
Speaker 1: And so all these senators are kind.
Speaker 3: Of like grudgingly leaving and they're you know, camped out
Speaker 3: with him in Italy, which in Greece, which is which
Speaker 3: is a real pain in the ass if you're trying
Speaker 3: to have a unified command and strategic nimbleness to have
Speaker 3: all these senators, you know, second guessing all of your plans.
Speaker 3: So it it seemed to make sense on paper, but
Speaker 3: it was. It was a little bit autistic on Pompey's side,
Speaker 3: and clearly it didn't work out. And I think that
Speaker 3: a lot of a lot of the decisions that Pompy made,
Speaker 3: like the decision to fight at Farcelus, which was, you know,
Speaker 3: not a well chosen battle, on Pompey's part, I think
Speaker 3: it kind of came down to he felt pressure from
Speaker 3: from these senators who were complaining about him dragging out
Speaker 3: the war and not getting on with it, you know,
Speaker 3: so they can go back and plunder Caesar and all
Speaker 3: of his friend's estates and you know, get back to
Speaker 3: their fish ponds and their waterfalls and their villas.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 3: It put this unique political pressure on Pompey during the campaign.
Speaker 3: I think it kind of I think it weakened him substantially,
Speaker 3: and he was already not in a strong position morally
Speaker 3: because he's got these Green troops. You know, he's kind
Speaker 3: of the aggressor in the Civil War. There's a kind
Speaker 3: of sola mood going on in the Optimate camp, you know,
Speaker 3: talking about proscriptions and slah did it, Why can't I
Speaker 3: do it? Pompy he's heard saying these kind of things.
Speaker 3: It's just it's just not even if the cause and
Speaker 3: Cicero talks about this, you know, he's like, I love Pompey,
Speaker 3: and I think the Senate cause is like the right one.
Speaker 3: It's but the people that are running the show are
Speaker 3: are not better than Caesar. They're like, mostly worse than Caesar.
Speaker 3: Funny enough, even though I like agree with them politically, they're.
Speaker 1: Like bad men.
Speaker 3: He's just like a lot of people are facing this
Speaker 3: moral quandary of hating Caesar's cause but liking him better
Speaker 3: and feeling like he's doing it in a more honorable
Speaker 3: way than the Optimists are. It's it's really ugly, and
Speaker 3: a lot of it kind of traces back to that.
Speaker 3: It's not unrelated to the leading of the symbolic hearth
Speaker 3: of rome. You know, it's like kind of leaving the
Speaker 3: kind of leaving the the narrative that you're the good
Speaker 3: guys behind in a powerful way, aren't you.
Speaker 1: I don't know.
Speaker 3: It seems really crazy in retrospect, there's a.
Speaker 2: There's an anecdote, and I can't remember where this comes from.
Speaker 2: This is my pevery memory of this is my high
Speaker 2: school Latin teacher telling me about it. But isn't there
Speaker 2: a famous incident in early Roman history where there is
Speaker 2: an invading army right that has gotten into the city
Speaker 2: and a city father is sitting out in front of
Speaker 2: his house, completely stock still, and he doesn't say anything
Speaker 2: until the barbarian comes up. You know, Yank's on his
Speaker 2: beard and then he's killed. Is this Am I completely
Speaker 2: making this up?
Speaker 1: No?
Speaker 3: No, that's the first and only capture of the city
Speaker 3: of Rome by the Gauls in the three eighties. I
Speaker 3: think it is, yeah, seared into the minds of Romans.
Speaker 3: I think I think they like they're sitting stock still
Speaker 3: on their on their thrones, like a lot of the
Speaker 3: senatorial fathers, and you know, one of the galls comes
Speaker 3: up like these statues and Yanks on the beer. If
Speaker 3: I remember correctly, I can't remember. It's in the Life
Speaker 3: of Camillis. I think, Uh, the senator like whacks the
Speaker 3: gall with his staff, and the gall you know, kills.
Speaker 1: Him with the sword.
Speaker 3: The Yeah, the people had had left Rome, but they
Speaker 3: left a guard there of of the people, you know,
Speaker 3: the men who were sort of the captains that were
Speaker 3: supposed to go down with the ship. You know, Okay,
Speaker 3: the women and children get to go to this other
Speaker 3: city for refuge, but the fighting men stay in Rome.
Speaker 3: Damn it, you know, the senators. If Rome is going
Speaker 3: to get captured, the senators are going to get captured
Speaker 3: and slaughtered with it. First first of all, you know, uh,
Speaker 3: some of them go up onto the citadel. That's where
Speaker 3: they kind of unwind the.
Speaker 1: The siege of the city.
Speaker 3: So yeah, it is very uncharacteristic and very like not
Speaker 3: according to the most mayorum, to have the whole Senate
Speaker 3: like be this kind of traveling party in Greece.
Speaker 2: Well especially you know when your core moral plane, right
Speaker 2: is that we are doing things the Roman way, this
Speaker 2: is how it ought to be done. And oh those
Speaker 2: Romans who went down with the ship, Yeah, we don't
Speaker 2: do that tradition. But the traditions where we're in charge,
Speaker 2: those are the good ones. And of course I'm saying
Speaker 2: that in sort of a deliberately simplistic way, of course,
Speaker 2: but that is a real dissonance, right, That is very
Speaker 2: much what you're describing where the quality of the men
Speaker 2: on each side of this conflict is different. You see
Speaker 2: a different attitude towards that. So, Alex, I realized you
Speaker 2: have a heart out. And of course I try to
Speaker 2: keep these things to roughly an hour. And of course
Speaker 2: you know big spoilers, right, you know how this ends. Guys,
Speaker 2: Caesar doesn't make it.
Speaker 1: He's gonna make it.
Speaker 2: He's gonna make it this time, this time. But Alex, man,
Speaker 2: this has been a great conversation. I really enjoyed this
Speaker 2: and have to have you on again. There's so much
Speaker 2: to talk about. Obviously, you have your podcast, your channel,
Speaker 2: your website, substack, and your Twitter. Did I miss anything there?
Speaker 3: Uh, it's it's not out. It won't be for a
Speaker 3: long time. But you can buy my book whenever I
Speaker 3: finished the damn thing.
Speaker 1: I've been working on it for a while and it's
Speaker 1: gonna be great.
Speaker 3: So keep your eyes peeled for when you know the
Speaker 3: book comes out. But no, I mean, you covered all
Speaker 3: the bases. It's been a great, great time time and
Speaker 3: I you know, I sort of I love talking about
Speaker 3: this stuff because you realize different aspects of it that
Speaker 3: you hadn't really thought about. Before, and I hadn't made
Speaker 3: that connection with this. This the stolid old silent senators
Speaker 3: in the Gallic capture. I mean it really, ah yeah,
Speaker 3: and there's so much drama. This is the greatest drama
Speaker 3: in all of ancient history, I think, the fall of
Speaker 3: the Republic and so many great men, so many pivotal choices.
Speaker 3: So so maybe we'll have to come back next time
Speaker 3: and see whether Caesar actually can make it out alive.
Speaker 2: Here's what I will say. It is truly impressive that
Speaker 2: history professors manage to make this bar because, as you've said, right,
Speaker 2: it's one of the greatest, the greatest dramas of history. Right,
Speaker 2: I mean, you know, a fairly prominent you know English guy,
Speaker 2: you know, he wrote a drama about it. It's kind
Speaker 2: of famous. You might have heard of it. And even
Speaker 2: the original right, the even if you're sixteen, you know,
Speaker 2: poorly translating out of Latin. Right, it has a flow
Speaker 2: to it. It pulls you in. It's sort of this
Speaker 2: high human drama. And really I've appreciated your work on
Speaker 2: it obviously, as you guys can tell, very gifted communicator,
Speaker 2: and you know when he's scripted right, when he's not
Speaker 2: having some guy ask him ram questions every five to
Speaker 2: ten minutes, so your work on it is absolutely exceptional.
Speaker 2: I recommend it to everyone at home as far as
Speaker 2: my stuff, The Jay Burtons Show, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, anywhere
Speaker 2: you listen to podcasts. If you want the episodes early
Speaker 2: in ad free, it's like five bucks a month for
Speaker 2: twenty some episodes a month. Really not a bad deal
Speaker 2: if I do say so myself. So you can check
Speaker 2: that out at Patreons, Substack or gum Road, or check
Speaker 2: out our sponsor, Fox and Son's Coffee. They make good coffee.
Speaker 2: You should try it. And Jay, I think code Burden
Speaker 2: I should know this off the top of my head.
Speaker 2: Gets you like fifteen percent off. Again, not a bad deal,
Speaker 2: and I like the guy. The coffee's good. He's a
Speaker 2: good guy. Anyway, Alex was great speaking to you and
Speaker 2: everyone at home. Keep your height up, definitely.
Speaker 1: But what's what's
Speaker 2: What's program