JEREMY RYAN SLATE ｜ How Rome Fell… Is America Next？
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
195.68944
Summary
Jeremy Ryan Slate is a bestselling author, speaker, and bestselling author of The Jeremy Ryan Slate Show and Jeremy Roman Empire. He is also the co-founder of the PR agency Command Your Brand, which helps entrepreneurs amplify their message by booking high impact podcast appearances.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
It's no secret that men are fascinated with the Roman Empire.
00:00:04.120
Tales of battle and glory and reign, they ignite our passion and enthusiasm for exerting
00:00:11.620
our will against our enemies and for the benefit of those we lead.
00:00:15.700
But these tales aren't just an entertaining insight into the way men's minds work.
00:00:21.380
They're also cautionary regarding how every once great civilization has fallen.
00:00:26.360
Today, I'm joined by Jeremy Ryan Slate to discuss what makes men so attracted to the
00:00:31.620
Roman Empire, in what ways the United States is following in its ill-fated footsteps, and
00:00:38.600
Lessons we can learn from monetary policy, political aspirations, wars and conquests, and
00:00:45.340
how we can avoid the fate or at least prolong every great civilization has eventually faced.
00:00:52.520
You live life to the fullest, embrace your fears, and boldly chart your own path.
00:00:57.340
When life knocks you down, you get back up one more time, every time.
00:01:01.760
You are not easily deterred or defeated, rugged, resilient, strong.
00:01:11.080
At the end of the day, and after all is said and done, you can call yourself a man.
00:01:16.620
Gentlemen, welcome to the Order of Man podcast.
00:01:20.080
I'm your host and the founder of this movement.
00:01:23.540
Going on over 10 years strong at this point, and we're only getting better.
00:01:33.360
We just released our Divorce Not Death course, and we've got a lot coming up as our guests
00:01:42.600
I've got a really interesting one, a bit of a fascinating one, and one that's a little
00:01:47.700
But before I get into the show, let me talk real briefly about my friends over at Montana
00:01:54.920
Now, you know by now, because you've listened to this podcast, that these guys make incredible,
00:02:00.380
incredible knives in America, in Frenchtown, Montana.
00:02:03.460
And I'm gearing up for a hunt here in about two weeks, a little less than two weeks now.
00:02:09.760
And of course, my son and I were getting our packing list ready and shooting our bows yesterday
00:02:14.920
and checking out which knives we have and getting those sharpened and which one we're
00:02:19.380
So hopefully I'll put those to good use in the field.
00:02:22.680
I use them just about every day in the kitchen and their tactical lineup as well.
00:02:27.660
So if you're looking for a good knife, especially as you have your hunts coming up or you just
00:02:31.500
want something in the kitchen, look no further than Montana Knife Company and use the code
00:02:36.820
ORDER OF MAN, all one word, ORDER OF MAN at checkout when you do to save some money.
00:02:41.900
Again, that's ORDER OF MAN at checkout at MontanaKnifeCompany.com.
00:02:47.060
All right, guys, let me introduce you to Jeremy Ryan Slate.
00:02:53.660
He's known for the Jeremy Ryan Slate Show and also Jeremy Roman Empire, but he holds
00:02:59.420
his degrees from Seton Hall University and he focused his graduate work on early Roman
00:03:07.500
He's also studied literature at Oxford University.
00:03:10.560
Now, on top of all that, he co-founded the PR agency, which is called Command Your Brand,
00:03:14.660
and they help entrepreneurs amplify their message by booking high-impact podcast appearances.
00:03:22.340
But over the years, his podcast, Create Your Own Life, has earned recognition from Inc.
00:03:27.720
Magazine, naming it a must-listen podcast and podcast magazine, and they honored him as a
00:03:35.380
He also authored Unremarkable to Extraordinary, which explores how people can shift from passive
00:03:48.660
It's been a long time, but I'm glad you could join me on the podcast today.
00:03:52.060
Yeah, man, I really appreciate this because I know you've been doing this for a really
00:03:55.220
long time, and I see it as an honor to be here.
00:03:58.440
Well, you shared an interesting comment or topic in the email that you sent me last week,
00:04:04.660
and I thought, you know, that actually would be really good.
00:04:08.980
And we're going to talk all things Roman Empire.
00:04:11.300
And I'm always interested in men's fascination, including mine and obviously yours, because
00:04:18.500
What would you say is the fascination that men have with the Roman Empire?
00:04:28.200
Well, I think there's a couple different things you can look at.
00:04:30.320
I think first is that's a time period when men could be masculine, right?
00:04:37.500
If you look at how the Roman household is built, the title that's often given to the Roman
00:04:43.200
father is Dominus, which translates from Latin to English meaning lord.
00:04:47.520
So he's literally the person in charge of his household.
00:04:51.100
So if you look at more of a mid to late Roman emperor guy like Maximinus Thrax, there's this
00:04:56.320
legend behind him that he's seven foot tall, and he's somebody that starts as not quite
00:05:02.520
a slave, but a very poor person that manages through the legions to eventually become emperor.
00:05:09.740
So I think that's one part of it is, you know, I won't say that Rome was very fluid,
00:05:14.080
but there was an ability to start as nobody and use your military career to become somebody
00:05:20.500
Now, if you look at how men often look at civilizations when things aren't doing so well, I think often
00:05:29.380
In the Middle Ages, Charlemagne was looking at this, and that's why he's crowned Holy Roman
00:05:33.540
Or if you look at even in modern days, it doesn't really seem like things are doing well here,
00:05:40.880
So I think people often look at empires and what happens with them, right?
00:05:44.540
So I think to me, if you look at those two major things, there's a pathway open for men
00:05:50.040
that really just isn't there anymore in a lot of ways.
00:05:53.260
And I think the other thing as well is when things aren't going well, we tend to look at
00:05:59.180
It seems to me when you talk about a pathway that the pathway is greater than it's ever been.
00:06:04.800
I imagine it's greater than it was during the Roman Empire.
00:06:07.800
Um, you know, what is interesting when you talk about pathway to, um, wealth and abundance
00:06:16.880
through the military, I don't think that's as prevalent anymore.
00:06:21.520
Although I will say that there has been a lot of political careers in the higher echelons
00:06:26.620
of the federal government started, uh, through military service.
00:06:32.080
No, I would say that, but I would definitely say as well, if you wanted to compare a lot of
00:06:36.900
Roman generals and powerful people, you could compare them very honestly to CEOs nowadays.
00:06:41.240
Like for example, um, Elon Musk is very obsessed with, uh, Lucius Sulla, who's a late Republic
00:06:48.720
And he's this guy that kind of takes a very unstable Republic and tries to put it back together.
00:06:54.540
So I think at the same time, the pathway is a little bit different, but men are looking
00:06:59.220
for something more because you can even see the feminization of a lot of jobs.
00:07:04.020
Men are being pushed out in certain ways and told, you can't be masculine.
00:07:09.240
But I think that's also created a really great opening for, you know, those of us that do
00:07:14.120
want to care for our families that do want to do more for our families that, um, you know,
00:07:18.360
are chopping firewood, like those of us important things that for a long time we weren't doing.
00:07:24.580
I think one of the common sentiments that I often hear is that our hands are tied as men.
00:07:30.580
Uh, you know, we, we can go out and, and I, I see this specifically with the economy.
00:07:35.580
You know, I went out and, and bought, um, groceries over the weekend.
00:07:41.140
I think I took my kids to some fast food place and it was like me and my two youngest children.
00:07:49.900
And not to mention if I would have done that in DoorDash, it would have been $82.
00:07:58.460
I'm very curious if this was a tool that was used to control the populace during those,
00:08:03.300
uh, Roman empire years, because I think more than I've ever experienced.
00:08:08.040
And then I've ever felt is that money and monetary policy is being used to subjugate
00:08:17.020
And I'm not familiar with and in other times throughout, um, our founding.
00:08:20.400
Well, it's, it's interesting as well, because if you look at 1913 was a very pivotal year
00:08:25.480
for America, because there's kind of three major things that changed that year.
00:08:33.140
And then you also have, um, that states are no longer voting for, or that the state legislatures
00:08:42.520
So a lot changes in how the country functions and monetary policy is a really big part of that.
00:08:48.380
Because I think when you look at it, people have the idea that I'm going to go out to
00:08:52.820
the store, I'm going to buy a door dash, whatever I'm going to do.
00:08:54.880
And things are just getting more expensive, but that isn't actually the case, right?
00:08:59.280
But what's actually happening is every single year, your dollar is losing value.
00:09:03.660
And if you look at, you get car repairs seven years ago, those car repairs are probably double
00:09:08.080
or close to that of what they were seven to 10 years ago.
00:09:10.560
And the government calls that something called quantitative easing that just in simple terms
00:09:19.420
And that's, if you look at the, one of the major things I see in why the Roman empire fell,
00:09:26.560
Now, I don't know that it was a control mechanism, but you could say, um, by 284 AD, they're at
00:09:34.020
So, whoa, the dollar is losing the Roman denarius at that point in time is losing so much value.
00:09:43.140
That becomes a real problem that they'll have where they're seeing the money that they don't
00:09:47.000
And a lot of that is driven by a couple of different things.
00:09:51.500
The third century, there is a lot of instability in who's actually leading this empire.
00:09:55.520
Men would raise an army, declare themselves emperor, and then fight off all combatants that
00:10:02.980
But at the same time, what they're doing with their money is using it to pay the military.
00:10:08.260
And, and they would double pay, triple pay, quadruple pay, and they would actually clip
00:10:13.520
So for them, inflation is a real tangible thing, right?
00:10:16.760
They would see the coin, they would see it's different.
00:10:19.020
Um, you know, I have some third century coins next to me here, like this is a Roman
00:10:28.240
And in the time of Augustus in the first century would have been 95% pure by the time of Aurelian
00:10:36.740
And people really would have felt that they were losing their buying power.
00:10:40.660
And if you look at a country or an empire or anything or a civilization, when people have
00:10:45.700
less confidence in the money, it says a lot about the direction things are headed.
00:10:51.020
I was going to ask how inflation was introduced because during those first centuries in during
00:10:56.820
the Roman empire, I can't imagine they can just go print a bunch of, a bunch of money
00:11:02.400
But what you're saying is the actual makeup of the coin moves from 100% precious metal
00:11:10.500
That, that silver coin is basically bronze by the two seventies AD.
00:11:13.900
So over a 300 year period, you know, you'd have kind of your early emperors, the way
00:11:18.380
they would do it is just by spending money, right?
00:11:20.000
Like you have somebody like Commodus that spends a lot of money or Nero that spends a lot of
00:11:24.260
But after Commodus, you have an emperor named Septimius Severus in 193 AD.
00:11:29.700
And the big thing that he does that a lot of the military leaders are going to do after
00:11:33.640
him in their path to emperor is they start clipping off pieces of those coins and then adding
00:11:39.180
other base metals so that the, the size stays about the same, but the weight's going to
00:11:44.500
And they would double the pay of the military, triple the pay of the military and they have
00:11:50.800
So for them, it would have been very tangible and real where for us, it's just ones and
00:11:56.340
And you feel it when you go to the store to purchase something.
00:11:59.180
The doubling and tripling of the military's pay was just to get them in their back pocket
00:12:06.760
And you have to understand that the Roman military is changing a lot during this time.
00:12:10.160
So if you look at kind of the early Republic, it was a citizen soldiery where you had citizens
00:12:16.200
fighting to protect their Republic from foreign invaders like Carthage and, and, and things
00:12:22.180
Towards the late Republic, um, you're going to have major reforms in the military.
00:12:28.080
And one of the major things that happens is it goes from being a citizen soldiery to a
00:12:32.920
And you're always going to have, um, what's called the federati, which are, um, barbarian
00:12:42.000
But as you get into the late second and early third century, they're going to start becoming
00:12:51.600
It's to whatever money they're receiving and who can pay them the most.
00:12:57.640
And if you look at the second, third, uh, the second, third, fourth, and fifth centuries,
00:13:03.980
That's a barbarian commander one day and a Roman general the next day.
00:13:07.120
So it's whoever can pay me the most is going to get my allegiance.
00:13:10.820
And as money loses its value, well, there's no sense in being Roman, right?
00:13:14.880
Because it doesn't have a lot of intrinsic value to them and who they're fighting for.
00:13:19.040
It sounds like almost that these individuals are now mercenaries for hire.
00:13:23.440
I was going to say militia, but I don't think militia quite paints what, what you're, what
00:13:28.440
No, because they, they would have been, you know, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, they would have
00:13:32.260
been one of these other tribes that the Roman, they, they'd be looking for a better life.
00:13:36.580
And that would be the reason they would come to Rome.
00:13:38.120
They don't initially have the ideal that the ideal that they want to topple it.
00:13:41.480
And they could do that through the legions because as a legion, if you serve for 25 and later
00:13:46.640
30 years, you could get citizenship at the end of your, your service.
00:13:50.460
That would mean for your, your family, your children, whatever it might be.
00:13:54.020
And you could actually be in Roman political positions.
00:13:58.200
But what starts to happen is as money loses its value, well, why would I fight for Rome
00:14:06.080
And that's what you start to see toward the middle of the third century and the fourth
00:14:11.060
So was it Julius Caesar who really started to do this?
00:14:14.400
That's the first instance that I know of, but I'm not really well versed using a military
00:14:18.360
to a mass political power, or did it happen well before that?
00:14:23.440
If you want to look at the last hundred years of the Roman Republic, and I think the major
00:14:27.960
thing people don't understand is that Julius Caesar wasn't a Roman empire character.
00:14:34.640
And if you want to just kind of understand what Rome is, it's really three eras in time.
00:14:44.160
And it becomes an empire around the year 31, right?
00:14:48.180
And it's going to be an empire until it falls in 476.
00:14:50.680
So the way each one of those things functions is very different.
00:14:54.380
So in the last hundred years of the republic, you have what's called the Roman civil war.
00:15:00.440
Now, it's not a civil war like we would think of civil wars, like North versus South or Democrats
00:15:06.420
It's really these moneyed classes fighting against each other for who's going to control
00:15:11.840
So in the 133, you have two brothers, Tiberius and Gaius Gracchus, and they will use the power
00:15:21.880
of the people to basically give themselves more power.
00:15:25.380
People realize that both of them are assassinated a few years apart.
00:15:29.200
And then that mantle is going to be picked up by another Roman general named Lucius Cornelius
00:15:36.700
And his real idea is using the power of the military.
00:15:42.500
And that really sets a bad precedent because before that time, that wasn't something that
00:15:49.640
And there's a competition between him and another general named Gaius Marius for basically
00:15:55.700
Marius is often seen as Rome's second founder since he does these military reforms I was talking
00:16:03.700
And what he ends up doing is the first thing he does is he names himself dictator for life
00:16:11.600
And it lasts for about a four year period from 70 from 82 to 78 B.C.
00:16:16.960
The dictator office usually lasted for six months because Romans thought that one person could
00:16:20.960
come in and solve things, whereas multiple people couldn't agree.
00:16:23.260
So during that period, he does what are called prescriptions.
00:16:29.640
Anybody on that forum could be killed and either the Roman state would get their money
00:16:33.480
in power or whoever brought them in would get their money in power.
00:16:40.260
If you want to see where Rome dramatically changes is these prescriptions and this dictatorship
00:16:45.340
Later on down the road, you're going to have Julius Caesar do something very similar where
00:16:51.220
it's another civil war type environment and it becomes the Senate and Pompey versus Caesar.
00:16:58.140
And Caesar is going to come out on top here mainly because the Senate doesn't really know
00:17:02.140
how to handle the situation and they continue to push.
00:17:07.480
And what that what I mean by that is I apologize that I'm kind of skipping around.
00:17:11.200
There's a lot of background information, some of this stuff.
00:17:12.720
In Rome, there's two key offices that run Rome.
00:17:16.520
They're called the consuls because Rome didn't believe that one person should hold power because
00:17:21.480
they innately hated kingship since they were first a kingdom.
00:17:31.240
His co-consul doesn't really have a ton of power.
00:17:35.280
He's actually backed by another Roman politician.
00:17:38.720
And that politician and Caesar not getting along are what really creates what will lead to Caesar
00:17:47.440
And what's going to happen from that point is if they were consul, they couldn't stand
00:17:51.540
charges for anything political because a lot of times there was this lore around Roman office.
00:17:59.440
And your third year, you would be building wealth.
00:18:01.820
So a lot of what Romans did in office, in the highest office, could be seen as crimes.
00:18:07.620
So when Caesar wants to be consul again so that he couldn't be charged for things that
00:18:13.080
he did in his tenure being a pro-consul in Gaul, you had to appear in person to get voted for.
00:18:20.440
Caesar knew if he appeared in person, he would likely be arrested for these crimes.
00:18:24.140
So he decides, okay, I'm going to basically write Rome and say that I would like to run
00:18:31.220
for office in absentia, which was against the rules.
00:18:34.240
So that law is passed and allows him to do that.
00:18:37.260
But Cato the Younger, who's the politician he doesn't agree with, has that law canceled.
00:18:43.300
And it's this really personal gripe between Cato and Caesar that pushes the fall of the
00:18:50.300
Roman Republic because Caesar really has no other choice but to cross the Rubicon River
00:18:54.380
with troops, which was not something that would have been acceptable during this time period.
00:19:03.460
Because the way I'm understanding is that Caesar ran again for political office to avoid being
00:19:11.400
tried and eventually killed for his quote-unquote crimes against the Republic at that point.
00:19:17.980
And he wouldn't have been killed during that time period.
00:19:19.560
They would have just kicked somebody out of Rome, which would have been a major embarrassment
00:19:22.500
that they can't hold political office because they didn't have the type of political will
00:19:29.580
But he would have been removed for Rome, which would have been political suicide.
00:19:43.080
There are certain instances where executions do occur, but it was more typical to be exiled,
00:19:47.700
which is more of an embarrassment that you're still living, but you're never going to see
00:19:52.140
So that's a major problem for him that he feels that he's going to be pushed out of political
00:19:59.320
So he's pushed to the point where he has to cross the Rubicon with troops, which that
00:20:05.080
was kind of the barrier in northern Italy where you were expected to disband your troops
00:20:15.060
So when he comes into Rome, Cato the Younger and the Senate actually abandoned Rome.
00:20:20.400
So he comes in and just takes over because they leave.
00:20:22.820
And then he just spends the next couple of years chasing them down and, you know, Cato
00:20:29.260
Pompey the Great is going to be killed by the Ptolemaic king in Egypt.
00:20:35.800
And he declares himself in 44 BC dictator for life, this office that was only supposed to
00:20:45.020
Now, what he was going to do with that is often up for debate.
00:20:47.500
But people had the idea that he is making himself a king, and that is what leads to his
00:20:53.420
Now, that power vacuum is going to be what the first emperor, Augustus, walks into, and
00:21:00.980
So he's not somebody that was really important politically.
00:21:03.680
But in Rome, when you died, you could, in your will, give your offices and titles to
00:21:09.720
So when Caesar's will is read, Augustus receives his offices and titles because he's born Gaius
00:21:15.020
Octavius, but he becomes Julius Caesar Augustus Octavianus.
00:21:19.220
And that is really what causes this collapse of a republic into an empire.
00:21:24.900
Men, I'm stepping away from the conversation just real quickly.
00:21:31.440
It's a lifeline for men who are navigating, at least in my experience, and I know for the
00:21:37.000
men I've talked with, one of life's most painful transitions, not as victims, but as a
00:21:45.120
It's not about wallowing in loss or bitterness or patting each other on the back.
00:21:51.600
It's about building yourself up into something new after a broken marriage.
00:21:56.400
We've built this program for those who want to rebuild what has been torn down, not to
00:22:00.900
survive divorce, but to really try to transform who you are through that process.
00:22:06.280
Every lesson, every conversation, every challenge within Divorce Not Death pushes you to confront
00:22:13.100
the pain that you're dealing with, rediscover your mission, and reclaim and re-identify your
00:22:20.980
role as a father, a leader, and a man in your community.
00:22:26.920
It certainly does, but it does not end your story.
00:22:29.840
In fact, if you do this correctly, it can be the catalyst for becoming the man that you
00:22:37.380
Divorce Not Death, it's a reminder that your life isn't over just because your marriage
00:22:41.380
is, and we want to show you how to make that happen.
00:22:49.840
For now, let's get back to it with Jeremy Ryan Slate.
00:22:51.900
Why was that the case when Julius Caesar was killed for potentially turning himself into
00:23:03.040
I think that was the fear based on what you said.
00:23:05.380
Why would the Senate at that point or the people not revert back to the way it was done previously
00:23:12.240
and honor his will to make Augustus, I think is who you said, the first Roman emperor?
00:23:19.440
So the thing you have to understand is Augustus is brilliant, and what happens during this
00:23:24.700
time here, as I mentioned, they're going through 100 years of civil war, so people hadn't seen
00:23:30.560
So when Caesar dies, Caesar's second-in-command, Mark Antony, and Augustus together go after
00:23:38.020
And after they're taken out of the picture, the two of them actually split the Roman Republic
00:23:43.680
And what Augustus does is he's a master of propaganda.
00:23:46.980
So he convinces others that Antony's kind of going Eastern, if that makes sense, and
00:23:52.120
he's living with Cleopatra during this time period, and he creates this real amount of
00:23:58.720
propaganda against Mark Antony during this time period.
00:24:05.000
So what ends up happening then is once Antony is put down after the Battle of Actium in 31
00:24:10.780
BC, Augustus around 23 BC says, okay, I'm going to retire.
00:24:15.440
I brought you peace, and these people have been through civil war for 100 years, they
00:24:21.200
So then him being the smart person that he is, he takes the power of several different
00:24:26.200
offices and brings them to himself without calling himself a king.
00:24:31.160
He takes the power of the tribune, power of the censor, and also the Pontifex Maximus, which
00:24:40.860
In the Senate, they would have this office called the Princeps Sonatus, and it was kind
00:24:45.900
of like their speaker of the house, the Prince of the Senate.
00:24:50.800
So he's this Prince of Rome or this first citizen ahead of all citizens.
00:24:55.460
And people didn't really know what to do with that because he wasn't a king.
00:24:59.500
And the word emperor actually comes from imperator, which was the top general of the Roman army,
00:25:07.380
So he creates kind of this mystery around himself of what his new position actually is.
00:25:13.940
And that's why succession for him is very difficult as opposed to other emperors, because
00:25:22.320
And that's really the position they're in where people had been through civil war for so
00:25:30.680
And while he's not exactly a king, he's the Prince of Rome.
00:25:33.960
And it becomes something people start to accept.
00:25:36.660
It is interesting because as you were sharing that, I've studied a little bit with early
00:25:42.020
And you have individuals like George Washington, who very much could have become the king of
00:25:50.120
And the difference here is that he decided to step away and step down from the powers
00:25:57.260
that would have been granted to him, which is really interesting.
00:26:00.180
But other cultures that I've read on, including America, Roman Empire a little bit, Hawaiian
00:26:10.740
cultures, there's always some sort of consolidation of power through the military, it seems like.
00:26:16.520
And then once that's consolidated, then it's peace.
00:26:20.480
But that consolidation did not come through peace.
00:26:23.480
And it's the same individuals who are saying now we're peaceful are the ones who enacted
00:26:27.740
all these problems in the first place to consolidate this power.
00:26:30.220
Well, and you could look at Napoleon as a great example of that, right?
00:26:33.280
Like Napoleon comes after the French Revolution.
00:26:38.320
The office he receives is something called the First Consul, which once again comes from
00:26:44.560
And he gets to a certain point where he gets so much power to himself that he drops the facade
00:26:50.500
So it is very interesting that you get men in this position and they want to bring more
00:26:55.940
power to themselves, which is why George Washington is so interesting, because our founding fathers
00:27:01.920
would have studied the classics to a point they would have understood these things and
00:27:07.140
And there's a character in Roman history that he may have existed, he may not have existed,
00:27:15.600
And he's seen kind of as the Roman ideal, because as I mentioned, the Romans had this idea that
00:27:21.320
though we have two consuls every year, if things aren't going so well, we have to have one person
00:27:28.380
It would last six months and then it would expire.
00:27:30.700
So Cincinnatus takes the office for six months, brings peace to Rome and then goes back to
00:27:35.880
And that's why George Washington was very often called the American Cincinnatus, because
00:27:41.780
And he would have, there's, during his time, there's societies of Cincinnatus and other
00:27:47.000
things that really were enjoying what George Washington was doing.
00:27:52.300
So he would have been aware of a lot of these things.
00:27:54.340
And I think it has a lot of effect on how he acted.
00:27:58.100
I mean, even individuals like, you know, Hitler is another example where it was on the back of
00:28:03.840
And he spread enough propaganda that said the Germans were being treated unfairly and targeted
00:28:10.000
unfairly after World War I took place and consolidated to that power.
00:28:17.520
How does that, how does something like that, how could something like that happen in modern
00:28:23.880
You know, it's, it's so, it's so hard to imagine.
00:28:27.740
And you have people saying that about Trump and he's trying to get elected forever.
00:28:31.380
And, you know, I, I don't really take that, that seriously, that thought, but it shouldn't
00:28:36.960
be out of the realm of possibility that these things do repeat themselves.
00:28:43.080
Well, I'm a big believer in saying history doesn't repeat, but it does rhyme.
00:28:46.280
And I think that's why it's important to see a lot of these things historically and
00:28:51.120
And I think the thing you have to understand is when you get in a situation like that,
00:28:55.700
there's a few things that happen and you could look at Nazi Germany as this, you could
00:29:00.240
look at the French revolution as this, you could even look at how things are now.
00:29:03.280
It's when the love for a political individual marries with desperation.
00:29:12.240
And you have to hope that that person that has power, um, in some ways is a benevolent
00:29:19.960
So, you know, I, I've heard a lot of people say, make those same comments about Trump,
00:29:27.980
I don't see it because I think they make those comparisons to the late Roman Republic.
00:29:33.380
But if you look at where we are as a country, I think we've, we've ceased to be really a
00:29:38.880
And I think we are more in an empire stage because if you look at the executive office
00:29:43.320
since FDR, the executive has become much more powerful than the other two branches of
00:29:48.920
So I think we've been in a position more, and you look at FDR, the number of times he's
00:29:54.320
It was more of that position where desperation and the love for an individual create a situation
00:30:00.940
So I think to say we are a functional Republic, though I'd love us to be, we haven't been
00:30:09.100
So let, I got, I got a bunch of questions here.
00:30:11.420
So, um, you know, take Trump as, as a, as a president, a very polarizing figure, right?
00:30:19.880
Half of the country despises him and there's no in between.
00:30:22.500
What was it like during the early stages of the Roman empire or, or even into the latter
00:30:30.560
Was it that divided between the populace, between the citizens and how did Rome ultimately fall?
00:30:38.520
So I think the thing you're going to have to look at is who's actually in control.
00:30:41.920
And I think literacy is a really big part of it.
00:30:43.780
And that's why that's one of the things I think separates us now from our history is
00:30:47.840
we are much more literate and much more able to communicate than we were thousands of years
00:30:53.780
And that's why such a crackdown happened on social media, right?
00:30:56.460
Because there becomes this free flow of information to the powers that be, that's dangerous, no
00:31:02.900
So if you want to look at how things are in the time of Augustus, there's a very low
00:31:07.040
You have about 10% of the population that's literate.
00:31:09.540
And you also have about 10% of the population that's controlling everything.
00:31:13.020
So you have really the ones that have an education are the ones in charge.
00:31:17.340
So I think that's a really big point you have to look at.
00:31:20.140
And for a lot of the powerful classes, well, Rome had a system of a client system.
00:31:26.820
And what that means is you would owe things to a powerful politician, whether it's your
00:31:31.960
own wealth, your own career, whatever it might be.
00:31:34.460
And those clients would actually show up at the home of that person every day and kind
00:31:40.500
I guess very similar to how the mafia would work in a lot of ways.
00:31:43.800
So in that culture, a lot of people would have owed their position to Augustus, right?
00:31:49.580
So it didn't matter if they liked him or didn't like him.
00:31:52.300
They would have wanted to maintain their own position and their family's position.
00:31:56.180
So it's important for them to grant power to that person, right?
00:31:59.920
And the most powerful benefactor you could have would be the emperor.
00:32:02.440
So I think understanding that culturally is a really big difference is people would have
00:32:07.720
owed their political position, their own wealth, or even their careers to whoever's in charge.
00:32:12.200
So it doesn't really matter if they like him or don't like him.
00:32:16.960
Well, I mean, if the same thing happens today, I've often wondered how much dirt politicians
00:32:21.600
have on each other to be somewhat workable together, because if not, I mean, it could go
00:32:30.200
And then not to mention, you know, so take this spat between Trump and Elon Musk.
00:32:36.060
And if I understand correctly, and I'm not too well versed on this, but Trump advocated
00:32:42.320
for doing away with some credits available to electric car manufacturers.
00:32:49.160
And of course, that's kind of the impetus for their infighting between, I think, Trump and
00:32:56.180
But that just goes to show that, of course, Elon Musk is going to fight against that.
00:33:01.580
And of course, there's being, there's political power, especially with lobbyists and everything
00:33:16.500
You could make a lot of arguments on one of the major reasons that Musk turned against
00:33:22.100
the Biden administration is they were, when they were doing electric car things, they
00:33:26.020
were working with Ford and GM and they were ignoring Tesla, right?
00:33:29.440
So Musk definitely knows where his bread's buttered.
00:33:31.860
And I think if you look at corporatism and how it marries with government, that is a really
00:33:38.080
And then, you know, as you were talking about the literacy rate, I could not help but think
00:33:45.040
I mean, yeah, that's one of my favorite movies where they're putting Gatorade on the plants
00:33:52.460
It's, but it does sound a little bit like that, not to not take into the degree that
00:33:58.240
But I also think there's interesting things with social media in general.
00:34:02.920
And we know the algorithms, for example, with TikTok are, are separate for Americans than
00:34:08.180
they are other parts of the world for exactly that reason.
00:34:11.880
We are, I was, I watched my kids this weekend and, you know, my youngest was on
00:34:17.640
YouTube for a little bit and he's watching shorts and he's making a, he's making a decision
00:34:25.860
And I asked him, I said, how do you know you didn't want to watch that?
00:34:30.720
But here's, here's the important point about that though, Ryan, is I think if you look
00:34:34.240
at attention spans and how they change people with shorter attention spans are much easier
00:34:39.840
And if you look at, because they're not able to look at nuance and look at how things work.
00:34:44.120
And if you even look at our history, you know, history that was written post-World War II
00:34:47.920
was some of the best written history that we have.
00:34:50.720
And most people now probably couldn't get through it.
00:34:53.080
Or even you go hundreds of years back, the famous Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire
00:35:00.080
Most people couldn't get through that because it's very difficult to read.
00:35:03.640
And I think that's a position you get in where literacy rates have changed and also
00:35:11.500
Well, yeah, there, there's, there's also the lack of, uh, delayed gratification, you
00:35:16.660
know, and I see that with our, our country, social programs, you know, heaven forbid a
00:35:22.200
political candidate, a serious political contender, uh, ever says anything about doing away with
00:35:28.800
social, even changing social security and, uh, Medicare benefits.
00:35:33.940
But any sane and rational human being who spent any time, even just looking at it on a surface
00:35:38.660
level can see that that's a real problem that we are staring down the barrel of, but we're
00:35:44.980
not, we're not able to delay gratification long enough.
00:35:49.140
We're not able to make these decisions to do something now that would benefit probably
00:35:59.280
And this is where I was, was talking earlier about how a man provides for their family and
00:36:05.240
We're, we're losing our autonomy for a lot of, um, uh, a lot of social programs.
00:36:10.660
You know, if women get married, they lose those social programs, right?
00:36:16.260
Or if you look at how social programs worked in Rome, I mentioned those two brothers,
00:36:22.960
Well, one of the major reform programs they start is what's called the grain dole, meaning
00:36:27.000
that the Roman government for people of a certain class would feed you.
00:36:30.860
And that is a program that is Rome is going to have until the, the, the mid to late third
00:36:36.540
and then fourth century where things aren't really doing so well.
00:36:38.860
And then you're also, that's going to be something that fuels inflation as well, because one of
00:36:43.180
the things that allows the Roman empire to rise is something called the Roman climate
00:36:47.140
optimum, meaning from about 200 BC to around 200 AD, they had perfect weather, which allowed
00:36:52.320
for better growing of, of grapes and olives and grain.
00:36:56.840
And when the Roman empire itself can't provide for it, well, the annexation of Egypt provides
00:37:04.420
So when the climate changes around two 50, the Nile would usually flood every year.
00:37:10.460
And when it flooded, it would make rich soil and that rich soil would make for grain.
00:37:14.320
Well, the, the Nile around two 50 stops flooding.
00:37:17.440
So now you're going to have grain prices, double, triple, quadruple.
00:37:20.900
So now the expense of paying for people eating becomes more.
00:37:24.540
And those people don't know how to provide it for themselves.
00:37:29.380
I want to go back to the question I had asked about the final nail in the coffin.
00:37:34.940
And it's probably, it's probably so nuanced that it's difficult to say this was it, you
00:37:46.680
If it's not one, maybe it's a handful of things that we really need to be aware of as we continue
00:37:52.280
to, I was going to say progress, but I think it's more of a digression at this point as
00:37:59.740
Well, I think if you want to, so I guess Edward Gibbon, as I mentioned, he has his famous
00:38:03.660
decline and fall of the Roman empire and he pinpoints about 200 different reasons.
00:38:07.740
Um, one of those is a personal reason that he's, he's raised Catholic, but then his father
00:38:15.340
So he makes him practice in the church of England.
00:38:17.500
So he has a big personal gripe with the Catholic church.
00:38:20.760
So one of the things that he says is, well, because more money was being put to religion
00:38:28.940
I honestly don't think it has that big of an effect.
00:38:31.640
The things that I look at are first being immigration and border control, um, because
00:38:37.240
as I mentioned, people were being fed by the Roman government.
00:38:40.040
So that cost is going to go up, um, around two 11 AD, you're going to have an emperor
00:38:46.500
And what he actually does is the treasury is bankrupt in that point in time.
00:38:51.780
So he's going to solve that by giving about 30 million people citizenship overnight because
00:39:00.560
But they're also responsible for feeding those people, right?
00:39:04.960
You have 30 new mouths you have to feed 30 million new mouths you have to feed and all
00:39:10.440
So inflation is a very big driver of this and also immigration because they, the central
00:39:19.200
Um, you have a very stable empire through the first century and the second century.
00:39:23.300
But as I mentioned, these men are raising armies, declaring themselves emperor and attacking
00:39:30.760
If you look at Diocletian from 284 to 305, he rules for 20 years.
00:39:35.660
That was pretty normal in the first century AD.
00:39:42.100
So you're going to have emperors ruling for months, year, a few years, or even a couple
00:39:47.080
So they don't have a very long time period to live.
00:39:51.820
So what starts to happen is the empire breaks off into a break-off empire in the West called
00:39:58.180
the Gallic Empire, a break-off empire in the East called the Palmyran Empire.
00:40:02.400
And then you also have barbarians pushing him from the North.
00:40:04.720
So it becomes a real problem of how do we handle all these immigrants?
00:40:10.900
They want to take place part in the bounty of Rome.
00:40:13.500
But that relationship is going to continue to change as Rome makes agreements with them
00:40:18.700
So you have this immigration problem, this central power problem.
00:40:21.700
And then, as I mentioned earlier, the inflationary problem where money doesn't have a ton of
00:40:26.600
And as the legions and the empire start to become less Roman, and the reason they're
00:40:32.160
there is the money, when the money doesn't have any value anymore, well, they don't have
00:40:37.920
And if you look at the last, I guess, 50 to 60 years after the sack of Rome in 410, the
00:40:46.760
That last 50 to 75 years, the emperors that are in charge are, you have a few boy emperors
00:40:54.140
You have weak old men that are emperors, and they're just controlled by barbarian commanders.
00:40:59.580
And the last barbarian commander in 476 is this guy named Odoacer, and he's controlling
00:41:08.660
And he just basically retires Romulus Augustulus, gives him a pension, and says, there's no more
00:41:15.120
So if you look at how that functions, there really isn't a functioning empire anymore,
00:41:19.780
and they kind of drop the facade around that time period.
00:41:23.100
Well, the immigration one is interesting, because I think it used to be that even immigration
00:41:28.200
in this country, where you'd have a lot of different cultures who would come in, and
00:41:34.500
They would integrate and assimilate, and then they would be Americans.
00:41:38.380
Now, immigrants come to this country illegally, though they are not citizens, or they even
00:41:43.980
And technically, they are citizens, but they're not acting American.
00:41:50.080
Now what you have is you have in Minnesota, you have mini Somalia.
00:41:58.700
So now we're going to start seeing all these different factions throughout the country.
00:42:03.480
And I imagine that's just going to continue to exacerbate and break us apart even more.
00:42:08.080
Well, and that's the point I was making earlier about, you know, if they're just there for the
00:42:12.340
money and the things they're getting, if there is no central power anymore, it doesn't matter.
00:42:16.140
So if you look at when Rome is sacked in 410, it's sacked by a Visigoth commander named
00:42:22.700
Ulrich in his previous parts of his life had been a Roman commander, though he had already
00:42:28.480
So when he's not getting the position he wants and the money he wants, well, he goes
00:42:33.060
back to his original loyalties of being a Visigoth.
00:42:37.400
So that's the problem you have is when people aren't culturally part of the society they're
00:42:41.780
in, if the things that they're getting change, well, their loyalties are going to change.
00:42:46.420
And that's why I think, honestly, for any position in American government, you shouldn't
00:42:52.140
Because if you're serving in a, in a place that you are in charge of a certain place,
00:42:56.860
you shouldn't be also loyal to another country.
00:43:01.400
If you're, if you're here in America, I mean, that seems pretty common sense, but I know
00:43:05.340
there's going to be people who hear that maybe they're dual citizens themselves and they're
00:43:09.600
not going to like that idea, but there has to be an American culture, you know, and you,
00:43:14.080
and you hear people will say, oh, you know, it's a melting pot and diversity is our
00:43:17.600
If diversity in, in, in and of itself is not strength.
00:43:22.280
If Jeremy, you and I were rowing a boat and I wanted to go North and you wanted to go South,
00:43:30.240
It's diverse in thought, but we're going opposite directions and it's going to be, eventually
00:43:35.420
what's going to happen is one of us is going to kill the other one so we can get to where
00:43:39.040
Well, and I think that also, this could go into the whole argument of even how we advance
00:43:45.600
Now, I think it should be the person that's best qualified to do the job and we don't
00:43:50.800
And that goes back to your argument about rowing a boat.
00:43:52.840
If you're the best to row a boat and you're an American, you should row the boat.
00:43:56.000
Now, various different people can be Americans, but I think at the same time, if you live here,
00:44:02.980
You know, my, my family is from Ireland and Germany and, and all the different places,
00:44:09.600
And I think when you look at that, that would be expected, but it's not just an American problem.
00:44:14.580
You can look at what's happening in France right now or what's happening in the UK right
00:44:18.160
It is a global problem, which makes you wonder, is there something more to it?
00:44:23.700
What about, um, one thing you often hear when, when it, when people talk about the fall of
00:44:29.780
the Roman empire is sexual immorality, homosexuality, um, promiscuity, like these types of things.
00:44:37.260
Is, is that something that it, that has any relevance or bearing in the fall of, of the
00:44:43.260
And obviously we see a lot of that now with transgenderism and things like this in our
00:44:52.220
And the reason I say that is if you look at, by the time Rome falls, even a lot of the barbarian
00:44:57.340
tribes were, were practicing different forms of Christianity.
00:45:00.080
So by the time Rome falls in the West, most of those in the empire would have been Christian.
00:45:07.000
Um, after the battle of Milvian bridge in, in 313, Emperor Constantine makes Christianity
00:45:17.700
Now it doesn't become the official religion of Rome until 380 under Theodosius the Great.
00:45:22.220
But if you look at kind of before that time period, I really look at the third century
00:45:28.180
That's where you're seeing the debauchery and that's where you're seeing a lot of the
00:45:30.760
There's an emperor that comes to mind for me, uh, named Elagabalus and he, he comes from
00:45:37.200
He's the priest of a, of a cult called Elagabal and they worship this conical black rock.
00:45:42.940
Um, and when he comes to Rome, he has a wedding for his black rock to another rock and everybody's
00:45:49.440
Um, he also was someone that forced the Senate into having these orgies and he's also, um,
00:45:57.040
marries his hairdresser, um, and puts his hairdresser in charge of the grain supply.
00:46:04.380
He's pulled by a chariot of prostitutes and he would advance men in political position by,
00:46:12.820
So if you want to look at the mid third century, things really aren't so great.
00:46:17.020
And that's why I put some attention, so much attention on the third century by the time
00:46:20.900
Rome falls, it is becoming a Christian empire, but a lot of its decadence and sin had already
00:46:26.860
brought it to a point where it wasn't doing well.
00:46:29.240
Yeah, it does make, yeah, I mean, I agree with what you said, decadence.
00:46:34.080
I think when you get to that stage, it makes a man weak and lazy, you know, if he's chasing
00:46:39.420
after power or, well, I even think, you know, you hear this a lot, like the idea of a, of
00:46:46.660
And I, I just, I can't, I can't fathom how that happens because until we get to the point
00:46:53.040
where we no longer have so much to lose, that won't happen.
00:46:57.240
It just won't because people are not going to risk their ideology, whatever side of the
00:47:02.160
aisle it is, their ideology does not match their comfortable, wealthy lives.
00:47:11.820
Even if they're in the lower echelons of the economic status, they still are wealthy by
00:47:21.040
But I think also there becomes no reward for doing things the right way.
00:47:25.160
Like, and I think, I think that's a real problem as well.
00:47:27.020
If you look at even how government is now, there's probably not a lot of politicians as
00:47:31.420
personal people that you would like, or that you could put up as, as a paragons of morality.
00:47:37.320
But if you look at kind of, as I mentioned in the third century, Rome has a two breakoff
00:47:43.320
empires and they're dealing with barbarian invasions in the two seventies, there's an
00:47:47.180
emperor named Aurelian and he actually reconquers the West, reconquers these, puts everything
00:47:53.040
And for the wonderful work he does, he's assassinated.
00:47:56.840
So you have to look at, there's really no path for, I guess, doing things the right way
00:48:02.560
What would you, what would you suggest that as men, obviously studying history, you said
00:48:09.180
That makes sense to me being literate on, on some of these things and knowing I I'm not,
00:48:13.900
so I'm just as guilty as anybody else, but having an idea of the way these republics have
00:48:19.900
worked and the way they've fallen, I imagine is important, but what else can a man do to
00:48:25.060
ensure that we leave this country better for our children and our grandchildren?
00:48:30.220
Well, I think the pandemic has been a really big part of that and a positive because it's
00:48:34.260
made a lot of people look at what's actually happening out there and the level of responsibility
00:48:39.500
And I think it's a lot of what your show stands for, honestly, that we should be doing.
00:48:43.040
And that's being better fathers, you know, being better in our community and, you know,
00:48:49.900
I think if you look at kind of one of the biggest things that's happened in the last 50
00:48:53.960
years is we've become a much less spiritual nation.
00:48:56.660
And a country that is spiritually dead is not one that has much of a future.
00:49:02.420
So I think that's what it really comes down to.
00:49:04.760
And I think education is a really big part of it.
00:49:07.660
My kids are being homeschooled because I'm kind of terrified of what's happening in the
00:49:11.580
So I think as a man, if you're taking responsibility for your small area in the country, and I've
00:49:19.600
I had a conversation with General Mike Flynn about this.
00:49:21.900
I had a conversation with Douglas McGregor about this.
00:49:25.080
And a lot of times people look at kind of the big picture and what's happening in the
00:49:28.580
world and what do we do about the wars and all these other things.
00:49:30.620
But for most people, you're not going to be able to do very much about that.
00:49:34.880
But what you can do is take care of your family, put in the right morals and values in your
00:49:38.700
family, practice your religion and take responsibility in your local area.
00:49:43.340
And if we're all doing that and there's a lot of us doing that, well, that's how you save
00:49:50.240
We just need to enlist more men into the cause to do good work, protect, provide, preside.
00:49:58.840
You are a wealth of knowledge when it comes to all of this stuff.
00:50:03.600
I've studied very, very little and I learned a lot today.
00:50:08.220
How did the guys connect with you, learn more about what you're up to and follow up on the
00:50:14.020
And I would definitely say I'm not the most educated on Rome out there, but I'm always
00:50:19.380
So there's a couple of courses out there I'd recommend.
00:50:21.400
I know the great courses has some great things in the Roman Empire and the Roman Republic.
00:50:25.580
One of my favorite is by a guy named Gregory Aldrete.
00:50:30.180
But if they want to find out more about me, my personal website is jeremyryanslate.com.
00:50:34.880
I also run a company called Command Your Brand and we help our clients to appear on some awesome
00:50:40.220
So if you're somebody out there that you don't want your empire to decline and fall like
00:50:43.880
Rome, if you head over to commandyourbrand.com, we have a great brand authority analysis you
00:50:48.460
can fill out and that'll show you how you're doing and kind of where your gaps are.
00:51:01.940
So it's good to get you on the podcast to have this conversation.
00:51:04.400
We're going to sync it all up for the guys to get a hold of you and learn more and hopefully
00:51:19.580
Like I said, a bit of a fascinating one and one that's different than we've done in the
00:51:22.940
past, but it's good to mix it up every once in a while.
00:51:25.420
And there is this continual fascination with the Roman Empire for men.
00:51:29.480
So I thought this would be a good discussion and also a cautionary warning tale.
00:51:34.400
Of what is to come if we don't learn to course correct and change our patterns and behaviors
00:51:41.780
It could be very dire times as every once great civilization has fallen.
00:51:46.980
So I would highly encourage you to connect with Jeremy on Twitter or X and also Instagram.
00:51:52.640
Connect with me there and then make sure you check out our Divorce Not Death course.
00:51:56.920
If you are going through a divorce right now or even post divorce up to 12 months, this
00:52:03.060
is going to be a program that is going to be great for you.
00:52:06.140
We've got six modules, excuse me, seven modules walking you through the ins and outs of your
00:52:11.160
new role as a father and a single father, a co-parent, an ex-husband.
00:52:18.060
And obviously we're going to talk a lot about the financial ramifications, the mental ramifications,
00:52:23.120
how to reconnect and rekindle with kids, how to co-parent, how to deal with the financial
00:52:28.040
impacts, everything that you would need to deal with going through divorce.
00:52:31.660
And I know a lot about this because I've spent the last almost three years now overcoming
00:52:40.260
So there's some good insight in here and I've got a lot of guests who are going to be joining
00:52:47.100
All right, guys, we'll be back tomorrow for our Ask Me Anything.
00:52:50.080
Until then, go out there, take action and become the man you are meant to be.
00:52:54.060
Thank you for listening to the Order of Man podcast.
00:52:57.600
You're ready to take charge of your life and be more of the man you were meant to be.
00:53:01.600
We invite you to join the order at OrderOfMan.com.