Order of Man - JEREMY RYAN SLATE ｜ How Rome Fell… Is America Next？

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 0.69

00:00:36.700 in which ways it isn't.

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.

00:00:51.420 You're a man of action.

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.

00:01:06.800 This is your life.

00:01:07.960 This is who you are.

00:01:09.360 This is who you will become.

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.

00:01:18.900 My name is Ryan Michler.

00:01:20.080 I'm your host and the founder of this movement.

00:01:22.520 Welcome here.

00:01:23.540 Going on over 10 years strong at this point, and we're only getting better.

00:01:29.120 We've got a lot going on.

00:01:30.540 We've got events.

00:01:31.620 We've got our Iron Council.

00:01:33.360 We just released our Divorce Not Death course, and we've got a lot coming up as our guests

00:01:39.020 are joining us on this podcast.

00:01:41.000 So welcome here.

00:01:42.600 I've got a really interesting one, a bit of a fascinating one, and one that's a little

00:01:46.220 different than we normally do.

00:01:47.700 But before I get into the show, let me talk real briefly about my friends over at Montana

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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

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00:02:47.060 All right, guys, let me introduce you to Jeremy Ryan Slate.

00:02:50.140 He is a speaker.

00:02:50.860 He's a bestselling author.

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

00:03:05.620 Empire propaganda.

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

00:03:33.780 top 40 under 40.

00:03:35.380 He also authored Unremarkable to Extraordinary, which explores how people can shift from passive

00:03:41.580 observation in their life to active creation.

00:03:44.660 Enjoy this one, guys.

00:03:47.560 Jeremy, what's up, brother?

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.

00:03:57.220 So thanks for having me, man.

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

00:04:16.940 you've studied this stuff.

00:04:18.500 What would you say is the fascination that men have with the Roman Empire?

00:04:22.860 And why is it that we are so intrigued by it?

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?

00:04:35.260 That was a really big part of what it was.

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.

00:05:07.540 So there is really this pathway open to them.

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

00:05:19.260 as an emperor.

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

00:05:26.820 we look at past civilizations, right?

00:05:29.380 In the Middle Ages, Charlemagne was looking at this, and that's why he's crowned Holy Roman 0.54

00:05:32.940 emperor.

00:05:33.540 Or if you look at even in modern days, it doesn't really seem like things are doing well here,

00:05:39.020 not just in America, but globally.

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

00:05:57.120 past empires and see what happened.

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.

00:06:19.760 It's typically done through entrepreneurship.

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.

00:06:31.800 Right.

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

00:06:47.860 character.

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. 1.00

00:07:04.020 Men are being pushed out in certain ways and told, you can't be masculine.

00:07:07.680 You can't care for your family.

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.

00:07:23.400 Yeah, I can definitely see that.

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.

00:07:47.880 It was $45.

00:07:49.900 And not to mention if I would have done that in DoorDash, it would have been $82.

00:07:53.180 But that alone is, and I think that's a tool.

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

00:08:14.940 us in a way that I haven't experienced before.

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.

00:08:28.820 First, the income tax amendment.

00:08:31.060 Second, the federal reserve act passes.

00:08:33.140 And then you also have, um, that states are no longer voting for, or that the state legislatures

00:08:38.620 are no longer electing their senators, right?

00:08:41.060 It becomes more of a popular vote.

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

00:09:15.960 means they printed more money.

00:09:17.360 So now your dollar is worth less.

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,

00:09:24.360 it has to do with monetary policy.

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

00:09:32.280 15,000% inflation.

00:09:34.020 So, whoa, the dollar is losing the Roman denarius at that point in time is losing so much value.

00:09:41.340 People didn't even want to hold it, right?

00:09:43.140 That becomes a real problem that they'll have where they're seeing the money that they don't

00:09:45.920 have worth in it.

00:09:47.000 And a lot of that is driven by a couple of different things.

00:09:49.640 The first being instability.

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

00:09:59.500 also declared themselves emperor.

00:10:01.120 So you have a real issue with central power.

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

00:10:12.600 off people.

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

00:10:23.220 bronze and you had a coin that was silver.

00:10:28.240 And in the time of Augustus in the first century would have been 95% pure by the time of Aurelian

00:10:34.340 in the two seventies, it's 5% pure.

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.

00:10:49.700 Yeah, that's interesting.

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

00:11:01.520 very easily.

00:11:02.400 But what you're saying is the actual makeup of the coin moves from 100% precious metal

00:11:08.120 down to 5%, I think is what you said.

00:11:10.260 Right.

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

00:11:23.520 money.

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

00:11:43.480 change.

00:11:43.760 Right.

00:11:44.500 And they would double the pay of the military, triple the pay of the military and they have

00:11:48.140 to pay those men.

00:11:49.140 So how do you do that?

00:11:49.820 But with more coins.

00:11:50.800 So for them, it would have been very tangible and real where for us, it's just ones and

00:11:55.560 zeros in a computer.

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

00:12:03.480 to help with political aspirations.

00:12:05.860 Correct.

00:12:06.380 Correct.

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

00:12:21.360 like that.

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

00:12:31.860 professional military.

00:12:32.920 And you're always going to have, um, what's called the federati, which are, um, barbarian 0.81

00:12:39.240 type legions fighting alongside Roman legions.

00:12:42.000 But as you get into the late second and early third century, they're going to start becoming

00:12:47.320 part of the legions, right?

00:12:48.980 So their allegiance isn't to defending Rome.

00:12:51.600 It's to whatever money they're receiving and who can pay them the most.

00:12:55.380 So that's a real problem you start to have.

00:12:57.640 And if you look at the second, third, uh, the second, third, fourth, and fifth centuries,

00:13:02.040 you're going to have a barbarian.

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? 0.99

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

00:13:27.740 you're saying.

00:13:28.440 No, because they, they would have been, you know, Visigoths, Ostrogoths, they would have 0.99

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.

00:13:56.180 So there's a real value to that.

00:13:58.200 But what starts to happen is as money loses its value, well, why would I fight for Rome

00:14:04.360 if they don't really have any real power?

00:14:06.080 And that's what you start to see toward the middle of the third century and the fourth

00:14:09.700 century.

00:14:10.880 What?

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?

00:14:21.880 It happens 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.

00:14:33.180 He's a Roman Republic character.

00:14:34.640 And if you want to just kind of understand what Rome is, it's really three eras in time.

00:14:39.280 It's a kingdom in 753 BC.

00:14:42.280 Then it's a republic around the year 500.

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. 0.85

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

00:15:05.260 versus Republicans.

00:15:06.420 It's really these moneyed classes fighting against each other for who's going to control

00:15:10.840 this territory.

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

00:15:36.400 Sulla.

00:15:36.700 And his real idea is using the power of the military.

00:15:39.700 He's actually the first one to march on Rome.

00:15:42.500 And that really sets a bad precedent because before that time, that wasn't something that

00:15:47.780 had really happened before.

00:15:49.640 And there's a competition between him and another general named Gaius Marius for basically

00:15:53.900 who's going to control Rome.

00:15:55.700 Marius is often seen as Rome's second founder since he does these military reforms I was talking

00:16:00.320 about earlier.

00:16:00.820 And Sulla is the guy that comes out on top.

00:16:03.700 And what he ends up doing is the first thing he does is he names himself dictator for life

00:16:08.760 or dictator perpetually.

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.

00:16:27.360 So there are names on a tablet in the forum.

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. 0.91

00:16:36.160 So it creates a lot of instability.

00:16:38.480 So that's kind of the first marker.

00:16:40.260 If you want to see where Rome dramatically changes is these prescriptions and this dictatorship

00:16:44.760 of Sulla.

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.

00:17:07.100 Right.

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.

00:17:24.860 In 59 BC, Caesar is one of the two consuls.

00:17:28.140 They would hold that office for a year.

00:17:30.300 And got it.

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

00:17:45.840 marching on Rome.

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.

00:17:56.420 Your first year, you were broke.

00:17:57.780 Your second year, you'd pay off your debts.

00:17:59.440 And your third year, you would be building wealth.

00:18:00.940 Right.

00:18:01.200 In Roman office.

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.

00:18:41.240 So now Caesar really has no choice.

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.

00:18:59.860 Now, what Caesar—

00:19:01.900 Can I interrupt real quick?

00:19:02.900 Go for it.

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.

00:19:17.740 Right.

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

00:19:27.660 to really kill people for that.

00:19:29.580 But he would have been removed for Rome, which would have been political suicide.

00:19:33.220 So he has no other—

00:19:34.620 They didn't have the will to do that.

00:19:36.760 That's interesting.

00:19:37.420 That surprises me.

00:19:37.940 Not for their top politicians.

00:19:39.300 They might do it for others.

00:19:40.920 And there are certain—

00:19:41.620 You'd be exiled, though.

00:19:42.780 Right.

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

00:19:51.040 Rome again.

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

00:19:57.000 power and tried and charged in some way.

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

00:20:09.780 and just kind of enter Rome without them.

00:20:12.120 So he was not willing to lose that protection.

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

00:20:27.980 is going to commit suicide. 0.87

00:20:29.260 Pompey the Great is going to be killed by the Ptolemaic king in Egypt. 0.63

00:20:33.460 And then Caesar basically just gets power.

00:20:35.800 And he declares himself in 44 BC dictator for life, this office that was only supposed to

00:20:42.320 last six months.

00:20:43.160 This was very strange to Romans.

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

00:20:52.540 assassination.

00:20:53.420 Now, that power vacuum is going to be what the first emperor, Augustus, walks into, and

00:20:58.940 he's Caesar's grandnephew.

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

00:21:09.020 someone.

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.

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00:22:47.240 That's DivorceNotDeath.com.

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

00:23:02.600 a king?

00:23:03.040 I think that was the fear based on what you said.

00:23:04.960 Yeah.

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

00:23:28.740 stability in a really long time.

00:23:30.560 So when Caesar dies, Caesar's second-in-command, Mark Antony, and Augustus together go after

00:23:36.500 Caesar's assassins.

00:23:38.020 And after they're taken out of the picture, the two of them actually split the Roman Republic 0.79

00:23:42.100 between themselves.

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

00:24:19.420 actually demand he keep office.

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.

00:24:29.280 He takes the power of the consul.

00:24:31.160 He takes the power of the tribune, power of the censor, and also the Pontifex Maximus, which

00:24:36.820 is the top priest of Rome.

00:24:37.980 And then he takes this other office.

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.

00:24:48.260 So he calls himself the Princeps.

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,

00:25:05.740 and he takes that title as well.

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

00:25:18.900 what do you describe this guy as?

00:25:20.820 Well, he's the Prince of Rome.

00:25:22.320 And that's really the position they're in where people had been through civil war for so

00:25:27.080 long.

00:25:27.300 This guy brings them peace.

00:25:28.740 They don't want to go back to war.

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

00:25:41.020 American history.

00:25:42.020 And you have individuals like George Washington, who very much could have become the king of

00:25:48.780 this country.

00:25:49.580 Yeah.

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.

00:26:36.380 They have this new republic.

00:26:38.320 The office he receives is something called the First Consul, which once again comes from

00:26:42.680 the idea of what Rome was.

00:26:44.560 And he gets to a certain point where he gets so much power to himself that he drops the facade

00:26:48.580 and has himself crowned emperor.

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

00:27:05.300 what had happened in history, right?

00:27:07.140 And there's a character in Roman history that he may have existed, he may not have existed,

00:27:13.120 but we don't know.

00:27:14.440 His name's Cincinnatus.

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

00:27:26.320 in charge.

00:27:26.820 And that's where that office of dictator is.

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

00:27:35.320 farming.

00:27:35.880 And that's why George Washington was very often called the American Cincinnatus, because

00:27:40.500 he's the same idea.

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.

00:27:57.440 Yeah.

00:27:58.100 I mean, even individuals like, you know, Hitler is another example where it was on the back of 0.78

00:28:03.080 World War I.

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.

00:28:14.320 And we know, we know the rest of the story.

00:28:16.120 It's, it's really fascinating.

00:28:17.520 How does that, how does something like that, how could something like that happen in modern

00:28:23.240 times?

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.

00:28:40.840 We just can't fathom it would happen.

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

00:28:49.760 how they could happen.

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.

00:29:09.540 That's a really dangerous position to be in.

00:29:12.240 And you have to hope that that person that has power, um, in some ways is a benevolent

00:29:17.540 person that wouldn't do those things.

00:29:19.280 Right.

00:29:19.960 So, you know, I, I've heard a lot of people say, make those same comments about Trump,

00:29:24.800 but at the same time, I just don't see it.

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

00:29:37.240 functional Republic in a very long time.

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

00:29:48.220 government.

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

00:29:53.200 elected president, right?

00:29:54.320 It was more of that position where desperation and the love for an individual create a situation

00:30:00.360 like that.

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

00:30:06.780 such in a long time.

00:30:08.400 Well, okay.

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?

00:30:18.660 Half of the country loves him.

00:30:19.880 Half of the country despises him and there's no in between.

00:30:22.260 Right.

00:30:22.500 What was it like during the early stages of the Roman empire or, or even into the latter

00:30:29.560 stages?

00:30:30.560 Was it that divided between the populace, between the citizens and how did Rome ultimately fall?

00:30:36.380 What was the final nail in the coffin?

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

00:30:52.360 ago.

00:30:52.640 So I think that is a big part of it.

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

00:31:00.640 matter who's in power.

00:31:02.900 So if you want to look at how things are in the time of Augustus, there's a very low

00:31:05.960 illiteracy rate.

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. 0.72

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

00:31:38.220 of say, hey, what's my job today, boss?

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.

00:32:14.660 That's where they're getting their power from.

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

00:32:28.100 south really, really quickly.

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

00:32:55.440 Musk.

00:32:56.180 But that just goes to show that, of course, Elon Musk is going to fight against that.

00:33:01.460 Yeah.

00:33:01.580 And of course, there's being, there's political power, especially with lobbyists and everything

00:33:07.140 like that, that is being wielded against.

00:33:09.960 This is why I don't like corporatism.

00:33:12.420 Yes.

00:33:12.820 Is for these types of reasons.

00:33:14.660 Well, you could make a lot of arguments.

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

00:33:35.900 dangerous position to be in.

00:33:37.860 Yeah.

00:33:38.080 And then, you know, as you were talking about the literacy rate, I could not help but think

00:33:42.080 of the movie Idiocracy.

00:33:43.380 Have you seen that?

00:33:45.040 I mean, yeah, that's one of my favorite movies where they're putting Gatorade on the plants

00:33:47.840 and they're wondering why they're not growing.

00:33:49.620 They have electrolytes.

00:33:52.460 It's, but it does sound a little bit like that, not to not take into the degree that

00:33:57.120 that movie does, of course.

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

00:34:22.020 within literally half a second.

00:34:24.000 Nope, nope, nope, nope.

00:34:25.860 And I asked him, I said, how do you know you didn't want to watch that?

00:34:28.460 He's like, I don't know.

00:34:29.200 It just didn't look good.

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

00:34:39.040 to control.

00:34:39.480 Right.

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

00:34:57.040 written by Edward Gibbon in 1776.

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

00:35:07.840 attention spans have changed.

00:35:09.680 And those people are very easy to control.

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

00:35:54.000 our grandchildren.

00:35:55.080 We wouldn't be the beneficiaries of that work.

00:35:57.000 They would.

00:35:57.440 Well, it takes away your autonomy as well.

00:35:59.280 And this is where I was, was talking earlier about how a man provides for their family and

00:36:03.680 creates that structure, right?

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? 1.00

00:36:13.600 So, so why would they, right?

00:36:14.960 In a lot of low income areas.

00:36:16.260 Or if you look at how social programs worked in Rome, I mentioned those two brothers,

00:36:21.720 Gaius and Tiberius Gracchus.

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 0.93

00:37:03.260 for a lot of that grain.

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.

00:37:27.000 Yeah, that is, that is really interesting.

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

00:37:39.640 know, and that you'll always hear people say.

00:37:41.500 Well, it's argued about too.

00:37:42.040 People argue about what it is.

00:37:43.340 Right.

00:37:44.520 So, so what would you say it is?

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

00:37:58.940 a country.

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

00:38:13.360 wants him to have better political position.

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

00:38:26.120 and to, to men not working.

00:38:27.760 Well, that's a big part of it.

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

00:38:45.440 named Caracalla.

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

00:38:57.000 in Rome, they could tax their inheritance.

00:38:58.680 So now he has a new way to tax them.

00:39:00.560 But they're also responsible for feeding those people, right?

00:39:03.500 So that's a problem that's going to happen.

00:39:04.960 You have 30 new mouths you have to feed 30 million new mouths you have to feed and all

00:39:09.180 the other things that come with it.

00:39:10.440 So inflation is a very big driver of this and also immigration because they, the central

00:39:16.540 power in the third century starts to crumble.

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

00:39:26.980 each other.

00:39:27.440 So emperors weren't living very long.

00:39:29.380 You don't have them.

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.

00:39:39.980 It's not very normal in the third century.

00:39:42.100 So you're going to have emperors ruling for months, year, a few years, or even a couple

00:39:46.660 weeks.

00:39:47.080 So they don't have a very long time period to live.

00:39:50.040 So central power isn't very strong.

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? 1.00

00:40:08.880 Because they don't initially not like Rome.

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

00:40:17.320 and breaks those agreements.

00:40:18.700 So you have this immigration problem, this central power problem. 0.90

00:40:21.700 And then, as I mentioned earlier, the inflationary problem where money doesn't have a ton of

00:40:26.240 value.

00:40:26.600 And as the legions and the empire start to become less Roman, and the reason they're 0.92

00:40:32.160 there is the money, when the money doesn't have any value anymore, well, they don't have

00:40:35.060 any reason to have an empire anymore.

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

00:40:43.620 traditional fall of Rome is 476 AD.

00:40:46.760 That last 50 to 75 years, the emperors that are in charge are, you have a few boy emperors

00:40:53.360 that are just children.

00:40:54.140 You have weak old men that are emperors, and they're just controlled by barbarian commanders. 0.77

00:40:59.580 And the last barbarian commander in 476 is this guy named Odoacer, and he's controlling

00:41:05.620 the child emperor, Romulus Augustulus.

00:41:08.660 And he just basically retires Romulus Augustulus, gives him a pension, and says, there's no more

00:41:13.460 emperors.

00:41:13.840 I'm king of Italy now.

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.

00:41:22.060 Yeah, that is so interesting.

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

00:41:32.300 then they would assimilate to American values.

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 1.00

00:41:42.740 do so legally.

00:41:43.980 And technically, they are citizens, but they're not acting American.

00:41:47.160 And you no longer have assimilation.

00:41:50.080 Now what you have is you have in Minnesota, you have mini Somalia. 0.98

00:41:56.060 Yeah.

00:41:56.360 You know, and Michigan as well.

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 0.95

00:42:21.780 Ulrich.

00:42:22.700 Ulrich in his previous parts of his life had been a Roman commander, though he had already

00:42:26.740 always been a Visigoth.

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

00:42:50.560 be able to be a dual citizen, right?

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.

00:42:59.760 I don't, I don't care what that country is.

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

00:43:17.180 strength.

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,

00:43:28.340 one of us would eventually win.

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

00:43:38.200 we want to get.

00:43:39.040 Well, and I think that also, this could go into the whole argument of even how we advance

00:43:44.780 offices and things.

00:43:45.600 Now, I think it should be the person that's best qualified to do the job and we don't

00:43:49.640 really do that anymore.

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. 1.00

00:43:56.000 Now, various different people can be Americans, but I think at the same time, if you live here,

00:44:00.500 your loyalty should be here.

00:44:01.620 I don't, I don't care where you came from.

00:44:02.980 You know, my, my family is from Ireland and Germany and, and all the different places,

00:44:07.480 but they came here and they became Americans.

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

00:44:17.760 now.

00:44:18.160 It is a global problem, which makes you wonder, is there something more to it?

00:44:22.420 Yeah.

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. 0.99

00:44:37.260 Is, is that something that it, that has any relevance or bearing in the fall of, of the

00:44:42.680 Roman empire?

00:44:43.260 And obviously we see a lot of that now with transgenderism and things like this in our 1.00

00:44:48.060 current culture.

00:44:48.920 Well, I guess in some ways it's right.

00:44:51.260 And in some ways it's wrong.

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 0.99

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. 0.96

00:45:07.000 Um, after the battle of Milvian bridge in, in 313, Emperor Constantine makes Christianity 0.88

00:45:14.280 no longer illegal.

00:45:15.280 And by the time he dies, he will be baptized.

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

00:45:27.220 as the major problem.

00:45:28.180 That's where you're seeing the debauchery and that's where you're seeing a lot of the

00:45:30.380 issues.

00:45:30.760 There's an emperor that comes to mind for me, uh, named Elagabalus and he, he comes from

00:45:36.680 Syria.

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

00:45:48.660 demanded to come.

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.

00:46:01.840 He's pulled by a chariot. 0.80

00:46:04.380 He's pulled by a chariot of prostitutes and he would advance men in political position by, 0.93

00:46:09.920 um, the length of their member. 0.94

00:46:12.000 That makes sense.

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 1.00

00:46:26.860 brought it to a point where it wasn't doing well.

00:46:28.460 If that makes sense.

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

00:46:45.040 a modern day civil war in America.

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.

00:46:56.300 Yeah.

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

00:47:17.720 history standards and by the world standards.

00:47:20.520 Right.

00:47:21.040 But I think also there becomes no reward for doing things the right way.

00:47:24.920 Right.

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.

00:47:36.920 Right.

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

00:47:51.880 back together.

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

00:48:01.480 and being a great man.

00:48:02.560 What would you, what would you suggest that as men, obviously studying history, you said

00:48:07.540 it doesn't repeat itself, but it rhymes.

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 0.97

00:48:34.260 made a lot of people look at what's actually happening out there and the level of responsibility

00:48:37.940 we have to take.

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,

00:48:48.020 being practicing our religion.

00:48:49.540 Right.

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

00:49:10.940 school system.

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

00:49:17.540 spoken to a lot of people about this.

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

00:49:47.380 a country.

00:49:49.060 Yeah.

00:49:49.340 Yeah.

00:49:49.600 Great point.

00:49:50.240 We just need to enlist more men into the cause to do good work, protect, provide, preside.

00:49:54.540 Obviously, I agree with that sentiment.

00:49:57.160 Jeremy, this has been fascinating.

00:49:58.840 You are a wealth of knowledge when it comes to all of this stuff.

00:50:02.080 It was really interesting to talk about it.

00:50:03.600 I've studied very, very little and I learned a lot today.

00:50:07.160 So I appreciate you.

00:50:08.220 How did the guys connect with you, learn more about what you're up to and follow up on the

00:50:12.960 conversation?

00:50:13.840 Yeah.

00:50:14.020 And I would definitely say I'm not the most educated on Rome out there, but I'm always

00:50:17.600 trying to fill in my educational gaps.

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.

00:50:28.500 I think he does a great job.

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

00:50:39.240 podcasts as well.

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.

00:50:51.780 So that's commandyourbrand.com.

00:50:54.020 Awesome.

00:50:54.520 Great segue, by the way.

00:50:55.820 The impressive.

00:50:57.980 I've been doing this for a long time, man.

00:51:00.240 Yeah.

00:51:00.620 And we've known each other for a while.

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

00:51:08.560 save this country.

00:51:09.960 That's the goal.

00:51:10.780 I agree.

00:51:12.060 Thanks, brother.

00:51:12.980 Yeah.

00:51:15.200 There you go, gentlemen.

00:51:16.120 My conversation with Jeremy.

00:51:17.920 I hope you enjoyed the conversation.

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

00:51:39.480 as a country.

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

00:52:38.600 my divorce.

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

00:52:43.540 us as well.

00:52:44.160 So check it out at DivorceNotDeath.com.

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.

Order of Man - October 14, 2025

JEREMY RYAN SLATE ｜ How Rome Fell… Is America Next？

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Summary

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Order of Man - October 14, 2025

JEREMY RYAN SLATE ｜ How Rome Fell&#x2026; Is America Next？

Episode Stats

Summary

Transcript

JEREMY RYAN SLATE ｜ How Rome Fell… Is America Next？