The Roman Caesars' Guide to Ruling
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Summary
The Roman emperors were the rulers of the Roman Empire, beginning in 27 BC with Julius Caesar s heir, and lasting until around the fall of the Western Empire in 476 AD. Their reign marked one of history s most influential periods, laying the groundwork for modern empires and enduring legacies in political and architectural innovation. They also left behind some instructive leadership lessons in both what and what not to do. Here to unpack some of Roman Empire s most significant emperors as both histories and leadership case studies is Barry Strauss, a classicist, military historian, and fellow at Stanford Hoover Institution and the author of numerous books, including Ten Caesars.
Transcript
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Brett McKay here and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.
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The Roman Caesars were the rulers of the Roman Empire, beginning in 27 BC with Julius Caesar's
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heir Augustus, from whom subsequent Caesars took their name, and lasting until around the fall of
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the Western Empire in 476 AD. The Caesars transitioned the Roman Republic to autocratic
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rule, consolidating vast territories under centralized authority and shaping Western
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governance, law, and culture. Their reign marked one of history's most influential periods,
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laying the groundwork for modern empires and enduring legacies in political and architectural
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innovation. They also left behind some instructive leadership lessons in both what and what not to do.
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Here to unpack some of the Roman Empire's most significant Caesars as both histories and leadership
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case studies is Barry Strauss, who is a classicist, professor, military historian, fellow at Stanford
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Hoover Institution, and the author of numerous books, including Ten Caesars.
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Today on the show, Barry shares how Augustus consolidated power by initially cleaning house,
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the redeeming quality of the otherwise infamous Nero, the strategies Vespasian and Severus used to gain
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legitimacy as outsiders, why Marcus Aurelius was an insightful philosopher but struggled as an emperor,
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the emperor under whose rule the empire began its decline, what constantly understood about the
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idea that if you want things to stay the same, everything must change, and much more.
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After the show's over, check out our show notes at awim.is slash Caesars.
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All right, Barry Strauss, welcome back to the show.
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So we had you on last time, this is in 2019, to talk about your book, Masters of Command.
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It's about leadership lessons from some of ancient history's greatest commanders, Alexander the Great,
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Hannibal, and Caesar. You had a book out that came out a while back ago called Ten Caesars,
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where you look at the age of Caesars and you highlight 10 significant ones in that history.
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What made the particular emperors you focus on in your book stand out as the most influential or
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A great question. So on the one hand, I wanted to focus on change agents and emperors who were
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consequential, who were, to use modern terminology, not just transactional leaders, but transformational
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leaders. And then to a certain extent, just basic showmanship, I wanted to choose emperors that
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were interesting to write about and that would be fun to read about. And I decided to set chronological
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limits. I began with Augustus, who we typically call the first of the Roman emperors. And I ended
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with Constantine, who's the first Christian emperor and who establishes the city that was destined to
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outstrip Rome and become the capital of the Eastern Roman Empire, Constantinople. I could have started
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earlier with Julius Caesar, as Suetonius does, and I could have gone on later at least to 476,
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the last of the Roman emperors in the West. I do have a coda about that in the book, or even to the
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Byzantine Empire to 1453, as Gibbon does. But I decided that it would make a nicer and more compact
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and coherent story if I went from Augustus to Constantine.
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And going back to that idea, you're looking for transformative figures. This is one of the
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things I love about your books. They're kind of Plutarchian in a sense.
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You show the history, but then you subtly extract lessons that even someone who lives in the 21st
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century, and they're not an emperor, you can learn something about character and how to lead or how to
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deal with change or how to deal with setbacks. And you do this in this book. And I hope we can flesh
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out some of those ideas you talk about in the book. But let's talk about, you mentioned, you started
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with Augustus. He's considered the first emperor, but you mentioned Julius Caesar. All the other
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emperors that followed him took their name from this guy. He never was officially an emperor,
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yet he laid the groundwork for the Roman Empire. So let's talk about him a little bit. How did his
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actions and innovations set the stage for the age of Caesar's?
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It's a great question. Caesar didn't see himself as an emperor. He saw himself as a Republican Roman
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politician, the first man in Rome, the greatest of the Romans in his day. And from his point of view,
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as a result of the opposition, the unfair opposition he faced in his quest to hold the consulship for a
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second time, he was forced into a civil war in which he was such a successful commander that he defeated
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all his enemies and ended up being the supreme power in Rome, the dictator, eventually the dictator
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in perpetuity. So Julius Caesar, I'd see him rather as the last of the Roman Republicans than the first
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of the emperors. After he had won the civil war and defeated all his enemies, he was at a loss as to
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what to do and how he would govern in Rome. How would he work with what was left of the Republican
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institutions? And it's clear that he toyed with different possibilities. He famously toyed with
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the idea of being known as a king, as a rex, and he explicitly denied that he wanted that title.
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And in some sense, it's a sign of his uncertainty of what to do that he decided to leave Rome and go
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off on a grand expedition to the east to conquer Dacia, what's now Romania, and then to make war in the
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Parthian Empire and perhaps conquer a part or all of it. But of course, he was assassinated on March 15th,
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the Ides of March, 44 BC, before he could ever go off on this expedition and before it could become
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clear how he was going to rule in Rome, how he was going to govern within the framework of the Roman
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Republic or whether he was going to change that framework. There were many things up for grabs. And that was
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the situation after his death that in not too long a time, in short order, led to another and another
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civil war. And when the smoke finally cleared about 15 years later, it left Octavian, his adopted son,
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his great nephew, his grandnephew, his sister, sister, son. It left Octavian as the last man standing
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as the supreme leader in Rome. And he had to figure out now what? Now how are we going to put the pieces
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together again? Okay, let's talk about Octavian. So he's now known as Augustus. Yes. He's basically
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the guy, he transformed Rome from a republic to an empire. That's right. What did he do to make that
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transformation? Well, the first thing he did was to deny that it was even happening. He said that Rome
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remained a republic and he issued coins and other propaganda, the slogan of which was res publica
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restituta, which can either mean the republic has been restored or the republic has been renovated.
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He learned his lesson from Caesar who had offended some of the old guard by his flirtation with being
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a king. And he denied that he was a king. He insisted that he was nothing more than the first citizen.
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This is a title that had not really existed before, but he called himself the first citizen.
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And he ruled through holding a series of republican offices. Now these offices were not designed to be
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held in perpetuity, much less to be combined in the purview of any one man. But Octavian did this.
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He had the power of a Roman tribune. He had the power of a Roman consul, the power of imperium,
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of command, as it was called. But he also ruled informally. And he was able to do this because
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he had a very bloody rise to power. In these years of civil wars between 44 and 30 BC, he's responsible
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for a number of battles and for the execution of about 100 Roman senators. The Roman elite suffers
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greatly in these civil wars and Roman masses do as well. But one of the reasons for Octavian's success
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is that he's killed off a lot of his enemies. And there's a lesson here. It's a lesson that
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Machiavelli would write about a long time afterwards in The Prince. And that is, if you want to be a
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successful ruler, start hard. Start by coming down on your rivals and enemies hard. God forbid you have
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to kill them, as Octavian did. But make it clear who's boss and make it clear what you will and won't
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tolerate. And then after that, become generous and become more gentle. So Octavian, once he achieves
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supreme power, he has himself given a new name, a new title by the Senate. And that is the reverend
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or the revered one. And in Latin, that's Augustus. That's a title that had never existed before in Rome,
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just as princeps first, from which we get our word prince. And it only existed within the Senate.
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There was an unofficial, prestigious person called the Princeps Sonatus, the first of the Senate.
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But Octavian is experimenting. He's working out a new constitution that can rule Rome while trying
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to create the legal fiction, maintain the fiction that Rome's still a republic, and it's not a monarchy
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at all. This is a way to win friends and influence people, as we might say. And it's quite successful.
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A scholar famously called it legal revolution. Legal revolution. It's a revolution that looks to
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the past. It claims to be merely preserving or renovating the past rather than innovating. And
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it works quite well. And he also dramatically expanded the reach of the empire as well.
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Yes. He added new territories to the empire. Now, a successful Roman politician was expected to be
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a military commander as well as, you know, a figure in the forum, a speaker, a negotiator in Roman
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politics. Augustus himself was not a great general, but he had great generals working for him. And he was
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able to add Egypt to the empire, a very wealthy, prosperous and important place. He was also able
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to extend Roman rule in Europe. He conquered Northwestern Spain. And he also added roughly
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Switzerland to the Roman empire as well. He attempted to add Germany, Western and Central Germany to the
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empire. And that's a famous failure. His armies are defeated in a brilliant ambush, probably the most
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successful act of resistance by those the Romans attempted to colonize the most successful act of
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all time, or one of the one or two most successful ones. And in the year 9 AD, the Roman legions are
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defeated at the Tudorberger woods by a man named Arminius. Three legions are decimated. That's about
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one-tenth of the legionary manpower that Rome had. So very significant loss. And Augustus is reduced
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to crying, give me back my legions. So yes, he expands the empire, but it's not as successful as he had
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hoped. Why did he take on the name Caesar? Well, he took on the name Caesar for a variety of reasons.
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Now, Caesar was an aristocratic name. It was the name from a Roman patrician family. It was as Roman as
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Roman could be. Octavian himself, his father was not a member of the Roman nobility. Instead, he was a
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member of the provincial elite. He came from a town that was about 25 miles south of Rome. And through
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his mother's side, Octavian was part of the family of the Caesars. But from his father's side, he was not
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all that noble and important. And the Romans were a very elitist society, extremely conscious,
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acutely conscious of social status. And they would have looked at Gaius Octavius as this man was born.
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Augustus was born at the title of Gaius Octavius. It's coming from a second-rate background, not really
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one of us, as the Roman nobility would have said. So he is adopted posthumously by Julius Caesar. When
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Caesar's will is opened, it says that he offers adoption to his grandnephew, Gaius Octavius,
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completely illegal by Roman law, by the way. There's no such thing as posthumous adoption.
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But this is a time of civil war when people are willing to bend the rules and then some.
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Taking on the name of Caesar gives him nobility. It makes him a member of the inner circle of the
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Roman elite. So he's very eager to have this title. And then he marries up. He ends up marrying a
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woman who comes from the absolutely bluest of blue blood, Livia Drusilla. That's his prize.
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He has made it now. Little Gaius Octavius from the second-rate nobility of Italy is now as blue-blooded
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as any Roman could be. At least that's the legal fiction.
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Okay. So I get the takeaway there from sort of like, if you want to be a change agent in an
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organization, so his philosophy of go hard in the beginning, be brutal in the beginning,
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then be generous. So like, I mean, if you come in as a new boss, right away, maybe you have to just
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like, here's the rules that we're going to do. Here's how we're going to do it my way. And if
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you're not on my way, then you're out of here. Get out of here. And then afterward, you can be a
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little bit more generous kind of. Yes. You have to be more generous afterwards, but you have to start
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out tough. You can't start out nice. And then also, I think the takeaway from him is you have to
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think about PR, public relations, right? Yes. You have to say, hey, you know, he was saying like,
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we're still going to be a republic, but really you're actually making an empire.
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Absolutely. It's legal revolution. It's change with a friendly face. Augustus was a master of that.
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And the Romans were extremely good at propaganda. The other thing about it is that even when Augustus
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was generous, it was always the iron fist beneath the velvet glove. There was a velvet glove,
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but he was always willing to use force when necessary. He just tried to use it very, very
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sparingly so he wouldn't make enemies unnecessarily. The Caesar that followed him was a guy named
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Tiberius. How did Tiberius differ from Augustus? Well, Tiberius, like Augustus, was a man of vision
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and a man of immense talent. But unlike Augustus, he didn't have the gentle touch. He wasn't great
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at propaganda. It may be significant that unlike Augustus, he does not come from the Italian
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nobility. He also is an utterly blue-blooded member of the Roman nobility. And he faces life
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with a certain amount of arrogance, my way or the highway. He doesn't start his reign by cleaning
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house the way Augustus had done. He tries to be a kinder, gentler emperor. And it doesn't work.
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He meets resistance from the Senate. After all, there are still many people in the Senate who at
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least remember the name of the Republic, if not the reality of the Republic. They're too young for that.
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And they were hoping that after Augustus, things would go back to the way they had been in the late
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Republic, that they wouldn't have a monarch. But they were rudely disappointed. They had a rude
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awakening under Tiberius. And Tiberius finds himself forced to engage in treason trials. He expands
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and abuses the Roman law of treason to get rid of his enemies in the Senate.
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So yeah, he started out love, but he ended his reign hated, basically.
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Yes, he hated. He also has a hatchet man named Sejanus. And Sejanus, not a member of the nobility,
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but Sejanus has very high hopes of becoming a member of the nobility and even becoming emperor.
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And he turns on Tiberius. He's plotting against Tiberius. And it's only through the help of members
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of his extended family that Tiberius is awakened to the danger at the 11th hour. And he has Sejanus
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purged. So he maintains his power, but he is hated. As you say, he's a bitter old man. He's no longer
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living in Rome. He lives on the island of Capri. We call it Capri. And he's ruling from a distance.
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He's ruling long distance. So it's not very successful. It's a pity because like Augustus,
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he's a man of vision. And Tiberius's vision is, to put it in contemporary terms, if I might,
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to end endless wars. So he pulls back from Germany and he makes it clear that under his rule,
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Rome is a satiated power. Rome is no longer going to expand. And that was probably good advice for
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Rome at the time. The Romans needed to pull back. They needed to have peace on the frontier. And
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they also couldn't afford to have the political challenge of having generals going out, winning
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victories, and then marching on Rome and wanting themselves to be emperor. It was a recipe for
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instability as they had seen under Caesar, Sulla, Marius, and Pompey. So it's a pity that Tiberius,
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with his vision for how Rome should rule abroad, fell afoul of the Senate and fell afoul of domestic
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politics. So in a sense, it's a lesson in what not to do. Yeah. So Nero was one of the emperors
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that followed Tiberius. He's one of the most infamous Roman emperors. Yes. What's the actual story
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behind that old adage? Nero fiddled while Rome burned. I think everyone's heard that. Did it
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actually happen? Not technically. Nero did not fiddle. The fiddle hadn't been invented yet.
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There were rumors that during the great fire of Rome in the summer of 64 AD, that Nero stood on the
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terrace of his palace overlooking the fire. And he took out his lyre, this instrument, this harp-like
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instrument that he played and sang about the fall of Troy. Nobody knows if this rumor is true or not.
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It certainly is true that when the fire began, Nero was at a seaside villa outside of the city,
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and he was in no particular rush to come back to Rome and oversee the relief efforts and the effort
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of putting out the blaze. It was also rumored that Nero had actually set the blaze because he wanted
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to engage in a massive urban renewal project. We don't know if this rumor is true or not,
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but there are certain scholars, some of my colleagues, believe it is true. We just don't
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know. When he came back to Rome after this infamous fiddling episode, he did throw himself into the
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relief efforts, making sure the fire brigades did their job, making sure that Romans were fed and
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cared for and those that had lost their houses had a place to live. And then he engages in this
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amazing building boom, remaking the heart of Rome. A large part of it becomes this enormous palace.
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We call it today Nero's golden house. It's not what it was called in antiquity.
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It's a huge palace or set of palaces. It's a campus really with parks that were open to the public and
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artificial lake, so on and so forth. It was very grand, but there were many people who were suspicious
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that Nero had either set the blaze or winked at it in order to have the excuse to rebuild the city.
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So it sounds like he did make some positive contributions to the Roman Empire, the rebuilding
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It was a good thing. Also like Tiberius, he was opposed to starting new wars. Rome had perennial
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rivalry in the east, but the other great empire of the ancient world in this period, the Parthian
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empire. It is a new version of the older Persian empire and early Iranian empire. And the Romans
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and the Parthians had fought. They'd fought several wars already. And Nero, through strength,
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through a show of force in the east, without actually going to war, he is able to reach an
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agreement with the Parthians, a satisfactory agreement that saves face on both sides and keeps
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the peace. So to that extent, Nero is a good emperor. On the other hand, he is squeezing the
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provinces and the provincial misbehavior by governors, who he encouraged to abuse the
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provincials and squeeze money out of them. That leads to a great revolt in Judea. It becomes known as
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the Jewish War, the Great Revolt, that ultimately ends up with Nero being forced from office, having to
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commit suicide. And it's only settled, the war's only settled in a later reign. So in many ways,
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Nero is a failure. His personal life is scandalous. The worst part of it is that he arranges for the
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murder of his own mother. So he is a matricide, a truly terrible man in many ways.
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And you also talk about the way that Nero differed from some of the previous emperors,
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like Augustus or Tiberius. He didn't really have like a bigger vision for the empire itself.
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It seems like he was more interested in like just the personal celebrity of being the emperor.
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And he did some kind of weird things to promote his own celebrity.
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Yes, he was supremely egotistical and he was very vain about his singing ability and also about his
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ability to race chariots. And so unlike some emperors who would travel around the empire in
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Tiberius's case when he was a younger man to fight for Rome, and Tiberius was a great general. In Augustus's
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case, both to fight but also to tour around the empire to make sure that he showed the flag to examine
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provincial conditions. Nero instead goes on this grand tour of Greece. He was a Philhellene. He loved
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Greek culture. And the Greeks had these famous pan-Hellenic games. Every year there was a
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different one, but they were festivals of athletics and of poetry and singing. And Nero forced the poor
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Greeks to have all the games in the same year. He competed in every event or in many events. And
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guess what? He won every event in which he competed. It is a supreme act of irresponsibility
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and egotism that he does this instead of governing the empire.
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It reminded me of some business owners or startup founders who, you know, yeah, they're working on
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the business, but I think they enjoy the celebrity of being a founder more than actually working on
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the business. That's what it reminded me of. Absolutely. Yeah, no, I agree. That's how he comes
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off. We're going to take a quick break for your word from our sponsors.
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And now back to the show. An overlooked emperor is, make sure I get his name right, Vespasian?
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Vespasian, yes. Yeah, Vespasian. He's overlooked often, but you argue he was one of Rome's best
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emperors. So let's talk about that. What did he do during his reign? I'm not sure I'd say he's one of
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Rome's best, but he's certainly one of Rome's most consequential. So he comes to power in a civil war.
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He is a military man who, like Augustus, did not come from a noble family. In fact,
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unlike Augustus, he had no connection to a Roman family. He's the first completely
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non-noble person to become emperor, and he starts a new dynasty. So he's sent by Nero to put down the
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revolt in Judea, and he's relatively successful when, in the middle of it, Nero is forced out in a coup.
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He commits suicide. There's a new emperor, and Vespasian decides to cease military operations
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until the smoke clears. Then that new emperor is forced out in a coup, and then there's another
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coup. There are three different emperors while Vespasian is still in the east, biding his time,
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seeing what's going to happen. And then he decides that if they can be emperor, so can he. And so he
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has the troops declare him emperor, and he sends armies off to Italy to fight in this civil war,
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to fight his way to the throne. And ultimately, they're successful, and he goes back to Italy,
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and he becomes the emperor, the first emperor who does not come from the dynasty, the family of
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Augustus' family. So he has a real tough job. How can he have legitimacy in the eyes of the Romans
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and in the eyes of the Roman elite? And part of the importance of the Roman elite, the senate above
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all, but also the equestrians, or the knights as they're called, these are the people who have the
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talent, the ability, the education, the experience to actually run the empire. You need them on your
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team. You can't throw them all out. And so Vespasian wants to show to them, as well as to the Roman
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people, that he is worthy of being emperor. And like Augustus, he started hard. He started in a
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bloody civil war, fighting his way to the throne. But now he wants to show that he is soft and that
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he will give the Romans good government. So he does what Augustus had done. He becomes a great builder.
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He builds all sorts of things in the city of Rome to brand the city of Rome,
00:25:31.540
to rebrand it as a monument to his dynasty. One of the reasons he becomes emperor's is that he
00:25:38.600
conveniently has two sons. That means that although he himself is not a young man, it means he will be
00:25:44.700
succeeded by competent men who will replace him and ensure that there is a period of stability.
00:25:51.360
His most famous building is the most famous building from ancient Rome. The Colosseum was built
00:25:58.020
under Vespasian to be this grand arena for gladiatorial games and for the beasts, as the
00:26:05.920
Romans called them, for the killing of animals for sport and for executions. Grim sorts of stuff that
00:26:12.500
the Romans did. Immensely popular. But it's also built as a victory monument. It's a victory monument
00:26:18.680
to his success in Judea. Vespasian and his son Titus put down the revolt. They destroy the rebels.
00:26:25.820
They destroy the rebel capital of Jerusalem. They destroy the Jewish temple. And they bring
00:26:30.760
loot, enormous amount of loot back to Rome. And the Colosseum is dedicated as a victory monument to
00:26:37.640
this. Originally, above the entrance, there is a sculpted relief of Vespasian in his chariot
00:26:44.420
that he rode in the triumph that he celebrated in Rome after his success. So there are many other
00:26:51.320
things that they built in the city. But this iconic Roman monument, as I said, probably the
00:26:56.840
most famous monument from Roman antiquity. What do you attribute his effectiveness to?
00:27:02.540
Well, again, he starts out tough. He had gotten rid of all his enemies and made it clear,
00:27:08.380
don't mess with me. F-A-F-O, as they say nowadays. And then he brought a period of peace and stability
00:27:18.200
and prosperity. He was actually a good manager and he had very talented people on his team working for
00:27:23.720
him. He knew that he was building a dynasty. He also was in many ways a humble man. He didn't
00:27:29.400
suffer from the problems that Tiberius or Nero did. He was not a member of the nobility. He wasn't born
00:27:35.480
with a silver spoon. Far from it. He had to prove himself to the Roman people. And he understood what
00:27:41.040
it was to be relatively humble. There's a famous story that Vespasian levies attacks on public
00:27:48.240
latrines. And his younger son, the future emperor Domitian, says to him, father, this is beneath our
00:27:54.320
dignity to raise money from public toilets. And Vespasian is said to have replied, son, money has
00:28:01.740
no smell. I think it's a sign of the kind of down to earth person that he was and his ability to be
00:28:09.680
pragmatic and do what was necessary to be a successful ruler. Well, speaking of that tax on
00:28:15.160
the urinals, there's a bit of trivia and you mentioned this in the book. Urinals today with
00:28:20.320
the Romance languages like Italian or French, they call them Vespasianos in Italy. They're named after
00:28:26.700
him. Yes, it's called the Vespasiano in Italy and Vespasian in French. So yeah, it's ironic the poor
00:28:33.840
guy is remembered in connection with public toilets. Maybe not what he had in mind.
00:28:40.000
Let's talk about Marcus Aurelius. I know our listeners are familiar with Marcus Aurelius,
00:28:43.580
thanks to his stoic meditations that he wrote. But what was he like as an emperor?
00:28:48.460
Well, you know, he's a great philosopher and not such a great emperor. He comes to the throne with
00:28:54.400
a disability, and that is that his predecessor, Antoninus Pius, basically confined him to quarters.
00:29:01.300
He had grown up and become a mature man with virtually no experience outside of Italy and
00:29:08.540
virtually no military experience. He reminds me a little bit of George W. Bush. He comes into
00:29:14.080
office saying, I want to be a domestic emperor. I want to use my term to give Rome good government
00:29:19.880
and to dispense justice in a philosophical and equitable manner. Instead, the poor guy is stuck
00:29:27.680
with a series of crises, external crises. Rome has two great enemies. As I mentioned, in the east,
00:29:33.920
there's the rival Parthian Empire. And in the west, there's these series of Germanic peoples who had
00:29:40.660
kicked Rome out of most of Germany in the year nine at Tudorberger Woods. And since then,
00:29:46.940
they had become more organized. They had consolidated some of the tribes into smaller ones.
00:29:52.120
Marcus Aurelius' reign begins with the enemies on both of the frontiers kicking Rome in you-know-what
00:29:59.900
and putting Rome in a very difficult situation. On top of that, there is a tremendous epidemic that
00:30:07.260
strikes the empire. It comes from the east, and it is devastating. It's quite devastating. So Marcus
00:30:14.760
Aurelius has to deal with these two wars, and he has to deal with the plague, people call it. It's not
00:30:20.900
plague. It's some kind of virus. We're not entirely sure what, but devastating results. And Marcus
00:30:28.040
Aurelius has to deal with all of this, restore order on the frontiers, which he's able to do.
00:30:34.180
But this is not his wheelhouse. It's a tremendous strain for him to do this, and he's not able to
00:30:40.080
become the domestic emperor that he had wished. I think that a more experienced general would have
00:30:46.120
been able to handle these crises much better than Marcus Aurelius did, and more rapidly than he did.
00:30:53.180
He's also faced with a rebellion in the east. One of his generals rises up in rebellion against him,
00:30:59.920
a very competent man. Luckily for Marcus, the general is assassinated by one of his subordinates
00:31:07.080
relatively early in the day. Otherwise, he might have been in great trouble. He was in such trouble
00:31:13.360
that his wife did business with the rebel general. And supposedly, she wrote compromising
00:31:19.480
letters to the rebel general saying, you know, as long as you promise that my son can one day
00:31:24.700
succeed his father, I will not stand in the way of your becoming emperor. So Marcus Aurelius had a lot
00:31:31.540
on his plate. He has to spend a certain amount of his reign on the northern frontier, much of it in what
00:31:38.940
is today Budapest, a charming city nowadays. But in the second century AD, not such a great place,
00:31:46.420
kind of the back of beyond, miserable climate from the Roman point of view. And it's there on the
00:31:52.740
frontier that he writes what becomes known as the Meditations, where he writes his thoughts about life.
00:31:59.400
A man who was, you know, devoted to his duty. He had hoped to annex two new provinces in what is
00:32:08.820
nowadays the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, but he fails. He dies on the frontier, perhaps a victim
00:32:17.180
of the epidemic himself. It keeps coming back. And he is unfortunately replaced by his son,
00:32:24.840
who turns out to be one of Rome's worst emperors. Yeah, we'll talk about his son here in a bit.
00:32:30.180
I think it's interesting that he wrote the Meditations while he's out on the frontier in these wars.
00:32:34.620
And if you read the Meditations, it's just a lot of him, you know, he wasn't writing this for the public.
00:32:39.480
It was like personal diaries, but it's him struggling with the burden of power. You can tell this guy
00:32:44.860
really didn't like being emperor. No, he was a man of philosophical bent, but he also was a Roman
00:32:51.680
who had a strong sense of duty. It's interesting from that point of view that he doesn't write the
00:32:56.440
Meditations in Latin. He writes them in Greek. Now, Greek was the philosophical language of antiquity
00:33:02.800
par excellence, but there had been Roman philosophy in Latin. There'd been Cicero and Seneca and the very
00:33:09.780
philosophical poem of Lucretius on the nature of things, De Rera Naturum. But Marcus Aurelius writes it
00:33:17.360
in Greek, partly because the Greek language was very much in fashion in his day. And perhaps partly
00:33:23.700
because, as you say, he wasn't Charlie Haprius emperor. He wanted to draw a line between his
00:33:31.320
rule as emperor and his thought as a philosopher. So this very famous book of a Roman emperor,
00:33:37.960
The Meditations, is ironically written in Greek.
00:33:41.180
What would you say is the takeaway lesson for Marcus Aurelius if you look at his career as an
00:33:47.760
emperor? The takeaway lesson is, first of all, it is not a good idea to hand the reins of power over
00:33:54.800
to someone who has no experience ruling. I think this is one of the problems with the Roman system
00:34:00.200
that many emperors are jealous of prospective successors and they do not train them. I think
00:34:06.520
another lesson, to put it the same thing in a different way, is you have to prepare for the
00:34:10.880
succession. You really do. There have been many rulers in history who have been very, very successful,
00:34:16.440
but they are afraid of what their successors might be. They kill off all potential successors. Nero is
00:34:22.560
one of them. He killed off anyone in his extended family who might possibly be competent to replace him
00:34:28.640
because he was afraid of being killed in a coup d'etat. And Marcus Aurelius' predecessor,
00:34:35.080
perhaps not so much out of fear of being killed as out of rank jealousy, he does not prepare Marcus
00:34:42.400
Aurelius for the reins of power. I think it's also a bad idea to think that you get to choose
00:34:48.420
whether you're going to be a domestic leader or a foreign leader. Events, as a British prime minister
00:34:55.580
once said, events get in the way. And Marcus Aurelius is a prime example of how events get in the way.
00:35:02.760
You've got to be prepared on all fronts and for all things.
00:35:07.380
So after Marcus Aurelius, he's kind of considered like, isn't he considered like the last of the good
00:35:12.320
Yeah. So the empire begins to decline. Do you think he played a role in that decline or would that have
00:35:18.060
happened even if there was another good emperor in his place?
00:35:21.360
Well, the empire was going to be faced with these frontier problems on the east and the west.
00:35:27.180
The Roman empire was a balancing act. It was a huge empire about the size of the continental United
00:35:33.120
States, very complicated with the Mediterranean Sea in the middle and various different terrains
00:35:38.340
and people speaking different languages. And it had these two great rivals in the east and the west.
00:35:43.540
So it had a huge military burden. That meant high taxes, but it also meant the danger of political
00:35:48.980
instability. And the only way you could pay for all of this was inflation. So there was constant
00:35:55.420
inflation in the Roman empire. And then there were these series of epidemics that would come
00:36:00.880
through. One of the worst ones under Marcus Aurelius, but certainly not the only one. So it's really
00:36:06.920
tough to keep the empire going. Marcus Aurelius' mistake was that he was too devoted a father and he gave
00:36:14.620
the reins of power to his son Commodus. Commodus is the first man in Roman history after 200 years of
00:36:21.340
the empire, who was born to the purple. He was born to be emperor. His father was already the heir to
00:36:27.640
the throne when Commodus was born. So there was never any doubt about it. His mother was the daughter
00:36:33.280
of the previous emperor, Antoninus Pius. And as you might expect, Commodus grows up, what is the word?
00:36:41.580
Arrogant, entitled, irresponsible. He is not someone who's learned in the school of hard knocks. So unlike
00:36:49.680
Octavian Augustus, unlike Vespasian, he doesn't know what you need to do to rule. He expects he's
00:36:56.940
going to have it all his way. And so he becomes a very irresponsible emperor. The first thing he does
00:37:02.300
is he gives up the war. War is boring, not interested in war. War is hard. He makes peace
00:37:08.120
on the German frontier. He gives up his father's dream of annexing two new provinces and he goes back
00:37:14.300
to Italy. He's popular because he spends a lot of money on bread and circuses, as a Roman poet once
00:37:20.140
called it, on popular entertainment. But he's a tyrant. He kills a lot of senators. He is violent.
00:37:27.580
He is undignified from the Roman point of view. He competes as a gladiator. He portrays himself as the
00:37:34.000
second coming of Hercules. And it drives the Roman elite crazy. They're also afraid for their own necks
00:37:40.340
with this tyrant in power. And ultimately, they depose him. They have him killed as a plot
00:37:46.100
in which he is executed by an insider. And then civil war breaks out again. This is not a year of
00:37:55.740
four emperors, but it is several years of five emperors, a series of pretenders to the throne,
00:38:02.560
war east and west and all over the empire. And in one particularly humiliating incident,
00:38:09.080
one claimant to the throne is forced to auction it off before the Praetorian guards, or actually two
00:38:16.120
claimants who are auctioning off the nod from the Praetorian guard, these armed troops on the edge of
00:38:23.620
the city of Rome who protect the emperor. And the Praetorian guard gives the nod. He's not the one who
00:38:30.100
gets the throne in the end. In the end, it's a lawyer turned general from Roman North Africa
00:38:36.240
who gains the throne and starts a new dynasty, a man named Septimius Severus.
00:38:42.080
Well, let's talk about this guy because he's interesting. He's an outsider. So he's from North
00:38:49.900
Yeah. So he was not from Italy, not from Rome, but he's able to, you know, assert himself. So how
00:38:57.300
was an outsider like him able to rise to Rome's highest position?
00:38:59.900
Right. Well, he's very much an outsider. He comes from North Africa, from what is today Libya.
00:39:05.660
He is partly descended from Italian colonists. He may also be partly of African descent. It's
00:39:12.300
unclear. The sources are unclear about this. Certainly the Romans called him an African,
00:39:17.260
but they also called anyone from North Africa an African. There's other reasons to suspect he may be
00:39:23.100
partly of African descent. As you say, he marries a Syrian and, you know, their children are part
00:39:29.680
Syrian, part North African. Wow. This is wild. How does he do it? Well, partly like Augustus or like
00:39:36.140
Vespasian, he does it in a civil war. He's as nasty as you can get. He kills off a lot of people
00:39:41.300
and he makes it clear who's the boss. But once he comes and also he kills off a lot of senators,
00:39:48.760
he's not a friend of the Senate. He rules with an iron fist, but he pays a lot of attention to the
00:39:56.960
military. He's one of Rome's most military leaders and under him and his successors, Rome is well on
00:40:04.480
the way to becoming a military dictatorship, even less of a republic than had been under the earlier
00:40:11.020
emperors with the Senate having even less power and respect than it had previously. That being said,
00:40:17.720
Septimius Severus was also a builder, as was his son Caracalla. Unlike Tiberius, he is one of these
00:40:25.140
emperors who wants to be a conqueror. And he does so both in the east and the west. In the east,
00:40:32.240
he conquers what is now more or less Iraqi Kurdistan, so northern Iraq and part of Turkey and part of
00:40:40.340
Syria. And he adds it to the Roman Empire as a new province in the east. This is a real feather in
00:40:45.880
the Roman cap. It's a very wealthy place, very important on the trade routes, the Silk Road
00:40:50.760
from the east, and also very prestigious to have a win of victory against the Parthians who had
00:40:57.240
formally controlled this area. And it would go back and forth in later years. In the west,
00:41:02.340
he's not as successful. He attempts to conquer Scotland and he fails. He dies in northern England
00:41:08.160
in what is now the city of York. And he is said to tell his sons on his deathbed, you know,
00:41:14.240
be good to each other and always pay the soldiers. Above all, pay the soldiers. And that is partly
00:41:22.140
the secret of his success. He's a military man and he uses the military to stay in power.
00:41:28.580
He and his successors create a garrison south of the city of Rome on the Appian Way. They create a
00:41:35.240
legionary garrison. They establish a legion outside of Rome. And this is sending a message to the Roman
00:41:41.720
political elite. We will not hesitate to use the legion to crush any opposition. So it's turning
00:41:49.300
the empire into a more brutal, it's turning Roman government into a more brutal, more military form
00:41:54.760
of government than the Romans had known before. And Gibbon, I think it's Gibbon who said this is the
00:42:00.620
beginning of the decline and fall of Rome. This real step away from a combination of military and civilian
00:42:09.100
Something stood out to me about Septimus was his wife played a pretty big role in his reign. Like you talk
00:42:16.540
about this throughout the book, like women, while they didn't have official positions in the empire,
00:42:22.760
behind the scenes, they were pulling levers. You know, Nero's mother was a perfect example of that.
00:42:27.360
But this guy's wife, she actually played a pretty influential role. And it was obvious
00:42:32.460
to people that, okay, this lady, she's kind of in charge too.
00:42:37.960
Yes. And especially after his death, when the empire passed to his son, the rule passed to his son,
00:42:45.080
Caracalla, she held an official position. She was basically in charge of his correspondence. So
00:42:51.180
enormously powerful. And this would not have sit well with a lot of Romans. I mean,
00:42:56.960
they were male chauvinists, let's face it. So not as much so as some ancient empires or some
00:43:02.540
ancient civilizations. But there had been very powerful women before, but they tended to
00:43:07.940
sugarcoat it. And in her case, her name was Julia Domna, which is a name redolent of power.
00:43:16.060
All right. Let's talk about the last emperor you discussed, Constantine. And it's funny,
00:43:20.300
you mentioned this in the book that I do this a lot. I always forget that Constantine
00:43:24.860
was an ancient Roman emperor. I always think of Constantine as a medieval, but he wasn't.
00:43:30.580
So Constantine, he converted to Christianity famously. How did his embrace of Christianity
00:43:40.020
Well, it changed it enormously. So we have to understand Constantine as a response to the 50
00:43:45.760
years of crisis that bedeviled Rome in the mid third century, third century AD. This is
00:43:51.740
between about 235 and 285 series of invasions, epidemics, inflation, urban collapse. Things go
00:44:00.580
really badly and a series of revolving door emperors and assassinations instability. And
00:44:07.080
these emperors are mostly soldier emperors. They come from the military ranks. They are not civilians
00:44:11.520
by and large. The day is saved by a series of military reformers and economic and political
00:44:18.060
reformers as well. And the basic conclusion that they reach is that for the empire to survive,
00:44:23.640
it's got to change. It's got to fundamentally change. It's got to become more military. It's got
00:44:28.940
to become more rigid. People's status has to be fixed in a way that it hadn't been before. It's got to
00:44:35.800
collect more taxes because the military is going to be more expensive, the new military. And it's got to be
00:44:42.840
more tyrannical, more dictatorial in the way that it rules. The emperor is truly going to have to become
00:44:50.300
a dominus, a master who's recognized in ways that previous emperors hadn't been. Now, the Romans were
00:44:57.820
very religious people. They really were. They were pagans, but they believed that to have a successful
00:45:02.760
country, you had to have what they called pax deorum, the peace of the gods. You had to have the gods on
00:45:08.860
your side. And they were convinced that the reason the gods were not on their side, the reason Rome had
00:45:13.980
these years of crisis, was that the gods were no longer on their side. So what are you going to do?
00:45:19.420
Ceres' emperors had different solutions. One of them, a man named Aurelian, thought the solution is to
00:45:24.940
get a new god, the sun god. We've got to worship the sun. And Constantine's father and young Constantine
00:45:31.600
himself were initiated into that religion. It was the religion of their commander, the emperor.
00:45:37.060
His successor, a man named Diocletian, said, no, it's not the sun god. We've got to do two things.
00:45:42.880
First, we've got to reinstate the Olympian gods, Jupiter and Juno and all the traditional Roman gods.
00:45:50.660
We've got to double down on our worship of them. And secondly, we've got to get rid of the atheists
00:45:56.160
who are getting us in trouble with the gods. And they considered the chief atheists to be the
00:46:00.360
Christians because the Christians denied that the Olympian gods even existed. They only recognized
00:46:06.880
one god. And so Diocletian starts a great persecution, the great persecution of the
00:46:13.620
Christians. It's infamous and it's a flop. It doesn't succeed. He is not successful in wiping
00:46:21.140
out Christianity. If anything, the staunchness of Christian resistance on the part of some and
00:46:25.840
the creation of martyrs makes the church stronger than ever. Enter Constantine, who comes to the
00:46:31.700
conclusion that Diocletian had it backwards. He was right. You needed a new religion. You needed
00:46:37.420
to reestablish peace with the gods. But the way to do it is to become Christian and to encourage all
00:46:43.660
Romans to become Christian. So he wins power in a civil war, actually in a series of civil wars.
00:46:50.080
And he's the first Christian emperor. And under him begins the process of Christianizing the emperor.
00:46:55.660
It takes about a century to most of the empire is Christian because Christianity is a minority
00:47:01.000
religion. And some pagans hold on to their own old faith for a long time. But ultimately,
00:47:07.260
Constantine is successful in doing this. How did he make that transition? Because, okay,
00:47:13.940
he's a pagan and pagans, they, you know, violence was part of their worldview, right? It was like kind
00:47:19.280
of might makes right. But with Christianity, it was like, well, nonviolence, right? He's supposed to
00:47:23.240
turn the other cheek. And he was a guy who understood the power of violence and force,
00:47:30.040
and he would use it. So how did he kind of fuse his Christian beliefs with the realities of being
00:47:36.760
emperor? I mean, Constantine, as you know, is a saint of the Orthodox Church. So one wants to approach
00:47:43.980
him with a certain amount of respect and dignity. And I think in a way he compartmentalized. On the one
00:47:50.900
hand, he is an old Roman pagan who's all about conquest and violence and force and using the
00:47:56.600
levers of power. One of the ways that he spreads Christianity is in the Western part of the empire,
00:48:03.600
he has issued the edict of Milan, this edict of toleration of all religions. But he never issues
00:48:10.240
that in the Eastern part of the empire. And what he does is he starves the temples. There's no longer
00:48:15.820
government support for the pagan temples. So they can't put on their festivals. They can't have
00:48:20.620
all their expensive sacrifices. If you want to have a religious experience, you now have to go to a
00:48:26.600
church, which he is now richly endowing. He's using imperial resources to support the church.
00:48:32.660
I think that from the Christian point of view, Constantine is a good Christian, A, because he's
00:48:36.860
a believer, and B, because he spreads the religion. You know, he is a great advocate of the church and
00:48:43.740
plays the absolutely key role in Christianizing the empire. Constantinople, the new Eastern capital,
00:48:50.620
is going to be a largely Christian city. And even Rome, Constantine realizes that he cannot
00:48:57.280
rebrand downtown Rome as a Christian city. It's simply too pagan. So instead, he rebrands the
00:49:03.660
suburbs of Rome as a Christian city. And he builds, for example, great churches on the site of martyrdoms,
00:49:09.940
where there are martyr shrines. And the two great ones that he builds are the Lateran Church,
00:49:15.260
which is the metropolitan church of Rome, on one side of the city. And on the other side of the city,
00:49:20.480
St. Peter's, in the Vatican. And by design, they're not built downtown, because that's pagan land.
00:49:27.080
They're built on the outskirts of the city to have a new Christian Rome. Constantinople is different.
00:49:36.040
How did his reign set the stage for the medieval era?
00:49:39.140
Well, you know, that's a good question. In the first edition of the Cambridge Ancient History,
00:49:44.600
it ends with this image of Constantine at the Council of Nicaea, this general church council
00:49:51.200
that he establishes to try to settle some disputes about Christian doctrine. And the Cambridge Ancient
00:49:58.120
History ends with saying, with the scene of Constantine at the council, surrounded by his
00:50:03.900
bishops, the Middle Ages begins. It's wonderful drama. I think it's exaggeration. But with Constantine,
00:50:11.280
we have this image that the state is now going to establish itself with a different ideology,
00:50:18.780
a non-pagan ideology. It's still going to be Roman, but it's going to be Christian. And this
00:50:23.240
is a revolution. It's one of the major revolutions in human affairs, an enormous historical revolution.
00:50:29.760
It was a long time coming. I know Christianity had been around for 300 years about when this happens.
00:50:36.740
But Constantine is one of these visionaries, one of these decisive visionaries who says,
00:50:43.960
in effect, and here I'm quoting one of my favorite lines from the novel, The Leopard,
00:50:48.760
if we want things to stay the same, everything has to change. And Constantine understands that,
00:50:54.840
that in a way underlines his philosophy. Who want things to stay the same, everything has to change.
00:51:00.060
So we have to have a new religion. We'll still be Roman, but we won't worship the gods in the same
00:51:05.860
way. We'll have radical change in the way that we worship the gods. And this ends up creating radical
00:51:11.600
changes in Roman society as well, changes that in some ways do represent the Middle Ages. Now,
00:51:18.100
the Middle Ages are a lot more complicated than that. But this is a very crucial change that undergirds
00:51:24.240
so much of what happens in antiquity and in the Middle Ages. And the idea that an empire needs to
00:51:30.660
have an imperial religion. That's not new. The Romans had an imperial religion. It's called the
00:51:35.260
cult of the Caesars, the worship of the emperor. And there are other attempts at imperial religions,
00:51:41.800
but with Christianity and with the creation of this new infrastructure, with the bishoprics,
00:51:48.740
and I guess I'll use the word infrastructure again, this elaborate and immensely effective
00:51:55.000
infrastructure of churches and bishops and charitable institutions and educational institutions.
00:52:02.580
Wow. It's just an immense, immense change. So the Western Roman empire lasted about 500 years,
00:52:10.640
give or take. I mean, that's like one of the longest running empires ever in human history.
00:52:14.620
What do you attribute its longevity to? And are there any lessons there for
00:52:19.380
would-be institution builders and maintainers? Yeah, it lasts even longer, really, if we say that
00:52:25.280
it was established under the republic. And it's certainly in place by the year 200 BC. God give
00:52:32.020
it more like 700 years. So there are a number of lessons. First of all, Roman culture is extremely
00:52:37.940
pragmatic. And if you want to be a successful empire, you can't afford to be hidebound and ideological.
00:52:43.640
You need to be pragmatic. You need to embrace change. By the same token, you need to have a set
00:52:50.620
of doctrines that you live by. And these doctrines have to be portable, but also non-negotiable.
00:52:57.460
So there are core Roman values, but there's also the willingness to make change and to learn from
00:53:03.240
other people, to learn from the people you conquer. Christianity is not invented by the Latin-speaking
00:53:09.060
elite of the city of Rome. Christianity begins in Judea, a rebellious province, and it spreads in
00:53:14.800
the Greek East before it ever comes to the West. And I think the adoption of it is just a sign of
00:53:21.440
Roman pragmatism. But there's so many other signs of Roman pragmatism over the years. Another reason
00:53:28.280
for the Roman success is they're great engineers. They are great road builders. They're great city
00:53:33.280
builders. They're great bridge builders. And they are very disciplined. And they're also
00:53:39.140
tremendously good at militarism. They are one of the most successful examples of a military in human
00:53:45.000
history. And that is no small part of their success. Let me also give a nod to Roman openness.
00:53:54.440
The Roman Empire, the longevity of the Roman Empire would have been inconceivable without the willingness
00:54:00.140
of the Romans to open the doors and bring new people into the elite. Sometimes it's only done
00:54:07.060
kicking and screaming. And it takes centuries for it to happen. But the elite that Rome starts out with
00:54:13.640
is nothing like the elite that it ends up with. I mean, you know, Julius Caesar is a member of an old
00:54:21.040
Roman patrician family that goes back centuries. Constantine has a father who came from what is now
00:54:27.700
Serbia and a mother who now came from what is now Western Turkey. And supposedly she was a barmaid
00:54:32.960
in her father's hotel when Constantine's father met her. We don't know if that's true, but that's a story
00:54:40.120
that's told. It's only a society that's very self-confident and willing to open the door to
00:54:45.500
outsiders, to newcomers that will succeed. But by the same token, a society that doesn't say,
00:54:51.660
anything goes, anything's okay. No, they have Roman values. And if you want to be a successful
00:54:57.260
newcomer, you have to adopt some of those values. You have to assimilate to certain Roman norms.
00:55:04.020
Well, Barry, this has been a great conversation. Where can people go to learn more about the book
00:55:07.800
So I have a website, barrystrauss.com. They can find out about me and my work there. You're reminding me
00:55:14.740
that I have to update it. And let me say that I have a new book coming out. It's going to be
00:55:19.400
coming out in August. It's called Jews versus Rome, two centuries of rebellion against the world's
00:55:25.660
mightiest empire. And it tells the story of these two centuries of revolt, Jewish revolt against Rome
00:55:32.280
that are tremendously exciting and bloody and awful, but also very productive because these are the
00:55:38.940
centuries in which Christianity and rabbinic Judaism are both born. So out of these revolts come
00:55:44.900
enormously consequential changes for human history, they also show a long-term role of Iran and Iranian
00:55:53.000
civilization in what we now think of as the Mediterranean world. So I'm very excited about
00:55:58.180
this book and I hope my readers will be as well. All right. Well, Barry Strauss, thanks for your time.
00:56:04.440
My guest today is Barry Strauss. He's the author of the book, 10 Caesars. It's available on amazon.com
00:56:09.680
and bookstores everywhere. You can find more information about his work at his website,
00:56:12.800
barrystrauss.com. Also check out our show notes at awim.is slash Caesars, where you find links
00:56:17.360
to resources where you delve deeper into this topic.
00:56:26.580
Well, that wraps up another edition of the AWIM podcast. Make sure to check out our website at
00:56:30.080
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00:56:33.700
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00:56:48.700
of something out of it. As always, thank you for the continued support. Until next time, it's Brett McKay.
00:56:52.980
Remind you to our list of the AWIM podcast, but put what you've heard into action.