00:00:00.780Hey everybody, how's it going? Thanks for joining me this afternoon. I am Oren McIntyre.
00:00:06.000Before we get started today, I just want to remind you that one of the ways we keep the
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00:00:23.760to get $20 off today that's blazetv.com slash orin to get $20 off today all right guys we know that
00:00:33.920america is often compared to ancient rome in fact every country loves to compare itself to ancient
00:00:38.500rome because ancient rome was awesome however our founders very specifically were very interested
00:00:43.580in ancient rome and one of the figures that they really enjoyed was cato cato played a very
00:00:48.940critical role during the transition between the republic and the empire the events with caesar
00:00:54.860and everything else that was going on and so i thought it'd be interesting to take a look at
00:00:59.500cato and ask the question did his pride did his actual love for the republican government the way
00:01:06.080he wanted to be seen as a champion of that classic republican virtue did that ultimately doom the
00:01:12.360republic did it keep him from making different changes or taking different avenues that could
00:01:16.900of Rearranged History. Join me today to discuss this as a classical scholar, the host of the
00:01:23.300Cost of Glory podcast, and our resident classical historian, Alex Petkus. Thank you so much for
00:01:29.080coming on, man. Always great to be with you, Oren. Thanks for having me. Absolutely. So I think
00:01:35.840it's fair to say that Cato is a classic figure, somebody who has been revered through the years,
00:01:42.520seen as somebody, you know, kind of a champion of this classic Roman virtue fighting for the
00:01:48.520Republic. And I think those are all admirable qualities. I think all of us can look at a man
00:01:53.500like Cato and see something to be admired, something to be emulated. At the same time,
00:01:59.640he's a tragic figure. He's somebody who in many ways couldn't get out of his own way. He couldn't
00:02:05.520allow for perhaps some flexibility, some political understanding in the moment that might have been
00:02:12.500more effective in his goals. But I want to maybe start before we get into, you know, his ups and
00:02:18.740his downs. Who was Cato and why was he so important to, say, people like the founders of the United
00:02:24.440States? Cato is the sort of Roman's Roman in the eyes of later readers of history, especially the
00:02:34.180U.S. founders. And he got that reputation by being Julius Caesar's greatest opponent, most of all.
00:02:42.500He was a Stoic, a kind of traditional Roman who modeled himself maybe less after the Stoic
00:02:51.400sages that he studied and more after people like his great grandfather, Cato the Elder,
00:02:56.860who was a famous stodgy moralist and a war hero, it should be said.
00:03:03.040But Cato was also a kind of upholder of the conservative oligarchy in Rome.
00:03:10.960And this is the main thing that brought him into conflict with Julius Caesar, as Caesar was a kind of populist outsider.
00:03:19.500And he was a very upright moral figure who kind of rose on an anti-corruption platform and then ended up arguably triggering the Civil War against the Second Roman Civil War against Julius Caesar and sort of dying famously, refusing Caesar's mercy.
00:03:36.820One of the reasons that he's very popular among the U.S. founders is because possibly the most popular play in the 18th century was a play by Joseph Addison, who wrote the tragedy, I think it's just called Cato, and it kind of catalogs his last days in Utica, North Africa, and the last days of his role in the Civil War, at least.
00:04:01.620and many famous quotes come from that play that you would recognize or at least they're modified
00:04:06.780versions of it like give me liberty or give me death um patrick henry or uh nathan hale saying
00:04:13.060i regret that i have only one life to give for my country right before he's hanged these are
00:04:18.460almost taken verbatim from from cato's addison or from addison's cato and uh and george washington
00:04:24.800famously this was his favorite play and he had it staged uh at the um at the difficult winter
00:04:31.280and Valley Forged, you know, when they didn't have any supplies, they at least put together
00:04:35.440or cobbled together a stage and he had it performed by his soldiers.
00:04:39.320And many of them, you know, knew the lines by heart.
00:04:41.580It was just that popular and that influential.
00:04:43.600So he kind of became the model of Roman virtue, resistance to tyranny, the supposed tyranny
00:04:49.660of Caesar and the tyranny of St. George, I mean, King George III, not St. George.
00:04:55.060uh so that he's had a very powerful influence over united states discourse there's of course
00:05:03.780the letters of cato which were these pseudonymous writings in from the early 18th century circulated
00:05:10.100around england kind of opposing the overreach of the monarchy so um and of course we have the
00:05:16.220cato institute today which uh perhaps we could talk yeah that's not to associate there but no
00:05:22.780it's very interesting you know a lot of people would recognize uh you know people today ripping
00:05:28.440off star wars quotes and weaving them into you know whatever they're saying the founders are
00:05:32.680doing it with something that's a far more based and cool and uh and serious so you know make our
00:05:38.660entertainment based again so we can go back to quoting you know historically uh you know semi
00:05:43.160accurate plays instead of uh you know some some kind of uh star wars slop but anyway sorry i
00:05:48.840interrupted you there yeah no it's uh he's a he's a fascinating figure for a lot of reasons and uh
00:05:55.900i'm excited to get a little deeper into his life well let's begin at the beginning then how does
00:06:02.460cato find himself in this position how did he grow up what were his political ambitions why was he so
00:06:09.760dead set in kind of cutting this classically roman stoic figure what spurred him to uh kind of this
00:06:17.040status well cato grows up in the comes of age i guess in the days of the the first great roman
00:06:24.400civil war and before that the social war in the uh 90s and 80s he's born in 95 bc caesar's born
00:06:32.240in 100 so it's a little younger than caesar and it's uh rome has just been torn apart by this
00:06:39.600factional conflict between the optimates and the populists the populares famously
00:06:47.360the optimates win sulla is their leader he orchestrates this bloody reprisal called the
00:06:55.040proscriptions a thousand or so the top romans either either dead or exiled their properties
00:07:02.560confiscated and he sola also forbids any son of a proscribed man from serving in politics
00:07:12.400so it's like a generational uh generationally solidified group ruling rome in the decades
00:07:21.360after sola of people that were kind of loyal to the regime some of them quite corrupt some of them
00:07:27.440you know fine and noble but um there there is a kind of power power elite at rome that you know
00:07:38.000before sulla and before the civil war you have the gracchi you have marius there's a kind of
00:07:43.600give and take between the populists and uh and it really just takes a decisive direction in the in
00:07:48.880favor of the the power and really the wealth elite i mean a lot of these guys are very rich rome is
00:07:53.920very wealth inequality is immense as you can imagine they have this vast empire that they've
00:08:03.520conquered um not not everything that we eventually associate with the roman roman empire you know the
00:08:10.160pompey conquers the east when cato's in his 20s and uh of course caesar conquers gaul when um in
00:08:18.000the 50s bc but but that's the kind of situation that cato grows up in there's a lot of corruption
00:08:23.840There's a lot of political intransigence, and he kind of sets himself apart.
00:08:30.840I think this is one of the attractions to Cato of Stoicism.
00:08:35.920Funny enough, his grandfather, great-grandfather, Cato the Elder,
00:08:40.700thought philosophy was weak and effeminate and foreign.
00:08:44.880And so for Cato the Younger to take up Stoicism in his day,
00:08:50.640Greek philosophy was a little bit more normalized by then, but the Stoics were really
00:08:55.520kind of marginal in Rome, at least. There was much more, you know, credibility if you were
00:09:05.400an academic like Cicero, or especially if you're an Epicurean, like Caesar kind of dallied with.
00:09:13.320And I mean, we can name a lot of people that were favorable, you know, Aristotle's philosophy,
00:09:17.700for example. Crassus was maybe not Aristotelian or just man in Rome, but he had an Aristotelian
00:09:24.780tutor for his sons. But we can't really find any Stoics of Cato's age, actually, in Republican
00:09:32.920Rome, or very few. And so I think the Stoic philosophy that he's now associated with was
00:09:39.720a kind of choice to set himself apart from the normal Romans, as well as his kind of
00:09:45.240adaption of kind of old-fashioned dress. He didn't wear the nice flowing togas like the0.97
00:09:54.120fashionable young men used to wear. He would wear this drab old toga, and he walked around
00:09:59.660barefoot. And he's trying to kind of adopt this ascetic persona that was partly associated with
00:10:08.060the Greek philosophers of the kind of cynic tradition. Diogenes, the famous cynic, had a
00:10:14.040little bit of influence on the stoic vibe you might say uh but it also kind of evoked this old
00:10:20.080roman salt of the earth virtue all this wealth and and luxury is just making us feminine we're
00:10:26.440soldiers we're like farmer soldiers at heart so cato really drew from these two uh channel
00:10:32.040but um that that's that's cato's like rise in a nutshell of how he sets himself up at least
00:10:50.400to be a contrarian in politics and uh he's he has family ties to the regime that that
00:11:00.440Sulla established. His half-sister is a Servilia, and this is a great noble family, and he eventually
00:11:09.640ends up making very advantageous marriage ties among the kind of power elite, and he's from
00:11:16.520an old noble family, distinguished by its name at least for 100 years since his great-grandfather,
00:11:22.160but um but even so he's not he takes some choices early in his career to kind of set himself apart
00:11:31.240even from the party that he was really going to operate in and eventually became firmly associated
00:11:37.300with yeah it's a very interesting time I mean obviously you know the story of Julius Caesar
00:11:43.500is famous for so many reasons and it's the period of permanent history that people know them the
00:11:48.360most but it also feels specifically applicable to many i'm sure empires in this state but very much
00:11:56.400the united states because you have that moment as you say where the rome has not officially become
00:12:02.680an empire but it you know for all intents and purposes is and that has radically changed the
00:12:08.720dynamic inside it used to be a place where the average citizen was uh you know a farmer they
00:12:14.800were paying for their own military gear you know the troops weren't paid all these things very much
00:12:19.080a citizen militia you know true republic in that way and then you see the expansion the decadence
00:12:25.080comes in they bring in slaves from all of these foreign places that are conquered it completely
00:12:29.580destabilizes the economy the slave labor is too cheap and so the average roman can't find work0.98
00:12:35.100can't farm it you know you can see the obvious parallels today when it comes to foreign labor
00:12:40.100and the the cost of the empire and the decadent elites all of these things can can easily speak
00:12:45.340to i think a cycle of history that many people can feel echoes of in their current uh day so
00:12:51.940cato becomes a very interesting figure because he represents kind of that stand against that
00:12:57.680change right like that that that understanding of we were this once we could return to this uh you
00:13:04.540know republic we could be these people we don't have to go down this track of decadence we don't
00:13:09.400going to have to go down this track of empire. You know, we can in some way reorient ourselves
00:13:14.140towards our ancestors. And so in that way, again, very respectable, but also a tragic moment that
00:13:20.800ultimately does not go his way as we know some of the history. But what was his entrance into
00:13:25.800politics itself? How did he become, you know, a notable figure in Roman politics?
00:13:31.740Well, one of his first big political pushes was he gets elected quester. So he's around sort of late 20s. And this is the first rung, one of the early rungs on the Roman cursus honorum.
00:13:45.840And he gets appointed to be in charge of, I think it's the Treasury, the House of Records.
00:13:56.760And he essentially sees this is a place where records are kept of state debts and state loans and what is owed to the FISC.
00:14:09.420And this is a huge opportunity for anti-corruption policy because there are a lot of rich Romans that will, you know, borrow money from the treasury and then somehow get it written off.
00:14:21.460They build a little patronage network among the clerks, the kind of permanent bureaucrats, you know, this sort of like mini deep state kind of non-political appointees that really run the show.0.94
00:14:33.620and then the questers are these young gentlemen and they come in there and you know most of them
00:14:40.260are kind of card punching time servers and they're they're kind of there for the for the
00:14:46.260mark on their cv and if they try to interfere with the bureaucrats they quickly discover that
00:14:52.100these people just totally run circles around them because they know the laws they know where all the
00:14:57.380records are kept and all the policies and they'll be able to kind of you know bureaucratically uh
00:15:03.220stifle any any opposition and so cato studies the office very very in-depth i mean he's a he's a you
00:15:12.180know has a lot of zitz flash as the germans say to just sit there and uh and crank through really
00:15:18.740boring documents so cato enters the office and and um he's like quoting chapter and verse from
00:15:26.100the roman law code and and kind of out bureaucrats the bureaucrats and he even gets and you know he's
00:15:32.760finding uh irregularities and he's calling in debts that people thought would be written off
00:15:38.960and he's chasing out corruption and this pisses a lot of people off understandably he even has a
00:15:44.920couple of the top bureaucrats like hauled off and fired and one of the censors who is a very
00:15:52.940distinguished room this guy catalyst comes in and says hey cato you know yeah there's a way things
00:15:58.940work in this town i know you're you're young and you're champing at the bit uh yeah but yeah let's
00:16:03.580just ease off would you you know there's there's a bigger picture here and and cato just sort of
00:16:09.020shuts him down he says well catalyst you know you're you're a censor and you should you should
00:16:13.260kind of know about uh you're supposed to be the the the moral arbiter of the roman elite you know
00:16:20.620you you kick people out of the senate if they uh they live a licentious life i mean i'm just doing
00:16:25.180my job here i mean if if you like i could have you hauled off to the to the prison myself because
00:16:30.620this is my turf and so he kind of um sticks it in the face of one of the top politicians of the day
00:16:38.060and uh catalyst eventually backs down so this was the kind of thing that cato became known for
00:16:43.900opposing men in his own party on you know corruption infractions and uh taking a stand
00:16:50.940against bureaucrats and really mastering the laws and the traditions that that allowed him to make
00:16:56.700the argument when he needed to make them i i posted about cato's work at the uh the treasury when he's
00:17:05.020when he's a quester and i suggested like you know he's he's kind of um i mean he could be a great
00:17:09.900hero for the for the doge movement yeah couldn't he and um he's kind of like a patron saint of
00:17:16.540accountants if he were catholic and and then a bunch of people you know commented back well cato
00:17:21.900was a was a cuck and you know caesar was the real man and uh blah blah blah but you know it is true
00:17:28.940that that cato had um he had a lot to offer in terms of anti-corruption at least at least in kind
00:17:36.300of persecuting infractions against the system even if he was not so open to changing the system
00:17:48.140itself that incentivized in those kind of abuses and that corruption which is a sort of running
00:17:55.740thread throughout cato's career yeah i think we can see from uh how things went with elon musk's
00:18:01.500doge that uh this is always a uh difficult enterprise and uh kind of late stage uh you know
00:18:07.600republics at this point and so even there we can kind of see that echo of you know yes you were
00:18:13.960willing to make the reforms but were you willing to change a system in a way that would shake it
00:18:18.160up would prevent this might you know ultimately prolong the life of the republic this is always
00:18:23.760the difficulty the reformers are not necessarily the restores right uh which is you know funny
00:18:29.140enough the the dichotomy between two the british breakaway right-wing parties right now right are
00:18:33.900you just trying to reform the thing or are you actually trying to take actions radical enough
00:18:38.580to preserve it even if that in some way might violate a current uh you know paradigm or a
00:18:44.260current uh you know uh procedure you know would you ultimately be willing to uh you know stub
00:18:50.280some toes and shake some things up even though it's going to in the long term actually preserve
00:18:54.800the thing that you love. And that's a tension that many, you know, constitutionally conservative
00:18:59.960people really run into. So Cato clearing up corruption, but he's also known for, you know,
00:19:08.380this conspiracy, you know, he and Cicero, you know, get involved in uncovering and addressing.
00:19:15.140So can you talk a little bit about that? Yeah. So his one of I think is his finest moments
00:19:21.560probably is in the Catalinarian conspiracy, which really comes to a head in 63 BC. Cicero is the
00:19:28.440consul. Cato has just been elected tribune. And notably, Julius Caesar has just been elected
00:19:34.420praetor. So they haven't entered office yet. Cato and Caesar haven't. But essentially,
00:19:41.300the background is Catiline. This is failed, kind of dissolute aristocrat who tried to run for
00:19:50.020consul twice and lost and he he uh he launched plan b as it were which was basically
00:19:57.300murder a bunch of senators march on rome and take over the state um and cicero and he's
00:20:05.780promising debt relief he's he's a kind of a populist um kind of class defector but but he
00:20:12.520was very sneaky and he he had a lot of allies among the the nobility who sort of didn't know
00:20:17.680any better. The catalyst that I just mentioned was one of them. But Cicero eventually finds
00:20:22.920really damning evidence and chases Catiline out of town in a famous, the first Catilinarian
00:20:29.440oration where he sort of shames Catiline in front of the Senate and present some evidence. And,
00:20:35.120you know, Catiline flees. It's a famous painting of Catiline sulking in the benches alone and all
00:20:41.920the Senate kind of staring at him and Cicero kind of railing against him. And so Catiline leaves,
00:20:47.700but some of his conspirators are still in the city. And Cicero finds evidence that they're
00:20:53.740actually still planning to carry out the bloody coup. And he arrests them, hauls them before the
00:20:59.800Senate, and he gets them to confess. He presents them with incontrovertible evidence. And they all
00:21:04.940just say, yeah, well, all right, I was trying to do the right thing. But, you know, yeah, this is
00:21:11.420is what we were planning to do they can't deny it and so the um the issue before the senate is
00:21:17.740what should we do with these conspirators who just confessed that they're intending to bring fire and
00:21:22.780murder and uh cicero kind of feels like the thing to do is to summarily execute them which is uh
00:21:31.900you know kind of against roman law but but but he can he can get authorized by the senate as the
00:21:37.260consul to do what is necessary to save the state and but he wants the senate to kind of back him
00:21:43.020up but basically he want he'd like to execute them without a trial because um they've discovered that
00:21:48.780there's an army of like 5 000 people a day or two's march from rome this is you know real tense
00:21:54.780situation sort of late um november december of 63 and um you know there's a lot of waffling and
00:24:08.300Caesar's sort of playing up the emotions of the Senate
00:24:13.740and kind of their fear that if they take too drastic action,
00:24:17.900you know the the people might rise up it's very very tense um and so cate you know cicero after
00:24:26.340caesar speaks he's like well i i guess you know there are reasonable arguments made on both sides
00:24:32.360but maybe maybe the case that caesar made is is the most reasonable we should spare so to speak
00:24:36.980these men and just give them life in prison and then cato stands up and he he says you1.00
00:24:42.340pussies, you know, you bunch of cowards, you, well, there's armies at the gates, and they were1.00
00:24:48.840threatening fire, and the dagger was at our throat, we want to spare these men, you know, take hold of1.00
00:24:54.140the reins of government, damn it, and he kind of browbeats the Romans into voting, the Senate into0.97
00:24:59.660voting that these men should be executed, and while he's doing it, you know, it's interesting, he kind0.98
00:25:05.300of this episode is narrated very well by uh sallust who who knew both men or knew all the
00:25:13.800parties involved uh whether or not he was actually there in his um war with catiline
00:25:18.680he preserves the speeches cato in you had had some like innuendo for caesar maybe well why is
00:25:27.580caesar so eager to see these men spared what what has he got up his sleeve he's kind of hinting at
00:25:32.700thing that cicero doesn't want to hint at that that caesar's behind this and whatever happened
00:25:38.220you know it was likely if catiline had actually pulled it off that caesar thought he would find
00:25:46.460a way to be on top of it all caesar's consistent policy throughout this period he's kind of up and
00:25:51.980coming politician he's not a great man of rome yet is basically any policy that sort of challenges or
00:25:58.780weakens the power of the um you know pro sola optimate oligarchy that controls the senate
00:26:05.580that's the policy he's going to support does it mean that caesar is a full-on revolutionary who
00:26:11.660wants to make himself tyrant maybe not but that's certainly what cato thought and and like from that
00:26:18.940moment thereon uh you know the men are executed um and but from that moment cato took the hardest
00:26:30.380line possible in every possible case against caesar it's like he he kind of was convinced
00:26:36.780irrevocably that caesar was a tyrant on the rise who wanted to murder them all and cancel debts and
00:26:43.180just have the rabble rule Rome and that that kind of I don't know it sort of determined his0.91
00:26:49.500political fate in a lot of ways for the rest of his life so as you say obviously he sets himself0.91
00:26:55.940against Caesar and if he's worried about this guy becoming a tyrant well you certainly don't want
00:27:00.480him stepping into the consulship so when it comes to ascending or ascending the consulship you know
00:27:07.520he uh cato that is kind of puts himself out there as an enemy of caesar he goes out of his way to
00:27:15.760try to prevent this and probably in ways that are ultimately uh unwise uh in certain areas can you
00:27:22.680describe a little bit of that conflict yeah so um a year or two later caesar he's coming back from
00:27:30.200his provincial command at uh he was in spain as a as a provincial governor after his premiership
00:27:36.520He wants to run for consul. He also wants to run for a triumph, put in his, you know, application to get a proper glorious triumphal procession because he knocked around some bandits and fought, you know, a minor war, but, you know, not nothing in Spain.
00:27:56.520and um so cato basically filibusters to prevent um you know the the roman legal technicalities
00:28:03.880are kind of interesting but maybe we can skip over them essentially cato forces caesar politically
00:28:08.520to pick one or the other you can either triumph or you can run for consul this year but if you
00:28:14.280triumph you're gonna have to wait another year for the consulship because you would have to make your
00:28:18.760candidature in person technicalities we can skip over but basically caesar he thinks caesar's going
00:28:25.880to pick the triumph probably and just delay his uh his political rise for for one more year to
00:28:32.600become consul um but he pisses caesar off to be sure and caesar just says nope i'm gonna go for
00:28:38.120the power not the glory i'm a young guy i'll get i'll get a triumph later um let's let's not put
00:28:45.800the brakes on my career now and uh and i'd like to stop just real quick and say how important that
00:28:52.760moment is like a lot of people just blow past that uh but a for people who are not understand
00:28:58.700a triumph is much rarer than a consul ship yes uh it is it is a uh a very rare honor and so
00:29:06.220passing it up you know you might say oh well you know pass up a medal to become president of course
00:29:10.940you know it's like no this is very very different there are a couple consuls every year in rome
00:29:15.480lots of people take consulship it's a big deal but it but the triumph is a huge deal and so
00:29:21.080caesar is passing on what is often like the culmination of a person's life puts them in
00:29:26.280the annals of history uh you know it showers them in glory forever he passes that up to take
00:29:32.240the office and that is a huge important moment because that is understanding that in that moment
00:29:41.220the power is more important than the glory setting himself on the track and possibly securing that
00:29:46.760power is the more important thing than securing his legacy there like Caesar has a eyes on the
00:29:53.460prize that go well beyond even a what for most people would be like the greatest honor of their
00:29:58.560lifetime he is a man of incredible vision and being in the fact that Cato misjudged him as a
00:30:05.960man who was vainglorious instead of a man who is clever and is going to play that that that is a
00:30:12.020big miscalculation by cato is assuming something about his opponent assuming he's weaker uh that
00:30:18.740he's less disciplined and he ends up paying the cost for that at the end yeah it's well put
00:30:23.920and and caesar was also a man who had an impeccable sense of timing too and and and he's i think he's
00:30:30.040probably seeing the stars aligning that this is actually a really good year for him to be console
00:30:34.680as well because of other blunders that cato has has made in in the lead up to this so cato has
00:30:43.800has pissed off the equestrians who are the kind of business classes of rome they're not politically
00:30:49.800involved directly uh but they're they're they're wealthy and they they run the tax farming and they
00:30:56.120run mining up they do a bunch of stuff that's important to the kind of functioning of the state
00:31:00.760supplying the army and things like that and uh he pissed off the equestrians in this trial by
00:31:07.160threatening to prosecute them for accepting bribes and getting off some politician and
00:31:11.240and then um he is blocking the uh these equestrian sort of lobbies who are trying to get their uh
00:31:21.400contract written down basically they were they they bid high to go farm the eastern provinces
00:31:27.800that pompey just conquered and you know they said oh we're going to bring back you know let's say
00:31:31.80010 000 talents and they go over to asia and they realize that pompey's like sort of taking all the0.77
00:31:37.240money and it's very war-torn countries we can't we're going to go bankrupt if we have to bring
00:31:42.600back 10 000 talents can we just bring back i don't know 5 000 or 3 000 or whatever it is
00:31:47.880and uh cato says nope deal's a deal and crassus is really the champion of the equestrians crassus is
00:31:55.160probably got a lot of money at stake and he's really lobbying to try to get the equestrians
00:32:00.360bill written down and cato's shuts him down and and see cicero around this time says you know
00:32:07.400cato doesn't understand the big political game the senate always wants to get the equestrians
00:32:12.200on the side of the establishment and the nobility and to keep them out of the the claws of the
00:32:17.240populists because they're kind of the swing party potentially and uh so cicero's like cato just
00:32:24.040chill like let crassus pass his bill and uh you know the equestrians will will love us all and
00:32:30.560and cato says nope it's a matter of principle cato really doesn't like the businessmen it should be
00:32:35.360said uh and maybe that's that's a vote in his in his favor um but uh this what this does is it
00:32:42.000basically makes cato crassus's biggest problem and then at the same time you got pompey coming
00:32:49.180back from the east after his glorious eastern campaign and and uh pompey's trying to get land
00:32:55.020distributed to his veterans uh which is sort of the the understanding now if you have a long
00:33:01.980overseas campaign you know you need to reward your soldiers and pompey's trying to make them
00:33:05.920respectable gentlemen get them little plots of land to farm and he's also trying to get all of
00:33:11.380his um the arrangements that he made with various cities and kings and you know um he's like
00:33:18.980drawn up all these arrangements taxes and you know tax breaks and all this stuff in the east
00:33:25.260he wants to get it all ratified by the senate in this one kind of omnibus bill and cato's blocking
00:33:31.160him there because he's saying basically if pompey gets all these measures passed then he'll be too
00:33:38.900powerful it'll kind of set him up as a as a potential tyrant cato's always trying to make
00:33:43.740sure that nobody sort of rises too, too high. And now a cynical person might say that this is just
00:33:49.640like the forces of envy. It's like the tall poppy syndrome. Cato is always sort of looking out for
00:33:55.060tall poppies and trying to try to beat them down, which is sort of how the Republic is designed to
00:33:59.880function, it should be said. But this also makes Cato Pompey's biggest problem. And sort of
00:34:08.040intransigence that he's able to affect the kind of um procedural obstructionism that cato has in
00:34:17.000the senate he's you know filibustering or you know getting things voted down or putting off debate
00:34:22.840for the next day it's just you know making crassus and pompey want to pull their hair out and so
00:34:28.680caesar sees this is the moment right comes in he says pompey crassus this is in a dark you know
00:34:35.240smoke-filled room um and hey support my bid for the consulship this year we'll get all your
00:34:41.480measures passed i know how to beat cato hey you know caesar caesar has shown he's a he's a very
00:34:46.760clever clever man and he's very popular too he's a flashy popular guy and so this is the forging
00:34:54.000of the triumvirate so essentially cato by by kind of putting up uh intransigence and and blockading
00:35:02.580and sort of insisting on the letter of the law
00:35:04.820sets up a very strong opposition to himself.
00:35:30.220you know like wire walking between them and um but but that's that's kind of a problem that
00:35:36.660nobody more than cato created like this this sort of caesar triumvirate juggernaut
00:35:42.200and this is why i thought this story was so important for a moment like ours because there
00:35:47.980are so many conservatives who feel like cato you know they want to protect the republic they want
00:35:53.960to return is to virtue. They want to hold on to the system as it is. They want to use the procedures
00:36:00.580of the system to arrest what is happening, thinking that ultimately, like the Constitution,
00:36:06.920you know, all of the checks and balances, democracy, all of these things can be used to
00:36:12.140ultimately slow the corruption of the society, turn the ship around to prevent what's happening.
00:36:17.920And while I think a lot of them would look fondly on Cato and his actions, we have to look at the
00:36:22.740results and the results as you say as noble as we might find cato's you know resolution in these
00:36:28.920moments his willingness to to push back against corruption to push back against you know the
00:36:33.880forces that are arrayed against his beloved republic he ends up forging the very alliance
00:36:39.160that will bring about the tyranny that he fears the most right this is his worst nightmare and he
00:36:45.240is more or less manufacturing the very uh you know kind of political alliance the power block
00:36:51.760that will make this happen and so it's a important lesson i've talked to a lot of libertarians
00:36:58.940and uh they're currently you know big champions of thomas massey they see thomas massey as this
00:37:04.500man who stood against corruption you know in the face of foreign influence in the face of you know
00:37:09.260the epstein files everything else you know thomas massey gets on there and he uses the procedure of
00:37:14.080uh you know congress to wrestle the trump administration to the ground and force them
00:37:17.680to keep their promises and these things and i'm not calling thomas massey cato to be clear uh but
00:37:22.800uh you can see the shadow of this and now the libertarians are very excited because even though
00:37:27.740thomas massey has been defeated he is the symbol of you know the the victory of the the truth of
00:37:33.940the republic and you know they all want him to be present they all want him to rush and then i'm
00:37:39.060trying to explain to them guys you don't understand like thomas massey standing athwart history and
00:37:45.060saying stop will not actually stop it any more than it did for cato and i just think again that
00:37:50.920doesn't mean we can't admire you know some of the courage of massey or the courage of cato the the
00:37:56.700willingness to push back against the the popular will and what was politically expedient
00:38:02.280sometimes it's annoying sometimes it's frustrating you can see again the way people you know respond
00:38:08.220to tonis massey sometimes it's not always uh you know gonna win over the large crowd but it it is
00:38:14.380something that we admire on some level for just having that stalwart nature and the ability to
00:38:18.980resist temptation but as we consider this history i just want us to remember you know these things
00:38:24.760are all applicable to the common day we can it it doesn't necessarily you know repeat but it
00:38:29.660certainly rhymes and so this dynamic as we remember cato you know pushing very hard against this force
00:38:36.020nobly uh you know opposing a tyrannical state that he fears he is in a way kind of creating the
00:38:43.720Voltron you know he's bringing the powers together that will ultimately uh bring about the thing that
00:38:48.400he he fears the most so if if you're familiar with Roman history at all you know where this is going
00:38:53.920we have the first triumvirate forming what do they do to try to go through Cato how do they
00:39:01.040try to clear his obstruction well there's there's a whole lot of uh um kind of forcing through of
00:39:07.460measures cato manages funny enough so cato for all his career he's an anti-bribery politician and um
00:39:17.060but he sort of concedes that in certain extreme cases bribery might be necessary and he allows
00:39:24.580his uh his buddy a marriage connection bibulus to run for consul riding on on a wave of massive
00:39:32.420bribes from the Optimates. And Cato sort of gives his blessing to it. So Caesar does have an opponent
00:39:38.740in the consular office with his colleague. And there's some very, very funny and kind of sad,
00:39:47.960depending on your perspective, sad or funny moments where Bibulus sort of stands up in
00:39:53.640assemblies and tries to stop Caesar. And I've seen lightning. I've seen thunder. There was a bad
00:40:01.320omen because consuls can do this at Rome. And then Caesar just kind of ignores it and continues on
00:40:05.980with business. And at one point Bibulus is standing up and railing against the tyranny of Caesar and
00:40:13.320the dark forces behind him. And, you know, mid kind of tirade, a bucket of excrement is dumped0.98
00:40:21.440upon his head and he's sort of laughed out of the forum. But, you know, it's worth pointing out that0.92
00:40:27.280But Caesar, his legislative campaign, for the most part, was actually brilliant.
00:40:33.280I mean, he was a really good solver of problems.
00:40:36.500And it's worth mentioning just for a moment here, and some of these might resonate, the problems that Rome was dealing with.
00:40:43.220You mentioned this vast empire that they haven't really acknowledged as an empire.
00:40:47.700Where Rome has this problem of provincial corruption, that is to say governors going out and extorting the provincials and the provincials having very little recourse because the governors can always, you know, get their buddies put on the jury and things like this.
00:41:03.180And, you know, you've got this intransigent oligarchy with its proceduralism that that won't solve real problems.
00:41:11.620You've got massive wealth inequality that's exacerbated by the electoral system because, you know, to get elected to office really requires you to have a ton of money.
00:41:24.340then as now, especially the more important the office. And often they're taking out loans to
00:41:31.100even the rich guys are taking out loans because they're not all that liquid to pay for their
00:41:35.660campaigns. And then they're expecting to go to the province and extort all the provincials and
00:41:40.420make their money back. And, you know, as as things progress, you get domestic lawlessness.
00:41:47.160There's factionalism kind of on the rise. There's all these problems at Rome and Caesar
00:41:52.540makes some really credible dents in that so he has he lost for example a provincial corruption
00:41:58.820law that really raises the bar or like lowers the bar for prosecution it makes makes it so that you
00:42:05.400can get not just uh if your hands are dirty but if any of your subordinates hands are dirty
00:42:10.800uh and the provinces like they can they can call you to account and he he makes a law whereby
00:42:17.660provincial governors have to submit not just their records to Rome, but submit their accounts
00:42:24.860to and put them in cities, two cities in each province. So he's really trying to increase
00:42:31.980the accountability. He passes Pompey's land redistribution policy for the soldiers, support
00:42:43.520our troops so there's a lot of things that caesar does that just show he's he's a really talented
00:42:48.720and creative legislator and he gets it done if if the senate opposes him and obstructs him because
00:42:54.880cato's filibustering he'll just go to the popular assembly there's a way to work around it expends
00:42:59.600a lot of political capital and requires a lot of popular support but caesar is willing to spend
00:43:04.320that capital and he has the popular support so um there there's a lot to be said for the fact that
00:43:11.120Caesar really was a more creative statesman than Cato, and that he actually had an eye to solving
00:43:20.160those problems. I think you can really make that case. I tried to make it in the biography that I
00:43:24.560did of Caesar. And of course, I also did a biography of Cato. But Cato basically takes the line
00:55:39.200It's a really fascinating story. And of course, you can see why Cato is revered in many ways.
00:55:45.380I mean, that's hardcore, you know, ripping your own bowels back open rather than taking the mercy
00:55:50.260of a guy. Gotta say, I mean, hardcore, you know, you gotta give the man credit where it's due here.
00:55:55.920But it is interesting that throughout there just seems to be this threat. Again,
00:56:00.240And as admirable as Cato is, in many ways, he could not see that his insistence on procedure and morals did not ultimately yield the outcome he was looking for.
00:56:16.880In many ways, as you say, it built the very tyrant he was worried about.
00:56:22.880It pushed Caesar into different avenues.
00:56:25.560Maybe he would have chosen a different way.
00:56:27.120Maybe if Caesar didn't have to become Caesar, he would have been something else.
00:56:31.320And this is always the interesting moment.
00:56:33.380You know, there's so much of the history is characterized as either kind of trends and forces or great men.
00:56:39.800Right. Like either they have that Carlisle and great man or you have to have kind of this more modern understanding that everyone is a product of the time and the space.
00:56:47.700And I think the answer is obviously both.
00:56:49.900You know, you have to have the trends, the forces.
00:56:52.280You have to have kind of the substrate from which great men can arise.
00:56:56.480They have to have that moment that they can meet.
00:57:00.760But without the man, you don't get it either.
00:57:02.700And in a way, Caesar is forged in part because of Cato's kind of belief in trying to hold on to the letter of the law of the republic, even if he's losing it in spirit day by day.
00:57:16.240And so I think that's a fascinating corollary to many of the approaches that are now being levied at the American Republic.
00:57:22.740Yeah. And Cato, I think he's a good example of how insisting on the letter and kind of mobilizing all the forces of legal obstructionism against your opponent kind of undermines arguably the rule of law because people think, well, the law is the thing that is stopping good things from happening.
00:57:42.720And if you keep towing that line, then people start to think the Senate is a corrupt den of fat vipers that is good for nothing.
00:57:52.420And, you know, like they start to yearn for somebody who can just wipe it all away.
00:57:58.560And so, you know, and one more thing that's worth mentioning that I think kind of reflects this difference in mentality between Cato and Caesar is Caesar really,
00:58:11.240I think, sees the Roman polity as the whole empire. Like, okay, Rome is a city, but it also
00:58:20.780rules over all these peoples and they need to be governed justly. Caesar, okay, this is debatable
00:58:26.340now, but Caesar was kind of pro-granting citizenship to people who had fought loyally for
00:58:32.320Rome and were Romanizing, sort of stretching the bounds of citizenship. And he's all about0.59
00:58:39.920provincial reform but but cato is sort of seeing rome as a city as as a city of traditions and
00:58:46.420anything that that kind of disrupts the inner constitution the way that things have always been
00:58:53.340this is sort of like tantamount to destroying rome itself um and caesar they they have just
00:59:00.480very different versions of roman greatness and i think that caesar's was probably more plausible
00:59:05.700to a wider group of people, even if they were not the most powerful people until he won, at least.
00:59:13.940Well, and all I can think of now is the court's obstruction of the Trump administration and how
00:59:21.040many people are so fond of quoting Andrew Jackson now. Let the chief justice enforce it. Because as
00:59:27.440you say, when people see that Trump is trying to do something to make their lives better, hey,0.98
00:59:32.160deport this illegal who is you know taking jobs or you know maybe even threatening to kill you
00:59:37.160know someone in my neighborhood oh no a judge says you can't so now i say well i care more about my
00:59:43.700neighborhood than i do about the judge so just ignore him and fix the problem right and this is
00:59:49.180this is always the moment right this is always the moment as you say where at some level uh using the
00:59:54.940power of the obstruction of the rule of law destroys it and and ask people to yearn for more
00:59:59.660So, yeah, like I said, I just think it's a fascinating comparison, very timely, very useful, and something to consider for kind of the right in America, conservatives in America, as they try to better understand the historical moment that they themselves are experiencing.
01:00:14.240That said, Alex, where can people find your great work?
01:00:17.000Yeah, on X at cost of glory is my handle there. And if you want to listen to the Cato series on the cost of glory podcast or watch it, we've got some documentary style videos made of it on YouTube, with some maps and images and really cool images, I think and or on any of your podcast players, Spotify, Apple, and so on.
01:00:41.020it's a three-part series most of my i mean all my biographies are three-part series and uh
01:00:45.980you know i think i think cato deserves a lot of attention today he's i try to let people admire
01:00:51.260him for his for his virtues but you know i think you kind of can gather my my own opinions on
01:00:57.420whether or not he was ultimately good for rome and that to me that is the tragedy that that is
01:01:02.220most instructive for us that we can admire him while at the same time acknowledging that he
01:01:06.940probably had some blind spots that prevented that that prevented better things from happening and
01:01:12.360ended up creating the the very worst thing that he had imagined uh the roman empire you know
01:01:18.580a whole other well that's whether that was good or bad well that's what makes it a tragedy because
01:01:23.320the the failure was inherent in the flaw in the man in the beginning even though he in many ways
01:01:28.540you know embodies many great virtues and that that's always where great tragedy is born uh guys
01:01:34.320we were pre-recorded today so we cannot answer questions sorry about that but if it is your
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