The Auron MacIntyre Show - Trajan VS Hadrian： Fate of an Empire ｜ Guest： Alex Petkas ｜ 2⧸19⧸25

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00:01:30.000 Hey everybody, how's it going?

00:01:38.140 Thanks for joining me this afternoon.

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00:03:14.880 All right, guys.

00:03:16.440 So America is an empire.

00:03:19.300 A lot of people don't necessarily like that title, but it is the truth. 0.51

00:03:23.620 And all empires go through certain phases of expansion and contraction that can decide whether or not they continue on being a strong player on the world stage or someone that overextends and weakens itself.

00:03:39.740 Where are we as the United States?

00:03:42.340 We have Donald Trump talking about perhaps acquiring Greenland.

00:03:46.880 Should we be overseeing Palestine? 1.00

00:03:49.720 All of these different foreign policy ventures.

00:03:52.640 But at the same time, he's also trying to pull us out of the war in Ukraine, talking about starting fewer wars overseas.

00:03:59.900 So which is it?

00:04:00.840 Are we expanding?

00:04:01.860 Are we contracting?

00:04:03.560 Which one is good?

00:04:04.680 Is that good for the empire, for the people of the United States?

00:04:08.900 One thing that we like to do is, of course, look to the past for these answers.

00:04:13.020 And there's nothing more American than LARPing as Romans. 1.00

00:04:16.320 So we're going to be looking at two distinct emperors in the Roman pantheon.

00:04:21.880 We're going to be looking at Trajan and Hadrian.

00:04:24.500 What were their backgrounds like?

00:04:26.080 What role did they play in their imperial history?

00:04:28.340 And can we take any of those lessons forward into America today?

00:04:32.980 Here discussing that with me today is a history professor, someone who is well-versed in ancient history, Alex Petkus.

00:04:40.460 Thanks for joining me, man.

00:04:42.100 Great to be back, Aaron.

00:04:43.760 Absolutely.

00:04:44.260 So let's just dive right into it.

00:04:46.700 You are our subject matter expert.

00:04:48.440 We'll start with our first chronological emperor here, Trajan.

00:04:52.940 What is Trajan known for in general?

00:04:55.140 What is his general reputation?

00:04:57.120 And then set a stage.

00:04:58.480 What is the context of the Roman Empire where he is stepping into power?

00:05:03.040 So these are two great emperors to contrast, Trajan and Hadrian.

00:05:10.760 Trajan is known as the optimist princeps.

00:05:15.020 That was a title given to him by his contemporaries.

00:05:17.500 It means the best princeps.

00:05:19.380 Princeps means first citizen.

00:05:21.980 You know, the best emperor is basically what it means.

00:05:24.400 And he had quite a legacy in the medieval period and in modernity.

00:05:30.200 But he was born sometime in the, I think, in the 60s.

00:05:35.900 But he comes in the 50s.

00:05:37.400 He comes to power in 98 AD.

00:05:41.280 And he is working in a world where Rome has really achieved a height of power.

00:05:48.340 So Rome has been functioning since, as a republic, for the first 450 years or so, from around 500 BC down to 31 BC.

00:06:04.140 But even as it was a republican government, you know, with the senate and consuls and, you know, elected officials and, you know, rule by some kind of an oligarchy with the participation of the people, it had an empire as early as the 4th or 3rd century BC.

00:06:26.360 So they, you know, they win a war with Carthage and they get their first overseas territory in Sicily in the early 3rd century BC and then on and on.

00:06:36.200 And by the time of Augustus, even before this transition from republic to what we call the Roman Empire, the monarchy in 31 BC, they already have this overseas expansion.

00:06:46.700 They controlled most of the Mediterranean by that time.

00:06:49.460 And so this transition from republic to empire that Trajan is inheriting is, has been stable since 31 BC.

00:07:01.920 He's, so it's more than 100 years old.

00:07:04.940 And some things that, that changed that are interesting about the Roman Empire, as opposed to the Roman Republic.

00:07:11.820 Like Augustus, the first emperor decided to keep around a lot of the old institutions of the republic, at least it's kind of vestigial organs.

00:07:20.640 So you have like the consuls still, a senate still, it doesn't wipe all that away immediately.

00:07:29.220 There's still notionally elected offices of the emperor really gets to pick who gets elected, as it were.

00:07:36.220 Um, and, and that was how Augustus wanted it to be, uh, because you still need to rule with the consent and help of, of the, the nobility, the most wealthy, talented men in the empire.

00:07:48.820 And so, uh, that's the kind of structural status of the empire.

00:07:54.760 You've got an emperor sitting at the top of what was once a Republican constitution.

00:07:58.720 Um, one of the things that Augustus did was, um, to set borders firmly on Roman imperial expansion.

00:08:10.460 So he conquers Spain and he knocks around and firms up the, the, the Germans, uh, and the, the border on, on the, the Rhine with the Germans. 0.78

00:08:21.700 And goes on a few campaigns, but, but says towards the end of his reign, my advice citizens is that we keep the borders the way they are right now.

00:08:33.380 We can't afford further expansion.

00:08:35.260 It just, it's just not within our, uh, power as, as a, as a, uh, an empire to, to go beyond the Rhine border and the Danube and further push further into the East.

00:08:46.180 You know, they already control the Levant, Syria, Palestine, but he says, don't, you know, don't try to go conquer Parthia or don't try to colonize all of Germany and Northern Europe.

00:08:55.900 It's not worth the effort.

00:08:56.920 And, um, and we, we couldn't sustain it.

00:08:59.360 And that was the inherent, the, the situation that most of the emperors up through, uh, Trajan had adhered to with the notable exception that under Claudius in the forties, the Romans conquered Britain.

00:09:10.760 Um, Julius Caesar had, had made an expedition there, but had never set up an official Roman presence.

00:09:16.760 So that's, that's kind of the, the, the status quo of the empire when, when Trajan inherits it roughly.

00:09:23.680 Yeah.

00:09:24.320 And I think that's a really important thing to note because this again mirrors so much of the confusion that I think occurs in the American instance.

00:09:33.060 It's, as you point out, Rome was a Republic while it was still operating as an empire.

00:09:39.300 And so this artificial binary of, you know, we have a Republic and then we flick a switch with Julius Caesar.

00:09:47.000 And all of a sudden we have an empire just, just isn't correct.

00:09:51.460 Rome starts as a monarchy.

00:09:53.440 It drives out the Kings.

00:09:55.140 It, it becomes the Republic, but as it's a Republic, it's still expands.

00:10:00.140 It still takes on an Imperial aspect.

00:10:02.240 It doesn't have to have an emperor to be an empire.

00:10:06.440 And then when it changes from what we would recognize as far more, uh, Republican rule to a return to the monarchical structure, they still keep many of the aspects.

00:10:19.700 The forms of the government tradition are still observed.

00:10:23.040 The Senate's still there.

00:10:24.480 A lot of this stuff, the consuls are still there.

00:10:27.160 And so for the average person, they would know something had changed, but a lot of what they recognized as central to Roman identity as a Republic still remained after they crossed into the period that we recognize as Imperial.

00:10:44.520 And all of the people leading up like Marius and Sulla to Julius Caesar.

00:10:49.600 And then Augustus, obviously they cut a figure that is as close to a dictatorship in many ways as Caesar did.

00:10:59.380 So the idea that that was just the, the, the crux, it is a little bit of a narrative shift for us.

00:11:05.600 And so as we look as Americans at our own situation, it's important to remember that we're not the first country to go through significant changes in the way that we are governed while still considering ourselves to have a continuity inside the original form of governance.

00:11:23.960 You know, I don't think Octavian really went out and said, the, the Republic is dead and now I am the emperor, right?

00:11:30.800 He was very careful not to do that for good reason.

00:11:34.160 And, and any American president, be it Lincoln or FDR or others that fundamentally shifted the way that America operates were also relatively careful to maintain many of the aspects of American tradition while changing significantly the way that it operates.

00:11:53.160 And so I think it's a good thing to understand that Trajan is entering into a system that has undergone significant shifts, but not quite the binary switch that we're thinking of.

00:12:04.140 It's been a slow shift over time into this imperial identity that we look back and kind of impose on today, but he, he is entering into a situation that has been evolving towards kind of his current rule.

00:12:18.940 And, and, and, and continuity was so important to keep the peace for, for Augustus.

00:12:26.160 And, you know, another thing that is an important continuity with the Republic is that, you know, you might think that in the Roman Empire, all of the free people are Roman citizens, but that's very much not the case.

00:12:40.420 You know, Paul has, you know, Paul has, in the book of Acts has this special status as a Roman citizen.

00:12:45.740 It's quite exceptional for a provincial to, to have Roman citizen status.

00:12:51.100 And in the Republic, the Rome, the Romans were very jealous with citizenship grants because, you know, kivitas comes from the word for city.

00:13:00.020 And the idea of having a citizen of, you know, a grand kingdom was, was kind of a category mistake for the early Romans.

00:13:07.040 And so they, they slowly expanded citizenship and, you know, it was by the time of Augustus, it's, you know, mostly restricted to cities and nobilities in Italy with the occasional, you know, very honored provincial getting citizenship status.

00:13:24.800 You know, citizenship gives you legal privileges and citizenship gives you the, theoretically, the ability to run for office.

00:13:32.180 But you can be a subject of the emperor and a free person without being a citizen.

00:13:36.820 And, and, and this ends up being, you know, one of the, one of the issues that kind of ties into the challenges that Trajan and his successor Hadrian are dealing with is, you know, how do you maintain happy provincials who are willing to help you out with the business of, say, tax collecting, keeping the peace, just doing a lot of the grunt work of the administration without them necessarily being citizens.

00:14:03.220 What is the basis of fostering, what is the basis of fostering, what is the basis of fostering a willing sense of unity in these people?

00:14:09.080 Because the way that the Romans rule and want to rule is with willing subjects and with, with justice.

00:14:15.620 This is very much a part of the Roman self-image that they are, they are the justice of peoples and, and they are the, you know, the, the, the people protected by Jupiter Optimus Maximus, the king of the universe, who is the king, you know, the, the, the God of justice, right?

00:14:31.240 So, so that's, that's something that we'll see playing out in, in the reign of both Trajan and Hadrian is like, how do you keep these people united and, and what does it mean to be a citizen?

00:14:42.340 Yeah, it was very funny.

00:14:43.380 At one point I was in exchange with someone on Twitter and they're like, well, the Romans would just let anybody be a citizen.

00:14:47.920 That's what bound them together.

00:14:48.880 I'm like, oh no, buddy, like that's like the, the, the Italians had to go to war to get citizenship from the Romans.

00:14:56.060 They literally had to start multiple wars in order to finally win the right of citizenship.

00:15:02.660 So that your concept, your modern concept of kind of the mass franchise just did not exist even to the people who you are trying to scribe that to, you know, the, we always get this with, you know, the, the Greeks and then the Romans like, oh, well they, they had democracy.

00:15:20.920 They had, it's like, no, it's, it's not even close to what you were thinking.

00:15:23.880 Like, yes, they called certain aspects of this democratic, but it is wildly different than anything.

00:15:29.660 The Athenians would have laughed at your understanding of democracy.

00:15:32.680 And so, so with the Romans, the, the idea that an immigrant could walk in and two or three years later raise their hand and suddenly, you know, have the full rights of a, of a Roman born citizen or an Athenian born citizen just did not exist for these people.

00:15:47.160 These are not the same things.

00:15:48.520 Their understanding of community and governments were just, were just totally alien to you at this point.

00:15:53.880 But, uh, let, let's get into, uh, Trajan's reign himself.

00:15:58.240 So how does he come to power?

00:16:00.580 And as you said, the, the, uh, the, uh, the, uh, the empire had been kind of given these boundaries, uh, previously, why does he end up in a situation where he's rethinking those and considering conquest?

00:16:13.740 So Trajan comes to power, uh, he, he builds his career as a soldier mainly under Domitian, especially Domitian was, um,

00:16:23.880 reigning for about 15 years.

00:16:25.640 Domitian is a man that Trajan wants to contrast himself with.

00:16:28.720 So Domitian was, um, you know, hated by the Senate for being authoritarian and kind of priggish and sort of weird.

00:16:37.080 Um, but, but also a micromanager and, you know, for all that the Senate hated him, he was quite a capable administrator.

00:16:42.240 And, um, he, um, he had firmed up the boundaries of the Roman, uh, you know, Lee mace and, um, been a very jealous garter of the, the solidity of the currency.

00:16:54.940 But, uh, he gets murdered by some, uh, slaves within his court, I think that, that just came to detest him.

00:17:04.780 Uh, and, and so the Romans pick this guy, Nerva as, as his successor, who's a sort of a safe, very safe candidate, very old candidate.

00:17:17.140 So it's not much risk if the guy is, you know, pushing his mid seventies, right.

00:17:22.160 Uh, to, to pick that guy's emperor, he's a political survivor.

00:17:25.360 Nerva is, he's a Senator from a good family.

00:17:28.960 Nerva picks very quickly Trajan as his adoptive son and successor.

00:17:34.060 And that's, you know, a lot of people joke that this is the greatest act of Nerva's reign, which was very short.

00:17:41.220 And he picks Trajan as his successor and essentially dies within 18 months of, of becoming emperor.

00:17:49.560 And so Trajan is left, uh, around 40 years old as, as the sole ruler of the greatest empire history had ever seen.

00:17:57.080 And, um, and one of the, the first things he does is he comes to Rome after really, it really takes his time to come back to Rome.

00:18:05.400 Cause he's off, uh, firming up the defenses on the Rhine boundary.

00:18:09.560 Good, good Roman soldier.

00:18:10.880 He comes to Rome and he says, it's a new era.

00:18:13.260 No more secret police like you had under Domitian.

00:18:16.840 He frees a bunch of political prisoners.

00:18:19.860 He, uh, he returns a lot of property that the Imperial Fisk had confiscated from, uh, Domitian's enemies.

00:18:27.080 And, you know, he quickly establishes himself as, uh, a favorite of the Senate.

00:18:32.840 He cuts back the bureaucracy that just had as a tendency to increase his kind of alternate power structure under the emperors.

00:18:40.320 The emperors want to have direct control and, you know, they, they, they often recruit people from outside the senatorial ranks, freedmen, you know, there's eunuchs running around.

00:18:50.480 So, so Trajan tries to kind of, kind of dry that out a little bit.

00:18:55.280 And, um, he, he quickly, uh, before he gets to Rome, he makes a tour of the borders of, of the Roman empire, which as we said, are, you know, basically the Rhine and the Danube, you know, running through Germany, Switzerland, Austria, uh, down through, uh, Bulgaria is where the Danube empties into the Black Sea.

00:19:16.760 And while he's in the Balkans, he notices something fishy is going on.

00:19:23.140 So there's this area of, uh, in the, in the central Balkans, now modern Romania called Dacia.

00:19:32.020 And one Greek commentator from earlier in the, in history had, had observed that if anybody were to unite these incredibly warlike tribes of this area of the Balkans, that man could, could be a challenger to, to any earthly power.

00:19:50.960 I mean, these people are incredibly warlike and somebody has risen to power that has done just that, united all these Dacians under, under one throne. 0.82

00:19:58.800 And his name is Decebalus or Decebalus.

00:20:01.980 And, uh, he actually was, um, he was, you know, engaging in raids across the Roman border.

00:20:08.520 These are lands that are not controlled directly by Rome, north of the Danube.

00:20:11.720 He sees raiding and Domitian kind of buys him off, basically.

00:20:15.960 He says it's not worth it to try to go to war with these people.

00:20:18.480 And so essentially to the, to the shame of, of, uh, of Rome, Domitian starts sending payments to, to Decebalus on the condition or with the promise from Decebalus that, oh, you know, Decebalus has all these even more warlike barbarian tribes north of him.

00:20:38.760 The Sarmatians and the Marcomani and the Getai, and he's going to build a bunch of forts to, to serve his dutiful role as a buffer state for the Romans. 0.94

00:20:49.140 But when Trajan gets there, he's in Moisia, the nearby province, he, he, he gathers information.

00:20:56.880 He realizes Decebalus is not fortifying forts against his northern enemies.

00:21:03.020 He's fortifying a bunch of forts with, uh, as it were, the guns pointed towards Rome.

00:21:08.020 He's actually fortifying himself to become an independent King.

00:21:11.620 And, you know, if this guy can rally other tribes like the Marcomani and the Sarmatians, I mean, they could, they could lop off a huge chunk of the Roman empire. 0.98

00:21:20.560 So, so Trajan decides something's got to be done.

00:21:23.840 And, uh, these, these Dacians kind of remind me of the Mexican cartels in a way there, there are these half civilized, but very, very warlike, very kind of militarily sophisticated people.

00:21:35.240 They have great, um, siege proof forts.

00:21:40.300 They have engines of war and they have a strange religion that, that, um, teaches that, uh, you know, if you, if you die in battle, you can, you can live forever.

00:21:51.700 It's like a gateway to immortality, you know?

00:21:53.560 So like if the, if a Dacian charges into a Roman line and, and, and gets run through with a spear, you know, he goes straight to Valhalla as it were. 0.79

00:22:02.160 And he makes these people incredibly brave, uh, in, in battle.

00:22:05.840 And so, um, so they're, they're very fearsome people and a very worthy rival for the Romans. 1.00

00:22:12.520 And, uh, so Trajan starts circulating the propaganda and he, and he quickly makes his way to Dacia and, and the Senate loves it.

00:22:20.200 You know, this is, this is a hark back to the old times.

00:22:22.960 We got a soldier emperor on the throne, a guy like Cincinnatus or a Cato, the elder.

00:22:29.560 Um, and, and, and it has this kind of good old days energy.

00:22:32.680 Like finally another manly conquest of these tribes that have never been under Roman sway.

00:22:37.420 So that's, that's his first mission.

00:22:39.380 So he fights a war in Dacia.

00:22:41.540 And so we have, oh, sorry, go ahead.

00:22:43.980 I was just gonna say we, so we have an interesting reversal for what a lot of people would see as the high and low versus middle dynamic of power.

00:22:52.000 As you point out, most emperors recognize that the Senate, the aristocracy is a limit on their own power.

00:22:59.400 And so they try to elevate people from outside.

00:23:02.660 We see this over and over again, upstart emperors or people that want to, uh, change the kind of entrenched social status inside the power structures inside Rome.

00:23:12.640 They go out, they get freedmen or they get barbarians or they, they elevate a lot of people to the senatorial rank that otherwise wouldn't have this.

00:23:20.060 Or yeah, they put them in charge, uh, in a little way we can see this with Trump now, right?

00:23:24.540 He's pulling guys like RFK Jr., Tulsi Gabbard, Kash Patel, people who specifically have been treated as, uh, basically enemies of kind of the entrenched interest currently.

00:23:36.320 And he recognizes that elevating them, people who are going to be loyal to him for their elevation rather than to the system that the, the current, uh, ruling oligarchy gives him an advantage, right?

00:23:47.300 And, and this is what a lot of emperors did, but Trajan goes the other direction.

00:23:51.040 And he decides that he is going to ingratiate himself with the senatorial class, with the established, uh, kind of oligarchic understanding the aristocracy, because he is going to hearken back to these glory days, right?

00:24:05.400 As you're saying, uh, he's going to create a form that is going to encourage, uh, what, what, what is kind of the legacy of Rome at that time?

00:24:13.520 What many in the aristocratic class would have recognized as the height of Rome.

00:24:17.320 We're going to go out, we've got a soldier in charge again, we're going to, you know, conquer territory again, this is going to bring us back to greatness.

00:24:24.920 And this, this is the kind of thing that the good old boys like to see, right?

00:24:28.960 And so, uh, that, that's, uh, one of the things that is, it's a different way to derive power, but it is an avenue to power to kind of, uh, almost a revanchist strain, right?

00:24:38.900 We're, we're going to return the Senate to some level of power.

00:24:42.440 We're going to ingratiate ourselves with it.

00:24:44.240 Uh, you know, we're, we're going to do some important works and we're going to put a soldier who's going to go out and capture, uh, territory back at the head of the empire.

00:24:51.960 This is something that's going to excite the, the classic aristocratic, uh, sense inside the Senate.

00:24:57.280 Exactly. And I think Trajan felt when he, when he came to power that, you know, he had, um, the, the emperor is in a really strong position compared to where, where he was with Augustus.

00:25:08.140 You know, there's, there's talk, uh, in the days of Caligula and, uh, maybe even Nero of like bringing the Republic back.

00:25:15.700 That's all totally gone at this point.

00:25:18.040 And so now, you know, he, he can afford to, to ingratiate himself with these, um, with these old families and, and indeed he does.

00:25:26.760 And, and so they, they, they, they marched this, uh, army out to Daisha and, um, the first try at it doesn't go all that well.

00:25:36.340 I mean, he, they win, you know, some very costly bloody victories and they, they get a sense of how difficult these people are going to be to defeat.

00:25:44.360 And before Trajan can really get on a roll and steamroll them, Decebalus, the king, surrenders.

00:25:51.260 And he says, I'll be your, your client and, you know, let's, let's make a treaty.

00:25:55.900 And, uh, Trajan says, you know, he's, he's taken a few punches at this point.

00:25:59.100 They've won some victories, but they've been very costly.

00:26:01.100 He says, fine.

00:26:01.940 And they, they, they, uh, annex a little bit of Dacian territory and they make him destroy a bunch of his forts.

00:26:08.660 And, uh, he promises again to fortify the Northern border and, uh, but Trajan and on leaving, just to be sure, he builds this massive, famous bridge across the Danube and which was the greatest bridge ever built at that point.

00:26:24.200 And, um, piles of it still stand today.

00:26:27.500 And, uh, I believe it's in Serbia.

00:26:29.700 So, uh, you know, kind of as a warning, you know, we have an easy way back to get, to get back across the Danube.

00:26:37.440 It's something like a thousand meters long.

00:26:39.240 It's, it's huge.

00:26:40.700 Um, but, you know, sure enough, Decebalus, um, pretty soon is, is, is, um, you know, suborning nearby tribes to go raid across the border.

00:26:51.460 And so Trajan finally, you know, frustrated, he returns and he finishes the job.

00:26:55.180 Long story short, put set siege to their capital city.

00:26:58.340 Decebalus is, uh, hunted down.

00:27:00.060 He escapes, but the, the, he's chased down by horsemen and he commits suicide.

00:27:05.020 And this is all depicted on Trajan's column that we'll get to in a moment.

00:27:08.500 Uh, but, um, one of the things that he gets from this conquest is, so Decebalus had this crafty idea of, Decia is a very, very wealthy region because it has some of the best gold mines in the Mediterranean at that time.

00:27:24.440 So what Decebalus does is he, he, uh, buries his royal treasure in a stream bed.

00:27:29.380 He redirects a stream and then digs it up, buries all the gold and loot and covers it with rocks and then redirects the stream back over the river.

00:27:38.220 And it's a secret that nobody's supposed to know, but somebody betrays this fact to, to Trajan.

00:27:42.980 And so of course, you know, Romans, the world's greatest engineers, they, they, they, they find the treasure and he, and he brings back this incredible loot back to Rome.

00:27:52.060 Like one of the greatest troves of treasure that had ever been brought back to Rome, you know, since the days of Pompey, the great conquering Mithridates.

00:28:00.640 And, uh, and so with that money, Trajan starts on this glorious building campaign.

00:28:05.880 He builds the form of Trajan, which is by far the greatest of the Roman imperial forums.

00:28:11.560 You know, he builds the, the, the column of Trajan with a, the kick-ass Trajan statue on top of it.

00:28:19.200 And the column still standing today, uh, the Christians replaced it with the statue of St. Peter, uh, on top instead of Trajan. 0.81

00:28:26.980 Um, but so, and he builds baths and, you know, Trajan just becomes this incredibly popular emperor.

00:28:33.920 Everybody loves new building works.

00:28:36.460 They, they reflect well on the city.

00:28:38.280 The people are happy.

00:28:39.220 Trajan uses the money to, uh, formalize, uh, um, a charity program throughout Italy for orphans and educate orphans and feed them.

00:28:49.200 I mean, he's just the hero.

00:28:51.360 And, uh, and that's kind of where things stand once he gets back from the second Dacian war.

00:28:56.240 So he's made Rome great again here.

00:28:58.260 Absolutely.

00:28:59.340 Yeah.

00:28:59.600 And he's, and he's turned Dacia into a province notably.

00:29:01.780 And, um, Dacia continues to be a Roman province for about 150 years.

00:29:05.720 And he, uh, you know, it founds the origins of the, the Romanian people, you know, who speak a Latinate language to this day because of Roman Dacia.

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00:29:41.720 So I think this is important for people to recognize whether you're skeptical of the empire or you're someone who, uh, you know, approves of this.

00:29:54.360 It's important to recognize that the imperial expansion is popular, right?

00:29:59.580 It's popular with the nobility.

00:30:01.580 It's popular with the people.

00:30:03.540 Everyone likes to be a conqueror.

00:30:05.380 Everyone likes to see a bunch of extra money flow into the coffers.

00:30:09.200 Everyone likes to see these great works built, uh, you know, this is something that cements legacies.

00:30:14.600 And so the incentive structure for imperial conquest is incredibly high.

00:30:21.400 Like that, that, that is something that, uh, you can understand why the people who do it are remembered as great.

00:30:27.040 And you can understand why people are regularly driven to do it, even if they know it comes with consequences and downsides.

00:30:35.820 And so, again, no matter where you stand on that issue, if you're worried about the expansion of an American empire, or you think ultimately that's great that America is this, you know, doing kind of the turbo America thing.

00:30:46.460 Just remember that the, you know, the, the, the incentives for leaders to commit to this, it's not just their own personal greatness though that that matters, but this is what people often want.

00:30:58.100 This is what, uh, ruling classes often want. 0.90

00:31:01.160 This is what elevates people to greatness.

00:31:03.620 There's a reason that, uh, guys like bronze age pervert recognize that this is, uh, you know, something that is a great cultural achievement and it is a natural impetus for many, uh, cultures to kind of assert their will on others. 0.63

00:31:18.800 So it's a very, it's a deeply human, uh, impulse and it's one that again, whether you approve of or disapprove of is always with us and is incredibly popular for a reason.

00:31:29.300 So speaking of, of contrast, uh, obviously Trajan, you know, you're, he's building orphanages.

00:31:35.820 Like you're talking about is creating these, these programs.

00:31:38.540 There's an, another force in the empire at this point, Christianity is growing, right? 0.99

00:31:44.920 We know that this is a force that is increasing.

00:31:47.400 It's a, it's a strange religion for a lot of Romans, but it's having a deep impact, uh, across what is true, uh, Trajan's interaction with the Christians?

00:31:57.160 How does he treat that?

00:31:58.020 What does he think about them?

00:31:59.460 How is that impacting the way that he is building his empire or expanding his empire?

00:32:04.820 Yeah, I think that this, uh, Trajan was also remembered as a great peacetime ruler and his dealings with the Christians, uh, you know, arguably show some moderation.

00:32:13.100 Uh, we know a lot about, um, what Trajan did with the Christians and what, what happened to Christians in his time because of this letter exchange that he has with this guy, Pliny.

00:32:23.920 Pliny, the younger was, um, a great man of letters and a Senator and a lawyer, but he, he gets sent out to Bithynia, which is an Asia minor kind of on the, just on the Asian side of the Bosporus.

00:32:35.920 It's very, very, very civilized area.

00:32:38.840 Um, and, uh, and he's, he's trying to deal with local problems.

00:32:43.900 Trajan's attitude toward provincial administration in general is very decentralized, very hands-off.

00:32:49.160 You know, Pliny keeps coming back with these sort of potentially micromanaging problems that a guy like Domitian would, would like, you know, want to give him a specific instructions and know everything that's going on.

00:32:59.900 And Trajan's general attitude is, Pliny, you got this really, I trust your judgment.

00:33:04.480 In most cases, um, there is one interesting instance where Pliny talks about, uh, how local, some local city is wanting to start their own fire brigade.

00:33:15.560 Um, and, uh, on this, you know, Trajan, uh, sort of pushes back and he says, these things tend to get political very quickly, which I think is really interesting.

00:33:24.640 You know, so if you want to, if you want to kind of form your own base of power, maybe you should start a local fire brigade, uh, that, that, that's, the Romans were, were very suspicious of these associations.

00:33:35.000 And that's one of the reasons why the Christians were a problem. 1.00

00:33:38.520 And, and Pliny, um, writes this long letter, letter 97, uh, to Trajan's, you can, you can look this up if you're interested, uh, detailing this, this, this, this issue that he's had with local Christians.

00:33:49.340 And, um, so the Christians are, um, one of the big problems with the Christians, they're sort of a known quantity to, to governor, like Pliny at this time. 0.97

00:33:58.840 And Trajan's sort of familiar with the Christians by this time, you know, there were, uh, talks of them being burned and, uh, on, on pyres and the reign of Nero. 0.55

00:34:09.180 So, but, um, but by this time, the, the Christians are known for being, um, stubborn and superstitious, possibly meeting in secret to eat babies. 0.89

00:34:20.180 You know, there's all these lurid accusations that the apologists talk about, but, uh, the main thing that the Romans are frustrated with the Christians on is that they won't typically, if they're, if they're really obdurate Christians, they won't sacrifice to the gods and they won't sacrifice to the genius of the emperor.

00:34:39.040 You know, the, the, the, the emperors have been divinized upon death since, uh, well, since Julius Caesar, Augustus did at first.

00:34:46.320 And there's a kind of imperial cult already at this time where you're supposed to burn incense, you know, to the guarding, guiding genius of, of the emperors and sort of in front of the statue of an emperor.

00:34:59.940 And the Christians won't do this. 0.89

00:35:02.780 And it's seen, you know, and kind of like in the way that Fustel de Kalange talks about how, you know, religion, the, the, the ancestral hearth is the, the foundation of, of the family unit.

00:35:14.580 The tribal hero cult is the foundation of the tribal unit.

00:35:18.900 And similarly with the city, you know, the, the, the state cults are sort of like the basis of whether or not you're in the community and whether or not your community is doing well is whether you're sacrificing regularly.

00:35:29.960 I mean, there's a lot of ways, similar situation with the, the Roman imperial cult.

00:35:34.160 It's like the proof of whether you're, you're like a citizen in good standing or not.

00:35:38.480 And so, uh, Pliny, you know, says I've executed a few and they've been stubborn and, you know, asked them a few times and threatened them.

00:35:47.300 And I thought, you know, just their stubbornness was grounds enough to execute these people.

00:35:52.480 Um, but I want to read for you like a little passage that I think is really interesting.

00:35:56.000 It's from this famous letter that, uh, that gives you a sense of what the Christian's situation was from the eyes of Pliny.

00:36:01.820 Um, so here's, here's, here's Pliny on the Christians. 0.90

00:36:05.720 And, and one of the things he says that there's a key point is there's been, you know, once it's gotten out that the governor has been, uh, prosecuting Christians for, you know, sedition, uh, these accusations have started to, uh, to, to flare up as often happens, right?

00:36:24.960 People are like, ah, I could get so-and-so's farm if I get him, you know, accused of being a Christian.

00:36:30.140 Um, uh, but, but here's what Pliny says.

00:36:32.480 Others were named by an informer, uh, who were named by an informer stated that they had been Christians and then denied it.

00:36:40.440 They, the informer said that, and they denied it.

00:36:43.240 They said that, in fact, they had been, but had abandoned their allegiance some three years previously, some more years earlier, one or two, as many as 20 years before.

00:36:53.140 All these as well worshiped your statue, Trajan, he's writing to Trajan, with, and images of the gods and blasphemed Christ, which Pliny notes is something that you can't get, uh, a confirmed, um, Christian to do.

00:37:06.540 They maintained, however, that all their guilt or error involved was, all that their guilt or error involved was that they were accustomed to assemble at dawn on a fixed day, presumably Sunday,

00:37:18.680 to sing a hymn antiphonally to Christ as God and to bind themselves by an oath, not for the commission of some crime, but to avoid acts of theft, brigandage, and adultery, not to break their word and not to withhold money deposited with them when asked for it.

00:37:34.740 When these rites were completed, it was their custom to depart, and then to assemble again to take food, which was, however, common and harmless.

00:37:44.180 They had ceased, they said, to do this, following my edict, by which, in accordance with your instructions, I had outlawed the existence of secret brotherhoods.

00:37:52.920 He's talking about the fire brigades.

00:37:54.180 So I thought it all the more necessary to ascertain the truth from two maidservants who were called deaconesses, even by employing torture, I found nothing other than a debased and boundless superstition.

00:38:09.080 Uh, so the thrust of the letter is, you know, I'm, I've got the Christian problem taken care of, but, you know, advice on some particulars.

00:38:15.320 And Trajan's, here's Trajan's, here's Trajan's very brief response to Pliny.

00:38:18.980 He says, you have followed the appropriate procedure, my, my Pliny, Secundus, in examining the cases of those brought before you as Christians, for no general rule can be laid down, which would establish a definite routine.

00:38:33.080 Interestingly, Christians are not to be sought out, but if brought before you and found guilty, they must be punished. 0.99

00:38:40.760 But, in such a way that a person who denies that he is a Christian and demonstrates this by his action, that is, by worshiping our gods, may obtain pardon for repentance, even if his previous record is suspect.

00:38:53.920 Documents published anonymously, this is key, must play no role in any accusation, for they give the worst example and are foreign to our age.

00:39:03.740 And so, as somebody who's seen friends become the victims of anonymous accusations ending in cancellations, I think, I, you know, there's, there's a kind of like an anti-woke strain in Trajan.

00:39:17.440 And, you know, he's talking about, you know, this is foreign to our age.

00:39:21.760 We're not in the age of Domitian anymore when, when people can get, you know, canceled, as it were, executed for, you know, anonymous allegations of, of, you know, whispering against the, the print caps.

00:39:33.740 It feels like there's a little bit of don't ask, don't tell policy involved here, right?

00:39:38.100 Where, like, yeah, okay, maybe he's a Christian, maybe he's not, but unless he's being explicit about it, then, okay, if he is explicit, then we got to do something.

00:39:47.580 But, you know, in general, and leave a path back in case it's, it's, it's more of a, we know we need to keep the forms of this up, but we're not going to go out of our way to make, you know, this a horrible offense, or we're not going to go after people really hard and make it impossible for them to kind of work their way back to us if they're, if they're found out.

00:40:08.420 And, and, uh, that, that's a very interesting shift.

00:40:11.720 And you mentioned, uh, the ancient city there, which, uh, you know, I'm just going to do my, my brief plug.

00:40:17.260 If you have never read this book, uh, go read this book.

00:40:20.260 It is such a amazing book, but most importantly, it really shifts the way that you understand the role of religion in the lives of ancient peoples.

00:40:31.120 Like this is such an alien way for people to operate in, in a Christian society, but particularly in this like post-Christian secular understanding, it could just, the, the, the way, as you say, the, the fact that Christians would not participate in these rituals that were really designed to bond, uh, you know, the, the city, the Civitas, you know, together. 0.56

00:40:52.400 Like this, this is really the, the reason that Christianity is a problem. 1.00

00:40:57.240 If they could just go through the rituals that still bound everyone together, plus Christianity, it probably wouldn't be a big, big deal.

00:41:03.960 But it's the fact that they reject those rituals that traditionally bound these societies together and have been core, you know, uh, really changes the way that people understand these interactions.

00:41:14.700 And so, uh, yeah, just, just give my, my plug constantly for the ancient city, cause it's so good, but we've already gotten well past, uh,

00:41:22.340 the halfway part in the hour and we haven't even mentioned the second emperor we're discussing yet.

00:41:26.840 So, uh, I hate to do this, but can we speed run, uh, our Trajan so we can, we can move on to Hadrian.

00:41:33.140 What, what else do we need to know about Trajan's reign before we move on?

00:41:36.860 Yeah, no, we're almost done.

00:41:37.960 So the, the, the last hurrah of Trajan is he sees some, he sees an opportunity in, uh, the Parthian empire.

00:41:47.820 There's trouble in the Parthian state and, uh, some kind of civil discord.

00:41:52.340 And there's a, he uses, uh, uh, a dispute as a pretext to invade the East.

00:41:57.620 And so the, it has to do with the, the King of Armenia.

00:42:02.400 We don't need to get into the details, but he annexes Armenia, which was a kind of a Roman Parthian shared client King.

00:42:09.420 Um, and, uh, he makes it a Roman province and then he marches his army into Mesopotamia and he conquers it.

00:42:17.280 Um, and, um, and he gets all the way to the Persian Gulf to, um, you know, near Basra today.

00:42:26.240 The shore has gone out a little bit and he erects a great statue of himself and true Trajan Trumpian fashion.

00:42:34.320 He loves to put these great statues of himself in places.

00:42:36.920 Um, and, uh, you know, did that on the bridge and, and it was pretty easy.

00:42:41.620 Actually, the campaign was remarkably easy.

00:42:44.120 He sacks Ctesiphon and Susa, these Parthian capitals, old capitals of Persian empire.

00:42:49.780 Um, and, um, it's, it's remarkably easy because the, the Parthians have all their forces committed elsewhere, but, you know, he does have to fight some battles and they win.

00:42:58.520 Um, but he wants to leave, um, he wants to leave in dignity and go to Babylon and visit Alexander's house, the, the, the house in which Alexander died in Babylon and make a, you know, sacrifice to the genius of Alexander who he admired.

00:43:14.900 Um, but he's cut short by another problem that kind of relates to the Christian problem of assimilation is, which is the Jews, uh, the, the Jews, uh, right around this time, probably seeing the fact that Trajan was over committed in the East, uh, decide to stage a huge, bloody uprising.

00:43:33.400 It's called the diaspora revolt. 0.91

00:43:35.300 And so Jews take over Cyrenaica in Eastern Libya, they take over Cyprus, they take over and they, they, they rise up in Northern Mesopotamia. 0.96

00:43:46.780 They're upset about, about Roman oppression.

00:43:49.240 You know, the Romans have had a relatively peaceful relationship, uh, you know, uh, with the exception of the massive bloody Jewish wars of around AD 70 that ended in the destruction of the temple.

00:44:01.500 You know, there's, there's a lot of assimilation on the part of Jews, but it's, but it isn't perfect.

00:44:06.780 The Romans have let the Jews exist, uh, in a way they haven't let the Christians exist because they're ancient, you know, and they conquered, they, you know, the Jews were worshiping their God first. 0.94

00:44:15.560 And so the Romans sort of tried to respect that fact as long as they could keep the taxes and keep the peace flowing.

00:44:22.180 But, uh, but this is kind of what, what ends up detaining Trajan and can't get the Babylon to do his Alexander worship. 0.86

00:44:30.320 And he, and he comes back and he's already kind of getting sick.

00:44:33.080 He's like 60 years old at this point, 117, 117 AD.

00:44:37.520 And so he ends up, um, not abandoning his conquests, but sort of cutting them short and to try to deal with his Jewish problem. 0.93

00:44:44.980 He has a, some subordinates take care of it.

00:44:47.340 But before he can really see it through, he dies on the shores of Asia minor and sort of leaving all of his Eastern conquests and doubt.

00:44:56.660 And sure enough, Hadrian comes on the scene at this point and starts changing things fast.

00:45:01.300 All right, well, let's just roll right into it.

00:45:04.900 Uh, how does Hadrian come to power?

00:45:07.200 What is he trying to address early on in his emperorship?

00:45:12.300 Hadrian is a grand nephew or a second cousin.

00:45:16.240 He's a nephew of, of, of Trajan and he's been kind of close to the Imperial family.

00:45:20.820 His, um, his accession was sort of dubious.

00:45:23.940 It's thought that, um, Trajan's wife who really doted on Hadrian, they, they had been sort of the adoptive parents of Hadrian.

00:45:31.300 That, that she was the one responsible for kind of forging a letter that adopted, that Trajan adopted Hadrian on his deathbed.

00:45:39.320 And she signed it herself actually.

00:45:41.320 Um, so before, before the Senate can say anything about it on, on the single day, they get news that Hadrian has been proclaimed emperor and he's been, uh, proclaimed as such by the army.

00:45:52.300 And there's nothing you can do about it, get used to it, um, which, uh, you know, is, is sort of disturbing for them.

00:45:58.980 They'd like to have a say in it, at least ceremonially, but it's a fait accompli when it gets reported to them.

00:46:04.040 Um, and, um, and quickly on in Hadrian's reign, he ends up, well, um, maybe calling for the execution of four prominent senators who've been ex-consuls.

00:46:15.320 Uh, maybe it was on the independent initiative.

00:46:18.040 He denies responsibility.

00:46:19.240 He blames it on one of his subordinates that these guys were executed, but they were probably rivals to the throne.

00:46:24.560 So he probably called the hit.

00:46:25.800 And so the Senate really doesn't like Hadrian from the start and for, for basically all of his reign, uh, Trajan just has this very kind of rough relationship with them.

00:46:35.560 He's very kind of, uh, kind of closed and hard to approach and, you know, suspicious in, in the eyes of the Senate and later historians.

00:46:44.340 Um, he tries to make some, some concessions early on.

00:46:47.780 He tries to say, all right, we'll make the Senate the final court of appeal, uh, and, and no appeal can be made if a Senate, the Senate rules in a case, even to the emperor himself, trying to give them, throw them a little bone.

00:47:01.920 Um, it doesn't really, doesn't really work.

00:47:05.120 And, and, um, he continues to just rule by imperial decree rather than by senatorial decree throughout his reign.

00:47:11.760 But one of the first things he does that really makes him unpopular with the Senate is he essentially abandons Trajan's Eastern conquest.

00:47:20.680 He calls off the legions.

00:47:22.240 He does, tries not to make too big of a show of it.

00:47:24.780 Um, and he doesn't make any public statements like this was bad.

00:47:28.640 This was overextension.

00:47:29.660 He just withdraws the armies.

00:47:31.260 And this is just seen as, cause he saw it as unsustainable.

00:47:34.980 And, um, you know, he had to actually, it was under Hadrian that the Jewish revolt, uh, was finally cleaned up.

00:47:42.180 So he starts off on a bad fit with the Jews as well.

00:47:45.220 And that'll come back to bite him.

00:47:46.840 But, um, you know, that's kind of his first act as emperor is, is retrenching because he just felt that the Eastern provinces couldn't be held, I suppose.

00:47:55.980 And, and Rome kind of returns on the Eastern end to its natural borders.

00:47:59.860 So you end up in the scenario where he is in many ways, um, having the opposite effect with the Senate.

00:48:07.720 Uh, he, you know, Trajan is somebody who is, uh, well-liked by the Senate who's ingratiated himself with that class.

00:48:13.980 Uh, Hadrian is not, uh, Trajan is somebody who's expanding the borders, winning big territory, uh, you know, building momentum.

00:48:22.200 Uh, Hadrian has, uh, you know, the, the idea that no, we can't really afford to overextend.

00:48:28.580 This is going to cause a lot of problems for us.

00:48:31.600 What about on the home front?

00:48:33.340 Was, was he building the way that Trajan was, uh, did, did he turn inward with his focus once, if he wasn't expanding?

00:48:41.380 How did he treat the domestic situation?

00:48:44.320 Yeah.

00:48:44.480 As soon as he gets to Rome, he becomes really one of Rome's greatest builders ever.

00:48:49.780 Most famous of Trajan's buildings would probably be the Pantheon in Rome.

00:48:54.300 Um, now this had been built under Augustus, uh, Marcus Agrippa, fake it is the, the inscription.

00:48:59.460 So Augustus' buddy Agrippa did it, but he, uh, it had burned down partially, um, under Domitian, I believe.

00:49:07.840 And so Trajan is, uh, sorry, Hadrian is the man responsible for turning the Pantheon into a domed structure.

00:49:15.980 He built the dome.

00:49:17.000 It was his idea.

00:49:18.220 And, um, it's, it was the biggest dome in, in Europe until, um, until the, uh, Florentine Duomo and, you know, the, the Renaissance.

00:49:29.280 Hadrian was, uh, fancied himself an architect.

00:49:33.520 There's a story that, um, the guy that Trajan had to, as his chief architect who built the bridge and, you know, the, the forum, this guy Apollodorus, you know, they, they had, he and Hadrian kind of sparred before Hadrian became emperor.

00:49:47.700 He sort of made fun of Hadrian's architectural sketches.

00:49:51.480 And, uh, when, when he was looking at one of Hadrian's architectural sketches, when he was emperor, I mean, this, this uppity Greek says something like, okay, in this temple that you just sketched out, the statue, if it stood up, would bump its head.

00:50:05.000 It's all disproportionate.

00:50:06.360 You're no architect.

00:50:07.700 And Hadrian doesn't, doesn't appreciate this.

00:50:09.700 He doesn't have that affability and he ends up, uh, having the guy exiled and executed on some trumped up charges.

00:50:15.960 But, you know, he does, uh, he's one of Rome's great builders.

00:50:20.240 He also builds, um, the, this, the, the, the largest temple ever in Rome, this, um, temple to Roma and, um, and, uh, Venus.

00:50:33.740 And, uh, it's, it's a kind of a Greek temple.

00:50:36.560 Um, so, and he has these massive games that he stages to, to win popular acclaim.

00:50:41.900 And, you know, this, this soothes things with the Senate to some extent, but, but he's really eager to get, get the hell out of Rome as soon as he can, once he starts these building projects.

00:50:51.340 And, um, and he does, uh, very quickly head to the Rhine border to, to start his, is, uh, a further kind of like, one of, one of his great achievements is sort of like, um, Hadrian's wall.

00:51:06.020 So on a step to that, uh, we'll get to Hadrian's wall in a sec, but he, he firms up the, the Rhine border.

00:51:12.920 He sets the legions to work building a palisade.

00:51:15.740 And in a way, it's, it's a way of pointing out, you know, we don't, we're not going to expand any further, right?

00:51:22.140 I'm not going to try to clobber the Germans. 0.83

00:51:24.720 This is where Rome ends and this is all that matters.

00:51:27.860 And, and he does a similar thing in, in, in England, in, in Scotland, right?

00:51:33.080 Hadrian's wall is, you know, very close to the Scottish border today.

00:51:36.800 It had been conquered under Domitian, actually, this guy, Agricola, um, the Tacitus writes the biography of, captured it.

00:51:43.540 And, uh, Hadrian said, nope, we're going to, we're going to retrench and this is where civilization ends and that's where barbarism begins.

00:51:51.960 This is what matters on this side of the wall.

00:51:54.080 And that, that, you know, we, we don't, they're not even worth conquering.

00:51:58.340 I think that's a lot of the message of, of his walls.

00:52:00.740 And he makes another one in Mauritania and similar fashion.

00:52:03.760 So, so he keeps on his retrenchment process, which does not win him a lot of favor with the Senate.

00:52:08.700 Um, but it is kind of, um, tied in with, uh, something that we should talk about is Hadrian was incredibly popular in the provinces too.

00:52:19.500 Well, let's, yeah, let's go ahead and address this because you already mentioned that Roman citizenship was a huge problem, uh, for both Trajan and Hadrian.

00:52:28.820 The issues that they had to tackle questions of citizenship.

00:52:32.240 And like you said, provincial citizenship was pretty rare in general.

00:52:35.620 So what was his relationship with the provinces?

00:52:39.200 What was the, uh, way in which he approached Roman citizenship and how that play back in the homeland?

00:52:47.000 Well, one of the things you see in, um, Hadrian is he loves being out in the provinces.

00:52:53.660 He's the traveling emperor.

00:52:55.000 He's, he's out, out of Rome more than he's in Rome.

00:52:58.560 He's no emperor traveled as much as him.

00:53:00.860 Um, he makes a big circuit of, of the whole empire and, um, he ends up, uh, in Greece, spending a lot of time in Greece.

00:53:09.260 He was particularly fond of, he's called by jokingly by some of his contemporaries, the little Greek, Grykoulos.

00:53:15.940 Um, and, uh, because, you know, he's, he's a fan of Greek philosophy and art.

00:53:21.280 And so, uh, he builds the temple of Olympian Zeus at Athens and he elevates a couple of important, um, citizens to, uh, senatorial status in Greece.

00:53:34.000 He celebrates the Eleusinian mysteries.

00:53:36.800 You know, this is all kind of part of Hadrian's vision of turning Rome into a commonwealth with a common culture that's founded on Hellenism.

00:53:45.540 You know, the, the Romans were great conquerors, but even early on in the days of, uh, the, you know, the Punic Wars and Scipio Africanus, the third century, the Romans really started to admire Greek culture, the mythic tradition, the philosophy, the rhetoric, the history, the first Roman histories were written in Greek.

00:54:02.440 So it's a big part of the cultural DNA of Rome.

00:54:05.180 Um, and Hadrian really wanted to lean into that and to spread this kind of Roman Hellenism as a civilizing force, uh, as a, as a kind of cultural unity, even if, even if the people in the far flung provinces aren't necessarily Roman citizens, at least we can all agree that we have a kind of cultural commonality.

00:54:24.000 Um, but, but, but for citizenship in particular, what he does is he kind of, citizenship has started to get diluted.

00:54:34.180 So this is one of the things that he, that the Romans did not do.

00:54:38.160 They did not really until at least the edict of Caracalla in 212, citizenship wasn't really the basis of Roman unity.

00:54:45.080 Um, but, but one of the things that he did was to legalize this distinction between honestiores and humilioris.

00:54:53.180 So like the, the nobler people and the more humble people who have literally different legal privileges.

00:54:58.320 There's a kind of a two tier system of citizenship because they, you know, as, as citizenship expanded, the Romans felt that something was missing from the, from the, the package.

00:55:08.560 And, you know, so humilioris could be citizens, but they could be flogged, for example, whereas you couldn't physically punish or flog a Roman citizen. 0.59

00:55:18.180 You couldn't crucify, uh, or you couldn't physically plot or, flog or punish a Roman citizen in the past, but now, uh, uh, one of the honestiores. 0.87

00:55:27.080 And, um, and also you couldn't crucify a Roman citizen in the past, but then you can crucify a citizen who's in the humilioris. 0.93

00:55:34.280 So he, he introduced that legal distinction to kind of solve that problem, um, and really sees culture as the basis of, of the United empire that he wants to found.

00:55:43.420 Again, something that we could probably, uh, take into our modern day where people are trying to find a binding agent for an American empire that has sprawled and growed so many and, and, and, you know, brought so many people in from the provinces and doesn't know how to handle, uh, that, you know, who is a, who's a citizen, who isn't, what does citizenship mean?

00:56:06.020 What binds you together? Uh, we even have tried to implement in some ways, our own two tier, uh, system of justice, uh, which, which, uh, has not gone very well.

00:56:16.020 Uh, but we can see that there's nothing new under the sun here, right? Like these, these problems, they change, they shift, they take on, uh, new technological issues, these kinds of things.

00:56:25.740 But at their heart, these are the struggles of all empires, all peoples, all rulers, all nations. Uh, and so we, we see this echo throughout history, even if the, the dynamics shift, uh, due to, uh, you know, technology, other advancements, these kinds of things. Uh, so you said that, uh, Hadrian having issues with, uh, kind of the Jewish rebellion and putting that away, uh, would come back to bite him. What'd you mean by that?

00:56:53.940 Well, so the Jews are, uh, pacified after the, the, the diaspora revolt, the second Jewish revolt, but, um, and Hadrian kind of, um, sees the, the, the, the solution potentially to the Jewish problem is making them more Greek and making them more Roman.

00:57:13.420 Um, and, uh, it's, the, the, the details are kind of hazy because of the sources are very spotty, but essentially what, what seems to have happened is he went to Jerusalem and he, um, he, he decided that one of the big problems with the Jews is they have this capital that, um, and, uh, and they have these hopes of restoring the temple.

00:57:36.900 Uh, there was still prophecies that the temple would be rebuilt 70 years after it was destroyed under, uh, under Titus and Vespasians, AD 70.

00:57:45.260 So, you know, it's around 130 AD that, uh, he decides to crush those hopes finally.

00:57:51.400 And he renames Jerusalem, Ilea Capitolina.

00:57:54.520 And, uh, it's named after Ileas is his family.

00:57:58.100 And then Capitolina is, um, because he dedicates the city to the worship of Capitoline Jupiter, the, the, the supreme God of the Romans, Jupiter Optimus Maximus.

00:58:08.500 And he has a great temple of Jupiter, Capitolina is built there.

00:58:12.340 So he just finally quashes all the hopes of, of, uh, you know, the Jews restoring the sacred Jerusalem.

00:58:19.340 He bans Jews from entering the city ever on pain of death.

00:58:24.520 And this probably was one of the causes of, uh, a great bloody revolt under the leadership of a guy named Simon Bar Kokhba. 0.71

00:58:34.940 Um, that's what the Romans called him at least who, uh, shadowy figure, unfortunately we don't have great sources on him, but he leads this really successful.

00:58:44.720 Well, not successful, but, you know, longstanding and very bloody guerrilla revolt against the Romans.

00:58:50.120 And, and the, the Romans have to commit something like, I think it's like 10 legions.

00:58:54.900 He has, Hadrian has to call in legions from the, the Danube borders.

00:58:59.160 And it's just this incredible bloody demoralizing defeat, uh, revolt that he has to put down that kind of, that kind of like crushes his, his hopes for, you know, Roman unity under Hellenism.

00:59:11.940 Like there's, there's going to be some element in society potentially that's just not going to ever be able to get on the program.

00:59:17.900 Um, and that's, um, that was the legacy that, that Hadrian had to, had to leave by, by crushing this revolt, by renaming the province of Judea, Syria, Palestina.

00:59:29.280 So Palestine is an old name, but, you know, he re basically renames it Palestine and says an end to the memory of the Jews.

00:59:38.180 Uh, he was so upset over this.

00:59:40.440 Um, and, uh, and, and that would, that was what happened with the, the second Jewish, the third Jewish revolt, actually.

00:59:45.900 Yeah. And again, that draws us a very interesting parallel to today where so much of our rulership is trying to crush the particularity out of individual peoples in the hope that they can create some kind of unifying understanding, some kind of unifying culture.

01:00:00.720 And what, you know, a guy like Hadrian comes to find is that no matter how grand your efforts are and how much power you wield, there is always some element of peoples brought under your rule that are just not going to conform.

01:00:15.440 They're not going, uh, to assimilate.

01:00:17.980 And that is, uh, always the difficulty with trying to kind of impose these, uh, supranational identities across, uh, people that just aren't naturally born to them.

01:00:27.940 Right. Like you, you probably could get a lot of Hellenic culture into many of the Roman peoples because, uh, they had been aping it for so long.

01:00:35.360 Uh, you know, that that's the, the Romans inherited so much from the Greeks and had been admiring aspects of us for so long.

01:00:42.740 Uh, but once you stretched it out far enough to people who just had no real connection to it, uh, eventually kind of fell apart.

01:00:50.040 And once again, we can kind of see how obviously the attempts to do similar things, uh, by the United States has, you know,

01:00:56.940 we're just not going to get democracy in Afghanistan.

01:00:59.500 Like it's not gonna, it's not gonna happen.

01:01:02.000 Right. And so that it's pretty easy to, to understand that.

01:01:04.700 All right. Well, we're, we're coming up near the end here.

01:01:07.460 So I'll guess, uh, not to try to crush too much of this into the last few minutes, but you know, the, the story that I always heard, right.

01:01:16.200 Uh, was that Trajan is the last great expander.

01:01:21.180 Like the, he's the, the glory of Rome, the, you know, we're, we're going to go out.

01:01:25.600 And like you said, uh, we're going to be this military empire.

01:01:28.400 The, the Senate is going to be rah, rah for this great soldier.

01:01:31.480 Who's going to go out, you know, push the boundaries as much as possible.

01:01:35.360 And he acquired a lot of glory and, and, and rightfully so in that manner.

01:01:39.720 But Hadrian was really the emperor that helped, uh, the, uh, the empire to continue for probably much longer than otherwise would have, because he understood that while the glory was important and the majesty of, of conquest was important that proper, uh, administration, restraint, understanding, unification was important to continue the legacy of the empire.

01:02:05.980 And so it wasn't so much the geographical boundaries that ultimately would, uh, determine whether or not Rome continued, but its ability to perhaps, uh, you know, have, have a little bit of its own, you know, exercise some prudence, recognize when, uh, holding back, uh, limiting, uh, unifying was more important than necessarily pushing out, expanding, you know, building, building the greatest statue to the glory of your conquest.

01:02:33.920 What do you feel about that contrast? Do you think that Hadrian's approach did ultimately, uh, you know, increase the longevity and health of the empire?

01:02:45.040 I think so. And, and he was, you know, very unpopular with the Senate, even in the historians of the time, they, they have a much dimmer view of Hadrian.

01:02:53.920 He's not as bad as Domitian, but, but they, they preferred Trajan to, to Hadrian. And yet, you know, if you go to any museum in the Mediterranean, you're more likely to see a statue of Hadrian than you are of Trajan.

01:03:06.040 He was wildly popular among the provincials. Um, if you see a statue of Antinous, that was Hadrian's little kind of Greek boyfriend, uh, another story for another time.

01:03:16.900 He's, he's everywhere too. And that's, that's a, that's a token of their appreciation of Hadrian. They want to look good in the eyes of Hadrian because they love him.

01:03:24.120 So they make a statue to this, this, you know, lover Antinous who died tragically at age 20 in a boating accident.

01:03:29.700 So I, I think that, you know, Hadrian really did set the empire on, on a firm footing after him, you get Antoninus Pius, one of the most peaceful, uh, kind of not story worthy emperors of all time, you know, just nothing, nothing much happened under Antoninus Pius.

01:03:46.280 Um, and he adopted, uh, he also made Antoninus Pius adopt Marcus Aurelius as his successor.

01:03:51.860 So another, one of the five good emperors of the so-called adoptive Kaiser site of Germans. 0.60

01:03:57.740 And, uh, you know, it was Gibbon gave them credit. It was, it was one of the happiest periods of, uh, of all mankind, uh, under the, under the five good emperors of Rome.

01:04:07.540 And Hadrian was kind of the pinnacle of that for Gibbon.

01:04:10.980 Excellent. So, like I said, I think this is just a fascinating, uh, period of history, no matter what, uh, cause I'm just a huge nerd for Roman history, but also, uh, I think this is a very interesting period for us to reflect on in our own moment.

01:04:24.680 Uh, obviously things are different that, you know, history rhymes, but it doesn't necessarily repeat.

01:04:29.780 Uh, we can see the themes, we can see the problems that have been addressed and the way that they've been addressed, the tensions and the way that they echo into our own, uh, moment.

01:04:39.500 And that can help us decide, you know, do, do we feel we are in this Trajan moment or do we feel we're more of an, in a Hadrian moment?

01:04:46.540 What, what, what do we as Americans need for the wellbeing?

01:04:50.940 Do we, can we practice the discipline necessary to make a Hadrian move if we need to, or is the glory and expansion of a Trajan really ultimately what we're looking for?

01:05:01.300 I think these are all important things to consider again, as Donald Trump, who I feel embodies a little bit of both of these guys, right?

01:05:08.300 You know, a lot of his supporters and are asking for fewer foreign wars, fewer expansions, but he recognizes the glory of being able to go out and acquire territory and what is best.

01:05:20.780 And what is the proper balance?

01:05:22.700 Again, I just think it's a fascinating moment to reflect on history, these examples and carry that forward into, uh, what we might want to do as a nation, as a people.

01:05:33.300 So Alex, uh, for those who want to learn more, uh, be familiar with your work, where, where should they be looking for what you're doing?

01:05:42.480 Well, you can find the cost of glory podcast, wherever you get your podcasts, including YouTube or go to cost of glory.com.

01:05:48.780 That's my website.

01:05:49.560 We run retreats and courses too, every now and then, but, uh, and I'm on Twitter at, at cost of glory.

01:05:56.040 Excellent.

01:05:56.600 All right, guys, we'll make sure that you are following Alex, listening to his podcast.

01:06:00.760 Yes, one more excellent history podcast.

01:06:03.220 You can add it.

01:06:04.180 You should.

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01:06:13.320 Uh, this is a prerecorded episode.

01:06:15.280 I'm actually in London right now.

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01:06:36.060 Thank you everybody for watching.

01:06:37.940 And as always, I will talk to you next time.

The Auron MacIntyre Show - February 19, 2025

Trajan VS Hadrian： Fate of an Empire ｜ Guest： Alex Petkas ｜ 2⧸19⧸25

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