The Great Leaders of Antiquity Explained in 60 Minutes - Barry Strauss
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Summary
Alexander the Great, Julius Caesar, Hannibal, and Alexander the Great were three of the most important people in the history of the world. They were ambitious, ambitious conquerors, and they all had a sense of grandeur and a drive to expand their empires.
Transcript
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Alexander wanted to and succeeded in conquering the Persian Empire, the greatest empire that the
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West had known to date. Hannibal wanted to defeat Rome, which he saw as a threat to his own country
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of Carthage. He failed, but in doing so he had some very glorious moments. And finally there
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was Julius Caesar who first conquered Gaul and became the leading man in the Roman Empire. No
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one had ever had as much power as he did for one brief moment before it all came crashing down.
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One of the things that occurs to me is these great, I mean, these people are maniacs.
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Baris Strauss, such a pleasure to have you on the show. We sat down at a table next to each other
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here at Ark. I said, what do you do? You said I'm a historian of ancient civilizations and military
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historian. And I was like, we have to get you on the show right now. Come on over. We dragged you
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in here. That's why we're here. We cannot wait. One of your books particularly really piqued our
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interest, which is about the great leaders of antiquity. Alexander the Great, Caesar, Hannibal,
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etc. Let's get into it. What were the themes that sort of bound those people together? Was there
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common threads that run through their histories, their lives? And why are they such significant
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people in the history of the world? Yeah, I mean, all three of them were immensely ambitious
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and wanted nothing less than to be great conquerors. They belonged to what Abraham Lincoln would later
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call the tribe of the eagle. And the tribe of the eagle is like eagles. They're immensely impressive
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and powerful, but they're not always nice. And nobody would accuse these three guys of being nice.
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They waded through seas of blood in their attempt to conquer. Alexander wanted to and succeeded in
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conquering the Persian Empire, the greatest empire that the West had known to date. Hannibal wanted to
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defeat Rome, which he saw as a threat to his own country of Carthage. He failed. But in doing so,
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he had some very glorious moments. And finally, there was Julius Caesar, who first conquered Gaul
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and changed the face of history. And then saw himself pitted in a war against the Roman Senate
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and defeated all of them as well and became the leading man in the Roman Empire. No one had ever
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had as much power as he did for one brief moment before it all came crashing down.
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That's right. And was it really just about these guys' egos? Or were there economic and other
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processes that made them want to be conquerors, made them want to expand their empires? Or was it
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really just a big dig waving competition? Well, ego was a very big part of it. But it wasn't just about
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the ego in all three cases. So Alexander could have seen Persia as a threat to Greek civilization.
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And he saw himself as the avatar of the Greeks, somebody who was going to
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spread this civilization and create a new empire. So there was that. He had been a student of no
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lesser person than Aristotle. So he had a sense of grandeur and a sense of mission. Hannibal saw
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himself as on a defensive mission to protect his country from Rome. But also, and most important for
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him was revenge. His father had been defeated by Rome. Or rather, his father had been the last
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Carthaginian general standing who had not been defeated by Rome in an earlier war. And now Hannibal
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wanted to avenge his father who had since died and put the Romans in their place to protect Carthage
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forever. Caesar, like any ambitious Roman, wanted to add to the empire. So there was that for his
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country. He might have seen Gaul as a threat, although it really hadn't been much of a threat
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for several generations, the Gauls that is. He also was, by the standards of Roman politics,
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a populist. And he wanted to use his wealth for the good of the Roman people. But make no mistake
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about it, all three of these men had huge egos. And that was always a part of what they did.
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Do you think a lot of them believed in their own sense of the divine destiny,
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that they were destined to be rulers of the world? Was that partly what drove them as well?
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Yes, absolutely. In the case of Alexander, you know, Alexander's mother was a woman named Olympias,
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who told him that his father, his alleged father, Philip II wasn't his real father. He had been
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the product of a union with a snake, who was Zeus. And later on, he believed that he was
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that he was the son of Zeus, that he was nothing less than divine in his inspiration. And many people
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believe that as well, because how else could he possibly have conquered this great empire?
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Hannibal did not believe he was divine, but he thought that he had the gods on his side. Before
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setting off on his expedition against Rome, he left from southern Spain. He went to the temple
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of Hercules, who the Carthaginians called Melcart, which is in what is now the city of Cadiz in Spain.
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It's on the Atlantic Ocean. And the thought was that only Hercules could have dealt with some
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place so terrifying as the Atlantic, because these were Mediterranean folks. And then when he invaded
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Italy, he made a big show of the fact that he had Hercules on his side. And the Romans felt they had
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to do something with the Hercules gap. They had to create altars to Hercules to counter Hannibal.
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Caesar of the three was, I think, the most skeptical. He was a philosopher. I don't think
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he had the gods on his side so much. But the Roman Senate, either to flatter him or to insult him,
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give him a difficult political position, voted to name him a god to make him one of the gods of Rome.
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And I can only imagine Caesar having a somewhat amused attitude about that.
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I was in Rome a few years ago, and I went to Caesar's grave in Rome.
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And there is an eternal flame that still burns for Caesar. And it just blew me away,
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this man who lived thousands of years ago. There is still an eternal flame,
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Amazing. I know. There's an Italian scholar who wrote a book about Caesar called Julius Caesar,
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Caesar the Democratic Dictator. And so there is this notion that Caesar was a man of people,
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he wasn't a man of people, but that he represented the people, that he was a populist. There are those
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who see him that way and think that he sincerely believed in the cause of the Roman people. There
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are others who would say, well, maybe, but he believed in himself above all. And he didn't
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shrink from starting a civil war to defend himself in his position.
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And I don't know about Alexander the Great, but the other two met pretty grisly ends. And it seems that
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when you talk about these type of great leaders, it's like tragic characters in the great plays,
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if you think about in Greek tragedy. Yeah. So what were their flaws? What did they have that
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eventually led to their own demise? Well, I think all three of them shared an inability to know when
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to stop. And that's certainly true in the case of Alexander, who after having conquered the Persian
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Empire said, I'm bored with governing. This is not what I want to do. And he was preparing to start
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a new war against Arabia when he died in June of the year 323 BCE.
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Well, that is the interesting question. So the ancient sources say that he died of a fever,
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but they also say maybe it's also possible that he was poisoned by those around him.
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Because many people had come to the conclusion that Alexander was mad, that he had gone insane,
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that only a lunatic would want to keep fighting this way. He said that after Arabia,
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next was Carthage. And after Carthage, he was going to go after Rome. The guy seemed as if there was
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no off button. He just wanted to keep fighting. Whereas most of his soldiers said, we're rich now,
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we want to kick back and enjoy life. So there is a minority opinion in the ancient sources. It's not
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a modern theory that say, well, you know, he might have been poisoned. And I think there's a real
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possibility. That's very interesting. Barry, one thing that strikes me is we haven't actually told
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anyone listening or watching this what these men did. So then that is entirely our fault,
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not yours. So could we maybe get a kind of couple of minutes about each of them, what they did,
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who they were, where they started? Because not all of these men started with great power and privilege
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at the beginning of their lives. Sure. So Alexander comes first chronologically. He was born in the year
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356 BCE and died in 323. He was born to privilege. His father was the king of Macedon, Philip II,
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who was the most consequential king this country had ever had. He did nothing less than create a
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modern state, a modern innovative army, revolutionary army, and then conquered all the Greek city-states
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and began what he thought would be his life's work to conquer the Persian empire. He'd started the
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invasion, sent an advance force when Philip is assassinated, and young Alexander, at the age of
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20, is now the king of Macedon. His enemies both at home and abroad thought he'd be a pushover,
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but they didn't understand the guy was a military and political genius and that he was made of iron.
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Can I just interrupt that? How does a man at 20 become a military genius?
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That is a really good question. First of all, he had been trained by his father,
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who was absolutely a brilliant, brilliant military commander. Secondly, he'd been trained by Aristotle,
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who was his tutor. Third, the guy really just was very, very intelligent. Fourth, his mother had
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convinced him that he was a god, and so he thought he had this destiny. In fact, there's a theory that his
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mother's behind the assassination of his father, Philip, because Philip had moved on to many other wives,
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and he had a wife who had just given birth to a son who many thought would be the real heir.
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But the other thing is actually, and your question's a really good one, one of the reasons Alexander did
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so well is that he was humble enough and smart enough to realize he didn't know everything.
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And so he kept around some of his father's advisors, some of his father's top generals,
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and he knew when to listen to them when it's absolutely necessary. After finally conquering most of
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the Persian empire, he has them assassinated. He gets rid of them, but he knows he needs them for a
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while, so he keeps them around. Why did he assassinate them? Because he thought they had
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sons who were plotting against him, and that's the reason he gave. He might have been right.
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They may have been plotting against him, because the Macedonian nobility, the Borgias have nothing
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on these people. They were assassinating each other again and again and again. That was their national
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sport. So it's not surprising. Okay. So how old was Alexander when he dies? How old is he when he dies?
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I'm sort of feeling a bit inferior. Okay. So that's him. Then Julius Caesar or Hannibal?
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Hannibal is next. Hannibal is next. So Hannibal is born in 247, so about a century later,
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and he dies around 183. This is all BC, BCE. Hannibal is also the son of a great general. His father's
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name is Hamilcar Barca, which is Hamilcar the lightning bolt. He's a terrific general. He's
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commanding the Carthaginian forces in Sicily, and Rome and Carthage is fighting this about 25-year-long
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war for control of Sicily. Hannibal is never defeated on land, but the Roman navy defeats the
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Carthaginian navy at sea. Carthage has to surrender, give up Sicily. And then the Romans
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are not very helpful when Carthage's mercenaries revolt and Hamilcar is in the fight of his life
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to save his country from the mercenaries. He defeats them. Then he gets the idea to go and start
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a new empire in southern Spain, which is rich in mineral resources and warriors who can fight for
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Carthage. And he is fighting there when he is killed in a skirmish. He brings with him his young
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sons. Hannibal is the oldest. Allegedly, when Hannibal is eight, the father makes him swear on
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an altar, eternal vengeance against Rome. So Hannibal grows up and he eventually becomes the
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leader of the Carthaginian army in Spain. The Romans are getting wind of the fact that Hannibal is
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expanding. Hannibal attacks a Roman ally, sort of an ally, a semi-ally. And the Romans send an
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ultimatum to Hannibal and the Carthaginians saying, stop it. You know, admit that we are superior and
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we'll call the shots. And Hannibal says, no way. We want war. Because he is truly, of all three of them,
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no one is better at war than Hannibal. The overused term military genius applies to few people in the
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way that it does to Hannibal. And how does he become a genius? Because he's young as well when
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he becomes... He's not as young as Alexander, you know, but his father was the greatest general of
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his age. And his father raised him to fight. When his father dies, he doesn't immediately take over.
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I think it's his brother-in-law. Some other member of the extended family takes over and then he's
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assassinated. So Hannibal has a number of years to learn the art of war. But as with, you know,
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all things, it's part learning and it's part intuition and it's part natural talent and ambition.
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So he's got all of those. Also, Carthage was a place where the Greek experts in the art of war,
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and Greece was really where the fancy dancers of war came from. They had taught the Carthaginians
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how to fight. The Romans were more sloggers than maneuver warfare. But Hannibal was an expert
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at maneuver warfare. That's his thing. So he goes on this long march, this 900-mile long march
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from southern Spain all the way across the Pyrenees, across the Rhone River, across the Alps,
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into northern Italy, with his 37 elements. One of the great epics of history, how Hannibal pulls this
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off. And then he immediately starts wiping the floor of the Romans, because he knows this new way
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of war that the Romans had never seen before. You know, the Romans are like an American football team
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that only has one play, which is to take the ball and run up the middle. And Hannibal is executing all
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these fancy plays. And he destroys Roman army after Roman army after Roman army. He has a strategy.
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His strategy is to get the allies of Italy to defect from Rome and to join him.
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Yeah. He is a very fast talker. So when he defeats the Romans, and Roman armies would consist of Roman
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citizens and allies, the Roman citizens become prisoners, and some of them are sold to slaves,
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some of them are killed. The allies, Hannibal says, you guys go home. You're Italians. We're here to
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free Italy. Italy for the Italians. We're here to free you from the Romans. Remember, the Romans are
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only a small part of Italy. Most of Italy is made up of other peoples. Hannibal is very successful in
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the north of Italy and in the south of Italy, getting people to rebel against Rome. But he's
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not successful in the central part of Italy. That's the nut he doesn't know how to crack.
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And so, although he hands the Romans one of the two greatest defeats they would ever have,
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the defeat at the Battle of Cannae in August of 216, the Romans refused to surrender. And one of the
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reasons they refused to surrender is they still have these allies in central Italy, and they provide
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the manpower pool that allows the Romans to fight and fight and fight. And Hannibal has a problem.
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He's figured out how to win battles, but he's not figured out how to win a war. What if you do,
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if the enemy you keep defeating says, we're not surrendering. We're going to go on fighting.
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It's a little bit like Hitler's problem with Britain in World War II. When Hitler says,
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okay, I beat you. Time to surrender. And they say, no, we're not going to surrender.
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But Britain had territorial separation. Britain's an island, whereas central Italy isn't.
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No, it's not an island, but these are fortified cities. They all have walls.
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He can't because Hannibal has a big problem. His problem is he doesn't like sieges. He's not
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good at them. They're boring to him. And in a siege in Spain, he's wounded in his leg by an enemy
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arrow. I think he never forgets this. He never puts in the effort to laying siege to
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these cities. And that's a real problem. Wow. See, he literally lost a war because
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he didn't want to do sieges because he had a bad experience.
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Ah, I don't know if that's true. I wouldn't go that far. That's my five and dime psychology.
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But he never does these sieges. He never pulls them off. And, you know, after he wins the battle
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of Cannae, one of his generals says to him, we've won Hannibal. Let's march to Rome. The cavalry can be
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there in a few days and the army will follow afterwards. And the Romans are terrified now.
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We've killed 50,000 Romans out of about 80,000 who fought. They're going to surrender. We're
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going to win. Some traitor will open the gates. And Hannibal says, we can't do that. You know,
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our army is too exhausted. We took casualties as well. By the time we get there, the Romans will
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be prepared for us. And the guy looks at him and says, Hannibal, you know how to win a victory,
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but you don't know what to do with it. And we're told that years later, Hannibal said,
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eh, he was right. If only I had figured out then to go against Rome.
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So what happens from there is that Hannibal, you know, he now gets Rome's most important ally,
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a city called Capua, to defect against Rome. You may never have heard of Capua, and there's
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a good reason for it. Because when this war is over, the Romans make sure that you'll never hear
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about, never hear of Capua. But Hannibal has southern Italy and northern Italy. He doesn't have central
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Italy. And the Romans have finally figured out that the way to fight Hannibal is not to fight Hannibal.
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They adopt, they appoint a dictator named Fabius Maximus. And Fabius comes up with what we now call
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the Fabian strategy. That is to say, a scorched earth strategy, harass the enemy, deny him food,
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because Hannibal didn't bring food with him, but don't actually fight him. So they're cutting around
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the edges of Hannibal. But Hannibal, they can't get him out of Italy. They understand that they're
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not going to win this war in Italy. They think they originally wanted to invade Carthage, but they
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couldn't do that because Hannibal was so disastrous to them in Italy. So instead, they invade Spain,
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where Carthage has this really important colony. That's the heart of its empire, aside from the North
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African parts. But the Carthaginian armies are too sophisticated and too good for the Romans.
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Unfortunately for Hannibal, one of the reasons the Romans are so successful is they're really
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flexible. They're really adaptable. They're not like the Greeks who would say, you know,
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we have our philosophy, we have our way of doing things, and we're not going to change. The Romans
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say, we're Romans, you know, we're pragmatists, we're going to do what works. So they violate their
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own constitution and they appoint a young man before the age of 35 to become their general.
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And he retrains the Roman army to fight like Hannibal. And he brings the Roman army to Spain.
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His name is Scipio, eventually Scipio Africanus, because he defeats Carthage. And the first thing
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he does in a shock move is he takes the Carthaginian capital in Spain. It's called New Carthage,
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nowadays Cartagena in Spain. And he takes it by surprising the defenders at a place they considered
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the wall, that no one could climb the wall because there was water there when the tide came in. I
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think it's probably not a tide, but there's some meteorological effect. He uses the right moment to
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attack. They're not prepared for him. And he takes the Carthaginian capital in Spain. He then proceeds
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to defeat the Carthaginian armies in battle because Hannibal's brothers, although they're
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very good, they're not up to Hannibal's standard. And so young Scipio has conquered Spain.
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Hannibal's still in Italy. He had two brothers. One of them's killed. One of them survives. And the
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surviving brother comes to Italy, bringing an army. He may have had three brothers. Sorry,
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I don't quite remember. Anyhow, one of the brothers brings an army to Italy and he's there to relieve
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Hannibal. But unfortunately for him, the Romans have gotten better and better. And they have a
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lucky break. They capture his plans. A courier is carrying his plans. They capture his plans.
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And they manage to surprise him. And they destroy the army of Hannibal's brother at the Battle of
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Metaurus. They kill him. They behead him. And a fast rider goes to southern Italy, where Hannibal was,
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and tosses the brother's head over the wall of Hannibal's stockade. And Hannibal realizes this is
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not going to end well. So now Scipio convinces the Roman Senate that what we need to do is invade
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North Africa. They really don't want to do it. They think it's too risky. But talk about a member of
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the tribe of the eagle. Scipio really is that. So he does invade North Africa. And he forces Hannibal
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to leave Italy. Nothing the Romans have done up to then would have forced Hannibal to leave Italy. He
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could have stayed there for good. But this forces him back home. To make a long story short, Scipio is
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one good general, but he's also a very good diplomat. And the Carthaginians also depended on allies, as the
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Romans did. Their most important ally was the Numidians, roughly today's Algerians. And what
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they brought to the table was they were the best light-armed horsemen in the world. They were tremendously
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good, fast cavalrymen. A staunch ally of Carthage, but Scipio manages to talk them out of it. It's a
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long, fascinating story involving a woman. It's a great story, but we could spend the rest of the time
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talking about it. In any case, Scipio sets this up for a final battle against Hannibal. And believe
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it or not, before the battle, the two men meet, Hannibal goes to a meeting with Scipio. And it's
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one of the great dramatic moments in history. To have been a fly on the wall of that tent would have
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just been amazing to hear the two of them talk. It's one of my favorite moments.
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And do we know what happened in that meeting at all?
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Uh, well, we know that Scipio, um, Scipio was playing a double game. He was waiting for his
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Numidian allies to show up. And so he was stalling for time. Uh, and Hannibal played for it, except
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Hannibal, uh, fell for it, rather. Except I think Hannibal, I think is really, really intelligent. I think
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Hannibal understands that his chances of losing this battle are pretty great. And Hannibal is already
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thinking to the day after, okay, I lose the battle. Then what? Do I want the Romans to come
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and, uh, ask for my head, which they might do? Or do I want the leading Roman general to think
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we're buddies and that he can deal, do business with me afterwards? So I think that's why Hannibal
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agreed to this meeting, even though he knew he was probably not going to get anything out of it.
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So they have the meeting. They start the battle. Uh, Hannibal is doing brilliant stuff with
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what he's got left. He doesn't have the great army he had before.
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Um, and he's quite successful, but the Numidian cavalry show up and they destroy the Carthaginian
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army and Hannibal has to flee. Um, so that is the end of his attempt to conquer Rome. But Hannibal
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has, if we have time, he has a little really interesting afterlife. So, um, his friendship
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with Scipio really pays off. Scipio convinces the Senate to let Hannibal live and to let Hannibal
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be essentially, uh, the quasi dictator of Carthage. Carthage is still a very prosperous
00:23:34.160
city. And, um, um, Hannibal puts Carthage back on its feet to pay the reparations to the other
00:23:41.120
Romans, but he puts it back on its feet too much. The Romans are afraid Carthage is going to come
00:23:46.160
back again. So they drive him out. Hannibal in exile now goes to what is nowadays Turkey, uh, to
00:23:52.720
become a military advisor to, um, the, uh, king there, a man named Antiochus. Uh, and Hannibal is, uh,
00:24:00.560
uh, uh, the strategist of his war against Rome. He fails in the end and ultimately the Romans
00:24:09.360
corner poor Hannibal, um, and he commits suicide. He has poison in his ring. He takes the poison. It's
00:24:15.040
outside of Istanbul, uh, today. And you can actually go to the place where Hannibal committed suicide,
00:24:20.800
but you probably won't because almost nobody knows where it is. I know this seems like a very specific
00:24:25.440
question. How quickly does this poison work? Is it instant? Do we know? I don't know. No,
00:24:30.880
I, I, uh, um, we might know, but I don't know. You know, I'm just curious because it's like you take
00:24:36.080
the, if you've been cornered, they better work quick. Otherwise you're just going to suffer for
00:24:39.360
a long time. That's a really good point. Yeah. Well, you know, the ancients were experts in pharmacology,
00:24:43.760
uh, and I'm sure Hannibal had access to, uh, to an expert. We'll look it up. We'll look it up.
00:24:49.520
All right. Barry, I was going to ask you something, which is you've described these three
00:24:54.800
men as geniuses. And of course that seems entirely accurate. Why haven't you described
00:24:59.520
Scipio as a genius? Oh, I could describe Scipio as a genius as well, but I believe in,
00:25:04.080
in trinities. So I do focus with three. Barry's Catholic then.
00:25:08.080
Yeah, that's right. So, and that is amazing. And now let's move on to Caesar. Yes. So Caesar,
00:25:16.560
what was his story? So Caesar, uh, unlike any of these other three, isn't raised by a famous father.
00:25:24.000
He comes from the Roman nobility, but it's a family that's a bit down on its luck. He's raised
00:25:28.880
in Rome. His mother, Aurelia Cotta was always a very big influence on his life. And she lives,
00:25:34.480
he's well on advanced in, in years. His father dies. We think of a stroke when he's fairly young.
00:25:40.720
Uh, but Caesar is immensely ambitious. And like any ambitious young Roman noble, he goes into the
00:25:47.600
military. That was what they're expected to do. And already at the age of 18, he's a military hero.
00:25:53.200
He saves a Roman soldier's life in the siege of the city of Mytilene on a Greek island. Uh, and he is
00:26:00.400
given, uh, um, um, he's given a crown. Um, he's given a wreath of glory and he's so important now,
00:26:08.480
uh, that Roman senators have to stand up. And when he enters the room, uh, which could go to the head of
00:26:14.320
an 18 year old and kind of pisses off a bunch of Roman senators who think, who is this kid?
00:26:19.120
Caesar's the guy who's, when you meet him, he's always looking over your shoulder to see who can,
00:26:23.600
uh, help him further. Um, he is ambition defined, white hot ambition. Uh, and he wants nothing but
00:26:30.880
to restore his family's glory, uh, and to rise to the top of the Roman world. Uh, his uncle by marriage
00:26:36.880
was Marius as in Marius and Sulla. Marius was a popularis, which I would translate as populist,
00:26:44.080
but some of my fellow scholars think they weren't populist, but they kind of were populist. Uh,
00:26:49.040
even though they themselves were not men of the people, they were very, very wealthy,
00:26:52.640
but we can see even nowadays we have populists are not men of the people. Um, and Caesar in a period
00:26:59.040
in which Roman politics was always divided between, um, the, the men of the people and the men of the
00:27:05.040
few, the oligarchs and the populist, he was always on the side of the populist. Um, he wanted to rise
00:27:11.920
to the highest political office in Rome, uh, to become, uh, the consul and then to have a military
00:27:18.080
command, which will allow him to win glory. Supposedly when he's in his thirties, he has a
00:27:23.120
relatively minor command in Spain and he sees a statue of Alexander the Great. And supposedly he
00:27:28.720
starts crying. Alexander was dead, uh, when, when he was at my age and he'd already conquered the world.
00:27:34.880
What have I done? So he's, he, Caesar has it all. He's a great general. He's a great speaker. He is
00:27:42.800
a great political manipulator and he's also a great writer. I mean, he writes great literature,
00:27:48.000
the Gallic Wars and the civil wars. Um, they're hard to translate, so it's hard to get it in English,
00:27:52.800
uh, but they really are quite something. He wrote other works as well, which no longer survive.
00:27:57.200
Uh, and as a beside behind the scenes manipulator, he creates, uh, uh, a conspiracy, uh, with two other
00:28:05.440
leading politicians, more prominent than him, Crassus, who's the richest man in Rome and Pompey,
00:28:10.560
who's the most successful general to date. They're going to do a deal. Caesar's the guy who can make it
00:28:15.040
happen. He's the deal maker. Uh, they each get something. Caesar gets to be consul. Pompey gets his,
00:28:21.840
um, the steps that he's taken in the East. He gets them approved by the Senate and he gets
00:28:27.120
his men, um, uh, settled on land in Italy, his veterans, and Crassus gets the command to fight
00:28:33.120
a war against Parthia, uh, Iran, basically in the East. Uh, Crassus fails and he's killed in battle.
00:28:40.800
Uh, Pompey gets what he wants. Um, but he is Caesar's son-in-law. He's married to Caesar's
00:28:46.640
one and only legitimate child, his daughter. Uh, but she dies in childbirth and Crassus is
00:28:52.080
increasingly jealous of Caesar. Excuse me. Pompey's increasingly jealous of Caesar.
00:28:56.080
Sorry, I'm confused. She dies in, oh, she dies in childbirth as in, but she's not the child.
00:29:01.760
Sorry, I was like, he was married to a baby? No, no, no. Pompey's older, a few years older
00:29:06.320
than Caesar. Sorry, I was being stupid. No, not at all. He marries Caesar's daughter,
00:29:11.920
The Romans, like the mafia, did these kind of marriages all the time to seal political deals.
00:29:16.000
Right. And, uh, in the meantime, Caesar gets what he really wanted, command of Gaul to start a war
00:29:22.480
in Gaul and conquer all of Gaul, which is basically France and Belgium. And just for good measure,
00:29:28.000
he crosses the Rhine and invades Germany. And then he crosses the channel and invades England, which
00:29:33.760
to the Romans was the equivalent of going to Mars or the moon. Wow. The Atlantic Ocean, the English
00:29:40.160
channel is so scary, but he does it. Pompey's getting more and more jealous of this guy. You know,
00:29:46.800
I thought I was the greatest general in Rome. Who's this guy? He thinks he's the greatest general.
00:29:51.200
So, uh, when Julia, Caesar's daughter, John dies in childbirth and Caesar says, don't worry, I got a
00:29:58.400
niece. I'm married to my niece. Pompey says, I don't think so. And Pompey now moves to the other side
00:30:03.920
and the other faction. After Caesar conquers Gaul, he wants to come back to Rome and have a second
00:30:10.160
slot as consul, uh, be respected as the leading man in Rome, pass some laws that will help his
00:30:17.600
constituency, the poor people of Rome and settle his veterans. But he has made huge enemies, very
00:30:24.240
powerful enemies. Anyone in Rome who considers himself a conservative, uh, of any sort at this
00:30:30.240
point thinks that Caesar is a threat, uh, to their way of life. Why? Ah, that is a good question.
00:30:37.280
There's two theories of scholars. Uh, one is that they were dyed-in-the-wool purr-blind fools
00:30:44.720
who didn't understand that Rome needed to change. Um, they thought they could, uh, turn the,
00:30:50.320
the hourglass back and keep Rome the way it had always been. Rome had acquired an empire of 50
00:30:55.520
million people at a minimum, uh, but it was governed by a few families in the city of Rome. This was crazy.
00:31:01.200
They had to bring in the outsiders. Both Pompey and Caesar knew that, but the old-fashioned senators
00:31:06.160
didn't. There is a second theory. And also the old-fashioned senators hated the Roman people
00:31:11.280
and they didn't want to see them get more power. But there's a second theory that says,
00:31:14.800
well, that's all well and good. But the truth is that Caesar was an egomaniac who wanted to dominate
00:31:20.240
Rome as no one had ever done before. I actually think both theories are right. I think that, uh,
00:31:25.760
these, uh, senators really didn't understand that Rome needed to change. They didn't like the Roman
00:31:31.040
people, but Caesar was no pussycat. Uh, Caesar wanted to enjoy a kind of, the Romans made a
00:31:37.360
distinction between power and authority. Power is legal powers written in stone. Authority is the
00:31:42.880
informal power and they called it actoritas. And there's no doubt in my mind that Caesar wanted to
00:31:48.320
have the kind of actoritas that would make him the greatest mafia don of all time. Uh, after all,
00:31:53.440
he settles for nothing less than Cleopatra as his woman. Um, and she bears his son, almost certainly
00:31:59.600
bears his son. They see this. They, he's not with Cleopatra yet, but they see him as a threat,
00:32:05.280
uh, to their way of life. And so, uh, they demand, they fire him and, um, say, say, step down,
00:32:12.720
come back to Rome, stand trial for your crimes. And Caesar says, I don't think so. I think I'm going
00:32:17.920
to invade Italy instead and start a civil war. And he says, I'm doing this for two reasons. One is to
00:32:23.200
defend the Roman people because the, the, um, the tribunes of the plebs who are in technically
00:32:28.880
defends of the Roman people in the constitution. Uh, they have been dissed by the Senate, which
00:32:33.120
was true. They had been dissed by the Senate. But the second reason he says, and to me, this is
00:32:36.960
vintage Caesar. It's because my rank and standing is greater to me than my life itself. In Latin,
00:32:42.560
my dignitas is greater to me, is dearer to me than life itself. And dignitas doesn't just mean dignity.
00:32:48.640
It means my rank, my standing, my reputation. So for this, he starts a civil war. It's a civil war
00:32:54.480
that rages for four years. It ends up seeing, um, his opponents, Pompey being, uh, murdered,
00:33:01.200
Cato committing suicide, the other generals being killed in battle, and Caesar winning it all,
00:33:06.880
including Cleopatra. He is now the, uh, dictator for life, dictator in perpetuity. There's never been
00:33:13.440
anyone like this in Rome before. And it's that when a conspiracy of senators decides, no moss,
00:33:20.800
we've got to stop this guy. And do they say that because he's essentially usurped all the
00:33:26.480
power that there was? And they're like, this guy's out of control. Yes. By now he is really
00:33:30.480
out of control. And even some of his former supporters say, wait a minute, we didn't sign
00:33:35.600
up for this. You know, we didn't sign up for this guy behaving like a mafia Don and giving the
00:33:40.800
choicest jobs to his family members. We didn't sign up for this guy basically abolishing elections.
00:33:46.080
He didn't technically abolish them, but de facto abolished them. And the Romans really cared about
00:33:50.640
elections. So, uh, and they didn't like the idea that he was dictator in perpetuity. What does this
00:33:55.520
mean? Uh, no one, Romans never, dictator specifically for six months only. Um, and they didn't like the
00:34:01.440
idea that the Senate had declared him to be a God. Um, so for all, and they didn't like the idea that
00:34:07.520
his, he had a Roman wife, but his mistress, who, by the way, he kept in a palace across the Tiber,
00:34:13.360
Caesar's palace, we'll call it now Caesar's villa really was, that's where Cleopatra was at the
00:34:18.000
time of his assassination, hanging out in Rome. Um, and she was probably pregnant with his second
00:34:23.840
child, but she has a miscarriage. So there are just a lot of people in Rome who've had it with
00:34:29.440
this guy. That makes sense. And Barry, it's so interesting to me because I've never, we've never
00:34:34.480
interviewed a historian about these individuals in this way. I'm just, this is a brilliant conversation.
00:34:39.200
I was so happy to have you on. It's fantastic. One of the things that occurs to me is these
00:34:43.920
great stories. I mean, these people are maniacs in a way. Yeah. I mean, that if you had a guy now
00:34:50.240
who came along and was like, look, I want to be great. Therefore let's go and invade France. I mean,
00:34:55.600
France is, yeah, invade France. I've got no problem invading France, but invade some other country,
00:35:01.520
kill loads of people so that I can raise my status in the hierarchy of my society. We would say that
00:35:07.840
guy's a lunatic, lock him up. But if, but it's not only that, but it is that, but it's not only
00:35:12.320
that, but look at some other modern examples. Look at Abraham Lincoln. He has a choice. He can make
00:35:17.280
peace with the South and say, well, at least nobody died or he can fight the war, however it takes.
00:35:23.440
And by the time the war is over, 600,000 people are 600,000 Americans on both sides are dead.
00:35:28.960
The South is in ruins. And finally, the last casualty is Lincoln himself. Some people might say,
00:35:34.000
that's crazy. Or Churchill, you know, Britain could have made peace. Thank God they didn't. But
00:35:40.320
Churchill basically said, whatever it takes, whatever it takes, you know, and if Britain's
00:35:45.200
going to be in ruins and a lot of British people die, that's what we have to do to save our way of
00:35:51.440
life. And that's different, isn't it? That's different because both Lincoln and Churchill,
00:35:56.080
they're also fighting for an idea. Well, whereas here, it seems much more about personal ego,
00:36:02.480
power. Maybe because I've made it that way. But no, you're right. There is a difference.
00:36:07.200
Because, but it's also from our point of view, Caesar would have said, I am fighting for the
00:36:13.200
Roman Empire. We Romans believe that we are destined to govern the world. As his successor,
00:36:18.880
Augustus says, empire without end. That comes from Virgil's The Aeneid. And that's what Romans thought.
00:36:24.320
And Caesar would also have said, the Gauls have threatened Italy's security in the past,
00:36:28.400
and that will never happen again. They hadn't threatened Italy's security for 60 years,
00:36:31.920
but never mind. And also Caesar believed, and I'm the only one who stands up for the common person
00:36:40.080
in Rome. So there's that too. But you're absolutely right. In all three of these cases,
00:36:45.680
there's ego. Hannibal thinks he's defending his country and getting revenge. Alexander thinks he's
00:36:50.320
defeating the Persian threat and making Greece and Macedon the greatest power in the world and
00:36:56.080
changing history and spreading civilization, which in fact he did too. So, you know, it's not-
00:37:01.520
Let me rephrase what I mean. If we found out that Rishi Sunak or Joe Biden are sitting in their
00:37:09.760
offices in the Oval Office and in Number 10 Downing Street, and they're saying, well, you know,
00:37:16.000
my mother told me that I am born of a snake that is God, and therefore I am entitled to conquer the world,
00:37:25.680
we'd get the mental hospital out there urgently to deal with them.
00:37:32.560
It is possible. Which I think it's fair to say some people have criticized him for,
00:37:41.520
to put it mildly. Do you see what I'm saying? I mean, is it fair to say that not only is it that
00:37:47.120
these men are different, but the culture in which they operate is so different that we would probably
00:37:54.160
Yes and no. Yes and no. I mean, we have politicians today who might say,
00:37:58.880
I really think I'm here for a reason. God put me here for a reason. And my reason is to help
00:38:04.960
the people. The reason is to defend my country. We could imagine a politician saying that.
00:38:10.880
So, I mean, these are countries with different religions.
00:38:14.160
Well, I mean, Vladimir Putin almost certainly thinks in this world.
00:38:16.640
Sure. And I mean, there were other Greeks at the time who couldn't stand what Alexander said.
00:38:20.560
Alexander later in his life passes decree saying, I need to be worshipped as a god. I insist that
00:38:25.760
everyone worships me as a god. And the various Greek city states, you know, couldn't agree fast
00:38:30.720
enough to do this, except Sparta. Sparta says, if Alexander wants to be worshipped as a god, let him.
00:38:37.600
I mean, the Spartans were, they were pretty badass, weren't they?
00:38:41.440
Yeah. Yeah. You've got to have a really strong sense of identity to stand up to Alexander the Great.
00:38:49.120
No, they were happy in this instance. They went along with it, right?
00:38:52.960
No, no, no. Sorry. I mean, you know, the idea was, if that's what he wants, go ahead.
00:39:04.560
Exactly. They were giving him the finger. Thank you. You put it so well.
00:39:08.960
So, we'll move back to season in a second. So, what actually happened with the Spartans when they
00:39:16.720
Nothing. Nothing happened. I mean, for one thing, Alexander was far away. He was in Iraq.
00:39:23.680
For another thing, nobody really cared about Sparta that much anymore. And besides which,
00:39:28.480
it would have been bad for business for the Macedonians to have destroyed Sparta,
00:39:32.640
just as it was bad for business for them to destroy Athens. Athens rebelled twice. They didn't
00:39:37.760
destroy it. They did destroy Thebes, which they could get away with because all of Thebes'
00:39:42.960
neighbours hated Thebes and wanted to see it destroyed. At this point, Sparta was no longer
00:39:48.560
a great power. It was on the decline, and yet it had a lot of prestige for what it had done for
00:39:54.560
the Greek world. So, they got away with it. And then Alexander died, and his successors had other
00:39:59.520
things to do, like fighting each other. So, they didn't hear that much about Sparta.
00:40:03.120
So, moving back to Caesar then. So, we're talking about essentially the end of Caesar's life.
00:40:09.360
How did the conspiracy arise? How did the plotters get together? And how did they execute it?
00:40:15.680
So, the conspirators, there were three main conspirators, two who we know from Shakespeare,
00:40:22.000
Brutus and Cassius. And there's a third one who Shakespeare just kind of disses, really. His name is
00:40:28.960
Decimus Brutus. He's a distant cousin of Brutus and Cassius. Brutus and Cassius had both fought
00:40:33.840
against Caesar in the Civil War, and then after being defeated, had asked for a pardon for Caesar,
00:40:39.840
and he gave it to them. Decimus Brutus is different. He'd always fought for Caesar and with
00:40:44.560
Caesar, both in Gaul and then in the Civil War. But he changes his mind, possibly because of his wife,
00:40:51.360
who comes from an anti-Caesar family. And partly, possibly because he sees that Caesar is moving on
00:40:58.560
to new favorites. Caesar is planning to invade Iran. That's going to be his life's, cap his life's work,
00:41:05.520
invade the Parthian Empire. But he's leaving Decimus Brutus at home. And so, Decimus is pissed off about this.
00:41:14.080
Brutus and Cassius. Brutus is a philosopher. He is married to the daughter of Cato the Elder,
00:41:20.800
who is Caesar's most vehement enemy. And Brutus really believes in the principles of the Roman Republic.
00:41:28.880
Cassius is more of a military man, less of a philosopher. But they both don't like the way that Caesar has
00:41:35.440
gained power. And Decimus decides to go over to their side. So, they gather together a group of,
00:41:42.880
depending on who you believe, either 35 or 60-some-odd senators, or 60-some-odd senators,
00:41:49.200
let's say, to join this conspiracy to kill Julius Caesar. And they want to do it in a way. They
00:41:56.720
want to do it themselves, first of all. They could have hired thugs to do it. They want to do it.
00:42:00.720
They want to do it themselves to show that this is not just a garden-variety murder,
00:42:04.720
but it's something for the sake of Rome. And they want to do it in a meeting of the Roman Senate. Again,
00:42:10.000
to make the point, we're not killing him out of pique or an ambition. We're doing it out of idealism
00:42:15.280
for the Roman Senate. They manage to keep it secret because Caesar doesn't really believe it.
00:42:21.600
It's not as if he doesn't get rumors of conspiracies against him. The problem is what
00:42:25.840
they call noise. He's getting rumors every single day of conspiracies against him. And so,
00:42:31.520
Caesar also thinks, whatever. The other thing is, Caesar's very arrogant. We've seen this a lot
00:42:37.200
in history. Caesar thinks, who would be crazy enough to kill me? Rome has just gone through a
00:42:42.400
four-year civil war, and it was disastrous. Huge casualties. Huge destruction. If you kill me,
00:42:48.640
Civil War II, the sequel, is going to break out. Who would do that? I'm untouchable. And we see the result.
00:42:55.680
It brings up an interesting question, branching out beyond these three figures specifically,
00:43:00.480
Barry. As you mentioned, and from the way you tell the stories, it seems certainly true that
00:43:05.520
these guys really didn't know when to stop. They didn't know when to stop. They absolutely
00:43:08.800
didn't know when to stop. Are there leaders of their magnitude and history who did?
00:43:12.800
Yes. I'll give you a couple of examples. One is William the Conqueror.
00:43:19.360
After conquering England, he says, that's nice. I think I'm going to administer this place.
00:43:24.800
He didn't go on. I suppose the difference there is he conquered a kingdom that he didn't have. He
00:43:31.680
wasn't a king before, right? Right. But he could have gone and tried to conquer more kingdoms.
00:43:35.440
That's true. That's true. But yes, Alexander conquers a kingdom he didn't have before.
00:43:39.920
But wasn't he king of a kingdom already? Yes. Right. That's the difference.
00:43:43.440
But William was the Duke of Normandy, which is no mean place.
00:43:46.880
Yeah. Sure, it's a big place, but he's no king. So that's one. And he stays and governs.
00:43:54.960
Yes. Ataturk, you know, Turkey's a satiated power. He said, that's enough. We don't need to do this
00:44:00.960
anymore. Don't need any more. I mean, he wasn't a nice guy, but he doesn't know when to stop.
00:44:06.880
Um, in a sense, George Washington, sorry, my British friends, but Washington could have become
00:44:12.480
a king. And he said, no. And he could have been president for more than two terms. And he said,
00:44:18.560
Is it, is it partly because these figures come later on in history, therefore they don't have
00:44:25.920
this idea that they have been ordained or by God or representing God or even being literally God?
00:44:32.880
Um, I don't know. Napoleon is later than, than, uh, it's pretty late in history, but he doesn't
00:44:41.840
Hitler's pretty recent and he didn't know when to stop. Um, you know, I think another person who
00:44:47.520
knows when to stop is Franco, you know, also not a nice guy, but you know, Hitler saying to him,
00:44:52.800
hey, come on, come on. Don't you want to join me and Mussolini in the war? And he says,
00:44:56.160
I don't think so. No, no, no. We have a lot of, we have problems in Spain. No,
00:45:00.400
I think we'll be neutral. Imagine if Mussolini had stayed neutral in the world war two,
00:45:04.560
he would have survived, you know, and Italy would have been spared a lot of ruin. So, um,
00:45:11.040
so there are people who know when to stop. They really are.
00:45:13.520
And going back to the question of fatal flaws, was that the all that was that their fatal flaw of
00:45:19.840
these three great men, which is the inability to stop or was there something else as well?
00:45:24.880
Oh, something else. I mean, um, it's less true of Hannibal, though you can make a case for it,
00:45:30.480
than it is of Caesar and Alexander, but they're so arrogant. These, they're just so arrogant. Uh,
00:45:38.160
the idea that, um, it's related to knowing when to stop, but the idea that we keep on going after
00:45:44.800
what they had done or that Caesar would thought that he was untouchable or if Alexander really was
00:45:49.600
poisoned that he didn't see that coming either. Um, Alexander had actually murdered one of his
00:45:55.200
leading generals in a fit of rage earlier on in his life. Um, and that certainly impressed
00:46:02.000
some of his generals with thinking the life expectancy in this job is not very great.
00:46:06.480
So, I mean, they made enemies that they, that, that they didn't need to make for Caesar to think
00:46:11.440
that he was, that he was untouchable. Uh, before we, uh, wrap up, we've only got
00:46:16.880
10 more minutes or so before we go to questions from our locals, uh, you're a military historian
00:46:21.120
as well. And one of the things I was fascinated about when you were talking about how the Greeks,
00:46:25.680
while the Romans were these kind of sluggers, but perhaps not very skilled tactically,
00:46:30.240
the Greeks came up with new ways of fighting. Yes. What was it? Was it technologically based?
00:46:35.280
Was it intellectually based? Did they come up with tactics that were powerful? What was it?
00:46:39.200
So, I mean, the Greeks, and it's really the Macedonian Greeks who, who come up with this,
00:46:43.600
um, they create a combined, combined arms military that uses the infantry and the cavalry working
00:46:50.480
together. Um, and that is a very, very potent combination when you can do that. The Romans are
00:46:55.040
really not good at that. Um, the Macedonians, so Greek armies were pikemen, the armies of the city
00:47:02.640
states. Shield and spear. Shield and spear. And, but they didn't, not a javelin, but a pike,
00:47:07.120
you know, come up against the enemy and just hit and hit and hit. It was pretty simple. Um,
00:47:11.360
but the Macedonians come up with a, a new system whereby, um, so the pike of the Greek, uh, hoplites
00:47:17.680
was infantrymen was nine feet long. The Macedonians come up with a new pike that's about 15 feet long.
00:47:23.920
Wow. Uh, the pike, a nine foot long pike you can hold in one hand while you have a big body shield and
00:47:29.920
you hold through a thong with your left hand. You can't hold a 15 foot, uh, spear in your hand.
00:47:35.840
It's too heavy. You need both hands. Uh, so, uh, the solution, and you can't have, uh, uh,
00:47:42.320
you don't have a hand to hold the body shield. If you put the body shield and the thong around your
00:47:45.840
neck, it's going to choke you. So the solution is to have a little shield. How do you do that?
00:47:51.040
Uh, well, the Macedonians are the hardest drinkers in Greece. So they go into battle, uh, having had
00:47:56.640
Dutch courage as it were, and a lot of Dutch courage. The other thing is that the Greeks
00:48:00.160
in the city states are citizens. If the generals had told them, you don't have,
00:48:04.640
you can't have so much protection anymore. They would have fired the generals.
00:48:07.680
Macedonians are subjects in a kingdom. The king has more power. And frankly, they're kind of hillbillies.
00:48:14.240
And, um, they're willing to take chances because they want to get rich, uh, in a way that Greek
00:48:19.280
citizens weren't. Uh, they trained year round. These were professional armies. And the Roman
00:48:23.920
armies weren't professional armies in the beginning either. Uh, that gave them an advantage and then
00:48:28.400
it allowed them to maneuver, to do things, for instance, like feigning a retreat, a very hard
00:48:33.120
thing to do. And when you draw the enemy in, feigning retreat with half your army, draw the
00:48:37.520
enemy in and then turn around and hit the enemy on two sides. That's the kind of thing that, um,
00:48:43.200
these Greek armies could do. And then use the cavalry to disperse the enemy and then use the infantry,
00:48:48.960
uh, as the hammer. Um, that's the sort of thing it's difficult to do. Hannibal could do that
00:48:54.720
brilliantly. Uh, the Romans couldn't until they learned to, uh, beat him at his own game.
00:48:59.440
And why couldn't they do that? Do you, does it take some kind of signaling or command or training?
00:49:05.040
No, not at all. It's culture. I mean, culture is in many ways the most important factor for any,
00:49:10.560
uh, any military. Um, you know, um, why do army national armies fight in the way they do?
00:49:17.600
It's the culture of the country. I mean, why do the Russians think you should just
00:49:22.000
send in men like cannon fodder and slog and slog and slog? Because that's the Russian way of war.
00:49:26.560
I mean, it's just, that's just the way that they do it. Uh, why are some countries very good at
00:49:32.880
cunning, uh, and, uh, special operations and others not? It's everything to do with culture.
00:49:38.560
And just touching the, the culture that's always really interested me is the culture of the Spartans.
00:49:44.240
Yes. I just, as I remember as a kid- He's watched 300.
00:49:48.080
Yeah, I've watched 300. And I've read the comic.
00:49:52.560
But as a child, I was obsessed with ancient Greece and I was particularly obsessed with
00:49:56.720
Sparta. I remember people going, it was a bit weird, but he just sits and reads books about
00:50:00.560
Sparta. But what, what made them such incredible warriors, Spartans?
00:50:04.960
They were professionals. You know, they were professionals. Uh, they were the only professional
00:50:10.400
military in Greece before the Macedonians, before Philip and Alexander. Sparta was a society,
00:50:16.400
was a pyramid. Uh, at the bottom were the helots. These were the serfs. At the middle were the
00:50:21.680
neighbors. Um, they could lead relatively ordinary lives, but they had to serve as Spartan allies when
00:50:26.960
needed. And at the top was a small group of full Spartan warriors, the so-called peers, 9,000 of them
00:50:34.000
at the population height. They, all they did was train for war. Um, and they had a bizarre educational
00:50:42.160
system. Uh, uh, they were taken from their parents at the age of seven and they went to live in age-graded
00:50:48.800
barracks, um, where they were, uh, their primary group was boys of the same age. And there they were
00:50:54.560
taught how to fight. Uh, and they were also taught how to be tough, uh, to, uh, live out in the wild,
00:51:00.080
to steal, to kill, to do what you needed to do to survive. So they had the most professional
00:51:06.560
and toughest soldiers in Greece. Um, so that, that is, uh, one of the reasons they were so strong. Also,
00:51:12.240
their entire society is set up on a military basis. It's an austerity society. Uh, ain't no,
00:51:18.320
uh, none of this culture stuff. The only songs they sing are military songs. The other thing is
00:51:24.480
the role of the Spartan woman, which is a very big part of it. Uh, women in Sparta were meant to be
00:51:29.600
wise mothers breeders, and their job was to tell the men to buck up, uh, the famous staying of the
00:51:36.880
Spartan mother to a son when he once goes off to battle with it or on it. Come back with your shield.
00:51:42.080
Don't throw it away like a coward or come back dead on your shield. I'd rather have you dead
00:51:47.680
than to have you alive without your shield. Um, Spartan, uh, girls were the only girls in
00:51:52.560
Greece to have a public education. Um, they were, uh, trained to run the household when the men were
00:51:59.520
away. Uh, but they were also trained in gymnastics and they were trained in the nude. Greek boys were
00:52:05.840
trained in the nude. Nothing unusual about that, but only in Sparta were girls trained in the nude as
00:52:10.880
well. And boys and girls would see each other in the nude in public. Uh, the idea was to get everybody
00:52:16.640
really horny. Uh, so they would go off and make future Spartans. So, uh, it's a whole society
00:52:22.480
that's set up for war. It's really quite remarkable and horrible.
00:52:30.320
movie or whatever it is, is actually not that inaccurate in terms of how they were trained.
00:52:34.400
No, it's not that inaccurate. It's not that inaccurate. Yeah.
00:52:37.440
And it's very interesting as well, particularly brutal, the way they treated boys who
00:52:42.800
weren't going to make it or they didn't think were. Well, so, I mean, the Spartans had this
00:52:48.480
system that when a baby is born, a baby has to be inspected by a public inspector.
00:52:53.280
Uh, and if they think the kid is sickly or not going to make it, they expose the child on a
00:52:59.040
mountainside, uh, where the baby will either die or somebody might take him and enslave the, uh,
00:53:05.120
enslave the child. The Sparta was the only Greek state that did this as by government initiative.
00:53:10.560
Um, but the other Greek states, a father had the authority to do this to his own child,
00:53:16.640
but it'd be much more difficult for a father to sacrifice his own child than it would for an
00:53:21.200
impersonal state to do it. And why did they never, because if you look at the militarily and,
00:53:26.880
and the fighters that they produced, they're, they're still famous now, the Spartan warriors,
00:53:32.240
still, even people may, may understand very little about the culture that still resonates.
00:53:37.520
Why is it they never went on to conquer the world?
00:53:40.000
Well, because you don't win, it's a great question, but you don't win wars just by having,
00:53:43.920
uh, having good soldiers. For one thing, the most important thing you need to have to be
00:53:48.160
successful at war is money. And Sparta didn't have any money. Spartans abolished money. Uh,
00:53:53.200
they had a barter system and they had, uh, ungainly iron spits because they thought money was
00:53:58.080
corrupting, corrupting. Um, and that's the other side of the Spartans. They really didn't want to
00:54:02.480
conquer the world. They wanted to be pure. They wanted to be great, pure warriors. So they conquered the
00:54:08.320
Peloponnesus, the Southern Peninsula of Greece and part of central Greece. So they didn't want to go
00:54:12.320
any further. The other problem is that reason is they have a security problem. Um, all Greek city
00:54:17.520
states have enslaved labor, unfree labor, but Sparta is one of the only ones in which the unfree laborers
00:54:23.200
are Greeks. In Athens, the unfree laborers are all kidnapped, enslaved, brought in from abroad, and then,
00:54:29.760
um, they're bred enslaved families. In Sparta, they basically, most of the people they've enslaved
00:54:35.600
are their neighbors to the West, the Mycenaean Greeks. Uh, and the Spartans make the mistake of
00:54:41.120
letting these people to continue to live in their national homeland. Um, they want their country back,
00:54:46.320
uh, and they rebel against the Spartans whenever they can. The Spartans, young Spartan boys, as their
00:54:51.680
initiation into the military, have to spend two years living in the countryside where the hellats are
00:54:56.400
and making their lives miserable. Uh, they have the right to kill them. Every year on New Year's
00:55:01.120
Day, Sparta declares war on the hellats and says, we can kill these people if, if necessary. Um, so, um,
00:55:08.320
they have this security problem, but they have this notion of purity, which is not really what you
00:55:12.960
want. If you want to conquer the world, you need to be a pragmatist. And the Spartans are anything but
00:55:18.080
Gary, I mean, I, I hope we get a chance to have you back about 50 times because we can talk about the
00:55:25.360
Romans as an empire, the Greeks, there's so many other things we can talk about. And Carthage is
00:55:30.160
one thing that we don't know about because the Romans kind of make sure we don't know about it.
00:55:35.200
So, uh, if you have time at some point, we would love to have you back on the show for now. We're
00:55:39.920
going to head over to locals where we ask you questions from our audience, but it's been an
00:55:43.680
absolute pleasure. Of the leaders you have written about or researched, who would be perfect to lead
00:55:50.480
the West out of the current situation? And whom should today's leaders emulate?