The Ancient Roman Text That Was Never Meant for Us | Jeremy Ryan Slate

Added: 2026-06-02

[00:00:01]So Aurelian's killed around 275.

[00:00:04]>> 274.

[00:00:04]>> 274.

[00:00:05]>> He rule he he rules for about 5 years, dies in in 274 >> and then who takes over for him again.

[00:00:12]>> Tacitus. Tacitus.

[00:00:13]>> He's not going to be an emperor for very long.

[00:00:15]>> He totally takes away all the monetary reform.

[00:00:18]>> You have a series of smaller emperors until Dialesian who's going to be ruling for from 284 to 305. So a little over 20 years.

[00:00:26]>> And then it's Constantine. Constantine is in 311 is when he wins the battle of Milvian Bridge. Uh and he's going to be emperor. I think 336 or 33 337 when he >> What happened at Novian Bridge again?

[00:00:37]>> So Milvian Bridge um is kind of where he has this Christian conversion. He sees um the Kai and the row, the two Greek letters that stand for Christ in the sky.

[00:00:47]>> And he sees this this here's this phrase under this sign you will conquer. So he has his soldiers uh put this sign on their shields and he goes against um because basically what he's trying to do is be the emperor ruling all the empire again because there had been d so I guess to go backwards because once again they have to understand some stuff.

[00:01:07]Dialesian creates this system called the tetrarchy or rule by four two senior emperors two junior emperors. So now we have four emperors. What Constantine wants to do is kind of be the only guy in charge. So it's down to just two emperors at that point. him and a guy named Maxentius. So if he beats Maxentious, well now he's the guy in charge of everything again. He wants to be the one emperor to kind of rule everything. So at this battle of Milvian Bridge after seeing under this sign you will conquer he beats Maxentius and then in 313 the edict of Milan he makes Christianity legal because Christianity had been practiced and unless times were bad >> it was permitted. All right, let's dig into this history a little bit because you mentioned earlier the different times where there were Christian persecutions. You mentioned the what was the one in 250 again?

[00:01:53]>> 250 was an adishious.

[00:01:55]>> Okay. So, >> so this uh one of his coins >> this guy Jesus Christ exists within the Roman Empire >> down in the Holy Land. He's killed >> coin dishas in the 270s.

[00:02:08]>> Okay, cool. And look at that. Yeah, that one's hard, too. So Jesus dies in roughly 33 AD, >> which may have been off by a few years because the English monks that put the dating together, >> give or take, >> might have done their math wrong.

[00:02:23]>> Okay. So in that area, 30 to 40 AD, he does. And the empire obviously continues along. He's also, it's so interesting when you look at when his life was and all the stuff that was going on outside the Holy Land at that time. The battle of Actum, all this stuff is happening.

[00:02:38]>> No, >> that battle of Actum is 31, right?

[00:02:41]>> BC. That's >> Oh, that's BC. BC.

[00:02:44]>> Ah, [ __ ] Sorry. But there's still a lot going on in there.

[00:02:47]>> This would have been during the time period of the second emperor >> who was >> Tiberius.

[00:02:52]>> Tiberius. Okay. So, you have Rome massively expanding though in a relatively new what's now termed empire.

[00:02:59]And then in the midst of this empire, you have the Holy Land where you have >> and they would have called it a principe. They wouldn't have like called it empire.

[00:03:04]>> Okay. You have this guy Jesus who lives and then dies and then his story is written down over the next century by a bunch of people. It starts to get passed around underground. You were defining earlier what Roman religion looked like.

[00:03:19]It was a bunch of different gods that would be termed now like pagan gods >> and the Christians were like an underground viewed as like an underground kind of cult. But eventually it grew to if I'm remembering correct me correct me if I'm wrong it's like 20 20 to 25% of the empire by the time of Constantine was voluntary >> it's more to like 2 to 5% by >> two to five to five so it wasn't really it wasn't really a major >> like known religion at that point in time >> it was in there somewhere 25 2 to 5 >> and Romans didn't quite understand the difference between Judaism and Christianity it was a little confusing to them so there's is um if you look at um I think around the year like around the year 80 AD so somewhere around there um Vespasian who's actually the emperor that builds um the amp the uh Favian amphitheater which is what we call the coliseum >> um it's a little bit before that because he dies in I think around 78 or something like that but anyway he's writing to plenty plenty of the elder is writing writing to him and he's describing these early Christians and he's kind of confused by how to explain it. Well, they're they're not Jews, but they are Jews and um they um eat some guy's body. Like the the the letter is very confusing. So, they didn't quite understand Christianity, but unless times were bad, they permitted it. And that's how they were with most religions.

[00:04:46]>> Okay.

[00:04:46]>> So, that's kind of the scene you're sitting in is like, so you have the fire of Rome in 64 AD. Nero blames it on the Christians and there's a big Christian persecution. You have Dishius in the 250s that you mentioned earlier that he's trying to restore the peace of the gods. So he's going to persecute Christians, Jews, anybody that won't sacrifice to the Roman gods to bring back this peace of the gods. Dialesian is going to do that as well because he's trying to kind of in his mind bring the peace of the gods.

[00:05:13]>> So Christians are very often persecuted.

[00:05:15]So to go from Christianity being legal in 313 is a is a really big deal because it had been this thing that was persecuted a number of times by a number of different emperors and then by 380 under Theodocious the great it becomes the official religion of Rome. So you have this kind of over 313 to 380 this morphing from a pagan empire to a Christian empire.

[00:05:38]>> So Constantine has this moment where he believes Christianity helped him win this battle.

[00:05:44]>> Yeah. And I guess the thing I have to say about that is you have to realize that there's also political means at at at work too, right? If people are under a whole bunch of things, to bring them under one thing makes a lot more sense.

[00:05:56]So there's definitely the spiritual aspect of it, but I think there's also political aspects of it. So to say it's all one thing is um to not really look at the reality of it, >> right? Obviously, he's taking advantage of the situation for sure because he sees an opportunity, correct? And he sees a way to use power. But then there is the very highly debated council of Nika in 313.

[00:06:19]Well 313 to what? 325 is while they were deciding >> 325 I think was Na. Don't don't quote me on that but I think it's around 325.

[00:06:26]>> Can we pull that up to make sure we got that right?

[00:06:29]>> What happened in 313?

[00:06:31]>> 313 was the edict of Milan which made Christianity legal.

[00:06:34]>> Yeah. Yeah. So the council na happens in 3:25. But basically there's a period that's what it is. There's a period from the edict of Milan to the council of Nika where this transitional period is happening >> when a lot of people had the wrong idea about what Nika was about and they often say oh the books of the Bible and things th those weren't done at the council of Nika those were done at later councils the council of Nika was just to decide well what do we believe in Christianity because there was a number of different sects of Christianity going around the biggest one was called Aryanism and it was a kind of molding of Christianity and Zoroastrianism and it was under this preacher named Aras. So they were trying to decide what what is kind of Orthodox Christianity versus what's heresy. That was really the purpose of the council of Na. Now the interesting thing about that is it doesn't exactly stamp out Aryan Christianity because Constantine dies and his son Constantius II ends up becoming an Aryan Christian. M >> so it is something that's going to take a while to change but really the purpose of the council of Nika is to say what do we believe you know what does Christianity believe and the emperor attends but he's supposed to attend as a layman once again we don't know how much control he had over the situation but it is this idea of getting all the bishops together and deciding well what does Christianity believe because we have this this heresy we're trying to handle well that's the strange part too and like I've had people from all different backgrounds in here talk about the council na from my mannostic informant to Wes Huff which is like two very opposite ends of the spectrum and everyone in between >> but like you have this base story you have historical record written down you have a bunch of different historical records written down so and again you said it wasn't decided at Council Na which ones they were like going to make the Bible and all that >> it definitely wasn't too long after that I don't remember which council it was it was yeah >> with the council na it's fascinating to me that a bunch of guys got in the room 300 years later and said this is what we're going to decide it is and therefore that is this is the edict and that's what it's going to be >> and it doesn't make the story fake or anything like that but you wonder what aspects of the story were potentially changed there and then it later% true right that's very >> because I think that the problem is >> and and you can even look at the like medieval church about this if you look at like you know the bor Praa popes or you look at the Medici pop or the Medici popes and things like that. You have to understand that people are corruptible, right? They're political. They're also going to look at what makes them powerful. That's right.

[00:09:12]>> It doesn't make religion bad, but it does mean that men can use it for their own means. So, I think there's a mix between people wanting to just handle beliefs and there's others are like, well, I want good politics, right? So, there there there is definitely a lot of different things that go into it. You know, it's a kaleidoscope of things a lot of times.

[00:09:30]Yeah. And I don't want to get, you know, it's tough with any ancient tradition that points to any organized religion to not get cynical about some of that. But when you see the term power and political power specifically mixed in with what is decided as a belief system, it does make you question.

[00:09:53]>> It once goes back to who writes your history, right? That's a big part of it.

[00:09:57]And that's >> it can be the difficulty in it. And I so that's why I think it's hard to say 100% divine inspiration with no human agency.

[00:10:04]There's always human agency, right? And humans are motivated by what's good for them. M >> so I think it's looking at something for the good it can cause and also at the same time you know realizing that human agency can create some of the bad you know >> now what happened in the immediate years after this becomes a thing where Constantine declares it the law of the land that Christianity is now a religion what types of social and cultural changes occur and what what what impact did that have on greater Roman society.

[00:10:39]>> So, one of the things you're going to start to have and and Edward Gibbon actually talks a lot about this in the decline and fall of the Roman Empire, which uh is kind of the most famous work on it. Um you start to have monasteries developing. So, you are starting to have men pull out of society a bit. Um you start to have bishops get some political power. But if you want to look at what Constantine does, and this is actually one of the things that starts to push early conversion is he starts to favor Christians in political positions.

[00:11:07]>> But I think that the bigger thing about Constantine that doesn't get talked about enough is he's the one that actually fixes currency.

[00:11:14]He's the one that actually takes currency and fixes it. And after he dies, it's going to go for about 700 years in the East without inflation.

[00:11:23]>> Wait, so he fixed the 15,000% inflation >> in the East? because the west was already falling apart, right? Because the east and the west are going to split again.

[00:11:31]>> Define the west and east geographically if you want.

[00:11:33]>> So the g so the east is going to be around Bzantium which is what ends up being called Constantinople. So if you want to look at kind of like modern Turkey yeah Istanbul in that area.

[00:11:43]>> The west is Rome proper and the capital is going to start changing because Rome starts to be harder and harder to defend. So it's going to move uh to Ravena at one point. and it's going to move to Milan at one point, but the capital city of the west starts changing because they become harder and harder to actually protect Rome. Why was that?

[00:12:02]Well, the political means of things had started to destroy. Well, I guess let's go further back. One of the things that's really important is being able to feed people. The east was much easier to feed people. Constantinople itself is much harder to attack. And as the west starts to degrade, it's going to become harder to protect Rome and harder to feed people. So they're going to start moving the capital around to where they feel like they can protect it. Revena is pretty good because it's surrounded by swamps.

[00:12:30]>> Milan is pretty good because it's near mountains.

[00:12:33]>> So they're going to start moving away for Rome just for the sake of protecting the city.

[00:12:36]>> And what happens to Rome when they actually physically move away the capital of the empire? Does it change drastically in those time periods? Well, you're going to have basically the wealthy people in the senatorial class going wherever the emperor goes. So, they're going to start moving their power centers as well. So, Rome just becomes a less important city.

[00:12:55]>> So, it is something to consider. Um, and as it moves to from being an empire and more to barbarian kingdoms, you are going to have the early barbarian kings actually start to take some of the Roman monuments and rebuild them because they do see value in those things. But Rome as a city starts to kind of fall apart a little bit because they're moving the power center away and the political classes are moving wherever the emperor is.

[00:13:17]>> What about the power center of the Vatican being there? Does that impact keeping it a power place like the surrounding area of Rome?

[00:13:25]>> Well, so the first pop the first church of the bishop of Rome because it's not really the pope yet that starts to be established a little bit later >> is the church the church of St. John Ladan and I believe that's built in the fifth century. Um the actual um St. Peter's isn't built until uh Pope Julius II in the 1500s.

[00:13:45]>> So that's not really a power structure yet. It will be later on as kind of the the empire itself starts to collapse.

[00:13:52]>> Um and even the modern word dascese that we use comes from the divisions that Dialesian created in the empire.

[00:13:59]>> He divides the empire in kind of military divisions. They'd always had provinces, right, as their divisions.

[00:14:05]But he creates these stronger military divisions called dascese. And those dascese, each one is is managed by a man named a vicer, which medievally is going to be a word that's used for a priest.

[00:14:16]So you do have some of these kind of power structures that start to develop, but you are going further into late antiquity before you're kind of seeing like, you know, the power of the Vatican or things like that. Early on, it's just, you know, the church of St. John ladder in the in the fifth century. the pope is just kind of the bishop of Rome.

[00:14:33]There's other bishops. He starts to get more power because he's when bishops start to disagree, they bring him in as an arbiter.

[00:14:41]>> So, he starts to kind of get the power because he's helping to kind of handle these disagreements between people. So, it's early on it doesn't it's not really a power structure, if that makes sense.

[00:14:51]How did the people of the Roman Empire take to Christianity when it was declared overnight when only 2 to 5% of them were Christians in the first place and it was declared overnight that oh everything we worship that we're not doing that anymore. We're doing Christianity. Everybody get on board.

[00:15:08]That's what the emperor says. Adoption is going to be very slow because the regular people especially in the provinces like the further you get away from major cities are going to continue just doing what they've always done, right? So, it's going to really be just major cities that you're going to see conversions in at first because those are the kind of where the political classes are, where the culture is, things like that. But in the provinces, it's going to take a really long time before their life changes.

[00:15:32]>> Oh, that's interesting because what you're talking about is >> But you're also talking about an element of group think and it ties >> Yes and no. But it's also just being close to >> well, >> you could say that because people are kind of thinking of what's good for for me as well because Constantine was putting Christians in early political positions. So that's one of the early reasons to become a Christian if you didn't really have the belief system yet.

[00:15:58]So I guess in some ways, yeah. Yeah. Cuz like what I was going to tie it to is what you were talking about earlier with population centers. When you have a big population center like New York with a lot of people in close proximity to each other, certain broad ideas may spread as accepted rule much easier than it does in a place where people are more spread out and less >> well population density is a huge part of that. It's a huge part of that. And that's why in the provinces it would be harder because they're disconnected like they may be miles away from a city, >> right? So that's why I that's why I bring that up. Looks like they could have the adoption could have been there because yes, there's incentivization for sure, >> but secondly, if you're looking around and all your neighbors are getting on board with this thing and people are in close proximity to talk to each other about it.

[00:16:41]>> Well, then yeah, it's going to make a lot of sense. It's just access, right?

[00:16:44]It's access.

[00:16:45]>> Now, you said there were three things to look at with the fall of empires. The currency, immigration, what was the third thing again?

[00:16:51]>> Where political classes care kind of less about what's happening in the future and just right now, >> right? And I think the crisis of the 3rd century is a big example of that.

[00:16:59]>> How so?

[00:17:00]>> Because what's happening is you would have army commanders or even their armies dressed them in purple because purple was the color of emperors. And they would attack each other and declare themselves the next emperor. And if they could rule, if they could stay alive, well, that was great.

[00:17:15]So they weren't thinking about where is this empire going to be in 10 years.

[00:17:18]They're just thinking about can I keep from dying?

[00:17:21]>> Because you have over this 50-year period 26 guys claim to be emperor. So it is a it's in some ways a death sentence to become the emperor once you get the power. So that's going to make it so they're not thinking in futures, right? They're not thinking in long-term vision. And if you look at even politicians now, they're just thinking about how do I win in two years, four years, six years, whatever it might be.

[00:17:39]They're not thinking about where is this country going to be in 50 years. They're just not considering that. And you know, you might not have politicians raising armies against each other, but you do have kind of fifth generational warfare.

[00:17:52]You have a lot of, you know, warfare for your mind going on. Yes.

[00:17:55]>> And you do have kind of this political warfare going on like a propaganda war.

[00:17:59]So it's not an exact kind of parable I think in a lot of ways, but I think it does show you what happens when they're just worried about another election cycle or how I get power.

[00:18:08]>> Mhm. What do you think? Like we talked earlier about Alexander's quest for power and that being driven by legacy and trying to be considered among these other greats.

[00:18:18]>> He wanted to be a a Greek hero.

[00:18:20]>> Yeah. Yeah. What do you think? You know, it it it's kind of tough, especially like in one period if you're talking about 26 different people all buying for it. But >> do you think it was legacy in the annals of history that drove men like this to fight each other for the throne or was it something different?

[00:18:39]>> I think there's so many different motivations. You know, there's there's probably even the simple one of I could do it better or that could be me, right?

[00:18:45]So, I think there's different motivations for everybody that >> I'm a better general than he is. I could be emperor, right? if that's all you had to be to be emperor was just to now be a general. Well, I have a bigger army. I have, you know, maybe they could even look at who they're related to, right?

[00:19:00]So, that it's I'm more Roman than him or I've lived in this province. So, those are things to consider, right? Like you look at a guy like um Maximus Thrax who's one of the first big emperors of the crisis of the third century. He reigns in I think 238. He's like one of the main guys that kicks it off. And um allegedly he's like 7 feet tall. He's supposed to be like this massive guy.

[00:19:24]And for him he just hated the political class and he wanted to be emperor in order to just take power away from them.

[00:19:30]And the Senate hated him. So the Senate then named two more emperors, Claudius II and Claudius III.

[00:19:35]>> So it's it's really creates whatever motivates them, right? So everybody's motivation I think might be a little bit different.

[00:19:44]>> Yeah.

[00:19:44]>> Because he's a guy from Thrace. He was born in the provinces. he's going to hate the rich people. So, he wants to be emperor and take power away from them.

[00:19:50]And he hated the city of Rome and had never been to it. So, you know, different motivations across the board.

[00:19:56]>> Yeah. I I'm so fascinated by that subject matter in in human nature. And there's there's all different motivations as you alluded to for sure, but there's something about people wanting other people to be able to come to them >> and be this central resource, if you will.

[00:20:18]>> That seems to be a huge part of that.

[00:20:20]That's a common thread when I look at guys throughout my life who I've observed who are really successful who never hang it up or are always trying to get the next thing no matter what. Yeah.

[00:20:32]>> They accomplish and maybe sometimes in some cases lose sight of the things that are important in life.

[00:20:37]>> There's like this greater purpose that all of them and there's other motivations too to be clear but there's this greater purpose that all of them that I've observed seem to have which is that they like just being the guy. Well, it's even the simplicity of why does why does an athlete play too long? You know what I mean? It's like it's like you look at a guy like Paul Goldmid who the Yankees just signed on a $4 million contract for one year. Guy's 38 years old. He could retire. He he barely hit 270 last year. Hit 10 home runs. So, you could look at it as why do athletes keep playing and why don't they hang it up?

[00:21:08]There's something about them that says I have to keep doing this. Lindsey Vaughn tears her ACL.

[00:21:12]>> You know, she's in her 40s. She could just retire. She doesn't have to ski again. And she tries doing it again and breaks her leg.

[00:21:18]It's it's something like that. Why does somebody not stop? And I think there's so many motivations you could pull on that. For some of them, it's just the love of the competition.

[00:21:24]>> That's it. Yep.

[00:21:25]>> It's the love of being in the game and being in what they're doing.

[00:21:28]>> Yep.

[00:21:28]>> It doesn't necessarily even have to be the end result of it.

[00:21:31]>> Yeah. There there's a point that some of these people, especially nowadays, you know, when you look at the wealth gap and everything, where they they reach, you know, the financial stability, if you will, quickly.

[00:21:43]>> Yeah. But it and then it it just money just becomes a way of keeping score.

[00:21:48]>> Yeah. Well, you look at a guy at the end of his career like um you know uh what's his name? Just real life. The Browns, the defensive end. Um anyway, >> not Miles Garrett.

[00:21:56]>> Miles Garrett was talking about like I want to play in a different city.

[00:21:59]>> Yeah.

[00:22:00]>> Well, because he wants to win a Super Bowl, right? He's been playing for 15 years and he doesn't want to retire without winning a Super Bowl. So, at the same time, what motivates somebody to do that? You know, it's there's something in them that says, "I have to have that thing." Yes. Yeah. They're chasing something for sure. So the the immigration because we kind of got off that, but you were saying like they might have >> Germanic warriors like man in the borders and stuff, but it's crazy to think about in a time like this where it took [ __ ] 3 weeks to get a letter from France to Rome if or maybe more.

[00:22:34]You know, you're managing this whole empire that stretches as far as the UK and as and as east as Turkey and and all these different places.

[00:22:42]Mesopotamia for sure. Like >> how do you how do you even define a border? How do you manage any of that?

[00:22:50]>> Well, early on it's going to be by having actual, you know, troops on the border to define where your border is.

[00:22:56]And Dlesian is going to make this a lot more, I don't know, of an exclamation point of what a border is because one of the things he does is he creates these military divisions that we talked about, but he also creates new positions. He creates something called a dukes uh dux which is later going to become the in the middle ages it's going to be called a duke.

[00:23:14]>> He also creates something called a com uh which is where the word count's going to come from and he actually puts these counts at military garrisons around the border.

[00:23:23]>> So he starts to manage borders. Um if you want to go even earlier the Roman Empire reaches its furthest extent in 117 AD under Trajan.

[00:23:33]In the 120s Hadrien's going to build that first wall in Britain. Now, there's going to be a later wall built by the by the Antonines that's a little bit further into Scotland, >> but they cared about not going further and not having the PCs come in.

[00:23:46]>> So, they start to worry more about borders when they stop expanding, right?

[00:23:50]Because expansion is what fueled Rome.

[00:23:52]It's what brought in wealth. It's what brought in slaves. It's what brought in a lot of the things they needed.

[00:23:55]>> When they stop expanding is when they're going to worry more about borders because now they have this thing to protect. where the word for the Mediterranean Sea, what the Romans used to call it is they used to call it Marstrom, RC.

[00:24:08]>> Okay?

[00:24:08]>> Because if you were Roman, everything was yours if you could get it. So that's what you have to consider is once you start just worrying about borders, well, now you're preserving something.

[00:24:17]You're not worried about getting more of something.

[00:24:18]>> All right. You just open up a can of worm. This is Hold on because I I've never thought about this before, but it's like, you know, if a shark's not moving, it's dying, right?

[00:24:28]>> Yeah. Yeah. So, woo. People are going to get pissed off in the comments, but let's bring it back and relate it back again.

[00:24:36]>> Yeah. Yeah.

[00:24:36]>> To modern day.

[00:24:39]>> If you stop being imperialist and you stop conquering places over I don't know.

[00:24:43]>> Oh, you want Greenland. Is that what's happening now?

[00:24:45]>> I'm not saying that. I'm not Listen, this isn't an opinion. It's it's analysis. If you stop, I don't know, overthrowing governments over banana companies with the CIA in South America.

[00:24:55]Yeah. because you know we don't do that here anymore allegedly you know and you you just start trying to protect and think I don't know more scarcity mindset rather than abundance mindset the irony of being perhaps more diplomatically fair to the world ends up being the very thing that turns you in on itself when other places like China you know stuff like that yeah >> may not be thinking the same way they may be thinking like you used to think and trying to be imperialist.

[00:25:26]>> Yeah. Cuz there's the argument. Yeah.

[00:25:28]Cuz >> and it's it's a hard argument to have because at the same time like, >> you know, I don't know if you've read Confessions of an Economic Hitman, but it's like >> um I interviewed John a number of years ago, but it's like >> Perkins, right?

[00:25:40]>> I I don't know if I quite agree with like the idea of conquest either. And it's it's hard, right? Because you have to keep your civilization preserved. And if you look at kind of the timeline of civilizations, Napoleon civilization, it listed it existed as long as he could conquer, right? the the Second World War kept going as as long as the Nazis could keep going forward. The Roman Empire existed as long as it could keep growing and then it started preserving and trying to save itself. Now, does that mean America should be conquering the world? I don't think so. But it's like at the same time, you have a real point that if they're not growing, they are dying in a lot of ways. Oh, wow.

[00:26:16]Because, you know, I I've talked about this in a bunch of context, but it feels relevant here as well.

[00:26:23]We have such amazing invented principles in America that were unique to this place because of how it was founded and then you know mixing in a lot of different cultures and that and that's again part of the reason like you maybe the comparison you can make is like a Rome or something like that in some ways you know but it's this unbelievable experiment but it can be used against itself you know like in China they're communists so they get to rule with an iron fist >> I don't know if you exactly said they're communism It's kind of like communism with whatever suits them too. You know what I mean? Like like Xi's going to do whatever is good for >> Xi for sure. But Buck stops with him.

[00:27:00]>> Oh yeah.

[00:27:01]>> Okay. That's what I mean. When I when I mean like I'm talking the iron fist. The government said, "Oh, Jack Mile, you're worth $55 billion, but you just five years.

[00:27:10]>> Nobody Nobody going to see you again, pal." That's that's iron fist to me.

[00:27:13]Yeah.

[00:27:14]>> And it's like >> they can do all these things that take away their own people's freedoms because they have the right to do that. And that's very bad. I disagree with that obviously.

[00:27:23]>> Yeah.

[00:27:23]>> But they can then come into our system and the freedoms we have, borders, stuff like that >> and which some of that obviously we got to legislate, but like actual freedoms of like constitutional freedoms and use it against itself. So we have freedom of speech here. So guess what? They can run bot campaigns through their VPNs and [ __ ] get into our freedom of speech when we can't do it as well >> in reverse. It's such a tough one to look at cuz it's like you want to be the best example in the world. And I agree with that and we should be. But that means we're all we also have to accept the fact in there that we're operating strategically from behind and it may lead to the scarcity mindset. And that goes back to like even looking at somebody like Alexander the Great, you know, um it runs on a razor's edge because Alexander the Great is schooled by Aristotle as a child. He wants to be a philosopher king and he goes to being a conquering maniac. You know, early on he is the philosopher king, though he's conquering, but then he starts to become a bit more tyrannical. Power and freedom are both on a razor's edge, right? There is very little that keeps them in place.

[00:28:27]>> That's very well said.

[00:28:29]>> Real quick, I got to take a piss, but we'll be right back.

[00:28:31]>> Yeah, sounds good.

[00:28:32]>> Okay.

[00:28:33]>> Wait, so what's what's your friend's name?

[00:28:34]>> Marcus Aurelius Anderson.

[00:28:36]>> That's a real guy.

[00:28:37]>> It's a real guy.

[00:28:38]>> Did he change his name like at the DMV or something, or that's actually what his name is?

[00:28:41]>> That's his name.

[00:28:42]>> That's all right. Can we pull this guy up? Who is he? Marcus Aurelius.

[00:28:46]>> Yeah. Yeah, we're on right now.

[00:28:48]>> So, he's an author.

[00:28:49]>> He's an author. He's uh he was a chiropractor and then he >> stay with that mic by the way.

[00:28:53]>> He was a chiropractor and he decided um like later in life like he's always wanted to be in the military. So, in his early 40s he joined the he or late 30s he joined the military.

[00:29:03]>> Wow. He was uh I think para jumping or something in in camp and however he fell he went paralyzed and um he got heavily into stoicism and Oh, he's paralyzed.

[00:29:16]>> No, got heavily into stoicism and a lot of that philosophy he his body works now.

[00:29:23]>> No way.

[00:29:24]>> I've actually interviewed the guy on stage. He's a he's a pretty incredible dude >> and and he believes that it was like the mentality of stoicism. alia stoicism helped fix him.

[00:29:34]>> That's amazing.

[00:29:35]>> Guy's got an incredible >> I've never heard of this guy and he's got the hardest name I've ever heard in my life.

[00:29:39]>> Oh my god. Yeah, >> that's like a Wow. Okay, I got to check.

[00:29:43]>> He's writing a book with uh he's writing a book with uh the guy that wrote The War of Art. He's he's doing some really cool >> Oh, Stephen Presfield. Yeah.

[00:29:49]>> Oh, that guy's awesome.

[00:29:49]>> He's doing some cool stuff.

[00:29:50]>> Yeah, War of Art is a I remember I had never heard of that and then I was I listened to it back in 2018 2019. I listened to Joe Rogan's podcast with him from back in the day and then he would talk about it on >> He does some stuff with Pressfield. He's a cool dude.

[00:30:05]>> Dude, Pressfield like that book you read, it's a quick read and I retweet it from Joe Rogan. Like if if you have a dream on anything, read it because that guy just puts the mentality right there.

[00:30:17]And there is a lot of there's a lot of aspects of stoicism to it for sure.

[00:30:21]Well, and even how Marcus Aurelius, like the guy Marcus Aurelius looked at it, >> he didn't intend the meditations to be published, >> it was he didn't it was his journals because in his life >> he spends a good deal of his life fighting in the Danube, you know, around where Hungary would be today.

[00:30:40]>> And he's fighting uh a tribe called the Macromani. And then I forget what the other tribe is he's fighting. So he spends like 20 years of his life in military camps. He's seeing bodies. He's seeing death. there's a plague that comes through Rome and wipes out like 10% of the population.

[00:30:55]>> 10%.

[00:30:55]>> So the guy is just trying to deal with the realities of life and um he was very into to stoic philosophy but the meditations he didn't write a book because he wanted people to write a book. This was his journals and then it was later published.

[00:31:08]>> Yeah. I have them hanging out there.

[00:31:10]>> It was it was written for him to deal with what he was dealing with at that point in time.

[00:31:13]>> Well, I'm glad it was later published cuz it's so true. Like what? Those are those are, you know, those are legitimately words I say every morning.

[00:31:21]Yeah. Because it's like >> you're like, "God damn, this guy had bars 2,000 years ago." And it is relatable.

[00:31:28]>> Like to I I do believe in that. That's something that I would have been like more cynical about when I was younger.

[00:31:33]Like you can't just speak about things and it'll be true. But like >> when you put those thoughts in your head to start your day, like it's something I say out loud because I I have it memorized. So, like I'll say it out loud to myself or like write in my head before I walk to the gym and it kind of sets the tone for my day because it it the biggest thing about the meditations to me is that it's all about your mindset and how you view your opportunity in the world without you know doing it in a humble way but in a driven way where there's an expectation that you have to maximize your time here on earth. And there's something very beautiful about that and profound.

[00:32:10]>> Yeah. And it it I guess the sad part is that his son is comedous.

[00:32:14]>> Yeah. Well, listen, we'll we'll get to that.

[00:32:17]>> Not everybody wins, I guess.

[00:32:18]>> So maybe he didn't have, you know, he had important things to do on the road.

[00:32:22]He couldn't be home and be a father, you know.

[00:32:25]>> Yeah.

[00:32:26]>> I got to I got to make excuses for he's he's the last of what are called the five good emperors.

[00:32:32]>> Who was the first of them?

[00:32:34]>> Nerva was the first one in 96 or 90 I think it was 98.

[00:32:37]>> And why do we call them the good emperors? So the thing that's different about them is before them we had the Julio Claudians which are kind of the first emperors. Then we have uh the family of Vespasian um which are called the uh the Flavians and it's a very mixed bag. You get a great emperor like Augustus and a great emperor like Vespasian but then you and you have Vespasian's kid who was um his first one's Titus which is actually seems a pretty good guy but he dies young and then his brother Domission who is terrible and there was a a trope about Domission that people would ask where is the emperor and he'd be in his room ripping the wings off of flies so they say no with no one not even a fly or you go back to you know with the Julio Claudians you get Caligula you get Nero >> Claudius is okay so it's a very mixed bag of emperors the thing that's different about the five good emperors is in the ancient world you could adopt fully grown adults and what that meant is they got your titles they got your wealth they got access to whatever you had access to and that's why you even look at uh Augustus he's born gas Octavius he's Julius Caesar's great nephew but in Julius Caesar's will he adopts him and he becomes Julius Caesar.

[00:33:54]>> Oh, so is it more of like a figurative?

[00:33:57]>> It's figurative, but they would also because when um Augustus gets that name, when he's Octavian, he becomes the richest man in Rome because >> meaning it's more for continuity rather than like, "Hey, son."

[00:34:10]>> Yeah, >> got it.

[00:34:11]>> Let's go play ball, kid. Yeah. It's not It's not They're not going to go grab a glove and go out in the yard and play ball, pat each other on the back. That was a good curveball, kid. No, it wasn't. It wasn't like that. Um, but no, it was the idea that you would basically be setting up the next generation. So, the thing that the five good emperors do is they would adopt somebody that's politically qualified and militarily qualified to be the next emperor.

[00:34:35]>> And that works really well for Nerva, Trajan, Hadrien, Antonitis Pius, and the finest is final is Marcus Aurelius. Um, and >> so this is I just want to have context.

[00:34:47]Deep pulled up the timeline so people out there can see >> and Lucius Vary is like the co-emperor of Aurelion Aurelius for a little bit >> of Marcus Aurelius.

[00:34:55]>> Yeah, because um Pious has two adopted sons and they're co-emperors for a bit.

[00:35:00]>> Is that why they named the son Lucius and Gladiator?

[00:35:04]>> Lucius Varys. That was his name.

[00:35:06]>> That could be. I don't know. They they could have gotten the name from there, but Lucius Varys is basically Aurelius's adopted brother.

[00:35:12]>> All right. So basically 96 AD to what is that 189 >> 180 >> 180 AD >> 180.

[00:35:20]>> So you have >> Aurelius dies in 180.

[00:35:22]>> You have over 80 years of these five emperors and shit's pretty good. It's a very stable empire. Um >> you know a lot of it could be called the Pax Romana. It it is a very good time to be in Rome. Um, Edward Gibbon and decline of fall of the Roman Empire calls it, and once again this is a paraphrasing, but he calls it the greatest time in human history to live because it's a very stable time period because they would pick somebody they thought would be good and it worked well for five emperors. Now, Aurelius has a natural-born son. The other five the other four did not.

[00:35:56]They weren't really procreating >> and as I mentioned >> Hrien likely was as I mentioned he had that that that boy lover >> right >> so for you have to understand for Aurelius and I guess it's kind of poetic justice he's a stoic he's in a difficult position he has a son and if he doesn't name his son emperor he could create a civil war because then his son could go get an army and say you know what dad you didn't play baseball with me in the yard and you know you didn't name me emperor so I'm going and attack Rome. So you could really give I guess feel for the guy in that way that he's in a position of damned if you do, damned if you don't.

[00:36:33]>> Yeah.

[00:36:34]>> And in the other because if he doesn't name him, he has to kill him, right?

[00:36:37]Because he is creating a civil war.

[00:36:39]>> Oh, he has to kill him.

[00:36:40]>> Well, obstensively to prevent a civil war, he would have to kill his son, right? I'm not I'm not saying if there was a law, he had to kill him.

[00:36:46]>> Yeah.

[00:36:47]>> But it puts him in a position where >> what do I do other than name my son? And he put a lot of time into cometus. Come spent a lot of time with him.

[00:36:57]>> Oh, he did?

[00:36:57]>> In military camps, though, he didn't really want to be there.

[00:37:00]>> Wait a minute. So, he did spend a lot of time with him then and he just kind of >> he just didn't really work out.

[00:37:05]>> No faults as a son. Failures as a father >> and he definitely didn't kill his father. Um that was that was an interesting scene in the movie, but it was a good scene.

[00:37:13]>> It was a good scene, but um he really does pour into Comedus. It just doesn't really work out. So, in some ways, you have to feel for the guy. You know, he he breaks this pattern that worked really well for the four emperors before him. But he's in a difficult position of if I don't name my son emperor, am I creating a civil war?

[00:37:32]>> That is a I can't even fathom that type of decision.

[00:37:35]>> It's a lot of pressure.

[00:37:36]>> Yo, that's a lot of pressure. Did >> in Marcus's journals, does he really write specifically about this and playing with that decision in his head?

[00:37:49]So, I know there's mentions of that and there's but there's mentions of them from the positive way like of you know being upstanding and there's a lot of mention of his wife being upstanding but she may or may not be running around on him. So, >> oh she was cheating on Marcus >> thoughts that she could have been >> with who?

[00:38:05]>> Other wealthy and rich men. So, >> like was she back home?

[00:38:08]>> Like Marcus is a guy that wanted to see the best in everybody. And I think that's the difficulty because that can really put you in a tough position.

[00:38:14]>> I mean, you're the emperor and your wife's sleeping around. I don't know about that. Was she back home while he >> She was back in Rome. She wouldn't be on campaign.

[00:38:22]>> Ah, so there's no Yeah.

[00:38:25]So she's uh Biden her time, if you will, >> in some ways. Yeah.

[00:38:32]>> Now, did he Was he [ __ ] around, though, too?

[00:38:35]>> He's the emperor. You have to imagine he probably was. Like, we can't say that he was or wasn't, but >> I mean, he's got to get the stress out some.

[00:38:41]>> Probably likely that he did, >> right? So, it's a All right. It's a two-way street.

[00:38:45]>> Yeah.

[00:38:45]>> It's tough. Well, and especially like you have to understand especially in politically connected people and rich people that was >> just done you know >> it's marriage was done but it was done in a lot of ways for political position >> that's what I'm saying was this an arranged marriage or was it marriage for love >> at that level it would have been typically an arranged marriage like this is a good family this is a good family like even look at um why did Augustus marry Livia and he never had children with Livia because it's a political marriage like in in those places they would have been political marriages is >> that's that's a strange thing about elite society and again we can bring it back to modern day power though you're really trying to preserve power >> I was talking with someone yesterday who is not from that society but in recent years has like been in some environments where he's around people like this >> where it's like he he was saying it's all the same people when you he was I'm not going to list places he went but you know some enclaves he's It's It wasn't Epstein's Island, by the way, but you know, normal places. But he's like, "It's all the same people. It's all the same families. They all hang out. Their kids go to all the same [ __ ] private schools. They all marry each other.

[00:39:59]>> And it's like some of it h by the way, if you want to go to the highest level, some of it still happens right in front of our face. Look at like King Charles and Diana arranged marriage. That [ __ ] went well." You know what I mean? Like these >> But it's the creative it's a created political class. And I think that goes back to what we were talking about earlier with the life cycle of of government because it starts to be more of an oligarchic system. Yes. You have to be in the club.

[00:40:23]>> You know, it's like uh George Carlin used to say, "It's a big club and you ain't in it."

[00:40:26]>> I quote it every day.

[00:40:28]>> But it's it's it's very true, right?

[00:40:30]It's a it's a political class. It's like, you know, why can you um you know, there there was was it the mayor of DC that was like doing coke or whatever.

[00:40:38]This not the current one. This is like 20 years ago. and somehow he's like still in power and all these other things. Or somebody could be accused of being in the Epstein files and they're still in power because it's a big club and you ain't in it.

[00:40:48]>> Yeah, that's not okay. That's that's where I draw the line.

[00:40:50]>> Yeah, >> no pun intended.

[00:40:52]>> Oh, that's funny.

[00:40:53]>> No, but it's it's a it's it's a great point, man. Like it's rules for thee >> and not for me.

[00:40:58]>> Not for me. And you know, I I don't know that there's a better example of it right now than Howard Lutnik, who, you know, I savaged in that in that Patreon that ended up going public. And I I don't regret any of that. I >> I see people posting that like everywhere.

[00:41:20]>> Oh, dude. I will continue to do it because we then >> That's the one you guys were talking about.

[00:41:25]>> Yeah.

[00:41:25]>> Yeah. that we then ended up clipping that up and [ __ ] half the internet clicked clipped it up and then this guy went in front of Congress and had to answer for this and has the audacity.

[00:41:38]>> Like I've saw things that he may be leaving. Is he actually leaving?

[00:41:41]>> He as of the time of this recording he has not. This is going to come out next week. So hopefully when this comes out he's [ __ ] gone and we never hear from him again. What really pissed me off is I've defended Howard Lutnik in the past.

[00:41:53]I've known Howard Letic's story forever.

[00:41:55]He's the Caner Fitzgerald guy. He lost his brother in the tower. He lost 646 people from his company in one day and somehow kept the lights on. He was a Wall Street legend in a way and there was a lot to respect.

[00:42:06]>> Sounds like he knew the right guy.

[00:42:08]>> I mean, it sounds like he did, you know, now >> there was somebody keeping the lights on for him.

[00:42:12]>> Now you got to wonder, right? But to see like I just every time I watch that clip of him on that [ __ ] New York Post podcast just telling that story like in this tone so perfectly and his hands are like this and he goes so he gets right up in my face and says I get the right kind of massage and in the six to eight steps it takes to get from my house to his house. I looked at my wife and we decided that we will never spend a second around that disgusting individual ever again. And then he lists off business, socially, or philanthropy. And they're literally all the emails he's on, business, social, and philanthropy coming out in these files. and he has the audacity to go into Congress and answer the questions where they're like, and they asked him, by the way, very nicely, nicer than I would have, ironically enough, where they're like, "You see why we have a problem here, Howard? Like, you told this story so vividly about not spending time around this guy after 2005." And then we have a bunch of emails of you getting drinks with him, visiting him on the island with your whole [ __ ] family and [ __ ] And he's just like, "Yes, I did visit."

[00:43:34]Admitting openly that he lied. Yes, I did visit him on the island, but there was nothing unourred about it, which listen, you elites, you got to get rid of words like untored. That's just a dead giveaway. And you know, we went there with my wife, my kids, our nannies, and we left with the kids and the nannies as opposed to what? Leaving them there? And then he walks out and they're asking like, "Yeah, is he going to resign?" And you got the speaker of the house like, "No, he's doing a great job." Like, what the [ __ ] >> You know what I mean? like this is >> it's a big club and you ain't in it.

[00:44:07]>> And that's >> politics is a story as old as time.

[00:44:12]>> It's it's crazy, man.

[00:44:14]>> If you hold the wheels of power, you make the rules. And this I've been doing a a series lately on my YouTube channel about banking families.

[00:44:21]>> Banking families. And if you look at uh there's a banker in I think it's the 1500s uh Yakob Fuga and he was actually the guy that funded the Holy Roman Emperor Charles the 5th and helped him get elected.

[00:44:34]>> Y how do you spell that?

[00:44:36]>> Yakob. So it's J A K O B. Yakob Fuga.

[00:44:39]It's Fuger. It's spelled Fuger but it's fug is how it's pronounced.

[00:44:42]>> Got it.

[00:44:43]>> F u G- R.

[00:44:44]>> I never heard of this guy.

[00:44:45]>> So he basically funded the Holy Roman Emperor Charles V.

[00:44:49]>> How did he do that? He bribed the people. So there's these seven electors that would pick the Holy Roman Emperor and he bribed the electors by giving them whatever they would want and they picked his guy. So the next thing you know, every decision Charles V makes looks a lot like a decision Yakob Fuga would make.

[00:45:07]>> Or you look at the Medici. The Medici in the Middle Ages at one point they funded a pope. Later on they have a pope with Leo the 10th who's um Giovanni de Medici. So these banking families have been doing these things for a very long time. Now it doesn't mean that you know they are Epstein but at the same time these same type of operations whether they're through corruption of money or corruption of sex they've existed for a very long time.

[00:45:36]>> Yeah. Who controls the money holds the power.

[00:45:39]>> You control the money. You you don't have to be the king but you can control the king.

[00:45:43]>> You fund them.

[00:45:44]>> All you got to do is control them. All these politicians that we put into office, >> they're all funded.

[00:45:50]>> They all have to answer to daddy.

[00:45:52]>> Yes.

[00:45:52]>> And daddy's who's the money.

[00:45:54]>> Correct.

[00:45:55]>> Right. And that's everything from farmer to big banking. All of it. This guy, the spelling of this guy's name is hilarious, though.

[00:46:02]>> Yeah.

[00:46:02]>> Fugger.

[00:46:03]>> Fugger.

[00:46:05]>> What a way to go through life. He looks like a real fugger.

[00:46:08]>> That's why the German pronunciation is fugger.

[00:46:11]>> Fugger. Okay. The richest man who ever lived.

[00:46:15]>> Yakob Fuger.

[00:46:16]>> That's Is that a real thing? He was the richest guy who ever lived.

[00:46:18]>> I can't speak to that, but I know he was pretty rich.

[00:46:22]>> Yakob Fuger, the merchant and banker of Augsburg, uh, prominent merchant.

[00:46:31]Is there >> he started as a like a wool merchant and later on he he kind of gets into power broking because he gets all this money by he's basically becomes a supplier back and forth. So he becomes kind of like a mercantalist of like, you know, you need this, I can get you the money for that, you know, like supplying the loans for the for the imports, >> right?

[00:46:50]>> Makes a lot of money doing that. And that that's how he's able to buy someone like Charles V cuz this time period as well. Obviously, what does it say?

[00:46:58]>> At the same time, he was a cleric and held several pre-bends. I can't see it, dude. Sorry. Uh, American journalist Craig Steinmens has estimated his overall his overall wealth to be around 400 billion adjusted to 2015 equivalent to 2% of the GDP of Europe at that time.

[00:47:22]And have you ever heard the name before?

[00:47:23]>> No. Neither did I till about a month ago.

[00:47:26]>> No.

[00:47:28]It's one of the It's one of the fun things about looking at hidden forces in history. the foundation of the family's wealth was created mainly by the textile trade with Italy. Yep, that's what you were saying. The company >> because he goes early in his life, he goes to Venice and he's kind of observing a lot of the mercantalism in Venice and he's like cuz he's he's becoming a a priest at this point in time. And he looks at that and he's like, "Well, why would I why would I be a priest if now I understand how mercantalism works?" And then he goes back to Augsburg and he builds this empire.

[00:47:56]>> Now, what becomes of that once he dies?

[00:47:59]Does he hand it off to his sons and they kind of blow it?

[00:48:01]>> It does lose a lot of power when it loses him.

[00:48:04]>> Yeah.

[00:48:05]>> And the the fuga don't last very long.

[00:48:08]It's I think a generation or two after him.

[00:48:10]>> Yeah.

[00:48:10]>> But they're a very interesting I guess early banking family if you want to look at it. Like the the Medici are are very similar. They were the bankers to the popes early on and then they you know with Leo I 10th uh Giovanni >> de Medici >> they have a Medici pope and that become the most powerful family and Leo the 10th is actually the one who buil who he doesn't build um kind of the Vatican >> he's the one that finishes it >> and he creates indulgences in order to pay for it >> indulgences >> indulgences were basically these things you could buy that forgive the sins of people that have already died to him out of purgatory >> and um a lot of land.

[00:48:50]>> It's the thing that basically motivates the 95 thesis of Martin Luther.

[00:48:56]>> So thanks to the the Medici for that.

[00:48:58]>> And then we're still living in age where Joel Austin and who's the crazy guy Ken uh Kenneth Copelan and all these people and I don't even know who it was but the people who were selling plots of lands in heaven that mega church.

[00:49:13]>> I don't I'm not familiar with that. It's just time's a flat circle, bro.

[00:49:16]>> Yeah, but it's it goes back to to to money and power is a game as old as time.

[00:49:21]>> It is.

[00:49:21]>> And you know, in that point in time, you know, banking's kind of always been a wheel of power, but blackmail operations like that's been happening with um >> Epstein, those are also things that >> because you and I were talking the other day about the the work of Whitney Webb.

[00:49:35]There is a huge web this between prohibition and bootlegging and the serums family and these things have lasted for a long time. It doesn't mean that there's something new. I think a lot of people think that oh my gosh this is something new under the sun. These are old as time.

[00:49:51]>> Espionage and the levers of power that it creates have existed since the beginning of time.

[00:49:57]>> Yeah.

[00:49:58]>> And you can look at all these different empires, all the ones we've talked about today, Greece, Egypt. We can even if you go back to Rome, the most powerful man in Rome was the guy that ran the grain supply >> because Rome um in 133 BC there's two brothers, the Graey brothers. So they're the oldest uh gas fought in the last Punic War and he's on his way back to uh on his way back to Rome. He observes all these people farming and they're very poor and they can't feed their families.

[00:50:26]So he creates this thing called the grain dole. And the idea was that everybody would be given a certain amount of food by the Roman government in grains so that they could eat. And Julius Caesar is actually going to take this and make it a much smoother process. Um I think in 46 or 44 BC somewhere along that. But it becomes a really big part of Rome because now the most powerful man in Rome is the one that feeds everybody.

[00:50:51]>> So the the one that actually runs the grain supply is one of the most powerful men in Rome. And it was often a position appointed by the emperor.

[00:50:59]>> Earlier I mentioned Allegabilus who was the the teenage emperor that came from Syria with the worship of Black Rock.

[00:51:06]>> Mhm.

[00:51:07]>> He respected the Senate so little he put his hairdresser in charge of the grain supply.

[00:51:12]>> That seems like a bad idea.

[00:51:14]>> He's a very He's one of the more interesting characters in Rome. Um like if you want to talk about debauchery, this is the guy. He is a teenage emperor. He doesn't live very long. He has a wedding for his black rock to another rock and everybody has to come.

[00:51:29]He held orgies that he forced the Senate to go to and that they it's one of the reasons he's killed is the Senate is not happy about these orgies.

[00:51:36]He would advance men in political position by the size of their member. He was often pulled around Rome in a chariot pulled by prostitutes and he married a vestal virgin. So he's, you know, definitely a guy you want next door taking your daughter to the prom.

[00:51:50]You know, >> seems like a great character. Now he was when did he rule from?

[00:51:56]>> Uh 218 to 222.

[00:51:58]>> Okay. So and he died at age 18 for the best.

[00:52:02]>> Who did he didn't follow up comedus did he?

[00:52:05]>> No he was um >> there was someone between them.

[00:52:07]>> So well there's several between them.

[00:52:09]You have comedus you have uh the we talked about pertinax dishanus then >> um Septimius Seis comes out of that.

[00:52:18]Septimus Seis has a son that son's name is Kakala. Caracala and his brother Gada are going to reign for a little bit.

[00:52:25]Caracala may or may not have killed his brother Gada.

[00:52:28]>> That's who they base Gladiator 2 on.

[00:52:30]>> Caracal. Yeah, Caracala, who by the way would not have looked like the funny little dimminitive guy they made him into.

[00:52:36]>> Uh he would have been darker skinned since he's from North Africa. Um then I believe after that, McCrinus um who's a character they take a lot of liberty with in the uh the Gladiator movie, who's the Ptorian prefect, has Kakala killed. That's Denzel.

[00:52:52]>> That's Denzel. He's emperor for a little bit. And then you have uh the mother of Kakala and her brings her sister into Rome and her sister has this kid um who's Elgabilus and they try to claim he's basically Kakala's son. That can't be proven either way. Kakala dies and the guy that follows him is another guy.

[00:53:16]They're like, "Oh, this is Elabilus's brother. His name's Seis Alexander." So he does reign for about 20 years, but he's another very kind of teenage type emperor in the beginning. He's ruled by his women. Um in this time period, the severe women, so uh I think Julia Damn, I believe was the first one, the wife of Seis. These women are very very powerful. So basically, the severe women are running Kakala, Elabilus, and Seis Alexander. So they're not really the power, it's the women behind them.

[00:53:49]So, you know how in today's society we view someone as passing from a minor to an adult at age 18? It's kind of a, you know, randomized number, but when what was their number back then?

[00:54:01]>> It was a lot younger. It was like 13 or it was 13 or 16. I can't quite remember.

[00:54:05]And they would they had a a chain they would wear around their neck as a child and they would take it off when they became an adult, which is around 13.

[00:54:13]Even, you know, 13 hasn't even dropped on someone.

[00:54:16]>> Yeah. like 13 isn't really a you know they don't even shave yet at that point but like that was seen to be a man at that point in time >> okay >> which meant um men had the position in a household of being what's called the dominus of the lord >> which meant that he had the right to kill family members and at that point in time when he became a man even his mother would have to listen to him >> he had he had the right to kill them that changes a lot later on but they did have the right to they had the right the right to execute family members if they wanted to because they were the lord over their How when you have rules like that in society where every house can be the [ __ ] purge on a given day. Yeah. How does something like this last hundreds of years?

[00:54:57]>> The most mayorum the ways of the ancestors. Our ancestors didn't kill people who were innocent or they only killed the worst.

[00:55:04]>> The Romans were very very interested to tradition. And one of the things that shows this is they would have these wax death masks in their house of their ancestors. So if you look at a guy like Brutus who's the assassin of Caesar, his great ancestor 500 years before that is Brutus who's the first console of Rome, >> right?

[00:55:26]>> Console, if you want to kind of simplify it, you can look at it like a president, but Rome had two of them every year because they didn't want one man to hold powers. There'd be two at the same time >> and they'd mark the name of the year and by the name of the consoles. So his ancestor ended the kings of Rome. Caesar was ostensively becoming a king. So he saw it as an ancestral duty to take out Caesar. So it held a lot of power over them. So they're not just going to go willy-nilly killing family members. They did really look at is there a reason to do this? Will this cause a problem? Is this person a problem?

[00:56:03]Their heritage and their ancestry was very powerful to Romans. It was something that was really, really important to them because their constitution wasn't written. It was an oral constitution. All oral.

[00:56:13]>> It was all oral. And for from 509 when it became a republic till 31 that lasted. That's almost 500 years. That's I mean that's amazing. But it's also like societies agreeing on a verbal story that's passed down and just ingrained in society without having something to point to and be able to say here's in section 1b-5.

[00:56:38]>> Well, that that is going to change too because like there are es and flows to the republic itself. you're going to have um in the early republic, you have basically the rich classes doing whatever they want to the plebs or the poor classes. So, you'll have actual lit written law codes that come out called the 12 tables. Citizenship is going to become something that's discussed later on because a lot of the uh people living in the provinces didn't have citizenship. So, you have someone like Marius around the year 100 trying to get citizenship for people in the provinces.

[00:57:05]So things do change to try and make things better, but for the most part they stick by, well, what did our ancestors do?

[00:57:13]>> How did what what did class mobility look like?

[00:57:19]Could pe could someone be born lowborn and find a way strategically to get their hands on power even if it wasn't being an emperor? You >> often through the military would be the biggest way to do that. You could use military position to do that. Um because it's there's a lot to it to explain this because Rome had different social classes. They had their their equitates which are their knights class. They had their pub pubans which are their lower class. Then if you want to look at the politics they had the popular which were a party for kind of the regular people.

[00:57:50]You had the optimades which is the party of the senate. So it is a very closed system but at the same time there was mobility. you know, you could come into Rome as a slave, somehow managed to buy your freedom and hold a, you know, good position in the emp in the republic or later in the empire. Or you look at somebody like Maximus Thrax that we talked about early on. Maximus Thrax was a soldier out in the borderlands from Thrace. He manages to get into the legions, get a military, and make himself emperor. Or you look at someone like Hrien. Hadrien was born in Spain out in a Roman province and manages to become emperor. So there is and there isn't class mobility. You know, it's hard. It's there's certain times when it works. Military was a really big part of it because you could use your success in the legions to do something with that.

[00:58:37]But at the same time, especially during the Republic and during the early empire, they cared a lot about what family you came from.

[00:58:44]>> It was really important.

[00:58:45]>> Yeah. Now, like you were saying earlier, we didn't we don't have good written history of Main Street normal folk, you know, the people that weren't in power.

[00:58:56]But we do see the pattern. We're going to get to the actual fall of the Roman Empire in a few minutes. But before that, in the buildup to it, that third >> segment of the three that we've been talking about today, where it's like the elites start not caring about the people below them in a way and separating themselves from society and ruling in that way.

[00:59:17]What historical records can we point to that captures the vibe of the people in the fourth century into the fifth century of the Roman Empire to where suddenly the blacksmith, the baker, the the grain merchant all start waking up to the fact that like there's a bunch of people on an island [ __ ] little kids and they're running our government, >> you know? And then >> I heard Alex Jones.

[00:59:45]>> Yeah. Yeah. Maybe maybe they had like their own Alexius Jonesy or something back then. But like >> when did that how do we know what the vibe shift was and and when it really happened?

[00:59:56]>> I feel like he would have been a Maximus by the way. Alexius Jones Maximus. But uh >> anyway, I think the hard thing is once again to if you want to look at regular people, you have to look at what were the things that would be most hazardous to their health.

[01:00:10]>> Thank you guys for checking out this clip. If you haven't already subscribed, please subscribe and hit the like button on this video. It is a huge, huge help.

[01:00:16]And if you'd like to check out this clip's full podcast episode, that link is in the description below or right here. And finally, you can follow me on Instagram and X by using the links in my description below.