WEBVTT - Part Two: How The Roman Republic Became a Police State 0:00:01.440 --> 0:00:08.200 Oh America. Alright, I started the episode, so they I 0:00:08.240 --> 0:00:13.360 mean you could have done worse. Yeah, yeah, I America. 0:00:13.360 --> 0:00:17.840 I've heard you start. We all love America and so 0:00:17.960 --> 0:00:22.200 let's celebrate it. Andrew, of all of all of all 0:00:22.200 --> 0:00:25.680 of the countries that are America, which one is your favorite? 0:00:26.040 --> 0:00:31.600 And why is it ancient Rome? Wait? I I there 0:00:31.640 --> 0:00:34.400 was a bubble, just a tidy bubble in your audio, 0:00:34.880 --> 0:00:38.239 so i' I missed the middle of it. Wait what 0:00:38.360 --> 0:00:42.400 is he said? All the countries that are America? Which 0:00:42.479 --> 0:00:49.320 is my favorite? Yeah? Yeah, exactly, I think it's I mean, honestly, 0:00:49.400 --> 0:00:53.920 so far it's got to be. Um just the sword 0:00:54.000 --> 0:00:56.760 control bills, and I do I do love the sword 0:00:56.800 --> 0:01:03.520 control bills. Uh, yeah it is. It is very funny. 0:01:04.000 --> 0:01:06.480 I guess it is a little tricky too, because living 0:01:06.480 --> 0:01:08.480 at a time if you go back to part one, 0:01:08.600 --> 0:01:12.520 when it's like weapons of war are banned, but weapons 0:01:12.520 --> 0:01:16.319 of war includes things like horses. Yeah, well yeah, a 0:01:16.360 --> 0:01:18.600 weapon of war is like a sharp piece of metal 0:01:18.800 --> 0:01:21.600 in this period of time and not really much deadlier 0:01:21.640 --> 0:01:26.200 than like a big heavy stick, right, like it's yeah, 0:01:26.240 --> 0:01:29.160 it is, it is different. Like again, these are You 0:01:29.200 --> 0:01:31.880 can also find fun articles about people talking about ancient 0:01:32.000 --> 0:01:36.240 Roman like weapons limitation laws and people trying to make 0:01:36.280 --> 0:01:39.360 comparisons to assault weapons, and it's like, well, it doesn't 0:01:39.360 --> 0:01:42.520 really work very among other things. Number One, people support 0:01:42.520 --> 0:01:45.759 assault weapons bands in the United States generally because of 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:49.240 like massacres of schools and malls and stuff. And the 0:01:49.360 --> 0:01:51.800 Romans supported a ban on the carrying of weapons within 0:01:51.840 --> 0:01:55.600 the pamarium because they were trying to stop armed mobs 0:01:55.640 --> 0:01:59.560 from taking political It's not about stop Roman. Ancient Romans 0:01:59.680 --> 0:02:02.920 did literally nothing to stop murders. There were not police. 0:02:03.080 --> 0:02:05.120 You did not like if you committed a murder, there 0:02:05.160 --> 0:02:07.920 was like unless you killed a famous rich person, there 0:02:07.960 --> 0:02:09.959 was nobody to like do like they didn't give a ship. 0:02:10.680 --> 0:02:14.600 Um again, people died constantly, right like you we just 0:02:14.600 --> 0:02:16.520 talked about that lady had twelve kids and three of 0:02:16.520 --> 0:02:19.240 them made it to adulthood, like they didn't. They would 0:02:19.240 --> 0:02:21.720 not have banned us. They would not have banned assault 0:02:21.720 --> 0:02:25.040 weapons if the worry were that civilians were getting murdered. 0:02:25.040 --> 0:02:28.480 They scarrying because they didn't want people to take over 0:02:28.520 --> 0:02:34.760 the government. Um sort of. Yeah, the almost exact opposite. Yeah, 0:02:34.840 --> 0:02:37.639 it's it's literally like the opposite reasoning. It was not 0:02:37.680 --> 0:02:43.960 to protect life. That was absolutely no one's concerned Rome. 0:02:46.120 --> 0:02:49.680 So after the assassination of Tiberius Gracis, things got worse 0:02:49.840 --> 0:02:52.520 very quickly for our Roman friends. Now, Tiberius was not 0:02:52.639 --> 0:02:54.560 yet thirty when he died. I think he might have 0:02:54.600 --> 0:02:56.160 been in the twenty. He might have been like Cobain, 0:02:56.320 --> 0:03:01.280 you know, yeah, um, Kurt Cobain in Tiberius Gracchus to 0:03:01.440 --> 0:03:04.239 socialist kings. By the time, by the time you're in 0:03:04.280 --> 0:03:14.600 your thirties, you should have been assassinated, assassinated, yeah, um, yes, um. 0:03:14.639 --> 0:03:17.359 Now Tiberius, yes, So he's he's young, and he's got 0:03:17.360 --> 0:03:19.080 this younger brother who we talked about a little bit 0:03:19.120 --> 0:03:21.840 in the first episode, Gaius, who's like just starting to 0:03:21.880 --> 0:03:24.399 be an adult when his older brother gets murdered. Now, 0:03:24.560 --> 0:03:26.800 you can find a bunch of writing from historians at 0:03:26.800 --> 0:03:28.799 the time about Gaius, and it's all the same sort 0:03:28.840 --> 0:03:30.960 of like Haggia graphic shit about how cool he was 0:03:31.000 --> 0:03:35.400 and how like he loved his soldiers. When he becomes 0:03:35.400 --> 0:03:37.600 a trip, he becomes like a the equivalent of like 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:40.080 a lieutenant or something when he's like seventeen, like all 0:03:40.080 --> 0:03:42.320 of these people do, and he's he's supposed to be 0:03:42.360 --> 0:03:44.640 good at that, and eventually he winds up getting elected 0:03:44.680 --> 0:03:47.280 tribune like his brother had been. Um, he has to 0:03:47.320 --> 0:03:49.400 break his law to get elected. The break the law 0:03:49.400 --> 0:03:51.760 to get elected. He has to like actually desert the army, 0:03:52.080 --> 0:03:53.880 but he talks his way out of getting in trouble 0:03:53.920 --> 0:03:56.960 for it, because again, a lot of Roman law is 0:03:57.040 --> 0:04:00.400 just like, well, we're pretty sure our ancestors wouldn't have 0:04:00.480 --> 0:04:02.840 liked it if this happened. But he cocks his way 0:04:02.840 --> 0:04:06.280 out of it. Um. So, his brother's reforms had been 0:04:06.320 --> 0:04:08.560 passed after he was murdered, but they've been kind of 0:04:08.640 --> 0:04:11.440 kneecapped by patricians. So they pass a land reform bill, 0:04:11.520 --> 0:04:13.960 and then they spend the next couple of years like 0:04:14.920 --> 0:04:17.960 taking back everything that they've given to poor people pretty much. 0:04:19.360 --> 0:04:22.120 So Guias starts pushing for a bunch of like really 0:04:22.680 --> 0:04:25.920 pretty radical reforms at the time. He wants to give 0:04:25.920 --> 0:04:27.760 more public land to the poor. He wants to hand 0:04:27.800 --> 0:04:29.839 out free grain. He wants to set up a state 0:04:29.920 --> 0:04:33.159 dole so that the poor aren't reliant upon like rich 0:04:33.200 --> 0:04:35.479 people as clients who can then tell them who to 0:04:35.560 --> 0:04:38.520 vote in order to like survive. Um. He wants to 0:04:38.560 --> 0:04:41.960 provide public funding for military equipment so that poor people 0:04:42.000 --> 0:04:45.280 can be in the army. Um. He wants to raise 0:04:45.320 --> 0:04:47.359 the draft age, and he wants to make everyone in 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:51.840 Italy a Roman citizen, which really pisss off the rich 0:04:51.880 --> 0:04:55.800 and powerful people in Rome. Um and he's he's politically 0:04:55.880 --> 0:04:58.000 successful in a lot of this. He actually gets the 0:04:58.000 --> 0:05:01.520 Senate to send money back to conquered nations because he 0:05:01.560 --> 0:05:04.280 thinks that like Romes being unfair to the places they conquer, 0:05:04.560 --> 0:05:07.680 which is kind of a wild thing to succeed at 0:05:07.680 --> 0:05:10.560 getting the Senate to do so. This makes him as 0:05:10.560 --> 0:05:12.920 popular among the people who had murdered his brother as 0:05:12.960 --> 0:05:17.839 you might expect now. Plutarch describes the changes Gaius is 0:05:17.839 --> 0:05:20.760 trying to push in the Roman government as changing it 0:05:20.800 --> 0:05:25.080 from aristocratical to democratical. And perhaps he would have succeeded 0:05:25.120 --> 0:05:27.600 given time, But he made the mistake of leaving Rome 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:30.279 to found a colony in Libya, which gives his enemies 0:05:30.279 --> 0:05:33.360 the opportunity to slander him devoters. And when he returns, 0:05:33.360 --> 0:05:35.719 he gets attacked in the street by a mob and 0:05:36.040 --> 0:05:38.479 the majority of people fail to come to his aid, 0:05:38.560 --> 0:05:41.680 like nobody comes to protect him. When this group of 0:05:41.720 --> 0:05:45.120 like hired thugs comes to murder him, and he gets 0:05:45.200 --> 0:05:47.039 beaten to death and his head is stuck on a 0:05:47.080 --> 0:05:48.960 spear and brought to the Senate. They throw his corpse 0:05:49.000 --> 0:05:51.640 into a river. They love throwing corpses and rivers the 0:05:51.720 --> 0:05:54.679 romans Um, which is a bad idea, by the way, 0:05:54.760 --> 0:05:57.360 if you're going to kill, if you're gonna if your 0:05:57.400 --> 0:05:59.479 political movement is going to massacre a bunch of people, 0:05:59.560 --> 0:06:03.560 don't throw their bodies in the river. You need that water, especially, 0:06:03.920 --> 0:06:08.880 you know in pre pre water treatment plant times. Yeah, 0:06:08.880 --> 0:06:11.720 if you wanna my my famous favorite meme, the one 0:06:11.760 --> 0:06:14.440 from Predator with the two the black guy in the 0:06:14.560 --> 0:06:17.159 and the white guy like clasping hands, it's gonna be 0:06:17.200 --> 0:06:20.760 like ancient Rome, the Aztecs throwing all of their corpses 0:06:20.839 --> 0:06:27.520 in the river um. So, whether or not you want 0:06:27.520 --> 0:06:29.839 to see the Brothers gracky as they've become known to 0:06:29.920 --> 0:06:32.719 the ages as the first socialists or is precursors to 0:06:32.760 --> 0:06:35.440 Donald Trump, this brief period of time in the spotlight 0:06:35.480 --> 0:06:38.320 they have makes one thing very clear. The ruling class 0:06:38.320 --> 0:06:40.719 in Rome is willing to break any rule and violate 0:06:40.760 --> 0:06:43.280 any norm to keep the money flowing and maintain their 0:06:43.279 --> 0:06:46.279 shocking rate of wealth accumulation. From this point on in 0:06:46.279 --> 0:06:48.680 the Republic's history, the rich only get richer and the 0:06:48.760 --> 0:06:51.520 poor tend to get poorer. But once it becomes clear 0:06:51.520 --> 0:06:54.040 that it's okay to murder political rabble rousers and their 0:06:54.080 --> 0:06:57.720 supporters to keep them from redistributing land, it becomes increasingly 0:06:57.760 --> 0:07:00.000 hard to argue that there aren't a lot of other politics, 0:07:00.040 --> 0:07:02.480 cool things that are worth doing a murder over, And 0:07:02.520 --> 0:07:06.920 so people start murdering over everything. Um and while Roman 0:07:06.960 --> 0:07:09.920 politics is getting a lot more murdery. And one BC 0:07:10.360 --> 0:07:14.080 this huge migration of barbarians. They're generally called Germans, but 0:07:14.160 --> 0:07:18.440 like they're not actually Germans, but whatever they're they're they 0:07:18.720 --> 0:07:22.000 sweep down from central central Ish Europe and they start 0:07:22.080 --> 0:07:24.640 invading Italy. Now the Romans do what they always do, 0:07:24.680 --> 0:07:27.320 which is they put together this this army twenty men, 0:07:27.480 --> 0:07:29.760 and they march out to stop them. And you know, 0:07:29.880 --> 0:07:32.680 Nancy Pelosi's in charge again. So the army gets wiped out, 0:07:33.600 --> 0:07:38.920 just just absolutely massacred. So the Roman state, which had 0:07:38.920 --> 0:07:41.720 never meaningfully reformed public lands or fixed the problems that 0:07:41.760 --> 0:07:44.680 Gracky had railed against, can't really replace the lost men. 0:07:45.120 --> 0:07:47.960 But thankfully they have a guy on hand, a military leader, 0:07:47.960 --> 0:07:50.800 a dude named Gaius Marius who he's been elected consul 0:07:50.840 --> 0:07:53.160 a couple of times at this point, and he's co 0:07:53.400 --> 0:07:56.760 leading a military campaign elsewhere in the empire, and it 0:07:56.840 --> 0:08:00.720 just so happens. This guy Marius is like like top 0:08:00.760 --> 0:08:03.240 ten military minds and like all of history, like if 0:08:03.240 --> 0:08:04.960 you're if you're ranking like all of the like, he's 0:08:05.000 --> 0:08:07.280 up there with like Subatie and ship like. He's he's 0:08:07.480 --> 0:08:11.360 very very good at being a military leader. And he's 0:08:11.360 --> 0:08:14.160 going to be the guy who reforms the Roman military. 0:08:14.240 --> 0:08:16.960 So the Roman army that you've seen in any movie 0:08:17.120 --> 0:08:20.040 with like Romans where they all have segmented armor and 0:08:20.080 --> 0:08:22.000 like you know, you've got the lesions of the big 0:08:22.000 --> 0:08:24.440 shields and the swords and the hat. He invents that 0:08:24.560 --> 0:08:26.960 before him. It's a very different looking army. They have 0:08:27.040 --> 0:08:29.520 like different classes that they've got the guy's spirit. It's 0:08:29.520 --> 0:08:32.160 it's very different military. I mean it's it's like everyone 0:08:32.160 --> 0:08:37.200 because everyone bought their own ship. So it's right exactly exactly. Um, 0:08:37.240 --> 0:08:41.560 So he reforms the military, and he also he basically 0:08:41.640 --> 0:08:44.120 succeeds in making the state pay for it. So for 0:08:44.120 --> 0:08:49.040 the first time, Um, you've got regular people. They're called 0:08:49.080 --> 0:08:54.320 the proletarii proletari yeah, proletaria something like that. Um, the 0:08:54.360 --> 0:08:56.840 poorest people are in the military, and he started it's 0:08:56.920 --> 0:09:00.240 very controversial what he's doing, but there's a di aster 0:09:00.400 --> 0:09:02.240 happening at the time. They're getting their asses kicked by 0:09:02.280 --> 0:09:04.920 these these barbarians. So he's like, look, we have to 0:09:05.640 --> 0:09:08.559 we have to recruit from poor people and arm them 0:09:08.559 --> 0:09:13.000 at the state's expense. UM. And this works out really 0:09:13.040 --> 0:09:16.040 really well. UM. And Marius is as as he's a 0:09:16.040 --> 0:09:18.800 brilliant military leader, he's also a really good politician. He's 0:09:18.840 --> 0:09:22.880 good at winning elections and and exercising power and building coalitions. 0:09:22.920 --> 0:09:26.840 But he's also he's not really a patrician. He's he's 0:09:26.880 --> 0:09:29.360 a rich guy, but he's kind of a rich country guy. 0:09:29.720 --> 0:09:32.319 So everyone could all of the patricians. He's a redneck, right. 0:09:32.320 --> 0:09:35.400 He doesn't speak Greek, right, he can't even speak Greek. 0:09:35.440 --> 0:09:38.040 So they're like they hate his ass. Like there's a 0:09:38.040 --> 0:09:39.840 little bit, actually a little bit of their reaction to 0:09:39.880 --> 0:09:42.440 him that is kind of trumpy, and that like you've 0:09:42.480 --> 0:09:45.200 got this like entrenched political class who just doesn't like 0:09:45.320 --> 0:09:48.160 the way he talks. But I think it's kind of gross. 0:09:48.480 --> 0:09:51.920 But also he's super popular among regular people because number one, 0:09:52.400 --> 0:09:55.280 he's like massively improving their lives because along with letting 0:09:55.320 --> 0:09:57.199 them be in the army, he makes it so that 0:09:57.240 --> 0:09:58.640 if you're in the army, you get a bunch of 0:09:58.720 --> 0:10:01.839 land after you retire, right Like, you get this land 0:10:01.840 --> 0:10:03.640 that we're conquering, we're going to give it to soldiers. 0:10:03.720 --> 0:10:05.839 So instead of coming home to a farm that has 0:10:05.880 --> 0:10:08.160 been taken from you, you come home and you get 0:10:08.160 --> 0:10:10.480 given a farm by the farm, you know, And that's 0:10:10.520 --> 0:10:13.480 like a pretty cool deal um for the time. So, 0:10:14.320 --> 0:10:16.920 to make a long story short, he he wins this 0:10:16.960 --> 0:10:19.679 war um, and he becomes such a hero that he 0:10:19.720 --> 0:10:23.480 has styled the third Founder of Rome um. Like to 0:10:24.000 --> 0:10:25.360 if you want to talk about the degree to which 0:10:25.360 --> 0:10:28.600 he wins this war against these barbarians, if I'm remembering properly, 0:10:28.920 --> 0:10:32.040 they basically create a new god of death that's made 0:10:32.040 --> 0:10:34.000 in him his image because of how many of them 0:10:34.040 --> 0:10:36.720 he kills. It's that it's he's like that, it's like 0:10:36.800 --> 0:10:40.920 that kind of war um. So he becomes like known 0:10:40.960 --> 0:10:43.040 as the third Founder of Rome, which is you know, 0:10:43.120 --> 0:10:45.560 most like he's he's a big part of who's like 0:10:45.679 --> 0:10:48.560 pushing that title for himself, right, because he's yeah, it's good, 0:10:48.640 --> 0:10:52.240 good branding, um. And he's absolutely a populist, and in fact, 0:10:52.280 --> 0:10:54.839 he draws a movement towards to him, who become known 0:10:54.840 --> 0:10:57.640 as the popular as Um, which is I think it's 0:10:57.640 --> 0:11:00.120 pretty obvious what that means. And they're they're as is 0:11:00.160 --> 0:11:02.480 by the optimates, who are like the rich people who 0:11:02.480 --> 0:11:06.040 want to reduce the political power of the police Um. Eventually, 0:11:06.040 --> 0:11:08.280 all of this leads to a nasty civil war between 0:11:08.320 --> 0:11:11.800 Marius and his old lieutenant, a patrician politician named Sola. 0:11:12.160 --> 0:11:17.200 Now Slah is like the number one, it has to 0:11:17.240 --> 0:11:20.080 be said. He is like the queerest dude in ancient 0:11:20.160 --> 0:11:23.160 rome Um and very open about it. He's a fun 0:11:23.280 --> 0:11:25.640 fucking guy, like real it was like Sola is a 0:11:26.040 --> 0:11:28.800 is a neat character um and he he is just 0:11:28.840 --> 0:11:33.880 like this, like very like some people will say, sadistic, 0:11:33.960 --> 0:11:37.560 definitely mass murderer, very very good general. And he and 0:11:37.600 --> 0:11:41.800 fucking Marius have this like series of horrific battles. They 0:11:41.800 --> 0:11:43.840 have this massive civil war and just bleed it wipes 0:11:43.880 --> 0:11:46.840 out like a generation of Italian because they're both really good. 0:11:46.920 --> 0:11:49.280 Neither of them are Pelosi types. They're both actually good 0:11:49.280 --> 0:11:53.160 at having armies. Um, so they just massacre each other. Now, 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:56.760 Marius loses at first, and he asked to flee to Africa, 0:11:56.800 --> 0:11:59.680 but then he reinvades Italy and he conquers Rome and 0:11:59.720 --> 0:12:02.640 he massacres all of Sola's followers in the city. But 0:12:02.720 --> 0:12:05.400 then he dies because he's like Joe biden Age. And 0:12:05.400 --> 0:12:07.679 so Sola comes back and he kills all of marius 0:12:07.840 --> 0:12:12.360 Is followers, including like there's like eight thousand Italians members 0:12:12.360 --> 0:12:14.800 of this tribe elsewhere in Italy who Marius was trying 0:12:14.840 --> 0:12:17.360 to give political rights to because there's this big fight 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:19.520 over whether or not Italian should be Roman citizens, and 0:12:19.559 --> 0:12:21.880 he just genocides Sola just does a genocide on this. 0:12:22.160 --> 0:12:25.040 He stabs eight thousand people to death, which is a 0:12:25.080 --> 0:12:27.040 lot of people to stab to death when you think 0:12:27.080 --> 0:12:30.959 about it, um, very rarely do that many people get 0:12:31.000 --> 0:12:34.000 stabbed to death in the short period. It really is that, 0:12:34.160 --> 0:12:36.959 like you know, it's so I know that obviously our 0:12:37.000 --> 0:12:39.840 brains are numbed to like the numbers of war and 0:12:39.880 --> 0:12:42.920 like what what like automatic weapons and like you know, 0:12:43.320 --> 0:12:47.960 modern bombs can do. And it is really like swords, 0:12:48.240 --> 0:12:50.840 This is swords. This is sorts. It is. It is 0:12:50.840 --> 0:12:54.600 swords and sharpened sticks and like arrows which are basically 0:12:54.600 --> 0:12:59.840 sharpened sticks. Um. So Sola just kills fucking everybody he 0:13:00.160 --> 0:13:03.440 get his hands on, um who are his enemy. And 0:13:03.440 --> 0:13:06.440 then he's dictator. He makes himself dictator, which is a 0:13:06.480 --> 0:13:10.000 political position in Rome, right. Dictator previously is like it's 0:13:10.000 --> 0:13:11.520 a you have, it's a job you have for like 0:13:11.559 --> 0:13:14.440 six months a year. He makes himself dictator for however 0:13:14.480 --> 0:13:16.800 long he wants to be. But after a while he 0:13:16.880 --> 0:13:19.200 gives up the job and he retires to his mansion 0:13:19.240 --> 0:13:21.480 to funk a bunch of hot dudes. So that's a 0:13:21.559 --> 0:13:24.480 pretty fun character. I mean as far as like I'm 0:13:24.520 --> 0:13:30.400 the dictator, but you know what I'm like from dictator 0:13:30.559 --> 0:13:33.840 is like a pretty amazing that's like no one does that. 0:13:34.240 --> 0:13:36.480 Like he's a monster. These guys are all monsters, but 0:13:36.520 --> 0:13:40.320 he's a pretty entertaining monster. So there's a number of 0:13:40.360 --> 0:13:44.040 cool side effects to Solo massacring all of Marius's guys. 0:13:44.320 --> 0:13:47.280 Number one, all of the people who were like popularites, 0:13:47.320 --> 0:13:50.679 who are like populists, Plebeian supporting like folks who are 0:13:50.720 --> 0:13:53.240 on Marius side. They either get murdered or they have 0:13:53.320 --> 0:13:55.600 to flee the city. And one of these people who 0:13:55.600 --> 0:13:58.400 has to flee Rome and like hide somewhere else is 0:13:58.440 --> 0:14:01.719 a dude you might have heard of named Julius Caesar, right, 0:14:01.760 --> 0:14:04.680 he's one of Marius his butts. So another thing that 0:14:04.800 --> 0:14:08.160 happens is that under Solo, the plebs are stripped of 0:14:08.160 --> 0:14:11.319 all political power that like position tribune of the pleas 0:14:11.360 --> 0:14:13.480 that have caused so much trouble with the they that 0:14:13.480 --> 0:14:16.080 that doesn't exist anymore for a while. It comes back. 0:14:16.120 --> 0:14:18.559 They regain the power pretty a lot of the power 0:14:18.600 --> 0:14:22.160 they've had in like the decades after Solo leaves, um, 0:14:22.200 --> 0:14:25.880 but they lose basically all political power for a while. UM. 0:14:25.920 --> 0:14:28.320 And the last thing that happens is that all of 0:14:28.360 --> 0:14:31.520 the people's sullen murders have there and he's like he's 0:14:31.600 --> 0:14:34.240 he's like a Stalin type figure with his murdering. He 0:14:34.320 --> 0:14:36.840 makes a list, like there's like a list, and you 0:14:36.880 --> 0:14:39.000 get a bounty if you like kill or bring in 0:14:39.080 --> 0:14:40.880 somebody who's like on his list. You get like a 0:14:40.960 --> 0:14:44.480 chunk of their stuff. Um. And so some people get 0:14:44.560 --> 0:14:48.120 really good at murdering or tracking down or are hiring 0:14:48.160 --> 0:14:51.160 people to murder folks on that list. And so they 0:14:51.160 --> 0:14:53.840 get a bunch of their stuff. Um, and he's like, 0:14:53.920 --> 0:14:56.480 so again, if you help him kill his political enemies, 0:14:56.480 --> 0:14:58.680 he'll give you their ship. And by hooker by crypt, 0:14:58.720 --> 0:15:00.880 a lot of the property of people who had been 0:15:00.920 --> 0:15:03.440 supporters of Marius winds up in the hands of a 0:15:03.440 --> 0:15:06.880 guy named Marcus Licinius Crassis, who is the Elon Musk 0:15:07.040 --> 0:15:11.360 of ancient Rome, the wealthiest man in the world. Um, 0:15:11.400 --> 0:15:13.880 and he's also not He's like Musk, not just because 0:15:13.880 --> 0:15:15.440 he's the richest guy in the world, but he's also 0:15:15.520 --> 0:15:19.760 a some would say a trailblazing innovator. Right now, Musk's 0:15:19.800 --> 0:15:23.800 great innovations are PayPal, which is banking but slightly less regulated, 0:15:24.240 --> 0:15:27.440 and uh in that car company. Crosses. His innovation is 0:15:27.480 --> 0:15:31.320 he starts the first firefighting brigade in Roman history. Right. 0:15:32.160 --> 0:15:34.760 People have been obviously fighting fires for forever because it's 0:15:34.800 --> 0:15:37.640 a horrible problem, right, like a terrible, terrible problem in 0:15:37.680 --> 0:15:41.000 ancient Rome. Um. But he's the first guy who builds 0:15:41.040 --> 0:15:43.600 like an actual professional fire brigade. Now, these guys are 0:15:43.640 --> 0:15:46.160 all slaves, um, and the fire brigade is a for 0:15:46.360 --> 0:15:49.080 profit endeavor. So what happens is when your house is 0:15:49.120 --> 0:15:51.440 on fire, Crosses his guys will show up and be 0:15:51.480 --> 0:15:54.280 like that seems like a real problem. You got sell 0:15:54.360 --> 0:15:56.680 us your house for like basically nothing and we'll put 0:15:56.680 --> 0:16:01.360 the fire out. Um. So he gets real rich doing this, right, 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:04.480 he makes so much fucking money. Um, it is hard 0:16:04.520 --> 0:16:07.080 to convert old Roman currency to modern dollars. But he's 0:16:07.120 --> 0:16:10.600 like a billionaire, right, He's a multibillionaire for all intents 0:16:10.600 --> 0:16:14.800 and purposes. He's got like Elon Musk money. Right. Um. 0:16:14.840 --> 0:16:17.280 He is so rich that a few decades later he's 0:16:17.280 --> 0:16:21.520 going to buy an army of forty men to invade Iran. Um. 0:16:21.560 --> 0:16:25.120 It doesn't work out for him. Uh, it's really badly, 0:16:25.320 --> 0:16:27.240 but he's part of this like tradition of like now 0:16:27.360 --> 0:16:30.160 rich guys can buy an army if they were Yeah, 0:16:30.240 --> 0:16:31.800 because they basically what they're doing, like, I'm going to 0:16:31.880 --> 0:16:33.640 donate this money to the state in order to buy 0:16:33.640 --> 0:16:35.000 this army because I think we need to be a 0:16:35.040 --> 0:16:38.360 war with these people. Um and crasses his case, they 0:16:38.360 --> 0:16:41.160 get their asses kicked very badly, and he gets killed 0:16:41.200 --> 0:16:43.800 by having molten gold throat poured out his throat, which 0:16:43.840 --> 0:16:47.560 is yeah, no, it's a dope. It's a dope punishment 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:54.080 because the Parthians who are like basically Iranian Um are like, uh, hey, 0:16:54.560 --> 0:16:56.080 you're the richest man in the world. You know, it 0:16:56.080 --> 0:16:58.040 would be a fun way to murder you is to 0:16:58.120 --> 0:17:01.000 make you drown in your own moulten gold. We're gonna 0:17:01.040 --> 0:17:03.760 like melt down your money and kill you with it, 0:17:03.920 --> 0:17:06.280 which is rad and should be done more often in 0:17:06.359 --> 0:17:10.960 history like today for example. Um now, it's just pooring 0:17:11.960 --> 0:17:15.000 n f t s down there, That's right. They do 0:17:15.080 --> 0:17:19.119 not have the same panash so crass. This is one 0:17:19.119 --> 0:17:21.760 of these Roman politicians that most people have probably heard about. 0:17:21.840 --> 0:17:24.560 He's famously he's part of this triumvirate that runs things 0:17:24.640 --> 0:17:26.400 for a while at the tail end of the republic. 0:17:26.440 --> 0:17:28.879 The other two guys in the transvirate are Julius Caesar, 0:17:28.920 --> 0:17:32.520 who everybody knows, and the Nias Pompeius Magnus or or 0:17:32.560 --> 0:17:36.439 simply Pompy the Great. Um now, I'm not going to 0:17:36.840 --> 0:17:38.880 First off, I should note he's called Pompy the Great 0:17:38.920 --> 0:17:42.920 because that is the nickname he gives himself. He basically 0:17:42.960 --> 0:17:47.800 he's like Pompy's whole strategy was he would go Rome 0:17:47.800 --> 0:17:50.200 would be at a war somewhere, and some political guy 0:17:50.200 --> 0:17:52.240 who was good at fighting the war would almost win it, 0:17:52.560 --> 0:17:55.240 and then Pompy, because he was good at politics and rich, 0:17:55.600 --> 0:17:57.960 would like buy his way into taking over the army, 0:17:58.000 --> 0:17:59.760 and then he'd finish the war and then he'd be like, 0:18:00.000 --> 0:18:01.720 look at this big victory. I want to guess I 0:18:01.760 --> 0:18:05.920 get another big fancy day marching through the city. And um. 0:18:06.040 --> 0:18:08.800 So like he gets that, he gets voted the name 0:18:08.880 --> 0:18:11.680 Pompy the Great effectively because like the other senators are 0:18:11.720 --> 0:18:14.159 making fun of him because they're like like like like 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:15.840 it's like it's a it's a it's like kind of 0:18:15.880 --> 0:18:18.199 a mocking nickname to most people because you all know 0:18:18.240 --> 0:18:20.359 you're kind of full of ship. He's like an executive 0:18:20.359 --> 0:18:26.520 producer exactly exactly. He's he's an ep um. He he 0:18:26.560 --> 0:18:28.960 actually kind of is like I mean, in a number 0:18:28.960 --> 0:18:33.359 of ways, he's like that, he's like the the Weinstein 0:18:33.560 --> 0:18:41.479 of history. Right, Um yeah, um, Julius Caesar has been affleck. 0:18:41.520 --> 0:18:45.240 I'm not going to explain it, so I'm not going 0:18:45.280 --> 0:18:47.639 to like rehash all of this period in Roman history, 0:18:47.640 --> 0:18:49.600 save to say that like the fact that three guys 0:18:49.640 --> 0:18:52.760 wind up basically in charge of all government policy is 0:18:53.119 --> 0:18:56.919 not a good step and towards like a more republican 0:18:57.000 --> 0:19:01.560 form of government, right, So doesn't talk and get talked 0:19:01.560 --> 0:19:03.800 about enough, because this is the thing everybody talks about, 0:19:03.880 --> 0:19:06.360 is like the Triumvirate and Pompey and Caesar and Crassis 0:19:06.359 --> 0:19:08.280 and stuff. This is like most of what people know 0:19:08.320 --> 0:19:11.159 about the Roman Republic is this tail end period. What 0:19:11.200 --> 0:19:13.000 doesn't get talked about enough is how sh it actually 0:19:13.040 --> 0:19:16.280 got done on the ground. Because in the eighty or 0:19:16.320 --> 0:19:20.000 so years since the Brothers Gracky, Roman politics had turned 0:19:20.000 --> 0:19:23.320 into a constant, low level gang war. And again you've 0:19:23.320 --> 0:19:25.840 got these big mobs of clients. So like after it 0:19:25.840 --> 0:19:29.560 becomes common to kill people for political purposes, senators and 0:19:29.560 --> 0:19:33.120 elected officials won't travel through town without like a bunch 0:19:33.160 --> 0:19:35.119 of their guys with them, right. That so part of 0:19:35.119 --> 0:19:38.000 your job as clients, like at least you know the 0:19:38.080 --> 0:19:40.040 chunk of clients you have were like veterans who are 0:19:40.040 --> 0:19:41.720 like big tough guys. You get your vets and your 0:19:41.720 --> 0:19:44.399 boxers and stuff. And anytime you go through town to 0:19:44.400 --> 0:19:46.840 take care of business, you have like fifty or a 0:19:46.920 --> 0:19:50.040 hundred guys with weapons like your guys following. You like 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:52.919 to watch your back, right, because now people get murdered 0:19:52.920 --> 0:19:56.160 all the time because they propose bills. Um. And one 0:19:56.200 --> 0:19:58.360 of the things this means is that pretty regularly you'll 0:19:58.359 --> 0:20:02.719 get these groups of like senators and elected officials and 0:20:02.840 --> 0:20:05.560 like their goons, and they'll just murder each other in 0:20:05.560 --> 0:20:07.880 the street. There will be these gang wars between like 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:11.320 members of Congress. It is. It's literally like if fucking 0:20:11.359 --> 0:20:14.480 like Mitch McConnell and Nancy Pelosi and like bands of 0:20:14.560 --> 0:20:17.520 men with like sharpened sticks wailing in each other in 0:20:17.600 --> 0:20:22.199 like Washington, um, which would be a better system than 0:20:22.240 --> 0:20:23.919 we have now. Don't get me wrong. Now it's like 0:20:23.960 --> 0:20:29.199 a cold war ver yeah yeah, yeah, so like and 0:20:29.240 --> 0:20:30.959 a lot of one of the actually the most popular 0:20:30.960 --> 0:20:33.760 weapons is like ceiling tiles. Like that's if you really 0:20:33.760 --> 0:20:35.359 want to kill somebody, you get some dudes up on 0:20:35.400 --> 0:20:37.720 a roof to just start hooking ceiling tiles down on them. 0:20:37.760 --> 0:20:43.240 That will kill the motherfucker fast. Um yeah. So yeah, 0:20:43.280 --> 0:20:45.880 I mean that's how it's a good way to kill people. Um. 0:20:45.960 --> 0:20:48.959 So the most successful of these gangsters. Because another thing 0:20:49.000 --> 0:20:51.480 that happens is that like, yes, senator, you've got like 0:20:51.520 --> 0:20:54.280 your mobs of clients, but like a guy who's professionally 0:20:54.400 --> 0:20:58.520 building a mob of armed people to get into street fights. 0:20:58.520 --> 0:21:00.879