1 00:00:01,760 --> 00:00:11,240 Speaker 1: Also media. Ah, welcome back to it could happen here, 2 00:00:11,600 --> 00:00:16,439 Speaker 1: a podcast that is now happening here. I could have 3 00:00:16,520 --> 00:00:19,520 Speaker 1: done something with ear, but we'll do that next time. 4 00:00:19,840 --> 00:00:22,840 Speaker 1: Just forget that I said that, and welcome Mia to 5 00:00:22,920 --> 00:00:25,040 Speaker 1: the program. Mia, how are you doing today? 6 00:00:26,040 --> 00:00:26,439 Speaker 2: Not bad? 7 00:00:26,520 --> 00:00:26,880 Speaker 3: Not bad? 8 00:00:27,040 --> 00:00:28,040 Speaker 2: I'm excited to be here. 9 00:00:28,520 --> 00:00:31,200 Speaker 1: Yeah. Yeah. We're going to be talking about a subject 10 00:00:31,200 --> 00:00:34,199 Speaker 1: that's near and dear to all of our hearts, by 11 00:00:34,200 --> 00:00:36,879 Speaker 1: which I mean the Roman Empire with a guest who 12 00:00:36,960 --> 00:00:40,080 Speaker 1: is near and dear to our hearts, Mike Duncan. Mike, 13 00:00:40,720 --> 00:00:41,320 Speaker 1: how are you doing? 14 00:00:42,440 --> 00:00:43,919 Speaker 3: Hello? Thank you for having me. 15 00:00:44,280 --> 00:00:45,879 Speaker 1: It is wonderful to have you. 16 00:00:46,880 --> 00:00:47,160 Speaker 3: Mike. 17 00:00:47,360 --> 00:00:50,839 Speaker 1: You're a podcaster. You are kind of like the history 18 00:00:50,880 --> 00:00:53,680 Speaker 1: podcaster as far as a lot of folks are concerned, 19 00:00:53,720 --> 00:01:01,080 Speaker 1: including me and you. Also, you've had some intro interactions 20 00:01:01,120 --> 00:01:04,360 Speaker 1: online with people as regards the Roman Empire recently. 21 00:01:05,600 --> 00:01:09,120 Speaker 3: Yeah. Well, anytime the Roman Empire shows up on the 22 00:01:09,160 --> 00:01:13,200 Speaker 3: cultural radar, I am tagged into it by roughly ten 23 00:01:13,240 --> 00:01:15,520 Speaker 3: thousand people, yea. And then I come in and I 24 00:01:15,560 --> 00:01:19,199 Speaker 3: do my bits or if you know, if something comes through, 25 00:01:19,440 --> 00:01:21,640 Speaker 3: you know, it gets shared at me, you know, not 26 00:01:21,720 --> 00:01:23,920 Speaker 3: shared with me, but shared it at me and then 27 00:01:24,400 --> 00:01:25,560 Speaker 3: and then I take a look at it, and I 28 00:01:25,560 --> 00:01:28,600 Speaker 3: get aggravated, and then, you know, fire off a few 29 00:01:28,640 --> 00:01:32,959 Speaker 3: salvos and retreat back out of the social media ecosystem, 30 00:01:33,040 --> 00:01:35,959 Speaker 3: which is kind of the strategy these days. Yeah. 31 00:01:36,120 --> 00:01:39,120 Speaker 1: Yeah, we all have to like fight like an insurgent 32 00:01:39,680 --> 00:01:41,720 Speaker 1: when it comes to that sort of thing, because the 33 00:01:42,080 --> 00:01:45,399 Speaker 1: alternative is to just get constantly stuck in this escalating 34 00:01:45,440 --> 00:01:49,040 Speaker 1: world of beats with strangers on the internet who are 35 00:01:49,040 --> 00:01:50,440 Speaker 1: making money off of the beef. 36 00:01:51,240 --> 00:01:53,920 Speaker 3: Yeah if but yeah, but there are certain things that 37 00:01:54,000 --> 00:01:55,840 Speaker 3: will get me to come out of my little hibernation, 38 00:01:56,440 --> 00:01:59,400 Speaker 3: which I think we're about to talk about. Yeah, yeah, me. 39 00:01:59,480 --> 00:02:00,840 Speaker 1: Do you want to you want to take it away? 40 00:02:01,840 --> 00:02:04,280 Speaker 2: Yeah. So one of the things that's been happening recently 41 00:02:04,600 --> 00:02:08,600 Speaker 2: is that so on October twenty fifth, the Republicans finally, 42 00:02:09,120 --> 00:02:13,040 Speaker 2: after an enormous amount of time, finally managed to electric Speaker. 43 00:02:12,680 --> 00:02:13,120 Speaker 3: Of the House. 44 00:02:13,760 --> 00:02:18,320 Speaker 2: And they picked this fairly unknown ret named Mike Johnson. 45 00:02:18,400 --> 00:02:20,880 Speaker 2: Who's this guy from Louisiana. And they picked him effectively 46 00:02:20,919 --> 00:02:24,000 Speaker 2: because nobody knew who he was. Yeah, and so they 47 00:02:24,000 --> 00:02:27,200 Speaker 2: picked this guy and they're like okay, and Mike Johnson 48 00:02:27,200 --> 00:02:30,600 Speaker 2: gets elected and Immediately everyone starts trying to figure out 49 00:02:30,600 --> 00:02:32,600 Speaker 2: who this guy is, and they very quickly realize this 50 00:02:32,639 --> 00:02:39,239 Speaker 2: guy is just a absolute incredible Christian fundamentalist weirdo. He 51 00:02:39,680 --> 00:02:44,320 Speaker 2: doesn't have a bank account, which is like wild. 52 00:02:44,600 --> 00:02:48,320 Speaker 1: That's classic fundamentalism too, that's some of that old school stuff. 53 00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:51,080 Speaker 3: Yeah, to see it, it's really soty. 54 00:02:51,120 --> 00:02:53,240 Speaker 2: I mean, he's really sort of like he's like, he's 55 00:02:53,440 --> 00:02:55,600 Speaker 2: really a blast in the past of the Christian fundamentalist. 56 00:02:55,680 --> 00:02:58,919 Speaker 2: I mean he he he was a lawyer that represented 57 00:02:58,960 --> 00:03:02,720 Speaker 2: like a bunch of Young earthationist museums. He's really going 58 00:03:02,760 --> 00:03:04,880 Speaker 2: into that old school stuff. And one of the other 59 00:03:04,960 --> 00:03:09,800 Speaker 2: things that some people dug up is a podcast interview 60 00:03:09,880 --> 00:03:12,520 Speaker 2: where he is talking about how gay people cause the 61 00:03:12,520 --> 00:03:15,960 Speaker 2: fall of Rome. So, Mike Duncan, I want to ask 62 00:03:16,000 --> 00:03:18,040 Speaker 2: you the question that I think all of our listeners 63 00:03:18,040 --> 00:03:22,359 Speaker 2: are wondering. Can we, as queer people take responsibility? Can 64 00:03:22,400 --> 00:03:24,799 Speaker 2: we take any credit for the fall of Rome? Or 65 00:03:24,800 --> 00:03:27,680 Speaker 2: are we stealing visigof valor? If we do that, you're 66 00:03:27,760 --> 00:03:33,600 Speaker 2: stealing valor here. But but I do I do agree 67 00:03:33,960 --> 00:03:35,800 Speaker 2: that several of the gays in my life are like, 68 00:03:35,840 --> 00:03:38,240 Speaker 2: don't take this from us. It's one of our proudest accomplishments. 69 00:03:38,520 --> 00:03:41,760 Speaker 2: We brought down the Roman Empire. And I was like, 70 00:03:41,760 --> 00:03:44,840 Speaker 2: but unfortunately, it's just it's not the case. It's not 71 00:03:44,880 --> 00:03:47,240 Speaker 2: even close to the case. It's you know, you could 72 00:03:47,320 --> 00:03:50,960 Speaker 2: you could draw random words out of a hat and 73 00:03:51,160 --> 00:03:54,360 Speaker 2: produce a sentence that was literally nonsensical, and that would 74 00:03:54,360 --> 00:03:56,840 Speaker 2: be a better read of the end of the Roman 75 00:03:56,880 --> 00:04:01,320 Speaker 2: Empire than saying gay people or homosexual like, because it's 76 00:04:01,320 --> 00:04:03,120 Speaker 2: all wrapped up in this sort of like it was 77 00:04:03,280 --> 00:04:06,000 Speaker 2: decadence that caused the fall of the Roman Empire. They 78 00:04:06,000 --> 00:04:08,400 Speaker 2: were too like, you know, they were just too. 79 00:04:08,240 --> 00:04:12,400 Speaker 3: Licentious, and they just throw up some vocabulary words and 80 00:04:12,440 --> 00:04:15,080 Speaker 3: it just it just doesn't land at all. It doesn't 81 00:04:15,160 --> 00:04:17,120 Speaker 3: land on the specifics, it doesn't land on the general 82 00:04:17,240 --> 00:04:20,760 Speaker 3: it doesn't land chronologically, it doesn't land in any way, 83 00:04:20,839 --> 00:04:24,440 Speaker 3: shape or form. It's just something they've decided is true 84 00:04:24,680 --> 00:04:27,120 Speaker 3: and repeat to each other. And that's the whole. That's 85 00:04:27,120 --> 00:04:29,120 Speaker 3: the long and short of it. Yeah. 86 00:04:29,200 --> 00:04:32,280 Speaker 2: Yeah, I think there's some interesting stuff there too, of 87 00:04:32,360 --> 00:04:34,800 Speaker 2: like the stuff people talk about when they when they 88 00:04:34,960 --> 00:04:37,680 Speaker 2: like I remember I was reading someone like writing about 89 00:04:37,680 --> 00:04:39,760 Speaker 2: this and they started talking about Nero and I was like, 90 00:04:39,800 --> 00:04:44,000 Speaker 2: do you know, like in what century the Roman Empire 91 00:04:44,160 --> 00:04:47,760 Speaker 2: like collapse, Like, why are you talking about Nero? I 92 00:04:47,800 --> 00:04:51,320 Speaker 2: don't know, it seems like there's this real I don't know, 93 00:04:51,480 --> 00:04:54,599 Speaker 2: it seems like, you know, the the fall of Rome 94 00:04:54,680 --> 00:04:56,479 Speaker 2: is one of these things that's become central to a 95 00:04:56,480 --> 00:04:58,680 Speaker 2: lot of very weird writing politics. I remember, like a 96 00:04:58,680 --> 00:05:00,400 Speaker 2: few years ago, the big thing was so like the 97 00:05:00,600 --> 00:05:03,960 Speaker 2: Rome was caught, the fall of Rome was caused by immigration, yeah, 98 00:05:03,960 --> 00:05:06,800 Speaker 2: which and that's also current as well. Yeah yeah, And 99 00:05:06,880 --> 00:05:10,440 Speaker 2: so I don't know, what is it about like Rome 100 00:05:10,480 --> 00:05:12,040 Speaker 2: with these people, the fall of Rome. These people are 101 00:05:12,040 --> 00:05:15,080 Speaker 2: like so drawn to in a way that causes them 102 00:05:15,160 --> 00:05:17,200 Speaker 2: not to think about what actually happened at all. 103 00:05:17,640 --> 00:05:20,080 Speaker 3: I mean, well, I mean, just to go back a second, 104 00:05:20,160 --> 00:05:25,760 Speaker 3: It's like Rome in general, in their heads, is not 105 00:05:26,160 --> 00:05:31,400 Speaker 3: a sort of temporarily dependent series of events that unfolded 106 00:05:31,400 --> 00:05:33,320 Speaker 3: over a thousand years. It's just this kind of like 107 00:05:33,760 --> 00:05:38,400 Speaker 3: one eternal place that's like a pastiche in their minds. 108 00:05:38,480 --> 00:05:43,000 Speaker 3: So like Nero can exist alongside Attila, can exist alongside 109 00:05:43,080 --> 00:05:46,440 Speaker 3: you know, Scipio Africanus, and all of these people and 110 00:05:46,480 --> 00:05:48,919 Speaker 3: events like just sort of are near each other in 111 00:05:49,000 --> 00:05:51,279 Speaker 3: time the same way that they believe that, like you know, 112 00:05:51,400 --> 00:05:54,880 Speaker 3: dinosaurs and humans cohabitated the earth, like it's that kind 113 00:05:54,920 --> 00:05:57,719 Speaker 3: of same thing. And so if they think about somebody 114 00:05:57,760 --> 00:06:03,120 Speaker 3: like Caligula or Nero running this, like running these courts 115 00:06:03,160 --> 00:06:05,719 Speaker 3: of decadence, like, it doesn't click to them that this 116 00:06:05,920 --> 00:06:08,800 Speaker 3: is like in the first century, and that the Roman 117 00:06:08,800 --> 00:06:11,279 Speaker 3: Empire doesn't fall for four hundred years, five hundred years, 118 00:06:11,279 --> 00:06:13,880 Speaker 3: and then the East keeps going for another thousand years. 119 00:06:13,960 --> 00:06:16,200 Speaker 3: That's a huge part of it. 120 00:06:16,200 --> 00:06:18,279 Speaker 1: It is interesting to me you kind of made the 121 00:06:18,279 --> 00:06:21,480 Speaker 1: statement there about in these guys' heads Rome being this 122 00:06:21,600 --> 00:06:26,400 Speaker 1: kind of eternal, like continuing thing, And that's interesting to 123 00:06:26,400 --> 00:06:30,640 Speaker 1: me because that conception of Rome goes back so far, 124 00:06:30,800 --> 00:06:34,880 Speaker 1: I mean very famously, Like when Russia became like an 125 00:06:35,000 --> 00:06:37,919 Speaker 1: organized political entity, there was this widespread attitude that it 126 00:06:37,960 --> 00:06:41,239 Speaker 1: was the Third Rome, right, Like that still plays into 127 00:06:41,279 --> 00:06:44,120 Speaker 1: a lot of Russian imperial politics to this day. So 128 00:06:44,160 --> 00:06:46,840 Speaker 1: it is it is kind of fascinating how far that 129 00:06:47,080 --> 00:06:52,280 Speaker 1: idea goes back, Like it says something about the success 130 00:06:52,360 --> 00:06:55,839 Speaker 1: of Roman propaganda that it still has this place in 131 00:06:55,880 --> 00:06:57,120 Speaker 1: so many people's minds. 132 00:06:58,960 --> 00:07:01,400 Speaker 3: Yeah, and I mean it has a place in my mind. 133 00:07:02,080 --> 00:07:05,880 Speaker 3: I don't I don't think of that. Yeah, so do 134 00:07:05,960 --> 00:07:08,600 Speaker 3: I so to many of us. And I don't think 135 00:07:08,640 --> 00:07:12,240 Speaker 3: that the crime here is thinking about the fall of 136 00:07:12,240 --> 00:07:16,200 Speaker 3: the Roman Empire or the trand or as you know, 137 00:07:16,480 --> 00:07:19,120 Speaker 3: we would more properly call it the transition from late 138 00:07:19,160 --> 00:07:21,960 Speaker 3: Antiquity to the eartal Medieval period, which is, you know, 139 00:07:22,120 --> 00:07:25,239 Speaker 3: unfolded and that didn't have a cataclysm, and you shouldn't 140 00:07:25,360 --> 00:07:28,560 Speaker 3: necessarily be thought of as as an inherently negative thing, 141 00:07:29,000 --> 00:07:34,080 Speaker 3: et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. But organizing your worldview 142 00:07:34,160 --> 00:07:40,720 Speaker 3: around utterly historically illiterate version of the Roman Empire that 143 00:07:40,880 --> 00:07:44,880 Speaker 3: is really just a vehicle for your own special bigotry. 144 00:07:46,360 --> 00:07:50,240 Speaker 3: That's where they're really running a foul of me and 145 00:07:50,280 --> 00:07:50,840 Speaker 3: my temper. 146 00:07:52,400 --> 00:07:56,080 Speaker 1: Yeah, and there's there's a lot that's really interesting about 147 00:07:56,440 --> 00:07:59,680 Speaker 1: how they sort of choose to interpret like the causes 148 00:07:59,760 --> 00:08:04,400 Speaker 1: of the fall. I think probably the least, the least 149 00:08:04,560 --> 00:08:07,480 Speaker 1: sensible argument they have is this idea that it had 150 00:08:07,480 --> 00:08:11,440 Speaker 1: something to do with like degeneracy. But yeah, it's like 151 00:08:11,880 --> 00:08:15,400 Speaker 1: you can find Romans in like the the Middle Republic 152 00:08:15,520 --> 00:08:18,520 Speaker 1: period saying the same thing that like we've become too degenerate, 153 00:08:18,560 --> 00:08:21,680 Speaker 1: too lazy, because of like all of the you know, 154 00:08:22,040 --> 00:08:25,720 Speaker 1: slaves automating, you know, the ruling classes, tasks people have. 155 00:08:26,720 --> 00:08:28,840 Speaker 1: You know, Romans are not like the Romans of our 156 00:08:28,880 --> 00:08:32,680 Speaker 1: forefathers and stuff anymore. And like you know, the empire 157 00:08:32,720 --> 00:08:35,560 Speaker 1: continue or the republic and then the empire still had 158 00:08:35,840 --> 00:08:37,120 Speaker 1: centuries in the tank at that. 159 00:08:37,360 --> 00:08:41,640 Speaker 3: Yeah, very very famously, the Romans started complaining about how 160 00:08:41,920 --> 00:08:44,960 Speaker 3: it's not like the good old days round about the 161 00:08:45,000 --> 00:08:49,120 Speaker 3: second century b c. Which is like three hundred years 162 00:08:49,200 --> 00:08:52,200 Speaker 3: before they hit what we all acknowledged to be the 163 00:08:52,240 --> 00:08:55,319 Speaker 3: peak of Roman civilization. And this is like, this is 164 00:08:55,320 --> 00:08:57,520 Speaker 3: when Cato the Elder gets into it and the big 165 00:08:57,520 --> 00:08:59,120 Speaker 3: thing that those guys were griping about at the time, 166 00:08:59,120 --> 00:09:01,440 Speaker 3: and there are there are little, you know, little connections 167 00:09:01,480 --> 00:09:04,040 Speaker 3: here just doesn't none of it shapes up. Is that 168 00:09:04,120 --> 00:09:06,600 Speaker 3: what Cato the Elder and people like him were complaining 169 00:09:06,640 --> 00:09:08,719 Speaker 3: about way back in the second century was this is 170 00:09:08,720 --> 00:09:11,360 Speaker 3: when the Romans come in contact with the Greeks, and 171 00:09:11,440 --> 00:09:14,720 Speaker 3: there was there was a kind of like a split 172 00:09:14,840 --> 00:09:22,480 Speaker 3: between traditional Latin romanness and then this like new Eastern greaceness, 173 00:09:22,520 --> 00:09:25,360 Speaker 3: which like they've got new ideas and like they sounds 174 00:09:25,440 --> 00:09:27,960 Speaker 3: like they have sex with each other all the time. 175 00:09:28,120 --> 00:09:29,920 Speaker 3: You know, they don't care if they're men or women, 176 00:09:31,000 --> 00:09:34,320 Speaker 3: and so that's what they were pushing back against, and 177 00:09:34,400 --> 00:09:37,200 Speaker 3: so that kind of language does. This is where it 178 00:09:37,280 --> 00:09:40,240 Speaker 3: kind of distills over the centuries and then over the 179 00:09:40,240 --> 00:09:43,520 Speaker 3: millennia into this idea that the Roman Empire collapsed and 180 00:09:43,679 --> 00:09:48,120 Speaker 3: was ruined by this kind of degeneracy without being able 181 00:09:48,160 --> 00:09:51,040 Speaker 3: to really define what degeneracy means or how it could 182 00:09:51,080 --> 00:09:53,760 Speaker 3: possibly impact the long term health of a of a 183 00:09:54,000 --> 00:09:59,800 Speaker 3: large empire, you know, or the fact that, very bluntly, 184 00:10:00,160 --> 00:10:03,040 Speaker 3: right when you're saying this in one eighty six BC, 185 00:10:03,320 --> 00:10:06,360 Speaker 3: you can't say that contact with Greek ideas brought the 186 00:10:06,440 --> 00:10:10,640 Speaker 3: Roman Empire down. You just can't, because it just didn't 187 00:10:10,679 --> 00:10:14,679 Speaker 3: get crushed by this, It didn't fall apart. Yeah. 188 00:10:14,800 --> 00:10:17,720 Speaker 1: I mean, if I have to make an argument as 189 00:10:17,760 --> 00:10:20,080 Speaker 1: to like, what thing that I can connect to modernity 190 00:10:20,160 --> 00:10:22,880 Speaker 1: killed the modern Empire, I tend to claim that it's 191 00:10:22,920 --> 00:10:26,640 Speaker 1: the concept of a reboot, right, because no sooner than 192 00:10:26,760 --> 00:10:30,600 Speaker 1: did Augustus have Virgil reboot the story of the Trojan War, 193 00:10:31,080 --> 00:10:33,280 Speaker 1: than the inevitable path to the collapse of the Roman 194 00:10:33,280 --> 00:10:33,959 Speaker 1: Empire began. 195 00:10:34,120 --> 00:10:34,280 Speaker 3: Right. 196 00:10:34,440 --> 00:10:37,640 Speaker 1: The real sign that we're heading towards collapse is all 197 00:10:37,640 --> 00:10:38,679 Speaker 1: these movie reboots. 198 00:10:39,600 --> 00:10:46,040 Speaker 3: Okay, great, Well the rule is, whatever your modern preoccupation is, 199 00:10:46,520 --> 00:10:48,920 Speaker 3: that's what you use to explain the fall of the 200 00:10:49,000 --> 00:10:52,040 Speaker 3: Roman Empire. So of course I have my preoccupations, and 201 00:10:52,160 --> 00:10:55,280 Speaker 3: that's what I say caused the fall of the Roman Empire, 202 00:10:56,160 --> 00:10:58,000 Speaker 3: which is that the Roman Empire in fact never fell, 203 00:10:58,000 --> 00:11:03,000 Speaker 3: and we're all living in a hologram and we and 204 00:11:03,040 --> 00:11:04,800 Speaker 3: we know this because if a woman visits me and 205 00:11:04,840 --> 00:11:07,240 Speaker 3: brings me and brings me groceries and she's wearing a 206 00:11:07,400 --> 00:11:09,880 Speaker 3: Jesus fish necklace, it can pop into my brain and 207 00:11:09,880 --> 00:11:11,520 Speaker 3: I can know that we're living in. 208 00:11:11,480 --> 00:11:13,760 Speaker 1: We're still We're still in the Roman Empire. Yeah, the 209 00:11:13,800 --> 00:11:18,120 Speaker 1: empire never ended, folks. Yeah, yeah, every politician is still cato. 210 00:11:19,000 --> 00:11:20,679 Speaker 3: Yeah. 211 00:11:20,760 --> 00:11:23,400 Speaker 2: I mean, look, they you can also tell this because 212 00:11:23,440 --> 00:11:25,600 Speaker 2: you know, it's like, in the same way that everything 213 00:11:25,679 --> 00:11:28,480 Speaker 2: tastes like chicken. They haven't invented a new moral panic 214 00:11:28,520 --> 00:11:31,839 Speaker 2: in two thousand years, so pretty clearly we're just we're 215 00:11:31,880 --> 00:11:34,520 Speaker 2: just we're just recycling through exactly the same content over 216 00:11:34,559 --> 00:11:35,200 Speaker 2: and over again. 217 00:11:36,160 --> 00:11:39,880 Speaker 1: It does all of the the kind of similarities you 218 00:11:39,920 --> 00:11:42,559 Speaker 1: can find, or at least seeming similarities you can find 219 00:11:42,600 --> 00:11:46,960 Speaker 1: between stuff that different Roman politicians were complaining about, you know, 220 00:11:47,400 --> 00:11:51,200 Speaker 1: two thousand years ago and stuff that's in our media today. 221 00:11:51,800 --> 00:11:55,280 Speaker 1: I think does suggest part of why it's almost impossible 222 00:11:55,360 --> 00:11:58,760 Speaker 1: to not keep bringing Rome up, which is that like 223 00:11:59,200 --> 00:12:01,760 Speaker 1: there are and I think that it's a mix of 224 00:12:01,840 --> 00:12:05,240 Speaker 1: like there are some legitimate similarities between our cultures, and 225 00:12:05,320 --> 00:12:09,520 Speaker 1: also our concept of Rome, which is often a historical 226 00:12:09,600 --> 00:12:13,600 Speaker 1: but is based on generations of misconceptions, makes it seem 227 00:12:13,800 --> 00:12:14,600 Speaker 1: even closer. 228 00:12:16,080 --> 00:12:19,920 Speaker 3: Yeah, and we are a post Roman society and they 229 00:12:20,040 --> 00:12:23,080 Speaker 3: are our forebears, whether we like it or not. Like 230 00:12:23,160 --> 00:12:28,160 Speaker 3: any civilization that exists today that went through the Mediterranean world, 231 00:12:29,400 --> 00:12:32,480 Speaker 3: you know, it had a Roman period, and the Romans 232 00:12:32,520 --> 00:12:34,880 Speaker 3: made a strong imprint on all of us in terms 233 00:12:34,880 --> 00:12:37,160 Speaker 3: of like our laws and how we think about money, 234 00:12:37,160 --> 00:12:39,960 Speaker 3: and how we think about family relationships, like all of 235 00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:42,360 Speaker 3: these things are you know, we're living in a post 236 00:12:42,440 --> 00:12:46,439 Speaker 3: Roman world, and that's why it's important to study the 237 00:12:46,520 --> 00:12:49,600 Speaker 3: Roman Empire as an entity, but do it with some 238 00:12:49,679 --> 00:12:53,040 Speaker 3: degree of rigor rather than just using it as a 239 00:12:53,080 --> 00:12:58,160 Speaker 3: prop in the culture wars. Yeah, that was a great 240 00:12:58,200 --> 00:12:59,520 Speaker 3: That was a great point I just made, and so 241 00:13:00,440 --> 00:13:03,719 Speaker 3: it absolutely brought the conversation to a complete stance. So 242 00:13:03,840 --> 00:13:07,280 Speaker 3: as everybody said, just chewed on this nugget wisdom that 243 00:13:07,360 --> 00:13:08,520 Speaker 3: I have brought to the table. 244 00:13:20,360 --> 00:13:23,360 Speaker 1: I do kind of think it behooves people. Part of 245 00:13:23,400 --> 00:13:26,040 Speaker 1: why it's valuable to do things like listen to the 246 00:13:26,080 --> 00:13:31,880 Speaker 1: Revolutions podcast by Mike Duncan is that you're this Rome 247 00:13:31,960 --> 00:13:34,400 Speaker 1: isn't going to stop being brought up by these people 248 00:13:34,440 --> 00:13:38,560 Speaker 1: and increasingly unhinged and inaccurate ways. And it's it's just like, 249 00:13:38,600 --> 00:13:40,800 Speaker 1: it's helpful to have an actual understanding of who the 250 00:13:40,840 --> 00:13:43,160 Speaker 1: Spartans were and what they did and did not do 251 00:13:43,440 --> 00:13:45,719 Speaker 1: for the sake of these arguments. It's helpful to have 252 00:13:46,000 --> 00:13:49,000 Speaker 1: a meaningful understanding of the Roman Empire. And I'm kind 253 00:13:49,000 --> 00:13:53,079 Speaker 1: of wondering, like when you when you come into misconceptions 254 00:13:53,280 --> 00:13:56,240 Speaker 1: about Rome, what are some of the top ones on 255 00:13:56,280 --> 00:13:59,520 Speaker 1: your list that uh that that your brain just forces 256 00:13:59,559 --> 00:14:00,719 Speaker 1: you to co and incorrect. 257 00:14:01,720 --> 00:14:04,160 Speaker 3: Well, I mean this is a big one, because this one, 258 00:14:04,200 --> 00:14:09,400 Speaker 3: I feel like is deeply homophobic and principally used to 259 00:14:09,520 --> 00:14:15,320 Speaker 3: attack the queer community rather than anything else is And 260 00:14:15,440 --> 00:14:18,000 Speaker 3: just to give your listeners like some specifics here, it's like, 261 00:14:18,360 --> 00:14:21,320 Speaker 3: you know, sexuality in the Roman world was very different 262 00:14:21,400 --> 00:14:24,400 Speaker 3: than it was today, and there weren't even you know, 263 00:14:24,440 --> 00:14:27,720 Speaker 3: the kind of binary conceptions of gender sexual relations that 264 00:14:27,760 --> 00:14:29,480 Speaker 3: we have today. A lot of these things are very 265 00:14:29,480 --> 00:14:31,600 Speaker 3: modern inventions. I'm sure a lot of people know this. 266 00:14:32,840 --> 00:14:37,040 Speaker 3: But we can also point very specifically to like, you know, Hadrian, 267 00:14:37,360 --> 00:14:40,160 Speaker 3: who is broadly considered and cited to be one of 268 00:14:40,200 --> 00:14:42,200 Speaker 3: the greatest of the emperors who lived at the height 269 00:14:42,240 --> 00:14:45,640 Speaker 3: of the Golden Age, was gay. Like that's like, that's 270 00:14:45,680 --> 00:14:49,680 Speaker 3: a full stop thing, and so it's just like there's 271 00:14:49,680 --> 00:14:56,880 Speaker 3: no compatibility between these two ideas or really anyway, if 272 00:14:56,920 --> 00:14:59,080 Speaker 3: you ask them to take this argument more than twenty 273 00:14:59,160 --> 00:15:01,600 Speaker 3: five words d they're not going to have a way 274 00:15:01,640 --> 00:15:04,800 Speaker 3: to explain how it is that somebody engaged in gay 275 00:15:04,840 --> 00:15:07,880 Speaker 3: sex in the four hundreds could have possibly been the 276 00:15:07,920 --> 00:15:10,720 Speaker 3: reason why the Goths won a certain battle, or why 277 00:15:10,760 --> 00:15:12,440 Speaker 3: Attila the Hunt was able to do what he did. 278 00:15:13,840 --> 00:15:17,000 Speaker 3: All of it is just complete, an utter ahistorical nonsense, 279 00:15:17,040 --> 00:15:19,520 Speaker 3: and so I consider it I consider it my duty 280 00:15:19,680 --> 00:15:23,200 Speaker 3: as some kind of voice of authority on Roman history 281 00:15:23,240 --> 00:15:26,440 Speaker 3: to not let people get away with this. The last 282 00:15:26,520 --> 00:15:28,360 Speaker 3: the last time I saw this pop up was actually 283 00:15:28,480 --> 00:15:31,520 Speaker 3: uh Ben Carson, which is a little bit of a 284 00:15:31,520 --> 00:15:35,760 Speaker 3: blast from the past at this point. But he he 285 00:15:35,760 --> 00:15:37,480 Speaker 3: he wrote a book at one point where he dropped 286 00:15:37,520 --> 00:15:40,040 Speaker 3: this stuff in there, and the way they always couch 287 00:15:40,040 --> 00:15:41,720 Speaker 3: it to is like, as we all know, you know, 288 00:15:41,800 --> 00:15:44,520 Speaker 3: it was homosexuality that really led to the generacy of 289 00:15:44,520 --> 00:15:49,080 Speaker 3: the like I'm so sick of you people. But the other, 290 00:15:49,320 --> 00:15:51,760 Speaker 3: the other big one that really grinds my gears that 291 00:15:52,480 --> 00:15:55,360 Speaker 3: really emerged. This this was not a preconception that I 292 00:15:55,400 --> 00:15:57,480 Speaker 3: had going into doing the history of realme, but something 293 00:15:57,480 --> 00:16:01,080 Speaker 3: that I came away from after doing it and studying, 294 00:16:01,160 --> 00:16:03,240 Speaker 3: you know, the year by year history of the Empire, 295 00:16:03,920 --> 00:16:06,640 Speaker 3: is that this notion that like sort of the Romans 296 00:16:07,400 --> 00:16:12,280 Speaker 3: were this like like a like a like a nationality 297 00:16:12,960 --> 00:16:17,440 Speaker 3: that then went forth and conquered the Mediterranean, that Romans 298 00:16:17,440 --> 00:16:20,480 Speaker 3: were Romans as like an ethnic stock thing, and that 299 00:16:20,560 --> 00:16:24,160 Speaker 3: it was when these other ethnicities started sort of pressing 300 00:16:24,240 --> 00:16:26,320 Speaker 3: at the empire's borders, or as we said a little 301 00:16:26,320 --> 00:16:29,160 Speaker 3: bit earlier, that it was immigration right that destroys the 302 00:16:29,200 --> 00:16:31,560 Speaker 3: Roman Empire, that there was this kind of like pure 303 00:16:31,640 --> 00:16:36,200 Speaker 3: noble Roman thing. This is essentially functioning as the white 304 00:16:36,200 --> 00:16:38,840 Speaker 3: person in the ancient world, Like this is how we're 305 00:16:38,840 --> 00:16:40,840 Speaker 3: connecting these things. The British did this, the French did this, 306 00:16:40,920 --> 00:16:43,480 Speaker 3: Americans now do this today. That like the Romans are 307 00:16:43,480 --> 00:16:46,360 Speaker 3: our stand in as sort of the white people, and 308 00:16:46,480 --> 00:16:48,680 Speaker 3: the white people are civilized, and all of these other 309 00:16:48,760 --> 00:16:52,440 Speaker 3: like mongrel races are are uncivilized. And they were raither 310 00:16:52,720 --> 00:16:54,400 Speaker 3: civilized by the Remans, that they were killed by the 311 00:16:54,440 --> 00:16:56,200 Speaker 3: Romans or enslaved by the Romans. But this is all 312 00:16:56,200 --> 00:16:59,360 Speaker 3: for the good, because the Romans themselves were were like 313 00:16:59,440 --> 00:17:04,920 Speaker 3: this this superior stock of DNA somehow. And really, when 314 00:17:04,960 --> 00:17:09,160 Speaker 3: you go through the empire, the history of the Roman Empire, 315 00:17:09,640 --> 00:17:13,240 Speaker 3: you find that there is that kind of conservative strain 316 00:17:13,560 --> 00:17:15,679 Speaker 3: inside of like the patrician class and inside of the 317 00:17:15,680 --> 00:17:17,720 Speaker 3: senatorial class, that they're like, we want this to be 318 00:17:17,720 --> 00:17:20,199 Speaker 3: a closely held thing. Like the original republic was a 319 00:17:20,200 --> 00:17:23,520 Speaker 3: closely held oligarchy of Latin families who lived on the 320 00:17:23,560 --> 00:17:26,399 Speaker 3: Palatine Hill, and that's what they wanted for themselves. And 321 00:17:26,440 --> 00:17:29,080 Speaker 3: so when other people tried to push into the republic, 322 00:17:29,160 --> 00:17:31,800 Speaker 3: they tried to resist it. And so that is a 323 00:17:31,880 --> 00:17:37,000 Speaker 3: running conflict that happens in Roman history. But any time 324 00:17:37,680 --> 00:17:42,359 Speaker 3: that that tendency is overcome and a second prevailing force 325 00:17:42,400 --> 00:17:46,240 Speaker 3: that says like, actually, Romanness is just an idea. Romanness 326 00:17:46,359 --> 00:17:49,240 Speaker 3: is just a set of beliefs and practices and sort 327 00:17:49,280 --> 00:17:52,359 Speaker 3: of daily habits of life and ideology that can really 328 00:17:52,400 --> 00:17:54,399 Speaker 3: be held by anybody at any time. And if we 329 00:17:54,520 --> 00:17:58,120 Speaker 3: let in say non Roman Italians, which is the first 330 00:17:58,200 --> 00:18:01,000 Speaker 3: people who were considered non Roman who then came into 331 00:18:01,040 --> 00:18:02,840 Speaker 3: the Empire, which then we look back and we're like, 332 00:18:03,200 --> 00:18:05,840 Speaker 3: there was a time that Romans didn't think that people 333 00:18:05,880 --> 00:18:08,359 Speaker 3: from what is today like Florence or Milan were not 334 00:18:08,960 --> 00:18:11,680 Speaker 3: Italian or not Roman. Yeah, yeah, they were not considered 335 00:18:12,160 --> 00:18:15,439 Speaker 3: Roman until you know, the very late stages of the Republic. 336 00:18:15,480 --> 00:18:17,080 Speaker 3: I mean, I wrote a book about the later stage 337 00:18:17,080 --> 00:18:19,320 Speaker 3: of the Republican. The Social War is when this gets 338 00:18:19,320 --> 00:18:23,439 Speaker 3: wrapped up after hundreds of years of being treated as 339 00:18:23,440 --> 00:18:26,399 Speaker 3: second class citizens. There was a civil war that nearly 340 00:18:26,400 --> 00:18:29,399 Speaker 3: destroyed the Republic before Caesar even came along. That was 341 00:18:29,480 --> 00:18:33,080 Speaker 3: resolved by giving citizenship to the Italians, making them full 342 00:18:33,119 --> 00:18:35,679 Speaker 3: members of the polity, and then having that just be 343 00:18:35,760 --> 00:18:38,560 Speaker 3: a boon to Rome's fortunes. This happens in Gaul, this 344 00:18:38,600 --> 00:18:41,240 Speaker 3: happens in Spain, This happens in Illyria. This happens in 345 00:18:41,280 --> 00:18:45,879 Speaker 3: the far East that these people who the Romans encounter 346 00:18:46,000 --> 00:18:48,920 Speaker 3: and yes, do conquer, because it's a very violent world 347 00:18:48,960 --> 00:18:54,800 Speaker 3: of conquest and mutual conquest. That Romans in Gaul were 348 00:18:54,840 --> 00:19:00,159 Speaker 3: as much Romans as Romans in Rome. And anytime I 349 00:19:00,240 --> 00:19:04,600 Speaker 3: find Roman leaders resisting that idea, I find the empire 350 00:19:04,720 --> 00:19:09,280 Speaker 3: starting to falter and commit missteps. And anytime they're like, nah, 351 00:19:09,359 --> 00:19:11,560 Speaker 3: let's just throw it open. You know, if you're good, 352 00:19:11,680 --> 00:19:14,240 Speaker 3: if you're dedicated, if you're loyal, you can be a 353 00:19:14,240 --> 00:19:16,480 Speaker 3: part of this project that we have. Then I find 354 00:19:16,520 --> 00:19:19,800 Speaker 3: the Romans doing very very well. And I'm about to 355 00:19:19,800 --> 00:19:21,960 Speaker 3: start not to just monologue here, but I'm about to 356 00:19:21,960 --> 00:19:25,280 Speaker 3: start working on another book that is about the Crisis 357 00:19:25,320 --> 00:19:28,360 Speaker 3: of the third century. And by this time, we have 358 00:19:28,440 --> 00:19:31,680 Speaker 3: emperors who are coming from North Africa. We have emperors 359 00:19:31,680 --> 00:19:36,040 Speaker 3: who are tagged as being Arabian. We have the set 360 00:19:36,080 --> 00:19:39,359 Speaker 3: of emperors who really help Rome emerge from this thing 361 00:19:39,440 --> 00:19:41,320 Speaker 3: that is called the Crisis of the third century when 362 00:19:41,480 --> 00:19:44,200 Speaker 3: the empire very nearly collapsed in the mid two hundreds. 363 00:19:44,520 --> 00:19:46,919 Speaker 3: Is a bunch of guys from Alyria, which is today 364 00:19:46,960 --> 00:19:48,760 Speaker 3: the Balkans. I mean, we're talking about guys who are 365 00:19:48,800 --> 00:19:52,840 Speaker 3: coming from like Serbia and Croatia, or the emperors who 366 00:19:52,880 --> 00:19:56,920 Speaker 3: are continuing the Roman legacy and keeping the empire intact. 367 00:19:57,000 --> 00:20:00,320 Speaker 3: So this notion that like the Roman a wasn't a 368 00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:03,520 Speaker 3: multicultural empire, or that the arrival of new peoples was 369 00:20:03,560 --> 00:20:08,000 Speaker 3: somehow bad for them is just disproven over and over 370 00:20:08,040 --> 00:20:09,960 Speaker 3: and over again by the realities of Roman history. So 371 00:20:10,000 --> 00:20:12,360 Speaker 3: that's the other one, is this immigration caused the fall 372 00:20:12,400 --> 00:20:14,840 Speaker 3: of the Roman Empire is just flat out and correct. 373 00:20:15,760 --> 00:20:15,960 Speaker 1: Yeah. 374 00:20:16,000 --> 00:20:18,080 Speaker 2: One of the arguments that I've heard sort of against that, 375 00:20:18,160 --> 00:20:21,600 Speaker 2: and I want to ask how true this is. But 376 00:20:21,640 --> 00:20:23,000 Speaker 2: one of the things that I hear people sort of 377 00:20:23,040 --> 00:20:26,080 Speaker 2: responding to this with is this argument that like, part 378 00:20:26,119 --> 00:20:28,720 Speaker 2: of what causes like the sack of Rome is that 379 00:20:28,760 --> 00:20:32,040 Speaker 2: the Romans get into one of these nphobic streaks and 380 00:20:32,080 --> 00:20:35,359 Speaker 2: they don't want to sort of try to observe the Visigoths. Okay, 381 00:20:35,400 --> 00:20:39,840 Speaker 2: so that that is that's a that's essentially my position. 382 00:20:40,119 --> 00:20:40,320 Speaker 3: Yeah. 383 00:20:41,080 --> 00:20:43,640 Speaker 1: I was just going to bring up a guy who 384 00:20:43,880 --> 00:20:47,320 Speaker 1: a historian who has to come up anytime you talk 385 00:20:47,359 --> 00:20:50,000 Speaker 1: about the way the right likes to use the image 386 00:20:50,040 --> 00:20:55,880 Speaker 1: of Rome, particularly the collapse of Rome, Victor Davis Hansen. Yeah, yeah, 387 00:20:55,920 --> 00:20:57,439 Speaker 1: he is. He is a guy you're going, I mean 388 00:20:57,480 --> 00:21:00,639 Speaker 1: he was. He's my dad's favorite historian from a very 389 00:21:00,720 --> 00:21:04,359 Speaker 1: conservative family. And he wrote a book not all that 390 00:21:04,480 --> 00:21:07,440 Speaker 1: long ago. No, actually it was twenty ten. Sorry, that's 391 00:21:07,480 --> 00:21:09,520 Speaker 1: still like five years ago to me. But it's not 392 00:21:09,720 --> 00:21:13,440 Speaker 1: five years ago. It's much further away, called Why did 393 00:21:13,520 --> 00:21:16,080 Speaker 1: Rome Fall? And Why does It Matter Now? And there's 394 00:21:16,080 --> 00:21:19,240 Speaker 1: a quote I found from a little article he wrote 395 00:21:19,280 --> 00:21:22,239 Speaker 1: plugging it that I want to bring up here so 396 00:21:22,280 --> 00:21:25,520 Speaker 1: we can chew over in short, what ruined Rome in 397 00:21:25,560 --> 00:21:28,520 Speaker 1: the West. Lots of things, but clearly the pernicious effects 398 00:21:28,520 --> 00:21:32,280 Speaker 1: of affluence and laxity warped Roman sensibility and created a 399 00:21:32,320 --> 00:21:35,399 Speaker 1: culture of entitlement that was not justified by revenues or 400 00:21:35,440 --> 00:21:39,800 Speaker 1: the creation of actual commensurate wealth, and the resulting debits, inflation, 401 00:21:39,920 --> 00:21:43,800 Speaker 1: debased currency, and gradual state impoverishment gave the far more 402 00:21:43,880 --> 00:21:47,320 Speaker 1: vulnerable Western Empire far less margin when the barbarians arrived. 403 00:21:47,320 --> 00:21:51,480 Speaker 3: It's all bullshit. I know, it's so fresh. So it's 404 00:21:51,520 --> 00:21:55,159 Speaker 3: so frustrating because this culture of dependence that can I 405 00:21:55,160 --> 00:21:57,960 Speaker 3: swear on this podcast, Oh, absucking lutely for sure, this 406 00:21:58,119 --> 00:22:04,679 Speaker 3: fucking these motherfuckers, this entitled this entitlement thing that they 407 00:22:04,760 --> 00:22:07,439 Speaker 3: have because they don't like welfare because they're pricks, you know. 408 00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:10,680 Speaker 3: And you know Victor Davis Hansen, you know, this is 409 00:22:10,680 --> 00:22:12,680 Speaker 3: a guy who wrote a book called Like Mexifornia, which 410 00:22:12,720 --> 00:22:15,880 Speaker 3: is like, oh my god, yeah, absolutely, this is where 411 00:22:15,880 --> 00:22:17,600 Speaker 3: it comes from the nineties where he's like, he's like, 412 00:22:17,640 --> 00:22:20,320 Speaker 3: California is going to be destroyed by all these Hispanic people. 413 00:22:20,440 --> 00:22:24,919 Speaker 3: Like it's just loathsome shit that he writes. Anyway, this 414 00:22:25,080 --> 00:22:28,080 Speaker 3: culture of entitlement, right, like oh, it was just bread 415 00:22:28,080 --> 00:22:30,440 Speaker 3: and circuses, and like the empire had to give all 416 00:22:30,440 --> 00:22:33,560 Speaker 3: this money to like how many Like okay, great, the 417 00:22:33,640 --> 00:22:37,120 Speaker 3: Roman Rome the city was like a million people, yeah right, 418 00:22:37,160 --> 00:22:40,399 Speaker 3: and there were a couple of large urban hubs that 419 00:22:40,560 --> 00:22:43,359 Speaker 3: did have like grain doles because you needed to be 420 00:22:43,359 --> 00:22:45,040 Speaker 3: able to feed the people in these cities. And this 421 00:22:45,119 --> 00:22:47,480 Speaker 3: is you know, smart policy by the emperors. It's actually 422 00:22:47,560 --> 00:22:50,440 Speaker 3: not bad on a humanitarian level. And then they also 423 00:22:50,480 --> 00:22:53,760 Speaker 3: through games, because this is what people do. Rich people 424 00:22:53,920 --> 00:22:56,320 Speaker 3: throw parties to make themselves love Like this is a 425 00:22:56,440 --> 00:22:58,919 Speaker 3: very This happens today. This happens all the time. This 426 00:22:58,960 --> 00:23:01,280 Speaker 3: happened during the medieval period. It happens all the time. 427 00:23:02,400 --> 00:23:05,640 Speaker 3: The number of people who are like benefiting from this 428 00:23:05,760 --> 00:23:09,879 Speaker 3: like imperial largess, who have this like entitlement mentality is 429 00:23:09,920 --> 00:23:13,680 Speaker 3: such a fraction, such a fraction of the total number 430 00:23:13,800 --> 00:23:16,440 Speaker 3: of people who live in this empire where we're talking 431 00:23:16,480 --> 00:23:19,800 Speaker 3: about sixty sixty five million people may maybe give or 432 00:23:19,840 --> 00:23:22,760 Speaker 3: take a little bit. Not that many people were on 433 00:23:23,400 --> 00:23:27,480 Speaker 3: the dole in Rome. It was usually just the male 434 00:23:27,520 --> 00:23:30,800 Speaker 3: head of the household got some grain. It was like 435 00:23:31,000 --> 00:23:35,040 Speaker 3: it was a little bit of supplemental It's basically the 436 00:23:35,040 --> 00:23:38,040 Speaker 3: equivalent of like supplemental income. It was absolutely not just 437 00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:42,720 Speaker 3: they're rolling out banquets for these people every single day. 438 00:23:43,040 --> 00:23:46,600 Speaker 3: Nor is it the case that that entitlement of Romans 439 00:23:46,640 --> 00:23:49,560 Speaker 3: living in Rome in the two hundreds AD or something 440 00:23:50,040 --> 00:23:54,720 Speaker 3: is like the reason why they couldn't sustain their border defenses. Right. 441 00:23:54,760 --> 00:23:57,080 Speaker 3: This is the same arguments we get when it's like, 442 00:23:57,840 --> 00:24:01,560 Speaker 3: you know, we can't afford social security because the you know, 443 00:24:01,720 --> 00:24:06,480 Speaker 3: the National Endowment for the Sciences paid somebody two hundred 444 00:24:06,480 --> 00:24:09,959 Speaker 3: and fifty thousand dollars UH to look into the you know, 445 00:24:10,119 --> 00:24:15,200 Speaker 3: be keeping habits. Like it's like people just don't have 446 00:24:16,720 --> 00:24:20,560 Speaker 3: a way to compare a million dollars to a billion 447 00:24:20,600 --> 00:24:22,760 Speaker 3: dollars to a trillion dollars because it's just a lot 448 00:24:22,800 --> 00:24:26,719 Speaker 3: of money in our heads. So like this, none of 449 00:24:26,880 --> 00:24:29,040 Speaker 3: none of that is true, none of that that's true. 450 00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:34,520 Speaker 1: It's it's it's fascinating to me, especially when you hear like, uh, 451 00:24:35,000 --> 00:24:37,640 Speaker 1: this is like really popular amongst the Joe Rogan set, 452 00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:40,240 Speaker 1: this idea that like, oh, you know, when an empire 453 00:24:40,320 --> 00:24:41,879 Speaker 1: is at the end, that's when you get all the 454 00:24:41,880 --> 00:24:45,800 Speaker 1: bread and circuses to distract people. And man, when the empire, 455 00:24:46,000 --> 00:24:48,919 Speaker 1: like the Roman Empire, the entire period during which it 456 00:24:48,960 --> 00:24:53,040 Speaker 1: was expanding like wildfire, was doing nothing but throwing giant 457 00:24:53,040 --> 00:24:55,360 Speaker 1: fucking parties in the caps all they did, Like that's 458 00:24:55,359 --> 00:24:58,359 Speaker 1: all they did. You could be in politics without going 459 00:24:58,400 --> 00:25:01,160 Speaker 1: broke throwing parties like that was That's why a lot 460 00:25:01,200 --> 00:25:03,320 Speaker 1: of the conquest happened, is because you have to throw 461 00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:05,439 Speaker 1: these parties when you were earlier up on the on 462 00:25:05,480 --> 00:25:07,560 Speaker 1: the curses and orm and then you would have to 463 00:25:07,600 --> 00:25:10,680 Speaker 1: like go conquer some place to pay for it, yep. 464 00:25:10,800 --> 00:25:13,800 Speaker 3: And that was why actually, when you get right down 465 00:25:13,840 --> 00:25:16,760 Speaker 3: to it, you know, one of my you know, side 466 00:25:16,800 --> 00:25:19,359 Speaker 3: opinions is that if you were a provincial inside of 467 00:25:19,359 --> 00:25:23,880 Speaker 3: these conquests, you know, conquered lands. Life was much better 468 00:25:23,960 --> 00:25:26,919 Speaker 3: under the Empire than it was under the Republic because 469 00:25:26,960 --> 00:25:32,560 Speaker 3: there actually was some tightening and normalization of the bureaucratic 470 00:25:32,600 --> 00:25:36,160 Speaker 3: regime under the Empire, like after Augustus comes along, rather 471 00:25:36,240 --> 00:25:38,159 Speaker 3: than what was going on in the Republic, which is 472 00:25:38,200 --> 00:25:41,400 Speaker 3: every single year a province was getting a new governor 473 00:25:41,760 --> 00:25:44,159 Speaker 3: who was there to extract as much money for himself 474 00:25:44,200 --> 00:25:46,720 Speaker 3: as possible because he had taken out tons and tons 475 00:25:46,720 --> 00:25:49,960 Speaker 3: of loans to throw the biggest games that he possibly could, 476 00:25:50,000 --> 00:25:52,480 Speaker 3: to build the biggest act, to build the biggest thing. Now, 477 00:25:52,520 --> 00:25:54,720 Speaker 3: when you get into the later Empire, like are their 478 00:25:54,800 --> 00:25:57,920 Speaker 3: financial difficulties? Of course, right, you don't get the kind 479 00:25:57,960 --> 00:26:00,080 Speaker 3: of monument building and even aqueduct building and in the 480 00:26:00,080 --> 00:26:02,560 Speaker 3: structure projects you get in the later Empire. But like, 481 00:26:03,080 --> 00:26:07,800 Speaker 3: there are larger economic and structural reasons why they were 482 00:26:07,840 --> 00:26:11,159 Speaker 3: suffering financial difficulties at the end of the Empire that 483 00:26:11,359 --> 00:26:15,119 Speaker 3: have nothing to do with these couple of grain doles 484 00:26:15,160 --> 00:26:17,440 Speaker 3: that were going to a few major urban areas. Most 485 00:26:17,440 --> 00:26:20,720 Speaker 3: of the population is rural subsistence peasants, like those people 486 00:26:20,760 --> 00:26:22,120 Speaker 3: were not feeling entitled to. 487 00:26:22,119 --> 00:26:25,040 Speaker 2: Shit, which which I think is really funny because if 488 00:26:25,080 --> 00:26:28,480 Speaker 2: you look at like, I am very confident if you 489 00:26:28,520 --> 00:26:32,000 Speaker 2: actually did the bath, US spends more money agricultural subsidies 490 00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:35,280 Speaker 2: every year than like than the Romans did, like on 491 00:26:35,359 --> 00:26:36,480 Speaker 2: the entire grain dole. 492 00:26:36,840 --> 00:26:39,920 Speaker 1: I mean, there's also the math is true, like yeah, 493 00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:42,159 Speaker 1: like we I mean but in part not just like 494 00:26:42,200 --> 00:26:43,840 Speaker 1: because who knows what the Romans would have done with 495 00:26:43,880 --> 00:26:46,520 Speaker 1: a higher level of technology. Just wasn't possible to do 496 00:26:46,560 --> 00:26:49,360 Speaker 1: that kind of thing outside of the major urban hubs, 497 00:26:49,400 --> 00:26:49,960 Speaker 1: Like you can't. 498 00:26:50,000 --> 00:26:53,600 Speaker 3: Also, you can't you couldn't do it. That's the thing. Yeah, 499 00:26:53,680 --> 00:26:55,159 Speaker 3: this is the same thing where you get into like 500 00:26:55,160 --> 00:26:57,400 Speaker 3: when people like to slip in the whole, like oh, 501 00:26:57,480 --> 00:26:59,520 Speaker 3: there was lead in the in the in the pipes, 502 00:27:00,720 --> 00:27:02,439 Speaker 3: and like there was lead in the pipes, and you know, 503 00:27:02,480 --> 00:27:05,160 Speaker 3: maybe some of the leadership was a bit over let exposed, 504 00:27:05,240 --> 00:27:08,520 Speaker 3: like who knows, like maybe maybe maybe, but like the 505 00:27:08,680 --> 00:27:12,600 Speaker 3: vast majority of the population is not living in downtown 506 00:27:12,800 --> 00:27:15,520 Speaker 3: Rome where this might be a problem, or in you know, 507 00:27:15,560 --> 00:27:18,879 Speaker 3: one of the other you know, regional capitals that's just 508 00:27:18,920 --> 00:27:20,760 Speaker 3: not where any of this is taking place. 509 00:27:21,400 --> 00:27:24,240 Speaker 1: Well, people love to talk about stuff like that. It 510 00:27:24,359 --> 00:27:26,440 Speaker 1: is like, you know the fact that they're one of 511 00:27:26,480 --> 00:27:29,560 Speaker 1: their major sweeteners, included a lot of letters. Is always 512 00:27:29,640 --> 00:27:33,240 Speaker 1: like interesting to bring up. But the thing that I mean, 513 00:27:33,280 --> 00:27:35,679 Speaker 1: and this was this is also pure speculation, but that 514 00:27:35,720 --> 00:27:38,159 Speaker 1: I always wonder more about, not just with Rome, but 515 00:27:38,200 --> 00:27:42,600 Speaker 1: with like most postmodern societies and even like early modern societies, 516 00:27:42,720 --> 00:27:45,439 Speaker 1: is like, what about like mild head injuries, because we 517 00:27:45,520 --> 00:27:48,000 Speaker 1: know so much more now about how a bunch of 518 00:27:48,080 --> 00:27:51,920 Speaker 1: little head injuries can permanently alter your behavior, and like, 519 00:27:51,920 --> 00:27:53,800 Speaker 1: like that's a big thing when I think about when 520 00:27:53,840 --> 00:27:55,840 Speaker 1: I think about like the World War one generation, is 521 00:27:55,880 --> 00:27:58,800 Speaker 1: you've got millions of men who wind up becoming very 522 00:27:58,800 --> 00:28:02,560 Speaker 1: influential in politics, who are under artillery barrages, and who 523 00:28:02,560 --> 00:28:05,000 Speaker 1: are there's almost no way they're not walking away with 524 00:28:05,040 --> 00:28:07,119 Speaker 1: some kind of cte based on what we know now 525 00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:10,320 Speaker 1: about what being near artillery does to your brain. You 526 00:28:10,359 --> 00:28:12,960 Speaker 1: know what does that do to Yeah, the ancient world 527 00:28:13,000 --> 00:28:16,520 Speaker 1: was full of trauma and that's and that's a real thing. 528 00:28:16,560 --> 00:28:20,919 Speaker 1: All of these guys were deeply, deeply traumatized. But like 529 00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:23,280 Speaker 1: one of the other points about the whole like bread 530 00:28:23,280 --> 00:28:26,120 Speaker 1: doll thing is this gets back to this is sneaky 531 00:28:26,119 --> 00:28:29,920 Speaker 1: backdoor racism because the argument the argument is that Rome 532 00:28:30,040 --> 00:28:32,439 Speaker 1: was great when it was the Romans doing it like 533 00:28:32,520 --> 00:28:36,200 Speaker 1: these actual like Latins who were coming from the environs 534 00:28:36,240 --> 00:28:38,760 Speaker 1: of Rome in particular, and that it all started to 535 00:28:38,800 --> 00:28:41,560 Speaker 1: go bad ones non Romans were in charge of things 536 00:28:41,560 --> 00:28:45,520 Speaker 1: because the Romans themselves had had decayed into this like, 537 00:28:45,560 --> 00:28:47,360 Speaker 1: oh well, we just want our bread and circuses and 538 00:28:47,400 --> 00:28:49,240 Speaker 1: we're not going to join the legions. We'll just have 539 00:28:49,360 --> 00:28:51,560 Speaker 1: Germans do our fighting for us, or Goths do our 540 00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:56,160 Speaker 1: fighting for us. Which that is that is simply sneaky 541 00:28:56,200 --> 00:28:59,000 Speaker 1: backdoor racism, because it's a way of saying that it 542 00:28:59,160 --> 00:29:01,360 Speaker 1: was the reason why the Roman Empire was successful was 543 00:29:01,400 --> 00:29:04,720 Speaker 1: because of this small population group, and once they go away, 544 00:29:05,120 --> 00:29:09,440 Speaker 1: other groups, these mongrel races, will never be able to 545 00:29:10,520 --> 00:29:13,360 Speaker 1: live up to or sustain civilization in the way that 546 00:29:13,480 --> 00:29:17,120 Speaker 1: Romans did. The pure Romans did. And so that's also 547 00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:18,920 Speaker 1: a big reason why we need to push back on 548 00:29:18,960 --> 00:29:21,560 Speaker 1: these things, is because the Roman Empire was not just 549 00:29:21,600 --> 00:29:26,360 Speaker 1: sustained but thrived and expanded by people who were not Romans. 550 00:29:26,480 --> 00:29:30,200 Speaker 1: And the idea that you know, their civilization required this 551 00:29:30,280 --> 00:29:33,600 Speaker 1: like little tiny speck of a DNA spark to keep 552 00:29:33,640 --> 00:29:36,320 Speaker 1: it going is just you know, this is the kind 553 00:29:36,360 --> 00:29:38,840 Speaker 1: of person who finishes writing that book and then immediately 554 00:29:38,880 --> 00:29:41,520 Speaker 1: turns their attention to modern California politics and says, the 555 00:29:41,520 --> 00:29:45,600 Speaker 1: big problem here is Hispanics. Yeah, which is also not true, 556 00:29:45,600 --> 00:29:47,600 Speaker 1: by the way, I need to put that up. Yeah, 557 00:29:47,640 --> 00:29:53,560 Speaker 1: the big problem with California politics is California politicians. Right, 558 00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:56,920 Speaker 1: It's not Latinos, you know, it certainly not Latinos. 559 00:30:08,440 --> 00:30:08,640 Speaker 2: You know. 560 00:30:08,680 --> 00:30:11,320 Speaker 4: I wanted to sort of circle back around to the 561 00:30:11,520 --> 00:30:14,600 Speaker 4: script of degenerousy stuff because I think there's an interesting 562 00:30:15,320 --> 00:30:17,600 Speaker 4: through line there too, with with not just sort of 563 00:30:17,640 --> 00:30:21,320 Speaker 4: modern politics, but the politics of the period of the 564 00:30:21,320 --> 00:30:23,440 Speaker 4: original rise of fascism, because you know, you look at 565 00:30:23,480 --> 00:30:25,719 Speaker 4: these arguments and they're like, well, okay, it was like 566 00:30:26,320 --> 00:30:29,080 Speaker 4: cultural decadence, and then they started talking about degeneracy and 567 00:30:29,080 --> 00:30:32,040 Speaker 4: how homosexuality was this like degenerate thing that brought down. 568 00:30:31,920 --> 00:30:34,200 Speaker 2: The empire, and like you go back and you like 569 00:30:34,360 --> 00:30:39,640 Speaker 2: read the Nazis and they are also absolutely obsessed with, like, 570 00:30:40,040 --> 00:30:41,960 Speaker 2: you know, with this notion of like degenerate art and 571 00:30:42,000 --> 00:30:44,920 Speaker 2: like cultural degeneracy is this force that's this internal force 572 00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:48,720 Speaker 2: that subverting the empire, and you know, and like this 573 00:30:48,840 --> 00:30:54,320 Speaker 2: is also I think another like reason to be reason 574 00:30:54,360 --> 00:30:56,560 Speaker 2: to be interested in a better way about Rome was 575 00:30:56,600 --> 00:30:59,800 Speaker 2: also the way that like the original Italian fascists art, 576 00:31:00,200 --> 00:31:03,960 Speaker 2: I mean, like the word fascism is like derived you know, 577 00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:07,040 Speaker 2: like from from Roman symbol symbols, right, and like you know, 578 00:31:07,760 --> 00:31:10,240 Speaker 2: this is like Mussolini's entire thing is about turning the 579 00:31:10,280 --> 00:31:12,040 Speaker 2: Veti trade into the Roman lake. 580 00:31:12,080 --> 00:31:13,720 Speaker 1: Blah blah blah blah. 581 00:31:13,760 --> 00:31:16,960 Speaker 3: So the fascist is great. Not to get you know, 582 00:31:17,720 --> 00:31:20,200 Speaker 3: not to derail your point, keep talking, Just gonna cut 583 00:31:20,240 --> 00:31:24,120 Speaker 3: that line out of the podcast. Mike Duncan says, fascist. 584 00:31:24,240 --> 00:31:29,160 Speaker 3: It's great. The fascist is great. It's a great symbol. 585 00:31:29,240 --> 00:31:32,000 Speaker 3: Go go, Like a lot of people don't actually even 586 00:31:32,160 --> 00:31:33,760 Speaker 3: notice this. Maybe they do at this point this is 587 00:31:33,760 --> 00:31:35,800 Speaker 3: no longer a fun fact, but you go, you go 588 00:31:35,840 --> 00:31:37,400 Speaker 3: to the link. No, well, I mean not just Congress, 589 00:31:37,400 --> 00:31:39,360 Speaker 3: but go to Lincoln Memorial. Look at the Lincoln Memorial. 590 00:31:39,360 --> 00:31:41,480 Speaker 3: What are his hands resting on to a couple of fascists. 591 00:31:41,480 --> 00:31:43,200 Speaker 3: It just is because you know what, a bundle of 592 00:31:43,200 --> 00:31:46,720 Speaker 3: sticks is stronger together, and that is a symbol of solidarity, 593 00:31:47,040 --> 00:31:49,960 Speaker 3: and it is a symbol of group action being superior 594 00:31:50,000 --> 00:31:52,240 Speaker 3: to individual attempts to do anything, and that the one, 595 00:31:52,440 --> 00:31:54,200 Speaker 3: the one Boo is going to break. But all of 596 00:31:54,240 --> 00:31:56,160 Speaker 3: them together is good. Like none of this is like 597 00:31:56,160 --> 00:32:00,680 Speaker 3: inherently bad. It's just a bunch of fascists claimed it 598 00:32:00,880 --> 00:32:01,360 Speaker 3: for their own. 599 00:32:01,400 --> 00:32:04,560 Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, and my memory of this is that I'm 600 00:32:04,560 --> 00:32:06,600 Speaker 2: pretty sure there was a group of people who were 601 00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:10,920 Speaker 2: like calling themselves fascis, like in in early like late 602 00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:13,560 Speaker 2: eighteen hundreds, early nineteen hundred Italy, who weren't fascists, who 603 00:32:13,560 --> 00:32:17,840 Speaker 2: were like so like basically left wingers, and and then like, well, sorry. 604 00:32:17,600 --> 00:32:19,480 Speaker 3: Not the Nazis. Well I don't know if you know this, 605 00:32:19,600 --> 00:32:23,320 Speaker 3: but Nazis are actually socialists. They're national socialists, and and 606 00:32:23,360 --> 00:32:25,160 Speaker 3: so a lot of people think that their right wing, 607 00:32:25,200 --> 00:32:28,200 Speaker 3: but actually their left wing. And that's what it is. 608 00:32:28,280 --> 00:32:31,400 Speaker 3: Hitler was. It was an Oberlin grad. 609 00:32:31,880 --> 00:32:34,520 Speaker 1: This is where we q my thirty minute digression about 610 00:32:34,560 --> 00:32:35,400 Speaker 1: stress rism. 611 00:32:36,040 --> 00:32:41,920 Speaker 3: Oh god, but I think to you, I think to 612 00:32:41,960 --> 00:32:43,680 Speaker 3: the point that you were trying to make, or that 613 00:32:43,760 --> 00:32:46,800 Speaker 3: you were making there though, is that they were, you know, 614 00:32:46,840 --> 00:32:49,360 Speaker 3: the Nazis did. And then we hear this repeated today 615 00:32:49,720 --> 00:32:53,040 Speaker 3: that like that degeneracy is like a thing that is 616 00:32:53,080 --> 00:32:55,600 Speaker 3: a force, like a physical force that can maybe even 617 00:32:55,680 --> 00:32:57,600 Speaker 3: be measured, and if you don't have enough of it, 618 00:32:57,720 --> 00:32:59,120 Speaker 3: or if you have too much of it, then your 619 00:32:59,120 --> 00:33:01,959 Speaker 3: society is going to to break apart or decay. Like 620 00:33:02,440 --> 00:33:04,880 Speaker 3: it's just an idea, that's it. It's just sort of 621 00:33:04,880 --> 00:33:06,680 Speaker 3: a way of thinking about something or a way of 622 00:33:06,720 --> 00:33:10,080 Speaker 3: describing something. It's not actually a really real thing that 623 00:33:10,200 --> 00:33:12,760 Speaker 3: is out there in the world. Like if you have 624 00:33:12,800 --> 00:33:17,160 Speaker 3: a society that suddenly can't grow grain and you have 625 00:33:17,240 --> 00:33:19,880 Speaker 3: a famine, like that's a real thing that will actually 626 00:33:19,960 --> 00:33:22,360 Speaker 3: affect your society and bring it down. You have this 627 00:33:22,440 --> 00:33:25,360 Speaker 3: other thing that is just like moral degeneracy. This is 628 00:33:25,440 --> 00:33:28,400 Speaker 3: just like you listing things you don't like and saying 629 00:33:28,640 --> 00:33:30,680 Speaker 3: that this is the reason why things are falling apart, 630 00:33:30,720 --> 00:33:35,600 Speaker 3: because degeneracy can be anything to anybody. But really, you know, 631 00:33:35,800 --> 00:33:39,200 Speaker 3: like people smoking cigarettes at four o'clock in the morning 632 00:33:39,200 --> 00:33:41,800 Speaker 3: because they've been up all night, you know, doing drugs, 633 00:33:41,840 --> 00:33:45,360 Speaker 3: Like that's what kids do, what people have that people 634 00:33:45,440 --> 00:33:47,800 Speaker 3: are always going to do this. This is always on 635 00:33:47,880 --> 00:33:50,800 Speaker 3: the backgrounds and margins of any society. So like and 636 00:33:50,960 --> 00:33:53,640 Speaker 3: rich people like they've always partied, they always will party. 637 00:33:53,680 --> 00:33:56,840 Speaker 3: Like those kinds of things you can't really then say like, oh, well, 638 00:33:57,080 --> 00:34:01,560 Speaker 3: we've accumulated too much degeneracy. Now ournciety is going to 639 00:34:01,600 --> 00:34:03,360 Speaker 3: start to break apart, and this, you know, the things 640 00:34:03,400 --> 00:34:06,560 Speaker 3: that we see today in terms of our own sort 641 00:34:06,560 --> 00:34:11,080 Speaker 3: of faltering democratic republic. This is not because of degeneracy. 642 00:34:11,080 --> 00:34:13,440 Speaker 3: This isn't because the kids are doing too many drugs, 643 00:34:13,520 --> 00:34:16,439 Speaker 3: or like we legalize gay marriage, Like, that's not That's 644 00:34:16,440 --> 00:34:18,440 Speaker 3: not why any of this is happening. It's happening for 645 00:34:18,520 --> 00:34:22,200 Speaker 3: other reasons. It's happening because of greed, it's happening because 646 00:34:22,239 --> 00:34:25,920 Speaker 3: of a sociopathic indifference to other people's lives. Those are 647 00:34:25,920 --> 00:34:29,080 Speaker 3: the things that actually matter, not whether you stayed up 648 00:34:29,080 --> 00:34:30,760 Speaker 3: all night drinking and partying. 649 00:34:31,400 --> 00:34:34,560 Speaker 1: No, no, it's yeah, it's it's it's the kind like 650 00:34:34,760 --> 00:34:36,720 Speaker 1: I tend to think, like talking about the Lata fundia 651 00:34:36,800 --> 00:34:39,799 Speaker 1: is a lot more relevant to talking about like what 652 00:34:39,960 --> 00:34:43,719 Speaker 1: happened to the elites under Rome and what's happened in 653 00:34:43,760 --> 00:34:46,959 Speaker 1: our own society than bringing up like the parties and shit. 654 00:34:47,120 --> 00:34:48,160 Speaker 3: Yeah, it's this exactly. 655 00:34:48,239 --> 00:34:50,960 Speaker 1: The centralization of wealth and power in a tinier and 656 00:34:50,960 --> 00:34:53,640 Speaker 1: tinier number of men was responsible for a number of 657 00:34:53,680 --> 00:34:56,520 Speaker 1: the problems that Rome encountered as it aged, and they 658 00:34:56,560 --> 00:34:59,359 Speaker 1: don't want to have that conversation out, so they want 659 00:34:59,400 --> 00:35:03,160 Speaker 1: us to have other conversation which flatters their bigotry. 660 00:35:03,560 --> 00:35:03,880 Speaker 4: M hm. 661 00:35:04,520 --> 00:35:06,279 Speaker 2: Well, and this I think comes back to the thing 662 00:35:06,320 --> 00:35:08,080 Speaker 2: you were you know, the joke you're making about like 663 00:35:08,080 --> 00:35:09,919 Speaker 2: all of these these are all the same people who 664 00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:13,520 Speaker 2: are like, oh, well, the Nazis were socialists. It's like, yeah, 665 00:35:13,719 --> 00:35:17,480 Speaker 2: you know, like the point of like these arguments is 666 00:35:17,520 --> 00:35:20,080 Speaker 2: so that you don't go back into the historical record 667 00:35:20,120 --> 00:35:22,440 Speaker 2: and realize how much all the things are saying are 668 00:35:22,480 --> 00:35:25,320 Speaker 2: wrong and how much they're making precisely the same arguments 669 00:35:25,760 --> 00:35:27,879 Speaker 2: that you know, the Nazis were making, or that all 670 00:35:27,880 --> 00:35:31,799 Speaker 2: of these sort of like you know, all all of 671 00:35:31,840 --> 00:35:36,040 Speaker 2: the sort of past people who broadly is acknowledged did 672 00:35:36,040 --> 00:35:38,480 Speaker 2: a bunch of terrible stuff had the same opinions that 673 00:35:38,520 --> 00:35:38,839 Speaker 2: they do. 674 00:35:39,480 --> 00:35:39,919 Speaker 3: Mm hmm. 675 00:35:41,120 --> 00:35:44,799 Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I don't know. I think that's what I've 676 00:35:44,800 --> 00:35:50,960 Speaker 1: got to talk about today. I mean, this is like 677 00:35:52,640 --> 00:35:55,160 Speaker 1: we could go on to to the way in which 678 00:35:55,200 --> 00:35:59,759 Speaker 1: like Sparta gets remembered and stuff and the cultural like 679 00:36:00,160 --> 00:36:03,120 Speaker 1: right wing, but I think that's kind of moving sort 680 00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:06,320 Speaker 1: of far afield. Although there's there's similarities, right, there's always 681 00:36:06,360 --> 00:36:09,440 Speaker 1: this idea that like, at this certain point, when everybody 682 00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:12,920 Speaker 1: looked the same, Like, that's when this historic empire was 683 00:36:12,960 --> 00:36:16,640 Speaker 1: at their best. And when you know, degeneracy got entered 684 00:36:16,640 --> 00:36:18,680 Speaker 1: into it, when immigrants got entered into it, that's when 685 00:36:18,680 --> 00:36:23,600 Speaker 1: it sort of fell apart. I guess some of that's 686 00:36:23,640 --> 00:36:26,320 Speaker 1: mixed in with sort of like Frank Miller as opposed 687 00:36:26,360 --> 00:36:29,439 Speaker 1: to any sort of real history. But that's always the case, right, 688 00:36:29,680 --> 00:36:30,200 Speaker 1: I think a lot. 689 00:36:30,200 --> 00:36:32,360 Speaker 3: Of yeah, I mean, and Frank Miller's working in a 690 00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:35,799 Speaker 3: tradition that is very standard, you know, the you know, 691 00:36:35,800 --> 00:36:41,279 Speaker 3: the kind of racist oriolentizing, orientalizing of you know, of 692 00:36:41,320 --> 00:36:44,160 Speaker 3: anybody from the East, like that was all current, Like 693 00:36:44,239 --> 00:36:46,120 Speaker 3: you know, the Romans had those ideas. I mean, we 694 00:36:46,160 --> 00:36:48,120 Speaker 3: get the word barb like the word like one of 695 00:36:48,120 --> 00:36:50,239 Speaker 3: the points that I'm going to make probably in my 696 00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:54,040 Speaker 3: book is like, so the word barbarian just means non Greek, 697 00:36:54,320 --> 00:36:56,200 Speaker 3: Like that's it, because the Greeks had a you know, 698 00:36:56,320 --> 00:36:58,720 Speaker 3: a very sort of self centered view of the world, 699 00:36:58,719 --> 00:37:01,920 Speaker 3: as we all do. But that meant that the Romans 700 00:37:01,960 --> 00:37:04,640 Speaker 3: are barbarians, you know, when that word is coined and 701 00:37:04,719 --> 00:37:07,359 Speaker 3: we're thinking about who the Romans are, like they were 702 00:37:07,400 --> 00:37:09,680 Speaker 3: the civilized ones, and then and then there are all 703 00:37:09,719 --> 00:37:12,759 Speaker 3: these barbarians who are bad. But like from the Greek perspective, 704 00:37:12,880 --> 00:37:16,520 Speaker 3: the Romans were as barbaric as you know, the Scythians were, 705 00:37:17,800 --> 00:37:20,360 Speaker 3: and you know, probably and certainly less civilized than the 706 00:37:20,360 --> 00:37:22,800 Speaker 3: Persians were when the Romans. When the Romans first appeared 707 00:37:22,800 --> 00:37:25,080 Speaker 3: on the scene in Greece, they were like, who are they? 708 00:37:25,120 --> 00:37:26,680 Speaker 3: These are just a bunch of guys who are obsessed 709 00:37:26,680 --> 00:37:28,840 Speaker 3: with war, and they have no culture, They have no 710 00:37:28,920 --> 00:37:31,320 Speaker 3: ideas of their own. They just march around in squares 711 00:37:31,360 --> 00:37:34,120 Speaker 3: and kill people like That's that was their interpretation of 712 00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:37,920 Speaker 3: what the Romans were originally, which is not a you know, 713 00:37:38,200 --> 00:37:44,279 Speaker 3: terrible interpretation of really Roman history. But yeah, this just 714 00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:48,040 Speaker 3: this sort of dividing between civilized peoples and barbaric peoples 715 00:37:48,560 --> 00:37:51,480 Speaker 3: is something that then has been around for thousands of 716 00:37:51,520 --> 00:37:53,680 Speaker 3: years and we're still doing it today. Like everything that 717 00:37:53,680 --> 00:37:57,440 Speaker 3: we're seeing, you know, and I look at Israel and Palestine, 718 00:37:57,440 --> 00:38:01,080 Speaker 3: there's a lot of this mapping of civilized versus uncivilized 719 00:38:01,080 --> 00:38:05,480 Speaker 3: people onto This conflict that I see is is rooted 720 00:38:05,520 --> 00:38:09,200 Speaker 3: in a lot in these sort of Western traditions that 721 00:38:09,280 --> 00:38:12,799 Speaker 3: informed nineteenth century racist ideas about how things you know 722 00:38:13,280 --> 00:38:16,640 Speaker 3: about how societies organize themselves, all of which needs to 723 00:38:16,680 --> 00:38:18,440 Speaker 3: be deconstructed and thrown away. 724 00:38:19,000 --> 00:38:22,680 Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I always love it when people 725 00:38:22,719 --> 00:38:26,320 Speaker 1: try to bring up like these sort of racial theories 726 00:38:26,360 --> 00:38:29,680 Speaker 1: within the context of the Roman Empire, who had absolutely 727 00:38:29,719 --> 00:38:32,480 Speaker 1: nothing that would be considered like a modern understanding of 728 00:38:32,520 --> 00:38:35,640 Speaker 1: whiteness or race like was was completely absent. 729 00:38:36,280 --> 00:38:39,799 Speaker 3: No, they they all had they all had group identity. 730 00:38:40,000 --> 00:38:44,440 Speaker 1: No yet they wereists, but yeah, different era, Yeah, exactly right. 731 00:38:44,480 --> 00:38:47,960 Speaker 3: It was there's us and then there's everybody else. Yeah, 732 00:38:48,000 --> 00:38:51,840 Speaker 3: and you know, the Romans differentiated a little bit between 733 00:38:51,920 --> 00:38:54,799 Speaker 3: like there were Egyptians, and you know, they were kind 734 00:38:54,800 --> 00:38:57,320 Speaker 3: of you know, they were they were curious about how 735 00:38:57,719 --> 00:39:00,799 Speaker 3: how the Jews worked because the Jews were very old civilization, 736 00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:02,600 Speaker 3: and so the Romans kind of took special note of that, 737 00:39:02,680 --> 00:39:06,239 Speaker 3: and they really admired the Greeks, and so there are 738 00:39:06,280 --> 00:39:08,840 Speaker 3: these like sort of like groupings that they all understood, 739 00:39:08,840 --> 00:39:11,120 Speaker 3: but it's all just sort of that very self centered. 740 00:39:12,239 --> 00:39:14,520 Speaker 3: You know, if you go through anthropological history of any 741 00:39:14,520 --> 00:39:17,239 Speaker 3: group of people, their word for themselves is just the 742 00:39:17,280 --> 00:39:19,560 Speaker 3: word for person. You know, we find this a lot, 743 00:39:19,640 --> 00:39:22,040 Speaker 3: and the Romans were that way too, but not not 744 00:39:22,160 --> 00:39:24,239 Speaker 3: in this way, not not sitting down and making like 745 00:39:24,640 --> 00:39:28,359 Speaker 3: hierarchies of you know, who can, uh, you know, who 746 00:39:28,400 --> 00:39:29,920 Speaker 3: can do what and who should be on top and 747 00:39:29,920 --> 00:39:31,600 Speaker 3: who should be on bottom, because you know, if you're 748 00:39:31,960 --> 00:39:34,200 Speaker 3: a traditional ancient choveness, you're like, well, my people should 749 00:39:34,200 --> 00:39:36,400 Speaker 3: be on top, and that, you know, is self explanatory, 750 00:39:36,680 --> 00:39:38,640 Speaker 3: and then we will we will fight for that. That's 751 00:39:38,719 --> 00:39:41,840 Speaker 3: not because of yeah, these these racial hierarchies. 752 00:39:43,040 --> 00:39:46,840 Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I think that's about all I had to 753 00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:48,960 Speaker 1: get into, Mia, You have anything else you wanted to 754 00:39:48,960 --> 00:39:53,080 Speaker 1: sort of touch on today, I. 755 00:39:53,360 --> 00:39:55,040 Speaker 2: Think I think I think we've about we think we've 756 00:39:55,080 --> 00:39:55,759 Speaker 2: about covered it. 757 00:39:56,760 --> 00:39:59,439 Speaker 3: Well, we got it. We have we've established that it's 758 00:39:59,480 --> 00:40:02,359 Speaker 3: wrong to think that gays made the Roman Empire fall. 759 00:40:02,920 --> 00:40:09,640 Speaker 1: No, No, although you can, Yeah, there's a million more 760 00:40:09,640 --> 00:40:13,000 Speaker 1: things to say about that, but yeah, I think we've 761 00:40:13,080 --> 00:40:14,040 Speaker 1: hit on the basics. 762 00:40:14,280 --> 00:40:14,520 Speaker 3: Mike. 763 00:40:15,160 --> 00:40:19,440 Speaker 1: You are a podcaster. Your Revolutions podcast is one of 764 00:40:19,480 --> 00:40:21,800 Speaker 1: the best things on the internet. You are also an author. 765 00:40:21,920 --> 00:40:24,600 Speaker 1: I give a whole bunch of books, The Storm Before 766 00:40:24,640 --> 00:40:27,800 Speaker 1: the Storm, which is about a lot of the stuff 767 00:40:27,800 --> 00:40:31,680 Speaker 1: we've been talking about today, Hero of Two Worlds, the 768 00:40:31,760 --> 00:40:34,840 Speaker 1: History of Rome. Yeah, Mike, you have anything else you 769 00:40:34,840 --> 00:40:35,279 Speaker 1: want to plug. 770 00:40:36,840 --> 00:40:39,160 Speaker 3: Well, I am just about, as I said earlier, about 771 00:40:39,160 --> 00:40:41,839 Speaker 3: to start work on a third book, which will be 772 00:40:41,960 --> 00:40:45,080 Speaker 3: the Crisis of the Third Century. So if anybody out 773 00:40:45,120 --> 00:40:46,759 Speaker 3: there who's listening to this has been like I wonder 774 00:40:46,800 --> 00:40:48,200 Speaker 3: if Mike's ever going to write a book about the 775 00:40:48,200 --> 00:40:51,920 Speaker 3: Crisis of the third Century, I will and I am excellent. 776 00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:55,040 Speaker 1: Well, thank you for being on the show, Mike, and 777 00:40:55,400 --> 00:40:59,319 Speaker 1: yeah listeners until next time. If somebody brings up the 778 00:40:59,360 --> 00:41:04,759 Speaker 1: Roman Empire in an attempt to attack various special interests 779 00:41:04,800 --> 00:41:08,440 Speaker 1: in our modern political system by a Gladias, you know 780 00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:11,080 Speaker 1: that still works the same way it did in the past. 781 00:41:11,280 --> 00:41:14,200 Speaker 1: Just start swinging a Gladius. Remember it's God but blade 782 00:41:14,239 --> 00:41:15,919 Speaker 1: on both sides, so you got to be you gotta 783 00:41:15,920 --> 00:41:18,759 Speaker 1: be careful when you swing a Gladias. Easy to satire 784 00:41:19,560 --> 00:41:22,280 Speaker 1: satire leg not actionable satire. 785 00:41:26,640 --> 00:41:29,120 Speaker 3: It could happen here as a production of cool Zone Media. 786 00:41:29,239 --> 00:41:31,920 Speaker 3: For more podcasts from cool Zone Media, visit our website 787 00:41:31,920 --> 00:41:34,160 Speaker 3: cool Zonemedia dot com, or check us out on the 788 00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:37,640 Speaker 3: iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to podcasts. 789 00:41:38,200 --> 00:41:40,320 Speaker 3: You can find sources for It could happen here. Updated 790 00:41:40,400 --> 00:41:44,440 Speaker 3: monthly at cool zonemedia dot com Slash Sources thanks for listening.