 history is here to help. If you wondered if we need help, we do need help, and history can help. I'm Jay Fidel. This is Think Tech at the noon block on a given Thursday, and that's Sandy Schwartz. She is a special guest, and this is a continuation of a conversation we had a couple of weeks ago about the transmission, if you will, of democracy from ancient Athens to ancient Rome. She's a history professor in the classics, and she can help us. History is here to help. Hi, Sandy. Thank you for helping us. Hi. Well, thank you for allowing me to help you. I want to ask my transitional question. In our last discussion, we spoke about Athens. It was very, very interesting to hear how it all came together in Athens. Then somewhere along the line, it transitioned from Athens to Rome, and I would like to know from you how that transition worked, and what parts of the Athenian democracy were passed over, were carried over to Rome, what parts were not, and how ultimately that gave birth to a new kind of democracy in Rome, and ultimately, the death of democracy in Athens. This is all a fabulous transition. We can learn so much from both sides of it. Let me know about the transition, Sandy. Speaking about Athens, we have to take the bigger picture of the Mediterranean world, mostly in the Eastern Mediterranean world. The Aegean Sea is where Athens had grown its empire, and then further towards the West in Italy, there were other peoples who were beginning to settle around the Italian peninsula. One of the major groups that came into the Italian peninsula were the Etruscans. They were from some area in Turkey in the Eastern part of the Mediterranean, and they came and they settled in Italy. Italy was populated by many different groups. Some were like just tribal groups, and others were more organized, and the Etruscans were really the first civilization in Italy. We don't have a lot of writing from them, but what we do get are many of the forms of religious religiosity. They found a fertile field where the Etruscans could take over and expand their empire. What happened was that the Romans at that time were also trying to carve out a space in Italy where they could try to extend their population. A lot of what we talked about in the Mediterranean history and ancient history is very much about geography and demography. Land is the most important commodity in the Mediterranean world. This is a little bit not as linear as Athens, but the story of Rome really made a mark on what would happen in the middle area of the Italian peninsula. The Romans began to try to push away their enemies because there were many peoples in Italy and people were fighting all the time, and they had different kinds of fighting. The Etruscans were able to absorb some of this early Roman culture, and so during that period of time, when you see the image that I have in back of me, this is an image of the earliest forefathers of Rome. Much of what the Romans found was taken from the Etruscans. The Etruscans were where Tuscany is obviously today. The Romans at first didn't have a real structure, but the Etruscans gave them a structure of consolidating their society. What happened was that the Romans began to try to take over other places in Italy. That really sparked a new kind of existence for these little people who were living in huts on the hills of the rivers of Italy. The Romans began to take what the Etruscans gave them, and then they moved throughout the Italian peninsula. I mean, I might be getting too much in the weeds and just tell me if you're not... No, I'm just remembering that Tuscany, I guess, which was the Etruscan's home, is probably 100 kilometers away from Rome. It's a distant place. There was a town on the Tiber River where the Etruscans came to this river. The river Tiber had an island in it. We could forward your cattle from the Etruscany to Rome. It was a meeting place. It was a common denominator among these two civilizations, the Etruscans and the Romans. They met in the middle, and they traded and they exchanged ideas. And so the Romans then began to understand that they could probably create a city that they could have. So there are many myths about the exchanges between the Etruscans and the Romans in the early period. Give us an idea of what periods we're talking about. Okay, the periods that we're talking about are about 600 BCE. But we do have the stories of the historian Livy who wrote about these incidents in early Roman history. One of the most important incidents in early Roman history had to do with a Tarquinian king, that it was a king who was, his name was Tarquinius Supervis, and he acted like a tyrant. And so he lorded it over the Romans, and then the Romans broke away and claimed their freedom. There are lots of stories about Livy, and Livy was a very melodramatic storyteller. And these stories were the basis of ancient Rome. One of the signal events was when Tarquinius Supervis went to a dining party with his fellow Romans, and at the dinner party, Tarquinius Supervis raped the host's wife. Now that's melodramatic. Yeah, seriously. It's like, I mean, it's so great. It's so great. It's all so proper. And the way that Livy tells it, he loves it. He loves the story. So anyway, so these, so the Romans, actually I should say, I should backtrack that Livy wrote these stories during the time of Julius Caesar, or Augustus Caesar. So what you're seeing in the backdrop is from the Aropachis, and that is a creation of Augustus Caesar. So several hundred years before. Right. So the Romans had a motto saying that they never threw anything away. They kept all their traditions. The Romans were very, very traditional. Even what they brought from the Etruscans, they kept. So for example, the Romans would have, they would have Haryus specs, which are diviners of looking at the livers of sacrificial animals to get a sense of what their gods wanted. And that was, that is part of the Roman consciousness of really looking towards the gods. So we have, so and actually in, if you go to Rome ever, there is the Villa Giulia, which is a museum now. And you can see these model livers where the priests would go and look at the entrails of the animals that were sacrificed. And it's kind of weird, because when you think about the Romans being upstanding politicians, and they were, but they also had these kind of, these strange ideas. Okay. So it's, but people took these things very seriously. There was the story of Romulus and Remus, the two brothers who fought against each other. Romulus sat on one hill. Remus sat on the other hill. And Romulus came and killed his brother. So Fratricide is another storyline for Roman history. Okay. All right. Do you have a question? Any questions? Yeah, sure I do. So here, you know, last time we talked about these Poles, P-O-L-I, type community, Poles, communities that were in the hills, the hills around Athens. And they developed a kind of a community organization, a community pre-democracy, if you will, kind of community organization. And then it came together in Athens and Presto, you know, we have democracy functioning for the first time in the world among humanity that we know of. And it built an empire. So okay, some of that must have been transmitted to Rome. But I'm sure that Rome had its own process with the Etruscans and otherwise, where just as you say, they held on to everything. They never forgot anything. And they were taking little pieces of what was going on in the world around them and consolidating that into their own system, which turned out to be democratic. Can you talk about that? Okay. So what happened is that throughout the western Mediterranean, there were communities that were kind of becoming, you know, the Poles, the city states. There were when, so let's go back to 600 BCE. The population was growing. Iron was available. People could use tools, stronger tools. And so throughout the eastern Mediterranean, there was communities figured out that they could that they could organize themselves on the pattern that the Athenians had done. Some of the people who lived in Greece moved to Sicily. Sicily and southern Italy were populated around the Sicilian islands and southern Italy. And why? Why did people go there? Because they, because it looks like Greece. And in fact, if you go to Sicily, you will see some of the most magnificent and oldest Greek temples in Sicily. And there are also Greek temples on the west coast of Italy as well. And Greeks, I mean, when there was a demographic explosion with the advent of better agricultural tools and techniques, there were a lot more people who could get on a boat and go to Sicily. And that then created actually the name that the Romans gave to the Sicilian islands, what's called Magna Grecia, which means bigger Greece. So Italy and Greece were very connected during the 600s. Okay, now let's go back to what we were saying about democracy. There were cities that grew up around southern Italy and Sicily. The Athenians had a war, the Peloponnesian war between Athens and Sparta. Athens went to Sicily to try to take over that island. And then the Spartans came, their enemies came and destroyed the Athenian city. Athens was very resilient. And there was a series of problems, there was a plague in Athens. So Athens was very resilient. Now the Greeks and the Romans, who settled along the coastal areas of southern Italy, had the opportunity to get larger pieces of real estate where they could settle and build cities there as well. So and when that happened, the people of Rome noticed that these Greek-like settlements were beginning to invade southern Italy. And so that is how the Romans, the Romans were one of these groups of peoples around the Tiber River, so in the middle part of the Italian peninsula, they were beginning to absorb many of the ideas of the Athenians. And so what we have is, for example, going back to the story of the Etruscans, it seems that there was a kind of coup d'état among the Etruscan culture. And the people who took over started a proto-democracy in what was the Etruscan territory. So we don't get a lot from the Etruscans because they didn't write a lot through us. We don't have a lot of writing. We have kind of stretching on pots, but not really full. Actually, there's a gold-plated leaf of like some sort of writing in it. And we don't really know about it because we don't know a lot about it. And a lot of people who worked in Tuscany, they looked for especially things that had writing on them. Well, a moment on language. So I take it that the Tuscany language was different than the Roman language. And they were both different from the Greek language. And when the Greeks came over and settled the east coast of the Italian Peninsula, as well as Sicily, they were speaking Greek. But those communities were like colonies of Greece. Exactly. They colonized southern Italy. So when you go back archaeologically and look for writings from the Tuscany Etruscans, there's a language issue as well. It's not going to be as simple as looking for old Roman lettering, which we have a certain amount of expertise in these days. I don't know about Greek. It's Greek to me. But the Etruscan may be a little more difficult now. Yeah. A few decades ago, people thought of the Etruscans as this mysterious culture. But it probably wasn't. I think that the most recent theories about the Etruscans were that they were from Anatolia. That is Turkey today. And they got on their ships and they sailed just like the Greeks were sailing. And they planted their culture there. But we don't have a lot of their writing, unfortunately. You think their language was similar to Turkish at the time? No. Turkish is completely different. It's an Altaic language, which is like Mongolian and things like that. So what I heard you say is that the Etruscans up there in the hills had their own version of small community democracy before the Romans did. And that somehow passed from the Etruscans to the Romans, no? No. That's not true because the Etruscans had kings. Actually, there was a federation of 12 cities and each of the cities had a king. And so that was when the Romans began budding against the Etruscan Empire, they eventually with what I mentioned earlier, the rape of the wife of the king, Tarquinius Herbis, who came to the Roman area. And these are just, again, stories. But it shows that there was some sense of grievance between that border along the Tiber River. And so the Romans who were dominated by the Etruscans, they then began to try to fight back. And they did, eventually. And so the Romans, as their populations were growing, and as the Romans were beginning to develop more advanced battle plans, that then pushed the Etruscans further away. So the Etruscans gave to the Romans, and the Romans took it. And when you see in the backdrop there, those were the flaminas. These were the priests that really descended from the Etruscans. So they became part of the Roman Empire then? They were merged into the Roman Empire? We're not really talking about the Roman Empire. We're talking more about the Roman Republic. Let's talk about the Roman Republic instead of the Roman Empire. The Roman Republic, as scholars of ancient history call it, the Roman Republic was the nascent civilization of Rome. Later on, there would be a Roman Empire. And that Roman Empire built itself through capturing all of these hillbillies in the Italian peninsula. And the Romans got to be really good at fighting. They also had great farmland. If you've gone to Tuscany, you can take my word for it. Very rich farmland, because it's volcanic soil. So that's where people just are able to graze and use our agriculture all over Italy. And it was very easy for them. And so the Romans, again, they had a demographic boom. They brought armies to these hillbillies in Umbria and all those places that you probably see in all the movies and stuff. And so what happened was that once the Romans began to figure out the system, they could push out all these other tribal peoples and then they would consolidate the peoples by offering a kind of contract. So there were a lot of different cultural groups and the Romans, when they defeated their enemies, they brought their defeated enemies into their system. It was very clever. The Romans chose to offer perks in exchange for peace. Well, this was a matter of expansion, wasn't it? It was a matter of building an empire. And they probably used that in all of their adventures up through pretty much all of Europe. And I just wonder what motivated them. You mentioned before that in those days it was largely about geography. What motivated the Roman people, the Roman culture, the Roman civilization in Rome to acquire so much territory? They got to be everywhere. What was driving them? What was driving them? Good. Okay. So there was a rival empire called the Punic Empire. It was on the coast of North Africa. And that and the Punic Empire was originally from the Levant. So the Eastern Mediterranean. So there was a group of colonists from North Africa, or from Tyre and Beirut. And they were doing the same thing that the Greeks were doing. And so the Phoenicians and or the Romans called them the Punics, they created another empire that in Spain in particular, Spain had rich mineral deposits which made the Phoenicians very powerful. They had ships just like the Greeks did. And the Romans didn't really have, they did not have ships. They were land lovers until the Romans realized that the Phoenicians were going to go take over their new kind of nascent empire. And so they then decided that they needed to wipe out the Phoenicians. And so the... So in a way it was defensive or competitive. Right. So everyone knows from the textbooks, you know, that Hannibal, the great general of the Phoenicians in the Punic War, he brought African elephants to the Alps. And his plan was that he was going to take over Italy. He was because the Etruscans were waning, the Romans were a little bit not completely consolidated. And so Hannibal took his opportunity to break up all of the alliances that the Romans had made with these other peoples. And so Hannibal actually is probably the person who really shaped Italy as it was. So eventually what happened, I mean on the west coast of Italy, there's a sea that's called the Terranian Sea. So it's, you know, the French Riviera and then the coast of Spain. And that was kind of a zone of trading and exchange. And the Romans began to worry that they were going to be taken over. And so eventually the Romans began to think of themselves as people who could create their own empire. And that had to do with an amazing moment in the Roman Senate. The Roman Senate, one of the senators of the Roman Senate said, we have to learn how to build ships. Because if we don't get ships, we're doomed. And so, and the Romans really didn't even know how to build ships. They actually saw a shipwreck and they tried to reverse engineer it. And very quickly, the Romans were able to mount a campaign to build these ships. And the Senate got together and said, we're going to do this. We have to do this. And if we don't do this, we're going to be taken over. So what I get when I get is that there's parallel things happening. So they realized that their own destiny is interlaced with traveling, with making territorial grabs outside of Rome. And you can't do that without ships. At the same time, this collaborative effort required them to invent a system of management of government. And that management of government, which was, you know, which was focused, that visionary senator created focus. And they stayed focused for a few hundred years. And that gave them a period of time in which they could build an efficient, effective government, namely democracy that would be sustainable. Am I right and all that? Okay. So what happened was that to be a Roman senator, you had to have military experience. That was a sine qua non. And so the, you know, Rome had a boundary that made sure that no one could bring weapons of war in the city of Rome. But outside the city of Rome, it was fair game. And all these men who were ambitious about climbing the what was called the corses in Orum, the ladder of honors. That's what it was called. There was the Senate was very much a conglomeration of very ambitious men. And when a general would defeat an enemy, that general would get all sorts of laurels and recognition. That was how you built your career in Rome. And so, so we have both the the government, and we also have the military. And they're woven together. You couldn't climb up the ladder unless you could prove that you could lead an army. What does this teach us about the relationship of military exploits, military conquests, territorial expansion vis-à-vis the perfection in those days, it was perfection of the system of government in the Senate. Yes. Okay. All right. This is a big story. I'm sorry, we're, you know, it's okay. Okay. So, so the, so the military strategies were cynical and on. And we also had, or what the Romans did is that they offered alliances to their defeated foes. So that gave them more power. And so, so the, so the Roman Senate was not just a political, a political organ. It was also a military organ. The Senate was the supreme. Well, actually, I should say that there were two bodies in the Rome, in Rome. The Senate was one. And originally it was supposed to be the most, there was the 300 wealthiest men who were supposed to be in the Senate. That was how the first kings ordered that. And then later on, there was also another organ in the Roman government. And that was called the Cantoria Curiata, which means the assembly of soldiers. Is that like the House of Representatives? Kind of, sort of. All of, all of the men in the Cantoria, in the Cantoria, Cantoria Curiata. I'm sorry. It's rolling off these weird words. But you could, all the men in that popular assembly, they were all the soldiers. Because the Romans had to have the, they had to have the soldiers be part of the ideology, right? Again, it was making a deal, wasn't it? We'll bring you in. We'll give you some authority and you'll be loyal to us. Yeah, absolutely. That's what it is. And that, and that really put the idea in the hearts and minds of the Romans on that they were Romans. And they could, they really stood up for, you know, what they were. And they were, you know, it's kind of like in, you know, some military dictatorships where, you know, people drink the Kool-Aid and they follow the leader. But I shouldn't say that. I mean, I guess I should erase that. But it was a system, then it on the one hand and the soldiers on the other hand. And then there were other assemblies. And I won't go into those at all. But so Rome had these moments when they could, especially in the Cantoria, the military, the Cantoria media, though that was the beginning of, I guess you could say, popular Roman democracy. Okay, hold there, hold there, Sandy. We're kind of out of time, but I want to see if I can make more time. And you and I will talk about another extension of our discussion. So for now, I will say aloha, but we'll be back, we'll be back shortly and see what we can do about continuing this conversation. Very interesting. And we're just now getting to the essence of it just now. Thank you, Sandy Schwartz, history professor at UH in the classics. We'll be right back, aloha. Okay, we made arrangements. We're back. We're back with Sandy Schwartz, a history professor in the classics at UH Manoa. And we're talking about the origins of democracy from ancient Rome. So we took more time here to extend the show called history is here to help. And we're going to get right into it with, you know, the emergence, which we were just talking about the emergence of democratic systems in Rome. Very interesting stuff, because this is where, in my view, and you can correct me, Sandy, the modern world politically really began. These guys figured out how to work together. It was all visionary and interestingly enough, it was, it was all an extension of the military arrangement in Rome. So please continue with how these shreds of democratic organization grew and flourished in Rome once they got the notion. Okay, well, I should say don't be duped by the white statues in the background. Things were wild in Rome during the Republican period. So when I talk about the Republican period, we're talking about 350 BCE. Okay, so there were a lot. Rome was consolidating Italy. And then Rome built its ships and crossed over to the Mediterranean and went to the northern coast of Africa, which was a very fertile area. And it was very important for the grain trade. There were other places. Okay, let me let me backtrack. So Italy was growing, the population was growing. The soldiers were on duty most of the time. And that meant that the farmers, because farmers are always usually the men who fight on for their land, right? But in, as the Roman Senate pushed for more and more warfare, that meant that the soldiers had to leave their homes. And then they would have to go to faraway places, like some place like Carthage, for example. So more and more soldiers had longer tours of duty. And in that time, people would coach on vacant lots. Sometimes the families, the women, had to work the farm. There were, sometimes there were slaves, but, you know, it was hard to keep slaves when the, when the Potter familias wasn't around. So during this period of what we call the Roman Republic, we see a breakup of what happened with this militaristic society. In the eastern part of the Mediterranean, there were a number of wars that were sparked by Alexander the Great and his, and his successors. And the, and as the Senate kept thinking about how great our system is, why don't we just keep pushing it and expanding our network. And the Romans weren't colonizing the eastern Mediterranean. They were actually going to take away some magnificent provinces, places that, for example, Pergamum was one of the great kingdoms of Turkey. And these are all Turkey. Most of the action for Alexander the Great successors is in Turkey and during this period. So at the time, though, Greece was pretty active. It was very active. What had happened was that Alexander the Great went on his expedition to the east. A lot of people came and followed after him. Some people never came back to Greece. But, but there were Romans, of course, who, you know, could fill in the hole, right? They could, they, they could move to these areas. And, and, you know, there were, there were a lot of moving parts. Did they eclipse him? Did they eclipse, you know, the Greek move, move into, move to the east? Yeah, well, the, the, the exploits of Alexander the Great. There were, there were towns. Actually, there were, I think the count was that there were 27 cities named Alexandria after Alexander's conquests. The most important part of the Mediterranean for the Romans was Alexandria. Now, Alexandria was a kingdom. It was the Ptolemaic kingdom created by Ptolemy, who was one of the successors of Alexander the Great. Okay. Maybe we should say a relative picture of whether the Romans were becoming more powerful, supplanting Alexander, supplanting Greece, or whether they were operating at the same time. What was the dynamic there? Okay. So the dynamic was the Romans saw an opportunity to go attack some of the weaker kingdoms. So for example, Macedonia was one of them. And so the Romans went across the Adri, the Adriatic Sea, and they came and they took over Macedonia. Now, Macedonia was the kingdom of Philip, Philip II, and his son, Alexander the Third. So there were some teetering kingdoms in this area in the Balkans, as you can imagine, you know. And so there was a general who requested from the Senate a mission to take over Macedonia. And his name was Emilius Paulus. And he brought his armies across the Adriatic, came to Macedonia, trashed the place that was the, you know, the kingdom of the Macedonians and Philip, Philip at that time was the big man in the Aegean area. But when Emilius Paulus came to Macedonia, there was no way that Philip or the Macedonians had no, they could not stop the Roman, sorry. The Romans came to Macedonia and the Roman armies were so skilled, they were so well trained that they, it by bit, any kingdom that they could get their hands on, they would take everything apart. So Macedon was one of the first kingdoms that the Romans came to. When you take, when you say take everything apart, you mean the sack? Literally, they took everything they could. Did they rebuild it? Did they rebuild it? Did they make a deal with the remaining population? Did they remake it in the Roman image? Eventually, yeah, they would, yeah, they would do that later on. But in the first blow, when Emilius Paulus came to Macedonia, he, he and his army took all the spoils of Macedonia and they brought them all back to Rome. Emilius Paulus was the first man to get a triumph. Triumph was, I mean, we talk about triumphs casually, but for the Romans, the triumph was the most, for any ambitious general, a triumph was what they wanted. They wanted to be seen as a king, as a god. And it was like a ticker tape parade in Rome when Emilius Paulus brought all the spoils of war into the forum. The people of Rome were waving and shouting and showing how glorious the Romans were, that the Romans did it, the Roman soldiers, Roman senate, and the Roman generals. And Emilius Paulus got, he got permission from the senate to have a triumph. Now, a triumph was a parade. All the, all the soldiers came marching in to Rome. They brought all the, all of the stuff that they could take. That made Emilius Paulus one of the richest men in Rome. And I think that that was the first of the triumphs. And then afterwards, of course, you know, you have a senate. A senate is an aristocracy that has a lot of competition among, among themselves. And people started wanting their own triumphs. How are you going to get your own triumphs? You know, it's like trying to get to be the top dog in, in Rome. You get it by getting, you know, permission to send an army someplace. You have to convince the members of the, of the senate that that would be a good idea. And, and, and before you knew it, there were a lot more people who got to be very, very, very rich. Well, this doesn't sound very altruistic. It sounds, it sounds self-interested. And it sounds very competitive within the members and, and highly political within the members of the senate. So query, are we on the upswing here in terms of developing Rome as a, a fair money democratic, you know, country empire, where, you know, they were, they had a morality and ethic doing the right thing or wasn't on the downswing? Had they already, you know, crested and were they coming down into this? Yes. I mean, the, the answer is yes. I mean, and then we move towards the end of the, the, of the Roman Republic, where then there were social problems, a lot of social problems in the city of Rome. And most of that had to do with the fact that they couldn't feed the population. So the Romans, the Romans were buying grain. I mean, they had, they needed grain. That was what kept Rome growing, because at this time there were no more farmers. And so people gravitated toward the city of Rome. And so the senators would, you know, pass a law, a grain law, and they would say, okay, you know, I am now going, or next Tuesday I'll be in the forum and I will give all you people grain to eat. And, and that was kind of a way of getting, you know, butchered saying, you know, this, you know, people who had grain and who could kind of get the crowds together. At this time Rome was a very large city. And there were a lot of people, desperate people in Rome. And so there would be grain shipments and people, you know, and people who were wealthy, they would, they would try to, you know, make sure that everyone knew that so-and-so was giving them the grain. But it was a giveaway though. It was a giveaway because you know what the quid pro quo was? It, it was votes. So the members of the Senate who were, who were ambitious, they would try to get food for votes, for votes for food. I mean, they do care. They needed food. Their families needed food. There's a corruption in all of that, isn't there? Yes, there is. There was, yeah. But you know, it wasn't, you know, the Senate, you know, the laws of the Senate weren't completely straightened out yet. And what the problem was was that, you know, when you have a hungry populace in a big city, you know, there's a lot of desperation. And, and so the, so there were other assemblies, you know, there were many different assemblies in Rome. But there were some people who began to criticize the Senate, that the Senate wasn't doing its job. And instead, you know, they were gallivanting in the East, right? And so, so the, the Senate wasn't doing its job. And the Senate being an aristocratic assembly, you know, didn't really connect to people who were the common people. It's kind of like the French Revolution almost, you know, where, you know, you don't care about, you know, whoever is sick. But then, you know, whoever is hungry. But, you know, some people, you know, were, were spying with, you know, giving free food or give, giveaways, as you say, as you said, Jay. And so there was, there were mobs in, in, in the Roman Forum. There were people who would, you know, who, there was corruption, you know, they would, they would tell people to go to the assembly tomorrow and maybe you'll get some food or sandwich or something. And, and that was how many people in Rome subsisted. It was, it was a real problem. There were two factions. There were two factions. One was called the optimates, which were the, the betters and the popularities, which were the popular party. So there started to become this factionalism. And people who were opportunistic would drive a wedge in between the, the different factions. So I guess I asked the same question again. This demonstrates as these, these are badges of decline relative to the way it had come up. Now it was on the way down. And it did not, it did not bode well when you have this divisiveness, when you have this corruption. This is a big problem. So where is democracy at this point in time? I, I, I guess what I hear you're saying is that at some point they reached an apex and it was as democratic as it was going to get. It was altruistic. It was, let's take care of the people, you know, as a, as a, as a charitable matter. And then after a while it declined. And then I guess why I would conclude that it was not as democratic at some point in decline. So when was that? I guess all these factors are working in that direction, but, but when was that, and what was the ultimate effect? I mean, we, we're talking about a long slide in which Rome, the empire of Rome ultimately disappears. Is, are we talking about that now? Um, well, it's, um, okay, we can, um, so let me, let me talk about Caesar Augustus and maybe Julius Caesar. Everyone knows Julius Caesar was stabbed in the Senate. When Julius Caesar died, he, he only had one heir and his name was Octavian. He was adopted posthumously by Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar at that time had control over France and, and he also built a very loyal army in France and Gaul, which is France today, Gaul then. And he, he began to build his empire, his personal empire in Gaul, whereas his son-in-law, whose name was Pompey the Great, um, you didn't see how Pompey the Great, always the Great, you know. But Pompey, um, Pompey, um, snuggled up with the Senate. So he was with the Senate. Julius Caesar was in Gaul and, um, Crassus was in the Middle East and he also was in Southern Italy. So there were, there were a lot of social wars in, in the Roman Republic. And as the Roman Republic began to fall apart, um, the, the three triumvirors, the three men got together, the three richest men in Rome got together and divvied up, um, the, the, the empire. I guess we can call it the empire now. Uh, and, and these were, um, uh, it was a cooperation. Uh, there was, um, there was the first triumvirate, which was when Julius Caesar died. And then the second triumvirate was when, um, Auguste Octavian took over, uh, with Mark Antony and, um, and I forgot the third one, I'm sorry. Uh, so, um, so these, um, these very powerful, very wealthy men were like giants. Like, you know, if you think about in the United States, you know, these, um, these humongous, um, corporations, you know, that, that's what the triumvirate was like. Um, it was a funny way you're drawing a parallel for me, um, to Cosa Nostra in the same way. You divide up the territory, uh, you make a deal, uh, you can get this part of it. I can get that part of it. And you rule ultimately by, by, by threat and violence. Right. That, that is right. Yep. Yeah. Like the Cosa Nostra. Yeah. But, but this was really serious because there were, you know, militaries or armies all over, um, the Eastern Mediterranean. And so eventually what happened, um, uh, Julius Caesar and his son-in-law Pompey, um, they, they, uh, had a large battle, um, in, uh, Southern Macedonia. Um, Julius Caesar won, um, and Pompey, uh, lost. Um, Pompey fell into the hands of one of the Ptolemaic kings. And he, uh, um, bestowed this prize, um, to Julius Caesar because it seemed that Julius Caesar was going to be the last man standing. And so, um, one of, uh, one of Pompey's, uh, you know, Pompey's pinch men, um, uh, brought the head of Pompey to, um, to Julius Caesar. And Julius Caesar had a, a short dalliance with the queen of Egypt, Cleopatra. And we've seen that in technicolor in all the movies with, you know, the tailor. Um, uh, so, um, and, but, but Alexandria was, was the key to pacifying the Roman, um, people in Rome to feed it, to get, to feed them. So Julius Caesar wanted, um, wanted food. He wanted an arrangement so that he could have, um, he could be able to feed the people. And if he can feed the people, he can win over anyone else. Yeah, it's, it's a really kind of, it's a difficult, um, timeline. And it's very, um, very complex. But you know what? It sounds just on that, on the four corners of that, it sounds unsustainable because they had left the, uh, the landscape outside, uh, the city. Now they're conglomerated in the city. Um, it doesn't sound like there was a, a middle class. It sounds like people who are waiting for that, for that, um, that feed that, that, that, um, the wheat that are coming from other ways. So you require geographical domination in order to feed your own people. How sustainable then can that be? And your own people are not capable of feeding themselves. So you are completely dependent on these emperor soldier people, um, to dominate other places. It sounds, it sounds like that dynamic cannot last very long. Yeah. Yeah. No, it can't. It can't at all. So what happened next? Um, um, the late Caesar dies after, um, the battle with Pompey. And, uh, and then, um, by his, um, his, uh, his nephew, his name was Octavian, his adopted nephew. Um, he then takes over all of the riches and privileges that he had as a general, one of the top generals. Um, Augustus, uh, took, took, uh, start, he took a play, uh, the playbook from Julius Caesar. And, um, but he inherited a very volatile situation in the Eastern Mediterranean. Um, Mark Antony was trying to get help from the Persians. Um, Cleopatra was, uh, um, potentially someone who would go with Julius Caesar. And, um, Mark Antony just botched it all. Um, and, uh, Julius Caesar ended up taking, um, most of the prizes. And they botched it up, um, Mark Antony botched it up, uh, because he, um, he tried to have a naval battle at a place called Actian, which is on the west coast of, um, of Greece. And, um, and during that battle, Cleopatra turned around and went back to Alexandria and she left her lover hanging. And so Mark Antony was kind of out of the equation. Um, Julius Caesar was still there. Cleopatra was still there. Um, Cleopatra had that dalliance. She had two, um, she had one son whose name says Zaryon and he, and she also had two children by Mark Antony. But of course, once, uh, once, uh, um, uh, once when they think about this, I have forgotten about the, the, what happened to the children. Uh, eventually, um, the, um, yeah, I was studying. You know, it all, it all sounds like the stuff of rich, good movies or interesting movies. Yeah. Yeah, I know. It's, it's, and somebody, somebody wrote it down and carried a couple of thousand years and Hollywood picked it up. And, um, you know, from, from what you say, this is the movies are at least in a rough outline. They're, they're an accurate, you know, uh, re, remembrance of, of what was going on. And I can imagine the local people in Rome were all captivated by hearing these stories come back from the front, um, about all the machinations and, and the successes. And, and this must have built a kind of nationalism or reinforced a kind of nationalism. But at the same time, query, you know, were they being properly represented? Could you say that with all these fellows out there dominating and sending wheat back, um, that, uh, bringing wheat back and spoils back? Was, was this a representative democracy or was this just a bunch of guys pushing each other around? Um, well, okay. So what happened was that, um, Augustus Caesar ended up with the, with all the prizes. And he, and then after this, uh, dynamic period where there were different wars, um, Augustus Caesar, um, managed one way or the other. He was 18 years old when he got that, when he inherited, um, Julius Caesar's fortune and his name too. Um, and so, um, so Caesar, Augustus, or I'm sure Octavian, um, began to consolidate. And, you know, there were people who were like Mark Anthony was out of the picture. Um, Julius Caesar was out of the picture. He would, August, Octavian was basically the, the last man standing. And he began to consolidate. Um, he, uh, of course, bribed a lot of people. There was a lot of bribery going on. Uh, and, um, and over the course of his life, Octavian, later he was called Augustus, um, he, he rebuilt Rome. In fact, you know, if you see most of the Roman remains in the, in the Forum of Rome, most of those were, were built in, um, as a dedication to, um, uh, Augustus. Augustus, um, after all of these wars, people needed a respite from the, um, promotion in Rome. And, and Augustus gave that to the people of Rome. And it made people feel that there was someone driving the, the, the car. Um, and that, you know, that people could maybe get some continuity in, you know, their living positions. Augustus came to be the one man standing. And he lived for many decades. Um, so we, we, when we talked about the Augustan period, this is the period when the, uh, social unrest of Rome kind of came to stop. It was, it was managed better. And it was managed particularly because Augustus made sure that he had all the grain. You got to give him credit for that. He was a, um, a positive leader. But at the same time, uh, I would, I would imagine that as he got more powerful and more beloved by the people, uh, the Senate lost power. Uh, the Senate became ineffectual. So that must have come a time when he was out of power and, um, somebody else took over and tried to take over. And that was a recipe because, because the Senate was no longer functional. And so you don't have a government. Am I right? Right. You don't have a government. Um, the, the, the senators who were in the Augustus Senate were handpicked. There were no elections or anything. I mean, there were, there could be staged elections, but they didn't mean anything because Augustus had all the cards. So here we are. Uh, and it's, it's, it's right for a fall and it does fall. Um, and yet a couple of things. Uh, one is that it left such a huge mark on Europe and the world. I mean, even in describing it, Sondi, you've used a number of Latin terms and it's not because that's an essential way of describing it, but because that is in our language. Um, and the language all over Europe and therefore all over the world. And so these guys had more of an effect on human civilization than, than you could shake a stick. Um, and I guess in a funny way, they also had an effect on democracy. Um, except it seems like it's elusive because although they had a Senate, although they had the army as a kind of House of Representatives, I haven't heard yet. Maybe you can help me. Um, how this was a democracy that, that would influence democracies using the term democracies, um, you know, in, you know, through the, through the millennia that followed. Uh, it doesn't sound like, it sounds like their aspirations for democracy are greater than their actual contributions. What are your thoughts? Right. Um, the Roman army was a very important social phenomenon. You know, the, I mean, we, those are the guys who went out, you know, conquering all these territories. Um, and we sometimes don't get like, you know, the, um, the down-to-earth life that they had. Um, but throughout Western Europe, you can find fragments of what the Roman soldiers in the army, the Roman army, left behind. Uh, there's, for example, there's, um, in England, there's a, um, a museum about that has shoes of Roman soldiers and women's shoes and, uh, shoes of children. Um, because when the, it wasn't just the Roman soldiers who were marching across, um, the, the continent, it was also the families that were trailing behind. Roman, Roman, um, soldiers weren't allowed to get married, but, you know, that's not going to happen, you know. So, so there were lots of men or women and children who were going back. And so I, um, the, the Roman army really created what we know as, as, um, Western Europe because the Roman army had that stand that had its, uh, cookie cutter approach all over, um, uh, all over Europe. Um, you can see it from, you can see it in, in, um, in North Africa. You can see it in Spain. You can see it, uh, in Northern Germany. Um, all of that, you know, we see the, the, the importance of these, you know, unknown people. Actually, there, many of these people are, are known because when they got out of their military service, they were given a diploma and that showed that they were then full Roman citizens. Yeah. So, so if you look around Europe now, you see, um, uh, a common denominator of parliaments, some more freethinking than others. Um, some, some have, uh, you know, just kind of conceded to authoritarian dictators, tyrants to use the term that we discussed in Greece last time. Um, and, um, you know, I, I don't think that's just coincidence. Uh, I would suggest that I'm interested in your analysis of this. The fact that they had, they have today parliaments, some, some better than some worse, uh, and voting for people and political parties, um, that engage in politics, um, and negotiation and compromise. Those are concepts that at least some of them anyway from this discussion were invented in, in the Roman Republic. Am I right? And it's not a coincidence. There was a short window, uh, in, in the Roman Republic where things were functioning as we would like to think they, they functioned. But it, things fall apart and they fell apart in, um, and, and you know, it rec, it created a new kind of, um, empire. Which is, um, empires are nice and they leave long shadows, but the bottom line is that you, you'd rather live in a democracy than an empire because I'm sure there's plenty of brutality, atrocities, not only in the far reaches of the empire, we know that, but also in Rome itself. Um, but if you look at, so the, um, the image I have is from the Arpoches, the altar of peace. And this, and Augustus had the strength and the power to bring peace together again. Um, now, is there a democracy? I don't think so. I think, I think the democracy in Rome, you know, maybe the democratic, um, ideas maybe come through the army, but you know, army soldiers don't necessarily sit down and try to, um, write any constitutions. Um, you know, the, um, I don't think Augustus, um, you know, Augustus didn't, you know, he would, he would help to, he would, he would stand up, he would be called the pater patrias, that is the father of the nation. Some people like it. Some people like the security of that. And I think that's what Augustus brought to the table. And he was, he intended to be altruistic and he was altruistic. And it's like, it's the, it's the, it's the aspiration of humankind, the, the hope of humankind always to have an altruistic leader. You know, hence we have histories of kings even today. Hence we make democracies into authoritarian governments because we're still looking for that altruistic leader, although it's hard to find it because of the old, the old slogan about how power corrupts. And, uh, it's remarkable that, uh, Augustus didn't get corrupted over a long period of rulership. But I want to ask you the operative question here, though. This is the hard one. How much of that is reflected in the American system, in the American constitution? Because there were a lot of things that happened in the meantime. You know, the development of Western Europe gave us so much that in, in, you know, as, as lessons to learn in the development of our system, our constitution. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, Thomas Jefferson, um, read, um, uh, the, the works of Plutarch in Latin. I mean, there you go. You know, and he, he, um, you know, the, the concepts that we have from ancient Rome, you know, still live today. Well, the other, the other thing that, um, maybe it lives even stronger today, and in the 19th century, the lessons we can learn, uh, this, the seductive lessons we can learn from the decline. Um, I suppose that means a decline of Athens and the decline of Rome, um, that we have to be careful, mindful of, uh, as we, as our great American experiment lurches forward or maybe backward for some people. Um, so what are those lessons? What are the, what are the things, uh, the decline points, if you will, that we should be careful about, uh, that, that have proven to be common denominators for the decline of all relatively successful governmental systems? Yeah. Um, I guess I don't know how to answer this. Well, I mean, for example, did they really have to, did they really have to go far and wide to dominate other countries? Was that necessary? Uh, could they have done without it? Could, could the human experience have done without it? Uh, did they have to bring the people into the cities and, um, separate them from agriculture? Do they have to do that? Um, and did they have to, um, you know, essentially dismantle the authority of the Senate, uh, in favor of, of, of, of one, even altruistic leader? Uh, have we shown, have, has history shown that that's dangerous business or are we doomed to limit again? Yeah. The other author, um, that many of the founding fathers read, um, in their schooling, um, was, uh, was the, um, uh, the, the speeches of Cicero. Um, Cicero was, was not, he, he eventually became part of the Senate. Um, he was considered a new man, which meant that he didn't have the kind of, um, family ties. Uh, and he, he wrote these speeches during this time period and during the fall of the Roman Republic. And, um, he was a, he was a, a lawyer and, um, and much of what we know about, um, Cicero was that he was extraordinarily brave. So there were the, you know, there were of course the soldiers, there were the, the generals, even Augustus, but what we see, what we have now today, what's the most precious thing is are the speeches of Cicero because he was the one who was laying out a, a sketch of what, um, what Rome should look like. Actually, that, I mean, you should have another, uh, session about, about Cicero. He was really laying down the, the principles of what it means to, to live under the law. Because the triumphors, they, they had nothing to do with the law, or they would just, you know, kind of, you know, push it off. Um, yeah, it's, it's, it's an amazing story, but, um, uh, Caesar, I'm sorry, not Caesar, uh, Cicero is, is a, a, a book that's worth reading because you can see not just a dry legal thinker, but he was a true patriot. I mean, he was willing to lay down his life when he, um, when he found a, a conspiracy among the Romans and, and it, it would, and we have his words. He even wrote letters to his, to his brother and his friend who were living in Athens still. Um, so, it, it, we have so much precious writing that, um, that, that, that we can kind of get a sense of, of how people before us, um, were able to kind of scrape together, um, a, a system of law that would be fair to the citizens. That's a, that's a fabulous answer and comment to my questions on the, because, you know, the Romans is not a perfect experience, but they had an experience and you always learn from experience. And what we need is an observer, a fair witness on the experience who can translate all of that into universal lessons. And that's what it sounds like Cicero is. And, uh, you make me want to go read him immediately, uh, because I think his lessons, you know, sound so appropriate even now, even today, this very day in terms of courage, um, and avoiding corruption, um, and avoiding cynicism and, and bringing the, you know, the people back together again for, uh, a democratic experience, um, with high moral fiber. Um, I really have to, I really have to read it, but I also, I would like to have another session with you about Cicero. Um, and we can examine, you know, what he said, uh, why he said it, uh, and what it means, what it has meant over the years, the millennia, and what, and what it means today right now in the U S of A, that would be a really fabulous, uh, conclusion to our adventure here. I will, I will, I will suggest other dates, uh, for us to do that. I want, I want you to know, I really appreciate this is actually, um, a momentous discussion we have had very valuable. Oh, I love it. I love talking about this week now. I'm here anytime you want. We can talk about it. Okay, Sandy. Thank you so much for all this time and all this, all this so much great information. You take care. All right. Bye Jay. Bye, Sandy.