Civilization #15: The Myth-Making Genius of Julius Caesar

okay so today we are doing Julius Caesar and the fall of the Roman Republic um Julius Caesar is considered the greatest historical figure of all time he's also one of the most controversial okay so today um we're going to look at three questions about his life and I want to provide an argument uh about his life okay so the first question we're going to look at is um what did he want what were his motivations for what he did did did he want to become a king of Rome or was he trying to save the Roman Republic okay so this is a historical debate um that's been around for us for about 2,000 years and no one has resolved it second question I want to look at is why was he so successful at what he did I mean he he was a man who basically took on the Roman Empire and he won okay so how was he able to accomplish so much in in only 55 years and the last question is why did they kill him because he was killed actually by his friends by his allies by people he grew up with by people he um fought Wars with by people he pardoned and showed mercy and generosity to okay so why did they kill him all right so my central argument um to you today is that Julius Caesar was so successful because he was a myth maker okay A mythmaker a mythmaker are individuals who change the course of human history because they they see themselves as a Men of Destiny who must change the world for the better and they do so by constructing a new reality that begins to absorb the old reality and Alters it okay um and they do do they do so through their um Words Their speeches their writings and through their actions so they see themselves as the main character the protagonist in a novel that they are writing all right so um this a hard concept to understand but let's use some examples to better understand this concept so the first example let's look at is the idea of Steve Jobs Steve Jobs was an entrepreneur but he was first and foremost of mythmaker okay so Steve Jobs um if a joke about Steve Jobs was Steve Jobs had a secret weapon it was called a reality Distortion projector basically Steve Jobs lied to people but he lied to people people in such a appealing manner in such a beautiful way that it changed the reality basically Steve Jobs imposed his reality onto others and today that's why we use Apple Computers right we all have Apple Computers why do we do this because we are participating in the myth that Steve Jobs created for us right that if you use Apple Computers you are using the most advanced technology and you are uh participating in a um pleasing lifestyle okay so it's it's about technology but it's also about lifestyle it's also about attitude and that's why we are all using Apple computers today because we are part trying to participate in this myth okay um another example is the idea of movies right movies are um reality creation machines when you go see a movie it's a really good movie it will stick in your mind and it will change the way you perceive reality okay so someone like Julius Caesar what he was trying to do in his life was create a new narrative that would redefine reality the last example I want to use and I'm I'm really sorry for using this example is Donald Trump right because Donald Trump wants to make America great again and and so for his speeches and for his actions is trying to construct or conceive a new understanding of America that absorbs the imagination of everyone around him okay does that make sense that's what a mythmaker is and that's why ultimately julus Julius Caesar was so successful okay but the problem with being a myth maker is by creating new myths you are disrupting old myths that people re rely on for their understanding of the world okay you're creating something called cognitive dissonance and people don't like conon dissonance it makes them uncomfortable so they killed Julius Caesar because his new myth of Rome was surpassing the old myth of Rome and that made the Old Guard uncomfort and that's why they had to kill him all right so that's my argument to you today all right so now that I've made the general argument let me provide some historical background so we understand the historical context that Julius Caesar was operating in okay so let's go back to 216 last class we talked about 216 BC and this was the Hannibal invasion of Rome and remember at the Battle of canine Rome lost about 20% of its um adult male population and at this point Rome should have surrendered or negotiated peace terms but Rome instead chose to fought on and it fought on because it had a mythology about itself that was based on three principles right the three principles are piety uh Liberty and republ and because of these three principles every Roman felt it had to felt he or she had to make the ultimate sacrifice in order to save Rome okay and so everyone made a sacrifice the rich made sacrifices by basically paying for the war okay also the rich freed uh their slaves so the slaves could become citizens in order to fight for Rome the poor also made a lot of sacrifices because um they have to fight fight in the Army but also because the way the Romans decided to defeat Hannibal and it worked is something something we call a scorched Earth policy Scorch Earth policy basically make the land uh unfarmable so then you your army has no access to food okay and that's how they ultimately defeated Hannibal because they burned all the land and they couldn't grow food on the on the land and so Hannibal's Army could not feed itself okay so everyone made the ultimate sacrifice the rich fought the rich and the poor fought alike the rich paid for the war the poor lost their land okay and this is all possible because of the nature of Rome at that time n remember Rome at that time was poor uh very small place where everyone knew each other and ultimately uh it was threaten with existence okay Hannibal Hannibal proved to be an accidental threat to Rome and that's why everyone became uh United um and made the timate sacrifice okay and for Romans this was the finest Hour this was the moment they celebrated when there when the the very existence was threatened by Hannibal but they came together and made sacrific and um ultimately defeated Hannibal the problem was this the problem was like after Rome won the war the question then is who got the rewards right everyone made the sacrifice the poor lost their land the rich lost their money and because the rich controlled uh the government remember Rome is Republic it's not a democracy it was decided the rich would get most of the rewards of the war in fact the poor got very little okay so an example here is the idea of uh common land common land is what do you do with the new territory that you conquer in Spain and from the caragan Empire and normally um common land would be given to everyone right maybe in proportion but it would be given to everyone especially the poor who lost their land but Rome made the decision that the rich would be compensated for uh letting money to Republic during the war meaning the rich got the lion sheare of the new land but not only that the the remaining common land the rich just pretended pretended it was theirs okay meaning that they illegally occupied common land they didn't pay for it it wasn't theirs but they just assumed it was theirs and so now Rome had a problem Rome was great when was poor and small and was threatened by its neighbors like the atrians the carthaginians and the Greeks but by 146 BCE Rome had vanquished all its major enemies and basically it was an Empire and by 146 Rome had become a contradiction okay the contradiction is this it is an imperial um Republic okay it is an Empire now but its former government is a republic and this was a contradiction and suddenly these three values okay piety Liberty and Republica these values that made Rome strong were now problems for the Roman people okay so let me explain how let's look at Republica repa means public virtue in Latin it's the idea that the best and brightest in Rome are in competition with with each other to promote the Roman National welfare okay to bring glory to Rome that's that's what if you were uh the best in the brightest then your then your responsibility to your family and to the gods and to the nation was to win new territory for Rome okay and so the first thing you had to do was basically uh win plal office and when Rome was poor it was basically a meritocracy right you had to prove like you were the best speaker or you had the best resume in order to be promoted but now that you have money what you realize you could do is this bride people okay and then so very soon bride we just became a fact of politics in Rome once you wanton plal office you can then become a general to go off to provinces to fight uh Wars to win new to win new territory for Rome okay but because you got into so much debt to win the PO office when you went to the province you did two things first of all you exploited the local people okay because you need to get back that money that you uh spent the second thing that you did was you start wars for no reason okay you antagonize the locals in order to start wars if you start wars you win a lot of money right you can enslave the people and make money that way but also you will receive something call a Triumph okay Triumph now Triumph is just a military parade that establishes you as a hero of Rome and not only do you benefit politically but your entire family benefits okay so your sons your grandsons your great-grandsons will all be remembered and celebrated because of your Triumph and they are much more likely to um win plal office okay in their careers okay so the Triumph is a very very big thing the problem is while the best and brightest were in competition with each other the poor were suffering okay so the first problem is land remember during the annibal wars the Second Punic War the poor lost a lot of land and they were never compensated for it but then what happened is as Rome was continuing to fight these wars the poor was being drafted into the army and they were going to like Spain and Syria these are far away places and they were stuck there for like years that meant their land couldn't be cultivated and therefore they got into debt and they couldn't pay off the debt so what happened was the rich would come in and buy off the land at at very cheap prices and so the rich became major land owners and this is a problem because first of all the poor didn't have any land uh in order to grow food so they were forced into the cities okay their problem is the rich didn't want to grow food to feed the people right they want to grow food as cash crops for export so suddenly for the first time in its history Rome couldn't feed itself it had to rely on imports from it's from the provinces okay so the land was a huge issue but then you also had issues like debt right so um the poor couldn't pay off uh their debts and they became overwhelmed by the uh by interest and so this created lots of problems for Rome okay so um you had a lot of violence you have a lot of corruption you have a lot of inequality okay and so this started a cycle um that Peter churon calls Elite overproduction right so in s of peace and as your population grows you're going to have too many Elite who are now competition with each other and it's usually between the upper nobility and the lower nobility okay so upper nobility are people who are established they're the wealthiest citizens in all of Rome they're very happy with the system as it is the lower nobility are people who are born into wealth but they want more they want Prestige they want honor they want the the Triumph and so they're struggling against the upper nobility for political power and usually you do that by aligning yourself with the people right and the people who now numbering the millions are pissed off because they have no land they're too much in debt and no jobs okay and so These two factions in Rome would be call up noil would be call it optimates okay optimates just means best people we're the best and our responsibility is to uphold to tradition of Rome which is piety Liberty and Republica okay and these people low nobility who want to change they're called populars and that's where we get the term populace from okay so in 146 BCE after Rome had become an Empire and had defeated all its enemies These two factions start to emerge and they be and they clash with each other okay so historians normally believe the first Clash happened with the graty brothers okay the Gras brothers and these are again L nobility who had a versible idea Land Reform okay the idea is very simple you have rich people who have too much land and not using the land properly they're using the land as parks for themselves like these private parks for themselves or they're going crash crop s which does not feed R most of most most of this land which is again common land the rich are occupying it illegally is not being used productively so what they proposed was a simple Land Reform law okay and the idea is this Rome the government of Rome would buy out the rich from the land they are illegally occupying okay does that make sense the rich won't be kicked off the land they're illegally occupying they'll be compensated for it okay so this makes perfect sense not a problem right and once Rome buys out this land it will then give it redistribute it to the poor so the poor will have like a social safety system they able to feed themselves and uh they'll usually growing grain and other crops for sustenance and this will enable the feeding of the Roman population in general okay so this sounds very simple to us but the rich didn't like this idea because they like change in general okay they like the idea of pety Liberty and Republica which means things must stay this must stay the way they are and what's really important is the rich cannot be challenged by the poor because if that were the case then the social system would be overhauled okay so the rich were so pissed off that they assassinated both brothers the grai brothers and most orians believe this is the beginning of the fall of the Roman Republic because it tells us that the system is incapable of change okay the system as is set set up which focus on pety Liberty and Republic uh it's a contradiction now and this contradiction cannot be internally resolved all right so any any more questions any questions before I proceed on from I I I I no this a lot and maybe I haven't organized it properly but uh do are there any confusions about this history so far again I'm I'm just provide some background and context before I move on to Julius Caesar yeah okay yeah this is a great question okay what what's the relationship between optimates and the popular leaders okay there's exactly like 20 noble families in Rome okay and so the these people the optim and populars all come from these 20 noble families and they're like cousins of each other okay so The Optimist are maybe like the fathers and the grandfathers and the popularist are like the sons does that make sense right because um the fathers don't want any change but the sons want political power and and so they're all related they all grw with each other they all know each other okay does that make sense okay all right um EO are are you good is this clear to you so far all right all right so the first major conflict is the gry brothers second major conflict that happens or something called a um social war and the social war is basically this the people who fight the wars are the Allies the Italian allies of Rome okay people who live in the neighboring um provinces they're the ones who fight the war and after Rome keeps on winning these wars um Rome refuses to Grant citizenship to them okay so these U neighbors Rebel and there's a civil war going on in Rome and Rome loses this war and Rome grants has is forced to Grant citizenship to um these neighbors but the question then is what is the nature of citizenship like how much rights do you get how much power do you get because uh Roman is a republic and so one thing that's hard for us to understand is not all voters are equal okay so if you're a rich voter you have more power than if you are a poor voter okay so the question then is these new citizens of Rome what sort of V voting rights will they have and this is a issue that that that became a huge issue over the next few decades okay so the social war then you have these slave revolts these what what what they call the surval wars okay uh then you have these piracy going on so Rome the woman Republic is constantly in tormo and in Conflict okay and the war between the optimists and the populars becomes so intense that ultimately they fight a civil war okay a Civil War means two armies killing each other okay and so the Civil War was between solah and uh Marius and the Civil War BEC so intense that both solah and Marius do the unthinkable and they marched their armies into Rome and kill their enemies this is never been done in Roman history before as a general you're not supposed to take your soldiers and March against your own government against your own City and kill your own people okay but that's what they both do um Sola wins the Civil War and he understands like all Romans that this can't go on okay there has to be a solution and solar solution is well you know if the problem is a conflict between the populars and after mits let's just kill all the populars and then the problem will be solved then you have stability in Rome okay and this is what we refer to as prescription prescription and prescription means this there's a list public a public list of about a thousand 2,000 okay individuals and these individuals are basically sanctioned to be killed so if you go kill them not you'll be rewarded by the state and you'll be given the property of those you killed okay and it's it's called prescription and this is a new invention by Solo in order to resolve the conflict between the optimates and the populars one of those individuals who was designated to be prescribed his name is Julius Caesar and he's about 19 years old now okay and Julius Caesar comes from a very prestigious uh Roman family called the julii and he's the nephew of Marius and that's why he was he was prescribed okay now the good thing is if you're rich you can bribe your way out of these things okay and Julius julus Caesar's family was extremely wealthy and um uh he was able to bribe solola into let him go okay so Julius Caesar's life was Spear and Sola believed that by doing this uh by killing off the populars by making the optimates the supreme power in the land this conflict would go away but after solah died this didn't happen Okay in fact the conflict became even worse okay so Julius Caesar grew up in this conflict right he grew up in a time of the imperal Republic a contradiction and he saw himself as a man of Destiny to save the Republic by implementing reforms necessary in order to um restore stability in Rome okay he basically wanted to make Rome great again any questions so far is this all clear to you guys okay all right so um let's talk about the life of Julius Caesar okay from an early age Julius Caesar saw himself as special but not only that but from an early age Julius Caesar cared a lot about his Public Image he cared about how people perceived and remember him okay so uh here here's a story to highlight The mythmaking Genius of Julius Caesar okay so when you was 25 he was sent off to um Anatolia to work as an official there now the problem with sailing at this time is there's a lot of piracy right because there's a lot of corruption inequality and poverty in in the Empire and so in 25 Julius Caesar was kidnapped captured and kidnapped by Pirates not a big deal because he's of the nobility and it's obvious he's of the nobility and so Pirates asked for a ransom his paid the ransom and Julius Caesar was free to go okay now very simple story but what julus Caesar did was he embell a story okay he made certain adjustments to the story that made it memorable to people so that people would discuss it everywhere okay the first embellishment he made was this the Pirates asked for a 20 silver Talent Ransom okay which is a lot of money and Julius Caesar said when I heard this I felt insulted how dare you ask for 20 Civ talents I'm worth at least 50 okay so hey guys don't ask for 20 ask for 50 my family can afford it okay so that's the first embellishment the second embellishment he made was Julie Cesar said I became friends with the Pirates we drank together he he's a very charismatic individual um and I told them while we were drinking hey guys after I go home I'm going to come back and like capture all of you and crucify every one of you the fire's like that's really funny man okay so that's second embellishment the third embellishment is julus Julius Caesar after was he was released he set up a navy and he went and found every one of these Pirates and crucified every one of them okay and that's a third embellishment because we actually don't know if he actually did this but again the thing that Julia Caesar understands is it doesn't matter if the facts are true or not what matters is how appealing are the details right so this story you will remember forever and you will tell others about it so through this he's creating a myth of himself okay does that make sense and again there's no way any of these things are true right he's like oh 20 talents I'm insulted ask for 50 guys okay and while he's drinking with these guys and these are pirates these are like Psychopaths right he's like I'm gonna come back and kill every one of you every one of you but again that's a mythmaking genius of Julius Caesar so um again as a Young Man the greatest honor in Rome is to achieve the Triumph and you do that by starting Wars so um through bribery and through Charisma Caesar is elected a pror and then as a pror he goes off to Spain he fights these wars against the tribes of Spain uh and then he wins a Triumph okay and what he wants to do is he wants to basically use a Triumph as the springboard for his for his political career to win the council ship at this point okay okay the optimists hate Julius Caesar because Julius Caesar again he's a mythmaking genius he's telling all these stories and it's pissing off the optimists because they see Julius Caesar as you know as he's just a bragged okay he's arrogant he he just brags all the time he's um appeasing the people he's he's exactly what Romans should not be okay okay he's ire he doesn't care Liberty he doesn't care about the public good all he cares about his own personal glory and he's got a reputation for this he's also got a reputation for being a Leber uh libertin okay meaning like he sleeps with man and woman everywhere okay and the Roman optimates okay people who include KO cpio and Cicero okay these are the three most famous they hate Julius Caesar with a passion they think Caesar represents all that's wrong with Rome here's a young man who has talent and Charisma and he's a genius of some sort but he's using it not for the glory of Rome but for his own personal political advancement Caesar represents to them the corruption of the Roman Republic okay and they develop you you can use this phrase Caesar derangement syndrome okay they have this decided that they will do whatever they can to destroy this guy so Caesar wins a tri and he wants the win the wins and he wants to get the counselor ship okay the problem is you can only be a general to get the Triumph but you have to give up your generalship in order to stand for election for the council okay so the optimates give him a choice you can either have the Triumph or you can have the counsel ship it's your choice and they think this guy he's so arrogant he will never give up the Triumph okay and Cesar surprises Everyone by giving up the Triumph he's like I don't want this crap I want to stand for election all right so that's the other thing that's really surprising about you Caesar he's unpredictable okay or you can also argue he UND understands the mentality or the motivations of his opponents but his opponents do never understand him okay they always underestimate him okay so Caesar is councel and as councel he wants to do what everyone wants to do and promote stability in Rome okay so he's promoting Land Reform and here the uh optimat try to obstruct him wherever they can okay the other thing is is after the council ship Caesar wants to go take over Gaul okay and Gaul is a northern province in Rome and there he wants to win glory for himself okay that's a plan the authors understand this and so beforehand they decide the next Council will be sent to Italy okay which is like basically Rome if you're in Rome you can't fight Wars you can't fight Wars you can't win Glory you can't have Triumph okay and that's the idea we'll let cesure be counil but we'll have him in Italy uh building roads and cutting wood and and cutting trees okay we're not going to let him go fight Wars and go that's for sure Caesar knows about this and he does something that's really unexpected he forms an alliance with two other individuals that the Senate hates okay the first is Pompei and Pompei is considered uh the greatest general of Rome he's called pompe The Great and uh he's also pissed off the Senate because pomp the great wins all these wars for Rome and he has to um settle his veterans right he has to give L to his veterans but the Senate refuses okay so pomp is pissed off at the Senate as well and then there's Cris and Cris is the richest man in Rome he's the wealthiest man in Rome and he's pissed off at the Senate as well because is blocking a lot of his political career okay so they form a secret alliance called the first Triumph rate and so they do a lot of these deals okay so Caesar as Council will help settle uh the the veterans of Pompei they'll Pro promote some tax reform that Cris wants and in return Pompei and Gris will give him go as the problems that he will take over once he's he leaves his coun okay so that's a plan when go when Caesar becomes coun uh leader of Gul the provincial governor of Gul okay the the pro counil from 58 to 51 BC at this point cesure becomes a legend in Rome okay this is where his mythmaking genius really shines he goes and commits genocide in goal basically okay okay in the words of Caesar I went to go I killed a million Gos in War I enslaved a million gos and then I let a million gos live okay so he basically committed genocide against the GS and it was all for his personal glory and he starting all these wars in go uh in order to accomplish three things okay the first thing he wanted to do uh was money okay he got into a lot of debt uh because he had to bribe a lot of people in order to secure his counsil ship and he has to pay them off right so he made a lot of money the money that he had left over he sent back to Rome to organize feasts and festivals for the Roman people okay the term we use today is called bread and circus bread and circus okay so so that's uh what Caesar was doing in in order to Eng gratiate himself with the Roman people okay so that's the first major purpose of these wars second major purpose of these wars is to create the world's greatest army remember Rome is mainly at peace at this time and if they're fighting Wars they're fighting Wars against a lesser opponent okay the gos are tough Warriors um and the Roman his Roman soldiers are getting the best training in the world through eight years of constant fighting the goals okay so through this process he created the most loyal and the most disciplined army in the world and they all and it they're all loyal to him personally okay because he's the one rewarding them and he's the one um who brings Victory to them right the second thing the third thing which is the most important is he creates the myth of Caesar as the great conqueror okay Romans love generosity Romans love conquerors and while Caesar was in go fighting these wars what he would do is he would write down dispatches or maybe reports right then he would send his a soldier back to Rome and in the form of Rome okay the main uh Place public place he would stand up and he would read the composition of Caesar of that week and the things he was doing was I mean it basically captured the imagination of Rome of all Romans okay so for example he attacked Germania Germania um and Romans fought the Germans were so barbaric it was impossible to attack them the second thing that that um Caesar did to capture the imagination of Romans is he invaded Britain Britain in imagination uh of Romans was this mystical uh imaginary place and no one knew what it was and and Caesar launched two major Expeditions against Britain that didn't really do anything but that was the point the point was Caesar ventured into the unknown okay it's basically equivalent back then of the moon landing does that make sense because it was just unheard of like why would you go to Britain aren't there like dragons in Britain aren't there like sea monsters in in in in Britain and Cesar went and uh went there twice okay so at this point the Romans worship Caesar okay Caesar bribing them with like in Circus uh and he's winning all these military exploits in Gul and he's um constructing a new reality of Caesar as the great conqueror okay so does does it make sense so far okay he's a myth maker so while Caesar is doing this the optimists uh in Rome back in Rome Kato cpio and ciso they now see what a threat Caesar is they realize this guy's not beatable if he runs for elections he's going to win all the elections his allies are going to win the elections so this they decide to strip him of his command of his military command and put him on trial for all the things he did illegally okay and Caesar he's not a nice person he's done a lot of illegal uh immoral things in order to accomplish power right so the Senate has a major case against him and at this point um Caesar recognizes that listen these guys mean War so what cure does is he basically declares war on Rome he cross the Ruban okay um and the Senate uh is appalled by this and they appoint Pompei who again is considered the greatest General in uh Rome at this point at at this point to counter Caesar okay and this starts the second Civil War the first civil Civil War was between Sol and maras okay so now it's Caesar versus Pompei any questions so far about this sure oh that that's a great question okay so the Senate um is about um it's about 300400 people it's a lot of people okay but the power in the Senate is not distributed equally so if you are so think of the Senate as maybe many circles okay if you are the main if you have the most power you sit at the front why is that important because you're able to speak if you sit at the front does that make sense so even though technically voting everyone has the same voting rights the people at the front are those who are able to set the agenda and control the debate and make speeches everyone back here are not allowed to say anything okay because you go in CHS the people who sit up the front are the optimists because they come from the most prestigious families and they have the most uh illustrious political careers okay does that make sense all right so when Caesar uh invades Rome basically SP declared war on the Roman senate okay so let's look at a map of Rome at this time this is the year 49 BC all right so Rome is an Empire you have Italy here this is Rome uh over here um is um basically Northern Africa over here is Spain over here is um Greece over here is Anatolia uh Syria okay so that's the Roman Empire okay at this point when um Caesar cross Ron he's able he's he controls basically Gul which is poor which is poor okay he controls Rome the um timates and Pompei they control Spain uh Greece Anatolia Syria and Northern Africa there a problem for Caesar because remember Rome gets its food from the provinces okay so in other words all pumpy has to do is weight this is what what we call a containment strategy containment strategy look Cesar can't do anything right and eventually because Romans are starving because of this blockade then the Romans will rise against Caesar game over okay that's all the Au have to do just wait it out over time Caesar will lose the Loyalty of his troops and of the Roman people and then he will have and then he will be weak and then then and then at that point they're going to attack him okay the war will be over does that make sense all right so the odds are against Caesar because is basically one man versus an entire Empire okay but cure has two advantages he has two major advantages the First Advantage he has is he has again the world's greatest military who has who have fought eight years in Spain they're extremely disciplined they're extremely devoted to him okay that's the first major advantage the second major advantage is the division within the timate opposition okay because even though the alats KO and cro and cpio they don't really they hate Caesar they don't trust Pompei either right because as this war continues more and more power will Ur to Pompei right he's going to have more and more power so even though pompe wants to drag this war out the timates don't want this war to drag out they're afraid that by giv of Caesar as dictator they will make Pompei the dictator because the what they want to do is like maintain the status quo right they don't want a new king to arise they don't they don't want a situation where Caesar loses but pompe wins okay does that make sense so Ops are pushing Pompei to end the war as quickly as possible all right and this division will be costly in fact it will basically cost pompei's life so given these two advantages the Visions within the optimate um opposition and given that Caesar has the world to his army Caesar decides he must take the offensive okay so first thing he does is he takes his army to Spain and crushes all opposition in Spain when he crushes opposition in Spain he does something that's not very Roman okay he offers clemency to the enemy basically tells his enemies okay um we're all Romans we're all fighting for the greater good of Rome so I've won this war will you promise not to fight against me if you promise you won't fight against me anymore I'll let you go okay and when he did that some chose to just go home but there are also many who like who chose to go and fight for Pompei in Greece okay all right but that's what Trump what what what Julius C is doing he's winning these wars against his opponents and he's letting them go he's forgiving them so that's the first thing that Caesar does and then he marches to Greece and again at this point pom doesn't have to do anything and pom doesn't want to do anything because he knows that cesure has a superior Army okay these are two of the greatest generals Rome has ever produced okay Caesar and Pompei they understand each other they understand Warfare and Pompei just wants to use the contain containment strategy and starve Caesar out Caesar wants to fight a battle right away okay and what tips a balance is the optimat who Force sorry uh the optimat KO CIO and cro who Force Pompei to fight a battle and in um August 48 BC at a place called farcus the two armies meet okay Pompei and Caesar Pompei chooses to use the Anvil and and Hammer strategy remember what the eval and Hammer strategy is where your infantry locks the enemy enemy enemy Army into place okay it locks in place and then from behind the Cavalry comes in and wipes out the enemy infantry okay that's a strategy this is what Alexander the Great uh this is the strategy that Philip and Alexander the Great used against uh the Greeks and Persia okay the problem is the uh uh Jud Cesar's Army is so disciplined and so experienced that they with the calvalry charge and they weped out the Army at farcus okay then Caesar took his army to uh Egypt conquer that to Syria conquer that and to Anan conquer that okay the Senate asked for a report from Caesar like House of work going what's happening okay and Caesar said the most famous line that he ever said and again he's mythmaking genius right he basically said uh Vin V vich okay beautiful Latin the most powerful Latin phrase ever spoken in human history it means I came I saw I conquered okay and again this captur the imagination of the the Roman people after Caesar calmed the Roman East he goes to Africa to fight uh Kato and cpio at the Battle of FIS okay and again Cesar wants to show clemency he wants to show how generous and merciful he is but at this point his soldiers who are getting very old they want they they just want they just want this war to end and they want to go home so at this battle what they do is did they defy the orders direct orders of Caesar not to engage they took it upon themselves to attack the enemy and at this point the winning of the war right the winning of the battle Caesar orders them to show Mercy the veterans his veterans Massacre their enemies to ensure they can't fight back again okay the last battle is in Spain at the above Manda and here uh the enemy is on a hill and you're not supposed to fight uphill okay you're not supposed to go up a hill and fight the enemy there because you're at a major disadvantage right seizure soldiers now are so experienced and disciplined that they can do that they can just March up the hill and and destroy the enemy okay so that's how powerful Caesar's enemy uh sorry that's how powerful Caesar's Army is at this point the they basically wipe out every army they fight against they reconquer the Roman Empire does that make sense Cesar goes back to Rome uh in 44 um and this is the year he will be assassinated by his friends he launches legislative reform to reform the Roman Republic okay he launches Land Reform he launches debt relief he creates something called the Julian calendar the Julian calendar is what we still use today before Julius Caesar the Romans used the lunar calendar and then and then Julius Caesar working with astronomers they designed together the Julian calendar which is exactly what we still use today okay that's a major reform um he offered clemency to all his enemies basically if you're willing to work for the good of Rome he will invite you back into the Senate okay he offer citizenship to his soldiers and to um uh Italians okay he he brought in citizenship in Rome so what Cesar was doing was he was basically trying to resolve a lot of the contradictions that led to instability and civil war and revolution in Rome before then okay and he was successful and he was um considered a genius he was led by the people in fact he was everywhere um he had bust of himself everywhere okay and he and then he made he made he mitted coins money that has that has f on it so he's basically creating what we call a cult of personality okay and he wanted to continue to expand the Roman Empire um his plan was to go fight uh a place called Parthia which is the old Persian Empire and then he wanted to go conquer Germania okay he basic wanted to conquer the entire world that was his ambition his ambition was to make Rome uh great again and he almost succeeded except ultimately he was killed by his friends he was assassinated in 44 uh BC okay so um let's look at those three questions again okay first of all what motivates Caesar second question is why did he succeed the third question is why did they kill him okay okay so I think what motivated him is exactly what motivated uh someone like Sola and Marius and other great generals of Rome they want to make Rome great again they're nostalgic for the Rome uh of the Hannibal Wars right when everyone came together uh and made the sacrifice necessary in order to protect and save Rome he wanted to return that era okay and I that's what motivated him he didn't want to become king um and if he became king he didn't want to stay as king remember Sola won the war and he could have made made himself King but he didn't do that he implemented a lot of reforms and then he retired because that was the Roman way okay that's what the ancestors did and he wanted to be loyal to the gods to the ancestors and to Rome okay so Cesar didn't want to become king he just wanted to save uh role second question then is how is he able to succeed and this is a more difficult question okay so again the argument is he's a mythmaker what does that mean okay so there are different individuals in society that uh promote the social good okay or they're they're able to accomplish great things in different aspects of society the first is a general right the general the general he is bold and disciplined and he's fear right that's why the soldiers follow him he's bold he's disciplined and he's Fair he's also concerned about um organization and Logistics how do you move an army from place to place how do you feed your army okay that's that's what the general does that's that's what a great General does that's what Hannibal did okay then you have the politician and the politician he's basically like an avatar of the people he's able to capture and represent the emotions and the dreams and the longings of the people okay he's very charismatic and he's very manipulative okay he's able to tell stories that capture the emotional imagination of the people that's what the the politician does then you have the administrator or the legislator okay and this person is very concerned about details and law and legal aspects okay regulation and very and the person you can say is almost a systems design thinker very big picture very macro and trying to figure out how the different pieces fit together if you think about it these three individ uals the general the politician and and the administrator the legislator they're very different personalities they're in contradictions with with each other okay so for example Pompei was a great General but he's a terrible terrible politician okay Hannibal was a uh great General too but he was not a very good um legislator okay the thing that made Julius Caesar distinctive is he was all three together okay because what enables you to be all three together is the imagination that was julius's secret power his imagination he was able to imagine himself as different people at once and therefore he was different people at once he had multiple personalities and that's why he was so unpredictable that's why he was able to understand the motivations of his opponents and that's why he was able to accomplish so much okay does that make sense okay and so he so he became a mythmaker the problem with being a mythmaker is you ultimately have to change reality and by changing reality you make people who are accustomed to reality uncomfortable okay and so that's why he was killed he was killed by not by not his enemies but by his friends okay so there were four major conspirators against Julius Caesar they were Decimus Buddhist who is basically uh who was basically Caesar's lieutenant in war you had tonius again another major Lieutenant of Caesar but you also had casassus and casassus was actually fighting for Pompei but Caesar thought he was such a great General that Caesar pardoned him okay and you also had uh Marcus Brutus who Caesar actually saw as a son okay so these are the people who are closest to Caesar and they ultimately killed Caesar because even though Caesar was making Rome better it was changing Rome which caused them to feel uncomfortable and anxious about the future of Rome okay does that make sense so an analogy is this let's just say that one day the Chinese government says we're gon to Outlaw rice right white white rice because right rice has proven to be scientifically uh bad for you okay it's not nutritious for you instead we're going to make every Chinese eat steak and potatoes and broccoli so that Chinese can be strong and healthy okay how do Chinese feel about this they'd be pissed okay you understand so you know it's unfortunate that Caesar did nothing wrong and what everything everything that Caesar did was for the good of Rome but change reform causes conif dis okay it makes people anxious and uncomfortable okay it disrupts your identity and um that's why there's conspiracy that ultimately killed Caesar okay does that make sense okay okay um okay so the question how did Caesar challenge the identity of being Roman okay that's a great question all right so let's let's look at his reforms first of all he had a Julian calendar right the Julian calendar so he was challenging people sense of time time you understand so before you had the lunar calendar now now you have the Julian calendar second thing that he did was he was doing all all this stuff by himself okay he was winning these military victories by himself he was uh introducing uh much un reform legislation by himself he was a great man but if you're Roman what you have been taught is these three ideas pety piety Liberty and Republic which is say no one is above Rome everyone is equal in the eyes of Rome this General who won against um Hannibal or Carthage or the Greeks it wasn't because he was a great man it was because he was fighting for Rome okay so the fact that Judi Caesar was his genius that he was so brilliant and he was able to accomplish so much it made them jealous right it made people jealous but at the same time it made them uh um it made it made them see him as a threat to the very stability of Rome does that make sense because people like jul Caesar aren't supposed to exist there Rome does not need Kings in fact Rome is anti- monarchy okay so they they were much very much afraid that Julius Caesar um found himself as a God and he would make himself King and in fact uh Julius Caesar I mean had huis right obviously if you believe that you by yourself can change Rome you have huous but he was not showing enough deference to the Senate he was creating a c of Personality he was being very arrogant it seemed very much like he want to become king okay does that make sense okay so there's a lot of evidence to suggest that cure wanted to become king that's why made them uncomfortable okay what I'm saying is uh the real issue is the idea of con dissonance where the very existence of Caesar challenge their perception of what Rome was and what Rome meant does that make sense but very good question okay any more questions crashes oh okay so um Pompei and Crashers and seizure how did they um um how did they form their lines right okay so the first thing to understand is pumping cres were both optimists okay they were supporters of Sola remember Sola is the one who crushed the populars right so pompe and cres were were conservatives they were optimists Caesar was a popular so um their Alliance was secret it was completely unexpected and that's that's why they were able to accomplish so much because politically they were at odds with each other the reason why they formed Alliance is just basically expedience Pompei had issues that he wanted to pass through the senate cres had issues that he wanted to pass through the Senate and Caesar as well so they decided it would be politically expedient to work together that's a genius of Caesar okay he's very chmatic he's very manipulative so he was able to um form alliance with people who were technically his enemies okay pompe and crashes were his enemies they were they were politically at odds with him but Caesar was able to put aside uh political differences and form an alliance for the sake of interest and expediency okay does that make sense but obviously this would not last very long okay any more questions okay okay so next class we're going to look at the world that Cesar created okay because after he dies um the Republic Falls so we will look at what happens after he dies dies and look at the birth of the Roman Empire okay