okay good morning um class so we are today doing um the rise and fall of the Roman Empire and this topic is extremely relevant today because there's a country in the world that purposefully model itself um out of Rome and this country is the United States of America the similarities between Rome and United States it's very striking um both of these societies were of their time the most powerful Nations Rome dominated the Western World for centuries and today America is the world's most powerful nation in fact America is so powerful that if the entire world were to get together decide for whatever reason to invade and attack America and not stop until America was defeated well if that would have happened America would win America is really Invincible it's protected by two oceans and it has infinite resources and it has an extremely aggressive population and the world's most sophisticated military um so by studing in Rome We Gather insight into America where America is right now in its history and where America is headed and the central argument I will make to you today is that both of these societies Rome and America are really war machines they're extremely aggressive and if they cannot turn their aggression outwards they turned their aggression inwards um Rome throughout its history was either fighting Wars against its enemies and then when it ran out of enemies it fought Wars um within itself which ultimately led to its Decline and collapse America is in a very similar situation um after the fall of the Soviet Union um in 1991 America became um hyperpower it had no comp crators it has no peers in the world um even though it tries very hard to look for enemies for example for the past 10 years America has been trying to paint China as new threat America really has no adversaries and as a result it can't really um be aggressive abroad so this will lead to if the history of Rome is an indicator it will lead to a massive Civil War in America in the next 10 years okay so that's what the history of Rome tells us okay so today I want to look at three questions the first question is why did Rome rise what allowed Rome to become an Empire a superpower of its time the second question is what did Rome ultimately Decline and fall the third question is what is the legacy of Rome what is the impact and influence of Rome in today's world okay let's look at the first question so Rome the tradition we don't actually know this true or not but the tradition is that Rome was founded in 753 BCE and from for that early history Rome was a monarchy it had a king then in 509 BCE it became a republic not democracy a republic and then and at that point Rome was very much a poor backward and isolated City along the Tyber and at that point in its history no one okay not even the Romans could have predicted that in 300 years time Rome would become the master of its world the Mediterranean okay so um to understand why Rome was able to succeed let me very quickly draw for you a map of the world the Mediterranean um in about 500 BC when the Roman Republic was founded so um at the center of this world was really the Persian Empire the Persian Empire was in control of the of the world's three most most prosperous regions Egypt Anatolia which is modern day turkey and Mesopotamia which is mod day Iraq and these are the three most fertile regions of the Western World um it was extremely prosperous very heavily populated and the Persian Empire was in control of all three regions okay so the Persian Empire um is like this a cross the agian and the Mediterranean from the Persian Empire are the Greeks you had Athens and you had Sparta okay and these were the two dominant uh city states or we call polish uh in on the Greek mainland um across the agatic is of course Italy um and the dominant power actually in Italy at this time are not the Romans but but but a culture civilization we call the truskin and the truskin for the longest time were dominant over the Romans in fact some people believe that Rome was originally a colony of the ausans and the First Kings of Rome were actually rusian princes okay um and then over here is a place called Carthage which is an emerging power okay and over here above the Greeks are the macedonians so these are the major cultures and powers of that time now one of these Powers will eventually Dominate and then provide the cultural framework for all wor civilization and if we were to go back in time and we were to analyze this situation then we could make some predictions okay our first prediction would be that Persia would eventually conquer all Europe right because Persia had infinite wealth it had infinite um resources it was a superpower that was intent on on aggression okay and in fact as we know eventually it will launch an invasion of the Greek mainland okay so if we were to predict or guess who would dominate the world we would think it would be Persia that's our first guess okay but let's just say then who's who be second well we would think that either Athens or Sparta would be second why because Athens has a navy and it it is a really powerful navy and at this time Greeks ization it's really growing okay so we would guess Athens or Sparta and remember Athens has a Navy but Sparta is really um a military hamon it is focused on being a military Powerhouse and it has really the best military in Greese at this time so our third guest might be Sparta then we could guess um Carthage why because Carthage is strategically located in Northern Africa which gives it access to all tra roots in Africa um over here um into all of Europe and then back to the Mediterranean okay so carage would also be a good guess we would not guess Macedonia okay why because Macedonia is a poor backward King Kingdom North of Greece that's being controlled right now by the Persians we would never guess the macedonians but then there's one one city that we would never ever believe could dominate the world and that's Rome okay Rome would not be on a list Macedonia might be on on the list because it still has a strategic location it has a very militant population but would never ever guess Rome now what's funny about these predictions of course is that eventually Rome does conquer the entire Mediterranean world and it becomes uh the superpower of its time and then it develops the cultural framework for all restan civilization okay but not only that but close to Rome is Macedonia because remember Macedonia is where for the second builds the world's most powerful military and where actually the great comes from to conquer all the Persian Empire okay so it's very strange that the Nations that either are not on the list or at the Bott list will eventually conquer the world all right and this goes back to our first class where we talk about the oceanic currents of History how Empires are destined to fall to decline in but in the process the enter energize these Borderlands and Empower these Borderlands to rise and eventually over time to overwhelm the Empire okay so this is true for Macedonia and this was certainly true for Rome okay so this fits into our pattern of the oceanic currents of History what I want to so there are many different reasons why Rome would eventually win out over its competitors in the in the Mediterranean what I want to focus on today are the cultural reasons so my argument today is that Rome in opposition to its enemies developed a cultural system that allowed it to triumph over its enemies this cultural system made it ideal for military competition against um the its major enemies okay so let's talk about this cultural system and to understand this cultural system I will compare and contrast it with the Greeks who are also um who are basically the most culturally dominant uh people in this area at this time okay so what do the Greeks believe in well the Greeks believe in three things okay the Greek system or when I mean Greeks I basically mean Athenians okay um because the Athenians were the culturally dominant um uh nation in the Greek world all right so what what did the Greeks believe in and and how were the Romans different well first we understand is that Greeks were culturally dominant and and so what happened was that Romans developed a lot of their cultural systems in opposition to the Greeks or they learn lessons from the Greeks okay so think about as analogy the relationship between China and Japan a lot of Japanese cultural systems and values were developed in opposition to China and because of the lessons that the Japanese learned from Chinese history okay so um what let's let's talk about the Greek values and then what what values the Romans develop in opposition to the Greeks okay so the first value the Greeks develop was idea of freedom what is freedom freedom represents an aarian society in which everyone has the right to speak his mind his not hers okay his M so every citizen was considered um equal and that was the basis for greatek democracy everyone who has the right everyone has the right to speak if you're a citizen okay now what is the Roman counterpart thean counterpart is what we called Liberty and they sound similar but they're actually very different concepts freedom is the right to speak your mind the right to live your life liberty is the respect for the laws history and tradition of your culture because that's what enables you to be free if we do not respect the laws it' be Anarchy also Liberty means basically no King okay we will never allow a king to rule us because he takes away our Liberty what's interesting for us is the modern Western concept is more aligned with uh the Romans than the Greeks when we think of freedom and liberty we think of the Roman idea not the Greek idea okay so Liberty the the Roman word for this is of course libertas all right the second idea value U of the Greeks is the idea of udonia udonia is the pursuit of human flourishing to be the best that you can be to be better than your peers and to win respect for Europe peers to seek glory to seek honor so let's go back to last semester and think about Achilles in the in the Epic the ilad Achilles was in Troy not to win glory for the Greek people but to Wi glory for himself he was extremely selfish he was extremely competitive and he was so competitive that when he uh abandon the battlefield he basically asked his mother thetus the goddess to get Zeus the high God to favor the Trojans okay this is treason this is sedition and for the Greeks this is good because what's important is to win udonia you in order to achieve udonia can do anything because that's what matters okay and the idea of udonia if you think about it it's what led to greatek creativity because everyone saw society as a competition and they want to be the best okay but if you think about it also leads to corruption um um and selfishness okay so the womans didn't like udonia but instead their highest virtue was the idea of repu and this is where we get the word Republic from Republic means for the greater good for the public virtue so what's important is not that you would glory for yourself but to sacrifice yourself for the greater good for the good of Rome that's what made you a good person or the best person to fight and die for Rome and the third value for the Greeks that matter was the idea of er arit just means Excellence so even though Achilles was a jerk the Greek still admired him why because he was a great soldier on the battlefield he was fabulous he was excellent and therefore he should be admired okay the Romans didn't like this okay they didn't want people to outshine everyone else so they prefer the concept of piety obedience loyalty to your fathers to Rome to the gods piety is What mattered the highest virtue in Rome is not ER it is piety and again a lot of Roman values was developed in response to the Greeks especially to the Athenians okay because remember the Athenians in 480 they defeated the Persians and they the Athenians became basically an Empire they were a dominant military force in the Mediterranean in the aan all all that time but 80 years later 400 they had been decimated they had been destroyed they fought against Sparta in the P pipan war and they lost the Romans witnessed all this right because they were just across across from the Adriatic they knew all this and so they were determined not to repeat the mistakes of the Athenians and that's why they develop a system in opposition to the Greek the Athenians the Athenians had democracy and it was common wisdom at that time that it was the democratic system that caused the collapse of the Ean Empire and in response the Romans develop a system called The Republic now there's a huge difference between democracy and Republic they sound the same and in today's world we use these two concepts interchangeably okay we say American democracy we say American Republic it means the same thing but back then democracy and Republic were two opposing systems so let me give you a example to show you how different the system is okay so democracy is basically one man one vote it encourages competition encourages debate it encourages free thought Republic is um to be ruled by institutions basically the Senate okay institutions by laws and by history or tradition all right so what's the difference all right let's pretend that we're all going to go out for for lunch today and each of us has a different opinion I want to go to McDonald's Evo wants to go and get dumpl Lings Eko wants to go to Pizza who knows okay but we all have different these different opinions in a democracy we resolve this issue by having debate I make my argument for my idea then you all make your argument for your ideas okay and then we vote and the majority wins simple right okay a republic is different a republic you make your decisions based on tradition so for example today is Thursday and for whatever reason we don't know why but every Thursday we go out to get dumplings so guess what we just go and get dumpling dings we don't ask why we don't even know why we don't we we may not even like dumplings it doesn't matter what matters is you respect and follow TR tradition set by your fathers okay does that Mak sense now what's interesting is these two systems have benefits and consequences and it's the idea of the Republic that allows Rome to eventually conquer the entire Mediterranean and the reason why is the idea of a republic solves a problem that democracy cannot solve it's the idea of CIP and identity the way you organize your Society is basically F citizenship okay who gets to be a citizen who doesn't now democracy it's actually very hard to be a citizen because if we are having debate and competition we don't want others coming into the system right there's four of us in the classroom we debate but let's just say we let in five other people and these five other people all love noodles guess what we're stuck going to Noodles every day right so we don't want newcomers and that's why the Athan Empire fail the Empire had to fight these wars to protect its Empire but in each battle it had to lose soldiers even if you win battles you have to lose soldiers and it could not replenish these soldiers because it did not want foreigners to become citizens does that make sense but in Republic you do not have this problem right if we are Republic we're all stuck going to Noodles uh every Thursday we let in 100 people doesn't matter we're all going the noodles right it doesn't affect us so the beauty of a republic is you can allow immigrants and foreigners to come into your system which allows you to replenish your military and they become citizens if they are willing to fight for you and if they're willing to follow your Traditions your Customs your history it's very similar in America right in China how are you a Citi we you're born here and both your parents are Chinese and that's it okay there's no other way to become a Chinese Chinese citizen but in America you can immigrate and just say I swear to obey the Constitution I Swear to protect the Constitution if you say those those words you can become a US citizen okay so that's the power of the Republic okay so let's let's talk about some historical examples to illustrate the difference between a democracy and a republic well in the democracy people understand polus or society as a community of people okay so the example is in 480 the Persians invaded the Greek mainland and they were about to attack Athens and there's no way that Athens could withstand the Persian Onslaught so what do they do well what they did was they got uh onto their ships and they sailed away the entire Athenian people the entire city of Athens got onto the ships and sailed away and the persans were like wellit you can't do that and the ath says yes we can because as a community we can be wherever we want we don't have to be in Athens as long as we're a community we will be Athens we can leave Athens and go sell to Africa and we will still be Athens okay that's the idea of community but the Romans didn't believe that okay remember in 26 Hannibal comes and attacks the Italian Peninsula he destroys and wipes out all the Roman armies Rome has no Army and at this point Rome has has options it can surrender or it can leave it cannot leave because to leave Rome would be to abandon its identity as a Roman people if you're a republic you're the place does matter once you leave the place you abandon the values the culture the history that makes you distinctly Roman so the women said to Hano we will not surrender we will fight to last man if you come and attack us and Hannibal never did okay and what's really funny about this incident is it's really the proudest moment in Roman history okay they were up against impossible odds they had no Army Hannibal was the greatest General Ro in human history he had a huge Army but the Roman people were willing to make all the necessary sacrifices in order to protect their identity and their values and their history they refuse let Rome fall so every person whether it's woman man or child would have taken arms and attack and defended the city against Hannibal and this was really the highlight of the Republican system it refuses to surrender because to surrender would mean abandoning it's identity okay so that's why Rome was able to defeat all its enemies because the Roman idea of studip was flexible if you're willing to fight for Rome you could become a citizen and as such Rome was able to draw soldiers from all the all of the P Italian Peninsula um from 280 to 272 uh BCE there's something called the p p Wars pyus who was uh a Greek king came to the aid of the Greek colonies in Italy okay these Greeks were complaining and saying the Romans are bullying us can someone please help us and build us a Greek Empire so pyus comes and attacks the Romans and he won every battle the Romans were terrible soldiers he had the best soldiers in the world and he was winning every battle and at one at at a certain point pyrus said okay we're killing a lot of Romans but if I win one more battle if I just win one more battle I'm going to run out soldiers so we have to retreat okay and and this is because of the idea of CIP the Greeks could not replenish their forces whereas the Romans could okay and this is what allowed for social mobility and innovation in Rome the fact that Rome was constantly fighting these battles these wars against everyone and learning from their mistakes and growing as military power eventually Rome comes in conflict with Carthage and Carthage is at this point um the greatest military sorry the greatest naval power of of the Mediterranean Rome did not have a Navy it doesn't know how to sell ships guess what it did what did guess what happened they decid to build a navy and they lost a lot of battles against Carthage but again because Rome was so persistent because because Rome was not afraid to lose soldiers eventually it overwhelmed Carthage okay so this is the reason why eventually Rome was able to conquer the entire Mediterranean world no one could stop Rome okay so by about 200 BCE um Rome was event was the greatest military hegemon all that time and by 100 BC 100 years later it was an Empire okay so are you guys clear any questions so far before I continue are you guys clear about about this all right but there's a problem when Rome became an Empire um a republic is not the same as an Empire an Empire needed a bureaucracy it needed an emperor you need a top- down system and that's in conflict with the idea of a republic where you have to obey the history and and the institutions if you're an Empire you have to absorb new people into your culture but the Romans didn't want to do that because it meant giving up their own culture right so this created a contradiction it this Creed a paradox and this will eventually lead to a series of civil wars that really never stops until Rome collapses all right so to understand this idea think about America today America again it is the it is our Humanity's greatest Empire it controls the entire world basically it has 800 military bases around the world China has about two okay um it has no peer competitor but there's one thing that you cannot say about America if you go to Americans say you guys an Empire you'll be shuted down how dare you you say we're an Empire there's nothing Imperial about us we're Republic we're democracy we're not an empire for whatever reason Americans refuse to believe they an Empire it's ridiculous and you have some silly things for example when Americans talk talk about the Middle East right clearly America wants to control the Middle East for its resources but when you talk to American academics American people for whatever reason they believe American Middle East policy is being controlled by Israel a nation of 8 million people in a desert Israel is able to control the American Empire and you're like that makes no sense like how is it possible Israel to control America but Americans really believe this if you you talk about the war in Ukraine there are a lot of Americans who believe that it's the European an who are making America assist Ukraine it's all European uh manipulation okay and it's the silliest thing it's like it's like what are you talking about the Europeans are a vassel state of America Israel is a vassel state of America and the reason why is Americans cannot understand that they're an Empire because it goes against their idea of themselves as democracy as a republic all right this is what we call the word for this is called cognitive dissonance all right you guys have should have studied this in Psychology okay but it's but it's impossible to have for your mind to hold in place two cons ideas America cannot both be a republic and an Empire therefore it's Republic and don't ever mention the word empire okay and guess what the Romans had the same problem they could not conceive of themselves as an Empire and they refused to be an Empire even though they were an Empire and this led to lots of civil wars and conflicts between Rome and the people around Rome okay so the example is that from 91 to 89 Rome F something called the social war remember this is after Rome became an Empire it it now has no peir competitor it has no adversary so now it starts fight to fight Wars among its own people the social war was fought between Rome and its Italian allies or neighbors for most of its history Rome was drawing soldiers from its allies and after Rome became an Empire its allies uh Italian allies rightfully said listen we fought for you for decades we've lost many men we demand to be given Sinners ship and and Rome said no and so they fought a Civil War and Rome lost the Civil War because guess what its military was from the Italian Peninsula okay so it could not defeat its allies and and so it had to make its allies into Roman citizens okay and Rome will'll keep on doing this where it has all these subject people the subject people rebel because they want citizenship but again for Rome what matters is the protection of its cultural identity and you give CIP to too many people that the loots your cultural identity okay they were afraid that Rome will stop being Rome and that led to conflicts throughout its history and it never really ended okay so um you can't ever use the word Empire Emperor in Rome then the question then is wait didn't wasn't um Augustus Caesar uh after the battle of aium the first Roman Emperor uh no okay the idea of an Empire the idea of an emperor the idea that uh Augustus Caesar was the first emperor is something that later historians um decided on the Romans did not see themselves as an Empire okay and Augustus Caesar did not see himself as an emperor the word he used the word the the Romans use is the idea of PRP okay PRP just means enroll in Latin First Citizen we are still equals mean Senators okay but I'm just a bit better than you I'm the first among equals and this is where we get the English word Prince from and Augustus Caesar did not see him see himself as building an empire he saw himself as saving the [Music] Republic okay now now what's important to understand is that August Caesar was considered the greatest Roman leader because he ruled for 50 plus years his was a very stable regime and the reason why if you recall from last semester is he was the hear to Julius Caesar and there's tremendous regret and guilt among the Roman people for having killed Julius Caesar and so they allowed his hear his son um to be king king or Emperor without much opposition that was not true for his um his hears okay so after Augustus Cesar died all these Civil Wars and conflicts that were suppressed were now fermented again okay and this now would now lead to a massive period of Civil Wars um now are understanding of Roman history comes a lot from Roman historians themselves specifically two individuals Livy and um tacitus and we basically listen to what they wrote for for example we so what we mean by that is we take their word as gospel we take the word as truth but what we we need to recognize is they were senators okay part of the nobility who hated the Emperors who hated the princeps so they did whatever they could in order to make the Emperors look bad okay so there were four Emperors uh sorry there were three Emperors after death of Augustus tiberias kiga and Nero and they were all made to look look very very bad especially uh Nero and kiga and okay so let me give you an example of this so um after Augustus dies Augustus names two people here to his legacy okay the first is tiberias who becomes the emperor Tiberius is not his son it is his adopted son okay so that's that is a Roman tradition where uh you can adopt someone outside the family to be your here okay and that um and then after tiaris died um Augustus anointed jericus to be his successor and germanicus was considered um an extremely talented and capable leader okay the problem though is that Tiberius who is now Emperor didn't like the fact that jericus was appointed his successor he wanted to anoint his own successor okay so Tiberius what he did that was very sneaky was he got he made a man named sanus the head of the uh ptan guard and the patan guard was basically the secret police of Rome and so Janice because he was very ambitious he start to kill not just germanicus but everyone in germanicus family shanus wanted to be the he to tiberias and then after um sanus was done killing everyone basically in janica's family tiberious had him killed okay this is a very common uh pattern in imperial history okay um after sanus was killed there's a per of sanis allies his children were killed and everyone who supports sanis was interrogated by the Senate and put to death and most of these people claim innocence I had nothing to do withan I was forced into an alliance with sanis okay now there's one person a Roman noal man named Marcus tanus who in 31 CE he appeared before the for his trial and he decided on a different strategy everyone else before him claim I had nothing to do with sanis and the sen didn't believe them and they were all killed okay so Marcus tannus tries to different strategy and this is recounted in the history book annals by tacitus who was writing about 100 years later okay and this is what Marcus trenis argues he argues yes I was his friend in fact I tried very best to be his friend why because suus had the favor of the emperor because if I wanted to get anything done if I if I want to become wealthy I had to become a friend of su Jenis and why did I do this and why was this right because it is not up to me to question or or think about why sanus is a friend of the emperor all I need to know was the emperor favor sanis and is my duty to obey the emperor and therefore I became his friend okay that was his logic now let's look at what tus wrote okay and it's really uh one of the most striking paragraphs in the history okay but but this is Marcus Serena's defense of himself before Senate and the emperor it is not ours to ask whom you the emperor exalt above his fellow or why you the gods have made Sovereign Arbiter of things okay it's not my place to ever question the emperor if the emperor made shanus his right-hand man I now must also obey Janis if the emperor wants me to to marry a dog I will go marry a dog to search to us has been left the glory of obedience to search out the hidden thoughts of the emperor and the designs he may shape in secret is unlawful and dangerous nor would the Searcher necessarily find okay what does this mean it means the emperor is God he has a secret design he has a secret logic that we could never know and because we're too stupid and if we try to figure out we will be breaking the laws of Rome and the universe and we could only get into trouble so it's not up to me to question the emperor it's it is only my duty to obey the emperor the firmness of the speech okay so he's he's finished speaking defending himself in front of the Senate and this is how the emperor and Senate respond to this speech the firmness of the speech he speaks with conviction okay and the fact that a man had been discovered to utter what the world was thinking made so powerful on an impression that his accusers were penalized by banishment or death okay so rather than punish this man the Senate punish his accusers his enemies why because they had found a man to speak the truth about the world the emperor was in command we had to obey the emperor and they wanted to make a role model out of him and therefore they killed all his enemies and let him go and rewarded him lavishly okay now this was written in contrast to Roman history this marks a radical departure from Roman history remember in 9 the Republic was founded because they threw out the king in response the king organized his allies the truans and they marched on Rome and Rome was surrounded by um a huge Army and there was nothing Rome could do about it so a young nobleman named muus went to the Senators and and propose a daring plan to assassinate the king he swims across the Tyber he goes into the camp of uh the enemy and he's captured he's interrogated by the king and musia says we Romans have sworn to kill all Kings and to show that he's serious he puts his hand into a fire and he burns he burns his hand in front of the king and the king is scared so he runs away okay so this story shows us the nature of the Roman character Romans hate Kings Romans will always disobey Kings Romans will always find a way to kill Kings and this speech shows us that the Roman character has fundamentally changed because of Empire okay so Romans throughout most of its history the r people have been grappling with what it means to be Roman and how to protect this precious identity now we know that even though tacus wrote this the Roman identity didn't really change how do we know this how do we know that even though tasa says okay Empire changed the Roman identity it didn't really change how do we know this because he's writing about this right he's writing about this he's telling us that the Roman identity changed because of Empire well if the ran identity really changed people wouldn't know it changed it's only because people are resisting the change in nature the change in character that people appreciate what tus is writing and tus is is really saying that oh that Empire it's gone now because the new emperor has restored the Republic okay so throughout its history Rome was constant in a battle between Empire and Republic and every new emperor believed that he was restoring the Republic but then his but then someone else would come along and says no he was the dictator he was the EMP he was the emperor okay so this was a conflict throughout Roman history and so now the question we go on to the second question which is all right um how did The Empire fall okay well the standard explanation is that eventually Rome became too corrupt and this is the explanation provided by most Roman historians as well as the very as as well as the famous British historian Edward Gibbon in his most famous work history of the decline and fall of the Roman Empire okay it's corruption it's because the the Romans became more like the Greeks or like the Persians they started to appreciate the luxury decadence and Corruption of Empire more okay and the expl and the the the explanation is that over time you got all these dramatic Invaders from the steps remember the steps is where the Y people come from these vovs are being pushed up by the Huns okay so remember the steps um is really this massive competitive wh poor hurricane that makes people more more aggressive and more aggressive tribes will push out less aggressive tribes and these people are forced to go into Europe and over time the Romans are trying to absorb them into their empire by making them soldiers or uh by um giving them land okay but over time this pure population um will force the Empire to collapse okay and that's the center explanation I want to make a different argument my argument is is this it really has to do again with the idea of CIP and identity throughout most of its history Imperial Rome has been struggling with this identity issue and then at some point an emperor came along and said screw this we no longer want want to be Republic we want to be an Empire okay and the way he resolved this issue is in 212 the emperor kakala issued the idct of car kala which made everyone in Roman Empire a citizen so he basically destroyed the idea of citizenship if everyone can be a citizen Citizenship means nothing before you have to fight for Rome you have to die for Rome in order to become a citizen you have to believe in the Customs the history the tradition of Rome to become a citizen you have to fight for it it was it was valuable it was in fact it was the most valuable thing in the world for people but now everyone got it so it's absolutely worthless okay and because everyone was not a Roman citizen there was now no more Roman identity it was now a clean slate the Emperors were now were now no longer bounded by tradition or history by institutions like the Senate and so now they could build the Imperial bureaucracy and this Imperial bureaucracy uh will replace the Republic and the major change is in 3:30 the emperor Constantine will move the capital from Rome to a place called B banum which will become the bantin Empire or the Eastern Roman Empire okay we'll talk about this next class but this is something that was Unthinkable how could you move the heart and center and soul of the Empire from Rome to somewhere else was Unthinkable if if if to be Roman was meant to die for Rome but now the capital was somewhere else okay and so when so this marks the basically the end of Rome as a cultural identity as a cultural Beacon okay this marked really the death of the history of Rome okay does that make sense to you guys okay now historians argue about this and historian Ians argue when the Roman Empire fell all right but the cons consensus is 476 when a German warlord uh deposed The Last Emperor named Romus Augustus okay but I disagree I believe that it really happened in 212 when Rome announced everyone could be a um citizen okay and we'll talk more about this next class when we get to the bis Empire and okay so any questions so far I I know this is a lot but we'll try to clarify a lot of the issues over the next few classes okay but you any questions now please ask any questions so far about this is this clear to you guys yeah pass this okay all right let me clarify okay tdus was a Senator okay the senator was always in conflict with the emperor okay the senator the Senate okay uh sorry let me clarify about Senate the Senate was basically the Roman aristocracy it was where the ruling families of Rome sat and they were supposed to be in charged of the Empire and the emperor was basically the CEO okay he was basically in charge of managing the Empire but it was a senate That was supposed to make the decisions in reality it was the Emperor who was in charge because the emperor controlled the Army and he controlled the ptan guard which is secet police so he could kill Senators who disobeyed him okay and this was always a very complex relationship so when tacus again who is a senator who who comes from one of the leite families of Rome when he's writing about the history of the uh Roman Empire from the time of Augustus to Nero he's trying to paint them in a very bad light okay because he's trying to tell us Emperors are bad what's good is a senate and and that's why he's producing the speech because if you're a Roman citizen and you read this speech by Marcus trus you are appalled you're disgusted we're Romans we hate Kings we do not obey we fight we do not surrender okay so this speech goes against the very heart and soul of what it means to be Roman and that's and and and that's why tasis is writing this and saying you see what Empire does to the Roman character it corrupts us it destroys us it weakens us and therefore we must resist the emperor and protect the Senate okay doesn't make sense guys okay so so thanks for that okay so so I apologize because I'm running through a lot of history in a short amount of time so I'm missing a lot of important details what's really important for you to understand is in the Republic the Senate is in charge okay meaning the ruling houses the aristocracy in charge but in an Empire the emperor is in charge but Rome never resolve this issue who's who should be in charge the senate or the emperor and it changes over time okay sometimes the sen is in charge sometimes the emperor's in charge but they all believe they're protecting the Republic and this creates conent dissonance okay and that it creates a lot of confusion and then in 212 the emperor said screw this let's this be an Empire I don't want the say anymore okay and this and this begins a process of creating the banum Empire which does not have the idea of a Roman character okay did did you have a question Echo basically are the senes exactly yeah um the Senate is filled by again members of the ruling houses and what's interesting about about the system is it's almost like a federal system I'm not sure you know what a federal system is but the emperor is in charge of the army he's in charge of the secret police in Rome but the Senators are actually in charge of the provinces so basically each Senator gets a certain Province to um uh control okay um so it's like the United States where Governors are in charge of a state the president is in charge of the nation Okay now what's important for you to understand is technically each state is independent each state has its own Army has its own basically legal system and it agrees to be part of the federal system which the president is part of and this is very similar to the Roman system okay not exactly but it's very similar all right okay any more questions before I conclude okay so my um the last question I want to look at today is what's the legacy of the Roman Empire or the Republic and the answer is we still live in the Roman world even though we like to think that we are heavily influenced by the Greeks it's institutions of Rome that we've inherited okay so the idea of the political system the legal system the cultural system it's something that the Americans basically copy and pasted the Roman the American system is very very Roman and right now of course America controls the world and therefore it's able to disseminate Roman values and culture okay and throughout the semester we will be examining how Rome came to control the cultural framework of Western Civilization okay because even though Rome collapsed and Rome the character of Rome is now dead the Roman Legacy is still there and all these people fighting these Warlords okay these basically German Warlords they're now going to fight the civil war after the death of Rome they're claiming to be to be carrying on the legacy of Rome okay from their perspective Rome has not died but Rome has spread out and these Warlords will ad a lot of Roman practices and these Warlords will build uh the culture that will give rise to new nations called France Germany Britain basically the European World okay so that's the legacy of Rome that's why it's important to study role what lessons Okay what lessons can we draw from Rome well one really important lesson that we have to learn here is the idea of CIP and identity you cannot be a strong and coherent Nation if you do not have a strong cultural identity that's why the Romans were so insistent on protecting their identity against the Greeks against um foreigners okay and this is important because if you look at the Western world today immigration identity and and CIP are huge political issues uh I'm a can citizen I was I I grew up in Canada and over the past 10 years the population of Canada went from like 30 million to 40 million these 10 new this 10 million people are all foreigners we have no sense of Canadian identity they have no interest in being Canadian they just want a better life for themselves 40% of Canadians now were e were either foreign born or have a parent who is a foreign born so there's no more identity and this is a problem why because United States Trump wants to take over Canada and make Canada into the into the F 51st state okay and this's a problem because Canadians don't want to resist against this 10 years ago all Canadians would say nope but now you have 10 million Canadians who are very happy to join the United States because it means more economic opportunities for them right they don't care about cultural identity so without controlling immigration you as a nation can't be coherent and you will cease to exist over time and the same is true in um the same is true of what's happening in Britain throughout the Western World basically they're Landing too many immigrants and they're deluding their own cultural identity so over the next 10 20 years a lot a lot of people are predicting massive civil wars in the western world as these nations grapple with the consequences of unlimited immigration these past 10 years okay so that's one thing to think about one lesson that that we can learn from the Roman Roman world ciip does matter make it hard to become a citizen make it valuable make it an honor to be a citizen and your nation will be strong if ciip is cheap if you can just buy it then it's worthless and you will cease to be culturally coherent and eventually you will cease to exist as a nation okay so that's the first major lesson second major lesson about Rome is it went out because it was a aggressive Nation but once you went out against your enemies this aggression has to go somewhere and it usually turns inward okay and that's why Rome kept on fighting these Civil Wars amongst itself and the same is true for America America is a nation that worships aggression for example um think think about the number of guns in America there's like I I don't know the exact statistics but there's about 400 million guns in America America only has 300 million people there are more guns than there are people in America it worships Ence also think about this the most popular sport in America is American football there's only one nation in the world that plays American football and that's America No Other Nation plays it why because it is barbaric you you literally have people trying to kill each other for the entertainment and pleasure of Spectators it's barbaric um I'm not sure if you know this but after 5 years of are playing football these athletes their brains are mush and they commit suicide at age 30 or 35 okay so so it's no different from Gladiator sport in Rome which Romans loved okay so what so America is a violent Society if it cannot turn its violence outside it will turn violence it will direct its the violence and aggression inwards so I think within the next 10 years America will most likely start a war probably against Iran okay so I'm predicting within the next 5 years America will start a war against Iran probably sooner and then America will start a Civil War as well so Civil War does not mean um two sides fighting against each other it just means that there'll be a lot of political killings assassinations a lot of violence in America okay based on religious political differences all right so that's a second lesson to learn from Rome aggression and violence will allow you will allow you to defeat your enemies once you do this violence and aggression will turn inwards okay and the third lesson that we can learn from Rome is again no societies are stable everything changes over time so even though Rome was the dominant superpower of its time it's still collapse and the same is true for America today so the world will change and it always changes okay so next class we will look at the Roman Empire which is basically the Byzantine Empire okay any questions about today's class are you guys clear okay great so I will see you uh next class