Civilization #33: The Rise and Fall of the Byzantine Empire

okay so good morning um today this morning we are doing the bantine Empire and I will be looking at three questions the first question is why do we have the bantin Empire um historically we have seen the Byzantine Empire as a continuation of the Roman Empire we have the bisan Empire because Constantine the Great in 330 um transfer the capital of the Roman Empire from Rome to banum which later became which which he called New Rome and which eventually was renamed to constantinopole so why did he make that transition okay that's the first question second question is how did the ban Empire rise it fell it lasted from um 3:30 until 1453 when the aroman Turks overran the uh capital of Constantinople so it lasted for over a thousand years arguably it is the most enduring World Empire in human history so how was it so successful that's that's the second question and the third and last question is why did It ultimately ultimately decline why did it collapse what were the factors Le that led to its eventual demise okay so those are the three questions we will we will be looking at um this morning and what I want to do first I want to present the scholarly consensus what is generally accepted what is generally believed about these three questions and then I want to present my own perspective um in order to uh refute the scholar consensus all right so let's start um this is the Roman Empire in 117 and as you can see it is huge it it spans across the Mediterranean uh this is Spain over here is um Anatolia Egypt the lant okay so it is a huge World Empire and that's a problem it's just much too big um unlike China um it has no natural boundaries and throughout most of its history history it uh was invaded by barbarians what what the Romans call barbarians basically these Germanic Gothic tribes from the north it also had a major adversary in the Persian Empire uh at this time they were fighting against the parthians uh but later on they would fight against what is what we call the sassanian Persian Empire um and so this was not a really sustainable Empire internally as we discussed last class there was a contradiction they were an Empire but they believed themselves to be Republic it was important for them to maintain Republican institutions like the Senate even though um it was to the detriment of the management of the Empire what I mean by that is that throughout this time on paper in Theory it was committee it was ruled by committee okay the Senate was really in command and as we discussed in previous classes the Senate is composed of the Roman aristocracy the ruling houses of Rome when you have that when you have committee uh rule by committee um when Powers divide up evenly among the ruling houses of an Empire the only thing they can really agree on is to be corrupt together and and so the Senate was a huge problem because they basically monopolized wealth and there was a lot discontent in the provinces there was a lot of Disconnect among the people and the Romans tried different solutions to this um but none other Solutions worked and in and eventually we had something called the third Century crisis the crisis of the third Century which basically meant the Roman Empire was about to disintegrate there were civil wars going on uh there were these invasions from the north uh there was economic collapse there's a plague so in the 3rd Century um there it really seemed the Roman Empire was on a brink of complete implosion then a military genius by name of uh de Clan he re reunit the Empire and he recognized we basically needed to change the system and we needed to make radical changes in order to save the Roman Empire okay um as you can see it is extremely difficult to protect Rome against um the Barbarian Invaders over time eventually the Western portion of the Empire will be overrun by uh these barbarians who we call the germanics the Goths the Slavs the Hunts okay basically these are the successors to the yamai people and they come from the steps so they are extremely aggressive uh mobile people um who will eventually overrun the Roman Empire and they will establish um basically the tribes that will eventually give us the modern states of Germany um Britain France okay so basically these are the ancestors of Western Europeans all right um as um so as you can see these um barbarians they will established their own Empires and all that we left after year about the year 500 is the Eastern Roman Empire which is the successor uh to the uh Roman Empire okay and um even though they can call him Romans and they identify themselves as Romans historians refer to to the to the Eastern Roman Empire as the byzantines okay they they again they did they themselves did not call themselves The bantin byzantines it's what later historians call them okay so the man who makes this transition uh who basically is a founder of the ban Empire his name is Constantine the Great and what he does that's very important is that he shifts cap Capal from Rome to banum on the Bosphorus and today we call this place conapo it's still there guys if you want to visit it's called Istanbul in in in turkey and it's a beautiful city uh definitely one of the most beautiful cities in the world now the question is sorry uh I skipped the question then is why was this move make and what modern historians uh believe is that this was a strategic decision um first of all Rome was not easily defended so it's very common throughout its history for it to be overrun by provincial military Governor okay so think of Julius Caesar but also there were others as well who did the same thing who were extremely successful in the provinces and they took the military and conquered Rome it was very easy to overrun Rome and then declare himself uh Emperor so by moving into Constantinople um he the city the capital is now imprintable okay it is impossible to besiege uh it is easily defensible and how so I will show you later on okay the other thing that's really important about this transition is conol is really at the center of the Empire now Rome was too far to the west and most of um the Roman her's most wealthy provinces the most important Province like Egypt Anatolia and the lavant were actually in the East okay so it's recognition the fact the center of gravity um in the empire was really in the East and the third reason is again throughout most of its history Rome's main competitor were the Persian Empire to the East and so by moving to Conant pole it allows the emperor to most easily and most directly respond to the threat of the Persians okay so this is the scholarly consensus okay um but as I will show you later on I disagree with this consensus I think there was a much more important reason why Constantine made this move okay um the ban Empire becomes this the um birth place of modern Christianity okay Constantine the Great is the first Christian Roman Empire Emperor he converts to Christianity but not only that but he lays the intellectual basis for Mar Christianity for something call the Council of Nikia niia the pronunciation is different okay it's properly pronounced Nikia but most people pronounce it NAA okay so the Council of NAA we talked about this last semester where the Council of NAA was established to answer uh a theological debate in the Christian world what is the nature of Jesus what is relationship with God as we discussed uh one more popular interpretations explanations is the idea of arianism where Jesus is a less Divinity to God the Council of nessia Nakia established the idea of the Holy Trinity which is that God Jesus and holy spirit are are co-equal they are separate but they are co-equal we call this the Holy Trinity the godhead okay so that is conant's major contribution um after Constantine one of his successors theodosius makes Christianity the official religion of the Roman Empire there's now a Crackdown on both the idea of paganism which used to be the religion of the Roman Empire as well as the ideaa of heresy okay especially the idea of irism um he also built something called the FI Doan walls which makes Conant basically impenetrable okay it makes it a impenetrable Fortress and allows it U Conant to stand for a thousand years okay as you can see from the F fi Doan walls um it's huge okay this is just a person you can see that there are two walls there's a m protecting it um so for about a thousand years these walls protected the city there were that many soldiers from the city you didn't actually need that many soldiers to protect against Invaders the other thing so uh these walls are still standing today you can actually go get on a plane fly to Istanbul and visit these walls okay they were they were basically designed to stand for all eternity and that was the idea of constantinopole the Eternal City okay um they also had seaw walls so not only could you not attack conable from by land you couldn't even attack it by sea one of the Great Inventions um of constant pole is the idea of Greek Fire okay the story is that um they were being attacked by the Muslims this is in the 8th century when uh the Muslims are expanding throughout the world they're conquering uh both the Sass sassanian Empire as well as the uh Roman Empire and they want to obviously overrun kopol and and ultimately what saves the city is the invention of some called quick fire which is basically kerosene right you take kerosene you throw it at someone and then the boat um is light on fire and the story is that this was invented by a heniz Jew who converted ity and he he has this great idea and then he approaches the emperor with this uh invention and the emperor believes that he is an angel sent by God to save the city okay and so it is impossible to actually launch a naval Expedition against cono because they'll just burn down your ships okay um at the height of the bintine Empire it almost reestablish lishes reconstitutes the entire Roman uh Empire and this is the year 565 at this point the emperor is Justinian and at this point the one who is leading the military of the byzantines his name is bis serus and he's considered the last great Roman general okay his military genius is on par with that of Julius Caesar Hannibal all the great generals and through his military conquest but the bising Empire ex um is able to expand its influence but as we learned in this class once you reach a peak of Empire there are problems okay so the first problem is that your city becomes overpopulated and when your city becomes overpopulated it becomes suceptible to the plague okay so there's something called the justan plagu which wiped out anywhere between 50 to 60% of the entire population of Constantinople at this point uh the popul population of the city is about 500,000 half a million the plague killed 300,000 people that's a lot of people okay even today Scholars debate where this plague came from or originally we belied it came from grain ships from Egypt right because conol Imports all its food from Egypt and so there were Rats on these ships and these rats spread basically the bonic plague now historians believe that actually came from the steps the Hunts and through their Invasion okay so we don't know what happened we just know uh we just know it killed a lot of people and this greatly uh reduced the power of uh the Empire also when you have these mil military conquests you overextended okay so it is very difficult to maintain this Empire and the third problem is that that whenever there's a military expansion the Empire the emperor comes in conflict with the general so even those Justinian and milit serious they were great friends their wives were great friends they themselves had a lot of personal conflict in fact um towards the end of his life bis Serius was actually tried for treason and there were many times when bis serus was on military campaign it was clear that Justinian was trying to sabotage him because obviously if your Emperor you're afraid that uh your general your great conquering General will eventually come back and take your throne okay so because of what happened between Justin and Blas basically this was the last time that the bines uh embarked on a massive military campaign okay from now on they're defensive and also they focus on the idea of diplomacy basically bribing their enemies not to attack them especially the Hunts uh but also the Arabs as well as the Persian Empire okay this is the Hagia Sophia the cathedral to wisdom and this is the great Monument uh the great legacy of the Byzantine Empire it's it's absolutely beautiful again guys this is this what's amazing it's still there okay you can actually get on a plane go to istano and visit this place it's actually it's absolutely gorgeous um definitely worth visiting all right now why did constant constant pole fall um and so what happened was that again even though conle itself is impenetrable it's Invincible um it's still it's still an Empire and So eventually its regions were eventually overrun by great enemies so for example in about the year 1450 and this is 3 years before the eventual fall of the of the city uh the otoman Empire just it's basically toen taken over the byzantines okay and the only city left standing is constant pole okay so you can see over here are the Ottomans over here is the Ottomans okay the Ottomans were able to conquer the city because of the invention of Siege engines okay these are these cannons are as big big as houses and they basically overwhelm the walls and allow the Ottomans to overrun the city now what's important to understand is even though the bisan tees were Christian and the Ottomans were Muslim and even though uh the Turks overran the city the Turks were extremely respectful to the citizens of the city because they were considered the hearers the successors to the Roman Empire uh and this was the center of what we call the Orthodox church so the so so the citizens were treated extremely well okay um this again is another picture of the siege of constant all right let's talk lastly about um the significance and power of the city the city was the center of the world for hundreds of years but both intellectually because it again it was the here to not just the Roman Empire but also to Greek civilization um it was also in terms of trade the capital of the world because it was a meaning place of both the agian which leads to the Mediterranean as well as the Black Sea which leads into um what is Russia Today okay so if you wanted to go anywhere you basically had to go through Conant it was really a center of the world and through trade taxing trade the city became extremely wealthy also because it was a center of the world it was very Multicultural very Cosmopolitan you had basically all major ethnicities living inside the city Jews Christians Muslims were all treated with extreme tolerance they basically had their own quarters within the city okay as you can see at its height the city was was extremely beautiful and very wealthy it was really for 100 years the capital of the world the capital of the universe basically um as you can see it is almost impossible to besiege okay you you can never cut it off from supplies you can never isolate the city because it is the meeting place of so many rivers okay this is the bosor okay so that is the Roman Empire okay um so this is the again what we know about it and now I'm going to explain um my theory to these three questions why did Constantine make the move from Rome to bizantium why did it rise why did it de climb okay but before I start uh with my explanation are there any questions about what I just presented this is all pretty basic stuff this is stuff you can find on the internet uh um on Wikipedia you can ask chat GB I'll probably give you the same answers okay but are there any questions so far about uh con Paul in the B Empire before I I I I present my ideas was this clear to you guys any any questions guys maybe this is something you're coming up to it is like shoot the question down but uh I I remember reading like in the early years of the the Roman Empire know Augustus Tiberius so on Le culture there was GRE and like the emperor writing Greek and all that kind of stuff and so like I I know move to Conant was a couple hundred years after but was there a certain cultural pull at the time were certain Roman Elites feeling like they need to be closer to like the core culture right okay that's a great question so culturally were the Romans at this time Greek or Roman um and you're actually right duck in that Greek culture it's really the Hedon right I mean it's so many so much so Superior to Roman culture I mean Romans really were peasants uh who built an Empire but the Greeks uh basically built Western Civilization okay you had Homer you had Plato you had Herodotus the the Romans were aware of this and this was a conflict within Roman culture civilization for a long long time because they felt that even though they had conquered the world they were about to be C conquered culturally by the Greeks so the Romans were aware of this and they rebelled against this and um you weren't here for my lecture on the inad but really uh austa Caesar sponsored the writing of the indiat in response to the hemony of of Greek culture so even though you're right in that most of the Roman aristocracy they Embrace Greek culture uh such as like Mark Anthony right uh Mark Anthony saw himself as more Greek than than than Roman um there was a lot of push back from the empire against this okay so um but eventually as we'll see eventually Greek culture does triumph all right so so so let me explain how all right so the first question I want to look at is why did Constantine make the move from um Rome to Byzantium okay so let me give you some background so um during the time of Augustus Augustus we we we today see him as the first Roman Emperor but we he do himself see himself as the first emperor he just saw himself as just a citizen of Rome okay he he is what we call a prin or he call himself a PRP and this is where we get the um Modern English word Prince as well as principal High School principal and it just means first first citizen so again the problem with Rome is that you had the aristocracy uh through the Senate monopolize all wealth and power and this led to a lot of contradictions and conflicts within the Roman Empire and so the solution that Augustus proposed is make the prinet make me the CEO okay this it's still committee it's still rule by committee but I'll be the coordinator I'll be the CEO okay and the idea here was even though this was not a great system it did preserve the culture okay the history the Legacy uh and the traditions of the Roman people and that was what was important to protect and preserve the uh culture especially the idea of libertas okay Liberty um but this system didn't really work right you had these Civil Wars you had a lot of provincial um riots um Rebellion so so this system simply didn't work and this led to what we call the crisis of the 3rd century when basically the Roman Empire was about to collapse okay and again as we said a a a governor a a commander named dark Clan he saved the Roman Empire by reuniting okay and at this point he's like this system doesn't work what we need to do is study the Persian Empire because even though we don't like the Persians their their empire seems a lot more sustainable and continuous than our Empire okay and so this started a period what what we call the dominant okay basically the idea of starting an imperial bureaucracy centralizing power uh with the emperor through the bureaucracy and the Romans hated this idea okay what what what emper discovered is this cultural shift um what the Romans just found AB disgusting go back to the Assassin jul assassination of Julius Caesar right the the Romans are extremely culturally arrogant why did they assassinate Julius Caesar and the people who assassinate Julius Caesar were his best friends in fact we believe Marcus Brutus who was one of the lead conspirators was actually his biological son right why because Julius Caesar was threatening the cultural traditions of Rome they were afraid that Julius Caesar would become king so what these Emperors uh first under Diocesan but especially under Constantine discovered is it's really hard to change culture and there's really one solution to this problem okay to understand this let's let's run a thought experiment okay okay so you understand the percentage of culture okay so we're at at at school and this school is known for being Innovative it's being it's known for being student centered it focus a lot on activities and extra curriculum right and that's great I'm very supportive of this but let's just say that uh the school brings me in as a consultant and ask me to help improve the school and I do lot I spend months interviewing students and teachers I I feel this school is great in terms of innovation but it needs to focus more on academics kids need to read more kids need to focus more on um test scor and then you have a perfect balance okay and that's my solution well I'm pretty sure if I tried that um I'd be fired within a week okay and the reason why is I am attacking your cultural Traditions I'm attacking your identity your sense of self so if I want to implement my vision I can't force my vision on you the only thing I can really do is switch schools and build my own school okay does that make sense you guys okay and this is this is uh a pretty persistent uh thing throughout the world okay so that's why Constantine made the move to Byzantium he recognized that if I'm going to build an Empire and Rome needs to be an Empire if it is to endure I need to switch cultures and the best way to switch culture is by moving your capital from Rome to Byzantium and when he did that the entire culture shifted okay so so let me very quickly explain the cultural shift in Rome it was Pagan okay oh by the way um Pagan is not the word that they use okay Pagan is a word that Christians use to insult them basically okay but but but for the sake of comedians we'll use the word Pagan uh that was the religion they were Roman meaning that they had a distinct cultural identity and lastly they were Republic meaning they were run by the Senate basically okay not just Senate but by tradition and uh by custom okay by conole okay the basan empire was completely different first of all it was Christian and the Pagan and Christian world view are in conflict with each other this is a major shift second is they were Multicultural so as duck says um in the time of Rome time of Augustus there was a major conflict major debate uh between Roman culture and Greek culture but when they switch switch over to conop pole they completely Embrace Greek culture in fact the language switched from being Roman to Greek they spoke Greek and they embrac Greek culture Herodotus Plato uh were major thinkers that the that the um basan Empire embraced and celebrated and lastly it switched for me Republic meaning that it went uh being run by Senate to an Empire which basically meant it was being run by a bureaucracy okay so bantine the bis Empire is a very distinct enti from the Roman Empire historians today argue the basian Empire is continuation of the ran Empire but that's only a superficial and shallow understanding culturally the basian empire was a radical departure from the Roman Empire or the Roman Republic okay and so I will explain what these differences are and the and this it's be important because it's going to inform for our understanding of future events in western civilization okay so let me first explain the difference in worldview between the Pagan and the Christian all right all right Pagan and again guys I will have to make a lot of generalizations but it's a useful framework for the understanding of um ancient cultures okay so so what's the Pagan worldview well in the Pagan worldview there are different lers to your understanding of the world the forces the supernatural forces that you interact with intimately are the gods okay and the gods is really a metaphorical way to understand nature right so um in nature there are all these natural forces that we can't really see for example the wind we can't really see the wind but also we can't really see creativity or luck well in the Pagan worldview these hidden invisible forces are rendered and expressed as Gods okay and the gods are those that we interact with every day on an intimate basis was very important for us to maintain good relations with the gods by making ritual tributes to the gods okay so sacrifice and rituals were very important part of the Pagan worldview above the Gods are actually even higher invisible forces that no one has control of okay which this which includes fate which includes luck okay Fortune okay but there all there all but there are these invisible forces that even the gods must submit to and then at the highest level are what are called um Unwritten and immutable immutable just means unable to change Eternal laws of the universe and think of this structure as giving the universe some order and structure okay so think of gravity right it's it's an Unwritten and IM inal law of the universe and what they really mean by this is the idea really of karma or Justice right if you do good in the world good will happen to you if you do evil in the world evil will happen to to you it may not happen to you but it may happen to your children okay so there is a cosmic balance to the world and this is really the Pagan worldview right the Christian worldview is very simple there's you okay you and then there's God and the thing that matters is your personal relationship with God that's it guys all right so let's look at the three major differ differences between the Pagan worldview and the Christian worldview okay and again this is a generalized simplified version and we use it in order um to be clear about the differences and that there are in fact differences all right so the three major differences are this the Christian worldview introduces into uh the Roman world three ideas that really didn't exist before okay they are truth evil and the individual now these ideas actually existed in other Traditions like the Jewish tradition and the Persian tradition through Zionism but they really didn't exist in the Greek and the Roman tradition so the counterpart to truth in the Pagan tradition is the idea of um chaos or luck okay so there's no structure to the universe in the Christian worldview there's a God who has designed the universe and that is the truth okay so the intention of God is the truth the plan is the truth whereas in the Pagan worldview there's no design guys it's just complete random chaos and you just have to do try your best in this world okay in the Christian worldview is the idea of evil which is if you go against the intention of God if you commit sin that is evil now what's interesting for us is in the Pagan worldview the opposite idea is action okay in other words in a word of chaos you have to act you have to do stuff if you refuse to act you are a slave so think back to the ilad right in in the ilad Achilles says why he is in Troy while he's fighting in Troy and he says that before he came to Troy he was told his fate he could either die old back at home or he could die young in Troy but by dying young in Troy he'll become famous he'll be remember forever and for Achilles that's not really a choice what he's being told is you must come to Troy and you must die and that will win you eternal glory okay it's the idea of action also think of the Romans okay in their Legends they have they have a name Nam musas remember at the beginning of the Roman Republic the Romans are besieged by the atrian king and mushas is a young normal man only 20 years old he decides to assassinate the king in order to free the Romans he swims across the Tyber and he's about to do his deed but it's payday and the king is with his secretary and they look alike they dress alike they look alike and Muses is hiding with his dagger and he knows it's 5050 okay now for us we'd be like you know what 50/50 is terrible odds so let me come back another day or let me be more patient but for muus it's fortune favors the Bold so he's like 50 is great it's great odds I'm never getting better odds so he takes his he takes his um dag and he kills the secretary okay he misses then he's captured by The King The King wants to torture him and force him to confess and the King threats him and says I will burn you alive okay there's a great fire beside musas if you do not tell me the truth and what musas does is he puts his hand Into the Fire and lets it burn in front of the king and that scares the king okay that's the idea of action you make your fortune for your action you cannot sit and wait you cannot deliberate you cannot be clever you just act you're just Brave okay that's a pagan worldview this is important for us because the um people who will in feature in our course who's very important and who follows worldview are also the Vikings okay so the Vikings she the similar worldview it's a pagan worldview the last thing is the idea in the Christian worldview it's an individual that matters the individual individual soul is what matters okay but in the Pagan worldview what matters is the community why are Achilles why is Achilles funny in Troy why is muus sacrificing himself for Rome because they want to remember by their Community all right so let me give you two examples of this let's go back to to the ilad hector remember Hector Hector in Iliad he is the greatest Trojan Warrior and he's destroying the Greeks because Achilles refuses to fight but then Achilles um enters the battlefield and at this point Hector's Lieutenant tells him Hector Achilles is back let's go home let's go hide behind the walls of Troy will be fine but Hector says no fortune favors to bold the gods are with me and so of course Achilles and the Greeks destroy the Trojans and they all have to and they're all forced to run back to the walls of Troy every Roman enters Troy except for Hector Hector stays outside the walls of Troy and waits for Achilles to come he knows for a fact that Achilles will kill him Achilles is a God he's a great warrior but he's not a God and at this point he knows he's about to to be killed and most of us would just sneak back into the walls of Troy right he can't do that because he's afraid of being um laughed at by his Lieutenant he's afraid of Shame he has to die for his community okay so that's Hector but also think about luria Lua lucrecia remember is the woman Noble woman who is raped by uh the son of uh tanius Superbus the last king of Rome and this is what starts the uh Rebellion that uh overthrow the Roman monarchy lucrecia is raped and then she kills herself because she's Dishonored and Augustine remember Augustine city of God he writes about this okay and from his perspective it was a crime for Lucretia to kill herself why because we are all the creation of God therefore we are the property of God therefore when we cure our when we kill ourselves we're committing um a sin against God we are basically stealing from God and that's why if you commit suicide you'll be condemned to Hell forever okay you'll be condemned to to damnation forever and then Austin explains lucrecia killed herself because she's afraid of the shame that she would have to endure if she lived she was she was afraid that she' be laughed at by The Other Woman of of Rome okay and that's the idea of community versus the individual all right okay so um this so it's a radically different worldview the Pagan versus the Christian let me explain some other differences for example the attitude towards sex okay Christians because we live in a Christian world we know that sex is bad okay sex should only happen between husband and wife and it should only happen for the purpose of procreation we shouldn't do it because we enjoy it the pagans had the complete opposite attitude towards sex sex was to be embraced it was to be enjoyed it was to be celebrated why because if it if the gods didn't mean for us to have sex they wouldn't make it so much fun okay so sex was a very important part of pagan uh life as well as violence okay they also embraced and celebrated violence so think about the Vikings think about the Romans right they love violence and the Christians hated violence so the argument is that the Christian worldview is an improvement on the Pagan worldview because the pagans they had things like orgies they had things like child sacrifice they had things like genocide okay this is all bad right but remember and this is really important okay these are just two different worldviews and it's hard for us to objectively assess which one is better we can only say that they both have their benefits and they both have their uh consequences okay an example is food if if we were to go to America today and look at the food that Americans eat we be discussed right hamburgers Coca-Cola french fries but guess what guys if if Americans were to come to China they would be equally disgusted by the food that Chinese eat okay like malatang and and this stuff okay some of this stuff is really bad for you so I would keep that in mind um it's easy for us to be culturally arrogant and say like we are so better than these ancients but um it's all a matter of perspective if we were to go back in time and look at the Pagan World we'd be disgusted by the murderers by by the Violence by all the sex going on okay but at the same time and this is really hard for us to understand but if they were to come here there the time travel and come here and see our world they'd be disgusted okay because like from their perspective we behave like slaves Achilles is out winning glory on the beaches of Troy while we are in school memorizing usess facts so that we can get usess piece of Pap pieces of paper so that we can make useless pieces of money right of money is paper they would not understand why we're doing this to ourselves right so I would keep that in mind like the Pagan worldview is very different from the Christian worldview and that's it all right and in fact we will later in the semester discover that there are some thinkers such as nii Frederick nii who believe that the switch from the Pagan worldview to the Christian worldview was a major setback M of civilization okay all right any questions about the difference between the pagans and Christians before I move on any questions was this clear all right now let's move on to the idea of republic versus Empire okay and look I mean um the differences are pretty St AR right so in a republic it's usually um there's there's like egalitarianism okay everyone's opinion does matter and in an Empire there's a hierarchy okay so that's the first major difference okay in a republic people are egalitarian and in an Empire there's a hierarchy so think think about this in the Persian Empire um if you were to meet the emperor what you have to do would what you have to do was prostrate yourself first and then kiss his feet all right that's the idea of Empire but in the Republic you didn't do that in fact even though uh Rome was becoming a welfare City a major tradition in Rome was you didn't lock your doors you didn't have guards so a senator who was in charge of go he was literally uh he could literally put millions of people to death if he wanted to he didn't lock his door so you the lonliest Roman could just walk into his house and have tea with him or coffee with him and talk about um life okay that was the tradition in Rome other also another thing is when Roman Senators walked the streets of Rome they always carried an umbrella something called a um um yeah to protect themselves Okay the reason why is this um Roman houses were two stories and they didn't have switch system so if you need to go to the bathroom you did so using a bucket on the second floor okay and so what happened is if you saw someone you didn't like walk the streets you would actually take your bucket and throw all this at him okay that's literally what they did so if you're a senator um you could be the most powerful man in the world but you could still literally risk having thrown at you okay so that's the Roman world it was egalitarian where's an Empire there's hierarchy so in the galarian world it means there's openness people are open to new ideas there's debate okay literally anyone could propose a new idea whereas in the uh Empire um it was very close system okay they didn't like new ideas so go back to the example of Greek fire right a guy and it's a story so we don't know if it's true but a guy had to go to the emperor and get his approval before the military could adopt it that's really inefficient guys okay the Greeks would have just gone and done it the Romans would have would have let the commanders make their own decisions it would not happen the decision of the Senate it would have been the decision of the military commander that that was appointed by the Senate okay so um the the Republic would be much more Innovative than the Empire because the Republic would be much more open okay so um there' be a lot more diversity in a republic and in an Empire things would be much more conformist okay you be you would have a lot more creativity a lot more diversity within a republic than Within an Empire right and that's kind of intuitive because if you think about it an Empire has so much more people and so much more wealth and resources than a republic but at but historically we found that republics and democracies are much more Innovative and creative than Empires the reason has to do with the idea of a bureaucracy right something that a democracy or a republic does not have his idea of an imperial bureaucracy all right they have bureaucracies but they're not that big and they're not Imperial so let's talk about bureaucracy right and this is a very important idea that I want you guys to remember for the rest of semester because we will refer to this idea right now in the beginning bres are good for Empires because because what they do is they do centralization all right they're able to centralize the Empire unite the Empire basically second thing that they do that's important is the idea of systemization all right basically keep records uh create laws systemization and last is the idea of calization standardization uniformity okay so getting people speak the same language getting people to use the magic system um getting people to use money all right and this creates tremendous wealth within the empire in the early years because again what you have is you have the creation of money because you have a legal system and you have a monopoly on violence monopo mind just means that these neighbors don't fight anymore okay because a police there are these courts they can just Sue each other there's a legal system and people are now using money um this leads to contracts and this leads to trade and increased economic activity so you have peace and prosperity people feel safe uh people feel that life is predictable so they do more they work harder okay and this leads to in the early stages of Empire to tremendous Prosperity okay but over time what will happen is this bureaucracy will aify meaning the people in within the bureaucracy will think of how to use the bureaucracy for their own personal benefit okay we we we can say this is corruption okay so centralization leads to corruption where just a minority people with all the power use it for their own personal benefit they're basically parasites the the technical word we use for this is rent seeking okay rent seeking so think of landlords who charge rent to their tenants well if it's a monopoly they can charge as much as they want there's nothing you can do about it okay it's what we call R seeking So centralization eventually leads to corruption systemization leads to ultimately stagnation okay there's nothing new um going on and calization leads to the idea of Conformity or H homogenization okay where everything becomes the same where everything's this where everything is Bland right does that make sense all right okay so why this happens is because even though the bureaucracy is only an institution among different institutions okay so think about this you have the Imperial bureaucracy but they are compenent against the court system okay which is basically Emperor okay and the court is usually controlled by Unix okay so these are Servants of the emperor the burocracy is up against the court it's also up against the nobility right the traditional power of society it's also up against the military it's also up against the church okay so there are different um institutions that can counter the bureaucracy but over time in terms of peace and prosperity if things are really stable eventually the bureaucracy triumphs over all these other institutions okay and the reason why is this first is the y can monopolize status okay and Mobility so if you're just an ordinary person well the best way to rise from our society is for the bureaucracy this is certainly true in China right where every wants to be bureaucrat because that's seen as the mechanism of achieving social status as well as social Mobility also proces monopolize information it controls what information flows into the system it controls what the emperor sees okay so we so we can say this is about censorship and sequency and the last thing that it does is monopolizes the idea of narrative okay it it controls the production of culture and we can uh so and it does this mainly through the process of writing history okay so remember history is the creation of a cultural narrative to bind people together and it's usually the Imperial bureaucrats who do this in other words what's important for us to understand is the bureaucrats have a monopoly of literacy and knowledge they control the schools they control the media they control history writing they control how you think and um write so even though these are they are competing institutions the bureaucracy by controlling this meta reality that's culture it controls the way like these um other institutions behave okay so um the example I want to use is the idea of the godhead all right the godhead so my argument to you is the godhead it's really a bureaucratic invention right because remember um in during the C of NAIA NE neia there's a debate as to the nature of Jesus there are these arens who believe that Jesus was a lesser Divinity then there were people called uh who believed in modalism who who just believed the Holy Spirit Jesus and God were diff were different forms of the same entity then you have partialism which is say that they are a part of the same entity okay and these three different explanations make sense make they make intuitive sense the idea of the godhead where God Jesus and the Holy Spirit are coequal separate but the same thing makes no sense and the reason why they would do this is to create a sense of mystery right and distance and secrecy and that my friends is a definition of a bureaucracy right I'm not sure if you de bureaucracies I have they suck they dehumanize you so think of I'll just use a silly example right so in America there's there's something called a census and on the census you have to write down what racial group you belong to and the racial group racial group I belong to if American is Asian-American right guess what guess who else belongs in that group Indian people Vietnamese people Japanese people Korean people that makes no sense we know that in in uh Asia the Indian culture is vastly different from the Japanese culture which is vastly different from the Korean culture and the Chinese culture and the vietamese culture okay these are different people with their own uh belief systems but in a bureaucracy it just categorizes everyone together almost randomly or indifferently okay and that's why I I would make the argument that ultimately Multicultural societies are not as creative as as tribal societies okay tribal versus Multicultural think about the Multicultural societies that are are around us today okay sing Singapore is a Multicultural Society Canada is a Multicultural Society they're not very creative guys they're very Bland they're very conformist they're very bureaucratic okay very tribal societies like the Greeks the Greeks were extremely tribal they were extremely s sistic they were extremely creative right as were um um as are the Europeans okay as are the Vikings and the reason why is tribalism is energetic it makes you passionate it makes you think deeply about the world whereas in in a Multicultural Society people have to spend their energies getting along with with with each other it's important not to be offensive okay and so it's because of these three uh reasons the certain the certain cultural construct of the banan Empire uh it was Christian it was Multicultural the word we can also use we can also use is Cosmopolitan okay um also it was bureaucratic the bisan tees were not a very creative people okay even though they had access to every culture in the world even though they had access to the classics like Plato Homer Herodotus as well as Virgil they were not that creative in fact if you had a genius like Homer or Dante living in the bantin Empire well he would just become a bureaucrat we would never know the genius of Homer and Dante Homer and Dante could only arise in tribal societies okay so that um yeah so does that make sense to you guys okay and again this is just an introduction to the conflict be between these political systems Empire versus republic bureaucracy versus um um yeah right we will continue uh these themes and these topics as we uh move on throughout um Western history but I I first want to introduce these ideas to you it's really important that you understand the difference between paganism and Christianity because we'll be referring uh to this conflict this division later on in the semester as well any questions about this please feel free to argue okay please feel free to ask questions to argue um because when you do that it helps me improve my own thinking right any comments any feedback okay so um I want I want to give you some guys some time to think about questions but before I do that I want to I I want to look ahead over the next couple weeks and tell you what we'll be doing okay so we we did the Roman Empire then we did the byzantines so um as I explained to you the Roman Empire uh Western Roman Empire will collapse in the year 476 when the last emperor uh ramus Augustus is the the PO okay but when he's the poed people don't understand the Roman Empire has come to an end okay because um the people who are still in charge think the Roman Empire is continuing but now we have a long period of Civil Wars throughout Europe all right and these civil wars were eventually lead to something called the Holy Roman Empire which is something like the uh which which is what Charlamagne or the Franks will create and this will lead interesting for us to the to the rise of the Vikings okay the Vikings are important because they will go on and basically influence British culture as well as Russian culture all right so Russia comes from the idea of the Rose okay the Roose are basically just Vikings um over here we will begin we will see the beginning of the abased califit which is really the Golden Age of the um Muslims but eventually they'll be conquered by the Mongols all right and the Congress of the Mongols we eventually take us into the Renaissance Dante and this will Mark a be a new beginning in world history okay so I I just want to explain to you what we what what we be doing we will definitely have to do um the Holy Roman Empire that's number one then this will lead us to the Vikings number two then then we'll talk about the abet caliphate number three and then we'll talk about the Mongols and then the Renaissance okay so this is what we doing over next two to three weeks right we'll be going very fast throughout uh we'll be going very fast uh the semester okay so just let you know all right