Meaning a light. Man like this man letting butterfly flapping and wing. They've down in a forest.
Man, it gonna cause the tree fall, letting five thousand miles away.
Man, nobody seen it. Nobody else.
See.
You don't need no man like you followed another story and.
You got back in fact that man.
Man, don't black to nag on the panel.
Man, you don't matter man, I know anyway. All right, Alex Petkis, welcome back to the Jay Burden Show.
How you doing man, Great to be back, mister Burden. I'm well, how are you.
I'm doing quite well. I'm excited to have you back on. Not simply because the last episode did well, people liked it, they wanted you back, but also because we left off halfway through the story. Right, We left off just before Caesar assumed his role as a preech over. You know what is modern day Spain? And I'm gonna go ahead and assume most people have listened to the last one.
If not, you can. It's easy to find the last time I talked to Alex where we went through the early life of Caesar, and now we're continuing on with the narrative.
Yes, well, so we left off with the Caesar was elected praetor, he causes a ruffle with the Catalinarian conspiracy. I don't think he's quite left the city limits yet, so maybe we should start with how he gets out of Rome and the challenges he faced there. So Caesar is he's always been a promising politician. He's always been able to convince people to take bets on him, financial and otherwise. And Caesar is in a crushing load of
debt right now. That's kind of important for the story because the way that you I think we talk about this last time, the way that you get elected offices, you spend a ton of money, as always in a semi democratic system, and then somehow you make it back. And he's hoping to make it back as a provincial governor of Spain. But he's he's under so much debt that his creditors don't want to let him leave town. And you know, if he can't leave down, well, he
can't pay him back Kenny. So he eventually gets his friend Crassus, who's who's his political patron. I'm not sure how much we talked about Crassis last time, but Crassus is the richest man in Rome. He Caesar learned so much from Crassus. I did a whole series on Crassus and came to appreciate how big of an impact Crassus had on Caesar politically, like stylistically, you know, recruiting men from outside the typical political elite populism, sort of crafty
measured populism. But but so Krasis eventually stands surety for Caesar. He's personally guarantees the loans that the the debtors are or the creditors are clamoring Caesar repay before he leaves town. And Caesar manages to escape and gets off to his provincial assignment at last in Spain. So I'll see what
what's of interest in Spain. Well, when he's in Spain, he finds some unruly tribes to you know, peace, keep around, does a little campaigning Lusitania or Western Hispania, Portugal, southern southern Spain, and comes back.
Does he come back early?
He comes back sort of more or less on time, after having a pretty successful year as governor in Spain, you know, settling disputes and the typical thing, but with a military victory under his belt, and he gets the Senate to approve him for a triumph, which, as you're aware, is the highest honor that any Roman could hope for. Really, it's even better than being consoles. Plenty of consuls never had a triumph and wish they had. But you know,
once these opportunities don't come very often. See the Ultimate Glory and Caesar. If he gets a triumph after just being preeter, it's like his political career has made. Everybody's going to know his name and his face if they didn't already. But the problem that he's facing now is he he wants to run for console for the upcoming year, and technically you have to make your application to be the candidate a candidate for consul in the city limits
of Rome. But if you enter the city limits of Rome before you triumph, then you can have a triumph. Because a triumph is a ceremonial crossing of the boundary
from outside the city into the city. And that that crossing is a really important moment religiously and politically because it means you're you're legally laying down your imperium, your your supreme power that a general has, you know, because a general out in the field can execute Roman citizens, you know, uh do whatever he wants without any penalty. It's like he's got the life and death power over his troops, which is important for discipline.
And so.
He gets the Senate to vote him an exception to be able to apply for the consulship in absentia, laying a pattern that that will become very ominous later in his career, so that he can have but have it both ways. And his enemies, Cato, the most vociferous among them, who's already, as we talked about last time, got his eye on Caesar as a tyrant on the make Kato blocks him. I think that the Senate was willing technically, and they didn't actually formally ratify the motion to let
Caesar run for console and absentia, and so Cato philibusters. Essentially, he runs out the clock. It's one thing that he was really good at is just talking on and on and on, and once the sun goes down, then meeting adjourns for the day and you got to wait till the next day, and all kinds of obstructionism you can
do in a republican constitution. And so Cato's filibustering. He's trying to make sure that Caesar has to basically choose between getting his triumph or running for Console for the next year, because the deadline is fast approaching, and I think everybody was betting.
That Caesar would.
Would just wait, that Cato would succeed in slowing him down for a year and kind of make him cool as heels in private practice. But Caesar very ostentatiously, just as soon as the the kind of deadline is imminent, he just crosses into the city limits and foregoes the triumph, which was a shock to everybody because, you know, for the reason we discussed, Caesar didn't want to wait a year to become console. He had a plan and he kind of stuck it in Kato's face.
Mute.
Yeah, Kato won the battle in the sense that Caesar didn't get his triumph, but Caesar kind of won the war, and that you know, he saw power as a route to get other triumphs in the future, and he knew that he could get elected consul, and and so that's what he did. He just didn't want to wait a year. Press fast forward, let's get let's get it done with.
It's just an honor, which I love that story. It just shows how how how how much Caesar knows what he wants and how quickly he wants to how that moment where he was standing in front of the statue of Alexander the Great. You know, he's got to get serious now, Like if he really wants to achieve something, he can't pitdle around, you know, racking up badges, merit badges for his sash.
He's he's he's got to be focused. And I think that's a good indication of it.
So several things there. One, of course, you're completely right, and I love this moment as sort of a character study in miniature of Caesar. Right, he is giving up honor, right, glory again, right, the biggest gold star of them all, a triumph for power and ultimately, well, you know, we'll see this. There's more where that comes from. Right, He you know, is later receives that and many other honors.
But I think it's sort of this perfect snapshot in a similar but slightly different way as in the Execution of the Pirates who who you know, captured him for a year or so, right where you see these little incidents which kind of offer you a view of the man. But to backtrack, ever, so slightly. And I don't have a citation on this, It's been a while since I've gone through the primary sources. But to what degree did
Caesar's cratorship in Spain relieve him from debt? Was he able to use sort of his winnings to get people off his back or was that something that was sort of plaguing him throughout his entire career.
Well, we don't really know any details about this. I think it's likely that he he you know, captured some slaves that he was able to you know, captured prisoners, he was able to sell his slaves, or did some plundering at least paid them down enough to get them office back. But no, I as far as we know, he's probably going to take out an even bigger loan to become consul, and Crassus is just going to guarantee it again or personally underwrite it. And this isn't his
only run in with bad debt. You know, he takes out a lot of loans to run for the office of pont effects Maximus. This is in the same year that he was elected praetor he gets selected you know, the chief Magistracy or the chief Priesthood of Rome, and
he's going because these are elected at that time. Funny enough, and as he's going out to the voting grounds for the pont Effects Maximus election, you know, he leaves the house and he tells his mom, well, mom, either I'm going to come back pont Effects Maximus, or you're never gonna see me again, because I'm gonna If I lose, I'm screwed and I have to skip town forever because you know, the debtors are just gonna eat me alive or the creditors.
And so.
Now his big financial win ends up being the Gallic campaign, which is fabulously lucrative as a matter of fact. But I'm not sure about the Spain incident.
So at this point, right, we sort of need to address the triumvirate and also you know his consulship. These of course they are linked. So I'm curious to what degree is the triumvirate formalized? You know, does to seizear walk in and say, hey, these are my two buddies. We are now the triumvirate. This is who in charge? Who is in charge? Or is it a description of sort of a as you could say, informal collusion.
Well, the technical term that was used by contemporaries was the three headed monster, which is to say it was not actually a formal, a legal agreement in any way it was. It was an informal kind of back room, smoke filled cigar room handshake agreement. But to what is the the triumvir or the first Triumvirate. Well, you've got in Rome two incredibly powerful men, one of his crasses who we mentioned, and one of them is Pompey. Caesar's sort of they're friendly at this point, and they get
more friendly before they have a falling out. These are the two greatest men in Rome that the Crassus has wealth and political influence and political savvy. Pompey has military glory and by this time even more wealth because he's just come back from the East from his grain and campaigns, defeated Mithridates and you know, desecrated the temple at Jerusalem, possibly on accident, but possibly he knew what he was doing.
And very rich.
But they both have needs, they both have big needs. Crassis is getting blocked in the Senate because he is an investor in some tax farming operations. Some Equestrian businessmen like promised that they would, you know, return to the Senate a huge sum of money from collecting taxes in the East, and they realized that the East has just been utterly ravaged and plundered by Pompey's campaigns and there's just no way that they can make up the shortfall.
So they're trying to get They're trying to get their debt to knock down so they can come up short on the contract. Otherwise they're going to be ruined and they therefore Crasses is maybe not gonna be ruined, but going to be hurting financially. Crass is trying to champion these questrian businessmen, but it's not happening. Cato and the Optimates are filibustering and doing their obstructionism thing. Pompey needs
his veterans resettled. He's got all these men counting on him to give him pots of land after their successful service, loyal service to him and to roam. He's getting blocked there.
He's also got all these arrangements that he's made in the East with client kings and various states and put down law codes and just kind of like his signature piece of legislation which was very well done and well thought through, and it happened to benefit him immensely, the arrangements that he set up with all these city states and client kingdoms that are now his clients. And he's
getting blocked there too by Cato and the Optimists. You know, they're doing the typical thing that Cato and the Optimates do. The Conservatives. They don't want any man rising above the rest of the poppies, and so Crassis and Pompey both kind of get the shaft politically that this is going on as Caesar is running for Console. Maybe this is one of the reasons why Caesar wanted to be Console that year and not to wait another year, because he
saw this opportunity, he saw the stars aligning. Caesar is not really a powerful man at this point. He's promising, he's got talent, he's got a good patron. But he so he makes a deal with basically with Pompey and Crassus. You could call it a duum for it. It's like twin towers and then a little bridge, a little tightrope with the guy walking between them, and that's Caesar. But what he does, what he will have that he can
bring to the table is executive power. As console, he'll be able to pass through legislation that favors both of them. And the only thing that he really asks of them is and goes to show that Pompey and Crassis were not buddies. He asks them not to injure the other's interests each of them, so it's actually like a negative agreement. So I'm not going to screw you if you promise
not to screw me. That's all he gets them to agree to, which is enough to be a mortal threat in the eyes of the optimates, because you know, the whole idea of the Republican Constitution is the great men kind of keep each other in check. So they're not going to keep each other other in check. And so it's all arranged kind of secretly behind the scenes, and it doesn't come out until well into Caesar's consulship that there's there's some collusion going on.
So speaking to Caesar's consulship, there's sort of a series of reforms right that Caesar tempts and then passes. And we've been speaking at multiple points about this sort of populist and elitist in the broadest possible terms factions within Roman politics. And you know, on one hand, right, look at Caesar's lineage, which we mentioned earlier, but on the other he is in bed with the most powerful men in Rome. How can we characterize Caesar's period is consule?
What does he do? What are sort of the most important moments of that time?
Yeah, well, Pompy and Crasis both are kind of outsiders politically. I mean, you know, Crasus is from a noble family, and he kind of grew up on the inside. His father was a consul. But Crassus has has built up an independent power base and like doesn't want to be dependent on the oligarchic click of power brokers. And Pompey similarly, is a kind of modern populists. And the main thing that he wants is extraordinary commands so that he can go and fight glorious wars and come back and be honored.
But he's not really great at the political game. And and he's he's not from one of the noble families himself, although his dad was at consul to be fair, so, so they're they're kind of antagonists to the the aristocratic core and uh, and they sort of stand above it a little bit outside of it, a little bit above it, and and so what what Caesar?
I mean?
Kind of same same goes for Caesar in his way. What's heesters consulship is chiefly aimed at is furthering the interests of Crassus and Pompey and himself, but through a just brilliant program of legislation that I think Geltzer puts it really well. Call I won't remember his exact words, but essentially, the office of the consul had become a kind of rubber stamp for policies that the Senate approved.
They didn't have a lot of real political agency to it for several decades, partly because all the consuls tend to be insiders, and they're not gonna, you know, they're not going to get the support of the people they need to get elected if they're in any way threatening to rock the vote. So it's it's a filtering problem on the one hand. But on the other hand, there's there's so much obstructionism in the available to people who want to block.
Policies and reforms.
That the only real way that change tended to happen for radical or sort of even moderate reforms was through the office of Tribune of the Plubs, which kind of is a to ignore the Senate, Like you don't have to get the Senate's approval to pass laws. You know, you might get murdered in the streets during or after your term, or you know, become a political nobody in exile. But at least you can get like laws passed if you're willing to take that risk.
And so what I like to think.
Actually that one of the big overriding policies of Caesar's consulship was to prove that the Senate and the Optimists didn't actually run the show at Rome. It was a kind of a procedural point that he was making. And so he passes these reforms, like there's a law and order type reform to cut back on the abusive practices
and exploitation of provincial governors. He does manage to get Pompey's soldiers rewarded for their service and distributes land, and he doesn't drain the treasury because provides the funds from
his war plunder. Crassus's equestrian businessmen they do get there, they get their contract knocked down, so they don't, you know, end up in financial ruin but you know, you could make the case that, as Cicero would, that the Equestrians are like a really important pillar of stability, and doing the Equestrians a favor was actually very much in the
Senate's interest. So there's all these kind of ways that Caesar just kind of passes, all these reasonable policies, they're all like really good laws, and he gets merciless obstruction from Cato and the other consoles, an enemy of Caesar, Bibulous, and their objections to Caesar just are any any success that he has is even if it seems good for Rome, it's actually bad for Rome because it's Caesar having the success and he's a bad man and a tyrant on
the make. And this is Cato's only reason for objecting to some of Caesar's policies. Amazingly, and to pass through his laws, he ends up breaking with some procedural points in Roman constitutional traditionalism. So Bibulous the other consul tries to declare all of the voting days for the rest of the year public holidays, so that no law can be voted on. And this is you know, unprecedented and
kind of unprincipled, but it's legal. It's his it's his legal right as a consul, because consoles get to declare what the religious holidays are and you can't. You can't vote on a holiday. And then Caesar just ignores this, and all right, well, you know I didn't hear bibulous objecting. I'm just going to do this, and you know, the people show up to vote, the votes happen, the laws are passed, and you know, traditionalists might be pulling their hair out and lamenting the loss of piety all kinds
of things, but it just happens. It kind of shows. These are kind of shows that sometimes you can just do things and and test how far the limits go by by bending or even breaking with procedural norms. So it is a very disturbing year in a lot of ways for the common Roman man who is just not sure what to expect. I mean, these laws are getting broken, and nothing seems to are these you know, these rules
are getting broken. In politics, nothing seems to be happening except grand standing by the traditionalists.
Uh.
And and yet they do have a kind of a backlash publicly, like Pompey actually faces a lot more of the backlashan than Crassus, as Pompy is just a lot more visible as a target of ire. He gets soldiers to show up for some of these important votes so they can have a quorum, and Pompy kind of loses a lot of clout in that year, but Caesar gets you know, it tests his own popularity too, because many people are you know, railing against him in public, politicians
in particular. So yeah, it's it's a it's a it's a most disturbing year for Rome. But but a lot of stuff gets done, like a like a more stuff than ever gets done, and anyone's anyone's consulships. Caesar just knows how to manipulate the system and get policies pushed through. So it shows his legislative brilliance, and it shows this kind of lack of scruple when it comes to silly traditions that get in the way of progress. A lot of lessons there.
So the next part of the story is a massive topic in its own right, and so at the risk of getting kind of lost in the Gallic Wars, it might be best if we speak about this primarily from a political angle, right, What is happening with Caesar's appointment to this role? Obviously, you know, I don't know if we have the time to go into you know this what five or seven I can never remember year period
of you know, intense conflict. But at the same time, while Caesar is out of Rome, politics is still developing, right, he is still an ambitious man. There is at least some correspondence back home. And so if you could, could you describe, well, one, how does Caesar end up trapesing around France? Right? And two? Well, what happens while he's there? What happens to the triumvir?
Yeah, well, Caesar's enemies, you know, they anticipated this is a talented guy. We have to here's what we can do to slow him down, even though he's just been elected consul. So between him being elected consul in late summer of sixty and him actually beginning his term January first, fifty nine, the Senate actually in that period, once the consuls are elected, or at some point before the consul
begins his term, it might be before they actually get elected. Anyway, they assign the provincial governorships that are two commenced after your year as consul. So, right, you get sent out as a governor after you are a consul. And that's the time to make back your debt, money and plunder. But Caesar gets this just laughably silly post assigned to him as his province, which is like the roads and forests of Italy. It's like nothing. I mean, that's going to be his scope for all of his ambition for
the year fifty eight through fifty seven. And so he's not happy with this, and he gets a tribune in front of his Vitinius to pass a law to assign him Cis Alpine Gaul first and then later Transalpine Gall is added because the governor of Transalpine Gaull Mattelus, dies in suspicious circumstances and it kind of frees up this this wild area. And and you know Caesar's had his mind on this place for a long time. I mean, it's not an accident that Vitinius assigns him Cis Alpine
and then Transalpine Gaul. I think Caesar has studied the situation pretty carefully. You know, he's been operating in Spain nearby, and he knows the political situation there. But this is really where he sees a possibility for a kind of career making epic making conquest, something to rival Pompey's victories and the victories of Sola and Marius in the past. So so as soon as his term of office is up,
he's already got the law passed by Vitineus. His enemies in Rome are already just putting together a deluge of briefs to prosecute him for all kinds of things, all kinds of you know, indiscretions and you know, unconstitutional acts the very day his consulship ends, and so he leaves town a lot earlier than he has to, just to get out of the city limits of Rome and to begin his provincial governorship early, which gives him immunity. You
can't be prosecuted when you're a governor. And so he's got his back to the wall the whole Gallic campaign. I think that's important to keep in mind that, you know, the optimates are already from fifty nine and fifty eight there. They just you know, got a target painted on him. They've declared war on him. Essentially, whenever he returns, he
knows he's he's going to face an onslaught. And so this is this is what's what's kind of going on while he's away from the beginning of fifty eight all the way until forty nine is when he re enters Rome. Finally he's away for nearly ten years the Gallic campaigns.
You know, Rome is in control of the coastline of France Transalpine gaul is like you know, the Rohan Valley's the southern Rhone Valley and you know Marseille along the they have some holdings there, kind of like a road to Spain essentially with some hinterland, but you know, it's wild country. Tribal federations constantly warring with each other, occasionally incursions into Rome from Kimbri and the Teutones and the generation or two before invaded Italy and we're threatening Rome
itself with maybe more than one hundred thousand men. But it's not like this is a peaceful, you know, Bucolic agrarian society that is just mining its own business. I mean, these are these are dangerous peoples, like right.
On the northern border.
So there is a kind of geopolitical justification for it. But you know, Caesar also has conquest on his mind.
And obviously, like I said earlier, the subjugation of Goal is it's a narrative, right it's incredibly interesting, and just because we are skipping over it does not mean it is unimportant. But primarily in you know, doing sort of a political analysis, if you will, of the life of Caesar, you have to cut somewhere, right, and so I just wanted to put that in as sort of a tonic
to you know, everyone listening to this. Right, So, Caesar ultimately conquers you know, obviously a large portion of France, Germany sort of this expedition to England, and during that time, as far as I understand, there's sort of this debate over how long he has been given power that on its face seems kind of boring and technical, right a you know, legal ease, but actually does matter quite a
bit for our story. So if you could, could you explain that debate about out sort of how long his power is legitimate and then maybe why that matters to our narrative.
Yeah, So the command that he was given by Vitinius in fifty nine is a five year command in Gaul, and so he needs to get it renewed to finish the war. Basically, gall is not really pacified until takes him till fifty two, more or less really into fifty one, there's some mop up operations and so in and the
Triumvirate starts to pray a little bit. Crasses and Pompey they don't like each other, and they kind of get tired of, you know, not screwing each other over, and so Caesar's always trying to kind of keep them, keep them at peace with each other, so they can support him while he's exposed in a way. This eventually gets harder when well, when Pompey's married to Caesar's daughter and she died in fifty four in childbirth. That was a
big blow, and apparently they loved each other genuinely. Pompey's crushed, Caesar's crushed. Caesar tries to renew the marriage alliance with a niece of his, Pompey just is not in the mood. Crassus then goes to Parthia on his famous ill fated expedition and dies the battle shortly after the Battle of Karrai. So it's only Pompey and Caesar around fifty two. Now
what happens in between. Caesar gets another tribune, Tribonius in fifty five to pass another law, and he's meanwhile arranged for Crassus and Pompey to be the consoles of that year too, so kind of like renewing all the things for another five years. In fifty five, and the Law of Trebonius extends Caesar's command another five years. In Gaul passed the against you know, heroic obstructionism by Cato, and there's riots in the forum and it's it's a messy
situation back home. But Caesar's kind of the puppet master in a lot of ways, making a lot of this stuff happen through correspondence and gifts of gold. He's got gold coming in from his you know, conquests up to that point. And what ends up being the sticking points. There's a couple. One is, okay, when what does five years mean for the second extension of his command. Well, it could be five years from the time when the law was passed in fifty five, so then that'd be
fifty four three two one fifty. It could be from the expiry of the previous command, which arguably would be in at the end of fifty four. There's there's a few ways to calculate. It's likely that it wasn't actually specified, but you could you could come up with the range of easily two years in which that second command is
supposed to end. But even before that range approaches, there are men in the Senate calling for Caesar to be recalled because on the grounds that the war is over after his victory with Versu Ghetoricks, you know in fifty two, the Great Gallic rebel. All right, they start trying to recall Caesar, and he's like, hey, my five years is enough.
Shut up. The war isn't even over.
There's like still rebellions going on, and Romans are dying and Galls are dying.
The war is not over. Leave me alone.
And and another very important sticking point comes up. So he's, you know, he's facing these calls for him to come back and lay down his command. He's got to come back at some point and lay down his command. And he decides what he wants to do is to run for consul in absentia, just like he got the Senate to agree to in principle. They didn't have to end
up acting on it back in back in sixty. And his reason for that is if he can, if he can run for console and absentia, you can even get elected in absentia, then he can go seamlessly from being a pro consul to being a console again, which gives him legal immunity continuously. And you know, his enemies for the last eight years have just been saying, the moment Caesar sets foot in Rome, he's gonna get subpoena after subpoena, or we're gonna just we're gonna bleed him dry. And
the course he's gonna get exiled. You know, he's going to face accountability for his crimes and they're going to ruin him politically, and they're they're making no secret of it, right, and sometimes they'll dress it up in nice language. But you know, Caesar sees that there's that target on his forehead has just gotten bigger and bigger. The more successful he's got, the more of a threat he's become.
And so.
He wants to run for console and absentia because if he can just get back and uh, you know, at least have a year in the city without without prosecution, he could probably like make some friends, bribe some people, get get things favorable to him, and figure it out
from there. But they really, the optimist really don't want to let that happen, and they eventually end up kind of bringing Pompey over into their circle that they like play on his paranoia about being surpassed by the younger man Caesar, and they start to tell Pompey that, you know, if Caesar comes back as you're equal, that means that he's beaten you and therefore you're his inferior. Like it becomes this kind of ego battle. There can only be
one first man in Rome. Right if you say Caesar is also the first man in Rome, that can set that very concession makes you the second man in Rome, Pompy, right, which actually kind of makes sense. It's it's a real pickle politically for Pompey. But the legal detail is in fifty two, Yeah, fifty two, Pompey actually agrees so that there's a law of ten tribunes passed that like, all the tribunes unite and pass the law that Caesar can
run in absentia. And then Pompy comes and passes another law that says that that rules that nobody can run at absentia, and Pompey had approved that earlier law of the tribunes. He was consoled that year he's the sole consul. There's so many details to go into the story, but I think we're getting the big the big picture here.
So Pompey.
Kind of turns from supporting Caesar's you know, licensed to run at absentia and kind of say his career politically, to ruling it out. And then Caesar's supporters, because he's got him in run, they're like, Pompy, what's going on? This is this is absurd. You just you know, went back on your word. And Pompey says, oh, no, I didn't mean Caesar. Of course, an exception should be made for Caesar. You know, go and go and write accept
Caesar the under the tablet of the law slave. So you know, somebody goes and writes accept Caesar under no one shall run for office in absentia, and it has no legal force.
I mean, it's not convincing. But pomp he's always trying to kind of like.
Keep his cards close and give himself options, and you know, basically he wants to hold all the cards and and and only to let Caesar back on his own terms. And so it's like a stick he can kind of hold over Caesar. And so Caesar feels very betrayed by this, like he can tell the trust is breaking down, and uh, you know, long story short that demands for recall come come louder and and they're trying to argue back and forth about what terms he should be allowed to re
enter the city. Okay, is he allowed to if he's not allowed to run for console and absentia? Does he have to lay down? Does he have to dismiss disband all of his armies? All right, well, maybe Pompy should disband all of his armies. No, but Pompy uh has has imperium from this other office. There's there's all these kind of legal chicaneries going back and forth that are not that that are ultimately aiming at trying to give the optimist in the Senate the upper hand both politically
and militarily if any breakdown should happen. And uh, and that sort of gets you in very broad strut strokes to the end of fifty and the beginning of forty nine. He crosses the rubicon in January of forty nine BC.
So obviously that is another famous moment, right. The exact wording of that phrase debated, of course, but I like it. You know, it's the sort of even if it's not true, I want it to be, so I'll just refer to it as completely true. So at this point, effectively we're witnessing a constitutional crisis. This is a deep fracture in
the Roman conception of politics. So one, if you could, could you explain why one the situation Caesar was in and why effectively breaking all of these conventions was necessary, right, why it had to be done. And obviously we're going to have to again for the sake of time, sort of a lied through the specifics of course of the you know, the Roman civil war. But you know it is at least notable that there is a Roman civil war, right,
this has come to blows. So I guess if you could start with that, the crossing of the rubicon, right, bringing armed men in? Why is that significant other you know, of course than the obvious.
So the situation Caesar's in, and he talks about this in his commentaries, is, you know, putting aside all of the legal technicalities, what is really at stake for him is the attitude and the actions of both Pompey and especially of the bad men who are corralling him into their faction.
Is they don't.
They're not giving Caesar his proper dignity, his dignitas, his honor. They're sort of dishonoring Caesar by you know, I mean, this guy has conquered a mortal enemy of Rome that has been a threat on the northern border for three centuries. He's brought incredible amounts of money into the treasury and built buildings, started building projects in Rome. And he's it's
it's you know, he's won the games, he's done. He's performed very well at the game of service to the Republic, and many men have lost their lives in that and that effort. Caesar has got something like ten legions, many of them quite well trained, veteran legions, fiercely loyal in him.
And that was exactly what I was going to mention, Right, It's not just that he has men, but he has men that are loyal to him. Caesar as an individual.
Very importantly, Yeah, and he's his demands are like, let me come back to Rome in peace on fair terms that are not insulting, they're not obviously insulting. And he makes many many concessions, like he offers to dismiss most of his legions. He wants Pompey to dismiss his legions too, and eventually he lets go of even that requirement, like
he's really trying to make a deal. It's it's not that he wants to fight a war on Rome, and he says that, and I think that his actions actually show that this is the case that he's he's doing
his best to avert this constitutional crisis. But there are some lines that he's just not willing to bend on, and one of them is, you know, the right not to be persecuted in the courts until he's exiled, the right not to be kind of politically assassinated by his enemies, to subject himself to merciless law fair and that is not something that they're willing to concede to him. Oh,
you have to face accountability. And so eventually he's on the northern border of Italy, the legal northern border, which is the Rubicon River, the small stream. It's not even fully agreed by scholars which stream is the Rubicon, but it's somewhere around Ravenna. And because that's where he's camped, and he's got one legion with him, just one legion, and the Senate declares war essentially on him. In early January,
they declared the Ultimate Decree. And this was very unpopular, you know, when proposals were made by friends of Caesar that both Pompey and Caesar laid down, dismiss all of their legions and become private citizens. It was hugely popular. Like the citizens are cheering. Most of the Senate voted in favor of that measure, like they nobody wants a war except for the optimate hardliners, and Caesar is willing to fight it if they insist. So that's the kind
of context of the Rubicon moment. And and you know, so crossing that under arms that border from his province of trans Cisopine goal into Italy would constitute an act of war, although they've already kind of declared war on him by declaring him an enemy of the state with this Ultimate Decree, so he kind of he waits carefully for them to strike the first legal constitutional blow, as it were, you know, because he's always conscious of these things,
of doing what he does with the utmost scruple possible, you know, ignoring scruples some in his consulship, but you know, generally he wants he wants law and order on his side, and that's that's when he decides across the rover after they essentially declare him a public enemy. And he's very swift and he he's he moves faster than they expected and kind of tears through Italy. The Senate and Pompy end up abandoning Italy. You know, long story of the
details on that. But you know, of course he wins the war many times over. It's like, all right, farseless, bloody, bloody slaughter of the senatorial aristocracy. War's over right, Nope, we're going to fight again, all right. In Africa they killed you know, Mattellus Cato and tens of thousands of Roman troops. The war's over right, Nope, we gotta fight it again. In Spain, it just it keeps kind of resurging. There's an Egyptian campaign. I mean, it's a whole saga.
I did an eight part series on the Gallic Wars and a three part series on the Civil War, and even then I felt like I just scrashed the surface. It's there's a lot of really interesting political details that
come out in that process. But you know, they thought that they had the advantage, and they did financially in terms of like like raw man power, maybe, but they did not have Caesar's clarity, his unity of command, and they certainly didn't have the kind of veteran talent that he had in his numerically inferior but morally in terms of morale, much superior forces.
So one of the long running character I guess features we could say of Caesar is his mercy, his clemency, his willingness to let people back on side. So how does that play out throughout this civil war? Obviously, now he is dealing with his own people, and so it's a to put it mildly, it's a delicate area to operate it. So do we see Caesar act in that same way through the civil war?
Yes, like phenomenally so, especially early on. So he he captures dimicious Heno Barbas, one of his great enemies at Corfinium, this early battle in Italy, spares him, even lets the guy leave with the money and just keeps the troops. He spares his enemies in Greece. He grants mercy to Brutus and many many other Cicero. He's offering clemency over and over in the early parts of the campaign, and many people take him up on it. I forgot that
there's two Spanish campaigns actors. The first Spanish campaign that that he fights before he goes over to Greece against Pompey's generals in Spain Battle of Ilerda and spares Aphranius and betray Us. They go over to keep, you know, fighting on Pompey's side after that, and he does what he doesn't do is spare people generally more than once.
He does it in the case of demicious arguably, but you know, he's but he's generally very like merciful and he just wants the war to end, and he sees that mercy is is the way to keep the moral upper hand. And I think he generally doesn't like shedding Roman blood. I mean, who would, while the Optimists seem not to mind when it comes to executing Caesar's troops that they captured.
There's a very.
Several disturbing scenes of this throughout the Civil War of the optim that's Lobbyanus and betray Us executing Caesar's soldiers when they capture them, and Caesar generally doesn't do that. There are a few instances where he doesn't restrain his own troops, who are just enraged in a murderous frenzy late in the war, after they've been fighting for several years,
and they're very understandably frustrated this is going on. But you know, famously, right Brutus and Cassius and many others who he spared end up being the men who organize and carry out the assassination on the eydes of March forty four.
So there are several things that I want to talk about. I think that early early in the war, one of the most devocative scenes, of course, is the Senate fleeing Rome. Obviously there's a certain level of just clear significance to
that you're departing from the seed of power. But what is the I guess, kind of ritual significance of the Senate being in Rome, Because seemingly, if this is a fight over legitimacy, if you've abandoned Rome, he's in charge of, you know, the city that the whole empire is named out of. Seemingly that would indicate that at least by force of arms, he is the rightful ruler of Rome.
Yeah, I think this kind of underlines sort of Pompey's political foolishness or amateurism. You know, the city of Rome is has this incredible symbolic force to it, and Pompey abandons Rome in Italy because he has a lot more troops in the east and they have a very powerful navy, so they think that they can kind of blockade Caesar in Italy and in Rome because if the grain shipment stopped coming into the port of Ostia, the city will
starve within a few weeks. So that's kind of what they're hoping to do, is drag out the war much much longer. And it's a kind of military logic to it. It's a grim, gruesome, cruel logic. But it wasn't a terrible plan just militarily, but politically it was really bad because for the for the reasons you said, you know, he insists, Pompy insists that everybody in the Senate join him, and if anybody who doesn't join him, though, he'll regard as an enemy.
And so all these senators are kind.
Of like grudgingly leaving and they're you know, camped out with him in Italy, which in Greece, which is which is a real pain in the ass if you're trying to have a unified command and strategic nimbleness to have all these senators, you know, second guessing all of your plans. So it it seemed to make sense on paper, but it was. It was a little bit autistic on Pompey's side,
and clearly it didn't work out. And I think that a lot of a lot of the decisions that Pompy made, like the decision to fight at Farcelus, which was, you know, not a well chosen battle, on Pompey's part, I think it kind of came down to he felt pressure from from these senators who were complaining about him dragging out the war and not getting on with it, you know, so they can go back and plunder Caesar and all of his friend's estates and you know, get back to
their fish ponds and their waterfalls and their villas.
You know.
It put this unique political pressure on Pompey during the campaign. I think it kind of I think it weakened him substantially, and he was already not in a strong position morally because he's got these Green troops. You know, he's kind of the aggressor in the Civil War. There's a kind of sola mood going on in the Optimate camp, you know, talking about proscriptions and slah did it, Why can't I do it? Pompy he's heard saying these kind of things.
It's just it's just not even if the cause and Cicero talks about this, you know, he's like, I love Pompey, and I think the Senate cause is like the right one. It's but the people that are running the show are are not better than Caesar. They're like, mostly worse than Caesar. Funny enough, even though I like agree with them politically, they're.
Like bad men.
He's just like a lot of people are facing this moral quandary of hating Caesar's cause but liking him better and feeling like he's doing it in a more honorable way than the Optimists are. It's it's really ugly, and a lot of it kind of traces back to that. It's not unrelated to the leading of the symbolic hearth of rome. You know, it's like kind of leaving the kind of leaving the the narrative that you're the good guys behind in a powerful way, aren't you.
I don't know.
It seems really crazy in retrospect, there's a.
There's an anecdote, and I can't remember where this comes from. This is my pevery memory of this is my high school Latin teacher telling me about it. But isn't there a famous incident in early Roman history where there is an invading army right that has gotten into the city and a city father is sitting out in front of his house, completely stock still, and he doesn't say anything until the barbarian comes up. You know, Yank's on his
beard and then he's killed. Is this Am I completely making this up?
No?
No, that's the first and only capture of the city of Rome by the Gauls in the three eighties. I think it is, yeah, seared into the minds of Romans. I think I think they like they're sitting stock still on their on their thrones, like a lot of the senatorial fathers, and you know, one of the galls comes up like these statues and Yanks on the beer. If I remember correctly, I can't remember. It's in the Life
of Camillis. I think, Uh, the senator like whacks the gall with his staff, and the gall you know, kills.
Him with the sword.
The Yeah, the people had had left Rome, but they left a guard there of of the people, you know, the men who were sort of the captains that were supposed to go down with the ship. You know, Okay, the women and children get to go to this other city for refuge, but the fighting men stay in Rome. Damn it, you know, the senators. If Rome is going to get captured, the senators are going to get captured and slaughtered with it. First first of all, you know, uh,
some of them go up onto the citadel. That's where they kind of unwind the.
The siege of the city.
So yeah, it is very uncharacteristic and very like not according to the most mayorum, to have the whole Senate like be this kind of traveling party in Greece.
Well especially you know when your core moral plane, right is that we are doing things the Roman way, this is how it ought to be done. And oh those Romans who went down with the ship, Yeah, we don't do that tradition. But the traditions where we're in charge, those are the good ones. And of course I'm saying that in sort of a deliberately simplistic way, of course, but that is a real dissonance, right, That is very much what you're describing where the quality of the men
on each side of this conflict is different. You see a different attitude towards that. So, Alex, I realized you have a heart out. And of course I try to keep these things to roughly an hour. And of course you know big spoilers, right, you know how this ends. Guys, Caesar doesn't make it.
He's gonna make it.
He's gonna make it this time, this time. But Alex, man, this has been a great conversation. I really enjoyed this and have to have you on again. There's so much to talk about. Obviously, you have your podcast, your channel, your website, substack, and your Twitter. Did I miss anything there?
Uh, it's it's not out. It won't be for a long time. But you can buy my book whenever I finished the damn thing.
I've been working on it for a while and it's gonna be great.
So keep your eyes peeled for when you know the book comes out. But no, I mean, you covered all the bases. It's been a great, great time time and I you know, I sort of I love talking about this stuff because you realize different aspects of it that you hadn't really thought about. Before, and I hadn't made that connection with this. This the stolid old silent senators in the Gallic capture. I mean it really, ah yeah,
and there's so much drama. This is the greatest drama in all of ancient history, I think, the fall of the Republic and so many great men, so many pivotal choices. So so maybe we'll have to come back next time and see whether Caesar actually can make it out alive.
Here's what I will say. It is truly impressive that history professors manage to make this bar because, as you've said, right, it's one of the greatest, the greatest dramas of history. Right, I mean, you know, a fairly prominent you know English guy, you know, he wrote a drama about it. It's kind of famous. You might have heard of it. And even the original right, the even if you're sixteen, you know, poorly translating out of Latin. Right, it has a flow to it. It pulls you in. It's sort of this
high human drama. And really I've appreciated your work on it obviously, as you guys can tell, very gifted communicator, and you know when he's scripted right, when he's not having some guy ask him ram questions every five to ten minutes, so your work on it is absolutely exceptional. I recommend it to everyone at home as far as my stuff, The Jay Burtons Show, Apple, Spotify, YouTube, anywhere you listen to podcasts. If you want the episodes early in ad free, it's like five bucks a month for
twenty some episodes a month. Really not a bad deal if I do say so myself. So you can check that out at Patreons, Substack or gum Road, or check out our sponsor, Fox and Son's Coffee. They make good coffee. You should try it. And Jay, I think code Burden I should know this off the top of my head. Gets you like fifteen percent off. Again, not a bad deal, and I like the guy. The coffee's good. He's a good guy. Anyway, Alex was great speaking to you and
everyone at home. Keep your height up, definitely.
But what's what's
What's program