A Geek History of Time - Episode 17- The Secret History of the Gallic Wars (Part 1)

Episode Date: June 29, 2019

Distinguished guest Dr. Rex Stern, professor of Classics at UC Davis, helps Damian lay the groundwork for a paradigm-shattering revelation about the true nature of Caesar’s campaigns in Gaul. Ed has his mind blown.

This is a geek history of time where we connect nerdery to the real world. I'm Ed Blalock. I am a world history teacher, a new father of a just over one year old son. And I have been a nerd as long as I can remember. I was exposed to Tolkien at far too young an age and it worked me forever. Damien, how about you? I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin teacher, formerly a social science teacher at a local high school here in Sacramento. I have two children, my daughter who has taught herself draconic alphabet recently for an adventure that we had.

Raising them right. Yes, a son who's super into trains. And I've been a geek for quite some time. I remember my dad showing me paintings of Conan the Barbarian from the original book series. Oh, nice. Yeah, it coincided with a day that I was really, really sick. So he thought he made me throw up

with how scary the ape beast was. It wasn't. So, it's been a while. It was just influenza. Yeah. Highly influenza of my youth. Yes. I know.

So Ed, we have a guest here today. Yes, yes we do, sir. It's a pleasure to meet you for our audience at home. Can you let them know who you are? I will do that. My name is Rex Stem. I am a Latin professor, which is how I came to know Damien Harmony. And I do not have the sort of nerd credentials that you two have, but I will try to help with the Roman history and the Latin background.

Now, you two have a lot of notes in front of you here. Yeah. And you have what looks like some kind of a dissertation here. I see something about Caesars' achievement in the Gallic war. So I'm fascinated. I want to know what you got to say about this. Let's jump right in. Well, I realize that in a lot of our episodes,

it's a lot of modern history. Yes. It's the Damian thinks 9-11 ruined everything channel as well. What kind of did? Yeah, as well as the end things that British parliamentary history is the most important thing channel and also down robots.

It's robots. So I figured let's go back a little bit further and see if we can, you know, I mean, you're living Hiroshima out entirely, especially when you talk about the giant robots, but yes, doing a little farther back into history is probably a golf ball. Get into some classics. So, yeah, I realized I was not necessarily equal to the task unless I brought in a bonafide expert. Okay, get a robot, by the way, is a classic. I just want to make sure I'm doing this to you.

It's like we're referred to the Greco-Roman classics. Oh, oh, oh, oh, we can just think of capital C. Capital C, capital C classics. Sorry, sorry. Not to be confused with classics, which is pickle talk. It's very different. Really, very bitter. Yeah, it's my bread and butter, but really.

Thank you. So you're delirious. Oh, you know what? I'm going to let that go. Well, I may sun, because it's a little jarring. So Rex save us for me. Okay, so we're gonna talk about Julia Caesar because it's the I'd of March and so but that's jumping ahead because we all know the I'd of March because he gets killed on the I'd of March and we're gonna talk

about how Caesar how Caesar came to be Caesar and And that is that when he was consul, chief magistrate in the Roman Republic, he got himself assigned to govern the provinces of what the Romans would call, sis alpine gall and trans alpine gall, which we would call northern Italy and France. Yeah. And at that point, Northern Italy is effectively conquered by the Romans, but they're not yet sort of fully incorporated into Italy.

They had at that point integrated really into Roman society. Yeah, well, they probably had in terms of their culture, politically, they would not rely on you. They would not rely on you. But those Caesar will make them full citizens before he makes the eyes of Mark. To the point where there is graffiti in Rome saying a good idea would be to not show a new senator where the Curia is because they didn't want Gallic senators coming in to the Curia. Wow. Yeah they even they even said Caesar

Concord these these Nancy boys who wear these girlish pants and they put down they pulled down their pants and put on the Togas So there's all kinds of really fun. Yeah, and this is Milan. We're talking about I mean these are fully Italian places now. Yeah, the idea that there could be that much discrepancy Yeah, so idea that there could be that much discrepancy. Yeah. So, so I'm curious, just now asked, when we're talking about Transalpine Gaul in this period, how much, when, by the time Cesar gets up there, I mean, I know about Versa and Getterics, I know those stories. That's all at the end. Yeah, that's seven years later. All right. Well, okay. But, but at the beginning of his time, based on what I know comes later,

I'm going to guess that the Gallic tribes there were still culturally and presumably linguistically entirely still Celtic, entirely. Okay. Yes. All right. And the Roman presence is really only the French Riviera, what we would call the Riviera. Just along the coast in order to go to Spain, because Rome had already taken Spain from Carthage, and they wanted to connect their empire. So there's a sliver of land on the coast, and there's all that France up there. That is sort of unknown and Britain. But for some reason, the Rhine River had already been decided as the border between

Gal and Germany. And Caesar's only interested in everything from the Rhine River to the Atlantic Ocean. Only. Only that was the greatest noise that there was. The largest plane in continental Europe. Yeah, and he crossed it sometimes to boffam on the nose and keep them back. Oh yeah. But that was or to chase someone down. Yeah. That was about it. Oh yeah. We we have a we think a richer understanding of the German threat than real Caesar lets on. Really? Yes. Okay well all right. So okay to stop interrupting. But we have to get into Germany. Yeah, so when Caesar starts out, so he, when he's constantly gets himself a command that's five years long.

Okay, and if you're a Roman and you know you have five years, then you can go pick a huge fight. Oh, yeah. Because you're gonna have all this time to go and deal with it. So it looks like Caesar is sort of eager to find somebody to go and mess with. And Caesar hears that the Swiss, the Helvitions or the Helvetii have decided to migrate all mass, all of them. He later says there

were 368,000 of them that decided to leave what we would call Switzerland and migrate down to the Roman part, and then back up towards the coast to some nice farmland where they could be more expansive. And to do that they're going to have to cross Roman territories and Caesar says, no, you can't do that. They had two possible roots. One was through a mountain pass. I mean it's Switzerland. Yeah, the reason they never got invaded by the Nazis Well one of the reasons But they had to pass through a mountain pass that was so small that only a ox and a cart could get through and then some people on the Overhanging cliff with good arrows Could stall everything because not only do you kill that thing?

It doesn't disappear like in video games. It blocked everything. Yeah And so you just keep rating down games. It blocked everything. Yeah. And so you just keep rating down arrows. Well, that's part of the reason, that's part of the reason the battle of the hot gates was what it was. Exactly. So obviously.

And Caesar talks about that. He says, so they had that, or they could go through our territory, which is a much wider place to Ford. And so you can just kind of guess what a population, who by the way is leaving an area that's I want to say 240 by 180 miles Believe that's exactly right. Yeah That small an area and they're all leaving like he said So okay, you say he had this figure of

368,000 yeah, he claims okay now 368,000. So he claims. Okay. Now, do we have any kind of archaeological evidence, any kind of other corroborating evidence of whether his numbers are inflated? Do we know anything about where he's getting these figures? Well, he's, you know, Rush Limbaugh

just pulling a number out of his finds. He says that when he defeats these people, he finds in their luggage effectively a census of everyone who had left on the expedition and then he offers some of those numbers and they total up to 368,000. So we have to, he's the only sword. Okay, we got it. Okay. And we have to allow for that. Okay. And I find that interesting because the the the hell venti were were Celtic Celtic tribe And I know that outside of you know some of the Celtic tribes developing an augum system that didn't actually Have a real system of writing

This was in Greek character. Oh Yeah, so they were using Oh, okay, alright, okay, alright. Yeah, so they were using literature and okay, alright. Because, well, okay, because actually, the city of Marseille had long been a Greek colony well before the Romans had forgotten. So there's some saturation of Greek culture of the Romans then to the point where they have

kind of reimagined Greek gods, and they worshiped them in a slightly different way. But, But which will come into play a little bit later, honestly, but they they fully have adopted some trappings of like Greek cosmology. Okay. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. So then we have to get into the interesting part. So there's some, on the one hand, this is very easy to account to understand. You have this whole people that wants to migrate through Roman territory, and these are just assumes you're gonna come and you're gonna take stuff and you're gonna kill people and you're gonna pillage,

and I'm not gonna let you do that. Yeah. And they initially resist and then they make a deal with the neighboring tribe and they're gonna go a different way, but they disobey what Caesar wants them to do and so he rushes back to Italy and recruits to three more legions I think at least two. He levies one in the area and he's coming up with another and then he marches back and chases them down and there's some

there's some chasing and then eventually they end up fighting and it's a decisive victory for him. Okay, so that's the sort of easy way to understand the story. Okay. But there are some details in this story which he acknowledges but he doesn't actually really explain. And those are the things that sort of caught the eye of Damien and me. Okay. For example, when he sets up the reason that they're going to migrate, he says that there was a chief to a named Orgetta ex and he had this ambition that the Elvation people should

be the number one people of Gaul. And so he convinces everybody to migrate. They say, we're going to spend two years getting ready and then we're gonna go and our Gettar ex-goes and makes alliances with the neighboring peoples but forms his own tram for it. He really does. He does. He's complete with marrying his daughter to someone else. Really? Yeah and these are kind of like the parallel is that. Yeah he confesses by accusation there. Oh yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. All right. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah is put on trial. He escapes, but is found dead. Okay. Suicide is suspected, says Caesar. And then you'd think... It fell on his own swords. It's times. Backwards.

Backwards, oddly enough. Okay, but you'd think if this conspiratorial leader had a plan to get everybody to migrate Then once you realize that the leader is conspiratorial and is a fraud then surely you're gonna abandon the plan to migrate That would be the reason to do you think and yet Caesar says even though he was dead The hell reasons decided to carry through with their plan anyway Recruiting other tribes by the the way. Yeah, yeah. So then you begin to realize, well, maybe there's

some other motivation here that the elevations need to leave this territory. And it isn't the kind of bella-coe-sambition that Caesar is attributing to them. Moreover, Caesar says that when they leave, they burn all of their towns and villages and all of their freestanding buildings. Now he says they do that so that they don't have a temptation to give up on the whole expedition

and go back home. Right. And the only sure way to convince them that they have to go through with what they say is to burn everything so that there's nothing to go home to. But again, the two, the two Damian and I, this seems like the sort of clue that there might be some other reason why they need to leave and they need to leave in this sort of on mass. It feels like more than just a migration. Yeah. Now, I also want to point out that Caesar

is writing these dispatches back to the Senate, partly as a, here's why I'm here and why you need me here, but he also knows that they're being read in the forum. And so he's writing it, I call it the prism effect. He's writing it for one audience, knowing it and another audience will hear it. And so everything he writes has to be in terms that the people will love him for and that the Senate will realize his necessity for. That's happening.

Okay. And I'm hoping I'm not stepping on any of that. No, not at all. No, because that explains sort of the audience that he's trying to reach, but also it limits him because he doesn't necessarily want to make everything known to everybody. Right. To go back to the number of 368,000 that he says left on this expedition, at the end of the expedition when he finds these things and then he does his own census and he finds

there's only 110,000 left. So that means 258,000 people have disappeared. And that's hard to, I mean, some people who think the worst of Caesar say this is a genocidal maniac who just killed 250,000 people. It doesn't even sweat over that. But Caesar only describes one battle with the hellbicians. And that battle has a fairly limited form. And it's not the sort of thing where you'd expect to one of 50,000 people to do.

Well, any kind of battle in a classical period, you're not, I mean, with a couple of notable massive, you know, a couple of battles that are notable for being as massive as they were and were commented on at the time as being these huge apocalyptic things, that is a casualty figure that beggars the imagination. Well, and even the massive ones are 50,000. Yeah, yeah, so this, you, okay. So there's a, times of scale, or canane, guin' a, quintupled.

So there's a huge scale, or issue here. Yes, okay, I can see that. Or something is causing the herbisions to die, that is in addition to whatever Caesar is doing. And perhaps this is related to the fact that they had to burn all their possessions before they left. Okay.

These are the sorts of clues that if you look for them, we start to form a pattern, we think. Okay. And then after this expedition, the pattern that the Senate would see, by the way, they would absolutely catch, but the common folk would be like, hey, go slaughter them. That's great. Better over there than over here.

Well, yeah. Make room great again. Yes. Yeah, build wall. Yeah, build two walls. Build multiple. You're getting ahead. Sorry, sorry.

Yes. Seven years later. Back to this versus gettering. All right. Sorry, sorry. Seven years later. Back to his versus gettering. All right. Okay. So, as to the hell of me, get paid, yeah. All the Gallic states from nearby come to congratulate Caesar on his victory and sort of try to figure out what's going to happen next for them in Gall. And they asked for a private meeting with Caesar.

It isn't going to a regular Gellik Congress and they swear owes that they can't tell anybody about what happens at this meeting unless they've been officially chosen by their people to come and represent their people at this meeting. And then we learn, and so, and Caesar tells it, this is when Caesar learns

that there is this other threat in Gaul. And that comes from the Germans who are led by a king named Aureo Vistus. And Aureo Vistus has come across the Rhine initially because he was invited, or that's what he's going to say later, and is now so encroaching upon, well, he starts in the lands of the Sequoane who were next to the land of the L.A.T. and then next to that are the Idoey who are the chief allies of Caesar and Gaul. So these three people are all getting pressed by the presence of our Augustus, the German. And everyone for reference, this is like Northern Switzerland. Yeah, Austria, that area.

Okay, when we say the German, what were we talking, ancestor of Austria, Goth, and we're talking Gothic, or we're talking no. Don't know, they were migratory as heck by this point. Oh, they hadn't settled. Germanos.

Yeah, okay, yeah, the last. Yeah, okay. There's there. What that means, saddles. Germanos. There's what that means. Those guys up across the river. Yeah, those guys up in the woods. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. All right, the hill people. Yeah. Yeah. The woods people. Yeah. The hill people, the hill people, people with my people. Build a wall.

I'll open it. I had to, didn't I? Okay, so so everyone is terrified of this Oreo Vista just terrified and they talk about how anybody who crosses him is tortured and that he is barbaric and that he is a hothead and that he is extreme and they have given hostages to him because that was required because he has defeated them in battle once and they fear for the lives of their hostages.

And they're trying to get Caesar to intervene to get them back. But Arya Vistis, here's of this, they're afraid he's gonna kill all the hostages. They say he's gonna put them to the greatest torture. Wow, it's their language. Okay, this's gonna put them to the greatest torture. Wow. So they're like, okay, this guy sounds kind of like the earlier coming of Attila the Hun. Yeah. Oh, it's it's actually more serious than that. Yeah. Oh wow. Yeah.

Yeah. The climax of this scene is when there's one group at this conference of Gauls and they don't even say anything. They just look down. They're absolutely mute and Caesar goes over to them and he says, you know, why are you not speaking? Why you're not involved in this and they just refuse to talk to him and then the other Dalekets explain that this was the group that initially had our Abyssalis come to them and they are so terrified of him that they won't even complain or a vistas come to them and they are so terrified of him that they won't even complain because they feel that he is present even when he's not there.

And so somehow he's gonna hear what they have to say and they refuse to even acknowledge that this has been talked about. Wow. Yeah, so you can see that there's something really unsettling going on here. Okay. And the people closest to it are the most afraid of it.

And then as you move out from that center, it's a little less frightening, but it's pretty frightening. Radiation of fear. And Caesar has sort of only realized that the enemy in Gaul that he's really got a deal with was not the Elvisions. And that there's this other figure that now has to become the center of his attention. Okay. So his first year in Gaul, you have the sudden pivot from the Elvisions, which was a nice campaign that ended to the real threat, which turns out to be Aureo Vistis, the German.

The next interesting part is when the Roman, so he then marches toward Oravistus and the men begin to get news, word of what the Germans are like. And they are told that the Gauls who tried to fight the Germans were just terrified. They couldn't handle the look in their eyes. The Aki-Ais Okulorum, which is this fantastic phrase in Latin. It means literally the battle line of the eyes. I love that. That's like, wow. Cultivate that look.

Yeah, you know? Yeah, that's power. Yeah, that is. Wow. That's Bradbury kind of language. It really is. It's fantastic. It's fantastic. And this is how you know that this is not just the normal enemy, right? There is something that animates these people that that terrifies those who see them and so the the Army effectively mutinies and says this sounds horrible. We cannot go fight these people and we're gonna stop right here

And it's especially as centurions, right? They're sticking up for their men saying, no more. No, we're stopping, boss. No boss. Yeah, we're done. It's pillow, I'll be. Yeah, we're done. All right.

And then Caesar has to come out and give a big speech and try to save the day. And he does eventually persuade them favors the 10th legion, sort of uses the 10th Legion's loyalty against the rest and convinces them to keep marching. Yes. But it's one of the few times in the whole narrative of Caesar's campaigns

that his troops say no to him. Okay. He has to persuade them to go forward. Yeah. So again, these are the accumulating clues that this enemy is something that you would not expect Caesar to go and find at the end of the story. And then there's some back and forth thing and there's some movements and eventually it turns out that the German forces want to wait until the full moon to battle.

And when Caesar learns this, then he realizes he's got to speed things up so that he can force a fight before the full moon. And the battle scene itself is really... No, was this for Germanic pagan religious reasons? That's what's being reported. Yeah. That he, that are you weaseless? Despite the fact that he's the head chief and he listens to these cronish-type women.

And he keeps going back to them according to Caesar. He keeps going back to them and say, can I do it now? No, no, it doesn't look good. How about now? No, no, it doesn't look good. How about now? Way to the foam moon. And then maybe.

And in the meantime, he's trying to stall with Caesar. At one point, they have a parlay. And if I'm jumping ahead on that, they have this wonderful parlay where he essentially, Ariwiscus knows that Romans don't do the horse thing. They hire the horse thing. So he says, I will parlay with you and we will meet as equals. He's like, nah, that ain't gonna happen. But eventually they go back and forth.

He says, we'll meet as equals on horses. I will meet with you if you are on horses. And so Caesar turns to the 10th legion is like, you're all on horses now. And they turned to him and they said, we've been promoted. Well, because that made that made them equities. Right, exactly. And so they have this joke in the middle of this whole story. It's a wonderful, wonderful little bit. And so there's a lot of back and forth thing until, you know, but ultimately it is like, are we going to fight it under the full moon or not? So, I just love that story too much to leave it out.

Okay, so as we approach the climax of this campaign, I think it's worth sort of pulling together the clues now that we have talked about. So we have an enemy that has this, the battle line of their eyes, that the Romans don't even wanna look at, right? They break down and weep and they don't wanna fight and they're ready to meet me against Caesar. So men are far as weeping.

Oh, so far as weep. Oh, so far weeping. They're writing their wills. They think it's over. And weeping back then was not like it is now. Like it was a welcome thing. It was a fine thing to do. It's not a sign of sheer cowardice. It's a sign of passion.

Okay, but these are still hard, these are veteran tricks. Yeah, who are actually complaining not just about their eyes, but how huge these guys are. Oh, yeah, no, I've heard the stories of, you know, you talk about Mediterraneans at this time being my height,

five, six, I'm just a good guy. You guys haven't been able to figure that out, you know, listening to us, but I am, you know, whereas the Germania my height, or higher, or taller, or taller or you know six feet plus yeah I know it'd be terrifying yeah and in an age where combat was all muscle-powered that's a big deal okay but this is where we're going at there's more going on here than just muscle power yeah okay because this is the kind of enemy that

makes men weep and this is what the Gauls did when they came to Caesar to explain to him what this thing was like they were all weeping at his feet saying please help us right and the Sequo Sequoane, you know, wouldn't even speak, wouldn't even acknowledge that this enemy was out there. And the Helvicians clearly are trying to flee this enemy, and they are going to flee so completely that they are going to burn all of their villages and towns and all their vill buildings, so they're gonna leave nothing behind. And yet, 250,000 of them die on this campaign. So, something is out there that is extraordinarily terrifying

that would cause entire peoples to flee from it. Okay. To burn their homes in fleeing from it. Okay. Yes. So, what could that enemy be? Like, what enemy fits the clues that we have been describing? Because it can't just be a big German guy, a Conan the barbarian figure. Right. Right. So these are fights lots of people like that and he never has this sort of

inset of clues that suggest something that is truly different. Okay, and so Damien and I have come to the conclusion that the best explanation that fits all of these clues and explains what's going to come later in the story, which we're happy to walk you through. Okay, is that Aaryo Vistis must be a zombie king and he is leading a zombie horde of the undead across the Rhine into Gaul and threatening Western civilization. And Caesar has to stop it. Okay, wait.

Back up. Okay. Back up. Okay. So, you had me. It has taken off his glasses and his rubbing his temples. Yeah, in my eyes. Okay, we're working from the evidence head. Yeah. Okay, well, you know, I get that, but are we sure he couldn't be a lich king? Oh, since he's not mindless.

Obviously, he's scheming. And so, I have to admit, my biggest problem with that theory is I can certainly understand the horrid that he's driving could be a horrid of the undead. I mean, the burning of the villages is pretty evocative. I was kind of thinking in that direction myself, you know, from the beginning. But I like that you're not surprised at the zombie part. Well, you know, the logistics of it. I mean, it had to be. No, no, no, I'm going to go right there with you.

So part of the strategy here is that Caesar is trying to reveal things gradually. Okay. And he's not just going to come out and say, hello, Senator Rome, we're dealing with a Litch King. He can't just write that out. Oh, yeah, no. OK, I can start. So what he's doing is setting up the hoard of the undead

from the whole of the whole. Oh, OK, all right. So first, and then you have to deal with, well, what kind of king is he really? And what sort of powers does he have? But Caesar hasn't yet, I think, even yet fully understood situation. But he wants to bring the reader in, you know, steadily, steadily, steadily, steadily. So you can understand the scale of what it's about.

Of the Necromancer involved. Yes, yes. And the last clue comes in the final battle when the armies finally meet up. And Caesar describes how the Romans, the Germans, that was scare quotes for you, the Germans sort of form up this wall of shields and the Romans leap up and rip away the shields from above and stab downward in order to kill the Germans. Which really sounds like an efficient beheading strategy. Well, that's the one way you can stop the forward advance. Well, yeah, as a sword geek, that does kind of make sense. Also, I find it an interesting departure from what we know about normal Roman tactics, which would have been, you know,

form the testudo in March forward and stand still. Or make the saw teeth and just go forward and meet Grindr. That won't work if your enemy is so huge and so enured to pain that the only thing, right? Yeah, that the only thing to do it would have to be a shot running Yeah, leaping jump to stab them in the head. Yeah, yeah, okay Okay, all right again. It's because you understand what a normal battle would go like How would you describe that you realize that this description suggests that this is not the enemy that the normal reader might Okay, the problem though is that not the enemy that the normal reader might deal with. Okay. The problem though is that even when the Romans turn this German army and they fully all

the way back to the Rhine, a lot of them are killed, I don't know if he gives a number, but a tremendous amount of them are killed. But Aariovistus himself escapes with a few others across the Rhine back into Germany. Okay. And so Caesar thinking that he was gonna go and eliminate this threat now realizes that the origin of the whole Horde is now back across the Rhine in a place that he can't get to and potentially all of Gaul and then ultimately, potentially Italy

is at risk from what this king might do. And Caesar then commits pretty openly, I think, to staying in Gaul as long as he has to to deal with this threat. Okay, and so the next year he goes north to Belgium and the third year he goes down to along the coast. Along the coast. It attacks the Seagulls. The Southwest part of Gaul.

But those are just normal good days, sir. Those Seagulls are just normal opponents. Yes. And it's just military campaigning again. Yeah. You have regular style narrative. Yeah. And you realize that this is different than it was in the beginning. And then, fourth year of the war, new German horn comes across the line. Caesar rushes over, captures their leaders, he slars everybody.

He kind of admits that he slaughtered everybody without really following the normal protocols for treaties and alliances. Because he thinks this is the return of the zombie court, I'm not going to treat them like I would a regular foreign power. But it turns out that they were just men and he killed a lot of them and he still doesn't know what to do. So then he actually builds a bridge across the Rhine that he describes in loving detail. Oh, yeah. He's the famous, 10-day bridge. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, and he spends a couple of weeks over in Germany and no one comes.

Like he's over there, he's making a target of himself, no one comes. So he gives up, comes back across the Rhine, tears up the bridge, and then realizes that, or then, Damien and I think, and this is more Damien's theory.

So I'm about to pass this over to him. He thinks that maybe the druids are the source of this knowledge. And the druids are, they're from Britain. They're up north. They're in the island across the ocean. And no Roman has really been there.

He sends an advanced party there, but doesn't get the guy back for a while. So it's kind of an odd thing and they're remote and so he's going to have to go and explore that. Before I get there, now I want to just go back to that first and last battle with Arie Vista's. It's in book one of Caesar, it's around chapter 52, and Rex found this wonderful quote, he says, throwing aside their javelins, our men fought with swords hand to hand. The normal thing is you throw javelins as you advance and then you just go in and you meet Grindr them, but they were found very many of our soldiers who leaped upon the failings and with their hands tore away the shields and wounded the enemy from above

If you're a Roman in the forum, this is like the climactic battle You're just like yeah, you're seeing out of Michael back. Yeah, I don't really this is yeah, it's fantastic So so if you're in the Senate you're a former soldier. Yeah. And you're sitting there going, oh, this is why. Why are we doing that? So. Okay, so, so how much of this is him sending a code to the Senate? And how much of this is him doing like Shakespeare did

and playing with the ground like this? The answer is yes. You have any reading? Okay, poor kid, no low stopes. Yeah. Yeah. Why not both? Okay. So because he is doing that. And in so doing, here's the fun part. He is both saving Rome and putting them in his pocket. Like he is increasing his legend and also letting the Senate know, like this is some bad problem. It's a good thing you've got me up here though. And so there's obvious propaganda. Okay. But it's also very much like,

no, this is a real problem. Okay. And it might be why Pompey and Crasse didn't go up to help him, but did send relatives and friends with him. Because Crasse's son serves under Caesar for a while. Which is kind of a return because Caesar served under Crasse's and for us. And, you know, Pompey, of course, is married to Caesar's daughter and so he's going to send advisors to protect his father-in-law, who's 10 years, his younger or so. So it's weird.

But it's worth adding out that there has never been an account of a war as extensive as this one. Yes. And this is a sort of unique literary moment for Roman history. And that too, I think suggests that this is an enemy that was unlike other enemies that Rome had to fight. Okay. And Caesar wants to memorialize that. Yes. And yet not

Well, he can't let out the real truth how crazy would it sound if he just came out straight instead You know, we're fighting a horde of the undead right, you know I mean anybody who believed him would immediately panic right everybody else would just think he was crazy right you know Batnuts right so you know so he has to thread the needle between building his own exactly So, you know, so you have to thread the needle between building his own room. Exactly. Having it sound like Rome is as invincible as ever. Yeah. And yet, alerting those who understand how grave this threat really is. Okay.

That's the genius on it. Or that's why you have to go out of the grave. Thank you. Oh, yes. Yeah. You started to make our mark and I did where you were going. Yeah. I like it.

Yeah. I dug it. Yeah. I dug it. Oh, sir, I say good day. So we're going to fast forward from that battle to the fourth year. So he's gone around, smacking around on the Gauls, runs across the river, thinks that he's going after. Yeah, no, just to stress again. So not all the campaigns of Caesar are against undead opponents. No, almost them really are just these are the Belgians and I thought them and it was like this. Okay, so you have to look for the clues where you can say these are the episodes that really matter.

Okay. So in book four of Caesar, so this is four years into the battle, right? Book four. I'm blanking on what year that would be. That would be 50, five. Five, yeah, five. You start would be. That would be 55. Five, yeah, he starts 58. Yeah, so 55. So in book four, Caesar goes to Britain, right.

And the reason he goes to Britain is because he's heard things. And he's trying to find the source. He sees these zombies thing. It's got to have a source. And there's rumors of men in Britain who are blue. And they don't eat rabbits, geese, or other types of animals. Very strange, even though these are animals that are all around them. And he's also heard this rumor of this group of people called the Druids.

And they have religious practices. And I talked about this earlier. Now, the Druids and all of Gaul seem to have taken the Greek gods and kind of shuffled them around a bit. The chief god amongst the Druids is Dees. And that's the god of death. Yes. Hades for the great. Yeah. So he's like, oh, okay, well they worship death. Necromancy. The undead. Okay. Right? Okay. Okay. So he got me. He thought

it was the Germani, but then he's like, well, I haven't heard from them in a while and Are you is this was about four years ago? Three years ago and there's not been any real zombie stuff in that time So he goes to Britain to try to fair it out because it's still in a a threat that's that's looming on the horizon Okay, he gets to Britain But the he runs into the Britons who show none of the same tactics that the Germany showed. Well, no, they were cherry at fights. Yes, and they're way too in the challenge. Way too human. They're too nimble. Their cherry tears,

tears. He writes about them. He says that they, and all my quotes here in Latin. So he says I might have it in English Over here that they throw their weapons and generally break the ranks of the enemy and with the very dread of their horses and the noise of their wheels They do this. They just I mean their shock troops, right? Yeah, and we know that chariots are inefficient Weapons but they're a crew weapon. That's what makes them amazing. You can't do that with zombies. And then he says, and they run along the pole and stand on the yoke, and then spedate themselves

with the greatest clarity to their chariots again. Which I used to think they're back flipping, but really they could just jump up and the chariots keep going and then they fall. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Star's amazing. Yeah speaking as a, you know, Kelto file, you know, one of the, one of the stories that

you wind up hearing from Celtic sources, Celtic legend and myth that was, you know, held on to by the Irish. Spoiler alert, I know what happens in Britain and Ireland is the only place. Anyway, I don't want to give it away for anybody who doesn't know. But they talked about these heroic feats, the their charioteers, the drivers and the warriors equally were able to do. And it was a big deal socially for status and all these kind of things to be one of these guys. Yeah. You know, and talking about how nimble and how fast moving they were, it was their tactic

that, you know, the warrior would jump off of the chariot as they broke the line, they would jump off of the chariot, they would fight, they would try to gather as many heads of the enemy as they could. Yes. Okay, I just had a thought about that. Yes. And then carrying the heads in one hand and with their sword or, you know, one of their swords in the other, they would then have to run to catch up to their own chariot and jump, run it as it turned around and wheeled back through the line to their own side.

Running head long. Yes. Sir, my second shall contact you directly. So Caesar gets up there and he sees no evidence of this. He can't find the elusive druids. Nothing's conclusive. He does find a bunch of dissonous Britons, by the way, like, like everyone has. Yeah. But he finds them and he demands hostages and they hem in hawn, they lie to him and so he's like, all right, I'll be back. And he gets to explore for a while.

He smacks them around, he doubles his demand for hostages, he goes back home, goes back to golf. Still no source of zombies, but he also didn't get a chance to fully explore Britain, so he'll be back the next year. He also learns that the druids don't write anything down. Right. Everything is transmitted to Orally, and they run a sort of school where recruits come for a certain amount of time until they've learned all the druid magic. Yes. So this, this, it's still in him that, that if there is a source of learning

that might, that might be related to these dark arts, then the druid still seem like the most likely source. So we've got to go back to Britain and keep looking. Yeah. And he knows that. And also the fact that they don't send all the hostages makes him wonder, why are they so willing to be dishonest to me, Caesar? So one problem that he hopes to confront was that full moon issue

He doesn't get to it in book four And actually interestingly in book five so now we're in 54 I Don't do math backwards very well 54 okay, so now we're in book 54 or we're in year 54 BC In book five, it's the only time that Caesar stays the winter in Gaul Every other time he's gone back to Italy this time he stays in Gaul so There's a shift there to me. So like you see some exploratory commissions being set up, you know

And stuff like that in book four and but we've seen nothing for three years So it's it's kind of running dry and then in book five. But we've seen nothing for three years. So it's kind of running dry. And then in book five, it's a real shift. He stays in winter. There's this group of people up north called the Travary. And they peak his interest, but he's still dead set on the source being in Britain. Where are you gonna? Oh, okay.

And the Travary is this group that doesn't come to the general council that he calls and they border on the Rhine now he's still thinking it's in Britain. It's got to be in Britain It's got to be in Britain. I swear it's in Britain. They're blue. It's got to be in Britain Now did he actually encounter anybody and any of any of the pictures not doubted undoubtedly Pictish says the Scott at the table who, you know, were the source of the blue bee. He mentions them as being in Kent and that there's a triangle in the middle of the island and they use tin and they don't use gold or any normal metals for currency.

They use rings. Okay. But it seems to me, and he even talks about like kind of alludes to a wode. Yeah. A bit, but also he doesn't know much about these things. I don't know that he's ever encountered them though. Does he actually? I don't think so.

Yeah. It's what he hears, but I think he never says that he saw any blooms. Yeah. So he figures that since he beat the Germans in book one, right? That the leader of the Traviri is a guy named Indutio Maros. He figures Indutio Maros is overreacting when he comes to Caesar going, there's Germans on the Rhine. This is a problem. He's like, no, no, no, you know what? Give me your hostages and Indutio Maros begs him to address the zombie problem in his territory. And Caesar shuts him up.

And he instead says, you know what? Give me all your leaders. And I'm gonna put this guy named Singatorics in charge of your tribe. And I'm gonna take all your leaders to Britain to show you that I know where the zombies are sourced, locally sourced. Yeah, well, you need organic, exact sourced parts. Kind of by default. Yeah, you know, you need organic, exactly. So, where's the parts?

Kind of by default. Yeah, you know. And he's certain of this. And here's the kicker. He's wrong. And he doesn't say, I was wrong. But you see there's a shift after about six or seven books in. And one of the reasons that he's wrong is like,

he really flubs it here a couple times and maybe even opens the floodgates by accident because he takes the leaders away from the bell guy. The bell guy are one of the toughest tribes. They punch the Germans when they come across the Rhine. The Helaity used to punch the Germans when they came across the Rhine down south. And so it's just like you know whack them all with the Germans So he takes them with him. He even takes Yeah, like I said he takes a lot of leaders with him He leaves his favorite guy Of I'd say the entire Gallic Wars

Labanus Which is so fun because Labanus in the the civil wars gets roasted by Caesar because Caesar thinks Labanus is just so loyal to him He's the best soldries ever had etc etc Like out shines mark Anthony Mark Anthony barely gets mentioned at all in these wars But Labanus is just getting high praise the whole time later on when he crosses the Yeah, the Rubicon Labanus is like I can't go with you. I'm sorry. No, I'm loyal to Rome not to you and Caesar's just so hurt by that that he spends three chapters Oh

hugely, yeah, he spends three chapters in his civil wars just Roasting Labanus about what a traitor. He is yeah, and wow. Oh, he gets so caddy Caesar so what we're saying here is, Caesar, in fact, showed signs of narcissistic personality disorder. A little bit, a little bit. He's a messy, messy bitch. Okay, he really is.

He really is. He really is. Okay, I'd like to just interrupt here and say, actually, what's his claims is that all the Britons die themselves with woe'd, wheat from, wheat from is the word, which makes their appearance in battle more terrible. Yeah. So he makes it sound like a regular battle with the Britons involves large numbers of blue people. All right. So yeah. So it isn't just the picks? Yeah, it's all in. It's all in.

That's right, it's for its honey. That is chapter 14 of book five. There you go. Since I have the text. Yeah. Because we're working from the evidence. Yes, yes, yes. Consistently.

I am really impressed. Going from the actual act with the hard evidence that you brought to bear here. So, he leaves Libanus, who by the way is the most experienced zombie hunter of all his men. He leaves him lots and lots of horses because one thing you need against zombies is speed. They've got the numbers you've got to speed. Yeah. Because you're going to go lopping off his. Swinging downward.

Yeah. So he leaves him horses so that you can also have communication across vast areas, in case you get wiped out. Caesar makes it back to Britannia. Again, he figures out the sources and kents. He figures this out according to himself. Again, these are the weird people

that don't eat rabbits, chickens or geese. And turns out the blue men actually did just paint themselves. Okay. Darn it, it's not the source. And then he leaves, like pretty shortly thereafter. Okay, cool. I'm gonna grab some hostages and then we're gonna take off. Brings in due to a martis and everyone back. I'm sure it was like one of the most uncomfortable rides back because he knows he's wrong.

He can't admit that he's wrong. You know, but he's largely uninterested. I could just picture some sub-shoeft in the back of the wagon. Aw, poor. Yeah, are we gonna tell him? Are you gonna tell him? I'm not gonna tell him. The Romans don't go back to Britain for a hundred years.

Yeah, so it's not until long. That's how long it was. And when they do, by the way, they end up just killing all the druids. They eradicate, they eradicate the druids. That was the spoiler I didn't want to give away. Is they wind up, not only do they wind up wiping the druids out, they wind up committing historical character defamation, creating, well, per two.

But many of the things that they wind up writing about the Druids and Druid practices, we strongly suspect now were just complete fabrications to make them look bloodthirsty primitive and, you know, more violent and terrible than they actually were. Or they're drawing on the memories of what Caesar had left for them. Great. These people, you know, so Caesar says that they build these sort of wicker statues in different forms and fills them with living people and burns them alive. Yeah. This is what you would do. Yeah. That's yeah. Yeah. Like you do. Like now. But I wonder if there are sources that corroborate that or if that really is Caesar becoming legend.

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I mean the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the, the post-Victorian, you know, studies of what we found. So it's indicated that one way or another that was, that was at the very least an exaggeration possibly fabrication in regard to druidic practices. You know, I think it's interesting that it might be conflating whatever might have been done by whoever you guys have, you know, pinned as being the source of this that can sacrifice might be part of the necromancy involved in this whole thing.

Could be. Could be. Could be attempting to conflict to try to make himself sound like, well, you know, I didn't really fuck up that badly because they were still doing this thing. Right. And it's entirely possible because when they talk about the Wicker Man and we're jumping ahead a bit, when they talk about the Wicker Man, they fill them with the lowest types of people first. And then when they run out of those, if they haven't filled it all the way to the top,

then they throw whoever they can. Now, that sees are talking about it, but it's people whose lives have no value. And even slaves have value in Rome. Yeah. So you wouldn't just throw slaves in, but you might if they had gotten bitten and the only way to get rid of them. Oh.

Yeah. I feel up the whole statue. Yeah. And it doesn't mean that they got it all 100% right. Maybe this was, okay, we're gonna put it in the form of the first zombie that we ever saw. It's a wicker man that looks like that. It's teaming with zombies,

and we're gonna burn it to appeal to the gods. Okay. You know, the first and worst explanation of most things. Yeah. So, there you go. So he comes back from Britain and calls a general counsel of all the Northern Gauls and he tells them what's going on. He says, the source is not Britannia. I was wrong, it's not Britannia. And when he shows up, they're in Northern and Central Gaul. He finds out that

there's a famine in the territory of the Eberronis. And he uses this as his excuse to spread out the legions. Now, here's the kicker. If you spread out your legions, you are not eating all the grain from one area and forcing those people to attack you. This is true. So spreading it out, everybody's going to get a 20% pay cut instead of this one group that'll spark a rebellion. But at the same time, you spread them all out. Now you have mobility and you have a much wider net that you've cast to try to find the source of these zombies.

And so this way, he has a very mundane explanation for why he's doing it, lack of grain, but he also has a very understandable explanation for why he's doing it. Lack of grain, but he also has a very understandable plausible reason for why he has to be everywhere so that he can find this. And he stays the winter to make sure. In fact, they even use the words, Kertur Faktus Est in Hiberna, which is he is informed while in winter camps, but character or means to be made more certain. Okay, so it's much more with that.

Now he's racked without worry. He'd been wrong about the source, and he knows it in Dutuomar's wasn't overreacting now. Sorry buddy, I was wrong. You were right. Let's get this working right And now he thinks that anything might be the source though. So now he's swinging quite the other way Exactly. Okay, he sends a guy named Plancus to investigate a murder There's a guy named Tuscettius who gets murdered who had been a king of his region for three years under Caesar basically Caesar comes in he'd help Caesar Lied himself with Caesar and he's like all right great. You're our comes in, he helps Caesar, allied himself with Caesar, and he's like,

all right, great, you're our guy. And then he gets murdered. And he says, he says, Plancus, he says, go figure it out. Go find out what happened and bring me people and question them. He's basically saying, was this political or was it murder? It was political. It was 100% political.

All right. Now, in Dutu, Maris warns another guy named ambiorex. ambiorex is warned about the zombies. Now ambiorex just gave grain to the Romans, just gave it to him and he realizes that he needs the grain back. So the plot thickens here. And so because they need to be able to fight off the dramatic horde that's coming their way and so he goes here's his plan. He's gonna go and get the grain from the Romans. Now I don't know that he wanted to go attack the Romans who are set up in his territory but I do know that his own

people insist on it because he says so. He knows that the attack will fail though. He knows this, but Ambiorex's tribe works in such a way that he has just as much power over the people as they have over him. So he's going to do a pirate captain, I guess. Okay, yeah. Rules by prestige and... Exactly.

During a battle... Swaying. I will lead us. After the battle, we'll all decide. You know He knows he's gonna fail. He leads them into failure and they immediately ask for parlay and he says He tells him flat out We need your help now There's a sentence that Caesar uses in book five chapter 26 and he puts the words for grain and in Dutu Amar's in the same sentence.

So they are close enough to each other that you're like, okay, this is what's going on. These are the priorities. Okay. Now, ambiorex is 100% genuine in his plea. Everything that he says is absolutely true. He says that essentially there is a big horde of Germans coming across the Rhine. They will be here in two days. Now where they are is that's a hell of a hard march to get across the Rhine and then over to there in two days. He says they're going to march all day and all night. They're going to be here in two days.

And so either you can leave voluntarily or they will kill you here. And he promises them safe passage through his territories. And he means it, 100%. I think. And Rex and I have kind of come to this conclusion that he actually is on the side of the Romans, but he absolutely needs the grain for his people.

And Caesar's not there, so he can't talk directly to him, but he can talk to Caesar's lieutenants, Kata and Sabinus. And he talks to them about it, and he says, now I'm going to go off and try to hold them back. You get out of here. And what not. And I'm sorry that we attacked you. It's just our custom.

And as you can see, I knew that we wouldn't win. He even says, I knew that we wouldn't win. You know that I knew that. I even know one of your friends. He knows that I knew that. He's dropping all the cred that he can on this. He says, but they're coming. Okay. Yeah. Please. So he knows that large horde of Germans is coming. Okay. And he's afraid. you know, this is the kind of enemy that you double cross the Romans for. So again, we're seeing the clues that this is not the normal battle that we're having. And Caesar has already, as David explained, spread his men across the landscape, sort of anticipating that the moment has come. So the reason to focus on the failed expedition to Britain,

I think, is because there was sort of a void back in Gaul. And once these are returns, he realizes the trap that he's going into. And there's a very oblique mention of the fact that news has been received, that Arial Vistis is is dead Okay, but what could that be? Okay Like Damien. Yeah, well actually that is the end of our episode for this week So we're gonna leave you on a cliffhanger

I'm sorry But it'll make it much more exciting to listen to the next episode. I strongly recommend, by the way, that you listen to these episodes in sequence. You're a monster if you listen to the second episode first. It just doesn't make any sense. Yeah. Yeah. But, so Rex, thank you for being a part of this episode.

Very welcome. And I look forward to your collaboration on the next episode coming up next week. It's great to have the chance to explain this. Absolutely. And yeah, it really is nice to give it breath and to allow it to actually like kind of... Well, yeah, no, I can't understand how having discovered something like this, it would just drive one baddie. Yeah.

Not being able to. It's driven me to puns, really. It's that's the reason. No, it's based in evidence. Yeah, it is evidence. It is. It is. Well, I'll tell you what's going on.

It may drive you to pun. Yes. But the evidence is clearly there. And we'll get into the grammar of the evidence next week as well. OK. Because there is an actual grammatical component to this that is compelling as all get out. But for right now, what's your take away so far?

It's really hard to say. Do you want to just hold off until next time? Yeah, I think holding off until we have the whole totality of the story and everything. Sure. Absolutely. I think it's definitely worth it. Okay. Well, since we've got a guest here, I'm going to put everybody on the spot. Okay.

So Rex, are there any books that you can recommend that you've just been enjoying lately? They don't have to pertain to the subject at hand, but any book that you've really enjoyed in the last couple months that you've gotten to read? Oh, no. I read scholarship that is actually unpleasant even for nerds. Sorry to hear that. Yeah, way to encourage kids to go into academia. Kids if you want to enjoy reading don't

become an expert. Don't become a professor. No, no, when you read academic books we're living. It drains the joy reading. Oh, Lord, there are limits to this. Well then we're gonna help you. We're gonna recommend books to you. Ed, what book would you recommend? Well, it's interesting. I'm doing this as part of my job. But I am teaching currently for my orphan English section, Fahrenheit 451 by Ray Bradbury. And number one, it is incredibly trenchant to the historical moment we're living in in a lot of ways.

And number two, I had forgotten, because it had been years since I picked the book up, and I had forgotten how lyrical Bradbury's prose is. And you are a very appreciative person of such things. You're a poet yourself. No, I'm a prose whore. Yeah, no, if you can make the words look pretty on the page and sound pretty to the ear, then you're halfway there with me.

It's really tragic he never learned Latin, isn't it? Really is. But yeah, and Bradbury manages lot of things that he he describes and it's absolute It's it's it's thrilling to read on the page And the sad part is that of course I'm teaching at the eighth grade level Oh, and and trying to get eighth graders to understand poetic metaphor Is is the kind of thing that would make one actually hate it

it would it would drain the joy out of it. Can't force it. Yeah, yeah, and felt and yeah and and I have in in a class of I want to say I got 32. I've got about three who clearly are grooving on it. I've got about 25 who are sitting through it like eighth graders would and I've got about whatever the remainder is I can't do the math right now. I think a ninth grade audience, a tenth grade audience is more appropriate. I think it would be easier to do in American litany 11th grade. I think at that level there would be a bit more sophistication. They would not quite be operating strictly off of the amygdala as much as seventh and eighth graders do, which is a

whole topic I can go on forever about neurological development in the middle school grades. But I think they would be better able to appreciate at that point. So, Neve, you just took a moment while I was waxing, you know, pedantic about developmental neurology to go grab a book off the shelf. I just couldn't remember the author's name. I was going to recommend, given the topic at hand, and also because Rex is suffering through my numbing literature, I would recommend Max Brooks World War Z. Son of Mel. Yes, son of Mel Brooks. Son of Mel Brooks. Wow. Yeah, who really studied epidemiology a bit to write this book. He did a lot of background research on just how diseases spread and things like that

is fascinating. The wonderful thing about this book is that it's in the style of after it's done, this guy is going back and interviewing people who lived through it. And so each chapter is only a couple pages long. So if you ever need an eye break from what you're doing, this is where it's at, because it's like you just get maybe two or three interviews in and you're like, wow, this is really good.

And then you can put it down and you don't feel like you're in the middle of a chapter, you know So I recommend World War Z by Max Brooks. It's a fun read. It's a quick read and it's it's episodic enough that Putting it down and coming back to it a month later you haven't lost much So it's really good and there's some really fun stories in it. So that's what I would recommend It's good. Yeah, well, we plug our, our pluggables on Twitter. You can find us at at geek history time. You can find me at at duh harmony, do you age harmony? Yeah.

And at the age play lock. Yeah. And you are an academic, so I presume you have no presence whatsoever in the social media sphere. Correct. This is correct. All right. Lucky, lucky man. Be fortunate, fortunate man. I just get to come in as a guest. Yes, yes.

Yes. And then disappear again. And then, yeah. Into the mists. OK, well, for Ed Blalock, I'm Damien Harmony. And thank you to our guest, Rex Dem, for joining us. And until next time. Keep rolling 20s.

for joining us and until next time keep rolling 20s.