A Geek History of Time - Episode 18- The Secret History of the Gallic Wars (Part 2)

Episode Date: July 2, 2019

Dr. Rex Stern works with Damian to make the case for a radical reinterpretation of the reasons for Julius Caesar's actions in Gaul. Much like Ed, you may never be the same after listening. This episode truly gives a new meaning to "the *die* is cast..." (Ed is ashamed he came up with that pun, and Damian is ashamed he didn't.)

This is a geek history of time. Where we connect nerdery to the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a seventh grade world history teacher currently dealingold new boy who I have already put a wooden sword in his hands, and it's only a matter of time before it becomes a metal one. Damien, take it away. Yeah, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a Latin teacher, formerly a social science teacher. I am a father of a nine-year-old and a six-year-old

both of whom got Swiss Army knives in the last three months from me for no they got it for Valentine's Day and I gave them an appropriate Valentine's day gift. Are you going to cut out someone's heart? Exactly and I also made them give me a coin in exchange, but as tradition demands. My children were both told all the rules. They had to pair it back through rules to me. And I told them, now eventually you will end up cutting yourself.

Do not feel shame in this. It happens you're dealing with a knife. Come to me, we will bandage it. Yes, even adults do it as Ed is holding up his fingers. Interesting, it's not the same two fingers he normally holds up at me. So normally that's just one. Well on your chance. Yes, but the next morning I'm in the shower and my daughter comes in holding her finger

saying I cut myself. Not 12 hours earlier had I given her the knife and I said I'm like did you pay attention to the rules? No. Now are you going to? Yes. All right go get a piece of Scotch tape and I'll come back and fix it when I'm done with my shower because that's the dad that I am. We actually have with us a returning guest. We never had guests before and then we had one last week, and we had so much fun, and we also didn't finish, that we needed to have them back.

So Rex, take it away. Hi, I am Rex Dem. I am a Latin professor at UC Davis, and it is through the world of Latin teaching that I have come to know, Damian Harmony. I do not have the cultural geekery that my two hosts have, but I think I can help with this particular topic. A very great deal, and by the way, can I just add go-ags. Yeah, I like that I'm sitting across the table from two people who are related to a school that I never could have gotten into. Well, I couldn't get into it any more either. So, age, age gave me an

advantage. And that a long time ago, it was not the, it was not as elite as it is now. Got you. So last week, we talked about, essentially, its zombies all the way down. I love the way you put that. That's good. That's good. Caesar was in Gaul for eight years, and during that time he fought the Gauls. He fought the Germans. He fought the Britons. It took his show on the road even further, and while he was on tour, as it were, giving

his greatest hits to all the Gauls, he, which by the way, his greatest hits with a the goals. He, uh, which by the way, yes, he's right, his hits with a gladious. I, I, he throw that first. Yeah, you got three of them usually. So you throw them in succession. And that's actually just to get rid of their, their shields. Yeah. Bonus points if you kill a guy. But it's mostly to make their shields hard to wield, making them unwieldy. Yes. But I throw little translation jokes up to my students. So they have to translate, and then they realize how bad the joke is. And one of the jokes I threw up at them just yesterday was, they're- Fomentus.

Yes. Yes. I expelled it, but it was, essentially, it's in Latin so they had to translate this but it said Why does the elevator keep taking me to the lobby? Says the citizen who keeps trying to get to the 50th floor and What I love about that joke is they have to be literate to realize how stupid it is and you've already got your glasses off. Oh! Oh!

Oh! Oh! Oh! So, that was one of them. And we begin with Good Day, sir! The other one is on their syllabus for the AP kids. And it's Adferum ad galias ad cadendom race public home

It's to the Rhine to the goals till the Roman Republic falls Yeah, I got a point right yeah, that's so like that. From a very dirty and nasty rap song from the early 2000s, I've changed the lyrics but I've kept the rhythm. So I've got to have the rhythm. It got to have the rhythm. But on the rhyme actually is very similar. Yeah, yeah, it's actually. But that's bad.

It is. But it kind of works with this because it was why Caesar was in Gaul. Yeah, well, yes. Ostensibly. Yeah. But as we found out last week, he's not in fact in Gaul just to advance his own career. He's in Gaul to protect Rome. Yeah.

From what you have clearly proven, clearly proven, and very stooply found the evidence for. This is actually a truly apocalyptic level threat. So I pick up where we left off. I think we really have to give a lot of credit to Caesar as a writer because of the skill with which he drops these important clues into the narrative. And many parts of the narrative really are just straight up, Caesar, a military narrative.

This is what Romans do in a foreign land. And yet he does cluster significant differences in places where you can see that there are multiple audiences possible for the story that he is telling. And that can explain, I think, why we see things that we think people should know about, because this is what Caesar would have expected. That certain readers would have seen what was going on.

No, absolutely. So we left our story last week with our ambiorex, a chieftain alongside Inutio Maros. Ambioorex of the... Unblanket. Is he from the Aburones? I believe so. Because in Dutuomarus was. No, in Dutuomarus was of the Travary.

So yes, he is of the Aburones. Inside baseball, basically. But he's one of the northern Belgick tribes. Okay. And who are Kelt's? Yeah. Okay. Technically, they're not.

Actually, they're called the Belgai in book one, and he talks about the center part of Gaul, who in their own language are called Celts, but we call them the Gauls. So technically, the Eberones might be Northern Celts, Southern Belgi. I'm not quite sure where the overlap stops. Okay. But I'm speaking in the anthropological linguistic. Oh, yes. Speaking.

Yes. In fact, Amiorex, I believe there's a statue of him in Belgium. The Belgians have some... Yeah, well, there's a great deal in modern Belgium, as part of their nationalist phase, when Germany was busy talking about the Germans and the French were talking about Big Chuck. And the Franks, within Belgium and within other parts of France and into Britain, there was this resurgence of haggiographies, you say, for the heroes of each nation's Celtic past, for the Belgians each nation's Celtic past

Right for the Belgians because a lot of archaeological evidence has found a great deal of very early Celtic stuff Yes, that part of Europe it was a very big deal For their nationalist movement, so it doesn't surprise me at all that there would be a statue too. Oh sure ambiorex He left to go fight the zombie horde now remember he attacked the Romans to try to get his green back yes lost because his people insisted we got to fight him right he's like we're gonna lose but okay so then he loses declares a parlay okay spills the beans on everything let's the Romans know exactly what's going on. The Germans are

coming across, they'll be here in two days, get out while the get is good. You can leave through my territories. He promised safe passage to them, which if you've seen the Godfather, you know that that's a bad sign, but I actually say that he was honest. He was being true to him. He was their ally. He voluntarily gave grain. So then he leaves to go fight the Germans, the zombie hordes. Caesar never calls them the zombie hordes. Does call them the Germans. And then you have this wonderful argument between two Roman leaders, Sabinina and Kata. Sabina says, we got to get out of here.

Kata says, no, we stay because Caesar didn't tell us to leave. We got to get out of here. They're coming. No, we're fine. Did you hear what he said? We have got to get out of here. The only chance we have of safety is in speed and we're spending it arguing. Kata says, we just beat them.

So clearly, we're gonna be fine. They go back and forth until like midnight. Finally, Kata says, fine, prevail if you must. Let it never be said though that, you know, I was afraid of dying. So if you wanna go, you can go, okay? And they're basically arguing on how to handle the zombie horn. Do we clear out of here and then go nestle up with the next guy over,

which I believe was Cicero. Actually, the brother of the famous order. Oh, well. Yeah. And he gets a lot of screen time in this episode of Caesar's book. Yeah. And I think that Caesar would give that much time and attention to what he wrote to somebody. Yeah. Yeah. It was, well, we'll see where the story goes. But Caesar is also very good at maintaining ties with all the other important figures.

A tremendous amount of correspondence going back and forth. In fact, that's a sort of corroborative way of believing that much of what Caesar includes in the story, in the work that we know as commentaries on the Galachor. I must have a backbone of truth to it because so many other Romans would have known what was going on. We know that Quintus is writing letters to Marcus, his brother, and vice versa, and we know that Cicero is writing letters to to Marcus, his brother and vice versa, and we know that Cicero and Caesar are exchanging letters. So there's a whole web of information that is surrounding these events. And presumably some of that back channel communication might have confirmed the story that we're

telling. Okay. And it's entirely possible that Caesar used these familiar relationships. Also remember, Crasse was under Caesar, I think up until book five because he leaves to go be with his dad and a very ill-fated attack on the Parthian. I mean it just doesn't go well for either of them and ending the triumvirate, destabilizing the stool. But he has- Turn up when that happens. You got to be careful not to water your drink when you're out of the country.

I said good day, sir. Am I doing it? I'm doing it. I'm doing it. So, but it's also possible that like the correspondence that didn't survive, but must have happened. Brothers writing back and forth to each other, family members letting each other know what's going on, could have been much more explicit

in what's going on, which would have maybe even given a cipher to the Senate of like, when he talks about these people, he means this thing. Don't know, can't really get into that because that's not evidence, but it does stand to reason that it is a potential. Yes. So Sabina Sankata are arguing, you could say one is being cowardly

and wants to get out of here because he's afraid of the Germans. Or he's saying we have to get out of here because we can't stand against a zombie horde. And Kata is saying we are the last bullwark in this neighborhood. Not for another 100 miles is another camp. We have to make a stand. And they go back and forth as to what the best defense against zombies might be. One way you can tell that this story is different. Is that?

Two books, two years ago, and two books ago, and Caesar's Campaign. So Venus is actually in Aquatania, somewhere down in the southwest part of Gaul. And he ends up with a small one legion fighting a very large force and effectively gets besieged and hunkers down and taal lures almost. The Gauls into believing that he's afraid of them until they come up and let their guard down. And then he rushes out and drives them off and kills a great number of them. Okay.

So he is willing to undergo siege conditions. He is willing to be strategic. Yes. He's excellent at recognizing how to deceive an enemy and how to use messengers back and forth to deceive an enemy. He's very good at that. And yet in this situation, he clearly is scarish at this and doesn't want to have this fight.

Yeah. Okay. So this makes sense. Now to the people in the forum, they would understand. Yeah. Same guy, same situation. Right. Totally different reactions. Right. This is because the enemy is different. Yes. Now again to the people in the forum, they would be like, Oh, he's lost his nerve. It's been too long. Yeah. And so you have a clear dichotomy. Yeah. Yeah. But it's like Rex said, this is a very different fight. And so the people in the forum aren't hip to the fact that it's zombies. The groundlings don't understand the

communications of what's going on. They can't. There would be riots in the streets. Yeah. Well, there already will be the next year when clodius gets killed. So, uh, so they thought they had two days, by the way. So stretching in the midnight, not a big deal. They start to pack up all their luggage, all the stuff that they'd one and go all this whole time. From the fights of like, you know, taking from normal folk. And so they pack up what they can and they decide what they're gonna leave and what they're gonna keep, right?

Okay. And they are, they are, they pair down their luggage train as best they can, but they leave with all their luggage practice. Not all of it, like half of it. But still, they're not running for speed. They're getting out of their Not expecting to come back. This this place is forfeit. This is an orderly withdrawal for a for a long period of time. It or should be. Yeah. But what happens about a book later

chapter later is they're ambushed. The Romans think they've been betrayed by ambiorex and the the Gauls, the Ebarones. It's possible that they're ambushed by ambiorex. It certainly reads as though they've been ambushed by ambiorex. Their ambush may be two miles out from their camp and they basically get into a valley and they're stopped at the valley and they're stopped at the front, they're stopped at the back and they're just rushed into. It's bad and what they do immediately is what all good Romans would do. But for once, Roman strategy doesn't bear out. Caesar points this out by the way. He says a normal

thing to do in this kind of battle is to go into a circle, a globe. Essentially a shield, you know, a shield. So it's useful. It doesn't work. And he even says, this is not anything that should be held against them. They did all everything they should have done. Well, against normal folk, that would have been enough.

It's Romans. We went all the time. It's kind of the tone that happens. But the strategy that the the Eberrone's employees is decidedly different than most Gallic strategies. They are, they attack essentially like two miles so that's about two to four hours into the night. So it's about three or four in the morning maybe dawn. And they attack by rushing in and then pulling back and rushing in and pulling back and rushing in and pulling back. But there's there is an order to what they're doing, but it's very surgy.

There is an order to what they're doing, but it's very surgy Okay, and then on top of that they are just raining down darts and I'm not talking like darts that you see at a pub I'm talking like the plumbata darts like the the darts that you were shocked that they were that big in in Dungeons and Dragons or AD&D like that's what a dart is that's where yeah lawn darts. Yeah, they're yeah, yeah So it's small it's at. Lawn darts. Yeah. Yeah. Small javelins. Yes. It's what they are. Feather javelins, too.

And the thing is, they're raining those in and they're attacking and withdrawing and retacking. And so what they do is they draw Romans out and as soon as the Romans come out in a failings or a manniple, then they just swarm them. And they also attack the weak parts of the circle. And then the Romans withdraw and they attack them as they're withdrawing. And it's just as constant back and forth and it just does not end. It's unending. In case people didn't know it does not end means I guess. It's a confusing strategy,

but it is not a mindless strategy, which is odd. And it's also not a gallic strategy that we've seen. Because again, they just they seaged them odd. And it's also not a galaxy strategy that we've seen. Because again, they just, they seaged them before and this time they're pushing back and forth. Can I interrupt the question? Please. Also in the debate between Sabina Sankada when they're, when they're trying to figure out if they should stay or go, it is just dropped that Aureo Vistis is dead.

And if you remember from the last episode, Aureo Vistis is dead. And if you remember from the last episode, Aureo Vistis was the original German. Well, the first German, so-called German figure, that Caesar fought in the first year of the war and turned out to be the leader, the king of some sort of zombie port. And Caesar has been spending the intervening years looking for him or what animated him or how he became to be what he was and is at this moment that his name appears again for the first time in three books in three books and we hear suddenly that he is dead and that the Germans are really upset about it.

So weird, weird just name drop there. Yes. Now, there's a new season of unusual attacks. Right. Name drop there. Yes. Now there's a win you see this unusual attack right then you start to realize that there might be a connection to the sort of See some events that we had back in while s would he have mentioned him yeah now Some fun details and and my students I teach this to them every year because it's part of the AP curriculum, but Which is a nice little overlap that we have but there's some fun details. There's a guy named Belventius Who gets skewered through each leg.

I don't know if he gets one dart in each leg, or if a javelin goes through both legs. Okay. Either he's foosball? That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying.

That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. That's what I'm saying. Or, you know, he's sitting there and he can't sit down anymore without getting stuck to the chair. Yeah. Uh, Lucanius goes to help his son and is devoured. Not actually, like they don't say devoured but he's overcome and I believe he loses his head. Kata takes a slingshot to the face. Now I want to

clip it. And lips. Oh wow okay. Wow. Yeah. That had to leave it work. Yeah. To clarify, to clarify for the audience as a weapons nerd, when when they talk about a sling shot in this context. We're not talking about kids toy. Yeah, not little rascals. No, what we're talking about here in the classical world was the closest thing they had to do a handgun. It shot typically they were lead, roughly kind of flip ball shaped They were called they were called acorns or glondis. Yeah, which is glands. Yeah, testicles. Yeah but they were bullets yes and

Anybody who has actually seen anybody using a sling Mm-hmm can tell you they they generate speeds and and kinetic energy can tell you that they generate speeds and kinetic energy way higher than most modern viewers would think. 92 miles an hour on average. Yeah, by the way. And so this is a potentially lethal. It's going to go through your noggin. Simulations utilizing ballistic dummies to simulate human skulls. You can use it.

You can get with these things. Yeah, you can find videos about this. Actually, I'm kind of nervous. I'd recommend looking them up. But you can see that this would puncture the skull. Oh, absolutely. If you're hitting the side of the head, it'll go all the way through to the white matter. Yeah. If you're hitting the front of the head, it'll give you a serious concussion, possibly a

fracture skull. It'll get. So, so taking one of those to the to the beasur and and surviving is impressive. He's a tough sunbitch. He is. Well, keep keep in mind Romans also had helmets. But he gets hit in the face. Yeah, that's not what I'm saying. Yeah. Specifically in the face. So that's that's Henry the fifth level bad ass right there. Now I want to take a break for a second and stop down. I want to bring in a term that you'd brought up in the last episode. Oh, Litch. Yes. A Litch is So, Lich. Yes. A Lich is by the scholar Gary Guy-Gak's, defined as, an undead creature.

The result of a transformation as a powerful magician or king striving for immortality uses spells or rituals to bind his soul and intellect to a phylactory. Liches hold the power over hordes of lesser undead creatures using them as soldiers and agents. Yes. Yes. So, unlike those lesser undead, they are far from mindless. And when you have a lich in the field, your undead are far from mindless as well. Now they can carry out strategy instead of just mobbing.

So, are you eastus is a lich. Well, no, I'm sorry. Ambiorus is a lich. Yeah. He never explicitly shows his face. And Sabinus calls for Parley. He actually sends a, I believe, a Spanish interpreter named Pompey. Oh, just a fun little way for Caesar to throw.

A little extra shade. It is former Sun and Law. By the way, Julia has died by this point. Oh, okay. And he decided not to marry back into the Caesar family. Hmm. So... The beginnings of the fracture.

Yeah, Caesar is throwing just a little bit. Just a little, he sent his, and he names him. And like, he doesn't name hardly anybody unless they get killed. And he names this guy as going to Ambiorex and asking for parlay. And Ambiorex is, I will allow parlay. And now, I want to talk about Lich Magic for just a second. You can influence the living as well as the dead. Very powerful magic.

And Ambiorex, in the book he talks about how Ambiorex kind of convinces Sabinus. By the way, Kata says, I'm not going to parlay. I don't go to armed enemies. Hey, having taken a shot to the face. Yeah. He knows the score. Yeah. He knows they're going to lose.

And he's going gonna die a Roman Sabinus is trying to save his men He's still trying to get word out. I think it's possible that Sabinus is actually delaying so that Messengers can get further away But that's me wanting to see the best in folk But he uses his magic to force the Romans to throw down their arms Sabinus takes a bunch of centurions with him and ambiorexes, if you throw down your weapons,

I'll talk to you. No Roman speaks with an armed enemy when they're not armed. They all throw down their weapons. That's not normal Roman stuff, that's not just fear. Even when the Romans were afraid of the Germans in the forest, they didn't throw down their weapons. Yeah, no, you would think, as a matter of fact, if you were scared or nervous, that would be more of a reason to be, yes. I'm going to keep my weapons like you.

Yeah, they throw them down. They're surrounded and they are killed. Now, a fun thing happens here. They let out a, they being the gals according to their custom shout out victory and raise their war cry and make an attack on our men breaking their ranks. It's a lich howl. Oh, okay. This frightened the Romans. Okay. Unnaturally. Um, I would also like to point out a somewhat important point here. Caesar does this wonderful thing grammatically of separating the humanity from the Gauls when he talks about them. When he talked about them, when the hell of ATE did their thing and they came to him across the

the wrong river and Parleyed with him. He he never really quoted them. He quoted himself always in the third person. Never really quoted them. He quotes Romans, doesn't really quote the other side. What he does is usually engages in a thing called indirect discourse. They said that such and such and so and so. It's a wonderful tool that you can use grammatically in Latin. It's a lot of fun. It's very tidy. Another way you can do it is you can talk about indirect commands and indirect questions and you can set up these subordinate clauses using a mood called the subjunctive mood. Now, English nerds may or may not remember

the subjunctive forms of things, but essentially the subjunctive mood is like a level removed from reality. You're talking about a thing, you're not engaging the thing. So, if I tell you I know where the cookies are, I didn't tell you the fact of the location of the cookies. I told you I know the concept that is the location of the cookies. So it's just a slight level removed.

All right. You use a subjunctive to that. Okay. I know. And I'm pulling back. All right. Okay. Well, I'm just saying we're getting pretty deep linguistic.

Word nerdy. Yes. Word nerdy. Um, every time ambiorex is talking, almost every time. He's using the subjunctive. There's your code. I mean, there are plenty of good grammatical reasons to use it, but he hardly ever uses it with the Romans when they're doing things.

They get the indicative. They get the, this is how it was, mood. M. B. Orx and the Gauls get the subjunctive mood regularly. He seems to almost reserve it for them. He doesn't talk about them as though they are real humans. He talks about them as though they are conceptual humans only. In other words, well, yeah, okay. So the Romans run to Labanus, the Lich and the Orcs, who by the way, must have been turned while he was fighting them.

While he was fighting, are you weaseless? He got turned. In that three-hour time, where he's like, I'm gonna go off and fight, buy you some time, and then he comes back. And because his entire countenance has changed, and he doesn't even let the Roman see his face, there's a lot going on there where suddenly he's ambushed them.

He knew he wasn't going to win the first attack, but now he does that. Now, Lich Ambiorex runs to the other tribes, gets on a horse and goes, day and night. And he talks about not sleeping. He talks about, he, He talks about... He... He talks about... He talks about not sleeping. He talks about not sleeping. He talks about not sleeping. He talks about not sleeping.

He talks about not sleeping. He talks about not sleeping. He talks about not sleeping. He talks about not sleeping. He talks about not sleeping. He talks about not sleeping. He talks about not sleeping. He talks about not sleeping.

He talks about not sleeping. He talks about not sleeping. He talks about not sleeping. He talks about not sleeping. He talks about not sleeping. He talks about not sleeping. He talks about not sleeping. He goes and goes and goes. Now that we saw this in the Blitzkrieg when they were on meth. He doesn't have meth. He also doesn't have a dexedrine. He also have a need to sleep though. Dexedrine, et cetera. Little, yellow, different. I could just see breaking bad being that. So Cossus induced. Yeah. But he doesn't do that.

And he easily persuades the nervy to his cause as well. He's going around to other leaders and biting them and turning them into zombies that he then controls immediately. Now note that up to this point, there are only two foreigners that get the indicative with any regularity. And that's Aurelie, Susan, and Bjork. So the only two, all the hordes move in the subjunctive. And even they are getting less and less of the indicative voice.

He infects multiple tribes. He begins the big attacks. He gets to Centroonis, the Groody, the Lavacchi, the Plumoxi, the Giodomni, and everyone who's around. And he gets them to convene on Cicero's headquarters. And of course, the seventh legion, who is always out foraging their bait, they always get attacked while they're foraging.

It's a trope. It's like, are you in the seventh legion? You're getting attacked. They're the red shirts of the Roman legion. Yeah, they're the kids sneaking off's a trope. It's like, are you in the seventh legion? You're getting attacked. They're the red shirts of the Roman legion. Yeah, they're the kids sneaking off to have sex at Camp Crystal Lake. Okay. You know, it's just gonna happen.

Didn't all the kids sneak off to have sex at Camp Crystal Lake? Not in my cabin. Oh, well. So, now, sis Row is a hold up in his place. A few messengers have gotten through to him. By the time the messengers get through to him, which is only a day's march, maybe two days march away,

eight tribes practically are descending upon him from multiple points. Yeah, only explanation for this is an unsleeping, un-eating, unending energy army. And they attack, and Cicero does what Dakota wanted to do. He says, no, we're gonna stay, we're gonna withstand this teach. Everybody works really hard to be safe.

Now you have the success story of Book Five of Cicero. He refuses to parlay, because he knows he's up against a lich, and he knows that the lich magic will put him at a huge disadvantage. This is no. And he basically says that, you know, we're going to fight you and then we'll fight the Germans after you. That's fine.

The Nervi-Ezombies dig fortifications. They besiege them by digging a trench all the way around them. But as they had no supply of iron tools which are a requisite for this service, for in less than three hours they completed a fortification of 10 miles in circumference, they dug a ditch 10 miles around these guys in the winter in northern France without iron tools. Yeah, that's bone fingers right there. Yes. That's pretty conclusive.

I got to tell you. Now you've got a week-long attack on Cicero's guys using fire. Really? Yeah, they're big. That's not something you see usually. a week-long attack on Cicero's guys using fire. Really? Yeah, they're big on... That's not something you see usually. No, no, it's not.

Although the Gauls were fond of putting pots of clay on fire and then throwing them into forts, because they knew that the Romans were using the Golic Fats roofing. Easily catching fire, right? Cicero's guys keep weathering the storm. They keep fighting and fighting and fighting. They are sending messengers out as often as they can and every time they do the Gauls catch them and torture them to

death in front of the the Romans. So not only is your message not getting through, we're sending a message to your your runners next time. You don't want to run out here. But think of the cruelty that that is. You don't wanna run out here. But think of the cruelty that that is. Back then people were cruel, but wow. LeBena stays put. Caesar actually gets, finally they get message through to Caesar. And he does, this is a guy that is promised great rewards if he can get through.

And so he has to go out amongst them and he wraps the note around his spear. And the notes written in Greek letters, by the way, fun fact, not Roman letters because if you were a gall who had been helping the Romans, you may have learned Roman letters. You ain't learning Greek letters. Okay. Only people that would have that would be the Celts, or I'm sorry, letters. You ain't learning Greek letters. Okay. Only people that would have that would be the Celts, or I'm sorry, not the Celts, the Druids.

Okay. Druids aren't part of this. They're exempt from war. Okay. So, he sends them with the Greek letters saying, you know, send help. Raptor on a spear. This messenger manages to get through

because he is dressed as a gall amongst the gals. I'm thinking he probably smeared the blood of other people on him and kind of stumbled and shambled about looking like the undead until he was far enough to the back ranks and then took off. Okay. Labanus, uh, he's her gets the note says come help and he turns to Labanus, his favorite guy, and he says, can you supply any troops? Or do you need to stay put? This is a wonderful moment because Caesar shows that he trusts his men completely. Labanus says, I, I don't have any troops to spare.

I'm sorry. And he says, all right, cool. And let's get going. Okay. Labenos is the southernmost, well, not the southernmost, that's Roskis, but he's the southernmost in that longitudinal line. Okay. Roskis is like, you know, two time zones over basically. Okay.

Labenos is the southernmost outpost in central gall. If he falls, there's nothing stopping this horde from going across the Alps. OK. So Caesar's you stay there, that's fine. Labanus stays put. Caesar hurries as hard as he can. Now the rest of Gaul, and by extension Rome,

fighting him over there, so we're not to fight him over here. Needs to be protected, and Caesar puts all hope in speed. Now when you're going against an army of zombies, speed is kind of your biggest weapon. So he moves as quickly as he can. The Lich King realizes that Caesar is coming to attack. He turns to attack Caesar. There's still the horde that's attacking Cicero, and there's even a wonderful quote and says some began to pull down the ramparts with their bare hands. Others began to fill

up the trenches. Wow. Caesar shows up, fights them off, and essentially chases them away. Ambiorex leaves, seeds the field, and Caesar doesn't follow him. He's realized that they're the zombies, and he is not equal to the task yet. So he seeks mantelettes, fortifications, and he is surprised that he never fought Gauls like this before. One reason is that Caesar has spread his legions across the whole region of Gaul. So he only has I think two legions with him. And then now that he's found what he's been looking for all this time, he realizes that he doesn't have his forces centralized enough to go ahead and face the challenge. There's also I think a development in Caesar's own understanding of who he's fighting. Back in the

episode with Ariavistus on the first book of the war, you don't see the kind of strategy, the kind of group recruitment that you get in this episode. And it's, it becomes clearer to us, in a way, that we're dealing with a lich king and not simply somebody at the front of a zombie horde. You kind of had the hints about that last time when you talked about this. But Caesar, again, seems to be revealing the scale of what he's got to deal with, step by step. So, the first time you meet the zombie horde, they really do run at the Romans, they cut them from above, and then they retreat, and that's the end of that episode. But here, as Damien was describing, you see parts of the legions moving out in units,

getting attacked, forcing those units back. He's the concentrated strategy. And when M. Biorixt defeats that first legion, he's then immediately ready to go recruit others. So the scale of the threat is so much greater that Caesar now pauses as or to reassemble his forces so that he can go at this with everything that he has. Whereas in Book 1, he just chased those Germans as far as he possibly could and then gets most of them but some get across the right. But this is going to be, this is now blown up in a much more dramatic way what he feared would happen effectively has happened.

This is a full blown breakout. This is a directed breakout. Yeah, and it's not, it's a breakout would be nice. Yeah, yeah. This is way more. This is a complete regional, and a festation, or whatever the term would be. And like you said, directed by a malevolent intelligence. So Caesar's gonna have to change the way that he fights.

Yes. And he sees that Amiorex is the source, or at least he thinks he is. Because are you East-Us is reportedly dead. Okay, right? Yeah. And the O'Biole of Amiorex is when we learn that our East-Us is dead.

So now we must perceive that the Lich King is able to move between figures, shift from one form to another. Possession via the phylacteria is the thing. Yeah, whoever holds the workrocks is it works. Yeah, well, yeah, that's where the workrocks idea was, you know, taken from is the idea of the philactor Wow, yeah, okay, and or

He knew that his time as Lich King he His job was to transfer it to a gall amongst the galls and and it could well be that Ambiorx thought that he had killed them. I still am down for the idea of Ambiorex being a very valorous man who then was infected and defeated and possessed. Yeah, by Ariewistus. Again, look at Caesar's method here. Yes. He's identified Ariewisity as a figure like this. And then we now realize in the episode that M.B.O.R.X. is this figure. And he's leaving it for us to recognize that somehow

the title has been transferred. And that has happened when we see the escalation of the whole crisis. And so this is the senatorial level dropping of the hints. Yes, yes. For those of us who are in the know and understand some of the lore, to be able to figure out what's going on without creating the massive panic and exactly the end of days from the ground link in the form.

But the increased level of strategy, the coordination among groups, that's how you can see that now Caesar realizes he's dealing with the Lich King. Okay. Now, he decides that at the end of Book V that he's going to stay in golf for the winter because the war has changed. Yeah. This is a new war. This, like everything prior to this was pretense. This is where it's starting to matter.

And this is where he's really going to save Rome. Caesar tells the Gallic leaders that for the first time, he is certain as to what's going on, and he tells them what his plans are after the winter. He said also to them that they'd better stay out of his way. And he kind of ends it with uh... the uh... the the meeting says saying since he declared that he knew what was going on

boom done i know what's up now get out of my way so i can do this now do to maros actually kind of rounds out the rest of the story remember in do to maris vaguely i think the allis of allis's restaurant right so? So he's the guy that was for the Travary. He's the one that originally warned Caesar. These guys are real problem for us just out to the

east of us and he took him up to Britain instead and he brought in Dutium Mars back and the infection was already in a Dutium Mars's tribe. So in Dutium Mars spends the winter trying to bring the Germaniacross. Anyone and everyone that he can, he infects, and he tries to call a council together to trap his neighbors into the infection, and he goes back to the torture motivation. Labanus beats and kills in Dutiumara. Finally got one of them, right? But he's not the BBEG. No. He's one of his lieutenants, but he brings his head to Caesar, specifically his head.

Now this allows ambiorex and his zombie horde to escape, by the way. And there's a wonderful quote at the end of 558. Omnice Aburonom, and Neuro-Oronom, Quai Conwenonet, Kulpi, Discaidunes, I think basically all the Eberonis and all the Nervi who had come together as a large force headout. And they escaped. So that ends book 5, book 6. I mean Caesar spends the first 12 chapters or so, essentially going what, up and down the Northern coast, right?

Hunting for ambiorex. And it's almost like open terrorism. It's just destruction. He destroys everything. He burns things. Lots of fire. He's attacking civilians. He is just hunting now

Okay, or whatever he can find obsessed with ambiore and that sense is the least satisfying Mm-hmm the whole story so far. Yeah, you can see that's easier. It's just so frustrated Mm-hmm, and he doesn't know what to do But he does keep using fire Because you learn from the Hill VT All the way back in book one. Yeah, burn their own villages. Exactly. Okay.

And so now, with the insight that we have of what the true threat is, this isn't some kind of poetic call back to, you know, the Greeks burning their ships on the shores of Troy. Right. We're never going back. This is in fact, no, we can't ever go back. We're burning them because we're trying to get the plague that we're running away from. And it does have wonderful parallels to the Vietnam War toward the end with the strategic

hamlet program turning into, we have to pass it by the village, we had to burn the village to save the village, but that wasn't zombies. This very likely is, yeah, obviously the evidence is there. At this point, Exactly. I'm convinced this is gospel. You've got me so, I'm telling you. So, that takes us through book six.

He never finds ambiorex, ever, through the entirety of his Gallic horse. Really? Ambiox is elusive, but- It gets clean away. No. OK. Oh, OK.

Because remember that the Lich King need not stay in the same figure. Oh, you've got a really versing jetter to form the arches. Oh, and B.R.X. We'll do that for you. So, but you're absolutely right. You have essentially one man who is able to unite all the goals with alarming speed in book seven, alarming speed, and incredible organization.

And he sets up a hilltop town. And yeah, and brings all the people to him. Oh, man. But all this movement attracts attention. And I think that he's gambling in the same way that Caesar starts to gamble. He figures if he can draw Caesar into attack him, he can wipe out the Romans in one swell, and then just head south and take over the entire Mediterranean. It was zombie swimming for days. Okay. The quick and dirty of it is essentially that you have a lot of skirmishes and a lot of fights going back and forth, but essentially it really does everything leads to Elysium.

I'm pronouncing that right. Yes, Elysium. Elysium. Elysium, because Elysium, right? Yeah. I'm pronouncing that right. Yeah, it's Elysium. Elysium. Elysium, because Elysium is heaven. Yes, yeah. Yeah. And it's an A and not an E. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So he basically sets it up and Caesar comes and besieges it. Caesar is going to contain the threat. Yeah. He builds a wall. It contain the threat. Yeah. He builds a wall. Yeah. Builds a wall around it. Yeah. I will starve them out. He still doesn't fully understand how zombies work. Well, I mean, so I mean, there's at least this way they won't get more recruits. Yeah, well, it won't get more recruits and you know in addition to you know the undead who are the the Not beating heart of the army There were also I mean the desk. Yeah, I assume there were there were also you know civilians who were

Trapped dead. Oh, yeah strap there. Okay. Well that way you can replenish your ranks when the Romans behead your your shock troops. Yeah No, and there's the horrible story of the so-called civilians actually being sent out from Alicia to Caesar's lines Right and he recognizes that this is an infection strategy And he just literally blocks them and lets them sit there and rod. Yeah, wow For some number of weeks. I can keep you. And they try to go back in and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, and, are smelled and felt and I mean the sensory explanations of things in book seven is incredibly high and to the point where I believe he said that at one point it smelled like the worst kind of

latrine there was I would have to go back and source that but it really there was a large focus on the sensory aspects of this. Now I think in some ways he played into Versa Gendrix's hand because he's got all his soldiers in one spot. And suddenly out of all the places come 250,000 more goals. Caesar has to build another wall. You know, I find it interesting. We're talking about 250,000 more goals.

Mm-hmm. When there were 250,000 as a Hylvetti who went missing. Funny that in the beginning. Mm-hmm. Just that occurred to me. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. It adds up. I think you're in the spirit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Carry adds up. You're in the spirit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Carry on. So, yeah. Well, yes, they are. Yeah. I like it. So. Oh, and it's getting dark and the sun is wayward. You know, they don't. Are you saying I can't sass you? Because I can sass you. So he builds a second wall. Are you done?

Mostly. Because then there will be peace. Well played sir. So he builds a second wall to protect himself from the Gauls while he's besieging the other Gauls with another wall. Yeah, so he's got a wall, a Gaul, a Gaul, and a wall. And it's really upsetting to them, so it's very quite galling to them and it takes a lot of you went to that particular set of God awful parts. Okay. They were long, all of them. He's built a second wall and there's some breaches in it and there's this moment where he himself

goes and fights that breach. He realizes this is it. It is literally victory or death. There is no escape for him. There's no escape for the Romans. And if he fails here, all of society is he knows it is gone. Is forfeit. Yes. So on the other hand, he has the Lich King trapped within his walls at Alicia. So he knows that this exterior force really is just sort of the the extras of the whole Yeah, and he could really remove all of them take away the army of the Lich King and actually retain the Lich King Trapped the whole talk. Mm-hmm. So I think Caesar not only realizes that this is the life and death moment But it's also the way to flip the script back and take control of the whole story and get the kind of decisive victory that he's been trying to get this whole time for all this time. He rides with his scarlet cloak

out to with a bunch of horses again going for speed instead of numbers and he attacks the balls who actually end up in a retreat because they're confused. Because they're not expecting him to wheel around behind them while they're trying to attack him on the front. And he gets them, he drives them off, he drives them from the field, and then he turns his attention to Elysia. Short story of it is essentially he wins. It is a decisive victory and a decisive victory so much so that he actually captures for his in-genrex. And here's where I'm curious as to how you can defeat a lich without killing him. We can't kill him because he's immortal. So you have to separate him from his filactory.

Or you have to control his filactory. Yes. Caesar gets Vs. to kiss the Roman standard. Gets Vs. to surrender. At some point in the battle, somehow he has taken Vs. to Vs.

to F. to F. to F. to F. to F. to F. to F. taken vs. Jeterix's Freilactory, okay, he keeps it with him For the next how long does vs. Jeterix live seven years six more years because Caesar has other wars to fight Against mundane people yes, robots. Yeah. Yeah, well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, walk next to this Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, next to this Versa-Generic is thrown into a prison and

Doesn't die despite the fact that he is essentially starved for six years You know who can survive six years of starvation down dead right? So even though you've got the phylactory that you're controlling the guy. He's still gonna be living. Yeah Yeah, he's still gonna be living yeah yeah he's still gonna be motile yes enemy yeah yes yeah good yeah okay so he has four triumphs in six days or something or the other time he's done with everything and I mean he saves versus Cheddarx for the end and he has him strangled at the end of one of his triumphs now that's a normal thing, but strangulation won't kill the undead. So my theory is that at some point while he's signaling for the strangulation, he has somebody breaking the phylacteria at the same time. The Roman people

are never done the wiser, never the wiser, as to what he did there. And it looks like, versus in general, just get strangled like any good, gollic leader would. And that's the end of the story. Romans never knowing how close to undeath their empire had gotten, how close to utter calamity, humanity, in Western Europe had gone. Okay. And so they're none the wiser. By this point, he's had all kinds of other political issues. The Senate is doing his bidding anyway.

So it doesn't really matter what the story is. Now, the story can be completely about his heroism. And frankly, that's probably better for all involved that they just think of it that way because you don't want to think of the alternative. Well I mean the cosmic implications of the rest of it is kind of daunting to say the least. So I think we've covered all of it. I think we have I would stress though that the Caesar writes seven books of his commentaries on the Gallic

Corps represent the seven years that he was fighting. Yeah. And then he actually did stay on after that in mop up, but he doesn't write about that. Right. So the work on the Gallic Corps that he writes ends with, I mean literally the second to last paragraph, the verse and getterics coming out and sort of kneeling before Caesar. So however Caesar has managed to get control of her, him, that's the image that he wants to leave you with, because that's the

image where the threat has finally come under control. And then the rest of his war stories can be war stories, because they're going to be back on the human plane interaction. So I think that the ending of book one is the escape of Aurovistas but then the ending of book seven is the ultimate surrender of versioned inter-ex. Yes. And what has to realize that the story has gone from Aurovistas through ambiorx to versioned inter-ex in order to see how neatly Caesar wraps all that up. All right, yeah, now that he's the implications of all that are kind of staggering, really. Because I mean, you know, moving kind of moving ahead to where we go, you know go from here in the episode. Sure. The thinking about takeaways, kind of already.

What this leads me to wonder is, where else in the historical record do we need to start looking for clues that this kind of thing has happened? Have you developed any thoughts on that? Yeah, I want to caution us away from looking at massive genocides as potential moments for that because of the humanitarian implications and justifications for genocides. And same thing with mass migrations, same problem. And especially as we find both of those things relating more and more to climate, then necessarily to politics, I would caution us on that. But having said that, there are a number of things that

have defied explanation. Okay. Throughout history, there are towns that no longer exist that were there the year previous. They were there when there was a census and then they ceased to be. I would say things like that might be worth looking into. Yeah, well James don't call it a quote, I want James down, Carl. I'm a croat-toe.

Exactly, exactly. I wonder sometimes about mass suicides? Okay. I'm thinking of that one called that got taken out with one punch. Oh. Mmm. Yes? That's not cool.

Hey. Yeah. That's not cool. Hey. So, I think in moments of enormous personal ambition, sometimes we assign an intelligence to happenstance. We assign an intelligence to dumb fucking luck very often. So I don't necessarily think that zombies are always the answer. Certainly not. I do think though that sometimes the answer is way less organized and way less smart and clever than we'd like it to be.

Because as historians we look at history with a sense of inevitability. Of course it happened that way. And we've talked about this before. Yeah. That very often they didn't know at the time at all. The Battle of Midway could have swung either way. Well, the Battle of Midway could have not happened. Right. Yeah. To us.

Yeah. That's the way it happened. It's inevitable. Right. But, you know, had one fleet or the other made a course correction two or a half hours earlier. Right. Never would have been contacted.

There are those knife edge moments of history where nobody who's in it knows how it's going to go and there's tremendous uncertainty. I think that's more the takeaway was that, personally, I think, having done this research, how incompetent Caesar was to the task and how he kept bird-dawging it, but he was wrong so many times. And lucky for him, he was right at the times where he needed

to be. Or he was right enough, he was right adjacent. Well, yeah, he was he was he was right frequently enough. I think I think that's that's one of the one of the things that we need to remain humble about, we're looking at historical sources. Everybody wants to assign genius to figures out of history, where, you know. Who sometimes fall over backward into success. Yeah, who frequently fall. Backward into success.

I mean, there's an argument to be made. I hate to be the one to bring this up. But, you know, Elysez be made. I hate to be the one to bring this up, but You know, you listen to this grant. Mm-hmm. Was a plodder. He was not He was not a tactical genius. He was not a strategic genius. Didn't have to be though. He didn't well. Yeah, he didn't have to be he was Smart enough to recognize that that the balance had shifted from offense to defense Mm-hmm recognized that the balance had shifted from offense to defense and he was willing to spend the resources which means lives necessary to get final

victory. Everybody wants to paint Robert E. Lee as a strategic genius. He was not an idiot. No, he's top of his class. Yeah, he was top of his class but he was not an idiot. No, he was top of his class. Yeah, he was top of his class, but he was not. But part of the reason he was top of his class was because they had such a draconian system of de Maritz. Yeah. And he kept his shit polished. Like, yeah, well, and if you read what he wrote, if you read about him, he was a guy who operated within the system. He was a

rules god. Yes. And that was what the De Marit system really rewarded. The Marit system really rewarded at West Point in those days. And so you didn't have to be the smartest guy in the room to graduate top of your class. You had to be the guy who polished his shit, who showed up on time, who was an organization man. By contrast, MacArthur was at the bottom of his class. Yes. Yeah. But you're right.

Robert E. Lee's strategies really helped along by the fact that he was against Paclillin. You had a beautiful, beautiful army and was terrified of breaking it. Yes. So, the overarching idea is, you know, the tendency for us as historians to want to paint one guy as a genius, one guy as an idiot. And what we need to remember is we think of them that way because like we do with Caesar, things turned out the way they did and we think it's inevitable. And we want to try to assign some kind of merit to that. And a lot of the time it's no, he got it right when he had to. Right. I mean, Rex and I have both read the Civil Wars and there's a moment where he flees at night. And because Pompey didn't want to pursue him at night, that's why he escaped.

He George Washingtoned. Yeah. And he sees or even said, if Pompey was going to beat me, he would beat me that day. He knew he could have lost. He was up against them. That's the superior size and what have you. Not better trained, because his men had been with him for the last several years. But he got lucky and he recognized that he got lucky. Augustus did the same thing.

I mean, they used to say, may you be luckier than Augustus. Like in antiquity, there's a lot of that. And in modern era as well. I mean, there's a tremendous lot. I mean, we also note the failures as failures But the people who went into them didn't think they would be the battle of Verdun was supposed to be a Huge victory for the Germans the battle of the song was supposed to be a huge victory It was gonna end it, you know, and those didn't go well.

No, you know, they ended poorly. Yeah, the battle of the bulge had a very legitimate chance of succeeding in breaking that side. Oh, it came within Kat's whisker. Yeah, you know, yeah. So, and everybody, and I mean, anybody who was a survivor of it would, would be quick to tell you that that was the case. American general thought they were going to win in Vietnam. They thought they were going to win in Afghanistan for the Russians. And then again, for the Americans, the British thought they were going to win in Afghanistan.

Everybody. Alexander thought he was going to win in Afghanistan. Yeah, it's that's, that's, yeah. So everybody at this point should understand, understand no you're not going to win And nobody has ever won an Afghanistan. Yeah So I would I would say that the zombies while an interesting Take while fascinating and obviously clearly true Yeah, I would say that the the real lesson here is more for us mundane folk. Yeah, it doesn't

really matter what you're up against. It's not certain and history is not written. Yeah, which is stupid to say. But you know, the present is not written. The present in the future are not already written. Yes. The idea of anything being preordained to be as dangerous. Rex, one of the advantages for Caesar though is that he is writing his own story. Yes. And he therefore can shape it in the way that he wants it to be shaped. That's very true. And I think as I've come in earlier, what's so impressive is that how he reveals the stage by stage, how he admits that he's learning on the job. And he is letting his strategy respond to the changing situation that he's learning on the job and he is letting his strategy respond to the changing situation that he's facing and his ability to both

grow himself and to communicate that growth to the reader who pays attention is really part of his genius and I think this is the sort of training that leads to his undefeated record after this. I mean, he effectively does not lose a battle. I mean, he sort of loses the Pompey, but he's actually challenging Pompey in the situation. Right. Pompey breaks out of the siege that Caesar has put him in, even though Caesar has half as many men as Pompey does.

And then Pompey doesn't take advantage of the fact that Caesar has fled. But Caesar is still the one providing the pressure, making things happen, going on the initiative. Taking the initiative? Yeah. And somehow, I mean, I don't wanna say he's genius, but somehow he always had the sense of when that initiative should be pushed

and went to back off. And I'd like to believe that's because he faced what he knew was a truly existential challenge. First off in his career. And once you pass that, then you're really not a creative Pompey. Nothing else is really gonna phase you. So what in this cavalry is twice the size of mine,

that's still an enemy I can defeat. They have blood. Yeah, I can beating hearts. I can I can chase them into the into the foothills. Yeah, yeah. Absolutely. So if anybody has a claim, anybody from the ancient world has a claim to the kind of military genius that really stands up over time, I think it's Caesar. Yeah, unless of course, it's because he gets to write his own book that I have been I have been suckered in to seeing the world that he wants me to see Well, you know, I think this is a case as we were saying last episode about these things This is a case of little Colman, little Colby. Yeah

You know with with what we said about you know people needing to be right, you know enough It is true that there are some figures out of history who are truly exceptional. Caesar is definitely one of them. Big Chuck, I'd say, is probably with the next one in European history who qualifies. Chuckie Hammer? Well, yeah, well, Chuckie Hammer, yeah, Chuckie Hammer, but then his great grandson, Big Chuck. Okay. Carolis Magnus.

I refused to call him by the Wussifussi Charlemagne that he's been labeled with for years. By the way, Professor Justice, thank you for introducing me to that years ago at Davis, Gil Ags. But yeah, she refused to refer to him as Charlemagne. She always referred to him as a big shuck because he was a Frank Damit and calling him by a highfalutin Frenchy name would have made him either laugh into his meat or want to smack somebody. So anyway, you know, and he, you know, similarly to the way that Caesar was able to, you know, make

the tramveret happen and then deal with the instability after the tramveret fell apart, you know, everything right up until, you know, the eyes of March, which kind of took him by surprise. kind of took him by surprise. He had that level of savvy and that level of intelligence. Chuck had the charisma and the strategic understanding to build the military system that eventually became feudalism to defend his territory from the Norse, which was the biggest threat of his time. And you know, at some point,

we can talk about, you know, whether there's any evidence of them having been werewolves. I like this. If you think about berserkers, if you have a second, this is actually part of their own description of the berserk frenzy. But I mean, I'm gonna have to go.

Now, now that you've opened my eyes to this, I'm gonna have to go back and take a look at those sources. Sure. You really have to read your eyes carefully. Yes, yeah, and look at the stuff between the lines. Yeah. You know, I think the Norse and the proto-Norse had had a much less, much less depth gift for the subtle, than the Romans, I think,

early Norse is a much less flexible language than Latin, in a lot of ways, but I think it would be worth taking a look at for sure. Yeah, fun fact about Latin. There's no word for yes or no. Bullshit. No, there's no word for yes or no. It's kind of a no There's a that's the least And that's the most yeah, you're kidding nope

How do you answer in the affirmative? It's mostly right Thus truly yeah, or that is the best of all the possible answers is the implication. Or you just repeat the verb. Yeah or you just yeah. You just broke my brain. Well you've got a society built on like political shifting alliances all the time. You do not want to be on the hook for having taken a stand. What's wrong? You don't. You can divorce your daughter from that guy in a heartbeat.

That was the best. This is now the best. We're good. People talk about the fact that, you know, in Japanese. Hi, means yes. And hi also means no. Oh shit. It literally means yes. Uh-huh. But you'll be asked a question and your response will be yes. But what you're telling them is no. Because confusion politeness is such a huge big deal. Right. That unless you have sufficient rank over somebody, you never actually say, yeah, which is none. No, okay.

You know, the circumstances under which you can actually give a negative are so limited, that you have to be able, like this was the thing, when we had our episode talking about the 80s, the terrified that the Japanese were gonna eat our lunch. Right. One of the things that constantly came up was we can't trust them because they say yes Lie right. No, they're not lying. They're being polite. Oh, they're being polite. You're barren

You know and yeah, so Roman still have here's the deal. Here's the deal. They have a fucking word Yes, I'm sorry. I heard for fucking no I'll have that no and they also just just so you know if they want you to do something They have a way of telling you to do it. Okay. They want you to not do something They don't tell you don't do it. They tell you don't want to do it do it. Not in the imperative you don't want to do it. It's the imperative for you to not want. To not wanting. Yes. Do not want to do that. Yes. And this is the reason that the Romans were able to just shout orders across the battlefield and use that as their code. Yeah, no one could break it down.

That's the way. That was the reason he lived amongst the Romans, not long enough to actually call field translator. Jesus. Yep. So. Oh my God. Rex, did you have fun tonight?

I had fun. Good. It's nice to get the truth out there. Yes, yes it is fun tonight? Hi, Ed Fun. Good. It's nice to get the truth out there. Thank you. Yes, yes it is. Thank you for being a part of this. We'll have to go out on the next file soon. I don't think we have the BMG license now.

No, we don't, unfortunately. So are there any, since the last time we met, are there any books that you've started reading? Well, you know, I'm going up to the Redwoods Recently I'm sorry. I'm going to the Redwoods in two weeks. So I've recently been trying to read more about the Redwoods And I read this it's great book called Giants of the Earth Which is a compilation of writing about Sequoia's and Redwoods since they were discovered in 1852 Up until relatively recently.

There was a whole lot of contention about the supposed last stand of the Redwoods. California history is so fascinating to me because it is so short. Yeah. Because things are discovered 170 years ago, out of whole cloth. And then because that land is unclaimed, well, not regarding Native Americans as a legitimate president on the land, the American government is going to say that is unclaimed land. And then you can make national parks, you can set these things aside. And that creates a whole other new kind of history. So that's my, it's totally

related to my mundane life, but it is really exciting. It's great. Oh yeah. That's fantastic. I recommend it highly. It's wonderful. I have several things I'm reading through.

My class is working on Fahrenheit 451, as I talked about the last episode. Right. At the same time as that, I'm still trying to slog my way through walking Myers manual swordsmanship, which if my if my fancy coach is listening, I'm sorry I'm trying. And that's that's my homework. It's my hobby, but it's also my homework. And the the issue with it is that of course the main weapon that we train with in class is the longsword, by which I mean for the D&D nerds,

it's a bastard sword, but anyway. But the manual starts by talking about the rapier. Okay, and the key the secret from my coach is that What he talks about in the rapier here are the basics that then get applied to all of the weapons in the system that he talks about from there Okay, so he starts with the rapier removes to the do sack that he moves to the long sword and then he does like a back flip and a triple axle and starts talking about the pole acts the pike and the hull bird. Wow. And the staff because they all work on set body mechanics and and that's the point at which you're essentially going from the PE equivalent of algebra to the PE equivalent of trigonometry. It's like yes, things are related. And we have these theories that tie them together.

But this is a whole other level up here. Wow. So yeah, I'm still slogging my way through rapier. But I know that I'm going to get there eventually. I'm waiting for my brain to bleed out my ears. How about you? Well, I've been reading comic books a lot. I started with the Fantastic Four number one,

and then when I caught up to the month that amazing Spider-Man number one comes out, I start reading that, and then when I caught up to the month where Daredevil number one comes out, I started with that, and when I caught up to the month of the Avengers number one, I start with that, and then the X-Men number one, I started with that.

So I'm reading them all in publication order. The question, when does Thor first appear in Tales of Mystery in that chronology? I don't know, I never give a shit about Thor. Oh, just... Sorry. Come on. No, I don't need a cartoon or comic book of Deus Ex Machina where it's literally a god. So you don't read Superman either? No, no, no, I'll make mine Marvel.

So, but I'm excited because I was expecting them to address in some way, culturally, it would bleed in some way, forgive the pun, the assassination of John Kennedy. Okay. Completely not didn't show up anywhere in any way. There was not a greater tragedy. There was not a a flash bulb moment for any of the comics. There was not like everybody crossed over or, you know,

nothing was on the news completely, which tells me that the audience that they were aiming at were still very much kids and not in any way adults yet. So I'm looking forward to getting to 1973 when Watergate happens. Because I would like to see if that flash bulb happens with all of these titles. Now obviously it won't with the X-Men because they'll have been cancelled by that point. Yeah. But it will potentially, it could with Daredevil because he's a lawyer. It could potentially with the Avengers,

because Captain America is Captain America. And I do believe he witnesses a president shooting himself. It's just going to be, I know, I know, and I don't know the details, but I know thematically. Because he goes around Watergate. He becomes a mill mad. Yeah, he has a real serious midlife crisis, which is something for a guy that's been frozen and nice for three years. Right.

But yeah, he has, there's a period during which that character's arc becomes about soul searching and what do I mean? But I'm also looking forward to running into characters of color eventually and it's 1966 where I'm reading right now and hopefully you know we're gonna start seeing that coming in as well. I remember Black Panther is only a couple of years out. It's 68.

I'm having a lot of fun with those. I consider comic books to be very high art. I don't have a lot of fun with those. I did stop down for a little bit to read Peter Parker with my kids because we'd seen the end of the spider verse and they were shocked to know that that was actually a comic book. That was really a thing. Spider-gam.

They really did that. Yeah. It was fun. Anyway, you can find us at at Geek History Time. You could find myself at Da Harmony on Twitter. You can find me at EH Blaelock on Twitter. If you want to find Rex, you have to like get into UC Davis and and like get into the classics. Yeah, come and hunt for him. It's worth it. It's totally worth it.

But he's a little harder to access than us. Are you, is your department located in the best star? No, no, no. Where in the tower of Babel? Yes. Oh, okay. Makes perfect sense, actually. Yeah, it kind of does.

Yeah, it does. It does. Awesome. So, all right. Well, thank you very much, Rex, for joining us. Thank you. Yeah. Yeah. Wonderful having you.

Thank you. For all of us at Geek History of Time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blanlock. And until next time, aim for the head.