The Daily Stoic - Historian Barry Strauss on the Rise and Fall of Nations | It’s Good That You’re Scared

Episode Date: March 23, 2022

Ryan reads today’s daily meditation and talks to author and historian and author Barry S. Strauss about his new book “The War That Made the Roman Empire,” the mistakes and successes of the ancient stoics, the self-inflicted wounds that lead to the end of empires, the value of immigration and assimilation, and more.Barry Strauss has spent years researching and studying the leaders of the ancient world. He is also a widely acclaimed military and naval historian whose analyses of the strategies and campaigns of some of history’s great commanders reveal the successful rules of engagement that were true on the battlefield and resonate in today’s boardrooms and executive suites. Barry is professor at Cornell University, and the author of nine books, including the bestselling “Ten Caesars: Roman Emperors from Augustine to Constantine.”Check out Ryan Holiday’s book “Courage Is Calling” at The Painted Porch Bookshop.Blinkist takes top nonfiction titles, pulls out the key takeaways and puts them into text and audio explainers called Blinks that give you the most important information in just 15 minutes. Go to Blinkist.com/STOIC to start your free 7 day trial and get 25% off of a Blinkist Premium membership.The Jordan Harbinger Show is one of the most interesting podcasts on the web, with guests like Kobe Bryant, Mark Manson, Eric Schmidt, and more. Listen to one of Ryan's episodes right now (1, 2), and subscribe to the Jordan Harbinger Show today.Shopify has the tools and resources that make it easy for any business to succeed from down the street to around the globe. Go to shopify.com/stoic for a FREE fourteen-day trial and get full access to Shopify’s entire suite of features.New Relic combines 16 different monitoring products that you’d normally buy separately, so engineering teams can see across their entire software stack in one place. Get access to the whole New Relic platform and 100GB of data free, forever – no credit card required! Sign up at NewRelic.com/stoic.As a member of Daily Stoic Life, you get all our current and future courses, 100+ additional Daily Stoic email meditations, 4 live Q&As with bestselling author Ryan Holiday (and guests), and 10% off your next purchase from the Daily Stoic Store. Sign up at https://dailystoic.com/life/ Sign up for the Daily Stoic email: https://dailystoic.com/dailyemailCheck out the Daily Stoic Store for Stoic inspired products, signed books, and more.Follow us: Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, TikTok, FacebookFollow Barry Strauss: HSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

Hey, prime members, you can listen to the Daily Stoic Podcast early and add free on Amazon music. Download the app today. Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast where each weekday we bring you a Meditation inspired by the ancient Stoics a short passage of ancient wisdom designed to help you find strength and insight here in everyday life. And on Wednesdays, we talk to some of our fellow students of ancient philosophy, well-known and obscure, fascinating, and powerful. With them, we discuss the strategies and habits that have helped them become who they are and also to find peace in wisdom in their actual lives. But first we've got

a quick message from one of our sponsors. Hi I'm David Brown, the host of Wundery's podcast business wars. And in our new season, Walmart must fight off target, the new discounter that's both savvy and fashion forward. Listen to business wars on Amazon music or wherever you get your podcasts. It's good that you're scared. It is said that Marcus Aurelius cried when he was told he would be a future emperor. The whole idea scared him. Most kings were terrible, most had done terrible things. It was more comfortable in the company of books, not the court of a king.

He would have much rather followed than led. There are things that scare all of us. Maybe we're intimidated by public speaking. Maybe we're scared to quit our jobs to start our own thing. Maybe we don't want to be the one who has to step forward and blow the whistle. Maybe we're reluctant to really go for it. Marcus Aurelis was lucky then that he had emperors and advisors

who saw his potential and pushed him, as I depicted my fable, the boy who would be king. These mentors didn't let Marcus Aurelius linger and languish down at the level of his fears. No matter how much you study Clientes and Xeno, one of them would tell him, against your will you must put on the purple cloak, not the philosopher's tunic, of course wool. Meaning you have to be emperor, it's your destiny, you can't run from it. Perhaps it was a good thing that Marcus was scared, and Menthity took the job seriously, and Menthity was aware of its magnitude and its risks, and meant that he was aware of his own limitations too. But it was an even better thing that he did not let this fear rule, that his study of philosophy taught him the courage to rise above it, to

push ahead, to meet the time as it sought him. So must you. It's okay that you're scared. Now you'll need to be brave. Brave like Marcus. Brave like all the people who have ever met their destinies. Against your will, against your fears. You must step forward. You must put on the cloak. Obviously this is what I talk about not just in the boy who would be King, which I wrote to sort of teach this very idea to my two young sons. You can check that out at dailystoke.com slash King. But this is really the idea of courage is calling. The idea that what we are meant to do is scary and intimidate us. I think good things are on the other side of pushing through that fear. The book debuted on the Times List,

it's off to a great start. It's my first book in this four-virtue series. If you haven't checked it out, it would mean a lot. If you did, you can check it out. Anywhere books are sold, including my bookstore here. In Bastrop, Texas called the Painted Porch. You can pick up sign copies here or at dailystoke.com. Hey, it's Ryan Holiday. Welcome to another episode of the Daily Stoke Podcast. I just got back from Las Vegas, where Gabe talked about Stoicism, and it was surreal to just, I don't want to say things are going back to normal.

I've talked about that so much that there is no normal, and certainly nowhere is less normal than Las Vegas, but it was, I don't know, a bit of a hint of what I remember things being like before, exactly two years ago, when we were in the depths of this thing. Who knows what the future holds in Europe is already undergoing its own new COVID surge? So I do try to remember we wrote about this recently, you know, the idea that the soothing light at the end of the tunnel is Metallica sings

could just be another freight train heading our way. So try not to get too carried away. Remember, as Stockdale says, it's the optimist that get crushed, try to be practical, try to be present, and try to just keep doing the work and make good choices along the way. That's what I am doing. And that brings me to today's episode.

Someone I've wanted to talk to for a long time as he is one of the leading historians of the ancient world. He's an expert on Caesar and Hannibal and Alexander. He's written and spoken widely of their mistakes and successes. What to admire about them and what to learn from them from their, you know, cautionary excesses. It's funny to think that Seneca and Marcus and Epictetus, they were studying those same figures who were still quite distant from them and yet still presented the same kind of timeless lessons. My guest today, Barry Strauss, is a widely acclaimed military-enabled historian, whose analysis

of the strategies and campaigns of some of history's great commanders and leaders have a lot to teach us, lessons that are true on the battlefield, but also in the boardroom and in life. Barry is a professor at Cornell University, the author of nine books, including the bestseller, Ten Seasers Roman Emperors from Augustus to Constantine. And his latest book,

The War that made the Roman Empire, Antony, Cleopatra, and Octavian Actim, was published yesterday. You can follow him on Twitter at at BarryStrauss, go to his website berrystrowse.com and his numerous books are published everywhere. If you're looking for an accessible, insightful, and just well-written, and researched, look into the ancient world, into the minds of the ancient world's greatest leaders. I think Barry is a wonderful place to start,

and I'm so glad he took the time to have this conversation with me, and I am excited to share it with you. Before we talk about the new book, which I really enjoyed, I thought you would start with one of the Caesars, which I see behind you. Let's start with Marcus Aurelius, because obviously he's a mutual, I don't know if I want to say hero for you, but a hero of mine, but you call him one of the very few

genuinely good human beings to ever be a teaser. Talk to me about that. You know, well, being a good human being was not a job qualification for being a Caesar. In fact, it could be a disadvantage. Being a tough, shrewd, ruthless SOB was more like what it took to be a Caesar. It might even be a liability in Rome to be a good human being. Indeed. Yeah. Yeah. Absolutely. So with Marcus, is it just a fluke? Do you think or is it the system working well? I'm so fascinated with, and I did this little kids book about it last year, called The Boy Who Would Be King, but I'm fascinated with Hadrian having the foresight to see whatever that goodness in Marcus was and to set up this complicated system where Antoninus Pius, who's the only emperor

that I really missed in the book that I hoped might have been in there wasn't. But how does Hadrian know that Marcus will be Marcus? Well, I think, first of all, I think Hadrian was a pretty shrew judge of character, but he himself, you know, at least dabbled in philosophy. He had some of the same values. The Roman elite was pretty small. It's a really good question. I guess he saw things in young Marcus

that he liked and that appealed him. I mean, there's precedent. Caesar had seen things in young Gaius Octavius, the future Augustus, that would appeal to him. So it must have been something similar. Marcus was obviously a their, their bright kid. And he, he had an excellent education. I think that, that, that Hadrian was seeing some of that.

Yeah, because it, that is an interesting parallel, right? Because one of the, one of the things that struck me is, is Marcus's path to power is not that dissimilar than Nero's path to power. And you take this seemingly promising young kid, you surround them with stoic philosophy, and you hope for the best. In Marcus's case, it turns out well. In Nero's case, it turns out terribly. In Taven Augustus' case, it may be it's, because he also has two stoic teachers, Athena, Dr. Anderson, Areas. Maybe he's the Aristotelian mean between the two or something. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Yeah, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. I mean, Marcus did not have, I mean, Marcus really

did not have the disadvantage of having agropline of the younger as a't. I mean, Marcus did not have, I mean Marcus really did not have the disadvantage of having agropline of the younger as a mother. I mean, that was a tremendous disadvantage for Nero. Octavian had by all accounts of terrific mother in Ahtia. Marcus Aurelius, God, I forget his mother's name, but also somebody who paid a lot of attention to his education. And some of it depends as a matter of character as well.

No, that's an interesting point because I think when people hear the 10 Caesars, and then you look at it, it's like, okay, this is a bunch of dudes basically. But one of the interesting through lines in your book is just the role that women played in the rise of the emperors and changing the emperors. And so that maybe the mother was the difference in those three cases is a pretty interesting argument that I haven't heard before. Yeah, I think the mother was really important. I mean, in Nero's case, there's really no doubt.

I mean, the mother was really important. I mean, in Nero's case, there's really no doubt. I mean, the mother's just disaster. And the fact that he could function at all says something. And, you know, of course, what he does to her is a horror, you know, but nonetheless, I wouldn't say she had it coming, but you wouldn't want to have a mother like that. Ahtia, I think, saved a young Octavia. Serious as kid, his father dies when he's four years old. And what his future is going to be

in turbulent civil war or Rome, or that era of Rome, is not at all clear. And it's Atea, who makes sure that he is not forgotten, that introduces him to her mother, Julia, who's, of course, her uncle is not forgotten, that introduces him to her mother, Julia, who's, of course, her uncle is Julia Caesar, and make sure that this boy gets a good education and gets the kind of attention that he gets from Caesar, which just makes all the difference. So tremendous and important.

It's always, it's always, obviously, so dangerous to sort of psychoanalyze these historical characters that we've never met. But it does feel like trauma as a theme in the early lives of these emperors must have shaped them so much. I think about the big sort of miss in Marcus's life is how does communist end up being communist. Like how great of an emperor could he be if he has this son communist? But I feel like the historians have sort of skipped over the fact that putting aside just

having your dad be emperor, which today we'd go like, why is so-and-so an alcoholic? Well, her father was president. We go, he was absent, right? But I think communist loses like six siblings before they reach adulthood, just the profound trauma of life at that time, it must have shaped who these people became. Sure, absolutely. I entirely agree that trauma was a major factor. In the case of Augustus, Case Vaktivian, again, not having the father and being such turbulent time and having to survive. I would say find his own way, but he couldn't have done it without his mother. There's just no way he could have done it without Ahtia. And he honors her when she dies, giving her a state funeral.

I think she's the first Roman woman who's ever had such a funeral. Interesting, but really has great respect for her. In the case of so a communist, so on the one hand, there's the trauma. On the other hand, he is the only person who's ever become Roman Emperor who was born to be a Roman Emperor. No one's, it's never happened before. There were people who inherited the terms from their father, but when they were young, they didn't think they're gonna be emperor, like Titus. But common sense is born to it, and I think he spoiled. Also, his mother is the daughter of an emperor. She's Antoninus's daughter.

So I think major spoil factor, wouldn't we deal with common sense? Yes, yes. And perhaps in one passage in Meditations, Marcus really talks about being strict with yourself, but tolerant with others. One wonders if perhaps his stoic demeanor, his weakness is he has trouble being firm with his children perhaps. Yeah, that's really insightful. That's really insightful. I think that might be the case. Now, he has a daughter who's devoted to him, this Marcus, but with commoners. Yeah. Well, I think what's so beautiful to me about Marcus, really, your point about how,

you know, yeah, we tend to think because later the kings and queens would, their children would be set upon the throne. We know how bad that was. We have a lot more experience with the Romans, the misses of that system than the Romans in fact did. But I just think about how incredible someone like Antoninus was. Like Antoninus wasn't born to the throne. He works his whole life.

He becomes one of the greatest politicians of his time. He earns it. And then Hadrian says, you can have it, but only as a placeholder for this random kid. I think it's better than you. That he didn't kill Marcus Aurelius. It's pretty remarkable. I mean, it's hard to give someone credit for not killing him. But is it areas or a Theonadores who tells Oct like, we can't have too many Caesars,

you have to kill Cesarian. That's not important. It's areas. Yeah. That's a, yeah. No, it's not. You're right. No, that's a really good point.

But I'm not entirely bullish on Antoninus' treatment of Marcus, really, is because he basically, he denies him a military education, and he demise an experience of what's out there in the world outside of Italy, and he himself, Antoninus doesn't pay much attention to that sort of thing. So Marcus is not really prepared for what's gonna hit him. And it makes me have an even higher opinion of Marcus that he tries manfully and stoically to deal with this terrible burden of his reign.

Well, that's a really interesting interpretation. So is it that Antoninus is provincial? Is it that he's asleep at the wheel? Is it he's unprepared. What why is that how it goes? Well, that's a great question. I'm not sure that I can answer it. I would tend to say he's asleep at the wheel. That after all, he is raining over what might be the greatest moment in Roman history. The Empire is at its height. It's peaceful. Everything's working. And he might think, we really don't have to worry about that this military stuff. If we wanna have a less kindly interpretation, maybe he's jealous, maybe he doesn't want

Marcus to go out there. And always if you're at the emperor, you gotta worry about somebody else being a general on the frontier. You got to worry about somebody else being friendly or with the military. I mean, Antoninus would know that Trajan became emperor, so the mission is killed. The legions are not happy about the assassination of the commission and this unmilitary senator, Nerva, is made emperor. And the legions are not gonna tolerate it unless they're told that their guy, Trajan,

is going to be adopted as Nerva's successor. And we don't know what would have happened to Nerva if he didn't conveniently leave the scene by death. I think only two years after he becomes emperor. So any emperor has got to know it's a little bit dangerous to send somebody else out there and make him the military guy. So if he had sent Marcus out to expand the empire to leave the army and empowered him,

but by delegating that authority, perhaps the fear might have been that, I think he gets what, 19 years as Marcus as the sort of air and waiting, that perhaps Marcus, if backed by the military, would not have been so patient and thus sort of makes him ill prepared for the future in which he actually would have needed those relationships and that experience. Yes, I'm not pathosizing now and maybe being unfair to a good man, but I think that's how to have crossed his mind. How to have crossed his mind?

No, that's fascinating. I've never thought about that. The other maybe slightly more charitable, but still uncharitable interpretations, just things are so good. It's the peak of it that he's kind of like, I don't know, presidents in the 90s in America, opposed to collapse, they're just not thinking that they're like, this is going to go on forever. And they're kind of kicking some cans down the road that eventually the later presidents have to deal with.

Yeah, I think it's a good analogy. I think it's a good analogy, yeah. It is a remarkable relationship that they have for that 19 years, because that's also kind of unprecedented, right? The idea that the emperor and his successor are existing peacefully at the same time. And for the most part, Marcus, even if Marcus was set up to fail, Marcus didn't seem to see it that way and seem to genuinely admire and worship Antoninus. Yeah, that's a really good point

because when you look at previous examples, so you get Hadrian, for instance, and his relationship with Trajan is not good at all, and Trajan doesn't even want to name him as his heir, even though he's the heir apparent. Tiberius has a better relationship with Augustus, but it's not a great relationship. So yeah, I mean, there's plenty of really bad ones.

Yeah, and it does feel like the ultimate mark of a successful leader is can they hand off power to a successor? So Steve Jobs Tim Cook, that is the unusual, that's the exception to the rule in even corporate America. And there's a lot less at stake there than you look at Roosevelt and Taft. It doesn't happen. It's so hard to groom a successor because ultimately they stop being so patient. And 19 years is a long way.

That's a really good point. Yeah, that's an excellent point. Yeah. So, to go to Nero before we circle back to Octavian, what do you think of the more recent arguments that Nero wasn't as bad as historically he's been made out to be. Well, there's certainly some truth to that. For a lot of Nero's reign, he brought peace and prosperity to the empire.

And there is the tabloid version of Nero that says he's just utterly a monster. And I think that the people who have argued against that have made some good points. Still, I am not totally on board with the neuro the hero of view history. I mean, he's still pretty bad. And it's not just the tabloid stuff,

but rebuilding Rome, I mean, it's not crazy to suggest that he was behind the Great Fire. We certainly can't prove it. And if you want to say unfair, we don't know it. Fine. We don't know it. But it's not a crazy idea that he was behind the Great Fire. He certainly gleefully took advantage of it to rebuild some of the city as his own gigantic palace. And even if it was partly going to be open to the people of Rome, it's a huge contrast to what comes afterwards when you really do have public space where

near us palace had been. He's also asleep at the wheel. You can entirely blame the revolt and Judea on Nehru, but Nehru was certainly not on top of the situation. And what's he doing when things go south? He's in Greece enjoying the games that he puts on in his own honor and demeaning the the amperorship. And as we've seen more recently, there's only so much downgrading or demeaning of

a of a chief executive's position that that a polity will take. And so, yeah, I think you know, it's very problematic. Celebrity feuds are high stakes. You never know if you're just going to end up on page six or Du Moir or in court. I'm Matt Bellesai.

And I'm Sydney Battle, and we're the host of Wonder E's new podcast, Diss and Tell, where each episode we unpack a different iconic celebrity feud from the buildup, why it happened, and the repercussions. What does our obsession with these feuds say about us? The first season is packed with some pretty messy pop culture drama, but none is drawn out in personal as Britney and Jamie Lynn Spears. When Britney's fans form the free Britney movement dedicated to fraying her from the infamous conservatorship, Jamie Lynn's lack of public support, it angered some fans, a lot of them.

It's a story of two young women who had their choices taken away from them by their controlling parents, but took their anger out on each other. And it's about a movement to save a superstar, which set its sights upon anyone who failed to fight for Brittany. Follow Disenthal wherever you get your podcast. You can listen ad-free on Amazon Music or the Wondery app. And how much is the stuff you get credit for? How much of that do you feel like is probably rightfully credited to Aseneca or someone else? You know, it seems weird that he would have been stable for like five years and then just spin off the planet. Probably he was constrained in some way.

He was constrained and he was also young. So I think those two things constrained. But once he got old enough and got rid of his mother and was able to get rid of Sennaka, then Katie Barthodore. I mean, there's just no stopping. Of course, I've left out his persecution of the Christians. I know that that is now controversial, but I actually think the evidence is still pretty good that he did it. So. Yeah, it doesn't suit. I think Sutonia basically says that as soon as Neuro's mother leaves the scene, Neuro becomes who he was always going to become.

And also, I feel like whatever, you know, however clever you want to get with the narrative, you can't escape the fact that he killed his own mother. Like, it's fine. You can't. No, the killed his own mother arranged for the death of his first wife, possibly accidentally killed his second wife. It's pretty bad. And anytime you're excusing multiple assassinations and murders, you're probably going down a precarious

road, I feel like, as far as a narrative is concerned. Yeah, I think so. I think so. Well, so to go to Octavian, because we wouldn't be talking about Nero or Marcus or Antoninus without Octavian. I just, I find him so fascinating because, as you say in the book, Caesar is not really the first emperor of Rome.

Octavian is the first emperor of Rome. Where does this guy who, as you said, isn't raised by, you know, in particularly, loving circumstances at first or, or, or, you know, grows up knowing he's going to be this. Where does he get the balls to think like that's me. You know, that's a pretty, that's a pretty audacious self assessment. Yeah, it's a great question, but as I, again, I partly think the thanks goes to his mother, Ahtia, and his older sister, Octavia.

He had two older sisters, Octavia. The oldest one was a half sister. His full sister, Octavia, not too many years older than him, I think also has a hand in it. And his mother hands him over to his grandmother, her mother, Julia, Julia Caesar's sister. And I think she has a lot to do with it as well. I think from early on, Octavian is told, Octavian is told, you're special.

You know, you are a Caesar on your mother's side, you're Julia, and you're capable of great things. It's also tremendously helpful that his great uncle doesn't have a son and heir, or at least not a Roman son and heir. And so he lavishes his attention on young Octavius. And Octavius has got to be a talented, bright, ambitious kid. That's very much part of it.

Is it just a historical flute that for like 200 years, there's no male heirs in the Roman Empire? Or was it some dietary thing? How does this happen? It seems insane. Well, yeah, I mean, well, of course, we do have Titus and Demission, so they are the sons of an emperor, but mostly you're right. There's this, yeah, I mean, it's partly that they don't put a big emphasis.

It's not their emphasis. The Romans are pretty cool with adoption from early on. I mean, this goes back to the Republic. It's not something they invent for the Empire. Also they have bad luck. I mean, Octavian has one birth child, his daughter, and she has a lot of kids. So he thinks, I'm cool. And he adopts two of them as two of his grands child, his daughter, and she has a lot of kids. So he thinks, I'm cool. And he adopts two of them as two of his grandsons

as his own, and they both die. I think it's bad luck. You know, there's slander that Olivia, Octavian's Augustus' wife has them poisoned. I don't believe that. I think that's misogyny to suggest that. But, you know, the odds are not with you in a society like this. The odds of living to ripe old age are pretty slim.

What is with that attitude towards adoption? It is interesting. I don't know when it gets codified later that the male air is somehow superior. But also that, so that, that, I understand is a gendered issue, but the idea of not favoring biological versus adoptive, it seems even from an evolutionary standpoint, somewhat of a strange practice, right? Not to impunity to one who's adopted. It just, it seems interesting that you would just give your entire fortune to a 40 year old man that you adopted at 60. Yeah, to be clear, so the Romans do not cripple as adoption. They cripple as biological inheritance. So you would only adopt if you don't have male heirs.

Second, they only like to adopt biological relatives. So for Caesar to adopt his grand nephew, Octavius, that makes sense. To adopt a perfect stranger, that the Romans are not so cool with and it doesn't happen so often. But it does happen in Imperial times and Septimus Severus adopts himself. He declares himself the adopted son of Marcus Aurelius and commoners. So, I mean, that takes it to the absurd lengths. I was just thinking about Sennaka's brother, Gio, who basically gets absorbed into this other family and changes his name and everything. They do that. They do that frequently, yeah. and changes his name and everything. They do that. They do that frequently.

Yeah. It's sort of a surreal, it's both a touching and then kind of an inexplicable practice to me. Um, yeah, maybe more explicable by the fact, well, sometimes it wasn't convenient for Roman men to divorce their wives. And the wife might be powerful, might come from a powerful family. She might be sitting on a lot of money. And if they don't have sons, they don't have sons who live on,

they don't have sons. I mean, Marcus are really as soon as his wife had 14 children, but most of them die. They never make it to adulthood. So, you know, it's a society with a lot of child mortality. Yeah, I've always been curious as to what the effect of that just in constant death would have on not just a parent, but as a society at large. It seems like impossible that it wouldn't affect people psychologically and culturally to just, hey, you had 14 kids and seven died or whatever,

like that's just, I mean, it's unfathomable. But it was the way of the world into the 20th century, wasn't it? It was, it was. Okay, so Octavian sees himself as the heir to Julius Caesar. There's some disagreement, obviously among his contemporaries, whether this is true or not. And thus Rome is plunged into civil war to effectively litigate Caesar's will. What happens next? So, I mean, what happens next is that Octavian is a very, very shrewd player. I mean, he's one of history's shrewdest politicians and he is able to maneuver with charm,

ruthlessness, violence, and maybe a certain amount of compassion and put all these things into play, but the guy really has it all. I mean, he's really got it all. And there's patients, it feels like patience is one of his virtues. Yes, strategic patience is definitely one of his virtues. He knows when to lie low, but he's also a young man in a hurry.

Yeah. He says that from the get go and he's 19, he gives a speech in the forum and in front of Caesar's statue. And he points to the statue and he says, I intend to win all the honors that my father had. And when Caesar does, he adopts Octavius posthumously in his will. That by the way is illegal. There's no such thing as posthumous adoption in Rome. And Octavia says I'll take it. And then he says, his name should have been Gaius Julius Caesar Octavianus. But he says,

nah, don't call me Octavianus, I'm just Gaius Julius Caesar. And as soon as he gets power, forces the Roman government to legalize his adoption, to pass a law legalizing the adoption. the Roman government to legalize his adoption, pass a law legalizing the adoption. Yeah, I think that tension in him of the young man in a hurry and then the he doesn't fully name himself Caesar or basically Emperor until later on even after he's had the power for some time. What's that expression? He has Fistina Lente, make-case slowly. Fistina Lente, he makes-case slowly. He does live it. Yes, he really does live it.

He does make-case slowly. And he gets his duck some a row. And yeah. Where does he learn that? Is it from his mother? Is it, where does he learn that? Is it, it's not from Julius Caesar. Oh, yeah, no, no, no, Julius Caesar.

So the guy, when so when Octavian is 12 or so, is that right? Maybe a little later, so 63. No, it's like 17. He goes to Spain where Caesar's having his last campaign to the Civil War. He gets there too late for the actual fighting, but he's there for them hopping up. And he spends six months or so at Julius Caesar's side. I think he's getting educated. I think Caesar understands that he's not going to live forever. He has health issues, and he doesn't have a son, he doesn't have a Roman son. And he really wants to educate the skaters really bright

and very charming. And so he gets a lot of it from Caesar. I'm sure he's learned a lot from his grandmother, Julia. I mean, she's got to know something of the family, lore, as well. Caesar's mother is another one of these great women, Alurelia Cata. She lives until Caesar's pretty, I think she lives until she about 50 or something. She's lived a long time and she has a lot to do with her son's success. I am sure that she gave lessons to her daughter and to her granddaughter as well. And so there's a whole family tradition of women who are teaching this guy. His mother's second husband, his stepfather, Golly, I'm blanking on the guy's name, but he is a very cunning operator as well.

And young Octavian could have learned a lot from this guy too. So it's a smart kid. He's got great tutors. He's, he's got these political trudies who are giving him a sense of what to do, but also their Roman nobles, and they're giving him a sense that you are part of this nobility, you deserve it. Even though he's only half a Roman noble, he's not a Roman noble on his father's side. One of the things you talk about in the book is that he's, although he successfully wins the Civil War, it's largely because he delegates

when it's outside of his competency. So he brings Rome's great military mind inside and defers a lot of authority there that is different than Caesar because Caesar is also a great military commander and sort of is fused into one. I think it's to Octavian's credit that he's able to go, I'm gonna outsource this to a pro. Absolutely. I mean, how many leaders are there who think that they know everything? And, you know, he's one of the rare leaders

that says, I don't know everything. I do want to outsource this to a pro. And he's, you know, clever enough politically to make sure that the pro doesn't turn on him. I mean, that's always a worry that the pro is going to turn on you, but it doesn't happen. And it's partly because Octavian is very good at the art of managing his number two. It's easy, it was terrible at managing his number two.

His number two turns on him in the Civil War. What does Octavian do to do that? Well, first of all, this is a guy who's been friends with him since childhood and Octavian makes sure that he's in his debt. His name is Marcus Agrippa and Agrippa's brother had a thought supported Pompey in the Civil War. Octavian goes to Caesar and says, you've got to give the sky amnesty, you've got to forgive him.

And he does. So Agrippa is in his debt to begin with. He's constantly giving Agrippa rewards, very unusual honors like a naval crown. There's only maybe once before in Roman history, anyone's ever gotten a naval crown. And ultimately, he married his Agrippa to his daughter. He married his only birth child, Julia. So he brings him into the family, into the family business. That's

one way to keep the guy on board. Well, two periphery, peripheral characters in this book that I'm fascinated with because they pertain to the Stoics. Cicero and Kato, what do you think of both? I find that the more I read about Cicero, the less I like him. I don't know why that is. I mean, I think you gotta have a mixed feeling, give Cicero a mixed report card. As close Romans seem to, they seem to love a man hate him at the same time. And rightly so. I mean, he is tooting his own horn to an obnoxious degree.

And he's not all that politically astute. After all, he's the guy who opens the door to Octavian and thinks that even though he understands that Octavian's using him, he thinks that he can outplay Octavian because he's young and because Octavian charms him. And Cicero is so wrong about that. Cicero on the plus side. And Cicero, I mean, the other problem with Cicero, I mean, the reason that there's a Caesar

is that the Roman elite doesn't understand what it needs to do. It's conquered this empire of 50 million people. They don't understand that you need to open the doors of the elite widely and let at least the provincial elite in. You can't govern this with the same hundred families that have governed Rome from all time. And Cicero, he doesn't get it at all.

He wants- He's a new man. He's a new man, but he's from Italy, you know? And like so many new men, he's more Catholic than the Pope. You know, he wants to say, I have course, just only the old Roman nobles can possibly run this place and nobody else can. Caesar and Pompey before him understands

that's not gonna wash that you have to bring new people in. And that is one of the glories of the Roman Empire that does bring new people in. A lesson for a pair. I have to be sure, I think. Totally. I mean, the management of immigration and management of assimilation is one of the absolute keys

to having a successful multinational absolute keys to having a successful, successful multinational country, to having an empire, if you will. If you don't do it, you're doomed. And the Romans did it. And you have to be willing to make compromises with the new people as well. Cicero doesn't get it at all. And that's one of his big problems. It feels like Kato gets it even less in some way.

Even less. I mean, you got to say that Kato and Cicero are magnificent. They're magnificent in their devotion to liberty by which they mean the freedom of an elite to speak freely, to say what they think, without fear of what anyone else said and to have debate. No holds barred debate in which they decide on public policy. There is something really magnificent in that and there's lessons for us in that as well. The problem is the extent to which they want to limit it and the extent to which they are indifferent to the suffering of the poor. They don't mind basically oppressing the poor and mistreating slaves and mistreating the poor free people. That's not something

they're too worried about. Is Cato the defender of the republic? Is he heroic or do you see him as sort of trying to, stand aside history and thwart it? Like is he holding back progress or is he a defender of what is good and true and right? Both and. You know, the problem with the Romans, gender of what is good and true and right? Both and, you know, the problem with the Romans, the tragedy with the Romans is that they needed to change. And the tragedy is they can't change peacefully and slowly.

And they can't keep what's good of the old while making concessions to what they need to do with the new. And so it ends up being very violent and either or and what you get with the monarx with the caesars is you know the slow destruction of freedom of speech i mean if there had been a way to segue into a more open elite then perhaps the room and could have kept a more republican system and they could have had more freedom of speech. But they lose that because they're not capable of making the change or that violence in war. Yeah, one of the ironies I find about the the the Cato family is so you know the Stoic show up from from Greece when Cato the elder is is sort of ruling Rome as the censor. And he's so appalled that these philosophers, he's like, let's ban them from Rome, right? And then so, you know, three or so four generations later, Kato the younger is now a philosopher.

And can't wrap his head around the fact that sometimes the Kato's are resistant to change that is ultimately for the best. It seems like they were just abstinent. And abstinence can be a virtue when it is protecting the right, but what about when it is upholding an unjust status quo as Rome effectively was? Or is that dysfunctional status quo? Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you're right. It's very ironic that Kato should be

obstinate about change when he himself is an advertisement for change. Yes. And yeah, as you, Cicero, especially, I mean, Cicero should be embodying all the change and openness of the future of the Republic, but instead he's the most rigid, least accepting and most snobbish of the Roman elites, even as they're snobbishly looking down on him. That's right, yes. I mean, doesn't that often happen? That the outsider wants to become the ultimate insider? Yeah, or the immigrant wants to build the wall behind them. Exactly, so much. Yes, exactly.

It seems like the profound trauma and tragedy that shapes the future of Rome is these sort of successive civil wars, right? So at first, when I was like, how does Seneca, who worships Cato, the defender of the Republic, just go to work serving the emperor, right? Nero, and why is he not like a Thrasia or someone who tries to get rid of the emperor? How much of fear of a third Civil War or just fear of unrest period shapes the future of, the Roman Emperor going forward. Are people just scared of getting that bad again? Yeah, they're definitely scared of it getting that bad again. I mean, Caesar himself had said, no one's going to assassinate me because only a lunatic would want to open the door to more civil war. And I think the fact that there were

lunatics and there was more civil war really served to inoculate people for a long time against more civil war. I mean Augustus's settlement lasts for about a century before there's before there's another civil war. And yeah, that's interesting. I didn't know that Caesar said that. And you know, when you really read about Brutus, you're like, yeah, this guy didn't think it through. Not that it might not have been the right decision, but he was surprised by the blowback it feels.

Yeah, he didn't think it through and he underestimated the soldiers. I mean, he should have known that at that point, you could not possibly have a successful revolution without having the army on your side. And I think he blows it. I think he has a chance of making it succeed after the Iides of March, but only if he wins the soldiers over. And I think he blows it when he addresses the soldiers and says, don't worry, we're not going to take anything away from you. I think they say, forget it, we're not giving us a raise, we're not in. And short order Octavian comes and says, I'm giving you guys a raise.

They say, yes, we like this guy. And don't you think Brutus also, you know, it's sort of like if you're going to be brutal, you've got to be brutal all the way, it feels like he falls, he should have obviously executed both Octavian and Mark Antony. Right. Yeah, no, that's what Cicero says. Octavian was out of his reach at the time. He was in Albania in a military base, so he was safe.

But yeah, it's just sort of a, a brutus doesn't kill Anthony, and it's partly because brutus, I think, wants to make a point that we, Roman nobles, behave in a constitutional manner, but we had no choice with Caesar because he was so beyond the pale that we just had to do this. But they left the loose ends that ultimately they hung with? They left the loose ends and they didn't figure out until it was too late that they needed to have an army. Now, mind you, things might have gone differently at Celepide and if Cassius hadn't mistakenly committed suicide, they could have won that

battle or if they had been patient and just waited to starve out Octavian and Antony, they could have won that way too. Is Cato a suicide a mistake also in your view? Napoleon, I was reading Andrew Roberts who I know as a fan of your Napoleon, I was reading Andrew Robert, who I know is a fan of your work, I was reading his biography of Napoleon and there's an interesting passage where Napoleon says, what does Kato accomplish by this? It doesn't weaken anyone but himself. And it was kind of a, I mean, obviously Napoleon is coming at it from a lover of power as

opposed to a lover of virtue. But it does, it was an interesting military analysis of Kato's suicide that I hadn't thought about before. So what do you think about that? That is interesting. Yeah, no, it is interesting. It certainly doesn't accomplish anything from the military point of view. I mean, and you might say that Kato should have lived to fight again another day. Yes. And seeing what he could do for Rome, going back to Rome. But his sense of honor and his sense of virtue was just too great.

And he refused to demean himself in front of Caesar. Yes. And then to go to what we sort of flash forward about earlier, when Octavian does take power, he doesn't make the mistakes of Brutus or anyone else. He cleans up all the loose ends very, very quickly. He cleans up the loose ends, yes. Octavian and Anthony, who is at that point is his ally. They have a purge.

And among the people they kill is Cicero. So they're just not gonna, they're not gonna fool around. Well, and then to go to areas is remark about having too many Caesars, he kills what is potentially Julius Caesar's actual heir? Yeah, I think he probably was. So Caesar, as you know, had an affair with Cleopatra, Queen of Egypt, and a year or so later, she gives birth to a son.

She names the son, Ptolemy Caesar, and Caesar permits her to do so. He never acknowledges the boy, but he allows her to call him that, and he allows a statue of Cleopatra to be put up in the forum that he builds in Rome, possibly holding the infant. So, and it's in front of the temple of Venuskinetrics, Venus the mother of the Roman people, and Caesar's ancestor, his putative ancestor. So, he's kind of wink nodding that the kid we call a chisarion really is his son. And that's a big problem for Octavian who, you know, he calls himself Julius Caesar and says, on the air of Julius Caesar. I saw a meme about Cleopatra, who's obviously a big character in the book, but it was like, you know, Cleopatra, I was one of the few female rulers and then it says,

male historians, but you were very pretty. And then she goes like, I was a brilliant diplomat and then it's a put very pretty. For all of Cleopatra's incredible accomplishments, history has just decided we're going to see her as a beautiful person with perhaps a strange nose. What is that about? Well, you know, it's of course a fate to which women have been subjected to since time immemorial that they're men see them for what they want to see in them and men don't want to see in them a potential competitor or even a threat. So yes, of course, Cleopatra

used her charm and used her sex appeal. It was one of her weapons, but it certainly wasn't her only weapon or even her most potent weapon. She has been underrated historically. Yeah, it's, it's, we sometimes go, oh yeah, well, the reason history is so male-dominated is because only men were allowed, right? Which is true. And then also we decide to underplay the role that women were playing behind the scenes. Are we absolutely. We celebrate just how magnificent or impressive some of the accomplishments of those women were. Yeah, no, I completely agree. And Roman history has really got lots of great evidence for the power and importance of women, particularly while the document in the Imperial period, but even before in the Republican period.

We know how important Roman women were wise, mothers, daughters. And Cleopatra is just a spectacular example of a woman who really almost changes the history of the world and could have made the Roman Empire, a Greco-Roman Empire centuries before it ultimately had that fate, really stunning to see what she almost pulls off. Well, I've said this about the Stoics, is people go, were there any female Stoics back in ancient Rome and I sort of go, in a sense, they were the most stoic because they didn't even need credit. They didn't have, like, there's something, you know, Cato pretends to be this sort of humble,

you know, lover of virtue doesn't need fame. But of course, he's constantly seeking the spotlight. Meanwhile, the women who had to go into exile with these men, or you look at his daughter or something, they really watched the walk and didn't do much talking. Right, great point. It's absolutely true. I heard a fact about Cleopatra that sort of blew my mind once. I wondered, it might be too good to be true, but it was effectively saying that like, Cleopatra that sort of blew my mind once. I wonder it might be too good to be true, but it was effectively saying that like Cleopatra was as close to the building of the pyramids

as we are to Cleopatra. Or that actually they were further from Cleopatra's time than Cleopatra is to our time. That's true. That's true. They're further from her time than they are. Namjee is to our time. She's closer to us. What did they think of those like insane buildings? So what's, how do they function in her life?

Are they just this mysterious thing like stone hinges to us? Or would it have been integrated into her understanding of time and history and? Oh, it would have been integrated into her understanding of time and history and? Oh, it would have been integrated. I mean, Cleopatra, like all of the TallahMee saw herself, both as a, you know, a Macedonian monarch and also as Pharaoh. She presented herself as ISIS, as an Egyptian deity, and she went through all the rituals of an Egyptian monarch. And as you know, although we have depictions of Cleopatra and Greco-Roman style, but also have depictions

of Cleopatra in Egyptian style, where she looks as if she could have stepped out of Veronica Egypt. So I think she would have taken it very seriously. And she's a very popular ruler in Egypt, she had a good reputation with her people. Yeah, that must have been a surreal, because they'd already sort of lost the ability to build something like that. And yet also could build things that we ourselves today sort of can't comprehend how they how they built those things. Yeah, yes, I'm sure I'm sure it was surreal. I'm sure it was surreal.

So to bring all of this back into modern times, because I feel like what you do so well in your books is is like, why do we study the Romans? What do we have to learn from them today? It feels like study the Romans, what do we have to learn from them today? It feels like you are, you've talked, I guess, a lot about how, you know, ultimately these empires, they don't collapse because of an outside enemy, you know, people are worried about the rise of say China. It seems like ultimately these empires collapse from within. It's the self-inflicted wounds or the inability to change or grow or adapt that it is the end of an empire, whether it's the Republic or the Empire itself. Well, first of all, thanks for the compliment. Yeah, I mean, I think that every state faces

challenges. They're always new competitors on their rise, And this isn't true. It's true in business as it is in the affairs of nations. And the question is how are you going to adapt to that? There is a long tradition of thinkers who talk about the cycles of empires, the rise and fall of nations. One of my favorites is Ibn Haluun, the Arab thinker of the Middle Ages. And he talks about how you have rough and tough people who ride in from the desert and they take over soft or more settled richer civilizations. And then they get soft and rich and settled in their ways in turn and they're taken over by someone else. And I think that's why you often see. You get states

that are wealthy and self-satisfied and they don't want to make the painful adjustments necessary to deal with new competitors. So one of the challenges for states is how do you reinvigorate yourself? And I think one of the answers is immigration. You reinvigorate yourself? And I think one of the answers is immigration. You reinvigorate yourself with new people. But to do that, you have to assimilate those people. You have to make them part of your system. And you in turn have to make some concessions to them. You can't bring in new people and just say to them,

forget everything you ever knew. Sure. You have to say, new people and just say to them, forget everything you ever knew. Sure. You have to say, oh, you know, come join us, be part of us, be us, and we'll be a little bit of you, you know, we'll meet somewhere in the middle. And I think when Rome's successful, it really does that very, very well. As far as that cycle goes, is that similar to that will Durant line about how an empire is born stoic and dies Epicurian? That's a great, yeah, I haven't heard that in a long time. Thank you for the reminder.

Yes, empire is born stoic and die Epicurian. You're point about immigration is spot on because it's strange, right? You watch on the news, let's say they're talking about some convoy of immigrants amassing at the border and we for some reason American culture not all of us but but there is this sort of demonization of that as if that's not the pioneer spirit embodied is that that wasn't what's been happening on that exact border and all of the American borders for 400 years. Yes, I mean, to be sure,

you might wanna have some border controls. Oh, of course, of course. But yeah, no, I mean, immigration is the American way. And I think it's a great thing, but by the same token, you have to have some notion of assimilation. You can't say, our assimilation is bad as some people do today.

You have to have, being American means something. There are some American values, and we welcome immigrants, but they have to accept some of these values. That's both sides of the coin. So is the mistake that we assume that a country is about race or ethnicity as opposed to a certain set of values? And maybe this even goes back to the Roman idea of adoption where it's like, if you're thinking about this as blood relation, you're missing the point, it's, are you continuing

the traditions of the family? That's the great thing, exactly right. That's the great thing about the Rome, it's, are you continuing the traditions of the family? That's the great thing, exactly right. That's the great thing about the Romans. And it may go back to their, you know, their openness to adoption. Certainly, the Romans are always willing to let new people in. You know, it's one of their, it's one of their trademarks. That's in the very beginning, as someone said, Rome is a city of brigands, brigands and bandits. You know, they're not, it's not pure like a Greek city state. There's very little notion of purity. You know, after the second

century, there are very few Italians in the legions. And after Nierro, there are almost no Roman nobles who ever become emperor again. And one is African, you mentioned in the book, which I'd never heard before. Yes. Well, Septimius Severus comes from, what is nowadays Libya? He's descended in part from immigrants from Italy,

in part from punic speakers, Carthaginians, and possibly from people from sub-Saharan African, possibly part Black African, we don't know. In any case, he marries a Syrian woman. So, you know, his kids, they're not from the old Roman elite, and the Romans deal with this. They deal with it fine. elite and the Romans deal with this, they deal with it fine. Yeah, that's a really interesting way of thinking about it. It's about, and I think what America and Rome have in common, that is an asset that so often people think of as some reason of liability, which is that people want to be American. They wanted to become like to become a Roman citizen was the thing that when people rioted,

what they wanted was to be, you know, they wanted to be treated as Roman citizens. They wanted the legal rights and benefits that went along with that thing. Right. To be sure, there are a lot of revolts against the Roman Empire, various provinces, and not everybody bought into it. But pretty much everywhere, there are at various provinces, and not everybody bought into it. But pretty much everywhere, there are at least some people who wanted to buy into it. And you're right that in general, being a Roman was very attractive to people. Yeah, no.

And so it's interesting that there's still that, even 2,000 years ago, there was that resistance to letting people in. There was the part of it that was in your self-interest, and then there was that resistance to letting people in. There was the part of it that was in your self-interest, and then there was the part of it that was motivated by fear, racism, or whatever it was that holds the country of the nation back from expanding and growing and integrating. True. But as early as the fourth century BC, when the Romans dealt with the Latin revolt, they figured out that the way ahead was to offer their citizenship to some people in return for good behavior. You're good, you can have

citizenship without the vote, and your kids can become full Roman citizens. I mean, it's one, the reason the Romans could never have conquered an empire without this, without this thing that tied people they conquered to them and gave them this inexhaustible pool of manpower. It's their superpower, I would say, that along with discipline in a sense of order, but that's just incredible this ability to bring in newcomers assimilate and accept them. I've joked about this on the podcast before. America is one of the only major countries that taxes citizens who don't live in the country.

So I think we should be given the citizenship out like crazy. You spend a long weekend in Florida here, you're a citizen. The IRS is coming for you. Yeah, I do know people Americans who've moved abroad who have basically dropped American citizenship saying it's too expensive. Yeah, right. But it should be, I mean, I think the Romans believe that it should be expected. Like being a citizen came not just with privileges, but also with obligations and responsibilities. And that's how one keeps an empire together.

Yeah, no, it's true. It's absolutely true. So as we wrap up, what else do people, why is this fight for Octavian's future? Why is it relevant to us today and what lessons can we learn from it? Or a bunch of things. Well, for one thing, of course, the Battle of Actium is very dramatic, and it really is this clash between East and West, and it really is a clash of where the center of gravity and the Roman Empire is going to lie. Is it going to lie in Rome, or is it going to lie in Alexandria? Ultimately, it does movies where it should constanate an opal, but as I said, the fact that Octavian wins the battle means Rome and the West has more of a chance to develop. But I think it's really fascinating because

although we talk about the Battle of Actio, and this is actually a campaign, and the underdog wins. Octavian is not favored to win this battle. He wins because he and Agrippa take a big chance They engage in a risky attack six months before the Battle of Actium that goes into Antionic Cleopatra's Rear and captures their main supply base. That starts the the chain going that starts the ball rolling That ultimately is going to lead to anti-inclair patches, Navy being starved out. They have to burn ships because they can't man them. Actim is above all a breakout battle,

when they're trying to get out of there, because they've been outthought and outplayed by Octavian and Agrippa. So it's just a fascinating case study in strategy and how you win as an underdog. Yeah, and that you've got to will, you've got to will it into existence, which Octavian does. I don't think anyone would have predicted this for him. No, you have to will it in existence. You have to, you have to will it into existence. I, you have to will it into existence. And on top of everything else, Octavian is sickly. He's not the world's most robust guy.

And yet he lives into his 70s and he's immensely successful, obviously. And what's that expression that he has that he inherited Rome, the city of bricks, and left it a policy city of marble? That's right, yes. He, you know, when the Romans were conquering the world, they never bothered to create a glorious capital. Alexandria was infinitely more impressive as an urban space than Rome. And it is Octavian, as the first emperor, as Augustus, who finally builds up the center of Rome in a way that makes it look

like an imperial cap. To me, that's the ultimate. I was just thinking about this, the ultimate sort of, I think, imperative and metric by which we have to judge a ruler or a leader, which is did they leave the place better than they found it? They did. I mean, more, absolutely. I mean, Octavian ends the Roman civil war. This war has been going on for a century on and off. And he finally says, we're going

to have peace. We're no longer going to be fighting each other. This is what he claims to he's going to do and he doesn't. And you know, he doesn't in not a pretty way. It's a very violent way, but it works. And that's no small thing. No, it's not. Lovely. Professor Strauss, thank you so much. This was an honor. And I really enjoyed this book and your book on the Caesars.

Thanks so much. It's great talking to you. Thanks for having me. You know, the Stoics in real life met at what was called the Stoa. The Stoa, Pocula, the Painted Porch in ancient Athens. Obviously, we can't all get together in one place because this community is like hundreds of thousands of people and we couldn't fit in one space.

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