A Geek History of Time - Episode 363 - That Time When Livy Wrote a What If Issue for Ab Urbe Condita Part I

Episode Date: April 3, 2026

When I think nuclear annihilation, I think... La la la la la la la la la la la la la la la la I'm gonna drink a metric fuck time of coffee and hope that I stop right before I start seeing sounds That's one of my one of my favorite I don't know if you know like yeah favorite awful thing I get it I get it Like bitch took the ice trees meanwhile this guy is going into a unicorn cave This is better than the what is the orientation of the chicken strapped to your head question the essential part of democracy to me is not that I should spend a lot of time in governing myself, for I have many more amusing things to do. But I want to be quite certain that I can change the

person who governs me without having to shoot him. That is the essence of democracy. You mean herge? Probably. Okay. Well, I mean, yeah. I don't know if that's just, you know, my inner drama queen. Okay, so this is really hard because you're talking about like serious important things to you. The amount of jokes that, like, I think they're funny as shit. To the real world. My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California.

And I have now gotten far enough through my master's program that, number one, I'm tired and I want it to be done. Like, can I just finish it now? Just like say, all right, you know. Yay, thank you for all the, you know, thank you for all the fish. And number one. And number two, I have noticed that the biggest thing I find myself daydreaming about lately is what I'm going to do with all the free time I have when the program is done. Like, oh, man, you know what?

I'm going to do, I'm going to actually like seriously get back into Warhammer again. and like, you know, I've been putting off, taking over, you know, running a game for, you know, the folks in my, in my D&D group where it was like, you know, Ryan, you know, passed away and, you know, Tim and I decided we were going to, you know, switch off. We've never switched off. He's just been running the game ever since.

And I'm like, you know what? I can finally, you know, pick that up and, oh, I can do this. And, oh, man, you know, I'm even looking into getting a, a 3D printer. And I've even decided that, you know, I want to get one of the resin 3D printers because of the nature of the stuff I want to do and the, like, the way the level of detail, you know, gets done.

And I'm like, I'm, I'm still nine months out. But, yeah, that's where, that's where my, that's where my imagination goes. When I'm daydreaming, I was like, oh, what I'm done, it'll be so nice. So that's what I have going on. I have short-timer syndrome possibly early. How about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I'm a U.S. history and government teacher up here in Northern California at the high school level.

And I realized something playing a video game the other day. And as of when this releases, it's probably already resolved. But what I took for granted before, I have a very large TV, as you've seen. Yeah. Which means that the characters on the... the TV are large, right? Yeah. I'm having trouble seeing them, and I have to squint for them to clarify.

Oh. I think I need glasses, and I went to my partner, and I told her this, and she says, well, like, and she pointed out the window, because we were at a restaurant, she pointed out the window. She said, can you see what that sign says? I'm like, yeah, I can, but the words are fuzzy. I know what it says because I know how words work and how letters work, but I cannot clearly see that.

she says in my glasses, I can see it clearly. And I said, yeah, I absolutely probably am going to need glasses. So I've made it this long, which pretty good run. Yeah. But okay. And it's one of those, like, I think if this had happened 10 years ago, number one, it would have been 10 years ago. But I think I would have been much more upset because there were probably still some,

well, I'm not even going to say probably. there were still some like latent superiority bullshit going on in my head about like I've never needed this I've never needed that I've never needed this but like after the pandemic happened and I spent two years trying to learn how to loaf I'm like you know no I need this my back hurts I need some medication to take the inflammation down instead of like I have to gut this out because then and it's like no that's stupid so yeah I'm like okay I'm gonna need glasses and then everybody came out of the fucking woodwork to tell me what glasses would look best on me Which I was like kind of flattered, but also wondering like are you all just like wanting to accessorize me? Is that what's you know? But it is well okay. So here's the question when all those people came out of the woodwork to tell you what glasses would look good on you Mm-hmm. Were they people who wear glasses? Some were some weren't some weren't yeah. Okay. See I find that interesting. Yeah, no, because you said you were gonna need glasses and as some

who wears them. Right. The first thing I started doing was looking at you like, you know, should you go frameless? No, you'd look better with something, you know, having something, having something more professorial, you know. Yeah. I mean, I didn't mean it like that, but, you know. But also, you don't not mean it like that. But also, I'm not going to argue against it.

I know what gets me in the door. It ain't my looks. Oddly, it's my personality. It's. So, yeah. But, yeah, well. As somebody who's worn glasses since the sixth grade, welcome to the club. Yeah.

So now my next question is, have you noticed that you have to start holding reading material at home's length? No. No. Okay. Fuck you. It'll get there. And the horse you wrote in on. No, I'm just saying that because, like, so interestingly, I, Lee and I both just in the last couple of months, went to get our new prescriptions.

Uh-huh. And they, they wanted me to get, um, uh, transition lenses, uh, for, for near and far. And, um, the amount of effort it took me not to say, I'm sorry, fuck you, what? Um, because I steadfastly, like, I've been taking my glasses off for close up reading. Uh-huh. For, for two years now. Oh, okay. But, but, but I, I refuse.

I just absolutely refuse to do transition lenses. That's like the one step I will not take. So I still have some of, and it's not even a superiority thing. It's just, I don't want to deal with having to learn how to look at the world through new lenses. Yeah, I,

I'll take whatever they give me. I don't give a shit. Like, you know, I'm still not doing Kolo Guard, but I know I need to, but I'm not shitting on like Saran Wrap and sending it to somebody in the mail. if it's not going to be like a school board or a local official.

It's good that you included that caveat. I'm not saying it's out of the question. I'm just saying like for medical things. Context is important. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, there needs to be some other motivation there. Yeah. So, all right.

So put yourself in the way back times. There we go. Do you remember the man in the high castle? I do. Do you remember why it was so attractive to people in 2014 and 2015? Yeah. Okay. I do.

Yes. I think that counterfactuals, because that's what that is. It's a what if of history. Yeah. Number one, I have always loved what if as a comic series. Just like, okay, yeah. My favorite what if was what if the Fantastic Four all got the same powers? Oh.

And it was four in one issue because there's four, right? It's really cool. And there are been other what-ifs that I've really liked as well. But Man on the High Castle is basically a what-if. Now, I hear tell that it's a book, too, but I'd never seen that. So I was streaming it. And in 2014-2015, it was fascinating because it asked, what if the Nazis had won?

Yes. Yeah. Yes. Yeah, and we don't have to ask. We're walking. Yeah, okay. We're goose stepping, we're goose stepping. We're marching.

Yeah. We are marching. But counterfactuals have existed long before Marvel picked up the pen and said, what if. There's all kinds of alternate histories, right? Yeah. I dare say that the genre of like Abraham Lincoln vampire hunter is kind of a what if. Yeah.

It's genred, but it's a what if. Yeah. And I remember when I was reading, or rather when I was watching The Man on the High Castle, eventually it lost its luster because, again, we decided to run the experiment again. But and I feel like it kind of the interesting aspects of it and the overall narrative kind of got away from the writers. So I don't know because I haven't read the books. But I think I think because it's a oh damn it I'm forgetting the writer's name probably starts with an H. Okay funny. But it's the same author who did do Android's dream.

Philip K. Dick. Oh, I was close. It's a Philip K. Dick story. And I think the original novel. only covers like the first season of the TV show and then they had to or something along those lines

and then it was projecting kind of had to project and anytime that happens that's a massive crap shoot you know Game of Thrones shows basically the same kind of thing is like this is the material that's been written up to this point and then you know

see that's what I love about the Star Wars is because, like, you know what's going to happen. You know what episodes you're between and yet still like, oh, what can we weave in between it then? Because we already know what's going to happen to this character. How are you going to make me care? And they do sometimes. And it's awesome. Yeah. And fundamentally, I think there is, I think there is an aspect of it that, like, for Star Wars working in the Star Wars universe as any kind of visual medium, uh, writer film or television or web series or whatever because it started out as a series of films and it wasn't it wasn't codified in the written form first right yeah like anytime anytime

you're adapting a novel into a film there's already going to be weirdnesses yeah and then when you then have to go well okay then all ran out and we need to keep going right like those weirdnesses have have this opportunity to to magnify. And that's what I like about the novelizations of the films because it gets into it's, you've got to fill more than 100 pages. Yeah. And so you can get into the internal psychology of the characters. And that's really fun.

Yeah. I think in reverse, like novelization of films, I don't want to say that it's easier, but I think, I think the, the ways in which I don't want to denigrate anybody is. But I think when you work in a universe that was first codified visually. Yeah. It's it's there's maybe more wiggle room. Yeah. And it sets it honestly, to me, I like it because it's kind of like why I like ripping off movies for my D&D games.

It sets a tone that I try to match. It sets a tone for me to like, okay, not only do I want to hit these dialogue points, Not only do I want to hit these plot points, but, oh, this is a world that's like very gray and ashen. So I need to tailor it to that, you know, that kind of thing. Right, right. And so I like when they novelize things. But anyway, today I'm here to talk to you actually about a counterfactual that existed about 2,000 years ago. Wow.

Yeah. So I love Livy. Livy is one of my favorite Roman historians. Okay. is by no means a good historian. Yeah, you've mentioned this previously. Yes. You've been like, well, you know, you know, Livy.

So fun. He's so fun. I don't remember if I break apart his approach to things in here or not. I wrote this a bit ago. But when Titus Liewius wrote his history, so we'll call him Livy, okay, but his first name was Titus. He wrote his history of Rome from the founding of the city

That's what was called Aburbe Condita He was by no means The first historian To be full of false modesty But he still was my favorite historian Full of False Modesty False Modesty

Was kind of part of the trope Of being a historian At the beginning Like Herodotus Yeah Well Thucydides Was very faux modest as well He said quote

if my work is judged useful by any who shall wish to have a clear view both of the events which have happened and of those which will someday, according to the human condition, happen again in such and such like ways, it will suffice for me. In other words, I'll be happy if people see value in what I do and use it to predict what we'll do again and again because people are cyclical creatures. Yeah. So in that faux modesty, you also have, by the way, people have always been this way. And don't worry, they will be again. When I say that people have always been this way, I mean. So, Livy, of course, why say in seven words, what you can say in 700, he. Oh, so he was of the school of Herodotus then.

Yes, yeah, in many, many ways. Livy, so he wrote, I forget how many books, but only a single. Scant few actually remain because of fires. But he undertook to write the entire history of Rome up to the point where he was alive. So we're talking from the beginning, Abor Becondita, and a little before that, all the way through to, I want to say Agrippa, being a general under Octavian. Jesus. Yeah. Wow.

So here's what Libby says in his Privatio, which is honestly the hardest part of all of his writings to translate. All of his writings are actually really accessible for translators too. He's just, he's very straightforward in things, which is interesting because of the way he draws narratives. But his praetio is fucking difficult to get through. And it's right there in the beginning. So here's what he says. Whether the task I have undertaken of writing a complete history of the Roman people from the very commencement of, its existence will reward me for the labor spent on it, I neither know for certain, nor if I did

what I venture to say. That's the first sentence. Trying to get students to follow that in, it translated already in English. Yeah. Like as you were, as you were going through it, my English teacher brain kicked in and it was like, okay, dependent clause. Right. Another dependent clause. Yeah. Okay, now we have the meaningful verb. Wow. Yeah. Oh, yeah.

Oh, my God. Yeah. He's still no Cicero. My students famously were very mad at one of Cicero's writings because they're like, it's four lines long and it's only one sentence. I'm like, that's why I said lines one through four for tonight. I just wanted you to translate a sentence. And like, this is bullshit. Where is the subordinate clause here?

Like, it starts with this. but it doesn't have a subordinate clause until you're like, and they're just going up there's, where's the fucking indicative? And they're just, oh, it's so, it was so fun. I miss it. So, oh, this guy. Another purpose clause. How many purposes can then one sentence have?

And I'm like, it's Cicero. So lots. All of them. The answer child is all of them. Yeah. But okay, so I'll continue with Livy. For I see that this is an old established and a common practice. each fresh writer being invariably persuaded that he will either attain a greater certainty in the materials of his narrative or surpass the rudeness of antiquity in the excellence of his style.

That's the next sentence. Okay. Okay. I think I'm there. However this may be, it will still be a great satisfaction to me to have taken my part, too, in investing to the utmost of my abilities, the annals of the foremost nation in the world with a deeper interest. And if in such a crowd of writers my own reputation is thrown into the shade, I would console myself with the renown and greatness of those who eclips my fame. That's the next sentence.

We're really, really laying it on thick here. Boy, it's fond. It's, yeah. Downright chewy. Yeah. The subject, moreover, is one that demands immense labor. I'm just going to pause after every sentence. So, like, okay.

Wait, okay, hold on. That one confused? Like, no, it didn't confuse me, but I've gotten used to a certain rhythm. Yeah. Rhythm and, you know, yeah, well, and I mean, you know, you advise writers to, you know, vary the length of their sentences. But that one, that one kind of came as a shock. Yeah. He continues.

It goes back beyond 700 years and after starting from small and humble beginnings has grown to such dimensions that it begins to be overburdened by its greatness. Okay. I mean, pretty standard, right? Nationalist writer. Yeah, very... I have very little doubt, too, that for the majority of my readers, the earliest times in those immediately succeeding, will possess little attraction. They will hurry on to these modern days in which the might of a long paramount nation is wasting by internal decay. So I don't doubt that most of y'all are dipshits who are just going to skip to the end where it's like, you know, gossip. Yeah, I know all of this effort I've put out is going to go to waste because, you're all going to skip to the end anyway.

Yeah, you're going to look for your name, you know. And you know who you fucking are. Right. Yeah. Yeah. I, on the other hand, shall look for a further reward of my labors in being able to close my eyes to the evils which our generation has witnessed for so many years. So long, at least, as I am devoting all my thoughts to retracing those pristine records, free from all the anxiety which can disturb the historian of his own times, even if it cannot

warp him from the truth. Okay. Now, he said a lot more, too, because he was at his core a moralist living in a time of rot. Okay. So Livy believed, like most Romans, that the good old days were hell of better than this shit right now. When men were men and not a feat status-seeking dipshits hurting all of us with their lust for power. Okay. Quote, the traditions of what

happened prior to the foundation of the city or whilst it was being built are more fitted to adorn the creations of the poet than the authentic records of the historian and I have no intention of establishing either their truth or their falsehood. I'm just going to stop here for a second. He's like

look, poets would do this better. Historians are going to get boring shit in there. I'm not here to judge whichever's better. Okay. This much license is conceded to the ancients that By intermingling human actions with divine, they may confer a more august dignity on the origins of states.

Okay. Now, if any nation ought to be allowed to claim a sacred origin and point back to a divine paternity, that nation is Rome. Again, no real surprises here, I don't think. And we finally actually have Rome. Named. Kids would be highlighting that, you know. Yeah, yeah. For such is her renown in war that when she choose.

to represent Mars as her own and her founder's father, the nations of the world accept the statement with the same equanimity with which they accept her dominion. Okay. Yeah. Again, writing at the time of Augustus, right? Yeah. Writing actually kind of contemporaneously with Virgil. Oh, okay.

Just he's doing the history. Virgil's doing the poetry. Right. Yeah. All right. But whatever opinions may be formed or criticisms passed upon these. and similar traditions, I regard them as of small importance. The subject to which I would ask each of my readers to devote his earnest attention are these,

the life and morals of the community, the men and the qualities by which through domestic policy and foreign war, dominion was won and extended. Okay. So learn from history, y'all. Yeah. Be better. Yeah, and I appreciate the way that he names his learning. targets.

Yeah. Right at the outset of the book. By the end of this lesson, I will be able to. Yeah. You will know how to. Then, as the standard of morality gradually lowers, let him follow the decay of the national character, observing how at first it slowly sinks, then slips downward more and more rapidly and finally begins to plunge into headlong ruin until he reaches these days in which we can

bear neither our diseases nor their remedies. Oh. I told you he was a moralist at a time of rod. Damn. Yeah. I'm sorry. I didn't think Rome got set on fire until Nero. No.

Oh. Yeah. Somebody called the burn unit. Like, Right? Damn. All right. There is this exceptionally beneficial and fruitful advantage to be derived from the study of the past that you see set in the clear light of historical truth examples of every possible.

type. From these, you may select for yourself and your country what to imitate, and also as being mischievous in its inception and disastrous in its issues, you are to avoid. There's examples here. Look at them. We'll be greeted as liberators. No. No. Nine. I really. It's a land war in Asia. It's not going to go different. not going to like this is not going to go how you think it's going to um i and again like now i'm starting to get this image of livy as a frustrated high school history teacher maybe this is why i like him like like like i think this is why you like yeah okay all right kids pay attention because you're going to learn what your parents ignored yeah like i need you i need you to pay

attention to this and i need you to like understand it yeah this is i'm going to lay all out for you. You don't even really have to do any thinking. I just need you to read and comprehend. My God, do you have like a microphone in my room? Like, I tell them all the time.

No thinking needed. Yeah. This is writing. Hi. Yeah. Like, like, because the microphone in your room

would capture the same shit as a microphone in my room. Only I'm using smaller words and less sarcasm because I'm teaching middle school. You'd be surprised. That's the only difference. and disappointed

maybe unless however I am misled by affection for my undertaking there has never existed any commonwealth greater in power with a pure morality

or more fertile in good examples or any state in which avarice and luxury have been so late in making their inroads or poverty and frugality so highly and continuously

honored showing so clearly that the less wealthy men possessed or that the less wealthy men possessed, the less they coveted. Yeah, a little bit back in the old days kind of shit.

Yeah. Again, a frustrated historian, I think. Well, yeah, a frustrated history teacher. I mean, yeah, frustrated history teacher. But yeah, I also, I feel like there's a really strong through line between what he's describing and the way the Spartans liked to glaze themselves. Could be.

I mean, I would say this. Yes, that. And also, I mean, what historians have we looked at who are either responding to that kind of self-iconography or are continuing it, you know? Yeah. Yeah. Historians of our age now, like in our era are like, it wasn't that great. Stop looking back at it as is the good old days.

But that means they're responding to the mentality of it's the good old days. Yeah. Oh, yeah. So. Yeah. Let's see. In these later years, or in these latter years, wealth has brought avarice in its train. And the unlimited command of pleasure has created in men a passion for ruining themselves and everything else through self-indulgence and licentiousness.

So I just love that. I mean, didn't we hear that about the 80s? Didn't we hear that about the 90s? Didn't we hear about, you know, like, you don't know how good you had it. Like, that's every generation, right? Yeah, well, yeah, I remember, like, in the 80s, the, the, in the 80s, there really was significant glorification of excess.

Mm-hmm. And the, like, there was a, there was a, there was a backlash to that. Mm-hmm. But I think that backlash didn't come until the 90s. I think there was a dominant narrative of, you know, of American power and exceptionalism during the Reagan years that drowned out anybody who wanted to be like, okay, look, maybe you shouldn't be doing all the blow. Right. Oh, and maybe you shouldn't be invading Latin American countries. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, luckily we've all learned.

But criticisms which will be unwelcome, even when perhaps necessary, must not appear in the commencement at all events of this extensive work. We should much prefer to start with favorable omens, and if we could have adopted the poet's custom, it would have been much pleasanter to commence with prayers and supplications to the gods and goddesses that they would have adopted the poet's custom, it would be, it would have been much pleasanter to commence with prayers and supplications to the gods and goddesses that they would, would grant a favorable and successful issue to the great task before us. Okay. So like I said, when men were men. Trying to accentuate the positive. Yeah. And, and start, you know, Rome is amazing.

And Rome was even more amazing back in the day when men were men and not a feat status seeking dipsets hurting all of us with their lust of power. I feel like I've heard that phrase before. Uh-huh. Recently. When I say. Okay. So we have a lot of lessons to live.

learn from the before times and hopefully they'll lead us to better times, but probably not because the current times are shit. Now, here's the thing about Livy, like any other historian, he's a man of his time. Right. He used the theoretical models available, nascent as they were, to interpret the past and the history that he saw that needed writing, just like any other historian would. In Livy's case, coming of age at a time of tremendous political instability was a major detriment of the type of history that Livy would end up writing once he began.

Livy was, quote, only a schoolboy when Julius Caesar precipitated the Civil War by invading Italy, according to another historian. Okay. So coupled with this influence was the fact that Livy's prior historiographical models had all focused on similar aspects of history, the histories of the great man. So it's little wonder with the confluence of his adolescence. lessons filled with a time of great men, Caesar and Pompey, and his predecessors in the field, including Herodotus and Polybius, Livy's histories were focused on the actions of singular, exceptional, notorious, and overall great men.

Right. Now, Livy himself was very much a Pompeian. He saw Pompeii as the savior of the Roman Republic against Caesar's ambition. Livy, according to an historian, Livy, clearly favored an aristocratic type of government with statesmen motivated by Roman Wirtus rather than platonic philosophy, and he is fully aware of the dangers of mob rule. So, in other words, he and Virgil would not have agreed about Octavian. Because Virgil was like, like, slobbering all over Augustus.

I think he would have appreciated Octavian's order. that he brought. Okay. But perhaps not the fact that it changed the Republic from being the Republic. Right. Yeah. Okay. So Livy wasn't anti-plebian.

He was just against people who used them for their own means. Like he saw Caesar doing it. Well, you know, and fair cop. Yeah. Yeah. An historian described Livy as in Livy's criticisms of Caesar, he described Livy as, quote, skeptical of Julius's claim to greatness in his own words.

And Livy says this in one of his books. It is uncertain whether Caesar's birth was more of a benefit to the state than if he had never lived. So, okay, like serious question, writing something like that in the time of Augustus, was that as ballsy as I feel like that was? No, because it was okay as long as you didn't. go after Augustus much. Oh, okay. And the Romans had this weird aspect of warts and all.

Okay. Right. Now, later emperors would absolutely like, oh, you wrote a history on a guy that we have now determined to be a man worthy of exile. Now you're going to be exile. Like other other emperors would do that shit. Gus was a little different. So Livy respected Caesar's abilities, but he can.

clearly doubted the benefits of those abilities and the benefits that they would have brought to the Republic. Oh, okay. He saw Caesar's ambition as being cynical and opportunistic. Caesar in Livy's eyes was dangerous because Caesar was disruptive to the moral fabric of the Republic, which I really get a kick out of because he's like, no, this guy's doing it all wrong and it's a degradation of all of us. It's like, what about the assholes that he's reacting to to the cheers of the people?

And he's like, you know, but those are traditions. Yeah. So, okay. You know, he's, he's one of those people who, who just sees, like, the French Revolution as a total disaster. Right. Because of what it did to social order. And I get that. But can we look at, like, what caused it, you know?

Yeah. Can we maybe take a moment to look at, you know, socioeconomic circumstances? How they get there. You know, 1787 and 1788. Yeah, you know, so maybe. Yeah, and you're just going back two years. You were generous. I'm like, let's go back 50.

But given that Caesar was an unbeliever in the gods, Livy saw that as a solvent to the glue that held the Roman society together, even though Livy himself doubted the gods. And he's like, yes, yes, yes, yes. But the people need that. The robs need that. Yeah. See.

Yeah, okay. So Livy saw the gods as a practical necessity to keep. the morality alive in Rome. So, which I get a kick out of because I just showed my kid Spartacus, the, the original. Yeah. Well, maybe not the original, but the one with Kirk Douglas. Right. And there's that scene where he says, well, but you don't believe in the gods.

He's like, neither do you. But I believe in them publicly. And it's just, and he goes to sacrifice the chicken, you know. Now, Livy also saw in Caesar a reason to question fortune, fortune with a cat. capital F, the goddess, Fortuna. Right. This was not the sole cause of Livy's doubt of the role of fortune, but it is difficult at best to determine whether that doubt was from his readings of other histories or whether

it was from his understanding of, of, of, of, of, of, of, Livy's understanding of his own contemporary circumstances. Fortune played an almost mythical role in his writings, Livy's writings, about early Roman history, which did not keep Livy from questioning, doubting or even explaining. fortune away. Livy's treatment of fortune in his writings was influenced largely by what he saw of Caesar's rights to power. So if fortune brings us this, what the fuck?

Like, is it really fortune? Like, let's be real. Livy saw Caesar's rising to power not through fortune or the whim of the gods, but as a result of Caesar's own force of will to power. To borrow from Nietzsche. Okay. Now, in being as anti-Cesar as Livvy's, he was, he was also somewhat blinded by his preference for Pompey.

This partisanship was common amongst Livy's contemporaries, and while Livy admires Caesar's stoicism in generalship, as evidenced by Caesar's pardoning of his foes rather than slaughtering them, Livy was also prone to this partisanship, partisanship as much as his contemporaries were. So, Livy was so pro-Pompy that he often overlooked Pompey's own role in furthering the civil war. Right. For Livy, Caesar's populist approach and lack of regard for the establishment was much more than enough to paint Pompey in a glowing light. So Pompey is light because Caesar is dark, right?

Okay. Great man that Caesar was, therefore, Pompey was that much greater for standing against him. And to the pro wrestling aspect, right? Yeah, right. You build up the heel so that when Dusty Rhodes finally beats him. Yeah. Right. And in many ways, Libby saw Caesar as evidence of two things.

One, moral decline. And remember, he's writing his histories after that whole thing has been settled, right? Right, right. So he sees Caesar's evidence of two things. Moral decline of the Republic and the example of an excellent Roman commander. Okay. Right. So, once and all.

Yeah. Pompey's failing then was not his morality, but just that he was a less effective commander and therefore less effective carrying out morality. like I get that like I can I can see the train of thought behind that yeah but I feel like if it's if it's if morality is is a is such a force it has to either be that or not be that and there's and and like the the way that he's balancing Caesar versus Pompey in regard to their effect on or the effect of morality on them. It kind of feels like he's trying to eat his cake and have it too.

You know what it sounds like to me? Yeah. Lost cause. Oh. Because I mean, just reading this out loud again, I'm like, oh, oh, this is Dusty Roads not quite getting to the championship. Right. Barry Windham not quite getting to the championship.

Yeah. because Pompey was a more moral man, according to Livy. Right. But he was not a better general than Caesar. Right, right, right. You know? Yeah. And Caesar knew his history better.

Livy flat out admits that. And he recognized it. And he probably lamented that, too. According to Livy throughout history, the winners are always similar. And according to Livy, history explains and even justifies their victories despite their lack of morality or their moral stances being in opposition to true morality. Pompey was just not as good at carrying out history's patterns as Caesar was. I find that fascinating.

So Pompey just didn't have a deep enough understanding of the patterns and where he fit into them to be able to ride them to victory. Caesar did. So fortune has so little to do with this. This is Livy going like, no, this is human beings doing this shit. They'll claim fortune. They'll claim deities. But at the end of the day, the better man lost, the more effective man won.

What I'm hearing here immediately makes me think of this being the opposite of the way Chinese histories. Yeah. Tell me more. Because the Chinese, the court histories of Chinese empertsons, of Chinese empertsons. Um, and I'm, I'm trying to figure out how to condense this without, without having to spend too much time on it. But, um, every, every emperor had an official court historian. Okay. And those historians all approached their job from a Confucian point of view.

And one of the things that was baked into that was the idea. the idea of the mandate of heaven. Right. And part of that was the dynastic cycle. And so you have the situation where a dynasty would end and the court historians

of the new dynasty would write a history of the old dynasty and it always followed a pattern. Oh. The pattern was always there. Right. And it was

how did the first emperor of that dynasty seize the mandate of heaven or receive the mandate of heaven? And then over the course of the history of the dynasty, what all they did and the moral judgment of what they did and what they did right and wrong. And then ending with, you know, this is the moment when this, well, and this is the moment when they lost the mandate of heaven. And the mandate of heaven was granted to whoever the founder of the new dynasty was. and what's fascinating there is the overt moralism of it and they could not have a situation. They could not conceive of a situation in that system in which the better man lost. Right.

You know, which gave them fits. when Kubla Khan succeeded in establishing the Yon Dynasty conquered the song Right And established the Yon Basically his court

Kind of pushed him To declare the Yon Dynasty Because we have to have a dynasty Because Yeah, that's how we do You can't not Right And then you know

It was an incredibly short-lived dynasty It was Kubla and then one of his sons. Right. And one of his sons only reigned for a few years before being overthrown because the Chinese people were like, fuck this noise. But it was still a dynasty. But it was still a dynasty. And then a dynasty followed. And so, yeah.

And so the dynasty followed. So Livy's writing at a time, remember, he grew up as the republic was decaying and then a new thing came in. All these other guys are writing in the dynastic cycle. Yeah. You know, I wonder what Sunyat Sends historian would have said. Like if he'd had one. Yeah, there would, well, you know, what's funny about it is in the modern era, I think you could probably find out what Sun Yat Sends quote unquote court historian would have written by going to Taiwan and reading one of their history textbooks. You know.

True. But I mean, you see what I'm saying, though. Oh, yeah, no, totally. Yeah. A thousand percent, yeah. So a historian of Livy, I love that there's historians of an historian, but, I mean, that's historiography. I've read history.

I've read biographies of like William Appenman Williams, too. Yeah. A historian of Livy said, quote, if the battlefield was where competing interpretations of events were tested against one another, then the history that Livy reports is that which the cumulative victories of all Roman commanders had established as correct. Each success depends to some extent on the general's own ability to recreate the past. So the guy who gets history wins whether or not he's a good guy. And I love that the Romans were always able to separate these things.

And maybe I'm generalizing. I know that Livy separated the shit out of these things. It seems, though, that the Roman approach to sculpture was very much not hagiographic. It was, no, this guy had a neckbeard. He was the most powerful man, but he had a neck beard. And you're going to put that in there, you know? Yeah. So there's, there's, what do you call it?

There's, there is an approach to this that the Romans seem to have that no one else around them seem to. In that the Romans do uncouple rightness from success. They're like, we don't care about rightness. Rightness rightness is of secondary concern at best can you can you teach my kid about rightness now that I've enslaved you thanks you know it's like I appreciate that yeah um yeah it the Roman the Roman attitude is very very modern in a lot of ways in some ways yeah yeah um you know and and and yeah And simultaneously, like, bug fuck crazy. You know, the places where their outlook diverges from hours make the areas where they match up surreal. Yeah. And, yeah, and that's one of the fascinating things about doing any meaningful, you know, study of Roman politics.

Yeah, absolutely. All right. So history, according to Livy, was proof that great men like Caesar, Augustus, and even Romulus, would be successful. And see, I think this is where Augustus doesn't have a problem. He's like, well, yeah, you said that I was successful. They all possessed the will to power that it took to recreate the past. And for Livy, growing up with a man like Caesar is the epitome of a leader, all the rest will fit into the Caesar category. according to another historian Livy's account provides almost a catalog of the techniques of a successful Roman commander

inspirational, rhetoric, scrupulous, piety, and clever strategy. So Livy saw the values of his day and managed to explain Romulus in the same way. His understanding of the past was thus shaped by his understanding of a man whom he saw as

evidence of the ruination of the virtues of the republic, talented though he was. And if you read his understanding of Romulus, he does not give much love to Romulus. Oh, no, you've mentioned a lot of his stuff about Romulus previously. Yeah. What I find interesting, as you're talking about him talking about Caesar, it reminds me of the way that everybody in Europe after 1814. was obsessed with Napoleon. Yes.

It's the same. It's the same. He was the villain to the overwhelming majority of people who were writing about him. But they were absolutely obsessed with him. Yeah. I mean, until Metternit comes around and he's like, well, border. Yes. Yes.

Now, similar to Cicero, Livy was concerned with Rome's morgue. decay, as I've stated a number of times, but Cicero was too. Livy saw at the heart of this decay the ambition of individuals at the expense of the law and at the expense of the republic. And so he saw them in opposition. So, oh shit, it sucks that he's so effective because look what he's doing to us. This approach to history is not unique at the time, by the way. And Livy wrote in terms of freedom versus tyranny like many did.

he saw history as a tension between the, quote, corrupting effect of individual or civic power and the decline of political and social institutions. Okay. Livy saw very clearly evidence of such activities as a young man, obviously, and as he aged, he began writing under the reign of Augustus. Such a stance was not unreasonable for him to take then. Augustus found this acceptable because he saw this as a similar problem, this time citing Antony as the a great man who embodied moral decay. Yeah, well. And according to Livy,

Augustus won for the same reasons that Romulus and Caesar had won. He was supposed to. This obviously sat well with the new emperor, and I just love that they're both looking at the same image and taking completely different things from it. Yeah. And is there... The way that he talks about the will, you know,

the will to power of the... these great men. And, you know, the way you, the way you just phrased it as, you know, he won because he had to. Mm-hmm. Or, you know, of course he did. Because he was supposed to, yeah. Because he was supposed to. Thank you.

Yeah. Not that he was meant to. Okay. So it's not a fatalism. No. Okay. He was supposed to because the winner is always the one who understands their history better. The winner is always the one who fits.

the pattern of history better. And thank goodness Augustus did this time because Antony was very talented, but Jesus. Holy crap. Yeah. Yeah. So I think that's, you know. Now, Livy's approach to history would often highlight the effects that such ambitions had on the common people.

Caesar's ambitions led to the deaths of many, as did Antony's. And I love that he's like totally giving like Pompey and. Augustus a pass on this. Like they didn't participate as well. Yeah, like they weren't they weren't just as you know, movers and shakers in the same time period. Exactly. Give me one second here.

I'm trying to pull something up. Sorry, it's giving me troubles. Okay, there we go. So Caesar and Antony both had massive ambition. Both of their ambitions led to a lot of people dying. Right. And again, he's giving a person.

pass to the people who aren't active instigators? Yeah. Yeah. It's an interesting kind of take. Yeah. Now, also, I mean, these guys did lead huge armies who were loyal specifically to them. Yeah. I mean, there's ground here for what he's saying.

Like, it makes some sense. He's very much an institutionalist. Right. And I don't think that he's particularly wrong. I just think that he is letting that. outshine criticisms that he could have of the others as well, although it's not like they had the First Amendment. So, granted, yeah. So Livy saw other populace is part of the problem as well.

He was very anti-Graki. He was very pro-Suller. He was very mindful of the amount of collateral damage that individual selfishness brought about by moral decay dressed up as popular reform brought. But I think that's begging the question there, too. Right. Like, oh, you claim to be for moral reform, but this is just personal ambition. And in fairness, it's Rome. So there is some of that.

And the Krakai brothers, like, yeah, they wanted massive land reforms. But like, yeah. Anyway. They wanted to get their own, too. Yeah. Well, and that was their path to power, you know? And Livy's right in that. But he's like not calling out the people who block them and the ways that they block them and the reasons that they block them.

because he doesn't give a shit about the common person he cares about Rome as an idea. Right. So. Oh, yes. Here's a quote. Livy had burning moral convictions about the state of contemporary Rome and the need for a moral awakening. But there was also a clearly discernible skepticism about the feasibility of immediate reform. Okay.

Yeah. So in other words, Livy did not trust anyone promising quick reform. He saw such men in history And they always ended up with ambition More than the good of the res publica on their minds Anybody who tries to sell you an easy answer To a major problem Is trying to sell you something

Yeah Like if there's like if there's one lesson as a history teacher that I wish I could I could just highlight and be like you know what? my entire curriculum is just going to be this this year, like to prepare students to be to be participants in in a, you know, somewhat democratic system. Sure. It is like anybody who tells you they have a simple answer. Right. To a naughty problem.

Yeah. Notty as in K-N-O-T-Y. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Anybody who sells you, you know, a simple answer to a complicated problem. problem is trying to sell you something. I mean, I think that I don't disagree with you. I think that a and maybe you can't be this accurate at the middle school level, but a more accurate thing would be, you've just described populism is what you've done. I mean, that that screams Huey Long to me.

And it also screams every right wing wannabe grifter. Like it screamed both, you know, and so I think that's populism. And I also, you know, it's, again, it's one of those things of like, I actually genuinely have respect for and regard for honestly come by, and that's with a hyphen in between those, honestly come by truly conservative beliefs. Right. because those conservative beliefs are what keeps populism from overtaking. Right. However, those same conservative beliefs have kept a lot of people from getting to the same trough as those who already have, and I have problems with that. Yeah, and those problems are a thousand percent valid.

Yeah. It's the old thing of, you know, the French Revolution, was it disaster or was it, uh, the greatest thing to ever happen. And I, and you can only have one of two answers. Yeah, there's like, mo.

Yeah. Friend of the show, Sean loves to, loves to use. I don't like your cone, sir. You, you are,

you are, you are, you are, you are, you are asking the wrong question. No, but I, I do think that,

though, that does help you suss out, like where somebody is just naturally inclined. And, and I don't mean this with any judgment. It's, do, are you willing to,

to sacrifice public stability for liberty. I have no problem respecting that. Are you willing to sacrifice liberty for public stability? I also have no problem respecting that. I know where I land. Right. You know, and I'm willing to say, yes, this is worth this to me. You know, I am fine with more chaos if it means that more people have.

the right to enter into a contract. Yeah. You know, give it to everyone and then we'll sort it out after. I'm fine with that. And other people are very much gradualists and the problem with gradualists that I've always had, you know, so it's like, and I also understand people like, Damien, you want too much too soon, blah, blah, blah. And that's why, you know, and I'm like, oh, I disagree fundamentally.

I understand your reasoning there, but you're already arguing from the position of the person in power. Like, like I always have that reaction. Yeah. Livie is doing the same kind of thing, right? Yeah. He wrote histories with this mindset. There's another historian who said liby's writing is also conspicuously affected by the view that history is a medium for moral instruction, which took root in a Hellenistic historiography. Oh, yeah.

Well, yeah. In my historiography introduction to historiography course, that was a pinnacle, you know, Very much so. A tent pole. You know, yeah, the Greeks, for the Greeks, this was moral instruction. You study history as moral instruction. And like, okay. A lot of Hellenistic historians did it, many of whom wrote about Rome in moral terms.

Yes. So I totally get it all. Like I understand all that. And I'm fine with that. There's a part of me that thinks that history has lessons to teach. us, whether or not their moral is up to each person to interact with. But I'm a big believer that the cyclical nature of this shit is like, and since I don't like the shit that we're in, I do think that there's an inherent morality in my approach

to it. Well, you know, I think I think we have to balance. My own attitude is we have to balance our responsibility to point out of. out moral issues in history with not indulging in presentism. You know, and we have to recognize that the people we are talking about had a very different societal context. Yes. In which they were operating.

If you're talking about... Well, they were responding to 400 decisions that had been made prior to that decision, too. Yeah. And we need to be, we need to be aware of that. We need to not rush past that. But we do have a responsibility to recognize that this was morally abhorrent. Yeah. Serfdom sucked.

Yeah. You know, slagery. I understand. Slavery as an institution, as ubiquitous as it was and as fundamental as it was to the economies of like huge portions of the ancient world. It was still morally reprehensible. Yeah. You know, chattel slavery in the United States was foundational to the economy of the United States. I'm not going to indulge in regional favoritism.

It was it was foundational. Oh, yeah. However, really didn't. have a chance without slavery. Yeah. Yeah. However, um, you know, the, the, the, uh, people of the time had an understanding that it was morally reprehensible.

Yeah, they did. You know, and, and the moral aspect of it. Uh-huh. Can't be hand-waved away with, well, you know, it was a different time. Like, and going the other way, serfs existed for four centuries. right like yeah and and and chattel slavery existed for centuries right um saying like oh i wouldn't have taken that like no sorry the amount of decisions that you would have had to get to that point yeah and on so again that's that presentism right yeah like again we can all agree that i don't want that to

happen to me i don't want that to and and this might be the difference between conservative and and I'm going to say liberal because I'm using classical definitions, conservative and liberal, I don't want that to happen to me and I don't want that to happen to anyone else. Right. I think maybe there's there is a divide there. But either way, it's okay to have that with and and like to keep that as you're reading through the history.

Yeah. I think to me, to me the morality of being an historian, the moral underpinnings of of history are are in that we're supposed to learn from it and make our world better using that as a tool. Yeah. And that's where it stops for me because then all of us will disagree on how to get there. And that's fine. But if we would all just agree to read the fucking history.

Speaking of which, when Augustus defeated Anthony at the end of it all, he instilled several laws meant to restore Rome to its prior moral basis. And this was more along the lines of what Livy saw as good medicine for the Republic. Now, since Augustus was not appealing to the rabble of Rome, choosing instead to reform the laws to reflect previous ideals of public morality, Livy voiced no suspicion of these reforms, because they weren't reforms. They were returns. And since Augustus was going back to the prior source of all freedom,

The law, according to Livy, Livy admired such moves as a fix to the problems that he witnessed as he came of age. So why did he give Augustus a pass? Because Augustus was trying to return Rome to its greatness from before. Because Augustus was also an institutionalist. Yes.

And for all his failings was an institutionalist at a time where Caesar was a noos homo, was a man. And he wasn't, though. That's the funny thing. He's more of one of the optimantes. But there you go. And this approach was echoed in Livy's treatment of Numa when he talks about Numa, who's one of my favorite historians, or not historians, one of my favorite figures in Roman history.

And by the way, this is where you kind of can peel under the skin of like, okay, Damien's clearly way out there on the left-hand side of things of like, I want all the liberty for all the people at all the time. And yet I admire Numa, who, you know, it's, you know, but there's, how have I put this before? I, I'm like the opposite of libertarians. I, I want everybody to have all the freedoms to make the decisions that they need to make. I want, I want sexual libertinism and I want, I want all of it now. Now, I'm actually a deeply conservative person when it comes to my own personal life. Right. I'm fairly private despite all the things that I put out there.

I control that, you know, and stuff like that. But I want people to be able to decide very differently than me. Right. You know, libertarians seem to want everybody to have the freedom to decide the same thing. Be just like them. Yeah. Yeah. So we talked about this with Boba Fett.

So, yeah. So anyway. So anyway, this approach was echoed in his treatment of Numa in his histories. Numa was also successful in reforming some parts of Roman society for their own good through the establishment of new laws and lying to people. Numa called. He did. Just calling out. Oh, he did.

You know, hey, where did you get this idea? My wife, you're married? Yeah, my wife's a goddess. She's, you know, after we fought. Now I remember Numa. Okay. Oh, yeah. Okay.

That makes sense. I heard about that happening down the road. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah. Just like that. You can't do business on these days. Okay. God's wife said so, you know.

So Numa called upon his religious training as evidence. And Livia includes such claims explicitly. Even though he also includes doubt of such claims, he actually explicitly states what Numa's claims were. And while Livy doubts Numa's claims of consorting with the goddess. He does not doubt Numa's intentions in any way, no matter how fantastical his claims were. So, like the people,

totally fine. So he did sketchy shit for the right reasons. Yes. Okay. But because he's making laws, I would say that he's more than just chaotic good. Yeah. I think the kings exist prior to

the Matrix. Yeah. And no Roman rose beyond chaotic neutral after that. Yeah. So here's a quote. Okay, when you say rose, like, are we talking like on the chart where the good alignments are on the top? Yes. Okay.

So, okay. So because I was going to say, I can think of several examples of lawful evil. I'm just going to. Yeah. Okay. All right. Yeah. It's the good.

That's it. And I'm presentist and moralizing. And I have no problem. Yeah. Okay. Here's a quote from another historian about Livy. Supernatural events as such lay outside the province of historian. Livy's own awareness of this distinction is signaled in his preface,

where he declares that the legends of Rome's founding are more appropriate for fabulai than for history. So remember the poets, let the poets do that, right? Right, right. Yeah, yeah. So Livy's fine with reporting on religious beliefs so long as he's able to question its actuality, not its truth or its effectiveness. Okay. He suspect,

Livy suspects that such a belief in religion's practical applications more than its veracity had, according to one historian, much to recommend it in the intellectual climate of late Republican Rome, where a pragmatic and patriotic respect for traditional religious reforms came into conflict with a new intellectual skepticism. So, doubting the gods and presenting the possibility of the, that a more mundane explanation exists, that fits very well within his belief system, given that he grew up at a time

where belief in the gods was less important than the mundane reliance on political alliances. And still, Livy holds up Numa as a prime example of a man who used religion to further protect the people of Rome. That doesn't make religion good or bad. It just means that this man knew how to effectively use it, and what the real good is is order for the Romans.

Okay. And knowing his own place in the historical order in order to affect what needed affecting. Exactly. Now, I think in many ways, he is,

this is one of the reasons why Augustus didn't have a problem with Livy because Augustus could see himself in Livy's treatment of Numa as well. Because Augustus was using the law to do the same fucking thing. Right. And he was building temples

and getting people to start worshiping the gods again and on and on and on. He maintained, Livy maintained, quote, an emphasis on the strict moral code which regulated the lives of the great Republican leaders. So the proof that such was true for Augustus then was in Augustus's success. Livy's already established him as an institutionalist and now he's like he's a very effective one. Libby also used his history of Numa to legitimate what Augustus was doing.

at the time of his writings. Livy referred to the Temple of Janus, a Newman creation. Now, you know the Temple of Janus with the doors open means we're at war. Doors are closed. We're at peace, right? Right.

That temple still stood at the time that Augustus was emperor. More importantly, Livy referenced the temple in his writings because Augustus was one of the only persons to be able to close its doors, singing peace to Rome again.

It starts with Numa and then it closes like twice again during like after the second Punic War or something and then like four times under Augustus, which to me sounds like you jump the gun three times. But yeah. Okay, fine. So, okay. I have a technical question about that. Sure.

So the doors are open whenever the, whenever Rome is at war. Yes. Rome by this time had territory all over the place. This is, this is not. the height of Rome's power, but it's, it's, but the waters are rising. The waters are rising. And what qualified, what's, what's the baseline level of non, what is the level of nonviolence necessary for it to qualify as being at peace? Essentially that Rome is not at its borders fighting anyone off and not fighting anyone

off from within. That's basically, it is, it is a high bar. Yeah, I was going to say. You could see how this bar is really, really easy to attain under Numa's time because Rome was a city. Right. And Numa got peace for like 40 years. Yeah. Right. And then again, after the Second Punic Wars, you could see, okay, everybody's taking a breath.

Right. You close it, right? I forget when it opens again. Yeah. And then it stays open and fucking forever. And then stay open forever because we're constantly finding an excuse to expand. And that means, you know, marching over people. And then Augustus actually stops expanding and just shores everything up.

So he closes the doors. And then somebody rises up. He's like, fuck, open the doors again. And then he goes and puts that down. And now we're closing the doors. And oh, fuck, somebody else. You know, and on and on. So that happens.

I forget how many times. But so the importance of the effect of Numa's and Augustus's lies was not diminished by the fact that they were lies. Livy points And he's like, no, they were effective. Livy points out that some of the problems still remained. Oteum led to bad moral growth in Rome in Numa's time as it did in Augustus. Oteum is luxury, over-indulgence, wealth.

The other cause for Livy to emphasize the great man approach to history was the history that he had access to until his writings, right? Livy was an historian's historian. He rarely looked at primary sources. He read other historical accounts instead. He regularly used Polybius, which also focused on the great men of history.

Polybius' influences readily available in Libby's approach, quote, according to another historian, among Livy's predecessors, Polybius in particular, made a skeptical attitude toward the gods, a defining characteristic of his own historical method, and applied this approach decisively to the study of Roman traditions. So he's very much borrowing from Polybius as far as his methods go. He's not letting the evidence take in places. He's writing from a perspective

and then using the evidence to justify it. Again, not a good historian. But, you know, keeping in tradition of his time, Livy and Floyd the same approach as Polybius. Talk about great men, doubt their divinity, but not their importance or what they represented. Quote, Libby's presentations of Numa's pretended visions

of Numa's pretended visions reflect Polybian concerns and allude to Polybius' treatment of the same event. So he, Livie famously does the, I don't know if it was this or it was this. Most people think it was this, so I'm inclined to go with this.

You know, that's his approach fucking all the time. The Harati and the Curiati, he straight up says, like, I don't know who fought for what size. but most people say the Haurati were on the Roman sides. Could it have been the Kuriati on the Roman sides? Sure. And the Kuriati one? Sure.

But most people agree it was the Horti, so we're going to just go with that guys, okay? Shit like that. Yeah. I don't know if, you know, Numa was actually fucking a goddess, but I do know that he told people he did. And that's really the important part here, you know, that kind of stuff. Yeah. So Livy did, however. No, I'm sorry, I skipped a bit.

So he employed the same methodology as those who came before him, questioning, quote, miraculous stories about the gods, demonstrating the kind of rational critical intellect expected of an historian. So in other words, he's doing what's in vogue. Yeah. He's not original. He was not interested in telling tall tales or furthering the myths of Rome's founding, but he did want to draw from their lessons. Livy was interested in writing a history that took an alternate view into each account and remained at least somewhat skeptical, at least publicly, about the actions and origins of great men because he grew up at a time where great men were fucking over a whole lot of people.

Yeah. Now, Livy did take a decidedly Roman turn from his Greek predecessors, though. Whereas Herodotus and Polybius focused almost entirely on these great men in their deeds, Livy as a spectator to such greatness thought to include the audience in his histories. And I think this is one of the things I really like about him. Livy, did you ever see the movie Dogma? Yeah.

You remember when the excremental comes up, Golgotha? Oh, yeah. Okay. The shit demon. Yeah. Do you remember the scene where Jay and Silent Bob tell him, Waste this motherfucker like it ain't no thing? And then they go fight him.

Right. they get the shit kicked out of them, quite literally, or kicked into them. But we never actually see the fight because budget. But instead, we see the eyes and facial expressions of Chris Rock, Salma Hayek, Jason Mews, Kevin Smith. And so you hear a punch and their eyes all go up. And then you hear a punch and their eyes all go to the side. And you hear a squelch and their eyes all go down and on and on and on. And you know what's happening in the action with their reactions.

He's like, ooh, ah, ooh, you know. And then you just pan to all these guys have been beaten up and they're just laying all over the place. That's an easy thing to film, right? Yeah. Livy basically took the same approach. He doesn't really describe the fights so much he describes people's reactions to the fights. Oh, okay. Yeah.

And again, he didn't go to the public, you know, he didn't go to the primary sources. He didn't interview people who did this shit because. Hi, I want to write about you and tell people what a effective leader you were, but how you were thoroughly, morally corrupt. So, what are your dreams? He didn't do that, right? Yeah. So because he was a spectator, he wrote from the position of a spectator.

Without the audiences of the two armies, the battle between the Harati and the Kariati triplets, would not have mattered. He talks all about how the hopes are in the eyes of the guys watching. In fact, Livy's use of the audience and their chiefs, cheers and feelings are as much, if not more, a part of the story than the battling brothers. So, Libby wrote about great men and their great deeds, but he continued to include the reactions of their contemporaries along with these men. Great men, according to Livy, were

important to the people as much as, or as important to the people, as much as the people were important to the great men. No audience, no greatness. Okay. Which is interesting because, remember, he doesn't like the rabble. He likes the institutions, and yet he's including the rabble in his histories. Now, it's no coincidence that Livy's histories had characters who played to their audiences. As Livy was growing up,

he was witnessed to Caesar's approach to politics, the populist approach, that included and depended upon the people that he'd hoped to rule. Similarly, the approval of the people in Livy's tales of ancient historical figures is key to their success. According to one historian,

quote, recalls precisely the terms in which Cicero says a historian ought to explain the causes of the events, end quote. Okay. So without the crowd's thoughts, Livy's history doesn't move. There's no cause and effect relationship without the crowd there. Libby needed the crowd to react in his histories, paralleling the necessity of the approval of the Roman people that he saw during Caesar's rise to power. Because if Caesar's saying all kinds of populist shit and nobody's listening, not effective. Right.

And in seeing the successes and failures of great men as he came of age, Livy saw those values as shaping features of the past about which he wrote. Romulus was a vengeful, avaricious, and rash man. He was willing to kill his own brother, and that was not just conventional mythology of the time. This first king of Rome was a focal point whom Livy was willing to call into question in his histories. And again, this echoes Livy's belief about Caesar and fortune.

Ultimately, it was not the gods that favored Caesar, and it was not the birds that favored Romulus. If you recall, Romulus saw 12 birds second. Remus saw six birds first. It was their willingness to embody the other elements that made leaders great. Whether this was for good or ill of Rome is entirely up to you, the reader. In a civil war, like that between Caesar and Pompey, or that between Romulus and Remus, Livy questions whether the gods are on either side.

It is their importance to the people whom they lead that determines victory more than the gods' favor. Romulus only has any kind of legitimate claim because the people around him said, oh, but he saw twice as many. If they weren't around him, Remus is the one who saw them first. Livy preferred to point out several different impossible explanations, giving favor to his preference, but signaling that it was just that his personal preference.

Now, I went on to liuioos.org, and in this article, they have this insight on Livy. And it's a bit of a long quote, so tuck in a bit. All right. Actually, let's see how long it is. Yeah, it's a bit of me telling you what these people thought. So, quote, by now he was in his early 30s. This is Livy.

We don't know anything about Livy's private life, but an average Roman man would, at this age, be married and have children. Quintilian states that the historian had a son for whom he wrote a treatise on style and a daughter, who was married to a teacher of oratory named Lucius Magius. Pliny the elder quotes a geographical work written by a son of Livy. The quote continues, the history of Rome from its foundation was, meant as an example to the Romans. They had suffered, but that had been due to their own immoral behavior. However, a moral revival was still possible, and Livy offered some uplifting and cautionary

tales. It was a serious and important project, and Augustus was interested in it. Livie did not belong to the inner circle of Rome's first emperor, nor was he a protege of Micanas. But the historian and the emperor respected each other, and we know that Augustus once, perhaps after the publication of books 91 through made a good nature joke that Livy still was a supporter of Pompey, the enemy of Caesar. If this was a reproach at all, it was not serious. Livy remained close enough to the imperial court to encourage the young Prince Claudius to write history. Oh. The future emperor became a productive author.

His histories of Rome, Carthage, and the Etruscans consisted of 69 books. Nice. Yes. Until Livy's death, he wrote on his history of Rome from its foundation. We do not know it's publishing history, but the following is a plausible reconstruction. Okay, so just real quick, I'm going to tell you books this to this and all that kind of thing. The thing is there were some fires. And the other thing is people read all of liby shit and they wrote abstracts to it.

I'm going to explain those in a little. Okay. So we kind of do know what was in a lot of the books that we've lost because of these other things that did survive. I envision it as like a fire happened. it took out this whole shelf, but it left that corner. Right, right. So you got the corner and then the other shelf it's missing, but then the next shelf over, that was also fine. You know, stuff like that.

Okay. Yeah, yeah. So in 26 BCE, Livy wrote books 1 through 5, which was the early history. In 24 BCE, he wrote books 6 through 15, the conquest of Italy. In 19 BCE, he wrote the Wars Against Carthage. That's books 16 through 13th. 30. In 14 BCE, he wrote 31 to 45, wars in the Eastern Mediterranean. In 11 BCE, he wrote 46 to 55, the destruction of Greece and Carthage. In 1 BCE, Livy wrote books 59 to 909, the Grakai,

Marius, Sinna, and Sulla. In 5C.E, he wrote Pompecassus and Caesar. That's books 91 to 105. in 8, 106 to 115, he wrote about Caesar becoming sole ruler. In 10 CE, he wrote about the War of Mutina, books 116 to 120. In 14 CE, he wrote in books 121 to 133, the War of the Triumvir's and the Fall of Mark Antony. And in 17, he finished it off with books 134 to 142, the reign of Augustus. Wow. Yeah. The history of Rome from its foundation was, I'm back to quoting them, was a very, very large work.

All in all, there were 142 books. Of course, these were not real books in our sense, but scrolls, the length of which is identical to about 65 pages in a modern pocket book. The total size of Livy's work is therefore the equivalent of some 9,250 pages or 31 pocket books. Wow. So like Encyclopedia Brown. Kind of, yeah. The history of me. Wow.

He wrote all this in about 45 years, which means that every year he published three and a fifth scrolls or 205 pages. Even with a computer and a word processor, this is impressive. It is clear that Livy had to make use of earlier histories and did not have the opportunity to do additional research in archives. Yeah, yeah, you'd already kind of gone over that. Yeah. Yeah. Now, later in the article, quote, Rome had conquered the... the world but lost its soul. This was hardly

an original theme. In 42 or 41, B.C.E. I believe. The historian Salist had said the same in the preface to his Catalan conspiracy, and Augustus shared the analysis. What Livy tried to show in his writings, the emperor tried to cure with legislation

on luxury and marriage. A moral revival was still possible. Livy played his part in this revival. Men had to be courageous and take responsibility for public life. chastity and life at home were a woman's task, which were equally important. We may think that this is an anti-feminist attitude, but Livy has, compared to other ancient authors,

a sincere and respectful attitude towards women. I'm going to break in here and go, low fucking bar. But, yes, the article continues. In his story, he often gave examples of how courage and piety had been rewarded and how incorrect behavior was punished. For example, in book 22, he tells how in 217 BCE, Gaius Flaminius accepted the consulship without the necessary rituals and immediately launched a military campaign against Hannibal. Livy says that many senators found this outrageous to consider it not a war against the enemy but a war against the gods. When Flaminius is defeated at the Trasamine Lake, Livy does not return to this reproach.

Instead, he describes the suffering of the relatives of those missing action. Again, the audience thing, right? But the message is clear. the gods had punished the Romans. Okay. So all of this to say, having read their article, okay, and taken a good deal of it, Livy was not impartial, obviously, which is important. Livy wasn't the propagandist that Virgil was paid to be, but he was still engaging

in a propaganda of his own. I love how you say that Virgil was paid to be. Yes. Yeah. Because you remember Virgil famously, like, he died before he finished it, and he told people, he's like just burn it all it's not complete and they're like the fuck we will no sir

yeah and what's wild about this moral propaganda is that it led Livy to interpreting his history well no it led to him like interpreting history from that certain lens but it also led to him doing the very thing that this entire series is supposed

to be about and I just got there he interrupts his own history specifically when talking about the second Sam Knight War to engage in a counterfactual. Livy does a what if. Okay. Now, before I dive into that what if, I have to explain what survived from his writings.

And that's going to be really quickly, and I'll pretty much get to the Second Samnite War. So I'm just going to, I'm going to spoil it for you. His what if is, what if Alexander turned left instead of right? Okay. That's basically it.

Okay. If you've gone west instead of east. Now, of all the books that he wrote, as I listed above, they go from Ineus about 400 years before Romulus and Remus. Right. All the way through to the death of Drusus, the elder, about 9C.E. About five years before the death of Augustus. Okay.

And only a quarter of those books still exist. Wow. Yeah. Now, books 1 through 10 survive, taking us from Aeneas through about 293 BCE. And then they pick up again from 219 BCE through 166 BCE. And then it gets really weird because there's also scattering of other parts that barely merit mention here, but also a whole raft of abridgments. Another author abridged Livy's voluminous work into what are called epitomies or epitomes. Right. But epitomies are select quotations and passages that will clue you in as to what is contained in the book. Right. There's only one of those for book one. But the rest of the epitomies were gathered together in what are called parochai, which it's... That sounds Greek.

Yeah, the CH gives it away. And it ends in an A.E. But that just means it's a plural of the first. But yeah, it is. Yeah. But periokai, which are basically an index of the contents because it Perry is around it. Right. Right.

Right. Okay. So we know what Livy wrote about, but we don't know what he wrote in a lot of these. So basically, we've got from Aeneas through parts of the third Samnite War, one, two, skip if you pick back up at the second Punic War through to the deaths of Hannibal and Skippio Afrikanus, which is pretty cool. Some incomplete parts, but mostly complete, through the mur, third. third Macedonian war and then skip all the fucking rest. Okay. So for the next episode.

Right. It's his discussion of the Second Samnite War that I'm going to focus on. And I'm going to annotate as I go. And it's really his interruption of this discussion on the Second Samnite War that I'm going to focus on. So you're going to have to tuck in because it's like there's two things happening there, which means we're going to get a huge. heaping helping of great men in Roman history that nobody fucking remembers anymore. Right. And it's during Rome's expansion from city and regional power to

peninsular power. Okay. And that's what we're really going to be focused on for longer than I want, quite honestly. And then he's going to interrupt himself and he's going to be like, you know, people been asking lately. If Alexander turned west instead of east, what do you have been so great? Yeah. Yeah. And that's actually the focus of what all of this is. But, you know. Right.

Yeah. So. Okay. Anywho, what have you gleaned so far? Um, that historians have always been this way. Um, you know, coming back to. A self-important lot, aren't they? Yeah.

Aren't we? We are. Yes. What do you mean? I just have a podcast. Yeah. We've talked about that off the air. But, yeah, that he was bound up in his own time to the extent that he was.

history, meaning the history he was writing, as an exhortation within his own time. And that what he was exhorting people to do, his readers, to try to do, to aspire to, is such a universal. it happens in every civilization at every generation. You know, look, look how shitty things are now. We have to go back. We have to go back to the way things were before. Marty. Marty.

It's your kids, Marty. But, but I mean, think about that for just a second. Okay, your kids are worse than you are, Marty. But also, Marty, the times that you're living in are fucking miserable. Look at the physical, like, representation of Marty's parents and how miserable they were go back in time learn those lessons and suddenly they're hot biff is in this proper place yeah all and Marty has a big truck and his mom's encouraging me to go fuck his girlfriend very different very different yeah yeah um it's a reganite

version of livy um so yeah just just the the the the more things change the more they don't Yop. And the recurring theme on this show of, when I tell you X has always been this way. You know. I'm going to need a new mug. It's no longer because, of course, they did. Yeah.

Yeah, no. Yeah. That's really my biggest takeaway so far. Sure. That and of course the most complex language he used was in his introduction in the part where he's saying, You know, I'm just a simple man. You know, trying to record a history of the galaxy.

I'm just a boy standing in front of a scroll. Yeah, to tell me it's history. Yeah, standing, standing in front of a librarianist. Right. You know, so, of course, his floweriest language was in the opening. Like, look at, look at every other historian and social science. putting that in quotes because that's a modern concept. But you know what I mean, you know, anybody who's writing on, you know, look at the opening to Machiavelli.

You know, look at the, look at the histories written by courtiers in England and France. Yeah. You know, wherever. It's always, you know, if this humble work achieves any, any fame, you know, I can only hope that, you know, it does not embarrass those who came before me, right? And you're like, will you knock it the fuck off? Totally. It's okay, so do you remember when Steve Martin was presenting an award, I think, and he asked, God, I want to say it was Sally Field, but I don't think it was.

But he asked whatever woman he was presenting an award to, is like, is this the greatest moment of your life? She's like, well, that would probably be when I had my kids. And he just rolls his eyes and goes, oh, pull. Please. Yeah. It feels like that. Yeah, a little bit.

Yeah. Yeah. I mean, those are my biggest, at this point, those are my biggest takeaways because, you know. It's just it's as somebody who is now, you know, becoming a, you know, closer to a capital age historian. It's just one of those things that, you know, you notice all the time. And like I'm just going to skip the acknowledgements again Yeah and just you flip past the

Knowledgeance page like you know Let me let me get to the introduction To find your thesis Right And then and then you know based And then go to the last And let me go to the last chapter and read What your conclusion is and then figure out which chapters

I need to read in order to get You know the main ideas about how you're How you're making your argument So I can write a review of your fucking book And get it done in you know Three days Reasonable time yeah You know, not that I'm better about the way my program works now, but it's like, I need you to use as few words as possible.

Can you do that for me? It's so funny that you mention it in that order because I teach the kids how to write a thesis statement. Yeah. And then immediately when they're done writing their thesis statement, now write your conclusion. Yeah. And just turn it upside down. And I show them, like, how it should be a reflection. And then I'm like, now go write the rest of your essay, using your thesis statement as the outline.

Like, yeah, I don't talk about writing anymore. I talk about assembling. But it's so funny that you're deconstructing shit that way. So I'm going to steal that. I'm going to tell it to them. They're going to pay attention. Yeah, no, they're not going to give a shit. But you're going to enjoy.

But, God damn, I try. Yeah. No, and the way I teach it to him is, okay. So here's the sentence for him I'm giving you with, you know, how to put your thesis together. And then you're going to, and then I do it, you know, step by step through the essay. And then I get to the conclusion and I say, okay, and now you're going to write your thesis sentence backwards. Yep. Because reason one, reason two, reason three, this thing happened.

Mm-hmm. And then write me two sentences or more. More is always better. But write me two more sentences to tie the whole thing together, close it out, and leave me with something to think about. Yep. And you're done. Yep. Yeah.

So I'm trying to. I really am. I swear to God. But yeah. Cool. Well, what do you want people to absorb? I am going to very, very strongly recommend Andor. Because somewhere in the middle of everything else,

I had the opportunity to start watching the second season of Andor. And I haven't finished it yet, but holy. shit. Yeah. It is like, again, the performances in the second season are just as strong. Yeah. And the continuation and completion of character arcs is amazing. Absolutely

amazing. So that's my recommendation. How about yours? Well, unsurprisingly, I'm going to recommend go go look up the history of Rome volume two books nine through 26 by titus livi this particular one is published in 2022 um i believe it was published by i cannot find the publishers um i love it's about the author it's livy it's fucking livy uh but uh let's see the the publishers are not making their names obvious. Oh, here we go,

maybe on the back. No, it's just that it's copyrighted material. I don't know. Anyway, the history of Rome, volume two. Okay.

Yeah, you'll find it. Basically, you want to read books nine. You want to start in book nine, because that's what I'm going to start with when we get back to things. Okay.

Yeah. So, anyway, yeah, that's what I've got. Where can we be found? We, collectively can be found on our website

at wauwobo bobowava.gookhistorytime.com. We can be found on the Apple podcast app, on the Amazon podcast app, and on Spotify. And wherever you have found us, please take a moment to subscribe and give us the five-star review that you know Damien's exhaustive note-taking has earned him. And how about you, sir? Where can you be found on your own? First Friday of every month, you could find me

at the Sacramento Comedy Spot, slinging puns with capital punishment, capital with an O, because that's a pun, bring $15. In fact, better yet, go to sackcomedy spot.com and go to their calendar section, find our show, and buy your ticket online, because we keep selling out, and I don't want you to show up with money and not be able to do things. Let's see, by the time this publishes, I'm going to say you're probably just in time for the April 3rd show, and if you miss that, then go to the May 1st show and the June 4th. fifth show.

The, yeah, we are doing some, some different things. So if it's been a while, come back because you will see that we've kind of revamped a few things and just added little things here and there, value added type stuff. So come check it out. Myself, Justine, Emily, and the four guests that we bring on and the audience. I mean, speaking of Livy, the audience makes our show. So absolutely, absolutely come on down. So yeah, capital punishment, first Friday of every month.

Well, for Geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock. And until next time, keep rolling 20s.