A Geek History of Time - Episode 367 - That Time When Livy Wrote a What If Issue for Ab Urbe Condita Part V

Episode Date: May 1, 2026

They mean it is 2 o'clock in the fucking morning where I am. The 1848ers were so much more radical than what we're comfortable or familiar with. The layer, the layer of sarcasm involved in that entire delivery is, like I've seen, I've seen, yeah, it's not even frosting. But he failed, so fuck them buddies. Like that now after World War II ended, Lockley started mapping out foot trails for the newly created. Oh, God, Pembroke Shire. Pembrokeshire? Pembrokeshire.

Okay. Pembrokeshire. Just please, let me just read Latin all day. We're way into the 19th century now. I'm sorry. Well, Damien. It's 3 o'clock in the fucking morning. Connected nerdery to the real world.

My name is Ed Blaylock. I'm a world history teacher here in Northern California. And earlier today, I was cleaning up leaves in my front yard. We have a gigantic. tree that's actually in our neighbor's yard, like the trunk of the tree is in our neighbor's yard, but it drops leaves over both front yards indiscriminately. And I was trying to clean them up and get them into the green waste bins. And it was drudgery and it sucked. And my wife was cleaning out our kitchen because it needed to be done. And she came out with a couple of bottles of a holiday punch. that we had bought on an IKEA trip. This is over a month ago. And I had opened one of them and drunk a little bit of it.

And before I go any farther, what you need to understand is this is in wine bottles. It's in bottles that are the size and shape of what you would see in the grocery store, the liquor store that they're selling wine in. And she brings the bottles out and she says, you know, what do you want to do with these? Are we holding on to these? We're going to throw them out. And I just motioned to her to hand one to me. And she handed me the one that had already been opened. I took the screw cap off of it and just started drinking it.

And she said, so you're just going to stand here in our front yard, you know, drinking out of a wine bottle. I said, well, you know, number one, actually, it turns out there's no booze in this because we had thought that it had wine in it when we bought it. And I found out it didn't. I said, number one, there's no booze in this. Number two, I'm actually kind of liking the fact that I'm in my front yard right now. And if anybody has a problem with me drinking this, they can't fucking do anything about it because this is my house. So, you know, I'm kind of getting a kick out of that. And kind of ostentatiously took a long swing out of the bottle right after that.

And we both had a good solid laugh about it. But it was one of those, it was one of those, hey, you know what? I actually own this house moments. And for other reasons beyond, you know, just the moment, there was a certain level of, you know, what, fuck you. You know, in me at the moment. And so, yeah, I made a point of finishing off the bottle there in my front yard. And yeah. So that was my moment of, you know what?

I'm a homeowner, and that means right now I can do this thing whether anybody cares or not. So what about you? Well, I'm Damien Harmony. I am a U.S. history and government teacher here in Northern California at the high school level. And I bought a new printer. Okay. And I was thinking about it. it today.

And when I lived at home with my parents as a child, sometime in my high school career, they bought a HP 500. Now, was that a dot matrix or was that an early? No, that was an early inkjet. Okay. Okay. And then when I moved out, I got to take it with me. and I had that thing easily into the next century.

So I had it for about 10 years, I would say. So till probably about 2004, 2005. Okay. I then bought a HP 5 or 810 and that that lasted me another seven or eight years. And then I've had to, this is like the fourth printer I've had to buy since about 2015. And it's just kind of a bummer that it takes, you know, like the simplicity of the original

HP model. Now, this thing does all kinds of cool things. It's got a scanner. It's got a document feeder. I'm sure it's going to be very helpful when I do my taxes, et cetera, et cetera. Yeah, yeah. It's all well and good. but it's like the fourth goddamn printer I bought.

In order to set it up, I had to go through more steps than it takes somebody to get sober. Uh-huh. Yeah. It made me want to drink. But I got that shit done, and so now I can actually print stuff out. So, but. And is this another HP?

Yes, yes. Yeah. I tried an Epson at one point. By the way, we get no money from either. of these. But we're big in China. So if the factories want to send us something. But I got an Epson once and I

thought, okay, cool. It's, you know, HP had its day in the sun. It's time to move on. No. It was just as shit as the HP that I replaced. And so I'm back to HP and this prints out nice. I'm not lying, but

I better not have to fucking replace this thing for the next five years at least. Yeah, well, I would like HP to explain to me why in order to hook up a printer, I have to connect my printer directly to the internet. Like, like they, they require now that your, that your printer be able to report directly back to them. That was, that was part of the setup process. And I want to know why I have to do that.

why can't I just have my printer hooked up to my computer? Mine gave me the option of just using an Ethernet cable to the computer. See, I wound up running into an issue in my classroom because every HP printer that my secretary bought for me and there was a whole issue about, you know, the Hart District actually doesn't want to work with HP because of this now. every one of my printers needed like trying to set them up every time it was an HP every time I tried to set one up they were like well you know you need to contact the internet and it's like we have a firewall to prevent things like printers from talking to the outside world for a reason and yeah so now in my classroom I have a brother printer which is very fancy and does way more shit. shit that I need, but, you know, yeah, I, the internet of things is fascinating, but on, on occasion,

it also pisses me off. Oh, sure. So, yeah. Anyway, we will see, see how long it is until I need another printer. Good luck. Yeah. All right. So when last we left Livy, we finally left off with finishing book 918, and now it's time to finish

it all off. I remember he talked about how essentially book 918 was a lot about how of course Alex never faced a loss. He only fought for 12 years. Or of course it's easy to judge somebody when they've never lost because you don't have to see what their comeback story is. Like that was the crux of book 918. Oh, go ahead. 919 is a lot more about the love. logistics and the wonky shit.

So I reckon this will run a little long because you will have 14 notes for me about sandals. Well, since it's the ancient world, I won't have as much as if it was medieval or early modern. But yeah, let's go. Okay, cool. So, Livy, it remains to compare the forces on both sides, whether for numbers or types of soldiers or size of their contingents of auxiliaries. The quinquennial enumerations of that period put the population at 250,000. And so at the time when all the Latin allies were in revolt, it was the custom to enroll 10 legions by a levy,

which was virtually limited to the city. All right. So at the time of the Latin League fights, as we had talked about, right, that massive sudden expansion, Rome had 250,000 people in it. Okay. Before they expanded. Right.

Okay. Ten legions. The Romans at the time of the beginning of the Samnite Wars had two legions of about 5,000 men each. Wow. Okay. And that includes all of the ally, the slingers, the horsemen, and everyone else. Right. By the second Samnite War, the Romans had expanded their military to four legions, two under,

under each console. So that's about 20,000 men plus another 20,000 from allies, all told. Now, okay, I'm not familiar with when we're talking about the Republican armies at this time. When we're talking about these legions, because he talks about they're being, they're being fielded using a levy. Mm-hmm. So are these full-time you are, you are enrolling in the Army and you're going to be in the Army for 20 years, professional full-time soldiers out of the population? Or is this a, we are calling you up for military service? Calling you up for military service.

Okay. Wanted to make sure of that. Okay. So they went from a total of 10,000 men with everyone else included to 20,000. men plus 20,000 from their allies because, hey, we beat you, you owe us guys. Right. Yeah. Now, during the Latin Wars, the number was actually probably closer to total of 7,000,

because it was from these wars that the Romans really got their first injection of Sokiy, who'd stay. Now you can start having a standing army. Okay. At the time of Livy's writing, the army was heading toward about 250,000 strong. Okay. With an additional 10,000 and kept in Rome proper. to keep them safe and another 40,000 Marines and Navy.

Remember, these are farming folk. They don't trust the ocean. They don't want boats. Fuck all that, but it's necessary. They're like dwarves. Yes. Mucking about it in boats. No, we're not doing any of that.

Yeah. Oh, or horses. Fuck those horses. Well, that's a little off. But, you know, yeah, yeah, yeah. So, but yeah, I never realized it. Yeah, the Romans are absolutely dwarves. They hated horses.

They hated boats. They were like, no, no, we'll, We'll press other people into those jobs. Yeah, 100% heavy infantry all the time. Yep. So. Yeah. But that's empire.

And Livy's talking about the good old days when no military presence was tolerated in the capital of the state. Right. Can you imagine? Ah, the good old days. Oh, yeah. How lovely it must have been. So in those frequently four and five, in those years, frequently four and five armies at a time would take the field in Arturia, in Umbria, where they also fought the Gauls. insomnia, and in Lucania.

Later on, Alexander would have found all Latium with the Sabines, the Volsky, the Aikwee, and all the Campania, and a portion of the Umbria and Etruria, and the Piquentes, and the Marcy, and Pailigni, the Westini, and the Apulians, together with the whole coast of the lower sea, held by the Greeks from Thuri-E as far as Naples and Kumai, and thence all the way to on Antium and Ostia. All these, I say, he would have found either powerful friends of the Romans or their defeated enemies. Okay. So by the time Alex, what are you saying is by the time he got here, Alexander would have found all these people either being buddy, buddy with Rome.

Yep. Or we would have subjugated them. Right. Or we had subjugated them. In other words, no allies that he could pick up along the way. Right. Okay. Right.

Right. Yeah. He himself would have crossed the sea with. veteran Macedonians to the number of not more than 30,000 foot and 4,000 horse, mostly Thessalians, for this was his main strength. If to get these he had added, or if to these he had added Persians and Indians and other nations, he would have found them a greater burden to have dragged about than a help. Okay, wait.

Yeah, I know. Wait, wait. Hold on. Yep. I thought our whole thesis here was that this is if he turned right instead of left. Uh-huh. And didn't go to India. Right.

So why are we even bringing this up? Well, and that's his point. He says if he'd added these guys. Okay. They would have been more of a problem. Yeah. Okay. All right.

They would have been more trouble for him than help. Okay. Right. But I find that to be also like, You are cooking the books. Like, you know, if he had brought them, then they would have been more trouble. So he's just kind of hand wiping them away. There is, there is some significant hand wavyam going on there.

I think, I think the point is not entirely spurious. It's true. I mean, you are talking largely mounted archery armies. Is that correct? Oh, yeah. When you start going into the continent of Asia, you're talking about a lot more archers, a lot of mounted archer type stuff. And charioteers. So, yeah, that's a pain in the ass to go through the mountains with.

I agree. Well, trying to get him through the mountains. And if you're trying to carry them anywhere on ships, it becomes much more logistically challenging. So he does have a point about the logistical nightmare that this would represent. Right. But again, his thesis is if he showed up even before then. So we're back to the force of the horse and the foot, Thessalians. Right.

Right. Okay. And, oh, did I say Thessalonians? I'm sorry. Yeah, you're right. No, you said Thessalians. Oh, I did. Am I saying it right?

No, you said it right. Okay. Caught myself. Yeah. So he would have crossed with 30,000 men and 4,000 horse. and that's doable. If he added to those all of his successes that had gotten him the 20 and O record, then that would have been more trouble than it was worse.

Yeah, would have been more of a pain in the neck. Yeah. Add to this that the Romans would have had recruits ready to call upon, but Alexander, as happened afterwards to Hannibal, would have found his army wear away while he warred in a foreign land. I do also love that the Romans here are just like, well, if you invade a foreign land, it's going to be a lot tougher for you.

It's like, bro, what was your whole thing? Yeah, like, dude. The boot wasn't yours to start with. The whole reason we're having this conversation is because you fought a lot of stuff in your not your territory. What I find interesting about it is, I mean, the point is not wrong that

But, you know, home field advantage is an important thing. There is something to be said that he's not acknowledging here, which is the 30,000 foot and the horsemen that he would have been bringing with him were by this time veterans. No, he mentioned that they were veterans. Okay. Yeah, he did. Okay. But, I mean, you mentioned they were veterans, but he doesn't really give a lot of weight to it, I guess, is kind of. kind of my point.

Yeah. Yeah. You know. He's like, well, and if they would have gone there, he would have only been able to fight with this group. Right. These veterans, this would have been at 30 and 4. That's it. That's it.

Because he couldn't have made allies along the way. And if he, if he landed there, none of them would have been his friends. They would have either made life hard for him or they wouldn't have been able to be levied. Yeah. Yeah. So, yeah, there's hand-waving him going on. But, yeah. Now, he mentions Hannibal.

I would just point out, when Hannibal crossed from the Iberian Peninsula to the Alps and down into the boot of Italy, he lost 11,000 of his nearly 90,000 men because his Iberian allies just didn't want to make the trip. Like they straight up were like, nah. Fuck this. No, no, we'll catch up. We'll be at the back of the train and then they just the train. And they just dissolved. Yeah. Now, along the way, due to skirmishes and desertions and folks just straight up quitting, he ended up in the Poe Valley with 20.

thousand infantry, 4,000 Calvary, and, quote, a few, end quote, elephants. Eddie Isard said one, but let's say it's two dozen. So. Yeah. So back to living. His men would have been armed with targets with, not targets and spears. Fucking. Targs?

Targs and spears. Thank you. The auto correct. Like, and I totally missed that one. With targs and spears, the Romans with an oblong shield, affording much more protection to the body and the Roman javelin, which strikes on being thrown with a much harder impact than the lance. Okay.

So now, yeah, this is this. I literally was just teaching my kids about this the other day. All right. When he talks about the armaments that he is providing in his case for, the Macedonians is wrong like flat out wrong

what allowed the Macedonians to conquer the rest of the Greek city states was the fact that Philip the second had developed a professional military built around

a phalanx that used the Sarissa and the Sarissa was an 18 foot long pike. That's the lance he's talking about. That is the lance he's talking about. But he's talking about spears and

spears and a target. They didn't carry shields because the serissa required two hands to use. Yeah. Okay. And whatever he wants to say about, oh yeah, I know we have these, you know, throwing javelins that hit harder than a lance. Okay.

So you're going to inflict casualties on the way in, but when, when, you know, combat is joined in, in, you know, close combat face to face, they're going to be making contact with the points of the Sarissa at least 10 feet outside of striking range. Right. Of, and this is, and this is the Romans we're talking about. So even at this period in the Republic, they weren't using a long spear. They were making all of their conquest based on we have the really big shield and we have a really stout, really, really frightening thrusting spear.

Right. So like having never seen this fight historically, it's really hard to say whether the Sirissa would have won out over the Pileum. or or not. But I think with the way Livy is choosing to attribute you know, spears and a tiny little shield to the Macedonians,

he is, he's fudging things for, for the purposes of his story. So we have, we have a much bigger stouter shield. You know, they have this tiny little tar. And, you know, and yeah, I feel like this is cooking the books.

So I do not disagree with you, but I'm going to come to it from a different angle. He never really understood military stuff. He only went to archives. He, he, so he's doing a bad job here. Okay. Got it. So he talks about the oblong shield. This is the Scutum.

The Iberian version was much more rounded than the Italic version, which was slightly slanted. This was a new adoption for the Second Samnite War, actually. That war changed so much for Rome. They changed shields as a result. And it weighed about 10 kilograms, so that's 22 pounds. And it was made of three sheets of wood with canvas and leather covering it. And there's a metal spindle running up its center. and an umbo in the center for bashing people.

But by and large, this was a large wooden shield. It was 105 centimeters high, which is just about three and a half feet. So it's going to cover you your neck down to your greaves, right? Knees to armaments. A strike zone, if you will. If you duck a little, your helmeted head sticks out from it, shielding everything but your eyes makes it really hard to hit you. And your grieves on your shins cover what's on the bottom.

everything else is totally covered and so if you stand there like that you will be able to absorb most long-ass wooden spikes is what he's thinking 22 pounds sounds like a lot but given its size the weight dispersal is actually such that it can be effectively wielded with just one hand by Livy's time it had been given a metal rimming

all around too because the Carthaginian falx and the falcata cut right through that shit otherwise. So it's good for a shield wall and it's good for protecting you from a stab and it's great for group attacks. But slashing weapons are going to hit different and 12 foot poles are going to hit different. Yeah, 12 and 18.

The thing that I picture being an issue... It's just the sheer mass behind it. Yeah. It's undeniable. Yeah. What I... would I picture causing problems for the Romans? And I don't know that it would be like insurmountable.

But when when contact gets made, there is this period of time during which the Macedonians are going to have the ability to go, oh, well, we just need to get our spear points up above the top of that shield. And stick it in your eyes. Yeah, but I would say the Romans could easily bend that shield slightly and then it just glances straight up. Like, yes.

Yeah. Yes. I do think that. There are multiple ranks of spear points for them to deal with. There's the first rank that they're going to run into. Then two feet behind that, there's another spear point. And then two feet behind that, there's another spear point. So the front of the Macedonian phalanx basically looks like you're running into the spine of a porcupine.

Right. You know. And it's running towards you. And it's running towards you. You can only glance so much. But if you do, here's the thing, though. If you do glance it, they literally, they have no way of hurting you with it after that. It's just going to just keep going up and up and up.

Yes. Yeah. That is true. But the sheer mass. The sheer mass of it coming at you. Is going to be a thing. And remember the Roman shield and the, the, Roman shield and the, Roman formation is their own development off of essentially hoplight tactics.

It's everybody across the ancient world was doing the same thing. You know, because the hoplight was named for the hoplon, which was a big gigantic round shield. And it was the serissa and the use of the Macedonian phalanx that managed to crush the Greeks. So how much different it would be with the Romans is a point for debate. It's, I think actually it's been proven, even though it's not the, the, what do you call it? Oh, fuck. It's not the Macedonians. Oh, okay.

It's the Samnites that proved it. So real quick, I'm going to talk about the javelin, which I've always loved. So most Roman soldiers carried three javelins And there were five feet of wood And one and a half to two feet of metal Okay Yes And it's likely that this was another change

Due to the Samnite War And Livy has always kind of been shit When it comes to military history So I think he's blending things together But also Romans did have javelins of a sort Going as far back as the Etruscans Prior to the Pilum was the Hasta Now the Hasta was a wookie length

thrusting spear. Okay. Okay. And then the Romans didn't use those for throwing. What they used for throwing was the pilum. Okay. And I think that's what Livy's talking about, is specifically the pilum. The head of a pilum is a pyramid, which sounds fucking brutal.

And the neck of it was actually specifically made of softer iron so that it would bend and force you to discard any shield that you had since there's a giant goddamn javelin dragging you down. Yeah. And then they'd throw the next one and the next one. So even if you managed to glance the blow off, one of them might just go through and pin you to your shield. And these will go through whatever armor you have too. And it was effective as far out as about 30 meters, which means the Romans would run toward the battlefield.

And then they'd all hurl their pila in waves as the enemy approached. And then they'd get into formation to do the stabby, stabby thing. Right. Okay. By the way, the word for a javelin is a pilum, right? You call them pilum, right? The plural of pilum is pila, because it's a neuter noun, just like bacterium, bacteria. Okay.

The word for ball, the thing that you can throw back and forth to people is pila, which means that although they're totally different words, they both involve throwing. And my students used to mistake the translation. and, you know, they would be like and, you know, Pompey's men threw their balls at Caesar's men. And now this is not the same balls as the test days and they weren't making that mistake. Right.

But they did make it sound like a graduation in around 2000 where there's just like beach balls fucking everywhere. And I love the idea that they did that because, you know, as soon as you like throw a balloon between two people, they're going to like be trying to hit it up. Oh, yeah. And I can just see that as being such a wonderful distracting a tactic, you know.

You know. We're going to use their own inner monkey against them. Right. You know, oh, they're all dressed in lace. Release the balls, you know. Yeah. Boy, howdy. Okay.

Nice. So back to Livy. Right. Both armies were formed of heavy troops keeping to their ranks, but their phalanx was immobile and consisted of soldiers of a single type. The Roman line was opener and comprised of more separate units. It was easy to divide whenever necessary and easy to unite. Moreover, what soldier can match the Roman in entrenching?

Who is better at enduring toil? And I think this is where I think we have incontrovertible proof that the Romans had already figured out and hacked the phalanx because of the Samnite Wars. The old way of doing things was the phalanx. Rome did a phalanx. The Samnites did a phalanx. fucking everybody did a phalanx who wanted to be in on the phalanx train, right? And basically, y'all move forward and you all guard each other.

And it's really hard to stop that, right? It's like a flying wedge. Right. They finally eschewed the massively successful phalanx that the Greeks had been doing for centuries, though. And basically, like I said, like you talked about, the hop lights would form up into a unit that moved as one. It required a big fucking shield. So when the auspice first hit the arms market, that enabled the development of the phalanx. And the auspice was around wood and bronze shield that we see Spartans carrying on various vases.

Yeah. Three feet across, about 15 to 16 pounds, with a new kind of grip that allowed the soldier to use his shield more mobile to adjust to what was happening in front of him. It's like the Captain America grip. Yeah. In a phalanx, the hoplites would form. up in a tight line, guarding each other in a shield line, with guys with spears behind them ready to fuck shit up. They'd walk forward and do something called Othysmos, a slow flying flat wedge.

It was a 10 by 10 formation, march forward, pushing and spearing, right? And like you said, Philip II developed the Macedonian phalanx, which was 16 by 16. And this was a phalanx that made use of the Sarissa, your 6 meter pike, which Alexander made a lot of use of, and this would enable them to have overlapping fields of stabbing, as the first five rows serrises would be long enough to stick out past the shield wall. And the thing was, when the Greeks were using the phalanx on the boot of Italy, the Romans came up with something called the manipole. Phalanxes were great for marching forward, but God damn did they suck at wheeling around.

It was also easy to flank a phalanx. This is why cavalry was always at the wings of the phalanx. Given that Italy is mountainous as hell in the central area, after the Romans lost against the Luchanians between the first two Samnite wars, they adopted the manipole to address this lack of flexibility. Specifically, they learned from their loss in the Cowdine Forks, remember where they got trapped and had to go under the yoke. Manipoles were alternating in their line, whereas a phalanx was a solid line. And this is what led to the sawteeth approach that the Romans would later use against Budica and her people. And the formation was far more flexible and it was able to attack from multiple angles. Manipoles were about specialization and self-reliance to some extent.

They came in three flavors. There were the Hastati, the front-line javelin throwers who disrupted the enemy lines. And at the whistle, they would fall back and let the second more seasoned line go forward. forward. Those would break each other throughout the battle, only calling on the third line when necessary. These were the elite, the ones that you brought out when you needed to absolutely seal the deal, and they were called the triari. There are reports of them being ordered to sit on the ground in formation during a battle because otherwise they would charge in prematurely. Yeah. Yeah. Now, after the manipole, the Romans adjusted the, they adjusted again to the cohort

system. And again, I think Livy is blending things here because he's bad at this. By his time, cohorts were the norm. But during the time of Alexander, the manipole was fresh and new. And Romans would have used that. Coherts were far bigger than the manopoles, quadruple the size. And the cohorts were largely identical mobile units that became the Swiss Army knives instead of a series of specialized knives. Right. The system of cohorts also made it so that subcommanders had a lot of autonomy, and the expectation was that they would solve problems practically with the forces that they had. Yeah. Now, at the time of Alexander, though, it would have been the manopoles, and I think Livy missed that. And the Romans were also very well known for the camp's efficiency and structures. So we're talking about entrenchment, right? This also came down to the cohort model, but everyone was drilled the same way each.

time, the average time for erecting a Roman camp was between four and five hours, and they could get it done in three hours if they needed to. Yeah. And famously, part of that was when you're talking about erecting the camp, we're not just talking about getting tents up and set up. We're also talking about digging a defensive trench and putting a line of pickets, like literal, you know, spikes, posts in place. Yeah.

Yeah. Well, speaking of, so each Roman camp was either square or rectangular, surrounded by a wall that they built, and then they would build the wall there, and they would have four gates and a rampart or a palisade. The corners of the camp would be rounded to make it difficult for enemies to climb the palisades. Romans would march until the afternoon, and then they'd start construction of the camp. Very early in the morning when the sun rose, the legionnaires, would have set off.

Eight hours later, they would stop and set up camp again. And different groups had different jobs. Special group was sent in advance as they were coming to the end of their march to choose the best place to set up their camp and begin preparations for construction. This was usually approved by the tribunes and the centurions. They would scout things out the same way every time. First, the location for the command tent was marked out and then straight lines were drawn around this tent, which would then mark out the.

space on which the tents of the tribunes would stand, and then that of the legion. The distances were carefully measured and marked on the ground with flags of varying colors. This way, when the main forces arrived at the site, the soldiers had a clear view of the layout of the camp, and the construction work began after being divided into four crucial jobs. The first group, bringing wood and building materials. These are usually the auxiliaries. Second group, construction. Third group, material storage and transport to the.

the site and the fourth group patrolling and protecting the workplace. This is usually one legion that does this while the others do the work, and that would, of course, rotate. The rampart near the moat would be built from the soil recovered in this way, and the embankment usually measured about four meters high and one meter wide, and it was equal to four meters wide and three meters deep, ultimately. Okay, yeah. Caesar went deeper, and he liked embankments of over six meters wide, and he'd

gates that jogged and they zigzagged. So like you go in the gate and you got to turn right, then you got to turn left. He liked that because it would slow things down. They would use cut down trees to build the gates, which were about 15 meters wide. Jesus Christ, that's a large, large gate. And they would also create watch towers that they built on site and they were placed on top of the four embankments. And then the next day, they would burn it all down as they prepared to leave.

Well, because you don't want to be leaving behind fortifications that the enemy is going to take advantage of. Right. And like learn about or, you know, like you said, yeah, make use of. And then the space of about 60 meters existed between the ramparts and the first row of tents. 60 meters. And it would be filled with cattle, booty, prisoners of war. And this was so that the enemy attacking with fire wouldn't get to. the camp. Right. Now the Praetorium was surrounded by the quarters of the,

surrounded by the quarters of the commander's deputies, including the chief of staff in the center. Then tents of the tribunes and the centurions would be deployed, each of which had its own tent, and then repair workshops, the quartermaster's area, which was fenced off, and a camp square or a forum, which was established in the center. And this contained the sacrificial altar and a rostrum, where you could address the men. Right. And then the legionaries would mark the streets between the tents. Each cohort had its street, and in the Roman camp, two main streets were distinguished.

The Wia Principalis and the Wia Praetoria, crossing at a right angle. And at their ends were the four gates. There was the Porta Praetoria, which is the main gate, the Porta Decumana, which is the rear gate. There was the Porta Principalis dextra, and the... Porta Principally Sinistra, right gate, left gate. Okay, yeah. And along the streets, there would be rows of ten-man tents that were arranged according to the same template that they used for hundreds and hundreds of years.

This was why each cohort was assigned to mules. During all this work, the Legionary was allowed to put down his shield and javelin as well as remove the pack from his pack and his helmet. And this becomes actually a plot point for Caesar's Gallic Wars at one point in about the fourth or fifth year. But still, the Legionary had to wear a leather jacket with sewn in armor plates, a sword and a dagger on his body so that he could rush to fight without a moment's delay. Another plot point in the Gallic Wars. The centuries were placed every 10 meters on average, and the changing of the guard was announced by the sound of a trumpet, which was administered every three hours. Guard posts at night were patrolled by a four-horse group who reported, and to measure the wigili-eye, these are the watches, the Romans used a water clock called a klepsidra.

They also had measured candles. You know, I think about what it must have been like to try to sleep. I know. In that environment. And then I consider that, you know what, you marched 20 miles during the day. you're probably going to be able to sleep through just about anything. Yeah. Like the physical exhaustion is going to be real.

Yeah, and you'd spend 20 years living like that. Yeah. Yeah. Like daily. Holy crap. Yeah. It just the professionalism. Again, we have a bureaucracy here.

We have a system. God damn it. Now, you know, and when I say it's been 20 years doing this, of course, you wouldn't be building the camp and and tearing the camp down all year every year. This is during campaign season and when you're out on campaign as opposed to if you're, you know, stationed someplace where that's not an issue. Right. But I'm thinking in the empire, you know, in the Republican era, every year. Every summer. This is what you're doing from, you know, when the mud,

when the mud hardens enough to march on until the rain shows up and turns it back into mud. Yeah. That's your life, buddy. Pretty much, yeah. Now, back to Livy. Alexander would, if beaten in a single battle, have been beaten in the war. But what battle could have overthrown the Romans, whom caudium could not overthrow, nor can I? Okay, so he's going back to his greatest hits here.

Uh-huh. So he's already said, okay, look, we have a more mobile army, an army with specializations, but a greater utility value. And so that blunts your army. Your phalanx was great, but we figured out a way around the phalanx, and in fairness they did. And we can make camp for our soldiers way better than that. than you can. And I do think this is interesting because for a man who knows nothing about war

and Livy famously knows very little about warring and stuff, he does catch this part pretty well right, which is an army crawls on its stomach, right? Yeah. You know, camping is a really important part of being in the fucking army. Like how you set up your camp and stuff like that. Like, I think he's catching that by accident. Well, I do. I do agree with what you're saying. I think these are these are important points. I think he is overlooking the professionalism of Alexander's army in in the same ways. You know, Alexander, we don't, we don't have the same level of records because, you know, Alexander and his, and his generals were not as OCD as the Romans were about writing.

everything the fuck down. Right. But, you know, during this time period, Alexander's army was highly professional. The professional, the full-time professional soldier nature of the Macedonian army was one of Phillips' kind of major innovations. And so, yes, the Romans were champions at, you know, breaking down and then building a camp on a daily basis during campaign season exactly the same fucking way every time.

And their camps were developed over time having learned all kinds of lessons from, you know, centuries of campaigning. All of that is true. But the fact that we don't know as much about how the Massachusetts, Camp looked doesn't necessarily mean they weren't also professional at it. True. If that makes sense. And okay, cool.

Romans, you clearly did 120% of what you needed to do. Could doing 60% have been enough to guarantee victory in a war? Yeah. Like, you know, that's the other thing. Yeah. Rome, you do too much. Yeah. So he mentioned the Chaudium, which is the battle at the Chaudine Forks that I mentioned multiple times before.

Massive embarrassment to the Romans. More importantly, the Romans came back from it twice as hard. Yes, because that's what they do. It is. And then the battle at Canai. This is the most famous defeat for Rome ever. This was 216 BCE. Hannibal rips them up and down.

They'd lost at Trebia two years earlier and decided to make. make a massive stand against Hannibal at Canai with 86,000 troops and auxiliaries. Hannibal only had 50,000 troops, but his cavalry outnumbered and was better than Roman cavalry by quite a bit, but his foot was still less than half the Roman foot. And during this battle, though, two consuls who were supposed to be a check on each other's hubris weren't a check on each other's hubris. They fucked that up. They did.

Palus repeatedly advised caution and Navarro didn't listen. Hannibal ran skirmishing attacks all day on the Romans, setting them on edge after they'd initially felt pretty good for defeating his late cavalry and a small skirmish on Varro's day the day before. And then the next day was Paulus' day. And this would not to last. When Paulus's turn came above, he didn't want to push the action because he feared an ambush. Hannibal had his soldiers abandoned a camp and hide at a nearby ridge, leaving their fires burning and their tents open.

This led to Varro being like, ah, guys, let's go plunder the camp. Now, I think two days later, the battle gets joined, and the Romans had a river on their right flank manned by Palus and the cavalry. Varro was on the left flank with his cavalry, and the center was lots and lots of mannipples. Hannibal set forth a crescent facing the Romans, which helped to disguise and hide two columns of Libyan horses on either side because you've got this crescent, so everybody focuses, right? And so these guys are just behind that. They were going to be his hope at a pincher move for the Roman foot.

And when the wind kicked up the dust into the Roman eyes, it made the bulge in the middle of the Carthaginian line that much more tempting to Vero. The light foot engaged each other, and Hannibal sent forth the cavalry that the Romans could see to engage Pallas near the river. The battle went on for a while,

but slowly the Carthaginians gained the advantage driving Pallas's horse back. And when the light foot finished their skirmish, they both retreated, but only the Roman manipoles advanced. Hannibal kept his bulge in place, giving the appearance of exhaustion and fear.

The Carthaginian middle met the Roman charge and held them in place, slowly giving away, and turning from a conchartagnan, convex into a concave. This gave the Romans a sense of accomplishment and elation, so they pressed on. The right flank of Hannibal's horse engaged Verro's guys keeping them busy as well,

and 500 of them acted like they were defecting to the Romans, which the Romans welcomed but said, okay, cool, stay in the rear and just stay off the field. Now, at this point, the Numidian horse unsheathed their hidden swords and hamstrung the living shit out of Vero's horse. Not just his horsey, but like his whole his whole force. Yeah. Yeah. The horse force. Palus's horse

had already been pushed far from the field, and Palus himself went to join the Roman center. The Carthaginian center finally starts to fully collapse enticing the Romans all the more, and at this point, the columns of Libyan force flanked the living shit out of the Roman lines and fucked them up hard.

And then you add to that the confusion for the Romans. The Libyans were wearing stolen Roman armor and stolen Roman equipment. Oh, shit. So once the Iberian horse, who defeated Palis's men, drove them off, instead of chasing the fleeing Romans, they turned around and boxed the Roman infantry in. Hannibal encircled a force two times the size of his own foot soldiers, and he only lost 5,700 of his 50,000 man force.

The Roman camps were encircled that night, and the next day, 15,000 were taking prisoner, the Roman started the day with 600 or 6,000 horse, only 370 escaped. 70,000 soldiers were killed on the Roman side. Sheeeman and Christmas. Almost every family in Rome felt this loss. Rome lost a consul, two pro-consuls, a former dictator, 29 tribunes, 80 senators, and a bunch of Prytorse. Holy crap.

So not only was this a military defeat. but it was a civic disaster as well. And Livy's point, yes, they lost that battle. What happened next, motherfucker? And he wrote about this as a defiance in the face of total defeat.

Okay. So even as bad as the Romans ever had it, they came back. They won. So. All right. Now. All right.

Back to Livy. Nay, many a time, however prosperous, the outset of his enterprise might have been, would he, we're talking about Alexander, have wished for Indians and Persians and unwarlike Asiatics, and would have owned that he had before made war upon women, as Alexander, king of Epirus, is reported to have said, when mortally wounded, contrasting the type of war waged by this very youth in Asia, with that which had fallen to his own share. I'm sorry. I'm still getting over the phrase,

unwarlike Asians. Yeah, Asiatics. Asiatics. Yeah, because that's better. Unwarlike Asiatics. Might as well call him Celestials while you're at it, you know? You know?

This is clearly Livy just not having any thought for anyone east of the Rome. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. The Apisioi, who were ancestors to modern-day Pakistan and Afghanistan tribes, along with the Asfakas, they refused to surrender to Alexander on his Indian campaign.

Yeah. Also, they refused to surrender to the British, the British again, the Soviets and the Americans. They have a long history. Yeah. Of refusing to surrender. They're unwarlike, Libby. Okay.

Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Unwarlike Asia. You know, and like not even taking into account all of the peoples of Western what is today, China.

Mm-hmm. All of the step cultures. Yeah. On warlike. Sure. Sure. Same thing with the southern Iranian groups like the Cambodas. Yeah.

Like just because Alexander claimed that those areas, it claimed those areas, it doesn't mean he didn't successfully subdue them. Yeah. It doesn't mean he Remember he he fought in 20 battles And didn't lose any of them Right There were 20 battles But he also

They claimed an area That he didn't fight anyone for And they were like fine Keep on going We don't give a shit It doesn't mean they're not It doesn't make them unwarlike It just means that they pick their spots

Yeah You know Pretty much So And now that's not to say That there weren't some Indian kings and leaders who capitulated before battle was enjoined, absolutely. But the Swat Valley then, as now, is a place where you can only claim victory for about a day.

Yeah. If that. Alexander got wounded in the shoulder in the Swat Valley. But he did manage to defeat several groups in that area for whatever that's fucking worth, because it's not like they accept that. Um, there's a document-based question that I, I give to my sixth graders about Alexander. Mm-hmm. And one of the documents is a translated, um, statement.

I don't know what else to call it, uh, from a contemporary Afghani, uh, who is part of a group that to this day claim descent. from the soldiers that Alexander left behind. Yes. In the area. So like, those folks have been fighting for a very, very long time. Oh, I taught three brothers in a row, actually four brothers, but the fourth one was born here.

The first three were born in Afghanistan. They all had the most beautiful blue eyes. Mm-hmm. And like, you know, one of my students talking. about like at one point one of my students made a comment of like that's as rare as a blue-eyed Asian and I just like pointed to them I was like right there right there well they're not Asian I'm like you don't get more Asian than Central Asia Asia yeah let me the center like if you want to taste test an ice cream carton you go to the center of it right same thing so like

like let me point to the map I have here on the wall I'm just going to point to the middle of Asia and oh middle of oh look so now there were some kings and sat traps

who surrendered to Alexander with little conflict umphus was one of them but this was hardly as universal as Livy would make it seem yeah um Livy's in a really big hurry

to make Alexander's reputation a bigger weapon than it was during his lifetime. So now he also talks about made war upon women. I'm pretty sure this is a reference to Thebes. Yeah. Killed all the men and enslaved all the women.

Back to Livy. Indeed, when I remember that we are that we contended against the Carthaginians on the seas for four and 20 years, I think that the whole life of Alexander would hardly have sufficed for the, this single war and perchance inasmuch as the punic state had been by ancient treaties leagued with the Roman and the two cities most powerful in men and arms might well have made common cause against the foe whom both dreaded he had been crushed he would had yeah he had been crushed beneath the simultaneous attack of Roman Carthage so the whole life of Alexander's 33 years, right?

Yeah. So for four and 20 years, that's like... 24. Yeah. Like, that's a significant chunk of his life. And so Livy's like, yeah, we've had wars almost as long as his life. I shit bigger than you. Yeah.

The wind blows and you think a jug band is nearby. Yeah. Um, I, I really, I don't know what it is about him going from, we fought against the Carthaginians for 24 years. And that's almost his whole lifespan. And if he had shown up, like, we were buddies with the Carthaginians before we were war with him. So like, we, you know, together we would have, we would have, we would have kicked it. It wouldn't have just been dealing with us. We'd have kicked his ass with them.

I think that's true, though, because you remember, he mentions the Punex State. he's referencing the treaties that they had of mutual defense and those lasted longer than 33 years and at the time he would have crossed over those were in effect yeah that is true yeah that is true that's something that is outside of the imagination of most people in America because you only

ever hear about Carthage when it's the Punic Wars not yeah not really before and all the treaties of friendship Yeah, Carthago Delinda est. Exactly. So, all right, so back to Livy. The Romans have been at war with the Macedonians, not to be sure, when Alexander led them, or their prosperity was unimpaired, but against Antiochus, Pilipus, and Perces. And not only without ever suffering defeat, but even without incurring any danger. So he mentions.

So when we admittedly we weren't fighting against Alex Dejaro, but when we went against the Macedonians, we know diffed them. Yeah. Zero diff. Yeah. It would be like saying like, oh, oh, the Golden State Warriors. Oh, yeah, we kicked their asses.

Oh, yeah? Like, when? Oh, you know, like when they were, you know, duking it out with Seattle to see who could be like the shittiest. Oh, so you don't mean like with like Steph Curry and and all that. Well, no. but like, you know, it's the same jersey. Yeah, like, I remember when the Dallas Mavericks were dog shit.

I remember a guy got drafted by the Dallas Mavericks and he sat out the season because he would rather not get paid than pay than play on their team. Early 2000s, they were fucking amazing. Yeah, yeah. So it's like, oh, yeah, we kicked the bull's ass. Oh, wow, when? well you know like after the the two three pete's um you know after jordan yeah you mean like during jalen rose no no he was injured but but we yeah but we beat them so but doesn't matter we beat him

yeah and i did it man yeah and again same jersey so yeah so uh he's talking about antiochus i think that's antiochus who is the son of antiochus the great who was sent to rome as a political hostage in Rome to keep Macedonia in line in 188 BCE, which again, it's the, you know, we beat them when they were not under Alexander. Philippus could be any number of people around that same time, but I think it's a reference to Philip the fifth of Macedon, who fought the first Macedonian war against Rome to a stalemate, but then he lost the second one and became the client state, which is what the Romans do.

Right. I also think that he helped fight against Antiochus the third, the great, the one who sent his son as a hostage, as I mentioned a second ago. And that would mean that Perseus is actually Perseus, the king of Macedon, the last king of Macedon, from his line at least. Because after Perseus lost to the Romans at the Battle of Pinda in 168 BCE, Macedon didn't have a king for a while. And it absolutely became a client state of Rome. Yeah. Perseus ended his days as a fairly successful public notary for Rome in Alba Foukenes, where he had to live as a prisoner to the Romans. I just love that, like, his exile involved him being a notary public.

That is kind of funny. Yeah. Like, we're going to subdue you. We're going to beat you. We're going to exile you. And you're going to handle this little thing with, like, you know, property law. Thanks. Yeah.

Yeah, there you go. So, back to Livy. Proud word, I would not speak. Oh, bullshit. Okay. Okay. So this is actually his finishing up. Okay, so he is proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that the Romans would have beaten the Macedonians.

Oh, yeah. Easy. Yeah. Yeah. So. And again, in book one, he's like, stack up. up your or not book one in in in the first book so uh 917 stack up alexander against all of our guys here are all the guys he would have had to fight right

right and number two here is all the ways that our armies would have made it work right and er so that's that's in uh 18 and then in 19 uh look here's the thing we have all the logistics on our side and also we always come back from a loss you have no idea how he would have been. And so, and besides, we've beaten Macedonians before. Which, again, same jersey, different players. Yeah, not the same team. No.

No. No. No. But, okay. Proud word, I would not speak, but never, and may civil wars be silent. Never have we been beaten by infantry. Never in open battle, never on even, or at all events on favorable ground. cavalry and arrows impassable defiles regions that afford no road to convoys may well occasion fear in heavy armed troops a thousand battle arrays more formidable than those of alexander and the macedonians have the romans beaten off and shall do if only our present love of domestic peace endure and are concerned to maintain concord

Hmm. I really like the part where he's like, we have never been beaten it by infantry. As long as you leave out the civil wars. Well, and in fairness. Yeah. We lost. You're going to.

You're going to lose to. And a win at the same time. Yeah. The only people we could lose to were the Romans. Yeah. Which is itself a humble brag. Totally. Totally.

You know, but he wouldn't do that, of course, because he's not speaking of. of pride. What a sack of shit. I'm trying to think if I can think of an event that disproves his claim. That's the bitch of it.

Every time the Romans lost, they kept going. Yeah. The Roman that you saying that just now reminds me of a line from, of course, Warhammer 40,000. Oh, I was thinking, what about Bob?

See, he's still there. He's still there. That's good, too. But I think it's Gatskulamag Uruk Thraka, who says, Orkses never lose. We wins or wins, wins, we don't win, we comes, we comes back. and then we wins. Right.

Or words to that effect. It's like we never lose just because we don't ever stop fighting. Right. And there's there's something there's something to that as as you know, dumb as that sounds on the surface. You know. And that is that is the Roman, that is that is the Roman way of campaigning. you know and that is that is essentially what Livy is talking about here

and you know I can I can if I worked at it I could probably think of a battle where Romans were on an open field you know relatively you know even odds and they and they lost oh they lost when they outnumbered Hannibal two to one yeah and I would say It was a pretty even field there too. Yeah.

But. Yeah. That's the thing is he'll mention the thing. If we're thinking about the cam. Yeah. Yeah. He'll mention a thing. But then like he'll discount it even though he mentioned it.

Yeah. You know, and that's, that's a rhetorical trick on his part. Now, the thing is he's entering, he's talking all about. If Alexander had done this, if Alexander had done that, if Alexander had done this, he's using the contrary to fact past for all of that. And then he switches over to a future less vivid if only our present love of domestic peace endure and are concerned to maintain Concord. Like, then he makes it more possible, which I think is a real interesting uplift into optimism there.

Now, he mentioned may our civil wars be signing. He's talking about, let's not mention those wars. Aside from the times that Rome tore itself apart, they never lost to infantry in an open battle, totally qualifying it so that the defeat of Hannibal doesn't count. Or I'm sorry, the defeat by Hannibal doesn't count. In each of the civil wars, the Romans lost, but they lost to Romans. So, like you said, it's a push. When he talks about unfavorable people around, this is so Livy can. can deny all sorts of times where Romans didn't read the terrain successfully and got spanked for it.

Yeah, yeah. What our strategists, it doesn't, you know, if if the strategists or generals, you know, didn't read the ground right, that doesn't count. Right. Because he's like, I said on open ground. That was tough. I. Yeah.

The other one is, if only our president. love of domestic peace endure and are concerned to maintain Concord. Now, this is his last line of a three-part counterfactual, and I find it, again, this is more optimistic than contrary to fact past, but I always got a kick out of this because Livy is writing during the time of Augustus. And when the Temple of Janus's doors were closed twice under Augustus, right? Augustus is conquering throughout the world, but he's also just ended the third civil war in like 100 years for Rome. And Livy absolutely is trying to say that Augustus is peaceful.

Aeneas like, if you will, and the best thing for Rome. Also, the problems that the Romans have will be brought upon by themselves. They won't get beat by anyone. They'll get beat by themselves. And of course he's saying that. in the very beginning of his praipatio he said you're going to skip to the end and read all the lascivious shit but the real lessons are in the past saying that and of course he's saying this under augustus because if you say that a despot is growing that's going to be a bad move for you when augustus is reading your shit and livy also as i think i've shown grew up in the shadow of civil war like i said and with his relatives having remembered the prior ones for him

I think there was some genuine hope in his writings that Rome could give herself back to the prior excellences and that Augustus would be the one to do so. In other words, Livy was Mara. Make all Rome Augustuses? It doesn't work, but you get the idea. Yeah, I get what you're trying to say, though.

So I think Livy was going to make Rome great again. Yeah, Merga. Restore Rome to its prior glory. So, Rur-Zippervr. Rur-Purgul. Yeah. Anyway. But Livy was not the first, nor shall he be the last historian,

to project contemporary values onto the history he wrote. By no means was he impartial. He didn't even pretend to be. His job as an historian was not as codified as the occupation is now. He was very much a product of his time, unable to keep his biases out of his writings. Levy grew up at a time of great men, no doubt. He read histories by historians who wrote about great men,

but his approach actually was in much more refreshing and trailblazing. It was not great man theory, but he wrote about great men, but he wrote in the moral tradition of historians who'd come before him. He included the regular men and women, too. when he wrote about fights, he wrote about the men off to the side witnessing the fights between the great men. And by including the ancient audience

and their perspective in his history, Livry made his contemporary audience that much more relevant to the history, a history which in turn became more relevant to them. Okay. This makes sense. All right. Yeah. Now, he did still engage in a counterfactual,

but I feel like I'm handing out tickets it's at the Indy 500. Like there's plenty of things that he did wrong. And it's still a fun lark. Yeah. And it's one of those like, I don't agree with his methods, but his conclusions actually sound pretty solid.

Well, his, there are his, I think, when you say his methods, I feel like there's a, there's a, there's a hair to be split there. Yeah, please. In that his methods, there's aspects to his method.

The fact that his method is, is a method. He goes down a set of steps and there is a logical argument that he makes. Um, is solid. And I think that's where the weight of his argument comes from. Mm-hmm. The detail.

he relies on. And the way he weights things sometimes, you know, comes off as, you know, he's hand-waving shit or, or, you know, tipping the scales one way or the other. But the fact that he goes kind of step by step, here's this aspect, here's this aspect, here's this aspect. I think that's, that is a strength. Mm-hmm. And I think that when he approaches it from an institutional direction, the fact that he is an institutionalist, I think his argument about Roman institutions being the source of their strength, I think that does carry a lot of water. you know, I think his claims that, well, we had, you know, 10 guys who were equal of Alexander. I mean, Alexander was a pretty remarkable individual, you know.

Yeah. So saying that we had all these guys on tap who were just as good is, you know, maybe you're, maybe you're overstating the, the exceptionalism of your generals there. 100%. Yeah. But the fact that, but the fact that we had 10. guys, you know. You're going to get through three of them, maybe. Yeah.

And by the way, our 10 guys were, there were, again, remember, Torquatus, you know, like, there were some guys who did some seriously amazing shit. Oh, yeah. No, and, you know, my argument, I, I don't mean to do the opposite of what I'm accusing Livy of doing and saying that, you know, these, these guys were all, you know, losers or anything. Anyways, yeah. You know, I find, you know, and as I'm talking about it, there's, there's what, what twigs in my own head is when historians talk about our civil war, everybody, you know, the conventional wisdom is that, you know, Robert E. Lee was this fucking genius.

Right. You know, and Grant was just, you know, this plotter who, you know, butchered thousands of his men and yada yada. and it's like, you know, Robert E. Lee, for, especially for the lost cause community, has become this Alexander kind of figure. And if you look closely, we have the advantage when we look at Lee instead of looking at Alexander, we have the advantage of there being a whole lot more records, kept in a whole lot more detail. And we can actually point out that, no, no, Lee is overrated.

Lee as a tactician was solid. As a strategist, he understood that he needed to pursue a Fabian strategy if he had any hope of trying to get a victory. Beyond that, he picked fights. He didn't need to repeatedly. Like repeatedly.

Yeah. And he's not. he's not this great thing in the way that he's been portrayed. He is his overrated. And, you know, but the kind of the comparison of, you know, the reputation of Alexander, the reputation of Lee and the reality, you know, I think there is something to be said for what Levy says about, you know, has the advantage of having died young. You know,

um, he did, Alexander did some amazing things tactically. Mm-hmm. And he had the resources, the authority and the sheer bloody-mindedness to accomplish shit that other people at the time would not have been able to do. Yeah.

Um, you know, his, his defeat of, if tire is one example. It's like, well, you know, they're on an island. Fine. We're building a causeway and we're going to kill them all.

Right. Like, you know, I'll just, I'll just build a bridge to get there and fuck them up. You know, it's a brute force solution that he gets credit for, you know, having the vision to do. It's like, well, what else was he going to do? Yeah, I mean, if he needed to accomplish that goal. goal like his solve of the gordon knot was not clever it was elegant i always i always i always take that story uh i i i don't know if if i take a different read out of that than a lot of people but i always wind up when i hear that story i always take it as not you know of of some some indication of

Alexander's, you know, will or his drive to victory or, you know, solve the problem. I always take it as him just kind of being a violent thug. Yeah. You know. Yeah, it's the,

so Brock Lesnar and Kurt Engel decided to test each other once in the ring just in front of the boys. Okay. And Kurt Engel is an Olympic gold medal winner. Right. Brock Lesner was an NCAA champion. I think he like went 97 and 3 or something like that.

Holy cow. It's amazing. Yeah. Kurt Engel, the distance between Kurt Engel and Brock Lesner is akin to the distance between like LeBron James and Scalabrini, like top guy, you know, that kind of thing. Or LeBron James and like maybe the top college guy. Right. That's actually a really good way to put it.

And Kurt Engle pointed this out in a later interview. And he's like, I beat him, but I only barely beat him because he's so freakishly strong. And so he was able to do with brute force and strength what it took other people technique to do. And he could hang with technique people because of how machine, like how beastial his strength was. Yeah. And I think Alexander is something similar. He had this ruthlessness. Yeah.

That would win. And then he would again adopt the customs and respect the gods of whoever he conquered. Right. Because he was all about the next fight. And they would then join him. Yeah. Whereas, you know, so like that was his, it wasn't grand strategy. Now, interestingly, I recently heard somebody talking about Lee and breaking it down.

I'm going to try to find it and send it to you where he's like explaining like, oh, Lee sucked when it came to tactics too. And his strategy, he should have like, and the guy points out, he's like every single one of Lee's other generals did a better job of carrying out strategy than Lee did. and I was just like, I'm liking this. Yeah, there's all kinds of studies that you can do about ways that Lee was not what he's been touted as. It's more of that daughters of the Confederacy shit that just like we have to slog through. Anywho, that's it. So if Alexander had turned left instead of right, he would have run into our allies or people he couldn't ally. we would have beat him because while none of our guys was the 100% that he was,

all of them were 70 to 90%. And you get 10 of those, you're going to take down the 100% guy. Also, our soldiers are better trained than his soldiers. We would be fighting on our own land. And he wouldn't know the terrain. We've already beaten an Alexander. We've already beaten Macedonians, even though it's not the same fucking thing. It's the same jersey, God damn it.

I love the way you phrased that. Yeah. And I think he brings up some pretty compelling arguments. And even, again, even the times where we lost, we came back in one. So, yeah, he would have beaten us maybe three times in a row. Yeah. Fourth time, we would have, you know, we would have beaten him with raw recruits if we needed to. And there's something to say for that because the,

guy is far away from his supply line. Well, yeah. Yeah. So anyway. Yeah, the one part of that that sticks in my craw is our soldiers are better trained than his. And that's down to Livy not knowing anything. Because Alexander's army was highly professional.

They were highly trained. They were professional soldiers. Yes, absolutely. Absolutely. And so I feel like that's that's slander against the Macedonians. Yeah. Like he's going, he's trying to go real hard against Alexander personally, but I'm like, I will not stand for this slander against against the Macedonian infantry because they. I still think the Romans would have beaten them because they'd figured out the phalanx buster.

Yeah, I think, I think that's a very, yeah, I think that's a compelling argument that they had, they had. they had figured out the next iteration of what needed to happen on the battlefield to defeat the phalanx. Yeah. I think that's compelling. I'm not saying that I think the Macedonians would have won in this instance. Right. But I just, I don't, I don't feel like it's fair to. No, they, yeah, they would not have been tabled.

by the time they got to fighting the Romans, they were hard-bitten veterans. You know, it would have been, it would have been, it would have been a fight. It really would have been a fight. I think the Romans would have definitely beaten them by the time they beat them. Like, you know, it's, it's, yeah, yeah.

Roman style. Like, yeah, like, we'll be back. Like, so, anyway, yeah, what have, what have you gleaned? I guess we kind of already talked about that. Yeah, we've kind of been over it. I think the biggest thing for me is just that the fascination with what if has a much older history, a much longer history than we tend to think. You know, the idea of alternate history is something we think of as this very modern thing.

but people have been doing it since at least the Romans. Yeah. You know, and it's, it's just part of our, it's related to, you know, one of the basic skills every human gets ranks in is tell story. Yeah. You know. Yeah. And, and also, it's a form, I think, of empathy.

Okay. What would I have done in this situation? Mm-hmm. You know? Yeah. So, cool. What are you going to recommend to folks? I am going to recommend the hero of a thousand faces by Joseph Campbell.

Written in 1949, it is the codification in Western literature of the hero's journey and the assertion that the hero's journey template is universal. And just like my recommendation last episode, I'm recommending it because I'm going to be talking about it coming up here soon. Campbell's writing is fascinating. It can sometimes be a bit dense, but it's a profoundly. influential book and I love the concept of the hero's journey.

So yeah, go to the source for it to take a look at how that whole works. How about you? I'm going to recommend a book call by, oh God, I just lost the author's name. Well, it's called What We Knew. Terror, Mass Murder and Everyday Lever. life in Nazi Germany. Oh, it's Eric A. Johnson and Carl Heinz Ruband. Okay.

It's, I mean, it's what it says on the tin. So it's an oral history, specifically, of what people did know during things. And then, you know, basically let's, you kind of lifts the veil on, like, you know, how could they have possibly, well, here's people who are interviewed. Mm-hmm. So just seems like a good idea to, to give a read to. Okay. All righty. Where can people find us?

We can be found on the Apple podcast app, on the Amazon podcast app, on Spotify, and of course at our website at wabwobabwobba. woba.com. On our website, you can find our archive. A whole lot of different things in there. pick whatever topic catches your interest. Wherever it is that you have found us, please take a moment to subscribe

and give us the five-star review that you know we deserve. And where can you be found, sir? Let's see, you missed the May Show. So June 5th, July 3rd, August 7th, and September 4th. Go on down to Sacramento's Comedy Spot at 9 p.m. on one of those first Fridays of the month and check out Capitol Punishment.

Go to satcomedy spot.com. Go to their calendar. Buy your ticket online so you don't get locked out. Come on down. We've been doing it 10 years now, and you should definitely come and treat yourself to a pun battle. Nice. Eight Mile meets dad jokes.

You need to make a shirt with that. Not a bad idea. I'm endorsing it. I did want. I did want one of our shirts to say, punk rock for state workers. So. I might wear that one.

Yeah. I'd wear the eight mile with dad jokes one too. Yeah. Yeah. So first Friday, 9 p.m. Come on, check us out. Capital Punishment. Me, Justine, Emily, and a whole gaggle of folks.

So, well, for a geek history of time, I'm Damien Harmony. And I'm Ed Blaylock. And until next time, keep rolling. 20s.