Camp Gagnon - The Rise of Romes Ruthless First Emperor

Episode Date: June 24, 2026

Today, we explore the life of Caesar Augustus—from his beginnings as Gaius Octavius to his transition to Caesar Augustus, his bitter rivalry with Cleopatra, and his legendary battles. Welcome to History Camp! 🏕️ Shoutout to our sponsors: CashApp and GLD -New Customers get 40% OFF With Promo-Code: "CAMP" When They Visit: https://GLD.com -Use Code 'CASHAPP10' At Signup To Get $10 When You Send $5 To A Friend! Want the even WILDER theories? SIGN UP TO THE PATREON: https://www.patreon.com/cw/CampGagnon 👕🧢 Shop CAMP Merch: https://camp-rd.com/collections/ufo 🎟️ 🎫 Comedy Tour Tickets: https://markgagnonlive.com 🎩👽 Daily Dose Of History: https://www.dailytodayinhistory.com Timestamps: 0:00 Christos YAPPIN 2:07 Roman Family Classes 4:30 Who is Gaius Octavius 5:25 Ides of March + Gaius Begins Ruling 10:19 Cicero’s Philippics 13:55 The Second Triumvirate + The Proscriptions 17:06 Lepidus Removed From Triumvirate 18:38 Battle of Phillipi + Sextus Pompey 23:40 Cleopatra Gives Birth to Caesar’s True Heir 30:12 The Battle of Actium 33:33 Octavius Becomes ‘Augustus’ 37:58 The Empire of Augustus + Pax Romana 41:40 Who Inherits Augustus’ Empire? 43:24 Personal Life of Augustus 46:17 The Succession Problem 50:51 Death of Augustus 54:19 Legacy of Augustus 56:08 Drop Your Thoughts! #camping #history #historyfacts #interesting #war #rome Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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A loser, second-class teenager in 44 BC Rome, got the biggest lucky break in all of history ever. So at 18 years old, he was sickly and small and afraid of the rain and thunderstorms, but in a matter of years, he would be worshipped as a god. He would lead armies, gain control of the Senate, and become the most powerful man the Western world has ever produced, all because he was Julius Caesar's secret adopted heir. This is the story of Caesar Augustus. And he didn't have Julius Caesar's army or charisma or even his bloodline. He lost most of the battles he personally commanded,

and he ran his entire rise on a pile of severed heads and a forged will, a stolen kingdom, a murdered grandson, and one of the greatest political lies ever told. He got revenge on Julius Caesar's mutinous assassins. He outsmarted Mark Antony and Cleopatra, and the republic that's supposed to hate kings, built him a temple. How did this random kid, literally from nothing,

become the ultimate puppet master that single-handedly rebuilt Rome. And how did he become arguably the most famous, powerful, and strategic leader that the world has ever known? Well, today we're going to find all that out and more. So sit back, relax, and welcome to History Camp. What's up, people, and welcome back to History Camp. My name is Mark Gagnon, and thank you for joining me in my tent where every single week we explore it the most interesting, fascinating, controversial stories from all history,

from all time forever. Yes, that is what I do in this tent. every single week. I try to figure out everything that's ever happened. That is my goal in life is I want to know everything that's been going on. I feel like life's been going on and I just came here in the 90s and there's a lot of stuff that's been happening since and way more stuff that's been happening before. And it is my goal on this channel to document everything and try to get to the bottom of it all just to try to, you know, understand where we all came from as human beings. And oh boy, today we have a fascinating one. This is literally like Game of Thrones, slash like Harry Potter meets like biblical history like all of it tied into one you got Egyptian

pharaohs the whole thing is crazy it's one of the most absurd historical like political tales ever if it was written in a TV show you'd be like oh really this is like unbelievable well believe it because this is the actual life of Caesar Augustus now before I jump in I need to just give a quick shout out to you yeah dude you for tuning it every time you watch the show and you click and you comment and you like and you just interact with our content at all. You know how these algorithms work. It really helps us out. It helps me expand the show.

It helps us put up better episodes. It helps keep the lights on in the tent. And it helps keep the fire burning here at the campsite. But also graciously helps pay for the steroids. My dear palis, Papparopidopodos has been taking. Steroid Crestos. How are you? Royed raged up.

Nice, dude. You're wearing the heavies muscle tea. I mean, you're looking diesel today, dude. But that is not neither here nor there. Okay, we're not here to talk about the Christos Caesar. We're talking about Caesar Augustus, all right? Now, a couple things right off the bat. I know it's technically pronounced Kaysar or Kaiser.

I'm going to say Caesar. I'm American. And that's how I've been told that it's pronounced since I was in history class in, like, ninth grade. So I'm rolling with that one. I know it's technically not that, but just forgive me, okay? This story is absurd. And in order to understand how this. whole story unfolds, we got to go back to the political nature of ancient Rome, okay? And money is not

the only measure of who you are as a person in Rome. Like we think of like American society today and the richest people have a lot of influence and power. Well, at the time, obviously money was important, but the most important thing was family. It was literally your bloodline, your ancestors. So at the top of the Roman food chain of the time was like the old senatorial families. These are just like old aristocrats that are involved in politics that just pass down their prestige to their kids. And it just goes on and on like that. And then below them sat the equestrian class. This is what they call them.

These are the wealthy influential kind of power brokers of the day. But they were never quite in. They were subservient to the political class. And the wall between those two worlds was one that you couldn't really get around, right? Because either you were born into the senatorial family or you weren't. And that's just what it was. And that is the world that Gaius Octavius was born into on September 23rd and 63 BC. In a small town, southeast of Rome, equestrian class, comfortable, good life, had some money, but, you know, wasn't going to shake the world, right?

His father had done pretty well for himself. He was a praetor. He was a provincial governor. And he died when Octavius was four years old. And in Rome, losing your father early didn't just, you know, cost you a parent and probably had untolderate. traumatic childhood experiences, it costs you your network, right? Like daddy's out the picture, you all of a sudden got offended for yourself, and all of these different opportunities that might be afforded to you by who your dad knows

kind of gets shut down. So, you know, the doors to the room where the power is, those clothes, and no amount of money was ever going to get him to the top anyway. But Gaius Octavius was lucky. He still had his mother, Atia, who happened to be Julius Caesar's niece. Does that make sense? So you have a Tia, that's Julius Caesar's niece, and that is this guy's mother. All right?

Now, at the time, nobody was impressed by that. Caesar was still climbing, still just one ambitious, you know, Roman amongst a bunch. But Caesar would come to prove himself, and so would Octavius. Now, physically, Octavius was struggling. It was, you could say, in-cell-esque. He was small and sick and had lifelong respiratory problems. and so fragile, like physically, that historians, even to this day are surprised that he made it out of, like, early childhood. But what he had was harder to see. Maybe perhaps due to kind of his sickly

physical stature, he built up this patience and intelligence. And wildly enough, this almost like unnerving early grasp of how power actually worked in the Roman Senate. Like the invisible part, like the loyalty, like how to network, how to get people to do. things for you, how to manipulate people. And Julius Caesar himself came to notice this about Octavius. By this point, Caesar had become the most powerful man in Rome. Half the Senate is terrified of him, but Julius Caesar has one problem that he can't solve. He has no legitimate son. So he starts pulling young Octavius into public life. He sends him to Apollonia in modern day Albania to study military affairs before a planned campaign against Parthia. And then

Julius does something Octavius almost certainly doesn't know about. In his will, he names Octavius his adopted son. Does that make sense? Like, this is crazy. So think about this. Julius Caesar is like, okay, my niece has a kid, and that is going to be my adopted son. Now, in the eyes of Roman law, the second-class kid,

is now Gaius, Julius, Caesar, Octavianus. And the crazy part is that Octavius has no idea. And then suddenly the aides of March happens in 44 BC. And as we know, we did a whole episode on Julius Caesar. You should check it out. But in short, Julius Caesar is stabbed to death on the floor of the Senate. Octavius is still in Apollonia when a messenger shows up at his door. And he knocks and he goes, hey, I have a letter for you.

And you just have to imagine this like sick, kind of quiet, dorky 18-year-old, literally just gets a letter that says, hey, congrats. you're now the Caesar of the entire Roman world. You're in charge. And by the way, the guy that put you in charge, he was just stabbed to death in the Senate where you're now going to have to deal and cooperate with all these people.

This is the situation that Octavius is thrown into. Caesar, Julie Caesar, he's dead. The men who killed him, Brutus, Cassius, and roughly 60 senators calling themselves the Liberators. They are still walking around free. In their minds, they didn't commit murder. They saved the Republic from a war. one-man rule. They are, you know, putting death to the tyrants. They're saving the Roman Republic.

Now, the Roman public didn't see it that way. Caesar had been wildly popular with the average person. So instead of celebrating the assassins, Rome just falls into chaos. And into that chaos walks Caesar's most powerful surviving lieutenant, a guy named Mark Antony. Now, Mark Antony is one of the sitting consuls. He controls Caesar's paperwork, Julius Caesar's money, Caesar's entire political network he's experienced he's spent years at caesar's side and as far as mark antony is concerned caesar's legacy belongs to him like he's the one that was doing all the hard work he's the one that was building everything not to like some random kid that's not even technically julius caesar's son right now here's where things get interesting octavius's mother and octavius's stepfather beg him not to

accept and honestly their advice actually makes sense they're like okay if you take caesar's name That means you're taking Caesar's enemies. And now, Mark Antony, this really powerful guy is going to see you as a rival. The assassins that just killed your, like, grand uncle, whatever, they're going to see you as a threat. Half of the Senate already hates anything tied to Caesar. So walking away would just be safer. Hey, protect your life. Protect our family.

Life is pretty good. We got money. We're chilling. Don't do this. But here's the thing. Refusing might have also been just as dangerous. Like, without Caesar's name, Octavius is still just a teenager from the equestrian class with no army or office or like any type of real political influence. So with Caesar's name, he at least has a claim on something that's far more valuable than money or titles.

He can claim Caesar's army. And this army is like one of the greatest in the world. Tens of thousands of battle-hardened soldiers scattered across the Roman world who had fought for Caesar. They love Caesar. And we're now looking for a new person to basically pledge allegiance to. And in 44 BC, that really matters because, I mean, it kind of trumps everything, right? Like military loyalty is really like the power of the day. So Octavian, he accepts.

He goes to Rome and immediately starts paying out the money that Caesar had promised to the ordinary citizens in his will using his own funds because Mark Antony had been dragging his feet on distributing it. Now, was this generosity? Probably not. It was politics. This was a public way of saying, hey, I'm Caesar's. real error. This guy Mark Anthony that was doing all the hard work, he's not giving you any money. I'm giving you money. So who do you love more? And that move makes Octavian instantly popular. And it also makes Mark Anthony pissed. He's like, yo, who's this kid? He's coming in, dumping out

our coffers, giving away all this money. And he's not even supposed to be in charge. I'm the one that's running the show. So now the tensions start the second that Octavian arrives in Rome. But Octavian can't fight Anthony directly. Well, at least not yet. So he does something surprising for someone of his age. He starts building alliances with everyone who hates Mark Anthony. And wildly enough, that turns out to be a very long list with one really, really important guy right at the top. And this guy who hates Mark Anthony, his name is Cicero. Now, Cicero was one of the most respected voices in all of Rome at the time. He was like this great orator and like arguably one of the greatest orators that the Republic had ever produced. And the logic here is pretty simple.

Antony was the immediate problem to Octavian, right? Octavian was young, inexperienced, and probably manageable. So you can use this kid to take down Anthony and then you can deal with the kid later. So Cicero just basically writes all this in a private letter. The young man he writes should be praised, honored, and then removed when he's no longer needed. And this would turn out to be one of the worst miscalculations that Cicero ever came up with. So Cicero starts giving these speeches, these philippics, and they are just these series of scorched earth, basically, like, presentations attacking Mark Anthony and kind of

quietly throwing his political weight and like kind of sort of stumping for Octavian. Then in 43 BC, both sitting consuls march out against Antony in the Battle of Mutina. Now, Mark Anthony loses, and both consuls die in the battle. So Octavian marches his army to Rome and demands the consulship himself. At this point, he's just 19 years old. And the Senate, with legions parked outside the gates, just kind of agree. Now, after using the Senate to legitimize himself, Octavian immediately turns around and reaches out to the same Mark Antony that Cicero just spent months trying to destroy. And basically, he goes to Mark Anthony and says, hey, let's talk. Now, this is the moment that Cicero finally realizes that the young man that he thought that he was using had actually been using him.

Cicero basically handed Octavian legitimacy, and now he's watching the same young man go straight back to Mark Anthony and work out a deal. I mean, it's crazy. Like, why does Octavian do this? Like, what is the angle? Well, it's fairly simple. Because Anthony, as much as he hates Octavian, he isn't the biggest problem anymore. Brutus, Cassius, they're still out east, building armies and posing a serious threat to

anyone trying to claim Caesar's legacy. And on that, on, you know, killing Caesar's killers, Octavian and Anthony want the same thing. So now they've found a common enemy. Now, as it's always said, there is no such thing as loyalty or alliances, only interests. So now Octavian and Mark Anthony can be like, hey, I know we both want this thing, but we got to get rid of these assassins that are basically building up armies against whoever's going to take the throne. So we got to get rid of them first.

So we can duke this out between us later. Meanwhile, Cicero is doing this whole thing where he's like, hey, I'm going to prop up Octavian to then get rid of Mark Antony and then get rid of Octavian. Everyone's pitting against each other. It's crazy. So in October of 43 BC, Octavian Antony and a third man, this guy, Marcus, Emilius Lepidus. They meet on a small island near Bononia, which is now in modern day Bologna. And there, the three men basically carve up the Roman world between themselves. This is now the second triumvirate. That's the third. That's what it's called. And Roman people and, you know, the Roman Republic at large has seen this trick before. The first triumvirate had been Caesar, Pompey, and Krasis, three rich, powerful men, basically, you know, stacking their money and fame and legions together to bully the Senate from the shadows. But that one was unofficial.

It was kind of just like a handshake deal amongst like these three different powerful strongmen. But this one, that Mark Antony and, you know, Octavian, that they're all kind of working out, This one is different. This one is about to be backed by the law. So the Senate handed these three men sweeping powers for five years. Basically, the right to make laws. They can appoint officials. They can override the Senate and bypass the entire Roman political system whenever they wanted.

So now Rome had, you know, everything but name a three-man dictatorship. And that's what makes the next part possible, what they call the proscriptions. And this is one of the darkest moments in Octavians Rise, one of the maybe the darkest, moment in like roman history period so the proscriptions were public deathless if your name appeared on one anyone in the empire could legally kill you and then get money for it your property would get seized your family would lose any type of legal protection like you weren't just sentenced to die you became open game for anyone your neighbor wanted to kill you and get the money they could do it a bounty hunter that wants to go around and pick off everyone on the list they can do it any enemy that you have in

Rome can do this. The ancient historian-opian describes the panic that followed. People just started to hide. I mean, in wells and sewers on rooftops, like the dark corners of like their attic. Some were betrayed by friends, by family, by neighbors who just like wanted their land. They're like, hey, this guy's like blocking my view. I could just get him out of here. They would pay me for it. And then I could just take all the stuff. I mean, the scale of this was enormous. Around 300 senators and roughly 2,000 equestrians ended up on this list. Not everyone got caught, some actually escaped, but there was one name on the list that would have no chance, and that is Cicero.

Now, of course, Mark Anthony wanted him dead. Cicero spent months publicly destroying him in these speeches, so Cicero tries to flee by sea, he gets caught, and then he's killed right there on the road. But Mark Anthony, he's not done. Cicero's head and hands, the head that gave those amazing speeches and wrote all of these, you know, crazy scorched earth, like just dizzes at him and those hands that wrote them down, they were cut off and nailed to the rostra in the Roman forum. The same spot where Cicero had once stood giving all these famous speeches. Yeah, they take these severed body parts and they hang it up like, yo, you want to talk about us? You want to talk smack?

Well, this is what's going to happen to you. Now, how much blame Octavian deserves for these proscriptions, like these deathless, it's still debated. Later in life, he would try to claim that these killings were a political necessity and then kind of shift most of their responsibility onto Mark Antony and Leppitus. But the evidence suggests that all three of them participated willingly in this act. And Octavian saves some people by quietly, like kind of scratching their name off the list. He also allowed other people to die, including by some account, his own. former guardian. Now this tells us something important about Octavian, or at least the man he was

becoming at this point. He was capable of doing ruthless things without just completely losing a troll, without making the kind of like emotional mistakes that would get a ruler killed. And that ability, ruthless without ever like really just going off the handle, just becoming reckless, that would define the next 40 years of his life. Now, that brings us to lepidus. At this point, you're like, well, who's this guy? Right. I can understand why Mark Gantany wanted power and, you know, why Octavian wanted power, but who's this third dude? Well, this is the forgotten third member of the Triumvirate. He was always the weakest of the three. In 36 BC, during the war against Sextus Pompey, this is Pompey the great, his son.

He controlled Sicily and was choking off Rome's grain supply, so Leipetus tried to grab more power for himself. Octavian's response was simple and pretty devastating. He walked into Leipetus's camp, turned his own troops against him, stripped him of all of his authority on the spot and said, hey, you're done. Lepidus was allowed to live and even keep his religious title as Pontifex Maximus. But politically, he was finished. So from there on out, the triumvirate is just two men, Antony and Octavian. And both of them know that eventually one of them has to go. Now, up under this point, it's pretty crazy what Octavian has done, right?

He's not even technically in line for the throne. I mean, no one is. There's just a secession problem. And Mark Anthony wants it. Octavian wants it. Cicero is backing Octavian and basically using him to get rid of this guy so that Cicero can basically seize power for whoever he wants. And instead, the two of them basically team up and say, hey, let's get rid of all the assassins. Let's bring in this other guy, Lepidus, to then eventually usher him out. And then we're also going to kill Cicero. It's like ruthless and, you know, kind of cunning in a way. Now, the Battle of Philippi in 42 BC, this is the moment that Caesar's heirs finally crushed the last defenders of the Republic. But Octavian's role in all of this, it's not what you would immediately think.

He was sick during the first engagement and barely even fought. Rumors spread for years afterwards that the Divi Phileas, the son of God, had hidden in the marshes while everyone else just bled for him. He really was probably just sick, but of course that didn't stop the rumors about him. kind of being a coward. Now, the damage to his reputation was done here. For years, people whispered that Caesar's heir didn't have the stomach for battle. So the man who won Philippi was actually Mark Antony. While Brutus broke through Octavian's wing of the army, Antony crushed Cassius on the other side. And then came one of the most tragic mistakes in all of military history. Cassius, looking at the chaos on his side of the field, wrongly believed that the battle was already lost. So what does he do?

he takes his own life before he could find out that he was actually wrong. And then three weeks later, Brutus lost a second engagement and did the same. So now the assassins that took out Julius Caesar, the librettors, as they called themselves, they were finished. And any serious hope of restoring the old republic, well, it was done on that battlefield. Now afterward, the Roman world gets carved up again. Mark Antony takes the rich eastern provinces. Octavian takes the west.

Lepidus kind of, you know, still hanging on a bit with like kind of his title and name, he gets Africa. But when Octavian comes home to Italy, he walks straight into a problem that he sort of created for himself. He promised land to thousands of veteran soldiers. The catch was the land already belonged to ordinary Italian families who had nothing to do with any of these wars. So as a result, people start losing their farms. You know, Octavian's like, hey, I got to look out for the soldiers and the soldiers are my military. and the military is ultimately what gives me power and legitimacy in any way. So he's basically prioritizing them.

So he starts taking these common people's homes and their land, confiscating them to now make room for the veterans. This historian at Pian, he describes whole crowds flooding into Rome, young men, old men, women with babies, all protesting that this was unfair and that they had done nothing to deserve this. Octavian's response was pretty simple. Where else am I going to get the land? So the result of all of this was the Perusian War, around 41 to 40 BC. And once again, ordinary people are paying the bill for an elite power struggle. Hey guys, I want to take a quick break to tell you that this episode is brought to you by a cash app. Cash app is one of those apps that is just a part of my life, paying someone back, sending money to a friend,

handling everyday stuff, it's really fast, easy, and now it does way more than just send it and receive money. Plus, I really like that the cash app card doesn't have to be boring. you can personalize it, which means you could have like, you know, a Camp Gagnon Cash App card. You could put a UFO on there, a pyramid, whatever you want. If you aren't up to speed, Cash App is more than just a way to send money with the Cash App card. You unlock a ton of perks without all the hidden fees, benefits like access to nationwide concerts, plus discounts on everyday purchases and popular brands that you're probably already spending

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panicked. A lot of them would have kind of fled. been like, oh, there's a revolution, the people are getting pissed. Octavian walks directly into the crowd, stays pretty composed, announces rewards and land grants, and let the kind of anger burn itself out around him. And he didn't panic. But that composure that he had, it couldn't fix all of his problems. So like we mentioned, that guy, sex is Pompey, Pompey the Great, his son. He is still controlling Sicily with a powerful fleet and was strangling all of Rome's grain supply.

So Rome's food is now being held hostage, and that is a big issue if you are ruling Rome. So Octavian has to do something. Now, the campaign against Sextus starts extremely poorly. I mean, as bad as it could possibly be. Octavian loses his fleets repeatedly. Storms are wrecking his ships. And after one humiliating defeat, he reportedly collapses on a beach and has to be helped up by his own officers. Now, Octavian was pretty calm in battle and, like, pretty unshakable.

He wasn't a great military commander. War wasn't really his skill. He was never a brilliant strategist, which is exactly why what happens next matters. Because everything changes the moment that a man named Marcus Agrippa enters a story. Now, Agrippa was Octavian's oldest friend. He came from far less impressive origins than Octavian. He didn't have, you know, famous great uncle or a political inheritance or really any money. He had to earn his place just by pure ability, by pure merit,

he did. And Sicily, Agrippa takes on Sextus in a way that Octavian never could. He rebuilds the fleet from the ground up. He develops brand new naval tactics, things that people hadn't really ever seen before, and he wins the decisive battle. So, sextus flees, Sicily falls, and Rome's grain supply now can come back online, and this is a massive victory for Octavian. That pattern, Agrippa basically providing the military skill, Octavian kind of providing the name and the legitimacy and the politics, this would show up again and again and again over the next decade. Now, the empire we remember as Augustus's, it was built by two men, and history just kind of only credits one of them. Now, by the mid-30s BC, the rivalry between Octavian and Mark Antony had

become the central political fight in the Roman world. And we knew this was coming, right? The Roman empire was ruled by Julius Caesar, it breaks apart, you have all these different people jockeying for power one by one, you know, they all sort of get picked off. It becomes a triumvirate. And then eventually it just splits into two. And now you have Octavian on one side and you have Mark Anthony on the other side and they want all of it. And they're constantly just sort of looking at each other like eventually one of us is going to go. And so maybe, you know, as a starting point, Octavian launches one of the most successful propaganda campaigns in all of human history. Now, like I said, Mark Anthony is in the East. He's running provinces and fighting campaigns and getting more and more entangled with a woman

named Cleopatra the 7th of Egypt. And you probably know her is just Cleopatra. They have children together. Antony publicly recognizes them as his own children. And then in 34 BC comes the donations of Alexandria. This was a public ceremony where Anthony hands land and titles to Cleopatra and to their kids, setting up a new political order in the East with her family at the center of it, which this is pretty, you know, uncommon at the time that you would basically hand over all this power to basically a Egyptian pharaoh, right? I mean, granted, she was, you know, Ptolemaic Greek, but still, the optics of that were very strange. So for Octavian, this is the opening that he's waiting for, the opening that will turn all of Rome against

Mark Anthony. But before we get into all that, we need to talk about Cleopatra. Because most of what Roman sources tell us about her was written after Octavian. had won, spoiler alert, which basically means that Cleopatra gets painted in a pretty unfair light. She gets painted as like a seductress who corrupted Mark Antoni and pulled him away from Roman values, and that's almost certainly propaganda. The real Cleopatra was one of the most capable rulers of the ancient world. She spoke around like nine languages. She was the first of her dynasty after nearly 300 years of Greek rulers in Egypt to actually learn Egyptian. She's the first one to be like, hey, I'm going to actually speak to the people in their language. She's a politician and a strategist

and one of the wealthiest human beings alive at the time, for the record. Her relationship with Mark Anthony wasn't just romance. It was political. Cleopatra got security for Egypt. Mark Anthony got money and resources and a powerful base of operations in the East. This was a beautiful romance, but also a partnership between two ambitious people. And, you know, later Rome would obviously sell this as like a fairy tale, you know, love story, paramour thing. But Romans had a very strong and a very specific identity in this era. They had come to define themselves, not just by what they were, but maybe even more by what they were not. They were not Eastern. They were not foreign and they sure as hell were not ruled by kings or pharaohs or any of that stuff. Octavian understood that

perfectly and he used all of that to his advantage. So the last several years, he had been shaping his public image around Apollo, literally the god of order and reason and of civilization. Meanwhile, Anthony was publicly associated with Dionysus, the god of wine and excess and the eastern countries. So two men that are now being aligned by two different gods, two different visions of what Rome was supposed to be. And none of that contrast was accidental. Octavian knew that he couldn't just straight up attack Mark Anthony's military record. I mean, He was too solid. He was too sophisticated of a military leader.

I mean, his record was amazing. So instead, he attacked his identity. He paints him as a Roman who had gone rogue. He, you know, he'd gone off with these foreign women, a man who had given himself over to a foreign queen. He stripped himself of all of his Roman values. He doesn't even understand what it means to be a Roman anymore. He's willing to put Egypt above the Roman Empire. And then he makes one of the boldest moves in smear campaign history.

Octavian claims to have obtained Anthony's will from the Vestal virgins. These are basically Rome's like sacred priestesses who guarded the private documents of all the important Romans. And even getting a hold of it was very scandalous and probably illegal if it's even real. But Octavian reads it publicly. And according to Octavian, Antony wants to be buried in Alexandria, not in Rome. He doesn't want to be buried amongst all the other great Roman. you know, Caesars or anything like that. He wants to be in Alexandria, in Egypt, alongside Cleopatra.

And he formally recognizes Cicerian, Cleopatra's son. The boy she claimed was Julius Caesar's biological child as Caesar's true heir. Now, the last part is a bomb. Because Octavian's entire claim to power rests on being Caesar's adopted son. So if Ciceroon is accepted as Caesar's actual biological son, suddenly Octavian's whole legitimacy is kaput. It's done. But, and maybe more importantly, the Roman people did not want a leader who was technically

half Egyptian, even if it is Julius Caesar's biological son, he's still half Cleopatra's. And remember, their whole thing is like identity first, who is your mom, who is your dad, you have to be Roman above all. Well, was that the real will? Was it altered or forged? No one knows. But the thing is, whether that was real, it didn't really matter because the damage that it did to Mark Anthony, that was real. Now, despite all of Octavian's propaganda, Antony is far from finished.

By 32 BC, both sitting consuls and around 300 senators had publicly sided with him. And it was pretty neck and neck. And then Octavian does something unbelievable. Instead of declaring war on Mark Antony, which would have looked like just another exhausting Roman civil war that we've seen over and over again, he declares war on Cleopatra. You see how clever that is? He declares war on Egypt on the foreign queen who had seduced one of Rome's greatest generals and warped his brain and, you know, completely took him out of what it actually means to be Roman. So after decades of civil war, Romans were exhausted, but that is what makes Octavians move so good, because this time,

this isn't Rome against Rome. This is Rome. This is our people against the seductress from the east that's trying to take our men. So that takes us to the Battle of Actium on September 2nd, 31 BC. And it is the moment that most historians point to as the day that Rome's future was decided. By the time the battle happens, Mark Anthony is already in serious trouble. Agrippa, Octavian secret weapon, he had spent months cutting Anthony's supply lines, taking strategic positions, and slowly just strangling his side of the war. And disease at this point was just tearing through Mark Anthony's camp, soldiers were deserting. Allies were kind of quietly just like slipping away in the middle of the night.

So the Battle of Actium wasn't two equal powers meeting for one climactic battle. Mark Anthony was already losing this war before it ever started. Now, the question wasn't who would actually win at Actium. It was whether Mark Anthony could escape. Because what happens during this fight, it's still debated, but the ancient sources don't really give one consensus. Most historians accept the outline that Cleopatra's ships withdraw. Mark Anthony follows her, and most of what they left behind basically just surrendered or was destroyed.

Now, the real argument amongst historians is why Cleopatra retreats. Why does she surrender? Was it panic? Was it a planned escape route? Her ships had sails prepared before the battle. Her squadron stayed back, mostly out of the worst of it, and the breakout itself was kind of timed with the afternoon winds. The evidence here points strongly towards planning. This wasn't a sudden flight.

it was a strategic move, but it doesn't work. The forces left behind at Actium waited for Anthony to come back and lead them, and he never did. So confidence collapsed, and everyone that was left there just kind of said, hey, you got us, we surrender. Octavian pursued Anthony and Cleopatra to Egypt, and the tragedy that plays out there is, I mean, it's like what you see in like a movie. Mark Anthony, after receiving false reports that Cleopatra had already taken her life, he takes his life. Cleopatra meets Octavian in person and knows exactly what he has planned for her. Being paraded through Rome in chains as this captured enemy queen that Octavian's triumph was successful, that he was able to get this foreign seductress.

So she chooses death instead. Think about that. The last pharaoh of Egypt, heir to a dynasty stretching back 300 years, a woman who the people loved, she learned Egyptian, and she actually chose taking her own life over handing a Roman warlord his victory parade. Afterwards, Egypt becomes a Roman province, but a weird one. Octavian controls it directly, which means something else very critical in this whole story. Egypt's grains apply. One of Rome's most critical lifelines is now under his personal control. But before he leaves Egypt, Octavian deals with one last loose end.

Remember that kid? That's technically Julius Caesar's biological kid. according to the rumors, Cleopatra's son, that guy, Cesarian, he's then captured and then killed. Because long as Cicarian is alive and walking around, there is another possible heir to Julius Caesar, another potential challenge to Octavian's legitimacy. And with that, with Anthony, Cleopatra, and now Cicarion gone, there's only one center of power remaining in the Roman world. Now, the question is like, all right, Octavian, you did it. You got rid of Lepidus. You got rid of Mark Anton, you got rid of Cicero, you got rid of Cleopatra, you got rid of Cicerian. What do you do?

Well, after 20 years of nonstop civil war and foreign conflicts and, you know, supply shortages and just chaos, Rome wants peace, which creates a strange problem for Octavian, because Rome also hates kings. They had thrown out their last king centuries earlier, and the word Rex had become politically toxic. Julius Caesar got murdered partly because people thought that he was about to claim the title of King. But the old republic wasn't coming back either. And after 20 years of chaos, someone was going to hold most of the power. And the question wasn't whether Rome would be ruled by one man. The question was how to make Romans accept it without provoking another assassination or another

revolution or a coup. Julius Caesar made a grave mistake. He made his power too obvious. He was loved by the people, but he started to flirt with this idea of dictator for life, statues and temples, and Octavian understood something that Julius Caesar never did. If his system was going to last, it had to look familiar, and it had to look safe. So in 27 BC, he stands before the Senate, and he announces that he's restoring the Republic. The emergency is over. His extraordinary powers aren't needed anymore. But that's the performance, because the Senate immediately insists that he keep control of the frontier provinces. The frontier provinces, which just happened to contain almost every legion that Rome has, it's pretty convenient. It was all playing out exactly as Octavian

had planned. And then the Senate gives him a new name, not king, not dictator, something with maybe like a religious flavor, Augustus. The title carried associations with sacred authority, with this divinely blessed status. That one word didn't just, reshape Roman politics. It reshapes literally your calendar. The month of August is literally named after this guy. He'd been quietly sitting on your wall every year of your life. You might have been born in his month and you never even thought about it. Over the next several years, Augustus quietly collects more power, piece by piece, control over the armed provinces. Bang, he's got these frontier lands. He's got all the legions in there. So he's got the military basically

as a dictator would. But again, remember, this is a republic. And then now he has permanent powers of a Tribune. It's great. Okay. He starts calling himself preenkeps. This is the first citizen. You see how that's clever language? He's not the ruler. He's not the king. He's not a dictator. He's just the first citizen amongst all the citizens, but he's the first. And that's kind of how things were officially. Now here's a crazy part. The Republic still looks alive. The Senate is still meeting up. Elections are still happening. On paper, nothing about Rome's government has changed. But the truth is, Augustus makes every important decision. Political careers depend on his approval.

Armies are only answering to him. The treasury now runs through Egypt, which he personally controls. And he knew exactly what he had built. He had to be careful about how it was packaged and presented to the people. And that is what makes Augustus so remarkable. Hey, guys, we're going to take a break really quick, because I want to talk to you about GLD. This is an awesome new company that we're working with that I'm actually wearing right now. I actually got this crucifix right here.

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And whenever you do that, it really helps, you know, support the show. And thank you so much to GLD and thank you to you for tuning in. Let's get back to the show. Most Roman emperors that try to claim this control, they die violently. They're assassinated. They're overthrown. You know, there's some type of secession thing. They're forced into some type of, you know, shall we say, like self-deletion.

Many barely will make it like a decade. Like most of these Roman emperors, if you made it 10 years, they were like, whoof, that's a long run. Augustus rules for 44 years because he makes the powerful people feel like they matter. Senators keep their status. He didn't just brush them all off. The old institutions keep their dignity. doesn't just destroy them and change their names and make them worship him. The system gives

Rome's elite just enough of the appearance of importance that they become invested in protecting it. He didn't just take the power. He found a way to convince people that they still had it when actually they had none. The Republic had spent decades shredding itself and somebody had to stabilize Rome before it tore itself apart and he did it for 44 years. Augustus may have been the man who quietly, you know, kind of destroyed the Republic, but also the man who saved Rome from destroying itself. Now, what Augustus created over the next 44 years was transformative. Start with the army, right? Before Augustus, Roman soldiers looked to their generals for rewards. So, you know, if they did good, they get land, they get money, they get pensions. And this meant that armies became loyal,

not to the state, but to the commanders, because the generals are the ones that are actually giving them the stuff. And that has been kind of the engine that was driving decades of civil war. Because you would get these great generals and the army would be loyal to them. And then the general would be like, hey, I have control the whole military. Should I just take over? And then you get another civil war. So he created a professional standing Roman army with fixed terms of service, regular pay, and guaranteed pensions funded by the state. Suddenly, all these soldiers don't need like an ambitious general to secure their future and in order to pledge their allegiance to someone, their loyalty shifted to the state itself. That single change does more to break the cycle of

Roman civil war than anything that Augustus did after that. I mean, that was the single most important thing. The other thing that he does is he creates the Praetorian Guard. These are elite troops stationed around Rome to protect the emperor personally. And then, of course, there's the city itself. Augustus just builds everything. I mean, temples and roads and aqueducts and forms. I mean, he's in charge for over four decades, so he has some time to build. He'd later say that he found Rome a city of brick and left it a city of marble. And what's crazy is that that's not entirely wrong. He did build around Rome and really created a lot of the Roman architecture that we even think about today. But none of these building projects were politically neutral every single time.

that he built something. It sent the same message. Rome is stable. And who did it? Yeah, boy, Augustus. And then, of course, you have the Reyes Guestee. This is the Deeds of the Divine Augustus. Now, Augustus writes it himself. His version of his own history. All the offices that he held, all the wars that he won, all the buildings that he constructed, all the money that he spent. But what's missing from the deeds is kind of, you know, maybe more interesting. Because you know what's not in the deeds of this divine augustus those proscriptions remember when they wrote all the people's names like cicero and they had them all killed and anyone could do it erased the civil war against you know fellow romans like hey we're going to go attack mark antony reframed cistero's severed head

on the rostra in the center of the forum like hey you try to kill me or you try to talk smack about my boy and now we chopped your head off and put it in the middle doesn't come up the document presents a man honored by a grateful republic not a man who you know killed and pillaged his way to the top of an empire the raised guest day might be the single most impressive piece of political propaganda that augustus ever created and historians still largely rely on it today even though it's constantly debated and argued about but there's one accomplishment that augustus didn't need to advertise and it was legitimate peace. After generations of civil war, assassinations, chaos, Rome experiences something that it had almost forgotten was even a possibility in their life. And that was stability.

And this brings us into a time you've maybe heard before in history class. This is the Pax Ramana. Trade starts to grow. Cities are expanding. Provinces stop living in terror of whichever general might march through one day and be like, hey, Rome's actually mine. Augustus never had to brag about that. because everyone that lived through it already knew. Now, Augustus has built this elaborate system designed to outlive him, right? He builds all these monuments and rows and all this stuff, but who gets it? Well, this is interesting because Augustus married three times. The first two were political marriages.

One was to Mark Anthony's stepdaughter in order to strengthen an alliance. The second one was to Scribonia to build ties with Sextus Pompey. And then came Livia. arguably the one woman that he truly loved. Now, Augustus divorced Grabonia on the very day that their daughter Julia was born and actually married Livia like immediately afterward. And Livia was already pregnant by her previous husband when she married Augustus. Now, that marriage would last 51 years, literally until the day that Augustus died.

Now, Livia never gave Augustus biological children, but she became something more important, an advisor, a confidant, a political partner, multiple ancient sources suggest that she had quiet but real political influence behind the scenes throughout his entire reign. That's crazy. The most powerful man in Roman history spent 51 years married to a woman whose own son he'd eventually be forced to name as his heir. And there's an interesting foreshadowing here that we'll get to in a second. Now, despite all of his marriages, Augustus had only one biolod. child his entire life. And that's Julia, born to his second wife, Scribonia. And then effectively orphaned, you know, the moment that she was born and he walked out and married another woman. Now, this is another strong example of the kind of man that Augustus was in front versus what he

was actually doing behind the scenes, like what he was actually like at home. Now, the public image of Augustus was always carefully constructed. He was always seen as calm and dignified and moral and Roman, the man who literally restored all of these Roman values to, you know, a corrupted world. The private man was weird. Physically, he wasn't that impressive. I think we've established that. I don't mean to, you know, kind of beat up on the dead here, but he was a twerp. He was like five foot six. He was sick all the time. He had chronic health problems for his entire life. It's documented as like respiratory issues and joint pain. And he was peeing himself. He had bladder issues. He had weak fingers, like, almost like, he was like a vampire. Like, he would walk into the

sun and be like, ah, I can't be in the sun. He would wear these, like, thick shoes to, like, look taller. He was straight up looks maxing early on. He was, like, super insecure and was trying to, like, height max all the time. This was not a man who looked like he was, you know, built to rule an empire. But he did it. And his lifestyle was pretty simple. He ate very little, often would just, like, snack on things instead of, like, sitting down for these actual meals. you know, bread, cheese, like small little fish and figs. He drank lightly by Roman standards. Some of his surviving letters make him sound weirdly just like ordinary.

One mentions eating bread and dates while he's like traveling on the road. And then there's this thing. Augustus was terrified of thunderstorms. This is weird. But again, it's just a look at how bizarre these people can be on the inside, what they, you know, shield from the public. He carried seal skin charm. to ward off lightning.

During one military campaign, a lightning strike killed a slave walking right beside him, and Augustus survived, and afterwards, he built a temple to Jupiter, literally the god of thunder, and kept visiting it for years.

He also loved gambling. He played dice with his grandkids, and then there's other kind of contradictions. Augustus aggressively promoted laws, encouraging marriage and punishing adultery and restoring the traditional Roman Republic, you know, and all of the morality that goes along with it. He enforced them, eventually even against his own daughter, Julia.

But the historian Sotonius accuses him of private behavior that didn't really match what he was telling everyone else to do. Now, of course, he wouldn't be the last political leader to not have his public persona line up with his private life. Another weird thing about Augustus that I just think is kind of funny, the walls of his bedroom were decorated with masks, like literal, like masks. like tragic and comic theater masks. And it was the first and last thing he saw every single day.

And it matters because by the end of his life, Augustus may have understood better than anyone else just how much ruling Rome depended on performance. And perhaps he liked these masks just as kind of a reminder of that performance he had to do every single day. Now, in 23 BC, Augustus nearly dies from an illness. And during the crisis, Augustus reportedly hands his signet ring to Agrippa. This is a quiet sign of trust and maybe a clue about how he was thinking about secession. You know, Agrippa is a secret weapon. He helps build up this Roman republic, this Pax Ramana. He's really responsible for creating this stuff with him. And so he gives him the signet ring. But then Augustus survives. But that experience seems to change him. After this

brush with death, the question of who comes after him becomes more and more urgent. And the problem of secession was one that Augustus never could solve easily. And this is where the final stretch of his life starts feeling less like this great triumph and more like a loss, because the people he wanted to inherit his system kept on dying. So first came Marcellus, his nephew and one of his early favorites for secession. He dies in 23 BC, just kind of young and full of potential, but passes away tragically. And then Agrippa, his right-hand man, his secret weapon, he dies in 12 BC, perhaps the most capable man that Augustus ever knew and really the guy that he trusted more than anyone.

The ancient sources say that Augustus openly wept at the funeral, which for a Roman emperor obsessed with composure and performance tells us just how much he truly loved Agrippa. And then came an even bigger blow. Gaius and Lucius Caesar, Augustus's adopted grandsons, and the future that he had been kind of carefully planning around for years, they both die young. Lucius in 2 AD and then Gaius in 4 AD. And each death wasn't just personal grief. Each one was a political earthquake,

another secession plan collapsing, the person that's going to take over just done. So by the time that Gaius and Lucius were gone, Augustus only had one option left, Tiberius. This is Livia's son from her first marriage. Remember when Octavian, aka Augustus, when he marries Livia,

she's pregnant with another man's kid. And that is Tiberius. Now, Tiberius is experienced. He's capable, but not especially loved by anyone, especially Augustus. He is formally adopted into the family of Augustus in 4 AD, and neither of them are really that happy about it, to be honest. Augustus reportedly one set of Tiberius, poor Rome, doomed to be chewed by those slow-moving jaws.

Not exactly a glowing review of the guy that you choose to be your successor and technically like your, you know, your stepson. And then there is Agrippa posthumous. This is Augustus's last surviving biological grandson. He was adopted basically as like a backup heir and then later disinherited and then exiled, apparently because of temperament Augustus considered dangerous. But here's the part that is still a mystery. Before Augustus died, he secretly visited Agrippa Posthumus on the remote island where he was basically being held in exile. And according to some ancient accounts, there's tears. And then some grand embrace.

And Augustus tells him that he loves him and promises to bring him home soon. And then he leaves and quietly arranges for the boy's death. Because the moment that Augustus dies, Agrippa Postomus is killed, just kind of, quietly. By this point in Roman history, transitions of power are maybe the most dangerous destabilizing thing to the entire empire. And living heirs in the wrong place, those were liabilities. They're not assets. If you're taking the throne and there's someone else that has a technical or even, you know, a more legitimate claim than you, you've got to get rid of them or you got to work out a way to take out these other liabilities in order for the thing that you want to actually

happen. And maybe that's the darkest irony of all. Augustus had spent his entire adult life building a system designed to create stability. And by the end, even he couldn't escape the brutal logic of what he built. I mean, what a awful decision. You're like, okay, I have two people that are going to compete for power. One of them is, you know, my stepson, he's not technically related to me. The other one is my adopted, you know, grandson. He also has a claim. Which one is it going to be, he knows that, hey, if I die, there's going to be another war. And these two young men that I love are going to battle each other to the death. So I'm just going to take care of it now and get rid of one of them. Now, by his 70s, Augustus had been carrying Rome on his shoulders for

almost 50 years. And then in 9 AD came the worst military disaster of his entire reign. A Roman general named Veras marched three full legions, around 15,000 soldiers into northern Germany, and he believed that the region was already pacified. But it wasn't. A Germanic leader named Armenius had spent years embedded inside the Roman system. He served in Roman armies. He'd been granted Roman citizenship. He knew exactly how all of these Roman military troops, how they fought and how they moved, how they camped, and ultimately where they were weakest. And then he used all of that knowledge. against them. What happened next was just a bloodbath. Over three days in the forest of northern Germany, three Roman legions were trapped, they were ambushed and destroyed in the marshes of Germany.

Varus himself before the end. It was one of the worst defeats in all of Roman history, and it permanently changes the empire. Rome would never again seriously try to expand east of the Rhine River. Augustus was devastated. The ancient sources say that he tore off his clothes. He stopped shaving for months, and for years afterwards, he would cry out randomly in the middle of nothing. He would literally just scream out, Veris, give me back my allegiance. He reportedly observed the anniversary of the disaster as a private day of mourning for the rest of his life. And then, five years later, in 14 AD, Augustus is old, and he's finally failing. On a journey south, he spends time watching these young dudes basically like working out,

and he's kind of joking around with them and handing out prizes to them. A 75-year-old emperor near death, basically throwing fruit to these teenagers, it feels like, in a way, like, kind of sad and poetic. Like, he's seeing, like, these young guys in good health, and he's like, oh, man, you guys have fun. But his own health was never great, but somehow it keeps on getting worse. And then he stops at Nola, the same town where his father had died decades earlier. Almost like he'd chosen this ending for himself.

Like he wanted to die where the source. story like really first started to turn. And in his final moments, he reportedly cries out, 40 young men are carrying me away. Later, people interpret this as like a prophecy, because 40 Praetorian guards would eventually carry his body. Now before dying, he returns to Livia, his beloved wife, 51 years of marriage, he kisses her and he says, goodbye, Livia, never forget our marriage. And then he turns to the men gathered around him on his deathbed, and he asked them for something extraordinary. He asked them whether he'd played his part well in the farce of life. Literally, he just looks at him and says, hey, this whole thing is a joke. I've conquered everything.

I've destroyed all my enemies. I've taken absolute control of one of those powerful empires in the world. Did I do a good job in this whole Fugazi? And then he asked them for applause. Literally this dude, spends 50 years building the most successful political performances in human history, all the titles, the fake modesty, the backstabbing, the elaborate pretense of restoring this republic while he's basically usurping it. And he basically seems to admit in the last moments that all of it had kind of been a farce. And maybe at the very end he just wanted to know one thing. Did you believe me? Now here's the crazy thing with his story is that we don't actually remember Augustus.

We remember the version that he wrote about himself, all the temples and the marbles, and, you know, the grateful republic that bestowed power on a humble first citizen. The prescriptions, they don't really make it. His battles with health and the struggles with military leadership and all that stuff, it doesn't really make the record. And neither does the hug that he gives his own adopted grandson before walking back to the boat and having him killed. He won the argument about his own life 2,000 years ago,

which raises a weird thought. If one guy can rewrite himself so completely, how many other leaders have done the same thing? And how many of them are doing the same thing right now? All the titles and the fake modesty and the story of, you know, restoring something and making it great again while quietly just destroying it and, you know, usurping it himself. Augustus's last question wasn't exactly like, did I do good?

It was kind of, according to some historians, like, did you believe that this, you know, did you believe my whole charade? Now, it's undeniable that he did well. He was brilliant. And he achieved things that, you know, the Roman Republic, no one else could have done in the entirety of the empire. Now, second, yeah, everyone from the Senate to his soldiers, to historians, to ordinary people through today, know his story. But here's the thing about history. It's never quite as clear cut as we wanted to be.

Augustus wasn't a good guy or a bad guy. There's way too much nuance to the story. And frankly, that's kind of every king ever. Every great man has some baggage. And every terrible person did some things that are kind of good. And I guess, you know, who was Caesar Augustus truly? I don't know if we're ever going to really know. And that, ladies and gentlemen, is a brief history of the Roman Republic leader, aka the emperor Caesar Augustus. I mean, what a fascinating life. I mean, whoa. It's like, I mean, maybe the most interesting. I mean, I mean, I mean, It's like I don't even know where to begin. Every detail of his story, it's like, okay, he's born into this family.

He's sent off to, you know, go like learn some military stuff out in Albania, gets a letter like, hey, congrats. You're in charge now. Kind of. He just finds out that his mom's uncle is dead. He's now in charge. He didn't even know about it, but Julie Caesar was like, hey, this is the boy who lived. Let him run it. and now he's got a jockey for power.

The guys that killed the guy that gave him power, they're still out there. There's another dude, Mark Anthony, he wants power. And then you got this guy, Cicero, who's mixing the whole pot up. He's somehow able to navigate through all this. And now it's just him and Mark Anthony. He runs a smear campaign using his knowledge of what Romans really want. Just using PR and propaganda goes right at Cleopatra,

says that she's a crazy seductress that, like, broke the brain of this good, strong man. is able to bring down Mark Anthony, again, kind of just through like coercion. Of course there's like a military offensive, but ultimately the two of them just take themselves out. And then, oh, like, and then, okay, he's controlled the whole thing. But now he has his own secession problem. He has all these heirs, but none of them are really legitimate. He has one daughter that's actually his biological kid.

She can't take power. He starts adopting these grandsons. And then he now is at the end of his life and he has to choose. okay, do I give it to my bastard child? With all due respect, I mean, technically that's what it is, right? This is his illegitimate kid from a previous, you know, relationship that his wife had. Or do I give it to my adopted grandson, this kid that I basically brought in?

That through no fault of his own, he did nothing wrong. And then he goes to the island where his adopted grandson is exiled, gives him a hug, says, hey, I'm going to get you out of here. And his grandson goes, oh, he's going to come get me off his island. No, no, no, no, no. he's going to take your life and get you off the planet, which to him, I wonder if Augustus is like, oh, I'm doing you a favor. You have no idea what you're about to go up against.

You're about to be in a bloody civil war for the next 10 years of your life. You're going to want power. Like, Tiberius is going to want power, and you guys are going to duke it out, and Rome is going to be destroyed, and there's going to be chaos, and I'm going to save everyone a lot of heartache, and I'm going to do the tough thing by killing my own grandson. I mean, whoa. is that not insane

and then he goes off kind of quietly dies and looks up at everyone around him goes hey this whole the jig is up

you got me this whole thing was a far as I was pretending to restore the republic I was actually usurping it for my own means

that I do good and then just like that crazy and then I'm pretty sure Tiberius is the emperor when Jesus gets killed isn't that crazy hey

Anyway, I mean, just an absurd time in history. What do you guys think? What did you learn from this? Is there anything you can take away? Is there any analog to our modern day? I'm so curious to know your thoughts. If there's anything I missed also, again, I'm not a historian. I'm just doing best trying to piece it all together.

If there's anything I missed, please don't hesitate to drop a comment, YouTube, Spotify. I read all that. And yeah, I mean, this is basically the episode. Creastis, anything I missed? Anything you learned? A couple of fun facts. The month of August is named after him. Yes, we mentioned that.

Yes, we did. And, of course, you remember. allegedly Jesus of Nazareth is born during Caesar Augustus's reign. Oh, wow. Yeah, that technically, yeah, that'd be true. Yeah, he ruled longer than any other emperor. Yep. And how about him asking for applause on his deathbed?

Kind of fire, to be honest with you. I actually kind of, I kind of rock with that move. Well, you're a comedian. Yeah, I know. And maybe this is a part of my sort of insidious lower predilections. But it is kind of a bar to be like, all right, guys. Guys, that's been my time. Give it up for your host.

Clap it up. And then just going out. Kind of respected, dude. Anyway, I love to know what you guys think. Drop a comment. Great news. If you like religious stuff, we have religion camp. You can check it out.

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