Predictive History - The Story of "Civilization", "Secret History", "Game Theory" and more - Civilization #16 - Julius Caesar's Will and Octavian's Birth of Empire

Episode Date: October 7, 2025

Civilization #16 - Julius Caesar's Will and Octavian's Birth of Empire

So we are doing Octavius and the birth of the Roman Empire today. So let's review where we are. The area is 44 BCE and Julius Caesar has just been assassinated. And the three main conspirators, there are 60 senators, but the three main conspirators are Marcus Buddhist, who is considered the leader of the conspiracy Cassius, and Desmondus Buddhists. Okay?

And after the assassinated Caesar, obviously, Rome is in turmoil. And Mark Anthony, who is currently the council or the head of state in Rome, he reaches an agreement with these conspirators. The agreement is this. Mark Anthony, who is a staunch, allies of Julie Caesar, he will not seek retribution.

And in return, the conspirators will declare that Caesar was not a tyrant. He did not want to become king. So a peace settlement was reached to avoid a civil war. The problem is that Mark Anthony was working behind the scenes to work up the Roman people against conspirators. And eventually, public sentiment was so much against the conspirators had to flee to the provinces. And then Mark Anthony read the will of Caesar's will.

Remember that there's private property in Rome, and so when a man dies, he has a will, and then this will stipulates how this private property will be distributed, And there are three really surprising things about the will. The first thing is that Caesar right now is the wealthiest man in Rome, and he stipulates that upon his death, every Roman citizen will get three months of a soldier's wage. That's a lot of money, okay?

That's extreme generosity. He also stipulates that a lot of his private property will be churned into public parks for the benefit of the Roman people. So this will demonstrates Jesus' love of his people, okay? The second thing is actually more surprising. Mark Anthony believed that he would be named the heir to Caesar's legacy and wealth in the will. But in fact, Caesar names this complete stranger to be his hair. His name is Octavius. And Caesar named Octavius to be his adopted son.

And so Octavius' name is actually Gaeus Octavius. And upon his adoption, he is now named Julius, Julius Caesar Octavius. This is like much too complicated. So historians use the shorthand Octavian. Okay? So we will now name this person Octavian. And this is the historical shorthand, even though this is not his real name. So that's the second big surprise in the will.

And the third big surprise is this. Caesar names secondary heroes. These are individuals who will inherit Caesar's property and legacy if Octavian were to die. Mark Anthony is a secondary here, but so is Decimus Brutus, one of the men who conspired to kill Caesar. Okay? So this will of Caesar's, it is shocking, and it shows to the one people that Caesar really loved them and that Caesar loved everyone, including the people who can see us. inspired to kill him. Mark Anthony is very upset about this will.

So that when Octavian, and Octavian right now, he's only 18 years old, he's only 18 years old, and he returns to claim his legacy. Mark Anthony is so upset that he refuses to meet with Octavian, and he refuses to give Caesar's property and wealth to Octavian. Remember, the first stipulation of the will is that every Roman citizen will be given three months of wages. Okay? And Octavian, what he does is to honor Caesar's will, he borrows money. Okay, this is a lot of money in order to ensure that every citizen got three months of wages.

So in this situation, okay, and this is only a few months after Caesar's death, this is now a volatile game of throne situation game of thrones mark anthony considers himself the legitimate here of Caesar and refuses to acknowledge Octavian Octavian has returned and demands to be acknowledged as the here okay so that's one conflict the other conflict is you have these three conspirators Desimus Buddhist Marcus Buddhist and Cassius and they're not in Rome but they're in the the provinces with huge armies, okay? So Descentus Buddhist, he is in Gaul, Marcus Buddhist,

and Cassius are in the Roman East, which includes Anatolia and Syria, okay? Extremely wealthy provinces where they have many loyal soldiers. And they understand that eventually there's a conflict coming, so they raise a huge army, about 100,000 soldiers to prepare for the eventual conflict. And this is like the largest army ever assembled in Roman history.

You also have a name lepetus, who is a very competent administrator, and he has his own army, and he actually wanted to avenge Caesar, but Mark and actually stopped him, okay? So lepidus is also part of the equation. In the center is the name, it's the name Cicero. Cicero is considered one of the greatest orators in Roman history. history. It's very common as part of a liberal arts education to study the speeches of Cicero. And Cicero is the last remaining optimet. When the optimates are the ones who are conservatives and who believe in the

primacy of the Senate. So Cicero is right now in charge of the Senate. And everyone in this Game of Thrones has a different motivation, right? So Cicero, his main motivation is to maintain the supremacy of the Senate. So he wants a balance of power. So what he will do is he will play everyone off against each other in order to maintain the supremacy of the Senate and therefore his authority. Okay, that's Cicero. Octavian wants to be the hear of Caesar, but so so is Mark Anthony. And Lepidus also wants to be a hear as well.

And then on the other side are Desimus Buddhists, Marcus Buddhists, and Cassius, who are fighting for their own legacy. Okay? So this is this is a situation in 44 BC. And it's a Game of Thrones situation, and you could, you would expect the one who would most likely lose this Game of Thrones would be Octavian, right? He's 18 years old, he's got no army, and he has no allies in Rome. What happens over the next, um,

15 years is one by one, Octavian destroys all his enemies. What happens first is that Mark Anthony goes to war with Desimus Buddhists. Desmond Buddhist is in charge of Gaul, and Mark Anthony wants the armies of Desimus Buddhist. So Mark Anthony marches against Desimus Buddhists, and then Cicero, to maintain the balance of power, he authorizes Octavian to raise his own army to challenge Mark Anthony okay so now they're at war with each other eventually Mark Anthony loses and then he steals basically lepidus army to march against Desimus Buddhists again and at this point what happens is very strange the three of them lepidus Octavian and Mark Anthony

they sit down together and they they agree to share power and form their own dictatorship. This is what we call the second triumvirate. Okay? The second triumbrate is brutal. The first thing they decided to do is kill all their enemies. Anyone who could challenge them, including Cicero, who was previously the patron of Octavian. Right?

So they killed about a third of the Senate and replaced everyone with, uh, replace the Senate with their allies. Senate with their allies. Then Mark and Octavian marched against Marcus, Buddhist, and Cassius. Okay? Desimus Buddhists has been destroyed. They now marched against Marcus, Buddhist, and Cassius. And then in 42 BCE, they fight the battle of Philippi in Macedonia, okay? Philippi is a city named after King Philip. And in this battle, Mark Anthony and Octavian triumph in the largest battle. in history at that time. And after this battle where Marcus Buddhists and Cassius are killed, Octavian, Mark Anthony, and Lippitus agreed to shear the world. So Octavian would get Rome,

Lippetis would get Northern Africa, and Mark Anthony would get Egypt and the Near East, Anatolia Syria. So Mark Anthony basically gets the lion's share of the Roman War. of the Roman world, okay? And they agree to share it. Then what happens is lepidus comes into conflict with Mark Anthony, sorry, lepidus comes in conflict with Octavian, and Octavian gives a speech to lepidist soldiers who all defect over to Octavian.

Then Octavian comes in conflict with Mark Anthony, and in 31 BCE, at the Battle of, what's that battle, called again? 31. Actium, sorry, Actim in Greece. It's a huge battle where Anthony's forces are aligned with Cleopatra forces against Octavian. In this battle, what happens is basically Mark Anthony and Cleopatra, they run away from the

battle, and then they return to Ex-Andria, and then Octavian goes and hunts them down, and they both commit suicide before they're killed. captured and then this ends in 27 BCE when Octavian returns to the Senate, the Roman Senate in triumph and they declare him Augustus Caesar okay Augustus Caesar his name has now changed so Augustus Caesar he's considered the first emperor of Rome so this is the brief history now I want to ask the question how did Octavian again who in 44 BC he's only 18 years old he has no army and has very few allies in Rome how was he able to triumph over

everyone okay all right and there are different explanations um the first you can say is just well he got lucky okay um yeah i know he he was lucky and that's that that is a possibility but um you don't become emperor by becoming lucky okay so that's that that doesn't suffice Second is, you can say he was brilliant. Julius Caesar was brilliant, right? King Philip Obassadon was brilliant. These are all brilliant people. There are few people say Octavian was a brilliant person.

He didn't have the charisma of Julius Caesar. His oration was good, but no one near as good as, say, Mark Anthony's or other Romans. Okay? And it's generally agreed upon that he was a terrible, terrible military leader and strategist. He lost a lot of wars. Sorry, he lost a lot of battles during this conflict. So he was not a great military leader. So he was not brilliant.

I mean, he was born in his own way. He was born politically, but he was not brilliant in the traditional sense. The third explanation is, well, he's just ruthless. He will do anything for power. And again, this is true. There is some truth to this. But guess what? In the Roman world, everyone was ruthless, right? Mark Anthony was especially ruthless. Mark Anthony killed his own wife. So that doesn't explain it. Fourth is the legions, the army. They remembered Caesar, Julius Caesar, and now that Octavian is considered the son of Julius Caesar, the legions swore loyalty to the army. him and that is true okay but they also swore loyalty to Mark Anthony and you can you can argue Mark Anthony had a stronger claim to his sister's legacy in Octavian

so that by itself doesn't explain it either next explanation is Marcus Agrippa and Marcus Agrippa is considered Octavian's partner and he was considered a great general and it was actually Marcus Agrippa who was responsible for all of Octavian major military victories, especially about Actium, which basically ended the Civil War. And this, again, is true. Marcus Agrippa is a brilliant military leader. But so were Cassius, decimus. Okay? There were other brilliant military leaders. The other issue is that in this ruthless world of Roman politics, how could Octavian trust Marcus Agrippa? And why did Marcus a group of stayed loyal to Octavian.

So these are five explanations, and there's all some truth to that. But I want to offer you today another explanation. And the explanation is this. The death of Caesar allow Octavian to become emperor. Okay? And here's my argument. Remember last class, we said that Caesar,

his greatness was in his major. myth-making genius. He created a myth of himself that he was a man of destiny who would save the Republic. But his myth was counter to other myths that were more dominant in Rome, especially the myth of Lucius Buddhists, right? Lucius Buddhists. The man who created the Republic and killed the king. And so Caesar had this great myth but it was against other dominant myths. When Caesar was killed, it made his myth the dominant myth of Rome. In fact, it turned his myth into reality. And it was just new reality that propelled Octavian into power. Okay?

So another simple way of saying this is that it was the love of the women people that propelled Octavian into power. And we see this in history all the time, right? So for example, in Canada, Doug is from Canada, so am I, there's a man named Justin Trudeau. The most incompetent person, politician you will ever meet, okay? But he's prime minister, and he's been prime minister for like 10 years, right? Why? Because his father is peer to him. is Pierre Trudeau, who is considered one of the most popular prime ministers in Canadian history, right?

So it was basically people's transferring their love of Pierre Trudeau onto the son. So that's one example. The other example, of course, in America is George W. Bush, right? Whose father was George H.W. Bush, who was considered, you know, a very good president. Okay, so is it, yeah, yeah, Doug? That's right, that's right, that's right. So if you think about it, politics, political change, it's really about a myth. Right, if you want to create political change, you have to change people under, you have to change the myths.

And new governments will create new myths, okay? All right, great, all right, so that's a basic thesis, okay? So let me explain it some more, okay? So let's go back to the death of the death. of the assassination of Julius Caesar. And there were three major assassins, as I said, Desimus Buddhist, Marcus Buddhist, who was considered a leader in Cassius.

And they were just the leaders of a huge conspiracy that involved 60 senators. That's about 7% of the Roman Senate. That's a lot of people, man. 7% of the Roman Senate. And each of these individuals have different reason for wanting Caesar death. So Desimus Buddhists was considered

Julius' most competent general, okay? And he wanted to be agnacious as such. So you could say that Desimus Buddhist, he was driven by jealousy, or maybe thwarted ambition. Okay? You want to prove that he was better than Julius Caesar. So that's Desciman's Buddhist.

Cassius is a different story. Cassius fought for Pompeii, the Great. the Great. And because Cassius was such a great general, Julius Caesar showed mercy to him and forgave him and made him a general, his own general, okay? So this is Caesar demonstrating his benevolence and clemency and mercy. The problem is that in the Roman world, mercy is not considered

It's not considered a good thing, okay? So by showing mercy on Cassius, Cassius could have interpreted this as Caesar showing content for him. Caesar didn't really see him as a threat. Okay? And so Cassius might have been motivated by a sense, like a desire for vengeance, right? Marcus Buddhist is the most interesting, the most interesting person here. And actually, you know, Shakespeare wrote a play about Marcus Buddhist called Julius Caesar, okay? But it was really about Marcus Buddhist.

It was trying to explain the psychology and motivations of why Marcus Buddhist would want Caesar dead. Marcus Buddhist did fight for Pompey the Great. But he's also the son of Julius Caesar's favorite mistress, favorite lover. And so Julius Caesar made a point of telling his soldier, do not kill this guy in battle. If you see him, capture him, and send him to me. And so Marcus Buddhist was captured, and Julius Caesar adopted him basically as a son.

And he basically fast-tracked Marcus Buddhist career. And so Marcus Buddhists had every reason to thank Julius Caesar, right? But instead, Marcus Judas becomes the main conspirator. And in the play by Shakespeare Julius Caesar, the argument that Shakespeare makes is Marcus Brutus is driven by his own sense of virtue, basically vanity. He believes, or he's told, that he's named after Lucius Brutus, the founding of Republic, and therefore he has a responsibility to save the republic from wannabe tyrants like Caesar,

and that's what drives him. What Shakespeare doesn't mention though is what Romans believe is that Marcus Brutus is the son, the volatile son of Julius Caesar. Okay, so maybe there was that interpersonal dynamic where Marcus Brutus despised Caesar, okay? All right, so it's a very complicated situation. But what unites everyone is that it's a feeling that Rome was changing too fast. So remember, Julius Caesar, he did what he did in order to save the Republic, to restore the republic. And so when he had obtained power, he was making changes that were necessary, but which changed the Roman sense of themselves.

So one example is he brought. in senators from the provinces. And these were aristocrats who spoke perfect Latin, but because it was from the provinces and there were foreigners, the Roman people were very upset by this, okay? That's the first thing. Second thing is Caesar and a corruption in the provinces. And that goes against the interest of the nobility, because one way for you to become rich as a noble person is to go to provinces and steal a lot of money. So Caesar was doing a lot of things that were good for for the empire and for the republic in the long term,

but which hurt the interests of the senators and nobility in the short term. This is what caused the conflict, okay? And because Caesar was so fast and so effective in its reforms, it not only sort of disturbed the nobility, but also disturbed the people as well. Because women are very conservative. They were not used to all these changes happening so fast.

And so this is what compelled the conspiracies to act against Caesar, okay? But this race is a very interesting question. Caesar is a genius. He's brilliant. How could he not see this coming, right? How could he not imagine the possibility that people were conspiring against him?

And the answer, okay, and this is hard for us to understand today, but it was unimaginable that they would conspired to kill Caesar in the Senate. So there are lots of taboos in Rome. One major taboo is the idea of the Promerium. The Promerium just means the boundary of Rome. And the idea here is that Rome, the city of Rome, the fiscal geographic space of Rome, It is sacred and divine.

It is protected by the gods. And therefore, you are not allowed to bring weapons into Rome. If you're a soldier, you must come in as a private citizen. You are not allowed to come in as a soldier. You are not allowed to commit acts of violence within the Pomerium. Otherwise, the gods will spite you. The gods will take vengeance against you, okay? So that's the first taboo.

Second taboo is this. The Senate is considered the most sacred and divine space in the entire, in all of Rome. And so no one's allowed to bring weapons, no one's allowed to commit violence in the Senate. Also the Senate's laws are basically the laws of the gods. The Senate declared the body of Judas Caesar to be sacrament, meaning the divine and sacred. You are not allowed to touch the body of Julius Caesar. The third thing is that everyone in the Senate was personally appointed by Julius Caesar. So everyone owed their good fortune to the generosity of Julius Caesar.

You understand. It was just unimaginable for Julius Caesar to think that his friends could be conspiring against him. Does that make sense so far, guys? It was beyond the imagination of Julius Caesar. But if this is true, there's something else is true, which is that Julius Caesar did not want to become king. Because being king was the ultimate taboo in Rome. Does that make sense? Julius Caesar could not imagine that Buddhist was a true.

would kill him because he, like all Romans, believed in these taboos. And the ultimate taboo was, one could never, should never have a king. So he himself did not want to become king. He was behaving very arrogantly. He was behaving like a king, but he did not, but he would not become king himself

because it would go against the Roman Republic. It would defy all the taboos of the Roman Republic. And also, before Caesar, there was also another dictator named Sola. Okay? And the example of Sola is he's a man who comes to the power, kills all his enemies, and then he retires. Okay? He could become king, but he chose to not become king because to become king would mean the death of the republic. And that's not taboo.

That's a rubicon. He refused to cross. Okay? So we can imagine that Caesar saw himself as. as a better solar, okay? As a more merciful solar, he would not kill his enemies, he would show generosity to his enemies, and he would restore the Republic to its greatness.

He would make the necessary reforms, and then he would retire and lead the republic as it was. Okay? Does that make sense? All right. So it was unimaginable for Caesar to think that he would be killed. And also what's interesting is,

What did they happen to these three individuals after they killed Caesar? Right? They killed Caesar because they feared Caesar would become king. But after they killed Caesar, what they recognized is they could only kill Caesar because Caesar did not want to become king. Otherwise, Caesar would surround himself with party guards. Otherwise, Caesar would not become available to his enemies. So upon the death of Caesar, all of the death of Caesar,

all his enemies, Decimus, Marcus, and Cassius, realized they weren't wrong. But not only that, but the very attitude of the people of Rome changed, right? While Caesar was alive, the Roman people were very skeptical towards Caesar because they feared that he would become king. They loved Caesar, but they were afraid

that Caesar was too ambitious. But upon the death of Caesar, the women people felt tremendous guilt for doubting Caesar. Doesn't make sense, right? Because it was your doubt that allowed the conspirators to kill Caesar. If all they did was believe in Caesar, if they believed that in Caesar's myth that he was here as a man of destiny to restore the republic, and that's all he cared about, he didn't want to become king, then Caesar would be able to be king. then Caesar would still be alive. Okay, and to compound the guilt,

Caesar showered the people with generosity upon his death, right? Okay? So you can see how the death of Caesar creates this new reality where people now recognize Caesar do not want to become king, all he wanted to do was save the republic. And people are now, they're sort of paralyzed

by their guilt. So the evidence for this is this. While Decimus Brutus was being attacked by Mark Anthony and the later about Octavian, Cassius told Marcus Boutis, hey, maybe we should come to this guy's aid. He's our ally. If he falls, they're going to come after us next. And Marcus Boudis did nothing.

He refused to act. And the reason why is he could not act. He killed Julius Caesar because Julius Caesar was too ambitious. But if Marcus Buddhists would remove his army against Rome, then Marcus Buddhist is an ambitious one. He's the one who wants to become king. Therefore, Marcus Brutus and Cassius could only wait for their deaths. Because they're third of the case.

They believe that Caesar wants to become king. wasn't true. It could be true. And therefore, they committed wrong against Rome by killing Caesar. Does that make sense? So this explains his enemies. How about Mark Anthony? Okay, so Mark Anthony had a different problem. Mark Envy loved Caesar so much. He wanted to continue Caesar's legacy. And Mark Anthony sort of felt betrayed by Caesar when Caesar named Octavian to be the heir and not Mark Anthony, okay? And so what does Mark Anthony want to do now? Well, he wants to prove that Caesar's wrong. Mark Anthony wants to prove that he is the rightful here of Caesar, and to prove so, he will continue his legacy. Okay? So Mark Anthony started to do some, sorry to do things

that were against his own personal self-interest and which ultimately led to his self-destruction. The first thing that he did was he marched against the Parthians. The Parthians are Rome's last great enemy, okay? Rome destroyed Carthage, Rome destroyed the Greeks, but the Parthians still had an empire to the east of Rome. And Romans generals failed to make inroads against Parthia. And in fact, Julius Caesar, he wanted to basically end his life by invading Parthier. So Julius Caesar's plan before his death was to attack Parthia, conquer it,

then sweep back to Europe and conquer Germany, okay? Basically, conquer the whole world to prove he's better than Exximate of the Great. So Mark Endy decides that this is how he will prove he is Caesar's rightful here by finishing seizure's legacy against the Parthians. The problem is Romans are not good at war against the Parthians

and the Persians, okay? Because the Romans are infantry-focused, and the Parthens and Persians are cavalry-focused, right? They have horses. So Markling goes over to Parthia and he gets his ass kicked. All right?

He gets his ass-kicked. He's not Julius Caesar. He's not. but here to do his Caesar. And he falls into a major depression. He basically becomes a drunk. Okay? That's his first major mistake.

Second major mistake he makes is he falls in love of Cleopatra. Cleopatra is the queen of Egypt, but much more importantly, she is the mistress of Julius Caesar. In fact, rumors were that upon his retirement, Julius Caesar would bring Cleopatra to Rome, and he would live happily ever after. Okay? That's the rumor. So Mark Anthony goes over to Egypt and he becomes the lover to Cleopatra.

Because he's trying to be Julius Caesar now. And this is a problem because to marry Cleopatra, he has to divorce his wife, who happens to be the sister of Octavian. Okay? So this causes a personal rift between Octavian and Mark.

Anthony. And the third thing that he does, which is what causes his demise is he names in his will, okay? He names in his will that his children with Cleopatra will become the hearers to the Roman East. All the property, all that land that Markhampton controls will be given to his children with Cleopatra. They're foreign citizen. And also, Mark Anthony does not have the authority to give that land out to his children. Only the Senate has the authority. Okay?

So Octavian used the will as a pretext to attack Mark Anthony. And he's heavily supported by the Roman people. Okay? So Mark Anthony, because he's trying so hard to escape the shadow of Julius Caesar, because he's trying so hard to prove he is illegitimate.

here to do with Caesar, he basically self-destructs. He didn't have to do any of this, but he did. And by doing all this, it guarantees his destruction. So Mark Anthony basically self-destructs. Let's look at Lepidus. Lepidus, he is an extremely effective administrator, but he is not as charismatic and as blunt as Julius Caesar. And Lepidus basically shied away.

He didn't have the confidence to challenge Octavian for the ultimate power. And seeing this lack of confidence in this insecurity, his soldiers basically went off to join Octavian. And a lot of soldiers did that. A lot of soldiers that were fighting for the enemy side would just jump ship because Octavian is the hear of Julius Caesar. He is the new Julius Caesar, and they all worship Julius Caesar. Now, let's look at Octavian. Why did Octavian succeed so much?

Again, he became partners with Marcus Agrippa, who was a much better general than him. But Octavian, again, he was not a good man, he was not charismatic, he was not a great general, but he believed himself to be the here to Julius Caesar. For whatever reason, Julius Caesar believed in him, and therefore he had a responsibility to finish. the legacy of his father, which is to restore the warmlym Republic. And that meant he had to do whatever sacrifice was necessary in order to do so, okay? So the difference between Octavian and the others was he acted. He wasn't very successful, but he was willing to act, whereas Marcus Brutus was not willing to act.

And when you act, sometimes he will succeed, okay? And only a few successes will allow you to become the emperor of Rome. He was driven by the fact that he believed himself to be the heir of Julius Caesar. He was a son of Julius Caesar. Julius Caesar believed in him. Therefore, he had his responsibility to restore the republic. And that's why he trusted Marcus Agrippa. And that's why Marcus Agrippa trusted him.

they were all fighting for the legacy of Julius Caesar. And that's why ultimately the Roman people allow Octavian to amass so much power. So remember, the Roman people have been taught to fear kings. But over time, Octavian was in power for 40 years. Augusta Caesar was in power for 40 years. Over time, he became even more powerful than a king. This is what he did. he amassed all powers to himself

after he conquered Egypt he made Egypt into his own personal property this is his private estate he used all the money from Egypt again remember Egypt is right now and for the longest time the wealthiest country in the world at this time okay they have so much wealth he uses money

in order to have his own army before the Roman army was loyal to the Senate. Now because it was Octavid himself who personally paid every soldier in the army, which is now a professional army, they're now loyal to the emperor. He took Gaul,

which was land that Julius Caesar basically depopulated with genocide, and he gave the land to his veterans. So basically he made the entire army loyal to him personally. So he now has the power of God. The Roman people allowed him to do that because they believe that like Octavian, sorry, like Julius Caesar, Octavian was driven by his sense of mission,

his desire to save and restore the Roman Republic. But ultimately, because they believed him too much, Augusta Caesar would destroy the Republic and concentrate all power in his hands. Does that make sense? All right. Any questions? Yeah? Okay, that's a great question.

Okay, so why did Julius Caesar name Octavian as to hear and not Mark Anthony? Okay, so Octavian is the great nephew of Julius Caesar. So Octavian was Julius Caesar's sister's grandson, okay? And so Octavian basically grew up with Julius Caesar. But they knew each other very well. But as Echo says, Mark Anthony is the man who's most loyal to Caesar, the most trusted lieutenant of Caesar.

Why didn't Caesar trust him? And the answer is, Caesar, as a genius, he doesn't care about loyalty. He cares about talent. He cares about ability. And Mark Anthony was a notorious hot head. He had a violent temper. He was a drunk. I mean, he just had like terrible, terrible personal qualities.

So an example of this is while Caesar was off campaigning against Pompeii, he put Mark Anthony in charge of Rome. And all Mark Anthony did was piss everyone off. He got in a fight with the Senate. He was so bad that Caesar had no choice but to replace him with lepidus. Okay? So Mark Anthony was in place. his hot head he was emotionally unstable it was emotionally volatile and so

Caesar didn't really trust him even though Mark Anthony would give his life for Caesar does that make sense okay so Octavian was considered much more competent much more level-headed and Caesar was correct in his in his assessment because Octavian was a brilliant political manipulator okay being an emperor is very hard he was emperor for 40 years so you had to balance all these different political factions within Rome. So great question, Nicco. Any more questions or comments about this argument?

Is it all clear? Sure. Yes, that's right. That's right. That's right. Yeah, I mean, it was very hard to kill Caesar, okay? So they were in the Senate. There were six conspirators, okay?

They all brought knives. They hit the knives, the daggers, in the toga. Okay? They were all supposed to, like, lunge seizure together. So, but when you, but only five senators, only five senators actually physically attacked Caesar. Everyone else just stood paralyzed because as you said, it was taboo. It was the ultimate taboo to commit violence in the Senate. So they were all paralyzed by this fear even though they had this intense hatred of Caesar.

They had, for months, imagine how they would go about killing Caesar. They had this plan meticulously. But when it came to actually act in it out, they couldn't do it. Only five actually managed to take out their and stab Caesar. In fact, the first person who attacked Caesar stood behind Caesar while Caesar was talking to the Senate and he was shaking, okay? And he only managed to pinprick Caesar in the back, okay? This is where we get the idea of backstabbing from.

And Caesar didn't really notice. He was like, hey, what are you doing, man? Cesar wasn't really hurt by this. Even Caesar, even though he was being attacked, could not imagine that anyone would be so bold enough to break all these taboos and attack him, okay? So, I mean, it was an incredible act that forever changed Roman history.

It was just unimaginable that anyone could attack anyone in the Senate, like physically, especially the dictator, the Julius Caesar, who was considered divine and sacred by the women people. So it was an incredible act of violence. And the only five people actually participated in attacking him. And it took a very long time because it was so hard

to much of the strength to stab Caesar. And again, all these senators are like soldiers, they're physically very strong. They're general. They used to killing people. It wasn't a fear of death. It was just a fear of bringing this ultimate taboo of this Roman Senate. Okay?

So, thanks for that, Doug. And any more questions before I finish? Okay. So, Octavian Augusta Caesar was considered the first and the greatest emperor of the Roman Empire. And like Julius Caesar, he did not consider himself the emperor. He considered himself like first citizen, or the first man in the Senate. And his responsibility was to ensure the eternal prosperity and stability of the Roman Republic. And so towards his old age, he had to consider the public, sorry, he had to consider the problem of secession.

He was a great emperor, but the second emperor had to be great as well. And so his solution was this. His solution would be he would adopt the most competent relative that he had to be emperor. He would create this new system where emperors would be adopted. So the best man in Rome would always be adopted into the imperial throne. and Augustus Caesar had the perfect man. His name was Germanicus. Germanicus was very much like Julius Caesar.

Brilliant speaker, loved by his soldiers. The problem was that he was too young, okay? Germanicus was too young. So he needed a transition. And so he appointed his stepson, Tiberius, who was pretty old at this point, okay, to be the transition. Tiberius was not charismatic. He was not very popular, but he was competent.

He was a competent administrator. He'd be emperor for like five to ten years. And then when Germanicus came of age, then Germanicus would inherit a throne. And he'd be a good emperor. And as a good emperor, you would then be able to find someone else who had good talent, and you would appoint him the next emperor. If you had this system, this system could go on forever.

forever, right? And so this is a one system. The problem was Tiberius, okay? Tiberius didn't like the idea that he could not appoint his successor, okay? So what did he do? Well, he killed Germanicus. But not only did he kill Germanicus, he killed basically all of Germanicus' family, okay? And not only did he kill Germanicus' family, but he killed, well, he killed a lot of people, okay?

And then he adopted someone in Caligula, who was Germanicus youngest son, to be the emperor? And Caligula was a notoriously bad emperor. So this isn't broke down very quickly, even though Augusta Caesar, his intention was to continue the legacy of Julie. the seizure and create an eternal prosperity for the Roman Republic. And by the time you got to Tiberius, the system collapsed. And you could make the argument that Tiberius marked the death of the Roman Empire. The Roman Empire will continue for another like 300 years, but it was basically dead. Meaning that it was wracked by all these internal revolt and internal tensions.

And it was only because of its size and inertia that was able to continue for so long. So next class, we'll finish Rome by discussing the Roman legacy. What is Rome's contribution to Western civilization? And this will mainly have to do with the legacy of Augusta Caesar. Any questions?

Okay, all right, great. So we will continue, We'll finish with Rome next class, and then we'll start Egypt. Okay, and Egypt will be a lot of fun.