Transcription
So, um, we are doing Octavius and the birth of the Roman Empire today. Okay, so, um, let's review where we are. The area is 44 BCE, and Julius Caesar has just been assassinated. Um, and the three main conspirators, uh, there are 60 Senators, but the three main conspirators are Marcus Brutus, who is considered the leader of the conspiracy, um, Cassius, and, uh, Decimus Brutus. Okay, and after they assassinated, um, Caesar, obviously, Rome is in turmoil. And Mark Antony, who is currently the consul, or the head of state in Rome, um, he reaches an agreement with these conspirators. The agreement is this: Mark Antony, who is a staunch, uh, ally of Julius 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. Okay, so a peace settlement was reached to avoid a civil war. Um, the problem is that Mark Antony was working behind the scenes to work up the Roman people against the conspirators, and eventually, um, public sentiment was so much against the conspirators that they had to flee to the provinces. Okay, and then, uh, Mark Antony read the will of Caesar. Okay, Caesar's will. Remember that there's private property in Rome, and so when a man dies, he has a will, and and then this will stipulates how this private property will be distributed. Okay, 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 turned into public parks for the benefit of the Roman people. So this will demonstrates Caesar's love of his people. Okay.
The second thing is actually more surprising. Mark Antony believed that he would be, he would be named the heir to Caesar's legacy and wealth in the in the will. But in fact, Caesar names a complete stranger to be his heir. His name is Octavius. And Caesar named Octavius to be his adopted son. And so, um, Octavius's name is actually Gaius Octavius. And upon the adoption, of upon his adoption, he is now named Gaius Julius Caesar Octavius. This is like much too complicated. So historians use a shorthand, Octavian. Okay, so we will name now name this person Octavian, and this is the historical shorthand, even though this is, this is not his real name. So that's a second big surprise in the will. And the third big surprise is this: Caesar names secondary heirs. These are individuals who, uh, will inherit Caesar's property and legacy if Octavian were to die. Mark Antony is a secondary heir, but so is Decimus Brutus, one of the men who conspired to kill Caesar. Okay, so this will of Caesar's, it is shocking, uh, and it shows to the people that Caesar really loved them, and that Caesar loved everyone, including the people who conspired to kill him. Okay.
Mark Antony, um, is very upset about this will. So when Octavian, and Octavian, right now, he's only 18 years old. Okay, he's only 18 years old, and he returns to claim his legacy. Mark Antony, Mark Antony 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, um, 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, and this is a lot of money, in order to ensure that every citizen got three months of wages. Um, so in this situation, okay, and this is only a few months after Caesar's death, this is now a volatile Game of Thrones situation. Game of Thrones. Mark Antony considers himself the legitimate heir of Caesar and refuses to acknowledge Octavian. Octavian has returned and demands to be acknowledged as the heir. Okay, so that's one, um, conflict. The other conflict is you have these three conspirators, Decimus Brutus, um, Marcus Brutus, and Cassius, and they're not in Rome, but they're in the provinces with huge armies. Okay, so Decimus Brutus, he is in Gaul. Um, Marcus Brutus 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. Um, you also have a man named Lepidus, who, um, is a very competent administrator, and he has his own army, and he actually wanted to avenge Caesar, uh, but Mark Antony stopped him. Okay, so Lepidus is also part of the equation. In the center is a man named Cicero. Cicero is considered one of the greatest orators in Roman history. Um, it was very common, it's very common as part of liberal education to study the speeches of Cicero. Okay, and Cicero is the last remaining Optimate. When the Optimates are the ones who are conservatives and who believe in the supremacy 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 heir of Caesar, but so does Mark Antony, and Lepidus also wants to be an heir as well. And then on the other side are Decimus Brutus, Marcus Brutus, and Cassius, who are fighting for their own legacy. Okay, so this is, this is the situation in 44 BCE, 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, uh, 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 Antony goes to war with Decimus Brutus. Decimus Brutus is in charge of Gaul, and Mark Antony wants the armies of Decimus Brutus. So Mark Antony marches against Decimus Brutus, and then Cicero, to maintain the balance of power, he authorizes Octavian to raise his own army to challenge Mark Antony. Okay, so now they're at war with each other. Eventually, Mark Antony loses, and then he steals, basically, Lepidus's army to march against, uh, Decimus Brutus again. And at this point, what happens is very strange. The three of them, Lepidus, Octavian, and Mark Antony, they sit, 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 Triumvirate is brutal. They, 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, replaced the Senate with their allies. Then Mark Antony and Octavian marched against, uh, Marcus Brutus and Cassius. Uh, Decimus Brutus has been destroyed. They now march against Marcus Brutus and Cassius, and in 42 BCE, they fight the Battle of Philippi in Macedonia, in Macedonia. Okay, Philippi is a city named after King Philip. And in this battle, um, Mark Antony and Octavian triumph in the largest battle in history at that time. Okay, and after this battle, where Marcus Brutus and Cassius are killed, um, Octavian, Mark Antony, and Lepidus agree to share the world. So Octavian would get Rome, uh, Lepidus would get Northern Africa, and Mark Antony would get Egypt and the Near East, Anatolia, Syria. So Mark Antony basically gets the lion's share of the Roman world. Okay, and they agree to share it. Then what happens is Lepidus comes into conflict with Mark Antony. Well, sorry, Lepidus comes into conflict with Octavian, and Octavian gives a speech to Lepidus's soldiers, who all defect over to Octavian. Then Octavian comes into conflict with Mark Antony, and in 31 BCE, at the Battle of, um, um, what, what, what's that battle called again? 31 BCE, Actium, sorry, Actium in Greece. It's a huge battle where Antony's forces are aligned with Cleopatra's forces against, um, Octavian. In this battle, what happens is, uh, basically Mark Antony and Cleopatra, they run away from the battle, where, and then they return to Alexandria, and then, um, Octavian goes and hunts them down, and, and they both commit suicide before they're 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 to Augustus Caesar, and he's considered the first emperor of Rome. Okay, so this is the brief history. Now I want to ask the question: how did Octavian, again, who in 44 BCE, he's only 18 years old, he has no army, and has very few allies in Rome, how is he able to triumph over everyone? Okay, all right.
And there are different explanations. Um, the first, you, you can say it's 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, you can say he was brilliant. Julius Caesar was brilliant, right? Um, King Philip, Alexander was brilliant. These are all brilliant people. Very few people say Octavian was a brilliant person. He didn't have the charisma of Julius Caesar. His oration was good, but nowhere near as good as say Mark Antony's or or other Romans. Okay, and he, and it was, it's generally agreed upon that he was a terrible, terrible military leader and strategist. He lost, he lost a lot of wars. Sorry, he lost a lot of battles during this conflict. Okay, so he was not a great military leader. So he was not brilliant. I mean, he was brilliant in his own way, he was brilliant politically, um, but he was not brilliant in the traditional sense. Okay. The third explanation is, well, he's 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 Antony was especially ruthless. Mark Antony killed his own wife. Okay, so that doesn't explain it. Fourth is, um, 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 him. And that is true. Okay, but they also swore loyalty to Mark Antony, and you can, you can argue Mark Antony had a stronger claim to Caesar's legacy than Octavian. So that by itself doesn't explain it either. Next explanation is Marcus Agrippa. And Marcus Agrippa is considered, um, Octavian's partner, and he was considered a great general, and it was actually Marcus Agrippa who was responsible for all of Octavian's major, uh, military victories, especially the Battle of Actium, which, 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 Agrippa stay loyal to Octavian? Okay.
So these are five explanations, and there's all some truth to that. Okay, but I want to offer you today another explanation. And the explanation is this: the death of Caesar allowed Octavian to become emperor. Okay, and here's my argument. Remember last class, we said that Caesar, his greatness was in his 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, that were more dominant in Rome, especially the myth of Lucius Junius Brutus, right? Lucius Brutus, 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 this new reality that propelled Octavian into power. Okay, so another simple way of saying this is that it was the love of the Roman people that propelled Octavian into power. And we see this in history all the time, right? So, for example, um, in Canada, Douglas from Canada, so am I. There's a man named Justin Trudeau, the most incompetent politician you will ever meet, but he's Prime Minister, and he's been Prime Minister for like 10 years, right? Why? Because his father is Pierre Trudeau, who is considered one of the most popular, uh, Prime Ministers in Canadian history. Right? So, so it was basically people's transferring their love of Pierre Trudeau onto the son. Okay, 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, just to add in a little bit, the legacy, everybody, yeah, that's right. So, so if you think about it, politics, political change, it's really about myths. Right? If you want to create political change, you have to change people's understanding. You have to change the myths. And new governments will create new myths. Okay, all right.
So, um, that's a basic thesis. Okay, so let me explain it some more. Okay, so let's go back to the death of Julius Caesar, the assassination of Julius Caesar. And, um, there were three major assassins, as I said, Decimus Brutus, um, Marcus Brutus, who is the leader, and 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, right? 7% of the Roman Senate. And each of these individuals had different reasons for wanting Caesar dead. Okay, so Decimus Brutus was considered Julius Caesar's most competent general. Okay, and he wanted to be acknowledged as such. So you could say that Decimus Brutus, he was driven by jealousy or maybe frustrated ambition. You want to prove he proved that he was better than Julius Caesar. So that's Decimus Brutus. Cassius is a different story. Cassius fought for Pompey the Great, and, uh, 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, um, is not considered a good thing. Okay, so by showing mercy on Cassius, Cassius could have interpreted this as, uh, Caesar showing contempt 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 Brutus is the most interesting example, the most interesting person here. And actually, you know, Shakespeare wrote a play about Marcus Brutus called Julius Caesar, but it was really about Marcus Brutus. It was, it was trying to explain the psychology and motivations of why Marcus Brutus would want Caesar dead. Okay, um, Marcus Brutus 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 soldiers, do not kill this guy in battle. If you see him, capture him and send him to me. And so Brutus was, Marcus Brutus was captured, and Julius Caesar adopted him, basically, as a son, and he basically, um, fast-tracked Marcus Brutus's career. And so Marcus Brutus had every reason to thank Julius Caesar, right? But instead, Marcus Brutus becomes the major, 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, okay, basically vanity. He, he believes, or he's told that he's named after Lucius Brutus, the founder of the Republic, and therefore he has a responsibility to save the Republic from wannabe tyrants like Caesar. And that's what drives him. What, what he doesn't mention, though, is what Romans believed is that Marcus Brutus is the son, the biological son of Julius Caesar. Okay, so, so maybe there was that interpersonal dynamic where Marcus Brutus, um, despised Caesar. Okay, right. So it's a very complicated situation, but what unites everyone is that it's a feeling that Rome was changing too fast. Okay.
Okay, so remember, Julius Caesar, he did what he did in order to save the Republic, to restore the Republic. And so when he, when he had obtained power, he was making changes that were necessary, but which changed the Roman sense of themselves. Okay, so one example is he brought in senators from the provinces. And these were aristocrats who spoke perfect Latin, but because he was from the provinces and there were foreigners, the Roman people were very upset by this. That's the first thing. Second thing is Caesar ended corruption in the provinces, and that goes against the interests of the nobility, because one way for you to become rich as a noble person is to go to the provinces and steal a lot of money. Okay, so Caesar was doing a lot of things that were good for the empire and for the Republic in the long term, but which hurt the interests of, um, the senators and nobility in the short term. This is what caused the conflict. And because Caesar was so fast and so effective in his reforms, it not only sort of disturbed the nobility, but also disturbed the people as well, because Romans are very conservative. They were not used to all these changes happening so fast. And so this is what compelled, um, the conspirators to act against Caesar. But this raises 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, this, this is hard, um, for us to understand today, but it was unimaginable that they would conspire to kill Caesar in the Senate. Okay, so there are lots of taboos in Rome. One major taboo is the idea of the pomerium. Okay, the pomerium is just means the boundary of Rome. And the idea here is that Rome, the city of Rome, the physical 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. Okay, if you're a soldier, you must come in as a private citizen. You're 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, most sacred and divine space in the entire, um, in all of Rome. And so no one's allowed to bring weapons, no one's allowed to commit violence in the Senate. Okay, also, the Senate's laws are basically the laws of the gods. The Senate declared the body of Julius Caesar to be sacrosanct, okay, meaning divine and sacred. You are not allowed to touch the body of Julius Caesar. Okay, 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. Okay, you, you understand? It was just unimaginable for Julius Caesar to think that his friends could be conspiring against him. Okay, does that make sense so far, guys? Okay.
It was beyond the imagination of, um, Julius Caesar. But if this is true, then 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, does that make sense? Julius Caesar could not imagine that Brutus would kill him because he, like all Romans, believed in these taboos. And the ultimate taboo was, Rome 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 want to become king himself because it would go against the Roman Republic. It would defy all the taboos of the Roman Republic. Okay, and also, before Caesar, there's also another dictator named Sulla. Okay, the example of Sulla is, he's a man who comes into 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 the taboo, that's the Rubicon he refused to cross. Okay, so we can imagine that Caesar saw himself as a better Sulla, okay, as a more merciful Sulla. 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, then he would retire and lead the Republic as it was. Okay.
Okay, does that make sense? All right. So it was unimaginable for Caesar to think that he'd be killed. And also, what's interesting is, what do you think happened 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 recognize is they could only kill Caesar because Caesar did not want to become king. Right? Otherwise, Caesar would surround himself with bodyguards, otherwise Caesar would not make himself available to his enemies. So, uh, the death of Caesar, all his enemies, Decimus, Marcus, and Cassius, realize they were in the wrong. But not only that, but the very attitude of the people of Rome changed. Right? Uh, while Caesar was alive, the Roman people were very skeptical towards Caesar because they feared that he would become king. Right? They loved Caesar, but they were afraid that Caesar was too ambitious. But upon the death of Caesar, the people felt tremendous guilt for doubting Caesar. Does that 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 still be alive. Okay, and to compound the guilt, Caesar showered the people with generosity upon his death. Okay, so you can see how the death of Caesar creates this new, creates this new reality where people now recognize Caesar did not want to become king. All he wanted to do was save the Republic, and people are now, um, they're sort of paralyzed by their guilt.
All right, so the evidence for this is this: while Decimus Brutus was being attacked by Mark Antony, and then later by Octavian, Cassius told Marcus Brutus, 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 Brutus did nothing. He refused to act. All right, and the reason why is he could not act. He killed Julius Caesar because Julius Caesar was too ambitious. But if Marcus Brutus were to move his army against Rome, then Marcus Brutus is the ambitious one. He's the one who wants to become king. Right? Therefore, Marcus Brutus and Cassius could only wait for their deaths because if they, the case to believe that Caesar wanted to become king wasn't true, it could be true. And therefore, they committed wrong against Rome by killing Caesar. Okay, does that make sense? So this explains his enemies. How about Mark Antony? Okay, so Mark Antony had a different problem. Mark Antony loved Caesar so much, he wanted to continue Caesar's legacy. And Mark Antony sort of felt betrayed by Caesar when Caesar named Octavian to be the heir and not Mark Antony. Okay, and so what does Mark Antony want to do now? Well, he wants to prove that Caesar is wrong. Mark wants to prove that he is the rightful heir of Caesar, and to prove so, he will continue his legacy. So Mark Antony started to do some, started 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 Roman generals failed to make inroads against Parthia. And in fact, Julius Caesar, he wanted to basically end his life by invading Parthia. Okay, 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 Alexander the Great. So Mark Antony decides that this is how he will prove he is Caesar's rightful heir by finishing Caesar's, um, legacy against the Parthians. The problem is, Romans are not good, again, are not good at war against the Parthians and the Persians. Okay, because the Romans are infantry-focused, and the Parthians and the Persians are cavalry-focused. They have horses. So Mark Antony 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 the heir to Julius Caesar. He, 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 with 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 Antony goes over to Egypt and he becomes the lover to Cleopatra. Okay, 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 Antony. The third thing that that he does, which is what causes his demise, is he names in his will, okay, he names in his will that his children of Cleopatra will become the heirs to the Roman East. All the property, all that land that Mark Antony controls will be given to his children with Cleopatra. They're foreign citizens, and also Mark Antony does not have the authority to give that land out to his children. Only the Senate has the authority. Okay, so Mark, so Octavian used the will as a pretext to attack Mark Antony, and he's heavily supported by the Roman people. Okay, so what, so Mark Antony, because he's trying so hard to escape the shadow of Julius Caesar, because he's trying so hard to prove he is a legitimate heir to Julius 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. Okay, so Mark Antony basically self-destructs.
Let's look at, um, Lepidus. Okay, Lepidus, he is an extremely effective administrator, but he is not as charismatic, as charismatic, and as brilliant as Julius Caesar. And Lepidus is basically shunted away. He didn't have the confidence to challenge Octavian for the ultimate power. And seeing this lack of confidence, 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 heir of Julius Caesar. Okay, he is the new Julius Caesar. They all worship Julius Caesar. Right? Now let's look at Octavian. Why did Octavian succeed so much? Again, um, he became partners with Marcus Agrippa, who was a much better general than him. But Octavian, again, he was not a brilliant man, he was not charismatic, he was not a great general, but he believed himself to be the heir 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 Roman Republic, and that meant he had to do whatever sacrifice was necessary in order to do so. Okay, so the difference between, uh, 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 you will succeed. Okay, and only a few successes will allow you to become the, the emperor of Rome. It was, it 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 has a responsibility to restore the Republic. And that's why he trusted Marcus Agrippa. Okay, 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 allowed Octavian to amass so much power. Right? So remember, Roman people have been taught to fear kings. But over time, Octavian was in power for 40 years. Augustus Caesar was in power for 40 years. Over time, he became even more powerful than the king. This is what he did. He amassed all power to himself. After he conquered Egypt, he made Egypt into his own personal property. Okay, this was a private estate. He used all the money from Egypt, again, remember Egypt is right now, and for the longest time, the wealthiest country in, 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 Octavian himself who personally paid every soldier in the army, which is now a professional army, they're now loyal to the emperor. Okay, he took Gaul, which was, you know, 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, he now has the power of God. The Roman people allowed him to do that because they believed that like Julius Caesar, Octavian was driven by his sense of mission, his desire to save and restore the Roman Republic. But ultimately, uh, because they believed him too much, Caesar would destroy the Republic and concentrate all power in his hands. Okay, does that make sense? All right.
Any questions? Yeah. Okay, that's a great question. Okay, so why did Julius Caesar name Octavian as his heir and not Mark Antony? Okay, so Octavian is the great nephew of Julius Caesar. So, uh, Octavian was, uh, Julius Caesar's sister's, uh, grandson. Okay, and so, uh, Octavian basically grew up with Julius Caesar, like they knew each other very well. But as Echo says, Mark Antony is the man who is most loyal to Caesar, the, the most trusted lieutenant of Caesar. Why didn't Caesar trust him? The answer is, Caesar, as a genius, he doesn't care about loyalty, he cares about talent, he cares about ability. And Mark Antony was a notorious hothead, he had a violent temper, he was a drunk. Okay, I mean, he just had like terrible personal qualities. So an example of this is while, um, Caesar was off campaigning against Pompey, he put Mark Antony in charge of Rome, and all Mark Antony did was piss everyone off. He got into fights with the Senate. He was so bad that Cicero had no choice but to replace him with Lepidus. Okay, so Mark Antony was a hothead, he was emotionally unstable, he was emotionally volatile. And so Caesar, Caesar didn't really trust him, even though Mark Antony, Mark Antony 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. Being an emperor is very hard. He was emperor for 40 years, so he had to balance all these different political factions within Rome. Okay, so great question, Echo. Okay, any more questions or comments about this argument? Is it all clear? Sure. Give you a great, uh, you're talking about how, yes, that's right. I always thought that, yeah, 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 60 conspirators. Okay, they all brought knives. They were, they hid the knives, the daggers in the toga. They were all supposed to like lunge at Caesar 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. Okay, they, they had for months, imagine how they would go about killing Caesar. Okay, they had planned, they had, they had this plan meticulously, but when it came to actually acting it out, they couldn't do it. Only five actually managed to take out their daggers and, uh, stab Caesar. In fact, the first person who attacked Caesar, stood behind Caesar, uh, while Caesar was, um, making talking to the Senate, and he was shaking. Okay, and he only managed to like pinprick Caesar in the back. Okay, this is where we get the idea of backstabbing from. So, and it, and Caesar didn't really notice. He was like, hey, what are you doing, man? Okay, Caesar wasn't really hurt by this. Even Caesar, 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, um, I mean, it was an incredible act that forever changed Roman history. All right, it was, it was just unimaginable that anyone could attack anyone in the Senate, like physically. Okay, especially, um, the dictator, Julius Caesar, who was considered divine and sacred by the Roman people. Okay, so it was an incredible act of violence. Okay, and only five people actually participated in attacking him, and it took a very long time because it was so hard to muster the strength to stab Caesar. And again, all the senators are like soldiers. Okay, they're physically very strong, they're generals, they're used to killing people. It wasn't fear of death, it was just fear of breaking this ultimate taboo of the Roman Senate. Okay, so, thanks, thanks for that, Doug. Any, any more questions before I finish? Okay.
Okay, so, um, Octavian, Augustus Caesar, was considered the first and the greatest emperor of the Roman Empire. And like Julius Caesar, him, he did not consider himself the emperor. He considered himself like First Citizen, okay, or the first man in the Senate. And his responsibility was to ensure the eternal prosperity and stability of the, uh, Roman Republic. And so, um, towards, towards his old age, he had to consider the public, sorry, he had to consider the problem of succession, right? 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, and he created this new system where emperors would be adopted. Okay, so the best man in Rome would always be adopted into the imperial throne. And, um, Augustus Caesar had the perfect man. His name is Germanicus. Germanicus was very much like Julius Caesar, brilliant speaker, loved by his soldiers. The problem was that he was too young. Germanicus was too young. So he needed a transition, and so he appointed his stepson, Tiberius, um, who was pretty old at this point, okay, to be the transition. Tiberius was not charismatic, um, he was not very popular, but he was competent. He was a competent administrator. He'd be emperor for like five to 10 years, and then when Germanicus, um, came of age, then Germanicus would inherit the throne, and he'd be a good emperor. And as a good emperor, you would then, you would then be able to find someone else who had, who had good talent, and you would appoint him the next emperor. If you had this system, this system could go on forever, right? And so this is Augustus's 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, um, basically all of Germanicus's family. And not only did he kill Germanicus's family, but he killed, well, he killed a lot of people. Okay, and then he adopted someone named Caligula, um, who was Germanicus's, um, youngest son, um, to be the emperor. And Caligula was a notoriously bad emperor. Okay, so this system broke down very quickly, even though Augustus Caesar, his intention was to, um, continue the legacy of Julius Caesar and create an eternal prosperity for the Roman Republic. And so by the time you got to Tiberius, the system collapsed, and you could make the argument that, uh, Tiberius marked the death of the Roman Empire. Okay, the Roman Empire will continue for another like 300 years, but it's basically dead. Meaning that it was racked by all these internal revolts, internal tensions, and it was only because of its size and inertia that it was able to continue for so long. Okay, so, um, we will next class, we will finish Rome by discussing, uh, the Roman legacy. Okay, what is Rome's contribution to Western civilization? And this will mainly have to do with, um, the legacy of Augustus Caesar. Right? Any questions? Okay. All right, great. So, uh, we will continue, we will finish with Rome next class, and then we'll start Egypt. Okay, and Egypt will be a lot of fun.