0:01Can you type in Ohanian Gladiator armor?
0:04Oh, it was Sotheby's. I feel like it was him who bought it, the Reddit guy.
0:08Serena Williams' husband.
0:09>> Oh, she's married to the Reddit guy?
0:11>> Yeah.
0:12Am I right?
0:14Yes, I am right. Yes, I own the helmet.
0:17>> [laughter] >> It was the helmet. It's from Alexis Ohanian. Yes, I own the helmet from Gladiator and no, it doesn't fit on my giant head, but that's what kids are for.
0:25>> [laughter] >> I must have a big [ __ ] head cuz Russell Crowe's got a dome.
0:31Russell Crowe's got a dome and it doesn't fit on his head, that's crazy.
0:34>> a picture of him recently in front of the Colosseum and it was like taking my kids to work day, Russell Crowe.
0:39>> yeah, [laughter] he I love Russell Crowe is one of my favorites of all time, but I love >> always our Gerard Butler fan because he was so good in 300.
0:46>> He he he nailed that role, man.
0:49>> And that was really from a comic book perspective, but it was so good. It was such a good movie.
0:52>> job. Yeah, but that that's one >> back to it doesn't have to be right if the theatrical element is really good.
0:57>> They they basically were telling you in the first frame of that movie that they were suspending disbelief, right? Like this was going to be a little different.
1:05>> Yeah.
1:06>> But like the idea is like yeah, you know, this is guys that held this area.
1:09>> But the reason I think something like that is important is once again, it doesn't have to be right, but it gets people to be interested.
1:15>> Yes.
1:16>> And that's why I look at what I do. Am I right about everything? No, but if I get people to be interested and look for themselves, well, I think that's really important cuz we forget these things, right?
1:23>> All right. Let me not censor you. Let's let's do this conversation painful as it might be. I'm not talking about Gladiator 2. I'm talking about Gladiator here cuz that's what you were bringing up.
1:32But what outside of maybe some of the armor and the time period of it, what is so wrong and the fact that they invented a character or what is so wrong?
1:41>> dies.
1:43Commodus is like cuz he die he dies in the arena in that movie, is that correct?
1:46>> Yeah, that's a nice ending.
1:47>> So, how he actually dies is he's very hated in Rome and his death kicks off what's called the Year of the Five Emperors that the last guy coming out is going to be a a African named Septimius Severus.
1:57And um they try to assassinate Commodus many times.
2:03>> Mhm.
2:03>> And it gets to the end where finally his concubine tries to poison him.
2:07And they he's so drunk when they give him the poison and the poison's in wine that he actually throws up the poison.
2:13>> Oh, wow.
2:14>> And then they get to the point at the end that a a wrestler, so not quite a gladiator but a wrestler strangles him to death in the in the bath.
2:20So >> All right, that's not that >> that far off but you know, it's it's not exactly a Now he did like to fight as a gladiator but how he fought as a gladiator because once again he's afraid of hurting himself is he would kill emperor or kill emperors kill um animals from a platform. They would stand on a platform and he'd stab and shoot those animals from a platform because >> Like with a crossbow and stuff?
2:41>> Well, not a crossbow when he when he was when he was shooting them. Bow or a spear or something like that. He would kill them from a platform because he once again he wouldn't be in danger, you know, I'm still an emperor.
2:49>> Yeah.
2:50>> But he did want to fight in the arena.
2:52That was important to him.
2:53>> So he did really go down in the arena.
2:54>> And he was Well, he didn't go down in the arena. He went down in his home.
2:58You know, a gladiator gets him in the bath and strangles him to death.
3:01>> Oh, no, I know but I'm saying when he was doing the gladiator >> do that, yeah. He did do that and he was another guy that was obsessed with Heracles um because once Commodus >> Commodus.
3:11>> And I think that's an important distinction because I said the Romans have a god named Hercules. The Greek version is Heracles but as kind of the Roman Empire becomes more Greek which is called the Hellenization they start to really get interested in the god Heracles.
3:26And Heracles one of the big symbolisms of him was the lion head. So if you've seen the imagery of Alexander wearing the lion head helmet, it's because he was positioning himself as Heracles.
3:37Commodus often fought with a lion head helmet because he wanted to be Heracles.
3:41And if you look at a lot of his imagery on coins and things like that, they would have a lion head on Commodus because they wanted to see he wanted to see himself more as this Heracles figure.
3:53>> But you said that you said in there that they started viewing themselves as more and more Greek. What What when did that specifically start to happen that Hellenization period in >> It's around the the mid first to late or early second century. You're going to start to have more Greek culture coming into Rome because after So 31 BC is the Battle of Actium. Not far Not long after that you're going to have the last Hellenistic kingdom. So I guess let's back it up. Cuz successors of Alexander are called the Diadochi. Those are his generals that basically go out and conquer places like you have Antigonus,
4:26you have Ptolemy, you have Seleucus, and they create these different empires.
4:30>> So it goes from a monopoly to an oligopoly.
4:32>> Right. Because Alexander they say, "Well, who do you leave your empire to?"
4:34And he says, "To the strongest." Well, they're like, "Oh, I'm the strongest."
4:37They each say that. So they create these empires among themselves. Throughout time as Rome starts to rise in in the late Republic it's becoming more empire in a way of conquer. Like not quite a political empire yet, but in the it's an empire in the way it's conquering people. It starts to conquer these Greek territories. And when it's bringing conquering those Greek territories it's bringing culture.
4:58So you're going to have after the fall of the Ptolemaic dynasty in the late first century BC a lot of that culture starts to become a part of Roman culture. So you're going to have you know, more beards, more of these other things that Greeks would have had cuz Romans would be clean-shaven. They wouldn't have beards.
5:16>> They didn't have beards before that.
5:18>> one We mentioned this earlier. The first one with the beard is Hadrian.
5:20>> Right. Well, that was the leader, but like the Romans in general wouldn't have beards.
5:24>> Culturally they didn't have beards. They were clean-shaven.
5:26>> Interesting.
5:27>> Yeah.
5:27>> Now, that What What's also fascinating about that is when you think of conquering throughout history the conqueror imposes the will of their culture in many cases, not all cases, but in many cases upon the conquered.
5:39They say, "Now well, you're going to get in line with us."
5:41>> things they saw as useful. They would borrow things they saw as useful.
5:44>> They like respected They'd be like, "Ah, we just conquered you, but we really [ __ ] with that. So, we're going to do that now."
5:49>> you pay your taxes, if you give us soldiers, you can continue to be how you are, and we might borrow some things from you.
5:55>> Yeah. They would borrow gods, they would borrow culture.
5:58>> Um like um in the mid-2nd century, there's this teenage emperor named Elagabalus, and he's the priest of a cult called Elagabal, which is in Syria. They worshiped a conical black rock, and he brings it brings that rock into Rome and makes everyone come to a wedding where that rock gets married to a a Roman statue. So, there are a lot of these things that get pulled in through the places that Rome conquered.
6:21>> Does that not eventually create a lack of identity though when you're pulling in so many different >> Eventually, it's going to become part of the problem. And there's a if you can find it at some point, there was a a really good Twitter thread between Elon and a guy named Roman Helmet Guy on X, and they were talking about like the idea Roman Helmet Guy's great if you ever follow him, but um they were talking about this idea of less Romanness. And if you look at it does start to become more of a problem because it's less of a cohesive culture, right? So, the thing that makes Rome rich is eventually going to be part of what
6:56starts to pull it apart is this idea of becoming less Roman.
7:00>> All right, let's talk about that.
7:01>> Yeah.
7:02>> Cuz I think it's a I think this is an amazing moment in history to learn a lesson from something like this as well because to me, not a historian, but you know, it strikes me as a fine example of where equilibrium is ignored, and you go from zero to 100, right? Zero being we are only doing these five sets of things cuz that's what we do, and [ __ ] everybody else, and we're not going to appreciate anything no matter how good or beautiful it may be.
7:29>> Yeah. 100% being just let everything in, whether it's good or bad or whatever, and we'll just take it all, you know?
7:36You want to be in the middle there, where it's like Bruce Lee said, you take the good, you discard the things you're like, "Ah, that's not as good." So, what this is a slow burn, like you said.
7:46>> slow burn.
7:46>> Would you say this something like this in Rome occurred over a 3-400-ish year period?
7:51>> say about that much, and and this gets back to kind of my core thesis, what which is what I call the Roman pattern.
7:57>> Yeah.
7:57>> That civilization to collapse. The first is monetary debasement. Um Romans were at 15,000% inflation by 284 AD.
8:08>> 15,000?
8:09>> 15,000%. Everybody looks at me like that when I say that. Um >> [laughter] >> The other is the the immigration and border management starts to really become a problem where you start to lose your identity. And the third is where politicians start becoming so short-sided. They just care about what gets them power right now.
8:27Those three things are what drives you kind of into a civilizational collapse.
8:31So, this immigration issue is a real part of the problem. And the thing I see with that pattern is you can survive one, but you can't survive all three.
8:40And if you had to look at it this way as a hierarchy, money's the biggest part of it. Cuz if you have strong currency, you can deal with the other two. If you don't have a strong currency, and people identify with a country because of the currency, when you don't have that, that's where your collapse starts to happen.
8:56>> Yeah. And you know what?
8:58There was when when I worked on Wall Street before this, I'd be talking with people about you know, kind of how they get their priorities in life in order. I hated this. I hated that this was true.
9:11>> Mhm.
9:12>> But it was true. I would I would ask people the question, you know, what are the two or three most important things to you in your life? And it would always be, you know, family, health, and like freedom or something like that.
9:24>> Yeah.
9:24>> But specifically with the family and health, those would almost always be the first two. And I'd say it is very sad for me to say this, but it is just reality, and that's what I have to live in in this job. Money pays for both.
9:37Yes. You know, and so when we hear this phrase now when we're talking about voting, this is very common sense if you will when people are presented with a decision of A or B or whatever, people vote where their wallets are.
9:50>> Yes.
9:50>> at that time and then everything socio-culturally >> prices go down before an election, all those sorts of things.
9:55>> Socio-culturally, everything is downstream from that including immigration or something like that.
10:01>> Because you can survive other things if you have a strong currency. And I think Thomas Massie wears this pin that shows the national debt going up in real time.
10:10Yeah.
10:11>> Yeah.
10:11>> And it's to me [snorts] that's the thing I worry about the most right now is how messed up our money is. Because when I look at civilizations and and Ray Dalio was just talking about this on Tucker, if people don't handle their currency, you don't have much of a future because then the people that are there like like talking about immigration, if people are in a place for the things they can get from that place and that place can no longer give them those things, well, what's the reason to identify as that culture?
10:36It [snorts] comes back to money. It really is kind of the the senior the others the other things.
10:40>> Well, money the problem with the policy is that the people making it are people who are here for a finite term just like you know, or well, we don't know exactly what it is, but they're here and they're going to die one day they're going to be out of power one day and they're going to hold on to power for as much as they want.
10:57And so the story over time of human nature is that they kick the can down the road to the next guy because that's the person I'll have to worry about or whatever. And you can look at something like FDR takes over with in the Great Depression and is handed this worst [ __ ] sandwich of all time and he's doing whatever he can to try to fix the problem and in doing so invents some things that eventually weren't going to be able to pay for themselves, but >> and Wilson FDR and Wilson are two key moments in American history.
11:23>> they're not they're not talked about enough.
11:25>> Yeah.
11:26>> Because there was an article from Time magazine that came out um I I like three or four years ago and it was like is Donald Trump Julius Caesar? And it's kind of like it to me that's comical.
11:36Like I can't see Trump leading an army with the big hair and everything like that, but like the I people like to compare current politicians to people that are very polarizing in history for I guess whatever effect it's going to create. But if you really want to look at the clicks, but if you want to look at it you could see Wilson really more as your your Caesar character, and you could see a you could see um FDR more like your Augustus because >> All right, let's play with that.
12:02>> Wilson really does and once again, they're not direct foils to each other, but it's the idea of Wilson ends the previous thing and FDR creates the new thing, right? Like because 1913 is a very pivotal year in American history. This is this is something I talk about a lot. There's three things that happened that year. Income [snorts] tax, the Federal Reserve >> Mhm.
12:23>> which passes over the Christmas break um when nobody's around to vote for it and is created on Jekyll Island by the the Warburgs, the uh Rothschilds, and whoever else you want to throw in there. I just did a video on this. And um so there there >> news cycles.
12:37>> Oh, they love news cycles. Yeah, so that there's that and there's also the one people don't talk about enough, and that's the 17th Amendment. So the 17th Amendment made it so that state legislatures no longer selected senators because the reason that our cong or the House and the Senate are set up the way they are is the House is represent the people and the Senate was to represent the will of the states.
12:59>> Oh, no one talks about this.
13:00>> Nobody talks about this, right? Now if you guys remember during COVID when they were going on on about a lot of the mandates and things like that, for a congressperson in a joint session to get to speak, they have to have a senator speak for them.
13:12So the senator speaks first and then the congressperson lets me This is if they have if they have a joint session.
13:16>> Yeah.
13:17>> So if the House and the Senate are voted for the exact same way, it's all popular vote now. And if you remember during that time period, state legislatures weren't happy with a lot of mandates and things happening, but the Senate is voted for by popular vote.
13:31So, the states actually lose their voice, and it all becomes basically no longer a republic, but just a straight democracy. And that was one of the really important key things to our system that changed after the 17th Amendment.
13:43>> [snorts] >> So, >> back to that last part and just qualify that about the states losing their voice?
13:48>> Yeah.
13:48>> Straight plate on that for me.
13:49>> So, state legislatures would basically select senators. Now, the thing I will say is they were trying to handle a problem. Because of corruption, the governor might say, "Hey, my brother-in-law, great senator.
14:00He could get the job." So, they are trying to handle That is a problem, right? People shouldn't just be thrown in there because that's nepotism or they know somebody.
14:07But what would happen is now, if people are are selecting, meaning the people are selecting the Senate, and now the state legislatures aren't, well, now the state legislatures don't have a combined group that represents them.
14:21So, you just have the House and the Senate that do pretty much the same thing, functionally and how they're put together. So, you have the states start to lose a voice, and it just becomes by popular vote. So, then, your highest population centers start to push the country in the direction it's going. So, that's why California has so much push, and New York state has so much push.
14:41Um because they have the highest population centers. And that's why our our government was set up the way it was was so that the small states, like Delaware or something like that, would still have as much of a voice as a state like California, because they're a member of the country.
14:55>> Okay, this is really fascinating. So, >> about enough.
14:58>> So, effectively, ironically, the people, we the people, wouldn't have had the power to decide who the senators were before the 17th, but the people that we elected at the lower level >> Correct.
15:12>> do and can therefore then decide that, but the irony of taking the power out of the hands of the people in the back room and putting in the in the hands of the people on Main Street is that the populism can take over for the worse sometimes, you're saying?
15:30>> Yeah, because democracies can and once again, I'm not saying a democracy is a bad thing, but they can become tyrannical in a lot of ways, right?
15:37Because you promise of people a bunch of things you're probably not going to do any of them. And that's how people get elected, right? They get elected by whatever passionate things are coming out at that time.
15:45>> Yeah, release the Epstein files. Oh, yeah, that's right. We're not going to do that.
15:48>> We're not going to do that. There might be people in there like uh who was it?
15:51The Treasury Secretary was apparently in there, Howard Lutnick. So >> Howard Lutnick, Larry Summers, Leslie Wexner. I mean, you all it's a who's who.
16:01>> But that basically becomes the problem now is the purpose of the Senate was for states to have equal voice. Delaware or New Jersey would have just as much voice as California or New York. That isn't really the case now. It's population centers.
16:15And that's why um Tim Pool's talked about this a lot with immigration.
16:20The thing that people aren't considering is under Obama, the law changed by you could as if you're an illegal and you're here and you're entering the Senate or the [snorts] the census, you could get deported. Like there were issues around that. That law changes under Obama, where now the census can be filled up by anyone.
16:37The Congress representation is picked by the number of people in that state, not this not the citizens, just the number of people. So you have states like California that have maybe five or seven seats they shouldn't have because the number of people there in the state doesn't mean they're citizens.
16:50>> Ironically, the same guy who was the deporter-in-chief.
16:53>> Right. So what starts to happen is this idea of democracy can start to become tyrannical in a lot of ways if you just start kind of I guess setting the game up in a way that it's going to benefit you. Do you know what I'm saying? So that's what was important about the idea of having a republic is you would vote for people that represent you and the state voted for people that would represent them because states should have they have interstate commerce, they have other things that matter to them.
17:19That the people might not care about or might not know as much about and it doesn't matter as much. Do you know what I'm saying?
17:24>> Yes, I do.
17:24>> So that so it ends up saying that the the state doesn't have a voice. Like people might not care about trade, but I can tell you right now, you know, a small state like you know, Illinois or another state like Idaho or something like that. Idaho is a much smaller population state would care.
17:40But for sure.
17:41>> It's going to be different based on the people that live there or the the representatives that are shoved in because of population size changes.
17:48>> All right. Before I ask some questions before [laughter] I ask some questions on this, Dave, can you pull up German how the guy is the man just so that we're operating on on the wavelength here. Can you pull up definition of republic?
18:00Let's literally read what the definition is.
18:03>> And I think it's Plato that has kind of like the >> definition of democracy.
18:07>> And if you can find it after this, Plato has kind of a life cycle of how the the life cycle of government and how like one degrades into another.
18:14>> All right. So we'll we'll go to that but let's start [clears throat] with republic.
18:18>> Yeah.
18:18>> Okay. A state in which supreme power power is held by the people and their elected representatives and which has an elected or nominated president rather than a monarch. That's a republic. Okay.
18:31Now let's do democracy.
18:33A system of government by the whole population or all the eligible members of a state typically through elected representatives. Go back to republic real quick, Dave.
18:42>> There's not a ton of differentiation between them.
18:44>> Yes. It it what it feels like the way they write it is tomato tomato.
18:48>> It's a very small differentiation, but it matters for representation.
18:52>> But effectively at the purest form, America being a blend of the two >> Correct. And that's what our founding fathers are looking like. We're supposed to be not a straight republic. We're not a straight democracy.
19:06But [snorts] in some ways they looked at cuz if you look at why an executive or the president was chosen, well, when the time had happened, he had to be able to speak to monarchs. So, it was important to have somebody that was elevated above others.
19:19So, we have kind of parts of each system. We have parts of monarchy, parts of republicanism, and parts of democracy. They kind of took the best parts of each.
19:27>> But, the presidency is elected, and it's not it's not hereditary lines, and eventually it had term limits. So, it's >> Unless you're a Bush, then maybe or something like that.
19:35>> [laughter] >> You're right. All right, so now let's do Plato government what you pulled up.
19:40>> So, Plato's government life cycle Can you go back?
19:44Plato's government life cycle detailed in the Republic is a theory of political degeneration where states, like human souls, decline from the from their ideal to the worst form moving through five stages: aristocracy, timocracy, oligarchy, democracy, and tyranny. So, the cycle of degeneration: aristocracy, rule of the best, the ideal state governed by the ideal state governed by philosopher kings guided by reason, wisdom, and justice.
20:11Timocracy, rule of honor, degenerates when education fails and warrior rulers, auxiliaries, pri- prioritize ambition, competition, and military honor over wisdom.
20:23Three, oligarchy, rule of the few, arises as rulers become obsessed with wealth creating a divide where the rich rule and the poor are oppressed. That sounds familiar. Four, democracy, rule of the people, the poor overthrow the wealthy oligarchy bringing excessive freedom and equality leading to chaos and lack of discipline. Five, tyranny, rule of the despot, emerges from the chaos of democracy when the leader promising to protect the people seizes absolute power becoming a tyrant who rules with fear. Okay, this is really interesting. [laughter] There's two There's two thoughts >> ever had anybody bring up Plato's life
20:58cycle before?
20:58>> No, this is [ __ ] great. [laughter] There's two thoughts I have here right away. Number five is a perfect example of what follows three and four with the French Revolution. Most perfect example that I can think of off the top of my head, but there's plenty of others like >> writing way before that.
21:12>> Number three, we are at number in between number three and four, right now.
21:16>> with that.
21:16>> Because and and and that's that's the thing. Because if you look at >> Congress people and the amount of wealth they get in Congress and the amount of >> even care.
21:26>> Epstein filing this they get in Congress and things like that.
21:29>> the con the congressional trade >> going to tell you because they'd have to put out their own dirty laundry.
21:33>> Nancy Pelosi's worth $120 million. It's horrible. She should be thrown out.
21:37She's a better investor than Warren Buffett. She's a better It's horrible.
21:40It Whatever. Nancy Pelosi's worth the ashtray money of Jeff Bezos, Mark Zuckerberg, Elon Musk, all these big people. We have created a system It doesn't mean every person in in in there is bad, but where there is a lot of rot where the people who actually decide things are where the money talks and they have an inordinate amount of wealth.
22:02>> Correct.
22:03>> I'm [clears throat] not a socialist. I'm not saying they should >> They're for me. Tax the 99%. That's that's not how it works.
22:08>> But we have seen people who have been who have in some cases perfectly earned without generational wealth, self-made, incredible wealth through doing great things who cross over this Rubicon and become this other thing and there is no greater example of where the evil of that comes in than what we are seeing in these Epstein files. These people who whether they're from new money or old money decide where better than everyone else. We are above you. It's not just the fact that my bank account says xxxxx, it's also the fact that therefore I am genetically a specimen that you're not and I can only talk with people who
22:48are in this type of crew and by the way, you know, if they're out here like [ __ ] kids and stuff like that, don't worry, we'll ignore that.
22:55>> Yeah.
22:56Well, that and that and that's the problem, right? Is if you look at it, we are kind of far along in this life cycle.
23:02>> [snorts] >> And I think you you have to wonder, are we at a point where we can come back from that or can we come back from that?
23:07And I think part [snorts] of the issue is you have to fix currency. But the other part is like and and this isn't saying I'm like, you know, we have to be the most upstanding moral society, but we need some sort of moral reform. It's a little bit ridiculous.
23:20>> mean moral reform?
23:21>> Well, you shouldn't have pedophiles in political positions and things like that.
23:26>> Oh, you mean like the most base level?
23:27>> mean the most I mean the most base level, right? Like if we have classified files that are protecting people and the thing you have to consider is they're going to vote based on how good it is for them, right? And that and that's >> [snorts] >> wasn't exactly this, but if you look at late stage Rome, they're going to go with whoever's going to give them the most power, whoever's not going to get them in trouble, who's not going to get them killed.
23:49>> That's right.
23:49>> And that that the will of the people is gone when that happens. And that's what you have to really consider because they're looking at what's best for them and what can keep this game going.
23:58So, this is this is where mm at moments like this, the one we're sitting in right now with the disgusting stuff we're seeing come out every day with this Epstein story in particularly and the social, cultural, and geopolitical implications of it. It gets deeper and deeper the more we see.
24:19Obviously, a term like nuance on something like that doesn't exist.
24:23There's no nuance about some [ __ ] pedophile elite being protected.
24:28The aftermath and the results of what we as a society do to fix a problem like this is where the word nuance comes in. And this is the part that, you know, I really try to pull people back to like, "Hey, let's not fight each other. Let's let's coalesce, regardless of what our political beliefs are, around one really common thing, which is like [ __ ] these people, right?" What you don't want to happen >> [snorts] >> is if, let's say, we move this fight from horizontal where all the left and right I watch all these people fight each other all the time now decide >> too. All go vertical >> Mhm.
25:06>> and realize wait a minute this is a very small few who are just trying to decide our lives and playing with us like chess pieces on a board like pawns on a board and [ __ ] those people let's get them out. Great. I'm with that like by all means.
25:22>> But then you you get to your your last thing there you can bring in Tyra.
25:25>> That's what I'm talking about.
25:27It's fun to say burn it all down.
25:29>> Well like >> Get rid of everything. Just hear me out on this point cuz I want you to respond to this.
25:33>> Okay.
25:34>> It's fun to say that. It's fun to say get rid of every institution. It's all rotted to the core. Get rid of every three letter agency. Get rid of every piece of government. Make every single person resign.
25:46You have to think about being tactical about let's get rid of the individuals and the groups within some of these different places that are clearly rotten to the core while also maintaining some semblance of a body that exists of what it was supposed to be when this thing was built so that we can rebuild it for the better instead of having a public square where [ __ ] you know the French say you know what we're just going to kill everyone no matter what no trial.
26:15You see what I'm saying?
26:16>> No it's very reactionary.
26:17>> Yes there has to be a >> [sighs] >> All right let's get this right now.
26:22>> Well it's very reactionary right and if you if you look at it's one of the major problems that Rome had because Rome didn't have a written constitution. They had what was called the mos maiorum or the ways of the ancestors. So like >> Mos maiorum?
26:32>> It's the ways of the ancestors. So this is how we done it this is how we're always going to do it. Now the problem was if a crisis came up that constitution would change and the way things do we do things would change.
26:41So I think this is a problem throughout history and I don't think anybody's actually found a solution is the real problem. So now we have a constitution that is well written some of the amendments like I mentioned the 17th Amendment is a problem, but then there's even Supreme Court decisions like the one that allowed political [snorts] action committees and and super political action committees. It's not supposed to be that way where you just have the most money you can buy a politician and that's what political action committees do. So, there are a lot of things that have been added in that break the system. I think really if
27:12we get back to constitutional government the way it was written and the way it's supposed to function and remove a few things like get rid of the income tax amendment, get rid of the 17th Amendment, um get rid of the Federal Reserve Act.
27:25If you got rid of some of these things you could get back to more of how things function, but they're very ingrained in the system, right? So, I think that is a real problem.
27:33>> Um we're going to bridge back and forth >> sorry.
27:35>> between No, this is nothing to apologize for. I I have you on it right now. I'm saying we're going to bridge between modern day and Rome because there are some interesting parallels here we can go to. So, I want to go back to Rome for a second because maybe this can help me better understand exactly where we stand maybe financially right now.
27:55You mentioned that they they got up to a 15,000% inflation.
28:00>> Yeah.
28:01>> So, let's start at the bare bones. You talked about the coins earlier, you talked about the monetary system. Can you break down how once the emperor period came into play in Rome, how their monetary system worked and what the slow [clears throat] road to getting to 15,000 inflate percent inflation looked like.
28:17>> Okay, good. So, this might take me like 25 minutes. So, stop me >> If I go too long >> So, whatever you want.
28:22>> the thing to understand as I mentioned Commodus is killed in 192 and then there's five emperors that year. The last of the five is a guy named Septimius Severus. Um he's from North Africa. So, he wouldn't have been black, but he wouldn't have been like darker skinned, like more Semitic looking. Um and the thing that he does that's different is he's a military commander.
28:44>> [snorts] >> And so, him, the army behind him is going to be very important. So he basically comes in, takes over Rome, uh kicks out I think is it Didius Julianus at that point? I can't remember which emperor is at that that point.
28:55>> Didius.
28:56>> Great name. But um well cuz that year is kind of a rough year. You have Pertinax who basically the Praetorian Guard auction off the Roman Empire to him. So he basically becomes emperor because he has the most money, he pays the guard, he's the next emperor.
29:10>> Wow.
29:10>> Then you're going to have Didius Julianus not too far after him.
29:13And uh Didius Julianus >> Didius Julianus >> is executed and then Severus kind of comes in and says, "All right, well I'm bringing order back." But he does it with the military.
29:22And what Severus does It's a great name by the way, Didius Julianus. But um what what he does is he first of all disbands the Praetorian Guard and creates a new Praetorian Guard from only his loyal [clears throat] men. So that's the first thing he does. The Praetorian Guard were responsible for protecting emperors, but they also killed somewhere between 17 and 20 of them if they didn't approve of them.
29:44So they're a kind of a a power behind the power if you want to look at them that way. So now what Severus does is when an emperor took power, there would be what's called a donative. So that comes from the Latin word do da- do dare or to give.
29:58And he would give them this giant gift when he became emperor, this donative.
30:01So he gives the largest donative ever to the Roman military.
30:05>> Mhm.
30:06>> The next thing he does is he doubles legionary pay and he doubles the size of the military.
30:10So this is going to be something that emperors after him are going to take that pattern and apply it when they become emperor. Bigger donative than the previous emperor, double pay, enlarge the legions. Now what's going to happen is these coins that they have are in the first century in the time of Augustus, they're 95% pure.
30:30By the time you get to the 270s under Aurelian, they're 5% pure. They're mostly bronze.
30:35Because they would take other base metals and add them to the coins.
30:39So like um Um, this coin here Oh, it's over here. This is an almost totally bronze coin.
30:47This is a a mid-3rd century coin. It's almost totally bronze.
30:50There is no silver in it. Whereas that one you have over there, that's got a high silver content because they start to reform the currency again.
30:56>> This is beautiful and this is [ __ ] >> And people are going to recognize that when they're holding a coin, right?
31:02>> Yeah.
31:02>> So, they're going to start debasing this money over the next 200 years. And they add in copper, they add in other things where the silver content goes down and down and down.
31:14So, then people aren't going to be accepting that money, right? So, prices are going to start to rise because, well, your one coin, I now want five coins for that.
31:23So, the denarius itself, the coin that they used, is going to be now seen as less valuable. And this is a process that's going to continue through the 3rd century because the 3rd century there is a phenomenon known as barrack emperors, meaning military barracks. They take the pattern that Severus did.
31:40Conquer Rome by force, declare myself emperor, >> Mhm.
31:43>> and pay the military really well.
31:45238 to 285 or 284 is what's called the crisis of the 3rd century. In this period, there's around 26 different guys that claim to be emperor. And they're going to use that same pattern of I'm emperor because I have a military behind me and I'm going to attack everybody else. So, the empire itself starts to fall apart. The Western Empire is going to break off and become what's called the Gallic Empire under a guy named Postumus.
32:10The Eastern Empire is going to break off and become called Palmyra, um, under a guy named Odaenathus. I think I actually, uh, quote tweeted you on this one. And his he's going to die and his wife Zenobia is now going to rule, um, the eastern part of the empire for a good 10 to 20 years.
32:27>> [snorts] >> So, the emperors are fighting themselves, it's falling apart, and then you have barbarians that start to come in from the north.
32:33So, it's a really not great time in the 3rd century to be a Roman. Your money's getting destroyed, your empire's falling apart, and then in the 270s, you have a guy named Aurelian, reconquers the West, reconquers the East, fixes the money, and he's >> he fix the money?
32:48>> He brings it back to a higher silver content, and he's assassinated for his troubles.
32:52>> Okay, >> [laughter] >> all right, before that.
32:56Let me back up 1 second to understand.
32:58>> Mhm.
32:59>> Today, if you go to the average person on the street and, you know, you say, "Can you define inflation for me?"
33:07>> So, that's the problem. People don't know it.
33:09>> may not they they may not really know what to say.
33:12>> Mhm.
33:12>> But, if you say to them, "Are eggs more expensive than they were 2 years ago? How's your grocery bill looking? What does gas seem like to you?
33:21Does it feel like you're behind on your bills even though you're making more money technically on salary than you did a couple years?" They can answer these questions, meaning they can feel it. So, my question is, in a more primitive time where we're not all interconnected, you can't talk to people on the internet, you can't compare things and data and all this stuff, were people in the 2nd century and 3rd century feeling it and talking about it, and do we have a record of like, you know, the people themselves being like, "Yo, I can't pay my bills."?
33:50>> So, that's the problem once again is we don't have a record of regular people.
33:53We have records of the of the people that were literate and the people that had money, and this is one of the things that ancient historians talk about a lot. We can surmise what was happening, but we don't know a ton about what regular people were thinking. thing [snorts] you have to consider is they would see the color of their coins changing, right? The weight of their coins changing. So, to them, it's going to be very physical, and I think when you look at inflation modernly, it's very abstract to us, right? If I handed you a coin that was different than what you're using, well, you'd be shocked.
34:23But now, it's ones and zeros in a computer, and the Federal Reserve likes to have great words for them, or like quantitative easing. Quantitative easing means we made a bigger quantity of money. There's more of it. So, prices for the most part stay constant. It's the value of the dollar that changes.
34:38And as the value of the dollar goes down, well, your prices are perceived to go up.
34:43>> It's unlegislated taxation.
34:46>> taxation. And that's the really difficult part of it. It's with the Federal Reserve playing with interest rates and things like that. And then just printing more money. There's um When you look at the money supply, there's different numbers for for when they were printed. So, there's like M1 and I think M2 money supply that are currently in circulation.
35:03>> [snorts] >> 80% of all M2 money supply dollars were printed after 2020.
35:08So, that's shows you how much inflation's gone crazy. And a lot of that is, you know, the the loans that were given out from the government that were forgiven and things like that. So, it's your your money is rapidly becoming worth nothing. And that's a really, really dangerous thing. But, for most people, it's not a physical coin they're paying with things in. So, they aren't seeing the weight change. They aren't seeing the color change. They aren't seeing the size change. And as well, I think I have another one here like that, too. There is Let me see here.
35:37Might be the one I already have.
35:38>> Yeah, I like this bag of goodies.
35:40>> Uh yes, once again, shout out to Kinser Coins, Dean Kinser. He is the man. He just sends me these. So, if you notice on this one, >> Send me some, Kinser. Let's go, baby.
35:47>> Love it. What The ones in plastic he actually gave me for you. So, but so that >> Oh, really? Thank you. That's awesome.
35:53>> on the edge, you know how it's not it's not like cut well? It's like kind of like cut on angle.
35:57>> Yes.
35:58>> So, when Romans made coins, they used a mold that's called a die. And they would take it, hit it with a hammer, and they would make the coin that way. When a die is wearing out, it would stop cutting a sharp coin. So, if you got a coin like that, you would know a lot of coins are made that year because the die is no longer sharp. Do you see how it is on the edge? How it like bleeds over?
36:16>> Yes.
36:18>> So, we don't know what regular people thought, but you can surmise that the weight, color, and shape of their coins are changing. They know. And if you look at the modern quarter, you know how it has etching on the edges?
36:31Like how it's not how it's not smooth, it's rough.
36:33>> it.
36:33>> That's because they want you to be able to see that that coin wasn't clipped.
36:37They want you to see this is what the edge of the coin should look like.
36:40Because they would actually physically take pieces of the coins off to make them smaller, make them weigh less.
36:45So, it would have been very real and physical, but to us it's just you go to the grocery store and your eggs are seven bucks now.
36:52It's it's very different and it's actually for that reason it's a bit more evil if that makes sense.
36:58>> It is a bit more evil.
36:59>> very covert.
37:00>> Yes.
37:01Yeah, and and they they tell you they're helping you. They tell you oh, well, we're doing this I'll make one up so we can keep interest rates on your mortgage lower whatever. Yeah, but how are you doing that?
37:13>> Yeah.
37:13>> You're doing it by making money worth less.
37:16>> Correct.
37:16>> You know, and uh there is a reality like I don't want to call it the zero-sum game to make it really cold, but like yeah, there's going to be winners and losers in an economy. Where I run into a problem is when the game gets rigged such that there's only a few winners and people lose without doing anything wrong on their own devices, which >> Correct. They might be working hard.
37:41They might be doing all the right things, but now their dollar is shrinking.
37:44>> Like the fact that I mean, obviously like part of it is in in running a business and you want Thank you. In in running a business like obviously you bring in revenues and then you got to spend a lot cuz you got to pay roll, you got rents, you got overhead and all that. But like the fact that I can't afford to get a house like at this point >> Mhm.
38:06>> if you would have told me that six years ago when I started this, hey, this is where you're going to be at. This is where your revenues are at least going to be. We can talk about profits later because that'll be like eventually you can decide what that's going to be.
38:18Hopefully I get to that point. But you're not going to be able to buy a house.
38:21>> Well, that's one of the reasons I live where I live.
38:23>> [ __ ] >> Like, living in northern New Jersey, like land is cheap where I live, right?
38:26So, it's like >> Over where you are.
38:28>> Right. Down here, it's not because there's not a lot of it. Like, I have 5 acres. So, it's like you can get that up there.
38:33>> Yeah. [snorts] >> And we were looking specifically at certain towns because the taxes in our town are affordable. The town next to it, it was like $20,000 a year in taxes.
38:42>> Yep.
38:42>> So, these are things to really consider where regular people can't deal with that. I'm not going to buy a house where I'm throwing away $20,000 a year.
38:49>> It's nuts.
38:49>> It's nuts.
38:50>> It's nuts, and it's like I I had I was doing some content for my buddy Nico, who's a real estate agent, and my friend Arab, the YouTuber, that's his name on YouTube, just happened to be here. He's like, "Hey, I'm going to come over and hang out." I'm like, "Great. We're just doing this random content."
39:04>> Yeah.
39:04>> So, Nico's like going through like his whole philosophy as a mortgage agent, and Arab's like, "You know, mortgage means like, what was it? Death uh death toll, or something like that."
39:14He's like, "It's French. Look it up."
39:16>> [laughter] >> And and Nico's like, "Yeah, no, but it's useful in this way."
39:20He's like, "Yeah, but look, it means like death toll." And you start to think about this stuff, and you're like, >> Mhm.
39:25>> Well, even the Trump touting the idea of doing a 50-year mortgage, that's terrifying. A 50-year mortgage?
39:31>> 50-year mortgage is nuts.
39:31>> It's like a student loan. You pay till you die.
39:33>> That's what I'm saying. It's it's like Again, he's >> Death pledge.
39:39>> Death pledge. That's that's what it >> And if you look at the late Roman Empire, you know, what starts to happen is in 284, Diocletian, who you mentioned earlier, uh would've been a great kid name. Um he does these reforms in the empire to try and fix a lot of these things that are happening. He does a a monetary reform, which doesn't do real well cuz people really don't trust the coins, and they're hoarding gold. He fixes prices because he said, "Okay, we're going to have the Edict of Maximum Price. We're going to try and make it so people will only charge so much in the market because people were charging to
40:07actually get what something should cost."
40:08>> Is that something >> It's kind of like in health care, where a doctor is charging whatever insurance is going to, you know, give him back.
40:13>> Or like almost like in a different way, like a tariff kind of deal.
40:17>> In in a way. And then one of the other things he does as well is he takes people and sets them in their uh their profession. If your father was a farmer, you were now farmer.
40:26>> Oh, that's [ __ ] >> So, you start to see kind of this, you know, a lot of medievalists fight me on this, but you start to see kind of the establishment of the early medieval world after Diocletian. And if you look at what's happening now, you know, we're not exactly locked in our career and things like that, but you are starting to see a bit of serfdom as we're kind of moving into that, you know, and you're starting to see people locked in paying for things. Maybe they can't change careers because if they do, they can't afford that student loan or they can't afford that mortgage. So, you do see a little bit less social mobility
40:59um and and a bit of being a Russian serf in a lot of ways, you know.
41:02>> It's worse than that.
41:03>> Yeah.
41:04>> They're making financial decisions on being able to have a kid or not.
41:07>> Correct.
41:07>> It's anti-evolutionary.
41:09>> Mhm.
41:09>> Yeah, I know. I'm not blaming people at all. It Everything's so [ __ ] expensive.
41:13>> Yeah.
41:13>> It's like you are now calling reproduction a financial decision.
41:19>> Mhm.
41:20>> Cuz of where we got I mean it's very scary and I agree with you. The empirical data points to printing money.
41:28>> Yeah.
41:29>> And things that are done without any say from the people. That's democracy, republic, whatever you want to call it.
41:35>> Mhm.
41:36>> Right? Or as it should be, the combination of both.
41:39>> A civilization is as strong as the money that it mints.
41:42>> Yeah.
41:42>> And when you don't have strong money and it's not backed by anything, you can do whatever you want with it.
41:46>> Now, I cut you off at what the guy that tried to fix it and then they would not Diocletian, the other one, the one that they whacked.
41:52>> Aurelian?
41:52>> Yeah, what happened there?
41:54>> So, he uh reconquers the Gallic Empire.
41:57He reconquers Palmyra.
41:59>> What year?
41:59>> This is 274 when he dies.
42:01>> Okay.
42:01>> And um he strengthens the borders a bit. He >> How does he do that?
42:07>> He kind of makes new agreements with a lot of barbarians in the borders. Um I don't know as much about the border part of this, but then um >> So, like the border patrol back then?
42:14>> Yeah, he kind of he strengthens how the borders are functioning.
42:17>> So, he's kind of a beard like you shall not pass.
42:19>> Because you start to have you start to have and this is more towards the time of Constantine, which is like 50 years after this. He creates what's called the foederati. And the foederati are basically you're allowed to be part of your tribe, but you fight for Rome and you can live within the empire on the borders of the empire. This is kind of an early precursor to that and it gets stronger to Diocletian, but the foederati actually comes about under Constantine.
42:43>> Okay.
42:43>> And um he also mints new silver coins with a higher purity and he's killed by his secretary.
42:52This is but this is one of the problems that Roman emperors were having.
42:54>> What did the secretary What did secretary do?
42:56>> Kill him. He I don't know how he killed him. But he was killed.
43:01>> I I don't know how he was killed.
43:03>> Interesting.
43:04So, the secretary was like, "I don't like what you're doing. You're out."
43:07>> Secretary doesn't live long after that, so the senate says, "We need a new emperor." So, they pick an elderly man named Tacitus who's related to the Roman historian Tacitus that wrote long before this because they're like, "We just need somebody that's got senate support."
43:20>> Okay.
43:21>> even want to be emperor.
43:22>> Here we go. Roman Emperor Aurelian was assassinated in September 275 AD near I ain't going to try to say that, whatever that is, in Thrace while preparing to campaign against the Sassinid Persians. His senior officers and members of the Praetorian Guard led by a secretary named Eros murdered him after being misled by forged documents into believing they were marked for execution. The conspiracy the plot was triggered by a forged list created by Aurelian's secretary, often named Eros, who feared punishment for his own corrupt actions and fabricated a list of names of officials supposedly marked for
43:58death by the emperor. Who he was going to kill. That's interesting. He marked himself for death. Officers fearing for their lives due to the forge list took preempt Oh, I get it. Took preemptive action. The act was also fueled by discontent among military leaders regarding Aurelian's strict, harsh disciplinary measures against corruption. Okay, so they some of the leadership of the military was was on the list and they're like, "Oh, [ __ ] So, let's just kill the guy cuz he's >> Well, cuz that was something that would happen. They had two different processes. One was called proscription, uh and that's going to come about way
44:31earlier during the Roman Republic during the late Roman Republic from a guy named Sulla. Sulla of the first ones to really do this.
44:37Proscription was you'd put names on a list, those people could be killed, and then if you were the one that brought their head to the forum, well, you could get their stuff and their titles and everything else. So, proscription is one process.
44:47And the other is a word that we use a lot, but we don't use it for its correct meaning, and that's decimation. And that's the idea of killing every 10th man.
44:53>> Mhm.
44:54>> And the ones that did the killing then had to sit outside of the camp and eat barley cuz barley gave you gas.
44:59>> W- [snorts] what?
44:59>> Yeah.
45:01>> Why'd they have to do that?
45:03>> It was a punishment to have gas from barley.
45:06>> That's it?
45:06>> That's >> Well, they would they would kill every 10th man, the one and then the ones that did it would then sit outside of the camp and eat barley.
45:12That was what their part of their punishment.
45:15>> Okay.
45:17So, this guy was trying to fix the money and then he gets killed in something that seems to be unrelated.
45:21>> Correct.
45:22>> Which >> We don't know. Could have been related.
45:24>> Maybe it was.
45:25>> Could have been part of the the powers that be not being happy with what was happening.
45:29>> How did they have By the way, I you might have started to say this when you were explaining the coin and system, but how did they do like wasn't the same thing, but from like a central banking perspective?
45:40>> They didn't really have that. They didn't really have central banking as a thing. That's more of a >> So, how did they >> European >> it? How could they measure inflation if they didn't have like a central place that was like counting the >> It would be like weights and measures, right? Like does this coin weigh enough, you know, what's the silver content of this coin, and things like that.
45:57>> So, >> could see that, they could see the value in something. So, if you had like So, like the two coins I gave you, if you saw one that's shinier, well you're going to know that has more value because it's likely got a higher silver content. You're going to weigh it and [snorts] then you're going to see that, okay, it weighs enough. If it's darker and it's smaller and it doesn't weigh as much, well there's something wrong here, right?
46:16>> Okay, so >> And and people be weighing their coins when they're when they're basically taking them.
46:19>> Here's a better question I should have asked it. How did they arrive at the 15,000% number empirically?
46:25>> That's a modern number that we kind of look at the graph over time and we say based on what the value of it was, this is about where they were. It's not something that Romans would have been moderating looking at. It's something modernly we look at it and we say, well based on what the value of it was from the time it was minted, you know, in the early 1st century to the time that we're looking at Diocletian in the 280s, it's about 15,000%.
46:47>> Okay.
46:47>> It's not Romans are like, "Oh my gosh, we're 15,000% inflation." They're just looking at, well my coin doesn't weigh as much, it doesn't have as much silver, I now need 10 of them to buy something.
46:57This is a problem. And that's going to drive prices to skyrocket. It's going to fuel a black market. And when Diocletian does price fixing, one of the things that ends up happening is people start bartering again because they don't even want the coins. So it is a real problem of people realizing these coins aren't worth anything.
47:14>> Mhm.
47:15Now so Aurelian killed around 275.
47:19>> 274.
47:20>> 274.
47:21>> He rule he he rules for about 5 years, dies in in 274.
47:25>> And then who takes over for him again?
47:27>> Tacitus. He's not going to be an emperor for very long.
47:31>> He totally takes away all the monetary reforms.
47:34>> of smaller emperors until Diocletian who's going to be ruling for from 284 to 305, so a little over 20 years.
47:41>> And then it's Constantine?
47:42>> Constantine is in 311 is when he wins the Battle of Milvian Bridge and he's going to be emperor in I think 336 or 33337 when he dies.
47:52>> at Milvian Bridge again?
47:53>> So Milvian Bridge is kind of where he has this Christian conversion. He sees the chi and the rho, the two Greek letters that stand for Christ in the sky and he sees this this hears this phrase under this sign you will conquer.
48:06>> [snorts] >> So he has his soldiers put this sign on their shields and he goes against um because basically what he's trying to do is be the emperor ruling all of the empire again because there had been Diocletian so I guess to go backwards cuz once again you have to understand some stuff. Diocletian creates this system called the tetrarchy or rule by four. Two senior emperors, two junior emperors. So now we have four emperors.
48:29What Constantine wants to do is kind of be the only guy in charge. So it's down to just two emperors at point, him and a guy named Maxentius. So [snorts] if he beats Maxentius, well now he's the guy in charge of everything again. He wants to be the one emperor to kind of rule everything.
48:44So at this Battle of Milvian Bridge after seeing under this sign you will conquer he beats Maxentius.
48:51And then in 313, the Edict of Milan, he makes Christianity >> legal cuz Christianity had been practiced and unless times were bad it was permitted. All right, let's dig into this history a little bit because you mentioned earlier the different times where there were Christian persecutions. You mentioned the one What was the one in 250 again?
49:08>> 250 was under Decius.
49:10>> Okay. So >> So this I have a place here with one of his coins.
49:13>> This guy Jesus Christ exists within the Roman Empire down in the Holy Land.
49:20He's killed and then >> not 270s.
49:24>> Okay.
49:26And look at that. Yeah, that one's hard too.
49:29So Jesus dies in roughly 33 AD.
49:33>> Which may have been off by a few years because the English monks that put the dating together >> Give or take.
49:38>> made it on their math wrong.
49:39>> So in that area, 30 to 40 AD he does.
49:42And the empire obviously continues on.
49:45He's also it's so interesting when you look at when his life was and all the stuff that was going on outside of Land at that time. The Battle of Actium, all this stuff is happening.
49:54>> No.
49:55>> That Battle of Actium is 31, right?
49:56>> BC.
49:58>> Oh, that's BC.
49:59>> BC.
49:59>> Oh, [ __ ] Sorry.
50:01>> BC.
50:01>> still a lot going on in that >> This would have been during the time period of the second emperor.
50:06>> Who was?
50:07>> Tiberius.
50:08>> Tiberius, okay. So, you have Rome massively expanding though in a relatively new what's now termed empire and then in the midst of this empire you have the Holy Land where you >> They would have called it a principate.
50:18They wouldn't have like called it an >> Okay. You have this guy Jesus who lives and then dies and then his story is written down over the next century by a bunch of people. It starts to get passed around underground. You were defining earlier what Roman religion looked like. It was a bunch of different gods that would be termed now like pagan gods. And the Christians were like an underground viewed as like an underground kind of cult, but eventually it grew to if I'm remembering correctly correct me if I'm wrong.
50:50It's like 20 20 to 25% of the empire by the time of Constantine was >> It's more to like 2 to 5% by the >> 2 to 5%?
50:59>> So, it wasn't really a it wasn't really a major like known religion at that point in time.
51:04>> Right. It was in there somewhere. 25 2 to 5 >> And Romans didn't quite understand the difference between Judaism and Christianity. It was a little confusing to them. So, there's um if you look at um I think around the year like around the year 80 AD. So, somewhere around there.
51:23Um Vespasian who's actually the emperor that builds um the amp the uh Flavian Amphitheater which is what we call the Colosseum.
51:32>> Mhm.
51:32>> Um It's a little bit before that cuz he dies in I think around 78 or something like that. But anyway, he's writing to Pliny Pliny the Elder is writing writing to him. And he's describing these early Christians and he's kind of confused by how to explain it. Well, they're they're not Jews, but they are Jews. And um they eat some guy's body like the the the letter is very confusing. So, they didn't quite understand Christianity, but unless times were bad, they permitted it. And that's how they were with most religions.
52:01>> Okay.
52:02>> So, that's kind of the scene you're sitting in is like So, you have the fire of Rome in 64 AD. Nero blames it on the Christians and there's a big Christian persecution. You have Decius in the 250s that you mentioned earlier that he's trying to restore the peace of the gods.
52:15So, he's going to persecute Christians, Jews, anybody that won't sacrifice to the Roman gods to bring back this peace of the gods. Diocletian is going to do that as well because he's trying to kind of in his mind bring the peace of the gods.
52:28So, Christians are very often persecuted. So, to go from Christianity being legal in 313 is a is a really big deal because it had been this thing that was persecuted a number of times by a number of different emperors.
52:41And then by 380 under Theodosius the Great, it becomes the official religion of Rome. So, you have this kind of over 313 to 380 this morphing from a pagan empire to a Christian empire.
52:52>> Mhm.
52:53So, Constantine has this moment where he believes Christianity helped him win this battle.
53:00>> Yeah, and I guess the thing I have to say about that is you have to realize that there's also political means at at at work, too, right? If people are under a whole bunch of things to bring them under one thing makes a lot more sense.
53:12So, there's definitely the spiritual aspect of it, but I think there's also political aspects of it. So, to say it's all one thing is um to not really look at the reality of it.
53:20>> Right. Obviously, he's taking advantage of the situation for sure cuz he sees an opportunity.
53:25>> Correct.
53:26>> And he sees a way to use power, but then there is the very highly debated Council of Nicaea in 313.
53:35Well, 313 to what? 325 is where they were deciding >> 325, I think was Nicaea. Don't don't quote me on that, but I think it's around 325.
53:42>> pull that up to make sure we got that right?
53:44What happened in 313?
53:46>> 313 was the Edict of Milan, which made Christianity legal.
53:50>> So, the Council of Nicaea happens in 325. But, basically, there's a period, that's what it is.
53:55>> Yeah.
53:55>> There's a period from the Edict of Milan to the Council of Nicaea where this transitional period >> Yeah.
54:01>> is happening.
54:02>> lot of people have the wrong idea about what Nicaea was about. And they often say, "Oh, the books of the Bible and things." Those weren't done at the Council of Nicaea. Those were done at later councils.
54:10The Council of Nicaea was just to decide, "Well, what do we believe in Christianity?" Because there was a number of different sects of Christianity going around. The biggest one was called Arianism.
54:22And it was a kind of molding of Christianity and Zoroastrianism. And it was under this preacher named Arius. So, they were trying to decide, "What what is kind of orthodox Christianity versus what's heresy?" That was really the purpose of the Council of Nicaea. Now, the interesting thing about that is it doesn't exactly stamp out Arian Christianity because Constantine dies, and his son Constantius II ends up becoming an Arian Christian.
54:48>> Mhm.
54:48>> So, it is something that's going to take a while to change, but really the purpose of the Council of Nicaea is to decide, "What do we believe?" You know, "What does Christianity believe?" And the emperor attends, but he's supposed to attend as a layman. Once again, we don't know how much control he had over the situation, but is is this idea of getting all the bishops together and deciding, "Well, what does Christianity believe?" Because we have this this heresy we're trying to handle.
55:10>> Well, that's the strange part, too. And like I've had people from all different backgrounds in here talk about the Council of Nicaea from my man Nostic Informant to Wes Huff, which is like two very opposite ends of the spectrum, and everyone in between.
55:24But, like you have this base story. You have a historical record written down. You have a bunch of different historical records written down. S- And again, you said it wasn't decided at Council of Nicaea which ones they were like going to make the Bible. And all that.
55:37>> It It definitely wasn't too long after that. I don't remember which council it was. It was yeah.
55:41>> With the Council of Nicaea.
55:43It's fascinating to me that a bunch of guys got in the room 300 years later and said this is what we're going to decide it is and therefore that is This is the edict and that's what it's going to be.
55:59And it doesn't make the story fake or anything like that, but you wonder what aspects of the story were potentially changed there and then at later points.
56:08>> That's fair to say.
56:09>> cuz I think that the problem is and and you can even look at the like medieval church about this. If you look at like, you know, the Borgia Popes or you look at the Medici Pope the Medici Popes and things like that. You have to understand that people are corruptible, right? They're political. They're also going to look at what makes them powerful.
56:27>> That's right.
56:28>> It doesn't make religion bad, but it does mean that men can use it for their own means. So I think there's a mix between people wanting to just handle beliefs and there's others are like, well, I want good politics, right? So there there there is definitely a lot of different things that go into it, you know, it's a kaleidoscope of things a lot of times.
56:46>> Yeah, and I don't want to get you know, it's tough with any ancient tradition that points to any organized religion to not get cynical about some of that, but when you see the term power and political power specifically mixed in with what is decided as a belief system, it does make you question >> It once goes to who writes your history, right? That's a big part of it and that's it can be the difficulty in it.
57:15And that's why I think it's hard to say 100% divine inspiration with no human agency. There's always human agency, right? And humans are motivated by what's good for them. So I think it's looking at something for the good it can cause and also at the same time you know, realizing that human agency can create some of the bad, you know.
57:34>> Now, what happened in the immediate years after this becomes a thing where Constantine declares it the law of the land that Christianity is now our religion, what types of social and cultural changes occur and what what what impact did that have on greater Roman society?
57:55>> So, one of the things you're going to start to have in in Edward Gibbon actually talks a lot about this in The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, which uh is kind of the most famous work on it. Um you start to have monasteries developing. So, you are starting to have men pull out of society a bit. Um you start to have bishops get some political power, but if you want to look at what Constantine does, and this is actually one of the things that starts to push early conversion, is he starts to favor Christians in political positions.
58:22>> Mhm.
58:23>> But I think that the bigger thing about Constantine that doesn't get talked about enough is he's the one that actually fixes currency.
58:30He's the one that actually takes currency and fixes it. And after he dies, it's going to go for about 700 years in the East without inflation.
58:39>> Wait, so he fixed the 15,000% inflation?
58:42>> In the East, cuz the West was already falling apart. Right? Because the East and the West are going to split again.
58:46>> Define the West and East geographically, if you don't >> So, the ge- so, the East is going to be around Byzantium, which is what ends up being called uh Constantinople. So, if you want to look at kind of like modern Turkey and yeah, and Istanbul in that area.
58:59The West is Rome proper.
59:02And the capital is going to start changing because Rome starts to be harder and harder to defend. So, it's going to move uh to Ravenna at one point. It's going to move to Milan at one point, but the capital city of the West starts changing because they become harder and harder to actually protect Rome.
59:15>> Why was [snorts] that?
59:17>> Well, the political means of things had started to destroy Well, I guess let's go further back.
59:24>> [snorts] >> One of the things that's really important is being able to feed people.
59:28The East was much easier to feed people.
59:30Constantinople itself is much harder to attack. And as the West starts to degrade, it's going to become harder to protect Rome and harder to feed people.
59:39So, they're going to start moving the capital around to where they feel like they can protect it. Ravenna is pretty good cuz it's surrounded by swamps.
59:46Milan is pretty good because it's near mountains. So, they're going to start moving away from Rome just for the sake of protecting the city.
59:52>> And what happens to Rome when they actually physically move away the capital of the empire? Does it change drastically in those time periods?
60:00>> Well, you're going to have basically the wealthy people in the senatorial class going wherever the emperor goes. So, they're going to start moving their power centers as well. So, Rome just becomes a less important city.
60:10>> Mhm.
60:11>> So, it is something to consider.
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