Gregory Aldrete
speaker
587 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Sep 2024
last heard Sep 2024
Gregory Aldrete’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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They sort of pick the best qualified guy, and they're all sound, competent, good emperors. And the second century AD from – Nerva to Marcus Aurelius is often regarded as the high point of the Roman Empire. And a lot of that comes from – you have political stability. You have a succession of decent guys being emperor who rule relatively wisely, promote good policies.
There's other things working to Rome's advantage, but that's good. And then where it falls apart is where the last guy – Marcus Aurelius looks around and says, hmm, who's the best qualified guy to succeed me? Ah, what a coincidence. It's my own dear son, who turns out to be a psycho. And then it all goes downhill.
Yeah. So 180 AD is one common date for an early date for the end of the Roman Empire when you Because from then on, it's a mixed bag of good and bad emperors.
Certainly geographically. I mean, at this point, stretches from Britain to Mesopotamia, from Egypt up to Germany. Like I said, probably about 50 million people within its boundaries. Within those boundaries, there's relative peace. So I mean sometimes people talk about the Pax Romana. I mean the Romans are fighting lots of people. But within the boundaries, you have relative peace.
There's relative economic prosperity. I mean nothing in the ancient world is that prosperous. It's just a different sort of economy. but it's pretty stable. There's no huge disasters happening yet. Some plagues start in Marcus Aurelius' reign. But yeah, this is pretty much seen as the high point of the Roman Empire, and I think it is. I think that there's truth to that.
The greatest emperor? Well, I tell you what, I'll tell you my favorite Roman who wasn't an emperor, and that's Marcus Agrippa, who was Augustus's right-hand man. So Agrippa is this interesting guy who is extremely talented. He's a terrific general. He's a terrific admiral. He's a great builder. He is kind of like the troubleshooter for Augustus.
He's the guy who wins the Battle of Actium for Augustus. So literally, Augustus would not have become the first emperor without Agrippa. When Augustus rebuilds the city of Rome, it's Agrippa that he gives the job to. Agrippa rebuilds the campus marshes. He builds the first version of the Pantheon. He personally goes through the sewers to clean them out.
And he just has this great set of qualities that he's very self-effacing. I think he likes power. He wants real power, but he realizes, I don't have that kind of clever politician's ability to be the front guy, so I'll just serve my friend Augustus loyally. They were childhood friends. I'll win the battles for Augustus, and I'll let him take all the credit.
But I'll be his number two guy, and that's what I'm good at. And he realizes his limitations. I mean, so many people don't. So many people are like, oh, I just want to keep grabbing for more and more and more when it's not something they're good at.
And I think Agrippa says, I'm good to this point, and I'll play that role and no more, and that'll give me a lot of power, but I'm not going to press it. And he's – yeah, he's just very hardworking. He's modest. He's self-effacing. He's highly competent.
Or the ones who make something possible. I mean, even in this conversation today, you would not have Alexander the Great without his father, Philip II, having built that army and handed it to him on a silver platter. Octavian would never have become emperor without Agrippa. So it's – they play central roles sometimes.
But if I had to pick an emperor, I'd probably pick Augustus just because of his influence and because I admire his – the thing Agrippa didn't have, his political savvy, his manipulation of image and propaganda, all that I find very fascinating. Though I'm not sure he's a great human being, but he's a really interesting figure. Yeah.
Well, he drove him to suicide, let's say. There's a lot of interesting questions there.
Well, I mean, one of the big questions with the Roman emperors, and we've been talking about some of them, is why did so many seem to be either crazy or just kind of sadists? And that's – I don't know that there's a good answer to that. I mean, people have theories, oh, Caligula got a brain fever and changed after that or something. But –
I think there's a lot of maybe truth in the notion that the ones who seem to go craziest quite often are the ones who become emperor at a young age. And there is something about that old cliche that absolute power corrupts absolutely, especially if your own personality isn't really fully formed yet. You know what I'm saying? I mean, I think take anybody when they're a teenager.
If you all of a sudden said you have unlimited power, you know, what would that do to you? How would that warp your personality? I mean, look at all the – what do they always have to say? Like the Disney stars who sort of go wrong or something because they get rich and famous at this very young age.
And conversely, a lot of the emperors we regard as, quote, good emperors are the ones who become emperor at a middle-aged or something, where their personalities are fully formed, where they're not going to really become different people. And so that works in that theory too. I mean, I don't think it's absolute.
And of course, the greatest exception is Octavian Augustus, who starts his rise to power as a teenager, somehow doesn't seem to go nuts. It's not an absolute, but it doesn't help to get that much power at a young age, I think.
So you say, what does it take to be a good Roman emperor? If you were going to draw up a job description, seeking Roman emperor, what are the qualities and qualifications you would put on it? Obviously, you would put responsible, a good understanding of military, economics, whatever ability to delegate. But just to be fun, let's consider how much does it matter whether the emperor is good or bad?
Because in the ancient world, what does it affect, really, if you're, say, a peasant in Spain, if the emperor is crazy Nero or good Vespasian? I mean, how does that affect your day-to-day life? How does it affect you if you're a peasant in Italy, which is the average inhabitant? I mean, the crazy emperors... mostly affect the people within the sound of their voice.
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