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Chapter 1: What is the context of Julius Caesar's rise to power?
Imagine a magical land called Lexicon Valley. I'm Bob Garfield. And I'm Mike Volo. It's not a land. It's a podcast. It's where the living poetry of human language flutters as if from the breath of angels. Basically, we talk about words, where they come from, the surprising history and origins of English. But don't think of Lexicon Valley as a podcast. It's a state of mind. No, it's a podcast.
Check it out wherever you get yours. Hello and welcome to History for Weirdos. We're your hosts, Andrew and Stephanie. And each week, we're going to take you on a journey into the strange, obscure, and relentlessly entertaining corners of human history. Now listen up, friends, because it's about to get weird. Welcome back, weirdos. Welcome back. We are here. It has been a while.
We promise we are going to catch you up on some life stuff before diving into this epic episode. Yes, and this is an epic episode indeed. How does it feel to be back? It feels refreshing. It feels like we're back home a little bit. Oh, that's so sweet. Yeah, I think I've gotten really used to just sharing history stories with you and then with all of you as well.
It's kind of, I almost feel like it's been an amazing ride. I think so, too. And we're so glad to be here. You all have been patient. Last year, a lot of things changed for us and we kind of took an unintentional hiatus there. Yeah, a little bit. I think there was just so much that happened that we just needed to take a like a beat. Mm hmm. One of the biggest things that happened was.
I finally got another job, a new job, which I absolutely love. I'm very happy there. And I feel like, you know, I'm finally in a great spot where I have a lot of alignment in like what I'm naturally good at and what I just have some interest in. Unfortunately, it has nothing to do with history, but you know. Right. Nothing's perfect. Nothing's perfect.
But that was like such an awesome, awesome thing that happened last year. Yeah. When did you start? Started in October. So. Right. It was, man, we really needed that. Yeah. And that's why we needed to take a break, basically. Like our schedules changed. You had like a full time schedule again and you were learning. So thank you all for waiting and thank you all for asking and checking in.
It was really sweet. I felt very... Very endeared to all of you that checked in on me, seeing how it was going. A special shout out to Cleet. I was going to say the same thing. Yeah, Cleet has been really, really great. And I'm sorry. I think I have a ton of unread emails from you. Or not unread, unresponded to. Unresponded to. I have read them all. Yes.
Actually, in general, sorry for all the unresponded to messages and emails. We do see a lot of them. We just don't always have the time or the mental capacity to answer them, but they mean a lot to us. Yeah, so thank you. And Cleet, we love your emails. Yeah. We just love them. We tell people about them. They brought so much comfort.
And just for everyone who's not cleat listening, who's like, what are you talking about? He just sends really nice, almost like paternal messages. Yeah. And we needed that. We really needed that energy, especially last year. So thank you. Yeah, we really did. Thanks. What else? Another big thing that happened around the same time was I got diagnosed. Yes.
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Chapter 2: How did Caesar's early life influence his political ambitions?
No. But here we are. So it was like a huge, but then I had to go to a specialist and then I had to go see a bunch of other doctors and get other tests done. I still haven't done the echocardiogram now that I'm thinking about it. It's also highly comorbid with ADHD. Yeah. It's very, very common for people with ADHD to have some form of hypermobility. Not always. Clearly.
Hypermobile Ehlers-Danlos syndrome, but some sort of hypermobility is really common. That's true. So I was... Andrew was getting a new job, learning the ropes, having a totally different life schedule, and I was going to a lot of doctor's appointments. Right. So we were very busy, long story short. We were very busy last year. Yeah, especially the end of last year.
And then the holidays happened, and you're just like, what is going on? And we're finally emerging from the fog, being like, okay, we can do this now. And then... The country's just suffering all the time. So... Yeah. We're not going to get too into it right now. Because you guys know. You guys know. We are right there with you. We're in a lot of pain and anger and confusion with what's going on.
And that has also been so hard to deal with. Yeah. So this is a good catch up, guys. It's been a long time. It's been a long time. I know. Wow. That's a lot of information. That's a lot of information. Yeah. But before we continue, well, we have an announcement to share, but I also have a precursor to that announcement. Andrew's really thrilled about this segment. It's called numerology.
Oh, my God. I hired an associate therapist at my practice. That's something else that happened. Oh, yeah. Her name is Brenda. I don't think Brenda knows about the podcast. hi Brenda, if she does, if she's listening.
And we were doing supervision and she was like listening to me talk, she asked me a question, she was listening to me talk, she was like squinting at me and she's like, what's your life path number in numerology? And I was like- Oh yeah, I was like, Brenda, you just gave Stephanie a brand new obsession. Like, oh, I'm just gonna hear all about it. It has been my latest obsession.
I'm only a week into it, so it's very fresh, and that's why I had to bring it up. Oh, yeah. But I found out that my life path number is 11. And when I was looking into what this means, I was like, oh, like, what does that mean for... Basically, life path numbers is like the idea that your soul chose this life for a reason and what's supposed to happen to you in this life.
So I was just looking into it, sharing stuff with Andrew. He is a life path number six.
true same as was albert einstein might i add hmm yes i think britney spears is also a life path number six we're very similar we found out that julius caesar was a life path number six no he's a number 11 oh number 11 like me like you yes number 11 like me and so i've been teasing andrew that that's why he's so obsessed with caesar's because he's also obsessed with me and okay and then the last thing
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Chapter 3: What were the significant events leading to the First Triumvirate?
To be in the senatorial class, the only way you can be is through inheritance. And wealth. You can buy your way in? Yeah. It's essentially like a, it's not like the present day Senate, like in the United States, right? Where it's elected. No, it's like, it's, it is by inheritance, but it's also by like, if you're a wealthy person. You can buy a seat. Yeah. More, you don't buy it necessarily.
It's more like you're enrolled because you have so much money. Oh, because by the nature of having so much money, you have influence. Yeah. In fact, there was a specific name they had. It's called a new man or a nous homo. So like, yeah, literally money basically. Yeah. And they were looked down upon. Yeah.
This is so fascinating because it sounds so much like England's noble class system as well. And a lot of it sounds unfortunately like what we're going through here with areas being privatized that should not be. Exactly. Yeah.
this is something like scary the more things change the more they stay the same yeah how many patterns repeat i can't tell you how many patterns i've noticed looking at the late roman republic and looking at us it's terrifying i think i've said that so many times but like this episode really highlighted it does the republic end up repairing itself and then being okay
Does that answer your question? Yeah, I didn't think so. No. I didn't think that's what happened. No. No, no, no. I'm just going to, like, I have, like, more notes on this, but I think you guys get it. Like, it's not fun. Inequality, injustice, corruption? Yes. Corruption, the publicani, the brutality of, like, brutality was used as a predictable outcome of incentives, not a bug.
It was not a bug. It was part of the system. I'm sorry, you mentioned St. Matthew? Yeah. I do want to pop in a recommendation to watch the TV show The Chosen. So good. Historically accurate, too. It's historically accurate. I didn't want to watch it because... I think because my dad recommended it. And I was like, oh, old Catholic dad. Like, no, I'm not going to watch this show.
But then you started watching it. And I was like, oh, this looks really good. It was incredible. It's a really good show. Yeah, I mean, we binged it. We binged it like crazy. And it is so historically accurate. So you do get...
such a good understanding of what the time period was like the only thing the only criticism i have is like the roman um costumes are a little bit anachronistic but it's like decades you know it's not even like oh they're centuries off it's like oh no you're they're probably like 50 years off but yes honestly good enough it's typically in movies and tv shows they're so much more off and
We were watching an episode, or not an episode, a movie. God, was it Julius Caesar? Like the play, but it was with... This was, like, a long time ago now. God, who played... Mark Antony was played by Marlon Brando. Uh-huh. And in the beginning, you showed, like, Caesar was walking through, like, a hall. And I was like, that's a bust of Hadrian.
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Chapter 4: How did Caesar's relationships shape his political strategy?
That's not a good precedent to set. It's a really bad precedent. I think all the young politicians and officers that like survived these events learned like a brutal lesson that authority did not rest ultimately in the Senate's debates or even like the the public opinion. But it's fear and the army. It's the army, yeah. Yeah.
And so like for the next generation of people like Pompey Magnus, Marcus Licinius Crassus, and even Caesar, like Sulla showed them all like this is a blueprint to power. This is how you get what you want. Exactly. Like Caesar grows up seeing this as normal. So Caesar's alive? Caesar's alive. He's born in 100 BC. I'll get into his early life.
And there is some overlap to like the Marius Sulla debacle. But yeah, he's alive during this. So he is, and he's involved. We'll get into it here. And not in a good way. I guess not there is any good way to be involved. Unless you're the guy who ends it. Yeah, exactly. And it never happens again. Yeah.
So let's finally, now that we did all, hopefully I didn't bore you guys to death too much with this preamble. I thought it was a good preamble. Yeah. I tried to like kind of skim through. I had way more notes, but I was like, I'm just, I would be nerding out if I just read them all. But let's get into Caesar's actual life now.
So we've established that the Roman Republic at this time is going through major transitions and wealth inequality is skyrocketing and wealth The Roman armies aren't necessarily loyal to Rome or like whoever's paying them. Keep that in mind, guys. That's not good. So Gaius Julius Caesar was born on either the 12th or 13th of July, 100 BC. He was born into the patrician gens of Julia.
So what that means is the Julii, they claim descent from Aeneas and ultimately Venus. So the Greek Aphrodite. Aeneas as in the founder of Rome. Yeah, Aeneas as in the founder of Rome. Mm-hmm. Well, not the founder of Rome, but like the progenitor to the founders of Rome. Yeah. Aeneas was the famously escaped Troy.
And the king of Troy or like the prince of Troy or whatever, like handed him like a golden sword saying like, you're now like the leader of the Trojans. Yeah. And he, you said, was a descendant of Venus? Yes. Okay. So they saw themselves not just as nobility, but close to the gods? Yeah. Yeah.
And like it's even by their standards, I think they understood that like even if they were descendants, like it had been so long since like, you know. It's watered down. It's watered down. They're basically like they're people. Right. But they still have the patrician family name. Right.
Which is like, you know, like especially in early Rome, the patrician were like the richer elites, whereas like the plebeians were like everybody else. That's us. That's us. Yeah. But it's interesting because like at this point, the difference between patrician and plebeian is becoming very, very minute. Okay. And we'll get into that in a second.
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Chapter 5: How did Caesar strengthen his political alliances through marriage?
And also the pact was strengthened through a marriage alliance. Caesar's daughter, Julia, married Pompey Magnus. Even though Pompey Magnus was older than Caesar entirely, and Caesar became his father-in-law. It's so weird. Yeah, but weirdly enough, they actually loved each other.
They had a great marriage, so much to the point where it was expected that your wife, like you wouldn't love your wife. It was just more like a marriage of like... Vibes. It was like a marriage of like... Marriage was for... Alliance. Contracts. Yeah, like contracts. It's for wealth. It's for the name. Exactly. It's to further commitments between two people. Marrying for love is for peasants.
Yeah. You know? And it's a very modern concept. It is, yeah. But they loved each other, even though she's so young. They loved each other, yeah. Mm-hmm. Is really interesting. And this also like this double this present like kind of like a double whammy for Caesar as well. And that like he obviously has this triumvirate where they like say they're going to support each other.
But now like they have this bind where it's like, oh, their their fates are intertwined now. Like personal honor and obligation now reinforced their political cooperation. So personal honor. Yeah, the Romans took personal honor very, very seriously, unlike American society, honestly. I was going to say, do we know her in the United States? Personal honor? I don't think we've met her before.
No, they don't. Our government does not know what personal honor is. Someone should introduce that concept to D.C. That is, like, a huge difference that I've noticed is that, like, Our politicians have zero personal honor for by and far like large. I mean, there are exceptions, certainly. Of course.
But like they even if they were like, you know, wrong, it was still like personal honor was everything. Because what else do you have? Yeah, exactly. Like, honestly, if you're not. Someone who has integrity, you know what that means for like our little social monkey brains? That means no one's going to want to support you. So that means you have nothing because no one succeeds alone. Exactly.
We all need cooperation. Exactly. And they got that. And they got it, yeah. That would be nice. This triumvirate is pretty successful because the Republic and mainly like the Senate were just failing to mediate conflict amongst like their agendas, right? Everything was at a standstill. Nothing was getting done. And so this was kind of like a, what would you call it?
Like an alliance out of necessity. Mm-hmm. And so they operated outside the formal constitutional structures because the constitution no longer really functioned effectively.
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Chapter 6: What strategic decisions did Caesar make during the Gallic Wars?
Right. It doesn't really work anymore. Didn't apply. It didn't apply. They're using the same constitution that they were using centuries ago when they were like a small agrarian city state. Yeah. Now it's now it's like a to them like a worldwide empire. So they were adapting even though the institution wasn't adapting. Exactly. They were adapting through their alliance. Yeah, it's interesting.
We actually in a prior episode when we interviewed Norman Oler, the fantastic author of Tripped, he talked about this actually with our government. He's like, because it is true. The United States government has been around mainly unchanged for a very long time. And again, very rare. Yeah. And because it doesn't work like us as a country. Sure.
We're not that old, but our government is actually very old. Yes. Yes. Um, and it's just funny because like we have the same government that we had when there was like 13 mainly agrarian like colonies states. Right. And now it's, that's not what we look like now. Now it's much larger and much more complex and much more awful. We're in the late Republic without the personal honor. Yeah, basically.
Okay. I'm back. You're back. Okay. Disassociated for a second. We're back, baby. So this was great because now like Pompey's land reform got passed. Crassus' like thing got passed and Caesar was the consul. Nice. So it's all going swimmingly. For now. Yeah, for now. After Caesar's consulship, he secured the command of basically the governor of
what's called Cisalpine Gaul, which is this side of the Alpine Mountains, Gaul, which is like present day northern Italy. France. North of the Po River, but south of the... No, no, no. This is modern-day Italy. Okay. Cisalpine Gaul is all in modern-day Italy. Oh, okay. Yeah. So it's just like on the south side of the mountains. And this is actually more Romanized Gauls live there.
So they were excluded from citizenship famously, which Caesar actually addresses at a later point. So is Gaul in... I thought it was France. Is it an ethnic group? So Gaul is mainly France, is mainly what is modern-day France, but also includes, though, that northern part of Italy, includes Belgium, the Netherlands. So it must be an ethnic group. Yeah, they're Celts, basically.
They're the various Celtic peoples. It's like a coalition of different...
ethnic groups that are mainly similar that's the best way to put it yeah but like and it sucks because like roman and greek sources just refer to them all as they're kelts yeah they're all kelts which they which are different than germanic peoples yeah that's the difference for them they're like yeah there's like kelts and then there's germanic they must have been so different that it's like okay like they can see that there's a difference there must have been a phenotypical difference yeah or even just like the way they dressed and the way their thing or the way they fought or something
And you can see, too, it's really funny because, like, especially this cis-Alpine Gaul was, like, pretty Romanized for the most part.
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Chapter 7: How did the dynamics of the First Triumvirate shift after Crassus' death?
But if you go back a few centuries, like, Romans were terrified of Gauls. That's funny. And now it's kind of like, oh, yeah, like, you're familiar. Like, you're still, like, especially, like, what's called trans-Alpine Gaul, so the other side of the Alpine Mountains Gaul, is different.
like more scary but the Germans the Germanic peoples they're the scariest yeah they're the most barbaric of course but it used centuries before it was like oh no the Gauls were the most barbaric so kind of like it always it shifts it's really interesting it's so funny because humans do that today Oh yeah, totally. It's so weird that we've always done that. We always do it, man.
And we should know better by this point. But anyways, so after his consulship, he's the governor of Cisalpine Gaul and Illyricum, which is this teeny part of like kind of northern, northeastern Italy. And this governorship lasts five years. So 59 to 54 BC. Yeah. The Senate extended the assignment to also include Transalpine Gaul, giving Caesar a gigantic provincial base.
And this is where Caesar kind of like comes. This is like the main portion of I think of of Caesar's like ascendancy. I think this is kind of like he reaches his apex here more or less. So he now is in control of a province, a major, like a gigantic province and legions. So providing his practical foundation for further power and future power, both in terms of military and politics. Okay.
So Transalpine Gaul, it's interesting. It's really weird they said that. They gave it to them because it's like, well, there's nothing Roman there anymore at this point. It's kind of like, it is like the frontier. There's not a lot there. So they're just like, yeah, sure, whatever. To them, it's like dead land, basically. But that was a huge mistake on their part.
This is where what's called the Gallic War starts, which happens, it's like an eight-year period from like 58 to 50 BC. Yeah. This, you could have an entire podcast, not podcast episode, but entire podcast on the Gallic Wars. So I'm going to be almost like absurdly like brief in terms of like what happens here.
And I'm only going to cover like some of the major highlights because there is just way too much to cover. Caesar writes about it, right? Yes. Great. The Commentarii de Ballo Gallico. The Commentaries on the Gallic War. Yeah, he has a, like, you can buy a book. It's thin. Yeah. But it's his. It's his writing. Yeah. So interesting. I know.
Obviously, like, you can even get in the original Latin too, which is crazy. I would not be able to read it. No, I don't. I wouldn't either. We have it in English. Okay, good. Yeah, we have it in English. But it's Caesar is, his writing was actually praised by Cicero because he's very just straightforward and almost like detached in his writing style. Even though he's living it.
Even though he's living it. He's just very detached in the way he writes. Weirdly stoic. Even though Caesar is not known for being stoic. In fact, I didn't mention this earlier, but there was a conspiracy before this where it's called the Catiline Conspiracy.
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Chapter 8: What were the consequences of Caesar's crossing of the Rubicon?
And they're debating about it in the Senate. And Caesar famously argues that people should be given clemency. And Cato... his longtime rival, rises and challenges Caesar. He's like, you're a traitor, blah, blah, blah. And it happens to be at that time, he's getting a note from someone. And Cato's like, demands, demands that- Caesar's getting a note delivered to him?
Caesar's getting a note delivered to him in the Senate. And Caesar is like, no, I don't want to read this. And he's like, you do it. What do you have to hide? He reads it. It's a love, a raunchy love letter from Cato's sister. Cheese, man. Yeah, dude. Caesar, and I don't really go into it too much here, but Caesar was a lover boy.
I can't believe you're going to tell us about the Gallic Wars and you're not going to tell us about his love affairs. You know what's funny? Guys, I powered through a biography on Caesar just in addition to my research. And I did use portions of the book for this as well. But even he doesn't go into much detail. He kind of glosses over it as well. He was prone to promiscuity.
He was very promiscuous. Let's just say that. He loved... He loved the women and the women loved him back. Yeah. And so it's literally Kato's sister. Technically it was like his stepsister, but yeah. That's so embarrassing. But like, what a baller, right? Yeah. He's like, okay, you want me to? He's like, fine. And it's like raunchy. It's raunchy. It has nothing to do with the conspiracy.
Oh my God. It's amazing. That's kind of awesome. Yeah. So the Gallic war, the Gallic war. So 58, 50, 50 BC. It lasts a long time. Um, He this is during this portion that Caesar just generates an insane amount of wealth for himself and his troops. Nice. And he like the 10th Legion becomes like his kind of his favorite legion.
And they would go to the gates of Hades if he commanded it to kind of them to like they loved him. And then there was also other other legions as well that he controlled. But the 10th is like the big one for him. Who would you go to the gates of Hades for? I don't know, probably Christ, but you. Who else? I'm thinking of one more. There's one more? Yeah. Pericles? Yeah. Our dog. Our dog.
Not Pericles from like the 5th century BC. Yeah, no, our dog Pericles. Me, Jesus, and Perry? That's so nice. Sounds about right, yeah. I love it. Damn. Okay, so I'm just going to go over the key highlights of this Gallic War, right? Because I know you're not going to love it, but I don't care. It's interesting.
And to be fair, I actually don't... I like the general understanding of how wars happen and whatnot, but I don't like the battle tactics. Yeah, you're not a war historian. I'm not a war historian at all. Yeah. Unless they're extraordinary. And there is actually one instance that I will go into detail for Caesar because it's just, like, absurd. It's absurd. It's one of the greatest, like...
I think, wins of all time. Fair enough. But that's towards the end of the Galakor. In fact, it is kind of like the end of the Galakor. So it starts off with the Helvetii and Ariovistus. So... The Helvetii, they're like a Germanic tribe, and they attempted a migration through Gallic territory toward new lands.
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