The Fall Of The Roman Republic Was A Warning | Barry Strauss
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What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
Welcome to the Daily Stoic Podcast, designed to help bring those four key Stoic virtues, courage, discipline, justice, and wisdom into the real world. Hey, it's Ryan. Welcome back to another episode of the Daily Stoic Podcast. So, whole family just got back from Rome. We spent about two weeks in Italy. We were in Rome and we were in Sorrento, we were in Capri and Ischia. But the chunk of the trip, the big chunk of the trip, the trip I was excited about, the My two boys were excited about was the Rome part. We did Greece last year. We did Rome this year. I'll get into all that in another episode. But the thing about Rome is not that it feels ancient. It doesn't. It feels familiar. It's timely and timeless, right?
A republic, it becomes powerful, becomes wealthy, becomes successful. It's filled with great and brilliant and fascinating characters. But then slowly the very things that made it strong begin to weaken it. Ambition and competence. Ambition replaces service. Careerism replaces competence. Luxury replaces discipline. The institutions are still there in paper. The power is there. It's still the center of the world. But the character and the trust and the values that made those institutions work begin to wane or finally disappear. This is the story of Rome, but it's also a warning. You know, it's fascinating just walking through Rome, looking at it from different vantage points and just thinking about what's happening on the news.
It both puts it in perspective and then it also makes it urgent. And it brings so many of the questions that we're asking ourselves right now. It makes them like painfully real. Like what does courage look like when the crowd is wrong? What does duty and responsibility look like in a time of crisis? corruption and decay. What are you supposed to do when power and ambition and luxury and fear begin to pull your society apart? Well, today's guest, Barry Strauss, is one of the great historians of the ancient world. He's a classicist, a military and naval historian. He's a professor emeritus at Cornell. senior fellow at the Hoover Institute. He's written 10 books on ancient history, including his latest, Jews First Rome, Two Centuries of Rebellion Against the World's Mightiest Empire, which came up.
How did Rome's success sow the seeds of the Republic's downfall?
We ran into some friends of ours in Rome who are Jewish, and we were talking about this very book as we stood on the roof of their hotel, looking down over Colosseum, the Forum, St. Peter's, talking about all of this, right? And I love this episode. This is one of my favorite episodes of the podcast. Barry and I nerded out about why the Roman Republic fell. Who was better, Cicero or Cato? The decision to assassinate Caesar, which I thought about as I stood there. I convinced my kids to go see this spot because I told them there was a colony of stray cats there, which they were very excited about. So as I was looking at the ins and outs of it, they were running around counting how many cats they could see.
Talk about the rise of Octavian. aka Augustus, why a republic requires debate and conversation, and why democracy is never just a piece of paper. But it's about education. It's about value. It's about institution and character. This episode is going to be a crash course on Rome, but really it's a crash course on what happens when a society forgets what made it work in the first place. And you're really going to like this episode. Barry is a bestselling author, as I said. Barry is someone whose work If you don't start with Jews vs. Rome, maybe The War That Made the Roman Empire, 10 Caesars, The Death of Caesar. He's got plenty to choose from. He's also got a great podcast, Antiquitas, Leaders and Legends of the Ancient World.
You can follow him on Instagram at Barry Strauss. And you can grab signed copies of the new book, which he signed when he was here, Jews vs. Rome, and of course, The War That Made the Roman Empire. Let's get into it. It was interesting. The thing I was at yesterday, they were all very worried about the state of Western civilization. Yes.
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Chapters
5 chapters
1
What is the main topic discussed in this episode?
0:00–2:25
2
How did Rome's success sow the seeds of the Republic's downfall?
2:25–20:06
3
What was Cato's role and why is his refusal to compromise controversial?
20:06–45:51
4
How did economic change and the collapse of the 'civic bargain' weaken Roman citizenship?
45:51–56:05
5
Why did military loyalty shift from the Republic to individual commanders like Marius and Sulla?
56:05–1:09:24
Speakers
2 identifiedMore from The Daily Stoic
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