"Will Durant on Julius Caesar"
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 26 ก.ค. 2016
- Embark on a historical journey through the life and achievements of Julius Caesar, one of the most influential figures in ancient Rome, with the distinguished historian, Will Durant, as your guide. In this enlightening video, Durant delves into Caesar's military prowess, political career, and the dramatic events that shaped the end of the Roman Republic.
🏛️ Explore Durant's insightful commentary as he navigates the following key aspects of Julius Caesar's life and legacy:
Caesar's early years and rise through the Roman political ranks
His military campaigns, including the Gallic Wars and the conquest of Gaul
The First Triumvirate and Caesar's role in Roman politics
The crossing of the Rubicon and the fall of the Roman Republic
Caesar's assassination and its aftermath
The enduring impact of Caesar's rule on Roman history and the world
Thirty some odd years ago I bought the entire fifteen or so volumes of Will and Ariel Durant's "The History of Civilization" at a steep discount from a bookstore going out of business. It has been bedtime reading all that time. I've read it all through about four times. Sometimes I read the same boring paragraph for days as it puts me right to sleep. At other times it is so enthralling I read for hours. These books are one of the best purchases I ever made.
Will Durant sometimes gets debunked by other historians, but what he lacks in depth (the debunker's claim, not mine), he makes up for in readability and enjoyment. This is the way history should be taught in schools. Everything is connected.
Thanks for presenting this for us to enjoy.
Will Durant truly had a mastery of the english language. Almost on every page there is a single sentence that stops you on your tracks in contemplation and thought.
I havent yet read the whole series, but almost every evening I read his books. There is an elevating power in his words, that lifts you higher from daily toils.
The English language is truly a blessed gift X.
Listening to this, I got to learn just how much the Roman empire contributed to the world. Just how much this one man changed the course of history. This is absolutely amazing. Thanks to Will Durant, the reader and the channel.
He didn't start the empire Octavian did. His period was still very much the roman republic.
"The greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar"--Alexander Hamilton.
Yes except the greatest man that ever lived was Leonardo DaVinci- Julie Alley
@@jayceewriter7826 I suppose that means Alexander Hamilton disagreed with you.
@@BrettCagwin49ers suppose so and many others profiled on this wonderful channel.
@@jayceewriter7826 I will never understand this evasive form of questioning. Just say what you want to say.
Curious choice from Mr Hamilton. But maybe not.
Hail Ceaser indeed. I love this man. We should have someone like this as a leader today. He was a compliated man.
thank you so much for posting these treasures, so beautifully written, so beautifully read.
I found three volumes of Durant’s book at used book story, each for two dollars, what a day!
Now that is a score! Congrats
The full pdf is literally like 15,000 pages lol
That's fantastic!
I thought I scored for buying a set for $110.
Wow the Durants proved over and over what a bonafide English prose can achieve! Variation and contour without falling short of absolute clarity. It retains the explicit specificity of the Germanic languages and still it's not without foundational lyric qualities. Thrilling to hear
Oh hail Caesar
I love this man . I wish we had more ppl like him. I would love to chat with this man
Caeser and Napoleon - fueled by ambition to impossible hights, and burned by it. After conquering the Gauls, after massacring the Germans, after laying a administrative structure that will uphold the Empire for centuries to come, Caeser is rumored to still having laid awake in his bed, dreaming of connecting the Roman realm from Gaul to Greece, removing marshes so Rome is not plagued by disease, conquering Persia, conquering the world. One man! He wanted it all and had to be killed lest his ambition burn the world.
Thank you Vlasiv
"The dreamers exhaust us. They must die before they kill us with their blasted dreams" - Ptolemy ( movie line but still)
**Rocky C**. this is excellent. This is the true purpose of TH-cam, education. Thank you for leading me to a better understanding of Julius Caesar the progenitor of the modern world.
@Theseustoo Astyages Second Parenti. Also James Carroll's "Constantine's Sword" is a must....the true beginning of Christianity and anti-semitism.
Joe Louis would have knocked fuck out of Juluis Caesar.
@@georgegreig8054 I'm not so certain. Sure the average height back then was much shorter with lower life expectancy. But life was also extremely brutal. Julius Caesar was a war hardened general tougher than anyone alive today.
@@jokers7890 Well I suppose he might not have beaten him when he was in the Divine part of his career.
@@georgegreig8054 Yeah the violent hand to hand combat, travelling vast distances by foot, carrying very heavy gear...all practices of the Roman military required soldiers like Julius to be in extreme physical fitness, have very high endurance, have very violent physical skills......and his skills as a warrior on the battle field are why he rose to the top of the military....very scary stuff. Of course once he became royalty, he would have probably become easy to beat.
I would love to have met this man . Hell of a man . Hail caesar indeed
Totally brilliant thank you up loader
Thank you for posting this content. I own a company that demands that I am out I. The field all day long or driving in a car- when I get home, I’m dead tired and have work to do around the house and want to hang out with my family. The fact that I can listen to objective, historical commentary means more than you know. I’ve always lived history and it’s a true miracle I get to live a life with headphones in, learning about the things I actually care about. Appreciate it 👌🏻
Sorry to be bearer of unreconcilable News, but Durant has missed Mighty Caesar character; he fought Pompey and the senators : today’s Global Democrats - a Total Fraud of greed and conniving baseness.
the Durant's did such amazing work, thanks for posting
Caesar the altruist merciful. What a bad-ass . He was compassionate to a fault and seemingly the only Roman with integrity and honor. Name one other leader who conducted himself like this? I can not...
You forget that he was a violent conqueror who was responsible for at least a million deaths in Gaul alone. A lot of his mercies were politically motivated, and while I do believe he was a more ethical person than the average for his time, he committed his fair share of brutalities.
I believe it is safe to say that Roman civilization has seen many leaders who have time and again shown a disposition towards those same virtues. I do agree Ceasar seems almost altruistically forgiving
Greg Jay He crossed the Rubicon and marched on Rome. What integrity.
Amy shoemur homie
There were many Roman-Republican leaders who behaved this way (Scipio Africanus, Titus Flaminius, Camillus, Cinncinnatus). Even Lucullus and Pompey were considered great men, and were alive at the same time (though they were both a little older, Lucullus retired around the time Caeser entered public life). Really the tragedy of the Roman Republic is that Caeser was the last great Roman-Republican, after him they were monarchs, emperors and madmen.
New ones ! Great!
Thanks! I love all of these.
This is awesome
Thanks for posting ❤👏😘
The telling of the crossing of the Rubicon gave me a chill.
Me too, it is one of my favs.
How am I just realizing this 1st wander of the spoken word world.
*This* is fascinating.
Even then the bankers and money lenders poisoned politics and men.
yup, julius caesar was going to redistribute wealth and land to the poor and get rid of the senates power......this is why the bankers had julius taken out, just like today. its a cartel of old bankers who still think the same way thousands of years later.
@@jokers7890 More complicated than that and banking was still in its infancy. this has more to do with political ambition and order, moral norms and status quo, Money and wealth was only part of it and in those days was measured more by slaves land and agricultural production than stock financers bonds and debt, infact many of the debt collectors were from the middle and not the upper class.
@@jokers7890 Yeah the power of bankers wasnt really much until the days of the Medici
he really tried for peace. He really tried.
He tried to be seen as trying for peace, you mean. He committed genocide.
I find it crazy that Cleopatra could have been blonde... And that Greeks were at one point described as fair skinned and blonde in hair. Now Greeks are olive complexion and black hair. It's interesting how demographics change over time.
“His tutor in Latin and rhetoric was a gaul” as someone who grew up with Astérix this blew my mind 😂😂😂
Asterix rocks 🪨🎸🤣👍‼️
I wanted to be like Obelix😀my favourite caracter
This is gold
III Morals and Politics 17:54
IV The conquest of Gaul 25:20
V Degradation of democracy 38:20
First Class readings of these important history accountings
Fantastic commentary, thank you
We are so indebted to the Durants
I will never understand why the section on Alexander the great is only 10 minutes long, Will gave ceaser and Napoleon their due with hour long videos, how much more the hero they modeled themselves after?
25 million just to have nothing. I'm still chuckling over that.
Excellent 👍
Dauphin River First Nation Canada 🇨🇦
This is very interesting.
Great work from both, Durant and Rocky C
A gracious man of clemency who performed genocide for a special reason. Morals and ethics aside - this was a great man.
he may have been from divinity and believed himself to be godlike but the assassins thought otherwise
Yeh, fat lot of good being "God like " did him!🤣👍‼️
I told somebody that Ceaser had a Clement disposition that person did not believe me,he contradicted me and said Ceaser had self interest.
he fought on the front lines and rewarded his men like no other. Not as self- interested as most. This Kelt I konw who knew more history than me didn't like caesar because of his campaign in Gaul. Killed ~ one in three, or enslaved. Perhaps his interests were simply glory for Rome and a bit for himself? The man is a mind among monkeys much like Napoleon.
i like to read history of philosophy alot.i like civilization.
Personally, I think he was far more clement that others before or after him. He risked death to stay married to his first wife. He forgave enemies when he did not have to. He tried not to humiliate fellow Romans unduly. He cared about the Roman citizenry, the mob, more than most.
Was all that motivated by self interest? Or was it based on a personality that would have preferred harmony? They don't have to be mutually exclusive.
That was intense
Awesome Possum!
Will Durant is firmly of the 'great men' school of History and they don't get much greater than Julius Caesar yet half of this if not more is the equivalent of Kirk Douglas portraying Spartacus in a Hollywood film. In other words Durant has created a heroic character based on the odds and ends of contemporary commentary, histories written after the fact and of course Caesar's own Conquest of Gaul and Civil War accounts which cannot be anything other than self-glorification. The picture he paints is compelling but it cannot be a true portrait and doesn't even try to be.... it sweeps along heroically as if Caesar were a marvel comic superhero. It is brilliant but probably as near myth as History...
yes, I agree. Thank you very much for writing this!
Grover Gardner is a good reader!
Were people living in this time counting down to zero to keep track of years or is this something we came up with later, always seemed strange yo me where they would decide to start counting down from, thanks for these audio treasures
1:26:00
Caesar an agnostic?
He’s the f*king Pontifex Maximus
Can’t say which is better the author or the narrator.
Caesar is often said to have ended the Roman Republic but I think that's just one of many misunderstandings. First of all, Caesar never wanted to end the republic. Second, he didn't dissolve the senate. Third, he rejected the dictator for life position. And above all, the republic was a bloated corrupt oligarchy barely worthy of being saved. Similar to that of the national socialists in Germany and the dying Weimar republic. Caesar made every attempt at peace, the status quo refused and forced his hand. It's really disgusting that all the people Caesar personally forgave ended up scheming the moment his back was turned. They'd be the ones to kill him. He made it clear every chance he got that he wasn't trying to seize power. He just wanted that God damned land bill to pass and to finally fix the calendar. His conquest of gaul is another story.... But that wasn't uncommon for the time period.
1:30:54
Reading John Maddox ' SPQR,novels and he's done his homework..
18:42 you can't make this stuff up
23:59 this is pretty crazy too
50:44 what a GOAT
HE SAID THE THING 1:11:19
41:00 History is repeating itself.
not quite. Ours lacks nobility and there's lacked nukes.
Tibi gratia
Jim Rohn??
31:03
29:00
Only if we had someone like him in the west today works would be a much better place
6:00
A great militarny chief a politician but a war criminal too
Hey Mona Lisa come home, you know you can’t roam without Caesar.
Shakespeare takes a more neutral view of Caesar in his great play. In the 19th century he's always portrayed as this very great man, which he was. But was he a good man? That is highly questionable. Being 'good' was likely not something that entered his mind often. He wanted power, control, and achieving his potential and destiny. He also experienced the dictatorship of Sulla and knew what unbridled power was like, as well as civil war and chaos.
@@Thomas-xd4cx that's been one of the key philosophical questions from the beginning.
*Nietzsche’s eyebrow arches and a malicious smile seizes his lips*
@@batsky6061 nerd
It's hard to be sure was he just a ruthless megalomaniac or did he really think the Republic was fatally flawed and wanted to save Rome from decline
3:00
Caesar may have been buggered by a king and perhaps Caesar would have taken it as a compliment? And it may not have been a matter of abject submission. The Christian writers make fun of the way ancient religion portrayed the sexual antics of the Gods but those later writers were actually much further from natural instincts than their ancestors. The later writers were wiser, or at least more settled and even urbanized, and knew the natural instincts weren't to be trusted too much. Civilization requires one tame oneself, or be tamed by it. It is always much better to tame oneself. I have read that Christianity really wanted to suppress most sexual instincts because it knew they were the most difficult psychological forces to control and caused so much conflict in a civilized world.
The psychological theories of Carl Jung are really of help trying to understand ancient people.
America follows thus.
"Keyus Julius"? Somebody doesn't know how to pronounce "Caius."
I love Durant, but he’s much better read than listened to?
Caesarian not possible: the mother survived.
Rather then asking how reliable are the historic records that have came down to us as to what the truth is about history and it's impact on our lives today , I rather ask how
Reliable is Academia to be teaching us anything about anything including history.
As the student in their ancient College at Athens , when Aristotle was walking , across the court yard
and urinating as he walked , the student asked , if we are to urinate
while we walk , then are we to
Defecate while we run ?
It goes deeper , what is the political reason for a curriculum and which ancient text is to be used ? I think you will find once a confidence is broken trust is not easily given..
The time just before Caesar declared himself emperor sound like America today.
Not even close lol
To everyone...in the time of Caesar and before, the world was a brutal place to live. There was nobody to enforce the law...if u were lucky enough to live in a society with laws...the universal rule in war was the defeated were usually slaughtered and the women and children were sold into slavery...one of the reasons the Romans were so successful besides their military, was because. they gave their enemies a chance to adapt their system of law and government...most of the time it was better than the system that they were living under....yes they became second class citizens, but it is better than dying...say what u will about roman politics but it was ingenious...yes it could be brutal but it was far better than most of the so called civilized world. Caesar was part of that roman genious...yes Caesar was a complicated human being...and like other human beings he had many faults..it seems to me with Caesar it is a love and hate relationship with the modern world...i would have to say that not only was Caesar the greatest man of action that ever lived...he also had a great mind and knew about many things..mostly i hear about the terrible things he did....but he also did so many great things....I've read my share of books on Caesar and the people loved and adored him..it was the old aristocratic senators that didn't like him.....thats why when they asassinated him the people turned against the them and another civil war broke out....so in the end Caesar had to be doing something right...i don't believe that Caesar would have approved of the end of the republic or that he wanted to be king...i think Ceasar just wanted to be in charge like Sulla..After Sulla's death the republic went back to being the republic..Caesar had better ideals for rome and its expansion to a world power.
They - Romans - may not have been as spiritual yet - not as joyful as the jester, not as fiery as the knight, not as sealed from disorder as the monk.
Romans' empire was unimaginably more secure, as dignity's power in and of itself, as a right, as sense, but it wasn't just "common" sense. People who were better in any way could do anything, and to any free extent poured all true expressions materially upon the face of the earth, not dedicated methodologically to the whooooooole common purpose, economically, sometimes with only 2 weeks off per year to think about using their own time any other way, leading to anything in and of itself good to be. While the fear of honor and glory in their lives (hearts, minds) remained an extreme right by birth or royalty, to seek and retire, and judge - others, not seethe like minions as an eternal returning risk, an obsession, wiry in any mind itself, and health was safe in the solid defenses from "sin", that unforgivable impurity of uncaring, not careless or carefree, ambitions disorder, no man yet had set free those so locked. Will we forever return, to Who Is? Or will we bicker, in every pared down form, methodical, artistic, or otherwise, with burning paper wings until that Spirit of Love in the forest forever plays and serves the un...able human his! true price, tied forever in something quite more than plain rationality in his interests until then.
But Romans don't play with nature. Or much of anything that equally beautiful as intriguing itself. The crushing burning worth of existence as insufferable as hell is as real as certain to not be seen, in any reversal of will-power and forsaken strengths.
The whole world was just beyond checkmated alternatively - and unthinkably - it isn't a game - in the most miserable expansion.
Nice
volume changes too much for me to listen to
your speakers fucked up son
Humanity is held up by a very few like this. If it wasn't because of ppl like this I would have no sympathy for humanity
Looks the double of Putin.
P
Suriyan Metaphysics Suvadi doing
Where does Will Durant get all of this info? I think half of it to be gossip... the other half are half-truth's wrapped in heroism.
billysaz1 reading?
Plutarch, Cicero, Cato, and Caesar's own accounts, and probably a slew of other documents besides. The Romans kept detailed histories and public records, so their past is very well understood.
Such is history. None the less, Caesar earned his place in history.
He was most certainly not one of Carlyle's great men.
What if juilis Cesar was Jesus 😮
What if he was a salad???
What!!
Jesus christ = J.C
Julius Caesar =J.C
holly shit holy shit
.... I doubt he'd be any higher than one of the disciples with his love for women. lol Definitely more forgiving than most of us, .....you do know in Mark 9 Jesus asks his disciples, "Who do people say that I am?" "Some say you were" ....I think Elijah, Moses I forgot, not even sure who they say. But they clearly believe in reincarnation, as did most people.
What happened to men?! 😥
They used to forge empires. Now they need Jordan Peterson to tell them to clean up their rooms as they retreat into video games and marvel movies. Traditional gender roles are under attack 😢
1.25x, you’re welcome 😁
He would not have survived today with all that debt . He was lucky he was born so long ego
I have always liked Caesar, he is definitely my favorite mass murderer.
(Caesar murdered/caused to starve an est.500k and enslaved another 500k Frenchmen in the 10yrs he gorged himself like a Wolf on the blood of the Gauls)
In his defense;
Caesar tried to reestablish the gentleman farmer in Italy/Sicily by breaking up the *"Lotofutiums"* (larg factory slave farms) thereby lessening the swelling slave populations, 40% of Italy's population was legally a slave (50 B.C.).
Slave state status was a legacy of the Punic Wars, where by Italy/Roman Republic became a Slave-State;
Sorry to tell you that slavery never ended in 1865. Your iPhone was made by China’s Uighur slave labor and Silicon Valley actively lobbies against legislation to sanction it. Not to even mention live organ harvesting, etc.
Tsk tsk, No frenchman were harmed during the conquest of Julius Caesar, seeing as they did not exist
nigga look sad af
Pimpin ain't easy.
ROCKY.............SHUT UP & I'LL READ MY BOOK,,,,THIIS IS A VISUAL MEDIA, NOT STRICKLY "AUDIO
Dauphin River First Nation Canada 🇨🇦
1:04:30