Professor Josiah Osgood on Cato, Caesar and the Battle for Rome's Legacy
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 21 ก.ย. 2024
- Ryan speaks with historian of Rome Josiah Osgood about his new book Uncommon Wrath: How Caesar and Cato’s Deadly Rivalry Destroyed the Roman Republic, the complicated legacy of Cato, how Caesar and Cato’s relationship can help inform our daily lives, and more.
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Josiah Osgood is Professor of Classics at Georgetown University. His teaching and research cover many areas of Roman history and Latin literature, with a special focus on the fall of the Roman Republic. Josiah’s interest in the fall of the Roman empire began in high school Latin class, where he read Cicero’s speeches against Catiline. He found Cicero’s rhetoric so powerful that he became enthralled by Roman politics and has been studying the subject compulsively for twenty years since. He is the author of several books, including Caesar’s Legacy, Turia: A Roman Woman’s Civil War, and How to be a Bad Emperor.
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This was fascinating. It's interesting to me how pertinent the lessons of Catiline and the late republic are to today!
Outstanding video! I truly enjoyed the discussion.
I agree with one of the conclusions that was mentioned here that the decline of the Roman Republic started long before Julius Cesar won the Roman Civil War and also long before his assassination on March 15, 44 BC. In my view, it a precipitous decline began when the “Optimates “ of the Senate murdered the Gracchi brothers and their “Popularies” allies with impunity and in such a disrespectful way. The Optimates faction resorted to violence to stop a series of Gracchi-led policy reforms to assist Romans, farmers and military veterans.
Unfortunately, the Senate failed to be an effective policy-making body to address the real issues and conflicts that plagued an expanding empire. Instead, the Senate itself resorted to violence to resolve its most significant policy issues and differences.
As a result, the military leaders, not the Senate, filled the vacuum and became the persons that resolved the major policy issues. Marius and Sulla became the biggest policy-makers, administrators and reformers prior to Cesar, who was the greatest Roman policy-maker, administrator and reformer prior to Augustus.
Throughout his life, Cesar witnessed and was impacted as the Senate declined in effectiveness and the military leadership rose in effectiveness. When he was a teenager, Julius Cesar was likely on Sulla’s proscription lists had to avoid being murdered by Sulla’s allies. Then, the Senate would not follow his advice during the Cataline debates. Then, after Julius Cesar became one of the greatest military leaders of the ancient world and conquered Gall, the Optimates, Cato and Pompey (once known as Sulla’s “boy butcher”) reneged on his dates for consulship and immunity, refused to negotiate with him and issued ultimatums for him to relinquish his military command, Governorship and return to Rome empty handed and powerless to face Senators that he could not trust. In my view, they left Julius Cesar little choice if he wanted to preserve his political career, his dignity and maybe even his life and the lives of his supporters. So, Cesar crossed the Rubicon and the rest is history. But the seeds for the destruction of the Roman Republic were sewn long beforehand.
Great meditation to start the day, it is good to keep in mind the advancement of the Patricians & Plebians in the agronomic economy that Max Weber describes in many of his works of ancient European politics. Many of my houseguests find it weird that I have Max Weber's elocution into the agronomy of western Europe in my kitchen along with my cookbooks, but where else should you put the seminal book on "food"? From a business sense it is also good to keep in mind that this is where the concept of "The Pareto Principle" & "Minifundios" & "Latifundios" arose.
Thank you, great video!
adam👀👀👀!