WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:01.899 Welcome back to the Deep Dive. Our mission here 00:00:01.899 --> 00:00:05.280 is always to take a monumental topic, crack open 00:00:05.280 --> 00:00:08.560 the source material, and really pull out those 00:00:08.560 --> 00:00:10.939 surprising facts that just make you feel instantly 00:00:10.939 --> 00:00:13.240 well -informed. And today, we are definitely 00:00:13.240 --> 00:00:16.039 tackling a monumental one. We are. We're strapping 00:00:16.039 --> 00:00:18.660 in for a long, fascinating ride through the origins 00:00:18.660 --> 00:00:21.300 of Rome, and our guide is the man who literally 00:00:21.300 --> 00:00:24.940 wrote the book on it. Titus Livius, or as most 00:00:24.940 --> 00:00:27.140 of us know him, Livy. And that's really the perfect 00:00:27.140 --> 00:00:28.980 place to start because we're talking about the 00:00:28.980 --> 00:00:32.119 ultimate historical epic. This is the history 00:00:32.119 --> 00:00:35.299 that shaped how Rome saw its own glory from, 00:00:35.380 --> 00:00:37.619 you know, the famous myth of Romulus and Remus 00:00:37.619 --> 00:00:39.939 with the wolf. Right, the founding myth itself. 00:00:40.299 --> 00:00:42.399 All the way up to the age of the emperor, specifically 00:00:42.399 --> 00:00:45.560 the reign of Augustus. So we're not just, you 00:00:45.560 --> 00:00:48.079 know. Analyzing an old book today, this deep 00:00:48.079 --> 00:00:50.240 dive is about the man himself, the political 00:00:50.240 --> 00:00:53.140 pressures, the personal biases, and even the 00:00:53.140 --> 00:00:56.179 dramatic search for his lost work. Because Libby 00:00:56.179 --> 00:00:58.219 wasn't just some scribe sitting in the forum. 00:00:58.320 --> 00:01:01.939 He was a provincial, a philosophical writer, 00:01:02.079 --> 00:01:04.340 and he was living through absolute chaos. He 00:01:04.340 --> 00:01:07.640 designed his huge work, Ab Urba Candida, with 00:01:07.640 --> 00:01:10.819 a very specific moral purpose in mind. Precisely. 00:01:11.200 --> 00:01:13.239 Ab Urbi Candida from the founding of the city 00:01:13.239 --> 00:01:16.359 is just an astonishing piece of work. The scale 00:01:16.359 --> 00:01:18.640 is immense. It's one of the most complete narratives 00:01:18.640 --> 00:01:21.200 we have, even if it is, let's say, dramatically 00:01:21.200 --> 00:01:23.719 embellished at times. I think that's a fair description. 00:01:23.980 --> 00:01:25.920 But to really get it, you have to understand 00:01:25.920 --> 00:01:28.180 the man's contradictions. Yeah. Titus Livius, 00:01:28.319 --> 00:01:31.400 this fiercely proud man from Patavium who becomes 00:01:31.400 --> 00:01:33.680 the official storyteller for the very emperor 00:01:33.680 --> 00:01:36.159 who ended the republic he so admired. And that 00:01:36.159 --> 00:01:37.799 tension is the thread we're going to be pulling 00:01:37.799 --> 00:01:40.540 on today. Okay, let's unpack that provincial 00:01:40.540 --> 00:01:43.040 identity because it's so key. For the man who 00:01:43.040 --> 00:01:45.420 became the defining historian of Rome, he was 00:01:45.420 --> 00:01:48.120 fundamentally an outsider. He really was. He 00:01:48.120 --> 00:01:50.599 was born Titus Livius in Patavium, which is a 00:01:50.599 --> 00:01:53.180 modern Padua in northern Italy, probably around 00:01:53.180 --> 00:01:55.859 59 BC. And we need to spend a minute on Patavium 00:01:55.859 --> 00:01:57.700 because this wasn't just some sleepy little town 00:01:57.700 --> 00:01:59.870 on the frontier. Oh, not at all. You have to 00:01:59.870 --> 00:02:02.170 understand, at the time Livy was born, it was 00:02:02.170 --> 00:02:05.030 a major economic powerhouse. Our sources are 00:02:05.030 --> 00:02:07.829 clear on this. It was the second wealthiest city 00:02:07.829 --> 00:02:10.449 on the entire Italian peninsula. Second only 00:02:10.449 --> 00:02:13.409 to Rome itself. Second only to Rome. So it had 00:02:13.409 --> 00:02:15.210 influence, it had a huge amount of resources, 00:02:15.370 --> 00:02:17.590 and a very wealthy, established upper class. 00:02:17.949 --> 00:02:20.189 So Livy wasn't born into poverty, but he was 00:02:20.189 --> 00:02:22.949 born a long way from the center of power. And 00:02:22.949 --> 00:02:25.750 Patavium was the largest city in Cisalpine Gaul, 00:02:25.849 --> 00:02:28.289 right? Yes. And the status of that whole region 00:02:28.289 --> 00:02:30.560 was changing. dramatically right when he was 00:02:30.560 --> 00:02:33.259 growing up. During his lifetime, it was formally 00:02:33.259 --> 00:02:36.400 merged into Italy proper. And crucially, its 00:02:36.400 --> 00:02:38.460 inhabitants, its wealthy inhabitants, were given 00:02:38.460 --> 00:02:41.460 full Roman citizenship. A change brought in by 00:02:41.460 --> 00:02:43.919 Julius Caesar, mostly. Mostly by Caesar, yeah. 00:02:44.039 --> 00:02:45.860 And this created this sort of unique identity. 00:02:46.060 --> 00:02:48.520 You're a full Roman citizen, but you still have 00:02:48.520 --> 00:02:51.000 this fierce loyalty to your region and a very 00:02:51.000 --> 00:02:53.280 distinct set of values. And the sources are so 00:02:53.280 --> 00:02:56.460 clear that Livy never, ever let go of that. He 00:02:56.460 --> 00:02:58.780 was always proud of Patavian. So what were those 00:02:58.780 --> 00:03:01.599 values? What made Patavian so distinct? The city 00:03:01.599 --> 00:03:04.039 was famous for its conservative values, both 00:03:04.039 --> 00:03:06.879 in morality and in politics. Think of it as a 00:03:06.879 --> 00:03:09.919 contrast to the perceived corruption and complexity 00:03:09.919 --> 00:03:12.639 of Rome during the late Republic. Right. Patavian 00:03:12.639 --> 00:03:15.680 was known for this sort of sturdy, almost old 00:03:15.680 --> 00:03:18.780 -fashioned Republican virtue. Things like frugality, 00:03:18.900 --> 00:03:21.340 duty, political independence. And that morality, 00:03:21.360 --> 00:03:24.620 that focus on integrity, that becomes the foundation 00:03:24.620 --> 00:03:26.919 for the virtues he writes about in his history, 00:03:27.020 --> 00:03:29.139 doesn't it? It's the absolute foundation. He's 00:03:29.139 --> 00:03:31.319 basically projecting the ideals of his hometown 00:03:31.319 --> 00:03:35.120 onto Rome's heroic past. And those ideals were 00:03:35.120 --> 00:03:37.300 put to the test when he was young. His teenage 00:03:37.300 --> 00:03:39.979 years, the 40s BC, that was the height of the 00:03:39.979 --> 00:03:42.719 Roman civil wars. It must have been chaos. Total 00:03:42.719 --> 00:03:45.159 chaos. And it prevented him from getting that 00:03:45.159 --> 00:03:47.139 traditional Roman education. What do you mean? 00:03:47.340 --> 00:03:49.219 Well, there's this amazing story involving a 00:03:49.219 --> 00:03:52.000 man named Asinius Polio. He is the governor of 00:03:52.000 --> 00:03:54.520 Cisalpine Gaul, and he was aligned with Mark 00:03:54.520 --> 00:03:57.719 Antony. Okay. So Polio tries to lean on Batavium's 00:03:57.719 --> 00:04:00.719 immense wealth to fund Antony's war effort against 00:04:00.719 --> 00:04:03.340 the Senate. He's trying to get this rich conservative 00:04:03.340 --> 00:04:07.139 city to back a faction that many saw as, well, 00:04:07.319 --> 00:04:11.199 autocratic. Exactly. And Batavia resisted. But 00:04:11.199 --> 00:04:13.580 it's how they resisted that's so interesting. 00:04:13.699 --> 00:04:16.339 It wasn't an open revolt. No, it was this quiet, 00:04:16.480 --> 00:04:19.639 powerful defiance. The wealthy citizens just 00:04:19.639 --> 00:04:21.639 refused to contribute the money and weapons. 00:04:21.779 --> 00:04:24.180 They didn't fight. They just went into hiding. 00:04:24.319 --> 00:04:27.040 Making it impossible for Polio to collect. Right. 00:04:27.100 --> 00:04:29.480 And Polio gets so frustrated that he does something 00:04:29.480 --> 00:04:32.199 incredibly desperate. He tries to bribe their 00:04:32.199 --> 00:04:34.360 slaves to reveal where their masters are hiding. 00:04:34.480 --> 00:04:37.180 Wow. Turning slaves against masters. That's a 00:04:37.180 --> 00:04:39.620 massive social taboo, especially in a conservative 00:04:39.620 --> 00:04:42.519 place like that. A huge gamble. And it failed. 00:04:42.879 --> 00:04:45.360 Completely. The city's social structure held. 00:04:45.579 --> 00:04:47.600 Instead of betraying their masters, the citizens 00:04:47.600 --> 00:04:50.000 who were in hiding, they rallied and formally 00:04:50.000 --> 00:04:52.199 pledged their allegiance to the Senate. The anti 00:04:52.199 --> 00:04:53.899 -Antony faction. Yeah, anti -Antony faction. 00:04:54.139 --> 00:04:57.000 Okay. So right there in his formative years, 00:04:57.439 --> 00:05:00.540 Libby sees his hometown. actively choose the 00:05:00.540 --> 00:05:03.379 side of the old republic over this emerging imperial 00:05:03.379 --> 00:05:06.379 power. That has to leave a mark, watching your 00:05:06.379 --> 00:05:09.560 city stand its ground like that. And you mentioned 00:05:09.560 --> 00:05:12.040 the civil wars probably disrupted his education. 00:05:12.379 --> 00:05:14.720 For sure. He would have missed out on that standard 00:05:14.720 --> 00:05:17.379 higher education in Rome or the tour of Greece 00:05:17.379 --> 00:05:19.699 that was so common for a young man of his class. 00:05:19.920 --> 00:05:22.279 So he was educated, obviously, but not in that 00:05:22.279 --> 00:05:24.879 traditional mold. He's clearly educated in philosophy 00:05:24.879 --> 00:05:26.660 and rhetoric. You can see it in his writing. 00:05:27.290 --> 00:05:29.870 But that finishing school experience was likely 00:05:29.870 --> 00:05:33.250 derailed by the war. And this all leads to a 00:05:33.250 --> 00:05:36.709 very specific personal slight that followed him 00:05:36.709 --> 00:05:40.110 for years. The Padavenity comment. The Padavenity 00:05:40.110 --> 00:05:43.189 slight, yes. From the very same Asinius Polio, 00:05:43.329 --> 00:05:45.990 years later. The governor who was snubbed by 00:05:45.990 --> 00:05:49.060 the city? The very same. He derisively commented 00:05:49.060 --> 00:05:51.779 on Livy's Latin, calling it Padovinity, suggesting 00:05:51.779 --> 00:05:54.000 it was full of, you know, provincialisms that 00:05:54.000 --> 00:05:56.079 sophisticated Romans would look down on. But 00:05:56.079 --> 00:05:58.519 was it really about his grammar or was this just 00:05:58.519 --> 00:06:01.019 a political jab? I think the consensus is that 00:06:01.019 --> 00:06:03.980 it was almost entirely political. It was Polio's 00:06:03.980 --> 00:06:07.000 bad feelings about Batavium's refusal to help 00:06:07.000 --> 00:06:09.699 him all those years ago. It wasn't a critique 00:06:09.699 --> 00:06:12.240 of syntax. It was a way of saying, you may be 00:06:12.240 --> 00:06:14.500 a famous historian in Rome now, but you're still 00:06:14.500 --> 00:06:16.579 just a boy from that stubborn town up north. 00:06:16.759 --> 00:06:19.579 A constant reminder of his outsider status. Always. 00:06:19.819 --> 00:06:23.040 And yet he moves to Rome in the 30s BC, and he 00:06:23.040 --> 00:06:25.839 does become established. But here's another key 00:06:25.839 --> 00:06:29.279 detail. He never held public office. No, never 00:06:29.279 --> 00:06:31.759 a senator, never served in the army. And that's 00:06:31.759 --> 00:06:35.399 crucial. Why? Because it gave him a kind of freedom 00:06:35.399 --> 00:06:38.839 that was rare for Roman historians. He had his 00:06:38.839 --> 00:06:40.779 own money, likely inherited from his wealthy 00:06:40.779 --> 00:06:42.720 family. He didn't need a political appointment 00:06:42.720 --> 00:06:44.620 or a patron to survive. He was an independent 00:06:44.620 --> 00:06:46.660 scholar. Completely. Yeah. Which allowed him 00:06:46.660 --> 00:06:49.079 to spend decades of his life just writing this 00:06:49.079 --> 00:06:51.819 one massive work. But that independence maybe 00:06:51.819 --> 00:06:53.720 had a downside, at least in terms of historical 00:06:53.720 --> 00:06:56.079 detail, like his military knowledge. That's a 00:06:56.079 --> 00:06:57.920 great point. Scholars have pointed out that his 00:06:57.920 --> 00:07:00.540 accounts of battles sometimes contain, well, 00:07:00.660 --> 00:07:03.459 elementary mistakes, you know, errors in deployment 00:07:03.459 --> 00:07:06.279 or topography. He was a scholar, not a soldier. 00:07:06.459 --> 00:07:09.040 Exactly. This focus was on the moral courage, 00:07:09.339 --> 00:07:12.339 the heroism, not the gritty logistics of the 00:07:12.339 --> 00:07:14.240 battlefield. And just to round out his personal 00:07:14.240 --> 00:07:17.120 story, he was married, had a family, and eventually 00:07:17.120 --> 00:07:20.060 he went home. Yes, a very traditional Roman family 00:07:20.060 --> 00:07:22.199 life. He had at least one daughter who married 00:07:22.199 --> 00:07:24.819 a rhetorician and a son who wrote a book on geography. 00:07:25.220 --> 00:07:27.779 And then after all those years in Rome... Writing 00:07:27.779 --> 00:07:30.000 its history, he died back in his home city of 00:07:30.000 --> 00:07:33.240 Batavium in AD 17. The provincial patriot right 00:07:33.240 --> 00:07:35.240 to the end. Which brings us to the great work 00:07:35.240 --> 00:07:38.420 itself. Yes. Ab Urbi Candida from the founding 00:07:38.420 --> 00:07:41.629 of the city. Livy's only surviving work. And 00:07:41.629 --> 00:07:43.670 it's just hard to overstate the scope of this 00:07:43.670 --> 00:07:45.629 thing. It's a leviathan. I mean, we're talking 00:07:45.629 --> 00:07:47.870 about a history that starts with the earliest 00:07:47.870 --> 00:07:51.089 legends, before the traditional 753 B .C. founding 00:07:51.089 --> 00:07:53.250 date. And it goes all the way up to the death 00:07:53.250 --> 00:07:55.790 of Emperor Augustus in A .D. 14. It was originally 00:07:55.790 --> 00:08:00.310 142 books, right? 142. And tragically, only 35 00:08:00.310 --> 00:08:03.209 survive in their entirety today. It's a devastating 00:08:03.209 --> 00:08:06.589 loss. But what we do have gives us our main account 00:08:06.589 --> 00:08:09.189 of some critical periods, especially the Second 00:08:09.189 --> 00:08:12.439 Punic War. His version of Hannibal's campaigns 00:08:12.439 --> 00:08:15.500 is just foundational. It is. But what's really 00:08:15.500 --> 00:08:18.379 crucial to understand is that Livy had a very 00:08:18.379 --> 00:08:20.579 clear personal mission statement right there 00:08:20.579 --> 00:08:23.040 in his preface. He says he's not doing this for 00:08:23.040 --> 00:08:25.459 fame. What was his goal then? He says he doesn't 00:08:25.459 --> 00:08:27.959 care if his own name remains in darkness, as 00:08:27.959 --> 00:08:30.139 long as his work helps to preserve the memory 00:08:30.139 --> 00:08:32.679 of the deeds of the world's preeminent nation. 00:08:32.919 --> 00:08:35.820 That is the language of a moral historian. He's 00:08:35.820 --> 00:08:38.059 not just recording events. He's building a monument. 00:08:38.639 --> 00:08:40.399 He's building a moral foundation for the new 00:08:40.399 --> 00:08:43.740 age. So how did that mission affect his view 00:08:43.740 --> 00:08:46.039 of historical accuracy? That's the million -dollar 00:08:46.039 --> 00:08:49.919 question. It is. And the answer is complicated. 00:08:50.399 --> 00:08:52.740 He's writing hundreds, sometimes thousands of 00:08:52.740 --> 00:08:55.340 years after the events he's describing. He's 00:08:55.340 --> 00:08:57.799 relying on older, often contradictory sources. 00:08:58.139 --> 00:09:00.080 So he's not an archivist in the modern sense. 00:09:00.419 --> 00:09:03.539 Not at all. His commitment wasn't to dry, factual 00:09:03.539 --> 00:09:07.059 chronology. It was to moral instruction. He would 00:09:07.059 --> 00:09:09.179 choose the version of the story that was the 00:09:09.179 --> 00:09:11.820 most heroic, the most eloquent, or the one that 00:09:11.820 --> 00:09:14.620 taught the best lesson. And his narrative was 00:09:14.620 --> 00:09:17.759 just so compelling that for many Romans, it became 00:09:17.759 --> 00:09:20.320 the truth. He created the definitive popular 00:09:20.320 --> 00:09:22.799 version of their history. He absolutely did. 00:09:22.879 --> 00:09:24.799 He built the narrative framework of what it meant 00:09:24.799 --> 00:09:28.620 to be Roman duty, courage, devotion to the state. 00:09:29.049 --> 00:09:32.090 His work was less a history book and more a patriotic 00:09:32.090 --> 00:09:34.009 textbook. We should also remember he wrote other 00:09:34.009 --> 00:09:36.230 things, too. He wasn't just a historian. That's 00:09:36.230 --> 00:09:38.370 right. The great history overshadows everything. 00:09:38.669 --> 00:09:40.990 But we know he wrote philosophical dialogues, 00:09:41.309 --> 00:09:43.789 probably modeled on Cicero. He also wrote an 00:09:43.789 --> 00:09:46.409 essay as a letter to his son. So he was deeply 00:09:46.409 --> 00:09:49.090 engaged in the philosophical debates of his time. 00:09:49.350 --> 00:09:51.970 Yes. And Seneca the Younger gives us a great 00:09:51.970 --> 00:09:54.289 insight here. He said Libby's dialogues were 00:09:54.289 --> 00:09:56.570 so good they could be classified as history and 00:09:56.570 --> 00:09:59.470 philosophy. It just confirms that Livy saw his 00:09:59.470 --> 00:10:02.029 job as exploring these deep questions about human 00:10:02.029 --> 00:10:05.049 nature and society. History was just his main 00:10:05.049 --> 00:10:07.370 tool. Okay, so let's pivot to something really 00:10:07.370 --> 00:10:11.110 unexpected. One of the strangest long -term influences 00:10:11.110 --> 00:10:13.830 of his work was on a scientific debate about 00:10:13.830 --> 00:10:15.950 the origins of the Etruscans. This is one of 00:10:15.950 --> 00:10:18.289 my favorite examples of his influence. It shows 00:10:18.289 --> 00:10:21.419 how a single... almost throwaway line in his 00:10:21.419 --> 00:10:24.440 massive text could shape scholarship for centuries. 00:10:24.919 --> 00:10:28.240 His book became the basis for the northern theory 00:10:28.240 --> 00:10:30.879 of where the Etruscans came from. How? It's in 00:10:30.879 --> 00:10:32.559 a passage where he's talking about the Alpine 00:10:32.559 --> 00:10:34.600 tribes, a group called the Rady. And he just 00:10:34.600 --> 00:10:37.039 suggests, sort of as a side comment, that the 00:10:37.039 --> 00:10:39.220 Rady were undoubtedly of the same kind as the 00:10:39.220 --> 00:10:41.580 Etruscans. So he's drawing a direct ancestral 00:10:41.580 --> 00:10:44.419 line between this sophisticated ancient civilization, 00:10:44.879 --> 00:10:47.519 the Etruscans, and these rough mountain tribes 00:10:47.519 --> 00:10:50.600 to the north. He is. And he probably based it 00:10:50.600 --> 00:10:53.000 on some old local stories or maybe a linguistic 00:10:53.000 --> 00:10:55.500 similarity he'd heard about. But he adds this 00:10:55.500 --> 00:10:58.039 little caveat that makes the theory so powerful. 00:10:58.220 --> 00:11:00.259 What's the caveat? He notes that the Rady had 00:11:00.259 --> 00:11:02.659 become so primitive because of their remote location 00:11:02.659 --> 00:11:05.679 that they only retained a trace of their Etruscan 00:11:05.679 --> 00:11:08.399 origins in their language. And even that was 00:11:08.399 --> 00:11:10.960 corrupted. Ah, so that explains the cultural 00:11:10.960 --> 00:11:13.419 difference while keeping the link. Exactly. And 00:11:13.419 --> 00:11:15.500 when scholars in the Renaissance and later started 00:11:15.500 --> 00:11:17.360 digging into the mystery of Etruscan origins, 00:11:17.559 --> 00:11:20.919 which we still debate today, they seized on this 00:11:20.919 --> 00:11:23.659 single statement from Livy. Because if Livy said 00:11:23.659 --> 00:11:26.379 it, it must have some weight. Immense weight. 00:11:26.639 --> 00:11:29.500 Scholars like Carl Offred Miller used this line 00:11:29.500 --> 00:11:31.879 as the core evidence for a northern migration 00:11:31.879 --> 00:11:34.700 theory, that the Etruscans came down from the 00:11:34.700 --> 00:11:37.929 Alps. Livy's authority basically chopped up that 00:11:37.929 --> 00:11:40.889 entire school of thought for hundreds of years. 00:11:41.149 --> 00:11:44.269 So we have this philosopher historian, this provincial 00:11:44.269 --> 00:11:48.350 patriot, writing this epic moral narrative, and 00:11:48.350 --> 00:11:50.649 now he lands in the most politically dangerous 00:11:50.649 --> 00:11:54.230 place imaginable, the court of the emperor Augustus. 00:11:54.269 --> 00:11:56.610 And this is where his skill really shines. His 00:11:56.610 --> 00:11:58.870 relationship with Augustus and the whole Julio 00:11:58.870 --> 00:12:01.509 -Claudian family was, well, exceptional. He was 00:12:01.509 --> 00:12:03.500 a genuine friend of the emperor. And it was a 00:12:03.500 --> 00:12:04.899 friendship that worked both ways, presumably. 00:12:05.100 --> 00:12:07.320 Oh, for sure. Livy got protection. He got access. 00:12:07.580 --> 00:12:10.100 And Augustus, he got the ultimate historical 00:12:10.100 --> 00:12:12.639 validation for his new regime. You have to remember, 00:12:12.860 --> 00:12:15.940 Augustus had won the civil wars, but he needed 00:12:15.940 --> 00:12:19.620 legitimacy. He had to frame the empire not as 00:12:19.620 --> 00:12:22.460 a destruction of the republic, but as its righteous 00:12:22.460 --> 00:12:25.460 fulfillment. And Livy's history delivered exactly 00:12:25.460 --> 00:12:27.700 that. It wasn't just a history. It was promotion. 00:12:28.240 --> 00:12:31.980 The sources are explicit that he wrote with embellished 00:12:31.980 --> 00:12:35.600 accounts of Roman heroism specifically to promote 00:12:35.600 --> 00:12:37.899 the new Augustan government. He made the transition 00:12:37.899 --> 00:12:41.059 from republic to empire seem righteous and inevitable. 00:12:41.379 --> 00:12:44.620 It's historical legitimation at its finest. He 00:12:44.620 --> 00:12:47.740 basically takes the stern. moral virtues of the 00:12:47.740 --> 00:12:50.980 early republic, the values of his hometown, Patavium, 00:12:51.080 --> 00:12:53.480 and argues that those values led directly to 00:12:53.480 --> 00:12:55.460 the peace and greatness of the Augustan age. 00:12:55.620 --> 00:12:57.500 It's a brilliant move. He makes the new empire 00:12:57.500 --> 00:13:00.179 feel ancient and virtuous. Masterful rhetorical 00:13:00.179 --> 00:13:02.159 politics. But this brings us to that amazing 00:13:02.159 --> 00:13:04.399 contradiction, the thing that shows just how 00:13:04.399 --> 00:13:07.519 complex this friendship was, the Pompeianus paradox. 00:13:08.019 --> 00:13:09.860 Yes, this is where it gets really, really interesting. 00:13:10.059 --> 00:13:12.440 How can you praise the virtues of the dead republic 00:13:12.440 --> 00:13:14.740 while being best friends with the man who killed 00:13:14.740 --> 00:13:17.179 it? The answer comes from the historian Tacitus, 00:13:17.320 --> 00:13:20.899 writing a century later. It does. Tacitus tells 00:13:20.899 --> 00:13:24.200 us this incredible anecdote. That Augustus himself 00:13:24.200 --> 00:13:27.299 had a nickname for Livy. He called him Pompeianus. 00:13:27.480 --> 00:13:30.820 Let's just pause on that. Pompeianus. As in Pompey 00:13:30.820 --> 00:13:33.799 the Great. Neus Pompeius. Augustus' ultimate 00:13:33.799 --> 00:13:36.659 rival. The man he defeated in a brutal civil 00:13:36.659 --> 00:13:40.080 war to gain soul power. And the emperor is calling 00:13:40.080 --> 00:13:43.679 his favorite historian Pompey's man. That is 00:13:43.679 --> 00:13:46.299 an astonishing level of confidence. It's unbelievable. 00:13:46.559 --> 00:13:48.519 And the reason Augustus gave him that nickname 00:13:48.519 --> 00:13:51.700 was because Livy's history contained such a strong, 00:13:51.740 --> 00:13:56.100 powerful, panegyric, a formal praise for Pompey. 00:13:56.120 --> 00:13:57.960 Which is the last thing you'd expect. You'd think 00:13:57.960 --> 00:13:59.779 he'd have to downplay Augustus' old enemies. 00:14:00.000 --> 00:14:01.820 But he did the opposite. And if you think back 00:14:01.820 --> 00:14:04.000 to his identity, it makes perfect sense. His 00:14:04.000 --> 00:14:06.580 hometown, Batavium, was fiercely pro -Pompey. 00:14:06.990 --> 00:14:08.889 Livy was just staying true to his conservative 00:14:08.889 --> 00:14:11.450 Republican roots. He was honoring a great defender 00:14:11.450 --> 00:14:13.470 of the traditional republic. Even though he was 00:14:13.470 --> 00:14:15.809 on the losing side. And what's truly remarkable 00:14:15.809 --> 00:14:18.590 is what Tacitus says next. He confirms that this 00:14:18.590 --> 00:14:21.090 nickname was no obstacle to their friendship. 00:14:21.370 --> 00:14:24.750 That's the aha moment. It shows that either Augustus 00:14:24.750 --> 00:14:26.690 was so secure in his power that he could afford 00:14:26.690 --> 00:14:30.149 to joke about it. Or that Livy's skill. And his 00:14:30.149 --> 00:14:33.230 overall value to the regime's narrative was so 00:14:33.230 --> 00:14:36.309 immense that a little praise for Pompey was a 00:14:36.309 --> 00:14:39.350 price worth paying. It suggests this really nuanced, 00:14:39.450 --> 00:14:42.549 sophisticated relationship. Livy somehow manages 00:14:42.549 --> 00:14:45.870 to keep his reputation for eloquence and truthfulness, 00:14:46.009 --> 00:14:48.389 as Tacitus put it. While writing the official 00:14:48.389 --> 00:14:50.789 history of the new regime, it's an incredible 00:14:50.789 --> 00:14:53.129 balancing act. And his influence didn't stop 00:14:53.129 --> 00:14:56.090 there. He was actively mentoring the next generation 00:14:56.090 --> 00:14:58.549 of the imperial family. Yes, the source confirms 00:14:58.549 --> 00:15:01.529 that Livy personally encouraged Augustus' grandnephew, 00:15:01.649 --> 00:15:03.950 the young boy who would one day become the Emperor 00:15:03.950 --> 00:15:07.149 Claudius, to start writing history. So he wasn't 00:15:07.149 --> 00:15:09.190 just a chronicler of the past. He was shaping 00:15:09.190 --> 00:15:11.730 the intellectual future of the dynasty. He was 00:15:11.730 --> 00:15:14.750 deeply embedded, the defining intellectual voice 00:15:14.750 --> 00:15:17.700 of the age, right at the center of power. It's 00:15:17.700 --> 00:15:19.899 amazing to think that Livy wasn't just influential 00:15:19.899 --> 00:15:22.279 later on. He was a full -blown celebrity in his 00:15:22.279 --> 00:15:24.740 own lifetime. A massive celebrity. Yeah. Which 00:15:24.740 --> 00:15:26.639 makes the fact that we lost so much of his work 00:15:26.639 --> 00:15:29.440 even more tragic. Let's talk about his immediate 00:15:29.440 --> 00:15:32.460 reception. His history was in huge demand from 00:15:32.460 --> 00:15:34.740 the moment it came out. The anecdotes about his 00:15:34.740 --> 00:15:37.259 fame are just incredible. Pliny the Younger tells 00:15:37.259 --> 00:15:39.519 this one story that really gives you a sense 00:15:39.519 --> 00:15:41.840 of it. I think I know the one you mean. He says 00:15:41.840 --> 00:15:45.059 Livy was so famous that a man traveled all the 00:15:45.059 --> 00:15:48.190 way from Cadiz which is in modern Spain, the 00:15:48.190 --> 00:15:51.070 absolute edge of the known world. Right. All 00:15:51.070 --> 00:15:53.450 the way to Rome and back for the sole purpose 00:15:53.450 --> 00:15:55.649 of meeting him. He didn't come to see the Senate 00:15:55.649 --> 00:15:58.370 or to trade. He came for a celebrity meet and 00:15:58.370 --> 00:16:00.730 greet with an author. That's the ancient equivalent 00:16:00.730 --> 00:16:03.549 of a fan flying across the world just for a five 00:16:03.549 --> 00:16:05.450 minute chat with their favorite writer. It's 00:16:05.450 --> 00:16:07.529 incredible. And because he was so famous, so 00:16:07.529 --> 00:16:11.289 accepted, his work became the source for basically 00:16:11.289 --> 00:16:13.850 every historian who came after him. He set the 00:16:13.850 --> 00:16:15.950 canon. You see his influence everywhere, from 00:16:15.950 --> 00:16:18.830 writers who summarize Roman history like Florus 00:16:18.830 --> 00:16:22.110 and Eutropius, to Christian chroniclers like 00:16:22.110 --> 00:16:25.250 Orosius, who are trying to make sense of Rome's 00:16:25.250 --> 00:16:28.509 pagan past. Even in really specific niche works. 00:16:28.929 --> 00:16:32.570 For sure. A writer named Julius Obsequens compiled 00:16:32.570 --> 00:16:35.289 this book called De Prodigius, which was a list 00:16:35.289 --> 00:16:37.529 of all the supernatural events and omens in Roman 00:16:37.529 --> 00:16:39.169 history. And where did he get his information? 00:16:39.549 --> 00:16:42.769 He had to rely on Livy, or a source who had access 00:16:42.769 --> 00:16:45.309 to Livy. Livy's narrative was the recognized 00:16:45.309 --> 00:16:47.490 authority on everything that had ever happened. 00:16:47.820 --> 00:16:50.419 from battles to miracles. But the very things 00:16:50.419 --> 00:16:53.460 that made it so popular, its fame and its enormous 00:16:53.460 --> 00:16:55.980 length, are what led to its loss in the Middle 00:16:55.980 --> 00:16:58.820 Ages. How did we lose over 100 books? It was 00:16:58.820 --> 00:17:01.799 a problem of pure practicality. Ab Urb Candida 00:17:01.799 --> 00:17:05.799 was gigantic. Copying all 142 books by hand onto 00:17:05.799 --> 00:17:08.819 scrolls was incredibly expensive and time -consuming. 00:17:08.920 --> 00:17:10.900 And then you had to store them all. It required 00:17:10.900 --> 00:17:13.079 a huge amount of library space, which was a rare 00:17:13.079 --> 00:17:15.180 commodity. And a very rare commodity, especially 00:17:15.180 --> 00:17:16.920 during the more chaotic centuries of the Middle 00:17:16.920 --> 00:17:19.500 Ages. So what happened was people started relying 00:17:19.500 --> 00:17:22.460 on summaries instead. Epitomies. Exactly. They 00:17:22.460 --> 00:17:24.359 were shorter, cheaper, and easier to copy and 00:17:24.359 --> 00:17:27.240 store. And once the Summers became popular enough, 00:17:27.380 --> 00:17:29.839 the incentive to copy the massive original work 00:17:29.839 --> 00:17:32.220 just disappeared. The full manuscript stopped 00:17:32.220 --> 00:17:34.859 being copied and the ones that existed were lost 00:17:34.859 --> 00:17:37.160 to time, to fires, to neglect. And it became 00:17:37.160 --> 00:17:39.259 one of the greatest cultural losses of the ancient 00:17:39.259 --> 00:17:41.240 world. So then you fast forward to the Renaissance 00:17:41.240 --> 00:17:44.339 and scholars suddenly realize how much of Rome's 00:17:44.339 --> 00:17:48.119 story is just gone. And it sparks this intense 00:17:48.119 --> 00:17:51.160 revival, a kind of historical treasure hunt. 00:17:51.559 --> 00:17:54.779 The recovery of lost classical texts was a central 00:17:54.779 --> 00:17:57.160 project of the Renaissance, and Livy was the 00:17:57.160 --> 00:17:59.099 top prize. They were trying to find manuscripts 00:17:59.099 --> 00:18:02.259 hidden away in monastery libraries all over Europe. 00:18:02.359 --> 00:18:05.940 A frantic, high -stakes search. And it commanded 00:18:05.940 --> 00:18:08.799 serious money. You told me about that incredible 00:18:08.799 --> 00:18:11.160 anecdote with the poet Beccadelli. Oh, it's just 00:18:11.160 --> 00:18:13.599 amazing. The poet Antonio Beccadelli sold his 00:18:13.599 --> 00:18:16.819 country home, a massive asset, just to buy one 00:18:16.819 --> 00:18:19.599 copied manuscript of Livy. He traded his house 00:18:19.599 --> 00:18:22.380 for a book. It just shows the insane cultural 00:18:22.380 --> 00:18:24.500 value they placed on his words. And it wasn't 00:18:24.500 --> 00:18:27.059 just eccentric poets. Major figures were involved. 00:18:27.359 --> 00:18:29.619 The great humanist Petrarch launched his own 00:18:29.619 --> 00:18:32.940 searches. Pope Nicholas V made it a papal mission 00:18:32.940 --> 00:18:35.640 to find the missing books. It was seen as a quest 00:18:35.640 --> 00:18:38.519 to recover the very soul of Rome. And this recovery 00:18:38.519 --> 00:18:41.500 didn't just affect literature. It shaped political 00:18:41.500 --> 00:18:45.099 thought. Hugely. Dante had praised Livy centuries 00:18:45.099 --> 00:18:48.769 before. Later, King Francis I of France commissioned 00:18:48.769 --> 00:18:51.829 all this art based on Livian themes of heroism 00:18:51.829 --> 00:18:54.210 and Roman virtue. But the biggest influence on 00:18:54.210 --> 00:18:56.630 Western political thought has to be Niccolo Machiavelli. 00:18:56.710 --> 00:18:59.150 Without a doubt. Machiavelli's most important 00:18:59.150 --> 00:19:02.190 work on governance, The Discourses on Livy, is 00:19:02.190 --> 00:19:05.240 literally a commentary on Livy's history. He's 00:19:05.240 --> 00:19:06.920 using Livy's stories about the Roman Republic 00:19:06.920 --> 00:19:08.940 to build his own theories on how states work. 00:19:09.079 --> 00:19:11.579 He's extracting these practical, sometimes ruthless 00:19:11.579 --> 00:19:15.019 lessons on modern statecraft directly from Livy's 00:19:15.019 --> 00:19:18.000 moralizing tales. It's a foundational text of 00:19:18.000 --> 00:19:20.140 political science. And to wrap this up, there's 00:19:20.140 --> 00:19:22.259 that one last heartbreaking anecdote from Walter 00:19:22.259 --> 00:19:25.000 Scott. It's just a stunning detail. Scott reports 00:19:25.000 --> 00:19:28.420 it as a true story from the 1715 Jacobite uprising 00:19:28.420 --> 00:19:31.430 in Scotland. A Scotsman involved in the rebellion 00:19:31.430 --> 00:19:33.509 gets captured, but then he managed to escape. 00:19:33.769 --> 00:19:36.470 He's free. He got away clean. But he doesn't 00:19:36.470 --> 00:19:39.829 run. He doesn't. He lingered near the place of 00:19:39.829 --> 00:19:42.809 his captivity. Why? Because he was hoping to 00:19:42.809 --> 00:19:45.549 get back his most prized possession, his favorite 00:19:45.549 --> 00:19:48.490 copy of Titus Livius. And that hesitation got 00:19:48.490 --> 00:19:52.029 him recaptured. And executed. He literally died 00:19:52.029 --> 00:19:54.329 for his love of a book written nearly 2 ,000 00:19:54.329 --> 00:19:57.789 years earlier. It's an almost unbelievable testament 00:19:57.789 --> 00:20:01.329 to the power of Levy's writing. So we've established 00:20:01.329 --> 00:20:03.950 his huge influence, his celebrity, but now we 00:20:03.950 --> 00:20:06.170 have to deal with a fundamental problem that 00:20:06.170 --> 00:20:08.750 all classical scholars face. Which is that for 00:20:08.750 --> 00:20:11.670 all his fame, we aren't even 100 % certain about 00:20:11.670 --> 00:20:14.049 the basic dates of his life. Exactly. The data 00:20:14.049 --> 00:20:17.750 is, let's say, a little bit shaky. So where does 00:20:17.750 --> 00:20:19.769 our information for his birth and death even 00:20:19.769 --> 00:20:23.359 come from? Primarily from one source. a summary 00:20:23.359 --> 00:20:25.960 of world history written by a bishop named Eusebius 00:20:25.960 --> 00:20:29.440 of Caesarea in the early 4th century AD. The 00:20:29.440 --> 00:20:31.720 work is called the Chronicon. And the problem, 00:20:31.900 --> 00:20:34.059 as is so often the case, is that we don't have 00:20:34.059 --> 00:20:36.740 the original. We don't. The original Greek is 00:20:36.740 --> 00:20:39.920 mostly lost. We rely almost entirely on translations 00:20:39.920 --> 00:20:42.619 and fragments, mainly St. Jerome's Latin translation. 00:20:42.900 --> 00:20:44.779 So we're already dealing with copy, a translation. 00:20:44.900 --> 00:20:47.579 A translation that was also supplemented with 00:20:47.579 --> 00:20:50.700 new material by Jerome. And this is where the 00:20:50.700 --> 00:20:52.720 problem of variation comes in. What do you mean 00:20:52.720 --> 00:20:54.779 by that? Well, when you look at the different 00:20:54.779 --> 00:20:56.839 surviving manuscripts of Jerome's Chronicon, 00:20:56.920 --> 00:20:59.539 which are copies of copies of copies, they often 00:20:59.539 --> 00:21:02.119 have different dates for the same events. The 00:21:02.119 --> 00:21:04.259 material isn't exactly the same. And they were 00:21:04.259 --> 00:21:06.480 juggling different dating systems too, right? 00:21:06.619 --> 00:21:10.339 Yes, which made errors almost inevitable. A scribe 00:21:10.339 --> 00:21:12.720 might be converting a date from the Roman ab 00:21:12.720 --> 00:21:16.339 herb candida system to the Greek Olympiad system, 00:21:16.460 --> 00:21:19.920 or just noting a person's age, any little miscalculation. 00:21:19.960 --> 00:21:21.859 Gets copied into the next version and becomes 00:21:21.859 --> 00:21:25.420 locked in as a fact in that manuscript tradition. 00:21:25.740 --> 00:21:28.960 Precisely. Which means, as the sources say, there 00:21:28.960 --> 00:21:32.240 is no such date as a single universally accepted 00:21:32.240 --> 00:21:35.130 standard date for Libby's life. That's a really 00:21:35.130 --> 00:21:37.109 important thing for us to remember. So much of 00:21:37.109 --> 00:21:39.829 ancient history is about probability, not absolute 00:21:39.829 --> 00:21:42.029 certainty. It is. So if there's no certainty, 00:21:42.170 --> 00:21:44.670 what is the accepted scholarly consensus that 00:21:44.670 --> 00:21:47.430 we use today? The working consensus is based 00:21:47.430 --> 00:21:49.910 on analyzing the Olympiad codes in the manuscripts. 00:21:50.190 --> 00:21:53.970 The codes 180 .2 for his birth and 199 .1 for 00:21:53.970 --> 00:21:56.329 his death are the ones most scholars rely on. 00:21:56.589 --> 00:21:58.430 And when you calculate those out, they correspond 00:21:58.430 --> 00:22:02.210 to a birth in 59 BC and a death in 8017. Which 00:22:02.210 --> 00:22:04.269 is the timeline we've been using. It is. But 00:22:04.269 --> 00:22:06.410 we have to be honest and acknowledge that other 00:22:06.410 --> 00:22:08.750 manuscripts exist. For example, one gives a different 00:22:08.750 --> 00:22:12.069 code that would place his birth in 57 BC. So 00:22:12.069 --> 00:22:14.470 there's always that little question mark. Always. 00:22:14.609 --> 00:22:17.410 It's kind of a perfect metaphor, isn't it? The 00:22:17.410 --> 00:22:20.049 man who solidified Rome's legendary past has 00:22:20.049 --> 00:22:22.700 a personal timeline. That is itself a fragile 00:22:22.700 --> 00:22:25.400 narrative, pieced together from fragments centuries 00:22:25.400 --> 00:22:28.039 after he died. It's a reminder of how history 00:22:28.039 --> 00:22:30.500 itself works. At the end of the day, the story 00:22:30.500 --> 00:22:33.359 of Titus Livius is just this incredible masterclass 00:22:33.359 --> 00:22:36.099 in influence and, frankly, political survival. 00:22:36.440 --> 00:22:38.640 He lived this fascinating, contradictory life. 00:22:39.210 --> 00:22:41.390 the fiercely patriotic provincial who brings 00:22:41.390 --> 00:22:44.089 the moral virtues of his hometown right into 00:22:44.089 --> 00:22:46.170 the heart of the new imperial court. He becomes 00:22:46.170 --> 00:22:48.730 the emperor's favorite historian, yet he's still 00:22:48.730 --> 00:22:50.930 championing the ethos of the republic that the 00:22:50.930 --> 00:22:53.549 emperor defeated. And his history was so much 00:22:53.549 --> 00:22:56.190 more than a simple chronicle. It was a moral 00:22:56.190 --> 00:22:59.759 argument. carefully built to showcase Roman heroism 00:22:59.759 --> 00:23:03.700 and justify Augustus's new order by making it 00:23:03.700 --> 00:23:06.400 seem like the natural, virtuous endpoint of the 00:23:06.400 --> 00:23:08.420 Republic. And that central tension, the one we 00:23:08.420 --> 00:23:10.279 see in the Pompeianus Paradox, that's his real 00:23:10.279 --> 00:23:12.740 legacy, isn't it? I think so. His ability to 00:23:12.740 --> 00:23:15.220 praise the vanquish, to praise Pompeii and still 00:23:15.220 --> 00:23:17.640 be close friends with the Victor Augustus, says 00:23:17.640 --> 00:23:20.359 everything about his rhetorical skill and his 00:23:20.359 --> 00:23:23.180 political genius. His work ensured that the memory 00:23:23.180 --> 00:23:26.259 of the Republic's virtues, the very ideals Augustus 00:23:26.279 --> 00:23:28.599 had to crush to gain power actually survived. 00:23:29.000 --> 00:23:31.460 They were preserved right there in the official 00:23:31.460 --> 00:23:33.339 history commissioned by the emperor himself. 00:23:33.700 --> 00:23:35.819 Which leaves us with that critical question that 00:23:35.819 --> 00:23:38.720 Tacitus hinted at. What does it really take for 00:23:38.720 --> 00:23:41.240 a historian to maintain both eloquence and truthfulness 00:23:41.240 --> 00:23:43.839 while writing for the very power structure that 00:23:43.839 --> 00:23:46.519 destroyed the era he most admired? That is the 00:23:46.519 --> 00:23:48.799 core tension. And it's a question that feels 00:23:48.799 --> 00:23:51.630 deeply relevant for us today. When we look at 00:23:51.630 --> 00:23:54.190 our own times of great political change, you 00:23:54.190 --> 00:23:56.329 have to wonder how the historical accounts being 00:23:56.329 --> 00:23:59.109 written right now, the journalism, the biographies, 00:23:59.190 --> 00:24:02.549 how will they be judged in 500 years? Will future 00:24:02.549 --> 00:24:05.289 historians see our chroniclers as truth tellers 00:24:05.289 --> 00:24:08.210 or as clever Pompeiani praising the old order 00:24:08.210 --> 00:24:10.309 while serving the new? Will the narrative they 00:24:10.309 --> 00:24:12.250 create about our present moment be seen as fact 00:24:12.250 --> 00:24:14.710 or as a masterful justification for the powers 00:24:14.710 --> 00:24:16.930 that be? Something to ponder as we think about 00:24:16.930 --> 00:24:19.029 the enduring power of history and the people 00:24:19.029 --> 00:24:19.630 who write it.