Civilization #14: Hannibal Barca, Lucius Brutus, and the Triumph of Rome

Okay, so we start Rome today, and we will spend the next four classes on the rise of the Roman Republic and then the rise of the Roman Empire. So Rome, traditionally we believe Rome was founded in the year 753 BC, but we don't know. That's just what tradition says, that's what the Romans believe, we actually don't know. So around this time Rome is just like a small, insignificant kingdom in the middle of Italy. It was started on the Tiber, this is Rome, and it's part of Italy called a Latin area, so these people are known as the Latins.

Now at this time, and over the next centuries, Rome would be a small, poor kingdom that was at war with its neighbors, primarily the Sabines over here, and then you have other tribes as well. At this time the dominant civilization is what we call the Etruscans, and the Etruscans are the most advanced civilization in Italy during this time, and it is very similar to Greece in that there are different city-states and they trade with each other, and because they are by the sea they are able to access cultures and ideas and goods from all around the world. Then across the Mediterranean you have a place called Carthage.

Here is Italy, Sicily, and I call Sicily... Sicily is important because it's basically the main island of the Mediterranean, so if you want to control the Mediterranean Sea and the trade you have to control Sicily. All right, so across the sea is Carthage, and Carthage is a colony of Phoenicia, which is in the Levant, and over the next few hundred years Carthage would become the dominant economic power of the Mediterranean because they're very good at trade and they're very good at sailing. So they'll travel and sail all around the world and found new colonies, and slowly they'll build up their own little empire across the Mediterranean, and they are for the longest time the wealthiest city in Europe, basically. And of course over here are the Greeks, and we spent a lot of time discussing the Greeks.

So around this time, about 500 BC, if you would look at these three major civilizations, or sorry, there's actually four, the Etruscans, the Greeks, the Carthaginians, and then you have these... no one could expect or predict that the Romans would become the great empire that it did become. So what we will look at in the first class is: how did Rome become so powerful?

And the easy answer is it's good at war. It's really good at war. And then the question then is, well, why is it good at war? Why is it better than the Greeks or the Carthaginians? And the answer is because the Romans are not afraid to die, and because the Romans have a different conception of citizenship than the Greeks. Remember, the Greeks were extremely jealous of citizenship. It was very hard to become an Athenian, it was very hard to become a Spartan, you basically have to be born into the polis. Same thing with the Carthaginians. They were not as strict as the Greeks, but they were pretty inflexible as well, they're very proud of being a citizen. Rome, because it was the poorest, smallest, had no choice. If you wanted to immigrate to Rome they welcomed you as a citizen, and as such they could throughout their history draw on the vast manpower pool in the surrounding areas. And as such, with their unlimited manpower resources, they could eventually overwhelm the Greeks and the Carthaginians and become the dominant power in the Mediterranean by about 200 BC. That's the easy answer and that's what most historians believe, but I want to be more precise.

I want to show you that ultimately it's the value system, or what is known as the character, of these different civilizations that ultimately determined their fate and future. Does that make sense?

All right, so about 500 BC Rome becomes a republic, and at this time the Etruscan culture is dominating Rome. In fact, for three out of Rome's seven kings previously were Etruscan. So culturally and traditionally speaking the Etruscans have this huge impact on Rome, but because Rome is very good at war, it's slowly able to expand and conquer the Etruscans and basically control all of Italy. And because the Romans are expansionist by nature, they are a warlike people, they are basically a war machine, they now want Sicily and the coast. And this brings them into conflict with the Greeks, because remember, the Greeks, when they built colonies, they built them either on islands or near the coast, because that's what allows them to trade and also connect with the Greek diaspora around the Mediterranean and the Aegean. And in about 280 the Greeks in southern Italy call for help.

Remember at this time the Greek world is dominant throughout the world. Alexander conquered most of the world and his generals now control most of the territory, and one of the successors to Alexander, his name is Pyrrhus, he decides this is an opportunity for him to build his own empire. So he responds to the Greeks who call for help against Rome. Rome is threatening the Greeks in southern Italy, the Greeks are asking for help from their compatriots, Pyrrhus comes with an army to help his compatriots, and remember at this time the Greeks had the best military in the world because of the hoplite phalanx. And Pyrrhus is destroying the Romans battle after battle. Pyrrhus is destroying and decimating the Romans. Eventually Pyrrhus says this: wow, I'm winning so many wars, I'm winning so many battles, and if I continue to win battles I will be completely out of men, I will have no more soldiers left. And this is where the phrase Pyrrhic victory comes from. You can win but the costs of victory are so high you might as well have lost. All right, and so what this means is even though the Romans were militarily inferior to the Greeks, the Romans weren't afraid to die, and they inflicted so many casualties on the Greeks that the Greeks eventually had to withdraw.

And this will start many centuries of war between the Romans and the Greeks. Remember at this time, in the beginning, the Greeks are wealthier, more numerous and more militarily dominant than the Romans, but eventually, because of the Roman way of war, Rome will eventually conquer the Greeks. So that's the Greeks.

Eventually the Romans went to Sicily, and this brings them into direct conflict with Carthage, and they start what is called the First Punic War. Now there's a problem: Carthage is a naval power, Rome is a land power, Rome has no navy. So what Rome does is slowly over time it builds its own navy, and at first they suck, they lose a lot of ships, and so the Romans build more ships and they get slaughtered by the Carthaginians at sea, so they build more ships and more ships and more ships. Eventually they overwhelm the Carthaginians, and so after 20 years of war, in what is called the First Punic War, Rome becomes a dominant naval power in the Mediterranean, Carthage becomes second. Then something strange happens. Carthage is a trading power, is a power and but while it's able to dominate its neighbors, it established an empire in northern Africa and in Spain, it loses a lot of wars against the Greeks and the Romans, who are just better warriors.

But then the Carthaginians produce a man named Hannibal Barca, and Hannibal Barca is considered by many military historians to be the greatest general who ever lived. As a military strategist, Hannibal, no competitor. And Hannibal Barca, he hates Rome with a passion. He understands this: he understands that Rome is fundamentally an expansionist military power, Rome will not stop until it has conquered the world. So even though technically Carthage and Rome are at peace, eventually Rome will confront Carthage, so it's better to take the fight to Rome first than to wait for Rome to come to you.

Now Carthage at this time is basically a republic like Rome, and it's run by something called the Council of Elders. These are the wealthiest citizens in Carthage, and there's elements of democracy and oligarchy as well, but it's primarily a republic. It's run by these people, and these are merchants, these are wealthy people, war is bad for business. So they were not supportive of Hannibal in his desire for war against Rome.

So Hannibal did two things. The first thing is he was in charge of silver mines in Spain, and what he did was he conquered a lot more Spanish territory for Carthage, and so he was able to amass more wealth. He took this wealth and he used it to basically bribe the Council of Elders to leave him alone and to support his military adventures in Spain, and again these are business people, if it's profitable they will.

And then what Hannibal did was he did something that was unimaginable before. He took his army and he crossed the Alps. He crossed the Alps, sorry, the Alps are here, into Italy. He is now at Rome's doorstep. And again, before Hannibal did this it was found impossible to cross the Alps, especially in winter, with an army. But Hannibal did that. He lost a lot of men and elephants, war elephants, in his crossing, but he was able to cross, and when he crossed he was able to summon a lot of allies to his side, because Rome was at war with everyone in Italy and with the Gauls to the north of Italy and France.

So Rome had a lot of enemies, and so Hannibal was able to replenish his forces once he landed in Italy. He was also a very charismatic speaker, a great... Rome heard about this and at first they were shocked but they weren't scared. Rome is a war machine. So they decided to send an army against Hannibal, and army after army fell against Hannibal. Hannibal was able to defeat Roman soldiers and armies with superior military tactics and strategies.

Then the Romans decide, you know what, here's what we're going to do. We'll take two years off and we're going to build the world's largest army, 880,000 men, and at this time Hannibal had about men, and then we'll take these 880,000 soldiers and we'll just throw them at Hannibal and crush Hannibal and the war will be over. And that's the strategy, that's just the Roman way. The Romans are not creative, they are just brutal, bold and direct. That's just their way of war. And so Hannibal meets his 880,000-soldier army at a place called Cannae, and they fight what's called the Battle of Cannae in 216 BC, and this is the most famous battle in human history.

Remember, the Romans outnumber Hannibal 2 to 1, and what Hannibal does is he decides on a place to face the Romans. In this place, it's a small valley, and so even though the Romans are numerically superior, because the valley is small they're forced to march in a straight line as opposed to a wide line. If you have more numbers you want to march in a wide line, but because of the geography they're forced to march in a straight, long line. So they're marching this way. Hannibal is uphill with his army, and he does something strange: he organizes his army not in a straight line but in a concave line, like concave. And the Romans look at this and they laugh, because they've never seen anything like this before, and they think it's a sign of weakness. It means the military is unhandable, it's undisciplined, they're just amateurs, this will be over in an hour. So the Romans are marching confidently against Hannibal. They're attacking. On the wings of both armies are the horsemen, the cavalry. So what happens as the Romans march against Hannibal is Hannibal sends his cavalry against the Roman cavalry and they overwhelm the Roman cavalry. And now they're turning back in to attack the flank or the back.

Meanwhile the Roman attack, it's so powerful, the surge is so strong, that the concave of Hannibal's army turns upside down. It turns upside down, and when it does so it traps the Roman army in a circle. Do you see this? Now they are inside a circle and the army is coming around and attacking them from the back. Militarily we call this the double envelopment strategy. Double envelopment. And so the Romans are encircled completely, and what follows is the greatest massacre in history, militarily, until World War I. The army of 880,000 that the Romans sent lost almost 70,000 men. 70,000 men died that day, and again, no military lost so many men until World War I, when they had much larger armies, like millions of people, and when they had, like, machine guns. All right, so this is like the greatest military disaster in human history up to this point. The disaster is so great that right now Rome has lost 20% of its adult male population. To put that in context, in World War I the Germans lost anywhere between 10 to 15% of their adult male population before they were forced to surrender to the Allies.

So Rome has lost 20%. It's lost a third of the Senate. The Senate is the highest governing body of Rome, so a third of their leadership dead. At the same time Hannibal is able to convince the Greeks to start a second front against... So at this point the war is over, and Hannibal sends envoys to Rome and says, listen, the war is over, I'm willing to negotiate a peace settlement, I am willing to negotiate terms. And there something strange happens, and this is unique in human history. The Roman Senate, they come together and they discuss the situation. It's bleak, it's hopeless, but they're Romans, Romans do not surrender. So the Senate told Hannibal, we will continue the war, we will raise another army, if you want to come attack us, come, we will be ready for you. And this is completely unexpected. Hannibal does not know what to do, and this war continues, and this war continues for another 15 years, and then 15 years later the Romans have won. They destroyed the Carthaginian presence in Spain and they've landed in Africa and forced Carthage to surrender.

All right, okay, so this is a mystery. Why did the Romans not surrender, and how were the Romans able to defeat not just the Carthaginians but also the Greeks and also, like, everyone else?

Because at that time Hannibal basically united the entire world against Rome, against Rome, and Rome in the end, even though it was very costly, they did win. So that's the mystery.

So the first thing we need to understand is traditional military doctrine about who wins wars. It's basically wrong. Traditionally we understand the military by three things: manpower, how many soldiers do you have; technology, how good are your weapons; and resources, how wealthy are you. Traditionally we've understood war-making like, if you're good at war you will have these three things: lots of soldiers, lots of technology and lots of money. And if you analyze it this way, then Rome should be no match against Carthage. Carthage is a lot wealthier, it has more technology, it has the greatest general in Hannibal. But then at the same time the Athenians should not have been able to defeat the Persians. At the same time Alexander and the Macedonians should not have been able to defeat the Persians. In fact throughout human history we have a lot of instances, cases, where smaller armies have been able to defeat much larger armies.

So think of Genghis Khan, think of Muhammad. So clearly this is wrong. But if this is wrong, what is a better way to understand military strength? Well, I would argue how strong a military is is based on three criteria. The first is cohesion: do the soldiers like and identify with each other, are they united? Cohesion. Second is the idea of discipline: how well trained and experienced are they? And the third is how committed are they to winning? So if you want to see how powerful a nation is militarily, you have to ask yourself these three questions: are they cohesive, are they disciplined, are they devoted? And I would also argue that each nation has a certain culture, a certain value system, which gives it a certain character, and this character will tell you if they are likely to win a war or not.

All right, so let's examine briefly the characteristics of Rome as opposed to the Greeks and the Carthaginians. So let's do a table. Let's just say, okay, you have the Greeks, you have Carthage, you have Rome. All right, we know a lot about the Greeks, and there are three major concepts that define Greek culture. All right, so the first question is: what makes you a good person?

For the Greeks it was the idea of arete, which just means excellence. You could be a jerk, but if you have talent then you're a good person. And what the Greeks are most concerned about is the ability to speak well and the ability to fight well. That's arete. Second is: what is the thing that matters to you, the most valuable thing in your life, why do you fight? Well, for the Greeks it was the idea of freedom, and for them the idea of freedom means the ability to speak your mind in front of your peers, the freedom of speech basically. And the last question for the Greeks is: what is the purpose of life? And here the Greeks have an easy answer, it's eudaimonia. Remember eudaimonia is Greek for flourishing. You can only be happy as a person if you are achieving your true potential, if you are flourishing as a person. So that's Greek culture, and if you think about it, this explains why the Greeks are the most creative civilization in human history. They're very creative, at the same time they're also very selfish, and that's why they were never able to come together except in times of national emergency, like when the Persians invaded, and only then, but even then only a few of the Greek city-states came together and some even joined the Persians.

So the Greeks are notorious for being creative but also for being selfish. So that's Greek culture.

Now let's look at the Carthaginians. Now unfortunately we don't know anything about the Carthaginians. The reason why is Rome wiped Carthage out of history. Rome destroyed Carthage, killed everyone and erased Carthage from the history books. But we do know they are a mercantile empire, meaning they are focused on trade. We also know that in their political system it's the wealthiest citizens who have the most political power. And so they are basically a merchant culture, a merchant mercantile culture, and from that we can make certain guesses about their value system. So what is good for the Carthaginians? It's the idea of being lucky. You succeed in life if you're lucky. That's how business people are, that's why they're very superstitious. The Carthaginians are notorious for being extremely religious, and one example of this is, of all these major civilizations, the Carthaginians are known for practicing human sacrifice. In fact in times of war they will even go as far as practicing child sacrifice, killing children, killing children and sacrificing them to the gods in return for divine favor in times of war.

So they are known for focusing on fortune and luck. What do they care about? They care about their own interests, what's profitable. What's their purpose in life? Wealth. Does that make sense? Because these are business people, merchants. So that's how they structured their society and their culture, and that's why for most of their history they were extremely wealthy. They were notorious for being extremely business people who made a lot of money for themselves.

Rome. Let's look at Rome. What is good for them, what's a good person? The answer is piety. Pietas means duty to the gods, to the city of Rome and to your father. They believe heavily in filial piety. The best person was someone who practiced it. What did they think was most valuable in their lives? It's the idea of liberty. But liberty is a different conception for the Romans than for the Greeks. Remember, for the Greeks what mattered was the opportunity and the ability to speak your mind in front of your peers. That's what freedom was.

The Romans believed liberty was about respect, respecting the law, the institutions and the history of Rome, and it is only by respecting the law could you be free, otherwise we'd all just be savages. That's the conception of liberty. Now the last question then is: what's the purpose of life? And for the Romans what really mattered to them is the idea of res publica. This is Latin and it's translated as usually public virtue, for the public good, and this is where we get the term republic from. And so for Romans the honor, the highest privilege, the purpose of life was to serve Rome and make it stronger and better. Does that make sense? Standing for political office and being head of the military was the highest honor Rome could bestow on you. That was the entire point of your life. Does that make sense?

So if we just do a compare and contrast we could easily figure out, oh, it's the Roman ethical system that will allow them the most cohesion, discipline and devotion in their military, and therefore over time in a war the Romans should be able to defeat both the Carthaginians and the Greeks. Does that make sense to you?

Okay, any questions so far? Is this clear? Yeah. Okay, all right.

So Rome in the Third Punic War, from 149 to 146, they would go and destroy Carthage, they would burn it to the ground, and then they would burn all the books that Carthage ever produced. So we don't have anything written by them, but we have a lot written by Greeks and Romans, because the Greeks and Romans were always in conflict with the Carthaginians. And what's interesting for us is, before the conflict started in about 300 BC, the Romans and the Greeks had nice things to say about the Carthaginians. They were good fighters, they were brave, they were very prosperous. Carthage was like the wealthiest city in the world. They had all these praises for Carthage, and after, when war started between the Carthaginians and the Romans, then they focus on, like, child sacrifice: the Carthaginians offended the gods because they practiced child sacrifice, which is barbaric, and that's why the gods smote Carthage. Remember, back at this time in human history we didn't believe in human agency, everything was ordained by the gods. So if Carthage is destroyed it's because of God's will. Why do the gods will it?

Because the Carthaginians practiced child sacrifice. And that's what the Romans and the Greeks insisted. Of course that means we have to be skeptical of what they say, but at the same time we've done a lot of archaeological excavations around Carthage and we have found human remains that show signs of human sacrifice. So we also, Carthage comes from Phoenicia, we know a lot about Phoenician culture. So we've lost a lot of information about Carthage but we're able to piece it back together slowly. Does that make sense?

All right, okay, but again unfortunately we know nothing about their culture. We don't know anything about their literature, about their mythology, about their religion, because it's all been destroyed. The writing has all been destroyed by the Romans. So these three characteristics that define the Roman identity, piety and R Papa, I want to explain them slowly. So what the Romans really did well is they basically created history as mythology. The Greeks separated mythology from history. Mythology is what the Greeks did, history is what humans did. So basically the Greeks invented history. The Romans basically elevate their history into mythology. Their history became their religion.

So let me explain what I mean by that.

There are legends that surround the founding of Rome. Rome was supposed to be founded in 753 BCE by Romulus, and there are lots of legends surrounding Romulus, but the idea is this. There was a king and he was overthrown by his brother, and the brother banished the king's daughter to a temple to be a virgin for the rest of her life, but then she got pregnant. So the brother says to the king's daughter, why are you pregnant? And the daughter says, I was visited by Mars, the god of war, and he me. The king's brother obviously does not believe her, so he banishes her and he orders for the twins who are born to be killed. But as is the case with these legends, the person charged with killing the twins takes pity on them and somehow they are left to die in the woods. A she-wolf, a wolf, comes and nurses them before another shepherd comes and adopts them. Eventually they realize who they are and they help the king overthrow the brother and take back the throne.

Now the brothers are asked to go and basically found their own city, so they go to Rome and it's all just hills, and they decide this is the place to build their kingdom because of a river, the Tiber, and there are all these hills that provide good defense. The problem is this: they're twins, there's two of them, Romulus and Remus, and only one can be king, so they get into a battle and Romulus kills Remus. And that's the founding of Rome.

And from this legend we can sort of understand or make some extrapolations about the psychology. They believe that violence is at the core of human existence. I mean, sometimes you have to kill your own brother and that's the right thing to do, because that is ordained by the gods. So that's the first legend.

Second legend is this. Romulus has to build Rome and he becomes a very open person. He welcomes immigrants into Rome and he grants them citizenship and status right away. Rome becomes a nation of immigrants. Eventually their rise startles their neighbors and their neighbors go to war with them at once, but the Romans are so good at war that they fight back the neighbors The neighbors are called the Sabines.

The Sabines decide, listen, we can't beat them in war, but at the same time Rome only has males. Rome only has males, so we will just isolate Rome. Our daughters will not marry into Rome, and in 20 years' time Rome will have no population. Romulus hears of this plan and he devises a strategy. What he does is he organizes a huge festival and invites all his neighbors, so fathers bring their daughters to attend this festival. At the festival the women are kidnapped, and they're basically raped that night. Romulus visits every one of these women and apologizes for what has happened and promises that they will be safe in Rome, that they are now citizens of Rome and therefore they will be protected by him personally, as king. The fathers and the brothers are obviously very upset about this, so they organized this huge army and they march against Rome. The Roman citizens come out to face them in battle, and just as they're about to clash in battle, the women come and run between them and beg the new husbands and their fathers and brothers not to fight. At this point Romulus appears and says he will make everyone a citizen of Rome.

And by doing that he basically doubled the population of Rome.

All right, again from this legend we can understand the Roman psychology, which is everything can be sacrificed in the pursuit of Roman glory, and basically to ensure that Rome survives. Because what matters is Rome. It's a cult of Rome. All that matters is survival of Rome. Morals don't matter, nothing matters, all that matters is survival of Rome.

So after this Rome starts to grow slowly, and this is a period known as the seven kings. So there's seven kings who rule Rome, and they do so for a very long time, about 200 plus years, and most of them are very, very good kings except the last king. His name is Tarquinius Superbus. Superbus is Latin for arrogant, so he's often referred to as Tarquin the Proud. As his name suggests, he is a very arrogant king. What makes him arrogant is his hubris. He refuses to listen to the nobility. In fact those in the nobility who challenge his authority often get... He has a second son, and the second son, he's a jerk, he likes to abuse his power. The one thing that he likes, he enjoys doing, is raping the women of Rome.

There's one woman who's notorious, or who's famous, for her virtue. Her name is Lucretia, and the prince thinks raping her will be the most fun, because she will be the most insulted by this. So he rapes her, and then she goes and confronts her husband. Her husband has a friend, his name is Lucius Brutus. Lucius Brutus happens to be the nephew of the king and he is very much opposed to the tyranny of the king. And Lucretia says to her husband and to his friend Lucius Brutus, I've been raped, will you promise me to avenge my honor? And the husband and Lucius Brutus see she's distraught, and so they soothe her and promise her they will do everything they can in the morning. And Lucretia doesn't really believe them, so what she does is she takes a knife out from her dress and she stabs herself in the heart and she dies before them. Now they are honor-bound to avenge her death, and so what Lucius Brutus does is he calls a meeting of the nobility and they decide to gather to overthrow the king. The king is out campaigning for war, he's basically at war, and what they do is they lock the gates of Rome.

Now the king is furious, and so what the king does is he decides he's going to go back to aishka, where he's from, and he's going to rally his friends, the other kings, because if the Romans can overthrow him, well, other people can overthrow their kings, so this is a bad precedent. So he's going to organize a huge army to march against Rome.

Meanwhile Lucius Brutus is instituting the Republic. Now the thing about the king is that all powers are invested in the king. These powers: judicial, deciding cases; legislative, making laws; administrative, bureaucratic; and religious. So these are the major duties of the king, and this is where his power comes from. So what Lucius Brutus and the Romans do is they separate his powers, not into individuals but into institutions that are now elected by the people. This is the heart of republicanism. So the military will now be run by the consul. The consul is basically the head of the state, and again he's elected. The judicial is run by the praetor, the legislature is the Senate, administrative is the aedile, and the religious is the Pontifex Maximus, and again they're all elected by the people.

Now what's important to understand is it's usually nobility who are in these offices, but back then there was not much separation between nobility and ordinary people. So there are what we call patricians, the patricians, and the ordinary people are what we call the plebeians, and honestly there was not that much difference. The patricians are just from the longest, like, the families who have been in Rome the longest, and they were wealthy but not that much wealthier than ordinary Romans. So maybe you have one cow, well, I have three cows. Also the people could go visit each other's homes without any ceremony. So you could be the head of state, you could be the consul, but if I'm an ordinary person I can just come to your house and have dinner with you. There were no doors, there were no guards.

So Lucius Brutus instituted a new system where the king's powers were divided among different institutions, and now people didn't have to obey the king, they have to obey the Republic. The Republic was three things: the laws, the history or traditions, and the institutions. That's the Republic, and this system, unbelievably, incredibly, will not change for about 500 years.

Now what's important to remember is these are not innovations, the Romans just basically copied this from the neighbors.

So the Romans have a republic. The problem with the Republic is everyone's equal, and so if you come from a privileged background you find this very annoying, so now there's a conspiracy to bring back the king, and this conspiracy was discovered and everyone was caught and imprisoned. It turns out Lucius Brutus has two sons, and they were both part of this conspiracy. They were tried by the Senate, they were all sentenced to death, including the two sons of Lucius Brutus. The problem is this: the consul has to oversee the execution of the prisoners, whose consul? Lucius Brutus is consul. So Lucius Brutus has to oversee the execution of his two sons. Now if Lucius Brutus is like, you know what, I'm going to resign my office, or hey, you know what, I'm sick, everyone would be like, we understand, take the day off, don't worry about it. Instead Lucius Brutus showed up for work and he oversaw the execution of his two sons. All of Rome came to the execution.

It was an event, everyone was watching the face of Lucius Brutus. We know the two sons are going to die, they're going to get beheaded, but everyone wanted to see Lucius Brutus's reaction. He was crying throughout the execution. These are his two sons, he has no more sons, this is his legacy now, and his two sons are about to be killed. In fact he's the one charged with killing his own sons, he has to do it, he has no choice. So everyone's watching him, and throughout this process he's crying, his tears are flowing down his face, he can't help himself, but he's still standing still and he's still slowly ordering the execution of his two sons. And the Romans are just shocked by this public display. This is the idea of devotion. You are so devoted to Rome that you're willing to sacrifice your own children to ensure its survival and its glory.

Tarquin the Proud hears about this, he gets really angry, so he allies himself with kings and they marched against Rome. Lucius Brutus is consul, he's in charge of the military, so he marches his army against Tarquin the Proud. One of the sons of Tarquin the Proud sees Lucius Brutus and he charges ahead because he wants to kill the man who insulted his family.

Lucius Brutus sees the king's son running, they're both on horses, galloping towards him, and Lucius Brutus gets angry and so he charges ahead as well. Lucius Brutus throws his spear, javelin, the king's son, the prince, throws his spear as well, and they spear each other to death and they both die. And so Lucius Brutus is considered the greatest Roman who ever lived, and for most of Roman history he will be considered the greatest Roman who ever lived, until Julius Caesar. And it was in the memory and honor of Lucius Brutus that they would assassinate Julius Caesar, but we'll discuss this next class.

So the king's army is overwhelming the Romans and the Romans have to flee back into the city. There's a drawbridge that connects Rome to the mainland. There's the river Tiber, it crosses around Rome. There's a garrison that's supposed to be protecting the bridge, but they see the army coming, the enemy army marching towards them, they get scared and they run away. One guy, his name is Cocles, he decides, I can't run away, because if I run away the army just marches into Rome and kills everyone.

So he decides to make a last stand, and it's just one guy, there's one random guy. And what he does is he starts shouting insults at the enemy army. He's like, you guys are slaves, we're Romans, we will always be free. And the enemy army, there's thousands of them, they have absolutely no idea what's going on. This is one guy on a bridge shouting insults at them. So they freeze. Eventually they realize, oh, this guy is just distracting us because his friends, the other soldiers, are trying to cut down the bridge, so they run to him. At this point two other Romans, two officers, run beside Cocles, and together the three of them hold off the invading army together with their shields. They fight for their... eventually the bridge is about to be cut down, the two officers run away, and Cocles makes the last stand, and the bridge falls, and what Cocles does is, before it falls completely, he jumps into the Tiber, and he survives. He drown. So this tells us, hey, anyone can be a hero of Rome. Lucius Brutus, he's the king's nephew, he's nobility, but Cocles, he's just an ordinary Roman who had the courage, he had the devotion to fight for Rome, and by doing so, with his devotion, he's able to save Rome by himself.

So Rome right now is surrounded by this huge army, and one young man, his name is Mucius, and he's a Roman nobleman, he goes to the Senate and he says to the Senate, listen, we're being surrounded by an enemy army, they're huge, we're starving to death. I have a plan to win this war. I'm going to swim across the Tiber, sneak into the enemy camp and kill the enemy king. And the Senate gives Mucius his approval, and Mucius sneaks into the enemy camp. It's payday, which means the soldiers are getting their wages. Mucius sneaks into the front and he sees on the podium there are two individuals who are giving out wages to the soldiers. They both look like the king, one's the king and one's the secretary, they look the same. Mucius doesn't know who's the king and who's the secretary. You know, at this point an ordinary person would be like, I'll come back later. Like, let me figure out, let me spy first and figure out who the king is, and then when the better opportunity arises I'll kill the king.

Mucius is like, it's 50/50, man. So he takes his knife, rushes to him, and stabs one of the men, who happens to be the secretary. So he's arrested and the king is now interrogating him. He wants to know if there are other spies in the camp, and the king says to Mucius, tell me the truth or I will burn you alive. And he shows Mucius the pit with this huge fire. Mucius says, I am one of 100 young Romans who have pledged their lives to kill you to free Rome. He's lying, this is not true. You kill me, there'll be 99 more. We are not afraid of you. You say you will burn me if I do not tell you the truth. Now what he does is he puts his hand into the fire, his hand is burning, and he holds it together, and what makes him hold it together is what he sees: the face of Lucius Brutus as he orders the execution of his two sons. Because ordering the execution of your two sons is a lot harder than burning your hand alive. And the king, he looks at this and he thinks the Romans are the craziest I have ever met.

Screw this, I'm going home. And he lets Mucius go and the war is over. And that's how the Roman Republic survived the invasion and became the Republic.

So this is the history of Rome, and this history is something that can be taught to anyone who becomes a citizen. If you are a Roman it's because you believe in this history. Believing in this history, knowing this history, is what makes you a Roman. So that's the first concept: piety, loyalty to Rome. Second concept that makes Rome unique or powerful is the idea of liberty. What Cocles did, what Mucius did, what Lucius Brutus did was preserve the liberty of Rome. Remember, what liberty means is respecting and following the laws, institutions and history of Rome, because that's what makes Rome Rome, that's what allows you to have freedom. And that's why in 216, even though Hannibal had defeated the Romans, the Romans refused to surrender, because surrendering would mean surrendering their liberty. Because Hannibal would impose peace terms that would basically make Rome into a client state of Carthage, they would lose their liberty, and if you don't have liberty your life isn't worth living. Give me life or give me liberty.

The third element of Roman greatness is the idea of this, res publica. So what this means is every nobleman, if you have the ability, you want to serve Rome. So what they did was this: they turned politics into a competition to produce the best men. It was basically a meritocracy. So once you have the financial means you stood for election, and this system was basically a meritocracy. You first stood for election to become an aedile, and then you became a praetor, and then you became a consul. Once you're a consul you have the opportunity to win the highest glory. What you could do is become a governor of a faraway province, and if you are governor of this faraway province and you can win more territory for Rome, then you'll be given something called a triumph. A triumph is a big parade where you are celebrated by all the Roman people. That's what every Roman soldier aspired to, to become a great general who would receive his own triumph because he's won new territory for Rome. And that's why even though a third of the Roman Senate was wiped out by Hannibal they didn't give up, because the other people were like, okay, now here's my opportunity to prove myself.

And one of these young people, his name is Scipio, he would go on and lead an army into Spain, conquer Spain, and then lead an army against Hannibal in North Africa, in Carthage, and destroy... Because the point of life is to receive the triumph, and if you receive the triumph then you will be remembered by Rome in their history, which is what gives your life... All right, so do we understand these concepts, piety, liberty and res publica? Because they are the essence of the Roman identity and they are what made Rome great.

Sure. Okay, all right, so sorry, Lucius Brutus, Lucius Brutus overthrew the king, they established the Roman Republic. The Roman Republic is now a nation of laws. His two sons are princes and they lost their privileges, so they partake in this conspiracy to bring back the king. This conspiracy was discovered, and as punishment they were all sentenced to death because they wanted to destroy the Republic and bring back the king. Does that make sense? So what the story is... and again we don't know if these stories are true, they're probably not true, what the story is telling us is, if the founder of the Roman Republic can sacrifice his family in order to make sure the Republic survives, well, you can as well.

Every sacrifice must be made to ensure Roman greatness. That's basically the message. Any more questions?

That's a great question. Okay, so how do we know this? The answer is this: for most of this time this is what we call oral history. So this is like, you know, mythology, and it was basically passed from generation to generation. This oral history was written down in books, but because Rome was at war so much, Rome was conquered once and Rome was burnt down, and so we lost a lot of the written history. Now the problem with oral history is there are different versions of oral history, so there are different versions of these stories. And then a man named Livy, during the time of the Roman Empire when it was first founded, he sat down to write the official history of Rome, and this is where we get all these stories from. And again we don't believe these stories to be that true. There's probably, Lucius Brutus was probably a real person, but whether or not he did these things we don't know. It's debatable. But what matters is this is what Romans believed.

Do you understand? What matters is what they believe as opposed to what really happened, and this is what creates the right... great. Any more? So yeah, I mean, that's basically it. This is what made Rome great, and that's what allowed them to come back from the defeats that Hannibal inflicted on them to eventually win the... Okay, any more questions?

80,000 army against Hannibal, yes. Okay, that's a great question. So you want to know more about Hannibal's invasion of Italy. Okay, all right. So what Rome is able to do is offer citizenship to anyone who fights for Rome, and Rome has been for the longest time fighting its neighbors. Once it conquered its neighbors, its neighbors promised to send soldiers to Rome in times of war, so Rome is able to draw on soldiers from all around the peninsula. That's the first thing. Second thing is that when Hannibal invaded Italy he was doing so with many Gauls, who are the invaders of Italy, and these Gauls have traditionally been the enemy of Italians. So when Hannibal did so, Rome's neighbors rallied to Rome's support, to support Rome, because they saw the Gauls and Hannibal as invaders who threaten their culture.

The third thing is Hannibal had an invading army, but he had no organizational support, he had no food supply because he was basically doing this on his own initiative. Carthage is too far away, and Rome had the best, like, navy in the Mediterranean, so there was no way that Carthage could resupply Hannibal. So Hannibal was forced to spend a lot of his time foraging for food. Do you understand? And that's ultimately why he lost the war, because it's possible for you to win all these battles because you're a military genius, but you still have to feed your soldiers. And what Rome did after the Battle of Cannae was they recognized this fact. They recognized that Hannibal's main problem was logistics, and they decided, we will never fight Hannibal in a battle again, we will cut off his food supply. And so Hannibal had to spend most of his time foraging for food. Meanwhile Rome could rebuild itself by freeing its slaves and by recruiting more neighbors to join their cause. Does that make sense? That's why armies don't win wars, nations win wars.

Does that make sense?

So another thing that you need to understand is, while Hannibal was winning glory in Italy, the Council of Elders in Carthage, were they happy about this, do you think? These are business people. Are they happy about this? They're not happy about this because, one, it's going to cost a lot of money to continue the war, and listen, Italy is poor, so there's no profit to be made from conquering Rome. That's the first problem. Second problem is if Hannibal were to win glory in Italy he could come back and make himself some king of Carthage. Does that make sense? So Hannibal was being undermined by Carthage itself even though Hannibal was trying to save Carthage. Does that make sense? And that's what makes Rome unique. Rome has been united for most of its history, whereas most places like Greece and Carthage were divided into different political factions. That's what caused Carthage to ultimately be undermined. So ultimately Rome was able to come back from the defeats and defeat Carthage, because Carthage again saw Hannibal as big a threat as Rome. This would be costly for Carthage, because after the war is over, 50 years later, a Roman senator named Cato the Elder visits Carthage because he's curious what's happened to Carthage after the end of the war, and to his dismay and to his shock Carthage has become wealthier than ever before.

50 years of peace means that Carthage is able to accumulate more wealth than ever before. It has so much wealth that it is able to pay off the indemnity that Rome imposed on it. It's basically able to pay Rome off. And Cato the Elder is traumatized by this. He goes back to Rome and says we have to destroy Carthage. There's a huge debate in the Senate. He says, listen, if we let Carthage survive, Carthage will always be a threat to us. And the other senators were like, listen, Cato, I know you want to destroy Carthage, but remember, Carthage threatens us. If we destroy Carthage, we, Rome, will no longer have an enemy, we will no longer have a threat, we will change as a people if we destroy Carthage. But Cato the Elder insisted, and eventually an army was dispatched to destroy Carthage. The Romans have a habit of always blaming the enemies for starting the war, so they didn't want to instigate the war, so they made these dumb excuses and said that Carthage was violating the peace treaty, and the Romans said to Carthage, listen, if you surrender all your weapons we will go away.

The Carthaginians believed the Romans and thought, if we surrender all the weapons they'll go away. The Romans got all these weapons, they were like, we didn't expect this, man. So the Romans said to the Carthaginians, you know what, we also need you to move your city from the coast 10 kilometers inland. And at this point the Carthaginians knew Rome was going to destroy Carthage. So there's a three-year siege, and then at the end of it Rome conquered Carthage, killed everyone inside, enslaved others, burned all the books, and wiped out Carthage from history, as well as the history books. So that's a Roman mentality: devotion means all or nothing. You don't surrender, but you also don't show mercy to your enemies. So Hannibal was right, Rome was a threat to Carthage, but because Carthage has a merchant culture run by business people they could never recognize the threat. Does that make sense?

All right, any more? Good, public virtue. Yeah, okay. So why do people want to come to Rome? Well, the fact of the matter is that for most of history, for most of history, people didn't want to go to Rome.

Because Rome was considered... for example, the Greeks didn't want to go to Rome because they thought Rome was uncivilized, but Romans wanted to go to Athens because they thought Athens was a height of civilization. The Carthaginians certainly didn't want to go to Rome. Rome was like Macedonia, it's basically North Korea, you can even say it's like North Korea. It's a militaristic society that's barbaric. The Greeks like to watch theater, the Romans like to watch gladiator shows or lions eat people. So for most of its history people avoided Rome. When it became a republic you had no choice but to go to Rome, because that's how you could build your career. It was the capital of the... Does that make sense? So I know we're saying this, there were many people who wanted to be Greek because they were attracted by the culture, nobody wanted to be Roman. The Romans made everyone into a Roman through the conquest. So the Romans were repugnant in many ways. They just were a repugnant people. Any more questions? Any more questions? Okay, great. So next class, it's a fun class, we do Julius Caesar.