The Longest Year in Human History (46 B.C.E.) — Transcript

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1. 0:07In the summer of the year 46 B.C.E., Julius Caesar returned to the city of Rome as a victorious
2. 0:14general.
3. 0:15All of his military opposition had been squashed, and all of his enemies, save for Labienus
4. 0:21and a couple of Pompey's sons, had either been killed or forced into submission.
5. 0:26This precise moment, when Caesar returned to the city, was a major turning point in
6. 0:32Roman history.
7. 0:34For years, Roman politics had been getting weirder and more dysfunctional, but now was
8. 0:40when things really go off the deep end.
9. 0:43Before Caesar could even make it back to the city, the Senate took it upon itself to offer
10. 0:48him unprecedented political power.
11. 0:51His Dictatorship, which was due to expire in a few months, was extended for an additional
12. 0:5710 years.
13. 0:58This was unheard of, as the Dictatorship was supposed to be a 6 month emergency measure.
14. 1:05Why did the Senate do this?
15. 1:06If Caesar made a power grab, many in the Senate feared the worst.
16. 1:10By preempting him, the Senate believed that they could keep Caesar within the bounds of
17. 1:15the law, and by attaching a time limit to their offer, they would be able to revisit
18. 1:21this whole arrangement in 10 years time.
19. 1:23By then, Caesar would probably be in a weaker position than he was right now, and with a
20. 1:28little luck they might be able to push him into retirement.
21. 1:32The Senate also gave Caesar permission to serve as Consul consecutively for the next
22. 1:365 years, which, when paired with the Dictatorship, would give him a free hand to push through
23. 1:42pretty much whatever legislation he wished.
24. 1:46Alongside this, Caesar was also handed a bunch of new powers.
25. 1:50I'm not going to go down the laundry list, but they included the power to declare war
26. 1:55and issue pardons whenever he wished.
27. 1:57This was some real authoritarian stuff.
28. 2:00The Senate still held onto some legislative authority, but they were making one hell of
29. 2:05a gamble.
30. 2:12When Caesar returned to Rome, he asked the Senate to meet him outside the pomerium.
31. 2:18He told them that he had conquered new territory for Rome, and that he had been hailed as Imperator
32. 2:24by his armies.
33. 2:25He formally asked their permission to cross the pomerium under Triumph.
34. 2:30In fact, he said that he qualified for four Triumphs.
35. 2:34One for Gaul, one for Egypt, one for Asia Minor, and one for North Africa.
36. 2:40It's worth briefly examining each of these claims.
37. 2:42In Gaul, he had annexed a bunch of territory and been hailed as Imperator.
38. 2:48Gaul was totally legit.
39. 2:49In Egypt, it gets more complicated.
40. 2:53If you remember, Caesar lost a battle, then won a battle, then negotiated a settlement
41. 2:58where he handed a Roman province over to the Queen of Egypt.
42. 3:02Giving away a province is kinda the opposite of conquering territory.
43. 3:06The Egyptian campaign should not have qualified for a Triumph.
44. 3:11In Asia Minor, Caesar won a decisive battle, but all he really did was restore the status
45. 3:16quo.
46. 3:17That doesn't really count as "conquering new territory," although I guess it's debatable.
47. 3:24As for North Africa, this one is really complicated.
48. 3:27Caesar won a decisive battle, but in this case it was against his own countrymen!
49. 3:31For the sake of public relations Caesar argued that King Juba of Numidia was the brains behind
50. 3:37the North African campaign, but this was not true.
51. 3:41After Caesar's victory, he shifted some of the Numidian client kingdom into one of Rome's
52. 3:46existing provinces, which is kind of just an administrative thing but I guess technically
53. 3:51counts as conquering new territory.
54. 3:55Of Caesar's 4 proposed Triumphs, 3 were questionable.
55. 4:00Nevertheless, the Senate signed off on all of them.
56. 4:03I'm going to spend a few minutes going through each of Caesar's four triumphs, but if this
57. 4:08piques your interest at all you should know that I made a video where I break down each
58. 4:12step of the Roman Triumph in excruciating detail.
59. 4:16Learning about the Roman Triumph ruins every parade you see for the rest of your life.
60. 4:21Caesar's four triumphs would be celebrated on four separate days in the order in which
61. 4:26they occurred.
62. 4:27Gaul, then Egypt, then Asia Minor, then North Africa.
63. 4:36The conquest of Gaul was Caesar's greatest achievement, and the Gallic Triumph would
64. 4:41serve as its living monument.
65. 4:44Remember Vercingetorix?
66. 4:45The so-called King of the Gauls?
67. 4:47Six years ago, Vercingetorix lead a united Gallic army that almost succeeded in pushing
68. 4:53the Romans out of Gaul.
69. 4:55Caesar eventually captured Vercingetorix and defeated the united Gallic army, after which
70. 5:01Rome would to establish a permanent presence in Gaul.
71. 5:05For the intervening six years, which included the entirety of the Roman Civil War, Vercingetorix
72. 5:11had been rotting in a Roman jail.
73. 5:14Why didn't they just kill him?
74. 5:16Well, for the Romans, few things were more prestigious than having a foreign king walk
75. 5:21in one's Triumph.
76. 5:23This Roman tendency towards humiliation and cruelty extended Vercingetorix's life six
77. 5:29years.
78. 5:31Caesar's Gallic Triumph kicked off with wagons carrying paintings depicting Caesar's various
79. 5:36victories over the Gauls.
80. 5:38These were followed by even more wagons hauling captured Gallic treasure.
81. 5:43Walking alongside these wagons were an assortment of Gallic prisoners, including the so-called
82. 5:48King of the Gauls, Vercingetorix.
83. 5:51After this, Caesar made his entrance by crossing the pomerium and making his way up the Via
84. 5:56Sacra before cheering crowds.
85. 5:59As the name would imply, the Via Sacra was home to Rome's largest temples.
86. 6:04As Caesar was passing the Temple to Fortuna the goddess of luck, one of the wheels on
87. 6:08his chariot snapped and he was thrown onto the street.
88. 6:13To the superstitious Romans, it appeared that the goddess of luck had finally abandoned
89. 6:18Caesar.
90. 6:19After a brief delay, another chariot was found and the Triumph continued.
91. 6:24As Caesar approached the Gallic Triumph's grand finale, he decided to climb the steps
92. 6:30to the Temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on his knees in an act of penance.
93. 6:35Hopefully the goddess of luck would find this pleasing.
94. 6:39After this bit of public humiliation, Vercingetorix, the so-called King of the Gauls, having played
95. 6:45his part, was strangled to death.
96. 6:48The rest of the Gallic prisoners met the same fate.
97. 6:53An important part of the Triumph was that Caesar's soldiers were permitted to cross
98. 6:57the pomerium and follow behind him along the Triumphal route.
99. 7:01By the end of the Triumph everybody was pretty loose, if you know what I mean, and it was
100. 7:05customary for the soldiers to entertain the crowd by singing rude songs.
101. 7:11Suetonius, writing 150 years after the fact, had access to sources that are now lost to
102. 7:17us, and went to the trouble of transcribing one of the songs that Caesar's army sang during
103. 7:22the Gallic Triumph.
104. 7:24It went a little something like this:
105. 7:25"Romans, watch your wives, here's the bald adulterous whore / We pissed away your gold
106. 7:30in Gaul and come to borrow more."
107. 7:36A few days later, after the partying had settled down a bit, it was time for the Egyptian Triumph.
108. 7:42As part of a negotiated settlement with Egypt, Caesar had taken Cleopatra's sister and former
109. 7:48rival Arsinoe captive.
110. 7:51Arsinoe was a former Queen herself, and as such she would become the second monarch to
111. 7:56walk in one of Caesar's Triumphs.
112. 7:58By all accounts Arsinoe was young, charming, attractive, and probably fluent in both Greek
113. 8:04and Latin.
114. 8:05We don't know what she said or did, but whatever it was the crowd immediately took a liking
115. 8:10to her.
116. 8:11Before too long, people were calling on Caesar to spare her life.
117. 8:15Caesar, sensing the mood of the crowd, gave in to popular demand and allowed Arsinoe to
118. 8:21take up residence in a Roman temple.
119. 8:24There's no doubt that this move annoyed Cleopatra, but when you think about it geopolitically,
120. 8:31Rome having a potential heir to the Egyptian throne in their back pocket seems like a pretty
121. 8:36smart move.
122. 8:42A few days later, it was time for the Asia Minor Triumph, which celebrated Caesar's 5
123. 8:47day campaign that ended with the Battle of Zela.
124. 8:51This would have been the weakest of the four Triumphs, and it's probably no coincidence
125. 8:55that none of the ancient sources have anything to say about it.
126. 9:03And then, a few days later, it was time for the grand finale, the North African Triumph.
127. 9:08This Triumph was pitched as a celebration of Caesar's victory over King Juba and the
128. 9:13Numidians in North Africa.
129. 9:15As usual, the Triumph kicked off with a bunch of giant paintings.
130. 9:19One of the first paintings depicted the Pompeian general Scipio stabbing himself in the stomach
131. 9:26and tossing himself into the sea.
132. 9:29Many in the crowd understandably found the painting offensive.
133. 9:33Why were they being shown the deaths of Romans?
134. 9:35Where were the Numidians?
135. 9:37Minutes later, another painting came into view.
136. 9:40This one depicted the last moments of Cato's life, with the Senator laying in bed ripping
137. 9:45out his own intestines with his bare hands.
138. 9:49This was disgusting, even by Roman standards.
139. 9:52It was now crystal clear that Caesar was much more concerned with celebrating the deaths
140. 9:57of his fellow Romans than he was with the defeat of the Numidians.
141. 10:01The crowd turned against the Triumph.
142. 10:07Minutes later, the prisoners came into view.
143. 10:09The most prominent person here was the new King of Numidia, a young child, probably under
144. 10:14the age of 6.
145. 10:15This child would be the third monarch to walk in one of Caesar's Triumphs, which was an
146. 10:21incredible accomplishment, and a record would never be broken.
147. 10:25But the crowd had no interest in this achievement.
148. 10:28They were in a sour mood, and found the idea of putting an innocent child to death repulsive.
149. 10:34The crowd started to get rowdy, and when Caesar came into view they angrily demanded that
150. 10:39he spare the boy's life.
151. 10:42Caesar didn't have much of a choice.
152. 10:44He enrolled the young king in a prestigious school and left it at that.
153. 10:57When you add together each of Caesar's four Triumphs, he hauled 2,000 tonnes of silver
154. 11:03across the pomerium.
155. 11:05Currency conversion across two millennia is pretty much impossible, but just so you get
156. 11:09a proper sense of scale that much silver would be worth a billion dollars today.
157. 11:15The scale of Caesar's personal wealth had grown to that of a small country, and it was
158. 11:20time to use that wealth to begin meeting some of his obligations.
159. 11:25At the top of his list were his legions, who in return for sacrificing so much, had received
160. 11:31nothing but a bunch of promises.
161. 11:33Caesar gifted each of his soldiers 1 silver talent, which, bearing in mind that currency
162. 11:39conversion is pretty much impossible, would have been equal to like 10 or 15 year's wages.
163. 11:45Centurions were given two silver talents, and officers and command staff were given
164. 11:49four silver talents.
165. 11:51This was extremely generous, and everybody knew full well that this was coming right
166. 11:57out of Caesar's pocket.
167. 11:59But the spending spree was just getting started, because Caesar then turned around and gifted
168. 12:03every Roman citizen the equivalent of like 4 month's wages.
169. 12:08This was a surprise, to be sure, but a welcome one.
170. 12:11The Roman aristocracy looked down their noses at this blatant political pandering, but since
171. 12:16it was a private donation, they were in no position to do anything about it.
172. 12:22Despite this flurry of generosity, Caesar's full debt to his soldiers had not yet been
173. 12:28paid.
174. 12:29This is a rough estimate, but something on the order of 22,000 soldiers were currently
175. 12:34up for retirement, and that number would only grow in the years to come.
176. 12:37The Roman state owed every one of these men a plot of farmland and a cash bonus, and it
177. 12:43was Caesar's responsibility to make sure that happened.
178. 12:47But 22,000 was a big number, and even with unlimited funds, coming up with that much
179. 12:52farmland would be tough.
180. 12:54This would require a political solution.
181. 12:57Luckily, Caesar was at the height of his political power.
182. 13:01He had just been appointed Dictator for an additional 10 years, and was at the very beginning
183. 13:06of a 5 year run as Consul.
184. 13:09His first move was to push a bill through the Senate setting up a mechanism through
185. 13:13which farmers could sell their land to the government at inflated prices.
186. 13:18This meant that Rome's failing farmers would be eligible for a little cash bailout.
187. 13:23Of course, since this was a voluntary program, the full redistribution of 22,000 farms would
188. 13:30take many, many years.
189. 13:33Now that Caesar's veterans were being dealt with, some important political decisions needed
190. 13:38to be made.
191. 13:40The chaos of the Civil War had devastated the Senate.
192. 13:44The size of the Senate tended to fluctuate year to year, but if you assumed perfect health
193. 13:49and attendance it could top out at like 800 members, although in practice 300 was pretty
194. 13:55typical.
195. 13:56As you might imagine, the Civil War had pushed a lot of Senators into early retirement, and,
196. 14:01well, death, and by the year 46 Senate membership was down in the danger zone.
197. 14:07Some back of the envelope calculations said that there would not be enough qualified Senators
198. 14:12to properly staff Rome's provinces.
199. 14:16Caesar would do three things to solve this problem.
200. 14:19He would expand the pool of available candidates, he would widen the filter that produced qualified
201. 14:25candidates, and he would temporarily lower the qualifications themselves.
202. 14:30This whole thing was super consequential and it would ruffle a lot of feathers, so let's
203. 14:34get into it.
204. 14:37Caesar widened the pool of available candidates by using his dictatorial powers to unilaterally
205. 14:42appoint hundreds and hundreds of new Senators.
206. 14:47Who were these new Senators?
207. 14:49They were basically everybody that Caesar had come into contact with over the last 15
208. 14:54years.
209. 14:55A bunch of these new Senators were retired centurions from his legions.
210. 14:59It goes without saying that these guys were loyalists.
211. 15:04He also appointed a bunch of aristocrats from the small and medium sized cities that dotted
212. 15:08the Italian countryside.
213. 15:10Caesar had turned to this group for financial support during the Civil War, and this political
214. 15:15kickback only strengthened their loyalty to him.
215. 15:18It was a canny move, since these aristocrats were a pretty influential.
216. 15:24And some of these new Senators came from outside Italy.
217. 15:28During the Gallic Wars, Caesar had made commitments to some Gallic aristocrats in exchange for
218. 15:33their support.
219. 15:34Appointing these Gauls to the Roman Senate was a way of finally making good on these
220. 15:39commitments.
221. 15:40Let's make a few things clear about these Gauls.
222. 15:43For starters, these people had been given Roman citizenship ages ago.
223. 15:48They were fluent in Latin.
224. 15:49They wore Roman clothing.
225. 15:51Their children got Roman educations.
226. 15:53Nevertheless, the appointment of ethnic Gauls to the Roman Senate caused an uproar.
227. 15:59On the streets of Rome, people started telling a joke that went something like this: "The
228. 16:05Gauls have crossed the pomerium!
229. 16:06They're asking for directions to the Senate House!"
230. 16:09There was a lot of loose talk at the time about Senators showing up unable to speak
231. 16:15Latin, sporting Gallic facial hair, wearing Gallic clothing, practicing Gallic religion,
232. 16:22but none of this was true.
233. 16:24It was all just wild paranoia.
234. 16:28By the time Caesar had finished making all of his appointments, the Senate had quadrupled
235. 16:32in size.
236. 16:34Over time the Senate would shrink back down to normal, but this would take at least a
237. 16:38generation.
238. 16:39As I said before, Caesar had good reasons for packing the Senate, but we shouldn't lose
239. 16:43sight of the fact that at its heart, it was a power grab.
240. 16:47The vast majority of the Roman Senate were now personally loyal to Caesar.
241. 16:54But the Senate packing thing wouldn't entirely solve the problem at hand.
242. 16:58The only Senators that were allowed to serve as governors were the ones who had been elected
243. 17:02to one of Rome's two highest offices, Consul and Praetor.
244. 17:07Because of the Civil War, many of Rome's former Consuls and Praetors were either dead or retired.
245. 17:13It would take quite a long time to filter this expanded pool of politicians up the cursus
246. 17:19honorum, so Caesar widened the filter by increasing the number of annually elected Praetors from
247. 17:248 to 10.
248. 17:26But widening the filter wouldn't entirely solve the problem either.
249. 17:29As a stopgap measure, Caesar used his dictatorial authority to appoint a bunch of under-qualified
250. 17:36politicians to the provinces.
251. 17:39Caesar's old job as governor of Cisalpine Gaul went to one of the Senate's lowest ranked
252. 17:44Senators, Marcus Brutus.
253. 17:46Fifteen years his junior, Brutus was the son of Caesar's favourite mistress, and despite
254. 17:51the fact that Brutus had sided with the Pompeians during the Civil War, Caesar was happy to
255. 17:56take him under his wing.
256. 17:59Caesar also singled out 10 loyal former Praetors and awarded them with something called "the
257. 18:05dignity of an former Consul."
258. 18:07This was a totally made up thing, but Caesar argued that it would be improper for certain
259. 18:12provinces to be governed by anybody lacking the dignity of an former Consul.
260. 18:16In truth, it just a way for Caesar to reward his allies for their years of service.
261. 18:25Whatever.
262. 18:28Caesar packaged these power-grabby political reforms with some more general anti-corruption
263. 18:34stuff.
264. 18:35This included a provision that said that any governor convicted on corruption charges would
265. 18:40be automatically expelled from the Senate.
266. 18:42This fight against corruption was one of Caesar's hobby horses.
267. 18:46He believed that corrupt governors needlessly antagonized the locals which put Rome at risk.
268. 18:53The corrupt aristocracy didn't much like these reforms, but they weren't in a position to
269. 18:58do anything about it.
270. 19:01Taken as a whole, this was a staggering number of reforms to come down all at once.
271. 19:06That's how it felt at the time, too!
272. 19:09Most of these bills were conceived and written up in Caesar's home, and would only see the
273. 19:13light of day when it was time for the Senate to provide their rubber stamp.
274. 19:17Cicero even notes that a few of these proposals showed up with his own name attached to them,
275. 19:23which was quite the surprise!
276. 19:27Now that the immediate political problems were out of the way, Caesar turned his eye
277. 19:32to the public.
278. 19:34Rome had a tonne of systemic issues that had been in a state of neglect since before the
279. 19:40Civil War.
280. 19:41The largest of these, and the one that had the most direct impact on the lives of everyday
281. 19:46citizens, was the Grain Dole.
282. 19:48Quite simply, the Grain Dole provided free or subsidized grain to Rome's poorest citizens
283. 19:54at the state's expense.
284. 19:56The significance of the Grain Dole is kinda hard to wrap your head around, so think of
285. 20:00it like this.
286. 20:01For most of world history, most people spent most of their money on food.
287. 20:08The Grain Dole took 320,000 of Rome's poorest citizens and eliminated their largest household
288. 20:16expense.
289. 20:17This was one of the most effective government run anti-poverty programs in world history,
290. 20:22and frankly nobody would improve on it until the basically modern welfare state.
291. 20:28But after years of neglect, cracks were beginning to show.
292. 20:32Poor citizens were having a hard time getting onto the Grain Dole without bribing bureaucrats.
293. 20:38This was made worse by the fact that families who maybe a generation earlier had qualified
294. 20:43for the Grain Dole were able to keep their names on the lists long after rising out of
295. 20:48poverty.
296. 20:49Rich people were collecting benefits that were intended for poor people.
297. 20:53This was leading to a lot of social resentment.
298. 20:57Caesar dramatically restructured the Grain Dole.
299. 21:00He cut the number of eligible recipients in half, from 320,000 down to 150,000, but he
300. 21:07also implemented political stronger oversight so that these 150,000 people were legitimately
301. 21:13Rome's poorest citizens.
302. 21:16This restored a basic sense of fairness to the system, and despite the fact that a lot
303. 21:21less people would qualify for the benefit, the reforms turned out to be quite popular.
304. 21:28When Brutus learned of Caesar's cuts, he excitedly wrote to a friend saying that "Caesar appears
305. 21:34to be joining the Conservative Faction!"
306. 21:37That friend conveyed Brutus's thoughts to Cicero, who responded, "join the Conservative
307. 21:42Faction?
308. 21:43Is he planning on killing himself?"
309. 21:53Now that Caesar's major reforms were up and running, he was free to take on a brand new
310. 21:59super secret project.
311. 22:01This would be an utterly boring and thankless job, but it was something that had captured
312. 22:06Caesar's imagination a while back and for whatever reason he was hell-bent on tackling
313. 22:12it now.
314. 22:13We're talkin' about the Roman calendar.
315. 22:14The Roman calendar sucked.
316. 22:20We don't need to go into all the details, but for starters it was a lunar calendar,
317. 22:24as in it followed the phases of the moon.
318. 22:27The phases of the moon do not line up with the solar year, which means that lunar calendars
319. 22:32always drift out of sync with the seasons.
320. 22:35It was the job of the Pontifex Maximus and his College of Pontiffs to monitor this drift
321. 22:41and to manually add extra days to the calendar as needed.
322. 22:46The current Pontifex Maximus happened to be Julius Caesar, and as we know, Caesar had
323. 22:51been indisposed for like... a decade and a half.
324. 22:55As a consequence, the Roman calendar was a good 3 months out of sync, which as far as
325. 23:00calendars go is kind of a catastrophic failure.
326. 23:04But Caesar had just spent the better part of a year in Egypt, where he learned that
327. 23:08the Egyptians used a nearly perfect 365 day solar calendar.
328. 23:14Caesar enlisted the help of an Egyptian astronomer named Sosigenes of Alexandria, and together
329. 23:20they designed new Roman calendar loosely modeled on the Egyptian system.
330. 23:25Like the Egyptian calendar, the new Roman calendar would be 365 days.
331. 23:30Good start.
332. 23:31But the Egyptian calendar did have some flaws.
333. 23:34They evenly divided the year into 12 months of 30 days each, which added up to 360, and
334. 23:41then they manually added in 5 extra days at the end of the year to make the math work.
335. 23:47Those 5 extra days were a problem.
336. 23:50Under the Roman system these days would be administered by the Pontifex Maximus, and
337. 23:54if administered incorrectly the calendar would begin to drift again.
338. 23:58That would not do.
339. 24:00Caesar and Sosigenes wanted this new calendar run on autopilot, so they took those 5 extra
340. 24:06days and peppered them throughout the year creating a bunch of 31 day months.
341. 24:12The month of February was considered unlucky, and so they bumped it back down to 28 days
342. 24:18as it had been under the old system, and offset this with even more 31 day months.
343. 24:24But according to Sosigenes, even the nearly perfect Egyptian calendar was slightly out
344. 24:30of alignment since it did not take into account the actual length of the year, which was 365
345. 24:36and 1/4 days.
346. 24:38Under the old Roman calendar the traditional place to insert extra days had been during
347. 24:43the month of February, and so Caesar and Sosigenes invented a system where an additional day
348. 24:48would be automatically inserted into that month on every 4th year.
349. 24:53They made it very clear that this was not one of those special days that the Pontifex
350. 24:58Maximus could tinker with.
351. 24:59This would be an automatic process, out of the hands of the politicians.
352. 25:05With that, the new Roman calendar was complete.
353. 25:08But there was still a problem.
354. 25:09The current date was still 3 months out of alignment.
355. 25:14So here's a trivia question that you can bore your friends with: "what was the longest year
356. 25:18in human history?"
357. 25:20Seems like a trick, but it's not.
358. 25:23In order to bring the Roman year back into alignment, Caesar inserted 90 extra days into
359. 25:30the year 46 B.C.E., making it a 445 day year, which was 25% longer than a normal.
360. 25:40On January 1st of the year 45, the new Roman calendar, which is known to us as the Julian
361. 25:47calendar, came into effect.
362. 25:49Automating the calendar and getting it out of the hands of politicians was a great human
363. 25:55achievement.
364. 25:56Aside from some minor upgrades in the 16th century, the system devised by Caesar and
365. 26:02Sosigenes survives more or less intact to this day.
366. 26:11While Caesar was busy in Rome, something was happening out in the provinces.
367. 26:16Without warning, the Spanish governors began writing in requesting reinforcements.
368. 26:21Before Caesar could even act, Rome's two Spanish provinces had fallen to the enemy.
369. 26:27What enemy?
370. 26:29Caesar's old right hand man Labienus had joined forces with two of Pompey's sons.
371. 26:35Rome's disgruntled Spanish legions had eagerly gone over to their side.
372. 26:39Caesar had been caught entirely flat footed.
373. 26:42Apparently the Roman Civil War wasn't over yet.