Hello and welcome to how to take over the world. This is Ben Wilson. This is the Caesar guide to taking over the world. This is an episode about Julius Caesar. I read a new book on him recently. Not a new book, new to me. It's actually a very old book written in the 1800s. It's called Caesar a Sketch. It's called Caesar a Sketch.

By James Anthony Froud. So this episode is me using a new source as an excuse to revisit Caesar, unpack his playbook a little bit more and talk about what made him so great and what I have learned from his life.

If you want the blow by blow of, you know, going into his campaigns and exactly what happened, more detail, you can go back and listen to the four episodes series I did on Caesar. The one in which I mispronounce Pompey as Pompey the entire time. I'm sure I'll mispronounce other names in this episode. But Caesar is worth revisiting because his life is so extraordinary.

To me, he is probably the second greatest or at least most impactful figure in human history right there behind Jesus. I think I'd put at number one.  Caesar, you know, one of the facts that I love about him is his name becomes synonymous with emperor essentially. And so that gets translated as Kaiser in German and as czar in Slavic languages. So you can see it, his name was actually Kaiser is how they pronounced it back in the day. So you go from Kaiser to czar,  czar, czar.

Um, and so someone held the title of Caesar, was trying to carry on his legacy. Until 1946. Okay, that was the last Caesar. His name was Simeon II. He was a czar in Bulgaria, I believe. But that's extraordinary. I mean, you just think about it.  And no one has that level of impact and notoriety over 2000 years. I really can't think of a comparable figure  you know, people, when they talk about our current political situation in the United States and elsewhere, they still reference the Roman Republic, the Roman Empire, they reference Caesar and a lot of the events in his lifetime. And so his story feels really, really present to us still in a way that I don't think is true of anyone else.

Except for perhaps religious figures and not just that, but Caesar was a true man of genius. It wasn't just an accident that he's had a legacy that's lasted this long. He was a great general. He was a great politician. He was a great statesman and he was a great writer, which is something I don't think a lot of people know, but he was acknowledged by the greatest writer of his era, Cicero, as , you know, someone who he looked to as a peer in the field of writing.

So this is someone who was a true genius and a master across multiple fields. Uh, others took over the Roman state before him. Uh, you had dictators like Sina, Marius, Sulla, the Gracchi brothers.

And yet none of them established the legacy.  Rome was very impressive at the time, but there's no reason that it should have continued to last for hundreds of years after Caesar. In fact, it was arguably in a death spiral before Caesar arrived, and it should have fallen apart.  And instead we get the Roman Empire, which is one of the great political entities of all time. And so I think what Caesar did is one of the great accomplishments of all time. And there's just so much to learn from him. I know it's been nearly 2100 years since he lived, but I think the story is as fresh as ever.

With all that said, let's get into it. This is The Caesar Guide to Taking Over the World. 📍  

So according to James Anthony Froude, the Romans had it coming. Before Caesar took over, Rome was in an inherently unstable position.

Rome was a republic, and that comes from reis meaning thing, and publica, meaning public, reis publica. Literally, the public thing, the joint affair. So to have a republic, You need  people to be involved in that joint affair. You need free men who can stand on their own two feet. And the Roman Republic was increasingly composed of slaves.

The rich were buying up the smaller farms of the bankrupt. who had often gone bankrupt because they had been off fighting Rome's wars and, you know, leaving their farms kind of untended while they were gone and missing income during that time. And so the rich would then buy  up these farms from these bankrupt soldiers when they came home and then they would fold them into their huge landownings and send the poor bankrupt farmers into the city of Rome itself to look for work and eke out a living on the verge of hunger and poverty as a mass of urban poor.

And this created huge pressure for reform. But the only reform that came was the worst kind. Many pushes were made for land reform, to break up these big estates, buy out the landowners with public money, and distribute portions of their land to the urban poor to go work, so that they can once again be productive citizens who are farming for themselves.

But these measures were vehemently opposed by the optimates. So you had two parties in Rome, the optimates and the populares. And the optimates meant the best men, the aristocrats. The optimates were interested in holding up the old order in retaining the power of the Senate and opposing reform.  These were the patricians and those who supported them.

And then you had the populares and that was the reform party. They tried to come to power through support from the people. They supported land reform and often other reforms like extending the franchise, extending citizenship and voting rights to non Roman Italians. And the optimates opposed any reform at all costs.

And the populares, when given power, often only implemented reforms that were antithetical to what was actually needed.  Such as free grain distributions in Rome, which actually, if you think about it, tempted more nearly broke farmers off their farms and into the cities.

Cause that's where you get, you know, free grain, free bread. As Froude writes, quote, The peasant proprietors were melting away, and Rome was becoming choked with impoverished citizens who ought to have been farmers and fathers of families, but were degenerating into a rabble fed upon the corn grants and occupied with nothing but spectacles and politics.

And as the underlying problems worsened, the senatorial class, the optimates, showed no initiative in addressing these issues. Instead, the two factions opposed each other at any cost and spiraled out into ever widening circles of polarization. So here's another quote from, um, Cesar Esketch. It says,

patriotism survived on the lips, but patriotism meant the ascendancy of the party. Which would maintain the existing order of things, or would overthrow it for a more equal distribution. So in other words, uh, patriotism to people, they weren't really thinking about Rome as a whole. They were just thinking about their faction And I think, if you were so inclined, you could find some interesting parallels with that situation, and, uh, let's say other times, maybe more current in history.

So this led to a series of dictators, who seized power on behalf of one faction or the other, and they would bloodily purge their enemies, decimate the opposing party, and rule Rome in the name of their faction.  On behalf of the optimates, this was accomplished by a very gifted general named Sulla. And on behalf of the Popularities, this was accomplished by two men, Sena and Marius.

But really, Marius was the more powerful and more famous of the two.  Marius was a war hero, and importantly for our story, was Julius Caesar's uncle.  So you have a decreasing standard of living for most Romans. You have increasing polarization, you have escalating use of force as both parties use the levers of government to punish one another.

And you have increasing concern with personal matters, a decrease in legitimate public spiritedness of public feeling, you know, for example, when one general, a guy who we will hear about later named Pompey returns from a glorious conquest that greatly enriches Rome, his first concern. Is for his personal safety  when he's returning to Rome, not when he's at war, but when he's coming home, because this level of accomplishment, you know, while he was given lip service in the Senate, he was actually hated by the senators because it meant that the triumphant general had a leg up on everyone else, he would become more powerful and that was threatening to others.

And so you can see how like, this is not. A great situation, right? When no one is really concerned in how Rome is doing. They're just concerned  in how their faction is doing. And even within that, how they themselves are doing  within that party.  So into the situation is born. Gaas Julius Caesar  Rome is at an all time peak in terms of power, but the very foundations of the republic are crumbling. Here's Freud's description of Julius Caesar in his childhood, or, uh, I guess as a young adult,

He says, and now for the first time, we catch a personal view of young Julius CAEs.

He was growing up in his father's house, a tall, slight, handsome youth, with dark piercing eyes, a sallow complexion, large nose, lips full, features refined and intellectual, sinewy and thick beyond what might have been expected from the generally slender figure. He was particular about his appearance, used the bath frequently, and attended carefully to his hair.

His dress was arranged with studied negligence and he had a loose mode of fastening his girdle so peculiar as to catch the eye.  So, if you didn't catch that there at the end, Caesar had this particular way of dressing and he was something of a fashion icon.

He was a very glamorous youth who was handsome, well liked, and dressed just a little bit differently, which drew attention, and  Yeah, he actually was like notable for his fashion. for his fashion sense and as being a trendsetter amongst young Romans in how to dress and groom yourself.  He was, of course, clean shaven, as basically every Roman young man would have been.

Which, of course, right? You can't see a world conqueror like Caesar having facial hair. You gotta be clean shaven, right? Apex predators have to have a clean face. Napoleon, Caesar, George Washington, anyone who has landed on the moon, any U. S. president since, um, I don't know, since the 1800s? Who was the last bearded president?

Harrison? Anyways, they're all clean shaven. You let yourself get a mustache, all of a sudden you're in Hitler and Stalin territory. Well, that's why today's sponsor is Henson Shaving.  Yeah, I'm not sure about that transition, but Henson Shaving really is great. They are a family owned aerospace parts manufacturer that has made parts for the International Space Station and Mars Rover and they are bringing that precision engineering to the art of shaving.

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So again, that is Henson shaving. That's H E N S O N shaving. com slash takeover and use code takeover for the best shape of your life. Sorry for comparing you to Hitler or Stalin. If you don't shave.  Okay, so, Caesar encouraged that sense of glamour, that mystique, in a couple of other ways during his adolescence besides the way that he dressed.

There's one story in which he is captured by pirates and held for ransom. And they're asking for a certain amount, and he says, No, no, no. You need to ask for at least twice that. Which seems to not make sense, right? Um. He's captured by pirates, like these people could execute him if the ransom isn't being paid.

Why are you encouraging them to ask for a bigger ransom? But it's because he's thinking about his reputation. So let's say that Bill Gates,  his son, was abducted and held for 10, 000 ransom. Okay, 10k.  Your first thought might be, wait, only 10, 000? Like, what's going on here? Do these people not know who he is?

Have the Gates given away too much money? Is there nothing left? But if you heard that Bill Gates son was being held for a billion dollar ransom,  that would make headlines. That would drive stories.  I mean, obviously Bill Gates son being abducted would make headlines either way, but like, it would be an even bigger story if you heard that he's being held for a billion dollar ransom.

That would make headlines. A reputation for his son, the billion dollar boy. Apologies to the Gates family for using them in that horrible analogy. You know, I wish nothing but health and safety on all of them, but that is what Caesar is getting at. If his ransom is big, it's going to create a sense of mystique and glamor and make headlines and make him seem important.

And so anyway, the ransom does get paid, uh, he goes back and then he actually turns around. He had made friends with the pirates. He goes back, finds them, and they have to be executed. They're pirates. But he's become friends with these people. So his one kind of concession to these people being his friends is that he has them killed before they're crucified.

Crucifixion is a horrible, torturous form of death. So. He says, look, we'll just stab you, you're dead, and, and then we'll crucify you so that, um, you're my friends, at least I won't make you suffer. The other thing he does as an adolescent is he gets married pretty young, and the dictator Sulla comes to power, and Sulla is an optimist.

And so he's looking at Julius Caesar, the nephew of his enemy, the former popular dictator, Marius, and he's saying, hmm,  this kid might need to go.  But I'll tell you what,  kid, young Julius.   I'm the dictator. I have complete control of Rome and I've murdered thousands of people, but I'll spare you.

If you divorce your wife, who comes from a prominent family in the popularize party and marry a relative of mine,  he makes a similar demand of Pompe, who was a young Roman general, who was even more of a hot shot than Caesar and had already made a reputation for himself.

And Pompey agrees. He divorces his wife and marries someone who Sulla had chosen. I actually think it's Sulla's daughter, if I recall correctly. So here's what Froud writes about what Caesar does next.  If Pompey had complied, who had made a position of his own, much more might it be expected that Caesar would comply.

Yet Caesar answered with a distinct and unhesitating refusal. The terrible Sulla, in the fullness of his strength, after desolating half the homes in Italy,  revolutionizing all Roman society, from the peasant's cottage, to the Apennines, to the Senate House itself, was defied by a mere boy. Throughout his career, Caesar displayed always a singular indifference to life.

He had no sentimental passion about him, no Byronic mock heroics. He had not much belief either in God or the gods. On all such questions, he observed, from first to last, a profound silence. But one conviction he had. He intended, if he was to live at all, to live master of himself in matters which belong to himself.

Sulla might kill him if he so pleased. It was better to die than to put away a wife who was the mother of his child and to marry some other woman at a dictator's bidding. Life on such terms was not worth keeping.

And so here's Caesar defying  a dictator, defying basically, you know, the King of Rome,  , on a seemingly trivial matter, at least as far as politics is concerned, because he doesn't want to live life by his terms. And this does a lot to also increase his reputation. So Caesar has to go hide out in the mountains.

He's nearly caught and killed a number of times. Eventually, some relatives who are kind of in with the optimates are able to plea for clemency on Caesar's behalf. Sulla refuses at first, but after a lot of begging, he finally relents. And apparently Sulla can really see the talent in Caesar and says, Take him, since you will have it so.

But I would have you know that the youth for whom you are so earnest will one day overthrow the aristocracy for whom you and I have fought so hardly. In this young Caesar, there are many Mariuses.  So with this, Caesar can return to Rome and begin the life of a young and ambitious Roman statesman.  For someone who is synonymous with grandeur and world changing impact, his ambition was very sensible.

At this stage of his life, and frankly, for the rest of his life. Yes, he wanted to be the first man in Rome. He wanted to be consul, which was the highest position of leadership in Rome, essentially being president. But that was it.  And while those, of course, are ambitious goals, they were what made sense for him.

You know, he's not thinking, Alright, I want to extend the borders and make the greatest empire of all time. Which is eventually what he would do. Um, and essentially become monarch of Rome and become a God and be worshiped as a God after my death. Like he's not thinking any of those things. He's just thinking about the next step.

I want to be the first man in Rome. I want to be console. I want to be the best I can be. And it reminds me of a quote from Paul Graham, very famous entrepreneur, very famous investor in Silicon Valley. And, uh, he writes about having kind of sensible goals. Uh, here's what he said. He said, Empirically, the way to do really big things seems to be to start with small things and grow them bigger.

Want to dominate microcomputer software for decades? Start by writing a basic interpreter for a machine with a couple thousand users. Want to make the universal website a giant vacuum for people's time?  by building a website where Harvard undergrads can stalk one another. Neither Bill Gates nor Mark Zuckerberg knew how big their companies were going to get.

All they knew is they were on to something.  Maybe it's a bad idea to have really big ambitions initially, because the bigger your ambitions, the longer they're going to take to realize, And the longer you project into the future, the more likely you are to be wrong.  

So I like that idea. The way to do big things is to start with small things and just grow them bigger.  Do the thing in front of you and do it really well and then take opportunities as they come to you. Froud essentially writes the same thing when talking about Caesar. He says, Men of genius who accomplish great things in this world do not trouble themselves with remote and visionary aims.

They encounter emergencies as they rise and leave the future to shape itself as it may. Okay? So I love that, that connection. Both of these guys have the same idea.  Men of genius, great men, people who accomplish a lot,  they don't think about remote and visionary things that they have no way of doing or impacting, you know, decades from now.

They just focus on the thing at hand.  Okay, and I think that the story of Julius Caesar adheres nicely to that theory. He doesn't set out to create the Roman Empire, he simply meant to make it to the top of the Roman Republic and do the right thing and carry out much needed reforms. So he is sort of a sensible populist, he favors land reform and extending the franchise, but he isn't a rabble rouser.

He doesn't stoke riots or whip up the mobs into a fury or anything like that.  And as Caesar rises, one of the things he does very well is establish strategic alliances.

The first of these is with someone named Pompey, uh, who we've talked about, who helps fund Caesar's rise. Pompey was a very mild populist, not a very ideological person, and Caesar gives him much needed backing, and then also with Crassus. And Crassus was the richest man in Rome. The way that Caesar is operating in this time reminds me a lot of a good quote about Rockefeller from the book Titan, um, where Roncher now writes, Rockefeller had a longer time frame.

A more settled will than other people.  And that's true of Caesar as well. He he's thinking in the longterm and he's got this very settled will. He knows exactly what he wants to accomplish. So for example, as Caesar is becoming the head of the populist party, and he's really rising to prominence in that faction of Roman politics, there's a big flare up about something the optimates have done to offend the common people.

And, um, basically they're going to have Caesar removed from his position extra judicially. And, um, here's how Froud describes what happens next. The mob refused to be comforted. They gathered, day after day.

They clustered about the Pontifical Palace. They cried to Caesar to place himself at their head, that they might tear down the Senate House. Caesar, neither then nor ever, lent himself to popular excesses. He reminded the citizens that if others broke the law, they must themselves set an example of obeying it.

And he bade them return to their homes.  So he's got this opportunity to use the power of the people, to put himself at the head of a mob and flex his power. But he's got a longer time frame. He wants to be consul and he wants to reform Rome and set it on the right footing. And that requires him being a respected leader and not just a rabble rouser.

And so he passes up the opportunity.  He has this absolute iron will. There's another good description that I think conveys this. Uh, Caesar gets an appointment where, uh, as part of his job, he's supposed to throw, you know, festivals and, and games and, and do public things to kind of appease the people.

And so Froud writes, he charmed the populace with a show of gladiators, unusually extensive. Personally, he cared nothing for these exhibitions, and he displayed his indifference ostentatiously by reading or writing while the butchery was going forward.

Okay, that's kind of an amazing scene. Nothing can distract him. He has this total focus. And so, you know, even while these games that he threw, these gladiatorial games, are, are going on,  he's up there in the stands, reading and writing letters. And by the way, uh, that is kind of true to his character. Caesar was, uh, A total email junkie, right?

He's like Napoleon in that way. He's always writing letters. You know, other than Cicero, maybe he was the greatest letter writer of his age, great communicator and, and was always keeping in touch with people.  Okay. So as part of his rise, he goes next to Spain where, um, he administers the Roman colony there.

And he serves very admirably. He conducts a military campaign, completes the conquest of Spain, and it goes really well. He's a hero.

And so he wants to celebrate. A triumph.  A triumph is a very rare occasion in Roman politics and Roman history. They are celebrations of great military accomplishments.  And they throw this huge party for you if you do something worthy of a triumph. It's like the Olympics, Mardi Gras, Christmas, and the Oscars all rolled into one.

It is like the greatest thing that you could hope for as a Roman statesman.   And so Caesar has done something worthy of a triumph. So this is like the pinnacle for anyone. You get to celebrate a triumph, but he wants to come home and capitalize on this popularity that he has to run for consul top job in Rome and the Senate forces him into a difficult position.

The optimists can see that he's gaining power, that he's both popular and very capable, which he has proven with his stint in Spain, and they fear what he might do as consul. They fear that he might push through some of these reforms.

And so they use some legal maneuvering to force a choice on him.  If you want to celebrate a triumph, you cannot enter Rome until the triumph is celebrated. But in order to run for consul, you must be physically present in the city for the election. So he can't be both places at once. He can't be waiting outside the city for his triumph.

And also be inside the city to run for consul. So Caesar has a choice. Do I run for consul or do I celebrate my triumph? And he doesn't hesitate. He enters the city forgoing his triumph in order to run for consul.

It reminds me of the story of Arnold Schwarzenegger. He's just getting started in his movie career and he's the best bodybuilder in the world, but he's unknown as an actor and he gets an offer from. An old fitness guru named Jack LaLanne  And Jack LaLanne makes an offer to Arnold to run his Chain of gyms and he offers him I think it's like five hundred thousand dollars Which is a lot of money now is a ton of money back then To run his gym chain.

And so like, this is more money than Schwarzenegger has ever had. It's a very tempting offer, but it's going to be a full time job. And he's not going to have a chance to pursue his dream of starring in movies. And so Schwarzenegger says, he says no with no hesitation, because it wasn't part of his vision.

It's a, it's a very flattering offer and it's a lot of money, but that's not his vision. And so he's not going to do it. And same thing with Caesar.  Yeah, of course I want to celebrate a triumph, but.  I know what I want in the long run,  and it's not this. I want to run for consul, and I want to be the man. And so, he doesn't even think about it.

Like, as soon as this choice is forced upon him, enters Rome, runs for consul. And he runs, and he wins. And the way that he wins, uh, one of the ways that he wins, is he forms a strategic alliance with Crassus and Pompey. We talked about earlier that he had, um, already become friends with them. Uh, but now they have the secret meeting and they form what is called the first triumvirate.

It's called that now. Of course, at the time it was secret, they didn't call it anything. Um, but they formed this alliance. So you got Crassus, he's the money guy. He's the richest man in Rome and he represents the entrepreneurial class of Rome. And Pompey is the military guy.

He's Rome's most impressive and renowned conqueror. And Caesar has the people. He's glamorous, famous, and popular with the common people. So with these three factions behind him, you know, Caesar's basically gonna be unstoppable. He's got the money, he's got the soldiers, and he's got the popularity.

And the way that Caesar pulls these people together is kind of genius. He's a great dealmaker. And that is because he keeps things very simple and straightforward. There was one thing Crassus really wanted, one thing Pompey really wanted, and one thing that he really wanted. And he could make it happen if they all stuck together and made him consul.

It reminds me of the Bill Gates quote about Steve Jobs negotiating with him, When he had just come back to Apple. So Bill Gates had been negotiating with the previous CEO of Apple, a guy named Gil Emilio,  and then Gil gets forced out. And now he's negotiating with Steve. And here's what he said, quote, it was classic.

I'd been negotiating this deal with Gil and Gil wanted six things. Most of which were not important. Gil was complicated. And I'd be calling him on the phone, faxing him stuff over the holidays. And then when Steve comes in, he looks at the deal and says, here are the two things I want, and here's what you clearly want from us.

And we had the deal done very quickly.

And so Caesar does the same thing. He says, okay, Pompey, you want land reform because you have all these soldiers who you want to take care of, who served under you. And so we're going to pass land reform when I'm consul. Crassus, you want reform for the tax farmers.  So these are people who, um, buy contracts.

To go collect the taxes in the provinces of Rome. Well, it turns out they had paid way too much  for these contracts and weren't able to recoup the costs.  And so they wanted some relief. On the price that they had paid for these contracts and crassest, you know, he's, he's one of these guys, he's one of the money guys. So these are his people. So that's what he wants. And Caesar, he wants to extend citizenship. Uh, to more non Roman Italians, uh, other people in Italy.

So they each have one thing that they really want. So Caesar just says, look, guys,  let's all get in the room. Let's look at each other face to face. Let's stick together. You want this? You want this? I want this. We'll get it all done if you make me consul. And so with their backing, with their money and endorsement, Um, he becomes consul.

The first thing he does is publish essentially a daily newspaper of the dealings of the Senate. And this is really helpful to kind of drain the swamp, so to speak. And the senators can no longer get away with some of their shenanigans, uh, cause it's going to be published in the people. Are going to find out what's really going on in the Roman Senate.

And then he immediately gets around to passing his reforms. He first proposes them in the Senate and they are completely unwilling to play ball. So he basically runs over them and goes straight to, uh, the other body, you know, representative body in Roman government, which was the assembly. So you have the Senate, which represents  the aristocrats, you know, the very wealthy kind of old money Rome.

And then you have the assembly, which is the rest of the citizens.  And so it's complicated, but really you were supposed to kind of go through the Senate, um, for big initiatives like this, at least traditionally, but there was a path that was strictly legal, you know, technically speaking, where you could just kind of take it straight to the assembly.

And so Caesar, you know, he, he tries his best at first. To go through the Senate to go, you know, the normal route and when they won't even touch it or discuss it, and they're completely obstinate, he says, okay, you know, well, here's what he says.

He says, I invited you to revise the law. I was willing that if any clause displeased you, it should be expunged. You will not touch it. Well, then the people must decide.  So he's got the people, the military and the money on his side.  And, um, you know, if the Senate won't play ball at all, he's very willing to play fast and loose with the rules and run over the Senate when necessary.

While always maintaining a pretext that what he is doing is, strictly speaking, legal.  So, his year as consul amounts to a small revolution. He gets all three of those major initiatives passed that he wanted to.  And it's a big change for Roman government. Here's what Froude writes about it. He says, The Senate was now itself suspended. The consul acted directly with the Assembly. Without obstruction and without remonstrance.

Still more remarkably, and as the distinguishing feature of his term in office, Caesar carried with the help of the people, the body of admirable laws, which are known to the jurists as the legis juliae and mark an epic in Roman history. They were laws as unwelcome to the aristocracy as they were essential to the continued existence of the Roman state.

Laws which had been talked of in the Senate, but which could never pass through the preliminary stage of resolutions, and were now enacted over the Senate's head by the will of Caesar and the sovereign power of the nation.  

So after a year, you have all these remarkable reforms.

Uh, his term is up, Rome is on sound footing. The optimates are basically sidelined and it seems like the populares, you know, kind of Caesar's men are in charge for the indefinite future and these reforms are working to make Rome work again.

So after his one year consulship, he can't run again. So Caesar goes. Um, has himself assigned to Gaul, which is modern France. Well, actually, he's assigned to, first, to Cisalpine Gaul, which is northern Italy. , and then he ends up getting also assigned, , Transalpine Gaul, which is modern day France, Switzerland, Belgium, the Netherlands, uh, plus the Rhineland, if you want to get technical about it, a little bit of Germany.

Gaul is an excellent opportunity. The Gauls were Rome's ancient and most feared enemy, at least since the Carthaginians had been defeated in the Punic Wars. The Gauls had sacked Rome in the 300s BC and this was a humiliation that the Romans had never forgotten and would and could never forget.  As it would happen, at this very moment, there was chaos in Gaul.

The German tribes, so, so the Germans and the Gauls are related and pretty similar. Uh, and what divides them is the Rhine, the Rhine River.  And so the Germans over in Germany, on the other side of the Rhine,  We're just getting this energy. They were newly expansionist and we're making excursions into Gaul.

And so they're displacing local populations and tribes who would inevitably pick up stakes and leave,  go somewhere else. But I mean, Gaul was, you know, had people everywhere. So wherever they tried to land and settle, they created conflict with other tribes. And this is setting off a chain of events that you can see where it's leading, right?

It's putting pressure  outward. And so it's only a matter of time before some tribes, you know, Start moving down towards Italy and who knows, you know, maybe they'll attack Rome again and try and sack us again.

So Caesar intervenes in this conflict and in the process over the next 10 years, he annexes Gaul and makes it a Roman province.  He is brilliant. as a commander. He's great with his men. He's like one of the boys. He calls them comrades, which was not traditional. You know, usually you have this aristocratic general and commoners as soldiers.

And so, uh, they talk down to them, but not him. He, he refers to them instead of as, you know, citizens or men, he calls them comrades. He shares their rations and their conditions, often sleeping under the stars with them, which was very unusual behavior for an aristocratic Roman general.  He of course had the hallmark of every great general.

Throughout history. Speed. Froud writes, swiftness of movement was Caesar's distinguishing excellence. Okay, I love that. Swiftness of movement was Caesar's distinguishing excellence. So he's often showing up where he's not expected. He's also very proactive and audacious when conditions seem uncertain or fragile.

His default reaction is to go on the offensive, if possible. It reminds me of Napoleon. Um, he has this quote, audacity, audacity, audacity, always audacity.  In other words, always do the audacious thing, always attack, always, always go on the offensive.  And that's very much Caesar as well.  He has the necessary attribute of equanimity. He stays cool under pressure. Froud writes, The even temperament of his mind was never discomposed, and at each moment he was able, always, to decide and to do what the moment required.  And I think that is such an important attribute of great leaders, and it's so difficult to actually do.

It's so easy to say, right? Like, alright, I'm gonna be calm under pressure. And then, you know, you get the famous Mike Tyson quote, Everyone has a plan until they get punched in the mouth. Like you, you say that and then you get punched in the mouth and all of a sudden you're on tilt and, um,  and your mind just goes blank, but it's a really necessary attribute.

If you want to be a great leader, you have to find that, that space. Of mind that, that calm, that clarity when things start to go sideways.

And Caesar, I mean, he's just amazing at that. Froud writes, Caesar was never more calm than under a reverse.  So like,  you know, he only lost, , two battles, I think in his career, but he had many reverses, right? You know, one of his lieutenants would, would lose a battle. , and he had definitely situations and scenarios in Gaul, which were very harrowing.

He, you know, he came close to defeat a number of times. And. Every time, his mind was crystal clear, and he was able to very quickly decide on the proper course of action and carry it out. So, it's one of the things that made Caesar great, that level headedness. He seems, just in everything that you read about him,  this hyper rational, calm, just very level headed. Very level headed person. As  Gaul, eventually, You know, all these tribes realize, Oh, he's taking over. And if we don't act now, you know, the Romans are going to take over. We're going to become a Roman province. And so toward the end of Caesar's 10 years, they undertake one final revolt against the Romans with virtually all the tribes uniting against Caesar.

And he defeats them at the battle of Alessia. And it's this really great battle. I won't get really deep into it, but essentially. , the main force of, of the Gallic tribes is in the city of Alessia, and so the Romans besiege them.  And so, uh, the, the leader of, of the Gallic tribes, this guy Vercingetorix, uh, he sends out a message.

He says, hey everyone, this is it. Like, this is the moment. If we don't defeat the Romans here, we're done. It's all over.  Anyone you got, send them. So all of these soldiers from all over Gaul  come to attack the Romans. So the Romans are surrounded and so they're besieging the city and they turn around and they build a wall  on the outside of their siege.

So they've got kind of like  a siege wall on the inside to block up Alessia and now they've got a siege wall on the outside to defend against this relieving force that's coming against them.  And so, you know, the Romans are winning and then there's this moment where all these Gallic tribes realize, all right,  we have one more chance.

We got to attack. And so they attack. With as many forces as they can from the outside, Vercingetorix from the inside sees, okay, this is my moment. So he attacks from the inside. They're pinching the Romans defenses at this one place. And so Caesar says, all right, this is it.  And so he rides  to the heat of the battle, to this most pivotal place leading his elite troops.

And he's going with his robe on and with his helmet off so that everyone can see that it's Caesar. You know, and this really rallies his men. They're like, Oh, Caesar himself is with us. You know, he's coming in person to help fight with us. And, uh, apparently it's kind of raised up on a hill. So you've got this whole siege around a city and everyone can see this battle going on.

And to me, it's like this enormous sporting event. With the highest stakes ever. And I just imagine all his men like  able to see that, Oh man, this is where the battle is going to be decided. Look, the goals are attacking from both sides. And then they see like, Oh, it's like, it's like a professional wrestling moment, like, Oh, Caesar's here! Caesar himself! He's going to the heat of the battle! And, uh, I think it's a great moment. They, of course, they beat back the attack, um, Vercingetorix has to surrender, and Gaul is subdued, and is made a Roman province.

Now, during all these years that Caesar is fighting in Gaul,  At first, he has been able to pull strings to basically manage affairs back in Rome. So he's kind of like the puppet master, controlling things back in Rome. He was still the head of the populist party, and they were still firmly in control, with him at the head and Crassus and Pompey providing crucial support.

Well, that all kind of breaks down, kind of midway through his stint in Gaul. Crassus ends up dead in a military campaign and the alliance with Pompey falls apart when Pompey's wife, who was Caesar's daughter, dies. So,  Caesar only had one legitimate daughter, probably only had one daughter ever,  and so that daughter was married to Pompey.

And so that would be Caesar's heir and Pompey's heir, right? So they really have, like, their fortunes knit together.  And apparently Pompey was very in love with this wife, with Caesar's daughter. And so that really tied them together. And so when she dies, , they no longer have this personal connection.

The Optimates had also been very hard at work trying to recruit Pompey to their side. Remember, he had always been moderate, not very ideological. And so they're telling him, look, you should be the greatest man in Rome, not Caesar. You're Pompey. You're Pompey the great. That was actually his epithet. That was his name.

Pompey the great. You're Pompey the great. As long as you are allied to Caesar, you're always going to be, you know, the junior partner, especially now that he has brought himself all this fame and money and gall. And so this works on him eventually, when his wife dies. And so he basically starts siding with the optimates and he turns on Caesar.

Um,

And so, um,  you know, the optimists can see, okay, we got Pompey on our side. We're back in control, but Caesar, his term is about to be up in Gaul and he's going to come home. It's been 10 years, so he can run for consul again, and he's got all this popularity  and they're very afraid of Caesar because of this.

And so they do everything to make sure that this cannot happen. They basically declare war on the plebs, the common citizens of Rome.  They dismiss the people's tribunes, and, and, uh, I don't want to get into all the mechanisms of Roman law, but, uh, these are Caesar's legal protectors. If Caesar returns home unarmed, and the tribunes of the plebs are no longer in operation, he will be completely at the mercy of the optimates in the Senate, who hate him.

And they're for sure going to prosecute him and throw him in jail, or exile him. Or they might even have him murdered. If you read Cicero's letters from this time, they are full of allusions to having Caesar taken out as a convenient way to resolve  political crisis.  And I'll tell you what.  You might not worry about your political opponents murdering you, but you should still be concerned about bad actors.

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Okay, so Caesar is worried about this. He's worried about not his personal data.  He's worried about being murdered or being prosecuted. But it's not just that. If he goes back and lets his enemies have their way, Caesar is basically complicit in submitting to optimate rule.

They had basically nullified the Constitution, and to the extent that Caesar stood for popular rule, if he submitted, then his reforms, and popular rule of Rome, was dead.  And so, Caesar gathers his troops, Pompey gathers some of his troops, uh, but Pompey really delays. And it's interesting, when most people meet uncertainty, their first reaction is to vacillate.

To do nothing. To worry. To fret. To say, okay, what's gonna happen here? And that is what Pompey is doing.  So Caesar repeatedly requests a face to face meeting with him. He feels that if they can just talk things through, they'll be able to figure out a diplomatic solution to this whole crisis. But Pompey never comes.

And so, you know, Caesar is busy working to come to a diplomatic resolution, and Pompey is not. And at the same time, Caesar is readying his forces, gathering legions, building strength. And Pompey really isn't doing anything. He's not doing much to prepare his army. And so the great statesman Cicero wrote to a friend from Rome.

He says, you ask what Pompey means to do. I do not think he knows himself. Certainly none of us know it is all panic and blunder. We are uncertain whether he will make a stand or leave Italy.  And so, you know, again,  when people are faced with uncertainty, their default reaction is to wait and see, to prepare for neither scenario.

But Caesar does the opposite. He prepares for both. He pursues a diplomatic solution at the same time that he's preparing his forces in case there is a military conflict.

And, you know, he's just the opposite of Pompey. No one could say that they did not know where Caesar stood, or what he wanted, or what he planned to do.  So in the end, a diplomatic resolution can't be found, and Caesar marches into Italy.

And so Caesar invades Italy with that settled will, that focus, that intense purpose that defined him. And as always, uh, this is something that we see with Genghis Khan, with Arnold Schwarzenegger, and now Caesar. People really respond to clear purpose and a clear vision. And so a lot of cities just start opening up their gates to Caesar, start joining him.

They're like, alright, here's a man with a plan, we know what he's trying to do. And so that builds momentum, and a lot of people join him.  Now, Caesar basically fights the Civil War. with one arm tied behind his back. He is unbelievably forgiving. One of his great hallmarks is his clemency. He is always forgiving his enemies and allowing them to join him, or even to leave and go rejoin the enemy, the forces fighting him.

And on the one hand, this is a strategic move. Cicero wrote, Caesar's treacherous clemency enchants the men. Okay, so I love that. His treacherous clemency, as if it is somehow underhanded. To forgive your enemies. It's an act of treachery to not slaughter Roman citizens. But yeah, he is right. It really did enchant people.

If you are a populist, you know that you are likely dead. If Pompey wins, there's going to be bloody reprisals and mass killings. And that stiffens your resolve, right? Like I'm going to do anything to make sure Pompey doesn't win. Cause if he does,  it's over for me. But if you're an optimist and Caesar is going around forgiving everyone, Well, you know, maybe I'm not going to fight so hard for the Optimates.

It wouldn't be so bad if Caesar takes over. I could be convinced. You're saying if I give up now, I can just come back to Rome and be forgiven and not participate in the civil war at all. Like I don't have to pick a side. Okay. Like that's, that sounds like a pretty interesting deal.

And so his clemency really is, as Cicero says, enchanting many leading citizens. But in other ways, you know, this strategy really is fighting with one arm tied behind his back. He has opportunities to seize their resources, kill their men, wipe out the optimates, and he doesn't take it.  And one of my big takeaways from this book and from the life of Caesar  is that this is the true genius of Caesar.

Every two bit dictator who had come before him was seduced by the partisanship. And how could you not be? I mean, look at our own current time. And now imagine that there were thousands of political murders  to go along with.  It was just incredibly tempting to just murder the other guys, take their stuff and take power.

Put your party in charge. Like, there were more than enough events in history that you could point to and say, Well, look when Sulla did this. Well, look when Marius did this. Like, remember when you killed all these? You killed my cousin. Like, there's so much stuff that you could look at and point to and justify yourself in just absolutely taking revenge on the opposing party.

But Caesar resists that. He wants to take ownership of the whole of Rome. He doesn't want to represent the ascendancy of populist politics. He wants to represent a new Rome. Once again, united, this time behind him, and a new, more rational way of doing things. So once again, he has a more settled will and a longer time horizon.

And that means he has to do things the hard way.  Well, the play by play of the Civil War is, he races through Italy, Pompey and his forces have to flee to Greece. Caesar audaciously chases Pompey to Greece, where he attacks with an inferior force. Caesar is nearly defeated, but he retreats, regroups, , and then turns things around, and ends up defeating Pompey at the Battle of Pharsalus.

Pompe goes on the run, but Caesar chases him down to Egypt, where Pompe is captured and executed by the local Egyptians. They expected, uh, this move to ingratiate themselves with Caesar.  , you know, here is the new leader of Rome. He, he's won the Civil War. He beat poi. So yeah, let's capture and kill his opponent.

He's gonna love that, right? No, they couldn't be more wrong. Caesar wanted Pompe as a living prize that he could bring back with him to Rome to show that Rome was once again united in this time behind Caesar's rule. Like this is ultimate prize, right? Like, look, here's the guy you were all united behind Pompey.

And now he's with me, which he would have to be since Caesar had him captured. And so this would really unify Rome. So he's really upset that they killed Pompey.

Now, as Caesar makes his way back to Rome, he settles all of Rome's affairs along the way, fighting wars in Egypt and Asia to solidify their provinces there. Again, he's not thinking of himself as a partisan whose primary goal is to defeat the other party. He's thinking of himself as a Roman, whose primary responsibility is to settle Rome's affairs.

So rather than rush back and solidify his control in Italy,  he's making sure that all of Rome's provinces are taken care of along the way.  This delays him significantly in coming home. And the fact that he delays coming home, plus the fact that he had refused to purge the optimates meant that they have time to gather together and reform.  This time they did it in the Roman province of Africa, modern Tunisia.

So, when Caesar gets back to Italy, he has to raise another army, take it to Africa, and defeat the Optimates there.  And then, once he does that, they regather in Spain, and he has to chase them down and defeat them there as well.  Again, none of this would have been necessary if he had just purged the Optimates from the beginning.

But if he had done that,  he wouldn't have been Caesar. He wouldn't have been able to unite everyone behind his rule.  And he wouldn't have been able to put Rome on really sound footing. And we wouldn't know his name 2000 years later.   One curious thing Caesar does that hits home this approach is what he does with the letters of every defeated army. Here is how Frow describes what happens after the battle of Pharsalus, when he defeats Pompey. Quote,  was found his secret correspondence, implicating persons perhaps whom Caesar had never suspected, revealing the mysteries of the past three years.

Curiosity and even prudence might have tempted him to look into it, but his only wish was that the past should be forgotten. He burnt the whole mass of papers unread.  So in other words, he's saying, look, we're not doing this factionalism thing I don't care who was plotting against me. It's over. I won, and we're all Romans now.

So, you know, like,  that just shows how far he was willing to go,  to kind of let the past be past and look towards the future and a new Rome. And it really like no one else could have done this. And it's ironic that his name has come to be synonymous with the end of representative government and its replacement with monarchy and tyranny, because he had every opportunity to be more tyrannical, to make things easier on himself and gain more power.

And he consistently passed it up for the sake of a united Rome.  I'm not trying to make him out to be some sort of benevolent saint. He was an ambitious man.  But his ambition was not personal, or a little bit, I mean, of course, a little bit it was. But mainly, it was that he had a vision for Rome.  He wanted Rome to be something new, to be something better, to be what it could be.

And that was what led him.  Well, once he defeats his enemies in Spain, you know, kind of, for the third time, he sets about reforming the Roman Empire in a much more permanent and lasting way.  Luckily, he moves quickly and has these reforms passed in very short order, because it is only a year from his final victory in Spain in March of 45 BC until his assassination on the Ides of March in 44 BC.

The assassins killed him despite knowing that no man had done more for Rome since Romulus himself.  They did it despite knowing that it would inevitably lead to civil war. And they did it despite the fact that any thinking person could see that a return to the patrician led constitution was now impossible.

But they couldn't destroy his legacy. And what was that legacy? I think Froude has a very nice summary where he talks about Caesar and his relationship to Christianity. Relates him a little bit to Jesus. And here's what he says

Of Caesar, it may be said that he came into the world at a special time and for a special object. The old religions were dead from the pillars of Hercules to the Euphrates and the Nile and the principles on which human society had been constructed were dead. Also, the remained of spiritual conviction, only the common and human sense of justice and morality.

And out of this sense, some ordered system of government had to be constructed, under which quiet men could live and labor and eat the fruit of their industry.  Under a rule of this material kind, there can be no enthusiasm, no chivalry, no saintly aspirations, no patriotism of the heroic type.

It was not to last forever. A new life was about to dawn for mankind. Poetry and faith and devotion were to spring again out of the seeds which were sleeping in the heart of humanity.   But the life which is to endure grows slowly, and as the soil must be prepared before the wheat can be sown,  so before the kingdom of heaven could throw up its chutes, there was needed a kingdom of this world, where the nations were neither torn in pieces by violence, nor rushing after false ideals and spurious ambitions.

Such a kingdom was the empire of the Caesars.  A kingdom where peaceful men could work, think and speak as they pleased and travel freely among the provinces ruled for the most part by men who protected life and property and forbade fanatics to tear each other in pieces for their religious opinions. It is not lawful for us to put any man to death.

Was the complaint of the Jewish priests to the Roman governor? Had Europe and Asia been covered with independent nations?  Each with a local religion represented in its ruling powers, Christianity must have been stifled in its cradle. If St. Paul had escaped the Sanhedrin at Jerusalem, he would've been torn to pieces by the silversmiths.

At Ephesus, the appeal to Caesar's judgment seat was the shield of his mission  and alone made possible. His success  and this spirit, which confined government to its simplest duties while it left opinion unfettered, was especially present in Julius Caesar himself from Can't of All Kinds.

He was totally free.  He was a friend of the people, but he indulged in no enthusiasm for liberty. He fought his battles to establish some tolerable degree of justice in the government of this world, and he succeeded, though he was murdered for doing it.  and startling resemblance between the fate of the founder of the kingdom of this world and the founder of the kingdom not of this world, for which the first was a preparation.

Each was denounced for making himself a king. Each was maligned as the friend of publicans and sinners. Each was betrayed by those whom he had loved and cared for. Each was put to death. And Caesar also was believed to have risen again, and ascended into heaven, and become a divine being.

Okay, so that is what Fraud thinks the legacy of Caesar was. A more rational form of government, where men could go and converse, and believe and worship as they pleased. And,  Um, as a consequence, this led to the flourishing of Christianity and a new way of life for, especially for Europe, um, although for much of the rest of the world as well.

Okay.  So what is the Caesar guide to taking over the world?  The first is to set aside remote or fantastical plans. Solve the problem that is in front of you and do it well. As Paul Graham says, Empirically, the way to do really big things seems to be to start with small things and grow them bigger.  The next takeaway is to have a clearer vision than others and a longer time horizon.

The third takeaway for me is that when you confront petty tribalism, or polarization, or factionalism, whether that is political in a strict sense, or perhaps political in a more corporate politics way of speaking, , you overcome politics by defeating it, but not by engaging in it.   Caesar belonged to a party, yes, the populist party, and he used that party to take power and to serve as his power base.

But he never pretended to be a partisan. His goal was always a rational, united, efficient, and just Rome.  Refusing to engage in partisanship is doing things the hard way, but what you can accomplish is so much more impressive.  Okay, my next takeaway. Speed and initiative. You always set the agenda. You always dictate the matter whenever possible.

Remember, swiftness of movement was Caesar's distinguishing excellence. And so, if you want to be great like him, that must also be your distinguishing excellence. Swiftness of movement.  Another takeaway is the power of glamour. Of having a strong brand. Of having some mystique about you. And Caesar did that in a number of ways.

He did it in the way that he dressed. He did it in the way that he wrote. And, um, these missives that he would issue from the Civil War as well as from Gaul. Um, but in everything that he did, he cultivated this glamour and this mystique.  Another big takeaway, I think, is, this is a great quote from Froud, he says, , in his writings, as in his life, Caesar is always the same. Direct, straightforward, unmoved, saved by occasional tenderness, describing with unconscious simplicity, how the work which had been forced upon him was accomplished.

So I like that. Simplicity and constancy. He kept a level head when things were going right. He kept a level head when things were going wrong. He couldn't be moved from his one goal and from the simple steps that were going to get him there.  And then lastly, in the midst of uncertainty, don't freeze. Prepare for every scenario. You know, Pompey prepared for neither, waiting to see what would happen.

And Caesar, while he was waiting to see what would happen, prepared for both.  So there you go. I hope you enjoyed this episode. Again, If you want more details, some of the blow by blow campaign stuff, you can go listen to my Caesar series  in this feed.  But I hope that you were as inspired as I was. Caesar came along at an opportune time. Yes, he was in the right place at the right time to see through some of these reforms.  But, I am increasingly convinced that there was no one else waiting in the wings. If Caesar had not come along, Rome just would have collapsed under the weight of its own contradictions.

And it would not have become the crown jewel of empire. Rome would not serve as an inspiration and model up to the current day without Julius Caesar. Like, the Roman Empire really is a creation of his unique genius. And so he deserves his place in the pantheon of the greatest men ever to have lived. Ave Caesar.

May our world be blessed with another man of his genius in the near future.   📍 Okay, until next time, thank you for listening to How to Take Over the World

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