0:03

This is Citations Needed with

0:06

Nemo Shirazi and Adam Johnson.

0:08

Welcome to the Citations Needed, Live

0:10

Show Beggathon. Citations Needed is of

0:12

course a podcast on the media,

0:15

Power, PR, and the history of

0:17

bullshit. As I said, this is

0:19

one of our periodic Beggathons, our

0:21

virtual live show fundraisers. And we're

0:23

so glad that you are joining

0:25

us tonight. Thank you everyone. I

0:27

am Nema Shirazi. I'm Adam. It's

0:29

great to have you all here

0:32

with us. Of course, you can

0:34

follow the show on Twitter and

0:36

Blue Sky at Citations Pod, Facebook

0:38

Citations Needed, and become a supporter

0:40

of the show if you're not

0:42

already, and this is a beg

0:44

of Thon, so we obviously would

0:46

really like you to become a

0:49

supporter through patron.com/citations needed, podcast, all

0:51

your support through patron is so

0:53

incredibly appreciated as we are 100%

0:55

listener funded. Yes, and if you

0:57

become a supporter on Patreon, which

0:59

again is ostensibly the purpose of

1:01

this Beggathon, in addition to delightful

1:03

conversation edifying everyone, you get access

1:05

to over 160 news briefs, show

1:07

notes, and more fun stuff, special

1:10

episodes, little things we do here

1:12

and there, live shows, live chats,

1:14

etc. but most importantly, you get

1:16

to put your head on the

1:18

pillow at night and go to

1:20

sleep knowing that you supported our

1:22

humble podcasts. That's right. And tonight

1:24

on citations needed, we will be

1:27

talking about how Elon Musk and

1:29

his magga and cell army have

1:31

appropriated the cultural imagery and aesthetics

1:33

of ancient Rome, while obviously neither

1:35

knowing or understanding anything about the

1:37

ancient world beyond what maybe they've

1:39

seen in Gladiator or 300. Which

1:42

just sort of orient the audience,

1:44

Trump world, and now increasingly

1:46

Elon Musk is effectively the

1:48

co-vice president, are obsessed with

1:50

evoking... Roman symbols iconography. To advance

1:52

a fascist political agenda, I think it's

1:54

fair to use the F-word fascist, we're

1:57

going to use that. I know some

1:59

people just... that I don't really know

2:01

what else to call out at

2:03

this point, white nationalist at the

2:05

very least. And they present Rome

2:07

and view Rome either in meme

2:09

format or explicitly, or in, there's

2:11

even kind of a cottage industry

2:13

of pseudo intellectual scholars we can

2:15

kind of get into as well,

2:18

who pander to these people, YouTubeers,

2:20

etc. They presented as a kind

2:22

of the platonic ideal of a

2:24

quote unquote Western civilization. Everyone has

2:26

their place. There's a, you know,

2:28

the kind of niche in values

2:30

of conquest and domination, the sort

2:32

of how they view the world

2:34

as being about, you know, rewarding

2:36

the people with the most merit

2:38

and the most honor, blah blah

2:40

blah. And We covered this back

2:42

in 2019 with today's special guest.

2:44

And there's obviously been a lot

2:46

of that has gotten charged and

2:48

heightened lately. And so we wanted

2:50

to kind of bring her back.

2:52

Also because she has a wonderful

2:54

book out that I have read.

2:56

You should definitely read it too.

2:58

It is excellent. It is so

3:00

good. And we're going to be

3:02

promoting it all night. So who

3:05

are we talking about Adam? We're

3:07

talking about our guest tonight. Dr.

3:09

Sarah E. Sarah E. Dr. Sarah

3:11

E. Dr. Sarah joins us again

3:13

after about five and a half

3:15

years. She was on episode 82,

3:17

way back in July of 2019,

3:19

in the Before Times for our

3:21

show. which was entitled Western Civilization

3:23

and White Supremacy, the right-wing co-option

3:25

of antiquity. So it is amazing

3:27

to have you back. You, Sarah,

3:29

are the author, as we said,

3:31

of the new book Strike, Labor

3:33

Unions, and Resistance, in the Roman

3:35

Empire, which is out now from

3:37

Yale University Press. I'm so excited

3:39

to get to our conversation with

3:41

you, Sarah, but... Before we do

3:43

that, we just want to know

3:45

why we're doing this tonight, this

3:47

Beggathon, this kind of fundraiser that

3:50

we do periodically. needed takes a

3:52

team to make and it takes

3:54

a ton of work to do

3:56

each episode. Not many shows do

3:58

the research that we do it.

4:00

And since we started the show

4:02

back in July of 2017, we've

4:04

released well over 200 episodes, more

4:06

than 160 news briefs, we've welcomed

4:08

more than 300 guests. We love

4:10

doing this. We are grateful for

4:12

each and every listener, every download,

4:14

every like, every share. tens of

4:16

thousands of you wonderful people listen

4:18

to the show every week and

4:20

we cannot thank you enough for

4:22

that it is amazing but only

4:24

a tiny fraction of you actually

4:26

support the show and our team

4:28

through patron which is the way

4:30

that we're able to keep doing

4:32

this and so that is why

4:35

we are holding this begathon as

4:37

we call it tonight. So that

4:39

was the that was the good

4:41

cop I'm gonna do a bad

4:43

cop. Listen you mooches. No, I'm

4:45

just kidding. Well, I'm not going

4:47

to neg you except to say

4:49

that we are 100% user supported

4:51

we get no corporate Sponships we

4:53

get no foundations. I'll spare you

4:55

the sanctimonious spiel, but you get

4:57

the general idea So if you

4:59

do listen and you do like

5:01

it it actually is very very

5:03

helpful if you actually do support

5:05

it because You know, there's just

5:07

not a lot of you know

5:09

other people who listen just not

5:11

a high percentage do and listen

5:13

consistently and yes we have the

5:15

data and we've geolocated you we

5:17

know who you are that's right

5:20

so tonight we're asking if you

5:22

have the means if you are

5:24

able to please go to our

5:26

patron page we'll put the link

5:28

up there but it's very easy

5:30

to find us patreon.com/citations need podcast

5:32

go help us out there please

5:34

go to patreon citations need a

5:36

podcast sign up all right enough

5:38

of this garbage Adam let's get

5:40

to the show So tonight we

5:42

are focusing on, again, we are,

5:44

we are using as a framing

5:46

device the popularity of our new

5:48

South African co-president, Elon Musk and

5:50

his minions and his in-cell army

5:52

with Roman. pornography and alleged history

5:54

as a gateway to talk about

5:56

what is a far more richer,

5:58

more interesting vision of Rome that

6:00

you've written this excellent book you've

6:02

written, which we'll get into. So

6:05

we're going to start with that

6:07

hook and then kind of get

6:09

into what you wrote about, which

6:11

is obviously meant to in some

6:13

ways kind of be a counter

6:15

to that cheesy narrative, which I'm

6:17

sure we can talk about. So

6:19

we're just going to give a

6:21

little bit of background, NEMA, if

6:23

you want to sort of take

6:25

over that part, because I know

6:27

you had the unfortunate task of

6:29

gathering that background information, unfortunately. Yeah,

6:31

so you know, this idea

6:33

of. fascistic elements neo-Nazis in

6:35

the US, namely their collective

6:38

now chief avatar, effective president

6:40

of the United States, Elon

6:42

Musk, the richest man in

6:44

the world, they've been adopting

6:46

and co-opting and misunderstanding the

6:48

aesthetics of ancient Rome, kind

6:50

of as a rule, but

6:52

as a distinct part of

6:54

their fascistic political project. And

6:56

one of the most prominent

6:58

examples of this occurred after

7:00

Elon Musk himself did a Very

7:03

clear Seagheil gesture, three times

7:05

during the inauguration of Donald

7:08

Trump in January of 2025.

7:10

Now Musk's ally Andrea Stroppa,

7:12

who lives in Italy and

7:15

claims to have an advisory

7:17

role in some of Musk's

7:20

companies, posited that Musk's Seagheil

7:22

was merely a Roman

7:24

salute. Stroper wrote in

7:26

a now deleted tweet, quote,

7:28

Roman Empire is back starting.

7:31

from Roman salute. Now this was far

7:33

from the first time that Musk

7:35

had cited Rome to justify his

7:37

his reactionary ideology and paranoid

7:39

xenophobia and deeply deeply unfunny

7:42

jokes guys constitutionally capable of being funny

7:44

which is quite a which is quite

7:46

a feed at least trumps funny I

7:48

guess. Now our guest Dr. Bond wrote

7:50

for the arts news and an analysis

7:52

site hyper allergic quote Musk has a

7:54

long history we're sorry we did to

7:57

quote you back at you it's one

7:59

of the ultimate. sense of podcasting, but

8:01

we're going to do it. Quote,

8:03

Musk has a long history of

8:05

referencing the Roman Empire, his brand

8:07

of technocratic despotism and its social

8:10

media iconography has roots in the

8:12

work of 20th century European fascists

8:14

who are themselves fixated on ancient

8:16

Rome. He has long been obsessed

8:18

with the late Roman Republic dictator

8:21

Sola in December, even changed ex-avatar

8:23

to Cacas Maximus, a Romanized version

8:25

of pepe, the frog, which is

8:27

a right wing, I guess white

8:29

nationalist avatar avataratar, more specifically, not

8:32

exactly. you know, supply side economics,

8:34

but the more Nazi into the

8:36

spectrum, dressed in a military garbs,

8:38

similar to that of Maximus in

8:40

the film Gladiator, like Italian dictator

8:43

Benito Mussolini and Nazi leader Adolf

8:45

Hitler, the billionaire, the billionaire, the

8:47

billionaire, has frequently expressed admiration for

8:49

the Roman Empire, posting a cause

8:51

playing as a Roman soldier, God,

8:54

that's sad, you didn't write that,

8:56

that's me, sorry. And cooking up

8:58

theories about why ancient Rome fell,

9:00

answer the severe decline and birth

9:02

rate, he thinks about it every

9:05

day, so. Let's begin, I want

9:07

to sort of bring in Sarah

9:09

here, we've set the table. Before

9:11

we get into the questions about

9:13

the actual book you wrote, forgive

9:16

us, I want you to sort

9:18

of comment on this piece, what

9:20

you think superficially people find attractive,

9:22

I know the elements are kind

9:24

of obvious, but I want you

9:26

to kind of dive into why

9:29

you wrote this piece, why you

9:31

think it's important to engage as

9:33

a historian of Rome with this

9:35

seemingly popular occurrence on the Nazi

9:37

or Nazi adjacent right. Right. So

9:40

the piece that I wrote for

9:42

hyper allergic, I wrote with Stephanie

9:44

Wong, who is also a professor

9:46

of history. She just graduated from

9:48

Brown and we write a lot

9:51

together because I think that our

9:53

perspectives are very aligned and we're

9:55

good at writing together. But we

9:57

had been for years now because

9:59

we've been, gosh, we've been writing

10:02

and collaborating for six years together.

10:04

And so We decided that we

10:06

were going to just collect all

10:08

the things that he said since

10:10

it 2020 about ancient Rome because

10:13

I have just a gigantic digital

10:15

folder of references to ancient Rome

10:17

that politicians have made. Over the

10:19

years, and many of us who

10:21

do a lot of reception history,

10:24

which is just a fancy word

10:26

for saying how things are repackaged

10:28

and reused from the ancient world,

10:30

we had been keeping track of

10:32

it and we had written an

10:35

article together for MS NBC a

10:37

few years, let's see, a year

10:39

and a half ago on that

10:41

meme about why people think about

10:43

the Roman Empire. And the person

10:45

that Elon Musk thinks about the

10:48

most seems to be Sola, who

10:50

was a dictator in the... middle

10:52

and early first century B.C.E. and

10:54

Sulla eventually does give up power

10:56

and is not assassinated. He's he

10:59

he eventually gives it up and

11:01

retires and hands the what's left

11:03

of the Republic over to Krasas

11:05

and Cicero. I'm sorry Krasas and

11:07

Pompey essentially as the next consuls.

11:10

But he's obsessed with Sulla and

11:12

that really set off alarm bells

11:14

in my head because Sulla wiped

11:16

out all of his political enemies

11:18

by the hundreds and this is

11:21

something called the prescriptions and Julius

11:23

Caesar refuses to do the prescriptions

11:25

when he becomes dictator or dictator

11:27

but it is picked back up

11:29

again as a practice by Octavian

11:32

Augustus and so this idea that

11:34

you can just wipe out all

11:36

of your enemies and kill them

11:38

and give people free reign to

11:40

kill them is something that he's

11:43

idealizing and it seems to be

11:45

that he's fixating a lot on

11:47

and especially with the purge of

11:49

the federal government that's been going

11:51

on for the past guys can

11:53

you believe that Trump has been

11:56

president for a month exactly almost

11:58

it's it's it feels like it's

12:00

been five years but it's only

12:02

been two thousand years I just

12:04

it has been four weeks of

12:07

nonstop layoffs and non-stop purging of

12:09

the federal government and I don't

12:11

think that's the same in any

12:13

way as killing people via the

12:15

prescriptions but I do think that

12:18

Elon Musk likes to make people

12:20

vulnerable to attack. Unless you fly

12:22

a plane or rather fly on

12:24

a plane I should say. I

12:26

should just say with Elon Musk

12:29

that we're talking about aesthetics and

12:31

idealizing, but I just want to

12:33

point out something really huge here

12:35

that was covered by Maya Pontone

12:37

on hyperallergic as well with background

12:40

from many researchers myself included is

12:42

that Elon Musk has started to

12:44

give money specifically to Archaeological projects

12:46

and projects focused on the ancient

12:48

world and that there is a

12:51

pipeline that is being created from

12:53

the world of classics into directly

12:55

the world of Elon Musk and

12:57

this doge palace that he's creating

12:59

for himself that We can't just

13:02

say that this is a fantasy

13:04

that he's playing out, that he

13:06

gave over two million dollars to

13:08

the Vesuvius Challenge, which decoded a

13:10

small amount of the papyri from

13:12

Herculaneum and gave prize money to

13:15

a young AI engineer named Luke

13:17

Fariter. And Luke Fariter now works

13:19

with Doge and was one of

13:21

the six engineers that originally went

13:23

in with Musk a few weeks

13:26

ago. So it's not as though

13:28

We can say in the world

13:30

of classics, oh, we're just, you

13:32

know, he idealizes us, but we're

13:34

mutually exclusive. We're in a bubble

13:37

out here. What can we do

13:39

about it? It's like, no, we

13:41

have people who are taking the

13:43

money of Musk, the Vesuvius Challenge,

13:45

as well as there's another called

13:48

the AIRC in Rome, who has

13:50

also taken money from Musk. And

13:52

so he's funding cultural heritage and

13:54

AI as a way of accessing.

13:56

people that are involved with the

13:59

ancient world. And, you know, it

14:01

matters who we take money from.

14:03

It very much matters. There's a

14:05

risk there, because again, he did this,

14:07

he's obviously done this for years with

14:09

STEM, where he throws so much money

14:11

around that your like favorite science channel,

14:14

that your like favorite science channel, will

14:16

do these, like favorite science channel, will

14:18

do these, like favorite science channel, will

14:20

do these, will, like favorite science channel,

14:22

will do these, will do these, like

14:24

sort of post over Nazi stuff, and

14:26

Nazi stuff, and so any time he

14:28

wants. And you know controlling the past

14:31

is is because it's become not to

14:33

be too sort of you know I don't

14:35

want to be too overly precious or or

14:37

or about right you guys the machine

14:39

it's okay but but it but it

14:42

well I mean you know he controls

14:44

the right controls the present controls the

14:46

past controls the future I do think

14:48

it matters because that then we're going

14:51

to be curated presented in a way

14:53

that that ladders is ideological dispositions. So

14:55

I think that's a real risk.

14:58

Like, he's, we have Trump firing

15:00

the archivist of the United States

15:02

after she had already deleted and

15:05

moved around parts of an exhibit

15:07

that was within the National Archives,

15:09

and he still fired her, but

15:12

she had gone in and edited

15:14

parts of history that were negative,

15:16

right? And so the presentation of

15:19

history. and the people that are

15:21

in control of it is what

15:24

he wants access to and he

15:26

wants good press for sure

15:28

and he's trying to buy

15:30

himself a connection to antiquity

15:33

in order to conjure a

15:35

legitimacy that we've already seen

15:37

this is the same emo

15:40

that Mussolini took to legitimize

15:42

his power and his rise

15:44

within fascist Italy that all you

15:46

have to do... You just

15:48

rebuild the Arab pockets, right?

15:51

Rebuild the race guest-eyed Divia

15:53

Gusti, which is exactly what

15:55

Mussolini does is invest so

15:57

many thousands and millions of

15:59

dollars. into the rebuilding of

16:01

the Roman forum and the rebuilding

16:03

of the Roman Senate House, like

16:06

this is a playbook we've already

16:08

seen before because he has no

16:10

legitimate status within the federal government.

16:13

So he's clinging to what he

16:15

perceives as the only legitimacy that

16:18

he cares about, which is power

16:20

from the ancient world. Talking about

16:22

preserving the past and also, you

16:25

know, as we're going to get

16:27

into kind of who is allowed

16:29

to... control our understanding of the

16:32

past. And we're going to get

16:34

into this idea of, you know,

16:36

whether from imperial historians kind of

16:39

empowered and sponsored to tell the

16:41

official history of Rome to this

16:43

kind of idea of history from

16:46

below, which you tell through your

16:48

work, Sarah, I'd love to kind

16:50

of discuss the overall thesis of

16:53

your book, which really shows how

16:55

class conflict in the organized withholding

16:58

of labor. was a consistent feature

17:00

of Roman life, as were slave

17:02

revolts, military strikes, other forms of

17:05

resistance, much of which has been

17:07

erased or at least reduced to

17:09

individual stories of heroism in kind

17:12

of, you know, broader ancient historical

17:14

retellings and certainly in the popular

17:16

mind. you know, those who don't

17:19

study this so closely, kind of

17:21

understand the ancient world and then

17:23

certainly ancient Rome. So what compelled

17:26

you to write this new book

17:28

Strike and what broad image of

17:30

Rome, both in our pop culture

17:33

and in kind of more historical

17:35

consensus, were you attempting to kind

17:38

of illuminate and edify for us?

17:40

I was going back and rereading

17:42

a economic history of Rome from

17:45

a guy named Tenney Frank and

17:47

he was a racist from the

17:49

turn of the 20th century like

17:52

into the 20th century and I

17:54

think it's like 1920 he writes

17:56

an economic history of Rome and

17:59

he thinks that strikes cannot happen

18:01

because of the number of enslaved

18:03

people within the Roman Empire. And

18:06

we do know that within the

18:08

Italian Peninsula, for instance, up to

18:10

25% of the population, especially during

18:13

the period of the high Roman

18:15

Empire, so the first two centuries

18:17

CE. I have a large number

18:20

of enslaved people and even prior

18:22

to that there was there was

18:25

a large number and so he

18:27

thought that because there were enslaved

18:29

people there could never be strikes

18:32

because every time you would have

18:34

artisans going on strike why wouldn't

18:36

you just replace them with other

18:39

enslaved persons and that really discounted

18:41

the professionalization of enslaved people as

18:43

potters, as weavers, as textile workers,

18:46

as carpenters, as tavern workers and

18:48

owners. And his belief that there

18:50

weren't strikes kind of infuriated me

18:53

and led me to read more

18:55

about what people thought about strikes,

18:57

about withholding labor, and what it

19:00

might have been called in the

19:02

ancient world. It was surprising to

19:05

me that there just had been

19:07

so little written on collective action

19:09

and the withholding of labor in

19:12

the ancient world because many people,

19:14

both Marxists and non-Marxists, had thought

19:16

that there really weren't a lot

19:19

of instances of it. And so

19:21

in the 19th century, Marx and

19:23

Ingalls had believed that the first

19:26

strikes ever had been the plebeians

19:28

during what we call the struggle

19:30

of the orders, which really starts

19:33

in 495 BCE. If we're trying

19:35

to place that, that's about 15

19:37

years after the start of the

19:40

Roman Republic. So, 509, the Roman

19:42

Republic starts, the last king of

19:45

Rome is ousted and we have

19:47

the start of something we call

19:49

the race publica or the Republic.

19:52

And a few years after that,

19:54

we have the plebeians and the

19:56

patricians fighting against each other because

19:59

the patricians are extremely wealthy and

20:01

they have a lot of... of

20:03

power, but also they have a

20:06

lot of both soft and hard

20:08

power in that they monopolize all

20:10

the magistercies, the consulship, the pontifical

20:13

colleges, all of the major magistercies,

20:15

the patricians are really dominating. And

20:17

so I looked at the struggle

20:20

of the orders, but thought to

20:22

myself. I think there has to

20:25

be many more instances of this

20:27

happening. And so starting to look

20:29

through things that really didn't make

20:32

it into the traditional literary historical

20:34

record like papari and inscriptions really

20:36

was the access point to find

20:39

out that especially in the Greek

20:41

world and going all the way

20:43

back to the Egyptian world, this

20:46

had been happening for many thousands

20:48

of years. And so... I

20:51

started tracing backwards and forwards and

20:53

finding that there were a lot

20:55

more instances because a strike by

20:57

any other name is still a

21:00

strike. And so even though the

21:02

the word is not coined until

21:04

the 18th century in England because

21:06

it's referring to the striking of

21:09

the top sales of merchant ships

21:11

in the 18th century, even though

21:13

that word does not exist in

21:16

ancient Rome, that you still have

21:18

the withholding of labor and the

21:20

boycotting of certain assigned things like

21:22

the military levy. through calling it

21:25

a sessio, where we get, for

21:27

instance, the word secession from. But

21:29

then when you look in the

21:31

Greek papari, they're calling it an

21:34

anachoressis, which just means a withdrawal.

21:36

And for many hundreds and thousands

21:38

of years, we've had workers, especially

21:41

in Egypt, refusing to work unless

21:43

they were given emmer and wheat

21:45

and the right... amount of staples

21:47

to keep working. Like sometimes they

21:50

would just go sit in the

21:52

back of a temple. And so

21:54

for me... It was saying modern

21:56

people think that strikes are a

21:59

development of the progressive modern Western

22:01

civilization post-industrial revolution. And as is

22:03

my want, I usually like to

22:06

say to most things, well that

22:08

sounds like bullshit, that we have

22:10

created this idea of progressive structure

22:12

to get to the period that

22:15

we are now, even though it

22:17

does not feel that we are

22:19

in a progressive moment in the

22:21

least. And to try and unpack

22:24

why we think that unions and

22:26

strikes and labor withdrawals, that all

22:28

of these things are a much

22:30

more modern development in order to

22:33

really make us feel a little

22:35

bit more successful as individuals. And

22:37

I think we just have to

22:40

give more credit to the Romans.

22:42

Yeah, I love the idea that

22:44

like a strike by any other

22:46

name is still a strike, that

22:49

like even if they don't use

22:51

that. term because, you know, you

22:53

actually start your book by talking

22:55

about how the how the term

22:58

was coined, you know, the striking

23:00

of sales in a British port,

23:02

but kind of then going back,

23:05

yeah, to like, Derel Medina, the,

23:07

you know, strike in Egypt, and

23:09

then kind of tracing that up

23:11

through, through history, is just, I

23:14

think, really, really fascinating to see

23:16

how, you know, in a world

23:18

that is built on the, on

23:20

the backs of laborers. the power

23:23

that is held through, you know,

23:25

withholding labor has been recognized not

23:27

just, you know, since the Industrial

23:30

Revolution, but, you know, for thousands

23:32

and thousands of years. On some

23:34

level, the idea that people around

23:36

the world would withhold labor is,

23:39

it does seem sort of self-evidently

23:41

obvious, because what other leverage do

23:43

you have as a laborer? And

23:45

99% of humans throughout, you know,

23:48

history have been laborers. typically exploited

23:50

in any kind of semi-developed sense

23:52

that would be exploited by some

23:55

rich asshole who lived on the

23:57

hill. It's not a huge leap

23:59

to say that this is a

24:01

kind of universal, that there's an

24:04

evolutionary convergence to land on some

24:06

form of strike, right? And what

24:08

you argue is that that is,

24:10

while that is true, there was

24:13

also more sophisticated antecedents that made

24:15

these more coordinated and more sophisticated

24:17

than we maybe thought. And one

24:19

of the things we talked about

24:22

is these associations, which were both

24:24

kind of. which were not these kind

24:26

of perfect Marxist organizations in the sense

24:28

that they were oftentimes kind of business

24:31

trade groups, that they didn't fit along

24:33

these kind of perfectly, you know, Maoist

24:35

lines, but in many ways, what you

24:38

do argue is that they can, they

24:40

could be instrumentalized. to carry out something

24:42

we would recognize as a labor strike,

24:44

and that because of the way history

24:46

is written, you specifically talk about Levy

24:48

and others, like because of the inherently

24:51

elite nature of reading and writing and

24:53

how histories created the first draft, second

24:55

draft, third draft, that those stories. get

24:57

flattened or obscured and you even have

25:00

this great section I won't read it

25:02

back to you because it's like you

25:04

to talk about it about the ways

25:06

in which mob violence is flattened when

25:09

you say that oftentimes as a class

25:11

dimension that is fairly obvious but it

25:13

but in the history books it's kind

25:15

of written off as just mob violence

25:17

and you even draw some parallels to

25:19

current examples when when when mass unrest

25:21

is sort of stripped of its ideology

25:23

which I thought was really fascinating really

25:26

interesting part of the York Times does

25:28

now. Well, yeah. By the way, I

25:30

found out he did the shrimp store

25:32

called and the running out of you,

25:34

the jerk store called, where he would,

25:36

I didn't realize this until I read

25:38

Mary Beard's book, that he would write

25:40

what he said he said on the

25:42

Senate floor later on, which seems like

25:44

cheating. And then people presented, it's

25:47

like, these are this great orator, and

25:49

it's like, you just got to go back

25:51

and rewrite and rewrite. these associations how

25:53

they provided the kind of framework to make a

25:55

more sophisticated form of labor and rest and if

25:57

you could also talk about the ways in which

26:00

which historians for obvious reasons who

26:02

were, you know, wealthier patrician or

26:04

what have you, decided to kind

26:06

of say, oh, that was just

26:09

mindless ideology free violence. I think

26:11

when we create homogenous groups, when

26:13

we call everybody a mob, that's

26:16

already a pejorative, it's already casting

26:18

them into negative rhetoric, and the

26:20

Romans are no different. They like

26:23

to use very large amalgamists. nouns,

26:25

a turba, a multitude of, that

26:27

is to just say a gigantic

26:30

negative word for a crowd, right?

26:32

And when you just say crowd,

26:34

you aren't allowing for organization, you

26:36

aren't allowing for hierarchy, you aren't

26:39

allowing for structure, and Although we

26:41

don't get a ton of anatomies

26:43

of crowds from the ancient world,

26:46

we can see especially in the

26:48

late republic that a lot of

26:50

groups that are coming together are

26:53

what we call Kalegia. And that's

26:55

where we get the modern word

26:57

college from. A Kalegium in the

27:00

singular is just a group of

27:02

people. In Roman law, you have

27:04

to be three or more people

27:06

to be considered a Kalegium. And

27:09

we have about 3,200 inscriptions and

27:11

papari that give reference to these

27:13

various groups that really grow in

27:16

number in the early Hellenistic period

27:18

forward. So from the death of

27:20

Alexander the Great forward people increasingly

27:23

are creating groups for various reasons.

27:25

You could have a group that

27:27

is focused on Dionysus because who

27:30

doesn't want to get together and

27:32

drink some wine and have a

27:34

nice Bacchanalia, but you could also

27:36

form a group if you were

27:39

merchants or trades people living on

27:41

the island of Delos and you're

27:43

human traffickers and you need to

27:46

have a workflow essentially that moves

27:48

people throughout the Mediterranean. You can

27:50

move bread through through it in

27:53

terms of wheat and flour. You

27:55

may need to have a supply

27:57

chain to give you precious jewels.

28:01

hepper, cinnamon, lots of things that

28:03

you might want to trade,

28:05

or you might just be a

28:07

carpenter and want to have

28:09

other carpenters that you work with.

28:11

And so these collegia are

28:14

proliferating, especially into the period of

28:16

the Republic. Many of them

28:18

don't have enough money to meet

28:20

in a proper scola, which

28:22

is a clubhouse. And so lots

28:24

of them do what many

28:27

confraternities have always done, and that

28:29

is meet in a public

28:31

house called a pub. And so

28:33

you go to a tavern,

28:35

the tavern keeper allows you to

28:37

sit there and to congregate.

28:40

And when we try and understand

28:42

the movements within the late

28:44

Republic, one of the things that

28:46

I think is important to

28:48

see is that these groups are

28:50

coming together extremely quickly in

28:53

a very organized manner in order

28:55

to hear public speeches called

28:57

Contiones. And so my question is,

28:59

okay, we have rhetoricians like

29:01

Cicero, who's calling them just a

29:03

gigantic mob, but in reality,

29:06

he's giving us clues that say

29:08

that they're starting in a

29:10

specific sector that artisans are known

29:12

to live within and that

29:14

the tavern keepers are involved in

29:17

it. And to me, trying

29:19

to reconstruct the underlying structure is

29:21

very important because a lot

29:23

of that gets erased in the

29:25

name of marginalizing them. And

29:27

marginalizing vocabulary is something that we've

29:30

seen especially since 2020, that

29:32

when you marginalize a crowd, we

29:34

saw this even with Occupy

29:36

Wall Street as well, is that,

29:38

yes, Occupy Wall Street actually

29:40

was quite organized, even though, yes,

29:43

they were very against hierarchy

29:45

and a lot of the traditional

29:47

leadership structures. But we really

29:49

see that it's elite people who

29:51

tend to call crowds mobs.

29:53

So whether it's Black Lives Matter,

29:56

whether it's any other social

29:58

movement, it deprives them and really

30:00

robs them. of their peaceful protest and of

30:02

their organization and I think

30:04

that this is something that

30:06

always has happened is that

30:09

really wealthy people if you

30:11

want to completely marginalize a

30:13

movement you just simply call

30:15

them a mob and and

30:17

that just is an unjust

30:19

way to label many groups

30:21

not all groups but I

30:24

think a lot of groups

30:26

have been robbed of their

30:28

legitimacy by being called a

30:30

mob because immediately you think

30:32

of violence and criminality and

30:34

also anti-patriotism and that's something

30:36

that with unions for instance

30:38

if we go back to Garfield

30:41

president Garfield not the cat that

30:43

yeah I mean I like the

30:45

cat too but no no relation

30:48

president Garfield he hated unions and

30:50

he thought they were unpatriotic and

30:52

he thought of them as just

30:55

individuals who incited mob

30:57

violence and so It's not

30:59

hard to trace and to

31:01

track down the ways in

31:03

which we marginalized groups of

31:05

people individually, but also groups

31:07

that are coming together in

31:09

order to fight for their

31:11

rights. But it's not just in

31:14

rhetoric, right, Sarah? I mean, because

31:16

also then the discourse and

31:18

the language and the denigration

31:21

also turns into policy or

31:23

legislation. And we see that

31:26

now, you know, with anti-protest

31:28

legislation across the countries, whether

31:31

that is, you know, from

31:33

campus protests against genocide

31:35

in Palestine, or, you know,

31:38

long before, you know, anti-assembly

31:40

legislation. But you were also

31:43

talked about this in your

31:45

book, Strike, about how the

31:48

elites and the wealthy call

31:50

associations or call regular people

31:52

getting together, not only a

31:55

mob, but then they kind

31:57

of legislate against it. Talk

32:00

about kind of where that came

32:02

from and some of the parallels

32:04

there. I think we're all thinking

32:06

about anti-assembly legislation, especially since

32:09

October 7th. thinking about groups

32:11

coming together and protesting against

32:13

the treatment of Palestinians, especially,

32:15

I visited the groups that

32:17

were on the quad at

32:19

the University of Chicago. We

32:21

had a very small group

32:23

at the University of Iowa,

32:25

for instance, and many campuses

32:27

across the country were pushing

32:29

them off of public property.

32:32

Now, University of Chicago is a

32:34

private school that's a little bit

32:36

different, but we even saw this

32:38

at public schools that that people

32:40

were getting arrested, that they were

32:42

not allowed to assemble, even when

32:44

they were just peaceably in their

32:47

tents and just sitting there. So I

32:49

think that we've been thinking

32:51

about freedom of assembly and

32:53

whether that is a civil

32:55

right and to what extent

32:57

it should be protected. And

32:59

when we go back to

33:01

the ancient world, we see

33:03

that freedom of assembly was

33:05

something that very wealthy elite.

33:08

People like senators and the

33:10

emperor were very very... anxious

33:12

about and it's not something

33:14

that that is new that

33:16

especially for instance Julius Caesar

33:18

and Octavian moved to make

33:20

legislation very soon into their

33:22

periods of rule that say

33:24

okay well you know Kalegia

33:27

maybe they can they can

33:29

meet at certain times but

33:31

predominantly we're going to have

33:33

them disband unless they're the

33:35

oldest Kalegia that have ever

33:37

been established and if have

33:40

a public utility, right? And

33:42

this idea of the civic good that

33:44

a collagium has to serve the

33:46

civic good, it's tying into this

33:48

idea of patriotism again is that

33:50

freedom of assembly is only extended

33:52

if it is for the good

33:54

of the race publica. But when

33:56

you get into the empire, the

33:58

race publica does not really exist

34:01

anymore. It's a false reconstruction that

34:03

Augustus has made, right? He calls

34:05

it the the reconstruction of the

34:08

race public, but come on, it's

34:10

an empire. It is the empire

34:12

that he is building and he

34:15

is the imporator. And so what

34:17

he's really saying when he disbands

34:19

Kalegia and when he begins to

34:21

threaten freedom of assembly more and

34:24

more is that I don't want

34:26

myself threatened. by this and I

34:28

don't want any public discord that

34:31

might turn into resistance against me.

34:33

And the smothering of resistance before

34:35

it can really ever get a

34:38

lot of steam is just something

34:40

that is quite common within the

34:42

Roman Empire. People think that there

34:45

are, oh, you know, the Roman

34:47

Empire was so good to live

34:49

in that there was just no

34:52

resistance, right? Like after Spartacus, we

34:54

have, oh, very little except for

34:56

maybe the Jewish wars that are

34:58

in Judea. And that's just not

35:01

true because everyday resistance, the act

35:03

of forming a union, the act

35:05

of engaging in a labor strike,

35:08

right? The act of pushing against

35:10

this revoking a freedom of assembly,

35:12

everyday resistance is just as important

35:15

as these gigantic rebellions. They don't

35:17

just formulate out of nothing. And

35:19

so... I think that freedom of

35:22

assembly has always been revoked and

35:24

questioned and placed as something unpatriotic

35:26

because those in power have always

35:29

known that when people get together

35:31

they have more power collectively than

35:33

they do a part and that's

35:35

why the motto of the United

35:38

States is E. Pluribus Unum, one

35:40

out of many. And right now

35:42

we're seeing a shift to just

35:45

the unum part, but not really

35:47

the people as much a part

35:49

of it. So that's something that

35:52

is really scary to see Trump

35:54

tweet out Long Live the King.

35:56

It was something that gave me

35:59

chills because I immediately thought of

36:01

the late Roman Republic. So I

36:03

want to sort of back up

36:06

here a little bit and sort of

36:08

maybe circle back with what we talked

36:10

about with your book with the sort

36:12

of more topical themes about the right

36:15

wing fascination with with Rome and its

36:17

superficial, albeit superficial, which

36:19

is, I mean, look. Rome is the sort of

36:21

idea is the way we sort of

36:23

perceive the West, right? You know, it

36:26

wasn't until the late 90s that to

36:28

graduate from Oxford, you had to know

36:30

Latin. It is the way in which

36:32

academics and intellectuals and scientists talk to

36:34

each other up until, again, the whatever,

36:36

the 1800s. Rome obviously is kind of

36:38

what is viewed as Europe, as a

36:40

sort of, for want of a better

36:42

term, white civilization, despite the fact that

36:44

it, of course, wasn't one, in any

36:46

meaningful sense. But that's certainly how it's

36:48

been idealized as it's gone through its

36:51

various white supremacist historical laundromats throughout

36:53

the decades. And so it kind

36:55

of makes sense why people who

36:57

are kind of adrift or don't

36:59

really have any firm, you know,

37:01

who aren't very... firmly committed into

37:03

any kind of ideology would be

37:05

drawn to it because of its

37:07

its proximity to it's sort of

37:09

politically a more politically correct form

37:11

of white nationalist sort of myth

37:13

making. And so in some sense

37:15

does it make sense why why

37:17

a sort of mediocre you know

37:19

internet adult dope like Musk would

37:21

again superficially be into it. He

37:23

sort of praised Mike Duncan's podcast

37:26

much to Mike Duncan's chagrin and

37:28

And so it all kind of

37:30

makes sense, because it is this

37:32

sort of idealized white sort of

37:34

heroic version of themselves. And

37:36

the weird way, I know I mentioned her

37:38

book before, but Mary Beard's book

37:41

before, but Mary Beard's book, as

37:43

PQR, at the very end, she

37:45

has this line that's clearly in

37:47

dialogue with that, where she says,

37:49

I get asked a lot, you

37:51

know, basically, I get asked, you

37:54

know, basically, I get asked, I

37:56

get asked for, basically nothing. And

37:58

I don't think she that like

38:00

in a non, in a sort of anti-intellectual

38:02

way. I think she was, it appeared to be

38:04

in the context it was written to be responding

38:06

to these people who constantly say we're at

38:08

the end of the Roman Empire because it's

38:11

so cliche, right? Isaac Newton said it. I

38:13

mean, every 10 years we're, you know, we're

38:15

in the end of, everyone likes to talk

38:17

about the fall of the Roman Empire because

38:19

what are you criticizing? It's homophobia, right? You're

38:21

sort of, you're trafficking the idea of we're

38:23

becoming a feminine, we're becoming weak, blah, blah,

38:25

blah. The meme strongmen create good times, good

38:28

times, great weekmen. A lot of immigration,

38:30

they really like to harp on immigration.

38:32

The barbarians are coming. Right, the barbarians

38:34

at the gates. So if you could, if

38:36

you would comment a bit about, or rather,

38:38

it's a little bit open-ended, but I want

38:40

you to talk about why you think about

38:42

why you think that the white supremacist mythology

38:44

of mythology of Rome. is it appears to

38:47

be increasing but it's kind of survived

38:49

and and what you think like it

38:51

to what extent you feel like some

38:53

you know I don't want your name

38:56

names necessarily but what extent pop

38:58

history movies have really contributed to that

39:00

where they do have this very one-note

39:02

kind of vision of what not to

39:04

sort of blame them for it

39:07

necessarily one-note vision of Rome. Yeah, I

39:09

did review Gladiator too. So we

39:11

just, I mean, I reviewed

39:13

it for hyperelergic and I

39:16

think a lot of the

39:18

misconceptions about Rome are very

39:20

entertaining. That when it goes

39:22

on film, who doesn't like

39:24

watching the first Gladiator in

39:26

the year 2000? And all

39:28

of the things that are being

39:30

picked up on and received right

39:32

as it's being filmed at the

39:34

end of the Clinton administration is

39:36

talking about like we can bring

39:38

Rome back. We can bring the

39:41

Republic back. Now that's absolute bullshit

39:43

because Mark is a religious in

39:45

no way ever wants to bring

39:47

back the Republic. There is no

39:49

hint of evidence. He had always

39:51

set comedists as being the one

39:53

that was going to be his

39:55

successor. But this idea, right, that

39:57

the Republic could come back, that

39:59

was a romantic. idea of the

40:01

year 2000 that then resurfaces

40:03

this year with the latest

40:05

Gladiator 25 years later really

40:07

24 years later coming to

40:09

the surface this idea that

40:11

the Republic could come back.

40:13

So I think that there

40:15

are some people who really

40:17

want to see a genuine

40:19

resurfacing of proper governance or

40:21

some sort of governance that

40:23

that people influence in some

40:25

way. And so I'm not

40:27

saying that Gladiator too is

40:29

completely innocuous because there are a

40:31

lot of things wrong with that movie,

40:33

but they are entertaining. Like whether there

40:36

were sharks in the amphitheater or not,

40:38

and there were not sharks in the

40:40

amphitheater. Sorry, the C is like... Let

40:42

me live the lie. You could fill the

40:45

Colosseum with water. It was

40:47

watertight. So that's that's true.

40:49

You can have a sea

40:51

battle in the Colosseum, but

40:53

there were not sharks. And they

40:56

got a little breeding with

40:58

the sharks. They got a

41:00

little breeding with the sharks.

41:02

The CGI was just too

41:04

far. So there are innocuous

41:06

things, I think, like sharks

41:08

in the Colosseum, that I'm

41:10

really fine with. horrendously facile

41:12

op-eds about the fall of

41:14

Rome as well. That they can be

41:17

the prognosticators using history. So they're

41:19

not only making themselves look extremely

41:21

cerebral and extremely knowledgeable about quote

41:24

unquote Western Civ. They're also telling

41:26

the future and that gives them

41:28

a level of power within the

41:31

public sphere and what they perceive

41:33

of as the intellectual community that

41:35

gives them some sort of currency

41:38

that they've read Gibbon. Well, who

41:40

hasn't read Gibbon? There are a

41:43

lot of people that have read

41:45

Gibbon. two volumes set in 1776,

41:47

okay? I mean, this is, yeah,

41:50

this is, there are no spoilers

41:52

here. Everybody kind of knows what

41:54

Gibbon has said, but Gibbon is

41:57

also speaking about the late 18th

41:59

century. Everybody who is writing history,

42:01

including myself, is thinking about the

42:04

time period that they are living

42:06

in. And I just think that

42:08

going back to this idea of

42:10

the fall of Rome is not

42:12

only regurgitating and recycling gibbon, which

42:14

it clearly is, but it's trying

42:16

to send out a message that

42:18

I am the truth teller, so

42:20

please put your trust in me.

42:22

And that's essentially what opeds are

42:24

supposed to do anyways, right? Like

42:26

I'm an opinion writer, I have

42:28

a thousand words. I'm going to...

42:31

weigh you that what I'm telling

42:33

you is significant. It's just that

42:35

they get the history so wrong,

42:37

especially I would say when it

42:39

comes to talking about religion and

42:41

talking about also immigration and talking

42:43

about what really brought down different

42:45

component parts of Rome because Rome

42:47

doesn't fall monolithically together as one

42:49

that we have fracturing that we

42:51

have going in different directions that

42:53

many areas like North Africa stay

42:56

extremely strong up to the Bandle

42:58

invasion and things like this. So

43:00

I mean it's just this idea

43:02

that that they can read the

43:04

tea leaves through their historical abilities

43:06

and it's just very wrong. Yeah,

43:08

and I'm going to read here

43:10

from the Nixon tapes. He was

43:12

obsessed with this idea. He ranted

43:14

about it a lot. Quote, you

43:16

ever see what happened? You know

43:18

what happened to the Greeks? Homosexuality

43:21

destroyed them. Aristotle was a homo.

43:23

We all know that. So was

43:25

Socrates. Do you know what happened

43:27

to the Romans? The last six

43:29

emperors were FAGS. He concludes by

43:31

saying you see homosexuality dope immorality

43:33

in general These are these are

43:35

enemies of strong societies. That's why

43:37

the communists and left wingers are

43:39

pushing this stuff They're trying to

43:41

destroy it to be fair. I

43:43

that I do do that But

43:46

the he's got me there But

43:48

I but this is again. This

43:50

is like so cliche that has

43:52

been done a billion times the

43:54

idea that like there's so much

43:56

of the Roman you know and

43:58

you know people can see generally

44:00

corruption is what they're really kind

44:02

of referencing but really it does

44:04

kind of this idea of feminine

44:06

again musk is obsessed with this

44:08

idea of feminization again he's he's

44:11

into weird kind of Silicon Valley

44:13

Natalist cults he's apparently he's doing

44:15

some kind of pan-spermia experiment to

44:17

half of California right now I

44:19

guess he's almost 13th kid and

44:21

so it's like this this idea

44:23

of for of again immigration lack

44:25

of white white fertility homosexuality is like

44:27

They want to see it in Rome in

44:29

a way that of course is not

44:32

there, but that of course doesn't really

44:34

matter. Well I think what's interesting

44:36

also is, is, you know, the

44:38

obsession with the kind of emperor

44:40

or even patrician class from some

44:42

of the wealthiest people on the

44:45

planet kind of makes sense, right?

44:47

There's a corollary there. It's not

44:49

just Musk. Also like, like,

44:51

Mark Zuckerberg names his kids.

44:53

like, like, like, Roman, after,

44:56

you know, like, Roman emperors,

44:58

like, there's a, there's a

45:00

whole thing, weird thing going

45:02

on, but, um, Sarah, I'd

45:04

love for you to talk

45:06

about how, how it's not

45:08

just, you know, the wealthy

45:11

that kind of see themselves

45:13

as, as, as part of

45:15

that tradition and kind of

45:17

wanting to bring that back,

45:19

right, like the people in

45:21

charge, the workers and the

45:23

people who glom on to

45:26

this aesthetic as well, who

45:28

all see themselves as

45:30

warriors, not as other

45:32

kinds of workers, right? I

45:35

mean, we're seeing farmers

45:37

in the United States

45:39

right now gutted by

45:41

the cuts that have

45:43

just been made to

45:45

USAID, you know, hit

45:47

hardest, you know, American

45:50

farmers. That is not the

45:52

kind of imagination that people

45:54

storming the capital or people,

45:56

you know, excited about, you

45:58

know, standing for Muscat. you

46:00

know, on Twitter, like, you

46:02

know, they're not seeing themselves

46:04

as the people. They're seeing

46:06

themselves as these kind of

46:08

like, you know, delayed warriors

46:10

with the, you know, with

46:12

the, with the, with the

46:14

helmets and with the, with

46:16

the crest and the, and

46:18

the gladious by their side.

46:20

Like, you know, what is,

46:22

where do you think that

46:24

kind of comes from and

46:26

how, how, how. is that

46:28

shaped by how we understand

46:30

history, which I think your

46:32

book starts to really unpack,

46:34

like who the people really

46:36

are and how we hear

46:39

their stories, the kind of

46:41

people's history, not only of

46:43

Rome, but of ourselves. I

46:45

think the idea of the

46:47

American dream is that we

46:49

can always pull ourselves up

46:51

from our bootstraps and be

46:53

Musk. I mean, to be

46:55

the richest man in the

46:57

world, that a lot of

46:59

people imagine that they are

47:01

capable of that. And we

47:03

know that very small number

47:05

of people are ever able

47:07

to ascend from poverty into

47:09

the very wealthy one percent.

47:11

And Musk isn't even somebody.

47:13

I mean, he comes from

47:15

a family of emerald mine

47:17

owners in South Africa. Trump

47:19

comes from money. Like, these

47:21

are all Nepo babies, okay?

47:23

This idea of the American

47:25

dream is that if you

47:28

work hard enough, you can

47:30

ascend, but part of that

47:32

also is this idea of

47:34

masculinity that is inextricably linked

47:36

to Roman soldiers. And so

47:38

if we go back to

47:40

January 6th, and the storming

47:42

of the capital. There were

47:44

people with signs where Trump

47:46

was dressed like Maximus. Maximus,

47:48

again, is not a historical

47:50

figure. It's not real. Russell

47:52

Crow is playing a fictional

47:54

character, but they are imagining

47:56

themselves to be the highest

47:58

order of masculinity and the

48:00

visualization of that, the kind

48:02

of allegory that we have

48:04

assigned to masculinity is the

48:06

Roman centurion. And so, you

48:08

know, just yesterday I was

48:10

looking at the new picture

48:12

of Odysseus that was released

48:15

for Christopher Nolan's new version

48:17

of the Odyssey. I want

48:19

to see it. I'm going

48:21

to see it, right? But

48:23

Matt Damon has a crested

48:25

helmet on that is very

48:27

much not exactly what would

48:29

have been worn in the

48:31

Trojan War, but It is

48:33

a crested helmet that is

48:35

kind of very much emblematic

48:37

of later soldiers that are

48:39

fighting because the Greek phalanx

48:41

and Sparta, etc. also is

48:43

a symbol of masculinity. And

48:45

so when you try and

48:47

question those constructions, people get

48:49

very upset because especially white

48:51

men tend to idealize both

48:53

Spartan soldiers and also Roman

48:55

centurians and soldiers as their

48:57

everyday lives. Like this is

48:59

how I should go through

49:01

life. And these are people

49:04

that don't quite realize that

49:06

if they were transported back

49:08

to the ancient world, the

49:10

vast Chances are that they

49:12

would be an enslaved person

49:14

or a farmer or perhaps

49:16

an artisan or a potter

49:18

that's making ceramics. And many

49:20

of those also fought as

49:22

soldiers in the earlier period

49:24

of the Republic when we

49:26

have citizen armies. Enslaved persons

49:28

usually did not, but they

49:30

were incorporated into the military

49:32

in other ways. Yeah, I

49:34

really think that it's it's

49:36

tied up in aesthetics of

49:38

masculinity and I love that

49:40

Adam said earlier that this

49:42

is history laundering instead of

49:44

money laundering because that's just

49:46

exactly what it is. All

49:48

of the actual real colors

49:50

of history have bled out,

49:53

right? Like they've faded, they've

49:55

been laundered to death and

49:57

now it just doesn't even

49:59

look like it actually was,

50:01

it is a meme. And

50:03

that's exactly how memetic things

50:05

work, is just continued to

50:07

be recycled until they don't

50:09

really resemble the past in

50:11

any real way. So the

50:13

book is in large part

50:15

trying to bring back the

50:17

voices of just regular enslaved

50:19

peoples, freed people, that is

50:21

to say people who are

50:24

manumited. which is also a

50:26

large part of the population,

50:28

and they may not seem

50:30

as sexy as a centurion,

50:32

but we have the ability

50:34

to redefine what sexy is.

50:36

And I think that merchants

50:38

who form a collagium and

50:40

go on strike or sexier

50:43

to me than a centurion

50:45

that is running into battle.

50:47

But yeah, I think there's

50:49

many books that are incorporated

50:51

into this and that have

50:53

been written and will be

50:56

written on the reception of

50:58

Roman history and white supremacy,

51:00

but I think it all

51:02

comes down to this feeling that

51:05

this is the ultimate, this

51:07

is the epitome of what it means

51:09

to be a man. Right. I mean,

51:11

it's really interesting that you mentioned like,

51:13

you know, that, uh, Russell Crow is,

51:15

you know, just an actor.

51:17

Maximus doesn't really exist. And

51:20

in your book, you know

51:22

that actors actually may have

51:24

been the first in ancient

51:26

Rome to form what could be

51:28

deemed like a pro-to-union, right? So

51:30

like, again, this kind of who

51:32

is the who is the everyday

51:35

person, who are the people that

51:37

are really organizing, who is afforded

51:39

the protections, you know, is it

51:41

the, you know, emperors or is

51:43

it the artisans don't want to

51:46

let you go without asking about the

51:48

viral popularity for 2016 and 2019

51:50

and it was huge during

51:52

COVID of of Marcus Aurelius

51:54

his meditations and like stoicism

51:56

as this kind of masculine

51:58

ideal Ryan holiday as kind of

52:00

a hack writer wrote a book about it

52:02

as a podcast about it. It's very

52:05

popularism, by the way. Broicism, sorry,

52:07

and this is apparently, it's been all

52:09

the rage and there was a viral

52:11

lecture on it that was very sort

52:14

of raw, raw, that went viral during

52:16

COVID. Again, on some level, one can

52:18

see, I actually read it, it was

52:20

beyond tedious, but I stuck it out.

52:22

I definitely don't meet the... The the platonic

52:25

ideal of a stoic I as those

52:27

listening to the show may be aware

52:29

I sometimes complain And I so I

52:31

want I want to ask a little

52:34

bit about Again, the sort of cartoon

52:36

version versus the kind of real version,

52:38

and I mean, again, these book sales,

52:40

these podcasts are popular, these Tiktocks are

52:42

very popular, this is legitimately popular, and

52:45

this is legitimately popular, and this is

52:47

the primary entry point in the Roman

52:49

history for a lot of people. So

52:51

talking, you could about the rise of

52:53

broicism and how, I don't know if

52:56

you engage with this with a lot

52:58

of undergrads or whatever, and talk about

53:00

like where you see it happened. Yeah,

53:02

I want to say if you're

53:04

going to buy a translation

53:07

of Marcus Aurelius' meditation, my

53:09

professor, whose name is Gregory

53:11

Hayes. I believe wrote the

53:13

best translation. So if we're

53:15

going to give actual money

53:17

to anybody for buying stoism,

53:19

please don't do those Instagrams

53:22

that are like stoicism every

53:24

day. I'm going to send

53:26

stoicism and witticisms to your

53:28

inbox, which half the time

53:30

they're fake quotes from Seneca,

53:32

they're fake quotes from

53:35

Mark Israelius, etc. In

53:37

any case, translations... who you

53:39

choose to translate your words

53:41

are extremely important. So yes,

53:43

pick your translator carefully, number

53:46

one. Number two, I think

53:48

that if we think about

53:50

technocrats and why this philosophy

53:53

is extremely alluring to them,

53:55

we can think about the fact

53:58

that when you are stoic, You

54:00

have to be happy with your

54:02

lot in life. And it really

54:04

behooves technocrats to have coders, to

54:06

have people that are working within

54:09

their companies, have a philosophy where

54:11

they come to work and they're

54:13

like, you know, gosh darn, I'm

54:15

just happy to be here, I'm

54:17

going to be the best coder

54:20

that I could be, right? And

54:22

when we read things like a

54:24

Then we think, oh, I will

54:26

be the best enslaved person that

54:28

I could possibly be. But let's

54:31

face it, when you write the

54:33

meditations as Marcus Aurelius and you

54:35

say, I'm happy with my lot

54:37

in life, well you fucking should

54:39

be. You are the Emperor. You

54:42

are the Emperor. You are the

54:44

Emperor. Right? And so Elon Musk

54:46

adopting stoicism, which he really is

54:48

not a stoic in any... No,

54:50

I don't think... I don't think...

54:53

I don't think... I don't think...

54:55

Stoics would post 50 tweets a

54:57

day. Yeah. No, no, no, no,

54:59

no. He... This is not a

55:01

man that I associate with stoicism,

55:04

but many technocrats within the area

55:06

of the Silicon Valley have begun

55:08

to glom on to this idea

55:10

because it is an opiate of

55:12

the masses, essentially as a philosophy.

55:15

If every... actually adopted it, then

55:17

you would have people who aren't

55:19

trying to buck the system, that

55:21

they are not trying to rebel,

55:23

that they are not trying to

55:26

modify the system in every way,

55:28

they are trying individually to work

55:30

internally on being the best person

55:32

that they can be, but to

55:34

reinforce the social hierarchy that already

55:37

exists. I mean, this is not

55:39

about transforming the society, it's about

55:41

reinforcing the status quo, and right

55:43

now the amount of... social inequality

55:45

that we have very much benefits

55:48

extremely wealthy people. These are just

55:50

wealthy people that want to maintain

55:52

their wealth to an even higher

55:54

degree and stoicism is a philosophy

55:56

that supports their thesis, which is

55:59

I am awesome and have a

56:01

lot of money that I wish

56:03

to keep. And so they've only

56:05

adopted the philosophy post thesis. And

56:08

everyone else needs to be cool.

56:10

with that too as part of

56:12

their own personal thought. Yeah, get

56:14

with it. Come on guys. This

56:16

is part of the world that

56:19

we live in. So just pass

56:21

it by yourself. Go forward and

56:23

come to the office. Do not

56:25

stay at home and do not

56:27

work from home. We want you

56:30

in an office. We want you

56:32

doing the tasks that we are

56:34

asking you and please don't question

56:36

it because questioning leads to disruption

56:38

and they don't want disruption. They

56:41

simply want to rule. And so

56:43

yeah, I think stoicism as a

56:45

philosophy is very attractive to them

56:47

and also to people who would

56:49

like to be wealthy. And as

56:52

we've already kind of talked about,

56:54

this idea of the American dream

56:56

makes people believe that they too

56:58

could be this technocrat in the

57:00

future. So get with it. But

57:03

I don't think it's very, I'm

57:05

much more Epicurean. I know you

57:07

could probably guess that. We did

57:09

it, yeah. We did a whole

57:11

episode on the kind of David

57:14

Goggins, like self-help, TikTok world. And

57:16

again, on some level, I'm sympathetic

57:18

because if there is a drudgery

57:20

in your job, which again, I'm

57:22

sure all of us if you're

57:25

had a drudgery job. like you

57:27

have to hold on to something

57:29

and to sort of make it

57:31

make sense but again there's a

57:33

reason why your boss wants you

57:36

to read Marcus Aurelius and it's

57:38

rather than your union organizers like

57:40

wait it's basically the micros sweat

57:42

pledge so I want to ask

57:44

one more question before we go

57:47

because we'd be remiss if we

57:49

didn't talk about the goat sparticus

57:51

and the servile wars and obviously

57:53

revolts by enslaved people in general

57:55

which of course there was quite

57:58

a few of entry point into

58:00

a discussion about labor that is

58:02

broadly popular, you know, Kurt Douglas

58:04

with his shirt off. And how,

58:06

how, and so on, sorry, with

58:09

all due respect, Tony Curtis, and

58:11

talk about that, the sort of

58:13

popularity of that narrative, again, it's

58:15

reduced to this kind of heroic

58:18

narrative, but like, where did that,

58:20

where was oriented into this broader

58:22

associations framework and how people kind

58:24

of mimic these structures and what

58:26

you know sort of what lessons

58:29

can be drawn from that that

58:31

are not this kind of cartoon

58:33

you know Marcus really sitting telling

58:35

you how to you know how

58:37

to eat shit and suck it

58:40

up. Well, I think Spartacus as

58:42

a folk hero does not really

58:44

gain a lot of steam until

58:46

around the period of the French

58:48

Revolution and a little bit before.

58:51

So in terms of his revival,

58:53

up until that point people knew

58:55

who Spartacus was, of course he

58:57

is written about by people like

58:59

Appian and Plutarch, etc. That we

59:02

have three servile wars. We have

59:04

the first one is in Sicily

59:06

in the end of the second

59:08

century BCE. Then we have another

59:10

one that formula. It's out of

59:13

Sicily a few years later. Spartacus

59:15

himself is a few decades after

59:17

that and he's not on Sicily.

59:19

He is breaking out of a

59:21

gladiatorial school in the area of

59:24

southern Italy. And Spartacus is seen

59:26

by the contemporary sources and the

59:28

sources that are not long thereafter

59:30

as a rebel and a rabble

59:32

rouser. And of course, they're not

59:35

going on strike. They fully want

59:37

freedom and never to come back

59:39

to their jobs again. They do

59:41

not want to return to being

59:43

gladier. So they're not leveraging their

59:46

labor in any way. They want

59:48

to go free. And my belief

59:50

is that they really should have

59:52

when they got towards the Alps

59:54

to continue going, but they circle

59:57

back and they come back into

59:59

the italic peninsula. And I always

1:00:01

want to yell, like, keep going,

1:00:03

Spartacus, keep going. But he is

1:00:05

not a hero in his own.

1:00:08

day. He may have been with

1:00:10

enslaved persons. We don't have a

1:00:12

lot of their narratives or reactions

1:00:14

to him, but during the period

1:00:17

of the French Revolution, into later

1:00:19

political campaigns in the 18th and

1:00:21

the 19th and then 20th century,

1:00:23

Spartacus gains more and more as

1:00:25

a folk hero of freedom. and

1:00:28

rebellion against tyranny. Whether it was

1:00:30

in Prussia, where he was extremely

1:00:32

popular, he became very popular in

1:00:34

France and in the United States,

1:00:36

and especially during the Haitian Revolution,

1:00:39

where Toussaint Lou Vitere takes the

1:00:41

name of Black Spartacus. He's given

1:00:43

that name, but he is seen

1:00:45

as, you know, this Haitian revolutionary

1:00:47

leading enslaved persons to fight against

1:00:50

enslavement within the island of Haiti.

1:00:52

Right? So all of these things

1:00:54

build Spartacus's hero worship, but the

1:00:56

movie in 1960 really is what

1:00:58

does it to the highest degree.

1:01:01

Written by a communist, no shocker

1:01:03

there. And you know, exactly. And

1:01:05

it's during the period of the

1:01:07

Black list, you know, they're blacklisting

1:01:09

communists after McCarthyism, that Spartacus is

1:01:12

really about fighting against the man.

1:01:14

And I see Spartacus absolutely as

1:01:16

the goat and a hero that

1:01:18

should be celebrated. But we have

1:01:20

to also remember that he was

1:01:23

working within a gladiatorial troop. And

1:01:25

that gladiatorial troop lives within the

1:01:27

gladiatorial school and they coordinate together.

1:01:29

Spartacus has lieutenants that he works

1:01:31

with, but he has... a group

1:01:34

of people that are very close

1:01:36

to him that mobilize in a

1:01:38

very planned rebellion in the gladiatorial

1:01:40

school. They go to the kitchen

1:01:42

and they grab utensils and knives

1:01:45

and break out of the gladiatorial

1:01:47

school. And then as they are

1:01:49

moving through Italy, whether to Vesuvius

1:01:51

or whether going north, etc. They're

1:01:53

gaining more and more enslaved persons

1:01:56

in a very organized manner, up

1:01:58

to about a hundred thousand people.

1:02:00

And this is... During a period

1:02:02

when Roman slavery had been growing

1:02:04

so quickly over the past 200

1:02:07

years, Roman slavery had expanded to

1:02:09

a level that that had never

1:02:11

seen before and the number of

1:02:13

enslaved people was so high within

1:02:16

the italic peninsula. So I mean,

1:02:18

I think Spartacus deserves all of

1:02:20

those kudos, but we also have

1:02:22

to ask ourselves about other enslaved

1:02:24

people into the period of the

1:02:27

empire. And part of that is

1:02:29

looking at enslaved people that rebel

1:02:31

against Rome, whether they're men workers,

1:02:33

whether they're charioteers, whether they're bear

1:02:35

trainers, that we never have a...

1:02:38

slave revolt that is to the

1:02:40

level of Spartacus that we know

1:02:42

of within the Roman Empire for

1:02:44

the rest of its existence. There's

1:02:46

never a rebellion that is to

1:02:49

the degree that Spartacus inspired and

1:02:51

carried out, but that there are

1:02:53

still enslaved people that went on

1:02:55

strike and that engaged in joining

1:02:57

Kalegia and so circling back to

1:03:00

that first thesis that I was

1:03:02

talking about just because enslaved people

1:03:04

exist within a society did not

1:03:06

mean that there cannot be labor

1:03:08

organization and that there cannot be

1:03:11

people working together for a higher

1:03:13

purpose. Right? And so sometimes that

1:03:15

purpose is manumission and sometimes that

1:03:17

purpose is to get higher wages.

1:03:19

But just because they're enslaved does

1:03:22

not mean that they're completely impotent

1:03:24

or without any power within this

1:03:26

labor economy. Well, I think that

1:03:28

is. a perfect place to leave

1:03:30

it. Sarah, this has been so

1:03:33

wonderful. And thank you everyone for

1:03:35

joining us on this citations needed,

1:03:37

live stream, begathon. It has been

1:03:39

truly wonderful to talk to you,

1:03:41

Sarah. We have been speaking with

1:03:44

Dr. Sarah E. Bond, associate professor

1:03:46

in the classics at the University

1:03:48

of Iowa. You do have like

1:03:50

a longer title, Erling B. Jack

1:03:52

Holtzmark. I'm an endowed chair in

1:03:55

the history. I'm technically in the

1:03:57

history department with an appointment in

1:03:59

classics. I have a chair. It

1:04:01

does not matter. I think what

1:04:03

I needed to read that title,

1:04:06

it's very prestigious. It doesn't, well,

1:04:08

it doesn't, it doesn't mean that

1:04:10

much except for, you know, that,

1:04:12

that, that, that, I feel very

1:04:14

lucky to have the, the job

1:04:17

that I do, that this is

1:04:19

my job that I get to

1:04:21

do all day, so that's good

1:04:23

enough. That's very stoic of you.

1:04:26

And it's the author of the

1:04:28

incredible new book. Adam and I

1:04:30

both read it. We actually read

1:04:32

it. We actually read it. We

1:04:34

didn't fake read it. Man is

1:04:37

it fucking great. So please pick

1:04:39

it up. The book is, of

1:04:41

course, strike. labor unions and resistance

1:04:43

in the Roman Empire out now

1:04:45

from the Al University press. But

1:04:48

Sarah, thank you so much for

1:04:50

joining us today on citations needed.

1:04:52

It has been amazing to have

1:04:54

you. Thank you for having me.

1:04:56

Hopefully I'll see you again, maybe

1:04:59

in five years, but hopefully sooner.

1:05:01

Hopefully much sooner. Hopefully much sooner.

1:05:03

Yeah, but that will do it

1:05:05

for this citations needed, live stream,

1:05:07

begathon. Thank you all for listening.

1:05:10

Of course, you can follow the

1:05:12

show on Twitter and Blue Sky

1:05:14

at Citation Spot, Facebook citations needed,

1:05:16

if you have not. Please do

1:05:19

consider signing up to support the

1:05:21

show through patreon.com/citations needed podcast. All

1:05:23

your support through patreon is so

1:05:25

incredibly appreciated as we are 100%

1:05:27

listener funded. But that will do

1:05:30

it. Stay tuned for more full

1:05:32

length episodes and news briefs from

1:05:34

citations needed. Plenty to discuss. So

1:05:36

more come in your way. But

1:05:38

until then, thank you all for

1:05:41

listening. Of course, I am Nema

1:05:43

Shirazzi. I'm Adam. is Julian Tweeden.

1:05:45

Production Assistant is Trento Lightburn. The

1:05:47

newsletter is by Marco Hardelano. The

1:05:49

music is by Granddaddy. Thanks again

1:05:52

everyone. Have a wonderful night. We'll

1:05:54

catch next time.