Cicero's Finest Hour (44 to 43 B.C.E.)
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- Опубліковано 15 тра 2020
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Sources:
Cicero, "Letters to Atticus" | amzn.to/3b8EQby
Cicero, "The Philippics" | amzn.to/35EHcOe
Suetonius, "The Life of Julius Caesar" | amzn.to/2xJesHH
Plutarch, "The Life of Julius Caesar" | amzn.to/35DG6lZ
Plutarch, "The Life of Cicero" | amzn.to/2Laca7w
Plutarch, "The Life of Brutus" | amzn.to/2SLaWUC
Nicolaus of Damascus, "The Life of Augustus" | amzn.to/3dlQeCg
Appian, "The Civil Wars: Book 3" | amzn.to/2WbJXU4
Cassius Dio, "Roman History: Book 44" | amzn.to/35HC4ce
Cassius Dio, "Roman History: Book 45" | amzn.to/35HC4ce
Cassius Dio, "Roman History: Book 46" | amzn.to/2WDNIka
---
Barry Strauss, "The Death of Caesar: The Story of History's Most Famous Assassination" | amzn.to/2WAUxTD
Tom Holland, "Dynasty: The Rise and Fall of the House of Caesar" | amzn.to/2zjG4n4
Adrian Goldsworthy, "Antony and Cleopatra" | amzn.to/2L8MQ1F
Anthony Everitt, "Cicero: The Life and Times of Rome's Greatest Politician" | amzn.to/3bbrKKM
Tom Holland, "Rubicon" | amzn.to/3dombKn
Adrian Goldsworthy, "Augustus" | amzn.to/3fAInmD
Anthony Everitt, "Augustus: The Life of Rome's First Emperor" | amzn.to/2Wf9CLH
Adrian Goldsworthy, "Caesar: Life of a Colossus" | amzn.to/3cfFQvU
Music:
"Moving Forward," by Adi Goldstein
"Blonde," by Nctrnm
"Heliograph," by Chris Zabriskie
"The House Glows (With Almost No Help)," by Chris Zabriskie
"Hallon," by Christian Bjoerklund
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Also an F to Tribune Aquila, who died at the Battle of Mutina.
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"Why are you crying so hard, kiddo?"
"YOU DON'T UNDERSTAND, THE GREEN SQUARE IS GONE AND THE PURPLE SQUARE RESPECTED HIM"
Underrated comment
The exact truth of this statement has shook me in to both a fit of uncontrollable laughing and the realization that I also have genuine feelings for colored squares! I can mourn for squares and laugh at the same time!
@@musichalloffame its now weird thinking these squares used to be skin having people who fought for real issues.
@@JamesJJSMilton "skin having people" omg
Still, why are you crying?
Green square was a lame republican.
"Cicero switched to a much more aggressive posture."
What did he do?
"He made a series of speeches and distributed a series of pamphlets that directly denounced Anthony."
Oh snap, what else?
"He sent a stern letter co-signed by the senate instructing him to stand down"
Yeah, fuck him up, Cicero.
"The pen is mightier than the sword"
World Star!
@@lukaszkonsek7940 Unfortunately, it's difficult to wield a pen when your enemy has cut both your hands off and nailed them to the Senate speaking platform. Swords are useful in that regard.
"Stupid face = BAD"
@gillecroisd 92 According to the definition of the word, it's very possible for the pen to be, in fact, mightier than the sword. Though like most things it's all circumstancial.
Imagine you killed Gaius Julius Caesar and another one just arrives from Illyricum I'd be mad af
Bro respawned
@@saadselkent367 lmao
@@saadselkent367 Literally respawned lmao, and Caesar's death taught Octavian exactly what not to do, pardon your enemies.
@@roger9430Yet that's exactly what he did....
First mad, then dead
Octavian's mom: Return to Rome, but hide your identity!"
Octavian's step-father: "Renounce the adoption, and keep your keep your head down!"
Octavian: *"WHAT'S UP, BITCHES?! JULIUS CAESAR 2: OCTAVIAN BOOGALOO IS COMING TO ROME!!!"*
Octavian: *LEEEEEROOOOOOOOOY JEEEEEEENKIIIIINS*
@Garvett Now, that's funny.
Ultimate Leeroy Jenkins, except it actually worked.
@@garvett6660 funny thing is my grandpa Leroy's mom was named Octavia
Just like Ceasar wanted...
Goodbye, Cicero. We will remember that green square.
A square of principles who tried his best, every day, until his assassination.
The worst thing about this is that with him gone, the number of remaining originators has reduced to just one: Antony. Of all the characters that were with us from the beginning, and did not come to be LATER down the road, Antony is the ONLY one left, and he's not got long to go...
too many deaths! First the red square, now the green, soon we will be out of colors... tragic!
RIP in pepperoni. Never forghetti.
I like Cicero but I also hate him for being part of Ceasar's assassination
"We're anti murder in this house" literally two minutes later... "if it's of any consolation, Brutus retaliated by killing Anthony's brother"" LMAO RIP
rip who? Cicero or cockheads brother ?
BTW how did you commented this a week earlier before the video even get uploaded, which is only 30 mins ago?
@@archdukefranzferdinand567 Ahh, that explains everything. I thought it was another UA-cam's bug.
@@SnekNOTSnake Someone asks about it every single week XD
To be fair like the entire world at this point is becoming very anti-rich very fast in 2020. And for frankly good reason.
Octavius: "From now on call me Gaius Julius Caesar"
Historians, 2000 years later: "The artist formerly known as Octavius"
Most people actually refer to him as Augustus 😂
Either way my man octavian, octavius, Augustus, giaus julius caesar* is rolling in his grave 💀💀
Ceasar was just sooo too much of a chad for him to be mixed up by some brony
* Somebody raises an army and marches on Rome *
Romans in 88BC: Noooo, we're all gonna die! Unprecedented!
Romans in 44BC: Is it that time of year already?
Romans in the 3rd Century AD: wake me up when someone gets appointed as emperor again.
@@sorcierenoire8651 You're not gonna do much sleeping then.
@@Liveforgamingman * Correction *
"Wake me up when there's only one emperor"
@@sheldon-cooper Diocletian: yeah, about that...
as an American Consul once said:
"we are always 1 generation away from losing all our freedoms"
something unthinkably illegal in your teenage years
can become normalized politically by the time you are 50-60
So Brutus, Cassius, and Decimus murdered Caesar out of fear that he’d declare himself king and start killing members of the opposition, only to fuel the ambitions of younger men who were more keen to purge than Caesar ever was.
Palpatine (in the shadows): Ironic.
"Caesar wants to be king" was PR on their part, they killed him because Caesar had started to reward plebs and retired soldiers with public land and forcing the rich landowner class to employ unemployed roman freeman instead of slaves (1/3 of the workforce at least if i remember right). The optimates killed Caesar to stop social reform and in doing so they ensured their own deaths. So yeah ironic, fuck them.
@@GrandMoffTarkinsTeaDispenser it was not just PR.
Caesar monopolized power in Rome and got declared declared dictator for life. During that time here are some of the especially kingly things he had done. He passed legislation to have an ornate chair (some would say throne) set between the two consuls chairs. And he passed another law enabling him to ware a purple toga (which was the dress of the old kings of Rome). No legislation behind this one, but Caesar had a bust of himself placed in Temple that housed busts of the original kings of Rome.
With all of that I don't think it's unfair to say Caesar wanted to be King. Even if he was also passing reforms to help the common people.
@@ben76326 man ceasar is almost like President Marcos in the Phil. They both resorted to dictatorial powers thinking thier country would be better with them ruling
@@ben76326 How dare you!? That was just a special golden chair made for the guy who dressed like a king and acted like a king, but definitely wasn't one!
@@ben76326 Wonder why he wanted to be king? Probably nothing to do with the low life senators who liked assassinating people and would betray their friends.
Brutus: "Oh no, I'm not brave enough for politics"
Cicero: "Hang on, this whole operation was *your* idea. "
In this analogy, does it work to make Octavian Emperor Palpatine? "In order to ensure the security and continuing stability, the Republic will be reorganised into the FIRST GALACTIC/ROMAN EMPIRE!"
Edit: and therefore Caesar could be the legendary Darth Plagueis the wise himself! :o
@@samc9516 Palpatine is very much based on Octavianus. It's an obvious parallell. He's the senate.
Lmao
@@samc9516 Palpatine is more like the original Caesar. Octavian followed Caesar's blueprint on how to run things whereas Palpatine was a pioneer, at least until Disney retcons it.
@@KarakNornClansman you mean caesar
"Brutus was... Indecisive" Story of his fucking life.
"Whether he meant it or not, he had just stabbed his ally in the back" This one is even more fitting.
Brutus is so useless.
Stabbed him in the groin actually
@@parkerflorence5332 much like everything else he did, a superficial and loud action, that in the end made little effect.
@@randomcenturion7264 The most impact he had was by leading Ceasar’s assassination, which he was beought in last minute.
For Brutus , when a senator is banging your mom for a long time and wonder if he is your Papa ...it was a toxic mix ..
When everyone wanted Caesar gone, Cicero wanted order
When Caesar was in power, all Cicero cared about was stability
When the Second Triumvirate was formed, Cicero wanted peace
He's the rare kind of politician who's competent and still cares about the country's order
And in return, he got murdered.
Damn
When Cicero died, i believe the Republic died with him. He just wanted the Republic to be stable, and without him stability could never return. His position and popularity in Italy made him the last hope.
@@nashzahm But, although he truely seemed to love the republic, he had no ideas on how to deal with the many insititional problems that had lead to the rise of Caesar. I can not help but think that even if he had been succesful, he would have failed, for the republic was simply too far down the road of collapse for anyone to save it.
@@snickims9717 Actually he had an Idear, he wanted to strenghen the senat, more as it was normaly before that. If thats a good idear is another debate, but he actually had an idear.
We know (or at least I do, there are maybe more) two ancient 'concepts' how to safe the republik. The one is form Polybios: his idear follows the existing technic of the republik, the chec and balances of: senat, People, magistrates, and the tribuni of the people as the thing between all that.
Ciceros idear, as he identifed the strenghen magistrates and pro-magistrates (as Marius, Sulla and Pmpeius where) as the problem (and technically he was right about that, as we see the centralising of the power in the hand of the 'first-high-magistrate' the piricipatus/Caeasr/Emperor later), was to strenghen the senat (In his eyes the core of the republic, and I think it was) and weaken the magistrates, letting so the 'parlamentry' system of this group of aristoctrats defend the republik both against people 'mass' agitation/following and the to powerfull ambitions of singular people.
Source: Dreyer, Boris: Die Innenpolitik der römischen Republik, 264.- 133. v. Chr., 2006, Darmstadt, S. 15.
"When in doubt march on Rome"
-Caesar Family motto
Don't forget, Marius was Caesar's uncle.
😂
It was usually a good plan for them.
@@robertjarman3703 he made caesar then. Oh my god.
grab it by the head
Everyone: *Playing 4D chess against each other*
Octavian: *Playing 5D chess to prepare for the future*
Brutus: "LMAO I'm just gonna sit here"
Brutus just staring
I mean, it seems to have worked out in the end for him, no? He got to control half the Eastern half of the empire AND keep his head, as well as his hands, attached to his body. Sounds like a win-win to me.
@@IDontWantThisStupidHandle Brutus is the worst lesson to children in history.
Remember, children, if you are a traitor, murder, abandon and backstab your friends hard enough, you MIGHT become a rich, powerful man with a quarter of the civilised world as your dominion.
You guys knows brutus was eventually killed in the civil war by octavian right?
Butus : Breathing is fun.
cicero has essentially taken over rome on like 4 seperate occasions trying to restore order. what a madlad.
Cicero wanted to restore things to a state of pre Ceasar.
Cicero had no plan to fix Rome (perhaps he didn't even realize that Rome was broken). They say insanity is doing the same thing over and over expecting a different result.
@@tylerdurden3722 You're spot on. And pre-Caesar Rome is like a powder keg with a half-second left on its fuse. That's some Greek tragedy levels of irony for a man who cared so much about his Republic.
@@tylerdurden3722 cringe
@@racoon251 14 year old
@@pozkodeth cringe
It’s really impressive that Cicero was able to form a powerful faction in the senate after ceasar packed it with his boys
Sheep will always look for a shepherd. Man lost it almost as quick as he got it
Man was too based to be defeated by moron Anthony
@@LOL-zu1zrstill lost his head lol. He fucked with the wrong people and tried to help the biggest back stabber in history
@@neilb143octavian tried to save cicero, just antonys help was more important to him than ciceros life. Cicero was a noble man who believed in loyalty and trust, octavian and antony exploited that
Also, after all this, I wonder if "et tu, brute?" wasn't caesar being surprised at Brutus' betrayal, but rather: "Holy shit, you decided to do something drastic for once, Brutus?"
Lmao
Roasted
he did what his father told him: not to do anything without the permission of Tribune Aquila
"Et tu, Brute?" is an invention by Shakespeare ...
LOL. Funny, but "Et Tu Brutus" is a work of shakespear's telling of the story, and was not actually said.
"it was starting to look like a 5 sided civil war"
Kaiserreich: Write that down, write that down!
I don't think anyone understood the reference but I did
I also did!
waynetraub3 I think the hoi4 mod is based on a book or something, may be it
@@BubbleBrawler Tee 'Hoi4 mod' is based on a Hoi2 mod.
Holy shit is that a MOTHERFUCKING KAISERREICH REFERENCE?!?!
Brutus seems to always know how to seize failure from the jaws of victory.
Oooh love that! Put that on his gravestone😂
Finally, a historical figure l can relate to.
He must've been a Republican
(Invents time machine)
(Meets Cicero in real life)
"Huh, you looked a lot different in the documentary"
"less green and square"
@@tomlxyz fake news!!!!!! Big history might claim Cicero was a "human being" but the truth is he was floating green square
@@tomlxyz wait...they aren't squares!?
Plot twist, they are all actually squares
they're actually circles
Antony: "I want a swap, I get everything, and you get nothing"
that IS the law of equivalent exchange... Maybe.
Quintus Jeffus Bezos
But that wasn't a part of the deal.
@@TheHej2 He is altering the deal. Pray he doesn't alter it any further.
Art of the deal
The story of Cicero sure makes the guy a compelling character. Then again, it was written by Cicero.
Showing that Cicero's method (the pen over the sword) payed off in the long term.
Or almost paid off. In the end, he was let down by his allies, Brutus was practically useless.
@@lordbiscuitthetossable5352 I think he's talking even longer term than that. Cic got himself killed a handful of years ahead of his time; but twenty centuries later one he is one of the most famous, studied, and admired men in history--and this has only become *more* true with the passage of time over this period. Twenty centuries from now, I wouldn't bet he won't be bigger than ever.
He didn't exactly have the last laugh, because you can't laugh with a head that's detached from your body... But if you believe in posthumous "payoffs," if you believe that history's "immortality" counts for something, then yeah, his enemies came with their swords way too late to stop the ultimate victory of those hands and tongue.
RIP Cicero. Long live Cicero.
@@notepad9883 That is very true, but for Rome that time would never come again. This was the only chance that the Republic had at stopping the rise of Tyrants and when push came shove; his fellow senators completely failed him. The assassins despite acting on the effective behalf of the senate acted indecisively and thus effectively squandered their own goals of re-instating the senate as the primary authority, and later Cic's gains in putting Ceasers successors in putting them in an awkward position. He even complains about this many times. A true republic only works when the will of the senate is united, the United Kingdom is a prime example of what I consider to be a modern day Rome; indecisive, corrupt and steadily loaning out chunks of it's authority out to companies instead of it's generals. One day, it will be British in name only.
Of course, he was an excellent politician and had managed to decisively set up a situation where both of Ceasers successor's could've been defeated. But Brutus chose not to move and doomed the republic.
This is speaking high praises by the way; only Cic could engineer a situation where all it's Tryants could potentially be dispatched, yet believe in the republic so heavily as to bring that he did it all in the proper way. It's really inspiring in the way that he came so far despite having never commanded an single soldier in the entire civil war.
Ultimately his goal was to save the republic which he failed. He failed well, but he failed
It's sad watching Cicero masterfully thread the political needle just to have Octavian come in with a hammer
"This battle happened on Decimus' birthday. Which is not important. But it _is_ funny."
The sheer deadpan delivery of this line had me in stitches. Which is not important. But it _is_ funny.
No go watch him talk about birthday boy in the video released after this.
That is funny! 🥳💀
Fun fact: Cicero invented a whole range of Latin words that still exist in recognizable form in Modern English: argumentum, conclusio, essentia, forma, intellectus, moralia, natura, propositio, ratio, species, possibly more. And he was a man of principles, unlike pretty much all his contemporaries. What a dude.
@@sdsd2e2321 Petrarch*
@Domantas It probably was less stupidity and more limited information, plus some bit of being too hopeful and truthful to his own ideals. I wouldn't be surprised if he knew it could've been his demise, but he preferred to go that way than to let Rome's system fail even further.
He wasn't all good, but yeah. RIP
@Domantas I concur, he could have easily remained the consul-maker that he was and use his influence on young Octavian to limit (or rather delay) the slide toward cesarism.
Man of principles. Explains why he got fucked at almost every turn when things got hectic.
Imagine if Cicero had allies that were actually useful.
My team every game.
Honestly, all except Brutus did pretty much their best. Decimus' and Cassius' resolve in taking control of their provinces in advance and their skill in raising armies and support in the provinces are remarkable.
The odds were stacked against them from the start, with both the people and the veterans being with the Caesarians.
Cicero should have picked his allies better. I mean look at their conspircy to kill Caesar: from begining to end, it was a bumbling mess. It's a miracle it worked, yet it went down as one of the most consequential murder in history.
Imagine Brutus actually did something
@@papapok13 cicero never knew about the plot to kill caeser
We remember and mourn Antony + Cleopatra's deaths but we should really remember and mourn Labienus' and Cicero's deaths
God, Labeinus didn’t even get his moment in the sun in Unbiased History.
The guy was literally an anime rival to the teeth, and perfect drama material.
Yes. A movie about the relationship between Caesar and Labienus would be a tremendous success.
Antony was an asshole- no mourning for me.
Imagine being recognized by face by a Roman checkpoint soldier in ancient times. You can't have worse luck than Decimus.
"My child, this was a learned man and a lover of his country".
That hit hard :(
:( indeed, I feel rome would have been far stronger had cicero, caesar, pompey and a lot of other people not been murdered in the civil wars of that time
@@germanyballwork5301 It is true. Civil War do not benefit a state in anyway.
Who was that grandson?
@@frankwu4747 Same question popped into my head instantly too. Seems like it is mentioned by Plutarch but i cant find, atleast online, who he's referring to. Maybe Claudius?
@@germanyballwork5301 Maybe. However Octavian's rule ushered in the Pax Romana and a century of relative peace. It wasn't until Marcus Aurelius started the trend of leaving the Emperor position to be inherited by incompetent progeny (*cough*Commodus*cough*) that the Crisis of the Third Century began and with it the slow decline of the Western Roman Empire.
I love how Brutus thinks he is the "chosen one" to save the Republic and then does absolutely nothing. I wonder if the characters have been romanticized or were just out of touch with reality.
probably both
The word brute gives the game away about that Brute
An ancient BoJo
I think out of touch. He was probably in an echo chamber.
I think its a bit of being out of touch
But not really in a bad way
Keep in mind Romans were MAD superstitious so Brutus probably didn't just think he was the "Chosen one"
Imagine your whole life is built on the legacy of someone who isn't you, and everyone around you outright takes it as fact that you will continue that legacy. But you have none of your ancestors training or knowledge and the situation is radically different than what he faced before you.
I imagine Brutus was probably paralyzed with fear of messing up and ruining his family name, one of the most historically important names in all of Rome.
It's funny that the term "backstabbing" is synonymous with betrayal, and that it was popularised by the suposedly most famous literal backstab, that of Brutus to Julius Caesar - when in the prior episodes of this series, we learned that Brutus stuck his knife in Caesar's groin, a frontal attack.
It would be a very different world if betrayal was referred to as "getting stabbed in the groin."
Caesar was banging Servilia, Brutus' mum; I would think that stab to the groin was fitting lol
Can you imagine Rammstein singing SackStabu?
@@tutituti4344 that song isn't about back stabbing, the title is a made up word and is a desired thing in the song
I'd rather have this dagger in front of me THAN a frontal gonadetomy! XD
I would argue that Cicero's finest hour was when he suppressed the Catiline conspiracy during his consulship and then had Roman citizens killed without a trial.
After Caesar's death Cicero got outmanoeuvred by a young Octavius. Although he managed to corner Antonius he got lulled into a false sense of security by a tame Senate. He mistook the wolf for a sheep in Octavius. Cicero belonged to an earlier era of Roman history when people respected the rule of law and Roman armies didn't decide the ruler.
Cicero would probably argue that was his finest hour too. Though I don't discount this event either. If Cicero had just retired after cesar's death Antony probably would have won the brief followup civil war.
👆 This guy gets it.
That's why it was *his* year
"No plan, no system, no method!"
Jeez, Cicero, you didn't have to narrate my life up to now like that, man.
Well stop doing a Brutus of yourself and be a Ceasar instead!
I relate to Brutus the most: Incompetent and lazy
US official response to the novel coronavirus of 2019: no plan, no system, no method.
It's funny - I thought that to be a particularly modern-sounding comment. What a brilliant man he truly must have been.
@@resileaf9501 if i become a Caesar then it wont end well for me...
We've now been in quarantine long enough for this man to upload twice.
2020 what a year
🤦♂️
Cruel, True, but cruel.
YEARS HAVE PASSED AND WE DIDN'T REALIZE
Fuck.... has it really been that long?
Cicero: “we must stop Marc Antony! He’ll become another Caesar!”
Octavian/Augustus: (laughs in the distance)
Cicero: 'I'll ally myself with the man who literally named himself Caesar after the original one. What could possibly go wrong?'
@@friendcomputer2293 “his a kid I can still change him”
There are letters predating the Philippicae in which Cicero recognizes that this will happen. But still goes by the course of allying with Octavian against M.A. probably because he went so all-in and personal in his speeches against M.A. that there was really no way back.
Jesus Christ man, your telling made me so attached to a green square that I genuinely felt bad when he died. HBO is sleeping on this, they should remake Rome with your telling as a baseline, this is incredible
Rome is gone, man. We can only hope they won't repeat history and exchange something of the same caliber for a dragon show, but we know they will
you're right, an HBPO sequel to later years after Julius would be fantastic to see
@@InDadequate It already exists, it's a great show
"Whether he knew it or not, Brutus had stabbed Decimus in the back."
You're not really helping his stabby reputation here buddy.
As an act of defiance, Decimus killed some Gauls. Is this just the way Romans vent their anger?
Yes. I'm going to say yes.
Also, hi fellow Brady!
These Romans are crazy!
"Any day is a good day for killing Gauls,-- but today it feels especially RIGHT! AND! PROPER!"
a roman stubs his toe on a table
"THE GALL OF THE PERSON WHO PUT THIS IN MY WAY!!!"
gears turn in his head
"THE GAUL... I BET THE GAULS DID THIS! I WILL HAVE VENGENCE!"
“Octavian gave up Cicero”
Me: 😮
So in effect, when Antony was refusing to hand over Caesar's money to Octavian, Octavian started up the first crowdfunding campaign in history just to rub it in Antony's face. And it worked!
"Crowdfunding," as you put it, was more common than you would think.
Another example was Caesar, Octavian's adoptive _tata_ , raising his 50-talent ransom from the city of Rhodes, when he was captured by pirates.
"This was a learned man, and a lover of his country."
Ow, my heart. :(
Almost brought a tear to my eye 😢
can definitely imagine old and aged Augustus laying it down if anybody within his earshot talked bad about Cicero
That's what Caesar said.
I got a lump in my throat when that scene happened lol. It seems like they had a lot of respect for each other, even if someone lost the game. it's amazing the drama the unfolds in these stories! it feels like we KNOW them! 🥺
Augustus knew the deal. It’s also worth noting that he pardoned Cicero’s son and allowed him to be the one that declared Marcus Antonius’ death as well as revoke his honours and ban the name Marcus within that family.
Decimus: "I was handpicked by Caesar!"
Says one of the dudes who literally "hand picked" Caesar...
instead of watching this nonsense video, you should ask yourself what do you do to support the black lives matter movement, and how do you fight against white supremacy ?
@@itsMe_TheHerpes Get lost
@@itsMe_TheHerpes why would i help an evil communist movement that wants to destroy America?
@@itsMe_TheHerpes history truly repeats. stop making it about race. Then we will succeed.
@@METALFREAK03 Funny i can´t think of any wars that was started because of race? Unless your one of those people who think the main reason the Nazis invaded the world was to kill Jews and the American civil war was fought to free slaves, then maybe there is a few. But still the overwhelming reason we wage war on each other on this planet is wealth and territory. The rest are just petty and transparent excuses to try and justify the bloodshed, usually after the fact.
"No Plan, No System, No Method!" must be my favorite quote of the day.
I legitimately started crying at the end of this. The world can always use more people like Cicero. Whenever people like this get torn from us we are all poorer for it.
Pretty sure those Centurion were richer for it.
u cryin over squares lol
At least Anthonys brother was killed as a result of this, and later on he himself was killed in an unwinnable war.
The assholes get ever richer
Cicero deserved it fully as he was waging a war against people who rightfully were the heir of Caesar. And while his intentions were to not have another king like leader, he had no clue how to unite the empire, which Antony and Octavian successful did
Octavian: "I used the anti-Caesarian Faction to destroy the anti-Caesarian Faction"
After the anti-Caesarian faction tried to use the Caesarian faction to destroy the Caesarian faction
pokey79 How Roman!
Octavian will return in Rome: Endgame
"I used the squares to destroy the squares"
was super efective
I like how you made Octavian *purple* because he was the first true Emperor
The ONE TRUE EMPEROR!
@@EpaminondastheGreat You are false!
royal purple is the noblest shroud!
It's so infuriating watching Brutus do nothing time and time again. Octavian understood being in and near Rome gave him both better information and the ability to exert influence. Brutus just didn't understand this at like any point.
It's just as remote work
He deadass didn't move until he died when he killed ceasar
Green square: shakes back and forth
Me: You show him Cicero!
Old woman: "What is your name?"
Octavius: "...Gaius. Gaius Julius Caesar."
With a liscence to end the Republic..
@@MrBigCookieCrumble Wrong movie reference.
Everyone: *suspects nothing*
Deponensvogel Loooool
Nice Star War
"My child, this was a learned man, and a lover of his country."
"one that I got him killed"
And yet, he allowed him to die. Octavianus is forever tainted in my eyes as the one allowing one of the greatest, if not THE greatest men, of his time to die
@@theleetworldbest it was antony's fault, he was insistent, he was forcing octavian to allow it. what was octavian supposed to do, start another civil war within a civil war that would take at least tens of thousands more lives?
@@acebalistic1358 He (and everyone else) should have never allowed it to get to that point
If it’s any consolation, Brutus retaliated by killing Antony’s brother.
as much as I love Julius Caesar and Augustus and the empire whose foundation they had laid, I feel so bad about Cicero. he was the Republic's last true Leader.
Agreed, say what you will about Cicero. He was one of the greatest statesmen in history, and also, perhaps, the truest patriot Rome ever had.
His intentions were good but I have no clue wtf he was trying to achieve by not giving power to Octavian and well....he paid the price for it
@@neilb143 it was more on brutus and cassius for not doing jack shit. Cicero did fail the republic but onpy becsuse brutus and cassius already put the final nail on the republic's coffin. Those two were as much warlords as caesar and pompey.
@@RaixsOreh he relied on the wrong people for sure and I think did not expect Octavian to betray him. Shame he didn't side with Antony
“Friendly neighborhood historian Tom Holland”
Spider-Man, Spider-Man, all fed up with the Romans
It's hard to imagine anyone failing harder than the assassins of Julius Ceasar. They tried to prevent the restoration of the monarchy by killing Ceasar, but what happened instead was that Ceasar's name became a word that means "king" in all the lands ruled by Rome and beyond FOR THE NEXT TWO THOUSAND YEARS.
@Sheldon Robertson No, it's not, King is derived from the Anglo-Saxon word for King, "Cyning" which in turn was derived from Germanic "kuningaz". What is derived from Caesar is the various variations of it being used as titles for monarchs such as "Kaiser", "Tsar", etc...
@Sheldon Robertson "King" from "cyning", or transliterated to modern English, "kin -ing" meaning "(first) son of the kin", with "kin" (cyn) in its broad sense of a tribe (the origin of "kith and kin"). Essentially, a king is "first among equals" in the Anglo Saxon/Early Germanic world. This is unrelated to Caesar.
@@wulfherecyning1282 So basically King means Princeps... niceee
@@patrickwang671 Princeps means leader. More like Primus. Primus inter pares was the designation for first among equals. ;)
*patrick wang* That's what I thought! *@@Gentleman...Driver* Dang, that's even truer.
Cicero is a very honourable man, and the ending of this video with octavian's grandson made my heart pour, F.
"No plans, no system, no methods!" By Cicero was the roman equivalent of "No bitches, no hoes"
Cicero working with scraps man.
It’s funny how much those two phrases carry the same energy 😂
"No bread (sestercii)", too.
You love Cicero because you didn't spend 5 years in high school translating his damned convoluted Latin. Caesar wrote as he ate: simple and straightforward. I could translate the De Bello Gallico by sight. Cicero, on the other hand, means spending hours sweating with a dictionary just to translate one unending sentence with subordinates of subordinates, random word order, verbs used for their 14th meaning in the dictionary instead of the first... Yeah, it sounded nice, but it was bloody incomprehensible.
Oh no, he was clever, what a crime
Maybe it's that I was one of the weird Classics students who started with Greek and learned Latin later, so basically everything in Latin seemed less frustrating just because it... wasn't Greek, but I always really liked translating Cicero.
Caesar was a man of action, he didn't have to write this grandiose works of literature and legalese. Cicero was a pure statesman, he wasn't a general, and he also used to be a lawyer. His thing was writting so he put flair on it because that's what he did, he wanted to it make more beatiful.
The ideal, it seems to me, is to be both a man of action and of poetry.
In fairness Cicero's private letters were fine, and there's something special about reading hot gossip from 2000 years ago
“This battle happened on Decimus’s birthday, which is not important, but it is funny.” - Proceeds to die alone, away from his friends and family. Happy birthday bruh!!!
20:15 Happy birthday!!
He died months after the battle
@@ethanstaaf404 still, that was his last great experience really
after that everything went downhill because all his men defected
Cassius died on his birthday
And let’s not forget that Fulvia, Antony's wife, vented her hatred of Cicero, who had argued so eloquently against her husband, by using her hair pins to pierce Cicero’s tongue before his head was exposed on the Rostra. They so did things differently in those days.
Just watched this for the 50th time or something like that. This video was Historia Civilis’ finest hour. Hands down. Thank you for the wonderful content you make. Been a fan since your Alessia video. Keep up the good work!
I can't belive i felt emotional to a death of a little green square
First it was the little red one, now its the little green one
@jpc1918 Brutus could have pretty easily saved him, right?
Man. I miss Cicero.
Rip decimus. Used and manipulated.
Never thought I'd cry over the death of man who lived over 2000 years ago but I did.
Rest in Power to my main man Cicero 😔✊
Cicero had done his own mass killing of political enemies in his youth, so it is hard for me to feel too bad about his death
Well those enemies were planning on creating treason against Rome.
@@WorthlessWinner Well, to be fair he brought all that upon himself anyway
@@WorthlessWinner It wasn't really a mass killing like the proscriptions, they weren't just anyone who opposed him, they were conspiring with Catiline to overthrow the government.
I'm gonna make this worse for y'all by adding my own terrible realization, that, with the death of Cicero, Antony is the ONLY ONE of our beloved characters left that was with us the whole time. Everyone else who's currently still with us, over 3/4 of which also didn't make it in the end, came here MUCH later down the road. This is truly the end of an era :(
I love Cicero as well! He almost single-handedly saved the Republic. Absolute Hero.
Maybe Caesar saw something in young Octavian: Qualities, values and a sharp mind that would make him a fine man to finish what he started and set Rome on a glorious path to becoming an Empire, if he were to pass away early. It's no mistake that the insane amount of money given to Octavian was to remove any monetary barriers to carry out high level political manuevering and also to pocket the legions in his grasp. He probably saw the same ambitious mind within the young Octavian that fueled his drive to the peak of the Roman political world. Man Caesar was a genius through and through.
Or just greedy, ambitious and ruthless.
@@talisikid1618 Qualities too, you need those if you want to make a glorious empire
I started watching this on my TV, and to my surprise my 6 year old daughter sat down and started watching with me. This girl has a 10 second attention span, but she ended up watching the entire thing! She was even asking me questions like what an empire is, and if the "envelopes" are armies. Thank you for this video and making an awesome father-daughter experience for me
@Loonytoones85 no no put her in govt. schools so she can learn 10 seconds of the byzantine empire.
Soylent green is people!!
Congrats man!
I was around her age myself when I started being fascinated by history.
Here’s my suggestion as a 21 year old life long lover of history:
use as many organic methods of teaching history as possible like (supervised until she’s old enough) historical YT videos (preferably from entertaining channels like this, Extra Credits, LindyBiege, etc...), find ways to make timelines feel natural rather than memorizing “x person did y thing on z date”, and introduce her to various periods (the Shaw’s of Persia are really neat, the unification of Germany, formation of China, and The Western Confederacy are great example they won’t teach much of in school).
If you home school her, I’d look hard for interesting and well written history material.
If she goes to a school you don’t control the material of, look for ways to help her learn about it organically and see the people as, well, people rather than info dumps.
The time I hated history more than ever was in middle school with the same boring tone being used to teach me about the same events I’d already heard about every year.
That’s, IMO, when most people develop an apathy or even hatred of history.
SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!
I bet shes even cuter than those squares, haha reading this comment made me happy, thank you for that. i really hope she keeps an interest in history, better than all the shenanigans of modern entertainment bullshit.
Liberatores after killing Caesar: Wow, I'm glad that's over with
Octavius: Well, yes, but actually no
Octavian: Time for me to become the Tyrant you thought my father was, and take the power he let you keep.
I'm Gaius Julius, and this is my favourite Pontifex in the capital
We did it patrick, we saved the Republic!
Defenders of the aristocracy and enemy of the people*
Hi! MY name is Gaius Julius and this is JACKASS
Can you imagine if Brutus's legions were in Italy when Octavius asked to be made Consul? Octavius wouldn't have the balls to just march his army into Rome like that after he got denied said consulship and would perhaps go into negotiations to share said consulship with someone.
Cicero said that "to philosophize is nothing more than to prepare for death" (basically, to learn philosophy is to learn how to live in a way as preparation for our death to be meaningful and great)
Man truly lived and died on his word. Respect
"All this work, and all my money wasted!"
Dad in the divorce courts...
I'll buy that raven, let it be a sign of humility to you all!
“I’ll never financially recover from this.”
Lmfao
Hahaha too funny
Antony: Decimus, hand over everything and let it be called a swap
Decimus: No
Antony: *Surprised pikachu face*
I am glad Decimus is even mentioned since he is too often ignored.
@@sarasamaletdin4574 Yeah, he is often confused and merged with his cousin, i blame Shakespeare
“Anthony friggin’ stinks!” - Cicero, probably
Truly a masterful orator, such elegance.
"Anthony is a drunken bum and a whore" Literally Cicero.
Sir, you have really gone above and beyond in honoring the name of Cicero... Im sure if he where alive today to see your videos on him, he would have felt the utmost in gratitude for them, as we feel.
When we went over this in Middle school, they never mentioned how confusing this was at the start. We went straight to the Liberators War and to Octavian's Civil War.
How did anyone keep track of these alliances and betrayals is more astonishing than the actual battles.
tf kinda middle school did you go to? We barely talked about Rome at even a surface level at mine. And I live in the US state with probably the best education system lmao.
@Danny n I said the best as in within America. Shoosh.
@@Justaguy5678 Italy probably as they were talking about Rome.
@@reinatr4848 that would be the only way I could understand. World history is packed with stuff, too much for you to focus that much on one state unless its in your own history.
Harrison Loch British schools cover Ancient Rome and Greece on Classics classes. Some schools have Classics as a subject.
Octavian: "Everybody's expecting a coup, but nobody's expecting it right now. Make me dictator, losers."
Antony: "He's invading Rome?! I'd better stop him!"
Decimus: "Now I did murder that guy's dad for doing exactly this, but honestly I'm siding with Octavian on this one."
Antony: "?????????????"
Rome: "ANTONY! Why are you taking up arms?! I thought we were friends!"
Antony: "???????????????????????????"
Rome: "Kill Antony! Get him outta here! Save us, Octavian!"
Octavian: "I did it. I drove off Antony, the foremost enemy of the Republic."
Rome: "Thank you so much! My hero!"
Octavian: "K I'm gonna kill you now."
Rome: "HOW COULD THIS BE"
Octavian: "I did it all for myself and my good friend Mark Antony."
Antony: "????????????????????????????????????????????????????"
NNNAAAAAAAAANNIIII??!!?!
Ceasar: Thats my boy!
HBO had the right idea, it truly is a soap opera
Brutus: Wack
I don't know if Octavian was a genius or what the hell was going on in his head with these weird decisions.
"Lepidus gave up his brother"
Literally a certified frater momentum
Actually he didn't.
He pretended to but then hid him until the proscriptions ended.
He was a good brother after all.
@@alanpennie8013proof?
@@SD-mi2vcCassius Dio claims so, in book 47 of his history of Rome. "So Caesar saved the lives of as many as he could; and Lepidus allowed his brother Paulus to escape to Miletus and was not inexorable toward the others." (Cassius Dio 47.8.1)
@@SD-mi2vcI was there, it happened
I watched this video when you published it and probably 30 times since. Truly one of the best and most emotionally evocative historical videos on the internet.
There's more backstabbing here than on the Ides of March.
I don't know if Tribune Aquila approves of that.
To be fair, they had it coming with Brutus being not so proactive when needed.
The Ides of march had a lot of crotch-stabbing
@@TheSecondVersion featuring also shoulder-stabing, rib-stabing, leg-stabing and face-stabing.
sadly Tribune Aquila fell in the Battle of Mutina (the one were Anthony was driven our of Italy)
@@einhauchvontullru3187 now i understand why nobody was consulting nobody about marching on Rome
Cicero: "Sooooo how long are you just going to sit there for?"
Brutus: "Yes."
Literally didn't move until his death
Stupid fucking meme.
Brutus takes entitlement to a different level. Brutus: "I deserve this."
Life tends to take unexpected turns, but I could never have foreseen crying profusely for the death of a green square. Hats off to HC!
I absolutely love this channel. The way you portray these snippets of history are astonishingly entertaining, but it seems like you also genuinely quite enjoy these stories (not that I'd be surprised)
"Whether he [Brutus] meant it or not, he had just stabbed Decimus in the back."
At least not in the groin.
Also, post-assassination Brutus definitely deserves the Bibulus award.
Octavian stabbed Cicero, Decimus, Brutus and Cassius in the back... welll... thats why he was there in first plaace... the irony
Brutus was like that "this is fine" meme the entire time 😂
eu tu, bru- AH WHY THE BALLS
@@acebalistic1358 genius 😂😂😂
We need to make the Bibulus award a thing
“Hey let’s swap but put these conditions”
Conditions: Literally make it so Antony gets everything and Decimus gets nothing.
Senators: well no use causing a fuss over the swap
"I want everything."
"Deal."
I’m re-watching all of my liked videos starting from the beginning and I’m about halfway through. Your videos on the fall of the Roman Republic really got me interested in the history of the classical era and beyond. This is one of the first videos of yours I liked because it really made me feel for Cicero, a man who died over 2000 years ago and I knew very little about before watching your videos. Thank you for the history lessons.
I feel like every dislike on this video is from guys who didn't like how hard you made them cry with that last line.
*Cicero wants to call a vote:*
Kick Brutus? (accused of being idle)
Press F1 to vote Yes
Press F2 to vote No
Cassius; F1! F1! F1! F1! just fucking press F1!
@@dulguunnorjinbat6136 Every other conspirator: F2
Alt+F4
Has anyone asked Tribune Aquila of his opinion on this?
I broke my F1 key
octavian: can I please be elected emergency consul even though there's actually nothing wrong with Rome's government at the moment?
cicero: no.
octavian: *C O W A B U N G A I T I S*
Octavian: "Nothing wrong?"
"Let me correct that."
Classic Roman diplomacy
"You decline my ridiculous and over-the-top offer that will not benefit you in any way? How dare you!!!"
Two years ago I watched your exposés nonstop. Then it stopped, where have you been? Was I kept away by youtube? Your way to show and tell is great. I still remember so much, and loved your Julius Caesar’s rise series.
poor cicero, did everything right and was abandoned by brutus, octavian, and cassius.
"Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered." -- Cicero
When did he produce such a nice quote?
Not during Catiline's trial, for sure.
Cicero, De Officiis, Book 2, paragraph 24:
"Acriores autem morsus sunt intermissae libertatis quam retentae."
Actual translation:
"For they shall be bitten more sharply by interrupted freedom than by continued."
If I had used the above translation in my Latin class, I'd have gotten zero marks for basically making up half the sentence. You can't claim you've done a translation if you only attempt to keep the (perceived) meaning; you must translate the letter, even if (obviously) it doesn't sound as good in English.
@@riccardoorlando2262 Translation is not the same as transcription. The first conveys original meaning in an other language, even if the sentence structure changes completely. The other roughly uses synonyms in an other language without putting much consideration in the original meaning behind the words themselves. As a result, the first creates a fluid sentence, while the second creates a Frankenstein monster of literal design.
@@SilentShadowLT Too bad that "Freedom suppressed and again regained bites with keener fangs than freedom never endangered." is barely a coherent sentence, whereas "For they shall be bitten more sharply by interrupted freedom than by continued." actually makes some sense, so it's still more of a translation than the first one.
@@johnyoutuber9781 Both versions are rather convoluted. While the first one would be better with an added comma, the second one isn't fixed that easily. Both "for they shall" and "interrupted [rather] than by continued" are not standard speech -- needlessly archaic. Continued and interrupted are hardly even antonyms, as 'continue' has the implication that the thing in question has been interrupted at some point. I'd suggest coming up with a different translation. For instance: "Freedom, which had been interrupted, bites sharper than freedom which hadn't." Even then, the "bites" part needs further thought, as it seems out of place -- rather forced.
I'd imagine Caesar's ghost would be pretty horrified at the proscription that Antony, Octavian and Lepidus was pulling off
Nah, I don't believe so. Infact I think that he would've complemented them! The fact that Caesar never made a proscriptions is based on the fact that he actually never needed to do that. Why? Because all of his enemies already died in the civil war! Caesar was a man who was personally responsible for the deaths of at least hundreds of thousands or, much more likely, even millions of Gauls, Romans and people from many other nations! Would he really be horrified by the deaths of mere couple of thousands? I don't think so.
Something tells me he would've been quite upset to learn about it, but eventually accept that it was probably necessary in the end.
@jpc1918 The only people who deserve to be purged are tyrants.
Steva Stevanović Cesar was no humanist indeed, but my guess is that he wanted to put his name way up there (or even above) Alexander as a historical figure. He wanted to be remembered as the best of the romans for centuries to come. And as he experienced Sulla and his proscriptions he knew they would have grant him absolute power now, but would have diminished his image in the long run (as Sylla was hated by most).
Remember he offered peace to Pompey before crossing the rubicon and he genuinely (I think) got upset when Ptolemy the 74th killed Pompey.
Well that s how I see it at least.
Do you believe Ceasar would have killed Pompey had he captured him?
I see him giving Pompey some kind of honorary job with no military/legal power but who knows really ...
@@washizukanorico Well, there you are right, Caesar was a man who very carefully thought about his public image. Although I think that, if he captured Pompey, he would have probably either kept him under the lock for the rest of his life (i.e. throw him in the dungeon) or force him to commit suicide and make up the story to the Senate and the people that he didn't have anything to do with his death. But, fortunately for Caesar, Egyptians already did an excellent job for him, riding him of every responsibility for the Pompey's fate and actually even giving him the he excuse to "weep" for his dead "friend". I mean, to think it thorough, would've Caesar really ever even started the civil war if he wasn't ready to kill Pompey at any given time? As for that peace/political compromise before Rubicon, I think that Caesar knew that it will be refused and that he proposed it just so he could claim that he was the one ready to negotiate, to make peace, while Pompey was the warmonger who refused any peace deal. There is no doubt that Caesar was a cunning manipulator and with such kind of people we must always look what benefit they might get out of their in-a-good-will proposals.
"Decimus I want to swap, but I have some conditions."
"Okay let's hear them."
"I want to bring my six legions with my to Cisalpine Gaul."
"Mmmm, maybe. Anything else?"
"Oh yeah, by swap I of course mean you giving me Cisalpine Gaul and me giving you nothing."
Your artwork, narration, and music you choose is just so amazing, thank you for the awesome videos
Note on adoption: in Roman times, being an adopted-child was a great honor, much more than being a born-child. Being adopted nowadays is some kind of insult, but back then, being adopted means your virtues were high enough that someone would like to treat you close like a family member.
As such, if Caesar had any biological child, they would have been eclipsed by Octavius the adopted son.
(Bart D. Ehrman
hypothesized that at one point in early Christianity, Jesus was hailed as the adopted son of God, because of this association of adoption with virtue.)
Being adopted is not considered "some sort of insult" in western society. If anything it's the exact opposite! I've never in my entire life heard of adoption being considered an insult.
Sometimes kids might bully another kid about being adopted, but apart from dim-witted idiot children, I can't think of anyone else I've ever heard treat adoption like an insult
I would not say modern adoption is a some shame. Or that in Roman times it was hominid exactly. But that in Roman times adoption was seen as being exactly the same as biological child. When Claudius adopted Nero he became the heir over his own biological son Britannicus just because Nero was older. You would have expected in modern perspective that the biological child who was born to be an heir would not be replaced in succession just because an older child was adopted. But when adopted person, whether a child or adult, is exactly the same as biological one just the age matters.
However people usually adopted relatives like Nero was Claudius’s great newphew (because Claudius married his own niece) the way Octavian was Caesar’s great-newphew.
With Octavian however Caesar named him his heir in the will which isn’t he same as full adoption that could only happen while the parent was alive. So Octavian forced the Senate to consider this a full adoption so he would get Caesar’s clients and could call himself a son of a god (after Caesar was deified).
@@villipend people sometimes insult each other by calling them adopted. It's dumb but it happens.
Thing is. Ceasar had a Son and Octavian had him killed..
Tom Holland is very much the friendly neighbourhood historian. He did a talk at my college once, he happily signed the 3 of his books I had back then, and after the talk ended stayed for over an hour just chatting to us. It was the end of our day, but the entire class stayed late too.
Great guy.
Note to anyone reading this: It's referring to the historian Tom Holland, credited in the description in the video, not the actor. I was a bit confused at this comment for a minute.
Greeneye oh thank god
@@GreeneyedApe "friendly neighborhood" tho
@@TheRenegade... pun completely intended
@@TheRenegade... Even more reason for my clarification.
I watch these videos for several reasons
You present topics in an engaging and easy to understand way so that even if Im not that interested (I dont much like Roman history) I still enjoy it
Also your ending music is amazing
The work you put in to help visualise this is amazing thank you 😊
I almost just shed a tear because of all those Fs for Cicero. Something genuinely beautiful about people paying their respects over 2 thousand years ago for a man who consistently tried to act for the greater good, within the constraints of his time.
Truly beautiful, legends never die
I find it amusing that we genuinely use "F" as a sign of respect thanks to the memes, when it was originally a joke to mock the scene from a call of honorfield game that used "F" as a quick time prompt to "pay respect" What was mocked as silly became genuine due to the meme.
@@SerunaXI I fail to understand how it's perceived as respectful when talking about real people
Decimus: Why does everyone keep stabbing me in the back
Everyone else: Because it’s easy, and it does a lot of damage
HAPPY SOULS
Heheheheeheheegeheheeee
Because you help us to realize that we can do that
Oh crap I almost forgot to rewatch that this month
😂😂😂 perfect. I love that video
16:39
Cicero: Brutus! Decimus needs reinforcements!
Brutus: *Raspberry noises
Ive never been so engrossed in history before. Held my breath for this longer than I have for actual TV shows and media