00:00:00What does the final day of Caesar's life look like?
00:00:04So, the lead up to this is important because Caesar is, you know, he knows that there are assassination plots.
00:00:17There were even assassination plots 18 months earlier when he got back to Rome finally from the African campaign where he defeated Cato and friends.
00:00:27And Cicero mentions this in a speech. He gives a speech in front of Caesar. He's like, "Caesar, I have heard, it has been said that you tell people I have lived long enough either for nature or for glory."
00:00:44Because he knows about assassination attempts and he dismisses them. He says, "You know what? If they want to kill me, I've had a good run."
00:00:50How old is he at this point?
00:00:52He is, so this is 46 when he gets back, so he would be 54, born in 100 BC. 44 is the Ides of March when he dies, so that's how old he ends up being.
00:01:04But, I mean, you know, that's pretty old for a Roman. He's had a pretty good run so far. But he dismisses these plots.
00:01:19And, you know, the information just keeps coming in. Sure and sure, people are trying to kill you, Caesar.
00:01:25Can you please up your security detail? Can you please give yourself a bodyguard? Like, we're begging you. His friends are begging him.
00:01:36And he says, "Not going to do that." That's what tyrants do.
00:01:40And, sure enough, like, this is the kind of classic mold of how tyrants seize power. Pisistratus at Athens. I mean, you can multiply a lot of examples. You get a bodyguard first.
00:01:49You say, "Oh no, there's threats against my life. I need a bodyguard, citizens. I just want to be your servant." And then that's how you seize power.
00:01:56And Caesar knows that that's the pattern. He's not going to do it.
00:01:59And it comes to the point where people are continuing to bring in names of potential conspirators.
00:02:07And Caesar says, "I've had it. Anybody bringing me more talk about an assassination plot is going to face consequences."
00:02:15He's like, "You're going to get fired if I hear another about you bringing me an assassination plot." He doesn't want to hear it.
00:02:23And I think that's because he didn't want to rule over a subjugated, you know, cowed populace. He wanted to rule over free Romans.
00:02:38And he didn't want a police state. He wanted people to feel free to say whatever they wanted to say.
00:02:44This is clearly demonstrated by a lot of his actions. You know, people are criticizing him. They're making jokes about Caesar's expense.
00:02:51There's certain lines that you don't cross, but he doesn't want to up his security detail.
00:02:59The very last night, the 14th of March, it's a normal day of business, busy day at work.
00:03:10And he's got this incredible, crushing burden of cases to hear and petitions and laws needing passing.
00:03:18And he's also preparing for this great expedition to Parthia. He's going to avenge Crassus.
00:03:26Crassus was killed by the Parthians. They captured Roman eagles about 10 years earlier.
00:03:30So he's just trying to get through the next three days to get out of town and go back to, I mean, Caesar was good at politics, but I think better at war.
00:03:43I think he's better at war. He's equally as good at war. It's probably a happier place for him.
00:03:47Even in BC times, people were still drowning in admin, is what you're saying?
00:03:51Oh, yeah. I mean, like the load that he's carrying. Yeah, it's a universal problem. Once they invent writing, you know, it's over.
00:04:01Fucking game over. Yeah, it's the email inbox of ancient Rome.
00:04:04Yeah. And it's funny you should mention email. So on the last night, Caesar is having dinner.
00:04:12As you know, he has a formal dinner every night. There's like nine seats at the typical Roman feast.
00:04:19You circle around on couches around a central table and everybody kind of lies down. It's weird, but that's how they did it.
00:04:26And horrible for the digestion. It's horrible for the digestion.
00:04:30But one advantage is everybody has to have the same conversation because you're all pointed toward the center of the circle.
00:04:36Yeah. As opposed to an elongated table where this group over there is speaking like that in this group. That's interesting.
00:04:43I remember, was it, who was it that suggested that the size of glasses of wine were getting too big around the table?
00:04:53Was it maybe Aristotle? And he made a special kind of cup. And if you overfilled the cup, the entire thing drained.
00:05:01Oh, yeah. Basically, his problem was that he wanted to have these really interesting conversations at dinner and people were just getting too drunk.
00:05:09This is before coffee came around. There's this interesting story.
00:05:12Before Newtonic. Before Newtonic. I mean, they should have had the nootropic toothpicks.
00:05:18There's that big transition was in sort of the middle ages in the UK where Britain started to go from just having ale houses to having coffee shops as well.
00:05:30And this is a boon in innovation because people aren't just pissed all the time. They're just not drunk as much.
00:05:38They're stimulated and they're going and getting stuff done. Anyway, I think it's Aristotle that had this issue.
00:05:43His problem was I want to go to dinner and have all of these interesting conversations, but everybody drinks their wine so fast that the conversation degenerates into nothingness.
00:05:55So his suggestion was to his host to make the cup smaller. He says people will drink the same number, but they'll not realise that they're having less.
00:06:03And it's supposed to be, I think it's like an Aristotelian cup. Jared, do a Chachupy tea search.
00:06:10What was the ancient cup that was made to ensure people didn't overfill it? Maybe Aristotle.
00:06:19And it's this interesting point that, okay, well, if we reduce it down, it means that the conversational quality will be a bit better.
00:06:25But I suppose if you're sat in a, you're probably thinking of the Pythagorean cup, also called the cup of greed or greedy cup.
00:06:32It's a special drinking cup from ancient Greece designed so that if you fill it past a certain level, it empties completely. Isn't that cool?
00:06:38That's brilliant. Because it's a siphon.
00:06:40Yes, it's got a hidden siphon inside the central cup. If you pour wine below the marked line, the cup works normally. If you pour above the line, the siphon activates and the entire cup drains out through the bottom of the stem.
00:06:50For someone who tries to take more than their fair share, they end up with nothing.
00:06:55Legend says Pythagoras used it to teach moderation and fairness among workers or students, and the lesson is greed causes you to lose everything.
00:07:02Isn't that fucking cool?
00:07:03That's so Greek.
00:07:04Isn't that sick?
00:07:05Yes, moderation. Wise man, Pythagoras. Well, you know, it's funny because, I mean, in Plato's symposium that they decide to pour the wine, they pour water in the wine often for moderation so that you drink less.
00:07:21But they wanted to pour the wine really, really light that night because they all got smashed the night before and they want to have like a chill conversation that night.
00:07:28In Plato, Caesar's nemesis was actually known to be a bit of a tippler. Like he would often show up to the Senate kind of smelling of wine, but that would be because he liked to drink for a long time having philosophical conversations.
00:07:47And it was this kind of conversation that was happening, Caesar's last night. So Caesar is at the house of Lepidus, and he invites a number of people to be among the nine.
00:08:03Lepidus is a good trusted friend of his, and one of them is Decimus Brutus.
00:08:10This is not the Brutus that appears in Shakespeare's play Julius Caesar, you know, and you too Brutus, it's a different Brutus, but actually was a Brutus that was closer to Caesar in point of fact historically, funny enough.
00:08:22So does Shakespeare get that confused? Or does he amalgamate the two on purpose?
00:08:25Plutarch gets it confused. This is like one of the kind of flaws of Plutarch's biography of Caesar.
00:08:33He thinks that Marcus Brutus, who is actually not, I mean close to Caesar, he is, because he's the son of Caesar's favorite girlfriend, Servilia, but Decimus Brutus was a lot closer to him because he was a lieutenant of his in Gaul.
00:08:51I mean they're distantly related, these two Brutuses, but they're not close or anything. But Decimus was like naval commander against the Veneti, he's been brilliant in the civil war, crucial in the battle of Marseille, and in fact Decimus Brutus was in his will as a second.
00:09:10Decimus is one of the men who stabbed him the very next day. He's sitting there with him at dinner the night before.
00:09:18And they're sitting there having their conversation, as one does. A lot of final night scenes of great Romans and great Greeks are these philosophical conversations.
00:09:35And I think that's because they had them a lot actually. It was very normal.
00:09:40Like the last supper for Jesus, there were maybe a few additions, but he was probably speaking like that mostly.
00:09:46Just a Tuesday.
00:09:50So Caesar is sitting there as the conversation is going on. I find this really fascinating. He's clearing his inbox actually.
00:10:02Because he's a busy guy, one has to, and his secretary is sitting there kind of feeding him letters that need to go out that he needs to sign.
00:10:10And so he's writing sincerely on them, signing his name. But the way you do that in Latin, the custom is you write "valle," farewell.
00:10:20So all through the night he's writing farewell, farewell, farewell on these letters.
00:10:27And that's what you would have done typically?
00:10:29That's what you would have done to say goodbye. But the fact that he's filling out letters during dinner, I mean this guy has got a shit ton of work to do.
00:10:38And he's just trying to get, it's brainless, he's just kind of whatever. Yes, go on Cassius, yes.
00:10:44And I find that striking. But at some point in the night, he proposes a theme for the philosophical conversation that's going on.
00:10:55Decimus is sitting right there. What is the best kind of death?
00:11:01And the conversation goes this way and that way. Somebody brings up the example of Cyrus the Great, the great king of Persia who founded the Persian Empire.
00:11:12Xenophon says, doesn't he, that Cyrus made all these arrangements before his death that he wanted to be buried in this way and this should happen and so forth after he was gone.
00:11:24And of course Caesar had read this book, Xenophon's "Cyropaedia" and Caesar's turn comes to him and he says, that sounds horrible.
00:11:33I don't want a long, slow death. The best kind of death is one that comes sudden, swift, and unexpected.
00:11:44You know, what is Decimus thinking at that moment? But that's well attested, that that's what the conversation was about at some point that night.
00:11:52Prophetic. Yeah, man. And then he goes home late and bad dreams. If you've read the Shakespeare play, there's all these omens.
00:12:03His wife has this dream that she gets him up in the middle of the night, the wind blows open the shutters and he has to get up and shut them and calm down Calpurnia.
00:12:13And she had this dream that she was holding the bloody Caesar and looking at their house as it's burning and collapsing.
00:12:22There's all these birds are acting weird. So the story goes. A lot of these omens typically happen around great events in the ancient sources, but who knows?
00:12:33I mean, the murder of a guy like Julius Caesar really is a kind of, if ever a death is a rip in the fabric of reality, you know, that comes pretty close.
00:12:44So that was how he spent his last night. It was a very unsettled night.
00:12:49Before we continue, I wish someone had told me five years ago to stop overthinking nutrition and just find something that works.
00:12:56I've simplified mine down to one scoop a day and it's made hitting my nutritional bases an awful lot easier.
00:13:02AG1 includes 75 vitamins, minerals, probiotics and whole food ingredients.
00:13:06And that is why I've been drinking it every morning for over five years now.
00:13:10And they've taken it a step further with AG1 NextGen, the same one scoop ritual, but now backed by four clinical trials.
00:13:16In those trials, AG1 was shown to fill common nutrient gaps, boost healthy gut bacteria by 10 times and improve key nutrient levels in just three months.
00:13:23They've been refining the formula since 2010, 52 iterations and counting.
00:13:27And I love the NextGen because it's more bioavailable, it's clinical validation, which is unbelievably rare in the supplement world.
00:13:34The older I get, the more I realize that the small stuff compounds.
00:13:37And this is one of the smallest things I do that makes a massive difference.
00:13:41If you're still on the fence, they've got a 90-day money back guarantee in the US.
00:13:44So you can buy it and try it for three months.
00:13:46And if you do not like it, they'll just give you your money back.
00:13:49Right now, you can get a free AG1 welcome kit that includes a bottle of D3K2, AG1 flavor sampler and that 90-day money back guarantee.
00:13:56By going to the link in the description below or heading to www.drinkag1.com/modernwisdom
00:14:02That's www.drinkag1.com/modernwisdom