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1:05

Hello, welcome, and bonjour.

1:07

My name is Josh Zucker, and

1:10

I want to take you on a journey through some of the

1:12

most exciting events of the late Middle

1:14

Ages.

1:15

Valois Burgundy was one of the medieval

1:17

world's greatest polities, and its

1:20

legacy can still be felt today.

1:22

Its dukes inherited, conquered,

1:24

and politicked their way into forging

1:26

a state between the German Empire and

1:28

the Kingdom of France that rivaled them both.

1:31

From the Hundred Years' War to Hanseatic

1:34

merchants, from urban workers to

1:36

Joan of Arc, and from gallant knights

1:38

to gunpowder weapons, the Grand Dukes

1:40

of the West had a part to play in almost

1:43

all of Western Europe's biggest developments

1:45

in the 14th and 15th centuries.

1:48

If you want to learn more about

1:50

the glamorous rise and dramatic fall

1:52

of the Valois Dukes of Burgundy, please

1:55

join me for Grand Dukes of the

1:57

West, a history of Valois

1:59

Burgundy.

2:08

Hello everyone and welcome to the history

2:11

of Byzantium episode 277

2:13

the new

2:15

Roman Empire with Anthony Coldellis

2:19

part 1

2:20

government As

2:23

You know by now professor

2:25

called Ellis has written a new history of Byzantium

2:29

and though I shouldn't use that word It is called

2:31

the new Roman Empire It

2:34

covers the entire narrative of Roman history

2:36

from the founding of Constantinople to

2:38

the fall of the Empire in 1453 This

2:42

is an academic history It

2:44

is a synthesis of all the available scholarship

2:47

on the topic together with professor

2:49

called Ellis's own analysis It

2:51

is essential for students and

2:54

those of you who can't get enough of Byzantine history

2:56

will love it If you want to know more about

2:58

any topic in Byzantine history Then

3:01

you can now go straight to this book and

3:03

follow the footnotes to your heart's content

3:07

Professor called Ellis has been incredibly generous

3:09

to us and agreed to talk about the book across

3:11

four

3:12

separate episodes

3:15

In our third episode we'll be going through

3:17

the narrative and discussing things that I missed

3:19

out on during the podcast In

3:21

episode 4 I'll put your questions

3:24

to him, which is very exciting But

3:27

for the first two interviews, we're going to tackle

3:30

big topics That I

3:32

haven't covered in as much depth

3:34

in part because the podcast began in 476 rather

3:36

than 330 AD So

3:41

we're going to be talking about Christianity and

3:43

the law and today we're

3:45

going to begin with the government

3:49

Now this is a topic we have touched on before

3:51

and it builds on professor called Ellis's work

3:53

in his other books including the Byzantine

3:56

Republic But I thought you'd

3:58

appreciate hearing it all analyzed in

4:01

one go. We talk about the

4:03

personality of the Roman

4:05

state, how it tried to convince

4:07

its citizens of its legitimacy

4:10

and whether this worked and how

4:12

the system of emperors can be understood

4:15

as a Republican monarchy. This

4:18

is a longer episode than normal so

4:21

don't be afraid to take a break

4:24

and come back when you can take in more

4:27

amazing content. Here

4:29

is then part one of

4:32

this series. Professor

4:36

Anthony Cordellis, welcome once again to

4:38

the History of Byzantium podcast. Thank

4:40

you Robin, it's great to be back. Well

4:43

your generosity knows no bounds and

4:46

we've had a lot of fun but now it's time to

4:48

get down to the serious business of

4:51

how the Roman government functions.

4:53

That is today's topic.

4:56

I think our topic knows no bounds and

4:58

I think we both can't get enough of it. It

5:02

is very true. I've just got back

5:04

from a tour around Turkey

5:06

with listeners of the podcast and between

5:09

that 10-day period and my conversations with

5:12

you is the only time I get to talk to people who

5:14

have any idea what I'm talking about or what I do.

5:17

It's been a joyful couple of months.

5:20

I wish I could say the same about some of my classes

5:22

here.

5:27

As I said in my introduction we're here

5:29

to talk about aspects of

5:31

your new history of the

5:34

Byzantine state,

5:36

the new Roman Empire and because

5:39

the podcast began in 476 a

5:41

lot of listeners will have missed out on some

5:44

of the building blocks of the Eastern Roman state.

5:46

Today I wanted to talk about how the

5:48

government functioned and a little bit about things

5:51

that

5:53

shoot off from that like justice.

5:56

That was definitely one of the more eye-opening parts of

5:58

the book and so I'm hoping you can

6:02

open some ears today with some insights on how

6:05

this new Roman state functions.

6:08

So obviously we're taking this back to the

6:11

early fourth century when the new

6:13

capital is founded. So even though it's

6:15

replicating the existing system

6:17

of government, there's obviously a lot of change,

6:20

a lot of adaption as people in the Eastern

6:22

Roman Empire now recalibrate

6:25

themselves towards Constantinople.

6:28

So one of the subheadings

6:30

you chose when you began to describe how the government

6:33

functioned was the personality of

6:35

government. And I wondered why you chose

6:37

that phrase and how you see

6:40

the personality of this new Roman government.

6:44

Well, Robin, I'm glad that you found those chapters

6:46

interesting because they were probably the most difficult

6:48

ones to write and took

6:51

the most time and effort. And

6:53

being at the very beginning of the book, it

6:57

stalled me a little bit

6:59

there. And

7:01

anyway, it was a bit of a hump I had to get over

7:03

to reach the narrative parts. But

7:05

I think that it's very important to lay

7:07

the foundations for

7:10

how we understand this state

7:12

because after all, our

7:15

field is really defined by the historical

7:17

existence of this state.

7:19

The history is

7:21

also a history of a people, it's a history of a society,

7:24

and so forth. It's also

7:27

part of the history of a religion, what emerges

7:29

as Eastern Orthodoxy. But the

7:32

historical form that all of these things take

7:35

is that of the East Roman state. So

7:37

it's very important to get it right.

7:40

And in particular,

7:43

to find a model that

7:45

gets away from

7:47

the traditional models, especially of Enlightenment

7:49

polemic and all of the negative

7:52

views of the Byzantine

7:54

state. And I didn't

7:56

want to critique those because this is a history

7:58

that presents a history

7:59

It opens a window so that people can

8:02

see what was going on, not to engage

8:04

in critique and controversy

8:07

and so forth. But it is important to

8:10

say that certain models

8:12

had to be rejected. And

8:15

there's this enlightenment model of the East

8:17

Roman state as despotic,

8:20

oppressive, kind of an oriental despotism,

8:23

right?

8:24

Where there are, you

8:27

know, it's kind of murderous and

8:29

secretive and unaccountable and there's

8:31

no civic virtue, no public space, etc.

8:35

So

8:37

this is a model, by the way, that

8:40

if you focus on the personalities

8:43

of certain emperors, you

8:45

can sort of get and in

8:48

particular, if you look at the fourth century.

8:53

So you're a Roman historian. Let's say you're an ancient Roman

8:55

historian, you're coming along, da da da da da, and you go through

8:57

the third century crisis, and then you hit characters

9:00

like Diocletian and Constantine

9:02

and Constantius. And

9:05

then Julian, it was weird, but then

9:07

you jumped to valence. And

9:09

all those characters, their personalities,

9:12

right, are in the historical

9:14

sources, either

9:16

murderous, paranoid,

9:19

suspicious,

9:21

right? We've got Amianus' narrative, which

9:24

doesn't help. And there

9:27

was this conflation between

9:29

the personalities of

9:32

the emperors and the kind of state

9:34

that they inaugurated, right?

9:39

Enlightenment thinkers were sort of very happy to

9:41

write those traits

9:44

large, right? So

9:47

this is something I had to find a solution

9:49

to. And

9:52

there are other models, by the way, that I also

9:55

tried to avoid.

9:58

One of them is the...

9:59

this kind of metaphysical

10:02

theocratic model which produces

10:04

a very abstract formula for what

10:06

the Byzantine state is that stems from theology.

10:09

You

10:09

know

10:12

that it's a fantasy fiction

10:15

in a certain way. And

10:16

there's another one that's currently going

10:18

around which

10:19

is

10:20

just about the opposite of having a personality

10:23

at all. So this is one where there are

10:25

these distant elites in Constantinople

10:27

and you know

10:30

provincials have a relationship to

10:32

them that's something between I don't

10:35

know the relationship you have with your internet

10:37

provider and

10:39

the tax then the revenue service right

10:41

the IRS something like that it's kind of asymmetrical

10:45

unfair their inequalities you

10:48

don't love them they provide some sort

10:50

of service but you know you could do better

10:52

and it's anyway this

10:55

is a kind of neoliberal model of the

10:57

Byzantine state and you can find it in some

10:59

places but I don't think

11:02

that that really explains what was going on so

11:05

I was drawn to a very different model that emerged

11:07

in the research of the past say 20 years or so which

11:11

we will talk about and

11:13

I tried to give it some some sort of flesh and

11:15

blood so personality personality

11:18

is a metaphor so I mentioned

11:20

earlier the personalities of these emperors

11:22

and we can you know take the most mediocre

11:25

of them who was probably valence right

11:28

now he wasn't too you know

11:31

he was hard-working conscientious

11:33

more or less but suspicious

11:36

paranoid probably not up to the task

11:38

in some ways you know

11:42

persecuted magicians

11:44

because he was afraid of them right

11:46

like there's all this intrigue and so

11:49

forth so

11:51

that's the personality of some emperors

11:53

who have been taken as kind of paradigmatic

11:56

and have exemplary of East Roman decadence

11:59

in a press

11:59

But

12:02

if you look at all of those emperors, not

12:05

through how they

12:07

appear as historical figures, but

12:10

how they express themselves in their official

12:13

pronouncements, and I mean in particular,

12:15

like laws that they issued, but also

12:17

all kinds of other texts that emanate from

12:20

their court, like as trying to represent them

12:22

to their subjects,

12:24

you get a very different picture.

12:27

And historians have gradually

12:29

realized this, that the late Roman state

12:32

is trying to construct a

12:34

persona

12:35

that it projects

12:37

to its subjects, that has

12:40

particular traits.

12:43

Now

12:44

to be clear up front, this

12:47

is a rhetorical construction,

12:51

but it's still a kind of personality,

12:53

all right? So here's

12:55

the personality of the late Roman

12:57

state as it emerges from

13:01

its own discourse, not from the personalities

13:03

of the emperors in it, right? And we have to make

13:06

sure that we have to say

13:08

that the personality

13:11

problems of the emperors

13:14

were often limited to the people,

13:17

you know, directly around them, right?

13:20

So for example, Constantine is

13:22

one of the most murderous emperors in

13:24

Roman history, but that's

13:27

true really if you're only in his family. Like

13:30

if you weren't somehow a dynastic

13:33

threat, he

13:35

was no different from anyone else really, and

13:37

probably better than most, right?

13:41

Okay,

13:42

so

13:43

the interesting thing about the personality

13:46

of the late Roman state as it itself tried

13:48

to project it is that it's fairly

13:51

consistent across

13:53

all of these different emperors. And

13:55

this is what interested me, right? So it

13:58

has a...

13:59

a certain mode of talking about what

14:02

it wants to do, about the kinds of relationships

14:04

that it wants to establish with its subjects,

14:07

that is fairly consistent across time, and in fact,

14:10

consistent pretty much down to the end of these Roman emp

14:12

all together. And

14:15

what are these traits? Okay, so

14:17

I'm just going to mention them so that

14:19

everyone can get a picture here.

14:22

So the traits are a kind

14:25

of paternalistic solicitude

14:28

for the welfare of its subjects. Paternalistic,

14:31

not necessarily a bad way, it's

14:34

like, I'll take care of you, like that kind

14:36

of attitude.

14:39

And very specifically, this is

14:42

universally extended, right?

14:44

So it's not like, I'm

14:47

only going to look after, like

14:49

my people or the Romans or this particular

14:52

subset, but the emperors are

14:54

very emphatic again and again and again, that they're

14:57

trying to do well by everyone

14:59

under their

15:01

jurisdiction.

15:02

So universal benevolence,

15:05

in a way. The

15:07

second one is that they

15:10

intend to ensure law,

15:12

the rule of law and fairness,

15:14

right? In other words, the

15:18

emperors or their spokesmen keep

15:20

recognizing that there are

15:22

problems of lawlessness

15:25

and unfairness in the

15:27

system. They keep saying this, they know

15:30

it. And they're constantly trying to correct

15:32

these abuses or

15:34

inequalities by

15:37

stressing, for example, that

15:40

they're going to protect the weak against

15:42

the abuses of the poor, sorry,

15:44

of the rich, right? So there's

15:46

the weak and the poor on the one hand and the rich

15:48

and the powerful and the other. And the

15:51

emperors consistently in their rhetoric

15:53

come down on the side of protecting the weak and

15:55

the poor. The

15:59

other one is. that this is a responsive

16:02

state. And this has gotten

16:04

a lot of play in recent scholarship. Where

16:07

we don't see it as oppressive, we see it

16:09

more as responsive. In other words, it

16:12

wants to make it known that

16:15

if subjects have a problem

16:18

or a question, they will

16:21

address it or answer it. That

16:24

it will respond to their problems by taking

16:26

action. For example,

16:29

a region has a

16:31

very bad harvest. One

16:34

year, it can't pay taxes. You petition

16:36

the court and ask for an exemption.

16:40

Or if there's a local famine for relief,

16:42

like send supplies

16:45

from elsewhere. Or we've got a problem

16:47

with barbarian raiders, send some units

16:50

to protect us, that kind of thing. Or

16:52

legally. So

16:56

the laws don't clarify a particular

16:58

situation. And so your

17:02

wealthy, powerful neighbor can use an ambiguous

17:05

law to take

17:07

something from you or oppress you in some way.

17:09

Or officials are committing injustices

17:12

because they're following the strict letter

17:14

of the law, rather than what

17:16

provincials think is fair. You

17:19

have a right to petition the emperor

17:22

or his legal representatives to fix that

17:24

problem. And

17:27

so this is a state in which there's a lot

17:29

of communication coming up from below,

17:33

seeking some sort of redress. So

17:37

it's a responsive state. And it also

17:39

assumes the persona of being an accountable

17:42

state. In other words, it

17:45

says we're going to do these kinds of things.

17:47

We're going to protect you from barbarian invasions.

17:49

We're going to ensure law and order.

17:52

We're going to ensure the system is fair. We're going to protect

17:54

the weak and so forth. We're

17:57

going to respond to your petitions. I mean, you might

17:59

not like what they say. say, they might say no,

18:02

but they will respond. And

18:05

accountability means that they

18:08

under the state understands that its subjects

18:10

are looking to see that

18:12

it does these things. And

18:16

moreover, because it does these things

18:18

through its own officials,

18:21

right,

18:22

it holds its own officials accountable

18:24

to those standards. And

18:26

this is a very important point. The

18:31

old sort of despotic oriental,

18:33

the Oriental Despotism model of,

18:36

you know, Byzantium and so on was in

18:38

part based on this

18:41

very angry language that the emperors use

18:44

in many of their laws where they're threatening these

18:46

extreme punishments and, you know, I'll

18:48

pour molten gold down your throat

18:50

or, you know, this kind of thing, you know,

18:52

cut off your hands and such.

18:55

It wasn't noticed

18:58

by scholars who were, you

19:01

know, troubled by this and made a big deal of

19:03

it like, huh, Rome really gets

19:05

angry at this point. It

19:07

wasn't noticed that the most extreme language

19:10

is most often directed at officials

19:14

of the state whom

19:16

the emperors want to keep in line, right.

19:19

And if you look at the Theodosian code or the Justinianic

19:22

code, so these are the compilations of the decrees

19:24

issued by the emperors, a

19:27

large number of sort of punishments

19:29

and threats and kind of, you know, shaking

19:32

your fist at people is directed

19:35

at the state's own officials for

19:38

corruption, injustice,

19:41

negligence, whatever. And

19:45

this is kind of extraordinary if

19:47

you think about it. In other words, you know,

19:50

sometimes the Roman Empire is called a military dictatorship

19:53

and in a certain way that's true, but

19:56

there are not many military dictatorships

19:58

that make a very good deal of money. to

20:00

their subjects so many legal

20:03

means by which they can hold

20:05

their own sort of lower and mid-level

20:08

officials accountable. Even

20:11

high officials though that's obviously harder right

20:13

so the the burden is higher

20:15

that you know the higher up you reach

20:18

into the court to hold people accountable

20:20

sometimes you just have to protest in the streets for that

20:22

to happen. Sure. But

20:27

there's every indication that

20:30

subjects did use these laws. So

20:33

the period that is most documented is

20:35

the early period

20:38

especially in Egypt so

20:40

from the fourth to the sixth centuries and

20:43

there we have very many cases

20:45

of

20:46

ordinary you know I mean non

20:49

state officials who are bringing some sort

20:51

of official complaint against someone

20:53

who at the time that they committed

20:55

some sort of violation or injustice were

20:58

state officials. There's a lot

21:00

of that. We don't

21:02

have evidence for labor just because we don't

21:04

have like you know court records but

21:07

when we do get some again in the 11th century

21:09

this is happening again. So lots

21:11

of state officials are being brought to court for

21:15

you know abuse of power. So

21:19

those are the main personality traits

21:21

of the East

21:23

Roman state in its in the

21:25

way it wanted to present itself. Sort

21:28

of universally benevolent that

21:30

is accepting

21:32

the responsibility of you know

21:35

protecting and ensuring the welfare of its subjects

21:38

universally, ensuring

21:40

law and order and fairness

21:43

at protecting the weak and poor, being

21:47

responsive to the needs and petitions

21:49

of its subjects and being accountable especially

21:53

in keeping its own officials in line. Like

21:55

recognizing that a big part of the problem is

21:58

that you have this big government

22:00

now, right, by ancient standards. You

22:02

know, the Roman Empire has pretty

22:05

significant cadres of officials. So there's

22:07

more opportunity for corruption. There are

22:09

more levels where friction

22:11

can occur. And so

22:14

it ramps up its

22:16

efforts to keep this in line.

22:20

So that's the persona. Yeah.

22:28

And if you look at, say, Diocletian

22:31

or Constantine or Valence,

22:34

under that light, you see that, oh, they're

22:36

all pursuing that kind of agenda. That

22:39

is, of constructing a state that has that

22:41

kind of image among its subjects.

22:46

So that's why I use the term

22:48

personality. It seemed

22:50

the best term to use as

22:53

a metaphor, right, to just catch the attention

22:55

and focus it on those kinds of

22:57

traits.

23:00

So I

23:02

mean, this is very interesting. What

23:06

I like about the way you've analyzed that is

23:08

I think that will chime with a lot of modern

23:12

listeners who've heard of similar

23:15

things about our own governments today, that

23:18

new administrations coming in promising

23:20

to change education policy. But then

23:22

books will come out saying education policy hasn't

23:25

changed in the last 70 years. So

23:27

it's interesting that you see that same thing where

23:29

across even 1,000 years, there

23:32

are certain traits of government that stay

23:34

the same, that don't change, despite

23:37

all the different emperors who come and go. My

23:42

next question, you may want to add, but my

23:44

question will be, so why? Why do they care so

23:47

much about projecting this personality

23:50

to their subjects?

23:53

Well,

23:54

in part, I think

23:56

it was a survival mechanism.

24:00

In part, it's also deeply

24:03

ingrained in Roman tradition. That

24:05

is, this is what it means to be

24:10

a leader in the Roman state. And let

24:12

me say that you find

24:15

the same kind of rhetoric, not

24:19

in quite as focused and pointed

24:21

a form, but you find it already under

24:23

Augustus.

24:27

Except that in the early

24:30

Roman Empire, in the early Imperial period, it's

24:33

mostly directed at like

24:36

Romans who are a minority of the population

24:38

of the empire. In

24:40

other words, it's ingrained

24:43

in the nature of a Roman state that

24:45

its government apparatus

24:48

is supposed to work for the benefit of all

24:50

Romans.

24:52

Now in the early Imperial period,

24:55

the Romans will very often refer

24:57

to the other provincials as

24:59

their slaves. This is, I

25:01

mean, a lot of them were slaves, but metaphorically,

25:05

it's a metaphor when applied to the majority

25:08

of provincials. In other words, the non-Romans

25:10

are not, like there's an unequal relationship

25:13

there. And that's what changes

25:15

over time, especially when

25:17

all the provincials do become Romans, the

25:21

armies in the Senate and then most of the emperors

25:24

are from the provinces. And it

25:27

does acquire this nature

25:29

of a

25:30

universal state in

25:33

that way. And

25:36

so this kind of rhetoric is applied

25:38

then throughout the

25:41

whole... It's just an extension of

25:43

old Roman modes of understanding what

25:46

the purpose of a government is. In

25:49

part, right? That's in part. But

25:54

there is more going on. And

25:57

in the troubles of

25:59

the 3rd century... for you kind of heighten this

26:01

a lot. So there's a lot of political

26:04

instability caused by provincials

26:08

or provincial armies that

26:10

rebel. And the

26:12

Roman state kind of fractures for a while,

26:14

and emperors are being assassinated left and

26:17

right. And it required

26:19

tremendous effort to put

26:22

it back together again. So emperors like

26:24

Aurelian and Diocletian did this. And

26:28

in the aftermath of that almost

26:31

terminal set

26:33

of disasters, I mean, that could have

26:35

been the end for the Roman Empire.

26:39

It could have broken into regional states. Parts

26:42

of it could have been conquered by barbarians

26:45

from the outside and so forth. But they managed to pull

26:47

it together. And in

26:49

the aftermath, there's

26:51

a new kind of consensus emerges

26:55

about

26:56

how the Roman state

26:59

is going to interact with its subjects. And

27:02

it proves to be incredibly successful.

27:07

By the way, to indicate

27:09

just how successful, I think that this

27:11

consensus, I mean, we might

27:13

loosely call it a social contract today, but

27:16

I don't want to put too much emphasis on

27:18

the modern philosophical dimensions of that term.

27:22

The Roman term is consensus. So there is this kind of

27:24

consensus. And

27:27

it's very successful because I think

27:29

it creates a

27:34

new understanding between provincials

27:36

and the court and

27:38

the armies and the tax system and so

27:41

forth about what's going on

27:43

in all of this and what's at stake.

27:46

So emperors

27:48

are basically being asked.

27:53

No, let me rephrase that. Emperors are asking

27:56

to be judged by a certain set of standards that

27:58

they think will be acceptable. And

28:01

if they are found to be acceptable by those standards,

28:05

then the implicit understanding

28:08

is that provincials won't give them much trouble.

28:11

Right?

28:12

Put differently, this is the way by

28:14

which the regime or

28:16

the state legitimates itself in

28:18

the eyes of its subjects. And this is very, very important.

28:21

Right? This

28:23

isn't so much a question of whether you accept

28:25

the imperial apparatus as a whole that is

28:28

having an emperor, but rather this

28:30

particular one. So

28:32

it's much harder to change the whole imperial

28:34

system,

28:35

obviously, but it's much easier

28:37

to change any particular emperor.

28:40

So in order to create stability, what

28:43

that means is stability of like

28:45

from one regime to another, that

28:48

is one administration from one emperor to another,

28:51

not necessarily of the

28:53

imperial order as a whole. And

28:55

in fact, they were very successful at this in the

28:58

sense that, you

29:00

know, after the chaos of the third century, you

29:04

then see for centuries in the East,

29:06

at least, it's almost impossible

29:09

for

29:11

provincial rebellions to succeed,

29:13

you know, or for armies to put up a new emperor

29:16

and replace the existing

29:18

one in Constantinople. And

29:21

that's not because of some, they found some miracle

29:23

technology or whatever that prevented

29:25

that from happening. It's

29:27

that really what they did was

29:30

is sap the

29:33

discontent, the grounds of discontent

29:36

from the relevant populations.

29:39

Not everybody, obviously, right?

29:42

But you just had to make sure

29:45

that especially local elites,

29:47

even small landowners, about 50 percent

29:51

of the provincial population were probably

29:54

own their own land

29:56

enough to get by on. major

30:01

part of city populations and the armies.

30:05

So something over 50% of the population. This

30:08

is a relevant constituency. If you can

30:10

persuade them that your regime

30:12

is doing these things, which are on

30:15

the face of them unobjectionable and even desirable,

30:19

you're much less likely to

30:21

face rebellions

30:23

that have a serious chance of unseating

30:26

you. And when you do see rebellions,

30:28

they're largely because the regime is

30:30

perceived by certain segments as having

30:32

failed in these precise personality

30:35

traits, right? So

30:38

it is a matter of legitimacy

30:40

and survival also, I think.

30:43

It's a kind of contract among

30:45

everyone here.

30:47

It's really interesting, because

30:51

that became very apparent

30:53

to me just following the narrative

30:56

that each individual emperor was very concerned

30:58

with legitimacy as a concept,

31:02

an idea, there's

31:05

no guarantee at any time that it's

31:07

going to hold, but you buttress it all

31:09

the time to try and keep yourself in

31:11

power. And so in a

31:13

way, in response to that third

31:15

century crisis or

31:18

repeated crises, the whole state kind of

31:20

learns to communicate with its subjects in

31:22

a new way to try

31:25

and prevent discontent from happening before

31:27

it

31:28

begins in a way. Yes, because it doesn't

31:30

have other legitimating mechanisms

31:33

such that we see, you know, so for example,

31:35

a hereditary monarchy, the monarchs

31:38

simply point to heredity and like, well, that's

31:41

why I'm the king. It's open

31:43

and shut, like why are you, right? Or

31:46

if you have elections, the

31:50

administration might be unpopular, but

31:53

it's legitimacy to govern until

31:56

the next election is sort of

31:58

assumed as part of the system.

32:00

You might be seen as, I

32:02

think the news coming out of the UK

32:05

is a kind of similar phenomenon. The government

32:07

might be failing to persuade

32:10

the population that it's acting in its interest

32:12

or succeeding

32:14

in doing so, and

32:16

might be horribly unpopular. And every poll suggests

32:18

that if there were election today, you would lose badly.

32:22

But its legitimacy as the current government

32:24

is, you know,

32:28

unquestionable until the next election.

32:32

But the Roman Empire lacks those mechanisms

32:35

of either heredity or election. So the

32:37

emperors have to be constantly reassuring

32:41

their subjects

32:43

that they are doing these things.

32:45

And let me add

32:47

here that someone

32:50

might say, well, that's all fine and good

32:53

in rhetoric, but

32:55

did it actually do those things? A

33:01

long time ago, I was persuaded by Machiavelli

33:04

that you should judge people and states

33:07

not by what they say, by what they do. And

33:10

this was actually very important for me

33:12

for understanding, for example, U.S. foreign

33:14

policy, where the gap is huge.

33:19

That was a very, very important principle. And

33:21

yes, when you're looking at, like, U.S. foreign policy,

33:23

you should always look at facts

33:26

on the ground and outcomes,

33:29

not the rhetorical declarations. However,

33:35

that approach has its limitations, as I have

33:38

found. And let

33:41

me illustrate in the following way. Let's

33:43

suppose that you're sort of

33:45

subject to an authority that you don't much like. You

33:49

could be like a student at a school, and this

33:51

is your principal, or it could be anything, right? It

33:55

makes a difference if that

33:58

authority is a political

33:59

authority.

33:59

at least mousing

34:02

things to reassure you. That

34:05

no, no, this is in your best interest. And

34:07

here's why. And we have the same

34:09

values or whatever. You're

34:14

far more likely to grumble and go along

34:16

with it than if it

34:18

were just outright saying,

34:22

no, I'm in charge. And you're going to do what I say,

34:24

whether you like it or not.

34:28

Even if they're doing the same things, those

34:30

two scenarios produce very different

34:32

results.

34:33

So

34:36

the rhetorical posture, the

34:38

personality or persona, if you want to treat

34:40

it as a mask, was, I

34:43

think, itself very important

34:46

for establishing

34:49

or ensuring the success of this consensus.

34:54

But beyond that, I actually

34:57

came to the conclusion that the East

34:59

Roman government actually did try

35:03

to do most of those things. Ancient

35:08

governments don't have the kind

35:10

of capacity for secrecy

35:14

that ours do. What they

35:16

did was much more in the open and

35:18

could be judged very quickly

35:20

and easily by even unsophisticated

35:23

observers. And by

35:26

and large, I don't think that they could have gotten away

35:28

with an extremely duplicitous

35:31

approach of saying

35:34

that we're protecting you from the barbarians, but

35:37

not doing it. And

35:41

anyway, in a sense, the rest

35:43

of the book, the narrative part, it

35:48

showed to me as I was working it out

35:50

that for the most part,

35:53

not entirely, but for the most part, emperors

35:55

were acting

35:57

in good faith about it. interested

36:00

in actually achieving those results in

36:03

the kind of hit and miss way that you can with

36:07

these kind of pre-modern tools of governance.

36:11

So

36:12

that would lead me to ask you, how do you

36:14

see them living

36:17

up to at least some of their rhetoric?

36:20

I mean, we can say from the narrative, they

36:22

send out armies all the time,

36:24

particularly in the sort

36:26

of middle centuries, they're constantly

36:29

dealing with the Bulgars and the Arabs from

36:31

east and west. You know, there's not many

36:33

years go by where they're not responding directly

36:36

to attacks. But

36:38

in some of these other criteria,

36:42

so being accountable and responsive

36:44

and maintaining law and order and protecting

36:47

the weak, obviously

36:49

you've got a thousand years to draw on. But just

36:51

in general, I think you make the case

36:53

in the book that they more or less did live

36:56

up to those things, that those were

36:58

largely the policies of government.

37:00

Would that be fair? Or at least they tried

37:02

to. And this

37:04

is the important thing.

37:06

We're

37:07

by and large perceived as

37:10

trying to do that. It's impossible

37:12

to expect perfect outcomes

37:14

here. And I think it's

37:16

likely that pre-modern populations had

37:19

lower expectations.

37:22

But

37:23

here's, you

37:27

have to balance, no, not

37:29

balance, but interpret the results in

37:32

light of the impositions by the state.

37:35

What's it asking for and what

37:37

it's getting, right? And

37:39

this is a fascinating topic in which

37:42

I'm now actually kind of writing a separate

37:44

essay, which

37:47

is, yeah, I mean, yeah, not

37:49

to put too fine a point on it, but why did the Eastern Roman

37:52

Empire last for so long? And

37:55

I don't think it could have lasted for so long if

37:57

there wasn't some significant prevention.

38:00

buy-in or at least tacit

38:04

acceptance of its practices.

38:07

Now here its practices, its practices

38:09

are basically tax

38:11

collection, right?

38:14

Now in the neoliberal

38:17

model that I mentioned earlier, this

38:19

is seen with a kind of cynical

38:22

Marxism-lite kind of like, well, these

38:24

are elites extracting things for

38:26

themselves and whatever, and I

38:28

don't think that's the case at all. So

38:30

the East Roman state

38:34

managed to generate more

38:36

revenues than

38:38

just about any of its peers

38:41

or rivals, just in terms of cash, right?

38:45

There are emperors who famously left

38:47

huge reserves of cash or

38:50

like Manuel Comdenes, we've discussed them before,

38:52

who were just throwing money around.

38:55

So Romania was just very

38:57

well known as having all of this money.

39:00

All right, well, it's not like

39:02

Asia Minor and Eastern Greece

39:04

are that much more fertile

39:07

or productive lands than any

39:09

other part of the world. It's because

39:12

a particular kind of economy was maintained,

39:15

right? Where the state would pay salaries

39:18

to its officials across

39:21

the territory, soldiers,

39:23

generals, whatever, that

39:25

money would enter the cash cycle and

39:29

would end up in the hands of, you

39:32

know, provincials, local

39:35

landowners who would then pay taxes

39:38

in it. And if they couldn't, if

39:40

they didn't get a hold of too much gold, there were money

39:43

changers who could perform these

39:45

kinds of conversions for them and

39:48

that money would then go back to the to the

39:50

state.

39:52

So that's one thing, the state generates

39:54

enormous amounts of revenue comparatively.

39:58

Also, it

39:59

has

39:59

It has a reputation for being

40:02

very oppressive and

40:05

in terms of its taxation. Like

40:09

overbearing in terms of its

40:13

demands such that it stifled

40:15

the economy, impoverished its whatever.

40:18

Okay, this is probably

40:20

not true.

40:23

Now we don't know what the absolute tax

40:25

rates were actually. They're very difficult to calculate,

40:27

like exactly what

40:30

it was extracting.

40:33

However, I can tell you that taxpayer

40:38

discontent

40:40

is

40:41

subjective.

40:43

So

40:46

in the 50s and 60s, the marginal

40:48

tax rates for income in the US

40:50

at the highest level was like 90%. They

40:55

were grumbling but it was

40:57

accepted because of the ideological

40:59

context. Now that

41:02

they are less

41:04

than half of that and where the real money

41:06

is significantly less than half of

41:08

that, our money to

41:10

elites are howling with rage that they

41:12

get taxed at all. And that's

41:14

again because their ideologies have changed and

41:17

whatever, we're in different contexts. It's

41:19

not the absolute rates that

41:22

matter, it's whether you think

41:24

that it's fair and necessary.

41:30

So here's the paradox. This is a real paradox

41:32

of like East Roman economic history.

41:36

We have probably

41:38

fairly efficient taxation. We

41:41

have very few indications that

41:43

the state was unable to extract,

41:47

like a widespread tax evasion,

41:50

not really attested. Modern historians

41:52

will sometimes mention it but I don't see the proof

41:54

for it.

41:55

So

41:57

this is fairly efficient at collecting taxation. say

42:00

that it was extracting on the high end

42:03

because it had all this money.

42:06

And at the same time, we have very

42:10

extensive complaints about

42:12

taxation. Like constantly, almost

42:14

every generation you find some complaints,

42:17

complaints, complaints. Taxation

42:19

is too high. Horror stories about people

42:21

driven to destitution

42:24

or suicide because whatever. Okay.

42:27

And you think, well, if you put all those things together,

42:29

that's a recipe for disaster. Like

42:32

how did this survive for very long if the

42:35

state is just alienating everyone with high taxation?

42:39

I don't think that was going on at all. So here's

42:41

what you sort of push back against this picture. And

42:44

I'll mention two things. And

42:47

remember, we're talking here only

42:50

about taxation, not so much about the justice

42:52

system. We can get to that later. But taxation,

42:55

two things. First,

42:58

we can kind of gauge the

43:01

health of the economy through

43:03

proxy data of like archaeology,

43:06

for example. They're

43:08

not perfect, but there are periods

43:11

when you see cities and settlements contract,

43:14

the material culture being, you know, much

43:16

more crude, rudimentary, primitive,

43:19

you name it. And there are periods when you see

43:22

settlements expand, the

43:24

material culture become, you

43:26

know, much higher quality in

43:28

terms of the houses, the implements that you find,

43:31

right, and so forth. Lo

43:33

and behold, the periods of

43:35

economic contraction correspond

43:38

almost entirely to

43:40

periods of high

43:44

enemy raiding

43:46

and war,

43:47

and where the Roman state is

43:49

on the back foot and trying

43:51

to defend itself, like fighting for its

43:54

survival. And

43:56

the periods of economic prosperity are... So

44:00

I see those periods when the provinces

44:02

are not affected by foreign attacks and

44:05

when the state has imposed

44:07

its own order, whatever it thinks that is, on

44:12

the provinces without outside interference.

44:16

For example, between

44:19

the late fourth and early sixth century, you

44:21

see this in the east. There's a lot of economic

44:24

and demographic growth. Not only

44:26

that, but the economy is more monetized.

44:28

So by 500, more

44:30

people have more coins to pay for more things.

44:34

And it happens again between the late

44:36

8th and the 12th centuries when

44:40

they've managed to contain Arab

44:43

raiding in Tayshah Minor. Once

44:45

the emperors secure the frontiers, you

44:49

start to get economic growth again. So

44:52

that indicates to me, just as a kind of macroeconomic

44:56

gauge, that

45:00

in precisely the periods when the state

45:02

can, let's say, do what it wants with its

45:04

subjects economically, they're

45:07

generally doing better. So

45:12

this can't have been a crushing level

45:14

of taxation that prevented

45:16

investment, because we

45:19

know that this economic growth happens

45:22

because they're clearing lands and draining

45:24

marshes and things like that, which are investments.

45:29

And happening all over, not just

45:31

in specific areas. Though

45:33

some areas, there is always some areas are

45:35

doing better and some areas are doing worse for all kinds of factors

45:38

that we can't always account for. OK, so

45:40

that's one thing. What about all those complaints?

45:43

Well,

45:44

because there

45:46

is a literature of complaints

45:49

from this society. They almost

45:51

wrote poetry about it.

45:54

There are authors who just relish

45:56

in talking about all the

45:59

taxes fees and levies and imposts

46:01

and surcharges and whatever, like they just make

46:04

a whole, and they all have these Latinate names so

46:06

it's all weird in Greek and anyway. Okay,

46:09

so what I think is going on

46:12

there is I'll refer

46:14

you back to the culture

46:17

of responsiveness and accountability

46:19

that I mentioned. So here's

46:22

what I think is happening. Here's why I think

46:25

these complaints are not indicators

46:27

of a society being crushed by taxation,

46:31

but rather a society that

46:33

knows that its government is responsive

46:36

and there

46:37

is a system whereby you

46:39

should competition for a tax exemption

46:42

or relief or whatever. Now

46:45

there are a number of reasons you can do that. You

46:47

know, the harvest might not have been good.

46:49

There might have been a barbarian invasion or

46:51

a raid or whatever. Some of your people got taken

46:53

off or there was a plague or,

46:56

or, and here's another category, you

46:59

happen to have a very abusive and

47:01

corrupt official who came by and he fleeced

47:03

everybody. That happened.

47:06

So there are all of these reasons for which

47:08

provincials can petition the court

47:11

or the relevant branch

47:13

office of whatever, you know, the tax

47:15

collecting bureaus for

47:18

relief. And

47:21

this leads to a kind of rhetorical arms

47:23

race in presenting

47:26

your situation is so dire

47:29

that the authorities are sort of morally

47:32

obligated to do something to help you. And

47:36

it becomes a kind of, you

47:38

know, it's a rhetorical trope that subjects

47:41

use to get attention, especially because they're also

47:43

competing with other subjects who are doing the same thing

47:45

everywhere. And,

47:48

you know, these petitions or

47:51

texts are often written by the literate classes

47:53

who are trained in rhetoric and they know how

47:55

to make an over the top emotional appeal

47:58

and how to tell a story that will move you to

48:01

And so what I'm seeing

48:03

in all of that is, I mean,

48:06

if you look at it from a distance, it's a kind

48:08

of safety valve for the system.

48:11

In other words, if you

48:13

feel that you're being

48:15

overcharged,

48:17

you also feel that you have a recourse.

48:20

It's

48:23

not as if this isn't like a

48:27

foreign occupation situation where the soldiers

48:30

just come in and take your cows, and that's it. They

48:32

don't care if you live or die, because

48:35

the Roman authorities are actually interested

48:37

in your producing next year as well. It's

48:40

no good to them if they drain you, bleed

48:43

you dry right now. What are they going to do next year? They

48:45

have to make money next year too. So

48:49

there's actually a kind of political

48:51

channels here that act

48:54

as a safety valve. The population feels

48:57

that the government is listening to them, the government

48:59

keeps saying that it's listening to them. And

49:02

now I think that all of

49:04

that, to get back to the power of words

49:06

just by themselves,

49:08

just being able to do that, even if

49:10

you didn't actually get anything

49:12

from it, is a kind of political

49:15

safety valve. You blow off steam that

49:17

way, whatever. You feel like you've been heard.

49:21

This is actually quite common in petitions today. Citizens

49:24

in modern countries petition local

49:26

governments, state governments, federal governments for

49:28

this or that and the other thing. And

49:31

what drives them mad more

49:33

than anything is not

49:35

being heard or feeling that they're not

49:37

being heard, that their complaint just

49:39

goes into the vacuum. And

49:43

you often see this, like they sometimes just respond

49:45

in the most extreme ways when they feel

49:49

that no one's listening.

49:50

Whereas if they feel that

49:53

they've been heard

49:55

and there's a hearing and they get

49:57

they say, and even if it goes against them, yeah.

49:59

they'll grumble, whatever, but I think

50:02

it produces a lot less discontent. So

50:05

this is how I think the system is working.

50:08

And I

50:09

can go through, you talked

50:12

about the armies. I

50:14

think it's very clear that the Roman armies

50:16

are acting in pretty much the ways

50:19

that the emperors say they are to protect

50:21

the provincial Roman population,

50:24

especially in the periods like

50:27

after the 7th century when it was a much

50:30

more serious matter. And

50:33

that the provincial population

50:35

was perfectly aligned with the mission of

50:37

the Roman armies. I'll just

50:40

give you one illustration of this. After

50:44

the 7th century, you rarely

50:46

ever hear of abuses

50:48

committed by soldiers on

50:50

the provincial population. I

50:53

mean, they do, but it's very rare. So I

50:57

think there's an alignment there, but that's

50:59

a matter of survival when

51:01

it comes to the army. The trickiest

51:03

argument was to make about taxation,

51:07

because you've got to align all of these different

51:09

parts of the argument together, even if

51:11

they seem to be pointing in the opposite direction

51:13

and have long been taken to be pointing

51:16

in the opposite direction. But I think that the survival

51:18

of this state

51:21

is the biggest indicator

51:23

that this system was working. And

51:27

I mean, hard evidence

51:29

for tax discontent would be a revolt

51:31

based on taxation, either

51:35

provincial unrest or

51:37

even a usurper whose

51:40

program is, I will reduce

51:43

taxes, which we never

51:45

hear of, which is a very strong

51:47

argument for saying

51:50

that the taxation levels were relatively

51:52

accepted.

51:54

So this is another political

51:58

valve. It's just

51:59

it's just a supercharged one. So

52:02

yes,

52:03

we know that there are lots

52:05

of coups and rebellions in East

52:07

Roman history whose

52:10

purpose is always just to replace the emperor in Constantinople,

52:13

never to

52:16

break away. This is

52:18

important. So when provincial

52:20

populations feel that perhaps, let's

52:24

say

52:25

the current emperor is taxing too much, there are always

52:27

complaints about this, and let's suppose,

52:29

for the sake of argument, let's suppose that

52:32

this was actually a motivating factor in like,

52:34

no, I'm going to support rebel general

52:37

whatever

52:39

because

52:41

he will fix this problem. He'll go to Constantinople

52:44

and he'll lower it up. By the way, I can think of a

52:46

case. This is actually the first

52:50

rebel

52:52

after the foundation of Constantinople

52:55

is this guy called Procopius, not the historian. This

52:57

is a fourth century guy named Procopius 364, 365, who

53:01

rebelled against Valens. And the

53:03

odd thing is that Procopius was in Constantinople

53:06

and gained control of it and Valens was in Asia Minor.

53:09

Valens wins in the end through military action.

53:14

But

53:18

one of the grounds of discontent that Procopius

53:21

tapped into was

53:23

that people in and around Constantinople

53:26

did not like the way one of Valens's officials

53:28

was collecting taxes. It was too heart-strict.

53:33

And specifically, Amiana says that

53:36

this guy was like

53:39

not remitting past taxes. Just

53:42

think about that for a moment. It means that there's an expectation

53:45

that like, if you didn't pay

53:48

taxes 10 years ago and you

53:50

somehow got away with it, that the state is

53:52

not going to come after you for those back taxes.

53:55

That's fascinating by itself. That this

53:57

is expectation. Well,

54:00

Procopius loses, but

54:03

after Valens wins, he really scales

54:05

back the strictness of tax collection. So

54:07

he learns his lesson, right? So in a certain

54:10

sense, rebellion

54:12

is in a way a supercharged petition. Yeah.

54:15

Right?

54:17

Yeah. The people who supported

54:19

Procopius weren't punished

54:21

by Valens, really. I mean, he

54:24

was angry at Constantinople as a whole afterwards. What

54:27

are you going to do? Maybe like not

54:30

give them games for a few years, like, you know,

54:32

whatever. Okay. But

54:35

in the end, they kind of got what they wanted, right? So

54:38

the threat of supporting a rival

54:40

who might scale that back

54:43

is enough to get emperors to scale

54:45

it back preemptively, right? So

54:48

this is also kind of the dynamic of the

54:50

system. It works that way too.

54:52

And I think this argument, from

54:55

my limited perspective, benefits from a comparative

54:57

approach, because at the end

55:00

of sort of each century of narrative, I would sort

55:02

of round up how the empires' neighbors

55:06

were functioning to make the narrative make more

55:08

sense. And so

55:10

I saw Abbasid Baghdad

55:13

collapse into chaos

55:16

and Egypt suffering

55:19

tax revolts across multiple

55:22

sort of generations of Muslim government.

55:24

And we don't see that in Byzantium.

55:27

Exactly. This is probably

55:30

the most important dog

55:32

that didn't bark in the night. But

55:35

we have to bring it out and

55:37

look at it, because you're right.

55:40

For a thousand years, we don't

55:43

get like what are in other fields

55:45

called agrarian revolts, peasant

55:47

uprisings, right? You can call them tax

55:50

rebellions or whatever, whose

55:52

purpose is not to like affect the

55:54

political change in the capital so that things

55:56

can go back to normal,

55:58

but to like change the political change.

55:59

the terms of the agreement

56:02

altogether, right? Or to secede, to

56:04

break away, to kill the authorities, to

56:06

whatever. These are highly disruptive

56:09

events that happened in Egypt,

56:12

you know, before. This is fascinating.

56:14

Egypt was kind of rocked by these kinds of things, but

56:17

not during the periods of rule by Constantinople.

56:21

Like that's the thinnest, right,

56:24

when it comes to, like, agrarian discontent

56:27

in Egypt. And that's got to mean something,

56:29

right? But you're right, like, late

56:32

Abbasid Baghdad is just, it's

56:34

ungovernable.

56:35

It's just impossible for the authorities to get anything

56:37

done there.

56:39

You'll have, you

56:41

know, regions that cause perpetual

56:43

armed, that are responsible for armed

56:46

conflict on and on and on and on. This doesn't

56:48

happen. And I think

56:50

it's because the

56:53

system was working in this way.

56:55

And by the way, this is a tremendous competitive

56:57

advantage if we're talking about the longevity

57:00

of states. I

57:03

don't know that there are many states that were just brought,

57:05

I mean, in China, yes. In

57:07

China, agrarian revolts did bring down

57:10

some of the states that emerged there. You know, on

57:13

this side of, offhand,

57:15

I can't think of any, I know that

57:18

many states were rocked by them, Holy Roman

57:20

Empire and so forth, not actually

57:23

caused to collapse by them. But

57:27

if you're dealing with all sorts of other problems, as they

57:29

all are, and you have to deal with that on top

57:31

of it, you know, that can push

57:33

you over the that can tip you over the edge there.

57:37

So I think it was a tremendous advantage

57:39

that this kind of consensus

57:42

worked.

57:43

And that's how I understand the East Roman state.

57:46

Not perfect by any means.

57:49

Yeah, but it's one of the most successful

57:51

attempts to create a

57:53

high stakes agreement

57:56

between rulers and rules

57:58

that generated Incredible

58:01

revenues supported a very

58:03

large standing army, like professional

58:06

salaried army, and

58:10

ensured the longevity of this state.

58:14

Excellent.

58:16

Let's briefly talk

58:18

about the position of emperor, because this is something

58:21

listeners bring up time and time again. This

58:27

ultimate power in the hands of one man, who

58:29

then gets overthrown repeatedly.

58:33

When you came to talk about this, the subheading was

58:36

the monarchical republic. Can

58:39

you elaborate a little on that phrase and

58:42

talk about how this

58:45

kind of concept of legitimacy operated when it

58:48

came to imperial succession?

58:51

Right, or we can call it a republican

58:53

monarchy. Right. Yeah,

58:56

so this is obviously...

58:59

This usage of the terms is obviously meant to be somewhat

59:02

provocative, to get people to sort

59:04

of stop in their tracks and think, wait, what's being

59:06

said here? This is something new. And

59:09

it sort of is. It

59:11

relies on the meaning of the term republic

59:14

that's closer to the original meaning,

59:17

rather than the one that it acquires in modern historiography.

59:21

It begins to acquire this term, I don't

59:23

know, maybe 15th, 16th century, that

59:27

republic means a non-monarchical

59:30

form of regime. But it's not until

59:32

the late 18th century that

59:35

it kind of becomes in Western languages

59:37

the dominant meaning

59:39

of the term. So like in the UK, a

59:41

republican is someone who doesn't want

59:43

the monarchy. So they're kind of mutually

59:46

exclusive in that way. That's not what

59:48

the term meant in

59:50

the original Latin,

59:52

the res publica. Yeah, it

59:54

wasn't... And by the way, our

59:57

historiography has confused this issue

59:59

by... calling a particular period of Roman

1:00:02

history a the Republic, and

1:00:05

sets it off against the empire. These

1:00:08

are very confusing terms because

1:00:13

Republic comes from Res Publica, and the Romans always

1:00:16

understood their state and society

1:00:18

to be a Res Publica, regardless of whether

1:00:21

it was governed by the Senate, the

1:00:23

Senate and the people, or the emperors

1:00:25

later on. So the usage

1:00:28

of Res Publica does not stop

1:00:30

or change in the transition

1:00:32

from quote Republic to quote Empire,

1:00:36

add to which the quote

1:00:38

Republic was far more imperialistic

1:00:40

than quote the Empire in terms of conquering

1:00:43

lands and so forth. So we've created

1:00:45

a sort of confusion, a

1:00:48

tangle of confusions here. In

1:00:50

its original sense, Res Publica designated,

1:00:56

yes, the state, like the government

1:00:58

of the Roman people, but also their

1:01:01

common interests, the

1:01:03

public property, every

1:01:07

public affairs, and everything that the Romans

1:01:10

did collectively via their

1:01:12

institutions of government. But also, like

1:01:14

their society kind of writ large because

1:01:17

society was regulated by laws, and laws were

1:01:20

a matter for public authorities to

1:01:24

decide upon. So imagine

1:01:28

a meaning that means

1:01:30

both state and the parts

1:01:33

of society that are regulated

1:01:36

or part of state operations, something

1:01:38

like that.

1:01:42

It did not refer to a particular

1:01:44

type of regime. In fact, Cicero in his treatise,

1:01:47

the Dei Republica, he

1:01:49

talks about Res

1:01:52

Publica that are governed

1:01:54

by a monarchy, an oligarchy,

1:01:57

an aristocracy, or a democracy. And

1:01:59

he thinks all of the. are possible, but

1:02:01

he obviously prefers the kind of senatorial

1:02:04

aristocratic regime that he wanted. So

1:02:08

these are not mutually exclusive terms.

1:02:12

When it comes to the monarchical phase, so

1:02:14

yeah, the Roman Empire is basically a monarchy.

1:02:17

Like under Augustus and other emperors, it was sort

1:02:19

of trying to pretend that it wasn't.

1:02:21

Like we all know that, like, you

1:02:24

know, it was a, it was this weird situation

1:02:27

where someone who had all, you know, usually people

1:02:29

with power are trying to project it and make sure everybody

1:02:31

knows that they have all this power, but like

1:02:34

Augustus and his first successors are actually doing

1:02:36

the opposite. They have all this power,

1:02:38

nah, they're legions, but

1:02:41

they're trying to pretend that they don't so that

1:02:43

the Romans can feel like there's some sort of, you

1:02:46

know, continuity in their form of government. But anyway,

1:02:48

it's a monarchy. The Greek subjects in

1:02:51

the East understood this perfectly clearly. However,

1:02:55

it's a monarchy that has embedded in

1:02:57

it a lot of the core

1:02:59

values of the Roman tradition. Among

1:03:02

those are what we talked about earlier, like the expectation

1:03:05

that the, that the officials

1:03:08

in charge of the government are going to act in the interest

1:03:10

of all Romans. And

1:03:13

that if they don't do that, they're

1:03:16

failing in their, like,

1:03:18

official charge. So

1:03:22

seeing as this monarchy has

1:03:24

no succession system. Like

1:03:27

we said, there's a big hereditary, heredity

1:03:29

is a very loose form of

1:03:32

succession, sometimes happens, sometimes doesn't. Roman

1:03:35

emperors are like notoriously bad

1:03:37

at producing enough children. I

1:03:40

don't know why. This is something very interesting,

1:03:42

by the way. I've read

1:03:44

some,

1:03:45

some accounts trying to explain why

1:03:47

it is that Roman emperors don't produce errors that

1:03:50

much. Anyway,

1:03:52

but they don't. So there's

1:03:54

no succession.

1:03:58

There's no law of succession, not only that. There

1:04:02

are no institutions that

1:04:04

are charged with handling the succession.

1:04:07

Like even if you don't have heredity, like in

1:04:09

the Holy Roman Empire, you at least have

1:04:11

like this, the electors who

1:04:16

meet and decide whether,

1:04:18

you know, who's going to be the next well,

1:04:21

king of the Romans, they called it or

1:04:23

emperor of the Romans or whatever.

1:04:25

You don't even have that. So it's

1:04:27

this very ad hoc process every time,

1:04:30

every time it's ad hoc. There

1:04:32

are different factors that, you

1:04:35

know, put up a sort of quote, candidate

1:04:38

for the throne who has backing by XYZ

1:04:41

sectors of the population or stakeholders

1:04:44

in the Republic. And

1:04:47

then you have another process whereby that person

1:04:49

is, you know,

1:04:51

has a smooth road

1:04:53

to the succession or faces challengers.

1:04:57

Then there's another also

1:04:59

ad hoc process of acclamation in Constantinople.

1:05:02

That's when you're made emperor, like you become emperor

1:05:04

when the people in Constantinople or

1:05:07

wherever you are locally, acclaim

1:05:09

you as emperor. It really is

1:05:11

like that's the coronation moment. It's

1:05:14

not the actual coronation. The actual coronation

1:05:16

is just a symbolic ceremonial add on.

1:05:19

The real moment is acclamation.

1:05:24

So given that every emperor exists

1:05:26

in this situation where, I mean,

1:05:29

not only is the succession uncertain, but

1:05:32

his own tenure of the throne is uncertain

1:05:35

at any moment. Like if you think start

1:05:37

going really badly and people are grumbling your

1:05:39

boot in the hippodrome and whatever. So

1:05:43

that then raises the question, OK,

1:05:46

well,

1:05:47

by what standards are people.

1:05:50

Well, evaluating the job performance of an emperor

1:05:52

such that they sometimes reach their limit

1:05:55

and say, this guy's got to go, right?

1:05:56

Which they often do. it's

1:06:00

precisely the ones that we've been talking about. These

1:06:03

are the standards by which emperors are being

1:06:06

judged all the time and sometimes

1:06:09

held accountable. And

1:06:11

it's not just, you

1:06:15

know, the people or many

1:06:17

of the armies rising up and taking you down.

1:06:20

That's the most, that's just the most dramatic

1:06:23

way in which that can happen. But

1:06:26

it's also rivals

1:06:29

at the court who are watching and

1:06:31

seeing, oh, this guy's getting unpopular.

1:06:34

If I kill

1:06:36

him and take the throne, I won't

1:06:39

face much resistance. So like

1:06:41

the population at large need not

1:06:44

actually do anything for

1:06:47

this kind of republic in the system of assessment

1:06:50

to continue to operate in the sense that

1:06:52

everyone's looking at what the people

1:06:56

might do or might not do, right? Simiskis,

1:06:58

for example, murders focus. And,

1:07:03

you know, it's very carefully handled

1:07:05

at the court. They send out heralds into the

1:07:07

city saying, hey, this has happened. Keep

1:07:11

quiet. All is well and

1:07:14

is quiet. Nobody did anything. Right?

1:07:17

But when Michael the fifth, we talked

1:07:19

about tries to depose Zoe, the

1:07:23

whole population rises up

1:07:25

and takes him down. And that's

1:07:27

because Zoe was popular. Michael

1:07:30

the fifth was nowhere near as popular.

1:07:33

Whereas focus

1:07:34

had become very unpopular by

1:07:36

the end of his reign, precisely

1:07:39

for the reasons we were talking about. His

1:07:41

taxes had become too, his tax collection

1:07:43

had become too strict. Like there were two

1:07:45

things. He was imposing

1:07:48

too many taxes because his words were costing too

1:07:50

much. And the Romans

1:07:52

in Constantinople were all for the wars. They

1:07:54

love those wars until they started

1:07:57

costing too much. And so

1:07:59

he was raising taxes and doing all kinds of financial

1:08:01

shenanigans and that made him very unpopular. So

1:08:04

when he was killed, everyone was like, okay,

1:08:06

let's see what this guy does.

1:08:09

And the other thing that he was doing was

1:08:11

that his family was perceived

1:08:13

by some to be corrupt, that

1:08:16

they were profiteering off of the war and

1:08:18

famine that had occurred during one of those years and

1:08:20

they were hoarding and overcharging

1:08:23

and things like that. So again, the regime

1:08:27

failed in its perception at least,

1:08:29

in how it was perceived

1:08:32

by the population when it comes to taxation

1:08:35

and corruption. And

1:08:37

so they didn't have that kind

1:08:40

of protection when they

1:08:42

needed it. Now nothing would have saved Tvokas because he

1:08:44

was murdered in a commando operation

1:08:48

late at

1:08:50

night by people climbing ropes

1:08:52

over the walls. But his family

1:08:55

could have survived. He had lots of relatives

1:08:57

who were willing to step in. And

1:09:01

in fact, they kept trying to do that for another 20

1:09:03

years or so. But

1:09:06

no, no, Tvokas as a whole

1:09:08

became unpopular because of

1:09:10

all of this. So this

1:09:13

is what I mean by a Republican monarchy.

1:09:16

It's a monarchy in which the monarch

1:09:18

is being judged by

1:09:20

the standards of how well

1:09:23

he's doing his job vis-a-vis

1:09:26

his Roman subjects.

1:09:28

And that if he's not doing

1:09:31

it well, he

1:09:33

might be ended or whatever

1:09:35

in any combination of ways. The

1:09:38

particulars are always contingent

1:09:40

and I think are

1:09:42

of less interest than the kind of structural

1:09:45

situation that the emperor finds himself in. Always

1:09:48

looking over his shoulder and but

1:09:50

always also looking at the people in the hippodrome

1:09:53

to make sure that they aren't booing. And if they're booing,

1:09:55

you'd better find out why and do something

1:09:57

about it.

1:09:59

And this to me is one of the most interesting

1:10:04

aspects of your work across

1:10:06

multiple books now, is

1:10:08

to argue that what seems

1:10:11

like instability to

1:10:13

a narrative listener of my

1:10:15

podcast, for example, you know, another

1:10:18

emperor's being killed, particularly during

1:10:20

times when there's an invasion and, you know,

1:10:22

the worst possible time and so on and so on. So

1:10:25

listeners will often say, why couldn't the Romans come up

1:10:27

with a better system of succession? And

1:10:30

I think your work is arguing that the

1:10:33

people didn't want that focus

1:10:36

builds a wall around

1:10:38

the palace. And this is seen as a provocation.

1:10:41

Nobody in the population is going, well, this

1:10:43

will be better for the stability of the state

1:10:45

long term. They're saying this is an outrage

1:10:48

because their attitude

1:10:50

is part of the safety

1:10:52

valve of the state is

1:10:55

if someone's doing such a

1:10:57

bad job, we have the right essentially to go

1:11:00

in and kill them. And equally, if someone tries

1:11:02

to remove an emperor we like, we will defend them

1:11:04

with our lives. So that

1:11:07

top position, its

1:11:09

vulnerability is

1:11:12

part of why the system works. And what I

1:11:14

think people find difficult is that this is not

1:11:17

a formal agreement like a royal

1:11:19

bloodline. It's an informal

1:11:22

agreement, but one that goes on and on and on centuries

1:11:24

and centuries. So it was understood by people. It's

1:11:27

just not written down in a way that

1:11:29

historians have picked up on easily. Exactly.

1:11:32

It's exactly what you said. It's a feature, not a bug.

1:11:34

And it has

1:11:39

its, you know, historically,

1:11:43

it's positives and it's negatives. So for

1:11:45

example, your

1:11:48

audience will be familiar with the

1:11:51

final major siege of Constantinople

1:11:53

by the Arabs, 17 to 1718, masterfully handled.

1:12:00

by Leo the Third, like phenomenal

1:12:02

strategic response that probably

1:12:05

only he could have pulled off. And

1:12:07

now think of the turn

1:12:10

of succession right before him where you have

1:12:13

user patient after user patient as one person

1:12:15

is put in and thrown out. All the while

1:12:17

they know that the Arabs are preparing

1:12:20

this massive expedition by land and by

1:12:22

sea to take Constantinople. Arab

1:12:24

armies have entered Asia

1:12:26

Minor, they're sailing up the Aegean. And

1:12:29

the Romans are just constantly deposing

1:12:32

one another. Yeah,

1:12:35

until they get the person who actually can

1:12:37

do the job and he does the job, right?

1:12:40

But it has negative aspects

1:12:43

too. So think of the 1070s, right? Turks

1:12:48

are taking over Asia Minor and you have a

1:12:50

weak regime in Constantinople that

1:12:54

it's so bad at handling the situation

1:12:56

that it starts facing multiple

1:12:59

simultaneous rebellions by its generals,

1:13:02

especially toward the end of the 1070s

1:13:04

that,

1:13:06

I mean, didn't do any good

1:13:08

in, it

1:13:11

distracted everybody from what's

1:13:13

going on in Asia Minor. So

1:13:16

that was a moment where like that doesn't work.

1:13:19

But that was like one of the top three

1:13:21

major crises in East Roman

1:13:23

history.

1:13:25

But yeah, you're right. I think there was

1:13:27

an understanding of how this system

1:13:29

worked. And there were many

1:13:31

times, by the way, there's so many times

1:13:34

when they appoint a childless old man

1:13:38

to be emperor, like especially

1:13:40

between the fifth and sixth centuries has happened,

1:13:42

this was a norm. And again, in the 11th,

1:13:46

it's like, yeah, you know that

1:13:48

this is an anti-dynastic choice. You're

1:13:51

just putting someone in for a while and then

1:13:53

it'll come back to you.

1:13:56

Well, let me ask you about one specific

1:13:58

incident, which will be very... hopefully fresh

1:14:00

in the listeners minds because I think

1:14:03

another reason that

1:14:05

It's taken you closely reading

1:14:07

the sources to bring these things out Is

1:14:10

that even some of the Roman

1:14:13

historians? Down play

1:14:15

the role of the people in this

1:14:17

system so I'm talking about the

1:14:20

final period of our narrative before the Fourth

1:14:22

Crusade where it seems

1:14:25

evident after Andronicus

1:14:29

is death that Constantinople

1:14:31

itself is becoming increasingly hard to

1:14:33

govern that the We

1:14:37

there are there are coups happening people are trying to

1:14:39

replicate Isaac Angelos is rise

1:14:42

by occupying the aheas of fear and

1:14:45

you get the sense that some aristocrats

1:14:47

are kind of Sailing back and forth

1:14:49

from one palace to the other at the end of the city

1:14:51

and don't don't feel confident to

1:14:53

even march down but

1:14:55

you know the messy and and deal

1:14:58

with the people now that's

1:15:00

a very general sense, but so coni

1:15:02

artis is covering all this and he seems to

1:15:04

me to Ignore

1:15:07

the people he doesn't describe in detail what's

1:15:09

going on with the populace he sticks

1:15:11

to criticizing the Angaloy

1:15:14

for their failures and You

1:15:17

think he kind of Despite

1:15:20

trying to ignore the people gives the game away that they

1:15:22

are important in his considerations

1:15:25

Oh, he often

1:15:27

gives that away I mean there

1:15:29

are couple passages where he does so explicitly but first

1:15:31

let me say

1:15:33

Let me address the general point that you made at the beginning there,

1:15:35

and you're entirely right So

1:15:37

ancient well pre-modern

1:15:39

historians generally Don't

1:15:42

do sociology Right

1:15:47

They're terrible

1:15:48

at describing Well,

1:15:54

you know any non-elite strata of the

1:15:56

population the genre

1:15:58

of historiography was very much about

1:16:01

wars and high politics and,

1:16:03

you know, high personalities and

1:16:05

all of that.

1:16:07

And

1:16:09

this just wasn't very much

1:16:11

on their radar.

1:16:14

And in a chronicle where

1:16:16

you're just kind of briefly describing what happened each

1:16:18

year, it's much easier to say,

1:16:20

oh, and in this year, the people rose up

1:16:22

and burned the guy

1:16:26

in charge of the fiscal bureau

1:16:28

and or whatever, and then

1:16:31

you move on next entry. The next year, the Arabs

1:16:33

invaded and whatever. That

1:16:35

doesn't require any analysis. In a full

1:16:38

history like Konyatis' writing, where

1:16:41

you give background and detail and so on, this

1:16:44

is very poorly provided when

1:16:46

it comes to the people of Constantinople.

1:16:49

Who they were, how many they were, how were

1:16:51

they organized? They

1:16:55

clearly were, let me

1:16:57

put it differently, there

1:17:00

were throughout East

1:17:02

Roman society, private

1:17:05

associations. These

1:17:07

were professional guilds, occupational

1:17:10

guilds. These were religious

1:17:12

confraternities. These

1:17:15

were, right, so these are associations

1:17:18

that are not, you

1:17:21

know, part of the state system. They

1:17:25

are, they're probably pervasive,

1:17:29

right? So it's very likely, and I've

1:17:32

only just recently become kind

1:17:35

of aware of this by

1:17:39

reading some articles about very specialized topics

1:17:41

that you wouldn't think, oh wait,

1:17:44

this is going to give you a different view of society. But it's very likely

1:17:47

that pretty much everyone, I mean

1:17:49

free citizens, belong to either some occupational

1:17:51

group, worship

1:17:55

group, they, you know, confraternities

1:17:57

attached to this church, or they're not. that

1:18:00

church. We

1:18:03

have to see all that through these

1:18:05

very few snippets

1:18:07

of information that appear

1:18:10

in just random odd

1:18:12

to marginal sources that

1:18:14

you know the historians don't

1:18:17

often look at. There's

1:18:19

little documents that survive here and there

1:18:22

or just casual mentions in the

1:18:24

hagiography things like that. So

1:18:27

you

1:18:29

could potentially come up

1:18:31

with a very different view of

1:18:35

civil society

1:18:36

right

1:18:37

very different from like older views

1:18:39

which were that

1:18:40

this was an Adam I society

1:18:42

nothing held it together as every man for himself

1:18:45

and so on. You know it's

1:18:47

possible that we'll end up one day at exactly

1:18:50

the opposite point of view. It's a highly interconnected

1:18:52

society with lots of private association. You

1:18:54

wouldn't know any of that from the historians

1:18:57

which is you

1:18:58

know why this hasn't been a big picture of

1:19:00

our a big part of our picture of the

1:19:03

society. You know

1:19:05

and a lot of colleagues are working to fill that in

1:19:07

and that's great

1:19:08

but from Konyathes you would never know this.

1:19:11

All right so for him the people

1:19:13

are just this lump mass

1:19:15

the off low sometimes here you know they're just the

1:19:18

mob or whatever and that's

1:19:20

fairly consistent with his class outlook

1:19:23

and yet he

1:19:26

gives the picture he gives the game away

1:19:28

a couple of times so I noticed some passes

1:19:30

I talk about these in the business Republic book. So

1:19:33

one is the point

1:19:35

at which the

1:19:39

the Emperor Isakios Angelos

1:19:41

is deposed 1195. He's deposed by

1:19:43

his brother Alexios

1:19:45

the third and Konyathes

1:19:48

has a passage where he talks about

1:19:50

how you know the

1:19:52

news arrived this happened at a military

1:19:55

base camp outside of in Thrace so

1:19:58

he deposes about now they know The

1:20:00

next thing for every emperor is to obtain,

1:20:03

is a secure recognition of his status by

1:20:05

all of the stakeholders in the republic. Kumponiati's

1:20:09

lists. And he lists the Senate

1:20:12

and, well, also the court,

1:20:15

the Senate, and the Dimos, the people.

1:20:18

And he says when the people heard the announcement,

1:20:21

they didn't engage in seditious behavior. They

1:20:23

were all calm and so on. Despite

1:20:26

the fact that the army had

1:20:28

removed from them their customary right

1:20:31

to appoint the emperor. So

1:20:33

he kind of recognizes it right there, that

1:20:36

the acquiesced in a decision made by the army.

1:20:39

By the way, he's not entirely right here. The

1:20:41

armies had often appointed emperors,

1:20:44

but those emperors couldn't rule until

1:20:46

they had also been accepted

1:20:49

in Constantinople. There were plenty of armies that had claimed emperors

1:20:52

only to have them rejected by Constantinople. So

1:20:54

anyway, so he has that passage.

1:20:57

And there's another very interesting one when

1:21:00

the Dimos is usually,

1:21:04

not a villain, but something he snips

1:21:07

at, sort of is very aloof toward for

1:21:09

most of the narrative. But in 1204,

1:21:14

and so this is before the crusaders

1:21:17

take Constantinople for the second time and

1:21:21

dismember the empire. So

1:21:23

it's in this chaotic period when

1:21:26

there's Alexios

1:21:28

the fourth, Alexios the fifth and

1:21:32

they're fighting and the crusaders are camped on

1:21:34

the other side of the golden horn and the people

1:21:36

in the city are confused and it's a chaotic

1:21:39

moment. Coniades

1:21:41

actually recognized that the populace of the

1:21:43

city, the Dimodas, he says,

1:21:45

they acquitted themselves like men as

1:21:48

if they were pressing the emperor, this is Alexios

1:21:50

the fourth, to help

1:21:52

them against the Latins when they

1:21:54

saw as foreign conquerors and not side

1:21:56

with them as they were the patriots,

1:21:59

Patriotes. But,

1:22:02

you know, Alexis didn't heed them

1:22:04

and so forth. And in fact, the populace,

1:22:07

finding no response

1:22:10

from Alexis in this matter, they

1:22:12

organized their own defense of the

1:22:14

city and appointed their own leaders. And

1:22:18

Alexis V emerged from that kind

1:22:20

of movement. Sorry,

1:22:22

there are a lot of Alexi in this period.

1:22:26

There are at least three of them who were emperors.

1:22:29

But, Honiatis, because at that

1:22:32

moment he sees this kind of, you

1:22:34

know, Romans V, Latins, and

1:22:36

he takes this very patriotically. And

1:22:39

at that moment, it's the people of the city

1:22:41

whom he doesn't, you know, he doesn't talk about their organization,

1:22:44

he doesn't talk about their leaders, he doesn't, those

1:22:46

things existed, he just doesn't talk about them,

1:22:49

right? Were they organized by neighborhood? Were they organized

1:22:51

by occupational groups? We don't know.

1:22:55

But he just kind of sees them from afar, kind of stratospherically

1:22:58

as the people. But in that moment, he actually

1:23:01

praises them because they were like the patriots. They

1:23:03

took it upon themselves to defend the city. So

1:23:06

yeah, there are moments when even he

1:23:08

will, you know, give this away.

1:23:13

Well as we wrap

1:23:14

up today, I kind of wanted

1:23:17

to ask a question which may come in slightly

1:23:20

multiple parts because I really enjoyed the book and

1:23:22

I felt that collectively

1:23:25

you were somewhat making the argument that

1:23:27

the East Roman state

1:23:30

functioned really well, that it

1:23:33

was a better governmental

1:23:37

system than its neighbors

1:23:40

and functioned

1:23:44

well in a way that we perhaps don't see because

1:23:46

of its territorial decline. We

1:23:49

tend to associate territorial decline with

1:23:52

the internal failings of a system.

1:23:55

And I felt that part of your argument was

1:23:58

this government worked pretty well. and that

1:24:00

those territorial collapses were a

1:24:03

separate issue.

1:24:04

And I felt that

1:24:06

your book was particularly valuable in making that argument

1:24:09

because I think most history

1:24:11

books I grew up reading that I enjoyed

1:24:15

were entirely deterministic, that they were

1:24:17

saying because Western

1:24:19

Europe rose and Byzantium

1:24:21

fell, systems in

1:24:23

Western Europe must have been great and the way

1:24:25

governments should function, whereas Byzantium must

1:24:28

have been decaying for

1:24:30

centuries and was decadent and poorly

1:24:32

run. And I felt your book

1:24:34

was not directly but

1:24:36

was ending up correcting that kind

1:24:39

of view of history.

1:24:42

Yes, to a degree. Let

1:24:45

me first say that I

1:24:47

don't take any pre-modern

1:24:49

state as a model

1:24:53

for anything that we should be doing

1:24:55

today, just to be clear. Yes.

1:24:59

And certainly not this one, not

1:25:01

because it was worse than

1:25:04

any other, but because we

1:25:07

are at a point where

1:25:09

I think we can imagine and

1:25:12

actually carry out much better

1:25:14

things. And

1:25:16

so I think it's a

1:25:18

bad idea to look to

1:25:20

the past. But also

1:25:23

I generally don't see any reason

1:25:26

for my politics to

1:25:30

have anything to do with my

1:25:32

historical scholarship when I'm talking about something

1:25:34

I was like, a thousand or two thousand or

1:25:36

five to 500 years ago.

1:25:40

And I find that's too often the case, that

1:25:45

we talk about pre-modern societies in ways

1:25:47

that have some

1:25:49

sort of direct bearing or are supposed to

1:25:51

have some sort of direct bearing on political

1:25:54

decisions that we make today. I completely

1:25:56

separate those two things. They're just not,

1:25:59

anyway.

1:26:00

Having said that, you are correct

1:26:03

that the argument of the book is that this

1:26:05

was a well-functioning

1:26:08

society, pretty well-regulated most

1:26:11

of the time, and

1:26:14

did, well, not just

1:26:16

a good job of keeping itself,

1:26:20

you know,

1:26:23

of preserving itself through a very

1:26:26

difficult period of history, but

1:26:28

doing so with regard to

1:26:31

a certain set of common values that

1:26:33

not all of which we would find reprehensible

1:26:36

today. In fact, most of them are okay. A

1:26:38

lot of them are not. For example, the emphasis

1:26:42

on, you know, orthodoxy

1:26:44

and conformity and the persecution

1:26:46

of dissidents and, you know,

1:26:48

on that sort of thing. That's

1:26:51

very problematic, but it

1:26:53

also goes back to problematic aspects of the Roman

1:26:55

tradition. Anyway,

1:26:58

there are a number of things that I don't particularly

1:27:01

like, the kind of Republican –

1:27:03

the way that they enacted Republicanism.

1:27:06

We can do it without that much violence. Anyway,

1:27:10

so this is by no means do I think

1:27:12

of this as a model society. Compared

1:27:15

to its peers, oh yeah.

1:27:17

I mean, if I had to randomly pick –

1:27:21

if I had to be assigned to anyone –

1:27:26

yes, I'd rather be in that one – then what,

1:27:28

the Carolingian Empire or the Caliphate?

1:27:31

Just like good lord. No, these

1:27:33

were all very, very dysfunctional societies,

1:27:35

and the ones that emerged in the West –

1:27:38

by the way, I mean this point needs to be made

1:27:40

that

1:27:42

Romania was a single state. Western

1:27:46

Europe is just a

1:27:51

chaotic medley of kingdoms

1:27:54

and cities and occasional empires

1:27:57

and peoples and languages and whatever.

1:28:00

that, you know, they're

1:28:04

not comparable as units

1:28:06

in that way. So

1:28:09

Western Europe is not the homeland of

1:28:11

any, you know, particular person

1:28:14

is not the polity, it's

1:28:16

something much, much smaller usually.

1:28:18

And with much

1:28:20

smaller things, you,

1:28:24

especially if they're sort of isolated, like, for

1:28:27

example, you know, some other kingdoms

1:28:30

that lasted as long as that of

1:28:32

Constantinople, Portugal.

1:28:37

Yeah, because you know,

1:28:39

you're not dealing with bulgars and Arabs and

1:28:41

Avars and Mongols, and you

1:28:43

name it, right?

1:28:45

Or for that matter, you know, England.

1:28:47

Like, yeah, okay. You

1:28:52

know, what else? Venice. Yeah,

1:28:54

because you're a city-state. It's

1:28:56

like there are a lot of city-states that last for a very long

1:28:59

time because, right? But in

1:29:01

terms of a state

1:29:03

of that size, straddling

1:29:05

two continents, which is like a passageway

1:29:08

of peoples, right? And

1:29:10

having to deal with what they dealt

1:29:12

with for the millennium of medieval history,

1:29:16

I think they did a pretty good job. So

1:29:20

yes, that is the takeaway. And because

1:29:23

it lasted for so long, our focus

1:29:26

really, really needs to be on why

1:29:29

this lasted for so long and

1:29:31

not why it, quote, declined when it did.

1:29:35

Almost all of its

1:29:38

moments of failure and, quote,

1:29:40

when it lost territories is because of

1:29:43

some extraordinary external

1:29:47

shock. But its

1:29:49

success, its powers

1:29:51

of resilience and revitalization,

1:29:54

those all came from inside. And

1:29:57

I think that's the most telling thing about this society.

1:30:01

Fantastic.

1:30:01

Thank you so much.

1:30:04

And normally I'd say, you know, goodbye,

1:30:07

but I plan on bringing you back repeatedly to

1:30:09

talk about this book. So I will

1:30:11

see you again soon.

1:30:14

I look forward to that, Robin, and I will

1:30:16

prepare. I will prepare

1:30:18

like I did for this time. You are. I got

1:30:20

to say you're amazing, really. I mean, most

1:30:23

podcasts don't make it past like

1:30:25

episode 10. I think that's just,

1:30:28

you

1:30:29

know, and you've reached hundreds and hundreds

1:30:31

now. I know like 270 or something

1:30:33

is posted, but you've probably done more for

1:30:36

patrons and so forth. And

1:30:39

so you deserve real

1:30:41

kudos for this success,

1:30:44

which rivals that of your

1:30:45

topic in

1:30:47

podcast terms. You're very

1:30:49

kind. I was going to say they keep going on and

1:30:52

on. So so do I. Thank

1:30:54

you. But the good work. Thanks

1:30:57

again to Professor Goldellis, who will of course

1:30:59

return next week. In the meantime,

1:31:02

if you're interested in hearing more about those pesky

1:31:04

ambitious Latins, then why not

1:31:07

check out the podcast Grand Dukes

1:31:09

of the West? Josh Zucker

1:31:11

is covering one of those lesser known but fascinating

1:31:14

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1:31:16

Burgundy and its role in later

1:31:18

medieval history. Visit

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1:31:22

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