Ever wondered how often Rome crosses your mind in a day? Grab your time-travel gear and join us, Tanner and Darren, as we journey back to the grandeur of the Roman Empire. Our conversation takes off from the Republic's inception in 509 BC, sailing through its transformation into an Empire under Augustus Caesar in 27 BC, and peaking at its zenith under Emperor Trajan. We'll also give you a snapshot of the Empire's population during the time of Jesus and a comparison with the world population growth over the past 50 years.
It's time to unravel the enduring legacy of the Romans - their tongue is woven into our language, their legal systems form the bedrock of ours, and their representative government has set the stage for modern democracies. As architects and engineers, they've left us in awe with their enduring structures, from roads to aqueducts. We'll also explore how they adopted and adapted Greek culture and religion, a cultural exchange that has shaped the world in profound ways. Finally, let's talk about the Roman Empire's influence on your daily life. Get ready to share your favorite Roman fact and reflect on how often you think about Rome in your daily life.
Ever wondered how often Rome crosses your mind in a day? Grab your time-travel gear and join us, Tanner and Darren, as we journey back to the grandeur of the Roman Empire. Our conversation takes off from the Republic's inception in 509 BC, sailing through its transformation into an Empire under Augustus Caesar in 27 BC, and peaking at its zenith under Emperor Trajan. We'll also give you a snapshot of the Empire's population during the time of Jesus and a comparison with the world population growth over the past 50 years.
It's time to unravel the enduring legacy of the Romans - their tongue is woven into our language, their legal systems form the bedrock of ours, and their representative government has set the stage for modern democracies. As architects and engineers, they've left us in awe with their enduring structures, from roads to aqueducts. We'll also explore how they adopted and adapted Greek culture and religion, a cultural exchange that has shaped the world in profound ways. Finally, let's talk about the Roman Empire's influence on your daily life. Get ready to share your favorite Roman fact and reflect on how often you think about Rome in your daily life.
Alright, welcome back to the boys chat. You got Tanner and Darren here with you today. I'm gonna excuse the other guys. They got caught up in their little busy tonight or today or whatever. I don't know when y'all are listening to this, but when we're recording it is in the evening. I don't know why I'm telling you that, but it is what it is. Anyways, this topic it's pretty hot right now. It's a pretty hot topic. If there are any ladies out there listening, I want you to pause real fast. Go ask your man if you have one. If you don't call up a, man that you know brother, father, cousin, what have you roommate?
Speaker 1:if I'll do that, anyways, go find a book, go find a man and ask him this simple question I'm sure you've seen it on TikTok, but it's how often do you think about the Roman Empire and see his?
Speaker 2:reaction. How much do you think your dad thinks about?
Speaker 1:it Not sure I can't remember if we asked him or not, but I wouldn't be surprised if it was more often than I would think, although I'm pretty sure he probably thinks about ancient Egypt more because we've watched documentaries about ancient Egypt together. Okay, so I'd say that I've seen TikToks, where it's like it's not just the Roman Empire, that's a subset of the male species, but then you also got pirates, you got the Egyptian guys, you got Greek guys, they went over a couple other ones. It's like that. There's your list. There's all the subset of the main species of the males, but Roman seems to be a little bit bigger because, if you think about it, the Roman Empire never disappeared, it just reformed into the Catholic Church, roman Catholic baby.
Speaker 2:I don't get me started.
Speaker 1:Anyways. So today we're just going to kind of go over a brief outline, a summary of start to finish of the Roman Empire, maybe throw in some little facts you got you know of engineering, architecture, some of their other achievements, and maybe some fun facts. If we have time and if this does well, if you guys like it, we will definitely do another episode and dive further into the Roman Empire, because there's a lot here to uncover. Anyways, let's dive right into this. So the start of the Roman Empire from the research I did, there was kind of like a few different points in when the Empire started. So it was actually the trace back to the Foundings of the Roman Republic, which was 509 BC. So Rome started as a Republic, not an Empire. Now, the you know in a Republic is elected officials, democracy, what have you right, it was essentially starting with a Senate.
Speaker 1:Yeah, it started with like an elected, like president, if you would. I'm not sure if they called it a president or whatnot, but anyways. And then the transition from Republic to Empire. They claim it started with Augustus Caesar, which was Julius Caesar's son, even though Julius Caesar in 44, 49 BC he said I'm the dictator, I'm the ruler of the Roman Republic. So technically it was kind of an Empire, but they don't officially call it like the Roman Empire until his son, or adopted son, otherwise known as originally known as Octavian, later known as Augustus, consolidated all the power and became the first emperor in 27 BC. Now, I'm not exactly sure how about that time. I looked at a couple websites and they were all kind of right around that time there was never. There was some that were saying earlier, later, but about 27 BC was when it officially became an Empire.
Speaker 2:So like plugging that into like, because once you get into historical, like ancient times, like that, the thing that makes it click best in my brain is just like Bible, you know, gives it a little bit more of a timeline, right. So it's like Rome was just barely like, I guess, not becoming established but becoming an Empire right before like Jesus was born 30 years. Yeah.
Speaker 1:So, oh man, I can't remember who was the Empire during, like Jesus's mission. I guess you know, in the three years that he was going around, preaching.
Speaker 2:There was a King Herald, but that was a Rome, though I don't think that was wrong.
Speaker 1:I'm not really sure what that tie in is, he was King of something I don't know, but anyways, the Empire lasted like 500 years or something like that. In the height of the Roman Empire it reached its greatest territorial extent under Emperor Trajan t r a j a n, and I believe he ruled from 98 to 117 BC or no AD, CE. I Don't know how I'm gonna say AD. I think CE is the scientific Era, so I'm gonna say AD. And in its height it expanded three continents Europe, africa and Asia. I believe it's yeah, because Rome is in Italy, so it was like almost all of Europe. You stretch down into Africa and then you come over here to the Middle East and All of those people over there, jerusalem, which makes sense because that's over in the, the Middle East, on the east part of the Mediterranean. Yet it also included providence is from modern-day Britain to Egypt, from Spain to Mesopotamia, so literally, you like there, it is one of the biggest to ever exist, although I think the Ottoman Empire was bigger.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you know, it's just because lack of population, it was easier to control right.
Speaker 1:I mean there wasn't that many people During that time. I was watching a video and they were. They were actually talking about how many people were around during, like the time Of Jesus, and it was only a few hundred thousand people. Okay, we just barely. In the last few years, well, in the last 50 years, the population has doubled from four to eight billion. We just hit the eight billion persons mark and if you take it the the graph back, there was a Few hundred thousand people maybe. I think is how many it was. I Could be wrong, but that's that. That was known people, you know, because you got the people over here in the America's, you got all through Asia, all through Africa. I mean there's still tribes in Africa the way I haven't even touched yet.
Speaker 2:So yeah, and like South America, the Amazons and everything.
Speaker 1:Yeah, so I'm sure there was. I mean, there's far more people on the earth than we think, but we just guess. So then the decline and the fall of the Roman Empire. You know the whole saying oh, rome wasn't built in the day, but it burned, just true. So there was no single cause for Rome to crumble and fall. It was a few different things that they Claim. It was economic decline, military challenges, political instability and then division. So Kind of like America right now. I'm not gonna lie I taxation, inflation and reliance on slave labor weakened the economy. Sounds like America minus the slave labor.
Speaker 2:You know, depends on what time in the time when you're looking at.
Speaker 1:Right now, man, I'm right now. Military challenges were barbarian, invasions and border conflicts, strained at their resources. So people trying to get at Rome, you know they got to obviously send men and resources and stuff to defend. That weakened it. Political instability so they had weak and ineffective emperors which contributed to the instability which I mean makes sense. If you don't have a strong leader then You're gonna fail. Get on a deep. I am like using today.
Speaker 2:For Rome, like they're. Their whole mentality when it came to like outside threats was a strong offense is the best defense, you know. No, they're like going and just If they feel threatened by any outside source, they go and take the fight to them, conquer them. And Rome, you know, and that's why the border gets so big, that then it's super hard to control, whereas if you look at like the Greeks, athens in particular, it was like its own, like government, I guess right, because the Greeks weren't super organized when Athens, the first democracy, the city out there it's got just like one massive, like mountain type hill right in the middle of it, different one Actually yeah, now the one this is in is in Greece, but in Athens there's like the big one that's got the Parthenon, like the temple to the gods and everything Right, and from there they had a watchtower, everything else all around that completely flat for like Probably a hundred miles Right you can see anything coming in, and if it's only one city, like you throw up walls, all your defenses are like pretty dense.
Speaker 2:You know Whereas. Well, the bigger they get, the more resources. Also, if they're relying on slave labor, like he said, then you have to have forces inside of Rome to help keep slaves in wine, as well as people on the border to help keep the barbarians from coming in right.
Speaker 1:I think Rome was more focused on expansion and Conquering as much as they could. Where I feel like, from everything I've known about, like ancient Greece, it's, they weren't necessarily trying to expand as much as they were just trying to like Expand into other parts of Greece and take over, like Athens versus Sparta, right where they're both Greek but they're Divided amongst themselves. And there was a couple other you know places like that, but they were like the big ones, just trying to gain control of each other but not Go out, as much you know. Then they had the Persians come in and battle of Thermopylae and you know, by by Sparta.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like the Ath or the. The Greeks just had like a lot smaller, were a lot more smaller minded or like smaller view of the world. Right, the Rome like help fill in a lot of the edges and like help expand just our knowledge of the world.
Speaker 1:Right. So, and then division in the Empire. It's split into the Western and the Eastern Empires, and the Eastern was the Byzantine Byzantine I know I'm saying that wrong Empire in 20, it's not 20, sorry 285 AD. So then, some key events in the decline was the sack of Rome by the Vizygoths in 410 and then by the Vandals in 455. And then the deposition of the last Roman Empire, emperor Romulus Augustus. I butchered that completely.
Speaker 2:I think the first one was Romulus.
Speaker 1:Romulus Augustus in 476 by the dramatic chieftain Odessur, and that was traditionally considered the end of the Western Roman Empire. So just before 580, it kind of went Kapotsky. So four or 500 years worth of ruling, which is a lot I mean, the Egyptians ruled for longer in their Empire but still pretty big.
Speaker 2:And then the legacy. What are we adding in America 1776. We're at 250 years, or halfway yeah, halfway to what Rome was, and to already see like the freaking roller coaster that we've seen as a country, that's not yeah, I mean, it's like.
Speaker 1:Great Britain because the British Empire was massive as well and that lasted. I mean they're older than America, yeah. Not nearly as big.
Speaker 2:Lasted. They've been taken L's left and right.
Speaker 1:That's true. 1776. 1812. My eagle noises.
Speaker 2:So Now, but then, to throw all of that even more into perspective, you think of, like the Egyptians, that era was huge because, like Cleopatra, that was thousands of years. Yeah, cleopatra was born closer to today's date than to like the construction of the Egyptians. Well, even just the pyramids, which means like Egypt was established, you know that's great.
Speaker 1:The dynastic Egyptians so kind of the ones that we mainly focus on, like right around Cleopatra and that era, they had their own archaeologists and historians digging up ancient Egypt, yeah, trying to figure out what that is, I mean, and the whole pyramids thing, that's a whole. Oh. Was it slaves? Was it aliens? What was it? You know, what were they used for? Because they weren't initially used for, because it was a Khufu. Khufu was in the Great Pyramid. That's where he wanted to be buried and his reign, from when he Became cheater Pharaoh or whatever 20 died, was, I think, 30 years or close to that. Okay, or maybe that's how old he was, I can't remember. But you know, during his 30 year reign or something, the amount of Sandstone they had to cut and move in place to build the Great Pyramid was like Thousands per second or something. They had to move so much Non-stop for 30 years straight to build it during his lifespan.
Speaker 1:So there's thoughts that they're way older than the dynastic Egyptians and that they were built by maybe a more ancient civilization. We don't have any record of them because Maybe they didn't use. You know by what, once a civilization gets far enough, they start, instead of on, on tablets and stuff, they start using paper. And then, once you get even further, you start using you know technology and if, say, a giant flood comes or something goes crazy EMP, the world resets, this stuff is junk and garbage and it gets thrown out the window and then, like with paper, water comes in, that's gone. Oh, we don't have any proof that they exist or something you know. There's a lot of speculation. So it's really it's. They were converted from Whatever they were before to then a burial thing for Khufu, another.
Speaker 2:No, okay, it was probably a palace of some sort. Like it makes a sound battery.
Speaker 1:I've seen something. It was a battery or power source or something, so I Guess we'll never know yeah.
Speaker 2:Okay, so 500 years for Rome long time, but also Not Hmm compared to other things, of course, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1:But now I think the reason why most men think about the Roman Empire, or at most people think about it, is not like, oh, yes, me and my platoon of soldiers, which was called a platoon or whatever oh, you know, we want to go do whatever, be Roman Soldiers. I think it's more about what they left behind. So really, if you break it down, we probably think and use stuff left over from the Roman Empire in our daily lives more than we give credit for it. Like there's roads in Italy that the Roman Empire built 2000 years ago. So they obviously. And then you know, you've got roads here and it's after three days there garbage, or oh, yep.
Speaker 2:Those cobblestone streets and everything like in Mexico, ridiculously smooth. Obviously there's like lots of cracks just at the junction of like all the cobblestones. But, or whatever it's called. They were like bricks, but not like square bricks, I don't know they. They had like a weird shape to them, so they'd like fit together perfectly. Puzzle pieces. Right but, like, as I was walking down those streets, I'd see people laying those by hand and like right, those last Mmm.
Speaker 1:Crazy anyways yeah, so some other. Some more of the legacy and impact on modern day that Rome had was one the language, latin, which was the language of the Romans, led to the foundation of a lot of Languages like French, spanish, italian, portuguese and Romanian, so some pretty popular languages. And English today. Yeah, I mean English was kind of a subset of multiple different things, but, but, yes, english as well. I think they consider English as a subset of something else, but we have a lot of roots and whatnot, so language is very popular today.
Speaker 1:The legal system, so, like the concept of innocent until proven guilty and the rule of law those have their place in modern day legal systems and those were popularized by the Romans. Same with, like the idea of representative government. Whereas Greece and Athens had the first democracy, I think the idea of electing people and having representative and stuff like that was very popularized by the Romans and since the Roman Empire was so much bigger than the Greek Empire, they kind of get credit for it. I'm not sure how old is the like Athens compared to Rome, because the.
Speaker 1:Roman Republic, because the Roman Republic started 400 BC. So really the Roman Republic or Empire was like eight or 900 years old, but the Empire part was half of that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, so the Greeks were definitely around before Romans, like the original, romans came from the Greeks. That's why, like religion and everything like our gods are so similar, they just adapted and made a more war, like and more Roman, essentially. So, yeah, I can't remember how Athens ended up being beat or whatever crumbly, but Athens was definitely around before Roman time, and then it might even be Romans that ended up going back and conquering Athens. I'm not sure.
Speaker 1:Maybe it would make sense because I think they did at one point because the Roman Empire expanded the majority of, like the Mediterranean. They got the northeast and south part, so I would imagine that they probably at one point took over Greece.
Speaker 2:Yeah, they definitely took over Greece. I'm just trying to remember if Athens had like, fallen to the Persians, or like someone else before Rome got there, or like who was in control when Rome took it over. But I know like a lot of the ancient stuff, like palaces that Greeks had made the Romans adopted. Well, they like destroyed them because they're like, no, these are our gods. Now, you know, just trying to take them out of here.
Speaker 1:Well, just trying to take them out, bring on Apollo, so. And then another big one was architecture. Roman engineering and architecture, including the use of arches and aqueducts, are still visible in many modern buildings. And one big thing, and now the whole, like arches and stuff and the big pillars were also kind of Greek, like with the Parthenon and their temples. So you see it from both of those civilizations and you see it a lot with, like United States Capitol buildings. You got the massive giant pillars and I'm not sure if those are more Greek or if they're more Roman, but either way, like that style came from this era. And then you know, aqueducts are just, they're still aqueducts, I believe, in parts of Italy that are still used today. That would go back then. Yeah, those suckers are crazy.
Speaker 1:I watched a video about Roman aqueducts and how they work. It was like they would, because the way an aqueduct works, right, it's pretty much just like a trench where the water comes in and they have to slope it the whole way. So they go try and find nice water up high and then it gets down and slide all the way down to wherever it needs to, and so you couldn't always go up and over mountains and hills so they'd go through them. And the way they'd go through them was they go to the top and the math behind it was they would drill down so far and then start digging both ways and then they would frame it up and stuff like that Water would rush through and then it was like it would go into like these big pits and somehow it would fill up and then go down to the next one and all that stuff so they could get around. Sometimes the height issue it was just nuts.
Speaker 2:It was something crazy with aqueducts when we were walking through Pompeii.
Speaker 2:It was like, honestly, from an archeological point of view, pompeii is nuts, just like we're walking the same streets that like ancient Romans were.
Speaker 2:That was so cool, but it was like they had like sidewalks down the side and then right down the middle of the street they had like a couple of big stepping stones to get from one sidewalk to the other. So it made it look like it was just made for water running down like all of the major streets, and then be like random, like fountain type things that would fill up and then spill over so you could go to the fountain if you needed fresh water. But then I'm pretty sure like all the waste and everything would just be running down the street. So like more hygienic than if you were just pooping in a pit, you know, but don't imagine having the sewage running at surface level down main street. It smelled very good, even though it was healthier and more sanitary not ideal, you know. Right Cool how they had the fresh water that would spill out into the contaminated water so you could go and get the fresh stuff Right, and then they would have the old part of the same water system.
Speaker 1:That's cool. All right, let's hit a couple of these achievements that they have. So obviously they're engineering and architect architecture, which we can dive crazy far into those. Those were some big achievements that they had that are still used today. A lot of their engineering. The idea of roads and infrastructure also was popularized by the Romans and the extensive network of Roman roads which facilitated trade, movement of armies and what have you. That was a big thing that are still. The idea I think is used today of having wide enough roads to where you can quickly get an army down is a big thing, because that was their armies were pretty big. They're small ones. Even their small ones are big. The legal system, roman law, representative doing stuff like that, and how the people, citizens have certain rights that are like you have rights as a citizen that you just like given, god given and whatnot. Their political concepts are still used, like having a Senate which is, excuse me, was a big Roman thing during the Republic.
Speaker 2:It's like a Congress for us, but like the same thing, just different word for it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I mean we have a Senate and whatnot, but yeah, same idea where it's, you elect people to go speak for your area.
Speaker 2:I guess how does it feel again that we've got senators?
Speaker 1:Yeah, we've got senators, because I mean, with how big that empire was, they couldn't. It makes sense because it's like the people that are in Rome are gonna be different than the people in Egypt, that are gonna be different than the people in Greece and different than people in the Holy land and whatnot. So it makes sense. Their military tactics, the legionary system and siege, warfare, religion, art and sculpture, public entertainment, so gladiators and having amplitheaters and plays were popularized by them and the whole gladiator idea where it's you go in your butt heads winter comes out on top kind of translates into certain sports, I guess, where it's like you put in your bodies, I think, like rugby, hockey, lacrosse, american football a little bit. Where it's like you go into this giant arena, I guess, and fight for legacy, I guess.
Speaker 2:Also, as you're talking about that, I was thinking about the artwork. Like Greeks were the first ones that really started jumping into artwork and sculpting and painting and stuff like that, and we visited Roman Greece like back to back within a week of each other. So it was just super cool to see the comparison. Everything Greek was like pretty crude. It was just like it was good or like it was impressive that they were doing that back in the day. But like Roman stuff is nuts. They had like tapestries, like quilts, the paintings, all the sculptures, which also all the sculptures used to be painted, and like the paints faded. But like, yeah, imagine all that white marble, marble painted realistically. That'd be like that's kind of spooky, that's weird.
Speaker 1:Yeah, especially the green leaf down at the oh no. And then, just to wrap this up, roman numerals are still a very common occurrence. For instance, the Super Bowl uses Roman numerals to decide or not decide, to tell you what number it is, and it started with Super Bowl five. So instead of writing you know, a five or whatever, they use the Roman numeral, which was a V for five. And ever since then it's been tradition to use Roman numerals, and those are, I mean, star Wars, did it Star Wars? Those Roman numerals are their thing. So obviously it's pretty prominent. So, yeah, people get their tattoos.
Speaker 1:Roman numerals are some important date, but yeah, so really the Roman Empire has more of an impact on our daily lives than we give it credit for. So thank you for listening. I hope you all learned something. Let us know your favorite fact about Rome, or how often do you think about Rome, and let us know if you want us to dive deeper into their architecture, their engineering and maybe their military I think their military is pretty impressive and their ideas. So, yeah, just let us know what you like, what you didn't like. Subscribe, click the bell, let us know and we will catch you next week. Bye, see ya.