Julius Caesar's Masculinity Lessons with Alex Petkas

Foreign.

Alex, welcome back by popular demand to the Man Talk Show.

Great to be here, Connor.

Yeah, man, I loved our last conversation. I think people are really into it, and so I'm looking forward to our conversation today. We're gonna be talking a lot about Julius Caesar, which I'm not really a historian or a history buff, but I know a little bit about him, and he's a fascinating character. So with that, what would you say that the life or the character of Julius Caesar have to teach about. Have to teach modern men about masculinity today?

Well, I think Caesar is. It's really fascinating because. Well, for a lot of reasons. I mean, he's so. He's this common conception of Caesar is. He's a dictator, maybe he's a tyrant. There was a recent BBC documentary on Caesar that's like, oh, drawing these kind of, you know, modern comparisons to the rise of strongman. And he. He kind of comes off as this Mussolini figure, but actually, Caesar was a really popular, like, massively beloved peacemaker of a man, and with the exception of the great civil war that he kicked off, which we could get into, but he's also. He kind of breaks the mold in a way. He's this amazing general and statesman. He's a soldier's soldier, but he's also a very charming man. He writes poetry.

He'S very good with women, and he has, I think, Julius Caesar kind of embodies this, like, full.

Spectrum of masculinity that he kind of masters the softer skills and the kind of more feminine side of manly virtue, if you could call it that. And he's also a man of the people in so many ways.

Politically, he's most well known for championing policies that try to help out the Roman poor, try to help out the common man. He promotes talented outsiders. You know, it's a very kind of ossified political system where it's hard for outsiders to get in and make their way. In Rome, there's this very, very entrenched establishment, and he, like, promotes outsiders. So there's really a lot to admire about the man as. As just a political figure, but like, as a. As a kind of model of masculinity. I think he's just got so many aspects to his character, and I've. I've. So I've been doing this biography series on him recently and really diving deep in. And a lot of it's quite surprising. You know, for example, he's. He kind of starts out his life as an underdog, which I always find inspiring. So yeah, a lot to dig into.

How, I mean, politics back then seemed to be a little bit different. There's no social media, there's no tv, there's no radio. You know, like, how does somebody like Trump Julius Caesar even rise to fame or power? Is it, is it really through narrative and story? Is it just about actions and accolades? Like, talk to me a little bit about that because I think, you know, I think when men in today's world think about success, the, the pathway, I think can sometimes be colored by the days of old, you know, that some of the principles of how men rose to prominence and maybe gained status within the world even 2000 years ago or a thousand years ago, are still applicable to today. So I'm very curious about that.

Totally. Julius Caesar is one of history's great storytellers and that was his superpower politically, even militarily, you know, because it's about motivating your troops. And he's. One of his most famous accomplishments is writing this book that ends up being a world classic. His, his commentaries on the Gallic War. It's like one of the great military history, military strategy books that, that was read by, you know, Victorian officer corps and I mean, George Washington kept a copy with him and countless examples of Caesar's Gallic War commentaries being popular. I, I, partly because they're militarily useful and he really explains what's going on with his strategy and his dealing with logistics and traders, but also because it's just really fun writing. He paints vivid stories about the enemies, about himself, about all of his soldiers. And you can tell in that commentary that this is one of the ways that he was able to build constituencies. Telling stories that appeal to a lot of people, promoting his supporters by really praising them when they did well, portraying his enemies as kind of crazy kooks and bad people. He's very good at that also. So it's clear that he practiced this also. This is something that he really worked at too. He famously wrote poems when he was a boy that were later suppressed. It's not that he was trying to be a professional poet, but it was kind of about sharpening his skill and so, so it really paid off for him.

So when he like talk to me a little bit about his rise into prominence because I think it seems like he had a very interesting past where he was the author sort of historian, he had something to do with reforming the calendar as well. I'm not mistaken that, which sort of like introduced the 365 day calendar with a leap year every four years.

Just seems like he was kind of a Renaissance man, like a man of, like, many different talents and. And passions. What really got him into politics?

Yeah. No, and the month of July, which is the month that he was born, is named after him. Julius. July. Right. It used to be called Quintalis. And after. So the calendar reform was after he became the kind of dictator after he won the civil war.

But his rise is really interesting. So.

When he's a teenager, Julius Caesar suffers this tragedy. His father suddenly dies. He's like, tying his shoes one day, and Caesar is 15 or something, and his dad just drops dead. And his dad's a prominent politician. He's kind of up and coming. He never made it to really high office, but he was, you know, respectably. He was like a preter, which is the second highest office in Rome. There a bunch of people get there. But what. He almost doesn't make it out of childhood or out of adolescence because. So the kind of backstory here is at Rome, there are two main political factions. There are the optimates, who are the conservatives, and then there are the populists, the populares, who are the kind of radicals.

Looking to push through policies like land reform, land redistribution.

They really like to raise the penalties on corruption of the oligarchs. And the conservatives are usually pushing back against things like wealth redistribution and egalitarianism. And so Caesar has the fortune. When he's a boy, his. Well, actually before he's born, his aunt, his dad's sister, marries one of the greatest men in Rome. This guy Gaius Marius, who is a populist general, like one of the greatest generals of all time in Rome. He sort of saves Rome from these invading Gauls from. From France, these wild barbarian tribes who are trying to conquer Italy. He also wins a war in Africa. And Gaius Marius becomes the kind of most outstanding politician in Rome, even though he's a populist, he's an outsider, but he kind of works his way up through merit, marries well into Julius Caesar's family. The Caesar family is a very old name in Rome. They're not necessarily the most glorious of families, but they have a good reputation. So Gaius Marius marries well, marries respectively. And so Caesar grows up with this guy as his uncle, seeing them on family holidays. But Marius, right around the time caesar's. He's probably 12. Gaius Marius inadvertently kicks off this civil war with one of. By picking a fight with one of the greatest. Well, the leading figure of the Conservative Party, this guy Sulla. And there's a. A couple of coups and counter coups at Rome that are not all that bloody but very scary. And then Gaius Marius dies and, and then the, the populists are in charge at Rome. And the guy who succeeds Gaius Marius. There's another thing that's amazing about Caesar. The guy who succeed succeeds Marius. This gentleman Cinna is, becomes the first man in Rome himself. He's a populist. And he picks the teenage Julius Caesar to marry his daughter. So Caesar marries the daughter of one of the most prominent men in Rome. He's got all these prospects, you know, okay, his dad might have died, but like, you know, he's, he's connected with some really powerful people. But then Gaius Marius, old enemy and Cinna's enemy, the conservative optimate Sulla, comes back from a great war in the east and he just brings vengeance. And this massive, incredibly bloody civil war, like the civil war proper begins. Caesar's 17 maybe, and Sulla kills. I mean, like we're talking hundreds of thousands of people dying all across Italy. And then when Sulla gets back, it's very interesting for Caesar's story, like the what if? So Sulla wins the war and he blames the populists for the war. Of course that's what you're going to do. And so he makes a list of all of the remaining populists that he blames for the war. And he basically puts a bounty on their head. It's called proscription. He proscribes them, puts their names up in the Forum and the heads start literally rolling. They come into Sulla for, you know, people bringing in heads to this guy in the Forum. They get a bounty. And the, the men that were on that list, their property's confiscated and very importantly, their sons and their sons, sons are barred from politics for life. So Sulla wants to make sure that none of his enemies can ever kind of rise up and topple the regime that he's establishing. So if Caesar's dad was alive, he would have been on that list if he hadn't died already. And Caesar would have either, you know, probably been banned from politics for life if, if, if that had happened. So in a way, like his dad dying early sort of spared Caesar from some of the worst excesses of this regime. And I think that he kind of leaves childhood for that reason with the sense of like having been spared by fortune. I think this gives him this really powerful sense of purpose. There was, there's another incident where he, so Sulla is in charge and he, he sees this boy married to the daughter of Cinna, who he blames for the. Cinna's dead now, and he orders Julius Caesar, all right, you should divorce your wife. We want to get rid of the name of. Of Cornelius Cinna in Rome. And Caesar says, you know, no, screw you, and I love this girl. And. And then he flees town, and Sulla puts a bounty on his head. But Caesar manages to buy off the centurion, and they. Some. Some relatives negotiate for him. So he almost lost his political career from his, you know, his dad being proscribed, but, you know, that didn't happen. And then he almost lost his life from standing up to Sulla. He's like a bold guy. So I think he kind of leaves childhood with the sense of, like, his whole life is borrowed time, you know, And. And I think that that was part of his motivation for getting into politics. You know, he. He came from a political family, of course, and this is like, an important thing for most Roman aristocrats, but this sense of everybody. I mean, a lot of those people that were murdered after the civil Civil war were the people that Caesar was hoping to make a career with. They were all, like. All of his political network were all, you know, dead or exiled. And so he kind of ends up, you know, bereft of all support as a. As a teenager, but at least he's alive. And so that kind of becomes his mission in life, to kind of undo the kind of conservative crackdown on Roman politics, and he ends up siding with the populace for the rest of his career. So.

Wild man. I mean, I feel like if anybody had gone through that in our modern times, psychologists and therapists would be like, oh, my gosh, the trauma. The trauma. But here's. Here's this.

Yeah.

Yes, this. This poor patient. Yeah.

It'S so interesting because that's just sort of the time, you know, that they were in. I mean, it's. It's really. It's really interesting because when I. When I read about, you know, the lives of people like Julius Caesar, it. It almost. It seems so far from our reality in a lot of ways.

In some ways not. You know, I mean, there's still a ton of war, right? I mean, you see what's happening different parts of the world. I mean, there's still a ton of war, and there's still people that are dying every single day from.

From.

From that. But it's a very different type of war, you know, And I think what's interesting about what you're talking about is that politics and generals are intertwined they're sort of one in the same back in the day.

Yeah.

And that, that politicians were sort of great warriors simultaneously, which is a very different form of politics than we have today.

Right.

You're not going to battle and slaughtering people and then returning back to sort of make decisions about policy for your country.

Right.

I mean that's maybe, maybe there's some examples of that for sure. But I think it's more few and far between. Has, does, does Julius Caesar talk about in his work and I'm curious about this. Does he talk about losing his father and the impact that that had on him?

It's really interesting.

He.

He doesn't. He does talk. There's a speech that we have a little fragment of that survives where.

He'S kind of made his way in Rome to some extent. He's in his 30s and he's holding kind of minor office. And his aunt dies. And his aunt Julia was her name.

This is the wife of Gaius Marius, the kind of person who aligned his family with the populace in the first place, perhaps. And he.

Stages a huge public funeral for his aunt and, and he gives a speech in praise of her and praising her virtues. And it's kind of an occasion for him to praise his own family line, which actually goes back to Venus. Is, is what the legend has like that. I don't know if this is kind of Roman mythology, but you know, the goddess Venus rescues this Trojan Aeneas from the flames of Troy when the Greeks sacked it. And he takes the ship and his way to Italy. So Caesar kind of claims descent to this goddess Venus, who is the God of love, but also the God of like, charm and persuasion. So that's important to him. He does actually.

Doesn'T talk directly about his father's death and anything that we have, he, he does stage a big, big funeral game celebration 20 years after his father dies. So he's a, again, I think a minus minor office hold holder. But he's kind of building his career. And so he borrows a lot of money to have a humongous party in Rome. Funeral games in honor of his dad and there's gladiatorial competitions. He gets like 600 gladiators. I mean, he's got some serious financial backing at this point. He goes into massive debt to celebrate his father's honor. So it's clearly like really important to him. It's also an excuse to, to, you know, throw a big party that's going to make everybody remember your name for the upcoming election. So, you know, Caesar never does Anything kind of on accident politically, but it's noteworthy. You know, his daughter dies.

When he's at war in Gaul. And he writes this, you know, this year by year commentary. And that year, you know, nothing. No mention of his daughter dying, even though, you know, he was his only child. It must have crushed him. And she was so beloved by the Roman people, and she was important for his political alliance. But I don't know, he kind of kept the stiff upper lip at times when we. When we see him have the opportunity to do something like that.

Yeah. Some of. Some of his life, like, just seems mythical, you know, like, it's just like some of his life really sounds like something out of the Odyssey or the Iliad. He know, like. And I don't know if this is 100% true or if this is rumor, but I read somewhere that he was. When. When he was young, he was kidnapped by pirates.

Yes.

And that they demanded a certain ransom for his release. And he, like, he's rumored to have joked about saying he was worth more than what they were asking.

Yeah.

You know, it's like they were asking for, I don't know, like. Like the version of, like, we'll just say, like, 20 bucks. And he was like, I'm. I'm worth at least 50. Like, what's wrong with you? And then. And then to. Threatens to basically, if he's released, threatens to basically, like, raise an army or, like, a. Not an army, like a naval force, and, like, come back and kill them or, like, crucify them.

Yeah.

Does he end up doing that? Or, like, how does that unfold?

He does exactly that. That's all true. And. And the story is, as one ancient writer puts it, he's. He's like a captive on the boats, you know.

And he's their prisoner, and he composes poetry and recites it to them, and when they don't applaud, he calls them illiterate barbarians. And he's sort of insulting them.

As though they're his servants and not his captors. And he jokes with them. Yeah, I'm gonna have you all crucified when I get free. And they're like, oh, boy. Yeah, good one, Julius. And then he does. You know, so, yeah, he has a sense of humor. He's able to, like, you know, have fun, even with people that he intends to do away with someday. What a guy. You know, where.

Where does the. Where does the philosophy and the poetry fit in? Because I think, you know, I think one of the things that's kind of been strip Mined out of modern manhood and masculinity is this sort of more softer skills or like the more feminine oriented things that men historically have always done. Dancing, poetry, music, those types of things. I think we've gone through an era where those things were almost looked down upon. I think now they're a little bit more acceptable, you know, but it seems to me as though people like Julius Caesar and back in his day, those things were not only acceptable, but they were a sign of something for men. And I'm wondering if you can speak about some of that.

Yeah, this is a great question and it's a great. There's a great tradition in ancient thought that poetry is really, it's really important to power. The Greek mythology of this is the muses who are the goddesses of, you know, the arts, dancing, history, poetry, also astronomy, but especially like the goddesses of, you know, celebratory culture. Let's say they are the daughters of Zeus and memory. So memory this clear, you know, this is kind of a pre literate culture where everything that's important you have to remember you can't write anything down before you have like widespread literacy.

But the daughters of Zeus are the daughters of the God of order in the cosmos. And so they dance as Hesiod, this Greek poet portrays it. They dance in front of Zeus and they charm all the gods. And the muses kind of sit beside the throne of the king, they give charm to his words. Because the king isn't just about being the toughest chimp, right? It's the chimp that can, that can peacemake and.

Build alliances. And storytelling is a big part of that. Getting people like the muses or poetry, it has this rhythmic quality that, that's really important for.

Battle lines of Spartans and Athenians would get together and they'd chant these songs and hammer their shields on the ground, all in rhythm. And it can be very intimidating. This is something very important about poetry and both storytelling and kind of rhythm for power in the Greek mind. And the Romans took this up too. And by Caesar's day.

It was common practice to have your sons educated in Greek poetry. There's also a kind of recent tradition of Roman poetry developing. By his day it's only about 100 years old, even though the Greeks kind of go back 800 years at that point. And I think you see this in a lot of great historical figures too who aspire to. And maybe they're inspired by Caesar. But you know, Alexander Hamilton composes a lot of poetry, some of it not very Good, but survives. When he's a young man, he's kind of sharpening his wit. You know, Napoleon writes some terrible novels when he's a teenager.

It's not that they're trying to be novelists or entertainers, but they're. They realize that there's this. There's this power of language, that.

Studying poetry and maybe trying to try your hand at it a little bit too, gives you this sense of the power of words and choosing your words really precisely.

And bringing out the full meaning of a situation. Like if you recite the right poem at a feast, you know, that can put everybody in tears and people will remember you for that reason. So it's a really. And there's a great Athenian statesman from a lot earlier than Julius Caesar, but he was famous in Caesar's day. Solon of Athens, who used poetry as kind of part of his political propaganda. Because, you know, if you can get people chanting your rhymes, then they'll remember you and they might remember your policies. You can kind of shape their consciousness in a way. Way. So I think the Romans took this stuff very seriously as a kind of art of not just a pleasure, but of power, too.

So. Interesting. Yeah. I mean, that connection between power and poetry is interesting. I never heard it put that way before, but it makes a lot of sense. And I mean, sometimes at the men's weekends or even in the alliance, the men's community that we have, like, I'll read poetry off and other men will read poetry off sometimes. And I think that there's. There's kind of a resurgence of that, you know, even like in the. Like the mythopoetic men's movement of the 80s and the 90s.

Robert Bly and.

Yeah, Robert Bly. You know, all those guys, I mean, they've. They really brought poetry back into the. The fold of, like, self understanding, you know, and there's kind of. It seems very interesting that there's kind of this unspoken.

Knowledge and knowing that in order to know thyself as a man, you have to be willing to venture into these softer areas of oration and poetry and music and dance, and that you have to have some type of tether to that or some type of pursuit to that. But I've never really put the link there between poetry and power. I think that's a very interesting one. What about Julius. What about Caesar's ability to storytell? Because that seems to be something that he was extremely known for. How. Well, first off, maybe just shape a little bit of. Of where did storytelling fit into his life. And. And secondly, how do you think, or why do you think that modern men could benefit from being better storytellers? Because I do think that it's something that has really dropped off within our modern interactions and relationships.

Yeah, it's so important.

So Caesar. One good example of Caesar's storytelling is from the Gallic war commentaries. We were talking a little bit before we started recording about HBO's Rome series. And if anybody's heard of that, there's two characters in HBO Rome, Rome. There's Titus Pullo and Lucius Venus. Venus. And he's. They are these soldiers in Caesar's army that kind of become comic relief and also, like a window into the plebeian life at Rome. Well, these are actually real characters that Caesar.

Portrayed in his Gallic war commentaries that were fighting under him in this incredible war in Gaul. And I pulled up the quote here. So there's a. There's. One of Caesar's lieutenants is being, you know, ferociously attacked. He's in winter quarters in Gaul, and the Gauls attack his. His fort. He's greatly outnumbered. And so they're. They're fighting for their lives. And if it's all right, I could. I could read this little passage that actually inspired HBO Rome. And this is. This is Caesar's word, Caesar's storytelling translated from the Latin. And so he says, in that legion, there were two most gallant centurions. Now. Now, not far from the first class of their rank, Titus Pullo and Lucius Vorinus. They had continual quarrels together as to which one was to stand first. And every year they struggled in fierce rivalry for the chief post. So they're kind of frenemies. One of them, Polo, when the fight was fiercest by the entrenchments, said, why do you hesitate, Vorenas? Or what chance of proving your bravery do you wait for? This day shall decide our quarrels. So saying, he stepped outside the entrenchments and dashed upon the section of the enemy which seemed to be in closest array. Nor did Varinus keep apart within the rampart, but in fear of what all men would think, he followed hard. So one of them goes into battle, and the other's like, so ashamed that he goes into just, you know, recklessly charging the enemies. Then, at short range, Polo sent his pike at the enemy and pierced one man as he ran forward from the host. When the gall was struck senseless, the enemy sought to cover him with their shields and discharged their spears in a volley at Polo, giving him no chance of retreating. Polo's Shield was penetrated and a dart lodged in his belt. I think that actually is. They portray that in the Rome series. This accident threw his scabbard out of place and delayed his right hand as he tried to draw his sword. And while he was in difficulty, the enemy surrounded him. His rival Varinus ran up to him and helped him in his distress. Upon him at once, all the hosts turned and left. Pullo supposing him to be slain by the dart. And so basically, you know, they, they kind of fight, fight their way back to the lines, each kind of saving the other in turn, even though they'd been great rivals. And, and at the end, Caesar says.

It was impossible to decide which should be considered the better man in valor. So Caesar's kind of saying, and the rivalry is going to continue after this story. So. So Caesar loves to. I mean, that's great storytelling. You know, he's got direct quote, right? He's got the conflict. There's. There's this intense time pressure because you don't know when you're reading this if, if the legion's going to survive. There's a kind of tension built into the story. Caesar just manipulating all that masterfully. But I think this illustrates Caesar.

Not just having fun and entertaining you, but he's promoting his men. He's showing what kind of men fight for him and showing what kind of men he wants fighting for him. And so the Gallic war commentaries, for context, these are his. These are kind of tidied up versions of his war reports that he would send back to the Senate and the people of Rome to be read in Rome while he's way off in Gaul. And so in a way, he's kind of doing soft recruiting. Like, he's always looking for volunteers and talented men. And they're going to see, hey, if I fight for Caesar and I show myself honorable, I might get a, a nod from the big man. In one of his Gallic war commentaries, he's always praising his men and naming them now and then. That's like an exceptional honor. And it shows that these guys are just like, willing to die for him on occasion after occasion. They love Rome, they're dying for Rome, but they're also really dying for Caesar too. Like that comes through in other sources as well. They're passionately loyal to him. So storytelling is a great way to be able to give to other people.

That's something I think I really take inspiration from Caesar on.

Yeah, I think the. I've come back to this a couple times, but I remember reading I Think it was in Homo deus, where he talked about how the wars of the future will be fought in intersubjective reality, like the reality of narrative. And it's very interesting to see the evolution of. Of how story has been a part of our species. You know, as you're talking about Caesar using it for, like, recruitment and talking about the glories of battle and, you know, sort of positioning the glory of what things looked like and how things were going. And today I think that's very different, which is that the narrative has. Has accrued a lot more power, I think. Yeah, like, what the story is in a cultural, societal perspective is. I mean, it holds a lot, a lot of weight. And I think one of the challenges that a lot of I see a lot of men facing today is that they don't exactly know they're just a part of the story versus a contributing force to the narrative that's playing out. And I always think about this of like, how can we as men be more.

More integrated into the cultural or societal conversation and narrative that's happening? A bigger contributing factor to the story that's being told about what's happening right now. And I do think that part of that is how you tell the story of your own life, you know, and how you tell the stories of your life, the memories of the past, what's been happening in the present. I think all of that is incredibly relevant and it's a skill set that I think in many ways we've forgotten. But it's something that's so incredibly powerful, not just from a business perspective or in your job or whatever, but I even think about raising kids. My son's become obsessed with Sword in the Stone. I basically only let him watch old school Disney movies like Sword in the Stone, Peter Pan, Jungle Book. Those are the three movies that if he's going to watch anything tv, which he's only allowed to watch on like Saturdays, basically that's what he's allowed to watch. And he's become obsessed with Merlin and Arthur and Archimedes and so much so that every morning and every night he's wanting me to tell him stories about, you know, these sort of three characters that. And not just adventures from the movie, but just adventures that I like, create and make up. And it's really forced me to have to hone in my storytelling skills. You know, I'm thinking on the fly, I'm sort of using my imagination. Like these big grandiose things are happening. I'm having to create a like, story Arc and all those. All those types of things. And it really got me thinking of, you know, in my youth was some of my greatest memories of my grandfather as an example was the stories that he would tell me. And he would make up these, you know, elaborate stories of animals interacting or from the war because he had fought in World War II. And I mean, some of the stories were just. I would. You know, I'd be so enthralled by them. And I think that, again, tying this back into modern men, I think that we've lost the thread in a lot of ways of the remembrance of how potent stories actually are, and that your ability to tell some type of a narrative or contribute to a story in some capacity carries enormous weight. And I think that we as men need to pick up that. That sort of torch again. So that's just my little soapbox there for a moment, but I think it's incredibly important.

Absolutely. It's. I. You know, you and I both run retreats, and this is. This is something that. That we really focus on in our retreats is, you know, getting guys telling stories to each other, whether it's a historical character or just a personal anecdote. We had a guy on my last retreat talk about how his. His. His grandparents met the day Pearl harbor attack was attacked, and his grandfather was, like, conceived that night out of wedlock.

It was amazing.

It was a story about, like, you know, people. People today think they have to wait until everything is secure to have babies. And. But. But, you know, I think in. In the context of a family, you know, I've gotten to this point where I sit down at the dinner table. It's like every single night, my daughter's like, dad, can you tell a story? I'm tired from. From work. And I'm like, all right. You know, and. But it really. And. And they pick up on patterns really, really quickly, and they. They. I think that's a good skill to kind of model for your kids. The. The Arthurian legends are really powerful. I. Speaking of stories, I. And this. I think this is relevant. So forgive me if I talked about this last time. I tell this story a lot. So I. I visited Cornwall last summer with the family. We had some. Some friends invite us over there and had the opportunity to go in south southwest England, and there's a lot of Arthurian legends around a lot of these places. And one tagil. This castle dramatically placed on this kind of jutting out, outcropping into the sea. It's supposed to be where King Arthur was conceived. Out of wedlock.

And there's this thing, there's this place there that a lot of people don't go. So the castle's very dramatic. It's a tourist location. But.

In the town there is, I think it's called King Arthur's Halls or the Knights of the Round Table Halls. King Arthur's Great hall in Tintagel. You'll find it if you Google this. But this British, I don't know, business magnate, he was like a sugar baron or something in the early 20th century. Built this beautiful cathedral style building with his own funds. And he decorated it with amazing stained glass windows and beautiful pre Raphaelite paintings that just tell the story of the Holy Grail and Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table. And, you know, I'm so used to going to museums and everything being demystified.

But the way that this was all laid out, it was just like, this is a kind of shrine and it's a consecrated church, actually. You can get married in it.

But the whole story of the place is this is a shrine to these heroes. And they didn't raise the question of whether they were historical or not. He was just like, this is the story. This is what Sir Galahad did. This is why Sir Lancelot laid his life down. And going through this for my work, I tell these stories of ancient heroes and kind of try to revive memory of them. And I was just walking through, looking at these paintings and this kind of reverence that was.

Evident in the way that they were trying to kind of keep the flame alive. And I just, like, I was weeping the whole time. I mean, I'm not a big crier, but, like, it was really, really moving because these are tales that have been really, really important to generations in the past. And I think that they've kind of become pushed aside in modern culture, taken out of schools. They're. I don't know, it's like everything, all these great stories of heroic manliness and chivalry are sort of problematic or they're not, you know, in keeping with the times. And so, you know, those, those. If you have kids, those stories have a lot of power. I mean, I have daughters and. And they love Arthurian tales. There's plenty of ladies in waiting in those. And, you know, girls love nights too, obviously.

So. Yeah, no, it is very powerful.

That's great, man. Yeah, that's. That's awesome. I mean, I think it is interesting that I was talking about this in a. In a mini episode that I did the other day that we. We've Been going through this period of informing men of how to be men by telling them everything that they shouldn't do. Yeah, that's like, well, here, like how you want to. Here's how you should be a man. Don't do all these things. And it's like, okay, but that doesn't actually inform what we should be moving towards. That. That's not an aim. That's actually just things to be avoided. And I think that that vacancy is very detrimental for most men. You know, we need things to move towards. We need things to look at. I mean, one of the. Like Marcus Aurelius, for me, you know, it's just been his life and his stories and his reflections and, you know, the. I mean, the book Meditations is just so potent. And I think when we don't have those things or we look at them and say, you know, oh, that person was bad because, you know, they did something that we don't agree on today, but it was totally socially acceptable 2,000 years ago. Like, well, that doesn't mean that you should discredit everything that they thought and everything that they produced. You know, I mean, that's just. That's kind of insanity. And so. But. But I think that we, you know, Terence McKenna talked about this notion of, like, the archaic revival that. That the. The faster things go technologically within our society, the more there's a kind of pull towards old, ancient information and wisdom that still holds true within today's world, and that will almost always hold true. And I think that a lot of men are sort of feeling that pull of, like, well, if there's no men that I'm, quote, unquote, allowed to look to as a role model in today's world or in today's society, then where can I look? Well, I can look to the past and, you know, love them or hate them. Julius Caesar seems like a pretty phenomenal character, man. I mean, like, what a wild. What a wild dude. Let's. Let's return back to Sir Julius. What would you say are some of the psychological strategies or principles that he learned and. And deployed that kind of made him who he was?

Well, Caesar is.

There's some debate about this among scholars, but I think it's pretty clear Caesar is, if not a kind of doctrinaire devotee, at least very interested in Epicurean philosophy. And so there are several schools of philosophy in the ancient world, and the Stoics are one of them. You know, Marcus Aurelius is a follower of the Stoics. There's the Platonists and the Aristotelians, the Cynics. But the Epicureans were followers of this guy Epicurus, who lived in the early 3rd century BC. So hundreds of years before Caesar. Caesar born 100 BC and dies 44 BC.

Epicurus taught and he had followers in Rome. Epicurious Epicurus taught.

Well, a lot of things, but one of the key doctrines psychologically that he taught was that the, the best way to live is to pursue a state of tranquility. Ataraxia is what he called it. A lack of disturbance is what that, that name means. And for the Epicureans, the way to do that is to.

One of the ways is to live a very impulse controlled life. Caesar is okay, we can, we can bracket the fact that he's, he's kind of a ladies man. There's an interesting story to tell there. I think I want to get to that. But he's, he's notably, famously very.

Abstemious when it comes to drink. His. His great enemy Cato the Younger said, Caesar is the only man who, who tried to overthrow the state sober.

Maybe that was Cicero. But anyway, it was, that was kind of like the reputation. He's just kind of cold. Not cold, but he doesn't eat a lot. He, he's satisfied with very simple food. You know, he's out on campaign with his soldiers. He eats just crappy bread with stale rancid olive oil. And when people complain about it, he just like says, pass me some more and he eats more of it. And that is about not attaching yourself to physical comforts and physical pleasure so as to enjoy the simple things. This is what the Epicureans were really insistent on. Another thing that they.

And the attachment to those things can make you fear that you'll lose them and to value them too much. And one of the things that you can value too much in the eyes of the Epicureans is, is your life itself. They taught that life is the most precious thing, but when you die, you there, There is no afterlife there. There are kind of materialists. They think the world is composed of atoms. This is interesting. The Epicureans were very.