Jesus Christ and Christianity

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- [Instructor] We're
now going to talk about

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the beginnings of one
of the most important

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religions in human history.

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And, even today, the
largest religion on Earth.

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And that, of course, is Christianity.

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And the central figure in
Christianity is Jesus Christ.

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And the term Christ is given to him.

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It is Greek for savior, for messiah.

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Because his early followers view him as

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the prophesized messiah,
savior, for the Jewish people.

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And his followers today view him as

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the savior, the messiah,
for all humankind.

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So, you have over two billion Christians

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who view him central to their faith.

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Who view him as their god.

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But, above and beyond that, you also have

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over a billion Muslims who view him

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as a significant prophet.

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Now, just to get some context

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on the life and times of Jesus,

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most of the accounts we have of him

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come from the first four books

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of the New Testament of the Bible

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called the Gospel of
Matthew, Gospel of Mark,

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Gospel of Luke, Gospel of John.

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Sometimes it's the Gospel According to

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Matthew, Mark, Luke, or John.

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And the term gospel today often

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refers to the idea of the life
and teaching of Jesus Christ.

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So, you could view it
as the life and teaching

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of Jesus Christ according to Matthew,

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according to Mark, according
to Luke, according to John.

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But it really comes from
old English for good news.

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And there is a related term, evangel.

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You might have heard of
evangelical or evangelize.

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Also referring to good news.

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Now, the reason why it
was considered good news

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is his message....

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We're gonna have some examples
of it in a few minutes.

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Really talks about this idea that

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the poor have the kingdom
of heaven waiting for them.

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That there's this forgiving God

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that you can have a close connection with.

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And for a lot of people...

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Remember, this was in the
time of the Roman Empire.

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Most people were downtrodden.

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There was slavery.

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People who were poor.

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And this idea that even the poor

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could go to the kingdom of heaven

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and, in some ways, have
better access to it

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than the rich and the powerful

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was good news to a lot of people.

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Now, it's worth noting that these gospels

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were written several decades after,

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depending on what you view,

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the death and/or ascension of Jesus Christ

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according to Christian belief.

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As you can see, Jesus was born
slightly before the year one.

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Most historians put his birth at around

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four to six BCE, Before the Common Era.

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And they put his death around

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30 to 33 CE, in the Common Era.

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You could also use the original terms,

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Before Christ and Anno Dominei,
In the Year of Our Lord.

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Our modern calendar system really uses

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the original view of the birth of Jesus

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as where we start Anno
Dominei versus Before Christ

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or the Common Era versus
Before the Common Era.

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Now, it's interesting
that it turns out that

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Jesus was likely born slightly before.

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Slightly before the original
view on the birth of Christ.

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Now, his birth would have
been right around the time...

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Or it would have been under
the reign of Emperor Augustus,

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as we talk about in other videos.

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And his death would have been

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under the reign of Emperor Tiberius.

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And these Gospels of Mark,
Matthew, Luke, and John.

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These are written during really hard times

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for the Jewish people and
for the early Christians.

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You have the Jewish Rebellion

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where the Second Temple
is destroyed by Rome.

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You have the significant
Christian persecution,

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especially by folks like Emperor Nero

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where he blames the fire
in Rome on Christians

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and he just, essentially,
just kills them for fun.

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Really just to purge
them, to persecute them.

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And, just to understand where
all of this takes place,

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the life and times of Jesus takes place,

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it is in the Roman Empire.

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We're on the eastern edge of it

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at the eastern Mediterranean
right over here.

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This would be modern day Israel

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and Palestine for the most part.

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This is a zoomed in version.

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And Jesus is born in Bethlehem.

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And this is a scene.

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I'm gonna show you a lot of paintings.

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As you can imagine, he's a figure

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that has inspired a lot of paintings.

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This is a figure of the three magi

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visiting and giving their
gifts to the infant Jesus.

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Magi, famously the Zoroastrian priests,

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coming from Persia to visit Jesus,

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according to biblical accounts.

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And he is raised in Nazareth.

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And that's why he's oftentimes

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referred to as Jesus of Nazareth.

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And the gospels don't talk
a lot about his early life.

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They start to talk a lot about his life

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once he hits his late 20's or early 30's.

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And the first really significant account

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after his famous birth to the virgin Mary.

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His purported father,
Joseph, was Mary's husband,

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but the Holy Ghost or God
was the actual father,

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making this a virgin birth.

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But, after that, the
first significant event

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is really his baptism by John the Baptist.

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John the Baptist was another preacher,

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prophetic figure of that time.

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A significant one.

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He had a lot of followers.

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And he as baptizing people
in the Jordan River,

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right in that region.

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This is the Jordan River right over here.

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And this is a depiction of the

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famous baptism of Jesus
by John the Baptist.

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And, famously, John the Baptist said,

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"No, you should be baptizing me."

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But then after Jesus said,
"No, no, you baptize me."

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And, after, Jesus was baptized.

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Famously the sun shines on Jesus

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and God speaks that "This is my son."

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According to, once
again, biblical accounts.

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And John the Baptist, shortly after that,

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gets arrested by King Herod of Galilee.

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Remember, Galilee is
the home region of Jesus

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where he will eventually
do most of his preaching.

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And, after that, Jesus starts to really

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go full into effect in his ministry.

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And, while he's doing that,

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he's performing all of these miracles.

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He's healing people,
turning water into wine,

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walking on water, bringing
people back from the dead.

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And this is, of course,
according to biblical accounts.

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You can decide if you
believe these or not.

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And he does most of that in Galilee.

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And, eventually, he makes
his way down to Jerusalem

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to meet his fate.

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He tells, according to the Gospels,

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his followers, his disciples....

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And there's 12 in particular
that are called out,

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but he has many, many more than that.

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That "Look, I am going
to meet my fate there,

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but I'm doing it willingly."

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But, more than his
miracles, it's interesting

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to look at some of what he preached.

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And this might give you a
little bit of a sense why

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many people would have
called this good news.

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So, this is from the Gospel of Matthew

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that I'm gonna quote right over here.

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And this first part comes
from his Sermon of the Mount.

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He goes to the top of a mountain

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and he gives this sermon.

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"Blessed are the poor in spirit:

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for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

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"Blessed are the meek: for
they shall inherit the earth."

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"Blessed are the merciful:
for they shall obtain mercy."

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"Blessed are the pure in heart:

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for they shall see God."

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"Blessed are the peacemakers:

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for they shall be called sons of God."

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So, all of that, if you're a peasant,

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if you're someone with not a lot,

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you're downtrodden, hard life.

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You're like, "Look, blessed
are the poor in spirit:

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for theirs is the kingdom of heaven."

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you could view this as good news.

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"Ye have heard that it was said

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an eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth,

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but I say unto you, resist
not him that is evil.

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But whosoever smiteth
thee on thy right cheek,

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turn to him the other also."

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Even in modern times,
this is not an easy way...

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This is not an easy way to live.

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Someone who's doing something to you,

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don't try to seek revenge.

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And this is a very different tone

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than a lot of what you might
get in the Old Testament.

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"Ye have heard that it was said,

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thou shalt love thy neighbor
and hate thine enemy,

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but I say unto you love your enemies

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and pray for them that persecute you."

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Once again, not an easy thing to do.

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Even in modern terms, you can view this as

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a very forward, very advanced way

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of thinking about the world.

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He also, beyond this idea of
embracing even your enemies

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and not seeking revenge and that the poor

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have access to this kingdom of heaven,

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he really also liked to
take it to the hypocrites,

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especially those who viewed themselves

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as the bearers of the religion.

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In particular, he picks on the Pharisees,

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which was a sect of Jews at the time

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who viewed themselves very ritualistic.

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Remember, Jesus, himself,
is a Jewish preacher.

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He's a Jewish teacher.

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He is viewed as a rabbi himself.

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"And when ye pray, ye shall
not be as the hypocrites.

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For they love to stand and pray

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in the synagogues and in
the corners of the street

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that they may be seen of men."

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So, these hypocrites, they
pray just so other people

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can see how religious they are.

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"Verily, I say unto you, they
have received their reward."

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They've already gotten the
credit from people for praying.

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"But thou, when thou prayest,
enter into thine inner chamber

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and, having shut thy
door, pray to thy Father

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who is in secret, and thy
Father, who seeth in secret

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shall recompense thee."

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So, don't make a big
deal about your prayer.

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Do it in private and then have this

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personal connection with God.

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Now, it's worth noting that,
even though he preached a lot

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about the kingdom of heaven for the poor,

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prayer is a private thing,

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that you shouldn't try to seek revenge,

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you should be very
conciliatory to your enemies,

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he did take a strong stance
on what he was preaching.

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He did say, "Look, you gotta be with me

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if you want to enter into
this kingdom of heaven."

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He took some strong stances.

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This isn't gonna be an easy thing

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and this is gonna cause a lot of tension.

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This is one quote that
you could view that way.

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Once again, from the Gospel of Matthew,

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"Think not that I came
to send peace on earth.

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I came not to send peace, but a sword.

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For I came to set a man at
variance against his father

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and the daughter against her mother."

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I would interpret this as saying this is

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gonna cause a lot of divisiveness.

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"And the daughter-in-law
against her mother-in-law.

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And a man's foes shall be
they of his own household.

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He that loveth father
and mother more than me

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is not worthy of me.

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And he that loveth son
or daughter more than me

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is not worthy of me.

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And he that doth not take
his cross and follow after me

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is not worthy of me.

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He that findeth his life shall lose it

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and he that loseth his life
for my sake shall find it."

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So, he takes a pretty strong stance.

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"Look, you really need to follow me.

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But, if you follow me, there's some

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very good things that
are waiting for you."

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But, eventually, he does make his way...

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He tells his...

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There's other....

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These miracles he's performing.

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This is the famous
Transfiguration of Christ

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where he makes it
apparent to his followers.

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He kind of becomes luminescent

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and he becomes apparent to
his followers, his disciples,

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that he truly is the son of God.

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And then, he makes his way...

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This is the year, depending on whether

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you think it's 30, 31, 32, 33 CE.

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He makes his way to
Jerusalem to meet his fate.

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He's already prophesized to his followers

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that this is gonna be a tough fate.

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That he's gonna die there.

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And this is a very important
week in Christianity.

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It's referred to as Passion Week.

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And the term passion has
a different connotation.

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It really means the suffering of Christ.

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This is the week that he suffers.

00:11:29.512 --> 00:11:30.944
This is the week that he gets crucified

00:11:30.944 --> 00:11:32.621
and then resurrected.

00:11:32.621 --> 00:11:34.545
So, he goes to Jerusalem on Sunday.

00:11:34.545 --> 00:11:36.226
This is around the time of Passover.

00:11:36.226 --> 00:11:40.033
Very important religious
period for the Jewish people.

00:11:40.033 --> 00:11:44.041
And he comes to Jerusalem near Passover.

00:11:44.041 --> 00:11:48.208
That Sunday that he comes is
now celebrated as Palm Sunday.

00:11:49.362 --> 00:11:51.780
This is imagery of it where he's coming

00:11:51.780 --> 00:11:53.377
and some people are
greeting him to Jerusalem

00:11:53.377 --> 00:11:54.278
as kind of a king.

00:11:54.278 --> 00:11:56.975
They're laying down these
palms before his path.

00:11:56.975 --> 00:11:59.351
Then, this is the famous where he goes to

00:11:59.351 --> 00:12:01.561
the main temple at Jerusalem

00:12:01.561 --> 00:12:03.976
and he cleanses it of the moneychangers.

00:12:03.976 --> 00:12:06.064
He's like, "Hey, by doing
these money transactions here,

00:12:06.064 --> 00:12:08.438
you are defiling the temple."

00:12:08.438 --> 00:12:10.364
Then, on Thursday of that week,

00:12:10.364 --> 00:12:12.778
he has the famous Last Supper.

00:12:12.778 --> 00:12:16.246
Some people believe this
is the Passover seder.

00:12:16.246 --> 00:12:18.016
Most historians don't think it is.

00:12:18.016 --> 00:12:20.554
But he's meeting with his 12 disciples.

00:12:20.554 --> 00:12:22.437
And he's saying, "One of
you's going to betray me."

00:12:22.437 --> 00:12:24.643
And it's Judas Iscariot who does.

00:12:24.643 --> 00:12:27.476
And he goes to the religious court

00:12:28.451 --> 00:12:29.803
and he says, "Hey, I have this guy

00:12:29.803 --> 00:12:31.194
who you guys don't like."

00:12:31.194 --> 00:12:32.504
Remember, this whole time that Jesus

00:12:32.504 --> 00:12:35.619
is doing his ministry, he's sticking it...

00:12:35.619 --> 00:12:38.361
In a lot of ways, he's
calling out these Pharisees

00:12:38.361 --> 00:12:41.269
and these religious
officials as hypocrites.

00:12:41.269 --> 00:12:42.909
He's getting all of these followers.

00:12:42.909 --> 00:12:44.421
A lot of these traditionalists are saying,

00:12:44.421 --> 00:12:45.607
"This guy's blaspheming.

00:12:45.607 --> 00:12:47.490
He's saying he's the son of God.

00:12:47.490 --> 00:12:48.473
He's saying all of these things.

00:12:48.473 --> 00:12:51.541
He's doing these miracles on the Sabbath,

00:12:51.541 --> 00:12:53.793
when you're not supposed
to be doing anything."

00:12:53.793 --> 00:12:56.901
And so, Judas Iscariot
goes to the Sanhedrin

00:12:56.901 --> 00:12:58.169
and says, "Hey, I have this guy.

00:12:58.169 --> 00:12:59.232
Come and get him."

00:12:59.232 --> 00:13:00.870
And they get Jesus and this is the famous

00:13:00.870 --> 00:13:03.489
trial of Jesus by the Sanhedrin.

00:13:03.489 --> 00:13:06.024
And they say, "Hey, you've
been saying all these things.

00:13:06.024 --> 00:13:07.620
We think you're blaspheming."

00:13:07.620 --> 00:13:09.501
And Jesus stays silent for the most part.

00:13:09.501 --> 00:13:10.975
So, they deem him guilty

00:13:10.975 --> 00:13:12.446
and they hand him over to

00:13:12.446 --> 00:13:14.658
the Roman governor Pontius Pilate.

00:13:14.658 --> 00:13:15.641
And they say, "Hey, look, this guy's

00:13:15.641 --> 00:13:17.526
trying to create an
insurrection against Rome."

00:13:17.526 --> 00:13:19.859
Which the Romans take very seriously.

00:13:19.859 --> 00:13:22.518
And, in the Bible, they have him

00:13:22.518 --> 00:13:25.098
seeming somewhat reluctantly saying,

00:13:25.098 --> 00:13:27.144
"Oh, okay, do we really need to do this?"

00:13:27.144 --> 00:13:29.065
But then he says, "Alright, if that's

00:13:29.065 --> 00:13:30.085
the way you all want it."

00:13:30.085 --> 00:13:32.825
And so, the Romans crucify Jesus.

00:13:32.825 --> 00:13:36.141
And this is what is now
viewed as Good Friday,

00:13:36.141 --> 00:13:38.224
The crucifixion of Jesus.

00:13:39.083 --> 00:13:40.801
And then, on Sunday,
and this was predicted

00:13:40.801 --> 00:13:44.852
by Jesus to his followers,
he is resurrected.

00:13:44.852 --> 00:13:48.206
He leaves the tomb where he was.

00:13:48.206 --> 00:13:49.600
And this is a very important week.

00:13:49.600 --> 00:13:50.910
You have Palm Sunday.

00:13:50.910 --> 00:13:52.260
You have Good Friday.

00:13:52.260 --> 00:13:54.397
And then, you have the resurrection.

00:13:54.397 --> 00:13:56.977
And then, another very, very
important event to Christians

00:13:56.977 --> 00:13:59.558
is 40 days after the resurrection.

00:13:59.558 --> 00:14:01.357
So, after 40 days...

00:14:01.357 --> 00:14:03.488
Over that 40 days after the resurrection,

00:14:03.488 --> 00:14:04.839
he's seen by his followers.

00:14:04.839 --> 00:14:06.189
He's seen by many people.

00:14:06.189 --> 00:14:07.541
He continues to preach.

00:14:07.541 --> 00:14:09.013
And then, you have the ascension

00:14:09.013 --> 00:14:12.370
where he goes to the kingdom of heaven.

00:14:12.370 --> 00:14:14.197
Now, I'm gonna leave you with a quote

00:14:14.197 --> 00:14:16.786
by a famous Christian historian.

00:14:16.786 --> 00:14:18.958
And it's a fascinating one.

00:14:18.958 --> 00:14:20.144
And it's very clear,

00:14:20.144 --> 00:14:22.025
because we just talked
about the crucifixion

00:14:22.025 --> 00:14:23.869
and you see a cross at every church.

00:14:23.869 --> 00:14:25.875
"Christianity is the only major religion

00:14:25.875 --> 00:14:30.213
to have as its central event
the humiliation of its God."

00:14:30.213 --> 00:14:32.342
That's Doctor Bruce Shelley.

00:14:32.342 --> 00:14:33.816
And whether you believe in Christianity

00:14:33.816 --> 00:14:35.493
or you don't believe.

00:14:35.493 --> 00:14:36.721
Whether you're an atheist.

00:14:36.721 --> 00:14:39.588
Whether you believe in
the miracles or you don't.

00:14:39.588 --> 00:14:41.146
It's worth pointing out that

00:14:41.146 --> 00:14:43.271
Christianity has grown from this religion

00:14:43.271 --> 00:14:47.852
that started around this
preacher in Galilee and Judea

00:14:47.852 --> 00:14:50.635
and now has over two billion adherents.

00:14:50.635 --> 00:14:52.643
And what was it about this religion

00:14:52.643 --> 00:14:55.874
and its central event being
the humiliation of its God

00:14:55.874 --> 00:14:57.303
that made it so appealing to many,

00:14:57.303 --> 00:14:59.102
especially in that early Roman Empire,

00:14:59.102 --> 00:15:02.497
both to Jews and to non-Jews, to Gentiles,

00:15:02.497 --> 00:15:06.164
and has made it such a
significant religion?


Thank you for your support in 2016

WEBVTT
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Language: en

00:00:05.044 --> 00:00:07.568
- I just wanted to give
you a huge thank you

00:00:07.568 --> 00:00:11.037
for your support in 2016,
it has helped Khan Academy

00:00:11.037 --> 00:00:14.204
reach over 100 million
learners and has laid

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the foundation for 2017,
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00:00:17.292 --> 00:00:20.880
develop all of our content
in math, science, humanities,

00:00:20.880 --> 00:00:24.498
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00:00:24.498 --> 00:00:26.901
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and internationalize

00:00:26.901 --> 00:00:30.300
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all around the world.

00:00:30.300 --> 00:00:33.775
So once again, thank you
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00:00:33.775 --> 00:00:36.546
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Fall of the Roman Empire

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.185 --> 00:00:01.703
- [Instructor] In the
last video we talk about

00:00:01.703 --> 00:00:05.704
the first 200 years of Rome
being an official empire,

00:00:05.704 --> 00:00:09.005
starting with Augustus in 27 BCE,

00:00:09.005 --> 00:00:11.171
going all the way to Marcus Aurelius,

00:00:11.171 --> 00:00:13.058
and that time period is referred to

00:00:13.058 --> 00:00:15.170
as Pax Romana, Roman Peace.

00:00:15.170 --> 00:00:16.111
It's a relatively stable,

00:00:16.111 --> 00:00:18.944
relatively peaceful time for Rome.

00:00:19.829 --> 00:00:21.073
Now all of that is relative.

00:00:21.073 --> 00:00:22.504
If you're one of the tribes

00:00:22.504 --> 00:00:24.991
that are still fighting
with the Roman legions,

00:00:24.991 --> 00:00:27.984
if you're one of the roughly 1/4 to 1/3

00:00:27.984 --> 00:00:29.909
of the population that is a slave,

00:00:29.909 --> 00:00:32.429
you might not view this
as such a good time.

00:00:32.429 --> 00:00:33.866
But things only get worse

00:00:33.866 --> 00:00:36.366
after the death of Marcus Aurelius,

00:00:36.366 --> 00:00:38.651
who's viewed as the last
of the five good emperors,

00:00:38.651 --> 00:00:39.931
so to speak.

00:00:39.931 --> 00:00:41.685
His son, Commodus, takes over,

00:00:41.685 --> 00:00:44.596
and Commodus is the beginning
of a succession of emperors

00:00:44.596 --> 00:00:47.263
who are less and less competent.

00:00:48.553 --> 00:00:51.101
The Empire becomes more and more corrupt,

00:00:51.101 --> 00:00:52.608
less and less stable,

00:00:52.608 --> 00:00:54.291
and things really come to a head

00:00:54.291 --> 00:00:56.860
and start to decelerate even further,

00:00:56.860 --> 00:01:01.027
or I guess accelerate downward
even further, in 235 CE

00:01:03.141 --> 00:01:07.605
when the emperor Severus
Alexander is assassinated,

00:01:07.605 --> 00:01:11.097
and this throws the empire
into a 50-year crisis

00:01:11.097 --> 00:01:14.278
called the Third Century Crisis

00:01:14.278 --> 00:01:16.737
because it happened in the third century.

00:01:16.737 --> 00:01:20.904
And over this 50 years, there's
26 claimants to emperor.

00:01:21.975 --> 00:01:25.661
The empire is temporarily split
into three different states.

00:01:25.661 --> 00:01:29.181
There's attacks from the
east from the Sassanids,

00:01:29.181 --> 00:01:31.380
the Sassanian Empire,
they're the successors

00:01:31.380 --> 00:01:33.042
to the Parthians.

00:01:33.042 --> 00:01:35.909
You have attacks across
the Rhine and the Danube

00:01:35.909 --> 00:01:37.763
from Germanic tribes.

00:01:37.763 --> 00:01:41.745
All of that makes this a very
unstable period for Rome.

00:01:41.745 --> 00:01:44.269
Now the Third Century
Crisis is considered to end

00:01:44.269 --> 00:01:47.602
in 284 with the ascension of Diocletian,

00:01:49.883 --> 00:01:52.621
and Diocletian is viewed as a somewhat,

00:01:52.621 --> 00:01:55.204
or a reasonably strong emperor.

00:01:56.092 --> 00:01:57.952
He's known as the last emperor

00:01:57.952 --> 00:01:59.831
that really persecuted the Christians

00:01:59.831 --> 00:02:03.233
because they didn't
follow the Roman religion,

00:02:03.233 --> 00:02:07.318
they did not worship the emperor as a god,

00:02:07.318 --> 00:02:10.143
but he's also, or maybe
he's most famous for

00:02:10.143 --> 00:02:11.740
splitting the empire.

00:02:11.740 --> 00:02:14.819
He decides that probably
one of the main causes

00:02:14.819 --> 00:02:16.485
of the Third Century Crisis is that

00:02:16.485 --> 00:02:18.657
the empire has gotten too vast.

00:02:18.657 --> 00:02:19.838
It has too many borders.

00:02:19.838 --> 00:02:23.846
It's hard for one emperor to
administer the whole thing,

00:02:23.846 --> 00:02:26.652
so he splits it into East and West

00:02:26.652 --> 00:02:28.389
from an administrative point of view.

00:02:28.389 --> 00:02:30.465
They don't become separate empires,

00:02:30.465 --> 00:02:33.304
but he decides that he is going to rule

00:02:33.304 --> 00:02:35.629
from the East and that he will have

00:02:35.629 --> 00:02:38.934
a co-emperor who rules from the West.

00:02:38.934 --> 00:02:40.605
And not only does he set that up,

00:02:40.605 --> 00:02:43.443
but he sets up what's called a tetrarchy.

00:02:43.443 --> 00:02:45.693
Beyond himself and his co-emperor,

00:02:45.693 --> 00:02:48.297
they each have a second-in-command

00:02:48.297 --> 00:02:50.286
that if any one of them were to die

00:02:50.286 --> 00:02:52.247
or would have to retire somehow,

00:02:52.247 --> 00:02:54.394
that that second-in-command
could take over,

00:02:54.394 --> 00:02:56.155
and once again, this is to
address some of the issues

00:02:56.155 --> 00:02:58.980
of the Third Century Crisis where the wars

00:02:58.980 --> 00:03:00.565
for succession, and this isn't just during

00:03:00.565 --> 00:03:01.639
the Third Century Crisis.

00:03:01.639 --> 00:03:03.126
We've seen it in multiple videos.

00:03:03.126 --> 00:03:05.610
Rome is famous, even
during the Pax Romana,

00:03:05.610 --> 00:03:08.869
for these really ugly succession battles,

00:03:08.869 --> 00:03:11.509
but as we'll see, the
splitting of the empire

00:03:11.509 --> 00:03:13.024
into East and West, even though it started

00:03:13.024 --> 00:03:15.814
as an administrative
thing, over time it's going

00:03:15.814 --> 00:03:17.782
to become a real split
and they're going to turn

00:03:17.782 --> 00:03:20.627
into two different empires.

00:03:20.627 --> 00:03:24.811
Now after Diocletian, you have
another significant emperor.

00:03:24.811 --> 00:03:26.844
You have Constantine,

00:03:26.844 --> 00:03:30.261
and Constantine is known for many things.

00:03:31.338 --> 00:03:34.615
Maybe most famously, he
embraced Christianity,

00:03:34.615 --> 00:03:37.764
as opposed to Diocletian
who persecuted Christians,

00:03:37.764 --> 00:03:41.902
you have the Council of
Nicaea and the Nicaean Code

00:03:41.902 --> 00:03:44.804
where there's now a
uniform church doctrine

00:03:44.804 --> 00:03:46.039
around Christianity.

00:03:46.039 --> 00:03:50.400
He has the Edict of Milan,
which makes Christianity

00:03:50.400 --> 00:03:52.730
legal under Roman rule.

00:03:52.730 --> 00:03:54.680
Maybe most famously on his deathbed,

00:03:54.680 --> 00:03:55.957
he gets baptized.

00:03:55.957 --> 00:03:58.546
He becomes the first Christian emperor.

00:03:58.546 --> 00:04:00.963
He also moves the capital to,

00:04:01.865 --> 00:04:06.820
officially moves the capital
of the entire empire,

00:04:06.820 --> 00:04:09.653
to what at the time was Byzantium,

00:04:10.514 --> 00:04:13.373
but then he renames it to Constantinople,

00:04:13.373 --> 00:04:14.706
named after him.

00:04:15.552 --> 00:04:18.765
Now it was still one unified empire,

00:04:18.765 --> 00:04:22.082
even Diocletian who
co-ruled with a co-emperor,

00:04:22.082 --> 00:04:26.134
he had veto power over
the emperor to the West.

00:04:26.134 --> 00:04:30.505
Now as we get further into
the fourth century here,

00:04:30.505 --> 00:04:32.112
and especially into the fifth century,

00:04:32.112 --> 00:04:35.211
we'll see that the empire
further and further fragments,

00:04:35.211 --> 00:04:39.201
and gets diluted, and
really just breaks down.

00:04:39.201 --> 00:04:42.034
One major factor in that breakdown

00:04:43.089 --> 00:04:45.857
is in that fourth century, in the fourth

00:04:45.857 --> 00:04:47.609
and fifth centuries, you have a group

00:04:47.609 --> 00:04:51.430
called the Huns coming
in from Central Asia,

00:04:51.430 --> 00:04:54.569
coming in from Northern
Europe right over here,

00:04:54.569 --> 00:04:58.438
and they are fierce, nomadic conquerors,

00:04:58.438 --> 00:05:00.555
and they're so fierce
that they start pushing

00:05:00.555 --> 00:05:04.021
more of the Germanic
tribes across the Rhine

00:05:04.021 --> 00:05:07.341
and the Danube, and a lot
of these Germanic tribes,

00:05:07.341 --> 00:05:09.178
at first, even though their history

00:05:09.178 --> 00:05:11.524
has been fighting the
Romans, a lot of them

00:05:11.524 --> 00:05:13.518
try to seek refuge in the Roman Empire

00:05:13.518 --> 00:05:15.563
and they're given refuge
in the Roman Empire,

00:05:15.563 --> 00:05:17.378
but while they have that refuge,

00:05:17.378 --> 00:05:19.994
they're treated very, very, very badly,

00:05:19.994 --> 00:05:22.427
and all of that comes to a head in the,

00:05:22.427 --> 00:05:24.735
well I guess you could
say, the last quarter

00:05:24.735 --> 00:05:27.276
of the fourth century
with the Gothic Wars,

00:05:27.276 --> 00:05:30.126
and the Gothic Wars really
have a decisive battle

00:05:30.126 --> 00:05:33.301
at Adrianople, originally Adrianopolis,

00:05:33.301 --> 00:05:36.002
named after the Emperor Adrian.

00:05:36.002 --> 00:05:39.471
And at Adrianopolis, at Adrianople,

00:05:39.471 --> 00:05:42.160
the Gothic tribes in particular,

00:05:42.160 --> 00:05:43.971
and when we say Gothic,
we're really talking

00:05:43.971 --> 00:05:46.711
about Germanic tribes, and
this one in particular,

00:05:46.711 --> 00:05:48.765
as you can see from this
legend right over here,

00:05:48.765 --> 00:05:51.400
this is the Visigoths, or Western Goths,

00:05:51.400 --> 00:05:53.877
they're able to decisively defeat

00:05:53.877 --> 00:05:56.223
the Eastern Roman Emperor Valens.

00:05:56.223 --> 00:05:58.180
He's actually killed at Adrianople,

00:05:58.180 --> 00:06:01.196
and then the Visigoths just
continue to hang out here

00:06:01.196 --> 00:06:02.863
in the Roman Empire.

00:06:03.697 --> 00:06:04.970
They continue to move forward.

00:06:04.970 --> 00:06:08.878
In 410, they're able to actually sack Rome

00:06:08.878 --> 00:06:12.013
and they eventually settle
in the Iberian Peninsula

00:06:12.013 --> 00:06:13.763
and in Southern Gaul.

00:06:14.708 --> 00:06:17.320
Now after the Battle of Adrianople,

00:06:17.320 --> 00:06:20.769
you have another significant
emperor, Theodosius,

00:06:20.769 --> 00:06:22.397
because what you'll see is that

00:06:22.397 --> 00:06:24.105
Diocletian persecuted Christians,

00:06:24.105 --> 00:06:26.586
Constantine now embraces Christianity,

00:06:26.586 --> 00:06:29.611
he becomes a Christian, he
says Christianity is legal.

00:06:29.611 --> 00:06:32.431
Theodosius now, right
as we are about to enter

00:06:32.431 --> 00:06:35.070
into the fifth century,
he makes Christianity

00:06:35.070 --> 00:06:38.281
the official religion of the Roman Empire.

00:06:38.281 --> 00:06:42.375
So in roughly 100 years, the Roman Empire

00:06:42.375 --> 00:06:44.082
went from persecuting Christians

00:06:44.082 --> 00:06:46.789
to making it the official religion

00:06:46.789 --> 00:06:48.279
and actually going the other way,

00:06:48.279 --> 00:06:52.470
starting to persecute some of
the pre-Christian religions

00:06:52.470 --> 00:06:53.387
or rituals.

00:06:54.622 --> 00:06:56.436
The other thing that happens as we enter

00:06:56.436 --> 00:06:59.853
into the fifth century now, as we go into

00:07:01.087 --> 00:07:04.337
the fifth century, you have the capital

00:07:05.761 --> 00:07:09.928
of the Western Empire is
moved from Rome to Ravenna.

00:07:11.227 --> 00:07:14.214
With the idea, the
emperor see all of these

00:07:14.214 --> 00:07:16.873
Germanic tribes, they
feel threatened by them,

00:07:16.873 --> 00:07:19.235
that Ravenna is easier to defend.

00:07:19.235 --> 00:07:22.457
It's surrounded by kind
of marshy, swampy area.

00:07:22.457 --> 00:07:25.459
The other thing of note about Theodosius,

00:07:25.459 --> 00:07:29.659
and as we move into
really the last century

00:07:29.659 --> 00:07:32.489
of the Western Roman Empire, is Theodosius

00:07:32.489 --> 00:07:36.445
was the last Roman Emperor
to rule all of Rome.

00:07:36.445 --> 00:07:39.154
After that, the East
and West are going to be

00:07:39.154 --> 00:07:40.994
ruled essentially independently.

00:07:40.994 --> 00:07:44.320
They're essentially going
to be separate empires.

00:07:44.320 --> 00:07:46.929
Then as we get into the fifth century,

00:07:46.929 --> 00:07:50.154
we already talked about
the Visigoths sacking Rome,

00:07:50.154 --> 00:07:52.904
then in 455, you have the Vandals

00:07:53.968 --> 00:07:56.248
which is another Germanic tribe that was

00:07:56.248 --> 00:07:58.718
similarly originally
pushed out by the Huns.

00:07:58.718 --> 00:08:01.289
You see them in blue right over here.

00:08:01.289 --> 00:08:03.132
They make it down the Iberian Peninsula

00:08:03.132 --> 00:08:04.358
to North Africa.

00:08:04.358 --> 00:08:06.727
They eventually get to Carthage,

00:08:06.727 --> 00:08:09.340
and they become a little
bit of a naval power

00:08:09.340 --> 00:08:12.607
and they eventually are able to, in 455,

00:08:12.607 --> 00:08:14.550
sack Rome as well.

00:08:14.550 --> 00:08:18.383
So Rome is really taking
a hit multiple times.

00:08:19.339 --> 00:08:23.172
And then finally, the
end of the Roman Empire,

00:08:24.105 --> 00:08:26.681
or the Western Roman
Empire that most historians

00:08:26.681 --> 00:08:29.292
consider the end of the Roman Empire,

00:08:29.292 --> 00:08:32.875
is when the Germanic
ruler General Odoacer,

00:08:33.794 --> 00:08:35.791
or Odoacker depending
on how you pronounce it,

00:08:35.791 --> 00:08:39.411
is able to oust the emperor in Ravenna,

00:08:39.411 --> 00:08:41.489
and so then you have the official,

00:08:41.489 --> 00:08:45.656
and just to be clear, this
is, let me write Roman Empire,

00:08:48.263 --> 00:08:50.942
and so Odoacer is able to essentially

00:08:50.942 --> 00:08:53.694
end the Western Empire as we know it.

00:08:53.694 --> 00:08:55.165
And after that, the Western Empire

00:08:55.165 --> 00:08:56.945
becomes more and more fragmented

00:08:56.945 --> 00:08:59.780
into these kingdoms that are ruled by

00:08:59.780 --> 00:09:02.474
essentially Germanic
kings, and then we are now

00:09:02.474 --> 00:09:05.614
entering into the Middle Ages.

00:09:05.614 --> 00:09:07.262
Now the big question that historians

00:09:07.262 --> 00:09:08.603
have a lot of fun thinking about

00:09:08.603 --> 00:09:10.846
is why did all of this happen?

00:09:10.846 --> 00:09:12.849
Why did the Roman Empire fall?

00:09:12.849 --> 00:09:15.166
And before we even talk about why it fell,

00:09:15.166 --> 00:09:16.952
we should give them a
little bit of credit.

00:09:16.952 --> 00:09:18.475
Even in this video where I talk about

00:09:18.475 --> 00:09:20.228
the fall of the Roman Empire,

00:09:20.228 --> 00:09:23.336
I'm covering 300 years of history,

00:09:23.336 --> 00:09:25.470
and if you start with the
founding of the republic

00:09:25.470 --> 00:09:30.340
until Odoacer takes over
Ravenna, ousts the emperor,

00:09:30.340 --> 00:09:32.425
we're talking 1,000 years.

00:09:32.425 --> 00:09:35.544
Most civilizations,
most empires don't last

00:09:35.544 --> 00:09:38.347
anywhere near that long.

00:09:38.347 --> 00:09:42.578
So to some degree, it's
surprising that it lasted so long.

00:09:42.578 --> 00:09:45.582
But in terms of the causes of its decline,

00:09:45.582 --> 00:09:47.948
we've talked about several
of them in this video.

00:09:47.948 --> 00:09:49.607
The empire got divided.

00:09:49.607 --> 00:09:52.106
The East and West stopped
viewing themselves

00:09:52.106 --> 00:09:54.065
so much as the same empire.

00:09:54.065 --> 00:09:55.866
Trade sometimes broke down.

00:09:55.866 --> 00:09:58.091
They didn't support each other militarily.

00:09:58.091 --> 00:10:00.407
The Eastern Empire was generally stronger,

00:10:00.407 --> 00:10:02.787
so it allowed invading tribes to focus

00:10:02.787 --> 00:10:05.156
on the weak point in the West.

00:10:05.156 --> 00:10:07.187
Some historians would
say that the Roman Empire

00:10:07.187 --> 00:10:09.503
stopped expanding, and
it needed that expansion

00:10:09.503 --> 00:10:12.085
in order to keep getting
more land and more slaves

00:10:12.085 --> 00:10:14.027
that really drove its economy.

00:10:14.027 --> 00:10:17.335
One major factor probably was the Huns

00:10:17.335 --> 00:10:20.007
that caused this great
migration in the fourth

00:10:20.007 --> 00:10:22.878
and fifth centuries, it
caused the Germanic tribes

00:10:22.878 --> 00:10:25.813
to cross the Rhine and cross the Danube

00:10:25.813 --> 00:10:28.951
and become either settled as part

00:10:28.951 --> 00:10:32.461
of the Roman Empire or
threatened the Roman Empire.

00:10:32.461 --> 00:10:35.334
Another theory, and all of
these are probably contributors,

00:10:35.334 --> 00:10:37.454
is that as the Germanic tribes settled,

00:10:37.454 --> 00:10:39.901
they actually became more and more part of

00:10:39.901 --> 00:10:43.318
the Roman military, and some of them were

00:10:45.940 --> 00:10:46.974
officially part of the military,

00:10:46.974 --> 00:10:49.618
some of them were mercenaries,
soldiers for fortune,

00:10:49.618 --> 00:10:52.081
paid soldiers, and so you
can imagine their allegiance

00:10:52.081 --> 00:10:54.175
to Rome was not as strong.

00:10:54.175 --> 00:10:57.124
Some folks say Christianity
may have been a factor.

00:10:57.124 --> 00:10:58.773
That the empire might have lasted,

00:10:58.773 --> 00:11:01.022
especially when people were doing

00:11:01.022 --> 00:11:03.318
what their traditional rites, rituals,

00:11:03.318 --> 00:11:05.668
they worshiped an emperor,
but now Christianity

00:11:05.668 --> 00:11:08.451
wasn't about worshiping
an emperor anymore.

00:11:08.451 --> 00:11:10.355
A lot of people think it's
corruption, instability,

00:11:10.355 --> 00:11:12.148
and we've talked a little bit about that.

00:11:12.148 --> 00:11:13.219
It could've been invasions, not just from

00:11:13.219 --> 00:11:14.901
the Germanic tribes and the Huns,

00:11:14.901 --> 00:11:18.094
but also the Sassanids on the East.

00:11:18.094 --> 00:11:21.207
So I'll leave you there,
and to think about,

00:11:21.207 --> 00:11:23.924
what was the cause or maybe what allowed

00:11:23.924 --> 00:11:26.866
the Roman Empire to survive for so long?


Worked example: recognizing function from Taylor series

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.242 --> 00:00:01.782
- [Instructor] So we're
given this expression

00:00:01.782 --> 00:00:04.690
is the Taylor series about zero

00:00:04.690 --> 00:00:07.675
for which of the following functions

00:00:07.675 --> 00:00:09.636
and they give us some choices here.

00:00:09.636 --> 00:00:12.218
So let's just think a
little bit about this series

00:00:12.218 --> 00:00:13.323
that they gave us.

00:00:13.323 --> 00:00:14.634
So if we were to expand it out,

00:00:14.634 --> 00:00:16.761
let's see, when n is equal to zero,

00:00:16.761 --> 00:00:18.401
it'd be negative one to the zero power

00:00:18.401 --> 00:00:21.925
which is one times x to
the zero which is one

00:00:21.925 --> 00:00:23.945
over zero factorial which is one

00:00:23.945 --> 00:00:25.612
so it'll be one plus

00:00:26.883 --> 00:00:28.599
and then when n is one,

00:00:28.599 --> 00:00:30.338
well then this is going to be negative

00:00:30.338 --> 00:00:34.244
so it's going to be minus
and then x to the first

00:00:34.244 --> 00:00:36.244
over one factorial over,

00:00:37.136 --> 00:00:40.916
well, I could just write
that as x over here

00:00:40.916 --> 00:00:42.557
and then when n is two,

00:00:42.557 --> 00:00:44.679
the negative one squared,

00:00:44.679 --> 00:00:48.512
that's gonna be positive
x squared over two

00:00:49.385 --> 00:00:52.033
and there's going to
be minus x to the third

00:00:52.033 --> 00:00:54.324
over three factorial

00:00:54.324 --> 00:00:56.413
and then it's going to be
plus and I can keep going.

00:00:56.413 --> 00:00:57.804
You've seen this before.

00:00:57.804 --> 00:01:01.198
x to the fourth over four factorial

00:01:01.198 --> 00:01:02.509
and it's gonna keep going.

00:01:02.509 --> 00:01:03.892
Minus, plus.

00:01:03.892 --> 00:01:07.022
It's going to keep
alternating on and on and on.

00:01:07.022 --> 00:01:10.780
Now, our general form for
a Taylor series about zero

00:01:10.780 --> 00:01:14.095
which we could also call a
Maclaurin series would be,

00:01:14.095 --> 00:01:17.012
our general form would be f of zero

00:01:19.292 --> 00:01:21.625
plus f prime of zero times x

00:01:24.319 --> 00:01:26.486
plus f prime prime of zero

00:01:28.410 --> 00:01:30.660
times x squared over two

00:01:32.139 --> 00:01:35.609
plus the the third derivative at zero

00:01:35.609 --> 00:01:39.383
times x to the third over three factorial

00:01:39.383 --> 00:01:41.920
plus the fourth derivative,
you get the idea,

00:01:41.920 --> 00:01:46.136
evaluated at zero times x to
the fourth over four factorial

00:01:46.136 --> 00:01:48.637
and we would just go on and on and on.

00:01:48.637 --> 00:01:50.891
Now, to figure out which function,

00:01:50.891 --> 00:01:53.873
in order what I wrote in
blue to be the Maclaurin

00:01:53.873 --> 00:01:55.555
or to be the Taylor series about zero

00:01:55.555 --> 00:01:57.518
or in order to be the Maclaurin series,

00:01:57.518 --> 00:01:58.851
that means that,

00:01:59.970 --> 00:02:03.412
that means that f of zero
needs to be equal to one.

00:02:03.412 --> 00:02:06.069
It means that f prime of zero,

00:02:06.069 --> 00:02:07.744
actually let me write this down.

00:02:07.744 --> 00:02:11.222
It means that f of zero
needs to be equal to one.

00:02:11.222 --> 00:02:13.773
f of zero is equal to one.

00:02:13.773 --> 00:02:16.190
It means that f prime of zero

00:02:17.710 --> 00:02:19.592
needs to be the coefficient on the x here

00:02:19.592 --> 00:02:21.825
which is negative one

00:02:21.825 --> 00:02:22.781
and we could keep going.

00:02:22.781 --> 00:02:26.948
It means that, it means that
the second derivative at zero,

00:02:28.095 --> 00:02:29.331
well, that's going to be the coefficient

00:02:29.331 --> 00:02:31.247
on this x squared over two

00:02:31.247 --> 00:02:33.949
so that's gotta be equal to one

00:02:33.949 --> 00:02:35.356
and you see the general idea

00:02:35.356 --> 00:02:39.227
that the third derivative at
zero is equal to negative one.

00:02:39.227 --> 00:02:41.910
It's the coefficient on the x to the third

00:02:41.910 --> 00:02:45.119
over three factorial which is
negative one right over here.

00:02:45.119 --> 00:02:46.721
And so just using this information

00:02:46.721 --> 00:02:49.014
can we figure out which of these it is.

00:02:49.014 --> 00:02:51.823
So you could do a little bit
of deductive reasoning here.

00:02:51.823 --> 00:02:53.921
Let's evaluate all of
these functions at zero

00:02:53.921 --> 00:02:56.048
and see which of these are one.

00:02:56.048 --> 00:02:58.054
So sine of zero.

00:02:58.054 --> 00:02:58.953
Well, that's zero.

00:02:58.953 --> 00:03:01.127
Just by looking at this first constraint,

00:03:01.127 --> 00:03:02.474
sine of zero isn't one.

00:03:02.474 --> 00:03:03.334
We can rule that out.

00:03:03.334 --> 00:03:06.157
Cosine of zero is one so
that's still in the running.

00:03:06.157 --> 00:03:07.907
e to the zero is one.

00:03:09.274 --> 00:03:11.748
e to the zero is one

00:03:11.748 --> 00:03:15.032
and then the natural log of one plus zero,

00:03:15.032 --> 00:03:17.290
that's the natural log
of one which is a zero

00:03:17.290 --> 00:03:18.754
so that's out of the running.

00:03:18.754 --> 00:03:20.032
So just from that first constraint

00:03:20.032 --> 00:03:21.503
knowing that f of zero is equal to one,

00:03:21.503 --> 00:03:24.001
we're able to rule out two of the choices

00:03:24.001 --> 00:03:26.021
then knowing that the first derivative

00:03:26.021 --> 00:03:28.661
evaluated at zero is
going to be negative one

00:03:28.661 --> 00:03:31.239
but what's the first
derivative of cosine of x?

00:03:31.239 --> 00:03:33.574
Well, it's the negative sine of x.

00:03:33.574 --> 00:03:35.006
If we evaluate that at zero,

00:03:35.006 --> 00:03:36.300
we're not gonna get negative one.

00:03:36.300 --> 00:03:39.101
We're gonna get zero so
we can rule this out.

00:03:39.101 --> 00:03:42.045
Now, the first derivative
of e to the x is e to the x.

00:03:42.045 --> 00:03:46.012
If we evaluate that at
zero, we're gonna get one,

00:03:46.012 --> 00:03:48.632
not negative one so we can rule that out.

00:03:48.632 --> 00:03:50.557
And so not even looking at anything else,

00:03:50.557 --> 00:03:53.172
we have a pretty good sense
that D is probably our answer

00:03:53.172 --> 00:03:54.369
but we could check.

00:03:54.369 --> 00:03:58.092
The first derivative
here, f prime of x here

00:03:58.092 --> 00:04:01.409
is going to be negative
e to the negative x.

00:04:01.409 --> 00:04:04.242
So f prime of zero is going to be,

00:04:05.978 --> 00:04:09.797
is going to be negative e
to the zero or negative one

00:04:09.797 --> 00:04:11.104
so it meets that one

00:04:11.104 --> 00:04:13.235
and if you were curious,
you could keep going

00:04:13.235 --> 00:04:15.617
and see that it meets
all the other constraints

00:04:15.617 --> 00:04:17.703
but choice D is the only one

00:04:17.703 --> 00:04:20.082
that meets even the first two constraints

00:04:20.082 --> 00:04:24.249
for the function at zero and
the first derivative at zero.


Emperors of Pax Romana

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.351 --> 00:00:02.440
- [Instructor] As we saw
in the last several videos,

00:00:02.440 --> 00:00:06.400
the Roman Republic that
was established in 509 BCE,

00:00:06.400 --> 00:00:09.790
it finally met its end with
the rule of Julius Caesar.

00:00:09.790 --> 00:00:12.461
We talk about Julius Caesar
crossing the Rubicon,

00:00:12.461 --> 00:00:16.150
becoming dictator for life,
and then he's assassinated

00:00:16.150 --> 00:00:18.438
because of the power he
was able to accumulate

00:00:18.438 --> 00:00:22.370
in 44 BCE, on March
15th, the Ides of March.

00:00:22.370 --> 00:00:25.339
That throws Rome into a civil war.

00:00:25.339 --> 00:00:28.198
Eventually it becomes a
battle between Augustus,

00:00:28.198 --> 00:00:32.459
or at the time, Octavian, versus
Mark Antony and Cleopatra.

00:00:32.459 --> 00:00:35.089
Octavian is able to be victorious.

00:00:35.089 --> 00:00:39.256
And, on 27 BCE, he is
declared, or this is the date

00:00:40.478 --> 00:00:43.057
that historians often use as the beginning

00:00:43.057 --> 00:00:46.080
of him officially being emperor.

00:00:46.080 --> 00:00:50.247
This period from 27 BCE,
with Augustus being emperor,

00:00:52.170 --> 00:00:56.337
all the way to 180 CE, so
this roughly 200-year period,

00:00:58.189 --> 00:01:01.697
this is a relatively good
time for the Roman Empire.

00:01:01.697 --> 00:01:03.649
As we will see, there is
still a lot of conflict,

00:01:03.649 --> 00:01:05.620
there is still a lot of bloodshed,

00:01:05.620 --> 00:01:08.360
but it is a relatively stable period.

00:01:08.360 --> 00:01:12.119
It is also referred to as Pax Romana,

00:01:12.119 --> 00:01:13.702
or the Roman Peace.

00:01:14.948 --> 00:01:19.169
What we see pictured here,
these are most of the Emperors

00:01:19.169 --> 00:01:21.836
of that roughly 200-year period.

00:01:22.778 --> 00:01:27.029
Augustus proves to be a
relatively good administrator.

00:01:27.029 --> 00:01:31.746
He lays a good foundation for
the next several hundred years

00:01:31.746 --> 00:01:33.299
of the Empire.

00:01:33.299 --> 00:01:38.256
The Roman Empire officially
being ruled by an Emperor.

00:01:38.256 --> 00:01:40.137
It's eventually going to meet its demise,

00:01:40.137 --> 00:01:43.648
the Western Empire, at least, in 476 CE,

00:01:43.648 --> 00:01:46.980
so, it's gonna go for roughly 500 years,

00:01:46.980 --> 00:01:50.440
and Augustus lays a
strong foundation for it.

00:01:50.440 --> 00:01:53.456
He's viewed as a strong administrator.

00:01:53.456 --> 00:01:56.448
He really builds a lot of institutions.

00:01:56.448 --> 00:01:59.728
From a historical
perspective, it's worth noting

00:01:59.728 --> 00:02:03.228
that Jesus was born under Augustus's rule.

00:02:04.720 --> 00:02:08.529
Most historical views are Jesus was born

00:02:08.529 --> 00:02:11.696
in some place between 4 BCE and 6 BCE.

00:02:14.130 --> 00:02:17.380
Now, Augustus was followed by Tiberius.

00:02:18.890 --> 00:02:23.180
Tiberius, here, was both
Augustus's step-son,

00:02:23.180 --> 00:02:25.470
and he married Augustus's daughter,

00:02:25.470 --> 00:02:28.681
so he was a step-son, and son-in-law.

00:02:28.681 --> 00:02:32.541
He also proved to be a
relatively capable emperor.

00:02:32.541 --> 00:02:35.010
You can see Augustus
had a fairly long rule.

00:02:35.010 --> 00:02:39.820
He took power in his 30s, and
his power ended in his 70s.

00:02:39.820 --> 00:02:42.360
Tiberius, too, had a fairly long rule.

00:02:42.360 --> 00:02:44.331
From a historical point of view,

00:02:44.331 --> 00:02:48.019
or even a Biblical point
of view, it's worth noting

00:02:48.019 --> 00:02:51.639
that Jesus would have been
crucified under Tiberius's rule.

00:02:51.639 --> 00:02:52.980
The Roman Emperor referred to

00:02:52.980 --> 00:02:55.740
in the New Testament is Tiberius.

00:02:55.740 --> 00:02:57.790
It would have been his
governor, Pontius Pilate,

00:02:57.790 --> 00:03:00.971
who orders the crucifixion of Jesus.

00:03:00.971 --> 00:03:04.036
Now, after Tiberius, you
have his great-nephews,

00:03:04.036 --> 00:03:06.499
or his great, great-nephew,
and you can see they're all

00:03:06.499 --> 00:03:10.217
not directly related, but
they're all kind of family.

00:03:10.217 --> 00:03:12.888
His great, great-nephew is Caligula.

00:03:12.888 --> 00:03:14.540
Caligula, that's his nickname,

00:03:14.540 --> 00:03:17.405
is a bit of an infamous figure,
one of the infamous figures,

00:03:17.405 --> 00:03:20.456
in history amongst the Roman Emperors

00:03:20.456 --> 00:03:23.250
'cause he's really viewed
as a sadist, as a pervert.

00:03:23.250 --> 00:03:26.820
He's known for killing
people just for fun,

00:03:26.820 --> 00:03:28.608
and he is quickly assassinated.

00:03:28.608 --> 00:03:32.959
His term only, or his power,
only lasted for several years.

00:03:32.959 --> 00:03:36.689
Then, in his place is
put his uncle, Claudius.

00:03:36.689 --> 00:03:40.455
After Claudius comes another
infamous figure of history,

00:03:40.455 --> 00:03:42.416
and that is Nero.

00:03:42.416 --> 00:03:46.583
Nero, he's known for, Rome had
a significant fire in 64 AD.

00:03:49.657 --> 00:03:52.409
Many of the Roman citizens
believed that Nero did it

00:03:52.409 --> 00:03:55.677
intentionally to clear
out space for a palace.

00:03:55.677 --> 00:03:58.608
Significant number of
Romans died in that fire.

00:03:58.608 --> 00:04:02.048
He killed a ton of people,
including his mother.

00:04:02.048 --> 00:04:05.708
He's maybe most famous for
persecuting Christians.

00:04:05.708 --> 00:04:08.317
There's some accounts that
he would dip them in oil

00:04:08.317 --> 00:04:10.059
and set them on fire in his garden

00:04:10.059 --> 00:04:12.198
just as a source of light.

00:04:12.198 --> 00:04:16.688
These people, to say that
they were insane, or demented,

00:04:16.688 --> 00:04:20.798
or sick, normally I try to
avoid making any judgement

00:04:20.798 --> 00:04:23.448
on some of these historical
figures, but both Caligula,

00:04:23.448 --> 00:04:27.239
and Nero, if we believe the accounts

00:04:27.239 --> 00:04:30.518
that we get from that period,
and shortly after that period,

00:04:30.518 --> 00:04:33.958
were not, by any stretch of
the imagination, good people.

00:04:33.958 --> 00:04:38.255
Nero eventually does commit
suicide, and, with Nero's end,

00:04:38.255 --> 00:04:43.111
you actually have the end of
the Julio-Claudian dynasty.

00:04:43.111 --> 00:04:44.517
Let me write that down,

00:04:44.517 --> 00:04:47.934
Julio, Julio, Claudian, Claudian dynasty.

00:04:52.209 --> 00:04:55.540
The reason why it's called
the Julio-Claudian dynasty

00:04:55.540 --> 00:05:00.520
is that all of these
characters, let me circle them,

00:05:00.520 --> 00:05:01.937
or underline 'em.

00:05:06.906 --> 00:05:10.156
All of these characters right over here

00:05:11.384 --> 00:05:13.625
are essentially from the same family.

00:05:13.625 --> 00:05:17.746
They're descended from both
the Julian line, Julius Caesar,

00:05:17.746 --> 00:05:19.775
and the Claudian family.

00:05:19.775 --> 00:05:23.554
That's why it's called the
Julio-Claudian dynasty.

00:05:23.554 --> 00:05:25.456
Now, at the end of the
Julio-Claudian dynasty,

00:05:25.456 --> 00:05:27.676
you have a new dynasty, Vespasian.

00:05:27.676 --> 00:05:29.864
There's a short civil
war, so the Pax Romana

00:05:29.864 --> 00:05:32.244
is not without some war and bloodshed.

00:05:32.244 --> 00:05:33.356
In fact, this whole time,

00:05:33.356 --> 00:05:35.626
there's a lot of relatives being killed,

00:05:35.626 --> 00:05:37.646
people who might threaten
the Emperor being killed,

00:05:37.646 --> 00:05:39.744
and that's just talking
about the Romans, themselves.

00:05:39.744 --> 00:05:42.876
They're constantly fighting
the Germanic tribes,

00:05:42.876 --> 00:05:44.643
and groups in the Middle East,

00:05:44.643 --> 00:05:46.643
and taking more, and
more, and more territory,

00:05:46.643 --> 00:05:48.004
and these are extremely bloody thing.

00:05:48.004 --> 00:05:49.415
They're constantly enslaving people.

00:05:49.415 --> 00:05:52.364
The Roman Empire sometimes it
looks like this neat, clean,

00:05:52.364 --> 00:05:55.255
idealistic thing, but there was a lot of

00:05:55.255 --> 00:05:58.944
enslaving of people, destroying of towns.

00:05:58.944 --> 00:06:01.191
Killing people out of paranoia, or really

00:06:01.191 --> 00:06:03.315
just out of the joy of killing,

00:06:03.315 --> 00:06:06.982
if you take the case of Caligula, or Nero.

00:06:06.982 --> 00:06:08.503
Then, you have the Flavian dynasty.

00:06:08.503 --> 00:06:10.313
I don't have the three Flavian Emperors

00:06:10.313 --> 00:06:11.753
depicted right over here.

00:06:11.753 --> 00:06:15.920
You have Vespasian, you have
Titus, and you have Domitian.

00:06:17.473 --> 00:06:19.752
Of note, the Colosseum.

00:06:19.752 --> 00:06:23.781
The famous Colosseum in Rome
was built during their time.

00:06:23.781 --> 00:06:26.093
They're also known for the destruction of

00:06:26.093 --> 00:06:28.932
the second temple in Jerusalem.

00:06:28.932 --> 00:06:31.403
Then, after that, you
have what historians,

00:06:31.403 --> 00:06:34.031
and especially Niccolo Machiavelli,

00:06:34.031 --> 00:06:37.274
so this is many centuries
later, called the Good Emperors.

00:06:37.274 --> 00:06:41.255
The Good Emperors are these characters,

00:06:41.255 --> 00:06:44.616
let me square them off right over here.

00:06:44.616 --> 00:06:46.557
And these are really
the last five emperors

00:06:46.557 --> 00:06:47.947
of the Pax Romana.

00:06:47.947 --> 00:06:51.357
We should even use the term,
Good, maybe in quotation marks,

00:06:51.357 --> 00:06:55.848
because for Rome's enemies,
for the slaves of Rome,

00:06:55.848 --> 00:06:59.627
for the people who were
thrown into the Colosseum

00:06:59.627 --> 00:07:03.629
just because they were a prisoner
of war, or they committed

00:07:03.629 --> 00:07:08.427
some simple crime, the Roman
Empire didn't seem good.

00:07:08.427 --> 00:07:09.536
The reason why they were viewed good

00:07:09.536 --> 00:07:11.567
is they were viewed as
able administrators.

00:07:11.567 --> 00:07:14.297
They continued to expand the Roman Empire.

00:07:14.297 --> 00:07:17.039
Trajan in particular, the
peak of the Roman Empire

00:07:17.039 --> 00:07:21.149
comes, in terms of Geography,
comes under Trajan's rule.

00:07:21.149 --> 00:07:23.017
That's this map right over here.

00:07:23.017 --> 00:07:25.247
This is the largest geographic extent

00:07:25.247 --> 00:07:27.798
that the Roman Empire takes on.

00:07:27.798 --> 00:07:29.667
Trajan is succeeded by Hadrian,

00:07:29.667 --> 00:07:31.817
most known for Hadrian's Wall.

00:07:31.817 --> 00:07:35.237
He had the upper-bound
of the Roman Empire.

00:07:35.237 --> 00:07:38.639
Then, the Pax Romana ends
with Marcus Aurelius,

00:07:38.639 --> 00:07:41.608
who is viewed as a, he's
actually wrote meditations.

00:07:41.608 --> 00:07:43.808
He's a philosopher-emperor.

00:07:43.808 --> 00:07:47.975
He's viewed as one of the
last great stoic philosophers.

00:07:49.829 --> 00:07:53.996
With that, you have the end
of this period of Pax Romana.

00:07:55.187 --> 00:07:57.868
As we'll see in the next few videos,

00:07:57.868 --> 00:08:01.389
we then start really
getting into the decline of

00:08:01.389 --> 00:08:03.280
at least the Western Roman Empire,

00:08:03.280 --> 00:08:06.401
as we'll see the Eastern
Roman Empire outlives the West

00:08:06.401 --> 00:08:08.484
by a good thousand years.


Augustus becomes first Emperor of Roman Empire

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.519 --> 00:00:01.973
- [Instructor] We finished the last video

00:00:01.973 --> 00:00:06.359
in the year 40 B.C.E.,
where the year began

00:00:06.359 --> 00:00:10.744
with the Parthian invasion of
Syria in the eastern provinces

00:00:10.744 --> 00:00:13.688
of the Roman Republic, and
it really is an empire,

00:00:13.688 --> 00:00:16.152
the Roman Republic or the Roman Empire.

00:00:16.152 --> 00:00:19.079
But Marc Antony, who was
in control of the east

00:00:19.079 --> 00:00:22.239
of the empire, he wasn't able
to deal with it immediately

00:00:22.239 --> 00:00:25.238
because he goes to
Brundisium in order to take

00:00:25.238 --> 00:00:29.405
his wife's side on a civil
war between her and Octavian.

00:00:30.509 --> 00:00:32.985
Now, his wife dies and he
makes good with Octavian,

00:00:32.985 --> 00:00:34.267
in fact, so good with Octavian,

00:00:34.267 --> 00:00:37.787
he marries OCtavian's sister, Octavia,

00:00:37.787 --> 00:00:40.798
and they decide, alright, let's
continue to be friends here

00:00:40.798 --> 00:00:44.837
and they divide the Roman
Empire, the Roman Republic,

00:00:44.837 --> 00:00:46.873
whatever you wanna call it, between them,

00:00:46.873 --> 00:00:51.002
where Marc Antony keeps
control of the east,

00:00:51.002 --> 00:00:55.002
you now have Octavian
with control over the west

00:00:56.381 --> 00:00:58.457
and they gave Lepidus, who's always a bit

00:00:58.457 --> 00:01:00.944
of the third wheel here, they gave him

00:01:00.944 --> 00:01:05.375
some of the southern
provinces right over there.

00:01:05.375 --> 00:01:07.295
Now it seems like all is good,

00:01:07.295 --> 00:01:08.782
but as we've already talked about,

00:01:08.782 --> 00:01:12.220
the tension between Antony
and Octavian is there,

00:01:12.220 --> 00:01:14.564
it was there from the
beginning and in this video,

00:01:14.564 --> 00:01:17.995
we're going to see that it
gets a lot, a lot worse.

00:01:17.995 --> 00:01:21.078
So Marc Antony goes back to the east,

00:01:22.409 --> 00:01:26.185
where he starts planning
his invasion of Parthia,

00:01:26.185 --> 00:01:27.860
not only does he wanna
take back the territory

00:01:27.860 --> 00:01:30.622
that they took in 40 B.C.E.,
but he actually wants

00:01:30.622 --> 00:01:35.243
to avenge them for
Crassus' death in 53 B.C.E.

00:01:35.243 --> 00:01:39.410
Julius Caesar had been
planning an invasion of Persia,

00:01:40.517 --> 00:01:43.441
and you have to remember,
after Alexander the Great,

00:01:43.441 --> 00:01:47.010
all of these western rulers,
especially the Romans,

00:01:47.010 --> 00:01:49.350
they all had their sights
on Persia, they said,

00:01:49.350 --> 00:01:51.975
"Hey, maybe I can be just
like Alexander the Great

00:01:51.975 --> 00:01:53.987
"and take over the Persians."

00:01:53.987 --> 00:01:58.468
So Marc Antony is planning
his invasion of Persia

00:01:58.468 --> 00:02:01.548
but he doesn't get the troops
that he wants from Octavian

00:02:01.548 --> 00:02:05.603
and so that starts to build
the tensions even further

00:02:05.603 --> 00:02:09.770
but he goes to his lover,
Cleopatra, who is the richest

00:02:11.218 --> 00:02:14.217
woman in the world, the
pharaoh of Egypt, and says,

00:02:14.217 --> 00:02:16.577
"Hey can you give me
some Egyptian troops?"

00:02:16.577 --> 00:02:20.410
And so he plans an
invasion of Parthian Persia

00:02:22.594 --> 00:02:26.094
with a combined Roman and Egyptian troops.

00:02:28.135 --> 00:02:31.716
Now unfortunately, that
is a failed invasion.

00:02:31.716 --> 00:02:35.383
As they try to make their
way in, they get pretty far,

00:02:35.383 --> 00:02:39.780
but they weren't able to
protect their supply lines

00:02:39.780 --> 00:02:43.947
carefully and so the Parthians
are able to attack them,

00:02:44.872 --> 00:02:48.049
attack their supply
lines and while they do,

00:02:48.049 --> 00:02:51.959
the king of Armenia just kinda
doesn't really do anything

00:02:51.959 --> 00:02:55.869
about it and so Marc
Antony is forced to retreat

00:02:55.869 --> 00:02:58.663
and so you can imagine, he's
not too happy about this.

00:02:58.663 --> 00:03:01.908
The Parthians in 40
B.C.E. were able to take

00:03:01.908 --> 00:03:05.435
all of this territory, in 36 B.C.E.,

00:03:05.435 --> 00:03:09.102
so now we are right
over here, in 36 B.C.E.,

00:03:13.516 --> 00:03:17.683
we have a failed revenge
invasion of the Parthians,

00:03:18.988 --> 00:03:21.625
he's betrayed by the Armenian king.

00:03:21.625 --> 00:03:23.149
Now the other thing that's happening

00:03:23.149 --> 00:03:26.265
is that Lepidus is now
out of the triumvirate.

00:03:26.265 --> 00:03:28.972
He tries to do a little bit of a land grab

00:03:28.972 --> 00:03:33.139
after him and Octavian go after
another governor in Sicily,

00:03:35.703 --> 00:03:37.254
but when they're successful,
when Lepidus tries

00:03:37.254 --> 00:03:39.804
to take control of Sicily,
Octavian says, "No no no no,

00:03:39.804 --> 00:03:41.899
"not only can you not do that,

00:03:41.899 --> 00:03:45.232
"but you're now out of the triumvirate."

00:03:46.207 --> 00:03:49.707
So 36 B.C.E. is a situation where Octavian

00:03:50.570 --> 00:03:54.290
continues to try to consolidate
his power in the west,

00:03:54.290 --> 00:03:58.457
Lepidus is now out, and
Marc Antony faces another,

00:04:00.119 --> 00:04:03.567
I guess you could say embarrassment
against the Parthians.

00:04:03.567 --> 00:04:05.817
So then we get to 33 B.C.E.

00:04:08.388 --> 00:04:12.555
So let's see, this is 33 B.C.E.
right over here on this map

00:04:13.870 --> 00:04:18.656
and finally, he's able to
muster up enough of a force

00:04:18.656 --> 00:04:21.739
to take not revenge on the Parthians,

00:04:22.698 --> 00:04:25.305
but to take some of the
territory, but in particular,

00:04:25.305 --> 00:04:28.767
to take revenge on the Armenian king.

00:04:28.767 --> 00:04:32.480
And so Marc Antony, it's
his first win after awhile,

00:04:32.480 --> 00:04:36.076
tries to make a lot of
this, and so when he goes,

00:04:36.076 --> 00:04:38.719
he goes back to Alexandria,
where of course his lover

00:04:38.719 --> 00:04:42.886
Cleopatra reigns, and there,
he has this big celebration

00:04:43.852 --> 00:04:45.648
to say, "Hey look, I went and was able

00:04:45.648 --> 00:04:49.004
"to take out the king of Armenia."

00:04:49.004 --> 00:04:53.171
Now this celebration, it rubs
the Romans in a wrong way

00:04:54.997 --> 00:04:56.681
on a whole bunch of dimensions.

00:04:56.681 --> 00:04:58.706
One, they never really like Cleopatra,

00:04:58.706 --> 00:05:02.329
they view her as a foreign
queen, they didn't like her

00:05:02.329 --> 00:05:05.136
when she was Julius Caesar's
lover, they definitely

00:05:05.136 --> 00:05:08.615
don't like her when she's
Marc Antony's lover,

00:05:08.615 --> 00:05:10.823
and they're kind of peeved that
he decides to go Alexandria

00:05:10.823 --> 00:05:13.883
and do this ceremonial victory party

00:05:13.883 --> 00:05:16.431
that typically only happened in Rome,

00:05:16.431 --> 00:05:17.807
it looks like this guy doesn't really

00:05:17.807 --> 00:05:19.879
even view himself as Roman anymore.

00:05:19.879 --> 00:05:21.682
He likes to go back to Alexandria.

00:05:21.682 --> 00:05:24.407
And the real salt that he rubbed,

00:05:24.407 --> 00:05:26.270
especially in Octavian's wounds,

00:05:26.270 --> 00:05:29.117
was a speech he gave
which will later be known

00:05:29.117 --> 00:05:31.578
as the Donations of Alexandria.

00:05:31.578 --> 00:05:33.589
So what he starts doing
is putting his children,

00:05:33.589 --> 00:05:36.409
especially the children
that he has with Cleopatra,

00:05:36.409 --> 00:05:40.692
as the rulers of a lot
of the eastern provinces.

00:05:40.692 --> 00:05:44.645
But the worst thing that
he does, is in that speech,

00:05:44.645 --> 00:05:48.812
in the Donations of Alexandria,
this is in 33 B.C.E.,

00:05:50.495 --> 00:05:54.330
right over here, he declares
that Cleopatra's son

00:05:54.330 --> 00:05:56.982
that was apparently the
son of Julius Caesar,

00:05:56.982 --> 00:06:01.415
Caesarion, that he is the
rightful heir to Julius Caesar.

00:06:01.415 --> 00:06:03.775
Now, Octavian does not like this, he says,

00:06:03.775 --> 00:06:05.721
"Hey, I'm the adopted son,
I'm the rightful heir,

00:06:05.721 --> 00:06:08.363
"I don't like this Caesarion guy."

00:06:08.363 --> 00:06:12.962
And so for the next few
years, in 33 and 32 B.C.E.,

00:06:12.962 --> 00:06:14.645
so we're in this period on that timeline,

00:06:14.645 --> 00:06:17.418
we're in this period on this timeline,

00:06:17.418 --> 00:06:20.676
tensions start to get
a lot, lot, lot worse

00:06:20.676 --> 00:06:22.926
between Octavian and Marc Antony,

00:06:22.926 --> 00:06:26.509
they are publicly accusing
each other of not even being

00:06:26.509 --> 00:06:30.086
legitimate people with
legitimate authority,

00:06:30.086 --> 00:06:32.386
they are really starting
to question each other,

00:06:32.386 --> 00:06:34.403
they're really starting
to go at each other.

00:06:34.403 --> 00:06:37.320
And it all culminates in 31 B.C.E.,

00:06:40.412 --> 00:06:44.743
it all culminates in 31
B.C.E., so this is where we are

00:06:44.743 --> 00:06:48.976
right over here, with the
naval battle at Actium.

00:06:48.976 --> 00:06:52.370
And for the most part, and
Marc Antony and Cleopatra

00:06:52.370 --> 00:06:54.379
are both there, and
they're on their heels,

00:06:54.379 --> 00:06:57.046
they're surrounded by
the forces of Octavian,

00:06:57.046 --> 00:07:00.127
and the best that they can
hope for is just an escape

00:07:00.127 --> 00:07:03.710
and Antony and Cleopatra
are able to escape

00:07:04.986 --> 00:07:06.906
and it's very clear from that battle

00:07:06.906 --> 00:07:09.427
that they really only cared
about saving their own hides

00:07:09.427 --> 00:07:13.063
and their own wealth, and they
left the most of their navy,

00:07:13.063 --> 00:07:16.527
they returned with only
60 boats to Alexandria

00:07:16.527 --> 00:07:18.689
but they leave most of
their navy to kind of

00:07:18.689 --> 00:07:20.878
have to deal with the forces of Octavian.

00:07:20.878 --> 00:07:23.059
So they were already on their heels,

00:07:23.059 --> 00:07:25.772
they have this escape in 31 B.C.E.,

00:07:25.772 --> 00:07:29.377
many historians will call
the Battle of Actium,

00:07:29.377 --> 00:07:33.534
and this is a depiction of
the naval battle at Actium

00:07:33.534 --> 00:07:36.725
right over here, as the end, after this,

00:07:36.725 --> 00:07:40.718
there was no chance, really,
for Cleopatra and Marc Antony

00:07:40.718 --> 00:07:44.917
in any way, to rival Octavian,
that Octavian was now

00:07:44.917 --> 00:07:48.515
the real sole power in what is evolving

00:07:48.515 --> 00:07:51.848
from a Roman Republic to a Roman Empire.

00:07:52.731 --> 00:07:55.475
But Antony and Cleopatra,
maybe they didn't realize it

00:07:55.475 --> 00:07:59.825
as much, they go back to
Alexandria and continue to plot,

00:07:59.825 --> 00:08:02.673
seeing how they can get back at Octavian.

00:08:02.673 --> 00:08:04.529
So Octavian doesn't want much of this,

00:08:04.529 --> 00:08:08.696
so he decides to go attack
them in Alexandria in 30 B.C.E.

00:08:10.846 --> 00:08:14.230
And Antony tries to make a
last stand against Octavian

00:08:14.230 --> 00:08:17.982
but his soldiers really
aren't in the mood to fight

00:08:17.982 --> 00:08:21.252
so he goes back to the palace,
he looks for Cleopatra,

00:08:21.252 --> 00:08:24.370
Cleopatra gets one of her
servants to tell Marc Antony,

00:08:24.370 --> 00:08:26.192
'cause she has no mood to
see him, because who knows,

00:08:26.192 --> 00:08:29.865
he's raving mad, he might
wanna kill her or kill him,

00:08:29.865 --> 00:08:31.035
who knows what he might wanna do,

00:08:31.035 --> 00:08:34.252
Cleopatra had her servant tell Marc Antony

00:08:34.252 --> 00:08:38.305
that Cleopatra was dead
and so Marc Antony,

00:08:38.305 --> 00:08:41.101
he's already down, his
soldiers have deserted him,

00:08:41.101 --> 00:08:43.419
there's no way for him to take
on Octavian, he's essentially

00:08:43.419 --> 00:08:47.162
lost, and now Cleopatra, his
lover, is apparently dead.

00:08:47.162 --> 00:08:51.062
He stabs himself
repeatedly in the stomach.

00:08:51.062 --> 00:08:54.905
Now, Cleopatra finds out about
this and then she has Marc

00:08:54.905 --> 00:08:57.163
Antony brought to him, he
doesn't die immediately,

00:08:57.163 --> 00:08:58.713
stabbing yourself in the stomach is a way

00:08:58.713 --> 00:09:02.660
of having a very slow and painful death.

00:09:02.660 --> 00:09:05.660
And he dies essentially in her arms.

00:09:07.157 --> 00:09:10.536
And then Cleopatra is
taken, then, by the forces

00:09:10.536 --> 00:09:12.973
of Octavian, but then she too decides

00:09:12.973 --> 00:09:15.385
that she wants to commit
suicide or at least

00:09:15.385 --> 00:09:19.325
that's what most accounts say
and the most common account

00:09:19.325 --> 00:09:23.241
is that she gets a snake
smuggled into her rooms,

00:09:23.241 --> 00:09:27.028
a poisonous snake that she
taunts and gets to bite her,

00:09:27.028 --> 00:09:31.440
which allows her to die, so
both Cleopatra and Marc Antony

00:09:31.440 --> 00:09:34.023
die in 30 B.C.E., and Octavian now,

00:09:34.023 --> 00:09:37.222
really the main power, he kills Caesarion,

00:09:37.222 --> 00:09:40.396
who was Cleopatra's
son with Julius Caesar,

00:09:40.396 --> 00:09:44.850
as the only possible rival, and
so here we are on 30 B.C.E.,

00:09:44.850 --> 00:09:49.275
Octavian is victorious and
then he goes back to Rome

00:09:49.275 --> 00:09:52.227
and continues to consolidate his power.

00:09:52.227 --> 00:09:56.294
Until we get to 27 B.C.E.,
which is often marked

00:09:56.294 --> 00:09:59.203
as the beginning of the Roman Empire,

00:09:59.203 --> 00:10:03.112
when Octavian was given the name Augustus,

00:10:03.112 --> 00:10:05.860
which means illustrious
one, and from then on,

00:10:05.860 --> 00:10:09.136
he will continue to reign
with more and more and more

00:10:09.136 --> 00:10:11.537
power that he continues to consolidate

00:10:11.537 --> 00:10:14.870
for many, many, many, many more decades.


Ides of March spark a civil war

WEBVTT
Kind: captions
Language: en

00:00:00.436 --> 00:00:01.771
- [Narrator] We finished the last video

00:00:01.771 --> 00:00:04.218
with the assassination of Julius Caesar

00:00:04.218 --> 00:00:07.635
on the Ides of March, March 15th, 44 BCE.

00:00:09.205 --> 00:00:11.122
And you might remember,

00:00:12.225 --> 00:00:15.978
it was done by factions
opposed to Julius Caesar

00:00:15.978 --> 00:00:18.700
who that one, he had
gotten too much power,

00:00:18.700 --> 00:00:21.838
but even more, he was using
that power to, in a lot of ways,

00:00:21.838 --> 00:00:22.953
at least from their point of view,

00:00:22.953 --> 00:00:26.007
undermine their authority,
that he was a populist,

00:00:26.007 --> 00:00:28.424
and as a populist he was undermining

00:00:28.424 --> 00:00:31.485
the power of the aristocracy.

00:00:31.485 --> 00:00:34.729
And so they get together
and they assassinate him.

00:00:34.729 --> 00:00:36.003
Now you can imagine

00:00:36.003 --> 00:00:39.805
that all sorts of turmoil
emerges from that.

00:00:39.805 --> 00:00:41.991
At the time of the assassination,

00:00:41.991 --> 00:00:46.499
Julius Caesar and Mark
Antony are co-consuls.

00:00:46.499 --> 00:00:49.225
You might remember Mark Antony
from the previous video,

00:00:49.225 --> 00:00:51.739
one of Julius Caesar's generals in Gaul.

00:00:51.739 --> 00:00:53.949
He was also put in charge
of the Italian Peninsula

00:00:53.949 --> 00:00:57.458
when Julius Caesar went to
go and take on his opponents,

00:00:57.458 --> 00:00:59.541
take on Pompey in Greece.

00:01:00.450 --> 00:01:04.226
And so Mark Antony is the
remaining consul, and he says,

00:01:04.226 --> 00:01:05.351
"Well, what do I do?

00:01:05.351 --> 00:01:07.859
"Do I immediately try to
punish these conspirators?"

00:01:07.859 --> 00:01:11.224
In particular, you have Brutus,

00:01:11.224 --> 00:01:13.995
Brutus and Cassius, who were considered

00:01:13.995 --> 00:01:17.081
two of the leaders of the
conspiracy, and he decides

00:01:17.081 --> 00:01:20.594
instead of putting the
Senate into further turmoil,

00:01:20.594 --> 00:01:22.947
he tries to have a little
bit of a compromise

00:01:22.947 --> 00:01:25.300
and doesn't immediately punish them.

00:01:25.300 --> 00:01:30.243
And they're able to go from
Rome and then go to the East,

00:01:30.243 --> 00:01:33.660
where they are the de facto leaders

00:01:33.660 --> 00:01:35.743
of the eastern provinces.

00:01:37.921 --> 00:01:39.504
But then in 43 BCE,

00:01:42.672 --> 00:01:45.483
things get a little bit more interesting.

00:01:45.483 --> 00:01:49.650
Julius Caesar in his will,
he declares that his nephew,

00:01:51.558 --> 00:01:55.492
Octavian, or will be
shortly known as Octavian,

00:01:55.492 --> 00:01:57.818
who's 18 years old at
the time of the death

00:01:57.818 --> 00:02:00.568
on the Ides of March, that he is,

00:02:01.770 --> 00:02:04.429
in his will, should be his adopted son,

00:02:04.429 --> 00:02:09.420
and so makes him the natural
heir of Julius Caesar.

00:02:09.420 --> 00:02:11.238
Now, Antony, who's also

00:02:11.238 --> 00:02:13.832
one of Julius Caesar's
right hand men throughout

00:02:13.832 --> 00:02:16.713
and is one of his strong
supporters as he came to power,

00:02:16.713 --> 00:02:19.280
he also, in a lot of
ways, could've claimed,

00:02:19.280 --> 00:02:21.699
"Well, I have some rights here

00:02:21.699 --> 00:02:24.697
"to some of the power that
Julius Caesar has gotten,"

00:02:24.697 --> 00:02:27.239
and then there was a
third figure, Lepidus,

00:02:27.239 --> 00:02:29.229
and this is a picture
of him right over here.

00:02:29.229 --> 00:02:30.568
This is actually a picture of the three.

00:02:30.568 --> 00:02:34.675
This is Mark Antony, this is
Octavian, and this is Lepidus,

00:02:34.675 --> 00:02:37.227
and Lepidus was also a
significant supporter

00:02:37.227 --> 00:02:38.792
of Julius Caesar.

00:02:38.792 --> 00:02:40.252
So the three of them get together,

00:02:40.252 --> 00:02:42.318
and this is Lepidus's
timeline right over here,

00:02:42.318 --> 00:02:44.215
each of these timelines show the lifespans

00:02:44.215 --> 00:02:45.480
of these characters, so you can see

00:02:45.480 --> 00:02:46.940
when they were born and when they died.

00:02:46.940 --> 00:02:49.254
You get a sense of their ages

00:02:49.254 --> 00:02:51.941
and when they happened to pass away.

00:02:51.941 --> 00:02:54.783
And so these three
characters get together,

00:02:54.783 --> 00:02:57.486
and they form a triumvirate,
and this triumvirate

00:02:57.486 --> 00:02:58.916
is called the Second Triumvirate,

00:02:58.916 --> 00:03:00.704
'cause you might've remembered
the First Triumvirate

00:03:00.704 --> 00:03:03.673
between Julius Caesar,
Pompey, and Crassus,

00:03:03.673 --> 00:03:05.432
and that was an informal agreement.

00:03:05.432 --> 00:03:08.410
This one actually gets legal backing,

00:03:08.410 --> 00:03:09.989
and not only do they
form this triumvirate,

00:03:09.989 --> 00:03:14.148
but they're given
incredibly powerful power

00:03:14.148 --> 00:03:15.949
over the Roman Republic.

00:03:15.949 --> 00:03:19.532
And they decide to go
after the conspirators.

00:03:19.532 --> 00:03:23.211
So in 68, sorry, (laughs)

00:03:23.211 --> 00:03:26.168
so in 42, I don't know
what my brain is doing,

00:03:26.168 --> 00:03:30.085
in 43, the triumvirate
is formed, and so in 42,

00:03:31.195 --> 00:03:33.981
they eventually are able
to meet the conspirators

00:03:33.981 --> 00:03:34.993
who killed Julius Caesar,

00:03:34.993 --> 00:03:37.779
and they meet them at
the Battle of Philippi,

00:03:37.779 --> 00:03:40.726
which is right over, let me do
this in a color you can see,

00:03:40.726 --> 00:03:43.226
the Battle of Philippi, where they're able

00:03:43.226 --> 00:03:45.675
to defeat the conspirators.

00:03:45.675 --> 00:03:48.238
So after the defeat of the conspirators,

00:03:48.238 --> 00:03:52.007
they essentially divide the republic,

00:03:52.007 --> 00:03:53.726
although it really is an empire,

00:03:53.726 --> 00:03:56.459
they divide the republic between them.

00:03:56.459 --> 00:04:00.749
Antony, Mark Antony, he becomes the ruler,

00:04:00.749 --> 00:04:03.701
the de facto ruler of the East.

00:04:03.701 --> 00:04:07.002
Mark Antony becomes the de
facto ruler of the East,

00:04:07.002 --> 00:04:10.986
and then he actually is the
nominal ruler over Gaul as well,

00:04:10.986 --> 00:04:13.171
but then he put someone
else in charge there.

00:04:13.171 --> 00:04:16.746
And as we'll see over
the course of this 17,

00:04:16.746 --> 00:04:20.279
this tumultuous 17 year
period, Mark Antony really has

00:04:20.279 --> 00:04:23.934
a lot of his control and
influence in the East.

00:04:23.934 --> 00:04:26.752
But they've essentially split the empire

00:04:26.752 --> 00:04:28.692
between the three of them.

00:04:28.692 --> 00:04:30.233
And right at that split,

00:04:30.233 --> 00:04:33.027
Octavian doesn't get
so much of the empire,

00:04:33.027 --> 00:04:34.945
but we'll see that'll change shortly

00:04:34.945 --> 00:04:36.791
where he's able to be in control

00:04:36.791 --> 00:04:39.418
of the western half of the empire

00:04:39.418 --> 00:04:42.205
in a matter of a few years.

00:04:42.205 --> 00:04:44.372
So after that, then in 41,

00:04:45.513 --> 00:04:48.965
and this is where Cleopatra
enters into the picture,

00:04:48.965 --> 00:04:53.023
and she always makes this
a little bit more colorful,

00:04:53.023 --> 00:04:57.954
Mark Antony decides that he
wants to meet with Cleopatra.

00:04:57.954 --> 00:05:00.459
So he's now leading the East.

00:05:00.459 --> 00:05:02.284
He starts leading it from Athens.

00:05:02.284 --> 00:05:06.497
Then he moves where he
governs from to Ephesus,

00:05:06.497 --> 00:05:09.945
and he calls Cleopatra,
and he already knows her,

00:05:09.945 --> 00:05:14.532
he's met her several times, to
come meet him here in Tarsus.

00:05:14.532 --> 00:05:18.024
And here in Tarsus, and then
they go back to Alexandria,

00:05:18.024 --> 00:05:22.668
a romance starts between
Mark Antony and Cleopatra,

00:05:22.668 --> 00:05:25.001
one of the most famous
romances in all of history.

00:05:25.001 --> 00:05:26.244
Remember, this is the same Cleopatra

00:05:26.244 --> 00:05:30.014
who had a romance and a child
likely through Julius Caesar.

00:05:30.014 --> 00:05:32.417
And Mark Antony and Cleopatra

00:05:32.417 --> 00:05:35.276
will actually have
three children together,

00:05:35.276 --> 00:05:38.467
and two of which were
conceived in this time period

00:05:38.467 --> 00:05:42.050
right over here, this
period around 41 BCE.

00:05:43.448 --> 00:05:47.615
So this is where we are on
the timeline right over there.

00:05:49.218 --> 00:05:53.221
But then in 40 BCE, the Parthians invade.

00:05:53.221 --> 00:05:55.509
And you might remember the Parthians.

00:05:55.509 --> 00:05:57.727
This is another very significant,

00:05:57.727 --> 00:06:01.274
you really could consider them
a peer empire to the Romans.

00:06:01.274 --> 00:06:03.582
On this map, you're only
seeing the very left

00:06:03.582 --> 00:06:05.955
or the most westward tip
of the Parthian Empire.

00:06:05.955 --> 00:06:07.517
They had control of,

00:06:07.517 --> 00:06:08.989
when you remember the Achaemenid Empire,

00:06:08.989 --> 00:06:11.500
the Seleucid Empire, of most of Persia.

00:06:11.500 --> 00:06:13.014
They are a significant empire

00:06:13.014 --> 00:06:15.695
that was really a check on ancient Rome.

00:06:15.695 --> 00:06:18.487
And so they decide to invade.

00:06:18.487 --> 00:06:20.320
They decide to invade.

00:06:21.252 --> 00:06:24.973
And the Romans already have
trouble with the Parthians.

00:06:24.973 --> 00:06:27.508
You might remember Crassus,

00:06:27.508 --> 00:06:29.798
one of the first three triumvirs,

00:06:29.798 --> 00:06:31.287
members of the triumvirate.

00:06:31.287 --> 00:06:33.496
He went and, while fighting the Parthians,

00:06:33.496 --> 00:06:34.937
that's where he was killed,

00:06:34.937 --> 00:06:38.245
and so the Romans had had some
interest in going after them,

00:06:38.245 --> 00:06:39.783
and now you have the Parthians

00:06:39.783 --> 00:06:41.682
who are taking it to the Romans.

00:06:41.682 --> 00:06:43.968
They've taken it on the offense.

00:06:43.968 --> 00:06:47.994
So Antony, he goes from,
when he finds out about this,

00:06:47.994 --> 00:06:50.766
and he's apparently in charge of the East,

00:06:50.766 --> 00:06:52.547
so it's a bit of an embarrassment for him,

00:06:52.547 --> 00:06:54.739
he goes to Tyre, which is the remaining

00:06:54.739 --> 00:06:57.200
significant holding that the Romans have.

00:06:57.200 --> 00:07:00.407
While he's in Tyre, he
finds out that his wife,

00:07:00.407 --> 00:07:02.977
he does have a wife, so this thing

00:07:02.977 --> 00:07:04.927
that he has with Cleopatra
is really an affair,

00:07:04.927 --> 00:07:09.094
his wife is embroiled in
a civil war with Octavian.

00:07:10.004 --> 00:07:13.293
And the civil war, and you'll
see there's this general issue

00:07:13.293 --> 00:07:17.693
throughout especially the later
stages of the Roman Republic

00:07:17.693 --> 00:07:21.499
and even the Roman Empire,
that as Rome expands,

00:07:21.499 --> 00:07:23.416
it needs these armies,
and one of the things

00:07:23.416 --> 00:07:25.244
that they promise these soldiers are,

00:07:25.244 --> 00:07:27.304
"Hey, after you serve,
when you're a veteran,

00:07:27.304 --> 00:07:30.614
"we're gonna give you some land
so you can be a nice farmer

00:07:30.614 --> 00:07:35.036
"or at least landlord, other
people might do the farming,

00:07:35.036 --> 00:07:37.240
"and you can have slaves
and all the rest."

00:07:37.240 --> 00:07:40.635
Now, in order to keep doing
that, you keep needing new land.

00:07:40.635 --> 00:07:43.935
So Octavian, in order to make
some of these veterans happy,

00:07:43.935 --> 00:07:46.528
was giving away land,
some of which was already,

00:07:46.528 --> 00:07:50.490
I guess you could say
owned, by existing Romans.

00:07:50.490 --> 00:07:54.657
So Mark Antony's wife was
using that really as an excuse

00:07:55.744 --> 00:07:58.042
to try to vie for power.

00:07:58.042 --> 00:08:00.937
And just to be clear, even
though there was this triumvirate

00:08:00.937 --> 00:08:03.204
between Octavian, Antony, and Lepidus,

00:08:03.204 --> 00:08:05.077
things were tense from the beginning

00:08:05.077 --> 00:08:07.281
between Antony and Octavian.

00:08:07.281 --> 00:08:10.266
Both of them, both of them saw themselves

00:08:10.266 --> 00:08:13.011
as natural heirs to Julius Caesar.

00:08:13.011 --> 00:08:15.517
Antony says, "Hey, this young
little 18 year old upstart,

00:08:15.517 --> 00:08:17.994
"what has he done to deserve this empire?

00:08:17.994 --> 00:08:20.690
"I've been beside Julius
Caesar the entire time."

00:08:20.690 --> 00:08:22.977
Octavian is here saying,
"Hey, I am now officially

00:08:22.977 --> 00:08:24.801
"Julius Caesar's adopted son."

00:08:24.801 --> 00:08:26.755
He takes on the name Caesar.

00:08:26.755 --> 00:08:31.499
"I am the rightful heir
to Julius Caesar's power."

00:08:31.499 --> 00:08:35.036
And so sitting here in
Tyre, Antony decides,

00:08:35.036 --> 00:08:37.917
"Okay, let me go take on Octavian."

00:08:37.917 --> 00:08:41.834
So he decides to go and
lay siege to Brundisium

00:08:43.390 --> 00:08:45.203
in order to defend his wife,

00:08:45.203 --> 00:08:47.385
even though he obviously didn't care

00:08:47.385 --> 00:08:49.931
too much about his wife's honor.

00:08:49.931 --> 00:08:53.725
And it's over there, they're
essentially at loggerheads.

00:08:53.725 --> 00:08:55.715
He tries to go into the civil war.

00:08:55.715 --> 00:08:58.974
His wife, Antony's wife, dies.

00:08:58.974 --> 00:09:01.734
Octavian and Antony decide, "Okay, okay.

00:09:01.734 --> 00:09:05.678
"Maybe we should not be
fighting each other so much."

00:09:05.678 --> 00:09:09.509
And so they decide once
again to be friends,

00:09:09.509 --> 00:09:11.991
and then they really at that point

00:09:11.991 --> 00:09:14.204
decide to split the empire more formally

00:09:14.204 --> 00:09:17.936
between East and West,
where, in the triumvirate,

00:09:17.936 --> 00:09:20.748
you have Mark Antony
still getting the East.

00:09:20.748 --> 00:09:24.665
You have Octavian being
in control of the West,

00:09:26.474 --> 00:09:29.227
including the Italian Peninsula,

00:09:29.227 --> 00:09:31.933
and then Lepidus gets Africa.

00:09:31.933 --> 00:09:36.743
And you have Lepidus getting
Africa right over here.

00:09:36.743 --> 00:09:39.076
So I'll leave you with that.

00:09:40.936 --> 00:09:42.547
There's a little moment of,

00:09:42.547 --> 00:09:44.081
it looks like a little bit of peace,

00:09:44.081 --> 00:09:46.831
between Mark Antony and Octavian.

00:09:47.986 --> 00:09:49.687
But as we'll see in the next video,

00:09:49.687 --> 00:09:51.746
it's about to get a lot worse.

00:09:51.746 --> 00:09:53.490
The big picture from here is that

00:09:53.490 --> 00:09:56.039
they were able to take
care of the conspirators,

00:09:56.039 --> 00:09:57.831
but now they're starting to squabble.

00:09:57.831 --> 00:09:59.264
The triumvirate is starting to squabble,

00:09:59.264 --> 00:10:01.036
especially Mark Antony and Octavian.

00:10:01.036 --> 00:10:02.665
Lepidus was always kind of the,

00:10:02.665 --> 00:10:04.201
I guess you could say,
the third wheel here.

00:10:04.201 --> 00:10:06.778
It was always between Antony and Octavian.

00:10:06.778 --> 00:10:10.253
Cleopatra has a romantic
relationship with Antony.

00:10:10.253 --> 00:10:12.256
She's aligned with Antony.

00:10:12.256 --> 00:10:14.475
At the same time, and remember, Cleopatra,

00:10:14.475 --> 00:10:16.032
she's considered the richest woman

00:10:16.032 --> 00:10:16.974
in the world at this time.

00:10:16.974 --> 00:10:18.803
She is the pharaoh of Egypt.

00:10:18.803 --> 00:10:21.747
And remember, Egypt, even
though the people were Egyptian,

00:10:21.747 --> 00:10:24.220
Cleopatra is part of
the Ptolemaic Dynasty.

00:10:24.220 --> 00:10:26.764
She is Greek, but what
makes her interesting

00:10:26.764 --> 00:10:28.704
is that she takes on
a lot of the trappings

00:10:28.704 --> 00:10:30.160
and she learns to speak Egyptian.

00:10:30.160 --> 00:10:32.748
So she's quite popular from, I guess,

00:10:32.748 --> 00:10:36.217
relatively speaking terms,
with the Egyptian people.

00:10:36.217 --> 00:10:37.392
And the other thing to keep in mind is

00:10:37.392 --> 00:10:38.227
we have these Parthians.

00:10:38.227 --> 00:10:41.407
These Parthians have
just laid another insult

00:10:41.407 --> 00:10:44.292
on the Romans right over
here when they invaded Syria

00:10:44.292 --> 00:10:45.873
and are able to take over this territory.

00:10:45.873 --> 00:10:48.837
And this is especially
annoying to Mark Antony,

00:10:48.837 --> 00:10:52.504
who is supposed to be
in charge of the East.