The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire | Lex Fridman Podcast #498

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See below for timestamps, transcript, and to give feedback, submit questions, contact Lex, etc.
0:00 - Episode highlight
1:24 - Introduction
1:51 - The Roman Empire and the Byzantine Empire
5:49 - 2,200 Years of Roman History
26:12 - Power, violence, and civil war
47:27 - Edict of Caracalla
1:00:23 - Crisis of the Third Century
1:14:52 - Constantine and the new Roman Empire
1:26:53 - Christianity in the Roman Empire
1:52:21 - Fall of the Western Roman Empire
2:05:17 - Eunuchs, Taxes, and Power
2:30:24 - Emperor Justinian and wars of conquest
2:47:26 - The Arab conquests
3:07:01 - Why the Roman empire survived so long
3:33:08 - Lessons from history

Transcript:
https://lexfridman.com/anthony-kaldellis-transcript

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EPISODE LINKS:
Anthony's Books: https://amzn.to/49AX7Q1
Anthony's Publications: https://kaldellispublications.weebly.com
Anthony's University of Chicago page: https://classics.uchicago.edu/people/anthony-kaldellis
The New Roman Empire (book): https://amzn.to/3PTFTqk
Streams of Gold (book): https://amzn.to/4fgRMRq
Byzantium & Friends Podcast: https://byzantiumandfriends.podbean.com/
The History of Byzantium Podcast: https://thehistoryofbyzantium.com/

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4 hours about the Roman Empire? Hell yeah I'm in! Lets get going!

This podcast wasn't built in a day.. 🫡

Wow it's been awhile lex looks like s***

Lex is a fraud and idiot

Sucks ass

It's a little sus how he didnt mention the Latins deceiving the Romans and sacking then taking over constantinople for 70 years which utterly decimated any hope of recovering what once was.

Lex works for Mossad.

Same greatest ally who opened the gates of Toledo, opened the gates of "impenetrable" Constantinople to the invaders...and now they're doing it yet again

Thumbs down for the "Byzantine" nonsense.

There was no such thing as a "Byzantine" empire.

It was the Roman Empire

You played us hard with that "Khabib Podcast"

Because Rome wasn't a city part of Byzantium

3:00:10 i love this look they give each other 🤣

The podcast is fine, and talking about the byzantine activity is fine..... but I'm sorry; the bravado and logical fallacy offered at the very beginning about pretending that the byzantine activity needs to be called total Roman is just ridiculous and false. It was a branch-off that diverted away from Rome as an offshoot, it is not Rome. If I go to Australia and they talk about their history by mentioning paleolithic hunter gatherers going around the british isles and talking about kings and wars and politics in Britain.....fine, I will roll my eyes and say "yeah yeah, but really your history begins with naval exploration and colonization of Australia". And thankfully, most in Australia would understand that and agree and we'd all move on. But if I go to Australia and someone there summons up the bravado and logical fallacy to say "We are Britain, the true Britain" I cannot take them seriously. This is the same situation with the byzantine activity. Australia was an offshoot of British expansion that gradually went their separate ways. And the Byzantium empire was an offshoot of the "real" Roman Empire that got too big to govern efficiently from the real capital at Rome and so one of the emperors started coming up with a "master and apprentice" system of emperors and then eventually "two masters and two apprentices" system of emperors....that then geographically divided the empire in half. Then those various masters and apprentices squabbled and fought each other and the only solution that lasted very long was to keep the empire divided in two and the Byzantine side branched off and did its own separate thing. They were not Rome, they were an emulation and cover-band imitation of Rome in a city other than Rome. The real band died, and only the cover-band kept touring.

There are times during this interview where Kaldellis sounds a bit like Quinten Tarantino, e.g. 25:22

There are three Roman Empires.
Holy Roman, Ottoman and Russian.
Pretty sure it’s still a thing.

“Roman” is a designation. It’s a style of government. It’s not a race or one group. It’s coincidentally a city in Italy.

It’s like being MAGA and there also being a Maga, Ohio.

Historians are trying to sell books and are making up whatever doesn’t tie it to current events. Because… it’s history 🤪

@lexfridman if possible, I’d like to read Kaldellis’ reaction to this pushback.

Great conversation, incredible topic. Kaldellis argues there’s no strong evidence for Constantine’s conversion beyond sincere belief — that Christ helped him in battle was reason enough. I’d push back, or at least add a layer he undersells: monotheism as a tool of legitimacy.

As the episode lays out, the defining problem of the era was legitimacy — civil war roughly every other year, emperors made and broken by whoever held the swords. Under polytheism, divine backing is diffuse: many gods, many patrons, no single authority that uniquely sanctions one ruler. So legitimacy defaults to force — a human, might-makes-right, survival-of-the-fittest contest.

Monotheism changes the structure. One God means an emperor can claim to rule by that one God’s will — a real “divine right” a rival can’t easily counter-claim. One God in heaven, one emperor on earth. This doesn’t require calling Constantine cynical: sincere belief and a powerful new source of legitimacy can be the same move. But faith alone feels like an incomplete explanation when the structural incentive lines up this neatly.

(Pretty sure I first heard this framing on Mike Duncan’s History of Rome — correct me if I’ve got the source wrong.)

he's a great regular on Robin Pearson's history of byzantium podcast. i'm sad that series is over now!

Love having this guy on. Byzantine history is fascinating and brushed over. Thanks again Lex for everything you put out

This is so cool

Garbage ass show bro

Wow, when i saw the title i was hoping he was him. Hands down best Byzantine historian of the last few decades

This was wonderful !!!

Your good friend Musk has more wealth than the lower 48% of the population combined. I don’t care about your history podcasts. History is happening now and you are apathetic. Do something for the good of people.

Need Dr Roy Casagranda on here

Very well done, appreciate this video!

am i dreaming ... Pr. Kaldelis for 4 hours ...

Loved this video, keep up the great work!

Mark Ruffalo knows way more than I thought on the Roman Empire.

Haven’t watched A lex video in ages. I click when I see Rome.

The seljuk Turks did not just take over “Asia minor” it took over the Armenian Highlands, disgusting how we can talk hours about Rome and Byzantine empires and not once the Armenian kingdom was brought up.

The justification for calling it “Byzantine” is simple: it was a very materially different phase of the continuous Roman Empire and its a useful term to delineate from the Roman Empire that included the west. As lex ran into “west empire” or “early vs late” empire doesn’t work as well due to the period with the east and west existed together. If we want to call it something like “Roman Byzantium,” then whatever, okay.

Truly Brilliant