The Turning Wheel Podcast

In this reader question and answer episode, I talk about: What  historians know about Marcus Aurelius's notebook, "Meditations", and why Marcus wrote it.  What would have happened had Marcus killed Commodus Was Marcus an overly-trusting dupe who got taken advantage of? The deal with Marcus's wife, Faustina, and her relationship to the two classic Roman stereotypes for powerful women.   

Romans of the late empire were well aware that their borders had become porous, that fewer soldiers stood ready to drive out the increasingly bold barbarian tribes, that there was less tax revenue to fund everything, and that they seemed to end every generation a bit worse off than they'd been at the beginning of it. That is to say that the Romans were very aware of the symptoms of their own decline, but for the most part, they were clueless about the real causes underlying it.  Modern historians have attempted to fill this gap, with one academic counting 210 varied and somewhat overlapping hypotheses published by historians to explain what really happened.    Some say taxes were too low, others that they were too high. Some blame too much expansion, while others insist the issues was that the state stopped its incessant conquest. Some blame Christianity, or the loss of old school Roman virtue and grit.   Many blame bad emperors, mismanaged battles, and the civil wars that sapped the vitality of the state. Libertarians like to point to price controls and limitations placed on markets as the cause. Most admit that this is a complicated subject, and it was really a host of factors that finally killed off the empire.     The problem with most of these theories is that they're built on one glaring assumption: That the environment and the forces it channels are more or less stable, innocuous, and unimportant backdrops across which the truly important human actions play out.    But modern science has pulled the rug out from under these assumptions, and instead has demonstrated that the earth's wild oscillations gave humanity an incredibly bumpy ride, even just since we started building civilizations around 10,000 years ago.   Few realized it while it was happening because the transformations happened slowly over such long period of time, and often, not enough climatic data was being collected and tracked to notice the shifts.    In this episode, we dive into the two main factors of Rome's fall - one human driven, and one driven by forces far beyond the control of even the most powerful Caesar. 

Roman history fans know two things about Commodus: First, he was a horribly corrupt, psychopathic emperor. Second, he reigned at the end of the Pax Romana, and helped start Rome's slow decline towards eventual dissolution.  The Roman senator and historian Cassius Dio, who knew Commodus and his father, Marcus Aurelius, personally, tells us that with the ascention of Commodus that, "our history now descends from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust, as affairs did for the Romans of that day." And enough other sources have spoken of Commodus's misrule and cruelty to leave of thinking that he was probably right. But can we be certain he was correct with his conclusions?  We know for certain that he probably made one choice, albeit for the wrong reasons, which probably contributed to to the Empire's longevity. And of his misdeeds? Just how impactful were they? Today we're going to examine the life of Commodus. It's likely that he was indeed a bit of a psychopath, but what's more doubtful is if any of his actions really contributed to Rome's fall and the end of the Pax Romana.  Find out why in this episode.   

Back in Rome after more than eight years of defending the empire from the barbarian hordes of Europe and the armies of an usurper, Marcus Aurelius settles in for one of the few brief periods of peace he experiences during his entire reign. There's a law code to rewrite for the good of slaves and free men alike, infrastructure that needs to be rebuilt, and a succession to wrap up. But did anyone think Marcus would get to live happily ever after? When the Germans start raiding imperial territory again, Marcus  decides that he's going to crush the treacherous German and Sarmatian tribes once and for all, even if it costs him his life.

Why did one of the greatest, most accomplished, and most morally-centered emperors in Roman history let an immoral tyrant succeed him? Marcus Aurelius knew how far the apple had fallen from the tree when it came to his son Commodus, yet acquiesced to his succession, setting aside a five-generation precedent of choosing emperors based on merit rather than blood. In any discussion of Marcus's life, it's this failure to cull his bad seed and set someone better on the throne that's held out as the one great failure of an otherwise impeccable record.  In today's episode we delve into this criticism. We explore just how challenging managing a succession could be, and just how much Marcus did to ensure that there would be someone competent on hand to rule. 

The one man with the experience, position, and breeding to challenge Marcus Aurelius's claim to the throne decides to take a crack at him, and the Roman Empire is plunged into civil war. Gaius Avidius Cassius is no philosopher, and as the eastern legions swear allegiance to him and hail him as the new emperor, he issues a letter condemning Marcus for too much thinking, "about first principles and about the soul and about what is honourable and just, and has no thought for the State." He condemns Marcus for empowering talented men of low breeding at the expense of the blue bloods, and says that only he can set things straight.  As the richest provinces in the Roman Empire lurch out of Marcus's orbit, and the loss of Egypt means grain shortages in the capital, Marcus must wind up his almost-won conflict with the Germans and Sarmatians and march east to confront this usurper.  Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/TheTurningWheel  

With the Roman Empire on its knees, Marcus Aurelius must raise and personally lead an army against the combined might of Germania and Sarmatia. Plague, famine, and economic ruin might have something to say about that. The Marcomannic wars have arrived.  Support the podcast: https://www.patreon.com/TheTurningWheel

As the Roman Empire's first true disease epidemic rips it apart at the seams and brings an end to the halcyon days of the Pax Romona, the emperor Marcus Aurelius struggles to keep everything from falling apart. Over the course of a few years he loses at least 30% of his subjects to the Antonine Plague, the Germanic and Sarmatian tribes across the border attack in huge numbers, and the economy grounds to a halt. As his world unravels, Marcus leans more and more heavily on his Stoic Philosophy to keep from falling into despair as he tries to shield his people from the worst the world can throw at them.   

After a talking snake cons their governor into a military disaster, The Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius rushes to respond to the military crisis with Parthia as the conflict escalate to a full-scale war. We talk about the state of the Roman army after 40 years of relative peace, and how the Roman Generals manage to beat the Parthians horse-warrior advantage.  Support the podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheTurningWheel

Hadrian's bad example taught Marcus how to avoid being a tyrant. Marcus's philosophy, Stoicism, and the example of his adoptive father, Antoninus Pius, showed him the right path. In this episode we discuss how a Stoic makes decisions, the high ideals Marcus brought to the job, and the new roads the new emperor's ideals led him down. Support this podcast on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/TheTurningWheel

Vologases IV did not wait. Antoninus Pius was barely cold in his grave when the Parthian King of Kings launched a surprise attack on Rome, hoping to catch the empire flat-footed.    Now, the new emperor, Marcus Aurelius, must contend with a fierce horse warrior people who'd humbled talented Roman commanders in the past.  We discuss the the long entanglement of Rome and the Parthians, and talk about Crassus's doomed expedition in the late Republican era, which cemented Parthia in the minds of the Romans as a fierce enemy not to be trifled with.    Support the Podcast: https://www.patreon.com/TheTurningWheel

Why didn't the Roman Emperor Marcus Aurelius kill his son Commodus?   It probably sounds like a strange question, since we normally don't object to men refraining from the murder of their children, but Marcus Aurelius wasn't an average sort of man, and Commodus was far from an average son.     In this series, we're going to examine the life of the man reigning over a civilization at the edge of a cliff. We'll not only be exploring how Marcus Aurelius, one of the best and most farsighted emperors the Romans ever had, chose to rule in incredibly turbulent times, but also how he unintentionally came to sever his country's long relay race of competent leadership, and, perhaps, opened up a new phase of classical civilization - the beginning of the end.    There's no question that the Romans living at the time of Marcus's death, as well as those coming in the centuries down the road, thought of the ascension of Commodus as a disaster, and a turning point for their civilization. In his chronicle of Roman History, the historian Cassius Dio wrote of the ascension of Commodus with just a few years of hindsight, "Our history now plunges from a kingdom of gold to one of iron and rust."    So this series is the story of a botched succession, but it's also the story of Marcus the man, who, compared to his psychotic son Commodus, is the far more interesting and nuanced character. It's also a story of the almost invisible background events that dominated Rome's ability to pull out of its multiple tailspins.    Support the show: https://www.patreon.com/TheTurningWheel