CHALLENGE STATUS QUO

“I think of history as a kind of source for finding your true self for, like you're kind of looking for yourself. You're looking for somebody who's trying to do something that is the version of the greatest thing that you could do with your own life. And so it's about, like, finding resonance for achievement, and I think this is what the greats tend to get out of history.”

“He looks to them and he says, 'Do you not think it is a matter for tears that when Alexander was my age, he was the ruler of so many great peoples, and yet I have done nothing worthy of great renown?' It's painful to realize that you haven't been living the life to the full extent of what you should be doing and are capable of doing, and I think that's a really powerful moment.”

“He grows up in this kinda dirty part of town. Caesar would have been like a kid hanging out in the street playing dice with his buddies outside of a bar. The Suburra was a kind of place that you didn't really wanna live if you had a better option, and so he's in contact with the underbelly of Rome and his family has is aligned on the Roman left of politics.”

“On the one hand, there are the optimates, the aristocratic faction who stand for the ancient prerogatives of the senate and the tradition. On the other hand, you have the populists who are about things like land reform and promoting talented outsiders. Caesar has really strong connections there because his aunt is married to one of the greatest populist figureheads in Roman history, Gaius Marius.”

“Nietzsche quotes Goethe at the beginning of that book that something like, 'I hate all knowledge that does not quicken and enliven me.' And history can be very quickening and enlivening. He calls it the monumental approach to history where you're looking not so much for precise facts, although the facts matter for the story, you're looking for examples of greatness.”