A history of Rome

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is a podcast from WR The Jesse Kelly Show.
Final hour of The Jesse Kelly Show on a Monday,
a Labor Day, And yes, we are live here and
we are doing history tonight. I did a bunch of
politics a first hour. If you miss that, go download
the podcast. I did Medal of Honor Monday second hour,

(00:22):
and then a bunch of history second or whatever. Have
you missed any part of this, including the backstory, Go
to iHeart Spotify iTunes download a podcast of it. We're
gonna continue with our history on the Battle of Actium.
Here Mark Antony. He has his Egyptian Queen Cleopatra with him.

(00:43):
They have relocated all their money, their ships, their legions,
and they've moved it into Greece. Octavian and his wonderful
general slash Admiral Agrippa, they know they have a problem
on their hands. Is this Remember, as the Great von
Klauschowitz said, war is a continuation of politics by other means.

(01:09):
This is also a political war. Octavian has to try
to hold together his support at home. That's tenuous at best.
Mark Antony is going to invade in Italy. He's going
to invade and if he invades. If mark Antony is
able to go on the offense, if he's able to

(01:32):
start the momentum in his direction, it very likely costs
Octavian this war because if he lands, then mark Antony's
going to have people, political leaders, kings, queens come over
to his side. And that's a part of this we

(01:53):
need to talk about for a moment as we pause
on the mobilization. Right now, Octavian Agrippether in Italy, mark
Antony and Cleopatra they're in Greece. But remember Rome I
talked about colonization and the different empires that were attached
to it. There are different kings of different areas, with

(02:16):
their troops and their treasure, pledging loyalty to the different
sides for different reasons. And the reason I'm not going
to go down the list of all these people is
it's too long, it's too detailed, it's too boring, and
more importantly, they tend to switch a lot. If you
actually read the details of this story, you'll find that

(02:39):
some of the guys who were allied with mark Antony
were people he had fought and tried to kill on
the battlefield before, and same with Octavian, and sometimes they
switch it. Guys are always switching sides, always licking their
finger and sticking it in the air. Member King Herod.
Everyone knows that name, King Herod from the Bible. King

(03:01):
King Herod's a player in this game too. Did you
know that he's got troops, he's got money. Who does
he pledge loyalty to? I don't know. There's there's mark Antony,
but maybe Octavian that he ends up going with mark Antony.
You should know for a while. But that's the way
the story goes. If you are winning, and it looks
like you're winning, then kings and their kingdoms will come

(03:24):
because you're getting the momentum. And if it looks like
you're losing, not just kings and kingdoms, your own troops,
your own senators, your own generals, your own admirals will
abandon you, and that will be a story here. And
so Octavian and Agrippa sitting there in Italy, they know
they cannot allow mark Antony to invade Italy. They simply can't.

(03:48):
They have got to stop him before he puts boots
on the ground. Well, I guess they're sandals, before he
puts Roman sandals on the ground. In Italy. They have
got to do something about it. So they gather up
their troops. They have a large number of troops too,
I would say, roughly equal to mark Antony's. Not quite
as many, but roughly equal. They gather up their troops,
they gather up their ships, and they sail from Italy

(04:13):
over to Greece. Now this is where the story gets
very interesting from mark Antony and Octavian's standpoint. To be honest,
where do they go first? Do they go straight from
mark Antony and all his legions and their main base, now,
of course not. They start taking important ports, important islands,

(04:37):
little supply line areas that are important to mark Antony. Remember,
mark Antony supplies his power base, it's back in Egypt.
Octavian and Agrippa their supplies their power base. It's from Italy.
And so they don't attack what is strong. They don't
go and try to slam into mark Antony head to head.

(04:59):
He's the great market Antony, He's this amazing general. They
start snipping off this little city, in this little port,
in this little thing. And as they do this, the
momentum starts to build for Octavian. He shouldn't win. This
starts to build for Octavian. Slowly, you get a general

(05:21):
here who will switch sides. A king there. Octavian and
his general Agrippa, they keep grabbing these little hinterland areas.
And as they're grabbing the hinterland areas, Mark Antony is
sitting in his power base debating, twiddling his thumbs. What

(05:44):
do we do? Do we go out? What do we
not do? Octavian eventually marches his army into a high
ground position above the harbor. This is important. Mark Antony
and Cleopatra are in a horn. Just know that the
harbor matters. Their ships are there, their troops are there.

(06:05):
Octavian is in the high ground above this area. Mark Antony,
He's dying to fight. He has the troop strength, he
has the money. He's ready to go. He's challenging Octavian
to single combat. You me sword spears. Octavian just ignores him.
Mark Antony takes his amazing legions and they were amazing,

(06:29):
and he marches them out to have a big land
battle with Octavian, and Octavian says, nah, I'm good, I'm
good here. I don't feel like it, and he just
continues Agrippa, like I keep calling him general slash admiral
because he was amazing at both. Agrippa continues to win
every naval battle and continues to sweep mark Antony off

(06:53):
the seas, sees control of the shipping lanes, sees control
of this mark anton in his growing desperation, eventually attempts
to fight for the fresh water that's supplying Octavian's camp.
He loses that battle, and now now he's in a
terrible situation because the supplies are no longer pouring in

(07:17):
for his troops. Remember, these were equal armies, equal navies.
These were equal, and mark Antony was no question a
superior general to Octavian, no question there. But now mark
Antony is stuck in this harbor. He's stuck in this town.
Disease breaks out, people begin As Octavian gets stronger and stronger,

(07:44):
mark Antony's own men continue to defect to the other side.
And every time his men deffect and I don't mean
some random lowly guy, high up generals and admirals are
defecting to the other side, and every time they do,
they're bringing all of mark Antony's battle plans with them

(08:06):
to Octavian. Because if you just show up as a defector,
Octavian might just crucify you on the spot. You don't
know that he's gonna welcome you with open arms. So
you have to show up with something tangible. What are
you bringing to my camp? What are you bringing to
my team? And so these guys they show up with plans.
This is how many troops mark Antony has. This is

(08:28):
his battle plan. This is what he's going to do here,
this is what he's going to do there. And Octavian
refuses refuses to fight on any major land engagement with
mark Antony because he can't win that He's taken all
the supply lines and mark Antony's men they now have
the ultimate killer of troops throughout history. They have disease.

(08:54):
When the nutrition goes down, when the fresh water goes down,
then get sick. You know. Is a very very brief
side note. That is one of the things I remember
about the Marines. Yeah, there were times we were a
little short on food here or there, this training exercise

(09:15):
this or that, but we generally we had food, We
had calories. And people complain about MREs those garbage meals,
and I complain about him too. We all complained about him.
That's part of being marine. You complain about the MREs,
but they were packed with calories. Why would I carry
an M sixteen in Iraq from Vietnam. That's not an exaggeration.

(09:38):
My sixteen was dated from the Vietnam era. One of
my guys had to tape his upper and lower receiver
together with duct tape. Yet we always had food. Why
was that? Well that Vietnam era M sixteen can still
kill somebody from a long ways away. But if I

(09:59):
don't have enough nutrition, I'm going to get sick and
then I'm going to die, and then we're going to lose.
Mark Antony's men don't have what they need, and mark
Antony gets desperate, and so he has another plan, and
that's when the Battle of Actium comes. Hang on, it

(10:22):
is the Jesse Kelly Show talking about the Battle of Actium.
Here doing a history thing on a labor day. Feelds
like a good day to do a history thing. Anyway,
You can email the show if you want, Jesse at
Jesse kellyshow dot com. Octavian is now in a position
of strength. He is getting defectors from mark Antony all
the time. Mark Antony is losing troops by the thousand.

(10:46):
They're dying of disease. They're defecting over to Octavian. He's
gone from being the one who should win this to
now he is desperate. How desperate is he? His plan
is no longer to sally forth and beat Octavian in battle.
He simply doesn't have the manpower for that at all.

(11:06):
His plan is to get out. The plan is take
the massive amount of treasure they brought with them, he
and Cleopatra, and somehow on the high seas, escape back
to Egypt. If you can get back to Egypt, you
have the Egyptian queen with you. You can give you time,

(11:30):
maybe you can raise an army. You have all this money.
You have a chance. But you've got to get out
Octavian and Agrippa. Not only are they not stupid, well,
there's yet another defection that dooms mark Antony here at
the Battle of Actium. Mark Antony's admiral, I'm just gonna

(11:52):
use that term, his guy in charge of the seas.
He defects at this point in time, and he lets
Octavian know exactly what mark Antony is planning on. So
what do they do? Well? This, I want you to
picture this in your mind. Don't worry about don't worry
if you don't get it exact. But there's a harbor,
there's a harbor, there's a there's a mouth of the harbor. Okay,

(12:15):
where you get in and out. You got that harbor,
little mouth where you get in and out, mark Antony, Cleopatra.
All those troops, all those ships, they're inside of the harbor.
Agrippa Octavian. They know the troops the ships have to
leave the harbor. They know there's going to be a

(12:36):
big naval battle, so they station their ships outside of
the harbor and a big wide formation because they want
to fight and win. Right here, mark Antony, Cleopatra, all
the ships they do a formation. I was trying to
think of the best way to describe it. Almost looks

(12:58):
like a shovel is the best way out I could
describe it. So what's the head, what's the digging part
of the shovel, what's the leading part of it, what's
the tip? Well, the tip of it is the warships,
the actual warships. And let's pause for a moment and
discuss naval warfare back then, because my gosh, you've heard
me discuss World War two naval warfare and how much

(13:21):
it terrifies me. That's why I love talking about it.
It's how much I honor those vets of just being
on something that floats, with the fire and the drowning
and the darkness and the scary. It's a terrible way
to do combat. Well, it's somehow even more terrible in
ancient times. One a huge, huge way you fought back

(13:47):
then on the water was I just can't believe this
was a thing. You rammed each other on purpose. I'm
not making that up. You would have a very strong,
sometimes sharp you would you would purposely make the bow
the front of your ship into a battering ram, and

(14:07):
you would try to nail the other ships. It's about maneuverability.
You'd try to nail them in a way where they
can't nail you, so you try to put the front
of your ship in their side. You would ram them.
That was one way. Another way they didn't naval combat
back then was shooting missiles at each other. I'm talking

(14:28):
about catapults, throwing stones, throwing spears, throwing just slings with rocks, archers,
bows and arrows, sometimes flaming bows and arrows, sometimes not,
sometimes just regular ones, but you would shoot those at
each other sometimes you're trying to light the ship on fire.
Another way they would do things. They would throw and

(14:51):
shoot grappling hooks at each other to try to drag
a ship close enough to you so you in full
armor can get off your ship, fight your way onto
the other ship, and do hand to hand combat on
the other ship, possibly while both ships are on fire.

(15:13):
And I should probably point out at this point in time,
it doesn't matter if you're Michael Phelps. You very likely
are not going to be able to swim if you
happen to go into the drink because your armor, it's
at this point in time, it would have been chain mail,
So don't think plates think like a well, chain mail
should be self explanatory enough, like a shirt made of metal.

(15:36):
But it's so freaking heavy that you're going to go
down to the bottom of the deep like a rock
if you happen to go into the water. So it's
not as el Chris said, just take it off again.
I understand that it's not like today, brother, where it's
a couple snaps or a quick zipper and your armor
comes off. That's one. Two. You don't have a moment

(16:00):
when you're being stabbed and shot and lit on fire. Hey,
hold on, I want to take my armor off so
I can dive in the water. That's not how that
works at all, Am I painting a clear enough picture
for you. When you died in naval combat back then,
you burned to death, or you drowned, or you drowned

(16:22):
and burnt to death, or you were stabbed at the
heighs on the high seas, or you at an arrow
go through your face on the high seas. And if
you did happen to make it into the water with
your armor off and you could swim, you could also
be beaten to death by the oars of a rival
ship or shot with arrows. It sounds, you know, how

(16:46):
you know, Ancient combat just in general, sounds like the
worst thing in the world. With swords and spears and stabbing,
naval combat is somehow worse. It sounds worse every time
I read something about it. My jaw drops that men
did this. And so the tip of that shovel was
the fighting ships. The shaft it was the treasure ships

(17:11):
of Cleopatra. Because the goal wasn't to win, it was
to get back to Egypt. Hang on, it is the
Jesse Kelly Show doing a big, fat, heaping helping of
history here on a Monday, on a Labor Day. I
hope you have enjoyed your weekend, your time with family
and Jewish producer Chris asked a very good question, because

(17:33):
where the ships are getting ready to slam into each
other here at the Battle of Actium. He asked, how
do you even get your troops to fight for you
with terrible naval combat like that. Well, it's an interesting
question and one mark Antony had to wrestle with. Remember
the mark Antony plan here was to escape. It wasn't
necessarily to win. It was to escape. But you can't

(17:56):
say that to the troops because then the ones that
haven't defected will defect. You can't say that to the troops.
In fact, what do you do with the extra ships,
because remember he was so down on manpower, he couldn't
man even close to all of his ships. You may say, well,

(18:16):
you should just burn them. Well what does that say
to your troops If they look up and you're burning
half of the navy that was about to fight, You're
telling the troops you don't have a chance. So again, okay,
So back to the story. Antony's forces with a shape
like a shovel. The tip obviously is leading, the spade
is leaving. They leave the harbor. Agrippa's forces spread out

(18:41):
so Antony can't get around them, and Agrippa's forces spread
out because they're trying to circle around Antony. Remember the
goal is ultimately rammed them from the side or from
the rear, sink their ship. Your ship stays afloat. Antony
sees this. He's not an idiot. He spreads out as well,

(19:03):
but he doesn't have the numbers anymore to spread out
the way Octavian and Agrippa have the numbers to spread out.
His lines get too thin. Octavian Agrippa, these two men
who have spent so much time waiting, not going to battle,

(19:25):
not marching out, not engaging Mark Antony, they waited until
this exact moment, and then there was no holding back.
As soon as Mark Antony spread his troops out too
far to avoid getting surrounded, that's when Octavian and Agrippa

(19:46):
smashed forward, launched into their attack, and they obliterated mark
Antony's navy. And I don't want to act as if
it was a five minute thing. Men die in droves
that day. Mark Antony's men died by the thousand that day,

(20:08):
then dying, screaming, burning, fighting on the water in mark Antony.
And I just don't know how you can defend this move.
I've read a lot of different things on this, and
I just I don't know how you can defend this move.
Mark Antony chooses this moment to pop sail and take

(20:32):
off with Cleopatra and all the money, and he leaves
his men there on the water and they blow through
the Octavian Agrippa lines. They're just going too fast, and
they take off for Egypt. Octavian and a grip of
see this you should know. And they try to pursue them,
but they're still they still have to go win the

(20:53):
battle of the troops who are still fighting. So you
can't just take your whole force and pursue A and
pursue Cleopas and mark Antony. You have to stay and
you have to win the day. But they do, They stay,
They win the day and the battle of Actium in
mark Antony's hopes are almost gone, not quite though, you see,

(21:18):
after Octavian wins that day in Agrippa, Mark Antony's troops
who were still there were shown mercy by Octavian. Now,
don't think too highly of Octavian. You can love him,
it's fine. He's actually very very cool dude. But this
was again as much a political propaganda war as anything else.

(21:39):
That You don't want the Roman people getting the news
that you slaughtered Roman troops and mass this was a
civil war. You want to look like the good guy
who spared everyone. He does spare most of the troops. Some,
of course, he kills, but spares most of the troops.
But Cleopatra and mark Antony are alive, and they have

(22:01):
all the money. And here's the rub. Octavian has to
have that money because Octavian has promised all of his veterans,
all his troops that money, and he doesn't have any
more money to pay. He has to have it. It's
not an option, and he knows he has to pursue

(22:22):
this fight. Cleopatra goes straight back to Egypt. Mark Antony
decides he's going to stop at a critical port, doesn't
matter where. It is not gonna bore you with the details,
because he has four legions at this port, and you
have to go buy this port to get to Egypt,
and he knows Octavian is coming, except momentum is a

(22:47):
powerful thing, isn't it. By the time mark Antony gets
to this fort where his general and his legions still are,
they have already defected to Octavian and he's fresh out
of friends and well. To wrap up the story here,

(23:07):
mark Antony and Cleopatra. If you read the stories, it
makes it sounds like it was five minutes later. It
took time. Octavian did march down, he did do all
kinds of backbiting negotiations. He was negotiating with Cleopatra and
mark Antony together. He was also at the same time
negotiating with Cleopatra behind mark Antony's back, trying to get

(23:31):
her to assassinate him, and she may have actually ended
up doing that, because mark Antony sally's forth for one
last naval battle, just in time to watch his entire
navy sail out and promptly defect to Octavian, leaving him
with nothing. Octavian goes back to Egypt, where he's told

(23:55):
Cleopatra is dead. She's not. That was a lie, and
he shoves a sword into his abdomen. Mark Anthony's gone
and of course, the famous story everybody knows from there. Cleopatra,
allegedly no one actually knows this for sure, allegedly kills
herself with an asp An asp is not a cobra.

(24:18):
Everyone says it's a cobra. It probably was a cobra
because it's Egyptian, but asp in the way they use
it just meant venomous snake, and we don't know that
for sure. Why did she do it, Well, she didn't
want Octavian to do what he was going to do,
that was keep her prisoner, march her through the streets
of Rome in a triumph, and then probably have her

(24:40):
ritually strangled in a Roman dungeon. She kills herself in
an effort to save her son that she had. Remember
the beginning of this story with Julius Caesar, his name
was Caesarean. I think he was sixteen at the time,
if I remember right, Except he was promptly betrayed by
his tutor, and Octavian put him to death to avoid

(25:00):
any of these troublesome questions about who the real ruler
of Rome was, Octavian eventually became who you know as
Augustus Caesar, Augustus and there was no more client kingdom
of Egypt. Now, after all this Egypt simply became part

(25:24):
of Rome. And to wrap this long story up, we'll
do a little bit, very little bit of politics as
we do a couple emails in our final segment. Here
one of my favorite historical stories of all time, as
Octavian is in Alexandria. The city was named for Alexander.
He didn't name it. I should know one of his
generals named it. But the city was named for Alexander.

(25:46):
And Alexander's tomb was there, It's where his body was.
Octavian wanted to go see him. He went and saw him.
He placed a crown on his corpse or the coffin.
I can't I don't understand how exactly that would work,
because Alexander had to be a little ripe by this
point in time, but places a crown on him. And

(26:08):
then these Egyptians who were there said, hey, do you
want to come see the Ptolemys and these pharaohs, And
Augustus says, I came to see a king, not a
bunch of corpses. And that is the story of the
Battle of Actium. And let me just tell you if
that interested you at all that could have been. I
just did like two hours on it. That could have

(26:29):
been forty hours. This story is so in depth and
so amazing and full of drama and backstabbing and violence
and assassinations. I skipped over a gobs of it. But
that is the story of the Battle of Actium, and
from there Octavian ruled Rome, and Rome became an empire,
and you know, relatives like Nero and Caligula came out

(26:53):
of this whole thing. Yeah, rough, huh. Anyway, one more segments,
do some headlines, some emails. Hang on the Jesse Kelly Show.
I like it. It is the Jesse Kelly Show. Final
segment of The Jesse Kelly Show. A bit of an
unorthodox Jesse Kelly's show on a Labor day. Remember if

(27:13):
you miss the politics at the first hour, Medal of
honor Monday, like two hours of Roman history today, all
that is available just podcast it. iHeart Spotify iTunes. You
want to send me an email, We'll get about to
do some emails here as we try to wrap this
thing up. You can email me Jesse at Jesse Kellyshow

(27:35):
dot com. We love your emails here. Also, Dome rolled out,
rolled out an accent. As I've said many times, there's
nothing I find more hilarious in politics than Democrats pandering
to black people. It just murders me when they do it,
and they all do it. Everyone remembers Hillary Clinton's hot
I keep hot sas in my purse. Joe Biden, of course,

(27:57):
he was always worse at it, and more ham Fish
did Ah, they're gonna put you back in chains. Of
course Joe didn't. Wasn't all that delicate about it. And Dome,
the young lady who grew up as a valley girl
in California when she wasn't in Canada, got herself a
new Georgia accent. Today, let's just get through the next
sixty four days, the next six to four days. Ahha,

(28:24):
and then I kid you not. I kid you not.
The audio sucks, so I'm not gonna play it for you.
She's talking about how many collared greens she used to make.
Chris All, I'm not making it. Go look it up.
She said that she used to make collared greens so
much that she had to make them in a bathtub.

(28:47):
Dome has never she's never made collared greens, but I
do appreciate her for once again delivering on the greatest
comedy there is Democrats pandering to black people. It will never, ever,
ever not be funny. Jesse, you know what makes me mad?
He didn't say it makes me mad when people supposedly
on our side used the communist language. I just saw

(29:09):
some idiot Fox News reporter the other day saying Kamala's
position on women's reproductive rights was blah blah blah. He
was quoting her say abortion, idiot her better yet her
a position on murdering babies. He goes on to say
a couple other things. That's all great one. I salute you.
His name is Blaine. That language is so important, and

(29:33):
you know it's important because the Communist is adamant about it.
And you've seen that over and over again when they
schooled each other if they step out of line. You've
seen this so many times. Ame every when Joe Biden,
when Joe Biden got up in the State of a
Union address and Marjorie Taylor Green got under his skin
and he used the worthy legal immigrant. He apologized when

(29:56):
he came out and apologized. The Communist us this language
because he has evil, destructive plans. You don't have to
be purposeful with your language. If you're just being honest,
but if you're trying to lie, that's when you kind
of have to be really careful about what you say.
You have to be selective about what you say. That's

(30:17):
why they are so purposeful with their language, and it's
why we can never, ever, ever, ever, ever use the
communist language. You are not going to appeal to him
or win him over, or somehow win over the moderates
if you use the language the communist has specifically chosen
to deceive. He does this about everything. That's why he

(30:41):
calls the illegals migrants. That's why he calls carving up
a baby in its mother's womb women's reproductive rights. Doesn't
that sound so benign? What's the big deal women's reproductive rights?
He chose these words on purpose, And you are right
to get angry at anyone quote on our side who

(31:02):
uses these words. You are very very right about that.
And now you know what I'm gonna do. One or
two more. Jesse, he cracks me up. You say every
time you say crazy, Aunt Peggy, it's liberal, Aunt Peggy.
I'm the only conservative in my family. Everyone else is
a commie and they all think I'm the crazy one.
And this lady's name is Peggy. I love her. Hey, Jesse,
since you love offending people and discussing sensitive topics, now,

(31:25):
hold on, I don't love offending people. That's a very
common misconception. I just don't care if I offend people.
There's a difference. I'm not trying to offend people. I well,
I take that back. I try to offend politicians because
I really don't like them. What, Chris, what do I

(31:45):
take pleasure in offending people? I do sometimes if I'm
being okay now that I take pleasure in offending people
because I'm trying to help them. Chris, No, i'd why
are you saying that? I'm serious? Listen, I take pleasure
in offending people because if you're offended, that's a you problem.

(32:11):
You have a sensitivity there, or you care too much
what other people say or what other people think, and
it's something you need to overcome. If you get offended,
you need to consider that a disability. You have a disability.
You're disabled, and you can overcome that disability as soon
as you decide to stop being offended. So if I

(32:35):
offend you, I'm not mad. And sometimes if I dislike you,
I'm actually thrilled about it. But no matter what, I'm
trying to help, I don't try to offend people. All right,
that is not true. I don't try to offend people. Now,
my nature is offensive. I understand that if you met
my father, you would understand why. We're just an offensive family.

(32:58):
That's what we are. Now here's a headline. Why you
know the thing headlines we didn't get to do. You
like NASCAR, This nonpartisan voter registration group doesn't want to
help you. This is a story from the Free Beacon,
the Voter Participation Center. Yeah, you know, stuff that's generally

(33:23):
funded with your money. They try to do everything they
can to make sure they exclude ever registering a Republican. Again,
your tax dollars are used against you. Senior hamas official
encourages US students to escalate anti Israel protests on campus.
The ability for these foreign terrorist groups to just operate

(33:45):
on a US soil floors me. We used to have
an FBI, but I guess they're probably too busy not
tracking down the DNC pipe bomber or the motive behind
the Vegas shooter. This has been a podcast from wor