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[Assistant] The Carthaginians were immediately on the defensive and found their Spanish allies deserting in droves.


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[Assistant] Leaving a garrison behind to protect the newly conquered city, he marched out with the rest of his army in search of Hasdrubal.


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[Assistant] Hannibal's brother and the architect of the Scipio's family dishonor.


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[Assistant] In 208 BC, Scipio caught up to Hasdrubal and fought a running battle against the Carthaginians in the middle of Spain.


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[Assistant] Hasdrubal, however, managed to slip away and lead his army northwest of the Atlantic coast.


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[Assistant] Hannibal's brother had decided fighting young Scipio in Spain would be counterproductive and made the decision to leave Spain for Italy.


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[Assistant] The best way to regain the upper hand in Spain, he figured, was to deal the Romans another crushing blow in Italy.


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[Assistant] But that was the plan hatched between the two Baraka brothers. The Carthaginian Senate, on the other hand, was not ready to seed-span De Scipio quite so easily, and sent 50,000 reinforcements to defeat the young, dynamic Roman general.


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[Assistant] The battle that followed would be, tactically at least, Scipio's finest hour.


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[Assistant] Each morning, the two sides would line up for battle and wait for the other to make a move.


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[Assistant] When Scipio deployed his troops, he concentrated the core of the legions in the center and placed his Spanish allies on the wings.


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[Assistant] The opposing Carthaginian general got used to this formation and placed his strongest troops in the center and his own weaker Spanish mercenaries on the wings.


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[Assistant] On the morning Scipio had decided to fight, however, he switched things up.


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[Assistant] But first, he took revenge on the Carthaginians for the Roman defeat at Trebia, a battle Scipio was very likely at.


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[Assistant] He ordered out his cavalry early in the morning to attack the Carthaginian camp.


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[Assistant] They form for battle in the usual wine, but the Romans, as I said, switch things up.


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[Assistant] Scipio put the Spanish in the center and deployed the Legions on the wings.


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[Assistant] When the Carthaginian general did not notice the switch, Scipio knew victory was his for the taking.


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[Assistant] He waited most of the day while the Carthaginians suffered, hungry and tired under the hot afternoon sun, and then ordered the attack.


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[Assistant] The Carthaginians were able to escape, but their will was broken.


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[Assistant] Hannibal pursued the fleeing army and destroyed them a few weeks later.


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[Assistant] When Scipio entered Spain, the Carthaginians controlled practically the entire country. But now the Romans were the undisputed masters.


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[Assistant] Carthaginian influence in Spain was over, and in a few years hence, the Great War itself would be over as well.


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[Assistant] Scipio now had all the clout he needed to take his master plan to the senate.


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[Assistant] There would be fierce resistance for his idea of an African invasion.


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[Assistant] But Scipio's charisma and track record would carry the day.


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[Assistant] Next week, we will follow Hasdrubal in his desperate effort to link up with his brother in Italy and form an army large enough to attack Rome.


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[Assistant] I don't think I'll be giving anything away by revealing Hazardville was stopped in the last pivotal battle of the war fought in Italy.


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[Assistant] Without hope of reinforcement, Hannibal's decade-long invasion would run out of steam and he would be recalled when the Romans decided to take another chance on Scipio and authorize his invasion of Africa.


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[Assistant] The Scourge of Hannibal seemed a virus they would never be able to purge from their body.


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[Assistant] Not strong enough to conquer the Romans, yet too strong to just be driven off. Hannibal had wrecked havoc in Italy for a decade and there was no indication he would ever leave.


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[Assistant] The Fabian strategy of countering Hannibal's political moves without risking open battle was by now firmly entrenched.


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[Assistant] Even those commanders who broke from this tradition found themselves chasing after a ghost.


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[Assistant] Hannibal would never fight a battle not of his own devising and stayed forever one step ahead of Roman pursuit.


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[Assistant] Hannibal himself knew that things could not go on like this forever.


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[Assistant] The Carthaginian Senate was growing weary of the war.


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[Assistant] Surprises and reinforcements were produced in ever shrinking amounts after ever more cajoling.


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[Assistant] If things kept going in this direction, Hannibal would find himself isolated in enemy territory, abandoned by his country.


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[Assistant] It was fast turning into a replay of his fathers war in Sicily. Hannibal could see the writing on the wall.


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[Assistant] But entering 207 BC, the 11th year since Hannibal had left New Carthage for Italy, the Carthaginian commander still had hope of a successful conclusion.


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[Assistant] His brother Hasdrubal had left Spain after tangling with young Scipio and was making his way across Gaul through the Alps and would soon be in Italy with an army of 30,000.


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[Assistant] If the two brothers were able to link up, they would form an army that could overrun anything the Romans sent against them.


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[Assistant] Lydia's kept to the high ground, not having enough troops to openly confront Hasdrubal, but hoping to at least forestall the Carthaginians if they attempted to move further south.


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[Assistant] Hasdrubal, knowing there was no army in the area who could match him, moved confidently through the Italian countryside, picking up Gallic allies and waiting for word from his brother on where to meet up.


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[Assistant] The other console for the year, Gaius Claudius Nero, was in camp with his army some 250 miles south, keeping watch on Hannibal.


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[Assistant] He knew that neither his army nor Livius's in the north could halt the movement of the Carthaginian armies they each shadowed.


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[Assistant] So Nero made a snap decision and embarked on an incredibly risky adventure.


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[Assistant] Nero linked up with Livius and marched his troops into his colleagues camp at night.


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[Assistant] Hasdrubal, knowing the end was near, charged out in the middle of the battle and died fighting.


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[Assistant] The hope of a Carthaginian super army died there on the banks of the Mataris. Hannibal's last best hope to conquer the Romans died with it.


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[Assistant] The Romans were ecstatic at the news. It was the first major battle in Italy the Romans had actually won.


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[Assistant] And to young Scipio, returning from his command in Spain, word of the victory was music to his ears.


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[Assistant] The high spirits of his countrymen and low threat level now posed by Hannibal produced the exact psychological environment Scipio needed to ensure a receptive audience for his plan of a North African invasion.


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[Assistant] The fight had to be taken to the Carthaginians. Hannibal would not be driven off by direct action. The only way to be rid of him was to attack Carthage and force the Carthaginian Senate to recall Hannibal to protect the mother city.


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[Assistant] But Scipio was not without detractors in the Senate. Chief amongst them old Marcus Fabius, now 70 years old.


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[Assistant] What Scipio pitched was the exact opposite of everything Fabius stood for.


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[Assistant] But the aura of Scipio carried the day, and with reservations attached, he was more or less given the go-ahead for his invasion.


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[Assistant] The young Roman general embarked for Sicily, where he began to make his preparations, building a fleet, gathering troops.


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[Assistant] A vital importance was a mission he assigned to Lelius, the naval commander who had been in Scipio's confidence at the siege of New Carthage.


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[Assistant] The most formidable part of the Carthaginian army everyone knew was the Numidian cavalry.


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[Assistant] They could not be matched in speed or skill, and as long as they remained in the opposing line, the legions would always be in danger.


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[Assistant] Scipio knew something of North African politics though, and hoped to turn a clear weakness into an advantage.


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[Assistant] Lelius' mission was to sail to North Africa and turn the Numidians to the Roman side.


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[Assistant] They were a client state of Carthage and had long chafed under Carthaginian rule.


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[Assistant] Though the leadership seemed more or less content to stick with Carthage, there was an undercurrent of dissatisfaction that always threatened to come to the surface.


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[Assistant] In the years to come, Massinissa would remain a staunch ally of Rome, matching in many ways the friendship of Hiero.


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[Assistant] Certainly in longevity, a young man at the time of the Second Punic War, Massinissa would reign over Numidia for fifty years, nipping in the bud any trouble posed to the Romans from Africa.


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[Assistant] When the Romans landed, they immediately swept through the land west of Carthage, taking prisoners and sacking towns.


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[Assistant] Scipio had his eye on the major city of Utica, and in the autumn of 203 he besieged the city.


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[Assistant] The Carthaginians sent a massive army against Scipio, reportedly in excess of 70,000 troops, to drive the Romans off.


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[Assistant] Scipio prudently withdrew, and to throw the Carthaginians off, he opened peace negotiations.


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[Assistant] While the talks commenced though, Scipio scouted his enemy and formulated a plan to beat them without having to take the field against a far larger army.


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[Assistant] Under cover of darkness, they started fires all over the camp and waited by the exits.


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[Assistant] It was a horrible and bloody affair, but just like that, Scipio had destroyed most of the Carthaginian army in North Africa.


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[Assistant] At this point the Carthaginian Senate was left with no choice. Hannibal had to be recalled.


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[Assistant] It was an exhausted and psychologically wounded Hannibal who returned to North Africa.


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[Assistant] He would fight bravely there, and no historian faults any of the decisions he made while battling Scipio.


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[Assistant] After his victories near the coast, and with the knowledge of Hannibal's return, Scipio did not make for Carthage, but rather marched inland.


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[Assistant] The interior of North Africa was hostile territory, not just for the Romans but for the Carthaginians as well.


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[Assistant] The land was populated with subject people of dubious Carthaginian loyalty.


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[Assistant] But nonetheless, they were a critical source of supplies for the city.


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[Assistant] Scipio hoped to draw Hannibal into unfriendly territory by threatening Carthage with starvation. Hannibal himself despaired at the situation.


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[Assistant] He had to make a move against Scipio but the troops he had at his disposal were not even close to a match for the Romans. He had his corps of veterans


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[Assistant] But the rest were recent recruits, ill-trained and passionless. He argued against leading such a weak army out.


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[Assistant] The two armies met at Zama, a hundred or so miles southwest of Carthage.


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[Assistant] Prior to any armed confrontation, the two great generals met.


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[Assistant] Hannibal attempted to secure a favorable peace, knowing his own troops were ill-equipped to deal with the Romans, but Scipio would have none of it.


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[Assistant] After acknowledging the respect each had for the other, they departed back to their own tent to prepare for the final battle.


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[Assistant] Lining up in the morning, Hannibal placed his raw recruits in the front line, with his veterans behind.


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[Assistant] This way, the new troops would have no place to run if they tried to retreat, and if Hannibal was lucky, they would tire the legionaries out and allow the Carthaginian veterans to sweep through.


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[Assistant] The battle begun. Rome scored a victory that had eluded them the entire war.


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[Assistant] Massinissa's allied Numidian cavalry was able to drive off their Carthaginian counterparts, suddenly leaving Hannibal, rather than the Romans, without support.


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[Assistant] Just as he predicted, the experienced Romans cut through Hannibal's new soldiers. But a total route was prevented by the strength of his veterans who blunted the Romans' advance.


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[Assistant] The war hung in the balance as two of the greatest strategic and tactical geniuses in history oversaw an unimaginative clash of brute force.


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[Assistant] Carthage offered no further resistance and accepted punishing terms.


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[Assistant] For his loyalty, Massenissa was granted control over an independent Numidian kingdom that would be the dominant force in North Africa for years to come.


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[Assistant] Finally, a huge punitive fine was laid on Carthage to be paid off in no less than fifty years.


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[Assistant] In a final irony, it was Hannibal who put a stop to any call for further resistance and demanded that the Senate accept Roman terms. Carthage was defeated. There was nothing left to be said about it.


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[Assistant] But they had won an immeasurably valuable prize, uncontested control of the entire Western Mediterranean.


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[Assistant] The Roman Empire as we now know it, the greatest power in the ancient world, and one of the farthest reaching land empires in history, was born on that day at Zama in 202 BC.


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[Assistant] Some also claim, as I said at the outset of this series of episodes, that the victory over Carthage also marked the death of old Roman virtue.


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[Assistant] Certainly, there's much to be said for the theory that the Republic was not long for this world after Rome lost its greatest enemy.


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[Assistant] But soon the egos of the foremost families in Rome began to grow unchecked and men emerged every day who had no truck with the old restraints shown by their forefathers.


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[Assistant] They took their cues from Scipio, who was nearly deified in his lifetime, rather than the string of forgotten consoles who preserved tradition in anonymity.


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[Assistant] Further, these latter day Roman leaders never dealt with the humility of facing an external threat that checked their boundless egos. Control of Rome now meant control of the whole world.


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[Assistant] What chance did the republic have when absolute power was at stake?


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[Assistant] In two weeks, we will enter a new era of Roman history as Rome looks east to the great civilizations of Greece.


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[Assistant] Contact with Greece would forever alter the character of the Romans, as they were introduced to the luxury, philosophy, art, and science of the East.


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[Assistant] The marriage of East and West would be proposed on the battlefield, but it would be consummated in the minds of the victorious Romans, who became open ideas that would have made their frugal and virtuous ancestors shudder.


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[Assistant] As I said at the end of last week's episode, the siege of Yorktown did not have to end the American War of Independence. The British still had forces in Canada and New York, in Charleston and Savannah, and navies sailing off the coast of North America and down in the West Indies.


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[Assistant] Plus, they had an empire's worth of resources to draw from.


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[Assistant] Meanwhile, the Americans were still the loose confederation of now economically deprived colonials who fielded an army that seemed perpetually on the brink of dissolution and whose allies in Europe helped them only so long as it suited them and didn't cost too much money.


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[Assistant] So, the war couldn't possibly end with the Americans destroying Britain's ability to make war. It had to take the form of destroying Britain's desire to make war. And that's exactly what Yorktown did. It was the final spoonful of vinegar in a cocktail that had already started to taste pretty rotten.


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[Assistant] Facing the prospect of having to start over from scratch, British political opinion turned decisively in favor of peace. Lord North was finally able to resign in March 1782, and in his parting remarks he said bluntly that anybody who tried to carry on the war was an enemy of Britain.


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[Assistant] From the very beginning, the British Ministry misdiagnosed the problem, and then tenaciously clung to their initial misdiagnosis. And by that, I mean that they were convinced that this was all the work of a tight clique of super-radicals, who couldn't possibly represent a broad, popular coalition that included men and women from every geographic region and socioeconomic rank.


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[Assistant] That's not to say the Americans were all against them, not by a long shot, but you don't get so many people willing to sacrifice so much and then keep sacrificing for six years if this is all about a bunch of hyper-extremists ruining things for everyone else. The British ministry just kept thinking the majority of Americans were loyal, and it really wasn't true.


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[Assistant] With this misdiagnosis in place, the British then pursued a totally incoherent set of policies.


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[Assistant] So you have things like the bombing of Norfolk, and Burgoyne's threat to unleash the Iroquois, and the raids in Virginia all designed to force the Americans to their knees using total war tactics. While at the same time, you have Howe's amiable leniency, and Clinton's promise for amnesty to rebels who laid down their arms designed to coax the Americans back into the British fold.


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[Assistant] Adding to this incoherence was the fact that neither stick nor carrot was pursued with enough vigor to be effective. The stick only hardened patriot resolve, the carrot only made them laugh.


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[Assistant] This incoherence speaks to the rather harsh conclusion that in terms of military and political leadership, this was simply not Britain's greatest generation. The politicians were divided, they undercut each other, and just seemed to lurch from strategy to strategy without ever stepping back and getting a handle on the big picture.


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[Assistant] And the senior military officers were not much better. Thomas Gage might have been the only one to see what the British would face if war broke out, and he was sacked for accurately predicting what it would take to win the war.


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[Assistant] William Howe was so confident in British superiority and so sympathetic to the American cause that he repeatedly let opportunities to crush the Continental Army pass.


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[Assistant] Gentleman Johnny Rigoyne was so confident in his own superiority that he blundered into total defeat.


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[Assistant] Henry Clinton was moody and paranoid and soured on the job almost immediately.


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[Assistant] Lord Cornwallis was a great military tactician, but clearly lacked the kind of political acumen this particular war required.


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[Assistant] And all the while they too fought petty little battles amongst themselves, though I'm less inclined to add that to the causes of their defeat, since the American generals were running around in their own camps with knives just as long.


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[Assistant] And this is all to say nothing of the complete misuse of the Navy. For most of the war, this all-important advantage was used to ferry troops around and not much else.


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[Assistant] When they finally were cut loose a bit after Saratoga, there was zero cooperation between the army and the navy. I mean, all told, this was just a badly run war.


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[Assistant] But all that said, we should also take a look at the fact that as much as the deck seemed to be stacked in Britain's favor at the outset, the Americans did hold a few trump cards that actually made their victory less implausible than contemporary observers might have allowed.


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[Assistant] For one, the American patriots were fighting for something. Namely, independence.


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[Assistant] It was a simple goal, it was a fixed goal, and it was an internalized goal, that is one that even the lowliest private knew he was fighting for.


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[Assistant] This helped sustain the war effort through trials that really ought to have broken American resolve.


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[Assistant] And that touches on another trump card, which is home field advantage.


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[Assistant] American soldiers were on their own land, fighting for their homes and their families. Defeat meant who knows what deprivations.


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[Assistant] Fighting in your own backyard is not always a decisive advantage, but when you wander through the pages of history, you usually find preternatural resiliency in the armies of the invaded, not the armies of the invaders.


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[Assistant] Finally, you have the fact that Britain had enemies just waiting in the tall grass looking for an opportunity to whack them over their head when the time was right.


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[Assistant] Without help from Europe, no amount of patriotic resiliency would have been enough.


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[Assistant] But Britain did have enemies, and they were waiting in the tall grass, and then they did whack the British over the head.


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[Assistant] His battle plans were too complicated, his strategic vision, at least militarily, was not super keen, and as much credit as the Americans get for their shoot and hide guerrilla tactics, Washington himself never ran with the idea the way a more creative general might have, and he focused obsessively on turning the Continental Army into a European-style army.


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[Assistant] But all that said, he was basically the perfect man to run the war for the Americans. Because that same focus on turning his men into a professional army gave them the political credibility they needed when the French finally did decide to come out of the tall grass.


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[Assistant] And it was his own personal commitment to the Republican ideals represented by American independence that infused the army with the belief that they were fighting for something.


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[Assistant] And then of course there was his ability to simply hold the army together whether through brilliantly executed retreats or obsessing about supplies and logistics.


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[Assistant] The overriding strategic goal for the Americans turned out to be simply keeping an army in the field. As long as they could do that, the war would not be lost.


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[Assistant] And there was probably no man in America better suited for that job than George Washington.


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[Assistant] Okay, so now that the British have lost the war, or at the very least decided that they didn't want to try to win it anymore, it's time to move on to the peace process. A process that will take just about two years to complete, from the moment Cornwall is surrendered at Yorktown to the final, final signing ceremony in September 1783.


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[Assistant] To represent the Americans, the Congress selected five men. Benjamin Franklin, of course, still charming the pants off of French society. John Adams, who was currently in The Hague trying to arrange more loans from the Dutch.


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[Assistant] Sean Jay of New York, currently in Madrid, trying to secure recognition, because though Spain had joined the anti-British coalition, they did not yet technically acknowledge that the United States was, you know, a thing.


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[Assistant] Another guy named John Lawrence, who had been held in a London prison after being captured at sea in 1780, and then Thomas Jefferson.


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[Assistant] Jefferson would beg off, citing personal obligations, probably surrounding the recent death of his wife, and Lawrence wound up being a non-factor. So really, the triumvirate was Franklin, Adams, and Jay, of whom Franklin was the most savvy and Adams the most obnoxiously principled.


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[Assistant] The Peace Commission, though, was hamstrung immediately by Congress's instructions that they consult with the French every step of the way and follow French advice.


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[Assistant] Even Franklin, a major francophile, could see how crazy this order was. France and America were allies, but that did not mean their interests were perfectly aligned. What was good for France might not be good for America. So to demand that the Americans play essentially a subordinate role in their own negotiations seemed like folly. And of course it was.


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[Assistant] But it appears to be folly that the French purchased fairly on the open market, as they funneled cash to congressional representatives who drew up the instructions on the understanding that those instructions would tend to strengthen the ties between France and America. Wink, wink, nudge, nudge, say no more.


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[Assistant] Informal talks began in April 1782 between Franklin, French Foreign Minister Virgin, and the lead British negotiator Richard Oswald, an aging Scottish merchant with old commercial ties to America.


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[Assistant] When the other American commissioners started arriving over the summer, the real talks got going. They immediately hit a wall when Oswald claimed he did not have the authority to recognize the independence of the United States prior to negotiations.


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[Assistant] Franklin insisted on the point, however. And though it seems a subtle distinction, it was an important one. Because Franklin wanted to be sure that independence was not a part of the concessions the British offered. American independence was already a fact. It was no longer Britain's to concede.


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[Assistant] By September, though, they all agreed to a formulation that allowed both sides to have their way, and Oswald agreed that he was treating with representatives of the United States, which went far enough to satisfy the Americans, while falling just short of the formal recognition he couldn't yet provide.


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[Assistant] Not surprisingly, the British negotiating strategy was to divide the Americans from the French. And at first, informal side talks between the French and the British seemed like they were about to lead the French to sell out key American demands.


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[Assistant] Because the French seemed more than happy to blow off American issues, like say Newfoundland fishing rights, until word reached Paris that Admiral de Grasse had just been trounced in the Caribbean, which left the French in a far weaker position to bargain alone.


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[Assistant] The reunited French and American front though soon gave way to side talks between the Americans and the British, during which Franklin seized on the opportunity to get most of what America wanted without French interference.


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[Assistant] In November 1782, the British and Americans worked out the basics of a bilateral agreement.


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[Assistant] Vergen was shocked, learned of the agreement just hours before it was signed, having been kept in the dark about the talks, a direct violation of Congress's instructions.


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[Assistant] But Franklin placated Virgin in the French by pointing out that the deal would only go into effect after the French signed their own treaty with the British.


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[Assistant] It was a deftly played maneuver, and almost certainly one more for the Americans than they would have gotten had they let Virgin do all the talking.


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[Assistant] The foundation of the Treaty of Paris, which wouldn't be all dressed up in fancy cursive until September 1783, was thus in place.


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[Assistant] It was, first of all, between his Britannic majesty and the United States, acknowledged to be sovereign and independent.


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[Assistant] It's at the borders of the new United States at the 31st parallel in the south, that is the Georgia-Florida border. In the north, it was that irregular jagged line that mostly forms the border between the US and Canada today.


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[Assistant] Open fishing off the Canadian coast was granted, as was full access to the Mississippi River.


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[Assistant] In return for all this, the American commissioners agreed that all debts owed by Americans to British creditors would be honored in full, which was a fairly controversial concession.


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[Assistant] The British then further pressed for all confiscated loyalist property to be returned to their rightful owners. Now this would be really, really hard to sell back home, so Franklin promised to urge the Congress, to urge the states, to return the loyalist property.


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[Assistant] Finally, all British troops would withdraw with all deliberate speed, and though the forces embedded on the Atlantic seaboard would soon be gone, the British dragged their feet about removing their frontier garrisons because hey, I mean, we still plan to dominate you economically, and if you think we're just gonna give up the Great Lakes fur trade because Cornwallis got trapped in Yorktown, you're crazy. It would remain a sticking point for years to come.


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[Assistant] While all of these negotiations were going on in Europe, American leaders began the process of trying to figure out how to transition from war to peace and how to transition from colonial dependency to full-fledged independent nation.


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[Assistant] These two issues would collide in the Newberg conspiracy of March 1783,


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[Assistant] And then continued to linger even after that crisis passed, colliding again with Shay's Rebellion in 1786, which we'll talk about next week, and at which point a consensus had built up that the current system of national government was unsustainable and needed serious revision.


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[Assistant] The current system of national government they were talking about is now pretty much a punchline in American history. The Articles of Confederation.


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[Assistant] Way back in 1776, just before the Declaration of Independence was signed, the Second Continental Congress created a committee to draft a national constitution to go along with all those state constitutions that were being drafted.


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[Assistant] This committee wound up being chaired by our old friend John Dickinson. Remember him from way back when? Letters from a Pennsylvania farmer, opponent of independence?


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[Assistant] Well, as he opposed independence, his committee was simultaneously drafting a national constitution for the soon to be independent United States.


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[Assistant] When the draft emerged from committee, though, it met strong resistance. A debate erupted that previewed the much larger debate over the Constitution fifteen years later.


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[Assistant] Taken as a whole, Dickinson's draft undeniably put the national government above the states, and worked out a formula whereby Congress would hold all powers, except for those specifically reserved for the states.


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[Assistant] Most of them had just spent the last decade arguing relentlessly for the sovereignty of their local governments and against the tyranny of a powerful central government. And here, they were supposed to swallow a potentially tyrannical central government.


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[Assistant] So as the draft was debated, clauses were struck and clauses were added and struck and added until the formula was reversed.


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[Assistant] The Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union were finally approved in November 1776, vested all sovereignty in the several states, granting to Congress only a few specifically enumerated powers. It was the exact opposite of what Dickinson intended.


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[Assistant] Now one thing Dickinson's draft and the final draft had in common, though, was that the national government would not have the right to tax.


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[Assistant] This was completely understandable given the whole revolution is rooted in a tax revolt, but it would prove the undoing of the Articles of Confederation.


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[Assistant] The debate about the Articles previewed the debate over the Constitution in two important and related ways. First was the question of representation.


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[Assistant] The Second Continental Congress, being an assembly of the colonies, had adopted a one colony, one vote rule. So, Little Rhode Island had a voice equal to enormous Virginia.


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[Assistant] Representatives of the larger states tried to use the debate over the Articles of Confederation to get this shifted to representation based on population.


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[Assistant] But it quickly became clear that this would fatally torpedo union, as these smaller states had no interest in becoming mere satellites of Virginia, and the Congress of the Confederation continued as an assembly of states rather than an assembly of the people at large. Each state would have one vote.


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[Assistant] The other issue was how revenue obligations would be assessed. Now, like I said, Congress did not have the right to tax, but everyone agreed that the several states would still need to contribute to a general national fund.


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[Assistant] Dickinson's draft calculated each state's obligation based off of population size, which was a huge problem for the slave states because slaves were being counted as people and that just didn't seem fair.


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[Assistant] It was proposed then that only the white population be counted, but that meant resistance from New England, who thought that they would now be saddled with a disproportionate burden.


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[Assistant] When this notion was dropped, the New Englanders were even more incensed when it was proposed to base the assessment on land value. Because an acre of land in small and crowded New England went for a lot more than an empty and expansive North Carolina.


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[Assistant] But, New England soon realized that they were fighting a losing battle, as the South and Middle States joined in a consensus around land being the thing.


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[Assistant] So for the moment, the issue of how to classify and count slaves, when are they people and when are they property, was for the moment skirted.


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[Assistant] It will of course return in the utterly despicable Three-Fifths Compromise lodged in Article 1, Section 2 of the Constitution, but we'll get to that.


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[Assistant] And oh, by the way, the debate over how to calculate who owed what was pointless anyway, because Congress had no mechanism to compel the states to pay their share.


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[Assistant] The final draft of the Articles of Confederation and Perpetual Union was approved and sent out for ratification in November 1777.


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[Assistant] Ironically, the big sticking point for Maryland was not that Congress would have too much power, but that it would have too little.


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[Assistant] They wanted Congress to have jurisdiction over the unincorporated Western lands, a power that had been stripped out during the debates.


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[Assistant] Now, Marilyn was not alone in this. They were joined, for example, by New Jersey and Delaware.


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[Assistant] What these three states had in common was that their founding colonial charter set specific borders, rather than having super-vague from-sea-to-sea clauses like in, say, the Virginia Charter, written by men who had no idea how far away the Pacific Ocean really was.


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[Assistant] Unless Congress could step in and check the growth of Virginia or also like New York, there would be nothing to stop them from becoming irresistible super states.


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[Assistant] As the years passed, both New Jersey and Delaware caved, but Maryland held out.


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[Assistant] Finally, New York agreed to give up its claims, mostly on the grounds that it would be unwieldy to govern that territory anyway. And then Virginia followed, though only renouncing their claims to lands northwest of the Ohio River.


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[Assistant] By the time the articles were ratified, Congress was deep in debt and had no way to pay it back.


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[Assistant] And not only were they deep in debt, they had no idea how deep in debt they even were.


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[Assistant] The bookkeeping had been a mess, and wartime prioritizing left them with a trail of certificates and IOUs and vouchers and just verbal promises to pay men back for whatever.


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[Assistant] Despite Washington's misgivings, the imperatives of war had led to forced requisitioning. But a receipt was always scribbled on the back of a napkin or something to be redeemed when the war was over.


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[Assistant] Well now the war was over, and everyone was coming for what they were owed.


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[Assistant] Compounding this debt crisis was the financial crisis.


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[Assistant] Over the course of the war, Congress had been forced to turn to that always sustainable practice of just printing money to pay for what it needed.


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[Assistant] Not only was this currency not backed by anything, they just kept pumping out more and more. By 1780 they had sent out something like 200 million dollars. It was all worthless, and it led neutrals in and around British occupied areas to offer their goods and services to the British in exchange for pounds rather than accept continental script.


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[Assistant] Those that had accepted the script were then hit with the most unwelcome news in 1780, that Congress was about to try to get its financial house in order, and was officially revaluing the money at one fortieth face value, which, awesome, so glad I accepted it, can't wait to do business with you again.


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[Assistant] Nowhere was the debt and financing problem more obvious and more dangerous than when it came to paying the army.


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[Assistant] Congress had been getting by on empty promises and worthless paper while the war was on. As late as 1780, Congress promised all officers who stuck it out until the end of the war a pension of half pay for the rest of their lives if you just please stay on.


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[Assistant] Now that the war was ending, the men understandably wanted, you know, what they were owed.


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[Assistant] But for the moment, all Congress could do is hold out its empty hands and say we just don't have the money, and we don't have any way to raise it.


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[Assistant] See, there were in Congress many men who were not fans of the severely limited powers granted to Congress. They wanted, and argued that the country in fact needed, a stronger national government.


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[Assistant] Their colleagues had outvoted them back during the debates over the Articles of Confederation, but they sensed in the growing restlessness in the army an opportunity to reopen the issue.


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[Assistant] There were also many officers in the army who concurred with them about needing a stronger national government. Not because they stayed up nights reading political philosophy, but because they realized they were going to get stiffed if Congress didn't have some way to raise money.


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[Assistant] So the congressional leaders started talking to the military leaders, and a scheme grew to leverage more power for Congress by threatening the use of military force.


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[Assistant] Specifically, the demand was the Articles be amended to allow Congress to lay a 5% impost on imported goods, an amendment that would require the unanimous consent of the states.


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[Assistant] So if we compare this to the English Revolution, we are roughly in about 1647, right after the First Civil War. The New Model Army wants what it has been promised, Parliament is unwilling or unable to give it to them, Fairfax and Cromwell elect to back the men, and eventually, they all march on London.


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[Assistant] It was very orderly, but it collapsed any notion of the army serving its civilian masters and not the other way around.


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[Assistant] As this moment approaches the American Revolution, though, George Washington refused to be Fairfax or Cromwell.


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[Assistant] In early March 1783, word reached the Continental Army camped at Newburgh, New York that a preliminary peace had been signed with Britain, meaning that they were sure to be disbanded sooner rather than later.


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[Assistant] An anonymous circular letter then made the rounds for the officers to gather on March 11th to discuss what action to take.


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[Assistant] When Washington got ahold of this letter, he announced that there would be a meeting, but it would be held on March the 15th, after Passions had died down a little bit.


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[Assistant] When the officers gathered on March the 15th, they were shocked by Washington's surprise entrance. No one expected him to come in person.


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[Assistant] He politely asked for the floor so he could deliver a short speech. A short speech that was nothing less than an impassioned plea not to go down this road. To not allow anyone to open the floodgates of civil discord and deluge our rising empire in blood.


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[Assistant] Then he pulled out a letter from a member of Congress he wished to read aloud, but to do so, he had to put on his glasses, and no one had ever seen the general wearing glasses.


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[Assistant] And that is pretty much the end of the Newberg conspiracy right there. And the moment when the Continental Army did not become the New Model Army.


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[Assistant] Washington had given everything he had to this cause. A cause that they were now all threatening to throw away over some back pay and pensions. The air drained out of the conspiracy completely.


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[Assistant] With the Newberg Crisis passed, Congress promised its officers would get full pay for five years, and the enlisted men would get three months pay right now in exchange for peacefully returning home. And that seemed to do the trick.


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[Assistant] Washington of course followed his performance at Newburgh with a similar performance at the end of the year, when in a carefully choreographed ceremony, gave up his commission.


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[Assistant] This is the moment when people started referring to him as the American Cincinnati's. The man who gave up power.


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[Assistant] The king asked an American-born painter what Washington would do now that the war had been won, and the painter replied, they say he will return to his farm.


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[Assistant] To which the king replied, if he does that, he'll be the greatest man who ever lived.


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[Assistant] Like I say, George Washington was the perfect guy to run the American war.


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[Assistant] If for no other reason than he seemed to have no design on running the American peace. Not that destiny was actually going to let him retire to Mount Vernon.


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[Assistant] Next week, the nationalist-inclined members of Congress will continue their quest to make the national government solvent. The quest that will fail.


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[Assistant] As they talked among themselves about how to solve this problem, a little rebellion flared up in western Massachusetts that exposed the terrible limitations of the Articles of Confederation for all to see.


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[Assistant] So, a call will be put out for a convention, just to revise the articles. You know, add a few things, take out a few things, it's not like we're gonna lock the doors and without any authority whatsoever, draft an entirely new constitution.


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[Assistant] It was during the pre-Christian midwinter pagan celebrations of Scandinavia's Norsemen where today's Christmas traditions began.


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[Assistant] Was lit on fire and kept burning for 12 days.


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[Assistant] Wild delirious reveling accompanied the daily sacrifices as drunken participants defiantly strove to make contact with spirits.


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[Assistant] A thousand miles away in pre-Christian Rome, celebrants were paying homage to their own gods during the winter solstice.


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[Assistant] Until this time, the birthday of Jesus Christ, the Jewish Messiah, had not been celebrated at all.


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[Assistant] And by the seventh century, Pope Gregory I had ordered Augustine of Canterbury to incorporate any and all pagan practices and customs into the expanding Roman Catholic Church.


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[Assistant] During the Middle Ages, the debased Mardi Gras atmosphere of what was now known as Christ's Mass had reached a fevered pitch.


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[Assistant] Common practices included open sex in the streets, rioting, murder, and a number of pagan druidic Halloween rituals. This blood-drenched celebration got so out of hand that by 1652, following the execution of King Charles I, Christ's Mass was finally outlawed in England.


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[Assistant] A religious reform movement began sweeping the country led by Puritan Oliver Cromwell.


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[Assistant] Despite their noble efforts, the celebration simply went underground and by 1656, after only four short years under the ban, the public's demand for the legalization of Christ's Mass had become insurmountable.


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[Assistant] The appointment of Charles II to the throne restored England's monarchy and with it the celebration of Christ's Mass.


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[Assistant] Following England's lead in 1659, the colonies of America had likewise outlawed Christmas. For 200 years, the clergy in New England battled to keep the riotous celebrations honoring the pagan god Saturn from infiltrating the New World.


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[Assistant] Who began advocating Christmas programs for children as a method of filling the pews.


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[Assistant] However, it was the work of England's most popular writer, Charles Dickens, whose ghostly 1843 book, A Christmas Carol, cemented the Christmas holiday in the hearts of Americans forever.


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[Assistant] A Christmas Carol gripped America and destroyed any final attempt to stop the evolution of Christmas.


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[Assistant] And by 1890, all American states had voted to make Christmas a legal holiday.


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[Assistant] Today's tradition of the Christmas Yule Log stems directly from the worship of the pre-Christian Scandinavian fertility guard Yule.


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[Assistant] Despite no scriptural references for January the 6th, it was selected as the day the wise men supposedly arrived to offer gifts to the newborn Christ. This day then has become known as Epiphany.


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[Assistant] During the dark ages, the European custom of putting an oil-lighted wick lamp in the windows during the twelve days of Christmas signified to neighbors


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[Assistant] The Ulog custom was originally bought over to America by Scandinavian immigrants during the 1600s.


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[Assistant] According to Wiccan rituals, placing holly or other greens in the shape of a circle or wreath accentuated its magical power.


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[Assistant] During the winter solstice, trees would be chopped down, brought inside, set up, and decorated as idols for worship.


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[Assistant] In the Middle Ages, the tradition of the winter solstice Christmas tree primarily took root in Germany.


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[Assistant] The US Forest Service estimated that at least one in five homes in America had adopted the Christmas tree tradition. Thousands of years earlier


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[Assistant] The concept of Santa Claus has had a long and winding history with a number of diverse cultures contributing to the composite character we have today.


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[Assistant] It was rumored that Saint Nicholas had actually captured the devil himself, put him in chains, and made him his personal servant.


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[Assistant] The servant Ruprecht was a dark and sinister figure who stood in stark contrast to the saintly Nicholas.


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[Assistant] As St. Nicholas traveled from house to house, inquiring about the behavior of children, Ruprecht would drop candy and gifts down the chimney into the good children's shoes which had been placed there.


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[Assistant] As more and more Christian churches began combining the pagan rituals of the winter solstice with the celebration of the birth of Christ, emphasis on St. Nicholas's role began to shift.


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[Assistant] Nineteenth-century writer Theodore Storm, in his story about Nect Ruprecht, even goes so far as to describe the switches given to the children by Ruprecht as tools to be used in sadomasochistic rituals.


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[Assistant] In 1819, America's best-selling author, Washington Irving, used his influence to promote St. Nicholas in a popular Christmas story titled Brace Bridge Hall.


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[Assistant] Consulting Irving's writings, Episcopalian minister Clement Clark Moore penned a decidedly secular tale called


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[Assistant] Moore became increasingly concerned that the story's emphasis on the supernatural and its disregard for Christ would reflect poorly on his position as a minister.


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[Assistant] Forty years later, illustrator Thomas Nast, political cartoonist for Harper's Weekly, seared the image of Santa Claus into the minds of the world by creating a drawing which combined Moore's jolly old elf with images of St. Nicholas taken from his own native Bavaria.


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[Assistant] Various scriptures in the Bible, including the second chapter of Luke, record the events surrounding the birth of the Messiah. A decree from Caesar Augustus had gone out requiring all people to return to the city of their origin for taxation purposes.


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[Assistant] Mary, who was pregnant with a child conceived by the Holy Spirit.


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[Assistant] Made the difficult journey to Bethlehem along with her husband Joseph. Both Joseph and Mary were of the lineage of King David.


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[Assistant] Because three gifts are named gold frankincense and myrrh, tradition says three men gave them.


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[Assistant] Ironically, this would have placed his conception right around December 25th.


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[Assistant] The timing of other events such as the temple service of Zacharias and the pregnancy of Mary's cousin Elizabeth.


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[Assistant] This may be a more appropriate reason to remember this time of year as the period in which God came to earth in human form.


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[Assistant] It is not the purpose of this film to tell you which Christmas rituals should and should not be practiced by you and your family. This is between you and the Lord.


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[Assistant] What Christians should be most concerned about, however, are the growing pagan influences infiltrating every area of our rapidly degenerating society.


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[Assistant] In the seventeenth chapter of John, Jesus taught that it was appropriate for his followers to be in the world, but not of the world.


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[Assistant] Meaning that we should be involved in our world so as to have a positive influence but not become corrupted by it.


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[Assistant] The Battle of Abertus forced the Romans to deal with something they had never before had to face. The death of an emperor in battle.


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[Assistant] Up until now, emperors had died of natural causes, or they had been assassinated, or they had committed suicide, but never had they fallen to an enemy sword.


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[Assistant] The gods struck down emperors, or the Romans struck down emperors, or emperors struck down themselves.


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[Assistant] But they were not knocked off by some common barbarian warrior. It simply wasn't done.


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[Assistant] But while this humiliating blow to the national psyche was immense, the Romans did not have long to dwell on their misery, because there was one big practical problem the death of Decius had left them with. Who would rule now?


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[Assistant] The Elevation of Deceased's son, Herennius, to the rank of co-emperor just a few months earlier was supposed to have solved this problem, but he too had died at a British, leaving the Empire not just without a leader, but without a leader in its darkest hour.


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[Assistant] To extract the Empire from this predicament, the Senate and the Army both came up with solutions to the problem of who would rule.


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[Assistant] Unfortunately they were different solutions. The army naturally chose to elevate one of their own.


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[Assistant] Specifically, the senior ranking officer left on the scene after the disaster at a British, Gaius Vibius Tribonianus Gallus.


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[Assistant] Back in Rome, though, the Senate chose to stick with the hereditary rights of Theseus' family and elected Gaius Valens Hostilianus Messius Quintus, Theseus' youngest son who had been left behind in Rome while his father and brother had gone off to fight the Goths.


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[Assistant] The big justifiable fear after DCS's death was that some kind of civil war would break out at a moment when a lack of internal unity might prove fatal.


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[Assistant] And with the Senate and armies backing separate candidates for the throne,


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[Assistant] That seemed to be the deadly path Rome was headed down.


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[Assistant] But the inevitable confrontation between Hostilian and Galus never arrived. In part, because Galus decided that circumstances demanded that someone take the high road and offer a compromise.


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[Assistant] Sitting in a tent out near the Danube, surrounded by the remnants of an army that had just been annihilated by the Goths.


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[Assistant] Gallus recognized that this was no time for a civil war.


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[Assistant] If he wasted the time and energy of what was left of Decius's army on some power grab,


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[Assistant] The Goths could just sweep down, conquer the Middle Empire, and split Rome in half.


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[Assistant] So while he made it clear to the Senate that he planned to accept the Army's acclaim,


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[Assistant] He also made it clear that he had no problem with Hostilian serving as his co-emperor.


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[Assistant] He was able to come to this magnanimous conclusion because, one, he had always been on excellent terms with Theseus and his family, and did not instinctively see Hostilian as a rival.


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[Assistant] And two, the age difference between them. Hostilian was still a teenager.


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[Assistant] Meant that Galus would always be the senior Augustus.


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[Assistant] Accepting hostilian then was more like accepting an heir than a true colleague.


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[Assistant] Plus, it's not like the Moecian legions were in any condition to force their demands on anyone.


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[Assistant] Trebonianus Gallus was a rare figure at this point in Roman history.


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[Assistant] He was an emperor of fully Italian extraction.


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[Assistant] Since the fall of the Flavian dynasty, the imperial office had been populated by Spaniards and Africans and Thracians and Illyrians.


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[Assistant] But only on a few rare occasions was the Emperor of Rome actually an Italian.


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[Assistant] Now of course, we can't read too much into this, as many of these emperors, the Trajans and Hadrians and Severans of the world,


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[Assistant] Either came from Italian families transplanted into the provinces,


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[Assistant] or from provincial families who had married into important Italian clans.


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[Assistant] But still, it is worth noting that an emperor born in Italy to an Italian family had, by the third century, become something of an endangered species.


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[Assistant] Gallus was born into a senatorial family of Etruscan origin, and had spent his life working his way up the Cursus honorum, serving in civilian and military posts across the empire.


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[Assistant] At some point, he became an associate of Decius', and when Decius became emperor, he immediately appointed Gallus to govern the province of Upper Moesia.


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[Assistant] The appointment underscores the close working relationship between the two men as the governorship of Upper Moesia was no honorary ambassadorship to Tahiti.


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[Assistant] This was, after all, a territory not only being harassed by the Goths, but which had also been ground zero for the rebellion that had put Decius in power in the first place.


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[Assistant] The degree to which Decius trusted and respected Gallus is obvious, and the new governor quickly became trusted and respected by the men under his command as well.


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[Assistant] A full bronze statue of Golly still exists that depicts a large, barrel-chested man with close-cropped hair cutting an imposing figure.


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[Assistant] He was not some aristocratic dandy the Moesian legions could hope to push around. Not that they had time for such bullying.


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[Assistant] Agalus took over in 250 AD, and for the next 18 months, he led the Roman response to the increasing Gothic raids. Sometimes he was successful, and sometimes he wasn't.


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[Assistant] But no one could argue that Galus wasn't exerting maximum effort in an attempt to stem the barbarian tribe.


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[Assistant] When Kneeva invaded with a full force though, the Moesian legions were simply unable to do anything to stop him. And Galus was one of those provincial leaders who told Theseus in no uncertain terms that the lower Danube needed reinforcements and fast.


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[Assistant] He then served as one of Decius's key generals during the campaign against the gothic king and wound up being one of the few to escape from a british alive.


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[Assistant] As I said at the end of last week's show, Galus took over what was left of the legions and came to an understanding with the victorious Kineva.


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[Assistant] The Romans would not hinder the Gothic retreat back across the Danube, and henceforth, payment would be made annually to the Gothic king to prevent him from attacking in the future.


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[Assistant] Though later Romans would castigate Gallus for this ignoble piece.


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[Assistant] Modern scholars seem more than willing to give him a pass.


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[Assistant] He was in an incredibly difficult position and doing the best he could to save the empire from further humiliation.


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[Assistant] The rumor that he and Keneva were in cahoots started up a few years later, but no one at the time, and no one now, really believes that those smears hold much water.


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[Assistant] The men of the Shattered Legions who had just elected him Emperor certainly didn't think he was a traitor who had just gotten most of them killed. Otherwise, they would have torn him limb from limb rather than giving him the keys to the Empire.


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[Assistant] The peace deal with Canoeva is evidence that Gallus was of a mind to walk the Romans away from the battle of Abertus without making things any worse than they already were.


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[Assistant] But the external threat posed by the Goths was not the only source of potential peril.


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[Assistant] Gaulus also had to make a choice about how to deal with the Senate's elevation of Hostilian.


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[Assistant] In this, too, Gaolu showed that he was more interested in making sure things didn't get worse than he was in just about anything else.


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[Assistant] So he sent a letter to the senate, informing them that their choice of hostilian was a fine one, and that he would be happy to share the imperial insignia with the son of Theseus.


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[Assistant] The Senate was no more disposed to start up a civil war than Gallus was, and immediately accepted the compromise. With the Goths temporarily sated,


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[Assistant] Gallus and a few key advisors made their way back to Rome to meet with Hostilian and the Senate so that together they could work up for a plan on how to stabilize the Empire, which was clearly teetering on the brink of something.


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[Assistant] When he arrived back in the capital, Agallus and Hostilian were acclaimed as the co-Augusti of Rome, and Agallus' son Volusianus was named Caesar and eventual heir to the throne.


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[Assistant] The partnership between Gallus and Hostilian though, wouldn't last a year.


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[Assistant] In the summer of 251, a hostilian mysteriously vanished from the historical record, and we can only guess at what happened to him.


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[Assistant] Gaulu's conspiracy theorists claim that the young Augustus had been offed by the evil betrayer of a Britus.


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[Assistant] But the consensus opinion seems to be that Hostilian fell victim to a new plague that had chosen this inopportune moment to appear on the scene. The Cyprian Plague. So named because its effects were described in detail by Saint Cyprian, the Bishop of Carthage.


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[Assistant] As with the Antonine Plague, there is some debate over which particular disease ravaged the Empire for the next 20 years.


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[Assistant] But again, as with the Antonine plague, smallpox appears to be the likely culprit.


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[Assistant] If there is one recent cliche that I have really come to loathe, it is the cliche of the quote, perfect storm.


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[Assistant] Everyone these days wants to describe everything as a perfect storm, making it hard to distinguish when an incredibly rare confluence of events produces something historically destructive, and when someone just wants to use the phrase, a perfect storm, to lend whatever minor crisis they're describing some dramatic heft.


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[Assistant] The crisis of the third century was a perfect storm.


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[Assistant] The empire was already being ravaged by external pressures stronger than it had known in centuries. Violent internal political division, economic depression, soaring taxation, and now on top of everything else, a massive plague was breaking out.


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[Assistant] You guys, this is what a perfect storm looks like.


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[Assistant] At the height of the Cyprian Plague, which ran from 251 until sometime after 270, 5,000 people died every day in Rome, and the bodies piled up faster than they could be buried.


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[Assistant] Manpower shortages inevitably resulted in the fields and in the army barracks, leading to further economic depression, famine, and anemic border defense.


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[Assistant] This, at a time when the last thing the empire could afford was economic depression, famine, and anemic border defense.


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[Assistant] Besides Hostilian, the plague would eventually claim the life of the Emperor Claudius Gothicus as well.


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[Assistant] A man who was well on his way to leading Rome out of the darkness when he died prematurely in his camp.


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[Assistant] Really, I will never stop marbling at how the Roman Empire was able to survive the third century. Everyone always wants to know why Rome fell.


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[Assistant] But I think the more fascinating question is how it managed to survive as long as it did.


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[Assistant] Over the course of the next few episodes, I hope to get to the bottom of that particular mystery.


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[Assistant] Seriously, these were bad times that the Romans should not have lived through.


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[Assistant] Though the Romans have been focused for the last few years on the threat in the north posed by the Goths.


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[Assistant] It was during the short reign of Gallus that they were reminded that the Sassanids still posed a major threat in the east.


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[Assistant] Shark War had been biding his time after making peace with Philip the Arab back in 244.


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[Assistant] But once word trickled over to the Sassanid king that the Romans were getting battered around by a gothic invasion, it did not take him long to call an army back into the field and point them west.


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[Assistant] The strength of Rome was at a low ebb, and now was the perfect opportunity to maybe peel off some of that old Persian territory his family had been covening all these years.


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[Assistant] The results of Sharpor's campaign would prove as disastrous to the Romans as Caneva's campaign had just been.


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[Assistant] And when the Romans finally got around to responding, the results of that campaign would prove to be even more disastrous still. Bad times. Bad, bad times.


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[Assistant] As is so often the case in Roman history, Armenia lay at the center of this latest outbreak of hostilities between East and West.


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[Assistant] The chronology on all of this is a bit muddled, but it appears that Sharpor used it as a spute over Armenian succession as a pretext for invading the buffer kingdom.


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[Assistant] After marching around unopposed and placing his own man on the throne.


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[Assistant] Sharpor then shocked everyone by directly invading the Roman province of Syria.


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[Assistant] As had just happened in the north, the eastern legions were so used to simply keeping watch without any real fear of direct attack, that the sudden invasion caught them completely by surprise.


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[Assistant] Sharpor captured key legionary garrisons and sacked important cities, including, amazingly, Antioch itself.


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[Assistant] After his string of victories, Sharpor chose to withdraw from Syria as winter descended, rather than attempt an occupation at this early stage in the game.


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[Assistant] Rome may be weakened, but it certainly wasn't defenseless.


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[Assistant] The easy success of his initial foray into Roman territory, though, had to have had sharpers mouth watering.


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[Assistant] Back in Rome, the surprising news of this marauding Sassanid army was met by an equally surprising reaction from the Emperor Gallus. Relative indifference.


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[Assistant] He ordered the Syrian legions to regroup and defend themselves properly the next time Sharpor came calling.


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[Assistant] But other than that, he made no move to travel to Syria himself, or to raise emergency reinforcements to help shore up the eastern front.


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[Assistant] This latter bit is at least somewhat understandable, as the north was already stretched dangerously thin, and the plague was making recruiting difficult.


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[Assistant] But there's no getting around the fact that Galus did not seem much moved by the danger posed by the Sassanids.


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[Assistant] Perhaps had he lived, he would have done as Valerian eventually did, and led the counterattack personally.


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[Assistant] But Romans at the time whispered that perhaps there was more soft Italian in Gallus than he liked to let on.


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[Assistant] And that the luxuries of Rome were seducing him away from his responsibilities.


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[Assistant] Discontentment with Gaullius, as you can imagine, began to grow a pace from this point on.


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[Assistant] With all of this swirling around, bad news once again came down from the Danube in 253.


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[Assistant] Keneva let it be known that he was unhappy about the payments he had been promised, and if Galus didn't do something about it, the gothic king was going to consider their peace treaty null and void.


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[Assistant] It is unclear whether the Romans were actually withholding the funds they had promised, or whether Caniva was simply trying to extort more cash from his weakened opponent.


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[Assistant] But the word went back up to give the gothic king no more than he had already been given.


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[Assistant] Canoeva, insulted, made preparations for a new invasion of the Empire.


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[Assistant] After Gallus left for Rome, the man put in charge of the northern border was Marcus Emilius Emelianus, a general of North African extraction who had been appointed to a legionary command in Moesia by Odysseus and promoted to overall command by Gallus following the disaster at Abertus.


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[Assistant] Emilianus faced the frightening prospect of dealing with the same gothic army that had just whipped the Romans handily.


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[Assistant] The gothic king let his arrogance get the better of him, and Emilianus was able to surprise the Goths and deliver a smashing victory for the legions.


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[Assistant] This time, it was Knieva who found himself leading off the wounded remnants of a once mighty army.


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[Assistant] And the world was reminded that the Romans were not done for yet. Emilianus was an overnight sensation, and for having done what two emperors had been unable to do,


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[Assistant] The exuberant troops honored their general the best way they knew how. They proclaimed him emperor.


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[Assistant] And if you think that by claiming their fourth emperor in just five years, the Moecian legions were hitting the peak of their fickleness, well, let's just give it another three months.


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[Assistant] The news that the men who had proclaimed him emperor were now proclaiming someone else emperor finally roused Gallus from his apparent slumber.


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[Assistant] He sent an order up to Valerian, the commander of the upper Rhine, and the man Decius had tried to make censor.


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[Assistant] Demanding that Valerian lead his troops to Italy at once to help Galoo smack down this would-be usurper.


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[Assistant] The emperor then induced the senate to declare Emilianus an enemy of the state.


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[Assistant] He gathered up a defense force and marched north to prevent the Moecian legions from entering Italy.


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[Assistant] But Emiliana was well aware that time was of the essence.


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[Assistant] And while Gallus gathered his defenses, the Moesian general was already marching on Italy to cement his claim to the throne.


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[Assistant] The Danube legions had been weakened by war and disease, and if Amelianus was to have any shot at all at unseating Gallus, he needed to strike before the Emperor could muster all the forces at his disposal.


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[Assistant] If he was thinking in particular about the Rhine legions, then he was right to move fast. By getting to Galus before the Rhine troops did,


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[Assistant] Emilianus was already in Italy and speeding down the eastern branch of the Flaminian Way when he was finally met by an army led by Gallus and Volusianus. There are two accounts of what happened next.


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[Assistant] The first states that Melianus defeated Gallus after a short battle and that Gallus and his son then fled north to await the coming Rhine reinforcements.


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[Assistant] Their way was then cut short by members of the Praetorian Guard, who saw the winds shifting in Amelianus's favor, and figured that they could get in good with the new emperor by bringing him the head of the old.


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[Assistant] And that Gallus' troops defected to Amelionis before a single spear was thrown.


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[Assistant] Leaving Galus and Volusianus alone and unprotected, at which point they were executed by Emilianus.


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[Assistant] Whichever way it happened, by the end of August 253, Galus was dead.


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[Assistant] He was 47 years old and had ruled the empire for two years.


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[Assistant] The death of Gallus ushered in the glorious reign of Emperor Emileanus, which began the moment Gallus died and ended the moment Valerian arrived in Italy with the Rhine legions.


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[Assistant] This glorious rain probably lasted about a month.


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[Assistant] When the new emperor arrived in Rome, he was greeted coolly by the Senate.


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[Assistant] Galus had not been their first choice to lead the Empire.


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[Assistant] And they were probably no more pleased with his lingering in the Capitol than anyone else.


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[Assistant] But he had gone out of his way to avoid civil war by proposing joint rule with Hostilian.


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[Assistant] Civil War was the last thing the Empire needed, and here now was a man who had gone ahead and started one anyway.


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[Assistant] Emilianus was not unaware of his standing in the capital. So when he arrived, he went to great lengths to convince the Senate of his benign intentions.


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[Assistant] He told the senators that he saw himself merely as a general and that he had neither the time nor the inclination to be the political, economic, and moral leader of the empire. That, he said, would be the Senate's responsibility.


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[Assistant] He himself would be too busy defending Rome from its foreign enemies to worry about politics.


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[Assistant] Any opposition to Emilianus washed away as they contemplated this enticing new dynamic he had proposed.


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[Assistant] A partnership between the military and the civilian authorities rather than all power being claimed by a single man.


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[Assistant] It was a positively intoxicating thought for the Power Starved Senate.


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[Assistant] But like I say, the glorious reign of the Melianas only lasted a few weeks.


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[Assistant] Valerian had never stopped moving south after the death of Gallus, and he now entered Italy in mid to late 253, with an eye not on saving Gallus, but revenging him.


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[Assistant] Emilianus' position was now reversed, and just a few weeks after marching down the Flaminian Way to confront Gallus, he found himself marching right back up it again to confront Valerian.


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[Assistant] On the same eastern branch of the road, though a bit further south.


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[Assistant] The two commanders met at the heads of their respective armies.


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[Assistant] Overawed by both the larger force from the Rhine and by the reputation of Alerian.


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[Assistant] The Moesian legions once again abandoned their master in favor of another and defected en masse to Valerian.


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[Assistant] In the process of this defection, Emilianos was cornered and killed by his own officers, so that there would be no misunderstanding where their new loyalties lay.


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[Assistant] Emilianus was in his early forties and had enjoyed the novelty of calling himself emperor for just about three months.


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[Assistant] The death of Emilianus closes out the first phase of the crisis of the third century.


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[Assistant] The legions elevating and abandoning emperors. The Goths invading from the north. The Sassanids invading from the east.


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[Assistant] The Cyprian Plague sucking the life out of Rome's army and economy.


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[Assistant] And in general, the bonds that had held the empire together fraying to the breaking point.


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[Assistant] This middle phase will be defined by the reigns of Valerian and his son Gallienus.


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[Assistant] Now in the context of the times, the 15 year combined reign of Valerian and his son seems to indicate a level of stability.


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[Assistant] But in fact, it masks instability on a scale that would only be matched during the final decades of the 400s AD as the West fell apart completely.


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[Assistant] Those of you who have read ahead know that not only did imperial usurpers rise and fall faster during this middle phase of the crisis than in any other period in Roman history,


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[Assistant] But also, the beginning in the 260s, the empire would actually spend about 15 years divided into thirds, after new kingdoms in the northwest and east successfully broke away from Rome.


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[Assistant] The final phase of the crisis, which lasted roughly from the death of Gallienus in 268 until the elevation of Diocletian in 284, was the recovery period.


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[Assistant] During which a series of vigorous emperors from Illyria battled back through the chaos to reestablish the supremacy of Rome, both internally and externally.


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[Assistant] Next time, we'll open the middle phase of the crisis with the elevation of Valerian and his son Gallienus.


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[Assistant] Though Valerian was at the time one of the most respected men in the Empire.


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[Assistant] His destiny was unfortunately to go down in history as an imperial embarrassment.


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[Assistant] To his credit, he immediately opened up a war in the east to punish the Sassanids for their sack of Syria.


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[Assistant] But when he was captured alive by Sharpor in 260, his name became synonymous with the general felling of once mighty Rome.


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[Assistant] There will be no episode next week as I am headed down to the Austin City Limits Music Festival, but we'll be back in two weeks to see just how bad we can make things for the Romans.


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[Assistant] In the autumn of 253 AD, the troops supporting short-lived Emperor Aemilius Aemilianus abandoned the man they had so recently elevated to the purple, and defected en masse to Valerian.


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[Assistant] I think we can forgive the Romans for at first not investing too much emotional energy in this new newly appointed emperor. Because, after all, in the 18 years since the assassination of Alexander Severus, the empire had seen 11 different men claim the title Augustus.


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[Assistant] There was absolutely no reason to believe that the new emperor would not simply come and go along with all the rest.


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[Assistant] But when Valerian descended from the Alps, he wound up bringing with him 15 years of relative stability at the top of the political pyramid. At least in a sense.


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[Assistant] Sure, the western provinces of Gaul, Britannia, Hispania, Germania Superior, Germania Inferior, and Radia would break away in 260, losses that would be matched in that year when Syria, Egypt, Palestine, and most of Asia Minor came under the control of the city of Palmyra.


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[Assistant] But the middle of the empire, Greece and the Balkans in Italy, would, from 253 to 268, be the domains of Valerian and his son, Publius Lichenius Ignatius Gallienus.


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[Assistant] And their reign will form the bridge between the old empire of Augustus and Hadrian Marcus Aurelius and the coming empire of Diocletian and Constantine and Theodosius.


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[Assistant] Now whether the fractured stability of Gallienus was more dangerous than the unified political anarchy that preceded him is a question scholars still debate today.


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[Assistant] As soon as Valerian's claim to power was recognized by the Senate in October 253, he wasted no time inducing them to further elevate his son Gallienus to the rank of Coagustus.


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[Assistant] Having two emperors was a critical part of Valerian's plan for the empire. And indeed, the rapidity with which he began to pursue that plan have left some questioning whether or not the new emperor had dragged his feet a little getting out of Germany.


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[Assistant] That maybe, after receiving the distress call from Galus, that Valerian decided to simply let Galus and Emileonis fight it out, which would allow him to sweep down and brush aside whoever was left standing after the showdown.


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[Assistant] But whether he was actively planning for what he would do when he became emperor, or whether he just had an idea of what he would do if he became emperor.


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[Assistant] There was very little separating Valerian's elevation to the throne and the announcement that he was heading to Syria to reassert Roman power in the east.


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[Assistant] The main point of rising up Gallienus was so that Valerian could be sure that the Western Empire was left in loyal hands while he focused on the Eastern Front.


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[Assistant] This division of the empire followed the previous division of Marcus Aurelius and Lucius Verus a century before, though this time it was the senior Augusti who went east with his junior partner remaining in Rome.


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[Assistant] One of the big problems we have in dealing with the crisis of the third century is that establishing a definitive chronology through the chaos is almost impossible.


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[Assistant] What sources we have are contradictory and full of biases and outright fabrications.


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[Assistant] For example, even when we deal with a momentous event like Aurelion's evacuation of Dacia,


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[Assistant] All we can say is that it happened sometime between 271 and 274. Everything else is just guesswork.


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[Assistant] We can make good guesses, but there are nonetheless still guesses.


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[Assistant] Just how crossed up the history of the mid-third century can get begins to really become apparent during the joint reign of Valerian and Gallienus.


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[Assistant] For the next little while, dates are going to fall in ranges, and a lot of question marks are going to surround where people were and when they were there.


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[Assistant] We know basically what happened, and basically what order it happened in, but sometimes, well, we really don't.


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[Assistant] That all being said, probably by early 254, Valerian was headed to Syria to survey the damaged rot by the recent Sassanid invasion.


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[Assistant] Gallienus, meanwhile, headed up north to the Rhine on a mission to repel Germanic incursions that had begun the minute Valerian picked up the legions guarding the border and marched them to Italy.


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[Assistant] The pattern of these northern invasions would become a familiar one over the next 20 odd years and highlight the cyclical nature of the third century crisis.


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[Assistant] Anytime border troops were called elsewhere to deal with some emergency, barbarians beyond the frontier would invade the under Garrison territory left behind.


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[Assistant] Forcing troops from elsewhere to be called in and plug the gap.


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[Assistant] Leading to invasions in whatever territory those troops had just left behind, and so on, and so on.


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[Assistant] Then, whatever territory was left holding the bag would have to look to their local commander to engineer a defense and if he succeeded despite imperial aid, his troops would generally hail him as emperor.


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[Assistant] Valerian's withdrawal of the Rhine legions to help him win power in Italy precipitated the beginning of one of these long cycles.


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[Assistant] Germanic tribes took the opportunity to pour across the border and raid the wealth of Gaul.


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[Assistant] The junior emperor's arrival in country seems to have brought an end to the pillaging, and between 253 and 255, Gallienus seems to have won a number of, if they can't quite be called battles, and then at least significant skirmishes that forced the various tribes to withdraw back across the Rhine.


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[Assistant] Valerian, meanwhile, passed through the Balkans and marched across Asia Minor on his way to Syria.


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[Assistant] While he was on the move, the Goths and other associated tribes beyond the Danube appear to have prudently waited for the Imperial army to pass before they renewed their forays into Roman territory. As soon as Valerian was gone though,


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[Assistant] Various independent gothic groups once again began descending south in search of the great wealth of the Roman Empire.


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[Assistant] Valerian, though, had much bigger things on his plate than the Goths, who, though they had done damage to the Empire's ego,


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[Assistant] We're still small potatoes compared to the truly existential threat posed by the Sasanids.


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[Assistant] Or the Goths were a dangerous rabble. The Sassanids were a well organized rival civilization in the fullest sense of the word.


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[Assistant] And their attacks on the East threaten not just the rich provinces of Syria and Asia Minor, which accounted for a great deal of Imperial tax revenue.


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[Assistant] But also the all-important province of Egypt and its critical grain supply.


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[Assistant] Valerian planted his court at Antioch, and for the next few years, he rebuilt the Syrian capital and the infrastructure of the surrounding countryside.


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[Assistant] At some point, he retook the border city of Nispis, and by 257, things were mostly back to the way they had been before Sharpor's Great Raid of 253.


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[Assistant] The Sassanid king could only sit back and watch the Romans regroup as the presence of the emperor and his army were enough to make him think twice about simply repeating his invasion of a few years before.


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[Assistant] Of course, with Valerian in Syria and Gallienus in Gaul.


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[Assistant] The Danube frontier became the odd man out, and as I just said, gothic armies began to once again pour south across the river.


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[Assistant] Sometime around 255, this new invasion forced Galeen to march in from the west and reinforce the Middle Empire.


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[Assistant] With the Emperor on the scene, or should I say with the resources the Emperor brought with him on the scene,


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[Assistant] The Romans were able to once again plug the Northern League and push the Goths back across the river.


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[Assistant] But as Gallienus campaigned in the Middle Empire, the West inevitably slid back into chaos, forcing the Junior Emperor to head back to Gaul.


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[Assistant] Hoping to keep everyone in line after he was gone, Gallienus elevated his son, Valerian II, to the rank of Caesar and left the young man as the figurehead of record for all the Danube provinces.