#443 – Gregory Aldrete: The Roman Empire – Rise and Fall of Ancient Rome

**Lex Fridman** (0:00)
The following is a conversation with Gregory Aldrete, a historian specializing in ancient Rome and military history. And now, a quick few second mention of each sponsor. Check them out in the description. It is, in fact, the best way to support this podcast. We got Element for electrolytes, Shopify for selling stuff online, AG1 for a super awesome daily multivitamin, BetterHelp for mental health, and ExpressVPN for protecting yourself on the interwebs. Choose wisely, my friends. Also, if you want to get in touch with me for whatever reason, submit questions for an AMA, all that kind of stuff, go to lexfridman.com/contact. And now, on to the full ad reads. As always, no ads in the middle. I try to make this interesting, but if you skip them, please still check out the sponsors. It is, in fact, the best way to support this podcast. There's nice links in the description. Just click them. First up, this episode is brought to you by Element, my daily zero sugar delicious electrolyte mix that I mix into cold water and is delicious. I'm no longer even paying attention to what they're telling me I should be advertising. I should mention that sponsors have zero influence on what I say in podcasts and in this ad read, in fact, the only thing they ask me very politely is that I give out a call to action at the end, like a link. All right, I technically can talk about whatever the hell I want, which is great. And I'm drinking an element now and I'm not paying attention about any of the new flavors. They might be new flavors. I've just fallen in love with watermelon salt and I am that kind of guy. I just find a thing that I like and I stick to it. In theoretical computer science, let's say that's called greedy search. You find a thing you like and you stick at that local minima, maxima, whatever. Anyway, as I sip element in speaking these very words, I recommend that you get a sample pack for free with any purchase. Try it at drinklmnt.com/lex. This episode is also brought to you by Shopify, or how everybody on X seems to call Spotify. It's hilarious to watch people confuse Shopify and Spotify, and they give props to the CEOs of both companies for creating and running the other company. The mistake often becomes viral and making fun of the mistake often becomes viral, and it's fun to watch. Anyway, both companies are amazing. Really, really revolutionized, a specific thing that humans do on the internet. But this particular ad is about Shopify, which is a platform designed for anyone to sell anywhere with a great-looking online store. I always seem to want to mention capitalism when I'm talking about Shopify, and this is an opportunity to plug a conversation coming up on communism. I'm doing a very, very long conversation on communism, the history specifically of communism, of Marxism, of its various implementations throughout the 20th century. Oftentimes, when people talk about the Roman Empire or communism, a bit of their modern-day political ideology seeps in. I really try not to do that. I try to understand these movements, these civilizations, these empires, these societies, in their own context objectively, without a kind of over-emotional judgment. But nevertheless, with empathy, where you are actually feeling, truly feeling the experience of the people at that time. That's the challenge with the history podcast, with history conversations, with history books. Probably a lot more to say about that. But I should say you need to sign up for a $1 per month trial period at shopify.com/lex. That's all lower case. Go to shopify.com/lex to take your business to the next level today. This episode is also brought to you by AG1, an all-in-one daily drink to support better health and peak performance. Speaking of peak performance, we talked about gladiators and the battle to the death of two human beings and sometimes with animals.
I felt that we shouldn't spend too much time on that because actually in the case of Gregory, his specialization and interests are not on the games but on actual military conquest and military battles, tactics and technology and the asymmetry of power, all of these kinds of things throughout the Roman monarchy, Roman Republic and Roman Empire and ancient Greece as well. So I feel like in terms of gladiators, that could be a person that I would specifically talk to primarily about gladiator fights. Because it's such an epic slice of human history. Anyway, AG1 will give you a one-month supply of fish oil when you sign up at drinkag1.com/lex. This episode is also brought to you by Better Help, spelled H-E-L-P, help. They figure out what you need and match it with a licensed therapist in under 48 hours. It is interesting to think about how ancient Romans saw death, given how many of their children at birth and shortly after died, given how many brutal battles they saw all around them, to the death where it's not some drone overhead dropping a bomb, but face to face, hand to hand, sword to sword combat, and lots of blood and slaughter direct. They obviously in many cases glorified combat and glorified death, as did the Vikings, as did many societies throughout history, and I'll probably do a podcast on the Vikings as well, many podcasts, the barbarians, the Vikings, truly truly fascinating peoples. Anyway, it feels like that relationship with death makes for harder humans, and finding that balance between hard and soft in terms of the human mind is an interesting one. We live in a softer society now, which is why there is a company like BetterHelp that can help you with the softness of your mind, where the cracks reveal the union shadow. I would say it's the easiest way to try talk therapy. So you should at least try at betterhelp.com/lex and save on your first month. That's betterhelp.com/lex. This episode is also brought to you by ExpressVPN. I use them to protect my privacy on the internet. Obviously as you see some of the stuff going on in Brazil and some other nations with government censorship of platforms, of people, VPN is a really powerful way to get around that. VPN is both a technology and a symbol of freedom in oppressive regimes. And it's pretty dark, scary, disgusting really that the use of VPN is punished in those countries.