A History Teacher Reacts | Historia Civilis - The Longest Year in Human History (46 B.C.E.)

hey youtube welcome back to another history teacher reacts video thanks for joining me today as I continue my never-ending quest for historical knowledge today I'm going to be watching the first video from a very popular History Channel historia Sevilla's um this has been recommended to me since day one of my youtube channel this this channel in particular so I'm literally getting around to it but we're gonna go ahead and get started today so I had so many videos recommended for from this channel that couldn't really just pick out one so I went to their channel and it went through and just kind of filtered through popular videos and this one was one of those that popped up and I thought it sounded really interesting this is the longest year in human history so I know I believe this channel really kind of focuses on ancient Rome so that's really the only expectation I really have right now from this channel is just just about you know Rome itself depending on the level of detail too would probably change how much comments you know I give because a lot of these super like specific channels they have so much more detail than you know you would just generally learn even as a as a history teacher so hopefully I can learn a lot and you kind of join me in there I'll try to add things when I can alright okay before we get started though one I always promote the original video if you like the original video make sure that you go to the original video which will be they'll be description in the in the or a link in the description should say and you can go ahead and check that out give them a like and subscribe I feel like we're doing here make sure to LIKE and subscribe as well I would love to see you around this video also in the series was often came up in my patreon polls patreon is right now of all donation levels get to participate in a weekly poll for videos that get on here mystery civil service barely lost out a couple weeks ago but it's kind of back here and I wanted to get to it anyway alright enough talking let's go ahead and get started is called the longest gear in human history 46 BC let's check it out in the summer of the year 46 BCE Julius Caesar returned to the city of Rome a victorious general all of his military opposition had been squashed and all of his enemies save for libidus and a couple of Pompey sons had either been killed or forced into submission this precise moment when Caesar returned to the city was a major turning point in Roman history for years Roman politics had been getting weirder and more dysfunctional but now was the time when things really go off the deep end before Caesar could even make it back to the city the Senate took it upon itself to offer him unprecedented political power his dictatorship which was due to expire in a few months was extended for an additional 10 years so yeah alright so they're starting just kind of on the eve of what will kind of eventually be this consolidation of power by Caesar a lot of people look at this as the transition point for kind of the end of the Republic as it was kind of known you know for the last good 500 years before this and then kind of eventually oh sure II on the kind of birth of the the Empire as will be a little bit more official after Caesar with Octavian also known as Augustus who will be succeeding here so alright so they've he's been dictator he's been kind of stopping some of the other competition going on headed back there they get to give him another extension of the dictatorship again dictators ship in in Rome is not actually new to to Julius Caesar it's kind of put into there they're sort of Constitution where in times of imminent danger they can appoint a dictator for executive powers and this has gone on before and it has gone on as has gone fine before as far as like somebody come coming back one of the famous stories was Cincinnatus who was brought in basically had power for a while and then it was over he went back to his home and I think he was a farmer after that and just kind of continuing all his life so today we have this idea of dictator as automatically like repressive right but that didn't necessarily that's not what that necessarily mean back then okay it was more of a just a position in government now we equate that because of some of the actions of dictators through history this was unheard of as the dictatorship was supposed to be a six-month emergency measure why did the Senate do this if Caesar may be worrisome for a lot of people and the Senate feared the worst by pre-empting him the Senate believed that they could keep Caesar within the bounds of the law and by attaching a time limit to their offer they would be able to revisit this whole arrangement in ten years time kind of almost almost like I got appeasement in a way they think this guy they're fearful this guy's going to come in and just maybe eliminate everything that the Senate has going for it so give him some power right and maybe that old like appease him in a way that's the kind of vibe I'm getting here right now Caesar would probably be in a weaker position than he was right now and with a little luck they might be able to push him into retirement the Senate also gave Caesar permission to serve as consul consecutively for the next five years which when paired with the dictatorship would give him a free hand to push through pretty much whatever legislation he wished alongside this Caesar was also handed a bunch of new powers I'm not gonna go down the whole laundry list but they included the power to declare war and issue pardons what let's just take a quick look though we'll just pause real quick okay so they just said declare war and peace and issue pardons executive powers that actually a lot of governments have right now I can America though the leader himself cannot declare war that has to come through Congress but can't issue pardons okay brother gun other ones we got triple Caesars bodyguards okay it probably needs that because you know he's got such a love-hate relationship in Rome preside over elections okay other miscellaneous authoritarian stuff forty days of Thanksgiving okay okay but they included the power to declare war and issue pardons whenever he wished this was some real authoritarian stuff this some people held on to some legislative authority but they were making one hell of a gamble okay when Caesar returned just as he asked the Senate to meet with him outside the p'm area he told them that he had conquered new territory for Rome and that he had been hailed as Imperator by his armies he formally asked their permission to cross the pó Meriam under triumph in fact he said that he was qualified for four triumphs one for Gaul one for Egypt one for Asia Minor and one for North Africa got a winning record it's worth briefly explaining each of these claims um real quick back to the imperatore kind of idea and actually more deep than that the whole relationship between generals in the military in in in ancient Rome again they have such a vast empire right I mean look look how big it is and it's filled with people of a lot of different backgrounds in a lot of different territories right so like you would have a lot of these soldiers ideas Roman soldiers that are fighting for Rome okay and it's like idea of Rome you know the city of Rome itself was probably a place that mostly soldiers had never been to and only heard about so it's I think it's a little bit harder to have a loyalty as a soldier to a place you've actually never been now remember - they would incorporate people from conquered territories sometimes into the military because again the more you conquer the more military you need to hold that right so what the point I'm getting to is is people could our soldiers could often tend to be more loyal to their general than say an abstract idea of like the glory of Rome okay now these soldiers of course you know they're loyal to because they they they're hoping to get something in return these soldiers are these are these generals would make promises to them right you can get land you get pay and those sort of things and if they had that relationship then yeah they would be very loyal to them and I think in a lot of cases maybe for some in Julius Caesar's case you'd have a lot of the again these soldiers that are actually important more loyal to him then like the Senate you know what I mean because that's at more of an abstract concept I've never experienced Rome on that kind of level but that's something that definitely goes on in in Rome itself specifically among the military where the loyalties actually lie in Gaul he had annexed a bunch of territory and been hailed as in parrot or iam Gaul was totally legit in Egypt it gets more complicated if you remember Caesar lost a battle than won a battle then negotiated a settlement where he handed a Roman province over to the queen of Egypt giving away a province is kind of the opposite of conquering territory the Egyptian campaign should not have qualified for a triumph yeah didn't really an Asia Minor know told Caesar won a decisive battle but all he really did was restore the status quo that doesn't really count as conquering new territory although I guess it's debatable as for North Africa this one's really complicated Caesar won a decisive battle but in this case it was against his own countrymen for the sake of public relations Caesar argued that King Juba of Numidia was the brains behind the North African complicated this was not true after Caesars victory he shifted some of the new Midian client kingdoms into one of Rome's existing provinces which is kind of just an administrative thing but I guess technically counts as conquering new territory of Caesars for proposed triumphs three were questionable now you know and I think that's why the general public when they I mean general public and people that know just at least a little bit of our own really only hear about the the triumph right there using that term in Gaul where he was most you know and they're kind of confirming the most as far as decisive as like a clear victory for himself and for Rome very much more cut-and-dry and that makes a little bit sense now since he was involved in some of these other conflicts but he really mostly just hear about Gaul of Caesars for proposed triumphs three were questionable nevertheless the Senate signed off on all of them so a paper I'm gonna spend it through adults going through each of Caesars four triumphs but if this your interest at all you should know that I made a video where I break down each step of the Roman triumph in excruciating detail okay learning about the Roman triumph ruins every parade you see for the rest of your life Caesar is full weight this is part of it ruins every parade you see for the rest of your life oh okay so yeah this is part of the the parades for the triumph of religious stuff military congregations killing prisoners animal sacrifice so I don't know anything in these triumphs these things that they would do like like to celebrate that interesting life Caesars for triumphs would be celebrated very similar in the order in which they occurred Gaul then Egypt then Asia Minor then North Africa [Music] that's not a year though the conquest of Gaul for his Caesars greatest achievement and the Gaulish is what exertion has its living monument remember verse and Jetix the so-called king of the Gauls six years ago vercingetorix led a united garlic army that almost succeeded in pushing the Romans at a Gaul Caesar eventually captured versa Jetix and defeated the United garlic army after which Rome would establish a permanent presence in Gaul for the intervening six years which included the entirety of the Roman civil war worsened jeddaks had been rotting in a Roman jail hmm why didn't they just kill him well for the Romans few things were more ambitious in having a foreign King walk in one's triumph this Roman tendency towards humiliation and cruelty extended verson Jetix his life six years so it's not just enough to defeat the person the Romans wanted to humiliate the ruler for their own satisfaction or they trying to make an example out of him you're not really making an example if you're taking him back home though like make it an example to who yeah I mean so interesting the thought process behind that Easter's garlic triumph kicked off with wagons carrying paintings depicting Caesars various victories over the gulls these were followed by even more wagons hauling captured garlic treasure walking alongside these wagons or an assortment of garlic prisoners including the so-called king of the Gauls verson Jett uruk's after this Caesar made his entrance by crossing the poem areum and making his way up the via sacra before cheering crowds as the name would imply the via sacra was home to Rome's largest temples as Caesar was passing the temple to Fortuna the goddess of luck one of the wheels on his chariot snapped and he was thrown onto the street to the superstitious Romans it appeared that the goddess of luck had finally abandoned Caesar uh-oh after a brief delay another chariot was found in the triumph continued bad omen as Caesar approached the Golic triumphs grand Ali he decided to climb the steps to the temple of Jupiter Optimus Maximus on his knees in an act of penance hopefully the goddess of luck would find this pleasing after this bit of public humiliation Versa jet uruk's the so called king of the Gauls having played his part was strangled to death the rest of the Golic prisoners met the same fate an important part of the triumph is that Caesars soldiers were permitted to cross the Librium and follow behind him along the triumphal route by the end of the triumph everybody was pretty loose if you know what I mean you imagine like all right the Superbowl champions they get a you know the you got the like the Patriots or something and they're coming down Boston and they have like the other team with them in cages or something like that and then they go and like execute the you know quarterback of the other team or something like that that's like the the equivalence of what that would be like today there's triumph and then yeah it was customary for the soldiers to entertain the crowd by singing rude songs suet o Gnaeus writing 150 years after the fact I had a success two sources that are now lost to us and went to the trouble of transcribing one of the songs that Caesar's army sang during the halter you went something like this get Roman good get to get your soundcloud ready or whatever they need they need to get this up there all right Romans watch your wives watch your wives here's the bald adulterers we pissed away your gold and Gaul and come to borrow more well why would you do that well just get a piss off everybody few days later after the partying had settled down a bit it was time for the Egyptian triumphs as part of the negotiated settlement with Egypt Caesar had taken Cleopatra's sister and former rival arsenault captive Arsenal was a former Queen herself and as such she would become the second monarch to walk in one of Caesars triumphs by all accounts Arsenal was young charming attractive and probably fluent in both Greek and Latin we don't know exactly what she said or did but whatever it was the crowd immediately took a like remember the fair on the leadership monarchy sort of of Egypt this is you know after Alexander the Great's conquest right and they impose their the Ptolemaic kind of dynasty there so a lot of people talk about like they'll say like Cleopatra like wasn't really an Egyptian and there's you know technically some truth to that because their lineage goes back to the to the Greeks since the Greek conquests by Alexander the Great but low side note there that's where that argument comes from and why she would like know Greek you know I don't know exactly what she said or did but whatever it was the crowd immediately took a liking to her before too long people were calling on Caesar to spare her life Caesar sensing the mood of the crowd gave in to popular demand and allowed Arseneau to take up residence in a Roman temple there's no doubt that this move annoyed Cleopatra but when you think about it geopolitically rome having a potential heir to the egyptian throne in their back pocket seems like a pretty smart move to make a bigger impact later right with a few days our struggle after see the Asia Minor triumphs which celebrated Caesars five-day campaign that ended with the Battle of gsella this would have been the weakest of the four triumphs and it's probably no coincidence that none of the ancient sources have anything to say about it and then a few days later it was time for the grand finale the North African triumph this triumph was pitched as a celebration of Caesars victory over King Juba and the numidians in North Africa as usual the triumph kicked off with a bunch of giant paintings one of the first paintings depicted the Pompeii in general Skippy Oh stabbing himself in the stomach and tossing himself into the sea many in the crowd understandably found this painting offensive yeah why were they being shown the deaths of Romans where were the new medians or see that later another painting came into view this one depicted the last moments of Cato's life with the senator laying in bed ripping out his own intestines with his bare hands Pincus was described even by Roman standards it was now crystal clear that Caesar was much more concerned with celebrating the deaths of his fellow Romans than he was with the defeat of the numidians all right so yeah you're getting some of the ambitions I guess you're taught of Caesar are starting to do but again what's the point right because these are to celebrate these these triumphs over is it also a way that Caesar is intimidating potential political enemies you know maybe the crowd turned against the triumph hmm minutes later the prisoners came into view the most prominent person here was the new king of Numidia a young child probably under the age of six this child would be the third monarch to walk in one of Caesars triumphs which was an incredible accomplishment and a record that would never be broken but the crowd had no interest in this achievement they were in a sour mood and found the idea of putting an innocent child to death repulsive the crowd started to get rowdy and when Caesar came into view they angrily demanded that he spare the boy's life Caesar didn't have much of a choice he enrolled the young king in a prestigious school and did it that what do you have would he have killed him [Laughter] like it when you add the other Caesars for triumphs he hauled 2,000 tons of silver across the poem area currency conversion across two millennia is pretty much impossible but just so you get a proper sense of scale that much silver would be worth a billion dollars today the scale of Caesars personal wealth had grown to that of a small country and it was time to use that wealth to begin meeting some of his obligations at the top of his list were his legions who in return for sacrificing so much had received nothing but a bunch of promises Caesar gifted condemned his soldiers one silver talent which bearing in mind that currency conversion is pretty much impossible would have been equal to like 10 or 15 years wages Centurions were given two silver talents and officers and command staff were given four silver talents this was extremely generous and everybody knew full well that this was coming right out of Cesar's pocket but no reason popular is just getting started because Caesar then turned around and gifted every Roman citizen the equivalent of like four months wages this was a surprise to be sure but a welcome one the Roman aristocracy looked down their noses yeah look what look what he's doing with these financial gains he has now solidified his military to respect him right that's gonna be useful for future ventures and now the Roman public with was they say four months wages pretty much of giving him that and it's like everybody's getting something except yeah at the Senate they're the ones who are fearful of all this right so yeah he's won over a lot of people but in importance you know people that work for him and the people that support him the general population at this blatant political pandering but since it was a private donation they were in no position to or nothing to do about it so argue despite this worry of generosity Caesars full debt to his soldiers had not yet been paid this is a rough estimate but something on the order of 22,000 two soldiers were currently up for retirement and that number would only grow in the years to come the Roman state owed every one of these men a plot of farmland and a cash bonus and it was Cesar's responsibility to make sure that happened but 22,000 is a big number and even with unlimited funds coming up with that much farmland would be tough the councillors territory is still not enough solution luckily Caesar was at the height of his political power he had just been appointed dictator for an additional 10 years and was at the very beginning of a five-year run as consul his first move was to push a bill through the Senate setting up a mechanism through which farmers could sell their land to the government at inflated prices this meant that Rome's failing farmers would be eligible for a little cash bailout of course since this was a voluntary program the full redistribution of 22,000 farms would take many many years now that Caesars veterans were being dealt with some important political decisions needed to be made the chaos of the Civil War had devastated the Senate the size of the Senate tended to fluctuate year-to-year but if you assumed perfect health and attendance it could top out at like 800 members although in practice 300 was pretty typical as you might imagine the Civil War had pushed a lot of senators into early retirement and well death and by the year 46 Senate membership was down in the danger zone some back of the envelope calculations said that there would not be enough qualified senators to properly staff Rome's provinces okay Caesar would do three things just to get more problem senator it expand the pool of available candidates he would widen the filter that produced qualified candidates and he would temporarily lower the bar lower the qualifications this hole so yeah you got a I guess fill it quick I'm sure he would like that all these people the new people because it sounds like there's a lot of open Senate seats would want them to be supportive of him right in supportive of his action so lower the bar get more of them you know we'll see I mean it could work for him it could work against him right with all these open seeds whole thing was super consequential and it would ruffle a lot of feathers so let's get into it Caesar widen to the pool of available candidates by using his dictatorial powers to unilaterally appoint hundreds and hundreds of new senators who were these new senators they were basically everybody that Caesar had come into contact with over the last 15 years a bunch of these new senators were retired Centurions from his legions there he goes without saying that these guys were loyalists yeah he also appointed a bunch of our ristic rats from the small and medium-sized cities that dotted the Italian countryside Caesar had turned to this group for financial support okay so yeah this would be a group that would probably be harder to win over than just the plebeians right because plebeians you can throw out money and you're good there these people already have it so having to win them over I would think would be more of a challenge so yeah I kind of want to hear what he's gonna say about this I'm gonna go back ten seconds he also appointed a bunch of our ristic rats from the small and medium-sized cities that dotted the Italian countryside Caesar had turned to this group for financial support during the ceremony and this political kickback only strengthened their loyalty to him okay it was a canny move since these aristocrats were pretty influential and some of these new senators moved aside Italy during the Gallic Wars Caesar had made commitments to some Golic aristocrats in exchange for their support appointing these Gauls to the Roman Senate was a way of finally making good on these commitments let's take a few things clear about these goals for starters these people had been given Roman citizenship ages ago they were fluent in Latin they wore Roman clothing their children got Roman education nevertheless the appointment of ethnic Gauls to the Roman Senate caused an uproar yeah that's they're foreigners really right I mean yeah they speak Latin whatever and that's helpful but they're not historically Romans right so you're bringing in all of these yeah foreigners I could easily see how that would upset a lot of the sitting senators who take a lot of pride in having this Roman ancestry and it's like you guys are just Concord failures you know what I mean you're gonna sit with us and have power with us you could definitely see that being an issue but you could all then you see though from Cesar's perspective probably part of the promises because you see he makes a lot of deals with people right all kinds of people rich poor military whatever and yeah getting support of the the Gallic elite you know by saying hey you're gonna get citizenship and we're even gonna put you in the Senate that could get definitely give you support for it get totally see yeah but now I can see how this is gonna provide a problem with sitting senators on the streets of Rome people started telling a joke that went something like this the Gauls have crossed the pó Miriam they're asking for directions to the Senate house there was a lot of loose talk at the time about senators showing up unable to speak Latin sporting garlic facial hair wearing garlic clothing there's some garlic religion but none of this was true it was all just wild paranoia and by the time he had finished big-time xenophobia going on here just kind of fear of foreigners here going on and then yeah they're spreading these other rumors to to marginalize them making all of his appointments the Senate had quadrupled in size over time the Senate would shrink back down to normal but this would take at least the generation as I said before Caesar had good reasons for packing the Senate but we shouldn't lose sight of the fact that at its heart this was a power grab the vast majority of the Roman Senate were now personally loyal to Caesar do it everyone but the Senate packing thing wouldn't entirely solve the problem at hand the only senators that were allowed to serve as governors were the ones who had been elected to one of Rome's two highest offices consul and preacher okay because of the Civil War many of Rome's former consuls and preachers were either dead or retired it would take quite a long time to filter this expanded pool of politicians up the cursus honorum so caesar widened the filter by increasing the number of annually elected preachers from 8 to 10 but widening the filter wouldn't entirely solve the problem either as a stopgap measure Caesar used his dictatorial authority to appoint a bunch of under qualified politicians to the provinces Caesars old job as governor of Sicily and gall went to one of the Senate's lowest ranked senators Marcus Brutus fifteen years his junior Brutus was the son of Caesars favorite mistress and despite the fact that Brutus had sided with the Pompeians during the civil war Caesar was happy to take him under his wing Caesar also singled out ten loyal former preachers and awarded them with something called the dignity of a former consul this was a totally made-up thing but Caesar argued that it would be improper for certain provinces to be governed by anybody lacking the dignity of a former consul in truth it was just a way for Caesar to reward his allies for their years of service whatever Cesar packaged these power grabby political reforms with some more general anti-corruption stuff this included a provision that said that any governor convicted on corruption charges would be automatically expelled from the Senate this fight against corruption was one of Caesars hobby horses he believed that corrupt governor's needlessly antagonized the locals which put Roman risk the corrupt aristocracy did not much like these reforms but they weren't in a position to do anything about it taken as a whole this was a staggering number of reforms to come down all at once let's just take a look real quick so ya know Senators quadrupled in size at its height operators less qualified governors yet dignity of a former consul and elevating that status and then yeah big anti-corruption you'd think the the corruption thing could be used as kind of a broom that you could take out a lot of people with maybe they have more detail about what is actually considered corruption but you can see that as a tool just getting rid of people that you don't like that's how it felt at a time too number of reforms to come down all at once that's how it felt at a time too most of these bills were conceived and written up in Caesars home and would only see the light of day when it was time for the Senate to provide their rubber stamp Cicero even notes that a few of these proposals showed up with his own name attached to them which was quite the surprise now that the immediate political problems were out of the way Caesar turned his eye to the public Rome had a ton of systemic issues that had been in a state of neglect since before the Civil War the largest of these and the one that had the most direct impact on the lives of everyday citizens was the grain dole quite simply the grain dole provided free or subsidized grain for Rome's poorest citizens alights expense the significance of the grain dole is kind of hard to wrap your head around so think of it like this try for most of world history most people spent most of their money on food the grain dole took 320,000 of Rome's poorest citizens and eliminated their largest household expense this was one of the most effective government-run anti-poverty programs in world history because it fits let's go back to their chart here first citizens and okay so how much they spend on food so if they can afford that first half the government can subsidize that I mean look how much yeah you're spending on food it's nothing like like they were saying nothing like what we have today food is now quite cheap and plentiful and far more money goes to other things that's why I like land ownership and stuff would be hard because you don't have that kind of income but I guess a question to be is if they're getting rid of two-thirds or whatever this you're saying here of their budget going to so much food what are they then getting used that money on and you know will it come back into the economy that way eliminated their largest household expense this was one of the most effective government-run anti-poverty programs in world history and frankly nobody would improve on it until basically the modern welfare state but after years of neglect cracks were beginning to show poor citizens were having a hard time getting on to the grain dole without bribing bureaucrats this was made worse by the fact that families who may be a generation earlier had qualified for the grain were able to keep their names on the lists long after rising out of poverty rich people were collecting benefits that were intended for poor people yeah so it got corrupted you know because there's so much filtration that has to happen going from where this foods going to come from and then how it's actually distributed to the people so it looked like on paper it was a much better idea than actually in practice is where that corruption comes in where is it being delegated to the right places and to the right people and it looks like it's not poverty rich people were collecting benefits that were intended for poor people this was leading to a lot of social resentment Caeser dramatically restructured the grandal he cut the number of eligible recipients in half from three hundred and twenty thousand to one service that would sound good he also implemented stronger political oversight so that these 150 thousand people were legitimately Rome's poorest citizens this restored the dress off sense of fairness to this so much better despite the fatty land a lot less people would qualify for the benefit their reforms turned out to be quite popular when Brutus learned of Caesars cuts he excitedly wrote to a friend saying that Caesar appears to be joining the conservative faction that friend conveyed Brutus's thoughts to Cicero who responded join the conservative faction is he planning on killing himself now that Caesars major reforms were up and running he was free to take on a brand-new super secret project this would be an utterly boring and thankless job but it was something that had captured Caesars imagination a while back and for whatever reason he was hell-bent on tackling it now we're talking about the Roman calendar oh yeah interesting what he does let me go into all the details but for starters it was a lunar calendar as in it followed the phases of the Moon the phases of the Moon do not line up with the solar year which means that lunar calendar is always drift out of sync with the seasons it was the job of the Pontifex Maximus and his College of pontiff's to monitor this drift and to manually add days to the calendar as needed the current Pontifex Maximus happened to be Julius Caesar and as we know Caesar had been indisposed for like a decade and a half as a consequence the Roman calendar was a good three months out of sync which as far as calendars go is kind of a catastrophic failure yeah but Spencer had just spent the better part of a year in Egypt where he learned that the Egyptians used a nearly perfect 365 day solar calendar Caesar enlisted the help our kitchen astronomer named so cities of Alexandria and together they designed a new Roman calendar loosely modeled on the Egyptian system like the Egyptian calendar the new Roman calendar would be 365 days look lots are similar too but the Egyptian calendar did have some flaws they evenly divided the year into 12 months of 30 days each which adds up to 360 and then they manually added in five extra days at the end of the year to make the math work those five extra days were a problem under the Roman system these days would be administered by the Pontifex Maximus and if administered incorrectly the calendar would begin to drift again that would not do Caesar and so ciggies wanted this new calendar to run on auto pilot so they took those five extra days and peppered them throughout the year creating a bunch of 31 day months yep it's a month of february was considered the other pretty Mansour there's dishes reasons they bumped it back to 28 days as it had been underneath that's always an interesting one offset this with even more 31 beware get shafted but according to CICIG knees even the nearly perfect Egyptian calendar was slightly out of alignment since it did not take into account the actual length of the year which was 365 and a quarter days under the older leap year the traditional status to insert extra days had been during the month of February and so Caesar and so Sydney's invented a system where an additional day would be automatically inserted into that month on every fourth year they made it very clear that this was not one of those extra days that the Pontifex Maximus could tinker with this would be an automatic process out of the hands of the politicians with that the new Roman calendar was complete but there was still a problem the current date was still three months out of alignment so here's a trio to doom that you can bore your friends with eliminates does the longest year in human history seems like a trick but it's not in order to bring the Roman Year back into alignment Caesar inserted 90 extra days into the Year 46 BCE making it a 445 day year all right so it was literally the longest day in history to catch up to the calendar so 90 days can everyone just have it off just like hey free summer for everybody which was 25% longer than normal on January 1st of the year for you know before it continues it really is impressive how in this time they had such a good grasp on like the solar year and knowing they were like three months behind and out of sync little bits by little bits each year based off of the relationship with the Sun that really is impressive it really is percent longer than normal on January 1st of the year 45 the new Roman calendar which is known to us as the Julian calendar that's our calendar automating the calendar and getting it out of the hands of politicians was a great human achievement aside from some minor upgrades in the 16th century the system devised by Caesar and so Sigyn EES survives more or less intact to this day let's go and look at that Julian calendar using the best available science at the time created the 365.25 day yeah that's that's what we use earth actually has it's pretty close right it's pretty close that's amazing you know having that kind of accuracy - over the centuries the Julian calendar drifted out of alignment I mean yeah tiny bit the Gregorian calendar replaced the Julian calendar in 1582 and brought the year back into alignment by skipping 11 days I mean that's really the only way you could do that otherwise you have to change how long a day is by just fractions of time you know what I mean and that just that just doesn't work so yeah you have to kind of mess with it I mean yeah it's it's impossible to have it there you well I mean you'd have to change how long seconds are because you know microseconds can add up to small changes over time you know I mean the new Gregorian system updated the leap year mechanism ok going forward three of every 100 leap years would be skipped ok I'm in the forty ninth century the Gregorian calendar will drift one day out of alignment humans in the future will be able to fix this by skipping a leap year although there are no arc no current plans to do so the forty ninth century wow that's a long time and then says this minor imperfection this is unacceptable nice by Caesar and so Sigyn EES survives more or less intact to this day while Caesar was busy in Rome something was happening how did the provinces Oh without warning the Spanish governors began writing in requesting reinforcements before Caesar could even act Rome's two Spanish provinces had fallen to the enemy what enemy Caesars old right-hand man Labine as' had joined forces with two of Pompey sons Rome's disgruntled Spanish legions had eagerly gone over to their side Caesar had been caught entirely flat-footed apparently the Roman civil war wasn't over yet the story for another time right yep awesome alright well just um immediate thoughts that was great I learned I learned a ton I learned a ton about especially some of his his rule of amor this specifics about it a lot of things I had heard but you know hearing him again and some of the other kind of stories with it that was really really cool that's a great kind of just rundown I guess of because really not a lot of well I mean kind of a lot of time was covered but also kind of not but I thought it was really good to more look at him as a politician and like a governor than necessary like a like a military commander because they didn't really give a lot of specifics of that which is fantastic I like that one day ya hear about him him that way so that was great those very good now this was it looked like one of the longer videos I think that of the series I had seen and you know from what they were saying first it sounds like a lot of these there was parts of this video that they did specific videos on that went in even more detail like the four campaigns that might be interesting to to kind of revisit there but I kind of like more especially for my channel here more of these kind of broader ones I think they're easier to a little bit better to comment on but anyway very cool so well great yeah that was my first first experience with this channel and I could see why a lot of people especially a man if you're a-- if you're a fan of rome I mean it kind of looks like this might be your kind of go to in a way I'm just seeing how much content just browsing through what they had on their video so much content they have and some of the quality stuff so that's awesome if there are other specific videos from this series that you think would lend itself well to kind of what I do on my channel you can definitely suggest more of those just to plug a few ways to suggest videos what probably the best way to do that and the one that can get a little more direct a little bit more stored with the suggestions is actually joining our discord server there's a link to the discord server in the description you'll see a channel and therefore video suggestions that's a little bit better of a place for me to define things YouTube comments you can do it there too but sometimes they can get lost there's a lot of them but either way it's it's very useful but I joined the design in vital a discord even if you don't necessarily you know care about what the specific videos you want to promote we got a community of people that like to talk history and it's pretty active a few other things I'd like to plug before we head out today if you'd like to support this channel some other ways patreon is a great way to do that there'll be a link to the patreon as well like I said at the beginning of the video one of the kind of perks I give right now is I put up all right now a weekly poll of some of the videos that have been suggested that sound kind of interesting to me and the patrons vote on on those and I will kind of fast track those videos into my sort of backlog of the many many videos I have kind of lined up but that's what I did to it to a couple other ways to support the channel you can make donations through stream labs as well as super chats as I premiere a lot of these videos do live premieres those are fantastic ways to support the channel too to keep this going as well okay but like I always say donations never expected they just they are just very appreciated if you ever feel so inclined but regardless the most important thing is that you're appreciate that you're joining me spending some of your time with me is again I continue to try to learn more and more better myself as a history teacher and having people on that sort of journey with me is is why I do this so alright with that last thing very last thing here if you like the original video I'll have a link to in the description to the original video and give them a like and subscribe if you haven't done that already and with that I think we'll go ahead and call it here and hope to see you soon bye

Channel: Mr. Terry History

Views: 156,615

Keywords: react, history, rome, julius caesar

Id: fjEnUDOPeDA

Length: 48min 33sec (2913 seconds)

Published: Sat Aug 17 2019