How Rome Fell — Professor Edward Watts
What can Christian education learn from the rise and fall of ancient empires? On this episode of The Educate for Life Podcast, we explore how Rome’s collapse offers timely wisdom for building a resilient biblical worldview at home, church, and school. From Christian apologetics to civic virtue, we connect history to discipleship so families and homeschool curriculum planners can train students to think clearly and live courageously.
Why the Roman Republic Collapsed—And Why It Matters Now
Our guest, Professor Edward Watts (PhD, Yale), endowed chair in Byzantine History at UC San Diego, is a leading historian of the Roman and early Christian worlds. He’s the author of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny and The Final Pagan Generation. In this conversation, Prof. Watts explains how Rome’s political culture eroded over a century—long before the Empire’s fall—through widening wealth gaps, norm-breaking leaders, and a public impatient with slow, consensus-building processes.
Why should Christian parents, educators, and students care? Because the Founders studied Rome too. Understanding how a republic frays helps us teach the next generation to value ordered liberty, moral self-government, and neighbor-love—core themes of a biblical worldview. Prof. Watts shows how quick fixes and demagoguery trade long-term freedom for short-term wins, while Scripture calls us to patient wisdom, integrity, and truth-telling in public life.
Finally, we explore the role of Christianity in late antiquity and how believers navigated the tension between security and liberty. The take-home: strong families, churches, and schools form citizens who can discern the times, speak truth in love, and steward freedom under God.
Key takeaways
- How Rome’s slow breakdown began with financial upheaval, widening inequality, and leaders who bypassed long-standing norms.
- Why republics require patience: consensus takes time, but it creates durable, broadly supported solutions.
- The biblical worldview connection: virtue, truth, and ordered liberty stand or fall together (Prov. 14:34).
- Practical wisdom for Christian education: teach history as moral formation—habits of honesty, humility, and hope—alongside facts and dates.
- How to discuss politics with students without partisanship: focus on principles (justice, prudence, neighbor-love) over personalities.
In 509 BC, the Roman Republic was born. The Romans established a republic, a government in which citizens elected representatives to rule on their behalf. A republic is quite different from a democracy, in which every citizen is expected to play an active role in governing the state. This…
In 509 BC, the Roman Republic was born. The Romans established a republic, a government in which citizens elected representatives to rule on their behalf. A republic is quite different from a democracy, in which every citizen is expected to play an active role in governing the state. This is the governmental model America’s Founding Fathers chose to emulate.
Because of the close similarities between Rome and America some use it as a model to predict what the fate of America may be. Is America fated to fall and repeat the same mistakes as those of the Roman Republic? Here today on Educate For Life, Kevin has as his guest Professor Edward Watts.
Professor Watts received his PhD in History from Yale University in 2002. His research interests center on the intellectual and religious history of the Roman Empire and the early Byzantine Empire. His first book, City and School in Late Antique Athens and Alexandria (University of California Press, 2006), explains how the increasingly Christian upper class of the late antique world used a combination of economic and political pressures to neutralize pagan elements of the traditional educational system.
His second book, Riot in Alexandria: Historical Debate in Pagan and Christian Communities (University of California Press, 2010), uses Greek, Latin, Coptic, and Syriac sources to reconstruct an Alexandrian riot that erupted in 486 AD. Riot received a 2010 PROSE Award Honorable Mention in Classics and Ancient History. His third book, The Final Pagan Generation (University of California Press, 2015) offers a generational history of the men born in the 310s that traces the experience of living through the fourth century’s dramatic religious and political changes. It was awarded the 2015 Phi Alpha Theta Best Subsequent Book Prize. His fourth book, Hypatia: The Life and Legend of an Ancient Philosopher (Oxford University Press, 2017) recounts the life of an important female philosopher whose work redefined philosophy and whose death resonated as a symbol of dramatic religious and social change in the early fifth century. He is also the author of Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell into Tyranny (Basic Books, 2018).
This episode first aired on Mar 2, 2019
How We Can Help You
At Educate for Life, we equip families and schools to connect faith, history, and culture with clarity and confidence. Explore our Comprehensive Biblical Worldview Curriculum to anchor students in Scripture while training critical thinking for real-world issues.
If you’re teaching at home or in a Christian school, our resources pair beautifully with history and civics: try the Christian Apologetics at Home path for conversation guides, and check out our Creation Science Curriculum for Kids to strengthen faith and science integration that complements your social studies units.
Here’s a short excerpt from the episode:
Kevin Conover: “People ask, ‘Are we on Rome’s path?’ What lessons should Christian families pass on to their kids?”
Prof. Edward Watts: “Republics don’t usually fall overnight—they erode when citizens and leaders stop honoring the norms that protect liberty.”
Kevin: “So patience and virtue matter as much as policy?”
Prof. Watts: “Exactly. Quick fixes feel powerful, but they trade tomorrow’s freedom for today’s applause. Formation beats shortcuts.”
Kevin: “That’s a discipling task for parents, pastors, and teachers.”
Read the Full Transcript
[00:00:00] and now here’s your host Kevin Conover bring your time
[00:00:06] welcome to educate for life I’m your host Kevin Conover my websites educate for life.org and you can check out all
[00:00:12] kinds of resources there on my website what I’m doing I’m an apologetics teacher I teach Christian classes Bible
[00:00:19] classes and and explaining the Christian faith to high school students and I’m
[00:00:24] also an adjunct professor and what I like to do is talk about a biblical
[00:00:29] perspective a biblical worldview what is it that we need to understand about how to apply the Bible to our lives and also
[00:00:37] to look at this historically I’m really excited to have my guest on the show today his name is Professor Edward watts
[00:00:43] he received a PhD in history from Yale University in 2002 and his research interests enter on the intellectual and
[00:00:50] religious history of the Roman Empire and the early Byzantine Empire he is the
[00:00:56] endowed chair in Byzantine history at UC San Diego that’s my my alma mater actually he writes about political and
[00:01:02] religious change in the Roman Republic Roman Empire and Byzantine Empire his work has been featured in the Economist
[00:01:09] the New York Times The New Yorker times Smithsonian and NPR he is the author of
[00:01:15] several books one of them who was most recent mortal Republic how Rome fell into tyranny and also the final pagan
[00:01:23] generation Hypatia who was a historical figure a woman who had a heavy influence
[00:01:29] on what was happening in Rome and and kind of moving things forward and so
[00:01:36] professor watts I want to thank you for being on the program today fantastic well so interesting here what
[00:01:46] got you interested in studying Rome in the first place why did you decide to start studying Rome the interest in Rome
[00:01:53] really it came from the first visit that I made to the city and the remarkable thing about visiting Rome is you know
[00:02:00] the fact that the layers of history are so deep you know you can watch your city and experience 2700 years of Roman
[00:02:08] history and it’s you know it’s Roman royal history it’s Roman Republican history
[00:02:13] in imperial history it’s Christian Roman history and I really felt like it was
[00:02:19] essential to try to understand exactly you know how a city works that way and
[00:02:24] what the world is like that produces that kind of experience and that got me
[00:02:30] into Roman history that was fiddly interested in the later Roman Empire initially and the process by which this
[00:02:37] Empire becomes Christian and then eventually creates an empire where you
[00:02:44] know the state and the religion are joined together so it was a you know – it’s a long period of history lost over
[00:02:51] 2,000 years what is very fascinating to study and try to understand absolutely
[00:02:56] and a lot of people are really interested in Rome because it’s it’s it’s one of the nations that has the
[00:03:02] longest history that survived for the longest and then people a lot of times look at it and go okay well why did Rome fall and and so a lot of people
[00:03:11] historically not just with our country but with other countries also would say okay how are we similar to Rome do we
[00:03:18] need to be afraid of the same things that caused Rome to fall and this is in the this is in our cultural law there’s
[00:03:25] a lot of opinions about what it is that made Rome fall and then ultimately looking at our own country and saying
[00:03:31] are we going to also face the same kind of road to the future there’s all kinds
[00:03:37] of books about this the road to tyranny the road to serfdom and then your book here also mortal Republic how Rome fell
[00:03:46] into tyranny what what caused you to move in this direction to begin to really look at how Rome fell it’s
[00:03:53] actually really interesting way to find the question I’ve been teaching Roman history for almost 20 years and when I
[00:03:59] started teaching Roman history in the late 1990s the real concern was looking at the fall of the Roman Empire and
[00:04:05] looking at America after the end of the Cold War and comparing them as empires
[00:04:11] that maybe were overextended or maybe you know we’re going to fall because of military challenges and what’s
[00:04:19] interesting is in the last five years or so the conversation was completely shifted in the United States and now the fall of
[00:04:26] the Roman Peyer is it seems less relevant to what we’re going through and the fall of the
[00:04:31] roman republic becomes more interesting and what i wanted to do with this book
[00:04:37] was to explore how the roman republic actually fell why that system was a good
[00:04:42] system for a long time and what eventually led to it collapsing and it’s
[00:04:49] particularly important at this moment because when the founding fathers in the united states that down to imagine what
[00:04:55] the best form of government would be for the united states one of the models they used with the roman republic so in a
[00:05:03] sense the roman republic is in our political DNA and so understanding it
[00:05:08] doesn’t necessarily mean that what happened in Rome will happen here but it does allow us to understand some of the
[00:05:15] weaknesses that we might have because you know in a sense where the the children or grandchildren of Rome’s
[00:05:21] Republic and some of that strength was inherited but some of the weakness was
[00:05:26] as well and so this book is a way I hope to tell Rome story in a way that’s true
[00:05:32] to Rome story but also just opens our minds to some some things that we can
[00:05:37] perhaps think about and recognize as we try to figure out how to move forward in
[00:05:42] our medical culture right now yeah do you think it’s true that you know the cliche saying is those who don’t know
[00:05:48] their history are destined to repeat it do you think that there’s a truth to that phrase I think it’s really an
[00:05:54] interesting it’s an interesting idea I think what history does is it gives us a set of possibilities to think with you
[00:06:01] know it’s very hard when something happens in the world to imagine what it will lead to and what history does is it
[00:06:08] says here a number of incidents that are similar and this is what it led to and so when we’re thinking about what’s
[00:06:15] going on in the present it’s important to understand that the president is not the past it’s different but some of the
[00:06:22] outcomes might be similar and we have to be able to imagine all of those outcomes
[00:06:28] and especially in the Roman case because Rome could not imagine this outcome of
[00:06:33] its Republic falling the Republic at the time it felt was 500 years old no one in
[00:06:39] Rome thought it could fall until no one could ajan that that was even a possibility and I think the benefit that we have is
[00:06:46] we have more knowledge of what happens when political challenges emerge in the Republic and what could happen as a
[00:06:53] consequence it doesn’t mean it will happen but it gives us some tools to think with
[00:06:59] so that we can plan out whether courses of action or a positive or potentially
[00:07:05] negative and where they might lead absolutely so so this is interesting for our day and age because there’s a lot of
[00:07:11] people all on both from a political perspective there’s a lot of people on the both the left and the right saying
[00:07:17] hey you know we’re moving towards tyranny we’re moving towards dictatorship or do you think that these
[00:07:23] are you know inflammatory statements that are that are taking things out of
[00:07:28] proportion or making things a bigger deal than they actually are or do you think there are actually changes taking place in our political system in our
[00:07:36] culture and so forth that actually could possibly move us more towards a
[00:07:41] dictatorship or tyranny or people is no longer being government by the people for the people but more you know people
[00:07:48] ruling a small group of people ruling over everybody else yeah I think that this is this is where the Roman example
[00:07:55] becomes very interesting because a lot of the people who are saying that they’re looking to models from the 1930s
[00:08:00] where you know the political crises that hit say Germany in the mid 1930s had a
[00:08:07] republic that’s very young you know everybody was a voting age in Germany could remember something before the buy
[00:08:13] more republic was in place and the same is true in the spanish republic is famous in greek republic and so the
[00:08:20] immediate reaction to some of the political crises we’ve been seeing is to turn to the 1930s and say well tyranny
[00:08:27] is right around the corner and I think the real danger is the United States is a very old republic you know our
[00:08:32] Republicans is over 230 years old and so it’s not going to degenerate as quickly
[00:08:38] as something that’s ten years old you know it’s much more robust it’s much stronger and I think the real danger is
[00:08:45] if people say tyranny is right around the corner and then it’s not everybody
[00:08:51] will exhale and say okay we dodged a bullet now let’s go back to normal and maybe the problem
[00:08:57] that we’re facing is it’s a little more long-lasting and in Rome the crisis that
[00:09:03] hit the Republic took a hundred years to actually break the Republic and I think
[00:09:09] that this is the real danger of people saying we’re on the verge of tyranny we might be on the path to tyranny but I
[00:09:16] think that if we are on that path we’re at a very early point in that path and there’s plenty of time to turn back if
[00:09:23] we reflect on what is our republic supposed to do and how can we as citizens make sure it actually does that
[00:09:31] and and so I think that there is a long-term risk that political dynamics
[00:09:37] in the u.s. can continue to get worse they don’t think there’s a short-term risk of dictatorship or tyranny I think
[00:09:44] that it’s important also to acknowledge that that long-term risk is there but
[00:09:51] it’s also avoidable and we can take steps to avoid it if we all work together to do that yeah and if we are
[00:09:57] able to identify exactly what we need to be be concerned about right yeah and I
[00:10:03] think that the you know the most important thing that we can do as citizens is to say that we value this
[00:10:09] Republic you know we value our system of government and that means that if you’re
[00:10:14] on the left sometimes people on the Left will do things that endanger the system of government people on the left need to
[00:10:20] criticize that if you’re on the right and someone on the right there’s something to endanger the system of government people on the right need to
[00:10:26] do that but I think that this is a common conversation that everybody should have you know if we valued living
[00:10:32] in a free society we need to advocate for that free society and we need to sometimes say whatever side of the
[00:10:39] political divide I’m on it’s not important if our society isn’t going to
[00:10:44] be free absolutely well my guest today is Professor Edward watts he’s professor
[00:10:49] at UCSD he’s written numerous books on this particular subject and we’re talking about hey what is how is America
[00:10:55] compared to Rome and Roman history when we come back we’re gonna ask him what does he think is the primary cause of Rome’s fall and how does it relate to
[00:11:02] our current situation in America what do we need to be concerned about and what can we what can we be having discussions
[00:11:08] with our neighbors and our friends and our relatives about to all be informed citizens that uphold one of our greatest
[00:11:15] values and virtues which is freedom we’ll be right back [Music]
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[00:11:55] thanks for listening today this is educate for life I’m your host Kevin Conover if you’re streaming online I
[00:12:00] hope you enjoy the show write some comments give us some feedback help us to understand what you’re thinking about what is it you think caused Rome to fall
[00:12:07] what do you think needs to change about America and the way things are being done my website is educate for life org
[00:12:13] and if you want to check out more resources if you want to get informed about a biblical perspective you can do
[00:12:18] that on there we’re also on the radio FM 106.1 North County K prays and AM 12:10
[00:12:25] San Diego K prays also you can check out the show there you can check it out on youtube all over the place my guest
[00:12:31] today is Professor Edward wotwots he’s the the author of a variety of different books and the book that we’re discussing
[00:12:37] today mortal Republic how Rome fell into tyranny I think is appropriate considering there’s a lot of fear on
[00:12:44] both the left and the right that political leaders are overstepping their bounds and saying hey you don’t have the
[00:12:50] right to do that of course the most telling one right now that people are complaining about is Trump kind of
[00:12:56] bypassing Congress in order to get the wall built and so a lot of people are concerned about that even people that
[00:13:04] you would think that would be supportive of that are saying hey listen you’re taking advantage you’re finding loopholes here that aren’t supposed to
[00:13:10] exist and therefore you’re taking away the right of the people to determine what’s going to happen so professor
[00:13:16] watts I wanted to ask you what do you think was the primary cause you said it took about a hundred years in order
[00:13:22] for this to take place the fall of Rome to take place or that that process to to
[00:13:27] finish its course what was it specifically that you’re referring to when you say over that hundred years
[00:13:33] took place that changed Rome yeah that’s a great question I think that that to
[00:13:39] understand that process it’s important to step back into the middle part of the second century BC and what happens in
[00:13:46] Rome around the Year like 160 is effectively Romans discover finance you
[00:13:52] know they discover that you can make large loans and you can resell those loans and you can in essence create
[00:13:59] money by creating a financial sector and what this does is kind of similar to
[00:14:05] what’s happened in the United States and in Europe over the last thirty years the people understand that get very rich
[00:14:10] very quickly and the people who are shut out from that system or don’t understand it they get left behind and what happens
[00:14:18] in the Roman Republic is that the Republic had been set up and had worked very effectively as a political
[00:14:25] mechanism that built consensus so that it moved very slowly it did solve
[00:14:31] problems and it was dynamic but it moved in such a way that the solutions that
[00:14:36] actually came into effect were supported by large percentages of the population and if you couldn’t get a large
[00:14:41] percentage of the population to support something relevant felt it was better to do nothing and to do something that a
[00:14:48] bare majority or even a minority of the population supported would you say that our government is set up under a similar
[00:14:54] system to that to that with that same philosophical understanding I think that it is and I think that this is why you
[00:15:01] know these questions that are now being bounced around about getting rid of the filibuster are challenging questions
[00:15:07] because our system is really designed to create policies that large numbers of
[00:15:14] people support and when you get a policy like that that policy tends to stick
[00:15:19] because there’s about a broad number of people broad segment of the population
[00:15:24] that supports that policy and the genius of realm was to recognize that when you
[00:15:30] put policy like that in place it takes longer to get them in place but once they’re in place
[00:15:36] everybody agrees that they’re legitimate and everybody supports them and what happens in the aftermath of this this
[00:15:43] wealth gap developing in Rome is the Republic can’t find those policies to
[00:15:48] address the needs of the people who are left behind and so for about a generation they try and if they have
[00:15:57] been left to their own devices they would have found one but starting in the 130s politicians start demagoguing the
[00:16:05] issue of inequality and one of them does this in such an aggressive way that he
[00:16:11] violates all sorts of political norms none of which we legal but all sorts of things that had never been done before
[00:16:16] because they were dangerous and he ends up getting assassinated and the
[00:16:24] violation of political norms that Tiberius Gracchus engages in and the
[00:16:29] assassination that he ends up suffering this sets the tone for what the next hundred years will bring
[00:16:35] and the violation of norms becomes increasingly severe the violence in
[00:16:41] politics becomes increasingly dangerous and widespread and ultimately a hundred
[00:16:46] years later you have incredibly destructive civil war it ends with the Republic transforming into the Roman
[00:16:52] Empire that’s really interesting so essentially it’s the corruption it’s
[00:16:58] it’s I’m not gonna follow the rules anymore I’m going to I’m going to get
[00:17:04] away with it with whatever I can get away with in order to achieve the ends that I think are necessary regardless of
[00:17:10] what the majority wants is that is that what you’re saying that’s what I dearest darkest you know people like him did and
[00:17:16] I think what’s important to understand about him is the solutions that he proposed probably would have happened
[00:17:23] anyway but he wasn’t patient he wanted to do them and he wanted to be the
[00:17:28] person who did them and what that meant was he couldn’t work in a system that was slow because he couldn’t be
[00:17:35] responding he wouldn’t have gotten the credit for making the reforms that he thought were necessary yes yeah go ahead
[00:17:42] it was a very self-interested move on his part yeah there’s a really interesting scene in the movie Amazing
[00:17:48] Grace where William Wilberforce trying to abolish slavery is having a discussion with one of his friends and
[00:17:53] one of his friends says we need to do a rep we need to have a revolution we need a perfect we need a perfect government now and he
[00:18:00] and he says no he says a civil government is better than no civil
[00:18:07] government at all or an imperfect civil government is is better than no civil government at all and so you have these
[00:18:13] two different groups of people one wants something quick at whatever means is necessary and the other says no let’s
[00:18:19] take the slow road and get there without creating all this chaos –is is that essentially what you’re saying yeah and
[00:18:27] and that’s you know that’s in a sense the genius of the United States and also the genius of the Roman Republic you
[00:18:33] know the people who set up both of those systems very much believed that it’s it’s better to do nothing than to do
[00:18:41] something that’s not supported and it is always better to do something within a system than to do something that
[00:18:47] overthrows that system because once you overthrow a system nobody knows what the
[00:18:53] world are politically and nobody then knows how to behave or how to evaluate whether a certain action is worth taking
[00:19:00] because they can’t know what the consequences of their actions are and it creates tremendous chaos and yeah I was
[00:19:09] gonna say I feel like that’s a really really important message for our culture and our the people in our country now
[00:19:16] currently because it seems to me like a lot of people are saying no better to throw off all restraint and fight for
[00:19:23] what we want regardless you know and the consequences be damned
[00:19:28] it has so basically saying you know we’re just going to do whatever it takes
[00:19:33] to get our way done do you see that in in the culture at all is that your reading on it in our culture and Roman
[00:19:40] culture in our culture uh yeah I mean I do see elements of that and I see it and
[00:19:45] it is something that’s particularly disturbing to me yeah you know I personally believe that a free society
[00:19:53] of the dynamic society and it’s a society that can respond to what its citizens need because its citizens have
[00:19:59] a voice and how those decisions are made yeah and and I think everyone who lives in a free society should
[00:20:05] understand the value of that I personally would much rather prefer to
[00:20:11] live in a free society where conversations are dynamic than in an oppressive autocratic society there it
[00:20:18] does everything that I agree with the latter I think is extremely dangerous and completely unstable I would much
[00:20:25] rather be in a society where discussion is genuine and the society of dynamic
[00:20:31] and responds to what people want and what people are asking for yeah the first chapter in your book is is
[00:20:39] titled autocratic freedom what is that what does that mean so that’s a that’s a
[00:20:47] moment when the Republic Falls and the Emperor Augustus takes power and what
[00:20:53] he’s able to do is quite remarkable he he is able to frame imperial power as a
[00:21:01] new type of freedom what Romans traditionally valued freedom as was the
[00:21:07] ability for citizens to speak freely about what they wanted and to create the laws under which they were governed and
[00:21:13] what Augustus said was the Republic has fallen so badly and it has so is become
[00:21:19] so ineffectual that it can provide you a free voice but what it cannot do is
[00:21:26] ensure that yes we’ll be alive to use that voice and so autocratic freedom under Augustus
[00:21:32] is this promise of security in exchange for that free voice about politics and
[00:21:40] what Augustus does bears create what he’s on one level of false choice right
[00:21:46] I mean in the middle of the Republic and for 300 years during the Republic both things were there you know there were no
[00:21:53] there was no active political violence for 300 years between the middle of the 4th or 5th century and the middle of the
[00:21:59] 2nd century BC and the Republic for very long time gave you both freedom to speak
[00:22:05] and make policy and freedom to stay alive and keep your property and what Augustus said was that freedom to speak
[00:22:13] cannot now coexist with the freedom to stay alive and staying alive is better security is
[00:22:19] better and I am making a deal with all Romans that I will provide security for you in exchange for your political
[00:22:27] autonomy and made bachelors willingly that is a crazy statement so life
[00:22:33] liberty and the pursuit of happiness he was saying what you get life or Liberty but you can’t have both yeah yeah he’s
[00:22:40] saying that the Republic has broken so badly that there is no system left in Rome that can give evolve and you can
[00:22:46] choose life or you can choose liberty interest and the Romans chose life my guest today is Professor Edward watts
[00:22:52] he’s been teaching the history of Rome for twenty years he is currently a professor at UCSD stay with us we’re
[00:22:58] gonna continue to talk about this I think it’s incredibly relevant to our day and age here in America and the way
[00:23:03] forward so we’ll be right back
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[00:23:43] thanks for listening today this is educate for life I’m your host Kevin Conover and we are on the radio here in
[00:23:48] San Diego County we’re on Cape Rays FM 106.1 as well as AM 12:10 in here in San
[00:23:55] Diego but we’re also streaming all over the country we’re on Facebook we’re on periscope YouTube all those avenues
[00:24:01] there if you want to check it out there and we’ve got all kinds of shows that are dealing with difficult issues last
[00:24:07] week I had the the opportunity to interview pastor George Saeed from Sudan who has been reaching out to Muslims for
[00:24:15] a very long time and we were talking about the young woman who went left for Isis and now as trying was trying to get
[00:24:21] back into the US and she joined Isis and Trump ended up saying no we can’t safely
[00:24:28] allow you back into the US and so all kinds of difficult subjects that we have to think through and think about and
[00:24:33] respond to and my hope is that we can leave you with a biblical perspective on issues and professor Watts I wanted to
[00:24:41] ask you about this because you have such a heavy emphasis on religion Christianity and earth the the Roman
[00:24:46] Empire and and how it affected things and so forth I’m curious to know your
[00:24:52] perspective on the role that Christianity and that religion in general but specifically Christianity
[00:24:58] plays in America and is it comparable to the role that religion played in Rome
[00:25:05] Christianity played in Rome we have a lot a lot of our founding fathers built their perspective about how government
[00:25:13] should happen build it on the example of Rome but also built it on the example of
[00:25:19] the Bible and Christianity or got their philosophical guidelines from a lot of
[00:25:25] what they believed religiously and so is there a is there a a comparison between
[00:25:32] religion and America Christianity in America and Christianity in Rome or is it completely different different issues
[00:25:40] I think that it’s I think that it’s a difficult question because Christianity
[00:25:47] takes root in Rome under the Empire and so for the first 300 years or so
[00:25:54] Christianity is a persecuted religion under the and then with the conversion of the
[00:25:59] Emperor Constantine it becomes effectively a state supported religion
[00:26:05] and by the time you get into the sixth century at the state religion but it’s a state religion that functions in
[00:26:11] conjunction with an emperor and and so I think that you have in the United States is a little bit different because what
[00:26:19] Christianity ends up doing when it becomes the state religion of the Roman Empire is creates a structure that is
[00:26:25] Imperial autocratic and Christian and the Emperor’s who understand that best
[00:26:32] work very closely with bishops especially the Emperor’s and Constantinople working with the
[00:26:37] patriarch of Constantinople and so they create a Christian Imperial Roman
[00:26:43] culture that is actually one of the most powerful binding influences in the Roman
[00:26:50] state it is in a sense what keeps the roman part together for a thousand years
[00:26:55] after the West succumbs to barbarian invasion but it is it is very different
[00:27:01] from the way that Christianity works in the United States where you know as many different denominations and and you have
[00:27:07] a democratic government and so I think that you know Christianity is important
[00:27:13] in both context but if he was working differently in the Roman context than it
[00:27:18] is in the American context yeah so so one of the quotes from John Adams he says statesmen My dear sir my plan is
[00:27:25] speculate for liberty but as religion and morality alone which can establish the principles upon which freedom can
[00:27:31] securely stand this this was a letter here it wrote to somebody in a June 21st
[00:27:39] 1776 and I’m curious to hear your perspective on that because if that’s true if what he’s saying is true
[00:27:45] religion and morality alone is what establishes freedom this is interesting
[00:27:52] to me how this plays out in you know in looking at the issue of tyranny looking
[00:27:58] at what happened to Rome and then how it plays out in our own culture do you
[00:28:04] think that that’s a true statement what do you think about that I think that if you were to ask say
[00:28:10] Welman in constantinople in 6th century what is what is your conception our freedom the morality they would say that
[00:28:19] freedom comes through Christianity but they would have a different idea of freedom than we do you know their idea
[00:28:26] of freedom would be something that exists as protected citizen in a regime
[00:28:32] where one person ultimately is in charge but there are supposed to be ethical and
[00:28:38] moral limitations and what that person can do to the citizens living in that state it’s in a sense an evolution of
[00:28:44] what Augustus put in place you know 500 years before that where there is one person in charge but he’s not absolutely
[00:28:51] in charge and he’s bound by Christian ideas and he’s bound by a code of moral
[00:29:00] behaviors that are in some ways dictated by what Christianity holds since I think
[00:29:05] you’re relevant if you would ask a Roman in Constantinople in takes 550 does John
[00:29:12] Adams quote work they would say yes but they wouldn’t think that John Adams they
[00:29:18] wouldn’t understand it in the same way that John Adams understood it I see what you’re saying that’s interesting now but
[00:29:23] but do you think that John Adams had a different idea of what Liberty was then most the average person does today in
[00:29:30] America ah that’s an interesting question and I have to confess I don’t
[00:29:36] know as much about John Adams perhaps I’ve said I think that when you’re in the 18th century
[00:29:41] you’re not sometime you know I hi Britt of this Roman idea of Liberty you know
[00:29:47] because a lot of these people had lived under British rule and there is a conception of Liberty that is emerging
[00:29:52] under British rule and to some degree a conception of you know morality that’s
[00:29:59] defined or influenced at least they let your like Byzantine in the thirteen
[00:30:05] hundreds would say where you were roaming across it’s in Auckland hi Josie would say and so I think that what you
[00:30:11] have there two distinctive traditions both of which have connections to things that you see in Rome but I think two
[00:30:19] different Rome’s innocence all right the Liberty would definitely be a Liberty that someone in the roman republic would
[00:30:26] understand but they wouldn’t understand adam’s conception of religion at all and
[00:30:31] I think Adams conception of religion and morality would be something that someone in Constantinople in 560 could probably
[00:30:38] you know understand on some level at least I’m so but I think that both you
[00:30:45] know I think that those two Romans would look at each other and not really understand but each one was talking about okay so this is really interesting
[00:30:52] so I just want to clarify Liberty under Roman rule what you’re saying is it’s
[00:30:57] Liberty within bounds it’s not unlimited freedom to do whatever you want I mean a lot of people in our country today would
[00:31:03] say that freedom or Liberty is the idea that you can pretty much do whatever you want as long as it’s not hurting
[00:31:09] somebody else so are you saying that the idea of freedom and liberty under under Rome was a different concept than that
[00:31:16] concept yes it is political you know for them there are very clear ideas of what
[00:31:25] kinds of conduct is acceptable and not acceptable there’s not always agreement
[00:31:30] on what those ideas should be you know there’s different philosophical schools and there were a republic there are
[00:31:36] different interpretations of Christian biblical teaching and the later Roman Empire but I think all of these people
[00:31:44] would agree that a certain conduct that is not okay and their conception of
[00:31:50] political Liberty especially in the Roman Republic is the political Liberty of an individual to participate in a
[00:31:58] Roman state that collectively takes the voices of its citizens and implements
[00:32:04] laws and policies on the basis of what those voices collectively say that’s of
[00:32:10] them as Liberty you know it’s the ability to speak freely to help shape the laws and conditions under which
[00:32:16] you’re living politically but it definitely does not extend to you know
[00:32:21] to doing whatever you want personally interesting and and for a long time even in our own country I would say that the
[00:32:28] understanding of Liberty didn’t extend to whatever you want to do it it had moral guidelines it was Liberty within
[00:32:35] within moral guide so you mentioned earlier in the first
[00:32:41] segment you said something I thought was really interesting you said that within a particular time frame they began to
[00:32:47] make loans and this assured in this vast
[00:32:53] or huge gap between those who understood how to make loans and they started
[00:32:58] making lots of money and those who didn’t and they started they were kind
[00:33:03] of left behind in a sense yeah and and you say this is a big turning point is that right yeah okay we’re coming up on
[00:33:12] a break but when we get back we’re going to talk about how money in essence in making loans from Professor Edward Watts
[00:33:19] how that impacted Rome and I feel that this is a huge issue in our own culture
[00:33:25] today – I’ve seen it play out plenty of times so stay with us we’re going to continue to have this discussion it’s
[00:33:30] very interesting right back [Music]
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[00:34:05] sixteen thirty one your host Kevin and I
[00:34:15] hope you’re enjoying the program so far I really am I think this is a very interesting stuff very relevant to our
[00:34:21] lives and it’s it’s not ivory tower talk and stuff that we have to actually think
[00:34:27] about to ourselves okay how do I want to vote in the future how do I want to impact the culture in the future what
[00:34:32] view should I have on the way money is used and so forth my guest today professor Edward Watts has been teaching
[00:34:38] a Roman history for twenty years he’s at UCSD right here in San Diego University of California San Diego and professor
[00:34:45] watts I left off the the last segment they’re asking you to explain what happened over that hundred year period
[00:34:52] where Romans started making loans yeah so it’s a very interesting thing to
[00:34:58] think about until to look at what Roman money looks like you know starting the year like 200 BC the Roman economy
[00:35:05] doesn’t really have a financial sector how much money you have is literally how
[00:35:11] much money you had you know Scrooge McDuck style you can swim in your property it was all tangible and what
[00:35:19] ends up happening is the Roman state begins these these processes of
[00:35:25] conferring territories and trying to figure out how to get resources out of those territories and what they decide
[00:35:31] to do is contract out the creation of mines and the governing of provinces and
[00:35:37] the collections of taxes and anyone bid for these contracts pays up front and no
[00:35:43] one has enough money to cover say all of the silver that goes on the mine in Spain for two years so they take out
[00:35:49] loans to pay for these contracts but it’s almost guaranteed these loans will be paid back
[00:35:54] and the people who give these loans start realizing that you can assess how much that loan is worth you can sell it
[00:36:01] to somebody and then you can take that money that you get from selling the loan recapitalized and make another loan but
[00:36:08] what that effectively does is it creates money because you you are in essence selling that loan for money you’re
[00:36:14] making that loan a thing that has value when 20 years before you didn’t realize
[00:36:19] it had value you didn’t realize it was something that you could sell and the people in figure this out and figure out
[00:36:26] that you can very quickly make a loan sell that loan make another loan sell that loan and keep on recapitalizing and
[00:36:33] making more loans you realize that you can become very rich very quickly by doing that and this is the beginning of
[00:36:40] a Roman financial sector that will get to the point where you know the richest person in Rome in 190 BC was the guy who
[00:36:49] defeated Hannibal in cartridge and the richest guy 110 years later had more
[00:36:54] than 70 times as much money but less stuff and I think that’s the that’s the
[00:37:00] moment where you can see there’s a real shift money is now like our money it
[00:37:05] exists on paper it exists in theory it’s not in your vault room you can swing to
[00:37:11] it yeah it’s not it’s no longer has a some sort of a backing we had no longer tangible and physical yeah yeah and you
[00:37:19] and and so this expand on that so how did this facilitate the eventual you
[00:37:26] know moving towards tyranny and eventual fall of Rome I think that the thing is important to understand about these
[00:37:32] people they’re not doing anything to be illegal but what they’re doing is
[00:37:37] something that is not wonderful in a society that has been relatively
[00:37:42] equitable and relatively equitable you know the richest people are not ridiculously richer than the people in
[00:37:49] the middle and this opens up a class of super wealthy people who are not very large but suddenly control a huge amount
[00:37:57] of resources and they start buying things and and crowding out people with
[00:38:02] less resources who comfortable before and this creates a
[00:38:07] real political challenge because what do you do with people whose incomes are maybe stable maybe slightly lower but
[00:38:15] they’re looking at certain people becoming fabulously wealthy wealthier than any Roman had ever been before and
[00:38:21] their prospects are not as good and they feel like this is unequal and that
[00:38:29] society is not taking care of everybody in the same way and it creates a
[00:38:35] political tension that takes a very long time to develop you know the better part of a generation before Romans gets fed
[00:38:41] up and start really angling for radical solutions but the problem of Republic
[00:38:47] faces when something like that happens very quickly is the Republic doesn’t moved very quickly until it’s very hard
[00:38:54] to find a solution that a large number of people will all support and this this
[00:39:00] is where the the challenge begins for Rome because the Republic doesn’t move
[00:39:06] quickly enough to address these concerns and people like Tiberius Gracchus step
[00:39:11] into the middle of it and start proposing solutions that work quickly
[00:39:17] but don’t have the backing that say a consensus or a compromise solution would
[00:39:23] have and it creates all sorts of frictions where people feel like their
[00:39:28] interests are not being heard or their input is being disregarded that’s really
[00:39:33] interesting so I mean primarily I mean it that sounds like we’re in the middle of that in that very thing where we’re
[00:39:39] experiencing this where you have people saying hey there’s there’s inequity here
[00:39:45] there’s no way that person should be making that much money compared to what I’m making trying to survive here and
[00:39:50] then you have lots of people arguing that votes are bought it’s no longer a representative form of government because only certain people’s voices
[00:39:59] heard those who have them or heard those who have the most money what would you do you would you say we’re in the middle
[00:40:04] of that you know I this is one of the parallels that I look at and I see
[00:40:10] something that’s quite similar from say Rome over 140s and and you
[00:40:16] now that tension is definitely there now
[00:40:21] I I don’t know what the solution to that is oh no I hear I was I thought we’re
[00:40:27] gonna end the show with you telling us what to do here whatever that solution
[00:40:33] is a lot of people it needs to be something that a lot of people support you know it
[00:40:39] whatever that solution is whatever it reads to be it needs to be done in the way that a republic wants it done you
[00:40:46] know it has to be something where broad numbers of people support it or it won’t stick and that just seems like that just
[00:40:53] seems like that’s the difference between you know to a large extent a lot of people would say that’s the contrast between the Republican Party and the
[00:40:59] Democrat Party is one says free market it does not matter how wealthy you get
[00:41:06] and then the other ones saying no no we need to take from a large group of
[00:41:11] people and this might be where the whole tiberius Krakus comes in is that some people are saying look at we need
[00:41:17] somebody to come in and the whole argument over socialism that’s taking place right now which is we need to
[00:41:22] redistribute the wealth because not enough people are getting their fair share but then that would be the quick
[00:41:29] fix that you’re talking about that ultimately caused so many problems yeah
[00:41:34] and again I think wherever we go a quick fix is the wrong way to go whatever that quick fix is you know if
[00:41:42] it’s somebody who says I own it and it moves quickly I think that doesn’t work
[00:41:48] in the way of the public should and I think the big lesson from Rome is military responses was proposing was
[00:41:54] pretty modest he was taking public land away from people who are renting it in quantity in quantities that were
[00:42:00] excessive and he was registering it to poor people it wouldn’t have solved the problem it wouldn’t have even made a significant
[00:42:06] dent in the problem but his solution was pressed for symbolic reasons and and
[00:42:13] that’s the real danger that big we see in the 130s in Rome is it’s a solution
[00:42:18] that is incredibly controversial but doesn’t actually do very much to solve the problem and that’s absolutely the
[00:42:25] worst case you know something that is symbolic but not substantive it doesn’t address any of the issues
[00:42:32] near the underlying issue their causes of the anger but it produces so much
[00:42:38] anger and violence in digital yes and it doesn’t actually solve the problem so
[00:42:44] not enduring so professor what’s the worst-case yeah so you’re you’re a professor I mean you deal with you’re
[00:42:50] working with young people all the time who are in college or you know for formulating their ideas we’re almost out
[00:42:55] of time here but I wanted to ask you this so you know the stats recently say
[00:43:01] with with Ocasio Cortes and fifty
[00:43:06] percent of Millennials support socialism is is what’s an often-quoted stat that
[00:43:13] seems outrageous compared to you know what our country was built upon and so forth but is that what you’re seeing is
[00:43:22] this idea of we need to aggressively advance a socialist viewpoint or what do
[00:43:31] you see happening in your classrooms as far as the up and coming generations and how they feel about how government
[00:43:36] should be what I see from my students you know are tools to think what they
[00:43:43] don’t want to be told do this or do that and and it’s not right for us to tell
[00:43:48] them do this to do that what they want are a set of tools so that they can think about the world that they’re
[00:43:54] confronting and how one might address it and I think that this group of young
[00:44:00] people has very legitimate concerns I think student debt is a real problem yeah students that I am working with and
[00:44:08] I see and I hear them making choices all the time because of the dead load
[00:44:14] they’re carrying I think that what they really want to do is be empowered with
[00:44:20] information to make choices and make good choices I don’t see in my students
[00:44:26] I don’t see anything beyond just trying to better understand the world that
[00:44:31] they’re in and trying to make informed decisions about how to address the problems that they’re confronting I
[00:44:37] think for those of us who are older than those students it’s important to understand that the issue they’re
[00:44:42] confronting and especially the student debt is is a real concern they have really
[00:44:47] legitimate things to be concerned about but I think they are moving forward in a
[00:44:52] way that is a good faith effort to get as much information as they can to solve
[00:44:59] problems in ways that are productive and I think productive and generative or
[00:45:06] social cohesion don’t change that I don’t see in them anything more than
[00:45:13] incredibly bright and talented students who are trying to assemble the information that’s going to let them
[00:45:18] understand the world that they’re in well thank you so much professor for being on the program today is Professor
[00:45:25] Edward watts is my guest today and I think the message you’re sharing is one
[00:45:30] that more and more people need to become aware of and be able to deal with what
[00:45:35] we’re talking about I think there’s so much more to talk about on this subject but we are out of time here so thank you
[00:45:41] so much for being on the program today thank you so much at a time absolutely and we’ll be back next week 12:30 on
[00:45:48] Friday if you like this program and you didn’t get to hear the whole thing please feel free to tune into a
[00:45:53] recording we’re on Facebook and YouTube and other platforms that you can listen
[00:45:58] to Kay praise 106.1 and AM 12:10 this program will air on Sunday evening if
[00:46:04] you’d like to check it out there my websites educate for life org all kinds of valuable courses and classes you can
[00:46:11] take online you and your family in order to be better equipped to be able to handle some of the hard stuff that is
[00:46:17] coming our way and questions we have to ask and deal with on a regular basis about things like religion about things
[00:46:23] like human origins about things like freedom and liberty and and those sorts
[00:46:30] of issues so I hope that’s a blessing to you please check it out educate for life org and I hope you have a fantastic
[00:46:35] Friday and a great weekend stay out of the rain god bless you bye-bye did you miss part of today’s program
[00:46:41] don’t worry we’re con mitad to helping you get the info you need okay that was
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Final Thoughts
History isn’t just information—it’s formation. As you discuss Rome’s story, invite students to compare ancient choices with our own, and to pursue Christlike virtue in every sphere. If this episode encouraged you, explore more faith-building courses and shows at Educate for Life.
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