Dr. Edward Watts is the Chair of the History Department at University of California San Diego and author of several books including “Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell Into Tyranny” and “The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome” which will be available this August, 2021. This conversation is a follow up to the conversation Dr. Watts and I had in 2020, prior to the presidential election. Here, we focus on political violence, specifically the events at the United States Capitol on January 6th, 2021, and what Ancient Roman history can tell us about what it may mean.
Listen to this episode on Apple Podcasts or Spotify.
**This episode was recorded on April 14, 2021**
DR. EDWARD WATTS LINKS
Dr. Edward Watts: https://history.ucsd.edu/people/faculty/watts.html
“Mortal Republic: How Rome Fell Into Tyranny”: https://amzn.to/3peOilO
“The Eternal Decline and Fall of Rome”: https://amzn.to/2Qu0pys
Dr. Watts’ 2020 appearance on theEWpodcast, “Is America in a ‘Fall of Rome’ Moment?”: https://ericwhte.com/podcast-031-dr-edward-watts-and-is-america-in-a-fall-of-rome-moment/
OTHER RELEVANT LINKS
“Meditations” by Marcus Aurelius: https://amzn.to/3dhgGQk
“The Republic” by Cicero: https://amzn.to/3mRj2c6
theEWpodcast
http://ericwhte.com
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCw27qaF6r_XdQrzREV21QSA
Twitter: https://twitter.com/ericwhte
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/eric.whte/
Newsletter: https://ericwhte.com/newsletter/
TIMESTAMPS
00:00 Introducing Dr. Edward Watts
06:42 A historian of Rome reflects on the January 6th storming of the Capitol
18:03 Ancient Rome’s ‘January 6th’
19:52 How does a historian process current events?
24:51 How Rome in the 2nd century BC was strikingly similar to the modern US
36:49 What do Joe Biden and Marcus Aurelius have in common?
45:40 Broken Republic? Or Benevolent Emperor?
48:05 Spreading messages and ideas in Ancient Rome
57:35 Has our Republic already fallen but we just don’t realize it yet?
