Speaker 1: Hi, Hello, welcome. This is Let's talk about miss Baby
Speaker 1: and I am that host of yours, she who loves
Speaker 1: a good chat about nerdy shit live. Now you might
Speaker 1: be thinking, why is this episode out on a Thursday
Speaker 1: instead of a Friday? Or now you're thinking, I don't
Speaker 1: know what you're talking about. It's Sunday Live, Like it
Speaker 1: doesn't matter anyway. Either way, Today's episode is coming early
Speaker 1: to make room for a very special project that's gonna
Speaker 1: drop tomorrow. Today. I am joined by returning guest doctor
Speaker 1: Jeremy Swist, who knows all things about the Emperor Julian.
Speaker 1: That's right, Rome, but kind of not never heard of Julian. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I hadn't really either, because he comes after Constantine and
Speaker 1: in my head, that's the time when I stopped caring
Speaker 1: because Christianity. I'm sorry, but I'm not actually, but no.
Speaker 1: It turns out Julian was the one emperor who wasn't
Speaker 1: keen on old Jesus and tried to bring the empire
Speaker 1: back to its pagan roots. Needless to say, that didn't work,
Speaker 1: but we still have some of his work and he's interesting.
Speaker 1: Today's episode looks at what this work of Julian is
Speaker 1: all about this specific work, the Symposium of the Caesars,
Speaker 1: sometimes called the Handful of Other Things. We will get
Speaker 1: to that, and Jeremy has put together a full cast
Speaker 1: recording of his new translation of that work, which is
Speaker 1: what's coming tomorrow, a full cast dramatic reading of this
Speaker 1: work by Julian. It is so fun, and if you
Speaker 1: listened to Tuesday's episode you got an idea of what
Speaker 1: that is. I put in like about a minute. I
Speaker 1: think it is of this recording because it is just
Speaker 1: so much fun and I want to get you all pumped.
Speaker 1: But today's episode is a conversation looking at what this
Speaker 1: work of Julian is all about. But as a sneak peak,
Speaker 1: just to get you intrigued, I will just say now
Speaker 1: that it is a conversation amongst dead leaders of the
Speaker 1: ancient world and Greek gods, and things get heated and weird.
Speaker 1: It's incredibly fun. But Jeremy and I today talk about
Speaker 1: translating that work, and then the project itself, the casting
Speaker 1: and intention behind it. It's a long standing idea and
Speaker 1: project that is finally being realized, and I am lucky
Speaker 1: enough to be bringing it all to you tomorrow. Jeremy
Speaker 1: and I had a great time talking about this and
Speaker 1: the piece itself. Oh it's just so fun and different,
Speaker 1: like you were going to love it. So here's my
Speaker 1: conversation with Jeremy, and you can find the Symposium of
Speaker 1: the Caesars a full cast dramatic reading in your podcast feeds.
Speaker 1: Tomorrow Conversations a bunch of rulers sit down for a
Speaker 1: chat Julian's Symposium with doctor Jeremy Swist. So yeah, like
Speaker 1: let's just dive right in. Like we talked about this
Speaker 1: last year over Chinese food in Victoria when we first
Speaker 1: met in person, which was just so fun, and then
Speaker 1: now it exists, so I love, Like I just I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell the listeners a reminder of like you literally
Speaker 1: were like, so, I have this idea about recording my
Speaker 1: own translation of something, and I was like, I love.
Speaker 1: I love when people translate something and then give it
Speaker 1: to me to use because I can't just like use
Speaker 1: any translation and that's always my hurdle. So you you
Speaker 1: were just like gave me such a thrill of information.
Speaker 1: But then also I knew absolutely nothing about this myth source,
Speaker 1: Like I mean, it's I mean, I was about to
Speaker 1: like make some claims as if I understand. But basically
Speaker 1: what I do know is that julian is not only Roman,
Speaker 1: but so late in antiquity that he's so far beyond
Speaker 1: my usual interest realm that I just had no idea.
Speaker 1: And then you told me all these things, and I
Speaker 1: was like, well, this sounds incredible, So why don't you
Speaker 1: give us maybe start with like, who the hell Julian is?
Speaker 2: Right? Well, Julianne was a Roman emperor who reigned only
Speaker 2: a very short time, as you know full soul Augustus
Speaker 2: about twenty months from three sixty one to three sixty
Speaker 2: three CE, though he had also been a junior emperor,
Speaker 2: subordinate emperor called a caesar since three point fifty five,
Speaker 2: kind of subordinate to his cousin Constantious the Second, who
Speaker 2: in turn was the son of the emperor Constantine the First,
Speaker 2: who reigned a much longer and before that, and who
Speaker 2: was known as the first emperor to promote Christianity as
Speaker 2: as a favored religion of the empire, and so and
Speaker 2: his son's Constantius the Second, especially who succeeded him, also
Speaker 2: took part in that project of favoring Christianity, promoting Christianity
Speaker 2: at the expense of traditional Roman pagan religion. And what
Speaker 2: happens is that when Julian succeeds Constantiosis second as emperor,
Speaker 2: Julian in fact kind of comes out and says, oh,
Speaker 2: by the way, I am no longer Christian. You know,
Speaker 2: at some point when he was in his probably his
Speaker 2: early twenties, he encountered in his education a number of
Speaker 2: neo Platonic philosophers and a specific school of Platonism that
Speaker 2: was that actually rejected and was saw itself as incompatible
Speaker 2: with Christianity, and saw that Christianity was actually a threat
Speaker 2: to the essentially the fabric of the cosmos, because they
Speaker 2: saw traditional Greek and Roman religion as actually a way
Speaker 2: of making sure that society functions, you know, with kind
Speaker 2: of order and peace, and people become become virtuous through
Speaker 2: the piety toward the gods, and in return, the gods
Speaker 2: will you know, grant victory to the Romans, will make
Speaker 2: sure that, you know, the crops grow peace and there's
Speaker 2: peace and prosperity. And they saw Christianity as not a
Speaker 2: traditional religion. It was, you know, this kind of newcoming
Speaker 2: religion that they didn't even worship gods. They worshiped some
Speaker 2: man who died, you know, and they saw there was
Speaker 2: just just said, no connection to kind of the traditional
Speaker 2: religions and rituals that the gods themselves had, you know,
Speaker 2: prescribed through oracles and other forms of revelation, you know,
Speaker 2: way back in furthest antiquity, and so Julian undertakes a
Speaker 2: program of trying to kind of dial things back, to
Speaker 2: bring back and restore and favor the cults of Greece
Speaker 2: and Rome and other you know, native traditions throughout the Empire,
Speaker 2: which he saw as all essentially compatible under one sort
Speaker 2: of grander philosophical view, and he saw Christianity as not
Speaker 2: something that was actually could be compatible with that.
Speaker 1: Okay, sorry, I want to I just I want to
Speaker 1: hear everything, but I also just have to step back
Speaker 1: and be like one, this is like all I knew
Speaker 1: about him was that he was like pagan amongst Christianity
Speaker 1: and thus interesting to me. But also I just have
Speaker 1: to say that describing Christianity as a as a threat
Speaker 1: to the cosmos is like so relevant, Like I mean,
Speaker 1: there's it's not irrelevant even today, I would argue, and
Speaker 1: I love it so thank you. That's why Julian is
Speaker 1: certainly interesting, so I do want to hear about what
Speaker 1: he did like other than that, but I'm very much
Speaker 1: more interested in the whole like saying no to Christianity
Speaker 1: and apparently failing at it, But I love that he tried.
Speaker 2: Yeah, And you know, there's lots of questions about you know,
Speaker 2: whether his program of you know, read the restoration of
Speaker 2: traditional religion you know, would have been successful. The thing
Speaker 2: is is that he died in battle against the Persians,
Speaker 2: you know, twenty months into his reign, and happened to
Speaker 2: be succeeded by emperors who are Christian. And so the
Speaker 2: Christian emperors that succeeded him just kind of picked up
Speaker 2: where you know, Julian's predecessors left off and went toward,
Speaker 2: you know, further Christianizing and favoring Christianity in the empire
Speaker 2: till it became more or less the tradition the official
Speaker 2: religion later on. And it's it seems that Julian's kind
Speaker 2: of programs, you know, did have support while he was alive.
Speaker 2: You just needed an emperor, you know, in power who
Speaker 2: would continue to sustain it. Because even when he was emperor,
Speaker 2: you know, the majority of people in the Empire were
Speaker 2: not Christian, So who.
Speaker 1: Knows, we could have had a different life.
Speaker 2: It's one of those one. It's the history that I
Speaker 2: am not you know that we scholars are not quality
Speaker 2: do not address because that's science fiction. But you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's just he just ranged too short for us
Speaker 2: to be able to say whether his policies would have
Speaker 2: failed or not. You know, he also had various military
Speaker 2: uh you know shortcomings that you know, got things into
Speaker 2: some problems as well. And the whole fact that he
Speaker 2: kind of initiated this war against Persia, you know, could
Speaker 2: have been seen as sort of symptomatic of you know,
Speaker 2: some of his shortcomings. You know, he didn't necessarily have to,
Speaker 2: you know, fight against Persia, though part of the logic
Speaker 2: was to kind of prove that, you know, if we
Speaker 2: worship the traditional gods, they will give us victory. And
Speaker 2: so if he did come back alive from Persia victorious, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, that would have kind of validated, you know,
Speaker 2: his whole program. But he happened to die, you know,
Speaker 2: in a skirmish in fact, while they were kind of
Speaker 2: going back from Persia. So it's just that's just kind
Speaker 2: of a chance of them But anyway, Julian was much
Speaker 2: more than just you know, a as I said, a
Speaker 2: very religiously minded person who had this religious policy. That's
Speaker 2: what a lot of people tend to focus on when
Speaker 2: they think about him or study him, and I that's
Speaker 2: very important, but I'm also very interested in many other
Speaker 2: sides of him. He's a very multi faceted, complex figure.
Speaker 2: And you know, in addition to a religious thinker and
Speaker 2: a philosophical thinker, he was also a very literary minded person.
Speaker 2: He saw himself as a scholar and someone who was
Speaker 2: very interested in not only reading various works of literature, poetry, prose, history,
Speaker 2: oratory satire. He also saw himself as you know, a
Speaker 2: very a representative of what they call pidea, which was
Speaker 2: you know, not only the education that was based on
Speaker 2: reading the Greek classics like Homer, the play Rights, Demosthenes, Thucidities,
Speaker 2: et cetera. Hey, but also one who produces that kind
Speaker 2: of literature themselves. So we actually still have from Julian
Speaker 2: a number of all sorts of works of Greek literature.
Speaker 2: We have plenty of speeches that he wrote. We also
Speaker 2: have lots of letters he wrote, and you know, letter
Speaker 2: writing even was its own sort of art form back then,
Speaker 2: and we also have, you know, hymns to the gods
Speaker 2: that he wrote. He apparently wrote a bunch of poetry
Speaker 2: that we no longer have, and he also wrote some
Speaker 2: what has been called satires. One of probably the more
Speaker 2: well known one is called the Misopagon because which is
Speaker 2: literally means the beard hater, because Julian was known for
Speaker 2: growing the beard, which was contrary to what the other
Speaker 2: emperors in his dynasty had done since Constantine. Constantine, you know,
Speaker 2: represent and himself as clean shaven. He wanted to look
Speaker 2: kind of like Apollo, like the emperor Augustus, and Julian,
Speaker 2: you know, he grew a beard in order to show
Speaker 2: that he is associated with you know, traditional Greek philosophy
Speaker 2: and intellectualism, but also, you know, you could also say
Speaker 2: that he wants to identify with with the rank and
Speaker 2: file soldiers as well. So he's sort of like Hadrian
Speaker 2: where he's kind of playing it both ways with you know,
Speaker 2: he has a very soldierly profile as well as a
Speaker 2: very scholarly profile as well. You know, he wanted to
Speaker 2: be everything to everyone for the most part, and so
Speaker 2: the Mesopicon was essentially a kind of this big screed
Speaker 2: that he wrote making fun of himself, but also making
Speaker 2: fun of the people of the city of Antioch that
Speaker 2: he just with whom he just didn't get along. He
Speaker 2: kind of went to the city of Antioch toward the
Speaker 2: end of his reign as kind of a jumping off
Speaker 2: point to go fight the Persians, and he brought his
Speaker 2: army in, and he was really trying to undertake all
Speaker 2: of these you know, pro pagan reforms. And the thing
Speaker 2: is the city was majority Christian and so there's a
Speaker 2: lot of resistance to that there was, and so he
Speaker 2: basically just wrote this big speech, you know, just you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's an example of I think an emperor who
Speaker 2: you know, he didn't want to like retaliate against all
Speaker 2: of these citizens who made fun of him, like in
Speaker 2: any violent way. He was just like, Okay, if you're
Speaker 2: gonna insult me, I'll just insult you back, right, So
Speaker 2: it's all good fun.
Speaker 1: I love the idea though, of just like not getting
Speaker 1: along with a city. There are very few people I
Speaker 1: think you can be like, yeah, you know, I just
Speaker 1: I just really didn't get along with this city. I'm
Speaker 1: going to write about.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and you know, this is not an uncommon
Speaker 2: thing when an emperor visits a city, you know, I mean, yeah,
Speaker 2: the emperor.
Speaker 1: Like their emperor was so big. How do you yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2: You know you're there. You got all your army there,
Speaker 2: the whole administration, and you're dealing with people all the time.
Speaker 2: It's like imagine like you know, like when Taylor Swift
Speaker 2: comes to town, or like when the super Bowl is
Speaker 2: in your city, or the Olympics or like the or
Speaker 2: the World Cup final or whatever. You know, a lot
Speaker 2: of the people living there are gonna be annoyed by
Speaker 2: all of this stuff going on. It's kind of a
Speaker 2: disruption of your everyday life. And so and the city
Speaker 2: of Antioch especially was notorious for, you know, not getting
Speaker 2: along with emperors who would visit there. You know, it
Speaker 2: wasn't just Julian. But anyway, he also wrote another satire,
Speaker 2: or at least it's called a sat tire, probably during
Speaker 2: the same time that he was in Antioch. And it
Speaker 2: is what you would call a dialogue, at least initially,
Speaker 2: and because it starts off as a two way kind
Speaker 2: of conversation between Julian and an unnamed companion, a Hetairos
Speaker 2: in Greek, and the title of this dialogue satire, whatever
Speaker 2: you want to call it, is actually a matter of debate,
Speaker 2: because in the manuscripts that we get from the late
Speaker 2: Byzantine period we have the title saying that this was
Speaker 2: either called the Sympausion right or the Chronia, and the
Speaker 2: Chronia Tachronia is Greek, the Greek equivalent of the festival
Speaker 2: of the Saturnalia, okay, the festival of Cronus Chronia right,
Speaker 2: Saturnalia saturn right. And so it was thought that this
Speaker 2: was and the beginning of the dialogue makes this clear
Speaker 2: that the occasion for the composition and maybe even delivery
Speaker 2: of this of this work was mid December, during the
Speaker 2: Saturnalia festival. And it's uncertain whether it would have been
Speaker 2: in three point sixty two when he was anoch or
Speaker 2: at the very beginning of his reign in Constantinople, A
Speaker 2: where he entered the city shortly after his predecessor passed away.
Speaker 2: More likely he probably wrote it in three sixty two
Speaker 2: in Antioch. But I won't get into that.
Speaker 1: So I just have to reveal a moment where I
Speaker 1: realized that I am so ill prepared for like Christian
Speaker 1: times of the Roman Empire, that I forgot that Constantinople
Speaker 1: would have even been a place where they would have reigned,
Speaker 1: or I'm like, oh right, you can just tell where
Speaker 1: my my historical tendencies lie. I mean, they don't even
Speaker 1: go to Rome at all, So I'm not surprised. But
Speaker 1: I love this. I love I mean, I especially love
Speaker 1: when these things come up that are like so far
Speaker 1: beyond my usual interest. But I'm like, oh right, like
Speaker 1: Constantinople existed, It's almost like obviously if someone came after
Speaker 1: Constantine like that, it would happen.
Speaker 2: Yeah. And the fun thing is is that, you know,
Speaker 2: it was Julian's uncle. Constantine said he founded Constantinople. But
Speaker 2: what he really did was there was the city of Byzantium.
Speaker 2: It was an ancient Greek city going all the way
Speaker 2: back to the Archaic period. It was there all through
Speaker 2: classical times, and it was it was, you know, a
Speaker 2: major port city all through you know, the Greek and
Speaker 2: Roman period. And just what Constanty did is he sort
Speaker 2: of embellished it and re established it as a new
Speaker 2: imperial capital named after himself that he planned to be
Speaker 2: you know, a second Rome, a new Rome of sorts
Speaker 2: and it's during this time and during kind of constantious
Speaker 2: the Second's reign, that Constantinople really starts to rise in
Speaker 2: status to be almost a rival to Rome. And the
Speaker 2: irony is is that Julian was technically the first Roman
Speaker 2: emperor to be born in Constantinople, because Constantinople was officially
Speaker 2: quote unquote refounded in three thirty three. Julian was born
Speaker 2: in three point thirty one. Wow.
Speaker 1: Well, and here I'm thinking first like, oh, Antioch is
Speaker 1: so far from Rome, Like there's no wonder they don't
Speaker 1: like them. And I'm like, oh, wait, Antioch is not
Speaker 1: not that far from continent Nople, though comparatively.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's a bit closer. Yeah. But the thing is
Speaker 2: that even though Rome is not a place where emperors
Speaker 2: tend to visit much, it's still a very important city.
Speaker 2: Is still seen as the actual capital and spiritual center
Speaker 2: of the empire. And that's what Julian is doing in
Speaker 2: his reign is if you read his writings, he actually
Speaker 2: says a lot of nice things about Rome, and he
Speaker 2: thinks that he's very committed to the idea that the
Speaker 2: city of Rome is the true capital and that the
Speaker 2: Romans themselves are destined by the gods to rule the world.
Speaker 2: And what happened was is that before the Romans came,
Speaker 2: the gods themselves prepare the world for Roman rule by
Speaker 2: sending out Greek colonies through the Oracle of Apollo. Right,
Speaker 2: you go to the oracle, not just to get your
Speaker 2: prophecy about you know, you know that Oedipus got in
Speaker 2: what But a big function of the oracles was, Hey,
Speaker 2: we need to go found a colony somewhere. Where's a
Speaker 2: good place, And so the oracle will say, oh, there's
Speaker 2: this nice territory, you know, in southern France or something
Speaker 2: you can go to. And so, as a result of
Speaker 2: the Greeks colonizing, you know, the the Oikumene, the inhabited
Speaker 2: world as they conceived of it, that was a spread
Speaker 2: of Greek civilization, of Greek culture, of Greek, of Greek values,
Speaker 2: and so that when the Romans came along to establish
Speaker 2: law in order, these places were already ready to receive
Speaker 2: Roman rule. And so Julian talks about that a lot.
Speaker 2: Just getting back to the topic at hand. So this
Speaker 2: was called in the manuscripts the symposium or the Cronia. However,
Speaker 2: we have sources from centuries earlier that refer to this
Speaker 2: work as the Kaisades, right as the Caesars. And so
Speaker 2: it's uncertain whether what title Julian gave it, if he
Speaker 2: gave it a title at all. And so what I
Speaker 2: decided to do when I approached this work to translate it,
Speaker 2: I'm just like, let's just have it both ways. Let's
Speaker 2: call it the Symposium of the Caesars. The reason I
Speaker 2: start with that, and I start with this conversation between
Speaker 2: an anonymous Tyros companion is that's exactly how the Symposium
Speaker 2: of Plato begins, right. It starts with this guy named
Speaker 2: a Polodorus talking to an anonymous Atyros about eight about
Speaker 2: what Aristodemus told him about a party that happened at
Speaker 2: Agathon's house after they won a tragic poetry competition and
Speaker 2: Socrates showed up, and they had a They essentially had
Speaker 2: a contest of you know who's going to give the
Speaker 2: best speech defining arrows to the god love. Right, Well,
Speaker 2: it seems that Julian is cuing us to say that
Speaker 2: that Plato's Symposium should be a model for kind of
Speaker 2: the plot of the Caesars or the Symposium or the
Speaker 2: symposium of the Caesars, because what ends up happening is
Speaker 2: this is Julian telling his companion about a banquet of
Speaker 2: the gods, a symposium of the gods up up in
Speaker 2: kind of the heavenly Olympus, in which there is a
Speaker 2: series of speeches in a contest seemingly over you know,
Speaker 2: who was the best ruler, who is the best emperor?
Speaker 1: Right?
Speaker 2: And the thing is is that, whereas you know Aristodemus
Speaker 2: tells a Tola Pollodorus about Agathon's party, it is actually
Speaker 2: the god Hermes himself who tells Julian about.
Speaker 1: This about only I love it, right.
Speaker 2: And the interesting thing is is that, you know, you
Speaker 2: can understand that in various ways. So Hermes is the
Speaker 2: god of literature.
Speaker 1: So to clarify first, so he's is he using Greek?
Speaker 1: He's using the Greek gods.
Speaker 2: Right. So Julian was actually born in the Greek speaking
Speaker 2: part of the Empire, right around Thrace and Bethnia, around Constantinople, right,
Speaker 2: And he was raised primarily as a Greek speaker. He
Speaker 2: learned Latin later, especially when he got into being emperor
Speaker 2: and stuff, but primarily the language of his literary production
Speaker 2: is Greek that the fact that Hermes, or at least
Speaker 2: he represents Hermes as telling him this myth. You know,
Speaker 2: Hermes is the god of literature, prose literature especially, and
Speaker 2: also so Hermis is, you know, represents sort of a
Speaker 2: conduit between the wisdom of the gods and humanity communicated
Speaker 2: through literature, right, and well, how what is inspiring Julian
Speaker 2: to write this myth? Well, Julian is reading a lot
Speaker 2: of Roman history and a lot of other literature in
Speaker 2: order to inform him about, you know, the participants in
Speaker 2: this banquet of the gods at which the souls of
Speaker 2: the of the dearly departed Roman emperors actually come up
Speaker 2: and they dine with the gods, and then that's the
Speaker 2: con and then they have this contest. So when he
Speaker 2: when Julian is telling his companion that Hermes is his
Speaker 2: source for this information, he actually says, well, Hermis says
Speaker 2: that I'm not sure whether Hermes, you know, was telling
Speaker 2: me the truth or he was making things up, or
Speaker 2: there's some mixture of truth and fiction in what he
Speaker 2: told me. And how I see that is, well, that
Speaker 2: sounds a lot like what he see it says at
Speaker 2: the beginning of the theogony right where he's like, you know,
Speaker 2: the Muses. You know, I was on helicon the Muses
Speaker 2: showed up and said, we're going to tell you lots
Speaker 2: of cool stuff. We can tell lies, we can tell truth,
Speaker 2: and I guess it's up to you to tell to
Speaker 2: determine what it is, uh. And so that's sort of
Speaker 2: what we're working with here. And I think another reason
Speaker 2: he is mentioning that is when he when Julian is
Speaker 2: telling a myth, you know, part of it is invented, right,
Speaker 2: This is not He's not retelling a myth that was
Speaker 2: received from the tradition like you know, you know the
Speaker 2: playwrights of Athens would have done, or Home or the
Speaker 2: Homeric bards would have done right or Pindar or whatever.
Speaker 2: He is making up a myth from whole cloth, just
Speaker 2: like Plato did, right. And that's why at the beginning
Speaker 2: of the conversation with his companion they talk about how
Speaker 2: Plato himself told myths. He invented myths, but he told
Speaker 2: myths that nevertheless had truth or something, you know, some
Speaker 2: kind of lesson within them. And so I think what
Speaker 2: Julian's doing, he says, he's saying I made up this myth. However,
Speaker 2: it contains a lot that is true, and it's up
Speaker 2: to the audience to decide, right, how should we interpret this?
Speaker 2: In other words, this is an allegory. And Julian and
Speaker 2: this is not the only part place in Julian's surviving
Speaker 2: works of literature where he talks about, you know, the
Speaker 2: production of myths. He makes up myths and tells about
Speaker 2: how to read them as allegories. What is the myth about.
Speaker 1: As I?
Speaker 2: As I mentioned before, there is a banquet of the
Speaker 2: gods on Olympus, though when he says Olympus, he also
Speaker 2: means like up in the heavens. There's that whole thing
Speaker 2: of like is it's not the actual mountain, but they're
Speaker 2: up in the sky because these gods are being identified
Speaker 2: with the planets, and so they're all up in the
Speaker 2: sky where where they're they're planetary. You know, manifestations are right.
Speaker 2: And the occasion for throwing this party is it is
Speaker 2: the Saturnalia. It is a party in honor of Cronus, right,
Speaker 2: and the and the master of ceremonies for this is Romulus,
Speaker 2: the mythical founder of Rome. And he is there as
Speaker 2: some form of god in his own right, because, according
Speaker 2: to Roman mythology, Romulus, after he was born of Mars
Speaker 2: and founded Rome and had this illustrious career as the
Speaker 2: first king of Rome, he then, according to some accounts,
Speaker 2: mysteriously disappeared and then later appeared to a guy named Proculus, saying,
Speaker 2: by the way, I have reascended to the gods from
Speaker 2: which I descended as a god, and so I'm going
Speaker 2: to be should worship me now as the god Queriness.
Speaker 2: And in fact, after that initial introduction, he is referred
Speaker 2: to as Queerness for the rest of the dialogue. And
Speaker 2: so Queriness decides. Romulus Queriness, however you want to call him,
Speaker 2: decides in honor of this party, we are going to
Speaker 2: invite all of the Roman emperors, such a fun whoever
Speaker 2: lived right, And what he means by the Roman emperors
Speaker 2: is all of the souls of the emperors who had died.
Speaker 2: So they come in one by one, starting with Julius Caesar. Okay,
Speaker 2: he calls them the Caesars, so that you can count
Speaker 2: Julius Caesar as well. So starting with Julius Caesar, Hey, Octavian, Tiberius, Caligula, Claudius, Nero,
Speaker 2: et cetera. They all come in one by one in
Speaker 2: chronological order of when they reigned, right, And some of
Speaker 2: the emperors that come in or attempt to come in,
Speaker 2: don't actually make it all the way too into the
Speaker 2: to where they're having the breed because they were bad emperors. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, Coligula and Nero and Commitists and all of
Speaker 2: these and Amission and all of these others, the notoriously
Speaker 2: you know, tyrannical emperors actually get thrown out. A lot
Speaker 2: of them get thrown into the underworld to Tartarus to
Speaker 2: be among those like who are tortured and punished in
Speaker 2: the deepest pit of the underworld.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: But the emperors that do make it into the party
Speaker 2: happen to also be the emperors that the Roman Senate
Speaker 2: had deified, had actually voted on saying, okay, this was
Speaker 2: a good emperor, so let's establish a hero cult for
Speaker 2: them and worship them as a god. Right. So one
Speaker 2: of the themes of the Symposium of the Caesars is deification
Speaker 2: and what does it take to you know, become a
Speaker 2: good enough emperor to earn you know, deification, Like what
Speaker 2: is true you know, godhood or how does one become properly,
Speaker 2: like the gods. Do you imitate the gods in the
Speaker 2: proper way that you can eventually earn, you know, a
Speaker 2: cent to communion with them? Right, And so some of
Speaker 2: these bad emperors that come in, they are trying to
Speaker 2: imitate the gods in the wrong way. So, for instance,
Speaker 2: Nero comes in and you know, somebody remarks, hey, hey, Apollo,
Speaker 2: here's here's somebody who who's who's who's trying to imitate you?
Speaker 2: And Apollo is like, yeah, he's trying to imitate me.
Speaker 2: But he's doing that, he's doing it completely badly, right,
Speaker 2: and so he throws him into Tartarus. So what's also
Speaker 2: interesting is that is that Augustus comes in and he
Speaker 2: is also trying to imitate Apollo and Helius and the
Speaker 2: sun god. However, Apollo actually intervenes also for for Octavian
Speaker 2: Augustus and sends a philosopher named Zeno of Kitty, the
Speaker 2: founder of Stoic philosophy, to go in and actually transmute
Speaker 2: and transform Octavian into gold. So, which is symbolic of
Speaker 2: philosophy saving Octavian from you know, the fate of being
Speaker 2: thrown into Tartarus for being a tyrant and he becomes,
Speaker 2: you know, a sensible and good ruler.
Speaker 1: It's interesting because like I like that there's there is
Speaker 1: there's criticism of Octavian, but like not fully obviously, like
Speaker 1: you know, but it's interesting to have that explicit kind
Speaker 1: of criticism of him.
Speaker 2: So I won't go through all of the emperors that
Speaker 2: come in, but basically all the emperors up through Julian's
Speaker 2: immediate predecessors, Constantine, Constantius, the Second, et cetera, come in, right,
Speaker 2: So all the emperors are there, and then the gods decide, okay,
Speaker 2: we need to put these folks to the test. We
Speaker 2: need to see them prove that they are worthy of
Speaker 2: being in our presence. And coincidentally, Romulus slash Queriness actually
Speaker 2: was begging the gods saying, could we take one of
Speaker 2: these emperors, one of these descendants of mine and bring
Speaker 2: them up to dine with us? Because the emperors are
Speaker 2: actually at a lower level in kind of the celestial hierarchy.
Speaker 2: They are not true gods, right, and so they need
Speaker 2: to do something. They need to do something extra to
Speaker 2: be able to be worthy of actually ascending to where
Speaker 2: the gods are. And so I tend to think of
Speaker 2: this and This is an analogy that I write about.
Speaker 2: You're at a family gathering, and it's a very large
Speaker 2: family gathering, and it's one of those where there's the
Speaker 2: adults table and then there's the kids table. The gods
Speaker 2: are sitting at the adult's table, their emperors, they're sitting
Speaker 2: at the kids Tablenromulus is the old grandfather who invites
Speaker 2: one of the kids at the kids table to come
Speaker 2: to the adults table as an honorary adult. So they
Speaker 2: hold this contest to decide, okay, which of these kids
Speaker 2: is worthy of joining us at the big kids at
Speaker 2: the big kids table the adults table as an honorary adult,
Speaker 2: as an honorary god for a day, right, as it were, right?
Speaker 2: Who gets to earn that triumph of dining with Jupiter
Speaker 2: in the on the capitol?
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: So the god's decide, okay, let's let's hold a contest.
Speaker 2: And then the gods decide, oh, we're not just gonna
Speaker 2: like have every single emperor compete. We're only going to
Speaker 2: like have the limited set of contestants among those who
Speaker 2: are already have the reputation for being the best emperors.
Speaker 2: And so they bring in Julius Caesar, Augustus and Trajan,
Speaker 2: as well as Marcus Aurelius and Constantine, and at this
Speaker 2: point Heracles, who is essentially Romulus's Greek equivalent of kind
Speaker 2: of a hero who you know, became a god. Right, uh,
Speaker 2: says well, why are we having a contest over the
Speaker 2: best ruler if the best ruler isn't even here. Where's
Speaker 2: Alexander the Great, my my descendant? Right? And so they decide, Okay,
Speaker 2: let's just bring Alexander in to this contest. Try to
Speaker 2: see to try to see if any of these, if
Speaker 2: any of these romans you know, can is a match
Speaker 2: for this one Greek.
Speaker 1: Poor Alexander. This is how he finds out that his
Speaker 1: legacy is like not as good as he wanted it
Speaker 1: to be.
Speaker 2: Oh, certainly, there's a lot of discussion of that, right,
Speaker 2: Another thing to mention before they actually have the contest itself.
Speaker 2: While the emperors are coming in. Among the gods, there
Speaker 2: is one of the most somebody who has the most
Speaker 2: lines of this dialogue, if you will, is the satyr Silinus,
Speaker 2: and he's kind of the Socrates figure in this. He
Speaker 2: he's also kind of the comic relief. He's kind of
Speaker 2: the court gesture of this whole entertainment because all the
Speaker 2: emperors are coming in and Silinus is like making fun
Speaker 2: of them.
Speaker 1: Right, I can only picture that like bust of Socrates
Speaker 1: where his nose is just like he's just got this cut,
Speaker 1: little button nose, and for some reason that like just yeah,
Speaker 1: it was like oh Silinus, and then Socrates immediately was like,
Speaker 1: oh no, I can see it. Yeah I got that.
Speaker 2: Yeah yeah yeah. So he's just this kind of like
Speaker 2: buffoonish guy who's just taken all these cheap shots at
Speaker 2: these emperor's coming in. And the thing is one of
Speaker 2: the reasons that he is doing this is he's trying
Speaker 2: to make Dionysus laugh because Dionysus basically Silenus is in
Speaker 2: love with Dionysus right. In fact, Silenus is represented as
Speaker 2: kind of an erastes, you know, an older person, the
Speaker 2: older member of a pederastic relationship, of which Dionysus is
Speaker 2: the romanos, he's the beloved, right, And then there's some
Speaker 2: thought that, you know, this is like the pretty young
Speaker 2: Agathon at Plato Symposium that Socrates is you know, trying
Speaker 2: to impress.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I was gonna say, you can't have a cannabi
Speaker 1: symposium without a little arrests Romenos.
Speaker 2: Exactly exactly, and so Silenus is basically trying to you know,
Speaker 2: to entertain and impress his beloved. So they finally are
Speaker 2: ready to have the contest, and so one by one,
Speaker 2: each of the candidates of the contestants gives a speech
Speaker 2: to argue why they were the best ruler, and Julius
Speaker 2: Caesar speaks first. He talks about his great military record,
Speaker 2: though in the process Julius Caesar is just as much
Speaker 2: kind of playing up his military achievements and how powerful
Speaker 2: he was, but at the same time he is also
Speaker 2: dunking on Alexander. He's like, you know, oh, Alexander, you know,
Speaker 2: he wasn't all that great. I did things that were
Speaker 2: much more impressive.
Speaker 1: I got stabbed in the back.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So for example, Julius Caesar was like, was like,
Speaker 2: you know, I was, I showed pardon to all of
Speaker 2: my enemies, right, I pardoned them. You know, eventually I
Speaker 2: got stabbed in the back for it. But at least
Speaker 2: I was a merciful, you know, just ruler. Right. Look
Speaker 2: at alexand he didn't even spare his friends. Alexander comes
Speaker 2: in next and basically Alexander is fucking pissed, right, he
Speaker 2: is just like little twerp. Yeah, thinks he was a
Speaker 2: match for me, when in fact, Julius Caesar was. You know,
Speaker 2: he doesn't even mention Caesar's dave, right, Uh, Julius Caesar
Speaker 2: was modeled himself on Alexander. Right, It's like, how are
Speaker 2: you like, you know, you're taking your own idols and
Speaker 2: you're dragging them through the mud. Its like. And he
Speaker 2: goes on this whole thing about like, you know, you
Speaker 2: defeated Pompey, but Pompey wasn't all that great for all
Speaker 2: of these reasons. And so because you because pomp because
Speaker 2: the your main rival wasn't all that great, doesn't mean
Speaker 2: it means that you weren't all that great. So there's
Speaker 2: a lot of this kind of military kind of show
Speaker 2: up one upmanship.
Speaker 1: Yeah, who do they call Magalos? Not Julius Caesar?
Speaker 2: Right right? Octavian comes in next. Before Octavian can speak,
Speaker 2: Poseidon kind of intervenes and says, hey, wait a minute.
Speaker 2: Octavian gets a penalty for how much time he's allowed
Speaker 2: to speak, because they're using a water clock. When the
Speaker 2: water runs out, you're done, And so the Sidon says,
Speaker 2: I'm going to pour out less water for you because
Speaker 2: but now I get it all right, right, exactly exactly.
Speaker 2: And the reason for that is Sidon was still mad
Speaker 2: at Octavian h for a remark he made that we
Speaker 2: actually read in Suetonius where, uh, you know, Octavian was
Speaker 2: fighting against one of his rivals, Sextus Pompey, a son
Speaker 2: of Pompey and the civil wars, uh, and he experienced
Speaker 2: various setbacks because he was trying to fight all these
Speaker 2: naval battles against Sextus, and Sextus was you know very much.
Speaker 2: You know, he was kind of a pirate.
Speaker 1: I was going to say he was a pirate guy, right,
Speaker 1: And so.
Speaker 2: At what at one point, Octavian says, you know, I
Speaker 2: will defeat Sextus in spite of Neptune. Neptune remembers that,
Speaker 2: and so Octavian decides, Okay, that was my bad. I
Speaker 2: have to I have to I have to give a
Speaker 2: speech that is short and to the point. And so
Speaker 2: he's like, I'm not going to bother bashing these other
Speaker 2: people like the other people just did to each other.
Speaker 2: I'm just going to talk about my own achievements. Next
Speaker 2: comes Trajan. Silena specifically makes fun of him for having
Speaker 2: a drinking problem, but also for uh you know, having ah,
Speaker 2: he's a bit too fond of young boys at in fact. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so it's very interesting because during late antiquity, like Trajan
Speaker 2: is thought of as like the optimist print cupts, like
Speaker 2: the best emperor. Yeah. However, if you look at just
Speaker 2: some of the Greek sources, there's there's a little bit
Speaker 2: of discussion about, well, he also drank a lot and
Speaker 2: he seemed a bit too fond of young boys. Julian
Speaker 2: picks up on that and he runs with it to
Speaker 2: the point where Tree when he first comes in to
Speaker 2: the party silent and You're gonna love this. Silenus uh says,
Speaker 2: looks at Zeus and says, look out, Zeus, don't let
Speaker 2: your precious Gana Neede leave your side, because he knows
Speaker 2: that Trajan is uh you know, might you know has
Speaker 2: an eye for for that demographic does it work?
Speaker 1: Trajan was Hadrian's heir too, right other way around. Oh okay,
Speaker 1: so still somebody learned from somebody else.
Speaker 2: I'm just yeah, Julian actually seems very opposed to, you know,
Speaker 2: emperors who have any reputation for sexual scandal, so he
Speaker 2: makes fun of Trajan for for his pederaste, and then
Speaker 2: when Hadrian comes in, he also makes fun of him
Speaker 2: for that. So Silenus's remark against Trajan is, you know,
Speaker 2: why is this guy, you know, gazing at the heavens?
Speaker 2: Is he looking for Antinous? And probably and the and
Speaker 2: the illusion here is that Hadrian deified his boyfriend, right,
Speaker 2: and he was expecting to find him up in the
Speaker 2: heavens when he himself was you know, dying and joined
Speaker 2: the party, but he wasn't there.
Speaker 1: No, well, you know what, Antenus probably took that chance.
Speaker 1: He was like, get the fuck away from me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've heard Antinous was happy that he didn't have
Speaker 2: to spend eternity with, you know, trapped in that relationship,
Speaker 2: as a lot of people sort of have have seen it.
Speaker 2: So who's next.
Speaker 1: Marcus Aurelius one of the only ones that for some
Speaker 1: reason I can recognize. I was in Rome recently, and
Speaker 1: I was very proud about the fact that I could
Speaker 1: pull him out of a lineup.
Speaker 2: He's got the beard, he's got he's very curly. Yeah,
Speaker 2: so a lot of people recognize that Marcus Aralius because
Speaker 2: he was very much interested in the law that he
Speaker 2: was seen as sort of somebody that Julian highly admired.
Speaker 2: He certainly did, though I wouldn't say that Julian absolutely
Speaker 2: idolizes Marcus Aurelius either, you know, he calls out some
Speaker 2: of Marcus's faults because the point of I think one
Speaker 2: of the points Julian is making this dialogue is that
Speaker 2: here's all these emperors, including emperors that are traditionally seen
Speaker 2: as ideal models, like Trajan, like Marcus Aurelius, and even
Speaker 2: these ideal models have their shortcomings, right, and the true
Speaker 2: models that we should take to be not just good
Speaker 2: rulers but being good people is the gods themselves, right,
Speaker 2: and Marcus Aurelius also recognizes this, right. And the thing
Speaker 2: is and one reason this is seen as kind of
Speaker 2: an allegory and everything is in late antiquity among especially
Speaker 2: kind of the philosophically educated Pagans, people who believed in
Speaker 2: the traditional gods, but also you know, had kind of
Speaker 2: different conceptions of how the gods were really like through
Speaker 2: their you know, consumption of philosophy. They believed that the
Speaker 2: shrew Olympian gods were actually you know, much more idealized.
Speaker 2: They were actually you know, all powerful beings, all knowing beings,
Speaker 2: and perfectly morally good beings. Right. But of course, how
Speaker 2: do you account for all of this literature, within all
Speaker 2: of this mythology that represents the Olympians as as very
Speaker 2: much not that right as you know, committing all of
Speaker 2: these scandalous acts of being anthropomorphic in a sense, right,
Speaker 2: having all these all too human limitations, you know, all
Speaker 2: the things that you that your listeners are, your listeners
Speaker 2: are quite familiar.
Speaker 1: Yeah, the reason I have my show.
Speaker 2: Right exactly right. So what people like Julian and people
Speaker 2: who engage with kind of these forms of really platonic
Speaker 2: philosophy at the time is they say that, and the
Speaker 2: Stoics were doing this and others as well. They would
Speaker 2: say that the literature of people like Homer, Anhesiod and
Speaker 2: others was not meant to be read literally. These were allegories, right,
Speaker 2: so they are meant to be interpreted as representing some
Speaker 2: deeper truth.
Speaker 1: Just thinking of the weirdest myths and being like, okay.
Speaker 2: So, for example, the idea that Athena was born out
Speaker 2: of Zeus's skull and it got cracked open, right, that
Speaker 2: is an allegory for the fact that is that Athena
Speaker 2: represents the forethought of Zeus, and Zeus himself is the
Speaker 2: cosmic intelligence, right that pervades the right the gods were
Speaker 2: not corporeal beings, They were beings purely of spirit and
Speaker 2: pure intelligence, right, And that the myths were essentially a
Speaker 2: way of using images as ways of kind of making
Speaker 2: sense of all of these kind of more abstract kind
Speaker 2: of processes.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: And so when Julian is presenting this myth where he's
Speaker 2: representing the gods dining at a banquet, right, he is
Speaker 2: understanding this as and representing this very much as an allegory.
Speaker 2: When it's time for Marcusraelius to give a speech, Marcus
Speaker 2: looks at the gods and he's like, what is the
Speaker 2: point of all of this? Why am I? Why do
Speaker 2: we have to sit here give speeches to tell the
Speaker 2: gods things they already know? Because Marcus knows that the gods,
Speaker 2: as you know, the beings of pure minds, already know
Speaker 2: everything about him, and so he doesn't see it necessary
Speaker 2: that he has to compete in this contest because he
Speaker 2: knows that whoever's going to win is going to win, right,
Speaker 2: the conclusion is already destined right in the in the
Speaker 2: in the plant, in the great plan of the gods. Right,
Speaker 2: and so he basically says, you know, just judge me
Speaker 2: as you see fit, you know, whether I was a
Speaker 2: good ruler or not. And the gods responded well to that. Actually, uh,
Speaker 2: you know, they thought, you know, that's actually a good point. Okay,
Speaker 2: finally it's Constantine's turn. Now. The only reason Constantine is
Speaker 2: one of these elite in the contest is because when
Speaker 2: the gods were making the selections, you know, who would
Speaker 2: be the competitors. Dionysus actually turned in and said, well,
Speaker 2: we have warriors, we have a philosopher, but we gods
Speaker 2: need completeness. We have perfection here. We need the whole picture, right,
Speaker 2: and so why don't we invite a lover of pleasure, right,
Speaker 2: a hedonist adam to the mix to kind of complete
Speaker 2: the picture of like all the various options for the
Speaker 2: type of ruler that we can evaluate here. Right. And
Speaker 2: so Julian very much does not like Constantine.
Speaker 1: Right.
Speaker 2: He believes that Constantine's introduction of Christianity basically completely threw
Speaker 2: every value right and every tradition on its head, right,
Speaker 2: and he believed that Christianity was not a pious religion
Speaker 2: that encouraged morality, but quite the opposite. It was a
Speaker 2: religion that allowed you to be able to just indulge
Speaker 2: in all of your carnal pleasures, and then all you
Speaker 2: had to do was go to confession and confess your
Speaker 2: sins and and do the holy water thing, and then
Speaker 2: you were and then you were and then you were fine. Right,
Speaker 2: And he makes fun of that thing towards the very end,
Speaker 2: and so well, Constantine isn't even like interested in competing
Speaker 2: because he saw what all these other emperors said about themselves,
Speaker 2: and he's like, I can't compete that up with that.
Speaker 2: I'm sorry. Like, so he tries to say a few
Speaker 2: things for himself, like, oh, I overthrew some some usurpers
Speaker 2: and civil war, right, you know, I had a pretty
Speaker 2: decent military record, but you know, it doesn't really stick.
Speaker 2: That's the end of the speeches. That's not the end
Speaker 2: of the contest, though, because the gods recognize that, you know,
Speaker 2: rhetoric and giving the speech and making yourself, you know,
Speaker 2: you know, look good and presenting your record is all
Speaker 2: well and good, but that's not really what we're what
Speaker 2: we really need to do to evaluate these people. And
Speaker 2: so they decide, Okay, we're gonna have a Q and
Speaker 2: A session. We're gonna have a question and answer around
Speaker 2: and we're going to ask them all the same question.
Speaker 2: And that question is essentially I phrase it kind of
Speaker 2: like Conan the Barbarian, what is best in life? Right?
Speaker 2: In other words, what was kind of their core value
Speaker 2: that motivated them to do what they did? But anyway,
Speaker 2: I won't spoil the ending. Let's leave it, let's do
Speaker 2: it that. Yeah, okay, so there's there is an ending.
Speaker 2: There's a couple of surprise endings as to kind of
Speaker 2: what the result of the contest is and sort of
Speaker 2: where kind of people end up after that, But I
Speaker 2: won't spoil it. You'll see we.
Speaker 1: Have a whole production of it. It's so fun.
Speaker 2: We have a whole production of it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I love that you just wanted to translate it.
Speaker 1: But then also like it lends itself so well to
Speaker 1: a whole production piece, So that's why I was so
Speaker 1: thrilled when you had the idea. But yeah, like I
Speaker 1: mean maybe just like the thought process behind like translating it,
Speaker 1: but then also yeah, like why you wanted to make
Speaker 1: it a whole production other than it's just like great
Speaker 1: and interesting.
Speaker 2: Yeah, So I have an there's a number of reasons.
Speaker 2: First off, I saw in this work there's really something
Speaker 2: for everybody, right, if you're interested in Greek mythology, if
Speaker 2: you're interested in Roman history, if you're interested in in
Speaker 2: in ancient philosophy, rhetoric, ethics, like what does it mean
Speaker 2: to be a good ruler? A good person? Right? What
Speaker 2: does it mean to become a god? There's all of
Speaker 2: those questions are in there, and I think Julian's really
Speaker 2: kind of tying together a lot of different kind of
Speaker 2: strands of his thought because he himself is a Roman emperor, right,
Speaker 2: and he's using this work as kind of a meditation
Speaker 2: on you know, what does it mean to be a
Speaker 2: good ruler? Good person? Like? Where do I see myself,
Speaker 2: you know, in relation to all my predecessors as emperor?
Speaker 2: Like what were some things that they accomplished that were admirable?
Speaker 2: But what were some of their shortcomings that I can
Speaker 2: try to avoid? Right? What is the relationship between a
Speaker 2: proper ruler and the gods? Right? So I think you
Speaker 2: know there's something that it's also very entertaining you know,
Speaker 2: it's very funny, right, but it also there's a lot
Speaker 2: of I think, good lessons as well.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I think there's something to be said too that
Speaker 1: it's so interesting to have a work that is like,
Speaker 1: you know, so ancient to us, but is also intentionally
Speaker 1: interacting with something that is so ancient to it. You know,
Speaker 1: like he's so intentionally creating this piece that is like
Speaker 1: not a mirror but like clearly inspired very heavily by
Speaker 1: Plato's Symposium and you know, and then I think, just
Speaker 1: to remind my listener, is it like there's a good
Speaker 1: seven hundred or so years in between Plato and Julian
Speaker 1: And like, I just I love to emphasize that kind
Speaker 1: of thing when we're talking about like the broad space
Speaker 1: of time that we have for antiquity, Like, you know,
Speaker 1: this is such an ancient work, but it is also
Speaker 1: interacting and navigating with an even more ancient work so intentionally,
Speaker 1: and like what does it say you know that there's
Speaker 1: that seven hundred years in between? And I just I love, yeah,
Speaker 1: thinking that aspect as well.
Speaker 2: Yeah, so it's definitely you know, a form of reception
Speaker 2: of Greek mythology, of philosophy of history. You know, just
Speaker 2: as much as you know a modern adaptation, you know.
Speaker 2: So there was that and I thought, okay, you know,
Speaker 2: I'd love to translate this, you know, in a way
Speaker 2: that makes it accessible to an audience, because I think
Speaker 2: a lot of people would be entertained by this, would
Speaker 2: have a lot to gain from it. How do I
Speaker 2: present that? Well, I could just write a translation and
Speaker 2: try to get it published to be read, and I
Speaker 2: still have some ideas of maybe doing that as like
Speaker 2: maybe a school text for instance. But anyway, I thought, well,
Speaker 2: this is also a dialogue, right, you know, this could
Speaker 2: actually and there is some thought that maybe it was
Speaker 2: actually performed as a dialogue when Julian composed it. Was
Speaker 2: this something that people just read or was did they
Speaker 2: actually have like did they actually like dramatize this in
Speaker 2: some way? And one theory is that perhaps he produced
Speaker 2: it as a dramatic reading. Okay, in other words, we're
Speaker 2: not talking about a full production like Greek drama. We're
Speaker 2: doing something that some people say the tragedies of Seneca
Speaker 2: were presented as where it kind of people with the
Speaker 2: different parts would sit there and kind of recite read
Speaker 2: or recite their parts. But there isn't really any spectacle
Speaker 2: or anything. And the thing is is that this is
Speaker 2: a thing that is done in my own experience. And
Speaker 2: the model for this, for kind of dramatic readings of
Speaker 2: ancient dialogues was something that I experienced and then took
Speaker 2: part in as an undergraduate at the University of Maine.
Speaker 2: My first reading quote unquote of Plato Symposium. But I
Speaker 2: didn't actually read it. It was actually presented to me
Speaker 2: by various faculty members of the University of Maine Honors
Speaker 2: Program playing different parts of characters in Plato Symposium as
Speaker 2: what they called a reader's theater production. And so like
Speaker 2: the Ancient Philosophy professor Michael Howard played Soccrates for instance,
Speaker 2: or the guy who was the head of the drama
Speaker 2: the theater department played Aristophanes, right, so it's just we
Speaker 2: just see it was perfect. So that was kind of
Speaker 2: my model, and I thought, well, I don't want to
Speaker 2: just do this like in person. But now that we've
Speaker 2: had the pandemic and all of the things where a
Speaker 2: lot of these types of productions were then put online,
Speaker 2: so reading Greek tragedy online at the Center for Lennox
Speaker 2: Studies did or the Oedipus project, right that they had
Speaker 2: during the pandemic, where you essentially that was you had,
Speaker 2: you know, people who were performing Greek tragedy, but they
Speaker 2: were sitting there, you know, behind a zoom camera. Right.
Speaker 2: So that's another model that I had, and so I decided, okay,
Speaker 2: let's do it this way. I will translate this in
Speaker 2: order to be accessible to you know, a contemporary audience.
Speaker 2: And what I'm going to do is I'm going to
Speaker 2: record each character, you know, as cast as somebody, right,
Speaker 2: and then I'm going to eventually put all those recordings
Speaker 2: together and have it produced, you know, through a podcast.
Speaker 2: And that's why I came to you live in the
Speaker 2: Chinese restaurant in Koria to pitch this to you because
Speaker 2: I thought, you know, this is very much something that
Speaker 2: I think, I hope your audience will enjoy. And so
Speaker 2: that's the audience that I had in mind when I
Speaker 2: did the translation. Okay, the translation itself is not a
Speaker 2: word for word literal translation. I take a lot of
Speaker 2: creative liberties, you know, with kind of rearranging sentences grammatically
Speaker 2: for instance, so it's not that kind of word for
Speaker 2: word literal translation. However, I try my best to be
Speaker 2: faithful to the sense of what it says in Greek.
Speaker 2: I do provide, I do, you know, get to try
Speaker 2: to get. I do push things a bit with some
Speaker 2: anachronisms and everything, but again it's in English, so of
Speaker 2: course it's going to be anachronistic anyway. I also turn
Speaker 2: this into a true dialogue. So if you read Plato Symposium,
Speaker 2: you read Julian's Caesar's, you'll see that most of it
Speaker 2: is Julian reporting what other people say, right. And so
Speaker 2: what I did was I just made this a true diegue,
Speaker 2: where you know, every time somebody says something, that's what
Speaker 2: there's that's the actual character saying it, rather than Julian
Speaker 2: saying that they said it right. And in fact, there
Speaker 2: are parts in the Greek where you have what's called
Speaker 2: reported or indirect speech, where Julian says, you know, Zeus
Speaker 2: said that something, and I just I just made Zeus
Speaker 2: say it right, just to get more people than Julian talking,
Speaker 2: because Julian is still the narrator and he still says
Speaker 2: a lot, but whenever somebody has direct speech, they're the
Speaker 2: ones speaking. What I also did was is I threw
Speaker 2: in a lot more proper names than the than the
Speaker 2: than the original Greek state, partly just so the audience
Speaker 2: can better follow along, but also just because I think
Speaker 2: there's a lot of elusive allusion to like certain people,
Speaker 2: like for instance, you know, when Caligula comes in, briefly,
Speaker 2: Caligula is not named, right, you know, demnatio memoria, if
Speaker 2: you will, introduced, as you know, in an evil monster.
Speaker 2: And I was just like, and in came an evil
Speaker 2: monster guius Caligula, right, just you know, yeah, just to
Speaker 2: get that satisfaction, I guess. So stuff like that, do we.
Speaker 1: Need to remind my listeners that means little Boots.
Speaker 2: Yeah here, And of course Julian didn't even say his name,
Speaker 2: so you wouldn't have said.
Speaker 1: Anything about that, but I like, I'd like, I think
Speaker 1: it adds something to say an evil monster guyas little Boots.
Speaker 2: And so this is one thing where I'm departing from
Speaker 2: kind of what Julian's doing is Julian wrote for an
Speaker 2: audience that he expected to be familiar with a lot
Speaker 2: of this stuff, and so he's a lot more illusion
Speaker 2: rather than stating explicitly, oh, this is Caligula I'm talking
Speaker 2: about he you know, you know, I want to make
Speaker 2: this more accessible to an audience, and honestly, you know,
Speaker 2: I know a lot of people might have gotten the
Speaker 2: reference already, but you know, well.
Speaker 1: It reminds me of Greek myth where so often you're
Speaker 1: you're hearing like an epithet or like a you know,
Speaker 1: one of that one of the names that's based on
Speaker 1: who their father is, and like if you know, you know, great,
Speaker 1: but like they expect you to know, and sometimes it
Speaker 1: is very unclear if you're not familiar. So it's helpful
Speaker 1: to have that extra.
Speaker 2: Detail exactly, you know, like trans so like I like
Speaker 2: if I'm assigning translations for a class, where like they're
Speaker 2: referring to Zeus as Crony d crona D's or the
Speaker 2: son of Cronus, and it's not we actually explained who
Speaker 2: that is, right, Yeah, Like.
Speaker 1: It's unhelpful for most normal people who don't spend their
Speaker 1: entire lives in this.
Speaker 2: Stuff exactly exactly. So so there's that, Priori. My one
Speaker 2: of my favorite things about this whole project was deciding
Speaker 2: whom to cast, and because what I actually did was
Speaker 2: I did a lot of the casting before I even
Speaker 2: finished the translation.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you had a whole plan when we were talking,
Speaker 1: Remember you had, like goal casting, I imagine a lot
Speaker 1: of it pans yeah, right.
Speaker 2: And the reason that is I wanted to do the
Speaker 2: translate the dialogue with that's not only that character in mind,
Speaker 2: but that specific person that I cast, right, people who
Speaker 2: I would kind of familiar with how they would have
Speaker 2: naturally sounded right, And I think that really helped doing
Speaker 2: it in that order. What decisions went into casting, Well,
Speaker 2: these were people who had some association either with the
Speaker 2: character or somebody who was familiar with who works on
Speaker 2: Julian as an academic and was especially familiar with this
Speaker 2: particular writing of Julian. Right. So this is an opportunity
Speaker 2: for both scholars of Julian to kind of get their
Speaker 2: name out and to do something connected to things that
Speaker 2: they're interested in, just as I'm interested. But also I
Speaker 2: wanted to other folks who actually have been on this
Speaker 2: podcast who have a connection to some of the mythological characters. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, you have talked you've spoken with Ammopolli about Dionysus,
Speaker 2: Emma Polli plays Diane is of course they do, right.
Speaker 2: You have spoken to Meg Finlayson about Alexander me Finleson
Speaker 2: plays Alexander, right, So and so forth right U. And
Speaker 2: then of course I also have people who have worked
Speaker 2: on Julian, uh, you know, come in. So, for instance,
Speaker 2: Trajan is played by a leaden fellow Leyden Tikar scholar
Speaker 2: named Alberto Quiroga Puertas. He is from Spain, so is Trajan,
Speaker 2: and so I present Trajan in this translation as someone
Speaker 2: who has a Spanish accent, right, and he and when
Speaker 2: he uses proper names, he actually uses the Spanish version.
Speaker 2: So when he refers to Alexander, he says aund amazing.
Speaker 2: And I did the same thing with Leah Nikolai, who
Speaker 2: is from Italy, and she also she just recently put
Speaker 2: out a book on Julian which is really good. She
Speaker 2: plays Julius Caesar, okay, because I wanted an Italian to
Speaker 2: play Julius Caesar, because Julius Caesar speech is very much
Speaker 2: you know, Rome is the best, right, and so it
Speaker 2: worked very I think that worked really well. And then
Speaker 2: finally I was like, we can't do this without someone
Speaker 2: who's that we I can't have someone who isn't Greek
Speaker 2: the part of this. And so my good friend Marios
Speaker 2: Kutsukos right, who is also a scholar of late antiquity,
Speaker 2: neo Patonic philosophy, et cetera. He plays Zeus, yeah and
Speaker 2: so and so he's he does Zeus justice, I think,
Speaker 2: and speaking of justice, you know, I've I also reached
Speaker 2: out to some other people in the Classics podcast community.
Speaker 2: So there are a couple of minor characters, but Romulus
Speaker 2: himself as well as there's actually a couple lines by
Speaker 2: d K by Lady Justice because she kind of comes
Speaker 2: in and she kind of you know, uh, sorts out
Speaker 2: who get which emperors get to stay, which to go?
Speaker 2: I got the partialist story, I was, I.
Speaker 1: Was waiting for them.
Speaker 2: I love it right.
Speaker 1: So, so Australian in there.
Speaker 2: Oh yeah, doctor doctor, so doctor g plays uh, uh
Speaker 2: plays queerness and uh doctor Rad plays Justice, yeah and
Speaker 2: so and then finally one of the stars, one of
Speaker 2: the big stars is Silinus, who has the most lines
Speaker 2: other than Julian the narrator, whom I myself played of course. Uh.
Speaker 2: And Silenus is played by Chris Poult. He is a
Speaker 2: scholar of Roman comedy, Roman poetry, and he's very he's
Speaker 2: a good actor, right, and he was especially so he's
Speaker 2: he especially nailed Silinus with the comic relief as you'll see.
Speaker 2: So I selected all these people, you know, partly because
Speaker 2: they're just my connections in sort of through classics, twitter
Speaker 2: or classics acts, whatever you want to call it, right
Speaker 2: and just and just thought this would be a fun
Speaker 2: kind of project for us all to be involved in.
Speaker 2: And I think they all they all took to it
Speaker 2: really well because again, these were characters that I think
Speaker 2: they had special connections with. So another example is my
Speaker 2: good friend an iron pen Dragon has a special connection
Speaker 2: to Hermes there that's sort of their their patron god,
Speaker 2: and so they play Hermes amazing and the and the
Speaker 2: reason for this is, you know, I wrote, I wrote
Speaker 2: this dialogue, you know, with these people in mind, with
Speaker 2: this character in mind. But I also wanted their interpretation
Speaker 2: of the lines to be influenced by how they themselves
Speaker 2: kind of thought, is this, how would Alexander would have
Speaker 2: sounded right? How would Hermi sound? How would have Dionysus sound?
Speaker 2: How would Silina sound? And they all had their own
Speaker 2: unique interpretations that I think that that really that really
Speaker 2: made this made this work. So yeah, I spent basically
Speaker 2: last year kind of trying to get a lot of
Speaker 2: these recordings in person myself for instance. You know, Chris
Speaker 2: Poult was running a Roman comedy workshop last summer and
Speaker 2: that's what brought Emma Polly, and that's what brought Tofe Marshall,
Speaker 2: who plays Apollo in So that was convenience.
Speaker 1: Very recent guest on the show, I love it right.
Speaker 2: I went up to Maine to meet with my old
Speaker 2: undergraduate mentor, Jay Regman, to play Cronus. Also, I went
Speaker 2: to the UK last summer and that's where I recorded
Speaker 2: with Leah for Caesar. That's where I recorded with an
Speaker 2: Iron for for Hermes. And that's also where I've recorded
Speaker 2: with my good friend Charlotte Naylor Davis, who plays Constantine.
Speaker 2: And the reason I selected her as Constantine is because
Speaker 2: Charlotte is from the North of England and Constantine, even
Speaker 2: though he is from like modern day sirr be A.
Speaker 2: Constantine is known for being an emperor who he became
Speaker 2: emperor in York right, and there's that statue of him,
Speaker 2: you know, sitting with the with the sword, you know,
Speaker 2: outside of Yorkminster. That's very famous. And I thought, okay,
Speaker 2: I'm just gonna I'm gonna make Constantine be a woman
Speaker 2: with a with a Yorkshire accent. That would be fitting
Speaker 2: to kind of the character that Julian is trying to
Speaker 2: portray here. And she did a great job, Charlie great.
Speaker 2: I knew exactly what to do. Whereas Meg who plays Alexander,
Speaker 2: is from the south of England. Uh, and they put
Speaker 2: on a very kind of posh, posh like London, you know,
Speaker 2: southern southern English accent, because Alexander is very brady in this,
Speaker 2: you know, very entitled, right uh. And so it is like,
Speaker 2: how damh this how dah he you know, compare his
Speaker 2: achievements to mine? Right, It's it's you know, it just
Speaker 2: works so well. And megne exactly what to do. It
Speaker 2: was great. Last, but not least who had so many
Speaker 2: who was cast as theros as Julian's anonymous companion at
Speaker 2: the start of the dialogue, Well all that had to
Speaker 2: be Live Albert, because that's what the what is the
Speaker 2: Symposium of the Caesars if not bringing Julian on to
Speaker 2: the Miss Davey Kant podcast to talk about a myth
Speaker 2: that he learned from Hermes. Right, of course, somebody interested
Speaker 2: in myth is going to want to hear about that, right,
Speaker 2: And so it just made sense.
Speaker 1: Here to remind people that the that the masculine version
Speaker 1: of Htyros is always translated as companion and the feminine
Speaker 1: version is always translated as prostitute. So I'm just I'm
Speaker 1: here for for it being that word specifically to right.
Speaker 2: I think companion is definitely much more accurate, even in
Speaker 2: the feminine right ext you know, it's patriarchy anyway, exactly.
Speaker 2: That's uh. You know, you can have Rebecca Kennedy on
Speaker 2: to talk about that if you want, right, so once
Speaker 2: ahead all the recordings. I also had the privilege of
Speaker 2: being the cousin of a wonderful human being named Christopher Swiss.
Speaker 2: And my cousin, Chris is a music professor. He's currently
Speaker 2: at Trinity College in Connecticut. Uh, and he is also
Speaker 2: a an audio engineer. He built a recording studio at
Speaker 2: his home in New Hampshire, and his his father, my
Speaker 2: uncle Larry, was also an audio engineer. Uh you know
Speaker 2: who taught him, you know, everything there is to know
Speaker 2: about that stuff. And so you know this partly this
Speaker 2: broadcast production is in memory of of of my uncle Larry,
Speaker 2: his father, So you know, we'll do that old dedication anyway.
Speaker 2: Chris was more more than happy to volunteer to mix
Speaker 2: and edit and master and work his magic to put
Speaker 2: all the recordings together and make it all sound, you know,
Speaker 2: doing all the things that I think, you know, you're
Speaker 2: you're used to doing as a as a podcaster with
Speaker 2: these recordings, being.
Speaker 1: Very kind to how much editing I put into this show,
Speaker 1: but yeah, sure I'm doing.
Speaker 2: Yeah. So I just I just lined up all the
Speaker 2: recordings in a row, gave him the script and he
Speaker 2: was able to put it all together into a single file,
Speaker 2: and you know, we had a lot of fun. I
Speaker 2: went up to his place this past winter in New
Speaker 2: Hampshire to kind of listen to some of the final
Speaker 2: edits and you know, change a few things around. So,
Speaker 2: for instance, there's a towards the beginning of the recording,
Speaker 2: there's a couple of places where Julian quotes Homer. Uh,
Speaker 2: and when he quotes Homer, we actually add a lot
Speaker 2: of reverb right right. And actually the inspiration for that
Speaker 2: is there was an audiobook of Stanley Lombardo's Iliad that
Speaker 2: I listened to from audible several years ago. And what
Speaker 2: happens is whenever you have a simile in that recording,
Speaker 2: and Lebardo himself is the narrator. They add a bunch
Speaker 2: of reverb. Right.
Speaker 1: That's so helpful because the similes are out of control
Speaker 1: and also so necessary but like sometimes you have trouble
Speaker 1: keeping track. I love that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, and so h so that so that that
Speaker 2: worked really well. And so now we have the recording
Speaker 2: and h it's ready to be released, and I'm really
Speaker 2: I'm really excited for for people to hear it. This
Speaker 2: was just a pet project of mine that I really
Speaker 2: wanted to get out of my system. It was kind
Speaker 2: of a creative piece to a book that I have
Speaker 2: been writing on Julian, in which I talk a lot
Speaker 2: about this particular work. They have a whole chapter devoted
Speaker 2: to uh an interpretation of it uh And if you
Speaker 2: read the chapter along with the translation, you'll see kind
Speaker 2: of how how those go together. But you know, that
Speaker 2: book will probably come out about a year from now
Speaker 2: through through Oxford University Pressing. So that's I'm very happy
Speaker 2: about that.
Speaker 1: Yeah, congraduations on that one, Thank you so much.
Speaker 2: Yeah. It's going to be called Julian or Julian Augustus
Speaker 2: Colin h Platonism myth and the Refounding of Rome. And
Speaker 2: so there's a lot of discussion of how Julian approaches
Speaker 2: myth uses myth interprets myth, particularly Roman mythology. Right. How
Speaker 2: does he look at, you know, myths of the founding
Speaker 2: and the founders of Rome, like Romulus, right?
Speaker 1: Uh?
Speaker 2: And how does he connect that to kind of his
Speaker 2: own identity as a Roman emperor, you know, but who
Speaker 2: is also somebody who is a scholar of philosophy, right?
Speaker 2: And how does how do those two things combine? Right?
Speaker 1: Well, I'm I'm I'm really excited about this production and
Speaker 1: also just like the story being told itself, and like, yeah,
Speaker 1: I cannot wait, I cannot wait to listen to it.
Speaker 1: And Eric on the show, I'm so excited for this though.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much for like wanting to have it
Speaker 1: put on my podcast and like giving me this content.
Speaker 1: But also just like it means a lot that I
Speaker 1: get thought of for stuff like this, and I'm just
Speaker 1: so thrilled to like, you know, be able to help
Speaker 1: you put it out into the world. I think people
Speaker 1: are gonna really like it. It's such an interesting thing
Speaker 1: that like kind of goes under the radar.
Speaker 2: Yeah, thank you, And I'll just thank you for doing
Speaker 2: your part in this and supporting this that creative energy.
Speaker 2: I just wanted to get out of my system, especially
Speaker 2: like you know, after having this very serious academic monograph.
Speaker 2: I do hope your listeners enjoy it, because I had
Speaker 2: tons of fun, you know, translating it, casting it, recording it,
Speaker 2: putting it all together, talking about it here with you,
Speaker 2: and so I hope you folks will enjoy it as well.
Speaker 1: I'm sure the fun is going to come across. I've
Speaker 1: been wanting to do like some kind of production and
Speaker 1: for so long, but like I can't ever put the
Speaker 1: time in just because of how much time I have
Speaker 1: on the podcast. So I love that you were able
Speaker 1: to basically do it all and then wanted it on
Speaker 1: my show, Like I think, yeah, they both win. It's great. Yep, yeah, okay,
Speaker 1: well I mean yeah, thank you so much for doing this,
Speaker 1: and uh yeah, I'm so thrilled my pleasure man who
Speaker 1: knew late antiquity and even the Christian period could be interesting.
Speaker 1: Not me, but I am sure glad to know more
Speaker 1: about Julian now. Thanks so much to Jarren me for
Speaker 1: coming on the show to talk about his favorite guy,
Speaker 1: but also this supremely fun translation and project that he
Speaker 1: has let me be a part of I can't wait
Speaker 1: for you all to listen to this reading, this dramatic
Speaker 1: full cast recording. The casting is so well done and
Speaker 1: it's just like a seriously fun concept. This conversation of
Speaker 1: gods and flawed men. What a time. So stay tuned
Speaker 1: for tomorrow's episode, which will be the reading of the
Speaker 1: Symposium of the Caesars. Let's talk about Myths Baby is
Speaker 1: written and produced by Me Live. Albert MICHAELA. Smith is
Speaker 1: the Hermes to my Olympians, better known as the assistant producer.
Speaker 1: Laura Smith is now the production assistant and audio engineer.
Speaker 1: The podcast is part of the iHeart Podcast Network. Listen
Speaker 1: on Spotify or wherever you get your podcasts. Help me
Speaker 1: continue bringing you the world of Greek mythology and the
Speaker 1: ancient Mediterranean by becoming a patron, where you will get
Speaker 1: bonus episodes and more. Visit patreon dot com slash myths Baby,
Speaker 1: or click the link in this episode's description. I am
Speaker 1: live and I love this shit.