I'm This is the Friends of History Debating Society live from Lunditium,

Gaius and Germanicus debating 21st century matters. But you'll forgive us. We live in

the first century ID, but we do have this odd power. We're not quite sure where it comes from

to be able to see all the intervening centuries between here and the 21st, and Germanicus and I have been enjoying ourselves

talking about what's going to happen in the fourth century to the Roman Empire, after Constantine

declares Christianity the religion that he favors. It takes the rest of that century for the Roman

Empire to move itself towards a place where all officials are then mandated to be Christianized.

In fact, in that period between Constantine and the end of the 4th century,

there are so many temples that are deconstructed, pagan temples, that there's a flood of secondhand marble

on the market so the prices collapse to tell you what kind of changes were going on in our Roman

empire. But we come to the way the Roman Senate conducted itself with regard to the emperor in Constantinople and the emperor in Rome.

There was an uneven balance here. Rome never really led after the 4th century.

But there was an attempt to say that there are two emperors and we can rule together.

I want to speak to the conduct of the Roman

Senate at this time, the Roman Empire Senate, because Germanicus in these last days, we've had a

demonstration of what is said to be Congress moving effectively to respond to the Trump agenda,

i.e. tax cuts, okay. And after the celebration in the

House, the Senate now takes up the debate about a tax cut, which has a lot of moving parts. I don't

need to sympathize with it or alienate myself from the people who were regarded as either critical or

breaking the bank. You can go back and forth. I just want to note the process. We know in

the fourth century when the Senate came together and approved the emperor, in this case it was

theodosius, they would, it's quite fantastic. Michael and I

...