This is the Friends of History Debating Society.

I'm Gaius.

Jamakis is here, and we're looking at the headlines in the Wall Street Journal,

which are loaded with possibilities of disaster.

China wanted to negotiate with Trump.

Now it's arming for another trade war.

Or economic outlook shifts in days from solid growth to recession risk.

Or my favorite.

Americans sitting on a cash pile is stocks real.

Germanicus, what we've got here is the whole world anxious about the tribute that the emperor is demanding.

Now, why this is odd in the 21st century needs explanation.

It's certainly not odd in the first century A.D.

Rome was the empire. We demanded our defeated enemies, adversaries, troublemakers, pay as tribute. We even made deals with our adversaries who weren't defeated. The American press apparently has forgotten what tribute means, or have they? Are they skipping it?

Tribute is more symbolic than it is real. But because it is real, it can provide the kind of authority that you want a symbol to convey.

In other words, if you're getting a large pot of money, a treasure, that symbolically has great weight, literally also, in that it expresses a transfer that can be the

underpinning for a relationship.

So, for example, in our time, when our emperor, Domitian, has fought a war against Dacia, the peace requires

Dacia to send the king's brother to Rome bearing a crown to acknowledge that Dacia is now a vassal of Rome.

But in exchange, Rome will pay Dacia six million Sestercese a year, which sounds like a lot,

but it's just gold.

And the whole point of the tribute is to cement the relationship.

It isn't that Rome is giving something up.

...