This is the Friends of History Debating Society. I'm Gaius. Germanicus is here. We have a cup of wine.

It's wintertime in Lunditium. The Thames is turbulent. So is the market crowd. There's news from Rome

that our unpopular emperor, demission, that's the Flavian dynasty, is even more unpopular than we remember.

News doesn't come through commonplaceably, but when we hear it, we worry about it.

We're far from Rome on purpose.

We're equist class.

We don't get involved with the Senate.

We can't afford it.

And we especially can't afford to attract attention.

But the Domitian reign might be closing in on the final years.

At the same time, we have opportunity to forget our troubles here in Lundinium

and look to the 21st century.

Rich, rich events these last days, tragic, the same time compelling,

because they make it very attractive for us to connect 21st century American Republic

to first century Roman Empire. We begin with the big theme, fire. Immediately when I heard and started

reporting on the fires of Los Angeles, I didn't think of Nero right away as compelling as much

as I thought of Crassus. Now, Crassus was a member of the Triumvirate. Caesar, Pompey the Great, and Krasis

had divided up the Republic among themselves and were happy to rule with some balance. And then

Krasis and his son went off on an expedition to the east and were circled, ambushed, and destroyed.

That very much set Pompey and Caesar on a crash course. We know that led to the Civil War, and that led to Augustus, our emperor, the man who founded the empire.

In the meantime, though, it's important to say Krasis was a member of the Triumvirate, not because

he was especially adept at the field, hence his defeat and murder by savages as a measure of how he wasn't a battler.

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