This is the Friends of History Debating Society. I'm John Batcheer with Germanicus, Michael Vlaius. I am Gaius.

We're in Londingham and we're going on to sacrifice to the God Augustus who never let us doubt.

We were not alive then, but he was a very good emperor. He invented

print heps. He invented the system where he's not emperor but he is emperor. His successors,

the Julian and

Claudian clan, now the Vespations, to be followed by Nerva who is brief,

to be followed by Trajan who is successful, to be followed by Trajan who is successful to be followed by

Hadrian who is successful except Hadrian toward the end of his time this is

the 40s 140 became paranoid in a recognizable fashion of a man who's surrounded by

lieutenants and friends has had a very successful career, but ages, and no longer trusts, and looks at the history of Rome

and emperors who die violently.

And when Hadrian came in, he made a promise to the Senate, I will never kill

consuls, I will never assassinate consuls. Well he started, he's on number

eight I think in the year 140 a.D. Now Hadron's fate is fixed and he'll be followed by good years,

the last of the good years. I'm looking at the 21st century and asking Germanicus. We've got two aged

candidates, both of whom have been president for one term. We've got an aged

president in Moscow just elected for his fifth term, meaning 30 years,

meaning he'll pass Stalin as leader of the Russian state when and if he lives out his term. These aged rulers, how can we tell

whether they move from healthy to unhealthy, from confident to paranoid? How can we tell Germanicus? We have

history to inform us and history is pretty good on providing us a very large, very rich data set that will show us in granular terms when the faculties of a great leader begin to fail.

And this gets to the entire issue of the leader

and the paradox and also the irony of being dependent on a leader and the paradox and also the irony of being dependent on a leader.

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