Congratulations, Bray.

Welcome to The Life of Caesar, in theory, the life of Vespasian.

Ray's not with me today.

Honestly, I can't remember why.

But I have a guest better than Ray.

It's going to be far more entertaining than Ray. Coming to me from Washington, D.C., I believe. Is that right? You're in Washington, D.C. No, you're in Georgia. I am in Georgia. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Mark? Yeah, I'm in the Metro Atlanta area. Whereabouts in Georgia? In Atlanta. I've got it.

My father.

I was going to say, I've got a father-in-law, but I should say my father-in-law lives in Georgia.

So shout out to J.D.

He doesn't listen to the show.

Mark Hayden, let me just jump straight into it.

Mark Hayden, author of many history books, including a new one that sort of fits in our wheelhouse at the moment, on Emperor Titus, the right hand of Vespasian and son, son and right hand. But also books on Romulus, books on one of our

favorite characters, Gaius Marius, one on Marcus Furious Camillus, who I know nothing about,

so I should read that book and learn a little bit about Camillas. But welcome to the show, Mark.

I also, I guess the first question, I have two questions straight off the bat. One,

how often did you get called hide and go seek as a kid? And two, why write a book about Titus?

I'm always fascinated by guys like yourself who write books about these,

you know, characters that I think no one outside of us core history nerds cares about.

Is it just history nerds writing books for other history nerds to read about?

Well, you know, I may be chairman of the board of the history nerd,

so I'm probably in very good company here.

Well, I just have a longstanding interest in ancient Rome,

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