EP 20 A Republic Lost at Sea

it's hardcore history so like most of you i have my historical pet peeves and one of them is when sort of the lightweight media program here or there i'll be listening and they will confuse the roman empire and the roman republic they mean the roman republic but they say the roman empire russia is the fall of the roman empire or whatever so you know that gets under my skin in a way that is totally out of proportion to the seriousness of the crime but you know like i said we all have our little things but as many of you know and we did an exhaustive long series on this um there was a republican period and then an empire and what's so fascinating in the history books is that hinge point during the transition when it becomes an empire out of a republic and this is traditional right i mean it's caesar it's shakespeare i mean you know everybody understands this is a very interesting spot here and our entire long series death rose of the republic was supposed to be a not very long show about this fabulously interesting person from the ancient world cleopatra and as is you know i have problems but uh one of those problems is the need to try to go back earlier in the story to set up you know the way things are by the time you get to the story and i can't ever find a logical beginning point because every time i get to something earlier that has a history of its own right that explains how that so you know we ended up covering centuries i believe and and barely got to cleopatra ended the story kind of at the hinge point area that is so fascinating the author i want to talk to today the historian barry strauss um he's a cornell university professor uh he is um an expert on this period and he just finished a book and it's a very military history book for people who like naval warfare um from this period which is if if you ever want to have your mind blown about what our ancestors were able to do in terms of achievements and and and well i mean in these naval battles there's like 600 ships right wooden ships big ships and you you the ...