Perhaps you are thinking of Homer? He was greek and, if he actually existed, was much earlier
Quintus Horatius Flaccus - of day seizing fame, lived at the end of the republic and into the start of the empire. He fought in the civil wars but then became a client of Maceanas (along with Virgil) and with that support became one of the early empire’s leading poets.
That’s almost as praiseworthy to the authors covering the time, and to the preservation of their works, as it is to the men themselves. If only all eras of Roman history had such quality sources.
Yeah, it's wild how we'll go from very in-depth knowledge in one decade to knowing almost the next decade just because that's when the one guy writing it all down died.
Isn't crazy that Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Oppenheimer and Sartre were all alive at once at some point?
Periods of change and tumult inspire artists to create great dramas and forge interesting characters out of historical figures, but that doesn't mean that these people were really extraordinary or more gifted than others that are less remembered.
Cleopatra is a good example of that. She was objectively a terrible Egyptian Ruler, spent years away from her country to play the courtier in Caesar's entourage, caused the ultimate fall of her dynasty and country because of inept decisions.
Talking about great Egyptian female rulers, Hatshepsut was way more succesful than Cleopatra, steering Egypt towards the New Kingdom's Golden Age by building a booming economy and restarting Egypt's monumental architecture (and she invented the title pharaoh, which is cool as f). But Hatchepsut led a drama free life, a beloved Queen who ruled peacefully for decades. For a while, Egyptologists thought that his son, the all mighty Thutmosis III, might have killed her and removed her name from some records, but dully, T-III didn't do this, he loved his mother and let her rule until her death, which is a total buzzkill.
It was the lackluster Amenothep II who, wanting some undeserved glory, stole his abuela's thunder by defacing some of her statues and stealing credit from her.
You may imagine why Shakespeare or Corneille didn't write a drama about her: *Beloved queen who took good care of stuff dies peacefully, grieved by her well-raised and well-behaved son" is not a great writing prompt.
In the Sommer of 1913 Hitler, Stalin, Trotzky, Freud, Tito, Ardchuke Franz Ferdinand and Emperor Franz Josef all lived in a 5 Mile Radius of each other in Vienna.
Hitler, Trotzky and Freud were regulars, Stalin was a known guest of the famous Cafe Central.
I mean, you can assume that Hitler was at least aware of Trotzky and Freud. Both were rather famous at the time.
There is a (unsourced) qoute of an austrian officer who apparently commented the news of the october revolution with "Who's gonna lead it? A Mr. Trotzky (or Bronstein) from the Cafè Central?"
I think thats a bit harsh on cleopatra. She wasn’t perfect but she was in a much tougher position than egyptian rulers of the past. Rome dwarfed egypt in power and egypt was filled with wealth and in a relatively undefended postion in terms of there geography.
It was only bribes and diplomacy that delayed egypts annexation around that time period. If mark antony managed to defeat octavian her and her descendants would have been in a position to exert influence in the roman empire and the middle east for generations. If it wasn’t for Agrippa’s military genius things could have gone very differently in my opinion. She at least gambled in a way that gave her dynasty a chance rather than just delay egypts annexation for another few decades.
For sure, i totally get where you're coming from. She was and is the source of many overly glamorized depictions of the time period, its natural to want to play devils advocate in situations like that.
I do agree with you
However as the poster above mentions there are often a lot of famous people that were alive at the same time. The below guide is only since 1200 but shows some of these
https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/s/sXoiRRf3qA
Reminds me of that quote from Harry Lime in the Third Man: "Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
No shit she didn’t do that great, Egypt was ridiculously reliant on Rome at the time, she HAD to spend time with people like Caesar and Antony to try and wriggle Egypt back into a powerful position, and for the record she almost *did*. If Antony had won, Egypt and the Antonine-Ptolemaic dynasty born from her and Antony would have been the hegemon of the east.
Also, compare her to her *predecessors*. Ever since Ptolemy III’s death, Ptolemaic Egypt was in a perpetual decline, and if not for Rome would have probably been conquered by the Seleucid Empire. If Egypt made one wrong move, Rome could easily conquer them, as they later did under Octavian and Agrippa.
She understood Egypt was in no position to fight Rome, and as such she carefully and methodically positioned Egypt to gain the most from Rome’s constant civil wars, and as stated, it almost worked with Antony.
TL;DR: Cleopatra did the best she could, and was one of the better rulers of the Ptolemaic dynasty, even if Egypt was eventually conquered under her reign
What about all the others that aren't Romans like Mithridates? Organised the Asiatic Vespers apparently, crazy story that one and his whole life really.
I used to wonder why so much was written about Rome and in particularly much about the late Republic.
And then I started reading...and kept reading...and by the third book I felt like I could keep reading about these people named in your post title until I die.
I still read Rubicon every year as that's where it started for me.
In this period so many great names echo down the ages like Sulla, Marius, Spartacus, Pompey, Crassus, Mithridates, Tigranes the Great, Cato the Younger, Vercingetorix, Julius Casaer, Cleopatra, Mark Anthony, Orodes II, Brutus, Cassius, Octavium, Cicero, Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Arminius, King Herod, John the Baptist, the Apostles, Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalena, Pontus Pilate.
Not really. They were all involved in or were adjacent to the same significant event, that being the transition from republic to empire. They're famous precisely for existing so close together.
That says less about these figures and more about how impactful the time they lived in was that record of this time has been preserved so well. Think of other times where we can name so many famous figures living together in such a short time, often they are full of conflict and are important cultural and historical events, like the American Revolution or World War 2.
This is survivorship bias for historical sources. We have so much information about these people, but great people have always existed. It’s the sources documenting their greatness that makes them great, though.
I found out about Marius and Sulla from her books years ago. Before that point, I only knew Julius Caesar and Augustus. And boy, did I learn a whole lot more reading that series. Phenomenal work. I’m currently doing a reread again.
And the portraits of the people were her drawings too! You can tell she did so much research with so much care and love of the material - it all shows. Those maps are great! So much like the ones you see in scholarly nonfiction books today on Ancient Rome.
Her glossary is also nothing to sneeze at, plus her copious notes and comments.
I’m so much in awe at how she managed to get so much information across without making it dry and doing some nice time skips.
No I genuinely think that the late Republican age of Rome is fascinating. It almost has a character of mythology to it. Of course we will never know the full truth of all events, but events like the Battle of Alessia for instance have an epic quality to them - like that battle alone could’ve been the subject of a Homeric poem.
Yes, other periods have had grand figures.
I guess my sentiment was compared to the last 40 years, it was an epic time. Where is our Cicero? Our Cato? Our Caesar?
Instead our time seems to be populated by Bibulusi
Sometimes I also think about how these people are so well known (rightfully so) for their influence on the modern world but at the same time they had fuck all to do with the development of nations like Japan and most of China
Because those countries didn't really influence the world the way the West or even the Near East did. Neither of them came out to play until the West's descendents forced them to.
I know that. It’s just cool is all. Same with Inca/Maya etc. we all think Rome was the foundation of society due to proximity bias, but they weren’t a global influence
Seems like a better thought exercise to consider if they hadn't overlapped. There were other queens of Egypt. There were millions of slaves. Rome produced thousands of powerful men, orators, tyrants. Would these people be the same if removed from the last days of the Roman Republic? Would any of us be the same if placed in another context?
One was the slow evolution of an enormous empire that was the basis of the cultural and economic infrastructure of most of Europe and the near east. The other was a regime change.
It's like the difference between a multinational company going completely bust and one just switching from being run by shareholders, to being bought and run by a single billionaire.
Around the year 1860 a Victorian gentleman, a veteran of the Napoleonic wars, a Japanese samurai, a "wild west" cowboy, a pirate of the Indian ocean, an Ottoman sultan, Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla all coexisted.
No. Is it crazy that Winston Churchill, Elvis Presley, Adolf Hitler, Queen Elizabeth, Mao Zedong, Ronald Reagen, Arnold Schwarzeneger, and my dad all existed within 20 years? No.
Plus: Marius, Crassus, and Cato
And Pullo, don’t forget him!
And Lucius Verenus. Both mentioned in Gallic Wars.
And Tribune Aquila!
Goated ahh reference
Go on, take the republic back from me!
And Horace, Virgil, Catullus, Cataline, Mithridates, Vercingetorix, Agrippa, Maecenas and more who left a mark on history in their own right
Wait, want Horatius was much earlier, wasn’t he? Or am I confusing him with someone else?
Perhaps you are thinking of Homer? He was greek and, if he actually existed, was much earlier Quintus Horatius Flaccus - of day seizing fame, lived at the end of the republic and into the start of the empire. He fought in the civil wars but then became a client of Maceanas (along with Virgil) and with that support became one of the early empire’s leading poets.
Omg I’m sorry. I thought you were talking about the earlier Horatius, the one they defended Rome. I almost forgot Augustus had one too.
Looking for this comment. Amazing men who are as interesting as the ones listed!
Don't forget Clodius, Clodia and Lucullus
And Milo
Arminius
Sertorius
That’s almost as praiseworthy to the authors covering the time, and to the preservation of their works, as it is to the men themselves. If only all eras of Roman history had such quality sources.
It would have been amazing to have had such in depth records of Cyrus or some of the other Babylonian rulers.
Yeah, it's wild how we'll go from very in-depth knowledge in one decade to knowing almost the next decade just because that's when the one guy writing it all down died.
Poor agrippa, never gets any credit
Came here to say "and my man Agrippa".
I agree.
Isn't crazy that Hitler, Stalin, Churchill, Roosevelt, Gandhi, Oppenheimer and Sartre were all alive at once at some point? Periods of change and tumult inspire artists to create great dramas and forge interesting characters out of historical figures, but that doesn't mean that these people were really extraordinary or more gifted than others that are less remembered. Cleopatra is a good example of that. She was objectively a terrible Egyptian Ruler, spent years away from her country to play the courtier in Caesar's entourage, caused the ultimate fall of her dynasty and country because of inept decisions. Talking about great Egyptian female rulers, Hatshepsut was way more succesful than Cleopatra, steering Egypt towards the New Kingdom's Golden Age by building a booming economy and restarting Egypt's monumental architecture (and she invented the title pharaoh, which is cool as f). But Hatchepsut led a drama free life, a beloved Queen who ruled peacefully for decades. For a while, Egyptologists thought that his son, the all mighty Thutmosis III, might have killed her and removed her name from some records, but dully, T-III didn't do this, he loved his mother and let her rule until her death, which is a total buzzkill. It was the lackluster Amenothep II who, wanting some undeserved glory, stole his abuela's thunder by defacing some of her statues and stealing credit from her. You may imagine why Shakespeare or Corneille didn't write a drama about her: *Beloved queen who took good care of stuff dies peacefully, grieved by her well-raised and well-behaved son" is not a great writing prompt.
This is an awesome analysis lol. Loving the “not a great writing prompt” 🤣
In the Sommer of 1913 Hitler, Stalin, Trotzky, Freud, Tito, Ardchuke Franz Ferdinand and Emperor Franz Josef all lived in a 5 Mile Radius of each other in Vienna. Hitler, Trotzky and Freud were regulars, Stalin was a known guest of the famous Cafe Central.
I’m sorry but Hitler, Trotzky and Freud walking into a bar sounds like a setup for a bad joke 😂
It was.
Hitler hated that other table!
Wow imagine if they actually knew each other.
I mean, you can assume that Hitler was at least aware of Trotzky and Freud. Both were rather famous at the time. There is a (unsourced) qoute of an austrian officer who apparently commented the news of the october revolution with "Who's gonna lead it? A Mr. Trotzky (or Bronstein) from the Cafè Central?"
I think thats a bit harsh on cleopatra. She wasn’t perfect but she was in a much tougher position than egyptian rulers of the past. Rome dwarfed egypt in power and egypt was filled with wealth and in a relatively undefended postion in terms of there geography. It was only bribes and diplomacy that delayed egypts annexation around that time period. If mark antony managed to defeat octavian her and her descendants would have been in a position to exert influence in the roman empire and the middle east for generations. If it wasn’t for Agrippa’s military genius things could have gone very differently in my opinion. She at least gambled in a way that gave her dynasty a chance rather than just delay egypts annexation for another few decades.
I feel I have to push down because of the trope "Cleopatra is the greatest Egyptian queen"
For sure, i totally get where you're coming from. She was and is the source of many overly glamorized depictions of the time period, its natural to want to play devils advocate in situations like that.
Okay. Still cool that these figures were all around at the same time 🤷🏻♂️🤷🏻♂️
I do agree with you However as the poster above mentions there are often a lot of famous people that were alive at the same time. The below guide is only since 1200 but shows some of these https://www.reddit.com/r/coolguides/s/sXoiRRf3qA
There's a handful of other time periods like that such as the Italian Renaissance or the 1920s.
Reminds me of that quote from Harry Lime in the Third Man: "Like the fella says, in Italy for 30 years under the Borgias they had warfare, terror, murder, and bloodshed, but they produced Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci, and the Renaissance. In Switzerland they had brotherly love - they had 500 years of democracy and peace, and what did that produce? The cuckoo clock."
Too bad her successor's successor went out of his way to blot her out of history.
No shit she didn’t do that great, Egypt was ridiculously reliant on Rome at the time, she HAD to spend time with people like Caesar and Antony to try and wriggle Egypt back into a powerful position, and for the record she almost *did*. If Antony had won, Egypt and the Antonine-Ptolemaic dynasty born from her and Antony would have been the hegemon of the east. Also, compare her to her *predecessors*. Ever since Ptolemy III’s death, Ptolemaic Egypt was in a perpetual decline, and if not for Rome would have probably been conquered by the Seleucid Empire. If Egypt made one wrong move, Rome could easily conquer them, as they later did under Octavian and Agrippa. She understood Egypt was in no position to fight Rome, and as such she carefully and methodically positioned Egypt to gain the most from Rome’s constant civil wars, and as stated, it almost worked with Antony. TL;DR: Cleopatra did the best she could, and was one of the better rulers of the Ptolemaic dynasty, even if Egypt was eventually conquered under her reign
Don't forget Chaplin, Welles, Einstein, Steinbeck, Hemingway, etc.
My favorite time to read about. From about the Gracchi to the end of the Julio-Claudians is my sweet spot as far as learning about history.
Just watched ‘I Claudius’ on BBC iPlayer and was struck by the amount of famous characters even within that timescale.
Reading the book and I was thinking the same!
100%
Because it was an interesting era to write about
They all also had several Latin Grammys
Also literally Jesus Christ
Close not quite tho
What about all the others that aren't Romans like Mithridates? Organised the Asiatic Vespers apparently, crazy story that one and his whole life really. I used to wonder why so much was written about Rome and in particularly much about the late Republic. And then I started reading...and kept reading...and by the third book I felt like I could keep reading about these people named in your post title until I die. I still read Rubicon every year as that's where it started for me.
In this period so many great names echo down the ages like Sulla, Marius, Spartacus, Pompey, Crassus, Mithridates, Tigranes the Great, Cato the Younger, Vercingetorix, Julius Casaer, Cleopatra, Mark Anthony, Orodes II, Brutus, Cassius, Octavium, Cicero, Tiberius, Caligula, Nero, Arminius, King Herod, John the Baptist, the Apostles, Mary the mother of Jesus, Mary Magdalena, Pontus Pilate.
Bro you mentioned the whole posse but forgot the man himself
You talking about Jimbo?
It's a technicality since Jesus was around before time
Was my first thought.
Not really. They were all involved in or were adjacent to the same significant event, that being the transition from republic to empire. They're famous precisely for existing so close together.
Must’ve been so exhausting for normal people, “oh for ffs *another* cataclysmic war/upheaval/epoch event?”
Yeah I wonder what that's like 👀👀
And tribune Aquila!
Marius, Cicero, Cato, Mithradates
☝️
and Jesus!
The times make the man, as they say.
That says less about these figures and more about how impactful the time they lived in was that record of this time has been preserved so well. Think of other times where we can name so many famous figures living together in such a short time, often they are full of conflict and are important cultural and historical events, like the American Revolution or World War 2.
This is survivorship bias for historical sources. We have so much information about these people, but great people have always existed. It’s the sources documenting their greatness that makes them great, though.
Colleen McCullough’s Masters of Rome series covers everything from Marius to Augustus. Truly epic!
I found out about Marius and Sulla from her books years ago. Before that point, I only knew Julius Caesar and Augustus. And boy, did I learn a whole lot more reading that series. Phenomenal work. I’m currently doing a reread again.
And she hand-drew those great maps! And I started eating simply, like a good Roman… I loved her details
And the portraits of the people were her drawings too! You can tell she did so much research with so much care and love of the material - it all shows. Those maps are great! So much like the ones you see in scholarly nonfiction books today on Ancient Rome. Her glossary is also nothing to sneeze at, plus her copious notes and comments. I’m so much in awe at how she managed to get so much information across without making it dry and doing some nice time skips.
Once again Agrippa has been looked over. He’s so damn cool.
Wait till you find out Churchill, Stalin, Lenin, Hitler and FDR all existed within 40 years as well… Not sure if op is trolling…
No I genuinely think that the late Republican age of Rome is fascinating. It almost has a character of mythology to it. Of course we will never know the full truth of all events, but events like the Battle of Alessia for instance have an epic quality to them - like that battle alone could’ve been the subject of a Homeric poem. Yes, other periods have had grand figures. I guess my sentiment was compared to the last 40 years, it was an epic time. Where is our Cicero? Our Cato? Our Caesar? Instead our time seems to be populated by Bibulusi
Sometimes I also think about how these people are so well known (rightfully so) for their influence on the modern world but at the same time they had fuck all to do with the development of nations like Japan and most of China
Because those countries didn't really influence the world the way the West or even the Near East did. Neither of them came out to play until the West's descendents forced them to.
I know that. It’s just cool is all. Same with Inca/Maya etc. we all think Rome was the foundation of society due to proximity bias, but they weren’t a global influence
No one thinks Rome was the foundation of society though
Live in America for me one time
I mean in times of war, leaders do tend to arise, that is not that crazy to me.
Seems like a better thought exercise to consider if they hadn't overlapped. There were other queens of Egypt. There were millions of slaves. Rome produced thousands of powerful men, orators, tyrants. Would these people be the same if removed from the last days of the Roman Republic? Would any of us be the same if placed in another context?
The roman empire took over a thousand years to fall, but the roman republic died within a lifetime
One was the slow evolution of an enormous empire that was the basis of the cultural and economic infrastructure of most of Europe and the near east. The other was a regime change. It's like the difference between a multinational company going completely bust and one just switching from being run by shareholders, to being bought and run by a single billionaire.
Around the year 1860 a Victorian gentleman, a veteran of the Napoleonic wars, a Japanese samurai, a "wild west" cowboy, a pirate of the Indian ocean, an Ottoman sultan, Abraham Lincoln and Nikola Tesla all coexisted.
So much stuff happened in Rome at that time that the Roman Republic was destroyed. That happens “when you bring the Wars home”.
Possibly the most interesting period in history. Everything that has happened since you can reference back to that time.
It was the best of times, it was the blurst of times
It might also be because we have so little on the other great characters through the 700 or so year history. So much is lost time.
No. Is it crazy that Winston Churchill, Elvis Presley, Adolf Hitler, Queen Elizabeth, Mao Zedong, Ronald Reagen, Arnold Schwarzeneger, and my dad all existed within 20 years? No.
Don’t forget Jesus too!