Thirty some odd years ago I bought the entire fifteen or so volumes of Will and Ariel Durant's "The History of Civilization" at a steep discount from a bookstore going out of business. It has been bedtime reading all that time. I've read it all through about four times. Sometimes I read the same boring paragraph for days as it puts me right to sleep. At other times it is so enthralling I read for hours. These books are one of the best purchases I ever made. Will Durant sometimes gets debunked by other historians, but what he lacks in depth (the debunker's claim, not mine), he makes up for in readability and enjoyment. This is the way history should be taught in schools. Everything is connected. Thanks for presenting this for us to enjoy.

Listening to this, I got to learn just how much the Roman empire contributed to the world. Just how much this one man changed the course of history. This is absolutely amazing. Thanks to Will Durant, the reader and the channel.

Hail Ceaser indeed. I love this man. We should have someone like this as a leader today. He was a compliated man.

thank you so much for posting these treasures, so beautifully written, so beautifully read.

Oh hail Caesar I love this man . I wish we had more ppl like him. I would love to chat with this man

"The greatest man that ever lived was Julius Caesar"--Alexander Hamilton.

I found three volumes of Durant’s book at used book story, each for two dollars, what a day!

Wow the Durants proved over and over what a bonafide English prose can achieve! Variation and contour without falling short of absolute clarity. It retains the explicit specificity of the Germanic languages and still it's not without foundational lyric qualities. Thrilling to hear

**Rocky C**. this is excellent. This is the true purpose of KZfaq, education. Thank you for leading me to a better understanding of Julius Caesar the progenitor of the modern world.

Thank you for posting this content. I own a company that demands that I am out I. The field all day long or driving in a car- when I get home, I’m dead tired and have work to do around the house and want to hang out with my family. The fact that I can listen to objective, historical commentary means more than you know. I’ve always lived history and it’s a true miracle I get to live a life with headphones in, learning about the things I actually care about. Appreciate it 👌🏻

I would love to have met this man . Hell of a man . Hail caesar indeed

This is awesome

Caeser and Napoleon - fueled by ambition to impossible hights, and burned by it. After conquering the Gauls, after massacring the Germans, after laying a administrative structure that will uphold the Empire for centuries to come, Caeser is rumored to still having laid awake in his bed, dreaming of connecting the Roman realm from Gaul to Greece, removing marshes so Rome is not plagued by disease, conquering Persia, conquering the world. One man! He wanted it all and had to be killed lest his ambition burn the world.

The telling of the crossing of the Rubicon gave me a chill.

Totally brilliant thank you up loader

the Durant's did such amazing work, thanks for posting

Thanks for posting ❤👏😘

How am I just realizing this 1st wander of the spoken word world.

This is gold

New ones ! Great!

First Class readings of these important history accountings

We are so indebted to the Durants

Thanks! I love all of these.

*This* is fascinating.

Fantastic commentary, thank you

I will never understand why the section on Alexander the great is only 10 minutes long, Will gave ceaser and Napoleon their due with hour long videos, how much more the hero they modeled themselves after?

I find it crazy that Cleopatra could have been blonde... And that Greeks were at one point described as fair skinned and blonde in hair. Now Greeks are olive complexion and black hair. It's interesting how demographics change over time.

“His tutor in Latin and rhetoric was a gaul” as someone who grew up with Astérix this blew my mind 😂😂😂

III Morals and Politics 17:54 IV The conquest of Gaul 25:20 V Degradation of democracy 38:20

Were people living in this time counting down to zero to keep track of years or is this something we came up with later, always seemed strange yo me where they would decide to start counting down from, thanks for these audio treasures

Excellent 👍

Caesar the altruist merciful. What a bad-ass . He was compassionate to a fault and seemingly the only Roman with integrity and honor. Name one other leader who conducted himself like this? I can not...

Great work from both, Durant and Rocky C

Dauphin River First Nation Canada 🇨🇦

he really tried for peace. He really tried.

25 million just to have nothing. I'm still chuckling over that.

This is very interesting.

Even then the bankers and money lenders poisoned politics and men.

That was intense

Can’t say which is better the author or the narrator.

Awesome Possum!

I told somebody that Ceaser had a Clement disposition that person did not believe me,he contradicted me and said Ceaser had self interest.

Grover Gardner is a good reader!

1:26:00 Caesar an agnostic? He’s the f*king Pontifex Maximus

Caesar is often said to have ended the Roman Republic but I think that's just one of many misunderstandings. First of all, Caesar never wanted to end the republic. Second, he didn't dissolve the senate. Third, he rejected the dictator for life position. And above all, the republic was a bloated corrupt oligarchy barely worthy of being saved. Similar to that of the national socialists in Germany and the dying Weimar republic. Caesar made every attempt at peace, the status quo refused and forced his hand. It's really disgusting that all the people Caesar personally forgave ended up scheming the moment his back was turned. They'd be the ones to kill him. He made it clear every chance he got that he wasn't trying to seize power. He just wanted that God damned land bill to pass and to finally fix the calendar. His conquest of gaul is another story.... But that wasn't uncommon for the time period.

he may have been from divinity and believed himself to be godlike but the assassins thought otherwise

A gracious man of clemency who performed genocide for a special reason. Morals and ethics aside - this was a great man.

Reading John Maddox ' SPQR,novels and he's done his homework..

Only if we had someone like him in the west today works would be a much better place

18:42 you can't make this stuff up

Jim Rohn??

Tibi gratia

Hey Mona Lisa come home, you know you can’t roam without Caesar.

Will Durant is firmly of the 'great men' school of History and they don't get much greater than Julius Caesar yet half of this if not more is the equivalent of Kirk Douglas portraying Spartacus in a Hollywood film. In other words Durant has created a heroic character based on the odds and ends of contemporary commentary, histories written after the fact and of course Caesar's own Conquest of Gaul and Civil War accounts which cannot be anything other than self-glorification. The picture he paints is compelling but it cannot be a true portrait and doesn't even try to be.... it sweeps along heroically as if Caesar were a marvel comic superhero. It is brilliant but probably as near myth as History...

41:00 History is repeating itself.

1:30:54

Shakespeare takes a more neutral view of Caesar in his great play. In the 19th century he's always portrayed as this very great man, which he was. But was he a good man? That is highly questionable. Being 'good' was likely not something that entered his mind often. He wanted power, control, and achieving his potential and destiny. He also experienced the dictatorship of Sulla and knew what unbridled power was like, as well as civil war and chaos.

A great militarny chief a politician but a war criminal too

Caesar may have been buggered by a king and perhaps Caesar would have taken it as a compliment? And it may not have been a matter of abject submission. The Christian writers make fun of the way ancient religion portrayed the sexual antics of the Gods but those later writers were actually much further from natural instincts than their ancestors. The later writers were wiser, or at least more settled and even urbanized, and knew the natural instincts weren't to be trusted too much. Civilization requires one tame oneself, or be tamed by it. It is always much better to tame oneself. I have read that Christianity really wanted to suppress most sexual instincts because it knew they were the most difficult psychological forces to control and caused so much conflict in a civilized world. The psychological theories of Carl Jung are really of help trying to understand ancient people.

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31:03

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America follows thus.

Rather then asking how reliable are the historic records that have came down to us as to what the truth is about history and it's impact on our lives today , I rather ask how Reliable is Academia to be teaching us anything about anything including history. As the student in their ancient College at Athens , when Aristotle was walking , across the court yard and urinating as he walked , the student asked , if we are to urinate while we walk , then are we to Defecate while we run ? It goes deeper , what is the political reason for a curriculum and which ancient text is to be used ? I think you will find once a confidence is broken trust is not easily given..

volume changes too much for me to listen to

I love Durant, but he’s much better read than listened to?

Caesarian not possible: the mother survived.

Humanity is held up by a very few like this. If it wasn't because of ppl like this I would have no sympathy for humanity

Looks the double of Putin.

The time just before Caesar declared himself emperor sound like America today.

They - Romans - may not have been as spiritual yet - not as joyful as the jester, not as fiery as the knight, not as sealed from disorder as the monk. Romans' empire was unimaginably more secure, as dignity's power in and of itself, as a right, as sense, but it wasn't just "common" sense. People who were better in any way could do anything, and to any free extent poured all true expressions materially upon the face of the earth, not dedicated methodologically to the whooooooole common purpose, economically, sometimes with only 2 weeks off per year to think about using their own time any other way, leading to anything in and of itself good to be. While the fear of honor and glory in their lives (hearts, minds) remained an extreme right by birth or royalty, to seek and retire, and judge - others, not seethe like minions as an eternal returning risk, an obsession, wiry in any mind itself, and health was safe in the solid defenses from "sin", that unforgivable impurity of uncaring, not careless or carefree, ambitions disorder, no man yet had set free those so locked. Will we forever return, to Who Is? Or will we bicker, in every pared down form, methodical, artistic, or otherwise, with burning paper wings until that Spirit of Love in the forest forever plays and serves the un...able human his! true price, tied forever in something quite more than plain rationality in his interests until then. But Romans don't play with nature. Or much of anything that equally beautiful as intriguing itself. The crushing burning worth of existence as insufferable as hell is as real as certain to not be seen, in any reversal of will-power and forsaken strengths. The whole world was just beyond checkmated alternatively - and unthinkably - it isn't a game - in the most miserable expansion.

Suriyan Metaphysics Suvadi doing

"Keyus Julius"? Somebody doesn't know how to pronounce "Caius."

P

To everyone...in the time of Caesar and before, the world was a brutal place to live. There was nobody to enforce the law...if u were lucky enough to live in a society with laws...the universal rule in war was the defeated were usually slaughtered and the women and children were sold into slavery...one of the reasons the Romans were so successful besides their military, was because. they gave their enemies a chance to adapt their system of law and government...most of the time it was better than the system that they were living under....yes they became second class citizens, but it is better than dying...say what u will about roman politics but it was ingenious...yes it could be brutal but it was far better than most of the so called civilized world. Caesar was part of that roman genious...yes Caesar was a complicated human being...and like other human beings he had many faults..it seems to me with Caesar it is a love and hate relationship with the modern world...i would have to say that not only was Caesar the greatest man of action that ever lived...he also had a great mind and knew about many things..mostly i hear about the terrible things he did....but he also did so many great things....I've read my share of books on Caesar and the people loved and adored him..it was the old aristocratic senators that didn't like him.....thats why when they asassinated him the people turned against the them and another civil war broke out....so in the end Caesar had to be doing something right...i don't believe that Caesar would have approved of the end of the republic or that he wanted to be king...i think Ceasar just wanted to be in charge like Sulla..After Sulla's death the republic went back to being the republic..Caesar had better ideals for rome and its expansion to a world power.

He was most certainly not one of Carlyle's great men.

Where does Will Durant get all of this info? I think half of it to be gossip... the other half are half-truth's wrapped in heroism.

What if juilis Cesar was Jesus 😮

What happened to men?! 😥 They used to forge empires. Now they need Jordan Peterson to tell them to clean up their rooms as they retreat into video games and marvel movies. Traditional gender roles are under attack 😢

He would not have survived today with all that debt . He was lucky he was born so long ego

nigga look sad af

ROCKY.............SHUT UP & I'LL READ MY BOOK,,,,THIIS IS A VISUAL MEDIA, NOT STRICKLY "AUDIO

I have always liked Caesar, he is definitely my favorite mass murderer. (Caesar murdered/caused to starve an est.500k and enslaved another 500k Frenchmen in the 10yrs he gorged himself like a Wolf on the blood of the Gauls) In his defense; Caesar tried to reestablish the gentleman farmer in Italy/Sicily by breaking up the *"Lotofutiums"* (larg factory slave farms) thereby lessening the swelling slave populations, 40% of Italy's population was legally a slave (50 B.C.). Slave state status was a legacy of the Punic Wars, where by Italy/Roman Republic became a Slave-State;

Dauphin River First Nation Canada 🇨🇦

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