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Transcript

The Cleopatra Campaign

Londinium Chronicles with Michael Vlahos

Comedy is the highest form of drama. It requires you to accept the fact that people are weak and enjoy themselves. The tragic error of a hero can also be the joy—the irony of the hero. Right now we have two heroes: Cleopatra leading one team and a man with orange hair leading the other.

Nero was a great actor, according to Nero. He won all the prizes at the Olympics in Greece, and he committed suicide very poorly. He finally had his servant help him because he thought he was going to be tortured to death by the Senate. There was no evidence that was going to happen, but he was.

He was he haunted by the fact that he'd murdered his own mother very badly. He first built a ship that was supposed to fall apart at sea. So she drowned. She swam to shore, and then he sent poison, once, twice, three times—finally, he killed her. So he had reason to have doubts about how he would be treated by the Senate.

He was a great actor and he loved to sing and strut around the stage. And he saw himself as burdened by being the emperor. Now, that isn't Trump, but it's the closest I can come in the Julio-Claudian reign.

The Cleopatra figure is satisfied with waving to the crowd that may or may not be there. The Nero character is satisfied by doing all the talking. And it's not that the American people can't choose between them. But what do they get at the end of this? Is this something that happened to the Roman Empire in the third century?

Watch the full discussion above, or listen to an audio version below:

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LINKS:

CBS Eye on the World with John Batchelor on YouTube

The John Batchelor Show on Apple Podcasts:

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