Lore of the Founding- Julius Caesar

Lore of the Founding- Julius Caesar

A republic can look stable right up until the moment it isn’t. We sit down with Joanna Kenti to trace how Julius Caesar rises through Roman politics, builds personal loyalty through war, and finally dares the republic to stop him. Along the way, we unpack the real-world pressures behind the legend: dispossessed farmers, bitter factional conflict, escalating political violence, and the way “temporary” exceptions to the rules start to feel normal. We walk through the First Triumvirate, the Gallic Wars, and why Caesar’s own storytelling mattered almost as much as his battlefield success. Then comes the hinge of history: the Rubicon boundary, the civil war with Pompey, and the eerie tension of Caesar’s pardons, his expanding authority, and the public fear of a crown. The Ides of March lands not as a neat ending, but as proof that killing one man doesn’t automatically restore a broken constitutional order. Finally, we connect Rome directly to the US founding. Hamilton reads Caesar as the demagogue who weaponizes “zeal for the rights of the people,” while Anti Federalists writing as Brutus and Cato fear a presidency that attracts ambitious schemers and turns elections into a formality. If you’ve ever wondered why executive power, checks and balances, the Bill of Rights, and even phrases like “Sik Semper Tyrannis” carry such weight in American political culture, this story is a big part of the reason. Subscribe for the next chapter of the series, share this with a friend who loves history and politics, and leave a review. What do you think is the bigger threat to a republic: unchecked ambition or everyone else looking away? Check Out the Civic Literacy Curriculum [https://civics.asu.edu/civic-literacy-curriculum]! School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership [https://scetl.asu.edu/] Center for American Civics [https://civics.asu.edu/]

Lore of the Founding- Founding of the Roman Republic

A king gets exiled, a republic gets born, and the story is so brutal it still shapes how people talk about tyranny today. We dig into Rome’s founding legend with Joanna Kenty, starting with the Roman monarchy, the reign of Tarquin the Proud, and the moment one crime becomes the final straw that makes Romans swear off kings forever. It’s not clean hero worship. It’s a reminder that unchecked power can turn private violence into a public crisis, and that “freedom” sometimes begins as a vow made in anger and grief.  From there, we follow the thread straight into the American founding. You’ll hear why Thomas Paine insists “the law ought to be king,” how the Declaration of Independence frames King George III as a tyrant through a “long train of abuses,” and why revolution is presented as a last resort rather than a casual choice. If you’ve ever wondered why early American political writing sounds so obsessed with monarchy, Rome is a big part of the answer.  We also break down what the Roman Republic actually looks like: res publica as the commonwealth, a powerful senate, elected magistrates, two consuls with short terms, and a voting system shaped by wealth and class. That opens up the real debate behind “republic vs democracy,” why many founders distrust direct democracy, and why “an empire of laws and not of men” becomes the ideal. If you like civics, history, and the origins of checks and balances, hit subscribe, share this with a friend, and leave a review with your biggest question about Rome’s influence on the United States. Check Out the Civic Literacy Curriculum [https://civics.asu.edu/civic-literacy-curriculum]! School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership [https://scetl.asu.edu/] Center for American Civics [https://civics.asu.edu/]

The Lore of the Founding: Checks And Balances in Rome

A republic doesn’t fail only because of enemies at the gates. It can fail because someone inside decides the rules are for other people. That’s the tension we wrestle with as we explore checks and balances, starting with the Federalist 51 idea that still cuts through every civics debate: human beings are not angels, so a government must be designed to control itself. We tell two Roman Republic stories that make the stakes feel real. Coriolanus shows what happens when pride, class conflict, and wounded ego turn public office into a personal grudge match. Cincinnatus shows the opposite: a leader granted near-kingly emergency power who uses it quickly, then gives it back without being forced. That legend becomes a major American reference point, especially in the way people compare Cincinnatus to George Washington stepping away after war and after the presidency. Then we zoom out with Polybius, the historian who argues that Rome survives Hannibal and Carthage because its mixed constitution ties monarchy-like leadership, aristocratic deliberation, and democratic accountability together so no single part can run wild for long. We also take on the fear behind the theory: anacyclosis, the cycle that can drag aristocracy into oligarchy and democracy into mob rule. From there, we connect Rome’s model to the US separation of powers, the bicameral legislature, the original design of the Senate, the 17th Amendment, and the founders’ ongoing argument about natural aristocracy versus artificial aristocracy. If you’ve ever wondered whether power can truly be balanced or only managed through constant adjustment, this conversation gives you a clearer vocabulary and better stories to think with. Subscribe for more, share this with a friend who loves history and civics, and leave a review with your answer: what check matters most when ambition starts to spike? Check Out the Civic Literacy Curriculum [https://civics.asu.edu/civic-literacy-curriculum]! School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership [https://scetl.asu.edu/] Center for American Civics [https://civics.asu.edu/]

What is Juneteenth and Why Do We Celebrate?

Juneteenth isn’t just a date; it’s a lesson about how freedom can be promised on paper and still withheld in practice. I’m joined by Clint Smith, the New York Times bestselling author of *How the Word Is Passed* and a staff writer at The Atlantic, to trace why so many Americans grew up barely hearing about Juneteenth and what changes when we finally tell the story plainly. We walk through the history that made Juneteenth necessary: the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863, the end of the Civil War in 1865, and the reality that enslaved people in Texas often did not learn they were free until Union troops arrived in Galveston on June 19, 1865. Clint explains how this wasn’t simply a communication delay. In many cases, freedom was deliberately kept quiet so enslavers could keep extracting labor, a detail that reshapes how we think about emancipation, historical memory, and the ongoing fight to teach accurate Black history. From there, we dig into “reflective patriotism” and Clint’s idea of America as “both and” a country capable of remarkable opportunity and profound injustice. Juneteenth holds that tension: celebration for liberation and mourning for the lives consumed by slavery and by delayed freedom. We also talk about what it looks like to commemorate Juneteenth beyond a single day, how to resist turning it into a product, and where to start learning, including Annette Gordon-Reed’s work and accessible resources like Crash Course Black American History. [https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8dPuuaLjXtNYJO8JWpXO2JP0ezgxsrJJ] If you care about civic education, American history, and the power of honest storytelling, listen through and share this conversation with someone you want to learn alongside. Subscribe, leave a review, and tell us: what should Juneteenth ask of all of us today? Check Out the Civic Literacy Curriculum [https://civics.asu.edu/civic-literacy-curriculum]! School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership [https://scetl.asu.edu/] Center for American Civics [https://civics.asu.edu/]

Lore of the Founding- An Introduction

America’s founding didn’t spring from a blank page. It grew out of a loud, messy argument that had been running for centuries about how people should govern themselves, and Joanna Kenty helps us follow that argument back to its classical roots. We talk with Joanna, a former classics professor and civic education writer, about what “classical history” actually means beyond “great books.” She maps the Greek and Latin-speaking Mediterranean world, the timelines most people mean when they say “the classics,” and why certain authors like Plato, Sophocles, Cicero, and Virgil still feel provocative thousands of years later. From there, we zoom in on 18th-century America, where Latin study and Greco-Roman references were common, visible in mottos, coins, and a culture that constantly borrowed symbols like Liberty and Columbia to explain what the new republic hoped to become. Then we dig into the founders’ political education: why Athens mattered as an early democracy, why it also terrified later thinkers, and why the Roman Republic often became the more practical model for stability, offices, and restraint. Joanna also explains the historical accident that shaped the curriculum for generations: the West kept Latin while Greek became harder to access until the Renaissance. Along the way, we point teachers and curious readers to foundational sources, including John Adams’s love of Cicero, and we connect ideas to physical space through Jefferson’s neoclassical architecture at Monticello and the University of Virginia. If you care about the US Constitution, civic education, the Federalist Papers, or why Washington, DC looks the way it does, this conversation gives you a clearer origin story. Subscribe for the rest of the series, share this with a history-loving friend, and leave a review with your take: which ancient lesson feels most urgent right now? Subscribe to the Renovator. [https://therenovator.substack.com/] Check Out the Civic Literacy Curriculum [https://civics.asu.edu/civic-literacy-curriculum]! School of Civic and Economic Thought and Leadership [https://scetl.asu.edu/] Center for American Civics [https://civics.asu.edu/]