Julius Caesar

Torture-free deadline for Copy Riddles is near

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Perhaps you don’t care that the deadline to sign up for Copy Riddles is approaching in a few hours. Such is the society we live in.

But it wasn’t always so. For example, Julius Caesar once wrote about a curious urgency tactic used by his enemies, the Gauls:

“By Gallic intertribal law all adult males are obligated to attend the muster under arms; and the last to come is tortured to death in sight of the host.”

Ah the good old days… when a deadline really meant something.

But again, we live in a modern and a civilized society. So the only torture I can inflict upon you is to say:

Come 12 midnight PST tonight (Sunday), I will close the doors to Copy Riddles.

And no amount of pleading about how your car was in the shop, or how the kids were sleeping, or how you only had cash on hand (all excuses I’ve gotten before) will make me crack those doors open a single inch.

​​Not until some uncertain future date, at least a few months down the line, when or if I decide to reopen Copy Riddles.

Again, perhaps you don’t care. But if you do, there’s still a bit of time. Here’s the link:

https://copyriddles.com/

How to turn failure into prestige

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In the year 52 BC, the Roman army, led by Julius Caesar, secretly advanced their massive siege towers towards the Gallic walled city of Avaricum.

The sentries on the walls were hiding from heavy rain.

Caesar took advantage of the situation, and he took the walls without much fight.

The remaining Gallic soldiers grouped themselves in the middle of town. They were set on a desperate fight to the end.

But the Romans just stayed on the walls, watching the Gauls from above.

Gradually, panic took the defenders. They started running out the city for dear life.

They didn’t get far.

The Romans massacred them along with everyone else in the city, women and children included.

Out of 40,000 Gauls inside Avaricum, only 800 survived.

The leader of the Gauls, Vercingetorix, was stationed outside the city with his army. He had been tasked with fighting Caesar in the open and keeping the city of Avaricum safe.

Vercingetorix had failed spectacularly. The fact that he had vocally opposed the idea of making a stand at Avaricum didn’t help, either.

As the few remaining survivors from the city dragged themselves into Vercingetorix’s camp… there was a real chance that the soldiers’ sympathy with the survivors and general anger at Vercingetorix would cause a riot.

But let’s pause for a second with the massacring and rioting.

Take a moment. And ask yourself, what might you do if you were in Vercingetorix’s sandals?

It’s not just an idle hypothetical.

Say you have an online presence today and you hope to position yourself as a leader in your field. There’s a good chance that sooner or later… you will be involved in some kind of scandal, failure, or controversy, whether deserved or not.

When that happens, discontent might bubble up among those who normally follow and support you. It might even break into a riot that lands your metaphorical head on a metaphorical plate.

So what can you do? Let me tell you what Vercingetorix did:

He called a council of war. He spoke to his troops and asked his army to not be disheartened by the loss.

The Romans didn’t beat them through superior courage in a fair fight. Instead, the Romans did it through trickery and their knowledge of siege warfare.

But Vercingetorix would soon repair this setback. He would lead his people to greater successes.

He was well on the way to uniting all the Gaul tribes against the Romans. And when Gaul was united, the whole world could not stand against her. In the meantime, it was time to get to work fortifying the camps.

Maybe it’s not clear from this what Vercingetorix’s real message was. So here’s an explanation, in Caesar’s own words:

“This speech made a good impression on the Gauls. What pleased them most was that, despite a signal disaster, Vercingetorix had not lost heart or concealed himself or shrunk from facing the multitude. And so while a reverse weakens the authority of commanders in general, his prestige, on the contrary, in consequence of the disaster, waxed daily greater.”

So here’s my takeaway for you, if you are a leader or you hope to be one some day:

The crowd mind hasn’t changed any in the past two millennia.

Today as then, when you face a crisis or setback, the crowd will tear you apart — as soon as you back down, apologize, or show weakness or fear.

The good news is, it’s easy to show no weakness or fear when you have a computer screen to protect you. And when your angry army is armed not with sharp swords… but with dull Twitter accounts.

Keep this in mind, and when disaster hits, you will see it’s really an opportunity. Not just to survive. But to get the crowd to love you even more.

Ok, so much for the history and leadership lesson. If you want more like this, you might like my daily email newsletter. You can give it a try here.

Caesar’s gruesome message that only few will want to hear

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In 75 BC, a group of pirates in the Aegean sea captured a 25-year-old Roman noble named Julius Caesar.

Caesar was neither scared nor impressed. When the pirates demanded 20 talents of silver for his release, Caesar put his hands on his hips and spat on the ground.

“Morons!” he said. “Don’t you know who you’re dealing with? Ask for at least 50 talents!”

The pirates should have taken heed at this point. Instead, they got greedy. They took up the 50 talent offer.

Caesar’s men left for a few weeks to collect the silver.

Meanwhile, Caesar settled in among the pirates. Not really as their captive. More as their demanding, moody leader.

He gambled with the pirates. He shushed them when he wanted to take a nap. He read his poetry to them and mocked them as illiterates when they weren’t adequately impressed.

Oh, and every so often, he also threatened to crucify them.

“Tee-hee,” sniggered his new pirate friends. “Sure, JC. You will ‘crucify’ us!”

After 38 days, the ransom arrived. 50 talents of silver, as promised.

The pirates released Caesar. Bad move.

The newly free Caesar went to the next island over, a place where he had no authority or influence. And he raised a small army.

He sailed after the pirates. He captured them. And as he said he would, he had them crucified. For leniency, he first had their throats cut.

When I was a kid — I guess like most boys — I imagined I would grow up into a kind of Caesar.

Fearless, moody, throwing down impossible threats that aroused mockery at first but that I then turned into frightening reality, against all odds.

Well, it didn’t turn out that way.

I’ve found I’m very unable to mold the world to my conscious will. Hell, like I wrote yesterday, I’ve never even niched down with any success.

I was a “cold email copywriter” for a bit during my first year freelancing… then an “alternative health email copywriter” for a while… and a “crypto conversion copywriter” for another… and all I really got to show for it was a bunch of wasted time and missed opportunities.

I’m not telling you not to specialize. I’m not telling you to set goals or to strive towards them.

All I really want to say is if you read stories like the one above, and then set your mind to glory… only to watch with horror as your own results fail to match up with that of Caesar… well, there is still hope.

Caesar once wrote it’s “easier to find men who will volunteer to die, than to find those who are willing to endure pain with patience.”

That’s a little too gruesome to use as a motivational message at the end of a daily email.

But it does speak a fundamental human truth, one you can profit from. Because our brains love to think in instances of flashy glory.

But that’s not how the world works. All I’m saying is this:

We’re all too obsessed with modeling what successful people do today that they are successful. Those are the instances of flashy glory.

There might be more value in modelling how these people got successful in the first place. But let me stop here — before I ruin a perfectly good and gory email with some mushy inspirational stuff. I believe you can draw your own conclusions if you like. And if you want more gory, maybe inspirational stuff, sign up here.