090 - The Hundredth Episode

This week's episode is brought to you by Audible. As you now know, Audible is the Internet's leading provider of audio entertainment, with over 60,000 titles to choose from. When you're done with this episode, go to audiblepodcast.com forward slash roam. That, again, is audiblepodcast.com forward slash roam. By going to that address, you will qualify for a free book download when you sign up for a 14-day trial membership. There is no obligation to continue the service, and you can cancel any time and keep the free book you downloaded. You can also keep going with one of the monthly subscription options and get great deals on all future audiobook purchases. This week, I'm going to make kind of a strange recommendation. Apparently, Audible is putting out these little five-minute segments for kids on things like whales and dinosaurs and volcanoes. Well, they have one for the Roman Empire and one for Julius Caesar. If your kids are too young for the history of Rome, by all means, this is a great place to get them started. Just remember to go to audiblepodcast.com forward slash roam so that they know who sent you.

Hello, and welcome to the History of Rome, episode 90, the 100th episode. So here we are at a nice shiny milestone, cut and stamped, fittingly enough, during the age of Antoninus Pius, who cut and stamped so many milestones during his reign. I never thought when I started the show that I would ever get near 100 episodes, nor did I think for a minute I would still be doing this almost three years after I published the first episode on a random Sunday night in late July 2007. That first episode was just over 1,900 words and lasted 11 minutes and 48 seconds. After I got a few episodes of similar length under my belt, I did some loose math about how much progress I was making each week so I could figure out what kind of hole I had dug myself into. The results seemed crazy. To complete the whole course of the Empire would take 225,000 to 250,000 words and wind up being 20 hours of recorded material spread out over maybe 75 episodes. In other words, I was committing myself to producing a gargantuan pile of words. I tried not to think about it and went back to researching the Peloponnesian Secession of 494 BC.

Fast forward to today. 99 episodes in the can, working on the hundredth as we speak. 329,186 words and counting. The album I maintain in iTunes is now calculated in terms of days rather than hours, and we're not even to Marcus Aurelius yet. So, how long is the history of Rome going to take to complete? The answer? I have no idea. I don't make projections anymore. Last week's tour of the Empire was an absurd 6,400 words and lasted 43 minutes and 43 seconds. Who saw that coming? Certainly not me. It'll be done when it's done and not a minute before.

Of course, as you know, today we're going to continue to make no forward progress and instead celebrate the occasion of the hundredth episode by opening the floor up to questions. Obviously, I'm not going to be able to answer every question that came in, but there were definitely a couple of topics that seemed to be on more than one person's mind. I'll do my best to cover those and then tuck in a few more I liked particularly or that allowed me to talk about things I missed along the way. In cases where more than one person asked essentially the same question, I'm going to name the first person who posted, which seemed a fair and judicious way of doing things. So without further ado, let's get started.

Nemo, among many others, asked, Who are the five best emperors and who are the five worst? I initially had a sort of rambling explanation for how we ought to be judging these guys and what terms like best and worst mean to me. But then I realized that if I went on like that, I'd only have time to answer like three questions. So, in the interest of maximizing the number of questions I'm going to be able to get to, I'm just going to cut to the chase. 1. Augustus, for obvious reasons. 2. Diocletian, for almost single-handedly reviving and rejuvenating a broken empire even if it did all start to fall apart after he died. 3. Trajan, for his stabilizing hand, good-natured wisdom, and military skill. 4. Constantine, for, among other things, his lasting impact. I mean, Constantinople. 5. Hadrian, for his obsession with cementing the Roman Empire as a permanent institution guided by pragmatism rather than romantic notions of glory.

I'm as surprised as you are that Marcus Aurelius is not on that list. He's probably number six. Vespasian is probably number seven. After that, I'm not really sure. I think I'd plug Claudius in at ten. Aurelian was pretty awesome, even if he didn't rule for very long. Theodosius should probably be in there too, though I'll admit that at this point he's one of the major emperors I know the least about, having always focused on early Roman history rather than late Roman history. Which, for those of you who asked what my favorite period in Roman history is, it's pretty much everything between the exile of Tarquinius Superbus to the victory at Zama. I'm an early and high Republican era kind of guy.

My five worst emperors, sort of not counting the guys whose reigns are measured in months and days, are, number one, Commodus, for being a dangerously insane immature hedonist. Two, Caligula, also for being a dangerously insane immature hedonist. Three, Caracalla, for being a relatively sane but still unquestionably bloodthirsty tyrant. Four, Nero, for being an immature hedonist who was more concerned with performance than he was with governance. And five, Elagabalus, for being such a damn weirdo that no one knew what to do with him until they finally decided it was best to just kill him, which was probably for the best. The one common theme I see running through this list is too much power at too young an age. Caligula, believe it or not, was the most seasoned member of this group, coming to power at the advanced age of 24. Not that there aren't worthy exceptions, but I think in general we should always remember that handing absolute power to a teenager is just a bad idea.

A follow-up to this question was submitted by Monique. Given all the emperors and Roman leaders you've covered, who interests you the most and why? Continuing with the emperors first, I am now very fond of both Claudius and Domitian, because they were the two leaders who turned out to be the most different from my initial impressions of them. Claudius the dullard and Domitian the tyrant. Both had their faults, but both were also far more complex and effective than I had given them credit for. Besides them, I will always have a soft spot in my heart for Marcus Furius Camillus, who was once a towering figure in Roman history and has now basically been forgotten, Scipio Africanus, of course, that damned long-hair who beat Hannibal, and finally, dear old Marcus Agrippa. We should all hope to have best friends as utterly kick-ass as Marcus Agrippa.

Touching on a subject that popped up a few times, Lycanthrope asks, One of the earliest topics that was brought up is the purported similarities between ancient Rome and the U.S. What are the main similarities and differences between ancient Rome and the present and historical U.S.? Well, let's go through the obvious list. The United States kicked out a monarch, founded a republic wildly skewed in favor of a rich aristocracy that was self-consciously modeled on Roman institutions, dealt with violent upheavals as the lower social classes attempted to capture some power for themselves, expanded aggressively on their own continent before accidentally capturing overseas territories, now utterly dominant militarily, politically, and economically. What else do you need to know? Throw in the fact that if you believe the Soviet Union was Carthage, and that the Cold War is our equivalent of the Punic Wars, then you can even locate us within the larger timeline right around the rise of the Grokeye Brothers, and, hey look, tea parties.

Except that one thing that's really been driven home to me lately is that while you can find these superficial similarities, there are much deeper differences. Every powerful nation follows its own trajectory for its own particular reasons towards its own particular ends, though, usually at the height of each one's power, they claim that they are the rebirth of the Roman Empire. For me, the biggest difference between America and Rome is that compared to Rome, the United States is a baby, and could very well prove to be merely a flash in the pan. The Roman Empire became the dominant state in the Mediterranean around 200 BC, and remained as such in one form or another until the fall of Constantinople in the 1450s. I mean, we are talking about a nearly 2,000 year period where you simply cannot talk about anything that occurred in North Africa, Europe, or the Middle East without talking about Rome. America, by contrast, was a pretty decent regional power for about a century, a pretty major world power for about 75 years after that, and has been living with the kind of unipolar prestige Rome enjoyed for centuries for about the last 20 years. If the United States of America is still around in 3010, I think maybe then we can start talking about comparisons to Rome. Until then, things happen, nations rise and fall, and borders shift. I'm not saying America can't dominate the world for a millennia, I'm just saying that it's an awful lot to ask of anyone. Rome was all about longevity and stability, and that is a test that no one in the West has been able to pass since.

Alfonso was one of the first to raise the issue of Roman dealings abroad, and the first to mention the Far East, a particular topic that was seconded at least a half dozen times. So, to paraphrase all of those questions, what, if any, relationship existed between Rome and China? The majority of the contact between Rome and China was indirect, but the two great bookends of the world certainly knew that the other existed. The Han Dynasty, which persisted in one form or another from about 200 BC to 220 AD, was rising at the same time as the Romans, and as Rome headed east, the Han headed west, and it was during this period that the links became more overt. With the stabilizing hand of the Han in place, the famous Silk Road was able to knit itself together, carrying silk and other oriental treasures from China all the way to Antioch, and from there to Rome, while, among other things, Roman glasswork made their way back to the Chinese. In 97 AD, a Chinese embassy was sent west to try to make contact with the kingdom of the Da Qin, which is what the Han called Rome, but apparently they were stopped short in Mesopotamia after the Parthians explained that the difficult crossing to Rome would take another two years at least. This bald-faced lie was meant to keep the two poles of the lucrative trade routes, which Parthia controlled, from ever meeting and working out a way to bypass the Parthian middlemen.

In 166, though, a Roman embassy was sent east and was able to make contact with the Chinese emperor. Debate still swirls about how the Romans got there, whether by sea or overland, but a meeting definitely occurred and the Romans offered up all kinds of gifts from the west, including a book of Greco-Roman astronomy. Nothing concrete seems to have followed the meeting, though, and thereafter, the two sides continued to simply trade with one another indirectly via the Silk Road or by the sea routes around India. For the remainder of the empire, Chinese silk remained a highly sought-after luxury item in Rome and was a major point of contention both for old-school conservatives who found how revealing the fabric was disturbing, and proto-economists who worried about how much gold was disappearing east for nothing but a few scraps of cloth.

Matthew, if I'm even pronouncing that correctly, riffing off my observation that the Romans tangled up Pyrrhus' war elephants the same way that the rebel alliance brought down the imperial walkers during the Battle of Hoth, asks, Did the republicans or imperial armies learn any other tactics from the rebellion? Short answer, no, I don't think so, but I can absolutely promise you that a single Roman legion would have whipped the Ewoks without breaking a sweat.

Four Forks, among others, wants to know about the show's process, how the podcast is put together, how long it takes to write and record each episode. Each show takes about 10-12 hours to knock out, not counting the time I spend just reading, which is time I don't bother to calculate since I'd be doing it anyway. My days off have become very jumbled lately, so my research writing hours are constantly shifting around, but for a long time, the routine was that I would spend an hour or two during the week working up a detailed outline of what I wanted to talk about and where I wanted to get to. Then I would get up on Saturday and write for maybe 6 or 7 hours and try to bank about 3,000 words. Then I'd get up on Sunday, edit what I had written the day before, and write the last 500-1,000 words to wrap things up. Then I'd let it all rest, go back and edit again, double-check whatever facts I wasn't 100% on, and read through it aloud to catch any tongue-twister landmines that I had left for myself. Then, recording 20 minutes of material takes about another hour, depending on how in-the-zone I am. For this, I run two parallel vocal tracks in GarageBand, and when I stumble over something, I cut out the last few seconds, hop to the other track, and pick up where I left off. When I'm done, I convert it into an MP3, upload it to the hosting site, and release it into the world. Then I have a beer, congratulate myself on a job well done, and begin fretting about next week's show.

John Grandin wants to know, at the 100th episode of the History of Rome Games, who wins the following fights? 1. Secutor vs. Retariarus, which are two kinds of gladiator styles. 2. Nero vs. Commodus. 3. Cleopatra vs. Messalina. 4. Kirk Douglas vs. Russell Crowe. 5. England vs. the United States in the World Cup. First, it seems like the Secutor would be usually favored, but a talented Retariai was nothing to mess around with. Plus, he'll make you look like a fool when he beats you, so draw. Two, Commodus for sure. By all accounts, he was an excellent shot and a well-trained gladiator, even if he never really tested his skills in a fair fight. Nero wouldn't stand a chance. Three, Cleopatra. Messalina was a bumbling amateur compared to Cleopatra. Four, sadly, I have to go with Russell Crowe. I mean, Kirk Douglas is like 94 years old. Five, the United States, because who says I can't be irrationally partisan about some things?

George Smiley asks, Here's a frivolous, non-historical question. Where does the theme music for the History of Rome come from? Is that mic on guitar? The intro is one of those accidents of history. First of all, it's not me playing, though if I had to do it all over again, I would definitely write and record the music myself, as I am, quite proudly, an accomplished mediocrity on the guitar. Basically, when I was cutting the first episode, I knew I wanted to inject some music at the beginning of the show, so I dug around in the GarageBand loops until I found something I kinda liked and pasted it in there. Then I released the episode without ever considering what kind of commitment I was making to that one particular loop, which I still like just fine, it's just, yeah, it's a freaking GarageBand loop. Acoustic picking 18 for you Mac users out there. At least it's not 80s dance-based synth 6.

Bob Tom asks, Will Mrs. The History of Rome ever make an appearance? Yes, and she just did.

Ryan Reyes, among others, particularly Ryan R. 313, is wondering about making the dead emperors gods. Were they seen as gods equal to Saturn and the others? How did that work? The old Greco-Roman pantheon had literally hundreds of major and minor deities who all vied for the attention of the lowly humans. The dead and deified emperors, beginning with Julius Caesar, were slated in as minor gods, nowhere near as powerful as say Jupiter or Mars, but still important enough that worshipping at their altars was considered a civic duty. Neglecting sacrifices or ceremonies in their honor would have invited disaster on Rome, as the imperial cult became wrapped up in the larger set of official state superstitions that kept the empire safe and thriving.

In practice, though, worshipping dead emperors was less an act of devout piety or even crass superstition, as it was a demonstration of loyalty to the sitting emperor. It was all much more about visibly supplicating yourself before the imperial altar, which the emperors, as you can imagine, liked to see, than really believing that if you didn't offer a goat to the ghost of Titus that bad things would happen. Not that you really had a choice anyway. Refusing to make a sacrifice to the deified Caesars was considered treason and a capital crime. So yes, technically, the dead emperors were considered gods, especially in the Eastern Empire, where notions of divine monarchs has a long-standing history. I highly doubt, however, that a single senator voting for deification believed that Nerva was now actually a god. I think the only reasonable answer is vini vidi vici, right?

A pivotal event in history was the burning of the Library of Alexandria, an event thought to have set human progress back a thousand years. I was astonished when it was not even referenced in a past episode. Yes, the absence of the Library of Alexandria from our narrative was an oversight on my part, especially since Julius Caesar himself is accused of having started the fire that allegedly set humanity back a thousand years. For those of you who don't know, the Library of Alexandria was founded in the 200s BC by either Ptolemy I or Ptolemy II, and thereafter was liberally endowed to not only act as the repository for every written work that had ever been written anywhere, but also as an active research institution that employed around a hundred scholars and scientists at any given time. Supposedly, the library contained a working steam engine, so its destruction came as a huge blow to human development.

But the thing is that the jury is still out on when the library was actually destroyed and who destroyed it. Some, like Plutarch, say that it was Caesar who torched it by accident while fighting for control of the city in 49 BC. Others say it was destroyed by Aurelian in the 270s when he was reconquering the breakaway east. Gibbon said it was destroyed by the reactionary Christian patriarch Theophilus during his crusade to eradicate all things pagan in the late 300s. While finally, some say that the library existed all the way into the 600s when it was finally burned by Umar the Great as his Islamic forces swept into Egypt. Unquestionably, the library existed, and unquestionably, at some point, it stopped existing. But when that happened is still a bit of a mystery. I tend to believe that multiple institutions and collections were built, maintained, destroyed, and rebuilt over the years that all held the moniker Library of Alexandria, which contributes a great deal to the confusion.

Clearly, though, Plutarch believes that the great library was gone by the time he was writing in 120, and as a Greek scholar, he would have been in a position to know. Absent a time machine, I don't think we'll ever know what really happened or what exactly was lost. What we do know is that had the library survived, we'd all be teleporting to our jobs in the parallel universe of our choice by now.

Rich asks, Do you plan to combine your transcripts and sell them as a book when all is said and done? The answer is a qualified yes. I've been very hesitant about trying to publish the material as it is because I wrote it specifically to be read aloud, by me. I was and am worried that it will translate about as well as your average stand-up comedy routine would. When something is specifically designed to be spoken and depends on particular timing and inflection for the jokes to come out right, well, reading it on paper just doesn't do it justice, you know? But then again, with a little expert tweaking, maybe we could figure out a way to make it work. I've been so busy writing new material, though, that I haven't had much of a chance to go back and try to make sense of the old stuff. So, if anyone out there works in publishing, by all means, get in touch with me and help me out.

John asks, Which Roman Emperor or Consul triumvir do you think you personally emulate the most? Well, Claudius wrote a lot of history, so there's that.

Dan Lim, among many, many others, asks, Personally, I'd like to know your thoughts on the HBO series Rome. Accurate? Sensational? Lots of people wanted to know about the historical accuracy of all the various portrayals of Rome on TV and in the movies. Gladiator, Spartacus, I, Claudius, HBO's Rome, and the new Spartacus series. I'll start right off by saying that I'm not really a big stickler for details when it comes to these things. I can and do separate the fictional reality from the historical reality. Did Livia poison everyone who got in her way? Probably not. Was there ever a Spanish general named Maximus who became a gladiator, killed Commodus, and restored the Republic? Of course not. Was everyone in ancient Rome as handsome and clean as the original Spartacus would have us believe? Definitely not. But none of that stuff really bothers me too much. It's all fantasy and should be taken as such.

I'll admit to being on guard a lot more for the HBO series than I have been for others, because they seem to be explicitly portraying major historical events that we know a lot about, unlike, say, Spartacus, about whom we know almost nothing. I thought Rome was excellent in places, and historically speaking, about as accurate as the format allows. Key characters were omitted, sure, battles like Dyrrhachium were skipped completely, and the whole second season compressed the timeline radically because the show was slated for cancellation. But history is really long and really complicated, and when you fictionalize it, you do have to streamline things a bit, which I fully understand and sympathize with. They did a bang-up job, though, immersing me in the period, and by all accounts, the costumes, uniforms, and architecture were all spot-on. My only real complaints about Rome is that I found Lucius Varinus thoroughly detestable as a character, even though I was supposed to like him, and a few of Titus Polo's storylines were just terribly written. But that has nothing to do with accuracy or authenticity. It was just bad writing.

I have the same problem with Spartacus, Blood and Sand, the new ultra-violent sexploitation show on Starz, also available to stream on Netflix. I don't mind that it takes all the most sensationalist rumors about ancient Rome and cranks them up to eleven. That's all in good fun. But the character of Spartacus is just developing in a way that leaves me really doubting his ability to lead the greatest slave uprising in Roman history, one in which, through a mix of personal charisma, strategic brilliance, and tactical know-how, he keeps the cream of the Roman legions on the ropes for two years. The Spartacus we get here is selfish, weak, and about as strategically minded as a water buffalo in heat. I have hopes that the writers will let him grow up a bit, but if not, I think they ought to crucify him and write an alternative history where Doctore leads the great slave uprising. That, I would not only watch, but would believe.

For those of you who are curious, though, in my opinion, the most historically accurate movie set in Rome has to be the little-known 1964 classic Rome vs. Rome, starring John Drew Barrymore. They should show this movie in schools as a documentary. I am totally, 100% serious about this.

Well, right now I'm convinced that the history of Rome will never end, so I don't really have to think about it. But seriously, I am as passionate about American history as I am about Roman history, and have had for a while now a particular project in mind that documents the life cycle of each of the so far six —I think six anyway— distinct political party systems that have defined American history. You know, first the Federalists vs. the Democratic-Republicans, then the Jacksonian Democrats vs. the Whigs, then the Republicans vs. the Reconstructed Democrats, and so on. It winds up being a really great window into the larger cultural and economic history of the country, and I'm really looking forward to turning it into something someday.

16-year-old Giants fangirl writes, Hi, being a huge baseball fan, here is a baseball question. Who do you think should retire Randy Johnson's number? I know you are a huge fan of him, as am I, and am curious. Though he pitched with and made his name with the Diamondbacks, he was not too happy with them for not signing him this last season. So, should the Giants retire his number instead? First of all, I would like to gently remind those too young to remember that Randy Johnson made his name with the Seattle Mariners, not the Arizona Diamondbacks. His years in Arizona were brilliant, of course, but it was with Seattle that he first established himself as one of the greatest left-handed pitchers of all time. My answer, then, would normally be that both the Mariners and Diamondbacks ought to retire his number, as there is nothing wrong with two teams honoring a player they both shared. However, things are complicated a bit, because Randy's number 51 is currently being sported by future Hall of Famer and possible minor deity Ichiro Suzuki. So my final answer is that the Diamondbacks ought to retire his number, and the Mariners ought to just issue it to every player on the team, since clearly it has magical properties.

A. Fisher submits, I think the only time that archers were ever mentioned in any of the episodes is when the Romans were fighting the mounted archers of the Numidian cavalry. The maps of battles also contained the infantry and the cavalry, but never the archers. It always seemed to be a serious tactical mistake. Did the Romans simply not employ them? Were their tactics not compatible with archers? Or were archers included with either the cavalry or the infantry, but not as a separate unit? The Romans did use archers, but they were almost always foreign auxiliary units brought in from the east. Whether on foot or mounted, they would have generally been used at the beginning of a battle to create chaos within the enemy ranks and dampen an opponent's morale. The Romans also employed slingers to accomplish the same goal. But it was all about softening up the other line for a good old heavy infantry attack, rather than as a primary offensive weapon, as would say the Parthians and, most famously, the Mongols. Whether this was a tactical error is debatable, as the record of the legions pretty much speaks for itself.

Christina asks, When did Latin officially die as a language? Do we have any record of who the last native speaker of Latin was? Well, Latin never really died. It just went underground. At some point around the 9th century, Vulgar Latin, which had become the predominant spoken language for most of the lower class citizens of the now fallen empire, began to splinter into the various Romance languages we know today French, Spanish, Portuguese, Italian, etc. Latin in its written form, meanwhile, survived this oral transition in the pages of the Catholic Church and the law books of the various European kingdoms, though its unmooring from a spoken counterpoint has rendered it a very different animal than the Romans knew. So I think the answer is basically, Latin was dead by the time of Charlemagne. But if you look around, you'll notice that Latin continues to surround us today.

Nick asks, Time is of course an illusion, but I think it might be interesting to investigate the Roman calendar and clock, which I understand had variable hours which appear on Prague's famous clock. I'm glad this was asked because it was something that I wanted to talk about during a day in the life, but the narrative thread just never gave me a good opportunity to stick it in there. For most of the early Republic, the day was divided roughly into before noon and afternoon. The Romans did not adopt accurate sundials and water clocks until the 2nd century BC, and even then, they were more of a novelty or decorative piece than anything else. In essence, the Romans were just not locked in to minutes and hours the way that we are. Punctuality was never stressed, and except for the large markers like sunrise, noon, and sunset, they paid very little attention to what quote-unquote time it was.

In the first few centuries AD, this began to change somewhat, as accurate Greek timepieces began to be adopted in a much more serious manner. At that point, people did begin to pay more attention to the division of hours that had been named and assigned way back when sundials first began to appear around the time of the Punic Wars. The Roman day was divided as hours into 24 hours, 12 daytime and 12 nighttime. But the fascinating thing is that, because of the shifting seasons, Roman hours were forever variable. The Roman hour was not a set 60 minutes. It was instead simply one twelfth of however long the day was. This meant that during the winter solstice, a Roman daylight hour was only 45 minutes long, while during the summer solstice, it was extended to an hour and 15 minutes. So over the course of the year, there was a 30 minute swing in how long an hour actually was. And you think daylight savings time is weird.

My understanding is that the clock in Prague uses a variation of Italian hours, where the first hour begins whenever the sun sets, and the 24th hour immediately precedes the next sunset. Obviously this means that as with Roman hours, when say the 7th hour or the 19th hour starts and ends, varies with the season. But the Roman system was all about fluctuating lengths of time, rather than changing start times.

Finally, Detlef asks, If you were to start all over again with the experience you have today, what would you do differently? Not including correcting minor mistakes and fixing minor glitches. I have one answer to this question that revolves around the narrative, and another that is a technical point that would have done a lot to resolve the minor mistakes. To take the latter first, I would have given myself a much firmer grounding in Latin before I got started, so that I wasn't constantly undermining myself with butchered pronunciation. As to the former, I think as we shifted from the Republic to the Empire, the show really did begin to focus too intently on the Emperors at the expense of other worthy topics. I can mount a pretty good defense of why I chose to go in the direction I did, but mostly, I'm just going to try to do a better job in the future, making sure the history of Rome is the history of Rome, not the history of the Roman Emperors.

Well, okay. I think I've crammed in about as much as I can. There are tons of questions that I wanted to get to, but simply did not have the time to cover. If your question didn't get answered, don't despair. I read every comment that came in and have them all banked away in my History of Rome folder, and plan to dip into them from time to time as we continue along our way. At a minimum, all the great feedback let me know what kinds of things you all are interested in. So, even if I don't do another big question blowout, if I can find a way to steer the narrative in a way that will let me cover things people asked about, I'm totally going to do it.

Next week, though, we're back to basics to cover the transition from Antoninus Pius to Marcus Aurelius, the man who shows up on many top five Emperors lists, and Lucius Verus, a man who, if he's not careful, could very well find himself appearing on a list of the worst Emperors of all time. Yep, good old acoustic picking 18. Love it.