Podbit · Lex Fridman Podcast

#498 – Anthony Kaldellis: Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, Rise & Fall of Empires

Explore episode Jun 30, 2026

History

The Perpetual Referendum: How Rome Kept Emperors Honest

#498 – Anthony Kaldellis: Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, R… · Jun 30, 2026 History

In the Eastern Roman Empire, there were no elections — but there was something more powerful: a perpetual referendum. Emperors appeared publicly, crowds cheered or fell silent, and if the grain supply failed or taxes bit too hard, you knew it instantly. 46% of Constantinople's emperors were removed by violence. That number wasn't a bug. It was the mechanism that made good governance rational.

Where this was said

Power, violence, and civil war

At 42:33 · chapter starts 33:06

This chapter gets to the heart of the episode's most surprising argument. The Eastern Roman Empire had no elections, no constitutional term limits, no separation of powers in the Western sense. What it had instead was a perpetual referendum^{[1]

— Anthony Kaldellis

"In the Eastern Roman Empire, there were no elections — but there was something more powerful: a perpetual referendum. Emperors appeared pub…"

42:33} — emperors appearing in the Hippodrome before crowds of up to 100,000 people, reading the mood through chants, silences, and occasional booing. Kaldellis shares the remarkable statistic that roughly 46% of Constantinople's emperors were removed through violence, and explains why this number was a feature rather than a flaw: every emperor knew that governing badly was existential. The Hippodrome story of Emperor Alexios III proposing a 'German tax' and immediately backing down when the crowd erupted illustrates how quickly popular sentiment could translate into policy reversal. Kaldellis distinguishes this from military dictatorship — the army almost never served as a tool of social control, and emperors who tried to use it that way (Justinian being the exception) risked accelerating their own downfall. The approximately 120 civil wars in the millennium Kaldellis studies were almost always brief, never ideological, and functioned as an ongoing accountability mechanism — not as symptoms of dysfunction.

History

120 civil wars in 1,000 years

#498 – Anthony Kaldellis: Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, R… · Jun 30, 2026

The Eastern Roman Empire experienced approximately 120 civil wars over the millennium Kaldellis studies, yet these were almost always swift power contests rather than ideological conflicts.

Riots and civil war is a feature, not a bug of the system. Because the threat of a civil war, a violent civil war where you overthrow the government and there's just a lot of death and struggle for power is always a threat. That's another incentive that I guess the stick, not the carrot, but the stick for the emperor to behave.

Lex Fridman

#498 – Anthony Kaldellis: Roman Empire,…

History

46% of emperors overthrown by violence

#498 – Anthony Kaldellis: Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, R… · Jun 30, 2026

In the Eastern Roman Empire, nearly half of all emperors were removed through violent means, creating a perpetual incentive for rulers to govern well and maintain popular support.

We don't have those kinds of institutions. We have instead an ongoing referendum. We just call it a perpetual referendum.

Anthony Kaldellis

#498 – Anthony Kaldellis: Roman Empire,…

History

Hippodrome held up to 100,000 people

#498 – Anthony Kaldellis: Roman Empire, Byzantine Empire, R… · Jun 30, 2026

The Hippodrome of Constantinople could hold between 30,000 and 100,000 spectators and served as the primary venue where citizens expressed approval or displeasure with the emperor — functioning as a perpetual political referendum.

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