[Music] What you are basically. [Music] Deep, deep down, far, far in. [Music] Is simply. [Music] The fabric and structure of existence itself. [Music] Peace for all men and women. [Music] Not merely peace in our time. [Music] Peace in all time. [Music] [Music] Peace for all men and women. [Music] Not merely peace in our time. [Music] Peace in all time. The fabric and structure of existence itself. Hi everybody, welcome to the Paralympic Podcast. I'm your host Mike and thank you so much for joining me. For tonight's episode. Tonight is episode number 82, but it's also episode number three in our series Saturn's Bankers. So we're going to be picking up tonight on the series, but we're going to actually be going back in time to Ancient Greece and then onto the Roman Empire. And if you've been following the series thus far, this one is absolutely crucial. It's going to link together much of what we learned in episode number one and number two. Certainly not one that you want to miss, so I'm going to keep the introduction brief today. Of course, you can find the full episode over on paralomite.com. You enjoy part number one, which I think you're going to. And you might want to consider coming across to listen to part number two. In closing, I hope you're all well, healthy, and reasonably happy. Take care of yourselves. And like always, I'll see you in the next one. [Music] Okay everybody, let's get to an Internet show. We're going to be covering the period between the 8th century BC right up until around the 5th century BC. I'm going to call that the Greco-Roman period because it covers both the Greek Empire and then the Roman Empire. Although I would say the Greek Empire didn't really exist. It was a civilization. It was a society. But there was certainly a Roman Empire. And of course, we covered in episode number one that the Western Roman Empire was actually in terminal decline around the 5th century. And the capital was moved from Rome to Constantinople. And then we had the Byzantine Empire or the Eastern Roman Empire which went on for much, much longer. And that's really where we began episode number one. And I would suggest you listen to both part one and part two because this series is a complex puzzle and you're going to be getting different pieces throughout. And at the end, you will have the complete picture. But there is definitely a design to it and there's a way that you have to go through it. So I would say if you haven't listened to episodes one and two, I really recommend that you do that first. But for those who have listened to part number one or part number two, or if you're just a rebel and you're deciding to listen to part number three first, which I don't suggest, but you can do it. Let's just remind ourselves as to where we started the series. So in part one, like I just said, we began with the fall of Constantinople. And I discussed how this other empire was forming north from Constantinople towards Eastern Ukraine. And it was called the Cazarian Empire. And this is where Saturn's bankers were to be found. They had assumed the identity of this nomadic group of people called the Cazarians. And they'd situated themselves at a critical juncture, which was the crossroads of the Silk Road. So they were there in Eastern Ukraine and this was where East met West. And they basically controlled the entire region and created a choke point between East and West and ensured that any trade that was going from one direction to the other would have to pass through their territory. Now, as a result of that, they managed to amass huge sums of money. And this was done, of course, through Mercantilism. So they were actually trading between East and West. Taxation of people who were trying to go along the Silk Road and wanting to pass from one direction to the other. And also through slave trading, which is something you find with Saturn's bankers. During each iteration of history, they always, always entered the slave trade. And of course, if you are low in compassion and empathy for your fellow man, then it's actually a great business because you can just kidnap people for free and sell them and that's exactly what they did. So they sold untold amounts of Christians as slaves to Muslims in the East. Now, this, along with their refusal to coexist peacefully with either neighbor to their left or their right, because they were antagonistic towards the Muslims and to the Christians because, of course, the Byzantine Empire became a Christian empire. There was also the Kevin Rus who were also Christians. So they were located just a little bit to the West of the Caesarean Empire. So basically they were stuck in the middle of all these big powers. They were trying to play each power off against one another, which again is a key identifying feature of this tribe. And then also they were actually trading from left and right. But ultimately they caused too many problems because they refused to convert to either Christianity or Islam. And it said that they were actually practicing some form of black magic, something that was much more archaic. And, of course, all of the slave trading and kidnapping and antagonism towards both sides eventually led to everyone getting really, really upset with the Caesarean Empire and it was the Kevin Rus and also the Byzantine Empire who went in there and wiped them out. So they basically destroyed their little budding empire. Now, despite being crushed by the armies of Christendom, the wealthy elite who, like I said, were not really Caesareans. They'd actually created a sort of ethnic hierarchy. So they were at the top and they were pale-skinned, interesting, something important to note. But lots of the lower tiers in the hierarchy were much darker-skinned, and that was something that I found out in my research, which suggests to me that the elite of the Caesarean Empire were actually outsiders and, of course, they where they'd come up actually from places like Iran and taken over that region. So those guys who had all of the wealth and power, they actually fled. They were not destroyed. They simply fled and started again. And many of them fled into mainland Europe, so they sprung up in places like modern-day Poland, in Germany, and others fled westwards towards financial centers or future financial centers like Venice and Genoa. And that's of course where we picked up in episode number two when we discussed the Venetian oligarchy. Now, we learned also in part number one, that by the time the Caesarean Empire was crushed, many of the elite of that racial hierarchy, the ones who were controlling the Caesareans who had pale skin. They had long since assumed the religious identity of Abrahamic Judaism. Now, they were not practicing Jews, clearly. They were using that as their persona, giving it enabled them to remain outsiders to both the Christians and the Muslims. Now, they understood that if they adopted Christianity as their persona, they would have to align themselves with the Christians, and if they had adopted Islam as their persona, they'd have to align themselves with the Muslims, and therefore they wouldn't be able to trade between the two and play both sides off against one another to gain greater power for themselves. So they decided to choose Judaism because that gave them the most flexibility in terms of their own political positioning. It also enabled them to enact usury, which of course was illegal in Christendom. But beyond this, they were also masters of mercantilism and also of the waters, so the Phoenicians, for example, they were included in this and they would travel around the world, pick up goods, trade, pirating, slave trading, all of that was happening as well. So, drawing the iteration of the Caesareans, they were mainly interested in mercantilism because they had control over the Silk Road. But prior to that in Babylon, while we haven't actually gone in the series yet, they were bankers. And that's what we're going to be focusing on tonight. We're looking at the period spanning from around the 8th century, BC to the 5th century, which was the fall of the western Roman Empire to discover, who were the bankers during this period? What were they up to? And are there any telltale signs that tell us that it was actually the same outsiders, that it was the same people who would take control of Renaissance Italy in terms of banking and high finance, that would later on be found managing the central banks of Europe, that we saw in part number one when we discussed the Caesareans. Well, that is going to be the focus of tonight's episode. So, let's go all the way back now to ancient Greece. Banking in ancient Greece played an essential role in both private and public life. The early development of Greek banking was tied to temples, private lenders, and money changes. And the practice evolved into a more formalized lending system, as the Greek economy became increasingly sophisticated. These financial operators not only influenced daily economic life, but also had far-reaching impacts on city-states like Athens, often leading to issues of public debt and economic imbalance. Intriguingly, some aspects of their practices were intertwined with religious institutions, and perhaps even occult or esoteric traditions, tied to the worship of gods. In the early stages of Greek banking, much of the financial activity was centered around temples, particularly in the wealthiest city-states. Greek temples, especially those dedicated to Apollo at Delphi and Athena on the Acropolis, were not only religious centers, but also served as repositories of wealth. They acted like banks, holding deposits, lending money, and offering financial services to both individuals and city-states themselves. These temples collected large amounts of wealth in the form of donations, offerings, and dedications from worshipers. To begin with, we have to first understand something very important, and that's that banking in ancient Greece, and also later on in Rome, whilst similar in many regards to the banking that we see today, there was one key difference, and that's that in both ancient Greece and Rome, banking was actually inextricably linked to temple worship. Now, that's because the temples themselves were not just places to go and offer tribute to one of the many gods or goddesses. They were actually also functioning banks and lending institutions. So the priests that these places would have been akin to your Jerome Powell and also the Pope rolled into one. Now, today that might seem really strange. You might look at, for example, the Federal Reserve and the Bank of England, and it might not seem immediately obvious what they've got to do with the occult, or with astrology, or with gods and goddesses and deities. But in the Greco-Roman world, it was the priestly class who operated these banks and the temples, and they were essentially the JP Morgan and the Federal Reserve of their day. So you have to understand that because that opens up a whole another tract to go down in terms of understanding who Saturn's bankers were and what they actually believed. Now, this blend of finance with the ethereal, it's not something that was entirely missing when we looked at, for example, the Venetians in episode number two. Because thousands of years later, in Renaissance Italy, we saw how these banking families, like the Medici, were still inextricably linked with the faiths. So, for example, they themselves would have numerous popes in their family. And, of course, in a future episode when we discussed things like the Knights Templar and we discussed how the Vatican was involved in that, or we discussed the Vatican Bank, you'll understand that finance and religion have always been tied together. It's only in the modern era where it seems like they're separate, but I would argue that they're not so separate. It's just gone behind closed doors. And I think that's pretty obvious if you look around today at what we see, for example, in Hollywood or whenever anyone looks behind the scenes at these big institutions or at what Hollywood's doing or the music industry, wherever there's money involved, you'll also find there is a threat of occultism. So, you see it everywhere today, and I would argue that it's there in finance, too. It's just hidden. It's just hidden behind a fog. But if you delve into anything that the elites do, the so-called elites, you'll find that occultism there. And I actually think that's one of the biggest breadcrumbs on this trail, because if you go through all of these different epochs of history, you'll find that among the most wealthy and elite families, there was always this core grouping that were practicing the same dark arts. They were doing the same things. They had an interest in magic and astrology. And of course, sometimes even much darker than that. And again, we see that today. So that for me is something that's worth noting, because there's two ways to look at history. One is that in each epoch, there are elites that rise up and they disappear, and we just have many spontaneously growing societies and empires that rise and fall, and the elites then disappear into the background. And then you have a new set of elites. Or that actually, all of that is being orchestrated. And there is a core group, a bloodline, or a set of bloodlines that run us through each of these empires. They travel through them. They lead them to collapse and steal the wealth and then take it with them. And move on. And over time, consolidate more wealth and more power within their families. That's the two kind of options you've got. And I think if you find a pattern in each empire amongst the elites of certain practices, particularly dark practices, the occult. Well, I would say that's potentially a sign that we're dealing with intergenerational wealth rather than new sets of elites each time. That there is a certain element to this that is being passed on from one generation to the next to the next. And maybe right within the core of that, you have some kind of a cultocracy, a permanent oligarchy. That maybe actually goes back thousands of years. And that's why we're seeing this pattern of behavior in each iteration in each epoch of history. Now, the second thing that I wanted to point out before we go any further is that the financial systems of ancient Greece and then also the Roman Empire were extremely sophisticated. There was a multitude of different financial players, much like today, who facilitated the flow of money. And there was many different entities with different roles too. Some specialized in coinage, in minting coins, others in palm broking, others in tax collection, there was private lenders, there was public lenders that lent to the state or to the city states. So much like today, the system was complex and it wasn't just one entity that was responsible for banking. There was many. So they had a sort of central bank and this would often be at the key temple. So, for example, the temple of Saturn was actually the central bank in ancient Rome. And if you've ever looked at any of the old banks in your city where you live or if you've looked at some of the central bank buildings of today, you'll notice that they like the columns, there's these big Roman columns. We'll now go and have a Google search for the temple of Saturn and you'll find some striking similarities. And again, that is not by accident. So when I say that the occultism has now gone behind closed doors, it doesn't mean that it's not hiding, sometimes in plain sight. So yes, many of the modern day banks were actually modelled on the temple of Saturn, which was the central bank within the Roman Empire. Temples could lend money, often at interest, for civic and military projects. For example, the Delphic Oracle, a significant religious and cultural institution in ancient Greece, amassed large amounts of wealth, which was sometimes used for loans to city-states and wealthy individuals. Temples like Delphi and Delos also served as safe places for the storage of private wealth, due to the sanctity and inviability of religious sites. This intersection of religion and finance meant that the lines between the sacred and the economic were often bled. Lending was not seen as a purely secular or mercantile activity, but had religious overtones. Wealth given to or held by the temples was perceived as under the protection of the gods, lending a quasi-religious legitimacy to these financial operations. Some scholars speculate that temple-based loans, considered sacred loans, might have carried a sense of divine obligation. To default on a temple loan was not merely to renege on a financial agreement, but could be viewed as sacrilegious, a violation of divine trust. So I think I'll just stop there for a second because it's really interesting when you look back and you think about what it must have been like to lend from a temple. These were the places where people went to worship the gods. Gods who were very real to the populace at the time, they believed these gods and the stories around these gods. And of course, there is some truth to all of that too, which I won't get into here. But the Greek world was a world of mythology. Not just when it came to worship, but also when it came to understanding day-to-day life and psychology, when it came to understanding the seasons and the patterns of nature, everything was seen through the lens of the gods through different deities. And of course, people would go to worship at these temples. They would pray to the gods. They would also believe that sometimes they were being punished by them. So when it came to taking a loan from a temple, of course, you can only imagine the weight that would have gone with that. And it's interesting because today there is also this sort of sanctity to a loan contract. It's why people today don't ever stop on question. Why do we actually have a national debt? Who are we actually lending this money from? Why is interest attached to it? Why is the nation itself not creating the currency? And when you learn that it's a private entity that is loaning this money to our nations, you then naturally ask the questions, well, why pay it back at all? Why should we give them anything? But of course, nobody actually asked these questions. But I think a part of it is because of what I just said. Even today, there is almost a feeling, there is almost a sense that the loans that are made, particularly the loans that are made to nations from the central bank, much like loans that came from these special temples dedicated to the most important and powerful gods, well, those loans must be paid. And any talk of default is actually sacrilege. Private bankers known as the trapezitai, from trapeza, meaning table, the location where they conducted business, began to emerge alongside temple financial activity, particularly in the 5th century BC. These private lenders were often former slaves or medics. Foreigners residing in the city state, and they operated commercial and financial ventures from the table in the agora, meaning the marketplace. They accepted deposits, changed currencies, provided loans at interest and facilitated financial transactions for both individuals and also the city states. Now, I'm just going to pause for a moment because I need to just highlight something that came up in that last quote, which is that many of the private bankers were actually foreigners called medics. Now, of course, this is something that I'm going to be getting into in tonight's episode, so I don't want you to think that I've just glossed over that. Very interesting. Why were the private bankers foreigners? What were they doing there? Who were they? How did they gain access to places like Athens, where citizenship was of course notoriously hard to get? And why were they called medics? Rings of Bell, doesn't it? Well, we'll come back to that one in a moment, but let's just continue to try and understand a little bit more about what the trapezitai actually did. The trapezitai were essential in the growing Athenian economy. They offered loans to merchants who needed capital to engage in trade across the Aegean and Mediterranean seas. They supported building projects and even facilitated military ventures. These bankers also managed the funds of wealthy Athenians and foreign investors, acting somewhat like early investment managers. Due to their wealth and control of liquid capital, they wielded significant influence in private life. Although these private bankers typically liked formal political power because they were non-citizens, their influence over the economy often translated into indirect political clout. Wealthy individuals and city-states would be holding to them for financing, creating a dependency on private capital. Even though lending at high interest rates could result in debt slavery for the poor, the trapezitai became indispensable in Athens booming commercial and naval enterprises. Okay, so let's just pause for a second and try and make sense of what we're actually hearing. Within Athens, within the Greek city-states, there was a group of private bankers and were told that many of them were actually ex-slaves who became freemen, and then they would go on to become bankers, which in and of itself sounds extremely strange. How would a slave actually accumulate enough capital to become a money lender? It doesn't quite make sense, does it? So let's find out a little bit more about who these medics were. The term "metic" comes from the Greek word "metoecos". Metoecos is an ancient Greek word still used by Greeks today, and it means "one who lives with". The term referred to non-citizen residents. This particular category of people had settled permanently, however, they were not equal to the citizens of the city. And I'm just going to interject there, so this is starting to sound very, very familiar, isn't it? A group of outsiders set up shop in a city. They get given less rights than the other citizens and are tightly controlled, which is exactly what happened with the medics. By tightly controlled, I mean in terms of what they were or were not allowed to do, particularly when it came to anything that could give them some kind of political influence. Now, that's very interesting because we see this pattern emerge again and again throughout history with a set of people who we call today the Jews. They were also the money lenders who travelled around, went from place to place with set up shop, but of course they would be kept under strict control, usually by the native population to ensure that their power and influence didn't spread too far because it was understood that people who lend at interest could very easily create some kind of monopoly. And also because of the dependency that would grow upon them by people who were indebted to them, and we know the term debt slavery, well, they could actually then be used by these people to gain more and more influence and power. So it's very, very interesting that this group of people came to Athens, came to different places in ancient Greece, and they were basically given the same kind of restrictions, and they actually went by the name "metics". Now, as I said, this is actually a Greek word, but it also sounds very familiar to another word that we still have today, which is "semitic", basically the same word only with "se" at the beginning. Many of the early bankers in the Greek city states were "metics" or "foreign residents". Around 371 BC, "Pasyon", a slave became the wealthiest and most famous Greek banker, gaining his freedom and Athenian citizenship in the process. Okay, so again, doesn't quite make sense. A slave comes to Athens. He gets employed by a bank, his name is "Pasyon", and within his lifetime he becomes the wealthiest person in Greece. That's what we're told. Does that make sense to you? It sounds to me a little bit like one of those modern-day stories that you get about these Elon Musk's or these Bill Gates that they just create a product, and then all of a sudden they go from being a nobody to the richest man in the world. Well, it's the same story, so I'm dubious of it myself. I think there's something more going on here, but let's just read from the Wikipedia page to find out a little bit more about what mainstream historians are telling us about "Pasyon". Pasyon was a slave who rose to become a successful banker and Athenian citizen in ancient Athens in the early 4th century BC. It is unknown where Pasyon came from, nor when he arrived in Athens. It is widely presumed that he came from Syria and the Levant, formed in a 40 BC when vast numbers of Syrian slaves were brought into Greece through Phoenician ports, Tyre and Sidon. In Athens he was owned by the bankers, antisthenes and acoustratists, who had a bank at the Pyreus, the harbour five miles out of Athens. During his slavery he quickly rose to Chief Clerk, in charge of a money-changing table at the port, and proved so valuable that by 394 BC he had been manumitted and granted resident alien status as reward for his faithful service. When his own is retired, Pasyon inherited the bank and established a shield factory, the gifts he provided Athens included 1,000 shields and a trireme. Ultimately, Pasyon was granted Athenian citizenship and started investing in real estate in order to accumulate more wealth. When he became too old to work, Pasyon had Fermion, another slave take care of the bank. Pasyon was married to Akipa, who was the really conversant in banking. She had access to the bank's records and detailed knowledge of its complex operations and was evidently involved in the business. When Pasyon died in 370 BC, he's with a married Fermion in order to keep the bank in the family. Reportedly, she destroyed some of the bank records in order to protect Fermion and the business. Okay, so there's a lot to discuss here. Firstly, let's just recap what we learnt about Pasyon. He was a slave and outsider bought into Greece, into Athens. We don't know how or when, it's just assumed that he maybe came from Syria, he maybe came from the region where the Phoenicians were, and clearly there must have been some foreknowledge of Pasyon that he had some skills around banking because he ended up in the hands of these two bankers and he quickly rose through the ranks. Now, I don't know about you, but if I was bringing a slave into my house, I don't think I'd put them in charge of my finances. I just don't think that's what you would do with a slave. So like I said, they must have had some knowledge about him. He must have been brought in specifically for the job. So that really adds a whole level of mystery to it, as does the fact that he came from the region of Syria, and this is where the Phoenicians were. And of course, the Phoenicians were an ancient Semitic maritime civilization. So there you go. Now you can understand the link-ups that I was starting to draw. Now, we know from historical studies that the Phoenicians were actually practicing what I would say was a form of Satanism. In the Bible, you read about the Canaanites, of course, who were sacrificing their children to Moloch. They were worshipping Baal, who they called El Ba El. And some people even say that the Hebrew God Yahweh, which is of course the God of the Old Testament, that he is actually El, and he was adopted because they were trying to synthesize the growing Abrahamic religion with this old form of Hebrew worship that you saw in the Canaanites. Now, the reason why this is relevant is of course, because if we go back even further in history, you go back to where banking was first created, and that was in Babylon, and that was also in that region too. It was the Babylonians who actually first formulated U-Series banking and tended into an industry where people would actually use this kind of banking to enrich themselves, to tend money into money, and to create debt slavery, and of course, Babylon ended up collapsing, and we've got stories in the Bible like the Tower of Babel, for example. So let's imagine you were bankers to the most powerful and influential people in ancient Greece that you were taking their deposits and you were amassing all of these clients' wealth, and you wanted to know how to tend that into more money, how to take that and capitalize upon it using of course, U-Series and predatory banking. Well, you'd want to call in the expats. You wouldn't call in just some run-of-the-mill slave who's used to hauling bricks. That is just ludicrous, but you might bring in somebody who comes from a culture that has mastered the dark acts of banking, somebody that has a very high reputation. Now, of course, this is just speculation, but let's use our common sense here. There is no way on planet Earth that they picked a random slave called Passion, brought him into their bank, allowed him to become extremely talented, whilst working for them, and then said, "You know what? Just keep the bank," and then he went on to become the wealthiest person in Athens in his lifetime. That would only happen if he was already extremely skilled, and I think he was actually brought in to manage the money of the corrupt elite of Athens. He was sort of a shadow banker. He was like the FTX guy, Sam Bankman, freed of his day. He would be in the guy who was siphoning off the money for the elite, and of course, he became extremely wealthy because of it, but it doesn't necessarily mean he was truly the wealthiest person in Athens. He might have been the wealthiest person on paper, which is something I often say about the people we are told today are the super rich. They tell us it's Elon Musk. They tell us it's Jeff Bezos. Yeah, I don't think it is. I think they are just pawns in the game. I also don't think the top bankers are the richest either. I think it's the people behind the scenes, and all of those other people serve that entity, and I think Passion was probably that guy in his day and age two. This is just speculation, but that's what I think is going on. I think it's extremely unlikely that the official narrative is correct, because I just don't think that slaves get given citizenship and become the wealthiest person. I think they would have been bumped off unless they were providing a service to extremely powerful people, and I think that's what was going on. And of course, when he died, he passed on the business too. Another slave, again, doesn't make sense unless that other slave was also part of his original bloodline or maybe even part of his tribe, another banker that he brought in to pass on the business too. And then there's that bit about his wife banning some banking documents. So there's clearly some fraud where they're trying to hide the records. So maybe that's what they were experts at. They were experts at taking in the deposits. They were kind of like the Switzerland of Athens. They made sure it was very secret, very private, and they protected their clients, and that's why they were allowed to become citizens because, of course, to be given Athenian citizenship as a slave, it was extremely rare. You had to have a politician in your pocket and potentially more than one. And I think they probably did because of what they were doing at the bank. And of course, this fits into a broader narrative, which is that there was these outsiders that had come into Athens and actually became very powerful and very influential private bankers. So bear with me on this one, but I think it will make even more sense when we look at what happened in the Roman Empire and how that actually fell apart. But before we do that, let's just take a second to consider the attitude of the Greeks towards Eustery, because I think it's very important to understand how it was seen and why some outsiders may have undertaken that role. So the attitude of the Greeks was actually quite complex. It certainly was tainted, and predatory lending was definitely looked down upon as a social ill. And there's actually many speeches from the great orators and stories recorded like lending or Eustery and the subsequent problems that arose from it are featured. Now, one such speech is from a court case involving Apollodorus, who was actually the son of Passian. So this is very interesting, and that's why I chose this one. And the case itself was brought against his stepfather, Forimon. Now remember, Forimon was the slave who Passian passed on the bank too, and also passed on his wife too as well. She married Forimon, and she destroyed the records. So the son of Passian, Apollodorus actually took Forimon to court, and he accused him of embezzling him out of his inheritance. Now, the case was quite lengthy, and it took multiple iterations. And for a lot of these cases in ancient Greece, you don't actually get told the verdict. It talks about the case, but it doesn't actually give you the verdict. Now, in this quote that I'm going to give you now is part of one of the later proceedings. And in this following quote that I'm going to share with you now, you actually hear Apollodorus, or should I say his speech writer, giving an impassioned speech around the ills of Paul lending practices and predatory lending. So this gives us an insight into how the Greeks viewed usury, which is why I wanted to share it with you. You have been far better off than you deserved. Yet to whom among the mass of the Athenians have you ever made a contribution? To whom have you ever given help? To whom have you done a kindness? You could not mention a single one. But while lending out money at interest and regarding the misfortune and necessities of others as your good fortune, you rejected your own uncle, Nisius from his ancestral home. You have deprived your mother-in-law of the resources on which she lived. And so far as it was in your power, you made the son of Akademus homeless. No one has ever exacted payment from a man defaulting on the principle as harshly as you exact interest from your debtors. A man then, whom you find to be so brutal and savage on all occasions, are you not going to punish when you have caught him in the very act of wrongdoing? That is a terrible thing that you will be doing men of the jury and not in any sense just. So that was one quote on usury that I found from ancient Greece. And it shows you that people were accepting of usury in some regard, but it was also about how it was done. Was it predatory? Was it fair? Was it fair? Were you trying to take advantage of people who were in hardship? Now another quote from Aristotle's Art of Retrok points out how there was a sort of hierarchy of evils amongst creditors. So listen to this one. Murakli said that he was no more of a villain than one of the respectable people whom he named. For that man played the villain at 33%, but he himself only at 10%. Now that's actually quite a witty quote. It's basically somebody saying well yes, you know, I'm a villain, but I'm not as big a villain as him because I only charge 10% interest and he charges 33% interest. Now the Greeks actually had laws that set the allowable interest rates and it was on a scale. And the low end of the scale was around 10% and the high end was around 33%, which is why that quote is saying those numbers. But when you look back at lending in Greece, it wasn't something that was widespread. It became widespread over time as people become more and more indebted and beholden to the Banksters. So does that ring a bell? Originally in Greece, it was actually much more a case of gifting and loaning between neighbors, not an interest, but it was kind of a reciprocal relationship where people would help one another out in the expectation that they would be helped out later on. Now of course that is a far better system because it's based around a common good and humanity around mutual cooperation. It doesn't mean it's perfect, but it's certainly better than having an elite group who actually accumulate wealth based on the misery of other people by lending to people in hardship, knowing that if they default on their debts, they'll get to take something even more valuable like farmland for example, which is exactly what happened in ancient Greece and it also then started to happen in Rome later on, and it is also how Italy was taken over by the Banksters who moved from Rome, which is something that is going to be a key part of the narrative. And I've got a quote here from Hesiod's poem, "Waken Days in which he describes on numerous occasions the subtleties of the peer-to-peer gift-giving and lending system that I just mentioned. It was sort of an unwritten code that people needed to be aware of to ensure that they remained in good standing with their friends and their neighbors, but also that they supported them well too, but then again that they didn't wind up being taken advantage of. So it was basically this unwritten way of ensuring that people got what they needed, but about protecting oneself as well. And for example, he says in "Waken Days, things like make fair measure from your neighbor and pay him back fairly with the same measure or better if you can, so that if you are in needs afterwards, you may find him there for sure." So there you go, that's kind of like saying if you borrow something from your neighbor, make sure you pay him back, but give him a little bit extra so that next time you need something, he'll be keen to help you. And really that's the ideal society, and that's what Greece was trying to achieve. Now there's another passage in the same work, and essentially he's talking about community building and the principle of reciprocosity. He says, "Call your friend to a feast, but leave your enemy alone, and especially call him who lives near you. For if enemies fortune happens in that place, neighbors come without making preparations, but relations stay to prepare themselves." A bad neighbor is a great plague, as a good one is a great blessing. He who enjoys a good neighbor has something precious, not even an ox would die, but for a bad neighbor. So again, that's actually a really good quote for understanding how the Greeks viewed peer-to-peer lending, that actually there was this unofficial system. And that unofficial system was certainly what was the ideal in society, so that people didn't have to lend from outsiders. Now it took outsiders to actually create a system of credit and debt. They came in and created that system. But prior to this, it was mostly based upon generosity, good will, and basically ensuring that the people around you would trek well, but if one of them didn't pay you back, I was unfair. Well, that person would also then not be in good standing, and people would stop giving to them. They would stop helping them out. And of course that would teach them a lesson, and hopefully they would then come back to good standing and start being moral and upstanding citizens again, because they'd realize, "Well, I'm not going to get by without help, so I'd better make amends." And if you think about it, that's how a virtual society is created. It's created on the premise that people want to help each other out and are going to help each other out. That that is a good thing, and that morality is better than immorality. Now, of course, when you go to a debt-based system, when you have use to rate and lending at interest, where people are trying to create money out of money, that actually leads to a toxic society. And if you extrapolate that out over many years, it will eventually lead to the collapse of a society, as people become more and more indebted, and the bankers become more and more predatory, even lending to people like widows and orphans, and people that have had some hard times, crop failures, and then actually wanting them to not pay back, so they can take the collateral, and that's exactly what happens in each and every iteration of history. And if you look at where we are today, if you look at what collateral is being put up for the two to four quadrillion in derivatives that the banks hold, it's actually our stuff, it's our pensions, it's our stocks and bonds. That's what's being put up as collateral, it's our mortgaged houses. So, again, that is another great example of what happens when you have a debt-based system, a debt-based paradigm, rather than a value-based system. But I'm digressing on this one, so let's leave that one there. I just wanted to give you an insight into how the Greeks actually saw usury, and also to give you an indication of how the original system was actually much closer to a higher-minded way of being, what people might expect during a golden age, where people don't care so much about interest and money, it's more about reciprocity. Athens, as one of the most powerful city-states in Greece, provides an instructive example of how public debt developed. The city became increasingly reliant on loans to finance its military campaigns, particularly during the Peloponnesian War, 431 to 404 BC, with Sparta. Athens also borrowed heavily to finance public building projects, including the construction of the Parthenon. The growing reliance on public loans inevitably led to increased indebtedness, although the state's income from taxes, trade and tribute from its empire initially enabled it to service these debts, prolonged military conflict strained the financial system. Athens soon resorted to borrowing from its wealthy citizens, and even from temples like the Acropolis to finance the wars, debt was not only a state concern, but also a significant issue for individuals. Many Athenians, especially farmers, fell into debt due to high interest loans. This was particularly notable before the reforms of Solon in the early 6th century BC. Solon enacted a series of debt relief measures known as the Sysaktia, meaning shaking off the beddens around 594 BC, which eliminated many debts and freed Athenians who had been sold into slavery due to insolvency. However, despite these early reforms, debt issues persisted throughout Greek history. During times of crisis, such as the Peloponnesian War, Athens found itself borrowing heavily and facing challenges in repaying its debts, ultimately contributing to the erosion of its economic and cultural prowess. By the time Alexander the Great had expanded the Greek world to his conquest in the 4th century BC, the financial systems of the Greek city-states were strained. The influx of wealth from conquered territories temporarily enriched the economy, but persistent war, internal strife and growing debts weakened the Greek states. After the death of Alexander in 323 BC and the subsequent division of his empire, the financial structures of classical Greece were likely subsumed by the Hellenistic kingdoms. Debt continued to be a problem, with individual city-states often finding themselves under the control of foreign powers, including the Roman Empire, which eventually absorbed Greece in 146 BC. Okay, so again, we're seeing a pattern here. Remember in episode number 2, when we spoke about how the Venetian oligarchy would get all of these different nations of Europe to war incessantly against one another, whilst lending to these nations and getting them further and further indebted, so they would, behind the scenes, engineer these conflicts, and then say don't worry, we'll lend to you as private bankers, and that's exactly what was happening in Greece as well. Now the private bankers, as we know, were called the Metics. They came from other regions and they set up shop there, and I would guess that they were exploiting the situation. They were working behind the scenes to get Greece and Sparta into further conflict, as we know the Peloponnesian War was absolutely catastrophic for the ancient world, and of course it put Athens into some serious debt, and like that quote just announced, the citizens themselves were getting fed and further indebted. The farmers, who are of course the most important part of any society, they were having their farms confiscated by these wealthy, and extremely wealthy, by that point bankers, who were basically enacting predatory lending. So it's the same thing we've seen in other iterations throughout history, it's the same thing that's happening today. And is it interesting that it's always the same story, it's always the same narrative. If you look at all of these different empires throughout history, all of the different kingdoms, it's always the same, it's these outsiders who come into the country, they set up shop as you serious bankers lending to the government, lending to the nation or the king or the queen, and also lending to the citizens and getting everyone, including the nation itself or the empire itself indebted. And along the way they buy massive amounts of influence, they own the politicians, they basically corrupt the entire political system to serve them, and this goes on right up until the point that you have one massive debt collapse. And at that moment these nomads, all of a sudden, who have become citizens and maybe adopted the identity, maybe even changed their last names to make themselves seem, like they are a citizen of that nation. But at no point do they actually feel or allow themselves to become a part of the nation, which they are working within, they actually keep themselves very tightly knit, they see themselves as outsiders. And in doing so they can conspire from within as one collective unit against the native population. So it's very important that they never actually assimilate, and that is something that they worked very hard not to do. And that's why in that quote that I gave you, when the bank failed, the slave passed it on to the slave, or we could say the medic passed it on to the medic to ensure that the bank and the power that came with it remained within their own tribe. In other Greek cities, foreign residents were few, with the exception of cosmopolitan current, of which however we do not know their legal status. In Sparta and Crete, as a general rule, with few exceptions, foreigners were not allowed to stay. There are also reported immigrants to the court of tyrants and kings in Thessaly, Siracusa and Macedon, whose status is decided by the ruler. Due to these complications, the legal ten medic is most closely associated with classical Athens. At Athens, the largest city in the Greek world at the time, amounted to roughly half of the free population. The status applied to two main groups of people, immigrants and former slaves. As slaves were almost always of foreign origin, they can be thought of as involuntary immigrants, drawn almost exclusively from non-Greek speaking areas, while free medics were usually of Greek origin. Medics held lower social status primarily due to cultural rather than economic constraints. Some were poor artisans at ex-slaves, while others were some of the wealthiest inhabitants of the city. As citizenship was a matter of inheritance and not of place of birth, a medic could be either an immigrant or the descendant of one. Regardless of how many generations of the family had lived in the city, medics did not become citizens unless the city chose to bestow citizenship upon them as a gift. This was rarely done. From a cultural viewpoint, such a resident could be completely local and indistinguishable from citizens. They had no role in the political community, but might be completely integrated into the social and economic life of the city. In the scene that opens Plato's Republic, the dialogue takes place in a medic household. The status of the speakers as citizen or medic is never mentioned. Medics typically shared the burdens of citizenship without any of its privileges. Like citizens, they had to perform military service and, if wealthy enough, were subject to a special tax contribution and tax services. Litiges, for example, paying for a warship or funding a tragic chorus. During emergencies, the city could distribute rations to citizens, but none of these rights were available to medics. They were not permitted to own real estate in Attica, whether farm or house, unless granted a special exemption. Neither could they sign contracts with the state or work in the silver mines, since the wealth beneath the earth was felt to belong to the political community. Medics were subject to a tax called the metochion, assessed at 12 drakements per year for medic men and their households, and 6 for independent medic women. In addition to the metochion, non-Athenians wishing to sell goods in the agora, including medics seemed to have been liable to another tax known as the Zenica. Although medics were barred from the assembly and exempted from jury service, they did have the same access to the courts as citizens. They could both prosecute others and be prosecuted themselves. A great many migrants came to Athens to do business and were in fact essential to the Athenian economy. It would have been a severe disincentive if they had been unable to pursue commercial disputes on the law. At the same time, they did not have exactly the same rights here as citizens. Unlike citizens, medics could be made to undergo judicial torture, and the penalties for killing them were not as severe as for killing a citizen. Medics were also subject to enslavement for a variety of offenses. These might have been failure to abide by their status obligations, such as not paying them a token tax or not nominating a citizen sponsor, or they might be contaminations of the citizen body by marrying a citizen or claiming to be citizens themselves. So, I just wanted to stop there for a second. So, what's talking about here is that medics actually had to have a sponsor. So, this was kind of like a guardian who would claim them. Not like a slave per se, but they would say, "Okay, well, this medics is going to be someone that I'm going to watch over." Now, the medics did have rights, but again, you're starting to see a pattern because if you go back to, for example, Venice, we know there was the Venetian ghettos for the Jewish community, and much like the medics, they would actually be doing the private banking lending, and yet also they would actually be given restricted rights as citizens. Now, as we go into pattern number two and we discuss the Roman Empire, you're going to find out why that might have been. And I'm going to posit that the medics and also in some of these other instances throughout history, these people were not actually who they said they were. Of course, some of the medics were other Greek citizens who had moved to Athens simply because they thought they could make more money there. But as the story of passing in showed us, other ones came from much further afield, and they were clearly very skilled in the art of banking. They didn't assimilate, they got themselves citizenship, of course, and they influenced the politics, they influenced Athens to go to war with Sparta, they indebted not just the nation, but individuals within the nation too, taking vast amounts of treasure, wealth, land off of these people, and then ultimately, as the Empire came to an end, they hopped on forward to the next iteration of Empire, which was, of course, the Roman Empire. Now, at first glance, this might seem quite speculative, but wait till we get to part two, when I'm going to be giving you many more pieces of evidence that that is exactly what happened, and at the end of the episode, we're then going to link it to both episode number one and two to show that actually what we're talking about here with Saturn's bankers is one long lineage, a bloodline group that goes back thousands of years, and they have these special skills, and they use them time and time again within each iteration of history to enrich themselves and to enslave the masses in debt. And with that, my friends, I'm going to end part number one. So I hope you enjoyed this one, I hope you've enjoyed the series thus far. Just a few quick updates before we leave. My latest episode of cognitive dissonance, which is the show I am doing with her volume Norwich and Monica Perez, that is now live. You can listen to that one on my sub stack, which is another announcement. I do now have a sub stack. So if you're enjoying my content and you want a kind of one-stop shop to find all of the stuff I'm doing on the parallel systems broadcast, the parallel mic podcast, and also, of course, my cognitive dissonance show that I just mentioned, you can sign up as a free member to my sub stack. Now, of course, if you'd like to access part two of this episode and each and every other parallel mic podcast, the place to do that is parallelmic.com. Also, I do have a Patreon, but that is where I put my financial newsletter and all of my homesteading content. But with that, I'm going to leave it there for part number one. So I hope you've enjoyed it. Members, please head over to parallelmic.com to listen to part number two. Everyone else, thank you so much for listening. And like always, I'll see you in the next one. What you are basic. Deep, deep, down, far, far in, is simply the fabric and structure of existence itself. [Music] Peace for all men and women. Peace for all men and women. Peace for all men and women. Not merely peace in our time. Peace in all time. Honesty in the stress of your life. [Music] Not merely peace in our time. Peace in all time. The fabric and structure of existence itself. [Music] [Music] [Music] In the 17th shutrooks and look at the script. The kingdom of God is within man. Not one man nor a group of men. But in all men, in you, you the people have the power. Peace for all men and women. The fabric and structure of existence itself. Honesty in the stress of your life. [Music] Peace for all men and women. Not merely peace in our time. Peace in all time. [Music] (chimes)
