Nearly half of all emperors in Constantinople were violently overthrown, which kept every emperor perpetually insecure and incentivized him to rule in ways that kept the populace content.

37:06... something like that. Once everyone's taken their side and you have a winner, that's the emperor, And you often overthrow the previous regime. I'll give you some statistics. Something like 46% of the emperors of Constantinople are overthrown through violence. 46%. And that's almost half. Right? So that's a huge, that's a huge number, which means that every emperor is vulnerable and insecure, and they know it, right? So what they have to do is make sure that that doesn't happen to them,

37:36and the way to do that is not by arresting and executing everybody you think might be a threat or just generally behaving like a, you know, a Caligula or a Nero. That will just get you killed. Like, they know this. So the best way to avoid that fate is to actually do the things that will make people happy so that they don't support a rebel if a rebel

38:00decides to appear. And sometimes rebels would appear. There's a kind of convention in Constantinople, like if you... Sometimes you you think, "Hmm, that emperor's pretty unpopular and I think I can overthrow him." What you would do is you would march down the center boulevard- ... And, you know, you'd have your people just call the populace of Constantinople out to rally, to you know, maybe go to Hagia Sophia, the, the church, and just create a big crowd and call for the

38:27deposition of the emperor and, you know, maybe that would hap- And sometimes it did, and sometimes it didn't, and the rebel or wannabe rebel would sort of proceed down the Mese, the boulevard, and people would just gradually just disappear, and then he'd be left alone- ... and go up to Hagia Sophia as seeking asylum. Right? So that's a bid. That's someone making a bid for the throne, and it just goes disastrously bad.

38:53Other times, the people come out 'cause they hate the emperor, and they drag the emperor out and cut his nose off or whatever. So emperors are constantly trying to prevent that from happening, and the best way to do that is through goodwill. - I'm trying to load in that kind of world 'cause it's a different world than we live in today. - Yes. - There's a constant inner workings of policy development inside government.