This episode reflects on visiting the Roman Forum during the October 2024 Land Unconference in Rome, where doors built 25-30 feet above ground level revealed that the Forum—center of world decision-making for centuries—remained buried in dirt and used as pasture land for nearly 2,000 years after the Roman Empire fell in 500 AD. Julius Caesar’s monument, dedicated to an emperor worshipped as a deity, lay underground until excavation began in the late 1800s because the needs of surviving humans to graze livestock outweighed preserving historical monuments.
Key Takeaways:
- The Needs of the Present Always Outweigh Past Accomplishments Even Julius Caesar—a name known globally 2,000 years later—was buried in dirt for two millennia because keeping sheep and goats alive mattered more than preserving the legacy of history’s most famous leaders.
- 99.999% Chance Nobody Remembers Your Legacy With 8 billion people alive today, the probability any of us will be recalled 2,000 years from now is infinitesimal—even the rare few who achieve it get buried when descendants face survival pressure.
- Live for Impact Now, Not Imagined Future Recognition Society doesn’t care what you accomplish beyond direct positive contributions to current lives—focus on usefulness and improvement for descendants without expecting remembrance or recognition.
Listen to the full episode for the complete reflection on ego, legacy, and what ancient Rome teaches about human memory.
(Podcast transcript below)
Hi, Chris Duff over at Serious Land Capital, vacant land funding partner mindset Sunday here. So, yeah, I was reflecting back on the land on conference that I went to in Rome, Italy last October, 2024 timestamp on it. Um, really, really wonderful and memorable trip. And there’s less than 10 of us again, credit.
Dave Denniston for setting all of this up. Arturo, Christina, Italian locals, also land investors who just set up an incredible itinerary for us. probably the event I reflect on most when I go back to this trip, besides the wonderful time.
together that we spent to land investors, relationships built and so forth. But we did a lot of touring around, you know, when in Rome, right? And when we went to go visit the ancient Roman, know, Emperor Palace and then seeing the old Roman Forum.
What was really striking is that there were a couple buildings within the forum that had doors built into them that were like, don’t know, 25, 30 feet, something in the air. And it was like, okay, why was that really the case here? And it turned out that, you know, after the
Roman Empire fell. Just for any non-history buffs out there, was like roughly the year 500 AD. know, kind of the Dark Ages were present and eventually the Forum was just buried, buried in dirt and remained that way for the better part of 2,000 years.
You know, so some of these like foundations were around later on that people just like kind of built on top of it. But for the most part, you know, as the, you know, the forum, you know, like one of the most famous places where all the biggest decisions in the world were taking place, was just buried, used as basically pasture land for, you know, the humans that were, you know, still alive and still needed to take care of their daily needs.
And it really wasn’t until the late 1800s, early 1900s that the forum was finally excavated fully. So it was just astonishing to me that it’s like, know, so much history was there and just general importance.
because of the needs of the individuals who were still alive and trying to grind out in existence, that the needs of the present always outweigh past accomplishments. And I think the starkest example was there was some monument to Julius Caesar, where effectively some of these emperors, were treated as deities.
And so it was just, you know, kind of this opulent and, you know, magnificent, almost shrine to this, you know, quote unquote great man that had just gotten buried in the dirt. And again, that’s just like, it’s such a stark reminder where, you know, it didn’t matter.
who this was. mean, think about it. I mean, this was, you know, not just some random person. I it’s just like Julius Caesar, you know, emperor of Rome. Yeah, a name that pretty much anybody knows around the world even today, like 2000 years later. You could ask, you know, probably most 10 year olds and they probably heard of Julius Caesar. And, know, kind of really putting that into perspective. mean,
8 billion people on earth living right now, the chance that any of them, any of us are going to be recalled by people living 2,000 years from now, it’s infinitesimally small. And yet there’s a few figures from back in the day that really stand out like that. And even legends of human history, they were just buried.
buried in the dirt for the better part of 2000 years. Because again, like the needs of those who are still alive, the needs of the present always outweigh past accomplishments. And that just really, really struck me deeply and something I returned to often to remind myself like, you know, again, no matter how much.
grandeur or ego or anything that we might imagine or anything, know, even quote unquote, legacy, really is, is not going to matter beyond what, you know, direct positive impact that we can present to society and hopefully improve their lives going forward. But, you know, if we don’t, you know, it doesn’t matter how great we are because if things are harder and, you know, the, needs of people who live in the future.
Um are you know dire and they need to stay alive like who can you know, they’re they’re not going to care about anybody no matter what their accomplishments were in in the past and um Even if you do really contribute in a positive manner There’s almost you know 99.999 chance that they’re never going to think about the person who brought it to them Um, it’s just that now it’s a convenience that they can kind of live on uh so
To me, again, this was just like, again, stark, stark reminder that…
You know, no one is ever really going to care what, you know, how, how we might, you know, operate our life and so forth. Like, are all going to die and everything. we might as well be, useful and try to contribute to a, a better, a better future for, for our descendants. But imagining that like people are going to be, you know, thinking about us or that our legacies are really going to blast outside of even like immediate.
family, maybe some friends, and even then probably within a couple generations. So that starts to much more quickly, no matter like how larger than life you might be. Because again, some of the most famous human beings in history were still buried in the dirt for a couple millennia. And…
Like that’s also a lesson there is, you know, things were just so hard for humans that it wasn’t until literally like just a hundred years ago that things just started to get a little bit better. That some leisure time could be devoted to hauling off dirt and excavating and finding some of these ancient ruins. Um, because if things were just that much more desperate and you just got to stay alive, keep cows and
sheep and goats, whatever, grazing on the land to just, you know, make it through another day, then yeah, those ruins would have just stayed buried. And you know, that’s always, there’s no guarantees that society is always going to keep moving forward as well. You know, if things really broke apart, mean, it’d be super, super dire, then that’s going to be the first thing to go. You know, these remembrances of history and museums and so forth, relics.
Like, yeah, it’s interesting and you, know, from an intellectual standpoint and can learn a lot from it, but as far as like keeping you alive now, it’s not gonna actually help. hopefully this is again, kind of a key reminder for your own self. And to me, I just kind of view it from an optimistic standpoint that
it to me, it’s just even more freeing to know that society really isn’t going to care one way or another what it might do, or even if they do kind of care in the moment, those people are going to be dead anyway. And the future descendants aren’t, they’re going to have their own problems to deal with. like you may as well live life as you want and ideally contribute.
as much as you can or as much as, you know, is feasible without, you know, driving yourself crazy. So I got to take, take care of yourself and your immediate family of course there. But, you know, the chance that any of us are going to leave a legacy like Caesar is, you know, nearly impossible. And yeah, even if we did, there’s a decent chance that you’re just going to be buried in dirt anyway.
in, in, in the minds of future generations for, possibly thousands of years to come. So, yeah, just a reminder for all of our egos and, yeah, yeah, the phrasing of the needs of the present. Always outweigh past accomplishments. Just keep that imprinted in my mind constantly. And, that was just, yeah.
some of the most, one of the most impactful moments I had had, on that particular trip. So hopefully you found this interesting as an anecdote there for your own life. And if you are looking for funding, Seriousland.capital, zero cost review of your land deals at Land Daily Diligence, Facebook group and landpricer.ai for simple and accurate way to price land. And I mentioned on conference.
as one of the Italy trips. Remember, there’s larger Unconference in August 7th 9th of this year. Tune in to allow us to your ticket using my last name, Duff. Less than 10 spots left. Really hope to see you there. Subscribe and share. Take care, everybody. Bye.
