and my guest anthony everitt is an expert on ancient roman culture. or so he claims-- anyone who could contradict him is dead! [ laughter ] only seven days until halloween! but i tell my kids it's ten. i get some great deals on costumes. [ laughter ] this is the colbert report! ["the colbert report" theme music playing] [cheers and applause] [crowd chanting stephen] welcome to the report. good to have you with us. [cheers and applause] happy wednesday. folks, let's get straight to it. we have no time to waste here because -- folks, huge news. we're always looking to bring you the biggest election story. and rumors started monday about a game-changing october surprise. >> donald trump now claims to have a bombshell announcement about president obama. >> a major announcement from donald trump coming today, and why it might change your vote in the presidential election. >> i have something very very big. it's very big. bigger than anyone would know. it's going to be very big, i know one thing-- you will cover it in a very big fashion. >> stephen: yes, bo

thank you so much anthony everitt, "the rise of rome." we'll be right back.rs and applause] [cheers and a

please welcome anthony everitt. [cheers and applause] thank you so much for joininging me.ircumstance you've written extensively on ancient rome. you wrote the book cicero, augustous, and your new book is called "the rise of rome, the making of the world's greatest empire." why is the rome the world's greatest empire? aren't we the greatest empire right now? >> you are on the way. you are the new one. >> stephen: thank you. that's a compliment. is that a compliment? >> well, it might be a compliment. the romans were tiresome people? >> stephen: tiresome? >> they were brutal. they weren't very cultured. they knew they didn't have a culture so they went to greece. >> stephen: we took your culture when we stole harry potter from you guys. >> yes. [ laughter ] >> stephen: you guys are greece to our rome. >> i haven'ting for given you for that. >> stephen: empires don't care. you used to have an empire. >> we had it for 10 minutes. you've hit for five minutes. the roamentans had it for 1,000 years. >> stephen: what did they do right? >> when they went and beat somebody up and de

and i hope it was a foot. [ laughter ] and my guest anthony everitt is an expert on ancient roman culture or so he claims-- anyone who could contradict him is dead! [ laughter ] only seven days until halloween! but i tell my kids it's ten. i get some great deals on costumes. [ laughter ] this is the colbert report! ["the colbert report" theme music playing]