Exploring Antiquity

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In this episode of Exploring Antiquity, I speak with Andrew Kenrick about Juba II of Mauretania, an imperial hostage, Roman client king, and famed scholar — a real Renaissance man.

Further Reading:

J. Draycott, Cleopatra’s Daughter: Egyptian Princess, Roman Prisoner, African Queen (London, 2022).

D. Fishwick and D.B. Shaw, ‘Ptolemy of Mauretania and the Conspiracy of Gaetulicus’, Historia 25 (1976), pp. 491–494.

D. Mattingly, Between Sahara and Sea: Africa in the Roman Empire (Ann Arbor, 2023).

D.W. Roller, The World of Juba II and Kleopatra Selene: Royal Scholarship on Rome’s African Frontier (London, 2003).

W. Vanacker, ‘Conflicts and Instability in Mauretania and Gaius' Realpolitik’, Latomus 72 (2013), pp. 725–741.

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In this episode of Exploring Antiquity, I speak with Steven L. Tuck, Professor of History at Miami University, about his work studying survivors of the eruption of Mount Vesuvius in AD 79, such as where they settled and how they integrated into their new communities.

Further Reading:

M. Beard, The Fires of Vesuvius: Pompeii Lost and Found (Cambridge, MA, 2008).

J. Berry, The Complete Pompeii (London, 2007).

S. L. Tuck, Escape from Pompeii The Great Eruption of Vesuvius and Its Survivors (Oxford, 2026).

S.L. Tuck, ‘The Catastrophic ad 79 Eruption of Vesuvius: Survivors and Post-eruption Intervention at the Local and Imperial Levels in Four Communities,’ in R. Raja and A. Wilson (eds.), Catastrophes in Context: Disaster and Response in the Roman and Early Byzantine World (Turnhout, 2026), pp. 83–101.

P. Wilkinson, Pompeii: An Archaeological Guide (London, 2019).

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In this episode of Exploring Antiquity, I speak with Joel Christensen, Professor of Classical Studies at the Graduate Centre of the City University of New York, about the 'Iliad' and the 'Odyssey' and how they relate to the historical and archaeological record.