Life Of Caesar

Life Of Caesar

By Cameron Reilly & Ray HarrisHistory
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Life Of Caesar episodes

  • UNLEASH THE CARL – Vespasian #18 (Free Preview)
    This week we finally reach the end of the Siege of Jerusalem — and it's brutal. Titus storms the upper city, the rebels' back is broken, Simon and John have vanished into the tunnels, and by September 25th, 70 CE, the city is rubble and the Temple is gone forever. We also dive into the fate of the sacred Menorah — where it went, what it meant, and why nobody knows where it is today.

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    21 min
  • UNLEASH THE CARL – Vespasian #18
    This week we finally reach the end of the Siege of Jerusalem — and it's brutal. Titus storms the upper city, the rebels' back is broken, Simon and John have vanished into the tunnels, and by September 25th, 70 CE, the city is rubble and the Temple is gone forever. We also dive into the fate of the sacred Menorah — where it went, what it meant, and why nobody knows where it is today.

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    44 min
  • Goddamn it, Carl! – Vespasian #17 (Free Preview)
    It's August 70 CE, and the siege of Jerusalem is entering its apocalyptic final act. In this episode, Cameron and Ray pick up where the last one left off — starving rebels launching desperate sorties against exhausted Roman legionaries, Titus ordering his men to burn down the silver-coated temple gates to finally crack open the last Jewish stronghold, and the mounting pressure on one of the ancient world's most sacred structures. Before the walls even fall, Cameron takes a deep dive into the remarkable cast of Jesuses and Ananiases haunting Josephus's account of the war — including a wild-eyed plebeian prophet named Jesus son of Ananias, who spent seven years and five months wandering Jerusalem's streets howling "Woe to Jerusalem!" until a Roman siege engine stone ended his career mid-prophecy. Cameron draws pointed connections between this forgotten street-prophet and the Gospel accounts of Jesus of Nazareth, noting that the Gospel of Matthew — written around 75–80 CE, after Jerusalem had already fallen — may owe more to Josephus's war stories than to genuine prophecy. Then history's most consequential act of arson takes centre stage: against Titus's explicit orders, an unnamed Roman soldier — dubbed "Carl" by Cameron and Ray in an extended bit of comedy gold — hurled a burning torch through a golden-framed window of the Temple, setting in motion a conflagration that consumed one of the ancient world's greatest buildings while Titus himself was still inside the Holy of Holies. The looting that followed was so spectacular it caused a gold glut across Syria, halving the price of the metal. Titus freed roughly 40,000 non-combatants into the smouldering ruin of their city — good news delivered alongside very bad news. The end of the siege is now finally within sight.

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    31 min
  • Goddamn it, Carl! – Vespasian #17
    It's August 70 CE, and the siege of Jerusalem is entering its apocalyptic final act. In this episode, Cameron and Ray pick up where the last one left off — starving rebels launching desperate sorties against exhausted Roman legionaries, Titus ordering his men to burn down the silver-coated temple gates to finally crack open the last Jewish stronghold, and the mounting pressure on one of the ancient world's most sacred structures. Before the walls even fall, Cameron takes a deep dive into the remarkable cast of Jesuses and Ananiases haunting Josephus's account of the war — including a wild-eyed plebeian prophet named Jesus son of Ananias, who spent seven years and five months wandering Jerusalem's streets howling "Woe to Jerusalem!" until a Roman siege engine stone ended his career mid-prophecy. Cameron draws pointed connections between this forgotten street-prophet and the Gospel accounts of Jesus of Nazareth, noting that the Gospel of Matthew — written around 75–80 CE, after Jerusalem had already fallen — may owe more to Josephus's war stories than to genuine prophecy. Then history's most consequential act of arson takes centre stage: against Titus's explicit orders, an unnamed Roman soldier — dubbed "Carl" by Cameron and Ray in an extended bit of comedy gold — hurled a burning torch through a golden-framed window of the Temple, setting in motion a conflagration that consumed one of the ancient world's greatest buildings while Titus himself was still inside the Holy of Holies. The looting that followed was so spectacular it caused a gold glut across Syria, halving the price of the metal. Titus freed roughly 40,000 non-combatants into the smouldering ruin of their city — good news delivered alongside very bad news. The end of the siege is now finally within sight.

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    51 min
  • VES 16 — Slip, Trip, and Slit: The Floor of the Temple Claims Another One (Free Preview)
    It's 70 CE, the walls of Jerusalem are crumbling, and the city is eating itself alive — literally. In this episode of Life of Caesar, Cameron and Ray wade deep into Josephus's harrowing account of the final, grinding assault on the Antonia Fortress and the Temple Mount, where the siege of Jerusalem has reached a level of horror almost beyond comprehension. Titus is still trying to take the city intact, still offering surrender terms that rebel leader John of Gischala keeps refusing, even as 600,000 corpses have been thrown out of the gates and the starving population has been reduced to eating dung, leather belts, and — in one unforgettable episode — a widow named Mary from Perea who roasts and eats her own infant son, leaving even Jerusalem's most hardened killers staggering into the street in shock. Meanwhile, the Roman assaults keep producing their own gruesome catalogue of disasters: brave volunteers like Sabinus the Syrian and the Abian centurion Julian charge the walls in spectacular solo acts of courage, only to be undone by the cruel physics of hobnailed caliga boots sliding out on blood-slicked marble floors. A trumpeter and sixteen centuries break into the Antonia in a daring pre-dawn raid, a legionnaire named Longus cuts his own throat rather than surrender or burn, and a soldier called Artorius survives a sixty-foot jump by landing on — and killing — his tentmate Lucius, who had agreed to catch him in exchange for his inheritance. Through it all, Josephus insists it wasn't the Romans but God himself who condemned the Jews, a theological contortion Cameron links to the writing of the Gospel of Mark and the birth of Christianity from the ashes of the Temple. There's also a lengthy and highly entertaining detour into medieval witch trials, broomsticks, and the surprisingly pharmaceutical origins of flying — Cameron has been reading Carlo Ginzburg, and he has things to tell you about salves and sticks that will change how you watch *Wicked* forever.

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    32 min
  • VES 16 — Blood on the Marble: How Not to Storm a Temple (Free Preview)
    It's 70 CE, the siege of Jerusalem is entering its most savage phase, and Titus is running out of patience. In this episode of Life of Caesar, Cameron and Ray wade through the blood-soaked, famine-ravaged final weeks of the Roman assault on the Holy City, guided by the gleefully self-serving account of Josephus — a man who has somehow convinced himself that God personally switched teams and is now rooting for Rome. The Jews inside Jerusalem are starving by the hundreds of thousands, eating leather belts, rummaging through sewers, and in one truly unforgettable case, a widow named Mary roasts and eats her own infant son — a scene so horrifying it sends hardened killers staggering into the street. Meanwhile, rebel leader John of Gischala is busy pre-sacking the temple he's supposedly defending, melting down sacred vessels and drinking the priests' wine, while Titus makes offer after offer of clemency that keeps getting thrown back in his face. On the Roman side, the assault on the Antonia Fortress produces a parade of spectacular individual catastrophes: a Syrian legionnaire named Sabinus who volunteers for a suicidal wall-scaling at 11am, fights brilliantly, then trips on a rock and is swarmed; the peerless centurion Julian, who leaps alone into a Jewish courtyard twirling swords like General Grievous, only to be undone by his own hobnailed boots — the very Roman innovation designed for traction — on blood-slicked marble floors. Cameron delivers a detailed and genuinely fascinating digression on the caliga, the Roman military boot, before pivoting — via witches, medieval French lepers, conspiracy theories, broomsticks, and psychoactive vaginal salves — to the origins of the witch trials. It's an episode where the walls are literally collapsing, the marble floors are running with blood, bodies are piling up in the streets, and Cameron still finds time to recommend a sex position called the Kneeling Bodyguard. All roads lead to Rome, apparently, and all Rome's roads eventually end in catastrophe.

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    32 min
  • VES 16 — Slip, Trip, and Slit: The Floor of the Temple Claims Another One
    It's 70 CE, the walls of Jerusalem are crumbling, and the city is eating itself alive — literally. In this episode of Life of Caesar, Cameron and Ray wade deep into Josephus's harrowing account of the final, grinding assault on the Antonia Fortress and the Temple Mount, where the siege of Jerusalem has reached a level of horror almost beyond comprehension. Titus is still trying to take the city intact, still offering surrender terms that rebel leader John of Gischala keeps refusing, even as 600,000 corpses have been thrown out of the gates and the starving population has been reduced to eating dung, leather belts, and — in one unforgettable episode — a widow named Mary from Perea who roasts and eats her own infant son, leaving even Jerusalem's most hardened killers staggering into the street in shock. Meanwhile, the Roman assaults keep producing their own gruesome catalogue of disasters: brave volunteers like Sabinus the Syrian and the Abian centurion Julian charge the walls in spectacular solo acts of courage, only to be undone by the cruel physics of hobnailed caliga boots sliding out on blood-slicked marble floors. A trumpeter and sixteen centuries break into the Antonia in a daring pre-dawn raid, a legionnaire named Longus cuts his own throat rather than surrender or burn, and a soldier called Artorius survives a sixty-foot jump by landing on — and killing — his tentmate Lucius, who had agreed to catch him in exchange for his inheritance. Through it all, Josephus insists it wasn't the Romans but God himself who condemned the Jews, a theological contortion Cameron links to the writing of the Gospel of Mark and the birth of Christianity from the ashes of the Temple. There's also a lengthy and highly entertaining detour into medieval witch trials, broomsticks, and the surprisingly pharmaceutical origins of flying — Cameron has been reading Carlo Ginzburg, and he has things to tell you about salves and sticks that will change how you watch *Wicked* forever.

    Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

    1 hr
  • VES 16 — Blood on the Marble: How Not to Storm a Temple
    It's 70 CE, the siege of Jerusalem is entering its most savage phase, and Titus is running out of patience. In this episode of Life of Caesar, Cameron and Ray wade through the blood-soaked, famine-ravaged final weeks of the Roman assault on the Holy City, guided by the gleefully self-serving account of Josephus — a man who has somehow convinced himself that God personally switched teams and is now rooting for Rome. The Jews inside Jerusalem are starving by the hundreds of thousands, eating leather belts, rummaging through sewers, and in one truly unforgettable case, a widow named Mary roasts and eats her own infant son — a scene so horrifying it sends hardened killers staggering into the street. Meanwhile, rebel leader John of Gischala is busy pre-sacking the temple he's supposedly defending, melting down sacred vessels and drinking the priests' wine, while Titus makes offer after offer of clemency that keeps getting thrown back in his face. On the Roman side, the assault on the Antonia Fortress produces a parade of spectacular individual catastrophes: a Syrian legionnaire named Sabinus who volunteers for a suicidal wall-scaling at 11am, fights brilliantly, then trips on a rock and is swarmed; the peerless centurion Julian, who leaps alone into a Jewish courtyard twirling swords like General Grievous, only to be undone by his own hobnailed boots — the very Roman innovation designed for traction — on blood-slicked marble floors. Cameron delivers a detailed and genuinely fascinating digression on the caliga, the Roman military boot, before pivoting — via witches, medieval French lepers, conspiracy theories, broomsticks, and psychoactive vaginal salves — to the origins of the witch trials. It's an episode where the walls are literally collapsing, the marble floors are running with blood, bodies are piling up in the streets, and Cameron still finds time to recommend a sex position called the Kneeling Bodyguard. All roads lead to Rome, apparently, and all Rome's roads eventually end in catastrophe.

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    1 hr
  • The One About Yoda - Vespasian 15

    In this episode, we return to the sweltering heat of August, 70 CE, where the Siege of Jerusalem has reached a gruesome stalemate. We take a deep dive into the survival story of the defector-turned-historian Josephus, flashing back to his "miraculous" (and highly suspicious) escape from the Siege of Jotapata three years prior. From the ingenious use of raw ox-hides and boiled oil to the dark "suicide by proxy" pact in a hidden cavern, we explore how Josephus managed to talk his way out of a death sentence and into the good graces of the future Emperors Vespasian and Titus. Finally, we examine one of the most bizarre and macabre chapters of the war: the "walking gold mines" of Jerusalem, where desperate refugees swallowed their life savings only to be met with the knives of greedy auxiliary troops. It’s a tale of high-stakes engineering, ancient "fan fiction," and why you should never swallow 24-karat gold on an empty stomach. Oh and... Yoda.

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    47 min
  • A Tight-Ass Situation in Jerusalem - Vespasian 14

    In this episode, Cameron and Ray dive into the increasingly grim and desperate Siege of Jerusalem. Following a tactical blunder where Titus's eagerness led a thousand legionaries into a congested urban death trap, the Roman commander recalibrates his strategy with brutal efficiency. We explore the fascinating intersection of ancient warfare and psychology, from the "payday pageantry" used to demoralize the starving population to the horrifying reality of the "wall of bodies" the Romans had to breach. The discussion spans the evolution of "Caesar" from a family name to an imperial title, the original "suicide bombers" of the Jewish resistance, and the ultimate Roman engineering flex: building a five-mile circumvallation wall in just three days. It’s a story of starvation, military discipline, and the sheer administrative might of Rome clashing against an unbreakable rebel spirit.


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    1 hr 5 min

About Life Of Caesar

From the publisher's feed

A long-form podcast about the lives of the Julio-Claudian dynasty.