Special Episodes Archives - The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies

In this special episode, we are thrilled to be joined by Laura Jenkinson-Brown (aka Jenks), teacher, writer, lover of Odysseus, and – most famously – the genius behind the website and resources of ‘Greek Myth Comix’ which makes all manner of ancient Greek and Roman ideas and literature engaging and accessible for all learners!

Laura teaches Classical Civilisation and Ancient History in the UK, she writes and illustrates pedagogical resources, and is now also a fellow podcaster, producing the show ‘Ancient Geek’. Seriously, if you are an ancient history teacher and have not checked out her amazing resources, you are certifiably insane. There’s just no other way of looking at it. 

Laura’s outstanding contributions to the field have been recognised by The Classical Association and the Working Classicists. We are excited to discuss Laura’s amazing new publication You Are Odysseus which shakes up Homer’s epic poem by placing the reader in the centre of the story and all its complexities. Any 80s kids out there who were fans of the ‘Choose Your Own Adventure’ series? This is that… Homeric style. And if you’re not much of a reader, there is also a podcast version of this creative new take on the ancient classic out now. 

You can pick up You Are Odysseus and have yourself a Homeric adventure from the comfort of your living room right now. Why not grab it from your local independent bookseller? 

Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Dr Rad 0:15
Welcome to the Partial Historians. We explore all the details of ancient Rome, everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I’m Dr. Rad,

Dr G 0:33
and I’m Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.

Dr Rad 0:44
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city. Welcome to a brand new episode of the Partial Historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr. Rad, and I am Dr. G. And Dr. G, we have a living legend on our podcast today. Someone whose resources I have been using in my classroom for such a very long time. I won’t give a precise number because that ages me, quite frankly. We are thrilled to be joined today by Laura Jenkinson Brown, teacher, writer, and most famously the genius behind the website and resources of Greek myth comics, which makes all manner of ancient Greek and Roman ideas and literature engaging and accessible for all learners, Laura teaches classical civilisation and ancient history in the UK. She writes and illustrates pedagogical resources and is a stick figure artist par excellence. Laura’s outstanding contributions to the field have been recognized by the Classical Association and the Working Classicists. We are excited to discuss Laura’s amazing new publication, “You Are Odysseus”, which shakes up Homer’s epic poem by placing the reader in the center of the story and in all its complexities. Welcome to the show, Laura.

Speaker 1 2:20
Thank you. Thank you. you for having me. Good gosh, Fiona, that was amazing. Thank you so much. I don’t think I’ve ever had quite such a gushing introduction. I don’t know what to say.

Dr Rad 2:32
All well deserved. All well deserved. When I found you were coming on, I was extremely excited because back when I used to be able to teach ancient history, I did use your resources so very much, and

Jenks 2:43
it’s funny because I listened to your podcast to learn what else to teach.

Dr Rad 2:48
There you go. World’s colliding, and we didn’t know it.

Dr G 2:53
This is super exciting indeed because I think there is a lot of interest, generally speaking, that has been increasing over time for ancient Greek and ancient Roman and ancient world information, and to have creators like yourself putting out so many high-quality resources that people can utilize to enhance their understanding is phenomenal. Because there is the danger, I think, particularly in a social media world, of following some pretty questionable accounts with highly questionable information about the ancient world, which does nobody any favors. So, I think you’re doing great work. I think the gods would. Oh well,

Jenks 3:35
that is high praise.

Dr G 3:36
And I think tackling what is one of considered one of the foundational texts is a huge ask as well, and the way that you’ve pulled it together is really fascinating. So we wanted to take this chance to have a chat to you about this book, You Are Odysseus, because it’s doing something really fresh and new, and also allowing people to engage in the mythic landscape in a very different way. So, to get us started, in the foreword to “You Are Odysseus, Liv Albert, another famous podcaster in this space, notes that “Homes Odysseus” is a text that prompts the question, “What if this had gone differently? And I’m wondering if you can take us a little bit through your personal journey with the Odyssey and the questions that it’s prompted for you in your engagement with the poem.

Jenks 4:29
Okay, what an excellent question to start. I suppose I think I was. I remember answering this question previously. Where did I say I first read the Odyssey? Because I’m starting to forget. Everything gets a bit everything’s a bit gray around the edges when you get to my age. It’s actually my birthday tomorrow, so I’m feeling older than usual. Yes, the anniversary of the Titanic sinking. Yay!

Dr G 4:57
No, surely

Jenks 4:59
not. I came to the Odyssey before I came to it teaching, but I really came to it teaching because I was an originally an English literature teacher that then taught classical civilization part time within my teaching allocation, and then over the last 20 years this year, it has become my my main classical civilization, rather than the Odyssey. It would be lovely if it was just Odyssey all day, but sadly that is not the case. I find teaching texts is incredibly illuminating. Someone who really loves to learn and try and new try and learn new things all the time, teaching a text from the so you’re you’re looking at it from the other direction and trying to inform others of why it’s so amazing and special allows you to really see those things. And I know some people tend to kill books by over-explaining them, and sometimes people come out of English literature lessons going, “Wow, really wish I didn’t know all that about this great book that I would love to have enjoyed otherwise, but I think with the Odyssey and and other epic texts, because they have so many amazing features that make them work so well, it is kind of a privilege to get to know them and understand them and see why they work so well. Because then, because they are ancient, they are so then informative into the lives of people who were listening to them, and the people who were composing them, and the lives of the people that they are meant to be about, and how realistic those lives might have been, and also a massive insight into what they believed their lives were about and for, and were represented by when it comes to things like the gods and the supernatural, so I think I came to the Odyssey most of all when for the classical civilization GCSE, which is and now I’m going to show a complete, complete lack of knowledge of your education system down the despite I used to know this. So GCSE is ages 15 to 16. I suppose it’s sort of middle way through secondary school, high school, and it’s the second last qualification you do at school. The A level being the last one. So I teach classical civilization GCSE, and then ancient history A level, which is where your podcast comes in, because I get to teach the Roman side of it, which is great fun, and which was was something I came to quite late. But the Odyssey was very much half the entire course on the original GCSE, and then it became slightly less. But you would still read about five books of it, and then they changed that which books every so often. So you you would get a little bit of a refresh. Although Book Nine is always in there, and that is where I sudden I started to understand it. I think and understand how amazing this character was. I think, in fact, I told the Iliad first and thought, well, I can I can see why Achilles is so incredibly demanding of our attention because he’s so real and just trying to work things out, and then you get to Odysseus, and he’s just trying to work out how to con you, and get the best out of every single situation, which is just so fun and also very real, but in a very very different way. So I think that’s why I became slightly obsessed with him. I suppose everyone loves a bad boy, really. He’s not a bad bad boy, but he’s certainly more interesting than, say, than the other side of my teaching. Aeneas, who’s just so

Dr Rad 8:30
nice and good and does all the good things. And as one

Jenks 8:33
class during when Game of Thrones was really big, one class derided Aeneas as being, “Miss. He’s just like Jon Snow. He’s just a bit dull.” So yeah, Odysseus is rather a happy medium between those three heroes of famous epic. I suppose that all interlink within the stories of the epic cycle. Achilles is too angry. Aeneas is too nice, and then you’ve got Odysseus in the middle, rangy, complicated, exciting. Not quite sure what he’s going to do next. Not quite sure if he’s telling you the truth at any point.

Dr G 9:09
Ah, yes, Odysseus. Famously untrustworthy on many levels. I think there’s something really strong in what you’ve said about the way that teaching really changes the way that you know a text as well. Certainly, I find myself in a similar position. I also teach English literature as my main teaching focus at secondary, and I often try to bring in translations of ancient texts just to kind of supplement what might be going on underneath the surface? Because modern literature is often referring back to ancient texts, and I was like, if we can build a foundation for a little bit of ancient knowledge, they’ll start to recognize the symbolism, the motifs a little bit more. And a character like Odysseus is just a touch more exciting for. An audience, I would say, of new readers to epic texts, than say somebody like Aeneas, who yes has some flaws, but otherwise is just on the straight and narrow. You’re like, I’d really agree

Jenks 10:16
with you there because I’m certain at some point I had a children’s book of the Odyssey, but I definitely didn’t have a children’s book of the Iliad or the Aeneid at all.

Dr Rad 10:26
Yes, we’re not we’re not precious about Aeneas on here, in spite of our connections to ancient Rome. So one of the things we love about this book is that it really offers readers a different way into Greek mythology beyond Homer. And whilst this book is a choose-your-own-adventure, the paths of the adventure are definitely underpinned by your extensive research into the variants for Odysseus’s story in the ancient evidence that go beyond Homer. So, what were some of the challenges that you faced in bringing different sources for Odysseus to life?

Jenks 11:01
Well, I I suppose I should start. The book took about six years to write, but not like straight through. There was lockdown. I had a baby. I also have a job, obviously, and so I was at one point I was just writing it in maybe an afternoon a week. So one of the challenges was just finding the time to actually do the research and then actually write it because the research took so long, and then writing something that is changeable per section and keeping track of it is obviously quite hard. Although I found a program that helped me with that because I’m not great with numbers and I knew from the start I wasn’t going to be able to be able to keep all these bits in my head, especially as it grew and grew and grew. But what was really interesting is I started writing the alternatives first because I felt I was really familiar with the main story. I’d write that bit, put his choice in from the text. Odysseus thought in his great heart this way and that, and then put those choices in, and then think right. Okay, so what will happen if he does actually choose this? It can’t be, and you die because that’s boring. And in fact, the original version, you you got home in three, and everyone’s like, “Oh, that was great, and handed it back to me. Well, that that’s very dull. That all that proves is he really could have got home had he just said, “No, man, you are not going to sit around after fighting the coconas. We’re leaving. Ta da! The end. That would have been great. Woulda, shoulda, coulda. And whose fault is it anyway? God, that’s an amazing essay title that always comes up, and you you start asking yourself through all the way through. But yeah, finding that and then going off on an amazing tangent and a rabbit hole of research to work out, could this have happened? So is he likely to have become a hermit and stolen himself away? What stories are there? What aspects of his character could could link with that? And one summer I thought, oh, but what if he actually goes off with Menelaus, and Menelaus is his Nestor stories in books three and four? Right. Okay. Great. We don’t have any details of this because they’re lost from the epic cycle. So I’m just going to go with what he’s said he did, and then try and work out how he spends seven years doing it exactly, and which parts of the year he was like to be able to sail, where he was probably able to sail to the Stanford Orbis website, where you’re able to plot your way around the age. Well, was incredibly useful for that. Who would he be staying with that he might not have mentioned? And then in in Egypt, what is the comparative mythology with these Greek names, with the actual Egyptian names? And do I need to go so far as to actually find them and put them in? And at times I thought I did, and then I didn’t. And though actually I do, and then I found this amazing crossover myth where Heracles is raw, I think, and to be honest, the challenge was just stopping myself because it was so fascinating. And then I wanted to have a moment where you’re stuck in Egypt, so what do you see? And I don’t know anything about Egypt, and I’ve never had the chance to really study it because I came to teaching classics as a secondary thing, and I have a very tiny bit of a classical civilization degree. Mostly, it’s English literature, and because I’ve never taught it, it’s never come up. So that was quite fun. It was rather indulgent, actually. I did grow up in London and went to the British Museum pretty much every other weekend because it was free and we didn’t have any money, and I would hang out in the Egyptian galleries because there was a mummy there called Ginger, and I have Ginger hair and I felt very alone. And Ginger was my friend as a very small child.

Jenks 14:32
I feel a bit differently now about keeping people in museums, but as a child, this was just what the adults did, so obviously it felt completely accessible, and I learned a lot about what he looked like, but not really the details of it. So it was really fun to go and research that and think, right, what would it actually look like if you were looking out in the time of year and when the Nile floods? I think that was both the biggest challenge and also my. Favorite bit because it’s unwritten. I got to kind of do what I wanted with it, whilst then trying to keep a little bit within the style of homer’s text, but then also just within an adventure and and actually visualizing it for the reader.

Dr Rad 15:17
Yeah, no. Look, when I was exploring it, I was marveling at how you were able to keep track of all these different storylines, I was like, “Oh my god, how long did this have taken to do? I can’t even imagine trying to plot all of this out.

Jenks 15:31
I have to admit, I did have help with that because I’ve never been able to. I did find an amazing little bit of software. I’d sort of abandoned on the internet, and I I I paid for the full version and put it into practice-a piece of software for making essentially your own little choose-your own adventure, which I can’t say because they are a bit litigious books. What was difficult was I-I like to mess with the reader a bit in that there might be some choices where the you don’t know straight away what has been affected? So the next passage will sound almost identical to the passage that he does choose, but there’ll be something that has changed, and you’ll read it and hopefully get a sense of déjà vu. If you’re if you’re continuing on and trying different ways and think, have I read that before? Was there something similar that happened, or or have I gone down the same? And then you realize later that you have gone down a completely different path. So I hope that it was a bit mystifying in places. That’s intentional.

Dr G 16:30
Look, it it certainly presents lots of interesting pathways, and I think the power of placing the reader in the position of Odysseus makes this really unique because you start to feel the conundrums building up for you, and you’re like, “What kind of Odysseus am I going to be in this moment? And it’s a real opportunity to explore some of the ancient Greek values and also to test out your own modern values and see how that might sort of lead to like different pathways or different outcomes, and one of those ways that your book is doing this is through the concept of kleos, and first of all, this is a key concept associated with Greek heroes, and I’m not going to pretend I’m pronouncing anything in ancient Greek correctly because that hardly ever happens for me, but what is kleos and how does Odysseus embody it?

Jenks 17:26
Well, this is really embarrassing, but kleos is something I didn’t know about until about 10 years ago, having taught the Odyssey for about six years by that point, because I’d only been taught aidos and kudos as being almost two two sides of one coin. I like to teach them as two jars of pennies. You can have aidos pennies. They’re black and twisted, and they’re bad, and you can’t pay for anything with them. And then you can have kudos pennies, and they’re they’re good and shiny, and they all add up. And I didn’t realize that actually, yes, that that’s what it’s adding up to is kleos, that overall glory. So I like to think of aidos as your bad reputation, and kudos as your good reputation. The things you do that people will talk about, because that’s what we do. We talk about them, and that is the hopefully for most of them the the chaos, the the glory of their name lasting forever. And I do often notice in class as well that right now you are acting in a way that is earning you idos. But if you earn in a different way, then perhaps you’ll have more kudos, and I will forget about the idos for the rest of the lesson. You won’t get to detention. So it’s really a great way of talking about you can’t just be a bad person and a good person. You are both of those things, but you might do things that are regrettable at times, and so Odysseus is building up lots of kudos and some aidos. But in the end, his his kudos is must be greater because his kleos is is supreme. He is probably the most talked about hero. He’s not the one who does the most amazing things in Greek mythology, which is fascinating, he really doesn’t do half the most amazing things that even like Bellerophon does. Bellerophon, the greatest hero that no one’s ever heard of, unless they’re a real proper nerdy fan of Greek mythology. But I think because Odysseus has balanced those out almost to that point, where he’s you know is he going to gain more of one or the other? His his kleos has sort of become supreme.

Dr G 19:32
He has these moments where you think to yourself, how is he going to dig himself out of that hole? And then he pulls it around, and you’re like, okay, all right. So I do appreciate the way that Odysseus both gets himself into trouble and then finds ways to get himself out of trouble, and by doing so builds up this continuous store of chaos over time, which can be very impressive. Whilst also leaving the questions about the the choices he’s made, they’re maybe not not so good.

Jenks 20:05
He is.

Dr Rad 20:07
I think I’m definitely going to try that teaching strategy as well.

Dr Rad 20:09
Definitely works with the year nines

Dr G 20:12
Jars of coins for every student.

Jenks 20:16
One thing that’s that’s really interesting in Odysseus’ story because when I was plotting this, I I literally sat down with my copies of Gantz’s early myth and wrote down every single time Odysseus is in a myth or mentioned in a myth, and what he’s character tells you then is he has this arc from not wanting to go to war and not even really being that interested in in getting with Helen in the first place, but just being able to sort out these situations to being a guy who, on the way home, takes every single opportunity to earn yet more kudos, is he has this this arc that war has changed him. He’s he hated it to begin with, and by the end he hates it. But he can see what it can give him, and he wants to come home with something to really throw that off. He must have so much from the war that he can take home booty and goods and slaves who were never mentioned. But he just keeps going for more. There’s no reason to go to the Cyclops Island. They’re on Goat Island. They have food. They’re really happy. And he’s like, “Oh, but there might be some people over there, and we can get more. I’m just going to go and look, and and he loses six men, and it’s it’s not the only time. I mean, the rest of the time he is still he’s going to look for things. They could just take on at every island water and food and leave everything else alone. But oh, a curl of smoke! I love that Homer constantly uses the idea. There’s a wisp of smoke in the distance, and by the third time, the men the men’s reaction to hearing there’s a wisp of smoke is to burst into tears because they just don’t want to deal with it. But he just keeps going. Although at least two times he sends someone else to go and check the wisp of smoke, so he doesn’t die immediately. And this time, I mean, it works in terms of us still talking about him.

Dr Rad 21:58
Imagine their disappointment when they find out that it’s just the election of a new pope, disappointing. As you highlighted, it is possible when you are exploring this book to follow the path that Odysseus follows in Homer. So you can take the traditional journey, and there’s about 151 sections to take that path, but when you were recreating things, did you think, oh, you know what? There are these moments when even if you’re following a different version of events to what Odysseus would have done in Homer, it’s still something that is very consistent with Greek values.

Speaker 2 22:38
Absolutely, I suppose Xenia hospitality running through the entire text has to be respected no matter what. So all the different versions of the stories are: if you if you don’t give zenia, you will suffer. The people who don’t give zenya do suffer. That’s one of the the major themes, especially when you’re teaching it at a GCSE level and you need to teach them something that they can really focus on. All the bad guys don’t do xenia. All the good guys do. So that is consistent throughout. And one of the reasons why I started writing it in the first place was really for my extremely interested class a way of getting to understand Odysseus’s character better, and not to justify why he makes choices, but to teach them why in the moment, and with those values, he is making that choice, and then also deciding whether you still think that is the right choice or the wrong choice overall. Well, in fact, you can get to the end by following a slightly different path. You can still get to Ithaca, and you can still have this roughly the same outcome, but you will not be as talked about afterwards. Perhaps because you will not have done certain things. There is a point at which, when you finally get to the and you meet the Phaeacians, and then you get to tell your story. Obviously, you’ve already done that in the text, so you choose what what what story are you telling? Have you done amazing things? And then that’s directly linked to what booty and goods the Phaeacians will give you to go home with. And then you start you start going oh oh that’s why his story is so amazing. He is butt naked in a place with nothing. He doesn’t has has no way of getting home. These are very proud people. He has to impress them, and you realize why he’s such an unreliable narrator. I don’t really tackle the unreliable narrator thing here because it’s a second-person text. You’re either experiencing it or you aren’t. But I’m hoping that that will dawn on some readers certainly. But I do think most people are playing it with modern values because literally every single person who has told me that they’ve read it has said they got home straight away. Their their duty of care was to their people, the men and the the slaves on board the ships, and they just got home, and they really like that ending. Like, oh, I better read it again though, so that. That’s really interesting. It it does try and impress upon you think like Odysseus if you really want to, but but we don’t, which is really nice. And it also sounds like my readers are really lovely people.

Dr Rad 25:14
I like that idea.

Dr G 25:16
My first reading was a very quick reading, and I was like, huh, and we’re home. Ah, delightful, and nobody’s been strung up, and nothing bad has happened.

Jenks 25:26
I filled that full of little Easter eggs, so at least be satisfying. I hope I hope people recognize those as they then go, oh, flick to the end, start again.

Dr Rad 25:37
It’s making me think I’m a bad person because my way of reading it was, what’s the most chaotic way I can read? That’s the second thing that people say they’re going to

Jenks 25:45
do right now. I’m going to do everything wrong, but I included Troy Skate at the start, not to definitively make you bad or good, because again, we can’t really do that. But I found the story of him and Diomedes going into Troy and getting the Palladium, I thought was a really good moment because the story has to start chronologically, which it doesn’t in the original text. So we’re leaving Troy. Does he go with Menelaus? Does he go with Nestor? Does he stay with Agamemnon? And you’ve got to decide whether or not you’re going to do one of these things, and it’s not clear in the Odyssey which one of those he does anyway. So this is kind of a good trap because even if you know the Odyssey really well, you might not actually know which one of those to choose. And so I put in the sort of I called it the Diomedes Gate. Did you try and kill Diomedes? Oh no, I wouldn’t def definitely wouldn’t try and kill Diomedes. Just to try and get you thinking about: Are you ruthless, Odysseus, complicated Odysseus, trying to get all the kudos he can Odysseus, or are you a bit more of duty of care, Nostos-loving Odysseus? So still within the the key concepts, but it’s still it’s not completely binary, good or bad. It’s still slightly complicated, and there are two depending on which you decide to do. So it gets very complicated very quickly.

Dr G 27:07
Oh no! So I think there is a sense in which you are Odysseus really opens up what could be the narrow focus of an epic text, where you open it up and you’re like, here we go. It’s Homer, front cover to back cover. Let’s see what happens. And instead, what your text is doing is offering a really practical and engaging way to explore not just Homer but also the variants on that story as well. And I think you’ve touched on this a little already, but I’m interested in how you found using this text as a teaching resource.

Jenks 27:46
I would love to, except we don’t teach Homer anymore, and we’re going to die. I know. I know. Dare they? Oh

Dr Rad 27:53
my god! How galling!

Dr G 27:56
Petition for change.

Jenks 27:58
I keep saying no. Sorry, that’s very boring. I did use it initially when when it was in the early writing stages, and I did use it with a with a club at school and a few other clubs at school and some my older students as well. They were like my test readers. They were really keen on it, and I have a gaming group, or I had a gaming group anyway. They’ve left now. They’re all big boys and girls, and so we do RPG gaming, and this was kind of right up their street, and that was great fun. And they, some of them knew the story, some of them had been taught by me, and some of them didn’t know the story. And they did great fun things, like they’re going to tally how many people they killed by accident, which was great. And also, like right, they would have little discussions what might happen if we did this? And that that was exactly what I wanted. They were really thinking about the character, and then I also used it with the class that I was teaching, and they were like, “Oh, we know the right answers, and they still died, which was great. So it it it definitely got them thinking. Although sadly, we’ve we’ve switched modules now, and now I don’t get to teach any Homer, and I’m really sad, but we might switch back to a crime.

Dr G 29:07
Fingers crossed. I well,

Jenks 29:09
I started teaching classes. I used to have days when I’d start off with the Iliad, and then I’d go onto the the Odyssey, and then I’d finish with the Iliad, and it was amazing. And those were just wonderful halcyon days, and I remember them as full of sunlight under the magnolia tree outside, where I’d be plucking a magnolia petal to to fully explain. There’s that lovely simile in the Aeneid, where Pallas’ skin is pierced and it is like a thumbnail on a flat. And I used to demonstrate that, and that’s that’s and blood stains randomly on my copy of the Iliad West. I’ll put on dies, and I still don’t know how that happened. And now it’s admin and Roman cities, which I love. I’m a big fan of Pompeii, but it’s not Homer. But Pompeii

Dr G 29:56
does have a lot to offer. I’m not going to lie, but it does seem like. A timeline of unfortunate events to have such a great test. So I hope there is a moment of change where you get to bring it in because I would love to see how it goes. Well,

Jenks 30:13
obviously I couldn’t leave it alone, so I turned it into an audiobook podcast because I couldn’t think of anything else to do with it, and I wanted to use it as a teaching aid, so I thought this way might be great because it’s a really big book. It is heavy. It’s like three and a half pounds. It’s like half the size my daughter was when she was born, and that’s actually quite difficult. And I’ve got carpal tunnel. I can’t hold it up sometimes. And so there is an ebook version where you you click and it takes you to the right page, which is kind of fun. But I thought what would be really fun is to just take the main storyline, the bit that that people mostly might be interested in listening to, and presenting that to them in a different way, where it’s the second person narrative. But I’ve I’ve played with the sound effects, so now everything is soundscaped, so it’s more immersive. And if you close your eyes, you can really hear the Laestragonians eating your men, and the ships all sinking. It’s quite harrowing, actually. I had to tone that down a little bit, but then you also you get asked those choices, and there’s a little sound that says, “Oh, you have to make a choice now, and you have to think about which one would be better. And then the story picks up again, and it tells you which one he’s chosen, and you can go. What? No! Don’t shout at these high globs again. So that’s that’s just started, and that’s been really fun. And I’m still in the process of making that. I’ve made the first season where he’s still getting home, and then season two will be Ithaca there and back again, as it were. So yeah. So I, in a way, I still will be teaching people, but lots of people have said that they are planning on using it in class, or they’re giving it to their students, or that they’ve read it themselves to add to their knowledge of the Odyssey and look at it in a different way. And that-that is what I wanted, really, just to hopefully make people love it as much as I do and just think about it in a in a different direction.

Dr Rad 32:01
Oh, I have no doubt that the one reassuring thing about your situation is that you know that your resources constantly be and do, even if not by you, which seems crazy.

Jenks 32:14
I do love hearing that people when when my students go off to university, if they if they’re still doing a classical subject, they’ll like email me, go. I saw your comics and less and less, and I am quite proud that I’ve lost track now. At one point, it was at least 200 schools were using my classics GCSE resources, and that was that was about five or six years ago. So I don’t know how many it is now, but that that does make me really really proud because it it is a subject, especially in the UK, that’s really has been really stigmatized as being only for the rich or only in private schools, and we have had a spate of really quite awful politicians who have used the classical world to hold up their views. That has not stopped. I teach Fall of the Republic now, and I was like, well, this was unprecedented. But if we look at American now, yeah, that’s fun. Always great to have more examples. Proscription. Hey, that’s a word I didn’t think I’d be hearing in the news. So let’s talk about that. As usual, I’ve now lost the thread of this thought process. I’m so sorry, it’s very late.

Dr Rad 33:18
No, no, totally. No, look, it, it, you know, I’m bewailing the, you know, your ability to use these resources yourself. But in the possibilities in our syllabus, I, I don’t think I ever really go into the Odyssey in as much detail as I would say the Iliad. The way that, the way that we teach it as like an ancient history subject, it’s more about Troy, and therefore the Iliad and the Odyssey are kind of just some of the sources that you may use, and you don’t really go into them so much as as classical texts. I think you’d probably come across it more as you say, perhaps as like a language type source if you if you did Greek, which again, as you say, for us would be something that you probably only do if you go to a private school.

Jenks 34:06
Oh, that’s what I was talking about. Sorry. Well, this is the thing. I didn’t do it at a private school. I was really lucky at my state school that they got a Latin teacher in to teach those who were interested in Latin up to the GCSE, and so I did it as a twilight subject before school, after school, and then we did the GC at the qualification in that in year 10 before I made rest of my exams in year 11, and I think that basically changed the trajectory of my life. Aside from hanging out in museums all the time and having parents who were really really keen for us to do that, which was great. I’d never really thought of the concept of language as separate. We’d done French, we’d done Spanish. They were really interesting, but now we were studying the language, not just learning what to say. And I didn’t know anything about English grammar either, which because they just didn’t teach that in the 80s. For I am older than I look, and so I was. What what is a verb? I think my friends will laugh because I I I knew nothing and they never saw me turning into an actual teacher of Latin. And so I when I teach Latin now, it is pretty much only to 11 and 12 year olds that I teach it. My my colleagues teach more of the Latin than I do, but I still link it directly to English grammar and the etymology of of English words to really give them something to grab hold on to, and so, like you were saying, then with the Odyssey and the Iliad as being texts to support things like like Troy and the Trojan War, that’s actually what it is on the GCSE. We we look at the Mycenaean world, and Troy is one of the cities that we look at you know pocket-sized versions of, and then we use the Odyssey to support that, which is really interesting because does it? It’s a little, maybe a little bit anachronistic, but it’s really interesting to consider that as being in the the Bronze Age and and the Mycenaean period. But yeah, so this this idea that it has been stigmatized, but it’s it’s perfectly possible for anyone to access it if they have the resources, and that’s what I was always really keen to provide. And realized pretty quickly that things I was making for my classes, if I just stuck them on the internet, other people might find them, and they did. So there was a need for them. So then I handed out my resources for teaching as well as just the the fun extra stuff, and that kept going too. And then I just made fun paper kits for the for the lols at the end of class, and those those do those go around those do well at the end of the year as well. People are always looking forward to making something fun that sort of props up what they’ve been teaching. So I’m really proud to have done that, and I really hope this book will can continue doing that. Hopefully,

Dr Rad 36:44
oh no doubt it will. Now, apart from discovering that Aeneas is actually rather dull, were there any other mythic characters that, when you were developing this book, suddenly stood out to you in a different way?

Jenks 37:00
Oh, Menelaus is adorable, actually, and I’d never paid him any attention because we don’t study books three and four, and I’d I was really rusty on them, and I was reading again, going, “Oh, he’s he just wants to be his friend. He really misses it. Oh, this is adorable. So it kind of if you if you go to Egypt, becomes a little bit of a buddy romance comedy, but Menelaus is also back with his wife. So you’re you’re third wheeling, and it gets a bit embarrassing, and you keep having to find things to do, and then they dump you while they go off for like a year, and you’re stuck looking after the entire fleet, and you’re bored. And I just thought that was hilarious. So yeah, absolutely. Menelaus is is is my buddy. I was trying to create a fantasy cast because I thought this would be this would be really fun way of making a film of the Odyssey. This was before Christopher Nolan announced his film of the Odyssey. That was beautiful timing for me because I literally just announced that I’d be publishing it in a year or so, so yes. Thank you, Christopher Nolan, for essentially doing my marketing for me. And I, I think I had. Oh, who did I have? I’m going to have to look it up now, and you’ll have to edit this bit out. But oh, one of the Gleesons, you know, Brendan Gleeson, but then his son, just really happy, like a big Labrador, essentially a big ginger Labrador. Yeah, and Helen was really spiky, and I couldn’t quite decide who would play Helen, and I I settled on um, oh what’s her name, Dimitriu in um, in what we do in the shadows. That might not be the best choice of casting, but I thought she’d prickly like that and just be like, yes, I’m brilliant, and you can deal with it.

Dr Rad 38:42
When I used to teach Troy, and the big assessment tasks that my class would do would be designing a new movie of the Iliad or the Odyssey, and they had to come up with things like their casting and what kind of genre was it going to be, and a lot of them did actually pick to do like a, you know, like a buddy, you know, like road trip kind of story. So yeah, this all makes perfect sense to me. I suppose

Jenks 39:09
every every bit of classical reception or every retelling is kind of got to be a reflection of the time period it’s made in and reflect the things that people find interesting or they don’t want to. Which is why I’m fascinated to know what this film is going to look like when it comes out in June, July.

Dr Rad 39:25
Oh, I know, right? I know.

Dr G 39:27
I’m like, what is this? Yeah, certainly from the visuals, I’m a little bit confused, but I, I am interested to obviously I’ll go and watch it because I need to know. But yeah, I’m just not sure how to feel about it right now.

Jenks 39:42
I’ve decided I’m not. I’m not going to feel it until I see it because I’m still convinced all the gray and brown stuff we’ll see will be like revealed to be a front, and it will like open up like a Technicolor Oz as soon as we go in the supernatural world. Hopefully,

Dr Rad 39:56
that would be a marketing ploy that would really work for me.

Dr G 40:00
Certainly, the trailer is just sort of like dark looks and like people looking over their shoulder, being like, “And I’m like, what’s going on? It’s hardly any dialog. It’s

Jenks 40:10
just men walking around, and I suppose it kind of makes you realize, yeah, actually, a lot of the Odyssey is men walking around.

Dr G 40:18
It is.

Jenks 40:19
So I suppose that’s not really wrong.

Dr G 40:23
Men walking around and women standing still, being like,

Jenks 40:25
“Yeah. I mean, I I like that Homer doesn’t focus on those bits. So I, when I going back to the book, I suppose we probably should talk about putting in more so that you can experience it was quite an arduous task. In a that’s the wrong thing to say. It wasn’t arduous task. It was an honorable task, and I was honored to do it. But it was it was difficult because I didn’t want to stray outside the boundaries of Homer. But I also wanted that to make people feel like they were there to add bits, and I didn’t want to just retell Homer because Homer’s already done that, and it’s brilliant. So I want to add something to it. So I did add more walking around, but still more more description of what you would see while you were there. But that is something fascinating as well, where Homer really does gloss over stuff and just then focus on the really interesting bits, like the sirens. Always amazes me that it’s only like a paragraph. That’s it. This incredibly memorable moment is I don’t know, like 20-five lines or something, and the only bit that’s focused on is what they say and what they do. And him stuck to the mast. All the other details that would have been there, the men rowing and so forth, is is kind of ignored until Odysseus is asking them to to tie him up more and that kind of thing, and then there’s there’s even moments where Homer just leaves stuff out. So I think it’s in book 13 or books 14, and Odysseus and Telemachus have revealed themselves to each other, and then Eumaeus comes back, and then Eumaeus goes out for the day, and Odysseus and Telemachus just have that afternoon together, but that’s not talked about. Homer goes off and follows Eumaeus, so that was that was fun. I got to write what they would be talking about, but I didn’t want to write a word for word thing. He says this, he says that, because that’s not entirely in the spirit of the text. So it’s it’s still summative and fleeting, but it hopefully still fills a gap that was there in in the story because you’re only getting the bits of the story that Odysseus can see. You don’t see Eumaeus go off and talk to Penelope because you’re in his hut, and that’s happening elsewhere. So that what I’m hoping there is that people who’ve read the audience be going, oh, that’s the bit when that happens in that scene, but we’re not going to see that until later. Or if they read it, they ought to see later, having read this first. They’re like, “Oh no, I know those moments of real satisfaction where you can show that you know something, and it makes it hopefully richer and more alive for you. Either way you read

Dr G 42:56
it, look, there’s so much potential here, and to turn from these sort of like these physical characters of this world to the more metaphysical characters, so you open with the Greek muse Calliope, but sometimes the story ends with a different muse, and I’m going to try to pronounce her name, and I’ll probably get it wrong, Melpomene. So we have a switch from one muse to another muse, and often epics will open with a sort of a question or a desire for the muse to compel in some way in in terms of the story. And so to have this switch is really interesting. And so, I’m interested in what realms of knowledge do these two muses cover, and why might readers want to be on the lookout for which muse is part of which story?

Jenks 43:52
I’m really glad you asked that because I love this bit. I tried to put at the end each time you finish your story. I won’t say die because you don’t die in every single one. But each time you finish your story, I give you another epithet to be that version of Odysseus that you ended up being. But then yes, Melpomene turns up because you have effed up royally, and wow. Whereas is the muse of epic poetry, whom you’re meant to have started off with, and whom, in the the traditional text, the poet speaks directly to in an invocation at the start. Oh, hear me muse and help me tell this story, which I always think is brilliant. It’s like everyone’s oh, curtains up, right? It’s starting. Everyone be quiet because the muse is being invoked, and it also stops the rapsode rhapsode. Sorry, I’m saying wrong. From being a bit hubristic by saying I can tell all this myself. No, I need the god’s help, and it is inspiration, and that also makes it more worthy to listen to, and that’s that’s the muse you want. To tell an epic poem, you don’t want the muse of tragedy to take over, and that’s what’s happened. So I did. I I did have a really fun time writing a a tragedy in verse for when you have completely royally effed up, because I love tragedy. That was one of my favorite things on my A level. We sat around reading tons of of Sophocles and and and Aristophanes, and and it was not Aristophanes; he’s a comedian. What we also did sit around reading comedians and just giggling, which was great. But Aeschylus, so I really wanted to put in a Euripidean tragedy because he does like to. I I do like his the best, and that was really really fun. But also, it actually made me cry, which was I think hopefully a sign that I’ve done it well in homage. But the idea that you are now the cause, having returned of everyone’s death, hurrah! So yeah, I’m pleased to have introduced another muse, but only because I’m a chaos goblin who loves making things go wrong.

Dr G 46:06
I think it’s totally appropriate. Things have changed. Things have gone badly. It’s like passing the baton. A new muse enters stage left, being like, “I’ll take it from here. This is no longer an epic.

Dr Rad 46:18
So your book is not just about the substance. You also obviously wanted to emulate a certain feeling and style to the way that the ancient Greeks told these stories. How did you try to emulate the poetics of Homer’s Odyssey in this book? This

Jenks 46:34
is one of my favorite bits to teach. As a former English teacher, teaching epic simile and formula and epithet, these are great, and they’re they’re from a teaching point of view, they are really great handles on the text. And often they’re the bits that will get you’ll get a gobbet of a of the text in the exam, and you’ll be asked what makes this so great. Well, in my opinion, no no opinion here. Please tell me what is the technique and what is the effect of the technique? And the whole point of these techniques is to make the listener actually be able to visualize it. And so I tried to make sure that all the similes are left intact, added to ever so slightly. But honestly, you don’t need to because they’re so vivid and special and deep. I have a huge fondness for epic similes. I I did a bit of a deep dive into one using the research of a fabulous woman in the 1920s His name I completely forgot, Eliza something. I’m going to check that in a second. Who had categorized every single simile across Homer, and you learn so much just reading what the similes are about, even from like how they baked bread or what the methods were for for separating the chaff and the corn-it’s amazing. And the roles of women, and the roles of men, and the roles of children, and absolutely fascinating stuff. So I included all of those. I did therefore have to write more or similar ones, but with slightly different backgrounds to them, in that they would imply what was happening, because often you get that sense of ominous foreboding from some similes, and and so that and epithets as well get included. So I think that’s one of the things that gives you the most sort of Homeric feel without tripping over the text too much. It it they don’t stick out as much as perhaps making every single line sound like a translation of Homer. One thing I also did was I read seven different versions, seven different translations of the text. I think I’ve got eight now. Actually, I lost track. I’ve got also a really nice graphic novel as well, which I do love dipping into, but I didn’t use it for this and a pop-up version, but I also didn’t use that one either. But I liked being able to look at the way that certain parts of the text, all the similes, had been translated from. I think my earliest one is 1800 or it’s later than the first translations, and then the most recent one I think I had was the Emily Wilson one, and she’s fascinating. She obviously talks hugely about the the history of translation in in her work and how she came to her decisions, and comparing to previous translations as well. But often, if I would be thinking, right, well, how exactly is this? This translation says this. Let me compare this over here. What exactly is happening, and and what image are we meant to get? And that was very clarifying, which is something I hadn’t really realized before. You can be really colored in your in your expectations by which translation you read, and that had never really been hammered home to be before. And we read often whichever one is free and out of copyright because it makes it a lot cheaper for the people running the exam, and those are not the best versions at all. I believe the phrase “the moist house of Hades” appeared in one. I was like, “That is, that is not a sentence I want to read out

Speaker 3 49:59
loud. Yes, gross.

Dr G 50:00
What a visual! Yeah, yeah.

Jenks 50:04
So that that was something I I think helped me a lot with that, and knowing which bits to include and which bits to emulate and how to emulate them more.

Dr G 50:13
I think this gives us a sense of just the power of translation over time as well, because different translations suit different audiences, and Odysseus himself, with his own epithets in translation and the way he’s described it, it changes over time. So we get things like many-minded Odysseus or complicated Odysseus, and all of these ways of describing him position him as somebody who’s not necessarily nice. And when I think about what happens in the epic poem itself, I certainly would not want to be traveling home with this guy. I think about what are the chances that you will come through that journey, there are many ways to get lost along the way. But having said that, why do you think we continue to find his story compelling and enduring?

Jenks 51:12
I think it is exactly that he isn’t nice, and I think some of the best characters have always just not been nice, and they’re unpredictable, and there is still something about them that compels you to enjoy their presence, or at least want to know what they will do next. And I’m sure if you look through literature, those are the characters that that stand out, and those are the texts that that constantly get read and revisited. Again, like I said earlier, some Greek character, some some ancient Greek mythical heroes, just fall by the wayside because they no longer lack the kind of interest that the modern audience wants. They want people as characters. They want really detailed characterizations. They want to know everything about. They want a close up in a way, really. That’s what we’re used to now: full face on screen details, being able to read every single facial expression. And Odysseus even has facial expressions. He motions with his eyebrows, which I love. Like everyone can can visualize that. And I think also what’s really important is that he spends the most exciting and important bit of the text narrating, so we get his first person narrative, whereas we don’t get that in the Iliad. It’s all third person, and we do get to hear from. Oh my God, I forgot his name from Achilles. We do get to hear from Achilles directly, and he gives that amazing speech, which often I like to read aloud in class, and then people will come and check what’s wrong and why am I shouting, because it’s so good. But you can really feel his passion rising, but you don’t get it from his point of view from him telling everyone what’s happening, and I think that would be a really fun way to obviously that’s sort of been done a little bit in the Song of Achilles, although from Patroclus’ viewpoint, that is something that you you get with Odysseus. But even then, you don’t know whether to believe him, and that’s fascinating. So you can read you can read the Odyssey time and time again, as I have done, and notice things you absolutely did not notice before, or things that he suggests, or the way in which he says it, or the way in which the image every time he lands, there’s a wisp of smoke, or there’s a young girl fetching water on her own. Red flag. Is it the daughter of the Laestrygonians? Is it Athenian disguise? Is it just a girl? And I like those visual signposts, and I try to include those because they they really stick out all of a sudden. I try to include those in the in the text and in the the audio book podcasty thing, so that you you hopefully you hear that and go, oh wait, I’ve heard that before. Like hopefully in the text, you would have been originally the the audience listening to the poet and go oh oh no I’ve heard that before this can only go badly those those signposts just like the similes as well are just so important and we get those in modern literature too and again they give that idea that idea of satisfaction that we’ve noticed something and we’re involved in it and you would do that these days in a media and film you’d have certain colors or maybe something in the background. Like everyone’s like, “Oh, the guy’s just talking. There’s a space in the background. What’s going to happen in the space in the background? It’s that kind of visual narrative and and storytelling. I think that does really translate. So it’s still really recognizable, even though it’s in a completely different format to something that we would normally consume.

Dr Rad 54:38
So to sum up all of this fascinating stuff we’ve been talking about. What do you hope that your readers of You Are Odysseus are going to take away from this interactive experience that you have created?

Jenks 54:54
Well, I hope they’re going to to not hate Odysseus off the bat because of so many people. And they’ll just say, “Oh, war crimes done, canceled. Yes, obviously war crimes. Everyone else is doing war crimes too. We’re not justifying war crimes, but we are looking at a specific set of values and a specific situation. What would you do if you were in that situation? You’d apparently get home. Well done, you. And who will know your name in the future? So I really would like people to not feel awful about themselves, but feel really good about themselves, and then also poke a little deeper and see if they can read the right version, as it were. There is, in fact, a set of author notes on my website, and if you have the book, there’s a little code to type in, and it takes you to a page where it has all the correct order of sections. If you want to check your answers, and I I made it into a spreadsheet as well, so you can print it off and tick it off. Which I’m really glad I did because I was like, which sections I had to color code them, and then I had to print it off for myself making the podcast because I couldn’t remember which was which. And there is actually one mistake which I do have to re-edit in terms of which one goes where. So that’s quite a fun test, but it just the idea that hopefully we’ll learn something else as well, and maybe look further to another myth, or seek out some comparative mythology, or go and watch this film later and go, oh, they’ve missed out this bit and this bit, or or another piece of media, or watch Ulysses 31 and go, that’s not Odysseus, that’s Aeneas. He’s too nice, or something like that, because that’s what I do in my lessons. Hopefully, when you’re reading Shakespeare, you’ll notice a myth. You go, oh, we learned about that over here, and like you were saying, linking these stories together because they’re always referred back to in some way, there’s always a question on a game show as well, and University Challenge, and it comes up time and time and time again. And what I really, really, really want is just to have made this text, which some people just will assume is too hard to read because it’s old, not inaccessible. Just it’s something you can listen to. It’s something you can read and take control of. It’s something you can compare to the real thing, and notice different things because of it. That’s what I’d like.

Dr Rad 57:12
I think you can rest assured that that is probably what your readers will take away. This truly is the most amazing project, and I think a real a real monument to to what you’ve been working towards in your guys. You’re super kind. Oh no, it’s it’s amazing. When I simply did it, I was like, oh my god, I can’t believe no one’s ever thought to do this before. This is a genius idea. It’s one of those things that once it exists, I’m like, ah, of course. But I would never have really thought about it until you’d already done it. Well, this

Jenks 57:44
is the thing: people have made choose your own, choose your own versions of the Odyssey before, but they’re really short and they’re very much you die, and maybe not everyone would have thought let’s do this, but then with a million different endings and huge amount of detail and make the book too heavy to actually carry, and yeah, I couldn’t. I couldn’t cut it. That’s part of its

Dr G 58:05
charm at this point. I think it gives it that weightiness actually lends to the idea that this is not just about Homer’s version of the Odyssey. It is about Odysseus emerging out of a mythic landscape where so many stories are told, and these stories can be connected in a variety of different ways, depending on who the rhapsod is, where they are, what their audience is like, and when the opportunity comes and it’s written down, we have this new version of what Odysseus could be and how he might present in the world, and I think part of the richness of the text that you’ve created is that you’re bringing some of that complexity of the tapestry of myth to life for people in a way that is incredibly readable, and the passages are generally not. It’s not like an endurance reading moment. Like the book itself is heavy, but the sections themselves are relatively short in the sense that you you don’t ever feel like oh I I can’t pick this up just before I go to bed because a chapter is like 30 pages long. It’s not like that. You can get to a choice and be like you know what gonna you know put my bookmark in there, and we’re going to think about that choice, and I’m not going to make it just yet. I will come back tomorrow. Yeah, no,

Jenks 59:26
I hadn’t thought of that, but actually, that makes me really happy.

Dr Rad 59:29
And you know what? I also think that, given the nature of what this is all about, it’s it’s good to have a physical workout happening whilst you are reading it. It just seems to make sense. It’s too easy otherwise.

Dr G 59:42
Yeah. Do you want to be a Greek guru? You’re going to have to lift that bro. Yeah.

Dr Rad 59:46
Work on those muscles.

Jenks 59:47
Yes. Lift the book. One in each hand.

Dr G 59:50
Epic adventures. They’re not light. No, no. You

Dr Rad 59:53
got to be physically and mentally prepared. Yeah.

Dr G 59:56
Well, thank you so much for spending the time to chat. With us about this amazing book that you have written, we’re so thrilled to go into more detail about it, and we encourage anybody who is in any way interested in epic myth to seek this text out and try it for yourself, and enjoy being immersed in this world in a new and fun way.

Dr Rad 1:00:30
Thank you for listening to this special episode of the Partial Historians. You can find our sources, sound credits, and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman. The Partial Historians is part of the Memory Collective, creators and educators dedicated to sharing knowledge that is accessible, contextualized, socially conscious, and inclusive. To find more from the Memory Collective, head to collectivemem.com. You too can support our show and help us to produce more engaging content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes and ad-free content. If monthly patronage is not your style, we have merch, we have a book, or you can just buy us a coffee on Ko-fi. And we’d like to say a big thank you to all our Patreon supporters for making special episodes like this one possible. However, if your imperial coffers do not overflow us, one of the easiest and most important ways to help us is to tell someone about the show or give us a five-star review wherever you listen. Until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Special Episode – You Are Odysseus with Laura Jenkinson-Brown appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

Dr Emma Southon is no stranger to this show, but just in case you have somehow missed her many previous appearances, here’s what you need to know!

Emma holds a PhD in Ancient History and is the author of a number of fabulous books about the ancient world. This includes: A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women, A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum and Agrippina: Empress, Exile, Hustler, Whore. Not only a writer, Emma also co-hosts the History is Sexy podcast. Besides all this, she’s an all round fabulous human and cat-lover.

In this episode, we were fortunate enough to chat to her about her latest book, Servus: How Slavery Made the Roman Empire – or, if you are based in the US, the alternative title is Not Built in a Day: How Slavery Made the Roman Empire.

Along with deep research into the source material, Emma considers the emotional experience of being an enslaved person in various contexts within the Roman world. This can be a challenging  topic to study, and not only because of how truly awful it was. We just don’t have as much as we would like from the perspective of enslaved people, or about their lives in general. Enslaved people were not considered to be suitable subjects for long biographies.   

You can add Servus: How Slavery Made the Roman Empire to your bookshelf now! Sold wherever good books are sold, and of course we suggest supporting independent booksellers. 

Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Dr Rad 0:15
Welcome to the Partial Historians. We explore all the details of ancient Rome, everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I’m Dr. Rad,

Dr G 0:33
and I’m Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.

Dr Rad 0:44
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city. Hello and welcome to a special episode of the Partial Historians. I’m Dr. Rad, and I’m Dr. G. And Dr. G, I think this might be a historical first for our podcast in terms of the amount of times we’ve had a guest back on the show, but I think people will understand why when they hear who it is, Emma Southern, long-time friend of the show, probably needs no introduction, but we’re going to give it a whirl anyway. Emma holds a Ph.D. in ancient history and is the author of a number of fabulous books about the ancient world. This includes a history of the Roman Empire in 20-one women, a fatal thing happened on the way to the forum, and Agrippina, Empress, exile, hustler, whore! We totally recommend you check out our previous interviews with Emma about all of these books, and then obviously add copies to your bookshelf. What are you doing? Not only a writer, Emma also co-hosts the History is Sexy podcast. Besides all this, she’s an all-round fabulous human and cat lover, and we are super excited to talk today about her latest book, Servius, or Servius, depending on how you like your Latin. How slavery made the Roman Empire, or if you are based in the U.S. the alternative title is “Not Built in a Day: How Slavery Made the Roman Empire. Welcome, Emma. Hello.

Dr Emma Southon 2:30
So nice to be back. Am I really a historic first to be the most you

Speaker 1 2:34
are

Dr Emma Southon 2:34
frequent guest?

Dr Rad 2:36
I think you definitely. I think so. Yeah. Yeah. This is adequate. Yeah. Got to be fourth time. Yeah, it’s crazy. I mean, and also you’re going to have to stop writing books eventually, though, because your intro is getting a bit long.

Speaker 2 2:47
It is getting quite long. I did look at my shelf earlier this week and was like, “Oh, I’ve actually written quite a lot of books. Like, how did that happen?

Dr Rad 2:56
What are you doing with your time? Yeah,

Speaker 2 2:59
that looks like quite impressive.

Dr G 2:59
You’re like a proper author,

Dr Emma Southon 3:01
yeah. It was, it was, yeah. It was quite a nice moment because I don’t know these things kind of happen on a year by year basis, and then all of a sudden you look back and you’re like, oh, oh, that looks quite quite impressive, all put together.

Dr Rad 3:16
I’ve actually got like a whole shelf dedicated to myself.

Dr Emma Southon 3:19
I do have a whole shelf dedicated to myself, yeah.

Dr Rad 3:23
I aspire to that

Dr Emma Southon 3:24
one day. One day, just see my

Dr Rad 3:27
damn teaching didn’t keep getting in the way.

Dr Emma Southon 3:29
Yead you see this is this was the trick I left at academia.

Dr G 3:34
Yes, frees up the writing time. Yeah,

Dr Emma Southon 3:36
no one makes me go to meeting everybody out there.

Dr G 3:40
This book, I say, is relatively different from the subjects that you’ve tackled previously. So I’m really interested to chat about this because, for what it’s worth, slavery is not a topic that screams a great read. No, doesn’t it doesn’t feel like you’re you’re going to have a good time, and so I think to start us off, why do you think it is so important for us to better understand slavery as it was practiced in the Roman Empire?

Dr Emma Southon 4:10
I think just because it’s such an important part of the Roman Empire, like the Roman Empire does not exist without slavery. It is like just from the bureaucratic perspective of what the empire is, the like the bureaucracy of building empire doesn’t exist without slavery. Almost every single person who is working in the like imperial mechanisms of the paperwork and accountancy and message carrying and like just the sheer amount of busy work that is involved in running an empire is an enslaved person. Almost all of the people who are involved in the commerce of the empire is involved in slavery in some way. Almost everybody who is involved in temple worship is enslaved. Like just. The empire does not exist without it. A huge proportion of people in the empire are enslaved or have experienced slavery for at least part of their life, and every single person in the empire interacts with slavery every day in about a million ways. So it just not having that be part of the story of how we understand the ancient world is just like lopping off, like one of the legs of the empire, basically, and then pretending like we can see it. And like at some point in the book, I use the metaphor of the you know three blind men and an elephant, where one of them they’ve never seen an elephant, they go and they’re using their hands to understand it, one of them says, “Oh, I can feel this part, and it feels long and thick like a boa constrictor because he’s touching the trunk. And one is holding the tail and says, “Oh no, it’s thin. And none of them can see the whole empire. But and you need slavery in order to understand how the Roman Empire works, what the Roman Empire is, and what it was like to exist in the Roman Empire. Even as a free person, it was a part of your life and a part of your understanding of the world that you just need to know about.

Dr Rad 6:08
That is so true. I mean, really, being a free person in Rome is an identity because you exist in opposition to those who are not.

Dr Emma Southon 6:16
Exactly. You need the unfree, and you need the those kind of intermediate, the third class, the formerly enslaved, the freed person, in order to make freedom mean something. And that’s why they go on about it all the time. Like I read so much Seneca and like Cicero, and they’re talking about freedom constantly and calling themselves slaves constantly because they know what slavery is, and because it’s like a everyday part of their life, and they’re like, “Well, we don’t want to be like that.

Dr Rad 6:48
Now, you note right at the beginning that there is divided opinion about the terminology that we should be using when we’re talking about this topic. So, can you run us through what are the challenges posed by using the term slave as opposed to enslaved person.

Dr Emma Southon 7:04
Yes, so there there are divisions in that some people were argued that slave is the more common term, and also the term that almost all enslaved people would use to describe themselves. Like if you were to ask a person in the ancient world what they were, and they do. Like if you read the graffiti, if you read the epigraphs, and you can see the places where people describe themselves, they do say, like they use it as a definitional term, you know, Felix, slave of Servius or whatever, and therefore it is a terminology that’s easier and is more accurately descriptive of how they would describe themselves. On the other hand, the argument that I use is that enslaved person deliberately interrupts the kind of mental models that we have of slavery. Easy to say slave, and it kind of slips off the tongue, and then it doesn’t challenge the way that you think about enslaved people. And it is we have a mental structure that is largely defined by transatlantic slavery of what an enslaved person looks like, and they’re almost always black for a start. They’re almost always male, like chaining, and we have these kind of mental models of what a slave is. And using enslaved person, firstly, makes it difficult for you to use those mental models. You have to re, you have to stop and think, like even for half a millisecond when you’re reading it, and it kind of forces you and the reader and me to expand the definition of what we think of as an enslaved person, because there are so many different types of slavery in the Roman Empire that range from like luxury slaves whose job is to do nothing but look pretty and be sexually available, down to people who are in penal servitude with their legs broken, like hauling water in a mine, across to people who are working agricultural slavery and then into bureaucratic slavery. There’s like a bazillion different ways you can be enslaved, and using enslaved person just kind of interrupts that a little bit, and also I think it does force you to remember that these are people. And if there’s one thing that I want to do with the book is be like, these are people’s lives. Each of these people is a tiny little universe, just like you, the reader, are a tiny little universe, and they have feelings, and they have toes that get stubbed, and they have wants and needs, and just kind of is a rhetorical strategy to a certain degree of forcing you to just think about it slightly harder than you would if I said slave.

Dr G 9:30
And I think this is a really good point because by returning the humanity into the situation, we’re forced to think of the real challenges that enslaved people face,

Dr Emma Southon 9:41
yeah,

Dr G 9:42
and the nature of those challenges, and that sort of leads really nicely into thinking about like what are our real obstacles as historians for investigating the lives of enslaved people? Because you’ve mentioned the elephant metaphor, and I think that’s a really elegant way to sort of describe. We can’t really quite see everything. How can we really figure out what it is if we can’t see the whole picture?

Dr Emma Southon 10:07
Yeah, we can’t see the whole picture. There’s almost no enslaved lives where we have like more than a fragment. And when we do, it is people who were manumitted generally, and the focus of their life will then be on their post-manumission life. So a lot of books that I read and a lot of stuff that I read about would use people like imperial freedmen, like Callistus and Polybius, and would use the lives of of manumitted freedmen who would then become very very loquacious on their tombstones, or who appear in the sources frequently because they’re no longer enslaved, and they will talk about their formerly enslaved, like they don’t talk about their enslaved lives, and I really didn’t want to fall into that trap. So what you’re left with then is kind of fragments, basically, and the epigraphy is unbelievably useful for that kind of thing, and the Columbaria of the Volusii and the Statilli, who were two big families in the early imperial period, mean that you can see you get entire families, entire friendship groups who all chose to commemorate themselves in the same space. They’re like family burial spaces for listeners who don’t know what columbaria I don’t know if you’ve covered it, but they’re like big family burial spaces. They look like dove cots where they were really fashionable, like for about 100 years, for massive like aristocratic families to have a space where all of their enslaved people and formerly enslaved members of the family could choose to be buried there as a member of the family, and so you see all of these like family groups, and you can trace the same names appearing over and over again in commemorations, and you can extrapolate out from that. Basically, there’s a lot of extrapolation that happens with building enslaved lives. You can extrapolate that if you see a husband and wife, and then you see them commemorating a child, and then you later see that child commemorating his mother. You can kind of extrapolate the emotional relationships that have happened in that space, and the same with graffiti from Pompeii and Herculaneum. When you see the same names appear, you can see conversations happening, and you can kind of extrapolate out, you know. If you have spaces like kitchens where people are writing poetry on the wall, you know that you have enslaved people who are literate in a kitchen, and they’re reading poetry and then they’re writing it on the wall. And then there’s a lot of kind of creative reading between the lines in both the traditional sources like the, like the Cicero, like the letters of Cicero, Seneca, and Pliny, are amazing for this kind of thing because they are kind of forced to mention slavery a lot because it’s such an important part of their everyday lives. Like they can’t not, and so when they’re telling anecdotes about their days for moral education of their listeners, then they’re always mentioning slavery. So they’re like, there’s a letter of Pliny where he’s like, “Oh, today my the the four year old slave that is my exercise partner was making fun of me because he can overtake me now, and he was making fun of me that we’re both losing our teeth. And you’re like, “Oh, whoa! You have like a child slave who’s your exercise partner who is at the age where he’s losing his teeth, and then that’s a funny anecdote to you. Like, okay. And then at the other end of the scale, you have this bit with Seneca where he’s writing that he is at one of his villas in the countryside, and he makes fun of a doorkeeper for being old and ugly to his face. Incidentally, like straight to his face. It’s like, where the hell did you get this guy? He’s so disgusting. Like, did you dig him out of a grave? Like, he looks like you’ve stolen him from the dead. And the guy goes, “Oh no, do you not recognize me? I’m Felix. We used to play together when we were children, and I was like your friend, and I’m the son of your like the steward, and we were we were friends when we were younger. And Seneca’s like, and the point of his story there is that it made him realize that he was getting kind of old.

Dr Emma Southon 14:17
But you can read it and be like, oh, this is a guy who has was born into slavery, who has spent his entire life in slavery on this, on this estate, and is now so old that people are like, “Oh Jesus Christ, you look like you’re about to die, and is still in slavery working the door, and you can, you know, you don’t know the finer details of his life, but you have a lifetime in that anecdote that Seneca tells, and so there’s a lot of finding fragments and then stitching them together into patterns.

Dr G 14:50
Yeah, wow, and Seneca as well because he is often lauded as being sort of anti-slavery in some respects. But to tell stories like this, it sounds like maybe he wasn’t quite self. Unless in thinking about the others,

Dr Emma Southon 15:02
no, because Seneca has this one letter called, which is promoted around on the internet as on master and slave, which is basically writing like, oh, just FYI, slaves are human. But he does have a line in it specifically towards the end where he says, “People are gonna accuse me of wanting to abolish slavery because I’ve written that we shouldn’t beat them for sneezing, and that we should not just feed them scraps. We should maybe let them eat proper food. But I don’t. I don’t wouldn’t say that. I would never say let’s abolish slavery. I’m just saying maybe don’t abuse them. But so that’s that’s considered.

Dr G 15:36
I’m not trying to bring down the system. Exactly. Stress anybody. I’m just saying.

Dr Emma Southon 15:41
I’m not trying to cancel slavery. Like I’m not woke.

Dr Rad 15:44
What do you think I am? A monster? Yeah, exactly.

Dr Emma Southon 15:47
All I’m saying is that it’s uncomfortable when I go to dinner.

Dr Rad 15:50
My childhood playmate looks terrible, and then I

Dr Emma Southon 15:53
have to watch a beating. Like I just don’t like it very much, and that’s considered like peak wokery in ancient Rome.

Dr G 16:01
Just, just wow. But also this idea that his childhood friend is so unrecognizable that the life of an enslaved person can be even just within a parallel universe where we’re thinking about these two men having grown up together, and Seneca getting to the point where he’s like, I don’t even recognize this person. Yeah, like the the weight of the work that is required, and we don’t know what it is for this guy, seems to have really changed his physique in a way that makes him unrecognizable in old age, which is incredible. And

Dr Emma Southon 16:34
also, I think the fragility of those like friendships that were obviously like important to this guy. He’s like, you know, oh no, we were friends. Like you gave me presents when I was a child, and Seneca has just eradicated him from his mind. They grew up together as children on an estate, and then he’s just like, it means nothing to him anymore that he, you know, he’s hanging out with the emperor now, like, and because that’s the thing that gets brought up a fair amount is that there can be these relationships between enslaved people and the people who enslave them. Like Tiro and Cicero is one that gets brought up all the time because Tiro like tends so gently to his legacy and makes sure that all of Cicero’s letters are published and that he is remembered after his death, although having read Cicero’s letters and seen like from beginning to end and seen how he comes across, I’m like maybe actually Cicero was not entering to his legacy. It might have been revenge. Maybe it was the show. Maybe he was like, “Oh, this one’s a really embarrassing woman. He writes about begging the Senate for a try-off and making sure this one’s published. The

Dr Rad 17:41
silver lining to some of these stories, although I know that this is not the case for most people who were slave owners in Rome, is that Cicero ends up as Fulvia’s pincushion, and Seneca doesn’t finish so well either. So, if anyone’s thinking that these guys are d-bags, don’t worry, they come up as it’s coming.

Dr Emma Southon 17:57
A lot of them do end up horribly, and you do. One of the fun things was reading all of the stories in Appian and Valerius Maximus about all of the enslaved people who get their revenge during the prescription, so under Sulla and then under the triumvirate, and a load of enslaved people are just like, just straight on the phone to whatever the closest man with the sword is.

Dr G 18:21
Put this guy on the list. He’s horrible. Yeah,

Dr Emma Southon 18:24
and like just absolutely doing anything they can to get rid of these horrible people who have, so they can get some freedom and a bit of control back in their life.

Dr Rad 18:33
No, look, I think what you’ve done is so powerful. The way that you’ve gone into these individual stories, and as you said, you’ve kind of inferred as much as possible as we can from these fragments, because obviously slavery is part of the story that I’ve often looked into in most depths. For those of you who don’t listen to this podcast, that would be the story of Spartacus. But it’s always been in the background, and I must admit, a lot of the books I’ve read so far on slavery, they tend to focus, I feel, on you know numbers, and I don’t know, like trying to figure out how many slaves exactly were they, and in what proportion were they working, in what industry, and where were they coming from, and where were they being sold. It’s it’s those sorts of details that you encounter, and sometimes you don’t always stop to think about the emotional side of it, especially because I must admit, I’ve been guilty of saying that. Well, in comparison to some other systems, because you had the chance of being freed, I guess Roman slavery wasn’t as bad. And then you’re like, no, it was still freaking horrible. That is the lie that they wanted you to fall for.

Dr Emma Southon 19:38
It is the lie that they wanted to fall for, and it is the lie that they told themselves, and the lie that they told enslaved people. And I think, see, oh yeah, no, because I also read all those books, and they are like obsessed with like systemizing or like getting really into like what proportion of enslaved people do you think were actually captured in the year 143 C? Exactly. Well, that’s an impossible question, but have fun, I guess. Whereas I am interested in that emotional lives, like what is it like to be in this situation? How does it feel to be the person standing next to Cicero when he randomly frees a guy because he gets some good news, and also the guy standing next to Hadrian when he stabs a guy in the eye because he’s kind of mad.

Dr Rad 20:28
Yeah,

Dr Emma Southon 20:28
or to be one of the guys that Seneca describes who is standing around the walls of a dinner party aren’t like not even allowed to cough, not even allowed to like breathe loudly in case you are beaten, and just the total lack of control that you have over your life, I think, is the the key thing in Roman slavery, and at every level of it, the total lack of of control that you have, even over manumission, manumission. Manumission is one of the things I thought about a lot when I read that a huge proportion of the manumitted people that we see in the epigraphy of the city of Rome were children who had clearly not earned manumission in their adulthood, but had been granted it probably on their deathbeds. I was like, oh, okay, it’s actually not even in the epigraphy. It’s not as common as we think it is, and that shifted my thinking a lot. But then I read because I do use comparative material as well. So I used I read a lot of narratives and biographies written and spoken by enslaved people from the Americas and Olaudah Equiano talks about he was kidnapped from Nigeria, then raised in slavery in on in the British Navy, and then ended up in the Caribbean. And his English owner says to him, “Oh yeah, I’ll let you buy your slavery for 40 pounds. And so he spends five years raising that money, and then he gets to the point where he can buy his slavery. And his James King, who’s the guy who owns him, is like, “Oh, oh, I didn’t expect you to actually do it. Like, I don’t actually want to let you buy your slavery. And he almost doesn’t get it. He spent five years like working incredibly hard on two jobs, basically being an enslaved trader and also running his own business, and he only gets it because he brings another white person into the room, basically to advocate for him. That immediately made me think of the guy who kills Pedanius, the ex-consul who gets killed in Rome by an enslaved person, which then leads to the crucifixion of 400 people under Nero, and one of the reasons given for that is that Podaas had promised him his freedom, and then at the last minute had said he couldn’t have it. And you just think that even the dangling of freedom and saying, “Oh no, you could if you just keep going, you you might I’ll offer you yeah sure I’ll free you is is a is a way of controlling behavior is a way of of having a thing you can hold over somebody and you can give it or you can take it away or you can keep changing the parameters of what it is

Dr Rad 23:16
moving the goalpost yeah exactly

Dr Emma Southon 23:17
and and oh even like the possibility of freedom, which seems like such a kindness, is act can actually be turned into something incredibly cruel if you are of the persuasion to be that way.

Dr Rad 23:31
Yeah. Note to note to our podcast, Doctor G. Never ever let me again underestimate how truly abysmal the Romans are as people.

Dr Emma Southon 23:41
They are never give them. them out.

Dr G 23:43
Don’t worry, better than

Dr Rad 23:44
doubt. No,

Dr G 23:46
they are not good people, listeners. Just FYI,

Dr Emma Southon 23:49
they’re not.

Dr Rad 23:50
Yeah, one of the interesting things that we’ve found, obviously, given the way that we’re tracing the narrative of Rome’s history from the founding of the city, is that slavery really seems to have been a part of the story from the very beginnings, at least as far as we can tell. And as you’ve highlighted, just penetrates every aspect of life. And you’ve also sort of mentioned the fact that there are just so many different ways that you can be an enslaved person in terms of the types of work. So, how much difference do you think contextual factors make to the experience in the sense of the time period in which you are enslaved and the type of work that you might be assigned to. I mean, is there such a thing as a best and worst case scenario when we’re talking about Roman slavery, or is it just all the bottom of the barrel?

Dr Emma Southon 24:38
I do think that there are best and worst case stories, and I also think that one of the very clever things that the Roman system does is build in hierarchies into slavery, so which really effectively prevents any kind of class consciousness from arising. And the times when you see trouble is when they put loads of people together who are suffering the same thing. And are able to come together and be like, oh, yo, hang on a minute. Do we have something in common?

Dr Rad 25:05
You hate the Romans! I hate the Romans! Yeah, exactly.

Dr Rad 25:08
Let’s Rebel!.

Dr Emma Southon 25:09
Do you think these guys really suck? And so they are very clever at building in these hierarchies that separate both enslaved people from each other and also the poor free from enslaved people, and make everybody resent each other really well. So you can have kind of contact with the the dominus, the person who who owns you, and having and any kind of public facing role within an aristocratic house or within the imperial kind of structure is going to be your best case scenario because that is after Augustus. Augustus makes it the law that if anyone is going to be manumitted, they have to be manumitted by name. Before that, you can just put basically in your will free all of my hairdressers, free all of my accountants, and you don’t really have to, you know, know who they are. You can just do it as a beneficence and feel good about yourself as you die. But there are complaints during the early reign of Augustus that people are doing this so that they can have loads of grateful freed people in their funerary processions.

Dr G 26:21
Just as yeah, just just to doing it for show, yeah, basically. So for those of us who honorably refuse to just free any of our slaves at the brink of death, yeah, obviously we’re now embarrassed about the funeral. Exactly. Now we’ve

Dr Emma Southon 26:35
only got like 10 people who we freed honorably because of their great service, and that guy over there who freed everybody has like a much better funerary procession and looks better, even though he’s not done it right, and it’s ruining slavery for everybody. And so after Augustus, basically, you have to name people. You have to say, you know, my accountant Polybius. And so anything where you can get kind of face time with the person who frees you, and anything where you can get where you are a representative of the person who owns you, because the rovers are so obsessed with display and so obsessed with kind of conspicuous like hierarchies that if you are a public-facing member of your familia, if you are in any way associated with the dominus or with the family to other people, then you’re you’re probably going to look be well fed, have beautiful clothing. You’re going to be able to manipulate that access in order to get money and favors, and your slavery is going to be something that is a significant part of your life because you’re still an enslaved person, but it is not going to look anything like the slavery of the people who work in the farms of the your dominus. So, like freedom in the agricultural communities, or if you work on one of his banks, like outlets in North Africa, or like if you’re the guy who you know works over in Britain or whatever, like like you’re not going to have the same privileges or the same access or the same chances of freedom as as that person, and then clearly there are very significant differences as the law changes. Like if you were, if your Dominus happened to die three weeks before Augustus passed that law, then you had a much better chance of walking as a freedman in the funerary procession than you did a year later, and so you do get like fairly fundamental shifts in what slavery can look like, as the Romans really grapple with how big they’ve their system has become, and how many enslaved people now exist in their cities, and how important slavery is to the the display of wealth. And like it was so common. I was started making notes, and I had like a big file of every time that I found the phrase, like something like a cohort of slaves or a large amount of slaves, or she was walking with a huge collection of like the the display of having a load of enslaved people around you and becomes so important, like in the late Republic and onwards, that the Romans have to grapple with it and have to change the laws and have to change how they they handle the world. So it does shift as it as time moves forward and things kind of gradually solidify into a system. But because the those at the top of that hierarchy are so visible. They’re the ones who are so proud of themselves that they left a part of themselves behind in the epigraphy. They’re the ones who the writers, the Tacituses and the Senecas and the Ciceros, come into contact with. So they’re the ones they complain about. They’re the ones who appear in the letters. Because they’re the ones who are the closest, and so they become the most visible representation. But they are like the 1% at the top of what Roman slavery is, and the rest of it doesn’t look like that at all. And is various hierarchies of getting ever kind of grimmer as you get towards the bottom, and the bottom is the kind of imprisoned, tattooed. beaten, scarred men and women who are on the, who are in the mines, who are on the agricultural farms that are feeding Rome in Sicily and in North Africa, and not like in southern Italy, where their lives have kind of no hope, really. The best they can hope is maybe they’ll get out of chains, and they have to build smaller lives.

Dr Emma Southon 30:50
But you do sometimes see that what they have done is try to build, like just having a family and a sheep can be a fulfilling life at that end of the scale, and that’s where the hierarchies are even there. You have somebody who has a family and somebody who doesn’t, somebody who has a sheep and somebody who doesn’t, and so there are enormous amounts of shades of gray within slavery. And what I tried to do was push away from the the silken clothed, curly-haired boys at the top and see as much as I could fit into one book of all the rest of

Dr Rad 31:25
it. Yeah, we do often wonder when we’re talking about this early period of Rome, where the Romans are essentially fighting people that are very close by to them constantly. We often wonder when there are these very limited references to enslaved people who pop up in the record, usually as you sort of highlighted in some sort of story, where oh, an enslaved person betrayed their master or part of the plot or tried to tell someone the truth about something that was going on, and every now and then they pop up, and we’re kind of like, what was that like? Because if we’re talking about enslaved people at that time period, it’s almost like, oh, Bill, Bill, Bill from. I didn’t know you got captured. Well, this is a bit awkward, but I’d really just need you to work the fun. How’s it going?

Dr Emma Southon 32:13
Haven’t seen you in a while. Yeah, and this is the thing with like how the system kind of explodes is that it’s it’s so normal in that period. Like they have the slaves. Latium has slaves. Like the Etruscans have everybody does, and they’re effectively the same 500 people being kind of moved around. It

Dr G 32:34
does feel like that in our narrative sources.

Dr Rad 32:36
We have a theory that the booty that is being captured is actually just the same pair of sandals that everyone exactly. It’s just like it’s one

Dr Emma Southon 32:44
really nice bars and five guys that like just keeps getting passed around. It doesn’t even get unboxed because they know another battle’s coming.

Dr G 32:53
Somebody’s gonna take it. I don’t know if it’ll be me who keeps it. Yeah, it is. It is this really fascinating thing because it seems so embedded even in this early period of Rome’s history, and you’ve talked about like these distinct changes that come in under Augustus as well. But you also make reference to what is happening in Carthage in 146, which is kind of smack in between where we are in our narrative episodes right now and where Augustus is going to end up, and what happens in this moment that is a turning point in terms of slavery?

Dr Emma Southon 33:25
So what happens in 146 which I use as a kind of fairly arbitrary date, just because it’s a useful monarch, really. But that point is the point at which Rome finally wins the Punic Wars, destroys Carthage, and at the same time, is just exploding outwards across the Mediterranean. Like its power is going in all kinds of different directions. I worry for you when you reach this point because you’re gonna have so much that’s happening.

Dr G 33:52
It’s gonna be a lot.

Dr Rad 33:54
We’re kind of counting on the fact that we probably never will.

Dr Emma Southon 33:58
Just never get there. Yeah

Dr Rad 34:01
Death will take us before we reach Carthage.

Dr Emma Southon 34:04
But like they, they just explode in every direction. Like they’ve been so focused really on Carthage and its allies for such a long time, and that’s fought on lots of different fronts. But as soon as that power collapses, they are able to just burst in every direction, and they start kind of exploding across into the Eastern Mediterranean and going off into the Iberian Peninsula. Like they can now explode up through there, and then once they’re there, they can start being like, “Oh, yo, Gaul looks interesting, and they can just keep going. And there is no massive power anywhere that can stop them until they hit Mithradates 100 years later, and so they continue the the system that they had been doing, which is the normal system of the ancient world, which is that booty includes people that you can take everything from the temples, you can take all of their nice. Earrings, and you can also take all of you can take all of their enslaved people, but you can also enslave people, and you can sell them, and the numbers of people that they’re suddenly bringing into the market just explode exponentially, and it just completely shifts what their economy looks like because now they can just dump men and women into, and because they’re also gathering land. Like every time they defeat someone and burn down their village, all of a sudden that’s now a new space where a lovely villa can go to grow wine for some guy, or it can be a lovely new space where they can carve it up and give it to the 50 Roman soldiers with an attitude problem, and they’ll all need people to work their land. So they’ve got loads of land, and they can just fill it with enslaved people who are not mad happy. And this is when you get the servile wars, which are basically the teething problems of the Roman slave economy, when it shifts from being just an economy that has slavery that is growing into an economy that relies completely on slavery to survive and cannot exist without slavery. And three Servilius wars, so two in Sicily and then Spartacus, explode in this 100-year period and terrify the Romans into making sure that the system keeps keeps people so they can’t speak the same language together. So they develop a very clear line that you can’t dump loads of. They’re all Syrian in Sicily. They just put loads and loads of people from the Levant in one place, and then are surprised when they all gather together, can speak the same language, have the same religious beliefs, and are have the same kind of not keenness on being enslaved by the Romans in horrible ways.

Dr G 36:49
Wait a minute,

Dr Emma Southon 36:51
yeah, and so they learn to not do that. Like, just the owners, the people who are buying enslaved people are like, oh, well, don’t don’t buy people who can all speak the same language, and they learn to balance kind of punishment and reward on a large scale, and they learn to take every single act of rebellion very, very seriously. Which is how you get the law, which comes in fairly soon after Spartacus. Actually, that if one person rebels and murders somebody, everybody dies. If one person murders a free person in the household, everybody in the household dies. If one person doesn’t step up to help, then everybody dies. Like, like they teach, treat every act of rebellion as though it is the biggest act of rebellion, and just respond to it with punishing, overwhelming force, and it is just the point at which things tip into a completely different system. And then when Augustus stops most of the wars of expansion, and you don’t get the same level of success after Augustus, like until Trajan, you don’t really get those same levels of like expansion and success in huge numbers. That is a point at which the system changes because they have to start handling the fact that they’re not getting a new influx of enslaved people, and so the problems that they deal with in maintaining their slave system change, which is why they’re suddenly talking about wills all the time and suddenly talking, and the legal, which I don’t recognize, recommend this as a way to spend any time at all. But I read the entire Digest. Oh, okay,

Dr G 38:31
okay, that’s impressive. Kudos to you, everybody. That is a hard text. It’s a lot. It’s a hard text.

Dr Emma Southon 38:37
I understood. I would say a quarter of it, but every single thing to do with slavery are marked, and like you can see the point at which the imperial rescripts start getting really invested in talking about who owns a a fetus, who owns a baby if it is a twin that’s born and the woman has been promised freedom if she has three babies, and the second twin is her fourth baby. Who, like, and they get into the the real nitty gritty of buying and selling people, and all of the million million contractual difficulties that can arise from that, which is the thing that they’re really interested in, and like once you enter the imperial period, you you get a real shift into how they think about slavery as a contractual issue and as a buying and selling and ownership issue rather than a control issue to a certain extent, which is a whole new way of being horrifying.

Dr Rad 39:41
Definitely, only. the Romans.

Dr Emma Southon 39:46
Yeah, no, they were quite depressing because they would be like they would, because the digest will have like a heading, and then it will have a collection of thoughts taken mostly from second and third century legal thinkers. So like the worst. Kind of people, people who like thinking about legal hypotheticals, thinking about legal hypotheticals and imagining what the answer would be if this arose, and so they’ll be like, and so so and so has sold this woman so that, but has said that she can’t be sold into prostitution, but X has sold her into prostitution. Therefore, is the sale not like? Can he claim her back? And then they just go on and on. He had sold her on the condition that. And you’re like, this is a person. And why is this other person deciding? Like, these are two guys arguing about whether this woman could be sold as a prostitute or not. I wish she had a say. It is

Dr G 40:41
deeply, deeply horrifying. Yeah. Yes.

Dr Emma Southon 40:43
It becomes quite numbing after a while, and you can see how all of those like German legal theorists got into like stopped being able to think of these as people because they obviously don’t. They think they talk about them in the same way. They talk about property and talk about tables or land, and you can kind of let it wash over you. But the soon as you take that step and go, that’s a. If this is a real case, that’s a person, that’s a woman, that’s a woman with a child that we’re talking about, and you’re saying that one of her twins was born enslaved and is going to be taken away from her, and the other one was born free and she can take that with her. That’s a horrific thing to happen to a woman, and this is presumably things that happen to women, and people would then have court cases and argue about them, and the the woman would have to sit there and let this happen, and then her baby would be taken from her. And like as soon as you start thinking, seeing through the language that they use into the realities that they are describing, even the potential realities, you’re like, oh, this is evil.

Dr G 41:48
Deeply, deeply so. Yes.

Dr Rad 41:49
Yeah, I won’t do my evil laughter there. It seems inappropriate. It’s a different kind of. It’s a different kind of evil. Yeah. So then, because

Dr Emma Southon 41:57
it’s not evil in a like, aha, we’re going to take over the world. It’s an evil inner. I literally don’t care that this person has feelings. I’m entirely concerned with the value and monetary value of this property.

Dr Rad 42:08
Yeah, exactly. Now you’ve highlighted obviously the big servile wars which happen in the late republic. They’re very obvious cases of resistance on the behalf of the enslaved people, but there is a wide range of kinds of resistance that you might see coming from an enslaved person. Can you tell us a little bit more about what you found out about the other ways that people could express resistance?

Dr Emma Southon 42:36
It is. I think it’s Keith Hopkins who was like, once you look at the sources, you see that passive acceptance of slavery was never the norm at any point because you find you can mostly see resistance through enslavers complaining about the things that annoy them, like the fact that petty theft is so common that there is a law that says you cannot prosecute, you cannot bring a public complaint about this. Like, please stop talking about it. And it’s just like so normal that enslaved people are going to be like, “Fuck it, I’m taking a sip of the wine, or “This is Falernian. Like, this is really good wine. I want to know what it tastes like. Or that they’re going to just pocket something and sell it because they can. Or that sometimes they just go for a wanderer. Lingering or loitering is something that people complain about a lot. Like they’ll just wander off

Dr Rad 43:28
standing over there. You got time to lean. You got time to clean, buddy.

Dr Emma Southon 43:33
Yeah, yeah. They’ll be like, “Oh, can you just nip down and get some bread? And they will nip down and get some bread. But they’ll also walk around and talk to their friends, and they’ll also, or they’ll be sent to, you know, from one estate to the other, and they’ll just take the longest possible time that it can take to travel 100 miles, because it’s just a way of exerting control, and this pisses people off to a massive degree. My absolute favorite example of this, just because it’s it’s so horrific, it becomes funny. Is a there’s a story of Valerius Maximus about a guy who is sent on an errand and he just doesn’t come back, and for weeks, and for some reason his Dominus thinks that he’s been murdered and that this other guy’s slave has done it. Like there must be some kind of feud that had been happening, but he’s convinced that this is what’s happening, and so they torture this guy, this other slave. The Romans are quite inventive with torture, so this is like racking and burning and whipping and very medieval kind of stuff. And then until he confesses to this murder, at which point they crucify him, and everyone’s like, “Brilliant! Can’t believe that he did this murder and thought that he would get away with it. And then, like a week later, the victim just comes back, like he just

Dr G 44:52
oh no

Dr Emma Southon 44:53
done as long as possible on whatever this errand was, and presumably had some kind of excuse as to like what he had been doing. Thought that he would just be like, oh yeah, got delayed in Brindisi or whatever, and turns up and finds someone who’s been like horrifically tortured and executed for his murder, and it’s so horrific. But I just imagine like the awkward silence as he walks in and like, hey guys, what I miss. And then

Dr G 45:21
also immediately regretting it, being like, I could have just never come back. Yeah,

Dr Rad 45:26
that would have been your chance. No one was gonna chase me. Yeah, that that would have been such a moment of like sliding doors, where you you would sit there for the rest of your life, being like, God damn it, why the? Yeah, I could have just kept

Dr Emma Southon 45:39
going. And so, like you, and this is a thing that people, you know, just did, and it’s so common that that they just kind of huff about it in in a very kind of formulaic way, or they’ll, you know, they’ll people just don’t do their jobs very well all the time because they don’t give a fuck. Like, what are they getting out of it? And you get these stories of like, oh, I think it’s in Horace. There’s a story of a going to a dinner party and they’ve hung up all of these drapes, and they just haven’t done it very well, and they just fall on people during the.

Dr G 46:13
I did the best that I could. Yeah, or

Dr Emma Southon 46:15
they’ll like running away and hiding when someone’s got the whips out is a really common one. Like they’ll get the whip out in order to, and so they just disappear until he’s moved on and forgotten about it in the hope that they won’t. And you just like constant moments of refusing to be enslaved, basically. Like what the Romans want, what an enslaver wants is a fully enslaved person who totally believes that their job is to submit every part of themselves, and to see themselves as the property of and an extension of the will of their dominus, of their enslaver, and to be like, yes, I will do it. I will grovel and crawl, and nothing. I have no will of my own. And what you see is just a bazillion people being like, I really want to know what that wine tastes like, though. Or I’m just going to have a nap over here. There’s a brilliant book called The Material Life of Slaves by Sandra Joshell and I think it’s Elizabeth Peterson, where they spend ages. There’s a whole chapter where they spend time creeping around one of the houses in Pompeii, with one of them pretending to be the dominant, and one of them pretending to like seeing how far they can get before they’re spotted. Like if I hide over here, like how much like moving around the house can I do without being seen from this room? How much moving around the house can I do? Like how much creeping about can I do?

Dr G 47:34
I kind of love this. This puts the Romans in a whole new light because they’re lauded so commonly as this sort of militaristic, incredible force, impossible to resist, and in the background, it’s just annoyed Romans being like, “But my slaves just never do what I ask, and they always take so much time, and I’m just really frustrated, and I also can’t prosecute.

Dr Emma Southon 47:55
And if I get, if I threaten to beat them, then they just hide, and I, and I’m not going down those horrible little corridors to find them. So, and like there’s a bit in one of Pliny’s letters where it’s like, oh, it’s so it was so nice to be at your house because your slave didn’t know me, so they treated me like with intense respect because presumably they thought that he might be like a violent man. Whereas when I come back here, they know that I won’t hit them, so they’re just like real lags. And you can just imagine him sitting there being like, “Can I get a glass of water? And everyone’s just like not hearing.

Dr Rad 48:29
Someone, anyone,

Dr Emma Southon 48:30
anyone, and he talks about his. He takes two teenage boys with him on a trip to Rome to, like, they’re his not my clutches, like the guys who remember the names of people, and somebody offers them some money to go to a poetry reading, which is another glorious like insight into people paying members of the audience to go to see them read poetry. So it looks like they have loads of people in the audience to listen to their

Dr Rad 48:56
poetry,

Dr Emma Southon 48:59
and so someone pays them and they just disappear, and Pliny is like left wondering where they have gone because they’ve just like gone. Oh, okay, yeah, I’ll take a sesterces and go and listen to some shit poetry, and and he’s like, guys, guys, yeah, and it is a like because of the one side you have the guys who are like will not let anybody breathe, and like the terror that they assert over people. But you know that those people in the background were just like dropping as many plates as they can because they hate that guy so much, or stealing as much wine as they can. But even like the guys who imagine themselves to be the good guys. Like Pliny just really thinks of himself as like the best of guys because he’s non-violent. He says that he allows his he allows his slaves to make wills as long as they own they leave their possessions to somebody within the household. So it can’t leave the household, but. He lets them like have this kind of illusion of autonomy, and he’ll often free them on their deathbeds, which he thinks of himself as being like profoundly kindly for doing this. And how generous? Exactly, like words of no loss to you, is it, Penny? But

Dr Rad 50:15
yeah.

Dr Emma Southon 50:15
So he like imagines himself as being this lovely guy, but even then, people are just like, you know, I just don’t really like. I just don’t really feel like it today. And like you see everywhere, just constant resistance to the concept of being enslaved. Like they might be a slave, they’re aware that that is a possibility, but in the end, they have a human will, and they’re gonna live their own lives anyway.

Dr G 50:39
They find a way around the system. Yeah. Well, good for them. Yeah. I have to say, it puts it in a in a slightly better light, I suppose. If the level of resistance is like everyday and quite common for for a lot of them,

Dr Emma Southon 50:54
it is. And the way the only like they this is why they’re constantly like trying to balance this. Like, oh, if you’re good, you can have some money of your own, and you can maybe get manumitted. And if you’re bad, we’ll beat you to death. But most people don’t use either of those particularly as as much as we think they do. Like they’re not manumitting on a mass scale like every day. They’re not only a few people will ever get that, and they’re not beating people to death every day because that would be very messy, and most people don’t actually like beating people that much. Like even the Romans have levels of like they don’t want to be doing that constantly every day, and the ones that do are a bit freakish, and so for the most part, they just everybody is just enduring a real shit situation where the enslaved people don’t want to be there, and the enslaver is like, have the fuck’s sake! Like they just keep stealing my stuff. And you’re like, well, both the easy way to solve this would just be to not have slavery. But sure, continue.

Dr Rad 51:53
The Romans really persisted. Yeah, like there’s got to be a way. Yeah, there’s got to be a way we can make this system work for our benefit. If only,

Dr Emma Southon 52:01
yeah, yeah, and so you see a concept, and even like people leaving, people running away from slavery, just freeing yourself is a terrifying thing to do. Like, and I think there’s a really good thriller to be written about somebody trying to run away because the way that the Roman state suddenly shifted into action, and the way that you can suddenly see how pervasive the army and surveillance system of like like you cannot move along the roads without being seen constantly. You cannot get in and out of the city without being seen. You cannot the mechanisms of the army are are a surveillance system as well as a security system, but people still do it. People do it all the time, and plenty of them get away and do manage to end up in either some distant part of the empire on the other side of the world. They have to leave everything to do it. They have to restart their life in like the Balkans or Egypt or somewhere where they don’t speak the language. But they do do it, and they can do it, and it infuriates the Romans. Plenty of them are recaptured and reenslaved, but they still tried it. They still caused some havoc while they were doing it, and had some time where they were free before they were reenslaved and tattooed or collared or whatever. But they still had a bash at it, and good for them.

Dr G 53:23
Yeah, fair enough as well. I mean, for every individual who’s in that situation, it’s not like the other examples are going to deter you, because it’s still your life that you’re trying to find a way to live as freely as possible. So you mentioned manumission, and we get a lot of stories where manumission is granted on the deathbed of the slave-that feels like a useless kind of manumission in some respects. But for those who were managed to be manumitted before the end of their life, what was it like for people post-slavery?

Dr Emma Southon 53:57
So when you are freed in the Roman world, you become a third type of person, so you enter in their legal system a third space of being a person who has experienced slavery and is stained by slavery forever, and it can still be called a slave as an insult, but does have freedom, a conditional freedom, because it can be taken away from you, and sometimes is if you’re not grateful enough, if you’re freed during the lifetime of the person who owned you, but it is nonetheless freedom. And if you’re owned by a Roman citizen, then you get citizenship, which is obviously brilliant because you go from being completely unprotected by the law, like your body and your soul are meaningless, into being the most protected person in the empire, all of a sudden, even throwing stuff at you as an insult to the empire, and you can do you can prosecute people for it, and you can never be put in chains by anyone other than the Roman authorities ever again. And like it’s a real kind of shooting straight to the top of the citizenship hierarchy. I think that you have to remember that most people in the empire. And enslaved people can’t be properly rational because they have had to submit their will, and that means that they can will never be able to form a proper masculine citizen Roman brain. It’s

Dr Rad 1:00:10
not the Roman identity that we’re going for, guys. It’s off-brand. So perhaps to wrap things up, you’ve given us some fantastic stories today about some of the lives you’ve encountered, but is there one that you’d like to finish off with that you haven’t mentioned so far that you felt was really compelling in all of the stories that you came across?

Speaker 4 1:00:31
I’d say the one that really stuck with me was one from one of the columbaria from the Statilii, which is this family that you can piece together through the epigraphy, and there’s a guy called Euticus, and he is married to a white woman called Aphrodisia, and they have three children who all live to adulthood. So they have a daughter and two sons, and then you can see them die basically. So they are all then commemorated at various ages. So their daughter dies at 16, and then their son dies, and then Aphrodisia dies, and then Euticus dies, and you can see them commemorating each other. On the one hand, you’re like, oh, this is like the tiniest little fragment of this family, but on the other hand, you’re like this family. Eutychus was born into slavery, it seems, because he is described as being a faithful, faithful something of Messalina, and he has brothers who are in slavery. At some point, he met Aphrodisia, and they fell in love enough to have three children, and they had at least three who grew into adulthood, which means that Aphrodicia was pregnant three times as an enslaved woman, and then you can imagine the what it is like to be in love, to find out that you are pregnant to be a pregnant woman to then give birth in wherever she gave birth in this household three times and to hold a baby and then to raise those children into adulthood and go through all of the experiences of first talking first walking learning to read they all they all end up in quite close positions to the family, like one of them is a as a dresser. One of them is something to do with curtains that nobody understands. One of them is a the daughter is just a pediske, like a foot woman, footman of Messalina, and so they’re all they all end up in these quite close positions, and then they all die of various things in their late teens and early 20s until there is just one son left, but then you can see this mourning, like the way they describe one another as you know, like they have gone out of their way to raise this money to buy these things, and sometimes they have to club together with a friend. So when Euticus dies, like a bunch of friends have to get together because Aphrodisia is already dead, and he’s only got one son left. And like, this is a whole family that comes together and lives together and loves each other in slavery. And we don’t know what happens to the son Aphrodisias, like whether he makes it out or whether he also is sold somewhere if he dies because he nobody commemorates him. But it’s a whole family. It’s a whole family life. It is all the emotions that are of falling in love, of marrying, of describing each other as husband and wife, which they’re not legally allowed to do. They’re not legally husband and wife, but that’s what they describe each other as calling each other mother and son and father and son, which they’re not legally allowed to do, but they do it anyway. And just all of the the beauty that there is in that being a human and having a human life and having that much love for one another that continues into death. That because they’re Romans, they are then going to that, like they’ve put each other in that space, so they can go there and they can clean the tombs and they can do the rituals of of ancestor worship that occur in Roman religion, and that they’re doing that over and over again, and it’s beautiful, and it’s heart wrenching that this happened in slavery, and it’s heart wrenching that they all died so young, but they, what you see in those moments of pain is is their humanity and their essential humanity that is the same as all of our humanity of wanting to love and be loved and doing that in like quite horrific circumstances. And so those are the ones that I think of whenever I think about even the highest echelons of slavery. Like they lived in slavery, they died in slavery, but they loved in slavery as well.

Dr G 1:04:45
Thank you. I think holding on to that essence of the human spirit is really where we want to end up with all of this, because the numbers are horrifying, the stories are so largely traumatizing. That to find an essence of hope somewhere in there, I think, is vitally important because it’s such a human story, and so many people experienced it in the Roman Empire.

Dr Emma Southon 1:05:09
Exactly, and it is, you know, it is a as much the story of Rome as the story of Cicero is, or the story of any of the, if anything, it is there were only like at max 900 senators, and each of those probably own 900 people. So it’s a more representative story of Rome than than the story of any senator. And so, what I hope people get from the book is is that these are people’s lives, and that they’re as important to the the story of Roman history as any other human life.

Dr Rad 1:05:41
Yeah, no. Look, I really love the way that you have explored these various themes throughout the chapters. I must admit, there were times where it felt like each chapter was like a punch to the gut, where I’m like, oh ,really? Just they just keep coming. The blues just keep coming. But it’s really important to think about, especially considering obviously that it’s not like slavery is an issue that doesn’t exist in our modern world, and so it is really important to think about these questions because unfortunately there are still so many enslaved people that exist in this world right now. It

Dr Emma Southon 1:06:13
is, and also because people will still use this imagined version of the Roman Empire that doesn’t include slavery to to argue for ideas today, but also to argue for the bringing back of slavery. And people, you know, there are people in this world who argue for slavery, and so confronting the reality of what slavery is for the people who are enslaved, I think, is important to counter people who who think that slavery is something that is either fine or not worth considering, or a a sacrifice worth making for the glory of Rome?

Dr Rad 1:06:50
Listeners, I definitely advise that you rush out and pick up a copy of Emma’s latest book. It really does highlight those emotional aspects, the lived aspects of what it would be actually like to be an enslaved person in the Roman Empire, which isn’t often a perspective that you get even in books on ancient slavery.

Dr Emma Southon 1:07:10
Yeah, and gosh, have I read them?

Dr Rad 1:07:14
So thank you so much for coming on the show and sharing that with us. Are there any other book projects on the horizon before we bid you farewell, I

Dr Emma Southon 1:07:22
am currently working on another children’s book by myself. So yeah, which is hopefully out next year. But is by far. I thought that this was the hardest thing I’d ever written in my life, and now I’m writing for children. I’m like, oh no, this is the hardest thing I’ve ever written. This is my childhood. Can’t even swear.

Dr G 1:07:45
Oh dear goodness me! Well, looking forward to hearing more about that as the time gets close. Thank

Dr Emma Southon 1:07:51
you so much for having me back. It’s always so fun to talk to you.

Dr Rad 1:08:03
Thank you for listening to this special episode of the Partial Historians. You can find our sources, sound credits, and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman. The Partial Historians is part of the Memory Collective, creators and educators dedicated to sharing knowledge that is accessible, contextualized, socially conscious, and inclusive. To find more from the Memory Collective, head to collectivemem.com. You too can support our show and help us to produce more engaging content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes and ad-free content. If monthly patronage is not your style, we have merch, we have a book, or you can just buy us a coffee on Ko-fi. And we’d like to say a big thank you to all our Patreon supporters for making special episodes like this one possible. However, if your imperial coffers do not overfloweth, one of the easiest and most important ways to help us is to tell someone about the show or give us a five-star review wherever you listen. Until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Special Episode – Servus: How Slavery Built the Roman Empire with Dr Emma Southon appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

In this special episode we’re joined by Josh Cannon who holds a PhD in near eastern languages and civilizations from the University of Chicago. Prior to this, Josh was a member of the US Marine Corps and served in two tours of Iraq as an Arabic cryptologic linguist. We sat down with Josh to chat about his book Fatal Second Helen: A Modern Veteran’s Iliad which brings together his lived experience of military service with the ideas that emerge from Homer’s epic poem.

Epic of Gilgamesh – There are many translations of this epic, one of the most recent is that of Simon Armitage

Robert Fagles – The Iliad (1998)
Robert Fagles – The Odyssey (1996)
Richard Lattimore – The Iliad
Stanley Lombardo – The Iliad (1997)
Emily Wilson – The Odyssey (2017)
Emily Wilson – The Iliad (2023)

Spartan poet Tyrtaeus

Bachvarova, M. R., From Hittite to Homer: The Anatolian Background of Ancient Greek Epic (2016, Cambridge University Press)

Carolina López-Ruiz, When the Gods Were Born: Greek Cosmogonies and the Near East (Harvard University Press, 2010)

Patrick Shaw-Stewart’s untitled poem “I saw a man this morning”

Jonathan Shay, Achilles in Vietnam: combat trauma and the undoing of character (2004, Scribner)

Martin West, The East Face of Helicon: West Asiatic Elements in Greek Poetry and Myth (1999, Oxford University Press)

Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Lightly edited for our wonderful Australian accents.

The post Special Episode – Fatal Second Helen with Josh Cannon appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

We feel extremely fortunate to sit down and talk to Jess Venner and her debut book, The Lost Voices of Pompeii. This book takes you through the final twenty-four hours in the lives of several of the residents of the city, from slaves to politicians to businesswomen.

Dr Jess Venner earned her PhD in Classics, Ancient History, and Archaeology from the University of Birmingham in 2018. She currently holds the Leverhulme Early Career Fellowship at the University of Oxford. Jess is well known for her popular outreach via her channel ‘Life in the Past Lane’, and you can check this out on TikTok, YouTube, Substack and Instagram. You can also find out more about her various achievements at her website.

Cover image of The Lost Voices of Pompeii.

We are certain that you will want to grab your own copy of The Lost Voices of Pompeii after hearing all about Dr Venner’s extensive research and huge passion for her subjects. This book manages to combine a compelling story with the lates archaeological evidence from the site. Find it where all good books are sold from April 23!

Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Dr Rad 0:54
me. Hello and welcome to a special episode of the partial historians. I am one of your hosts. Dr rad, and

Dr G 1:03
I am Dr G

Dr Rad 1:05
and Dr G, this is one for the ancient history teachers out there, particularly those based in Australia, because we are going to be talking to a very exciting guest today, all about Pompeii. Dr Jess Venner is our guest for today, she earned her PhD in classics, ancient history and archeology from the University of Birmingham in 2018 she currently holds the Leverhulme early career fellowship at the University of Oxford. Jess is well known for her popular outreach via her channel, life in the past lane, and you can check this out on Tiktok, YouTube, substack and Instagram. You can also find out more about her various [email protected] Welcome to the show.

Dr Jess Venner 1:56
Dr Venner, oh, thank you so much for having me. It’s so lovely to be here. Thank you.

Dr G 2:02
We’re really thrilled to have a chat with you about your debut book, The Lost Voices of Pompeii, The Final Day in Seven Lives. And I’m wanting just to get us started. If you can give us a brief overview, I know this is a big one, brief overview of Pompeii’s history.

Dr Jess Venner 2:23
Yeah, of course. So Pompeii is quite a melting pot. In AD 79 a lot of people are coming to the region, and have been for very many years. And it hasn’t been Roman for very long either, which will surprise a lot of people. It was only Roman for just under 200 years by the time of the eruption, and we think of it obviously as a very Roman town. But Pompeii was founded by these people called the Oscans, which are locals around the seventh century BC. And they sort of set up a small settlement there by the River Sano which is why they did it, because of the water source. We think that they had about five settlements, which gives us, potentially, the name Pompeii. It’s from the word five in Oscan, Pompeii. And then we have the Greeks and Etruscans coming in and mixing with the oscans. And there’s very much mixing. There’s not so much colonizing or casting out in Pompeii’s history. So the Greeks bring their influence, particularly in the architecture. So we start having Greek temples, for example, and the Etruscans, well, they’re a mystery, but they particularly brought some many cultural things to the region, and Pompeii, but also their religion as well. The urban layout and the material culture seems to change a lot around the times these guys are coming in. And then later on, we have the Samnites, and they come down from the mountains, and around the fifth century BC, and they start to influence Pompeii as well. And as time goes on, Pompeii is, you know, it’s quite happy, but there’s a lot of unrest going on in Italy. As we go into the late Republican period, a lot of the other towns are starting to fight back against Rome because they’re fed up with having to serve them without much in return, particularly citizenship. Pompeii is at the forefront of this. They do not want to give in, and they’re fighting to the last last hair. And so finally, when Lucius Cornelius Sulla So a general in the Roman army, but one that was very, very aggressive at this time. He manages to overtake Pompeii, and they make it into a Roman colony in 80 BC. And from that point on, we have Roman control in Pompeii, and it does benefit the city, probably much To their dismay, actually, in a way. But of course, it’s a very fertile region, and so we’ve got a lot of oil and wine being produced in the local area. So in the countryside surrounding the town and inside the town, there’s a lot of specialized manufacture, and a lot of people arriving in the town via the river and the roads. So Pompeii is very, very busy. Three in AD 79 with a lot of different cultures, religions and people.

Dr G 5:04
That was very succinct for what is a highly complicated history, I have to say, well done.

Dr Rad 5:11
Now you’ve taken a novel approach to telling the story. You’ve decided to basically take the approach of telling the story of the final 24 hours before the eruption takes place for seven different historical characters and their social circles. What made you decide on this particular structure?

Dr Jess Venner 5:33
I really wanted to focus on the people of Pompeii, because so often we focus on the destruction of the city and its afterlife, and what we don’t look at are the people and their stories. You know, there are certain people that come out and we know about because they’re talked about fairly often so and a good example is Julia Felix, who I did choose to represent, but this was for good reason, because she hadn’t really been represented from the perspective of archeological remains, in the sense of the most likely personality for her, and so I wanted to depict her life in the last 24 hours. And the same goes for the other characters. But we don’t really know about them. I do, because I’ve been studying them for about 12 years, and I felt like we hadn’t really spoken about it. So we’ve got the slave, we’ve got a politician. So we’ve got the, you know, the cut of Roman society. And that was mainly my, my aim was to have a cross section of culture and and politics and social status. We’ve also got women as well. Working women in particular was important to me. We have working men as well. So like the innkeeper euxines, he is one of those. But we also have someone at the top of that, also at top of their game, Alice and bricius scorus, who is a Pompa. He’s the Pompeii’s garum or fish sauce magnate. So he’s basically the ketchup CEO of Pompeii. So and then we have the priest as well. And again, religion doesn’t really get a huge amount of attention. In Pompeii, a lot of people ask about it. You know, how religious were they really? But in terms of things like Egyptian cults, which is a mystery cult, but we know a lot about it from the remains at Pompeii, so I really wanted to start telling their stories from what we had, and trying to do that as accurately as possible, so that they could have their voices back.

Dr G 7:22
I think it’s a really impressive approach, because it does something in terms of allowing you to dip into the imagination of like thinking about how people did actually live their lives. And the tragedy of Pompeii, in many respects, is the things that we do have that we can see today, which are things like the plaster casts and and you feel this the weight of the terror of the moment. But how do you go back further than that, and how do you reimagine it in a new way? And you talk about your methodology for this book as critical fabulation, and I’m wondering if you can tell us a little bit more about some of the advantages and maybe disadvantages of taking an approach like this.

Dr Jess Venner 8:04
Yeah, absolutely so critical fabulation was a term that was new to me as well. Until I’d written the book, I hadn’t realized that’s what I was doing this woman called Saidiya Hartman, I’m Hope from saying her name right, she coined this term, and it’s essentially a way to reconstruct the experiences of people in the past, particularly marginalized groups, from the material remains that they leave behind, and also literary evidence too. But of course, literary evidence, as we know, can be very biased, and so the archeological record, or whatever material culture that we have remaining is a very good start to reconstructing people’s lives, and the basis of it is using our humanity and our common sense as human beings to reconstruct what could have plausibly or probably happened in their days. And so knowing Pompeii, so well as I do from my research and knowing these particular people that I kept coming across, I was able to reconstruct a day of a Roman so I started with the Roman day, actually. So this is generally accepted the structure of a Roman day. And they were pretty, pretty stuck to it, to be honest. You know, obviously today we do a lot of different things as our in our routines, as people, but they were pretty stuck to it, particularly if

Dr Rad 9:25
you were elite. The Romans stuck in their ways.

Speaker 1 9:27
What? Oh, I can’t even imagine. Imagine no

Dr Jess Venner 9:34
breaking news. I know exactly. So I’m starting with the elite, who we who are predictable. And so I start with Pansa, for example. So I started with a slave and trying to reconstruct how he would be supporting an elite man, because we know what the elite man would be doing, and I worked out from there. And so critical fabulation is perfect for that, because with someone like a slave Petrinus in the book, is a composite of slaves Petrinus did exist in. Pompeii, because he exists in a lone record between two women in the city. And so I started with him, but I was able to reconstruct his his day, from going backwards almost, and from the material remains. Otherwise, his story would be completely lost. Because, of course, we don’t have any records first hand from a slave, some from freedmen, but they’re very much trying to get away from their past, so they’re not really talking about it. So that was, that’s how this is perfect

Dr Rad 10:29
for that. Yeah, yeah. I must admit it reminded me a little bit of the way that Natalie Zemon Davis worked when she was writing. You know, that idea of having to bring a certain level of imagination, but like expert imagination, in order to recover the voices of stories that are too scattered to be like a clear cut narrative or anything in the sources that are left behind

Dr Jess Venner 10:57
exactly and you know, If it didn’t plausibly happen, or didn’t happen. I didn’t include it. I was very stuck on that, because there were some people that would say, Oh, why don’t you do you know, a murder? And I’d be like, I don’t know that there was a verdict. There might have been, but it’s not in my evidence, so I’m not putting it in there. But it went down as granular as you know, fish scales on the floor. Yes, having to be there for me to have a fish seller, you know, it was very, very granular. So, yeah, you wouldn’t believe the

Dr Rad 11:30
detail and you have noted throughout the book, you know, you have put little footnotes in to connect the story that you’ve constructed with the evidence that you’re using, not all the time, but just as a guide, so yeah, that people can see where you’re coming from. Basically Exactly, yeah. Now we did notice when we were reading the book that a theme throughout a lot of the stories is the impact of the sizable earthquake that happened in this area around 62 or 63 CE, what made you decide to include this as a bit of a focal point?

Dr Jess Venner 12:08
Yes, so actually, it comes from my own research. In my doctoral thesis, it was during covid that I started. So as you mentioned, I started in 2018 my PhD, and I was looking at Pompeii’s urban agriculture, and I quickly realized that the data I needed to do that, because I’m trained as an archaebotanist, which is the study of botanical remains in the archeology I realized that I couldn’t go and get those from Italy or study them or anything like that. And so I really had to quickly change my plan, and I started to study the space of the city. So during my doctoral thesis, I realized that this earthquake was a very, very key moment in Pompeii’s history. It actually changed the urban landscape, not only because things were becoming damaged, but also because people seem to be responding with in an opportunistic way. And when I was studying the agricultural gardens, these were vineyards and orchards and vegetable plots inside the city, I was trying to quantify and map them, and I realized that we had a 250% increase in these gardens after the earthquake of AD 62 which tells you everything about their priorities. They were so innovative. They they are right now in the area of Naples, they always respond in a very resilient way. And so it seemed very fitting. And so I wanted to talk about that earthquake, because it was very recent in their history. It was only 17 years before the eruption, and a lot of people were still struggling to deal with it. There were ongoing quakes that were still affecting the city, and people were still rebuilding. But people like euxines, the innkeeper, had remodeled their business after this earthquake and found new opportunities by creating a pub garden, for example, and he was also feeding into new trends at the time too. So it was really important I include that, especially as we never actually talk about the fact there was crisis ongoing before the big one.

Dr G 14:11
It might have been a warning sign people didn’t realize, but something was heading their way. Yes, yes, exactly that. So much challenge in terms of the physical remains as well, and being able to trace that through the record, I think that is one of the elements of Pompeii that increases its fascination for people as well, once they start to dig into those sorts of details you’ve mentioned, just how much evidence is sitting underneath the surface of the narratives In this book, and you paint a really rich picture of everything from the food that the characters eat to the physicality of the setting. And I’m interested in what we learn about the lives of people of the past through exploring the world in this way, through those physical remains.

Dr Jess Venner 15:00
Yeah, we call it material culture in archeology, and it’s really important that we include it, because historically, it was a very easy thing to just look at spatial areas of people’s lives, you know, Okay, where did they live? What frescoes did they have on the wall? But actually putting material remains into it completely changes your perspective of how someone was using a space. A really good example of this in Roman history is the atrium house. You have an atrium, which is the entrance hall, then you have rooms that are labeled traditionally, like the cubiculum, which is supposed to be a bedroom. Now we actually have no evidence for Romans using a bedroom in that very strict sense, like the Victorians might have, for example, it actually seems like they use these spaces a lot more flexibly, and they weren’t as worried about the same things as we are. So often you’ll find things being like, weird things being stored in a room that seems to be being used for sleeping, like a statue, for example, which you know might be down to the eruption, everyone was clamoring to hide their things from the falling debris. But the point is that they didn’t seem to be as bothered about these things as we do these lines between life and so material culture can fill those gaps. So when I was writing the book, I really wanted it to be a sensory experience. I wanted to reconstruct the sites and the things that people would be hearing, because I thought that was so important to really put yourself in the shoes of these people and experience them as humans, as a lived experience, and in that way, we can really connect with them in a one to one level, because just reading a non fiction book about Pompeii, you don’t have the same tug of your heartstrings that you do as you see Petrinus walk through the street and experience prejudice, for example. And so I really, really wanted to bring those experiences into it. And, you know, I definitely brought my own emotion and grief and joy and love experiences of those emotions into the book, and so bringing material culture into that enabled me to really recreate their lives in a huge amount of detail. I think this

Dr G 17:15
is really fantastic in the sense that when we think of history often, and we’re ancient historians by training. We’re often delving with literary sources, whether it’s epigraphy, whether it’s Cicero or whatever, but it’s often, so often very elite perspectives, and it really locks you into certain class structures and certain perspectives on the way that the Roman world worked and operated. And I think there is a huge value to be had in taking material culture as a way of being able to uplift the voices of the people who weren’t able, for whatever reason, to get their words into a written form that was able to stand the test of time. So there is something really class subversive about this work, which I really love

Dr Jess Venner 17:59
exactly that. And I’m so glad that came across because, you know, I come from a working class, like, lower middle class background, and so I felt like, particularly my my experience of growing up that way, I felt like we didn’t have a voice in that way. So I come from the East End, and my family do, and East Enders don’t really get a voice. It’s sort of, we’re spoken for working class people are spoken for a lot also. And so I felt like, of course, this was the same in Pompeii as you’ve just said. You know, with the literary remains these they speak for them. And actually the material culture shows a different perspective a lot of the time. Women are especially important in that Julia Felix was a businesswoman. She had an advertisement on the outside of her house, so clearly she wasn’t experiencing female life the way that the Roman elite were writing it. They were saying women should be seen and not heard, not involved in business, particularly if their husband wasn’t involved. And she seems to have been single and doing whatever she wanted, and was very, very successful at it. And actually, when I started looking at her, I started finding all of these women along the same street that she would have known and been friends with, because they were very community based in Pompeii, with, you know, political endorsements on the outside of their house. They couldn’t vote, but they were very much involved in it and involved in public life in that way. And so again, this isn’t showing us what we’ve read in the elite texts. We’re actually seeing a completely different perspective. So exactly that you’re right. It’s it’s able to, they’re able to speak for themselves through the material culture.

Dr Rad 19:36
Yes, I did particularly enjoy those all female gatherings in your book, because we don’t often get scenes like that where it’s just the ladies.

Dr Jess Venner 19:46
Yeah, I love, I love writing that bit because we’ve all had that sort of dinner, so we’re just chatting and bitching about people. So yeah, I really liked visualizing that one. I think. That was lovely. But it was also based on a fresco that was found in the town, which is in the book, I think, and which people can see these women just having this wonderful Symposium of their own and getting drunk. I think it’s pretty I think it’s brilliant.

Dr Rad 20:15
Now I’m curious to know which of the lives was more difficult to write about. I don’t want to assume that it was the ones where there was perhaps a the least evidence, because sometimes it can be can sort of pin you in, I suppose, a little bit more if you have more evidence. But I’d just love to know which ones you found, you know, the most difficult when you came to actually

Dr Jess Venner 20:36
writing them. I rewrote Petrinus the most times, which probably isn’t a surprise, because he’s the slave. And of course, I wanted to get that experience right, and so there were certain things that I wanted to keep including or take out that didn’t feel representative of the slave experience. And we’re learning more and more about the slave experience in Pompeii from the excavations now, because rightfully so, they’re starting to prioritize non elite experiences in the archeological remains, because these used to just be glazed over and ignored, and so now we’re learning more about them. So Petrinus was one of those. He was, he was quite difficult in the sense that, like I said, he was a composite, and so I had to, but he was also the first one I wrote. So I guess I felt very fond of him, and kept going back to him the others, I think the working poor family was another one. Interestingly, I actually wrote the whole chapter from the perspective of the husband, Lucius Aelius. And then I thought, What am I doing? I’m doing exactly what everyone else is doing, and I’m saying we shouldn’t do. So I changed the whole chapter, and I rewrote it, and it’s mostly from the perspective of Umbricia Fortunata, who is the mother of the family that I’ve created, you know, as, again, as a composite, but she did exist. She was a female businesswoman in the city, and a very successful one, by the looks of things. And I it was hard to recreate her experience, because she leaves traces, from a business point of view, she leaves her fish sauce bottles. And she was, you know, in a niche area of that she was actually selling kosher fish sauce. So she was very savvy, but she was very difficult to track down, very difficult because she was a woman because she was working poor and because she just has, has herself, didn’t really there wasn’t too much on her. However, there were lots of other experiences from other women that I could put into her experience, especially from a Pompeian point of view, from a business point of view, from her status point of you from a mother, there were lots of things to put into it, and so it became more and more easy. And funnily enough, she was one of the ones where I kept having coincidences. I would write her experience. I would go from memory of my research, I would go back and check the archeological remains, and there they were supporting what I had just written. And she was one of those lovely ones where it just sort of put all of all clicked, really. But yeah, she, she was an interesting one to write. I’m very fond of her, actually.

Dr G 23:08
Oh, look, she comes across well as well, I would say. And this leads in nicely to thinking about some of the other characters as well that come through in this text. And I’m sure I’m going to mispronounce this guy’s name, but I’m going to give it a try. My Latin pronunciation is doesn’t seem no matter how long I try to read Latin. So the chapter about Amisinuius even

Dr Jess Venner 23:40
easier than that. Yes, we’ve all had this problem with me too, especially as I was reading it from a from a wall, and I thought it says Amisusius, yes, yes.

Dr G 23:48
All right, that’s where the emphasis is. I’ll keep that in mind. So this is the gentleman who is the priest of ISIS, and obviously this idea of cults, and particularly cults that come from further afield, tend to accrue a great sense of mystery and interest for people. It’s the sort of thing that really stokes people’s curiosity. So I’m interested in knowing a little bit more about the cult of ISIS and its particular role when it comes to

Dr Jess Venner 24:22
Pompeii, absolutely, it’s such an interesting part of Pompeii’s history, and it’s something that, historically, back in the 1700s when it was excavated, really captured people’s imagination. For good reason. Pompeian religion was very, very diverse, as it was in the Roman Empire, and this was one of the things that the Romans were really, really good at, was absorbing other religions and allowing them to coexist with their pantheon of gods. And ISIS was very, very popular in ancient Rome, and this is because she was the Egyptian goddess of rebirth and motherhood, and she actually encouraged. Or her cults did worship from all social strata, so from slaves up to the highest people in society would worship ISIS. Now this point of rebirth is important because Pompeii, as I mentioned with the we were talking about the earthquake of ad 62 the temple was, you know, destroyed pretty much during this it’s in the part of the city that suffered a lot of damage, and it actually is the first temple to be rebuilt. In fact, it’s rebuilt by a child, not by hand. He gives the money to do worked really hard on that. So he is from the Papirii family, and his his mum and dad think, Okay, this is a really good opportunity here politically for our child. They’re freed men, so they can’t go into politics, but their child can, and they’re very rich, so they rebuild the Temple of Isis really quickly. It’s actually the first best public building to be rebuilt in the entire city. So clearly, this is important to the Pompeians, and I think this is because of this element of rebirth. So ISIS, her husband was murdered by Seth, and his body parts were scattered across the world, and she went and found these body parts and put them together out of love and magic. So this concept of scattered parts and having to rebuild was something obviously that the Pompeians were very much feeling like themselves were in that story. So rebuilding that temple was very important to them. And The Temple of Isis has had an incredibly interesting history, even since the excavation started in 1764, and from that point on, actually, they started excavating it really well, which is unbelievable for this time, because usually it was treasure hunting at this time. So I’m, I’m very glad, because if you go to the Naples archeological museum, you can pretty much see the whole temple there. They’ve they’ve put all of the walls out. They’ve put all of the material, most of the material out, because there was a lot of material. And we know exactly where things were found in the temple. This is, this is unheard of for excavations at that time, in fact, even 100 years ago, even 50 years ago, sometimes, sadly, things are not recorded where they are, which, as we’ve talked about with material culture, is very important. You know, if a cup okay, it makes sense if a cupboard is in a hallway, but you can’t just guess that. And actually, when you look into the records of, you know, recent excavation, they’re in weird places, like we’ve talked about, so it’s really important that they’re recorded. And in the Temple of Isis they are. And so when I came to, you know, talk about Amisusius’ experiences of him moving around this temple, where the statues were, where his objects were, even where he stored his, you know, record, written records inside a statue. It’s crazy amount of detail that I could work with. And so he was an easier one to write. But he his experience as well with connecting the pompeiian people was also easy, too. They’re all over the town, the worshippers of ISIS, yeah.

Dr Rad 28:07
And do you feel like there was a bit of Egyptomania going on? Yes, in Pompeii at this time?

Dr Jess Venner 28:14
Yes. I was just about to say, so Egyptomania was exactly that? Yeah, it was huge at this time. It’s so funny, because this seems to happen again throughout history. I think the Victorians had a bit of a moment with it too. So Egyptomania was was definitely rife in Pompeii at this time. And this is because Rome had very recently conquered Egypt within the last 100 years. And so more and more cultural influences, religion and material objects were coming over from Egypt to towns around Italy, and they absolutely loved it. It was both exotic but familiar to them. And so all across Pompeii, we can see frescoes on the wall of, you know, alligators, or are they alligators or crocodiles? God that shows my naive always get this wrong. We’ll go with crocodiles, crocodiles and hippos and little pygmies in the River Nile like fishing, this is a really common motive, and ISIS is another one. We see her worship all over the town. Julia Felix actively worshiped ISIS, even in her own house. And statues were quite common, and they would come into it in very small ways, you know, even jewelry. So they really loved Egyptian culture. And you know, Pompeii, as we mentioned, was a mercantile town. So people were frequently traveling out of Pompeii to very far flung places. And Egypt would have been one of these places. We have pictures in the town of the ships that they would have been traveling on, even in graffiti. So, yeah, yeah. Egypt, Romania was very, very rife in AD 79 Yes.

Dr Rad 29:55
It’s a disease that I think will keep recurring throughout humanity. Story just takes a tomb to be discovered, and then we’re all done. For you know, covered in angst now to turn from the Divine to something a little bit more every day. Many people have heard of garum, this famous fish sauce that was very popular in the Roman world. And there’s definitely a lot of evidence, as you’ve highlighted, for one of the biggest names in the biz in Pompeii. So please tell us a bit more about Aemilius umbricius scaurus, Aulus.

Dr Jess Venner 30:34
Sorry, that was all good. Aulus Umbricius Scaurus. And you know, it’s only, I only say, because names in Pompeii are so incredibly complicated. There’s so many that have similar, very, very similar names, and they sometimes have very similar lives. So it’s very it’s one of these things, it gets complicated. Yeah, no, that’s

Dr Rad 30:55
a legacy of where we’re at in the early Roman republic. I’m so used to saying the name Aemilius. It just, oh, I just, it just comes out when

Dr Jess Venner 31:05
I know exactly what you mean. I do this all the time. So Scaurus is fantastic. He he’s such an interesting character. We have so much information on him. So scorus was an old man by the time that Vesuvius erupted in AD 79 he’d been active in the town of Pompeii, in business for about 50 years, and he was in the fish sauce business, as you’ve mentioned. And his family seemed to have started this. And they came from a tribe just outside which was based traditionally just outside of Rome, and they seem to have come down and started being active in Pompeii for, you know, over the 50 years, of course, because he he was there for a while. And we know this partly because there’s mosaics that were made in the BCS. So I think around 20 BC there were garum bottle mosaics in scourus house put down then, I mean, these are literally ancient to him, and they’re from his own family, which is just incredible, and they have the name Scaurus in them. So this is a family business. We also know about scourus dependence too. So he has a son who sadly passes away, and we sort of see the experience of him dealing with this in the Lost Voices. But we know about this because of a tomb in Pompeii, and we also know where Scaurus lives as well. So he had an incredibly huge house overlooking the bay of Naples, which is appropriate right next to the harbor, again, appropriate for a man very involved with fish, and after the earthquake, he seems to have absorbed all these houses next to him and just made this really huge, ridiculous McMansion,

Dr Rad 32:52
appropriate for the king of ketchup.

Dr Jess Venner 32:54
Yeah. Was only suitable for a man of his status, I guess, as a Roman man, you have to be as over the top as possible. And so he created this ridiculous house, and he would have had, obviously, lots of huge extended family. Because the thing to remember, as you guys know, with Romans, is that you’re familiar extended to the slaves and freed people that you had. And he also had at least seven workshops in the city. One of them is talked about in quite detail in the book, but he was busy. And the thing is, there, there’s actually ongoing archeological excavations of some colleagues of mine into some of these workshops. There were actually more before this time, they were actually being decommissioned. And this is because he was outsourcing his production, probably to places like Portugal, which had huge, huge fish sauce making manufactories. And this was something that was going on in the mid first century, ad, and so he was a part of that his fish sauce was reaching as far as has been found in Britain and in Gaul, so in France. So it was going very, very far, probably further. We just haven’t found his bottles in other places yet, but I think we will do but he was very, very successful in business, yeah,

Dr G 34:15
just you wait, those scourus bottles could turn up anywhere next.

Dr Jess Venner 34:19
You never know.

Dr Rad 34:21
Yeah, the fish sauce just does not appeal to me as someone who’s very iffy about seafood. So I’m just like, how, how is this man so crazy rich?

Dr Jess Venner 34:29
Oh, my God, I totally know. And, like, it was pungent as well, because when excavators found one of his workshops with the dollier so the terracotta jars in the floor, yeah, they were sealed, and they opened them up and they still smelt a fish sauce,

Dr G 34:46
right? And that is how you know you’re getting a quality product. And it’s over 2000 years I have a big surprise we reveal to everybody. Yeah, amazing. Okay, I would not want to have been on the site on that day.

Dr Jess Venner 35:07
No, oh, my god, no. They literally write it in their diaries. They’re like, the smell is unbelievable. I can’t believe it, but it was fermented fish, so I guess it would still be there. Crazy. Lasted 2000 years almost.

Dr G 35:22
That’s incredible. So when we think about Pompeii, and then we also think about the other places that were caught up in the eruption, notably Herculaneum, which, for people who, if you have the opportunity to visit the area, you need to visit both, please put both into your calendar. Both are worthwhile. But for a lot of thinking and writing about these topics, it often stops at the eruption, and then it’s post eruption, and it’s everything to do with the aftermath, in terms not of the people, but of the place. And you include some really vivid scenes of what is happening for survivors in the aftermath. Why do you think it was important to include this as part of the story?

Dr Jess Venner 36:08
Yeah, so this was a really hard bit to write, because this felt like the most human bit is dealing with grief that is out of your control, and a lot of us have experienced that, and know the pain of it. And I thought it was really important, because, again, it creates this human connection between us and them nearly 2000 years ago. Because that never changes. Our response to grief and disaster doesn’t change, and we tend to pull together in those moments. But we’re also, in a sense of in a state of shock. And I thought that, you know, again, we talk about the excavations of Pompeii. We talk about it now, you know, as a tourist site, we tend not to speak about the part just after the eruption, what the survivors were doing, you know, the refugees of this city and of all the other cities in the surrounding area. You mentioned Herculaneum. You know, Herculaneum was buried under 20 meters of volcanic material. You weren’t getting down there again. And it even extended the coastline other towns, hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of villas in the surrounding area. This was, this was huge. It wasn’t just Pompeii. And so I wanted to make people realize that there were different things going on afterwards. It wasn’t just like, okay, it got covered up and we move on. Unfortunately, the Roman state kind of did. They realized that there wasn’t anything they could do. They set up a Relief Fund. The emperitus went to the area. He looked at it, he said, You know, God, this is terrible. There’s nothing we can do. But, like, they started digging down to try and get some, you know, statues, because you could kind of see the tops of buildings in Pompeii, because it was about six meters deep the volcanic material, so you could see the tops of the amphitheater or the temples. So they started digging down to get materials to reuse those, because that was something that was very common in the Roman period. But apart from that, they sort of had to move on. And some people lived on top of the site, which is now again being found in excavations, which is really interesting, and it makes total sense. Where else would they go, you know? And of course, as we mentioned, it’s a very fertile area, and so it started being farmed again quite soon, because it had to be. They had to have this source of nutritional income from Italy and Campania was that it was described by Cicero, I think he said these, you know, the storehouse of Italy, so that they didn’t have to fully rely on other places like Egypt and so sadly, they had to. They just had to move on. But we don’t really know where anyone went. There’s some evidence of some families, but it’s disputed in the academic world still, and we’re still waiting for more evidence. But it’s like we said, with the names and how confusing they are, you know, to remember all the different names that are very, very similar. This is exactly the point. And a lot of people shared names. A lot of people were in extended families, and so tracing their names is, you know, it’s like trying to find John Smith from one country to another. It’s, it’s impossible to prove

Dr Rad 39:06
you’re all practical joke that the Romans played on all of us that they have such similar names.

Dr Jess Venner 39:11
No, literally, I think they would have been as confused as we are. I just don’t understand why they were all so similar. But, um, yeah, exactly so, so finding those people is is next to impossible with certainty. There are some, and I think I discussed them in the book, but yeah, it’s still disputed. So yes, going back to your question, I really wanted to create a human experience. And you know, for the when I was writing the conclusion, which is the eruption, I spent the week watching disaster videos, which was probably one of the worst weeks ever. But it felt incredibly necessary to understand how people respond in those immediate moments to something out of their control. And it’s it’s always very similar, and so I wrote those real events. Since 911 I drew on quite because it’s very, very similar disaster. And so I drew on on that, and spoke to people and put that into the book as well. So, yes, I think that was very, very important

Dr Rad 40:15
to do. Yeah, I think particularly the way that our climate is heading, capturing those moments, I think, is really important, because there are just so many people who, as you say, are facing these sorts of situations which are completely something that they cannot control. And unfortunately for a lot of people in the world, there is no safety net when those sorts of things happen. So it’s something I hadn’t really seen before in a work on Pompeii. And I thought, oh god, that’s a really interesting addition to this story, because so often we do just finish with the eruption and then we’ll go straight to, you know, the excavations, or we’ll be talking about the plaster casts or that sort of thing, but you don’t really think about the people that were left with nothing, presumably, and God knows what they had to depend on after that moment.

Dr Jess Venner 41:07
Yeah, exactly. And you know, it’s all it’s all very well. It’s exactly like you’re saying. It’s all very well today setting up a relief fund. But Is anyone actually checking on those people? Probably not. And you know, it’s a very human response to focus on the depersonalized experience of a disaster, such as an eruption, and not think about the people that are actually being affected or that we’re experiencing that it’s much easier for us as humans to cope with that and and put it into our heads and process it if it’s just a disaster, but if it’s about an individual story of a woman who loses her children, that’s very different, you know, and it’s harder to cope with as humans, and so it’s usually ignored. And this is why, historically, I think we’ve done the same with Pompeii, because it’s it’s easier to just think, okay, yes, exactly like you said. It stops at the eruption. Okay, next, you know, next historical story, and it wasn’t like that. And you know, sadly it was for the Roman state. They did treat it that way, but we should remember the people that were dealing with the fallout of that, who lost their homes, who lost family members, friends, they lost their occupations, they lost everything. And that is so sad.

Dr G 42:24
I think it is, and I think this gets to the core of, how do people even become historians in the first place? Like, Why does anybody go and look at the past? Because it’s something deeply human in us to want to understand how other people live their lives, and what drove them and what grief they faced. So by including that, I think, you open the gateway for more people who understand humanity innately within themselves, and want to understand more about the history of where we’ve all come from, because these are profound griefs that we will all share at some point, maybe not in the strict sense of an eruption of a volcano, because I don’t live on a continent that has any but chances are that there will be great grief in our in all of our lives at some point, for whatever reason. And so finding a way to empathize with others is a way of better understanding ourselves. So I think you’ve done a great service by including this kind of approach.

Dr Jess Venner 43:26
Thank you so much. Yeah, yeah. I really appreciate that, because it is. It was very hard to write, and obviously putting your own grief into a book is very exposing also, and how you deal with those but I think, like I said, they’re universal, so I think everyone will be able to see themselves in that and hopefully connect with these people in a new way, and see Pompeii in a new way. Because every time I go to Pompeii, I’m an archeologist, and, you know, I still, you know, I look at it as material remains for my job, in a very diplomatic, rational way. I can’t get emotional about that, but when I go to Pompeii and I see the garden of the fugitives with multiple people on the floor, including children, looking at each other, I can’t help but tear up. It’s something that will never stop pulling at my heartstrings and making me exceptionally sad for those people that just didn’t have any option, didn’t know what to do, didn’t know what was happening. Some of them couldn’t leave. Some of them didn’t know to leave. You know, some of them went back during the eruption, when there was a lull, and that’s something that I will never, probably never get over, and I don’t think I should either.

Dr Rad 44:39
Now look, I think it’s been so valuable to chat to you today, because your passion for the past, and in particular for the city of Pompeii, really comes across. But I suppose the surprising thing is, our audience may not be aware that you didn’t actually originally intend to study classics, ancient history and archeology, the triple threat. Can you tell us a little bit about how you found yourself pursuing. Studies of ancient Rome.

Dr Jess Venner 45:01
Yeah. So I started reading a book on the first first empresses of Rome, or the first ladies of Rome. Loved the book, but I was doing a BA in publishing at the time at the University of the Arts in London, and I just got completely addicted to it. I’m actually moving house, but you this would usually be full of some of the books that I would it would look like your background. It was like, you know, I devoured everything to do with it, ancient texts, modern takes on it, and I just couldn’t stop. And my parents were like, No, you’ve got to, you’ve got to finish your ba which I was glad that they did. But when I finished that, I did a small course in Pompeii at the University of Oxford, one of their continuing education courses, and it was just sort of a test of seeing, okay, do I really like it, or is it just no loved it. And then I looked into doing a master’s, but I realized I couldn’t do classics because I didn’t have Latin. And it went back to my, you know, my education background not supporting me in that sense. And you guys were talking earlier about how your curriculum has ancient history in it in Australia, which I think is just brilliant. I’m so happy to hear that, because at older ages, it’s not taught at all. It’s taught at primary, as far as I understand, but it’s becoming less and less of a priority. And so I suffered from that, and had to go around the houses, and I did classical civilization instead, which is the study of people. It’s more of an anthropological point of view. Actually, best thing that could have happened, because I’ve never been very good at Latin, and I wasn’t really into the text as much. And as I’ve probably passionately put across, I’m not really an elite kind of person. And so I was really fascinated by these normal, ordinary people that I could find in, you know, their stories. And so I started looking for a PhD after that, and I got my scholarship from the AHRC to do so. And yes, and now I’m, you know, I’ve just been back from Rome at the school at Rome with an award there, and I’m also doing my Leverhulme early career fellowship at the University of Oxford now for three years, which was very long and a hard, long process to get that but it feels like a very sort of round, round circle that I started with this tiny course at Oxford, unofficial course, and now I’m now, I’m working there full time, but, yeah, it’s quite, quite a challenge of a career, but a really fun and exciting one. Never know what’s coming next. It’s the power

Dr G 47:33
of history driving you all the way. I love it.

Dr Jess Venner 47:36
And I’m very, very lucky that I’ve, you know, had the opportunity to apply for funding, but I’ve got to say, you know, for anyone out there, it’s, it’s very, very hard, but don’t give up, because I have experienced a huge amount of rejection and a huge amount of barriers because of my background, not having the classical background. And so I just want anyone listening to know that you can make it if you want to, if you just keep your passion at the forefront and remember why you’re doing it and and I always wanted to be able to give back and inspire other people, which hopefully I’m doing now, and also talk about the ordinary people and give them a voice too. No, I think

Dr Rad 48:17
that’s fantastic as someone who Dr G and I also come from, I think, similar ish backgrounds to yourself and our education in high school, don’t get me wrong, I had a good education, but certainly classical languages. I didn’t even know that was a thing in high school, and so when I got to university and was thinking of taking up the study of ancient history more seriously, my lack of any language background was a real barrier, and it continues to be a bit of a problem in some ways, but a podcast is a way around that listeners,

Dr G 48:51
yeah, my misconceptions around how ancient languages worked really didn’t sort of come clear to me until I was about in my second year of a history degree, and I was like, Oh, but I thought they’d been translated, aren’t we just reading the translation? I have to translate it. Like, what? Why exactly? So baffled. I was like, they’re like, you can’t be considered a serious historian unless you’re reading it in the original language. I was like, what?

Dr Jess Venner 49:22
Was like, what I know, I know I was the same. And, you know, I tried to take this intensive Latin course because I quit my job during this point. By the way, after my master’s, I thought, I’m just going to quit my job, I’m going to save up, I’m going to quit my job, and I’m going to retrain to do all of these things that you’re mentioning. Latin was one of them. And I was like, art is going on. Oh, my God. And I had like, three weeks of this intensive course every day, you know, like eight hours. And I am just terrible. And I’m, I’m happy to admit it, it’s really not great at it, you know, but I’m. The same, and it’s still something that’s like, you

Dr Rad 50:02
can join my club. I consider myself the poster girl for someone who’s terrible with languages but still loves history anyway, yeah,

Dr G 50:12
look, there’s a lot that you can do to get by with these sorts of things, and it should not be a barrier. And I think that’s the real thing to emphasize with people listening that there are different pathways into a study of history. It doesn’t just involve language expertise, and if you can gain it, that’s amazing. But it’s not the only path, and it’s certainly not something that should hold you back from your love of history in any way or shape or form.

Dr Jess Venner 50:39
Correct? Yes, exactly it great message

Dr Rad 50:42
with this book coming out and moving house and all this is probably the kind of question that’s going to make you want to punch me through the screen. But are there any upcoming projects that you’d like to tease for us before we wrap up our discussion?

Dr Jess Venner 50:55
Yes, I’m always very busy. So apart from my academic world, I am writing my second book now, which I’m very excited about. It’ll be, I think, of a similar ilk, that’s the plan. And I’m very much enjoying writing it. It’s a new challenge for me. It sort of under wraps at the moment, but, yeah, I can say that it’s fairly similar sort of way

Dr Rad 51:19
to do it, the last voices of Herculaneum. I’m just going to put it out there.

Dr Jess Venner 51:28
But I think people will really enjoy the perspective that I hopefully that I can bring. And then in other In other terms, my social media is called Life in the Past Lane, and for quite some time, I’ve been planning a new educational platform to bridge this gap that we’ve just been talking about, to bring opportunities to people that maybe want to switch career or just interested in ancient history. So that will be on YouTube, which I am on already, but it will also be a platform that I’m working on and hopefully launching at the end of this year. So so keep an eye out for that. It will be very exciting to bring people new things in that way. So yes, we will keep an eye out.

Dr Rad 52:10
Fantastic. Sounds like so many exciting things to look out for. Well, thank you so much for joining us again, listeners, as I’m sure you heard, but I’m going to repeat it again. The book is The Lost Voices of Pompeii, and you will definitely want to pick up a copy if you want the perfect blend of storytelling and expertise.

Dr Jess Venner 52:29
Well, thank you. That’s so lovely. Thank you so much. I’ve been it’s been so lovely chatting to you both. So thank you.

Dr Rad 52:45
Thank you for listening to this special episode of the Partial Historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman. The partial historians is part of the memory collective, creators and educators dedicated to sharing knowledge that is accessible, contextualized, socially conscious and inclusive, to find more from the memory collective head to collectivemem.com you too can support our show and help us to produce more engaging content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon in return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes and ad free content. If monthly patronage is not your style, we have merch. We have a book, or you can just buy us a coffee on ko fi. And we’d like to say a big thank you to all our Patreon supporters for making special episodes like this. One possible. However, if your Imperial coffers do not overflow us, one of the easiest and most important ways to help us is to tell someone about the show or give us a five star review wherever you listen until next time we are yours in ancient Rome.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Special Episode – The Lost Voices of Pompeii with Dr Jess Venner appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

We are thrilled to welcome Assistant Professor Jeremy Swist back to the show to discuss all things emperor Julian! Julian’s rule as Roman emperor was short, but it also created quite a stir because Julian was keen to turn Rome away from Christianity and to bring back the paganism. How did he do it? Why did he do it? And what’s the legacy that he left behind? We consider the details.

Jeremy Swist has a PhD in Classics from the University of Iowa, and his research interests include imperial Greek and Roman historiography and rhetoric, late antiquity, classical reception in heavy metal music. He is currently Assistant Professor of Classical Studies at Michigan State University. Jeremy has published and presented extensively, and he has a particular interest in the intersection of heavy metal music and the classical world – we suggest you check out his blog, Heavy Metal Classicist, or our previous episode with him to find out more. In 2024, he translated and produced a dramatic reading of the Emperor Julian’s Symposium of the Caesars, which starred some of the finest podcasters and actors in the WORLD! (Maybe us)

The Emperor Julian, who ruled Rome between 361 and 363 CE, is one of Jeremy’s great passions, and we are thrilled to talk to him about his new volume on this unusual ruler. The book is published by Oxford University Press and is entitled Julian Augustus: Platonism, Myth, and the Refounding of Rome.

“The Roman emperor Julian employed both words and deeds to return the empire to paganism and reverse Christianization, inspired by his conversion to the Neoplatonic philosophy and radical pagan Hellenism of Iamblichus, and promoted by his own production of Greek literature. These works present a coherent vision of the providentially guided history and destiny of Rome as a series of (re)foundations enacted by rulers such as Romulus, Numa, and Augustus. Julian offers an Iamblichean approach to interpreting Roman legends, Platonic allegories, and myths of his own creation to articulate his own role in the refounding of the empire. Approaching the wider examination of Julian’s imperial self-image on these terms ends up nuancing and challenging common assumptions influenced by the rhetoric of his contemporary proponents. In his reverence for the gods and for philosophy, the emperor’s self-construction embraces the identities of a statesman and solider more than philosopher, Roman more than Greek, and mere human rather than semi-divine being. Julian’s unique positionality as emperor let him invert the conventions of panegyric whereby rulers equal and surpass the demigods and heroes of myth and history. While distancing himself from the ideal models of virtue and founding that inspire him, he adopts a different set of exemplary figures as mirrors of himself. Statesmen such as Pericles and Scipio, and especially Augustus, serve as precedents for Julian’s more realistic conception of his role in refounding the empire, as student and champion of philosophers, guardian of law and tradition, and servant of the gods.”

Julian’s rule was short but it left quite an impact. We chat with Jeremy about some of the ideas Julian put forward about Rome, the foundation stories that underpinned its self-definition, and what might have been if weren’t for an unfortunate spear that wounded Julian and ended his life just two years into his reign.

Our music is by the superb Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Lightly edited for our wonderful Australian accents

The post The Emperor Julian with Jeremy Swist appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

We were very fortunate to be joined by the delightful Dr Simon Elliot in this special episode about his latest book, The African Emperor: The Life of Septimius Severus.

Dr Elliott (now forever known as Dr E) is a historian, archaeologist and broadcaster. His PhD is in Classics and Archaeology from the University of Kent. Dr E is the author of nineteen books (yes, nineteen!) on the ancient world, including Early Imperial Romans, Pertinax: The Son of a Slave Who Became Roman Emperor, and Roman Britain’s Missing Legion. To find a full list of his many endeavours, check out his website.

Dr Simon Elliott

However, it is Septimius Severus, ruler of the Roman Empire from 193 to 211 CE, who we want to focus on today. You may not be particularly familiar with this emperor, but if you have seen Gladiator 2, you have met his children. Severus was the father of Caracalla and Geta who do not have the best reputation. But there is much more to his story than his disappointing children.

Dr Elliott takes us through the remarkable rise of this man: from Leptis Magna to the imperial purple. In this interview, we tackle the following questions:  

Join us for the fascinating life story of the founder of the last dynasty before the near collapse of the Empire in the third century CE. And don’t forget to grab yourself a copy of the book, currently a Sunday Times bestseller.

An image of the cover of Dr Elliott’s book on the emperor, Septimius Severus.

Please note: at around 39:11, when Dr E is discussing the women in the Severan dynasty, he makes reference to Julia Domna’s sister as Julia Soaemias. A slip of the tongue, as Julia Domna’s sister was Julia Maesa, and her daughters were Julia Soaemias (mother of Elagabalus) and Julia Mamaea (mother of Severus Alexander).

Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Dr Rad 0:15
Welcome to the Partial Historians.

Dr G 0:18
We explore all the details of ancient Rome,

Dr Rad 0:23
Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battle’s waged and when citizens turn against each other, I’m Dr Rad

Dr G 0:32
And I’m Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.

Dr Rad 0:43
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

Dr Rad 0:57
Welcome to a special episode of the partial historians, I am one of your hosts. Dr Rad,

Dr G 1:04
and I am Dr G.

Dr Rad 1:07
Dr G, would you believe we have another very special guest joining us today? His name is Dr Simon Elliot, and he is a historian, archeologist and broadcaster. His PhD is in classics and archeology from the University of Kent. Dr Elliot has a whopping 19 books on the ancient world. His latest book is entitled The African emperor, the life of Septimius Severus, a volume that focuses on the life of Guess who and his rule of the Roman Empire from 193 to 211 CE, welcome to the show, Dr Elliot

Dr Simon Elliott 1:46
Guys, guys, so I’m Dr E and thank you very much for having me on. I really, really looking forward to chatting to you. Thank you.

Dr Rad 1:53
Oh no. We are thrilled. This is a part of the empire that we haven’t explored too much. We are well and truly stuck in the early republic. At the moment,

Dr Simon Elliott 2:04
that’s way too complicated. I feel like this is going to get complicated as well. That’s my sense.

Dr Rad 2:13
At least Rome is tiny at this time when we’re talking there is really no empire to speak of, no matter what they tell you otherwise. So let’s dive into it. Septimius Severus may not be a name that everyone is familiar with, yet his imprint is definitely still felt. Can you tell our listeners where they might have encountered the remnants of his rule?

Dr Simon Elliott 2:35
So when you look at Septimius Severus, the first thing to remember is he was, he was the most well, if you look at the Roman Empire at the time of Severus, we’re talking about the late second century and the early third century. So in terms of chronology, this is towards the end of the first half of the Roman Empire, which is the Principate phase of empire. And he’s the founder of the Severan Dynasty, which leads because it’s not a very successful dynasty, as we’ll see. Please ask me what happens to all the other emperors in the Severan dynasty? Because actually quite, quite gruesome, and your listeners will love it. And the failure effect of the dynasty by two through five leads to the Christ of the third century, where the Roman Empire almost implodes, and it’s only another great warrior, Emperor, Diocletian, who drags it kicking and screaming out of the morass of the crisis to reform the Empire as a dominate so basically, the Severan dynasty ushers in the end of the Principate phase of Empire and the founder of the Severan dynasty, Septimius Severus, not only by far the most successful of the Severn emperors, but almost certainly the most powerful of all Roman emperors, simply because he had more legions than any other emperor. And also he expanded the territorial expanse of the Roman Empire to its greatest extent. And also, he’s North African, so this is a man of superlatives. And if he’s the Roman emperor in charge of, and he’s from North Africa, in charge of more legions and conquering more territory than any other Roman Empire emperor. You can make a very good case. Is the most powerful in terms of military and political power African who’s ever lived. Okay, so it’s a big deal, actually. And the thing with Severus is, it’s almost an untold story, because he gets lost in the in the focus on the likes of Hadrian or Trajan or Augustus, or in the Republic Caesar or Constantine, the first Christian emperor. But very much, Severus is an emperor which very few people have heard of, because he almost gets glossed over. And yet he was the biggest deal of all of them.

Dr G 4:42
All right, so you’re setting a great scene here. It’s like this guy overlooked possibly the most powerful guy that we’ve yet to encounter in terms of thinking about Roman emperors. And you’ve mentioned that he’s from North Africa as well. So I’m wondering if you can go a little bit into his background. What about Do we know anything about his early years? For instance?

Dr Simon Elliott 5:05
Yeah, we do actually. I mean, as a Roman emperor, he’s very well sourced, actually. So you’ve got the likes of Cassius Dio that all classical sources are clearly flawed, but cross referencing can actually get sort of a broad picture. So in terms of near contemporary sources, or contemporary sources, Cassius Dio knew him. So you have Cassius Dio, you have Herodian. You have the story or Augusta, which is anonymous, but it’s still a useful history. And between those three and later histories, you can get a good cross cross reference. He’s born in the blazing heat of a North African spring, in 145, ce sort of in late April. He’s born in Leptis Magna, which is one of the great Carthaginian, mercantile founded cities in Tripolitania. Tripolitania is the eastern part of the great, hugely wealthy African province of Africa, pro consularis. So remember, the Roman Empire is a Mediterranean empire. So where I’m sitting today in Britain, where the Boltons were the odd ones, Gaul Britain, where the Northwest European boltons, broadly the Roman Empire is a Mediterranean empire. So North Africa was an absolutely normal part of it, and Africa pro consularis capital, provincial capital, Carthage was probably the richest part of the whole Roman Empire, richer than Achaea, which is Greece, richer than Asia, which is Western Asia, minor. So he’s he’s born there, and he’s born into a senatorial family who are super wealthy. So join the dots. He’s born into a super wealthy family, into a super wealthy town, into a super wealthy province of the Roman Empire. So he’s got it all in front of him, and he’s an aristocrat. He’s a senator, so he’s a patrician, so he can look forward as he grows to a career along what we call the cursus honorum, the career path of a Roman aristocrat. And by the time he’s 10, he’s in Rome having what we would say in the UK is an Oxbridge education equivalent, you know, the finest that money could buy. It’s like going to Harvard in the states with the finest education money could buy. But Intriguingly, he was very loyal to his North African roots, and he never forgot where he came from. So while he was having this cut glass accent education, he deliberately kept a guttural North African accent, and that’s important, because actually, we do know his lineage, right? This is very important to the age in which we live. He’s very often He’s certainly the African emperor, because he’s from North Africa, which is in Africa. He’s often called the Black Emperor because we have a contemporary portrait of him called the Severan Tondo, which shows him in real life with his wife, Julia Domna, his second wife, the love of his life. He’s very, very dark skinned, so he’s often called the Black emperor. We know his lineage, though, on his father’s side, because his great grandfather was called Septimius Macer, and Macer is a Carthaginian name, so his family heritage has more in common with Hannibal than it does with Julius Caesar, which is a line I love saying. And the Carthaginians, as you will know, were settlers from Phoenicia, and that’s the modern Lebanon. So his family originally came from the modern Lebanon, and there were settlers with the Carthaginians in North Africa. And then the lineage comes through to the time of Severus. So this takes us through to Severus, getting his education in Rome and beginning his career on the cursus honorum. So he’s now a young man ready to make his mark in the Roman world.

Dr Rad 8:34
So this sounds very impressive, but nonetheless, even with this incredible background that he has. It’s one thing to be an elite man in the Roman Empire. It’s quite another thing to become emperor. So he actually rise to power.

Dr Simon Elliott 8:47
That’s that’s a really, I mean, it’s a great point. That is because so if you’re if you’re a member of the Roman aristocracy, especially if you’re a senator, so you’re a patrician, the three things you need to good at, be good at in your entire life are fighting, because you’re always going to be fighting the law, because you’re always going to be suing or being sued, and politics, because you’re always going to have to be appearing in public, getting public support. So he’s owned in all these skills, but his first major posting, which makes a difference to his career, is a posting to Syria. So he becomes the legate, the general in charge of a legion. They’re called Legio III Cyrenaica, which is based on the Syrian border. And at this time, in fact, all the way through the Roman Principate. And in fact, the Roman Republic Principate and dominate. The only real symmetrical threats the Romans have got in terms of fighting are in the east, which are the Parthians, later the Sasanid Persians, who are the Persians. So I’ll call them, for the sake of our part, I’ll just call them the Persians to avoid confusion to your listeners. So Severus is based in Syria, on the border in a legionary fortress called zuegma, which is near Antioch, the provincial capital of Syria.

Dr Simon Elliott 10:00
Him, and there his job is to hold the line on the eastern frontier. And it’s a great posting for a young man wanting to make his mark on the cursus honorum, because it means that he’s getting really, really good experience being a military leader, which is so important and very important for this emperor, because, as you will see, within about two minutes, he becomes the Emperor at the point of a sword. He then gets a posting to his next province. But this time, he’s not the general in charge of the Legion. He’s the governor of the province. Very big deal. This is to be the governor of a place called Gallia Lugdunensis. So the clue’s in the name guys. It’s in Gaul. It’s the very rich bit through the middle of Gaul so running from the Alps to the Channel Islands. Its capital is in Lyon, which is a place called Lugdunum, very relevant later in Severus story. And it’s here that he marries his second wife, the love of his life, Julia Domna. And the two of them together are very much the power couple of their age. And they’re their first son, Caracalla is born, and then later, as Severus gets dragged back to Rome to become the Consul, which is the senior magistrate, their second son, Geta, is born, you’ll recognize Caracalla and Geta if you watch that not so good movie, in my opinion, Gladiator Two, because they’re the protagonists in the movie. You should have made a movie about Severus, because Severus is far, far more important, interesting than than anything in that movie. But there you go. So at least some people know what their names were, Caracalla and Geta goes to Rome, becomes a consul 190 very important, and they were almost into him become the emperor in 190 he gets made the governor of another province, which is Pannonia Superior, which is on the Danube, just north of the Alps. It’s a crucial, crucial province, because it controls access from the north of the Danube, where the Germans are, through to northern Italy. So it’s a frontier, barrier province, and it’s just been the scene of the 30 year Marcomannic wars, where the Romans only just won there the that’s the conflict which appears in the movie, the rise of fall of the Roman Empire in the original gladiator movie as an example.

Dr Simon Elliott 12:06
And while he’s there, the Emperor Commodus is assassinated in Rome over New Year’s Eve. 192 193and when he’s assassinated, the first emperor to replace him is the city prefect. This is January now, 193, the city Prefect is called Pertinax, who Severus knows because he’s earlier been his mentor. And when Pertinax becomes the emperor, he wants to be a really worthy emperor. So when the Praetorian guard comes to him at the end of January and say, Can we have some money, he says, No, oh, dear. Where this is going? At the end of February, the Praetorian girl go and see him and see him and say, Can we have some money, or we’ll kill you. He says, No. So the end of February, they kill him. Well, at least he was one. So work goes out around the Roman Empire to three candidates who are now going to play for the throne. One is Severus on the Danube. One is Clodius Albinus, the governor in Britain, in London, and one is Pescennius Niger, who is the governor in Antioch. And they all make a play, but clearly Severus is closer. It probably takes five days to get from the Danube to Rome. It’ll take you 11 or 12 days by the quickest route, usually maritime, to get from London or Antioch. So that’s Britain or Syria to Rome. So Severus arrives with five legions, Parks them in the middle of the forum Romanum, goes into the senate house with his sword drawn, and he says, in fact, actually, I’ll show you a Roman Gladius. This is a Roman Gladius.

Dr Simon Elliott 13:37
So for anybody who can’t see this, that is a Roman Gladius, and the draws his sword, his troops are with him. He says to the senators, I am the Emperor. And the senators, guess what? They say? They say, Absolutely not a problem. You’re the boss. So that that’s how he becomes the Emperor at the point of a sword.

Dr G 13:58
Oh, goodness me. What. What a dramatic turn of events. This guy likes drama, by the sounds of it. This is a obviously, this is taking place over the course of several years, going up the cursus honorum, it takes a while. You’ve got to know the right people, you’ve got to make the right connections and all that kind of thing. And you’ve also mentioned that he deliberately holds on to his Punic accent as well, which I think is great, because this is defining him against a sort of a Romaness that he is encountering everywhere around him. So while he’s working hard within the Roman system, he’s making it very clear that Rome is not just about this part of the Mediterranean. It’s also about other parts of the Mediterranean. And he’s well involved. So once he’s in power, how does he maintain his connection to his North African roots?

Dr Simon Elliott 14:54
Well, firstly, you make some really good points there. He absolutely hates the political climate in Rome, right? So he hates the Senate. When he’s the emperor, he only spends time in Rome four times, and mostly for a matter of months. He can’t wait to get away from Rome. He loves being on campaign. This is a very militaristic emperor. Also, his family are always on campaign with him as well. So Julia Domna gets the cognomen the mother of the camp, and Caracalla and Geta are always with them as well. So I think Caracalla and Geta is younger men, a little bit older. They quite like Rome, as we’ll see. But broadly, the Severans didn’t really like Rome, to the point actually, where, when Severus dies in York in 211 and I’m jumping ahead, but I know we’ll go back, so I don’t I think we’ll be fine. He’s effectively created a reset of the Roman world. I call it the Severan reset, or even a hostile takeover, because 80% of the legates in charge of legions across the Empire and 80% of the governors in charge of provinces are North African.

Dr G 15:59
Oh, wow. Okay, that’s massive.

Dr Simon Elliott 16:01
Many of them are family members, right? So he’s running the place like the mafia. And one of the things that comes through in my book, actually, is the Severans are very, very inward focused on the family and North Africa. And actually, when this is my second book of Severus, the first one is about the end of his life in Scotland, one of the things that came through my research for this book, which I did pick up with the first one, is they were really avaricious as well. So for example, we’ll talk about it in a minute. I think how he maintains himself as emperor and where he campaigns. He kills 200 senators of the 600 over a period of two years without trial, just executes them, often sent to the beasts in the arena. And usually when this happens, it’s not that unusual. Actually, when this happens, the wealth from their landed wealth which is immense, or their portable wealth which is immense, will go into the Imperial Fiscus treasury, not the Severans but half of it went into the Severan back pocket. And what’s more, they didn’t care who knew.

Dr Simon Elliott 17:05
So he’s got to he’s got to power at the point of a sword. It’s not totally unusual in the Roman world, certainly later, particularly the crisis of the third century. But these guys don’t care who knows. You know, they just want to reason. And you know, if you know, if you go to the forum Romanum, the next time you’re in Rome, the largest arch you will not be surprised to know is the arch of Septimius Severus. You won’t be surprised to know it’s actually at the very top of the Forum Romanum, beneath the Capitolini Museum, which is where the temple of Jupiter Maximus was. So it’s beneath the most important temple in the Roman world. And also the foundations are built on the foundations of the curious Senate House. So that’s a very direct message saying, if you don’t behave, you know who the boss is, to the sound of a sword slowly being scratchingly being drawn. So this is that’s, that’s if you want to get into service as headspace, that’s where you need that’s where you need to go. I’ve got no idea why I like him. Actually, I’m often, that’s what I’m giving talk. And I’m a military historian. Principally, I’ve asked him, that’s why I’m giving talks. Why do you like him? I actually can’t answer the question because, because, actually, the more you talk about him, more you realize actually, although he’s one of these the toughest of tough guy emperors, he was very brutal about sort of, sort of doing it.

Dr G 18:21
You know, look, I’ll let you in on a secret. I have a similar problem with Augustus

Dr Rad 18:25
I was gonna say. I’m glad you can admit it. DR, G,

Dr G 18:30
Yes, this is my admission. It is recorded. It is out there for the world. Now, yes, Augustus, it’s a problem, but I do like him

Dr Simon Elliott 18:37
Both of them great survivors, both of them in complete control of their own life and destiny. Both of them, crucially for a Roman Empire, died in their own beds.

Dr Simon Elliott 18:48
Now, you could make a case. Could make a case in actual fact, I’ll let you into I’ll let you into a secret. My next book coming out in July, which we should talk about, because I hope you’ll like it. It’s called Women of Power in the Roman world.

Dr Rad 19:00
Oh, that is right up our alley.

Dr Simon Elliott 19:02
There is a chapter on Livia Drusilla. And then I’m writing a book for next year called death on the Palatine cold cases of the Roman emperors, where I look into, how about 12 Roman emperors die, and we don’t really know why, or it might be a bit dodgy, so I just look into the cold cases as a detective. One of them is Augustus, whether Livy you drew still have poisoned him or not. I’m not going to tell you what I come I’m not going to tell you tell the outcome. I’ll tell you next year, if you do a pod about that book. But crucially, with Severus as well, there is a theory that Caracalla may have killed Severus as well. So there’s always a question mark over both these great, great emperors. You know, if you want to get and you’ll love this with Augustus, if you really want to get in the headspace of Severus, no Roman Emperor managed to conquer the Persians and then the Britons in the Far North. You have a poem by Horace at the end of the first century BC, beginning.

Dr Simon Elliott 19:59
The first century CE where Horace says, Augustus will not be a God unless he conquers the pesky Persians and Brits. And Augustus does neither. He’s far too clever to get dragged into that. He’s far too canny. Severus isn’t though he’s a bit of a nutter. So Severus does conquer the Persians, and at the end of his life, tries to conquer the far north of Britain. I think at the point he died in York in February 211 I think he had actually, I think he believed he had. And I think he died thinking he was the greatest Roman emperor of them all, because he’d done something which even Augustus had not done.

Dr G 20:39
Food for Thought.

Dr Rad 20:40
Could this be a new candidate for your heart.

Dr Simon Elliott 20:43
Anyway, back to your script. Sorry to throw loads. Sorry.

Dr Rad 20:46
We love a tangent. Don’t you worry, particularly when it’s about Augustus. Dr, G, can’t talk enough about him. So let’s maybe take a step back for a moment and put Severus into a bigger perspective, which I think you were starting to do there. You’ve said that he was the most powerful person ever born in Africa based purely on military and political agency. Now I think you’ve given us a hint about why you think that. But this is ever this is in World History. So Can you unpack that a little bit for us,

Dr Simon Elliott 21:16
he’s the emperor of the Roman Empire, which, in their known world, was it right? They knew something was happening in China, though almost certainly completely, uh, ignorant of anything happening in South America. There may have been in there, may have been aware of things happening in the rest of Africa or elsewhere in the world. But as far as they were concerned, they were the most important empire, political entity anywhere ever, as far as they were concerned. And North Africa is a full fat functioning part of the Roman Empire. Roman North Africa is like a layer cake. Chronologically. You start off with the indigenous Berbers, so the Garamantes in southern Libya, the Numidians in Algeria and Tunisia. And then the Morocco, the Maureen in modern Morocco, then you have the Carthaginians, then you have the Romans, then you have the Vandals, then you have the Byzantines. And finally, the Arab conquest. The only phase we look at today is through the eyes of the Arab conquest, because North Africa is part of the Arab world. But until the Arab conquest, it was an absolutely normal part of the medicine the wider Mediterranean world. And if you look at political agency, I can’t think of anybody until the modern world, who’d have any more political agency than a Roman Emperor. And in that context, if you came from Africa, I can’t think of anybody else who was born in Africa who had that level of political agency.

Dr Rad 22:41
It’s a convincing case. I must say,

Dr G 22:43
He leaves quite a legacy. I’d like to sort of rewind a little bit, because I think you in really broad brush strokes, have talked about like the consequence of this year of the five emperors, but this seems like a pretty crucial moment we’ve seen. I would imagine listeners might be quite familiar with the year of the four emperors, for instance, which is considered a real chaotic time at the end of the Julio Claudian period. And yet, the year of the five emperors sounds worse on paper, but I’m thinking that it’s probably got the same level of chaos and confusion like who’s going to come out on top? What’s going on there? How does this chaotic political moment really help elevate Severus to the top job?

Dr Simon Elliott 23:30
It’s a great question. So you’ve got the big difference of the two four emperors, of five emperors, 68-69, through to 193, broadly, the year of the four emperors has played out in the Imperial center, whereas the year of the five emperors has played out across the entirety of the Roman Empire. So firstly, Severus at the point his emperor has got two potential usurpers either side of him to the east and west, with Albinus in London, who’s declared and Niger in Antioch, who’s declared. So Severus is very canny. He buys Albinus off by making him his Caesar, Junior emperor. Remember, in the Roman world, you’ll appreciate this. In the Roman world, the most famous Roman of them all in the Roman Empire was Augustus, and then Caesar and the Republic, but, but it was always Augustus. It’s flipped. In our world, everyone knows Caesar less. People know Augustus, but, but in the Roman world, it’s always Augustus. So the senior Emperor is the Augustus. This is Severus, the junior emperor. His Caesar is now Albinus in Britain. So Albinus has bought off Severus then goes and campaigns in the east in one line four, defeats Niger, kills him, appropriates all his wealth, puts half of it in his back pocket, and then he knows that to get martial glory in the Roman world, you don’t get that you won’t have a triumph through civil war. So he needs to have a foreign war. So he invades Parthia of the Persians, and he’s just at the point of crossing the border when word reaches him at the in 195, early 196, that Albinus has seen through Severus Ruse and he’s usurped again. So Severus has to hot foot it all the way back along the riot Danube and Rhine to find Albinus has crossed over with Britain, with all three British legions joined by a Spanish Legion. And then he’s hold himself up the place where Severus was the governor and married Julia Domna, and where Caracalla was born, which is Lugdunum Lyon in Gallia Lugdunensis. And he knows Severus can’t ignore that, because that’s a that’s a deliberate slight. So Severus has to fight him, and they fight this incredible, two day titanic battle, which probably was the largest Civil War battle in the entirety of the Roman history. And dealing with the Roman Republic, you’re dealing with the likes of Philippi and Pharsalus, well, this is a bigger battle than both of those probably put together. Dio says involved 150,000 men either side. That’s got to be an exaggeration, because the entire Roman military establishment was about 300,000 establishment was about 300,000 men. But there’s a lot of people involved. Two days, Severus gets knocked off his horse twice. Later in life, he’s associated with having a leg injury, which is interpreted today as being gout. I often wonder whether actually, one of those two events being knocked off his horse in battle, he may have had a leg injury which didn’t heal well, which might cause his later in later troubles, but he does win. Captures Albinus, chops his head off, sticks it on a pole, sends it to Rome, prances over his beheaded body on his charger to ceremony show who the boss is then. And this is a kicker. I love this, being being British, and having spent a lot of time in Kent and London, having spent 25 years working in London, in the City of London, so Severus to bring recalcitrant Britain back into the Imperial fold, sends his military inspectors to Britain, and they have to start rebuilding the British legions, which have been butchered already because of the Battle of Lugdunum. But then to show the people in the provincial capital London, who is the boss, they build the land wall of Roman London. So it’s built by Severus to show if I can do this, you imagine what I can do if you misbehave again. There’s no external threat. There’s no river wall built on the Thames. So it’s not a defensive circuit. It’s a statement. And this is this wall, which becomes the medieval wall of London, which to this day still delineates the square mile in London. So this financial powerhouse of the world is delineated to this day by a boundary set in place by a dark skinned Roman Emperor from North Africa. Absolutely, absolutely love that fact. And so from that point, he’s the sole emperor. And then he goes back to the east, where he does is the first Roman Emperor since Trajan, and only the second Roman Emperor. And there’s only three who do it. Charis later does it, only the second Roman emperor who conquers the Persians and he captures Ctesiphon their capital. Then he does this triumphal parade through North Africa, starting in Egypt, which is where the portrait was painted, which is like a fayum portrait. And then he goes through all the North African places that he knew and loved and everywhere he goes, they monumentalized His presence by building a Severan phase. The Severan this that everywhere, even in Rome, by the way, which he hated, a third of what you see today classical Rome is Severan. And I delight in showing people these things because of like the Temple of Vesta in the forum Roman a very, very famous temple of Vesta built by Julia Domna. That one is the iteration built by Julia Domna. And then he finds himself back in Rome, and it’s around 207, and he’s really bored. So it does take quite a good deal of time for him to sort of wrap it all up in a way. So even though he’s Emperor on paper 193 there’s still that sort of tail end of the civil conflict to get through to really secure it for him, I think it’s the same for any, any emperor who came to power at the point of a sword. Actually, you’re always going to be looking over your own shoulder. Because if you I mean, you could say it was a usurper. It was the first, it was the first to market, shall we say, in Rome, to seize the throne. But you could argue, as a usurper, any Roman usurper is going to be looking over the shoulder for the shoulder for the rest of their life. That’s why Severus, by the way, famously, on his deathbed in York in 211 tells Caracalla and Geta, look after each other. Will return to that look after each other and look after the military completely ignore the rest. Wasn’t in charge of anybody apart from the military. He always his first Roman emperor that allowed a Roman legionary within his 25 years term of service to legally marry as an example, and he increased the salary of a Roman legionary by a third. So he’s always been faithful to the military, because he knew that they were the ones who got into power, and they were the ones who would keep him in power.

Dr Rad 29:56
Well, this seems like an opportune time to talk about one of his. Is more important military campaigns. Let’s talk about what he gets up to in Britain.

Dr Simon Elliott 30:05
So it’s 207-208 and he gets a message from the governor in Britain, who’s a chap called Senecio, which says, there’s trouble in the north, which there may have been because, remember, the legions are undermanned and being rebuilt. There’s trouble in the north. And then he says, very interesting line, the entire island. So the whole island is in danger of being overrun. We need either your help or reinforcement. And this is when you get the Severan surge, because Severus decides at the end of his life to come over in person. And he actually arrives in York in 208 with the imperial family and with half the Senate, with the Fiscus, Treasury, the Praetorian Guard. And they turned York, actually, in the north of Britain, into the imperial capital, the proper capital for the last three years of his life. And then he spends 209 and 210 campaigning in what we call today Scotland. Leave with Caracalla, leaving Geta and Julia Domna in York to actually administer the Empire, and you have these two really brutal campaigns. You know, when in Britain, when we talk about our weather, we we laughably call it changeable, but the Romans didn’t mince their words. They just said it was miserable and wet, which is very accurate. The Roman contemporary authors say at this time, the weather in Britain was worse than usual. So it must have been really, really bad. And also in the campaigns in the far north the natives, because the Roman that, I mean, the Romans were leading 50,000 men. Remember, that’s the largest campaigning force ever to fight on British soil. They blocked the coast off with a clash of Britannica fleet. They cut the the natives off from the highlands by blocking off all the Glens. And so they trapped all the natives in the Far North. There were broadly two confederations called the Maeatae and the Caledonians, and they just trapped them. And then once they were trapped, they just went straight through five flight, through a soft underbelly, and butchered them. And the natives didn’t get a chance to coalesce into a fighting force for a battle to take place. So the whole thing is this hideous guerrilla war in terrible weather conditions. And even Dio says that although the Romans won through weight of numbers, they suffered a lot of casualties. But eventually the Romans win Severus and Caracalla go back down to York, and they leave the troops in the north. Now, when the Romans have been up there before, the troops have come back down, but the natives notice the Romans aren’t leaving, so they realize the Romans are trying to stay. So they rebel again. And so Severus actually not Severus, because he’s now too ill. In 210 Caracalla repeats the whole campaign again, but Severus is recorded by Dio as saying that Severus ordered them to commit a genocide. So the line that DIO uses is kill everybody, including their babies in their mother’s wombs. And the archeological record does show there’s a massive depopulation event in the far north of Britain, which is evidence, all the way through to the end of the third century. So it looks as though the Romans did attempt to genocide, actually, in that campaign, which is not unusual for the Romans, dealing with the rebellion, but it’s a particularly brutal one, given you have this proper depopulation event, victory is declared. Severus and Caracalla. Take the cognoma Britannicus. Coins are minted in Rome. Hurrah Severus dies in February 211 right? Probably of some kind of pulmonary illness in in sort of the 65 the miserable kind of a fog or the British winter is in York. And Caracalla and Geta hate each other. They hate each other, and they hate York and Britain, so they can’t wait to get back to the flesh pots of Rome. So separately, with their own entourages, they race themselves back to Rome, and with them gone, there’s no political imperative to keep the troops in the far north of Britain. So everything drops back down to the line of Hadrian’s Wall, which it stays up for the rest of the Roman occupation. Interestingly, there is a major repair of Hadrian’s Wall at this time leaving Severin inscriptions. And when Hadrian’s Wall was first when the inscriptions were first deciphered in the 17th and 18th centuries, the wall was called Severan the Severn wall, because the first ones deciphered were Severan. It’s only in the 19th century you get the Hadrianic ones, and Caracalla and Geta get back to Rome, and then within a year, probably by Christmas, our Christmas Roman Saturnalia, Caracalla killed Geta, either killed him or had him killed, and Geta allegedly then dies bleeding to death in Julia Domna’s arms in the Imperial Palace on the Palatine Hill. And then you have this cascade of seven emperors. You have Caracalla, the survivor. He’s assassinated four years later, for six years later, 217 while he’s relieving himself against the tree. Be visiting a temple in the east, and he’s stabbed in the back. That’s a hell of a way to go. Very briefly, the Praetorian Prefect Macrinus then becomes the Emperor. He’s also assassinated with his son. Then the Severans are back with Elagabalus and his mum. Elagabalus is assassinated with his mum, and then finally, you have Alexander Severus with his mum, who was assassinated with his mum. So it’s not a good job being an emperor’s mum in the Severan dynasty, either. So that is it. So the dynasty peaks massively with Severus, and then suddenly you have this failure of a dynasty which finishes in 235, which causes, I think, the cascade into the crisis of the third century, which could have brought the Roman Empire down. Actually, to my point at the beginning of our chat, it takes another great warrior, Emperor, Diocletian, to rescue things. Otherwise, you know, our world would have been completely different.

Dr Rad 35:56
Yeah, God, if those two brothers had just got along, things could have been very I was gonna say,

Dr G 36:01
I feel like a counterfactual history moment is required for something like this. Like imagine if those two brothers, Caracalla and Geta, could have found a way to have followed their father’s advice, because it seems like everything takes a really bad turn, and I hate to bring up gladiator two back into this conversation, but that movie would have just been way more interesting if it had focused on the history, which is incredible,

Speaker 1 36:27
I tell you.

Dr Simon Elliott 36:27
I tell you. I tell you. Like, as you know, with you all over the Roman world, it’s more Game of Thrones and Game of Thrones. It’s more Tolkien than Tolkien. You know, it’s all there. Of course, Tolkien himself was obsessed by the Roman world and the Dark Ages, etc, which informs a lot of his writing. But for us, it’s all there, and if it’s done well on screen, it’s great TV or great movie. I mean, gladiators not close to history, but it’s good movie. Yeah, the HBO BBC series Rome was fabulous. The first series of that was fabulous. You know, a very good recreation of that particular world, so you don’t need to muck about with it that much to actually make fantastic narrative.

Dr Rad 37:07
No, it is one of the big mysteries as to why they decided, I know, let’s go against what’s known about this time period and create a far less interesting story.

Unknown Speaker 37:16
They should

Dr Simon Elliott 37:17
should have spoken to us shouldn’t they?

Dr Rad 37:20
If only we put the call out to Ridley Scott many times, still no reply.

Dr G 37:25
So I think in terms of the brothers, you’ve painted a pretty strong picture of what’s going on with those two in the wake of Severus death, I’m wondering if you can tell us a little bit more about the love of his life, Julia Domna, and how she comes into it, because later, mothers seem to not fare so well. What about her?

Dr Simon Elliott 37:47
I think Julia Domna is is literally half the story, actually, because they were a real power couple. First thing to know is that she’s a lot taller than he was. So if you go to the Forum Boarium meat market in Rome, which is at the bottom of the Palatine Hill, where it meets the Circus Maximus. So it’s quite easy to find. There’s two or three arches there, and it’s on the Tiber and there, there’s an arch, the arch of the argentari, where you who the money lenders, where you have a sculptured Julia Domna and Severus, who would have seen it, they’d have seen the sculpture. Severus is about foot shorter. Now bear in mind that the sculptor with this most militaristic of emperors would definitely wanted to have made him as big as he physically could without actually ending up in the arena or doing something silly. So you can guarantee Severus was probably a lot shorter than Julia Domna, for a start, and I think it was probably like a middleweight Olympic weightlifter all square and muscle. Julia Domna Is is portrayed as being very tall, and bear in mind where she came from. She came from a Emesa which is modern Aleppo. And her father was the chief priest of the sun god Elagabalus. That family had previously been the royal family of a Emesa before it became part of the Roman world. So there were some of the richest people in the Roman Empire. So very much a very, very good catch for Severus marrying into that family.

Dr Rad 39:10
How convenient that they fell in love.

Dr Simon Elliott 39:11
But I think, I think it was a love match. I really think it was a love match. Very unusually in contemporary sources, as you know, all Roman contemporary sources are all late middle aged men, or old men writing who are rich writing for other late middle aged men who are also rich in a very gender unbalanced society. Okay, so doing my research, for example, for Women of Power of the Roman World, you’re immediately faced with that that you have to hack through before you get to the true story of the women involved. But even then Severus Julia Domna is really well written up. Actually, she became a key patron of the arts in Roman across the Roman Empire, much more so than than Severus. And you know, the family were close. This is really unusual. What happened to Caracalla and Geta. They were very close for most of their life. They followed Severus and Julia Domna, the kids around the Roman world. When it was on campaign, they went to everywhere in the Roman world, and Julia Domna would have been very much a steady influence there. And I can only think that as the boys got older into their early teenage years, they end up with their own coteries around them who then can see a path for their own benefit by championing one of the siblings against the other sibling, which is probably what sparred out of control. Julia Domna’s end, though, is really sad. I mean, when Caracalla was assassinated, she’d had enough. She was in a Emesa, and she just turned a face to the wall and died because she just had enough, and she was heartbroken. In the Women of Power of the Roman World book, there is a chapter called The Severan Julias. Julia Domna wasn’t the only one of the Severan Julias. Her elder sister, Julius Soaemias, was like The Godfather. So Julius Soaemias was more powerful than Julia Domna, especially after Severus died, and she pulled the strings of the early Severan dynasty. And then it’s her two daughters who are the mothers of Elagabalus and Alexander Severus who died. Chances are Julia Soaemias, the elder sister of Julia Domna, was the one who ordered the assassination of Elagabalus and her own daughter, his mum, because they weren’t up to scratch, and then put her younger daughter and his her son, Alexander Severus, in power. And that lasted about decades. So that actually almost worked, but ultimately didn’t. So this is a really interesting story about the Severan Julias. There’s definitely, definitely a second pod here for us to talk about, about, about these amazing women who, because it’s very difficult to find women who held true political agency in their own right in the Roman world, because the sourcing issues and because it was a very gender unbalanced and unbiased, a very, very biased society. You can make a case that Livia Drusilla may have done. I do anyway, you can make a case certainly that Zenobia, who was a Palmyrene Queen, did you can make a very good case that Galla Placidia, who was the daughter of Theodosius, the first, the sister of Honorius and Arcadius, and the mother of Valentinian the second, she was a regent 16 years so being a regent meant you have proper political power. So she probably did have political agency. And then it comes to the Severan Julias, Julia, Domna, probably had a degree of agency, but she would always be in the shadow of this militaristic emperor, Severus Julia, Soaemias and her daughters, I think they are real political agency. So there’s a real story there. The Severans and Julias.

Dr Rad 42:40
I know I was thinking of a, you know, multi series television show that could follow the women. Be great. It’d be absolutely great. Are you listening Netflix? They’re crying out for content. Yeah, I Julia, that’s what I’m pitching.

Dr Rad 42:56
So let’s return, if we may, to Severus end, because you’ve hinted at some possible controversy around that and his legacy. I mean, obviously you could say that this dynasty is part of his legacy, but I think there’s probably a bit more to it than that as well.

Dr Simon Elliott 43:10
So in terms of his end, well, the controversy, there’s a reference in the primary sources that as the first peace treaty is being signed after the 209 campaign in the far north of Britain, Caracalla, who’s behind him on a horse, draws his sword, and it’s the Praetorian Prefect that stops him stabbing Severus in the back. Only one source may be true, maybe apocryphal. Will never know, but that that is there. I think he did die a natural death. I think he died a natural death because we know that he took his funerary urn, which was Porphyry, to York from Rome. So you’re not going to do that unless you think you’re on your last legs, are you? So he did take his funerary urn with him, and later, when he’s buried in Rome, like many Roman emperors, he’s buried in the mausoleum of Hadrian today’s Castel Sant’Angelo. So I think he knew it was the end of his life anyway. But I think, I think as he died, I think he thought he succeeded, and I thought he said in, I think he thought he said in trying a good succession as well, clearly didn’t read his sons particularly well later in life, because you have this cascade of events then which you have this dysfunctional dynasty. In terms of his legacy in Britain, you can argue there was one success for the Romans from a Roman perspective, in that you do have peace on the northern border for almost a century afterwards, which is the longest period of peace on the northern border in Britain until the modern era, by the way. But it was at a great cost, because certainly, almost certainly, was a genocide in that second 210 campaign. Did he conquer the Far North? Well, no, he didn’t. Did he because he dies, Caracalla and Geta can’t wait to clear off so the political agency is gone. So the all that effort, all those casualties, all the economic dysfunction, all that genocides complete waste of time, because the Romans then just go back down to the line of age as well, and actually do find.

Dr Simon Elliott 44:59
Find this in the far north of Britain only two times can you say the Romans actually or conquered it in the far north, the first times by Agricola on behalf of the Flavian emperors. And that probably was a proper conquest for at least six months. And then you have with the severance and the Severus dying, that fails so without the political imperative which drove Agricola because the mission called him back without the political imperative, with the severance the northern border always drops down. Probably it’s quite expensive to maintain troops that far north, so far from the Imperial center. So in actual fact, although, although you could say he was the most powerful African who ever lived. He was probably the most powerful military Roman Emperor terms of his legacy. At the point he died, he thought he’d done it, but he hadn’t.

Dr Rad 45:47
That sibling rivalry really screwed things up for everybody in so many ways. Not a crazy man. What a crazy guy. Heated Rivalry season two, Caracalla and Geta

Dr Simon Elliott 46:00
That’s a good idea.

Dr G 46:03
There’s so much potential in this material to wrap things up, I’m going to leave with a an easy question, a super easy question. It’s about the source material. Challenges with the source material, and challenges for the historian, looking at the types of source material that we have for Severus life.

Dr Simon Elliott 46:24
Oh, well, as we know, it’s always a challenge, because you’re dealing with it’s what we’ve got. I am an archeologist, though, so I am always keen to triangulate anything I get from a contemporary source than anything in the archeological record, which actually, with the Severan book was pretty easy, because there’s a very good archeological record of those campaigns in the far north, especially the marching camps where the Romans In fact, one of the fascinating facts about the Severan campaigns in the far north is because he was leading 50,000 men through the Scottish Borders, the largest marching camps in the whole Roman world are there actually from that campaign. But in terms of the written sources, they’re what we’ve got, so you just deal with what you’ve got, and you always take them with a pinch of salt. You always try and triangulate. I still love going back to them, though, because it’s what there’s. There’s a line. I’ll give you my favorite line from DIO and it’s not about service. It’s about Commodus, who is my least favorite emperor, because I think Joaquin Phoenix, when he portrays him in Gladiator, nails it. Absolutely nails it. I think he was exactly like that. There’s a scene in Dio where Commodus is is showing up, pretending to be Hercules in the in the Colosseum. And of course, all the senators are in the front seats, and they’re all having to applaud, yeah, it’s brilliant. Wonderful emperor. The guy’s mental. Wonderful emperor. Great, great. He’s mad. Wonderful. Well, great and Commodus. Big trick was to fire crescent shaped arrows to chop the heads off ostriches. On one occasion, apparently did 200 in one go. Dio describes Commodus picking up an ostrich head from the ground, going up to a Dio and the senators are sitting dear as a senator, and then wags the head up and down in front of them, and says, You better laugh, boys, because if you don’t, this is what’s going to happen to you, and they all have to start laughing.

Dr Simon Elliott 48:15
So even if that’s not true, I love it. I love it. I love having to go back to the primary sources, reinterpret them time and time again. The moment I’m dealing with Ammianus Marcellinus writing a book about Galla Placidia and again, just any going back to any source is an absolute joy for me. I think there is a real thrill as well. When you know that the writer that you’re reading is a contemporary of the people that they’re talking about, it doesn’t mean that it’s going to be any more useful, necessarily, but you feel that there’s a sense of an aliveness between the writer and their subject matter. And to have Dio there talking about these people that he’s living under the regimes of, I think is absolutely fascinating. Do you think? Do you think Dio so I’m going to Procopius now. Do you think Dio might have also written his own secrets. I would love that.

Dr G 49:05
How much worse could it get? Oh, my God.

Dr Simon Elliott 49:09
Tune in. Everybody. Just go through it. Just just get just go through the list of the I just love doing this when I’m giving talks in public. Severus died in his own bed. Caracalla, assassinated Geeta, assassinated Macrinus, assassinated Elagabalus assassinated with his mum. Alexander Severus assassinated with his mum, who wants to be a Roman Emperor. It’s a dangerous, dangerous job, really, is stick. Stick with being historians not killing Sure. Well. Thank you so much for joining us. I’m sure our listeners will be dying to get their hands on on a copy of this book. Would you like to tell them where to follow you, where to find you as well. You

Dr Simon Elliott 49:48
can find me across all social media platforms, at Simon Elliott, 20 my email address, and I’m very happy for your your followers to get in touch. Simon dot, Elliot at Sentinel communications, or one word or.Dot co.uk, and the African Emperor is a Sunday Times bestseller, by the way. So who knew there was so much interest in a Roman Emperor with with from North Africa? But now you know why? Because it is amazing story, and that’s published through icon books. But also, crucially, Belinda audio, based in Australia.

Dr Rad 50:20
Love the connection.

Dr Simon Elliott 50:22
So thank you. Thank you guys. Thank you.

Dr G 50:25
It’s been an absolute pleasure. I’ll show a couple.

Dr Simon Elliott 50:28
There you go. That’s Beinda audio in Australia. Lovely. And it sounds like we will have more to talk about in forthcoming episodes. I would love to talk to you guys again. Fabulous. Talking to you. Thank you so much for having me on Thank you.

Dr Rad 50:52
Thank you for listening to this special episode of the Partial Historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman. The Partial Historians is part of the Memory Collective, creators and educators dedicated to sharing knowledge that is accessible, contextualized, socially conscious and inclusive, to find more from the memory collective head to collective mem.com. You too can support our show and help us to produce more engaging content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes and ad free content. If monthly patronage is not your style, we have merch. We have a book, or you can just buy us a coffee on ko fi. And we’d like to say a big thank you to all our Patreon supporters for making special episodes like this. One possible. However, if your Imperial coffers do not overfloweth, one of the easiest and most important ways to help us is to tell someone about the show or give us a five star review wherever you listen. Until next time we are yours in ancient Rome.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Special Episode – Septimius Severus with Dr Simon Elliott appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away, one of our lovely Patreons requested that we talk about archaic Roman religion. Religion is Dr G’s favourite topic, so we decided it was well and truly time for us to chat about what the Romans were up to in their early days.

As with all aspects of the archaic period, it can be difficult to find reliable and detailed source material for certain aspects of religious life. However, the gods were hugely important to the Romans, so there are a variety of sources that we can use to piece together an accurate picture. This includes:

We discuss the nature and role of Roman religion in society, whilst trying to mythbust the belief that the Romans just stole everything from the Greeks.

Archaic Roman religion is fascinating, with deities like Quirinus and Robigo (goddess of grain mildew) seeming to date back a long way. As Rome progressed, the state cults became more formalised and ritualised, and new gods were incorporated. You may recall that when the Romans conquered Veii in 396 BCE, they went to great lengths to coax the resident goddess, Juno Regina, to their city. Roman expansion allowed them to come into contact with a greater variety of deities.   

There were several important priestly positions in Rome that we refer to in this episode, so here’s your cheat sheet:

Image of lararium from the Thermopolium of Lucius Vetutius Placidus. The lares stand on either side of the central figure, the Genius of the household. On the far left and far right stand Mercery and Bacchus. Courtesy of Becks on Flickr.

On a more personal level, the Romans were also surrounded by the lares, guardian spirits who were seemingly connected to place, such as the hearth, streets, neighbourhoods and boundaries. If you have been to Pompeii or Herculaneum, you may have seen a lararium, or one of the shrines that people could have in their houses for these deities. Their origin is debated, but no one can deny their presence in the Roman world.

Cicero, De natura deorum

Cicero, On the Reply of the Haruspices

Seneca the Younger, Letters, 41.3

Flower, Harriet I. The Dancing Lares and the Serpent in the Garden: Religion at the Roman Street Corner. 1st ed. Princeton ; Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2017. https://doi.org/10.1515/9781400888016.

Forsythe, Gary. A Critical History of Early Rome : From Prehistory to the First Punic War. Berkeley, Calif. ; University of California Press, 2005.

Scheid, John, and Clifford Ando. The Gods, the State, and the Individual : Reflections on Civic Religion in Rome. Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2016. https://doi.org/10.9783/9780812291988.

Tellegen-Couperus, O. E. (Olga Eveline). Law and Religion in the Roman Republic. Edited by Olga Tellegen-Couperus. 1st ed. Vol. 336. Leiden: Brill, 2012. https://doi.org/10.1163/9789004219205.

Warrior, Valerie M. Roman Religion. Cambridge ; Cambridge University Press, 2006.

Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Dr Rad 0:15
P Welcome to the partial historians.

Dr G 0:19
We explore all the details of ancient Rome,

Dr Rad 0:23
everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battle’s waged and when citizens turn against each other, I’m Dr Rad

Dr G 0:33
and I’m Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.

Dr Rad 0:44
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

Dr G 0:59
Hello and welcome to a brand new special episode of the partial historians. I am Dr G, and I am Dr Rad, and today we are talking about ancient Roman religion.

Dr Rad 1:17
If ever there was a topic that is right up your alley.

Dr G 1:19
Dr G, I know I’m so excited. Oh, there are so many things we could talk about, but I’m going to try and contain myself to a very specific time limit.

Dr Rad 1:28
We have got a request from a Patreon, actually, quite some time ago. So sorry about taking so long to do this. But you know, there are just so many books coming out, so many people to be interviewed. We are going to be looking at archaic Roman religion, which is obviously very in keeping with the time period that we have been covering for the last decade.

Dr G 1:51
Yes, it’s an interesting, really interesting period of Rome’s history, partly because of what we simply don’t know, as listeners will be well aware the written historical record doesn’t kick in for quite some time. So the traditional foundation date of Rome is 753 BCE, but our real historiographical style of writing doesn’t really start to crop up until about the second century BCE, and then we only have sort of fragmentary things until we get into the first century BCE. So this means there’s a huge chunk of Romans history’s time where the Romans understand themselves and talk about themselves and maybe write it down, but we don’t have the evidence for it, and this means that trying to figure out what their practices were, what they were into, what they believe, a lot of that is, on some level,

Dr Rad 2:49
unretrievable, absolutely. However, the good news is that, because we are talking about religion, it’s obviously something that is pretty important to the Romans. And so there are certain types of material, certain kinds of sources that we can turn to that give us little clues. So obviously, there are inscriptions, there are certain kinds of records. They’re nothing like a narrative history, but we do have certain kinds of records that seem to have been around for a long time, which might give us some indication. And of course, you can also look at, you know, etymological kinds of tracing things, try and figure out why that name. What would that mean? How can we trace that back? So there are certain types of material that are around, but you know what? Dr, G, I have to go back to an old story at the start of this episode. I know you heard this many times, but for people like me who were raised on the 1950s golden era of Hollywood, kinds of movies about Rome, the impression I think you often get when you watch these sorts of movies is that the Romans didn’t really believe in anything like they do have Gods Absolutely, but they’re not gods that they have any sort of deep investment in. It’s kind of a tokenistic sort of religion. It comes across as just about decadence. And I think that’s because obviously in those sorts of movies, either you have the Romans being very unfavorably contrasted to the Christians, because it’s usually that sort of a storyline, or it just sort of feeds into the general cynicism of Roman characters. Now I am, of course, thinking about Spartacus, in which there is directly a scene in in which the senator Gracchus, who’s kind of a bit of an anti hero, I suppose he’s the best person on the Roman side, which isn’t saying a ton, but he is meant to be kind of a good guy. He says that he publicly believes in the gods, but privately, of course, it’s. He knows it’s rubbish. And so I always kind of had this impression from movies that the Romans, Therefore were not a particularly religious or pious people, that it was just all about, you know, show, and it wasn’t anything particularly important, since studying that is either mental view I’ve had to really overcome, because I kind of think it’s the opposite. What do you think?

Dr G 5:29
Yeah, what a great setup. It is. Definitely not all that it appears. Thanks Hollywood. I would say that what the Hollywood films are really offering us is big Christianity and its propaganda, which has been incredibly powerful over 1000s of years at this point in terms of demonizing what came before in terms of belief systems and relationships with the divine, because what we see In those films is Roman belief systems being positioned as merely idolatry and a veneration of the object and the decadence that you mentioned, but with no substance behind it whatsoever. And this would be a mistake, because the Romans are deeply, deeply spiritual people and will not move a muscle unless they feel confident that they have divine approval on their side.

Dr Rad 6:26
I have a joke for you. Dr, G, why did the chicken cross the road?

Dr G 6:30
Why did the chicken cross the road?

Dr Rad 6:33
You know what? It’s not so much about why it’s that we have to watch the chicken cross the road, and that will tell us what the gods want us to do.

Dr G 6:39
It’s very important, always, always keep a good eye on the birds. One of the things that I will never get over, I don’t think, is the way that the murmuration of birds above the city of Rome, which you can still witness today, gives us a sense of what it must have been like to be an augur in the ancient Roman world, and an augur is the kind of priest who does spend their time watching the patterns of birds. And because murmurations are so patterned across the sky, this beautiful sort of flow effect that’s created by these birds following each other in patterns which you don’t necessarily see everywhere. I’ve never seen a murmuration in Australia, for instance, you don’t have those kinds of birds. We have very different birds here.

Dr Rad 7:29
So can I say we do have birds that laugh?

Dr G 7:31
We do. We have incredible birds.

Dr Rad 7:34
I am what would the Romans make of that a bird up in the tree laughing?

Dr G 7:38
I am not going to….

Dr Rad 7:39
Just freaked out!

Dr G 7:40
Yeah, the beauty and the magnificence of Australian birds cannot be underestimated, but they are very different from the birds that you would see over the city of Rome today and in the ancient world. And so I can understand how augury developed, and this idea of taking the auspices, because it’s fundamentally embedded in the patterns of nature. And this is where, when we think about archaic Roman religion, the basis in nature is the first place to start. So we’ve got a really beautiful insight from Seneca the younger where he talks about the powerful effects that nature has upon people. And he talks about, if you ever go into a glade of trees, where the trees have grown up so tall and that their canopies intersect with each other in such a way that it feels like you almost cannot see the sky anymore, this will generate within you a very specific type of feeling. And he calls this feeling, the feeling of numen, a sense of the Divine. And likewise, he also talks about, if you are in a cavernous spot where you can see the rock formation naturally created, creating a crevice above which there’s a whole nother section of land, you’re going to have a feeling of awe, a feeling which is described in the Latin as religio, which is where we get our idea and the term religious from.

Dr Rad 9:09
See etymology, etymology.

Dr G 9:12
So, but the Romans think about these things, not necessarily as religion, because I think again, we’re in a very tricky spot as human beings in this point in time, in this point in context where we tend to think about things like a separation between state and religion and all of this kind of stuff. And for the Romans, it wasn’t like that state and religion are not separate things. They are intertwined things. The Divine is everywhere, present in reality. And it’s how do you navigate that? How do you ensure that your relationship with the gods is appropriate? How do you maintain a good relationship with the gods in order to ensure favorable outcomes for yourself and those that you love

Dr Rad 9:56
absolutely and this is where we come back to that very. Wrong idea I had from the 1950s ethics, which is, as you say, Roman religious beliefs, practices. It just permeates every aspect of life like you wouldn’t start any sort of meeting of a political nature without observing the proper rituals, without having certain ceremonies, which would be somewhat unthinkable in certain places in the world today, where we do pride ourselves on having those things quite separate, although sometimes I don’t think they’re as separate as people like to believe. But yeah, definitely the idea that it’s just everywhere, particularly if you even think about things like the lares. The lares are something. They are particularly household gods, which we might get into a little bit later. But they’re also the kinds of gods that you would find out in the streets everywhere, like it’s just everywhere. And if you think about walking around places like Pompeii, the amount of religious imagery you know, relating to gods or mythology, it’s just everywhere. So it just wouldn’t be something that you escaped. It would just be part of your day to day life. But I also want to say how much I loved what you were saying about nature until, yes, Dr rad’s about to get a bit preachy here, but I do think that sometimes people when they look at other cultures, particularly ancient cultures, and they look at their religious beliefs, and the type of religious beliefs, when you bring up things like it being rooted in nature or sort of coming from natural observances, there’s sometimes an attitude that you get from certain types of people where it’s like, oh, how simplistic. You know, they looked at the trees. They looked at the birds. You know, they don’t have an understanding of science and kind of looking down on that sort of belief system as being somewhat primitive compared to what people have access to today in terms of information. Now, obviously it’s illogical to expect people in the ancient times to have a scientific understanding of the world akin to anything like what we have now. They just can’t, obviously. But I also don’t think that it should be dismissed as simplistic or primitive or anything like that. In fact, I think we actually probably need a little bit more of that these days. Now, I am a city girl. I am aware of the dangerous pedestal I am ascending right now, but genuinely, I think that part of our problem when dealing with current environmental issues is that we actually don’t pay enough attention to nature going on around us. And it is actually really miraculous what we have around us, the variety of animal life, the way that this planet functions, the gifts that we are given, and what we’ve been able to turn them into, and how we’ve been able to harness a certain lifestyle from entirely the natural resources around us, we are not paying enough attention to nature and the signals that are being sent to us, and that is a huge problem. We know. You know from so many studies how much nature is connected to human well being, and yet, instead, we turn to other things, rather than just embracing the need, we have to connect with nature and have a deeper, a deeper relationship with nature. And yeah, I just, I just see it as a huge problem. So I don’t see it as simplistic or primitive. I see it as something that actually probably really did bring the Romans something really powerful.

Dr G 13:25
Yeah, definitely. And I see where you’re coming from when we’re thinking about the sustainability of the planet and having an outlook like the early Romans did, I wouldn’t necessarily get on board with maybe their later Imperial cult business, but certainly early, archaic religion from a Roman perspective, very grounded in nature, very grounded in observations about the natural world, and then considering quite carefully, what is our relationship in response to those things, what are these signs from nature trying To tell us about the will of the Divine and and then thinking about what would be the best behavior and the best action to take in order to cultivate the best outcome, not just for yourself, but ultimately for your synergistic relationship with nature. So those things, I think, are really interesting, and in this sense, the ancient Romans share many parallels with a lot of indigenous cultures, and having seen the powerful effects of what nature can do and how you can respond to it and nurture it and care for nature around you, that is something that has a really strong and powerful force which we could harness today, I think, in a much more robust way. One of the things I was thinking about when researching for this topic was the other sort of big misconception that people often bring to the table when I say, Oh, I’m an ancient historian of ancient Rome. And the first thing. A lot of people will say, as a bit of a joke, but with a relative undercurrent of seriousness, is oh well, they just copied everything from the Greeks, and they just stole stuff.

Dr Rad 15:11
Wait, you mean they didn’t,

Dr G 15:15
I mean, the thing is that Rome, as it develops, does really encourage syncretism over time. They are not an exclusive kind of people when it comes to their belief systems. They’re very open minded in this respect. If they come across a group of people practicing something, they are more likely to welcome it into their own space and to incorporate it into their own culture, maybe with some little changes that make sense for them, but they certainly don’t dismiss other people’s gods or other people’s practices. They’re more inclined to bring in rather than push out. So in this sense, by the time we get to our written sources for what ancient Rome is like, the Greek influence has already been there for centuries, and so then it gets very hard to disentangle, because they’ve done a lot of work to be like Jupiter is a bit like Zeus, and Aphrodite is a bit like Venus, and they’ve created and established all of these relational parallels, not like the other Yeah, they’ve done so much work to be like, yes, we can bring it all together that people are like, Oh, well, the Greeks were earlier in history, and therefore the Greeks did it first, and then the Romans were just like,

Dr Rad 16:37
but as you say, you’re totally right, particularly When we’ve been looking at this earlier period for so long, whilst Absolutely, there’s a Greek influence, and that’s also not just because the Greeks literally exists earlier, but as we’ve talked about, the Greeks are in Italy.

Dr G 16:53
They have colonized South Italy. They are in Sicily. They are in Campania. They are in Puglia. The Greeks, you can’t avoid the Greeks. They’re already they’ve already turned up, and they’ve already been like, this place is also ours. And the people who are indigenous to Italy are like,

Dr Rad 17:12
okay, and that’s exactly it. So it would make sense that when the Romans are presumably engaged in trading and coming into contact with these people that they are, of course, exposed to their beliefs, and vice versa, and it’s really hard to trace that exact process, as you said. I mean, even if we turn to Greek sources, we don’t have the complete story of exactly how those interactions go, particularly really early on, certainly not ones that we would stake our lives on, or anything like that. So we do have that. So of course, the Romans have probably incorporated that into their own system. But we absolutely have come across stuff that is decidedly italic and doesn’t come from the Greeks, particularly from these earlier cultures. Because, of course, we’ve got all these little italic cultures, the ones that the Romans keep fighting. So they’ve obviously got the Latins, who they presumably have things in common with, like their language and certain structures that they have in their society, because they’re really, really close to each other. But there are all these other people, the ones that the Romans keep fighting, or having alliances with or fighting again. They also have their own religious beliefs, and it can be hard to trace those too, because they get subsumed by Rome itself. And then, of course, we’ve got the Etruscans to the north, yeah. And we know that a lot of their religious practices and stuff are influenced by the Etruscans, as far as we can tell, including probably augury, which you were just talking about, yeah, definitely.

Dr G 18:41
So we’ve got very few sources actually to help us out that that sort of sit within the realm of sort of written evidence. So it gets quite tricky, but we do have a few things. One of them is Etruscan. So we have a piece of evidence that is called the liber lintius, oh yeah, linen book. And this is an Etruscan piece of evidence, written in Etruscan and dates to the third or second centuries BCE. So even an Etruscan piece of evidence, we’re not talking about it being an archaic piece of evidence, it still sits firmly within Rome’s written historical record, but it does detail things that we think come from earlier periods of Etruscan history, and it talks about a duality of gods. There’s a God of lightness and a god of darkness. This is a concept that we don’t necessarily see come through in later religious practice and details of offerings being made to these gods, things that include roasted barley and oil and fire as a medium for ritual practice, all of which pretty standard in terms of the ancient world and in terms of Italy. Okay, and the other big piece of evidence that we have, it’s a much smaller piece of evidence in comparison, but it’s called the Iguvine tablets.

Dr Rad 20:09
And, oh yes, I did come across these. These are written in ancient Umbrian

Dr G 20:15
so the umbrians are a bit further south and east, and the Etruscans are a bit further north and west, and these two influences give us a sense that there is something different going on in Italy, as opposed to elsewhere. So these tablets include references to a number of Gods which seem to then end up having some parallels with Roman gods. There’s a reference to a god called Iuve which seems to be similar to Jupiter, Marte, a reference to Mars and Vufiune, a reference that ends up being to Quirinus, we think. But we also have animal sacrifice described there, which was not true in the Etruscan evidence, libations being made of both wine and Mead and then some practices also associated with augury. So this idea of watching birds seems to be quite prevalent throughout the Italian peninsula, and whether it came from the Etruscans first, or whether it sort of developed sui generis throughout this period of the archaic Italian epoch, hard to know. But it doesn’t seem like something that has come from somewhere else. It seems very much about what is happening here, and how can we make meaningful understanding of it within this context.

Dr Rad 21:43
Yeah, and we’ve also got things like tombs, which can give a little bit of light. I mean, unfortunately there’s not when you’re talking about tombs, if you’re talking about artwork and things that have been left behind, and the way that bodies have been buried, it’s obviously highly open to interpretation. We don’t have written explanations of what these things mean. But certainly, if we’re going way, way back into the pre regal slash regal period, because we’re not exactly sure when there were kings of Rome, or even if there were kings of Rome. I mean, no, I shouldn’t say that. I think there were.

Dr G 22:17
We wrote a whole book on the kings of Rome. They definitely existed.

Dr Rad 22:21
It’s written down. It must be true. I think we can safely say they were kings, but we don’t know exactly, you know, we can’t be 100% sure about exactly when they were, exactly who they were, and all of that kind of For more details, read our book, exactly, yes. But if we go like way back, there definitely are tombs in this region. We’ve got also tombs from, you know, the etrurian area, which, some of them are extremely lavish. They’re often called princely tombs. And that can tell us a little bit about, obviously, some sort of spirituality and belief systems. And the interesting thing is that, as we start to see, I think, less of these styles of burials, what is suggested to us, at least by the material record, is that we do start to see the erection of these quite monumental temples compared to what has gone before. And we can’t obviously be 100% sure why, but it’s theorized by one of the academics that I read that maybe it’s a shift in terms of the way that the elite in these societies are sort of competing in their displays of wealth and in an effort to obviously demonstrate their power in the community. Maybe previously, one of their ways of showing off was having these extremely lavish burials and tombs and that sort of thing. But as we shift into a different political scenario over the centuries, it becomes more an area of competition of what you can do for the community and how you can have a very physical presence of yourself and your family and also show your dedication to the gods a different way. And so we start to get more of these monumental temples being built. And in spite of the fact that the Romans have this very powerful story about Rome being razed to the ground during the Gallic sack in 390 we do actually have buildings that are referenced that clearly survived that. And a lot of these are obviously things that were pretty substantial, like temples. The most notable one that we’ve talked about a number of times, of course, is the temple of Castor and Pollux, which way back in the early republic, is something that is dedicated after the Roman victory over the Latin league in the Battle of Lake Regillus. And we do also have, in the accounts that we’ve been talking about, it sort of comes up from time to time. Also reference to these spaces which seem to exist, you know, cultic spaces where it’s not just the Romans, it’s something that’s used by the people of the area, and it seems to be where they come together, not necessarily for political reasons, but probably because, you know, socially and culturally, the. This is a cultic space that is important to all of them. So we’ve referenced there’s a particular space which the Etruscan cities and the Etruscan people seem to share. It’s often, I think, probably misrepresented in Livy as a place where they come together for political powerhouse and to plot the demise of the Romans.

Unknown Speaker 25:17
Well, we’re here, guys,

Dr Rad 25:21
but it’s actually probably more likely a cultic space where they come together, maybe for trade, but probably more religious rights and that sort of thing. And we’ve also made reference to spaces like the Temple of Diana, one at arikia oricia, depending on how you want to this was

Dr G 25:38
exactly the one I was going to mention. Now that you’ve brought up sacred space, well,

Dr Rad 25:42
I’ll let you take it over. Dr G, because I am no expert in this area.

Dr G 25:46
It’s not that I have that much to say about it, but Diana of Nemi is positioned within Aricia. And so we’re talking to the southeast of Rome, but we’re going into the Castelli Romani, so we have to hike up a hill a little bit. Your favorite people, the Tusculuns. They’re hanging out there as well. So the Latin people tend to gather in these sacred spaces, usually at particular times of the year, to perform specific rituals that are important to all of the peoples in the area. And it seems that these sorts of places are quite common. And people will travel around to these sacred areas, knowing that these rituals need to perform, be performed at certain times. And Diana of Nemi stands out to me because I made it my mission to find her sacred spot. Various travels to Rome. The local people do not want to tell you the location, but with a little bit of wandering around in the area, you can find the remains of one of her later temples in that area, and there are still people who offer modern ritual offerings into that space, which I think is a beautiful sense of cultural continuity. Oh,

Dr G 27:28
thinking about other evidence that might help us understand archaic religion in this area, the one thing that we do have that stands out as being very specific and different from things like a Greek influence, are the votive offerings that have remained. So we’re quite lucky to have a number of ceramic remains. These votive offerings are really specific to Italy. We don’t tend to see them elsewhere, they’re often in the shape of body parts or internal organs, which are, how did they know? How did they know? Let’s not ask too many questions about that.

Dr Rad 28:14
I hate to spoil it for you. Dr G, but actually what you found is the ancient remains of the Roman version of operation

Dr G 28:22
at all. Everybody was into that game. Everyone had a different addition. So these votive offerings seem to be particularly body parts, often hands, feet, but also organs, and sometimes depictions of swaddled babies. Is the other really common one, and we think that these votive offerings are probably elite offerings, rather than from everyday people, and partly that’s because they’ve been designed to symbolize the object, whereas we think a lot of the votive offerings probably would have been actual objects. So things like an offering of food, an offering of hair, a piece of clothing, a tool doesn’t survive. Yeah, the sorts of things that are probably not going to make it through in the archeological record, just because they’re natural materials, conditions have to be so specific to preserve those for a long period of time, whereas the beauty of ceramic is that it toughens up, it holds up shape, and 1000s of years later can be like, Aha, I found a foot. So we don’t really know what these votive offerings are doing, necessarily. They they seem to be some sort of personal conversation between the offerer and the divine. But what that practice meant, what people might have thought while they were doing it, these are the things that still and probably will always elude us, because we simply don’t have this kind of source material that would. Get inside somebody’s head for things like that, but there’s enough of them that we’re like something’s going on here.

Dr Rad 30:06
Dear Marcia, today I went to the shrine and left a little statue of my foot. Yeah, I’ll leave the guards to decide what that means exactly. I must admit, whenever I’ve thought about votive offerings, because you say it’s not like this is an uncommon practice in many ancient cultures to make these sorts of offerings. I’ve always wondered if it’s some sort of connection to someone suffering in that part of the body, or maybe a relative is suffering in that part of the body, or that part of the body symbolizes something to do with something that’s going on in their life, and that’s what’s sort of going on in this and this is something I think that highlights, perhaps something that probably is true in terms of the way we understand religion, as far as we can tell, in the archaic Roman period. And to be honest, beyond the Archaic period. Roman religion doesn’t exactly offer ethical guidelines in the sense of in the way that someone who comes from a different kind of religious tradition would perhaps understand it, you absolutely have lots of rules and lots of things that are really important in terms of how you live your life. It tells us a lot about cultural taboos. So there are rules and things like that, but it’s not quite the same as, like an ethical code, that this is how you personally need to live your life. Would you agree with that?

Dr G 31:34
Yeah, definitely. And I think for the Romans, that sort of idea of an ethical guideline comes far more through their legal system than it would through their relationship with the gods. This is more a system of acknowledgement that there are greater beings and greater forces at play. And can you establish a strong enough reciprocal relationship that things will work in your favor when push comes to shove and to circle back to this idea that the Romans didn’t care about the gods at all, very, just very pragmatic people just waiting for Christianity to come

Dr Rad 32:12
and get them. They just care about cement and the army. Yeah, as

Dr G 32:17
long as I can build this bridge and hit somebody with my sword, I’m a happy camper. Exactly nothing else matters. Cicero does talk a lot about religion. He wrote a number of books, many things. Thanks Cicero. Whether you love him or whether you think he’s annoying, doesn’t really matter. He does leave us a lot of information that has stood the test of time. And he tells us, in his De natura deorum, On the nature of the gods, that most thinkers have affirmed that the gods exist most and that there are a few outliers, a few who are like not sure, and some who are strongly there are no gods, but the bulk of people, in Cicero’s view, believe in the divine existence. And it’s more a matter of the quibbles about how divinity is having an effect in the world around them, and that is another matter entirely. So yeah, but from the Roman perspective, this starts to firm up as we get more into the historical period, it firms up into a set of behaviors and ritual practices that define the Roman calendar. So the way that they think about time is very much embedded with how they think about the gods and what things need to be done when, whether it’s a matter of preparing for something that’s going to happen in the future. And the gods are also participants in those kinds of actions. And we get to a point where it becomes so formalized that we get situations like we get with the Vestal virgins, where they must be able to speak without impediment, because every word that they say in a ritual practice needs to be said perfectly to align with the needs of the gods in order to ensure the right relationship. So the Romans become more fixated, I would say, with their ritual practices and their relationship with the gods over time, rather than

Dr Rad 34:21
less well, I think it goes back to what we were actually talking about in a narrative episode the other day, which is the other day. Look at me in the same outfit, trying to pretend like we’ve had recorded on two separate days when we were talking earlier today, actually in a narrative episode, we were talking about the fact that we do have these narrative histories. We have the annalist tradition, and we have narrative histories which start to develop as we get into sort of the mid to late Republic. And we’ve also got things like family histories, which actually can tell us things about religion. If you look at someone like Julius Caesar claiming that Venus is his home girl, etc. There are obviously connections between particular families and particular cults and religious practices and that sort of thing, particularly if we’re talking about the elites who we can mostly track in the written sources. But in this late Republican period, when there’s so much conflict, where it obviously seems like things are somewhat coming apart at the seams, and then we have this transition into empire. There is this renewed fascination for the Romans themselves in understanding their ancient past. And so we do also get these records from people who are now referenced as the antiquarians, who are interested into looking into the, I suppose, kind of the minuci in a way, although they give us some really important evidence, but things like explaining place names, explaining practices, explaining why Romans do certain things the way that they do. And we do, obviously get some of our information about religion and cults, and therefore, from these sorts of people. And I think that ties into like Cicero, is very much a part of that time period where there’s that interest in figuring out who they are, what they are, and looking back to their past in particular, to try and understand their own history and practices as well as possible.

Dr G 36:15
Yeah, definitely. And it becomes a matter of formality. It’s ingrained in everyday life. So you talked about the lares, there’s these family gods. So there is a domestic aspect to cult that develops, and probably that, I would say, probably always existed, regardless of what time period we’re in, the way that people personally venerate gods, and then we have things that are much more sort of state run, where it’s like this ritual is happening on behalf of all of the people, and Rome is broken up into a whole bunch of priesthoods by the time we sort of start to get into the mid Republic. And we think some of these priests definitely pre date the Regal period, at least, augurs seem to be crucial to the foundation story of Rome. And so this idea that we’re observing birds comes through the whole time, and augury doesn’t disappear as Roman history progresses. It goes right up to the part where what I think it’s Honorius does something terrible to his chickens. Remember that let’s not talk about when we get into that period of Roman history, many decades from now, but the idea that the birds play a really important role, hugely significant. They end up keeping chickens in order to observe them. Do they eat the food? Do they not eat the food? All of this is very important, but there are priests for just about everything. We think the flamins, of which there are 15, three major flamens, 12 Minor flamens, we think they’re very early in terms of priesthood, and they’re related to the fundamental gods, the Flamen Dialis, connected with Jupiter, the Flamen Martialus, connected with Mars. And the Flamen Quirinalis, relating to Quirinus, a God which is also connected with Romulus. These are really early priests, and they seem to have a lot of restrictions placed upon them. At least the major flamens do in terms of what they’re allowed to wear, where they’re allowed to go, what sort of actions they’re able to participate in. And many of them come in a set, because not only do they run a priesthood specifically related to a particular God, but their wife is also a sacred Priestess of the same God, and they operate as a pair. And if one of them dies, you could get a whole new set one. Can’t just

Dr Rad 38:55
Collect all five!

Dr G 38:56
You can’t just have one. You gotta have two. Well, and this is definitely

Dr Rad 38:57
something interesting to talk about with the interesting to talk about with the priesthoods, because we can’t exactly pinpoint all the details about where these priesthoods come from and exactly when they become in, you know, more and more influential in Roman society. But something that’s interesting, which I hadn’t really thought about, because we, we do have references, obviously, to people who are acting in in certain priesthoods in our narrative accounts, because sometimes, obviously, they intersect, obviously, when we’re talking about those major flamins That you were talking about, or flamines, I don’t know how to say the plural out loud,

Dr G 39:36
Flamines is correct.

Dr Rad 39:37
It sounds like some sort of fancy dessert, you know, like flamines banana

Dr G 39:42
Delicious.

Dr Rad 39:43
They are patricians, which, given all the stuff that we’ve been talking about with this narrative that we’re fed, that very early on in the early republic, there seems to be this real concern by the patrician class, who we. Don’t know who they are. We don’t know where they came from. We’re not even entirely sure if they existed straight away or something that had developed over time. But let’s go with the narrative. Just to keep things relatively simple, they apparently have this real concern about dominating the knowledge about sacred law, sacred practices, and there’s this real impression that things would be sullied somehow if plebeians had access to these roles. And so it’s probably, perhaps no surprise that these major flaminais from patrician background traditionally, and something I hadn’t really thought about is the fact that obviously Rome is all about electing magistrates. They serve their period, and then they move on. You can serve more than once, but you still have to be re elected and that sort of thing. But priests are appointed for life, unless something untoward happens.

Dr G 40:57
Something untoward, yeah. So there is a sense that within the context of the elite of Rome, the patricians, as they like to call themselves, perhaps they’re hard to know it’s one of those chicken or the egg scenarios, like, is it the fact that some people are in charge of these ritual practices and have been given this responsibility, which leads to them becoming focal points for the development of an elite class, or is it the case that these families, through virtue of having greater power from a physical sense, were able to co opt that power into a soft power that was the divine understanding and the ritual knowledge, and it might be a little bit of both. It’s difficult to note, but certainly, once we have this idea that Rome has a set of priesthoods and that there is a way of honoring the gods that is good and appropriate for Rome as a whole, and that’s the point where we start to see a real consolidation of secret knowledge. Because, yes, priests don’t want to have that stuff written down. Or if they do write it down, like we we get sometimes in stories of the early King Numa, if they do write it down, they then immediately hide them somewhere so no one can look at it except for them.

Dr Rad 42:27
It’s a secret clubhouse. You’ve got to have the password.

Dr G 42:30
Yeah, you are not allowed in the tree house.

Dr Rad 42:34
But the thing I’d never realized before, because as I say, it’s not really a thing like I know obviously how important religion is, because it comes into our accounts all accounts all the time in terms of the Romans being out of kilter with the gods or being blessed by the gods. It’s all about maintaining that relationship, and this is where, obviously priests would play a really important role. Because whilst Roman religion might not provide like an ethical code of conduct in the way that say, maybe Abrahamic kind of religions do. It does have those rules, and it’s almost like the Public Religion, the kind of state religion it is about like the joint wellness of the community and observing what needs to be observed in order to maintain peace and prosperity, which makes total sense when you think about it, working as a community to make sure that you all benefit from a state. And if something goes wrong, well, you know you need to get to the bottom of that and fix the relationship so that things prosper again.

Dr G 43:37
And at the root of that is a real fundamental truth, which is that natural signs are telling us things. Yes, so if we look at the most fundamental and earliest understanding of augury, bird movement in the sky is telling us something absolutely and I, like you, am a city girl, I could not tell you what the birds might be trying to tell me. But if we think about people who are less certified than ourselves, much more ancient, what are the things that they have to hold on to in terms of their understanding of the natural world? One of these things that can reliably be seen and then hopefully reliably interpreted, is the movement of various animals, including birds. I would say birds would not be the only animals that you’d be interested in observing, for sure, but they’re showing you something very clear. They do different things at different times of the year. They can be a good indication of what is happening seasonally, or what is about to happen seasonally, in the same way that observing the trees could be very useful as well. So keeping in touch with the landscape, being aware of river systems, the Tiber floods all the time, but not without a pattern. So when the snow melts further up. And then you get in, or you get a high flow of rain. In another part of Italy, you’re going to have a flood with the Tiber. And if you’ve got somebody who is able to sort of pick out the signs around that, start to maybe make some judgment calls ahead of time about when might be important to move a little bit further away from the edge of that river. All of those things become really important. We know that the forum consistently flooded for centuries, and it’s very low lying, and it’s only after they do some dramatic earthworks that they’re able sort of to minimize the flooding that happens to the forum, which is kind of incredible because it’s their it’s their meeting place, like, let’s just go down the hill.

Dr Rad 45:45
Any other Wellingtons on? Not looking good out there today. Yeah, I can’t believe we’ve

Dr G 45:49
got another meeting and all this mud.

Dr Rad 45:52
Damn Wellingtons really don’t match my toga.

Dr G 45:55
Why can’t we do it on a hill? For a change? We’ll have none of that around here, Valley or bust. But all of these things mean that as we get further and further into the modern world, we feel more and more removed from these kinds of observations. The Tiber still floods, but because the walls have been built around the Tiber to prevent the flood from having a destructive capacity, by and large, you notice the river rising, but you don’t notice the effects of a flood. Yeah, things like that change the way you engage with a landscape. The same sort of thing as a comparison would be the flooding of the Nile and fundamental to ancient Egyptian way of life and understanding of the crop cycle. And yet that river system has been completely altered by modern technology to the point where it’s no longer recognizable as a life giving River in the way that it would have been to the ancient Egyptians.

Dr Rad 46:50
Yeah, and I’d say there’s a certain logic to me. I mean, we were joking about the fact that, oh, the Romans aren’t really these really pragmatic people, but in a way, it is pragmatic. It is completely logical to pay attention to the world around you and the well being of the planet that you depend on. And if something really unusual happens, like a really crazy storm, happens in a way that doesn’t normally happen, or, as you say, something’s flooding at a time it doesn’t normally flood, you actually stop and pay attention to it and think, why is that happening, and what can we do to fix it, rather than just ignoring it or claiming it’s some sort of government conspiracy. That’s illogical, that’s dumb. Where’s my insurance? Yeah, if you have bushfires happening abnormal amounts of times. If you have a number of record days hitting massively high temperatures in a country, if you have animals dropping dead from the sky in huge numbers, if you have fish that are dying in rivers that they would not normally die in en mass, then yes, you should be paying attention to that and trying to do something about that as a community. That’s just logical, the way that we live our lives, not logical because we actually know exactly what’s happening. We have exactly the tools we need to fix it, and yet not happening, having to fight these ridiculous battles. But anyway, I’m getting sidetracked to go back to the priests, the Roman priests. One thing I hadn’t realized, and this obviously suggests the very archaic nature of certain aspects of Roman religion. I have to admit, I always thought it was kind of funny that Roman priests were called flamen. Again, it sounds kind of disgusting. It sounds kind of like a side effect of a disease that you might get like, oh, just get so much flamen. And I never really understood why Roman priests had that title, and I don’t think I can offer a full explanation of it, but it was really interesting that one of the academics I suggested that I read, suggested that it comes from the Hindu priestly title of Brahman, which would obviously take it way back, in terms of Going right back to very antique times. And also, similarly, when we think about Quirinus. So Quirinus being like an embodiment of, you know, Romulus, in a way, and having associations, and therefore being a very specifically Roman God, not something stolen from the Greeks, but the idea that that like the sort of stem of that name, the Quir- bit of the of the Latin might sort of come from a Sanskrit word, again, making it seem really, really ancient, and maybe being something that was brought to the area by people who sort of moved in there. I mean, that makes it even more archaic than I could possibly have imagined, if it’s true? Obviously, this is all speculative.

Dr G 49:43
But well, these are the things I mean, the Indo-European language branches. They’re all really interesting. The one that seems to struggle to fit into them is the Etruscan and aside from that, even there, there are some sort of crossover. Over, but we do get a sense that there are at least some connections to a broader east to west cultural movement. And it’s happening really gradually, it seems. But it does end up definitely in Italy, and we get some connections also with the idea of fire. And I can’t remember the root term for that right now, but that concept of fire in the Sanskrit coming across, gradually hitting Greece, getting to Italy, and then we get things like Hestia in Greek and Vesta in the Latin, yeah. And even though those two goddesses are both virginal and are both associated with the hearth fire, there’s also lots of differences between how the ritual practice associated with the two goddesses in the different cultures plays out. So there’s a sense in which we might be looking at sort of an independent, sort of flourishing of ideas in two different locations. But the root language behind both is similar. The other god, which seems to be distinctly Roman, is Janus, the two faced God,

Dr Rad 51:23
yeah. We’re in the month of January at the time of recording.

Dr G 51:25
At the time of recording, we are in Janice’s special time.

Dr Rad 51:29
We are, hey, Janice

Dr G 51:32
and I do like that. There are little moments that come through for us where we’re like we we can’t quite pair Janus up to anything else, and we’re like, Aha, this might be a hint, whereas, definitely there seems to be ideas about Gods and ideas about their areas of influence, which seem to have gradually moved east to West. And so things like Apollo and Artemis become Apollo and Diana, that seems to be something that has come across. And the Etruscans have a pairing that is very similar, although slightly different in name, and we see this with also things like Dionysus and Bacchus. And it’s like you look at those two words, they don’t look anything alike, but there is a real overlap in sort of how they end up being even if they started off being slightly different, they end up becoming quite similar over time.

Dr Rad 52:32
So, and let’s face it’s not like Dionysus was something that the Greeks invented, like, like, he’s definitely considered to be a god that migrated from elsewhere, exactly.

Dr G 52:41
And then we’ve got the idea that Rome does seek out foreign gods as well. When we get further into the historical record in the mid and late Republic, they’re encouraging and sometimes taking foreign gods. I mean, like you see that sacred rock you’ve got that represents that particular goddess, Cybele, come with me, get in this boat. We’re heading to Rome. So they do also have moments where they’re like, We don’t have enough gods to deal with the specific issues that we’ve got right now. The ones that we’ve got are not enough.

Dr Rad 53:15
The world is not enough. Yeah,

Dr G 53:16
expand the Pantheon. Expand.

Dr Rad 53:20
It’s so funny, isn’t it, that when we actually look at Rome’s history, particularly the period that we’ve been looking at, as you say, we’ve not that long ago, dealt with the Romans, inviting Juno to come with them from they come to them, but they also, even though they promised her lots of things, they’re also like, we’re not going to put your temple inside the pomerium. We don’t trust you yet, the way that they do these sorts of things, it does actually kind of go against that popular image that we have of Rome, of being a representative of very intolerant imperialism, and understandably so, in the sense that there are a few notable exceptions to the embracing attitude of the Romans. But I don’t think that people know exactly how that particular relationship with notably, say, Judaism and Christianity, have actually evolved from that early period into when the Romans obviously themselves start becoming more Christian and eventually officially adopt Christianity as a state religion, because it is that complex relationship between the communal well being being tied to religious well being and political well being, like you can’t separate those things, and that’s partly why we do have these notable clashes between People of certain faiths and the Romans, it’s not just, oh, they don’t like your religion and they don’t understand it. It’s very different, obviously, but there are efforts made to under to have some sort of a relationship with obviously, Jewish people in Rome. It doesn’t go well overall. But there are efforts. It’s made. But yeah, it’s that complex overlap of the politics of the situation, the religion of the situation, and how they all feed in together, on top of which just probably the very particular people that are alive at that moment, making those decisions, which I think lead to the combustive situations that we get. I think

Dr G 55:20
there’s also a bigger systemic matter at plays, because, if we’re thinking about because we’ve been talking predominantly about sort of archaic and also touching on some Republican ideas about Roman beliefs, and Cicero falls into that category as well. But I think we’re dealing with a very, very different ball game when we get into the idea of the imperial period of Rome, totally, yeah. And we’ve moved into the idea of the Imperial cult, and that produces a top down Roman hierarchy, yeah, of this is how it is, yeah. And if you don’t like how it is, we’re gonna, we’re gonna have some problems.

Dr Rad 55:59
Yeah, absolutely, yeah. No, you’re right. It is. It is. It is completely different. But I do want to take you back to the beginning, Dr G, because I do have some questions. If we’re talking about priests and the people who are very significant in early Roman religion, we actually can’t avoid talking about the Roman kings and also this very shady character of the Rex sacrificulus, and also, eventually the Pontifex Maximus, a part of Roman religion that obviously still has something of a legacy to this day, because that is the title of the Pope lives in the Vatican.

Dr G 56:38
Hello, Mr. Pope. He has a long and storied history, the Rex sacroficulus, yeah, and I sort of a parallel to that. Might be the Rex sacrorum as well. So there seems to be a priest that is aligned with a specific building called the Regia, which is also got all of this monarchical connotation about it, this weird, little trapezoidal building that is on the Via Sacra, right near vesta’s Temple and the rec sacrificius hangs out in this building. We’re not really sure what he’s up to, necessarily most of the time, but there does seem to be a sense in which this priest functions as a sacrificial victim, or a figure in which you can place the idea of communal pollution upon, and then they will carry that pollution away from Rome. So it’s not necessarily a huge honor to become the wrecked sacrificial list, because you often will end up dead at some point.

Dr Rad 57:41
Sounds pretty gross. It’s part of the deal gotta be done. Someone’s got to do it. Someone’s got to take one for the team.

Dr G 57:47
Yeah. In the same way that a lot of the behaviors and ritual practices are designed for the right relationship with the gods, the Romans also have this conception of pollution being quite an issue, which is fair enough, because if you don’t look after the mess, it leads to disease outbreak and all sorts of things. And so that really dictates, like, where you can place dead bodies. This is why they’ve got to be placed outside the pomerium. All of these things make sense from a practical measure, but also from a divine one, ultimately, and the rec sort of fits into that category. Sometimes somebody comes into that role, and they’re not necessarily a high level, elite person, but what their job is is to live a really rich life like a king, and they’re treated as such for the time that they’re in office, right up until the point where it’s time for their role to

Dr Rad 58:44
come to an end. Well, that’s kind of what the name implies. Isn’t it like the sacrificial King, the

Dr G 58:48
sacrificial King, and I kind of love this. This is something that fades out of Roman practice at a certain point

Dr Rad 58:55
well, and it’s something the link to the kings, obviously, is that it’s thought that this is something that comes into being when the Kings go,

Dr G 59:01
right, yeah. So the king has a whole bunch of priestly functions. And so if we think about Romulus, he was an augur king. He was able to read the signs, and he was also somebody who ruled, and as they got further into the king,

Dr Rad 59:16
so he says, I don’t know if Remus would agree with you on that one.

Dr G 59:20
Remus himself may also have been an auger king, but only for like, one day. Yeah, it did not work out for him. But Romulus certainly has this idea like associated with him, of being able to read the signs of the birds and to be able to rule that flows on to NUMA as well, to a certain extent, because he hangs out with the augurs as part of the process of deciding whether he’ll take on the kingship. So he becomes a bit of an auger king as well. But that concept fades out, and we then start to see a split between augurs and people who rule. So instead of having all of the powers enmeshed in one single person, they tend to split them up and. And so when the kings are eventually expelled from Rome, there is a whole bunch of ideas around priestly things that are still embedded in the concept of the king, even though they’ve tried to split them up a little bit. And this seems to be where figures like the rax Rex, sacrificulus and the Rex sacrorum, who may or may not be the same person, may or

Dr Rad 1:00:24
may very shady characters.

Dr G 1:00:26
We really don’t know a lot about them. They’re both really fascinating, but they could be the same figure, we’re not sure. Certainly, they’re both connected with the Regia, and they sit underneath the Pontifex Maximus, and I kind of love the Pontifex Maximus. What a dude. We need, a man in charge of priests.

Dr Rad 1:00:47
Yeah. I mean, this is such an interesting idea, because eventually, and we’re not going to go into this, but eventually, that’s also something that Augustus will take on, as one of his many things that he takes on.

Dr G 1:00:59
Well, he has to, because Caesar was Pontifex Maximus, of course.

Dr Rad 1:01:05
So yeah, it’s really it’s interesting that it remains significant, but obviously I feel like the nature of it changes a bit. But certainly the Pontifex Maxis is someone we should talk about, especially because I’m hoping you’ll also use this as a bit of a segue to talk about another important Priestly College, which is, of course, the

Dr G 1:01:23
vestals Don’t mind if I do. So we’re not sure why the Pontifex Maximus becomes so important, like, by the time we get to Augustus, he makes a big deal about it, yeah, and it seems to be a big deal, but we’re not sure why. Over time it’s become such a big deal because the pontifices are a college, yeah? And then there’s one pontificate, there’s the pontificate, Pontifex Maximus

Dr Rad 1:01:48
One ring to rule them all!

Dr G 1:01:49
exactly, exactly, but he’s just the chief of the college. But it seems that as Rome’s religious practice develops, that college becomes in charge of other colleges, right? So they’re a hierarchy of sorts develops.

Dr Rad 1:02:04
And so isn’t the name something to do with bridges? Yes, yes.

Dr G 1:02:08
Very important. A Pont and a Pontifex, yeah, and yes, nobody agrees about that either, but it is a possible etymological connection that they’re interested in bridges. And of course, bridges are very important, because how do you cross

Dr Rad 1:02:22
a river? I again, it’s something I never think about, and I should think about more. Yeah, quite important.

Dr G 1:02:28
Yeah. And bridges are hard to make. I would not want to have to try and make a bridge.

Dr Rad 1:02:33
They bring people together, just like a lot of these religious practices that we’re talking about in the Archaic period, it’s about the community.

Dr G 1:02:40
Man, just build a bridge and get over it exactly. So the Pontifex ends up being in charge of other priests, in addition to having their own Priestly College, which is in itself quite interesting. But then obviously, as we get further along, the pontefx Maximus is seen as the chief of all of the priests. Essentially his name implies, yes, well, but why wouldn’t there be a Flamen Maximus,

Dr Rad 1:03:05
you tell me? Dr, G, you tell me. Well,

Dr G 1:03:07
yeah, that’s the thing. And it’s like, because we do have other colleges and we’ve got the augers, why isn’t there an auger? Maximus? Maybe there is. And so this is the thing we’re like, why is this guy the head of all of them ultimately, does he become that that kind of sitting above them all, when each of the colleges will have their own chief priest within it? So even the vestals have their own chief Vestal, absolutely so. But she’s not in charge of everybody.

Dr Rad 1:03:36
Gotta have a head nun. How do you have the sound of music without a head nun? I’m waiting for the Vestal version of that story.

Dr G 1:03:44
So the Pontifex Maximus ends up being in charge of the Pontifical college. And the pontificate seem to be a pretty politicized priesthood by the time we get into the historical record, and their job seems to be overseeing other priesthoods by and large and making sure everything is running correctly. How bureaucratic? Yeah, like the flamens sit underneath them, the arval Brethren sit underneath them.

Dr Rad 1:04:10
Yes, and they’re potentially very ancient too. Yes, the

Dr G 1:04:13
vestals sit underneath them, although I don’t know that I have much to say about the Arval Brethren at this time, but certainly the vestals run into bureaucratic issues, really, that involve the pontificate

Dr Rad 1:04:26
like you mean burying them alive? No, the paperwork involved. My God, it’s just so frustrating when they interfere with our business. Another vessel has been smiling too much. Does she understand the forms I need to fill out. That’s right, Louise,

Dr G 1:04:43
gonna have to get out my whip and my bed sheet. It’s really annoying.

Dr Rad 1:04:47
The vestals are meant to be very ancient, though, right? I mean, as far as we could tell, the Vestals are meant to be

Dr G 1:04:51
very ancient. The vessels are very ancient, yes, yeah. Their Temple is to is one of the places in Rome that’s considered the center. Of the universe. The other is the Umbilicus. But let’s not muddy the waters too much. Both are circles. It’s fine. But yes, the vessels are considered very ancient, very attached to the location, and they end up very

Dr Rad 1:05:16
Roman, even though they come from elsewhere, seemingly according to the myth.

Dr G 1:05:20
Well, it’s like Each place has its own Vestal group. So each Vestal group becomes very specific to the place where it is located, right? And this is true, I think, for most of the italic peoples, and maybe Rome is the greatest expression of it, in the sense that right. They’re like, this is the landscape in which meaning is possible for us in terms of our relationship with the gods. But if you go across the road and 50 kilometers down the street and you talk to the people there, they’d be like, this is the place where our relationship with the gods is the most important thing. So the location is relative, and so you then get local specificity as a result of that. So Roman vestals are not necessarily completely similar to the vestals of Aricia or other

Dr Rad 1:06:10
places, but as Rome itself becomes more important and gains control over these other places, it allows, I suppose, their Vestal cult to be put into more prominence in historical record and to maybe be made more meaning.

Dr G 1:06:25
Yeah, definitely, yeah. You know, doesn’t ever get over talking about itself.

Dr Rad 1:06:30
So it’s not like they can let me tell you about what they’ve been up to exactly.

Dr G 1:06:36
So even if other places are engaging in similar religious practices, and we have this idea of Romanization that is happening as the Empire expands and expands. People in those different locations may or may not have festivals, but also their practices may or may not be mirrored within what is happening at Rome, because how would they know? You’d really have to be in touch with somebody specific to find out.

Dr Rad 1:07:03
Smoke signals, get it,

Dr G 1:07:08
send the sacred fire.

Dr Rad 1:07:10
For those are not in the know, Vesta is represented by flames, like a lady.

Dr G 1:07:15
Gotta watch the fire. The vest will sit under the Ponte, facts, Maximus, and when something goes wrong, from a row perspective, it’s the Pontifex Maximus that conducts and leads the investigation into what might have happened with the vestals. And we have to assume, although we don’t have heaps of great evidence for it, that if something similar happened in other colleges that sat underneath the remit of the pontificate, they would also investigate that. And I’m not going to make any claims on that front, because that’s not what I’ve specialized in my study, and I don’t know the answers to any questions anyone might have about that.

Dr Rad 1:07:54
Yeah, it’s really fascinating, in such a patriarchal society as Rome, that there is a Priestly College that is female only, even though they still have this man technically sitting above them and obviously monitoring their behavior, etc,

Dr G 1:08:12
yeah, and for the most part, that wouldn’t necessarily be something that played out in any way in your day to day life.

Dr Rad 1:08:18
Exactly so too much flame watching. What can I say?

Dr G 1:08:22
Keep your eyes on the prize.

Dr Rad 1:08:24
Now, something I thought that might be interesting to maybe wrap up with is to maybe go back to this question of the Lares is because I think we’ve kind of established that when we’re talking about this Archaic period, whilst we can’t know for certain what was going through people’s minds, what we can say is that it’s definitely stems from this need for the community to be safe and protected. That’s what these practices are about. And as the Rome, as Rome, develops as a as an institution, as a government, as a political entity, it becomes more of this, like Public Religion, not just beliefs that are common to those people, but we do have this aspect, which we’ve talked about, where there is a level of personal religion, not in the way, again, that People of certain cultural backgrounds will imagine where you’re praying and having, like, a personal relationship with God. But this is where I want to come back to the lares, maybe, to sort of wrap up on, because the Romans themselves didn’t actually really know where the lares came from, and they do seem to be something very present, very important to the Romans.

Dr G 1:09:44
Hmm, definitely. I mean, so we have this sense of like maybe there. I tend to think about it as being sort of split between there being sort of the state apparatus, and then there’s the sort of private veneration. And. And people will have their beliefs regardless of what is happening at the top. So that’s true. Yeah, as we increasingly get into Rome’s historical period, the mid and late Republic, we’ve got a really formalized, public religious setup. There are priesthoods. People get co opted into priesthoods. They hold those priesthoods for life. They have particular sway over certain things. But if you are, let’s see what would be a good name, Lucius. If you’re Lucius, Lucius the Roman, let’s say you’re a butcher. It’s, you know, it’s all fun and games for the fancy highfalutin people to wander around and be like today is the is nefas and there shall be no business people still got to eat. What are you going to do? You’re a butcher, things like that. Maybe there is space always for the personal as well as the public. And I think this is probably where the idea of lares come into it, because nobody can tell you how you pray to your household gods. They’re yours. And you can go and visit a friend, and you can see the way that they’ve set up their shrine to the lares in their house, and you’d be like, Oh, I love that style. And before you know it, it’s like, Instagram beige or whatever. And everybody set up their altar in the same way, and they’ve

Dr Rad 1:11:30
got their little avocado toast, yeah?

Dr G 1:11:32
And it’s like, Oh, I’ve seen, I’ve seen what Sue is up to with her lares. And I’m just thinking I might redesign our altar. So I think there is an element of like what matters to you personally in your own sense of spirituality, because I think all humans have that capacity for spiritual understanding of themselves within the context of the life that they live. And while you might be really on board with the public religious system that is operating around you. There might also be moments where you’re like, I just need to connect with some gods for my own personal benefit. And to what extent this might be connected with the idea of the ancestors, because we know that funerary masks have a big role to play in homes. And this may be true for non elites as much as elites in terms of like commemorating family. And there is that ancestor aspect to what the Romans are doing in their own households as well. And the lares might come into that a bit. And we do see a sense in which Augustus in particular, tries to co op the lares into a more public setting by coming up with the lares competales and setting up local public shrines to lares, exactly as a way of maybe formalizing some of his reconfiguration of the topographical space of Rome and being like, let’s reshape this into a different sort of neighborhood and give people something to hold on to from a collective experience in their own little suburb. And I’m not sure that that would ever have properly replaced people’s personal gods in their own house. The other thing to keep in mind is that every hearth fire is a place of Vesta, so you have the cult of Vesta, obviously, in the very fancy, round temple. And it’s everybody gets to see these priestesses, and they dress very differently from every other type of woman in Rome, so they’re instantly recognizable. And yet every hearth fire is a place where Vesta resides. So within the context of any home that has a fire, you already have a godly presence that can never be taken away unless that fire goes out. And if that fire did go out, well surely you would relight that fire, because the house fire is essential for your capacity to be able to eat good food. So there is always a divine presence in every household. Even if you were like, I only have one lares, whatever got into it, or even if you didn’t have an altar at all, there would still be something that people would immediately associate with, some sort of numinous presence in your household.

Dr Rad 1:14:20
Yeah, no, I just find it so fascinating that when the more I looked into these, because I’ve always known they existed, obviously, I’ve seen lots of larariums, you know, because I’ve been to places like Pompeii and Herculaneum, so I always just thought, yeah, household gods, whatever. But the more you look into it and start to try to unravel who the lares were, where they came from, in Roman religion, it’s such a mystery. The Romans themselves didn’t really know, as you say, like they were everywhere, and they certainly were important. But the Romans themselves didn’t seem to exactly know from whence they came, and there are definitely different opinions amongst the Romans about exactly who they are and how they should be interacted with. And as well as modern scholars about are they some sort of representative of like deceased peoples connected to your family, perhaps? Are they household gods? Are they protective spirits? Are they friendly spirits? What exactly are they? And I never really thought about the fact that the way that the lares commonly are represented visually, they actually don’t look anything like a Roman that you would admire as like a statesman or something like that. You know Roman statesmen, you think about those statues right, with the very impressive drapery being held into place and the very serious face old man wrinkled, Battle Scars everywhere, that’s what the Romans would tend to look at as a figure of admiration. The lares, the way that they tend to be represented, they’re associated with drinking, with feasting, with general good times. That’s partly kind of what the festival that grows up around them is associated with as well. They’re sort of neighborhood festivals you talked about the compitalia, and they’re youthful, and the way that they dress is also much more simple, much more dressed down, maybe even associated with the way that perhaps a slave or someone lower class might dress in, just like a simple tunic. It’s unusual, now that I think about it, that they’re kind of represented that way, when they’re so central to every Roman household look.

Dr G 1:16:21
Now, now I’m curious, because I wonder if the lares from elite households might be more fancily dress. I now have questions

Dr Rad 1:16:31
if you if I think about the very fancy larams from places in Pompeii, for example. Now I know the people who are living in the city of Pompeii are not the elite of the Roman world, like the elite Elite. They’re rich people living in a nice place, you know, a middle class and that sort of thing. But generally, I think the way that they’re represented is fairly consistent in the way that they are dressed. And I did not even know that there is actually a figure referenced in written material about like the mother of the lares, who is never represented visually, ever. And yet, there is apparently a mother, and again, we don’t know the exact relationship. Did she give birth to every single lares, ouch, by

Dr G 1:17:23
the too many. Everybody’s got a few Exactly.

Dr Rad 1:17:27
It’s like, what is it? But apparently she receives offerings from the Arval Brothers. So again, one of the, one of these interesting groups that we kind of you know that kind of date back as well. They have a really ancient hymn to the lares. And it does seem to me, to be honest, the more read about the lares, my personal view is that they are protective, and that’s why the Romans are personally invested in them, because they’re protective of spaces that they might have, like property and their homes and their businesses and that sort of thing. So that’s how I kind of look at them personally, even though not everybody would agree with me, but she also, I think, receives some sort of offering and rituals and but she’s never, I don’t think, ever named or visually represented, which I I had actually never heard of that before, until I started looking into this for this episode. Fascinating.

Dr G 1:18:16
Yeah, this is something I haven’t come across before, either.

Dr Rad 1:18:19
Really interesting. Yeah, like, did she just give birth to some lares? And then those lares just like, multiplied, like the broomsticks in Fantasia.

Dr G 1:18:26
Are they? Like the Egyptian shabties, where all of a sudden there’s 1000s of them? Yeah?

Dr Rad 1:18:34
And interestingly enough, there’s obviously talk about, okay, so they have a mother who’s the daddy. Do?

Dr G 1:18:40
Daddy? Always a pertinent question in a paternalistic type of society.

Dr Rad 1:18:48
Well, but it actually takes us back to stories that we’ve told many times now, the idea of, obviously, people being born from the half, like you were talking about, you know, like that, being a place of divinity, I suppose, potential divine origin. We’ve got this idea, obviously, of, you know, Servius Tullius, potentially being born from the fire. He’s one of the kings of Rome. And just yeah, these connections with these stories that we have talked about, and the idea of being born from the hearth, whether that means that Vulcan is your father or like the Lares familiares…. It’s just, there’s just so many questions about exactly how all of this stuff that we’ve got fits together, but the idea that there is a single lady who is like the mother of the lares, it’s just, it’s just weird. It’s something we can’t really fully explain.

Dr G 1:19:39
Well, I think that’s a fantastic note to end on, because the there is always a mother. If you go back far enough, there’s always a mother. The story always starts with a woman.

Dr Rad 1:19:51
Were they born of an interaction between a woman and a fire? Again, again.

Dr G 1:19:59
I’ve seen enough. Fire palaces to last me a lifetime, never again.

Dr Rad 1:20:03
How can we explain all of this? Well, yeah, and there, and there are no myths about them. They just exist, like they’re just there it. And that’s the thing. It’s, I mean, I shouldn’t say no myths, but yeah, there’s no, like, big mythical tales like you get with people, like we’re not

Dr G 1:20:20
people, yeah, Ovid doesn’t devote a story in his Metamorphoses to the lares and things like this. So, yeah,

Dr Rad 1:20:28
all right, so we’ve got it. We’ve got archaic at Roman religion being obviously very ancient, not stolen from the Greeks, not stolen from the Greeks.

Dr G 1:20:38
Greek influence creeps in over time. Colonization is a thing. Be aware everybody. The Greeks colonized Italy first, and then the Romans went and got the Greeks back a few 100 years later, that was a thing. The Romans are very open minded up until a certain point. They encourage gods into their realm. They embrace different traditions, then they become an empire. Things go a bit downhill from there in terms of their relatability and acceptance of others. Then the Christians win the war, and Golden Age Hollywood gives us some tales.

Dr Rad 1:21:16
Guess, have a field day. Yeah, yeah. Look, I think, I think the thing that I’ll take away is that actually, whether we’re talking about public or private religion, if we want to put those labels on it, just to make sense of it in our own head, is that it is about the world around you, and it is about finding safety and security, which I think is still something that most religions are about these days, really, whether it’s internal or external, safety and security are looking for with, I think, the very archaic origins of Rome. I mean, sometimes we think that their gods and goddesses weren’t even represented in like, you know, human figures, like they, you know, were, as you say, more tied to natural world and agriculture and that sort of thing. I even found reference to a goddess of mildew, which I didn’t know existed. There you go. Yeah, I hate mildew. But certainly I think that idea of paying attention to the natural world and even the lares, if we do think of them, as being associated with place, of being protective of your home, of being about boundaries and property, it’s really all about the spaces around you and how you interact with that, and how you observe what’s going on around you in the romancy, that is something very important, being observant and connected to those things and respectful of those things, which I actually don’t think is a terrible thing to take away from this, even though I know we shouldn’t be too presentist about it. There are lots of things about Roman religion I don’t like, but I don’t like animal sacrifice, and I never will Rome. I think that that sort of aspect of it being very about being observant of the world around you, and finding that security and having protection that I can understand.

Dr G 1:22:52
Yeah, definitely. And I think there is really interesting developments along the way in Roman history, in terms of what we can find in the archeological record, what is suggested by the way, other italic peoples are engaging with the divine, because we’ve got little pieces of evidence here and there. Some things from the oscan language, some things from the umbrians, some things from the Etruscans, as well as the Latins and all of this is building a really robust picture of people who are incredibly observant of nature and are looking to understand their place within nature and to take corrective action if it looks like things are not happening in a way that’s appropriate. So if you have a plague, or you have a pestilence that is understood as an interpretive sign that something needs to be done differently and fair enough, because nobody wants to live through a pestilence every year. So what can you do differently? And the way that that transforms, over time, into highly formalized priesthoods that are locked and bound into the elite, is something that we’re going to increasingly see in our narrative episodes as well. And then that next transition into an imperial cult, which is taking another step away from that is, I think, also going to be a really interesting transition period. So it has been a real pleasure.

Dr Rad 1:24:23
Something we probably should mention, as in this wrap up as well, in terms of their observance of what’s going on around them, is the fact that, for if we’re talking about the Archaic period, and these very early times that we’re in, the Romans, are operating on a lunar calendar, and it’s not until 300 BCE that they switch to solar calendar for various reasons. And, yeah, that changes things a little bit as well. I believe that there’s, like, a rise in number of priests. It also means that, as you say, I think, I think things become a bit more formalized in terms of people knowing what days you can and can’t bring legal business and that sort of thing. But it again, means that you, you are looking to. People to tell you how the gods are dictating your day to day life in terms of when you can and can’t do certain things and and how you operate on a on a day to day basis, the gods are everywhere. For the Romans, they are present everything. Of course, you can break the rules, but then being there and you knowing, you knowing about it, that’s that’s definitely like an interaction on a on a day to day basis, which we can often overlook in our grand narratives, where it’s all about, whoa, indeed.

Dr G 1:25:32
Well, it has been an absolute pleasure to discuss Roman religious practices with you. Dr, Rad, I

Dr Rad 1:25:38
always learn so much from these conversations. Dr, G because, as I say, it’s not something I tend to focus on. So thank you.

Dr Rad 1:25:53
Thank you for listening to this special episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman. The Partial Historians is part of the Memory Collective, creators and educators dedicated to sharing knowledge that is accessible, contextualized, socially conscious and inclusive, to find more from the memory collective head to collective, mem.com you too can support our show and help us to produce more engaging content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes and ad free content. If monthly patronage is not your style, we have merch, we have a book, or you can just buy us a coffee on Ko fi. And we’d like to say big thank you to all our Patreon supporters for making special episodes like this. One possible. However, if your Imperial coffers do not overflow, us, one of the easiest and most important ways to help us is to tell someone about the show or give us a five star review wherever you listen. Until next time we are yours in ancient Rome.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Special Episode – Archaic Roman Religion appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

You know that the Partial Historians can’t resist talking about Ancient Rome on film, so we were thrilled to chat to Dr Jeremiah McCall about his book, Swords and Cinema.

The cover of Swords and Cinema by Dr Jeremiah McCall

Dr Jeremiah McCall (or DMac as his students call him) is a teacher at Cincinnati Country Day School in Ohio with a PhD in Ancient History. 

Along with an interest in Roman military and political systems in the Republic, he has done a lot of work on pedagogy of using video games to learn about history, publishing Gaming the Past: Using Video Games to Teach Secondary History in 2022. 

He divides his research time between historical game studies and Roman history. Dr McCall’s other publications include The Cavalry of the Roman Republic (2002); the Sword of Rome (2012), Clan Fabius: Defenders of Rome (2018) and Rivalries that Destroyed the Roman Republic (2022). 

We will touch on the battle scenes and depiction of the Roman military in all your favourite Roman movies and TV shows.

You will need your popcorn for this special episode!

Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Dr Rad 0:15
Welcome to the partial historians.

Speaker 1 0:19
We explore all the details of ancient Rome,

Dr Rad 0:23
everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battle’s waged, and when citizens turn against each other, I’m Dr Rad

Speaker 1 0:33
And I’m Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.

Dr Rad 0:44
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

Dr Rad 0:54
Hello and welcome to a special episode of the partial historians. I am one of your hosts. Dr rad,

Dr G 1:02
and I am Dr G,

Dr Rad 1:05
Dr G, we are joined by somebody who shares a passionate interest of mine, actually a couple, I think, probably as well as yours. We are very lucky to be joined by Dr Jeremiah McCall, or DMac, as his students call him, which I think makes him very much at home on this particular show. He is a teacher at Cincinnati Country Day School in Ohio, and he has a PhD in ancient history, along with an interest in Roman military and political systems in the Republic. He has done a lot of work on pedagogy, of using video games to learn about history, publishing Gaming the Past: Using video games to teach secondary history in 2022. He divides his research time between historical game studies and Roman history. Dr McCall’s other publications include The Cavalry of the Roman Republic in 2002, The Sword of Rome in 2012, Clan Fabius: Defenders of Rome in 2018 and Rivalries that destroyed the Roman Republic in 2022 but today we are here to talk all things, movies and the military. Welcome. D Mac, thanks.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 2:21
It’s great to be here. I’m really excited to talk about this.

Dr Rad 2:24
Oh, we are very excited. I always cannot turn down an opportunity to talk about Rome on film.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 2:32
It’s interesting the book, I gather the book did well enough, right? Like I didn’t make a fortune. Buy me a coffee, coffee, and that’s better than buying a book, but I gather it did well enough that they put it into a paperback, but it’s one that really I haven’t gotten to talk to you about a lot, and I certainly thought it was kind of a fun idea, so I’m glad to be here. So

Dr Rad 2:53
can you please maybe start by giving us a bit of an overview of the development of the Roman army, because your interest in this book is all about the military and the Roman army and how they appear on screen as well as the Greeks, but we’re just going to ignore that part for today. So maybe knowing a little bit about the Roman military would help our listeners sort of get situated.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 3:12
Sure, absolutely. I guess one of the things I should say about the book is there are lots of different ways one can approach film and history, and I was absolutely not approaching it as a trained scholar of film in history. I was approaching it as a bunch of years sitting around on a couch having a beer or something like that, and you’re watching the movie, and somebody’s like, Oh, that’s so fake. Or yeah, that’s how it really was. And, you know, writing a book for that just sort of like, okay, they’re films, and some of them are really great films. But you know, are they depicting battle? Are they depicting armies and soldiers and fighting in ways that kind of fit the evidence? So the Roman army of the Republic, if you go back, so I was, I was saying to Dr G A little earlier that I had just listened to part of your we’re too episode. So if listeners are kind of in the fourth century with you about to attack, they at that point, sort of in the late three hundreds. We think that Rome had a military that was essentially like most of the Greek city states. So it was called a phalanx. I’m not sure if your readers are familiar with it, but basically the idea is you got your citizen soldiers together, and they had big, round shields and stabby spears and maybe a helmet or something else like that, but they lined up in these sort of large formations, with the idea being that it’s kind of like a shield wall. Everybody covered themselves and the people next to them, and phalanxes don’t turn well, and they don’t go on rough ground well. And the only thing they’re really, really good at is kind of moving forward and going stabby, stabby, at anything that they see in front of them. So that seems to be. Earliest Roman military system, and like the Greeks, they divided it up so that your wealth determined whether you would fight in the Phalanx, or whether you might be a slinger or something like that. But eventually, and we don’t know why, right? I mean, the thing about the Roman Republic is our evidence is so bad for most things that we’re looking at. Amen, yeah, right, exactly. Well, you two are so courageously going through, you know, military tribunes with consular powers and all that stuff. And I’m like, oh my goodness, yeah, wouldn’t it be nice if we really knew about that? I think that’s our conclusion most episodes, yeah. Well, I mean, I think it’s important, right? I was, I was saying, before we started recording, you know, I took notes for this, and, and, and you both know, as you’re, you know, with your own PhDs in the field, it’s not about instant recall or memorizing facts, right? It’s about being able to look at the evidence and ask the questions and, and sort of go from there, you know, point of fact, I had to review to make sure that I had my Roman army talk in good shape. Anyways, going back to the Phalanx, somewhere in the late three hundreds, three elevens, often given as a date, the Romans seem to have shifted their military away from the Phalanx, and they adopted this system that persisted through most of the Republic, which was called the manipular army, Plutarch and Livy are sources for this. They don’t agree on most of the major points. They’ve got different names, they’ve got different types of units. They’ve got different numbers involved. Bless all the philologists out there that can figure out, you know, who’s got the better source, or something like that. That is beyond me, but this seems to be the basic deal. Basically, you had four legions under the command, each under the command of a council by 311 they had passed a law to do that, apparently. And each of those legions was divided up into maniples. And maniples, I think the word means handful, I believe, or something like that, is where it comes from. But basically we’re a group of soldiers, 120 normally, and then 60 and the smallest side. And so if you had 120 soldiers, I believe, you had 10 maniples of what they called the Hastati. So these were the guys with the big spears that kind of charged forward and stab. Sometimes. They had a pilum, which we’re going to talk a lot about pilam pila today, because they’re not in any of the movies, and I don’t understand why. So the Hastati were the heavy infantry who would start the battle. The principes were behind them, and they were sort of the men in their prime, and they would kind of continue on the battle. And then after them were the triarii, who were probably armed like hoplites, and their job was just, if everything hit the fan, they could sort of form a defensive group. So the idea seems to be that these maniples were arranged in, sort of think about like the five spots on a die. So you have a gap in between each line that’s being filled by a manifold behind it, and we kind of think they fought that way with gaps in their lines, but we don’t really understand how they did. But the thing that the sources seem to agree upon is somehow the back lines were able to relieve the front lines, maybe even in the middle of battle. We’re not entirely sure about that, and that’s something that shows up in the sources, too. Anyway, the manipular army was flexible. It had small units that could go around and do important things on the battlefield. And right, the Romans ended up winning lots and lots and lots and lots of battles.

Dr Rad 8:34
What they did, oh, my god, everybody,

Dr Jeremiah McCall 8:41
it’s so true. Well, it was so funny, because, like, on a certain level, right? The movies all depict the the opponents of the Romans as not being as effective. And I guess that must be true, right? I mean, on some

Speaker 1 8:52
level, on a practical level, it seems like that might be the case. So you mentioned a couple of written sources like Livy and Plutarch when we’re talking about the ways that we start to understand the Roman army is the written source material, the kind of material we’re able to use when we’re evaluating depictions of battles and Roman soldiers on screen. Or are there other sources we should be interested in, and what things do we know very little about?

Dr Jeremiah McCall 9:22
Sure, fantastic. So we’ve got the literary sources right. Livy Polybius, little bit of Plutarch when we start, when we get to the end of the Republic, Caesar, becomes invaluable with his civil war and his and his Gallic Wars. When we get into the Empire, we have tastus talks about military things, and Ammianus Marcellinus on the late end of those things. In all of that, there are no soldiers accounts. We do not have anything that’s coming from people that actually fought in battle, other than as a general, or certainly, at least didn’t fight in the battles they were describing. If you think about the Greeks as a difference, right? We have poetry fragments. We have. Have a historical account written by people who actually did fight in some of their battles. So that’s kind of one of our big things, is we have all these sources, some of them right when you get to Livy, he never participated in a battle in his life, as far as we know. So we have a lot of unexpert people talking about something that they didn’t directly experience. And then there’s all of us, thankfully. So right, not fighting with each other, with with, well, I’m not fighting with anybody with anything but, but certainly not with stab stabby spears and swords and things like that. And so, you know, one of the things that happens is trying to figure out, well, what was this actually like when the stakes were real and people, you know, people were trying to kill each other. Archeological sources almost non existent for the Republic. We would love to have a depiction of what the soldiers, different soldiers in the maniples, look like. There is an altar to demius, ahenobarbus, Bronzebeard in first century, I think early first century, that seems to show a Roman infantry soldier and a Roman cavalry person, but that’s kind of it. When we get to the Empire, we have all of those victory columns, right? And the triumphal arches are like Titus triumphal arch, and it’s Trajan and Marcus Aurelius, right? I think that have the columns. I think Trajan

Speaker 1 11:19
has a column, doesn’t? He doesn’t. Marcus. Marcus Aurelius has a column as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, with the spiraling sort of reliefs, yep.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 11:27
And so they show soldiers in battle, and that helps us a little bit too. So those are kind of our big things, as far as what we have for sources. Now, what don’t we know as a result of that? Well, everything.

Dr Rad 11:39
Damn, let’s just end this podcast right now.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 11:46
Much like Socrates, we are wise and that we know, we know nothing. No, that’s actually, that’s

Dr Rad 11:50
actually wild when you think about it, because the Roman army is obviously such a big part of what people think about when they think of Rome, and generally when we do obviously see Rome appear in the cinema. It is focusing around moments of conflict where there are going to be the spectacular battle scenes. So it is wild to think about how little we actually know.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 12:10
Yeah, so you got to fill in a lot of imagination. And I guess, you know, we’ll talk about that more, but I guess that’s where I kind of come down on these movies, is you’ve got to have some imagination. You can’t, you know, you’ve got to picture this somehow in your head if you’re really going to kind of bring it to life. So what? What do you do when you know nothing other than these, you know, carved in stone figures, absolutely.

Dr Rad 12:30
Well, maybe we should start talking about a real example. And listeners of the show will not be surprised to hear that. We’re going to start with my personal favorite, Spartacus, 1960 now, this is a bit of an unusual one, in the sense that it is set in the late Republic. We don’t have a ton of movies that are set in the Republic, and this obviously details the uprising of the gladiator Spartacus and his war against Rome. However, one of the weird things about this film is that there is a bit of a lack of battle scenes. You know, you might expect, given that this is about a war between a gladiator and Rome, that there’s a lot of battle scenes, but there aren’t a ton. But can you talk us through the way that that final battle scene between the slave army and Crassus Roman forces was represented because that’s perhaps one of the more spectacular sequences. Yeah, absolutely.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 13:23
And I really had fun kind of going back. I don’t think I had all the video clips when I wrote the book originally, so it was great going back. And so when you look at Spartacus, yeah, and I think I remember reading about this somewhere, I’m pretty sure they had more battle scenes that they had to cut along the way that.

Dr Rad 13:40
Yeah, it’s part of the very troubled production history of this film. There was a lot of talk about what they were going to film, when they were going to film it. The battle scenes were certainly something that they were going to add some in at the end, because they realized that they hadn’t really shown Spartacus winning and so the Romans being afraid of him didn’t entirely make sense in the way that the film came together. They’re like, Wait, why are they afraid of him? You don’t really see him winning terribly much, but it became part of the incredibly chaotic later production of this film that they didn’t end up getting a ton of them back into the movie. The one that you do see, of course, is Spartacus defeat, which is this battle that we’re talking about, which not everybody in the film was thrilled about. That. That was the big spectacular sequence, because they were trying to build up a Spartacus who was a very impressive military figure in the equal of the Romans. And they felt that by giving all this screen time to his defeat, it again, didn’t quite match up with the portrayal that they were going for.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 14:43
Do I understand correctly? I swear I came across this recently, that there’s also that, you know, sort of cold war mentality, that there was a fear that Spartacus could represent, sort of the proletariat forces, kind of triumphing over the good imperialist America. I’m sorry, Romans, no.

Speaker 1 14:59
Yeah, we can’t have that happening under no circumstances.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 15:03
Oh, I’m going to be so good and not talk about politics today.

Dr Rad 15:08
Oh, no, look, I think there definitely could have been a bit of that going on. But of course, one of the things that’s interesting about Spartacus is the fact that so many people who were working on this film were communists or ex communists. So Dalton Trumbo, obviously was one of the people fighting to show Spartacus as an impressive military figure. And Howard Fast, whose novel The movie was based on, had very deliberately set up Spartacus and the slaves as a kind of proto communist society, where it was very ideal and utopian. In his novel, that was a very clear message, if you read the book that this is based on, so they’re probably actually not wrong, isn’t it?

Dr Jeremiah McCall 15:50
It’s fascinating how it’s all a playground. I, you know, I I came into reception studies, really long way around that wasn’t my training. And then I got into video games and history. But as you both know, as teachers, as high school educators, you’re both high school educators, right? I thought, I thought I got that right. Reception studies is everything we do, right? What’s a student? But you know, you know, learning with you and studying with you, and then you have this interesting example of, well, how do they take this, this evidence? How do they take their readings and their discussion and their video games and stuff like that? So, yeah, it’s all reception studies sort of on a certain level. Okay, so last battle scene, right? Spartacus and his army are up at the top of the hill. Crassus and his army, his army has sort of paraded by as he’s sort of sitting on the side watching, and that’s probably reasonably accurate, since the generals wouldn’t necessarily be in the front as they were doing that. But basically, you’ve got this mash up. There’s a scholar in Manchester, I think Manchester in Britain, Richard Cole, who’s been doing some work on video games as historical video games as mashups and Spartacus, the battle is definitely a mash up. You’ve got, first of all, the classic, you’ve got the sculpted body armor made out of leather with all the muscles. Not ever do we have any evidence that any average soldier was wearing these. They’re probably expensive. They may not even have been that comfortable. So they’re wearing those they’ve got the Taru gaze right the letter, leather flaps going down to guard their abdomen, and that’s all mash up. The shields are mostly straight instead of curved, and so their helmets are kind of okay, but otherwise, it’s a little Greek, it’s a little Etruscan. It’s a little Roman as they’re going on. And leather armor seems to be a fascination for lots of filmmakers, and they just didn’t wear it for good reason. It doesn’t stop a spear or a sword or anything like that. Don’t you think it must be about what props they had, you know, like what they had on set, what they were able to kind of get?

Dr Rad 17:59
Oh, they like reusing things. They

Dr G 18:02
definitely like reusing things. Yeah. So they’ve

Dr Jeremiah McCall 18:05
got, they’ve got their Gladius looking swords, um, so that’s okay, um, but the spears that they have are clearly thrusting spears. Now here is nerd 101, on spears. Okay, if, if the diameter of the spear shaft is like an inch and a half or two inches, and it is straight the long way, and you have kind of like a broad shade, broad tip on it. Then it is a spear, and you’re using it to stab somebody and keep in your hands. But the Romans used the pilum, which was this kind of specialized javelin, where you throw it, and it was made of a wooden shaft and socket, and then it had kind of like a really thin spit of metal, and then a really kind of fine tip. And the idea was they would throw it before they went into battle, as far as our sources can tell us, and it did a devastating job, demoralizing enemies. And sometimes, if it went through shields, it bent very easily. And we don’t know whether they plan for it to bend or it was just was just luck on their part, but it goes through the shields and bends, and then you’ve got this six to 10 pound weight holding down your shield as well, so it makes it harder to defend yourself. And listeners will have to report into you, and you’ll have to get back to me. I don’t think there’s a single movie that’s tried to represent

Dr Rad 19:19
this. I can’t think of one. No,

Dr G 19:22
I’m keen for details. Get in touch listeners.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 19:26
I think it must be really well. See today though, they have all the special effects, but it must be really hard to represent a bunch of javelins, like going through the air and people. So usually what they end up doing is sort of just a shield smash instead. So they don’t, so they have stabby spears, they don’t have pila as they’re going in the part that kind of fascinated me as I was looking at it. There’s some promotional materials that talk about how the Roman was organized. A Roman army was organized in the in the first century, and they had shifted. The short version is they shifted from maniples to. Cohorts. The cohorts were uniform soldiers. They were all heavy infantry, equipped and armed the same, but they still seem to have that gap system where the rear lines could kind of support the front lines. Kubrick goes for this. He has 10 units, as you should have a Roman legion should have 10 cohorts, and he’s got 10 units, and there’s a gap between them, they look like the five sided dice, except for there’s actually four rows of them, which no source ever attests to, but he’s got four rows of them. And they march up, and then when they get to the bottom of the hill, the front line extends so the two cohorts are in front extend so that they become a solid line of soldiers. And then they march up the hill, and the rest sit back. And I don’t know if they’re taking tea or having a holiday or something like that, but they’re not doing the thing that you would expect them to do, which is support the front lines. So I love the fact that they tried to do something with these gaps in the mandibles, and they tried to do something with formation. And I think when it comes to sort of the grandeur of the Roman army. They did a really cool job. But this is not how it happened. This is clearly not how it happened, but that’s actually one of the areas we don’t know a lot about. We don’t know how it happened, but it doesn’t seem to be this. Suppose you were a soldier going up a hill, and you saw some people at the top of the hill, and they had these logs, and they were standing there, and they lit the logs on fire. Okay, so you’ve got the flaming logs and you’re at the bottom of the hill, and they’re at the top of the hill, and they’re still holding the flaming logs, and they seem to have two people on each side to drag them. What

Speaker 1 21:31
do you do? Well, I wouldn’t be woken up that hill. And I was

Dr Jeremiah McCall 21:36
trying to think about because on the one hand, it’s like, right, why are you? It’s like, No, I think I’ll just wait down

Speaker 1 21:42
here. Yeah. Like, I can wait it out. Those logs will eventually burn through. It will take days, but I can wait to the logs are gone, and then I’ll go up the hill Exactly.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 21:52
So then, then it’s like, well, maybe the commander made them go up. Now, I don’t know we actually, I think we have, like, maybe one reference to incendiary items being used in any of these battles. And believe it or not, I thought this was I thought this was absolutely false. I couldn’t believe it, but I was researching a Roman video game, Rome, total war once. And apparently there is a testimony, I think Appian says it at once, a flaming pig. Yes, I’m a vegetarian. I’m not a big fan of lighting pigs on fire. Yeah, me too, yeah. So anyway, so, yeah. So they’re going up that hill, and the Rolling Rock logs come down, and much as you would expect, they burn people. And some of the soldiers jump over the logs, and some of them get rolled over by the logs. Logs done damage, done. Front row not supported. Then you basically have the troops all run down the hill, getting to each other, and you have a brawl. Military History, Roman, military, well, any ancient military history for at least the past 140 years, it’s been seriously questioned whether armies, when they got into battle, kind of broke up into these groups that you see, pretty much you see it all over Spartacus, right? There is all doing duels, this little clump, that little clump, right? And so on. And the argument was made a long time ago, in the 1870s by a French artillery officer. I think that if all you did was have the two sides kind of mix it up and Brawl, then the larger force would always win, because there’d always be more people right in in the bar fight as it were, not, not that I have any experience with bar fights,

Speaker 1 23:27
but I think that’s one of these things where our inability as modern people, living in very lush lifestyles, where we’re Not conscripted into armed forces, but we study history is, how do we understand these things? And I think this is where people who have been in military settings and do military history become highly valuable, because they do see how it works and how it doesn’t work and what would immediately make sense and not make sense in these contexts.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 24:02
Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. It’s really stretching your mind into something, into an area that most of us just have no experience with, gratefully, certainly. So they’re all brawling. We’ll get into it a little more in some of the other films about how they deal with that idea of combat. But Spartacus, they’re all, they’re all duking it out. And then you have the aristeia, right? You have the courageous individual Spartacus going through, and he’s lopping off. He’s stabbing people. I forgot the part where he chops off somebody’s arm and they show and I was like, oh, that’s 1960 special effects. That’s good stuff, right there. So he cuts off somebody’s arm, and he stabs somebody, and he’s he takes them all out. And there’s a lot of focus on that, and there’s a lot of room. There’s so much room to just sort of wander around with your horse and stuff like that. It’s like, how did you get these 10s of 1000s of soldiers to come together and fight? But there’s all this room. It all stays very. Open. It’s all very much a brawl. It’s not really going to help us visualize first century battles very well at all. I love that they tried it. I think that kudos goes to anybody who tries it. I think one of the limitations that we often don’t think about with with movies is everything’s on screen, so you’ve got to have an answer to everything. How did they fight? How did they march? What did they wear? What were they wearing? Because you like, I mean, we get away with writing, right? We can write a sentence and leave 1000s of details out and nobody necessarily notices because the sentence is so self contained. You can’t just have like a big blank screen with just like a Roman standing there and nothing else you got to fill it in,

Speaker 1 25:43
awaiting historians details come back. Right, exactly. No.

Dr Rad 25:48
I mean, I think, I think that raises such a good point, because we’ve been talking a lot about gladiator movies, obviously with Gladiator two coming out recently, and one of the things that we often talk about is the fact that, obviously in modern retellings of gladiator movies, particularly like, think about the Russell Crowe ones. I should have called them the Ridley Scott ones. Sorry, sorry, Australian loyalty. Exactly. We do tend to see gladiators fighting without a helmet, particularly if they’re the star of the movie, and that’s because they’re being paid millions of dollars as an actor, for us to actually see them, and we want to see the emotion, you want to see the terror. We want to see them scowling at each other and all of that kind of stuff. But that obviously, genuinely rarely happened. If you were Gladiator, you generally had some sort of head covering on because, you know, protecting the head that seems to be a priority. I feel like it’s the same thing sometimes with these battle sequences, with the brawling in that the person who’s shooting the film wants to be able to get in there, close and see, you know, some of the main characters duking it out with each other, because they don’t necessarily really care about what else is happening around them. They’re focusing in on the main characters, you know, Crassus versus Spartacus, and that’s what we as the audience also kind of want to see. So I feel like cinematically, that’s probably more a reflection of what they want to deliver to us emotionally, and that’s perhaps why they don’t really think about the accuracy of what’s going on around these people.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 27:15
I think that that’s a really good take. I hadn’t, I hadn’t quite thought about that way, but you must be right, certainly about the helmets, but I think you must be right too about the having the space to be able to maneuver the cameras and things like that. You know what it is the ultimate effect in Spartacus gets you very much at something that. Okay, quick disclaimer, everything I say is based on 25 years old research and occasionally writing new books. So anything I say can be, I’m sure, contradicted and countered and told that I’m silly by whoever the current crop of historians is on this that being said least 20 years ago, conventional wisdom was that Homeric fighting might have been like this, where you have the heroes. I mean, obviously the Iliad depicts it as the heroes fighting and the soldiers mobbing around. But apparently there’s some scholarship that suggests that there is something like that going on that you have these sort of Battle Plan leaders who are better equipped and more focused on and a bunch of supporting soldiers. Spartacus, really kind of does that sort of that Homeric fighting, and he’s not as cool as Diomedes because he doesn’t stab a god. But, you know,

Dr Rad 28:29
yeah, I also like to think that with Spartacus, I feel like the reason why some stories tend to make it into TV and film multiple times is partly because the source material that it’s drawing from is naturally more cinematic in the way that it’s described than others. So for example, I feel like Herodotus, the way that he writes, you can literally lift dialog out of that and put it on the screen, and that’s been done in 300 and I feel like it’s the same thing with Spartacus, because of the way that Plutarch writes, there are these inherently cinematic moments, and one of them is Spartacus supposed death scene. We do have this description of him in that final battle, heroically trying to cut his way. You know, through to Crassus. You know him being protected by some of his most loyal adherents. And gradually they’re cut down one by one, until finally, Spartacus is dealt a death blow. I mean, that is screaming out for Hollywood, and that’s, I think, what we’re kind of seeing on the screen here. Now, did Plutarch know what he was talking about? Probably not.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 29:34
I know. I know you both have found this to be the case because I’ve listened enough. And you know, as far as like looking at the reconstructions that these ancient sources give and how little they’re based upon. And I, I think at the end of the day, it’s one of the things that makes somebody like me think that video game and movie adaptations and scholars like you two as well are reasonable because we’re doing everything from. Secondary sources from people who had not a clue and were at least 500 years after the fact, and not always. I mean, sometimes they were only 100 years after the fact. It doesn’t seem so strange to take, you know? I mean, I think the battle scene in Spartacus is at least as is least as likely to be authentic as Plutarch version of what’s going on there. Neither of them is really giving you much of a version of what the mechanics are. Wow.

Dr G 30:26
Okay, so turning away from Spartacus, because I know Dr Rad could stay here for a whole hour, if not longer, I want to sort of switch focus to a much more recent adaptation. HBO is Rome, which I still love after all of this time. So I think the first season aired in like 2005 which is probably showing its age at this point. But it’s a very different time period for bringing a Roman army onto the screen. It’s post dating Gladiator, which it obviously sort of kicked off in everybody’s minds. Oh, we need to think about Rome and Rome on screen. But how does HBO is Rome fair when depicting Roman soldiers?

Dr Jeremiah McCall 31:09
Yeah, it’s a really great question. Yeah, that was such a fantastic series and and they stopped.

Dr G 31:15
I was so sad. Yeah

Dr Rad 31:17
Capitalism ruins the party again.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 31:22
Okay, so when you, when you get, when you get to HBO, is wrong. I think there are some problems, I think, with what they do, but, and I know nothing about who was behind the filming or the directing, or the or anything like that, but you really start to see a vision of a Roman battle that I think becomes useful. You know, we talk sometimes about, can you learn from this movie, or what can you learn from that movie, or stuff like that? And I guess I’m always reminded, right, that, and I think this is a Plutarch quote, but it’s the you’re not a vessel to be filled with education, right? You’re, you’re a set of logs that are supposed to be sparked and, you know, and lighting a fire. And so I wouldn’t want my students to be passively learning something ever if I can avoid it, I would want to be actively engaged in it. And so I think the interesting question is, do these films allow us, if we’re interested in either because we’re professional historians, or we’re nerding out, or whatever it is that gives us joy, do they help us visualize what it might have been like, so that we can then compare it to our sources and talk with people on podcasts and things like that. So I think HBO Rome does it. I think that the battle of Alessia, I don’t think it says Alessia. I think it says Alessia. I think it just says Gaul. So this was in, I believe, 52 BC, and Caesar was up in Gaul right on his 10 year campaign. Again, if you guys ever make it to the third and second and first century, I am so ready to come on back and talk about those books we intend to I will be old. I will be significantly older then, but still excited to talk about Roman things. So the Battle of Alessia, Caesar’s there. He’s conquering Gauls. That’s a siege. It’s an interesting siege of the town of Alessia, because a Gallic army comes up, and so Caesar’s soldiers are in fortifications where they’re both fencing in the city that they’re besieging and fencing out the other army that’s coming to support them. HBO is Rome. Does nothing with that. It’s Gauls. There’s no reason for them all to be standing in this woody area. But they don’t care. They’re just going for it. So what exactly this is supposed to be, I’m not quite sure, but that’s but that’s not to detract, I think, from from the achievement. So you look at it and you really see that they’re trying to make this idea of the organized Romans versus the semi organized or disorganized goals. Interestingly, as far as we can tell, the goals weren’t that disorganized. By the first century BC, the Romans had taken a lot of techniques and a lot of equipment from the Gauls. And so as Roman historians, we always love a good, you know, barbarian joke here or there. But the reality is that it wasn’t quite that distinct. And yet, clearly the Romans put a lot of energy into maintaining a training system and a formation system and an officer system that could hold up the stresses. So they’re standing there the soldiers under Vorenus is centurion. It must be because he’s a centurion, and you can see an optimally equipped legionnaire, almost. They’ve got scale armor. They got ring chain mail, which is absolutely what was being worn at the time by the wealthiest. But by the first century, most were being supplied with that. They have their Scutum, they have their they have their shields, probably a little too early, they have these shields that are rectangular and curved, and that seems to be early empire. But it’s okay. They look good. They’ve got their helmets. They’ve got their Gallic helmet, actually, and they’re looking good. And they. Got their Gladius, and they don’t have pila. They do not have a single

Dr G 35:06
missing an opportunity. Again,

Dr Jeremiah McCall 35:08
I know, and you’re thinking to yourself as an armchair general, right? You’re like a throw of some pila could be really useful here. I would think, I reckon, I wonder if

Dr Rad 35:18
it’s a health and safety thing that you know, just hurling these gigantic javelins is just too risky. But then again, there are so many scenes where they love having the rain of arrows.

Speaker 1 35:28
I was gonna say, why don’t they sub out the rain of arrows, which we know is historically inaccurate, and put in some throwing javelins. Come on. Yeah, I

Speaker 2 35:38
know. I know. So, okay, so Okay, so they don’t have that great vision here, you know, we’ll forgive them those things again. I do wonder about equipment costs and how much they were trying to borrow and whatever. So they’re waiting there, and there’s tension, and soldiers are all gritty and dirty looking, as you would expect them to, and this is some pretty serious business. And so they clash, and it looks really good. They’re smashing shields into shields. They’re trying to knock each other down. The Romans are using their stabbing motion. The Gladius was supposed to be good for both a cut and a stab. They seem to be doing a good job with that. And the Gauls are a bit more disorganized, and they’re not having an easy time of it. So the first part is where Vorenus is mad at pulley Pullo because he’s broken ranks. So that happens first. So, so pull over at the headstrong one breaks ranks and he’s off fighting his own personal battle. And and again, this fits what we know personal battles were not being fought by Romans in the middle of battles before the battle, quite possibly, maybe with the cavalry off on the side of a battle, but they weren’t doing it in the middle of the battle, because that’s when you have to keep your formations and everything. So there’s this wonderful scene where Vorenus is, and I just love it. He’s like, formation pull though, and you just, you’re like, you can, you can feel it. You go, okay, yeah, I would assume a century and had to grunt like that. I mean, because it’s battle, it’s serious business. Pullo goes ahead, doesn’t listen to anybody. Kill some balls. And Vorenus says on me. And he gets a group of loyal soldiers to come with him, and they go out into this little group. And suddenly, as you were saying, Dr Rad, you have all this space for the camera. Suddenly, there’s space for varenus to punch Pullo, have people grab him, force him back into line as he’s turning and talking and calling him a drunken fool, and then have him walk back to the front lines without any of the calls hitting them. Okay, so that’s drama. The idea of emphasizing military discipline definitely over aggrandized. And I almost, I almost feel like we have to make a moral note here, by the way, a side note, which you are welcome to cut if you’d like. But let’s remember that there are horrific white supremacists in the world that over state Roman order and fascism and all these things, and they do it for evil purposes. So I don’t want to, I don’t want to overstate the Roman order thing, but clearly our sources say that that was part of it, that they were trained and disciplined. So the Varanus and polo episode, that makes sense. So I’m stoked I’m watching it. This is great. It’s only been two minutes, and then I see it, and I said, What the hell was that? Do you know what I’m talking about? Okay, so what the hell was that? Okay? So he blows his whistle. Cool a whistle for command. Sure. Why not? I don’t know that we have evidence for that, but they had to do this. Somehow. He blows his whistle, varenus, and then the front line, the front line, dudes in the Roman army all turn sideways and sidle their way down between the tight rows of infantry on their side. And when you look from the top, they’re sidling down and going to the back. The next person in line goes to the front. What they don’t show you it well, they show you in the in the clip on the overhead shot is each of those soldiers has their left hand with their Scutum, with their shield and their right hand, sorry, and their left hand is also holding their Gladius, because their right hand is on the straps of the soldier in front of them. What is that so? So basically, we’re asked to imagine, and I’m going to be nice to this after so we have to assume is the front guys would all be able to sidle their way back. The person behind them would be able to let go of the guy, shuffle forward, take his Gladius from his from his hand, from his shield hand, hold up his shield and and refresh while people were trying to kill them.

Speaker 1 39:40
I do think this might be a logistic way of trying to solve like, how do we do it? Like they’re standing there with all of the equipment and they’ve got whoever is their master of battles behind the scenes being like, how are we going to do this change of formation? Like, how do we make that work physically? It’s like you’ve got this giant shield, you got this sword, if you’re holding both at the same time. Maybe you’ll accidentally injure the person who you’re relieving. So we’ve got to get them out of the way. But this obviously sets up that next line to be completely vulnerable. So presumably, it’s not how it was done.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 40:12
I think you’re right, though. I mean, I think you know, props are due. This is the most serious, scholarly version of this you’ve seen in film, right? I mean, Spartacus isn’t doing anything close. They tried with their cohorts. So there are a couple of historians, I can’t remember. It’s been a while. I don’t think anybody supported the Rome version recently, but there have been a couple of scholars that suggested this is what happened, that in the midst of the fight, individual roles of soldiers would relieve each other. But, yeah, it kind of staggers the imagination that that could work. But that’s one of those gaps in our evidence. We don’t know how they relieved each other. We have no idea how that worked. It seems impossible. The best argument that I’ve heard well, I mean, we don’t even know. We don’t even know if the if the cohorts fought in those regular lines, as much, or whether they were just all sort of clumped, it’s the best answer I’ve heard is that there are actually probably a lot of gaps in fighting and a lot of pauses. Particularly if you stayed in your kind of orderly groups, you’d clash together, and people would die, and energy would be exerted, and then they’d back off. There’d be a natural pause every so often, and maybe that’s it. But I think you’re right. I think this is a serious I shouldn’t have said scholarly, because scholarly is not the standard by which history is history. It is instead interpretation of the past selectively in a way that you find meaningful. So maybe, maybe scholarly is not the word, but it is a serious attempt, I think you’re right to figure out what the heck might have this

Dr Rad 41:44
is the tricky thing about being an academic who studies history on film, because so often you’re like, that is completely inaccurate. And then people say, Okay, well, how should it have been? I have no idea, but I know that that’s not how it was, exactly,

Dr Jeremiah McCall 41:57
and that’s that. And that goes back to like, I’m not going to try and pronounce the French on it, because my French pronunciation has been made fun of in like six US states. And the setting of a film, right? All right, I’m going to try. It’s mise en scene. Oh, yeah, the mise en scene, yeah, yeah. There you go. See, I knew I could goad you into pronouncing it, because I can’t, in any event, right? The setting of the setting of the scene, everything that’s in the shot. And yeah, they’ve got everybody in the shot, so they got to figure out some way to relieve and so, yeah, that’s what they do. So, yeah, you know, I mean, fair enough at the end, this is probably the best that you’re going to see. And then they get to Philippi, and they kind of go for it even more. Still, don’t have pila. It’s a civil war. Romans are afraid of spears too. Why aren’t they doing a nice I

Dr Rad 42:43
mean, surely if you’re gonna have peeler, it’d be in a civil war when they’re wrong, you think right, because everybody’s got them,

Speaker 1 42:49
that’s when you have to surprise them by showing up without them. I mean, yeah,

Speaker 2 42:53
it’s like, it’s like a pila fight in a phone booth or a knife, but you brought a dope Philippi. The sources are pretty clear. There were two battles, not one, but, but this telescope says, cinema does the setting they’re making dry and dusty, although I don’t actually, I mean, it was, I think it was spring or summer time, and Greece can be dry and dusty in that time. I think the seriousness of the soldiers, their shields are kind of at rest, leaning against their knee, which makes a lot of sense. And, you know, kind of the seriousness on their face, and that’s something that HBO really kind of goes with, is trying to get sort of the gravity of this. And I love the fact that when they do this, I assume they must be using CGI stuff to add on to it, but they have many, many units on the field, and they’re taking these aerial shots, and you absolutely have the sense that they’re in different units coming together, and they come together and they clash again. They didn’t throw a pila at each other, but they clash with each other, and they’re stabbing and they’re thrusting, and it devolves into chaos in the front, but it doesn’t devolve into quite as much chaos. So you got a sense, maybe, that there are still formations back there, but it’s, it’s a brutal slug fest. Is a brutal stab Fest in the front rows. And I think they do a really good job with all of that. And then no whistles are blown, but they relieve the front lines and do that thing again. You’re like, okay, they’re committed to this. This is how it’s, it’s the way. And I should say it looks really cool. It looks really cool when they do it. The shot of the relief. Couldn’t ask for anything more interesting, too, except for when Brutus commits suicide. There’s no aristeia, there’s no there’s no individual leaders going through and making a show. I don’t think that our protagonists are even in there. I don’t think verenus And polo are even at that battle. I can’t remember, but Anthony’s not going in doing that. Of course, Octavian is not doing that. Was sick. He was not feeling well,

Speaker 1 44:50
yeah, excuse me, I’m not I’m not sure what anybody’s trying to say here about

Dr Jeremiah McCall 44:56
he had to rest in his tent. Apparently, we thought. Ahead. Now, of course, I’m a middle I’m a middle aged history teacher in high school, so I would not be doing any better. I mean, so I should not be throwing stones. But in any event, the No Irish days makes sense. You got the generals kind of behind commanding and sending in reserves and things like that. So I think they do a really good job on that. I don’t think they do starting speeches. I think, you know? I mean, if we’re going to nitpick, right, Antonius was certainly charismatic to his soldiers, and we don’t ever have him being, like, giving a speech or something like that. And I believe Brutus and Cassius, I think all this show, because I just went back to the video clips, I think all they’re doing is arguing or is talking about what he wants on his birthday. And isn’t it his birthday? And shall he have a cake? Which do Romans have cake? I don’t. Well, the bigger

Dr Rad 45:44
questions. Feel like, no, like, I take cake very seriously, and I feel like they don’t have cake. Like, I understand

Dr Jeremiah McCall 45:50
it, yeah, okay. I mean, right, they’ve got fish guts, but they don’t have cake,

Dr Rad 45:53
yeah? Maybe like a sweet bread of some kind or something, yeah,

Dr Jeremiah McCall 45:58
sure, there you go. But okay, we’re agreed it’s not really cake, okay. But anyways, they don’t seem to do a very good job speaking to the soldiers, either. And we actually kind of think that happened. We think that it’s impossible for the commanders to have actually reached all the people in their armies when they were giving speeches. But the speech for your local group was probably something you tried to do, because at the end of the day, battles were not lost primarily through wounds. They weren’t lost when more people got killed. They were lost when one side lost its morale to the point that it decided self defense, self preservation was a better shot for them than staying in this orderly formation. And that’s when the real devastating killing goes on. So speeches and stuff are kind of an important reminder

Dr Rad 46:41
of that. So let’s switch, perhaps, from the late Republic to the Empire, because we don’t want to miss that. Of course, Gladiator 2000 we can’t not mention that, especially because the opening scene of that movie has a particularly memorable battle scene between the Romans and Germanic tribes. How accurate do you think this scene was?

Dr Jeremiah McCall 47:05
It’s funny. I don’t Are you familiar at all with Brett Devereaux blogs and things?

Dr G 47:09
He rips this one to shreds.

Speaker 2 47:12
Yeah, yeah. And I think he does gladiator too. And I went back to read because I was like, Oh my gosh. I mean, I know him digitally, like we all know each other, right? And I said, Oh my gosh, I better go and read that. Because if he says gladiator one was horrific after I was being kind of positive on it, I want to at least be ready for that. But apparently it’s just gladiator two. And you all had a good time a few weeks ago ripping a hole into that one too. We did. So they finally have the right arm, the segmented Lorica, the Lorica segmentata, which makes them kind of look like lobsters, right with the overlapping plates. They have put those in movies in the Republic, all over the place, and they never existed in the Republic. And that is the armor. If you want to show Romans, you show them in the segmented armor. By gladiators day, by the second century, they actually were using this armor. So finally, we’ve got the right armor, and it looks really great on them. And they’ve got head scarves, which I would imagine you’d want if you were throwing a helmet on that’s kind of banging around stuff like that. I mean, it would have a lining, but, and they’ve got pila that they don’t use, and they’ve got Gladius, and their and their shields are curved. And they, I didn’t look but I bet their military sandals are I bet they look great too. You totally, I think, get the authentic visualization of what this is like. Nitpicky details, sure, but I’m not an imperial historian, so I don’t know what they are. I think this is a great visual. Then they move into battle, right? Okay, and so first thing, of course, is we have to have the fireworks. The Roman catapults launch flaming balls of something at the Germans who are yelling in the trees. It’s a trope, right? You’ve got the disorganized but courageous Germanic people and the disciplined Roman people, and they’re standing firm, because after the fires come, they still go, ah, and everybody knows that they’re really tough. And you just kind of wonder, did they do that? I really didn’t think they did. I thought the, I thought the chances of using catapults to hit people on foot was almost nil, but apparently there is a little of that. We’ve got a few places in the sources where artillery was used. But I’m still kind of skeptical. I think they wanted fire. They wanted the they wanted the wolf dog. They wanted Maximus, Wolf, dog, to leap through the flames. Oh yeah, which, sadly, doesn’t look as good as I remember it looking

Dr Rad 49:27
I just, I’m glad that, because I feel like that means that that animal was not hurt. They were more concerned about hurting the animal than doing this, that which 50 years ago would not have mattered.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 49:39
Oh, God, they formed their Testudo. We have no evidence of anybody ever forming a Testudo, right? That’s the ones with the shields on top and the shields in front, like the tortoise. We have no accounts of that ever being done, except for in a siege, when they were trying to lift people up over towers and things like that. Thing. We might have one example, but they use it against the German arrows. Now this is clever based. Likely the Germans fire their arrows. The legionaries clam up like a Testudo to block the arrows, and the Germans take that moment when they’re kind of hunkering to run in and charge two into them. Now this is clever because it means there’s no space to throw their pila Aha, and looking at us like, oh my gosh, that’s how they did that. That’s totally right. That is the most legit falsehood ever. It’s like they ran too fast. You couldn’t use it. They keep formations, but then they devolve into a brawl, because they always got to devolve into a brawl. And my original nerd specialty is the Roman cavalry. That is not what I went to school for. It just sort of worked that way. As you know, dissertation is kind dissertations kind of work that way. And the classic misunderstanding of of ancient and medieval cavalry is that they rode their horses into people, and that the impact of riding their horses into people was what took out the infantry. And about 24 about 50 years ago, John Keegan wrote a book called Face of battle that’s been kind of inspirational to many, at least my generation of military historians, where he pointed out, and I guess he knew horses. I don’t know horses that you really can’t make horses run into obstacles that they can’t jump over or get or get around. They’re gonna they’re gonna stop. And furthermore, if you did ride the horses in then you’re talking about these very expensive animals that cost training and food and everything like that, and you’re running them into a bunch of infantry, wrecking the horse, wrecking you on top the horse. And let’s not forget, these were usually nobles riding the cavalry, riding the horses, so it’s not going to happen. And that’s what I like about the gladiator cavalry charge, because it suggests that they just got in there and mixed it up. And as far as we can tell, that’s what cavalry did. They took an already occupied infantry enemy, and they added fear and disruption by coming in from some other side and roughing things up. And I really like that. And I like, I like his little speech at the beginning, right? You’re dead. And in Elysium, I like that the lines are sort of deforming of the horses. He says, Stay in line. And of course, some horses are faster than other horses, so they don’t completely stay in line. I think it’s a good cavalry charge. And then it gets back to a melee. It gets back to a brawl, like they always do. But I think with those caveats, just as I think Rome, the Rome series is the one to watch if you want to come as close as you can to visualize and what these might look like. I think you can do the same with that gladiator intro if you’re looking for the Imperial Army. By the way, you can move this earlier if you want. But Spartacus, in the midst of the Army, after having downed a soldier, grabs a six foot handled mace club and starts swinging it around. I don’t

Speaker 1 52:45
know if you remember a pivotal moment. All of the

Dr Jeremiah McCall 52:48
enslaved people had Roman equipment, and the Roman people had Roman equipment. Where did he get this six foot tall mace that he was able to like swing around?

Dr Rad 52:56
Well, we do know that the slaves did manufacture their own armor and weapons, so perhaps that he had a creative person on his team

Dr Jeremiah McCall 53:05
and that, and that’s the beauty we can we can go conspiracy theory logic, prove that they didn’t make a club like Exactly, exactly. Audience, please, don’t do that. We don’t say, prove that it’s not true. We say, here is the evidence that it might be true. Sorry. Okay. Teacher in me couldn’t

Speaker 1 53:21
help it. As we’re heading towards the battles of this imperial period. We’ve also got things like Centurion from 2010 and the eagle from 2011 so a good decade post Gladiator. And also films that the people who worked on would have been able to see HBOs Rome and be like, huh, maybe both these films center around the supposed disappearance of the ninth Legion in Britannia. They’re probably not as well known as gladiator but we’re interested in how their depictions of battle might compare to the blockbusters.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 53:59
You really kind of have to squeeze it to get it from a stone, because they’re not the both of those movies. I mean, maybe they maybe because they were going for something different, I’m not sure. But both of those movies really focus on a protagonist that is doing their own kind of special ops, right? Centurion Michael Fassbender is behind enemy lines, and he has to kind of work his way back. And the eagle, Channing Tatum is also, you know what? I have to confess, I never finished the eagle. I got about halfway through, and I was like, this is just not gripping me. Oh, and so I got scared when I was getting ready for this podcast. I was because I saw a video that said final battle in the eagle. I was like, there was a final battle. I didn’t write that in my book, but no, it’s just like 20 guys in a river stabbing each other. It’s not a final battle. We’re okay. You can still buy the book, but again, if you buy me a coffee, that will be at least as much money in my my compensation. So chronological order, no, I’m gonna do the eagle first. What? What I like about the eagle so things, this is a great example, again, of you’ve got to put something in. You can’t leave blank spots in a scene. You’ve got to have everything filled in. And so there’s this kind of great scene. Tatum has come to relieve whoever was the off the commander of this fort. Think his dad was dishonored by losing the Legion’s Eagle standards. I can’t remember, but he gets on this discipline kick with his soldiers in the fort and has them prepare defenses and get ready to be a serious obstacle to the Britons in the area probably did look like that. I didn’t check to see if whether their hammers and stuff were authentic looking. I bet they were. I bet they probably went into that detail. But they’re putting like pine pitch on to seal things up, and they’re cutting stakes and doing all this stuff. And so this is really good. And I like that. And then you notice, of course, that when they put their armor back on, when they’re done doing these things, they have leather. Oh,

Dr G 55:52
it’s a return of the leather. We’ve come full circle,

Dr Jeremiah McCall 55:56
I know, right? And it’s leather segmented armor. It’s the correct lorica look, the lorica segmentata, but it’s leather,

Dr Rad 56:03
just like that leather.

Dr G 56:04
It’s a budget thing. I’m sure

Dr Jeremiah McCall 56:06
it’s a budget thing. I’m sure you’re right. I mean, I guess it’s good that at least they weren’t like the muscled body armor that just Tatum

Dr Rad 56:14
has, that the Superman look, the Batman look. This is what I like about

Dr Jeremiah McCall 56:17
it. What they end up doing is there’s some scouts he sent out, and the scouts had been caught by the Britons, including this chief warrior dude who’s got a really crazy look in his eye, and he’s got a bare chest and some flowing robe and lots of lots of really cool beard hair swirling around, and is speaking in Gaelic. I don’t know what he’s speaking in. He’s speaking in something that would be appropriate for a Britain in the north,

Dr Rad 56:40
a Pictish, I don’t know, not Latin. That’s the most important part, right?

Dr Jeremiah McCall 56:44
Not Latin. So those scouts that he sends out are brought back in by the British war, by the British Army, or the Britain army, and they’re captives, and they’re kind of made to kneel down, and they’re a few 100 yards away from the fort. And there’s this big show of the Britain leader speaking, and we have subtitles to hear that he’s talking about all the awful things the Romans have done, which, let’s face it, is true, the Romans did horrific things to the people that they fought. It’s right. It’s the they make a desert and call it peace. Quote. So he’s doing this, and he kills one of the soldiers, and the soldiers are all terrified, and we’re really feeling the plight of the soldiers, because that’s kind of the position we’ve been given, right? We’re pro Roman in this or we’re supposed to be. And Tatum says, I put them out there. I’ve got to save them. 50 men on me, and the 50 soldiers all line up in their leather armor. That’s not going to help them at all. What I really like about that is the energy they put into how freaking scary it must have been to be a small group that was going to run out and try and do some kind of rescue operation like that. And we can’t say things like that never happened. We don’t know and do the rules necessarily apply when you’re talking about these things. That actually also brings me back to there’s a night fight before this where the Britons attacked the fortress, and Tatum grabs two swords and starts killing people with his dual wielding skills, which I mean, I learned my Dungeons and Dragons 45 years ago. I’m impressed, I, you know, but I but I doubt he learned those things. I don’t think anybody was learning how to use two swords. The reason I bring it up, though, is who knows what was happening in night fighting, when people were doing the horrific work of killing each other? I mean, who knows what was going on? Back to the back to the scene, though, the soldiers are scared. One of them vomits. One of them’s murmuring a prayer. They all look very serious. They look very intimidated. And I thought that was a really nice touch. They don’t always show the fear that must have been involved with us, and I thought that was really good. And then they come out, and they form their Testudo, even though that’s not probably how they used it, and then the Britons start jumping on top of the Testudo. So it’s like this armored tortoise. And I think that’s possible, because we have this example where the Romans using a siege to sort of lift people up six feet, five feet. So they probably could do that, but the Britons are all jumping on and again, you’re emphasizing right, disciplined, orderly Romans, disorganized Britons, which is probably a fairer take. The Britons were fighting in more loose war band formations than the Gauls, for example. And you see that idea of the line holding of the Romans with their shields in their position, holding the line. And that’s that morale idea. As long as you stay in your position, you are better defended than if you run on your own. Paradoxically, if you get so afraid for your life that you run, you immediately become more likely to be killed. And so they get around, they get around the captives, and they form a circle. And I thought that was a pretty interesting way to look at that, too. And I mean, of course, there’s no testimony for circles around captives this, this is not the sort of stuff that made it into the accounts. I liked, again, that they were trying. Trying to keep this idea of cohesion, this idea of maintaining your perimeter, so that you support each other together. That’s kind of the eagle. I think, I think it’s some nice visualizations of some ideas and not really a visualization. Oh, oh my gosh. I forgot the chariot. My understanding again, middle aged high school teacher thankfully never been in an ancient battle, never been any battle. My understanding is that the worst possible thing you can do when you are a line of soldiers with swords and you see a chariot or anything else on horses, is go run. And he commands them to run. Forget what his name is, but Channing Tatum says, run. And they all start running. And as soon as they’re running, they’re not protecting each other in the chariot with its scythe.

Dr Rad 1:00:43
Oh, they’re scythes wheels. They like that touch in Hollywood.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 1:00:47
Yeah, I sometimes I wonder about the physics of it, like if you put your shield down and put a foot against it, but a horse drawn chariot, that’s got to be a lot of power, right? I don’t know. I just don’t know how that all sorts out scythe wheels and blocking and stuff like that.

Dr Rad 1:01:01
I think they got it from Grease, quite frankly,

Dr Jeremiah McCall 1:01:05
probably so. And then centurion is just an ambush scene. They’ve got that marching in order. Yep, absolutely. They would have narrower lines when they’re marching in order. I really liked that. So they march into this area that looks like a perfect trap. And there’s a Hills up on each side, and the general who’s at the front, which I don’t know they might be, sometimes they might be, the general at the front is like, Wow, this looks really bad. Tell the Centurion in the rear that we need to start backing up, which made me go, huh? You would have thought you could send some scouts ahead to do that, and the Romans used scouts, but we know, right, Varus in the tutenburg Forest lost legions to ambush, and so this does happen. The Britons come out from the tops of the hills, and they have fiery, rolling, flaming fireballs.

Dr Rad 1:01:54
Of course, the fiery rolls

Speaker 2 1:01:58
this time, I think, Peta, you were the one saying that you’d run away if the flaming logs were coming died. You You wait, you’d wait and then let them burn out. This time, they don’t really have a chance. They’re stuck there. They got to put up with the flaming fireballs. It’s, it’s and they’re horrible. Doesn’t make a lot of sense to me. Here’s what I liked. The equipment was fine. I think they actually did have their metal armor that time. They didn’t have a chance to throw pila because they were disorganized. This should have been a text box in the book if I had realized right 10 different cinematic ways to avoid throwing

Dr Rad 1:02:26
spears. Exactly.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 1:02:29
It’s It’s amazing. What I did like, what I thought seemed authentic, was as they were waiting for the attack, and they were, they formed their kind of perimeter line and and the unit commanders, the local officers were prepping them. You know, you’re ready. You’re trained watch for and I thought that was an interesting take on that idea of morale. Again, we, our best guess is that to maintain this morale, one of the reasons that the Romans and the Greeks tended to be very effective in their infantry battles. Is they ended up Phyllis column wrote about this in 1989 I think basically the socio economic order of those societies is replicated in the military formations. So you have the aristocrats leading and then you have the reasonably well off plebs in officer positions, and then you have the farmer soldiers, and so that’s important, and the speeches are important. And absolutely the sub Commander, the centurion who had been with you and guided you and trained you, is going to be really important in a time like that. So I thought that was a cool take on morale, but not really given us much to sort of visualize. I think gladiator is still going to give us the best one for visualizing battle in the empire, and then add in that eagle sort of shield wall thing that was pretty cool.

Dr Rad 1:03:48
I actually kind of wonder if the difference in these movies is also the budget. You know, you can’t necessarily have huge battle scenes in every single movie because it’s so expensive. It’s kind of a metaphor for room itself. Sure, they like to picture these gigantic battle scenes when they’re talking about even things in the early republic. It makes it sound so grand, but if you actually were teleported there, you’d be like, Oh, it’s like 100 guys versus 100 guys. This isn’t quite the what I was imagining.

Dr G 1:04:18
I think you’re right. So I’m always interested. I don’t, I don’t know enough of it. I mean, so And sorry, Peta, because you’re an English teacher. So you will, you will get me on this. But I still like to think about authors having intention when they’re expressing things.

Dr G 1:04:33
This is a tragedy where to start.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 1:04:37
So I accept that there are big institutions making these, these movies. And so it’s not really, was it auteur theory or something like that? It’s not really the director doing sort of everything on their own, but it’s just at some point, you still kind of, I just, I wish I knew more about the decisions people made. This goes back to being a teacher. Why is this portrayal being given? By this person. How is that making sense? And how are they making sense in their mind? And so, oh my gosh, I wasn’t using your code name either. Sorry. Dr, G so. Dr, red, I think your idea about, I think your idea about budget limitations and stuff, there’s got to be a lot of truth to that. They’re making a movie. They’re not making a historical monograph. So, yeah, it’s got to play a

Dr Rad 1:05:22
big role. Well, even if you think about academic books, so, and we would all have experienced this, I certainly have Dr G will understand where I’m going with this. Even we have word limits, because they can only print so many pages in a book. They can only afford to have a book of a certain size, and you can’t exceed that, as it turns out, yeah.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 1:05:43
So I’m writing a book right now for educators to design games for their history classes, but then also to structure and support students designing those games. And so one of the things, because it’s just meant to be for any teacher who thinks cool, I want to do this. It’s not meant to be for somebody who has any game design experience. And so I was talking about abstractions, right? And games are abstractions, which I often get confused. What people mean by that. What I mean by that is a simplification that keeps the essentials. And the part that we often forget is that text is an abstraction, right? If you say such and such a person was born on such and such a day, and you make that statement, somebody might say that statements historically accurate. My understanding from watching like dramatic hospital videos on TV and stuff like that, is that actually giving birth is a lot more complicated than that. If you say such and such a person died on such and such a day, we would say that’s a historically accurate statement. But again, something’s going on, some reality that’s totally not being captured. So, yeah, they’re all, they’re all kind of, you know, like you said, word counts and, you know, efforts to liven up our prose, and all the other things we do, we’re all. We’re all taking a past that does not exist anymore and trying to selectively turn it into something that we think is meaningful.

Speaker 1 1:06:58
And I think this is something that Ridley Scott leans into as well, where he’s like, I’m not trying to make trying to make a historical film. I’m trying to make an exciting movie. Yeah,

Dr Rad 1:07:08
so let’s put sharks in the Colosseum. God damn it, I think, yeah. And

Dr Jeremiah McCall 1:07:12
fair enough, right? If he made that. So I think Robert Rosenstone, I think, was sort of the leading person on film, theater, excuse me, on history, on film. And I was going back and glancing at one of his articles. I just never, I never went this way into vid individual, into film, because my video game stuff is similar, but I just, I’ve learned more and studied more and found that more compelling. But I wanted to kind of go back and look, and he makes a point in an article that there’s a number of sort of snooty, stuffy historians. They’re like, well, we need to have more historians on set. We need to have more historians dictating how these things will go and and he says, No, that’s not what we need. And I actually made the same point about video games, because there was a movement in the early 2000s that we just need more historians making video games. No, we don’t need more historians making video games or movies. They are their own legitimate art forms. They are made for purposes that are not the same purpose as a monograph, as a popular book, as whatever. And, yeah, Ridley Scott, you know, God damn it. He wanted to make the Colosseum, and he wanted to have, you know, tigers. He had to

Speaker 1 1:08:16
have tigers. He wanted it. Boy, did he get it

Dr Jeremiah McCall 1:08:22
see. So it worked out for him. So

Speaker 1 1:08:25
thank you so much for sitting down and chatting with us. This has been really fun and going back and looking at these films through a different lens. I will. I think the subtitle for this episode has to be, where is the peeler?

Dr Rad 1:08:40
Yeah, I was gonna say justice for pila. Pila, pila, pila,

Dr G 1:08:45
but thank you so much for taking the time. We really appreciate it.

Dr Jeremiah McCall 1:08:48
You bet it’s been an absolute pleasure. Thanks so much.

Dr Rad 1:09:00
Thank you for listening to this special episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources, sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman. The Partial Historians is part of the Memory Collective, creators and educators dedicated to sharing knowledge that is accessible, contextualized, socially conscious and inclusive. To find more from the Memory Collective head to collectivemem.com. You too can support our show and help us to produce more engaging content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes and ad free content. If monthly patronage is not your style, we have merch. We have a book, or you can just buy us a coffee on ko fi. And we’d like to say a big thank you to all our Patreon supporters for making special episodes like this one possible. However, if you’re imperial coffers do not overfloweth, one of the easiest and most important ways to help us is to tell someone about the show or give us a five star review wherever you listen. Until next time we are yours in ancient Rome.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Special Episode – Swords and Cinema with Dr Jeremiah McCall appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

Marc Hyden returns to the show to discuss the life and times about the second Flavian emperor Titus. The Flavians were the second dynasty of the imperial period extending from 69 CE until the assassination of Domitian in 96 CE. Titus’ reign is short, but significant. We sit down with Marc to consider details of Titus’ rule of Rome and its impact across the Mediterranean, particularly involving Judaea.

Marc’s book Emperor Titus: The Right Hand of Vespasian (2025) is out now and explores at lot of the contextual details that helps us appreciate Titus’ rule as emperor from 79-81 CE.

Nero’s death leads to a period of political chaos in Rome. If you’re keen to delve into the notorious Year of the Four Emperors, we recommend checking out our interview with Dr Rob Cromarty.

Once the dust settles, the military general Vespasian ends up as the top dog in Rome. From unlikely beginnings, Vespasian sets up the Flavian family for dominance over the next thirty years and his eldest son, Titus, was his right-hand man.

It is impossible to truly understand the Flavians’ rise without considering the foothold that they had in Judaea. Military actions in the east were part and parcel of the Roman empire, but the particulars of Vespasian as the Roman general in Judaea when relationships broke down means that Vespasian (and thus the Flavians) are substantially enriched by the sack of the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem. Marc takes us through some of the key details including Josephus’ role in the conflict, the riots across the region

Apparently you can be a Roman a war, but still fall in love with a lady from the local aristocracy. The story of Titus and Berenice is one of the most interesting details of the Flavian era, and we don’t know as much about their relationship than we’d like, but there’s enough gossip to create something of a historical record! Tune in for the details of their seemingly on-again, off-again liaison.

Titus comes into full imperial power on the natural death of his father Vespasian and, oh boy, is he busy. He rules over the eruption of Vesuvius, he formally opens the Flavian Amphitheatre (aka the Colosseum), not to mention a pestilence. With all this busyness, we can only wonder how his reign would have gone if he lived for longer. But sadly it is not to be. Titus dies after a short but intense illness opening wide speculation about the cause of death. We explore some here.

Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Lightly edited for our wonderful Australian accents.

Dr Rad 0:15
Welcome to the Partial Historians.

Dr G 0:19
We explore all the details of ancient Rome.

Dr Rad 0:23
Everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battle’s waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I’m Dr Rad.

Dr G 0:33
And I’m Dr G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.

Dr Rad 0:44
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

Dr Rad 0:56
Welcome to a brand new episode of the Partial Historians. I am one of your hosts, Dr Rad.

Dr G 1:02
And I am Dr G.

Dr Rad 1:05
Dr G, we are once again privileged to be joined by Mark Hyden, who holds a degree in philosophy and has a love for the ancient Roman world, which shines through in his publications. Mark has published books on a number of ancient Roman personalities, including Romulus: Rome’s legendary fratricidal founder; Marcus Furius Camillus – and you can check out our previous interview with Mark on Camillus; Marius, one of the towering figures of the late Republic, and the second Flavian emperor, Titus, who is the subject of this interview. If you’re keen to get into the heady detail of Titus life and rule, then we recommend Mark’s latest book, “Emperor Titus: The Right Hand of Vespasian”. Welcome to the show again, Mark.

Marc Hyden 1:55
Thank you so much for having me a second time at that. I’m gonna have to keep writing books just so I can hang out with both of you.

Dr Rad 2:02
That’s our plan. Always, always more books, more chats.

Dr Rad 2:06
All right. Well, let’s get into the questions shall we, Dr G, and find out more about the emperor Titus?

Dr G 2:12
Oh, yeah, I even like forgot to look at the document properly. So to get into it by the time we truly meet Titus in our historical sources, the Roman Empire has been going through a bit of a rough patch, you could say. So, to get us oriented, I’m wondering if, Mark, you can tell us a little bit about the state of the Roman Empire in 71 CE, when Titus enters Rome, besides his father, Vespasian.

Marc Hyden 2:41
Yeah, absolutely. So Titus was born in what’s known as the Pax Romana. This was the golden age of the Roman Empire. But matters, they weren’t as rosy as the name might suggest. They were regular conflicts with barbarians. There were threats from the east, there was periodic rioting, and there was, of course, deadly Imperial intrigue, which we all love to read about today, but then it wasn’t quite as riveting, but by the time Titus reaches manhood, he Rome is under the control of Emperor Nero. We remember him as kind of the pudgy, lackluster emperor who preferred the arts and athletic contests and an ample helping of sexual deviancy to Imperial administration. So this irked quite a bit of Romans, quite a few Romans, and his problems didn’t end there. Around 64 it comes 64 ad Rome catches fire, as we know, the Great Fire of Rome and much of the city, the majority of it, has turned to ashes. Now, Nero has been blamed for having something to do with this. It seems pretty clear that he didn’t have anything to do with it. However, with Rome turning to ashes, he saw an opportunity to build a grand estate for himself and redesign Rome in his image. And to do so, he siphoned money away from from the provinces like Gaul and even the Jewish homeland, to Rome so that he could realize his his architectural dreams. This is we hear about this, these sorts of things in the ancient accounts. And this overburdened and really upset the provincials. I mean, we don’t like taxes today, and they were even more angry about it back then, apparently. So not long after this goes down, the Jewish people who fell under Rome’s domain, they grew really weary of Rome’s heavy taxes, the constant mistreatment of them, and really it was egregious, some of the things the Romans did to the Jewish people. So as a result, they rose up in revolt. But, you know, we hear about different revolts in the Roman Empire, but this was no minor revolt. It demanded the Emperor’s attention and really immediate action. It also required generals of great repute and 1000s of battle hardened legionaries to be able to quell this, this burgeoning rebellion. So this is when we see Vespasian and Titus and 1000s of legionaries head to the east, and they lead the armies. And over the course of a few years, they neutralize city after city that had stood against Rome until the revolt was really secluded to primarily to Jerusalem, machaerus, Herodium and Masada, which is now very famous, but we see the success and Vespasian and Titus successes were a bit of good news for for Nero, but trouble was brewing in the West. He thought the problems were in the east, but the biggest problem was in the West, because that’s where a rebellion broke out to depose him, and ultimately he saw the writing on the wall, and with the help of his servant, decided to go ahead and kill himself. But that wasn’t the end of the troubles for the Roman Empire, because everyone wanted to be emperor, apparently. So this sparked a cascade of events and civil war in which first Galba, then Otho and then Vitellius all claimed to be emperor, and before long, Titus, you know, he’s sitting over there in the east and his son, or excuse me, Vespasian, his son, Titus, urges him to stake his claim. So Vespasian goes and challenges Titus, and ultimately is successful, and he defeats the corpulent Vitellius, which left Vespasian squarely in control of Rome. So that brings us. We’re in 70 ad at this point, and with Vespasian now sole Emperor with no real other claimants that are legitimate around he tasked his son with finishing off the Jewish revolt by sacking the highly fortified city of Jerusalem, which is where 1000s of rebels had been congregating. And really what resulted is this incredibly bloody, incredibly brutal and lamentable affair that supposedly left upwards of a million Jews dead, at least according to Josephus. But these numbers are a little suspect. But despite this terrible toll, Titus was victorious, and by 71 AD, which is your question, he can finally return to Rome and triumph.

Dr G 7:09
An impressive time. Not great for Judea, by the sounds of it, but the Romans, well, they do like a good victory, and it sounds like they threw everything they had at this one.

Dr Rad 7:19
So we obviously get a bit of a snapshot about what Titus was up to in his early life through that account that you’ve just given. But what else do we know about Titus public career prior to his father becoming emperor?

Marc Hyden 7:33
So a lot of Titus early career and life is a bit of a mystery. And this kind of goes into how the ancient writers looked at people they didn’t generally, they didn’t care much about their their early life when they recorded it, because it was unimportant. Now for us historians, we want to know what happened. But what is clear is that Titus was born into the Flavian family, which had, at this point, had only recently become a senatorial clan. So because of this wealth and being a senatorial clan, Titus received rudimentary education that you’d expect of a well to do child, you know, and thanks to Vespasian growing increasingly close to Claudius court at the time, Titus was eventually even educated in the Imperial Court, which was really a blessing as well as a curse, because he learned alongside Claudius’ biological son, Britannicus. And this causes some some serious problems. Claudius’ scheming wife at the time, Agrippina was the mother of Nero, whom Claudius adopted. Now this is getting kind of convoluted and complex, but that’s the way the imperial family was. Agrippina didn’t seem to like the flavians too much, at least their friends that were in the imperial court. This caused plenty of grief. But then there was also the issue with Nero, who was distrustful of Britannicus, who, you know, rightfully, he probably should have been emperor, but he didn’t become emperor. So Nero decides to have him poisoned by tainting his drink. It turns out, though, that Titus was lounging next to Britannicus when this went down, and in fact, Titus even drank some of the poison. But Britannicus died, and as we all can tell, Titus survived, although he had a long term ailment that actually stemmed from him imbibing some of this poison. But despite him surviving Vespasian and Titus, at this point, they realize they’ve fallen from favor, and they needed to see to their own safety, so they decided to lay low for a while, and it worked in their favor, because not long after, they had some developments in the imperial court that really benefited them. So Nero really got tired of his his meddling and very overbearing mother, and he first banished her, and then he had her murdered, and this is after numerous botched attempts, and he’s finally successful, and with with her dead, both Vespasian and Titus, their futures looked a lot a lot brighter at this point in fact. Is able to enter the cursus honorum, the path of honors. And he took his first step toward senatorial admission by serving, most likely, in a one year term. And really, this, really lower level college of magistrates. And that’s this might have happened around 60 AD, and it was the next year in which he probably held the military tribuneship, and he was at first stationed in Germany, and then the ancient writers tell us that Titus and his troops were eventually transferred from Germany to Britannia. The ancient writers don’t tell us why this happened, but some modern historians have pinpointed a very plausible and what I find to be a pretty fascinating reason, and it was the Boudicca rebellion. Now, as a lot of your listeners know, Boudicca was this Iceni royal, and she was a woman not to be trifled with, but the Romans decided to trifle with her anyway. They stole her property. They publicly abused her and even raped her daughters these this was an unconscionable crime, and after facing this Roman treachery and ignominy, she decided to work to kick the Romans out of Britannia. And within a short span of time, she raises this massive army, allegedly numbering around 230,000 people, and she led them into battle. And this happens around 60 ad and with relative ease, she overruns numerous cities, raises them to the ground, and shows that she can be pretty barbaric as well. But the Romans were bent on stopping her, and in 61 the following year, the local governor Paulinus defeated her in battle. And then afterwards, Boudicca either dies by suicide or illness, we don’t really know, but the remnants of the revolt remained active, and that’s where Titus enters this story. So in an effort to shore up the Romans defenses in Britannia and provide reinforcements, Nero decided to transfer some folks from Germany to Britannia. So this is, this is when historians think it’s very likely that Titus found himself there, and he may have actually seen some legitimate experience and action in the Buddha revolt, although we don’t really know what exactly he could have been doing. So the Boudicca revolt is subdued, and then, following Titus term as military tribune, he returns to Rome to kind of foster his nascent public career, promote his private business interests, including a legal practice. And he seeks the quaestorship, which is the this will give you senatorial admission at the time. And with his father’s help, the Senate presumably elects him, providing him a seat in the Senate. And through some guesswork, educated guesswork. Historians think that his quaestorship may have fallen around 64 AD which is when the Great Fire of Rome happened. But it was two years later that really propels Titus to what we think of when we hear him in 66 that’s when the Jewish rebellion begins, and Nero realizes that he desperately needs some help. So he looks around to find someone who’s someone who’s a competent general, but not particularly inspiring so he could never really challenge them, and someone who’s close by that happens to be Vespasian. He’s not a very exciting guy at the time and not thought of as a real threat. So he appoints Vespasian to command the war effort against the Jewish people, and Vespasian in turn, appoints Titus to lead the 15th legion. And as I alluded to earlier, together they sweep through the Jewish homeland and they reassert Roman control, but at a really terrible cost.

Dr G 13:38
Yeah, it’s a quite a trajectory, and one that, because the Flavians are not such a prominent family, we just don’t know those intricate details about those shifts through their career paths. But by the time we get into Titus having ruled, boy, does he get some praise and Suetonius in his “Life of Titus”, notably says, and I quote, “Titus, of the same surname as his father, was the delight and darling of the human race. Such surpassing ability had he, by nature, art or good fortune, to win the affections of all men.” End, quote, To what extent should we see this level of positivity as justified when it comes to Titus rule? Do you think so?

Marc Hyden 14:29
That’s a little bit of a complicated question. So first things first, Suetonius is one of the least reliable historians of the era. He is really a terrible historian. Excuse me, he represents or presents rumors as verifiable fact. Essentially, he also presents his histories thematically, instead of chronologically, which really makes it difficult for historians to unravel what truly happened. But that aside, now that I’ve really just uh denigrated the memory of Suetonius, does that statement ring true? So I guess my my answer, my roundabout answer, that is, it depends on which Titus we’re talking about. So as a Roman commander in Judea, Titus was he was successful, but he was absolutely brutal, and he made so many tactical errors and perhaps he also strategic errors. As a Roman prince, he acted as a spoiled playboy and was really happy to ruthlessly murder just about anyone rumored of conspiring against his father. So these are not something you would think of as the darling of the human race, but he reinvents himself as a Roman Emperor. After he succeeded to the throne, he acted like a forgiving and loving father. He spared conspirators lives, He lavished gifts on on the Roman people, and he guided the empire through some really challenging circumstances. So from the Roman perspective, Titus was about as good as it gets as an emperor and his brutality as a commander, from the Roman perspective, was probably lauded, since the Romans found it to be necessary. So if Suetonius, if his statement is referring only to Titus emperorship, then from the Roman perspective, his positivity is probably merited, at least to a degree. But we all need to be very honest with each other, calling Titus the darling of the human race, is is beyond excessive, and it’s quite a bit ridiculous.

Dr G 16:27
Just what we come to expect from Suetonius, though.

Dr Rad 16:34
Someone who had a bit of a wild young life and then reinvented themselves as emperor… I wonder who that reminds me of Dr G?

Dr G 16:43
I wouldn’t want to hazard a guess.

Dr Rad 16:46
So one of the things that we love most about Titus is his love life, because he doesn’t actually have the smoothest of love lives. What do we know about his relationships with women?

Marc Hyden 16:57
Well, it was a long time before the dating app. So things, things weren’t very smooth when we look at what the ancient accounts say about it. So this is, this is a bit of a longer, longer answer, since he he got around a little bit. So in the early to mid 60s ad, that’s when Titus marries his first wife, Arrecina Tertulla. So the union between them, it really revealed a lot about the Flavian family standing and how they are an up and coming group. Because Titus wife, or Vespasian’s wife, didn’t really hail from a particularly exciting family, but Arrecina Tertulla really was from a family of some more notable successes, notable recent successes. Even though their family was a bit more obscure in their origins, they had achieved equestrian status, so they were pretty wealthy because of this. That probably pleased Vespasian quite a bit, since he seemed to perennially just have all these financial problems. And some of that happened probably as a result of Agrippina stiming his career for a while, so he really couldn’t milk money out of the provinces or anything along those lines. So that must have pleased Vespasian. But this is really a legitimately important family that they married into, because Arrecina’s father was Marcus Arrecinus Clemens, and he was well to do, very influential, and he even served as a Pretorian Prefect. So he was, and this was under Emperor Caligula, so this was a very prestigious position in which he was one of the two commanders of the Imperial Guard. But it also means that he may have had something to do with Caligula’s assassination, whether he was active in or just had knowledge of it, but whatever the case, no one liked Caligula afterwards. So it turns out, he’s probably more of a hero than anything else. But the family aside, so far as modern academics can tell, the two newlyweds, they wasted little time building a family, and arachina had a child, and this was likely a girl named Julia Flavia, although there is scholarly debate over which family or which marriage this belongs to this child, because there’s confusion of even how many children he had. But we, we know that Arrecina dies sometime shortly thereafter, and the ancient accounts don’t tell us why. And really, this is really more of this kind of male dominated view that I think a lot of ancient historians had, where they don’t tell you what happened to a lot of these, these female characters in history. But considering that it happened so soon after birth, she might have died as a result of childbirth, which is a very hazardous thing in antiquity. I mean, very conservative estimates suggest that the maternal mortality rate in ancient Rome might have been around two and a half percent. And again, that’s that’s conservative, but that’s also very terrifying. So this may have caused Titus to to grieve to a degree he lost his first wife, but he remarries really quickly. Um. It’s not clear if he did it because he found love or Vespasian wanted to find another rich family to marry into because he needed cash. But whatever the case, Titus marries into another pretty influential family, and he took Marcia Furnilla’s hand in marriage. Now she was part of a noble family that traced its roots to one of Rome’s fabled kings, Ancius Marcus, so one of the the fourth fabled king of ancient Rome. And even in this era, they enjoyed the family enjoyed quite a bit of success and considerable wealth, which Vespasian probably appreciated. But this marriage is very short lived for an undisclosed reason, the two get divorced fairly quickly. And the ancient authors, they don’t tell us why, but what seems to be the case is that some of her family members were accused of conspiring against Nero. This was a big problem. They could be terrible. Things happened to the people that were involved in these alleged conspiracies, and the Flavians wanted nothing to do with it. They wanted to continue their rise to the top, be successful, enjoy fame and fortune, and they probably wouldn’t have faced any legal problems just being married to having Titus married this woman, however, it could have stopped their careers from ascending. So Titus probably just thought of his wise we’re going to get divorced. I’m going to move on, even though she was likely innocent of any wrongdoing. So that’s the last Roman woman that we know for sure that Titus has this really close relationship with, and the next relationship that really dominates the rest of Titus life, she wasn’t even a Roman. So after joining with his father in the east to quell the Jewish revolt, Titus noticed the Jewish king Agrippa’s sister. This is the powerful queen, Berenice. So whether it was her beauty or charisma, he was quickly smitten with Berenice, and they begin this long standing romantic relationship that it spanned many, many years, and she probably welcomed this development because it brought their her family and her people as a result, closer to the Romans, but it also helped quell probably some rumors that went around suggesting that she had an incestual relationship with her brother since They lived together, something that was probably very unfair, but the the rumor existed, so she may have welcomed this. So this, this romance, probably lasts throughout the war, and then Titus goes home, but he goes home without Berenice, but in 75 CE roundabouts, he invites her to come. There’s plenty of debate. Why didn’t she come with him? Why did they wait this long? But to me, it seems pretty clear, the Flavians probably looked at her as a little bit of a liability, and they wanted to make sure that they had stable control over their position in Rome before they brought this eastern queen to come. And in relatively short order, she did arrive, and she moves into the Imperial Palace, shares a bed with Titus. She expected that they would get married, and in fact, Titus might have even promised his hand in marriage to her already, but they didn’t feel like they needed to be married for her to act in like these official ways. And this really shocked the Romans, because she flexed her newfound power. Quintilian even complained about having to plead some sort of case before her, which he just thought was bizarre. He’s a Roman. This is, this is an Eastern queen. And to the Romans, this was really unacceptable. They believed that the members the Imperial Household, especially heirs to the purple, they were expected to marry upstanding Roman women, not foreign Queens. And I’m sure this, this generated a lot of racist comments about letting an Eastern Queen infiltrate the imperial palace, and it also conjured up images of another very unpopular Eastern queen, Cleopatra. So the Romans were very suspicious about Berenice, and they spoke out against her. And it seems like the flavians tried to contain these objections, but it became clear that the Romans were very unforgiving of this, and Titus and Vespasian knew that they had to send her back to the east to ensure that they remained popular. So they sent her on her way. It probably around 79 AD, and then it was all it was very shortly after that that Vespasian dies and Titus becomes emperor, and for some reason, Berenice comes back to Rome. We don’t know if she was invited or came out of her own accord. Whatever we know is it was a very short stint – Titus sent her back to the east. I guessed, I guess the Romans were still very unhappy with that relationship. But whatever the case, this seems like it was. She was his true love, and that would be the last time he ever saw her.

Dr Rad 24:48
Ah the tragedy.

Dr G 24:51
Yes, particularly with the parallels with Cleopatra as well, the Romans are not well set up to handle women from elsewhere. Yeah, maybe having just the capacity to lead and to be in the high echelons of Roman society. So it’s perhaps not a surprise. And I do wonder about that last visit where it’s like, can we make this work? And Titus is like, I don’t think we can. And it’s not about you, it’s about everybody else. I’d love you to stay.

Dr Rad 25:19
It’s not you, it’s Rome.

Dr G 25:21
It’s Rome. Yeah, it’s always Rome. And you’ve alluded to the things that are going on in Judea already, because obviously they play a hugely significant role in the lead up to Titus coming into this position of leadership. But this conquest also has a lot of written sources attached to it as well. So I’m interested in why the conquest at this point is so significant, and how do our written sources help us build a detailed picture of what is going on in the east in this time period?

Marc Hyden 25:54
Well, I think you absolutely have to consider this is really part of not just Titus legacy is as well as Rome’s. This is very important. But when you look at the the sources that we have for this, really the only bulked out source that we have is Josephus. He his account is what has survived. You see mentions of the Jewish War in the different, different writings. You know, Cassius Dio, Suetonius. I mean, we have these passing accounts, but nothing like Josephus has. But we also need to be careful when we read Josephus, because the Flavians essentially bankrolled him. So of course, he’s going to make Titus look fantastic. He’s going to make Vespasian look great as well. And despite all of Josephus faults this, he provides so much knowledge and so much information about Titus in his corpus of writing. So I think it’s very important to bring that in, to consider that and when you if you just look at the the war very briefly, so it’s sparked through different riots and mistreatment of the Jews by the Romans, as well as the Greek speaking population, they rise up. And Josephus is even one of the generals for the rebellion. And he’s stationed in Galilee and fights against Vespasian. And there’s the this, this penultimate battle in Jotapata, where he tries to hold out for over 40 days around about and eventually falls and even predicts that Vespasian will become emperor one day, and they decide not to execute him. So that’s also a very good tale, a cautionary tale, if you ever captured in war, tell the person that captures you, he’s going to be emperor one day, and he’ll probably spare your life. So Titus is alongside Vespasian through this. And they go through all these these cities, and there’s these exciting battles that Josephus has really provide a wealth of knowledge about. So it’s Vespasian who really wins a lot of the Jewish war. And he goes to Alexandria later on to wait until he goes to Rome and leaves Titus in charge here. And this is when Titus has 60 to 80,000 men under his command, and he uses them primarily for the siege of Jerusalem, which is extended, as I mentioned. It’s very bloody. We have terrible accounts from Josephus of cannibalism, starvation, famine. You know, I mentioned that Josephus said that a million Jews died just in the siege. Again, that’s his accounting. It’s probably an exaggeration. According to Tacitus, it’s no more than 600,000, but even if it’s 100,000 which is what some modern academics suggest, that is a massive number. So even though a lot of the other writers, Cassius, Dio, Suetonius, Tacitus, they kind of sidestep a lot of the Jewish War. Josephus gives us an amazing account and shows how important this is, not just to stabilizing the Roman Empire, but turning Vespasian and Titus into what they are. They’re able to use this to propel themselves to take over, because during the year of the four emperors, Vespasian is sitting there with all these legionaries at his disposal, and he’s able to use that to come in and take over. And meanwhile, Vespasian does that, and then Titus plays clean up sacks Jerusalem, which is critically important, and he also destroys the Temple. But I think one of the things that really is is probably overlooked by many, is what Titus did in Jerusalem helps lay the groundwork for unrest in the Middle East that persists to this day.

Dr Rad 29:37
It’s such a such an interesting time to be talking about right now. So when Vespasian eventually heads back to Rome during this troublesome time, he does so after having been proclaimed Imperator by his troops and his son, Titus is, of course, at his side. Now this is a really unusual time in Rome’s history, because it’s the first time that. That an imperial dynasty has ended and a new one is now coming in, although, of course, nobody knows that that’s definitely what’s going to happen at this point. But we’re curious to know how, how is Titus training to be emperor different from and similar to that of the Julio-Claudians who preceded him?

Marc Hyden 30:18
Yeah. So unlike a lot of the other Imperial successors Titus, he wasn’t originally groomed for this purpose. He had no inkling that he would ever be in this position, and that he had no reason to believe that he ever would be. He simply wanted to be a senator, like his father, be a lawyer and somehow find wealth, fame and success. Maybe it’s in the political realm. Maybe it’s in the military. So as I mentioned, he got this aristocratic education, climbed the political ladder, fought in the legions, but as we know, he was destined for a lot more. So once Vespasian rose to power, he very unmistakably, from the beginning, marked Titus out as a successor in some similar as well as different ways than his forebears. So Vespasian worked to ensure that Titus had a resume that of someone that you would want to be emperor, and the power to be able to seize it. So he shared consulships with Vespasian. Titus and Vespasian shared consulships. They shared a triumph together through Rome after the sacking of Jerusalem, and Vespasian ensured that Titus had the notable military successes, namely the sacking of Jerusalem to really put on his resume and build out his curriculum vitae. But beyond this, Vespasian elevates Titus to almost his equal, at least on paper. So they kind of rule together, but it was very clear that Titus was a subordinate. But as a prince, he enjoyed Imperium, he enjoyed tribunician potestas. He represented Vespasian in the Senate sometimes. And then Vespasian also makes this very novel decision to make his son one of the Praetorian Guard prefects, essentially the head of a couple legions that are stationed in and around Rome who were asked to protect the Emperor. Now, no Emperor’s son had ever held this role before, but it ensured the allegiance of the sometimes fickle Praetorians. So because of all of this, there was nobody more qualified and better position to succeed Vespasian than Titus, any of the backing of the pretorians to ensure that seamless transition. So thanks to Titus work and Vespasian’s preparations, Titus became the first biological son of a Roman emperor to succeed him.

Dr G 32:37
Oh yeah, that is an interesting detail, isn’t it, the Julio-Claudians, what a mess. So one of the incredible things that sort of happens in this period of time is that we have the Lex de Imperio Vespasiani, which is considered by scholars to be a hugely significant document. It bundles together for the first time, all of the powers, all of the privileges that had gradually become associated with the concept of the Emperor under the Julio-Claudians and because it was assumed kind of knowledge up until this point. But we now have a change in family. There’s a sense in which, how can we formalize and make it legal for this kind of de facto position of power to be passed on to somebody who’s not in that family. I’m interested in to what extent you would say that this influences Titus as he shifts from being vespasians, right hand man to Emperor himself.

Marc Hyden 33:37
Yeah, that’s that’s a bit of a tough one. So the Lex de Imperio Vespasiani has long been debated by people far smarter than than me, so like you two, far smarter than me, and it only exists in fragmentary form, so some of it’s missing, but what I will say is that this was an important piece of Flavian PR because it really it legitimizes Vespasian’s rule, it makes it clear, or at least tries to make it clear to his subjects that he wasn’t just another usurper, like like Otho or Vitellius. He was legitimate. He was different than those guys. But how did this influence Titus? That’s that’s not really clear, but I will say sure it provided a framework for him to follow as emperor, but he enjoyed a lot of that same power before he became emperor. So when he was Vespasian’s companion, but he, like the rest of Rome, they now saw Rome for what it was. It was a military dictatorship. The year of the four emperors washed away any sort of veneer of Rome being a republic or being even a constitutional principate. The truth was that armies now made emperors, not the Senate, not the people and anyone could really stake their claim to the throne and could seize it without senatorial approval or without approval even in the comitia. But it was still, despite that, it was still important to maintain the pretenses of legitimate rule and Republican forms, even though the Republic had been long, long dead. So from that perspective, it was important for Titus, and considering that at large, he gave emperors unfettered power, he probably felt like it was pretty easy to operate under those confines, but he understood that he could violate any provision he wanted, because he was an autocrat and the head and he had the Army’s backing, and that was the sad reality of Rome at this time.

Dr G 35:35
What a place to be – you’ve revealed yourself for what you are, finally

Dr Rad 35:40
The veil has been lifted

Dr G 35:42
None of this principate business

Dr Rad 35:44
I know. I know So with all this build up and it seems so promising. You know, Titus, the darling of the human race, he seems to have got his resume just right, first biological son to succeed his father as emperor, and yet he only rules for such a short time, just over two years, from 79 CE, when Vespasian passed away, to 81 CE, nonetheless, that’s still some time for him to have some achievements and certainly face some obstacles. So we’d love for you to tell us a bit more about what happens when he’s actually emperor.

Marc Hyden 36:23
Yeah, so Titus may have presided over the busiest two year span in the Empire’s history, at least up until this point, Agricola was at war in Britannia. Vesuvius erupted and laid waste in numerous cities, including Pompeii and Herculaneum. Fire ravages Rome and a plague decimates its numbers. But despite this, Titus did everything within his power and also his financial means to guide the empire through adversity, even though it supposedly led him nearly to fiscal ruin because of it, but the people just they realized the world was a different place. They were facing all of these calamities, but they appreciated Titus endeavors, because he responded to each crisis with great aplomb, or at least with the best of intentions, and they understood this. But his tenure, it was not just marked by adversity. There were tranquil moments as well. He constructed his eponymus baths. Built roads and bridges and updated aqueducts, and he finished the Colosseum, which we could all go look at today, at least well enough for the inaugural games. It probably didn’t have the final floor finished at the time, at least in stone. And he opened it, and he hosts an unprecedented 100 days of games, and they bear witness to 1000s of beasts being killed, myriad executions, and an untold number of gladiators sparring with another which the people loved. And during his tenure, he also saw that his father was deified. So you know, that’s also another great thing. If you become emperor, you can make your dad a god, which makes you the son of a god or a daughter of a god, really work. It’s a great system that they had in place there. And even though a lot of his predecessors would not have done this, he showed forgiveness to people that plotted against him in ways that they they never would have dreamed of doing so. In short, this was a very action packed two years.

Dr G 38:21
I do like the idea that many emperors start off with quite a good stint early on, only for things to go tragically downhill the further they’re in power. And I wonder to what extent Titus has been saved from that fate by dying so soon into his reign, and we will just never know he dies suddenly from a fever, which a tragedy. This is shocking to everybody, and led to great speculation, even at the time, that this was not the case of poor health, necessarily, but murder most foul

Dr Rad 38:56
Mwahahahaha

Dr G 38:59
Exactly. I’m wondering, Mark, what’s your view on Titus death based on your research?

Marc Hyden 39:05
Well, first of all, to go back to what you were talking about, about emperors having a great, you know, honeymoon period, and that’s, that’s something that they talked about. Believe it was Cassius Dio said, you know, he just didn’t live. He may not have lived long enough to become the terrible Emperor he was destined to be. We just don’t know. He might have turned into Domitian. Who knows? But to answer your question about his death, it goes back to 81 AD, so a little over two years into his Imperial administration, he and some of his followers decided to go to the countryside for a break. They wanted to get out of the busy Rome, the stench and everything else that comes with it. But as they made their journey, Titus realizes something is really wrong. He develops this incredibly high fever, and then his servants, they rush him to a farmhouse in Sabine country, near near react, and along the way, Titus’ condition continues to get worse, and he understands that this is going to claim his life, and this really confused him. So he was 41 years old, which I may humbly present as a very young age.

Dr Rad 40:12
I totally agree.

Marc Hyden 40:14
He believed that he had lived a life pleasing to the gods, and he was at the height of his power. Why would the gods take his life at this moment. So on the verge of death, he he throws open the curtains on his litter and exclaims, I have made but one mistake. Now we don’t know what that one mistake was, but we do know that he dies not long after on September 13, 81 AD in the very farmhouse in which his father Vespasian had perished. So the question of what killed him, what was the cause of death, has really vexed ancient and even some modern historians and the ancient authors, they provided kind of a slew of theories to attempt to explain what killed him, and they range from impossible to improbable. But thanks to the diligence of some modern scholars, we may have the answer, but first we have to talk about what the ancient authors thought. So, given the rapid and very unexpected death of a pretty popular emperor, the Romans grew suspicious that Titus had been slain, and some claimed that Domitian was behind it. One theory suggested that Titus, or excuse me, Domitian, had Titus packed in ice when he was sick, knowing that that would kill him. So it’s not impossible that Domitian had this done, and he may have done it along with doctor’s orders as a way to reduce Titus uncontrolled fever. But other ancient authors said that Titus died through other means. Domitian poisoned them, so more Imperial intrigue. And Flavius Philostratus even says that Domitian used a sea hair to taint Titus food or drink somehow, which which killed him. But modern academics, they’ve kind of poo-pooed that idea. They don’t believe that that would really have worked. And this also kind of reveals what the ancient writers thought about Domitian. They did not like the guy, they loathed him, and he was an easy target, at least at this point. So they latched on to all these unsubstantiated rumors saying that Domitian was somehow behind Titus death. And, you know, he did have a motive, because he became emperor, it just seems very unlikely that he had anything to do with with killing his brother, at least on purpose. Then there’s a Jewish tradition, and this is one of my favorite ones, and it suggests that a gnat flew up Titus nose, lived in his brain for seven years and slowly picked at his brain as it grew to the size of a sparrow. This is a tradition that obviously is, I don’t believe that anyone thinks of it as fact, it might be part of some sort of tale. Gnats don’t operate this way. They don’t grow to the size of small birds, at least where I live. And the Romans generally didn’t do autopsies and open up Emperor’s brains to see what’s going on in there. So this didn’t that was not the cause. Could not have been.

Dr G 43:09
That’s a real shame. That’s a real shame because, I mean, come on, if that was, that was what happened. We need to know. We need to go back and find the body, do an autopsy. Was he somehow trapped by a gnat while he was in Judea that lived in his brain.

Marc Hyden 43:24
If that is possible, I’m never going outside again. But Plutarch, he went in a different direction, said that Titus died because he loved taking a bath too much. And I also think that that’s probably not the case, unless he caught some sort of contagion while bathing with with other people. But what really seems to be the case is relatively clear in the ancient record, if you look through it through a modern lens. So if we go back, it’s September in ancient Italy, and Titus acquires a high fever that strikes him down quickly. So we’ve got several things to look at here. And Saul bastomsky theorized, based on that that Titus died from malignant malaria. It was relatively common in Titus era and region at the time. It surged in late summer and early fall, and it’s marked by a high fever that kills its victims really quickly. So it seems that was probably natural causes that led to his death. And if it was malignant malaria, then sadly, Titus, he just never stood a chance.

Dr Rad 44:29
How intriguing the potential of an emperor to have died from the Ice Bucket Challenge? Who would have thought so? Perhaps, to wrap up now that Titus has departed from this earth. What is it that you think makes Titus unique from the Emperors that came before him?

Marc Hyden 44:50
Well, he was just so different from the Julio-Claudians. For starters, he was a true warrior. He led troops. He got into the nitty gritty of battle. Unlike the Julio-Claudians, with the exception of Augustus and Tiberius, they saw some some real battle. But for the rest of the pampered Julio-Claudians, Titus was very different. He was also the first, as I mentioned, Pretorian Prefect to become emperor, and the first biological son of an emperor to become emperor. Again, very different from the Julio-Claudians, and during his short stint, he proved to be a forgiving and magnanimous ruler who eschewed killing even conspirators, and so far as we can tell, he didn’t have a single scandal throughout all of his Imperial tender tenure. Again, it was only a couple of years, but still, no scandals. Most Julio-Claudians couldn’t have said the same about about their own.

Dr Rad 45:43
Oh, yeah, Caligula had scandals pretty quickly.

Marc Hyden 45:47
Yes, they would. They stacked up very quickly. You’re right. He also gave the Romans a gift that his predecessors would have killed for the Colosseum, and he gave the Romans 100 days of games and killing, just on an industrial scale, and they loved him for it. And he was also different. This is a little less interesting, but he was different because he had the shortest Imperial tenure to date, excluding the usurpers of the year, the four emperors, of any of his predecessors. And unlike many of his predecessors, when he died, he was probably at the height of his popularity, the Romans loved him. Remember, he’s he’s the darling of the human race, although, of course, that’s exaggeration. So to close out neatly, I would say the life of Titus is one of the greatest stories rarely told. So it’s the tale of Titus unlikely ascent to power, a veritable holy war in Israel, the coliseums rise, and of course, we know Pompeii’s fall and then tragic Titus own tragic and untimely death. But for whatever reason, a lot of the story has been buried beneath centuries of silence. And you know, a lot of the ancient Romans loved and even worshiped Titus. They considered him this model of virtue, essentially as an emperor to be emulated. But modern scholars, they have overlooked him for whatever reason. They’ve cast him aside, perhaps because of his short Imperial tenure, and this has left some unmistakable gaps in the record. So I decided to take on this project and write emperor Titus the right hand of Vespasian. And hopefully, hopefully it will end his long term neglect, and we won’t have to worry about the massive gaps in the record that have been there for so long.

Dr G 47:35
Yes, thank you so much for providing all of this detail, and I cannot recommend your book, highly enough, that’s “Emperor Titus: The Right Hand of Vespasian”, because you do go into so much of the detail, particularly with what is going on in the early days of Titus building his military reputation, particularly when it comes to what is happening in Judea, which is an extensive campaign that really funds a lot of what The Flavians are able to achieve. So I think understanding that side of it better. How did this seemingly unassuming family rise to the top is really important, and seeing how Titus is able to carry on that legacy of Vespasian particularly interesting as well.

Marc Hyden 48:18
Yeah, and I really appreciate that the kind words. And it really is something I find to be pretty amazing. Everyone has heard of Vespasian, who’s interested in ancient Rome, and even his ascent is is very unlikely. And he brings he brings his family along, and as people will find out that are students of history, they’ll see the Flavian dynasty. It starts off very stable, but it goes off the rails pretty quickly. But they want to say that, you know, Vespasian and Titus, they had a good run.

Dr G 48:48
Yeah, two out of three ain’t bad.

Dr Rad 48:50
I was gonna say. I can’t help but wonder if Titus reputation is also somewhat improved by the fact that Domitian is the one that follows.

Marc Hyden 48:59
That certainly does help his standing. It also helps his standing, as well as Vespasian that a lot of the people at the time, the historians at the time, that wrote the history, they tended to bankroll so you tend to say nice things about your benefactor. So they they benefited greatly from some fantastic PR and that’s that’s another thing. If you’re going to be emperor, pay people to write your history. They’ll say nice things.

Dr Rad 49:25
That’s the mistake that Julia-Claudians made. Rookie errors. Rookie errors.

Dr G 49:34
Well, thank you so much Mark for joining us and sitting down to tell us all about Titus and the way he comes to power, and those precious two years he gets to be emperor, we’ve really enjoyed it.

Marc Hyden 49:44
Hey. Thanks so much for having me on and I’ll just have to burn through another book real quick so I can come back.

Dr G 49:56
Thank you for listening to this episode of the Partial Historians. You can find our sources, sound credits and transcript in our show notes. Over at partialhistorians.com we offer a huge thank you to you, if you’re one of our illustrious Patreon supporters, if you enjoy the show, we’d love your support in a way that works for you. Leaving a nice review really makes our day. We’re on Ko-Fi for one off or ongoing donations or Patreon of course. Our latest book, “Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire”, is published through Ulysses Press. It is full of stories that the Romans probably don’t want you to know about them. This book is packed with some of our favorite tales of the colorful history of ancient Rome. Treat yourself or an open minded friend to Rome’s glories, embarrassments and most salacious claims with Your Cheeky Guide to the Roman Empire.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Special Episode – The Emperor Titus with Marc Hyden appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

Marcus Furius Camillus is an ancient Roman that it is hard to ignore, especially in the early days of the 4th century BCE. He has been regularly popping up in our episodes from the era, so we thought it would be wonderful to invite on a special guest to discuss his whole life in one handy biographic episode.

Marc Hyden is the Director of State Government Affairs at a Washington DC-based think tank, as well as being a weekly columnist for the Newnan Times-Herald, Albany Herald, and Rome News-Tribune. Marc graduated from Georgia State University with a degree in philosophy. 

Marc has authored many, many books on Ancient Rome. His most recent work is Emperor Titus: The Right Hand of Vespasian (McFarland, 2025), and we will be talking with him about that in a future episode. He has also authored Gaius Marius: The Rise and Fall of Rome’s Saviour (Pen & Sword, 2017), Romulus: The Legend of Rome’s Founding Father (Pen & Sword, 2020), but our focus today is going to be on Marcus Furius Camillus: The Life of Rome’s Second Founder (Pen & Sword, 2023).

We are sure you will love hearing Marc talk about Camillus, the man who served as a role model for later Roman luminaries like Julius Caesar and Augustus.

If you would like to hear more, we have a stack of episodes in our back catalogue that feature Camillus.

Our music is by Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Dr Rad 0:15
Welcome to the partial historians.

Dr G 0:19
We explore all the details of ancient Rome,

Dr Rad 0:23
everything from political scandals, the love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other, I’m Dr rad,

Dr G 0:33
and I’m Dr G, we consider Rome as the Romans saw it, by reading different authors from the ancient past and comparing their stories.

Dr Rad 0:44
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

Dr Rad 0:55
Hello and welcome to a special episode of the partial historians, I am one of your hosts. Dr rad, and I am, Dr G, now. Dr G, we have been basically hosting the Camillus show for a good many episodes now. And so it is with great pleasure that we welcome on our next guest, Marc Hyden. Marc Hyden is the Director of State Government Affairs at a Washington DC based think tank, as well as being a weekly columnist for The Newnan Times, Herald, Albany Herald and Rome News-Tribune. Marc graduated from Georgia State University with a degree in philosophy. Marc shares a love for ancient Rome, and has published numerous books on the subject. His most recent work is Emperor Titus: The Right Hand of Vespasian, which came out with MacFarland in 2025 and we will be talking with him about that in a future episode. He has also authored Gaius Marius: The Rise and Fall of Rome’s Savior with Pen and Sword in 2017, Romulus, The Legend of Rome’s Founding Father with Pen and Sword in 2020 but our focus today is going to be on Marcus Furius Camillus, the life of Rome’s second founder, which came out with Pen and Sword in 2023 and so I’m sure everyone is cheering right now because they want to hear much, much more about Camillus than we have ever told them. Welcome Marc!

Marc Hyden 2:28
Hey, thanks so much for having me, and I’m glad I can find some other people that I can nerd out with about Camillus.

Dr Rad 2:34
You are indeed in the right location, all right. Well, let’s kick it off with some general questions. We know that family is very important in ancient Rome. Can you please tell us a bit about Camillus’ family and background?

Marc Hyden 2:51
Sure, and you know, I started writing the book about Camillus at the beginning of the pandemic, and I was trying. I thought I would write this book chronologically, which is what I did. I decided to try to figure out start off with, well, essentially, who was his father and his grandfather? That’s kind of how these things work. And unfortunately, his whole family, more than a generation or so before him, there’s not really much known. We do know that he hailed from a patrician family, the gens Furii, and judging by some of the members names and some epigraphic evidence, they were probably of Latin stock, and they had roots in the cities of Tusculum and Medulia, not too far from Rome. However, they wouldn’t have been originally Roman from the Romans eyes. They were they were Latin. They were a little bit different, but eventually they were incorporated into the early republic. And actually they might have been incorporated even in under the monarchy. But initially, the Furii they they weren’t really that influential, at least compared to some of the other clans. I mean, we think about the great clans like the Fabii, who seemed to like have a stranglehold on early and even later part portions of the Republic. But in spite of this, the fury, they clearly did enjoy some sway in old Rome, beginning about a generation before Camillus was born. And we know this. We can see from the Fasti Capitolini and from some other evidence, I believe that the first person in his family to gain prominence with Sextus Furius. So he was a consul at some point in 488, BC, most likely, although Varronian dating is off, you know, that might have been off by at least three years or so, but he became one of Rome’s two consuls. And he was probably a direct ancestor of Camillus, or at least somehow related to him. But after he came to power then, then other people start in his family started to ascend to the pinnacle of elected Roman politics, and by the mid fifth century BC, Camillus was born into this increasingly ascendant family. And that brings me back to trying to figure out who the heck was his father and his grandfather. Father, because Livy doesn’t mention this. Plutarch doesn’t mention this. No one mentions this. So I started looking at the inscriptions from the Fasti Capitolini, and within it, it, you know, it has his name, Marcus Furius Camillus. And then there’s these weird abbreviations in there. What those abbreviations are? They tell you the shorthand of what his grandfather and his father’s name was so we know that his grandfather was Spurius, and his father was Lucius. So with that, we can deduce that his grandfather is probably Spurius, Spurius Medullinus Fusus, who happened to be consul in 464, BC. And his father was Lucius Furius Medullinus, and he served as a consular Tribune a few times after Camillus birth,

Dr G 5:45
you’re setting us up really nicely, because Spurius Furius is one of our favorite Romans of the early republic in all of his iterations, because there were a few Spurius Furii. But to know that Camillus might be related into that line as well. Well, well, it warms the heart. It makes so much sense to us as fans, thinking about when Camillus starts to rise to prominence. Can you tell us a little bit about how his early career starts to take off?

Marc Hyden 6:15
Yeah, much like his family, there’s not a whole lot known about Camillus in his early life, we know kind of the first big thing we hear about him is that at a young age, probably around 15 or 16 years old, he served in the cavalry during the Battle of Mount Algidus, which pitted the Romans against the Aequians and the Volscians. These these generational enemies that your listeners are very familiar with. And during this, this pivotal battle, the teenager, unlike what I would have been like at that age, he rode out beyond the Roman infantry’s line, and he engaged the Republic’s foes, and he had a bolt, an arrow, some sort of projectile, fired at him and it lodged in his leg. And despite it being stuck in there, and he’s probably suffering from blood loss, he urges his his steed forward and fights. He the enemy with distinction. And you know, all of his his colleagues saw this. They thought it was they thought it was excellent. They ended up winning the battle. And you know, he might have contributed to that as well, but he earned a name for his bravado, and he got plaudits back in Rome. But unfortunately, after he goes back to Rome and he has he gets to go enjoy a triumph with the dictator who won the battle of Mount Algidus. Nothing, there’s like a dark age for Camillus. The next 27 or so years, we don’t know a thing about him. We can glean some stuff. You know, he probably we he would have gotten married, and we know that he had kids, at least two boys, and he may have had many, many girls as well. And he probably worked on the family business, managing some farms and that sort of thing. But eventually he decided to follow his family’s footsteps and enter the political world. And this is, this is a kind of a mystery to me, and I’m sure it is to you, because the first office that we know of they decided to run for was the censorship. So the censorship was, was relatively new by this age. It had only been around for about a generation, but throughout much of Rome’s history afterward, the censorship was something that was a crowning achievement after a long, long career, a very successful career, not something you’re going to give some upstart freshmen. Somehow he, at least, according to the ancient accounts, he he succeeds. He’s one of Rome’s two censors, and he serves probably around 403 to 402 BC. And during that period, he did some for modernize, some some weird things. He worked to raise taxes by ensuring that orphans couldn’t get out of paying them, which sounds really, really terrible, but really he was probably, probably had to do with inheritance for very rich orphans whose parents had passed away, not poverty stricken ones. And he also worked to ensure that bachelors either paid a fine or married widows, because with all the plagues and all the wars, there were a lot of single women out there that were probably struggling to make ends meet, and he encouraged them to get married. And then afterward, after having what that was viewed as a very successful censorship, he decided to serve the state in some other ways, and he eyed the consular tribuneship. This is a very weird quirk of Roman politics, because we’ve already talked about the consuls. There’s two consuls that supposedly headed up the government in normal times, but then periodically in this era, there were no consuls. So the ancient writers suggest that since the plebeians at the time could not hold the consulship. They’d obstruct the government and force them to appoint people other than consul so they would do consular Tribune ships or tribunes and plebeians could hold that as well as patricians, and that was supposedly the genesis of it. But there’s been some modern debate. One academic suggests that consular tri. Tribunes weren’t even an official position. They were actually war band leaders that the ancient writers misinterpreted. Meanwhile, others disagree, and they believe that they were actually a real position that was elected by the Roman populace. But the reason that they opted for tribunes rather than consuls is that you could have four, six, maybe even eight consular tribunes that serve at the same time. So you could fight a lot of wars, you could manage a lot of problems, a lot more than you could with only two consoles. And at this time, Rome was surrounded by enemies, or at least potential enemies. They had so many problems, so they were they were willing to kind of bend the rules and have consular tribunes lead them. So Camillus, after that long digression, Camillus decides he wants to run for this. And he wins a term in 401, and in 398, and immediately he’s put to the test. He He wages kind of a scorched earth campaign, first against the capitanis and then the filiscans, who are both allies, frenemies, something like that, with with Rome’s really serious foe, Veii and his he was successful. I mean, there was no major, major turning points in those but he waged a scorched earth campaign that really left them in pain, and this gave him the chance to propel within Roman society and eventually become a Roman hero.

Dr Rad 11:23
Yes, let’s talk more about his reputation as a Roman hero. There are a few moments that have started to emerge in our episodes that seem to put Camillus in the limelight. So can you tell us a bit about these times in his life which seemed to cement his reputation as a Roman hero, yeah,

Marc Hyden 11:41
I’d love to so around the time that he wraps up his his second consular tribuneship, Rome has been mired in this long siege of the eye. They just this is this settlement that really was kind of the counter to Rome. They were Etruscan. It was built on this big, craggy mount, and it was very well fortified, and they had been fighting each other, supposedly since the days of Romulus. They these guys just did not like each other. But over the years, Rome slowly had started to outperform Veii and really everything tended to center generally around the city of Fidenae because of the control of a lot of different routes, communication lines and that sort of thing. Rome, at this point, they were really ready to smite their foe and just be done with it for years to come. But it wasn’t going well. They kept having embarrassing mishaps happening on the front and after about 10 years of the siege, and we’ll talk about later on, about how the siege probably didn’t actually last 10 years. But according to the ancient accounts, it lasted 10 years. It wasn’t going well. Rome decided we’ve got to just name a dictator, the dictators of today’s era. I mean, it’s, it’s a scary, very bad thing. No one wants a dictator. Back then, it wasn’t considered a bad thing. It was. It was a term of no more than six months, and they appointed someone in times of emergency so they could control the city state’s resources and focus it all on the main issue, which was vi so they appointed Camillus to do that, and he performed ably. And instead of using the same tactics that had not been working there, he decided to undermine the city. So he had these mines cleaved underneath. And while that was going on, they scaled the walls, opened the gates, and VI fell. And in fact, supposedly, you can still find some of the mines or drainage pipes that Camillus and his troops might have used today in the vicinity, which is pretty exciting for a big nerd like me. So he has the success there. It’s a very big success, but it causes him serious grief later in his life, not too much later, but we’ll get to that in a little bit his next moment that really cements him as a Roman hero comes in 394, BC. So at this point, Camillus is once again serving as a consular Tribune. And as you’ve talked about on on your podcast before, he was charged with eliminating Falerii as a threat. So he battled them. He hems them into into the city, and he begins to lay siege. And as your listeners know, Faliscan schoolmaster, you know, he’s got all these these noble children under his tutelage. He teaches them reading, writing, arithmetic and whatnot, and also lets them exercise. So every day he takes them out of the city walls, and each day gets a little bit closer to the Roman sentinels, until he’s able to finally hand these children over to Camillus. And he tells them, hey, you know, this is a great opportunity. You can take these children, use them as hostages, pawns of war, and bring the city to their knees. And the schoolmaster probably thought that he was going to get recompense. And rewarded for, for this, this terrible act. Well, instead of it working out, it really ticks off Camillus, like he’s a man of integrity, at least we’re told that he is. So he has the man stripped of his clothing, has him flogged, and, you know, in it just weird Roman form, gives all these children canes to just beat this poor man senseless as they march back to Falerii, where everyone’s watching in kind of disbelief, and they’re like, gosh, you know, this Camillus guy could have used these children against us, but he chose not to. He’s a man of honor. Rome must be a city state of honor. We’re going to be at peace. So it ends bloodlessly, and they become friends, supposedly, and that is one of the that it’s the second and a very large episode in which it really cements his his legacy. Now the last major episode comes later, and we’re talking about Rome sacking the most one of the most embarrassing and humiliating moments in the record, although there’s a canonical view, and then there’s the view of what really happened, and we can get to the reality a little bit later. But according to legend around 390 BC, this is veronian dating again in Livy, a band of Gauls known as the Senones, and were led by Brennus, King Brennus, and they defeated the Romans at the river Alia, sacked Rome, with the exception of the capitolin Hill, and then laid siege to it. They’re unable to capture it, because barbarians, of course, don’t know how to do things. So they can just, they can just make people’s lives miserable. And eventually they say, hey, we’ll leave. Give us 1000 pounds of gold. No big deal. The Romans, eventually they agree, we’ll give you 1000 pounds. They start carting it down, and the Gauls are weighing it to make sure they have enough, but they’ve actually rigged the scales so that they can get more than 1000 pounds. And the Romans, they get wise to this, and they figure it out. And when they complain. There’s the famous moment where Brennus walks up to the weighing plate and throws his sword on it. And when the Romans asked, What does this mean? He, you know, exclaims, Vae victis, or Woe to the vanquished. So while all this is going on, Camillus is living in exile. And we can we’ll talk a little later about why he’s in exile and he is appointed dictator in absentia. At first they asked him to take, take control the troops that were around Rome’s vicinity. He refuses to do it, but they they appoint him. He refuses to do it because it would be inappropriate at first, because he didn’t have the statutory power. So once they appointed him formally dictator, he takes the troops, eventually marches back into Rome, and he sees this exchange with gold, and he’s he’s furious, and he explains to Brennus, in uncertain, no uncertain terms, that he’s dictator, he’s Supreme Leader. This is not a real agreement, because he would never agree to it. And then they start to battle. He pushes them out of Rome, and then the next day, at the near the eighth milestone, they had wage a big battle. And at that point, Camillus destroys the barbarian threat and collects a lot of the gold, or at least the canonical account suggests that. So the last major episode that really lifts Camillus into being this demigod, really for Romans, is the reversal of the Senones at Rome.

Speaker 1 18:27
It’s such a big moment as well, very dramatically told in Livy and some of our other ancient sources. And I do really enjoy this idea that Camillus is furious at Brennus, because that ties in very nicely with the gens as well. So Camillus has these moments of glory. They’re pretty significant, significant enough that Romans continue to talk about them centuries later. But you’ve already hinted at the idea that there are some things that don’t go so well for Camillus. And you noted that he’s actually in exile in the lead up to this sack by the Gauls. Can you speak to some of the more controversial things that are going on with Camillus?

Marc Hyden 19:14
Yeah, and it seems, it seems bizarre that this exempla of Roman virtue is somehow embroiled in any controversy. But there’s, like, there’s several moments, so there’s quite there’s a bit of a laundry list. So bear with me. But after sacking Veii Camillus is awarded a triumph. And you know, he’s He’s excited. This is a celebratory parade through Rome that everybody wants it. Children probably dream of getting this. And he gets it, and he wants it to be pretty fancy. So, you know, he gets dressed up, most likely, as paints his face red and makes him look like Jupiter, and even secures four white horses to pull his his triumphal carriage to modernize. That’s who cares. That’s a big shrug to the road. Romans. This was symbolism the four white horses. No one had ever done this before in Rome, supposedly, and to them, this was symbolism that was more appropriate for for the gods, as opposed to a man. So he, he goes through, you know, down the via sacrum snakes the Rome, and he probably sees all these lawn lookers recoiling at his impious display. So that causes a lot of grief for what now is seems like a very minor infraction, especially when you consider what later emperors like Nero are up to my goodness, this is, this is a nothing burger. But this wasn’t the only controversy. There’s several stemming from Veii’s fall Camillus, while he was the sacking was underway or getting ready to he pledged that he would donate a 10th of the spoils to Apollo, the god Apollo. Unfortunately, he didn’t really define what the spoils were or how the tithe would get collected. And what really made collecting this tithe so difficult is that immediately after the sack, the Senate, along with Camille, has decided, you know, we’re just going to let the people go and take whatever spoils they want. We’re nice guys like that. Just take whatever you want from this poor city that we have just ravaged. So you have all these people living in poverty, that their lives might be slightly better because they got a gold bowl or a gold cup or something silver that they were able to take from Veii well, they start witnessing these portents that perhaps the gods are pretty angry that this tithe has not been paid. So, you know, priests, the Senate, Camillus, they start talking, they they realize they really shouldn’t have reneged on on their on camillius Promise. It was solemn, it was inviolable, and they needed to deliver it. So they kind of mulled over ways of trying to do this, and they settled on telling the people that they had to voluntarily donate 10% of whatever they took from the city. Well, this ticked a lot of people off. I mean, they recently had a windfall. Some of them may have already spent it, you know, buying land, buying tools or whatever, and now they had to somehow find a way to donate a 10th of it. Supposedly, everyone did it. So good for Camillus, you know, his pledge was ultimately fulfilled. But you can imagine how angry the populace was. You know this, this guy had come in and his four white horses acting like a god, and now he told me that I gotta give back 10% of of what I’ve got recently.

Marc Hyden 22:30
So rude. How do you give back 10% of a gold bowl? You had to chip part

Marc Hyden 22:31
You had to chip part of it off, I guess, I’m not quite sure. So this, this really embittered quite a few people against him, but more, as I hinted, there’s, there’s more issues related to the sack, the sacking after doing so, a plebeian Tribune named Sicinius advocated for splitting Rome in half. Said half the Senate can go to Veii, half the plebeian populace can go there. You know, it’s a great place to live, despite what the Romans had just done to it. It’s defensible. They have good land, that sort of thing, and plus, it’s going to enrich everybody, because everyone’s going to get land, and we’re all going to be very happy doing this. Well, the plebeians probably loved this. The Senate, the patricians, they hated it, including Camillus, and the reason was, you’re splitting Rome in half, that’s going to weaken them, the two cities, even though they were supposed to continue operating under the same city state, they probably would have fought each other. And also, the very religious Romans probably thought that this was a slap in the face to the gods who had cultivated Rome that space for them. So Camillus fights against his proposal, and he and the patricians are victorious. But again, a lot of the people were probably pretty upset. They thought that they were going to get farmland to settle and these sorts of things. So then finally, the last issue related to the sacking comes from a different plebeian tribium, and this is Apuleius. He filed bogus charges against Camillus, suggesting that he had embezzled spoils from the the sacked city. Now the ancient writers are pretty much in unison saying that this is false. Camillus didn’t do anything wrong. The the justification for this was supposedly that Camillus had some bronze doors on his house, and supposedly that came from Veii he was allowed to collect spoils. He probably was even allowed to collect the commander’s share of spoils. So that’s not an indictment. This was Trump. These were trumped up charges. But the problem for Camillus is that he knew he was gonna lose in court. He was not gonna be able to win this his powerful friends wouldn’t be able to help them, or at least refuse to help him. So instead of suffering the ignominy of a kangaroo court condemning him, he decides to go live in exile, voluntarily in the city of Ardea, which explains why he was absent when. The Gauls sacked Rome, but when he comes back and saves the Romans from the Gauls, the people, once again mold the idea of relocating wholesale to Veii Camillus, again, was very opposed to this, and he derailed the measure, but it probably irked a lot of Romans, and then the last piece that really that tainted Camillus legacy to a much more minor degree, had to do with Marcus Manlius Capitolinus. He was a patrician who charted his own path to power. He, for some reason, felt like he couldn’t rely on the patricians to propel him toward his dreams. And he saw the plebeian body is much larger, and he knew that they suffered under the yoke of debt. So he advocated for essentially total debt forgiveness. He said the patricians actually had enough money to pay for all their debt, pay all the debt off, and they were hiding the money. And he knew where it was, but he wasn’t going to tell him where it was at just yet, at least. So Marcus Manlius Capitolinus, decides to go a step further, like he wants power, and he tries to use debt forgiveness to do that, something that really doesn’t go far, but it seems that he starts to warm to the idea of a revolt, maybe taking over the Capitoline Hill. And he’s also open to becoming the king, which is something at that time of Rome, yeah, they didn’t like kings too much, not at all. So eventually the Romans captured him, they tried him. Camillus was involved in in this situation, and eventually they they executed him in pretty gruesome fashion. And of course, this really angered a lot of the debt stricken plebs. So Camillus many great things to talk about, but he was not without controversy.

Dr Rad 26:48
Ah, it sounds like his patrician loyalties are what often gets him into trouble. So we know that the Romans love using an exemplar in both ways, both people that are to be admired, and also people that are to be reviled. Tell us what are the distinctive qualities that we can see in someone like Camillus?

Marc Hyden 27:08
Well, Camillus, despite these faults, despite controversy, he emerges, at least in the canonical accounts and much of the literature, unscathed. Really, he’s able to find redemption. And as I mentioned earlier, a lot of his infractions were a lot. They were pretty minor compared to the later, mad emperors and all that sort of thing. So I would say, first of all, if we’re talking about the distinctive qualities that that they saw in in Camillus, first of all, he was a Roman patriot. No one could say that he wasn’t. The Romans turned on him, and they sent at least according to the canonical account, and they sent him essentially into exile. These are his friends, his compatriots, the people that he had defended. They turned on him. But then when the senonas Sack Rome, they beg him to come back, and he’s willing to do so he comes back and he saves them, and apparently he doesn’t hold any grudges, uh, afterwards. So this is, this is kind of a selfless patriotism that we see from from Camillus. He also obeyed the law to the letter. And this is something that, you know, these fastidious Romans appreciate it, so before coming to Rome’s defense, after the sacking from the Gauls, he required that the government appoint him dictator, otherwise he would only be a private citizen without any power to lead armies. Now it was pretty difficult for this besieged band of Romans to appoint him dictator. But they managed to do it, and it pleased him, and it left him feeling as though that he was obeying the law and he wasn’t violating the Constitution, the unwritten constitution, in any way, shape or form. So he obeyed, obeyed the law, and he was generally fastidious at it. He also understood inequity to a degree, and often tried to avoid its controversy. So at the beginning of the podcast, we talked about how the consulship was reserved only for patricians at this point. Now, some rich plebeians, they certainly wanted to participate in this, and they would soon be able to. But this created a lot of controversy, and despite having this incredibly long curriculum vitae, Camillus refuses to ever be consul. He’s consular Tribune, but he won’t be Consul, supposedly, because of the controversy that surrounds it, and he also respected the gods. The Romans were a very religious people. I mean, some of their religious activities and everything are just really bizarre to modernize, but it was their thing. You know, it can’t be too judgmental. But he respected the gods, and even though he forgot or somehow didn’t immediately fulfill his promised tithe to Apollo, he generally worked to keep his his other oaths and remember the the pantheon of deities and then the last. Last the last distinctive quality, I think, that I would mention, is that he was a man of integrity. In the Faliscan the Falerii episode, he refused to use children as pawns in war, and he even worked to ease strife between the plebs and patricians after the plebeian tribunes, this is later in his life, suspended government for around five years and obstructed just about everything. Camillus worked to secure a compromise that gave the plebs more power. Then, after he did that, they could finally hold the consulship and some some pretty serious priesthoods. And this ended some of the inequity, but certainly, certainly not all of it.

Dr Rad 30:40
Politician with integrity,

Dr G 30:42
such a rare combination. Well, would we ever see such a man in our lifetimes? So I think this leads us really nicely into thinking about legacy, because Camillus gets a lot of attention in our ancient source material, and a lot of these written sources in particular are coming from a much later period of time, often the first century BCE, whereas Camillus is living his life and career in the fifth and the fourth centuries. So there’s quite a long period of time between the activities he’s involved in and when we get this flourishing of material about him. So I’m interested in what is Camillus legacy for the Romans?

Marc Hyden 31:23
To the Romans, Camillus was, without a doubt, he was an exempla of Roman virtue, which is a little bit different than you know what the virtues that you and I probably hold, but for Roman virtue, he was an exempla, and he was a role model for all subsequent leaders. Now you talked about a lot of the writings come hundreds of years after he died, and that is a problem with a lot of this, that era and the monarchical era. And I think he probably was able to shine in that era, when you had increasing numbers of corrupt and base politicians and people that were involved in power grabs and tried to violate the constitution. They had someone that they could say in row in our history, that is who you should be like. Now, of course, we know what happened to the Roman Republic and then what happened to the Empire. They kind of forgot their way, but they had someone to point to when they needed to try to correct themselves and the remote the Romans, they looked at him more than just this exemplar. He was the man who who finally vanquished Veii, he saved Rome from the Gauls. He rebuilt it after they had razed it to the ground, and he worked to ensure that the city of Rome, despite numerous, to at least two attempts to abandon or partially abandon, it would continue to be the seat of the republic and the empire for for hundreds of years to come. I mean, he’s known as the second founder of Rome. He held so many consulships, dictatorships, triumphs, and even was a censorship I mean, this is a man, a bit of a renaissance man that did just about everything and did almost everything right, at least according to very good PR,

Dr G 33:09
sounds dangerous. Sounds like it might almost be too good to be true.

Dr Rad 33:14
Ah, speaking of that, Dr, G, let’s talk about the historiography around Camillus. So one of the more intriguing theories we have stumbled across when we’ve been covering this time period is that Camillus was not, in fact, a historical figure at all, or at least his life and career might actually be some sort of amalgamation, perhaps, of numerous men from his family clan, and we’re curious to hear what your thoughts are on this mark.

Marc Hyden 33:46
So I take the position that I believe Camillus absolutely was a historical character who played an outsized role in the early republic, and he probably even played a role in the sacking of Veii say this, he’s incredibly well attested in the literary record, although it does come later, he’s well attested in the Fasti Capitolini and even famed historian, I think he was famed historian, TJ Cornell casted no doubt whatsoever that he was a historical character that did some some fantastic things for the Romans. However, outside of those two things, that he was a historical character, held some public offices of some kind, and did something at Veii after that, we really don’t know. That’s when things start getting a little fuzzy. So I think we can look at some of the issues around it. You know, I talked about the siege of the eye lasting 10 years. Well, we don’t believe most historians don’t believe it actually did that was a literary creation that they tried to borrow from, the Trojan War that supposedly lasted 10 years and the mysticism around it. But we still think. I mean, Veii was a real place, and it was sacked, and there’s no reason to believe that Camillus didn’t have something to do with that. Now, plenty of people have talked about Camillus life being embellished, exaggerated and combined with his family members, and I think that absolutely probably is the case. I don’t have any reason to doubt that it would be just incredibly hard, probably, especially in this era, to accomplish so many different things, even into old age. You know, we’ve talked about the Gallic sack of Rome, but there is supposedly another war that he led against against a different band of Gauls, and he would have been in his late 70s. My goodness, in ancient Rome, that’s a ripe old age, and you’re supposed to be leading armies. I’m not so sure. So I think that there was a family, the Marcus Furius Camilla’s, his family, his descendants and relatives, that were really accomplished. And somehow it got attached into this, this one person, you know, it might have been a son that engaged the Gauls at a later time. And there’s some theories about how this might have happened. You know, the histories were very bad back then. So people, there were family histories, there were eulogies to go off of. So families might have been embellishing their own story and building up this hero, but yes, I think Camillus was real. Did he do everything that the ancients said? Almost certainly not.

Speaker 1 36:28
Oh, Camillus a man of many faces and perhaps many men at the same time. To round off this conversation, one of the things that gets bandied about about Camillus, is this idea that he is actually the second founder of Rome. And I kind of love the phrasing of this. It’s almost, it’s a very Roman idea to think about somebody in this way. And I’m interested in, to what extent do you agree with this idea that he’s the second founder?

Marc Hyden 36:57
Well, it’s romantic. Let’s, let’s, let’s not doubt this one too. I’m joking. Of course, this is a tough one, so especially with only limited knowledge, I can tell you what the archeological evidence shows, what my research has showed, and we can just put the cards on the table. So the Romans, they mostly believe that he was the second founder of Rome. And modern scholarship, of course, who cast doubt on that? Now he supposedly received the sobriquet from defeating the Senones, defeating a measure to abandon Rome for Veii and then overseeing Rome’s reconstruction. So that’s why they named him. Supposedly named him Rome’s second founder. He was another Romulus. So Romulus is the first founder. He literally founds Rome. Camillus saves it and rebuilds it. And then, of course, Marius becomes the third founder of Rome, or was at least styled that way. But there’s a lot of problems here with regard to Camillus, which, of course, is someone who thinks he’s a pretty cool guy. Breaks my heart, because Camillus might not have actually had anything to do with the Senones, the sacking in the first place, which really just kind of throws Roman history out the window. And the theory behind this, it resonates. The claim is that his exile is actually a work of fiction, because it was just so embarrassing that the Romans were sacked by a bunch of bumbling barbarians that they needed to exculpate their hero, this guy that had already sacked their chief enemy, so they sent him into exile, so that he wouldn’t have been part of this sacking and this embarrassment, at least that’s the theory. He might have been there when it happened, and then went and left the city like many other people did. But there’s actually some ancient evidence that the Romans didn’t kick the the Gauls out. They actually paid them. There are a few references to the Romans getting the the money back later, sometimes much later, which is really embarrassing for the Romans that they had to pay these people to leave, so Camillus probably not in exile, probably didn’t come save them. The last real indictment on the being called the second founder is that the archeological evidence doesn’t show that the sacking was really that bad. It was a very mild sacking, as far as they go.

Dr Rad 39:18
Well, more like a pillow tussle.

Marc Hyden 39:20
The Gauls were busy. They were doing other stuff. They were probably in the pay of the tyrant of Syracuse, Dionysus. So they were probably going south, tackling some of Syracuse’s enemies, and then if there was anyone in their way, they would just go ahead and sack them and steal all their stuff and then move on. So like they didn’t want to hang around. They probably had other things to do. But and also, the archeological evidence shows that the sacking was pretty mild, so there might not have been any reason for the Romans to talk about abandoning Rome in the first place. And if there was, it’s very possible that the that Camillus is counseled against it, but everything else. Is really doubtful. And there is one other theory that, in fact, Camillus was later grafted onto the story to replace a city Caere, which had come to the Romans aid during the sacking. Well, eventually their friendship fell apart, and they didn’t want to sing the praises of the city that they no longer liked. So they created this myth around Camillus, saving them and not the city that they don’t like anymore. That’s not they’re not cool. And even when you look at more ancient sources, Aristotle has a very curious line. So he was a little interested in what was happening in Rome, even though Rome was not important on a global scale at the time, and he said that a certain Lucius saved Rome, not a certain Camillus, which some people have theorized it was, I think it was Lucius Albinus who had selflessly tried to help the Vestal virgins. But it could have been anybody else, because being called Lucius was kind of like being called John. Now, it could be anyone. But it’s very telling that he didn’t say Camillus, and for that, it breaks my heart a little bit.

Speaker 1 41:07
Oh, Camillus, not even getting his first name, right. Aristotle, come on.

Dr Rad 41:13
Oh, well, what a fascinating look at Camillus’ life. We know we covered over so many episodes, it’s really great to be able to pull it all together into one biographic study. So thank you so much for joining us today, Marc.

Marc Hyden 41:25
Hey, thank you so much for having me and and let me nerd out on Camillus.

Dr Rad 41:28
I’m sure our listeners would love to pick up a copy of your biography of Camillus. It is highly readable, I can definitely say that. And we really look forward to having you back on to talk about the emperor Titus soon.

Marc Hyden 41:40
You know, not a second or third or fourth founder, but he’s a pretty interesting guy. I was

Dr G 41:45
going to say he’s very cool. I’m excited to talk about him.

Dr Rad 42:00
Thank you for listening to this special episode of the partial historians. You can find our sources sound credits and an automated transcript in our show notes. Our music is by Bettina Joy De Guzman. The Partial Historians is part of The Memory Collective, creators and educators dedicated to sharing knowledge that is accessible, contextualized, socially conscious and inclusive. To find more from the Memory Collective head to collectivemem.com you too can support our show and help us to produce more engaging content about the ancient world by becoming a Patreon. In return, you receive exclusive early access to our special episodes and add free content. If monthly patronage is not your style, we have merch. We have a book, or you can just buy us a coffee on ko fi. And we’d like to say big thank you to all our Patreon supporters for making special episodes like this one possible. However, if your Imperial coffers do not overfloweth, one of the easiest and most important ways to help us is to tell someone about the show or give us a five star review wherever you listen. Until next time we are yours in ancient Rome.

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