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

It’s here! We delve into the wonderful world of Roman names. How do we understand who’s who? How did the Romans understand who was who? We’re here to consider the complexities of Roman naming conventions.

Special Episode – Roman Naming Conventions

We look into some of the key elements of the Roman naming conventions of the Republic and the Early Imperial period. This includes the praenomen (the first name), the nomen (a reference to the clan or gens that the person came from), the cognomen (this name could have a variety of meanings!), and the agnomen (nickname).

This is by no means the extent of types of names that Romans deployed over the course of their history, but it’s a good start on some of the tricky bits including why Roman loved repeating themselves.

We look at some very interesting examples included:

Is that Augustus with a bunch of fancy titles? Oh yeah. This comes from a statue base in Rome.

[I]mp(eratori) Caesari / divi f(ilio) Augusto / pont(i)f(ici) maxim(o) / trib(unicia) potest(ate) XXXVII / co(n)s(uli) XIII p(atri) p(atriae) sacrum

This is sacred to Imperator Caesar Augustus, son of Divine, pontifex maximus, holding tribunician power for the 37th time, consul for the 13th time, father of fatherland.

More details on this inscription here.

Naming conventions differed depending on who you were, the family you were born into, and what happened to you during the course of your life. Elite families had specific naming conventions, while different rules applied to enslaved people and those who were manumitted.

Got famous for all the wrong reasons? You probably had one or more unflattering nicknames.

Got famous for all the right reasons (according to Romans)? You likely had a name to recognise your superlative achievements.

Interested in our favourite Roman name so far? It’s none other than Spurius Furius! There’s been a few gentlemen with this name, but for a real blast from the past, check out Episode 91 – The Furious Romans.

Our music was composed by Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Edited for Latin terminology and to support our wonderful Australian accents!

Dr Rad 0:12
Welcome to the Partial Historians.

Dr G 0:16
We explore all the details of ancient Rome.

Dr Rad 0:20
Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other. I’m Dr. Rad.

Dr G 0:30
And I’m Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.

Dr Rad 0:41
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

Dr G 0:54
Hello, and welcome to this very special episode of the Partial Historians. I am Dr. G.

Dr Rad 1:03
And I am Dr. Rad. But what does that mean Dr. G?

Dr G 1:08
What is in a name? Would a rose by any other name would smell as sweet?

Dr Rad 1:14
One of us had to go there.

Dr G 1:17
It didn’t take long for this to fall down into a big heap did it? Roman names. That’s what we’re going to be talking about today.

Dr Rad 1:23
We are this is a special Patreon listener request. And you know what? It is about bloody time that we talk about names because God knows we trip over them all the time.

Dr G 1:37
Look, there’s nothing like a Latin name to really wake up the tongue when you’re trying to get all of your announced creation happening on a podcast about ancient Roman history.

Dr Rad 1:46
Yeah, I think my favorite one which always looks really daunting on the page is Tricipitinus or Tri-cip-itinus.

Dr G 1:54
Yeah, stay right away from that.

Dr Rad 1:57
So the Romans are known for having seemingly bizarre naming conventions where a lot of men are named the same thing, which makes things very confusing. And they also have seemingly very long and phonetically challenging names. So we thought it is a good idea to talk about this because it’s actually there’s actually so much more to it, I suppose there might first meet the eye and like an episode where we’re just rattling off console names and that kind of thing. Indeed,

Dr G 2:27
and I think I’d like to start I’d like to take us right back to the beginning the very early days of Rome just to sort of set the scene a little bit back in the olden dear listeners, welcome to The Land Before Time.

Dr Rad 2:45
A tale as old as time. Okay, the scene is set.

Dr G 2:52
Rome was open fields ruled by kings

Dr Rad 2:56
Houses were built out of mud.

Dr G 3:00
It was a beautiful time, a time of peace and prosperity.

Dr Rad 3:04
I actually just realized that most of the time the houses were built out of mud.

Dr G 3:08
Yeah, it makes sense. So the Roman kings have names right? So we’ve got guys like Numa Pompilius, and we’ve got Tullus Hostilius. And these are like precursor names. This is kind of like the first type of naming convention and Rome has to move away from it pretty quickly. Because it gets bigger, its population expands and they need to differentiate in more complex ways.

Dr Rad 3:33
Yeah,

Dr G 3:34
This initial naming system. Sorry

Dr Rad 3:36
No no no, sorry. I was gonna say, yeah, cause like the most famous part obviously, of rumoured names that most people know about is the three names. That man supposedly have the tria-nomina, which belongs to elite men. But right back at the beginning, it was not tria.

Dr G 3:52
It was not no, no. Sometimes it was just one. Romulus is just Romulus-

Dr Rad 3:59
He’s a bastard!

Dr G 4:02
We know nothing about him his name, definitely. Because how did you get in charge of anything?

Dr Rad 4:09
Outrageous.

Dr G 4:11
And then we’ve got these guys like Numa, who have two names. Numa Pompilius-

Dr Rad 4:15
Getting more complicated

Dr G 4:16
And this follows. Yeah, it does get more complicated. So this is where they use a patronymic naming approach, which is pretty common, and you see it in a lot of ancient cultures. It’s a very Indo-European thing to do, where the second name lets you know, who Numa is the son of. So the patriarchy is kind of like a little bit baked in already. So Numa is his praenomen – and that’s his first name. It’s probably what people call him. But he was the son of a guy called Pompeius. Which is cute. So we’ve got this -ilius suffix, which indicates “son of”.

Dr Rad 4:51
Right, okay. And the weird thing about the Romans, I suppose, is that the praenomen, which is like his personal name, There’s not really a lot of them. Yeah, at least when we look back over the evidence, you know, not compared to nowadays where we probably put a lot of emphasis on what is that first name so much so that there are people who do just have one name like Madonna, Cher. Beyonce. Just me. I know they got one of them. I know. But you know what I mean? We put so much emphasis-. Yeah.

Dr G 5:22
Where somebody more regal is always known by their two names. Taylor Swift.

Dr Rad 5:27
Ooooooo wait wait, wait, wait, wait wait wait. Are you saying that Taylor Swift is more regal than Cher Madonna and Beyonce?

Dr G 5:36
I’m not. I’m literally just like nobody ever refers to just by her first name. They always call her Taylor Swift. I don’t know why.

Dr Rad 5:43
No no, that’s true. It’s the same as like Kim Kardashian. But I think that’s because it’s Alliterative.

Dr G 5:48
Mmm that does not explain Taylor Swift at all. No. Moving away from that. Yeah. So the names get more complicated as time goes on. And the praenomen. First of all, it expands out a lot. We get heaps of praenomens in the early period of Rome’s, sort of naming convention period, the early republic, yeah. And then it sends to really narrow back in again, by the time we get to the late Republic, definitely. So this tells us something about how the significance of names changes over time, and also the potential for that name to be distinguishing changes over time as well.

Dr Rad 6:24
Well, definitely, because I think that if we look at around the first century AD, whilst we have uncovered quite a few of these praenomen there’s really only between sort of 15 and 30 that are probably used with any sort of regularity. By the time you get to like the late Republic.

Dr G 6:44
Yeah, if you’re not a Gaius, and you’re not a Marcus, who even are you?

Dr Rad 6:47
I know. A Publius? Don’t me laugh!

Dr G 6:50
No gross, the whole name is a joke. So this trinomina is the combination of the praenomen (the first name), the nomen (which is the gens name, the clan that the person comes from) And there’s the cognomen, which could be any kind of additional name, really. So it could be a personal name, it could be a nickname, or it could be a branch of your gens. So the family – the specific family within your gens.

Dr Rad 7:23
yeah. And it kind of makes sense that they ended up adding on a cognomen because of course, as you get more and more people, it helps to set them apart more, it distinguishes them more, and it tells you obviously more about where they’re from potentially or something about them or their family. That’s kind of the whole purpose of these names. Right.

Dr G 7:42
Exactly. And so you might have somebody who is known as Publius Cornelius Scipio, for instance. Publius is his first name, you know, it’s a bit of a diamond a dozen. He comes from the Cornelius gens. So that’s his nomen. And Scipio is the family branch within the Cornelii And that might be his three names. Now, unfortunately, that branch of the family ends up being massive. So you’ve got Publius Cornelius Scipio, a number of times and Roman historians get confused. But that’s kind of the gist of it. You’ve got those three names. Now that guy is probably somebody who’s coming up in the middle Republic, one of the most famous of the Cornelius Scipione’s is Africanus.

Dr Rad 8:31
I was gonna say, I was waiting for it.

Dr G 8:34
He’s coming, he’s coming.

Dr Rad 8:36
It’s gonna take a lot to take me away from you.

Dr G 8:41
So Publius Cornelius Scipio Africanus has got four names. Wowzers.

Dr Rad 8:48
Well, you guess the thing you can just keep adding, if you really need you can

Dr G 8:51
Yeah, well, he doesn’t necessarily add this one himself. So that last one Africanus known as an agnomen, which is an honorific name that is given to you by other people for something great that you do.

Dr Rad 9:06
That is pretty cool. I must admit of all the Roman naming conventions. I kind of wish that we still practice that.

Dr G 9:14
So like our key example from I think the early republic, who we did many episodes on, is Gnaeus or Gaius Marcius (nomen) Coriolanus (agnomen) Because he gets that name after the siege of Corioli, the Volscian and city.

Dr Rad 9:33
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s probably interesting to note, I suppose that when these names are developing, they start off having certain meanings as well. Like the praenomens that we are dealing with, particularly in the early republic, they do have interesting names, which I actually had not thought about up until this. So so Marcus, one of our most common ones, probably originated because someone was a born in March so it used it you might have signified something about like when you were born. And and, for example, Manlius. It might have signified that you were born in the morning for manes.

Dr G 10:10
Okay, oh, that’s cute. Like Septimius Yeah, born in the seventh month, or Tiberius, who is known, named after the river god. So Marcus could also be a declaration of the gods Mars.

Dr Rad 10:23
Yeah, exactly. And so originally, these praenomens also had probably meanings probably to parents, I would say. But as we move on in time, and then that would have been probably very early on as we move on in time, I don’t think that they tend to pick those for those particular reasons. The only one I think that might still have some meaning later on is the habit of numbering.

Dr G 10:47
Oh, yeah, yeah. But they don’t usually use those for praenomens, necessarily, although sometimes – Quintus is a good one.

Dr Rad 10:55
Yeah,

Dr G 10:56
number five,

Dr Rad 10:57
exactly.

Dr G 10:57
Decimus, number 10. And some of them also come from different sort of language extractions. So Spurius, we think comes from Etruscan language. So it comes into Latin as Spurius. But it comes from the Etruscan ‘Spura’ to mean community.

Dr Rad 11:17
Very nice. Now, when it comes to the nomen, Dr. G, this is probably the most important in terms of indicating your gens, right? When it comes to political life in the republic that we’re going to be focusing on today, just because it gets too complicated. As time goes on, to carry on. Names continue to evolve the, um, the Republic, but we’re starting with the origins.

Dr G 11:41
So yeah, the origin story of the gens. So as Rome’s history is starting to flourish. So we’ve been looking very much at the early republic, in our founding of the city series, the gens becomes their sort of primary mechanism for establishing your place in Rome’s hierarchy. Yeah. So even if Dionysius of Halicarnassus and Livy, and our other sources are sort of imposing this struggle of the orders a little bit on to this period of time, it’s probably still the case that your gens – the family from which you derive- is a super important element of who you are, what your politics is going to be, and how you participate in ritual practice as well.

Dr Rad 12:34
Definitely.

Dr G 12:36
So this is part of the broader Roman understanding of patriarchy as well. So the gens name comes from the original ancestor, if you like, of the family. So it doesn’t take long for that sort of ancestral connection to be enough generations back that people don’t know who that person is anymore. It’s just a name. And also, that it’s a little bit murky enough, that if you’re really in straights, about what to do with your life, you might start to lie about where your family came from,

Dr Rad 13:12
Scandalous!

Dr G 13:14
It is illegal, the Romans don’t like that. They try to crack down on that. So if you’ve just pop up out of nowhere with a new name, that’s going to be very suspicious. But for people who are trying to figure out where they fit in the mix of things, if they’ve got a few obscure family connections, and they’re not really quite sure, there is a reasonable and plausible moment where you might be like, oh, yeah, no, I’m a Cornelii, obviously, just makes so much sense.

Dr Rad 13:43
Yeah, and it’s so interesting, because again, if you go back to the origins, again, some of these probably had obviously, particular meaning something to do with that particular family. And it could be something to do with where they are geographically located. Once upon a time as you say, it might be to do with an ancestor. It might even be to do with some sort of like agricultural thing, you know, if you think about like the origins of Roman society, so for example, we often talk about the fabulous Fabians. Fabius might come from ‘faba’ as in bean, which you might have with a nice chianti.

Dr G 14:22
A delicious Fabian, that’s what I like to hear

Dr Rad 14:26
It sounds a lot less fabulous. When you go back to the origins of it

It does explain why they’re so full of fiber.

Oh, yes. And, and as we said, with the praenomens as well, originally, there were fewer of these gens and then gradually it expands until there are lots like when we’re talking about the early republic, our listeners, I’m sure have noticed that we keep going back to very similar gens. Most of the time when we’re talking about people who are holding high office and that sort of thing is a bit of a repeat repeat thing going on with some of those families.

Dr G 15:01
Yeah, we have quite a few very well known genses (gentes) in the early republic. So the Aemilii, the Claudii, the Cornelii, the Fabii, the Manlii and the Valerii are real standout families that continue to dominate the politics of the early republic if our following the records that we’ve got of consuls, and military tribunes and so forth.

Dr Rad 15:29
Absolutely. Now we move on to cognomens, Dr G. So we’ve definitely been coming across a lot of those, it’s pretty common by the time you get to our period, which is still early republic, but the period we’re looking at the moment is, we’re very close to getting to 400 BCE, right. And pretty much everyone that we talk about who holds an important office tends to have a cognomen and not every single person we talk about has one, but a lot of them do. But when we get into more reliable times where the records are a bit, you know, bit better sort of late, mid to late Republic, I’d say. It becomes way more common, as you said, for people to have two of these subsequent names. So it might two cognomen. Or you might want to say it’s a cognomen and an agnomen. And so you see, like, as time goes on, again, like the names just get more complicated, and people add more on to them.

Dr G 16:21
They certainly do. So this idea of for cognomen, this additional name, and it extends out to even being able to have not just one, but eventually also to so you can just kind of keep building if you like as you need to, to let people know what your family lineage is. So some of the ones that are going to crop up in the middle Republic when we get to it a names like Dolabella, Scipio, Lentulus, Sulla, Cinna, all of these names are probably in isolation familiar to you, if you’re interested in Roman history anyway, because some of these names go on to be quite famous. Yeah, but they’re actually all of those are examples of a cognomen. That is part of a branch of a bigger gens.

Dr Rad 17:12
Yes, yes.

Dr G 17:13
So all of those names are examples of cognomen that go with the Cornelii gens. It’s always going to be Cornelius Dolabella, Cornelius Scipio, Cornelius Lentulus, Cornelius Sulla, Cornelius Cinna. These guys, they’re everywhere.

Dr Rad 17:32
And is that one of the interesting things particularly again, in the earlier periods is that these cognomens, they might have originated obviously some sort of like nickname or something to distinguish that branch of the family. And they’re not always the most positive names that you could come up with. So for example, we’ve got Cincinnatus who someone we’ve talked about before, which we think means “curly hair”. Now that’s probably not really like I suppose a negative thing, although, as someone who has curly hair, I struggle with that on a daily basis. So I guess I interpreted that way. But also-

Dr G 18:06
It’s a super cute name, though, like, think of the reputation that that family has throughout the history of robes, early Republic, and everybody’s just like, why don’t we go and talk to Curly Hair over there?

Dr Rad 18:16
That’s true. And then of course, Brutus is a name that we’ve definitely mentioned before, and even when we were talking about it, we explained that it meant “stupid”, which is not the best nickname.

Dr G 18:30
Definitely not as nice as a cognomen, like Faustus which you might think has negative connotations, but that’s much later and not ancient it. It has really positive connotations in the ancient world Faustus means “fortunate, auspicious, lucky”. So you have a little baby and you’re like, it’s just so Faustus!

Dr Rad 18:50
I’m going to throw in another couple that you that are a bit more negative Galba. Galba who we will get to eventually. I mean, actually, we have talked about it. And but that was, you know, back in the day. Galba means “fat belly”.

Dr G 19:05
Hmmm. Does it sound appropriate? I think it does.

Dr Rad 19:10
Crassus also means “fat”. Another guy we’ve talked about is Scaevola. And that obviously has to do with the hand incident. Okay, where he like punches his right hand into the fire and then he’s like known as “the left hander”. And then of course, we’ve got my personal favorite, which we haven’t come to yet, because it sounds rude but it’s not really Cunctator: “Ditherer”.

Dr G 19:35
Which means?

Dr Rad 19:36
Ditherer.

Dr G 19:39
We’ve also got things like Cato “smart guy”. And Blaesus, “the stammer” and things that are a little bit more descriptive and maybe a bit more boring things like Pictor “the artist” and Sura – I think you’re gonna like this one – “the man with the striking calf”.

Dr Rad 20:01
Whaat? That from two syllables?

Dr G 20:08
Look, that’s all you need when you’ve got, like, he walks past me like, “Mmm that’s a Sura right there.”

Dr Rad 20:16
Hilarious. Now of course, these nicknames could also be attached because of, again, some sort of like geographic connection with the family. It could also spring up because of some sort of office or something that you hold. Okay, so for example, you might get the name Flaminia. Just because you held the position of say Flamen Dialis, which is like a priesthood.

Dr G 20:41
Yeah, yeah. And you might be called Censorinus because you were twice censor.

Dr Rad 20:49
Yes. And Cicero’s friend who most people would know, just as Atticus. He got that name because he really loved Greek culture and spent quite a bit of time in Athens.

Dr G 21:01
Ah, the old Attica. Well, this also helps us with names like the king. Lucius Tarquinius. Priscus, who is letting us know that he has an origin story. He’s got this connection with Tarquinii. Yeah, this other city elsewhere. Although, if we’re sticking with Priscus for a moment, he’s a little bit unusual, because that Priscus name is something that’s given to him much later than when he’s alive. Priscus means kind of ancient, renowned, and doesn’t seem like the sort of name that you would add to anybody who was still alive.

Dr Rad 21:42
Maybe he was an old soul. So I guess-

Dr G 21:48
And then ee’ve got like, you know, cute things like Rufus

Dr Rad 21:52
Red hair.

Dr G 21:53
Red. Yeah. Cossus Wait for it. I like Cossus because we deal with Cossus – Cossus people a lot. The consul of 413 BCE was Aulus or Marcus Cornelius Cossus.

Dr Rad 22:09
Right.

Dr G 22:10
And Cossus means “the lavae that lives under the bark of trees”.

Dr Rad 22:14
Oh my god. Okay, I honestly like, first of all, I’m not even gonna ask how that one word leads to all of that. But how on earth would that come to be associated with a person? What is he like? A tree hugger? Like what does that mean?

Dr G 22:31
I think he’s a little bit wormy.

Dr Rad 22:33
Yeah, that’s weird, man.

I don’t know.

Wild.

Dr G 22:36
Maybe there is something something slimy about him.

Dr Rad 22:41
So, when we’re talking about these names, I think it seems like the Romans are very unimaginative. And that these names are super unhelpful. But when you start to unpack them, you actually realize that no, no, they’re trying to give a really clear idea of where someone’s from, what is their family name, that’s going to give you a bit of an indication eventually about where they belong in this society, their rank, and that sort of thing. And certain families will become obviously better known than others. And that really matters in a place like Rome. And the names continue to evolve. And they get more complicated as the society does, they actually reveal a lot. It’s not that it’s just that we didn’t have the full map, I suppose. We’re trying to figure it all out from it from a distance.

Dr G 23:27
Yeah, that’s true. And so to take things right back to the way that the kings were sometimes using that patronymic element to that nature, that reference back to the father does creep back in in a different form, as Roman names get a little bit more complicated, right? So as families grow, so your clan group grows, grows enough that you need to have these branches of the family within the gens, then you might also need to have a distinction about where in the branch you sit, for instance, and so the idea of having the filiation comes back in, so we have things like, Lucius Valerius – son of Lucius, grandson of Publius – Potitus. So this guy was a military tribute with consular power in 414 BCE.

Dr Rad 24:26
Right.

Dr G 24:26
So we’ve talked about this guy before. And he’s letting you know, not just that he has this praenomen Lucius, that he comes from the gens, the Valerii, but he is also the first son of the father Lucius because they’ve got the same name. So there’s a pattern to be drawn there. And his father was not the first son of the grandfather Publius. And then he has his cognomen as well Potitus. So the specific branch within and so they’re really trying to narrow down. So you can precisely locate where somebody sits in the overall hierarchy have anything to do with Romans public understanding of themselves. And it’s like you should be able to position him straightaway. And I suspect that in day to day life, everybody would have had a nickname.

Dr Rad 24:26
Yeah,

Dr G 24:26
That’s my suspicion.

Dr Rad 24:27
Oh for sure

Dr G 24:35
Because this is the sort of thing where it’s like, this is your official name for official documents. And if you have the honor of getting yourself onto an inscription somewhere, obviously, you have to use your real name because it’s super important for family business. But in day to day life, I don’t think people are in the street, seeing somebody across the way and being like, Lucius Valerius, son of Lucius, grandson of Publius Potitus. Like, you know, just like to get their attention. I don’t think that just seems completely unreasonable. Everybody, I think would have had a nickname anyway, that they probably picked up in childhood. And that becomes their, the way of distinguishing them in day to day life.

Dr Rad 26:00
Absolutely. And I think it probably very much like in our society, it depends on your level of familiarity, as to which name you might be using to address these people. So I would imagine that you’d have to be relatively familiar with an elite Roman man to be calling him by his praenomen. And if that’s what ever is, that’s what his family, for example, calls in just the same way that I wouldn’t necessarily go up to you and say, “Hey, Peta,” I would say, “Hey, Dr. G,” becasue we’re on formal terms.

Dr G 26:31
And we shall never depart from such formality.

Dr Rad 26:34
Exactly. Exactly. We always have to use titles because I hardly know you!

You’ll always be Dr Rad in my heart. We don’t know each other at all. It’d be insane to use our first names with each other.

Yeah, just like when you you know, as a child, you first meet an adult or like your teacher or something, you’re going to call them, you know, Miss so-and-so. You’re not going to say, “Hey, Sally, trying to figure out my coloring over here. Can you get some help?”

Dr G 26:57
“Excuse me, Mr. Cornelius?”

Dr Rad 27:01
Yeah exactly. Like, I feel like it has something to do with that. Because after all, these people with lots of names, these are the elite. And as usual, these are the people that we have an enormous amount of information about, because they’re the ones who are writing history. They’re the ones who are making history in their own minds. So we have a lot of their names recorded. And of course, they’re the ones that are generally wealthy enough to erect things like tombstones. Now, that’s not to say we don’t have evidence about other people are going to get to them eventually, either in this episode, or in another episode. But definitely, we have, I think, the most idea about how their names work, and they have all these complicated names, because it really matters to them, about status, you know, and family and that sort of thing. The lower down the social spectrum you go, the fewer names people tend to have in the early period of Rome.

Dr G 27:51
Indeed, indeed. And to give you a sense of how this elite tendency is operating as well. When we get into the late Republic, we start to see more and more evidence for elite family adoptions. So somebody shifting out of one very fancy family, and finding themselves legally situated in another very fancy family. And my go to example for this is Livia’s dad.

Dr Rad 28:24
Oh, I thought you were gonna use Augustus. Okay.

Dr G 28:28
Forget that guy. Livia’s dad, so he is born Appius Claudius Pulcher. So he’s born into the Claudian gens in the Pulchri branch of the family, but when he’s quite young, he is then adopted into the Livilli Drusi family. So another fancy family. Yeah. And this means that he picks up a whole bunch of new names. So he starts off with the praenomen Appius, but he becomes Marcus; starts off with the nomen Claudius, but becomes Livius; starts off with the first cognomen Pulcher and becomes Drusus. So almost completely unrecognizable. Like you said, “Who’s Marcus Livius Drusus?” you’d be like, “Well, it ain’t Appius Claudius Pulcher!” And you’d be mostly right about that. But the second cognomen that he’s got lets us all know, where he came from, and also what has happened to him, because he picks up Claudianus as a second cognomen and this is going to happen a lot and it’s going to get more complicated as people get further into the imperial period. But at this stage in the Republic, the -anus ending of a name – and shout out for people who have talked to us having noticed that anus comes up a lot. You are correct. And it’s gonna keep happening – The old -anus ending is indicating that he was born into the Claudii gens. So he gets to retain his gens affiliation in his name, but that Claudiaus is indicating that he has been adopted out of the Claudii. And he is now part of the Livius. Drusi instead.

Dr Rad 30:19
Yeah, cuz the Romans take adoption very seriously in practice, like you are literally legally removed entirely from your family of birth and put into another family. And it’s not like they look at you like, “oh, yeah, you’re not as good as my other children.” Or “I’m not taking you as seriously as my other children.” They take it very seriously. Like, it’s a done deal. Like you. You are one of them.

Dr G 30:44
When you’re adopted into a Roman family, you become part of that family? No question.

Dr Rad 30:49
Yes.

Dr G 30:50
Yeah, you are just as important as the other children that they have you are you have a legal standing that is comparable to what they have. And from that point onwards, that is where your allegiance lies. So that’s really interesting, I think, because the family is the bedrock of everything in Roman politics.

Dr Rad 31:07
It is. And I feel like it has to do with obviously, you’re taking on that name. And therefore you are part of that, you know, political legacy, in terms of that’s the name that we’re putting out there. It’s important, it’s associated with that family, but I feel like it also has to do with property. You know, because now that you’re Yeah, yeah, now that you’re legally a part of that family, you are going to be legally entitled to whatever it is that they have. And so that means that they kind of have to take you just as seriously because you’re gonna get just as much as the other male people and the female, you know, so women can inherit property and Rome after a certain period. So you’re going to be inheriting most likely so that that part is important, too.

Dr G 31:52
Yeah. So this is telling us something really significant about the way that the legacy system in Roman families is operating as well. So part of what happens for elite families is that they are trying to figure out ways to keep the property that they own within their family lines. So if you are in a situation where you have daughters, elite women are able to inherit under certain circumstances. And certainly progressively over time, it becomes more common that they can, but there is a period in which it’s still quite challenging for that to be for sure, legally, okay. And one of the ways you can get around that is to adopt male children into the family to secure that stuff.

Dr Rad 32:38
Okay, so I’m going to use the Augustus example, because it’s just an easy example for people to understand just to sum this all up. So very similar to the one that you highlighted, but maybe with some more familiar names for our audience. So Augustus is a special name, that this douchebag who ends up becoming princeps gets-

Dr G 32:59
Excuse me?

Dr Rad 33:01
Just making sure you’re still listening!

Dr G 33:04
So, so Augustus is an agnomen, one of these honorific names that’s given to him in 27 BCE. Fancy times!

Dr Rad 33:13
Absolutely. So he starts life as Gaius Octavius Thurinus, which I don’t think most people would recognize as having any resemblance to the names that we mostly use to refer to him.

Dr G 33:27
Are you he’s telling me he comes from a backwater equestrian family from the middle of nowhere?

Dr Rad 33:33
That might be what I’m trying to indicate by his name. Yes. So he gets adopted by Julius Caesar in his will, which is unusual, I’m just gonna highlight by the way. So he becomes kayas, Julius Kaiser, Caesar, whatever, however you want to say it. So obviously taking on the name of the man who adopted him, Julius Caesar. And then he has Octavianus at the end.

Dr G 34:01
Yes, which he hates.

Dr Rad 34:04
Yeah, which is why you’ll read books, which sometimes refer to him as Octavian. And as a way of sort of distinguishing the different periods of his life when he’s Octavius. It’s before he’s been adopted by Julius Caesar, who is his great uncle. When he’s Octavian. It indicates that he has been adopted by Caesar, but he hasn’t got the special honorific name of Augustus yet. And you might also find books that refer to him as like the young Caesar or something like that.

Dr G 34:35
Yeah, because Augustus didn’t want to be called Octavianus. He spent a lot of time tramping around being like, “No, I’m Gaius Julius Caesar, son of Gaius Julius Caesar.” And then he gets Julius Caesar deified and he’s like, my name is “Gaius Julius Caesar, son of the deified Gaius Julius Caesar.” Somebody will be like, “Well, Octavianus,” and he’s like, “Nooooo!”

Dr Rad 35:06
I feel like it sounds very much like he was like Marsha Marsha, Marsha. But yeah, he’s a good example because it kind of shows the process of him taking on the name and that being probably one of the most important things that Julius Caesar gives him – Dangerous, but important.

Dr G 35:24
It is definitely definitely the most important thing, Julius Caesar gives him because without that bit of paper, none of the stuff that he did would have been possible just there was just no way nobody would take him seriously. So the fact that when it gets anglicized they lose the honours ending of Octavianus-

Dr Rad 35:47
They’ve lost his anus? Aww no!

Dr G 35:52
I just hate it when that happens! why did they lose the anus?

Dr Rad 35:56
It’s hilarious because I think of nothing but arseholes when I think of him.

Dr G 36:02
You’re wounding me deeply, Dr Rad.

Dr Rad 36:04
I’m sorry. I’ll stop, I’ll stop. I’m very serious now.

Dr G 36:08
So his name is Octavianus. And it gets anglicized into Octavian. So that sort of creates even maybe more confusion for modern readers who are looking at things being like, is it Octavius. Is it Octavian? Is it Octavianus? Is it Augustus? What’s going on?

Dr Rad 36:24
Yeah, exactly. And it’s all to do with, as you say, those last few letters of the name, the -ius, the -ianus, Or the -anus and then, of course, the -us.

Dr G 36:36
Yeah, I mean, the -us is everywhere. So that’s just kind of how it goes. But yeah, the -anus, the -ilius, like these little nuances in those suffix – those endings to those words – is really important for what’s going on with the name. So when they drop off in, you know, modern translations and things like that, you know, it can lead to confusion.

Dr Rad 36:59
And when you have law at the end, that often is like a cute little nickname type of thing. Like if you think about Caligula, that’s meant to be “little boots”. Like, it’s like a little diminutive, where it’s meant to be like, “Oh my God, he’s so adorable. He’s a toddler and a little military uniform. And Look, he’s got little boots on!” Because the boots that the soldiers wore were caligae. And even for women as well. You might have someone who’s called for example, Livilla, which is like “little Livia”, you know, like, she’s so cute. She’s like, the smaller version.

Dr G 37:36
Yeah, and although this just makes me think of Ahala, which is “armpit”. And I was like,does that mean cute armpit now?

Dr Rad 37:45
I don’t know that Latin enough to be definitive about that. But you do tend to see when you see those sorts of names, then it can be like a little diminutive or something like that. But I don’t know that there’s a hard and fast rule about that.

Dr G 37:59
And I think you’ve opened up the the gateway into thinking about women’s names.

Dr Rad 38:04
Thank you, I’d love to talk about women’s names.

Dr G 38:08
Because women do get a pretty raw deal in the Latin language when it comes to names. There’s no doubt about it. If you need any evidence whatsoever, that we’re dealing with a highly patriarchal system, the way that they deal with women’s names is a key piece of evidence.

Dr Rad 38:26
It really is. So women get basically a feminized version of the nomen. So like the gens name, that’s how it starts. So to stick with the Julian’s, it’s probably the most obvious example. If you have a chick in that family, she’ll probably be called Julia or Yulia, depending on how you want to pronounce it. And if you have more than one, you’ll just number them off. So might literally be a number or it might be like a major-minor situation, but it’s basically indicating the order in which they were born.

Dr G 39:03
Yeah, now as far as I can tell, the the major-minor element is more to do with historians trying to distinguish historical figures, then how the Romans would have done it. Yeah. So for instance, we’ve got like Julia Maior – Julia the Elder versus Julia Minor – Julia the Younger – both of those women would have just been called Julia for the Romans.

Dr Rad 39:27
That’s true, and they would have just would have been confused.

Dr G 39:30
Yeah. Like which one are you talking about? Like, give me something? And that’s where I think everybody must have a nickname. Likewise, the issue with Agrippina Maior – Agrippina the Elder, wife of Germanicus – and Agrippina Minor, the daughter of Agrippina the Elder and Germanicus. Now those two are just, they’re just both Agrippina.

Dr Rad 39:50
Yeah, that’s true.

Dr G 39:51
That’s how it works. So if you’ve got more than one in the same family, so say the mother gives birth to three daughters. Well, then they start to get numbers you’ve got Julia? Julia Seconda. Julia Tertia. Yeah, we know of a famous example from the mid to late Republic, Claudia Quinta, suggesting that she was one of five sisters. Youngest at that.

But then you get like with the really sort of the boring things like you say like the feminization of the gens, and it could also include the branch within that gens. So Livia is known to us as Livia Drusilla. Because she comes from the Livi Drusi. Like her name is not special. It’s just letting you know where she comes from.

Dr Rad 40:38
Yes, absolutely. And this is kind of to do with the way that Roman marriage evolved. So very early on, we think that the Romans had a more sort of all encompassing version of marriage, the manus marriage, which is where a woman was properly, legally kind of absorbed into the family that she married into, almost as though she was in fact, like a daughter of that family. But that becomes unfashionable. And there are many reasons for that. It kind of has to do, I think, with the fact that women could be used as marriage pawns. And it was just easier to untangle a marriage if you didn’t go through the smartest marriage. But that’s just my personal opinion.

Dr G 41:23
And also increasingly, as women became able and more likely to inherit, you did want to retain them in the birth family, if you needed to.

Dr Rad 41:32
Yeah, exactly. And so when that happens when you get the sin monos marriage where a woman remains part of her original gens, even though she’s married to this man, she will obviously, her name will be like a living advertisement of where she comes from, you know, it’ll go obviously, it is like a feminized version of her original gens name. And as time goes on, I know we won’t get into it too much, but as time goes on, if women come from particularly elite families, sometimes later on in Rome’s history, they actually start to use those names sometimes when they’re fashioning names for children sometimes, but that’s much that’s much later on. And it’s, it’s too complicated for today.

Dr G 42:19
Yeah. And when the wife comes from a more illustrious family than the husband, you might want to lean into the prestige of where the wife and mother comes from, rather than the husband.

Dr Rad 42:30
Exactly, yeah. And as again, as time goes on, and again, we’re not going to get into this too much now. But as time goes on, women do acquire more than just like the one name it we do see women getting more names as time goes on. And if you’re not a higher class woman, you may very well get like a nickname or have like a stage name, I suppose of sorts. You know, like, if you’re, for example, I’m thinking of women who are like, sex workers, but like elite kind of sex workers, you know, they might have a proper name, but then they might also have like a, a nickname or a working name. So specifically, the one I’ll give you an example of, there’s a mistress of Mark Antony, known as Cytheris. Now, that wouldn’t have been probably her actual name name, but more of like a nickname, because she was an ex-slave of a guy named Volumnius. So her name probably would have been like, Volumnia, or something like that.

Dr G 43:26
Interesting. So like, nicknames. When we’ve got nicknames that are noted down, they’re often really quite rude. We’ve got one of the infamous examples in the Late Republic is Clodia.

Dr Rad 43:41
Oh, yes.

Dr G 43:41
Now, Clodia is one of three sisters. But then you’re like, Well, how are we gonna get her to stand out from the bunch? It turns out that she gains a bunch of nicknames, most of which are really critical, a lot of which come from Cicero, who doesn’t like her. She’s known as Nola, “the unwilling”. She’s, she’s also referred to as Medea Palatina, “the Medea of the Palatine”. And sometimes just as it seems, maybe a particular insult or maybe just a literal description, Clodia Metellii. I, because she’s married to Metellius, right. So she’s Metellus’ Clodia, as opposed to anybody else’s.

Dr Rad 44:25
So all about the ownership, isn’t it?

Dr G 44:28
Yeah. But she is also speculated to be the figure who appears in Catullus’ poetry, referred to as Lesbia.

Dr Rad 44:37
Yes, yes.

Dr G 44:38
So she is a woman of many names.

Dr Rad 44:40
Yes, I suppose it’s not so much like a stage name. It’s like a code name.

Dr G 44:44
Indeed, and look, Catullus, he’s, he’s got a lot of code names for people. I think my favorite one is his reference consistently to Mamuura – a guy he doesn’t like – as Mentula, cause Mentula is is a rude Latin word for penis.

Ah yes, the Romans.

So witty, so clever.

Dr Rad 45:12
Oh, dear, Well, should we talk about slave names? So do you want to wrap up there?

Dr G 45:16
I reckon we should talk about enslaved people, what is happening to them? And how do we know what their names are?

Dr Rad 45:22
Well, this is the thing, Dr. G, slaves very much like women, were low low down in the rank of things, you know, I mean, in terms of what they can actually do in life. Can they be involved in politics in a formal way? Hell no. Can they run an army? Absolutely not. So I think that their lack of role in public life is kind of reflected in their lack of names in terms of they don’t have very many, they’re that they’re certainly not gonna have a trianomina. That is definitely an elite Roman thing.

Dr G 45:56
And it seems to be the case that mostly what happens to them is they get given a name. And it’s a cutesy kind of nicknamey kind of thing. It’s a bit of a throwaway. Yeah, really emphasizing the fact that they’re a possession. And then it’s the reference to the gens of the owner, essentially, but not in a way that would suggest that they were part of that family just that they were a possession of that gens.

Dr Rad 46:25
Yes, definitely. And so we do actually have a reasonable amount of slave names, I suppose. We don’t always get names like you and I both know, we’ve talked about a number of like slave uprisings or slaves in forming another slaves with like conspiracies and that kind of thing. And very rarely do we come across a name with that, because they’re not important. You know, they’re not significant figures to the people who are writing these histories.

Dr G 46:49
Not to the elite writing histories.

Dr Rad 46:51
Yeah, no, no, no, sorry, go on, go on. No, I’m not saying that. Yeah, no, they they’re not considered to be important by the Romans who are writing the history. However, this is where archaeology becomes very important. We do have items that have been left behind which record slave names, it might be something to do with like maybe tombstones, or it might be, for example, slave collars. So slave collars sometimes have records of names. So there’s one that was found that had engraved on it, “I am called Januarius. I am the slave of Dextrus.”

Dr G 47:23
Hmm. All right. So the slave is called January.

Dr Rad 47:26
Yeah, which might be when he was purchased.

Dr G 47:31
Yeah, I mean, it’s a pretty nondescript kind of name in the same way that sort of praenomens end up being as well.

Dr Rad 47:37
Yeah. And then there’s also one that we found that “Marci Puer” which means Marcus’s boy. So as you say, it’s all about ownership. And the way of calling him boy might not reflect his actual age. It’s just that way of kind of referring to someone in a very patronizing way. I think like, you know, that they are Yeah, yeah, it might, but we don’t know.

Dr G 48:00
This is a bit like the inclusion of so was slave as part of their name. So this is the sort of thing that gets tested as well. So they might have a bit of a throwaway name. So we’ve got an example. Like, for Phillipus is their name. They’re part of the Caecilii. So they’re owned by the Caecilii. And they’re the slave of Lucius. And that’s it, that’s their complete name, right. So their name really emphasizes their servitude. And it’s clearly not the name that they would ever choose for themselves.

Dr Rad 48:40
No. And one of the interesting things about Roman slavery, unlike other places in the ancient world, is that manumission – or being freed from slavery – does become increasingly common. So there isn’t necessarily an expectation that you’re going to be a slave forever now, very much I think depends on when you are a slave in room’s history, and also, what kind of employment you are given as a slave, for example, I think you have a fairly high chance of being manumitted if you are a household slave. However, if you are working in mines, for example, you’re far more likely, unfortunately, to probably just die in those mines and you are to ever be freed.

Dr G 49:22
Yeah, for sure.

Dr Rad 49:23
However, when you are freed, you actually, it kind of starts this process where you can actually start to kind of enter your family into this room and system now, not straightaway, don’t, don’t get carried away. Don’t get ahead of that straightaway. But certainly, your name will reflect as you say, the family that used to own you because you’re bonded forever, even though you might be freed. You become a client of that family. And you might even stay physically close to them. For example, they might live near you and you might run a bakery on their behalf or something like that, and they might take an interest in your business, who knows. So your name is going to reflect that new identity. And your children will be able to take part in the Roman system like pretty fully by the time we get to late Republic early empire.

Dr G 50:16
Yeah. So in terms of thinking about how this looks as examples, I’ve got a couple of examples for you. So one of the things that one of the key things that happens with the name is the inclusion of the libertus or liberta, depending on whether you’re masculine or feminine. And so indicating very clearly that you’re freed person. Yep, you might retain your old slave name, like your praenomen as a cognomen. And then the other parts of your name, are indicative of who used to own you. So like, it’s almost like the ownership continues in an informal way, because like you now carry the name of the person who has enslaved you Yeah, for the rest of your life. So we’ve got some examples like Aulus Pupius Aulus Libertus Antiochus. So the Aulus Pupius Aulus is about the slave owner. Libertus is indicating this as a freed man. And Antiochus is the name he goes by. So it was probably the name that he had while he was a slave.

Dr Rad 51:32
Right, yeah. And these names as well, as you can kind of tell from that example, they might reflect obviously, where they were from, might have might have something to do with that, again, geography, potentially being a bit of an indicator there.

Dr G 51:46
Potentially, although there did seem to be a trend for giving enslaved people foreign names. So there was a real trend for like Greek slave names. Even if they weren’t Greek-

Dr Rad 51:58
Because of the the status of having a Greek slave?

Dr G 52:02
Or just a real recognition that they weren’t Roman, even when they became Roman, if you like,

Dr Rad 52:07
True, true. It can also be the slave market where they were bought.

Dr G 52:11
Yeah, exactly.

Dr Rad 52:13
Because they might have no idea.

Dr G 52:15
So like, we’ve got this continuation of that relationship with the enslaver. And then we’ve got the capacity in the next generation. So when that freed person if and when they have children, those children will gain more citizen rights. Yes, they will, was the freedmen is always going to be in a restricted kind of position.

Dr Rad 52:35
Yeah, true. And I suppose one of the interesting things is that, say when slaves are still enslaved, they may just go by like the one name, okay. And unlike, when we were talking about Roman cognomen names, and how they developed how they can sometimes be negative, it’s unusual to find slave names that are negative, they’re usually like positive character traits. So yeah, they don’t tend to be which is weird, because you think that the Romans wouldn’t care so much about that, but maybe they’re trying to I don’t know, is that like a morale thing? You’re trying to inspire them?

Dr G 53:12
I don’t know. They probably just thought it was cute.

Dr Rad 53:15
Yeah. And it might also have something to do with your profession, the name that you’re given. So for example, one of the most famous inscriptions, what not inscription, sorry, I shouldn’t say that. One of the most famous pieces of graffiti that has been found to do with gladiators mentioned is a gladiator named Celadus, or Seladus, depending on how you want to say it. And this is a yeah, there’s a piece of graffiti talking about him and the reaction that the crowds have to him and that sort of thing. And that means “The Crowd’s Roar”. So that obviously has something to do with the fact that he is a gladiator. And if you think about of course, the most famous example, I mean, I have to bring him up Spartacus.

Dr G 53:56
It’s really hard to get through an episode without a Spartacus mention.

Dr Rad 54:00
I know, I know. But once again, he’s just he’s just got the one name, okay. Because at the time he’s getting this name, you know, he is in fact a slave. And this may potentially be a name that’s trying to give him some like Thracian origins, how valid they are or not, who knows, you know?

Dr G 54:19
Yeah, no, fair enough. So I think to wrap up, I just have a couple of hilarious examples to share with you of names.

Dr Rad 54:27
I’m always up for hilarious examples.

Dr G 54:31
You gonna have to bear with me. Okay. So jumping ahead into the high imperial period. The year is 169 CE. And we have the consul of that year, who holds the record as it happens for the person with the most names.

Dr Rad 54:51
Oh.

Dr G 54:53
He has 38 names.

Dr Rad 54:56
What??

Dr G 55:00
But wait for it. Let me give it to you so you can feel the full force, okay?

Dr Rad 55:04
Okay, I’m ready. I’m ready. I’m ready.

Dr G 55:07
Q(uinto) Pompeio Q(uinti) f(ilio) Quir(ina) Senecioni / Roscio Murenae Coelio Sex(to) / Iulio Frontino Silio Deciano / C(aio) Iulio Eurycli Herculaneo L(ucio) / Vibullio Pio Augustano Alpino / Bellicio Sollerti Iulio Apro / Ducenio Proculo Rutiliano / Rufino Silio Valenti Valerio / Nigro Cl(audio) Fusco Saxae Amyntiano / Sosio Prisco.

Dr Rad 55:49
I think you forgot to Alfa Romeo. That is so ridiculous. Like, I can’t even make sense of like, like, I know that names are supposed to give some indication of like, where you came from and stuff that like you lost me after about the first three.

Dr G 56:05
I hope his nickname is 38 names. So they just call him 38.

Dr Rad 56:11
I love it. Oh my god.

Dr G 56:13
Goodness me, what chaos.

Dr Rad 56:16
But that’s what I mean. like, if you’re trying to advertise where you came from? Like, did the Romans even get that?

Dr G 56:23
I mean, I there’s a lot to take in there isn’t there? But yeah, that that appears on an actual inscription. So-

Dr Rad 56:35
So we know it’s real. We know it’s real.

Dr G 56:38
It’s out there. Which is pretty hilarious, I think. And the last example I want to draw your attention to is one that was sent to us by a listener.

Dr Rad 56:49
Yes, I remember this one. You have better eyes than I do. I couldn’t read the inscription. Just a FYI, just an FYI, by the way, if you want to send us stuff in, we’re both getting older. Can you please send us as many photographs as possible? Like even even like the little caption that goes with the thing in the museum just because our eyes are not what they used to be.

Dr G 57:11
I mean, speak for yourself. She’ll be right. So we want to say a huge thank you, first of all to Florian from Switzerland. Thank you very much for sending us this inscription.

Dr Rad 57:25
We were thrilled.

Dr G 57:25
Yes, we were thrilled. It did make our day. This inscription can be found in the Museo Nazionale di Ravenna. So if you happen to be in Ravenna, we totally recommend you go there and have a Look at this. Because this guy’s name is Phalleus.

Sounds a bit cheeky.

Sounds like a little bit like phallus. Was his nickname Phallus? I mean, I certainly hope so. That people made a lot of dick jokes about this guy.

Dr Rad 57:54
For sure.

Dr G 57:54
He looks pretty serious on his tombstone, I’ll give him that doesn’t look happy.

Dr Rad 57:58
Well, it’s not really the time for like a big grin, is it?

Dr G 58:04
So Phalleus is the son of Diocles, this we know, he’s also the helmsmen of a ship called the Galeata. And his tombstone was erected by his freedmen, Pieris and Nice, or Nike, depending on your preference. And it’s got a description here of size. And it says, you know, six feet in front and 15 feet in the field. And I’m hoping that this is not a reference to the size of the phallus, more, more likely a reference to the size of the ship.

Dr Rad 58:40
I was gonna say that sounds like well, more than I can take, Dr G!

Dr G 58:44
That is exceptionally large. So Phalleus, thank you for all that you’ve done. Searching hard and wide, it’s, it’s not at all clear what this name might mean, it’s pretty unusual. It’s fairly unattested. So, we’re very lucky to have this example. I think,

Dr Rad 59:04
Did you say that there was a date for this one, as we know when it’s from?

Dr G 59:07
Ahh we think so. And I’m not talking here on my own behalf necessarily. Some scholars have looked into this.

Dr Rad 59:14
The royal we.

Dr G 59:16
The royal we. Kind scholars out there who have looked into this because they’re mostly interested in this inscription, because it’s describing somebody who’s in charge of a ship, right? Not a military leader or such or a naval officer, but the person who’s actually running the boat, okay? And they think this is from the end of the Julio-Claudian period, or somewhere like sort of like Augustus up to the end of the Julio-Claudian period somewhere in that sort of-

Dr Rad 59:46
Somewhere in that 100 years. Okay, so now so names have started to shift a little bit by then.

Dr G 59:54
Well, we don’t get a sense like from this kind of name. It doesn’t see seem like we’re dealing with like a highbrow Roman family at all, doesn’t sit in that category.

Dr Rad 1:00:05
No, it does not.

Dr G 1:00:06
And I’m not sure how to necessarily position this name. But I mean, we’ve got somebody here called Phalleus, and I personally find joy in that.

Dr Rad 1:00:16
Oh, definitely. And it actually attests to what we were just talking about with the relationship between slaves and their masters, or should I say, former slaves and their masters the fact that this guy’s freedmen, organized for his burial, seemingly, which happened even to a very elite people like Pompey, the great when he had, you know, fallen afoul of a whole bunch of people, including Ptolemy the 13th, and had his head cut off. It was his freedmen, I believe, who helped to organize his burial – organize his remains and that sort of thing.

Dr G 1:00:48
Ahh – way to bring some spoilers into this!

Dr Rad 1:00:51
Sorry! Oh dear. Well, I hope that that was a really useful kind of overview of Roman names. As you can see, it’s kind of hard to rein in because there’s so much change over time, but there is a fascinating topic. And if you would like to hear more, so if you want to hear more about how they evolve over time, and we can look at things like Christian names, or we can look into certain types of names, maybe in a bit more detail, please do let us know.

Dr G 1:01:20
Oh, yeah, if there are topics that you’d like us to consider, or there’s little bits of trickiness of ancient Rome, that you would like a more in depth explanation of, please get in touch. We’re on many social medias, you can leave a comment on our website, all of those good things, we look at all of the places. And yeah, we’ll definitely see what we can find out and put together for you. So Roman names. Excellent, somewhat confusing. And gonna get more confusing as time goes on.

Dr Rad 1:01:48
I was gonna say. To be honest, I still find Roman names very confusing.

Dr G 1:01:54
They are. I do spend time really carefully looking at them when I’m navigating them, because it’s easy to – when you’re not a Roman – just sort of, like get trip yourself up a little bit. And go back and have to correct but yeah, there’s definitely a pattern to what the Romans are doing, depending on where you sit in the hierarchy of Roman society.

Dr Rad 1:02:20
Yeah. And there is a reason for it. I think that’s the thing when you when you see like this constant, passing on of names, like, you know, Appius Claudius, Appius Claudius, Appius Claudius, you’re like, “Oh, my God, why are they doing this!” But you realize that there is actually a reason, there’s a reason, it’s not just them trying to be cruel to the generations.

Dr G 1:02:41
You know, it’s not that they hate historians.

Dr Rad 1:02:46
If anything, they love history. They build the history right into the name.

Dr G 1:02:50
Yeah. They want us to know exactly what’s going on with this guy is very generous of them.

Dr Rad 1:02:56
I think the big takeaway for me, and I’m just going to use this to sum up my thoughts, Dr G, is that they seem so foreign, but when you actually think about it, it’s to do with stuff that we still care about, which is your status really like telling people something about yourself. And that’s why parents still put so much effort into naming their kids these days, like, they kind of know that the sound of a name, the sound that it makes the meaning of it, and that kind of stuff, it might kind of give certain connotations to people who hear it. And we still obviously have people who have very famous, recognizable last names in our society. So I think that that really resonates with me the status, the kind of recognizable aspects of names. I think that’s what I take away from this.

Dr G 1:03:43
Yeah, for sure. And I think you can clearly see the legacy of how influential naming conventions are, when we think about how society works and operates, even within the sort of paradigms of the modern world. There is, depending on where you live, there is the tendency for women to change their name after they get married. And that is a legacy of sort of patriarchal structures. And it’s letting people know that there’s a kind of a primacy of a masculine line.

Dr Rad 1:04:21
Yeah.

Dr G 1:04:22
And those sorts of things tell you something about the way society works. And people who resist it, or people who accept it are either embracing or criticizing elements of that structure. And the Romans are doing similar things as well, like their naming conventions are not set in stone. Now. They do change over time, and they adapt for the need that they have for the way that this society is operating as well. So you know, poor 38 names. He’s trying to do something there. He’s got a plan and it’s built on a legacy of names adding to your legacy over time. Like he didn’t just come out of nowhere, presumably somewhere in his ancestry is somebody with 22 names and bumps out to 28 names and so forth and so on. So it’s kind of, he’s just sitting at this real crescendo, where it’s like, okay, is this it? Is this where we say enough is enough?

Dr Rad 1:05:22
The man isn’t, I mean, I’d almost say that he’s trying to get away with something and like, be fraudulent in his ancestry, except that it’s so frickin obvious that I can’t believe that I have to believe it has to be true. Like, it’s just crazy otherwise.

Dr G 1:05:34
Look, the the sense in which he’s got, he’s got that huge legacy from all different parts of all different families. This idea that, that actually, the history of his family is so transparent, that he can tell you the depth of his legacy, and the legacy that he stands upon. That’s really fascinating to me, because, I mean, it’s, it’s outrageous, but hilarious.

Dr Rad 1:05:58
Yeah. And I suppose it’s probably good to note, although I’m sure most people know this. But just in case you don’t, because we don’t know where in the world you might be from. In Australia, and places like America and England and that sort of thing. You still have quite a lot of names that are derived from Latin that are used quite commonly today. So if you’re a Mark, if you are an Anthony, if you are an Amelia and Amanda, a Miranda, you have a name that is derived from Latin.

Dr G 1:06:31
I think that’s a happy note to wrap up on.

Dr Rad 1:06:33
I think so too. Well, goodbye Dr. G, I say formally in respect of your academic credentials.

Dr G 1:06:42
So Well, Dr. Rad, respecting also your academic credentials. A huge shout out to our Patreon supporters for suggesting this topic to us.

Dr Rad 1:06:54
Absolutely.

Dr G 1:06:55
And a huge thanks to everyone who listens to our show. If you’d like to support our work, there are many ways you can do it. You could leave a review of the podcasts wherever you listen to it. You could also buy us a coffee on Ko Fi. Or you could sign up to be a Patreon as well. We’d love that! No obligation, the episode will be free to you anyway. But, you know, thank you for listening.

Dr Rad 1:07:23
Indeed. And we’ll just quickly say that if you want to check out the sources that we use to put together this episode, and also our sound credits, you should check out the show notes at the partial historians.com And you can also use that to find out how to support us but really, one of the best ways to support us and the cheapest is to just tell someone about the show and tell them that you love it.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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

In this special episode we sit down with Dr Emma Southon to discuss her brand new book A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women.

This is the Roman antidote to all those fabulous reimagining of Greek myth by delving into the very real and very fascinating lives of some of the women who lived under the Romans.

Special Episode – A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women with Dr Emma Southon

We discuss the choices Emma made about who to include and who to leave out as well as consider some of the women who stood out for us when reading the book.

If you have a history-minded people to consider at certain upcoming celebrations that may or may not resemble the Saturnalia, this book is worthy of your consideration. Not only is Emma erudite, but she has a great understanding of just how quirky the Romans were.

We firmly recommend checking out Dr Southon’s work, which can be found on her website: https://www.emmasouthon.com/

If you’re interested in her latest book, here are links to where to buy online:

Emma is the co-host of the History is Sexy podcast and can also be found on Instagram. Emma is a great friend of the show and you’re most welcome to check out our other conversations on Agrippina the Younger and murder in ancient Rome.

Just look at those glorious book covers! Despite the title difference, these are the SAME book. The US release is known as A Rome of One’s Own while the UK version is entitled A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women.

Our music was composed by Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Lightly edited for clarity!

Dr Rad 0:12
Welcome to The Partial Historians. We explore all the details of ancient Rome. Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other. I’m Dr. Read.

Dr G 0:30
And I’m Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Romans saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.

Dr Rad 0:41
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city. Welcome to a special episode of The Partial Historians, I am one of your hosts, Dr. Rad.

Dr G 1:08
And I am Dr. G.

Dr Rad 1:10
And this is a special episode because we are talking to someone extremely exciting. Dr. G. Dare I say? scintillating?

Dr G 1:19
I think you should say scintillating. Yeah, we are thrilled to welcome Dr. Emma Southon back to the show. Thank you so much for joining us.

Dr Emma Southon 1:28
Thank you so much for having me back. I just feel extra special when I get invited back like I didn’t do something monstrous last time.

Dr Rad 1:35
Exactly, exactly. So, Dr Emma Southon, for those of you who haven’t caused our previous episodes is one of our favorite guests for three reasons. Number one, she likes RuPaul’s Drag Race and therefore will understand my random references to it unlike Dr. G. Number two, she likes women in history. And number three, she shares our outlook on the ancient Romans, which is that they are unintentionally hilarious and weird. Now to be a bit more specific, Dr. Southon is renowned a smarty pants and here’s why. Aside from the obvious title before her name, she is the co host of the history comedy podcast ‘History is Sexy’, along with our Kiwi cousin, Janina Mathewson. She’s also the author of some of our favorite history books, including ‘Agrippina, Empress, Exile, Hustler Whore’, autobuy autobiography, a biography of the most extraordinary woman in the Roman world, and ‘A Fatal Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum’. However, we have already had the pleasure of talking to her about these books. And today, we get to talk to her about another exciting volume that has just been released ‘A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women: How Women Transformed the Empire’.

Dr G 2:53
Yay!

Dr Emma Southon 2:56
Impressive.

Dr Rad 2:58
Well, I will say this, you don’t like a short title. I don’t like a short title.

Dr Emma Southon 3:03
And you think I’d learn but that people struggle to remember short titles, but But yeah, I don’t know. They end up being really long. In America, this book is called ‘A Rome of One’s Own’, which is snappier.

Dr Rad 3:18
Ahhh, nice.

Dr G 3:18
I do like that. I saw that on Amazon. And I was like, Oh, that is sweet. I enjoyed the pun.

Dr Emma Southon 3:25
It’s yeah, I have friends who have much better puns than I am. And they come up with these great puns. And I’m like, right, well, that’s my title. Thank you.

Dr Rad 3:34
Now you cover a staggering array of women in this book. And I have to say up front, we’re not going to talk about the Regal period at all, because quite frankly, we can’t talk about it any more. We’ve talked about it so much. The only thing I will say is, I think in a second edition, you’re going to have to amend your chapter on Tanaquil, where you say that there are no popular histories that mentioned Tanaquil.

Dr Emma Southon 4:03
Yes, that’s true, because you have now finally written one.

Dr Rad 4:07
Yeah, we both have we both had.

Dr Emma Southon 4:09
Yeah. But it is. I don’t know. It was just so like, I went through as many as I could find, like all of them for like books of like a history of the Roman Empire. And like that I have kind of lying around in my house and reflect through the ones I could see. And they just skip right over her. They skip over the regnal period, like a lot like the whole, the kings are just kind of coughed over fairly often. But still, I was like, this is such a good story.

I know. I know.

Why would you not want to like go out of your way to include this. So yeah, so second edition paperback edition will have a specific reference to The Partial Historians.

Dr Rad 4:48
Yeah, thank you very much. So we feel okay now, we can calm down and talk about your book.

Dr G 4:53
Okay, the interview can happen now.

Dr Emma Southon 4:55
When I finally – because your book came out just before my end like a couple of months ago, where mine had already gone off like, and I wasn’t allowed to change it anymore. And I was like, no, I could I could have done this with this so much. And I have thoroughly enjoyed it. So everybody should buy it.

Dr G 5:13
Oh, thank you

Dr Rad 5:13
Ahh thank you. Well, we definitely felt that way about your book. And so we’d love to ask you some general questions to start off with about the style of your book. So your last book was about murder in ancient Rome. Why did you decide to, you know, change tack and go for a history of Rome, using the lives of women as your next project?

Dr Emma Southon 5:35
It’s partly spite. So my other thing that I do during my days is I work in a book shop, and you will have noticed, it’s impossible not to have noticed and moment that there is a been in the past two years ish, like a really big spike in interest in Greek goddesses, like retelling Greek myth, specifically, like retellings of female stories and Greek myth, which is great for, you know, ancient history in general, kind of, but also, you, as you will know, when you’re a Roman historian, you think that Romans are the best. Yeah. And it’s constant, like, oh, yeah, I mean, I guess the Greeks are fine. But Romans are better because they’re funnier. It’s so I kind of out of spite, when it’d be like, Yeah, but Roman women exist, too, and that they’re better because they’re real. And they don’t like turn into spiders, or like, they’re not goddesses, they’re bad. So that makes them better. And so, a 50%, out of spite that I wanted people to also be reading about Romans. And to know that Romans are better than Greeks, and 50%, because I just feel like so much of like, popular Roman history is talking about men and like the, the standard narrative of Roman history of the store of the story of Roman history is so much just war and politics, basically, which is the sphere of men, which women are explicitly excluded from, and I thought it would be fun to kind of disrupt that a little bit and be like, one, there is a history of the Roman Empire that doesn’t have any politics in it really, or has a limited amount of politics. And there is a, there is a history, which is more than just politics, it can also be what it is like to live in the Roman Empire at various times as various people. And it’s more interesting to tell that story through women than it is through men and to show that women are always kind of around about and I realized quite early on into writing it that as kind of a historian of my age, I am really only the second generation of historians writing about women in the ancient world, like my supervisor, for my PhD, who is still working was like one of the first generation of people to do her PhD on women. And like, people like Amy Richlin and Suzanne Dixon, who are still around and wrote those first books about women in the Roman Empire are like, they’re still teaching. They’re still they’re still at conferences like this. They’re you know, they’re older. But as we all know, historians never retire. So they’re still around, they’re still alive. Like they. This isn’t like an old discipline women in Rome, or women in the ancient world at all. It’s very, very new. And so, yeah, so it’s time to bring it to their, the popular imagination out of the academy and start talking about it.

Dr G 8:45
I think you’re doing a great service, particularly to readers who have become hooked on ancient Greek myths, because there is so much more to the ancient world than just, you know, having your tongue taken out or turning into a monster or

Dr Emma Southon 9:02
And like it not to be like everybody loves the Greek myths, and they love them for a reason. But a lot of them are victimized women, and there are but there are stories which from a kind of feminist perspective, I have minor issues with like stories of perpetually victimized women and womanhood as being perpetually victimized. So it’s nice to tell stories about ancient women that were not like being turned into spiders or having their tongue taken out or being held into the sea or like or have to be literal goddesses in order to be able to do anything.

Dr Rad 9:36
Yeah, and as as we can definitely testify, we realized once we started focusing on the early republic, that he’d have literally been years of episodes sometimes before we mentioned a woman, we suddenly realized when a woman would come up as you say in your book, like a Vestal Virgin or were like God, it’s been like five years since about women at all.

Dr Emma Southon 9:58
Yeah, yeah. And it’s so easy to fall into that and to be like, oh, all of the important stories are the ones that the Romans thought were important. But the Romans can’t be trusted, because they have bad opinions about a lot of stuff.

Dr G 10:12
So true. So true. And I think this leads nicely into thinking about like, how did you come to the decision about which women to focus on because it seems like you’ve hinted already, in some sense, it’s about availability of evidence. But there must be other criteria as well.

Dr Emma Southon 10:28
So in that early period, a lot of it is availability of evidence up until the later of because the archaeology is so limited, and you are kind of trapped with texts, particularly for like the Regal period, and then the early and middle Republic before their epigraphic habit kicked in. It was about who can I find, basically, and finding stuff for the very earliest period when they basically mythical was easier than I thought it would be like those early bits of Livy and Dionysius of Halicarnassus. So so you’ve got Hersilia and you’ve got Tullia, like, there were more women than I thought. And so I just included all of them, because why not?

Dr Rad 11:15
Yeah, that’s what we were surprised by as well. We started writing about the kings were like, actually, we get it like it’s a it’s a dynastic situation. It’s not a dynastic situation, it’s a family situation. So women have more of an opportunity to get sort of, you know, get a bit of soft power.

Dr Emma Southon 11:34
Yeah, exactly. As soon as you have a situation where one person is in charge, you have wives, and you have children. And when you’ve got children, you’ve got daughters in law, grandchildren, and then you have women who can do things like murder, their husbands marry their brother in law, who’s also their cousin, murder their father running over,

Dr Rad 11:54
as you do as you do,

Dr Emma Southon 11:56
as you do, and can, they can do all of this really fun stuff. So that was fun. The Republican period is harder. And that was tough work, like finding women that you can include. Because they only appear at points of crisis. And very often, they only get a couple of lines to illustrate how terrible crisis is. But once you get into the Empire, like once things really start to kick off evidence wise, so late Republic, going into the Empire, and then coming like the later empire, there’s so many women that it became a part of like, what story do I want to tell, and what women kind of will tell that story. So always wanted it to be not the women who are already included in books. So for women already had a biography about her, I kind of was like, No, and that kind of easily cut out all the emphasis. And I didn’t want it to be a book about politics, and to tell the story that we already know. So I didn’t want it to have you know, Livia and Agrippina. All of the kind of big women that we already know about, I wanted it to be women that you’ve probably not really heard of, or that tell a story that is more about what it is like to live in the empire than to rule the Empire. There are some exceptions, just because I like the stories like Julia Maesa and Julia Mamaea. I include because I just think that Julia Maesa is so cool.

Dr Rad 13:24
Look most people wouldn’t have heard of them?

Dr Emma Southon 13:26
I don’t think yeah, no, yeah, they’re not women that you have heard of very often. And I wanted people from around the Empire. So I wanted to leave Rome at the point when the Empire becomes Imperial, and talk about women from around so that anytime that it was a choice between a woman that was in Rome, or a woman that was outside, I picked somebody who was somewhere else, basically just to because I wanted that empire to feel expansive. And I basically kind of had the time line almost and wanted it to be so we’ve got someone from every century, we’ve got someone pits people from various different parts of the empire, we’ve got different types of evidence. So we’ve got epigraphic evidence, you have archaeological evidence, we have text, different types of texts. And so if I have people that overlapped, I would cut them out. So I had at one point, there’s a woman in Nero’s like court, who is the keeper of his wardrobe. And then when Nero is overthrown, she goes to Egypt and blockades Alexandria, in an attempt to basically force Rome to put Nero back on the throne before he kills himself, which is a cool story, but also one, it’s just the story of Rome. And two, it’s a bit of political story, and it’s would be so I chose instead for that period to tell the story of women living or on the frontier in England, and having birthday parties and writing letters to each other, which is a story that people don’t know, everybody already knows that Nero was overthrown. So basically, when it came down to a choice of like, who in this period, this kind of like, middle of the first entry period is the lesser known, more interesting, more expansive story to tell? So that was like the criteria that I had.

Dr G 15:27
Fantastic. And I think this, I think you’ve also hit upon some of the potential challenges that come up with writing a history like this using women, because you, obviously that selection criteria allows you to sort of embody the expansiveness of Rome in a way that wouldn’t be possible, as you say, if you follow through that sort of imperial line, and imperial women. Are there additional challenges that come along with those sorts of choices, though?

Dr Emma Southon 15:56
Yes. Many, I mean, the writing about women is always a challenge, because you’re so rarely writing about the wear them as they present themselves, like women are so very rarely given this low their text don’t survive, basically. And when you do have texts that they wrote, like, like the like birthday party letters from the, from Vindolanda, which are delightful, but is like, four sentence. It’s, and you’re like that, I mean, that’s I’m so delighted to have these four sentences, but you’re not a lot to work from. And so, or Julia Balbilla, who’s like one of my favorites, who is in the court of Hadrian, and wrote four poems, which survive because she very, very cleverly had engraved on the bottom of an ancient Egyptian statue.

Dr G 16:53
Very clever, very clever.

Dr Emma Southon 16:55
And even better, because she was clearly very smart included her name in every single one of them.

Dr G 17:02
She knew somehow

Dr Emma Southon 17:04
She knew, and I feel like there must have been something where by like, life as a female poet, or like a woman who writes poetry must have already been that annoying thing where people were like, do you know you get that thing? Oh, well, she didn’t really write it, like maybe Propertius wrote it and just pretended to be a woman like, yeah, obviously. That’s it thing that men do. So she yeah, she included like, but you get so little. And so much of it has to be extrapolation. And, like, trying to add context from external things, which is tough work. And it’s why people don’t do it as much. But I think makes for more interesting stories in the end, because as it turns out, like when you start digging into archaeology matches, I find it hilarious to make fun of archaeologists out of like, minor jealousy. You know, there’s so much in archaeology and ethnography that you can illuminate the world that they lived in that is just not available in the in the text like Tacitus can only give you so much. And then when you start to Look at the archaeology, like the archaeology of forts for example, when you start to Look at it, you’re like, oh, wow, like life here was completely different to the way it is presented in the text like it was vibrant and semi luxurious for some people. And like learning that forts were rebuilt every time a different legion turned up to be so that it was specifically fit that legion, like, that’s amazing.

Dr G 18:40
I just need to redecorate this place it’s not speaking to me.

Dr Emma Southon 18:43
Yeah, basically they’d be like, Right Well, the last Legion that was here like had like, you know, eight units of cavalry, but we’ve got 12. So we’re just going to like build on an extra section for that. We’re not going to like feel like a lot like now you’d be like, well, we would just cram them in, like stick them in. But that no, we’re gonna knock down the whole thing and rebuild it. And you can see that in the archaeological record and then you can tell how big the legion was that was there is delightful.

All the mosaics must go.

Yeah, exactly. Like I hate this. This does not speak to me. I need a Medusa.

Dr Rad 19:15
Yeah, exactly. A merman? Who are they kidding?

Dr Emma Southon 19:18
Yeah. Also delightful from the Vindolanda, just like if you sit down and read, they’re just how much bureaucracy was going on in the Roman Empire. This is also delightful. Like, goddamn they love a list. They are just listing everything.

Dr Rad 19:32
Funnily enough, we were just talking about early quaestors and how the Romans wanted them for paperwork.

Dr G 19:40
Somebody needs to do the paperwork and it can’t be me because I’m too big and important.

Dr Emma Southon 19:44
Yeah, exactly. The two things that Romans loved one is beating up other people than the other one is just making lists about it like just paperwork. And it is devastating but we don’t have it.

Dr Rad 19:56
Hilarious. Now segwaying away from just this book, but thinking about your work as a whole, you’re obviously an academic, but you have recently been choosing to write for more of a popular audience. And in order to do that, effectively, you’ve adopted quite a distinctive style as a historian, which is obviously really resonating with readers, I know that I absolutely adore your books. I read them faster than anything else. Can you talk a little bit about your journey as a historian and how you got here?

Dr Emma Southon 20:29
Yeah, well, I realized this is this year has been 10 years since I like left academia. Because I left pretty much straight after my PhD, I did a bit of teaching afterwards. But because my department, I did my PhD and got closed down. And it was also the year that I turned 30. And I thought, at the time, academia in the UK looked really terrible. And it’s worse now. And I thought, do I want to do to eight to 10 years of short term contracts, and working at lots of universities. And my advisor for my PhD, he was Ray Lawrence, who’s now over there with you in Australia. And he once told me that he worked at five universities simultaneously when he graduated his PhD, and like, was teaching and just traveling around the country. I thought, do I want to do that? Or am I 30, and I don’t. And, like and it is, you know, is nine month contracts, it’s not having any job security for longer than that nine months, it’s not having to have three part time jobs on top of it. And honestly, I was not willing to do that as

Dr Rad 21:48
You make it sound so tempting, I don’t understand!

Dr Emma Southon 21:50
I know and also, then you have to be writing constantly, they brought in the REF. That was the year that they brought in the REF as well. We’re here the Research Excellence Framework, where you have to be writing constantly and trying to get points based, like literally trying to get points for your research, which is wild. And so I was like, do – do I want to be writing for points in a culture that is mean? Or do I just want to be not doing that. So I was actually teaching academic writing, is what I went into, and I was teaching mostly people doing vocational things like nurses and engineers, and allied health care professionals like working with them on their writing, which really made me a better writer, because working on people who don’t have any background in writing, or a lot of people coming to writing as late career changes and things like that, who will find writing to be terrifying, and then being like, No, it’s not, it’s fine. It’s okay, we can do this. Made writing more fun for me because it like, broke it down. And then I honestly accidentally became a writer for popular audiences, because I pitched Agrippina the book to a friend of a friend because he had an open pitching session. And he thought it sounded fun. And then I wrote the book that I would want to read. Because by that time, I had been out of academia for like, five years, and I had a job a full time job and a life and do not sit down and read like big chunky history books that are 600 pages long that feel like I have been told like intoned or lectured at, I also wrote a book that I would want to be in bed, or on the train commuting to my job, like, what’s the book that I want to read, I want to read the book that tells me the story in the most entertaining way. And it helps that I find the Romans to be hilariously pompous and deluded about themselves. And to the disconnect between how the Romans see themselves and how they actually are is inherently very funny to me. And so yeah, so basically, my thing is, I love history, and I left because academic history sucks, not because I was fed up with like, the process of academia and I, the thing that I love about history is being what my friend calls a time detective, like you have the evidence, and then you’re like a little poro, like trying to put that evidence together into make it make sense in some way. And you come up with a little hypothesis, and then somebody else goes, Oh, that’s interesting. What if the hypothesis was this and then you kind of have a bit of a chat about it. And so I’ve just been a time detective in a fun way now.

Dr G 24:55
Look, that sounds great. And I feel like that’s a pretty good description of what Dr. Rad and I I do as well. And it’s like, we hold up our little magnifying glasses and we gaze very closely at things. We’re like, you know, what, wouldn’t it be exciting if this was what was based on what we’ve seen here?

Dr Emma Southon 25:10
Yeah.

Dr Rad 25:11
When people ask me, how did you get started in history? I always say Nancy Drew.

Dr Emma Southon 25:15
Yeah. I mean that. Yeah, it’s basically. And I, you know, I don’t think that it’s a coincidence that I also love mystery novels.

Dr Rad 25:24
Absolutely

Dr G 25:24
Like, are you saying there’s a Venn diagram that could be a circle?

Dr Emma Southon 25:30
I think so. Yeah, I think you would find, like, especially people who love like the historiography part of like, the bit where you’re like, oh, cool, like the story of Lucretia. There’s like five different versions, and they’re told at different times. And when you put them all together, you realize that they’re actually like, emphasizing different parts of it. And they’re telling a story that speaks to themselves. And actually, this is just a fairy story that tells us more about the writer than it does about their actual events. And

Dr Rad 26:00
A creepy creepy fairy story.

Dr Emma Southon 26:04
As all fairy stories are like, if you read Grimm stories

Dr Rad 26:07
That’s true. That’s true. Yeah.

Dr Emma Southon 26:09
But yeah, I think that people who like that side and people who like Poirot books, there’s a significant overlap.

Dr Rad 26:17
Absolutely.

Dr G 26:19
All right, well, let us think about the content of the book for a moment, we want to whet the reader’s appetite, because everybody is obviously going to listen to this podcast and then immediately go out and purchase your book. Because of course, we’ve both read it and we love it. We’re giving it five stars. But I’m interested in first of all, like, before we get into like some of the women that we really enjoyed, which of the women that you’ve looked at, were you less familiar with when you started writing? And if it’s not too big enough, do you have a favorite?

Dr Emma Southon 26:54
I am quite a few of them kind of middle ones. So Turia I had only kind of vaguely like I knew of the ‘laudatio Turiae’, but never really read it. So she is the late Republican Woman who is the subject of the biggest, private inscription that we have from the Roman Empire, which is very cool. And Julia Felix, who was also my favorite, I think, I came across, it was Sophie Hay, Dr. Sophie. Hey, who works at Pompeii, who told me about her and she also told Elodie Harper, who wrote ‘The Wolf Den’ trilogy about her so she’s in that trilogy as well. And Sophie Hay is doing God’s work telling the world about Julia Felix, is based in Pompeii, like her complex that she runs. So those were probably the ones like anybody who came from archaeology, because my background is text was somebody that I had a really good time delving into and learning about completely, and being like, Oh, wow, you can Look at all these women all over the place, living their lives, being brilliant.

Dr G 28:04
Look at them go.

Dr Emma Southon 28:05
Yeah.

Dr Rad 28:06
Well, I have to agree that I had heard of, obviously, quite a few of the women that you’ve mentioned before. But like you, Dr. G, and I are very much text based people. We don’t often don’t an Indiana Jones outfit and go out into the wild. So

Dr G 28:22
Although maybe we should

Dr Rad 28:23
Probably but Turia was definitely one of the ones that piqued my interest the most especially coming from a time period that’s actually probably one of the better documented ones in terms of what we’ve got. But yet I had really not heard very much about Turia. So can you tell us a little bit more about her?

Dr Emma Southon 28:41
Yeah, so she is she’s a clearly of like, she is a woman of senatorial rank, definitely of consular rank, her husband is a consul. And she is so we know about her from this huge inscription that was found in five parts. When, during the, like 18th 19th century, Europeans went all over, like, putting together their big corpus of Latin inscriptions, and God bless them for doing but they found the four sections they put together, we don’t actually know that her name was Turia because there’s two bits that are missing. And both of them are the bits with the names. Which feels

Dr G 29:26
Roman history, jesus!

Dr Emma Southon 29:28
Doesn’t it feel like like just emblematic of history? We just, we just lost her name. But this inscription was found and it tells it’s written by her husband because she died before him. And it tells the story of her life, starting from when they get engaged, basically, or at least the bit that we have starts from when she gets engaged. It starts with her family being murdered during the war between Caesar and Pompey and her entire family is murdered on that in the villa. Bye Somebody, and he praises her for single handedly in the middle of a war, identifying and prosecuting the murderers.

Dr Rad 30:08
So she is Miss Marple.

Speaker 3 30:10
She is Miss Marple, and she successfully prosecutes them which is, you know, impressive. And then she is subject to a what is quite fascinating like little insight, somebody tries to claim her as part of their gens so that they can take guardianship of her, because she’s not yet married. And her father is now dead so that they can take control of the state that she has inherited from her murdered family. And she has to go to court and prove basically that she is not part of this gens that she is part of a different and therefore these people have no claim over her, which is fascinating, like thing that must have happened all the time. But it’s not in any text, because obviously that’s not interesting. But basically, her husband says like she just made it so much trouble for them. And she just kept fighting it so much that they gave up and went off to find an easier job. And he is not there to protect her during this time. And they’re not yet married because he has sided with Pompey and it’s off fighting with Pompey. And then when Pompey dies, and the war is over, she both sends him money and sends him resources and sends him enslaved people to help him out lest he ever suffer a moment of discomfort, and also personally talks to Caesar to get him pardoned, basically, so that he can come back to Rome. So she manages to rescue him from his bad decision of picking Pompey. He comes back to Rome and immediately joins the wrong side again, and is on the side of the killers of Julius Caesar, Julius Caesar. And

Dr G 32:01
I don’t know if she’s picked a winner.

Dr Rad 32:02
It’s really her patience that’s the amazing thing.

Dr Emma Southon 32:04
Yeah. So he says she immediately throws in his luck with Brutus and Cassius. And then during the wars between Octavian and Cassius and Brutus, he is fighting with them, and he goes off again, he is then put on the prescriptions list. So when the troit Second Triumvirate comes in, and they are putting together the prescriptions list to kill off lots of people who are considered to be enemies, because Octavian and Antony are significantly less lenient than Caesar ever was a he’s put on that list, which makes him basically prey it means that there is anybody can kill him, and there is a bounty on his head, you get money if you kill him, which opens up a whole way that you can talk about what the proscriptions were like and what that period was like in Rome, where people were literally just being murdered in the street constantly and lots of terrify stories. This is why we think that she may or may not have been called Turia, because there is a story and Appian who has a litany of these stories about a woman who hides her husband in an attic, which is also what the woman in the inscription does. He says she hit me in an attic, her and her sister hit me in an attic and then personally went to Octavian and then went to Lepidus and begged and begged and begged until they got him off the prescriptions list. So she protects him. She keeps him get manages to get him off of the list, manages to save him, manages to make it so that he can continue living his life. During that period, she also they’re living in Milo’s ex-house, the demagogic gang leader. He was exiled and so when Milo’s was exiled for doing a murder, he, his house was sold and they bought it beer so they were very, very rich and moved into it and then Milo’s supporters tried to take it back. So they literally invade her house while her husband is way and so she fights them off with her mother in law, she’s extremely great during all of this period, she saves him multiple times as she protects him from his series of bad decisions and she’s also obviously very you know, they have up to meet sympathies like in every situation they are against the popularity so and she’s and they also talk a lot about mixing their property as a romantic act which is really fascinating because the the story of marriage and women’s rights always says that oh elite women stopped doing ‘manus’ marriage and stopped mixing property and that is how they got more power. But so they talk a lot about how she they mix their property and she handed it all over to him and she didn’t run it herself as like this really romantic act. So they’re obviously like quite conservative couple. And then when things settled down, he continues to tell her story. So you also get the story not only of this woman who is like very politically engaged and politically active, but they can’t have children, it turns out that they try for years and years. And this is a bit where you’re like, oh, wow, you’re really telling the world everything about your wife.

Dr Rad 35:22
Airing it for everyone to read.

Dr Emma Southon 35:23
Yeah, yeah, just putting it on a like two meter high things. say she’s like, she tries everything to have children. And she’s like, but she can’t. And so she comes to him and says, obviously, the point of marriage is to have children and I can’t give them to you. And so what I’m going to do, my plan is I propose that we will get divorced. And I’ll find you a fertile wife. So that you can have as you can have children and continue your family name. And I’ll stick around and we’ll keep our property mixed. So we’ll still be like, kind of married in a way. But you will be able to have children and then I’ll be like, the third person in your relationship, and I’ll raise them like a sister in law, basically.

Dr G 36:06
Is this woman even real? Goodness!

Dr Rad 36:11
‘Stand by Your Man’ was clearly written about her.

Dr Emma Southon 36:15
They do and they are super sweet because they do really seem to love each other. Like the way he writes about her at the end of like, you know, she, like, you know, I can’t I don’t know how I’m going to live without her. Like, shoot, my life is never going to know happiness again, that I’m like, so heartbroken. Everything is I should have died first. This isn’t fair. Like she was so good. And I am so rubbish.

Dr Rad 36:35
He’s right about that, he should have died a number of times!

Dr Emma Southon 36:39
I mean, if it hadn’t been for her, he would have died several times. But he, yeah, but he says, basically, he’s like, Absolutely not like I would never dishonour you that way. I would never make you like a kind of concubine to me like you’re my wife. I married you. I love you. This is no way marriage is more than just having kids, which is, again as a way that you don’t see marriage, Roman marriage, especially elite Roman marriage written about that much like it’s so rarely described as a meeting of hearts or something that is romantic. And so they, yeah, so they stay married for 50 years. They don’t have children. They are aunts and uncles to her. She has a sister who has children and so and then she dies when she’s in her 60s and he is bereft and writes this funeral oration and then inscribes it on two meter high monoliths and puts them on the Via Appia. And there they stay were presumably to his mind forever, so that everybody walking along Via Appia will know how much he loved his wife and how good she was and how she had all of these amazing qualities. And it’s so delightful because it’s such a it’s so emotional, in the way that they love each other, and also in the way that they like they talk about, or he talks about her in this such a beautiful way. But she or doesn’t come across in the way their love women do in a picker feed. Like when you’re reading women’s stories when men are writing about them after they’ve died very often. It’s like she was the most chaste woman and all she did was spend her time weaving wool, and she breastfed her children and she that’s how perfect she was like, okay, so she just had no personality at all she like she just wove wool for you and was chaste. But she has such a personality and this that it’s captivating.

Dr Rad 38:39
It is. So I’m actually exhausted just after I listen to that story. I can’t even imagine what it’d be like to live her life. But I kind of wish that she’d you know, being prepared for his clearly inevitable death. That we had her side of things where she’s like, Oh, my God, you’ll never guess who I married. And what he made me put up with.

Dr Emma Southon 38:59
But the thing is, she really seems to love him.

Dr Rad 39:01
I know. That’s the story that he tells though, right?

Dr Emma Southon 39:04
Yeah. But she does do all this stuff for him.

Dr Rad 39:07
She does.

Dr Emma Southon 39:09
And so I feel like, you know, everybody,

Dr Rad 39:12
She must have she must have.

Dr Emma Southon 39:13
There’s like a point I feel like it’s a bit like, you know, Marge and Homer.

Dr Rad 39:18
It must be because otherwise, it wouldn’t have been that difficult to walk away.

Dr Emma Southon 39:22
She’s like, is he a bit useless? Yes. Do I adore him with all my being? Yes.

Dr G 39:30
Oh, oh, Look, she’s a great character. And it’s just so impressive that we have, like the epigraphy is the is the thing that gives us insight into this – into her life at all. And this is where thinking about different types of evidence becomes really important because obviously like when we’re thinking about written sources, it’s very much that elite male perspective. And the prioritization of subject matter, it really shows. And so this more expansive Look at what Rome could be like and what life was like is becomes really important. And you mentioned Julia Felix before, and she’s one of the figures that I really enjoyed reading about. And obviously Pompeii stands out in people’s imaginations as well as this sort of landmark site and the eruption sort of put to a whole sort of like, how can I say without making it sound terrible?

Dr Rad 40:27
Time capsule?

Dr G 40:29
It kind of creates a time capsule? Yeah.

Dr Emma Southon 40:34
Yeah, it’s a it’s a terrible tragedy, but after 2000 years, suddenly becomes a historians blessing. Their way like, I’m sorry, I’m really sorry, that happened, but also, at least something good came out of it.

Dr Rad 40:45
Yeah, the silver lining. It’s the silver lining.

Dr Emma Southon 40:47
Yeah. Yeah. After two millennia you, you’re like, Okay, everybody’s dead now. I guess. So we can,

Dr Rad 40:54
we can move on.

Dr Emma Southon 40:55
Yeah. Yeah. So I mean, Pompeii is amazing by Julia Felix’s complex is one of the most amazing things. I think the things that people think of when they think of Pompeii, are the theater and then also the like the big houses the villas, which are the story of Rome, that we kind of know like the big impressive houses. And for a while, that’s what people thought Julia Felix’s complex was when they excavated thought was just a kind of a big, weird villa. But outside of it, there is a inscription which was attached to the wall, which said what it actually was, and it says “Julia Felix, daughter Spurius, offers for rent her leisure complex, which contains shops, baths fitted out for the well to do apartments and gardens for a period of five years, Inquire within.” and all of a sudden, archeologists could look at it and go, Oh, it’s a it’s a space where people can go to hang out, it’s not like a private location, because what it is is to was to two houses that have been knocked together. And she moved a road like you can see where a road was redirected, so that she could knock through walls through to expand it, which is amazing. And so it’s got a hot food bar. And in the book, I take you on a we like tour of it so you can see up it’s got a hot food bar outside, which appears to up added on because five years ish prior to the eruption, there was an earthquake in Pompeii, like little warning sign, and that knocked out most of the original leisure district and meant that people coming from the amphitheater, when after games had to go down different roads, and one of them was the road that Julie Felix’s thing was on and so she popped in a hot food bar in order to take advantage of foot traffic, which is brilliant. So it’s got a hot food bar, and it’s got baths, which are very fancy, but very like boutique. So they’re like a little like you can only fit about eight in the toilets, you can fit eight people which is small for a Roman public toilet. And then it has this at the entrance way has a really unusual, almost unique painting – fresco – of not of mythological characters, not of like garden scenes, or of scenes of religious character. But of an every day scene from Pompeii is forum on market day. And has ordinary people doing ordinary things which is so unusual and it’s got like people buying cloth and a person making shoes and horses with inexplicably enormous penises and and like children in school and a person giving a penny to a beggar. And like all of these just like normal activities of like basically the kind of middle classes of Rome. And then inside it has these gardens with little fish ponds and little bridges and a little dining room like a tiny little trick scenario where you can recline and dine. So you have the three couches, and you can do upper class elite dining where you recline on your arm and then people bring you tiny little things of food and it’s got a water feature in the room. And it’s basically a fancy restaurant, for people to go and have a fancy meal out for a fancy occasion and then have a walk around a private garden where there will not be a million other people like in the forum.

Dr G 44:51
I kind of love this where it’s like, I can’t afford my own villa, but what I can afford is I can afford to rent this fancy dining room and we’ll have the lead experience without having to

Dr Rad 45:01
Like a spa day with a lovely meal at the end.

Dr Emma Southon 45:04
Exactly. You know, and it’s like I always imagined it as a kind of thing that you would do for like a special occasion. So like for my birthday, I go to, you know, a Michelin starred restaurant for one meal. And it’s like a big splash out thing where I spend lots of money, but I get like this experience or Yeah, going for a spa day where you do not normally have the leisure time to spend an entire day having, like just basking in steam, but for that one day you can. And that’s basically what seems that Julia Felix’s complex is, it is a space where people can go and have the experience of luxury of time of being served of quiet and privacy, which is something that is so rare in an urban environment, and they can splash out for it, or they can pay for it because it is not something like people like Cicero, and the rich guys are like the Villa of the Silver Wedding or whatever, they can have that all day every day, because privacy and silence and quiet and lush greenery are things that are only available to those who can afford it above you, apparently there was a market for people to be to buy that for one day, or buy that for one evening and to experience it as a luxury, which is and that kind of middle class of Rome of the Roman Empire is so invisible. And it’s so nice to know that that happened and that there were people who would, you know, come in for a birthday or for an anniversary or for, you know, a special little treat and recline and be fed fix instead of having porridge on the street like we normally do.

Dr Rad 46:51
Because you want to eat porridge when you’re on the move, of course, yeah.

Dr Emma Southon 46:55
You know, some you know, sometimes you’re running through the street, you get a big bowl of stew and a bit of wine on a quick go. But sometimes you want to sit down and take your time.

Dr Rad 47:04
She is fascinating, because the very fact that she’s obviously involved in business and her name as well. Julia Felix, it obviously hints at someone who truly is a self made person. And obviously, yeah, obviously does not come from the elite herself.

Dr Emma Southon 47:16
Yeah. And like I said, She’s the daughter of Spurius. So people have suggested that maybe she’s illegitimate, or she doesn’t know who her father is. But she has a citizen. And she, you know, doesn’t mention her husband. And then she has like in the back rooms. There’s her space where she lives through a door. That is a tiny little like villa with an office and where she does her work. And the office walls are covered in paintings of food and money.

My favorite things, yeah.

Which for someone who was apparently making her money serving food, I think it’s great.

Dr G 47:59
Just really embracing everything about how far she’s come and how she’s made it.

Dr Emma Southon 48:02
Yeah exactly. And then she’s got to this point, apparently, in 79, where she’s like, Okay, I’m ready to let someone else run this, and I’m going to rent it out. And you know, I’m still the owner, but I’ll make making my money from rents, and I’m gonna go and maybe she’s gonna go and live a life of luxury somewhere. Or maybe she’s got a new business that she wants to start. But she’s like, at that point. She is she’s ready to let somebody else do the day to day.

Dr G 48:29
I think that’s really cool. It’s like it gives you such an insight into Pompeii, and how Roman life is actually working. And I imagine this is not the only place where this kind of thing is happening at all.

Dr Emma Southon 48:39
Yeah, it’s just the only one we can definitely identify like, because it is the only one that has a sign.

Dr G 48:47
Very clear signage. Very handy.

Dr Emma Southon 48:49
Yeah, put more signs on things, people.

Dr G 48:52
Come on, guys. Come on guys. For history.

Dr Emma Southon 48:54
Yeah, ideally, you must really inscribed them in stone. Because yeah, inscribing stuff in stone is the way to make sure that things last.

Dr G 49:03
We’ll keep that in mind. I want to turn your mind now to like a really later period and sort of getting towards the the edges of the Roman world in a different way. And the figure of Zenobia, who is a figure that maybe people have heard of, but maybe don’t know much of the story about, but she’s also a very intriguing figure in her own right.

Dr Emma Southon 49:24
She is and she’s quite not controversial, but like the interpretation of her is quite contentious, I think. So Zenobia is a woman who is known as a Syrian kind of invader, I think is probably the way that she is often described. If you know any kind of Syrian history. She is a symbol of Syrian identity to a lot of people and she used to be on Syrian banknotes, and the way that she is often described as as a woman who ran an empire in Syria that is somehow outside of the Roman Empire. And the way that I interpret her is as a woman who did the exact same thing as like every general in the third century did which is declare herself and Augustus, and attempted to take over the Roman Empire. Because she, to me is a Roman woman within the Roman Empire, who uses an army to attempt to rule the Roman Empire, which makes her more interesting. So she is the wife of a guy called Odaenathus, who is a kind of weird liminal figure on the edge of the Empire during the third century. So the period when the Empire is fragmented, and there’s about 50 people who claim to be emperor in a 30 year period. And it’s kind of militarily and politically chaotic, whereby nobody knows and prayers don’t really seem to last more than 20 minutes, almost all of them die of being murdered, except for one guy who’s hit by lightning. And it and nobody has the kind of combined military power and personal power to be able to get more than two legions to follow them. And at the time, like basically, a lot of keeping the borders happy. Keeping them secure, is to outsource to people who are big men in their area. And he is one of those guys on the border in Syria with the Persian Empire, the Parthian Empire, and the Parthian Empire at the time is on the rise and is encroaching on Armenia, as it always is. But it’s and this is after Rome is going right the way down into Mesopotamia. So Roman power goes all the way down into Iraq and Iran at this stuff at this time. And so they are charged with basically keeping Mesopotamia as a province and Syria. And he is described in a way that is either means that he is a kind of ko emperor, or it’s just a kind of honorary title. And you can argue about it for the rest of your life. But there’s no real answer to it. But he is running Roman legions, and he is a power down there. And he’s given consular power. And he’s very important, and they have a son together. And then he is murdered by one of his men, because he allegedly he, he takes away this guy’s horse, and this guy is so furious about it, that he murders him.

Dr G 52:41
That’s it. That’s the last straw, you cannot have my horse.

Dr Emma Southon 52:44
Exactly. And so. But what Zenobia does, which is kind of on Roman, but makes sense is, she goes, Okay, and we’re so he had all of these titles and names, and we. And so now my son has all of those titles and names. And so she just kind of gives her son who is like eight, all of the titles that her husband had, and then start ruling as his regent. So she just takes over the role that her husband had running the armies being the face of power in that whole region of Syria and Mesopotamia, she seems to do some military stuff down in Mesopotamia, which we only know because there are some thoughts that are built down there, which have her name on them. So she’s doing something. And then at a certain point, she turns around, declares herself Augusta declares her son to be Augustus, and invades Egypt.

Dr G 53:48
Plot twist.

Dr Emma Southon 53:50
And this is a point where everyone’s like, Oh, hang on, so she destroys a legion in Arabia, then she invades Egypt goes right the way down to Alexandria, and chases out the governor there and sends him on his way, kills a bunch of people, and then settles in and she starts producing coins, and she starts producing lots and lots of bureaucracy. Because where the bureaucracy does survive is in Egypt, because the papyrus survives really well.

Dr Rad 54:18
And the climate.

Dr Emma Southon 54:19
Yeah, yeah. And so what we have is loads and loads of documents, which suddenly start saying, oh, in the year of the reign, like year two of the rain of Iranian and year one of the rain of my son and she basically declares him co emperor of the Roman Empire, which are ralien, who was now emperor and he’s kind of dealing with stuff with the Goths over in the West, he is less keen on this idea, because he’s like, hang on, Who the fuck are you? Who the fuck is that?

Dr G 54:54
Also, what are you doing in the breadbasket of Rome? Get out! Get out, now!

Dr Emma Southon 54:57
Please, you are stressing me out in the breadbasket of Rome! Exactly. And so he pivots very hard away and kind of abandons the situation with the Goths and comes charging into Egypt and fights her. As it turns out, she picked the wrong person to declare herself co Emperor with because if it had been one of the rubbish ones like a Claudius Gothicus or something, he probably would have left it. But Aurelian is the least rubbish and is the person as it turns out, who has the political and military power, and the charm and the ability and the kind of profound balance of being interested in paperwork and being nice to his his soldiers to pull the Emperor back together under one person? So he turns around and blasts into Egypt to fight her she withdraws from Egypt and is like, oh, no, it’s okay. Maybe I’ll just stay.

Dr Rad 55:50
You have it. You have it back.

Dr G 55:52
Byeeeee.

Dr Emma Southon 55:54
But she is still producing coins. And she has, like, we have all these coins from Syria where she’s like, it’s Zenobia on one side, and Juno on the other. And it has her son on one side and Jupiter on the other end, like they’re Roman coins, and they she’s calling them Augustus, and she calls herself an Augusta. And she very clearly is wants to be a part like is a Roman person being a part of the Roman Empire. And they have a bunch of battles. And eventually she is defeated, in in Antioch. And she tries to allegedly, possibly maybe tries to flee on a camel and is caught. But which may be it seems like the kind of story that Romans in Rome would tell about like a woman from the east like, Oh, she just got on a camel, you know what they’re like,

Dr Rad 56:39
She hopped on a magic carpet, and she was out of there.

Dr Emma Southon 56:42
Exactly like but, but it’s a good story. So and she has captured but Aurelian has a bit of Julius Caesar in him. So he lets her live. And he takes her to Rome. And then she lives the rest of her life in Rome, and apparently has more children.

Dr Rad 56:55
Mind blowing, I thought for sure she’d end up dead.

Dr Emma Southon 56:58
Yeah. Yeah. And so she, she is very often presented as someone who tries to invade the Roman Empire. But to me it is very clear that she is someone who wants to rule the Roman Empire and who was like, all these other rubbish guys are doing it. Like she herself puts down another person who tries to declare himself emperor and his children Emperor’s in Syria, and everybody else is doing I don’t see why I can’t get involved.

Dr Rad 57:25
It’s hashtag trending guys.

Dr Emma Southon 57:27
Exactly, like jumping on that bandwagon. And like thinks that she has a real chance. And she you know, she does. She’s the only person who ever invades Egypt, which is impressive, all by itself. And so I think she’s really interesting, both as in the way that we and the way the Romans themselves, but the way that we talk about Romanness, like what about her means that we don’t call her Roman, but also the way that we talked about the Roman Empire and like, at particularly at this period, like when it is all kinds of fragmenting around what gets does still be included in the Roman Empire, and what certainly gets written off from what from thing because this is happening at the same time that the Gallic Empire succeeds. And a guy over in Gaul takes Britain bit of Spain and declares it’s no longer part of the Roman Empire that he is doing his own thing.

Dr G 58:21
We’re independent now. Yeah, it’s been long enough, it’s time to go it alone.

Dr Emma Southon 58:26
It’s like, No, I want my own little empire. And they did. They’re doing their own little kind of situation over there. And but it seems that Zenobia was going to basically keep going, like, be fun to see what she had done had had she had a rubbish Emperor against her rather than gigachad Aurelian.

Dr G 58:51
Yeah, certainly, this seems like the possibility for it to politically work out, actually, yeah, she can hold those regions. And the emperor in Rome is also like, well, I can’t take them back necessarily, let’s make a deal. Then all of a sudden, you’d have something very different going on there in terms of what’s happening with her career and how it pans out for her son as well.

Dr Emma Southon 59:13
Exactly. Because this is the time when the situation with the Goths is really like a problem. And for a good few decades, there emperors have been tied up just desperately trying to keep the gods out, even though all the gods want is to be Roman. And had they been like right, they would have resolved that situation immediately. But they they have been tied up fighting Gods on the Danube and so our ralien is smart enough as a military leader that he takes a tactical loss in order to take Egypt under his own personal control again, but had you had a less tactical one who was like, oh, no, this is the more kind of threatening thing I need to stay here. I can leave the guards and had let her stay in Egypt then you might have a very different – there’s a novel that somebody could write about that counterfactual.

Dr Rad 1:00:04
I love it. Well, so far, the women that we’ve talked about are all what we would loosely describe as pagan because of course, for the vast majority of Rome’s history, the religion that is followed is made up of many gods, etc, etc. However, right at the end a bit of a plot twist of Christianity becoming a major religion, if not the religion of the Roman Empire. And that leads us to the final woman that we thought we quickly discuss, who is Melania the Elder?

Speaker 3 1:00:36
Yeah, who is on this kind of cusp. She lives in a world where Christianity wasn’t legal than it was. And she kind of exemplifies this time when Roman elite women could be Christian out loud, kind of for the first time, but is a woman who does not want to leave behind the benefits of a life as a Roman. And so she is one of the first women who can call herself a Roman Christian, basically. So most of the women before that you have to or most Christians really, before Constantine, you have to choose whether you are a Roman or a Christian. And a lot of you know, the line that that is in all of the trial transcripts and lives that we have for Christian martyrs is that they say no, I am a Christian ‘Christianus sum’ or ‘Christianus sum’, some rather than ‘Romanus sum’. and you cannot be both like and that is why they are persecuted because they won’t sacrifice to the Emperor. Because there seems to be undermining and eventually, they’re, like, constantly in caves. And it’s like fine, we’ve managed to do here is make you stronger. And so she is one of the first people who can say I am a Roman Christian, and she can exist in the Roman world as an elite woman who owns huge amounts of land like she is she actually descends from Marc Anthony’s family line. And she owns as part of her family, enormous swathes of Europe, and is taking income from that. And she she grows up in Spain, and then she moves with her son to Rome after she is widowed. And this being the ancient world, she’s like 23. And she’s widowed, she has already lost two children. And she goes to Rome, where she sets him up as the urban prefect and then spent 10 years living in Rome, preparing her son to be the prefect. And what you have to do is do the games like the big games of the year, and you have to save up for like a decade to do that. So they declare who the prefect is going to be 10 years in advance, so that they have time to save up to the

Dr Rad 1:02:58
Like the Olympics.

Dr Emma Southon 1:02:59
Yeah, exactly. So you have time to prepare. And so she she does actually spent 10 years living in Rome, and then her son comes of age, she becomes a prefect, she does the games. And then she immediately leaves Rome, sells all of her like personal possessions, and then takes huge amount of money and goes to Egypt, because the monastic I was gonna say trend for like, monastic life is kicking off in Egypt at this time, this is a fourth century, kind of mid late fourth century. And she goes off to Egypt to go and visit all of the desert mothers and fathers and ingratiate herself in life in Christian Egypt. And she goes around all of these people and talk to them. And like, these are people who have walled themselves up into their tombs so that they can live there and people who are like, it’s a, it’s a great period of Christian history and history in the Roman Empire, where people were doing deeply odd, like, exercises of stamina and endurance, and of deprivation, like Simon Stylites is, is standing on a, he’s just standing on a pole. And people come and see him and the more people that come see him, the higher his pole gets, but that’s what he does. He just stands on a pole all day, every day, and people are going off into the desert and not masturbating and crying about it a lot. And there’s some great stories about like men, like like thinking about killing themselves, because they’re just constantly tormented by visions of women and young boys and they

Dr Rad 1:04:41
What a life. What a life.

Speaker 3 1:04:43
yeah, but they’re not allows to touch it. And women walling themselves into tombs, or like, you know, these really intense aesthetic practices. And she goes around and visits them all and then kind of decides that she’s not that’s not the life for her because what she enjoys is the life of a patroness. And so she goes to Jerusalem and starts a nunnery. And with her friend, she opens a, they open, open a nunnery, a monastery next to each other where women can come and live monastic lives. And she dedicates herself to a life of very performative asceticism whereby she sort of refuses to wash and then borates people who do, like, rich, she has a huge amount of money, and which she continues to get because her son is now running all of her states, the family estates, and he is sending her money. So she is still benefiting from all of the states that she previously had. And she is pouring all of that money into building up Jerusalem as a Christian space and planting Christianity all over Jerusalem and kind of tamping down the Judaism because they, after Helena, they really want Jerusalem to be the home of Christianity and to shove out the Jews. And she is popular enough there and doing a good enough job that they give her a bit of the True Cross.

Dr G 1:06:13
Sweet.

Dr Rad 1:06:14
This sounds very much like a case of her being able to have her cake and eat it too.

Dr Emma Southon 1:06:18
Yeah, it’s very much a case of a woman who chooses to present as poor while not ever being actually poor. So she, they give her a bit of the True Cross. And then she goes back to visit her family in Rome. One of whom is a quite famous bishop in Italy, where she does a lot of marching around triumphantly, basically. But in the most part, so her family, like go on a visit. And they, they all turn up in like golden carriages wearing purple and red and whatever. And she turns up riding a donkey dressed in rags, holding a bit of the True Cross.

Dr G 1:07:02
Nice work.

Dr Rad 1:07:04
And just like Jesus before her.

Dr Emma Southon 1:07:05
Exactly and you just feel like rolling your eyes so hard, like, like pretending to be poor and so silly. But anyway, she gives a bit this bit of true cross away. And then she gets into a bunch of fights with St. Jerome, who she hates, and he hates her, which is fair, because he’s awful. And she is possibly in Rome, just before the sack of Rome in 410, or she has left. But she inspires her daughter, Melania the Younger, who is potentially the more famous to also become an aesthetic woman, and her and her husband decide that they’re going to sell all of their land free all of their enslaved people, give away everything and become genuinely poor. Which Melania the elder and her son are appalled by and they write to the Emperor.

Dr G 1:08:02
You’ve taken it too far!

Dr Emma Southon 1:08:03
Yeah, exactly. No, no, the thing is, we pretend to be poor, like we’re not actually poor.

Dr Rad 1:08:08
We get to turn it on and off. It’s like a switch.

Dr Emma Southon 1:08:11
Like if I need to have a nice bed, then I need the nice bed like we don’t like and I don’t need to use this money to buy influence and power like I don’t. It’s not what how else, okay, will take me here. Yeah, I need to be purchasing it. Otherwise, because what you have at this time, like, Jerome’s Paula starts her own monastery as well in, in, in Jerusalem, and she is very famous for basically giving over her daughters to Jerome, who He then proceeds to starve to death. But she starts her own monastery and and they’re they have a very specific hierarchy depending on how much money you bring into the monastery with you. So if you want your your social status is outside of the monastery, you there is a hierarchy within the monetary and so the trappings of the world outside Do not leave you when you go and become a nun, you can absolutely go and become a nun and still be a rich, or still be treated as rich and even if you’re pretending that you’re not, but Melania the younger is like no, no, no, I’m gonna give it all away. That’s what Jesus said. And they genuinely try to get the Emperor to stop her, but they can’t. So she sells off everything frees 8000 people, and then goes off to live a genuinely aesthetic. Much to the horror of the rest of her family and then Romans sacked and everything changes. But she she is so fascinating at this point at which Christianity has become legal and so Romans can kind of paste the trappings of a kind of, I suppose, like secular life on to Christianity and can and it’s stops being a thing that you actually have to die for. And you genuinely have to suffer. You can kind of choose to suffer in a way that you can opt out of that.

Dr G 1:10:12
Wait a minute, performative Christianity?

Dr Emma Southon 1:10:15
Yeah. But like they still desperately want to suffer, because that has become part of Christianity. But they don’t. It’s only impressive if you’re choosing to suffer. Like it’s only impressive if you are a rich person who is choosing to wear scratchy rags. If you’re just a poor person who is wearing scratchy rags, you can then that that’s not impressive, like, no, that’s just having a shit life. But being a very rich person who could be wearing silk and who is surrounded by people who are wearing silk, but you’re riding a donkey and wearing scratchy things, that everybody’s like, Oh, my God, what a wonderful.

Dr G 1:10:59
The sacrifice, the sacrifice

Speaker 3 1:11:01
Exactly. And all of a sudden, the fate of Christianity changes and becomes something that people can compete over in a way that you couldn’t really do before. And you’ve the first inklings of what a Christian Roman Empire is going to look like start to appear. And it’s, it’s fascinating.

Dr Rad 1:11:24
I must admit, it’s been a while since I looked at this period, so I was glad to be reminded that the Romans was still unintentionally hilarious. Mostly, yeah, mostly when they were trying to be really serious, even when they became Christian doesn’t make a difference. Doesn’t matter what religion it doesn’t Yeah.

Dr Emma Southon 1:11:41
The more serious the Romans try to be, very often the funnier they are. And there’s this story, like Melania is always surrounded by men who are writing. And so there’s a couple of stories like stories that run about, and there’s this great one about her traveling, she’s moving a new nun from Jerusalem to Egypt, and then traveling across Egypt and cranker, traveling across the desert. So as a little group, and one guy who’s with them, who’s a bishop, they get to their resting place, it’s the desert, they’re in Egypt, it’s hot, and he washes his hands and face and Melania loses her mind, and like, berate him as like, I never wash my face, and I have never laid on anything softer than the hard ground. And even though I’m in my 60s, you will never see me do anything so decadent as to wash my hands, even though doctors say that I might actually be less ill if I did. I still like, Oh, my God, wash woman. But yes, she just loves to be grubby. And just so that she can one up people.

Dr Rad 1:12:47
Well, you know, I actually made her a bit of my own patron saint when I went to school camp and could not wash for several days.

Dr Emma Southon 1:12:57
See, this, incidentally, is why I never became an archaeologist, because I could never deal with the grubby hands.

Dr Rad 1:13:04
Yeah, I get that, I get that. Well, thank you so much for sharing all of those amazing stories, people definitely need to go out and grab your book because it is filled with so many more. So can you please tell us where can people buy the book? And where can people find you.

Dr Emma Southon 1:13:21
So you can you can buy the book hopefully in any good bookshop. You so it’s called ‘A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women’. And it should be hopefully available anyway. You can go to my website, which is emmasouthon.com. Then there are links to places that you can bite there, you can also find me at ‘History is Sexy’, which is historyissexy.com. As long as your adult filters don’t filter out the name, because apparently they sometimes do. But you can find it on all good podcast feeds. And we answer questions that people don’t want to spend two days researching themselves. So and you can ask us questions there. And yeah, I think that’s all the places and you can find me on Instagram at ‘Nuclearteeth’, where I put links to things when I remember. And you can also see many, many, many pictures of my cat.

Dr G 1:14:16
Oh, Look, thank you so much for spending this time with us. We really appreciate it. And reading this book has been a real thrill and pleasure. And we can only imagine that people listening to this episode will feel the energy and the vibrancy of the women coming through in this conversation because the whole book is like this. It’s full of great stuff. As a final question, Would you have any hints about what’s to come in your writing world?

Dr Emma Southon 1:14:45
The next book that I am currently writing is a children’s book with Greg Jenner who used to be the historical consultant for Horrible Histories and now does the ‘You’re Dead to Me’ podcast on the BBC. And we are writing a children’s book about Roman Britain, which is an introduction to historiography for kids.

Dr G 1:15:08
Fantastic. That sounds really, really exciting.

Dr Rad 1:15:11
Sounds like another winner. Well, we as we cannot thank you enough for coming back, back, back back back again – which only you will find funny – and we hope very much to be able to chat to you when that next one comes out.

Dr Emma Southon 1:15:25
Thank you. I’m always here to chat to you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Special Episode – A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women with Dr Emma Southon appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

This may be the best podcast episode you’ve ever heard, and that’s the gospel truth. We’re munching on protein bars and raw chicken as we discuss Disney’s Hercules (1997) with Professor Alastair Blanshard.

Statue of Hercules in Shrewsbury – a copy of the Farnese Hercules. Hercules leans wearily on his club, which is covered by his lionskin. Carrying out all these labours is hard work! Courtesy of Elliot Brown on Flickr.

Professor Blanshard literally wrote the book on Hercules, as well as several chapters on his representation in film. We are so lucky to have him on our show as he is not just a gigantic Hercules fanboy. He is currently the Paul Eliadis Chair of Classics and Ancient History at The University of Queensland and one of the most hilarious historians you will ever meet.

Disney’s Hercules came out during one of the most successful animated movie streaks for the studio. However, the film was a little different to the Disney Princess films such as Beauty and the Beast and The Little Mermaid. It was also pitched at a slightly older, male audience, and used the story of Hercules to explore the awkward journey from adolescence to manhood.  

As people have learnt about muscle development and nutrition has changed, Hercules has often been played by bodybuilders like Steeve Reeves and more recently Dwayne ‘The Rock’ Johnson. Image of Steeve Reeves, courtesy of John Irving on Flickr.

Disney does not always provide the most faithful representation of Hercules’ story. How do you turn a myth about a serial murderer, a drunkard and a glutton into an exploration of what it means to be a true hero? Never you fear – Disney has all the answers!

This film blends stories of Hercules, such as his strangling of the snakes as a baby and the Twelve Labours, with so many other elements from contemporary American society. Whilst Hercules was not quite as successful as other Disney movies of this era, there is a lot to love about this representation.

The Greeks were not afraid to rework their own mythology, and it seems like Disney followed in their footsteps.

Hercules having a chat with his father in Zeus’ temple at Olympia in Disney’s Hercules (1997). Courtesy of Adam Hammond.

Join us for this fascinating conversation about the Disneyfication of a Greek hero. We delve into the characterisation of all your favourite characters: Meg, Phil, Hades, and of course, the man of the hour.

Special Episode – Disney’s Hercules (1997)

If you would like to read more from Professor Blanshard, you can find a list of publications on his university profile. You can also find his contributions on The Conversations here.

Our music is courtesy of Bettina joy de Guzman,

Join us at the Intelligent Speech Conference this year! The event will be held online on November 4. You can buy tickets here and watch the event live, or access the videos later. If you use the code PEICE at checkout, you get 10% off your tickets and they’ll know that we sent you.

Our automated transcript is provided by Otter AI.

Dr Rad 0:00
Hey there listeners at the partial Historians tell me, are you doing anything on November for? No? Well, Dr. Jean, I have just the invitation for you come along to the intelligent speech conference for 2023. And hear us and other amazing presenters talk all about the theme of the year, which is contingencies. What happens when history meets the backup plan? How intriguing does that sound? Just head along to intelligence speech online.com to buy your tickets now. And if you’re worried about the time difference, never you fear you can of course, join in the event live online, but you can also watch the videos afterwards at your own convenience. So what are you waiting for? Go and grab your tickets now. And if you use the code peace, P E, I C E at the checkout, they’ll know the partial history and sent you and you’ll get a lovely 10% off. We hope to see you there.

Welcome to the partial historians.

Dr G 1:21
We explore all the details of ancient Rome.

Dr Rad 1:25
Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged and when citizens turn against each other. I’m Dr. Red.

Dr G 1:36
And I’m Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Roman saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.

Dr Rad 1:46
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

Welcome to a special episode of the partial historians. I’m one of your hosts Dr Rad

Dr G 2:15
and I am Dr. G. And we’re pretty excited about the conversation that we’re about to have today. I mean, personally, I’m a big Hercules fan. And that might be a little bit of foreshadowing.

Dr Rad 2:28
Indeed, we are so lucky to be joined by I think it’s safe to say the world’s largest expert on Hercules, which is Alastair Blanshard. Alastair Blanshard is the Paul Eliadis professor of classics and ancient history, as well as the author of some amazing books that you might like to get your hands on, including classics on screen and Hercules a heroic life.

Dr G 2:52
Thank you so much for joining us, Alastair.

A Blanshard 2:54
Great to be here. And I’m not sure about the largest expert, but certainly the biggest fanboy for Hercules

Dr Rad 3:00
that makes you the expert in our book. So we’re gonna be talking about Disney’s Hercules in particular today, which is really great for us because we’ve been revisiting a lot of classic films, and so Hercules naturally fits right in. But before we dive straight into the Disney version of things, it’s probably good to give our listeners a bit of background on who Hercules actually is, or dare I say, Herakles.

Speaker 3 3:24
Yes, absolutely. So, Herakles, as he’s known amongst the Greeks, and Hercules, as he’s called by the Romans was probably the most popular of the ancient heroes. Certainly his worship is found throughout the Mediterranean from signs in the far corners of Spain all the way through to Southern France. Indeed, the modern Principality of Monaco is actually named after in fact, a temple dedicated to Hercules, Hercules monoikos, Hercules, the man who lives alone, and so monoikos becomes Monaco, but to his worship continues, obviously in Greece all the way through the Black Sea to all be our panic a pm no places where modern day Ukraine is. And of course, there are important sanctuary sites in Lebanon, North Africa. So throughout the Mediterranean, Hercules was a figure that was well known and well respected and worship.

Dr Rad 4:17
Absolutely. I seem to recall some Roman emperors letting to dress up like Hercules and run around arenas, and we were just actually talking about little NAS X and his music video for call me by your name and how he might be dressed up as Hercules but like a baby pink Hercules?

A Blanshard 4:35
Well, we’ll Look at don’t even get me started on that video clip because that is for a classicist, or one of the greatest clips ever. I mean, not only does it include all the coliseums type scenes, him dressed up as characters, but also a quotation in actual Greek from Plato’s Symposium as well, from Aristophanes speech about the nature of the soul and how it’s looking for its long lost partner. So So for a classicist that that is the film clip to end all film clips,

Dr G 5:03
it is basically catnip for classicists.

A Blanshard 5:08
Who knew that that was the market he was going for? It’s done

Dr G 5:11
really well, we now all talk about it. And we have a great time and all of us kind of like, we just want to meet him and sit down and have a good chat about it.

A Blanshard 5:19
Yes, I really want to know who chose that passage from the symposium because it’s so perfect in terms of the concept of the song. But also the decision to carve it onto the tree in in Greek is really, really striking.

Dr Rad 5:33
I know we were speaking to Yentl love about X, we’ve tried a special FSA just on that one particular clip. And we were asking her like, Where does this come from? Like, who is working on this? Is this all from him? Like, who are the people that he’s consulting with?

Dr G 5:46
And also, how do we get a job? But to drag it back to Hercules inherently, he’s thinking about the sort of how he’s positioned in the ancient world? What are some of the sort of key touchstones in the mythology that surrounds this figure so that we can set up a sort of a comparison between what the sort of the ancient Greeks and the ancient Mediterranean world thought about this figure and the stories they told and how that might end up comparing to what Disney presents us with?

A Blanshard 6:15
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s a very, very good question. And it’s a really interesting question to ask for Heroclix because one of the things about Hara Cleves is because he’s worshipped in so many different places, there are so many different stories. And so we imagine really, that the mythology around Hercules was enormous, every place would have had its own little Hercules story, its own variation about how hurricanes came to their town often established, you know, an important institution or, or a right. And so really, in fact, the myths that we have about hurricanes that have come down to us are probably in the tip of a huge iceberg of stories that would have been circulating in in antiquity, I guess, in terms of thinking about the grand narratives to occupy Hercules as life that I think I guess there are, there are probably a couple of kind of key points. And obviously the 12 labours is a is a central point. And these were the 12 labours that Hercules had to perform as expiation for the murder of his wife and children. And that’s a topic I think, we’ll get into discussing, particularly when we come to the Herrick Lee’s film because it’s totally glossed over. But Hercules, the wife killer, the child killer, has to wash the blood from his hands. And He does this by performing a number of labours for King Eurystheus. That’s you. I guess one of the great central themes or stories that relates to Hercules would live there are a number of other other kinds of stories, there’s a story about his eventual death where he is poisoned effectively by a woman who loved him, dear Naira, who accidentally thinking that she’s going to make her clothes love her by applying a love potion to his clothes is in fact tricked into applying a kind of burning poison to his close. And so he dies in agony, and his eventual soul is sent to the heavens where it’s worshipped as the divine as a divine figure. I guess that’s one of the important stories. I guess the other sort of important story is the story about his birth, which again, was a kind of very important one. So again, it’s a story that the Disney film isn’t particularly keen on, on showing because it’s all a story about adultery and deceit, and involves Hercules being the product of Zeus or Jupiter, coming down to earth, falling in love with a woman by the name of Alcmene and then appearing to her while her husband’s away in the form of her husband. And he then sleeps with her, and she thinks she’s sleeping with them photo on her husband. Now, in modern days, this would be rape, right? This is a classic case of what lawyers would call rate by personation. And this is, you know, you consent achieved by deceit, but the ancient world didn’t see this as right. They saw this as just a very convenient ruse on the part on the part of Jupiter. And indeed, they even played it for comic effect. So for example, plotters in the play in vitro, has this as a kind of comic setup with their people going, are you in vitro? No, you’re in vitro and they play it for kind of laughs now. Now, you can play it for laughs The Greeks also played it for tragedy. So in fact, we know that there is a fragmentary tragedy, the Alcmene which takes a scenario and which has Amphitryon arriving back at home to discover that his wife has been sleeping with another man. He doesn’t believe her claims that she thought she was sleeping with her husband. And in fact, he puts on her pilot and is about to set fire to an incinerator alive when in fact that Zeus appears and sorts everything out. But this extraordinary birth story of Hercules who is the product of this rape by deceit could be played for both comic effects and tragic effects in the in the ancient world. but those are I think those are I think the three stories, the birth, the 12 Labours and the death, I think are probably the three key elements in the Hercules narrative.

Dr Rad 10:08
Yeah, and like most Greek myths, I think it doesn’t automatically scream made for children in this modern age, because there is just so much murder and violence and trickery and adultery and all sorts of issues that run all throughout Hercules.

A Blanshard 10:25
Yes, okay. Anyone who started to tell a Greek myth for children suddenly finds themselves having to gloss over over things. And the numbers of nightmares. I’ve given my poor nieces and nephews, as I’ve told them stories of the ancient world, it’s really, really too many to name.

Dr Rad 10:42
And yes, I suppose, where all the products are being told Greek myths.

Dr G 10:47
Yeah, it’s it’s really interesting that there is obviously so much violence at the centre of these stories. And I think that’s it’s definitely not uncommon for the ancient world to sort of have these sort of like lessons that are really sort of bruntly felt upon the body as much as upon the psyche. And yet, somehow, Disney has thought, you know, what would be a great tale to tell on the animated screen, the life of a hero? And who better to choose then Hercules?

A Blanshard 11:18
Yeah, it’s absolutely extraordinary, as you say, I mean, Hercules, Hercules is the figure that in fact, the ancient world does a lot of thinking about in terms of violence, right. So he’s the figure, in fact, who was so violent, so bloody in terms of his actions, that in fact, the Delphic Oracle refuses to wash his hands of blood. So he turns up having murdered a whole series of people again, and turns up to the Delphic Oracle and says, Look, you know, once again, sorry, kill have killed a lot of people, can you wash the blood of my hands? Can you make me once again, clean and the Delphic Oracle says, No, not this time, I’m just sick of you turning up here, completely covered in Gore, having just murdered a whole lot of people, we’re not going to do it this time. And Hercules is outraged. He grabs the tripod, on which the Oracle sits and he says, I’m gonna go establish my own oracle that will allow me to be cleansed whenever I need it, which is obviously a lot. And at this point, Apollo appears, and wrestles the tripod back from Hercules and we have this in a lot of ancient art. There are a lot of ancient artistic depictions of Apollo and heroically is wrestling over the Delphic tripod. Now, what’s interesting is that Zeus intervenes, and he sends a thunderbolt which splits the two and, and he says to Apollo, Look, it’s your job to purify those who commit crimes. So yes, you’re going to have to purify again. And so establishes the principle that in fact, you know, there’s no crime for which you shouldn’t be able to get purification from it’s important Greek principle. And, and it’s Hara Cleves, who becomes as it were the, the test case for this, that if you could, if you can cleanse Heroclix of blood, then basically you can cleanse anyone,

Dr G 13:10
goodness me, I felt like when you were talking about that kind of detail, it just put me in mind of like, where Roman Catholicism ends up. And I was like, Oh, that’s a fascinating sort of, anyway, I don’t want to go down that rabbit hole. But nevertheless, this idea of Hercules like sitting in this really interesting nexus of putting limits to the test, whether they be physical endurance, whether it be the necessity to be cleansed. I think this leads us really nicely into thinking about the film and potentially how they’ve decided to characterise Hercules in the Disney version through his physicality.

A Blanshard 13:47
Yeah, Look, it was a really interesting choice for them to do a hurricane so that they canvassed a couple of other options. They were clearly very keen to do something in the ancient world, and two stories were greenlit. So there was a one a project based on Homer’s Odyssey, and a project based on Hercules. And in the end, they decided to go for Hercules. Now, they’re thinking about this was quite interesting, because they felt that the Odyssey was something too sacred that you couldn’t play about with, with the Odyssey in the way that you could do with Hercules and Hercules, you could have more fun with interesting concept, and also, that he was far more adaptable. And that second issue of adaptability. I think they’re onto something because as I said, there are a lot of Hercules stories. And so, you know, I think there was a bit more play in the, in the in the Herculesmyth in a way that there isn’t art with the Odyssey that said, no one would have recognised what they did to directly story in the ancient world. But, but certainly, I think the notion of the ability of Hara cleaves it visa vie the Odyssey is probably probably right. But but the extraordinary an extraordinary, extraordinary choice.

Dr Rad 14:56
Yeah, well, I suppose you’re giving us a bit of context for the film. So Hercules comes at the tail end of this real resurgence for the Disney Studio. So it was released I think in 1997. And Disney, of course has just had a string of mega hits like the Lion King Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin all these sorts of films. So Hercules is coming at sort of the tail end of this particular era. And I believe that they were kind of thinking that Hercules might be more for a preteen, particularly male audience.

A Blanshard 15:29
Yeah, absolutely. Right. So this is, you know, the IOC called Eisner era and Disney right. So, you know, after the disaster of Black Cauldron in 1985, which almost put an end to animation in Disney, the Disney Corporation decides that we need to really rejig things we need to rethink the whole programme in terms of animated films. And so Michael Eisner, and then Roy Disney together really rejig the animation studios. tremendous success, as you say, no kicks off with Little Mermaid beauty in the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King they inherently use and of course, they’ll go on to Pocahontas. So an extraordinary resurgence, and new Disney is just hitting it out of the park in terms of these in terms of these films, until it hits Hercules. And as you say, they’re trying to do something different, right? So Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin Lion King, primarily, the age group they’re looking for is the kind of six plus I mean, that’s the rough age it Hercules, they think, Well, Look, we’ve conquered that demographic, let’s do something different. And so it’s an 11 Plus audience, so slightly more mature, and also much more boys-y as well. And, and that’s really interesting for Disney. Because, I mean, it’s really interesting to think the way in which Disney dominates the female demographic, you know, the Disney Princess is, you know, the thing that kind of dominates female childhood in a way for many bad, very bad purposes. And indeed, is something that they’re kind of now rethinking, but there hasn’t been, as it were a kind of dominant Disney narrative, um, for boyhood, inherently, as was their attempt to do that. And as a result, hurricanes represents a slight tweaking in terms of the genre and in terms of the format of the film so so if you Look at things like as you say, Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, Aladdin, Lion King, you imagine right a ratio of comedy to drama about three to one. Now, in the Hercules film, what we see is a shift more towards dramas and slightly more drama, and also the nature of the comedy changes as well. So it’s less of the sort of physical comedy, but there’s still quite a lot of physical comedy, but much more kind of knowing, ironic, self reflexive kind of kind of comedy.

Dr Rad 17:45
So this might be a good moment to give a very brief overview of the plotline of this movie, particularly because we’ve told our listeners so much about you know, the murderer and Hercules his life and that sort of thing. So what have they done with the basic plotline? What have they told us about Hercules in this film,

A Blanshard 18:02
right. Okay. So what they what they’ve done is they’ve taken various elements of Greek myth and combined it together. So the overarching narrative is the narrative of the tight end Tamaki, right the the great fight between the Olympian gods and the Titans, and Tyson slash giants. And so what they’ve done is they’ve taken this narrative from myth, and they’ve reworked it in such a way that in order for the gods to succeed in a battle against the Titans, which are imagined in the Disney film was called elemental forces of chaos. In order for the gods to defeat the Titans, they need to have Heroclix on their side. And this really alarms the evil figure in the in the film, who is Hades, who is cast as the villain who wants to overthrow his brothers, Zeus, he really wants to, and he wants to overthrow the gods and he wants to align himself with the Titans. Now, in order to do this, he needs to get rid of Heroclix. And so he does that, first of all, by trying to poison him as a child. And unfortunately, this doesn’t succeed. But what he does do is he manages to poison Hercules so enough so that he becomes mortal, a very strong mortal, and so he is then fostered out to some mortal parents and this is Amphitryon and Alcmene, the figures of who are the traditionally the parents of Hercules and then Hercules grows up as this strong, you know, out of place awkward adolescent who doesn’t really fit into society, his his strength makes him always kind of unduly clumsy. So So in a sense, he’s kind of every awkward adolescent, right and he speaks to the awkwardness of adolescence. He discovers that in fact, he’s the son of Zeus and desperately wants to rejoin his real father as a god and so he does all sorts of actions to try and achieve godhood this is ultimately unsuccessful until he realises that it’s not the actions that make you a god. It’s in fact, what’s inside. And that’s what makes a true hero. And, and this only happens when he falls for a love interest by the name of mega who, unfortunately for him is a pawn of Hades, and she tricks him into sacrificing his life for her. And he does. He does that. And then eventually, the Titans are emerge. But because of the Soul Sacrifice at Hercules, made, he’s allowed to in fact become a great hero. He can then rejoin the battle turns the tide saves the Olympian gods. And then at the very end, when he’s just about to be welcomed into Olympus, which is imagined as the whole pearly gates of heaven. As of Olympus is vector kind of gated community. In this film, he decides actually, really, he wants to be on Earth with mega who’s had a change of heart who’s realised that deep down all along, she loved her athletes. And together, they kind of go off, happily live, it leads to the Disney World happily ever after.

Dr G 21:13
I mean, it’s the sort of thing where there’s so many small details that have been altered and changed along the way to make this incredibly interesting. And it puts you in mind of not just how Disney is attempting to sort of make Hercules sort of fit within their own sort of genre standards, but also the ways in which they’re trying to reshape how you might think about ancient heroism in terms of a modern hero.

A Blanshard 21:42
Yeah, absolutely. And there’s a real clash between a model of heroism which is derived from antiquity and the model of heroism, which is imbued with this very strong Judeo Christian ethos and, and you see it in the figure of Heroclix. Because in the ancient world, in order to be a hero, all you need to do is just be famous, right? heroes were just famous people they were, are often morally bankrupt. I mean, Hercules is a good example right now, not only is he a murderer, no, he’s a rapist. He’s a glutton prone to violent outbursts, who famously murders his music teacher as a child. I mean, he’s really just a terrible person. And so, you know, trying to kind of tidy him up, make him more moral. And again, it’s the same with Odysseus as well, deceit for really, again, violent, bloodthirsty figures. But but that doesn’t matter for the ancient world. As long as you’re famous, as long as you’re spectacular, as long as you’re blessed by the gods. That’s what makes you a hero rather than having any moral content. Now, Disney offers you a totally different version of heroism, right? I’m hearing this is what’s on the inside, right. And there’s a constant discourse throughout the film about what makes a true hero. Now this is distinction of the ancient world wouldn’t have recognised right new hero, true hero, there’s only I think you’re either a hero or you’re not a hero, right, the idea of being a true hero is something that they wouldn’t have recognised. And indeed, this comes to the fore in one of the great musical sequences in the film, which is the zero to hero sequence,

Dr Rad 23:10
my personal favourite.

A Blanshard 23:12
I just love it. It’s the one that gets me humming and tapping. I mean, I know we’re all supposed to love the Michael Bolton’s go to distance but, but for me, it’s zero to hero. And in this sequence, what we have is wonderful montage of Heroclix Hercules doing all the kinds of things that in the ancient world will make you a hero, he beats monsters, but more importantly, though, he gets cash, he gets fame, he’s got these fan girls that are totally obsessed by him. It’s this one. He’s doing endorsements for running shoes. It’s this wonderful sequence about kind of fame and importance and monetary wealth. Now, in the ancient world, this is all you needed to be a hero. But the end of this sequence involves Hercules going to Zeus and saying, Well, looking, I’ve done everything you need me to do, why aren’t I a hero, and he’s da, it’s a hero comes from inside. You didn’t know he’s done everything he needs to do make him a hero. But it’s a great sequence. Because in a sense, the the musical number is supposed to show you what he’s what doesn’t make a true hero. But actually, what it does is give you a very good example of what would have made a hero in the ancient world.

Dr Rad 24:20
Can you get that great line when I hear Hercules is talking to Zeus as well. Zeus is a statue that’s come to life. And he says, you know, Look over the action figure. And I think the ancient world would have been like, yeah, right.

A Blanshard 24:32
Absolutely. That sequence is lovely, because it plays with the very famous chryselephantine statue of Zeus at Olympia, which has course come to life and, and that’s the thing that what everyone says about the, the content of the film visually, it’s extraordinary, right, Gerald Scarfe, one of the really great artists, you know, famous for doing Pink Floyd’s The wall as well as a really series of important players. Cartoons For punch and Sunday Times, you know, just it’s just a fantastic job with this film, it doesn’t Look like any other kind of Disney film and, but it’s just so visually clever. I mean, you know, he was obsessed by the line that you get in Greek vases. And so you see, you know, even the drops of water that fall kind of when they dropped a drop, like, in the shape of Greek, Pfizer’s the, the landscapes are extraordinary. It’s just the most beautiful, exciting visual film. And there are all these lovely little quotations of, of ancient sculpture of ancient VARs forms, time and time, again, a wonderful occasion of ancient architecture. So visually, the film is, is lush and wonderful.

Dr G 25:40
I think there’s a real visual richness to Hercules his body as well, the swirling lines that that sort of demarcate, like his chest and his ears and things like this, which is a real visual Echo to ancient Greek sort of artistry as well.

A Blanshard 25:55
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s very clear that that scarf has been entrusted by the by Greek vase painting, particularly in his depiction of Heroclix. And indeed, there’s a long tradition of artists, particularly Iliff line illustrated, being obsessed by Greek vase painting. So you can go back to something like Aubrey Beardsley, for example, who again, obsessed by Greek line painting. So animators line artists have always found a huge inspiration in Greek vase painting.

Dr Rad 26:25
So do you think as well that the appearance of Hercules in the animated version has been influenced by the representations of Hercules that have come before so famously, Hercules has been embodied by strong man or body builders, so people like Steve Reeves people like Eugene sand out, and more recently, since the Disney film, of course, we’ve had the rock. So do you think that that sort of physical appearance has characterised the animated version as well?

A Blanshard 26:51
Yeah, absolutely. And it’s worthwhile observing that there are two essentially bold body types in this format. There’s the young, kind of scrawny adolescent Hercules. And then there’s the Hara cleis, that emerges after Danny DeVito, otherwise known as Philip TTS, otherwise known as Phil takes him in hand and transforms him into this buff, gorgeous body. And both those bodies are really interesting. I’m struck by what Disney did with this kind of awkward adolescence, because I think that’s probably the critically most successful bit of a film is imagining this hero as this kind of awkward adolescence. And it’s striking that actually the most importance, I guess, spin off of the film was in fact the hair Achlys animated series that they did for television, which was a series of episodes of essentially, young Herrick leaves at school and his his friends, he’s got a fantastic Cassandra friend who’s always having these visions that no one understands. And Icarus figure has kind of been flying too close to the sun that’s kind of spaced out. And now that was a that was probably much more successful. I think critically, then the film itself, and it focused very much on that adolescent here at least. And I think that’s quite interesting. But as you say, when when he when he’s buff, and full bodied, he’s absolutely in line of the kind of standard peplum Heracles that we know from figures like Steve Reeves, whose 1960s heritage leaves films really defined, defined our notions of what Reeves has been, or should be. And indeed, I mean, there’s a, as you say, there’s a long tradition starts with Sandow, pretending to be the wiry Heracles and his famous stage show where he imitated life synthases famous statue of the weary Heracles, that body type of hurricanes is quite interesting, because it makes a hurricane, it’s very good at lifting things, breaking things, not so good at running. I mean, if you’ve ever seen a bodybuilder run, right, you know, their fires get in the way, right? There’s just a whole lot of chafing that’s happening there. And, and that’s interesting, because it was one of the labours of Hercules is in fact, him chasing down the sneaking Hind of Artemis. So one of the one of the very famous labours of Hercules involves him really running very fast. Yeah, it’s hard to imagine if these bodybuilders running fast, or indeed, you know, in a sense, Disney’s Hercules as well,

Dr Rad 29:13
you’ve actually highlighted that I think a bit in your work, the fact that the Hercules body that we’re perhaps familiar with as modern audiences kind of only became possible once we were able to feed ourselves, you know, so many particular you know, vitamins and nutrients to turn our bodies into something, whatever it is even possible or practical in an ancient world context.

A Blanshard 29:34
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, it’s extraordinary. We live in this amazing moment, right. So there are two key key changes are the first one is the ability to isolate muscle group and train individual muscles. And that becomes possible around the turn of the 19th century with people like Sandow developing equipment for the isolation and training of individual muscle groups. The second thing as you say, is the tremendous change in diet right so you can go to the super market and you can now eat protein in a density impurity that is unparalleled. So we can do things with our bodies that we’ve never been able to do before. So we can get for Hercules Look, I mean, for me, it’s always very interesting because in the ancient world, you know, people don’t operate with that low amount of body fat, right, those Herculean bodies that we see, or indeed, even the kind of the slim tot no Greek gods style bodies that we see in gym, they would have fallen over the first famine or long winter, right, you know, unless you’ve got a decent amount of body fat, you’re not going to survive that winter, you’re not going to survive feminine. We know that every time we model the ancient economy, we have to figure in, you know, a probably one to two years every 10 years for for famine or for struggling to meet your daily calorific requirements. So, you know, those bodies wouldn’t have wouldn’t have survived a long winter, which, again, always interests me,

Dr G 30:56
yeah, it puts us in a situation where even for the ancient Greeks, their idolised body is risky, because it’s right on the edge of the limits of what might be possible in their context.

A Blanshard 31:06
Yeah, as I say, these are, these are bodies, which are actually, although they’re proclaiming health, they’re more importantly, proclaiming, well, that is, this is a body that doesn’t need to worry about where its foods coming from. This is a body that can run itself right on the edge, because it knows that actually, it’s it’s a very wealthy body for whom it’s always going to have access to resources. And so when we Look at those athletic bodies, we need to see them both as signs of kind of physicality, but also as signs of wealth, class and status.

Dr G 31:38
Yes, definitely. And thinking about the film, not just in it, sort of physicality of Hercules, but also thinking about how figures like the Olympian gods are coming into play. Certainly, there’s a sort of an extended elaboration of their physicality as well, but I’m actually potentially more interested in their characterization compared to how we understand them from Greek myth.

A Blanshard 32:05
Yes, I mean, what we see is a very reductive attitude towards the Greek gods. So the Greek gods stand for one thing and one thing only right so Aphrodite is a goddess of love, for example, but we know that in the ancient world, she was also a sea goddess, importantly, depicted always with a dolphin by her side, she is the person that you imply, prey to for safe voyages. Likewise, your Dionysus is represented there is the god of wine, but he’s also the godfather of theatre, the god of madness, has important role in the underworld as well through certain Dionysiac mysteries. So these multifaceted God that in the ancient world had all these various different dimensions to them, just effectively get reduced in the Disney Hercules to only standing for one for one thing. So you know, Poseidon is the god of the sea, but he’s not the God of horses, not the God of earthquakes, for example, and it goes on again, and again. There are some lovely jokes. I mean, there’s a wonderful joke about Narcissus, for example, he’s always looking in, in his mirror and, and that’s kind of right. I think, that’s this is really famous for being obsessed by his beauty, but but in all other respects, their depiction of the gods is very, very reductive. We see this, for example, perhaps most strikingly, in here, who you know, in this case is just becomes a sort of doting simpering mother rather than the extraordinary powerful God is in her own right, who is responsible, in fact for making her excuses life? Hell right. Now, if you go to Greek myths, it’s here that’s in fact the main cause of all his all his problems. And in fact, it’s here who’s responsible for perhaps the most tragic event in hairpieces life which of course is sending the goddess of madness Alyssa so that hurricanes goes mad and murders his wife Megara and all his children and this is the extraordinary tragic dark sequel to in fact the Heracles film because the heritage film ends with Hercules and make mega arm in arm together off to be this loving couple now if you know your Greek myth you’ll no well Look it’s looking fine now but yeah, give it a few years inherit here I should in theory be sending matters to ensure that hurricanes will be murdering poor old make and all the kids they have as well. So so this is kind of really dark kind of this that every time you see big on stage and you think, Oh, God, no, just just run from Him, you know? And there are all these kind of lovely things where Heroclix says, No, I’ll never hurt you make and you think, Oh, you are gonna hurt a big time don’t it’s, it’s it really there’s kind of dark ironies that run through the film.

Dr Rad 34:47
Yeah, I did think it was very interesting that given that hair, as you say, like from from the moment of his conception basically decides she’s going to play Hercules because of course he is. Living Proof of Zeus is on faith. fullness, the fact that he slept with this mortal woman and that kind of stuff. His name obviously even comes from from here as well. So it’s interesting that she’s not the villain that Hades is. And I think that says obviously a lot about how we understand the god of the underworld. Yeah, it must be something dark and evil something down there, whereas hair is often the light cloudy world of Olympus. But Megara has is definitely a character of fascination, partly because she’s obviously come into a lot of criticism because of her appearance. So the fact that I mean all the women but particularly Megara I think have this insane body shape, which may or may not be a Greek vase. But boy, that waist is tiny. And they have turned her into this, like, why is cracking female love interest? Which as you say, it’s such a weird choice, because yeah, if you know, your myth, she she’s going to get murdered by Hercules.

A Blanshard 35:47
Yes, and certainly, that depiction of Megara is something that that is very common, and aligns with a lot of the depictions that you’re seeing in the eyes near Disney, where there’s an attempt to have a slightly more sassy, slightly more independent kind of female figure. And, of course, you know, Hercules comes just before Pocahontas, which will be that and then of course, Mulan afterwards, which you know, so so you can sort of see a bit of a trend beginning with Megara going on to going on to Pocahontas and Mulan in Disney thinking. But you know, for all her independent agency, you know, it’s still hurricanes who saves the day. And then that is the key centre of the narrative.

Dr G 36:32
We also get this sort of complexity in the plot as well, whereas Meg comes across as being quite independent and having a strong sense of personal agency, only for that to be revealed to us in terms of the plot that she actually she’s in the grip of Hades is power.

A Blanshard 36:50
Yeah, although in her defence, you know, she did it because of her bad choice in men, right, she fell for the wrong guy and ended up you know, selling herself to Hades to save him only for him to abandon her and leave her as a slave as a slave to Hades. So, you know, for all her kind of sassy wisecracking nature. You know, ultimately, what really matters if you’re a woman is are you able to choose the right guy? That that’s what will lead to success or not, not your brains? Not your your ability? With a quick wit? Actually, it’s Can you establish a meaningful relationship with a man? That is, that is the success.

Dr G 37:32
Thanks a lot, Disney. Thanks a lot.

Dr Rad 37:35
As you ended up with the guy, he’s gonna murder her. Yeah,

A Blanshard 37:39
exactly. Well, at least you’d have to be a princess now. That’s the important thing.

Dr G 37:44
What a relief, small steps, small steps.

Dr Rad 37:47
So I’d love to very quickly talk about some of these other characters that we’ve mentioned in passing. So some of the other sort of major minor characters, the supporting cast are, of course, Hades and Phil, do you have any strong feelings about the portrayal of these people feel obviously not being based on a real God or something per se? Hadees definitely.

A Blanshard 38:08
Yeah. So I think Phil is really interesting, right? So Danny DeVito does a great job with with with the figure of Phil. He’s short for Philoctetes. So it’s playing on another figure from the Heracles cycle. So Philoctetes was famous in antiquity for having this pussy foot. That meant that he was abandoned by his companions, who sailed on the trip to Troy, left on the island of Lemnos. But importantly, Philoctetes was an associate of Heracles and had the bow of Heracles. And so eventually, they have to come back apologise for abandoning him on the island of Lemnos and he didn’t get reincorporated back into society so so that’s the story of Philoctetes is known in antiquity as a friend of Heracles the person who inherited his his dying gives the gives his bow to not his personal trainer, but not his personal trainer, and certainly not satyr either. That’s the other thing is that he has been turned into a Saturday in this in this film, but yes, yeah. And again, just a great figure you playing on a car cinematic tradition of the boxing trainer, the particularly the Jewish boxing trainer, and there’s, there’s a way in which Philippines picks up on particular trends in sort of cinematic New York Judaism and so so he’s he’s this trainer who turns hurricanes in from this kind of weakling into this wonderful buff here. Great role by Danny DeVito. And certainly a good roll by James Woods in Hades Look in played with wonderful, Suave sophistication a fantastically good line in delivery of in this kind of wonderful draw over to that he has done a good figure a complete villain very much in picking up on Judeo Christian ideas of of hell of the devil of the trickster who always always getting you to sign agreements for which you don’t see the, the secret clause in. So, again, grounded not so much in weaker in antiquity but very much in Judeo Christian views of the of the devil.

Dr G 40:14
But it does offer us this amazing kind of scene right near the end, where Hercules enters into the underworld and we get our moment of katabasis that is happening where the confrontation between Hades and Hercules happens on Hades territory, which I think I don’t know, I just really love that sort of moment. I don’t know. It’s not really I don’t know if I even have a question. Really, it was,

A Blanshard 40:40
as you say, it’s a lot as you say, it’s a lovely moment. And again, as you rightly point out, picks up on an important epic tradition, namely, the tradition of the descent to the underworld. But catappa says, you know, whether it’s Odysseus in The Odyssey, raising the dead, whether it’s a near sin in the near this idea of the descent into the underworld, and so again, very, very ancient in terms of an element within ancient narratives. The depiction, of course, is completely Judeo Christian, that the flames, the location, that it picks up on, you know, mediaeval traditions of hellscape. So there’s, it’s really that kind of Renaissance mediaeval tradition that scarf is, is working through in terms of the visual depictions, but as you say, an important element within ancient narrative traditions.

Dr Rad 41:30
And I’d love to also bring up one of my favourite elements of the movie, which is, of course, the Muses. What are your thoughts on the Muses?

A Blanshard 41:39
How have we taken so long to get to the muses that is the best bit by far and away the stars of this film, such a clever idea to have them as his kind of backup singers, they’re kind of sassy. They’re funny, it picks up on the idea of the Greek chorus. But what’s really wonderful about them is the way in which they kind of undercut so much kind of pomposity that runs through the film, if you if you remember that wonderful opening sequence, which begins with this voiceover,

Dr Rad 42:11
Charlton Heston

A Blanshard 42:16
giving this fantastic, how pompous voiceover, and then the Muses kind of step. So hang on, wait a minute, that’s not gonna be this kind of film. And then they launch straight into the jazzy number. And they are, they are clever. They’re funny, they, I think, inject a very different kind of tone to this film. They’re great. They’re absolutely great. I can’t get enough of them.

Dr G 42:41
I think they form a great counterpoint, as you say. And there’s that gospel tradition that is coming through in the way that the musical numbers operate as well, which I think is a really interesting way of tying the ancient Greek world to sort of more modern and contemporary American cultural elements for the audience.

A Blanshard 43:00
Absolutely. And that opening number of gospel truth really, you know, indicates you know, what trek kind of musical tradition they’re they’re working from. And again, it kind of is a lovely way of sort of undercutting a lot of the kind of potential whiteness that runs through the runs through the film as well. So it begins with these kind of white statues. And then suddenly, what we see is, in fact, this shot of a vase, or which the the muses are emerging, right, so So we’re getting colour in a way that we haven’t knew before. We’re getting different kinds of musical traditions emerging. This is going to be a very different kind of way of doing of doing Greek myth that is, at least within Disney World, envisaged as much more inclusive and a story that is available to all

Dr Rad 43:47
and of course, there’s one more character I have to mention. Pegasus. Pegasus, yes. Who has no place in Hercules? Not at all, not at all.

A Blanshard 43:58
But it’s kind of gorgeous. I mean, he’s he’s part flying horse but also part Labrador as well. He’s, he’s this kind of fantastic sort of companion for for for Hercules. You’re right, I mean, taken from the mythic sequence relating to Bellerophon and and kind of totally out of out of place, but but also also kind of wonderful for for the film.

Dr Rad 44:22
I didn’t have it. Now, obviously, I think we’ve hopefully told our listeners that Disney’s Hercules is actually an amazing blend of playing with epic film, Greek myth, American culture. I mean, there’s so many aspects that are come together in a Christian ideas soul in this film, but we always have to kind of finish up by thinking about well, what are we talking about when we’re talking about the historical accuracy? How important is it for film in general, animated film? I mean, what are your thoughts on trying to achieve historical accuracy in this sort of a film?

A Blanshard 44:56
Well, good luck. But I mean, first of all, you know, tried producing a film about her clothes and not having and doing it without doing the our rating. Right, you know, it’s impossible. So, you know, Look, some of the things that worry me about the film are the way in which, you know, Hercules becomes commodified into this very kind of middle class, aspirational, suburban kind of hero. And I think, you know, there’s a way in which, you know, Hercules could have been a more inclusive figure that speaks to a much wider demographic than I think, was was potential there. I mean, I think the fact that Olympia is really depicted as this kind of aspirational gated community is, I think, a problem. I think, also the fact that it fiddles around with the birth narrative in such a way that, you know, Hercules is not the product, right, but is in fact, a product of a very happy heteronormative. Couple. So again, I think the potential to to explore, you know, at least issues that were around adultery, or blended families, or even just if the issues of care, foster Hooda are really ignored in that. So I think, you know, there are, I think missed opportunities in the, in the film,

Dr Rad 46:18
I think that’s always a nice thing about Greek myth, it’s, I think it would have been acceptable to ancients that we play around with it. But as you say, it’s the impression that we give our own culture as well, that also has to be considered.

A Blanshard 46:29
Yeah, absolutely. And I mean, there was tremendous, tremendous play in Greek with I mean, the classic example would be something like Euripides as Hercules right, which that as I say, the normal sequence, when we tell the story about the labours of Hercules is Hercules murders his wife and children, and then does the 12 labours to make up for it, your remedies, take turns on his head and has no Heroclix performing the 12 labours, and then murdering his wife and children. Because what he wanted was a tragedy, which had a man at his very highest point, when he thinks he’s conquered death, gone down to the underworld, brought back Cerberus, there’s nothing that can touch him, and then to be brought low, by, in fact, being caught up in the machinations of here, and the murder of his wife and children. So So even within the ancient world, it was very possible to do tremendously interventionist things with the Hercules storyline, so so that wouldn’t worry the ancient world. And I think then, given the amount of play that we have, with Hara cleaves, that then has a kind of interesting ethical obligation of ours. That is, if we’re going to play around that we need to think about, you know, what we are, what kinds of stories we tell,

Dr G 47:37
definitely, and I think this is the sort of place where it’s probably a good chance to wrap up and because I feel like we could just keep talking about this film and, and the connections to hearing please, for hours, and I know that you need to go and live your life and and I just want to thank you so much for coming and sitting down and chatting to us today.

A Blanshard 47:58
Yeah, absolutely. Great. Fun. Great fun. Always, always good to chat with you.

Dr Rad 48:03
Absolutely. So just a reminder that if you’d like to read up on some of the issues we’ve touched on today, if you’d like to delve more into the life of Hercules and the myths surrounding him, you definitely want to pick up Alastair’s book on Hercules, Hercules or heroic life. And if you’d like to learn more about film in general on screen, including Hercules and please pick up classics on screen which is a fantastic book, which has got chapters on lots of different movies, and Alastair is the co author of that.

Thank you for listening to this episode of the Partial historians. We hope that you enjoy the episode and if you did, please consider becoming a Patreon. It is thanks to our marvellous patrons that we are able to make special episodes like this. We’d also like to once again thank Professor Alastair Blanshard the Paul Eliadis chair of classics in ancient history at the University of Queensland, for coming on the show and chatting to us all about Hercules. If you enjoyed listening to Alastair, he really does have a wide array of publications out there beyond his work on history on film, and he’s also a regular contributor to the conversation. Until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Special Episode – Hercules (1997) appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

We sit down with Yentl Love to talk all about classical reception in Lil Nas X’s 2021 music video for ‘Call Me By Your Name’. Yentl Love is the famous Queer Classicist and we recommend checking out her blog for accessible analysis of the ancient world. We are thrilled to have Yentl return to the show – you may remember her from the insightful conversation we had about the reception of Cleopatra.

Lil Nas X has enjoyed great success with his debut album Montero and we were keen to learn more about how he utilised allusions to the ancient world to drive conversations about black identity and queerness as well as to complicate ideas about the heroic and how we might derive meaning when we analyse the past.

It’s definitely worth watching the music video before getting into the episode itself!

The ancient world has a wealth of symbolism and allusion that has built up and developed over time through the use and reuse of imagery and ideas and this conversation really just touches some of the potentials.

Special Episode – Classical Reception in Lil Nas X with Yentl Love

What makes the ideal man? Lil Nas X poses the question with a visual allusion to Doryphoros, the famous sculpture by the Greek Polykleitos, which is thought to represent the physical ideal in ancient Greek culture. Doryphoros was a favoured subjected in later Roman sculpture as well.

Doryphoros from Pompeii – A Roman marble reimagining of a Greek sculpture by Polykeitos.
Now in the MAN Napoli.

The opening of the music video provides a sweeping vista that on the surface has the appearance of paradise but is dotted with ruined buildings and structures. What could this mean? We ask Yentl’s perspective.

Still from ‘Call Me By your Name’ showing a Doric Temple in the foreground and an Aqueduct in the background

Famously, Plato’s Symposium gets a shout out in ‘Call me By Your Name’ with a quotation that roughly translates as “After the division the two parts of man, each desiring his other half…” We consider the significance of this phrase in context and enjoy the fact that every so often someone uses an ancient language in a modern setting!

Still from ‘Call Me By Your Name’ Ancient Greek from Plato’s Symposium on the Tree of Knowledge

As the music video progresses, we see Lil Nas X shift scenes to an arena. The hairstyles on display in this scene recall the gravity defying hair styles favoured by the Flavian dynasty.

Still from ‘Call Me By Your Name’ showing hairstyles echoing the Flavians

For comparison, consider the hair style of the portrait bust below. Although the identity of the subject is not certain, this piece is often identified as Julia Titi, the daughter of the Flavian emperor Titus. She was reputed to be a great beauty, but it’s the very high ringlets that win the day here!

Portrait bust of a young woman with an extremely high hair style made of ringlets.
Capitoline Museum. Source: Tumblr

Interested in learning more about the writers mentioned in this episode? Consider the following:

Our music was composed by Bettina Joy de Guzman.

Still from ‘Call Me By your Name’ Music Video by Lil Nas X.
Notes that the video was directed by Tanu Muino and Lil Nas X, song produced by D. Baptiste, D. Biral, O. Fedi, R. Lenzo.

Lightly edited for clarity.

Dr Rad 0:12
Welcome to The Partial Historians.

Dr G 0:15
We explore all the details of ancient Rome.

Dr Rad 0:20
Everything from political scandals to love affairs, the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I’m Dr. Rad.

Dr G 0:30
And I’m Dr. G. We consider Rome as the Roman saw it by reading different ancient authors and comparing their accounts.

Dr Rad 0:41
Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

Dr G 0:57
Hello and welcome to a brand new episode of The Partial Historians. I’m one of your hosts, Dr. G.

Dr Rad 1:06
And I am Dr. Rad.

Dr G 1:08
And we are thrilled to be joined today by Yentl Love, who is working on her PhD at Potsdam University and is universally famous for her blog as The Queer Classicist. Thank you so much for joining us.

Yentl 1:26
Thank you so much for having me. Yeah, I’m so glad to be back chatting to you more.

Dr Rad 1:31
So we’re very excited because we’re discussing something extremely cool. And actually, quite frankly, a little out of our comfort zone today.

Dr G 1:41
Yeah, look, I don’t think we are known as paragons of popular music. Nevertheless, we were super fascinated to see the rise. And the continued rise, I think of Lil Nas X, and what he is doing with his musical journey. And it is a thrill to sit down today with anto to talk about one specific music video that has come through and his debut album, and that is Montero “Call Me By Your Name”.

Dr Rad 2:09
So let’s kick it off with our first question. So let’s think about maybe classical reception more broadly. Because of course, the video clip is kind of what’s intrigued us all, I think with its imagery and whatnot. So classical reception can obviously take many forms. I personally like the film side of things, but can you talk us through what the phrase classical reception means to you?

Yentl 2:30
So yeah, I mean, as you said, this is a really, really broad field that we’re talking about, and it encompasses so much within it. On its most basic level, I’d say that when we are talking about classical reception, we’re kind of considering how the classical world so really looking at ancient Greece and Rome, and how it has been received and portrayed or represented across time. So this can be anything from an architecture, when we see buildings deliberately kind of evoking this ancient Greco Roman kind of period. Or in literature, like, famously Madeline Miller’s “Song of Achilles”, or in music, like Lizzo’s music video for “Rumors”, and we’re going to talk about Lil Nas X’s music video. And as well as like, where we see these parts of ancient history depicted. I think another big part of classical reception is thinking, why do we see these particular parts down? Why is there this use of like Greek and Roman material? What is the specific message that the work of reception is trying to put through? Through using it? But yeah, the field really is just massively wide. And what I really like about it is I think that all uses of classical reception are equally valid and equally worthy of study, like a piece of fanfiction about, like Mark Antony and Augustus, could be discussed in like just as much detail as like the architecture of the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin. All of this is just different types of classical reception.

Dr G 4:08
Yeah, there’s really a wide array of uses and reuses of ancient imagery. And when we’re talking about classical reception, hinting back at particularly Greece and Rome are though I imagine at some point, we’re also going to see in our lifetimes, the interrogation of classical in a more robust way, and I’m looking forward to seeing how that goes. But taking off from where we’re starting with, like this idea of classical reception in modern culture, for a little bit of context for our listeners out there who spend all ages and all interests, who is Lil Nas X?

Yentl 4:43
Okay, so Lil Nas X is a stage name for Montero Lamar Hill. He is a black, queer American rapper and singer songwriter, and I think probably he’s most famous for his song “Old Town Road”, but then he released his first studio album “Montero” in 2021. And yeah, the music video we’re going to be talking about is from one of the songs on that debut album.

Dr Rad 5:11
Absolutely. I mean, I had never heard of it before. I know everyone’s gonna be really shocked that I don’t follow rap. In any, you know, I really stopped listening after “Shoop”. And so I’m really glad that I had my attention directed towards his music video, because it is really fascinating. And we’re not the only ones to be interested in it. Because there’s some really intriguing representations and expressions of queerness. And the ways that the music video explores allusions to the ancient world. So what are some of the significant images and symbols that come through in the music video?

Yentl 5:47
So one of the things that’s like, most interesting, I think about the video is the way it forms almost like a long heroic art are a long narrative around this central character. But we can really split the whole video into three sections. There’s this kind of chasing at the start. And that’s taking place in a landscape where we see like architectural ruins of Greek buildings and temples, we see Greek inscriptions. And then that continues as we move into the second thematic section, which is in this kind of arena, big quality and style venue. So again, we’ve got this repeated association with Greco Roman architecture, which kind of really grounded it and discussion of the video as a work of receptions. And what’s really interesting with the second thing is that the figures are all depicted with these very, very tooled like elaborately cold wigs, which almost perfectly mirror the statues that we have of women from this period of Rome called Flavian. Rome. And in that period, we start to see a lot of concerns emerging about female independent about female sexuality. And so it’s the start of this like real discussion about almost like changing gender roles and concerns about sexuality. So it’s a really kind of niche insight into this ancient discussion of what was happening with gender and sexuality and then brought through into, you know, Lil Nas X’s exploration of this kind of queerness. And we also then, in the same scene have known as a pairing and chain, which has both been read through this kind of biblical lens as a reflection of John the Baptist, or of Samson with like Samson and Delilah, but also seems similar to Herakles or Hercules in Rome, in his outfit the way he’s portrayed, like in modern strongman, that’s not my area. But we see that same pose when you’re holding up columns with big chains, and that is referred to as the Hercules pose. So we get this kind of reflection of Hercules and no knights portraying himself as this kind of hero throughout the throughout the music video. And then again, when the venue changes, he descends into hell or Hades. And we see statues outside the gates which seem very, very Greek. They’re looking like these depictions of Doryphoros, which was sculpture, Polykleitos says he was sculpting like the ideal man. And so it’s like the spear bearer, and we see them standing outside the gate to hell. And then as he enters, we see statues of Medusa, which again, is a kind of image we’ve seen all throughout this music video. And that in itself has massive ties to both classical mythologies, classical receptions, and also to black culture. We have a lot of poems by black and diasporic women, where they kind of claim Medusa as a collective ancestor. Or they compare the way that Medusas hair is treated to the way that black women’s hair has been historically shamed. And kind of reviled by white western culture. If you want to read up more on that poets like Dorothea Smartt, and Shara McCallum really talk about this and exemplify this in their work. But yeah, so we have these kind of repeated motifs of different eras, the heroic area, the Medusa kind of metaphor, and the Medusa symbols, and then also this repeated discussion of like the architecture, the ruined architecture, and throwback to specific period and Roman history.

Dr Rad 9:36
I have to say, I am blown away by how much has actually been packed into this video clip because it’s like less than three minutes long.

Yentl 9:45
Yeah unbelievable. Literally, when I presented on this topic at a conference in April, I think, and when I was looking through the music video, it was almost like every two seconds just pausing it and being like taking note that oh, okay, and another thing on thing? So yeah, it’s just massively like you said, it’s really packed in.

Dr G 10:07
And I think it has this amazing capacity to draw on multiple sources at once and sort of enrich itself through its sort of intertextuality. So you’re storing that sort of reference, not just to Roman history, not just to the Greek heroic mode, but also those connections between queerness and blackness, and how that representation might be filtered through these different types of lenses. I really love the Flavian hair, I have to say, I think that’s amazing. And the Flavian is have this really tricky period where it’s this sort of backlash against the jeweler chlorians and the excesses of that, and some of the perceived power plays of women within that former dynasty. And so it’s like, how will Flavian women be perceived, and the way that this video sort of touches on that as well, and has that sort of call back to that sort of constraint in the feminine, that is happening through the way that hair is dressed is really interesting.

Yentl 11:09
Yeah, absolutely.

Dr G 11:10
So on that note, not only does Lil Nas X engage in classical illusion, visually, but we also get this direct intertextual reference to Plato’s Symposium. So there is a tree of knowledge in this video. So there’s no way to separate out the classical reception with the Christian reception that is going on here. But this tree of knowledge is a really prominent symbol in the video. And there is this moment where we get this close up of the tree trunk, and it’s inscribed with ancient Greek. And we never get a translation for that in the video, it’s just left there for the viewer to ponder on and enjoy. Or if you study ancient Greek to be like, Oh. My. God. Something is happening. So even though the phrase remains untranslated, it doesn’t really take long for the collective world to come together and look at what is being considered here, which is this really particular idea of “the division of two parts of men, each desiring his other half.” And I’m interested in the significance you read in this intertextual illusion.

Yentl 12:20
Yeah, I completely agree with the excitement when I first saw it as like, this is why all of those like hard use of doing ancient Greek, they are worth it for this specific music video. But yeah, this quote is one of my favorite, I think aspects of the whole video. So it’s referencing, as you said, Plato’s Symposium. And the specific part has been quoted comes from this discussion by the character s Aristophanes, talking about how early humans were double formed by two bodies in one. And then when their bodies were split by Zeus, they will always like search for their original half. So if you’re a woman that was in a female female body, you will search for another woman, if you are a man from a male male body, who search for another man, if you’re from a male female body, you will be searching for the other gender. So obviously, this discussion is supposed to be taken literally, they’re just swapping stories about ideas that they have about love in this passage. But it forms a really interesting kind of early discussion of the idea of soulmate, but also explaining why different people might be attracted to certain genders. So this quote, to me has this really important like dual meaning, not only the fact that it’s untranslated ancient Greek, I think really, like we said before, kind of grounds this as a work of classical reception, and grounds the whole piece in this discussion of kind of Greco Roman antiquity. But it’s also this deliberate reference to ancient discussions of sexuality. And the ways that ancient people were talking about same sex attraction, attraction, same sex love, which really establishes this video as, like beautiful queer performance. And also kind of brings up the idea of collective ancestors, or that queer desire has always existed, which I think is very important to be talking about now, especially when we’re saying, you know, there’s a lot of anti like homophobic, transphobic legislation going on in lots of different parts of the world, but particularly in America, where this video is being produced. And so yeah, I think it’s a really important reference back to the ancient Greek tradition.

Dr G 14:39
Yeah, definitely. I think it’s giving us an opportunity to think a little bit more deeply about where our attitudes first of all sprang from, and also just how embedded in the human experience queerness is and thinking about where people sit in terms of their identity and where they sit in terms of their sexuality, how has always been a conversation that people are having with each other, and sometimes in a much more structured, and dare I say polite way than is happening today?

Yentl 15:12
Oh, yeah, absolutely. I completely agree.

Dr Rad 15:15
And it’s really interesting to consider because I, when I was doing a bit of research in preparation for this conversation, I believe that when you look at the lyrics and the the meaning of those that Lil Nas X was drawing on some of his own romantic experiences as the sort of story for this particular song. And I think I think it was about somebody who he was having a form of relationship with, and that person wasn’t out yet. So it is kind of interesting, I think, to consider having that inscription in this video clip with that in mind as well, I guess.

Yentl 15:52
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, the kind of one of the repeated kind of refrains in the chorus is like, tell me you love me in private? And so yeah, I think it’s a very interesting kind of divide between the discussion of love, which has been had to be kept private, because of, potentially someone’s in the closet potentially worried about repercussions, versus this kind of very public discussion of all different types of love that they’re having in Plato’s Symposium at the dinner party where they are treating, you know, a different character at one point says, oh, there are two types of love. There’s like the common love which men have for women, and then there’s the Heavenly love which men have for other men. And so, you know, we’re, we’re even saying at times that like, this kind of same sex attraction, same sex love is like on the highest level here, this is what we should all aspire to, in the in this like, wider kind of piece by Plato. And then yeah, to then have that comparison there between this very public discussion. And then the, “tell me you love me in private”, like this very secretive kind of way that they’re discussing that throughout the lyrics of the music video, I think is a very emotional and very interesting device that we have.

Dr G 17:11
Yeah, I think you’re absolutely right. And while you were going into the detail about that, I was also put in mind of the fact that we’ve got this sort of like layering of this tree of knowledge with the ancient Greek philosophical outlook as well. And so there’s this really sort of rich questioning that I think that is brought to the forefront by placing the ancient Greek within that context, because they were all for context. But there is a suggestion over time that symbolism around Christianity has really taken on its own kind of significance. And yet, something like this is bringing those two worlds back together and back in conversation with each other, which I think is absolutely fascinating as well.

Yentl 17:56
Yeah, I completely agree. I think, also, in my undergrad degree, that was the first time that I’d really got the opportunity to study kind of like early Christianity. And I think it’s very interesting to consider, you know, that when we’re talking about specifically kind of like coming into late antiquity, that these two worlds are happening at the same time. And so I think it’s really interesting to discuss, you know, when we have when we talk about, you know, allusions to like John the Baptist, or different kinds of figures like that from, you know, celebrated in the Christian faith, we also see them then being talked about and the similarities to how, you know, we see other Christian persecutions in ancient history and ancient Rome specifically. And yeah, it’s a really interesting kind of overlap, that I think is easily forgotten about, it’s easy to just pin Christianity into like that this is a religion, we don’t really need to study it, because it’s just a belief. It’s just, you know, that kind of religious practice. And so it’s very interesting to them. Consider, especially in early Christianity, and that’s happening in the same time as all this other kind of ancient history. And yeah, I think it’s really interesting to see the two being brought together like that.

Dr Rad 19:13
Yeah, we definitely have a really interesting overlap in the opening sequence of the video, which you could potentially interpret to be taking place in the Garden of Eden. And yet, it’s also littered with all these ruined buildings that are obviously meant to remind us of ancient Greece in ancient Rome. So the layered symbolism that we see here kind of offers the potential to read the garden as a place beyond Christian archetypes. Why do you think this might be important within the scope of Lil Nas X’s work?

Yentl 19:42
So yeah, as we’ve talked about, we have like two equally interesting, I think interpretations of the music video here. Both are equally valid, both are equally important. And you can certainly see a lot of from the kind of references to Christianity there. As this kind of act of reclaiming that as a queer artists, obviously we have seen throughout history sees still see now there is potentially a lot of backlash against the queer community, from religious people from some Christian people, obviously not all that there has been historically some backlash. And so then this acts kind of as an act of reclaiming then to use these symbols associated with Christianity and to use them in this celebration of, you know, the queer experience. But on the other hand, bringing in this kind of more Greco Roman ancient history perspective, I think the depiction of the ruined building is very interesting if you do this kind of deep reading, arguably way too intense analysis that was completely unintentional, but it’s very well within that kind of overall video and beam. So like the two main types of building that we see, there’s this Doric Temple, which is just an artistic type of Temple, and this aqueduct or viaduct. Now, Doric temples, especially in Rome, were associated with masculinity and manhood by particular authors, and disco Vitruvius, who’s like an architect and engineer, that he said, like Ionic tempos are feminine. Doric temples are masculine, direct temples, if you’re going to have a male god has to be in a dark temple, because they’re masculine, and all curvy, little architecture, they’re just strikes narrow, that masculine and manly.

Dr Rad 21:33
Such nonsense! Never heard of it.

Yentl 21:40
So yeah, and then when we see viaducts, they’re kind of a massive part of Roman propaganda, in the like, politics of their expansion there and the empire building, because through bringing water to areas that were previously like, arid, didn’t have water, they thought they had conquered the quote, unquote, savageness of the natural world. And so these kind of massive buildings like acted as this like monument of the symbol of like their victory of civilization over the rest of the world. So through showing these kind of both of these buildings as ruined and destroyed, I think we get this, the start of this motif, or this theme of the destruction of traditional masculinity and manhood, as well as the queer potential for kind of disrupting civilization disrupting social order. And yeah, instead kind of challenging the like political, cultural, societal norms. And so, yeah, this theme of like queer disruption, and the challenge to like hetero masculinity really flows throughout the whole video. And so I think it’s interesting that we see this depicted in the specific ruined buildings that are included within this kind of Garden of Eden, early scene.

Dr G 23:03
Yeah, we get the sense of the ways in which society can be challenged, how it can be overcome. And I think this actually, these ideas feed in really nicely to thinking about Lil Nas X and the intersection of his identities as both being black and queer as an artist, both of which have been historically marginalized. And I’m interested in how this context that he is bringing to the table as an artist is influencing how he might interpret this music video, and its significance.

Yentl 23:38
So to me, I think this is one of the most important parts of the whole music video. See, yeah, Lil Nas X is a black man. And unfortunately, when we see classics being used outside of scholarship, and also traditionally within classical scholarship, it’s often associated with white supremacy or with racism. If you look at any reports of like the alt right or white supremacist rallies in America, you see people with “molon labe” signs, which is like ancient Greek term meaning come and take them, which by them, they mean weapons or in US politics, guns, which distributed to the Spartans. And I mean, speaking of Spartans, like man who did outright love they’re literally everything, the 300 they’ve seen themselves as these kind of hyper masculine macho men fighting against like all effeminate Eastern culture that these like yeah, effeminate foreigners are coming to, like, destroy our culture, I think

Dr G 24:41
Nothing says manhood, like sprayed on abs.

Yentl 24:45
Know exactly, and a bunch of men are naked together holding spears.

Dr Rad 24:49
Yup, that is true masculinity.

Yentl 24:54
I mean, yeah, it’s horrific, but they just love these ancient kind of heroic men. They see like Ancient Greece and Rome as all whites hypermasculine heroic ideal, which let’s be clear, untrue, for so many reasons, every part of that is untrue. So for Lil Nas X to represent himself kind of as a territories figure or this ancient hero, he embodies this ancient heroism as a black man, while he simultaneously also embraces femininity. And I think this really challenges on multiple levels, this hateful, racist rhetoric that is massively associated specifically with ancient Greek warfare and heroes. And so we see Lil Nas kind of reclaim Herakles and these heroes from the hands of the alt right. And he turns this heroic narrative from this, like hyper masculine kind of white call to power into a celebration of Black excellence, femininity and beauty, which is just massively important and powerful. And then kind of on top of that, you have the constant constant references to his queer identity. And the historic presence of queer desires queer relationships, which are solidified by there’s a Latin inscription right at the very end of the music video, which reads, “they condemn what they do not understand”, which is a very, very emotive reference that you can read to, towards, you know, LGBT experiences, LGBTQ plus lives, and this kind of discrimination against them, which is, sadly still kind of present at the moment.

Dr Rad 26:36
Yeah, and I think particularly if we think about the imagery of that potential Hercules/Herakles scene, we probably should mention for people who haven’t seen the video clip yet, although I’m sure they will stop this episode and kind of watch to me that the coloring as well I think is really feminine. The fact that he’s got like, almost like a fairy floss pink wig and yeah, accessories. Yeah.

Yentl 27:03
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah.

Dr Rad 27:05
I mean, if you didn’t if you didn’t know, it was a potential allusion to like the flavors to me. It almost gave like Sofia Coppola “Marie Antoinette” vibes.

Yentl 27:14
Yeah, absolutely. I completely agree with that. Yeah. With a massive tulle, over-the-top hairpieces? Yeah.

Dr Rad 27:22
And the color scheme being almost like candy.

Yentl 27:25
Yeah, yeah, for sure.

Dr Rad 27:30
So, so think about that Herakles scene in particular, obviously, like a key, it’s a key scene in the video to show him under arrest and being led into this building, which, as you’ve noted, seems very sort of Colosseum like, or like an ancient arena of some kind. So I think we could definitely see this a number of ways you could see it as an allusion to Christian persecution under the Romans, particularly when the scene later reveals that Lil Nas X’s in chains before our large crowd, which is seated really high above him, but what do you take away from this particular scene? And how do you see this particular classical illusion operating?

Yentl 28:06
Yeah, I think definitely, you can read this as that. Christians were largely persecuted within this period of Roman history, because they were seen as being kind of other not acting the way they should. Part of this strange almost like sound family vibe, which really threaten the way that society worked at the time, this kind of patriarchal, family-centered norms of society, the idea that Christians were being really threatened that. And so actually, a lot of that backlash really kind of parallels the experience of LGBTQ plus people in today’s society. And so yeah, I think that definitely just acts as a mirror in itself right there. But then, from a classical perspective, we have this parallel to the figure of Herakles, Lil Nas enters wearing what looks like the skin of like a lion, albeit pink, which is how we see Herakles depicted in art. And he’s also got chains similar to kind of the modern concepts that we talked about earlier. But a lot of Herakles’ mythologies are actually very queer in nature. When he’s with the queen of the Amazon to politics, they swap clothes and swap gender roles. So he’s out there like almost in drag, you know, dressed as a woman. And then he also has a massive amount of boyfriends. Plutarch actually says that it will be impossible to name all of his male lovers. But most famously, one of his relationships with this guy called Iolaus. I actually have never said that out loud, I’ve only read that so apologies if I’m saying that wrong. But with this other hero, Plutarch actually says that pairs of male lovers would go to his tomb to pay their respects because of this kind of queer association. So yeah, I think his characterization is heritage is also really plays on this really interesting thing kind of balanced between masculinity and queerness. And all of these questions about traditional heteronormative ideas of manhood and how femininity and sexuality can influence and kind of play with these ideas.

Dr Rad 30:16
Yeah, so against our modern version of Hercules, I think because he is your strong man, Arnold Schwarzenegger type figure. It’s yeah, I think it’s bizarre to most people who haven’t spent much time in sort of the classical world to see him as being queer.

Yentl 30:32
I mean, did The Rock play him at one point, I swear there’s a film?

Dr Rad 30:35
Yes, he did.

Yentl 30:37
I would love to see that and take into account like these, when he goes to the Amazon see him in this little dress, just like doing all the women’s jobs and like not not being annoyed. He doesn’t seem fussed. He just gets on with it.

Dr Rad 30:50
I think The Rock would be up for that.

Yentl 30:52
I think he would be.

Dr Rad 30:53
Yeah, I think he’s up for that.

Yentl 30:55
Yeah, if he listens to your podcast,

Dr Rad 30:58
He definitely does!

Yentl 31:00
I’m sure he does, yeah.

Dr Rad 31:02
That’s where he got the idea for the movie naturally.

Dr G 31:07
I think this actually draws a parallel as well to the other really famous sort of heroic figure from the Greek side of things, which is Achilles, because he also has these moments where he hides at certain points amongst groups of women dresses, takes on the dress of women, and is also reputed to be very close with Patroclus. And that sense of that intense loving relationship between those two men is something that drives the Iliad in many respects. So it’s fair to say, I think that Lil Nas X is drawing upon a really rich tradition of Greek masculinity. And the way that that intersects really clearly and boldly with queer identity.

Yentl 31:56
Yeah, absolutely. And I think in a way that doesn’t necessarily translate to how people might view this kind of heroic, hyper masculine man in the modern day. And I think it’s really important and interesting kind of drawback, because, yeah, all so many of these kinds of heroes have these queer storylines behind them? And yes, I think it’s really powerful, and also a challenge to the idea that when we think of like, a super masculine man, we think are, must have like loads of women, or must be, you know, has to be straight. And so I think it’s a really interesting challenge to be like wellness, like all of these, you know, heroes from Greek myths, that are really also held up as being like, oh, yeah, these are like the best, the strongest, most manly macho man. And so to say, actually, you know, there wasn’t this supposed incompatibility between queerness and femininity, and also being a very strong, very powerful man. So yeah, I think it’s a really important discussion.

Dr Rad 32:58
I mean, there’s six guys, but they’re six guys for all. It actually does make you think when you look at when you unpick all of these examples, and all of these, you know, ways of interpreting the classical world that the alt right throw around, it does make you sort of wonder like, have you studied the classical world at all? started using this so called evidence?

Yentl 33:25
Yeah, it’s even like with the “molon labe” signs like “come and take them”. They seem to like conveniently forget that the Persians did indeed take those. The Persians very successfully defeated. It’s like what you just, yeah. I mean, obviously, they’ve done little to no research whatsoever. No reason.

Dr G 33:45
I feel like they’ve just missed all of the good bits, guys. The Spartans lost, and you can love whoever you want. It’s okay.

Yentl 33:55
Yeah, don’t worry. It’s fine.

Dr Rad 33:57
Look into Spartan marital practices. And you’re like, Yeah, talk about complicated relationships.

Yentl 34:03
Yeah, exactly.

Dr Rad 34:05
And a slight difference between ancient Spartan weaponry and semi automatic weapons.

Dr G 34:17
Well, but you know, getting back to the subject. So in the third section of this video clip for that you’ve mentioned, we have this descent to hell, and it appears to be initially an extension of the arena. If anything, it’s here that it becomes really clear that we’ve got a reference visually to the Colosseum, because it seems like the Colosseum is operating as a portal to another plane of existence. I’m curious about the sort of commentary you see Lil Nas X making about the ancient world in this sort of transition.

Yentl 34:58
Yeah, it’s a really interesting They make part of the music video. And I think, you know, you can read from that, potentially, you know, a lot of people did die in the Colosseum, especially with like Christian persecution. People don’t think that, like, historians don’t really think the whole like fed to the lions thing rarely happened as much as we actually, like. It is said that it happened in kind of modern culture, I don’t think that really happened as much as so you know, people did die here. And so the idea of this being like, on the journey to death really, I think, is a very valid kind of way to look at it. But also, I think it’s particularly interesting if you consider it as part of this heroic narrative that we’ve seen happening kind of throughout the music video. So just after the Coliseum scene, and before he kind of descend down, we see Lil Nas X kind of ascend to what might be seen as like heaven, potentially, or this like paradise. This winged figure appears above him that he can’t make it there. And he falls back down. And we get this very famous, very sexy pole dancing descent into hell. Definitely worth watch if anyone hasn’t seen it already.

Dr Rad 36:12
I only wish I could pole dance like that.

Yentl 36:16
If we consider heroes in ancient Greek tradition, for example, we have this kind of katabasis, or this descent into hell, forming a massive part of their heroic identity, their heroic narratives. We see this, again with Herakles, but also with Odysseus, with Theseus even with Aeneas. So this really emphasizes Lil Nas X’s kind of character is being one of these typical Greco Roman heroes, is really brought into the ranks of all of the heroes that we’ve seen before him. And then after, again, this incredible kind of lap dance to the devil theme, we see Lil Nas X defeat the ruler of hell or of Hades, and he immediately gain once he’s like completed this task, he gains the like wings, these massive wings that he would have needed in order to reach this kind of heaven or paradise that we’ve just seen earlier. So he’s kind of just completed his heroic narrative there, because you’ve gained what he would have needed to be successful at the start. And so I think this aspect of the video can really be read. And yeah, it’s like cementing them as exes character as a classic Greek hero, completing the same kind of narrative arc, and then bringing with that all of the challenges to the heteronormative hypermasculine, white supremacist adoption of Greco Roman heritage that we’ve discussed earlier.

Dr Rad 37:43
I must admit, I will say it still boggles my mind how much has been packed into this short video? Do you have any sense? Because I mean, I know that Yentl and Lil Nas X, you guys are as close as people can be. Do you have any sense whether this all came from him? Or whether this was part of like a creative team he was working with?

Yentl 38:01
I don’t know. I’ve actually tried to look this up, because I wanted to see if there was any ancient historian on the team, because I felt like surely there must have been, but I couldn’t actually find any of the details. But obviously, Lil Nas X listens to your podcast as well.

Dr Rad 38:14
Naturally, naturally, all the greats do.

Yentl 38:17
If he could get in contact with me, and let me know, I’d be very interested. Because yeah, I tried to use that when I was speaking about this topic at a conference. And I couldn’t actually find whether there were historians involved. But I would really like to. I volunteer my services, of course, for later music videos, I’m available.

Dr Rad 38:36
We could all become part of his advisory team.

Yentl 38:41
Yeah, exactly. Yes, I see that as a very real possibility.

Dr Rad 38:47
All he needs to do is listen to this episode, he’ll be like, Oh my god, they’ve been wanting me to contact them. And I was too shy.

Yentl 38:52
Okay.

Dr G 38:53
Get in touch, man. Get in touch. We’re out, we’re ready.

Dr Rad 38:58
Just as a an interesting question, I suppose to sort of wrap everything up. I suppose that by talking about all the challenges that Lil Nas X is posing to some interpretations of like the classical world, and, and all of that kind of stuff that we’ve been, we’ve been talking about, it kind of makes the ancient world sound like this queer paradise where anything goes in terms of your sexuality. I was wondering if maybe we could wrap up with maybe a bit of a chat about about that, and about what we can tell about how people were living their lives and exploring their sexualities in the ancient world.

Yentl 39:34
Yeah, so I think, by no means we should consider ancient Greece and Rome is kind of this utopian paradise, which is very easy to do. We choose specific sources and we look at specific things. But that wasn’t actually the case. And there were a lot of, although in some scenarios, same sex relationships, same sex attraction was considered to be Eat good. And to be honest, like ideal, it was in very, very select situation. So in ancient Greece, we see if there’s an adult man, and a kind of younger, like 14-15 year old boy, then that’s acceptable, because we have this kind of pederasty, this, like erotic relationship. And it’s seen as a way of kind of almost like a social ritual to transition from boys into adult men. But even then it seemed like, the adult man should be very into it, and the boy shouldn’t really be that into it. So it’s very, there are very a lot of restrictions on that. And adult men potentially shouldn’t be in a relationship like that. That’s not proper, if the man is too old. Some sources say like, if the young man has a beard when he’s too old, then that’s it. But then we do have in Plato’s Symposium, you know, one of the characters is saying that people that have this kind of upper level of love, this desire for men will continue on into adulthood, and will have wives and children because they have to, but would rather live with other men by themselves in a fake kind of union, and will be very happy just living with a man just by themselves, they do have the recognition that obviously like this did still happen, even if that wasn’t the ideal way that sexuality should be portrayed. And in ancient Rome, it’s kind of the idea is that the, there is no shame if you’re a man, having sex with anybody else. But if you’re the kind of receiver of the sex, and that is shameful, because that’s being like a woman. And as we all know, women are shameful, it’s literally a word. Men should not be like a woman in any way, because that will be awful and wrong. So yeah, so again, we have this kind of split between what was acceptable, and then the kind of role that then wasn’t acceptable. But then obviously, if you are a powerful person, whatever goes, you know, like when Nero took was married to two different men, one of them, he was, like, took the role of the bride. One, he was like the groom, as we would say, I guess. And you know, he’s the Emperor who’s going to do anything to him, like, he what he says go, you know,

Dr Rad 42:31
Until he gets stabbed, of course.

Yentl 42:38
So we have this whole spectrum of what was considered acceptable, what wasn’t considered acceptable. But then also, we have these kind of pockets of same sex attraction, same sex relationships, like the Sacred Band of Thebes, are this band of warriors that are said to all be in kind of erotic relationships with each other, so that they would fight better. And, as far as I know, there’s not much I haven’t seen a lot of ancient sources saying, like, oh, this was wrong, because they were all men that were fighting together, you know, there are certain areas where it’s considered acceptable. But also, it’s just evidence that queer relationships were happening, and happened, you know, in all kinds of ways, a lot of our sources just come from these main city points, like in Athens, in Rome, whatever. But the ancient world goes so much further than just these kind of hotspots of where a lot of our sources come from. And so I think that what we can take from them is that yeah, there was obviously same sex attraction. People were in queer relationships, and we have from loads of sources talking about even when, you know, a relationship might have started as this kind of socially acceptable pederasty in ancient Greece, they didn’t break up then when the younger one got to a certain age, they just carried on dating. And so yeah, there’s I mean, you just have to read the works of Sappho as well to see that we do have, you know, also romantic relationships or same sex attraction between women occurring and see it written down in different places.

Dr Rad 44:15
Yeah, it is so fascinating when you look at the ancient world, because whilst obviously some of our sexual norms are quite different to the rules that were in place in these different places, I kind of feel like there is one commonality and that power is so often a hallmark of all of our sexual standards or our sexual relationships, it even though it might not play out in exactly the same way, I feel like power always has a role that it always is what people are kind of really concerned about.

Yentl 44:44
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. But I think also that it’s an important thing that we shouldn’t overlook. Like when certain figures from history are kind of, you know, I went to an exhibition on kind of, like queer love, race. something or a few years ago, and they were kind of celebrating, like Hadrian and Antinous as this kind of beautiful queer relationship, but also like Hadrian was an emperor who was a lot older, and Antinous was like a 16 year old boy. And so it’s like, can we really? Should that be the kind of relationship that we’re celebrating? Was there a lot of agency there? And so I think we definitely can’t look back on this as kind of this paradise of Oh, and it was completely accepting. And, yeah, and it was so forward thinking, because it wasn’t in massive amounts of waves for many, many reasons. And so yeah, while we can see that queer people have always existed, that people have always experienced, same sex attraction, same sex love, we can’t kind of hold this up as like this perfect kind of paradigm of what society should be like, because it was very problematic in so many different ways.

Dr Rad 46:02
Yeah, especially in Rome, because it was often that, you know, like, a man could have sex, as you say, with, with, with most people who were seen as being beneath him. So like his, like slaves or women. But he wouldn’t be able, I don’t think to have sexual relationships with say, like a citizen boy, without that being frowned upon, regardless of the role he was taking.

Yentl 46:25
Yeah, yeah, exactly. And so. So yeah, I think it’s very important that we don’t, it can be tempting, obviously, to look back at these figures and see collective ancestry or whatever, you kind of searching for to see that. And it’s definitely valid to, you know, see these examples of queer desire and LGBTQ plus slides. That also I think we need to take it with a pinch of salt, and also be just thinking, okay, yeah, thinking critically about these things as well.

Dr G 46:55
Yeah, there’s that sense of there is both the ideas which is central to the way that we understand the world and drawing upon that history to further deepen our understanding and appreciation of humanity in all of its facets. But then keeping note of that critical lens on particular contexts and how these things are embedded in real worlds and the consequences they have for the people who lived in those periods of time.

Yentl 47:22
Yeah, absolutely. I couldn’t agree more.

Dr Rad 47:24
Yeah, I’ve been thinking about this a lot recently, because obviously, with pride month, there have been so many episodes of podcasts coming out about Oscar Wilde. And I love Oscar Wilde writing so much. And he obviously studied the classics, and he really adored them. And he did. So he did talk about, you know, Greek ideals of homosexual love and homosexual relationships, and that sort of thing. And it is really tempting to obviously see him as this tragic persecuted victim, which, obviously, I think on so many levels, he was a victim of his context and that sort of thing. But one thing I had forgotten was how many of his relationships were with much younger boys, because he was at he was sort of holding up that Greek sort of plastic ideal in quite a few of his relationships. And it is easy to sort of overlook that kind of aspect of his life as well.

Yentl 48:19
Yeah, absolutely. I think, yeah, we can’t hold up certain figures. I don’t know what the equivalent I’ve been talking about some in like teaching about, like, not holding up female figures and saying, like, don’t want to, like go boss them, but I don’t know what the equivalent for.

Dr G 48:36
I think it’s “boy boss”.

Yentl 48:38
boy boss – yes. Let’s not boy boss characters as queer heroes. But yeah, and just an important thing with pederasty as well, because I think it can link to and be used in like, certain aspects of like, homophobic rhetoric, the in ancient Greece, also, this age that the boys were when they entered these kind of relationships is the same age that girls were considered ready for marriage. That wasn’t like a specific thing, just because it was a same sex relationship. That was the idea at the time was okay. By the time someone is around 15, they are ready to have a sexual relationship and they are ready to like, either if they’re a girl to be married, if they’re a boy to then begin this transition into becoming a man and then they will marry when they are older. So I think that it’s an important thing to remember that it’s not just that this is to do with it, the fact that it was queer or fact that it was like homoerotic. And I just think that’s an important. That’s an important thing to remember.

Dr Rad 49:36
Definitely. And in fact, that was something that again, come out came out at the time with Oscar Wilde’s trials in that people were some people were highlighting that everyone was getting in such a tizzy about his relationships with men at the time, but they didn’t seem too concerned about the age that women were when they were being, you know, either married or for you Maybe forced into sex work or whatever. So yeah, it’s it’s funny that there Yeah. There’s also that caveat to that particular example as well.

Dr G 50:09
Yeah, I think this conversation has gone in in so many different directions. Now. It’s really like yeah, like, and it’s, I think it opens up the conversation in really important ways. Because it’s like, there is a historical through line for us when we think about how we understand ourselves. And also, like the contextual differences over time as well, that become really those points that you hold on to as well, because it’s like, yeah, as you say, there’s not necessarily a utopia out there in the in the past, but there is ways in which we can utilize the ancient world in the way that like Lil Nas X has done in this music video, to think about and to requestion, some of the values that are on display in the mainstream today.

Yentl 51:01
Yeah, I completely agree. I think the music video just wraps all of this up and really emphasizes the discussions that this can that it can foster about antiquities, sexuality, and also the modern day.

Dr Rad 51:15
Well, hopefully, a lot of the people who have been persuaded by the views of the alt right will be super keen to listen to this episode, and check out Lil Nas X’s work. And so to see the lies that have been fed, the classical way of looking at this particular song, and I must admit, I felt like my mind was really opened up by looking at this particular example, which I don’t think I would have come across, if not for your work, Yentl, so thank you so much.

Yentl 51:42
I’m glad you enjoyed. Yeah, I think everyone should watch the music video. Critical piece of art.

Dr G 51:47
And I think as you say, like every time you look at it, you see more in it. Like, I’ll admit that like Latin is by far more preferred ancient language of ancient Greek and I did not spot the Latin.

Yentl 52:02
Yeah, literally, every single time I watch it, there’s something that I haven’t seen before. Oh, wait. Actually, that’s, maybe that’s a reference to this thing, this very nice, ancient historical fact.

Dr Rad 52:14
Well, people should definitely check out your blog on this particular music video, because I know I remember from when I was reading it, that there’s so many more allusions to episodes in mythology that we haven’t even touched on. I mean, the snake. We haven’t mentioned the snake and, and I mean, there’s so much more. So please go and check out Yentl’s blog. She is the Queer Classicist.

Dr G 52:34
And thank you so much for coming on the show. Yeah. And so it’s been an absolute pleasure.

Yentl 52:38
Thank you both for having me. It’s been, yeah, so much fun to chat to you both.

Dr G 52:55
Thank you for tuning in it to this interview episode are The Partial Historians, we want to say a huge shout out, thank you to all of you, our beautiful listeners. And if you’d like to show your love for the show, there’s a few ways you can do it. We would love to read your positive reviews on whichever platform you choose to listen to us on. You can also follow us on our social media – we’re on Twitter, Instagram, Facebook, and Mastodon. You could buy us a coffee on Ko-Fi or join our Patreon crew for early releases. We are so thankful for your listenership and we’ll catch you next time soon.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Special Episode – Classical Reception in Lil Nas X with Yentl Love appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

Content warning for this episode: violence, sexual violence, removal of children

We sit down to chat with Genn and Jenny, the fabulous cohosts of the Ancient History Fan Girl podcast. They have recently published Women of Myth: From Deer Woman and Mami Wata to Amaterasu and Athena which examines fifty women and femme presenting figures from cultures across the globe.

While Women of Myth is the centre of this conversation, there’s no way to discuss ancient ideas about women without considering how that might reflect upon the contemporary issues that women face. This also leads into consideration of the challenges faced by women throughout history.

We wrap up with a discussion of looking beyond the ancient Greco-Roman world – the value of doing that and what that can look like in podcasting.

Special Episode – Women of Myth with Ancient History Fan Girl

In this interview, we explore some of the details of the book including

Consider these retailers:

The book cover!

Our music was composed by Bettina Joy de Guzman.

An illustration by Sara Richard from Women of Myth of Ītzpāpālōtl, the Aztec Skeletal warrior goddess.
She appears as a crown skull with green feathered hair surrounded by flames.

Dr Rad 0:16
Welcome to The Partial Historians.

Dr G 0:20
We explore all the details of ancient Rome.

Dr Rad 0:23
Everything from the political scandals, the levels as the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I’m Dr. Rad.

Dr G 0:34
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. Welcome to a very special edition of The Partial Historians. I am Dr. Rad.

Dr G 1:00
And I’m Dr. G.

Dr Rad 1:02
And Dr. G, we are joined today by two extra special guests. I know this is very exciting for us two extra special people are with us. And the mystery of way shall soon be revealed. I know what I mean, this is this is really a treat because we are joined by two members of the unofficial lady pod squad. And that is right we are joined by Jenny and Genn, who are the hosts of the extremely popular Ancient History Fan Girl podcast. And we are both fan girls of that podcast. Are we not Dr. G?

Dr G 1:39
We are so it’s like super, super exciting. It’s like ancient history girls unite.

Dr Rad 1:43
Exactly, exactly.

Jenny 1:45
The feeling is mutual.

Genn 1:46
Very mutual.

Dr Rad 1:50
It’s actually it’s actually really shocking that we have not had you on our show before this because it was many, many moons ago that we recorded Spartacus together. And I feel like it’s because we’re constantly in contact in terms of I constantly see what you guys are up to on Instagram and constantly listen to your show. And I kind of forget that we haven’t actually talked in real life for quite some time.

Jenny 2:11
It’s a parasocial relationship.

Dr Rad 2:15
It’s indicative of this sad social media world that we live in. It’s like, oh, I’m totally caught up with this person’s life.

Jenny 2:21
Yes, we are in meshed. I have I frequently have that as well.

Dr Rad 2:28
And we are having them on the show today. Because extra excitingly, they have just written a book.

Dr G 2:37
Oh, my God.

Dr Rad 2:39
That’s right. That’s right. They are now not only the cohosts of an excellent Ancient History podcast, but they are the coauthors of Women of Myth: From Deer Woman and Mami Wata to Ama – oh see, I’m going to screw this up. Amaterasu and Athena your guide to the amazing and diverse women from World Mythology.

Jenny 3:05
Yay. That’s our book. Thank you so much for having us on. This is so exciting.

Genn 3:13
Yeah, we’re so excited to be here.

Dr Rad 3:15
No problems at all. And we probably should give a bit of a shout out because not only are you guys co authored this, but you also have some amazing illustrations by Sarah is it? Is it Rashad or Richard Richard

Jenny 3:25
Richard

Dr Rad 3:25
Richard, by Sarah Richard, which really do make the stories I think come alive.

Jenny 3:31
Absolutely. And Liv Albert wrote our forward canvas that

Dr G 3:35
I know. Oh, yeah. For people who might still be unaware – and that must be so few people out there – Liv Albert is the host of “Let’s Talk About Myths, Baby”, which is an incredibly popular podcast from the unofficial lady pod squad.

Jenny 3:50
Indeed. I think it’s just official at this point.

Genn 3:55
I think so. I think I’m going to have badges made.

Dr Rad 3:58
I know, I’m like how have we missed the opportunity to have matching T shirts made I don’t know.

Jenny 4:05
We should all have a T shirt.

Dr Rad 4:07
Yeah, absolutely.

Genn 4:08
Okay. I’m on it.

Dr Rad 4:10
Done, there’s our project. Alright, so let’s get into it. Dr. G.

Dr G 4:14
Yes. So we’re very excited about this book. And I imagine that many people who listen to our podcasts are going to be excited about it as well. So I’m wondering, just to get us started, what’s the basic premise? I feel like the title gives a little bit of a hint. But I imagine there’s more to be said on this front.

Jenny 4:32
Do you want to hit that one, Genn?

Genn 4:35
Oh, I’m gonna let you start.

Jenny 4:37
I mean, the basic myth, it’s women and world mythology. It’s, it’s um, it’s about women and also, you know, feminine presenting characters figures from mythologies around the world. And that includes, we had 50 different slots. And, you know, it’s, it’s actually there are many Goddesses in the book, but it’s divided into three categories goddesses, heroines and monsters. So um, yeah, that’s basically And

Genn 5:05
And put those monsters in quotation marks, please.

Dr Rad 5:07
Yeah.

Jenny 5:08
Monsters, quote unquote. And we definitely go into what is coded monstrous in the book and talk about that a lot. So, um, so yeah, that’s that’s basically what the concept is.

Dr Rad 5:20
Excellent. Yeah, no, I must admit, I was really interested, by the way that you chose to set out your book. And I found it very, very fascinating. So you’ve got, as you say, those three categories of mighty goddesses, both heroines and formidable monsters using flesh rabbits, they’re jumping, they’re jumping all over my screen. Can you tell us how did you decide upon those categories when you were setting about writing this book?

Genn 5:45
So those categories were actually something that our publisher wanted. So it was it came down from, from the publishing gods.

Dr Rad 5:54
Yeah.

Genn 5:55
And that was, it might seem like that could be limiting. But actually, it was really fun. And it forced us to really look at who looked at how we were gonna break up the book and make sure that we had not just a whole bunch of goddesses, or not just a whole bunch of really great mortal heroines who did incredible stuff, or not just focus on some of my favorites and mythology, the monsters, because the monsters are just so fascinating and tell you so much about a culture. It’s, you know, it tells you what people are afraid of. It also tells you about how people, the things people valued the things they didn’t value. So, you know, there’s a whole book that could be made of each of those sections. So it was kind of nice to have the publishing Gods on higher say, you know, what, could you give us a little taste of each?

Jenny 6:48
Yeah, it was, I think it provided some good structure.

Dr Rad 6:52
Yeah, definitely. Well, I must admit, I was particularly interested in it because I am a teacher, as I think some people might know. And in my Year 11, course, I get to teach a unit called “Women in Greece and Rome”, which is a comparative study of that. And I will actually always have a section on female monsters from mythology, because I think it’s a great way to actually start off the unit, because, as you say, by looking at what a culture is afraid of, I think that actually tells you a huge amount about their attitudes to various things. But if you want to look at gender, for example, it gives you real insight into that.

Jenny 7:27
Oh, yeah, huge amounts.

Genn 7:30
Spoiler, it’s almost always women with sexual agency, almost always.

Jenny 7:34
Frequently, it’s not only that, there’s, there’s kind of a subcategory that’s like, you know, medical fears, we found a lot of monsters who are kind of, you know, spirits or beings that interfered with, for example, childbirth, and you know, what we might call today, sudden infant death syndrome. You know, like, if this monster attack, they attack a woman in in birthing, or they attack a baby, it’s as it’s just born. And this is a way to explain deaths that might not be easily explained otherwise, in pre modern cultures. There’s also monsters like, for example, there was one an Inuit monster that was basically like her, her. Her basically what she was, was a monster that tempted children out onto the ice. So she would like if a child wandered out onto the ice, she would grab it and take it underwater. So you know, that just speaks to a real fear about the environment and about, you know, children wandering away from their parents and winding up in dangerous situations, which I’m sure was, and still is, in a lot of places. A real danger, right. So..

Dr G 8:41
Yeah, I think that I think that’s a really important point, because one of the things that you can see a connection with here is how sexual agency sort of leads into the childbearing aspect. And then the consequences of the childbearing fall upon the mother and the child in various ways.

Jenny 8:58
Oh my gosh, yeah, absolutely. Like there’s there’s all these like, kind of revolving fears around women, childbirth, child rearing that, that exists across many cultures.

Genn 9:08
And then you get it on the other end as well. You get a lot of older women characters are also monsters. I mean, famously Baba Yaga, right, the, the Slavic witch, the deep forest, whose house is on spindly chicken legs that can move around and she’s kind of a chaotic, chaotic, and all fairy tales. Sometimes she’ll do good things. Sometimes she’ll do real bad things. Sometimes she’ll put your head on one of her D posts. You also have like there’s a cannibal ogress who also takes an age children. So there’s a lot of like women who are not within the family unit who are older, maybe past childbearing years, also being dangerous, particularly if they have any kind of knowledge.

Jenny 9:50
Demonized, literally. Yeah.

Dr Rad 9:52
I feel like that’s speaking to so many things as a person who’s decided not to have children, mostly because I am massively afraid or the idea that I’m like, Yes, this resonates and also living in a culture where we’re terrified of aging and women are just like not supposed to age. I think this can definitely hit home with a lot of people in our audience.

Jenny 10:15
Yeah.

Dr G 10:18
I want to be a crone. I’m looking forward to that part of my lifestyle.

Jenny 10:22
Listen, we’re all gonna wind up on Team Cannibal Ogress eventually like we all know that.

Genn 10:30
Do we have to be cannibals though like I’m here for ogress, but do I need to be accountable?

Dr G 10:34
You can be a vegetarian if you so desire that is fine.

Jenny 10:37
You can be a vegan cannibal ogress.

Dr Rad 10:41
I’m actually I’m actually seeing our future now. You know, soon soon we’ll all be of an age where society no longer wants to look at us and has no use for us. So we may as well just buy an apartment building that’s entirely soundproof where our matching lady pod squad T shirts, and we’ll just lock ourselves up in individual spaces and record sounds like basically what I’m doing now.

Genn 11:02
Overlooking the sea please.

Jenny 11:05
Genn can have a window in hers.

Dr Rad 11:08
You can have that, old crone.

Jenny 11:10
Her teeth are long; her windows are glorious.

Dr Rad 11:16
Yeah.

Genn 11:18
How else am I gonna warn people not to approach sometimes by like putting a head in the window. Like I need to have something to warn people.

Dr Rad 11:25
Yeah. We’ll be an interesting version of the sirens. You know,

Jenny 11:28
Stop scaring the food away.

Genn 11:32
Alright, look, I’ll be able to manipulate like you have the low lighting. We’ve got a few good years. Yeah.

Dr Rad 11:38
It’s good to have a plan, you know, eventually, you know, society will cast you out.

Jenny 11:45
It’s called retirement.

Genn 11:46
There’s only so many Tik Tok filters, right. Like, we can’t make the Tik Tok filters reality yet.

Dr Rad 11:51
Yes, exactly.

Genn 11:54
Yet.

Dr G 12:00
So I’m thinking about bringing things back to the to the topic at hand. I just sort of went out on a little imagination of being like, what would it be like to live in a giant apartment complex with ladies by the sea? And I was like, I think it would be good. I’m looking forward to that. So the illustrations in this book by Sara Richard, they’re amazing. I have to say like, so evocative. And I’m really interested in your perspective. One, what was that like working together on this sort of stuff? And how do these illustrations in your view really enhance the themes that are coming out in the work?

Jenny 12:35
Oh my gosh, there’s so much to say about that. Like, there’s so much to so much like the it was very collaborative, you know, like we would – we would receive kind of line drawings Sarah and Sarah would do these like really funny line drawings and like kind of put little notes in them like skulls here and look at the little arrow you know, like more skull children hiding in the woods. Usually it was skulls though she’d there’s like skulls and stories that actively don’t have skulls, which I love. So many, I love that this as a as a fan of the cult of the severed head. I just love skulls, and so to Sara, so I think it really worked. But um, yeah, so like, she would send it in, you know, like line drawings, we would take a look and go back and forth on things and kind of collaborate on what the final result would be. And she so frequently just absolutely knocked it out of the park with very little communication, because she had her own process that was always like really in line with ours, because I think she had like really a similar kind of aesthetic to what we were thinking of, and what we were going for in the writing, you know, like, I’m not shying away from the gory details, for example.

Genn 13:46
So one of the things that, you know, we found when we were doing when we were doing the mythology, history, everything for this book is there’s one word that comes up again and again, when you when you talk about women in, in these stories, and it’s a word that I personally hate because it’s such a loaded word. And we couldn’t erase it from the book, because it’s oftentimes integral to the, to the plot, and that word is beautiful. And so one of the things that we had to contend with was, how are we going to, you know, we’ve got this wonderful collection of stories about diverse women, how are we going to show beauty in a way that isn’t just a westernized beauty standard? And you know, what, what we did with Sara was we worked really closely to be clear about how some of these women could look how, you know, they could not necessarily look Western, like you know, we have we have gender non binary characters. We have larger characters, which for me is always important. You know, I grew up in the era of Disney princesses, where they’re literally their heads or, you know, their hands are bigger than their waist. So, it was super important to me that we have have a full body diversity, full, you know, diversity of gender identity. And we didn’t just want like larger people. I also wanted to see women who are super athletic women who are, you know, slender women who look like every other woman looks. And also, you know, one of the things Sara does is you’ll see a lot of gorgeous women with, you know, very big noses or, you know, beautiful, bright eyes or, you know, the hair textures, everything she’s just so good at so that when you look at these women, they are all beautiful, and they’re not all uniform.

Jenny 15:38
They all look different. Yeah. Yeah.

Genn 15:41
Yeah, they all look great.

Dr Rad 15:43
Yeah, no, I really love to. I really love that aspect of your illustrations, the fact that you had given the thought of, as you say, not just thinking about the ethnicity in terms of skin tone, and that kind of stuff, which is obviously, still a big issue these days, sadly, as we can see, because at the time of recording, we’re recording in the midst of this Netflix fewer about the casting of Cleopatra for their Docu drama, and what she looked like. And I’m sure we all remember a few years ago, when there was debate about the casting of for Troy full of a city. And you know, the casting of people of color to play various mythological characters. So I love that aspect. But I think as you say, particularly for gender, people might not automatically think about it, but having that diversity of body type is so important.

Jenny 16:26
Absolutely. Yeah. And that was a big priority of ours. And I think Sara really knocked it out of the park there, too.

Genn 16:32
Yeah, I wanted to see women who if they were like, riding an elephant or swinging a sword could swing that sword. I was here for that. And one of the one of the one of the illustrations, that’s my favorite is the Morrigan, who is the Celtic goddess of the battlefield, she has Genn hair, which is a very fluffy braid hair. I was so excited that Sara did that. But also, she just looks terrifying. She looks like she would stalk a battlefield. With her cape made of feathers and viscera. She looks like she belongs there. And she’s got this really terrifying beauty to her. Like, I don’t think anyone would, you know, can traditionally call her the most beautiful like person, but she’s really scary. Pretty.

Jenny 17:21
Yeah.

Dr G 17:23
Yeah, that’s it. It’s just a sign, we need to expand our scope of what includes is in beauty, like those narrow standards that come through, particularly online and through like dominant cultural paradigms. And it’s like, books like this become really important because they provide that counterpoint. And you’re not just challenging culture, you’re also expanding it by doing this kind of work. So kudos to you guys.

Jenny 17:46
Absolutely. Thank you.

Genn 17:47
Thank you.

Dr Rad 17:47
And I know my students are always disappointed even though they don’t want to say it, I can see it on their faces. Because when I am when I am teaching Troy, and we start by watching the Hollywood version, then when I show them like the Bettany Hughes documentary, and they see that approximation of what how long or short, it might actually look like, given the cultural beauty standards, that their faces always kind of fall because they’re just like, oh my god, like it’s so confronting the different to like my, you know, Kim Kardashian view of what, you know what a beautiful woman looks like.

Jenny 18:28
It’s like, I feel like I’ve seen Helen of Troy depicted as blonde so often and where does that come from? I mean, why, why is she blonde? You know?

Dr Rad 18:36
Yeah,

Dr G 18:37
Like, what are the chances? It’s like, slim to none guys.

Jenny 18:39
Exactly.

Genn 18:40
Well that’s, that’s, that’s the othering, right? That’s like we see the red hair pop up all the time. Right as as a ginger, like, who has Mediterranean roots. The only reason you see that is to say this person doesn’t belong, like they’re from somewhere else.

Dr Rad 18:53
Yeah,

Jenny 18:53
The odds are very high.

Genn 18:54
There were not genders or there were not blondes. I mean, yes, I’m sure there were like, statistically, but realistically, you know, the Bettany Hughes adaptation is much closer to what it would have been, you know, you’re seeing those hair colors because it’s supposed to be a divine sort of thing to this person, as opposed to an actual reality of what they would have looked like. Sorry.

Dr Rad 19:13
Yeah. 100% 100%.

Genn 19:15
Sorry, gingers out there.

Dr G 19:18
Before we move on from illustrations, I just have to say that the one that really stood out to me was I’m going to try to pronounce the name and hope I get it right. Ītz-pāpā-lōtl, the skeletal warrior goddess.

Jenny 19:31
Yeah, Ītzpāpālōtl.

Dr G 19:34
Yeah. The warrior goddess of the Aztecs, who also has this skeletal aspect about her. Just amazing.

Jenny 19:41
So she was one of my absolute favorites. So if you ask me, you know who’s my favorite. There are like dozens of them that I could say but she’s one that really stood out to me. And we discovered her like one of the she was one of the first ones that I found that was kind of outside of the scope of what I already knew. And I was just so excited about her. She’s a skeletal warrior goddess of the Aztecs. She has butterfly wings lined with obsidian knives and her mythology includes you know, sleeping with a man and then ripping out his heart and eating it, which is pretty awesome.

Dr G 20:12
I mean all round she sounds like the kind of woman I’d want to hang out with.

Jenny 20:15
Hardcore.

Genn 20:18
She has some great stories to tell you over and over like a nice bottle of like, white zinfandel. Yeah, like how did we get to this part where we had to rip the guy apart?

Dr G 20:27
Tell me how we got there.

Jenny 20:28
I mean, I think it’s not a white zinfandel. Kind of. I think she drinks blood red wine.

Genn 20:34
All right. Well, listen, I don’t – she would make an exception for me. She just put some hearts in hers. It’d be fine.

Jenny 20:40
I don’t think she’s a “hearts in the wine” kind of gal. That’s just you know, blood clots in the wine, sure. Hearts in the wine. Literal hearts perhaps?

Genn 20:50
That’s what I meant literal heart.

Jenny 20:52
Oh, I thought you meant like little gummy hearts.

Genn 20:54
No.

Jenny 20:58
Okay, I could see why zinfandel or red zinfandel with with literal hearts in it that she would she would probably drink that. Yeah.

Dr Rad 21:06
Tasty.

Jenny 21:07
She works. Like our whole cannibal plan I think she would fit in.

Dr Rad 21:13
So, I really intrigued because Dr. G and I have also just written a book together, it seems really weird that you know, you guys were publishing your book, publishing our book, and we’re like, Oh, my God, we know a little bit about like, what it’s like to try and write a book, you know, together, not just on your own, you know, locked in your own thoughts and that sort of thing. Tell us what are the biggest challenges that you encountered when you were writing this book?

Jenny 21:37
Um, I don’t know. Like, I feel like for me, the most challenging parts were because there there were, I know, Jenna’s gonna have a different answer to this. But for me, the the challenging parts were writing about, you know, women in cultures and mythologies and stories that I wasn’t already familiar with, because I’m pretty familiar with certain aspects of, you know, Greek and Roman culture and Celtic mythology and things because we had covered that in the podcast. But we were expanding a whole lot beyond what we had already covered. So I always wanted to approach those topics, like really well, and with the same, you know, thoroughness of research that I did for stuff I had done, you know, a two and a half hour, like, episode series on or something. So, I felt like that, you know, like, I felt a little stressed about it, sometimes I was just like, I want to make sure I get this right, I want to make sure I’m not just, you know, applying a Western lens, or equating something to things that I had already heard about that it actually has nothing to do with, you know. So I was really careful in that and thinking about that a lot. So I would say that, for me, that was the most challenging part. But it was also really fun, because I got to just get outside of my comfort zone and learn about things that I had not known about before. And that’s really the fun part for me. So.

Genn 22:53
So everything Jenny said is also how I felt I also, one of the things just to add to this, before I go on to what I found really, equally difficult. One of the things were really careful about was because these weren’t, were non western cultures and cultures that we were experiencing for the first time, we really wanted to try to find sources, telling the mythology in sort of from that culture, absolutely important to us that we make sure that you know, we looked at sort of, you know, we looked at the starting point, which is a collection or wherever you would find it in English, a lot of times, we also you know, we are, we are a bit you know, handy, we know we are a bit limited as we only speak English and read English, I read a tiny bit of Latin, Jenny can read and write a little bit of French, but with the with the the exception of that we are not fluent in any other languages. So, you know, we can’t read something in Mandarin. And that does limit the opportunities you have when you’re looking into other cultures. So we were really careful to make sure that where possible, we found sources that were outside of Western cultures and use them to tell these stories of these women. The thing that and that was tricky. But the other thing that I found really scary and anxiety inducing was I tended to cover some of the really big characters from Western and non western cultures like I covered. I wrote the entry, Mulan and Athena and Medusa. And these are all stories that are so ingrained in Western culture and other cultures. Like we have certain images of what we’re expecting. And I found like, Well, what do I have to say that’s new? That’s also true to the story and how do I continue to make that engaging and not just be the same thing you’ve read before? I found that really intimidating. I think we got there in the end.

Jenny 24:51
I think so. Yeah. I hope so.

Genn 24:55
I don’t know about you got a you both but like, I found writing this book with Jenny. We each took different entries that we edited the other person’s entries. But from having the podcast for so long, I didn’t find it like our voices I think meld really well, in the writing of the book, like, I don’t think it seemed like two different people wrote stuff. And I don’t know if you had a similar experience, because like, I kind of felt like it was easy to keep our tone and our voice really consistent. So it felt like one unified project, like what was it like for you?

Dr G 25:25
Oh, that’s a good question. I feel we did a similar thing in terms of like dividing up who would take which chapter and then co editing and, and reversing that and things like that. And I think part of the beauty for us is that we do have two distinct voices, we share a sense of humor. But you would I think, for the astute listener of our podcast, they’d be able, they’d be able to identify who wrote which chapter as well. And it might not necessarily be the case for somebody who hadn’t encountered our work before, because we do have really similar touch points. But it’s really interesting to me, because Fiona has all of these sort of popular cultural references, that I don’t get. And then what I think are popular cultural references are still historical, so. And that was something that I was like, Oh, this doesn’t come up so much when we’re chatting with each other. But it was really distinctly clear in the writing. And I was like, oh, that’s fascinating to me. So it was like, I felt like we got to know each other a little bit better through the process, even though we know each other so well.

Dr Rad 26:26
I agree. I agree. When I was editing Dr G’s chapters, I always break out to a cold sweat whenever I read anything that she’s written, because I’m like, she’s just so effortlessly, effortlessly academic. Like, I can only I can only aspire to have this kind of tone to my work. And then I start rethinking everything I’ve ever written. But yeah,

Genn 26:51
I frequently feel that way as well.

Dr Rad 26:54
But yeah, but you, but you have to just have Yeah, I have. The good thing is I know that if she’s the one editing my work, I’m like, I feel at ease. Because if she can write this way, and she can edit my work, I know she’ll tell me if I’m being an idiot.

Dr G 27:09
I can’t confirm she is not.

Dr Rad 27:15
But yeah, no, it was it was I agree that I think for someone who doesn’t know us, if they probably just be like, oh, yeah, this kind of reflects the podcast. But for people who know us, well, people who listen to the podcast, I think they would be able to tell which chapter was written by which person and it is mostly because I can’t restrain myself. The publisher actually forced me to cut massively back on the pop culture references saying that I wasn’t, I wasn’t dating the book to some of them.

Dr G 27:41
I had to put footnotes in for my chapters, because he was like, Is that a thing? And I was like, that’s a thing. And I’m not cool. But you’re even more uncool than me. So I’m not going to delete it. I’ll put a footnote in for you and others of your ilk.

Jenny 27:56
Yeah, we included pop culture references when we could find them as well, because not all of the figures and characters that we found had like extensive pop culture references, but there were some who were kind of emerging and and were appearing in more like kind of manga and video games and more modern pop culture. And it was cool to kind of track that down a little bit. Yeah, definitely.

Dr G 28:20
And I think that’s useful as well for people who are approaching these sorts of stories because they like they do have a whole wealth of reception as well. So, you know, anything that might be a touchstone for somebody, I think is useful for bringing them in further into that knowledge. And anything that they come across that they haven’t encountered, but the story appeals to them, they’ve got an avenue to pursue to explore it further.

Jenny 28:41
So absolutely, yeah. For example, like Ītzpāpālōtl has, I think she’s inspired at least one monster in a horror film, the name of which escapes me and she’s also inspired, I think, a Disney plus cartoon character from there. And I also the name escapes me as well. But I know that she’s appearing in pop culture recently. And it’s really fun to it’s really fun to see that and track it down.

Dr G 29:06
Yeah, so thinking about you’ve covered 50 women and this is like, like a huge range. Is there any standouts? Oh, the question that we’ve written down is like, who ended up being your favorite and I’m always a little bit I always back away a little bit when people ask me favorite questions because I really dislike having to place one thing on a pedestal so I appreciate that you might not want to go there. But if so one sort of stand out for you that that may be struck you along the way that hit you differently from what you thought it would or surprised you in some way.

Jenny 29:41
Genn, you want to go first on that?

Genn 29:43
No, I’m gonna let you go first because I love hearing you tell this story and I know what you’re gonna say.

Jenny 29:47
Yeah, I always say the same one. And I always preface this by saying that they’re they were all my favorite like having done this book. I was always just super excited about whichever one I was covering and I would be texting Genn these little details and if you asked me what my favorite was that week, it would be whatever when I was working on that week, so I really did fall in love with all of them genuinely. And they’re all They’re all my favorite, I feel very strongly about all the ones that I covered even all the ones that Genn covered because I also helped her edit her entries, and she helped edit mine. So it was really kind of a joint project in that way.

Genn 30:21
And then we recorded the audiobook. So then we, we didn’t record necessarily our entries, we recorded each other sometimes based on the flow of the book. So they do really all feel like they are ours, you know, absolutely.

Jenny 30:35
But I would say that one that has stuck with me that I really just kind of love fell in love with and and felt like I maybe identified with or, you know, just just really loved was this goddess named Oya, who is she is like an Eastern African and also African diaspora goddess who I think she may have like, she’s like a goddess at the Niger River. Originally, she’s a water gout goddess, but also a goddess of like lightning and whirl winds and wind. And she’s a warrior goddess, but she’s also a goddess of commerce. And she has so many disparate aspects to her. But one of the things about her that I just really loved is that she I think her name means if I’m getting this right, I might be messing this up. But I think her name means the “tearer”, as in the t e a r e r, the “tearer”. And part of her one of her aspects is that she is a goddess of like, the destructive force that comes before transformative change. So she would like, you know, kind of rip into your life like, like a strong wind and just rip everything up by the roots. And you have to start again. And I found that to be like a really interesting and important message to me, because I know that I see this in a lot of my female friends specifically. And also I have done this extensively in my own life. Just holding on to a situation that is not good for me, because I had hoped that it would change, you know, and that has been, I’ve done this in several different relationships. I’ve done this with jobs, I’ve done this with, you know, goals that I had, that no longer worked for me, like just holding on to something so hard, when what I really needed was some of that oil energy, just sweeping in there turning everything upside down and shaking it and just letting me start unburden myself and start over again. And I think you know, many of us can do with a little bit more of that energy. So, so I just, I just love her. And I really appreciate that I got to learn about her in this project.

Dr G 32:38
Oh, thank you for sharing.

Genn 32:41
Super uncontroversial. But like she’s also my favorite that I was super surprised by like, I’m very basic. Like I usually say my favorites Atlanta, because when I was 10 years old, finally able to read on my own, I had a long process to reading. I read this book of Greek myth, and there she was, you know, Atlanta, took no shit did what she wanted to do. Wasn’t going to marry anyone who wasn’t her equal. But I knew going in that that was the standard of what I was looking for. Right? When I was looking at these women’s stories, and a lot of the women whose stories we tell our warriors, but some are moms, some are children, some are goddesses of of tearing things up and starting over. But the one who really surprised me the most is also Oh, yeah. Because I don’t know. Like, they just as Jenny describes it every time every time I get to hear her say it. I’m like, Yeah, we all need more of that in our life. You know, like, we just let go or be dragged and I was like, okay.

Dr G 33:40
Yeah, don’t get stagnated, change is on its way.

Jenny 33:43
Don’t get stagnated. Exactly.

Dr Rad 33:46
Yeah, that definitely resonates. Because I think that we we do tend to be scared of change, and we kind of enjoy the comfort, even if bad situation is just that familiarity.

Jenny 33:56
Exactly. And like how it takes so much courage to change your situation, you know, in so many in so many ways. And so like having, like, I kind of see her as embodying that courage, you know?

Dr Rad 34:09
Yeah, absolutely. So this one might be a little bit easier to answer because we’re not asking you to rank your your women. But we were interested to hear because so many of these stories were actually unfamiliar to us because those were also sort of starting from a place of being more familiar with Greco-Roman traditions. But which woman in myth is you find had the most complex back story in your view?

Jenny 34:34
Oh, that’s a good one. Um, do you want to go first, Genn? Do you want me to go first?

Genn 34:40
Um, you go first because I’m thinking

Jenny 34:43
Okay,

Genn 34:44
That’s my like far away thinking face.

Jenny 34:50
Well done, Genn. Yeah. I would say for me, there’s this character. It’s actually two characters in one Amba and Shikhandi from the Mahabharata in India. The ancient Indian epic. And I this is one of the trans characters that I just completely fell in love with trans or you know non binary perhaps it’s a little bit hard to tell it depends on the source. But this character, I think, if I recall, right, I don’t exactly remember the order, but I saved them for either last or very close to last because I felt that it was a very complex topic to handle. And I wanted to really make sure that I did it right. And some of the complexity of it was talking about Shikhandi’s gender. So this is a story about reincarnation, basically. And it starts off with this woman, a cisgender woman named Amba, who is in love with this man and gets kidnapped by another man and basically has her life ruined by by this guy who kidnaps her because her original boyfriend or you know, lover wouldn’t marry her after she had been kidnapped, and then the guy who did the kidnapping wouldn’t marry her, because I guess he had a vow of some kind. And, you know, just kind of he just sort of casually destroyed this woman’s life. So she really just wanted to get revenge. But this was a renowned warrior, and nobody would side with her and help her get revenge on him. So she prayed about it in the forest, and one of the gods came to her and said that she would be able to successfully get revenge, but only in another lifetime. So she immediately built herself a funeral pyre and jumped into it so that she could hasten her own reincarnation. And eventually, depending on the sources, she may have gone through a number of lives before eventually being reborn as this character, Shikhandi, who their their gender is, either you could look at them as a transgender man or a transgender woman, or perhaps a non binary person, or perhaps a sis woman who just really doesn’t conform to expectations of cisgender women in that time, you know, like that. It’s very complicated, writing about it. But I really enjoyed learning about Shikhandi, and learning about, you know, gender, as told and described in this epic, and also like more modern depictions of Shikhandi and how their gender has been depicted throughout the years. And eventually, like, the cool thing about Shikhandi is that they become eventually the charioteer of this other really renowned warrior in the current shutter of war, which is featured in the Mahabharata. And they wind up just finding this this original person who had ruined his life and riddling them with arrows and taking epic revenge. And it’s just such a really great harrowing and gripping tale. And that just happens to involve a gender queer character from 1000s of years ago. And I really enjoyed that. And I found it, you know, a complex and challenging topic to cover. And for me, because I just wanted to make sure I was getting it right, but also just really, really fun to learn about.

Genn 37:52
Yeah, so mine is a little more recent, La Llorona, who is the Mexican wailing woman of mythology is super fascinating. And her history is so deeply rooted in the colonization of the of Mexico. And us, you know, her story stretches back to when, when Mexico was colonized by the by the Spanish, she started out her life as a, an Indigenous woman who is has a love affair with a Spanish guy. And at this particular point in time, this was very common. And a lot of Indigenous women had these, they were sort of like second spouse, spouses or relationships with these Spanish, Spanish men. And so what happens is this guy who has been professing his love for her, they have two children together, all of a sudden is like, hey, so I have to marry this other woman. And in addition to that, I’m going to take our kids because I think that it would be better for me to raise them and like, you can totally visit them and stuff, but I’m done with you. And so the, you know, the choice that is left to this woman, you know, is is not great. She out of grief and despair, drowns her children and usually kills herself. She’s usually found by a body of water. And a lot of her history is, you know, then she comes back and is sort of a, you know, a spectral spirit who, you know, takes children or, you know, will will drown you in the water. But all of that is so deeply tied to colonization and how women were treated. Like it was very common that comedy and Spanish conquerors would be conquerors. You know, Spanish colonizers would have affairs with Indigenous women and then take their children from them, because they didn’t believe that they were able to raise their own children. And the treatment of women was absolutely appalling and indigenous people in general and one of the other things about this mythology that Jenny helped me understand, because I didn’t know this, is that some of that folklore which now it has, like, its own sort of operas and its own sort of like place in the Day of the Dead celebrations, but some of it goes all the way back to the Aztec conquest. I’m gonna let you talk about that, Jenny, because you know it a lot more clearly than I do, even though I wrote the entry.

Jenny 40:21
Yeah.

Genn 40:22
I always confuse it.

Jenny 40:23
Well, I mean, I think just that that part of it is that there were Aztec goddesses that may have that that law, Your Honor, may have also had her roots in like, goddesses that involve child sacrifice in some way, or goddesses that were tied to water in some way. Some of this comes, like was written about in, you know, codices that record people who had lived through the siege of Tenochtitlan, for example, like accounts of, you know, signs importance of, of this siege, and some of them involved, you know, wailing women, for example, showing up at the streets of Tenochtitlan the night before, and wailing about their children, you know, dying or being in harm’s way. Some of this is less than trustworthy, because it comes from through a Spanish lends there were all these, you know, Spanish priests running around at a certain time, you know, in the decades after the conquest, interviewing Indigenous survivors of the of these events and writing these things down, but it was the priests writing them down. So how, and this also goes for some of the mythology around Ītzpāpālōtl too and we talk about that in her entry. how trustworthy that some of this stuff is, is a little bit up for interpretation, you know, and, like, questionable, but there, there is some, some documentation of that. So it’s possible that there that there were goddesses that, that lie, you’re gonna call us back to that have indigenous roots as well.

Genn 41:52
Yeah, as a foretelling of this doom, right?

Jenny 41:55
Yeah, like a doom foretelling. And that has to do with, you know, either death of children and death in the water, you know?

Dr G 42:03
Yeah, I look, I think you see those similar parallels coming through in like the tale of Medea, for instance. And it’s like, you know, this story of conquest, and people coming in and taking ownership of a place or assuming that somehow they, they, it’s theirs now, and what are the fallout consequences of that, and there is a long, long history of that kind of colonial violence. And it’s really good to see these stories coming through, because it emphasizes just how common it is, and also puts us situates us in the fight to going forward? Like, how do we do the processes that undo some of the problematic consequences of this kind of history as well? Like, how do we do it well, and I feel like there’s a long way to go. But I think there’s inherent value in the, in sharing these kinds of stories, just to reiterate just how common this kind of violence is, and also situating us in a in a position of action, what to do next.

Genn 43:00
And also, like, you know, one of the things you see is that it’s very much this mythology in particular is a psychic scar that you have on people who after, you know, after the horrors of colonization, they don’t there’s a lot of things we don’t have anymore as a result, but this story comes through, and it is one of those things that remains with us. And, you know, should be a way of telling us like, you know, this, the there’s just so much there that I’m not I’m not making any sense at the moment. It’s just it is like a psychic scar that does come through in the folklore that is, is there to, you know, continually remind us of the horrors of colonization?

Jenny 43:37
Yeah, like how these women were treated. And you know, how basically how the Spanish colonizers treated Indigenous women that they had relationships with?

Dr Rad 43:47
Definitely no, like, I think that that actually is a really good place to start to wrap up, because one of the things I was very impressed by when I looked inside instead of reading my copy of your book is that you guys were very restrained in that, even though I think when you probably started your podcast, you were focusing more on sort of Greco Roman world topics. And I’ve seen with your episodes that I’ve been listening to that you’ve gradually move beyond the sort of Greco Roman world and certainly in this book, I was very impressed that you were very restrained in the in the use of Greco Roman mythology, because I mean, you really could, you could easily populate, you know, 50 women from Greco Roman mythology if you wanted to in a book like this, but I was I was really blown away by the array of cultures that were on display. Is that something that you were exploring the podcast, and that sort of gave you the idea for the book or did the book kind of inform where you’ve taken the podcast?

Jenny 44:44
I think that Jen and I had both really wanted to move beyond Greco Roman stuff for a long time. I mean, our podcast is called Ancient History Fan Girl, not just Ancient Greco Roman History Fan Girl and yet for our first you know, couple years, we really stayed in that realm because and I think that it wasn’t something we did as a conscious decision, we just kept falling down these rabbit holes and like, the more we learned, the more we wanted, we found things we wanted to cover. And the more we got confident in this one area, and we get excited about things, and, you know, it was just really hard to wrench ourselves away. And we had, we realized, like, we had to make this conscious decision to do that. And we had been talking about how we were going to do it for a while when the opportunity to write this book came about. So it felt like a natural extension of expanding our horizons in that way, you know, but we had planned to do that already on the podcast, and we would have done it whether the book had happened or not. But I’m really glad we did it, because I think it gave us both, you know, kind of more of a, like, more of a global view on history as well as mythology because we talked about history, and how how the history and the mythology kind of meld in a lot of the entries that we did anyway. So

Genn 45:53
Yeah, everything that Jenny said, I think our podcast, because I have a deep and abiding love of Greco Roman mythology, sometimes stays in Greece in Rome a little too long. Not that Jenny doesn’t also but like that’s, that feels like my home to me. But one of the great things about this book is it forced us outside of that. And we had always planned to do that. And I think it really, it really broaden our horizons. And it sort of gave us a lot of confidence to be able to continue doing it. I also know that we did a season a couple of couple of seasons ago about gender in the ancient world. And when we finished that season, I was like Jenny, I am now broken. I need to leave Greece and Rome for a little bit of time. What can we do to get out of Greece and Rome? Because like,

Jenny 46:39
Yeah, we were both feeling a little bit like we just needed a scene shift, you know? So

Genn 46:46
Just watching the patriarchy be built. You’re like, yeah, no, I got it. What can we do that’s gonna just bring joy back to my life.

Jenny 46:52
And then we decided to cover ancient mysteries, which was basically like a lot of natural disasters and skeletons where they shouldn’t be so I don’t know how light that was?

Genn 47:06
Well, I think one of the things we did in the ancient mystery series that I’m incredibly proud of, I say it every time we talk about it is our first episode in that series is about the dating of the Sphinx, how old is this things? And we spent a lot of time in that series really digging into stuff that were actual mysteries, and then also stuff that maybe some TV channel or streaming service would like you to believe are mysteries for ancient alien reasons that aren’t. And I think it’s really easy for people who are sort of who follow things on those places to think like, Oh, I found this mystery because aliens built it or whatever, and not unpack the actual reality of the good work that archaeologists and historians and scientists and its ographers are doing to show you real mysteries and ask questions that aren’t about of colonization. Yeah, well, they are about colonization, but aren’t about you know, white washing other people’s history? Because,

Dr Rad 48:04
Yeah, that’s my biggest thing. I absolutely cannot stand it when my students come in and go, didn’t aliens build the pyramids and I’m like, shut your mouth right now. That is racist propaganda, whether you realize it or not.

Yeah.

Genn 48:18
We started with that episode. Jenny did such an amazing job of it of showing you how you can watch a documentary and you can listen to that very smart sounding documentary, and start going down this rabbit hole of, “Wait a minute aliens built this?”. Wait a minute, during a minute, have I just fallen down a racist rabbit hole? What happened? Yeah, I mean, that’s, that’s kind of like when we started doing ancient mysteries, like, you can look at something like Göbekli Tepe, or, you know, different different, like, you know, monuments around the world. And if you recall, peyote makan is absolutely one of these Cahokia is one of these where you look at that, like, there, there are obviously extremely legitimate and fascinating mysteries around around these monuments, but there’s also, you know, kind of all this pseudo historical stuff built up around it. And we didn’t realize the extent to which we’d have to pick through that in that season. So the there’s an app, the first episode we dropped was the Sphinx 10,000 years old. And it’s kind of just talking about like, starting starting with like, how easy it is to if you are a lay person like Jen and me and you you are not like a scholar yourself in this stuff. And you’re just like, well, I don’t know, this guy has a PhD in the front of his name and he’s in all the same journals as the other guys. And so why is why is this illegitimate? You know, how would you know and you know, talking about how, how easy it is to to be sort of drawn in by that and then where you wind up is basically, the people who actually built this thing didn’t build these things. Maybe it was white people who are also from Atlantis. From Atlantis, racist Atlanta and also originally from Mars, and for some reason, all the Martians are white. Go Go big here. You know?

Dr G 50:01
It would explain a lot though, let’s face it, yeah, if the aliens were white.

Jenny 50:06
God. I mean,

Dr Rad 50:09
I think it’s also this very seductive idea that we have about humankind in that we have this idea that our story is one of progress that people 1000s of years ago couldn’t have done something super advanced because it was 1000s of years ago, and we must be smarter and you know, have come such a long way from then, that they can’t possibly have done these things, because that doesn’t make any sense. You know, like, we have to have this chronology and it’s like, no, they have the same capacity as us to reason to think to create, and because they’re from a different time and a different culture. Maybe they come up with different ideas and different solutions to problems. But yeah, humans are capable of pretty much the same thing. If they’re of the, you know, the same type of, you know, of humankind.

Jenny 50:59
Absolutely.

Genn 51:00
Yeah like the fact that we had flushing toilets in Skara Brae, which is a tiny little island village on the sort of falling into the sea on a Scottish island called, I don’t know if it’s on Stromness. Or if it’s up in the Orkneys. They have flushing toilets.

Jenny 51:16
Yeah.

Dr Rad 51:17
And I think that’s a great place to finish up. Because realistically, we can finish up by saying that by talking to Ancient History Fan Girl –

Genn 51:24
I should say it’s a it’s a new I should say it’s a Neolithic settlement. So like super super, super old.

Dr Rad 51:30
Yeah, no, definitely. No, I think I think it shows us that you know, all throughout our history humans have been like, what to do with shit. What to do with it?

Genn 51:37
Oh!

Dr Rad 51:39
We don’t like it.

Dr G 51:41
Where am I gonna put it, guys? I made some more.

Dr Rad 51:48
And so on that very sophisticated note, we’re going to wrap up this absolutely wonderful conversation with the fabulous co hosts of Ancient History Fan Girl – if you haven’t listened to it, and I can’t imagine that you haven’t. Please go and check it out. I’m going to a pass over to Genn and Jenny so they can tell you all about where to find them and also how to purchase this amazing book of theirs.

Jenny 52:09
Thank you so much. Our podcast is Ancient History Fan Girl. You can find us at Ancient His Fan on Twitter at Ancient History Fan Girl on Facebook and Instagram. We’re not really we’re on at oh, what’s our Tiktok name?

Genn 52:24
Ancient History Fan Girl.

Jenny 52:25
There we go. We’re also on TikTok.

Genn 52:27
Keep that brand consistent when they give me characters.

Jenny 52:29
Heck yes, you can find us on Tik Tok. And, yeah, our book “Women of Myth” is available basically wherever books are sold. If your indie bookstore doesn’t happen to have it, ask them to order it, I suppose. Is that how it works? I think so.

Genn 52:48
Yeah. And ask your library libraries are great. They’re free. Ask your library to order it in. They should be able to

Jenny 52:54
Interlibrary loan.

Genn 52:57
Exactly. It’s also available on audiobook we read it. Yeah. And as an ebook.

Jenny 53:03
You get to hear the dulcet tones of our voices.

Genn 53:07
We encourage physical copies because Sara’s illustrations are just incredible.

Dr Rad 53:12
Yeah, very vibrant. I can’t tell you how much we’ve enjoyed chatting to you today. And the thing that’s really put it over the top of me is that there’s actually been a pod cat in the background. I’ve just seen paws appearing at random times.

Dr G 53:27
Having a great little stretch. It’s been a wonderful show of, you know, napping and relaxation in the background.

Jenny 53:35
That’s exactly it. You know what’s so funny about that too, is that when we did our Spartacus episode one of your cats I don’t know which one it was was nuzzling up to the microphone and murmuring little cat sounds into it. And we kept it in there.

Dr G 53:50
I feel like that would have been Hamish.

Dr Rad 53:52
Yeah, I have. I have a cat that is deaf like me. And he does not respect boundaries.

Jenny 54:00
Fair and who would want him to I mean he’s a cat.

Dr Rad 54:06
Yeah, yeah, exactly. Well, thank you so much for joining us. We won’t leave it so long in between episodes next time I think.

Jenny 54:12
Absolutely.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Special Episode – Women of Myth with Ancient History Fan Girl appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

This episode we return to the ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’ with a classic sword and sandal epic, Quo Vadis (1951). This film is available through many streaming platforms and we highly recommend revisiting it.

In Part Two of two episodes on Quo Vadis, we delve into our analysis of the film. If you have not listened to Part One, you might want to check it out for the context.

Special Episode – Quo Vadis (1951) – Part Two

Hollywood loves a sure bet and MGM started working on their own adaption after WWII. The legacy of that war can be seen in the depiction of Nero and the Roman people. Nero seems to be a mixture of Mussolini and Hitler, and the use of eagles, fasces and the ‘Roman salute’ must have also dredged up unpleasant memories.

The newly emerging Cold War also had an impact on this movie, with the plot dealing largely with the clash of freedom (Christians) vs tyranny (Romans). The immoral, irreligious Romans could easily be seen as the ‘godless Communists’, whereas the Christians and converts stand for the American way of life. The film was made during the hunt for Communists in Hollywood itself. The first round of the House Un-American Activities Committee (HUAC) had started in 1947 and round two was destined to begin in 1951. These were dark days for many in the industry.

Black and white portrait photo of Peter Ustinov as Nero in Quo Vadis.
He sits in a thoughtful pose and appears unhappy about something.
Source: Pinterest.

The head of MGM (Louis B. Mayer) and the male lead of Quo Vadis (Robert Taylor) were intimately connected with the HUAC hearings. Mayer had testified in 1947. Robert Taylor may not be a familiar name, but he was a massive star for MGM in the 30s and 40s. He was also known for his conservative politics and would be the only prominent Hollywood star to name names in front of the Committee. This might all seem to add up, but his testimony had just as much to do with his loyalty to Mayer, a fellow conservative, and MGM as his anti-communism.

Taylor had been forced by MGM and the Office of War Information to star in Song of Russia (1944), a pro-Russian film designed to promote friendly feelings about wartime alliance. Taylor had been dead against starring in the film in the first place, but he eventually went through with it so that he could be released by the studio to fulfil his military service.

Taylor was asked to testify in closed door sessions in front of HUAC early in 1947. He was quite frank regarding his political views, and Song of Russia might have come up. Taylor did not hold back as he thought this testimony would be kept private. When it was used to bolster the presence of HUAC, Taylor was less than pleased. Taylor and his wife Barbara Stanwyck were conservatives, but they did want to abuse their position as celebrities. They never wished to discuss politics in public again.

Black and white portrait photo of Robert Taylor as Marcus Vinicius in Quo Vadis.
He wears a Roman style military brestplate and gazes into the middle distance thoughtfully.
Source: Pinterest

Taylor would have to make one more notable exception on that front. Louis B. Mayer, like so many other studio heads, wanted to protect the movie industry. This was business, and with television on the rise and the 1948 ruling against studio-owned theatres, the ‘biz’ was facing enough obstacles in the late 1940s and early 1950s. They did not need the public thinking that Hollywood was spreading Communist ideology. More significantly, there is a distinctly antisemitic tone to the HUAC hearings, which must have made the largely Jewish heads of studios nervous, no matter how politically conservative they were.

Specifically, Mayer needed Taylor to testify a second time so he could back up MGM’s official line regarding Song of Russia. It was just a romance! Certainly not wartime propaganda…. HUAC also really wanted Taylor to appear again, purely for the publicity. They were correct: the press (and a lot of female fans) flocked to see Taylor’s testimony.

Taylor seemed to be uncomfortable when asked to name any suspected Communists in the industry. He was hesitant, but he did it. In the atmosphere of Hollywood at the time, Robert Taylor was celebrated by most for his patriotism. Whilst the best days of his career would soon be behind him after Quo Vadis and his testimony, this had nothing to do with his appearance before HUAC. However, these days, Robert Taylor is largely forgotten or remembered as a ‘friendly witness’.

Join us for our take on this rollicking ride through Neronian Rome and 20th century politics!

Thanks to the fabulous Bettina Joy de Guzman for our theme music.

Lygia and Marcus Vinicius posed against a pink and blue clouded sky. This looks like an official promo shot for Quo Vadis.
Source: ievenn

Dr Rad 0:18
Welcome to this special episode of The Partial Historians. I’m Dr. Rad and normally Dr. G and I discuss the history of Rome from the founding of the city. But today we begin a deep dive into Quo Vadis in 1951. We ended up talking for so long about this epic that we have split the episode into two parts. Seems appropriate given the original film had an intermission. This is part two of our coverage of Quo Vadis, in which we will focus more on our analysis, the film and its betrayal of history. We hope you enjoy this sword and sandal classic as much as we did.

So in a previous episode, we’ve covered the background and plot to quiver strategy. Let’s now try and get a little bit more analytical and delve into the film in more detail. So I’m going to change gears a little bit dodgy because I feel like I had enough narrow for a moment. So first of all, I’m going to mention something which I have mentioned before when we’ve been talking about these films like “The Robe” and “Demetrius and the Gladiators”, we have to think about why Quo Vadis. Why now. And that is very much to do with the threat of a television you.

Dr G 1:34
Oh yes. How dare they don’t watch things on the small screen when you could watch things on the big screen?

Dr Rad 1:40
Yes. So as we talked about before, the 1950s is going to be the era of the widescreen technology that is officially however, launched with the robe in 1953. Now Quo Vadis is a large scale film in the sense that it’s long, it’s saturated with colour and excess. It’s the kind of thing that you’re not going to get on a small square black and white screen in your suburban home. So it is the kind of film that Hollywood believes is going to encourage people to come to the movies. And they’re right. Because they’re really running scared because it’s not just television, as I am sure I hope you’ve again mentioned before, it’s also the fact that they have lost a lot of power in 1948. With the anti monopoly laws, were they the movies used to control everything, you know, from the production of the film to the editing to the distribution. And monopoly laws of 1948 means that they lose their grip on the distribution. Oh, no, yeah. And so that’s a significant chunk of their business. They’re really, you know, it’s only a few years later, and this has been the model for quite some time. So they want movies like Quo Vadis, which they feel sure are gonna get people to come and watch them because that’s how they’re going to make them money. So that’s a bit of the movie business stuff. Now, specifically, the context of the 1951 film being one of the earliest sword and sands films. I need to throw this at you. World War Two.

Dr G 3:10
Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, it’s definitely a thing. I mean, it’s over. By the time we get to this film it is and, like, there must be filming, I guess in 1950. So we’re not far out. I was kind of surprised. But also like pleasantly surprised by just like, it’s all on location in Cinecitta. And you can see from the shots in and around when they’re doing sort of like chariot work and things like that. Yeah, they’re definitely in Italy.

Dr Rad 3:40
And doing chariot work?

Dr G 3:42
Yeah, like Mediterranean pines, like they’re definitely in the right place. They’re on location.

Dr Rad 3:48
Yeah, definitely.

Dr G 3:49
It’s pretty impressive.

Dr Rad 3:50
Yeah. I mean, look, they’re often parallels drawn between Roman emperors and the dictators of the 20th century. However, this film, I think, more than most was, I think, trying to lean on that. Okay, I think that it’s meant to be a bit of a weird blend of both like Mussolini, the fascists, and also the Nazis that we see here. Because the Nazis, of course, had been very anti religion. So I think you can kind of see the persecution of Christianity that’s happening here and the seeming decadence of Rome as being you know, tying into that a little bit. But also, of course, Mussolini himself had tried really hard to draw a connection between his Rome and the Rome of the ancients. How awkwardly phrased was that

Dr G 4:40
Ancient Romans and the modern Italy usually were Yeah,

Dr Rad 4:44
yeah. So the point where he put on an exhibit in 1937, called the Augustan exhibition of the Roman spirit. So he was really dwelling on that. And she had she had her course also had been constructed by Mussolini. So there’s an age interesting parallels there. Obviously, there’s a lot of Roman symbolism which the fascists use, like the eagles and the fasces. And they think the salute, although that’s been pretty much debunked by Martin Winkler as being a bit of a misunderstanding.

Dr G 5:15
Yeah. But the Roman salute that’s given in this film is visually resonant. Like there wouldn’t be many audience members who, who hadn’t seen some Nazi propaganda, you’d be like, oh, oh, I see what you did there.

Dr Rad 5:28
Yes, exactly. Yes. And there’s also a very clear accent divide as often is the case in these films we’ve talked about so a lot of the heroic Christian freedom fighting liberty loving characters are American. And the evil people, evil imperialist bastards. British. So of course, we have Peter Ustinov playing, or very memorably playing the role of Nero, whereas we’ve got people like Robert Taylor, very American, playing the heroic person. Now, I know he is a Roman character, but we know he’s all you can.

Dr G 6:07
You can tell from his accent that he’s going to switch sides.

Dr Rad 6:09
Exactly, exactly. And then the plan that Nero outlines the way that he says he’s going to kill all the Christians is very Hitler-esque, in that he says, he’s going to eradicate them from the face of the earth to the extent where people will doubt they ever existed.

Dr G 6:28
Yeah.

Dr Rad 6:29
Yeah. Which is creepily like a genocidal plan. And also the model of Rome that you mentioned. So you know, you said that Nero was going to burn Rome to the ground and rebuild it.

Dr G 6:40
Well, there is a model displayed in this film.

Dr Rad 6:42
Yes, yes, yes. And the shot of Nero standing over, I think, was very much meant to recall shots of Hitler, looking at Albert Spears plan for Germania.

Dr G 6:55
Oh, interesting,

Dr Rad 6:56
like the New Berlin

Dr G 6:57
because I was really interested in the map of Rome itself, because I was like, the reason map, there is a 3D map of Rome, right? Yeah, that looks very much like this model. And I’m wondering if it’s the same one, and I haven’t been able to, I haven’t had enough time to look into that.

Dr Rad 7:11
I actually probably could have found the answer for you if I had known beforehand, but I forgot to check that out.

Dr G 7:17
But I’m fascinated. So I’m gonna keep investigating that.

Dr Rad 7:21
Yeah. And they’re all these lines that Nero delivers throughout the film, which I think are really playing on those Hitleresque sort of things like he says to Petronius at one point, the world is mine and mine to end. Oh, yeah. And also we know that he is someone who has murdered his own father. So we already know that he is a monster. And therefore he from the beginning comes across as a tyrant like he’s obviously very amusing because it’s pretty used. But he is meant to be a monster. But

Dr G 7:57
I think there is something amazingly believable about Ustinov’s performance, though, which

Dr Rad 8:02
Oh, yeah.

Dr G 8:02
Which makes this film stand out, as opposed to some others where the Imperial figure is designed to be the ultimate bad guy. Yeah. But is played in such a way as to not make it sympathetic enough to believe that a real human could be that way. Yeah, was something about Ustinov’s performance is very naturalistic in the way that you like you can you get the sense that this is a mind that is maleable, that that he has particular drives and he’s trying to figure out how to best bring them to life?

Dr Rad 8:37
Yes.

Dr G 8:37
And he doesn’t conceive of himself as evil he conceives of himself as misunderstood.

Dr Rad 8:43
Yeah and also that idea of him having to be like on a larger scale again is almost not to like yeah,

Dr G 8:51
He sees himself as removed from the common people in part because the position that he has to fulfil is like as Emperor, I have this kind of duty to be very different from everyone else. So we talked a lot about how things have to be uncommon.

Dr Rad 9:05
Yes, I was gonna say I actually have the exact quotes I think it’s such a good one Peter Ustinov says I seek because I must exceed the statue of man in both good and evil I seek because I must be greater than man for only then will I be the supreme artists, let it be wonderful. Or let it be awful so long as it is uncommon? Yeah.

Dr G 9:29
This this is incredible sort of rationale in that Yeah. Which is I think if it was just read off the script, it might not you might not buy it. It’s like it’s very much the performance of Ustinov that brings back

Dr Rad 9:42
He’s just yeah, he’s performance stands the test of time, but you can’t always say about the circumstance. But yeah, the whole idea and the way that the other characters talk about the Christians like prepare saying, give room not one victim but hundreds. Who are these people, they just spies, our temple and our gods, they prophesied that the end of the world shall be caused by fire. Well then let it come true. Let it in for them, like it is that kind of idea of like scapegoating people, just like the Nazis do with the Jews, like it’s all very creepily there. Yeah. And also, then you’ve got Petronius coming in, of course, and being the warning of history, you do this, you make the murders, and you will suffer for it, which, of course, is exactly what has happened in your he has to be particularly bad reputation, because I think he has been seen as like the Antichrist, or at the very least an enemy of the Christian people, which for, you know, subsequent civilizations which pride themselves on being Christian, doesn’t make you a good guy. Now, gender is something I thought you might like to talk about a little

Dr G 10:52
Oooh,

Dr Rad 10:52
yeah. And that also ties in with World War Two. So tell me, what do you know about women’s role during World War Two?

Dr G 11:00
Oh, women’s roles in World War Two? Well, my understanding is and correct me if I’m wrong.

Dr Rad 11:05
Yeah.

Dr G 11:06
Is that because the men were away fighting? Yeah, it was incumbent upon women to really get behind the war effort in ways in which they possibly wouldn’t have been the first in line for if there was a non war time. So you have this shift of women into the workforce in different ways. It’s not the case that women weren’t working before the war. They definitely were. But the kinds of jobs that women were asked to do, or put themselves forward to do because the labour was needed. It was now all across the board. Yeah. And it was kind of like, if it had to be done. It had to be done. Yeah. So you know, the pictures of women on factory lines was not something that people were used to, but it’s something that definitely happened during the war, for instance.

Dr Rad 11:49
Yeah, absolutely. And that’s exactly how we need to say these sorts of films, and Quo Vadis is no exception, this idea that women had stepped up, gone into these roles, which were unusual. But now the men were back back to the private sphere with you, missy? Yeah. So it’s this idea of, I think, women as domesticate the need to have stable families. So Romans very rarely, in the 1950s and early 1960s have stable family. They’re generally somehow twisted, like, for example, mentoring your mother like Nero does, or can the wife as Nero. It’s the kind of you know, the cheating, the adultery is all that kind of stuff that the Romans partake in. And it’s this idea that will the the core of 1950s, America has to be proper Christian religious sentiment, family, and domesticating. femininity, and I am quoting directly from someone who I will reference in our sources.

Dr G 12:50
Ah domesticating femininity.

Dr Rad 12:55
Yeah. Yeah. So good. Women are shown as domesticating influences I see. Yeah. And they need to find someone to pair up with and convert.

Dr G 13:05
Well, well, well, Lygia, step forward.

Dr Rad 13:09
Yes, exactly. Here is obviously classic. She’s an entirely fictional character, obviously, for all the others adaptations. The interesting thing is, though, that there is a bit of a remnant of those women that didn’t want to go back into the private sphere after World War Two with literature, because in the 1950s version, she has moments of being kind of feisty, and knowing her in mind, which in the novel, she is not, she’s entirely passive interest. Yeah, she just does what she’s told to do by either her parents, her adoptive parents, or Vinicius or whatever. She’s really just like a chess piece to be moved around. It’s about possessing her obviously.

Dr G 13:48
Okay, so she’s been slightly rewritten for the 1950s audience.

Dr Rad 13:52
I think so. Yeah. Like they they know that you don’t want someone who’s a complete pushover. But the values that she stands for, nonetheless, like,

Dr G 14:01
well, actually, this kind of makes sense. So she gets accused of like, you know, filling your head with philosophies and things like that. Why would you do something like that? But that’s also Yeah. Well, it’s kind of also the thing that happens to you, you have this sort of like, narrative of the 1950s. And particularly in America, where it’s like, Sure, by all means, go to a good school and get an education but like your number one priority is to settle down with a husband and have some children. Yeah, so like, by all means, get that degree, but hidden for fun if you would attempt to use it.

Dr Rad 14:33
Yes. For anyone who wants to get a vibe for what he is talking about. Mona Lisa smiles, excellent.

Dr G 14:41
Also Mad Men, which I know is very rude now, but I still love it.

Dr Rad 14:45
Yeah, no true true true. Now bad women, of course, are the kind of women that want public power.

Dr G 14:50
Oh, I love Poppaea this film, though. Yes. So you know she enters with two cheetahs on a leash

Dr Rad 15:00
Like Bad Girl table of one

Dr G 15:01
Oh glorious. And you know, it’s like it’s all the makeup. It’s the dress. It’s the it’s the sultry gaze. It’s the one of the things I notice from a cinema cinematography perspective. Yeah. Is that Lygia is tends to be always shot on the three quarters. You don’t get front on shots because I was like, what is it? I just want to know what Deborah Kerr’s nose is like from the front, you know, but I do

Dr Rad 15:32
You’ll have to watch “An Affair to Remember” to get that.

Dr G 15:35
Definitely, I would didn’t get it in this film. But Poppaea is often shot front on

Dr Rad 15:39
Yeah,

Dr G 15:40
and there’s a real so there is choices being made artistically about how these women are shown. And the angles that you get of them, to sort of set them apart from each other as well because Poppaea is front and centre. Next to Nero in public. But also somebody who is given space to be a decision maker about certain things. So she does make decisions publicly.

Dr Rad 16:05
Yes.

Dr G 16:06
And people just go along with it. And it’s not like she defers to Nero, when she does that.

Dr Rad 16:11
No, and that’s exactly she’s meant to be obviously showing, like, this is what happens when not only women want public power, but when they get it, it’s terrible. They don’t know how to exercise it properly. They should be focusing on me why?

Dr G 16:25
She’s like, ridiculous, get over here.

Dr Rad 16:29
But this is, you know, this is the thing about how passive and so Poppaeas Sabina is a real person, obviously, like Nero, or she was a real person, I should say.

She is a historical figure. She is a historical figure.

And I feel terrible, that she always comes across so badly, because she’s a murder victim, guys. She’s a victim of domestic violence. Yeah, what really happens to her is that Nero supposedly loses his temper and kicks her kicks her in the stomach while she’s pregnant with their child, and she dies because of complications to do with that injury. I mean, added to that way to go. Now, look, the sources are not kind to Poppaea Sabina either. So I’m not saying there’s not some basis. I think, I think Sienkiewicz did his research. You know, I think he read up about this. And I think the best way to sum this up is this little line from Tacitus. This is what he says about Poppaea. She was a woman possessed of all advantages, but a character.

Dr G 17:26
Oh snap.

Dr Rad 17:28
yeah, exactly. And so he goes on and on about how awful she is in that she’s beautiful, and she’s witty, but she is depraved and gives into luxury. And she sleeps around and all that kind of stuff. So look, all of that may be true. Whatever I get it. It’s not what the Romans are looking for in wives either. But part of the also wonders how much of this has been exaggerated, because Nero is a bad guy. And we know that when you’ve got a bad guy, he must be not controlling this woman properly. He’s hassled, you know, in disarray. He’ll be associated with a woman who has all the stereotypical bad qualities.

Dr G 18:08
Yeah, this becomes part of the political invective that you level against. Right? Yeah. And so part of the way that you bring him down is to bring down everybody who is connected with him. So there is no way it’s very tricky, I think for somebody like prepare to be able to come out well from this, particularly when the previous wife Octavia has had was so publicly popular. So people even in the historical record, following Nero aren’t willing to openly criticise her because, by comparison, she was the bee’s knees.

Dr Rad 18:42
Yeah, and in all the ways it will for all the reasons that near apparently find her boring was that she was loyal, dutiful, quiet, just went about her business, like being private, not in public, you know, no ambition, that kind of stuff. So yeah, anyway, look, I just thought I had to mention that. So there’s a bit of like, World War Two gender stuff going on. Also for the men. I think it’s no accident. Again, we often talk about the issues with masculinity that are shown on screen and these sorts of movies. And I think it’s no accident that Peter Ustinov Nero is highly effeminate in the way that he’s played, whereas Robert Taylor, our hero, super masculine, yeah, willing to be domesticated. So it’s kind of almost like how the soldiers come home from World War Two and the woman’s like leaving the literary crap at the door. You’re entering the domestic sphere now baby. So all about, you know, pumping out the little ones and putting up white picket fences.

Dr G 19:37
And there is a moment later on in the film where Vinicius kind of has a realisation that he was being pretty boorish at the start of the film.

Dr Rad 19:46
Yes, exactly.

Dr G 19:47
So there is a sense in which that narrative is being perpetuated and they’ve sort of put him into a bit of a domesticated situation and he’s agreed to go along with it because, well, you know, Lygia, she is just so freakin hot. Yeah,

Dr Rad 20:02
Deborah Kerr as in star. Okay, so the other bit of context that we have to mention and I think I know we mentioned this is all these sorts of movies is, of course, another war Dr. G, but the Cold War

Dr G 20:14
Ah, feel that shiver in the room.

Dr Rad 20:18
It’s not getting hot in here.

Dr G 20:21
I’m putting on more clothes even as we speak.

Dr Rad 20:23
Yeah. Now I’m just gonna very briefly mentioned that of course, you’ve got the classic freedom versus tyranny dichotomy going on in this film, which is exactly how President Truman had explained the situation that America found itself in 1947. So it’s no accident. And of course, in 1950, when Quo was being shot, as you mentioned, this is where we see the ramping up of the anti communist crusades within America, the second red scare 1947 had been the first round. That was when we had the Hollywood 10. People like Dalton Trumbo being on trial, but because they did string out their defence for such a long period of time, and it put everything on pause, and so no one else had really been charged. But 1951 is when we’re really going to see that whole more classic, I think, better known part of the second Red Scare taking place, which is where you see a lot of people go down. You see a lot of people doing the whole naming names or not naming names.

Dr G 21:27
Yeah. Well, I mean, on naming names, I mean, that feeds in quite nicely to ideas about the deletores in ancient Rome. Fun. Also, there is this film does a very good job of having the people which could be construed through a communist lens, if you wanted to. Yeah, really quite far removed from anything that’s going on. Yeah, they kind of at the peripheral, and we only see them through the perspective of Nero. And essentially, yeah, they’re a mob. And again, I think it’s meant to be very Mussolini and Hitler is key. Yeah. But any, there’s no focus on like farming or like the idea of like, well, a quasi proletariat that emerges out of the agrarian society, you know, all of those sort of, like classic elements of Yeah, that could build a foundation for a communist narrative within a Christian narrative. Yeah. None of that is happening.

Dr Rad 22:23
They were very self conscious about it. The 1951 campaign book for Quo Vadis, said, this movie, the fact that was being made, it’s basically like the world could well use the message of quo and the dark days are threatening us. The storyline cries out a creative non violence and adjust resistance to a godless aggression. Take that Stalin. Yeah. So whilst whilst Nero was meant to be somewhat, I think Mussolini and Hitler. So there’s also these stolen Soviet things happening.

Dr G 22:55
Take a bad guy, put your Nero on stage and you’re done and dusted. Yeah.

Dr Rad 22:59
And again, very briefly going to mention of course, this comes back to the fact as well that religion in this time period for America, it’s a patriotic thing. It’s about American godliness triumphing over the godless communists.

Dr G 23:15
Yeah, it is one of these really interesting characteristics of 20th century America, where the there’s a tacit freedom of religion, like it, or maybe even a spoken freedom of religion. But when they embrace religion, it is very much a very particular type of Christianity. And that Christian symbolism is imbued into a lot of their public symbolism.

Dr Rad 23:41
Yeah and I think I think it’s also worth mentioning with Quo Vadis, in particular, that Robert Taylor, and Louis B. Mayer, who was the MGM chief executive, and MGM made this film were both friendly witnesses, which basically means that they volunteer their information. And we’re very cooperative in supplying details about the inner workings of Hollywood for the committee, and they both had got involved with us and testified really early on in 1947.

Dr G 24:12
He’s not so good looking to me now.

Dr Rad 24:14
I know. So Robert Taylor, I’m gonna tell you a little bit about Robert Taylor.

Dr G 24:16
Yeah, please.

Dr Rad 24:17
So he was part of this right wing group called The Motion Picture Alliance for the Preservation of American Ideals. They had been the ones that had actually invited the house on American activities to come to Hollywood and investigate Hollywood specifically because they were worried about his communist propaganda and co working in the industry. So Robert Taylor is a part of that. Now, Louis B. Mayer, I kind of feel like he’s one of those guys. I’ve talked about in a previous episode, where I think he’s just concerned about like, protecting his business.

Dr G 24:50
Yeah, fair enough. Things have gonna run guys.

Dr Rad 24:53
Yeah, absolutely. Now, Robert Taylor was married to Barbara Stanwyck. Okay, now they share had an interest in conservative politics?

Dr G 25:02
Well, I mean, it’s a solid foundation for our marriage, I suspect.

Dr Rad 25:06
Yeah. He’s the only big studio star to name names in an open session to HUAC.

Dr G 25:13
Wow.

Dr Rad 25:14
Yeah. And they use his initial testimony to publicise your work. And Robert Taylor had no idea that this was going to happen. He was furious about this basically, like, basically,

Dr G 25:28
Did that ruin his career?

Dr Rad 25:29
No, but I don’t think I don’t think he’s a well known name. Now, let’s put it that way. Yeah, certainly, he just wants out of politics after this, but he kind of has no choice because he is a studio star and MGM is like, you are going to testify, they specifically want him to testify in order to present a strong front with Mayor about this film they had made called the song of Russia. Now that was made at the time when the alliance between the allies and Russia was first being formed to try and promote this, you know, during World War Two.

Dr G 26:08
So he’s got a vested interest in perhaps coming forward and coming forward openly. In order to counterbalance some of that, I think he

Dr Rad 26:15
was incredibly reluctant to name names. And yet he is kind of forced into it. The sad thing is that his appearance was a massive deal. And it’s possible that these 1950s HUAC hearings became a big deal, because of Robert Taylor, because he was a big star at the time.

Dr G 26:32
Wow.

Dr Rad 26:34
So I just thought that was worth noting, because whilst we’ve talked about some of the other Cold War connections to some of the other films, the fact that this one comes about at this particular time with these particular people.

Dr G 26:46
Yeah, really, really interesting.

Dr Rad 26:48
Yeah. I mean, obviously, like we’re talking about 1951 hearings that yeah, obviously being the year of release of Quo Vadis but it would have been filmed before then, but I think everyone obviously knew that HUAC was in their midst because of the Hollywood 10. So yeah,

Dr G 27:05
yeah. It’s not necessarily something that’s clouding the performance of actors in this film with each other. But it’s definitely going to have an effect after

Dr Rad 27:13
I yeah, I just I just think it’s it makes I think Quo Vadis, even more interesting to me contextually, like this kind of stuff. And I, I kind of feel sorry for Taylor in a way that you know, you wouldn’t expect me to necessarily because I hate people who name names. I hate people who are on the right. Politics. Now. I shouldn’t say I hate right wing politics. But yeah, I kind of feel like his. He’s often a person, you’ll see, as you’ll hear, like a soundbite from him, or you’ll see an image of him testifying. And you don’t necessarily have the nuance of exactly how his appearance came to be in front of us exactly how he was used. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Because it seems like something he would do. But he I’m not saying

Dr G 27:53
But there might be some more complications.

Dr Rad 27:54
I think it’s the more complicated factors there. So yeah, I just thought that was interesting, given him being the title role and all so yeah. Anywho, you want to talk about Nero?

Dr G 28:03
Nero. Yeah. Look, I mean, there’s a lot of things that you could say about neuro in this film. And I mean, I’ve said some of those things already, in terms of like the performance and stuff like that. I think this is the kind of film it’s off the same sort of stature in my mind as something like “I, Claudius” in the way that it kind of sets people up to think that there is a very simple read for this period of Rome’s history. And it’s because the performance is so good. Yeah. And because the things that happened, some of these events are verifiable. That was a fire in Rome. It did happen during the late period of Nero’s reign. He did have a rebuilding programme. There are some sources that benefited. Definitely, there are some sources that talk about his connection with the Christians. Yeah. All of that is true. Yes. Now this narrative, this particular film makes it seem like there that is a really smooth story that we can understand Nero and his reign and how it comes to an end. And I would urge you, as a human with an interest in history to keep in mind that this is a film that is so persuasive. But there are some real questions to be asked about the source material for this period and what they might be trying to do with Nero. He is the last of the Julio-Claudians. This is an end point in the first dynasty of Roman imperial power. Yeah, it has ended badly. There’s lots of good reasons for it ending badly and there are a lot of people with their noses out of joint by the way that the Julio-Claudians have developed over time, so there’s lots of people in a position to write really negative histories as well. And that some of the source material that is survived and come down to us.

Dr Rad 30:05
Yes.

Dr G 30:06
Does this mean that he was terrible and all bad? Probably not. But the stories that we do have a pretty horrifying I don’t think I’m not going to excuse things like domestic violence, which leads to complications of a pregnancy which leads to death. You know, all of that is terrible. But this film does make it an easy package to swallow and just be like Nero was this crazy manipulative human being. And we that’s all we can say about him.

Dr Rad 30:36
Yeah. And I completely agree, because this is the thing I agree with you I don’t think Nero probably was a great person, let’s face it. He grew up with a mother who was probably quite rightly traumatised, and paranoid. He grew up in a family that was even worse. And he was only a teenager when he came to power. And whilst teenagers weren’t really a thing in ancient Rome, I certainly don’t think his brain was fully mature.

Dr G 31:01
They do have a classification for the young man as a young person the “adulescens” which teenager sort of comes out of that string. And that that isn’t a period that goes up to the age of 25.

Dr Rad 31:01
Yes. Is that as I mean, the Romans know that youth equals trouble.

Dr G 31:15
Yeah, they do see them as useful. And they position them as such. And certainly, all of the Republican positions are set up to be open and available to people who are beyond that age group.

Dr Rad 31:28
Yeah, absolutely. But this exactly, I think, yes, I think there was a problematic person. I think some of the stuff that’s come down to us is most likely true, like the fact that he was behind the murder of Agrippina, and that he probably was responsible for the death of Octavia and Poppaea Sabina.

Dr G 31:45
It’s just good politics, isn’t it? Yeah. Gotta get rid of them rivals.

Dr Rad 31:49
However, as you said, there is this intriguing snippet from Josephus, where he says, there have been a great many who compose the history of Nero, some of which have departed from the truth of facts out of favour, as having received benefits from him, while others out of hatred to him and the great ill will which they bear him have so impudently raved against him with their lies that they justly deserve to be condemned. So seeming to imply that there were positive accounts out there, they weren’t necessarily any more trustworthy, but they were there. And like, the fact that none of this seems to have come down to us is staggering. So definitely, I think there were some people who were more in favour of Nero, the people of room seem to have been a bit more fond of Nero than I think the elite of Rome were.

Dr G 32:36
Yeah. And this is something that the film tends not to capture yet is he does seem to have been quite well loved, for most of his rule by the people of the city, not necessarily the leads, but like the man on the street kind of thing. Yes. And definitely he’s rebuilding programme, or post fire. Yes, does a lot of sort of accommodation of people who have lost their homes and things like that. So there are elements of good leadership mixed in amongst the the horror stories. And yeah, the political mayhem.

Dr Rad 33:09
I think he was basically a very selfish person, which is no big surprise, and not particularly dedicated to rule at a time when Rome really needed him

Dr G 33:21
and also somebody who’s probably not that trusting now, given the situation that he’s grown up in, been surrounded by his whole life. So you know, somebody who is naturally suspicious.

Dr Rad 33:21
I mean, he’s his own father, supposedly, ran over children in the street just kicks. So yeah. But again, you don’t know whether that’s actually true, or whether that’s just trying to trash talk his reputation, because Nero turned out to be so horrible, but again, you gotta wonder, like, has to come from somewhere. But definitely, I think it’s worth mentioning when we talk about a film like Quo Vadis. Our sources are actually fairly clear, I think, at least in terms of reliable sources that Nero was not responsible for the fire.

Dr G 34:02
No, the evidence suggests he wasn’t in Rome. So the film does get that right interestingly.

Dr Rad 34:08
Yeah, he’s not personally responsible.

Dr G 34:10
You didn’t Yeah, he wasn’t there, like, you know, with a little match, throwing it onto the bonfire. But he wasn’t there. So it seems unlikely. Also, despite the fact that there’s this building programme afterwards, I don’t think there are many people who believe that they he anticipated the fire or created the fire in order to produce this buildingwork. Well, yeah. Like there’s plenty of space already. If he buys a private property on the Palatine to do the kinds of things he wants to do.

Dr Rad 34:40
Yeah, again, I think he’s just a bit selfish in the way he goes about some of the rebuilding, and therefore it makes people suspicious, which does make him turn to the Christians are scapegoats. Like that’s one thing that yes, you can say, yep, Nero deserves to be blamed for that. Again, the sources I think, are fairly clear that he does pinpoint the Christians as a group that he can target because nobody

Dr G 35:01
cares about them. Yeah. And this is political expedience at its worst. Yes, exactly.

Dr Rad 35:07
Although he’s so horrible to them. I mean, I believe one of the punishments is that, and again, it’s kind of like that poetic justice things that the Romans like every now and then he likes the city of Rome by setting the Christians on fire.

Dr G 35:21
Oh, yeah. So like, this is like the classic source reference where it’s like, you know, he lights up Rome with Christians bodies. Yes. Yeah. And that’s pretty disgusting. If true.

Dr Rad 35:31
Exactly. Like it could be exaggeration, of course, or whatever. But certainly the idea that people I think it testament says, Look, nobody really cared about the Christians until Nero started to persecute them so horribly. And well, then people started to go, Hmm, that is really awful, even by our standards, so I don’t think they were like, Oh, we love the Christians. But it’s more the idea of people started to feel even more simple. People started feeling sympathetic.

Well, they suddenly registered that these people were around to being like, Oh, I didn’t know that they were here. They were really copying. That doesn’t seem okay.

Yeah, definitely. So I thought one final thing I might end on finances very long episode. But such a long movie. It’s so hard not to just like

Dr G 36:14
we’re not even up to the halfway point of the film yet.

Dr Rad 36:17
Yeah, I know. I thought we had to also maybe register, maybe Petronius. Yes, as a real figure. And I also wanted to highlight Lygia’s adoptive mother Pomponia Grecia. Yeah.

Dr G 36:29
Oh, I haven’t looked into her.

Dr Rad 36:31
Well, okay. There is actually a passage about her, she was loosely connected to the Julio-Claudians like, she’s not super something in the inner circle. But as more of them die, her connection probably becomes more significant. She actually does seem to have been rumoured to be a Christian, there is a passage preserved in Tacitus, which talks about her being accused of a alien superstition, which has been taken to mean Christianity. And that having to be dealt with in like a private family disciplinary sort of way.

Dr G 37:01
I feel like this is a testament to our original author’s research. Surely,

Dr Rad 37:06
I know. And so I just thought I thought it was worth mentioning that because we’ve said some stuff about other female characters, and you might not think that she actually is based on a real person.

Dr G 37:14
Yeah, I just assumed that she was made up for the film. No, no, she’s not.

Dr Rad 37:17
And and also, she apparently, very publicly will morning as a statement when one of her relatives, a female that Messalina was jealous off was bumped off. So she was kind of like, daring, you know, but Claudius refused to punish her for obviously making like a bit of a statement about miscellaneous behaviour, what she was doing. So she’s kind of an interesting character. And the way that she has been represented in different versions is quite different. Like, if you go back to the 1925 version, I think that’s where you see more of a storyline about her being caught up in persecution, and managing to escape through her mother’s love, because her child is like, about to watch her be executed. And again, that seems maybe a little bit tying into like, the fascist ideology about motherhood and like, once mention her, but also Petronius I thought he was maybe a fun note to end on.

Dr G 38:09
Yeah, look, Petronius I mean, he is he is a figure that gets sort of like bandied about in this period. But because he’s lampooned and to see Petronius brought to life in a way that is quite intelligent, quite serious. But then being there’s, there’s kind of like a visual homage to the satire that he is generally known for in the final feast, which I quite enjoyed. And I was like, well, well, this is where it gets dramatic, isn’t it.

Dr Rad 38:39
Yeah, I think he might have been the author of this work, which we now call the Satyricon, which is a bizarre work and we don’t have it in its complete form. Of course, we never do. But one of as you say, like the key moments is like the feasts. Yeah. At the house of Trimalchio who I think is a freedman, right.

Dr G 38:39
I can’t remember,

Dr Rad 39:01
Okay, yeah, he’s maybe he’s meant to be this like lower class person who’s aping the upper class. Yeah, he’s got money. He’s really trying. He’s aspirational. Yeah. And so Trimalchio is supposedly partly meant to be inspired by Nero, which is maybe one of the reasons why he is found himself in hot water. Because he does end up getting caught up in these conspiracies in Nero’s reign, as far as we can tell, like the real historical character. So I think it’s, it is interesting the way that he as you say, is turned into like, kind of like the conscience sweet like, like a weird.

Dr G 39:39
He kind of becomes this figure that Nero bounces off and Petronius provides this opportunity just just to gently nudge him in a slightly different direction.

Dr Rad 39:50
Yeah. And he does have like the real Petronius did have official positions as we’d be fit. A man of his status. You know, he does servers console and that sort of thing. And he apparently had this title amongst Nero’s inner circle that he was the arbiter of elegance, oh, which I think has been very much played upon in this particular adaptation. He’s not always as likeable because there is this whole another subplot romance between him and one of his slave girls. Eunice.

Dr G 40:25
Oh, yes, yeah.

Dr Rad 40:26
And in this film, it’s kind of

Dr G 40:28
why is that subplot even there?

Dr Rad 40:30
Oh, well, it gets a lot more disturbing another version, okay. In some versions, I can’t remember which one, but there’s a version where apparently, he orders units to be beaten for something she’s done wrong. And it’s while she’s being beaten that he realises he’s in love with her too. Because the whole storyline is that Eunice is in love with him to a point that is like the range.

Dr G 40:51
Yeah, this is I mean, the Euncie subplot, everyone doesn’t make any sense. I’m like, again, this is one of those

Dr Rad 40:57
It’s drawn from the novel.

Dr G 40:58
Yeah, it’s one of these sort of classic like, it’s, there’s no women in the writers room, you know?

Dr Rad 41:04
Yeah.

Dr G 41:04
And it’s like they’re under what circumstances would a slave just be like kissing the statue of the of their own? No. And it’s like, there’s we’re giving no rationale for why she might be interested in him now,

Dr Rad 41:18
apart from the fact that he seems to be like, super intelligent.

Dr G 41:22
But she doesn’t.

Dr Rad 41:23
It’s weird. It’s weird, because he’s so refined in this film. And yet this, the Satyricon is like, it’s so gross, like, ,

Dr G 41:30
Well and I think this is one of the things where, like, the parallel that you might see with the historical Petronius, and the sort of the satirical one is that the way that things are written, and that, that idea of being very good with words, being very clever. And then we have Petronius is final letter to Nero, where is like six where he reveals the truth and like, I always thought you were a subpar singer. Yeah. It’s like, I would never want to hear anything come out of your lips ever again. You know? Yeah. All of this kind of stuff. So he gets to this moment where he does the reveal. Yeah. When he knows he’s going to take his own life. He’s already got that planned out. Yeah. And to me, that’s the kind of the literary echo coming in of like, you know, the person who’s got that incisive way with language.

Dr Rad 42:22
Yeah and it’s, it’s interesting, though, as well there in terms of characterization, because Petronius is really the only person who’s a Roman, who is sympathetic, but never becomes Christian. He is sympathetic to the Christians.

Dr G 42:40
Are you telling me that Tigellinus is not sympathetic? There’s only one man with a moustache in this film who is also a Roman.

Dr Rad 42:48
Whip out some wax as well. Yeah, no, exactly. He’s easy, only Roman who doesn’t convert to Christianity, even though he might be kind of trying to temper Nero’s actions with the Christians, but that seems to be more because he’s concerned about Rome’s reputation like, and ridiculous as you say, like it’s not really like, because he cares so much for these people. But yet he is the only person who doesn’t convert. You know, so it’s just it’s just inevitable. Yeah, it is easy these sorts of films and that sort of thing happens. All right. Finish up on a very light note. Let’s talk about the promotion of Quo Vadis I have mentioned this before but Quo Vadis really takes the cake.

Dr G 43:31
Okay, how did they promote this film?

Dr Rad 43:33
How do you sell a film like Quo Vadis? Well, of course, you know, there’s lots of tie in products.

Dr G 43:40
Look, I would you take that shot from the film where they’ve recreated Leonardo da Vinci’s The Last Supper, part by part and put it on a postcard and be like, do you want to see how it happened? Yeah. Because we bring it to life.

Dr Rad 43:54
Obviously, there’s the usual stuff like you shop windows and that kind of stuff. But there was also a real estate company that use the shot of nearer pointing to the model of Rome. They used it to sell houses Chris mana I’m looking at you. They also sold raincoats, sports shirts, wallpaper, tablecloth, flippers, pyjamas, boxer shorts, tie clips, and my favourite one. Fire Insurance.

Dr G 44:28
Wallpaper?

Dr Rad 44:30
Yeah, no. And not only that, but they received the Pope’s blessing on the directors copy of the script.

Dr G 44:38
Wow. Yeah. Well, you know once the Pope has blessed the script, I think you’re good to go.

Dr Rad 44:43
Yeah, I think so. And I think that’s a perfect note on which to end this very long episode. But you know what, for long film guys, what can I say? recommend that you go and see it? Yeah, definitely – look Peter Ustinov alone is worth it. Thank you for listening to this special ed said of The Partial Historians. We’d like to thank all of our patrons for their support and allowing us to make these additional episodes, especially Nick, who’s specifically requested Quo Vadis. This has been part two of two episodes on Quo Vadis. And so that’s a wrap folks. Our sources and credits can be found on our website. And as a side note, if you’d like to learn more about Robert Taylor and his involvement with HUAC, we suggest you check out one of our major sources for this episode, which is the fabulous you must remember this podcast which has a whole series on the blacklist including an entire episode dedicated to Robert Taylor, and his wife, Barbara Stanwyck. Until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Special Episode – Quo Vadis (1951) – Part Two appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

This episode we return to the ‘Golden Age of Hollywood’ with a classic sword and sandal epic, Quo Vadis (1951). This film is available through many streaming platforms and we highly recommend revisiting it.

In Part One of two episodes on Quo Vadis, we examine the context for the film and the plot.

Quo Vadis (1951) helped to ignite Hollywood’s passion for ancient epics in this decade. It was a smash hit with some of the legendary stars of the era, including Robert Taylor, Deborah Kerr and Peter Ustinov. This film is not only epic in terms of length, but in terms of all the aspects that you could discuss in connection with it.

Special Episode – Quo Vadis (1951) – Part One

The tale itself has a lengthy backstory which takes us all the way back to 19th century Poland. Henryk Sienkiewicz wrote the book in a serialised format between 1894-1896. Poland had been going a through a tough time over the course of the preceding century, in the sense that it did not exist independently between 1795 and 1918. During this period, the Catholic Church was crucial in preserving Polish culture. Sienkiewicz often wrote historical novels that would lift the spirits of his fellow poles, and Quo Vadis was no exception. For Sienkiewicz, the triumph of Christian characters such as Lygia and Ursus (meant to be from Lugii, i.e. Poland) represent the ultimate triumph of Poland over its cruel oppressors, with Nero representing nations such as Russia, Austro-Hungary and Prussia.  

Sienkiewicz’s novel was well-received, and was therefore adapted into toga plays, operas, and several films. The earlier film versions were made in Europe, including the notable 1912 silent classic.

Join us for the fascinating background of the 1951 film and stay tuned for Part Two!

There are a LOT of characters to keep track of in a film of this length, so if you need a handy reference, check out the cast list on IMDB.

The main people that you need to know for our episode include:

Fictional main lady love interest. Christian, hostage-turned-adoptive daughter of Roman general Aulus Plautus, and his wife, Pomponia Graecina.

Fictional main manly love interest. Roman, not Christian (yet). Militaristic, aggressive to start, turns all moral as the film progresses.

Lygia (Deborah Kerr) and Marcus Vinicius (Robert Taylor) in the courtyard of her adoptive parents’ home in Rome.
Source: FilmAffinity.

Historical figure. Really was Roman emperor from 54-68 CE. Known as the last emperor of the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Really was terrible, although maybe not quite as unrelentingly awful as many suggest – including this film. Probably not as amusing as Peter Ustinov!

Historical figure. Elite Roman lady. Complicated love life. Winds up as Nero’s second wife. Called beautiful but awful in the surviving sources. We say – the jury is out on that one. Typical fun, adulteress type character used to contrast to the ‘good girl’, Lygia. Historically, she is murdered by Nero while pregnant with their child. In Quo Vadis, Nero strangles her. An awful demise in reality and in film.

Historical figure. Served as governor of Bithynia and was consul in either 62 or 63 CE. Did a decent job, but in his personal life seems to have made pleasure his main goal. Dubbed the ‘Arbiter of Elegance’ by Nero. Accused of being part of a conspiracy against Nero and suicided whilst chatting casually to friends. Thought to be the author of the novel, The Satyricon, which is a very unusual piece because it does NOT focus on the elite and is pretty … eye-opening. Possibly makes fun of Nero through the gross figure of Trimalchio, a freedmen who has become a wealthy show-off with no taste. Close associate of Nero. In the movie, Petronius is Vinicius’ uncle and an elegant, witty, intelligent member of Emperor Nero’s inner-circle. He also has a weird obsession with the enslaved Eunice…

From left: Petronius (Leo Genn) attempting to advise Nero (Peter Ustinov) in a scene from Quo Vadis (1951).
Image source: FilmFanatic

Fictional character. Bodyguard of Lygia, Christian convert. Super strong.

That’s St Peter to you! Follower of Jesus Christ. Christian (to state the obvious). Supposedly was crucified upside down, making him a martyr, which Sienkiewicz worked into his novel. Has a very famous domed building named after him.  

Historical figure. Elite Roman lady who was related to the Julio-Claudian dynasty. Mentioned by Tacitus for her ballsy behaviour. She wore mourning for DECADES after Julia was bumped off by Messalina, which could have led to her own downfall, but Claudius did not punish her. (Julia Livia, granddaughter of Tiberius, daughter of Livilla and Drusus Caesar – mother of Rubellius Plautus). Her husband was told to deal with her privately after she was charged for believing in an “alien superstition”, which some have taken to mean she dabbled in Christianity. Good choice to turn into a character with Christian leanings in Quo Vadis! Adoptive mother of Lygia in the film. V V Virtuous.  

Historical figure. Really was a Roman general who won an ovation for a campaign in Britain. Really married to Pomponia Graecina.  

Historical figure. An imperial freedwoman that teenage Nero fell for HARD, much to his mother’s displeasure. Suetonius reports that she was one of the few to attend the interment of his ashes, so her devotion in the film tracks. In the film, not a Christian but still a good woman as she is virtuous and loyal. As the movie is set late in Nero’s reign, it makes sense that he has moved on from her by now. Sympathetic to Christians, so that’s something. Is in love with Nero but keeps it real with him. Helps him to commit suicide when everyone else has abandoned him. A good choice, as Nero’s suicide was supposedly aided by his slave.

Fictional enslaved woman. For reasons that make absolutely no sense, she has a crush on her master, Petronius. He eventually loves her back – depends on the version of Quo Vadis that you consult as to how that happens. It’s fair to say, we’re not keen on her storyline.

Thanks to the fabulous Bettina Joy de Guzman for our theme music.

The classic film poster for Quo Vadis, the Roman and Christian epic!
Image course: Wikipedia.

Interested in how Rome is depicted on screen? Check out our back catalogue where we cover films and television.

Edited for clarity! The AI does seem to have challenges with both Latin and Australian accents!

Dr Rad 0:08
Welcome to this special episode of The Partial Historians. I’m Dr. Rad and normally Dr. G and I discuss the history of Rome from the founding of the city. But today we begin a deep dive into Quo Vadis 1951. We ended up talking for so long about this epic that we have split the episode into two parts. This is part one of our coverage of Quo Vadis, in which we will examine the context and the plot. We hope that you enjoy this sword and sandal classic as much as we did.

Dr G 0:54
Hello, and welcome to this very special episode of the Partial Historians. I am Dr. G

Dr Rad 1:03
And I am Dr. Rad.

Dr G 1:05
And we are so excited because we’re going to be talking about the film, the film,

Dr Rad 1:12
Indeed

Dr G 1:13
Quo Vadis.

Dr Rad 1:14
Yes. And now we have talked about this on someone else’s podcast before but it was years ago really a long time ago. We’ve never done it just the two of us. So we thought we would revisit because as our time of recording it is Easter.

Dr G 1:29
It is Easter. And we did have a special request come through from one of our supporters. So shout out to you.

Dr Rad 1:37
Yeah

Dr G 1:38
This is Quo Vadis

Dr Rad 1:40
Indeed

Dr G 1:40
From us.

Dr Rad 1:41
So Quo Vadis is one of the biggest blockbuster films – sword and sandals – of the 1950s it really kicks off the decade.

Dr G 1:53
I was gonna say this is 1951.

Dr Rad 1:55
Exactly.

Dr G 1:56
And boy is the bar set high. Because this film is probably what just as long as “The Fall of the Roman Empire”. But better, like I didn’t get bored.

Dr Rad 2:04
Ah, that’s good to hear! Well see, I never know how people are going to respond to all these different ones. But yes, it was definitely I think the film that kind of set the tone for the decade you know, had Hollywood chasing the ruins constantly like this is where we’re going to make money people. This is how we’re going to save our industry. But it didn’t just come out of nowhere, Dr. G. So I thought before we actually talk about the 1951 film, we have to acknowledge some of the background.

Dr G 2:35
Ah a true historian you are

Dr Rad 2:37
Can’t help myself, because this is actually based on a blockbuster novel.

Dr G 2:44
Yes. And the success of the novel is part of what engenders the film.

Dr Rad 2:48
Exactly, exactly. So it was written in the 19th century like right at the end, it was appearing in sort of a serialised version between 1894 and 1896. Originally written in Polish, because the author was Polish. And unsurprisingly, so far makes sense. Yeah, his name was Henryk Sienkiewicz. I think that’s how you pronounce it anyway. And he he was known for writing quite a few novels, basically historical novels, generally ones that I think, showed the Polish people in a way that was going to lift morale for the people of his own time. And that I think, has a lot to do with what Poland was dealing with at this point in time. And I’ll come to that in a moment. But essentially, in this particular book that he was writing, it’s meant to be that the Christians kind of stand for, like the very earliest version of the Catholic Church, which had come to be very important for representing Polish interests against the other nations that wanted to control Poland at this point in time.

Dr G 2:48
Fair enough. Fair enough.

Dr Rad 3:58
Yeah. But I think also, it was also maybe sparked by the fact that there were large scale excavations going on in Rome at around the time that he was writing as well, from about 1870 to 1914.

Dr G 4:14
There’s lots of things being uncovered. And lots of exciting finds being shared across Europe.

Dr Rad 4:19
Indeed, yeah, because Poland, Poland has such a sad history, there is no independent Poland between 1795 and 1918, essentially, but resistance continues throughout this entire time. And the Catholic Church is just crucial for trying to preserve Polish culture, when it’s going through one of those classic periods of oppression where, you know, occupying powers are saying, “Hey, you can’t speak your language. No, not even in school”, you know, so they’re trying to preserve their identity and that sort of thing. So, one of the main characters of the novel is a girl called Lygia.

Dr G 4:57
And would I be right guessing that this is supposed to be a stand-in for Poland?

Dr Rad 5:00
Yes. As well as the blonde hair, yeah, as well as her kind of servant Ursus. So both of them are meant to be representing Catholic Poland and the Polish people.

Dr G 5:15
Nice. All right.

Dr Rad 5:17
And the fact that Nero does not end well in this novel is meant to be a bit of a threat, I think, against the various countries that are exploiting Poland at this point in time, namely, Russia, Austro-Hungary, and Prussia, not to be confused with Russia.

Dr G 5:37
All of whom would be utilising Roman symbolism as part of their regalia as part of their politics. So this is not a huge jump for the imagination of the Polish reader to be like, “Oh, I see where you’re going here.”

Dr Rad 5:52
Yeah, definitely. So I just thought that was really interesting to note and Quo Vadis, did become an international bestseller was published in many different translations. So lots of people end up becoming familiar with this particular work. In fact, in 1905, Sienkiewicz, our author, was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature

Dr G 6:12
Well, but not for Quo Vadis? For something else?

Dr Rad 6:15
I actually feel like it was for Quop Vadis, but now I’m doubting myself. Maybe it’s just the way I’ve organised my notes where I’m like Quo Vadis, international bestseller, awarded Nobel Prize. Either way, he’s a good writer.

Dr G 6:31
He’s doing well for himself.

Dr Rad 6:32
Yeah, people are captured by the story. And it ends up being adapted many times into plays into operas. And eventually, there are multiple film versions of this particular novel. I thought it might be a good point, however, to pause and talk a little bit about when this is supposedly set. The context.

Dr G 6:54
Yeah, so we’ve got – we’re in the late period of Nero’s reign, from what we can tell.

Dr Rad 7:02
Yeah.

Dr G 7:03
There is the story of Agrippina, his mother, already having been knocked off.

Dr Rad 7:09
Yes.

Dr G 7:09
He’s also gotten rid of Octavia.

Dr Rad 7:13
First one.

Dr G 7:13
Yes. And he’s now married to somebody called Poppaea.

Dr Rad 7:19
Yes. So Nero, Nero is someone who’s pretty infamous. But just in case you don’t know who the Emperor Nero is – and that’s completely fine – he is part of the Julio-Claudian dynasty, draw their descent from well, I mean,

Dr G 7:33
Julius Caesar, ultimately, but most people leverage the connection to Augustus.

Dr Rad 7:38
I was going to say, it’s really Augustus they’re concerned about and one of the Claudian gens.

Dr G 7:43
One of those Claudians. One of them in there somewhere.

Dr Rad 7:47
That blended together in this amazing McFlurry of a family. And Nero when he comes to power in 54. See, he is a teenager, about 16 years old about to turn 17 when he comes into power. And if you’re thinking to yourself, I don’t think I trust teenagers with that much power. You’d be correct.

Dr G 8:10
Yes, you shouldn’t. And we don’t recommend putting them into power that young because, well, there’s plenty of historical evidence to suggest they cannot handle the heady heights of power at that age.

Dr Rad 8:21
Yeah, particularly when you have a mother who, whilst amazing is extremely dominating, like Agrippina the Younger, who may very well have committed murder of her awn uncle slash husband, in order to make you emperor.

Dr G 8:35
Oft!

Dr Rad 8:36
Yeah. So in spite of all of this, allegedly, the first few years of Nero’s reign started. Yeah, well, I suppose you could say.

Dr G 8:46
There is talk of the five good years of Nero.

Dr Rad 8:50
Yeah.

Dr G 8:50
Where he’s following his advisers. He’s got a few: Seneca is probably the most famous of them.

Dr Rad 8:56
Yeah.

Dr G 8:57
And Agrippina seems to also be a moderating maternal force. She may be quite domineering, but Nero seems to –

Dr Rad 9:06
Sometimes it’s a good thing

Dr G 9:06

Dr Rad 9:09
Yeah. And Burrus head of his Praetorian Guard set. Yeah, absolutely. All these people seem to be actually the ones calling the shots. And that’s from the good thing, because I don’t think Nero is particularly interested in the reality of politics. He’s okay with the benefits, but I don’t think he’s super interested in ruling per se. Unless it’s like, get me another eunuch.

Dr G 9:38
Yeah, look, he’s young. He’s got a lot to learn and maybe he steps into leadership in a slightly bigger way as time goes on. Certainly he makes a play to be the one who gets to decide things ultimately, and we see the shift away from what is thought of as the five good years into like, “Oh, Nero’s in charge now.”

Dr Rad 9:59
Yeah,

Dr G 10:00
“Oh, well then!”

Dr Rad 10:01
How’s that gonna go for everyone? Not Great.

Dr G 10:04
Look, if this film is anything to go by: pretty terribly.

Dr Rad 10:09
The historical accuracy we will get to that in a sec. But yeah, the major I think signs of like a turning point is that number one in 59 CE Agrippina the Younger is murdered by Nero. And I don’t think anybody disputes that.

Dr G 10:23
Everybody seems to credit him as being the killer. Yeah, there are various methods and when the collapsible boat doesn’t work out, he moves on to more fatal measures.

Dr Rad 10:35
More straightforward, certainly. And then a few years after that, Burrus dies. And Seneca also appears to take a step back, maybe because he’s losing influence. And this is around the time that his marriage falls apart with Octavia, his first wife is very popular with the people and also one of his relatives. Creepy. Yes, but let’s not dwell on it.

Dr G 11:00
Pretty normal for the Julio-Claudians.

Dr Rad 11:02
Yeah, exactly. They could look they could be closer related, let’s just say, and he starts hanging out with this other elite woman who’s apparently far more depraved Poppaea Sabina. Eventually, she will become his next wife. But he starts making more audacious moves after 62 – not just because he gets rid of Octavia and when I say it gets rid of her he doesn’t just divorce her. He also puts her to death in a really terrible way, which does not win him any friends. But in 64, we start to see Nero performing publicly on stage which is a real no-no for anyone in the elite, but particularly the emperor.

Dr G 11:40
Ah, yeah. So Nero has this reputation as somebody who enjoys the arts, enjoys the theatre. And while you might think to yourself, well, they’re innocent diversions, and many people enjoy the theatre and the arts

Dr Rad 11:54
Without being raving psychopathic murderer and mother.

Dr G 11:57
It’s not quite the same in ancient Rome, some forms of entertainment are considered very low brow. And for Nero himself to be a stage performer is considered well outside the bounds of what is morally and socially acceptable for somebody of an elite stature.

Dr Rad 12:19
Oh, definitely. And I think it also has to do with the idea of putting yourself publicly on display in that way, like using your body in that kind of a way

Dr G 12:28
Oh, hello.

Dr Rad 12:29
Yeah, it just it just ugh.

Dr G 12:31
But apparently, he counted himself as being quite the artiste. Yeah, a bit of a singer. Yeah, a bit of a instrumentalist.

Dr Rad 12:37
Oh, what can’t you do, Dr. G, is really the question? Or at least what won’t he pretend he can’t do.

Dr G 12:44
The other problem with this kind of thing is from a Roman perspective is these kinds of pursuits are also seen as being a little bit too Greek.

Dr Rad 12:52
Yes. And we know that Nero seems to have been very fond of Greek culture.

Dr G 12:56
And yes, for the Romans, this is concerning because they feel the Greeks are a little bit too effeminate for their liking.

Dr Rad 13:04
Way too soft. That’s not how you conquer the world – can be tough. The Romans, apparently, yeah. Anyway, it’s in at 65 that we have the Great Fire of Rome, we’ll get to that. I’m not going to talk about the accuracy of this event right now. I mean, there is a fire. Don’t get me wrong. That’s true.

Dr G 13:20
Rome definitely suffers from a fire and there’s definitely a rebuilding programme which Nero leads.

Dr Rad 13:25
Yeah. So there’s a very big fire very damaging, not uncommon to have a fire and we’re in but a fire on this scale is unusual. And then of course, we have one of the largest and probably better known conspiracy against your in that same year, the Pisonian conspiracy. However, Nero still –

Dr G 13:46
He survived!

Dr Rad 13:47
Yeah, he performs at the Neronia, a Greek festival he throws.

Dr G 13:53
Named after himself, Oh, how sweet!

Dr Rad 13:55
I think we’re getting a bit of a feel for him so far. And then we see a real degeneration. I think after this point, you see the death of Poppaea also, allegedly, because of Nero’s actions, he murders her, with the plague in Rome in 66 CE, which, again, is not Nero’s fault, but it’s not great. And many people are being put to death in this year. On top of that, nothing to do with the plague, just because of the conspiracy of the previous year. And if that weren’t enough, there’s another conspiracy in 66. Nero still goes on holiday in Greece. And there’s a revolt in Judea.

Dr G 13:55
Ah yes.

Dr Rad 13:58
Yeah, which isn’t great. And then in 67 CE, we start to see the execution of very competent and popular generals like a guy called Corbulo, which doesn’t again, win Nero any friends, and finally in 68, this is where we’re going to see one of the more notable revolts against Nero, mostly because it’s successful and near will eventually be ousted from power and commit suicide.

He comes to a sticky end.

Yeah. So that’s just a bit of a rough context. For those of you who don’t know Nero particularly well about when Quo Vadis is set because Quo Vadis is taking place in these latter years as you said.

Dr G 15:15
Yeah, we’re definitely in the post five good years by the time we see Nero on screen in Quo Vadis. He is married to Poppaea Sabina. Yeah. And that is where all of this is heading. And we also see the way that Nero was constructed in this film is very much in service of the broader Christianizing narrative, which is the dominant narrative for this whole film.

Dr Rad 15:41
I’m so glad you said that Dr. G, because one of the things I wanted to mention is that, I think one of the forms of adaptation that has a real legacy in the films that we see toga plays. Now toga plays were very popular in the 19th century, and even I think, into the early 20th century, to be honest, the Quo Vadis versions were not necessarily themselves, like huge smash hits like they did, okay. But the hallmarks of a toga play, I think you can see in the film version, so for example, the fact that you have to have this kind of generic Christianity, because you don’t want to specialise or get specific, because that way, everyone who’s even remotely Christian can endorse the film as being, you know, leading the way with Christianity and that sort of thing. But perhaps more important than that, even are the female characterizations that you tend to see spring up in toga plays. So you often have a Christian female in these productions, who is self-sacrificing, domestic, and she has a interesting influence over the more aggressive, perhaps bolder, smarter, even funnier, perhaps even more attractive male in the story.

Dr G 17:03
Well, well, well, I think there’s also some interesting parallels to be drawn between the way that these kinds of films and it sounds like these toga plays as well, that I’m less familiar with, are also doing a very similar thing to the way that Christian philosophical literature from the second and third century CE are doing in terms of building a convincing case for why it would be good for you to also be Christian.

Dr Rad 17:29
Yes, definitely. Well, I think that’s the interesting thing about toga plays, and then sword and sound type films or, you know, just films about Rome in general, in that Rome, for both the British and North Americans in the Victorian age, they’re often the bad guys in these sorts of things, you know, these toga plays in the early films, and even the later films, to be honest. But even though they’re the bad guys, and therefore they are the other, because of course, Britain and North America see themselves as being on the side of Christianity. But at the same time, there’s obviously got to be a lot that they recognise in themselves in terms of empire: wanting power wanting conquest, you know, the pillars of civilization.

Dr G 18:16
Oh, it’s the duelling sides of the soul, isn’t it? It’s that desire for the material gain that Rome represents so well. Yeah. And I think spiritual richness of the Christian soul.

Dr Rad 18:28
Yeah. And I always have this phrase in my head, which I didn’t actually need you to write it down, even though I have to because it really stood out for me when I was doing my research into this kind of stuff from Mayer and he says Rome and its empire were painfully familiar. I think that always sums up very well the kind of relationship that the British and American audiences are going to continue to have with Rome. Now, of course, Quo Vadis, does make it to the screen very early, in fact, and it has been adapted many times. We’re focusing on the 1951 version, but there are a couple of silent versions and there was a version from 2001. That was a mini series in 1985. You know, Quo Vadis is one of those ones that people keep going back to, like Ben Hur. And as we know, Hollywood likes to repeat success story.

Dr G 19:16
They certainly do.

Dr Rad 19:17
Hey, this works. And I think it has a lot to do with the fact that Nero’s reign really works on a Hollywood level, because it allows you to have this extravaganza of consumption and excess and lavishness on the screen whilst also being like it’s not cool.

Dr G 19:40
Oh, guys, don’t do do this. Look on but a heaven forfend that you do this?

Dr Rad 19:49
Yeah, exactly. So there was a very famous version in 1912, directed by Enrico Guazzoni. And this is generally seen as a pretty spectacular early film, you know, because they’re still experimenting with the the medium and that sort of thing. So it’s seen as having some really interesting technological innovations, which makes the story I think, much more powerful. And then we have another version in 1925, which is also interesting, because of course, it’s like the rise of fascism is happening in that at that point in time. So it’s not overly influenced by that. But anyway, but we do want to focus on the 1951 version today. So let’s skip ahead to that. Shall we talk about the general plot of the 1951 version is a bit different to the novel.

Dr G 20:38
All right. So Quo Vadis, 1951. So we’ve got essentially a cast of our Roman characters and our Christian characters. Yes. And we start with our Romans, we’ve got a Roman commander coming back to Rome, yeah, as you should, after successfully leading these legions over in Britain or whatnot. And where this sort of takes off is that he’s not allowed to go into the city straightaway, he’s got to camp outside. And he finds out later that this is for good reasons. Nero wants to put on a proper display with a whole bunch of legions and commanders coming back soon. But this means that our main character Marcus Vinicius has to end up staying with a friend, rather than popping home and doing his own thing.

Dr Rad 21:25
Awkward crashing on the triclinium.

Dr G 21:27
Yeah. And it’s a guy that he’s known for a long time, used to be a Roman commander himself. So they’ve got a history there. And that’s nice. But what seems to have happened that maybe Vinicius has hasn’t picked up on between the last time he saw this guy is that this family has become Christian.

Dr Rad 21:43
Gasphow disgusting!

Dr G 21:47
You know, he kind of doesn’t come into this knowledge for quite some time. He’s –

Dr Rad 21:51
They’re secretive!

Dr G 21:52
Yeah, he’s pretty oblivious and they’re really not being overt about it. They’re not being like, “Ooh, something new in town. Have you tried Christianity?” They’ve been very calm, very quiet. And it’s during this moment that Vinicius is also runs into their daughter, the daughter of this guy and his wife, Lygia, in the household. And he’s like, you know, every time the camera pans to her, it’s a Vaseline moment. She is. It is incredible. But he immediately starts to deploy his – what I think he thinks is charismatic charm – but is really Roman boorishness.

Dr Rad 22:32
Well for particularly someone like her and she’s, she’s an interesting character because she is meant to be a hostage of the Lygian king, but she’s become like a daughter to these people.

Dr G 22:42
Well, she’s – they say – that she’s been adopted.

Dr Rad 22:45
Yes, exactly.

Dr G 22:46
And they’ve taken her in as their own.

Dr Rad 22:48
Yeah

Dr G 22:48
But she is a hostage of a foreign kingdom. And she does have a bodyguard, who’s also from a kingdom who also lives in the household. Yeah, and this whole arrangement is very interesting. But also Vinicius is kind of like just sort of like tramples all over things, tries to do a bit of a clumsy seduction. After he’s just seen her for the first time. And she’s not having a bar of that.

Dr Rad 23:12
Yeah.

Dr G 23:12
Which is fair enough. Smart move, lady. But this means that a friction has been set up where because Vinicius has been denied, in this very sort of materialistic Roman way that they’re being characterised, you start to develop this thing, “Well, if I can’t have it, I really want it.” And, and this colours, a whole bunch of things.

Dr Rad 23:32
Yeah.

Dr G 23:33
So this leads him to create a scenario through his contacts with Nero to have Lygia transferred out of that household. He finds out that she’s the hostage. Yeah, he’s like, what do we know about how hostage law works? And they’re like, well –

Dr Rad 23:49
Sneaky bastard!

Dr G 23:50
Yeah, if the emperor says so. I mean, the hostage can be transferred to a different household. Yeah. So Vinicius sets this up. So Lygia is first of all ripped out of the home that she has come to know

Dr Rad 24:02
Totally going to win her over. 100%.

Dr G 24:04
Definitely. Yeah. She gets gussied up at the Imperial Palace into some fancy dress.

Dr Rad 24:08
I think you mean, she gets slut-ified.

Dr G 24:12
They put her in a very nice gown.

Dr Rad 24:15
Yeah, I don’t think she’s too comfortable in it. It’s too revealing.

Dr G 24:18
Too revealing and maybe a little bit too shiny. Yeah. And they put her on display in front of the emperor at a sort of a dinner party situation where Vinicius is like, “you look ravishing”, and she’s like, “What? Why am I even here? Like, I’ve just been ripped from my family, like, whatever.” Yeah. And he’s like, “Oh, well, the good news is I did that.” And she’s like, “Excuse me?. And he’s like, “So your mine now by imperial decree. Did you know?” And she’s like, “Oh. My. God.”

Dr Rad 24:49
This guy can’t take a hint!

Dr G 24:52
She finds a way to escape essentially from that situation. Yeah. Nero is kind of oblivious and doing his own thing in the meantime, and I think this is an important subplot, Poppaea has spotted Vinicius and she’s like, “Well, he looks pretty hot.”

Dr Rad 25:07
Oh, yes.

Dr G 25:08
And her reputation for debauchery knows no bounds. So everybody’s kind of like they’re not really surprised when she tries to sort of she calls him over for a bit of a chat. Yeah. Nero doesn’t seem perplexed about this kind of thing at all, like Poppaea is being Poppaea. She’s an interesting one.

Dr Rad 25:24
This is just how women act. Yeah. May want me?

Dr G 25:28
My tiger, my cheetah. So she does a bit of a thing where she makes sure Vinicius knows that she’s interested in him. Yes. And he’s like, Okay, that’s cool. But my chick’s over there. Then she disappears. Lygia is sort of whisked away. And secreted away. And it turns out –

Dr Rad 25:47
This has something to do with Acte, doesn’t it?

Dr G 25:49
Yes.

Dr Rad 25:49
Yeah. Acte is actually a historical person. Yes. Yeah. Actually, as her [Lygia’s] adoptive parents, I should say. Yeah. Acte is mentioned in connection with Nero.

Dr G 26:01
Yeah. Acte is somebody who is written about in the source material as being one of these people that he has a relationship with. And she’s an actress. I think

Dr Rad 26:11
I actually thought she was a freed woman or a slave?

Dr G 26:15
Yeah, there’s something going on there. She has, she loves she has very low status, but they have a connection. And she is written about. And in the film, she sort of running the sort of the ladies of the household. She’s kind of like a high up sort of servant it would seem.

Dr Rad 26:31
Yeah. And but she’s obviously madly in love. With Nero.

Dr G 26:35
Still in love with Nero. Nero no longer seems to care. He’s moved on – Poppaea is where it’s at.

Dr Rad 26:40
Yeah, hashtag move on.

Dr G 26:43
And Acte is very implicated in the escape of Lygia. Yes. From the imperial palace. She shows Lygia the sign of the fish.

Yeah. But she’s not a Christian herself?

No, but she she’s sympathetic.

Dr Rad 26:56
Yeah. And again, this kind of ties in with what we know about early Christianity in that it does seem to been something that I think appeals to those lower down the social scale, rather than those at the top.

Dr G 27:09
And so we find out that the Christians are sort of getting together in the caves on the outskirts of the city. Maybe they’re catacombs, maybe they’re not, but they’re getting together underground. And it’s in this sort of moment. That Peter turns up.

Dr Rad 27:28
As in St. Peter, not Dr. G.

Dr G 27:30
I didn’t turn up. You can look for that cameo You shall not find it. St. Peter turns up and he gives a bit of a sermon. And at that sermon, Marcus Vinicius, by this point, has figured out that she’s been taken by the Christians and whisked away and he’s found a way to infiltrate into the cave and the meeting. So he gets gets to hear this sermon as well. He doesn’t really buy into the Christianity stuff, but he’s certainly hearing some different material –

Dr Rad 28:00
Yeah

Dr G 28:01

Dr Rad 28:27
She’s easily spotted.

Dr G 28:29
Ursus the, which lighting Latin for Bear, which is beautiful, because he’s a big, tall, strong guy. He’s like, “I can hear people following us.” And she’s like, “Whaaat?”, and he’s like, “No, seriously. You go. Yeah, you go ahead, and I’ll wait here.” And so he catches them unawares manages to kill the gladiator that Vinicius has hired to be his strong man for the night. He’s Greek friend who helped him infiltrate the cave runs away.

Dr Rad 28:58
Of course.

Dr G 28:58
And Vinicius gets sort of a smoosh on the head and Ursus takes him to where they’re hiding Lygia. So they’re staying in somebody else’s place. Yeah. And it’s pretty clear from the architecture that this is a bit of step down for her. Yeah, this is not the former general’s household

Dr Rad 29:16
But she’s cool with it because she’s Christian.

Dr G 29:17
She’s very Christian. She doesn’t mind. They’ve created a cross out of two sticks tied together. And that’s good enough for her. And this moment, this is kind of one of these really pivotal scenes in this film.

Dr Rad 29:29
Such a Florence Nightingale thing.

Dr G 29:32
So pivotal, because Vinicius is like, “Why did you not kill me?”

Dr Rad 29:37
Yes.

Dr G 29:37
And Ursus is like, “Well, it’s sin.” Even though he just killed a gladiator.

Dr Rad 29:41
Yeah. Yeah, him I’ll kill. You on the other hand…

Dr G 29:45
“That guy was trying to kill me. So that’s self defence.”

Dr Rad 29:47
Yeah.

Dr G 29:48
“Wheras you, you’re already out for the count.”

Dr Rad 29:50
Yeah.

Dr G 29:51
“So anyway, so it didn’t kill you.” And so there’s this moment of exchange. And then Vinicius is like, “Well, you know, all of this trouble. I – I don’t understand it. I’m just going to leave you to it. You’re not a hostage of me anymore, Lygia, I don’t care. I don’t want anything to do with it anymore.” And as soon as he rejects her, yeah, this is also opening up the pathway for her to be open and honest about how she feels because she’s no longer in a position of coercion. And immediately

Dr Rad 30:20
She’s secretly got the hots for him!

Dr G 30:22
She’s like, “but I’ve always loved you.” It is baffling.

Dr Rad 30:28
Yeah.

Dr G 30:29
And one can only assume it’s because he’s so good looking.

Dr Rad 30:32
Yeah, look, I mean, obviously, Lygia is played by Deborah Kerr, you know, she’s obviously big star at this point in time. And Vinicius is paid by Robert Taylor, also a big star of the time known to be quite attractive.

Dr G 30:48
So yeah, so apparently, he’s hot enough. And even though he’s silly. I mean, he’s really he’s really only revealed himself to be very silly up until now to her, you know, it’s like, you know, he’s tried to seduce her by being rude to her. And then he’s stolen her from her hostage family taht she likes living with.

Dr Rad 31:09
Yeah.

Dr G 31:10
And then he’s trying to follow a home from a Christian gathering, like he’s done nothing –

Dr Rad 31:15
But cause her pain

Dr G 31:15

Dr Rad 31:18
Yeah.

Dr G 31:19
And she’s like, “But I’ve always…” So I think she might be talking with her downstairs rather than her upstairs at this point in time.

Dr Rad 31:25
Well, isn’t that what women think with?

Dr G 31:27
Oh. Oh! And that’s exciting because Vinicius is then immediately back in. He’s like, “Let’s do this.” Yeah.

Dr Rad 31:37
“I was just kidding. I take back everything I just said.”

Dr G 31:39
Really? Really? You’re? Now you’re into it? Cool. And so you can see how the, sort of like the people who play The Game, those sort of like, yeah, those pointed like, sort of those dating gurus that are sort of like quite popular in the late 90s- early 2000s. Yeah, about all of that kind of stuff like Mystery and things like that. You can see how they might have watched a film like this and being like, negging her was the thing that worked.

Dr Rad 32:08
Yeah.

Dr G 32:08
Like, that’s just like, No, but you’re always a terrible person. And a guy wrote this script. It’s really, really clear.

Dr Rad 32:15
Yeah yeah.

Dr G 32:16
Because Lygia is just a little bit unbelievable in this moment, but they have a discussion about you know, how they’re going to stay together and how it’s gonna be amazing and she’s like, “well, if you stay with me, you’ve got to believe in my faith”, and Vinicius is like “I could just be with you – you can bring whatever gods you want. I don’t mind. You do you.”

Dr Rad 32:34
“The more the merrier, I’m Roman”

Dr G 32:35
Yeah, he’s like “I don’t mind, there’s heaps of Gods – there’s enough for all of us.”

Dr Rad 32:38
Yeah

Dr G 32:38
And she’s like, “that’s not good enough. No, you actually have to really try to buy in here.” And he’s like, “What is wrong with you?” He snaps the wooden cross.

Dr Rad 32:49
“I thought we were together! Now you’re saying there’s all these conditions?!”

Dr G 32:53
Yeah. And he gets really mad has a temper tantrum breaks the cross throws it on the ground storms off,

Dr Rad 32:59
Like these people haven’t suffered enough. For goodness sake, their cross is made of out sticks.

Dr G 33:04
So anyway, it’s a that’s kind of like this moment of crisis for these two.

Dr Rad 33:10
Absolutely.

Dr G 33:11
And then it kind of switches to this more Nero focused side of the story.

Dr Rad 33:17
Now we’re gonna set it alight, Nero and the fire of Rome.

Dr G 33:23
In the background, while this story has been playing out between Vinicius and Lygia in the background, we’ve been seeing Nero doing little quirky things here and there. And he’s starting to get a little bit inspired by this idea that he can’t be a true artist unless he experiences the things that he wants to talk about

Dr Rad 33:42
Which to be fair,

Dr G 33:44
Is method, very method.

Dr Rad 33:45
I was gonna say kind of what some people have actually said and still practice to this day.

Dr G 33:50
Yeah, method acting never out of fashion. Nero’s buying in big time.

Dr Rad 33:54
Yeah.

Dr G 33:54
There’s been –

Dr Rad 33:55
You know Stanislavski, tell me about it.

Dr G 33:59
For Nero, there’s this really interesting dynamic that is playing out across this whole film with his relationship with one of his advisors, Petronius, and Petronius is kind of like this – like hilarious, quasi-historical, like there is a Petronius in history.

Dr Rad 34:16
Yes. And he was a friend of Nero’s. Yeah. But in this version, he’s also the uncle of Marcus Vinicius.

Dr G 34:22
Yeah, they’ve taken some liberties and that’s okay. Yeah, but Petronius is this kind of really intelligent figure who is able to say the right thing at the right time, even when it doesn’t seem like it’s going to be the right thing to bring Nero around to a certain perspective.

Dr Rad 34:40
Yeah. And he’s definitely on damage control. Like his whole mission seems to be that I mean, very much looking at himself like

Dr G 34:48
and also looking out for his nephew, Vinicius, as well. Like Nero does have a moment where he spots Lygia and he’s like, oh, wait a minute. Maybe I gave away too good a prize.

Dr Rad 34:57
Yes, exactly. Yeah. So Petronius is a all about damage control in the sense that he wants to have a pleasant life, he wants to look after his family. Standard. And then he also seems to be trying to make sure that Rome is not governed too stupidly. So he tries to always talk Nero around to something that would actually be not terrible.

Dr G 35:18
Yeah. But unfortunately for Petronius, he also seems to make maybe a slight error, where he kind of suggests that Nero needs to focus more on his art and things like that.

Dr Rad 35:27
Yeah.

Dr G 35:28
And Nero takes that up seriously, and runs with that. And the problem with that is that Nero then gets into his mind that he needs to see Rome burn in order to be able to create the Rome of his vision.

Dr Rad 35:45
Yeah. And also, you know, that idea of like, reciting a song about Troy, and, you know, writing about that, and that sort of thing, he needs to see it.

Dr G 35:54
Yeah. And it’s like, so Petronius is trying to get him to sort of exceed his own capacity as an artist being like, “you know, you know, you could go beyond Homer, you know, you could go beyond Virgil.” And Nero is kind of like, “how will I do it?” Petronius is like, “you’ve got to live it.” And Nero’s like, “well, if I have to live it, let’s burn the city, so I can live the emotion of it. And then I can build it from the ground up.” And he kind of has this relationship with the people where he needs them. But he kind of dislikes them at the same time. It’s kind of this sort of, they feed his sort of need for attention. But he’s also kind of annoyed with the fact that they’re always there and in the way.

Dr Rad 36:41
Yeah, definitely. And in this version, I think it’s probably clear, there is no doubt that Nero is responsible for lighting a fire. Not personally…

Dr G 36:50
No, but they make it Yeah, yeah. And this is something that is in contradistinction to the real complexities of the ancient evidence.

Dr Rad 36:58
Yeah, which we will, we will get into

Dr G 36:59
Yes so hold that thought. But the film definitely blames Nero. He’s the architect of the fire. He also has an architect with a new plan for Rome constructed for what will be built after the city has burned. So realistically, Nero is to blame here.

Dr Rad 37:13
Definitely. But he soon realised that I mean, I think only all his elite hangers-on they seem to be willing to tolerate Nero’s behaviour, I think up until this point, that this is something else. And so Nero is, you know, obviously feeling very unpopular from multiple angles, and he’s like, I need to do something about this, and therefore, he’s going to pin it on the Christians.

Dr G 37:40
Yes. So this idea in the film comes from Poppaea.

Dr Rad 37:44
Yes, that’s right.

Dr G 37:45
So we have this moment where Rome is on fire at that time, most of Nero’s court is in Antium. Vinicius hears that Rome is burning, realises that Lygia is still there. And even though they’ve had this thing where it’s like they’re clearly not together and it’s not working out. He’s had a chain, he’s realised that he has to go and save her –

Dr Rad 38:06
Of course.

Dr G 38:07

Dr Rad 38:32
Breastplates all the way.

Dr G 38:33
Yeah, and he’s never thought to take them off. Even though he’s not leading an army right now.

Dr Rad 38:37
Apart from that first scene there’s been no reason to do so.

Dr G 38:41
There’s been no, no soldiers under his command. He’s just chilling out in Rome.

Dr Rad 38:44
It’s for good posture.

Dr G 38:45
Yeah, look, he loves it. Yeah. And he turns up, and people are sort of like trying to push him away. But he manages to save people by redirecting them into the sewage system. That’s clever. Yeah. And then he does spot Lygia. And so this is a moment of reunion and all of this sort of thing. Finally, sadly, it does not last, he does end up getting arrested as does Lygia as does Ursus as, as do a whole bunch of people

Dr Rad 39:14
who are Christian

Dr G 39:15
because they’re rounded up because they are considered to be Christian.

Dr Rad 39:18
Yeah.

Dr G 39:18
Because Vinicius is hanging out with Lygia that, that doesn’t help his cause at all. So he gets lumped in with them.

Dr Rad 39:18
Yeah.

Dr G 39:20
So Poppaea has had this amazing idea that the Christians will be blamed.

Dr Rad 39:24
Yeah

Dr G 39:28
For the fire. And then they will set up a whole bunch of games and put them on display in the arena.

Dr Rad 39:40
Sounds like a fabulous evening.

Dr G 39:42
It’s a good Roman time out. You know what I’m saying?

Dr Rad 39:44
Yeah, totally, man.

Dr G 39:47
So there were some very dramatic scenes with a lot of lions.

Dr Rad 39:51
Yeah, well, you know, you don’t want to do things half hearted.

Dr G 39:55
No, but like in terms of I’m just thinking from a like a film perspective, like they were a lot of lions showed on screen,

Dr Rad 40:02
Let’s be real, I don’t want to, I’ve never looked into it because I don’t want to know what may or may not have happened on that set. This is before, really strict regulations are in place about how animals, you know, be treated by the entertainment industry. And given that we’re still in an era where factory farming is somehow okay. I just don’t want to look back. It’s not going to be good news for anybody.

Dr G 40:25
It’s fair enough. But yes, I have some concerns about how many lions were involved. Yeah. Anyway, they bring out the Christians in kind of like groups, and part of what happens in this moment of the film is Nero becomes increasingly agitated because the Christians start singing as he’s, yeah, finding a moment of peace between like the moments where they’re getting slaughtered.

Dr Rad 40:48
Yeah.

Dr G 40:49
And this discomforts him greatly.

Dr Rad 40:51
He doesn’t understand it.

Dr G 40:52
Doesn’t understand it, doesn’t like it. And you know, other people are singing and he’s the singer, really.

Dr Rad 40:58
Yeah. So no, I don’t like living under your spotlight.

Dr G 41:09
I could see him standing up and doing that. Doing doing a sing back. A dramatic scene,

Dr Rad 41:15
Don’t tell me not to live, just sit and putter.

Dr G 41:20
This kind of thing is going he’s not very happy. He kind of wants to get them all out all at once and just get rid of them all. Yes. And Poppaea is like no, no, wait. And he also does an inspection of the bodies. At the end of the first day of the Christian sort of

Dr Rad 41:35
Always this creepy inspection of bodies in these films, I’ve realised.

Dr G 41:39
He wants to see what’s going on, because a lot of them have died with smiles on their faces.

Dr Rad 41:44
Yes.

Dr G 41:45
And this creeps him out.

Dr Rad 41:46
Yeah, well,

Dr G 41:46
And fair enough. I mean people don’t die with smiles on their faces usually.

Dr Rad 41:50
Not horribly in an arena, they don’t.

Dr G 41:52
No.

Dr Rad 41:53
Now he has also managed to round up St. Peter as being a part of

Dr G 41:57
Well, yeah. And so I was just about to get to that. Because parallel to this, yeah. we had Peter, giving a sermon in the caves underneath Rome. Yeah. But then he seems in a an assigned plot kind of element. He seems to be leaving Rome with a young boy,

Dr Rad 42:14
Busy guy.

Dr G 42:14
yeah, busy guy, young kid, and they’re on the road together, and they’re heading out of the city. And Peter is in this moment where he does the famous line, “Quo Vadis, Domine?” Because he doesn’t know where to go next. He doesn’t know what to do next. He’s seeking some guidance, and a light. The light of the sun shimmers through the trees. And it seems that the Lord speaks through the child tells him that he needs to go back to Rome. And that is how he has to save people, otherwise – either Jesus has to come back down, and then do another thing where he gets killed in Rome. And Peter’s like, oh, well, we can’t have that.

Dr Rad 42:58
No.

Dr G 42:58
And he also talks to the child being like, say it again. And kid’s like, “I didn’t say anything.”

Dr Rad 43:06
“So shut up, Mr.”

Dr G 43:07
So we know it’s a miracle. So they turn around and go back to Rome. And Peter appears in the arena, and gives us a speech again, and that’s when he’s arrested. So he speaks on behalf of the Christians. And the crowd is kind of like laughing at him. And he gets arrested and he gets trapped in with the Christians, which is great, because that means that Peter is in the same cell as Lygia and Vinicius. And those two finally get married.

Dr Rad 43:34
What better place to tie the knot? Again, it’s a bit of a trope of the genre. I mean, you know, you think about Diana, Marcellus in “The Robe” True, I don’t think they actually ended up getting married per se. But you know, they got together in their moment of absolute desperation.

Dr G 43:51
Everybody gets together when they’re locked up when you’re on death row.

Dr Rad 43:54
Yeah.

Dr G 43:55
Like this is my best option.

Dr Rad 43:56
Yeah.

Dr G 43:57
And so they are now married, and this makes Poppaea’s plan for them – because she said to Nero save those two, I’ve got something special,

Dr Rad 44:09
I’m sure

Dr G 44:10
And he’s like, “Oh, I love your –

Dr Rad 44:11
“That man is no longer my sexual toy.”

Dr G 44:14
She’s like, “Yeah, I’m feeling rejected by Vinicius. I’m definitely gonna kill him the hard way.” Yeah, she’s like, “Just you wait.” They bring out Lygia all dressed up in this beautiful sort of diaphanous purple robe actually, looking gorgeous. So much Vaseline. Tie her to a post. They bring out Ursus – don’t tie him to a post – and they bring Marcus Vinicius up to the imperial stage tied and chained to a metal post so he can’t get down into the arena.

Dr Rad 44:43
Yeah, he’s gonna have to watch her die.

Dr G 44:45
He’s gonna have to watch her die. And they send out a bull.

Dr Rad 44:49
Sounds nasty.

Dr G 44:50
It’s, it is nasty. I do wonder what happened to the bull. So I hope that the bull was okay.

Dr Rad 44:55
Again, I don’t want to know,

Dr G 44:55
I don’t really want to know either. Ursus takes down the bull. That’s the essence of it.

Dr Rad 45:02
Which is an amazing feat. And obviously not what Nero was expecting. Oh, yeah.

Dr G 45:06
And somebody had said to Nero, while they were like sort of watching on, “Look, if Ursus is able to take out the bull. I mean, you’ll have to let you have to let Lygia off.”

Dr Rad 45:17
Yeah. And then you know that that’s in keeping with what we know about it, how the arena works. If the crowd are wowed by a particular performance, they’ll probably ask the patron of the games to please spare the person. Yeah.

Dr G 45:28
And as predicted, the crowd is wild for Ursus’ success. And they’re like, they’re all – they’re all like, “yes, you have to let him off!”

Dr Rad 45:36
“Set him free! Her too! Set the, both free!”

Dr G 45:41
And Nero has his most dramatic moment of doing – almost as if he’s going to go one way and with the support of the crowd, and then goes the other way. And everybody turns and it’s chaos. And it’s at this moment, where the other subplot that I have not mentioned, really comes into play. Yeah, so in parallel to some of this stuff happening, before Vinicius is arrested, he and Petronius are colluding together with others to get Galba into power. And so I’m finding it I’m getting emotional. I’m getting emotional. So they’ve organised for Galba to come with some other legions and basically depose Nero with enough signatures Galba will accept the imperial leadership.

Dr Rad 46:37
And wouldn’t you know, they turn up right about now.

Dr G 46:40
Right at the moment, where Nero has decided that Ursus will have to die.

Dr Rad 46:45
Yeah.

Dr G 46:46
The army turns up.

Dr Rad 46:47
Yeah.

Dr G 46:48
In support of Galba. Are they’re like, “Galba is your new emperor!” Vinicius is down there yelling to everybody, “It’s over!”. And Nero has to run away. Poppaea runs away. Yeah, they go back. They retreat back to the palace. Yeah, that doesn’t go well for either of them.

Dr Rad 47:05
No, because Nero blames Poppaea for this whole mess.

Dr G 47:09
Yeah, he’s like, “You were the one who wanted to blame the Christians for the fire. And now look where we are.”

Dr Rad 47:13
Yeah.

Dr G 47:14
And then proceeds to strangle her, which she was not expecting.

Dr Rad 47:17
No, but is somewhat historically accurate in that Nero did murder Poppaea, but not for that reason, or in that way.

Dr G 47:25
Yes. And so Poppaea’s then dead, and he sort of retreats further into the palace. And then there is this shadow in his room. And he’s, like, clearly, clearly scared. Like, this. Is it? Somebody’s gonna kill me? And it turns out that it’s Acte.

Dr Rad 47:45
Loyal to the end. Yeah, yeah.

Dr G 47:48
She’s like, “I told you, I’d be here at the end.” And he’s like, “I didn’t believe you. I thought I told you to go away?”

Dr Rad 47:56
Yeah. But of course, she’s not there because she’s gonna make everything goes away. I mean, she is just a freed woman slash slave woman slash something.

Dr G 48:07
She gives him the opportunity to take his life with dignity, rather than being trampled down by

Dr Rad 48:15
The Roman way.

Dr G 48:16
Yes. You know, do something honorable with your life.

Dr Rad 48:19
Yeah.

Dr G 48:19
He’s not able to do it.

Dr Rad 48:21
No.

Dr G 48:22
He asks her to do that. And she does.

Dr Rad 48:25
Yeah.

Dr G 48:26
So that’s, I think devastating for her because she’s still in love with him.

Dr Rad 48:30
Yeah. But a fitting end for Nero. But of course, we do get a happy ending, because Vinicius and Lygia have managed to come out unscathed, basically, apart from maybe being traumatised, but

Dr G 48:43
And they seem to be heading out of Rome with Ursus and the kid.

Dr Rad 48:43
Yeah, they’re heading to live on Vinicius’ property in Sicily. The remainder of their lives undisturbed. In spite of their Christianity, I’m basing that on what the novel says.

Dr G 49:02
Nice.

Dr Rad 49:03
Yeah.

Dr G 49:04
And that’s the film.

Dr Rad 49:06
Wow. And we didn’t even mention that Petronius committed suicide in the midst of all that.

Dr G 49:10
Yeah. And has Seneca deliveries letter which is scathing to Nero.

Dr Rad 49:15
Yeah.

Dr G 49:15
I love the weeping vessel, “Bring the weeping vessel.” And Nero puts one tear from each eye into the jar and he’s like, “Seal this, to memorialise my feelings for Petronius.”

Dr Rad 49:15
And look this is the issue with Quo Vadis. It’s a it’s a massive novel. It’s a massive film every time you do it.

Thank you for listening to this special episode of The Partial Historians. We’d like to thank all of our patreons for their support and allowing us to make these additional episodes especially Nick, who requested a discussion of Quo Vadis. If you too would like early access to our bonus shows, please consider becoming a patreon. This has been part one of our coverage of Quo Vadis so stay tuned and Part Two. We’ll be with you shortly. Our sources and credits for the episode can be found on our website. And until next time, we are yours in ancient Rome.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Special Episode – Quo Vadis (1951) – Part One appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

The Robe (1953) is a cinematic classic of Golden Age Hollywood. With its mix of ancient Rome and early Christianity, it was a winner with audiences around the globe. In this special episode, we tap into Dr Rad’s expertise in reception in film and come to grips with the power of The Robe!

Special Episode – The Robe

It was tricky to deal with modern political issues in this era of Hollywood under the influence of HUAC (the House Un-American Activities Committee). For the makers of The Robe, which explicitly dealt with the life of Jesus under the Romans, there were additional challenges due to the creation of the state of Israel in 1948. Returning to the Old Testament was often a safer bet for Hollywood films.

The rights to The Robe were initially purchased by RKO, before finally being canceled in 1948. It found a new home at 20th Century Fox. The fact that The Robe was in production for a long time has raised some interesting questions about the impact of historical context.

The script was initially written by Albert Maltz, one of the infamous Hollywood Ten. The original script does seem to touch on blacklist themes. In Caligula’s original speech at the end of the film he refers to the “sedition” of the Christians and Marcellus has to deny that he is involved in a conspiracy to overthrow the state. This sounds eerily close to the experience of Hollywood Communists, who were generally not radicals trying to seize control of the government. There were also more references to the naming of names in Maltz’s version of The Robe…

People protesting in favour of the Hollywood Ten. Source: Encyclopaedia Britannica.

But HUAC lay in his future, as Maltz only worked on this project from 1942-1946. As Smith (2005) has highlighted, while Maltz could not have worked HUAC references into the script before his HUAC experiences, it is possible that the tension over Communism still shaped his draft. There were moves against Communism before the Second Red Scare that swept America in the late 1940s and 1950s, such as the actions of the Tenney Committee in the early 1940s, or the foundation of the right-wing Motion Picture Alliance for American Ideals.

Or perhaps Maltz was more focused on providing a critique of Italian fascism, given the backdrop of World War II? Maltz wrote Cloak and Dagger (1947) immediately after The Robe, which definitely took aim at Italian fascism, whilst exalting the resistance from the Communists. He would also write Crossfire (1947), a film that tackled issues of anti-Semitism within the USA.

Film poster for Cloak and Dagger (1947)

Is it possible that the next screenwriter to work on The Robe worked in some sick burns? Phillip Dunne followed Maltz and would eventually receive sole credit for the film, thanks to the blacklist. He was known to be a liberal and helped to establish the Committee for the First Amendment. This group formed in reaction to the HUAC hearings in 1947. Fellow members included other Hollywood luminaries such as William Wyler, Lucille Ball, Lauren Bacall, Bette Davis and Dorothy Daindridge.

However, Dunne was not a Communist; quite the opposite. He may have intended The Robe to be a veiled criticism of HUAC, but he may also have seen the repression of the Romans as being akin to Stalin and the Communist regime.

A lobby card for The Robe

Provided by Otter AI

Dr Rad 0:16
Welcome to the Partial Historians, we explore all the details of ancient Rome. Everything from the political scandals, the love of ours, the battles waged, and when citizens turn against each other. I’m Dr. Rad.

Dr G 0:34
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. Join us as we trace the journey of Rome from the founding of the city.

Dr Rad 1:03
Welcome to a special episode of The Partial Historians, I am one of your hosts, Dr. Rad.

Dr G 1:10
And I am a somewhat healthy, Dr. G.

Dr Rad 1:15
I know this is true dedication, Patreons, Dr G has been suffering from the vid.

Dr G 1:22
I’ve been on my deathbed. But I’ve bounced back. Thank goodness.

Dr Rad 1:27
It was Rome that calls you for and said live live another day.

Dr G 1:33
And one must always follow the commands of Rome. And here I am. as ever.

Dr Rad 1:39
Well, I suppose luckily, or unluckily. I’m not sure. We’re not doing our normal narrative today. But instead, we’re taking a journey into Hollywood land, which could be good for a sick person, or maybe not.

Dr G 1:54
I look, I think it’s gonna be it’s gonna be good. I’m excited for this golden era. Hollywood is one of my favorite times in Hollywood.

Dr Rad 2:03
We all love it. We all adore it. So let’s get into this special episode where we get to talk all about The Robe 1953.

Dr G 2:50
What a film. I mean, I think the best thing about it is Richard Burton.

Dr Rad 2:54
Definitely let’s let’s give a bit of a cast rundown. So in typical Partial Historians fashion, we’re doing this slightly backwards in that we looked at the sequel first. But that was only for our Patreon. So for everybody else, we’re just doing The Robe. So first of all, we have Richard Burton playing the lead male character Marcellus Gallio.

Dr G 3:19
A fine specimen of a young Roman if I ever saw one.

Dr Rad 3:21
Indeed. And then we have my favorite Jean Simmons playing the lead female part, Diana, I think she’s actually really good in this role. Yeah, well, you know, she’s got that pure beauty about her. She looks very innocent.

Dr G 3:39
She does.

Dr Rad 3:39
Yeah. And then, of course, we’ve got the hero of our Patreon bonus episode Demetrius and the Gladiators, because, of course, being a sequel, he’s in this one too big to mature, playing Demetrius,

Dr G 3:53
And he does look mature, doesn’t he?

Dr Rad 3:57
He does have a mature look about him. But lest we forget, he retired at 44. So I guess he was in his 30s at this point in time.

Dr G 4:04
Oh, wow.

Dr Rad 4:06
And then we have Michael Rennie playing St. Peter.

Dr G 4:11
Yeah, I feel like that was a bit of a that’s a bit of a throw into the sequel as well, isn’t it?

Dr Rad 4:18
I believe so. I think he was in both. Yeah, definitely. I mean, they knew they were filming both when they started, as I discovered last time. And then we have Jay Robinson playing Caligula.

Dr G 4:30
Hmm. Yeah. We’ll come back to that one.

Dr Rad 4:33
Yeah. And then I think the main ones that we have to deal with there are major characters. Yeah, I think that kind of covers it. Yeah, yeah, definitely. So The Robe 1953 is a big film in many ways. Not only is an epic from the age of epics, the Golden Age of Hollywood epics, but it also has won some fame for some of the other milestones that are associated with this film. Now, just to give us an idea of exactly how big a smash it was, it costs a smidgen over $4 million to make. And, yeah, it took in $17 million in the US a market and $36 million world wide.

Dr G 5:25
Okay, so this was a profit making engine?

Dr Rad 5:29
Well, yeah, I mean, it has a cycle that’s going to tell something

Dr G 5:35
built in, apparently, as well. So yeah,

Dr Rad 5:37
I do like this detail, though, that some of the ticket sales would have been to teachers who were pressed into going to see this movie for their students, or with their students, maybe?

Dr G 5:50
Yeah, goodness. I mean, that kind of made up the bulk of sales, surely.

Dr Rad 5:56
Anyway, so let’s talk a little bit about this ethic, Dr. G. So what were your initial impressions? I’m dying to know,

Dr G 6:03
Oh, look, I think longtime listeners of this show will be well aware that I tend to classify myself as a pagan, and my position has not changed. As a result of watching the Rome, it did feel like very much that they were utilizing Roman history as a vehicle for getting to the Christian story. And I’m not a fan of that, to be honest. Christianity is not huge. In this initial face, like this is set sort of right at the moment of the passing of the Messiah.

Dr Rad 6:39
Jesus is alive in this film. That tells us something. Yeah,

Dr G 6:43
Jesus starts alive in this film. Yeah, he doesn’t stay alive. So that gives us almost everything we need to know about what moment in history we’re in. But the sense in which there is a really strong Christianizing moment that comes over all of the players who’ve been closely associated with that moment of Jesus’s death is really interesting. Yeah, and I would say, anachronistic.

Dr Rad 7:09
For sure. I mean, it’s historically accurate to place Jesus’s life in his time period. So the time period we’re talking about is the tail end of the reign of Tiberius, aka the best period ever. And we then end up going into some of calculus, rain as well. And calculus, definitely around this whole movie. He’s not, you know, off to the side, and Tiberius is a circle regular, I think, is definitely the main Roman imperial character that we get to know over the course of this film. And that is historical. As far as we can tell, Jesus was indeed around in the latter half of Tiberius, his reign. So anyway, the general setting for Jesus’s lifetime, and when he starts to become a problem for Rome, all is accurate. And so we’ve got our major players, you know, being where they should be. But as you say, this is a classic Hollywood epic in that in order for you to have a good guy and a bad guy, you know, someone to root for and someone to despise while still enjoying the things that they get up to. It’s pretty normal for Hollywood to go to a Christians versus Romans storyline, or at least Christians slash Jewish people. Question Mark versus Romans?

Dr G 8:30
Yeah. And this leads us into some like really interesting directorial choices, or maybe casting decisions as well, because the Romans quintessentially played by the English. So they’ve got that very sort of RP accent going on. Yeah, but then the people of Palestine appear to be American. Where, I mean, it’s something

Dr Rad 8:53
But I think that that actually does keep into the whole accent divide. Because I think it’s kind of meant to be the people who are on the side, that you’re meant to be rooting for generally American.

Dr G 9:06
Hmm. So Hollywood would want you to believe.

Dr Rad 9:09
Yeah, yeah, I mean, it’s not. It’s not uncommon for the movies of this era to have that accent divided so that it’s super clear, just in case you were thinking of rooting for the Romans that were crucifying Jesus, just in case you had a moment where you thought maybe I’m on their side. They go for the accent just to make it very clear.

Dr G 9:30
That and the way that they decide to portray particular were Romans. Now, Caligula, as we know, doesn’t have heaps of redeeming features, ultimately, and the Romans themselves get pretty jack of them very quickly, they do. So this is what what is about to follow is not the saving of Caligula. Now, when I say I think he might have been overplayed a little bit in this film.

Dr Rad 9:59
Oh, Though I have to admit, though, I kind of enjoy the guy who played here. And he does have the kind of voice that really grates on you in a way that makes you think, yeah, I could assassinate this guy after a few years. I think I’d be annoyed enough.

Dr G 10:15
He is frustratingly inept in his presentation, and because we don’t get a good read on motivation from Caligula, and because it just feels like he’s being played for the sort of the hysterical, maniacal, power driven figure that is portrayed as in this film. It makes him feel a little bit unbelievable, whilst also holding down the position as the bad guy.

Dr Rad 10:46
Yeah, fair enough. Well, before we get too much further into Ahala, we probably should say something about the general storyline of this film. So why don’t you tell us about the the story of Digi

Dr G 10:57
Okay, all right. Well, I mean, it starts off great opening scene. It seems like we’re in the Roman Forum. Everyone’s having a good time. It’s clearly slave-buying season. Not that anybody should be excited about that.

Dr Rad 11:11
I say Why does it not slave-buying season in Rome?

Dr G 11:14
It seems to b a particularly busy time at the moment. And this sets up the few really important dynamics. It allows us to see Marcellus re-meeting his childhood sweetheart, Diana, they haven’t seen each other for many years. So that sets up that relationship. We learn about Diana’s connection as a ward of Tiberius to calendula, potentially as a love interest for him. But we also learn about myself versus ongoing tension with Caligula as well apparently those two don’t get along. And then we have this sort of moment with the slave market, which introduces us to Demetrius as well, who is perhaps the most stoic character in this whole

Dr Rad 12:00
Oh, my God, yes.

Dr G 12:01
So stoic, and this guy kind of just accepts his fate as it is, doesn’t seem to fight one way or the other. But does seem to be motivated by an internal set of principles. And for whatever reason, Demetrius ends up coming to the attention of both Marcellus and Caligula during this slave sail. And this becomes an important point because it’s this moment. And this tension between Marcellus and Caligula, which turns Demetrius is fate. So you technically gets freed in a slave auction through being purchased at such a high price for Marcellus to sort of jab coelicolor A little bit. But because Demetrius feels that this isn’t appropriate to be bought at such a high price just to be set free, he decides to become the manservant of Marcellus anyway. So these two are now bound up together in what appears to be a kind of odd duo, because my Seles then goes on to be like, let’s be friends, if we’re going to hang out together like this. Demetrius is, like, we are not friends. I really owe you. It’s different.

Dr Rad 13:15
I do like the pairing, though. I mean, Burton’s got the voice and Mature’s got this shoulder.

Dr G 13:22
Yeah, so these two end up on adventures together, which are all bound up with calendula in particular ways Caligula is annoyed at Marcellus for this whole debacle in the slave market. So he sends him to Palestine as a bit of a punishment. While he’s there, he ends up in a situation with Pontius Pilate, so that’s good news. Everybody likes it when Pontius Pilate enters the enters the scene, Pontius Pilate sort of commands myself is to be in charge with the crucifixion of Jesus, which is awkward, but also at the same time has a Lady Macbeth moment, which is kind of beautiful, where he’s washing his hands, and he’s like, I need to wash my hands. And he’s slaves like you just wash your hands. Yeah, like the bloods invisible but he’s having trouble guys. He’s ordered the death of Jesus. Then we have some really interesting moments in Palestine, one of which is this trading of the robe. So pivotal to this entire film, it would seem is that we don’t see Jesus very much. We don’t really see his face. We sometimes hear his voice, but we he’s a mysterious figure who seems to have an effect on Demetrius straightaway. When he is on the cross, the robe that he had been wearing has been laid at the bottom of it. One of the Roman soldiers picks it up and it’s like that. We could throw this into the old gambling table. Let’s when the robe of Jesus and Marcellus wins it, but is then sort of overcome when he tries to put it on himself when it’s raining and he wants To protect himself it seems like it has a huge negative effect on him like almost like burns his skin or something. Anyway, it’s it’s horrifying to him and Demetrius just wanders off with the robe in the end does like I’ll take that.

Dr Rad 15:14
But he does have that amazing scene because there’s all that storm happening around them and I must have been I think this is probably one of Victor Mature’s finest moments on screen, where he sort of screams and Richard Burton’s face as he’s, you know, dealing with the effects of the robe and all of that kind of stuff. And he does that whole “murderers, thieves, jungle animals. Masters of the world you call yourselves. I’m curse on you. I curse on your empire.” Mwahahahaha

Dr G 15:51
Lightning strikes in the background and this thunder?

Dr Rad 15:54
Yeah, it’s great. Yeah, the evil laughter was my addition, I should say.

Dr G 16:00
Very intense moment. And Demetrius ends up walking off with the robe, completely unharmed by it, because clearly it’s there’s a connection between his faith and one’s capacity to hold this garment. Sacred as it is. Marcellus ends up back in Rome and seen Tiberius on the Isle of Capri being like what I do, I’ve got this madness. And the Romans in the wisdom decide that the road must be cursed, which is for the Romans had excellent choice really. It’s like that would explain it. So Marcellus is given an imperial commission to destroy this robe. And it’s like, use whatever means you need to.

Dr Rad 16:45
So this is great guys, how many people might have tried it on by now? Yeah,

Dr G 16:48
it’s a disaster. We’ve got to find it as soon as possible.

Dr Rad 16:52
If anybody finds out about this garment, it’s going to be a PR nightmare.

Dr G 16:56
That’s basically what Tiberius says, when when everybody leaves. And he’s like, this is the worst thing that has ever happened in my entire rule.

Dr Rad 17:03
And I’ve had some stuff happen.

Dr G 17:06
We must deal with this instantly.

Dr Rad 17:08
I mean, my brother died, I had to divorce the wife that I loved. I then had to marry a woman I hated the child that we had died, then both my natural son and my adopted son birthday, that was pretty bad. But this this robe. Okay.

Dr G 17:25
It is up there. Yeah. So Marcellus finds himself back in Palestine, because that’s where he last saw Demetrius with the robe. It is like, Well, I’m gonna go back to the source that look for more clues. And this leads to a whole bunch of unfoldings. There’s storytelling things. There’s this slow journey of Marcellus from like quintessential Roman, to like, somebody, embodied in faith, very dedicated Christian, very dedicated across this journey. Yeah, he meets some villagers who really shift his perspective on things. He finds Demetrius again. And all of this sort of nourishes his flourishing belief. So by the time he does get back to Rome, he’s now committed to the cause. And he also hasn’t told anybody that he’s back for ages as well. So

Dr Rad 18:16
Well, yeah, he’s got he’s got new friends now, the Christians. And so Peter,

Dr G 18:20
yeah. And you know, when Diana finds out about this, because she’s been waiting for him this whole time, that he’s hidden, his return from her. She’s not happy about that, and she is that she demands to be taken to him. And that’s when we find out that the Christians are living in the catacombs. Yes. Which, which is awkward, because they should not really exist. Yeah.

Dr Rad 18:47
Minor details, minor details. Yeah,

Dr G 18:50
Look, I was I was all fine for them to just be underground caves, like, Rome is literally riddled with natural springs and cave systems anyway, it’s completely, completely fine and legitimate, but they do refer to them as catacombs. And I was like, guys, you know, that people would have have to be buried in them for them to be catacombs. And the people that we know are buried in the catacombs are. And you guys are the first Christians in Rome. So

Dr Rad 19:17
There’s been a lot of persecution already.

Dr G 19:21
So much, so much persecution already. Anyway, as it turns out, one of the things it’s getting more complicated as the film goes on, but Demetrius has been captured and the Christians have to save him, cuz he’s been tortured for information. Yeah, yeah. And calendula has Demetrius in his grass. Yeah. And is turning the screw as it were. So the Christians all gather together and they managed to pull off a very effective saving of Demetrius and they hide him weirdly at Marcellus his dad’s house. Yeah, although,

Dr Rad 19:57
I was going to say it’s, I like the I like the infiltration because they use myself as a mole. You know, he’s got the clothes, he’s got the accent, he can penetrate into the palace itself in order to rescue Demetrius, which I did appreciate,

Dr G 20:14
Although it is a concern to me that throughout this entire film, Marcellus has been known consistently as the Tribune. So he’s pretty low down on the cursus honorum. And he’s definitely not progressing any higher, because for him after this film, but the thing is that I feel like given the nature of the events, we’ve had two trips to Palestine, at least in the course of this film, that we are looking at over a year. Oh, it’s way more in terms of time. Yeah. And as a magistrate holding the tribuncianship, it seems very unlikely that Marcellus would continue to be attributed over the whole course of this film, or that given the way that he’s behaved, that people would continue to recognize him as Tribune.

Dr Rad 21:03
Yeah, I definitely think it’s meant to be more than a year for sure. But do we think that he is tribune of the plebs or just a military Tribune? That? I don’t know. I feel like I kind of figured he was like a military Tribune.

Dr G 21:17
Well, that is an unfortunate place for the son of a senator to have ended up in terms of his career.

Dr Rad 21:23
I could be wrong, but that because they never really clarify that. But

Dr G 21:27
They don’t. They don’t. And he continues to be attributed throughout the whole that’s true.

Dr Rad 21:31
Yeah, that is true. I think they do use that more than his actual name. Tribune. Give me Yeah, Tribune. I’m having some trouble

Dr G 21:39
You sir, Tribune. I want you to do the crucifixions. today. I’m bored. Yeah. So our final scene. Ultimately, the plot leads us to this moment where it’s the ultimate showdown between Caligula and Marcellus.

Dr Rad 21:56
Yes. Because he’s been captured, he ends up getting captured when he’s trying to get everybody safely. Well, out of Rome, I think they’re going after.

Dr G 22:04
Yeah, he’s trying to get Demetrius safely out of Rome. Yeah. And in the course of that, they’re being run down by some cavalry. And Marcellus chooses to sacrifice himself. Yeah, that his friend can get away. Absolutely. It’s never really been clarified that they are friends now. But what assumes over the course of the travails that they’ve encountered that they now like each other, I think they do. Yeah. Yeah. This means that there is a huge public trial. Myself, his parents are there. All of the elite of Rome there.

Dr Rad 22:38
Yeah, all of them. It’s a massive crowd.

Dr G 22:40
It’s a huge crowd. So many people. Caligula comes in, in what is the reddest garment that has ever been seen on film,

Dr Rad 22:51
that the marvels of Technicolor for you?

Dr G 22:53
It’s incredible. Everybody else looks pale and washed out in comparison. But Caligula Boy, that is some Imperial read that he’s got. This leads into our whole sort of three ways sort of struggle between Diana, Marcellus and Caligula verbally duking it out, essentially.

Dr Rad 23:15
Actually, we should perhaps mentioned that Diana was meant to marry Caligula for a little while there. So yeah, yeah, it’s a triangle or

Dr G 23:24
it’s a triangle. And she certainly makes it clear where she stands to Caligula to the point that he changes his mind about being unwilling to punish her to her definitely having to die.

Dr Rad 23:37
Yeah, well, I mean, it’s a no brainer, really. I mean, when you’re choosing between Richard Burton’s sultry tones, and those of Jay Robinson, I mean, can you imagine that in the bedroom data, add data?

Dr G 23:54
It’s quite something. I mean, I hope he’s got an indoor voice. Just whispered to me, Caligula.

Dr Rad 24:03
Yeah, yeah. So basically clears like, you know what, you guys believe so much in this afterlife and this kingdom of heaven and being saved. No big deal if I execute the both of you, and so they match off quite happily just chip off into the clouds.

Dr G 24:18
Yeah, it’s the way this film ends is a little bit surprising. I felt like after two and a quarter hours of viewing time, I was not expecting the end scene to be a gentle walk by Marcellus and Diana, out of the trial into heaven.

Dr Rad 24:41
I know, I know, but I guess I guess because they knew the sequel was coming. That maybe they felt that that was okay. And look, you know, it’s kind of an anti Hollywood ending. I mean, it’s a happy ending. But it’s not your typical Hollywood ending, I suppose.

Dr G 24:56
Yeah, they do get to stay together forever in love, I suppose. Oh,

Dr Rad 25:01
there’s that. But I mean, I think if you were going for a real Hollywood ending that somehow they would both survive and Galio would become the emperor or something like that. And also maybe the Pope.

Dr G 25:14
Yeah, look, I mean, if you’re gonna rewrite history, I mean, lean in guys.

Dr Rad 25:19
Yeah, exactly. So that’s the rough storyline, which, as you can tell by the fact that it took us 13 minutes to tell you the story. But you know what, we’re saving you from watching a two and a quarter hour movie. So although if you want to it could be fun. I’m not saying you shouldn’t watch it. But you know, 13 minutes on two and a quarter hours. It’s not too bad. So let’s maybe talk about where this movie came in from Dr. G. So whilst Hollywood does love a Christians slash Jewish people versus Romans storyline, it did not come out of thin air is of course, based on a book, of course. Yeah. So it was actually written by a guy called Lloyd C. Douglas. And he was the son of an Indiana pastor. And he became a Lutheran minister himself, before moving over to the Congregational Church, for his career. But he started writing as we got into the like, the late 1920s, he started writing, he wrote this book called “Magnificent Obsession”, and it sold 3 million copies. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. And so by 1933, he was like, You know what, I don’t think I need to be a minister anymore. I think I’m going to be a novelist.

Dr G 26:35
I’ve got a winning formula. And all I need to do is write my books. Yeah,

Dr Rad 26:39
he honestly became one of the most popular novelists in America in this time period. And this is not the Rube is not the only one of his books that was adapted into a film. So well, well, well, they’re not they don’t they’re not only popular in terms of people reading them. They are popular in terms of being picked up and made into Hollywood films. So the robe had been a best seller from 1942 until 1945.

Dr G 27:09
Wow, okay. Yeah. It was on the bestseller list for years.

Dr Rad 27:13
Yeah, absolutely. I presume that publication was maybe slightly slower for like the big novels. I know. They were dying novels and stuff out, you know, in the 1950s that people could buy. And they were turned out very quickly. But I feel like it is a slightly less crowded market, perhaps at this point in time.

Dr G 27:31
It’s a very interesting time for the novel to come out as well, like you’re in the middle of the Second World War.

Dr Rad 27:38
Yeah, you are indeed. So it was eventually bought by RKO. However, they didn’t really act on it. They just sort of bought the rights to it. And you know, by the late 1940s, it’s still something that they’re just sort of sitting on at that. At that point in time. Howard Hughes is in charge of RKO biblical films were not really his thing. He wasn’t as into them as other people seem to have been at the time.

Dr G 28:06
Sounds like how would use it, I might get along. Exactly, yeah.

Dr Rad 28:10
But eventually, Darryl Zanuck and Fox Studios step in. And this is how the film finally kind of gets off the ground and gets made. So that’s just sort of a little bit of background to the film. But as a result, and not, to be honest, this is pretty common for Hollywood movies of this time. There are a number of people who ended up working on the script for the film, because it has such a long production process. But even with the ones that were shorter, it was pretty common to have more than one person, you know, take a look at the script and give their input and that sort of thing. When the film was finally made, it definitely got a huge publicity campaign. So we’re talking radio ads, we’re talking television, we’re talking newspapers, everywhere you look there’s an ad for the road.

Dr G 28:58
Have you seen Cinemascope?

Dr Rad 29:02
Nobody has. It’s the first one to have it. So of course, it’s going to be viewing this new widescreen format which the studios are hoping is going to keep people coming to the movies rather than sitting at home and watching their televisions which of course the becoming a big thing in this post World War Two era and so they make the film’s bigger, more colorful, more extravagant, the kinds of thing that television which is generally a little square, black and white box just can’t really offer you know, we’re talking about also sound you know, stereophonic sound, it’s it’s all a big thing. And it’s given this huge premiere, where it’s like a freaking circus. We’re talking about, you know, the spotlights outside the cinema, the stars are attending, you know, it’s a very, very big deal.

Dr G 29:53
There’s gladiators playing games.

Dr Rad 29:58
Yeah, so it’s definitely a huge to do when it when it comes out. So as you highlighted when this novel was first written, and people were maybe first toying with the idea of making this film, it was a world war two time. And that seems to have been thought to be part of the message of the film when they were first, you know, throwing it around that in some way, Caligula and Rome are meant to be this sort of, you know, decadent place, that they’re somehow the way they’re treating Jewish people slash Christians, because of the crossover. It’s kind of meant to be like the persecutions that were carried out, in particular, I suppose, by Hitler, but also to some extent by Mussolini. So this was definitely meant to be something that people were, I think, picking up on when they were first, you know, developing this into a film.

Dr G 30:59
Look, I think that sounds reasonable. Yeah. Yeah, you do get the sense that the way that the Romans are being positioned in this film is quite particular. And it’s quite different from other epics of this era that I’ve watched so far, because I’m not going to pretend that I’m conversant in all the Hollywood epics.

Dr Rad 31:20
But there are quite a few now.

Dr G 31:22
I have watched a few but I wouldn’t say I’m in any way an expert at this point in time. But it did feel to me like the Romans were being very much positioned in a particular way. And it was, in part to do with, obviously, the focus is on the Christian story. So the Romans are, by default, the bad guys here, but also, that it’s coming out of that sort of post Second War mindset. Well, how do we understand conflict? How do we understand the persecution of peoples? And so while I wasn’t really consciously thinking about it, when I watched it, the vibe that the Romans are giving off in this film is intriguing.

Dr Rad 32:04
Yeah. And I think it’s kind of one of those things as well, where were these sorts of moralizing films, it’s kind of that thing of people get to enjoy watching the Romans have this very fancy schmancy life that they have, whilst also being like, Oh, isn’t a terrible, look at what they’re doing to those poor Christians. So it’s like they because the moral is there, they get to enjoy watching the decadence of Rome. But I didn’t feel like it was as over the top in the robe, as it has been in some of the other movies, we’ve watched, like quovadis, and that sort of thing.

Dr G 32:38
And I feel like the decadence was actually a little bit pared back in this film, like note that it didn’t have like all of the highly colored interior scenes and the layering of different stones and things like that it was obviously trying to be quite opulent in its way. But it also felt like maybe they didn’t have quite as much budget as some other films for some of that stuff. Yeah, definitely.

Dr Rad 33:00
Now, the other interesting thing I’m going to throw in contextually Dr G is that so when this film was purchased, and when it was being made, we’re still in the time of the studio system. So this is a period where you’ve got kind of like five major movie studios that really dominate the production of movies in Hollywood, there are some minor studios. And then there are also some truly budget, you know, just pump out these really crappy movie studios, they do exist. But the major films, particularly the ones that most people would be familiar with today, they’re going to be made by one of these major studios. And it’s kind of that idea of it being like the dream factory time of Hollywood, you know, where they’re manufacturing movies. And so they’re in charge of who gets hired to be director who’s the producer, who’s on contract, like the stars are all under contract at various studios, and they have to make so many pictures per year, and they get paid this much to do it and all that kind of stuff. So huge amount of control. Now, most of these Hollywood studios, these major ones are owned by Jewish movie moguls. This puts them I suppose in an interesting position in the 20th century. Now, of course, I think part of the reason why that ended up being the case is that typically, when when movies first sort of became a thing, it wasn’t necessarily the most admired or respectable profession to be involved in, you know, I mean, it wasn’t the theater.

Dr G 34:33
In the same way that actors in ancient Rome were suffering under the pool of a lack of respect for their craft. Exactly. So too, did early filmmakers, people like that’s not

Dr Rad 34:46
exactly yeah, and I think it’s so it’s something that you do tend to get people that perhaps aren’t risking a wider reputation, I suppose, or aren’t too concerned about what this wider society You may or may not think we’re also talking about people who are potentially immigrants. You know, there’s a whole bunch of reasons why you might end up getting maybe a higher percentage of Jewish people getting involved in the film industry in the early days. And their investment, of course really pays off, because everyone starts to really fall in love with movies, which makes, which makes the people that got involved in the early film industry, very wealthy when they rise to the top. Now, it’s not by any means only Jewish people that are involved. But there is a trend where a lot of the big movie Americans at the studios are Jewish people. Now, they don’t want to be seen to be putting prou Jewish propaganda into their films or things like that, particularly once we get into this time period that we’re talking about, you know, with, obviously, World War Two, I mean, even I mean, obviously, we talk about American history, obviously, there’s always been, I think, a certain stigma against anybody who’s perceived to be an outsider. But particularly in the early 20th century, we know that we see a spike in terms of racism, not just directed against African American groups, but also directed against any immigrant groups, and Jewish people in the 1930s, are increasingly being associated Well, in the 1920s, and the 1930s. Really, they’re increasingly being associated with communism. So especially with everything that’s happened with World War Two, especially, it’s not really a great time, I suppose, to be seen, to be putting out film sort of openly, you know, Pro, the Jewish course. 1919 48, I think makes it particularly touchy issue. Because, of course, this is when we get the creation of the State of Israel. So with the creation of the State of Israel, there was actually a film release that was touching on these sorts of issues, and was kind of pro Israel called the sword in the desert. But there was a riot that broke out in a London cinema when it was shown. And so it was actually withdrawn. And so I think that showed a message of, you know, people aren’t really going to want to see these sorts of films, or at least that’s the feeling. And obviously, we’re talking about Hollywood, it’s a business, you’ve got to, you know, make your money somehow. So a way I suppose, of dealing with that was by making biblical epics, where there is a bit of a focus on, say, the Old Testament. So we do see a lot of Jewish heroes turning up in some of these 1950s epics, another one, of course, played by Victor mature Samson, Samson and Delilah. And then of course, we’ve got Moses turning up in the 10 commandments. And then you’ve got characters like Joshua Solomon, and even in terms of women, you’ve got people like Ruth and Esther turning up in some of these biblical epics. So the robe is kind of an interesting one, because it is obviously crossing that, that line between Old Testament days and entering the New Testament led by one Jesus Christ.

Dr G 38:02
Yeah, we’re in this very interesting storyline. I suspect, and it doesn’t necessarily, I don’t think it’s over in this film. But it’s clear as well, that this is about the genesis of Christianity. And it emerges out of Palestinian culture, that’s clear, both from the geographic location. And it’s clear from the way in which the robe engages with this story as well, like Marcellus goes on this journey, which involves him going into Palestine as part of his job as a Roman, but also learning and discovering things about himself while he is there. Yeah. And for him, that’s not necessarily about Jesus in the beginning. It’s a much longer journey. And so I think part of what this film is trying to do is to try to capture what does this historical moment really mean? For so that sense in which we know that there are people in Palestine during this time period historically, who are being crucified? And what kind of effect does that have on the people who are there at the time? And what kind of stories are they telling about these people? Because one of these stories ends up becoming very influential, and being retold and retold. So this is an interesting way to tackle it, I think, through the eyes of somebody who is Roman, and also through the eyes of someone who is not Roman, but he’s also an outsider.

Dr Rad 39:34
Yeah, it is a really interesting film in that respect. And I think also the choice of having it I mean, obviously, they had to place it when they did if they were going to be accurate about when Jesus was supposedly alive and when he was being crucified. But I think there is also a tendency to set these sorts of movies during the Empire, not just because historically it makes sense, but also because there are publican era of Rome had been such a model for the USA itself. And they like to think of themselves as you know, inheriting some of those Republican Roman values. So a way I suppose dealing with the fact that they like, we’re like the Romans, they’re like, oh, wait a second. Not those Romans. Yeah. When like their republic and Romans, not those decadent, Imperial Roman, it’s not the USA.

Dr G 40:26
I mean, they’re very lucky in that regard that the timeline is what it is. Because imagine if this had happened in the Republic, and it very well could have because

Dr Rad 40:35
Their heads would literally explode

Dr G 40:38
We are not that far into the imperial period.

Dr Rad 40:44
Now, of course, for that there were some minor contextual factors. So the rivalry from television, we’ve got the studio system, and the people that are behind the studio system, follow the money, did you?

Dr G 40:57
Well, yeah. Like I hear Jean Simmons had to, like, break contract and get a different contract in order to do partly to be in this film.

Dr Rad 41:04
That’s generally what they had to do. There’s always sort of like they it was, it was almost as though the celebrities were like trading cards. And, you know, studios would be like, Look, I really want so and so from this picture, they be just right for the role. What can you do I will trade you these two women for that woman for six months? Or? Or yeah, they will, they had to renegotiate their contracts. Because often their contracts would be like for seven years. So it’s quite a substantial chunk of time. So we’ve got television, we’ve got the studio system, we’ve got the creation of Israel, whilst this film is very slowly being developed. And then of course, the big thing that we need to talk about is the Red Scare of the 1950s. Don’t know. Thank you, thank you, I needed a sound effect. So by the time the room is finally like properly in production, which is by the early 1950s, we’re looking at a second round of huge hearings, which is the house of UnAmerican Activities Committee. And these are the people that are most notorious for trying to root out communists in various industries in America, but in particular, in Hollywood, and I say in particular, in that it was probably obviously the most widely publicized.

Dr G 42:23
Yeah, it’s a horrifying time to be for the progressive political nature.

Dr Rad 42:27
Yes. So there’s been a lot of talk about the robe and the whack hearings. Because of course, there are some key scenes in the room, which some people have taken to mean, that this film was trying to talk about the present happenings in America, whilst extensively talking about the past. I’m wondering if you can guess which scenes I’m talking about Dr. G. I

Dr G 42:53
don’t know that I can. I didn’t have this moment where I was like, aha, that’s a clear us moment. I had moments where I was like, this is another Lady Macbeth reference.

Dr Rad 43:04
Very possibly,

Dr G 43:05
maybe they’re the same. Look, there is this scene on the ship back to Italy, where Barcellos seems to be involuntarily moaning a bit like a lady while he’s asleep. As there is the sound of the hammer on the deck of the ship. Could this be a hammer and sickle reference that I’ve missed? Could this? Could this be a recollection of his role in the crucifixion? Where the sounds are the hammer of minds him of the of the nails that he drilled into Jesus’s body? Anyway? I don’t know. But that was a great scene.

Dr Rad 43:43
Well, basically, it is the scene where Tiberius is talking to Marcellus, the Tribune, about finding out about the road, like tracking it down. Yeah, reaching out all the Christians, all of that kind of stuff. So he explicitly says to Marcellus, you know, I need a list of names every name, I need to know who these people are, we need to hunt them down, we need to route them down. So that has sometimes been seen as a not very subtle reference to what he wack was trying to do in the late 1940s. And in the early 1950s, because this film, of course, came out in 1953. So it was out after two rounds of Hollywood hearings, the of the committee, so some people have seen that as being a reference. But I did find this article which delves into the complicated production of this film. And part of I think the reason why people were so keen to see a parallel is that the major screenwriter during the early days of production for the robe was Albert moths. Now, Albert mult isn’t a minor very well, because he was one of the Hollywood 10. So he’s one of the original guys that ends up getting called up in 1947. Before he work along with another guy, I know, Dalton Trumbo, he and Trump We’re pretty tight.

Dr G 45:02
Of course they are.

Dr Rad 45:05
Yeah, yeah. And then the next guy to work on the script is a guy called Philip Dunne. Now he ended up being part of a group of people in Hollywood called the committee for the First Amendment. So this is a reference to the fact that when the US UK hearing started to happen in 1947, quite a lot of the more liberal people in Hollywood were, of course horrified by what was happening, these people that they know, these people that they’ve worked with, and they perhaps were just liberal enough to not think that this was actually something that should be happening in America. So a bunch of them get together to try and rally support for the Hollywood 10. And they end up calling themselves the committee for the first amendment because one of the decisions one of the key decisions that the Hollywood tena decided to make in 1947, is that they were going to plead the First Amendment and not the fifth. Okay, so they’re not they’re not pleading,

Dr G 46:04
now, you’re really testing my understanding of the US Constitution, because I do not know what the First Amendment stands for adults. Basically,

Dr Rad 46:13
we’re talking about the Fifth Amendment is your right to not incriminate yourself, which tends to be what happens later on in the huge tech hearings, because the First Amendment doesn’t work. The First Amendment we’re talking about things like your freedom of speech. Okay, your your basic freedoms, like some of the things that Americans cling to, most daily, I see. And they basically say that they want to do that rather than pleading the fifth when they get called up in front of this committee, because to plead the fifth kind of has the connotation, I suppose that you have done something criminal, I was

Dr G 46:49
gonna say, surely pleading, the fifth is already an implication of

Dr Rad 46:53
kind of, I mean, like, it’s not really, that’s not really what it necessarily means, but it does have that connotation. Whereas the First Amendment, it’s more about fundamental freedom, like if you’re at risk

Dr G 47:04
of incriminating yourself, doesn’t that make you criminal?

Dr Rad 47:07
Well, I mean, this is the thing. No, it doesn’t have to, it’s more just the fact that obviously, you have the right not to incriminate yourself, maybe accidentally, but it just, it just has that connotation. So yeah. So that’s why it became a big thing because they took that stance that they were going to plead the First Amendment and argue this and it does not go well for them. And why? Yeah, yeah, that’s a shame. He’d been one of the he was he was known to be a political liberal. And he was one of the founding members of this group, which also included some very well known names like you know, Lauren Bacall, Humphrey Bogart. Yeah. Lots of people who would do you know, radio announcements, telling people look, this is what is happening right now. This is terrifying. We need to do something about it. We need to rally and show support. So there’s definitely some leftist feelings coming out of the screen writing. There’s just just like, catch Dr. G. O. Albert molts was riding the robe up until about 1946. I wonder if you can do some quick math for me and tell me what the problem is with that? Well, it’s

Dr G 48:10
after the Second World War for the huge tech hearings? I don’t know. That’s exactly

Dr Rad 48:15
right. It’s before the HUAC hearing. So how could he be making coded reference to the US hearings before the hearings?

Dr G 48:24
I mean, the guy’s got four. So what can I say? He’s a smart man. And he saw it coming. Yeah. So

Dr Rad 48:33
while says obviously potential for there to be some Anti Fascist stuff, because yeah, that album also sort of worked into the script. You know, in terms of what everyone’s just been going through with World War Two, it seems unlikely that Albert moulds would have been able to work in huge references before the huge hearings, that became a problem for him in 1947.

Dr G 48:59
You do make a very sound argument and I am convinced,

Dr Rad 49:03
I would like to claim this as my own but somebody else went into the archives in this effort. However, that still leaves the question of fill Phillip done. Okay.

Dr G 49:15
Yes, sinister.

Dr Rad 49:18
Well, not necessarily mean, I actually quite like the sound of him. He sounds like I’ve gotten a guy.

Dr G 49:23
Philip is done. That’s what I’m told.

Dr Rad 49:26
I suppose there are also they’re also supposed to pretend potential references to kind of like blacklisting and curricula being a somewhat McCarthy like figure particularly in that last big scene that you talked about. Okay, the way that he talks about the way he’s talking to Gallio in that final showdown of his seen,

Dr G 49:49
also the way he has plants in the audience to backup his position, which, which aren’t enough to get it across the line anyway, which is kind of hilarious because you think As the Emperor he’d be able to buy off more people. But he’s then also immediately called out for this by Diana being like, that’s all you got the people you planted in the crowd.

Dr Rad 50:10
I know she’s very outspoken. I love the fact that in both Demetrius and the Gladiator, and sorry, Demetrius of the Gladiators, and The Robe, we have these final scenes where Roman women are super outspoken in a public fora. Yeah, in a way that I think would not fly in reality. No, just laying into them. Yeah. But I think the thing that really came through for me when I was rewatching, it is that Marcellus is very clear to Caligula that look, this is just what I believe. I’m not trying to take down Rome, you know, I can, I can be loyal to both of you, which I think is very interesting, because that’s kind of the line that a lot of people who were brought up before the huge tech committee in the 1940s, and the 1950s, were trying to argue, the majority of them, I mean, particularly those who worked in Hollywood, sure, I’m sure there are some rogue communists out there in the states who were aiming higher, but in terms of the Hollywood people, they weren’t trying to take over the state.

Dr G 51:14
And this is also I think, tapping into some bigger ideas that I think America at this time had about itself. And maybe these ideas linger today in various ways, which is when Marcellus makes this dichotomy between his ability to serve Rome, which is completely uncompromised and his perspective, and his personal interest in pursuing his beliefs, to the extent to which they don’t affect his capacity to serve Rome, is tapping into that idea of freedom of religion. And also, this vaunted, but potentially quite false idea of the separation of religion and state, which is a very modern invention. And once we look into any state system, almost completely unsupported by the evidence at play on the ground in any nation state of today.

Dr Rad 52:10
Yeah, definitely. Now, one of the interesting things is that we do actually have a record of Maltz’s version of the script, which Philip Dunne would have used to develop his idea. And Maltz definitely had more scenes that develop this idea of the need for the naming of names. And it also included a bit more development with the character of Abbey door. Now Abbey door is the informant, that must sell us users to try and find out about the Christian, the Jewish slash Christian community that he is tracking down. So in Maltz’s, version, Marcellus actually gives avatar a coin in exchange for every name that is brought to him. These These were not kept, obviously in Dunne’s version, which begs the question, was it purely because if there’s already an incredibly long fail, or was it that by the time that done was working on the script, those sorts of references might have been seen as maybe too problematic?

Dr G 53:19
Maybe unseemly, given the circumstances that we’re facing right now in Hollywood? Let’s not mention that.

Dr Rad 53:26
Exactly. Yeah. Because it is no doubt that Philip Dunne is was somebody who was anti-HUAC, but the thing is, he was also anti communist. So the people that were part of this committee for the First Amendment, they weren’t necessarily communists themselves. In fact, I would say that generally, they were not communists at all. They were just people who thought that he work was wrong. And thought it was important to speak out against the freedoms that were to speak out because they were basic American freedoms that were being trampled on. And also because I presume, again, because of that natural affinity for people that you knew and people that you worked with being, you know, put in this horrible situation.

Dr G 54:11
Yeah, look, I think that’s completely fair. You always want to stick up for your friends.

Dr Rad 54:16
Yeah. So I mean, I guess it’s like one of those movies that in a way you can kind of read it, however you like, in that you can see it as being a critique of totalitarianism. Okay, it could be seen, as you know, you could see Caligula and the Romans as being kind of Stalinist communist figures and that you’re living in a repressive state, or you can read it as being I suppose, a critique of the kind of repression that was going on during the hue Acura, I think

Dr G 54:45
it offers itself to a range of these sorts of interpretations and the importance of the positioning of the audience in this to very much be on the side of Marcellus and that unfolding personal journey Ready to understanding is part of the key way that it’s navigating all of these tension.

Dr Rad 55:06
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So overall, Dr. G, after, after us talking all about all these various contextual issues for the making of the room. What is your final impression of this film?

Dr G 55:21
Oh look, I don’t want to see it again. I know, I like my Roman history to just be a little bit more grandiose. I don’t know that I’m into it as being a backdrop for some other sort of moral didacticism, which it feels very strongly as what’s going on here. I did enjoy the elder Tiberius, he seemed like the most reasonable guy around traps in this building.

Dr Rad 55:54
Although I must admit, I thought you would pick up on this, did you pick up on the fact that Tiberius was very skeptical about Roman religious practices?

Dr G 56:03
I mean, I suppose he should be. He’s seen enough in his time. And in terms of my overall I probably gonna give it maybe three stars, it’s clearly been very well put together for its time and its age. I want to see more Romans, the robe, it didn’t feel like it was well explained.

Dr Rad 56:26
You mean how the magic worked.

Dr G 56:29
Look, guys, what’s going on with this robe?

Dr Rad 56:33
Well, I think it’s kind of interesting, because I suppose like a lot of blockbuster films these days. Interestingly, there was a bit of a divide between critics and the audience. So as I mentioned at the beginning, clearly it was well patronized, lots of people went to see it, you know, and I think that, that has to be partly put down to the fact that it was a new screen technology. And even though television might have been enticing people away from the movies a little bit, there’s still no way that a 1950s television could compete with the sort of star studded epics. That was so colorful. And you know, the other than that, you know, the sound has been so rich, and the colors were so dazzling. I don’t think television could really compete with these sorts of things. So I can see why the average person on the street with like them, but critics were a little bit more hesitant about this sort of film. So I did find an article which I will cite in the show notes, which had some of my favorite ways of summing up the robe, so I thought you might enjoy them as well. So from the New Statesman on the 28th of November 1953. Most of the film I have found dull and the rest nauseating.

Dr G 57:50
Goodness me Well, that one’s not not enjoying it at all.

Dr Rad 57:54
From the Daily Mail on the 20th of November 1953, fundamentally, distasteful

Dr G 58:00
Distasteful.

Dr Rad 58:03
From the evening news on the 20th of November 1953, just money down the drain. From the Evening Standard, on the 20th, November 1953, boring heavy faltered and ham fisted

Dr G 58:18
look, I think I’d agree with that, to be honest,

Dr Rad 58:21
from the Sunday Express on the 22nd of November, tediously earnest and crushingly sentimental. And finally, my favorite one from the Financial Times 20th of November 1953. Although why the Financial Times of reviewing the robe I will never know. A long lacrimose, high class sleeping draught.

Dr G 58:44
I spent a lot of money and I napped very well. Thank you. Yeah, look, and I hear that I did find it tough to get through this film. And I will say that there is a moment where I expected the robe to really do itself justice. And the robe failed to show up. And that’s the moment where Demetrius is clearly at death’s door. Oh, sure. Yeah, there at Marcellus, his dad’s house, and the Roman physician is there. And he’s like, look, there are limits to what science can achieve. It’s like I can’t put the blood back in his body. And yeah, kind of gives up on it. And then he walks out there, we have pee to go in. I was like, it’s now time for the robe. Surely a healthy application of the robe is going to fix this guy. But not only do we not get to see it, but it doesn’t seem like the robe was involved. There’s some other miracle happening there. And I was like, Guys, you really missed a trick. The robe could have done the job, and it would have made the magic. palpably real for everybody at that point.

Dr Rad 59:52
I know exactly what you mean. But it since they were already planning a sequel, lest we forget that that’s what cures Demetrius’ love in Demetrius and the Gladiators, part two of The Robe. So I wonder if they knew that that was going to be the plot device for that. Alright. I don’t want to undercut the power of the robe. No, yeah, you can’t, you got to overuse a piece of fabric. And of course,

Dr G 1:00:14
I went into this already knowing that piece of information because we’ve talked about the sequel before we’ve talked about the original. So I was kind of like, surely it’s robe time, just to wave the robe over and gently have a stand. Yeah, that’s a little blanket. And it’s like, he’s gonna come good. Trust me. We know this. But they don’t. And I was like, Ah,

Dr Rad 1:00:35
I wonder if it’s because they needed to make use of, you know, Peter, a little bit more St. Peter. They needed his talents on display. I mean, he was

Dr G 1:00:42
definitely under utilized in this film. I think I was like, Why is he here? He’s got to get to Rome. Somehow. I suppose.

Dr Rad 1:00:49
I met the guy who plays him. I mean, come on, he really does look like something out of a DaVinci painting. I love that guy. Like already, hats off to you definitely has the look. Yeah, yeah. And I think we mentioned this when we talked about Demetrius and the gladiators. Lest we forget that Christianity became a vehicle for showing your patriotism in this time period in America. And we all know how much Americans love and showing their patriotism. And so it was kind of like one of those things where if the Soviets your enemy in the Cold War, godless communists, then Americans, freedom loving Christians, and so going to church every week was a sign of not only your personal religious faith, but your loyalty to America and your patriotism. So I kind of presume that going to the sorts of films, it must have been something that was very much a part of the, you know, the general vibe, particularly in certain areas in America in this time period.

Dr G 1:01:56
Oh, yeah, definitely. And I can imagine there’d be people trying to sell the robe after you left the cinema as well.

Dr Rad 1:02:05
Well, funny, you should mention that because I do have another statistic here from also another article that I will cite in the show notes. That said that tells me that between 1950 and 1963 Ancient World epics topped the US box office in seven out of the 13 years, so I don’t so we have Samson and Delilah, Victor Mature in 1950. David and Bathsheba in 1951, The Robe in 1953. Then there’s a little bit of a lull, is it because of The Robe?

Dr G 1:02:39
Probably everybody’s like I brought all my tickets. I really can’t afford to go to the cinema.

Dr Rad 1:02:44
The Ten Commandments in 1957 Ben Hur in 1960s Spartacus in 1962 and Cleopatra in 1963. And Quo Vadis in 1952 was second only pipped at the post by the greatest show on earth. Wow. And this is the same. This is the thing whilst we might say okay, so maybe there’s a bit of a yearning for Christianity in this time period because of the cold war. But it’s the same way the world over. Now. To be fair, the world is more Christian, as in there are more people that would probably identify as Christians in general, in this time period, as well. So perhaps not surprising, but they don’t have to go and see it to show their loyalty to their governments or whatever they’re trying to do. So that’s true. Yeah, yeah. But I thought I wanted to use this to sum up with, okay, the road, we’ve done it, I agree with you. It’s not my favorite, although I do love Richard Burton and Gene Simmons, as actors in this film, and I do enjoy a bit of curricula. I actually think I enjoyed Demetrius and the gladiators more. But I thought a good way of summing this up was to take this little snippet from a Sunday Times critic called Delos Powell. She wrote something which I really enjoyed, which were the Scripture prizes 1932 to 1961. Are you ready for the awards? Dr. G?

Dr G 1:04:06
I’m ready.

Dr Rad 1:04:07
Okay. The award for most vulgar film goes to the side of the cross. Applause Applause Applause

And that’s a film from the 1930s. The award for Most nauseating film goes to Quo Vadis.

The award for the most exhausting film goes to The Ten Commandments.

Dr G 1:04:38
That is exhausting as true.

Dr Rad 1:04:40
The award for the most nondescript film goes to The Robe.

Dr G 1:04:47
Nondescript, yeah,

Dr Rad 1:04:50
the award for the most luxurious bloodbaths goes to Samson and Delilah. The award for the most idiotic additional dialogue goes to the big fisherman. award for the most genteel orgy goes to Solomon and Sheba.

Dr G 1:05:15
She’s just making these categories up.

Dr Rad 1:05:18
Yeah, that’s the point. And finally, a special chariot race award goes to Ben Hur,

Dr G 1:05:29
Hur hur hur. I mean, I’d be very surprised if it went to The Fall of the Roman Empire. But it’s up there.

Dr Rad 1:05:38
Oh, I think that would definitely be number two, surely. And I will I very much like talking to you about the road because whilst the robe might not actually be the most flashy of the ethics of the Golden Age in the 1950s, it certainly has a lot of the things that I like to talk about, which is the war on television, the studio system at play modern politics, in terms of the foundation of the State of Israel, and of course, American domestic politics, the background of the huge tech hearings and the hunt for reds under the bed.

Dr G 1:06:19
Yes, wow. Caligula did have a very red robe and that should be a hint to anybody

Dr Rad 1:06:25
Absolutely.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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

We were thrilled to sit down and talk with Assistant Professor Katharine Huemoeller about her research into the representation of enslaved women during slave revolts in ancient Rome. This conversation reveals plenty of food for thought about the representation of women in the ancient world as well as exploring the way women go on to be represented in later eras.

Special Episode – Enslaved Women during Slave Revolts with Assistant Professor Katharine Huemoeller

And rightly so. Conditions for enslaved people in ancient Rome could vary widely from difficult manual roles such as mining and agriculture to the challenges of proximity to enslavers in the domestic sphere. Human trafficking also has a significant role to play in understanding gladiators. Assistant Professor Huemoeller takes us through some of the main ways to consider slavery in Rome before turning our attention to three key slave revolts:

These examples offer the opportunity to consider enslaved women a little more closely and it’s here that the conversation gets really interesting.

A coloured mosaic depicting two lovers together surrounded by attendants (likely slaves).
One pour liquid from a vessel; one attends beside the bed.
Image courtesy of Wikimedia Commons. Taken in the Kunsthistorisches Museum (Vienna, Austria)

A painting called ‘The Slave Market’ by Gustave Boulanger (1886) which shows a range of enslaved people waiting to be sold. Most wear discs around their neck indicating their enslaved status.

Thanks to the glorious Bettina Joy de Guzman for our theme music.

Generated by Otter AI. Hopes and prayers for the AI learning our Australian accents, Latin terms, and other very niche phrases!

Dr Rad 0:16
Welcome to The Partial Historians,

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

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

Dr G 0:34
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.

Welcome to a special episode of The Partial Historians, I am one of your hosts Dr. Rad

Dr G 1:07
and I’m Dr. G.

Dr Rad 1:09
We are joined by a very exciting guest who shares some of our interests today, we are joined by Professor Huemoeller. Assistant Professor Huemoeller worked for a nonprofit, the National Women’s Law Centre in Washington, DC for several years before returning to the academic world. She has taught at Princeton University, Middlebury College, and at US correctional facilities through the prison teaching initiatives. She is currently the Assistant Professor of Roman History at the University of British Columbia. And we are very excited to talk to her today, because her special areas of interest include things like slavery and sexual violence, and we’re going to be another word excited about sexual violence. But we’re excited that we’re going to be talking about issues of slavery and gender. That’s probably what I should say. So welcome to the show.

Katharine Huemoeller 1:59
Thank you so much. That always happens to me. I can’t wait to teach this class on slavery. It’ll be interesting that Yeah.

Dr Rad 2:08
All right. So let’s kick off with one of our introductory questions. So you’ve obviously written a lot about incidents of slave results in the Roman Republic, but just to set the scene for our listeners, can you tell us a little bit about the status of slaves in Rome?

Katharine Huemoeller 2:24
Yeah, absolutely. So I’ll talk specifically about slaves in the Republican era, because slavery is quite distinct in different periods of Roman history. And it really sort of takes off in terms of numbers in the Italian peninsula, in the third and second centuries BCE, as Rome expands, more and more people are trafficked into Italy, and sold on the slave market. So there’s a direct link between Roman conquest and the growth of the Roman Empire and the growth of the Roman slave system. But what slavery looked like and how it was experienced was extremely diverse. And some people were were employed on plantation style, agricultural estates, for surplus, you know, production of food, with very, very tough conditions, very harsh conditions, and very little chance of ever being manumitted, much less living a very long life. Other people lived in an urban context, or worked in a domestic context. And the lived conditions were perhaps a bit better than agricultural slavery. But it came with its own horrors, including proximity to owners, maybe increased chance of sexual violence and sexual exploitation, especially for enslaved women, but also for enslaved men. So it looked really different depending on who your owner was, and where you lived, and also, who you were, where you came from. And if you are a man or a woman or a child or an adult.

Dr G 3:58
Yeah, it’s a there’s a lot to take in when it comes to thinking about like the status of slaves in the ancient Roman world, just because there are so many diverse areas that somebody could end up in in terms of like, their place, either like, maybe it will be mining, maybe it will be in the field, maybe it will be in the home. And all of those come with their own risks. And to I don’t think we should ever underestimate the nature of the human workforce that is being utilised in many ancient societies in particularly ancient Rome, just in terms of when you look back to see what was achieved and also the labour that was utilised to achieve those things. So thank you so much for giving us a bit of a taste of the things that are going to be coming out. As we delve further into the questions.

Katharine Huemoeller 4:53
That point about under estimating is an important one too, because the big challenge with ancient slavery is I mean, we can say It looks very diverse, that’s clearly true. But it’s hard to say much else definitively because our record for ancient slavery is is so difficult. And certain types of slavery, certain sleeving strategies appear appear more clearly in the historical record than others. So we have more information, for example, about agricultural slavery in this period, you know, and sort of less idea what’s going on in a domestic context or more information about enslaved men than about enslaved women. So it’s always the question of filling in these very large gaps in our archive.

Dr Rad 5:35
Oh, definitely. Look, we’ve found we’ve been looking at the Roman monarchy a bit because we’ve been working on a book on that period. And as you said, I tend to think of slavery more later in room’s history, you know, during the Republic, when we start to see those big wars that are happening, and lots of people being captured in a conflict and then being made slaves, and then that obviously setting up the possibility of having more slaves because their people are bought into slavery, etc, etc. But the crazy thing was that when we actually stopped and looked at the records, there were references to slaves, and they were everywhere, even in that very early period. And whilst Okay, yeah, some things you know, you might look at them as being maybe troops or something like that. There’s just so many references to think that slavery itself wasn’t a part of Roman society, even all the way back at the beginning.

Katharine Huemoeller 6:27
Yeah, I completely agree. And I think there’s still a lot of work to be done on these earlier forms of slavery. I mean, obviously, it’s in the tall tables, which I know you guys covered. And that’s a great indication that it’s, you know, significant, and it’s a maybe a fairly clear demarcated legal status. But then, of course, it’s also, you know, only one of many different types of dependency in that period, including debt bondage, and, and maybe there was less of a clear line between these types of exploitation. And then the other issue, of course, is that I think in that early period, maybe there are more enslaved people coming from closer to the city of Rome, as opposed to from very far away. And so I expect there, you know, there’s a difference there in terms of the relationship of ethnicity and slavery, but I think there’s a lot more work to be done.

Dr G 7:17
Definitely. Yeah, once you start looking into the little tidbits that we do have access to is like, Yeah, you get the sense that this is a much wider picture. And there’s much more that we can learn as we go along. So thinking about your work and where it has led you in your research, you have focused on three main revolts, slave revolts. So when people are rising up against these conditions that they have found themselves in their lack of agency, and then recapturing that through the process of revolt. And I’m wondering if we can just go through the details of them a little bit. So starting with the revolt of the Volsinii in 265 BCE? What’s going on there?

Katharine Huemoeller 8:00
Yeah, this is one I really didn’t know much about until I started researching this topic. This the Spartacus revolt is very famous, right?

Dr Rad 8:07
I’ve never heard of it.

Katharine Huemoeller 8:14
So um, so this revolt is as definitely more small scale earlier on right in the third century, middle third century. And the sources for it are a bit sketchy, but it is attested in multiple sources. And what seems to happen is that there’s some sort of uprising in this atrocity and city. And it’s a sort of class struggle, and the exact identity of the people rising after it is different in different sources. In some sources, they’re enslaved people. And it’s a serious enough for revolt that the city asks Rome to intervene and assist and, you know, setting the social order back to what it was. So that’s, that’s one of these revolts. And I think it’s an interesting one, because it’s clear that there’s actually a lot of smaller scale revolts happening in the third and second century that we only hear little snippets about, but it seems actually to have been quite frequent. And Amy racialist has done some work on gathering these into a timeline in her slave theatre book. So, just recognising that probably this is happening quite frequently in the Italian peninsula and these two in these two centuries, even though you know, the ones we hear about are these larger scale ones that are called the really the first second and third servile wars essentially. So moving into the second one there, or the first one there, that’s a little less than a century later and the 130s in on the island of Sicily. So, all of these are taking place, you know, I guess I say the Italian peninsula but including Sicily, so in you know, Italy, Southern Italy and Sicily, in regions where agriculture is, you know, predominant. And this first slave revolt is led by a charismatic figure named Yunus As who sort of rises up in one of the major cities in the Catanian plain of Sicily, again, this really important sort of grain producing region, and he manages to, you know, work with other enslaved people in the area to capture the city, and then the revolt spreads to the whole island. And you know, that’s when, of course, Rome takes notice. And then the third one that’s quite that I focus on is the Spartacus slave war, sometimes known as the third slave war, which again, is happening a little less than a century after that. So in the 70s BCE, and in this one, an interesting man, a very enigmatic man named Spartacus, who is maybe Thracian, maybe not, is captured and enslaved in a gladiatorial school in Capua, and manages to break out along with other enslaved Gladiators, and maybe his wife, but we’ll get to that. And once again, you know, similarly to the first slave revolt, the revolt is sort of, at first seen as a minor thing, and not much effort is put to putting it down. And then it sort of grows in size as the rebel army starts to grow as encompasses other people, other enslaved people, but also maybe other free but disenfranchised people in the south of Italy. And it becomes a quite massive revolts that, you know, the Roman army actually takes a few years to suppress.

Dr Rad 11:29
Amazing, thank you so much for that. So obviously, there’s a lot that is interesting about these slave revolts. But I believe the reason that you have focused on these ones in your article was that these revolts involve violence, and particularly, they are revolts that involve sexual violence. And we’ve got records of that. So what did you notice about the way this violence has been represented in the sources?

Katharine Huemoeller 11:57
Yeah, so these these revolts came to my notice, because I am currently working on a book project on the sexual exploitation of enslaved people. And what I noticed in these revolts is that one of the types of violence that the enslaved rebels are said to direct at the free people, and particularly at their enslavers is sexual violence. And so I was interested in looking at sort of what how that manifested itself, not so much to understand what happened during these revolts. But instead to understand from the perspective of these free writers, what did they think enslaved people wanted to rebel against? What kind of violence did they think they wanted to inflict on the Masters, understanding that this is essentially a sort of role reversal, where the enslaved people are said to inflict the types of violence that they themselves have experienced as slaves? So I thought this could tell me something about the conditions of slavery. What I found when I looked at the sources is that there’s actually lots of different types of sexual violence that are inflicted on free people in these revolts. But it’s all directed at free women. And so what we see is that the slave rebels are said to commit acts of rape, and other types of sexual outrage, essentially, it’s very vague, to free matrons and to free virgins, and that these are done in front of their husbands or fathers. And that second part of that second detail clued me in to the fact that these acts are actually sort of intended to injure the free men, using the free women sort of as an instrument. And so that’s, that’s what I became interested in, through studying these is the way in which these enslaved men are sort of claiming the privileges of free masculinity in the revolts.

Dr G 13:56
Yeah, this is a really interesting aspect and insight into Roman sexuality, isn’t it? Because the this ties back into these ideas about the power that is thought to be inherent from a Roman perspective in sexual encounters, where it’s partly to do with the gender of the people involved, but it’s also partly to do with how you place yourself in the patriarchal hierarchy of Roman society who gets to do who to white becomes super important for being able to like know exactly where you sit socially, not just sexually, and the utilisation of women in this not as sort of agents in their own right, but perhaps as vehicles for conveying something about Roman masculinity is not at all surprising, but incredibly infuriating. I feel like

Katharine Huemoeller 14:50
yeah, that Yeah, that’s exactly right. What I’ve what I found is that it wasn’t just that these enslaved men were raping the free women. It was also the If they were, for example, protecting some free women from rape and choosing to rape others, or so this idea that the free masculinity or hegemonic masculinity and Roman society is about not just getting to do what you want to other people, but choosing right, who experiences what and who was allowed to do what. And so that includes not only, you know, sexual violence directed and enslaved people, but also that includes the sort of protection or maybe you could say, I don’t know, supervision, control of free women. So one of the stories that we get in the slave revolts is that the slave rebels choose this one teenage free woman who was very kind to them when they were enslaved, and they escort her to the house of her family members, and explicitly are protecting her sexual virtue. And I think that is as much a privilege of free masculinity, as you know, raping the matrons in front of their husbands.

Dr Rad 16:06
Absolutely. And I mean, obviously, this sexual violence is taking place in a broader context as well. Like, that’s not the only privilege that they’re claiming all of the time. And the one that particularly stood out to me in this regard is the the revolt of Athena, which I never really heard of before reading your article, as you said, it’s the lesser known. So thinking about what the slaves might have been trying to achieve through their actions, you know, more broadly speaking, because I know that during that particular revolt, they take all sorts of crazy actions, you wouldn’t expect slaves to, you know, to be able to take or to even maybe want to take in trying to, you know, set themselves up in a new way of life after their revolt. Yeah,

Katharine Huemoeller 16:49
this is a really interesting one. So supposedly, they, they sort of enact a number of reforms. It’s actually very, it’s very legalistic, rather than, you know, crazy violence, right. So one of the things they do is they become senators, they set up a sort of their own Senate. Another thing they do is they sort of rewrite the rules of inheritance. And it’s a little unclear, either they become the heirs to their former owners, or they write their own wills, it’s not clear which one and then they also rewrite the rule of stupid, which is illicit sex in Roman law. So this is technically happening in an attractive city, but extremely Roman. And always. And so what they say is that a free woman is is not allowed to get married to a free man, until an enslaved man has, has had sex with her first, which is just an extremely strange reform, and is again clearly linked to these ideas about what masculinity is and how to punish free men. And this is the sort of ultimate punishment right to make them marry a woman over whom they’ve had no control over her chastity or sexual virtue.

Dr G 18:05
I think this also tells us something about the nature of what our written sources, perhaps fear most, they’re kind of writing a narrative about, like, what are they most afraid of happening to them? If the slaves succeed? This is not a narrative of how slaves might have pursued their own freedom or how they would have defined it. I don’t know if I was a slave, I’d want to be my first task would be inheritance law, for instance.

Katharine Huemoeller 18:30
Right? Yeah, absolutely. This is like all of these sources are about what free people fear, they, I think have give us almost nothing about what actually happened with these revolts, or what the enslaved people want. But yeah, what’s so notable about about their desires, as represented in these sources is that they just want to be the free men, they want to take over all of their life and their privileges and their wives and their daughters. There is nothing in these accounts, hardly about enslaved women, or children. Right. So the idea here is that these men, when they sort of take control of society, they want to marry the wives of their former owners. That is not like what we see, for example, in Roman comedy, which is from a similar time period, right in which matrons are like gross, no one wants. They’re not. They’re not like objects of desire, right? But in these narratives, they are like, these are the women who are raped or taken as wives by these by these freed slaves. And so what we’re seeing there definitely is intended to show what emasculation looks like, I think in the Roman worlds, that’s what’s feared. And of course, you get that in the military context, right? The slaves are actually winning battles against the Romans. That’s really embarrassing to and emasculating. And now we also see sort of what’s emasculating in the private sphere in the home, or in the domestic sphere. Well, it’s

Dr Rad 19:58
so fascinating that you mentioned this, but because we one of the categories that we use in our show, when we’re ranking, the Romans performance when we’re doing a narrative is where source. So this inherently masculine, you know, like value, I suppose you’d call it or quality. And we try and think of that as obviously the, in a way, it’s like that right to take action, and to do so in a particular way. And it kind of ties into what you’re talking about, I think a little bit here about what the slaves are trying to claim potentially.

Katharine Huemoeller 20:32
Yeah, absolutely. It’s, it’s definitely where to send the Roman the Roman definition of virtue of manliness, the ability to dictate what gets done to other people, all of these other people who are subordinate to the, you know, the free male head of household. And I think that this is really encapsulated in one other event from these revolts that we haven’t talked about, which is a very another very strange one. It is the slave supposedly throw a funeral for a free captive matron, who has committed suicide, because she was raped by these slave rebels. And then to make this inversion even stronger, they force the men to perform the free men who are also captive here to perform gladiatorial combat, in honour of this woman at her funeral, because initially, that’s where gladiatorial combat came from, it was a funeral thing. And so, you know, they’re putting the men obviously in the position that they once were as gladiators. But they’re also forcing them to, you know, to participate in this sort of strange mourning of this woman who they should have been able to protect but failed to.

Dr G 21:49
Yeah, it’s a complicated situation for everybody to be in, I mean, the woman and what she went through that led her to her committing suicide, the situation where the roles have been reversed with the slaves and the Romans, and then the gladiatorial lair of a formal mourning process.

Katharine Huemoeller 22:09
And yeah, yeah, especially an interesting story. That’s so yeah, ripe for analysis. I mean, she’s very much the woman is like, very much like this Lucretia figure, right?

Dr Rad 22:18
Yeah. And so they that particular incident that you’re talking about, I believe, takes place allegedly, in the third serve our war, or the Spartacus revolts, whatever you want to call it. And I believe it comes from a source, a rosiest? Yeah, who’s writing a lot later, who’s actually writing in a Christian context. And I think that this kind of highlights not that this is something that you’re necessarily focusing on. But this sort of highlights, I suppose the issues that you must encounter with the varying kinds of source material that you’re working with for the sorts of incidents?

Katharine Huemoeller 22:50
Oh, yeah, that’s a huge problem. You’re using a Christian source to look at sexual norms in the Roman world. It’s gonna be quite different. Certainly, then, you know, Salas, for example, who’s you know, writing in the Roman Republic, the sources for these revolts, especially, you know, as we’ll go on to talk about for, you know, the presence of enslaved women and these revolts or the participation of women, these revolts there, so fragmentary and problematic, they’ve come down to us by chance, often, and they just kind of feel like they got in there by chance. Like, we weren’t even supposed to know about this. Yeah.

Dr G 23:27
Yeah. Like, I feel like I’ve got a question forming that’s related to the way that women are represented in these in these source materials. I mean, it’s partly the Euros Yes, question, I suppose in that sort of like that Christian framing, although I do love a good a rose. Yes, he does a lot of things that we don’t get to wear. But that sense in which none of these sources seem to really consider a woman’s perspective. They’re always a sort of utilitarian device in these narratives. And I’m wondering how much we can actually get out what it might have been like for these women, either as enslaved peoples, or ones who were free and become part of these enslaved narratives through these sorts of revolts with this role reversal stuff going on? Yeah,

Katharine Huemoeller 24:15
it’s really tough. The women and the stories, both free and enslaved women are very much sort of instruments of male competition, you know, violence. Yeah, just they’re sort of communicate with each other through these women is how I see it. And that’s true of the free women and the enslaved women. So when it comes to trying to understand their experience of revolt, their role and participation in it, we kind of have to work against what our sources are doing frequently. So that’s kind of a project I’m working on now is trying to understand the role of, of women in these revolts. It’s quite clear that there were women present In all of these revolts, enslaved women present in the revolts because they kind of creep into the sources just occasionally. So you just get these sort of casual asides about them, which are very tantalising. And then so I’m trying to sort of use each of these very, you know, casual references, and you focus in on it and try to unpack what it can tell us about women and these revolts. So I could we could go through a few of them if you’d like, because they’re really fascinating.

Dr Rad 25:28
I really hoping that this is the part where you’re going to bring up the women who apparently separated themselves from the Spartacan army because they’re almost exactly my favourite.

Katharine Huemoeller 25:36
They are my favourite example. We have to excitingly we have two references to this one incident, probably the same incident, where these two women are separated from the rest of the Spartacan army. They’re on a hill of sorts. And they’re doing something on that hill. And from the vantage point of the hill, they see the Roman army approaching, trying to stage an ambush, and they sound the alarm and the ambush fails. So what’s so interesting about this, the sources that are this incident is that the two writers who record it, record different reasons for why the women are up there. So Salas, who’s writing in the Republic tells us that the women were Adminster Russell window, which is you a phrase used in other texts, in reference to menstruation. But it basically means like carrying out their monthly things, duties,

Dr Rad 26:30
rituals, women’s business.

Katharine Huemoeller 26:33
Yes, exactly.

Dr G 26:36
Just up on the hill doing what,

Katharine Huemoeller 26:38
we don’t want to get too detailed about it, but there and then Plutarch, writing later, and probably looking at Sallust says that the two women are up there sacrificing or carrying out some sort of religious ritual. These things aren’t mutually exclusive, of course, right? They might be carrying out some sort of monthly ritual.

Dr G 26:56
Look, I feel like in the ancient world, if I was menstruating, I would definitely want to have a ritual associated with that of some kind and be like, Gods what’s going on? Yeah, it’s been days. When does this stop?

Katharine Huemoeller 27:07
Yeah, yeah. But once you do it in the middle of a revolt,

Dr G 27:13
like it’s tough, and it’s like, you know, if you hang out with the revolt, and you’re down on the ground, and it’s happening, and the men are turning to you being like, Are you wounded? And you’re like, I am? I am. That’s definitely what’s happening here. Like the enemies no where here. And there is definitely a situation, I don’t know what to tell you. Like, maybe it would be easier to go up the hill and be like, you know, I just need some respite from this revolt. These guys. I don’t know.

Katharine Huemoeller 27:38
Yeah. And I’m gonna take a friend with me here, the two of us are going off. Yeah, I mean, this. So this is a perfect example of the way these women sort of creep into our sources, because the only reason we even know about the stylist is that tiny fragment was excerpted for grammatical reasons. They liked the reference that women are Gallic, and there’s this weird word for Gallic in it. So they’re accepted by this later group, Marian. And then we have one single manuscript that preserves this reference by the Grimm Aryan. So that is how these women come down to us, like, by so many different elements of chance, and without the stylus, we would really not understand what foods are. So it’s just like, they’ve kind of slipped into the record, I like to think of it that way. And, and so it’s exciting opportunity for us to, to think about, you know, in what other ways they’ve slipped in, but also like, all of the ways that they’re missing, but clearly there. So in this case, you know, my, what I think is so funny about this account is like, this is basically a very embarrassing situation for the Romans, they are already engaged in a war against enslaved people, which is embarrassing, and then they’re, they’re, you know, about to, you know, have this ambush and to women. Foreign enslaved women are the ones that spy

Dr Rad 28:57
on their periods like, yeah, it’s

Katharine Huemoeller 29:00
Just like the worst of the worst for them, right?

Dr G 29:03
Yeah, it’s hitting me, right in my virtus as a Roman man, I don’t know.

Katharine Huemoeller 29:08
Talk about virtus, exactly. Like, of course, to me. Of course, these writers want to explain their presence. In other ways. They don’t want to say, hey, they were up there scouting, and they were successful.

Dr G 29:21
Yeah, these women were actually great at reconnaissance. And that’s why we sent them up there. And their sole job was to like, watch for the Army coming. And boy, did they nail that assignment?

Katharine Huemoeller 29:31
Exactly, exactly. Instead, they’re like, well, they just happened to be up there. And like, you know, they were very lucky that they saw us, you know, and that’s the other thing. It’s like, why would why do we trust Plutarch or stylist to tell us with us? I remember doing I mean, it’s crazy talk about like, you know, who has authority to tell us information? The Roman army would have maybe they would know they had been spied right. But they would have no idea like by who or why I mean, it just doesn’t make sense.

Dr G 29:57
Oh, come on. There’s gotta be somebody from ancient Rome Entertainment Tonight interviewing people afterwards. Like you were there. What did you see? What were you doing?

Katharine Huemoeller 30:06
Yeah, I mean, actually think that the most likely source is a cat a later captive, right? Because we know like Julius Caesar, for example, regularly interrogated captives to ask like what happened to them? And you know so so that’s kind of interesting. But yeah, I just love this this incidence of you know what, to me very clearly is these women you know having a strategic role essentially in the military and instead are explained away for other reasons.

Dr Rad 30:32
He reminds me of one of my favourite scenes from Parks and Recreation, where the whole gang from Parks and Rec are out on a shooting trip, someone gets shot accidentally. And a polis character is trying to cover for how that’s happened by taking responsibility herself because she has a gun licence and the person who did it doesn’t. And so when she’s being interviewed by the Ranger, or the sheriff, or whatever, she’s like, I don’t know, I’m wearing this bra that like open at the front, and it just threw me I want chocolate. I love my period, bitches be crazy.

Katharine Huemoeller 31:05
Every possible

Dr Rad 31:07
everything related to him and every stereotype at it, you’ll it’ll land, it’ll land. And actually, I

Katharine Huemoeller 31:12
should note too, like, it’ll lands not only with an ancient audience, but with a modern one. Because What’s so weird about this source is that there is actually no attestation of menstrual seclusion. As a practice, no, in the West, like, that is not a thing. And yet everybody’s like, Oh, there it is. So we knew it was happening here, too. And you’re like, What is this the source we’re gonna use for this? Really?

Dr G 31:34
You’re one fragment that’s from a single source. Good luck, guys. Yeah.

Dr Rad 31:42
So interesting. And then of course, the other woman that we we can’t neglect to talk about is Spartacus’ wife, very intriguing character.

Katharine Huemoeller 31:51
I was about to say Varinia. But then it was like, wait, no,

Dr Rad 31:53
I was about to say exactly the same thing. Because to me, she is for any issue will always be Varinia, yes. But if we’re going by the ancient source material, the nameless woman that is known as Spartacus is why

Katharine Huemoeller 32:05
exactly, yeah, we have we here plutonic that Spartacus, basically it’s sort of Plutarch introducing Spartacus as a character, a person and he says that he came from Thrace, and that he had a wife with him, who prophesized that he would be, you know, a great force, essentially, by seeing a snake curled up around his head, I think, and this was taking place in, you know, the slave market, and then somehow that they actually wound up together at the gladiatorial school, because he also, Plutarch also says that she was with him when he escaped, or she took part in the escape. So that’s interesting, because it suggests right, that this idea that, you know, they were together for a longer period of time, and that they somehow managed to stay together. Yeah. Yeah. I think that fact especially has attracted a lot of attention and made them like kind of a good opportunity for romance, essentially. Because for a story, right, because it’s so such an interesting, unusual detail.

Dr Rad 33:04
Absolutely. And she’s such a, she’s become so much a part of Spartacus as legend, I suppose in subsequent interpretations as well. She’s been really fully fleshed out. But we have so little about her apart from the fact that she might have been, like some sort of profit tests. And that Yeah, and that she managed to stay by his side, which just seems so unlikely in given what we know about slave auctions and gladiatorial schools, it just seems so rare that they would still be together.

Katharine Huemoeller 33:34
This whole episode is we’re like, no, that didn’t happen. to happen. It didn’t happen. But I was curious Dr. G, what, like, just because the other element of her that’s interesting is right, that she’s this really yeah, she’s his profit figure. And then, you know, these other women that were part of the revolt were maybe, you know, engaged in sacrifice. So there is this sort of like aura of religiosity around these women. I was wondering what your take on that was, as you know, someone who’s looked at?

Dr G 34:01
Yeah, look, I think it’s really fascinating the way that when women crop up in narratives, it’s one of the ways that’s acceptable for them to do so is through the practice of ritual. And what we’re seeing is that this pertains not just to Roman women, but to non Roman women as well, because the in all of these cases, we’re dealing with, presumably enslaved women who have at this stage by the time we’re in the Spartacus war period when we’re talking about foreign slaves, really. And so we get that weird sort of sense. But it also, I feel like this taps back into like, really ancient narratives and stuff, and I feel like the figure that pops out to me at the moment, mostly because I’ve been working on the Roman kings is Tana Quill, and this idea, so she’s the Prophet Hess. She can read the auspices and she ends up being able to prophesize the role of her husband, Lucia Tarquinius, Priscus well, before he get gets into power. And so this kind of sense in which Romans explain unusual rises to power and shifts in power through the divine, and not just through the divine, but through a female interpretation of the acts of gods. And so those women up on the hill, maybe it was the ritual, and Renea, my flesh, rabbit. Maybe it was the ritual, although I don’t know how anyone could possibly explain her being in that gladiatorial school as being like a realistic idea about the narrative. But so I’m really fascinated to understand more about gladiatorial schools to be like, do they always just take the ladies with them to keep them happy? Or something? I don’t know. Do they come as pairs? I’m looking around. And but yeah, this idea of direct line between like Women’s Action, informing men’s action through ritual understanding in the middle, it’s really common. And I think it’s partly because of that patriarchal framing of like, one way to women fit in this society, and it’s not at all clear. And God’s being somewhat unexplainable, like women, God,

Katharine Huemoeller 36:11
both unexplained, mysterious. Yeah, I think that’s definitely that, that that makes a lot of sense to me. And it’s, I think putting that the religious aura of Spartacus, in the context of the slave revolts is important, too, because a number of this sort of leading figures are said to have this some sort of religious significance or prophetic charismatic, fire, breathing, whatever, in whatever way it manifests itself. And so in some ways that actually may have been a really important part of Spartacus is leadership of this revolt. And she’s clearly an important part of that. And yet, her significance to the revolt Overall, though, is still really slim with it. So it’s kind of interesting, because you could think, oh, this made her a really key part of the revolt, because, you know, his charisma is really significant to the revolt success. And yet, you know, it’s she’s only associated with him at the moment of breaking out and then we don’t hear what if she’s involved in the revolt for as it grows larger and larger and more significant, she drops out of the narrative altogether. So it kind of minimises her role by placing her at the very beginning, even though there’s a possibility that that prophecy was actually really significant to the level.

Dr G 37:27
And it also helps, I think, from a Roman perspective, to really explain why things don’t go their way. And having those sorts of prophecies. It really taps into that sense of like, well, we didn’t make a mistake. We’re Romans, the gods were against us.

Dr Rad 37:43
Yes, good point. Well, I mean, it kind of depends as well on what their background is potentially like, if if Spartacus was genuinely Thracian, not fought as a Thracian. Maybe she was also Thracian. And so it’s just there’s so many question marks, though, about whether they actually weren’t any of this. But certainly, in relation to your earlier question, Dr. G, it’s not out of the question, obviously, that there are women who are being used for sexual purposes in a gladiatorial school. Certainly, if you became a highly prized successful gladiator you earned, you know, more privileges in the greater terrorist gladiatorial school where you were staying, you know, you could actually be like, somewhat tolerable, apart from the fact that you had to, you know, fight for your life and that kind of thing. But I don’t know whether a new recruit to a gladiatorial school will have earned any such privilege. And so I guess it just sort of, it must be chance if it actually happened, although I’ve also highly dubious about whether it did, but it must be chance that she also just happened to be what they were looking for in terms of, you know, like pitch and stuff. Or maybe they did want her for sexual purposes. Like, who knows. But yeah, whatever the purpose was, it must have been purely accidental. There is no way they’d be doing Spartacus anything. That’s yeah,

Katharine Huemoeller 39:01
and especially the way it’s represented in Plutarch is that they are captured together, right? They come from the same place, and then they that’s why they’re together and the slave market. And then it’s like, almost like they’re bought in a lot.

Dr Rad 39:13
Exactly. Yeah. That’s very possible. Yeah. But it does seem a little a little weird for a gladiatorial school to be like yeah, man, women. Yeah, whatever. We’ll take them all. Yeah, yeah. Cuz this is before the time when it’s common for women to be fighting in the arena, so she wouldn’t have been bought for that purpose. So yeah, strange. Very strange. Yeah, but ripe for fictionalisation. Right? Yeah. Well, that’s just said I was thinking like, I spend a lot of my academic career being like, where is vernia? Why isn’t she more prominent, speaking to you just and it made me realise that actually, it’s really pretty accurate for her to drop out of the store. But it’s my sister button for modern purposes. I constantly am like, Why isn’t she more fun of the story? Why has history are being downgraded? You know, why isn’t she represented the way that she was originally intentioned by Howard Fassler novelists, you know?

Katharine Huemoeller 40:09
Well, that’s, you know what? Yeah, that’s what’s so interesting, I think about this idea that she was a prophet test because, you know, when she does appearance in fiction, and you can speak more to this, because I can’t now I don’t know exactly the distinction between the script and the way the movie, I only know the movie, the way Spartacus 1960 ends up representing her, but, you know, she is she’s a completely domestic figure, at least in the second part of the movie during the revolt itself, important as you know, a vessel for bearing a child essentially. And so that’s so different actually, from from the, you know, her significance in Plutarch.

Dr Rad 40:46
That is, I mean, I think this is where the TV show by stars plays more with her religious role. You know, it’s a, they go back, because they have more time to play with obviously, they kind of start before the revolt, obviously. And they make Spartacus and auxilary. And they, they give him a whole backstory about why he turns against Rome and all that kind of stuff. And she’s a part of that story. Her death is a part of that story. But her prophecy about how he’s going to achieve like great and glorious things and, and the snake. It’s a theme that goes throughout the whole series, because she is his motivation. And those words are constantly going back to so they make something of that angle in the TV series. But they don’t really talk about that angle very much in the Howard first novel that was used as the basis for the 1960 film. And they don’t really in all of the various versions of the script. The religious side is not really what she’s known for. But she is actually a very significant figure in how it fasts novel, because his novel is told entirely through flashback. So Spartacus is dead by the time you start reading the book, and it’s told through the memories of Varinia, and David, the Jewish guy, who’s also one of Spartacus, his crew. And so it’s really told through her through her reminiscences a lot of the time, and she’s the one that like in the movie ends up surviving goes on to have children and it’s through her and her children that the legend of Spartacus is kept alive. But she’s she’s very significant in terms of being represented as very fierce. So unlike Spartacus, who is born into slavery, and like his life is pretty dreary from the beginning. Varinia has, Varinia is more a person who earlier versions of scripture has been free, and then becomes a slave. And so she fights back like there, there were scenes that were meant to be shown of the slave, the owner of the slave school raping her and her fiercely resisting. And that’s why he gives her to Spartacus, because he couldn’t physically overpower her or at least not to his satisfaction, like it’s, it’s a bit unclear, like they don’t always see obviously, it’s like we see the attack, we see the fight, and then we see her or bruised and stuff. In some versions, I think she’s meant to have been raped in some versions not. So the way it all plays out. It’s really crazy. And then once you get into the actual scripts, they have all these different versions of what she was meant to be in some versions, she was actually meant to be really highly educated. And she teaches Spartacus to read. Yeah, yeah, they. So there’s, there’s all these sorts of things. But certainly in the in the early versions of the script, you see what you see in the Howard first novel, which is that she’s a fighter, she actually there’s actually a line from the Howard fosse novel, which always stands out to me, she says, I can fight like a man can fight. And she’s, she’s definitely portrayed as being at the forefront of these attacks is like this, almost like Valkyrie, like, you know, kind of figure. And when the slaves in the novel erect this big statue to themselves to sort of commemorate who they are, they have representations of all the men from different ethnicities, but then they also have the figure of a woman, and that’s meant to be Varinia. So she’s, she’s definitely like the mother of the slave revolt. But as they get further and further into the script development, her character receives less and less attention, and she does sort of drop out a little bit, and what you’re left with, there are elements of the novel. So her being this figure of fascination for any man that meets her, you know, Batiatus, Spartacus, Crassus, Gracchus, they all fall in love with her. That’s retained, but she’s made much more passive. And it was actually something that the screenwriter, when he first saw the first kind of the film, he rebelled against it. He’s like, what the hell this is not the Varinia that I envisioned and where all the other slave women they just like disappeared, and so they actually did reshoots to add in more families, more slave women more Varinia but I think because of the nature of the ratios, she did end up becoming this What I like to call Stepford Varinia type character?

Katharine Huemoeller 45:03
Yeah, yeah. Cuz the, these, these scenes they interspersed are like, women like doing the laundry in the river, you know, during the revolts, and these, like, very domestic.

Dr Rad 45:14
Yeah. Which I mean, to be fair, again, if I’m, if I’m being fair, obviously, it’s not like, in the Roman world, it’s not like that wouldn’t have been the kinds of things that women would have been doing if they were attached to a slave army. But it is disappointing when you know, how she could have been represented, I suppose, as this, like she only really stops fighting in some of the earlier versions of the script, because she gets pregnant.

Katharine Huemoeller 45:36
Right, right. It’s so interesting to hear that, that there was this distinction made between them, where she was the person who had experienced freedom and therefore was considered to be sort of more, you know, was willing to rebel more, because that’s, that is, you know, sort of that’s kind of a debated topic, like some of the scholarship on the slave revolt says that one of the reasons these happened in this period was because a lot of the people who are being trafficked and you know, into slavery are recently free, and that they like have this sort of memory of freedom, or, you know, impetus for it that other people who are born into slavery might not have, which I don’t think bears out historically. I’ve also recently published an article that argues that, you know, many of the people who are enslaved in Conquest were already enslaved in other contexts, right in other cities, because they’re the people who are most likely to be trafficked to be taken captive and trafficked, a lot of the male, you know, free combatants are killed. And it’s women, both enslaved and free, and enslaved men, elderly people that are the ones who are taken captive. And so I think just because these people are recently sold in, you know, Italy or Sicily, that doesn’t mean that they were free in their lifetime, necessarily, nor does that mean that you would like, be more, you know, willing to revolt necessarily, I think

Dr G 47:02
Some of this must be about like, what are the suitable conditions for a revolt to take place? Like, yeah, like, there’s the moment of becoming enslaved whenever that might happen, whether you’re born into slavery, or whether you’re captured, and you have this understanding of our freedom. But I think it would be very naive to assume that people born into slavery don’t have an idea about freedom. What conditions would permit a moment where you’re like, Okay, this is this is the time to stand up and and take that risk, because it is a risk.

Dr Rad 47:32
Yeah, look, I think it has a little bit to do with a quick of how I’d fast novels, or how I fast I was attracted to write about Spartacus because of the connection with the revolts, or attempted coup that took place in Germany in 1919. And he started looking into Spartacus and he decided that he was going to make Spartacus, someone who was born into slavery as someone who had worked in the mines most of his life. Now, anybody who knows anything about slavery, whilst you might say, whilst we might not know anything about Spartacus, a backstory that we can definitively prove, I think it’s safe to say we all know that slaves in the mines do not live for really long periods of time. So the idea that he would have somehow been a slave working in the mines, like, basically his whole life or something like that. It just, it doesn’t make sense. But it’s something that they played with, I think, in the various versions of the movie in terms of making Spartacus, someone who was born into slavery, they had all sorts of different ideas about how they were going to start the movie, they were always going to start in the minds like they do. But yeah, either way, I think it’s a quirk from Howard fast, which is probably one of his less credible interpretations of the material.

Katharine Huemoeller 48:48
That’s really interesting. Do you think that there was that, you know, he wanted him to be why did he want him to be born into slavery was this idea that he had to be slowly shown another way to live?

Dr Rad 48:59
I think that was part of it in a way. Part of the part of the thing about Spartacus is that he learns from other people like he learns from people like David Perdue, who he comes into contact with, but I think it’s meant to be his nature. His his nature, and the nature of Ernie or the nature of all the slaves is meant to somehow be in stark contrast to the Romans, almost like it’s something genetic, though they are meant to represent the right way of life, which is that men and women come together because they love each other. They have to have children, they take an interest in raising those children. It’s it’s heterosexual. And the Romans, on the other hand, everything’s perverted. So they might not have children at all. If they do. They’re not interested in them. They’re not interested in family life. That’s not their thing. They take part in all sorts of twisted sexual practices. Now I say that in the sense of 1950s contexts which for a 1950s context involved homosexuality, but also incest

Katharine Huemoeller 50:07
And the women choosing which gladiator to watch.

Dr Rad 50:12
That’s that, yeah, that kind of thing. Exactly. So everything about them is meant to be like kind of impure debauch deviant, whereas everything about the slaves is meant to be much more pure. And I think that’s, and it’s also because he’s he’s offering a commentary. I mean, he was a communist. He is he’s offering a commentary on the way that industry and business contributes to this corruption of the soul. So he has actually like some quite lengthy passages where he talks about, I think it’s crisis’s perfume business. Because you do, but yeah, so it’s meant to be about obviously, like, the way that wealth works in each society, and what each society is valuing and how they’re treating workers and the class system. It’s all of these kinds of things, which is why the slaves are meant to be kind of more pure, and the way that they the way that they erected the statue, it’s obviously very, like Soviet Union, in terms of, you know, putting up that kind of imagery of themselves.

Dr G 51:17
We need a monument. Quick, somebody

Dr Rad 51:19
Yeah, exactly.

Katharine Huemoeller 51:21
And that that actually works really well with those scenes from the movie then where there’s these kind of, it’s sort of like this idyllic pastoral existence, like they’re engaged in the middle of a revolt, but they’re, like, you know, taught like singing around a fire and out in the fields. And well, and

Dr Rad 51:37
that’s very much, that’s very much how Howard Fast had envisioned the slave society is being like faily. It is like proto communist, you know, that’s exactly how he envisioned is everything working, even the way that he imagines men and women coming together, women are supposed to be able to choose their sexual partners, they’re not just like claimed by another, Gladiator or another man, just because, well, we’re out of the gladiator school, but you’re still a woman, and I still get to say what you do, he still has this vision of people being able to choose, and that includes women being able to choose who they cohabit with, and who they have sex with, as part of their whole,

Dr G 52:14
As long as it fits the heteronormative status quo…

Dr Rad 52:18
As long as that does that. Yeah.

Katharine Huemoeller 52:21
I mean, it’s so interesting that even though, you know, the reasons that these scenes wound up in the movie contemporary to his era, and very historical, in the end, one thing that the movie does, that I think is more true in some ways, is it does indicate, you know, it represents other people and engage in revolt besides just the, you know, enslaved adult men. And so, I mean, not that I think it accurately represents what their women might be were doing necessarily, or whatever, in the revolt, but it does, it just adds new people to the scene. And so that I think that that then can make you think, as a historian think, Okay, well, is there any truth to that? What were these people doing? And, and this, you know, goes beyond just the experience of enslaved women to just to think about when, you know, these rebel armies are, you know, moving up and down all over Italy? And what is the experience of everyone in in this context of revolt, right, the people who are in the town where the rebels arrive in the rebel army, this is obviously something that’s going to affect everyone in society. But we don’t often consider right, everyone.

Dr Rad 53:35
Well, definitely, as you said, the Spartacus slave revolt does manage to last for a couple of years. And therefore, we know that there are women part as part of this collective that have gathered behind Spartacus and the other slave leaders. It is certainly not out of the question that people are having sex, women are getting pregnant women are giving birth, you know, like, it’s not another question that that is happening,

Katharine Huemoeller 54:01
Or that families joined it to begin with, because, you know, we know that what’s happening on these agricultural estates that, you know, although are the writers tend to talk mostly about enslavement on these estates? You know, historians have done work already to reveal that women were absolutely there. And children were absolutely there. They’re just not the focus of the agricultural treatises. Right. But so, you know, in that case, are they you know, what is their relationship to these revolts as the rebels move through? Are they joining? Are they assisting their owners in hiding them, right? They have to make choices essentially, there’s no way to stay neutral. And I think you know, that that is that does come out of the narrative ancient narratives, right? There’s a story in the Spartan revolt where the slave rebels enter a town and it talks about how many in the town were sympathetic allies to the slaves and basically people had to make a choice whether they were going to reveal where their masters were hiding or you know, help them hide right it it was not On a possibility to remain neutral. Yeah, then we have to think okay, so then what is the experience or revolt like for all these people?

Dr Rad 55:06
Yeah. And that’s that’s something that has was toyed with in there’s actually there were actually two Spartacus movies that were going to be made based on two Spartacus novels that came out around the same time or early 20th century. So we had the one by how fast which becomes the Kirk Douglas movie and then we’ve got the one by Arthur Koestler, which was meant to be made into a Spartacus film called the gladiators, but didn’t end up happening because of character, Douglas’ project. But in there’s an interesting crossover with these, which is some of the stuff that I’ve looked at where the director of Spartacus 1960s to cook Douglas protect Stanley Kubrick became interested in the novel by Arthur Koestler, which was meant to be the basis of the other film. So there’s all sorts of weird crossovers between them. But certainly, in the novels in the various versions of the films, there are scenes that were toyed with about the slave men having conversations about, look, these women and children and old people is slowing us down. Like what are we going to do about this? And so they have toyed with these sorts of questions about how do you actually deal with a revolt? And certainly there, there certainly were going to be scenes and whether other movie, I can’t actually remember which one at the moment, I’m pretty sure it was Spartacus, 1960, where they actually had conflicts between the slave leaders over the question of whether they actually just welcome anybody or whether they only welcome those who can fight.

Dr G 56:28
So thinking about this situation for the slave revolt and their organisation? Isn’t this presumably just as problematic fit any kind of armed force, like logistics in the ancient world depends on the people. And you’ve always got this sort of, presumably entourage that has men and women, in addition to the fighters themselves, in which case, you possibly if you’re on a really significant campaign, there may be births involved there as well. And it’s like an armed forces, not just dudes wandering around with their swords out just waiting to reach the battlefield, I don’t think and so this logistics issue that the slaves are facing is presumably the same kind of logistical issue that the Roman army proper might also be facing conceivably in different points in time,

Dr Rad 57:20
I think. So I think the difference is that obviously, the Roman army is supposed to be helped by the state, you know, they’ve got this additional backup of baby, maybe they’re helping with food supply, depending on where they’re fighting, of course. But logistically, there’s like backup, whereas I suppose for a slave rebel force, they’re constantly having to look out for potential attack people turning on them. And I guess they’re not necessarily going to have like a bunch of trained fighters, whereas the Roman army presumably has a reasonable amount of men who have seen battle or have been trained,

Dr G 57:59
and maybe not supply lines, you know, just kind of a wandering force.

Katharine Huemoeller 58:04
I think you’re right, though. I think you’re right, that that that is an issue, because, you know, there is quite a lot of concern about camp followers called, and, you know, marriage bans, right, like there is a there is there are attempts throughout human history to sort of control outside of the army and like concerns about that slowing them down and messing with discipline as well.

Dr Rad 58:25
Yeah. And I think to be fair, although I’m, I’m really speaking off the cuff here, because it’s been a little while since I’ve looked over my material. But I have a feeling that part of the arguments, and at least one of the things they imagined was actually about, do we accept fighters. So we’re sick of accepting agricultural workers, whether they’re men or women who are coming to join us, because they imagine that there’s, you know, a core group of gladiators who know how to fight. And so I think it was partly about that some of the time or their training then their gender or their age. But they also played with those questions, obviously, of children and the elderly, and women in particular, slowing people down. But yeah, I mean,

Katharine Huemoeller 59:13
that is true to the ancient sources, too. And that the way slavers thought about women was as a way to actually attach men to the estate to reduce the chances of rebellion. Women were thought of as like instruments in that way to you know, have control that men would be less likely to revolt if they have wives if they have children. Right. So the agricultural writers are very attuned to that dynamic. And I think that’s one reason that they don’t conceive of women as participating in the revolt because they’re supposed to be doing the opposite, right?

Dr Rad 59:47
Yeah, exactly.

Dr G 59:49
You were supposed to save us from a vote.

Dr Rad 59:53
Yeah, exactly. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Obviously, this could be an entire episode in itself because Varinia is endlessly fascinating, or the character of Spartacus, his wife is endlessly fascinating. She’s had many, many different names, and many, many iterations where she had no name at all.

Dr G 1:00:13
I suspect it’s probably a good time to wrap up. So we’ve got one final question. So when we were talking about you, in the introduction, we noted that you have a background that’s not just in academia, which is, you know, cool and interesting. You know, some people have a very straight path, and some people don’t. And so, you know, the paths into these sorts of things, I think, are really fascinating. And we’re interested in your work in the nonprofit sector, and also how that might have impacted the direction you took when you came back into academia?

Katharine Huemoeller 1:00:47
Yeah, absolutely. I left university unsure what I wanted to do. But knowing that I was passionate about reproductive justice in particular, and gender equity. And so I worked for a few years in the nonprofit world, working on contemporary issues. And it didn’t end up being what I wanted to do long term. But it definitely informed my interest in the ancient world. So when I decided to go back to graduate school, it took a little while before I could combine these interests, of course, you know, not in Greek lit survey so much. But eventually, when I got to, you know, choose my own research projects, I wanted to do something that touches on these these long issues of gender inequities, and in particular, reproductive injustice. And so I, I became really interested in Roman slavery, and the path and currently I’m most interested in particular in the hereditary nature of Roman slavery, and the fact that it goes through the maternal line. And I’m interested in how that shapes the experiences of enslaved women, what kinds of sexual and reproductive exploitation that leads to. That’s why I’m so fascinated by for example, right? That this idea that in the movie, Spartacus is supposed to be born of an enslaved woman that’s like the opening lines of the 1960 movie, right? Or is that a woman I think it’s something like a woman gave birth to a child, and that increased her masters a state and that child was Spartacus. And, and you know that it’s fascinating to me that that’s in this movie, because that’s actually not really in the scholarship. We don’t we don’t talk that much about the importance of maternal dissent in slavery. So that’s absolutely shaped by my experience in the nonprofit world. And by thinking about how legal systems shape inequities in society, and and also what people do within, you know, the actors within legal systems, how to slavers, choose slaving strategies, knowing that women will bear enslaved children.

Dr G 1:02:50
It’s really interesting, isn’t it? Because just thinking about what you’re saying at the moment about the maternal line, because we know that’s the easiest way to measure a line. And it’s like, you know, a woman grows, and then all of a sudden, it’s like, oh, yeah, and there’s a cord attached for a little while. You’re like, yep, that that one definitely came from me. Exactly. Yeah.

Katharine Huemoeller 1:03:10
In Roman law, it’s the the only the mother is ever truly known.

Dr G 1:03:16
Yeah, exactly. And so it’s like, it’s like, there’s never really any doubt about the mother, and yet Roman society and many, so societies, like from a Western perspective that sort of grown out from that, a very patriarchal, they’re like, No, we’ve always got to know who the dude is. And it’s like, do though, because it’s like, really easy, really easy if we just decided that the

Dr Rad 1:03:36
difficult thing,

Katharine Huemoeller 1:03:37
Yeah, that’s why they’re so anxious about protecting about women’s chastity, right? Because that is the way so for Roman citizens status is transmitted through the line of the Father, and that creates paternal power and, and legitimate air. And so for anyone who’s not a citizen, including enslaved people, but not only enslaved people, which status transmitted through the mother, but that, you know, that is what comparatively looking at slavery over time and space. That’s not the only pattern of transmission. It’s the one that was used during the TransAtlantic slave system, slave trade. And so it’s one that’s very, I think, present in most of our minds, but actually, sometimes status is passed through the parent of highest status, or lowest status, or whatever household they’re in, or there’s lots of possible patterns of status transmission, and they all had rippling effects on the experience of being enslaved. Yeah, definitely.

Dr G 1:04:31
I think it’s really fascinating because it’s kind of like there is always in operation, a two tiered system where there is the perceived status quo of patriarchy as like the right way from for being free and things like this. And then there’s all of the other systems that will fall under that which can be classified within slave strategies, and to see that the maternal line comes out so free Currently there and I was like, Oh, guys, you know, the real answer here is just, you know, patriarchy, maybe you could put that to the side a little bit, and you make it really easy for yourselves. But it obviously goes against something that’s really quite ingrained in Roman society and how they understand themselves, it’s just not possible for them to do something like that.

Katharine Huemoeller 1:05:18
Yeah. And what’s so what’s so interesting about it is that they see transmission to the maternal line as what is natural, that’s part of the you scan to my natural law, that’s what everyone does. But what Roman citizens do, right, the special privilege of Roman citizens is to have status transmitted through the Father. So that is like wrapped up in what it means to be a citizen and what and all these you know, special, this special treatment and special privileges you get with being a citizen, that’s a key one, it’s this transmission through the Father. And that’s kind of like, unnatural, it’s like part of Roman Civil lots, you know?

Dr G 1:05:53
Yeah, yeah. And it is obviously built into the all of the sort of adoption laws that are at play within the elite classes as well, where it’s like, well, we can we can rearrange your male line a little bit to make things a little bit easier here. And that’s sort of on theory legal.

Katharine Huemoeller 1:06:10
Exactly. But I mean, getting back to that, remember that crazy revolt at Volsini right, the idea that the slaves are, you know, wanting to reform the system of inheritance, like, to me that speaks to the significance of status transmission, right, this idea that, like they can decide who their heirs will be. That’s, you know, that is a privilege of, again, we’re two’s to Roman citizen masculinity. That’s, it’s just kind of wrapped in everywhere you look, all of a sudden you see it significance, I think,

Dr Rad 1:06:40
I guess it must be particularly interesting for you to be considering these issues at the moment, given the recent developments, which have been highly publicised all over the world in terms of control over reproductive rights in America.

Katharine Huemoeller 1:06:53
Yeah, absolutely. This, I would say that my present day informs this work in many different ways and informs my work because while I’m been writing this book, I’ve had two children. And so I’ve thought a lot about what it means to be a mother, how we can, you know, think about that over time and space, what reproduction looks like in different political contexts. Now, being in Canada, I’m in a very different political context than how I grew up. In the US. I’m very relieved not to be there right now, with the current climate and the current loss of reproductive autonomy for women* there, it’s hard for me to imagine myself being there or putting my children, my two daughters there, right, bringing them there. And so that all of that informed the way I look at the past. [* Dr. Huemoeller wishes to make a correction to what she said during the recording: people of all genders, not only women, are being stripped of reproductive autonomy in the US.]

Dr Rad 1:07:45
Definitely, well, we might wrap up on that note, but we hope very much that by the time we talk to you the next time because I’m sure that our research interests will cross paths again, that maybe the situation let’s call it over there has changed so that people have more rights rather than less.

Dr G 1:08:02
Thank you so much for taking the time to sit down with us. We really appreciate it and such a fascinating topic of conversation.

Katharine Huemoeller 1:08:08
Thank you.

Dr Rad 1:08:09
Absolutely. Before we before we sign off, would you like to say anything about publications or where people can find you and your work?

Katharine Huemoeller 1:08:17
The best place to find me would be at my university website. So University of British Columbia, and you can search my name. I have a few recent articles out on these topics, if you’re interested in one that’s I think, particularly accessible is in the Journal of Roman studies. And it follows one woman’s story, one woman who was enslaved and then freed to marry her owner, and then ended up leaving him of sort of form of rebellion and was cursed for it. So it’s a really interesting personal story that I think helps you maybe sort of connect on an emotional level to the past, so that would be the one I would I would recommend.

Dr Rad 1:08:54
Well, I think we’ve got our next podcast collaboration topic. Thank you so much for joining us today.

Katharine Huemoeller 1:08:59
Thank you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

The post Special Episode – Enslaved Women During Slave Revolts with Assistant Professor Katharine Huemoeller appeared first on The Partial Historians - Ancient Roman History with smart ladies.

Understanding ancient monuments requires a careful eye as well as detective work to delve into the representations and their layers of meaning. In this interview we are joined by Dr Victoria Austen to consider the representation of foliage on the Ara Pacis Augustae and the Garden Room of Livia’s villa. Both these structures hold a special place for scholars interested in the Augustan period and studying them together reveals fruitful connections for considering the messages Augustus sought to convey about his rule.

Special Episode – The Ara Pacis and Livia’s Villa with Dr Victoria Austen

Dr Victoria Austen holds a MA and PhD from King’s College London. She has lectured in the Classics at the University of Winnipeg and is currently the Robert A. Oden, Jr. Postdoctoral Fellow for Innovation in the Humanities and Classics at Carleton College, Minnesota. Her research interests span the Latin literature of the Late Republic and Early Empire; ancient Roman gardens and landscapes; race and ethnicity in the ancient world; the reception of classical myth; and the integration of digital humanities into the classroom. Austen’s monograph Analysing the Boundaries of the Roman Garden: (Re)Framing the Hortus is forthcoming in 2023 as part of the Bloomsbury Ancient Environments Series.

The Altar of Augustan Peace is considered one of the outstanding monuments from the reign of Augustus. It’s packed with images and is most famous for its processional friezes and the friezes that depict various deities. But when you encounter the Ara Pacis, you’re at eye level with the acanthus friezes – highly stylised displays of foliage and small animals. It is these acanthus friezes that we consider with Dr Austen.

The acanthus friezes of the Ara Pacis dominate the lower register of the exterior.
They were originally highly saturated and striking in colour. 

One of the acanthus friezes up close. The foliage grows out from an acanthus base and as the tendrils progress they seem to change into different plants. At the top of the frieze you might even spot two swans on either side of the main stem.
Thanks to Dr Victoria Austen for this photo.

A more private setting than the Ara Pacis, Livia’s villa is nonetheless an important example for considering the ways in which garden imagery was utilised during the Augustan regime. Dr Austen takes us on a tour of the Garden Room delving into the imagery and how understanding this room can help us better appreciate the Ara Pacis as well.

The Garden Room of Livia’s Villa can still be visited today – we highly recommend the experience!
The fresco is housed by the Palazzo Massimo alle Terme.
Photo credit to Miguel Hermoso Cuesta, Wikimedia Commons.

Detail from the Garden frieze showing the low fences that suggest a demarcated garden area with a wilderness in the background. Notice the continued sense of cultivation throughout.
Photo courtesy of Dr Victoria Austen.

Different trees are a focal point in the Garden frescoes and here we see an oak surrounded by birdlife.
Photo courtesy of Dr Victoria Austen.

Looking to learn more about Livia after this episode? We have just the thing for you – a whole episode dedicated to exploring her life and representation.

Thanks to BBC Sounds, Fesliyan Studios, Orange Free Sounds and Sound Bible for sound effects, and the gifted Bettina Joy de Guzman for our theme music.

Generated by Otter AI. Let’s see how the AI copes with the Latin and tricky Australian accent this time round!

Dr Rad 0:16
Welcome to The Partial Historians,

Dr G 0:20
we explore all the details of ancient Rome.

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

Dr G 0:34
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 G 1:09
Hello, and welcome to a brand new special episode of The Partial Historians. I am Dr. G. And with me is Dr. Rad. And also very excitingly, we have Dr. Vicky Austen as well. Hello,

Dr Victoria Austen 1:28
Hello.

Dr G 1:29
Hello. How are you?

Dr Victoria Austen 1:31
Good. Good. Very happy to be here. Excellent.

Dr G 1:35
Excellent. Well, we’ll see if that continues throughout the course of the interview. We are very thrilled to have Dr. Austen with us to have a chat about things to do with the our pockets are gusty, and also the villa Olivia. So these are two really key sort of architectural works that come out of the Augustine period. So I’m a bit of an Augustine fanboy, which is problematic as a historian, one knows. And so I’m thrilled to be here. Dr. Read specialises more in Tiberius, and may have some criticisms to add into the conversation.

Dr Rad 2:13
Look, you know given the focus that where we’re taking I don’t know if I’m going to crap all over Augustus like I normally do. Well just just have to see…

Dr Victoria Austen 2:24
I mean, he does kind of open himself up for that a lot of the time so I kind of love to hate him.

Dr Rad 2:32
Yeah, the same way that you know, I I love Tiberius, but I can also see his flaws, you know? Yeah, but at least we’re talking about Tiberius’ mum.

Dr G 2:42
Oh, that’s true. Yeah.

Dr Rad 2:43
Yeah, Freudian complexities, you know.

Dr G 2:48
Wait a minute. All right. So Dr. Victoria Austen holds an MA and PhD from King’s College London. She has lectured in the classics at the University of Winnipeg. And is currently the Robert A. Odin Junior Postdoctoral Fellow for Innovation in the Humanities and Classics at Carleton College Minnesota. Her research interests span the Latin literature of the late Republic and early empire, ancient Roman gardens and landscapes, race and ethnicity in the ancient world, the reception of classical myth and the integration of digital humanities into the classroom. So we have a specialist in many areas with us today.

Dr Victoria Austen 3:31
Yeah, like I it’s, it’s boring to just be interested in one thing. So I just like to, if I get frustrated with one topic, then I can give it up for a while and move to something else. That’s my that’s my general approach to it.

Dr G 3:45
And I think that’s really useful and good because there’s lots of ways in which that interval can be approached and taking a single focus might mean that you miss out on some of the really cool interconnections that are out there to be seen. Exactly. So Austen’s monograph Analysing the Boundaries of the Roman Garden: Reframing the Hortus is forthcoming in 2023, as part of the Bloomsbury Ancient Environment series, so welcome, welcome.

Dr Victoria Austen 4:11
Thank you. I feel like whenever anyone says my new position title, because it has the word innovation in it’s like, I feel under pressure all the time to say something really exciting and innovative. So

Dr Rad 4:26
hopefully, I will be doing that. Sounds very impressive.

Dr Victoria Austen 4:30
I know it sounds great. I mean, it’s it’s a long, it’s a long title. But yeah, it just started so, you know, hopefully there’ll be innovation coming

Dr G 4:41
off that there is no doubt I think it’s interesting to pair innovation with classics though, because traditionally, Classics is considered very, maybe very particular in the way it approaches things maybe less than innovative. And yes, it’s a really good spot to see it all coming together. I mean, like, we know there’s room for growth here, guys.

Dr Victoria Austen 4:57
Exactly. It’s potentially not a high bar.

Dr Rad 5:04
That’s the best part of your training.

Dr Victoria Austen 5:08
We could Yeah, we’ll, we’ll aim high with it.

Dr G 5:14
I look forward to seeing how it progresses. So to get us started, we might start with some one of the really obvious questions, perhaps which is what is the Ara pocket? So Gus stay?

Dr Victoria Austen 5:26
Yeah, so essentially, it’s a big monumental altar, kind of mini complex. It’s made up of a central marble altar. And then that altar is surrounded by four walls. And it has kind of steps going up one side, and there’s also kind of an entrance, past the steps. And then you can also exit the other side. And, yes, it’s an altar, but it’s probably most famous for what’s depicted on the outer friezes. So, you know, people tend to forget that it is a sacred altar complex. And instead, they focus a lot on it as a piece of artwork because it has these fantastic exterior friezes, that show all of these kind of mythological and also Imperial images that are really designed to place Augustus at the centre of pretty much everything. It’s like I am the chosen one I have, you know, there’s images of a near us there’s images of Romulus and Remus, Venus, the kind of mythical Roma, and then you have this procession of all of these senators in the imperial family. And it’s really designed as this very kind of monumental statement of Augustan power. And the whole kind of concept of the altar as well, are a parkus means altar of peace. And it kind of gets to the heart of that Aug, A message of he’s very, very keen to say, you know, I’ve closed the doors of the temple of Janus. And you know, we have no war anymore. But it’s kind of peace born out of military victories. So this ultra complex was awarded to him by the Senate as a kind of commemoration for the fact that now Rome has this piece. But obviously, pieces may be an interesting thing to commemorate when actually, it’s the result of all of these kinds of military successes and a very kind of powerful statement.

Dr Rad 7:28
Absolutely. So the exterior of the Ara Pacis Augustae, is dominated in the lower register by panels known as the acanthus friezes. So when you visit the Ara Pacis sees acanthus friezes dominate your perspective as a viewer, what is it that makes these friezes special in terms of the flora that’s depicted on them?

Dr Victoria Austen 7:50
Yeah, so this is kind of my primary focus, really, these lower friezes, which goes against, in some ways, the kind of traditional approach to this alter complex, because as I said, that kind of upper registers have all of these very obviously, political, Imperial dynastic images of Augustan power. But for me, the lower friezes are doing more of the same, but I think it’s in a more subtle way. And for me, what’s really interesting is maybe taking a step back and rethinking about this division between kind of figural sculptural reliefs and then what’s traditionally been seen as more ornamental or kind of, it’s just pretty flowers at the bottom for, you know, it doesn’t mean anything. But I think more and more, it’s kind of widely accepted that these floral friezes can really contribute to that Augustan message on what we see with these friezes, it wraps around the entire kind of bottom register of the altar. And it’s not just a random array of flowers, you know, they’re very purposely picked. And they’re all designed to kind of put forward particular kind of Augustan messages, you know, the campus itself, this as a plant is a plant characterised by it loses its leaves, and then it kind of re re emerges. So that idea of rebirth is really kind of central to Augustus, his new role in general. And that’s kind of visually represented on these friezes where you have a central account this flower, and then it kind of Blooms out and spirals and transforms into all of these other flowers and plants. And it’s kind of this magical, fantastical, abundant display. So for me, it’s really cool because it it’s not just that ornamental aesthetic decoration, you know, there’s a lot to be said about what’s going on with all of these plants,

Dr Rad 9:52
like ya know, like, I can’t believe until I read your article that I hadn’t really thought of that I definitely in the past have focused entirely on the people I’m like, People, let’s focus on what the people need because people need people. And I’ve completely ignored the flowers at not thinking about the fact that if you’re chiselling something into marble and sculpting something, you probably did pick it on purpose, you probably didn’t go. Now I want an Aeneas, I want Romulus I want all the members of the imperial family and then just whatever, yes, just whatever takes your fancy.

Unknown Speaker 10:23
And I mean, it’s, it’s not to say, you know, that kind of the campus ornament, it was a popular ornament at the time, we see it on lots of things. And it can be kind of purely, you know, decorative. But the fact that I mean, one, this is on this monument, there’s more of it than anywhere else. Yeah. And actually, it like, actually dominates your view. And when you think about where the Ara Pacis was in the campus Martius, and the fact that you have the steps leading up to it, actually, the floral ornament is at eye level. So that’s the thing that you’re probably going to come it’s going to catch your eye first. So I think it’s been really underestimated in the past, I think not just how important it is on its own, but it actually interacts with what’s going on above with the people, it complements what’s going on. It’s not just merely decoration. Yeah,

Dr Rad 11:15
I think I think thinking about things spatially like that adds so many more interesting dimensions. And it’s easy to forget, I think, especially because we live where we do, we don’t actually get to experience these things all that often. And so we’re looking at them in books. So we look at the pictures of the different phrases. But when we were doing an episode on children in Pompeii, it was really interesting to consider, like the height level of things, and how you know, people of different ages would have experienced from pain. And this is kind of a similar thing. It’s about what hits your eye, what would you see. And again, I think Augustus is the master manipulator, and there’s no way he would ever leave anything.

Unknown Speaker 11:56
And another thing in terms of just how it would catch your eye, very easy to forget that there would be so much colour on this monument. And, you know, this is well documented now, but I think it’s so easy to forget that we this monument would have been coloured, and, you know, floral ornament, it’s got to be probably very vibrant colours, you know, the the general impression is that, obviously, there’s a lot of green, probably on a very kind of blue background, and then lots of other colours for the flowers. So that’s really going to stand out, because I can’t imagine that even the upper figural reliefs, they’re going to be much less plain just because of the subject matter. You know, it’s a lot of members of the imperial family and senators in togas, it’s not it’s not going to have that same kind of vibrancy as seeing this kind of bright green and blues on the bottom. And as I said, it’s at eye level. So and as you rightly said, he doesn’t do anything by chance. So I think, you know, this is this is not something to be ignored.

Dr Rad 13:04
No, definitely not. And that’s definitely it. I mean, my, in spite of the fact that my students hate black and white, when we’re looking at things from modern history. When it comes to Rome, they still really can’t get their head around this idea of the colour and when they see things colourize They absolutely hate it. They’re like, why can’t it just be like an IKEA store where everything’s just like, beige? It’s so classy. But yeah,

Dr Victoria Austen 13:29
I mean, neutrals are very in right now as well. So, exactly, I don’t think it’s actually helped by how it’s displayed in the museum currently, as well, because it’s this very stark, kind of neutral, very cubic building with all of this glass, which I think again, it’s all these clean lines, and everything’s very neutral. So that that adds to that sense of, well, it wouldn’t possibly be this bold, vibrant colours. So yeah, I think that’s something really important. And I forget that a lot too. I have to kind of constantly remind myself that the colour would be an added element to to how we kind of think about it, and also the experience of walking up to it and what you would see on what would stand out

Dr Rad 14:15
Oh, yeah, it was a struggle because we’ve been absolutely used to thinking of the Romans has been classic classy means white, you know, white columns, all that kind of stuff, white tablecloth, whereas really, it’s more like, you know, walking into like a Versace fashion house.

Dr Victoria Austen 14:31
Yeah, I mean, you only have to look at their wall paintings in Pompeii to know that, you know, everything was very colourful, like they didn’t, but their walls were neutral. So like, why would their monuments be? That’s yeah,

Dr G 14:45
I think there’s a real sense in which, as they progress with our understanding of the Ara Pacis, you do get to see some of that colour a little bit more often, but they kind of do it as like a special event. And so as like, every time I get to go to Rome, which is not that Not often, but when I do it, it’s one of the places that I always go regardless is like, doesn’t matter how many times I’ve been there, it’s on my to do list and seeing the projection of the colour onto the face of the stone, it really changes your whole concept, because they do have some very sort of subtle colorization off to one side where they’re like, this is what it might have looked like, and it’s all pastels and stuff. And you’re like, that’s cute guys. Yeah. But then you do the VR experience. And it’s all like in your face, and it’s highly saturated, and you’re like, Oh, my God, and it’s like, and you can’t get away from those lower friezes, like the plant life really comes out at you. And not just because of that eye level. But because the colours are so striking as well.

Dr Victoria Austen 15:40
Yeah, and this is why in my work, and I know we’re going to speak about this, I’ve tend to compare or use as a point of comparison between the Aeroparque is not other kind of monumental pieces, but instead garden paintings, because that also gives you that colour. And so it helps you I think, envisage maybe, the impact of the colour and I think that’s a useful reference point, rather than just comparing to other marble ornaments. Which again, if you’re comparing kind of the marble to marble, it’s easy to lose the impact of the floral. And instead, you focus on the figural instead. But I think when seen from this perspective of in conjunction with more garden paintings, wall paintings, I think that’s when it really becomes obvious what’s going on. And the purpose of the friezes these lower friezes

Dr Rad 16:33
Well that’s giving me the perfect segue speaking of garden painting, what is the garden room at Livia’s Villa otherwise known as the Villa ad Gallinas?

Dr Victoria Austen 16:43
Yes, so Livia is Augustus his wife, and she has this villa just outside of Rome, I suppose we’d call it the suburbs. So it’s kind of close enough. But it’s not it’s not a coastal villa, it’s kind of just a little bit outside of central central Rome. And in the underground, kind of rooms of this villa, we have this amazing 360 degree kind of garden room experience, it’s a floor to ceiling, you know, 100% wraparound painting in this one room, dominated by this garden painting. And, you know, it’s seen as that kind of garden painting par excellence, you know, we have lots of other examples, but the fact that it’s, it’s not just one wall, it’s this complete room, you know, you step in, and, and I love the, in the museum that you go to now they’re kind of recreated it as a room. So you get that whole sense of experience, you walk in through this open archway, just as you would in these underground apartments, and then suddenly, it hits you and you’re just surrounded by all of this colour. So it’s a really special painting, just in the sense that, you know, we have this entire room and we can reconstruct it, but also the location of the villa to has its own significance for the Augustan regime. And thinking about the significance of plants as well. This villa was said to be the kind of location of a of a miracle to do with Libya and Augustus, you know, this is where we get the Ad Gallinas idea from so it was said that when Livia was just about to marry Augustus, as happens to everyone, she’s just sitting there having dinner, and Brad comes along and drops a sprig of Laurel in her, you know. Absolutely 100% happened. And so then she was told you know what you should plant this sprig of Laurel. And it was seen as this auspicious sign of her marriage to Augustus, which would no doubt have been controversial because she was pregnant with good old Tiberius at the time. And that’s not August is his biological child. So, you know, it did them some favours to have this kind of auspicious bit of Laurel, which is associated with the god Apollo dropped into her lap. And it was said that she then planted this sprig of Laurel, and it blossomed into this Big Grove and from this grove, Augustus and then all the following members of the Julio-Claudian family would take Laurel from that Grove and make their triumph for crowns. So we have the villa as a whole is kind of seen as this special place associated with sacred laurels. And then we’ve got this big garden painting, which features a lot of Laurel as well, in the basement, essentially, of her house.

Dr G 19:39
Yeah, I think this is leads us very nicely into thinking about like some of the trees that are depicted in this space. So obviously, there’s going to be some Laurel in here, but it’s not the only tree that gets to make a feature. And so I’m interested in like the significance the various trees might hold. When thinking about how Augustus is striving to connect his Ruta Rome’s past in particular. So you’ve already mentioned that connection to Apollo through the Laurel. But I imagine there’s going to be some other symbolism coming through as well.

Dr Victoria Austen 20:09
Yeah. So Laurel unsurprisingly is pretty much everywhere in the garden painting. It shown it in all of its forms. So we have it in small shrubs and trees. And obviously, that’s a real connection to Apollo, which also in turn reaffirms Augustus his connection with Julius Caesar, because Julius Caesar use the Laurel as his own kind of personal symbol as triumph for Torres. But in each wall of the garden room, there’s kind of a central tree that kind of dominates the foreground and this kind of a focal point on each wall, and one of them is an oak tree. And if we take that combination of oak and Laurel together, these two trees were said to kind of have a really important role. On the Day when the then Octavian was given the name Augustus that he took on. So it was, it was said that he he was given the right to wear a Corona civica, which is a another special crown made of leaves. And traditionally, it’s given to a Roman citizen that has kind of saved the life of another citizen. So it was seen as he’s saving Rome, really saving us all. And then the Laurel on that day, he was given the right to put to Laurel trees outside of his house. Now, traditionally, to Laurel trees were put outside a lot of religious buildings. So you’ve got this combination of he’s kind of saving the people of Rome. And we’ve got again, another connection to the kind of sacred past, he’s kind of mirroring what would happen in the past with sacred buildings on his own personal residence, and this symbol of the Two Trees would become so synonymous with him that we even have coins, where instead of actually saying Augustus, it’s just the two trees, so people knew that these trees were, were symbolic of him. So we’ve got the oak, we’ve got the Laurel, we also have a pine tree, and a palm tree, and the palm tree, there’s another, you know, handy anecdote about Augustus that 100%. So it was said that a palm tree kind of miraculously sprung out of the ground, again, another sign of the rebirth of the state. And then it was said that he then bought that palm tree inside his inner courtyard of his house, and then that helped an oak tree that had kind of been withering away, that then kind of came back to life with this palm tree as well. So all of these central trees are clearly Well, I kind of see them, they’re a reminder of all of these key stories that Augustus used. And it’s interesting, he kind of weaponizes or, yeah, I say, weaponize the ideas. It’s not just yeah, there’s thought behind it. So it’s kind of weaponizing these connections between trees and kind of gods. But then he’s putting himself and inserting himself into that narrative. So now it’s not just a link between Laurel and Apollo. It’s Laurel, Apollo, Augustus. And those three are together. So he’s kind of inserting himself into a traditional religious connection, I think, between particular trees, and then his own political narrative.

Dr Rad 23:39
Oh, wow, I met I managed to make that through that without gagging, Dr. G. Oh, God, this is sickening.

Dr G 23:49
It’s kind of clever because it’s like you think about it, like the symbols that resonate the most, or the ones that have the oldest connections. And nature is essentially where those connections start. And you see this with many ancient sort of religious sort of like, and ritual thinking as it sort of develops, it comes from the landscape, and for Augustus, in this time of a much more sort of monumental Rome, than it has been for hundreds of years at this point to go back to that symbolism. I think might suggests that he’s maybe dangerously clever…

Dr Rad 24:23
I’ve never disputed that.

Dr Victoria Austen 24:26
I think he’s, he’s tapping into those very deeply, very deeply rooted sense in the Roman world of this kind of connection to your agricultural spaces and people and also, you know, Pliny the Elder has this very cool passage in the natural history where he says that the trees were the first temples of the gods and then from those trees, you would then start building monumental architecture around it and actually make it into these enclosures. So you know, from Maybe that’s kind of what he’s doing with the our pockets because he’s got his own altar or sacred space there. And he’s inserting trees or plants or that botanical imagery. So kind of really going back to that very deep seated, kind of agricultural basis bases, I think, in Roman religion and kind of how they identified as a people, you know, a lot of their, you know, old time figures, you know, since an artist and all this kind of stuff, it’s like, they’re working the land, and they’re there. And this is good. So I think he’s kind of tapping into that, which is, as you said, Very clever.

Dr Rad 25:36
I think he’s got his own take on the idea of greenwashing. Yeah. All right. Well, thinking about all this natural stuff that you’re talking about, it leads in nicely to our next question, which is, in your work, you also discuss Augustus his creation of public gardens as being part of this deliberate policy that he’s following? So if we understand Augustus as shaping room, not just as a city of marble to steal a bit from Suetonius, but as a city that integrates buildings with things like living sculptural forms and green spaces, how does this enhance our reading of the depiction of gardens and forage that we see on structures? Like the our pockets?

Dr Victoria Austen 26:17
Yeah, so I think you have to, and one of the things that I think is really important about the Ara Pacis is, you don’t want to think that as just like you said, these individual friezes that you look at a book and you think of it as almost a two dimensional thing, you want to try and put it back into the space. And I think that it works with the entire Campus Martius complex, you know, there’s several descriptions of this area during the time and it and it really talks about how he almost made it into this kind of landscaped public park. And so you get this sense that the whole area is just a nice place to be. You know, I think, often when I read kind of more modern articles about city planning, now we’ve got we’re kind of recognising this idea that you don’t want cities to be just concrete and buildings, you actually need to put plants back into it and makes it a healthy place. And, and, you know, Horace actually talking about the gardens of my scenesse, in one of his poems, he says, you know, this used to be this, you know, horrible graveyard and witches are here, and now they’ve been banished, and it’s like a healthy place, and people enjoy going there. And so, I think Augustus kind of, he wants the big monumental pieces, but he also again, wants to tap into those ideas of, there’s this green space, you want people to enjoy the spaces. And he really followed Julius Caesar in this and a bit, Pompey, the great as well, this idea of having these public spaces where, yes, you know, who has provided the space again, so it’s public, but it’s kind of been given to you this idea of public benefaction. And I think it’s, with these public spaces, they, with the green space, in particular, I think they feel maybe the most free, because they’re, like, physically open. So you can kind of enjoy that, and enjoy the surroundings. Whereas something like the Ara Pacis like, you know, you’re not going to be going like in there for for an actual ritual, you know, that’s bought out from everyone else. But you can enjoy the whole idea, you know, I kind of think of it as it’s like a big public park and you’re you’re walking around, you’re like, Oh, there’s one monument, there’s another and you can kind of make a day of it. And there’s this idea that he wants to connect. I think he wants to connect with the people in these kind of very clever, but subtle ways. So this idea that you’re opening up the city, yes, there are these big impressive monuments. But you can be a part of that in these kind of wider landscaped spaces.

Dr Rad 29:04
Yeah, and definitely considering the fact that for a lot of Romans, it’s easy to forget that they would have been living in really small, dark, dank sort of places, and therefore, probably would have wanted to be outside of the actual living quarters as much as possible,

Dr Victoria Austen 29:20
Exactly like they’re not, you know, when we think of, say, houses in Pompeii, these elite houses, they have all of these nice garden spaces, these interior courtyard gardens, people living in Rome, they’re living in these cramped apartments. Again, I think it’s in Pliny the Elder, he talks about, you know, maybe if you’re lucky, you know, you have like a little window garden. So I think he’s talking people have interpreted that as like a little window box. And I think Martial also says about, you know, people have no space anymore for gardens in the city of Rome. So there’s definitely this idea that he’s giving people something that they can’t have in their day to day lives. And again, That’s very clever former benefaction. Because, yeah. He’s not there every day, but just the fact that if you go there, you know, oh, he’s allowed this to happen. And then you’re surrounded by buildings like there are pockets, which very obviously are Augustan. And you’re like, Oh, there’s another reminder that he kind of allowed us to be here. So, yeah, very, very clever.

Dr G 30:23
It’s interesting, isn’t it, because it’s like that sense of like being in a public space. And also noting that it is a political space. So I’m thinking about for us in Sydney Hyde Park is, is both a beautiful garden and a really open sort of place. There’s lots of spots you can go to within it. But it’s also the place where there is an ANZAC Memorial, so and it’s a really big building. And they’re doing something every day there. And there’s a pool that goes with it. And so it’s like, that’s a highly politicised part of that park. And you can’t help but know about it when you go through that area. And you could avoid that part of the park. But if you don’t, you will definitely encounter that. And you will have to think about it in some way. And I think you get a sense that Augustus is doing something similar here, where it’s like, you can’t avoid some of these buildings, and you’re going to encounter them, and we’ll see what happens to you and how you think about it at the end of that.

Dr Victoria Austen 31:19
And I think it’s probably more clever, because you are kind of, you know, it’s happening. But you also don’t know it’s happening. So you go thinking, Oh, I’m just maybe enjoying the green space, but you can’t fail to be influenced by what’s around you. And this is, again, why with the our pockets, and that division between the kind of upper figural. And then the slower traditionally seen as just decorative, I actually think that the so called decorative, it’s doing a lot more. And perhaps it’s even more effective, because it’s doing it in a subtle way. So you may think, Oh, well, this this bit I’m looking at, it’s not political, but actually, it’s

Dr G 32:01
Even more dangerous.

Dr Victoria Austen 32:04
It’s like psychological. Yeah, he’s really getting into your brain.

Dr G 32:08
Hmm. So to what extent do you think is it plausible to read the natural imagery that we have at play in the garden room, and on the Ara Pacis, as part of it Augustan project to suggest that he’s rule represented a sort of a fertile and abundant golden age for Rome?

Dr Victoria Austen 32:26
I think 100% I think it does to me. And that’s, that’s very much the kind of argument I’m making, in a lot of my work. And I think it’s this idea of the abundance, I think is is particularly interesting, because that taps into the kind of general Golden Age metaphor that he likes to play with this idea of everything, if you look at the friezes of the our pockets, and livers golf garden room, all the flowers are in full bloom at the same time. So everything’s great, you know, no one’s having to work hard. And I can tell you, as someone who kills a lot of plants, it’s not easy to get them to bloom, you know, is nothing, even if you’re the best gardener in the world, you know, having everything be just right, that’s fantastical. But the artists also put flowers that would bloom at completely separate times. They’re all in full bloom together. So you know, it’s kind of ignoring the rules of nature. So it really taps into I think, what he’s saying that it’s a very visual reminder of the fantastical, because everything about you know, it’s natural, but it’s really not natural at all these plants, you know, on the our pockets, you’ve got one plant transforming into another. So it’s a very obvious visual kind of transformation. And clearly, you know, acanthus doesn’t transform into vines and into roses and stuff at the end. But it’s just this kind of miraculousness. And I think, again, it’s not maybe an obvious kind of this is a political statement. But just that overall sense of this is a great time, you know, we’ve had all of this war, and now everything’s happy and everything’s blooming. And we see this reflected in poems like the Eclogues, where it talks about the kind of over abundance of all of the plants and the flowers. So yeah, I think he’s kind of tapping into that same messaging with this kind of stuff.

Dr Rad 34:32
And that’s kind of what you looked at as being this idea of hyper fertile abundance. Right?

Dr Victoria Austen 34:37
Yeah. And I think with the abundance that is being depicted on these two pieces of artwork, and this links to what I was just saying about, it’s so abundant that it’s not just that you’ve created, you’re such a good gardener that things are at their best, but it’s kind of outside of the natural time of things because I Everything is in full bloom at once. And so irregardless of those individual plants cycles and life cycles, you’ve got the best of everything all at the same time. So it kind of goes one step further than just, I’ve managed to cultivate something to the point of it being like the best. Now, I’m creating like this completely fantastical abundance. And that’s why I think that kind of hyper fertility I talked about in my work, because it’s not just individual plants doing their own thing. It’s like, I’ve created this so called natural thing, but it’s really outside of nature, where we’re pushing it into the kind of fantastical or, you know, the marvellous,

Dr G 35:43
It’s interesting because it sort of stands outside sort of seasonal representation as well. And it’s like an often that’s something that the Romans are interested in, and it plays into everything about how they understand the calendar. And, and yet in this representation on the parkas, it’s like, you don’t get to sense it’s not like one side, it’s winter. One side is autumn, things like that, which you might expect. It’s like, it’s all happening all the time.

Dr Victoria Austen 36:08
Yeah, exactly. Like there’s no pause in this. And it’s exactly the same in Livia’s garden room. It’s, everything’s in full bloom at once. So you could never, you could never get this in reality. So it’s completely beyond the realms of what is possible in in a real garden.

Dr G 36:27
A big political statement, I think, is on the horizon.

Dr Victoria Austen 36:30
I think so yeah. Because he’s basically saying, like, look, look what I can create or cultivate, and I think, ideas of cultivation and kind of cultic. I mean, we do get those words from the same. From the same Latin stem, this idea of the kind of growth and that fantastical, I think plays in with the religious kind of aspect in general, and that kind of sacred, like, we we are so great that we’re going beyond what is kind of humanly possible. And again, Augustus, therefore, is inserting himself into this traditional connection between plants and kind of sacred groves. And now he’s saying, like, look, I too, can create a kind of sacred grove because, you know, look at my sacred grove, it’s the our pocket.

Dr G 37:22
So modest.

Dr Rad 37:24
It’s interesting, though, when you’re comparing those two places, you know, Livia’s villa and the Ara Pacis, because presumably, a smaller circle of people would have seen live years than then maybe could have experienced there are pockets.

Dr Victoria Austen 37:39
Yeah, absolutely. I think that’s why it’s useful to us. And for me to be able to compare the two and draw these comparisons to help me understand what’s going on in the pockets. But as he said, we do have to remember that the Ara Pacis that’s the kind of very public monument, whereas we have garden room, clearly not everyone’s going to dinner at the villa of Livia to begin with. And then the fact it’s also in these kind of underground rooms as well, like, you have to go through a very kind of special set of corridors to get there. Like it does seem like it would be a very select audience that would see that. So you’ve got two very different types of audience, which is something that I want to it’s kind of frustrating the Livius garden room, because there’s always that question of, well, who would have asked Who was this for? Like, is it because she’s like, I want, you know, it would be very self indulgent if it was just for Augustus like, look how great I am. This is my room!

Dr Rad 38:45
It’s his man cave, where he goes to brainstorm – how am I going to use plants for evil next?

Dr Victoria Austen 38:54
Maybe I should, I should suggest that in my in my next, my next article it is actually Augustus’ man cave.

Dr Rad 39:01
Actually it reminds me a bit like this is gonna be the most random reference. But this is what happens when you watch too much television. It reminds me a little bit of this episode of Ru Paul’s series, AJ and the Queen where Ru Paul directly goes to visit his girlfriend and she has these ridiculous parties with all these other like rich people in the city that they’re in. But then during the party, she she taps a few of the wives on the shoulder to go upstairs to her bedroom for like a private Slumber Party part of the socialising and I kind of imagining Livia. Like, come on down.

Dr Victoria Austen 39:36
Yeah, come and see my garden room. And there is there is also some suggestion, although it’s kind of up in the air, but Livia’s villa is also where the very famous Prima Porta statue of Augustus was found. And there is some suggestion, you know, what was it by the entrance to this garden room, you know, some people have posited that as well. So that feeds into this man cave idea. It’s I look I’ve, I’ve and maybe it’s not Livia’s garden room at all. Maybe we should call it Augustus’.

Dr G 40:08
And that’s my statue. I’m looking pretty good.

Dr Victoria Austen 40:12
That’s me. These are my palms. All the Gods love me.

Dr G 40:20
Some classic Augustan moments. Yeah. So taking this idea of this sort of like hyper fertile abundance, there’s also this idea that you discuss called contain profusion. And I’m interested in how that’s coming into play as well.

Dr Victoria Austen 40:35
Yeah. So I think the super interesting thing about both of these pieces of art is, you kind of see them on your initial impression. And then when you look into the actual composition, you take a closer look, you realise it’s a bit more complicated, as with many pieces of art, than you first thought. So with both pieces, your initial impression is, wow, everything’s, as you said, everything’s going on all at once there’s spirals, you know, everything’s in full bloom, everything looks fantastical, it’s amazing. With Livia’s garden room, there’s some kind of subtle evidence of control in this kind of painting. So there are a couple of fences in the painting as well. So this idea of kind of bounding the plants in and we do have a kind of nice, very neat kind of grass area at the front, which kind of balances out this idea of all of these fantastical trees in the background. Also, when you look closer at the trees, it does seem that they have been kind of pruned or trimmed into very nice shapes. So again, this idea of, yes, it’s this abundance, but it’s really all an illusion, because it’s been created in this way. This idea that it just kind of spontaneously erupts. I think when you look closer, it’s complicated, a bit more in the garden room, because we have this evidence of the kind of shaping and pruning of the various plants and you also realise that there is general kind of artistic audit to the composition with the balance between the kind of foreground and the background of the painting. Similarly, with the Ara Pacis, initially, you’re kind of wowed by just the all encompassing, it’s kind of you know, this huge friezes. But then when you take a step back, you realise that each of these panels is kind of surrounded by a very kind of unnatural geometric kind of border. And then it’s obviously enclosed by the figural, friezes at the top as well. And so you get this idea that yes, it’s abundant, but I talked about it being contained, because on the our pockets, it’s kind of physically contained within the two friezes within the frieze panels. And for me, I think this kind of taps into this idea that Augustus wants there to be this rebirth of the state, he wants there to be this regeneration, but only to a certain extent, or there’s there’s a kind of right way to do this and a wrong way to do this. So when you think, oh, yeah, we want everything to bloom and everything to be great. Well, no, we actually want we actually want some control over this. So I think it’s this, it’s this balancing act between he wants to kind of give the impression or illusion that everything is free flowing. overflowing, brilliant, wonderful. But actually, there’s this very clever control going on. And I think we see this in many of the laws that he put in to do with kind of women’s sexuality, and this idea of, you know, encouraging children and you know, no sex outside of marriage, like this kind of idea. And he famously kind of punished his daughter for not following these rules. So there’s the idea of, there’s a right way to be fertile, I think and that’s kind of mirrored in these like sexual laws. And so he wants to give the impression of encouraging it, but only to a certain extent. So there’s a there’s an appropriate amount of growth.

Dr G 44:17
I kind of liked how there’s always the inherent irony for Augustus about how his relationship with Livia came around and how that plays into this as well because it’s like he’s trying so hard to be so controlling. And I was like, this guy he’s got some issues.

Dr Victoria Austen 44:33
Yeah, well, I’m this goes back to the to the miraculous event. Livia’s Villa like he needs that story. Because when you think about it, like he was marrying someone that got divorced and was pregnant with another man’s child, like that goes against everything that like kind of legislatively he had put in so he needed something to to make That kind of divine or suspicious sign. And I think it’s very interesting that he just used the kind of plants to do that. It’s fertile ground for appropriation

Dr Rad 45:11
Well surely that’s got to be part of the appeal of Livia, like, I like to joke that Augustus had like some sort of fetish for pregnant women. But really, really, he probably was looking at her and going, right. She’s elite, and I know she can get knocked up.

Dr Victoria Austen 45:26
Yeah, well, and it was never the plan for Tiberius to actually be I mean, but we now know we, you know, with hindsight, that’s what he ended up becoming so. So the kind of the omen with this laurel kind of takes on another life when we think well, actually, it was all about little Tiberius was in her belly at the time.

Dr Rad 45:48
For Tiberius, in spite of the fact that I am a fan of his, I actually think his life would have been a lot better if he never became emperor.

Dr Victoria Austen 45:55
Also with the Laurel Grove as well. Again, this 100% Really Happened idea. It was said that just before like the death of Nero, that Laurel Grove like withered away, because it signalled like the death of the Julio Claudian dynasty. So you know, perfect timing. So all of these kind of plant tropes, they kind of continue on with this idea of the Laurel and the triumphal crowns, but it just wasn’t working out.

Dr Rad 46:24
Still, I actually just watched the most recent episode of The Rings of Power, and there is a city which has a story associated with it, that when that city is in power, and it’s about to fall that the leafs will fall off the tree that’s in the centre. Yeah, no, it’s yeah, it’s not like a it’s an idea that we actually keep returning to, in spite of the fact that there is a massive disconnect from nature for a lot of people in the modern world.

Dr Victoria Austen 46:48
And so I just think it’s really interesting. This kind of balance with both the Ara Pacis and Livia’s garden room, you’ve got this tension between the kind of wild and the tame, and the kind of natural and the unnatural, because you’re giving this illusion that it’s completely wild, which would be natural, but actually, it’s been tamed. And that is unnatural. But so he’s kind of trying to walk a thin line there. Between those two, so yeah, very, like I said at the beginning, you know, it’s, it’s subtle, but it doesn’t kind of detract from what’s going on in those upper friezes of the Ara Pacis. So I think it’s just kind of like complementing and enhancing and kind of maybe complicating, you know it a little bit as well. And so I just think it makes it even more interesting. Yeah, monument. Because there’s so many figures. Like, I don’t need to analyse another sculpture of men and togas, like I just don’t.

Dr G 47:52
Aw come on think of the fun. And this toga is sitting like this

Dr Rad 47:52
The drapery.

Dr Victoria Austen 47:59
Yeah, I’m like, but what about these swans that are pointing down at this acanthus?

Dr Rad 48:05
I love it. I love it. So if we try and put maybe the our pockets in a bit of context here, like we’ve been talking about, you know, what was outside of Livia’s Villa and that sort of thing. What do we know about the area that’s around the our pockets? Is there some sort of transition from Garden to a campus frieze that might be comparable to the way that trees were integrated into the exterior of Augustus as mausoleum?

Dr Victoria Austen 48:27
Yeah, so it’s both Yes. And no, is going to be my answer to that. So in very broad terms, as I’ve said, it’s part of this Campus Martius Park, which is seen as this overall kind of mixture of the monumental and this landscaped park. So I do think we have that nice mixture going on, however, you know, in the immediate surroundings of the Ara Pacis we think that it’s pretty much kind of like, paved stones, essentially. So in that sense, there would be a kind of break from maybe the greenery leading up directly to the monument, which I think again, would maybe make the floor friezes stand out even more, because you’ve kind of you are surrounded to some extent by more artificial materials in the immediate surroundings. And then you’ve got like kind of bam, this big kind of floral reminder. So it’s in that way, it’s different to, for example, the mausoleum of Augustus, which is close by, and that actually had plantings like literally on it. So I think it’s slightly less integrated on the parkas but then I suppose I would argue that maybe it’s not because we have the floor friezes. So is that seen as a kind of, to me, that’s just a transference of what we’ve seen on the mausoleum, but onto stone, like they’re doing the same kind of thing, just in a different format.

Dr G 49:54
Yeah. And I think that’s the sort of thing where that’s the power of the marble in a way is So as you can create that vision, and it becomes a static vision as well. So it’s like the symbolism is always the symbolism that you want it to be. Whereas if you’re relying on the garden that you’ve created to do that work, you’re you’d have less control over the seasonal elements.

Dr Victoria Austen 50:18
So again, it kind of plays into that, yes, you’re, you’re gonna have the nice kind of real greenery. But that is subject to the elements, it is subject to seasonal change, if you put it in a painting, or it’s in marble, it’s frozen in time, it’s that fantastical. So again, that’s a level of control. When we talk about profusion, it’s all an illusion, it’s not, it’s not actually just spontaneous, you know, as you sit, you know, it takes a long time to carve that marble. So, you know, it’s, and it’s not going anywhere. So it’s, it kind of plays in with the idea of the eternal Augustan piece as well, this idea of, you know, we’re stamping this monument with things that it lasts forever, like this idea of, you know, his victories, that annually re commemorated, you know, there’s meant to be a sacrifice every year, there’s kind of this continual reminder of the original messaging that’s been reinforced on a daily basis by the friezes on the outside,

Dr Rad 51:24
you hear that Dr. G, it’s all an illusion that we’re taking away from this. Fake

Dr G 51:37
Ouch, I feel like the Res Gestae would have something to say about that. We won’t touch on that subject for now. Let’s say as a wrap up question, let’s say we’re going to Rome, that’s the big dream. And we’re in the garden room, or we’re at the Ara Pacis what kind of details and ideas would you encourage us to focus on and think about when we’re in those spaces and seeing them as a viewer.

Dr Victoria Austen 52:01
So I’ll start with Livia’s garden room, because I think it’s quite easy as a viewer to kind of transport yourself back to the ancient world, because it’s been the room has essentially been recreated in the museum like a arched doorway to enter the room is designed to be like the exact same size as the arched kind of open doorway. So you get this real sense of, and I think it’s really nice when you’re about to enter the room to kind of pause because you can see a kind of glimpse of an initial tree, like through the open archway. And so you kind of getting this hint at what’s going on. And then when you step in, there’s like this Wow moment that you realise it’s not just the wall in front of you, but it’s actually all around. So I think, you know, as someone who spent a lot of time sitting in that room, take your time sitting in the room, and I think you want to with both of these monuments or, or representations, I think you have your initial perception, but then you want to take that time to kind of think about the individual elements of the composition, because I think you kind of get a different flavour each time you look at it, I’m always noticing something different every time I look at just the images of these places. So I really, I really just with Livia’s garden room would say, you know, have that moment of pause before you enter to kind of get that transition between what you see as you’re approaching versus the experience actually being surrounded by it. With the Ara Pacis, I think the thing that I would say and we’ve already kind of spoken a bit about this is don’t forget the colour, because I think because of the museum it’s in and I was thinking about it. Before this question, I think it kind of does it a disservice. And I know that other people have issues with the museum that it’s that in, but I think it’s quite hard to imagine it in its original surroundings because it’s a very, very stark, almost like modernist museum that it’s in. And I think it takes it’s a lot harder to kind of imagine its original surroundings compared to living as garden room. So I think you can take in everything for the individual monument. But you’ve got to try and imagine it not in this stark, clean line space, but instead as part of a big park. So you kind of want to imagine that you’re you’re in this big park and you’ve kind of been interacting with people. And yeah, try and put them back in their original location, I think is is a nice way to appreciate them on that level.

Dr Rad 54:36
Cool if they could make a duplicate, like a replica and put that integrated space in Rome. So that people that actually yeah, interact with it. Maybe we should apply for funding to do you. Copyright copyright.

Dr Victoria Austen 54:50
Yeah, we will. I’ll contact someone. It could be like a, we could get a modern sculptor involved and they could resculpt the Ara Pacis and paint it and everything. Yeah, I just think. And more, and they need to do more of the light shows the VR. Yeah, like you said it shouldn’t just be a special occasion. Yeah,

Dr G 55:13
I was gonna say was on like one day a week in the evening and I was like, Guys, this needs to be all day every day.

Dr Rad 55:20
It is the 10th anniversary of our podcast next year. So I think we apply based on the fact that Dr. G’s favourite Emperor of All Time is Augustus. I think Rome should throw a celebration in her honour and create an Augustan theme park so she can be happy forever

Dr G 55:37
would be interesting to try and create the Campus Martius like holus bolus somewhere it’s like Rome has a lot of garden space available and it’s just kind of talking to the right people.

Dr Victoria Austen 55:48
Yeah, and and well now it’s also cool because like they’ve reopened the mausoleum, which pages I need to go back so that I can I can then get a sense of how those two would work together.

Dr Rad 55:59
That’s very thing. Yeah, definitely.

Dr G 56:02
Yes. That’s the dream. I haven’t been able to be back since it open. Yeah, I’m blaming the pandemic.

Dr Victoria Austen 56:09
I think I’m hoping to go next year. So fingers crossed.

Dr G 56:12
Likewise. Maybe I’ll see you there.

Dr Victoria Austen 56:16
We can have an Augustan party.

Dr Rad 56:19
I won’t come but

Dr G 56:25
That’s disappointing to hear, but understandable.

Dr Rad 56:28
I’ll come but I’ll be like moody and standoffish which I Yeah, in the vibe of Tiberius. Yeah,

Dr G 56:34
Fair enough. Fair enough. Well, Dr. Austen, thank you so much for spending this time.

Dr Victoria Austen 56:39
Thank you so much. This is great.

Dr G 56:41
It’s been really good to chat. And yeah, I feel like I’ve got like a whole new vision to think about when it comes to these spaces.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

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