Roman society was highly stratified. Rank, wealth, birth and political power--not necessarily merit--determined one's place in the world. The social system was intricated and divided; both masses and elites were subdivided in a variety of ways. And above all was the emperor. He reigned supreme, as not just a ruler, but a patron and father over the entire Roman world.

Scholars tend to think of the Pax Romana as being at the pinnacle of prosperity and its economic and military power. And in a sense that is true, compared to the crisis that followed. But despite the high achievements of the Pax Romana, it remains an open question as to whether highly populated Roman cities were as healthy as we often imagine. In this episode, I discuss the sanitation infrastructure and technology of the Roman Empire: aqueducts, baths and sewers. How much did these improve health in Roman cities?

Hadrian ruled the Roman Empire for 21 years. His legacy, however, is a tangled mess. On the one hand, he left behind impressive architectural marvels, like Hadrian’s Wall; and his epic journeys across land and sea reinforced the notion that he was not just the leader of Rome, but the representative of tens of millions of people across a vast commonwealth. And yet, both his early years and, as we’ll talk about today, his latter years, were strange and shrouded with intrigue and animosity. One senator even cursed Hadrian. But as we’ll see today, amid the mess, Hadrian managed to set up a succession plan that ensured two generations of stability—and place a teenager into the line of succession who would grow up to become Rome’s famed philosopher king: Marcus Aurelius.

By the year AD 130, Hadrian had ruled the Roman Empirefor more than a decade—touring its far flung provinces, and transforming it from conquest empire to unified commonwealth. And yet, one peoples in particular were not aligned with Hadrian’s grand vision. The Jewish people had been subjugated to some of the worst brutality imaginable—a fact they had not forgotten. Under eventual Roman emperor Titus, their capital of Jerusalem as well as the great Jewish temple, had been levelled to the ground. Hundreds of thousands of Jews were enslaved or murdered. And now, once again under Hadrian, the Jews in Judea would fight yet once more for what seemed an impossible dream—the rebirth of an independent Jewish state in the holy land. This would be the most serious revolt yet--the Bar Kokhba Revolt. Would it succeed?

Primary Sources Referenced:

Cassius Dio, Roman History 13.1.

Numbers 24:17.

Donate: https://www.paypal.com/ncp/payment/WZTWCMWCJJYFC⁠

⁠YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@ProfCPE⁠

Buy Professor Elliott's newest book:⁠⁠Pox Romana: The Plague that Shook the Roman World⁠⁠.

Hadrian took over for Trajan, and it was a little awkward. As we saw last time, Trajan went to his deathbed without naming a successor; then over the course of several secretive days, Trajan died and Hadrian emerged as the next emperor. Only Trajan’s wife and praetorian prefect seem to know what happened. Others knew what happened, of course, but they were murdered under mysterious circumstances. Then, four leading senators were also executed without a trial. Whispers of a plot swirled, but to this day we still don’t know what happened. Hadrian would forever be treated with suspicion by the Senate, but the population loved him. Why was Hadrian such a beloved emperor and what was his vision for a new Roman commonwealth?

Primary Sources:

Inscription on Debt Cancellation, CIL 6.976.

Inscription at Lambaesis, ILS 2487.

The Pax Romana, and especially its period of five good emperors, is often thought of as a continuous period of peaceful and uncontroversial transitions of power. But, as we’ve seen on this podcast, there is far more to the story than that. Today’s topic is emblematic of the Pax Romana’s strange dissonance between superficial peace and its subtle undercurrents of intrigue and scandal. When Trajan died, and his successor took over, every effort was made to give the transition of power a planned and predicted character. But a deep dive into the source material reveals some inconsistencies and mysteries, and even a few murders.

The Roman emperor Trajan looked to emulate Alexander the Great. In AD 113, he began a campaign to push Roman borders eastward further than ever before. In his way was the Parthian Empire. These two powers were engaged in a complex geo-political chess match for virtually the entirety of the Pax Romana. Would Trajan be able to do what no previous Roman had done, and take Rome's eastern Nemesis?

Our modern economy is miraculous. But did the kinds of market mechanisms that make modern economies so prosperous prevail in the Romain Empire? On the one hand, Rome's economy was impressive. It was highly monetized, unified by law and seemingly vibrant. But to what extent was Rome's economy "free market"?