The Ancient World

Twenty-nine minutes on the expulsion of the kings in 509 BC, read from the sources, and on a city that decided it would rather open its gates to an enemy than to a king again.

Thirty-eight minutes on the end of the Seleucid line and on Tigranes II of Armenia, invited in to rule Antioch and taking all of Syria with him.

Twenty-six minutes on Severus beating Pescennius Niger, Julia Domna being hailed Mother of the Camps, and Caracalla made Caesar at seven, which started the next civil war.

Thirty minutes on the last Seleucid claimants holding Syria against Parthians, usurpers and Rome closing from both directions.

Twenty-five minutes on Odaenathus of Palmyra declaring himself King of Kings, besieging the Sasanian capital twice, and then being murdered at the top.

Part two of two, thirty-five minutes on Galerius from Tetrarch to the edict of toleration he issued from his deathbed in 311.

Part one of two, thirty-one minutes on Galerius: refugee, herdsman, soldier, Caesar, Augustus, and one of the Tetrarchy's least examined figures.

Twenty-nine minutes on Samsigeramus saving Emesa from the Sasanians and then declaring himself Augustus, until Valerian arrived and Odaenathus took over.

Twenty-eight minutes on the early years of Cleopatra Selene, daughter of Cleopatra and Antony, walked through Rome in a triumph as a child.

Twenty-eight minutes on Juba II, a Numidian prince raised in Octavian's household after being walked in his father's triumph, and later made a king by Rome.

Twenty-eight minutes on Juba II accompanying Octavian into Egypt in 30 BC, at the end of which Cassius Dio writes that Egypt was enslaved.

Twenty-seven minutes on the death of Augustus, Tiberius taking over, and the young Germanicus starting the career that would make him the heir everyone wanted.

Twenty-six minutes on Germanicus taking command in the east, the posting that ended with his death at Antioch and a poisoning trial in Rome.

Thirty-five minutes on Athens and Rome side by side, two very different answers to the same question about who gets to decide.

Thirty-two minutes on the death of Tiberius and Caligula's first year, including the summons and execution of Ptolemy of Mauretania for no reason anyone recorded.

Twenty-eight minutes taking Boudica's revolt, renewed war in Armenia and the Great Fire of Rome as one connected stretch of the 60s AD.

Twenty-seven minutes on Zenobia taking Arabia and Egypt while Rome buried two emperors in a year and found Aurelian.

Twenty-six minutes on Tacfarinas raiding Africa for seven years while the province kept reporting him defeated, and on the death of Juba II.

Twenty-six minutes on Tiberius Julius Alexander, prefect of Egypt, whose declaration for Vespasian in July 69 decided the year of four emperors.

Twenty-four minutes on the end of Tacfarinas in Africa and the years when Sejanus ran Rome while Tiberius ran nothing from Capri.

Thirty-two minutes on the Greek kingdoms of Central Asia lasting into the Kushan period, and on Hadrian's measures in Judaea that set off Bar Kokhba.

Twenty-seven minutes on Emesa becoming a pilgrimage centre and on Trajan's confrontation with Parthia over the Armenian crown.

Twenty-seven minutes on Trajan reaching the Persian Gulf in 116 and watching the conquest come apart behind him before he could get home.

Twenty-seven minutes on Julia Domna marrying Septimius Severus and raising Caracalla and Geta in a Rome that Commodus was refounding in his own name.

Forty minutes on the Efqa spring that made Palmyra possible, and on the close of the Bloodline series. Scott Chesworth reads the inscriptions slowly and lets them do the arguing.

Thirty-two minutes on Uranius Antoninus, high priest at Emesa, watching Ardashir found Sasanian Persia from the frontier it was about to cross.

Thirty-two minutes on Aurelian sparing Tyana on the strength of a vision and then meeting Zenobia's forces in Syria.

Thirty-one minutes on Valerian, the only Roman emperor taken alive in battle, deported into Persia in 260 with tens of thousands of his men.

Thirty-one minutes on Zabdas taking Anatolia for Zenobia while Aurelian cleared the Danube and turned east.

Thirty-one minutes on the siege, with Zenobia inside the walls sending to Persia for help that never came.

Thirty minutes on Severus destroying Albinus at Lugdunum in 197 and then turning east against Parthia, at the height of everything he would get.

Thirty minutes on Caracalla's murders in Rome and at Alexandria, the Parthian war he provoked, and Julia Domna left to face a usurper after he died.

Thirty minutes on Artabanus gathering Parthia for revenge while, further south, the Sasanids take Fars and begin replacing him.

Thirty minutes on Aurelian crushing the second Palmyrene revolt, and on the sources that cannot agree whether Zenobia died on the road, in the triumph or in a villa at Tivoli.

Twenty-nine minutes on Shapur inheriting Persia after the destruction of Hatra, and on Gordian III's invasion ending in defeat and a dead emperor.

Twenty-eight minutes on Ardashir beating Artabanus, taking the Parthian empire, and turning a tired neighbour into Rome's most dangerous one.

Twenty-eight minutes on Mavia of the Tanukh, who beat Roman armies in the 370s and then supplied cavalry to the empire on her own terms.

Twenty-seven minutes on the Severans retaking the throne through Macrinus's mistakes, and on the black stone of Elah Gabal being shipped to Rome.

Twenty-seven minutes on Elagabalus trying to put a Syrian sun god above Jupiter, and on the grandmother who arranged his replacement when it failed.

Twenty-seven minutes on the Battle of Emesa, where the Palmyrene cavalry broke a Roman line and then chased it too far.

Twenty-six minutes on Severus Alexander, governed by his mother and grandmother through a decade of calm and then destroyed by a Sasanian invasion.

Twenty-six minutes on Severus Alexander marching east to a stalemate and then being killed on the Rhine, which ends the Severans and opens the crisis.

Twenty-six minutes on Zenobia taking over after Odaenathus was murdered, and holding Palmyra against Rome and Persia at once.

Twenty-five minutes on Julia Domna, daughter of the high priest at Emesa, who married Septimius Severus and outlasted him. Scott Chesworth reads Cassius Dio on gold turning to rust.

Twenty-five minutes on the year of five emperors: Pertinax killed, the throne auctioned by the guard, and Severus arriving with the Danube legions.

Twenty-five minutes on Odaenathus driving the Persians out of Syria and holding Gallienus's east together, in the years before Zenobia.

Thirty-four minutes on Gaius Caesar's eastern expedition, with Juba II along, and on the wound in Armenia that killed Augustus's heir.

Thirty-three minutes on Solon of Athens cancelling debts and freeing the enslaved, read from his own surviving verse. Part of the long run before Rome.

Thirty-one minutes on Severus and Plautianus, a friendship that cost him his family, and on the British campaign he used to close the account.

Thirty-one minutes on Eunus, enslaved in Sicily, who renamed himself King Antiochus and led the first Servile War against the Republic.

Thirty minutes on Drusilla of Mauretania, great-granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra, married to the procurator of Judaea who kept Paul in prison for two years.

Thirty minutes on the revolt of Avidius Cassius, who declared himself emperor on a false report that Marcus Aurelius had died, and was killed by his own men.

Twenty-eight minutes on Sohaemus of Emesa being made to help Rome annex Commagene, a client king used against a neighbouring client king.

Twenty-six minutes on the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, with the episode's title taken from the Canaanite god whose name is the root of shalom and salaam.

Twenty-six minutes on the overthrow of a client king of Armenia dragging Rome and Parthia into open war again.