Blueprints · How Rome ran: the army, the money, the law, the concrete.

Roman archaeology

Pompeii, Vindolanda, hoards, and what came out of the ground this year.

171 entries · 301 hours · 139 with a written verdict · British 76 · American 38 · Australian 17 · Mixed 2

Vindolanda gives up wooden letters written in ink by people who were bored, cold and asking for socks. Pompeii is still being dug and still producing rooms nobody has entered. The Ancients records on site more often than any other show in the index, which means you regularly hear a find described by the person holding it.

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With a written verdict

182hThe Ancients EssentialPodcast

Two episodes a week, Sundays and Thursdays, and 237 of them are about Rome. Tristan Hughes brings the archaeologist from the dig or the academic who wrote the book to each one, which is why it stays specific.

3h 38m17. Carthage - Empire Of The Phoenicians Fall of CivilizationsEssentialPodcast

Part of Fall of Civilizations

Three and a half hours on Carthage as a civilisation in its own right, with the sound design Cooper is known for. Carthage is the subject here and Rome the visitor.

1h 30mRome's Invisible City EssentialDocumentary

Mary Beard and Michael Scott underground, into the sewers, aqueducts and catacombs, with laser scanning. Ninety minutes on the plumbing, the water supply and the burial system that kept a million people alive.

1h 03m1. Roman Britain - The Work of Giants Crumbled Fall of CivilizationsEssentialPodcast

Part of Fall of Civilizations

The episode that started the series: an hour and a quarter on what it felt like when the empire stopped coming, built out of the archaeology of villas going quiet and coins running out. Alexey Sibikin's sound design carries the last ten minutes almost alone.

5h 04mUnderstanding Rome Podcast

Agnes Crawford is a licensed guide in Rome, and this is the city itself: what is standing, who paid for it, what happened where you are standing. Twenty short episodes to have in your ears while walking it.

All 20 episodes, in order →
3hTreasures of Ancient Rome Documentary

Alastair Sooke setting out to demolish the idea that Roman art was second-hand Greek work with the originality taken out. Three parts, and the section on late imperial portraiture changes how you look at every bust in every museum.

Wikipedia
3hPompeii: The New Dig Documentary

The BBC's three parts on the Regio IX excavation, filmed as it happened, so you watch rooms come out of the ash. The best Pompeii documentary made this century.

1h 37mPompeii: Disaster Street Documentary

Ninety-seven minutes inside the first new dig at Pompeii in seventy years, filmed with the archaeologists while the finds come out of the ash. The DNA work on the victims is what lifts it past a tour of the ruins.

1h 19mExploring Place in Regal Rome with Neil, The Ancient Blogger - Part 1 The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Seventy-nine minutes walking the sites of the regal city with the Ancient Blogger, matching each story to the ground it is supposed to have happened on.

1h 15mThe Fall of Hadrian's Wall The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Rob Collins

Rob Collins on the fifth century at the wall, when the forts stayed occupied long after the pay stopped arriving. Seventy-five minutes on an ending that took generations.

1h 10mSpecial Episode – Exploring Place in Regal Rome with Neil, The Ancient Blogger – Part 2 The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

The second half of the same walk, covering the Palatine and the forum valley. Seventy minutes.

1h 08mSpecial Episode – Early Rome with Emeritus Professor Tim Cornell The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Tim Cornell

Tim Cornell, whose book on early Rome set the terms for the whole debate, on how much of the regal period can be defended. Sixty-eight minutes with the standard authority.

1h 06mThe Last Days of Pompeii The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Jessica Venner

The eruption hour by hour, and the argument about the date: the traditional 24 August has been under attack since a charcoal inscription turned up in 2018 pointing at October.

1h 03mHerculaneum The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Andrew Wallace-Hadrill

The other town, better preserved, less visited, and with carbonised scrolls that are now being read by particle accelerator.

1h 03mJulius Caesar Consul #16 – Sam Wood: Archaeologist, TV Star, Bike Nut Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Sixty-three minutes with a working archaeologist on what a dig actually produces, which is rarely the object the documentary opens with.

1h 02mBonus XV- Coins and the Roman World (feat. Dean Kinzer) Autocrat: A Roman History PodcastPodcast

Part of Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast

Sixty-two minutes with a numismatist on coins as evidence: how a hoard is dated, what a portrait was advertising, and what debasement did to the empire.

1h 01mThe Rise and Fall of Roman London The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Dominic Perring

Dominic Perring on Londinium from a timber drain of AD 47, the earliest dated structure on the site, to the empty walls of the fifth century. Sixty-one minutes on a river crossing nobody had thought worth a town.

1hThe Origins of London The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Londinium founded around AD 47, burnt by Boudica inside fifteen years, rebuilt, and given up in the fifth century. Sixty minutes on the commercial logic of a bridging point nobody had thought worth a town before.

1hBoudica's Tribe: How the Iceni Survived the Romans The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Recorded at the dig in Norfolk with William Bowden, on what the Iceni did after the revolt failed. Sixty minutes in which the archaeology keeps showing continuity where the written accounts report extermination.

1hPompeii: New Secrets Revealed with Mary Beard Documentary

Beard on the excavation as it happens, with the bodies treated as people. The section on what the casts can and cannot tell us is the honest counterweight to every dramatised eruption.

Wikipedia
1hItaly Before Rome: Interview with Dr. Kathryn Lomas Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

With Kathryn Lomas

Kathryn Lomas on her own book, sixty minutes on the Italy that Rome grew up inside: Oscan and Umbrian speakers, Greek colonies on the coast, and one Latin town among many.

1hAntakya Appeal with Andrea de Giorgi and Katherine Pangonis The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

An hour on Antioch after the 2023 earthquake, with two historians of the city on what was lost and what can be recovered.

59mIron Age Britain The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Tom Moore

Tom Moore on pre-Roman Britain as the archaeology has it: roundhouses, hillforts, chariots, feasting debris, metalwork sunk in rivers for the gods. Fifty-nine minutes on the society Caesar filed under barbarian.

59mSpecial Episode – The Ara Pacis and Livia’s Villa with Dr Victoria Austen The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Victoria Austen

Victoria Austen on the altar of peace and the painted garden room from Livia's villa, two Augustan works about nature and control. Fifty-nine minutes.

58mThe Romans and China The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Barry Cunliffe

Barry Cunliffe on the long chain from Egypt to China: Roman glass and silver going east across monsoon seas, silk coming back, and nobody at either end meeting the other. Fifty-eight minutes.

58mFall of Roman London The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Dominic Perring

Dominic Perring on how a city of tens of thousands became empty ground inside a century, read out of the dark earth layer that sits over the Roman levels. Fifty- eight minutes.

56mRise of the Etruscans The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Lucy Shipley

Start here for the people Rome learned it from. Cities, writing, painted tombs and a naval reach across the Tyrrhenian Sea while Rome was still huts on a hill.

56mSpecial Episode – Roman Republican Coinage with Professor Liv Yarrow The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Liv Yarrow

Liv Yarrow on coins as the Republic's only mass medium: who chose the images, and what a moneyer was advertising. Fifty-six minutes.

55mFall of the Etruscans The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Fifty-five minutes on how the dominant culture in Italy became a Roman province, city by city, over roughly two centuries. Veii went first, in 396 BC, after a siege the Romans told stories about for ever after.

55mPaestum: Ancient Greeks in Italy The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Fifty-five minutes at Paestum, where three Greek temples from the sixth and fifth centuries BC stand better preserved than almost anything in Greece itself.

55mSpecial Episode – Pompeii with Professor Ray Laurence The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Ray Laurence

Ray Laurence on Pompeii as a working town: traffic, shopfronts and street life, with the casts left aside. Fifty-five minutes on the city before the ash.

55mCities, the Etruscans, and Global Urbanism: Interview with Professor Simon Stoddart Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

With Simon Stoddart

Simon Stoddart on how the city spread across the Iron Age Mediterranean, worked out from Etruria where the evidence is thickest. Fifty-five minutes on the urban habit Rome inherited from its neighbours.

54mOrigins of Carthage The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Eve MacDonald

Eve MacDonald on Carthage as a Phoenician colony on the Tunisian coast that outgrew the mother city at Tyre. Fifty-four minutes before Rome enters the story at all.

54mThe Lost Voices of Pompeii with Dr Jess Venner The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Jessica Venner

Jess Venner on the graffiti and the people who left it, from election slogans to insults. Fifty-four minutes on the writing on Pompeian walls.

54m88 - Mysteries of the Scrolls — with Nat Friedman Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory

With Nat Friedman

Fifty-four minutes with Nat Friedman on the Vesuvius Challenge, the prize for reading the carbonised Herculaneum scrolls without opening them. A Roman library is being read as we speak.

53mVindolanda: Jewel of Roman Britain The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Andrew Birley

Andrew Birley, who runs the excavation, on the site that gave up the writing tablets: a birthday invitation, an order for socks and underpants. Fifty-three minutes on the only Roman voices in Britain that are not carved in stone.

53m209. Londinium (Part 1) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Recorded live on location, fifty-three minutes on Roman London: the bridge, the port, the burning by Boudica, and what is still under the modern streets.

52mIron Age Wales: Before the Romans The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Oliver Davis

Oliver Davis on Iron Age Wales on its own terms, where the single word Celt covers several quite different ways of living. Fifty-two minutes.

52mPompeii: The Buried City The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Gabriel Zuchtriegel

Gabriel Zuchtriegel, who runs the site, on what the current excavations are turning up and on what a director decides to leave buried. Fifty-two minutes.

52mRavenna and the Fall of Rome The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Fifty-two minutes on Ravenna, capital of the west from 402 because marshes defended it better than walls, and the place the last western emperors actually lived.

52mRoman Camps in Britain The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Rebecca Jones

Rebecca Jones on marching camps, the temporary earthworks an army threw up every single night. Fifty-two minutes on the evidence that shows where legions went when they built nothing permanent.

52mBethlehem The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Joan Taylor

Joan Taylor on Bethlehem before the nativity, a small place south of Jerusalem with a longer history than the one story it is known for. Fifty-two minutes.

52mBuilding Archaic Rome: Interview with Dr. Andrea Brock Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

With Andrea Brock

Andrea Brock on the earliest Rome as an engineering problem: a flood plain raised and drained by hand, decades before anyone would call it a city. Fifty-two minutes.

52mPompeii: Buried Secrets of the Villa Giuliana Documentary

Italian archaeologists opening a Pompeian street, roadside food counter and all. Fifty-two minutes on how the town ate and moved, which is the half the death casts crowd out.

52mThe Etruscans: Rise and Fall of a Mysterious Civilization The EtruscansDocumentary

The people Rome learned its gods, its letters and its drainage from, followed through a 2019 burial ground dug up in Aleria on Corsica. Fifty-two minutes on the civilisation that was there first and left the writing nobody can fully read.

51mPompeii and the Eruption of Mount Vesuvius The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Fifty-one minutes on a find from the Great Pompeii Project, in a suburban villa some seven hundred metres from the walls. Excavation there is still producing new bodies.

50mSpecial Episode – The Archaeology of Early Rome with Darius Arya The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Darius Arya

Darius Arya on what has come out of the ground under the forum, which pushes the city's real beginning back further than the literary date. Fifty minutes.

50mLost City of Gaul: Unearthing Bibracte Lost City of GaulDocumentary

Bibracte is where the Gauls made Vercingetorix their commander and where Caesar wrote up his own campaign. Fifty minutes in Burgundy on the town that was a capital before Rome arrived and empty within a generation after.

49mDura-Europos: The Syrian Pompeii The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Dura-Europos was buried under a Sasanian siege ramp and rediscovered in 1920 with its synagogue and its church still painted. Forty-nine minutes.

49mOrigins of the Celts The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Rachel Pope

Rachel Pope on where the Celts actually began, in the Alpine and upper Danube country, long before the word attached itself to Iron Age Britain. Forty-nine minutes giving a loosely used term a map.

49mEpisode 56 – Return to Vesuvius! The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Forty-nine minutes back at Pompeii and Herculaneum, with what the excavations have turned up since the previous episode on them.

48mTerror in the Teutoburg Forest The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Joanne Ball on the basic question the story usually skips: where the battle actually happened, and how Kalkriese came to be the answer. Forty-eight minutes.

48mThe Prehistoric Plague The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Laura Spinney

Laura Spinney on ancient DNA that pushes Yersinia pestis back more than five thousand years, long before the outbreak of 541 that was thought to be the first. Forty-eight minutes.

48mThe Rise of Marseilles: France's Oldest City The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Massalia, founded by Greeks from Phocaea around 600 BC and still there. Forty-eight minutes on France's oldest city, which was Greek before it was anything else.

48m227. Portugal: On the Edge of the World (Part 1) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Forty-eight minutes on the far western province: Roman Lusitania, then Visigoths, then the long reconquest, with the Roman layer at the bottom of all of it.

48mBacker Rewards Episode 14 - The City of Rome with Steve Guerra The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Steve Guerra

Forty-eight minutes with Steve Guerra on what happened to the old capital after the emperors left, which is a story of popes and cattle.

47mGladiators in Britain The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Colchester Museum Curator Glynn

The Colchester Vase carries names scratched beside its fighters, which turns a decorated pot into a record of a real bout. Forty-seven minutes on gladiators this far north.

47mVesuvius and the First Pompeii Documentary

The eruption of 79 is the famous one; this is about the one eighteen centuries before it, which buried a Bronze Age settlement on the same mountain. Forty-seven minutes, and it turns Vesuvius from a single catastrophe into a habit.

46mHousesteads and Hadrian's Wall The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Jim Crow

Jim Crow on Housesteads, the auxiliary fort with the best-surviving latrines in Roman Britain. Forty-six minutes in which sanitation turns out to be the most talkative evidence on the site.

46mPalmyra: Pearl of the Desert The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Ted Kaizer

Ted Kaizer on the caravan city that sat on the only reliable water for a long way, first named in the second millennium BC and rich on the traffic that had to stop there. Forty-six minutes.

46m355: Roman Apocalypse: Pompeii 79 AD The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Forty-six minutes on the eruption of AD 79, a column of gas and ash some twenty-one miles high and the surges that came down the mountain after it collapsed.

45mEpisode 271 - Twilight Cities with Katherine Pangonis The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Katherine Pangonis

Forty-five minutes with Pangonis on Mediterranean cities that were great and then were not, Antioch and Ravenna among them.

44mThe Origins of Rome The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Guy Bradley

Forty-four minutes on what the archaeology actually shows about the site: a river crossing, a salt road, and why anyone settled there.

44mDecoding the Roman Dead The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Carolina Lima

Carolina Lima on the cremated remains from Roman Colchester and what isotopes and bone can say about where those people had come from. Forty-four minutes.

44mThe Urbanization of Archaic Rome: Interview with Dr. Francesca Fulminante Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

With Francesca Fulminante

Francesca Fulminante on how villages became a city, read from the archaeology of central Italy and not from Livy. Forty-four minutes.

43mBefore Rome: The Truth About Late Iron Age Britain The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Forty-three minutes on what the archaeology of late Iron Age Britain will actually support: the trade with Rome, the question of the druids, and the evidence for human sacrifice.

43mRome: 'The Eternal City' The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Greg Woolf

Greg Woolf on the city itself: how a million people were fed, housed and kept from burning, and what it took to keep them there. Forty-three minutes.

43mRoman Treasures of Iron Age Scotland The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Fraser Hunter

The Traprain Law hoard, dug up near Edinburgh in 1919 and buried around the time the legions left Britain. Fraser Hunter on why Roman silver ended up chopped into pieces north of the wall. Forty-three minutes.

43mThe Emergence of the Etruscans Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

Forty-three minutes on where the Etruscans came from, which the genetics now answers less exotically than Herodotus did. Their language is still only half readable and their goldsmiths worked granulation nobody has since matched.

43mThe Emperor's Lost Harbour Documentary

The harbour of Theodosius, found under a modern city while they were digging a railway. Forty-three minutes on the port that fed the capital of the last emperor to rule both halves of the empire.

42mColchester: From Bronze Age to Boudica The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Camulodunum is the nearest Britain came to a town before the Romans arrived, and the first place Boudica burned. Forty-two minutes with Frank Hargrave of the Colchester Museum.

42mVindolanda's 2021 Excavation The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Andrew Birley

Andrew Birley on that season's dig, forty-two minutes from a site that has been excavated annually for fifty years and still has most of itself underground.

42mBefore Rome Ruled Italy Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Forty-two minutes on the peninsula before Rome held it: Etruscans in the north, Samnites in the mountains, Greek cities in the south. Murray Dahm, Lindsay Powell and Michael Taylor on the neighbours Rome had to beat before anyone else.

41mThe Largest Roman Palace North of the Alps The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Robert Symmons

Robert Symmons on Fishbourne in Sussex, begun within three decades of the conquest and found in 1960 by a workman digging a water main. Forty-one minutes.

41mCentral Italy and the Emergence of Rome with Dr Fulminante The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Francesca Fulminante

Francesca Fulminante on Rome as one settlement among many in Latium, and on why this one grew. Forty-one minutes of landscape archaeology applied to a founding question.

41mEpisode 317 - The Byzantine Legacy with David Hendrix The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With David Hendrix

Forty-one minutes with David Hendrix, who has photographed what survives, on the Byzantine remains hiding in plain sight in Istanbul.

40mPompeii: The Eruption of Vesuvius The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Forty minutes on the eruption of AD 79 itself, hour by hour, in the series the show built around the town. Carries a warning for the descriptions of how people died.

40mThe Birth of Rome Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

Forty minutes on the villages on the hills above the Tiber and how they merged, which is the part the founding myth papers over.

40mEpisode 10 - Constantinople The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Forty minutes taking the site from Greek Byzantion to imperial capital, early in a run that went on for another three hundred and sixty episodes. The compact version of the whole story.

40mEpisode 284 - To The City with Alexander Christie-Miller The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Alexander Christie-Miller

Forty minutes with Alexander Christie-Miller on modern Istanbul and the Byzantine layer still visible under it.

39mPompeii’s Indian Statuette The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

The Pompeii Lakshmi, carved in India and dug out of a house near the Bay of Naples. Thirty-nine minutes on the trade route that could carry an object that far.

39mGladiators of Pompeii The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Thirty-nine minutes on the gladiator barracks and the graffiti scratched by the men who lived there, which record wins, losses and admirers by name.

39mRoman Military Tombstones: Uncovering the Unknown Warriors The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Ewan Coopey

Thirty-nine minutes with Ewan Coopey on what auxiliaries and legionaries chose to put on their own gravestones, from northern Britain to the Near East. Rank, years served, and who paid for the stone.

39mExcavating Pompeii Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Sophie Hay, Steven Ellis

Thirty-nine minutes on two hundred and fifty years of digging, from treasure hunting under the Bourbons to the casts and the current slow work.

38mTreasures of Pompeii The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Thirty-eight minutes on what is still coming out of the ground, in a town first opened in the sixteenth century and still producing finds most weeks.

37mThe Khmer Empire: Angkor Wat The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With William Dalrymple

William Dalrymple on Indian culture moving east through the same trade that reached Rome, and on what it became at Angkor. Thirty-seven minutes.

36mThe Romans in Brittany The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Thirty-six minutes on Armorica under Rome, a peninsula of the empire with its own trade routes to Britain and a very thin written record.

35mVolcanic Vineyards of Pompeii The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Thirty-five minutes on the vineyards replanted inside Pompeii's walls from the root cavities the ash preserved, which is how anyone knows what was growing there.

35mPompeii: Life Before the Eruption The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Episode one of the series, thirty-five minutes on the town as a working place before AD 79: the elections painted on walls, the bakeries, the water supply.

32mEpisode CLXIII - Foundations of Rome Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Thirty-two minutes on the founding stories weighed against the archaeology, where the huts on the Palatine are real and the wolf is not.

31mLepcis Magna When in RomePodcast

Part of When in Rome

With Niccolò Mugnai

Thirty-one minutes on the birthplace of Septimius Severus on the Libyan coast, which he rebuilt as emperor into something meant to rival Rome. A harbour city preserved by sand.

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30mCaerleon When in RomePodcast

Part of When in Rome

With Peter Guest

Thirty minutes recorded on the site itself: Caerleon in south Wales, headquarters of the Second Legion and the furthest west this show has been. The amphitheatre and the barracks are still there.

Audio not available
29mYorkshire's Roman Mystery: The Ryedale Hoard The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Yorkshire Museum

Four objects found by metal detectorists near Ampleforth in May 2020, including a bronze bust thought to be Marcus Aurelius. Twenty-nine minutes on what they were buried for.

28mEpisode 246 - Travelling to Turkey with Şerif Yenen The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Twenty-eight minutes with a Turkish guide on visiting the sites, which turns a thousand-year narrative into somewhere you can stand.

25mGlasgow's Roman Remains & Hadrian's Wall The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With David Breeze

David Breeze on Bearsden near Glasgow, where the bath house and the latrine sewer survived well enough to show what the garrison ate. Twenty-five minutes.

25mThe Roman Forum The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Twenty-five minutes from the archive on the Forum: a drained marsh between hills that ended up holding the law courts, the treasury and the speaker's platform.

25mEpisode 66 – Dr G does Italy The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Twenty-five minutes of field notes from a research trip, which is the closest this show gets to a travel diary.

25mEpisode 74 – Gla! The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Twenty-five minutes on Gla, the Mycenaean fortress in Boeotia, which is a long way from Rome and shows what the hosts do when a listener asks.

23mMyths of Masada The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Jodi Magness

Jodi Magness, who co-directed the 1995 excavations, on the 967 who supposedly died on the rock in AD 73 and on how much of Josephus the digging actually supports. Twenty-three minutes.

22mEdges of Empire: Rome's Northernmost Town The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Twenty-two minutes at Corbridge, the most northerly town in the empire, which was a supply base and a market with no garrison wall around it. Twenty-two minutes on site.

22mEdges of Empire: Chesters Roman Fort The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Frances McIntosh walking Chesters, the most complete cavalry fort in Britain and the best-preserved military baths on the island. Twenty-two minutes on site.

22mBacker Rewards Episode 3 - What was Istanbul like? The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Twenty-two minutes answering what a visit is actually like, which is a fair question after three hundred episodes about the place.

20mHerculaneum Scrolls: Unraveling History Herculaneum ScrollsDocumentary

Twenty minutes on the carbonised library at Herculaneum and the imaging that reads a scroll without opening it. Short enough to watch before the Pompeii films, and it explains why the town that gets less attention is the one holding the books.

17mWhat are Rome's Early Christian Churches? Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

Four early churches in Rome examined as buildings, which is where the transition from temple to basilica is visible.

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15mIntroduction and the Origins of Rome Echoes of EmpiresPodcast

Part of Echoes of Empires

Fifteen minutes opening the series at the founding, which is the shortest route into the whole arc on offer here.

14mArykanda: A Roman City in the Clouds toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

Fourteen minutes at Arykanda, stacked up a Lycian mountainside in terraces so that the theatre looks out over the valley from halfway up.

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14mPinara: Abandoned for 1000 Years toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

Fourteen minutes at Pinara, a Lycian city under a cliff face honeycombed with rock- cut tombs, empty since the Byzantine centuries.

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14mThe Spectacular Ruins of Delos toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

Fourteen minutes on Delos, sacred birthplace of Apollo and, once Rome made it a free port in 166 BC, the busiest slave market in the Aegean. Both facts are on the same small island.

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14mAncient Rome at the Met: Masterpieces of an Empire Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

A walk through the Roman collection at the Metropolitan Museum with someone explaining what each piece is for.

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13mInterlude - The Bronze Head of Augustus Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Thirteen minutes on one object: a bronze head cut from a statue in Egypt and buried under a Kushite temple step, so that everyone entering trod on the emperor. Portraiture as politics, both ways.

11mAWA281 - What are you hoping to see when the scrolls from Herculaneum are scanned? Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Eleven minutes of informed hoping: the carbonised Herculaneum scrolls are starting to be read, and this is what military historians would most like to find in them.

11mPatara: Roman Capital of Lycia toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

Eleven minutes at Patara, capital of the Lycian League and later the province, where the council chamber has been rebuilt and the lighthouse still stands in pieces.

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11mDjemila: Gem of Roman Africa toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

A Roman city in Algeria preserved well enough to walk through, filmed on the ground.

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11mAugustus' Victory Monument at Actium toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

The monument Augustus built where his camp stood before Actium, decorated with the rams of the ships he captured.

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11mThe Road Rome Forgot: Reopening The Vicus ad Carinas Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

A street into the forum reopened after centuries, filmed as the excavation finished.

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10mMerida: Spain's Best-Preserved Roman City toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

Ten minutes in Emerita Augusta, founded in 25 BC for discharged legionaries and still standing well enough that the theatre holds a festival every summer.

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10mThe Catacombs and Ruins of Alexandria toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

What survives of Roman Alexandria, which is less than you would expect and stranger.

YouTube
9mInterlude - The Singing Colossus of Memnon Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Nine minutes on the statue in Egypt that sang at dawn until a Roman emperor repaired it and it stopped.

9mThe Mysterious Tombs of Xanthos toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

Nine minutes at Xanthos in Lycia, where the dead were put in pillar tombs raised above the living. The reliefs from the Harpy Tomb are in London; the pillars are still standing.

YouTube
9mItalica: Spain's Oldest Roman City toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

Nine minutes at Italica near Seville, founded in 206 BC for wounded veterans of the Spanish campaigns and later the birthplace of two emperors.

YouTube
9mWho destroyed the Baths of Constantine? Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

Nine minutes on the last great bath complex built in Rome, raised on the Quirinal around AD 315 and pulled down in 1605 to clear ground for a cardinal's palace. The drawings made before it went are most of what survives.

YouTube
9mWhy This Roman Temple Was Destroyed? Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

Nine minutes on the Temple of Minerva in Domitian's Forum Transitorium, which stood nearly intact for a thousand years, spent the Middle Ages as a grain store, and came down in 1606 when Paul V wanted the marble for something else.

YouTube
9mGortyn: Metropolis of Roman Crete toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

The Roman capital of Crete, filmed on site, with the law code carved in stone that is still standing there.

YouTube
8mThe Hippodrome of Constantinople | A Short Tour toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

Eight minutes in the Hippodrome, where the Nika riots of 532 ended with the army penning the crowd in and killing it, and where an obelisk cut for Thutmose III still stands on the base the Byzantines built for it.

YouTube
8mThe Ruins of Oenoanda toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

Eight minutes at Oenoanda, where a citizen named Diogenes had an entire Epicurean philosophy carved along a public portico for passers-by to read.

YouTube
8mRome's Greatest Lost Fountain: Meta Sudans Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

Eight minutes on the Meta Sudans, the conical fountain that stood beside the Colosseum from Domitian's reign until Mussolini had the stump cleared in 1936 to widen a road for parades.

YouTube
8mErased History: Temple of Serapis On The Quirinal Hill Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

Eight minutes on the temple of Serapis that Caracalla put on the Quirinal, one of the largest in the city and now known mostly from two enormous fragments.

YouTube
8mWhy Rome Destroyed the Septizodium Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

Eight minutes on the Septizodium, the three-storey show front Septimius Severus put at the foot of the Palatine in AD 203 so that travellers from Africa met it first. Sixtus V quarried it away in 1588.

YouTube
8mItaly before the Romans- rediscovering the Samnites Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

Eight minutes on the Samnites, the mountain confederation that sent a Roman army under the yoke at the Caudine Forks in 321 BC and took three wars to subdue.

YouTube
8mBONUS Episode "The Strange Tale of Attila, Honoria and Milan"" Echoes of EmpiresPodcast

Part of Echoes of Empires

Eight minutes more on the same episode, including the meeting with Pope Leo that turned Attila around.

8mExploring a ruined Byzantine castle toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

A Byzantine fortress walked through on camera, the kind of site that never makes a narrative history.

YouTube
8mMystras: final outpost of Byzantium toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

The Byzantine city in the Peloponnese that outlasted Constantinople by seven years, filmed among the ruins.

YouTube
8mAfter Rome: Four Late Antique Capitals Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

Ravenna, Milan, Trier and Constantinople as the cities that took over when Rome stopped being the capital.

YouTube
7mThe Tombs of Sidyma toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

Seven minutes at Sidyma in the Lycian hills, where the tombs outlasted the town and a village was later built in among them.

YouTube
7mLimyra: Empty Tomb of a Roman Prince toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

Seven minutes at the cenotaph raised in Lycia for Gaius Caesar, the grandson Augustus meant to succeed him, who died there in AD 4 at twenty-three. The tomb is empty; the succession went to Tiberius.

YouTube
6mCorinth: Roman Capital of Greece toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

Corinth after Rome destroyed it and rebuilt it as a colony, which is two cities on one site.

YouTube
5mThe Best-Preserved Roman Walls in Europe toldinstoneYouTube

Part of toldinstone

Five minutes at Lugo in Galicia, ringed by a third-century wall that still runs its entire circuit. No other Roman city in Europe can say that.

YouTube
ongoingHistory Time YouTube

Long-form narrative documentaries, often two hours, in the register of a good radio feature. For the ancient world it comes nearer to a book than anything else on YouTube.

YouTube
ongoingAncient Rome Live YouTube

Darius Arya filming on the sites themselves, usually with the excavation still open behind him. Less polished than the animated channels and considerably closer to the dirt.

Everything else

1h 31mThessalonica [Lost Roman Cities] Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

Part of Lost Roman Heroes · Matteo and Matthew Storm, 101 episodes

1h 04mFounding & Early Years of Byzantion (667 BC) - Pt. 1 The History of ConstantinoplePodcast

Part of The History of Constantinople · The city, from the Greek colony onwards

58mFounding & Early Years of Byzantion (667 BC) - Pt. 2 The History of ConstantinoplePodcast

Part of The History of Constantinople · The city, from the Greek colony onwards

52mPrehistoric Thrace & Anatolia The History of ConstantinoplePodcast

Part of The History of Constantinople · The city, from the Greek colony onwards

50mThe Untamed Peninsula - Nature's Prologue to Byzantion The History of ConstantinoplePodcast

Part of The History of Constantinople · The city, from the Greek colony onwards

42mRecap and Dawn of Archaic Period (3000 BC to 800 BC) The History of ConstantinoplePodcast

Part of The History of Constantinople · The city, from the Greek colony onwards

39mThe Aegean Bronze Age (3000 BC to 1100 BC) - Pt. 1 The History of ConstantinoplePodcast

Part of The History of Constantinople · The city, from the Greek colony onwards

36mThe Greek Dark Ages (1100 BC to 800 BC) - Pt. 1 The History of ConstantinoplePodcast

Part of The History of Constantinople · The city, from the Greek colony onwards

36mThe Aegean Bronze Age (3000 BC to 1100 BC) - Pt. 2 The History of ConstantinoplePodcast

Part of The History of Constantinople · The city, from the Greek colony onwards

31mThe Greek Dark Ages (1100 BC to 800 BC) - Pt. 3 The History of ConstantinoplePodcast

Part of The History of Constantinople · The city, from the Greek colony onwards

31mThe Greek Dark Ages (1100 BC to 800 BC) - Pt. 2 The History of ConstantinoplePodcast

Part of The History of Constantinople · The city, from the Greek colony onwards

29mThe Silent Years from Byzantion's Founding to Darius' Crossing (667 BC to 513 BC) The History of ConstantinoplePodcast

Part of The History of Constantinople · The city, from the Greek colony onwards

19mThe Latins & Etruscans Rome RetoldPodcast

Part of Rome Retold · T.E. Sarma, narrative history by season

18mEtruscan Places and the end of the Kingdom Understanding RomePodcast

Part of Understanding Rome · Agnes Crawford, licensed guide in Rome

15mHunting Hannibal, traces of the Punic Wars in Rome Understanding RomePodcast

Part of Understanding Rome · Agnes Crawford, licensed guide in Rome

14mThe Lapis Niger and the Heart of Government Understanding RomePodcast

Part of Understanding Rome · Agnes Crawford, licensed guide in Rome

13mBefore the Beginning Understanding RomePodcast

Part of Understanding Rome · Agnes Crawford, licensed guide in Rome

ongoingThe "Servian" Wall of the Early Republic Understanding RomePodcast

Part of Understanding Rome · Agnes Crawford, licensed guide in Rome

1h 19mPompeii: Mt. Vesuvius and Pliny the Younger Greeced LightningPodcast

Part of Greeced Lightning · Myths and movies with a doctor of classics; only the Roman episodes are indexed

59mEtruscans in the 6th Century BCE w. Dr. Alexandra Carpino Ithaca BoundPodcast

Part of Ithaca Bound · Andrew Schiestel on the Mediterranean, 2021 to 2022; only the Roman episodes are indexed

58mAncient Civilization of Samnium w. Dr Rafael Scopacasa Ithaca BoundPodcast

Part of Ithaca Bound · Andrew Schiestel on the Mediterranean, 2021 to 2022; only the Roman episodes are indexed

57mInfrastructure in Late Ancient Pompeii w. Dr. Eric Poehler Ithaca BoundPodcast

Part of Ithaca Bound · Andrew Schiestel on the Mediterranean, 2021 to 2022; only the Roman episodes are indexed

51mLeptis Magna and Septimius Severus with Maria Lloyd. Ancient History HoundPodcast

Part of Ancient History Hound · Ancient Blogger on Greece, Rome and antiquity for every level; only the Roman episodes are indexed

With Maria Lloyd

51mHousehold Items in Ancient Pompeii w. Dr Ria Berg Ithaca BoundPodcast

Part of Ithaca Bound · Andrew Schiestel on the Mediterranean, 2021 to 2022; only the Roman episodes are indexed

50mPompeii in the 6th Century BCE w. Dr. Ivo van der Graaff Ithaca BoundPodcast

Part of Ithaca Bound · Andrew Schiestel on the Mediterranean, 2021 to 2022; only the Roman episodes are indexed

49mPompeii in the 5th & 4th Centuries BCE w. Dr. Ivo van der Graaff Ithaca BoundPodcast

Part of Ithaca Bound · Andrew Schiestel on the Mediterranean, 2021 to 2022; only the Roman episodes are indexed

46mAncient Etruscans w. Dr. Alexandra Carpino Ithaca BoundPodcast

Part of Ithaca Bound · Andrew Schiestel on the Mediterranean, 2021 to 2022; only the Roman episodes are indexed

45mDecoding the Roman Dead Dan Snow's History HitPodcast

Part of Dan Snow's History Hit · Dan Snow on history's defining moments; only the Roman episodes are indexed

44mAncient Pompeii w. Dr Ray Laurence Ithaca BoundPodcast

Part of Ithaca Bound · Andrew Schiestel on the Mediterranean, 2021 to 2022; only the Roman episodes are indexed

25mPompeii. Before, during and after. Ancient History HoundPodcast

Part of Ancient History Hound · Ancient Blogger on Greece, Rome and antiquity for every level; only the Roman episodes are indexed

23mExcavating Lepcis Magna When in RomePodcast

Part of When in Rome

13mPompeii. Ancient History HoundPodcast

Part of Ancient History Hound · Ancient Blogger on Greece, Rome and antiquity for every level; only the Roman episodes are indexed

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