With a written verdict
182hThe Ancients
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 Civilizations
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
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 Civilizations
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
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
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.
3hPompeii: The New Dig
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
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 Historians
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 Ancients
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 Historians
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 Historians
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
Part of The Ancients
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 Caesar
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 Podcast
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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
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.
1hItaly Before Rome: Interview with Dr. Kathryn Lomas Tides of History
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 Byzantium
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 Ancients
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 Historians
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Historians
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Historians
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 History
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 Ancients
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 Historians
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 Glory
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 Ancients
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 History
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 History
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
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 Etruscans
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 Ancients
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 Historians
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 Gaul
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Historians
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 History
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 Byzantium
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 Ancients
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
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 History
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 Byzantium
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 History
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 History
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
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Podcast
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 Ancients
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 Historians
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 Byzantium
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 Ancients
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 History
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 Byzantium
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 Byzantium
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Rome
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Rome
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 Rome
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.
30mCaerleon When in Rome
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.
29mYorkshire's Roman Mystery: The Ryedale Hoard The Ancients
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 Byzantium
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Historians
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 Historians
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Ancients
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 Byzantium
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 Scrolls
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 Live
Part of Ancient Rome Live
Four early churches in Rome examined as buildings, which is where the transition from temple to basilica is visible.
15mIntroduction and the Origins of Rome Echoes of Empires
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 toldinstone
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.
14mPinara: Abandoned for 1000 Years toldinstone
Part of toldinstone
Fourteen minutes at Pinara, a Lycian city under a cliff face honeycombed with rock- cut tombs, empty since the Byzantine centuries.
14mThe Spectacular Ruins of Delos toldinstone
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.
14mAncient Rome at the Met: Masterpieces of an Empire Ancient Rome Live
Part of Ancient Rome Live
A walk through the Roman collection at the Metropolitan Museum with someone explaining what each piece is for.
13mInterlude - The Bronze Head of Augustus Emperors of Rome
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 Podcast
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 toldinstone
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.
11mDjemila: Gem of Roman Africa toldinstone
Part of toldinstone
A Roman city in Algeria preserved well enough to walk through, filmed on the ground.
11mAugustus' Victory Monument at Actium toldinstone
Part of toldinstone
The monument Augustus built where his camp stood before Actium, decorated with the rams of the ships he captured.
11mThe Road Rome Forgot: Reopening The Vicus ad Carinas Ancient Rome Live
Part of Ancient Rome Live
A street into the forum reopened after centuries, filmed as the excavation finished.
10mMerida: Spain's Best-Preserved Roman City toldinstone
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.
10mThe Catacombs and Ruins of Alexandria toldinstone
Part of toldinstone
What survives of Roman Alexandria, which is less than you would expect and stranger.
9mInterlude - The Singing Colossus of Memnon Emperors of Rome
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 toldinstone
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.
9mItalica: Spain's Oldest Roman City toldinstone
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.
9mWho destroyed the Baths of Constantine? Ancient Rome Live
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.
9mWhy This Roman Temple Was Destroyed? Ancient Rome Live
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.
9mGortyn: Metropolis of Roman Crete toldinstone
Part of toldinstone
The Roman capital of Crete, filmed on site, with the law code carved in stone that is still standing there.
8mThe Hippodrome of Constantinople | A Short Tour toldinstone
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.
8mThe Ruins of Oenoanda toldinstone
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.
8mRome's Greatest Lost Fountain: Meta Sudans Ancient Rome Live
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.
8mErased History: Temple of Serapis On The Quirinal Hill Ancient Rome Live
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.
8mWhy Rome Destroyed the Septizodium Ancient Rome Live
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.
8mItaly before the Romans- rediscovering the Samnites Ancient Rome Live
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.
8mBONUS Episode "The Strange Tale of Attila, Honoria and Milan"" Echoes of Empires
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 toldinstone
Part of toldinstone
A Byzantine fortress walked through on camera, the kind of site that never makes a narrative history.
8mMystras: final outpost of Byzantium toldinstone
Part of toldinstone
The Byzantine city in the Peloponnese that outlasted Constantinople by seven years, filmed among the ruins.
8mAfter Rome: Four Late Antique Capitals Ancient Rome Live
Part of Ancient Rome Live
Ravenna, Milan, Trier and Constantinople as the cities that took over when Rome stopped being the capital.
7mThe Tombs of Sidyma toldinstone
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.
7mLimyra: Empty Tomb of a Roman Prince toldinstone
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.
6mCorinth: Roman Capital of Greece toldinstone
Part of toldinstone
Corinth after Rome destroyed it and rebuilt it as a colony, which is two cities on one site.
5mThe Best-Preserved Roman Walls in Europe toldinstone
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.
ongoingHistory Time
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.
Everything else
1h 31mThessalonica [Lost Roman Cities] Lost Roman Heroes
Part of Lost Roman Heroes · Matteo and Matthew Storm, 101 episodes
1h 04mFounding & Early Years of Byzantion (667 BC) - Pt. 1 The History of Constantinople
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 Constantinople
Part of The History of Constantinople · The city, from the Greek colony onwards
52mPrehistoric Thrace & Anatolia The History of Constantinople
Part of The History of Constantinople · The city, from the Greek colony onwards
50mThe Untamed Peninsula - Nature's Prologue to Byzantion The History of Constantinople
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 Constantinople
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 Constantinople
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 Constantinople
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 Constantinople
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 Constantinople
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 Constantinople
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 Constantinople
Part of The History of Constantinople · The city, from the Greek colony onwards
19mThe Latins & Etruscans Rome Retold
Part of Rome Retold · T.E. Sarma, narrative history by season
18mEtruscan Places and the end of the Kingdom Understanding Rome
Part of Understanding Rome · Agnes Crawford, licensed guide in Rome
15mHunting Hannibal, traces of the Punic Wars in Rome Understanding Rome
Part of Understanding Rome · Agnes Crawford, licensed guide in Rome
14mThe Lapis Niger and the Heart of Government Understanding Rome
Part of Understanding Rome · Agnes Crawford, licensed guide in Rome
13mBefore the Beginning Understanding Rome
Part of Understanding Rome · Agnes Crawford, licensed guide in Rome
ongoingThe "Servian" Wall of the Early Republic Understanding Rome
Part of Understanding Rome · Agnes Crawford, licensed guide in Rome
1h 19mPompeii: Mt. Vesuvius and Pliny the Younger Greeced Lightning
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 Bound
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 Bound
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 Bound
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 Hound
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 Bound
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 Bound
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 Bound
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 Bound
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 Hit
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 Bound
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 Hound
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 Rome
Part of When in Rome
13mPompeii. Ancient History Hound
Part of Ancient History Hound · Ancient Blogger on Greece, Rome and antiquity for every level; only the Roman episodes are indexed