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

Roman battles

Cannae, Alesia, Adrianople, and the reconstructions that hold up.

916 entries · 1314 hours · 156 with a written verdict · British 308 · American 205 · Australian 162 · Mixed 58

Rome lost catastrophically often enough that the wins have shape. Cannae, where Hannibal turned the biggest army the Republic ever fielded inside out in an afternoon; Alesia, where Caesar built two walls and starved a nation; Adrianople, where an emperor went into the line and stayed there. The best of this indexing walks the ground and counts the men, and Ancient Warfare, Cost of Glory and HistoryMarche all do the counting properly.

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With a written verdict

65hThe History of Rome EssentialPodcast

179 episodes, Romulus to Romulus Augustulus, made by one man in his spare time before podcasting was a job. Everything else is a footnote to it. Start at episode one and clear your calendar.

All 189 episodes, in order →
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.

3h 27m11. Byzantium - Last of the Romans Fall of CivilizationsEssentialPodcast

Part of Fall of Civilizations

Three and a half hours on the Eastern empire from Constantine to the walls falling in 1453. If you have ever wanted the argument that Rome did not fall in 476 laid out properly, this is it.

22mThe Battle of Actium (31 B.C.E.) Historia CivilisEssentialYouTube

Part of Historia Civilis

Actium in animated blocks, which sounds absurd and is the clearest explanation of the battle anywhere. Historia Civilis makes fleet movements legible in a way no documentary manages.

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ongoingHistoria Civilis EssentialYouTube

Roman politics and battles as animated coloured blocks. It should not work and it is the clearest explanation of the constitution and of tactical manoeuvre that exists in any medium.

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ongoingEpic History TV EssentialYouTube

Animated history at the production level of a broadcast documentary, with maps that move the way campaigns actually moved. The Roman episodes are a fraction of the channel and the fraction to start with.

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283hAncient Warfare Podcast Podcast

The companion to Ancient Warfare magazine and the deepest military coverage anywhere: panel format, working specialists, and an hour on the logistics of one campaign when that is what it takes. Come to it once you know the outline.

175hThe History of Byzantium Podcast

Picks up the exact week Mike Duncan put the microphone down and keeps going for another thousand years. If you have ever told someone at a party that the Byzantines called themselves Romans, this is the show that armed you.

All 352 episodes, in order →
124hLost Roman Heroes Podcast

A hundred-plus hours on figures who never make the emperor lists, reaching deep into the Byzantine centuries where most Rome shows stop. Coverage is the value here.

All 103 episodes, in order →
6hAncient Rome: The Rise and Fall of an Empire Ancient RomeDocudrama

The BBC's six-part dramatisation from 2006, each episode a single turning point carried by actors. Dated in places, and still the clearest television account of how the whole arc fits together.

6hBarbarians Rising Docudrama

The History Channel's four parts told from the other side, from Hannibal to Alaric. Uneven, and the only mainstream television that treats the barbarians as people with aims.

6hByzantium And The Crusades Podcast

Six hours from Nick Holmes on the two centuries in which Byzantium asked the West for soldiers and received the Fourth Crusade. 1204 is the hinge, and the case made here is that 1453 was settled then.

All 17 episodes, in order →
3h 45mRoman Empire: Master of Rome Roman EmpireDocudrama

Part of Roman Empire

The Caesar season, and the strongest of the three: reenactment cut with historians who are given room to disagree with the script. Season three is the weak one.

3h 27mAfter Rome - The War For Britain // History Documentary SandRhomanHistoryYouTube

Part of SandRhomanHistory

What happened in Britain after 410, following the archaeology where the written sources stop.

YouTube
3h 19mJulius Caesar #34 – Alexandria & Cleopatra Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Over three hours in Egypt: a head in a basket, a queen who needed a Roman, and a war in the streets of Alexandria that Caesar had not planned and nearly lost.

3h 08mThe Fall of the Roman Empire Film

Anthony Mann's, and the film Gladiator quietly borrowed its plot from. It flopped so badly it ended the Hollywood epic for a generation, and it is better than that history suggests.

2h 51mJulius Caesar #36 – AFRICA Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Thapsus and the end of the Republican armies in Africa, including the suicide at Utica that made Cato a name to conjure with for the next four centuries. Nearly three hours.

2h 35mJulius Caesar #32 – Caesar Goes To Greece Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

The crossing to Epirus in winter with half an army, and the months at Dyrrachium where Pompey had him beaten and let him go. Two and a half hours on the campaign before the famous battle.

2h 32mJulius Caesar #31 – The Rain In Spain Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Ilerda, where Caesar was cut off by a flooded river and won the campaign without a pitched battle. Two and a half hours on a victory made of engineering and supply lines.

2h 24mJulius Caesar #24 – The Sieges of Avaricum & Gergovia Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Two and a half hours on the year Caesar nearly lost Gaul: a massacre at Avaricum, then a defeat at Gergovia that cost him legionaries and prestige at once.

2h 19mEpisode 46 - The Final War The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

A hundred and thirty-nine minutes on the last Roman-Persian war, which ruined both empires and left neither able to stop the Arab armies that came ten years later.

2h 19mJulius Caesar #33 – The Battle Of Pharsalus Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Pharsalus at length: outnumbered two to one, Caesar put a fourth line behind his cavalry and aimed it at the faces of Pompey's young horsemen. Two and a half hours on a battle decided by one instruction.

2h 13mJulius Caesar #25 – The Siege of Alesia Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Two hours and a quarter on Alesia: seventeen kilometres of inner wall, twenty-one of outer, and an army besieging while besieged. The most complete Roman siege there is.

2h 12mJulius Caesar #35 – VENI VIDI VICI Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Zela in five hours of fighting and three words of dispatch, plus the Pontic campaign around it. Two hours and a quarter on the briefest famous victory in Roman history.

2h 04m91 Justinian Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Two hours on the most famous eastern emperor, scored the way this show scores everyone. The reconquest, the law code, the plague and Theodora all get weighed, and the verdict at the end is a number you can argue with.

2h 04mJulius Caesar #29 – The Pardon Of Corfinium Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Two hours on the moment Caesar let a defeated garrison walk free, including its commander. Clemency as a weapon is the subject, and it worked: the next towns opened their gates.

2h 04mJulius Caesar #26 – Gaul Is Conquered Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

The mopping up after Alesia, including Uxellodunum where the survivors had their hands cut off. Two hours on what pacification meant in practice.

2h 02m96 Heraclius Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

A hundred and twenty-two minutes, the longest in this set, on an emperor who beat Persia outright and then watched the Arabs take everything he had won.

1h 59m171 Constantine XI Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Two hours on the last Roman emperor, closing a series that scored every one of them. He died in the breach in 1453 and no body was identified, which leaves the hosts scoring a man whose end is itself disputed.

1h 56m131 Basil II Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Nearly two hours on Basil the Bulgar Slayer, the high-water mark of the medieval empire, and one host spends most of it unconvinced. The disagreement is the reason to listen.

1h 52m129 Nikephoros II Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

A hundred and twelve minutes on the general who took Crete and Antioch, slept on the floor, and was murdered in the palace.

1h 47mEpisode 193 - Manzikert The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

A hundred and seven minutes on the defeat of 1071, where the emperor was captured and the real damage was the civil war that followed.

1h 47mEpisode 218 - The Siege of Antioch The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

A hundred and seven minutes on the crusader siege, the starvation inside and outside the walls, and the relic that turned the battle.

1h 41mEpisode 332 - Not with a Whimper but a Bang The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Mehmed II becomes sultan in 1451 and starts planning at once. A hundred and one minutes covering 1448 to 1453, which is the planning and the diplomacy; the siege itself comes later.

1h 40mJulius Caesar #15 – The Destruction Of The Belgae Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

The Sambre, where the legions were surprised mid-camp and Caesar picked up a shield himself. An hour and forty on the closest he came to losing the army.

1h 38mThe Entire History of Roman Britain (55 BC - 410 AD) // Ancient Rome Documentary SandRhomanHistoryYouTube

Part of SandRhomanHistory

Four and a half centuries of Roman Britain in one documentary, from Caesar's landing to the withdrawal.

YouTube
1h 34mEpisode 260 - The Fourth Crusade (Part 2) The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Ninety-four minutes on the assault of 1204 itself, with the Venetian fleet at the sea walls and a puppet emperor already dead.

1h 33mJulius Caesar #17 – Caesar Crosses The Rhine Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

A bridge built in ten days, used for eighteen, then demolished. An hour and a half on an engineering stunt aimed entirely at readers in Rome.

1h 33mJulius Caesar #13 – The Massacre Of The Helvetii Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

The migration Caesar stopped at the Saône and the numbers he reported afterwards, which his own census tablets undercut. An hour and a half on the war's opening and its first casualty, the truth.

1h 27mConquerors of Italy - the Early roman republic Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

With Mark McCaffery

How the early Republic's army was actually organised and paid, which is the answer to why Rome could lose repeatedly and keep fielding armies.

1h 27m58 - Agesilaus I: Persian Expedition Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory

Eighty-seven minutes on Sparta's greatest king, whom Plutarch pairs with Pompey. Greek material that earns its place by the pairing.

1h 24mAugustus Caesar #30 – Making Rome Great Again Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

The building programme, the marriage laws and the revival of old priesthoods, all of it aimed at a past that had never quite existed. Eighty minutes on restoration as a governing technique.

1h 23mJulius Caesar #41 – The War Is Over Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Munda, the last battle, fought against Pompey's sons and won at the cost of a thousand dead. An hour and twenty on a victory that ended the war and solved nothing.

1h 22mJulius Caesar #19 – Invading Britain AGAIN Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

The second crossing, with eight hundred ships and a storm that wrecked most of them. An hour and twenty on an expedition that took hostages and held nothing.

1h 22mSulla the Dictator: The Man Who Taught Caesar How to Rule: Sulla's Civil War (ALL PARTS) HistoryMarcheYouTube

Part of HistoryMarche

The dictatorship as a template, and the argument that Caesar copied a working model. Sulla laid down the office voluntarily, which is the part Caesar left out.

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1h 21mRome Refused to Fall: The Cimbrian War (113 - 101 BC) - ALL PARTS HistoryMarcheYouTube

Part of HistoryMarche

All parts of the Cimbrian war in one sitting, on the invasion that nearly ended Rome before Marius rebuilt the army.

YouTube
1h 20mEpisode 69 - Lost to the West The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Eighty minutes, the longest episode in this stretch, on how the western half slipped away and what the eastern half told itself about it.

1h 20mAugustus Caesar #05 – Another Civil War Begins Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Mutina, the two consuls dead in a month, and a nineteen-year-old marching on Rome to demand a consulship. Eighty minutes on the year the senate discovered what it had encouraged.

1h 19mWhat If Alexander Fought Rome? The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Seventy-nine minutes on the counterfactual: Alexander lives past Babylon and turns west on a Republic that has only just taken Italy. Livy put the same question in book nine and answered it patriotically.

1h 18m702. Roman Civil War: The Barbarian Invasion (Part 2) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Holland and Sandbrook on the Cimbri and Teutones smashing into the Republic, and on Marius rebuilding the army to stop them. The moment the legions began swearing to a general.

1h 18mClaudius #11 – Deviant Behaviour Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Messalina, the bigamous wedding she held while he was at Ostia, and the execution that followed. Seventy-eight minutes on the scandal that cost him a wife and his dignity at once.

1h 17mJulius Caesar #22 – The Annhilation Of The Eburones Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

The vengeance: a whole people hunted through their own forests with neighbouring tribes invited to help. An hour and a quarter on what Caesar wrote up as a police action.

1h 17mJulius Caesar #14 – Ariovistus And The Battle of Vosges Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Seventy-seven minutes on the German king Caesar had recognised as a friend of Rome a year earlier and then drove back across the Rhine.

1h 16mJulius Caesar #37 – Caesar’s Four Triumphs Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Seventy-six minutes on four triumphs in one year, with Vercingetorix strangled at the end of the first and a Ptolemy paraded in the second.

1h 15mHistorian Explains The ENTIRE Roman Conquest of Britain HistoryHitYouTube

Part of HistoryHit

Seventy-five minutes running from Caesar's two landings in 55 and 54 BC to Agricola in the north, in one sitting. A single historian to camera, which suits a story usually told in fragments.

YouTube
1h 13m14 Trajan Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Seventy-three minutes scoring the emperor who ignored the advice to stop expanding and pushed the borders further than anyone before or after. The show weighs the conquests against what holding them cost.

1h 12mBarbarian Invaders: The Sacks of Rome The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Peter Heather

410 and 455, the two sacks, and the difference between them. The first shocked the Mediterranean world; the second did more damage and less to the reputation.

1h 12mEpisode CLXXIV - Boudicca Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Seventy-two minutes on the revolt of 60: a flogged queen, three cities burnt, and an army that nearly lost Britain.

1h 11mThe Gallic Sack of Rome - Part 5 The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Seventy-one minutes on the recovery and the Camillus tradition, where a disaster gets rewritten into a story about a saviour.

1h 10mSwords and Cinema with Dr Jeremiah McCall The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Jeremiah McCall

Jeremiah McCall on Roman warfare on screen against what the evidence supports, from formation to sound. Seventy minutes.

1h 10mCaesar and Pompey in the Balkans Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Seventy minutes on Dyrrhachium and Pharsalus, where Caesar lost the first engagement badly and won the war a month later. The full panel on it.

1h 10mNero #13 – Badass Boudicea Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Boudica burns three cities while Nero is in Rome, and the empire nearly loses Britain in a summer. Seventy minutes, with the Roman sources read against what archaeology found in the burnt layers.

1h 10mJulius Caesar #40 – The Spanish Campaign 46 BCE Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Seventy minutes on the last campaign, against Pompey's sons in Spain, fought by an army that had stopped expecting to go home.

1h 10mJulius Caesar #18 – Invading Britain Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Seventy minutes on the first crossing, with two legions, no cavalry that arrived, and a beach landing against a defended shore.

1h 10m704. Roman Civil War: Master of the Republic (Part 4) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Seventy minutes on the younger Marius against Sulla, with Crassus and Pompey appearing as the next generation. The proscriptions are in here.

1h 09mMarcus Aurelius: The Philosopher Emperor The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With William Stephens

William Stephens on Marcus Aurelius: plague, the Danube wars, and a notebook written in camp that he never meant anyone to read. Sixty-nine minutes.

1h 09m642. Rome’s Greatest Enemy: Bloodbath in Africa (Part 3) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part three, sixty-nine minutes on Scipio crossing to Africa and on Zama in 202 BC, the one time the two best commanders of the age faced each other.

1h 07mPyrrhus: Warlord of Ancient Greece The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Louis Rawlings

The king who beat Rome twice and gave the language a word for it. A good hour on why winning battles and winning wars are different problems.

1h 07mRome, Carthage, and the Punic Wars: Interview with Dr. Bret Devereaux Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

With Bret Devereaux

Bret Devereaux on what made the Republic so hard to kill: the manpower pool, the terms it gave its allies, and a political system that could absorb Cannae. Sixty- seven minutes.

1h 07mJulius Caesar #30 – Run Away, Pompey Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Sixty-seven minutes on Pompey abandoning Italy without a fight, which left Caesar the capital and the treasury in two months.

1h 06mEpisode 344 - Cold Case: Constantine XI The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Robin Pierson treats the death of the last emperor as an open case: what the sources claim, where they cannot have been standing, and what became of the body. Sixty-six minutes on 29 May 1453.

1h 06mThe Fall of Veii: Part III The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

The ten-year siege of Rome's nearest rival, ending with a tunnel under the citadel. Sixty-six minutes on the conquest that doubled Roman territory.

1h 06mCaligula #17 – Brittanicus Germanicus Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

The family: a father poisoned in Syria, a mother and two brothers dead in exile, and a boy raised in the house that did it. An hour on where the paranoia came from.

1h 06mJulius Caesar – CONSUL #5 – Mikaberidze Does Mithridates (PT2) Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Sixty-six minutes with Alexander Mikaberidze on Mithridates, the king who killed eighty thousand Romans in one day and fought three wars over forty years.

1h 05mThe Rise of Hannibal The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

How a nine-year-old swore an oath and spent the rest of his life keeping it, and what the Barcid position in Spain actually was.

1h 05mRise of Hannibal The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Sixty-five minutes on Hannibal before Italy: the oath sworn at nine, the years campaigning in Spain, and the siege of Saguntum that handed Rome its war.

1h 05mTiberius Caesar #26 – Florus, Sacrovir & the Frisii Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Three provincial revolts in the twenties, put down without the emperor leaving Italy. An hour on an empire that ran itself while its head sulked.

1h 05m96 - Gallic Wars 6: Manhunt Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory

Sixty-five minutes on the pursuit of Ambiorix and the destruction of the Eburones, which Caesar describes himself. Reading his own account of it is the point.

1h 05mThe Great Revolt & The Siege of Masada // History Documentary SandRhomanHistoryYouTube

Part of SandRhomanHistory

The Jewish revolt and the siege that ended it, with the ramp the Romans built still standing.

YouTube
1h 04mTacfarinas: The Desert Hydra The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Sixty-four minutes on Tacfarinas, a Numidian auxiliary who deserted and then tied down Roman forces in Africa for seven years while Tacitus filed him under bandit.

1h 04mEtruscan Evil Plans The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Marcus Manlius

Sixty-four minutes on the Etruscan cities as Rome's neighbours and rivals, told from the side that lost and left no history of its own.

1h 04mClaudius #9 Vini Vidi Vici Bitchi Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

The triumph and the years after it, when a government of freedmen ran the empire and the senate hated every one of them. Just over an hour.

1h 04m16 - Pyrrhus 2: Men and Beasts Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory

Sixty-four minutes on the elephants and the victories that cost him his army. The phrase Pyrrhic victory is coined in these battles and the episode shows why it stuck.

1h 03mThe Seleucid Empire: In the Shadow of Rome The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Sixty-three minutes on the empire that ran from Thrace to the Indus, the largest of Alexander's successor states, and on how Rome cut it down at Magnesia and then by treaty.

1h 03mPirates of the Mediterranean The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Nick Rauh

Nick Rauh and Adam Dawson on piracy from Spain to Syria across the second and first centuries BC, and on Pompey clearing the sea in a single season. Sixty-three minutes.

1h 03mThe Year of the Four Emperors Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

With Josho Brouwers

Sixty-nine, four emperors, and the discovery Tacitus draws out of it: an emperor could be made somewhere other than Rome.

1h 03m640. Rome’s Greatest Enemy: Carthage at the Gates (Part 1) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Holland and Sandbrook's four-part Carthage run, and the most entertaining way into the subject. Start at part one; they build.

1h 03mEpisode 259 - The Fourth Crusade (Part 1) The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Sixty-three minutes on how an army sworn to Egypt ended up outside Constantinople: a debt to Venice, a claimant with promises, and nobody willing to stop.

1h 03m15 - Pyrrhus 1: Rise of a Warrior King Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory

Sixty-three minutes on the king smuggled out of his palace at two and raised in exile, before he ever met a Roman army. The background that makes the Italian campaign make sense.

1h 03mJustinian’s Italian Dream: Narses and the Last Roman Victory in the West (ALL PARTS) HistoryMarcheYouTube

Part of HistoryMarche

Narses in Italy, the eunuch general who finished what Belisarius started. He was past seventy when he took the command and he won every battle he fought.

YouTube
1h 02mFall of the Western Roman Empire The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

The Goths and the Vandals, both pushed west by the Huns, both of whom sacked Rome. Sixty-two minutes on how confederations arriving as refugees ended up as the successor kingdoms.

1h 01mCicero’s Fight for the Roman Republic The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Mutina, April 43 BC, with Octavian, Antony and Decimus Brutus all fielding armies and Cicero holding only a voice. Steele Brand takes Tristan Hughes through the campaign that gave the Philippics their weight and then cost Cicero his head and his hands.

1h 01mThe Reluctant Warlord; The wars of Marcus Aurelius Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Sixty-one minutes on the Danube wars of Marcus Aurelius, fought by an emperor with no taste for it against pressure that never let up. Angus Wallace with Josho, Lindsay and Mark McCaffery.

1h 01mThe Romans Unify Italy Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Sixty-one minutes on the century of fighting that made Italy Roman before any empire existed: Latins, Etruscans, Samnites, and the settlement terms that held it together.

1h 01m641. Rome’s Greatest Enemy: Hannibal’s Nemesis (Part 2) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part two, sixty-one minutes on the Battle of Ibera and on Scipio in Spain, which is where the Punic War was settled while everyone was watching Italy.

1h 01mEpisode 149 - Streams of Gold, Rivers of Blood The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Anthony Kaldellis

Sixty-one minutes on Basil II's long war with Bulgaria, the blinding of fifteen thousand prisoners, and an empire at its widest since Justinian.

1h 01m77 - Lucullus II: Armenia Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory

Sixty-one minutes on Lucullus driving Mithridates out of Pontus and following him into Armenia, where the war stopped being winnable.

1h 01mThe First Punic War The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

For over twenty years Rome and Carthage fought for supremacy over Sicily; Tristan Hughes and Carthage expert Eve MacDonald explore the First Punic War's naval clashes, boarding bridges, war elephants and sacred chickens.

1hThe Fall of Carthage The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Eve MacDonald

The third war, which was not really a war: a disarmed city destroyed because Cato kept demanding it. Also disposes of the salting of the earth, which is a nineteenth-century invention.

1hRomans vs Caledonians: The Battle of Mons Graupius The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

AD 83 or 84, somewhere in Scotland, and the only account comes from Tacitus writing up his own father-in-law. Sixty minutes on a battle whose site nobody has found.

1hWarlords, War, and Society in Early Rome: Interview with Professor Jeremy Armstrong Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

With Jeremy Armstrong

Jeremy Armstrong on early Roman warfare as private warbands under aristocratic leaders, long before anything resembling a state army. Sixty minutes.

1h643. Rome’s Greatest Enemy: Carthage Destroyed (Part 4) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part four, sixty minutes on 146 BC, when Rome went back and finished it: the city burned, the site cursed, and the Mediterranean left with one power in it.

59m'Killing for the Roman Republic' The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Steele Brand

Steele Brand on the citizen-farmer army: Pyrrhus lands at Tarentum in 280 BC expecting a walkover and spends six years learning otherwise. Fifty-nine minutes.

59mWhy Was Carthage Such a Threat to Rome? Interview with Dr. Bret Devereaux, Part 2 Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

With Bret Devereaux

Bret Devereaux on the uncomfortable answer: Carthage was a threat because it was the state most like Rome, with the same reach and the same appetite. Fifty-nine minutes.

59mVarus & The Teutoburg Forest Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Recorded for the two-thousandth anniversary, fifty-nine minutes on the loss of legions XVII, XVIII and XIX somewhere in northern Germany. Those three numbers were never issued to a legion again.

59m502. The Roman Conquest of Britain: To the Ends of the Earth (Part 4) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part four, fifty-nine minutes on the decades after Boudica, when Rome decided the province was worth holding and sent Agricola north to prove it.

59mClaudius #8 – Invading Britannia Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

An hour on the British campaign: why Claudius needed it, how the army nearly refused to sail, and what sixteen days of imperial presence bought him.

58mThe Origins of Rome's Empire The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Jeremy Armstrong

The awkward question of whether Rome was deliberately imperialist or kept acquiring an empire by accident. Historians have been arguing about this since the 1970s and the episode says so.

58mShapur I: Rome's Greatest Enemy? The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Eve MacDonald

Eve MacDonald on the Sasanian king who took a Roman emperor alive: Valerian in 260, and the rock relief at Naqsh-e Rostam cut so that nobody could forget it. Fifty-eight minutes.

58mEpisode 352 - Crusader Storm with Nicholas Morton The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Nicholas Morton

Fifty-eight minutes with Morton on his book about the thirteenth-century Near East, where Mongols, Mamluks and crusaders all arrive at once.

58m569. Hannibal: Elephants Cross the Alps (Part 2) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part two, fifty-eight minutes on 218 BC and on the harder question underneath it: why the Republic could lose army after army and still field another one.

58m571. Hannibal: Roman Bloodbath at Cannae (Part 4) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part four, fifty-eight minutes on 216 BC and on the double envelopment that military academies still teach, from the point of view of the men in the middle of it.

57mCrassus and the Battle of Carrhae: The Defeat of Rome The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Carrhae in 53 BC ended the richest man in Rome and opened three centuries of war with Parthia. Badly covered elsewhere.

57mThe Gallic Sack of Rome - Part 1 The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

A six-part excavation of 390 BC, the year the Gauls took the city, working from Livy upward and pointing out where he is inventing. The best demonstration anywhere of how early Roman history was written backwards from later politics.

57mThe Fall of Constantinople and the Tragic End of the Byzantines Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

Fifty-seven minutes on 1453, after sixty years of Ottoman attempts, and on what the capture meant for everyone else around that sea.

57mRome vs Poisonous Pontus Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Fifty-seven minutes on the Mithridatic Wars, 88 to 63 BC, begun with the massacre of tens of thousands of Italians in Asia in a single coordinated day.

56mBoudica and the Iceni The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Elodie Harper

Elodie Harper on the revolt of AD 60, when Camulodunum, Londinium and Verulamium all burned and the province came close to being given up. Fifty-six minutes.

56mThe Gallic Sack of Rome - Part 3 The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Fifty-six minutes on the Allia and the sack of 390, the defeat Romans dated their calendar around for centuries.

56mKidnapped! The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Fifty-six minutes on abduction in Roman story and law, from the Sabine women onward, where the founding myth and the statute sit uncomfortably close.

56m500. The Roman Conquest of Britain: The Empire Strikes Back (Part 2) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part two, fifty-six minutes on AD 43 and on Claudius, underestimated by everyone around him and in need of a triumph he could not win himself.

56m570. Hannibal: The Invasion of Italy (Part 3) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part three, fifty-six minutes on the crossing and its price: Hannibal reached Italy with a fraction of the army he set out with, and won anyway.

56m3 - Sertorius 3: Public Enemy Number One Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory

Fifty-six minutes on how a single commander fought off the Roman military machine with local troops and a rival senate. Guerrilla war before the word existed.

55mHannibal's March on Rome The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Louis Rawlings

Louis Rawlings on 211 BC, when Hannibal rode to the walls of Rome to break the siege of Capua and the Romans kept besieging Capua anyway. Fifty-five minutes.

55mAttack of the Celts: Confronting the Classical World Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Fifty-five minutes on the Celts in the classical world, from the sack of Rome around 390 BC to the gold of Tolosa taken in 106 BC and promptly lost.

55mAW278 - Publius Quinctilius Varus and the Teutoburg Disaster Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Jo Ball on her own book about Varus, who was a competent administrator given a job that was not administration. Fifty-five minutes on AD 9.

55m568. Hannibal: Rome's Greatest Enemy (Part 1) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part one, fifty-five minutes on Hamilcar rebuilding Carthaginian power in Spain and on the son he raised inside that project.

54mBoudica The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Caitlin Gillespie

Caitlin Gillespie on the evidence for Boudica, which is Tacitus and Cassius Dio writing decades later with speeches they invented. Fifty-four minutes separating the queen from the statue.

54mThe Parthians The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Adrian Goldsworthy

Adrian Goldsworthy on the empire that destroyed the Seleucids, killed Crassus at Carrhae and outlasted the Republic itself. Fifty-four minutes.

54m501. The Roman Conquest of Britain: Boudicca’s Reign of Blood (Part 3) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part three, fifty-four minutes on the revolt of AD 60. Cassius Dio puts the dead at eighty thousand and blames the loss of the province on a woman.

54mEpisode 301 - The Fifth Crusade with Nicholas Morton The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Nicholas Morton

Fifty-four minutes with Nicholas Morton on the crusade that aimed at Egypt, took Damietta and gave it back.

53mGreeks vs Romans: Empires at War The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Simon Elliott

Simon Elliott on the clashes between phalanx and legion, from Pyrrhus to Cynoscephalae and Pydna. Fifty-three minutes on what happened when the two systems actually met.

53mMassacre at Teutoburg Forest The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Over fifteen thousand men lost in the Teutoburg Forest in AD 9, and this episode carries the story past the ambush to what Germanicus found on the ground six years later. Fifty-three minutes.

53mThe Great Jewish Revolt The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Guy Maclean Rogers

The war that destroyed the Temple in AD 70 and paid for the Colosseum. The Arch of Titus still shows the menorah being carried through the city.

53mThe White Huns The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Hyun Jin Kim

Hyun Jin Kim on the Hephthalites, who built the larger Hunnic empire in Central Asia and held the Silk Roads for a century while Attila got the reputation. Fifty-three minutes.

53mThe Roman Conquest of Spain Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Fifty-three minutes on why Spain took Rome two hundred years to hold, which is longer than Gaul, Britain and Egypt put together.

53m177. The Jewish Revolt (Part 3) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part three, fifty-three minutes on the burning of the Temple, the triumph that paid for the Colosseum, and Masada.

53m220. Justinian & Theodora: The Secret History (Part 3) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

The last of three: the reconquest of Italy, the plague that arrived in 541, and the ledger afterwards. Fifty-three minutes.

53m424. Carthage vs. Rome: Total War (Part 4) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part four, fifty-three minutes on the collision itself, between an upstart that had taken Italy and a city that had run the western sea for centuries.

53m524. Charlemagne: Pagan Killer (Part 2) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part two, fifty-three minutes on the Saxon wars: thirty years of campaigning and forced conversion that built the kingdom Charlemagne was crowned over.

52mWar Elephants The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Silvannen Gerrard

Silvannen Gerrard on the Seleucids, who had the real elephant army: an empire reaching to the Hindu Kush with a treaty supply of them from India. Fifty-two minutes.

52mStruggle for Control: Wars In Ancient Sicily Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Fifty-two minutes on Sicily as the island everyone fought over: Greeks, Carthaginians, Syracusans and finally Rome, which took it first.

52m117 - Alexander's Sack of Thebes, w/ Victor Davis Hanson Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory

Fifty-two minutes with Victor Davis Hanson on Alexander destroying Thebes in 335 BC. Plutarch pairs Alexander with Caesar, which is the thread back to Rome.

51mSulla The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Alex Petkas

The man who marched on Rome, won, posted lists of citizens who could be killed for their property, and then resigned. Everything after him is downstream of the first two of those.

51m69 AD: Rise of Vespasian The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Four men claimed the purple in AD 69 and one was alive at the end of it. Fifty-one minutes on how a general from the Jewish war took Rome from the eastern legions.

51mThe First Punic War Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

With Josho Brouwers

Fifty-one minutes on 264 to 241 BC, the longest unbroken war in antiquity, fought mostly at sea by a Rome that had no fleet when it started.

51mNero #14 – Bloodshed And Destruction Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Fifty-one minutes on the reprisals after Boudica, where the governor was recalled for being too thorough.

51m92 - Gallic Wars 2: Conspiracy Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory

Fifty-one minutes on the moment Caesar nearly lost Gaul, in a series that reads the Commentaries as propaganda as much as report.

51m1 - Sertorius 1: Survival Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory

Fifty-one minutes opening the series, on the Roman rebel who held Spain against Rome for eight years. Beethoven and Machiavelli both took him as a subject, which says how long the story ran.

50mPersia Reborn: Rise of the Sasanians The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Eve MacDonald

Eve MacDonald on Ardashir overthrowing the Parthians in the 220s and building a state that pressed Rome harder than anything before it. Fifty minutes.

50mThe Vandals The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Andy Merrills

Andy Merrills again, fifty minutes, on the people whose name became a word for destruction and who ran Carthage as a functioning state for a hundred years.

50mGaius Marius at War Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Fifty minutes on Marius, consul seven times, who opened the legions to men with no property and is credited with more reform than he probably managed.

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.

49mThe Battle of Philippi: Death of the Roman Republic The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

October 42 BC, and both of Caesar's assassins die by their own hand within three weeks on the same plain. Forty-nine minutes on the day the Republic stopped having defenders.

49mThe Vandals: Destroyers of Rome The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Andy Merrills

Andy Merrills on the Vandals, who crossed Gaul and Spain, took Carthage in 439 and ran North Africa as a kingdom for a century. Forty-nine minutes.

49mThe Jewish-Roman wars Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

With Josho Brouwers

Forty-nine minutes on three revolts across seventy years: AD 66, the diaspora rising under Trajan, and Bar Kokhba, each ending worse than the last.

49m423. Carthage vs. Rome: The Wolf at the Gates (Part 3) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part three, forty-nine minutes on how the two of them ended up in the same sea with the same ambitions and no way of sharing it.

The next 24 of 916, longest first

22hDeath Throes of the Republic Hardcore HistoryEssentialPodcast

Part of Hardcore History · Dan Carlin, six parts, twenty-two hours

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2h 06mStilicho & Alaric (Part 2) Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

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

1h 53mAetius (Part 2) Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

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

1h 49mPompey II: Empire of Venus Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory · Alex Petkas on Plutarch, 45 hours

1h 48mStilicho & Alaric (Part 1) Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

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

1h 46mCaesar's Civil War I: Breakdown Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory · Alex Petkas on Plutarch, 45 hours

1h 30mCaesar's Civil War III: Came Saw Conquered Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory · Alex Petkas on Plutarch, 45 hours

1h 29mCaesar's Civil War II: Bloody Pharsalia Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory · Alex Petkas on Plutarch, 45 hours

1h 28mOctavian (Part 3) Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

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

1h 23mTrajan Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

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

1h 17mGallic Wars 1: Caesar's Chance Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory · Alex Petkas on Plutarch, 45 hours

1h 16mSulla (Part 2) Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

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

1h 14mConstantine (Part 2) Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

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

1h 12mSulla III: Vengeance Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory · Alex Petkas on Plutarch, 45 hours

1h 12mOctavian (Part 2) Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

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

1h 11mSulla (Part 1) Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

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

1h 09mSulla 2: Rogue Commander Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory · Alex Petkas on Plutarch, 45 hours

1h 07mJulius Caesar (Part 2) Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

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

1h 05mSpartacus Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

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

1h 03mGallic Wars 3: Caesar At Sea Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory · Alex Petkas on Plutarch, 45 hours

1h 02mAmbrosius Aurelianus Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

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

51mSpartacus — with Barry Strauss Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory · Alex Petkas on Plutarch, 45 hours

With Barry Strauss

50mCatiline III: The Last Stand Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory · Alex Petkas on Plutarch, 45 hours

50mJustinian (Part 2 - the Apogee) Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

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

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