Bloodlines · Who it happened to: the plotting, the gods, the beds, the graves.

Roman daily life

Dinner, laundry, toilets, holidays and what the flat smelled like.

193 entries · 150 hours · 163 with a written verdict · British 81 · American 37 · Australian 32 · Mixed 4

Most Romans lived up four flights with no kitchen and bought dinner in the street. The public latrines seated twenty and had no partitions. Toldinstone and Understanding Rome are the two that go looking for the ordinary hour, and Mary Beard's Being Roman takes a single life off an inscription and reconstructs the whole week around it.

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With a written verdict

20h 10mRome EssentialDrama

Two seasons, cancelled far too early, and still the only screen Rome that feels lived in. It follows two soldiers through Caesar's rise and Octavian's, and the politics of the street is as carefully built as the politics of the Senate.

ongoingtoldinstone EssentialYouTube

Garrett Ryan has a doctorate in ancient history and makes short, precise videos answering the questions people actually have: what it smelled like, what it cost, what happened if you got ill.

YouTube
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 →
3hMeet the Romans with Mary Beard Meet the RomansDocumentary

Beard's three parts on ordinary Romans, read off their tombstones. The corrective to every documentary that is only about emperors.

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 38mLost Roman Heroes - Episode 55: Q&A Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

Part of Lost Roman Heroes

Ninety-eight minutes of listener questions, long enough to cover the sources, the method and the arguments the series keeps having.

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 13mNERO #23 – The Great Fire Of Rome Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Seventy-three minutes on July 64 and the fire that burned for six days. Tacitus is the only near-contemporary and he was nine years old at the time, which the episode does not let you forget.

1h 10mHow to Survive on Hadrian’s Wall The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Frances McIntosh on the daily round at the wall: rations, rotas, and local gods picked up on the spot and worshipped alongside the official ones. Seventy minutes treating the garrison as residents.

1h 09mSpecial Episode – Ancient Athenian Women with Associate Professor Rebecca Futo Kennedy The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Rebecca Futo Kennedy

Rebecca Futo Kennedy on Athenian women and citizenship, and on how badly Athens compares with Rome on that count. Sixty-nine minutes, and the comparison is the point.

1h 09mRoman Naming Conventions The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Sixty-nine minutes on why every second Roman is called Gaius: three names, a handful of praenomina, and women named after their father's clan.

1h 08mHow to Survive in Carthage The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

What the city was like to live in, from the harbour to the tophet, which is the part every account of the wars skips.

1h 07mSpinning in the Roman World The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Carey Fleiner

Carey Fleiner on spinning: sixty-seven minutes on the work that produced clothes, sailcloth and rope, done by women and slaves, and almost absent from the histories written by men who wore the results.

1h 07mVitellius #5 – The Mule Guy Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Sixty-seven minutes on Vitellius, a governor chosen for being harmless who was carried to the throne by the Rhine legions.

1h 07mCaligula #5 – Caligula’s Popularity Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

The first months, when he emptied the prisons, published the accounts and was cheered for it. An hour on a beginning that nobody expected to curdle.

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 04m541 AD: The Worst Year in History The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Kyle Harper

Kyle Harper on the volcanic dust veil of the 530s followed by bubonic plague in 541, and on the argument that climate and disease set the limits everything else happened inside. Sixty-four minutes.

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 03mRoman Toilets The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Hannah Platts

Hannah Platts on communal latrines with no partitions, the shared sponge on a stick, and sewers that ran to the Tiber. Sixty-three minutes on the plumbing nobody puts in the films.

1h 03mEpisode CLXII - Anthology of Interest III Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Caillan Davenport, Gillian Shepherd

Sixty-three minutes of listener questions, the longest of these anthologies and the one with the most detours.

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.

1h 01mSpecial Episode – Disability in Ancient Greece The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Debby Sneed

Sixty-one minutes on disability in the Greek world: the medical writers, the myths, and the gap between the two.

1hPompeii: The Last Day Docudrama

One hour, real people reconstructed from the bodies in the ash, and a volcanic timeline you can set your watch by. The scene everyone remembers is the pyroclastic surge, and it earns it.

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
59mGladiators: A Day in the Life The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Harry Sidebottom

Harry Sidebottom walking through a fighter's day: the barracks, the diet of barley, the doctor, and the fact that most bouts were not meant to end in a death. Fifty- nine minutes.

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.

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.

58mEpisode CLXXXIX - Nero and the Great Fire of Rome (Live in Canberra) Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Caillan Davenport

The fire of 64 taken apart live: what burned, how long, and where the story about the lyre comes from. Fifty-eight minutes, and the blame lands on the sources as much as on Nero.

58m224. Roman Holidays The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Fifty-eight minutes on Roman tourism: villas on the Bay of Naples, graffiti carved on Egyptian monuments, and guided tours of the Holy Land.

58m426. History's Greatest Monkeys The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

A fifth-century BC military grave turned up a macaque buried dressed as a legionary, and nobody can say whether he was a mascot or something closer. Fifty-eight minutes on animals in armies.

58m132 Constantine VIII Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Fifty-eight minutes on Basil II's brother, who waited sixty-five years for a throne he held for three and used mostly for blinding people.

57mClaudius #1 – The Monster Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

The series opens on the family's view of him: an embarrassment kept out of sight for forty years. Fifty-seven minutes on the disability and what Rome made of it.

56mSex in Ancient Rome The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Fifty-six minutes on Roman sexual norms, which sorted people by who was doing what to whom and cared about status far more than about gender.

55m7: The Three Transformations Of Roman Gaul The Fall of Rome PodcastPodcast

Part of The Fall of Rome Podcast

Fifty-five minutes on Gaul, which changed hands three times and kept more of its Roman shape than anywhere else in the west.

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.

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.

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.

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.

52mAnthology of Interest IV Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

With William Dalrymple, Caillan Davenport

Fifty-two minutes in which Rhiannon Evans, Caillan Davenport, Matt Smith and William Dalrymple each bring one Roman subject they keep returning to. Four specialists off the leash for an hour.

52mA Dry Period The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Fifty-two minutes on a drought year in the early Republic, where the response was religious before it was practical.

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.

52mReal Life of a Roman Soldier Documentary

Decades of excavation set against the legionary of the films: what he carried, what he was paid, where he slept and how long he lasted. Fifty-two minutes, and the clichés come off one by one.

51m20: The Anglo-Saxon Migration, the North Sea World, and the Birth of England The Fall of Rome PodcastPodcast

Part of The Fall of Rome Podcast

Fifty-one minutes on who actually crossed the North Sea, where the genetics and the archaeology disagree with the chronicles.

51mAncient Engineering: Rome Ancient EngineeringDocumentary

Roads, bridges, aqueducts and the Colosseum taken as engineering problems, with the solution drawn out each time. Fifty-one minutes, and the one to send someone who wants to know how the empire was physically held together.

50mThe Hidden History of Rome Documentary

Terry Jones on the Romans who never ruled anything: what they ate, how they washed, what they found funny. Fifty minutes, and the Python eye for the ridiculous detail turns out to be a good instrument for social history.

48m6: The Catastrophic Fall Of Roman Britain The Fall of Rome PodcastPodcast

Part of The Fall of Rome Podcast

Forty-eight minutes on the province that collapsed hardest: coinage gone, pottery gone, and towns empty within two generations.

47mHow to Survive in Ancient Rome The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Ben Kane

Ben Kane on the practical odds: fire, disease, the water supply, the food, and the parts of the city you would not walk through after dark. Forty-seven minutes.

46m13: The Unraveling of the Roman World The Fall of Rome PodcastPodcast

Part of The Fall of Rome Podcast

Forty-six minutes on the fifth century as a chain of local failures, each one making the next more likely.

46m491. History's Greatest Beards: From Egyptian Queens to Medieval Conquerors (Part 1) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Forty-six minutes on facial hair as politics, taking in Marcus Aurelius, whose beard was a philosopher's statement and not a fashion.

45mHow to Party Like a Roman The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Ian Goh

Ian Goh on the Roman dinner party, which was mostly conversation, reclining and a fixed order of courses. Forty-five minutes correcting the orgy.

45mEpisode 269 - Questions XIII The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Forty-five minutes of listener questions after 1204, which is the point where the series has to explain what an empire in exile even is.

44mLost Roman Heroes - Episode 96 - Gregory the Great (Part 1) Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

Part of Lost Roman Heroes

Forty-four minutes on the pope who fed Rome when the empire could not, and who sent the mission that converted England.

43m30: Tides of History: Natural Disasters and the End of the Roman Empire The Fall of Rome PodcastPodcast

Part of The Fall of Rome Podcast

Forty-three minutes on volcanoes, plague and earthquakes arriving in the same century as the political collapse.

43mClassic Tides: Plague, Climate, and the End of the Roman World Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

Forty-three minutes from 2017 on Justinian's reign running into volcanic cooling and then plague, reposted in 2020 for reasons the host states plainly.

42mA Feast for the Gods The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

The lectisternium, where statues of gods were laid on couches and served dinner. Forty-two minutes on ritual as crisis management.

41mThe Great Fire of Rome The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Ginna Closs

July AD 64, and two-thirds of the city burnt before it was stopped. Ginna Closs on the fire, the rebuilding, and the persecution that followed it. Forty-one minutes.

40mImperial Dining (with Mary Beard) Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Mary Beard

Beard on what emperors actually ate and, more to the point, what dinner was for. Seating, obligation and humiliation at the table, which turns out to be where a lot of Roman politics happened.

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.

39mEpisode 350 - Questions XIX The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Listener questions: where the gold came from, how Romania ended up speaking a Romance language, whether the Byzantines played polo. Thirty-nine minutes of the loose ends a narrative show cannot stop for.

39mEpisode XLVII - Pliny the Younger Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Thirty-nine minutes on the letters: a governor, a lawyer, and the only eyewitness account of Vesuvius written by someone who watched from across the bay.

39mEpisode CIV - Slavery Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Thirty-nine minutes on the institution the economy rested on, including the manumission rate that made freedmen a class of their own.

39mEpisode 86 - The People The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Thirty-nine minutes on who actually lived in the empire: farmers, soldiers, and a capital that ate what the provinces grew.

38m24: Tides of History: The Roman City The Fall of Rome PodcastPodcast

Part of The Fall of Rome Podcast

Thirty-eight minutes on the Roman city as a machine: baths, forum, aqueduct and a council that paid for them.

38mEpisode 223 - Questions VIII The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Thirty-eight minutes of listener questions around the First Crusade, which is the moment the empire and the west start reading each other wrong.

37mSex Work in Pompeii The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Thirty-seven minutes on the evidence for brothels in Pompeii, and on how much of it is a modern habit of reading every carved phallus as a signpost.

37mThe Truth About the Roman Orgy (And More!) The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Alastair Blanshard on where the orgy came from, which is largely later writers and a Victorian appetite for a decadent Rome. Thirty-seven minutes.

37mEpisode 166 - To The City The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Thirty-seven minutes on Constantinople itself, which in Greek is simply the City, and which everyone in this story is trying to reach.

37mEpisode 169 - Constantinople in 1025 The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Thirty-seven minutes on the city in 1025, away from the monuments: where people lived, how many there were, which harbours still worked. An ordinary year at the height of the empire.

37mBacker Rewards Episode 10 - Economy and Population Questions The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Thirty-seven minutes on the numbers: how many people, how much grain, and how little of it can be known with confidence.

37mEpisode 270 - Loss, Suffering and Enslavement The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Thirty-seven minutes on what the sack did to the people in the city, which the political narrative usually passes over in a sentence.

36mFood in the Greco-Roman World The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Thirty-six minutes on what people actually ate, which involved no tomatoes, no aubergines and a great deal of fermented fish sauce.

36mEpisode 64 - Questions II The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Thirty-six minutes of listener questions on the seventh-century collapse, when the empire lost half its territory inside one generation.

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.

35mEpisode 304 - Questions XIV The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Thirty-five minutes of listener questions from the years of the successor states.

34mEpisode CXXXIII - Anthology of Interest II Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Caillan Davenport

Thirty-four minutes of listener questions, ranging from Roman dentistry to what happened to the elephants.

34mEpisode 122 - Questions V The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Thirty-four minutes of listener questions from the middle Macedonian stretch, including the ones about how the army was actually paid.

33mDoing Business in Mid-Republican Rome Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

Thirty-three minutes on the Republic as an economy: what an expanding market felt like from inside a workshop, and where the proceeds of conquest actually landed.

33m25: Tides of History: The Decline and Fall of the Roman City The Fall of Rome PodcastPodcast

Part of The Fall of Rome Podcast

Thirty-three minutes on that machine stopping, with the baths closing first and the walls going up last.

33mEpisode LIX - Martial Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Thirty-three minutes on the epigrams: fifteen hundred short poems about everyone in Rome, most of them obscene and all of them useful.

33mEpisode 40 - Questions The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Thirty-three minutes of listener questions after the Justinianic stretch, where the host answers what the narrative had to leave out.

33mEpisode 84 - The Leftovers The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Thirty-three minutes on the short reigns between dynasties, which are usually skipped and are where the succession rules get tested.

33mByzantine Stories, Episode 9 - Women in the Byzantine World. Part 1 - Immense and Immeasurable The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Thirty-three minutes on women's lives across the empire, built from law codes, saints' lives and wills.

33mEpisode 275 - Climate Change in the 6th Century with Robert Bruton The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Robert Bruton

Thirty-three minutes with Robert Bruton on the volcanic winters of the 530s, the coldest decade in two thousand years, and the plague that followed.

32mEpisode 117 - Questions IV The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Thirty-two minutes of listener questions around the early Macedonian period, where the narrative has to skip the most and the host knows it.

32mEpisode 354 - Final Questions The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Thirty-two minutes of the last question session, taken after more than three hundred episodes.

31mSlip, Trip, and Slit – Vespasian #16 Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Thirty-one minutes inside the siege of Jerusalem, when the city was starving and its factions were still fighting each other. The hosts stay with the eyewitness Josephus, who was standing outside the walls working for the Romans.

30mThe Life of Publius Afer (Rome, 200 BC) Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

A composite life assembled from scattered evidence, following one enslaved man through the institution around 200 BC. Thirty minutes, and the method is declared out loud because no single such life survives whole.

30mEpisode LXII - Juvenal Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Bread and circuses came from here, along with most of what people quote about Roman decadence. Thirty minutes on a satirist taken as a reporter.

30mEpisode CIII - Old Age in the Roman World Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Tim Parkin

Thirty minutes on growing old in Rome: no pension, a father's legal power for life, and a literature that treats age as a subject for complaint.

30mEpisode CLXX - Roman Luxury and Wealth Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Thirty minutes on sumptuary laws that nobody obeyed, and on a moralising tradition that treated imported silk as a political problem.

30m*Special Episode* What Does Your Toga Say About You? The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Thirty minutes on the toga as a uniform: who was allowed which stripe, and the purple that only one man could wear.

30mEpisode 92 - Questions III The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Thirty minutes of listener questions covering the iconoclast century, where the sources were written afterwards by the side that won.

30mEpisode 177 - Questions VI The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Half an hour of listener questions from the eleventh century, the decades where every explanation of the collapse is still argued over.

29mEpisode CX - Anthology of Interest Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Caillan Davenport

Twenty-nine minutes of listener questions, which is where the show parks what fits no other episode.

29mEpisode 178 - Questions VII The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Twenty-nine minutes more of the same, the second half of a long question session.

28mEpisode 342 - The Roman Diaspora The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

What happened to the Romans after 1453: enslavement, ransom, flight west, and the families who did well out of Ottoman rule. Twenty-eight minutes on an ending that kept going.

28mEpisode 11 - The Eastern Provinces The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Twenty-eight minutes on Syria, Egypt and Palestine, the richest part of the empire and the part that would be lost fastest.

28mEpisode 126 - Attract and Repel The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Twenty-eight minutes on the empire's pull on its neighbours: everyone wanted its gold, its titles and its church, and nobody wanted its tax collectors.

28mThe Wolf of Via Vesuvio Being Roman with Mary BeardPodcast

Part of Being Roman with Mary Beard

Lucius Caecilius Iucundus lent money, ran auctions and took a cut of both, and his business archive survived the ash on wax tablets. Twenty-eight minutes on Pompeii's middleman.

Audio not available
28mA Bag of Snails and a Glass of Wine Being Roman with Mary BeardPodcast

Part of Being Roman with Mary Beard

A carved stone from a vineyard in southern Italy records an innkeeper's bill in dialogue, itemised down to the girl and the mule. Twenty-eight minutes on Calidius Eroticus.

Audio not available
28mSoldiering for Softies Being Roman with Mary BeardPodcast

Part of Being Roman with Mary Beard

The letters of Claudius Terentianus, a young soldier who wrote home begging his father for sandals and complained about nearly everything else. Twenty-eight minutes on the army from inside it.

Audio not available
28mThe Whistleblower Being Roman with Mary BeardPodcast

Part of Being Roman with Mary Beard

Gaius Julius Alpinus Classicianus arrived as procurator in 61 to find the governor still killing Britons, and wrote to Nero that a province of corpses pays no tax. Twenty-eight minutes; his tombstone is in the British Museum.

Audio not available
27mByzantine Stories Episode 1 - John Chrysostom. Part 1 - Welcome to Antioch The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Twenty-seven minutes opening a side series on individual lives, starting with a preacher from Antioch whose sermons got him exiled twice.

27mEpisode 158 - The Legend Slayer The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Twenty-seven minutes taking apart a story the sources tell well and the evidence does not support.

27mEpisode 302 - Colonial Occupation The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Twenty-seven minutes on Latin rule in Greece read as an occupation, with the question of what the locals actually experienced.

27mBattling Bureaucrats Being Roman with Mary BeardPodcast

Part of Being Roman with Mary Beard

Twenty-seven minutes on the clerks: the thousands of men who kept the provinces fed and watered, and the complaints they left behind about each other.

Audio not available
27mThe Vengeance of Turia Being Roman with Mary BeardPodcast

Part of Being Roman with Mary Beard

The longest private inscription to survive from Rome: a husband's account of a wife who hid him through the proscriptions and offered him a divorce when she could not bear children. Twenty-seven minutes.

Audio not available
27mVespasian #5 – Circumcision, Sabbath, and Salt Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Roman writers on Jewish practice, and the tax imposed on every Jew in the empire after the temple fell. Twenty-seven minutes on a settlement that lasted two centuries.

26mSaturnalia: Bonus Episode! The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Kevin Butcher

Kevin Butcher on Saturnalia, 17 to 23 December: drinking, gift-giving, and masters serving their slaves for the duration. Twenty-six minutes from the History Hit archive.

26mEpisode CIX - Saturnalia Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Twenty-six minutes on the December festival: gifts, gambling allowed, and slaves at table while their owners served.

26m086- Wealth and Class The History of RomePodcast

Part of The History of Rome

Twenty-six minutes on the Roman property ladder: the census classes, the equestrian line, and what a senator was legally forbidden to do for money.

26mEpisode 237 - Manuel and Andronikos The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Twenty-six minutes on two cousins, one running the empire and the other waiting, which ends badly for everyone including the empire.

26mEpisode 248 - Life in Turkic Anatolia The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Twenty-six minutes on the Anatolia the empire had lost: who lived there now, and how much had actually changed for them.

25mHow the Romans Treated Eye Infections The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Twenty-five minutes on Roman eye medicine, known from the stone stamps oculists used to mark their ointment sticks, dozens of which survive with the recipe named on them.

25mRoman Dining Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Twenty-five minutes on the dinner party: the couches, the order of the courses, and what your seat said about your standing.

25mEpisode 118 - Revival The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Twenty-five minutes on the tenth-century recovery, when the frontier started moving east again after three hundred years of moving west.

25mEpisode 167 - Five Centuries On The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Twenty-five minutes taking stock five hundred years after the west fell, with the east still calling itself Roman.

25mEpisode 168 - A Guided Tour The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Twenty-five minutes walking the city: the walls, the forums, the palace and the hippodrome, with what is still standing today.

25mThe Baths of Diocletian When in RomePodcast

Part of When in Rome

With Caillan Davenport

Twenty-five minutes on the largest baths Rome ever built, put up in the early fourth century and now holding a church, a museum and a railway station.

Audio not available
25mThe Decline of the Crusaders Episode 1 "Life in Outremer" Byzantium And The CrusadesPodcast

Part of Byzantium And The Crusades

Twenty-five minutes on daily life in the crusader states, Outremer, the part of the story that is neither battle nor politics.

23mWas Rome's Grain Dole a Benefit or a Burden? - The Pax Romana Podcast The Pax Romana PodcastPodcast

Part of The Pax Romana Podcast

Twenty-three minutes on the free grain: two hundred thousand recipients, a fleet to carry it, and a politics built on it.

23m066- 666 The History of RomePodcast

Part of The History of Rome

Twenty-three minutes on the fire, the persecution that followed, and the number in Revelation that may be counting a name.

23m088- A Day in the Life The History of RomePodcast

Part of The History of Rome

Twenty-three minutes following an ordinary Roman through a day, from the morning salutation to the baths, which is the episode to send someone who has never listened.

23mEpisode 31 - Getting the Band Back Together The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Twenty-three minutes on the second Italian campaign, fought with a scraped-together army years after the first one had won.

23mThe Final Years of Nero - The Pax Romana Podcast 20 The Pax Romana PodcastPodcast

Part of The Pax Romana Podcast

The tour of Greece, the neglected armies and the revolt of Vindex, ending with four emperors in one year. Twenty-three minutes on how a dynasty runs out.

22mEpisode XLIV - Roman Sexuality Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Twenty-two minutes on a system organised by who penetrated whom, with gender a secondary question. Modern categories fit it badly.

22mEpisode CCXVII - Angeronalia Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Twenty-two minutes on a December festival for a goddess with her finger to her lips, guarding a secret name of the city.

22mRome's Garbage Economy: Recycling History Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

Twenty-two minutes on Roman rubbish. Monte Testaccio is a hill thirty-five metres high made of smashed olive oil amphorae, which is what accumulates when a container cannot be used twice.

YouTube
20mBacker Rewards Episode 11 - The Jewish Communities of Byzantium The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Twenty minutes on Jewish life under the empire, legally tolerated and repeatedly restricted, over a thousand years.

20mEpisode 240 - Manuel’s Constantinople The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Twenty minutes on the city under Manuel Komnenos in the twelfth century, with two palaces in use and the Italian quarters growing. The Italians in this episode are why 1204 happened.

20mLife in the early Christian Church (Christianity in the Roman Empire 1/5) - The Pax Romana Podcast 061 The Pax Romana PodcastPodcast

Part of The Pax Romana Podcast

Twenty minutes on what a congregation actually did: meals, letters, and a burial fund.

19mEpisode CXXXV - Lupercalia Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Nineteen minutes on the February festival where young men ran the city striking women with goatskin thongs, and where Antony offered Caesar a crown.

19mEpisode 38 - Christianising The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Nineteen minutes on the closing of the old temples and the last pagan academies, done by law over decades.

19mThe Roman Urban Economy - The Pax Romana Podcast 034 The Pax Romana PodcastPodcast

Part of The Pax Romana Podcast

Nineteen minutes on how a Roman city paid for itself: rents, workshops, and a grain supply that came from somewhere else.

18mEpisode 249 - Life in Byzantine Anatolia The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Eighteen minutes on the other side of the same frontier, and on villages that paid taxes to whichever side reached them.

18mClimate Change and Famine in the Pax Romana - The Pax Romana Podcast 051 The Pax Romana PodcastPodcast

Part of The Pax Romana Podcast

Eighteen minutes on the climate optimum that made the good centuries possible, and what happened when it ended.

18mClimate Change Echoes of EmpiresPodcast

Part of Echoes of Empires

Eighteen minutes on climate as a force in Roman history, from the warm centuries of the early empire to the cooling that came with the plague years.

18mRoman Complains About Weird New "Christians" and "Jesus" Son of Panthera (177 AD) True Word, Celsus Voices of the PastYouTube

Part of Voices of the Past

A Roman writing about the new sect and about a man he calls Jesus son of Panthera, read as the source gives it.

YouTube
18mWhen the Tiber Flooded in Ancient Rome Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

The floods that repeatedly put the forum under water, and what Rome did about them.

YouTube
17mWhen Spectacle Turns Violent: The Riot of 59 AD in Pompeii Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

The amphitheatre riot of AD 59 between Pompeians and Nucerians, which Rome punished with a ten-year ban on games. Seventeen minutes, and there is a fresco of it painted by someone who was in the town.

YouTube
17mWas Climate Change Rome's Real Killer? Echoes of EmpiresPodcast

Part of Echoes of Empires

Seventeen minutes on the climate argument, which has moved from the margins of the field to the centre in twenty years.

17mThe Booming Fourth Century Echoes of EmpiresPodcast

Part of Echoes of Empires

Seventeen minutes arguing the fourth century was a good time to be alive, which cuts against the decline story most listeners arrive with.

16m069- As History of Rome Wedding The History of RomePodcast

Part of The History of Rome

Sixteen minutes on Roman marriage as an institution: the forms, the dowries, and how easily either party could end it.

16mThe Roman Social Hierarchy - The Pax Romana Podcast 042 The Pax Romana PodcastPodcast

Part of The Pax Romana Podcast

Sixteen minutes on the ladder from senator to enslaved, and on the freedmen who could be richer than the men above them.

16mBaths of Caracalla Explained: Build, Design, Sculpture Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

How the baths were built, how they were heated, and what stood in the niches. The engineering and the decoration in one film.

YouTube
15m008- Decades of Gloom The History of RomePodcast

Part of The History of Rome

Fifteen minutes on the fifth century BC: plague, famine, Volscian raids and a city that nearly failed before it started.

15mAncient Cultural Christianity (Christianity in the Roman Empire 2/5) - The Pax Romana Podcast 062 The Pax Romana PodcastPodcast

Part of The Pax Romana Podcast

Fifteen minutes on Christianity as a cultural fact before it was a state religion, the first of a five-part run.

14mEpisode XXI - The Great Fire of Rome in 64CE Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Fourteen minutes on six days of burning, ten of the fourteen districts damaged, and the rebuilding code that followed.

14mAqueducts, Baths and Sewers: Sanitation in the Roman Empire - The Pax Romana Podcast 041 The Pax Romana PodcastPodcast

Part of The Pax Romana Podcast

Fourteen minutes on Roman sanitation, which delivered enormous quantities of water and no understanding of what caused disease.

12mAWA418 - What did legionaries drink on campaign? Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Twelve minutes on posca, the sour wine and water mix that was the standard army drink, and on how Roman soldiers made bad water safe.

12m018- A History of Rome Christmas The History of RomePodcast

Part of The History of Rome

Twelve minutes on the Saturnalia, the week in December when the household order was inverted and slaves were served at table.

12mThe Tiber River Explained: From Source to Sea Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

The river followed from its source to the sea, and what it meant for a city built on it.

YouTube
11mAWA386 - Let the die be cast Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Eleven minutes on dice and board games in the ancient world, which is where Caesar's line at the Rubicon comes from and what it actually meant to a player.

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.

YouTube
10mAWA148 - What was the daily life of the legion like? Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Ten minutes on the ninety-odd per cent of army life that was not battle: building, drilling, quarrying, and the paperwork that survives from Egypt.

8mAWA382 - How Did Caesar's Legionnaires Stay Battle-Ready? Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Eight minutes answering a listener: how legionaries fought at the Arar and Bibracte in 58 BC and were fit to do it again weeks later. Murray Dahm on training, grain ration and discipline.

8mHealing waters and spas Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

Eight minutes on Roman bathing taken as medicine: mineral springs, prescribed cures, and resorts built on water that was thought to work on particular complaints.

YouTube
8mRome's Ancient Food Markets: The Macellum from Pompeii to Jerash Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

Eight minutes on the macellum, the covered market hall, traced from Pompeii to Jerash in Jordan. The plan barely changes between the two, which are two thousand kilometres apart.

YouTube
8mGreatest cisterns in the Roman world Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

The largest surviving water tanks in the empire, filmed inside them. The Piscina Mirabilis at Misenum held twelve thousand cubic metres for the fleet.

YouTube
ongoingMetatron YouTube

Arms, armour and Latin pronunciation, from someone who handles the reproductions and reads the sources in the original. Opinionated and occasionally combative; strongest when he is holding a gladius and explaining why the grip is that shape.

YouTube

The next 17 of 193, longest first

1h 09mFather's Day Special with History in Zoomer Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

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

26mRoman Values Rome RetoldPodcast

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

1h 28mThe gardens of Pompeii with Jessica Venner. 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 Jessica Venner

1h 10mAD 69 and daily life in ancient Rome. LJ Trafford interview. Ancient History HoundPodcast

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

1h 08mThe Legendary Gourmet Apicius The Delicious LegacyPodcast

Part of The Delicious Legacy · Food history from a Greek gourmand; only the Roman episodes are indexed

1h 04mWhat have the Romans ever done for us? Food of Roman Britain The Delicious LegacyPodcast

Part of The Delicious Legacy · Food history from a Greek gourmand; only the Roman episodes are indexed

1h 04mPlebs: Roman Life Greeced LightningPodcast

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

58mMacaroni and Cheese: Origins, Myths and History, from Ancient Rome to Renaissance The Delicious LegacyPodcast

Part of The Delicious Legacy · Food history from a Greek gourmand; only the Roman episodes are indexed

56mLost Histories of Childbirth in Ancient Rome Lesche: Ancient Greece, New IdeasPodcast
54mDaily Life in the Roman Empire Echoes of HistoryPodcast

Part of Echoes of History · History Hit for Assassin's Creed; only the Roman episodes are indexed

50mAncient Roman Farming on the Italian Peninsula w. Dr Annalisa Marzano Ithaca BoundPodcast

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

49mHow hygienic were the Roman baths? Ancient History HoundPodcast

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

48mDinner in Rome - A History of the World in One Meal The Delicious LegacyPodcast

Part of The Delicious Legacy · Food history from a Greek gourmand; only the Roman episodes are indexed

47mAround the Ancient Roman Kitchen - Cooks, Bakers, Cheesemakers The Delicious LegacyPodcast

Part of The Delicious Legacy · Food history from a Greek gourmand; only the Roman episodes are indexed

46mHistory of Wine Part Three - Ancient Rome The Delicious LegacyPodcast

Part of The Delicious Legacy · Food history from a Greek gourmand; only the Roman episodes are indexed

45m022: Children of Mars - The Roman Kingdom and Early Republic (753- 390BC) The Hellenistic Age PodcastPodcast

Part of The Hellenistic Age Podcast · The three centuries between Alexander and Actium; only the Roman episodes are indexed

45mEpisode Swap: Roman street food and urban kitchens with The Delicious legacy Podcast. 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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