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

How Rome was governed

The consulship, the senate, the emperor and the paperwork underneath.

623 entries · 1387 hours · 166 with a written verdict · British 244 · Australian 162 · American 145 · Mixed 5

A city constitution ended up running three continents, and the improvisation is the story. Elected magistrates for a single year, a senate that could not legally order anything, a princeps who insisted he was a private citizen with unusual influence. Mike Duncan built the standard account of it, Anthony Kaldellis has spent a career arguing the eastern half stayed a republic far longer than anyone credits, and both arguments are here in full.

The History of Byzantium The Partial Historians The History of Rome Emperors of Rome Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium The Pax Romana Podcast The Ancients Echoes of Empires

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With a written verdict

207hRoman Emperors: Totalus Rankium EssentialPodcast

Two men work through every single emperor in order and then score him out of a hundred on legacy, war record and sheer madness. It sounds like a gimmick and it is the most efficient way ever devised to remember two hundred emperors, because the argument about the scoring is what makes them stick.

About the show

All 201 episodes, in order →

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.

About the show

All 189 episodes, in order →

26hThe Fall of Rome Podcast EssentialPodcast

Thirty-three episodes, finished, by a historian whose doctorate is on this exact period. Wyman's argument is that the machinery of the western state came apart slowly and locally, province by province, and he builds it out of tax records, coin finds and the archaeology of abandoned villas. Twenty-three hours, complete since 2018.

About the show

All 32 episodes, in order →

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.

2h 10mEpisode 353 - How did Romans become Greeks with Anthony Kaldellis The History of ByzantiumEssentialPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Anthony Kaldellis

Kaldellis has spent a career arguing that the Byzantines were Romans, called themselves Romans, and were renamed by later scholars for reasons that had nothing to do with evidence. Two hours of him making that case will change how you read everything after 476.

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

Part of Fall of Civilizations

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

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.

YouTube

225hThe Partial Historians Podcast

The Republic year by year from the foundation, argued out of the sources by two academics who mark Livy on a scale of their own invention. The most detailed treatment of early Rome in audio, and much funnier than that makes it sound.

About the show

All 222 episodes, in order →

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.

About the show

All 352 episodes, in order →

83hEmperors of Rome Podcast

Every emperor in order, in half-hour episodes, by a classicist and a broadcaster who asks what a normal person would ask. The gentlest way in of all of these, and the easiest to keep going with.

About the show

All 270 episodes, in order →

79hThe Pax Romana Podcast Podcast

Colin Elliott is a Roman historian at Indiana and this is the imperial centuries told straight and at length. The political intrigue is handled like drama without the facts being bent to fit.

About the show

All 119 episodes, in order →

42hAutocrat: A Roman History Podcast Podcast

Forty-two hours on the Republic turning into a monarchy, told by two hosts working forward through it without skipping the dull decades.

About the show

All 139 episodes, in order →

17h 01mEchoes of Empires Podcast

Nick Holmes writes books about the end of the Roman world and this is the argument from them in his own voice, held across 47 episodes. Ran as The Fall of the Roman Empire until 2026, so that name now finds a different show by somebody else.

About the show

All 47 episodes, in order →

12h 44mThe History of Constantinople Podcast

Twelve and a half hours on the city itself, foundation to 1453, told as the biography of a place while the emperors come and go through it.

About the show

All 21 episodes, in order →

8h 30mRome Retold Podcast

Eight and a half hours of narrated Republic, carried end to end by one voice with no guests to interrupt the thread.

About the show

All 20 episodes, in order →

4hUltimate Rome: Empire Without Limit Ultimate RomeDocumentary

Beard on what held the empire together across four hours, which is a better question than how it fell and gets asked far less often.

Where to watch Wikipedia

4hThe Roman Empire in the First Century Documentary

The PBS series from 2001, four hours, and still the most sober television treatment of the period. No reenactment, no hyperbole.

Website

2h 54mThe Forgotten Origins Of Medieval Britain - History Documentary SandRhomanHistoryYouTube

Part of SandRhomanHistory

A documentary on how post-Roman Britain turns into medieval England, following the archaeology where the written sources stop.

YouTube

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 04m146 Alexios Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

The longest emperor episode this show has made, two hours and four minutes on Alexios Komnenos. He inherited an empire that had lost Anatolia and handed on one that had it back, and the First Crusade arrived in the middle of that.

2h 01mEpisode 265 - The 10 Greatest Emperors with Anthony Kaldellis The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Anthony Kaldellis

Two hours in which Anthony Kaldellis of Chicago names his ten greatest emperors and defends each one. It is the clearest short route into who actually ran the eastern empire well, and every choice comes with its argument.

2hJulius Caesar #28 – The Die Is Cast… Bitches Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Two hours on the weeks before 10 January 49 BC, in the detail the moment deserves: which senator moved what, which tribune vetoed it, and how a legal dispute about a provincial command turned into a civil war.

1h 58m169 Manuel II Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Nearly two hours on an emperor who toured western Europe in person begging for troops and came home with almost none. The empire was two cities by then, and the score has to mean something different at that point.

1h 56mEpisode 274 - The 10 Worst Emperors with Anthony Kaldellis The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Anthony Kaldellis

The companion to the ten greatest, and the more useful of the two: Kaldellis explains what an emperor had to do to lose an empire. Nearly two hours, and the failures repeat in ways the successes do not.

1h 56mEpisode 282 - The New Roman Empire with Anthony Kaldellis. Part 4 - Your Questions The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Anthony Kaldellis

A hundred and sixteen minutes with Kaldellis on the middle period, and on why the standard periodisation of this empire keeps misleading people.

1h 56m148 Manuel Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Nearly two hours on a fourth son who was never meant to rule and then held the empire at its last real height for thirty-seven years. What he built came apart within a decade of his death, and the score has to carry both.

1h 52mAugustus Caesar #01 – Introduction Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

A hundred and twelve minutes opening the Augustus run from the day he died at 75, then working back. Starting at the end is the point: it sets up how much one man had changed before anyone could say how.

1h 45mEpisode 283 - The New Roman Empire with Anthony Kaldellis. Part 5 - More Questions The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Anthony Kaldellis

A hundred and five minutes finishing the conversation, on the last centuries and on what a thousand-year synthesis costs its author.

1h 43m74 Theodosius II Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

A hundred and three minutes on a reign of forty-two years that produced a law code and the walls that saved the city for a millennium.

1h 43m147 John II The Beautiful Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

A hundred and three minutes on the second Komnenos, who took a recovering empire and kept it recovering for twenty-five years. Steady competence scores badly on most lists and the hosts argue with that.

1h 42m158 Theodore II Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

A hundred and two minutes on the short reign between John III and the recovery of the city, with the empire a hair away from its goal. Illness decided more than politics did.

1h 42mEpisode 280 - The New Roman Empire with Anthony Kaldellis. Part 3 - Narrative The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Anthony Kaldellis

A hundred and two minutes, the third part with Kaldellis, on narrative history and on what a thousand-year account has to leave out.

1h 41m102 - Cato III: The Senate's Ashes Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory

A hundred and one minutes closing the life, from the burning of the senate house after Clodius' murder to the end at Utica.

1h 36m64 Valentinian Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Ninety-six minutes on the soldier who took the empire after the Constantinian line died out and held the Rhine for eleven years. He is remembered for dying of rage at an envoy, which the episode spends its time on the Rhine instead.

1h 36m476 AD - A Tour Of Post-Roman Europe // European History Documentary SandRhomanHistoryYouTube

Part of SandRhomanHistory

Ninety-six minutes touring what was standing in 476 across the former western provinces, kingdom by kingdom. Animated throughout, and the map does the arguing.

YouTube

1h 33mBonus V- The Worst Byzantine Emperors (feat. Eastern Roman History) Autocrat: A Roman History PodcastPodcast

Part of Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast

Ninety-three minutes with Daniel of Eastern Roman History arguing about the worst emperors of the east. Two shows disagreeing about the same shortlist is a faster way into the period than either list alone.

1h 31mEpisode 150 - Rhetorical Fireworks The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Ninety-one minutes on 403 BC, with Rome and Veii sliding toward a war that will last ten years. The senate argument is the episode, and the two doctors read the speeches Livy gives the tribunes as the literature they are.

1h 31mNero #18 – Eternal Decline Part 2 Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

An hour and a half in the late reign, where the building, the games and the executions all run on the same money and the money runs out.

1h 30m160 Michael VIII Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Ninety minutes on the man who took Constantinople back in 1261 and founded the last dynasty. He blinded the boy he displaced, and the episode weighs the recovery against that.

1h 30m50 Diocletian Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Ninety minutes on the man who ended the third-century crisis by splitting the empire four ways and then walked away from the throne alive. The retirement is as remarkable as the reforms, and the score has to hold both.

1h 28m151 Isaac II Angelos Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Eighty-eight minutes on the first of the Angeloi, the dynasty in charge when the Fourth Crusade arrived. The show scores the reign that made 1204 possible.

1h 28m71 Honorius Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Eighty-eight minutes on the emperor who was on the throne when Rome was sacked, asking how much of that was him and how much was the men around him. The famous line about the chicken gets its two minutes and the rest goes to the Rhine.

1h 27m156 Theodore Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Eighty-seven minutes on the man who built a working Roman state in exile at Nicaea after the capital fell. Building a state in exile is a different job from inheriting one, and the score has to handle that.

1h 27m140 Isaac Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Eighty-seven minutes on a general who took the throne by coup with a plan for the finances, and then lasted two years. The plan is the interesting part.

1h 27mBeyond The Fall Of Rome - The 1000 Year Death Of The Roman Empire SandRhomanHistoryYouTube

Part of SandRhomanHistory

The argument that the fall took a thousand years and that 476 is an arbitrary line in it.

YouTube

1h 26m161 Andronikos II Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Eighty-six minutes on the reign after the capital was recovered, when the money ran out and the fleet was scrapped. What the empire could no longer afford is the subject.

1h 26m85 Augustulus Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Eighty-six minutes on the boy whose father made him emperor and whose deposition in 476 is where most timelines stop. The episode is about how little anyone noticed at the time.

1h 26m100 - Cato I: A Strange Boy Cost of GloryPodcast

Part of Cost of Glory

Eighty-six minutes opening the life of Cato the Younger, from a childhood marked by the murder of his uncle. Rome's great Stoic starts here.

1h 24m05 Claudius Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Eighty-four minutes on the emperor everyone underestimated, and the show refuses to settle whether the stammer was a disability, an act, or both. Britain, the harbour at Ostia and four wives all count toward the score.

1h 22mThe Fall of Roman Britain The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Rob Collins

Britain is the clearest case study in the whole collapse, because the coins stop, the pottery stops, and the archaeology shows a material standard of living falling off a cliff within a generation.

1h 22m02 Augustus Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Eighty-two minutes on the first emperor, and the show spends much of it on the question of what to call him, because Octavius, Octavian and Augustus are three political positions with one man inside them.

1h 22m10 Vespasian Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Eighty-two minutes on the man who watched three emperors destroy each other in one year and then took the throne with the eastern legions behind him. The show scores him on what he stabilised, which is the fairest measure for a reign that inherited a ruin.

1h 20mDiscussion with Marco Capelli about Byzantium and Italy The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Marco Cappelli

Eighty minutes with Marco Capelli on the Byzantine centuries in Italy, which Italian history teaching largely passes over.

1h 20m133 Romanos III Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Eighty minutes on an urban prefect handed the throne because a dying emperor needed an heir that week. The show scores what happens when the job goes to whoever is standing nearby.

1h 18m88 Zeno Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Seventy-eight minutes on the man who ruled the east while the west disappeared, and who succeeded his own son. Everything that survived into the sixth century survived on his watch.

1h 17m01 Baccus Groundus Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Seventy-seven minutes on everything before the emperors, from the geese that saved the Capitol to the flaming phallus in the hearth. The series scores every emperor from episode two onward, and this one sets the scale.

1h 16mEpisode 87 - The Byzantine Republic with Anthony Kaldellis The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Anthony Kaldellis

Seventy-six minutes with Kaldellis on his argument that Byzantium remained a republic in which the people could unmake an emperor. The most contested thesis in the field, argued out.

1h 15mEpisode 335 - 10 Influential East Romans with Anthony Kaldellis. Part 1 The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Anthony Kaldellis

Anthony Kaldellis of Chicago picks ten East Romans the political narrative skips over. Part one, seventy-five minutes.

1h 15m13 Nerva Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Seventy-five minutes on the one emperor the senate actually chose, and on how quickly the army reminded him who decided. His solution was to adopt Trajan, which bought Rome eighty years.

1h 15m141 Constantine X Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Seventy-five minutes on the emperor installed by Psellos and the civil families, who cut the army to pay for it. Manzikert follows twelve years later, and this episode is where it starts.

1h 14mThe Fall of Rome: Origins The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With David Gwynn

Where to start on the fall if you want one episode: what was already wrong before anything visibly went wrong.

1h 14m144 Michael VII Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Seventy-four minutes on the emperor whose advisors ran the state into a currency collapse. His nickname translates as a quarter-short, which was about the coinage.

1h 14mGallienus: The Pragmatist Who Kept Rome Alive Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Seventy-four minutes on the emperor who lost half the empire and kept the other half working through fifteen years of crisis. He reformed the cavalry and stopped putting senators in command, and both outlasted him.

1h 12mA Wrongheaded Man The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Seventy-two minutes on 415 and 414 BC and the fall of Postumius, killed by his own soldiers. What a Roman army would and would not tolerate from a commander is the subject.

1h 12m63 Jovian Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Seventy-two minutes on the emperor elected in a Persian desert with the army surrounded and no supplies. He signed away five provinces to get it home and died within a year, and the show asks what anyone else would have done.

1h 11m89 Anastasius Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Seventy-one minutes on an emperor who abolished a hated tax and still left the largest surplus in Byzantine history.

1h 10mEpisode 336 - 10 Influential East Romans with Anthony Kaldellis. Part 2 The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Anthony Kaldellis

Part two, seventy minutes, and the half where the choices get stranger.

1h 10m51 Maximian Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Seventy minutes on the colleague nobody discusses, which is the reason to hear it. Diocletian's tetrarchy needed a second man who would take orders and then step down, and Maximian did both and then unretired twice.

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 08mThe Last Roman Emperors The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Adrian Goldsworthy

The men nobody remembers between 455 and 476, and the case that 476 is a date historians chose, and that nobody alive that year noticed.

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

Part of The Partial Historians

With Tim Cornell

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

1h 08mThe Commonwealth of Slaves The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Sixty-eight minutes on enslaved people in the early Republic: how many, from where, and the manumission rate that made Roman slavery different from later systems.

1h 07mAgrippa and Augustus: The Golden Age The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Lindsay Powell on the later career of Marcus Agrippa: the aqueducts, the first Pantheon, the fleet that won Actium. Sixty-seven minutes on the man who built most of what Augustus is remembered for.

1h 06mClaudius #3 – The Emperor Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Sixty-six minutes on the day Caligula was killed and Claudius was found behind a curtain and made emperor by the praetorians. The accident of that accession shaped everything he did to prove he belonged.

1h 06mJulius Caesar #38 – It’s Business Time Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Sixty-six minutes on the dictatorship as a working government: the calendar, the colonies, the debt laws and the senate packed with provincials.

1h 05m10 Key Roman Emperors The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Barry Strauss of Cornell picking ten emperors and defending each choice, which is more useful than a list because the argument is the point. Sixty-five minutes.

1h 05mEpisode 116 – The Second Secession The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Sixty-five minutes on the second secession of the plebs, a moment the sources report and modern historians contest. Carries a warning for sexual violence, because Verginia is the trigger for it.

1h 05m70 Arcadius Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Sixty-five minutes on the first eastern emperor who was governed by his own court. The show scores him against Valentinian II, another puppet, which is the only fair comparison.

1h 04mEpisode 145 - Power to the Plebs The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Sixty-four minutes on the moment the plebeians finally got what they had been pushing for, and on how grudgingly the patricians gave it. The two doctors have been building to this for a hundred episodes.

1h 04mJulius Caesar #9 – Consul Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Sixty-four minutes on Caesar's consulship of 59 BC, when he ignored his colleague so completely that Romans joked about the year of Julius and Caesar. The precedents set here are what the civil war was later fought over.

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 03mWhat if the Ides of March Failed? The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Counterfactuals are usually a waste of an hour. This one earns it by making the case that the Republic was already gone and the assassins were the last people to notice.

1h 03m525. Charlemagne: Emperor of the West (Part 3) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Christmas Day 800, and a Frankish king is acclaimed Augustus more than three centuries after the west stopped having emperors. Sixty-three minutes on what that title was meant to mean.

1h 03mNero #17 – Eternal Decline Part 1 Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

The Pisonian conspiracy, forty-one people implicated and nineteen dead including Seneca. An hour on the plot that turned suspicion into policy.

1h 02mRome's Crisis of the Third Century The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With David Gwynn

David Gwynn on the fifty years from 235 to 284, when Rome ran through more than twenty emperors and almost none of them died in bed. Sixty-two minutes on the century that reorganised the empire by breaking it.

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 02mJulius Caesar #10 – The First Triumvirate Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Sixty-two minutes on the private arrangement between Caesar, Pompey and Crassus that ran Rome without holding any office for it. It was not a constitutional body, and that is the point.

1h 01mMary Beard On Ruling The Roman Empire HistoryHitYouTube

Part of HistoryHit

Sixty-one minutes with Mary Beard on the daily business of being emperor: the petitions, the letters, the dinners, and how much of the job was answering post.

YouTube

1h 01mJulius Caesar #39 – Caesar’s Reforms Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Sixty-one minutes on what Caesar actually changed as dictator: the colonies, the grain dole, the calendar. His enemies conceded the reforms made sense, and this episode shows why.

1h157 John III Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Sixty minutes on the emperor at Nicaea who made the exile solvent enough to take the capital back, which his successors then did. Several men claimed the title at once, and this episode sorts out which claim had a state behind it.

1hNero #2 – Nice Guy Nero Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Sixty minutes on a sixteen-year-old becoming emperor and the senate deciding not to stop it. The episode asks what the senate thought it was getting, which explains the first five years.

59mEpisode CXXVII - Augustus: The Making of an Emperor (Live in Melbourne) Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

An hour live on how a constitutional position was assembled out of old republican offices, none of which was called king. The audience questions are worth staying for.

59mClaudius #4 – The Good Emperor Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

The first years: courts reformed, citizenship extended, and an emperor who heard cases himself. Fifty-nine minutes on a reign that worked before the household ruined it.

59mCaligula #13 – No More Mr Nice Guy Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Fifty-nine minutes on the turn to treason trials, confiscations and a senate that learned what the reign had become.

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.

58mEpisode 86 – Volero and Laetorius The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Fifty-eight minutes on 472 and 471 BC, the years the tribunes start being elected by the comitia tributa. Dr Radness reads Livy and Dr G reads Dionysius, and the gap between those two is what the episode is about.

58mEpisode 108 – Plague and Politics The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Fifty-eight minutes on a year where disease and the codification struggle ran together, and the sources blame the gods for both.

58mHistorian Explains the ENTIRE FALL OF ROME HistoryHitYouTube

Part of HistoryHit

With Peter Heather

Fifty-eight minutes taking the whole collapse in one run, to camera. Useful as the frame to hang the detailed episodes on, because it moves fast enough to keep the fourth and fifth centuries as one story.

YouTube

57mThe Kings of Rome The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

The seven kings, and the far more interesting question of why there are exactly seven of them covering 244 years, which is an average reign no royal line has ever managed.

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.

57mEpisode 279 - Catching up with Max Lau The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Maximilian Lau

Fifty-seven minutes with Maximilian Lau on where Komnenian scholarship has moved since his last appearance.

56m305: The Fall of the Roman Republic The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Fifty-six minutes on what the assassins had not planned for: no plan. The liberators freed a Republic that no longer had anyone able to run it.

56m445. The Habsburgs: Secrets of a Dynasty The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Fifty-six minutes on the family that held the Roman imperial title in the west for four centuries, and on Charles V, who was king of Spain and Holy Roman Emperor at once.

56mThe Age of Augustus: How Rome Became an Empire Ancient Rome LiveYouTube

Part of Ancient Rome Live

Fifty-six minutes on the constitutional sleight of hand: a man who invented no new office ended up holding everything, and the Senate voted him each piece of it.

YouTube

55mThe Storm Before The Storm: Chapter 1- The Beasts of Italy The History of RomePodcast

Part of The History of Rome

Fifty-five minutes of Mike Duncan reading his own first chapter, on the Gracchi and the decades where the Republic started coming apart.

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.

55mLost Roman Heroes - Episode 48 - Diocletian (Part 1) Lost Roman HeroesPodcast

Part of Lost Roman Heroes

The rise, from the bodyguard ranks to sole rule, in just under an hour. The first of two.

54mWe Built This City on Big Hewn Stones The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Fifty-four minutes on early Roman building: tufa, the Servian wall, and what the archaeology says about a city the sources describe as mud huts.

54mEpisode 41 – Servius Tullius The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Fifty-four minutes on the king whose birth was announced by a flame around his head and whose census organised Rome for the next five centuries. The legend and the institution sit in the same episode, and that is the argument.

54m156. When did the Roman Empire fall? The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Fifty-four minutes on the question that has no single date: 410, 476, 1453 and 1806 all have a case, and which one you pick says what you think Rome was.

53mElite Networks, Mafia Families, and the Rise of Rome: Interview with Professor Nicola Terrenato Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

With Nicola Terrenato

Nicola Terrenato on Rome expanding by deal, with aristocratic families across Italy cutting arrangements with each other. Fifty-three minutes.

53m412. Romans in Space: Star Wars, Dune and Beyond... The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Fifty-three minutes on how much of Star Wars and Dune is Roman furniture: a republic that votes itself an emperor, a senate, an imperium already rotting at the centre.

53m422. Ancient Carthage: Rise of a Superpower (Part 2) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part two, fifty-three minutes on the constitution Aristotle admired and the trade network that paid for it, across the ninth century BC to the second.

53mEpisode 229 - John Komnenos with Dr Maximilian Lau The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With Maximilian Lau

Fifty-three minutes with Maximilian Lau on John II, the most competent Komnenos and the least written about.

52mRavenna and the Fall of Rome The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

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

52m260: Croatia: The Man Who Saved The Roman Empire The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Aurelian reconquered a broken empire in five years, walled Rome for the first time in six centuries, and almost nobody has heard of him. This is the fix.

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.

51mRise of Julius Caesar The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Catherine Steel

The unglamorous decades before Gaul, when he was a heavily indebted politician buying an electorate. The part that explains the rest.

50mThe Birth of the Roman Empire The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Hannah Cornwell

16 January 27 BC, the day Octavian was handed the name Augustus and had the gates of Janus shut. Hannah Cornwell on what actually changed that morning, in fifty minutes.

50m523. Charlemagne: Return of the Kings (Part 1) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part one, fifty minutes on the Frankish rise that ends with a Roman imperial title being handed out again in 800, three centuries after the west stopped issuing one.

49mI, Caesar: The Rise and Fall of the Roman Empire I, CaesarDocumentary

Six rulers from Julius Caesar to Hadrian, taken one at a time, public life beside private life. Forty-nine minutes an episode, and the shape of the whole empire read off the men who held it.

MagellanTV (subscription)

48mEpisode CLXXXVIII - How to Win a Consular Election Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Forty-eight minutes on how two consuls were actually chosen each year: the canvassing, the bribery, the centuries voting in an order that made the rich count first. The mechanics explain more about Roman politics than most narratives of it.

48mEpisode 87 – The Rise and Rise of Appius Claudius The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Appius Claudius the decemvir, four centuries earlier, whose abuse of a citizen's daughter brought down the whole commission. Forty-eight minutes on the Republic's own Claudian scandal.

48mEpisode 107 – Let the Codification Begin! The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Forty-eight minutes on the demand to write the law down, which took eight years and an embassy to Greece before anyone put chisel to bronze.

48mThe Rising Tide of the Ottoman Empire, 1453-1481 Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

Forty-eight minutes on Mehmed after Constantinople, when taking the city turned out to be the start of the expansion and not the end of it.

48m157. Byzantium and the Ghosts of Rome The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Forty-eight minutes on where Rome kept going after it fell: in Constantinople, in the Tsars, in the Kaisers, and in arguments still running today.

47mEpisode 348 - Trebizond! Part Two The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Part two, forty-seven minutes on Trebizond from 1297 to 1453 under the Grand Komnenoi, the last Roman state to fall and the one nobody remembers.

46mHow Julius Caesar Changed Time The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Philip Nothaft

Philip Nothaft on the Julian calendar, Caesar's reform that outlasted every other one and still sets the year, with 46 BC stretched to 445 days to force the seasons back into place. Forty-six minutes.

46mDecline & Fall of the Ancient World The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Forty-six minutes of argument with Matt Lewis of Gone Medieval about where the ancient world stops and the medieval one starts, which is a boundary nobody can draw.

46m29: Tides of History: Justinian the Great and the Reconquest of the Western Empire The Fall of Rome PodcastPodcast

Part of The Fall of Rome Podcast

Patrick Wyman as guest on whether taking Italy back destroyed it. Forty-six minutes on a reconquest that left the peninsula emptier than the Goths did.

46mEpisode 58 – The Struggle of the Orders – Part the Second The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Forty-six minutes on the long middle of the conflict, where the patricians conceded slowly and kept the priesthoods longest.

46mDid Justinian Restore the Roman Empire or Ruin It? Professor Peter Sarris on the Emperor Justinian and His Legacy Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

Peter Sarris on his own biography of Justinian, with Patrick Wyman pressing on the balance sheet: the reconquest, the Code, Hagia Sophia, and the plague that arrived in the middle of all three. Forty-six minutes.

45mPontius Pilate The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Helen Bond

Helen Bond on Pilate outside the Gospels: a prefect of Judaea under Tiberius, known from an inscription at Caesarea and from Josephus complaining about him. Forty-five minutes.

45mAW404 - The Marian Reforms Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Forty-five minutes on whether the Marian reforms happened as a package at all, which is now seriously doubted, and on what Marius did do.

45m377. Baghdad: Crossroads of the Universe (Part 2) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part two, forty-five minutes on Abbasid Baghdad, founded in 762 and inheriting the Greek learning that the Roman east had kept.

45mHistorian Explains The Fallen Kingdoms Of 'Dark Age' Britain HistoryHitYouTube

Part of HistoryHit

What happened in Britain once Rome left: rival kingdoms fighting over what remained. The episode gives the century after 410 its own hour.

YouTube

44mThe Rise of Marius: Third Founder of Rome The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Federico Santangelo

Federico Santangelo on Marius, born 157 BC without rank, consul seven times, and called Rome's third founder by people who had just watched him save it. Forty-four minutes.

44m15: The Death of the Roman Political System The Fall of Rome PodcastPodcast

Part of The Fall of Rome Podcast

Forty-four minutes on the western government running out of soldiers, money and legitimacy at roughly the same moment.

44mEpisode 109 – The First Decemvirate The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Ten men given all the power in the state to write a law code, and for one year it worked. Forty-four minutes on the experiment before it soured.

44mThe Last Kings of Rome and the Foundation of the Roman Republic Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

Wyman on the transition from kings to Republic, which is the moment the sources are least trustworthy and most interesting.

44mRome's Patrician Republic Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

Forty-four minutes on the Republic around 450 BC, when the magistracies and the written law appear and the city is poorer than it had been under the kings.

43mEpisode 103 – Ten Terrific Tribunes The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Forty-three minutes on the year the tribunate reached ten members, and on whether that made it stronger or easier to buy.

43mEpisode 293 - Governing Constantinople with John Giebfried The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

With John Giebfried

Forty-three minutes with John Giebfried on the city under Latin rule after 1204, when the conquerors found they had taken something too big to run. The physical decay is the evidence.

42mPax Romana The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Adrian Goldsworthy from the archive on what the Roman peace actually was: two centuries with less warfare inside the frontier than anywhere had managed, and what it cost to hold. Forty-two minutes.

42mWhy Rome Never Rose Again: An Interview with Professor Walter Scheidel Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

With Walter Scheidel

Walter Scheidel on the question nobody asks: China reassembled its empire repeatedly and Europe never did once. Forty-two minutes on why the failure to reunify mattered.

42mWhy Did Rome Win? Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

Forty-two minutes on the whole question, answered by looking at Rome's rivals as carefully as at Rome, which is where most accounts stop short.

41mEpisode 347 - Trebizond! Part One The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Part one, forty-one minutes on Trebizond from 1204, when the Fourth Crusade broke the empire into pieces and this piece went its own way.

41mThe Birth of the Roman Republic Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

Forty-one minutes on 509 BC and on how little is actually known about the first decades: the consular lists are reconstructions and the stories are later.

41mRome in the Middle Republic Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

Forty-one minutes on what a century of conquest did to the conquering city: the money, the slaves, the building, and the politics that came with them.

41mThe Rise Of The Ancient Roman Empire HistoryHitYouTube

Part of HistoryHit

With Simon Elliott

Forty-one minutes taking the whole rise in one run, to camera, which makes it a frame to hang the detailed episodes on.

YouTube

40mRoman Emperors with Mary Beard The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Mary Beard

Mary Beard on the office itself: what an emperor actually did all day, and why the wildly different personalities produced such similar reigns. Forty minutes.

40mBringing Order to Chaos: The Armies of Diocletian Ancient Warfare PodcastPodcast

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

With Jason Klazmer

Jason Klazmer on how Diocletian rebuilt an army that had spent fifty years making and unmaking emperors, and on the price of the fix. Forty minutes.

39mThe Rise of Cicero The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Thirty-nine minutes on how a man from Arpinum with no consular ancestors talked his way to the top of Roman politics. Catherine Steel on why the speeches still work.

39mTetrarchy Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Caillan Davenport

The system itself: two Augusti, two Caesars, and a succession plan that skipped sons. Forty minutes on the one Roman constitutional experiment that worked exactly once.

39mEpisode 76 – Plebeian Struggles and the Vestal Oppia The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

A Vestal buried alive and a plebeian agitation in the same year, which the sources connect and modern historians doubt. Thirty-nine minutes on how Rome explained a bad year.

39mEpisode 104 – Aventine, Aventine The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

The lex Icilia that handed the Aventine to the plebs for housing. Thirty-nine minutes on the first Roman public housing scheme.

39mWhy Didn't Cannae Win the War for Hannibal? Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

Thirty-nine minutes on the best question in the whole war: Rome lost the battle of the century and did not sue for peace. The answer is in how the Republic was put together.

39mRome Enters the Hellenistic World Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

Thirty-nine minutes on the end of the third century BC, when the war with Hannibal was closing and Rome turned its attention east for the first time.

39m219. Justinian: Making Rome Great Again (Part 2) The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

Part two, thirty-nine minutes on the Nika riots of 532, which burned the city centre and came close to ending the reign in its fifth year.

39mLearning From the Roman Empire: Are We Repeating their Rise and Decline Learning From the Roman EmpireDocumentary

Caroline Winterer of Stanford on the decline analogy: who reaches for it, and what it has to assume about Rome before it works. A talk, filmed as a talk, and thirty-nine minutes of argument.

CuriosityStream (subscription)

38mThe Council of Nicaea The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Dafydd Daniel

What Christians actually argued about in 325, which was not what most people assume, and how an emperor came to be chairing it.

38mEpisode 57 – The Struggle of the Orders – Part the First The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

The plebeian secession to the Sacred Mount, a general strike two and a half thousand years early. Thirty-eight minutes on the fight that produced the tribunate.

38mEpisode 72 – Spurius Cassius and c. 486 BCE The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

The first Roman accused of aiming at kingship, executed for proposing a land law. Thirty-eight minutes on a pattern that would repeat for four hundred years.

38mEpisode 96 – Letters and Rumours The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Thirty-eight minutes on the year's reported conspiracies, most of them arriving in the sources as hearsay, which the hosts treat as the interesting part.

38mKing Pyrrhus of Epirus and a New Age of Mediterranean Politics Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

Thirty-eight minutes on Rome's actual entrance into Mediterranean power politics, a decade before the Punic Wars that everyone starts with.

38mEpisode T18 – Tigranes The Ancient WorldPodcast

Part of The Ancient World

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

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22hDeath Throes of the Republic Hardcore HistoryEssentialPodcast

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

Audio not available

1h 35mAnastasius Lost Roman HeroesPodcast