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

Myth and legend

Romulus, Aeneas, the Sibyl, and the stories Rome told about itself.

223 entries · 120 hours · 66 with a written verdict · Australian 30 · British 21 · American 20

Rome dated itself from a fratricide and traced its founder to a refugee from Troy, and both stories were doing political work every time they were retold. Autocrat has gone through the entire mythological inheritance episode by episode before starting on the history, which is the right order, and the Aeneid holds up as well read aloud as it ever did.

Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast The Partial Historians Expanding Eyes: A Visionary Education Emperors of Rome The Ancients Ancient History Hound Lost Roman Heroes Myths and Legends

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With a written verdict

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 →

2h 07mHow Did Rome Begin? Voices of the PastYouTube

Part of Voices of the Past

Two hours and seven minutes on the founding, which is longer than most books give it. The length is the point: the traditions contradict each other and here the contradictions get room.

YouTube

1h 39m117 Michael II Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Ninety-nine minutes closing the story of Leo, Michael and Thomas, three friends who shared a prophecy that two would rule and one would die badly. The show scores Michael at the end, and the prophecy turns out to have been the accurate part.

1h 36m116 Leo V Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Ninety-six minutes on Leo, Michael and Thomas, three friends who shared a prophecy that two would rule and one would die horribly. The show scores an emperor whose whole reign is told through that prediction.

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 13mBonus XIV- In Other News: Ancient Egypt (feat. The History of Egypt) Autocrat: A Roman History PodcastPodcast

Part of Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast

Seventy-three minutes with Dominic Perry of The History of Egypt on Egyptian mythology and where the field stands now. The Roman connection is thin; the hour is worth it for Perry.

1h 07mSpecial Episode – Storylife with Professor Joel P. Christensen The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Joel P. Christensen

Sixty-seven minutes with Joel Christensen on why myths kept being retold and what that did to the people telling them. It is about the mechanism of storytelling, so it works as an introduction to every other episode in this theme.

1h 05mSeneca's Medea with MythTake The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Sixty-five minutes on Seneca's Medea with the MythTake hosts. Seneca wrote her angrier than Euripides did, and the conversation is about what a Roman audience under Nero was supposed to hear in that.

1h 05mSpecial Episode - Ovid's Metamorphoses with Professor Stephanie McCarter The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Stephanie McCarter

Sixty-five minutes on Stephanie McCarter's translation of the Metamorphoses, the first by a woman, and on the choices she made about the rapes in it. Translation decisions are the subject, not a footnote to it.

1h 01mYou Are Odysseus with Laura Jenkinson-Brown The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Laura Jenkinson-Brown

Sixty-one minutes with Laura Jenkinson-Brown, who turned the Odyssey into a game you play through. Greek material in a Roman index, and worth it for how the two doctors argue with her.

1hThe Far Edges of the Known World with Owen Rees The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Owen Rees

Sixty minutes with Owen Rees of badancient.com on what ancient writers put at the edges of the map. Rees debunks modern claims about antiquity for a living, and here he does it to the ancients themselves.

59mRomulus & Remus The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Jeremy Armstrong

The founding myth taken seriously as a piece of storytelling, which is the more useful approach: the Romans believed it and acted on it.

59mFatal Second Helen with Josh Cannon The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Josh Cannon

Fifty-nine minutes with Josh Cannon, a Chicago PhD in near eastern languages, on the version of the Helen story where she never reaches Troy. A phantom goes instead, and the war is fought over nobody.

59mFrom Delphi, With Love The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Fifty-nine minutes on 398 BC, when Rome sent to Delphi for an answer about the Alban lake and got one. The two doctors take the consultation seriously as a political act, which is how it worked.

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.

57mSpecial Episode – Medusa with Let’s Talk About Myths Baby The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Fifty-seven minutes with Liv Albert of Let's Talk About Myths, Baby on Medusa as both monster and victim. The two doctors and Albert disagree about how much of the pity is ancient and how much is ours, and they say so.

56mSpecial Episode - Gods and Mortals with Liv Albert The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Liv Albert

Liv Albert again, this time on her own book of retellings. Fifty-six minutes on what changes when a myth is written down for readers, from someone who retells them for a living.

55mEpisode 105 – The Roman Achilles The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Fifty-five minutes on Lucius Siccius Dentatus, the soldier Roman writers built into their own Achilles: a hundred and twenty battles, forty-five scars, all of them on the front. The episode asks what a culture wants when it invents that man.

54mThe Mystery of Mithras: A Pagan Christmas? The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Matthew McCarty

Matthew McCarty on Mithras, a cult with no scripture and hundreds of underground temples, and on how it got attached to 25 December by people arguing about Christmas. Fifty-four minutes.

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.

54mSpecial Episode - Women of Myth with Ancient History Fan Girl The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Fifty-four minutes with Genn and Jenny of Ancient History Fangirl on the women of myth. Carries a warning for violence and sexual violence, and earns it; the hosts do not soften the stories to make them tellable.

53mThe Truth About King Arthur The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Miles Russell argues that Arthur is five earlier figures welded into one by later writers. Fifty-three minutes on how a legend gets assembled out of real people.

53mWho Was the Real King Arthur? The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Miles Russell again, fifty-three minutes, working through the candidates including Magnus Maximus and asking what a fifth-century war leader would have looked like.

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.

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

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

MagellanTV (subscription)

49mSpecial Episode - Disney's Hercules (1997) The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Alastair Blanshard

Forty-nine minutes of two ancient historians watching the 1997 Disney film and marking it against the myth. Reception studies with jokes, and the gap between Hades and Hades is the lesson.

46mThe Real King Arthur: Ambrosius Aurelianus The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Miles Russell

Miles Russell on Ambrosius Aurelianus, the one named Briton in Gildas who fought the Saxons and is the nearest the record comes to a documented Arthur. Forty-six minutes.

44mThe Origins of Rome The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Guy Bradley

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

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.

43mEpisode CLXXVIII - Witches in Roman Literature Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Forty-three minutes on witches as Romans wrote them, alongside the women who actually sold curses and brews. The distance between the two is the episode.

43mEpisode 36 – Romulus and Remus The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

The founding story taken as a story: two versions of the murder, a wall, and a date the Romans themselves argued about. Forty-three minutes reading myth as evidence of what Rome wanted to believe.

41mWerewolves and Strix-Witches The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Daniel Ogden on ancient werewolves and the strix, the night bird that drank blood, and on how both survived into folklore unbroken. Forty-one minutes.

41mVirgil The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

With Anne Rogerson

Anne Rogerson on Virgil, who asked for the Aeneid to be burned and was overruled by Augustus. Forty-one minutes on the poem that became Rome's official founding story.

41mEpisode CLXXVI – The Apology of Apuleius Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Forty-one minutes on a man charged with sorcery for marrying a rich widow, and on the speech he gave in his own defence. It survives in full, so we can read a Roman magic trial almost as it was argued.

40mEpisode 38 – Tullus Hostilius The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

The warlike third king, the Horatii and the destruction of Alba Longa. Forty minutes on a reign that reads like a lesson in what happens to neighbours.

40mThe Birth of Rome Tides of HistoryPodcast

Part of Tides of History

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

40mEpisode 156 - The Half Blind Leading the Blind The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

Forty minutes on the emperors after Basil, who inherited a full treasury and an unbeaten army and lost both in fifty years.

38mEpisode 53 – The Battle of Lake Regillus The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

The battle that ended the Tarquin attempt to return, with Castor and Pollux reportedly fighting in the line. Thirty-eight minutes on a victory that came with its own temple.

37mEpisode 47 – Porsenna, Scaevola, and Cloelia The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Three legends from the Etruscan siege: a hand in a fire, a swim across the Tiber, and a bridge held by one man. Thirty-seven minutes on courage stories and what they were for.

32mEpisode CLXIII - Foundations of Rome Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

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

31mThe Truth About Saint Valentine The AncientsPodcast

Part of The Ancients

Thirty-one minutes on Valentine of Rome, patron saint of beekeepers and of epilepsy, and on how a martyr with almost no biography acquired one.

31mEpisode CXCIV - Sea Monsters in Roman Mythology Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Gillian Shepherd

Thirty-one minutes on what Romans believed was in the Mediterranean, and on a navy that mapped the coast while the literature kept the monsters.

30mEpisode XLIII - Virgil Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Thirty minutes on the Aeneid as commissioned literature that outgrew the commission, and on the instruction to burn it that was ignored.

30mEpisode CLXXVII - Witches in the Roman World Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Thirty minutes on the witch as a literary figure, from Horace's Canidia to Lucan's Erictho, and the laws that treated magic as real.

30m262: Tunisia: Dido of Carthage The Rest Is HistoryPodcast

Part of The Rest Is History

With Juliette Pochin

Thirty minutes on Dido, whom Virgil placed three centuries out of her own time so that she could meet Aeneas. Juliette Pochin sings the Lament at the end.

27mEpisode 345 - The Immortal Emperor The History of ByzantiumPodcast

Part of The History of Byzantium

The legends that gathered around Constantine XI, including the one where an angel carries him under the Golden Gate to wait. Twenty-seven minutes on how a defeat turns into a prophecy.

27mEpisode CCXVI - A Roman Haunting in Three Parts Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Twenty-seven minutes on Roman ghost stories, including Pliny's haunted house in Athens and the bones found under the floor.

26mEpisode LXXXI - Livy Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Ronald Ridley

Twenty-six minutes on a hundred and forty-two books of which thirty-five survive, and on writing the Republic's history under its first emperor.

25mBonus VII- Six Spooky Stories (Halloween Special) Autocrat: A Roman History PodcastPodcast

Part of Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast

Twenty-five minutes of Roman ghost stories, most of them from Pliny and Suetonius, who reported them straight.

25mBonus VI- In Other News: Chinese Myths (feat. The History of China) Autocrat: A Roman History PodcastPodcast

Part of Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast

Twenty-five minutes with the History of China podcast on their founding myths, which is a useful control for how Roman ones work.

23mEpisode CLXXI - Roman Magic Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Daniel Ogden

Twenty-three minutes on curse tablets thrown into springs and drains, which is where ordinary Roman anger survives in writing.

23mRoman Historian Describes Weirdest Things In The Ancient World Voices of the PastYouTube

Part of Voices of the Past

Twenty-three minutes of Pliny the Elder's Natural History read aloud, which is where antiquity filed its strangest reported facts, collected by a man who later died sailing towards Vesuvius.

YouTube

18mEpisode CCXXXV - Faunalia Rustica Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

Eighteen minutes on a December country festival for Faunus, which is the kind of rural religion the city sources barely bother with.

16m003a- The Seven Kings of Rome The History of RomePodcast

Part of The History of Rome

Two hundred and forty years compressed into sixteen minutes, which is roughly the confidence the evidence supports for the regal period.

15mIntroduction and the Origins of Rome Echoes of EmpiresPodcast

Part of Echoes of Empires

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

15mBonus XII- Orpheus and Eurydice (April Fools' Day Special) Autocrat: A Roman History PodcastPodcast

Part of Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast

Fifteen minutes on the descent into the underworld, the condition attached to the rescue, and the backward glance that undoes it.

13mPliny’s Guide to Menstrual Magic – Vespasian #25 Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Thirteen minutes on a passage in the Natural History that shows what a Roman encyclopaedia counted as established fact.

12m007- The Roman Washington The History of RomePodcast

Part of The History of Rome

Cincinnatus called from the plough, given absolute power, and handing it back in sixteen days. Twelve minutes on the story every later republic borrowed.

12mBonus XVIII- My City For an Olive Tree Autocrat: A Roman History PodcastPodcast

Part of Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast

Twelve minutes on the contest for Athens, a spring of salt water against an olive tree, decided by a vote.

12mBonus XVI- The Man Who Hated the Gods (Halloween Special) Autocrat: A Roman History PodcastPodcast

Part of Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast

Twelve minutes on Salmoneus, who imitated thunder by dragging bronze kettles behind a chariot and was struck by an actual thunderbolt for it.

11m001- In the Beginning The History of RomePodcast

Part of The History of Rome

Eleven minutes to open a series that ran for five years: Aeneas, the Trojan escape, and a founding myth Rome imported to give itself a pedigree.

11m002- Youthful Indiscretions The History of RomePodcast

Part of The History of Rome

Romulus and Remus, the wolf, the furrow and the murder. Eleven minutes on a story Romans told about themselves that starts with fratricide.

10mBonus X- Pyramus and Thisbe (Valentine's Day Special) Autocrat: A Roman History PodcastPodcast

Part of Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast

Ten minutes on the lovers, the wall and the mulberry that turned red, which Ovid tells and Shakespeare rewrote twice.

9mInterlude - The Singing Colossus of Memnon Emperors of RomePodcast

Part of Emperors of Rome

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

9mBonus II- The Marble Emperor Autocrat: A Roman History PodcastPodcast

Part of Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast

Nine minutes on Constantine XI, the last emperor, and the legend that he was turned to marble and waits under the city.

7mBonus XXI- In Other News: The First Emperor of Japan Autocrat: A Roman History PodcastPodcast

Part of Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast

Seven minutes on Jimmu and a founding myth from the other end of Eurasia, which turns out to use the same moves.

The next 114 of 223, longest first

1h 47mOdyssey: Don't Annoy Poseidon! (feat. the Jingle-Jangler) Autocrat: A Roman History PodcastPodcast

Part of Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast · Vince and Cassie, 137 numbered episodes

1h 25mLucius Artorius Castus Lost Roman HeroesPodcast