With a written verdict
3h 27m11. Byzantium - Last of the Romans Fall of Civilizations
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.
175hThe History of Byzantium
Picks up the exact week Mike Duncan put the microphone down and keeps going for another thousand years. If you have ever told someone at a party that the Byzantines called themselves Romans, this is the show that armed you.
All 352 episodes, in order →
6hByzantium And The Crusades
Six hours from Nick Holmes on the two centuries in which Byzantium asked the West for soldiers and received the Fourth Crusade. 1204 is the hinge, and the case made here is that 1453 was settled then.
All 17 episodes, in order →
3h 32mBen-Hur
Eleven Oscars and a chariot race that no CGI has improved on. Fiction wrapped around a Roman Judaea that is more carefully built than the plot deserves.
2h 51mQuo Vadis
Peter Ustinov's Nero is the reason to watch, and he is doing comedy in a film that does not know it. Historically the loosest film on this page.
2h 07mAgora
Hypatia in Alexandria, and the only feature film about late antique intellectual life. Takes liberties with her death and is honest about the world she lived in.
2h 02m96 Heraclius Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
A hundred and twenty-two minutes, the longest in this set, on an emperor who beat Persia outright and then watched the Arabs take everything he had won.
1h 52m129 Nikephoros II Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
A hundred and twelve minutes on the general who took Crete and Antioch, slept on the floor, and was murdered in the palace.
1h 49m118 Theophilos Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
An hour and fifty on the last iconoclast emperor, who also built the palace automata that astonished foreign envoys. The first eight minutes carry an audio crackle the hosts apologise for, and it clears.
1h 46m58 Constantine Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
An hour and three quarters on the emperor with the most myth attached, and the show scores him against the myth. The conversion, the new capital and the sons all get weighed, and the number at the end is defended.
1h 43mSpecial Episode - Monty Python's Life of Brian (1979) The Partial Historians
Part of The Partial Historians
A hundred and three minutes on the Python film, which two ancient historians rate higher on daily life than most serious productions. The crucifixion scene gets its own discussion.
1h 39m62 Julian Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Ninety-nine minutes on the last pagan emperor, scored on a reign of twenty months and a body of writing that outlasts it.
1h 37m69 Theodosius Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Ninety-seven minutes on the last man to rule both halves, who made Nicene Christianity the state religion and did public penance to a bishop.
1h 34mMonty Python's Life of Brian
Not history, and the funniest film anyone has made about the Roman occupation of Judaea. The aqueduct scene is a better summary of imperial infrastructure than most documentaries manage.
1h 34m53 Galerius Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Ninety-four minutes on the tetrarch who drove the persecution and issued the edict of toleration from his deathbed.
1h 33m26 Elagabalus Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Ninety-three minutes on the teenage priest-emperor, weighed against sources that were trying to justify his murder.
1h 27mArchaic Roman Religion The Partial Historians
Part of The Partial Historians
Eighty-seven minutes on the gods before the Greek borrowings: numina, the flamines, and a religion of procedure where the words had to be exactly right.
1h 27mEpisode 278 - The New Roman Empire with Anthony Kaldellis. Part 2 - Christianity and the Law The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
With Anthony Kaldellis
Eighty-seven minutes with Kaldellis on his single-volume history and on the argument that this was the Roman empire throughout, never a Byzantine one.
1h 23m107 Leo III Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Eighty-three minutes on the emperor who held Constantinople through the siege of 717 and then started smashing icons.
1h 21m66 Gratian Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Eighty-one minutes on the emperor who removed the altar of Victory from the senate house and was killed by his own general at twenty-four.
1h 20mEpisode 69 - Lost to the West The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
Eighty minutes, the longest episode in this stretch, on how the western half slipped away and what the eastern half told itself about it.
1h 14m*Special Episode* Quo Vadis with the History of the Papacy Podcast The Partial Historians
Part of The Partial Historians
Seventy-four minutes with the History of the Papacy podcast on the legend of Peter leaving Rome, and where a story like that comes from.
1h 13mBonus XIV- In Other News: Ancient Egypt (feat. The History of Egypt) Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast
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 11mThe Gallic Sack of Rome - Part 5 The Partial Historians
Part of The Partial Historians
Seventy-one minutes on the recovery and the Camillus tradition, where a disaster gets rewritten into a story about a saviour.
1h 10mCaligula #6 – The Maccabees Life of Caesar
Part of Life of Caesar
Seventy minutes on one of Caligula's first acts, releasing Herod Agrippa from prison, and on what that did in Judaea. The New Testament Herod and the Roman emperor turn out to share a story here.
1h 09mCaligula #18 – Living God Life of Caesar
Part of Life of Caesar
The temple, the statue meant for Jerusalem, and the question of whether Caligula believed any of it. An hour and a bit on divinity as a weapon against the senate.
1h 08mThe Robe (1953) The Partial Historians
Part of The Partial Historians
The first CinemaScope film, made about a Roman tribune at the crucifixion. Sixty-eight minutes on Hollywood's Rome at the height of the biblical epic.
1h 08m113 - Cato and his Stoicism: w/ Johnathan Bi Cost of Glory
Part of Cost of Glory
Sixty-eight minutes with Johnathan Bi on the philosophy behind the politics, which is the half most narratives of Cato skip.
1h 07mRise of Christianity The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
With Peter Heather
How a small movement went from persecuted to imperial in three centuries. The demographic arithmetic is the interesting part.
1h 06mThe Fall of Veii: Part III The Partial Historians
Part of The Partial Historians
The ten-year siege of Rome's nearest rival, ending with a tunnel under the citadel. Sixty-six minutes on the conquest that doubled Roman territory.
1h 05mThe Great Revolt & The Siege of Masada // History Documentary SandRhomanHistory
Part of SandRhomanHistory
The Jewish revolt and the siege that ended it, with the ramp the Romans built still standing.
1h 04mThe Emperor Julian with Jeremy Swist The Partial Historians
Part of The Partial Historians
With Jeremy Swist
Jeremy Swist on the last pagan emperor, who wrote philosophy, restored the old temples and died in Persia after twenty months. Sixty-four minutes.
1h 04mEpisode 319 - Orthodox Questions with Father John Strickland. Part 2 The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
With John Strickland
Sixty-four minutes continuing the same conversation, into the schism and what actually divided the churches.
1h 03m525. Charlemagne: Emperor of the West (Part 3) The Rest Is History
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 03mEpisode 259 - The Fourth Crusade (Part 1) The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
Sixty-three minutes on how an army sworn to Egypt ended up outside Constantinople: a debt to Venice, a claimant with promises, and nobody willing to stop.
1h 03mEpisode 314 - The Divine Liturgy with Father John Strickland The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
With John Strickland
Sixty-three minutes with an Orthodox priest walking through the liturgy, which is the part of Byzantine life that never stopped.
1h 03mCaligula #12 – The Divine Drusilla Life of Caesar
Part of Life of Caesar
Sixty-three minutes on the sister he deified, the first Roman woman to be made a goddess by vote of the senate.
1h 03mJulius Caesar #8 – Caesar Goes To Spain Life of Caesar
Part of Life of Caesar
Sixty-three minutes on the governorship that paid off his debts and gave him a triumph he gave up to stand for consul.
1hSisters at War: The Rise and Fall of Elagabalus The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
With Matilda Brown
Elagabalus took the throne at fourteen and was dead at eighteen, and the people actually running the empire in between were his grandmother and his mother. Sixty minutes with Matilda Brown on the women.
59mFrom Delphi, With Love The Partial Historians
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.
58mThe Christian Destruction of the Classical World The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
Fifty-eight minutes on what happened to temples, statues and libraries as Christianity took the state, and on how much destruction the evidence will actually carry.
58mEpisode 352 - Crusader Storm with Nicholas Morton The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
With Nicholas Morton
Fifty-eight minutes with Morton on his book about the thirteenth-century Near East, where Mongols, Mamluks and crusaders all arrive at once.
58m119 Theodora Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium
Fifty-eight minutes on the regent who restored the icons in 843 and then was pushed aside by her brother.
57mEmperor Diocletian and the Great Persecution The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
With David Gwynn
The most systematic Roman attempt to destroy Christianity, launched in 303, over within a decade, and followed by a Christian emperor. Also good on the four-emperor system that worked exactly once.
57mEpisode 318 - Orthodox Questions with Father John Strickland. Part 1 The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
With John Strickland
Fifty-seven minutes of questions on Orthodox belief and practice, answered from inside the tradition.
56mKing Herod The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
With Holy Land, Jodi Magness
Jodi Magness on Herod outside the nativity: a client king who built Caesarea, Masada and the Temple platform, and killed several of his own sons. Fifty-six minutes.
56mThe First Popes The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
With Rosamond McKitterick
The bishops of Rome before there was a papacy, when the claim to primacy was still being invented.
56mKidnapped! The Partial Historians
Part of The Partial Historians
Fifty-six minutes on abduction in Roman story and law, from the Sabine women onward, where the founding myth and the statute sit uncomfortably close.
55mNero the Antichrist? The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
Fifty-five minutes on whether the early Christians read Nero into the number of the Beast, and on what the persecution after the fire of 64 actually looked like.
55mPaestum: Ancient Greeks in Italy The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
Fifty-five minutes at Paestum, where three Greek temples from the sixth and fifth centuries BC stand better preserved than almost anything in Greece itself.
54mThe Mystery of Mithras: A Pagan Christmas? The Ancients
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 301 - The Fifth Crusade with Nicholas Morton The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
With Nicholas Morton
Fifty-four minutes with Nicholas Morton on the crusade that aimed at Egypt, took Damietta and gave it back.
53mThe Great Jewish Revolt The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
With Guy Maclean Rogers
The war that destroyed the Temple in AD 70 and paid for the Colosseum. The Arch of Titus still shows the menorah being carried through the city.
53m177. The Jewish Revolt (Part 3) The Rest Is History
Part of The Rest Is History
Part three, fifty-three minutes on the burning of the Temple, the triumph that paid for the Colosseum, and Masada.
53m524. Charlemagne: Pagan Killer (Part 2) The Rest Is History
Part of The Rest Is History
Part two, fifty-three minutes on the Saxon wars: thirty years of campaigning and forced conversion that built the kingdom Charlemagne was crowned over.
52mBethlehem The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
With Joan Taylor
Joan Taylor on Bethlehem before the nativity, a small place south of Jerusalem with a longer history than the one story it is known for. Fifty-two minutes.
51mEmperor Constantine The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
With David Potter
Milvian Bridge, the sign he described differently to different audiences, and a deathbed baptism. Whether he was convinced or calculating is an argument that will outlive all of us, and the episode does not pretend otherwise.
50mThe Birth of the Roman Empire The Ancients
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.
50mQuo Vadis (1951) - Part One The Partial Historians
Part of The Partial Historians
Fifty minutes on Nero's Rome as MGM built it, with a burning city and a soundtrack. The history gets checked scene by scene.
49mThe Rise of Constantine The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
Forty-nine minutes on Constantine's climb from York in 306 to sole rule, and on how much of the Christian account of it comes from writers who needed him to be a convert.
49mThe Jewish-Roman wars Ancient Warfare Podcast
Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast
With Josho Brouwers
Forty-nine minutes on three revolts across seventy years: AD 66, the diaspora rising under Trajan, and Bar Kokhba, each ending worse than the last.
49m340: Hadrian and Antinous The Rest Is History
Part of The Rest Is History
Antinous drowned in the Nile in AD 130 and Hadrian answered by making him a god, with temples, a city and coinage. Forty-nine minutes on grief exercised by someone with the power to enforce it.
49mEpisode 63 - Byzantine Theodicy with David Gyllenhaal The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
With David Gyllenhaal
Forty-nine minutes with David Gyllenhaal on how Byzantines explained defeat: if God favours the empire, what does a lost province mean.
48mRise of King Herod The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
Forty-eight minutes on how an Idumaean with no claim became king of Judaea, which took Roman backing, a civil war and a marriage into the Hasmoneans.
48mThe Romans and India with William Dalrymple The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
With William Dalrymple
William Dalrymple on India as Rome's largest trading partner, reached by monsoon sailing from Egyptian ports, and on the pepper and the gold that went each way. Forty-eight minutes.
48m157. Byzantium and the Ghosts of Rome The Rest Is History
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.
48mLost Roman Heroes - Episode 104: Heraclius (Part 4 - The Gamble) Lost Roman Heroes
Part of Lost Roman Heroes
Forty-eight minutes on the campaign Heraclius funded by melting down church gold, because everything else had been tried. The gamble that beat Persia and emptied the treasury.
47mSpecial Episode - Quo Vadis (1951) - Part Two The Partial Historians
Part of The Partial Historians
Forty-seven minutes finishing the film, including the arena sequence and what the sources actually say about the persecution.
47mEpisode 243 - The Battle of Myriokephalon The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
Forty-seven minutes on the defeat of 1176 in a mountain pass, which ended any hope of taking Anatolia back.
46mThe Vestal Virgins The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
Six women at a time, chosen between six and ten years old, sworn for thirty years, and buried alive if the vow broke. Forty-six minutes on Rome's only full-time priesthood.
45mPontius Pilate The Ancients
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.
45mDruids The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
Ronald Hutton on the Druids of Britain and Gaul: what Caesar reported, what Cicero's meeting with one suggests, and how little of either can be checked. Forty-five minutes.
45mEpisode 254 - Saladin the Strategist with Ben Duval The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
With Ben Duval
Forty-five minutes with Ben Duval on Saladin as a planner, which is the part the chivalric legend leaves out.
44mEpisode 208 - The Call from the East with Peter Frankopan The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
With Peter Frankopan
Forty-four minutes with Peter Frankopan on his argument that the First Crusade began as a Byzantine request for mercenaries.
44mLost Roman Heroes - Episode 96 - Gregory the Great (Part 1) Lost Roman Heroes
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.
43mThe Pantheon The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
With Matthew Nicholls
Matthew Nicholls on the Pantheon: Agrippa's temple, burnt and rebuilt by Hadrian around AD 126, and a concrete dome nobody matched for thirteen centuries. Forty- three minutes.
42mThe Tetrarchic Persecution of Christians Emperors of Rome
Part of Emperors of Rome
With Caillan Davenport
The last and largest persecution, run as administration: edicts, registers of scripture, and officials asked to prove compliance. Forty-two minutes on bureaucracy turned on a religion.
42mA Feast for the Gods The Partial Historians
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.
41mAW180 - Bar Kokhba Ancient Warfare Podcast
Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast
Lindsay Powell on his own book about the revolt of AD 132: a Jewish state that minted its own coins for three years, and a war Hadrian won by depopulating Judaea. Forty-one minutes.
40mEpisode B54 – Efqa The Ancient World
Part of The Ancient World
Forty minutes on the Efqa spring that made Palmyra possible, and on the close of the Bloodline series. Scott Chesworth reads the inscriptions slowly and lets them do the arguing.
39mEpisode CXXVI - Vestal Virgins Emperors of Rome
Part of Emperors of Rome
With Peta Greenfield
Thirty-nine minutes on six women with more legal freedom than any other in Rome, and a death penalty of being walled up alive.
39mEpisode 76 – Plebeian Struggles and the Vestal Oppia The Partial Historians
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.
38mThe Council of Nicaea The Ancients
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.
37mThe Khmer Empire: Angkor Wat The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
With William Dalrymple
William Dalrymple on Indian culture moving east through the same trade that reached Rome, and on what it became at Angkor. Thirty-seven minutes.
37mEpisode 281 - Justinian: Emperor, Soldier, Saint with Peter Sarris The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
With Peter Sarris
Peter Sarris on his biography, arguing the reconquest was less reckless than it reads with hindsight. Thirty-seven minutes with a historian defending an unfashionable position.
36mEpisode CLXVI - The Edict of Sacrifice (Decius I) Emperors of Rome
Part of Emperors of Rome
With Caillan Davenport
Thirty-six minutes on the order that every inhabitant sacrifice and collect a certificate, the first empire-wide persecution and the first census of belief.
36mEpisode 80 - The Isaurian Dynasty The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
Thirty-six minutes weighing the dynasty as a whole: they held the walls against the Arabs and are remembered for smashing pictures.
36mNero #32 – Michael Tremblay On Stoicism (part 1) Life of Caesar
Part of Life of Caesar
With Michael Tremblay
Thirty-six minutes with a philosopher on Stoicism as it was practised, by Seneca among others, while serving an emperor who had him killed.
34mEpisode 105 - The Triumph of Orthodoxy The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
Thirty-four minutes on the restoration of icons in 843 and the feast that still marks it in the Orthodox calendar.
34mYHWH v JOVE – Vespasian #19 Life of Caesar
Part of Life of Caesar
Thirty-four minutes on September 70, when Titus walked into the ruins of Jerusalem and the temple treasure went to Rome to pay for the Colosseum. The episode follows the money.
33mEpisode 84 - The Leftovers The History of Byzantium
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.
33mEpisode 106 - Mother and Uncle The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
Thirty-three minutes on a regency run by an empress and her brother, and the son who eventually killed the uncle.
33mVespasian #7 – Birds, Betrayal, and the Birth of Christianity Life of Caesar
Part of Life of Caesar
Thirty-three minutes on the first months of the Flavian regime and on the earliest Christian communities in the same city. The two stories run alongside each other in the sources and rarely in the retellings.
32mEpisode CXLII - Deification Emperors of Rome
Part of Emperors of Rome
Thirty-two minutes on the senate vote that made a dead emperor a god, and the eagle released from the pyre to carry him up.
32mEpisode B40 – Uranius The Ancient World
Part of The Ancient World
Thirty-two minutes on Uranius Antoninus, high priest at Emesa, watching Ardashir found Sasanian Persia from the frontier it was about to cross.
32mEpisode B50 – Augusta The Ancient World
Part of The Ancient World
Thirty-two minutes on Aurelian sparing Tyana on the strength of a vision and then meeting Zenobia's forces in Syria.
32m176. The Jews Against Rome (Part 2) The Rest Is History
Part of The Rest Is History
Part two, thirty-two minutes on the road to the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70 and on Josephus, who was on both sides of it.
31mThe Truth About Saint Valentine The Ancients
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 CXXIV – The Lowest Depths of Foulness (Elagabalus II) Emperors of Rome
Part of Emperors of Rome
With Caillan Davenport
Thirty-one minutes on a teenage emperor, a black stone from Emesa installed as the chief god of Rome, and sources that hate him too much to trust.
31mEpisode 220 - The Crusade of 1101 The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
Thirty-one minutes on the armies that turned up after Jerusalem fell, and on Alexios telling them which route to avoid. They took it.
30mEpisode B13 – Zealot The Ancient World
Part of The Ancient World
Thirty minutes on Drusilla of Mauretania, great-granddaughter of Antony and Cleopatra, married to the procurator of Judaea who kept Paul in prison for two years.
30mGoddamn it, Carl! – Vespasian #17 Life of Caesar
Part of Life of Caesar
Half an hour on the administrative grind of the reign: the census, the new taxes and the senate restocked with provincials.
29mEpisode 37 – Numa Pompilius The Partial Historians
Part of The Partial Historians
The second king, who founded priesthoods and a calendar and fought nobody for forty-three years. Twenty-nine minutes on a reign invented to balance the first.
29mEpisode B43 – Sibylline The Ancient World
Part of The Ancient World
Twenty-nine minutes on Samsigeramus saving Emesa from the Sasanians and then declaring himself Augustus, until Valerian arrived and Odaenathus took over.
28mEpisode CCXIX - Hispala Faecena and the Bacchanalia Conspiracy Emperors of Rome
Part of Emperors of Rome
With Emma Southon
Twenty-eight minutes on the freedwoman whose testimony triggered the suppression of the Bacchanalia in 186 BC, with seven thousand implicated.
28mEpisode 110 - The Four Wives of Leo VI The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
Twenty-eight minutes on an emperor who needed an heir and married four times to get one, against a church that allowed three.
27mEpisode 331 - The Last Hope The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
John VIII asks the Pope for a council to reunite the churches and is told yes. Twenty-seven minutes on the delegation that sailed to Italy, covering 1425 to 1448.
27mEpisode CCXXIX - Clodius Pulcher and the Bona Dea Emperors of Rome
Part of Emperors of Rome
Twenty-seven minutes on a man caught in women's clothes at a women-only rite, the trial that followed, and the enmity with Cicero it started.
27mEpisode XXXIII - Emperor Vespasian, Becoming a God Emperors of Rome
Part of Emperors of Rome
The joke on his deathbed about becoming a god, and the tax on public urinals that gave Italian the word for them. Twenty-seven minutes on an emperor who found the office funny.
27mEpisode B22 – Optimus The Ancient World
Part of The Ancient World
Twenty-seven minutes on Emesa becoming a pilgrimage centre and on Trajan's confrontation with Parthia over the Armenian crown.
27mEpisode B36 – The Black Stone The Ancient World
Part of The Ancient World
Twenty-seven minutes on Elagabalus trying to put a Syrian sun god above Jupiter, and on the grandmother who arranged his replacement when it failed.
27mEpisode B51 – Emesa The Ancient World
Part of The Ancient World
Twenty-seven minutes on the Battle of Emesa, where the Palmyrene cavalry broke a Roman line and then chased it too far.
27m104- Here Comes the Sun The History of Rome
Part of The History of Rome
Elagabalus, fourteen years old, arriving in Rome with a Syrian sun god and a priesthood. Twenty-seven minutes on a reign nobody survived explaining.
27mByzantine Stories Episode 1 - John Chrysostom. Part 1 - Welcome to Antioch The History of Byzantium
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.
27mVespasian #5 – Circumcision, Sabbath, and Salt Life of Caesar
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.
27mThe Siege of Constantinople in AD 626 Echoes of Empires
Part of Echoes of Empires
Twenty-seven minutes on 626, with Avars on the land side and Persians on the Asian shore while Heraclius was away campaigning. The city held with almost no field army inside it.
26mSaturnalia: Bonus Episode! The Ancients
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 349 - Questions XVIII The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
Listener questions on the Secret History, eunuchs, the Crown of Thorns and where the Doukas name came from. Twenty-six minutes.
26mPast Lives: Saint Patrick, Slavery, and the Fall of the Roman Empire Tides of History
Part of Tides of History
Twenty-six minutes on Patrick, who was carried off from Roman Britain by raiders and wrote about it himself, which almost nobody enslaved in antiquity got to do.
26mEpisode CIX - Saturnalia Emperors of Rome
Part of Emperors of Rome
Twenty-six minutes on the December festival: gifts, gambling allowed, and slaves at table while their owners served.
26mEpisode B20 – The God of Dusk The Ancient World
Part of The Ancient World
Twenty-six minutes on the destruction of Jerusalem in AD 70, with the episode's title taken from the Canaanite god whose name is the root of shalom and salaam.
26mClovis, King of the Franks Echoes of Empires
Part of Echoes of Empires
Twenty-six minutes on the Frankish kingdom that met the Arab advance into Gaul, and on the conversion that made it Rome's heir in the west.
25mEpisode B27 – Lucifugus The Ancient World
Part of The Ancient World
Twenty-five minutes on Julia Domna, daughter of the high priest at Emesa, who married Septimius Severus and outlasted him. Scott Chesworth reads Cassius Dio on gold turning to rust.
25m083- May His Bones Be Crushed The History of Rome
Part of The History of Rome
Twenty-five minutes on Domitian's fall and the formal erasure that followed, with his name chiselled off inscriptions across the empire.
25mBonus VIII- Yearly Histories (feat. Augustus History) (Christmas Special) Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast
Part of Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast
A Christmas crossover with the Augustus History podcast, running the year in review. Lighter than the main series and useful mostly to find the other show.
24mThe Siege of Constantinople in 717/718: Byzantium's Greatest Victory Echoes of Empires
Part of Echoes of Empires
Twenty-four minutes on the Arab siege of 717, which this episode argues is one of the hinges of European history. The city had Greek fire and two years of grain; the besiegers had a winter.
23mMyths of Masada The Ancients
Part of The Ancients
With Jodi Magness
Jodi Magness, who co-directed the 1995 excavations, on the 967 who supposedly died on the rock in AD 73 and on how much of Josephus the digging actually supports. Twenty-three minutes.
23mConstantine's Conversion to Christianity - The Pax Romana Podcast 84 The Pax Romana Podcast
Part of The Pax Romana Podcast
The vision before the Milvian Bridge, the two surviving accounts of it, and the twenty years of policy that followed. Twenty-three minutes on a conversion that is easier to date than to describe.
23mEpisode CLXXI - Roman Magic Emperors of Rome
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.
23mEpisode 25 - The Roaring Thirties The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
Twenty-three minutes on the decade when everything worked: Africa retaken in a season, the law codified, and Hagia Sophia going up.
23mThe Fall of Constantinople Episode 14 "The Conclusion" Byzantium And The Crusades
Part of Byzantium And The Crusades
Twenty-three minutes on what the fall meant, from the end of the Roman state to the scholars who carried Greek manuscripts west. The closing episode of the run.
23mThe Sons of Constantine Echoes of Empires
Part of Echoes of Empires
Constantine II, Constans and Constantius II, and the twenty-four years in which they fought each other more than anyone else. Twenty-three minutes.
22mEpisode 343 - The End of Crusading and the Third Rome The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
Twenty-two minutes on how Venice, Rome and Moscow each reacted to 1453, and on the people who later claimed descent from the last emperor.
22mLudi Apollinares Emperors of Rome
Part of Emperors of Rome
Twenty-two minutes on the games for Apollo, voted during the war with Hannibal and kept for six centuries after it.
22mThe Life and Death of Hypatia of Alexandria, Part 2 - The Pax Romana Podcast 107 The Pax Romana Podcast
Part of The Pax Romana Podcast
Twenty-two minutes on the murder in 415 and on the politics between a bishop and a prefect that used her to settle it.
22mEpisode CCXVII - Angeronalia Emperors of Rome
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.
22m139- Wash Away Your Sins The History of Rome
Part of The History of Rome
Twenty-two minutes on deathbed baptism, which made sense in a theology where baptism wiped the slate and an emperor had a great deal to wipe.
22mThe Fall of Constantinople Episode 5 "The Call to the West" Byzantium And The Crusades
Part of Byzantium And The Crusades
Twenty-two minutes on the emperor touring Europe for help and the church union he signed to get it, which his own city rejected.
22mThe Second Age of the Crusaders Episode 4 "The Sack of Constantinople" Byzantium And The Crusades
Part of Byzantium And The Crusades
Twenty-two minutes on 1204, when a crusade aimed at Egypt ran out of money and took the Christian capital instead. The city never recovered, which is why 1453 went the way it did.
22mJulian, the Philosopher King Echoes of Empires
Part of Echoes of Empires
Twenty-two minutes on the emperor remembered for one word, Apostate, and on the rest of him: the writing, the reforms, the eighteen months he had.
22mThe First Crusade Episode 1 "The Crusaders March East" Byzantium And The Crusades
Part of Byzantium And The Crusades
Twenty-two minutes on the First Crusade told from the Byzantine side, where the armies arriving were a problem as much as an answer.
21mEpisode XXXII - Vespasian, as Prophesised Emperors of Rome
Part of Emperors of Rome
The omens collected after the fact and the oracle at Carmel, all of it assembled once he had already won. Twenty-one minutes on legitimacy manufactured backwards.
21mBacker Rewards Episode 15 - The Hagia Sophia and Imperial Coronations The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
Twenty-one minutes on the coronation ritual and the building it happened in, where the ceremony and the architecture were designed together.
21mEpisode 210 - What did Urban say? The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
Twenty-one minutes on the speech at Clermont, of which five versions survive and all were written after the crusade succeeded.
21mDefending Early Christianity (Christianity in the Roman Empire 4/5) - The Pax Romana Podcast 064 The Pax Romana Podcast
Part of The Pax Romana Podcast
Twenty-one minutes on the apologists arguing their case to an empire that thought them atheists.
21mUsurpers and Arians Echoes of Empires
Part of Echoes of Empires
Twenty-one minutes on the years after Adrianople, when the empire had a religious civil war on top of a military one.
20mBacker Rewards Episode 11 - The Jewish Communities of Byzantium The History of Byzantium
Part of The History of Byzantium
Twenty minutes on Jewish life under the empire, legally tolerated and repeatedly restricted, over a thousand years.
20mLife in the early Christian Church (Christianity in the Roman Empire 1/5) - The Pax Romana Podcast 061 The Pax Romana Podcast
Part of The Pax Romana Podcast
Twenty minutes on what a congregation actually did: meals, letters, and a burial fund.
20mPerpetua the Martyr (Christianity in the Roman Empire 5/5)- The Pax Romana Podcast 064 The Pax Romana Podcast
Part of The Pax Romana Podcast
Twenty minutes on the prison diary of a young woman executed at Carthage, one of the earliest surviving texts by a Christian woman.
20mThe Second Age of the Crusaders Episode 6 "The Children's Crusade of 1212" Byzantium And The Crusades
Part of Byzantium And The Crusades
Twenty minutes on the children's crusade of 1212, one of the strangest episodes in the whole story and one where the sources are at their least reliable.
19mThe Fall of the Tetrarchy and the Rise of Constantine - The Pax Romana Podcast 83 The Pax Romana Podcast
Part of The Pax Romana Podcast
The moment the succession plan met a son with an army: Constantine is acclaimed at York and the system starts unwinding. Nineteen minutes on how fast it went.
19mThe Life and Death of Hypatia of Alexandria, Part 1 - The Pax Romana Podcast 106 The Pax Romana Podcast
Part of The Pax Romana Podcast
Nineteen minutes on the mathematician and teacher, before the mob and before every later writer made her a symbol.
19mEpisode CXXXV - Lupercalia Emperors of Rome
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 Byzantium
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 Life and Death of Hypatia of Alexandria, Part 3 - The Pax Romana Podcast 108 The Pax Romana Podcast
Part of The Pax Romana Podcast
The third part on the mathematician killed by a mob in 415, and on what her death is used to argue about ever since.
18mEpisode CCXXXV - Faunalia Rustica Emperors of Rome
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.
18mConstantine's Conversion Echoes of Empires
Part of Echoes of Empires
Eighteen minutes on the same turn from the other side: what changed for the churches once the emperor was paying for basilicas and calling councils.
18mRoman Complains About Weird New "Christians" and "Jesus" Son of Panthera (177 AD) True Word, Celsus Voices of the Past
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.
17mChristians on Trial - The Pax Romana Podcast 033 The Pax Romana Podcast
Part of The Pax Romana Podcast
Trajan's instruction that Christians should be punished if accused and never hunted, and anonymous denunciations ignored. Seventeen minutes on a policy of deliberate inattention.
17mCROWNS FROM THE TEMPLE – Vespasian #20 Life of Caesar
Part of Life of Caesar
Seventeen minutes on the temple treasure carried through Rome in the triumph of 71, still carved on the arch of Titus.
17mWhat are Rome's Early Christian Churches? Ancient Rome Live
Part of Ancient Rome Live
Four early churches in Rome examined as buildings, which is where the transition from temple to basilica is visible.
16mThe Plague of Cyprian - The Pax Romana Podcast 75 The Pax Romana Podcast
Part of The Pax Romana Podcast
Sixteen minutes on the second great epidemic, described by a bishop who used it to argue for his own faith.
The next 18 of 332, longest first
2h 25mCaesar 3: Divus Julius Cost of Glory
Part of Cost of Glory · Alex Petkas on Plutarch, 45 hours
1h 53mJulian Lost Roman Heroes
Part of Lost Roman Heroes · Matteo and Matthew Storm, 101 episodes
1h 52mTheodosius I Lost Roman Heroes
Part of Lost Roman Heroes · Matteo and Matthew Storm, 101 episodes
1h 41mAmbrose of Milan Lost Roman Heroes
Part of Lost Roman Heroes · Matteo and Matthew Storm, 101 episodes
1h 34mConstantine (Part 4) Lost Roman Heroes
Part of Lost Roman Heroes · Matteo and Matthew Storm, 101 episodes
1h 34mDiocletian (Part 2) Lost Roman Heroes
Part of Lost Roman Heroes · Matteo and Matthew Storm, 101 episodes
1h 17mConstantine (Part 3) Lost Roman Heroes
Part of Lost Roman Heroes · Matteo and Matthew Storm, 101 episodes
1h 04mJulius Caesar and the Jews, w/ Barry Strauss Cost of Glory
Part of Cost of Glory · Alex Petkas on Plutarch, 45 hours
With Barry Strauss
1h 02mLeander & Isidore Lost Roman Heroes
Part of Lost Roman Heroes · Matteo and Matthew Storm, 101 episodes
1hIs Julius Caesar in Heaven? Cost of Glory
Part of Cost of Glory · Alex Petkas on Plutarch, 45 hours
1hGregory of Tours Lost Roman Heroes
Part of Lost Roman Heroes · Matteo and Matthew Storm, 101 episodes
50mJustinian (Part 3 - Judgement Day) Lost Roman Heroes
Part of Lost Roman Heroes · Matteo and Matthew Storm, 101 episodes
37mThe First-Called at the Bosphorus (38 AD to 52 AD) The History of Constantinople
Part of The History of Constantinople · The city, from the Greek colony onwards
26mRoman Values Rome Retold
Part of Rome Retold · T.E. Sarma, narrative history by season
21mDivine Wanderers Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast
Part of Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast · Vince and Cassie, 137 numbered episodes
20mInventing the Horoscope Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast
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19mThe Pantheon Understanding Rome
Part of Understanding Rome · Agnes Crawford, licensed guide in Rome
18mThunderbolts and Lighting Part II: House Fire or Murder? Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast
Part of Autocrat: A Roman History Podcast · Vince and Cassie, 137 numbered episodes