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

Women in Rome

Livia, Agrippina, Boudica, and the ones we know from a tombstone.

163 entries · 135 hours · 140 with a written verdict · Australian 60 · British 51 · American 20 · Mixed 1

The sources were written by men who found powerful women alarming, and the historians here read them with that in mind. Emma Southon has written a history of the empire in twenty-one women; the Partial Historians have spent a decade putting the ones Livy mentions once back into the narrative; Mary Beard finds a woman remembered in a funeral inscription and gives her twenty-eight minutes.

Emperors of Rome The Ancients The Partial Historians The History of Byzantium The Ancient World Life of Caesar The Pax Romana Podcast Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

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With a written verdict

10h 50mI, Claudius EssentialDrama

The 1976 BBC serial, thirteen episodes, made on a budget that shows and with a cast that does not care. Derek Jacobi's Claudius is the performance every later screen Roman is measured against. The history is Robert Graves', which is to say Tacitus at his most gossipy, but nothing has bettered it as drama.

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7h 20mDomina Drama

Livia's story as drama, and much better than its lack of an audience suggests. Takes the standard hostile sources and asks what she would have said.

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2h 07mAgora Film

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.

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1h 58m137 Constantine IX The Lone Fighter Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Nearly two hours on the reign that followed Zoe and Theodora, when the empire still looked strong and the army was being cut. The decline that ends at Manzikert starts in this episode.

1h 47m111 Irene Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

The first woman scored in this series, a hundred and ten emperors and eight centuries in. She ruled in her own name after blinding her son, and the hosts have to decide what that is worth on a scale built for men.

1h 32m27 Alexander Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Ninety-two minutes on Severus Alexander, thirteen years on the throne under his mother's management, killed by his own troops in Germany.

1h 21m136 Zoe II Purple Born Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Eighty-one minutes on an empress who made three emperors by marrying them, which was the only constitutional route she had.

1h 18m124 Zoe Coal Eyes Roman Emperors: Totalus RankiumPodcast

Part of Roman Emperors: Totalus Rankium

Fifty-eight minutes on Zoe Karbonopsina, the fourth wife, who ruled as regent for the son the marriage produced.

1h 16mThe Trials of Sempronius and Postumia The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

Seventy-six minutes on two trials in the 420s BC: a consul who failed in the field and a Vestal who dressed too well. What a prosecution meant in those years comes out clearer here than in any summary.

1h 16mSpecial Episode – A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women with Dr Emma Southon The Partial HistoriansPodcast

Part of The Partial Historians

With Emma Southon

Emma Southon on twenty-one women used as a way through the whole empire, from Livia to the unnamed. Seventy-six minutes on writing history from the half that left fewer records.

1h 16mClaudius #15 – A Mushroom & A Feather Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

Seventy-six minutes on the death of Claudius, the poisoned mushrooms and the feather that may have finished the job. The sources disagree on almost every detail, and the episode lays out which ones and why.

1h 16mClaudius #13 – Roman Incest Life of CaesarPodcast

Part of Life of Caesar

The marriage to his brother's daughter, the senate vote that made it legal, and the adoption of her son over his own. Seventy-six minutes on the four years that ended the dynasty's luck.

1h 12mEpisode CLXXIV - Boudicca Emperors of RomePodcast