Britain

Part of Life of Caesar

The second crossing, with eight hundred ships and a storm that wrecked most of them. An hour and twenty on an expedition that took hostages and held nothing.

Part of HistoryHit

Seventy-five minutes running from Caesar's two landings in 55 and 54 BC to Agricola in the north, in one sitting. A single historian to camera, which suits a story usually told in fragments.

Part of Life of Caesar

Seventy minutes on the first crossing, with two legions, no cavalry that arrived, and a beach landing against a defended shore.

Part of The Rest Is History

Part one, forty-eight minutes on 55 BC: scouts along the Kentish coast, a contested landing, and a Roman picture of Britons as savages the Romans half envied.

Part of The Ancients

With Simon Elliott

Simon Elliott on the two landings of 55 and 54 BC, neither of which left a garrison behind. Forty-two minutes on what Rome knew about Britain before it went, which was almost nothing.

Part of HistoryHit

The two British expeditions that achieved almost nothing militarily and everything politically, which is why Caesar wrote them up at length.

Part of Dan Snow's History Hit · Dan Snow on history's defining moments; only the Roman episodes are indexed

Part of Life of Caesar

An hour on the British campaign: why Claudius needed it, how the army nearly refused to sail, and what sixteen days of imperial presence bought him.

Part of The Ancients

With Elodie Harper

Elodie Harper on the revolt of AD 60, when Camulodunum, Londinium and Verulamium all burned and the province came close to being given up. Fifty-six minutes.

Part of The Rest Is History

Part two, fifty-six minutes on AD 43 and on Claudius, underestimated by everyone around him and in need of a triumph he could not win himself.

Part of The Ancients

With Oliver Davis

Oliver Davis on Iron Age Wales on its own terms, where the single word Celt covers several quite different ways of living. Fifty-two minutes.

Part of The Ancients

AD 43, the crossing, and the campaign that finally stuck where Caesar's two had not. Forty-six minutes with the archaeologist Duncan Mackay on where the landings actually were.

Part of The Ancients

Forty-three minutes on what the archaeology of late Iron Age Britain will actually support: the trade with Rome, the question of the druids, and the evidence for human sacrifice.

Part of The Ancients

With Duncan Mackay

Duncan Mackay on the final battle, whose location is still unknown, and on why the candidates keep moving. Thirty-eight minutes.

Part of The Ancients

Thirty-one minutes on what the evidence for Boudica actually is, which is two Roman writers and a burnt layer in three towns.

Part of The Ancients

With Caitlin Gillespie

Caitlin Gillespie on Boudica as Tacitus and Dio built her: a barbarian queen written for a Roman audience to think about its own rulers with. Twenty-three minutes.

Part of Emperors of Rome

Eleven minutes on the invasion of 43: four legions, elephants at Colchester, and a triumph that an emperor with no military record badly needed.

Part of The Ancients

With Rob Collins

Rob Collins on the fifth century at the wall, when the forts stayed occupied long after the pay stopped arriving. Seventy-five minutes on an ending that took generations.

Part of The Ancients

With Andrew Birley

Andrew Birley, who runs the excavation, on the site that gave up the writing tablets: a birthday invitation, an order for socks and underpants. Fifty-three minutes on the only Roman voices in Britain that are not carved in stone.

Part of The Ancients

With Frances McIntosh

Fifty-one minutes on the build itself: between eleven and sixteen feet high depending on which side of the Irthing you stand, some eighty Roman miles across northern Britain, and still an open question what it was actually for.

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast · The companion to Ancient Warfare magazine, since 2008

Part of Emperors of Rome

With Caillan Davenport

Twenty-seven minutes on the recovery of Britain after the breakaway empire of Carausius, ten years in which the island minted its own coins.

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.

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.

Part of The Ancients

With Dominic Perring

Dominic Perring on Londinium from a timber drain of AD 47, the earliest dated structure on the site, to the empty walls of the fifth century. Sixty-one minutes on a river crossing nobody had thought worth a town.

Part of The Ancients

With Tom Moore

Tom Moore on pre-Roman Britain as the archaeology has it: roundhouses, hillforts, chariots, feasting debris, metalwork sunk in rivers for the gods. Fifty-nine minutes on the society Caesar filed under barbarian.

Part of The Ancients

With Peter Heather

Peter Heather on the Saxon migrations: mercenaries invited in, a Roman order that stopped paying, and how much of the population actually moved. Forty-eight minutes.

Part of The Fall of Rome Podcast

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

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.

Part of Dan Snow's History Hit · Dan Snow on history's defining moments; only the Roman episodes are indexed

Part of The Pax Romana Podcast

Twenty-three minutes on the province being told to look to its own defence in 410, and on how quickly the money economy stopped.

Part of SandRhomanHistory

What happened in Britain after 410, following the archaeology where the written sources stop.

Part of SandRhomanHistory

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

Part of SandRhomanHistory

Four and a half centuries of Roman Britain in one documentary, from Caesar's landing to the withdrawal.

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

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

Part of The Rest Is History

Part four, fifty-nine minutes on the decades after Boudica, when Rome decided the province was worth holding and sent Agricola north to prove it.

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast

Murray Dahm on his own book about the end of Roman Britain and the Saxon settlement, with Marc DeSantis asking the questions. Fifty-seven minutes.

Part of The Rest Is History

Part three, fifty-four minutes on the revolt of AD 60. Cassius Dio puts the dead at eighty thousand and blames the loss of the province on a woman.

Part of The Ancients

With Rebecca Jones

Rebecca Jones on marching camps, the temporary earthworks an army threw up every single night. Fifty-two minutes on the evidence that shows where legions went when they built nothing permanent.

Part of The Fall of Rome Podcast

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

Part of The Ancients

With Colchester Museum Curator Glynn

The Colchester Vase carries names scratched beside its fighters, which turns a decorated pot into a record of a real bout. Forty-seven minutes on gladiators this far north.

Part of Dan Snow's History Hit · Dan Snow on history's defining moments; only the Roman episodes are indexed

Part of Dan Snow's History Hit · Dan Snow on history's defining moments; only the Roman episodes are indexed

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

Part of Kings and Generals · Military history in campaigns and battles; only the Roman episodes are indexed

Part of Kings and Generals · Military history in campaigns and battles; only the Roman episodes are indexed

Part of Ancient Warfare Podcast · The companion to Ancient Warfare magazine, since 2008