Episode CXLV - Battle of the Teutoburg Forest

In the early fourth century the emperors of the Tetrarchy initiated what later Christians would call the “Great Persecution.” Under Diocletian and his colleagues, churches were demolished, sacred texts seized, and believers forced to choose between sacrificing to the Roman gods o ...  Show more

With the tetrarch system still taking shape, Diocletian and his Caesar Galerius come under growing pressure in the East, facing rebellion from Egypt and invasion from the Persian King Naresh. A series of hard campaigns, careful political choices and eventual victory will determin ...  Show more

Gareth Sampson, author of Defeat of Rome in the East: Crassus, the Parthians, and the Disastrous Battle of Carrhae, 53 BC came on the podcast to provide an in depth account of Marcus Crassus’ disastrous campaign east of the Euphrates River in 53 BC. Gare ...

Love them or loathe them, the Roman emperors were some of the most influential figures in history. In this episode Barry Strauss, Professor of History and Classics at Cornell University, talks through ten of the most important - starting with Augustus and ending at Cons ...  Show more

Synopsis: Part 1 of a two-part Spotlight series on the rise and fall of the Roman Emperor Galerius: refugee, herdsman, soldier, Caesar, Augustus, Tetrarch, conqueror, schemer, would-be ruler of the (Dacian?) Empire, and persecutor of the Christians. A rollicking Third Century rom ...  Show more

How cruel was Caligula? How depraved was Tiberius? And how monstrous was Nero? The dark reputations of these emperors owe a great deal to the Roman writer Suetonius, whose 121 AD work Lives of the Caesars offered intimate portraits of 12 rulers of Rome – from Julius Caesar to Dom ...  Show more