LGBTQ Emperors of Ancient Rome

Genghis Khan is famous for launching the conquest of the largest contiguous empire the world has ever seen. And for fathering enough children that today nearly every person of Asian decent carries his DNA. But he might not have done any of it if not for the love he bore one incre ...  Show more

If you want to be a monarch, you need three things: ultimate power over your domain, a brilliant gold crown to impress the peasantry, and the best seat in the palace. The idea of giving the most important person in a given space a special place to sit is near-universal. Many anci ...  Show more

Frederick the Great, Marie Antoinette and Oscar Wilde. Each of them have talked about, or been talked about in terms of, Ancient Greek ideas of homosexual love. From men taking on young apprentices, to Sappho’s yearning poetry, the Ancient Greek traditions have long been called u ...  Show more

How sexually depraved were the Romans?Whilst they were a civlised, stoic and innovative bunch, they were also a promiscuous bunch with very questionable morals.Joining us today is friend of the show Emma Southon, author of A History of the Roman Empire in 21 Women.How did the Rom ...  Show more

All this month on the History Hit family of podcasts, we've been marking LGBT+ History Month. To round off the month, Professor Suzannah Lipscomb investigates an extraordinary episode, long denied by scholars. In 1578, a same-sex community that gathered in a ...

We’ve covered bloody battles, we’ve covered stunning cities, we’ve covered civilisations far away from the ancient Mediterranean. But in some 120 episodes of The Ancients we hadn’t covered one of the most popular topics in the world: sex. That is, until now. In today’s episode, s ...  Show more