Real Roman History kapak görseli

Real Roman History

Real Roman History

Yazan: Hugo Prudentius
Şimdi ücretsiz dinle, üyelik gerekmez

Season's Savings | £0.99/mo for 3 months

£5.99/mo after 3 months - terms apply. Cancel monthly

Real Roman History is a comprehensive, chronological account of Rome from its origins to its end—told with the depth the subject deserves. This is not a highlight reel. Every major figure, every turning point, and every war gets the full treatment: the stories as the Romans told them, the ancient sources and what they got right and wrong, and the historical arguments that scholars are still having today. Hugo Prudentius takes listeners from the kings of the early city through the Republic, the civil wars, the empire, and beyond—episode by episode, in sequence, without skipping the parts that made Rome what it was. If other Roman history podcasts have left you wanting more, you've found the right one.

All rights reserved. Art Literary History & Criticism Philosophy Political Science Politics & Government Science Social Sciences World
Bölümler
  • Episode 99. Nerva, Part Two: The Adoption of Trajan and the Founding of the Adoptive Succession

    Episode 99. Nerva, Part Two: The Adoption of Trajan and the Founding of the Adoptive Succession
    29 Oct 2026
    Works Cited Primary Sources
    • Aurelius Victor. Epitome de Caesaribus, the Nerva and Trajan chapters. A fourth-century epitome with brief biographical sketches. Derivative but preserves some details not in surviving Dio.
    • Cassius Dio. Roman History, surviving epitome of Book 68. Dio's account of the adoption, the death of Nerva, and the opening of Trajan's reign survives only in the epitomes of Xiphilinus and Zonaras, with significant compression. The execution of Casperius Aelianus and the leading mutineers by Trajan is preserved in the epitome.
    • Pliny the Younger. Letters. The principal contemporary witness to Nervan and early Trajanic Rome from inside the senatorial class. Scattered insight into specific cases and into the atmosphere of the new regime.
    • Pliny the Younger. Panegyricus, delivered before Trajan in 100 CE. The formal speech of thanks for Pliny's consulship, delivered in the Senate in Trajan's presence. The most fully articulated statement of the political theory of the Nervan-Trajanic regime, treating the adoption as the founding act of a new principate based on merit rather than birth. Indispensable as evidence for the senatorial interpretation of the moment. Unreliable as a guide to the underlying political reality, which was more contingent than the speech allows.
    • Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars (note the absence of a Life of Nerva and a Life of Trajan). Suetonius's biographical sequence ends with Domitian. The Twelve Caesars do not include Nerva or Trajan. This is a significant source absence for the Nervan-Trajanic transition and the subsequent reign.
    • Tacitus. Agricola, prologue chapters; Histories, opening of Book 1. The principal Tacitean engagement with the Nervan moment. The Agricola prologue is the foundational statement of the senatorial interpretation, written approximately 98 CE. The Histories prologue includes the famous formula on Nerva reconciling the principate and liberty.


    Archaeological and Numismatic Evidence
    • The adoption coin issues of late 97. Nerva issued coins celebrating the adoption of Trajan and the formal designation as imperator and Caesar. The coinage provides the formal political vocabulary of the adoption and survives in considerable numbers.
    • The deification inscriptions of divus Nerva. The inscriptional record of Nerva's deification after his death in January 98, with his cult attested at various locations across the empire. The deification was standard practice and was carried out under Trajan's distant approval.
    • The Forum of Nerva (Forum Transitorium), dedicated 97 CE. The architectural legacy of the reign, situated between the Forum of Augustus and the Forum of Vespasian. Partially preserved and visible today in Rome.


    Secondary Sources
    • Bennett, Julian. Trajan: Optimus Princeps. Routledge, 1997. The standard modern biography of Trajan, with substantial chapters on the adoption and the early years of Trajan's reign. Provides the institutional context for the succession from the perspective of the man who inherited it. We will draw on Bennett extensively in Episode 101 and the subsequent Trajan episodes.
    • Gibbon, Edward. The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire, chapters 1–3. 1776. Cited not as a current scholarly source but as the eighteenth-century origin of the Five Good Emperors construction. Gibbon's famous passage on the period from Nerva to Marcus Aurelius as the height of human happiness is the canonical articulation of the tradition we have engaged critically in this episode.
    • Grainger, John D. Nerva and the Roman Succession Crisis of AD 96–99. Routledge, 2003. The standard monograph. Engages the contingent reading of the adoptive principle directly and provides the most thorough modern treatment of the political logic of the adoption.
    • Syme, Ronald. Tacitus. Oxford University Press, 1958. Two volumes. The classic study of Tacitus and his historical works. Syme's treatment of the Nervan moment in the Agricola and the Histories provides the analytical framework for understanding how Tacitus shaped the senatorial interpretation.
    • Woolf, Greg. Rome: An Empire's Story. Oxford University Press, 2012. Provides useful context on the long-arc political logic of the principate and the transitions between dynasties.
    Daha fazlasını göster Daha Az Göster
    38 dk.
  • Episode 98. Nerva, Part One: The Restoration and Its Limits

    Episode 98. Nerva, Part One: The Restoration and Its Limits
    29 Oct 2026
    Works Cited Primary Sources
    • Aurelius Victor. Epitome de Caesaribus, the Nerva chapters. A fourth-century epitome that preserves brief biographical sketches of the emperors, including Nerva. Provides some details not in the surviving Dio epitome but is itself derivative and brief.
    • Cassius Dio. Roman History, surviving epitome of Book 68. Dio's account of the Nervan period survives only in the epitomes of Xiphilinus and Zonaras, with significant compression. The basic narrative of Nerva's accession and the Praetorian mutiny is in the surviving material. Significant detail has been lost.
    • Pliny the Younger. Letters. The principal contemporary witness to Nervan Rome from inside the senatorial class. The letters do not provide a continuous narrative but offer scattered insight into specific cases, including the response to Domitianic prosecutions, the operation of the senatorial commission on expenditure, and the recall of the exiled.
    • Suetonius. The Twelve Caesars (note the absence of a Life of Nerva). Suetonius's biographical sequence ends with Domitian. There is no Life of Nerva. This is a significant source absence and limits what we can recover of the human Nerva.
    • Tacitus. Agricola, especially the prologue chapters. The principal Tacitean engagement with the Nervan moment, written approximately 98 CE. The prologue's famous formula on the recovery of genius and the restoration of voice is the foundational senatorial interpretation of the transition from Domitian to Nerva.
    • Tacitus. Histories, opening of Book 1. The methodological prologue of the Histories, written under Trajan, where Tacitus articulates the formula that Nerva had reconciled two long-incompatible things, the principate and liberty.


    Archaeological and Numismatic Evidence
    • The damnatio memoriae erasures of Domitian on inscriptions throughout the empire. Physical evidence of the senatorial repudiation of Domitian. The erasures are visible on inscriptions, monuments, and even occasionally on coins.
    • The fisci Judaici calumnia sublata coin issue of Nerva. The bronze sestertius issued to commemorate the reform of the fiscus Judaicus, with the legend declaring that the false accusations of the Jewish tax had been abolished. Survives in considerable numbers.
    • The Forum of Nerva (the Forum Transitorium), central Rome. Construction was begun under Domitian and completed under Nerva, who dedicated it in 97. The most visible architectural legacy of the brief reign, situated between the Forum of Augustus and the Forum of Vespasian. Partially preserved and visible today in Rome.


    Secondary Sources
    • Grainger, John D. Nerva and the Roman Succession Crisis of AD 96–99. Routledge, 2003. The standard monograph on the reign and the surrounding succession crisis.
    • Jones, Brian W. The Emperor Domitian. Routledge, 1992. Used extensively in Episodes 95 and 96. His account of the assassination and the immediate aftermath remains relevant for understanding the conditions Nerva inherited.
    • Smallwood, E. Mary. The Jews under Roman Rule. Brill, 1976; reprinted 2001. The standard treatment of Roman policy toward the Jewish communities of the empire, including detailed coverage of the fiscus Judaicus under Domitian and the Nervan reform.
    • Syme, Ronald. Tacitus. Oxford University Press, 1958. Two volumes. The classic study of Tacitus and his historical works. Syme's treatment of the Nervan moment in the Agricola and the Histories provides the analytical framework.
    Daha fazlasını göster Daha Az Göster
    44 dk.
  • Episode 97. Agricola and the British Frontier

    Episode 97. Agricola and the British Frontier
    21 Oct 2026
    Works Cited Primary Sources Cassius Dio. Roman History, Book 67. Surviving through the eleventh-century epitome of John Xiphilinus. The Domitianic narrative is heavily filtered through the Tacitean tradition and the broader senatorial hostility. Particularly important for the assassination chronology and the Sarmatian campaign of 92, where Dio preserves details not in Suetonius.Epictetus. Discourses. Recorded by Arrian around 108 CE in Nicopolis. Our principal evidence for Epictetus's teaching after the 93 expulsion from Italy. The Stoic philosophical tradition that Domitian had attempted to suppress at Rome continued in Nicopolis through Epictetus and from there entered the Roman intellectual tradition that produced Marcus Aurelius.Pliny the Younger. Letters. Published in collections beginning around 100 CE. The principal contemporary source for the experience of the terror as remembered. Letters 1.5 (the fear of Aquilius Regulus), 4.11 (the Cornelia case quoted in detail in Part Four), 7.19 (Fannia and the Helvidius trial aftermath), and 9.13 (Pliny's prosecution of Publicius Certus after the assassination) are the principal letters used. Read with explicit awareness that Pliny was constructing a usable past for his own post-Domitianic career.Pliny the Younger. Panegyricus. The speech praising Trajan delivered to the Senate in 100 CE. Established the Trajan-versus-Domitian contrast template that organised imperial historiography for the next several centuries. The acknowledgement at Panegyricus 52 of the contradiction in the senatorial order between honouring Domitian when alive and condemning him after death is quoted in Part Seven.Suetonius. Life of Domitian, in The Twelve Caesars. The principal biographical source for the terror and the assassination. Chapters 10–17 cover the late reign with the maiestas trials, the omens, the assassination scene, and the death of Stephanus. Read with the same hostility-awareness applied throughout the Domitianic treatment. Suetonius wrote under Hadrian, approximately twenty-five years after the assassination, inheriting the Tacitean framework and concretising it through biographical catalogue.Tacitus. Agricola. Published 98 CE, two years after Domitian's assassination. The proem at Agricola 2–3, quoted directly in Part Five, is the foundational text of the post-Domitianic literary opposition. The biography of Tacitus's father-in-law is also the analytical centrepiece for how a senator could have survived the reign while remaining politically respectable. The full character treatment of the Agricola itself is the subject of Episode 97.Tacitus. Annals. Published approximately 110 to 120 CE. The work covered Roman history from the death of Augustus in 14 through the death of Nero in 68. Tacitus's mature achievement and the foundational document of the Western political tradition reading imperial monarchy as inherently tyrannical. The model constructed for Tiberius through Nero is the model applied retrospectively to Domitian by the post-Domitianic tradition.Tacitus. Germania. Published 98 CE in the same year as the Agricola. The ethnographic study of the Germanic peoples is also a coded comparison between Germanic simplicity and Roman corruption. Essential evidence for the post-Domitianic literary framework of using ethnographic comparison to comment indirectly on Roman political conditions.Tacitus. Histories. Published approximately 100 to 110 CE. The work covered Roman history from the death of Galba in 69 through the assassination of Domitian in 96. Books 1 through 4 and the beginning of Book 5 are extant. The books covering the Domitianic period itself are lost, the loss probably not accidental but possibly so.Archaeological and Material Evidence The Cancelleria reliefs, Vatican Museums, Rome. Two large marble reliefs found in the Cancelleria in Rome in 1937–1938. One panel shows Domitian's adventus, the other the profectio. The Domitianic head on one panel was recut to portray Nerva after the damnatio. The visible evidence of the erasure programme on imperial monumental art.Damnatio memoriae epigraphic erasures. Systematic chiselling of Domitian's name from inscriptions across the empire, documented archaeologically across thousands of surviving monuments. The pattern of erasure is the visible evidence of the political scope of the senatorial reaction following the assassination.Domitianic coinage of 89 to 96 CE. The numismatic record continues normally throughout the terror period. The continued operational coinage demonstrates that the administrative state was functioning while the political crisis at Rome deepened. The evidence supports the broader institutional record that the empire continued to be competently administered during the late reign.The Forum Transitorium (Forum of Nerva), Rome. Begun under Domitian, completed and dedicated under Nerva after the assassination. The Domitianic name was systematically erased from the foundation ...
    Daha fazlasını göster Daha Az Göster
    57 dk.
adbl_web_anon_alc_button_suppression_t1
Henüz yorum yok